Title: Letters from Maximum Security (Drawing Strength)
Pairing: pre-slash
Characters: Neal, Peter, mentions of others
Word Count: ~970
Warning: Mmm, none besides mentions of one-sided slash.
Spoilers: for references made during the pilot episode of White Collar
Author's Note: :):):) I love this show already. They're adorable together, whether you see it as slash-y or just friendly; these boys are awesome. :D I wonder if I'm the first fanfic for this show?? D: Ruh-Roh...
Summary: The consqeuences of a Birthday Card, and subsequent years.
Letters from Maximum Security:
Drawing Strength
Love is being stupid together.
-Paul Valery
The first time he sent a birthday card to Special Agent Peter Burke, it was meant to be a joke. Something to get at the man, show him that Neal was keeping an eye on him, watching him; it was an intimidation tact if anything. Only, when Peter sends back a Thank You card with a weird doodle of something resembling himself being arrested by Burke, he sort of, maybe thinks it's a little funny. And after a few months in prison things tend to become less and less funny.
That's really when things start to go downhill.
That's when Neal starts to like Peter Burke.
It mostly starts as Neal appreciating the fact that the man can make him laugh. Whether it's a stupid drawing scribbled out in purple pen when he was obviously supposed to be paying attention to some meeting or another, a cheesy joke about pirates, or a witty and biting retort, he usually finds himself with a smile after reading a reply from the man. Neal ends up enjoying the sporadic letters they share.
But eventually it becomes more than that.
It's the little things Burke keeps slipping in, almost casually, that really strike something in him. Innocuous little comments that show just how much this man really knows about him. From his shoe size to his favorite movie to the fillings in his teeth (not that Neal has fillings, but if he did, he's sure Burke would know about them), the man knows everything.
Neal's sure he should feel weird about that.
Except he doesn't.
He likes it. Likes that he doesn't have to tell Burke that he hates the Yankees; that Burke already knows he prefers oatmeal raisin cookies to chocolate chip any day of the week; that he likes Bach and hates Nirvana; most of all, Neal loves that he doesn't have to tell the man any of this. There's no tedious small talk or useless information. Over the first couple of months of their correspondence, Neal realizes very fast that Burke is a no-nonsense man. He's down to facts and numbers.
This realization surprises him somewhat. Neal usually finds men that are too involved in the literal sense of things to be stiff, too rigid to see anything beyond the obvious. But Burke is certainly not like that, as easily discerned by the ridiculous stick figure drawings of what he seems to think prison life is like for Neal ("Pretty Boy" and references to Deliverance are plentiful).
Six months after Neal sent that fateful Birthday Card, Peter (and he's somehow become Peter during these few months) cavalierly mentions that, Oh yeah, he happens to have a wife of six years.
Something about that revelation makes Neal unreasonably angry, or maybe just disappointed (and he refuses to acknowledge, examine, or even think too hard about that). He manages to avoid replying to that letter for at least three months before he cracks and replies. He's grown grumpy in the absence of Peter's letters, the only source of contact that served as a reprieve from his situation; a constant presence to make everything a little better. When he snaps at the good night guard (the one that brings him the occasional luxury from the outside world) Neal figures it's time to give in and talk to Peter (although, it took him a while to think up an excuse for that; kind of hard to explain how you were too busy to reply when you sit in a 4 by 4 cell starring at walls all hours of the day).
After that though, it's not the same. Besides his own withdraw (because he obviously needed to keep as much distance between himself and the endearing, kooky FBI Agent as possible) he notices that Burke himself seems to be less outgoing as before. He thinks at first that maybe the Special Agent is mad at him, but figures that he's wrong after Burke avoids several questions on his home life.
Neal does feel a little guilty about the sense of self-righteousness that overwhelms him at the possibility of marriage problems. But he ignores that, too.
Eventually, the stinted letters sputter out and die. Their exchanges dwindle down to Neal's annual Birthday Card, and a slice of cake delivered to his cell on his own birthday (always anonymously). Eventually the conman even begins to forget the weird fluttering feeling that always arose when a letter marked "Caffrey" with a doodled comic of himself picking the lock to his handcuffs would arrive for him. Now that feeling only happens when Kate is there, telling him about cons he's missed, cons she's planning, cons they've done (never about the Red Sox or the merits of peanut butter cookies or how Bach is so much better than Mozart).
Then Kate is gone.
Later, when he reflects on it, Neal can't deny a certain sense of relief (or excitement?) that it's Burke that's there to bring him in. And still in that same cheap suit that he loves for some reason.
Neal soon finds his life centered around the FBI Agent who makes his heart do funny things. And it's not as bad as it would be if it had been some other agent. Burke is still the ridiculous, silly man he was in the letters, making stealthy literary and movie references and making funny faces and passing him stupid drawings when they should be paying attention to something important Diana is saying.
And just because Peter's wife is an amazing, wonderful, funny woman who's perfect for him doesn't mean that Neal should give up the agent's attention.
After all, Peter Burke is still the only constant that Neal can depend on.
He needs Peter Burke.
It's gonna be a long four years.