Neal will never be perfect.
It's a fact. It's a fact of life. His father would tell him that. Not the father that was dead. The father that his mother married after he turned four, the one that drank alcohol and stunk like trash. The father that spoke trash too, the father that shot down his dreams in the exact opposite way of how fathers were supposed to act.
"Art?" He sneers, that mustache on his face twitching. "As if. We won't be there to save you when you're dirty and homeless on the street." And then he leans forward and smiles, the kind of smile that shows yellow teeth. The kind of smile you see on a madman.
Then his aunt Ellen comes, and everything is squeaky clean. His stepfather leaves. Neal never sees him again. All he has is Ellen, and Ellen makes everything perfect. Now that his stepfather is gone, his mother tells him stories about the father who was a hero, and everything is okay again.
"You have to do your best, okay?" Ellen tells him. "That's the only way you'll get to the top in life." And Neal believes her, believes her because she's the one in his life that's always been perfect. He wants to be perfect too. Just like her. Just like Ellen who was perfect perfect perfect.
He idolizes someone who he doesn't even know, because the way she speaks of his father is like hero worship. It's worshiping someone, and Neal wants to be worshiped. He wants people to like him, he wants people to believe him; to think that he can do things. He wants people to trust him.
Some days his mother is there, there. She is alive when she tells him stories of his father, stories of how he was shot down in action. Stories of how he was a hero. That gleam in her blue eyes comes back, like little butterflies,skittering across a clear sky, and he enjoys it because it never lasts long. Never last long like rain, like drizzling that comes down then stops in the next few minutes.
And then he thinks of how happy her memories make her, how happy the memories of his father makes his mother.
And he wants to be like his father because he wants to make her happy too, wants to clear those tears from her eyes. Wants to wipe those tears away and throw them out the window and never let them come back. He wants to save his mother because even as little kid he can see her sinking, sinking into the abyss that he can't pull her from.
He's not perfect, but maybe if he was the best his mother would love him more. Maybe if he was the best then he would remind his mother more of his father, and maybe that his mother would look at him and see his father and be happy. Maybe then everyone would be happy and they could live in this little ransacked apartment, bare of everything and anything except necessities, under the watchful gaze of the marshals, happily ever after.
It taught him how to dream.
And that's it, that's it. That's when Neal Caffrey decides he has to be perfect. Because perfect is is perfect and everyone loves a perfect person. He's going to be that perfect person who everyone looks up to. That perfect person who has the perfect life like he's never had before.
In third grade he learned art. Art, where everything is imperfect and therefore perfect. Where everything perfect is never perfect. Where symbols and signs and straight lines are never what makes something perfect. Where he could be imperfect and perfect all the same.
Art was where he was good. It was where he was the best, where he shone above all the others. He didn't like English because of all the rules that he could never follow. He didn't like English because there was poetry, and poetry had rules within freedom. Freedom should never have rules.
The one thing he hated most, though, was when the teacher hung his work at the front of the class. She would stick a big yellow post-it onto the front and grin. "This is Neal's," she'd say, pointing at whatever he had made that time. "It's the best." And then the other faces would drop and he'd watch their eyes fill with tears (Who didn't want to be the best?) and that pride suddenly didn't feel so good anymore.
Every time he doesn't make something pretty after that, she looks at him like he's betrayed her-like he could do well every time and he just didn't try. Then he resented Art-all he wanted was for people to know he tried. Was for people to recognize that he'd done his best and that was all he could do, and if that wasn't good enough then nothing would be.
He didn't like science because there was an empty space where what could be right could also be wrong. He almost liked law—almost—because at least it was definite. If you followed it you were good.
The only problem was with following the rules. Rules were never his thing. He would make them and then break them, and then look back and regret ever breaking them. Finally there was a period of time where he just thought why not? I'll break them. There's nothing they can do. Nothing.
Prison was the adult alternative. Detention was the kid alternative. Neither seemed so bad.
At least until he started running. Mozzie was a good companion, a good enough companion to keep him awake and alert and happy. Kate was an even better companion, with passion and love and everything he could ever want rolled into one person. She was his fuel, he was the engine. He made the plans and they both carried them out. She was a girl in a slinky dress Who distracted the victims until they could be distracted no longer.
This way they got away from Peter Burke.
He used to hate Peter. He used to hate this FBI agent who threatened to steal his freedom and happiness all in one.
But then he met him. But then he met this FBI agent he had sworn to hate, and realized they were not quite so different. The only difference was that Neal Caffrey made the rules but always broke them, and Peter Burke didn't make any rules but he followed the ones set. With this one difference they were suddenly enemies, on opposite sides of law.
He goes to prison. click clack goes the handcuffs as they lead him to his new cell, where he is stripped of his beautiful clothes—perfect clothes—and dressed in shabby orange. It's not really the clothes he mourns but what they symbolize—his hopes and dreams of a white picket fence with Kate next to him.
There is no room for perfection in prison. Prison takes dreams and splatters them across the walls, across the cold gray walls that are bloodstained though washed. Prison grinds perfection under its cool cement toe and turns it to a puddle of normality, of people looked down upon and spat at. No more life of Nobility.
He used to hold himself upright, with an air of superiority.
Then one night the guards come, and half a dozen swarm his cell. They tell him pretty things, whisper pretty nothings that are unheard through the pain. They caress his bare skin and tells him he is beautiful when he sobs, perfect as the tears that streak the dust on his face and make droplets on the floor.
Prison makes no room for dignity.
So he gives up the stance, gives up the fight and they still come, but when he's not fighting he imagines there is less pain. One day, he promises in an attempt to keep from clawing at the alien hand across his back, he will be that perfect person. He and Kate will have the perfect life, the perfect kids. The perfect house with it's red brick walls that stand tall and proud.
One day.
Then Kate tells him goodbye (no no no, Kate why did you have to go Iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou so why did you go) and he's got to get out; the gray of his cell is suddenly too confining and he can't breathe and he needs to be free…
Where are you, Kate? Why did you have to say goodbye?
It's not his best plan and maybe that's why he gets caught again. When the guards come again his first night in he knows what he's going to ask during that meeting with Peter Burke, because he can't stand another night of rough hands scoring telltale red lines across the delicate skin of his back.
He can see triumph on Peter's face as he thinks Neal has changed. He can see his own victory. So when he steps out, dressed once again in his old clothes, the heavy (oh so heavy) tracker on his ankle is blotted out in a spray of color by the joy of tasting fresh air again, the joy of saying goodbye to that dark dank place where perfection has no say.
It's a small price to pay for the chance to reach his dream.
All the girls he chased were a way to prove that he was perfect. A way to prove that he could get what he wanted, a chance to savor that small victory when she turned and smiled at him. He told himself that he didn't see Kate or a beautiful future every time. It's the art of the bluff, the art of lying that he's perfected through himself.
But with the end of the chase always came with crashing realization, that Kate was dead and she was never coming back. Now it was just him, and that realization was what sent him after another girl. The thrill of the chase kept him distracted and that was a good thing because there was no pain.
That was a lie too; everything was a way to tell himself that he was still perfect, untainted, pristine though he knew his waters were probably murky. It was a way to reassure himself that he was still wanted, that people could still love him even if he wasn't that perfect person that he always needed to be.
Peter and Elizabeth are different.
Neal and Peter and Elizabeth—the three of them fit together like clouds in the sky. With them he is free, even with the anklet weighing down his leg. With them he is perfect, even with all his little imperfections and maybe some of his big ones, too.
He's flying; Peter knows how he is and what he wants like the back of his hand. Peter is that perfect person he once wanted to be, but suddenly Neal realizes that what makes him perfect are his flaws. The way his eyebrows crinkle together when he's angry, depressed, or worried; the way one edge of his lip curls up when he's close to agreeing with something likely illegal but he doesn't want Neal to know it.
Neal notices it all.
So blame him for falling in love with the Burkes. They make it easy to love them, all smiles and loving glances shared in the brush of a hand or the smoothing of a tie. A pair bound by rushed morning kisses and promises that are broken, bound by an oath of marriage but another of 'I love you.' Neal almost feels bad about interrupting that.
They welcome Neal into their duo with open arms and they become a trio—bound by loving glances and jibes, yells of 'Don't touch my crossword!' In the morning. Bound by the unspoken oath of 'I'll come home.' And the brush of lips over the shell of an ear. Neal tastes El's creations and gives his advice, and the best part is he doesn't have to worry that he's saying something wrong.
It's love.
So maybe sometimes they come home a little tired, too tired for what the others want. Or maybe they've had a rough day at work and all they want to do is drop down. But there's always the times where the bare backs of his knees hit the bed, where the three of them are entwined together he can't tell whether it's his leg next to Peter or Elizabeth's.
Then they're a hot, desperate loving mess, opened and bared to the world but with only eyes for each other. Sweet nothings whispered in the longing ear suddenly become meaningful promises that wait to be fulfilled. It's different, passionate and hungry but slow and willing to wait if that will make it last.
They aren't perfect and they know each others flaws better than their own. The secret is loving them anyway.
Flaws make a person better than perfection. Neal Caffrey knows that best of all.
A/N: I do not own White Collar, nor any of the characters in it. Thanks for reading!