idek what came over me (all bad puns aside, this is also probably why I should never be allowed to write AUs). This is pre-slash, keyword being slash, not pre. ;D
XXX
Raise Hell
XXX
There is no melting wax, open flames, or live sacrifices for the slaughtered when he meets him on a whim. Rather, there is only one Special Agent Peter Burke hunching over his desk as he wrestles with the envelope back from evidence.
There is no gust of smoke, nothing nearly ominous that makes a shiver run up his spine. But when the worn fragile page cuts through the latex glove and into his hand, there is simply a velvet smooth voice that coos from somewhere behind him.
"Mmm… I must say, this feels rather nice."
Peter spins around, hand going for his gun. And there, for a lack of a better description, perching by the floor to ceiling glass window of his office is a man in a really nice suit. Peter blinks and the strange man merely smiles with both hands out, palms up and opened like there is no danger, or even a hint of a threat, to his sudden appearance.
The man is old school pretty, rat pack handsome. And he is smiling like this makes perfect sense.
Peter is lured halfway to a false sense of security before everything falls away in the face of his common sense that comes snapping back. Peter's finger is on the trigger, mouth opening in warning—but it's like the man is also capable of stealing the words right from between his teeth just as well.
"You can call me…" He looks around, and there is something close to wide-eyed confusion that Peter doesn't buy for a second, before he lets the single syllable slip off of his tongue. "Neal."
Perhaps it's the smile or the hint of consideration like he, himself, is tasting the sound of his name on the flat of his tongue for the very first time. But the smallest tilt of his head has Peter grounded in place, and short of freaking out, Peter rests a hand on the base of his gun instead.
The smile grows another inch wider.
"May I call you Peter?"
"No," he snaps tersely at the absurdity of it all, "no, you may not call me Peter. How do you even know my name? Wait, no—How did you even get in here in the first place?"
The man who calls himself Neal raises a brow, and states as a matter of fact.
"You invited me in."
000
"Don't touch it, that's evidence!"
Peter pulls the man's hand away in reflex when he tries to reach for the loose page of what he has first presumed to be some ancient manuscript. Now, he doesn't quite know what to think.
"That's not evidence," Neal shakes his head at him. "That's me. That's the Codex Gigas."
Peter doesn't let him go, just glares at the man. There's disbelief, a small little thing that sparks at the sound and taste of the familiar Latin from the other man's mouth. Peter doesn't know whether to believe his luck (or lack thereof).
"What?" He allows Neal to free himself from his grip, eyes stern. "You're telling me this is a page of the Devil's Bible?"
Neal holds his hands up with a small reluctant sigh, and asks. "May I?"
Peter is slow to nod but it comes and he watches as Neal gestures at the corner of the medieval manuscript and the smear of red all along the edge.
"That's your blood on the page."
Neal works away the tie at his throat, pulls the silk thing off in one fluid motion and undoes the first button at his collar. He is halfway done unbuttoning his shirt before it comes to Peter that it really is best if the man doesn't strip himself bare in his office, where the walls are practically windows too. (Not that there is anyone else in the bullpen to witness a thing, but still, Peter has principles he isn't willing to cross. A half naked man is one of those.)
"What—"
"This is your blood on me."
Neal tugs open his shirt and there, down the centre of his chest, is a stripe of red that extends from the sternum to a few inches above his navel. It looks like paint on skin that doesn't rub away. It is a tattoo but not really.
Neal looks up, watches him from beneath his dark lashes and repeats himself. "It's your claim on me."
An emphasis of any one of the words of that sentence is just as bad. Peter looks away with a soft groan and says.
"Button your shirt up."
Peter gestures a hand in his general direction, and doesn't see Neal's softer smile.
000
Peter quickly learns that Neal is not really the Devil.
Well, not in the traditional sense of Lucifer or the likes, at any rate. Rather, Neal is more of a physical manifestation of the Codex Gigas, of the illustration of the Devil inside, of the legend behind the ancient manuscript. (Of the version of the Devil a monk made a blood pact with, the same man who sold his soul in exchange for the Devil to finish the bible for him in a single night, instead of the long aching decades that it would've taken instead.)
And even from that single page of the manuscript, Peter can tell just how beautiful the work is, how intricate the illuminations, how unified the entire codex looks with the same loops and glide of ink on paper. And it's like he can see Neal on the page, in the consistent cut and curve of each handwritten letter. He can see the book in Neal too with the fading red ink just beneath the swell of those lips.
He doesn't know if he believes it, he doesn't know if he can even if he tries.
000
Peter also learns that Neal's presence surprises no one else.
There are no questions asked, not even a raised eyebrow.
El smiles and pours an extra cup of wine like it's a habit while she passes him a bottle of beer when he returns, Neal following right behind despite his insistent no. (She acts like he has been here all along, except that's impossible.) Jones gives Neal a nod when he appears at Peter's office, sitting in the chair in front of his desk like it's his. (He acts like he knows him, except that's not really possible either.) And when Diana hands him a file in the conference room, she even gives a short wave at Neal as she leaves with his signature in toll. She acts as though he belongs, like he is just here, (that he is not going anywhere).
Even his dog betrays the laws of the world he once lived in and wags his tail like he has always loved the way Neal scratches him just behind his ears. Neal insinuates into his life in ways Peter never even knew existed. Peter silently fumes at how disconcerting it all is, knowing that Neal is just the Devil in disguise.
000
They are in the living room while El is at the kitchen table. She looks up, gives him a warm smile and turns back to working on last minute seating arrangements.
"So," Peter turns back and eyes the man sitting on his couch, petting his dog, and drinking wine like he has every right to be here, "do I get three wishes and you go poof?"
Neal laughs, swirls the wine in his glass. "I'm not a genie, Peter."
"Then how does it work? Do I have to sell my soul to you because you should know, I'm not going to do that." Peter pointedly says with a frown.
"You can trade your soul to get me to leave but it works how it wants to work." Neal shrugs before gesturing to the space between them with a hand. "This bind is alive."
Peter doesn't need to see actual proof, a crackle or a spark. He can feel it like a slow burning fire he has no heart to put out.
"…You're taking this particularly well."
"Immortality tends to suck the fun out of living, Peter."
"…Aren't you the Devil? Can't you, I don't know, control it?"
Neal sighs, eyes just a touch sad. "For a long time, I was bounded to that sheet of ancient manuscript by that same binding. What makes you think I am the one in control?"
They sit in silence for a few short moments, Neal ducking his head to watch the swirl of red in his glass (not in embarrassment but with fascination). Peter only recognizes it in the mirror, from the way he watches Neal in return. Peter sees him swallow, and his lips are stained a bruised bloody red when he admits. "I don't think you get it, Peter."
Peter replies with a soft scoff. "I don't think it makes sense in the first place."
He has had the Devil at his dinner table for the last two nights in a row.
It is only Wednesday.
000
"Say, Peter." He cocks his head to the side, in the direction of the bullpen, as he stirs at the coffee in his coffee cup, a spoonful of sugar and just a bit of cream. Peter never does ask why Neal has taken to drinking so much bad coffee at the office, Peter doesn't know his secrets, isn't about to ask him for it either. But he does bring over his cup and lets Neal stir in his cream and sugar in the proportion that makes awful halfway to decent. "Could you make me one of those?"
Peter takes an experimental sip at the coffee Neal hands off to him, and doesn't grimace (and for office coffee, that is quite the feat). He even takes a second sip before humouring Neal. "What? A probie?"
Neal shakes his head and replies, "a confidential informant."
"A criminal informant." Peter corrects with a roll of his eyes.
"Fine then, I want one of those shiny things instead." Neal isn't exactly bouncing on the balls of his feet, the coffee cup in his hand makes it hard, but it does come close when he gestures to the badge clipped to Peter's belt with a sly smile. The FBI agent merely takes a step back from the vicinity of where Neal's coffee can spill and narrows his eyes to ask, just as evenly in return. "What is the Devil even going to do with a badge?"
"Flash it around?" Neal offers with a widening grin and one of those shrugs that shifts the tight cut of his suit over his shoulders. Peter looks away with a resounding, "no" as he turns to head back up the stairs for his office, knowing full well that Neal will be following at his heel.
"You're no fun."
"You're the Devil, Neal. You'll live without a bit of fun."
"Oh, Peter," he is leaning dramatically by the frame of the door, his eyes sparkling like there could possibly be any doubt otherwise, "but what's the point in living if there's no fun to it?"
Peter takes another sip in his seat, the coffee cup just enough to hide whatever it is that Neal's gaze is searching for.
000
"…For a lapsed Catholic, you're a very good man." Neal huffs as he sits back down in the chair he has long since claimed as his in Peter's office, spinning it away from the bullpen to face Peter instead. It's a conversation starter, it is also a long running topic that Neal has a habit of bringing up since that very first time Peter has the Devil accompanying him to the church.
Peter glances up, his head resting in a propped up hand. "I'm no better than the average Joe."
"Peter, don't sell yourself short." Neal leans over the edge of the desk to pat at Peter's shoulder, and he even looks sincere as he continues with a sympathetic smile. "You're a better man than Joe."
"Neal, Joe is theoretical."
"Joe is also the man you're looking for." Neal rolls his eyes before finally gesturing to the spread of case files in front of Peter, his finger pointing at one in particular. There is a spark of ironic recognition; Peter shakes his head and echoes with a soft laugh. "Joe's the lawyer."
Neal nods with a grin. Peter drags Joe's file over, and he doesn't know how he's gotten so (un)lucky to have the devil working for him. He hasn't even sold him his soul just yet, not that Neal isn't making it a standing offer between the two of them.
"It's always the goddamn lawyer," he murmurs when he flips a page. Neal only blinks when Peter lifts his gaze from the page to smile up at him, the same grin now a smirk, "unless it's the clerk."
And the stripe of red down his chest only ever gets darker.
XXX Kuro
The lawyer/clerk talk is from the gag reel of S1! :D And the Codex Gigas is a real thing, feel free to wiki it for more of its legend/info.