So I finally got around to watching this week's White Collar, which I know is sad in and of itself, but what's really upsetting is that it took this week's episode to notice - and I wish I was kidding - that both Sarah and Neal used to be con artists.
I know. It's sad.
Of course, once I'd realized that, there was no way I couldn't write about it, but I made myself two rules: one, no AU. And I know that's almost absurd in the Chuck fandom, but seriously guys: I can't write AU. I have a sick obsession with characterization, and I can't get it unless it's in the universe I'm comfortable with, so this is in the not-so-distant future, I guess. And two: no Neal/Sarah. Which is a stupid rule, I know, because if Chuck didn't exist, they would be adorable. But with no AU, Chuck pretty much has to exist.
And I labeled this as a Chuck/White Collar crossover, but I should warn you now: there is very, very little Neal in this sucker. The ending ended up being a bigger deal for me than the actual execution of the ending, and I'm just getting into writing Neal, so it took me a couple tries.
I guess everyone now essentially knows the biography of my thought process, so... let's move on to the story, shall we?
Neither Chuck, nor White Collar is mine. Title is (and everyone should know this) from The Beatles' Blackbird. Because the song is never not awesome.
"So... just for clarification, why are we acting like criminals, again?" Chuck asks as he squeezes into his suit. He's trying to get his leg into the open zipper of his pants because he keeps glancing out the window. A City of Angels boy, born and bred, he's never been to New York City and there's a view of the Statue of Liberty outside the hotel window. It's distracting.
Sarah, patient as always, smirks at him and points at his pants as he struggles and he finally glances down, notices his predicament. A blush creeps up on his cheeks before he can catch it.
"We're meeting with Benjamin Porter as con artists, Chuck. You distract him, I swipe his iPhone, we're in and out within ten minutes." He finally gets his pants on as she finishes, and pulls on his suit jacket over the black dress shirt he'd had the fortune of spending ten minutes getting into, before he made his way to the pants.
"And then we have the rest of the weekend to explore the city, right?" he says, and there's that goofy grin of his she loves. He struggles with his tie for a second - and not because of the view outside the window - before she takes a step forward and fixes it for him. It's a pattern of theirs.
"That's the plan."
/
"Look, guys. You two seem like perfectly competent... You two seem good at your job, okay? But I just want out." Benjamin's voice holds every kind of confidence there is, but Sarah's been in the game long enough to know it's just a mask. His hands shake, just a little, and she'd feel bad for the guy if he hadn't stolen tens of millions of dollars from the government.
Chuck, to her left, has been holding his tongue all night, even though they passed the Rockefeller Centre on the way in, and she knows for a fact that a portion of Spiderman was filmed there. He's playing the part of suave con artist the same way he plays the part of suave secret agent: over-the-top. But he's convincing enough to not kill the whole mission, and she can almost feel the excitement coming off him in waves.
But, of course, he can only hold it in for so long.
"Porter," he says, and his voice has a sharp, clipped tone to it that she's not entirely sure she's ever heard from him. "You're in deep enough that if you try to get out now, it'll be worse than just going forward."
(Chuck may or may not have been watching too many crime shows as of late, Sarah decides.)
This is the planned distraction: get him to agree. Chuck chats up details, Sarah excuses herself for a moment, swipes his phone, and returns like nothing ever happened. It's working.
Benjamin deflates entirely. In one swift motion, he brings his hands up to his face, pulling at it in frustration. When they pull back, the confidence is gone; he just looks tired. "I know. God, I know... Okay. You do this, you have to promise nobody gets hurt, got it?"
Chuck opens his mouth, and she knows that look - the he's-not-a-bad-guy look. She cuts him off before a sound exits. "We're not in the stage of the game where you can just call that, Porter. That's not how this works."
"Then no deal."
"You're not really in the position to say that," Chuck says, and the hardened, faux-con-artist glare comes back. It's kind of sexy.
"I don't think you two understand the stakes here." Benjamin's voice drops below a whisper. "I stole twelve million dollars from the American government and didn't even look back until someone pointed a gun at my face. This is a bad game, and I keep losing. I wouldn't even be talking to you two if I didn't need some of the cash back."
"But you did contact us. And we'll get you your fifty percent back, as long as the other half goes to us. Got it?"
He hesitates a second later, then nods abruptly. Chuck, still in his weird con artist haze, nods and reaches out a hand for a quick shake.
"Let's sort out the details, then."
"You boys do that," Sarah pipes in, and puts a comforting hand on Chuck's arm. "I'm going to check the perimeter."
As she passes him, Benjamin doesn't even feel his iPhone disappear.
/
Exactly twelve seconds after she turns her back, a sharp voice echoes through the concealed courtyard. "Freeze! FBI!"
Both Benjamin and Chuck do, in fact, freeze, hands splayed out from their sides, eyes wide in panic. FBI comes flying in, covered in bulletproof vests and carrying massive guns. In their earpieces, Casey murmurs something that sounds distinctly like, "'bound to get one right."
"Down on the ground!" one of the agents yells dramatically, and both of the other men promptly drop to the ground like they were tased.
"CIA!" Sarah retorts, extracting her certifications to show the agent. He takes on quick glance at her, then at her paperwork.
"CIA was in on this, too?" he says, and she shows him the phone she just swiped.
"He's an agent, too." She nods her head in Chuck's general direction as he grins sheepishly at her, picking himself up off the ground and wiping the dirt off his dress pants.
"Special Agent Peter Burke," he introduces himself, pulling one hand forward and one behind as he simultaneously puts away the gun and shakes her hand. "I see we screwed up your plan."
She'd be offended, if he didn't say it in a genuinely kind way.
"Agent Sarah Walker. And that's Agent Charles Carmichael," she adds, as Chuck sidles up to her. He pulls off his con artist sunglasses (as he'd been proud to dub them) and grins down at her, and even though she's kind of irritated at the whole situation, her stomach does do little flips.
"Chuck," he adds, extending a hand to shake Burke's.
"And this is my criminal shadow," Burke pipes in.
For the first time, they both notice the man walking up to Burke, wearing all black like the other FBI agents but in a suit. It only takes them a fraction of a second to notice his resemblance to one Bryce Larkin, but then Chuck shrugs and that's it.
/
Burke and Chuck are talking off in the corner about the difference between FBI and CIA and although Chuck is trying to keep his cool, he's buzzing like a five year old on Christmas.
"So you used to be in the game too, huh?" the Bryce look-alike pipes up from her left, and if she wasn't Sarah Walker, she would have jumped.
"What?"
"Conning. Don't deny it, I know a real pickpocket scheme when I see it."
She's tempted to deny it, but figures what the hell and says, "Pickpocketing is hardly real conning, wouldn't you say? Sloppy, amateur work."
At that, he does grin, and reaches a hand up to tip his hat almost unconsciously. "Neal Caffrey." He puts emphasis on it, like she should recognize the significance.
"I've been out of the game almost fifteen years, Neal."
"I can see that," he concedes, glancing at her up and down. It kind of makes her uncomfortable, but there's something... charming about him. "CIA badge, and all. It's very official-looking."
"It's real."
"Uh-huh."
"Does my fiancé really look like an excellent conning partner, Neal? Believe me, the CIA is not a fake identity you can pull off that well."
"Fiancé, huh?" He sounds almost disappointed, and she does, briefly, feel sympathetic for him. There's something within his voice, though - something almost undetectable - that catches her attention more than the disappointment. There's an underlying of real hurt - like he wishes he had a fiancé, too. Like he almost did. He changes the subject. "What were you into? Art? Money? Vehicles? Long-lost treasures?"
"Money, mostly."
"I'd had you pegged as more refined than that," he says, and, almost absurdly, she feels embarrassed.
"It wasn't really my choice."
"Ah," he murmurs, and doesn't push any further. This is, as always, more effective with Sarah Walker than asking straight out.
"My dad dragged me into it."
Neal snorts at that in that subtle way people do when things aren't actually funny, bowing his head and scuffing one shoe on the cement beneath them. "Disappointing fathers are a universal thing, I think."
Later on, she'll think it's weird, that it was that statement, out of all of them, that made her stop doing unconscious Bryce-and-Chuck comparisons to this incredibly charming man next to her, tipping his hat every few seconds and stuffing his hands in his pockets.
"They try their best, though, right?"
For a fraction of a second, it looks as though he's going to say something, but shakes his head. "Yeah. Right."
It's not really sarcastic; it's mostly just sad.
/
It's late at night, and Sarah and Chuck are back at the hotel and in bed and it's probably two AM, but she rolls over to face Chuck's back.
She sometimes wishes he'd face her, when they slept, because his looming back often scares her off. This time, though, she clears her throat and he jerks in his almost-asleep state, turning around to face her.
"You okay?" he mumbles sleepily, and although he's certainly not suave, by any stretch of the imagination, his haggard face looks adorable and, cliché though it may be, she falls in love with him all over again. "What's wrong?" he adds, when a few seconds pass and she hasn't responded, and he reaches out a hand to grab her waist reassuringly.
"I don't hate my dad."
This time, he does know better then to talk. He just rubs comforting circles along her waist, and even though his eyelids are drooping, he pulls his free hand under his head to hold it up.
"I should, after everything I went through as a kid, but I... don't."
"Because he's still your dad."
"No." At that, she does the same weird not-really-snort thing Caffrey had done, a few hours earlier. "No, my family ties aren't really... strong. But everything he did..."
"He did for you."
"Yeah," she breathes, and is surprised to find her eyes a little misty. "I mean, it was stupid, and reckless, and probably made me an emotionally-repressed pariah..."
At that, Chuck reaches up the hand on her waist to her face, pulling it to face him, and even though he's trying to be sympathetic, he's also trying not to laugh at her analogy. "It did not make you an emotionally-repressed pariah." And then, he adds, "I'm not sure what your definition of emotionally-repressed is, but may I remind you that we're getting married in a few months?"
"Yeah, after three years of my not being able to tell you how I felt, as I recall."
"It made everything more worth it, didn't it?"
"Yeah." It wasn't what she'd wanted to hear, exactly, but it was the sort of thing she hadn't been able to think to herself.
"Why's this coming up?"
This time, the pause lasts several minutes, but Chuck remains ever cognizant, watching her patiently.
"I think... I want him to walk me down the aisle. If I can track him down."
Yawning, he scoops an arm under her head and she lets him pull her forward. "I believe it's my turn on the parent-finding front."
The thought of seeing her dad kind of makes Sarah want to scream and cry at the same time, and although she does try to avoid letting it show when she responds with, "I guess it is," her voice quivers and Chuck's arm promptly tightens its grip on her.
But even though she can't see it, she can feel Chuck's grin on her scalp and she knows it's the blinding one she loves.