Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
"God, Neal, you're such a—you're a sociopath!"
Neal's eyes flashed with rage. "I'm not," he spoke in a deadly calm.
"Oh no? Let's think about this for a minute."
"Peter, leave it," Elle pleaded gently, but Peter pressed on.
"You commit high-stakes white collar crimes without remorse," he paused, expecting an "allegedly" from Neal, and continued when he did not receive one, "you charm people just to get something in return, you lie pathologically, and you don't love anyone but yourself."
Neal stood from the table violently following Peter's final accusation. "Thanks for dinner, Elle," he said quietly, eyes not leaving Peter's. Then he turned let himself out.
-WHITE COLLAR—WHITE COLLAR—WHITE COLLLAR
Peter walked into the office the next morning expecting Neal to have forgotten about the events of the previous night. Peter walked into the office the next morning dead wrong.
It wasn't until 11:45 that Peter even saw his partner. When he finally did, Neal was standing in front of the coffee maker, filling his cup with weak, poor tasting mud.
"Everything okay? That's got to be your fourth cup of coffee today, and it's not even noon," Diana asked him.
"I'm fine," he answered without looking at her. "Just didn't sleep much last night."
"Why not?"
Neal looked at Peter. "No reason." And with that he retreated back to his cubicle.
"What's wrong with him?" she asked Peter.
"No idea," Peter lied. "I'll find out." So the older man walked to Neal's desk in hopes of sorting things out.
"Is this about last night?" Peter asked, startling the younger man.
"Is what about last night?"
"This," Peter made a general and unhelpful gesture. "You're mad at me, I think."
"What would give you that idea?"
"You've been avoiding me."
"I've been in here working for you. I think we might have a suspect."
Peter smiles and doesn't even notice that Neal hadn't really answered him.
-WHITE COLLAR—WHITE COLLAR—WHITE COLLAR
The stakeout didn't go as well as Peter had hoped. Namely because he hadn't hoped to be shot at. Even that wouldn't have been so bad, he thought, if he'd been wearing a bulletproof vest. That too, would have been okay, because Neal pushed him out of the way, if not for the fact that Neal ended up with a bullet in his shoulder.
"Would a sociopath take a bullet for you?" Neal asked jestingly from his hospital bed, not expecting Peter's eyes to catch fire.
"Is that what this was?" he asked in an intense, low growl, "a way to get me to take that back?"
"Peter, no, it's not-"
"Peter, don't do this here," Elle scolded, but Peter ignored her once again.
"This was just another one of your smoke and mirror tricks you played to get what you wanted?" He looked at Neal, expecting to find him angry again, but was surprised to find him looking rather like a kicked puppy.
"This isn't about you thinking I didn't just risk my life to save your ass," Neal didn't look up from the sheets in front of him, "it's about you thinking I wouldn't. You still think I'm a sociopath."
Peter was stunned silent.
"My father was a sociopath, Peter." Neal paused for so long that Elle began to wonder whether he was going to continue. "I can count on my hands the days he cared about me while I was growing up. And they weren't the days when I was sick, or when I got straight A's in school, or when I needed someone to teach me how to fight back when I got bullied. They were when 'loving father' was a part o his ploy. I know what a sociopath is, Peter, and I've spent my whole life fearing becoming one. So don't," he spat, looking up at Peter, "use that word and then act like I'm overreacting when I get angry."
Shit.
"Neal, I had no idea-"
"I know you didn't. But you know what? That doesn't matter. Whether you knew all that shit about my father or not, you still think that's who I am. That's not who I am." As Neal spoke he sat up, tugging at his stitches, which made him wince in pain, and accelerating his heart rate, which made the monitor beep progressively faster.
"Neal, lie back; stop getting him worked up, Peter," Elle commanded gently.
"I'm fine, Elle," was simultaneous with "He's getting himself worked up."
"Stop it, both of you. Would you prefer if Peter and I went home?" Elle asked Neal.
He hesitated, and his "No" was almost too quiet to hear.
"Then you have to promise that either you're going to stay calm, or save this conversation for another day."
"Okay," Neal said noncommittally, looking to Peter to see which it was going to be.
"I'm sorry," Peter apologized, and he meant it. "You're not a sociopath."
"When I shoved you to the ground today, I didn't have time to think about why I was mad at you. I wasn't thinking about what you said about me, and I wasn't thinking about proving a point. I saw that you were going to get hurt, and I thought about you. I thought about Elle. If that bullet had killed you, Elle would have been devastated. So I took it. That's not something a sociopath does."
"No, it's not," Peter agreed.
"Are you implying that you don't think I would be devastated if you'd died?" Leave it to Elle to read between the lines that Peter couldn't. Neal didn't answer. "I would be heartbroken if anything happened to either of you. So don't go throwing yourself into dangerous situations because you don't think you'll be missed. I'm glad you saved Peter, but if that had been at the expense of your life, that wouldn't have been acceptable, either. I want both of you home safe, every time." Elle gripped Neal's hand and stroked it, and he smiled. Elle and Peter smiled back.
That's it! This was my first White Collar fic, so tell me whether I got their characters right. And I hope it doesn't bother anyone that you don't get any of the details of their case—I'm more of a pain without plot sort of girl. Hopefully you liked it! Thanks for reading!