Title: All Wrapped Up In You
Author: Ursula
Rating: rating: R
Genre and/or Pairing: Neal Caffrey and Peter Burke.
Notes: Written for White Collar Kink Mem. For those who say Neal doesn't whine, yeah, he does. He does at the hotel. He does later when he gets frustrated with Peter. He also sulks. I don't question that he has courage, but he isn't stoic guy and I am glad.
Spoilers: Book of Hours
Warnings: Pre Slash
Word Count: 2394
Summary: Peter and Neal fly out of town to testify on a case.
All Wrapped Up In You
"I don't know why I have to go" Neal said. "You've said yourself that no one will take me seriously as a witness."
"Because you have a subpoena," Peter said. "What's wrong? You've been whining about being stuck in New York."
"I don't whine and I love New York and I don't want to go to Seattle," Neal whined, all without taking a breath.
"You're going. I'm going. I'll make it up to you. Find someplace decent for dinner."
"Okay," Neal said, conceding. He looked out the window and added, "I hope we don't get snowed in. Elizabeth would kill us."
"You looking forward to Thanksgiving?"
"Yeah."
Elizabeth had invited Neal before Peter could ask her if he could bring Neal home for the holiday. June was hosting a hoard of relatives and needed Neal's room for a couple of grandsons. Elizabeth was spending so much money 'making the guest room comfortable for Neal' that Peter suggested he install some bars, put in a hard cot and a urinal-sink combination so Neal would really feel at home. His shoulder was still sore from his wife's punch. Elizabeth packed a wallop.
Looking out the window, Neal avoided Peter's gaze, amazing since he could look in your eyes and utter such sweet lies that you would forgive him when you discovered he stole something precious; your heart if you weren't careful.
"Thanks, Peter," Neal said, voice very soft.
"Elizabeth invited you."
"She's your wife."
"I noticed that," Peter said. It was his turn to look away although all he had to look at was the corridor, having yielded the window seat to Neal. He sighed, crossed his legs toward Neal. Bumped Neal. Apologized. Tried to cross his legs the other way, but was too uncomfortable.
"We both want you," Peter said. "I mean wanted you to come." Oh god in heaven. One last attempt to salvage lies from truth. "To Thanksgiving, I mean."
When Peter looks, Neal is still turned away, but his shoulders are shaking and Peter hardly needs the reflection in the window to see that Neal's eyes are closed because he is trying so hard not to laugh.
At least, Neal wasn't sulking.
OooOooO
When they got off the plane and went to baggage claim, the carousel quickly brought Peter's battered old suitcase that had seen as many investigations as he had. Each time the wheel went round, it was increasingly evident that Neal's leather suitcase was nowhere.
"They lost it," Neal said.
"Calm down, calm down," Peter reassured. He took Neal by the arm and led him to customer service.
The woman in charge tapped away at the computer, made a few calls, before saying, "I'm sure it was simply loaded on the wrong plane. We'll track it in no time."
"You have to be kidding," Neal said.
An hour later, they walked out to catch a cab sans Neal's suitcase. Mixed rain and snow pelted them and the Seattle denizens were semi-hysterical as if facing a white-out blizzard. They spontaneously allowed their cars to skid although Peter could see no ice on the road. They fought like gladiators for the cabs.
Tiring of waiting, Neal stepped out away from the curb. Promptly, a kamikaze taxi driver veered in close and splashed Neal from toe to head and all placed in between. Peter's success at withholding laughter was both a tribute to his self control and his realization that Neal would have snapped, either sitting down and wailing on the curb or throwing Peter in front of the crazed drivers still fleeing the storm.
My hat, my suit!" Neal yelped.
"I'm melting, I'm melting," Peter replied without sympathy.
The next taxi driver stopped, eyed Neal and drove off, not interested in having his seats soaked. Peter groaned and waved a twenty until the next driver stopped.
Taking Neal's arm, Peter dragged him out of the cold into the exceptionally dirty taxi. Neal was already shivering to the point of chattering teeth. "We'll go to the hotel and I am sure your things will be on the next flight. There's a dry cleaner at the hotel and all will be well."
"I'm freezing," Neal said.
"You'll be fine," Peter replied, but took off his topcoat to wrap around Neal. The splashing water had penetrated Neal's coat which had not been fastened and Neal was soaked to the skin. Neal took off his sodden coat and gratefully let Peter guide his arms into his coat.
"Thank you, Peter," Neal said. "But I have nothing to wear when we get to the hotel."
"I want you naked in bed anyway," Peter said.
That managed to gain a half smile and Neal replied, "That would warm me up."
Peter smirked, having planned the tease since his inadvertent double entendres.
The taxi was warm and Neal shivered less. Peter thought a hot bath, some chocolate, and being ensconced in bed would repair the damage nicely.
OooOooO
"Body heat," Neal suggested from his dramatic dying lady pose in the queen bed on his side of the room.
"Neal, you do not have incipient frost bite," Peter said.
A knock interrupted to announce the arrival of room service to bring the hot chocolate and take away Neal's mud splattered clothing. Peter carefully carried the tray to Neal's bedside and offered him a cup.
Still looking slightly blue-lipped, Neal sneezed hard. Peter chided, "You can't get a cold just from being soaked for a few moments."
"Can to," Neal argued, claiming his chocolate.
"You could just get under the covers for a little while," Neal suggested, waggling an eyebrow persuasively in his best Otis B. Driftwood style.
"Fine, fine, if that's what it takes to shut you up."
Peter stripped down to tee shirt and boxers. Neal laughed. Which was a charitable way to describe his giggle.
"Your boxers have Labrador puppies on them," Neal pointed out.
"And I have five more pairs just like them," Peter said. "Get used to them."
As soon as Peter climbed into Neal's bed, he had an armful of icy and still shivering beauty. He was too concerned to fend Neal off and set to rubbing Neal's arms and chest vigorously until the shivering stopped. Pleased with himself, Peter said, "I do so know how to take care of you."
"What?"
"Elizabeth said I was careless with you," Peter explained. "That I was getting you into trouble and that I was going to get you hurt."
"Did you remind her that you hauled my ass out of prison?" Neal asked.
"Yes," Peter said, "But she wasn't impressed. It's hard to impress a wife, Neal."
Neal said, "Prison was like being buried alive for me, Peter."
"I know." Peter replied.
"Now you tell me how I need to cowboy up. Don't do the crime, if you can't do the time."
Peter ran his fingers through Neal's freshly washed hair and shook his head. "I know I said that. You think it never bothered me? The kind of things I imagined happening to you? I worried."
"The guards were fairly decent. I felt horrible when I escaped for getting some of them in trouble. There were some creepy guys… I was scared a few times, but I managed to get away from them before the worst happened. And if it had, I could have handled it."
"No one handles that," Peter said.
"But it didn't happen, Peter, and here I am, in a nice hotel bed, getting warmed by the best of the FBI, and snuggling. I like to snuggle. So all's well."
Peter sighed. The trouble with Neal is that he expected a happy ending and was stunned when he didn't get one. On the other hand, maybe Peter really could make one for him.
Neal was already asleep. Peter rolled him gently off his arm, but didn't go to the other bed. He knew he was smiling as he watched Neal sleep and he didn't care. Peter pulled the covers up around both of them and went to sleep.
OooOooO
The incipient cold had been psychological as Neal hadn't sneezed once this morning. He showered again and was now eating breakfast, wearing nothing but a towel. Peter could not look at all that skin and the way the towel kept slipping and he could look no place else. He was getting obsessed with Neal's belly, which was a surprisingly muscled stomach. He had never seen Neal exercise, but six pack abdomens don't just happen. Although it wasn't just the muscles, it was Neal's belly button which was the neatest, sexiest little whorl that Peter had ever seen and he kept imagining twirling his tongue around it on his way to more traditionally sexual parts.
"I'll go see what is keeping them with your suit," Peter said. He had better before he needed a long cold shower.
OooOooO
As soon as Peter showed up with Neal's receipt, the manager crept out. "I am so sorry. It was a beautiful suit. I feel as if I have destroyed the Mona Lisa. It was the new man and he is fired. We, of course, will make good on the loss."
"Can I see it?" Peter asked, his voice, autopsy-room-horrified, but he knows he will have to report to Neal that the suit was beyond salvage. It was and so was Neal's coat.
There were holes burnt in the jacket. Something singed yet green on the seat of the trousers that had so loving cupped Neal's really great ass. Neal's right coat sleeve was raveled up to the elbow.
If it wasn't for the trial that would start in four hours, Peter would have flown home and sent Cruz back for Neal. He was a coward when it came to bringing bad news.
OooOooO
"I won't," Neal said. "As if anything you have…not only will it not fit, but I couldn't, I really couldn't…"
Neal was shuddering like an affronted virgin faced not only with rape, but with public deflowering.
Peter felt hurt. He knew his suits were not to Neal's taste, but they weren't that bad.
"Okay, that's fine. You have two choices. You walk naked to the store with me or you wear something of mine long enough to pick out something for yourself."
Neal thought. He stood up, strolled towards the window and asked, "How cold it is outside?"
"It's still snowing," Peter said, shoving a set of his clothing at Neal.
Taking the suit as if it was covered with slime, Neal brightened and said, "We could have something sent in. I'm sure there's some place in town that would do that."
"Put….These…On…Now."
"OR ELSE"
"Or what, you throw my ass back in prison? You know you won't do it and I know you won't do it. Elizabeth certainly knows you won't do it." Neal was unbearably smug for a guy standing there with his towel slipping…almost…no, definitely fallen to his feet.
Have mercy. Peter couldn't do it; he couldn't not look. He gazed. He gawked. He ogled from head to toe and twice everywhere between.
Finally regaining his composure, Peter tried, "Or I will take you over my knee and give you the long hard spanking you deserve."
"Would you really, Peter? How wonderful!" Neal breathed in a porn star voice, but his cock started to fill and gave a twitch that was going to give Peter's sex dreams an entire new realm of subject matter.
"And you will be uninvited to Thanksgiving dinner."
Neal drooped. All of him drooped.
"Okay, if you're going to be that way. Let me have that…thing," Neal said, a shudder of repulsion going through him.
OooOooO
Dressed up in Peter's suit, Neal was unexpectedly adorable. He was a little boy playing daddy and lost in the too wide jacket, the sagging pants; he was so cute that Peter wanted to show Elizabeth. He had the distinct urge to coo.
Having no idea what he was doing to Peter, Neal took reluctant step after reluctant step toward the nearest mirror. Finally reaching his goal, Neal looked, cringed, and cast a woebegone gaze at Peter.
"Oh, Peter, I can't. I can't be seen like this. Nothing fits. I look like a bad joke."
Those blue blue eyes were panicked. It should have been funny, but it really wasn't. Neal was genuinely distraught.
Peter suddenly turned another page in the ever growing, eternally diverting book of Neal Caffrey. He saw that Neal, despite his vanity, had no idea of his intrinsic worth. He did not have confidence in the grace and symmetry that was his body or in the lively beauty of his ever changing face. He really thought that clothes made the man.
Peter approached Neal, put a tender hand on his shoulder, then reached and tipped up Neal's chin. He let it out, all the maddening attraction he felt and tried to deny, the way he loved to watch Neal and sometimes couldn't help but to show how much he enjoyed the performance. Better yet, Peter tried to say with all of his being that he loved the Neal that was only reflected in his pretty face and agile body. That the measure of Neal was not in his suit, but in his heart and his soul: the Neal that let Peter take credit to look better to his boss, his wife, his subordinates. The Neal that risked his life to keep the Book of Hours. That risked his freedom after that because he wanted a miracle for a sick dog. That hopelessly, foolishly, gallantly was willing to risk another four years in hell because he thought a worthless woman was in danger.
Peter was not much on talking, but he seemed to get his points across. Neal straightened and even Peter's bedraggled suit grew swan like elegance around him. Peter let go of Neal's chin and reached down to roll up each suit sleeve a little tighter. He knelt at Neal's feet as if he was going to propose and worked on the hopelessly long pant legs. With every touch, Neal grew more confident and the enchantment cast glamour over a suit that even Peter knew was drab.
"You will spend enough money for something decent?"
"Yes," Peter assured. "You think I would let my partner testify when he didn't look his best?"
His wallet was already screaming, but, for once, Peter ignored that little voice that whispered of poverty nipping at his heels if he relaxed his grip on his budget.
Peter held his coat for Neal. Neal paused, his eyes troubled. "Peter, if I wear your coat, what will you wear? You'll be cold."
"You'll keep me warm, Neal. You always do."
Peter held the door for Neal and when they walked toward the elevator, Peter couldn't help grinning to the whole damn world.
He was all wrapped up in happiness.
The end