Rating: T for dropping of the f-bomb and other socially inappropriate words, sexual content, and canonical whump.
Disclaimer: I absolutely do not own White Collar or Rise Against. I am only playing with them and will put all back as it was when I'm done. Unbeta'ed so all mistakes within are mine.
He was smartly dressed, scratch that, impeccably dressed and, like most of her other customers, never failed to seize an opportunity to hit on her. Yet there was something different about him. She just couldn't place her finger on it. It had to be the hat. Plenty of well dressed men passed through the coffee shop but none of them were like him. Yes, it had to be the hat. Jauntily tipped across his brow, framing wide blue eyes, a well formed nose and expressive mouth, the hat was the coup de grace on a man who approached his wardrobe like a it was a masterpiece to be painted each and every morning. It would have looked out of placed on anyone else but on him, it was simply perfect.
With an ear trained for gossip, she learned two very important things about him. One, he was a criminal on some sort of probation. Two, his name was Neal.
He'd started coming in a few months ago, a small stack of file folders under his arm. After ordering his coffee, he settled into a corner table with the same smile he'd greeted her with ever lurking at the corner of his mouth. Occasionally, the smile would turn into a frown of concentration. What she wouldn't give to have those eyes and lips turn on her. She felt her cleft moisten and her nipples tighten into nubs. Every fiber of her being turned electric with the thought of him. Wait. Did she have a crush? On a customer? No. It wasn't possible. She absolutely did NOT get crushes. She was all ways the crushee, not the crusher. Well, fuck. There it was. She most certainly did have a crush. Now what the hell was she going to do about it?
Neal's erratic visits eventually settled into a pattern; two to three times a week he would stay for a few hours, sometimes with a handful of files and other times with a sketchbook. He ordered the same thing, every time; Italian roast, double shot, one cream, and one sugar. As usual, he flashed her a winning smile; the one that says "trust me, I'm harmless" and, as usual, she grew warm under the sheen of sweat and espresso bean dust. Painfully aware of the blush that crept its way up from her collar, she found herself grateful for the need to get more espresso beans while she set his shots to pull. Turning from the machine, she grabbed the unopened bag of beans from its resting place on the top shelf and took a brief moment to rein in her runaway emotions. A couple of deep breaths later, she returned her wayward attention to the espresso machine and discovered, to her horror, that the shots had pulled for far longer then the required eighteen to twenty five seconds. As she emptied the filters, she let loose a string of invectives under her breath that would have gotten her fired had she said them aloud.
"Be just a moment, sir," she said hastily, hyper aware of those deep blue eyes on her. Normally she wasn't this tongue tied. You couldn't be a barista and be shy but something about Neal turned her into a sixteen year old girl all over again. Grinding yet more beans, tamping the grounds, and pulling the shots correctly this time, she handed over his espresso and found herself fascinated by his hands. Those were the hands of an artist, she was certain of it, and she couldn't help but wonder what sort of art he created. "Sorry about your wait," she uttered, attempting to fill the silence where it hung after he had thanked her for his dosage of caffeine. She damned herself for the awkwardness of the statement and the effect that he had on her.
"I didn't mind, Brigid. Perfect espresso is worth the wait." For a moment there, she floated on Cloud Nine. He knew her name. Neal knew her name. Yet, not only did he know it, he pronounced it correctly. Life was good and, for a while, life remained that way. Neal would come in for coffee, Brigid would make it, and they would banter, Brigid blushing all the while. This visit was far different. There was no banter, no smile, only the look of a man now haunted by something that should not be. Looking at Neal, the only thing that came to her mind was one of her favorite Rise Against lyrics.
'If strength was born from heartbreak, then mountains I could move.
If walls could speak, I pray they would tell me what to do!
If you see me, please just walk on by. Walk on by.
Forget my name and I'll forget it too!'
It was like he wanted to forget who he was, who he could be, and leave a mask in place for the rest of the world. This wasn't right. Her crush on Neal had deepened to a real caring over the months that he'd been coming to her shop. She couldn't stand by while he drowned. She wouldn't. Her inner sense of justice wouldn't let her.
Brigid glanced up at the clock and her eyebrows rose. Surely it wasn't almost time to close up. Neal never came in this late. Paired with his disheveled appearance, her instincts confirmed that something was most definitely wrong in the world of Neal. She glanced over at her fellow barista who was working on getting things shut down for the night. "Catie, I gotta split. Can you finish up for me? All you have to do is break down the machine and do the milks. Everything else is pretty much done." Brigid held her breath, knowing Catie's dislike for anyone leaving early. What she wasn't prepared for was the venom that came spewing from Catie's lips.
"It has to do with him, doesn't it?" she hissed. "You do realize he is a felon?" She spat the last word with the force of a thrown blade to the heart. "That's a tracking anklet he's wearing, not a fashion accessory. He's on a leash for a reason. If you want to get yourself hurt, Brigid. That's fine, its your funeral."
Brigid drew herself up to her full height, a paltry five foot three inches. "He is hurting, Catie! Look at him!" She gestured at Neal, slumped in a chair, head in his hands with his espresso untouched. "That is a man in mourning and if you don't want to help, then I will." She ripped off her apron and threw it on the counter. "You can finish on your own, I'm done."
Flouncing out from behind the counter, she paused long enough to empty the tip jar into her purse, anger dogging her every step. Just before she reached Neal, Brigid realized that she had absolutely no idea what she was going to say to him. She was so caught up in her need to help him that she had no idea exactly how to accomplish that. Crap, this was not how it was supposed to go. Well, it was too late now; in for a penny, in for a pound as the old saying went. If this was a con, like Catie swore it was, it was a damn good one. This was the posture of a man in mourning, a man who had lost something so dear that it took his still beating heart and ripped it from his chest. This was not a con. It simply couldn't be. She bit her lip before settling into the chair next to his.
"Neal," Brigid said quietly. "I know we're not close but I want you to know." Her voice trailed off here, trying to find the right words to bring the man some modicum of comfort, of knowing that there was something in the world that he could hang on to despite losing what anchored him. "I want you to know that I'm here. If you need anything at all, someone to talk to, someone to just be there. You can count on that." The last words were said with a protectiveness that Brigid had no idea that she possessed. While she was certain that Neal was her elder by a few years, he looked so small and helpless in the chair at her side that she wanted nothing more then to gather him in her arms and hold him until the storm of emotions that raged in him calmed and allowed him to rest.
Gathering his face in her hands, she looked into blue eyes that had lost their focus and were trained on some inner vision of horror that she couldn't begin to comprehend. Her fingers brushed fallen locks aside from his forehead and she placed a chaste kiss where they had rested. Her lips lingered there, the smell of smoke, jet fuel, and Gods knew what else, emanating from his hair. Something truly awful had happened to her friend and she was powerless to help him. Tears to match Neal's appeared at the corner of her eyes and she squeezed them shut, determined to remain strong for him. Minutes felt like hours as they remained there, his head cradled between her hands, her lips on his forehead. The sound of slamming doors brought her back to the world outside.
"We have to leave. Come on." She tugged on his arm and again, found herself surprised. Despite his svelte figure, he was much heavier then he appeared. Asking Catie for help was out of the question. She tugged harder on his arms, bracing herself lest she fall on her butt while trying to get the man in an upright position. "Neal, I'm begging you, please. Help me help you. I need you to get up so we can get the hell out of here." Something about her tone must have pierced the fog that was Neal's brain and he allowed her to not only help him rise to his feet but leave the shop and into the cold air outside. Brigid managed a smile for his sake. "Well, that's progress. Now, we've got two choices. Your place or mine?"
"Mine," Neal murmured. "Safer." Brigid wasn't sure what he meant by "safer" but she was willing to run with it.
"Your place it is. Which way?"
Neal let his feet guide him home to June's. Neither he nor Brigid spoke on the frigid walk there, allowing a companionable silence to envelope them both, only knowing that it was the best balm for Neal's wounded soul on their walk. Arriving home, Neal waved off a worried June and allowed Brigid to take him upstairs to his apartment.
Brigid wasn't sure what to expect when she entered the door at the top of the stairs. The destruction that lay over the room was that of a madman. He had thrown or broken anything that had come to his hand. Canvases on easels were slashed, papers scattered on the floor like snow, broken glass winked at her from the hardwood floors. It was a veritable war zone. Attempting levity, she remarked "The cleaning lady on vacation this week?" Her attempt fell flat while Neal bee-lined for the wine rack for something to drown his sorrows in. "Oh no you don't!" She followed after him, prying the wine bottle out of his hands. "Look, we need to clean you and your apartment up. It looks like a bomb went off in here." She intended for her tone to be imperious, to have enough command to hopefully snap Neal out of his fog but instead it came out as a plea for his compliance. What she wasn't expecting was the visible flinch that came from him when she uttered the word 'bomb.' "Ah, Goddess, I stuck my foot in it, didn't I? I'm sorry, Neal. Let's take this a bit at a time. First, let's get you cleaned up, then we'll tackle the mess together, eh?"
