Title: Voodoo Love

Author: missflapjack

Fandom: White Collar

Pairing: Neal/Peter

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: White Collar © USA Network

Summary: Peter's tired of Neal running, and mostly because he wishes he could do the same. Is there really hope in a love so obviously unhinged?

Note: I posted this ages ago on LJ, around Halloween, in fact, so I thought that my friends would benefit from some of the things I never post here anymore. (Oh, FF! I have abandoned thee!) By the way, I adore Elizabeth. Simply adore her, but I never have the heart to fit my El-loving in my Neal/Peter stories (of the grand total of one), so just letting ya'll know that Neal/Peter/Elizabeth is also one of my OT3s. Enjoy.

He wouldn't let the pain show, not ever. Neal didn't do that. Emotions were tightly sealed; an impenetrable safe in the bank of his mind, but... there was Burke. That damn cop was the safe-cracker. He knew every trick in the book, even if he didn't really know that he knew them, to bring out the crying, whiny, attention whore locked inside of Neal's heart. It was pathetic.

So here he was, moping around on June's roof like a teenage girl stuck in her own morbid fantasies, thinking about Peter. It wasn't a good thing, not at all. The sex had been good. Great, even. (Okay, life changing and quite possibly magical, but that's beside the point.) But Neal let himself get faaaar more attached than a grown man should have. He hadn't been prepared for the spiteful blow of the separation. Or the desertion. The tying of loose ends? Whatever the phrase was, Peter had done it. Peter had listened to the angel on his shoulder and left Neal, to run away and piece back whatever shattered fragments of his marriage were left swept under the couch she'd left him.

Manhattan was strangely quiet for a Saturday afternoon; barely a soul on the streets who could brave the frigid air of October; Neal thought to himself as he peered over the edge of the railing and certainly didn't, not even for a second, consider throwing himself over it.

They were all inside partying, or carving pumpkins, or having mind-blowing makeup sex in the privacy of their homes with the woman they left to screw an art thief but who totally forgave... er, them, because she was a good person in every way humanly possible and not a self-centered, egotistical, needy person like Neal Caffrey.

Neal thumped his chin heavily onto his forearms, ignoring the fact that his nose had gone completely numb and the unshed tears in his eyes could probably count as hazards in this thirty-one degree weather. He hated Elizabeth, and for all the wrong reasons. Because she had Peter. She always had Peter, even when she didn't appreciate him, and now Neal had nothing.

You're a selfish child.

Behind him there were footsteps; light and careful, but Neal, his spidey senses, and years of experience couldn't be fooled by a forty-something cop attempting to be stealthy.

"If you came to get rid of the evidence, I'd appreciate it if you could make it painless," Neal called out dryly.

Peter sighed and squared his shoulders, staring blankly at the contour of Neal's own shoulder blades. "You knew it was me."

"Come on, darling," Neal cooed sarcastically. "We've been playing the cat and mouse game far too long. You have yet to trick me."

The vein above Peter's left eye – he affectionately referred to it as Neal, often – twitched.

The question. "Why are you here?"

Neal's voice sounded empty, and Peter hated to think, no, know, that he was the cause of it. And the horrific thing was, he didn't know how to answer him. Peter felt even more lost after Neal finally turned to face him, and there were those eyes, filled with so much damn emotion that it hurt to catch them in a proper gaze, and...and...damn it.

"Ah, did the fair Elizabeth deny your plea for forgiveness?" The hollow tone was now condescending and cruel; Neal far too gone and far too wounded to muster up at least a passable imitation of decency. Every time he closed his eyes, there was the faded outline of Peter pushing him away. Shoving his hands away and finally telling him that they couldn't keep it up anymore; the lies; the passion.

"Quit talking like that," Peter snapped angrily; fire sparking in his eyes as he took a step forward, thought better of it, and settled for staying where he was with shaking fists clenched at his sides.

Neal's lips thinned into a firm line. "Could you just arrest me for public indecency, or something totally fun like that? Or stop staring at me."

"I... I never talked to her."

That got Caffrey's attention. He blinked; expressive olive eyes flickering back to stare at Peter. He hadn't been expecting that. "Why?"

All of the tension seemed to expel from the older man's body as he sighed heavily; leaning his hand against the chilly, detailed metal of a nearby chair.

"I don't even know. Fear, maybe? Apprehension?" Peter's eyes told an entirely different story, however.

Neal bit his lip and stared out at the neighboring buildings. "Was that the only reason?"

And there it was. Peter's brain had been unjustly hijacked by a colossal virus in that one swift moment that Neal set those puppy eyes on him and basically asked him if he wanted him back, only, y'know, with different words. His memory went all fuzzy and tainted, his vision unfocused, and the answer was practically screaming itself over and over again like a broken record.

"...No."

Neal ducked his head, and for a moment Peter thought he had actually made the Big Mistake of Gigantor Proportions, but Neal really couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't have let the big manly cop see his tears. Well-renowned criminals didn't cry. Like, ever.

"If you could have gone back and changed something, what would it be?"

Neal hadn't expected that to spill out of his mouth. It didn't even sound shaky, like he had been holding back tears and screams of frustration all day long, which he had, but there he was, sounding almost sane. Asking a completely insane question.

Peter Burke, as it were, had an answer. Of course. He must have been a downright charmer in school. "I would have changed yesterday. All of it."

"All of it?" Neal questions, a bit indignantly, because though it heralded the end of their relationship, it had been some damn good sex...

"Look, Caffrey," Peter began; scratching at the back of his neck and shifting on his feet.

"Neal," Neal not-Caffrey insisted. "We've been way past last names for months, and you know it."

The last comment hurt, it was true. As if Burke needed another reminder that he was the most unfaithful pile of scum to ever crawl across the earth. Neal could tell, unfortunately, as he could with everything else. Sparkling emerald eyes flashed apologetically.

"It isn't your fault," Peter spoke again, suddenly, even though Neal had expected him to give up and leave in silence. Hah. It just proved that Caffrey didn't know everything, not exactly. "It's mine. It's always been mine."

"N-"

"Let. Me. Talk. Neal."

Neal let him talk.

"I'm the one with a career. A life. A family. And I threw that all away, for what?" Peter was directing his words at the open blue sky now; gesturing to the heavens in unkempt frustration, or maybe because the sky didn't have feelings, or a prison record, or bottomless green eyes. He barely noticed the reflective pout that appeared on Neal's features after the words, 'for what?'

For what. For what?

"For me," Neal echoed quietly. "You... I mean, we... didn't you?" He then snorted, letting out sort of an irritated huff, as if wondering where his suave, machismo manner had gone. Neal was so broken. So crazy, and not the straight jacket type, or, at least, not yet. He was crazy for a cop. Wasn't that, like, the number one rule in the thief rule book, or whatever the baddies were using to keep track of their testaments nowadays? Never fraternize with someone on the opposite side of the law from you? Actually, the number one rule was probably never get caught stealing... um, stuff, because then you would probably be the world's shittiest thief. But none of it mattered, because Neal was going to the special special hell, and not just the special kind, if you happened to catch the second 'special' there. A hell reserved for art thieves who had lust filled dreams about competent cops with blue-grey eyes and it was so, so wrong.

The words brought a ghost of a smile to Peter's lips. "I did do it for you. And you know what? I don't care about her anymore. Honestly... if I could have changed one thing about yesterday, it would have been the fact that I pushed you away. I should have done something. I shouldn't have hurt you like that."

"I..." Neal snorted again; appearing chagrined at the mere suggestion that he had feelings. "Who says I'm hurt? That's high school dating lingo, Peter, which I do not speak. Even if it's fun," he added offhandedly.

Peter exhaled heavily. "Neal, stop messing with me. Here I am telling you that I can't stay away from your sorry ass, lord knows why, and you're cracking jokes?"

"Someone's got to lighten the mood."

Peter growled then and made short work of crossing the void between them. He roughly grabbed Neal's arm, to which the thief squeaked indignantly; something about personal space and delicate goods. "You're an idiot," Burke hissed into his ear.

"Does that mean you love me?" Neal's voice; an ever-changing torrent of emotions, was breathless and light. Childish and teasing. Just the way Peter preferred it, damn it, and if this relationship thing was going to work he would need Caffrey as cooperative (submissive?) as ever.

"Yeah," Peter murmured; and Neal's spine collided with the cold stone of the opposite wall. They were in another world, nothing else mattered, Peter's knuckles were knotting in the art thief's stupid, gorgeous, flyaway hair, and it was all so right that the fact that it had once been so, so wrong was somewhat amusing.

Neal managed to let loose a muffled, "Hah, so knew it," before it was quickly swallowed.