I'm so excited that we have a proper category now instead of sulking around the Misc. category like lost lonely cats. I've been a lurker for years and only recently worked up the determination and courage to start writing and posting. Of course, this two-by-four of inspiration coincided pretty well with my growing love of this little show and I'm so thrilled to be in the company of such delightful writers. Ah, it makes me think of when the White Collar fandom was fresh and young. But whatever, you lovely readers don't really care about my nostalgia and ramblings. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy my little foray into this category with hopefully many more to follow.
He's not entirely sure when it happened. God knows that it wasn't when they first met. He had long ago stamped out that immediate slow heartache that starts whenever some poor slob spills his horrible life story. Yeah, this world sucks, but he's worked his ass off to get to a point where it sucks less and where the past no longer threatens every day to pull him back down to that level. And to do that he's had to block off that place, ignore the silent pleas that come from such helpless situations. If they really wanted to, he tells himself, borrowing from the rich elite he pretends that he always was, they could get out of that place. That place where the kid was when he first came stumbling into an interview with a shitty suit and a suitcase full of pot.
He had told them they need another him. Harvard trained, that was a given. People could get all the law advice they really needed from the internet these days. What clients were really paying for was the arrogance and personality that came from being raised in the culture of exclusivity and no-win scenarios (though he would never admit to possessing enough Star Trek knowledge to make that comparison). People who were bullies because they knew no one would stand in their way and had the connections to twist the law so that they (and their clients) would never pay for using that knowledge. But Harvard was falling down on the job lately. Or maybe it was America in general, given the private opinion he almost uniformly applied to his so-called colleagues, young and old. They had all settled too easily into the stereotype assigned to them, content to play by the bolded rules because it was too hard to read all the small one where the fun stuff really hid. The younger ones were worse because they assumed glory and women and expensive cars were only a few years away, if only they could stick it out that long. They never got it. These things aren't like pensions. They require more work than you can possibly give and then some. And even then, not everyone gets it. The kid doesn't get it at all, at least not at first. Cockiness and seven years of smoking pot obscure his vision. But that doesn't matter, because he's already got most of it.
It's not even a possibility at first sight. He welcomes the distraction from a boring day, nothing more. Sure, he's a risk taker and an adrenaline junkie, but never without stacking the odds as high in his favor as he possibly can first. Also, that part of him that went to go see every single underdog triumph movie that was ever made, no matter how ridiculous the premise, was stamped out when he took care of his past. He's a realist now, and forefront in his mind as this boring day slowly ticks to an end, is that associates are a reflection of their partners. It's not that he's vain enough (okay, maybe a little) to care that much about how his new little office rat is going to look. But whoever they are, they have to be amazing, beyond reproach. A united front, made up of two completely competent components, to face the world and show that he has perfect judgment and an eye towards growth. None of this sandbagging shit that sometimes went on with picking a perfectly hopeless candidate and trying to prove that you could get them up to snuff (those brats always crashed and burned after the second month anyways). At first sight the kid looked just like another sandbag. Dressed like he knew that angle and was trying to play it hard. But once the full story came out, he just couldn't let go it or the kid. His gut was niggling like a firehouse alarm bell at three in the morning and his boredom was ready to let himself get caught watching some classy porn just to watch the various reactions of the little stuff shirts that had been tramping in front of him all day. Sometimes being bored is worse than being high or drunk.
Dog metaphors for associates are nothing new. They trot around being the older ones, cowering in submissiveness, full to the brim with annoying eagerness and vigor, and always alert and wound tightly to spring off in response to that first assignment. But they soon toughen up and become omegas, lounging around all day, snarling at each other for the most attention, the best cases, the easiest assignments, and most of all oozing desperation to be among the alphas and back on top like they were in high school. The start might have been here, now that he actually thinks about it. The kid just never seemed to grow out of the puppy phase. Even worse is that it was an abused puppy phase, full of equal parts snapping his teeth at all the wrong people just to prove that he could and cowering from anyone who might have been able to help. But no matter what, the kid always stuck near him, oozing the same kind of desperation his pears put out but for a multitude of different reasons. You could only stay resilient and uncaring for so long when confronted with a face like that. But he was reluctant to actually act and let the kid feel a little warmth for once. Bad enough that there was a crude drawing of a German Shepherd and a Golden Retriever puppy that was obviously the two of them locked in his top drawer (bequeathed from an amused Donna who had confiscated it from one of the less competent paralegals).
So it starts there, a tiny seed, and grows. Sometimes in tiny steps, gentle nudges wrapped up in sarcasm and lectures and frown lines, and sometimes in large ones, like the whole incident with Trevor. Eventually the kid stops mouthing off about him not-really-really-caring and starts believing his own claims (it doesn't stop him from getting a smug and slightly relieved gleam in his eye every time Lewis comes over to bellow at his unprotected and unfortunate colleagues). They're a team and a damn good one, catching the eyes of other firms and thoughtful, patronizing partners. But despite the growth, the individual moments and the accolades they've won and the praise Jessica throws at him with the thoughtful quirk of her excellently groomed eyebrows, he still wonders when Mike stopped being a cure for boredom and started being his new little brother.
(Probably about that time Donna got them dog plushies for Christmas and the kid didn't even look confused. Damn memory).