Title: Welcome to Other Earth
Author: Amory Puck (pucktheplayer on Livejournal)
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: h/c, angst, slash, explicit sex
Pairings: Peter/Neal, Peter/El
Word Count: 1,505 (this chapter)/?
Summary: In a spiritual realm parallel to the world we know, con-man and son-of-a-demon Neal Caffrey is forced to flee his prison cell when he discovers a Satanic plot to take over the physical realm of Other Earth. But when Brother Peter Burke of the Holy Bureau of Investigation chases after the escaped convict into the very realm Hell plans to conquer, he finds a lot more than he bargained for, including Agent Peter Burke of the FBI, another version of him who just so happens to be in love with the demon Brother Peter is there to catch.
Author's Notes: Written as an attempt to do the 25-in-1 Achievement on my H/C Bingo Card for hc_bingo on Livejournal, which means using all 25 prompts in one story. The prompts covered in this chapter are nausea and death. See my Round Four Bingo Card on my pucktheplayer LJ for a full list of the prompts I am trying to cover in this story. :) Please leave feedback letting me know if there is actually any interest in reading a White Collar story with fantasy elements! It will be a serious plot, but with lots of humorous, nutty moments, as you can probably tell just from this chapter, LOL.
o o o
Prologue: Heads Up!
o o o
"This way!" Peter shouted as feet pounded in the darkness. "They went this way!"
"No!" a loud voice shouted back, a sudden hand on the shoulder almost making Peter tumble to the ground. "They went this way!"
"How can you tell where they went?" Peter demanded, doing his best to knock a hand he couldn't see off of him. "It's pitch black in here!"
"I can sense it! Just listen to me!"
Peter snorted loudly and yanked back his jacket, caressing the hilt of his gun. He'd had just about enough of this fellow. "Listen to you? Why the hell should I listen to some freaky priest who dropped out of nowhere waving a Bible like a magic wand? I'm a Federal agent! I run after guys in the dark for a living!"
"Oh, and you think I've never spent anytime in the dark?" the man returned, a furious note to his voice. "I am a member of the priesthood! It's practically a papal mandate that we spend half our days in the dark! Why do you think the Holy Roman Church is stuck in the Middle Ages?!"
"Will you both shut up already?" El's voice came from further down the hall. "She's got Neal! We have to find them before she kills him!"
"What we need is some damn light," Peter muttered, flattening himself against the wall as he fumbled to find a switch. "Hold on, I think I found it…"
The lights flashed on, bright enough to blind, and Peter squinted against the glare as he took in their surrounding. The hallway to the left was a dead end—exactly the direction old priestly pants had been pointing them. Peter smirked. "I told you he wasn't that way!"
"Will you both shut up?" El snapped as she whirled around to face them, her voice high and angry. "You two are such men! How about you wait until after Neal is safe, then you can pull it out and measure then, okay? Neal has to be in one of these offices. There's nowhere else she could have taken him. Let's split up and search."
"I don't think that's going to be necessary, m'am," Father fuckwit said in a dark tone, pointing toward the end of the hall.
Peter's breath caught as his eyes fell on a dark pool seeping out from under the door. No. No, no, no. It couldn't be. No way. It was her blood. It had to be. Neal had taken her down with a letter opener or something. Except… except Peter had shot her with his gun and hadn't seen any blood. Okay, so not her blood… Then it wasn't blood at all! That had to be it. A puddle of split ink, that's all it was. And if there was a deep reddish-brown tone to it, well, maybe the office belonged to a math teacher. Lots of red ink needed there, right?
Peter choked, blinking rapidly as his eyes began to sting.
"No," El whispered, her face as pale as a sheet. "No…"
Swallowing hard, Peter pulled his gun slowly and began to slink down the hallway toward the door, pressing his back against the wall as he went. He reached out slowly, then turned the handle and pushed in one quick moment, ducking back out of the way in case she was to emerge.
The room was silent, however, no heavy, ghostly breathing or roars of fury. The blood was seeping faster now, touching the tips of his shoes. Because it was definitely blood. Peter didn't need to kneel down and look to know that. There was too much of it—the smell of blood perfumed the air.
"I think we're clear," Peter whispered.
"Be careful," El said in a tight voice as Peter slipped into the room.
It was dark inside, though not as dark as in the hall, the moon shining in through the big windows lining the far wall. Certainly not dark enough to hide the sinister splatters painting every surface, or the enormous pool of blood at the center of the room.
Peter hit the lights, then began to gag as sickness rose up in his gut and he had to choke it back down. He'd thought he was ready, but the moonlight had, indeed, curtained the true horror of the scene. The splatters were a sinister mix of reds, brilliant against the white carpet and walls. Striking reds, the color of Valentine roses; bright reds, like poppies in a field; soft reds, stolen from a watercolor sunset; darkest reds, so deep you could call them black, like rotting wood in a dim forest. There was so much blood that it almost seemed deliberate, as if someone had ripped a body apart then spun it around in a circle until the juice of life ran down everything, trickling down walls and seeping into carpet.
In the middle of the room stood an office chair, shining like a crimson painted throne. Blood still dripped down it into the huge pool below, making it obvious that was where Neal had died.
Behind the chair blood was smeared in a trail toward a broken window across the room, as if something heavy had been drug through the puddle and hurled out the window. Something heavy like Neal's body.
Peter couldn't stop himself, tears running down his cheeks as he rushed to the window, shading his eyes from the nightlights of Manhattan as he searched the ground below for his friend. Four years. Four *years* they had worked together and Peter had never told him. He'd been too scared. Scared of what would happen, scared of what it meant… What a coward he'd been, waiting and waiting, as if he had all the time in the universe. Now that time was up, it was gone forever, and Peter had never told Neal that he loved him.
"Looks like a beheading," came a brisk voice, firmly cementing himself the title of 'creepy priest.' Peter gritted his teeth as a hand came down on his shoulder, turning to glare at the other man.
"This is all your fault!" Peter shouted, shoving the hand away. "Before you showed up, we were fine! Everything was fine! Then you drop in and now he's dead!"
"You won't find the body down there," the man said as he peered over the edge, ignoring Peter completely. "She took it with her." He frowned, a puzzled look crossing his face as he pulled back. "The question is: why?"
Oh, *that* was the question, was it? Peter balled up his fist, just about ready to punch this guy a new one, when a choked sob made him pause.
"I don't know why she took it," came El's soft, broken voice, and Peter let his fists fall back to his sides, all the fight running out of him at the sound. His wife stood behind the broad mahogany desk placed in the corner, moonlight and neon signs fighting for a place in her hair as she stood, in front of one of the giant windows, arms crossed protectively over her chest. "But she didn't get the head." A tear spilled down her cheek, light from the window making it shimmer like liquid silver. "Oh, Neal…"
Peter sniffed and wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand as he moved toward her. His stomach was still turning madly, and he was pretty sure that looking at his friend's severed head wasn't going to do much for his nausea, but he had to see. He had to see those brilliant blue eyes one last time.
El made a soft sound as Peter wrapped his arms around her, turning and burying her face in his chest. Peter swallowed hard, focusing on controlling his gag reflex, then forced himself to look down.
Oh, God. Peter had to cover his mouth this time to keep from vomiting in his honey's hair, though under the circumstances she probably wouldn't have held it against him.
Neal's head had somehow managed to find it's way into an open drawer of the desk. Had she put it there after she killed him? Peter couldn't come up with any reason why she would take the body and leave his head in a drawer to be found, but then she wasn't exactly sane, was she?
Tears began to flow in earnest as he looked down at the man he loved, hair matted with blood, severed spine peeking out from the meat that used to be his neck.
Gone. Neal was gone, and he'd never, ever told him. What a fool he was! If he just had another chance, one more chance! God, Peter would give anything to have one more chance to tell him—
"Oh man, my head is *killing* me!"
Peter let out a scream worthy of an eighty year old woman getting hit by an ice cream truck as Neal's eyes popped open and a smile spread across his face.
"Hey, Peter! How's it going?"
That was it. The point had been reached. Peter shoved his wife away and bent over, vomiting all over the floor.