Title: Running Backwards
Disclaimer- I own my characters and the bad guys, I do not own White Collar or any of its affiliated characters. I also don't own the song lyrics
Summary- Set about three months after Worth It? One of Peter's old cases catches up to him with consequences that could land Neal back in prison, or worse.
Rated T- There will be whumping and cursing, and therefore small children should not be reading this.
And if I only could,
Make a deal with God,
And get him to swap our places
~Running up that Hill~
Placebo
Damien Ross was shaking so badly he could barely type. He literally felt as though his fear were sucking the heat out of him. The basement around him was damp and cold; the only light coming from the computer screen that looked like it had peaked in popularity in the eighties.
A clicking sound came from behind him, making Damien flinch. He was all too familiar with the sound of a gun being cocked by now, and he tried not to look at the source of the noise. It would only serve to remind him of what would happen if he failed. Not that he needed reminding.
"Are you finished, or not?" A heavily accented voice from behind asked.
Damien shook harder, but miraculously managed to form the words. "Almost. It's taking longer than I expected because of how outdated this computer is, if I could just have a newer model it would be a lot faster…" He trailed off as a cold, steel barrel pressed against his temple.
"I don't think so," the man said, "You will decrypt the files, Mr. Ross, or you will die. Do not make the mistake of thinking that I am joking."
Damien remained silent, which seemed to please the man. The pressure from the gun barrel was suddenly gone from him temple and he breathed a sigh of relief. Sensing the man's impatience, he turned back to the computer and resumed typing.
The red and blue lights flashed through the window as Agent Peter Burke slipped under the police tape roping off the apartment. A mishmash of uniforms and plainclothes officers stood around the room, most on cell phones or interviewing the few witnesses that had been brought into the room. A few people nodded at him as he crossed the room.
Slowly, Peter made his way into the back bedroom of the apartment. It was almost completely empty, save for a crime scene unit and Agent Clinton Jones. Peter could barely bring himself to look at the scene before him. The bed in the center of the room was coated in a thin sheet of blood, which was dripping down to form a small pool on the floor. Somehow, the pool kept growing larger, regardless of the fact that the donor of the blood was long dead.
The bloody mess could only hold his attention for so long though, and within moments his gaze was drawn back to the body strewn across the bed. Peter repressed a gag as he saw the dark hair coated in blood, the eyes open wide but seeing nothing and he had to turn away.
Neal Caffrey's usually pristine suit was splattered with blood, and his ever present hat lay at the end of the bed, equally stained. Peter looked frantically for the source of blood, but he could find none.
A noise in the background caught Peter's attention, and he drew his eyes away from the gruesome sight. Standing in the blood, his white shoes untouched by the gore, was a face Peter had kept tried to keep out of his memory.
Mitchell Gadson stood in the doorway spinning a small handgun; a large smile lighting up his face. "Hello, Agent Burke," he said.
This can't be happening, Peter though frantically, this isn't real.
An unexpected shake brought Peter back to reality. His head was planted firmly on the keyboard in front of his computer, and he could bet that the keys had left a distinct imprint on his face.
"This brings a whole new meaning to the term 'beauty sleep'," Neal Caffrey said as he fell into the chair across from Peter. "Did you get kicked out of the house?"
"No," Peter answered defensively, rubbing the exhaustion away from his face, "I just haven't been sleeping well lately."
"Maybe you should stay away from drinking five cups a day." Neal eyed the coffee mug sitting on Peter's desk with mistrust. "When was the last time you washed that thing?" He had never seen the mug leave Peter's office unless it was being refilled.
"Shut up," Peter groaned. The dream had left him in an increasingly bad mood, intensified by the fact that it had been the fourth one that week. The other three had featured Elizabeth, Lauren, and Jones respectively in the leading roles, but they had followed the same plot and Peter was sick of it.
"Fine," Neal said, placing his feet on Peter's desk. "But next time, I suggest you catch up on sleep somewhere Hughes can't see you."
Peter glanced out the window to see Hughes glaring at him with ill-concealed disapproval. "Dammit," he growled and looked back at Neal. "I thought you weren't coming in until this afternoon." The clock behind Neal read eleven-thirty, almost three hours before Neal was supposed to come in.
"June's having the apartment fumed," Neal answered airily, "No one inside for the next twenty-four hours, and I really didn't feel like walking aimlessly around my two-mile radius for the next three hours."
"Understandable," Peter conceded, "Do you need a place to stay?" As much as he didn't want Neal staying at his house, he didn't want him staying with one of his old criminal friends more.
"I have a friend," Neal answered and Peter groaned.
"I swear, if one painting goes missing tonight," Peter warned, "You're going right back into prison."
"Sometimes I get the feeling you just don't trust me," Neal joked. Peter smirked and as he got up from his desk, smacked Neal across the back of the head.
"Do you want lunch?" Peter asked, opening the door to the office, "Because I, for one, am famished."
"Sounds good," Neal answered, grabbing his coat from the back of his chair. "There's a great Chinese place down by June's…"
As Peter followed Neal out of the office, he brushed the last wisps of the nightmare away. He had never given much thought to dreams, and he sure as hell wasn't going to start now.
"Mr. Ross."
Damien cringed as the voice returned. He had been left mercifully alone for the last few hours, but he'd known it couldn't last. Thankfully he was seconds away from being done, and hopefully only hours away from being let go.
"Mr. Ross, I hope you won't disappoint me this time," the man said, his voice dripping with mock concern coated in venom.
Before Damien could answer, the computer beeped and files began popping up on the screen. Shoving him aside, Damien's captor leaned towards the screen, grinning widely.
"Print it," the man ordered, pointing at Damien, who rushed to send the documents to the printer. The man almost tripped over the rubbish strewn across the floor in his mad rush to grab the papers. "Get the car!" He shouted to unseen people stationed elsewhere around the house, "We're leaving!"
Damien waited until he could no longer hear footsteps before sliding back to the computer. The files were still open across the monitor, and against his better judgment, he began leafing through them, trying to see what exactly he'd gotten himself into. Courthouse records and witness statements flashed across the screen as he pulled up more and more of the documents, and the more Damien read, the more he realized the magnitude of what he had done. The last file made his heart stop cold, a list of names stretching across the page.
Arresting Officers:
Peter Burke, FBI
Clinton Jones, FBI
Ryan Bishop, NYPD
Mark Hudson, NYPD
Ava Hannigan, NYPD
A/N- I hope you liked it, an I promise the next chapter will be more exciting, and hopefully quicker to write. The first and last chapters are always the hardest, and now that I have a long weekend that is longer than my spring break thanks to the blizzard from hell, I might actually have time to write.