A/N: This story makes reference to another story I wrote, The Fantastical Notion of Being. You may want to reference that story first or at least read the summary if you don't want to be completely confused at the end. Thanks for any and all reviews. You guys are always really kind and plentiful with those and I never say thank you enough, so thank you.
June is a rainy month this year, mild in temperature, with winds that vary from strong to weak to nothing at all, that rain falling down, down, straight down onto Peter Burke's head, and, for once in what feels like a lifetime, not into his eyes. This is how he catches sight of Neal in a rather troubling position across the New York City street: coming out of a shop the kid's far too poor for, all smug and a-smile, two potentially-satisfied hands stuffed in two vintage pockets. Peter knows this look.
This is how it starts.
It isn't until they get to work, to Peter's office, that the conman is suffering the indignity of squirming under his handler's firm and searching hands, and Neal says, "Your suspicions are unwarranted, Peter. And, may I add, this is very intrusive. Whatever happened to-"
"You aren't entitled to privacy or a presumption of innocence, Neal," Peter says, his right hand coming down a little too hard on Neal's hip to be considered a pat. "You're a convict. You just happen to be serving your sentence outside of prison. I shouldn't have to remind you of this." When he comes up with nothing, he growls in dismay and demands, "What did you take?" in a way that implies he is not so much asking the question of Neal as he is of himself. Neal's no longer a person with words and feelings to be legitimately considered, but a puzzle to be solved. No longer a man, either, but an object, or a child, something to be manhandled, because Peter grabs the guy around the hips and turns him around, sternly bores into those blue eyes mocking him with that false innocence for several moments before he sighs. Then, calm, with an air of lip-chewing rumination, again says, "What did you take?"
Peter doesn't expect an answer and Neal doesn't give him one. Life proceeds.
"You've been grumpy all month," Elizabeth says the next day, handing him a steaming mug of morning coffee.
"It's been rainy all month," Peter says, and immediately takes a sip that scorches his mouth. His face twists, and his tongue dips into the air for cooling relief, but he eventually manages a smile for his mildly amused wife.
"Careful, hon, it's hot."
"Yeah, thanks, hon. Got that."
Elizabeth considers him. Peter watches her, and like always, with his mind still on Neal, wonders Am I the riddle now? because his wife has a tiny, thoughtful frown on her face, like she can't figure him out and that's odd, Peter thinks, because she always has him figured out. El is smart and Peter is easy to read, it's Neal who—
"About this Neal thing…"
Ah, so it is Neal. Peter is relieved.
"I've had enough of his tomfoolery," Peter grumbles from the brim of his mug, and El barks a laugh.
"Tomfoolery?" she says. "Really?"
"Really. Kid's full of it."
"Full of tomfoolery? Or does 'it' refer to his self-assuredness while spouting off lie after lie after lie-"
"Wait. How many lies do you know about?" Peter says, his eyes wide as he looks at his wife. "Because I was referring to him being full of tomfoolery."
She laughs, probably at his face, but he doesn't care. She's adorable.
"I was being hypothetical, sweetie. Neal doesn't come over here and confess all his misdeeds to me while you're hard at work, I promise. Besides, he's capable of a lot of things, but I don't think he's capable of being in two places at once."
Peter narrows his eyes. "We don't know that for sure."
And El laughs again and it's loud and like a song. She squeezes his shoulder with a hand and kisses his right temple.
"I'm glad you find me so amusing." She smiles big, opens her mouth to contradict him, but he waves her placations away. "I know, I know. It's because I'm just too damn cute."
"Damn straight," she agrees, and leans over to plant a kiss on his lips. "Mmm." She leans back, plants a hand on his cheek and taps him lightly with her palm. "Now what I was going to say was maybe you should lighten up a little."
"Lighten up?" Peter asks, as if he's unsure that those words just came out of her mouth.
"He's going to think you don't trust him."
"He knows I don't trust him."
"And how do you think that makes him feel? Is knowing he doesn't have your trust a good motivation for trying to acquire it?"
"I don't see why not."
"Peter." She laughs again, but not just because he's cute. He recognizes this as her patented Peter-You're-So-Clueless laugh. He guesses he looks a little put out because she puts a hand on his knee and there's a small apology in her eyes. "Hon, it's just…honey. You'll catch Neal better with honey than with vinegar."
Ah. Time to play up the clueless thing. "I don't remember using either last time. Or the time before that. Caught him well enough. Twice."
She snorts this time, says, "And I know you're really proud of that, baby, but maybe instead of making it clear to Neal that he doesn't have your trust, you should just try putting a hand on his shoulder, looking him in the eye, and saying, "Neal, I don't know what you're up to, but I'm trusting you to not do anything I wouldn't approve of."
Peter blinks at her.
El shakes her head and sighs. "Peter, maybe he'll think it over and do the right thing if you're positive about it. If you tell him you trust him, it's more likely that he'll try his very best to keep that trust. It would mean a lot him."
Now, how does she know that? "How do you know that?"
She smacks him lightly on the cheek. "Because he looks up to you, dummy. Just tell me you'll try it."
Peter takes her hand away from his face and kisses it before going back to his coffee. He says, "I'll try it.
He tries it.
The next day at work he stands outside of his office. The vantage point gives him an outlook of the lower level of the White Collar unit, of Jones and Diana and various junior agents, interns and the like hard at work filing reports and getting things organized, getting things done. Neal is at his desk, feet propped up next to a stack of files that may or may not have been looked over. He's slouched in his chair, his hat tipped over his face and covering his eyes. Peter sucks in a deep breath and lets it out, because here it goes.
Here it goes.
He descends the stairs and walks deliberately over to Neal, puts a hand on the guy's shoulder.
Neal groans, removes his feet from his desk and the hat from his head. Peter takes a seat on the newly opened surface, looks into Neal's tired, though curious eyes and begins. "Neal…" Something gets caught in his throat. He clears it, thinks, C'mon, Peter, just like Elizabeth told you. "Neal, I don't know what you're up to, but-"
"I'm not up to anything," Neal says, annoyed. He jerks his shoulder back and out of Peter's gentle grip.
This is going well.
Peter puts two hands up in surrender, waits to see the consent in Neal's eyes before returning the palm to the reluctant shoulder and continuing, "but I'm trusting you to not do anything I wouldn't approve of." There, he said it. Now what? He swallows, pats his partner's shoulder and asks, "Okay?"
Neal looks at him like he's not quite sure this is really happening, or that he's a little afraid Peter has lost his mind, or both, but he softly agrees, "Okay."
And that's that.
Until.
The rain is coming down hard.
Peter could be warm and at home with his wife. It's a Saturday. It's the weekend. He doesn't have to be here. He doesn't have to be hiding behind the corner of a building, glancing at the stoop, waiting for the door to open to see who's on the other side. He already knows who's on the outside, though, and that's all that matters.
Neal, matching the day and the city like nobody's business, dressed in a black overcoat, his hat on his head, with a black umbrella in one hand, and a suspicious package in the other.
"Neal, kid, what have you gotten yourself into?" Peter mutters to himself, peering at the inconspicuous box Neal's holding under his arm, discreet in every way; size, shape, and color.
He knows how it is when you're being watched, like someone's tickling the hairs on the back of your neck, and he ducks quickly behind the wall right as Neal turns his head, sucks in a calming breath and swallows down the anxiety. This may not be life-threatening, but it's Neal-threatening. The guy's up to something, Peter knows he is, can feel it inside of him like he can always feel when Neal's mischief is afoot, like so many snakes intertwining with his innards, gripping and squeezing them until Peter can't breathe because what if its something bad, something really bad, and this time he can't protect the kid? What if he's failed, and Neal gets shipped back to prison and Peter visits him, has to see him in that orange jumpsuit with lifeless eyes and scars that he can see and scars that he can't. What then?
The door opens. Peter hears the creak of it, and a man's deep, accented voice greeting Neal.
"Mr. Birchmier." Neal's voice is smooth. "I hope you find this to your liking…" And his voice disappears inside the building.
Birchmier. Birchmier. Peter runs the name over and over in his mind, cases upon cases toppling over each other in his overstuffed FBI-indoctrinated brain, trying to come up with something, anything.
Baldric Birchmier. That's one. He's sure of it. Money laundering and tax evasion. An alliteratively-named bastard with a high sense of megalomania that can only come with a name like Baldric. And Neal has somehow gotten tangled in his web. Well, Peter is going to see about this.
"Just you wait until I get my hands on you," he growls to himself, peeking back at the door, waiting for Neal to come out.
Neal exits twenty minutes later, and Peter follows him three blocks before his partner turns around to confront him. How he knew, Peter's not sure, but he knew and here they are, blue eyes wishing to be red, orange, goddamn yellow because they're blazing like so many fires. Peter catches him by the elbow before Neal begins to speak, asks, "You want to do this here or in private?" and the kid shuts his mouth, mulls it over before jerking his elbow out of Peter's hand.
"We'll do it at my place," Neal says, clearly wanting to be in charge of the situation, and begins to walk in the direction of June's, but Peter's not having it, takes a fistful of Neal's coat and pulls him back.
"Nuh-uh. We'll do it at mine."
"Peter." It's not a whine. It's an admonishment. And it's not often Neal says his name like that, like Peter's the one on the wrong side of the law. On the wrong side of everything. "My place is closer. We'll do it at mine."
Peter relents. They do it at Neal's.
"Why were you following me?" Neal demands as soon as the door closes behind them. Peter's not even done wiping the rain from his feet, yet.
He replies, "I think the bigger question is why were you presenting Baldric Birchmier with a suspicious package?"
Neal gapes at him. "A suspicious – wait. How do you know Mr. Birchmier?"
"He's under investigation for money laundering and tax evasion. Now back to my question, Neal. What the hell were you doing, what the hell have you been doing, and why in the fucking hell have you been keeping it from me?"
Neal shrugs an eyebrow at the information. "Huh. I knew there was something about him. Didn't know what, though-"
"Neal."
Neal glares. "The rest is none of your business. I'm not doing anything I'm not supposed to do. That's all you need to know."
"And you would say that either way, so how can I believe you?"
Anger takes hold of Neal's features once again, but instead of hot, he goes cold. There's nothing but ice in his gaze now. "I don't know, Peter. How can I believe you? You said you trusted me and then you followed me. From where I stand, that's the antithesis of trust!"
There's truth to that, but Peter is too into this now. Too deep. Neal could be talking circles around him. Just because he's "not doing anything he's not supposed to do" doesn't mean that he's not doing anything he shouldn't be doing. And Peter's too deep, has too much affection for this kid to see him stumbling back into the hole at this point.
It's that affection that leads him to say this: "You tell me now, or you're on restriction."
Neal blinks at him, gapes, and his index finger, in a seemingly unconscious move, finds its direction turned down towards his anklet. "Restriction is for children. And what the hell do you call this, Peter, if not restriction?"
"Restriction is for bull-headed youth who need to learn life lessons!" Peter returns, feeling his face turn hot in a mixture of anger and embarrassment, because really, he hadn't meant to ground the kid. Just put him on house arrest until he gets it into his head that you can't bypass the law. The law or your handler. Especially your handler. "And your anklet is not restriction at this point in your sentence. It's practically freedom. Don't you see that, Neal? That you can't have it every way?"
"You know what? I don't see that. Because I'm not doing anything wrong. At all. Nothing, Peter. So while I'm doing nothing wrong, I should be able to have it any way I want it. And right now? I want it the way where I'm an adult in this relationship, where I'm not threatened with restrictions or put in time-outs-"
"You were trying to destroy yourself!" Peter feels his head exploding. "I put you in the goddamn corner because you put yourself in front of a loaded gun and practically begged for it to shoot." His heart beats against his bones at the memory. Neal has the grace to look down at the floor and shift from foot to foot, as if sorry, as if chastised, because that was a bad day and he knows it all too well. Peter softens his voice, "These things I do, these things you don't like? These things where you're not an adult, Neal? It's to save you from yourself. You have so little of an idea the consequences you'll bring upon yourself if you get into trouble again. And what are we supposed to do, huh? What are we supposed to do without you?"
Neal mumbles, "It's just prison."
Peter says, "It's just prison for how long?"
No matter how long, it would be too long. Too long for Peter.
Something of this must read on his face because this is what happens next:
"It's…" Neal trails off, lets loose a frustrated sigh. "Fine. It's not Sunday, yet, but fine." He pulls a chair out at the dining table. "Have a seat. I'll be right back."
Peter has a seat, waits impatiently for several minutes while Neal disappears into his bedroom. He's just about to get up and follow the conman back there, to make sure he hasn't found some sort of clever escape route, when Neal finally comes back out carrying three expensive-looking boxes.
"These are for you," Neal announces, setting the boxes in front of Peter. "Happy Handler's Day."
"Handler's Day?" Peter feels clueless, as always. Handlers don't have a day. Handlers have a perpetual pain in the ass. And if some Sunday in June somehow became a Handler's Day, that's news to him – oh. Wait. "Sunday is…" He opens the first box, runs a finger down an extremely expensive silk necktie that he will never wear but always cherish. In secret.
Father's Day.
All three boxes. Prada, Armani, Louis Vuitton. All neckties. All far more expensive than any other item of clothing he owns. He looks up to Neal for an explanation and the guy shuffles on his feet before taking a seat next to Peter.
"I wanted to get you something for always being such a headache," Neal explains, looking at his hands. "I…I just thought…well, anyway, you know the FBI doesn't exactly pay me well, so I got this job as a personal shopper. Ends next week, so you don't have to worry about any more excursions on my part. Unless you want me to stay on to help you catch Birchmier, but I guess that's something we can talk about at another time-oomph."
Neal is effectively cut off by Peter and his arms and that overzealous embrace he catches the kid in. His kid. He'll never say it out loud, and neither will Neal, but his C.I., his partner, his kid. And Neal might be a criminal little bastard sometimes, but he's Peter's criminal little bastard.
"I'm sorry," Peter says, his mouth muffled against Neal's shoulder, and he pulls back to let Neal breathe, ruffles the conman's hair and allows his hand to fall to the table, contact over. "I'll try better," he says, and there's vocal clarity this time, and his eyes on Neal's eyes. "I'll try better to trust you."
Neal smiles, shifts in his chair, but there's something missing now that wasn't missing before. Like he just had something that got ripped away.
El would be proud, because it doesn't take Peter long to realize that it was the hug. Peter had him warm and left him cold and he thinks maybe he should start hugging the kid more often. Just now and again. When he's not being a criminal little bastard. Or maybe sometimes when he is.
"I'll try better to give you reasons to trust me," Neal promises quietly. "So no restriction?"
Peter rolls his eyes, breathes a laugh, and he says, "No restriction."
And everything feels warm and right, like June should feel. Like sunny days are ahead.