A/N: I have FINALLY gotten all caught up on Season 4. Huzzah! Celebrating with a new chapter! Huzzah! Such a relief to not live in terror of spoilers. Instead, I get to move from the mid-season cliffhanger to the explosive finale cliffhanger, which might be a step in the wrong direction for my peace of mind, come to think of it.
He really hadn't wanted to let go of Elle's hand at all, but she was an independent woman who needed both hands to reheat dinner. She said she needed a moment to herself to absorb everything, leaving Neal and Peter to set the table, which they did in silence. Peter noticed that Neal was getting fidgety again, the way he had before when he'd tried to convince Peter to believe.
Then they were sitting down to eat a delicious dinner, which was marred only slightly by the stilted conversation as everyone tried to avoid the elephant in the room. Or, more aptly, the giant black bird. Abruptly, Neal put his fork down and began talking, "He's childish, selfish, conniving, and always hungry. Greedy, and lazy, and very, very smart. When he isn't doing something foolish. He's curious, but he gets bored easily."
"Sounds like you know him well."
"Well enough."
"But you didn't recognize him right away."
"Shape-shifter. He was right when he said I was wrong on both counts - he wasn't a man, and I had seen him before."
It took Peter a moment to remember what Neal was talking about. I've never seen this man before in my life. Neal, for his part, had already picked up his fork and resumed eating, focusing on his zucchini with a fervor the vegetables had likely never seen before (or, given their fate, would ever see again).
"Sounds like you boys have had an eventful day."
Peter filled Elle in with greater detail, with only occasional input from Neal, who continued to avoid eye contact, picking at his meal increasingly slowly and with great care. Eventually, Peter had exhausted everything he had to contribute, and was scraping his fork across his plate to get the last tiny bits of rice. "And that's when he said I'd have to face three tests, and after that he refused to say any more."
"Which is when you came home to find me turned into a dog." Elle brought the conversation full-circle. Her brow crinkled, "Neal, do you have any idea what sorts of shapes the other tests could take?"
"Trying to figure out the way he thinks - there are very few who could manage that. People have tricked him before, typically by appealing to his vanity or gluttony. But that won't help us predict the next test. As far as what he's capable of - he's a master of illusions, transformations, and glamours."
"Which means, what, exactly?"
Neal spread his hands apart, "He turned a feather into an ID card -"
"Wasn't it the other way around?"
"More likely he plucked a feather and disguised it; when the illusion wore off, it turned back. He turned your wife into a dog. He can change his own shape at will, and make you see things that aren't really there. He's effectively immortal; there's ways of killing him, but they never stick. He's been around a long, long time, and yet he stills finds humans endlessly fascinating; we remind him most of himself, and he laughs at our foibles because they are his own."
"And he has kids." Peter put in. Demi-gods were pretty common in mythology the world over, come to think of it, even if the thought that they lived, breathed and walked the earth took a bit to wrap his mind around.
"That too."
"And are they like him? You said Gray could be a psychopomp."
Neal chewed the question over before answering. "They're mortal, flesh-and-blood kids, though long-lived and sometimes with peculiarities. It didn't take a special knife or anything to kill Gray, but it's possible he'd had the painting since it was stolen in 1934. Beyond that, it's hard to say."
"You mean, it's possible that he's the one who stole it. Goedertier confessed, but he was suspected of having accomplices, and nothing was ever pinned on him anyway. Lievens...Lievens could have faked his death, maybe." The implications made a funny flip-flopping sensation in his stomach, "Our killer, setting up the scene like that - could they have known who he was?"
Neal huffed out a long, slow breath. His eyes were heavy with something Peter couldn't name. "It's likely. It fits too well, and I can't think of any other reason to do it that way." He opened his mouth as if to say more, but closed it again, instead choosing to quirk a brow at Peter.
"You seem pretty knowledgeable about all this," he waved a hand about,"stuff."
"It's like I said, I..." he trailed off, and Peter wasn't sure whether he was supposed to fill in the blank himself. If so, he had no clue. Neal took in a deep breath, seemed to hesitate with some internal struggle, before he squared his shoulders and lifted his head. Peter imagined he could see him raking Confidence towards him by his fingernails, a pasted-on smile the only clue that said Neal was ill-at-ease. "The cat's more or less out of the bag now, there's no sense in circling around it." He looked Peter squarely in the eye, "Part of the reason Raven took such an interest in you, enough to poke you with a stick, is because of his familial interest in me."
"Poke me with a - You...He...He's family?" After the evening Peter had had, he really hadn't thought anything could surprise him anymore. It was with a prickly sort of numbness that he carefully set his glass down on the table.
"Great-grandfather, actually. On my father's side," Neal added with finality, as if it explained a lot. Peter thought it rather did. When the Burmese pigeon-blood diamond case had unfolded, he'd learned that when it came to his father, Neal had some serious unresolved issues. He'd imagined the idealist boy Neal might have been, enraptured with his hero father, and wondered what it did to a person to have all that awe and adoration twisted into revulsion and spite. There's... things in my blood, Neal had said, and Peter had been swift to assure him that the sins of the father were not passed on to the son. Now, it seemed that Neal might have been talking about a bit more than that. If I'm not my father's son, who am I?
Then the implications of what Neal was telling him reached forefront of his brain. "Is this how you do the impossible?" He felt cheated, as though real magic could make a con-man into a fraud.
Neal looked as though Peter had sucker-punched him in the gut. His voice was hoarse with controlled tension, "No. No, Peter, I don't have any abilities like what you're thinking of. Not anything that would be useful for my work. Well, my vision, maybe, but that's not something I can avoid."
"Your vision?"
"I have greater color acuity, beyond what other people are capable of. It lets me see the subtle differences between hues that would escape your notice."
"So when I asked Peter which yellow he liked better for the living room and he thought they looked the same, you could have set him straight?" Elle teased.
Neal grinned back, "Absolutely. Too bad you ran out of paint and had to go back and get another batch mixed to paint around the front door."
Peter boggled, "You can tell? I thought they mixed the paint perfectly."
Neal spread his arms expansively as if to say, 'my point exactly.'
"Your bonds," Peter realized, "The way you mixed those inks so precisely... it was incredible."
Neal inclined his head regally before he remembered to stutter out a belated, "Allegedly."
They sat in silence for a moment, and he could almost see the tension gradually drain from Neal as his latest revelation didn't blow up in his face. "So, you can...see colors more exactly. Not exactly a superpower on par with the X-Men."
Of course Neal's pride wouldn't let that one slide. "Well, I can also see a bit into the ultraviolet spectrum." The grim light was fading from Neal's eyes, replaced by his usual good humor.
"You can see ultraviolet?"
"Are you a parrot? Yes, I can, and let me tell you, public restrooms are disgusting places."
"Thanks, but I think I could have figured that out on my own," he answered wryly.
"It's so much worse when you can see - "
Peter held up a hand to forestall him, "I don't want to know."
Elle not-so-discreetly hid a laugh behind the pretext of wiping her mouth with her napkin, Neal twirled his fork absently, elegantly, and Peter leaned back in the moment of silence, trying to fit this new piece of the puzzle into place.
"So…you see the world differently." That slotted very neatly into his understanding of Neal.
"Mmm." Neal leaned back, closing his eyes.
"Always knew your vision was a bit screwy. And is this why you insist on jumping from unreasonable heights?"
"They're not unreasonable." Neal chuffed, one eye cracked open.
"Not if you can fly. Can you fly?"
"No." That almost sounded like a sulk.
"Then they're unreasonable. Neal, stop jumping from unreasonable heights."
Elle cut in, bright-eyed and curious, "Besides magic eyes, what can you do?"
"My eyes aren't magic, they're just structured differently," Neal corrected. He gave a soft sigh, "As for what I can...not as much as when I was a kid - more imagination, I think." Peter felt there was something lacking from that explanation, but he didn't push. "I'm Lucky, you might have noticed that. That's usually... passive, involuntary, like the vision, but sometimes I can affect things deliberately with enough focus. And the psychopomp thing, which I don't do at all. It's like I told you, I'm not a dead-body kind of guy. I don't want to be a dead-body kind of guy. But I could be. I've got a whopping big death omen perched in my family tree, and that's not ever going to go away."
The moment seemed right to reach out and squeeze Neal's shoulder, and Neal met his gaze gratefully.
"That's it, really. I mean, maybe there's more, but it falls within the 'parameters of normal human ability', if you know what I mean. Just...aptitudes, things that I'm good at, have a talent for. I'm good at problem solving and trajectories, and I have a good sense of direction - did I get these from my Honored Grandfather, or is it just...me being myself? I promise you, I am one-hundred percent human. I'm just also one-eighth demi-god."
"I think your math is a little off."
"Not at all. Being descended from Raven isn't something to be instead of human; it's just a little something extra in addition to being homegrown human."
Peter was still processing as he moved mechanically to clear the table. He was still processing when they moved, by mutual understanding, to the living room with their choice drinks. Peter burned with curiosity, and he knew Elle did too. About Neal, about where he came from, about what he could do. He was descended from a god, for goodness's sake. That wasn't something he'd ever expected to learn about his friend (and he was always that, no matter what he did, or who he was). Likewise, Neal had probably never expected to share this with Peter. He had the wide-eyed look of someone who expected the ground to open up and swallow them at any moment.
They sat in excruciating silence for a long, intolerable moment; Neal was rolling the stem of his wine glass between his fingers, and Peter was trying not to stare at him, but also trying not to avoid looking at him, and had nowhere to rest his eyes. The conversation was a doused fire that needed to be slowly coaxed back to life.
"So...why don't you tell Elle that story about the wooden boxes and the light?" Peter prompted.
Neal latched on with gratitude, breaking the silence with a general, impersonal myth story. "Once, in the long ago, there was only darkness. Raven was getting tired of always bumping into things and stubbing his toes, so he decided to steal some light..."
Peter requested a few more repetitions for Elle's benefit, and Neal interspersed those with some short stories he hadn't told before. Hearing the stories for a second time, he could see the parallels between the god who gave the gifts of music and magic to mankind, who challenged authority and talked his way out of (and into) trouble, and the young man who had become his responsibility and his partner. Accomplished thieves who only wanted to enjoy the good things in life, who could do foolish, hurtful things they'd later regret. Who used charm, wits, and trickery to get what they wanted, rather than brute force; gregarious, and clever, and quick with a smile.
After warming up with some more folktales and a second glass of wine, Neal shifted tracks. "When I was thirteen, he took me on a cross-country trip. Hitch-hiking, mostly, and walking. We made it all the way to Colorado, but then he did something to upset Coyote, and we had to hurry back home."
It was the shortest, least-detailed cross-country story Peter had ever heard, but it was an opening.
"Did you always know who your grandfather was?"
"By which you mean my great-grandfather? Yeah, I knew. It was hard not to, at times. He wasn't around much - I'm one of at least several hundred grandkids that he's managed to accumulate.
"I figured some stuff out before he ever made an appearance. My mom...didn't really know anything. I guess my dad hadn't shared a lot with her about what it meant to be ravenfolk." Neal paused, probably looking into distant memory, "He'd come by once every year or two, usually on my birthday. The first time I met him, I was six years old. He told me he was my grandfather, and he took me out to see a magician perform."
"That doesn't sound so bad." It sounded pretty normal, actually.
"He didn't tell anyone that he was taking me for the day. There was...fallout. But the show was amazing, unlike anything I'd seen before. I now realize a lot of it was standard fare, but he had this one trick with a beagle and a spoon that I still have no idea how he did it. See, he started with a watermelon..."
Neal was descended from Raven. Neal was descended from Raven. He hoped he could pass off his staring as being an attentive listener, because he was having a hard time stopping, now that he'd started.
"After the show, I tripped and scraped my knee up pretty badly, but he fixed it for me. He took really good care of me - or he tried to, that day. Always pushing food at me, asking if I was hungry - but he'd pull things out of trashcans or off the road and offer me the first bite, which was...generous...of him." Peter wished he had a camera to capture the slightly-strangled look on Caffrey's face.
In the interest of fairness, Peter and Elle also took turns sharing stories, which contributed to the late hour. By the time the conversation drifted to...not a close, per se, there was still too much left unsaid for it to be considered in any way over, but to...a temporary cessation, it was one o'clock in the morning. Elle drowsily offered to make up the guest bed, but Neal declined, opting to stay where he was on the couch instead. Elle nodded, and fetched him another blanket and a pair of Peter's sweatpants before wishing him a good night and heading up the stairs to their own bed. Peter could barely keep his eyes open as he echoed her sentiments and made to follow her. He paused at the bottom step to look back down at Neal, nested on the couch...If Neal was a little bit more than a man, so be it. He couldn't in all honesty say it was very surprising.
A/N: Fun Bird Factoid: Kestrels can hunt their prey (voles, shrews, small rodents) by following their urine trails - by sight. XD
Please forgive my momentary lapse into ornithological geekery over the avian eye. And behavior, and maybe a bit of life history as well.
***Science Content Begins***
Humans have about 200,000 photoreceptors per square millimeter of retina - birds have between 400,000 and 1,000,000. The more photoreceptors, the higher the resolution of the image - think of each photoreceptor cell as being responsible for a single pixel in a photograph, and birds' eyes are jammed full of photoreceptor cells (though if you're comparing bird and human eyes, it's necessary to take into consideration that birds are also compensating for having physically small eyes - there's an upper limit to the amount of resolution you can get in a thumbnail).
There are two different kinds of photoreceptor cells - rods and cones, which are sensitive to (e.g. respond to) light and color, respectively. When you're standing in a dark or dim room, colors look washed out because the cones in your eyes aren't receiving enough light to be stimulated (they have a higher threshold), but your rods, which only need a little light and don't distinguish color, are stimulated.
Human color vision explained in less than 150 words: In the human eye, we have three different cones, that are stimulated most by red, green, and blue light, respectively. It confused me for years how 'seeing' red, blue, and green would enable us to see all the colors we do, because you can mix those colors any way you like, and you will never get yellow.
What's actually going on is that 'color' is really the wavelength of the light - we measure this in nanometers. So our 'red-sensing' cones respond to red light, in the 500-700 nm range, and our 'green-sensing cones' respond to green light, in the 450 to 630 nm range. Something like yellow (~610 nm), which falls between red and green on the spectrum, is recognized by our brains by comparing the strengths of the signals generated by the two cones.
Birds, being totally awesome (a.k.a. tetrachromatic), have four different cones, which allows each cone to be more specific, and color perception more precise. They make good use of it - the males and females of many species that are indistinguishable to our eyes can tell themselves apart (a 2005 study looked at 139 species of 'sexually monochromatic' species - the sexes can't be distinguished by color - and found that over 90% of them were sexually dimorphic to avian vision!). Many, many birds incorporate ultraviolet coloring into their feathers to show off for the ladies, and there's been some speculation about whether some migratory birds orient themselves using plane-polarized light. And don't get me started on Flicker Fusion Rates (I've almost convinced myself I could work FFR into a one-shot. But then I'd have to convince myself it would be a good idea to do so).
In addition, birds are actually quite brainy, with corvids (crows, ravens, jays, jackdaws, rooks, and nutcrackers) being widely considered the cream of the crop - but even the humble pigeon has remarkable pattern-recognition ability, and have been taught to distinguish between paintings by Picasso and Monet. Clark's Nutcracker have incredible spatial memory, caching over 90,000 seeds in a season - but unlike squirrels, they can return nine months later and find them again. Tool use - long since debunked as a distinguishing feature of mankind by the great apes - has become the focus of interested study in crows and rooks. New Caledonian Crows modify twigs into several hooked tools to acquire insects - and studies have even reported meta tool use; using one tool to obtain a second tool, which is used to retrieve the food reward.
***End of Science Content***
In some ways, this fic started because I watched an episode of White Collar after I had a particularly interesting Ornithology class. Then going back and watching more with my own peculiar bird!Neal headcanon, I just kept adding tickmarks to my list of bird/corvid traits. Things like 'plumage is important aspect of courtship display,' 'well-adapted to urban environments,' 'elaborate caching behavior,' and 'does not like being caged.'
And as a last little aside for those of you keeping track at home: at the time this story takes place, Neal has not jumped between trams, and Peter doesn't know about base jumping with the Degas. When Peter says 'unreasonable heights,' he's talking about the jumping-from-a-judge's-window, swinging-on-a-banner-to-crash-through-a-window varieties.
