Title: legacy

Fandom: Chuck/White Collar

Warnings: way future!fic; implied character death; AUish as I've never finished either series

Pairings: Sarah/Chuck, Elizabeth/Peter

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 230

Point of view: third

Prompt: Chuck/White Collar, Neal Burke + Bryce Bartowski, they're best friends but they don't know that they were both named after the same man


They meet at Yale, in the library, where they both reach for the same book and Bryce gets there first because he's taller.

They argue over the book, because even though Bryce has his hands on it, Neal explains that he'd entered the library looking for it first, therefore it's his.

Bryce, completely underwhelmed by this argument, makes a counteroffer.

By the end of the afternoon, they're drinking mochas at Starbucks together and mocking passersby, and sharing glances out the corner of their eyes.

They have a lot in common, as it turns out. Neal's dad was an FBI agent till he retired and Bryce's parents once worked for the CIA. They're also both named for a friend their parents' lost, and isn't that just bizarre.

By the end of the week, it's like they've known each other their entire lives, and Neal has talked his mom's ear off about this amazing guy he met, and Bryce has tried to not tell his pops about his new friend but Pops got it out of him anyway.

(It'll be nearly a decade before the Burkes stay with the Bartowskis in the week leading up to the wedding, and Peter will notice that one picture Chuck has of his best friend, and neither of them will realize that Neal Caffrey and Bryce Larkin weren't twins - but it's the story they settle on for the kids.)