I read somewhere that Tim Dekay has always wanted an episode where Neal and Peter are stuck in an elevator. So here I am, going why-the-hell-not. 5. Imagine your OTP getting stuck in an elevator together.
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Suspend Reality: Of analytical detective work they know too well and being stranded together in the elevator.
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Neal guesses he should be grateful for small miracles, that neither of them are claustrophobic or anything just as disadvantaged in their current situation, but really he is stuck in an elevator with Peter.
It's an easy trick to pretend that this is just Peter Burke.
(This is also the same man that has caught him twice before. And sometimes, everyone seems to forget that.)
Neal doesn't know how.
Perhaps Peter may be an even better conman than Caffrey himself. After all, Peter doesn't even need to crack a smile to disarm those around him, he has a gun for that. Neal doesn't know what it is but it is a fact that easily slips, not that Neal allows himself to make that same mistake. Not since that very first time when he has his hands behind his back, caught up in a pair of cuffs with Kate staring at him with real fear in her eyes.
So yes, it is easy to say that he is intimidated when he is stuck in here, a smaller space than the Supermax cell he has survived in for nearly four years.
Neal glances up from his spot on the ground to see Peter with his thinking face on. He suppresses the urge to roll his eyes and asks instead, breaking the silence that has just began to settle between them. "Are you really analyzing me right now?"
He doesn't try to hide the disbelief in his voice, it is choked full of it to cover the fact that he has also been doing the exact same thing.
"Has there ever been a better time?" Peter quirks his head to the side and grimaces at their situation. "There's nothing to do but wait, and it's not like we—not that you can go anywhere."
"Do you want me to try?" Neal raises a brow and gestures Peter to sit down on the elevator floor as well. There is a moment that Peter wants to decline but he is sitting in the next and Neal has to grin at the slightest of influence he has over this man.
"I'll pass on seeing the great Neal Caffrey at work."
"You think I'm great?" Neal throws him a grin.
Peter rolls his eyes and says. "Best thing since sliced bread."
And it is also moments like these when Neal knows exactly what Peter will do with the things he learned from picking at Neal Caffrey's brain, and that is exactly nothing at all.
XXX Kuro
Also, this is posted in celebration of WC's return: TONIGHT!