I everyone! I'm back with a new chapter and in record time - well record time for me anyhow. I hope all you lovely people are doing well. Thank you so much to all those who reviewed, your kind words make my day :D Also thanks to anyone who just reads my stuff. I'm super happy you guys want to read what I write. This chapter contains a little more fluff than usual, but don't worry the angst at the end evens it out haha. I wouldn't just deliver you'll happy vibes - what kind of writer would I be then? Anyway, enjoy!
Chapter 8
There is something tranquil about Sunday mornings. The kind where the work for the week is done. The warm sun sinks into the earth, embracing the world with a deep, peaceful glow. The Sunday Times is dropped on doorsteps. Toasters pop, kettles boil, birds gossip as they balance on power lines. The city deflates.
Peter and Elizabeth sat together at their breakfast table. According to both of them, this is an activity that occurs all too rarely. Planets align before the married couple manage to align their busy schedules for a sit-down breakfast.
"Pancakes," Elizabeth hummed, slipping her arm around her husband.
Peter shot her a grin, "My speciality." He flips the pancake. Or rather, attempts a flip which results in a pancake half squashed over itself.
He frowned, "it worked last time."
A laugh bubbles out of Elizabeth's mouth and tugs a smile on Peter's lips. Elizabeth is beautiful when she laughs, wrinkles gather at the corner of her eyes and dimples dip in her cheeks. After fifteen years of marriage, with ups and downs and everything in-between, the two loved each other. A choice they continue to follow every day.
Peter glanced at the clock which just ticked over 10:15 am. "Neal's usually up by now," he states. "If he doesn't come soon he's going to miss breakfast."
Another unusual occurrence. Neal was often up early, moving around the house with a stealth that conjured both worry and, not that he would admit, admiration in Peter.
"I'll take over," Elizabeth smiled. "You should go wake him."
"What about the pancakes?"
Elizabeth reached under Peter's arms, turned down the stove temperature which was burning pancake with spots of black and fizzles of smoke.
"I think there better under my care," she replied with a smirk.
Peter's hand covered his heart, spatula still in tow. His mouth widened with mock anguish. "Is that an insult to my cooking?"
Elizabeth wrestled the spatula from his hand.
"I would never," her mischievous grin indicated the opposite.
Hands up in surrender, Peter retreated to the stairwell.
A couple of photos lined the walls in the Burke family household. Many from a younger time. Snapshots of extended family, graduations from college. A much younger and fuller haired Peter peered outwards, his arm hung around his at-that-time girlfriend El. The two had so many plans. But as life continued the photos on the wall stopped. With repetition, there was little they felt worthy of documentation. The empty wall space which would have been filled with photos was taken up paintings picked out by El. They were beautiful, but Peter didn't mind either way. They were better than the grey space of empty walls.
"Neal," he knocked on the kid's door. There was no answer. Peter waited awkwardly outside, before knocking again. When a disgruntled teenager didn't present himself, Peter pushed the door open slowly.
"Breakfast is ready downstairs, where having –," Peter stopped.
The bed was empty. The agent's eyes narrowed with suspicion as he entered.
Neal was slumped at his desk, asleep. His hair uncharacteristically ruffled. His face was smudged with charcoal that hung loosely in his hand. Drawings covered the table. There was no pretence or intention to Neal's posture. He looked young, peaceful. Neal spent exerted so much energy acting professional, powerful, it was strange to see him so open.
As Peter approached he saw the desk was covered with sketches. Beautifully detailed pictures of FBI offices, the park down the road, Satchmo playing out the window. The marks were free and fast. They indicated not a just a still place, but also time, a sense of depth and rhythm that a 2D world usually lacks. Life flourished in those drawings.
Peter slide some sketches aside revealing more. There was one of a short bumbling man, playing chess with a glint in his eye. He seemed familiar, funny, and a little odd. There was an alleyway, with charcoal black shadows that sunk into the desk. Sketches of blank walls and shadowed figures. A closeup of a smile, too wide, too fake, drunk with menace. The image caused a shiver to run down Peter's spine.
"Neal," Peter placed a hand on Neal's shoulder. The kid flinched awake, almost twisting out of the chair.
"Woah hey!" Peter held his hands and stepped back.
Neal's unfocused eyes snapped to Peter and he seemed to regain control over himself. He rubbed a hand over his face and through his hair.
Neal took in a fortifying breath before he relaxed back into his chair.
"Are you okay?" Peter asked.
"You scared me," Neal offered in reply. It was more of a justification than an answer.
"Well," Peter ventured, "breakfast is downstairs, where having pancakes. So just head down when you're ready."
Neal nodded.
Those pictures were beautiful. Peter knew Neal could paint and draw exceptionally well. He had to, to pull of the forgeries he did. But this was a whole other level. There was such depth. It felt close, personal. Emotion soaked through the pages. It was surprising considering how little emotion made it past Neal's mental border security. But some of those pictures, there was an unease to them. Those walls, that smile. Thinking back, the only time Peter had seen Neal's wall break was when he was afraid.
Afraid he was being sent back to jail. Afraid of the face in the hallway. So afraid, this morning, that he almost toppled from his chair. For all the confidence he showed the world, the kid was living in fear.
Peter paused at the door.
"Those are amazing," his hands gestured towards the drawings on the desk.
"There just practice sketches."
"No, seriously," Peter continued, "there beautiful! I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like them."
"You think so?" A small smile grew on Neal's face.
"Defiantly! El would love to see these! I've never been particularly arty but she has an eye for these kinds of things. She did a gallery event a little while back, says it was her best one yet. You could do this seriously."
"I already do," Neal realised his mistake. "Did. Past tense."
"You know I don't mean forgeries. You could do your own original work. Become one of those artists you admire so much."
Neal's face flushed. "I don't know."
"Why not?"
"It's not the same. I mean, recreating art is one thing but this stuff," Neal looked back at the drawing on the desk. "There personal. There mine."
He swallowed the last word as if deciding he had said too much.
That didn't make all that much sense to Peter but he let the subject drop. He wouldn't push Neal. Not on this. Not yet.
The morning that followed was relaxed. The three walked Satchmo to the park. Both Peter and El left their phones, and consequently work, at home. Neal dropped the idea of visiting the gallery of Elizabeth's event into the conversation and El immediately made it her crusade to drag Peter along. The three wandered the halls, El finally with someone who would enjoy it as much, if not far more than she did. Peter kept the two in check.
"Not that way, kid." He chided as Neal went to show El an entrance to the basement artworks. Peter avoided the question of why Neal new all the ins and outs of the art gallery, he could already guess the answer.
Peter couldn't remember the last time he took a full day off and spent it with his family. No mention of FBI or Event Management throughout the whole day. It was liberating, rejuvenating. Had I really become such a workaholic? Peter wondered. The smile that was a fixture on his face a testament to the day he had.
The ceiling of Neal's bedroom had a mark to the left the window, just above Neal's bed. He had been staring at it for the last five minutes. If you squinted your eyes it looked a little like a star, far away in the sky. The kind that one would find in the edges of the city where the blanket of smog pulled back to reveal the smallest corner of the heavens.
A smile readily waited behind Neal's mouth. Not the smile the Neal wore as a mask, carefully manufactured, regularly practised. That smile was one of conjured confidence. This new smile was different. It was crooked, clumsy, and difficult swallow. It just kept fizzing below the surface, itching the corners of his face, begging to be let free. It was impatient and eager. For what? Neal was unsure. He didn't want to consider it. He didn't want to think because he knew that with thinking, whatever this feeling was, it would erode to nothing. Despite his best efforts the thoughts still came.
This is not going to last.
You're not worth this. You know it. Everyone knows it. It won't be long before the Burkes work it out too.
End it now.
Get out.
Leave.
The phone under his mattress buzzed. It vibrated the whole bed. He lifted it when Peter wasn't looking and only one person knew the number.
"Mozzie."
"Neal, you are alive! I was beginning to think you had fallen off the edge of the earth. Which, by the way, you could have. Decades of systematic suppression of knowledge that the earth is actually flat not ro-,"
"Mozzie!" Neal cut in, "not today."
"Are you okay?"
"Yes. I'm fine."
"Your voice sounds-,"
"I said I'm fine Mozzie. Just not in the mood for one of your conspiracy theories."
There was silence on the other end of the line as Mozzie digested this information. He tried to decide if his worry for his young friend outweighed the hurt he felt at that remark. He decided that it did.
"Have you got the intel?" Mozzie asked. He never pried into the kid's business. If Neal insisted on being fine, who was Mozzie to contradict? But he could meet his long-time friend on the turf that their friendship was built on, in the diversion that they both shared: the con.
"Yeah, the basics," Neal relayed the information to his partner. "I still need to do more surveillance, work out what time is best, who's going be there."
"I think we should push forward and go ahead this week."
"What? No. We're not prepared. I haven't even got an exit plan yet."
"That what you have me for; I'm the best in the game." Neal could just imagine the proud twinkle in Mozzies eye as he said those word. "Give me a few days. I haven't been twiddling my thumbs while you play with the big boys. I've been working. I got my hands on the building blueprints, with you on the inside and these in my hands, well, let's just say this con is going to work out easier than expected."
"I don't know Moz. I think we should wait, make sure it's safe."
"Neal." Even through the brick phone Mozzie's voice came through clear and firm.
"I don't know what's going on over there but this isn't you. The suits have you brainwashed. You're not some puppet for them. Why would you want to stay there longer than you need too?"
"There not so bad Moz."
"Not so bad! Neal! They are Sauron to Frodo. They are Voldemort to muggles. They are the US government to Snowden – literally! They exist to encroach on our freedoms and control th-"
"Moz."
"Yeah, yeah. Not in the mood for my 'conspiracy theories', even if they're true, I get it. But that's exactly what I mean Neal! I'm worried about you. You're not yourself."
"Maybe that's a good thing."
"No, no it's not. You don't belong there, Neal."
Neal glanced back towards the mark near the window. Mozzie was right. Who was he kidding? He didn't belong here in this room. Or with Peter and El, or the FBI. How could he?
"Yeah, I know," Neal replied.
"You belong out here, with me!" Mozzie continued his speech. "This is what you were born to do Neal. It's what people like you and me live for."
When Neal didn't reply Mozzie knew he had him.
"When's the best time to strike?" Mozzie asked.
"Thursday night. 10 pm, Alexandra's on and she falls asleep around 9 – can hardly keep his eyes open."
"Add it to your calendar. After the heist, you'll be a free man again. I was thinking we could go to Venice in celebration. I know of a rich art collector there who has an extensive collection."
Neal laughed, "Won't be very extensive after your visit."
"Our visit, Neal. We're a team - you and me. Look, I've got to go. Just stick to plan and everything will be fine. I'll be in touch."
The line went dead. Neal fell back towards the bed, his eyes again pinned on the ceiling. Stick to the plan and everything will be fine. He repeated in his head. Everything will be fine.
That's it for today :) Reviews are on par with puppies and chocolate (yes that is a very high bar to meet) so tell me what you think! Have an awesome day :D BYE