White Collar: The Stone of Freyja - Part 1
Title: The Stone of Freyja, Part 1
Author: Serena-chan (hourglass244 )
Fandom: White Collar
Pairings: Peter/Neal, Peter/Elizabeth
Rating: PG (rating will go up as story progresses)
Spoilers: None - Takes place sometime during season 2.
Summary: An ancient relic turns our favorite con artist into a cat.
A/N: I just couldn't resist doing a cat!fic for this fandom. I'm still not entirely certain as to where I want it to go or when it will be finished, but here's what I have so far. (Warning: don't read if you don't like WIPs!)
Also, FYI, Freyja is the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility in Norse mythology. She is often depicted as riding a chariot drawn by cats.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Peter never would have believed it if he hadn't seen it with his own two eyes. Hell, he still wasn't sure he believed it. One minute they had been searching through the victim's possessions - with Peter keeping a wary eye on Neal's hands - and the next his partner appeared to be shrinking. Neal only had time to let out a small yelp before he literally seemed to melt into the ground like the Wicked Witch of the West, leaving nothing behind but a pile of clothes.
Peter stood there gaping like a fish, mouth wide open but no sound coming out. Diana, who had looked up at Neal's cry, was gazing at the spot where the con used to be with an equally shocked expression on her face.
"Oh...my god!" she exclaimed, finally finding her voice. "What the hell - ?"
She stopped abruptly when the clothes on the floor started to move. A high-pitched, muffled cry of distress could be heard emanating from the heap of clothes before a tiny kitten poked its head out.
Peter leaned heavily against a nearby desk, his knees feeling weak. He watched as the small cat - black, he noted - clumsily crawled from the collar of Neal's shirt.
"Peter, look at its eyes!" Diana pointed.
The cat looked up at him, and Peter gasped. He'd only ever seen that sharp blue clarity reflected back at him from one person.
"N-Neal?" he choked out.
The kitten looked back at him and let out a long, distressed mewl.
****
"Tell me you're joking." Elizabeth looked at both her husband and Diana incredulously. When Peter had called her in the middle of the day and told her to meet him at home and to shut Satchmo up in one of the upstairs bedrooms, this was not what she'd been expecting.
"Is this the sort of thing that I would joke about," Peter asked, hands on his hips. Although his stance was defensive, his eyes were pleading with her to believe him.
"I wouldn't have believed it either, but I actually saw it happen, Elizabeth," Diana said quickly, jumping to her boss's defense.
Elizabeth nodded slowly, unable to discern any deception in her husband's face. She then turned to examine the kitten currently perched on her dining room table. Its tiny head was cocked to one side, blue eyes studying her reaction closely.
"Okay...right." She gave herself a little shake, forcing herself to focus. "Neal, sweetie, are you all right?"
Neal's head jerked up and down in an attempt at a nod, causing Peter to scoff, "Of course he's not all right! He's a cat!"
"Calm down, hon." Elizabeth realized that she was going to have to be the rational one until Peter stopped freaking out.
"We think that this is what he was holding when he...changed." Diana pulled a gold necklace, safely tucked into a plastic evidence bag, out of her purse.
Elizabeth peered closely at it. It was an ornate gold chain holding a small gold pendant. In the center was a green stone, probably jade, carved with a strange symbol.
"It looks old," she said at last. "I've never seen markings like that before."
"Neither have we," Diana told her.
Peter in the meantime had pulled out more evidence bags holding Neal's clothing and the contents of his pockets. Having retrieved the younger man's phone from one of the bags, he was scrolling through the list of contacts.
"What are you doing?"
"Trying to figure out which number is Mozzie's," Peter told her. "We're going to need someone to examine this thing and tell us what the hell it is."
"I'll call him," Elizabeth said, pulling out her own phone.
Peter blinked in surprise. "How did you get his phone number?"
"He gave it to me when he swept the house for bugs," she said with a shrug. "We bonded."
"Great, now my wife is friends with two criminals," Peter muttered as Elizabeth left the room to make the call.
Diana pulled a pad of paper and a pencil out of her purse. "I'm going to copy down this design and take it back to the office to do some research."
Peter nodded, mind racing for a possible explanation as to why he and Neal wouldn't be returning with her. "Tell Hughes that Neal and I went home sick. We both had deli sandwiches for lunch. Say it's possible food poisoning."
"That should buy you a few days off," she agreed. "Let's just hope we can get this fixed before then. Can you imagine trying to tell Hughes what actually happened?"
"He'd have us in with the department shrink so fast our heads would be spinning."
"Not to mention launching a massive manhunt for Caffrey." Diana pocketed her sketch and turned to Neal. "Don't worry. We'll get this sorted out soon."
As Diana let herself out, Peter picked up the evidence bag with the pendant, glaring at it as though he could intimidate it into giving up all its secrets. Turning to Neal, the agent held the bag out to him for inspection.
"Are you sure you've never seen anything like this before?" he asked for the second time that day.
The cat - Neal, Peter reminded himself - shook his head no, and gave him a reproachful look.
Peter sighed, "Sorry." He took a seat at the table, locking eyes with Neal. "Diana's right. We will fix this," Peter reassured him.
"He's coming right over," Elizabeth said, reentering the room.
"Did he believe you?" Peter asked.
"I think so," Elizabeth frowned. "It's kind of hard to tell with him." She took a seat next to Peter and reached for Neal, picking him up and cuddling him close.
"Don't worry," she murmured. "You know Peter will find us some answers."
Neal meowed, presumably in agreement, and curled up in her arms. Peter supposed that he should object to the way the convict was snuggling with his wife, but given Neal's current condition Peter found it hard to care.
"He's purring," Elizabeth smiled, looking down at Neal who appeared to be dozing off. "You have to admit, he makes an adorable kitten."
"We are not keeping him, El," Peter said dryly.
They were interrupted from further conversation by a quick rap at the front door. Peter got up to let Mozzie in.
"All right, Suit, where is he?" The smaller man pushed his way into the house the second the door opened.
"In the kitchen with El," Peter told him, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.
"Neal, Mozzie's here," Elizabeth said, gently waking him.
"Mrow!" Neal cried at the sight of his friend.
Mozzie adjusted his glasses, staring down at the cat. At last he took a seat and pulled out a pack of cards, laying out several face-up on the table.
"Neal, Monte Carlo," he said significantly.
Neal wiggled out of Elizabeth's arms and placed a paw on the Jack of Hearts. Moz nodded, putting away the cards.
"Okay, I'm convinced it's him," he said, pointedly ignoring Peter rolling his eyes. "Now, where's this necklace?"
"Here," Peter said, handing him the bag. "Just make sure to wear gloves if you handle it. I don't need two cats running around here."
Mozzie pulled a magnifying glass from his pocket and examined the pendant through the plastic. Peter hovered behind him impatiently, listening as the other man made soft 'hmmm'ing noises to himself.
"Well?" Peter prompted at last, unable to resist any longer.
"I'm not sure," Mozzie said. "I haven't seen anything similar to it. I'm going to have to take this and show it to a few - let's call them 'specialists' - before I can tell you anything."
"Fine. Take it," Peter said, having already considered this. "Just don't lose it, and for god's sake, hurry! Neal and I can only miss a few days of work before people start asking questions."
"I'll be as quick as I can, but only because this is for Neal. Don't go thinking I'm going to start doing you any favors." He looked pointedly at Peter, making it clear that he still didn't entirely trust the man.
"We really appreciate this, Moz," Elizabeth said tactfully.
Mozzie's expression softened as he turned to her. "I'll contact you as soon as I know anything. In the mean time, I suggest you lay low. We don't want Neal to end up as some crazy government scientist's new lab experiment."
Peter decided to ignore that last remark as he showed the other man out. He turned back to Elizabeth, surprised to find her gathering up her purse and keys.
"I need to stop by the office, and then run to the store," she told him, kissing him on the cheek. "Honey, try to be sensitive. Think about how hard this must be for Neal."
Peter sighed and watched her go, feeling a little unsettled. He'd only just gotten the hang of dealing with Neal when he was human. He had no idea how to treat him now that he was a cat.
"I swear you cause me more problems now then when I was chasing you," Peter told his partner in exasperation. "On the bright side, at least now you can't back-talk me."
"Meow!" Neal protested loudly.
"Behave, or I'll start making 'pet convict' jokes." Peter smiled at Neal in amusement. He'd never seen a cat roll its eyes before.
Peter picked Neal up and plopped him down on the couch before sitting beside him.
"Well," Peter began after a moment of awkward silence. "We could try to talk about this, bearing in mind that I'm not great with feelings conversations and you can't even answer me to tell me what I'm saying wrong...or we could watch TV."
He chuckled when Neal looked pointedly at the TV and laughed outright at the noise of protest that Neal made when he flicked on the set and it immediately went to ESPN. He sat the remote on the couch and placed Neal's paw on the button to scroll through the channels.
"Here, you pick the show." He watched with interest as Neal carefully manipulated the buttons before finally selecting a station.
"Antiques Roadshow? Really?" Peter asked in disbelief.
Neal was apparently trying to make a point by ignoring him, so Peter leaned back into the cushions with a resigned sigh. They watched for awhile in silence with Peter stealing secret glances at this companion. He couldn't believe something like this was actually happening. He kept thinking that if he just pinched himself hard enough he'd wake up to find this was all just some really bizarre dream.
Finally, Peter broke the silence. "Well, I suppose this is one way to get out of your tracker." He didn't need to look at Neal to know what kind of look he was getting.
"Speaking of your tracker, I don't think the Marshals will be able to tell you're out of it, but we need to make sure that it ends up at June's before the end of the day. If Hughes thinks you're sick then it'll make more sense for your tracker to stay there over the next few days."
Satchmo chose that moment to let out a long, sorrowful howl at being shut up for so long. Peter sighed.
"I guess the tracker's not the only thing that needs to go to June's. We can't keep Satch locked up for much longer, and I don't want you around him like this. El and I have tried to break him of chasing cats, but sometimes he forgets."
Peter hauled himself to his feet. "I'll pack an overnight bag. I can't exactly leave you alone right now."
Continued: Part 2
Author: Serena-chan (hourglass244 )
Fandom: White Collar
Pairings: Peter/Neal, Peter/Elizabeth
Rating: PG (rating will go up as story progresses)
Spoilers: None - Takes place sometime during season 2.
Summary: An ancient relic turns our favorite con artist into a cat.
A/N: I just couldn't resist doing a cat!fic for this fandom. I'm still not entirely certain as to where I want it to go or when it will be finished, but here's what I have so far. (Warning: don't read if you don't like WIPs!)
Also, FYI, Freyja is the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility in Norse mythology. She is often depicted as riding a chariot drawn by cats.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Peter never would have believed it if he hadn't seen it with his own two eyes. Hell, he still wasn't sure he believed it. One minute they had been searching through the victim's possessions - with Peter keeping a wary eye on Neal's hands - and the next his partner appeared to be shrinking. Neal only had time to let out a small yelp before he literally seemed to melt into the ground like the Wicked Witch of the West, leaving nothing behind but a pile of clothes.
Peter stood there gaping like a fish, mouth wide open but no sound coming out. Diana, who had looked up at Neal's cry, was gazing at the spot where the con used to be with an equally shocked expression on her face.
"Oh...my god!" she exclaimed, finally finding her voice. "What the hell - ?"
She stopped abruptly when the clothes on the floor started to move. A high-pitched, muffled cry of distress could be heard emanating from the heap of clothes before a tiny kitten poked its head out.
Peter leaned heavily against a nearby desk, his knees feeling weak. He watched as the small cat - black, he noted - clumsily crawled from the collar of Neal's shirt.
"Peter, look at its eyes!" Diana pointed.
The cat looked up at him, and Peter gasped. He'd only ever seen that sharp blue clarity reflected back at him from one person.
"N-Neal?" he choked out.
The kitten looked back at him and let out a long, distressed mewl.
****
"Tell me you're joking." Elizabeth looked at both her husband and Diana incredulously. When Peter had called her in the middle of the day and told her to meet him at home and to shut Satchmo up in one of the upstairs bedrooms, this was not what she'd been expecting.
"Is this the sort of thing that I would joke about," Peter asked, hands on his hips. Although his stance was defensive, his eyes were pleading with her to believe him.
"I wouldn't have believed it either, but I actually saw it happen, Elizabeth," Diana said quickly, jumping to her boss's defense.
Elizabeth nodded slowly, unable to discern any deception in her husband's face. She then turned to examine the kitten currently perched on her dining room table. Its tiny head was cocked to one side, blue eyes studying her reaction closely.
"Okay...right." She gave herself a little shake, forcing herself to focus. "Neal, sweetie, are you all right?"
Neal's head jerked up and down in an attempt at a nod, causing Peter to scoff, "Of course he's not all right! He's a cat!"
"Calm down, hon." Elizabeth realized that she was going to have to be the rational one until Peter stopped freaking out.
"We think that this is what he was holding when he...changed." Diana pulled a gold necklace, safely tucked into a plastic evidence bag, out of her purse.
Elizabeth peered closely at it. It was an ornate gold chain holding a small gold pendant. In the center was a green stone, probably jade, carved with a strange symbol.
"It looks old," she said at last. "I've never seen markings like that before."
"Neither have we," Diana told her.
Peter in the meantime had pulled out more evidence bags holding Neal's clothing and the contents of his pockets. Having retrieved the younger man's phone from one of the bags, he was scrolling through the list of contacts.
"What are you doing?"
"Trying to figure out which number is Mozzie's," Peter told her. "We're going to need someone to examine this thing and tell us what the hell it is."
"I'll call him," Elizabeth said, pulling out her own phone.
Peter blinked in surprise. "How did you get his phone number?"
"He gave it to me when he swept the house for bugs," she said with a shrug. "We bonded."
"Great, now my wife is friends with two criminals," Peter muttered as Elizabeth left the room to make the call.
Diana pulled a pad of paper and a pencil out of her purse. "I'm going to copy down this design and take it back to the office to do some research."
Peter nodded, mind racing for a possible explanation as to why he and Neal wouldn't be returning with her. "Tell Hughes that Neal and I went home sick. We both had deli sandwiches for lunch. Say it's possible food poisoning."
"That should buy you a few days off," she agreed. "Let's just hope we can get this fixed before then. Can you imagine trying to tell Hughes what actually happened?"
"He'd have us in with the department shrink so fast our heads would be spinning."
"Not to mention launching a massive manhunt for Caffrey." Diana pocketed her sketch and turned to Neal. "Don't worry. We'll get this sorted out soon."
As Diana let herself out, Peter picked up the evidence bag with the pendant, glaring at it as though he could intimidate it into giving up all its secrets. Turning to Neal, the agent held the bag out to him for inspection.
"Are you sure you've never seen anything like this before?" he asked for the second time that day.
The cat - Neal, Peter reminded himself - shook his head no, and gave him a reproachful look.
Peter sighed, "Sorry." He took a seat at the table, locking eyes with Neal. "Diana's right. We will fix this," Peter reassured him.
"He's coming right over," Elizabeth said, reentering the room.
"Did he believe you?" Peter asked.
"I think so," Elizabeth frowned. "It's kind of hard to tell with him." She took a seat next to Peter and reached for Neal, picking him up and cuddling him close.
"Don't worry," she murmured. "You know Peter will find us some answers."
Neal meowed, presumably in agreement, and curled up in her arms. Peter supposed that he should object to the way the convict was snuggling with his wife, but given Neal's current condition Peter found it hard to care.
"He's purring," Elizabeth smiled, looking down at Neal who appeared to be dozing off. "You have to admit, he makes an adorable kitten."
"We are not keeping him, El," Peter said dryly.
They were interrupted from further conversation by a quick rap at the front door. Peter got up to let Mozzie in.
"All right, Suit, where is he?" The smaller man pushed his way into the house the second the door opened.
"In the kitchen with El," Peter told him, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.
"Neal, Mozzie's here," Elizabeth said, gently waking him.
"Mrow!" Neal cried at the sight of his friend.
Mozzie adjusted his glasses, staring down at the cat. At last he took a seat and pulled out a pack of cards, laying out several face-up on the table.
"Neal, Monte Carlo," he said significantly.
Neal wiggled out of Elizabeth's arms and placed a paw on the Jack of Hearts. Moz nodded, putting away the cards.
"Okay, I'm convinced it's him," he said, pointedly ignoring Peter rolling his eyes. "Now, where's this necklace?"
"Here," Peter said, handing him the bag. "Just make sure to wear gloves if you handle it. I don't need two cats running around here."
Mozzie pulled a magnifying glass from his pocket and examined the pendant through the plastic. Peter hovered behind him impatiently, listening as the other man made soft 'hmmm'ing noises to himself.
"Well?" Peter prompted at last, unable to resist any longer.
"I'm not sure," Mozzie said. "I haven't seen anything similar to it. I'm going to have to take this and show it to a few - let's call them 'specialists' - before I can tell you anything."
"Fine. Take it," Peter said, having already considered this. "Just don't lose it, and for god's sake, hurry! Neal and I can only miss a few days of work before people start asking questions."
"I'll be as quick as I can, but only because this is for Neal. Don't go thinking I'm going to start doing you any favors." He looked pointedly at Peter, making it clear that he still didn't entirely trust the man.
"We really appreciate this, Moz," Elizabeth said tactfully.
Mozzie's expression softened as he turned to her. "I'll contact you as soon as I know anything. In the mean time, I suggest you lay low. We don't want Neal to end up as some crazy government scientist's new lab experiment."
Peter decided to ignore that last remark as he showed the other man out. He turned back to Elizabeth, surprised to find her gathering up her purse and keys.
"I need to stop by the office, and then run to the store," she told him, kissing him on the cheek. "Honey, try to be sensitive. Think about how hard this must be for Neal."
Peter sighed and watched her go, feeling a little unsettled. He'd only just gotten the hang of dealing with Neal when he was human. He had no idea how to treat him now that he was a cat.
"I swear you cause me more problems now then when I was chasing you," Peter told his partner in exasperation. "On the bright side, at least now you can't back-talk me."
"Meow!" Neal protested loudly.
"Behave, or I'll start making 'pet convict' jokes." Peter smiled at Neal in amusement. He'd never seen a cat roll its eyes before.
Peter picked Neal up and plopped him down on the couch before sitting beside him.
"Well," Peter began after a moment of awkward silence. "We could try to talk about this, bearing in mind that I'm not great with feelings conversations and you can't even answer me to tell me what I'm saying wrong...or we could watch TV."
He chuckled when Neal looked pointedly at the TV and laughed outright at the noise of protest that Neal made when he flicked on the set and it immediately went to ESPN. He sat the remote on the couch and placed Neal's paw on the button to scroll through the channels.
"Here, you pick the show." He watched with interest as Neal carefully manipulated the buttons before finally selecting a station.
"Antiques Roadshow? Really?" Peter asked in disbelief.
Neal was apparently trying to make a point by ignoring him, so Peter leaned back into the cushions with a resigned sigh. They watched for awhile in silence with Peter stealing secret glances at this companion. He couldn't believe something like this was actually happening. He kept thinking that if he just pinched himself hard enough he'd wake up to find this was all just some really bizarre dream.
Finally, Peter broke the silence. "Well, I suppose this is one way to get out of your tracker." He didn't need to look at Neal to know what kind of look he was getting.
"Speaking of your tracker, I don't think the Marshals will be able to tell you're out of it, but we need to make sure that it ends up at June's before the end of the day. If Hughes thinks you're sick then it'll make more sense for your tracker to stay there over the next few days."
Satchmo chose that moment to let out a long, sorrowful howl at being shut up for so long. Peter sighed.
"I guess the tracker's not the only thing that needs to go to June's. We can't keep Satch locked up for much longer, and I don't want you around him like this. El and I have tried to break him of chasing cats, but sometimes he forgets."
Peter hauled himself to his feet. "I'll pack an overnight bag. I can't exactly leave you alone right now."
Continued: Part 2