Fic: White Collar, untitled, MTF!Neal (rough draft)
Gotta say I'm not too sure about this one. The muse just kind of stream-of-consciousness-ed it when I thought I was gonna be writing something else entirely, to the point where it literally took me ten minutes to realize what had happened. Which normally is the best kind of writing, but I don't know. However, I don't think I'm gonna get around to rewriting it any time soon (muse doesn't look like she'll be back to help out) -- and if I do, no big deal, right? Since it got the thumbs-up from Zera, I figured there was no harm in posting it (here, at least; whitecollarfic and the transfic list will be getting anything I actually like enough to share that widely). Anyway, merry Christmas, Zera. ETA: Crossposted.
Most days, Neal takes it as a compliment. It’s a compliment to his abilities as a liar, that he can hide everything beneath the surface with a big superficial smile and a joke. It’s a compliment to how good a con artist he is that his whole life has become one long con.
Really, it is.
So Neal tries to take that as complimentary, flattering, an ego boost.
But it’s killing him one day at a time.
He wishes someone would figure him out.
On his most hopeful days, he wishes in particular for that person to be Peter Burke. Peter had caught him before, after all. Is it too much to ask that Peter be the one to see under his fake smiles and false good cheer and pretend bravado?
But Neal is too good at the con.
Neal thinks Elizabeth might suspect, might have seen inside him when he accidentally let his guard down because he thought no one was watching (Neal’s sick of performing for everyone, everything always an act). It’s one of the reasons he likes being around her, now, even more - it’s like they share a secret, Neal’s secret, one that no one else knows, and he enjoys the rush that she might know it.
With her husband, he has to pretend again, because they’re close, but not that close - some things still don’t-ask-don’t-tell with them, and this more than most - and because of course it would never be Peter Burke, to figure it out himself, like Neal wishes to himself on those hopeful days that come less and less often, because the Universe, or God, or Fate, or Whatever, must dislike Neal Caffrey.
Not like that was ever in question, though, given the nature of Neal’s secret.
Neal’s tried to make the best of it, sent a hearty “screw you” to the Universe and survived prison, somehow, and before that, puberty, a whole other kind of prison, just to prove it could be done.
But the more time Neal spends with Elizabeth seeing through his mask of a body, through his carefully-constructed disguise of a life, the more he thinks he no longer can.
Can’t survive it anymore, can’t take the lies and pretending about the one thing that really matters.
He’d always liked being around people, being social, turning strangers into new friends, new enemies, new marks. But he wants to take off the mask and be who Neal Caffrey really is.
She just hopes the con wasn’t good enough that no one believes her.
ETA: Part 2.
Most days, Neal takes it as a compliment. It’s a compliment to his abilities as a liar, that he can hide everything beneath the surface with a big superficial smile and a joke. It’s a compliment to how good a con artist he is that his whole life has become one long con.
Really, it is.
So Neal tries to take that as complimentary, flattering, an ego boost.
But it’s killing him one day at a time.
He wishes someone would figure him out.
On his most hopeful days, he wishes in particular for that person to be Peter Burke. Peter had caught him before, after all. Is it too much to ask that Peter be the one to see under his fake smiles and false good cheer and pretend bravado?
But Neal is too good at the con.
Neal thinks Elizabeth might suspect, might have seen inside him when he accidentally let his guard down because he thought no one was watching (Neal’s sick of performing for everyone, everything always an act). It’s one of the reasons he likes being around her, now, even more - it’s like they share a secret, Neal’s secret, one that no one else knows, and he enjoys the rush that she might know it.
With her husband, he has to pretend again, because they’re close, but not that close - some things still don’t-ask-don’t-tell with them, and this more than most - and because of course it would never be Peter Burke, to figure it out himself, like Neal wishes to himself on those hopeful days that come less and less often, because the Universe, or God, or Fate, or Whatever, must dislike Neal Caffrey.
Not like that was ever in question, though, given the nature of Neal’s secret.
Neal’s tried to make the best of it, sent a hearty “screw you” to the Universe and survived prison, somehow, and before that, puberty, a whole other kind of prison, just to prove it could be done.
But the more time Neal spends with Elizabeth seeing through his mask of a body, through his carefully-constructed disguise of a life, the more he thinks he no longer can.
Can’t survive it anymore, can’t take the lies and pretending about the one thing that really matters.
He’d always liked being around people, being social, turning strangers into new friends, new enemies, new marks. But he wants to take off the mask and be who Neal Caffrey really is.
She just hopes the con wasn’t good enough that no one believes her.
ETA: Part 2.