Fic: The Pragmatist - White Collar/Inception(/Red), PG-13
Title: The Pragmatist
Fandoms: White Collar/Inception
Characters: Neal, Arthur (fraternal twins!AU), various
Rating: PG
Warning: Implications of m/m and m/f/m relationships; mentions of violence.
Author’s Note: This is my response to tigriswolf‘s prompt at comment_fic.
Summary: Neal is hurt on an undercover mission and Arthur goes on a rampage of revenge.
Once could be a coincidence. The day they get the name of the bagman who blew Neal’s cover is the day Metro police pull the guy out of the harbor. That day they’re still waiting to find out if Neal will for Neal to wake up, and Peter’s hasn’t slept in forty-eight hours. He doesn’t make the connection.
The second time it happens, Neal’s eyelids fluttered. That will sound stupid, looking back later and talking about it, but at the time it feels like the most important thing in the world. Peter pretends he’s sniffling because he’s caught something, spending so much time in a hospital, and Elizabeth cries unashamedly. Mozzie turns to stare at the skyline he’s ignored for the past six days, and Jones and Diana grin until their lips must hurt.
The five o’clock news reports a breaking and entering that left one man dead. The guy was a bookie for Bergman, the man Neal was helping them take down when Bergman caught wind of the sting and had Neal shot.
Nobody pays the reports any attention.
The third death finally catches Peter’s notice. Maybe because it comes right alongside the fourth, fifth, and sixth deaths involving connections of Bergman’s in the last eight days.
A faulty gas line, the police say, when Peter talks to them. A freak explosion. They don’t know why these four men were alone in the bar when it happened. The bar’s owner can’t be reached for questioning - that worries Peter. There isn’t a single sign of foul play. That worries Peter more. Coincidences don’t happen repeatedly over the span of two weeks. They certainly don’t happen in occasional groupings.
By the time Neal opens his eyes for real, the bodies have started piling up around the city. Peter can’t prove it, but he thinks that the shoot-out in Philly (leaving seven dead) is related, as is the rash of “home burglaries” in Brooklyn (five more men died in those, total). The Bureau has been on the case since the “freak explosion”, shuffling the case between departments. Organized Crime, Homicide, even Domestic Terrorism after a sniper’s bullets took down three men in front of the Federal building. Turns out, they were three of Bergman’s lieutenants.
Hughes won’t let White Collar Crimes pursue any leads. Bergman was their target first, but now the case is too personal. Peter knows he couldn’t argue the decision if he felt up to it - he and El have been dividing their time between working minimal hours at their respective offices, stopping in at home, and sharing Neal Watch with Mozzie.
Mozzie and… the other perpetual late-night visitor of Room 318.
Peter only catches glimpses of him at first - a silhouette at the end of a corridor, turning a corner; a suit jacket left draped over a hospital chair that isn’t Neal’s (Yes, Peter checked it for clues, almost had it tested for DNA; he found nothing.) After the initial terror that this man has come to do to Neal what has been done to just about everyone else who’s ever worked for Bergman, Peter stopped rushing into every crowd he sees the mystery man slip into; he’s stopped circling back to the hospital after he’s already finished a shift, hoping to catch him while he’s visiting Neal.
But Peter’s still curious. He’s still worried. Mozzie’s staying mum, acts like he doesn’t know who Peter could be talking about (and badly), and Peter’s ready to ask Neal about it - something he promised himself he wouldn’t do. Neal’s not up for questions right now. He’s barely spoken three sentences since the shooting.
Luckily, Peter walks into Neal’s room one day, shutting the door behind him as usual - before he notices the man sitting still and silent in one corner of the room - and finds questions waiting for him.
Or…
Unluckily, depending upon whether or not you’re aware of Peter’s blood pressure at the moment. He’s almost startled into reaching for his gun.
The man puts up his hands and, in a smooth accented voice, says, “Now, now, Agent Burke. No need for more bullets flying around here. I come in peace.”
Peter isn’t comforted. The only reason he keeps his gun holstered is that Neal’s bed, and Neal - sleeping - lie between him and the mystery man, and if guns are drawn there’s no way things end well.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” There was no name on the visitor’s sign-in sheet at the nurse’s station. There never is when Neal’s other mystery visitor visits, either, but this man isn’t him. He’s broader in the shoulders with lighter-colored hair. The other visitor is- Well, he’s a lot like Neal. He has Neal’s build, Neal’s dark hair…
“I’m a good Samaritan looking to end the bloodbath you may or may not have noticed going on in your city,” this man says. The words could be sarcastic - a professional dig. Peter gets the feeling that this man knows exactly who he is and who he works for.
But the man’s tone isn’t sarcastic and his eyes are actually- He actually looks sympathetic. And he says as much. “I’m not being facetious, darling. I know you’ve had your hands full, worrying over our Neal here. We appreciate it.”
Peter’s mind spins to make some sense of what’s being said. ‘Our Neal?’ Peter thinks. ‘Who is we?’
But the man looks down at Neal and somehow Peter just knows… His heart rate starts to slow back down to something approaching normal. Neal’s not in danger here, not at the moment. “Who are you to him?” Peter settles on asking.
“I’m Eames. I’m… a friend.” Then a little fire comes into Eames’s eyes and he says, “And I’m here to tattle on his brother for getting his fool self shot trying to avenge all this.” Eames makes a universal gesture at the room and the hospital equipment in it, monitoring Neal’s progress or standing by should he regress for some reason.
“His brother?” Eames - seeing now that Peter isn’t likely to shoot him or call security, Peter supposes - sits back down, and Peter follows his cue, sinking into the chair on his side of Neal’s bed. He can’t really handle this many surprises, all at once, standing up. Not on the amount of sleep and stress he’s been getting lately. “His brother is-” Peter’s going to say ‘the one who’s been visiting him off the record’, not quite moving on to the second surprise Eames has just given him, but Eames stops him with a sharp look.
“Well. I haven’t really said he’s done anything, now have I? Except get himself hurt.” Peter’s much too captivated by the shadows in Eames’s eyes, the discovery of Neal’s having a brother to scoff at that. Even if he weren’t, there’s not a lot of room in Peter right now for sympathy for a bunch of dead gangsters and their lackeys. Concern for Neal has filled up that space. Even Peter’s concern for the law - his job, his passion - has paled in comparison. He makes himself not think about it right now, too much. The “bloodbath”, as Eames called it, that someone has been waging… The suggestion that one man could be behind it… “Tried to tell him Junior wouldn’t like it… Waking up and Johnny boy being dead or arrested,” Eames is saying, making only partial sense. He looks at Peter as if for agreement. “But you know what they’re like. What would Neal do if it were his brother in hospital, fighting for his life? You think you could talk him out of doing something stupid?”
Peter likes to think so. He likes to think that Neal is more or less a sensible person, when temptation isn’t clouding his judgment. Peter talked Neal down from shooting Fowler, back when Neal was torn up about Kate. But that had been Kate. Who, with no offense intended towards the dearly departed, Peter had never truly considered worthy of Neal. What would Neal do in the name of someone like this “Johnny boy” Eames has mentioned? Someone who would fight (and kill?) and bleed for Neal? What would Neal do if it were Mozzie he had to avenge? Or June or El? Or Peter?
“Probably not,” Peter admits.
“Then you’ll help me,” Eames says, sounding more like he’s stating a fact than making a request. Peter takes a good look at him - in more than the identifying-height-weight-nationality capacity that’s become habit to Peter as an FBI agent. Eames looks about as bad off as Peter in the sleep department, maybe worse. There’s something haggard about him that doesn’t seem quite natural. There are shadows beneath his eyes and his clothes look lived in. Has he been running himself ragged over Neal? Peter feels a jealous pang at the thought - a reflex El’s helped him stop being ashamed of, though it still makes him feel sheepish. Or is it Neal’s brother that this Eames is losing sleep over? He seems to have come to Peter on Johnny’s behalf.
“Alright.”
“Think about it,” Eames hisses at him, leaning forward in his seat, eyes narrowed. It takes Peter a moment to realize it’s because Eames has missed the fact that Peter is actually going along with him. “Neal wakes up and his brother is dead, this whole bloody nightmare starts all over. We fucking lose them both. Then their father-”
“Eames, I said alright. I’ll help you. What do I need to do?” Peter would really like to let Eames keep talking. Information about Neal’s brother and his father, all in one day? Neal is very close-lipped about his family. Even now that he and Peter and El have gotten closer, though - admittedly - their current arrangement is very new.
Was new when Neal took the bullets that landed him here. At this point, he’s spent more time since becoming a part of Peter and El’s relationship unconscious than not. There are more important things for Peter to worry about now than Neal’s background.
Eames recovers quickly for being as obviously frazzled as he is. He pulls an envelope out of a pocket in the lining of his jacket and tosses it to Peter.
It’s heavy.
“Everything you need to take down what’s left of Bergman’s empire is in there,” Eames says. Peter looks up from the envelope’s contents, startled.
“Every- Then why would-”
Oh.
Peter gets it the moment Eames smiles at him, a wry twist of the Englishman’s lips.
“Act fast, yeah? You don’t know what my man’s capable of when he puts his mind to it,” Eames says, standing.
Thinking on the bodies that have piled up since Neal’s shooting, Peter has an idea, but he doesn’t argue. He has to fight every instinct he has, as a federal investigator, to let Eames walk out of the room without further question, but he consoles himself with the fact that big cases have been solved on anonymous tips before. With any luck, this won’t be the last time Peter sees Eames, gets the chance to ask him things- about Neal, if about nothing else. And Neal (and Neal’s brother) don’t have the corner market on doing what has to be done to protect a family. Not when the stakes are this high and that family means so much to Neal (and, thereby, Peter).
Peter just has to ask one thing before Eames slips out the door and off to god-knows-where.
“Junior?” he asks. “Why do you call Neal that?”
Eames turns and grins. “His middle name’s Frances. After his dad. Ask him about it, won’t you? He’ll love that.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
With a nod of his head Eames is gone. Peter considers the package in his hand. He’s almost tempted to let it sit… to let Bergman meet the fate that awaits him for having ordered Neal’s death. But then he thinks about the young man who’s taken it upon himself to deal out that fate. He thinks about the risk and the cost he’s taken on and tries to imagine Neal in his brother’s place. Neal ready to throw his life away (literally) on a vengeance that could be obtained some other way, and Peter - like Eames - desperate to stop it.
Peter calls Jones, then sits - holding Neal’s hand - and waits.
[end.]
Author's Note II: I wasn't sure what to call this. For whatever reason, I went with a reference to this poem by Edmund Conti:
Apocalypse soon
Coming our way
Ground zero at noon
Halve a nice day.
(Yes, this is set in this verse.)
Fandoms: White Collar/Inception
Characters: Neal, Arthur (fraternal twins!AU), various
Rating: PG
Warning: Implications of m/m and m/f/m relationships; mentions of violence.
Author’s Note: This is my response to tigriswolf‘s prompt at comment_fic.
Summary: Neal is hurt on an undercover mission and Arthur goes on a rampage of revenge.
Once could be a coincidence. The day they get the name of the bagman who blew Neal’s cover is the day Metro police pull the guy out of the harbor. That day they’re still waiting to find out if Neal will for Neal to wake up, and Peter’s hasn’t slept in forty-eight hours. He doesn’t make the connection.
The second time it happens, Neal’s eyelids fluttered. That will sound stupid, looking back later and talking about it, but at the time it feels like the most important thing in the world. Peter pretends he’s sniffling because he’s caught something, spending so much time in a hospital, and Elizabeth cries unashamedly. Mozzie turns to stare at the skyline he’s ignored for the past six days, and Jones and Diana grin until their lips must hurt.
The five o’clock news reports a breaking and entering that left one man dead. The guy was a bookie for Bergman, the man Neal was helping them take down when Bergman caught wind of the sting and had Neal shot.
Nobody pays the reports any attention.
The third death finally catches Peter’s notice. Maybe because it comes right alongside the fourth, fifth, and sixth deaths involving connections of Bergman’s in the last eight days.
A faulty gas line, the police say, when Peter talks to them. A freak explosion. They don’t know why these four men were alone in the bar when it happened. The bar’s owner can’t be reached for questioning - that worries Peter. There isn’t a single sign of foul play. That worries Peter more. Coincidences don’t happen repeatedly over the span of two weeks. They certainly don’t happen in occasional groupings.
By the time Neal opens his eyes for real, the bodies have started piling up around the city. Peter can’t prove it, but he thinks that the shoot-out in Philly (leaving seven dead) is related, as is the rash of “home burglaries” in Brooklyn (five more men died in those, total). The Bureau has been on the case since the “freak explosion”, shuffling the case between departments. Organized Crime, Homicide, even Domestic Terrorism after a sniper’s bullets took down three men in front of the Federal building. Turns out, they were three of Bergman’s lieutenants.
Hughes won’t let White Collar Crimes pursue any leads. Bergman was their target first, but now the case is too personal. Peter knows he couldn’t argue the decision if he felt up to it - he and El have been dividing their time between working minimal hours at their respective offices, stopping in at home, and sharing Neal Watch with Mozzie.
Mozzie and… the other perpetual late-night visitor of Room 318.
Peter only catches glimpses of him at first - a silhouette at the end of a corridor, turning a corner; a suit jacket left draped over a hospital chair that isn’t Neal’s (Yes, Peter checked it for clues, almost had it tested for DNA; he found nothing.) After the initial terror that this man has come to do to Neal what has been done to just about everyone else who’s ever worked for Bergman, Peter stopped rushing into every crowd he sees the mystery man slip into; he’s stopped circling back to the hospital after he’s already finished a shift, hoping to catch him while he’s visiting Neal.
But Peter’s still curious. He’s still worried. Mozzie’s staying mum, acts like he doesn’t know who Peter could be talking about (and badly), and Peter’s ready to ask Neal about it - something he promised himself he wouldn’t do. Neal’s not up for questions right now. He’s barely spoken three sentences since the shooting.
Luckily, Peter walks into Neal’s room one day, shutting the door behind him as usual - before he notices the man sitting still and silent in one corner of the room - and finds questions waiting for him.
Or…
Unluckily, depending upon whether or not you’re aware of Peter’s blood pressure at the moment. He’s almost startled into reaching for his gun.
The man puts up his hands and, in a smooth accented voice, says, “Now, now, Agent Burke. No need for more bullets flying around here. I come in peace.”
Peter isn’t comforted. The only reason he keeps his gun holstered is that Neal’s bed, and Neal - sleeping - lie between him and the mystery man, and if guns are drawn there’s no way things end well.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” There was no name on the visitor’s sign-in sheet at the nurse’s station. There never is when Neal’s other mystery visitor visits, either, but this man isn’t him. He’s broader in the shoulders with lighter-colored hair. The other visitor is- Well, he’s a lot like Neal. He has Neal’s build, Neal’s dark hair…
“I’m a good Samaritan looking to end the bloodbath you may or may not have noticed going on in your city,” this man says. The words could be sarcastic - a professional dig. Peter gets the feeling that this man knows exactly who he is and who he works for.
But the man’s tone isn’t sarcastic and his eyes are actually- He actually looks sympathetic. And he says as much. “I’m not being facetious, darling. I know you’ve had your hands full, worrying over our Neal here. We appreciate it.”
Peter’s mind spins to make some sense of what’s being said. ‘Our Neal?’ Peter thinks. ‘Who is we?’
But the man looks down at Neal and somehow Peter just knows… His heart rate starts to slow back down to something approaching normal. Neal’s not in danger here, not at the moment. “Who are you to him?” Peter settles on asking.
“I’m Eames. I’m… a friend.” Then a little fire comes into Eames’s eyes and he says, “And I’m here to tattle on his brother for getting his fool self shot trying to avenge all this.” Eames makes a universal gesture at the room and the hospital equipment in it, monitoring Neal’s progress or standing by should he regress for some reason.
“His brother?” Eames - seeing now that Peter isn’t likely to shoot him or call security, Peter supposes - sits back down, and Peter follows his cue, sinking into the chair on his side of Neal’s bed. He can’t really handle this many surprises, all at once, standing up. Not on the amount of sleep and stress he’s been getting lately. “His brother is-” Peter’s going to say ‘the one who’s been visiting him off the record’, not quite moving on to the second surprise Eames has just given him, but Eames stops him with a sharp look.
“Well. I haven’t really said he’s done anything, now have I? Except get himself hurt.” Peter’s much too captivated by the shadows in Eames’s eyes, the discovery of Neal’s having a brother to scoff at that. Even if he weren’t, there’s not a lot of room in Peter right now for sympathy for a bunch of dead gangsters and their lackeys. Concern for Neal has filled up that space. Even Peter’s concern for the law - his job, his passion - has paled in comparison. He makes himself not think about it right now, too much. The “bloodbath”, as Eames called it, that someone has been waging… The suggestion that one man could be behind it… “Tried to tell him Junior wouldn’t like it… Waking up and Johnny boy being dead or arrested,” Eames is saying, making only partial sense. He looks at Peter as if for agreement. “But you know what they’re like. What would Neal do if it were his brother in hospital, fighting for his life? You think you could talk him out of doing something stupid?”
Peter likes to think so. He likes to think that Neal is more or less a sensible person, when temptation isn’t clouding his judgment. Peter talked Neal down from shooting Fowler, back when Neal was torn up about Kate. But that had been Kate. Who, with no offense intended towards the dearly departed, Peter had never truly considered worthy of Neal. What would Neal do in the name of someone like this “Johnny boy” Eames has mentioned? Someone who would fight (and kill?) and bleed for Neal? What would Neal do if it were Mozzie he had to avenge? Or June or El? Or Peter?
“Probably not,” Peter admits.
“Then you’ll help me,” Eames says, sounding more like he’s stating a fact than making a request. Peter takes a good look at him - in more than the identifying-height-weight-nationality capacity that’s become habit to Peter as an FBI agent. Eames looks about as bad off as Peter in the sleep department, maybe worse. There’s something haggard about him that doesn’t seem quite natural. There are shadows beneath his eyes and his clothes look lived in. Has he been running himself ragged over Neal? Peter feels a jealous pang at the thought - a reflex El’s helped him stop being ashamed of, though it still makes him feel sheepish. Or is it Neal’s brother that this Eames is losing sleep over? He seems to have come to Peter on Johnny’s behalf.
“Alright.”
“Think about it,” Eames hisses at him, leaning forward in his seat, eyes narrowed. It takes Peter a moment to realize it’s because Eames has missed the fact that Peter is actually going along with him. “Neal wakes up and his brother is dead, this whole bloody nightmare starts all over. We fucking lose them both. Then their father-”
“Eames, I said alright. I’ll help you. What do I need to do?” Peter would really like to let Eames keep talking. Information about Neal’s brother and his father, all in one day? Neal is very close-lipped about his family. Even now that he and Peter and El have gotten closer, though - admittedly - their current arrangement is very new.
Was new when Neal took the bullets that landed him here. At this point, he’s spent more time since becoming a part of Peter and El’s relationship unconscious than not. There are more important things for Peter to worry about now than Neal’s background.
Eames recovers quickly for being as obviously frazzled as he is. He pulls an envelope out of a pocket in the lining of his jacket and tosses it to Peter.
It’s heavy.
“Everything you need to take down what’s left of Bergman’s empire is in there,” Eames says. Peter looks up from the envelope’s contents, startled.
“Every- Then why would-”
Oh.
Peter gets it the moment Eames smiles at him, a wry twist of the Englishman’s lips.
“Act fast, yeah? You don’t know what my man’s capable of when he puts his mind to it,” Eames says, standing.
Thinking on the bodies that have piled up since Neal’s shooting, Peter has an idea, but he doesn’t argue. He has to fight every instinct he has, as a federal investigator, to let Eames walk out of the room without further question, but he consoles himself with the fact that big cases have been solved on anonymous tips before. With any luck, this won’t be the last time Peter sees Eames, gets the chance to ask him things- about Neal, if about nothing else. And Neal (and Neal’s brother) don’t have the corner market on doing what has to be done to protect a family. Not when the stakes are this high and that family means so much to Neal (and, thereby, Peter).
Peter just has to ask one thing before Eames slips out the door and off to god-knows-where.
“Junior?” he asks. “Why do you call Neal that?”
Eames turns and grins. “His middle name’s Frances. After his dad. Ask him about it, won’t you? He’ll love that.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
With a nod of his head Eames is gone. Peter considers the package in his hand. He’s almost tempted to let it sit… to let Bergman meet the fate that awaits him for having ordered Neal’s death. But then he thinks about the young man who’s taken it upon himself to deal out that fate. He thinks about the risk and the cost he’s taken on and tries to imagine Neal in his brother’s place. Neal ready to throw his life away (literally) on a vengeance that could be obtained some other way, and Peter - like Eames - desperate to stop it.
Peter calls Jones, then sits - holding Neal’s hand - and waits.
[end.]
Author's Note II: I wasn't sure what to call this. For whatever reason, I went with a reference to this poem by Edmund Conti:
Apocalypse soon
Coming our way
Ground zero at noon
Halve a nice day.
(Yes, this is set in this verse.)