Fic: Especially the Lies (White Collar)
Title: Especially the Lies
Fandom: White Collar
Characters: Neal Caffrey, Peter Burke
Rating: All audiences
Spoilers: None
Length: 2344
Summary: It's all true, even the lies. (A little backstory, a lot of dialogue.)
***
Watching Neal while pretending not to watch Neal was a skill Peter had perfected in the first weeks of their partnership. Now Peter could study the Petrelli case file at the same time as he watched Neal work out the angles before asking--what? He knew Neal's tells, knew that Neal couldn't entirely hide his nerves, but unfortunately Neal knew Neal's tells as well, and nothing stopped him from counterfeiting emotion he didn't feel. Peter waited until Neal came to a decision and opened his mouth.
"Whatever the question is," Peter said conversationally, turning over a page in the file, "I'm pretty sure the answer is no."
"Peter--" Neal's voice was low and pleading, manipulative.
"What is it this time?" He could at least derail Neal's careful orchestration.
"I need out of my radius."
"Of course you do." Kate again, damn it. It was always Kate. "How far out?"
"Boston."
Peter went back to the case file. "I was right the first time. Not gonna happen."
Neal left Peter's office without arguing. With Neal that didn't mean he'd given up, but it might mean that it would take him a while to come up with a new argument. Peter shelved the matter; the next move was Neal's. In the meantime he had a case of embezzlement with a side-order of possible murder to deal with.
A paper landed on top of Lorenzo Petrelli's deposition a few minutes later--an obituary printed off the Boston Globe website. Peter read it and looked up a Neal lounging elegantly in the chair opposite. He was about to demand an explanation when something clicked.
"Neville?" he sputtered instead. Which wasn't what he meant to say, damn it.
Neal shrugged, elaborately casual, even cheerful. "Neville Clarence."
"Ouch." Neal grinned like it didn't matter. Peter tapped the printout. "You don't--you didn't have to ask me. The Marshals could have handled it. You don't need my permission."
"If I'd gone to the Marshals first you never would have believed it wasn't a scam," Neal pointed out.
Which was true, but-- "You've never given Neville up to the Feds," he realized.
"Neville has a clean record," Neal said. "Never even shoplifted a candy bar. 'Course he disappeared at eighteen, hasn't been seen or heard from since, so he didn't have a lot of time to get in trouble."
"And now you want me to keep it clean."
Neal tilted his head, still giving a damn good imitation of not caring. "Can you?"
Peter shuffled through his options. "If I lie to Hughes."
***
Hughes accepted his explanation--cold case, hunch, possible lead--but Peter doubted he believed a word of it. Hughes knew he was sometimes better off not knowing with Neal and as long as he and Peter kept closing cases Hughes would look the other way and hope it never burned.
Neal was silent through most of the drive, not even objecting when Peter stopped at Tim Horton's for lunch, with nary a murmur about the food failing to meet his high expectations. He was still lost in thought when Peter turned off the radio just shy of Worcester.
"Why Neal?" Peter asked.
"Why what?" Neal's face lacked the guileless confusion that would have signaled he was acting.
"No, why Neal?" Peter repeated.
Neal turned away to look out the side window. "My father hated the Irish. And Catholics."
Peter had never thought of himself as Irish even though his grandparents were, and he was hardly Catholic anymore. "You didn't get on with him."
"You could say that."
"Is that why--" Neal Caffrey had appeared on the FBI's radar in 2002, like Athena full-grown from the head of Zeus, with no record of his existence before 2001.
"Is that why I did what I allegedly did?" Neal's voice was gently mocking. "No. Neal Caffrey was going to take the art world by storm: rising young artist! Modern-day renaissance man!"
"Proving Neville Clarence's father wrong." Neal had taken the art world by storm, but not in a good way.
"That was the idea." Neal reached down and turned the radio back on. "Didn't quite work out that way."
***
In deference to Neal's pride, Peter let him pay for the hotel room, carefully not asking under what name or with which credit card it was paid for; to salve his conscience, he insisted that they stay at a Budgetel near the highway instead of something ritzy downtown. They checked in and Peter changed into his best dark suit--the one he twice arrested Neal in--before heading to the funeral home for the visitation.
They were met at the door by a hostess wearing something dark and conservative. "Clarence?" Neal asked in a low voice.
"Right this way, sir." She seemed to size up Peter's suit and dismiss him in a single glance. She led them to a door, stopping in front of a wooden lectern. "Would you care to sign the guestbook?"
Neal lifted his hand towards the book, let it fall. "Maybe later." He stood staring at the book even after the hostess returned to the front door.
Peter put a hand on the small of Neal's back, guiding him towards the door. "Come on. It's not going to get easier waiting in the hallway."
Neal nodded, straightening his cuffs, easing the tension in his shoulders. His face flickered before settling into an expression of somber but not overstated grief. Neal Caffrey, master con, was ready to go undercover at the funeral of Neville Clarence's father.
Peter opened the door, ushering him through with the hand on his back before letting it drop and following him in.
Peter had attended plenty of fundraisers with Elizabeth, those she planned and those she attended, had watched thousands of suited men and women in little black dresses stand around in small clusters, chattering about business, the latest gallery opening, and whatever else people who didn't have cases to crack talked about. If it hadn't been for the coffin displayed against one wall, surrounded by two or three florist shops' worth of greenery, he would have thought he'd wandered into another, a cocktail party without cocktails.
A woman in the center of one of the larger clusters was the first to notice them. "Nevi!" She took a couple of steps forward, but left Neal to close the distance. "How good of you to come," she said easily, as if he hadn't been out of contact, missing, for fifteen years.
"Mother." Neal rested his fingertips on her shoulders, leaning in to ghost his lips over her cheek without disturbing a molecule of her makeup.
"You should have told me you were coming, dear." She looked too young to be Neal's mother until you noticed the tell-tale tightness at the edges of her forehead and the immobility around her eyes.
"I wasn't sure I could get away," Neal apologized. He gave Peter a bland look with just the tiniest hint of mischief lurking in his eyes.
She caught the look if not the mischief. "Introduce me to your...friend...dear."
"Of course. Mother, this is Peter Burke; Peter, my mother, Mrs. William Clarence." The spark of mischief glinted. "Peter is my--"
Peter took Mrs. Clarence's hand, half-bowing over it. "I'm Neville's agent," he said, cutting across whatever Neal had planned to say. "I'm please to meet you at last, though I regret the circumstances."
"Agent?" She let her voice get a little sharper there, pulling her hand back faster than was quite polite.
Peter smiled. "Your son is quite the artist, ma'am. It's my job to make sure he gets proper credit for his work." Neal's eyes widened almost imperceptibly.
"Neville always did love art," she said, smiling.
"He's very talented," Peter assured her, his smile as sincere as her own. "Multi-talented, even."
"Thank you." Another couple of visitors appeared at the door. "If you'll excuse me, Mr. Burke, Nevi--"
"Of course," Peter said. Neal only nodded.
Peter hung back to let Neal approach the coffin alone. That was between Neal and his father, nothing that either Peter or Special Agent Burke could protect him from. He was only grateful that there wasn't a kneeler beside the coffin as at Catholic funerals, nothing to pull Neal's pant cuff up.
"So you're Neville's agent," a voice said from beside him, with only the slightest pause before 'agent.'
Peter turned, smiled at the man coming up beside him. "That I am." He held out a hand. "Peter Burke."
The man had a firm but not overly muscular handshake. "Edward Clarence, Neville's older brother."
"I'm sorry for your loss," Peter said, nodding towards Neal and his--their--father.
"It's kind of you to come," Edward said. "Above and beyond the call of duty for an agent, I would think."
Peter gave a self-deprecating shrug. "My wife and my boss both thought he shouldn't come alone. My boss leaves his care and handling to me most of the time, but he's quite the asset to our agency--we'd hate to lose him. And my wife's been sweet on him since he got her to organize a party he threw during Fashion Week. She's an event planner and it was a great party."
Neal had his hand raised over the coffin as if he wanted to touch but didn't quite dare. Edward was watching him. "I wish he'd come home sooner," Edward said. "Even a few weeks. Father--Father thought he was dead, wrote him out of his will years ago." He glanced sideways at Peter, a tell Neal had trained himself out of years ago.
One of his former probies was assigned to the Boston office; he'd have to ask Brian to look into the will once it was filed in probate. "I doubt he cares about the money, but I know he regrets not having the chance to--say goodbye. Compared to that any inheritance is chump change."
"I'm surprised," Edward said. "I would think the money would be welcome. To an artist."
Peter chuckled. "He gets by. Comfortably, even. Has a nice little place in Manhattan. Killer views."
"Artists don't get rich."
Was that a quote? It sounded like a quote--Mr. Clarence, Senior, perhaps? "Maybe I've been hanging around the wrong kind of artist," Peter said with a smile. "Did you think he found that suit in a thrift store? The last painting he did is hanging in a major museum."
"I'm surprised I haven't heard of him then," Edward rallied. "Not many Neville Clarences in the world; someone should have mentioned that my baby brother was making a name for himself in the art world."
"Oh, he's made quite the name for himself. Just not as Neville Clarence." Or even Neal Caffrey, most of the time.
Neal turned away from the coffin, whatever unfinished business he had with his father completed as well as it ever could be anymore. His eyes didn't widen, his steps didn't falter when he saw Edward. He even smiled, the slightly subdued smile of a grown man at his father's funeral. "Edward. You've met Peter, I see."
"We were just discussing your last painting," Peter said, resting a hand on Neal's shoulder for a too-brief moment. "The one Walter from the Channing liked so much."
"Peter tells me you've become quite the success," Edward said.
Neal shrugged, smiled. "I've had a bad patch or two, but I have a lot to be grateful for now." He gave Peter an indecipherable look of which gratitude might have been a component, before his gaze flicked back to Edward. "Oh, but I understand congratulations are in order. I saw that you made partner."
"A few months ago, yes," Edward said. "I'm glad to know that you're not completely ignoring your family."
"I'm here, aren't I?" Neal said with the charming smile he used when he said the same thing to Peter, usually after the tracker was mentioned.
Edward was not charmed. "Yes, why are you here?"
Neal became serious, much too solemn. "As a wise friend of mine once said, we attend the funerals of our friends and loved ones to say goodbye and of our enemies to make sure they're dead."
***
They slipped into the church the next morning just late enough to justifying taking the last pew, and left before the graveside service. Neal's family seemed as content to be avoided by Neal as Neal was to avoid them.
Three exits before Worcester Neal broke his silence. "I think I know Lucia Petrelli's angle in all this."
"Really." Lucia. Lucia was--Lorenzo's sister-in-law, wife of his brother. Widow, now.
"She was playing her husband off against her brother-in-law, siphoning money out of both of their businesses," Neal said. Lucia Petrelli was quiet, almost invisible. She was the dead man's wife and Peter could barely remember her name. "That's where the missing money went, not Nunzio's hypothetical gambling addiction. I bet if you look hard enough you'll find the mystery bank account belongs to her, not Nunzio."
If he'd seen any hints of Lucia's involvement in the bank account he would have thought it her husband's cover. Damn. "She kill Nunzio?"
Neal spread his hands. "I'd still bet Lorenzo, maybe even a real heart attack."
"It's a theory," Peter said with a slow nod. "We'll look into it." Embezzlement wasn't Neal's forte, any more than mortgage fraud was, but people were. People like the Petrellis.
Neal chuckled. "Technically it's a hypothesis, Peter."
The Petrellis. The Clarences. Neal. "It doesn't excuse what you've done," Peter blurted out. Neal just turned to look at him, head tilted in question. "Plenty of people have grown up in far worse situations without becoming--art thieves, forgers. Con artists."
Neal nodded; he'd never tried to excuse his crimes, not that Peter could remember. It was one of the things Peter liked about him. "But?" Neal waited a few seconds and continued, "Come on, Peter, you know there was a 'but...' there." And Neal was right.
"But you come by your dishonesty honestly."
-end-
Fandom: White Collar
Characters: Neal Caffrey, Peter Burke
Rating: All audiences
Spoilers: None
Length: 2344
Summary: It's all true, even the lies. (A little backstory, a lot of dialogue.)
***
Watching Neal while pretending not to watch Neal was a skill Peter had perfected in the first weeks of their partnership. Now Peter could study the Petrelli case file at the same time as he watched Neal work out the angles before asking--what? He knew Neal's tells, knew that Neal couldn't entirely hide his nerves, but unfortunately Neal knew Neal's tells as well, and nothing stopped him from counterfeiting emotion he didn't feel. Peter waited until Neal came to a decision and opened his mouth.
"Whatever the question is," Peter said conversationally, turning over a page in the file, "I'm pretty sure the answer is no."
"Peter--" Neal's voice was low and pleading, manipulative.
"What is it this time?" He could at least derail Neal's careful orchestration.
"I need out of my radius."
"Of course you do." Kate again, damn it. It was always Kate. "How far out?"
"Boston."
Peter went back to the case file. "I was right the first time. Not gonna happen."
Neal left Peter's office without arguing. With Neal that didn't mean he'd given up, but it might mean that it would take him a while to come up with a new argument. Peter shelved the matter; the next move was Neal's. In the meantime he had a case of embezzlement with a side-order of possible murder to deal with.
A paper landed on top of Lorenzo Petrelli's deposition a few minutes later--an obituary printed off the Boston Globe website. Peter read it and looked up a Neal lounging elegantly in the chair opposite. He was about to demand an explanation when something clicked.
"Neville?" he sputtered instead. Which wasn't what he meant to say, damn it.
Neal shrugged, elaborately casual, even cheerful. "Neville Clarence."
"Ouch." Neal grinned like it didn't matter. Peter tapped the printout. "You don't--you didn't have to ask me. The Marshals could have handled it. You don't need my permission."
"If I'd gone to the Marshals first you never would have believed it wasn't a scam," Neal pointed out.
Which was true, but-- "You've never given Neville up to the Feds," he realized.
"Neville has a clean record," Neal said. "Never even shoplifted a candy bar. 'Course he disappeared at eighteen, hasn't been seen or heard from since, so he didn't have a lot of time to get in trouble."
"And now you want me to keep it clean."
Neal tilted his head, still giving a damn good imitation of not caring. "Can you?"
Peter shuffled through his options. "If I lie to Hughes."
***
Hughes accepted his explanation--cold case, hunch, possible lead--but Peter doubted he believed a word of it. Hughes knew he was sometimes better off not knowing with Neal and as long as he and Peter kept closing cases Hughes would look the other way and hope it never burned.
Neal was silent through most of the drive, not even objecting when Peter stopped at Tim Horton's for lunch, with nary a murmur about the food failing to meet his high expectations. He was still lost in thought when Peter turned off the radio just shy of Worcester.
"Why Neal?" Peter asked.
"Why what?" Neal's face lacked the guileless confusion that would have signaled he was acting.
"No, why Neal?" Peter repeated.
Neal turned away to look out the side window. "My father hated the Irish. And Catholics."
Peter had never thought of himself as Irish even though his grandparents were, and he was hardly Catholic anymore. "You didn't get on with him."
"You could say that."
"Is that why--" Neal Caffrey had appeared on the FBI's radar in 2002, like Athena full-grown from the head of Zeus, with no record of his existence before 2001.
"Is that why I did what I allegedly did?" Neal's voice was gently mocking. "No. Neal Caffrey was going to take the art world by storm: rising young artist! Modern-day renaissance man!"
"Proving Neville Clarence's father wrong." Neal had taken the art world by storm, but not in a good way.
"That was the idea." Neal reached down and turned the radio back on. "Didn't quite work out that way."
***
In deference to Neal's pride, Peter let him pay for the hotel room, carefully not asking under what name or with which credit card it was paid for; to salve his conscience, he insisted that they stay at a Budgetel near the highway instead of something ritzy downtown. They checked in and Peter changed into his best dark suit--the one he twice arrested Neal in--before heading to the funeral home for the visitation.
They were met at the door by a hostess wearing something dark and conservative. "Clarence?" Neal asked in a low voice.
"Right this way, sir." She seemed to size up Peter's suit and dismiss him in a single glance. She led them to a door, stopping in front of a wooden lectern. "Would you care to sign the guestbook?"
Neal lifted his hand towards the book, let it fall. "Maybe later." He stood staring at the book even after the hostess returned to the front door.
Peter put a hand on the small of Neal's back, guiding him towards the door. "Come on. It's not going to get easier waiting in the hallway."
Neal nodded, straightening his cuffs, easing the tension in his shoulders. His face flickered before settling into an expression of somber but not overstated grief. Neal Caffrey, master con, was ready to go undercover at the funeral of Neville Clarence's father.
Peter opened the door, ushering him through with the hand on his back before letting it drop and following him in.
Peter had attended plenty of fundraisers with Elizabeth, those she planned and those she attended, had watched thousands of suited men and women in little black dresses stand around in small clusters, chattering about business, the latest gallery opening, and whatever else people who didn't have cases to crack talked about. If it hadn't been for the coffin displayed against one wall, surrounded by two or three florist shops' worth of greenery, he would have thought he'd wandered into another, a cocktail party without cocktails.
A woman in the center of one of the larger clusters was the first to notice them. "Nevi!" She took a couple of steps forward, but left Neal to close the distance. "How good of you to come," she said easily, as if he hadn't been out of contact, missing, for fifteen years.
"Mother." Neal rested his fingertips on her shoulders, leaning in to ghost his lips over her cheek without disturbing a molecule of her makeup.
"You should have told me you were coming, dear." She looked too young to be Neal's mother until you noticed the tell-tale tightness at the edges of her forehead and the immobility around her eyes.
"I wasn't sure I could get away," Neal apologized. He gave Peter a bland look with just the tiniest hint of mischief lurking in his eyes.
She caught the look if not the mischief. "Introduce me to your...friend...dear."
"Of course. Mother, this is Peter Burke; Peter, my mother, Mrs. William Clarence." The spark of mischief glinted. "Peter is my--"
Peter took Mrs. Clarence's hand, half-bowing over it. "I'm Neville's agent," he said, cutting across whatever Neal had planned to say. "I'm please to meet you at last, though I regret the circumstances."
"Agent?" She let her voice get a little sharper there, pulling her hand back faster than was quite polite.
Peter smiled. "Your son is quite the artist, ma'am. It's my job to make sure he gets proper credit for his work." Neal's eyes widened almost imperceptibly.
"Neville always did love art," she said, smiling.
"He's very talented," Peter assured her, his smile as sincere as her own. "Multi-talented, even."
"Thank you." Another couple of visitors appeared at the door. "If you'll excuse me, Mr. Burke, Nevi--"
"Of course," Peter said. Neal only nodded.
Peter hung back to let Neal approach the coffin alone. That was between Neal and his father, nothing that either Peter or Special Agent Burke could protect him from. He was only grateful that there wasn't a kneeler beside the coffin as at Catholic funerals, nothing to pull Neal's pant cuff up.
"So you're Neville's agent," a voice said from beside him, with only the slightest pause before 'agent.'
Peter turned, smiled at the man coming up beside him. "That I am." He held out a hand. "Peter Burke."
The man had a firm but not overly muscular handshake. "Edward Clarence, Neville's older brother."
"I'm sorry for your loss," Peter said, nodding towards Neal and his--their--father.
"It's kind of you to come," Edward said. "Above and beyond the call of duty for an agent, I would think."
Peter gave a self-deprecating shrug. "My wife and my boss both thought he shouldn't come alone. My boss leaves his care and handling to me most of the time, but he's quite the asset to our agency--we'd hate to lose him. And my wife's been sweet on him since he got her to organize a party he threw during Fashion Week. She's an event planner and it was a great party."
Neal had his hand raised over the coffin as if he wanted to touch but didn't quite dare. Edward was watching him. "I wish he'd come home sooner," Edward said. "Even a few weeks. Father--Father thought he was dead, wrote him out of his will years ago." He glanced sideways at Peter, a tell Neal had trained himself out of years ago.
One of his former probies was assigned to the Boston office; he'd have to ask Brian to look into the will once it was filed in probate. "I doubt he cares about the money, but I know he regrets not having the chance to--say goodbye. Compared to that any inheritance is chump change."
"I'm surprised," Edward said. "I would think the money would be welcome. To an artist."
Peter chuckled. "He gets by. Comfortably, even. Has a nice little place in Manhattan. Killer views."
"Artists don't get rich."
Was that a quote? It sounded like a quote--Mr. Clarence, Senior, perhaps? "Maybe I've been hanging around the wrong kind of artist," Peter said with a smile. "Did you think he found that suit in a thrift store? The last painting he did is hanging in a major museum."
"I'm surprised I haven't heard of him then," Edward rallied. "Not many Neville Clarences in the world; someone should have mentioned that my baby brother was making a name for himself in the art world."
"Oh, he's made quite the name for himself. Just not as Neville Clarence." Or even Neal Caffrey, most of the time.
Neal turned away from the coffin, whatever unfinished business he had with his father completed as well as it ever could be anymore. His eyes didn't widen, his steps didn't falter when he saw Edward. He even smiled, the slightly subdued smile of a grown man at his father's funeral. "Edward. You've met Peter, I see."
"We were just discussing your last painting," Peter said, resting a hand on Neal's shoulder for a too-brief moment. "The one Walter from the Channing liked so much."
"Peter tells me you've become quite the success," Edward said.
Neal shrugged, smiled. "I've had a bad patch or two, but I have a lot to be grateful for now." He gave Peter an indecipherable look of which gratitude might have been a component, before his gaze flicked back to Edward. "Oh, but I understand congratulations are in order. I saw that you made partner."
"A few months ago, yes," Edward said. "I'm glad to know that you're not completely ignoring your family."
"I'm here, aren't I?" Neal said with the charming smile he used when he said the same thing to Peter, usually after the tracker was mentioned.
Edward was not charmed. "Yes, why are you here?"
Neal became serious, much too solemn. "As a wise friend of mine once said, we attend the funerals of our friends and loved ones to say goodbye and of our enemies to make sure they're dead."
***
They slipped into the church the next morning just late enough to justifying taking the last pew, and left before the graveside service. Neal's family seemed as content to be avoided by Neal as Neal was to avoid them.
Three exits before Worcester Neal broke his silence. "I think I know Lucia Petrelli's angle in all this."
"Really." Lucia. Lucia was--Lorenzo's sister-in-law, wife of his brother. Widow, now.
"She was playing her husband off against her brother-in-law, siphoning money out of both of their businesses," Neal said. Lucia Petrelli was quiet, almost invisible. She was the dead man's wife and Peter could barely remember her name. "That's where the missing money went, not Nunzio's hypothetical gambling addiction. I bet if you look hard enough you'll find the mystery bank account belongs to her, not Nunzio."
If he'd seen any hints of Lucia's involvement in the bank account he would have thought it her husband's cover. Damn. "She kill Nunzio?"
Neal spread his hands. "I'd still bet Lorenzo, maybe even a real heart attack."
"It's a theory," Peter said with a slow nod. "We'll look into it." Embezzlement wasn't Neal's forte, any more than mortgage fraud was, but people were. People like the Petrellis.
Neal chuckled. "Technically it's a hypothesis, Peter."
The Petrellis. The Clarences. Neal. "It doesn't excuse what you've done," Peter blurted out. Neal just turned to look at him, head tilted in question. "Plenty of people have grown up in far worse situations without becoming--art thieves, forgers. Con artists."
Neal nodded; he'd never tried to excuse his crimes, not that Peter could remember. It was one of the things Peter liked about him. "But?" Neal waited a few seconds and continued, "Come on, Peter, you know there was a 'but...' there." And Neal was right.
"But you come by your dishonesty honestly."
-end-