The Picture of Neal Caffrey - (Past Dean Winchester/Neal Caffrey)
Title: The Picture of Neal Caffrey
Author:casatthedisco
Fandoms White Collar/Supernatural
Fandom 1 Characters Neal, Mozzie, Peter, Diana, Elizabeth
Fandom 2 Characters Dean, Sam, Crowley
Pairings: past Dean/Neal
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3,287
Spoilers: Through season 2 of White Collar, and episode 6x06 of Supernatural
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: White Collar and Supernatural belong to their respective creators.
A/N: Much thanks to perdiccas for being my beta and helping me look at this whole thing from a new perspective. Any remaining mistakes are my own. Originally posted to xover_exchange about a month ago for forestgreen , now cross-posted to dealtwice , sn_crossovers , and whitecollarfic . Sorry if anyone's flist gets spammed!
Summary: Years ago Neal made a deal. Now Crowley’s back and a painting may be the answer to Neal’s problems.
“Four years, tsk tsk.”Crowley’s voice carried on the water by the South Street Seaport, his British accent sounding more pronounced than Neal remembered. The dark hair and eyes, the face that he was known by, those belonged to another man, for Crowley was a demon in human skin, and Scottish by birth long ago. Once merely the leader of the crossroads demons-everyday dealers in human souls--he was now leading all of hell. “For a man with such limited time, that is quite the chunk to lose behind bars.”
“You won’t get any argument from me.” Neal stood leaning against a post, unable to walk out onto the pier without triggering the tracking anklet around his leg. In a designer suit from the 60s with a black fedora perched on his head and a blue tie to match his striking blue eyes, Neal was the very picture of handsome charm. Sometimes he couldn’t stand to look at himself.
That’s because the looks he so often used to his advantage weren’t something he’d come by naturally. As a child who had been called ugly one too many times, Neal Caffrey had just wanted to be pretty and Crowley had given him what he wanted. Now, he waited for the smug bastard to say something about how Neal must have regretted those looks in prison, but Crowley apparently didn’t have much time for taunting him, getting straight down to business instead.
“You know I prefer to make my deals at crossroads, but for you, my precious, I make an exception.” Crowley spread his arms magnanimously. Neal had to force himself not to recoil. The demon wanted something from him and that could be very bad. On the other hand, he was running low on time and maybe this could buy him more.
“You want to make a deal?” Neal asked suspiciously, wondering what he could possibly have that Crowley would want.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the worlds have been in a bit of an uproar,” Crowley said plainly. “Gates of hell being opened, Lucifer set loose, apocalypse started, apocalypse thwarted, blah blah blah, I won’t bore us both with the details.”
“The apocalypse?” Neal asked incredulously. The apocalypse seemed like something he would have noticed.
“Oh don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll play a part the next time something big goes down. You will, after all, be my right hand man.” It wasn’t the first time Crowley had hinted he had special plans for Neal when collection time came.
“You were supposed to be getting to a point,” Neal steered the conversation back on track; it was bad enough listening to someone brag about their leverage over him when it didn’t involve his soul. “Hopefully having to do with a deal that will override that last one.”
“Yes, of course.” Crowley smiled softly, chuckling to himself. “Small side effect of the apocalypse, it sent some of heaven’s weapons flying to every corner of the earth, just waiting for someone to find them.”
“Let me guess,” Neal asked warily. “You’ve found one.”
“Indeed I have,” Crowley gloated. “And my deal for you is ten more years with that soul of yours just for playing delivery boy.”
“If you know where it is, then why don’t you go get it? You’re not exactly hindered by security systems.” Neal was always suspicious when people wanted to hire him as a middleman. If it wasn’t an inside job, then it usually meant that something about the job was too dangerous for them to take the risk themselves.
“Some people have clever little ways of keeping demons away and I’ve already lost two of my minions trying. This time I’d like to try a little human touch.” Neal’s time was running short and the deal was tempting.
“Sounds like a powerful weapon if it’s that hard for you to get at,” Neal pointed out. “If I’m putting something that powerful in your hands, I want more than 10 years.”
“Twelve,” Crowley offered.
“All of them,” Neal countered. “I want my soul back, free and clear of any debt to you or any hell-affiliated entities.”
Crowley laughed dryly. “Come now, this isn’t exactly a seller’s market. You’re not the only person who I can buy off, you might want to rethink your hard bargaining.”
“I’ve thought about my last deal with you and I regret it. I’m not making the same mistake twice,” Neal said firmly. “Anyway, I’m the best thief you’re gonna get; you came to me for a reason, right?”
Crowley leveled a glare at Neal that told him he was right. “You like paintings, don’t you?”
oOo
Crowley told Neal that he’d know soon enough where the painting was located but the next morning, sipping on a paper cup full of bitter black coffee in the FBI’s Manhattan office was not when he expected to find out. Neal had been flirting with an utterly uninterested Diana when the familiar sound of a throat clearing sounded out behind him. He spun around, eyes wide and smiling like a puppy whose owner had just come home. Peter held back his own smile and signaled for Neal to follow him.
“You know she has a girlfriend,” Peter pointed out.
“That’s what makes it so fun.” Neal winked. “Flirting kind of loses some of its sparkle when you’re actually trying to pick someone up.”
“Fair enough.” Peter nodded. He changed the subject to their next assignment and Neal listened passively until Peter started talking about a body count.
“Murders?” Neal questioned curiously. “That doesn’t seem very ‘white collar’.”
“It is when the murders are connected to a $300,000 painting.” Peter led Neal into the conference room and pointed to a photograph lying on the table.
Neal stopped just short of the table, already knowing exactly what he would see when he looked down at the picture. He didn’t want confirmation, but Peter nodded for him to take a look, so he braced himself and spun the paper around to face him.
“The painting’s not even on display yet. People are killing each other while it’s locked away in storage and we need to figure out why.” Peter tapped a finger on the photograph to punctuate his sentence, maybe to show the seriousness of the situation, but Neal didn’t need any convincing. He knew that painting.
Neal felt better knowing that two of those dead people were actually demon-possessed bodies who may have been dead already beforehand, but he still felt a sense of dread.
oOo
“So the painting is possessed?” Mozzie’s eyes lit up at the talk of anything that hinted of ghosts. He still thought that was what Neal’s earlier brush with the supernatural had entailed. It sounded better than telling his friend that he’d made a deal with a demon and only had a temporary lease on his soul.
“It’s not possessed,” Neal said absentmindedly while examining plans for the museum where the painting was being stored. “It’s cursed or spelled or…something to keep the wrong people away.”
“Somehow I’m guessing you didn’t get this information from the suit.”
Neal looked back at Mozzie, gave him a ‘what do you think’ look, and went back to the blueprints.
“Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but you do know somebody a little more qualified to handle otherworldly murder,” Mozzie suggested, earning him a glare from Neal. “Look, all I’m saying is that you might want to overlook your falling out with you ex for long enough to-”
“He’s not my ex,” Neal interrupted without looking up from the blueprints. “And I don’t need him to handle this.”
“You realize this is insane, right?” Mozzie had said it about so many of Neal’s plans that it was starting to lose its meaning, even when it was probably accurate.
oOo
Neal should have known that Mozzie would go behind his back and call. He’d called Peter when he thought Neal was going to kill Fowler, and now he’d called Dean and his brother when he thought Neal was going to go ghost-hunting unprepared. Neal could never stay mad when Mozzie did things like this because Neal knew he could make emotional decisions and he needed a check in place.
It didn’t mean he was happy to see Dean.
He and his brother arrived in New York the following day, having driven from Pennsylvania. Neal and Sam had never had much interaction beyond their initial meeting, and Neal had no idea how much Sam knew about Neal and Dean, so their greeting was somewhat awkward but professional. Mozzie greeted both brothers with enthusiasm and launched into an explanation about what they’d learned of the painting and its location since last talking to them.
Neal and Dean looked at each other then looked away.
It wasn’t until after the four men had hashed out a plan to infiltrate the museum, argued over who would go along and who wouldn’t, and begrudgingly agreed to all go together, that Dean spoke to Neal directly. Sam and Mozzie were sitting side by side, staring at their laptops, trying to find out more about the background of the painting when Dean sauntered over to Neal.
“Your buddy there know why you aren’t so happy to see me?” Dean nodded toward the table where Mozzie was pointing at something on Sam’s computer screen while Sam looked at him, confused.
“We don’t discuss it,” Neal said flatly, not wanting to deal with Dean’s lecturing again.
“You don’t think you owe it to the guy who’s putting his ass on the line for you to know what’s coming?” Dean sounded like he was projecting, but to Neal, the guy always sounded like he was projecting.
“What I’ve got coming to me has nothing to do with Mozzie. As far as he needs to know,” Neal leaned his face in close to Dean’s, “ the only fight we had was rooted in your inability to commit to anything that’s not your family.”
Dean looked over Neal’s shoulder uncomfortably, but Sam and Mozzie were still preoccupied. “How long are you gonna let him keep believing that lie?”
“You freaking out on me when I asked you to spend a week in Monte Carlo with me is a lie?” Neal raised an eyebrow skeptically, but Dean just frowned at him. “Here’s a question: how long will you keep nagging me about a choice I made before I even met you?”
“Whatever.” Dean shook his head. “You run around and live your life on borrowed time, whatever’s left of it.” Dean started to walk away, but Neal grabbed his sleeve. Dean looked down at Neal’s fingers curling into the leather of his jacket, then back up at Neal’s face.
“You know if I hadn’t made that deal, you never would have found me.” It was the least cliché way that Neal knew how to say that it hadn’t all been bad times. They had both considered themselves far too charming and far too old for the cutesy trappings of courtship and romance, but there had been something there between them.
“We weren’t exactly some apple pie romance,” Dean countered.
“And everyone needs some apple pie in their life.” Neal said wistfully then smiled at Dean’s baffled expression. “I mean that even you’d like it to be about romance once in a while.”
Dean just shrugged. Neal turned around and backed up against the wall to stand beside Dean. The two men stood and watched Sam and Mozzie for a few moments before Neal spoke.
“I wish I could take it back,” he admitted. “Maybe one day I’ll be able to.”
Dean turned his head to look at Neal, who stayed facing forward. He thought silently before asking, “D’you know which crossroads demon you made your deal with? Maybe we could try to find them, work something out?”
“Does ‘work something out’ mean ‘shoot them in the face’?” Neal looked at Dean and received a smile in return.
“Doesn’t it always?”
oOo
Peter tried not be mistrustful, but he had a duty as the person responsible for Neal to monitor his tracking anklet and check up on his associates. For the last few days, Neal had been spending a lot of time at home and at various diners around the city. It wasn’t his usual pattern and it made Peter curious, but he tried to clamp down on worry.
However, Peter was unable to stop himself from being concerned when Jones spotted Neal with Mozzie and two unknown associates. If Neal seemed capable of having friends outside of the criminal world, then Peter wouldn’t get so worried, but every time Neal met up with somebody Peter didn’t know, it seemed to lead to trouble. Jones had tried to I.D. the two men, but without a photograph or video to run through facial recognition software, the best they had was his limited memory. At this point and Peter was unsure if he should keep trying to look into it.
Peter shared his concerns with Elizabeth over breakfast, distractedly leaving his tie untied so that when he leaned over the untied ends threatened to fall into his oatmeal. She listened as he talked all through breakfast then leaned over when he was done and stopped the tie from flopping into his empty bowl.
“Have you talked to Neal about it?” Elizabeth asked, tying and straightening Peter’s tie for him as he finished off his orange juice.
“I’ve hinted at it,” Peter hedged. “I just don’t want to say something that makes him think I don’t trust him. You’ve seen how bad he can get; it’ll just send him spiraling back to his old ways.”
“Don’t you think you’re a little past all that?” El wiped a drop of orange juice from the corner of Peter’s mouth tenderly and beamed at him. “I’d like to think it’s the two of you against the world.”
Peter returned his wife’s glowing smile. “I like the sound of that.”
oOo
They were in one of the museum’s storage areas when things all went to hell. Not literally this time, but that seemed quite possible in the near future.
Everyone but Dean had been surprised when Dean said that he and Neal would search one of the museum’s two storage areas while Sam and Mozzie searched the other. Neal had suggested that Sam and Dean stick together, but Sam agreed with his brother that it was best to have someone who knew how to handle the supernatural in each pair.
Neal had tried not to show how agitated he was, partially because he and Dean were tentatively on decent terms again, and partially because he didn’t want anyone to be suspicious about why he didn’t want Sam or Dean around when he found the painting. Based on the temperature control guidelines he’d found, he knew that the painting would be in the west storage area. He didn’t have much of a plan for what he’d do when he found the painting with Dean right there, so he played it by ear and thus things went to hell.
There didn’t seem to be anything at all mystical about the painting, but there did seem to be charred handprints on the frame and an unfortunate smell of sulfur. When Neal found it, Dean had his back turned and Neal took inspiration from Alex’s book. He tucked the painting into the case he’d brought along, started to leave, and when Dean noticed him, he ran and locked Dean inside.
“What the hell?” Dean asked, mostly confused at this point as he tried to open the door.
“I’m sorry, Dean. I need this painting,” Neal tried to explain.
“Neal? Neal! Dammit, open the door!” Dean shouted as he banged on the door.
Neal frowned at Dean through the door’s Plexiglas window. “If you don’t break out yourself, Mozzie and Sam will come find you soon enough.”
“Are you freakin’ kidding me?!,” Dean barked. Neal knew that Dean would start shooting at the lock soon and he needed to be gone before that happened.
oOo
Dean did try to shoot the lock open, but had no luck and no reception, so he was stuck locked in the storage area for at least an hour until Sam and Mozzie found him.
“Where’s Neal?” Sam looked around the storage room, obviously expecting him to pop out from behind a row of boxes.
“Probably doing something that’ll get himself killed even sooner,” Dean answered bitterly.
oOo
Mozzie was impressed that Sam was able to hack into the U.S. Marshals’ computer system to find Neal using his tracking anklet, but all of those good feelings were kind of overshadowed when he wondered what his friend was doing with an evil painting.
By the time Sam, Dean, and Mozzie arrived at the meeting spot under the Brooklyn Bridge, Crowley was zipping up the case holding the painting and Neal was being granted irrevocable possession of his immortal soul.
“Crowley?” Sam was mildly surprised to see him involved.
“Crowley,” Dean growled; he was beginning to really want this guy to be dead. He looked to Neal, who seemed guilty but unapologetic. “I told you I’d try to help you, and you go to him and make another deal?”
“I didn’t have the time or the willingness to take that kind of risk,” Neal answered.
“But you’ll risk the souls of other people?” Dean asked angrily. “Do you realize what you just gave him? Think Picture of Dorian Gray on meth-amphetamines. It sits there, capturing the souls of innocent people and then they’re stuck there until something like Crowley wants to use them.”
“Oh please, innocent people,” Crowley interrupted, laughing as he unzipped the case again. “Sorry, just a moment, I can’t be close to this painting for too long or…”
Crowley stood silently, looking closer at the painting. Sam and Dean looked between each other, while Mozzie looked around at everybody, desperately wanting to ask if that was really a demon talking to them right now, but knowing that it probably wasn’t the best time.
Suddenly, Crowley flipped the painting forward and pointed it at Sam. Nothing happened.
“You slimy little twat,” Crowley shouted, taking the painting in his leather-gloved hand and smashing it over his knee. “You trying to pass a forgery off on me?”
“Forgery? Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Neal held his hands up, palms forward in front of his chest, indicating that Crowley should slow down. “I took the painting you wanted me to take; if it’s a fake then that’s not on me.”
“You think you’re clever, don’t you? Got your soul back before I could notice the painting had no power,” Crowley spat. “Well I assure you that your remaining time on earth will be nowhere near pleasant if you think you can pull one over on me.”
“Hey, I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I did was get you the painting,” Neal insisted, earning him a scowl from Crowley who soon disappeared.
“You could’ve just told us you wanted to make a forgery to get your soul back.” Dean spoke to Neal, but stayed beside his brother. “You know, instead of locking me up in a museum.”
“I didn’t make a forgery,” Neal said as he looked out on the water. “And if I did then I’d certainly never admit it to anyone.”
“Yeah, well, Crowley’s not going to believe that line after the painting didn’t work on Sam.” Dean looked to his brother, who was looking back at him with an unreadable expression on his face. “If you need any more help, you’ll let me know next time?”
Neal looked back at Dean and winked. “Of course.”
-END-
Prompts: Neal and Mozzie know about the existence of supernatural things. When strange murders related to a cursed painting start to happen and the FBI is no any closer to figuring out the truth, he and Mozzie go behind Peter's back and call Sam and Dean.
Long ago Neal made a deal with Crowley and now is payback time. The good thing is that Crowley has another deal to offer to him. The bad thing is that what he wants in exchange is almost impossible to get, especially with Peter Burke breathing down Neal's neck.
Author:casatthedisco
Fandoms White Collar/Supernatural
Fandom 1 Characters Neal, Mozzie, Peter, Diana, Elizabeth
Fandom 2 Characters Dean, Sam, Crowley
Pairings: past Dean/Neal
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3,287
Spoilers: Through season 2 of White Collar, and episode 6x06 of Supernatural
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: White Collar and Supernatural belong to their respective creators.
A/N: Much thanks to perdiccas for being my beta and helping me look at this whole thing from a new perspective. Any remaining mistakes are my own. Originally posted to xover_exchange about a month ago for forestgreen , now cross-posted to dealtwice , sn_crossovers , and whitecollarfic . Sorry if anyone's flist gets spammed!
Summary: Years ago Neal made a deal. Now Crowley’s back and a painting may be the answer to Neal’s problems.
“Four years, tsk tsk.”Crowley’s voice carried on the water by the South Street Seaport, his British accent sounding more pronounced than Neal remembered. The dark hair and eyes, the face that he was known by, those belonged to another man, for Crowley was a demon in human skin, and Scottish by birth long ago. Once merely the leader of the crossroads demons-everyday dealers in human souls--he was now leading all of hell. “For a man with such limited time, that is quite the chunk to lose behind bars.”
“You won’t get any argument from me.” Neal stood leaning against a post, unable to walk out onto the pier without triggering the tracking anklet around his leg. In a designer suit from the 60s with a black fedora perched on his head and a blue tie to match his striking blue eyes, Neal was the very picture of handsome charm. Sometimes he couldn’t stand to look at himself.
That’s because the looks he so often used to his advantage weren’t something he’d come by naturally. As a child who had been called ugly one too many times, Neal Caffrey had just wanted to be pretty and Crowley had given him what he wanted. Now, he waited for the smug bastard to say something about how Neal must have regretted those looks in prison, but Crowley apparently didn’t have much time for taunting him, getting straight down to business instead.
“You know I prefer to make my deals at crossroads, but for you, my precious, I make an exception.” Crowley spread his arms magnanimously. Neal had to force himself not to recoil. The demon wanted something from him and that could be very bad. On the other hand, he was running low on time and maybe this could buy him more.
“You want to make a deal?” Neal asked suspiciously, wondering what he could possibly have that Crowley would want.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the worlds have been in a bit of an uproar,” Crowley said plainly. “Gates of hell being opened, Lucifer set loose, apocalypse started, apocalypse thwarted, blah blah blah, I won’t bore us both with the details.”
“The apocalypse?” Neal asked incredulously. The apocalypse seemed like something he would have noticed.
“Oh don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll play a part the next time something big goes down. You will, after all, be my right hand man.” It wasn’t the first time Crowley had hinted he had special plans for Neal when collection time came.
“You were supposed to be getting to a point,” Neal steered the conversation back on track; it was bad enough listening to someone brag about their leverage over him when it didn’t involve his soul. “Hopefully having to do with a deal that will override that last one.”
“Yes, of course.” Crowley smiled softly, chuckling to himself. “Small side effect of the apocalypse, it sent some of heaven’s weapons flying to every corner of the earth, just waiting for someone to find them.”
“Let me guess,” Neal asked warily. “You’ve found one.”
“Indeed I have,” Crowley gloated. “And my deal for you is ten more years with that soul of yours just for playing delivery boy.”
“If you know where it is, then why don’t you go get it? You’re not exactly hindered by security systems.” Neal was always suspicious when people wanted to hire him as a middleman. If it wasn’t an inside job, then it usually meant that something about the job was too dangerous for them to take the risk themselves.
“Some people have clever little ways of keeping demons away and I’ve already lost two of my minions trying. This time I’d like to try a little human touch.” Neal’s time was running short and the deal was tempting.
“Sounds like a powerful weapon if it’s that hard for you to get at,” Neal pointed out. “If I’m putting something that powerful in your hands, I want more than 10 years.”
“Twelve,” Crowley offered.
“All of them,” Neal countered. “I want my soul back, free and clear of any debt to you or any hell-affiliated entities.”
Crowley laughed dryly. “Come now, this isn’t exactly a seller’s market. You’re not the only person who I can buy off, you might want to rethink your hard bargaining.”
“I’ve thought about my last deal with you and I regret it. I’m not making the same mistake twice,” Neal said firmly. “Anyway, I’m the best thief you’re gonna get; you came to me for a reason, right?”
Crowley leveled a glare at Neal that told him he was right. “You like paintings, don’t you?”
oOo
Crowley told Neal that he’d know soon enough where the painting was located but the next morning, sipping on a paper cup full of bitter black coffee in the FBI’s Manhattan office was not when he expected to find out. Neal had been flirting with an utterly uninterested Diana when the familiar sound of a throat clearing sounded out behind him. He spun around, eyes wide and smiling like a puppy whose owner had just come home. Peter held back his own smile and signaled for Neal to follow him.
“You know she has a girlfriend,” Peter pointed out.
“That’s what makes it so fun.” Neal winked. “Flirting kind of loses some of its sparkle when you’re actually trying to pick someone up.”
“Fair enough.” Peter nodded. He changed the subject to their next assignment and Neal listened passively until Peter started talking about a body count.
“Murders?” Neal questioned curiously. “That doesn’t seem very ‘white collar’.”
“It is when the murders are connected to a $300,000 painting.” Peter led Neal into the conference room and pointed to a photograph lying on the table.
Neal stopped just short of the table, already knowing exactly what he would see when he looked down at the picture. He didn’t want confirmation, but Peter nodded for him to take a look, so he braced himself and spun the paper around to face him.
“The painting’s not even on display yet. People are killing each other while it’s locked away in storage and we need to figure out why.” Peter tapped a finger on the photograph to punctuate his sentence, maybe to show the seriousness of the situation, but Neal didn’t need any convincing. He knew that painting.
Neal felt better knowing that two of those dead people were actually demon-possessed bodies who may have been dead already beforehand, but he still felt a sense of dread.
oOo
“So the painting is possessed?” Mozzie’s eyes lit up at the talk of anything that hinted of ghosts. He still thought that was what Neal’s earlier brush with the supernatural had entailed. It sounded better than telling his friend that he’d made a deal with a demon and only had a temporary lease on his soul.
“It’s not possessed,” Neal said absentmindedly while examining plans for the museum where the painting was being stored. “It’s cursed or spelled or…something to keep the wrong people away.”
“Somehow I’m guessing you didn’t get this information from the suit.”
Neal looked back at Mozzie, gave him a ‘what do you think’ look, and went back to the blueprints.
“Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but you do know somebody a little more qualified to handle otherworldly murder,” Mozzie suggested, earning him a glare from Neal. “Look, all I’m saying is that you might want to overlook your falling out with you ex for long enough to-”
“He’s not my ex,” Neal interrupted without looking up from the blueprints. “And I don’t need him to handle this.”
“You realize this is insane, right?” Mozzie had said it about so many of Neal’s plans that it was starting to lose its meaning, even when it was probably accurate.
oOo
Neal should have known that Mozzie would go behind his back and call. He’d called Peter when he thought Neal was going to kill Fowler, and now he’d called Dean and his brother when he thought Neal was going to go ghost-hunting unprepared. Neal could never stay mad when Mozzie did things like this because Neal knew he could make emotional decisions and he needed a check in place.
It didn’t mean he was happy to see Dean.
He and his brother arrived in New York the following day, having driven from Pennsylvania. Neal and Sam had never had much interaction beyond their initial meeting, and Neal had no idea how much Sam knew about Neal and Dean, so their greeting was somewhat awkward but professional. Mozzie greeted both brothers with enthusiasm and launched into an explanation about what they’d learned of the painting and its location since last talking to them.
Neal and Dean looked at each other then looked away.
It wasn’t until after the four men had hashed out a plan to infiltrate the museum, argued over who would go along and who wouldn’t, and begrudgingly agreed to all go together, that Dean spoke to Neal directly. Sam and Mozzie were sitting side by side, staring at their laptops, trying to find out more about the background of the painting when Dean sauntered over to Neal.
“Your buddy there know why you aren’t so happy to see me?” Dean nodded toward the table where Mozzie was pointing at something on Sam’s computer screen while Sam looked at him, confused.
“We don’t discuss it,” Neal said flatly, not wanting to deal with Dean’s lecturing again.
“You don’t think you owe it to the guy who’s putting his ass on the line for you to know what’s coming?” Dean sounded like he was projecting, but to Neal, the guy always sounded like he was projecting.
“What I’ve got coming to me has nothing to do with Mozzie. As far as he needs to know,” Neal leaned his face in close to Dean’s, “ the only fight we had was rooted in your inability to commit to anything that’s not your family.”
Dean looked over Neal’s shoulder uncomfortably, but Sam and Mozzie were still preoccupied. “How long are you gonna let him keep believing that lie?”
“You freaking out on me when I asked you to spend a week in Monte Carlo with me is a lie?” Neal raised an eyebrow skeptically, but Dean just frowned at him. “Here’s a question: how long will you keep nagging me about a choice I made before I even met you?”
“Whatever.” Dean shook his head. “You run around and live your life on borrowed time, whatever’s left of it.” Dean started to walk away, but Neal grabbed his sleeve. Dean looked down at Neal’s fingers curling into the leather of his jacket, then back up at Neal’s face.
“You know if I hadn’t made that deal, you never would have found me.” It was the least cliché way that Neal knew how to say that it hadn’t all been bad times. They had both considered themselves far too charming and far too old for the cutesy trappings of courtship and romance, but there had been something there between them.
“We weren’t exactly some apple pie romance,” Dean countered.
“And everyone needs some apple pie in their life.” Neal said wistfully then smiled at Dean’s baffled expression. “I mean that even you’d like it to be about romance once in a while.”
Dean just shrugged. Neal turned around and backed up against the wall to stand beside Dean. The two men stood and watched Sam and Mozzie for a few moments before Neal spoke.
“I wish I could take it back,” he admitted. “Maybe one day I’ll be able to.”
Dean turned his head to look at Neal, who stayed facing forward. He thought silently before asking, “D’you know which crossroads demon you made your deal with? Maybe we could try to find them, work something out?”
“Does ‘work something out’ mean ‘shoot them in the face’?” Neal looked at Dean and received a smile in return.
“Doesn’t it always?”
oOo
Peter tried not be mistrustful, but he had a duty as the person responsible for Neal to monitor his tracking anklet and check up on his associates. For the last few days, Neal had been spending a lot of time at home and at various diners around the city. It wasn’t his usual pattern and it made Peter curious, but he tried to clamp down on worry.
However, Peter was unable to stop himself from being concerned when Jones spotted Neal with Mozzie and two unknown associates. If Neal seemed capable of having friends outside of the criminal world, then Peter wouldn’t get so worried, but every time Neal met up with somebody Peter didn’t know, it seemed to lead to trouble. Jones had tried to I.D. the two men, but without a photograph or video to run through facial recognition software, the best they had was his limited memory. At this point and Peter was unsure if he should keep trying to look into it.
Peter shared his concerns with Elizabeth over breakfast, distractedly leaving his tie untied so that when he leaned over the untied ends threatened to fall into his oatmeal. She listened as he talked all through breakfast then leaned over when he was done and stopped the tie from flopping into his empty bowl.
“Have you talked to Neal about it?” Elizabeth asked, tying and straightening Peter’s tie for him as he finished off his orange juice.
“I’ve hinted at it,” Peter hedged. “I just don’t want to say something that makes him think I don’t trust him. You’ve seen how bad he can get; it’ll just send him spiraling back to his old ways.”
“Don’t you think you’re a little past all that?” El wiped a drop of orange juice from the corner of Peter’s mouth tenderly and beamed at him. “I’d like to think it’s the two of you against the world.”
Peter returned his wife’s glowing smile. “I like the sound of that.”
oOo
They were in one of the museum’s storage areas when things all went to hell. Not literally this time, but that seemed quite possible in the near future.
Everyone but Dean had been surprised when Dean said that he and Neal would search one of the museum’s two storage areas while Sam and Mozzie searched the other. Neal had suggested that Sam and Dean stick together, but Sam agreed with his brother that it was best to have someone who knew how to handle the supernatural in each pair.
Neal had tried not to show how agitated he was, partially because he and Dean were tentatively on decent terms again, and partially because he didn’t want anyone to be suspicious about why he didn’t want Sam or Dean around when he found the painting. Based on the temperature control guidelines he’d found, he knew that the painting would be in the west storage area. He didn’t have much of a plan for what he’d do when he found the painting with Dean right there, so he played it by ear and thus things went to hell.
There didn’t seem to be anything at all mystical about the painting, but there did seem to be charred handprints on the frame and an unfortunate smell of sulfur. When Neal found it, Dean had his back turned and Neal took inspiration from Alex’s book. He tucked the painting into the case he’d brought along, started to leave, and when Dean noticed him, he ran and locked Dean inside.
“What the hell?” Dean asked, mostly confused at this point as he tried to open the door.
“I’m sorry, Dean. I need this painting,” Neal tried to explain.
“Neal? Neal! Dammit, open the door!” Dean shouted as he banged on the door.
Neal frowned at Dean through the door’s Plexiglas window. “If you don’t break out yourself, Mozzie and Sam will come find you soon enough.”
“Are you freakin’ kidding me?!,” Dean barked. Neal knew that Dean would start shooting at the lock soon and he needed to be gone before that happened.
oOo
Dean did try to shoot the lock open, but had no luck and no reception, so he was stuck locked in the storage area for at least an hour until Sam and Mozzie found him.
“Where’s Neal?” Sam looked around the storage room, obviously expecting him to pop out from behind a row of boxes.
“Probably doing something that’ll get himself killed even sooner,” Dean answered bitterly.
oOo
Mozzie was impressed that Sam was able to hack into the U.S. Marshals’ computer system to find Neal using his tracking anklet, but all of those good feelings were kind of overshadowed when he wondered what his friend was doing with an evil painting.
By the time Sam, Dean, and Mozzie arrived at the meeting spot under the Brooklyn Bridge, Crowley was zipping up the case holding the painting and Neal was being granted irrevocable possession of his immortal soul.
“Crowley?” Sam was mildly surprised to see him involved.
“Crowley,” Dean growled; he was beginning to really want this guy to be dead. He looked to Neal, who seemed guilty but unapologetic. “I told you I’d try to help you, and you go to him and make another deal?”
“I didn’t have the time or the willingness to take that kind of risk,” Neal answered.
“But you’ll risk the souls of other people?” Dean asked angrily. “Do you realize what you just gave him? Think Picture of Dorian Gray on meth-amphetamines. It sits there, capturing the souls of innocent people and then they’re stuck there until something like Crowley wants to use them.”
“Oh please, innocent people,” Crowley interrupted, laughing as he unzipped the case again. “Sorry, just a moment, I can’t be close to this painting for too long or…”
Crowley stood silently, looking closer at the painting. Sam and Dean looked between each other, while Mozzie looked around at everybody, desperately wanting to ask if that was really a demon talking to them right now, but knowing that it probably wasn’t the best time.
Suddenly, Crowley flipped the painting forward and pointed it at Sam. Nothing happened.
“You slimy little twat,” Crowley shouted, taking the painting in his leather-gloved hand and smashing it over his knee. “You trying to pass a forgery off on me?”
“Forgery? Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Neal held his hands up, palms forward in front of his chest, indicating that Crowley should slow down. “I took the painting you wanted me to take; if it’s a fake then that’s not on me.”
“You think you’re clever, don’t you? Got your soul back before I could notice the painting had no power,” Crowley spat. “Well I assure you that your remaining time on earth will be nowhere near pleasant if you think you can pull one over on me.”
“Hey, I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I did was get you the painting,” Neal insisted, earning him a scowl from Crowley who soon disappeared.
“You could’ve just told us you wanted to make a forgery to get your soul back.” Dean spoke to Neal, but stayed beside his brother. “You know, instead of locking me up in a museum.”
“I didn’t make a forgery,” Neal said as he looked out on the water. “And if I did then I’d certainly never admit it to anyone.”
“Yeah, well, Crowley’s not going to believe that line after the painting didn’t work on Sam.” Dean looked to his brother, who was looking back at him with an unreadable expression on his face. “If you need any more help, you’ll let me know next time?”
Neal looked back at Dean and winked. “Of course.”
-END-
Prompts: Neal and Mozzie know about the existence of supernatural things. When strange murders related to a cursed painting start to happen and the FBI is no any closer to figuring out the truth, he and Mozzie go behind Peter's back and call Sam and Dean.
Long ago Neal made a deal with Crowley and now is payback time. The good thing is that Crowley has another deal to offer to him. The bad thing is that what he wants in exchange is almost impossible to get, especially with Peter Burke breathing down Neal's neck.