White Collar Promptfest Drabble (#1?)
So I actually posted a piece of White Collar fic. It's just a drabble - just shy of 300 words, and it was written for the Promptfest being hosted by the amazing elrhiarhodan . It occurred to me that, even though I rarely use this lj and it's not like lots of people are following it, since it's linked on her latest fest update post maybe I should stick my drabble here too. The prompt was "Neal - Stars," and this was my offering (FYI the first WC fic I've actually finished and posted for even semi-public consumption, as I mentioned when I put it up originally):
“I’ll give you the moon and the stars,” he’d said. It was a terrible cliché, and they both knew it. But then again, Kate did love the classics. And they’d been drunk at the time, on too much wine - even if it was twelve dollar Shiraz they’d bought the week before and not an ’82 Bordeaux - and on the thrill of a successful job, made all the more potent by a near miss with the dogged Special Agent Peter Burke, FBI. And drunk or no, he’d meant those words, if not literally then in any way that counted. Kate was his world, and he would give her any and everything within his power to give. In the end, though, what she’d gotten was not the life he’d so desperately wanted to give her, but a fiery death, alone on that little plane out by the Hudson River. And what Neal had gotten was the all too familiar feel of the cold steel of handcuffs around his wrists, another orange jumpsuit, and the sound of his cell door clanging shut ringing in his ears and leaving him to ponder his now uncertain fate. Lying on his back on what passes for a bed in this place, he stares absently up at the ceiling, having long since given up on the sleep that clearly isn’t coming any time soon. The only window is actually a barred skylight, and between the size of the grille and the glow of the lights that are always on just outside the prison walls, there’s nothing to see but an apparently starless sky. Strangely, Neal finds that he is actually grateful for that. These days the stars are no longer something to reach for, but instead stark reminders of promises he failed to keep.
“I’ll give you the moon and the stars,” he’d said. It was a terrible cliché, and they both knew it. But then again, Kate did love the classics. And they’d been drunk at the time, on too much wine - even if it was twelve dollar Shiraz they’d bought the week before and not an ’82 Bordeaux - and on the thrill of a successful job, made all the more potent by a near miss with the dogged Special Agent Peter Burke, FBI. And drunk or no, he’d meant those words, if not literally then in any way that counted. Kate was his world, and he would give her any and everything within his power to give. In the end, though, what she’d gotten was not the life he’d so desperately wanted to give her, but a fiery death, alone on that little plane out by the Hudson River. And what Neal had gotten was the all too familiar feel of the cold steel of handcuffs around his wrists, another orange jumpsuit, and the sound of his cell door clanging shut ringing in his ears and leaving him to ponder his now uncertain fate. Lying on his back on what passes for a bed in this place, he stares absently up at the ceiling, having long since given up on the sleep that clearly isn’t coming any time soon. The only window is actually a barred skylight, and between the size of the grille and the glow of the lights that are always on just outside the prison walls, there’s nothing to see but an apparently starless sky. Strangely, Neal finds that he is actually grateful for that. These days the stars are no longer something to reach for, but instead stark reminders of promises he failed to keep.