Bleeding Love: 1/?
Title: Bleeding Love
Chapter Title: I Put a Spell on You
Fandom: White Collar
Pairing: Peter/Neal, Peter & Elizabeth
Wordcount: 2000 so far
Fic Summary: Supernatural AU - Paranormal Crime Investigators Peter Burke and Neal Caffrey are both trying to deal with their break-up a few weeks prior when Neal enters into a relationship with a mystery woman who is not what she seems. When she endangers Neal's life, Peter must reveal a secret of his own in order to save him.
At two-thirty that Tuesday afternoon, Peter Burke replaced the ancient, off-white phone on his desk in its cradle and called out, “Okay, listen up, everybody! Call just came in - suspected magical artifact tampering at 49th and Lex.” Peter was always surprised at how easily his voice could fill the small space of the Paranormal Crimes Division office - he would have to remember to speak to Hughes about getting an expansion at the next budget meeting.
“Man, another magical artifact?” Jones grumbled as he stuffed a wide variety of strange, multi-colored objects into his pack and got ready to leave. “That’s the third one this week. Seems like that’s all we ever do anymore.”
“Hey, you want excitement, go back to the Vampire Hunting Squad,” Diana countered with a short laugh, swinging her own pack over her shoulder.
“Those cowboys?” Jones asked with a derisive snort. “No, thanks. I’ve had enough fake teeth jammed in my locker to last me a lifetime.”
“Me, I like life here in the quiet lane,” Diana continued contemplatively. “Nobody jumping out at you from behind a tomb or putting a hex on your car if they don’t like your line of questioning. The GPS in my Ford Fusion still switches to Russian when it rains for long enough.”
"Complain, complain, complain," came a voice from behind them, which Peter knew could only have belonged to Neal Caffrey. Emerging from the back of the office, he draped an arm over each of his co-workers' shoulders and continued with a grin, "That's all I ever hear around here. Don't tell me the exciting world of supernatural crime fighting has lost its appeal for two of its finest agents."
"Keeping cons like you from taking advantage of people is still quite enough appeal for me, thank you very much,” Diana insisted, ducking under his arm, though the affectionate smile lurking at the corners of her mouth contradicted the content of her words.
“Now, Diana, you know the only conning I’m doing these days is con-sulting,” Neal said, breaking out his patented 'You can trust me' grin.
"You believe me, don't you, Jones?" he continued pleadingly, turning his attention to the other agent.
"Not since you convinced me that umbrella was enchanted, I don't," Jones said firmly, forcibly removing Neal's other arm from his shoulders.
"Well, you didn't get wet!" Neal protested, still grinning, "That has to count for something, right?"
Peter regretted having to interrupt what was clearly a pleasant exchange for all involved, but, after all, he reminded himself, they did have a case. “Neal,” he called out, extending his hand in a perfect, two-fingered FBI summons, "Stop pestering Diana and Jones - you're with me on this one."
"Oh, yes, sir," Neal said, his voice tinged with sarcasm, grin turned suddenly sharp. "Right away."
Peter sighed as he once again banished the faint hope that maybe Neal would have woken up that morning and decided not to be mad at him anymore. He vaguely registered the worried looks that Diana and Jones exchanged as they watched Neal brush roughly past him and out the door but knew they would have to wait until things with Neal had been sorted out.
"How long are you going to keep this up, huh, Neal?" he finally asked, frustrated, as they neared his car.
"I don’t know, Peter," Neal said, whirling on him, his normally cool blue eyes blazing, "How long are you going to keep me in the dark about why you ended things?”
Peter had wanted to tell him the truth, so much so that he had almost broken a solemn vow in order to do so. But, in the end, he had forcibly parted them with a lie, one which he repeated now.
"Neal, I told you," Peter said, lowering his voice as he moved in closer, "I can't; I'm - I’m married."
"And I told you," Neal shot back, his voice snapping with temper, "that as you are the worst liar I've ever encountered, I would appreciate it if you didn’t insult me by trying."
"Come on, Neal," Peter began cajolingly, though he knew the undeniable truth of the statement made any protest on his part seem utterly empty.
“Oh, just...forget it, okay?” Neal exclaimed in frustration, “It’s over, done, and me holding a grudge isn’t fair to Jones and Diana.” He took a deep breath before adding slowly, “I suppose the only thing to do is forget it ever happened and go back to being colleagues.”
Peter was about to say that he’d like that, but as Neal had already reprimanded him once for lying, he settled for a quiet, “That’s probably for the best,” before swinging into the driver’s seat of the Taurus.
They spent most of the ride in silence, and Peter found he wasn't sure whether he actually preferred it to Neal biting his head off at every opportunity. After all, he thought gloomily, argument was at least communication.
After spending twenty minutes sneaking miserable glances at his partner, who was in turn making a concentrated effort not to look at him, for the first time in his life, Peter actually found himself glad to be arriving at what looked like yet another false alarm.
“Crystal Goddess Emporium?” Peter asked with a groan, stepping out of the car. “If I see one more Wicca shop with goddess in the name...I thought witches were supposed to be creative!"
"Why, what would you call one?" Neal said, sending him a small, amused smile, "I Put a Spell on You?"
"Well, it'd be an improvement," Peter insisted, disproportionately pleased that in spite of everything, he could still make his partner smile.
"Excuse me,” a melodious, female voice called out from behind them, "are you the artifact investigators?"
"Peter Burke, ma'am," Peter said, spinning around to show her his badge, "FBI - Paranormal Crimes Division, Subsection White Collar. This is my...partner, Neal Caffrey."
"Surely you mean ex-partner?" the woman inquired off-handedly.
Upon seeing the look of shock on Peter's face, she added quickly, "Oh, do forgive me - I've overstepped. Bad habit of mine, I'm afraid - well, of most in my line of work, so I'm told."
"What, shopkeepers?" Peter asked automatically, shooting a confused glance at the brightly painted piece of real estate behind them.
“Psychics, I think you’ll find,” Neal corrected, nearly successful in hiding his laugh.
“The shop actually belongs to a friend of mine, Ruth,” the woman explained, “but I promised I’d look after it for her for a couple of weeks. She’s at a spiritual retreat in Hoboken. I’m Annabelle.”
“Well, Annabelle,” Peter said, attempting to steer the conversation back to matters of business. “What is this you told us about a falsified artifact?”
“Of course,” she said smoothly, “Right this way.” She led them through a bead curtain into a surprisingly large room, every surface of which was covered with strange objects of every conceivable design and color.
Annabelle extended a graceful hand and picked up a crimson pendant on a silver chain from the top of a polished chest of drawers. “Here it is.”
Peter slipped on a pair of latex gloves and signaled to Neal to do the same before carefully taking the necklace from Annabelle.
After a cursory examination revealed nothing of significance, Peter relinquished it to his partner before inquiring, “What exactly is it supposed to be?”
“The note in Ruth’s inventory has it listed as some sort of Romanian love charm,” Annabelle explained thoughtfully. “Antique, turn-of-the-century in fact, a star garnet on its original twelve karat silver chain. One of the most valuable items in the place.”
“And what made you think it wasn’t the real thing?” Neal asked, holding it up to the light.
“Actually, it was the customer expressing interest in a purchase who first brought it to my attention,” Annabelle explained. “I wouldn't have noticed anything amiss unless she’d directed my attention to it.”
“We’ll want to speak to this customer ourselves,” Peter said authoritatively.
“Of course,” Annabelle replied, “she’s right over there.” She pointed to the corner of the store where an elegant woman dressed entirely in black was browsing a display of gemstones and furtively sneaking glances at them.
“Oh, I can take this one, Peter,” Neal volunteered, gazing at the woman with obvious interest. “I know how jewelry talk always bores you to tears.”
Peter couldn’t think of a good reason to object to Neal’s suggestion, other than the strange sense of foreboding which had swept over him the second he had laid eyes on the woman. Knowing full well that Neal would wave this off as jealousy and probably take it as an excuse to flirt even more aggressively, he said, "Fine, go ahead. I'll join you when Jones and Diana get here."
Neal grinned and strolled languidly toward where the woman was standing. Peter watched as she shifted her sunglasses to the top of her head and extended a exceptionally well-manicured hand in Neal's direction. "Oh come on," he muttered to himself, "Who wears sunglasses indoors, anyway?"
The soft sound of a skirt rustling beside him reminded Peter that he was not actually alone. “Er...sorry,” he said a bit bashfully to Annabelle, “I was only...”
“She bothers you, that woman?” Annabelle asked, her expression surprisingly earnest.
“I’m probably just being silly,” Peter said dismissively, but the seriousness of her manner, so light and friendly moments before, prompted him to elaborate, “There’s just something about her that seems somehow...”
“Dark?” Annabelle supplied, glancing briefly in the woman’s direction.
“Yes,” Peter agreed, nodding his head slowly. The foreboding he was feeling only increased when he remembered Annabelle’s gift, leading him to inquire, “Wait, did you sense something? When you were waiting on her, I mean?”
“It’s not so much what I sensed,” Annabelle began, frowning, “as what I didn’t sense. Most people, I get these glimpses when I meet them. Just little things - places they’ve been, people they’ve loved. But with her there was nothing, only an endless stretch of blackness where memory and feeling should have been.”
Peter subconsciously ran his hands over his forearms, warding off the phantom wind which had caused him to shiver. Though he knew he should continue this line of inquiry, curiosity prompted him to ask instead, “What did you see when you met me?”
Annabelle’s expression softened as she recalled, “I remember how surprised I was - most people are a jumble of disparate things, but you - you were broadcasting a scene.”
“A scene?” Peter asked, suddenly full of trepidation.
“It’s faded now, but I know you were there, and your partner. I can see him cooking something in a saucepan, and then you...you kissed him. Yes, definitely a kiss there.”
The memory flashed into the forefront of Peter’s mind, and he watched it unfold as Annabelle must have. Sure enough, there was Neal, standing at the modest stove in his corner of June’s beautiful brownstone, carefully stirring the bechamel sauce intended for the celebratory dinner he had insisted on making Peter in honor of their first year working together.
To this day, Peter didn’t know what about that evening had made him finally snap. Maybe it was the glass of scotch he had allowed himself while watching Neal cook. Maybe it was the sexy way Neal sang to himself while he cooked, like nobody was watching. Maybe a year had suddenly seemed like quite long enough to want someone without doing anything about it.
Whatever the reason, his past self had chosen this moment to act on the feelings which had been simmering for so long beneath the surface. Peter watched himself tap Neal on the shoulder. He watched Neal whirl to face him, a wooden spoon covered in sauce in his hand. And he watched himself cut Neal off mid-sentence by swiftly lowering his lips to his, which, he remembered now, tasted of what surely would have been an excellent bechamel sauce had Peter allowed him to finish making it.
The last glimpse he was allowed before the picture faded once more to black was Neal wrapping his arms around his neck, himself maneuvering Neal onto the counter, and the spoon clattering to the floor, forgotten. It was a memory Peter treasured, and one he thought of often, especially since his relationship with the Neal of the present had become so frosty as of late. It did not surprise him that Annabelle had picked up on it. Yet as much as this explanation answered, it also brought forth another question.
“I see now how you knew we were together,” Peter said slowly, “but how did you know we had broken up?”
“There was a pall over the memory,” Annabelle explained, “a wistfulness which wouldn’t have been present had you still been together.”
This caused Peter to glance instinctively in Neal’s direction, which reminded him in a flash why he had been asking Annabelle about her powers in the first place: the mystery woman whose mere presence still sent a chill down his spine.
Luckily, Diana and Jones chose this moment to burst through the door, arguing good-naturedly about whose fault it was they had gotten lost. Peter motioned them quickly in Annabelle’s direction and just as quickly made his way toward where Neal and the woman appeared to be deep in conversation.
“Now, you see how the garnet catches the light?” Neal was saying, hovering over the woman’s shoulder so she could see the necklace silhouetted against the store’s hanging lamp. “You were quite right to suspect it as a forgery - there’s a discoloration always present in Eastern European garnets which is conspicuously absent here.”
“How interesting,” the woman said. Though her English was perfect, her voice was tinged with an accent Peter could not quite place. “You certainly know much about jewelry.”
“Oh, well,” Neal said with his version of modesty, “It’s a bit of a hobby of mine. Perhaps we could discuss it some time over -”
He was interrupted at this point by Peter’s abrupt arrival, which he signaled by announcing his presence with a rather too loud, “Hello! What are we talking about over here, then?”
“Your charming friend here was just telling me about the flaws in this necklace,” the woman said, turning to Peter for the first time, “He is very knowledgeable.” He was struck first by the intense way she looked at him as she said, “But perhaps you are not finished interviewing the sales associate?” and, following that, by the brief flash of surprise that passed over her features as he replied, “I’m sure my colleagues can handle it. I thought, as the agent in charge, I should be interviewing you myself.”
“Of course,” the woman said, giving him a quick flash of smile which somehow only served to make her more unnerving, “You are quite right.”
“Peter, can I talk to you for a second?” Neal asked, the pleasant tone in his voice edged with something distinctly sharper as he pulled Peter to the side and whispered, “What are you doing?”
“What?” Peter asked innocently, “I’m investigating. In case you have forgotten, Neal, that is my job.”
“Well, you preventing me from asking out attractive women is not your job...despite how often you seem to think it is,” Neal countered, throwing a meaningful glance at the woman.
“Neal, I really wish you wouldn’t...” Peter began, trailing off when he remembered that he had no explainable reasons as to why he wished Neal wouldn’t have further contact with the mystery woman.
“You don’t get to tell me who I can be with, Peter,” Neal snapped. “You lost that right two weeks ago. Now, I am going to ask Katrina to have dinner with me, and if you don’t like it, then you’re just going to have to deal.”
Neal spun round and walked back to Katrina before Peter could say anything more on the subject. He watched her laugh and run a hand slowly up Neal’s hand, and even he told himself that the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach was just jealousy, that he and Annabelle were working themselves up over nothing, he knew he didn’t really believe that for a moment.
Chapter Title: I Put a Spell on You
Fandom: White Collar
Pairing: Peter/Neal, Peter & Elizabeth
Wordcount: 2000 so far
Fic Summary: Supernatural AU - Paranormal Crime Investigators Peter Burke and Neal Caffrey are both trying to deal with their break-up a few weeks prior when Neal enters into a relationship with a mystery woman who is not what she seems. When she endangers Neal's life, Peter must reveal a secret of his own in order to save him.
At two-thirty that Tuesday afternoon, Peter Burke replaced the ancient, off-white phone on his desk in its cradle and called out, “Okay, listen up, everybody! Call just came in - suspected magical artifact tampering at 49th and Lex.” Peter was always surprised at how easily his voice could fill the small space of the Paranormal Crimes Division office - he would have to remember to speak to Hughes about getting an expansion at the next budget meeting.
“Man, another magical artifact?” Jones grumbled as he stuffed a wide variety of strange, multi-colored objects into his pack and got ready to leave. “That’s the third one this week. Seems like that’s all we ever do anymore.”
“Hey, you want excitement, go back to the Vampire Hunting Squad,” Diana countered with a short laugh, swinging her own pack over her shoulder.
“Those cowboys?” Jones asked with a derisive snort. “No, thanks. I’ve had enough fake teeth jammed in my locker to last me a lifetime.”
“Me, I like life here in the quiet lane,” Diana continued contemplatively. “Nobody jumping out at you from behind a tomb or putting a hex on your car if they don’t like your line of questioning. The GPS in my Ford Fusion still switches to Russian when it rains for long enough.”
"Complain, complain, complain," came a voice from behind them, which Peter knew could only have belonged to Neal Caffrey. Emerging from the back of the office, he draped an arm over each of his co-workers' shoulders and continued with a grin, "That's all I ever hear around here. Don't tell me the exciting world of supernatural crime fighting has lost its appeal for two of its finest agents."
"Keeping cons like you from taking advantage of people is still quite enough appeal for me, thank you very much,” Diana insisted, ducking under his arm, though the affectionate smile lurking at the corners of her mouth contradicted the content of her words.
“Now, Diana, you know the only conning I’m doing these days is con-sulting,” Neal said, breaking out his patented 'You can trust me' grin.
"You believe me, don't you, Jones?" he continued pleadingly, turning his attention to the other agent.
"Not since you convinced me that umbrella was enchanted, I don't," Jones said firmly, forcibly removing Neal's other arm from his shoulders.
"Well, you didn't get wet!" Neal protested, still grinning, "That has to count for something, right?"
Peter regretted having to interrupt what was clearly a pleasant exchange for all involved, but, after all, he reminded himself, they did have a case. “Neal,” he called out, extending his hand in a perfect, two-fingered FBI summons, "Stop pestering Diana and Jones - you're with me on this one."
"Oh, yes, sir," Neal said, his voice tinged with sarcasm, grin turned suddenly sharp. "Right away."
Peter sighed as he once again banished the faint hope that maybe Neal would have woken up that morning and decided not to be mad at him anymore. He vaguely registered the worried looks that Diana and Jones exchanged as they watched Neal brush roughly past him and out the door but knew they would have to wait until things with Neal had been sorted out.
"How long are you going to keep this up, huh, Neal?" he finally asked, frustrated, as they neared his car.
"I don’t know, Peter," Neal said, whirling on him, his normally cool blue eyes blazing, "How long are you going to keep me in the dark about why you ended things?”
Peter had wanted to tell him the truth, so much so that he had almost broken a solemn vow in order to do so. But, in the end, he had forcibly parted them with a lie, one which he repeated now.
"Neal, I told you," Peter said, lowering his voice as he moved in closer, "I can't; I'm - I’m married."
"And I told you," Neal shot back, his voice snapping with temper, "that as you are the worst liar I've ever encountered, I would appreciate it if you didn’t insult me by trying."
"Come on, Neal," Peter began cajolingly, though he knew the undeniable truth of the statement made any protest on his part seem utterly empty.
“Oh, just...forget it, okay?” Neal exclaimed in frustration, “It’s over, done, and me holding a grudge isn’t fair to Jones and Diana.” He took a deep breath before adding slowly, “I suppose the only thing to do is forget it ever happened and go back to being colleagues.”
Peter was about to say that he’d like that, but as Neal had already reprimanded him once for lying, he settled for a quiet, “That’s probably for the best,” before swinging into the driver’s seat of the Taurus.
They spent most of the ride in silence, and Peter found he wasn't sure whether he actually preferred it to Neal biting his head off at every opportunity. After all, he thought gloomily, argument was at least communication.
After spending twenty minutes sneaking miserable glances at his partner, who was in turn making a concentrated effort not to look at him, for the first time in his life, Peter actually found himself glad to be arriving at what looked like yet another false alarm.
“Crystal Goddess Emporium?” Peter asked with a groan, stepping out of the car. “If I see one more Wicca shop with goddess in the name...I thought witches were supposed to be creative!"
"Why, what would you call one?" Neal said, sending him a small, amused smile, "I Put a Spell on You?"
"Well, it'd be an improvement," Peter insisted, disproportionately pleased that in spite of everything, he could still make his partner smile.
"Excuse me,” a melodious, female voice called out from behind them, "are you the artifact investigators?"
"Peter Burke, ma'am," Peter said, spinning around to show her his badge, "FBI - Paranormal Crimes Division, Subsection White Collar. This is my...partner, Neal Caffrey."
"Surely you mean ex-partner?" the woman inquired off-handedly.
Upon seeing the look of shock on Peter's face, she added quickly, "Oh, do forgive me - I've overstepped. Bad habit of mine, I'm afraid - well, of most in my line of work, so I'm told."
"What, shopkeepers?" Peter asked automatically, shooting a confused glance at the brightly painted piece of real estate behind them.
“Psychics, I think you’ll find,” Neal corrected, nearly successful in hiding his laugh.
“The shop actually belongs to a friend of mine, Ruth,” the woman explained, “but I promised I’d look after it for her for a couple of weeks. She’s at a spiritual retreat in Hoboken. I’m Annabelle.”
“Well, Annabelle,” Peter said, attempting to steer the conversation back to matters of business. “What is this you told us about a falsified artifact?”
“Of course,” she said smoothly, “Right this way.” She led them through a bead curtain into a surprisingly large room, every surface of which was covered with strange objects of every conceivable design and color.
Annabelle extended a graceful hand and picked up a crimson pendant on a silver chain from the top of a polished chest of drawers. “Here it is.”
Peter slipped on a pair of latex gloves and signaled to Neal to do the same before carefully taking the necklace from Annabelle.
After a cursory examination revealed nothing of significance, Peter relinquished it to his partner before inquiring, “What exactly is it supposed to be?”
“The note in Ruth’s inventory has it listed as some sort of Romanian love charm,” Annabelle explained thoughtfully. “Antique, turn-of-the-century in fact, a star garnet on its original twelve karat silver chain. One of the most valuable items in the place.”
“And what made you think it wasn’t the real thing?” Neal asked, holding it up to the light.
“Actually, it was the customer expressing interest in a purchase who first brought it to my attention,” Annabelle explained. “I wouldn't have noticed anything amiss unless she’d directed my attention to it.”
“We’ll want to speak to this customer ourselves,” Peter said authoritatively.
“Of course,” Annabelle replied, “she’s right over there.” She pointed to the corner of the store where an elegant woman dressed entirely in black was browsing a display of gemstones and furtively sneaking glances at them.
“Oh, I can take this one, Peter,” Neal volunteered, gazing at the woman with obvious interest. “I know how jewelry talk always bores you to tears.”
Peter couldn’t think of a good reason to object to Neal’s suggestion, other than the strange sense of foreboding which had swept over him the second he had laid eyes on the woman. Knowing full well that Neal would wave this off as jealousy and probably take it as an excuse to flirt even more aggressively, he said, "Fine, go ahead. I'll join you when Jones and Diana get here."
Neal grinned and strolled languidly toward where the woman was standing. Peter watched as she shifted her sunglasses to the top of her head and extended a exceptionally well-manicured hand in Neal's direction. "Oh come on," he muttered to himself, "Who wears sunglasses indoors, anyway?"
The soft sound of a skirt rustling beside him reminded Peter that he was not actually alone. “Er...sorry,” he said a bit bashfully to Annabelle, “I was only...”
“She bothers you, that woman?” Annabelle asked, her expression surprisingly earnest.
“I’m probably just being silly,” Peter said dismissively, but the seriousness of her manner, so light and friendly moments before, prompted him to elaborate, “There’s just something about her that seems somehow...”
“Dark?” Annabelle supplied, glancing briefly in the woman’s direction.
“Yes,” Peter agreed, nodding his head slowly. The foreboding he was feeling only increased when he remembered Annabelle’s gift, leading him to inquire, “Wait, did you sense something? When you were waiting on her, I mean?”
“It’s not so much what I sensed,” Annabelle began, frowning, “as what I didn’t sense. Most people, I get these glimpses when I meet them. Just little things - places they’ve been, people they’ve loved. But with her there was nothing, only an endless stretch of blackness where memory and feeling should have been.”
Peter subconsciously ran his hands over his forearms, warding off the phantom wind which had caused him to shiver. Though he knew he should continue this line of inquiry, curiosity prompted him to ask instead, “What did you see when you met me?”
Annabelle’s expression softened as she recalled, “I remember how surprised I was - most people are a jumble of disparate things, but you - you were broadcasting a scene.”
“A scene?” Peter asked, suddenly full of trepidation.
“It’s faded now, but I know you were there, and your partner. I can see him cooking something in a saucepan, and then you...you kissed him. Yes, definitely a kiss there.”
The memory flashed into the forefront of Peter’s mind, and he watched it unfold as Annabelle must have. Sure enough, there was Neal, standing at the modest stove in his corner of June’s beautiful brownstone, carefully stirring the bechamel sauce intended for the celebratory dinner he had insisted on making Peter in honor of their first year working together.
To this day, Peter didn’t know what about that evening had made him finally snap. Maybe it was the glass of scotch he had allowed himself while watching Neal cook. Maybe it was the sexy way Neal sang to himself while he cooked, like nobody was watching. Maybe a year had suddenly seemed like quite long enough to want someone without doing anything about it.
Whatever the reason, his past self had chosen this moment to act on the feelings which had been simmering for so long beneath the surface. Peter watched himself tap Neal on the shoulder. He watched Neal whirl to face him, a wooden spoon covered in sauce in his hand. And he watched himself cut Neal off mid-sentence by swiftly lowering his lips to his, which, he remembered now, tasted of what surely would have been an excellent bechamel sauce had Peter allowed him to finish making it.
The last glimpse he was allowed before the picture faded once more to black was Neal wrapping his arms around his neck, himself maneuvering Neal onto the counter, and the spoon clattering to the floor, forgotten. It was a memory Peter treasured, and one he thought of often, especially since his relationship with the Neal of the present had become so frosty as of late. It did not surprise him that Annabelle had picked up on it. Yet as much as this explanation answered, it also brought forth another question.
“I see now how you knew we were together,” Peter said slowly, “but how did you know we had broken up?”
“There was a pall over the memory,” Annabelle explained, “a wistfulness which wouldn’t have been present had you still been together.”
This caused Peter to glance instinctively in Neal’s direction, which reminded him in a flash why he had been asking Annabelle about her powers in the first place: the mystery woman whose mere presence still sent a chill down his spine.
Luckily, Diana and Jones chose this moment to burst through the door, arguing good-naturedly about whose fault it was they had gotten lost. Peter motioned them quickly in Annabelle’s direction and just as quickly made his way toward where Neal and the woman appeared to be deep in conversation.
“Now, you see how the garnet catches the light?” Neal was saying, hovering over the woman’s shoulder so she could see the necklace silhouetted against the store’s hanging lamp. “You were quite right to suspect it as a forgery - there’s a discoloration always present in Eastern European garnets which is conspicuously absent here.”
“How interesting,” the woman said. Though her English was perfect, her voice was tinged with an accent Peter could not quite place. “You certainly know much about jewelry.”
“Oh, well,” Neal said with his version of modesty, “It’s a bit of a hobby of mine. Perhaps we could discuss it some time over -”
He was interrupted at this point by Peter’s abrupt arrival, which he signaled by announcing his presence with a rather too loud, “Hello! What are we talking about over here, then?”
“Your charming friend here was just telling me about the flaws in this necklace,” the woman said, turning to Peter for the first time, “He is very knowledgeable.” He was struck first by the intense way she looked at him as she said, “But perhaps you are not finished interviewing the sales associate?” and, following that, by the brief flash of surprise that passed over her features as he replied, “I’m sure my colleagues can handle it. I thought, as the agent in charge, I should be interviewing you myself.”
“Of course,” the woman said, giving him a quick flash of smile which somehow only served to make her more unnerving, “You are quite right.”
“Peter, can I talk to you for a second?” Neal asked, the pleasant tone in his voice edged with something distinctly sharper as he pulled Peter to the side and whispered, “What are you doing?”
“What?” Peter asked innocently, “I’m investigating. In case you have forgotten, Neal, that is my job.”
“Well, you preventing me from asking out attractive women is not your job...despite how often you seem to think it is,” Neal countered, throwing a meaningful glance at the woman.
“Neal, I really wish you wouldn’t...” Peter began, trailing off when he remembered that he had no explainable reasons as to why he wished Neal wouldn’t have further contact with the mystery woman.
“You don’t get to tell me who I can be with, Peter,” Neal snapped. “You lost that right two weeks ago. Now, I am going to ask Katrina to have dinner with me, and if you don’t like it, then you’re just going to have to deal.”
Neal spun round and walked back to Katrina before Peter could say anything more on the subject. He watched her laugh and run a hand slowly up Neal’s hand, and even he told himself that the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach was just jealousy, that he and Annabelle were working themselves up over nothing, he knew he didn’t really believe that for a moment.