White Collar - "Laying Blame"
Title: Laying Blame
Author: TeeJay
whitecollar100 Prompt: #17 Ink
Genre: Gen
Characters/Pairings: Neal
Word Count: 300
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Spoilers for season 3, up to and including 3x10 'Countdown'
Summary: After recent events, Neal ponders the choices he's made.
Author's Note: I apologize for all the angsty themes lately. But the mid-season 3 finale just doesn't seem to wanna point any other way. Blame Jeff Eastin. I'm washing my hands of it.
Disclaimer: White Collar, its characters and its settings belong to Jeff Eastin and USA Network. And, guys? Your characters are not only welcome, they're wonderful. I'm just borrowing, I promise.
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Neal paces his apartment, and curses the treasure. He curses Mozzie a little bit too, but not too much.
Dark stains taint his soul, mottled specks of black ink on a surface that was splotched to begin with. It's not just actions that left these marks, it's people. Kate, Adler, Fowler, ... The list goes on, but it stops with Keller.
Crisp, white paper shines through the ink blotches, bright spots that carry names like June, Sara, Peter, Elizabeth. Mozzie is a bit more difficult to delineate. Mozzie is one of those patches where ink bleeds into paper, not quite clean and not quite dirty.
He tries to rearrange the landscape of his soul into a pattern that has meaning, but he keeps getting caught on the moment he stood in Peter's house, the moment he heard Peter's quivered voice speak those words ("He took my wife.").
Nothing would be the same again, and it was his fault. (Maybe Mozzie's-a little.) If only he'd been able to say no, if only he'd not let himself get swept away...
But as it is, he keeps his distance-and Peter and Elizabeth don't seem to desire otherwise. Interaction at work is courteous, professional, clinical. Peter had kept him out of prison, and Neal kept the Burkes out of his life in exchange. Apologies were traded, lines were drawn. And Neal's life became a lot emptier.
He stands near the wall of the rooftop terrace in the cool night air and closes his eyes. The ink blots seem to want to spell, 'You brought this on yourself. You deserve it.'
He'd almost told Peter that he'd made a choice before it all went sour. It is a moot point now. But he still... He still wishes Peter knew which side he'd chosen.
Author: TeeJay
whitecollar100 Prompt: #17 Ink
Genre: Gen
Characters/Pairings: Neal
Word Count: 300
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Spoilers for season 3, up to and including 3x10 'Countdown'
Summary: After recent events, Neal ponders the choices he's made.
Author's Note: I apologize for all the angsty themes lately. But the mid-season 3 finale just doesn't seem to wanna point any other way. Blame Jeff Eastin. I'm washing my hands of it.
Disclaimer: White Collar, its characters and its settings belong to Jeff Eastin and USA Network. And, guys? Your characters are not only welcome, they're wonderful. I'm just borrowing, I promise.
+-+-+-+-+
Neal paces his apartment, and curses the treasure. He curses Mozzie a little bit too, but not too much.
Dark stains taint his soul, mottled specks of black ink on a surface that was splotched to begin with. It's not just actions that left these marks, it's people. Kate, Adler, Fowler, ... The list goes on, but it stops with Keller.
Crisp, white paper shines through the ink blotches, bright spots that carry names like June, Sara, Peter, Elizabeth. Mozzie is a bit more difficult to delineate. Mozzie is one of those patches where ink bleeds into paper, not quite clean and not quite dirty.
He tries to rearrange the landscape of his soul into a pattern that has meaning, but he keeps getting caught on the moment he stood in Peter's house, the moment he heard Peter's quivered voice speak those words ("He took my wife.").
Nothing would be the same again, and it was his fault. (Maybe Mozzie's-a little.) If only he'd been able to say no, if only he'd not let himself get swept away...
But as it is, he keeps his distance-and Peter and Elizabeth don't seem to desire otherwise. Interaction at work is courteous, professional, clinical. Peter had kept him out of prison, and Neal kept the Burkes out of his life in exchange. Apologies were traded, lines were drawn. And Neal's life became a lot emptier.
He stands near the wall of the rooftop terrace in the cool night air and closes his eyes. The ink blots seem to want to spell, 'You brought this on yourself. You deserve it.'
He'd almost told Peter that he'd made a choice before it all went sour. It is a moot point now. But he still... He still wishes Peter knew which side he'd chosen.