Seven White Collar Drabbles from Prompt Fest VII

[attackfish]

Written for elrhiarhodan's Prompt Fest VII.  The drabble titles are prompts from the fest.


Bugsy - Power

It was all about the walk. Bugsy knew they looked at his short legs, and round body, heard his funny breathing, and smelled the clean shampoo smell on his fur, but other dogs, they also saw the way he walked, with his head high, and his tail up. They forgot the rest after that. Anybody coming into his house better remember who had the power, and who was the interloper. Even the slobbery lab staying with the man in the upstairs room. Big dogs needed to know it most of all, because Bugsy wasn't sure he could back it up.

 
Kate - Survival

Most days, she thought the fear was behind her. The world had slid out from under her one morning, and the ground had disappeared. Her boss was a liar, a thief, and he had used her to steal everything people had, and somehow, she hadn't seen it. It left her picking through her memories, trying to sort out what was real, and what was a lie. And then she met Neal Caffrey, with the same face as Nick Halden, and the world slid away again. And she followed him, because it was easier than finding a new liar to believe.

 
Diana - Loneliness, and Jones - Friendship

"She is not good enough for you anyway." Clinton said as she walked into the elevator. "And if she doesn't realize what a good thing she had going, she doesn't deserve you."

"You know, that's not helping," Diana sighed, pressing the door close button, just ready for the day to be over.

"Yeah, I know, but it's my job to say it." He clapped her shoulder, and twisted his mouth sympathetically as the elevator sped down through the floors. The door dinged open. "And it's my job to take you out for drinks until you realize I'm right. Come on."

 
Neal - Portents

"You know," she whispered in his ear. "I bet you would make a great partner, if you ever want to give it a go."

"You know, I don't think we would," he whispered back sweetly. "I don't do the psychic con, and I don't do the miracle cure con. That's your game, right?"

"You think you're so much better than me because of that, don't you?" She shot him a furious smirk. "Funny."

As she turned ber back, Neal glided away and smiled at the man just waiting to give him his money, even if he didn't know it yet.

 
Fowler - Disaster

Garrett watched the tape and wanted to cover his eyes, and let his fingers block it all out. Someone had a tape of him murdering a man in cold blood. Someone out there had planned this, and someone...

And it didn't matter that this man had killed his wife. It didn't matter whether or not he could prove it. He felt himself suffocating, the air vanishing from his lungs, because it didn't matter if the person who had the tape never showed it to another soul. In prison or out here, Fowler already knew he would never be free again.

 
Sara - It's not always about the work.

Coming home to an empty apartment didn't bother her, at least, it hadn't, until she died and nobody missed her, not even Bryan. He sent carnations. And when she came back to life, she still had a job to do.

Bryan had sent carnations. She decided she hadn't really liked him much anyway. And somehow, she wondered if deciding that were somehow the problem. Most people couldn't. Most people didn't get that close to people they didn't like all that much anyway, and maybe it wasn't closeness so much as the assumption that if she dated somebody for long enough and neither of them broke it off, somehow, the relationship, without either of them doing anything, would turn into an engagement, and then marriage, and it would all happen as if they had planned it.

He job worked that way. She worked hard, recovered paintings, and bearer bonds, and cars, and jewelry, and a thousand pointless, meaningless, expensive things that belonged to other people who cared about them, and she didn't quit, wasn't fired, got promoted, and now she was alive again, and she had that back. Maybe she was in shock. That sounded better than being numb, didn't it?

Caffrey broke into her apartment. Someone Caffrey had loved died, and he wanted to hear her voice just one more time. He should get to, she thought, if he cared that much, and couldn't ever have the person he cared about back, because Sara was back and nobody really cared.

 
Peter and Neal - Truth

"So, Agent Burke, funny meeting you like this."

"Yeah, funny," Peter said, mouth dry. The kid sat on the floor, the handcuffs locking his wrists together like he couldn't slip them, or pick them, or whatever, in five seconds flat the moment he wanted to, and it all just made Peter want to shake him. "You know, when I bought you, I was hoping I wouldn't have to arrest you again."

Neal smiled at him, fake, Peter thought (hoped) and probably painful, but as real seaming as Neal Caffrey could make it.

"Damn it, Neal," Peter sighed, sitting down next to him on the floor. Distantly, he wished he could have somehow made this private, just the two of them like this, in the end. But he couldn't. "You lied to me."

"I didn't lie to you," Neal shot back, like it really mattered. "I just didn't correct you when you started making assumptions."

That sharp, dark wish to just shake Neal until he understood, until he got it, was back, worse than before, and Peter fought not to yell at him instead. "You wanted me to have those assumptions. You made me have those assumptions on purpose."

Neal tried to shrug, but the handcuffs pulled his shoulders back as he tried to raise them. Peter could feel the other agents twitch at the movement, fingers sliding over the triggers on their weapons. "You wanted to assume those things as much as I wanted you to," Neal reminded him. "You're the one who wanted to rescue me."

"I thought you needed it." Peter hissed, wishing he could just grab the man and make him meet his eyes. "Damn it Neal, you just don't find slaves pulling elaborate cons without being put up to it by their owners! Your owner-"

"Only according to the law," Neal cut in, voice tight. "Like Moz and I ever cared about the law."

"Damn it Neal," Peter said again, and wondered if there was ever going to be anything else he could say to that man. "You're too, I don't know, smart for this, good for this."

"That's what Moz thought," the other man said softly, gazing forward, off into the distance, at, or maybe through the warehouse walls. "That's why he bought me. I'm good at this."

"And now you're caught." Peter wished he could explain it somehow, figure out what words would actually unlock the part of Neal that he thought he had seen years before when he had bought the other man and freed him. "Now you're going to prison."

Neal's eyes grew sharp, and just a little cold for a moment, and then warmed as his whole face softened into what Peter thought (hoped) was a genuine, very sad smile. "You can't win forever, I guess." He laughed quietly, eyes flicking around at all the other FBI agents encircling them, their guns trained on him. "And I'll get out." He squeezed Peter's hand and shook his head. "Thanks for that, Peter."