Author:
Regency
Title:
The Bureau for Dangerous Boys
Rating:
PG
Pairing: Neal/Peter friendship
Spoilers
up to the season one finale
Word
count: 393
Summary:
Neal finds out about the Fowler incident during the season finale and maybe it changes everything.
AN:
Title is a riff on the books, “The Book for Dangerous Boys” and “The Book for Daring Girls” in spite
of having no real relation to either premise.
Disclaimer:
I don’t own any characters recognizable as being from White Collar. They
are the property of their producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright
infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
~!~
It’s isn’t
until after Kate that Neal finds out Peter shot Fowler. He’d said he hadn’t
known that Fowler was vested, but Neal figures he could’ve been saying that to posture and relieve the moment with humor.
Except…Peter’s never cared for things like posturing or attempted a joke where he knew it would fail. He’s
man enough with his badge and his gun (which he’d get back any day now—at least, Neal hopes), he doesn’t
need any more attitude.
But it’s the first
mystery Neal’s had to ponder since the plane explosion that finally ended whatever chance he might have had with Kate,
so he clings to it. It’s something to think about. Something else, anyway.
So, he thinks about Diana
with whom he couldn’t dance and Peter who spends his days wearing earnestness like all his rumpled, cheap suits. He doesn’t like the idea of Diana hurt the way she might have been—and
he doesn’t doubt she would have been—but he likes the idea of Peter as a man of point blank shots even less. Because, nowadays, he lives his life in the realm of what if.
What if Fowler hadn’t been wearing Kevlar? It terrifies him
to think that Peter could be marking the days off a life sentence with chalk on his cell wall.
Prison isn’t any place for a Fed, especially not one with Peter’s merciful streak down his spine. At least, Neal used to think. Maybe he’d be just fine and I’ve never known him at all.
He doesn’t know and
it scares him to think that the very man who saved his life might be the person he has next to fear. He shoots people and doesn’t worry about the consequences.
Neal isn’t sure he can live with that version of Peter, if that’s one he can stand behind.
He was only there for me. If I’d just said goodbye, explained what was happening, maybe there wouldn’t
have been a gunfight at all. He prefers to think that. It’s easier to take the blame himself than to suppose that
somewhere in that triad of intentions, Peter’s intent had not simply been good.
Neal knows, deep down,
that Peter’s a decent man and a friend of his without question. But the
next time Peter pulls his weapon, Neal will still put his hands up, too.
