Work Text:
Title: Cowboy Up
Author: Ursula
Rating: rating: FRAO
Genre and/or Pairing: Neal Caffrey and Peter Burke, hints of Elizabeth because she won't stay out of the stories even when I lock her in her room.
Notes: Peter thumps Neal on the shoulder and tells him to cowboy up when he is upset. Not as fun and kinky as the title indicates
Spoilers: Mildly for Episode 4
Warnings: Slash
Summary: Neal is a guy, even if he is a sensitive one. When his best friend and lover tells him to cowboy up, he tries.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
A miss is almost is as good as a mile.
Neal had almost found Kate. Had seen her look at him over her shoulder. Had seen that her gaze still did not warm to him. It was torture. A water board of the soul. She had never loved him as much as he had loved her.
It was not like Neal to forget that he was in a car with Peter. He hunched in on himself, fighting the chill in Kate's gaze. He shivered.
"Sorry about the heater," Peter said, his voice soft and kind. "You want my coat?"
His chivalrous knight. Yes, he did want the coat although it could not keep out the frost that caused the chilblains on his heart. Neal appreciated the distraction of wiggling into Peter's coat. He liked that Peter held it for him, guided his arm into the coat, still warm from Peter's body. He liked the pat that Peter gave him when the coat was settled around Neal. Neal very much liked the way Peter's gaze roved over him like a caress.
"Why does my coat look better on you than it did on me?" Peter puzzled.
"I make everything look good," Neal replied, happy for the distraction. He was even grateful that Peter had insisted on him coming along on this stakeout although Neal fully realized that he could contribute nothing and that if somehow something went wrong, that guns being shot made him feel like fainting.
Peter chuckled, leaned back, arms splayed, the right one brushing Neal's shoulder.
It made Neal want to giggle as he thought of it as an adolescent boy's idea of a slick move to get his arm around the girl. Although Neal was no girl. Just a guy who wasn't all hung up on gender.
Much warmer, Neal might have nodded off for a few minutes, but as soon as Peter settled back into his mode of watching and possibly thinking, although his face was terminator blank if he was, Neal's thoughts returned to Kate. If only he could let go of her, he could be happy. What in the hell was wrong with him? He had it good. Sometimes Peter and Elizabeth gave off vibes that suggested to Neal that it could even be better.
But Kate. If Neal could be sure that she was all right, maybe he could let go of her. He was always the one who took care of her. Kate was the one who was never satisfied, who wanted so damn much. Neal could be content with a pretty fantasy like the cheap wine in the expensive bottle. Not that he didn't love the good life, but it wasn't everything. For Kate, it was having not wanting. She was so afraid of being poor. She could not feel beautiful in a thrift store dress as Neal felt handsome and debonair in his rat pack suit.
Neal didn't know he had sighed, probably more than once. Peter thumped his shoulder and said, "Mozzie told me. He was worried about you. Cowboy up, Neal."
'Oh, thank you very much, Peter, just what I needed' Neal thought.
"Did you give him more gin?" Neal asked, instead of explaining to Peter that he was not the cowboy kind. Maybe the gambler who doesn't like to fight or shoot, but had a heart of gold.
"No, he just thought I could help."
"You know she's bad for you," Peter said. "I'm not sure how much of your crimes…"
"Alleged crimes," Neal interjected, because Peters can not be allowed to win everything, just most of the war.
"Your alleged crimes, but that last gambit; that was not my brilliant Neal Caffrey. It was too big a chance even for you. And it wasn't even a beautiful elegant job. Forged bonds…forged bonds, Neal. They weren't even stylish enough to show what an artist you truly are."
"One last job," Neal said. "So we would never have to worry again. We were going to be a family. I wanted to have a family."
The quaver in Neal's voice sounded pathetic even to Neal.
Cowboy up. Peter did not even need to repeat it. Neal pulled Peter's coat tighter around his shoulders.
"You're coming for dinner again tomorrow," Peter said. "Elizabeth is cooking Veal Marsupial or something like that."
"Marseilles," Neal automatically corrected. "At least I hope so."
The image of a nice cut of veal stuffed into a kangaroo pocket would haunt him for days.
OooOooO
So the stakeout turned messy and Peter told him to stay in the car. Impossible, especially when Neal heard gun shots and Peter's backup was still not there. Neal climbed three stories of fire escape ladder in Olympic time, arriving in time to distract the guy holding a gun on Peter by throwing a chunk of brick at him. The other goon that Neal had not seen for worry about Peter had been surprisingly fast for a guy the size of a moving truck.
Dear Peter had gotten there on time to prevent Neal from being thrown off the building. Had knocked the ogre out and grabbed Neal in time to save him from dancing on air literally on this occasion. Had put him on his feet, dusted him off, and then went back to all that serious cop stuff without quite noticing that Neal was shaking again and not only because he was cold.
Neal had sat on the edge of the building looking down at the street, thinking it seemed miles to the ground, imagining himself shattered on the street below.
Would Peter have let himself cry or would he have cowboyed up?
OooOooO
Ruiz caught Neal in the basement file room, the one that smelled musty and was not all windows, where he had been sent for something he doubted Peter really needed.
Ruiz had pushed Neal against the wall and pinned him with a brutally hard arm. "I don't know how you got a leg up over Burke, but I'm watching you. Don't you ever forget, I'm watching you."
"You make me sick," Ruiz said. "You're scum. You know what's worst about you? You're bringing down a good man with you."
Punch. Stomach. Neal ducked and Ruiz's next blow hit his arm.
"Don't mention this to Burke if you know what's good for you."
It wasn't the threat of implied harm to himself that kept Neal silent after he finally caught his breath, got the file, and returned to Peter. It was knowing that if he told Peter, there was no way that Peter would let it ride. Peter would confront Ruiz and Reese Hughes, Peter's boss, would have no choice but to discipline Peter. Hughes made no secret of his dislike for Neal. He only went along with the deal because he was fond of Peter, but not fond enough to tolerate outbreaks of physical violence between coworkers in his command.
So aching, resentful, and still a little shook up, Neal brought the file to Peter and they worked through lunch, not even stopping for a sandwich brought in. Neal had overslept after a night spent restless and tossing in his comfortable bed, tormented by Kate. He did not have breakfast. Neal's stomach burned and by the time, Peter was ready to end the day, he felt sick from too much coffee on an empty stomach. How the hell did Peter do it?
At his wan appearance, Peter had hit him in almost the exact same spot as Ruiz had slugged him. Neal grunted in pain and Peter just chuckled, tapped the aching spot and said, "Cowboy up, Neal. You want to stop for dinner? Mine is already in Satchmo's dish so we may as well stop."
Schezwan Chinese, spicy, greasy, and eaten too quickly. It was not the best idea, but Peter was so happy to be feeding him that Neal didn't really mind that his stomach was worse for the wear.
OooOooO
Mozzie, dear Mozzie, faithfully brought Neal the next bit of news. Kate had narrowly escaped being shot in a heist gone wrong. Kate had fired back and shot a police officer, wounding him, and was now moving up on the most wanted list.
Peter showed up in the middle of the night. He had walked right in, not even knocking, pushed Neal down on his bed, and grabbed his ankle to check the monitor.
"I am not going to let you run," Peter said.
They had a drink, maybe four. Neal had tried to talk to Peter, talk it out, all the fear and the tension that was building inside of him.
Peter shut him up with a sudden burning kiss. Everything went away in that kiss. So much better than wine. Peter's hands all over him, batting Neal's away when he tried to help remove the clothing that constricted him suddenly instead of delighting him with elegance.
Peter's moan as they fell back together, all hunger and this thing between them having ravened its way out at last. Peter's weight grounding him when he felt as if he might be sucked into the vortex of nothingness at any moment. Without Peter, Neal would be lost in some place cold, dark, without Kate, or Mozzie or anyone who even cared to know him.
Peter's sparkling gaze, sharp diamonds of his eyes, blade of his need, a death of a thousand cuts in his lust for Neal. Before him, before Peter, Neal prepares himself, his fingers clumsy inside his body. Peter, naked and hard, waiting, barely in check. He looked at Neal's fingers as they slid in and out, stretching and he looks dangerous in his desire, like this act of passion could be fatal for Neal and Neal wants the danger, wants Peter even if it kills him.
Peter's hands on Neal's legs, lifting him, fitting inside him as if he belonged there, as if Neal had been made for him to be sheathed within.
The two of them moving together. A conflagration that build higher with each moan, each touch, each thrust. The edge of pain but the full plane of pleasure is everything. Peter is the most intoxicating substance that Neal has ever experienced. And Peter is substance. You could plant your feet on him. He would never disappear, never take your heart and leave it crumpled on the ground, stepping on it as he left. He would never elude you. He was the kind who found you instead and he would certainly keep you. And he was Peter. Neal loved.
The world comes apart. The molecules of them offered in homage to their passion and pleasure. Eons of oblivion, sweet lack of want, lack of time, disruption of self and everything that drives Neal has burned away. Peter withdraws, but before Neal can feel the loss; Peter takes him in his arms and kisses him to sleep, safe there, as near to happy as he has ever felt.
The morning is terror. Neal shakes, despite Peter's embrace, waking him. Watches the paintbrush of memory inform Peter what he had done. Neal waits for something, possibly for Peter to dismember him and dispose of him in a thousand pieces, so easy since Neal is already shattered before the man he loved.
Neal really doesn't know what Peter will do.
There's Elizabeth and Neal adores Elizabeth. He really does. She's everything that Kate was never. She's soft when she needs to be but capable beneath. She does not need to be rescued, because she is always thinking three steps ahead. She enjoys the world of luxury just like Neal, but if she had to live in an ice cave, she would make chandeliers of stalactites and tell Peter to wipe his feet on the bear skin rug as he dragged in some wooly mastodon for lunch.
Peter reaches for Neal and Neal closes his eyes. Kill me now, but don't you dare deny last night. It wasn't a mistake. It was perfection.
Peter's hand caressing him, smoothing back his hair, all wild spikes, strokes the sore place where Peter had pulled it hard the second time when Neal's mouth had teased with too slow flicks of worshipping tongue.
"It will be all right. It really will be. She will understand. She cares for you almost as much as I do."
"But I do have to tell her," Peter said.
Don't. But Peter goes to the shower, gets dressed, and tells Neal he will be back.
"Don't do anything stupid."
Cowboy up. Don't sit and go crazy waiting to find out if Elizabeth will kill him. Well, okay, deserved if she does, but it's the not knowing that is unbearable.
Neal worries more that Elizabeth will leave Peter (Peter would not live through that) than about what could happen to himself. He hates himself, blames himself, because Kate taught him well that mantra. It's always Neal's fault if people he loves get hurt. It's his fault if they run. His fault if he wrecks the contented life they had because Neal is a goniff and sometimes he steals happiness even if he can't seem to hold it in his beautiful, his skillful, his thieving hands.
When Peter comes back for Neal to bring him to work, there is a red mark the shape of Elizabeth's hand on his cheek. There is a purple passion bruise peeking just above the collar of the fresh shirt he had put on. Peter looks even more well-fucked than he looked when he left Neal. He looks smug and tells Neal.
"She wants to talk to you, but it's going to be okay. We can work it out. She loves me. She said she knew it was going to happen. Funny, I didn't. It just happened. You just happened."
Peter grins like an excited child at a birthday party. He says, "Elizabeth says you can keep happening but you have to talk to her."
Neal worries about it for a week. Elizabeth marches into his room without knocking. She slaps him. Kisses him where she hit him. They don't quite repeat what happened with Peter, but there is enough there that Neal's dick is spinning in circles between the two of them, a compass point between two equal magnetic compulsions.
His face in her surprisingly strong and soft skinned hands, Elizabeth will not let him drop his gaze. She is rummaging through his brain, makes a side trip to jerk his soul out of his chest to shake it bare to her gaze and examine it, and finally flays his heart with her beautiful eyes. "You better really love him, because I am not sharing my husband with someone who won't take care of him."
Elizabeth finishes with a kiss so scintillating that Neal has to brace himself on the wall. She looks as smug as Peter did. She throws over her shoulder, "I could have you any time I wanted you."
Almost out the door, Elizabeth adds. "And I may. But I'm not as easy as Peter. Or you."
OooOooO
It is a nightmare of delights. It is a cornucopia of almosts. Elizabeth asked Neal if he loved Peter. Did she ask Peter if he loved Neal?
There are more missed lunches. Missed because Peter would rather take Neal home, undress him, lay him out on his bed, and devour him instead of food. Peter thrives on it. Neal can't stop him. Does not want to stop him. Craves Peter to the point that he can't see Kate's face when he tries to imagine her. You would think that would be good, but Neal feels a pang of emptiness where Kate should go. She is a lost limb suddenly gone numb and no phantom of pain to fill the missing part of him.
Peter gives Neal presents. An early edition of Great Expectations, beautifully bound. Neal sleeps with his hand on it because Peter seldom spends the entire night. Many bottles of the best wine Peter can afford. He takes Neal to dinner, sometimes with Elizabeth. Peter leans back at times during those dinners, eyes roving between his two lovers, looking so proud of himself that Elizabeth kicks him under the table and Neal eggs her on.
It takes a toll so that even Peter notices that Neal is losing weight and buys him coffee with extra cream and sugar.
OooOooO
Peter makes Neal dizzy as Neal revolves in his orbit, runs after him, spins even more gracefully and often to catch his lover looking at his ass.
Sometimes the dizziness is not just a metaphor, but Neal makes the strange little episodes just part of his style, even if he is bracing himself because he is almost falling.
Being in love is exhausting. What with Peter's frequent visits and the late nights spent working, Neal feels like he is becoming a wraith of himself that has no substance when Peter is not making love to him.
Peter's lips over the angle of his too sharp hip. Peter's hand, the one slightly rough from practice on the firing range, grazes his cock, plays with the silken skin, draws him out hard and yearning, easily turning Neal's control into helpless mewling passion.
Neal has told lovers that they knock him senseless. He has really never fainted after orgasm. He does with Peter.
Peter is concerned, but Neal makes it a joke, persuades him it was not as dramatic as it seemed.
Neal is beginning to suspect that something is wrong, seriously wrong, but he has a lifetime of lying and, yes, he lies to himself. Right, Kate?
There's some other weirdness going on with his body that he can't even bear to examine in his brain.
The ache in his belly goes away so it's not the ulcer that Neal suspected he might have. He started to look up what it might be on med net, but Peter showed up with another bottle of wine and a look that compelled. Neal would be a fool to waste time on what probably is a bug he picked up in that low life alley Neal tripped in last week.
OooOooO
After a very late lunch at the same damned Schezwan restaurant where Neal first noticed he wasn't feeling that great, Neal feels so sick that he ends up running to the men's room.
Peter follows him. Holds his head when he throws up although Neal would much rather have been alone. Every instinct tells him not to show weakness, not even in front of Peter. Especially not in front of Peter who might find him wanting if Neal is less than a tough guy or at least as tough as his affable nature could pretend.
Peter helps him up. Neal waves him away as he washes his mouth out in the sink, rinsing and spitting, wishing for his toothbrush.
"Maybe we should get you a checkup?"
"I'm fine," Neal replies. "Too much grease."
Peter is nervous and Neal winces, knowing that when Peter is having a difficult time with emotions, his own, other peoples, he blurts inappropriate things and is always sorry for them instantly.
"Well, it better be. I was afraid you were going to tell me the condom broke and you were going to make me a daddy."
If Neal was Elizabeth, he would have slapped Peter, but he was not. He huddles into himself. "Take me home, Peter."
All way home, Peter apologizes and Neal, righteously angry, won't accept.
Finally, not walking Neal up as he usually does, Peter said, "It was a joke even if it was a bad one. Cowboy up, Neal."
OooOOooO
The next time it happens. Neal thinks he is alone, but Peter follows him and looks at the bloody frothy bile that Neal threw up. "We're going straight to the doctor. Shut up, Neal. You belong to me and I'm calling this shot."
The endoscope hurts. Peter insists on staying, but turns pale and flees. Neal is relieved, but hopes that Peter hasn't just dumped him here, because he is not sure how he is going to pay for the bill among other things.
Peter and Elizabeth arrive together when Neal is in recovery. A nurse helped him clean up and even comb his hair. He imagines himself somewhat of a Camille and wishes for his white flower.
They take him home when he is released with a bag of medicines and words about a less stressful lifestyle and possibly about not repressing his emotions so much.
OooOooO
During Neal's recovery, Elizabeth and Neal watch movies in bed when she is supposed to be working from her lap top. They watch Casablanca, which leads to original Ocean's 11 and the confession that was the movie that made Neal want to be a thief. Neal eats what Elizabeth fixes for him and he feels the flesh already covering the structure of himself. They talk about Peter and, even when he is not there in bed with them, he always is. It sounds uncomfortable but it isn't at all.
Elizabeth mixes Neal up with a jumble of emotions and sensations. She is like just the right amount of champagne and she makes him a little giddy. She is the most amazing woman that Neal has ever met. Sometimes he thinks she is the only real woman that he has ever met. And it is not as if she was the most beautiful although he finds her good to the eye nor even that she is charming and enjoys beauty as much as he does. Elizabeth never says anything directly about Kate, but Neal finds himself telling her things about his vanished love that he would have wanted to punch anyone else for saving. Elizabeth takes his lies and makes them the least needed of his defenses.
Kate recedes in his memory as a toy he has outgrown.
OooOooO
When Neal goes back to work with Peter, he is happy. It's the same but different in odd ways. Peter is careful in this environment, but if Peter was the one observing himself, he would have known about Neal and himself. Because little gestures, his smiles, how close they stand, say more than they should show.
Hopefully, Peter was as Neal thought he was: the exception to the rule, a cop as smart as Neal had been a thief. No one else seems to notice. Neal makes it a policy to flirt often with Lauren. Sometimes he even flirts with Jones just to see the brother run. It's all good fun; sleight of hand carried to the entire room. It's a good life.
Except for Ruiz who waits a week before trapping Neal in the same damn file room and slamming him against the wall about some mobster's missing painting. As if Neal had time to steal or inclination. There was Peter and there was Elizabeth and Neal hardly even thinks about cons or gambits.
Before Ruiz can hit him again, Peter is there, but with him is the big boss, Mr. Hughes. Neal has no clue how Peter guessed what was going to happen, but he really wants to hug Peter in front of his boss and everyone.
Ruiz is going off with Hughes after Neal repeats he does not want to press charges. Hughes is going to find some way of making Ruiz suffer anyway. He is a creative man and capable of true finesse when needed.
Peter stands in front of the door blocking it. He gestures to Neal with a crook of his finger, so appropriate as Neal is willingly wound around it.
"You okay?"
"I think so," Neal states. He tries to find a smile.
Peter put his hand on Neal's face, traces the flicker of facile smile into a real one.
"Neal, don't cowboy up."
And it sounds exactly like "I love you."
The end