After venturing off and writing stories for other fandoms, I can't help but feel as though my heart belongs in White Collar. I love writing stories for it! :) So, here is where I will post a bunch of one shots (mostly Neal and Peter bromance, but may have some Neal and Mozzie bromance, too and maybe all three together. No slash though.)
One Shot #1 : Be Still
Summary: Confined. It was the one word Neal Caffrey's life seemed to revolve around. Now it seemed to be his sole definition. How it came to be, he couldn't tell you. His mind had graciously let him forget it with the aid of drugs. Some think he will never know, that no one will ever know. But the better question is can he tell you how it ended? Can he tell you he made it out alive? Or will the story remain buried six feet under ground?
Be Still
It was dark except for a tiny flashlight he held with white knuckles. It shook almost like a flickering flame, not because the bulb was bad or the batteries were going out, but because his hands that gripped it for dear life shook. He was beyond pride. Pride was for people who could see the horizon, who could read on to the next chapter. Pride wasn't for people lost in the darkness or people with books that had the last three chapters ripped out. No. Pride wasn't for people buried alive six feet under ground. Pride wasn't for Neal Caffrey.
It's hard to watch someone succumb to fear, to watch someone's mind turn against them to run with fear. It's even harder to do when all you can do is watch. He stared at the screen inside the conference room with a nervous and worried hand at his mouth. His nerves were edging him to do something, anything. They made him squirm in his seat. His heart beat faster as if by doing so it would keep the man on the screen it had come to be so fond of alive just a little bit longer. He was willing to do anything to save him, but to do anything he had to have something. He had nothing. Peter Burke could only watch as Neal Caffrey slowly ran out of control, ran out of oxygen, ran out of time.
Neal wasn't a man of last wishes. He didn't have a bucket list. He didn't have regrets. At least that's what Neal had figured about himself when he was alive and well, when he was above ground. But laying next to death had a way of making you second guess yourself, especially in such close quarters.
He had one last wish. He begged death to grant it.
Peter watched Neal twist and kick in the small coffin. He watched an artist's gentle hands beat into the hard surface of the box without any intention except to live before the artist became completely still. For a moment, he thought he had failed, that the artist left the world with every painting burned. Every painting was, in fact, burned except for the one inside his heart, the most valuable. Peter watched Neal's chest rise and fall with every shuddered breath. It rose and fell dramatically before slowing. Then he heard it. The smallest of sounds, the faintest of whispers. The beginning of the end of the story.
"Please...let me...tell Peter I'm sorry."
There were many things he could learn from Peter, but there was only one that would matter. Neal seized his frantic struggles as his mind warped back in time to a moment that seemed so trivial up until the very moment he became buried six feet under ground.
Peter sat beside him in the hospital waiting room. He sat there with his elbows digging into his thighs as he wiggled his legs while he waited on news about Mozzie and his gunshot wound. His fingers found their usual place in his unruly hair again, before he stood up and began pacing. The invisible hole he was wearing in the floor got bigger, but he paid no mind. His mind was elsewhere, running through worst case scenarios and every hellish nightmare his imagination could conjure up. He felt an unfamiliar sense of panic erupting somewhere in his chest, trapping his breath. It wasn't until a warm, calloused hand rested on the his shoulder and urged him to sit down that the panic was at the very least controlled. He sat beside Peter once more, but the older man's arm rested gently around his shoulders in what neither man would recognize as sympathy or comfort. And then he said it. He gave Neal the only lesson that would matter in the end.
"Be still." Neal whispered as he remembered Peter's exact words from the memory. He blinked back the feeling of water in his eyes before closing them tight. He remembered Peter's arm tightening but not enough to be a one armed hug, then he said it again. "Be still."
He remembered that it wasn't until he had heard Elizabeth listening to a song on her phone later that day that he had realized what Peter's words actually meant.
"Peter won't admit it, but he loves this song." She had said with a knowing smile on her face, before forcing Neal to listen to it.
Be still and know that I'm with you
Be still and know that I am here
Be still and know that I'm with you
Be still, Be still and know
Neal sucked in a shaky breath as the song played in his head and he tried to imagine sitting in there beside Elizabeth.
When darkness comes upon you
And covers you with fear and shame
Be still and know that I'm with you
And I will say your name
He wanted coughed and blinked back the water in his eyes. He wanted to stop singing but he felt a peace in his chest as the words left his mouth.
If terror falls upon your bed
And sleep no longer comes
Remember all the words I said
Be still, be still and know
Peter just stood there, staring at the screen.
"What's he saying boss?" Diana questioned from beside him, trying her best to turn the volume up quick enough.
"He's...he's not saying anything. He's... singing." He responded before letting the words of the song ghost across his own lips just loud enough for himself to hear as he sang along.
And when you go through the valley
And the shadow comes down from the hill
If morning never comes to be
Be still, be still, be still
Peter felt his chest caving in as he listened to Neal whisper the words of the song. He felt his quivering voice produce the next words before his heart had ever caught up.
If you forget the way to go
And lose where you came from
If no one is standing beside you
Be still and know I am
Peter stood from his chair.
Be still and know that I'm with you
Be still and know I am
"Boss?"
Without looking at her, he turned and walked out of the room knowing she was following closely behind.
Neal opened his eyes and felt the air catch in throat at the sight of darkness. He felt a whimper on his lips and curled in on himself and into the softness of the sheets.
He froze.
He shouldn't be able to curl onto his side. He should be laying on anything soft and warm. Prying his eyes open and blinking a few times he began to take notice of the soft, yellowish glow of a bedside lamp in a white painted room. The smell of wood and dirt and been replaced with something strong and sterile.
He shuddered, afraid that this was all a dream, afraid at any moment he would be plunged back into that dark, buried coffin. But something pulled him from his thoughts. A steady beeping sound coming from somewhere up above him, but as his ears tried to determine the exact location of the sound, they picked up on something else, something soft and peaceful.
It was a song playing on a cell phone laying on the bedside table of the hospital room he was in.
When darkness comes upon you
And covers you with fear and shame
Be still and know that I'm with you
And I will say your name
"Neal?"
Neal's breath hitched as he couldn't clear his eyes fast to enough or turn fast enough to find the voice. A steady hand was in his hair and the bed dipped down where someone perched on the edge.
"P'ter?"
He heard the man sigh and for a moment he felt worried. "Yeah, buddy. It's me. Are you alright?"
Neal furrowed his brow. "Is this...real?"
Peter chuckled and ruffled his hair easily. "Yeah. Yeah it is. We found you two days ago. You've been in and out of it ever since. Do you remember any of it?"
Neal nodded and fumbled with the nasal canal under his nose until Peter's hand stopped him. "I remember being...buried." If Peter felt the shudder that ran through Neal, he didn't mention it. "I remember...I remember...n-nothing else. Just...this."
"Just what?"
"This song. I remember hearing this song. I remember you..." Neal stopped and turned his head into the pillow as much as the nasal canal would let him. "I'm sorry."
It would be a few weeks until Neal was able to talk about the incident in detail with Peter, but for the moment Peter just sat there on the edge of the hospital bed, his hand laying reassuringly in Neal's hair, until the younger man fell back into a restless sleep.
"It's okay, Neal. We're here. Elizabeth and I." The agent looked over his shoulder to see his wife sleeping in the armchair in the corner. "Just...be still."
The song drifted through the speaker of Elizabeth's phone as Neal once again drifted off to the words for an umpteenth time that Peter had lost track of and Neal probably wouldn't remember.
If terror falls upon your bed
And sleep no longer comes
Remember all the words I said
Be still, be still and know
And if Neal wouldn't remember it, Peter found no harm in singing along once again.
And when you go through the valley
And the shadow comes down from the hill
If morning never comes to be
Be still, be still, be still
"I remember Elizabeth singing this." Neal whispered from his half asleep state of mind.
Peter patted his head. "Yeah? Alright, Neal. Go to sleep." Peter offered quietly trying to get him back to sleep before he began singing along again.
If you forget the way to go
And lose where you came from
If no one is standing beside you
Be still and know I am
Neal opened his bleary eyes and turned his head out of the pillow with a grin Peter hadn't seen in a long time. "And I remember you singing it, too." Peter felt the heat burning in his cheeks at the embarrassing moment, but Neal just grinned at him waiting for him to continue and it was only when he did, that Neal gave into sleep.
Be still and know that I'm with you
Be still and know I am
AN: The song is Be Still by The Fray. I absolutely love this song and one day while listening to it, I just wrote this. Let me know what you think! Thanks for reading! :)
P.S. Can we all agree that in Gloves Off, Neal's face when Mozzie says "You'll break his jaw." and he wipes his mouth, was too adorable? haha