C'est la Vie

[peppymint1986]

I really meant to have this up before the White Collar Season premeire, but it didn't happen.  And well, the new episode was so awesome I have just lost the motivation.  However, I have already finished the first independent scene.  So, I have decided to post it here so anyone who is interested can read it and daydream about how it could have gone.

 

 

To say this had been a bad day would have been a massive understatement. Even looking back at the events of the last few weeks, the con man could not for the life of him figure out how things had gone downhill so quickly. First Sarah had left him, then, after a fight Mozzie had left as well (taking the treasure with him), Keller had taken Elizabeth, and now Peter wouldn't even look at him.

 

Not that Neal blamed him, in all likelihood, the only reason the agent hadn't given him a one-way trip back to prison was that he might need him later on. Glancing at said man, the brunette couldn't prevent himself from wincing. He had never seen Peter look so lost. His hands curled; for one of the first times in his life, the con artist wished he was carrying.

 

Neal had never liked guns, even before he had picked one up for the first time. They were too final, too easy to use, police were more likely to shot a thief who was armed, the list went on and on. That did not mean the brunette didn't recognize that guns were sometimes necessary.

 

In all honesty, Neal had been angry at Mozzie because he had sold the painting without telling him, not because he had put a price on Keller's head. Okay, so he hadn't been that pleased about the latter either. This time though, the other had gone too far.

 

Sliding a little further into the shadows, the man currently known as Neal Caffrey took a slow, silent breath, fingering the cell phone he had lifted off one of the technicians. He knew, knew, that this was all his fault, and he would fix it, no matter what it took. Unfortunately, while she was priceless, Elizabeth was not some piece of art he could spirit away into the night. However, he knew someone who could.

 

They had always been close, he and the man calling himself Bryce Larkin. It was inevitable, they were twins after all. There had been a time when they had never strayed too far from the other's side, all the while playing their own private game of anything you can do I can do better. Of course, that had been before his mirror image caught the eye of the wrong people.

 

Fortunately, the pair had lived off the grid even then. The CIA had no idea Bryce had a brother, much less a twin, and the elder had no intention of telling them. They had been very careful after that, letters and phone calls becoming the exception instead of the rule, face to face meetings even more rare.

 

As the years passed the twins kept their distance for a different reason. Neal was too old to train now, not for what the agency would have wanted him to do. But, they had both made enemies, on both sides of the tracks. Luckily enough, their combined skills were very helpful in terms of making all sorts of things disappear.

 

Hell, Neal hadn't actually talked to his brother since a year before he had been arrested. Well, other then a brief recorded message asking if he wanted to be broken out with an automatic reply built into the device. The answer had been no. Now though, he needed Bryce's help.

 

Dialing a number he had long since committed to memory, Neal couldn't help but smile as he heard a voice he knew as well as his own. “Hey Thing One, you busy?”

Basic Premise is that Neal trades himself to Keller for Elizabeth.  Only he finds out to late that he has not acquired a non-violent thief so much as his twin brother.  The bad ass CIA agent.