The Starry Night - part three
//back to part two//
//part three//
-- 3//1 --
Early morning sun tickles Neal's ear, but he's already awake, already been up a few hours.
He's standing on his balcony, New York lying at his feet, right out of his grasp, and he breathes in deeply, tastes the fresh but still sweet air on his tongue.
He's ready.
For a normal eye, his apartment looks like he's just gone for work; a clean, nice living space with a tasteful decoration.
But with a closer look, it's evident that Neal Caffrey is gone.
Neal can't believe how hard it is, this time. He's left often enough to mix up the chronology of the names he's used, doesn't remember all the places he's called home temporarily.
And yet, it had never felt like leaving a home before.
Neal's eyes fall on the table, fall on the note he left for Sarah. For Elizabeth.
There's none for Mozzie because Mozzie will know, will understand.
Neal smiles. Mozzie will be mad at him for the rest of their lives, but he will understand. He will still have the treasure, so maybe he will leave too.
There's no note for Peter either. Simply because Neal doesn't know what to say.
-- 3//2 --
"You didn't want to leave without saying goodbye, did you?" June appears in the door, smiling, but it's sad. Like she knows.
Neal doesn't answer, doesn't know what to say that isn't showing on his face already.
"This time it's for good, isn't it?"
Neal nods, closes his eyes for a second. When he opens them again, June has one hand placed on his arm and her face is changed. Worried.
"Are you sure, you're doing the right thing?"
Neal sighs, blinks against the tears threatening in his eyes.
It's the one question he can't answer, the one thing for the first time in his life he's not sure about.
"I don't know," he whispers. "But I have to. I ..."
"Shhh." She puts a finger on his lips, caresses his cheek like a mother does. "You don't have to tell me anything, Neal. I trust you. I just hope you can trust yourself."
"What do you mean?" Neal asks, although he's afraid that he won't like the answer.
June tilts her head, studies him for a moment. "There are people here that mean a lot to you, Neal. Who you mean a lot to as well. Are you sure that you're ready to leave all that behind?"
It's too much suddenly, June too close, both to him and to the truth, and Neal gently snatches out of her grip, steps back, throwing her a pained look.
The old lady sighs, and then she nods. "I see. Well, I hope you know that you're always welcome here, Neal."
Neal nods. "Thank you," he whispers and for all the times he's been running it never has been this hard.
June turns around, the heels of her shoes clicking on the floor as she leaves for the door. Neal hears her stop. He turns his head, catching the woman's gaze.
"Neal, could you do me one favor?"
Neal nods, hoping it will something he's able to do.
"Don't leave without a goodbye."
Neal swallows. He nods, although he's not sure if he can do it. Neal knows that she's not talking about herself.
-- 3//3 --
Neal is standing in the park, hidden from view, only surrounded by a few homeless men and women, when his phone rings.
He startles, earning a few moody glances, but they let him do his thing.
Neal grabs his phone out of his pocket and throws his last ID into the barrel, the fire dancing in front of his eyes.
The name Neal Caffrey burns easily and fast.
"Hello?"
"Neal, this is Elizabeth," a familiar voice sings through the phone and Neal is speechless for a moment, didn't expect her of all people.
The smell of burned rubber and plastic tickles in his nose.
"Hey, Elizabeth," Neal says, hoping to sound normal enough. "Is everything alright?"
Neal steels himself for it, waits for it, waits for her screaming at him, calling him names.
Waits for her to say all the things that Neal deserves to hear, because Peter must have told her, of course he must.
"Everything is perfectly alright, Neal," she says, her voice warm and lovely and nice, and Neal feels so guilty he wants to cry with it.
I love your husband, Neal thinks and it's the first time he's put it in a sentence in his head.
"There's only one thing," she teases and suddenly Neal doesn't want to wait, wants to get this over and done with or not at all.
He contemplates hanging up, just closing the phone and throwing it into the barrel too.
"Peter and I were wondering if you might want to join us for dinner tonight?"
It's not even close to anything Neal was expecting.
"Are you ... sure?" Neal asks.
"Of course I am! Neal, we would love to have you here. What do you say? Seven-ish?"
Neal has to decline, has to say no. There are a million and one reasons why this is a bad idea ans surely Peter doesn't really want him to come.
Neal can't say any of it, can't pull a convincing lie out of his sleeve.
Before he even realizes it, he's saying yes, then goodbye, and closing the phone.
The fire keeps dancing in front of his eyes.
-- 3//4 --
It takes Neal full five minutes to find the courage and walk the last few steps up to the Burke's front door. There's a tremor in his hands when he pushes the doorbell that he's desperately trying to hide.
This is insane. He's never felt this much out of his depth. He's been conning people, stealing from the greatest museums and mob bosses, running from the FBI, and visiting jail for the better part of his life, but this, right here, is what makes his heart beat fast in his chest and what makes his palms sweat.
The door opens.
"Hey, Neal," Elizabeth smiles at him, open and friendly as ever, maybe even more than usually, and Neal can't really breathe underneath the guilt that's crushing him.
She swings the door wide open, inviting him in, and Neal crosses the threshold with shaky legs.
"Hey, Neal," Peter mirrors his wife, but his smile is a little less enthusiastic, a little more nervous.
Neal wonders how it can feel like walking into your home and walking right into the fire at the same time.
The dinner table looks lovely.
Set for three, placed at one end. It's cozy. Intimate.
Neal swallows thickly and sits down.
Despite everything, Neal has a great time.
The food was amazing, the vine just as good, and the words flow easily between them. Neal finds himself laughing more than he has in a while, finds himself grinning at Elizabeth and thinking, I love you, too, and it hurts just as much but it also feels good.
It connects him to these people, makes him part of something bigger and better than him. Even if it's just for tonight. Even if tomorrow all Neal is gonna have is a memory.
"More vine?" Peter asks, looking at Neal with a glint in his eyes. He's been ... different all night, relaxed and comfortable. If Neal wouldn't have known better, he would even say Peter was flirting with him just as much as he was with his wife.
"I can't refuse that offer," Neal answers, but he gets up, too, brings his glass over to the kitchen.
His steps are a little shaky, his smile faltering just a little, when Elizabeth follows, caressing Neal's shoulder as she walks past. It's a small gesture. But she's been doing it all night, just like Peter has, and Neal feels so ... At home, so ... loved.
It's breaking his heart.
A sound outside, the honking of a car, is breaking their little bubble.
"Oh, that's my cab," Elizabeth announces, her eyes lighting up.
"Where are you going?" Neal asks her, wondering if that means that he should leave too.
He doesn't want to yet.
"I'm going to a friend of mine for the night," Elizabeth explains, grabbing her purse and putting on her shoes. "Her husband left tonight for Iraq, I promised her to keep her company."
She's rushing back to them, her heels making noise on the kitchen tiles.
"Stay here and feel right at home," she says to Neal, reaches up to place a kiss on his cheek.
"Have fun, honey." She turns to her husband, giving him a quick peck on the lips.
"Thank you, hon," Peter says to her and Neal can hear the warmth in his friend's voice. "I love you."
Elizabeth smile, both at Neal and at Peter.
"You, too." She turns around, making her way to the front door.
"Goodbye, have a good time," she calls over her shoulder.
"Goodbye," Neal and Peter answer in unison.
-- 3//5 --
The front door shuts and the sound echoes through the house, making Neal very aware of how alone they are now and how close they are standing. The light coming from the dining room is enough to make them able to see, but it's still dark in the kitchen, and suddenly quiet. Intimate.
Neal is holding onto his glass for dear life, the whole night has already been too much for him, shaking him up to his core and he doesn't know what to do now.
He wants to run and never look back.
He wants to never leave at all.
"Neal, what is wrong?" Peter asks quietly into the night, and the sound of his voice is soothing, caressing, where the meaning of it is not.
"What do you mean?" Neal tries, settles against the kitchen counter, and Peter is looking at him, Neal can feel the other man's eyes on his face like a touch.
"I mean this, you. The case." Peter takes a deep breath, tries to relax next to Neal and it helps, helps Neal to relax too. "There is more to it than you're telling me."
Peter knows he's right and that's the worst of it. That Neal can't deny, can't change the subject into them, and what has been going on between them, although it's part of it. Neal knows that Peter is serious here, waiting for the whole truth, not just fractures.
"Peter, my name is not Neal Caffrey."
It's easy suddenly, easy to say this out loud, to reveal the last and fundamental truth about him, and he hears Peter take in a sharp breath, but nothing more, nothing else, and maybe he's suspected it all along.
"You gonna tell me your real name?"
Neal turns, catches Peter's eyes and that's answer enough.
"So." Peter takes another moment, sips on his glass. "What has that to do with the case?"
Neal closes his eyes against the sudden burst of images firing up in his head. Faces, long forgotten, and names, sounding foreign to him.
"Everything left of me, the real me, is in a thin folder. Everything else I erased, destroyed. Not even Mozzie knows it, not even Kate did, nobody does." It's getting cold, suddenly, Neal is getting goose bumps all over and he wraps his arms around himself.
Peter doesn't seem to feel the sudden drop of temperature.
"I hid that folder where no one else would be able to look. Where even I would have trouble to go back to ever again."
He knows that Peter starts connecting the dots, knows when the other man gets it, in Peter's sharp intake of breath. "You were the first attempt to steal the painting."
Neal nods and their eyes meet again.
"But you didn't wanna steal it, you just wanted to hide something. In the painting!"
Neal closes his eyes. The cold is getting worse, his heartbeat galloping in his chest, and he's starting to feel dizzy.
"Neal." Peter sounds concerned, draws closer. Neal can feel their arms touching, feels the other man's warmth on his side and it's enough to chase the worst of the cold away.
"Neal, talk to me."
"Peter, I can't..." He takes a shaky breath, and Peter moves, places his hand, a warm, calming hand, on Neal's back, starts rubbing it slowly. "I can't let anyone see it, let anyone find out. My past is .... I should have destroyed it, I don't even know why I still kept it, I should have burned it all, should have erased me when I still had the chance. I ..."
He's pulled into a hug, Peter suddenly in front of him, warm and welcome and home, and Neal bites his tongue not to start sobbing into the other man's shirt.
"It's all right, Neal. It's all right."
Neal hears the cling of glass hitting the table and knows that Peter had rescued the wine from his trembling hand and then he keeps rubbing his back, keeps talking to him, calming him down.
It's making it worse.
Neal remembers the car waiting for him, the tiny bag packed, his new name already dancing on his lips, and right now, he has no idea how to do it, how to leave and lose this, right here, without dying as soon as his feet cross the threshold.
"I don't know how bad it was," Peter mumbles into Neal's neck, the rush of words tickling his skin. "I don't know what you're running from, what you're risking everything for, but I can promise you Neal, I promise you, that you have a new life now. Here. With us. And if you let me, I'll do anything to protect it. Do you hear me?"
Neal shudders in Peter's arms, can't barely do anything but holding onto him.
He doesn't even know he's moving his head, doesn't even recognize his own voice making desperate noises, until his lips touch Peter's, until the pain itching under his skin suddenly silences.
-- 3//6 --
The first contact, the first hesitant brush of lips, is as startling as the first time, as devastating as the second. But this is more now. This is tender and sweet and no rush.
Neal leans forward, tilts his head, and Peter follows easily.
Immediately, Neal relishes the taste of Peter, the texture of his tongue. He moans quietly into the other man's mouth, pulls him closer on instinct, wanting to get more of that.
Peter's not hesitant this time, not holding back and it sends shivers down Neal's spine how much he's giving.
They walk slowly, neither pushing or pulling, both moving in a strange sort of dance, in synch, and completely unaware.
Neal can't keep his hands away, has them buried underneath Peter's shirt, pulled up frantically for the need of skin. Peter's scent fills his nostrils, the feeling of him surrounding him completely, and there's something building inside him.
Deep and hungry.
Peter moans, loud and open, as they hit the bed of the guestroom - closest bed, better than the couch and Neal is not thinking about the master bedroom now, about Elizabeth, can't - and Neal falls on top of Peter, crawls up on him completely, pushing their bodies together.
For a moment, their eyes meet. It's dark inside here, neither bothering to switch on a light, but there's enough so they can see each other, so Neal can see the wonder and hunger in Peter's eyes.
He swallows, takes in a shaky breath, and presses himself down on Peter, using his own body to create this wonderful perfect friction. To create the wonderful thrilling sounds Peter's making.
Neal has trouble unbuttoning Peter's shirt, can't keep from kissing him, can't think.
It's Peter, who finally has mercy, pushes Neal off for a moment to remove his shirt just before he grabs for Neal's, pulling it right over his head.
They're not saying a word, falling back into each other's arms as soon as the shirts are gone.
Neal feels his lips burn, feel the sweet ache they get from kissing too much, too long. But Neal. can't. stop.
He's long hard in his pants, just as Peter beneath him, but it's the kissing he can't get enough of, the kissing that's driving him crazy.
And Peter doesn't let go.
Neal's lips wander down the other man's neck, suck little kisses down the chest, just to be pulled up by Peter, just to be captured by that sweet, perfect mouth.
Peter is moving underneath him, writhing, and Neal's right there with him, both of them establishing a rhythm that's making Neal's toes crawl.
There is a though in the back of his mind, the small regret that he isn't showing Peter everything. That this will be over far too soon, before Neal can show him all the ways men can be together.
Neal wants this. Wants so bad to be the person - the first, the only - to introduce Peter in all kinds of sex between men.
But he wants this more, this: Peter losing his rhythm, Peter groaning and moaning, Peter, being too far gone to hold on properly, to kiss properly, just begging for more.
Peter throws his head back, whispers breathless words - Neal's name and curses all mixed together - and Neal doesn't hesitate, he let's his tongue travel behind Peter's ear, bites gently down on the delicate skin, and he pushes with his hips, harder now, faster.
Peter goes still, his hands tightening on Neal's skin, clawing at him as he comes, suddenly, violently, and there's the hint of regret again: Neal wishes he could see, wishes Peter's cum would splatter onto his belly so he could lick it off, wishes he would come inside Neal's mouth, inside Neal.
It's the last thought that drives Neal over the edge, makes him follow Peter so soon.
//next//