Title: Never Enough
Fandom: White Collar
Pairing: Neal/Peter
Rating: R
Length: ~1800 words
Warnings: Infidelity, angst
Notes: Spoilers to the end of 5.04. Thanks to mergatrude for beta.
Summary: Neal Caffrey wasn't the only one who could unleash his id. He wasn't the only one who'd changed.

Never Enough

Peter tracked him to the New York Palace Hotel. Of course it would be the fucking Palace, awash in glitz and glamor. Neal was on the tenth floor.

Peter put his hand on his gun but didn't draw. He knocked and disguised his voice as he called, "Room service."

Without missing a beat, Neal called back, "Come in, Peter."

So Peter did. It was a suite, the walls yellow, glowing warm in lamplight. Neal stood by the window with his hands in his pockets. He was wearing one of those black shirts he favored these days. He turned his back on the stunning view of the Park, where dusk was falling, streetlights starting to twinkle along the paths, and smiled as if he meant it. "Hi, Peter."

"You carrying?" Peter was too tense for small talk. The trail that had led him here could have been a trap.

Neal's smile wavered. "What do you think?"

Peter shrugged. A lot had changed in the last few weeks, Peter's certainties snapping, one after the other. He couldn't take anything for granted anymore.

"I'm not armed." Neal went to the bar and poured Scotch from a crystal decanter. "You want one?"

"Why not?" Peter let his hand fall from his holster and looked around. There was a wooden crate on the table, about two feet long. "Is that it?"

"What?"

"Your big score. The reason you cut your anklet."

Neal handed him a glass. "I didn't need a reason. The anklet was the reason."

"You know, you could have been waiting out your sentence in prison all this time. Was working for me such a terrible alternative?"

Neal didn't answer. His gaze spoke volumes.

Until two weeks ago, Peter had thought they were good. Sure, the promotion had been a change, they didn't get to go out in the field so much, and El had been encouraging Peter to cool their relationship, to protect himself and give Neal a chance to make his mark with a new handler. Then Siegel had taken a bullet, and that had thrown everyone. But even so, even taking all of that into account, this didn't feel right. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing happened," said Neal, sounding amused. "This is who I was all along." He was putting on a good show, maybe even believed what he was saying, but there was something else going on too. Anger lurking below a reflective surface.

Peter recognized it because he felt it too. "I don't believe that. You were my friend."

"I was both." Neal drank a mouthful of Scotch and lowered his glass. "I'm a criminal, Peter, not a monster. You never could tell the difference." His bitterness was as fine and exquisitely wrought as the ornate brass light fittings.

"That's not true," said Peter automatically. If it were true, he wouldn't be here like this. He'd have backup. But he'd never needed backup with Neal. "So this is my fault."

Neal shrugged. "It's no one's fault. It just is."

"Fatalism doesn't become you." It was a glib response, but as Peter said it, he was struck by how true it was. Neal had never given in before—he'd cheated fate, conned his way out of tight spots, negotiated and bargained. The last time he'd been this indifferent was in his old apartment, mooning over the bottle Kate had left behind. Peter glanced around, half expecting to see her ghost among the shadows in the corners of the room.

"Why did you come, Peter? You here to arrest me?"

"No." Peter almost wished he could, but that hadn't been an option for a long time now. He downed his Scotch in two swallows and put the glass on the table next to the mysterious crate. Then he unclipped his badge and set that down too. "I'm here to say goodbye."

The gesture with the badge caught Neal's attention. He moved closer, searching Peter's face, and the veil of cynical disaffection he'd been hiding behind rippled for a moment. Peter saw his chance. He grabbed Neal by the shoulders and kissed him hard, anger almost obliterating all other sensations. Almost.

Neal withstood the kiss as if it were a rebuke, passive and probably sneering on the inside, but when Peter let him go, his eyes were as wide as if he hadn't known how Peter felt about him. As if he'd never seen this coming.

Maybe Peter had held himself in check a fraction too well over the years. Well, no longer. "I want you to do something for me. I want—" He waited until he had Neal's full attention. "I want you to fuck me."

Neal's mouth fell open. "You're not—" He took a breath and visibly collected himself, covering his shock. "What about your marriage?"

"She'll never know." What El didn't know wouldn't hurt her. And after the last few weeks of betrayal, Peter was going to lose his mind if he didn't at least ask for this, this rash, dangerous, wrong thing. Neal Caffrey wasn't the only one who could unleash his id. He wasn't the only one who'd changed. "What's stopping you? You've fucked me every other way."

There was concern in Neal's gaze now. Concern and disappointment. "It's too late."

"Somewhere you need to be?"

"I'm leaving New York."

Peter inhaled sharply, despite himself. He should have known. "When?"

"One hour."

Peter took off his jacket. "I'm not asking for more than that."

Neal's gaze narrowed. "You think I owe it to you."

"Yeah," said Peter, because it was easier than getting into the gritty details, the ups and downs and back and forth of the last three years. There was no time to audit their partnership, to determine who owed who. One hour and then Peter would have to bury the frustration and fury and goddamned despair that they hadn't made it work, that he hadn't found a way to save Neal from himself. That despite his best efforts and his commonsense and his marriage, he loved him like a sickness. That he honestly wasn't sure he could live with never seeing him again. "I think you owe me."

Neal glanced at his watch, apparently making some kind of calculation, and Peter clenched his fists and waited, refusing to feel dismissed or humiliated. There'd be time enough for that afterward.

"All right," said Neal, and led the way to the bedroom.


*


It wasn't romantic. It was messy and uncomfortable, and a couple of times it hurt so much Peter made Neal stop and give him a moment to recover, but there was a kind of beauty to it, too. An echo of the teamwork that had seen them through so many cases, the sub-verbal connection that passed between them when they were under fire or seconds from a take-down. Neal moved inside Peter, and the anger broke, and Peter shuddered under a sudden weight of dark, suffocating grief.

"You know, you could come with me," said Neal in his ear. His fingers raked down to Peter's hip, and his thrusts deepened. His words sounded casual, but they weren't. "Travel the world. We could go to Sweden, find you a Viking helmet."

Peter's throat closed, and he had to swallow twice before he could reply. "I'd end up hating you."

"Still—" Neal's grip tightened. "For as long as it lasted—"

"No," said Peter.

"Okay," said Neal. "Peter, I—"

"Don't say it."


*


"I'm out of time." Neal stood up and bent to collect his clothing from the floor.

Peter was still catching his breath. He stared at the burnished curve of Neal's spine, the dark hair curling halfway down his neck, and the possibility of taking Neal's offer smacked him between the eyes. They could run away and lose themselves in adventure and risk. He'd have Neal at his side and in his bed—the infamous Burke and Caffrey.

Of course, chances were one of them would end up dead before the month was out.

And it would break El's heart.

Neal's body was disappearing now, enveloped by clothing, obscured by looming exile. The connection between them stretched and broke.

Peter got up and fished his underwear out from under a chair.


*


Back in the living room, both of them fully dressed, Peter stood by as Neal picked the badge off the table and weighed it thoughtfully in his hand.

"I need that back," said Peter.

Neal looked as if he were about to say something, maybe to try again to convince Peter to flee the country, but he didn't. Instead, he took Peter's hand and placed the badge into it with a tenderness that made Peter's eyes sting.

"Goodbye, Peter."

"Neal." Peter was not going to cry. He looked away and said the first thing that came into his head. "What's in the box?"

There was a faint breathy snort from Neal—indignation or wry amusement. He went to the far end of the table, which was stacked with papers and folders, and jotted something on a sheet of hotel writing paper. He folded the paper into quarters and gave it to Peter. "I know what Curtis Hagen wants. Stake out this museum tomorrow night, you'll catch him in the act."

"Hagen? What do you know about Hagen?"

Neal shook his head. "Consider it a parting gift. Information from your favorite CI."

"You don't have to go." There were a lot of burned bridges, but Peter would find a way to rebuild them stick by stick if he had to, even if it cost him everything.

But Neal was ushering him to the door, so deftly Peter almost didn't realize he was being ousted. "You need to get out of here."

"Neal."

Neal's eyes fell shut, hiding everything he was feeling. "We have to accept the truth, Peter. Love wasn't enough."

And just like that, the door closed between them. Peter looked down at his hands, at the blur of FBI badge and hotel paper. Neal was right. Love hadn't been enough.

It took a full minute before he was sure enough of his composure to leave. He clipped his badge back onto his belt, and as he reached the elevator, he took out his phone. He could call Jones now, get him to send a team. It wasn't too late to capture Neal and keep him in the country. Keep him safe.

Neal wouldn't tell anyone about the sex. No one would think to run DNA tests on the sheets.

Or—

Or he could let Neal go.


END