Neal Caffrey (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alias_savant) wrote2012-11-28 10:12 pm
alias_savant) wrote2012-11-28 10:12 pm
not canon } { we'll run away together
[MERRY CHRISTMAS desertions! This is based off an amalgamation of threads we’ve been doing, but is set between S3 and S4 of White Collar and in the beginning of S4 of TVD. Basically, after this thread for Rebekah and Neal and … I haven’t figured out where yet for Stefan and Cordelia. Anyway, she gave me the choice between Stefan/Cordelia and Rebekah/Neal, so I decided to just smush them together and do both. I’m allowed. Stefan is mine, Rebekah is easily and Cordelia is visiongirl. Everyone else is an NPC.]
Cape Verdi really is the ideal place to disappear. Between the beaches that stretch for miles, beautiful weather, and locals that don’t ask questions, it’s all too easy to blend into the background. They’re used to tourists in places like this. They’re used to people who are running away, too, but “tourists” sounds a little more polite then “wanted felon.”
Mozzie reminds them every day that they need to be careful. It’s either here or a leper colony and here is infinitely more preferable. Rebekah has her ways of making the locals look the other way, and Neal doesn’t ask too many questions. That won’t stop him from drinking vervain every day, just in case, but caring about people who aren’t him, Rebekah and Mozzie won’t keep them very safe. And despite the precautions, when he’s with her he does believe he’s safe. She won’t hurt him unless he hurts her first, and he doesn’t intend to.
(Looking at his track record, he knows the odds of that aren’t very high, but he does his best not to think about that.)
For the most part, they find ways to keep themselves busy. Neal paints and Rebekah shops, and one way or another they play the part of the jet-setter couple. They don’t talk about the things they miss, because there’s no way they can get them back. For now, it’s simply easier to forget.
There’s one day when he’s swimming in the pool, and she’s tanning in the deck, when he comes up for air to see a somewhat familiar face. He really only has passing familiarity with the people from Mystic Falls. It’s a small town and he wasn’t there long enough to really get to know anyone, but he caught a glance at a few of the faces. This guy may have been one of them.
He is coming up the walk with a dark haired woman, eyes wandering over the property as though they were looking for someone. They probably are—and for once, it doesn’t look to be him.
“What is—”
Neal glances over and cuts her off with a look, before pushing himself out of the pool and reaching for one of the towels. Rebekah is lounging behind a privacy wall that blocks her from view, but doesn’t block the pool. Since the man seems to be here for Rebekah, he doesn’t want to give things away too soon.
“This is a private villa. I think you’re looking for the next house over.” It’s clear that they aren’t here to stay—they have no luggage with them—but he can play dumb for a little while, if that’s what it takes. “Unless our travel agent managed to screw things up, in which case he’s not worth the obscene amount of money we paid for him.”
“We’re not here about the house.” The man steps close to him, maintaining eye contact, and holding it as he speaks. “We just want Rebekah. You should probably leave.”
Neal crosses his arms in front of his chest and, his face turning a bit critical. If this guy thought it was going to be that easy, he is in for a shock. “Actually, I’m starting to think I don’t. What do you want?”
The man seems startled, and it occurs to him then that the guy might have been trying to compel his cooperation, which makes Neal feel even less likely to comply with the idea. The woman glances between them for a moment, before stepping in to put some space between them.
“We just want to talk to her. It’s about Klaus.”
Neal knows who Klaus is. Klaus is the reason that he and Rebekah were separated in New York, and he has a sneaking suspicion that Klaus is the reason Rebekah came with him when he asked her to run away with him. He never asked her directly why she went with him, because it isn’t his business, and she never asked her why he was running, just that it was important he wasn’t found. It isn’t really important. What is, is being here and being together.
“Tell Stefan I’m not interested.” Her voice floats out from behind the wall, and the bored tone only really emphasizes that fact. “Klaus ceased to be my problem the moment he ceased to care about whether I knew if he was alive or dead.”
He fights the instinct to wince. It’s not hard, considering all the practice he has as a con man, but he knows that she wouldn’t say something like that lightly, tone or not. He glances back to Stefan and smiles thinly. “I guess there’s your answer.”
“That’s not good enough.” “Stefan” shoves past Neal, heading towards the direction of Rebekah’s voice and while Neal tries to grab hold of him and stop him, he only manages to be shoved off to the side, left in the dust with the woman Stefan came with.
Rebekah sits up as Stefan comes around the corner, the fury at being intruded upon written all over her face, but she doesn’t lash out. He stops at the end of her lounge chair, determination in his stance that Neal doesn’t see all that often.
“I need your help.”
“And why does that help involve my brother? Last I checked, you didn’t like him any more than I do so why are you helping him find me?” Silence hung in the air for a moment, and Rebekah’s face twists into a bitter smile. “I don’t even really need to ask, do I?” Her eyes then turn to the side, landing on the woman now standing next to Neal. “I hope you’re prepared. Everything is always going to come second to Elena Gilbert. Doppelgangers have that effect, even when they’re not doppelgangers anymore.”
Stefan looks frustrated, and the woman looks like she’s going to spit something back at Rebekah when Stefan cuts in. “It’s about the Order of the Five.”
Rebekah looks flustered. It’s not something Neal sees often, and it’s unsettling. “Impossible.”
“Rebekah, please. Just hear me out.”
Rebekah stares at him for a long moment, before glancing over to Neal. He raises an eyebrow, and she nods. He then turns to the woman next to him. “I think we should get a drink.”
Her eyes dart between Stefan and Rebekah, before turning back to Neal again. “Yeah. That might be a good idea.”
***
Neal and Mozzie had passed on the bar built into the house, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a fair amount of alcohol around. Neal refuses to cook without some kind of wine planned, wine is all Mozzie will drink at times, and Rebekah likes the harder liquors. He leads the woman into the kitchen, buttoning a linen shirt as he walks, before making his way around the free standing island to get to the glasses.
“I’m Neal.” Because they had skipped the introduction portion of the program. “What’s your poison?”
“Cordelia.” She sits on one of the stools near the island before raising an eyebrow. “That depends on what you have?”
He smirks. “Wine?”
“Wine works.” He grabs two glasses from the cabinet and can feel her watching him as he does. “So are you a … ?”
“Vampire?” He turns and places the glasses on the counter before looking over the wine rack. “No. You?”
“No. Just seem to hang out with a lot of them.” She pauses, watching as he finally selects a vintage and turns to pour them both a glass. “If you’re not a vampire, then how did you wind up with Rebekah?”
“We met at a gala in New York.” He passes the glass to her as he makes his way around the counter to sit with her. “We hit it off, and have been involved with each other on and off since then. When I was making plans to come out here, I asked her if she wanted to come with me, and she said yes.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“You weren’t concerned that you were traveling with a vampire?”
“I trust Rebekah. I don’t know the rest of them well enough to trust them, but I trust her.” He also doesn’t trust a lot of people as a rule, but that isn’t relevant to Cordelia’s question—at least not how he sees it. “What about you? I’m assuming that Stefan is a vampire as well?”
“He is, but he’s … different.” She takes a sip the wine before continuing. “I’ve been … involved with vampires for a while. I grew up in a town full of them, so most of the time I know what to expect. Stefan is complicated.”
The word seems too simple to really fit her answer, but at the same time, he can’t blame her for not wanting to elaborate. “You know, I have to ask. Considering how much effort we put into hiding here, I have to wonder how you found us. We’re pretty good at covering our tracks.”
“I had a little help, of a witchy variety.”
His eyebrows go up a bit. “So they’re around too?”
“Uh, yeah. How much do you know about this stuff?”
“Not as much as I probably should.” He takes a slow sip of the wine. “Vervain to avoid compulsion, a stake to the heart will kill them. I don’t really ask about anything else.”
“Why not?”
“If you could start fresh with no knowledge, would you?”
She pauses, considering the question seriously for a moment. “You have a point.”
He grins a bit at that, before placing his glass off to the side. Then the look fades and he looks back at Cordelia again. “How much trouble is she in?”
“What do you mean?”
“You and Stefan wouldn’t have come all the way here if something wasn’t wrong. How much trouble is she in?”
Cordelia’s lips press into a thin line before she takes another sip of her wine. “She’s not in trouble.”
“But you want her to go back to Mystic Falls.”
“Klaus won’t—”
“I really don’t give a damn what Klaus will or won’t do. What I care about is her.” She seems taken aback; he isn’t entirely sure why. He isn’t going to ask, however. He just leans forward, looking her in the eye. “If she leaves, do I have to worry about her not coming back?”
Cordelia takes a deep breath, before shaking her head. “Klaus wants to make peace. And he won’t tell us what we need to know unless he does.”
Neal nods looking away from her and out the window to where Rebekah and Stefan are standing. He can’t hear what they’re saying, but it doesn’t seem like Rebekah is winning. She glances back to him through the window. He holds her gaze for a moment, before turning back to Cordelia.
“She better come back.”
Or he would go after her himself.
1824 words
desertions! This is based off an amalgamation of threads we’ve been doing, but is set between S3 and S4 of White Collar and in the beginning of S4 of TVD. Basically, after this thread for Rebekah and Neal and … I haven’t figured out where yet for Stefan and Cordelia. Anyway, she gave me the choice between Stefan/Cordelia and Rebekah/Neal, so I decided to just smush them together and do both. I’m allowed. Stefan is mine, Rebekah is easily and Cordelia is visiongirl. Everyone else is an NPC.]Cape Verdi really is the ideal place to disappear. Between the beaches that stretch for miles, beautiful weather, and locals that don’t ask questions, it’s all too easy to blend into the background. They’re used to tourists in places like this. They’re used to people who are running away, too, but “tourists” sounds a little more polite then “wanted felon.”
Mozzie reminds them every day that they need to be careful. It’s either here or a leper colony and here is infinitely more preferable. Rebekah has her ways of making the locals look the other way, and Neal doesn’t ask too many questions. That won’t stop him from drinking vervain every day, just in case, but caring about people who aren’t him, Rebekah and Mozzie won’t keep them very safe. And despite the precautions, when he’s with her he does believe he’s safe. She won’t hurt him unless he hurts her first, and he doesn’t intend to.
(Looking at his track record, he knows the odds of that aren’t very high, but he does his best not to think about that.)
For the most part, they find ways to keep themselves busy. Neal paints and Rebekah shops, and one way or another they play the part of the jet-setter couple. They don’t talk about the things they miss, because there’s no way they can get them back. For now, it’s simply easier to forget.
There’s one day when he’s swimming in the pool, and she’s tanning in the deck, when he comes up for air to see a somewhat familiar face. He really only has passing familiarity with the people from Mystic Falls. It’s a small town and he wasn’t there long enough to really get to know anyone, but he caught a glance at a few of the faces. This guy may have been one of them.
He is coming up the walk with a dark haired woman, eyes wandering over the property as though they were looking for someone. They probably are—and for once, it doesn’t look to be him.
“What is—”
Neal glances over and cuts her off with a look, before pushing himself out of the pool and reaching for one of the towels. Rebekah is lounging behind a privacy wall that blocks her from view, but doesn’t block the pool. Since the man seems to be here for Rebekah, he doesn’t want to give things away too soon.
“This is a private villa. I think you’re looking for the next house over.” It’s clear that they aren’t here to stay—they have no luggage with them—but he can play dumb for a little while, if that’s what it takes. “Unless our travel agent managed to screw things up, in which case he’s not worth the obscene amount of money we paid for him.”
“We’re not here about the house.” The man steps close to him, maintaining eye contact, and holding it as he speaks. “We just want Rebekah. You should probably leave.”
Neal crosses his arms in front of his chest and, his face turning a bit critical. If this guy thought it was going to be that easy, he is in for a shock. “Actually, I’m starting to think I don’t. What do you want?”
The man seems startled, and it occurs to him then that the guy might have been trying to compel his cooperation, which makes Neal feel even less likely to comply with the idea. The woman glances between them for a moment, before stepping in to put some space between them.
“We just want to talk to her. It’s about Klaus.”
Neal knows who Klaus is. Klaus is the reason that he and Rebekah were separated in New York, and he has a sneaking suspicion that Klaus is the reason Rebekah came with him when he asked her to run away with him. He never asked her directly why she went with him, because it isn’t his business, and she never asked her why he was running, just that it was important he wasn’t found. It isn’t really important. What is, is being here and being together.
“Tell Stefan I’m not interested.” Her voice floats out from behind the wall, and the bored tone only really emphasizes that fact. “Klaus ceased to be my problem the moment he ceased to care about whether I knew if he was alive or dead.”
He fights the instinct to wince. It’s not hard, considering all the practice he has as a con man, but he knows that she wouldn’t say something like that lightly, tone or not. He glances back to Stefan and smiles thinly. “I guess there’s your answer.”
“That’s not good enough.” “Stefan” shoves past Neal, heading towards the direction of Rebekah’s voice and while Neal tries to grab hold of him and stop him, he only manages to be shoved off to the side, left in the dust with the woman Stefan came with.
Rebekah sits up as Stefan comes around the corner, the fury at being intruded upon written all over her face, but she doesn’t lash out. He stops at the end of her lounge chair, determination in his stance that Neal doesn’t see all that often.
“I need your help.”
“And why does that help involve my brother? Last I checked, you didn’t like him any more than I do so why are you helping him find me?” Silence hung in the air for a moment, and Rebekah’s face twists into a bitter smile. “I don’t even really need to ask, do I?” Her eyes then turn to the side, landing on the woman now standing next to Neal. “I hope you’re prepared. Everything is always going to come second to Elena Gilbert. Doppelgangers have that effect, even when they’re not doppelgangers anymore.”
Stefan looks frustrated, and the woman looks like she’s going to spit something back at Rebekah when Stefan cuts in. “It’s about the Order of the Five.”
Rebekah looks flustered. It’s not something Neal sees often, and it’s unsettling. “Impossible.”
“Rebekah, please. Just hear me out.”
Rebekah stares at him for a long moment, before glancing over to Neal. He raises an eyebrow, and she nods. He then turns to the woman next to him. “I think we should get a drink.”
Her eyes dart between Stefan and Rebekah, before turning back to Neal again. “Yeah. That might be a good idea.”
***
Neal and Mozzie had passed on the bar built into the house, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a fair amount of alcohol around. Neal refuses to cook without some kind of wine planned, wine is all Mozzie will drink at times, and Rebekah likes the harder liquors. He leads the woman into the kitchen, buttoning a linen shirt as he walks, before making his way around the free standing island to get to the glasses.
“I’m Neal.” Because they had skipped the introduction portion of the program. “What’s your poison?”
“Cordelia.” She sits on one of the stools near the island before raising an eyebrow. “That depends on what you have?”
He smirks. “Wine?”
“Wine works.” He grabs two glasses from the cabinet and can feel her watching him as he does. “So are you a … ?”
“Vampire?” He turns and places the glasses on the counter before looking over the wine rack. “No. You?”
“No. Just seem to hang out with a lot of them.” She pauses, watching as he finally selects a vintage and turns to pour them both a glass. “If you’re not a vampire, then how did you wind up with Rebekah?”
“We met at a gala in New York.” He passes the glass to her as he makes his way around the counter to sit with her. “We hit it off, and have been involved with each other on and off since then. When I was making plans to come out here, I asked her if she wanted to come with me, and she said yes.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“You weren’t concerned that you were traveling with a vampire?”
“I trust Rebekah. I don’t know the rest of them well enough to trust them, but I trust her.” He also doesn’t trust a lot of people as a rule, but that isn’t relevant to Cordelia’s question—at least not how he sees it. “What about you? I’m assuming that Stefan is a vampire as well?”
“He is, but he’s … different.” She takes a sip the wine before continuing. “I’ve been … involved with vampires for a while. I grew up in a town full of them, so most of the time I know what to expect. Stefan is complicated.”
The word seems too simple to really fit her answer, but at the same time, he can’t blame her for not wanting to elaborate. “You know, I have to ask. Considering how much effort we put into hiding here, I have to wonder how you found us. We’re pretty good at covering our tracks.”
“I had a little help, of a witchy variety.”
His eyebrows go up a bit. “So they’re around too?”
“Uh, yeah. How much do you know about this stuff?”
“Not as much as I probably should.” He takes a slow sip of the wine. “Vervain to avoid compulsion, a stake to the heart will kill them. I don’t really ask about anything else.”
“Why not?”
“If you could start fresh with no knowledge, would you?”
She pauses, considering the question seriously for a moment. “You have a point.”
He grins a bit at that, before placing his glass off to the side. Then the look fades and he looks back at Cordelia again. “How much trouble is she in?”
“What do you mean?”
“You and Stefan wouldn’t have come all the way here if something wasn’t wrong. How much trouble is she in?”
Cordelia’s lips press into a thin line before she takes another sip of her wine. “She’s not in trouble.”
“But you want her to go back to Mystic Falls.”
“Klaus won’t—”
“I really don’t give a damn what Klaus will or won’t do. What I care about is her.” She seems taken aback; he isn’t entirely sure why. He isn’t going to ask, however. He just leans forward, looking her in the eye. “If she leaves, do I have to worry about her not coming back?”
Cordelia takes a deep breath, before shaking her head. “Klaus wants to make peace. And he won’t tell us what we need to know unless he does.”
Neal nods looking away from her and out the window to where Rebekah and Stefan are standing. He can’t hear what they’re saying, but it doesn’t seem like Rebekah is winning. She glances back to him through the window. He holds her gaze for a moment, before turning back to Cordelia.
“She better come back.”
Or he would go after her himself.
1824 words
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