Eternal Springtime

[sam_storyteller]

Title: Eternal Springtime
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Neal's spent thirty years dreaming about snowball fights.
Notes: Have you noticed it's always spring on White Collar?
BETA CREDIT JESUS: tzikeh, spiderine, girlpearl, and neifile7 made this better than once it was!

Now available at AO3!

***

Peter didn't notice until months after Neal got out of prison.

It had been a bitch of a winter, that year, and he was just as glad spring came early, around the same time Neal came to work with him. They had an unseasonably mild summer and a warm autumn; it wasn't until winter simply kept failing to arrive, and nobody else noticed, that Peter began to suspect something was amiss.

He started observing, too, that time seemed to go strange around Neal; evenings lasted forever, and sometimes at the end of a day he felt like they'd been going for three days solid. They closed a lot of cases quickly, though, so he didn't really feel he could complain.

Finally, when it was December and there had still been no snow -- well, there had, but he hadn't seen any of it -- he tentatively broached the subject. He was standing at the conference room window, looking out on the downright sunny mid-December day, and he just had to ask.

"Does it seem like winter's been really mild this year?" he asked Neal, hoping Neal would go off on one of his occasional monologues and he could judge whether the winter was slow to come or whether he was just insane.

Neal, sitting at the conference table, dropped his head into his arms.

"I was wondering when you'd say something," he said, his voice muffled by his shirtsleeves.

"You were?" Peter asked.

"It's my fault," Neal said, looking up.

"Wait, what's your fault?"

"That there's no winter." Neal dropped his head into his arms again. "It's my fault winter's not coming."

Peter raised his eyebrows. Neal blew air through his lips, frustrated.

"Are you feeling all right?" Peter asked carefully.

"I'm fine. It's a thing." Neal sat back and waved a hand. "There's no winter, there's no cold, there's no snow. Rain, once in a while, I think mostly for dramatic effect. But there's no snow. There never has been, around me. I'm not crazy," he added, when he saw Peter's look.

"I'm sure you're not," Peter said soothingly.

"And have you noticed time has lost all meaning?" Neal added. Peter frowned, because he had, but -- "It's weirdly elastic. That's new. I mean it didn't happen until I started working with you. Maybe it's your fault."

"Excuse me? You're blaming time on me?" Peter asked.

"I don't know!" Neal threw up his hands. "All I know is I have never once seen snow. Except on TV. It just doesn't happen. Spring follows me everywhere."

"Yes, what a curse," Peter replied, because he wasn't sure what else to say. Neal narrowed his eyes.

"Mozzie believes me," he said.

"Mozzie believes aliens killed JFK."

"Aliens arranged for JFK's death," Neal corrected. "There's a difference."

"Neal, you can't seriously believe you live in eternal spring," Peter said.

"We've tried testing it. You know, going somewhere there's snow, or seeing how far away from me you have to be before winter hits. We just got confused and Mozzie got motion sickness."

Peter eased himself into a chair across from Neal, slowly. "Okay, say I decide to indulge your surreal and incidentally kind of narcissistic delusion -- "

"It's not a delusion!" Neal said indignantly.

" -- why?" Peter finished. "I mean, why you? Why spring?"

"I don't know." Neal gave him a sullen look. "It's not like I ever threw a rock at a witch or something."

"Most people wouldn't consider eternal spring a curse," Peter said.

"Most people got to go sledding when they were kids," Neal replied.

Peter cocked his head. "You've never seen snow."

"Not once."

"But you live in New York."

Neal tilted his head back in a God give me strength gesture. Peter knew, because he used that move on Neal a lot.

"I've never seen snow. Never had to buy a pair of boots. Never been in a snowball fight. I've been to the Swiss Alps, do you know how hard it is to avoid snow there? Never been skiing. Never made a snowman. You know that smell in the air, really crisp and sharp, when it's just about to snow?" Neal asked, leaning forward.

"Sure," Peter said. "It's great."

"I wouldn't know. I live in spring," Neal said. "And now, thanks to me, so do you. Sorry."

Peter considered things. It would also, in a way he couldn't define, explain why birds tended to burst into unusually melodic song whenever he and Neal passed a park.

"I'd like to see it," Neal said wistfully. "Just once. June gave me a great winter coat, it looks amazing on me, I never get to wear it. Plus I hear snowball fights are fun."

He looked genuinely unhappy. Peter sighed.

"There must be someone you can see about this," he said.

"I'm not crazy -- "

"I meant for the whole, and I can't believe I'm saying this, eternal spring problem."

"What, like a shaman or a priest or something?" Neal asked. "Give it up, Peter. Welcome to spring."

"Well, I'll save on boots," Peter said thoughtfully. Neal collapsed in despair again. "Come on, Neal, are you telling me it's some kind of con man mystique? I bet we can fix it. This is New York. If you can't find it here, you can't find it anywhere. Have you tried...?"

Neal raised an eyebrow. "Have you tried telling a New York City priest that spring follows you around?"

"Okay, well, good point, but -- "

"No buts," Neal said, pulling himself together and standing up. "It's fine. Plenty of people go their whole lives not seeing snow in...I don't know, Cabo or whatever. It's not a big deal."

He swept out of the conference room before Peter could respond, which was probably just as well, because Peter was feeling distinctly uncomfortable with the idea that he actually believed Neal Caffrey's life was just that charmed.

***

There was no snow that winter. At least, not that Peter saw. There was a blizzard at one point, and it hit the city pretty hard, but Peter never had to so much as chip ice off his windshield. It was downright unnerving. Elizabeth, when polled on Neal's impossible eternal spring, just said, "Well, he does look a little like he belongs in a Disney movie."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Peter asked.

"I don't know. He just seems like the kind of person who'd end up getting taught a moral lesson by an animated fairy of some kind," Elizabeth said.

"You're picturing me with pixie wings right now, aren't you?" Peter asked.

"It's okay, sweetie, you still look rugged and manly," she said, and kissed him.

Still, once seasonally-appropriate spring showed up, it kind of faded from the memory. Besides, between Kate's death and Neal's re-imprisonment and his own suspension from duty, Peter had a lot to worry about aside from Neal's meteorological luck.

It did rain a few times. Peter sort of relished it.

It wasn't until autumn mostly failed to show again, and then winter utterly didn't happen once more, that Peter started thinking about it again. Thanksgiving came and went, and they spent most of December slogging through a particularly complicated fraud case, but outside the sun shone, at least for Peter and Neal. It was late December almost before Peter realized it.

Still no snow.

"Okay, kids," he said, on December twenty-first. "This thing is the US Attorney's problem now. Go home, kiss your loved ones, feed your fish, trim trees, light candles, all that good stuff. Enjoy the lull while it lasts. Neal," he added, as everyone hurried into their coats and began making for the door. "Elizabeth commands your presence."

"Game hens?" Neal asked, a little light rising in his eyes.

"So I'm told. Come on, grab your stuff." Peter went back into his office to get his briefcase and coat, and when he came out Neal was waiting by the door.

"Balmy out, for December," Peter remarked casually, as they drove over the bridge, heading for Brooklyn and home.

"Don't remind me," Neal groaned. "If winter ever does get here, the first thing I'm going to do is hit you with a snowball."

"I'm pretty sure I could send you back to prison for assault," Peter said, but he gave Neal a grin. "Don't worry so much. I don't mind."

"I do," Neal complained, but he kept silent for the rest of the ride home.

The house smelled like roasting chicken when they walked in, and Elizabeth met them at the door with a glass of wine for Neal and a potato peeler for Peter.

"He makes better potatoes than I do," she explained, as Peter sighed and rolled up his sleeves, walking into the kitchen. Neal followed like an overgrown, felonious puppy, talking society and art with Elizabeth while Peter worked on the potatoes. He listened with half an ear, scanning for key words (husband radar pinged for "mortgage" "bills" "sex" "plumbing" and a number of clothing items; Neal radar pinged for "illegal" "exhibit" "radius" and a range of art terms) while he worked on the potatoes and mulled over what files he wanted to tackle when the holidays were past. If nothing new and interesting came up, he had a couple of cold cases that could use another look.

Outside, rain began to patter down gently. He caught Neal watching it, a wistful look on his face, before he turned away to offer Peter a glass of wine. Elizabeth gave Peter one of her looks, which he'd been receiving more and more often of late: the look that said cowboy up and kiss him already.

They'd talked about it. Elizabeth viewed the whole idea as some weird mixture of a nice thing to do for Neal and an appropriate mid-life crisis for them as a couple. He had to admit Neal was prettier than a sports car.

But, as with anything worth doing, Peter tended to dig in his heels and wait until he'd gathered a little more evidence.

It rained all through dinner -- rated excellent by Neal, as usual, with special attention to the mashed potatoes -- and when they were done, Peter came back from clearing the plates to find Neal sitting on the couch, turned to the window behind it, watching the rain fall. Elizabeth brushed past Peter gently, a refilled glass of wine in her hand, and offered it to Neal, sitting down next to him. Peter hovered by the bookcase, unwilling to interrupt the moment.

"You like it when it rains," she said.

"Well, it's a change," Neal answered, resting his chin on one hand, spread along the back of the couch. He tipped his head a little to look at her. "Peter told you?"

Peter watched Elizabeth compose herself for a discussion -- to an outsider it might look like she was just fixing the pillow, but he could read her better than that.

"He told me an interesting story," she said. Neal turned back to the window. "Once upon a time, there was a very handsome thief," she continued, and Peter saw Neal crack a bare smile.

"Not a prince?" he asked her.

"No, the prince comes later," she said, brushing a lock of hair off Neal's forehead. "This thief, he made his living making the world seem -- brighter, more interesting than it was. He made people feel special, so they gave him things. Trust. Money. Vault combinations. Allegedly."

Neal laughed.

"And he ended up building a whole world for himself that wasn't quite real," Elizabeth continued. The laughter died as suddenly as it had started. Peter leaned against the bookcase, crossing his arms. "But it was the only life he'd known, so he kept on doing it."

"Not a very interesting story," Neal pointed out.

"Well, I'm getting to the good part. See, one day, a very wise prince caught the thief -- "

"Wait, Peter gets to be the prince?" Neal demanded, straightening.

"Is there a problem with that?" Peter asked. Neal glanced at him briefly, but Elizabeth gently grasped Neal's jaw and turned him back to face her.

"And he locked the thief in a dungeon," she continued. Her thumb rubbed Neal's chin. "For a very long time. But there's not much to do in a dungeon, so the thief kept making up stories for himself." She paused. "Am I near the mark?"

Peter, to give Neal time to think, crossed the living room and sat down beside him, turning to watch Elizabeth over Neal's shoulder.

"I never blamed you," Neal said, without looking at him. "There's an old thieves' code that says you can't blame a cop for being a cop."

"Good. I'm not sorry," Peter told him. "You broke the law."

"Shh, honey, I'm telling the story," Elizabeth scolded gently. Peter fell quiet. "So the prince finally said to the thief, you can get out if you tell me one honest thing. Instead,the thief tried every dishonest thing he knew to get out. Appealed to the prince's vanity. And his wife," she added, with a small smile. "And he lied a little, and played a few little tricks. Even when the prince finally let him out of the dungeon to work in the palace, he still wasn't very honest, and the prince and his wife had to watch him like hawks."

"I think you're taking some artistic liberties," Neal said.

"Storyteller's prerogative. Anyway," she continued, "the point is that the thief was never really honest. Not really, in his heart. So he was still trapped in this little make-believe world he dreamed up for himself."

"I sense a moral," Neal observed.

"No, just a thought," Elizabeth said. She picked up both of his hands, holding them in hers, and Peter leaned forward, resting his arm heavily on Neal's shoulders so he couldn't fidget.

"I want you to do something for me," she said. "Just try it, okay?"

Neal cast a worried glance over his shoulder at Peter, but Peter had no idea where she was going with this. He shrugged.

"Try, for once, being totally honest," Elizabeth said. Neal frowned. "I'm serious, Neal. No masks, no cons. Complete honesty. Just once."

"I don't lie to you," Neal said.

"You don't exactly always tell the truth, either," Elizabeth replied gently. Neal caught his lower lip between his teeth, uncertain. "You trust us?"

"Yes."

"Then try," she said. "Not forever. Just for a little while."

Neal opened his mouth, closed it, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath and kissed her.

But afterwards he kissed Peter too, so that was more or less all right.

***

Peter woke, the next morning, to find the big thick blanket missing from their bed, along with a con man who had definitely fallen asleep there the night before.

"Elizabeth?" he said softly. She made a soft noise and turned over. "I think Neal stole our blankets."

She opened her eyes. "Whu...?"

"Neal's gone," Peter whispered. "He took the duvet."

"That's a weird thing to steal," she said, sitting up and brushing hair out of her eyes. Peter swung himself out of bed, hastily pulling on a pair of pyjamas, and led the way downstairs.

He stopped on the bottom step, because Neal was standing at the living room window, the curtains pulled aside, staring out with wide eyes. He was wrapped in the blanket from their bed.

"Neal?" Elizabeth asked, leaning around Peter. "What is it?"

Neal pointed at the window without looking away. Elizabeth pulled Peter off the stairs and over to where Neal was standing.

It was snowing.

It had been so long since he'd seen it that Peter almost didn't register what it was at first. There was a dusting of snow on the ground and enormous, thick flakes were falling gently, piling up in the corners of the windowsills, in the gutters and on the cars.

"I didn't think it would look like that," Neal breathed. There was an expression of pure awe on his face. He didn't even look at paintings that way. "It's snowing."

"Elizabeth can fix anything," Peter told him, wrapping an arm around her waist.

"Do you have boots?" Neal demanded, turning away from the window. "Do you have gloves and a hat? Can I borrow a coat? Do you -- I mean, should we shovel the walkway? What happens now?"

Elizabeth burst out laughing and pulled away from Peter so that she could hug Neal instead.

"I'll get Peter's spare boots," she said, and hurried away. Peter began digging in the closet for coats and hats.

"Go, get dressed," he ordered, as Neal hovered excitedly. Neal bounded away and was back in record time, wearing what appeared to be mostly Peter's clothes. Peter dug out some sidewalk salt from three years ago and Elizabeth, with great ceremony and bundled in about four layers, opened the door.

Neal was through it at top speed, bursting down the steps --

"Holy fuck," he shouted, and darted back inside. "Don't go out there!"

"It's fine," Peter said. "This is what happens. It has to be cold to snow. Basic physics."

"Seriously, it's cold!" Neal insisted. "You'll lose fingers!"

Peter held up one gloved hand, wiggling his insulated fingers. Elizabeth popped a fuzzy hat on Neal's head. Neal gave the snow a longing look and then warily followed Peter out.

"I didn't know it got this cold," he said, as Peter uncapped the salt and began spreading it on the pavement. "Are you sure this is safe?"

"You can play in the snow with Satchmo or you can help me salt the sidewalk," Peter said, as Satchmo wriggled out through the door and jumped into the snow, biting at it enthusiastically. Neal tipped his head back, flinching when he got snow in his eyes, and then crouched to study the powder on the ground, until Satchmo knocked him into it.

Peter's big mistake was turning his back on a con man who'd spent thirty years dreaming about snowball fights. Just as he finished salting the walk, a huge, loosely packed ball of snow hit him in the back of the head, exploding with a soft poof!.

"Neal!" he yelped, scooping up snow on instinct, turning and firing one straight into Neal's chest. Neal howled with laughter and ducked a second one, but he never saw Elizabeth's flank attack coming.

Neal's nose was bright red by the time they trooped inside to warm up, and there was a thick layer of snow perched in the ridges of his hat. Peter stopped Satchmo in the foyer, dusting him down and waiting for him to shake, while Neal carefully brushed the snow off his jacket and hung it up.

"It's damp," he said, wiping snowflakes out of his eyebrows. He tugged at the boots, one of which was only loosely laced so that it would fit up around his tracker. "My sock is wet."

"Yeah, that's what happens when you're dealing with frozen water," Peter said, but he gave Neal an indulgent smile. "Welcome to winter."

***

Neal was certain -- loudly, glumly certain -- that the snow was just a fluke. But New Year's came and went, and it was still cold; Peter had to admit Neal's winter jacket did look great, and Neal didn't complain once about having to customize a boot so that he could wear it over his tracker (Peter came over one evening to find Mozzie sitting at Neal's dining-room table with an awl, a pair of shears, and a determined look in his eye).

Mid-January, when the cold still hadn't relented, Peter came in from shoveling snow and announced, "You can turn off winter any time now, Neal."

Neal presented him with a cup of coffee -- ooh, Irish coffee -- and then went to lie in front of the fire burning brightly in the fireplace. Peter sprawled next to Elizabeth, who was curled up under a blanket on the couch, and pressed his cold nose into her neck.

"Ack!" she shoved him away, but she did give him half her blanket. "Sweetie, I don't think it works that way."

"I hope it's winter all winter long," Neal said, as Satchmo ambled in and curled up next to Neal on the floor, huddling against his back for warmth. "I hope it's winter every winter."

"This is sexy, by the way," Peter said, wrapping his hand around one of Elizabeth's feet, clad in thick, knobby socks. She poked him in the thigh with the other one. "I'm blaming Neal regardless."

"Why do you think it happened?" Neal asked, propping himself up. "I mean, it can't be coincidence it was the day after we..." he gestured vaguely. Peter gave him a look. "All I'm saying is, getting laid never made it snow before. Believe me, I would have noticed."

"Sweetie, you're adorable when you're thick," Elizabeth said. Neal scowled. "You didn't learn anything at all from the fairy tale I told you?"

"What, you think I lied myself into spring for thirty years?" he asked.

She shrugged. "If the snow boot fits..."

Neal grunted and pushed himself up; Satchmo promptly took his place in front of the fire, while Neal joined them on the couch. Peter inched back enough that Neal could fit himself in, pressed up against Elizabeth and with his back to Peter's stomach. He was hot like a furnace; Peter slid his arms around and tucked his hands up under Neal's sweater.

"Oh cold," Neal groaned, but he didn't move. "So how long does winter last, anyway? When's spring coming?"

"Give it another three months," Peter murmured, soaking up the combined warmth of both of them, head resting on El's shoulder.

"And we might have real summer too, huh?"

"If you're good," Elizabeth told him. Neal relaxed back a little.

"I can live with that," he said.

"Good. Next time you're shoveling," Peter told him.

Auguste Rodin, "Eternal Springtime"