One Word Ficlet Challenge - Peter/Hindsight

Title:   Hindsight
Author: elrhiarhodan
Rating: NC-17 – OT3 (Peter/Neal/Elizabeth)
Fandom: White Collar
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~125
Summary: The totally sublime photoash  opened up a terrific ficlet challenge yesterday.  She gave me three prompts, and here is my response to the first one:

Peter - Hindsight

It was inevitable that they'd end up here, like this, after everything. El used to chuckle when Peter would get one of those silly, handmade cards.

"He's flirting with you, hon."

"No, he's trying to drive me crazy."

El would just look at him and shake her head.

In any case, El was wrong.  Those cards weren't flirting, they were foreplay.

Peter stretches, slightly disturbing the two warm, satiated bodies that surround him. Had he really thought about it all those years ago, he would have realized he'd been in love with Neal since he saw him jump off the Rialto Bridge. Neal was grace and danger and freedom and everything that Peter knew he shouldn't admire and envy but did anyway.

In a moment of post-coital reflection, he wonders if his younger self would have ever dreamed that one day, he would hold that grace in his arms, savor the danger of those lips and shackle that freedom to his side with love.

One Word Ficlet Challenge - Peter/Hindsight

Title:   Hindsight
Author: elrhiarhodan
Rating: NC-17 – OT3 (Peter/Neal/Elizabeth)
Fandom: White Collar
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~125
Summary: The totally sublime photoash  opened up a terrific ficlet challenge yesterday.  She gave me three prompts, and here is my response to the first one:

Peter - Hindsight

It was inevitable that they'd end up here, like this, after everything. El used to chuckle when Peter would get one of those silly, handmade cards.

"He's flirting with you, hon."

"No, he's trying to drive me crazy."

El would just look at him and shake her head.

In any case, El was wrong.  Those cards weren't flirting, they were foreplay.

Peter stretches, slightly disturbing the two warm, satiated bodies that surround him. Had he really thought about it all those years ago, he would have realized he'd been in love with Neal since he saw him jump off the Rialto Bridge. Neal was grace and danger and freedom and everything that Peter knew he shouldn't admire and envy but did anyway.

In a moment of post-coital reflection, he wonders if his younger self would have ever dreamed that one day, he would hold that grace in his arms, savor the danger of those lips and shackle that freedom to his side with love.

One Word Ficlet Challenge - Neal/Luck

Title: Luck
Author: elrhiarhodan
Rating: Gen
Fandom: White Collar
Spoilers: Out of the Box
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~300
Summary: The totally sublime photoash  opened up a terrific ficlet challenge yesterday.  She gave me three prompts, and here is my response to the second one:

Neal - Luck

Neal doesn't believe in luck. That's why he plays chess, not poker; backgammon, not baccarat. Skill is what matters, the untalented rely on luck.

This doesn't explain Peter Burke, though. There was nothing about skill that resulted in the random assignment of Special Agent Peter Burke to the investigations of a series of seemingly unrelated art thefts, confidence schemes and forgeries. But luck had nothing to do with Burke's ability to piece together those random crimes into a singular pattern and track Neal with the tenacity of a bloodhound on the scent.

Neal never considered the assignment of Agent Burke to his case to be bad luck. As he once told Kate (who had bemoaned the fact that Burke was responsible for the hasty abandonment of their lovely apartment in Venice), there where probably hundreds of FBI agents equally skilled. They'd just have to work a little harder to keep ahead of the very tenacious Agent Burke. That hard work paid off in Prague - Neal had very deliberately picked a third floor apartment over a bakery with a sturdy awning.   Just in case he needed to defenestrate in an emergency. Luck had nothing to do with him standing next to the opened window when Burke burst into the apartment.

Neal didn't even consider his eventual arrest a matter of good (Burke's) or bad (his own) luck - Burke was just that much smarter, and he respected that immensely.

In fact, the only time he even remotely considered that his relationship with Peter Burke was lucky was the day after he nearly boarded a small private jet that was supposed to take him and Kate to a whole new life.

One Word Ficlet Challenge - Neal/Luck

Title: Luck
Author: elrhiarhodan
Rating: Gen
Fandom: White Collar
Spoilers: Out of the Box
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~300
Summary: The totally sublime photoash  opened up a terrific ficlet challenge yesterday.  She gave me three prompts, and here is my response to the second one:

Neal - Luck

Neal doesn't believe in luck. That's why he plays chess, not poker; backgammon, not baccarat. Skill is what matters, the untalented rely on luck.

This doesn't explain Peter Burke, though. There was nothing about skill that resulted in the random assignment of Special Agent Peter Burke to the investigations of a series of seemingly unrelated art thefts, confidence schemes and forgeries. But luck had nothing to do with Burke's ability to piece together those random crimes into a singular pattern and track Neal with the tenacity of a bloodhound on the scent.

Neal never considered the assignment of Agent Burke to his case to be bad luck. As he once told Kate (who had bemoaned the fact that Burke was responsible for the hasty abandonment of their lovely apartment in Venice), there where probably hundreds of FBI agents equally skilled. They'd just have to work a little harder to keep ahead of the very tenacious Agent Burke. That hard work paid off in Prague - Neal had very deliberately picked a third floor apartment over a bakery with a sturdy awning.   Just in case he needed to defenestrate in an emergency. Luck had nothing to do with him standing next to the opened window when Burke burst into the apartment.

Neal didn't even consider his eventual arrest a matter of good (Burke's) or bad (his own) luck - Burke was just that much smarter, and he respected that immensely.

In fact, the only time he even remotely considered that his relationship with Peter Burke was lucky was the day after he nearly boarded a small private jet that was supposed to take him and Kate to a whole new life.