elrhiarhodan

Title: Under The Covers
Author:

elrhiarhodan
Fandom: White Collar
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Peter Burke, Elizabeth Burke, Satchmo, Peter/Elizabeth
Spoilers: S2.12 – Forging Bonds
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~800
Summary: One from the Promptfest V vaults. Peter comes home after a long week chasing the elusive “James Bonds” and he finds he is very satisfied with his life

A/N: No beta. All mistakes are mine and mine alone.

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There really is nothing like coming home…

Peter lets himself into his new house. He’s been on the road for almost two weeks, chasing leads on Neal Caffrey. A forged Atlantic Partners bond turns up in a bank in Los Angeles, another one in Oklahoma City and yet another in Seattle. In each instance, the banks’ security cameras fail to capture the face of the elusive “James Bonds.” Finally, after dozens of interviews with security guards, bank tellers and the customers who were at the branches at the same time, none of whom can positively identify Caffrey from the sketch he had made, Peter calls an end to this particular chase.

He lets Elizabeth know that he’ll be home tonight, arriving from SeaTac a little after midnight. He tells her most emphatically that she shouldn’t come pick him up. A loving, but foolish gesture, cab fare from JFK to the house on DeKalb is at least fifty bucks, and not reimbursable. Peter ends up taking three different subways and walking a half-dozen blocks home.

It’s close to two AM when he opens the door; his feet throb and his shoulders ache from lugging the duffle bag and briefcase. Today, he feels every one of his forty years.

Satchmo gives him a sleepy, but intense greeting – at two, he is still more puppy than dignified dog, but at least he doesn’t piddle every time Peter comes home.

He dumps his bags on the floor, and tosses his coat on one of the hooks he installed the weekend before he left on this latest and fruitless pursuit. Walking up the seventeen steps to the bedroom seem more like he is climbing to the top of the Empire State Building. Or the Washington Monument.

He thinks, I’m getting too old for this. For just a moment, Peter wonders if it is time to start delegating some of the out-of-town work to his team. And that thought gives him enough of a lift to get him to the landing.

His team. He actually has a staff and a team of crack agents that report to him, some of whom have twice his years in the Bureau. He is, as his father-in-law is wont to say, a big macher now. He’s considered a rising star in the Bureau and can pick and chose his caseload, as well as assign cases to his staff. In the grand scheme of things, that makes him important.

But this James Bonds case is his own, and while his whole team works on it, he’s got the primary responsibility for closing it. It is personal, or at least it became personal when that little shit, Caffrey handed him the lime green sucker, and he doesn’t like the idea of letting anyone else take the lead. So that means long hours in the office examining new intel and working over old information – trying to find the lead that would net him his prize. And long days and empty nights on the road, chasing a man as elusive as a ghost.

It also means coming home at all hours of the night, to a sleeping wife, a dog who had finally learned that paper was not to be eaten, and a big bed with clean, soft sheets and plenty of pillows. The fitting and just reward for the work he did.

Peter shucks his clothes and drops them on the floor – the suit he’s been wearing for three days, the shirt that’s been through too many cheap hotel laundry services, and the patterned tie that doesn’t quite hide the ketchup stains. He’s not normally such a slob, but there are excuses this time.

He doesn’t bother with pajamas or even a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. No, he climbs into bed, reveling in the softness of the linen against his skin and the almost delicate weight of the down comforter as it settles over him.

El turns toward him, not fully wakened by the sounds he made or the shifting of the mattress, but aware that he’s home, at last.

She mumbles something. “Missed you.”

He presses a kiss into her sleep warmed skin and whispers back, “I missed you too. You have no idea.”

El sighs, and rolls back to her other side, neatly tucking herself against him, like a spoon.

Any other night, her pert bottom so intimately connected with his cock would lead to slow, sleepy loving, but even though his cock gives an interested twinge, Peter is just too tired.

He resettles himself, and pulls up the covers. He is content, he is happy. There is no place he would rather be than here, in his bed with his arms around Elizabeth. This is what gives meaning to his life.

FIN