elrhiarhodan | White Collar Fic - These Dreams Go On (When I Close My Eyes)

Title: These Dreams Go On (When I Close My Eyes)
Author:

elrhiarhodan
Fandom: White Collar
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Peter Burke, Neal Caffrey, Elizabeth Burke, (Peter/Neal/Elizabeth), Reese Hughes
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~ 1000
Summary: Peter has a hard time distinguishing what is real and what is a dream.

A/N: Written as a fill for

sonia6349, as a response to this prompt on my on-going meme.

__________________

“Burke, get up here.”

Peter looked up from the latest batch of files - Agent Hughes was clearly annoyed as he made that humiliating double-finger summons.

“You’re in the shit now, it seems.” Rodriguez, his desk mate commented with no small amount of glee.

Peter pushed himself to his feet, his right leg aching from the year-old gunshot wound. Hughes was still waiting for him at the balcony, impatience warring with sympathy for the disability. He climbed the stairs, trying not to use the railing to haul himself up, not with everyone watching. He followed Hughes into his office, resigned to whatever dress down he was about to get.

Hughes gestured for him to take a seat, stared at him for a few moments before tossing a file at him with a dyspeptic grimace. “What’s going, Burke?”

Peter didn’t know how to answer that. “Sir?”

“I know you hate being chained to a desk, but that’s no excuse for sloppy work.”

Peter picked up the folder and opened it. His status report on the matter was front and center. “All the information I have on the case is here.”

“You’re supposed to be a investigative agent, not a paper pusher. I’ve seen better work from first-week interns. Your – disability – is no excuse for this crap.”

He stifled a sigh and apologized. “I’ll redo it.”

“Damn it, Peter - what’s happened to you?”

There was not need to answer that. He took the file and lumbered out of Hughes’ office and back to his desk. The next four hours were hellacious, the office emptied out and he was just about the only agent left. Not that it mattered, there was no one to go home to. No wife, no dog, not even a gold fish. Just the same small studio apartment in a decaying neighborhood in Queens that he lived in for the last two decades.

Except when he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

In his dream-world, Peter wasn’t some second-tier agent marking time until he got his twenty, he was the senior case agent in the prestigious White Collar division, in charge of a staff of over-achievers. The Harvard Crew.

He had a wife, beautiful and sexy and loving and adoring. A home in Brooklyn. A dog named Satchmo. And best of all, he had Neal Caffrey.

Even here, a low-level careerist stuck in the public corruption division, he had heard of Neal Caffrey: art thief, forger and con man extraordinaire. A man gifted with immense talent and infinite charm, he had evaded capture for half a decade. He was caught, just about red-handed, with a stolen Raphael, but he beat the charges, walk out of court a free man, and completely dropped off the FBI’s radar.

But in Peter’s dream world, he was the one who captured Caffrey, brought him to justice and helped secure a conviction. Four years later, through a crazy set of circumstances, Neal became his CI, his partner at work and then in his life.

In that universe, Peter Burke had a wife and a lover, he was the fulcrum in a threesome - but it wasn’t adultery. Neal was part of his life, he was as committed to Peter and his dream-wife, Elizabeth, as they were to him.

Just about every night, Peter went home, had a desultory meal, locked up his gun and badge and eagerly went to bed, where he was a hero and a lover and a husband. His dream-self lived a life the real-world Peter could have never imagined.

At least not until he was shot. It happened in the strangest of circumstances. He and Rodriguez were serving a warrant on one of the deputy mayors for White Plains, in Westchester. The man went calmly, but his secretary went crazy and pulled a gun on them. She killed their suspect, shot Peter twice - once in the leg, once in the shoulder - then turned the gun on herself.

He had lost a lot of blood and spent months in the hospital and then in rehab. He could have taken retirement with a full pension, but he didn’t. Peter was afraid that if he ended his career in real life, he’d lose his dreamworld. It was crazy, but he felt like he had no choice. So he spent his days pushing paper, writing reports, chained to a desk because he would never be fit for field duty again.

Peter knew he was coasting, that his work was substandard, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

He’d close his eyes and in an instant, his world transformed from this gray reality into a universe of bright colors and endless sunshine. Sometimes, though, Peter could see this world when his eyes were opened, in a reflection in a mirrored window or the still, dark liquid in his coffee cup. Sometimes, driving home, he could hear the echoes of a conversation - banter, laughter - a touch of exasperation. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Neal Caffrey, glorious in his masculine beauty, sitting in the passenger seat, toying with the buttons on the console. Or late at night, he’d hear whispers - a woman’s voice calling for him, wanting him, needing him.

Peter wondered at his sanity - his dreamworld really couldn’t bleed into reality like that. He was simply a desperate, lonely man on a long, slow decline into madness.

________________

Peter woke up, gasping and fumbled for the light. He was having that dream again.

“Hon, are you okay?” El stroked his back, her hands warm and welcome against his cold and sweaty skin.

Neal leaned over him, worry clouding his face. “Another nightmare, Peter?”

He reached for Neal, for El, held them tight and tried to forget the terrible dream that haunted him for so many nights.

El asked him to talk about it, so did Neal, but he refused. He was so damn afraid that this was not his reality - that the real Peter Burke lived alone and had no one except the constructs of his unconscious mind. And if he talked about it, this world - this reality - would slip away and leave him with nothing.

fin