elrhiarhodan | White Collar Fic - Blood of Helios - Vampire World Chapter III

Title: The Blood of Helios – Vampire World Chapter III - Dawn’s Great Magic
Author:

elrhiarhodan
Fandom: White Collar
Rating: NC-17 (for slash)
Characters: Neal Caffrey, June
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~ 2300
Summary: Vampire Peter, Shapeshifter El and Neal, who is something more than he ever expected to be. Chapter III - Small Magics Return and Roses Bloom, Dust Bunnies Scamper, The Prince of Rogues Cheated in That Card Game. Captain Peter Burke Awakens in the Middle of the Day.

This story is dedicated to

gyzym who has held my hand and encouraged me when I felt this was all turning to shite. I couldn’t ask for a better friend. Beta’d by the awesome

riazendira. All mistakes are mine. Feedback is adored.

Prologue | Chapter I | Chapter II
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The Blood of Helios – Vampire World Chapter III - Dawn’s Great Magic

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At 5:52 am, Neal opened his eyes, and abruptly closed them again. It had been years seen he had dreamed so vividly. The visit with the vampire, the contract, the wine, the sky. Then meeting the Summer Queen and being given a room in her palace. It all seemed so real, and it would be nice to capture a few more minutes of it before the guards banged on his cage. His head rested on a feather pillow and his body was wrapped in a soft, luxurious material - silk?. He was warm and comfortable, two sensations he could barely recall. Neal kept his eyes closed, and breathed deep. What was that scent? Lavender? chrysanthemum?

At 6:04 am, Neal kept his eyes shut and worried. A guard hadn’t come to beat his nightstick against the bars and turn on the harsh overhead light. That never happened before –something was wrong.

At 6:07 am, the rest of his senses began to wake up. The pillow he though he dreamed about was a real pillow under his head. The silk night clothes that were twisted around his body and the down-filled comforter draped over him like a cloud were real. Neal opened his eyes and saw the sky. I’ve only slept for an hour and twenty-two minutes. It wasn’t a dream. He sat up and got out of bed. It wasn’t a dream.

He walked over to the doors. In the half-dawn, the terrace looked like a sculpture garden filled with statues of chairs and tables. Without regard for the morning chill, Neal opened those doors and stepped outside. The City lay before him, the lights of the great towers slowly dimming in the rising sun. He wanted to strip down to his skin and let the light wash over him, but it would be four more hours until the sun cleared the skyline. Fully awake, Neal cursed the pragmatism of his odd gift. He stood out on the terrace until the cold stone made his bare feet ache

Neal went back inside and lay back down on the bed. After so many years of living in a small cage, the apartment seemed like a vast cavern and he wondered it if would echo.

“My name is Neal Caffrey, Sunlight Agent for Kiss Whryccrid.” No echo, but there seemed to be a little magic in those words. Neal lay on the bed for another two hours and eighteen minutes, staring up through the skylights, letting the new day’s light burn into his eyes.

A light tapping on the door interrupted Neal’s reverie, and with a bit of reluctance, Neal got up and answered the knock. It was the little brownie, carrying a tray of food. The Summer Queen was right behind her. “May we come in, Neal?”

Again, her voice made him think of mischief and summertime – an irresistible combination.

“Highness, this is your palace – you may come and go as you please.” He stepped away from the door, and this time managed to give the Lady a suitably appropriate gesture of gratitude without falling on his face.

The brownie deposited the tray on the dining table, removed the covers and departed. Neal stood in the middle of the room, unsure of what he should do. The Summer Queen smiled at him. “Would you like to eat?”

Neal looked at the tray of food – croissants, a dish of jam that looked like crushed rubies, slices of fruit and coffee, the smell of which almost made him weep. “Will you join me, Highness?”

“Please, Neal. Call me June.” She smiled and once again, Neal wanted to do nothing but serve her. This is her magic.

“June – will you have breakfast with me?”

“I would be delighted.” For that moment, it was as if the last ten years never happened. Neal pulled out her chair, and they sat down to eat.

The conversation was amusing. June told Neal stories of some of the former occupants of the rooftop apartment, some famous, some scandalous. When Neal commented, with a slight bit of longing in his voice, that the light made it perfect for artists, June clapped her hands, and the little brownie returned. “Mairead, do we still have the paints and canvases that Pablo left behind?” The brownie disappeared again, off to complete her task.

“Now, what do we do about your clothes? Do you want to go shopping?”

Neal felt a bit overwhelmed. This sudden freedom and the wealth of choices laid out before him were too much, but he was reluctant to disobey Captain Burke.

June sensed his distress. “I have an idea. You are about the same size as my late husband, Byron. If you don’t mind, you could wear some of his clothes until you are ready to shop for your own. He had exquisite taste.”

“Highness - June - I would be honored. If he married you, he certainly had the most exquisite taste.”

June laughed at that little bit of flattery and the painted roses on the border of the coffee cups burst into fragrant bloom and fell onto the table, scattering tiny petals everywhere. June looked at Neal in wonder. “You seem to bring my small magics back. They’ve been missing since Byron passed.”

“Tell me about Byron.” Neal recognized a kindred spirit in the Summer Queen - despite the differences in their stations, she was also a soul haunted by loss.

“Byron was the Prince of Rogues. My mother liked to say he was the Prince of Thieves, since he stole me right out from under her nose. Rogue he may have been, but from the first time I saw him, there was no one else I wanted. We had six daughters, and now twelve granddaughters. I wish he could be here to hold those babies.” At the sadness in her voice, the rose petals withered and turned to dust. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

“June - don’t apologize for loving someone, ever.”

She blinked at the sudden tears, and then smiled. “You are going to be my favorite resident, Mr. Neal Caffrey.” June pushed away from the table, suddenly filled with purpose. “Let’s go look at those clothes.”

June wasn’t exaggerating. The late Byron had a wardrobe fit not for the Prince of Rogues, but for the King of the City. Exquisite suits and casual wear in styles that spanned the first half of the last century. June pulled out a gorgeous gray silk and wool suit, handmade by one of the finest tailors in the City. “Byron won this with a backdoor draw in a game of poker against Sy Devore, a phookah and three lords of the Unseelie Court. They couldn’t prove it of course, but he cheated.” The carved roses that decorated the woodwork blossomed at the sound of June’s laughter. She set that suit aside for Neal.

Neal grinned. “You would think they would know better than to play poker against the Prince of Rogues.”

“Oh, they all cheated. It was expected. Byron just cheated better than anyone else.” June reached up and grabbed a hat box off of one of the shelves. A dust bunny fell off the top of the lid. Woken from its sleep, the creature gave a small eep and scampered off into the deepest recesses of the closet. June sneezed, a tiny royal sneeze, and a small green vine grew out of Neal’s collar. She giggled and the air grew thick with the scent of roses.

Neal plucked at the vine, which disappeared in a fragrant puff of green and smiled.

June opened the box and took out a brownish-black homburg, a domed shaped hat with a narrow curved brim. The silk band was blood red. “Byron won this one in a dice game with a Red Cap. The creature objected to one of Byron’s schemes and challenged him. That game was not fun to watch. The Red Cap kept crushing the dice.” June rubbed her fingers against the hatband and shuddered. They came away coated in blood. “I don’t think you want to wear this hat to work, Neal.”

Neal looked at the gruesome object. “I don’t think I want to wear that hat at all.”

They spent the rest of the morning going through the closet and the pile of clothes that June pulled out would garb Neal for weeks without repeat. June instructed Mairead to have them transferred to Neal’s apartment, where they could be fitted and tailored. She also arranged for more basic apparel - underwear, socks, and shoes - to be delivered later that day.

12:16 pm found Neal in a chair in his suite’s kitchenette, a sheet draped around him and Mairead cutting his hair while June looked on. She nodded in approval as the brownie carefully swept up all of the hair clippings and tossed them into the lit fire.

Dressed in a dove gray cashmere turtleneck and a pair of black pants that didn’t need any tailoring, Neal sat on the terrace, letting the late October sunlight recharge his soul. Less than a day ago, he was wondering how much longer he would be able to survive shut away in a dark cage, and now he was living in palace and could touch the sky. Already, that time was beginning to feel unreal, like it happened to someone else, but Neal knew he had to be careful. If he started forgetting about his captivity, he’d get careless and end up dead or back in the cage.

He looked down at the tracker on his ankle; it glowed a bit in the sunlight. Captain Burke said that he was the only one who could remove it – Neal wasn’t sure that was true, or completely true. Even vampire magic had to have a fail safe or a work-around. What if Burke was killed? Would the tracker become disabled? Or would Neal die too? The latter option seemed strangely logical; otherwise all anyone who was forced to wear one of these things had to do was kill his handler to escape. He wondered, if he asked the vampire, if would he get a straight answer.

Tipping his face up to the sun, Neal thought about fulfilling his contract with Captain Burke and avoiding a trip back to the cage. The first and foremost rule was, naturally, don’t steal or cheat the vampires. The second rule was doing what ever needs to be done to keep Burke happy. If that meant feeding the vampire, he’d do it and even pretend to enjoy it – though he was happy that he wouldn’t be compelled to provide blood. Sex? That was an interesting question. He had never heard of a vampire marrying, he never heard of a vampire having just one partner. How did his wife manage? Neal thought about having sex with Captain Burke and he shivered. Erotic images passed before his almost sun-blind eyes, of being naked under the moon, rubbing his face against Burke’s - Peter’s - crotch, (I bet he’s huge), the vampire’s hands gripping his head, then stroking his hair as Neal opened those tight fitting uniform pants and swallowed his cock in one deep breath. Other images started to crowd into his brain, where Neal was always naked, the moon was always full and Captain Peter Burke’s huge cock was always being stuffed into his willing body. Yes, I would definitely have sex with Peter. If that would make him happy.

Neal sat in the sunlight, mentally but not physically aroused, dreaming of sex and deluding himself about his motives.

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Peter Burke violently woke to full consciousness, a raging erection and the image of the sun reflected in Neal Caffrey’s bright blue eyes. His first thought was that it was 2:21 pm. He second was it’s started already.

Go to Chapter IV