elrhiarhodan: (S5 - Peter - Neal)
[personal profile] elrhiarhodan
Title: Claws at Your Back
Author: [livejournal.com profile] elrhiarhodan
Fandom: White Collar
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Matthew Keller, Neal Caffrey, Neal/Keller
Spoilers: Bottleneck, Payback, On the Fence
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: Dark imagery
Word Count: ~500
Summary: There’s a reason why Matthew Keller hasn’t been able to pull the trigger.



A/N: No beta. All mistakes are mine and mine alone. Song title from the Jethro Tull classic, Bungle in the Jungle, from the album War Child. Written for [livejournal.com profile] jrosemary for the recent Comment Fic Meme. Her prompt is at the end of the story.

__________________


Matthew Keller is a bad man and he knows it.

He isn’t a gentleman thief who will make you sigh with longing as he steals your precious treasures. No – he is a stone killer, cold and conscienceless. He has no problems with putting a bullet through an associate's brain if there is the slightest chance of a fuck-up. He’s run down an accomplice because he’s a loose thread. He’ll kill an old man when he doesn’t offer up the information.

Truth is, Matthew Keller takes as much pleasure in killing allies as he does in killing enemies.

But he's also a human being with one very soft spot. For Neal Caffrey.

When he thinks about it, it feels like a sickness. Like that spot on a melon that's gone bad. It’s a cancer that needs to be excised from the body. He pictures Neal in his head, his brains and blood and bone spattered on the wall. A bullet hole in the middle of that beautiful face. Behind his closed eyes, he sees Neal dead and rejoices.

Keller spends months planning Neal Caffrey's demise, but it takes just the sound of his nemesis’ voice to unravel all those plans.

He remembers their time in Monaco, playing and gambling and fucking like mad dogs in stolen hotel suites. Neal pounding into him, whispering Matty, Matty, and to his shame, he had uttered back words of undying love. Neal – never leave me, never let me go.

He knows he's no prize, physically - short and stocky, with gang tattoos snaking across his torso. But he knows he's smart - and he knows how much Neal likes smart. So he plays these games, keeps Neal interested, at his side, under his thumb.

Until he makes a wrong move and he goes after Kate.

In hindsight, he should have realized that Neal wouldn't take that well at all. Neal thought he loved her - she was his idée fixe, his reason for living, everything he did was just something to impress her. He never realized that she was nothing more than a silly, useless girl.

He has a moment of schadenfreude when he hears that Kate was the reason Neal got caught by the Feds. Neal never notices, but he is there for every moment of his trial, watching and waiting. He could have gotten Neal out and away with as much effort as it would have taken to blow his nose, but he doesn’t want to. Let the next four years be his punishment for picking Kate over him.

Matthew soon realizes that this plan is foolish. The next four years are long and lonely with his favorite playmate locked up. But when word comes that Caffrey is out on work release, he knows just how he's going to get him back.

He'll get rid of that sticky Fed, Peter Burke, dispose of Mozzie, and get Neal out of that anklet. Simple as that. They’ll just disappear and be together forever.

FIN


[livejournal.com profile] jrosemary’s prompt: Neal is way over Keller and despises him for everything he's done--but Keller still has a soft spot for Neal, and it shows by something he does for him.

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