Tuesday: Camera!
Dec. 20th, 2011 12:10 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
scarlet-gryphon.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
comment_ficHello, everyone! I’m ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scarlet_gryphon, and I'm back with another theme for y'all.
Today’s theme is Camera! Does the click-click-click of a camera's shutter drive someone wild? What's seen through a camera's lens? You're deciding, so prompt away!
Some quick examples:
Stargate Atlantis, Lorne/Parrish, He never had to take a picture; every inch of his lover was captured in his mind's eye.
Warehouse 13, Claudia & Jinks, Claudia finds a photograph of his sister online, and finally understands why he's so protective of her.
As always, remember to follow the rules:
[tag=camera!]
scarlet_gryphon, and I'm back with another theme for y'all.Today’s theme is Camera! Does the click-click-click of a camera's shutter drive someone wild? What's seen through a camera's lens? You're deciding, so prompt away!
Some quick examples:
Stargate Atlantis, Lorne/Parrish, He never had to take a picture; every inch of his lover was captured in his mind's eye.
Warehouse 13, Claudia & Jinks, Claudia finds a photograph of his sister online, and finally understands why he's so protective of her.
As always, remember to follow the rules:
- Only three prompts from a fandom
- Only five prompts in a row
- If one prompt gets filled, you can leave a new one.
- No spoilers in your prompts until a week after airdate/publication
- If your fill contains a spoiler, please warn accordingly and leave space for the spoiler.
[tag=camera!]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 05:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 05:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 09:27 pm (UTC)[1/2]
Date: 2014-03-12 06:06 am (UTC)"Peter, hey! Listen, my team needs to borrow Neal for a minute."
Peter looks at his friend skeptically. His team was finishing up paperwork for the night, and until Dave showed up, he'd thought they'd all be leaving within the hour. People borrowed Neal all the time - and it rarely for a minute, or even a few of them strung together. Especially when it was Cybercrimes doing the borrowing. "We just closed a case. A long case. We're all going to my house for pizza as soon as the paperwork is done. Can it wait until tomorrow?"
Dave winces slightly. "We'll be done by then, for sure, but he might not be in the mood for pizza afterwards."
Peter blinks in surprise. "Has he done something I need to know about?"
Dave shakes his head. "Nah, we just need his eyes on something."
"You have an entire division of agents and yet you keep stealing mine," he grumps, but waves a hand in Neal's direction. "Go ahead. Hurry up, though, he has paperwork to finish."
Dave nods and makes his way down the stairs, keeping his face expressionless despite the churning in his gut. He pauses at Neal's desk - Neal is long done with his paperwork, by the looks of things, and is crosshatching a sketch of the view from his desk. "Need to borrow you for a minute," he says, gesturing for Neal to follow and turning away before he has to make eye contact.
Neal has to jog to catch up as he makes his way to the elevator. "What's up?"
"Case," Dave says. "Wait 'til we get down to the conference room, I'll explain."
When they do, it's full of abandoned coffee cups and paper, not the rest of Dave's team. The freestanding corkboard is stuck full of pushpins that are barely evident through the sheet draped over it. Dave settles himself in the chair at the end of the table and waves Neal into the closest one.
Neal looks around warily. "I have a feeling I'm not going to like this," he says.
"You're not in any kind of trouble," Dave says, and looks at Neal like he's worried Neal will break.
Neal swallows hard and tries to ignore the feeling of his stomach falling through the floor. "I can think of exactly one thing that would make you clear the room, bring me in, and tell me that."
Dave tips his head back. "We got a tip. Raided a guy's computers. He had - we've been trying to ID the kids in the photos we found. Running them against school directories based on the - well, you probably don't care about that." Neal tucks shaking hands into his pockets. "Some of them matched a boy named Danny Brooks."
Neal holds up a hand to stop him. "If you want me to talk about this, I'm going to need coffee," he says. Alcohol would be vastly preferable, really, but scorching hot coffee and a minute or two to compose himself before Dave came back was the bare minimum.
[2/2]
Date: 2014-03-12 06:07 am (UTC)"To start with," Dave says eventually, "a name." The poor guy looks miserable. Neal sighs.
"I'm not going to break," Neal says. "It's not easy to talk about, but it was a long time ago, and believe me, I've talked it to death. I'm more concerned that you're planning on - look, I'll tell you whatever you need to know, but you're not talking to Neal Caffrey right now. Neal Caffrey has no connection to Danny Brooks, and it needs to stay that way. If you can't make that happen - "
"That's why I sent everyone else home early," Dave says. "None of them know. None of them will." He looks less worried now. "Tell me what happened."
Neal sighs, practically burns his mouth on his coffee, and then leans back in his chair. "He still teaches art at the middle school."
Dave catches his styrofoam cup before it falls off the table. Barely. "Okay," he says. "So you just - you never - " He closes his mouth and tries to reconcile the Caffrey he knows with someone who didn't make sure the guy went down in flames. And then he takes a deep breath and reminds himself that Caffrey or no, there are plenty of reasons for him not to have gone after an...abuser.
Caffrey must divine his thoughts from the twist of his mouth, because the next thing he says is "No, I never tried to take him down. I wasn't about to walk back in there myself, and anyone who might have worked with me..." He shrugs, and Dave tries to read the lines of his shoulders. "I didn't want them looking at me differently."
Dave pulls out a blank piece of paper and a pen and hands them over. "Statute of limitations gives you two more years," he says. "Write it down. Sign it Danny Brooks. No one will know, and hopefully the search warrant it'll get us is all we'll need to take him down."
Neal looks up at him. "And if not?"
Dave exhales. "We'll cross that bridge when we get there," he says, "but whatever happens, Neal Caffrey's name and face will stay far away from this. And no one here will find out, either - not Peter or anyone else."
"Yeah?" Neal studies his the sincerity in his face, and then sets pen to paper and starts writing.
***
Neal walks into Peter's office 45 minutes after Dave borrowed him looking...subdued. Hunched in on himself. Which, Peter thinks as Neal sets his report on Peter's desk, is definitely not normal. "All done? Thanks."
"Sure," Neal says quietly. His fingers are picking at the edge of a styrofoam coffee cup, and he doesn't turn around and leave. Instead, he eyes the chair in front of Peter's desk like he's trying to think of an excuse to stay.
"Have a seat," Peter says before he comes up with one. "I'm almost done myself, and then we can head out." He glances out over the bullpen, where Diana is putting on her jacket. Jones is already gone - as usual, they're going to beat him to his own house.
Neal sits. Peter works. As he signs the last page of paperwork, he starts straightening his desk and looks up. "Dave and his team see some pretty disturbing things. I don't know what he showed you - and I'm not asking, it's not my case," he says as Neal looks up. "I guess what I'm saying is that I understand if you want to go home, but I've found that the best antidote for coming face to face with the worst parts of the world is spending some time with the best. Pizza. Friends that care about you. Terrible movies. A very enthusiastic dog. You're welcome to the spare room if you want it."
The hint of a smile on Neal's face broadens, but his eyes are still sad, and Peter realizes that whatever Dave's case was, it must have been particularly bad. "That sounds pretty good right now," Neal says.
"Get your coat," Peter says as he places a stack of paper in his outbox. "Let's get out of here. El said it's zombie movie night."
Neal makes his way back to his own desk feeling like the ground is more solid under his feet. His past is still in the past - and his present is full of Peter and El and Satchmo, Diana and Jones. He doesn't want to talk - but he knows that they'd listen if he did, and that counts for a lot. That, and pizza, and zombie movies.
Re: [2/2]
Date: 2014-03-12 11:00 am (UTC)Re: [2/2]
Date: 2014-03-12 04:32 pm (UTC)Thank you so very much! This is absolutely perfect.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 10:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 11:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-21 01:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-21 02:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-21 03:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-21 03:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-21 06:10 am (UTC)