Entry tags:
White Collar, "Old Sequins and Old Breastplates," pre-Peter/Neal ficlet
Title: "Old Sequins and Old Breastplates"
Fandom: White Collar
Pairing: pre- Peter/Neal
Rating: G
Summary: Finally seeing him in person wasn't that much different from seeing him in a photograph, or in a painting.
AN: Written as a birthday present for![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elrhiarhodan, and briefly mentions her OC, Isabelle Burke. Inspired by this photo. Title is from the Erik Satie piece of the same name.
Honfleur was like nowhere Peter had ever been before -- the only references he had in his mind for the narrow stone streets and the weathered wooden church and the calm waters of the harbor were things he'd seen in old Impressionist paintings, and so walking those streets felt like stepping out of reality and into a work of art. Which made it an appropriate place to find Caffrey, he supposed; a man he'd only seen in photographs that always seemed perfectly composed, like the world he lived in was more like an artist's impression of the real thing.
Peter had been the one to guess that Caffrey's next stop would be Honfleur's Musee Eugene Boudin, a quaint little building whose walls were crowded with the rock stars of the 19th century. Caffrey had been on a Monet kick lately, and the Musee Boudin was currently housing a landscape of his that had escaped the thief's recent visit to the Musee D'Orsay... it was just a hunch, but Interpol had followed up on the tip and confirmed his travel plans. So now Peter was here, waiting for the other shoe to drop, walking down the cobbled streets and along the warped docks and feeling a little bit lost in time.
It was a breezy summer evening when he finally saw him, late enough for shops to be closing in a small town, but with a few minutes left until the sun would set over the harbor. Peter was carrying a bag from a little tourist shop, full of souvenirs for El and her family -- a canvas tote bag with a Gustave Courbet design, a miniature replica of the old church -- and a book for his sister, because he was pretty sure she couldn't find anything to sneer at about a book, especially one in French. He'd been walking for a long time -- there wasn't much else to do around here -- and his feet were tired, as though the stones were starting to wear through his shoes. There was a storm coming in over the water, big Impressionist clouds casting a strange shadow against the sunlight, and it was weird how much of a difference the light made, how easy it was to imagine himself as a cop of the nineteenth century, walking his beat without the aid of a cell phone or an unmarked car, led only by a bone-deep knowledge of the city and that hard-to-put-your-finger on instinct thing that detectives have probably always relied on and never liked to talk about very much --
like the instinct telling him, right now, to turn the corner and get into sight range of the Musee Erik Satie. No, not the Musee Boudin. Why? Who knows why? He walked fast but as quietly as he could, trusting the cobbled streets and his worn shoes --
and there he was, lingering on the street, looking up at the museum's second-story window in a way that could have been the casual curiosity of a tourist, and could have been the wistful longing of a jilted lover, but was, Peter knew, actually the calculation of a thief casing a building, looking for escape plans. Caffrey was fixated on the window, probably figuring out what kind of lock it used. His hair was longer than it had been in earlier photos, and he was wearing an oversized shirt whose sleeves fell back around his elbows as he shoved his hands into his back pockets, and seeing him in person wasn't really much different from seeing him in a photo, or in a painting. Somewhere over the harbor, the clouds closed over the sun, and the rain started to fall.
Fandom: White Collar
Pairing: pre- Peter/Neal
Rating: G
Summary: Finally seeing him in person wasn't that much different from seeing him in a photograph, or in a painting.
AN: Written as a birthday present for
elrhiarhodan, and briefly mentions her OC, Isabelle Burke. Inspired by this photo. Title is from the Erik Satie piece of the same name.
Honfleur was like nowhere Peter had ever been before -- the only references he had in his mind for the narrow stone streets and the weathered wooden church and the calm waters of the harbor were things he'd seen in old Impressionist paintings, and so walking those streets felt like stepping out of reality and into a work of art. Which made it an appropriate place to find Caffrey, he supposed; a man he'd only seen in photographs that always seemed perfectly composed, like the world he lived in was more like an artist's impression of the real thing.
Peter had been the one to guess that Caffrey's next stop would be Honfleur's Musee Eugene Boudin, a quaint little building whose walls were crowded with the rock stars of the 19th century. Caffrey had been on a Monet kick lately, and the Musee Boudin was currently housing a landscape of his that had escaped the thief's recent visit to the Musee D'Orsay... it was just a hunch, but Interpol had followed up on the tip and confirmed his travel plans. So now Peter was here, waiting for the other shoe to drop, walking down the cobbled streets and along the warped docks and feeling a little bit lost in time.
It was a breezy summer evening when he finally saw him, late enough for shops to be closing in a small town, but with a few minutes left until the sun would set over the harbor. Peter was carrying a bag from a little tourist shop, full of souvenirs for El and her family -- a canvas tote bag with a Gustave Courbet design, a miniature replica of the old church -- and a book for his sister, because he was pretty sure she couldn't find anything to sneer at about a book, especially one in French. He'd been walking for a long time -- there wasn't much else to do around here -- and his feet were tired, as though the stones were starting to wear through his shoes. There was a storm coming in over the water, big Impressionist clouds casting a strange shadow against the sunlight, and it was weird how much of a difference the light made, how easy it was to imagine himself as a cop of the nineteenth century, walking his beat without the aid of a cell phone or an unmarked car, led only by a bone-deep knowledge of the city and that hard-to-put-your-finger on instinct thing that detectives have probably always relied on and never liked to talk about very much --
like the instinct telling him, right now, to turn the corner and get into sight range of the Musee Erik Satie. No, not the Musee Boudin. Why? Who knows why? He walked fast but as quietly as he could, trusting the cobbled streets and his worn shoes --
and there he was, lingering on the street, looking up at the museum's second-story window in a way that could have been the casual curiosity of a tourist, and could have been the wistful longing of a jilted lover, but was, Peter knew, actually the calculation of a thief casing a building, looking for escape plans. Caffrey was fixated on the window, probably figuring out what kind of lock it used. His hair was longer than it had been in earlier photos, and he was wearing an oversized shirt whose sleeves fell back around his elbows as he shoved his hands into his back pockets, and seeing him in person wasn't really much different from seeing him in a photo, or in a painting. Somewhere over the harbor, the clouds closed over the sun, and the rain started to fall.