White Collar Fic - Days of Work, Days of Pleasure, Days of Grace

Title: Days of Work, Days of Pleasure, Days of Grace
Fandom: White Collar
Rating: PG
Characters: Peter Burke, Neal Caffrey
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers:
Word Count: ~ 1300
Summary: The Honey-Do List and Boyhood Tastes.

Written for a prompt (Peter - Science Fiction) and originally published as part of Prompt The Day Away II.


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With nearly eleven years of marriage under his belt, Peter fully understood the importance of the “honey-do” list – and the even greater importance of crossing out the items on the list without being prompted. Peter, being a meticulous and thorough sort of man, kept an actual list on his refrigerator door, organized by project size and priority. Kitchen and bathroom repairs were always at the top of the list, and cleaning and sorting were generally at the bottom. Their renovated brownstone didn’t have an attic anymore, that space was now the third floor bedroom and El’s office. There was still a basement – and it was filled not only with the flotsam of a decade-plus of marriage, but the jetsam of the years before, when Peter and El were not “Peter and El,” but simply “Peter” and “El”.


Clearing through the collective accumulations of their lives was an on-going project, and Peter had done a yeoman’s job. Pretty much the only things that were left from his pre-El years were a dozen boxes of books. He tried not to look at the stacks of cartons and bags that were piled up against the far wall – the stuff El had deposited there when then moved in, and slowly and steadily added to it as time passed by. The last time he had mentioned to El that she might want to sort through that stuff, she pinned him with a look that said don’t go there, mister but he did anyway, and suggested that if she didn’t want to bother, he’d go through it. They had a crazy stupid argument that didn’t even end in make-up sex. El went shopping, he went for a run and they both tacitly agreed never to raise the issue again.

When Neal became part of their lives, the time Peter had to spend on the honey-do list shrank into an infinitesimal part of their weekend. Not that Peter really minded – it wasn’t that he liked doing chores. Oh, kitchen and bathroom tasks were always taken care of, but the long-term projects (like the basement) seemed to get pushed off to a far distant date when things were more settled, more ordinary. But settled and ordinary were not characteristics of living with Neal Caffrey, and weekends now seemed to be made for adventure, not housekeeping. Of course, there were weekends just filled with case work. Or sex.

One dreary Saturday in mid-October – a kind of day made for staying home, Peter closed the last file in a string of securities frauds he and Neal were working through. Neal had declared himself finished a half-hour earlier and went to the kitchen to make himself lunch. Just as he was about to go in and make his own sandwich, Neal came out with a tray and they sat down in companionable silence.

“What’s this?” He handed the honey-do list to Peter.

Swallowing a mouthful of deviled ham, he simply replied, “Chores.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do any of these things – wash down deck, clean exterior windows, re-caulk patio doors, clean out basement.”

Peter grimaced. “It’s not like we’ve had a lot of time on our hands lately. You’ve been keeping us all kind of busy.”

Neal frowned. “What do you mean?”

Shit, Neal sounded a bit hurt. “Well, we’ve been spending a lot of time doing things – stuff – you know, museums, rambles through the old neighborhoods looking for authentic egg creams and knishes, the Cloisters, The Hamptons." Peter put special emphasis on that last item - it had taken a bit of paperwork to get approval to take Neal that far out of his radius. "And I seem to recall several weekends that we didn’t even get dressed. We’ve been having fun.”

Neal put his sandwich down and quietly said “You don’t have to entertain me. I’m not a child.”

Peter closed his eyes and prayed for a little patience, a little more emotional wisdom. “Neal…”

Satchmo, who never seemed to understand the meaning of bad timing, nudged at Neal’s hand for a treat. Neal picked the meat off the his sandwich and absently started to feed it to the dog. “Peter – I appreciate what you and Elizabeth have done for me these past few months, but you have lives too. I’m not going to fall apart if I have to spend some time on my own – or better yet, if I have to earn my keep and give you a hand around the house.”

Peter leaned back in his chair and smiled. This was a breakthrough. El had been right – Neal had been feeling like a guest, and perhaps they’d been complicit in that attitude. “Okay – you want to help, how about helping me bring up a few cartons of books from the basement. There’s a fundraiser at the library and I need to donate them.”

Neal seemed to perk up at the mention of books. “What type of books? Anything I’d be interested in?”

“Oh, no you don’t. You’re not going to start tearing through those boxes looking for the one art history text you may not have already seen. Those cartons are labeled and organized and I’ve got a list of contents for each one. I can’t have you messing them up. Besides, most of them are just old college textbooks and paperbacks.”

“Paperbacks? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you read fiction.” That much was true. These days, Peter barely had time to keep up with the newspaper, let alone a novel. Most weeks, he was lucky to get to the book review before El declared that the Sunday Times was heading for recycling.

“I did a lot more reading when I was on the road. And most of the paperbacks I’m giving away are from when I was a teenager. I took them with me when my folks moved, but I’ve never looked at them since. It’s time for them to go.”

Peter caught a look on Neal’s face. A touch of hunger for something he wanted but never had – the continuity of family life – to have the detritus of a happy childhood carted from boyhood bedroom to college dorm to first apartment and then to the basement of the marital home. “I don’t know if you’d be interested, but you can snag some of the paperbacks – I didn’t catalog those.”

“What are they?”

“Mostly science fiction – space opera stuff. Some fantasy too.” Peter felt a little shy at revealing his boyhood tastes in reading material. Izzy used to make fun of him.

Neal just smiled. “I never pictured you as a sword and sorcery kind of guy. But I think I could see it in you as boy. Bet your favorite character was Strider.”

Peter grinned back. “Yeah. And you … you probably cast yourself Frodo.”

“No – no way. Frodo had to work too hard. I was always partial to Legolas.”

How perfect –Aragorn and Legolas. “Come on, let’s get to work.”

It took about a half hour to lug the dozen or so boxes up the stairs and out to the car, and Peter set to box with the paperbacks aside. He went to wash up and when he came back into the living room, Neal had already delved into the box. He held up a worn paperback that had a scantily clad and well-endowed woman riding on the back of a flying dinosaur - dragon.

“That was a good one – a classic.”

Neal smirked, “Of course. It has nothing to do with the half-naked chick on the cover.”

Peter just blushed.


Author Notes:

One of the reasons why l love writing about Peter’s childhood and teenage years is that we are the same age, and have the same cultural touchstones. It is easy to imagine young Peter Burke waiting on line to see Star Wars when it first came out, or thrilling over a boxed paperback set of The Lord of the Rings, or sneaking into a movie theater to see Jaws or Saturday Night Fever. The book that Neal was holding up was Anne McCaffrey’s Dragon Flight, and the cover art by Michael Whelan (circa 1977) is still iconic.