cons: (☢ listeninggg)
wιcнιтa, ĸanѕaѕ ([personal profile] cons) wrote in [community profile] ataraxionlogs2013-02-28 09:03 pm
Entry tags:

he never ever saw it coming at all ( closed )

CHARACTERS: Peter Burke and Wichita
LOCATION: Space Babylon woohooo
WARNINGS: UM none
SUMMARY: Wichita's worried about Neal, so naturally she has to run and tell his FBI dad.
NOTES: backdated pre-event, right after this conversation.


[ somewhere in the back of her mind, Wichita feels bad for snitching. even if it's not snitching in the strictest sense, she isn't trying to get anybody in trouble and she isn't spilling any secrets ( mostly because she doesn't have any to spill on the subject ), but to bring her concerns about one thing or another to an outside party when she normally would keep it all to herself feels an awful lot like snitching. so once she hangs up her call with Peter ( Agent Peter Burke, why is she talking to feds, whywhywhy ), she almost immediately takes to pouring herself a short glass of space rum, just enough for a few sips, enough to smooth out the egde of nerves this whole thing is giving her before he meets her there at the bar.

whatever, it's just talking. she can talk about this. about Neal. about the fact that she's worried about Neal. of all the people on this ship to talk to about it, Peter seems like the best bet. nah, not even 'seems like'. he is the best bet. she won't claim to know Neal better than anybody else, but after all she's heard about Peter through Neal, she knows he'll understand the subtle things that are making her worry, the reason why this is Different. he won't tell her she's just being paranoid and to let it go. ..or maybe he will, and maybe she'll actually listen because he knows Neal well enough to know when to be concerned and when not to be.

right.

it's not snitching, it's just.. giving herself peace of mind. and maybe, possibly, gaining an understanding with someone that might want to save Neal as much as she does. and normally Wichita would scoff or scrunch her nose at the use of the word 'save' in a situation like this, but, at this point? it seems appropriate. she couldn't save Sherlock, but she'd try her freaking hardest to save Neal.
]
suit: (pic#5289801)

[personal profile] suit 2013-03-01 03:58 am (UTC)(link)
[ it doesn't actually take long for peter to make his way down to the bar. partially because when it deals with neal it's at a bit of a high priority for peter, but also because if something really is wrong, then wichita can tell him things that he otherwise wouldn't have known.

sometimes giving neal space can create more problems than it solves, ironically enough. and even if she doesn't, there's still an insight that he doesn't have into other things. so he goes and finds his way to the bar, wearing his jeans and his green shirt and once he gets there while there's no one there he manages to just plop down in a chair before: ]


Wichita?
suit: (Default)

[personal profile] suit 2013-03-05 08:41 am (UTC)(link)
[ as a fun fact of the day, he would not have minded the sombrero as much as she probably thinks he does. alas, he won't tell her that so off it goes and she gets to him and asks if he wants a drink and he shouldn't but a beer sounds like heaven, to be entirely honest. ]

If you have any beer I'll take that, otherwise, I'm good. And bring it around the other side of things, so I'm not stuck talking to you over the bar.
suit: (pic#5830252)

[personal profile] suit 2013-03-09 08:42 am (UTC)(link)
With the amount of alcoholics on this ship, I doubt it'd even have a chance to come close. But no, like I said, it's fine. It's probably better if I don't actually, drinking on the job even if this is not strictly security related isn't something I do. [ he'll just probably go find some whiskey somewhere after this entire mess. he won't be like everyone else, but something tells him this conversation is going to be one of those conversations where he needs to have something to unwind himself with afterward. ]

You're not getting him in trouble. He does that enough by himself and I get it that you don't want me to talk to you for him or tell him he can tell you what's going on. [ there's a pause here where peter purses his lips before he exhales. ] I am. Out of everyone from home, I like to think I'm definitely that person to tell.

So tell me about it. Everything you can think of from your perspective.
suit: (pic#5836013)

[personal profile] suit 2013-03-15 02:24 am (UTC)(link)
[ there's a problem when people don't face you head on when they're talking to you. it makes them look like they're hiding something when they might not be and beyond that it makes it harder for peter to read them. or at the very least do something close to it. but her not looking at him, he can understand, it's neal and she's obviously worried about him so he doesn't use his potential ability to actually force her to look at him.

instead he just listens and waits to say a single thing, though he does occasionally make a noise to make sure she realizes that he is, indeed, listening. and he takes the communicator without saying anything, though he could, instead choosing to take the time to read over what was said. a frown ends up forming on his face because—

peter knows a lot about neal. knows how he ticks better than anyone on this ship because it's his job to know and because he takes neal at his base value ( or what he knows as a base value ) and thinks that he's a guy who could have everything if he just stayed on the lawful path, and is too smart for his own good and it's— nearly obvious this isn't the neal he left at home. but then again, after knowing what he knew before this he could tell you neal had to have changed somehow. but this? this worries him. this makes makes him wonder if neal won't tell him because he's concerned he'll fall into it and because he needs someone to pull him out or if he's just not telling him because he doesn't want to.

because— this is something peter can't know. it takes him a moment and a heavy exhale before he sets the communicator aside and rubs at his head. ]


I know. I understand where you're coming from. Because you want to think that when something happens to someone you're enough to make them be fine if something happened to them that you weren't there to help them with.

[ right now it's a feeling peter's getting more and more because he could have prevented this. he could have pulled neal back in. he could have gone with him to help him with this. but he wasn't and— that was that, wasn't it. ]

You're not going to like what I say, but I need you to listen. If anything is dragging him home even if he says he can't go home, it's me. That's still the Neal I know, whether or not it's a con, I can't figure out just from that, because text can hide a lot of things, but I can tell you that what I just read, there's still at least a good part of him that's Neal Caffrey.

[ there's a pause. ] If he needs to be fixed, which, strictly speaking, unless his entire personality changed isn't something that needs to happen, because, you know he's a good guy. Criminal, technically, but a good guy who'd do things to protect the people he cares about. I speak from experience on that, so don't tell me I'm wrong, or I'm going to ask how well you really know him.

I'm going to ask you to promise me something, and if you make this promise, you're going to keep it because I hate it when people go back on them let alone when the promises involve Neal however indirectly.
suit: (Default)

[personal profile] suit 2013-03-15 04:02 am (UTC)(link)
[ the exhale is what bothers him the most, and why he said it, because if Neal thinks she's trying to fix him, then he'll go with it because for all that Neal is annoying ass, he's also good at reading people. peter doesn't make any particular bones about how if there's anyone that wants to make sure he's okay, it's him. but he knows that Neal doesn't— getting Neal to admit that's something wrong is like pulling teeth.

but she's right about how he believes that maybe she'll do the right thing here. it's how he deals with Neal, because honestly, the fact that she's here and talking to him about Neal proves that she's at least somewhat of a good person with a heart inside her even if she's a criminal too. ]


That's not what I was going to say. I'm not letting this go, not by a long shot. I know you're worried. I'm— I exist perpetually in a state of worry about Neal. So I understand perfectly. I've known that guy for years and he's a part of my life nearly as much as my wife is. I get it.

[ there's a pause where he looks concerned for her too before: ] What I'm asking you to do is don't press him about it. Trust me, it's not going to get anyone anywhere if you just press like you did. [ it's killing peter to say this but: ] I'm not asking you to strictly pull a con on him, but just make him think everything's fine. That you don't think anything is wrong. And if you see anything that you think is wrong, tell me.