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To Neal, Matthew Keller’s the boy his mother never warned him about.
To be the blue collar version of him, and to have the history that they have. Matthew Keller, standing out among the Pink Panthers, and to see him turn around, black jacket zipped up, his hands shoved deep inside his pockets.
No, Neal is hardly angry when he finally sees that healed cut and the chip implanted just beneath the skin.
“Just like old times, huh Caffrey?”
And with that same line, Neal can only imagine his younger self, meeting Matthew in the Grand Casino of Monaco for the first time. To say that he’s completely taken by him is an understatement. At a time like then, at an age like that, there hasn’t been anyone outside of Moz that isn’t three, four steps behind him, walking to a pace Neal sets.
No, Matthew Keller makes a good plan, and this is not about to be his end game because there is no world in which Keller would place his freedom in the hands of the Interpol.
When he shows up in his apartment, Neal isn’t stupid enough to wonder what else he is after. (And if Moz stuck around, he would be saying something along the lines of if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.) Neal isn’t about to say he’s wrong.
Because when Matthew extends his hand out for Neal to shake, Neal reaches for his left, wraps his fingers around Keller’s forearm until he is biting back the pain.
Where he takes him, they both know (his back hitting high-count sheets, his hand snagging in another tailored shirt, Neal isn"t sweet when he leans down to kiss the sharp hiss from between Keller"s teeth). Where he has him, they aren’t about to find out, not for a few more weeks.
And looking back, they haven’t come such a long way from their last job together after all.
This time, Keller might not be the one to pull the trigger but there is a man dead.
It still isn’t Neal Caffrey, and that’s got to mean something for con men like them.
XXX Kuro