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Surprisingly, it was not one of the boring days up at the FBI building for Neal Caffrey. There were things going on, a case to be solved, and just enough work that Neal could keep his mind off other, less legal activities. As much as he ever stopped thinking along that train of thought, anyway. But for right now, Peter was up with a witness that Neal's presence kept agitating (how was he supposed to know George Langely's old poker connections would end up flipping on this guy?) and Neal was left dithering around at his desk. Waiting for a new lead to present itself. Currently, their witness was the only chance they had at catching up with their real suspect, but until they could get him to say something or otherwise frighten him into going underground to be followed...

Well, it left a lot of entertainment to be desired.

With not much else to do, Neal made his way to the coffee machine and eyed the rest of the room in speculation. Everyone had something going on today, but there were a few agents who were easy to distract in the office today. They were hard workers, capable of catching up on any work he'd make them lose, and Peter rarely ever called him on it since the fear of getting in trouble for stopping to chat tended to make them work more efficiently anyway. He was just about to make his way over, extra mug of coffee in hand, when he spotted the stairwell door opening. Black hair popped out on top of an attractive face, glanced around in abject confusion, and then shut itself back in.

"One of these things is not like the other," Neal muttered to himself, making a quick drop of the mugs at a random agent's desk as he made for the office doors. He waved behind himself when Jones spoke up ("Grabbing some real coffee today!"), and hurried his way into the elevator to let himself off at another floor and slip into the stairwell behind the stranger.

Threaded | Flat

"I know more than you think," answered Eli with a small knowing smile. It wasn't just that he had looked into his files, but also that he had a journalist's eye for noticing things about a person. "I can be a pretty perceptive guy when I want to be."

"Classified stuff, huh? Guess that makes you a pretty important guy around here, even if you aren't an agent." The way Eli said it makes it sound like he's fishing for information, but it's more idle boredom pushing him to do it instead.

Neal had his own advantages in that regard. He was a social engineer, someone who played with expectations to come out on top with exactly what he intended to obtain. Of course, such engineering usually worked on those who weren't expecting it or were otherwise not at the top of their game, but Neal still tended to keep his cards close to the vest. He just grinned back and dipped his head. "I'm sure you can, but there's always more to a person than what you can merely observe."

He tilted his head back and forth, hands brought up in a shrug. "Just working on a case. Most of the FBI's stuff is classified until the big parts are out of the way. You know, just trying to keep the trail of information clear and all that."

"I know enough," Eli answered with a shrug. He wasn't planning on telling him he hacked into his file. "Though I should be the one saying that, not you."

"Ooh, classified stuff. How fun. Or not considering this department." White collar crimes were boring in Eli's book and preferred the blue collar and outright street crimes to it. Rich people getting stolen from didn't make him feel bad at all. "I prefer hearing about the cases a friend of mine would talk about. And the stuff I saw back home."

Neal allowed a grin. He wanted to know more about the allusions Eli was making, but it would be a difficult subject to broach properly without playing their hand too early. "Speaking of, what kind of stuff did you get into at home? Before all this mess with looking for Jasper started. You've got to have some hobbies."

"Hobbies?" He paused and looked over at Neal, blinking in confusion. For all his time jumping worlds like he has, nobody's really asked him that question. "Well, I draw, tinker with things, and like to do some racing on the weekends. Other than that, I'm not really much of a hobbies kind of guy."

"Everyone's a hobby kind of guy," Neal contradicted. "Even you. You tinker, huh? Like with that phone on your wrist? Looks way more complicated than I'd be able to handle."

Technicality of Trigger's lock to Eli specifically aside, that was definitely a lie. It was always easier to get on someone's good side by downplaying your own ability in someone else's specialty without making yourself appears bored by it. Most people took it as an invitation to keep talking, encourage you and it fostered some camaraderie besides. How was Neal supposed to know Eli had hacked into the Federal Bureau of Investigations in the last fifteen minutes and had read all evidence to the contrary?

"Phone?" His brow furrows for a second, confusion obvious on his face until realization finally hits him. "Oh! Well, it's a not a phone and if I can figure it out, I'd be surprised if you couldn't. And tinkering just seems to run in the reincarnation family."

Eli didn't know how much Neal remembered from Nate, but he knew that if he gotten any decent amount of memories on Alexis, he'd know that Alexis was a musician and not mechanically inclined. It wasn't exactly in Eli's best interest for Neal to realize that he was Thomas' Aspect with the memories that came along with it. That would just cause trouble down the line that he didn't really want to deal with.

"Looks like that one passed me by," Neal said with a shrug. It was true: Mozzie was the tinkerer of the team, Neal was more the head and the hands and the face, someone who could get them where they needed to go and pull off the caper with whatever Mozzie's skills had already provided for the job. No wonder they were such a good team.

His memories of Nate were spotty, to say the least. Neal had a very good impression of the man that Nate had been, some before the accident that changed everything, but mostly afterward. It was really only with Peter's grounding that he could reconcile it at all and he tried not to inspect them too hard, which meant that his handle on all of the specifics was generally not that great. He knew enough that he could definitely trust someone with Alexis' soul, however, and that was what counted.

It was a good thing Neal didn't have enough memories to contradict Eli's comments otherwise this would have gone south fast and he didn't really want to be on the run from the FBI in this world, especially since Neal seemed like a good enough guy, all criminal charges aside.

"Guess I got it instead of you. Seems like we are different from our originals after all," he said with a smile and he couldn't help but keep his body language hard to read. It was the downside of being used to Shannon and Neal pulled the same out of him. "So what hobbies do you have if not tinkering?"

To be fair, Neal wasn't really the whistleblower type on those not directly involved in the job. When it came to Eli, who was practically family thanks to the memories of Alexis that Neal possessed, he had no reason to call him out on a white lie about where his talents came from. Why would he?

"Art's a big one," Neal said with a tip of his head. "Not just inspecting it and what I do for the FBI, but making it. Indulging in it." Forging it, stealing it, protecting it from the less scrupulous of his criminal kind. "I fence sometimes, though some would argue that's a form of art, too."

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