AN: written for a prompt on livejournal on the comment_fic comm: Casey's POV on Neal/Chuck (with Casey longing). Bryce was bad enough.

Bryce was bad enough.

He did whatever he felt like doing, leaving good agents - people like Casey - to clean up the mess. Bryce sends the Intersect to Chuck, Casey and Sarah spend the next several years keeping his ass safe and making him enough of a real spy to use it. Bryce comes back just long enough to mess with Chuck's head, Casey's the one who makes sure Chuck is distracted from his moping for the next several months.

When Bryce ends up having a lookalike - same annoyingly pretty eyes, same ridiculously bright smile, same ability to make Chuck flustered like a schoolboy - Casey just knows he's going to be the one picking up the pieces.

Neal. Neal Caffrey. Not his real name.

He's worse than Bryce, in his way. All Bryce's worst qualities mixed with all Chuck's weaknesses, wrapped up with a special bonus of a life of crime.

A con man, full of charm. Yeah, fine, on missions he was a smooth talker. It was downright disturbing how good Caffrey was at imitating Bryce. But he reacted to guns the way Chuck did. Worse, even. And he thought with his emotions, even when it was a huge pain in the ass. Like Bryce, he did whatever the hell he felt like doing, and like Chuck, he thought that a smile would cover a multitude of mistakes.

He could see Chuck falling for the act. For the con. He could see Chuck buy the lies, could see at him staring at the face that was so intimately familiar and so new at the same time. Chuck was protective of Neal, respected his b.s.-ing abilities, had fun teaching him videogames, tried to make him part of the Herd.

Chuck liked Neal. And not even just as a Bryce substitute. He genuinely liked the two-faced criminal. And more than a little.

Chuck liked Neal way more than he should.

When John saw them laughing together, though, he never said anything. He just set his jaw, cleaned his guns, and waited for what he knew was coming: the moment when Chuck -once again- needed him to deal with the fallout.