Curtis Hagen is one of White Collar's main villains. His sardonic wit has made him a fan favorite. In our series, he makes his first appearance in The Dreamer. Since our stories are set pre-canon, Peter doesn't know the identity of the master art thief and forger whom he's dubbed the Dutchman. It was up to me to figure out a way for Neal to uncover his identity.
Warning for minor spoilers for the Caffrey Conversation AU.
When I outlined the plot for that story, I decided that Neal would base the identification on forgeries the Dutchman had made. So far so good, but which works had he copied? In a nod to the pilot episode where Hagen counterfeited a bond with a design by Francisco Goya, I chose Goya to be one of the artists.
That's when the moment of serendipity occurred. I wasn't familiar with Goya's witch paintings until I started researching which work to select for the Dutchman. I discovered that Goya painted several works featuring witches. Mark Sheppard, the actor who plays Hagen, is best known for his role as the demon Crowley in the TV series Supernatural. In addition, he was cast as a low-level demon for the TV series Charmed in an episode called "Witches in Tights." So, for our series, Goya's painting Witches' Sabbath was a logical choice.
Sheppard's association with White Collar goes back to the beginning. He first appeared as the Dutchman in the pilot episode. At roughly the same time, Sheppard made his first appearance as Crowley on Supernatural. The episode was "Abandon All Hope ..." (Season 5, Episode 10). Was it a coincidence that the White Collar writers picked Goya for Hagen to forge? Did they know about Goya's witch paintings or were there demonic forces at work?
When I sent Penna the chapter where Hagen's forgeries are described (Chapter 6 of
The Dreamer), Penna commented on the number of references I'd made to the dark arts. Not all of them were deliberate. Was my subconscious the cause or was something else influencing me? Even the Titian painting Salome, another Hagen forgery, shows John the Baptist's severed head on a platter. During our discussion of that chapter, I began to seriously consider writing a fusion series of the Caffrey Conversation AU with Supernatural. The result is Crossed Lines.
Mark Sheppard was the first to cross the lines between the two TV series. He'll be doing the same in our AU. If he survives everything that's thrown his way in Raphael's Dragon, Hagen will appear in the second Crossed Lines story, Witches' Sabbath. I'm betting that he will. Whether Curtis Hagen or Crowley the King of Hell, the man is a genius at manipulating any situation to his benefit.
Raphael's Dragon on Archive of Our Own
Raphael's Dragon on FanFiction
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