Sentinel!Neal 6
Next bit. This chapter includes the half-naked cuddling scene that was earlier posted as a comment. It's slightly edited here.
As soon as they were out of the clean room, Ellison reversed his grip on Peter and slammed him into the wall. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“What the fuck is my problem?” Peter said incredulously. “I’m not the one assaulting a federal agent, pal.”
“Yeah, you’re not going to find much sympathy around here for a Fed Guide who can’t be bothered to do his goddamn job.” Ellison released his grip on Peter’s shirt front, pacing a few steps up and down in front of him.
“I do my job just fine.” He glanced over at the door. “Or I would be if you hadn’t dragged me out of the room.” Who the hell did Ellison and Sandburg think they were?
“Right. You were doing your job so well that my Guide’s in there doing it for you. Do you care about him at all?”
For a second, Peter thought Ellison meant Sandburg. “Neal? Of course I do.” He was starting to have an idea what this was about. “Look, this isn’t an emergency. Neal just started his Sentinel training a few months ago. He’s getting pretty good at using his senses, but if he overdoes it he gets-like that. The trainer’s not sure why that side of things isn’t improving very quickly, but it’s all under control. I’ll take him home-back to the motel-and make sure he rests for a while; he’ll be fine.”
Ellison stared at him. “You actually believe that,” he said.
It didn’t sound like a question, but Peter said, “Yes,” anyway.
“Where did you get your Guide training? The Army?” Ellison now sounded more curious than outraged-although it was a pretty close race. “Sandburg says their program is a disgrace.”
“What Guide training?” Peter asked. “I go along to Neal’s lessons, of course.”
“The FBI doesn’t train Guides at all?”
“They probably have a class at Quantico,” Peter said. “I was, uh, UnRegistered.” Ellison was going to love that, he knew. He had “military” written all over him.
“So was Sandburg,” Ellison said. “Which is why when he decided to be my Guide, the PD sent him to school instead of just handing him a Sentinel.”
“There really isn’t that much to it, is there?” Peter asked, confused. “It’s pretty much instinct and doing what the Sentinel asks for.” That was what he’d always heard, anyway.
Ellison shook his head. “Normally I’d warn you not to say that in front of Sandburg, but I think you could use his lecture on that particular subject. Pop quiz: Your Sentinel is having a massive episode of sensory distress, which you were apparently too stupid to see coming or do anything to prevent. What do you do? I’ll give you a hint-it’s not stand there with your thumb up your ass.”
“I….” Peter had no idea. And the situation was not a hypothetical. If the episode Neal was currently having was what Ellison meant by “massive,” it was a situation he faced at least twice a week. And he usually did…pretty much what Ellison had just described. “Okay. What would Sandburg do if it was you in there?” Clearly, there was a lot he didn’t know, and there was no time like the present to start learning more.
“First of all, he wouldn’t have let it happen. You have a Sentinel in training, you don’t keep him doing sense work beyond the first signs that he’s having trouble.”
“I asked him if he wanted to stop,” Peter pointed out. Maybe there were things about being a Guide that he didn’t know, but he wasn’t a slave-driver.
“That’s lesson two. You don’t ask, because we’re all stubborn assholes, especially if there’s another Sentinel in the room. You tell him he’s taking a break whether he likes it or not.”
“Ketner-the FBI Sentinel trainer-always keeps him working for the whole session.” And Ketner would know, wouldn’t he? Maybe Sandburg was just a very soft Guide.
“Then either he’s an idiot or he thinks that since you’re the Guide, you’ll be the one to say when your Sentinel’s had enough. In that case, he’s still an idiot not to have noticed what a piss-poor excuse for a Guide you are.” He shook his head. “This Ketner, is he a Sentinel?”
“No.” Peter wasn’t sure what difference that made.
“Guide?”
“No.”
“A fucking mundane?”
“If that means somebody who isn’t a Sentinel or a Guide, yes.”
“Unbelievable. And you have no idea why that’s a problem, do you.”
Again, it wasn’t a question, but Peter said, “Not really, no.”
“If neither of you has the slightest clue what you’re doing, and you obviously don’t, you need somebody in the room who knows what it’s like, not just theory,” Ellison said.
“I don’t know what I can do about that,” Peter said, seizing on the one aspect of this situation that wasn’t completely his fault. “He’s the guy the Bureau sent.”
Ellison glanced over at the door. “I’m sure Sandburg’ll have some ideas. Starting with getting your guy a different Guide. One who knows what he’s doing.”
“That’s…unlikely,” Peter said. He was surprised to find that his first thought was not, wouldn’t that be nice? But No, he’s mine. “He’s a felon on work-release. His Guide has to be his handler, too, and that means a full Agent. Most of the Bureau’s Guides aren’t. Plus I caught him twice; they figure I’d at least have a shot at bringing him back in if he runs.”
“You arrested your Sentinel?” Ellison sounded scandalized.
“He wasn’t my Sentinel at the time,” Peter pointed out. “I didn’t even know he was a Sentinel at all. I know, it’s a…weird arrangement. I have to control him; it’s not the usual Sentinel/Guide dynamic.”
Ellison nodded. “I can see how it’s challenging. But that’s all the more reason you should be getting the best training available, not some half-assed…well, Sandburg will have ideas. He always does.”
There was something about the way Ellison said it that suggested rock-solid trust that his Guide would understand the problem and know what to do about it. Neal didn’t have anything like that kind of trust in him-and he shouldn’t, given that Peter was apparently abysmally ignorant of the most basic aspects of his job. But maybe that was what it was supposed to be like. He knew-since Elizabeth had pointed it out-that Neal didn’t like to show weakness in front of him. Maybe Peter should have been encouraging him to do just that. To believe that Peter cared about his problems-even the stupid ones. Maybe, for example, instead of reminding Neal that plenty of people managed to eat just fine on two hundred bucks a month, he could have offered to sit down with him and help him figure out what to buy so he wouldn’t run out of money three weeks into the month. Maybe if he’d done that, Neal would have trusted him to help with his real problems.
“Step one is going to be getting him to not kill you, though,” Ellison added.
Peter looked for a sign that Ellison was joking, and didn’t see one. “I screwed up. I am on board with that now. I’m so ignorant I don’t even know how ignorant I am. Please help us.”
“That’s good,” Ellison said. “Sandburg’ll like that.”
Peter had actually been asking, not proposing a Sandburg-wrangling strategy, but decided not to say so.
Ellison listened at the clean room door for a moment-why, Peter wasn’t sure; it was supposed to be soundproof. Motioning for Peter to stay-the same flat-palmed gesture they used with Satch-he slipped inside the room.
A moment later, Neal came to the door, his shirt untucked and his tie askew. “Peter. You, uh, want to come in?”
“Sure.”
Peter went inside. Sandburg was sitting cross-legged on top of the other lab bench-the one that wasn’t covered in possibly-forged works of art-and saying, “I have a better idea. Why don’t we haul him in front of the Guide Council and have him shot?”
“He’s, um, a little excitable,” Neal said.
He was right, was what he was. Shooting might have been a little extreme, but Peter clearly had not been doing his job. Before Peter could say so, Sandburg pointed at him and said, “You. I don’t care if your Sentinel is a goddamn axe murderer. He still has a right to a competent, caring Guide.”
“Actually,” Neal said, “I don’t. The law specifies ‘adequate.’”
Peter winced.
“Fuck the law,” Sandburg said. “I’m talking about basic human decency here. And if that,” he indicated Peter again, “is adequate, I’m a, a, Republican.”
“You obviously haven’t read the case law,” Neal said. “The legal definition of ‘adequate’ for Sentinel inmates used to be an hour of Guide contact a day-and I’m getting about ten times that, by the way-until US Guide Council v. United States of America, when your people argued that ‘adequate’ ought to be determined based on level of function. The Supreme Court agreed, and ruled that all of the members of the class action suit who weren’t catatonic, were able to eat, and weren’t in ‘constant or near constant sensory distress’ were receiving functionally adequate Guidance. By either the old standard or the new one, Peter is about as much better than adequate as my studio apartment in the mansion is better than a prison cell.”
Peter was genuinely unsure whether the comparison was flattering or heartbreaking. He had thought he was doing all right by Neal-and Neal had agreed, but only because he knew exactly how grim the alternative was. “Neal, I didn’t know that. I wasn’t trying to be just barely better than a prison Guide.”
“You’re a lot better than that. I know this isn’t something you wanted, but you’re doing okay. You’re a good Guide. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine, and I am a terrible Guide,” Peter said. “You deserve better.”
An expression of panic passed over Neal’s face. “Peter, there isn’t anybody else. If you stop being my Guide-or if Blair manages to have you fired, shot, or strangled with your own entrails-I don’t get a better Guide; I go back to prison.”
“I know,” Peter said. “I know, and I’m not going to let that happen. You need a better Guide; I’m going to learn to be one. I am--” he glanced over at Sandburg “-completely incompetent, but I do care.”
“I know you do.”
For a second, Peter must have had the ability Neal believed he did, to tell when he was lying. He was as certain that Neal was lying now as he was that Neal was standing in front of him. Peter had never given him the slightest reason to believe that he cared about him. He wondered if Neal thought this was a scam, to convince Sandburg and Ellison had seen the error of his ways so they’d get off his back. That he wasn’t repentant, just sorry he’d been caught. “I do. I’m going to learn to do this right. And I hope these guys will help us get started,” he added, looking over at Sandburg and Ellison.
“He seems pretty sincere, Chief,” Ellison said. “He doesn’t know anything, and the FBI didn’t do him or Caffrey any favors by throwing him into this without any training. He was UnRegistered,” he added. “Until this. Somehow.”
“An UnRegistered Fed?” Sandburg sounded skeptical.
“I lied,” Peter said. “About being a Guide, I mean. The application asked if I was a Sentinel or a Guide; I checked ‘no’ and signed on the line below where it said all information was accurate to the best of my knowledge and belief.”
“They would have checked your Selective Service paperwork,” Sandburg said.
“They stopped doing testing at my school the year before,” Peter explained. “And there was a doctor in town who had a pretty profitable sideline in bogus draft physicals.”
“Yeah, I know a few of those,” Sandburg said. “That still doesn’t explain why you decided to start Guiding a Sentinel now, without bothering to learn the first thing about it.”
“He didn’t really decide,” Neal said. “It…it’s complicated.”
“Yeah, I bet,” Sandburg scoffed.
Peter looked over at Neal. He was upright and seemed fairly steady on his feet, but he’d had a rough day, and the one thing Peter did know was that he needed to rest, not stand here trying to defend Peter against this other Guide’s entirely-accurate accusations of incompetence. “Look,” he said, “we should-we should talk about this more, but this isn’t a good time.”
“Really,” Sandburg said.
“Chief.” Ellison put his hand on his shoulder. “Settle down. What should Burke be doing for Neal?” Sandburg took a deep breath, but Ellison cut him off. “Right now, I mean.”
“Don’t make him work anymore.”
“I knew that,” Peter said.
“Let him rest,” Sandburg continued. “A quiet, familiar environment is best, but putting him on a plane would not be a good idea, so you’ll have to make do with your hotel, I guess. If you can possibly stand it, take a break from picking on him for a while. If he starts spiking again, link with him and talk him through it-it’s not rocket science; he’s actually very easy to work with. Do you ever touch him at all?”
“Sure,” Peter said. “Not as much as you guys do, but some.”
Sandburg looked pained.
Neal volunteered, “Usually, when he takes me home after lessons, he’ll sit there with his hand on my shoulder for a while.” He ducked his head and looked up at Peter. “That’s nice; I like that.”
Sandburg closed his eyes and breathed deeply for a moment or two. “Okay. That’s good. That’s a start. Maybe I’ll have him horsewhipped instead of shot. Are you dressed when he does that?”
“Yes?” Neal said, looking puzzled.
After a few more minutes of deep breathing, Sandburg said, “Okay. And you have no idea why that’s a problem, because the fact that Sentinels need skin-to-skin contact with Guides is news to you.”
“Right,” Peter said.
“Seriously, do they not have Google on your planet?” Sandburg asked.
“I didn’t know that, either,” Neal offered.
“Didn’t Kate touch you, either?” It sounded like Sandburg wondered how Neal had managed to be stuck with two useless Guides in a row.
“Yeah, but she was my girlfriend,” Neal said. “And we only had no-contact visits in prison. It worked okay.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t use your senses much in prison,” Sandburg said.
“No,” Neal admitted. “Not at all, really.”
“That makes a difference. All right. Go home, rest, skin-to-skin contact-several hours of it. Something simple for dinner, a good night’s sleep, and in the morning we’ll figure out where we go from here,” Sandburg summarized. “Do you think you can handle that?” he asked Peter.
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Sandburg said. “I realize you probably have all kinds of weird, North American, homophobic hang-ups about physical contact, but just,” he gestured with both hands, “get over it. It’s normal for Sentinels and Guides to touch. Normal, and necessary.”
“It is,” Ellison said. “Since you were both UnRegistered, you might not have noticed-most of us tone it down a lot around mundanes. But if you’re not touching him as much or more as you do your wife, you’re doing it wrong.”
Peter tried not to wince visibly. Yes, they had established that he was doing it wrong. “Okay. You ready to go home?” he said to Neal.
Neal nodded. “Yes.” He gave the other two a low-watt smile. “See you guys tomorrow.”
Sandburg and Ellison walked them to the car. Peter couldn’t quite shake the feeling that Sandburg was half-expecting him to punch Neal in the face, or worse, as soon as they were out of sight. And, with that thought in mind, when they were in the car on the way to the motel and Peter said, “I’m going to do better by you, I really am,” even to himself he sounded like a wife-beater.
“It’s really not that bad,” Neal said.
Peter had told Sandburg it was a bad time for them to argue about this, and it still was. “It’s bad enough. We can talk about it later.”
Neal nodded. “Okay.”
Now Peter wondered if he was just acquiescing to Peter’s demands because he didn’t want to go back to prison. “Unless you feel like we need to talk about it now,” he amended.
“I’m fine.”
Back at the motel, Peter set about adjusting the heating and closing the drapes. He had managed to pick up a few things-when Peter took him home after lessons, Neal liked the room to be dim and a little cool.
“We don’t actually have to do this, Peter,” Neal said, sitting on the edge of Peter’s bed. “I’m better, really.”
“Would it help if we did? Don’t lie,” he added, remembering Ellison’s comment about Sentinels being stubborn assholes.
“Probably, but I’m really okay. I could have kept working, even.”
Yeah, Neal was okay-because he’d gotten ten minutes of attention from a Guide who actually had a clue what he was doing. After Peter had been neglecting him for months. Peter tossed his jacket onto the other bed and started undoing his tie. “Come on, you don’t want that hyperactive little guy to shoot me.” He hoped that wouldn’t count as breaking Sandburg’s rule about picking on Neal; he didn’t think either of them could handle being emotionally honest and cuddling at the same time.
“He was willing to consider horsewhipping, at the end,” Neal said.
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly enjoy that, either.” The tie joined the jacket, and he started on his shirt buttons.
“Are you planning to strip down completely?” Neal wondered.
“He said skin-to-skin contact,” Peter said dubiously. “Shirts off should be enough.”
“Right, because as long as we keep our pants on, this won’t be weird.”
“Give me your jacket; I’ll hang it up.” Peter knew Neal wouldn’t be happy tossing his Devore suit-coat onto the other bed or over a chair.
Neal looked mulish.
“I will tackle you and tear it from your body.”
“You will not.”
“Try me.”
Peter wouldn’t have actually done it-this was supposed to be about Neal’s well-being, and even though he was looking a little less green than he had an hour ago, tackling him and forcibly tearing his clothes off wouldn’t help him feel better. But Neal was apparently unwilling to risk it, and took off his jacket, holding it out for Peter to take.
He insisted that Peter hang up his shirt and tie, too, and put his tie clip in the little tray on the dresser that Neal had brought along expressly for that purpose. That reassured him that Neal wasn’t feeling bullied into this.
When they were both stripped to the waist, Peter’s courage began to fail him. “It’s not weird,” he said. “It’s perfectly normal for Sentinels.” The other Guide and his Sentinel had both said so. “You and Kate…”
“She was my girlfriend,” Neal reminded him. Standing up, he pulled down the obnoxiously floral bedspread.
“Do we need to be under the covers?” Somehow, that made the whole thing seem weirder.
“No,” Neal said. “But that thing is covered in other people’s dead skin cells. The sheets, they wash between guests. Take off your shoes.”
As Peter did so, Neal removed his own and slowly got onto the bed, lying down on his side. Peter joined him.
It wasn’t the first time he’d shared a bed with another man, but those had been strictly stick-to-your-own-side arrangements. That wasn’t going to work here. Peter inched forward until his chest was pressed against Neal’s bare back. “How’s this?”
“Little weird.”
Peter had to agree. One of Peter’s arms was crushed beneath him, and the other was lying stiffly along his own side. Both he and Neal were stretched out straight like planks. That couldn’t possibly be right. He wondered if properly-trained Guides got diagrams or something.
He knew how to do this. He and El spooned all the time. If it was her next to him, instead of Neal, he’d have his arm around her waist. He tried that.
A little better. What else? There was a slight bend at the hips, a larger one at the knees, that made two bodies fit together like this. He made the adjustments. Neal didn’t; now he was a spoon nestled behind a plank. “Neal….”
“You really don’t have to do this,” Neal said. “I mean, I know it’s not…we’re not…you’re not really my Guide.”
Okay, so maybe he’d been wrong about not mixing honesty with cuddling. “Yes, I am,” Peter said. A lousy one, but he was Neal’s Guide.
“We both know that’s just something I made up to get out of prison. I don’t need all this.”
“You didn’t make it up.” Neal couldn’t possibly believe that was true-the Bureau had had him tested, after he told them about Neal’s request. The request that Peter had thought was a blackmail attempt. “You really need a Guide, and I really am one.”
“I didn’t need one in prison,” Neal said. “Weekly no-contact visits; I was fine. Here I’m in the same room with you every day. I shouldn’t need anything else.”
“Turns out you do.” He flattened his hand over Neal’s abdomen. Neal startled away from the contact, driving himself further back into Peter’s chest. His knees and hips bent to echo the curve of Peter’s. “Better?”
Neal took a deep breath and…relaxed. “I’m not asking you to do this.”
“I know you’re not.” Because Neal didn’t ask for anything he really wanted. His body was a warm, solid weight against Peter’s. “It’s helping?”
“Yeah. It’s helping.”
“Good.”
#
When Neal woke with a warm body pressed against his back, and an arm draped over his side, his first thought was Kate. Then he took a breath, and his nose was filled with Peter’s scent. Right. Peter. Asleep at his back, his breathing ruffling the hair on the back of Neal’s neck.
What a strange, confusing day it had been. It was a little embarrassing to remember the little Guide, Blair, squawking in indignant outrage over Neal’s cruel victimization at the hands of the FBI. Looking back on it, he realized that the more he protested that he was fine, Peter was fine, everything was fine, the more pathetic he must have seemed.
But the embarrassment was nothing compared to the sheer relief of learning that what he’d been going through at least twice a week for the last couple of months wasn’t normal. He’d sometimes thought it couldn’t possibly be, or there’d be no way anyone would volunteer for it, without the threat of prison hanging over their heads. But then again, he’d thought, maybe he was just a pussy compared to the real FBI Sentinels.
Blair and Ellison’s reactions made clear that whatever the problem was, it wasn’t him being too weak to handle a little pain that all Sentinels went through. It was, as Peter would say, a real problem. And a real problem meant he got help with it.
The way they talked about Peter had been pretty insulting, but Neal had to remind himself that they didn’t know Peter. Peter was never going to fuss over him the way Blair did for Ellison, but he gave Neal what he needed-or what he thought Neal needed, anyway. If Neal asked to go home, Peter took him home. And sat with him, without even making Neal ask for that. Now that Peter knew there were other things he could be doing, he’d find out what they were and do them.
Maybe not all of them. Neal patted Peter’s hand, which was splayed on his belly. This, probably not often, but he was doing it now-if Neal really needed it, he’d do it again. But they’d figure out what helped Neal the most, and what Peter could live with, and work out a balance. It was bound to be better.
Blair, he remembered, had said that he was ‘actually very easy to work with.’ Ellison probably needed Blair to fuss over him the way he did. Neal didn’t. Once they figured out what actually worked, he probably wouldn’t need any more of Peter’s time or attention than he was getting now. Like how Blair had talked him through adjusting his dials. He wasn’t sure why that helped-Blair hadn’t told him anything he didn’t already know-but it did help. A few minutes of that had done him about as much good as Peter sitting with him for an hour after his lessons, and was much more efficient. If he could have both, that would be great, but if Peter needed to get back to work or home to Elizabeth, he could do that, too. It could very well turn out that Peter getting some training made life easier for both of them.
Behind him, Peter stirred. Neal wondered if he was going to make the same mistake Neal had, and think at first that he was Elizabeth, and if so, would it be funny or horrifying. But Peter patted Neal’s stomach and said, “Neal. How’re you feeling?”
“Good,” Neal said, surprised to realize it was true. He usually woke up two or three hours after his lessons feeling basically okay, but a little precarious, like he could stop being okay at any moment. Dinner on those nights generally consisted of either ginger ale and toast or mint tea and plain rice; after he was sure that was going to stay down, he might try something really daring like an apple or a banana. Then he puttered around the apartment for a couple of hours and went back to bed early. By morning, he was ready to face the world. But now, he really felt fine. He felt like Tuesday, when it had been five days since he’d done a lesson.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Neal repeated. He unwrapped Peter’s arm from around his waist and sat up, experimentally. Still fine. Peter was sitting up, too, and Neal moved over to his own bed.
“You don’t have to move,” Peter said.
“I’m really okay,” Neal said. “And even if we are a Sentinel and Guide, recreational cuddling would be weird.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.” Peter looked at his watch and winced.
Neal looked at his own. It was past eight. “If you’re going to call, you should do it now,” he said. “I’ll take a shower; sleeping during the day always makes me feel messy.”
Peter didn’t give him a hard time about that, fortunately. Showering after an “episode” was usually a bit of a risk-he usually felt downright disgusting, not just messy, but the sound of the water or the smell of his supposedly-unscented shampoo and soap could sometimes do weird things to him. Today, though, it all went off without a hitch. By the time he left the bathroom, Peter was finishing up his phone call.
“Yeah, it’s…I don’t know. Listen, I think we’re going to go get some dinner. Yep. Love you too.” He put the phone back in the pocket of his jacket, which he’d put back on at some point. “Do you feel up to going out to eat? I could bring something back, or, I don’t know….”
“That’s fine,” Neal said. “I really feel pretty good.”
“Good as in better than catatonic, or actually good?”
“Actually good.”
Peter seemed to accept that. “All right. Is the place across the street all right?”
Wow, he was really being careful now. Neal was torn between trying again to assure him that he really, genuinely, truly did not need to be fussed over and milking it for all it was worth.
Milking it would have been more tempting if he knew more about restaurants in Cascade, but, figuring he was going to be stuck with Peter’s choices anyway, he hadn’t done any research, so he didn’t know what he could plausibly ask for.
Plus, he had picked lunch. “Across the street’s fine.”
At some point while they had been asleep, the rain had stopped. The air smelled fresh and clean, and there were birds-something other than pigeons-flitting around. It was kind of nice to be out of Manhattan for a change, he decided.
In the restaurant, Neal ordered a steak and, throwing caution to the wind, a glass of wine. He might as well milk it a little bit. Peter didn’t say a word about it.
“So,” Peter said, once the waitress had left with their orders.
He was going to bring up the subject of how he was the worst Guide in the universe again, Neal figured. He’d rather keep that subject tabled for a while longer. “Shouldn’t take us more than a week to get through the rest of the warehouse,” Neal said, making a clumsy but emphatic attempt to establish another topic.
Peter followed his lead. They talked about the case, segueing by way of a discussion of the former smuggler’s impressive collection into the subject of painting more generally. Peter, unsurprisingly, favored the more representational painters, though he stopped short of trotting out the “A five-year-old kid could do that” cliché the artistically ignorant used to disparage abstract work.
“No, yeah, anybody can paint horizontal bands,” Neal said, “but Rothko’s really about color. First you stand back and see the contrast between the big blocks of color, then you go in close and look at the variation within each color band. It takes at least twenty minutes to really appreciate a Rothko.” Neal swirled the last of his wine around in the glass, considering. “And he did some really innovative stuff with mixing and layering-some of it nobody can even figure out how he did, even with electron microscopes and spectrographic analysis. It would be easier to forge a Monet than a Rothko.”
“Theoretically.” Peter grinned.
“Theoretically,” Neal agreed. “Plus he’s the guy who said, ‘As an artist you have to be a thief and steal a place for yourself on the rich man’s wall.’ You have to love that.”
Peter shook his head, still smiling. “Why aren’t you an artist, or a restorer, an art historian, something like that? Why crime?”
“I blame society,” Neal quipped.
Peter laughed. “Okay, I guess that’s kind of a personal question.”
Neal shrugged. “Restoration, I think I would have liked, but I was already a criminal before I learned that job existed. It wasn’t like I sat down, looked at all the options, and picked crime. But I didn’t really have the drive, or the focus, or whatever it is, to figure out what I wanted and find a way to get it like you did, Harvard scholarship boy.” He shrugged. “And crime is always hiring. I worked my way up from the mailroom to the corner office.”
The waitress came over and asked, for the second time, if they wanted dessert or perhaps the check.
“We done here?” Peter asked.
“I’m done,” Neal said.
“The check’s fine, please,” Peter told the waitress. She handed it to him immediately and waited while he got his credit card out.
“Better give her a good tip,” Neal advised as the waitress walked away. “She probably won’t be able to turn this table back over before they close.”
“I know,” Peter said. “I waited tables as a Harvard scholarship boy.”
It was fully dark when they left the restaurant to head back to the motel.
They walked in silence for a few moments, until Peter said, “I really had no idea I wasn’t doing what I should be doing as your Guide. It was never about thinking you didn’t deserve better.”
“I know,” Neal told him. “I didn’t know, either. I knew I felt pretty bad, but Ketner seemed to think that was normal. Let’s blame him,” he suggested.
“He probably thought I knew what I was doing,” Peter said gloomily.
“Maybe. But even so, from what Blair said, it sounds like he should have realized something wasn’t right and tried to figure out what the problem was. He saw pretty much the same things they saw, and he said to keep doing what we were doing and eventually it would get better. It’s not like we were idiots to believe him. He’s supposed to be the expert.”
“I’m getting the impression I’m supposed to be the expert.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not. Remember the warehouse?”
“What about it? You were okay there, weren’t you?”
“Not the warehouse here, the one with the Dutchman case. You figured out I didn’t know how to do what you needed me to do--”
“There wasn’t any reason you should have known.”
“Exactly,” Neal said. “See, I can do morals, too.” He bumped Peter’s shoulder with his.
“Okay, fair enough,” Peter agreed. “But you not knowing how to do scent discrimination wasn’t causing me physical pain.”
“It’s not a perfect analogy,” Neal conceded, standing aside so Peter could unlock their room.
“If it had been Elizabeth barely able to walk upright two days a week,” Peter said as they went inside, “I would have been breaking down doors to find a way to fix it. I wouldn’t have taken ‘it’s normal’ for an answer.”
“Yeah, well, she’s your wife. I’m your felon.” Neal wasn’t sure why Peter thought there was any comparison to be made.
“You’re my Sentinel.”
“A Sentinel you never wanted and the FBI made you take custody of,” Neal reminded him. “There’s nothing shocking or barbaric about you not…throwing yourself into it.” He took off his jacket and hung it up. “You have a--” He gestured at Peter. “-life. I asked you to be my Guide in the first place because I like you; the last thing I want to do is screw things up for you.”
“Right,” Peter said, sitting down on his bed heavily. “Because first you thought you ruined my life, and then once we got that straightened out, we started the no complaining deal. The deal where if you suggested you were less than deliriously happy with your life, I could remind you how much worse prison would be.”
“Yeah,” Neal agreed.
“Prison,” Peter said. “With the catatonia and the constant or near-constant sensory distress.”
“Right. Prison, which I made this deal to avoid.”
“Right,” Peter echoed. “The deal where I don’t care about your problems so you should just shut up about them. That deal.”
“I was referring to the anklet deal, actually,” Neal said. “But the complaining deal is fine, too. We’ve been getting along a lot better since then.” He thought so, at least. He was pretty sure Peter didn’t hate him anymore. And really, he felt a lot better about his money and food situations when he wasn’t dwelling on them all the time.
“Yeah,” Peter said. “If by ‘getting along’ you mean ‘suffering and not saying anything because you think I don’t care.’”
Oh, he was on that again. “You did say I should tell you if I had a problem you could help me with. And-like we’ve been saying-neither of us knew you could be doing more than you were to help me with the sensory stuff. Now we know, and you’re going to help.” He shrugged. “Everything’s good.”
“That’s how you sum up this day? ‘Everything’s good’?”
Neal shrugged. “How would you sum it up?”
“I’d sum it up as the day when I worked my Sentinel into a massive episode of sensory distress, for probably the twentieth time, and did absolutely nothing about it until two near-strangers pointed out my appalling negligence.”
“Okay,” Neal said slowly. “I guess that’s another way to see it. I like mine better. Now, if you don’t have plans for the TV, Jon Stewart’s on.”
As soon as they were out of the clean room, Ellison reversed his grip on Peter and slammed him into the wall. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“What the fuck is my problem?” Peter said incredulously. “I’m not the one assaulting a federal agent, pal.”
“Yeah, you’re not going to find much sympathy around here for a Fed Guide who can’t be bothered to do his goddamn job.” Ellison released his grip on Peter’s shirt front, pacing a few steps up and down in front of him.
“I do my job just fine.” He glanced over at the door. “Or I would be if you hadn’t dragged me out of the room.” Who the hell did Ellison and Sandburg think they were?
“Right. You were doing your job so well that my Guide’s in there doing it for you. Do you care about him at all?”
For a second, Peter thought Ellison meant Sandburg. “Neal? Of course I do.” He was starting to have an idea what this was about. “Look, this isn’t an emergency. Neal just started his Sentinel training a few months ago. He’s getting pretty good at using his senses, but if he overdoes it he gets-like that. The trainer’s not sure why that side of things isn’t improving very quickly, but it’s all under control. I’ll take him home-back to the motel-and make sure he rests for a while; he’ll be fine.”
Ellison stared at him. “You actually believe that,” he said.
It didn’t sound like a question, but Peter said, “Yes,” anyway.
“Where did you get your Guide training? The Army?” Ellison now sounded more curious than outraged-although it was a pretty close race. “Sandburg says their program is a disgrace.”
“What Guide training?” Peter asked. “I go along to Neal’s lessons, of course.”
“The FBI doesn’t train Guides at all?”
“They probably have a class at Quantico,” Peter said. “I was, uh, UnRegistered.” Ellison was going to love that, he knew. He had “military” written all over him.
“So was Sandburg,” Ellison said. “Which is why when he decided to be my Guide, the PD sent him to school instead of just handing him a Sentinel.”
“There really isn’t that much to it, is there?” Peter asked, confused. “It’s pretty much instinct and doing what the Sentinel asks for.” That was what he’d always heard, anyway.
Ellison shook his head. “Normally I’d warn you not to say that in front of Sandburg, but I think you could use his lecture on that particular subject. Pop quiz: Your Sentinel is having a massive episode of sensory distress, which you were apparently too stupid to see coming or do anything to prevent. What do you do? I’ll give you a hint-it’s not stand there with your thumb up your ass.”
“I….” Peter had no idea. And the situation was not a hypothetical. If the episode Neal was currently having was what Ellison meant by “massive,” it was a situation he faced at least twice a week. And he usually did…pretty much what Ellison had just described. “Okay. What would Sandburg do if it was you in there?” Clearly, there was a lot he didn’t know, and there was no time like the present to start learning more.
“First of all, he wouldn’t have let it happen. You have a Sentinel in training, you don’t keep him doing sense work beyond the first signs that he’s having trouble.”
“I asked him if he wanted to stop,” Peter pointed out. Maybe there were things about being a Guide that he didn’t know, but he wasn’t a slave-driver.
“That’s lesson two. You don’t ask, because we’re all stubborn assholes, especially if there’s another Sentinel in the room. You tell him he’s taking a break whether he likes it or not.”
“Ketner-the FBI Sentinel trainer-always keeps him working for the whole session.” And Ketner would know, wouldn’t he? Maybe Sandburg was just a very soft Guide.
“Then either he’s an idiot or he thinks that since you’re the Guide, you’ll be the one to say when your Sentinel’s had enough. In that case, he’s still an idiot not to have noticed what a piss-poor excuse for a Guide you are.” He shook his head. “This Ketner, is he a Sentinel?”
“No.” Peter wasn’t sure what difference that made.
“Guide?”
“No.”
“A fucking mundane?”
“If that means somebody who isn’t a Sentinel or a Guide, yes.”
“Unbelievable. And you have no idea why that’s a problem, do you.”
Again, it wasn’t a question, but Peter said, “Not really, no.”
“If neither of you has the slightest clue what you’re doing, and you obviously don’t, you need somebody in the room who knows what it’s like, not just theory,” Ellison said.
“I don’t know what I can do about that,” Peter said, seizing on the one aspect of this situation that wasn’t completely his fault. “He’s the guy the Bureau sent.”
Ellison glanced over at the door. “I’m sure Sandburg’ll have some ideas. Starting with getting your guy a different Guide. One who knows what he’s doing.”
“That’s…unlikely,” Peter said. He was surprised to find that his first thought was not, wouldn’t that be nice? But No, he’s mine. “He’s a felon on work-release. His Guide has to be his handler, too, and that means a full Agent. Most of the Bureau’s Guides aren’t. Plus I caught him twice; they figure I’d at least have a shot at bringing him back in if he runs.”
“You arrested your Sentinel?” Ellison sounded scandalized.
“He wasn’t my Sentinel at the time,” Peter pointed out. “I didn’t even know he was a Sentinel at all. I know, it’s a…weird arrangement. I have to control him; it’s not the usual Sentinel/Guide dynamic.”
Ellison nodded. “I can see how it’s challenging. But that’s all the more reason you should be getting the best training available, not some half-assed…well, Sandburg will have ideas. He always does.”
There was something about the way Ellison said it that suggested rock-solid trust that his Guide would understand the problem and know what to do about it. Neal didn’t have anything like that kind of trust in him-and he shouldn’t, given that Peter was apparently abysmally ignorant of the most basic aspects of his job. But maybe that was what it was supposed to be like. He knew-since Elizabeth had pointed it out-that Neal didn’t like to show weakness in front of him. Maybe Peter should have been encouraging him to do just that. To believe that Peter cared about his problems-even the stupid ones. Maybe, for example, instead of reminding Neal that plenty of people managed to eat just fine on two hundred bucks a month, he could have offered to sit down with him and help him figure out what to buy so he wouldn’t run out of money three weeks into the month. Maybe if he’d done that, Neal would have trusted him to help with his real problems.
“Step one is going to be getting him to not kill you, though,” Ellison added.
Peter looked for a sign that Ellison was joking, and didn’t see one. “I screwed up. I am on board with that now. I’m so ignorant I don’t even know how ignorant I am. Please help us.”
“That’s good,” Ellison said. “Sandburg’ll like that.”
Peter had actually been asking, not proposing a Sandburg-wrangling strategy, but decided not to say so.
Ellison listened at the clean room door for a moment-why, Peter wasn’t sure; it was supposed to be soundproof. Motioning for Peter to stay-the same flat-palmed gesture they used with Satch-he slipped inside the room.
A moment later, Neal came to the door, his shirt untucked and his tie askew. “Peter. You, uh, want to come in?”
“Sure.”
Peter went inside. Sandburg was sitting cross-legged on top of the other lab bench-the one that wasn’t covered in possibly-forged works of art-and saying, “I have a better idea. Why don’t we haul him in front of the Guide Council and have him shot?”
“He’s, um, a little excitable,” Neal said.
He was right, was what he was. Shooting might have been a little extreme, but Peter clearly had not been doing his job. Before Peter could say so, Sandburg pointed at him and said, “You. I don’t care if your Sentinel is a goddamn axe murderer. He still has a right to a competent, caring Guide.”
“Actually,” Neal said, “I don’t. The law specifies ‘adequate.’”
Peter winced.
“Fuck the law,” Sandburg said. “I’m talking about basic human decency here. And if that,” he indicated Peter again, “is adequate, I’m a, a, Republican.”
“You obviously haven’t read the case law,” Neal said. “The legal definition of ‘adequate’ for Sentinel inmates used to be an hour of Guide contact a day-and I’m getting about ten times that, by the way-until US Guide Council v. United States of America, when your people argued that ‘adequate’ ought to be determined based on level of function. The Supreme Court agreed, and ruled that all of the members of the class action suit who weren’t catatonic, were able to eat, and weren’t in ‘constant or near constant sensory distress’ were receiving functionally adequate Guidance. By either the old standard or the new one, Peter is about as much better than adequate as my studio apartment in the mansion is better than a prison cell.”
Peter was genuinely unsure whether the comparison was flattering or heartbreaking. He had thought he was doing all right by Neal-and Neal had agreed, but only because he knew exactly how grim the alternative was. “Neal, I didn’t know that. I wasn’t trying to be just barely better than a prison Guide.”
“You’re a lot better than that. I know this isn’t something you wanted, but you’re doing okay. You’re a good Guide. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine, and I am a terrible Guide,” Peter said. “You deserve better.”
An expression of panic passed over Neal’s face. “Peter, there isn’t anybody else. If you stop being my Guide-or if Blair manages to have you fired, shot, or strangled with your own entrails-I don’t get a better Guide; I go back to prison.”
“I know,” Peter said. “I know, and I’m not going to let that happen. You need a better Guide; I’m going to learn to be one. I am--” he glanced over at Sandburg “-completely incompetent, but I do care.”
“I know you do.”
For a second, Peter must have had the ability Neal believed he did, to tell when he was lying. He was as certain that Neal was lying now as he was that Neal was standing in front of him. Peter had never given him the slightest reason to believe that he cared about him. He wondered if Neal thought this was a scam, to convince Sandburg and Ellison had seen the error of his ways so they’d get off his back. That he wasn’t repentant, just sorry he’d been caught. “I do. I’m going to learn to do this right. And I hope these guys will help us get started,” he added, looking over at Sandburg and Ellison.
“He seems pretty sincere, Chief,” Ellison said. “He doesn’t know anything, and the FBI didn’t do him or Caffrey any favors by throwing him into this without any training. He was UnRegistered,” he added. “Until this. Somehow.”
“An UnRegistered Fed?” Sandburg sounded skeptical.
“I lied,” Peter said. “About being a Guide, I mean. The application asked if I was a Sentinel or a Guide; I checked ‘no’ and signed on the line below where it said all information was accurate to the best of my knowledge and belief.”
“They would have checked your Selective Service paperwork,” Sandburg said.
“They stopped doing testing at my school the year before,” Peter explained. “And there was a doctor in town who had a pretty profitable sideline in bogus draft physicals.”
“Yeah, I know a few of those,” Sandburg said. “That still doesn’t explain why you decided to start Guiding a Sentinel now, without bothering to learn the first thing about it.”
“He didn’t really decide,” Neal said. “It…it’s complicated.”
“Yeah, I bet,” Sandburg scoffed.
Peter looked over at Neal. He was upright and seemed fairly steady on his feet, but he’d had a rough day, and the one thing Peter did know was that he needed to rest, not stand here trying to defend Peter against this other Guide’s entirely-accurate accusations of incompetence. “Look,” he said, “we should-we should talk about this more, but this isn’t a good time.”
“Really,” Sandburg said.
“Chief.” Ellison put his hand on his shoulder. “Settle down. What should Burke be doing for Neal?” Sandburg took a deep breath, but Ellison cut him off. “Right now, I mean.”
“Don’t make him work anymore.”
“I knew that,” Peter said.
“Let him rest,” Sandburg continued. “A quiet, familiar environment is best, but putting him on a plane would not be a good idea, so you’ll have to make do with your hotel, I guess. If you can possibly stand it, take a break from picking on him for a while. If he starts spiking again, link with him and talk him through it-it’s not rocket science; he’s actually very easy to work with. Do you ever touch him at all?”
“Sure,” Peter said. “Not as much as you guys do, but some.”
Sandburg looked pained.
Neal volunteered, “Usually, when he takes me home after lessons, he’ll sit there with his hand on my shoulder for a while.” He ducked his head and looked up at Peter. “That’s nice; I like that.”
Sandburg closed his eyes and breathed deeply for a moment or two. “Okay. That’s good. That’s a start. Maybe I’ll have him horsewhipped instead of shot. Are you dressed when he does that?”
“Yes?” Neal said, looking puzzled.
After a few more minutes of deep breathing, Sandburg said, “Okay. And you have no idea why that’s a problem, because the fact that Sentinels need skin-to-skin contact with Guides is news to you.”
“Right,” Peter said.
“Seriously, do they not have Google on your planet?” Sandburg asked.
“I didn’t know that, either,” Neal offered.
“Didn’t Kate touch you, either?” It sounded like Sandburg wondered how Neal had managed to be stuck with two useless Guides in a row.
“Yeah, but she was my girlfriend,” Neal said. “And we only had no-contact visits in prison. It worked okay.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t use your senses much in prison,” Sandburg said.
“No,” Neal admitted. “Not at all, really.”
“That makes a difference. All right. Go home, rest, skin-to-skin contact-several hours of it. Something simple for dinner, a good night’s sleep, and in the morning we’ll figure out where we go from here,” Sandburg summarized. “Do you think you can handle that?” he asked Peter.
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Sandburg said. “I realize you probably have all kinds of weird, North American, homophobic hang-ups about physical contact, but just,” he gestured with both hands, “get over it. It’s normal for Sentinels and Guides to touch. Normal, and necessary.”
“It is,” Ellison said. “Since you were both UnRegistered, you might not have noticed-most of us tone it down a lot around mundanes. But if you’re not touching him as much or more as you do your wife, you’re doing it wrong.”
Peter tried not to wince visibly. Yes, they had established that he was doing it wrong. “Okay. You ready to go home?” he said to Neal.
Neal nodded. “Yes.” He gave the other two a low-watt smile. “See you guys tomorrow.”
Sandburg and Ellison walked them to the car. Peter couldn’t quite shake the feeling that Sandburg was half-expecting him to punch Neal in the face, or worse, as soon as they were out of sight. And, with that thought in mind, when they were in the car on the way to the motel and Peter said, “I’m going to do better by you, I really am,” even to himself he sounded like a wife-beater.
“It’s really not that bad,” Neal said.
Peter had told Sandburg it was a bad time for them to argue about this, and it still was. “It’s bad enough. We can talk about it later.”
Neal nodded. “Okay.”
Now Peter wondered if he was just acquiescing to Peter’s demands because he didn’t want to go back to prison. “Unless you feel like we need to talk about it now,” he amended.
“I’m fine.”
Back at the motel, Peter set about adjusting the heating and closing the drapes. He had managed to pick up a few things-when Peter took him home after lessons, Neal liked the room to be dim and a little cool.
“We don’t actually have to do this, Peter,” Neal said, sitting on the edge of Peter’s bed. “I’m better, really.”
“Would it help if we did? Don’t lie,” he added, remembering Ellison’s comment about Sentinels being stubborn assholes.
“Probably, but I’m really okay. I could have kept working, even.”
Yeah, Neal was okay-because he’d gotten ten minutes of attention from a Guide who actually had a clue what he was doing. After Peter had been neglecting him for months. Peter tossed his jacket onto the other bed and started undoing his tie. “Come on, you don’t want that hyperactive little guy to shoot me.” He hoped that wouldn’t count as breaking Sandburg’s rule about picking on Neal; he didn’t think either of them could handle being emotionally honest and cuddling at the same time.
“He was willing to consider horsewhipping, at the end,” Neal said.
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly enjoy that, either.” The tie joined the jacket, and he started on his shirt buttons.
“Are you planning to strip down completely?” Neal wondered.
“He said skin-to-skin contact,” Peter said dubiously. “Shirts off should be enough.”
“Right, because as long as we keep our pants on, this won’t be weird.”
“Give me your jacket; I’ll hang it up.” Peter knew Neal wouldn’t be happy tossing his Devore suit-coat onto the other bed or over a chair.
Neal looked mulish.
“I will tackle you and tear it from your body.”
“You will not.”
“Try me.”
Peter wouldn’t have actually done it-this was supposed to be about Neal’s well-being, and even though he was looking a little less green than he had an hour ago, tackling him and forcibly tearing his clothes off wouldn’t help him feel better. But Neal was apparently unwilling to risk it, and took off his jacket, holding it out for Peter to take.
He insisted that Peter hang up his shirt and tie, too, and put his tie clip in the little tray on the dresser that Neal had brought along expressly for that purpose. That reassured him that Neal wasn’t feeling bullied into this.
When they were both stripped to the waist, Peter’s courage began to fail him. “It’s not weird,” he said. “It’s perfectly normal for Sentinels.” The other Guide and his Sentinel had both said so. “You and Kate…”
“She was my girlfriend,” Neal reminded him. Standing up, he pulled down the obnoxiously floral bedspread.
“Do we need to be under the covers?” Somehow, that made the whole thing seem weirder.
“No,” Neal said. “But that thing is covered in other people’s dead skin cells. The sheets, they wash between guests. Take off your shoes.”
As Peter did so, Neal removed his own and slowly got onto the bed, lying down on his side. Peter joined him.
It wasn’t the first time he’d shared a bed with another man, but those had been strictly stick-to-your-own-side arrangements. That wasn’t going to work here. Peter inched forward until his chest was pressed against Neal’s bare back. “How’s this?”
“Little weird.”
Peter had to agree. One of Peter’s arms was crushed beneath him, and the other was lying stiffly along his own side. Both he and Neal were stretched out straight like planks. That couldn’t possibly be right. He wondered if properly-trained Guides got diagrams or something.
He knew how to do this. He and El spooned all the time. If it was her next to him, instead of Neal, he’d have his arm around her waist. He tried that.
A little better. What else? There was a slight bend at the hips, a larger one at the knees, that made two bodies fit together like this. He made the adjustments. Neal didn’t; now he was a spoon nestled behind a plank. “Neal….”
“You really don’t have to do this,” Neal said. “I mean, I know it’s not…we’re not…you’re not really my Guide.”
Okay, so maybe he’d been wrong about not mixing honesty with cuddling. “Yes, I am,” Peter said. A lousy one, but he was Neal’s Guide.
“We both know that’s just something I made up to get out of prison. I don’t need all this.”
“You didn’t make it up.” Neal couldn’t possibly believe that was true-the Bureau had had him tested, after he told them about Neal’s request. The request that Peter had thought was a blackmail attempt. “You really need a Guide, and I really am one.”
“I didn’t need one in prison,” Neal said. “Weekly no-contact visits; I was fine. Here I’m in the same room with you every day. I shouldn’t need anything else.”
“Turns out you do.” He flattened his hand over Neal’s abdomen. Neal startled away from the contact, driving himself further back into Peter’s chest. His knees and hips bent to echo the curve of Peter’s. “Better?”
Neal took a deep breath and…relaxed. “I’m not asking you to do this.”
“I know you’re not.” Because Neal didn’t ask for anything he really wanted. His body was a warm, solid weight against Peter’s. “It’s helping?”
“Yeah. It’s helping.”
“Good.”
#
When Neal woke with a warm body pressed against his back, and an arm draped over his side, his first thought was Kate. Then he took a breath, and his nose was filled with Peter’s scent. Right. Peter. Asleep at his back, his breathing ruffling the hair on the back of Neal’s neck.
What a strange, confusing day it had been. It was a little embarrassing to remember the little Guide, Blair, squawking in indignant outrage over Neal’s cruel victimization at the hands of the FBI. Looking back on it, he realized that the more he protested that he was fine, Peter was fine, everything was fine, the more pathetic he must have seemed.
But the embarrassment was nothing compared to the sheer relief of learning that what he’d been going through at least twice a week for the last couple of months wasn’t normal. He’d sometimes thought it couldn’t possibly be, or there’d be no way anyone would volunteer for it, without the threat of prison hanging over their heads. But then again, he’d thought, maybe he was just a pussy compared to the real FBI Sentinels.
Blair and Ellison’s reactions made clear that whatever the problem was, it wasn’t him being too weak to handle a little pain that all Sentinels went through. It was, as Peter would say, a real problem. And a real problem meant he got help with it.
The way they talked about Peter had been pretty insulting, but Neal had to remind himself that they didn’t know Peter. Peter was never going to fuss over him the way Blair did for Ellison, but he gave Neal what he needed-or what he thought Neal needed, anyway. If Neal asked to go home, Peter took him home. And sat with him, without even making Neal ask for that. Now that Peter knew there were other things he could be doing, he’d find out what they were and do them.
Maybe not all of them. Neal patted Peter’s hand, which was splayed on his belly. This, probably not often, but he was doing it now-if Neal really needed it, he’d do it again. But they’d figure out what helped Neal the most, and what Peter could live with, and work out a balance. It was bound to be better.
Blair, he remembered, had said that he was ‘actually very easy to work with.’ Ellison probably needed Blair to fuss over him the way he did. Neal didn’t. Once they figured out what actually worked, he probably wouldn’t need any more of Peter’s time or attention than he was getting now. Like how Blair had talked him through adjusting his dials. He wasn’t sure why that helped-Blair hadn’t told him anything he didn’t already know-but it did help. A few minutes of that had done him about as much good as Peter sitting with him for an hour after his lessons, and was much more efficient. If he could have both, that would be great, but if Peter needed to get back to work or home to Elizabeth, he could do that, too. It could very well turn out that Peter getting some training made life easier for both of them.
Behind him, Peter stirred. Neal wondered if he was going to make the same mistake Neal had, and think at first that he was Elizabeth, and if so, would it be funny or horrifying. But Peter patted Neal’s stomach and said, “Neal. How’re you feeling?”
“Good,” Neal said, surprised to realize it was true. He usually woke up two or three hours after his lessons feeling basically okay, but a little precarious, like he could stop being okay at any moment. Dinner on those nights generally consisted of either ginger ale and toast or mint tea and plain rice; after he was sure that was going to stay down, he might try something really daring like an apple or a banana. Then he puttered around the apartment for a couple of hours and went back to bed early. By morning, he was ready to face the world. But now, he really felt fine. He felt like Tuesday, when it had been five days since he’d done a lesson.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Neal repeated. He unwrapped Peter’s arm from around his waist and sat up, experimentally. Still fine. Peter was sitting up, too, and Neal moved over to his own bed.
“You don’t have to move,” Peter said.
“I’m really okay,” Neal said. “And even if we are a Sentinel and Guide, recreational cuddling would be weird.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.” Peter looked at his watch and winced.
Neal looked at his own. It was past eight. “If you’re going to call, you should do it now,” he said. “I’ll take a shower; sleeping during the day always makes me feel messy.”
Peter didn’t give him a hard time about that, fortunately. Showering after an “episode” was usually a bit of a risk-he usually felt downright disgusting, not just messy, but the sound of the water or the smell of his supposedly-unscented shampoo and soap could sometimes do weird things to him. Today, though, it all went off without a hitch. By the time he left the bathroom, Peter was finishing up his phone call.
“Yeah, it’s…I don’t know. Listen, I think we’re going to go get some dinner. Yep. Love you too.” He put the phone back in the pocket of his jacket, which he’d put back on at some point. “Do you feel up to going out to eat? I could bring something back, or, I don’t know….”
“That’s fine,” Neal said. “I really feel pretty good.”
“Good as in better than catatonic, or actually good?”
“Actually good.”
Peter seemed to accept that. “All right. Is the place across the street all right?”
Wow, he was really being careful now. Neal was torn between trying again to assure him that he really, genuinely, truly did not need to be fussed over and milking it for all it was worth.
Milking it would have been more tempting if he knew more about restaurants in Cascade, but, figuring he was going to be stuck with Peter’s choices anyway, he hadn’t done any research, so he didn’t know what he could plausibly ask for.
Plus, he had picked lunch. “Across the street’s fine.”
At some point while they had been asleep, the rain had stopped. The air smelled fresh and clean, and there were birds-something other than pigeons-flitting around. It was kind of nice to be out of Manhattan for a change, he decided.
In the restaurant, Neal ordered a steak and, throwing caution to the wind, a glass of wine. He might as well milk it a little bit. Peter didn’t say a word about it.
“So,” Peter said, once the waitress had left with their orders.
He was going to bring up the subject of how he was the worst Guide in the universe again, Neal figured. He’d rather keep that subject tabled for a while longer. “Shouldn’t take us more than a week to get through the rest of the warehouse,” Neal said, making a clumsy but emphatic attempt to establish another topic.
Peter followed his lead. They talked about the case, segueing by way of a discussion of the former smuggler’s impressive collection into the subject of painting more generally. Peter, unsurprisingly, favored the more representational painters, though he stopped short of trotting out the “A five-year-old kid could do that” cliché the artistically ignorant used to disparage abstract work.
“No, yeah, anybody can paint horizontal bands,” Neal said, “but Rothko’s really about color. First you stand back and see the contrast between the big blocks of color, then you go in close and look at the variation within each color band. It takes at least twenty minutes to really appreciate a Rothko.” Neal swirled the last of his wine around in the glass, considering. “And he did some really innovative stuff with mixing and layering-some of it nobody can even figure out how he did, even with electron microscopes and spectrographic analysis. It would be easier to forge a Monet than a Rothko.”
“Theoretically.” Peter grinned.
“Theoretically,” Neal agreed. “Plus he’s the guy who said, ‘As an artist you have to be a thief and steal a place for yourself on the rich man’s wall.’ You have to love that.”
Peter shook his head, still smiling. “Why aren’t you an artist, or a restorer, an art historian, something like that? Why crime?”
“I blame society,” Neal quipped.
Peter laughed. “Okay, I guess that’s kind of a personal question.”
Neal shrugged. “Restoration, I think I would have liked, but I was already a criminal before I learned that job existed. It wasn’t like I sat down, looked at all the options, and picked crime. But I didn’t really have the drive, or the focus, or whatever it is, to figure out what I wanted and find a way to get it like you did, Harvard scholarship boy.” He shrugged. “And crime is always hiring. I worked my way up from the mailroom to the corner office.”
The waitress came over and asked, for the second time, if they wanted dessert or perhaps the check.
“We done here?” Peter asked.
“I’m done,” Neal said.
“The check’s fine, please,” Peter told the waitress. She handed it to him immediately and waited while he got his credit card out.
“Better give her a good tip,” Neal advised as the waitress walked away. “She probably won’t be able to turn this table back over before they close.”
“I know,” Peter said. “I waited tables as a Harvard scholarship boy.”
It was fully dark when they left the restaurant to head back to the motel.
They walked in silence for a few moments, until Peter said, “I really had no idea I wasn’t doing what I should be doing as your Guide. It was never about thinking you didn’t deserve better.”
“I know,” Neal told him. “I didn’t know, either. I knew I felt pretty bad, but Ketner seemed to think that was normal. Let’s blame him,” he suggested.
“He probably thought I knew what I was doing,” Peter said gloomily.
“Maybe. But even so, from what Blair said, it sounds like he should have realized something wasn’t right and tried to figure out what the problem was. He saw pretty much the same things they saw, and he said to keep doing what we were doing and eventually it would get better. It’s not like we were idiots to believe him. He’s supposed to be the expert.”
“I’m getting the impression I’m supposed to be the expert.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not. Remember the warehouse?”
“What about it? You were okay there, weren’t you?”
“Not the warehouse here, the one with the Dutchman case. You figured out I didn’t know how to do what you needed me to do--”
“There wasn’t any reason you should have known.”
“Exactly,” Neal said. “See, I can do morals, too.” He bumped Peter’s shoulder with his.
“Okay, fair enough,” Peter agreed. “But you not knowing how to do scent discrimination wasn’t causing me physical pain.”
“It’s not a perfect analogy,” Neal conceded, standing aside so Peter could unlock their room.
“If it had been Elizabeth barely able to walk upright two days a week,” Peter said as they went inside, “I would have been breaking down doors to find a way to fix it. I wouldn’t have taken ‘it’s normal’ for an answer.”
“Yeah, well, she’s your wife. I’m your felon.” Neal wasn’t sure why Peter thought there was any comparison to be made.
“You’re my Sentinel.”
“A Sentinel you never wanted and the FBI made you take custody of,” Neal reminded him. “There’s nothing shocking or barbaric about you not…throwing yourself into it.” He took off his jacket and hung it up. “You have a--” He gestured at Peter. “-life. I asked you to be my Guide in the first place because I like you; the last thing I want to do is screw things up for you.”
“Right,” Peter said, sitting down on his bed heavily. “Because first you thought you ruined my life, and then once we got that straightened out, we started the no complaining deal. The deal where if you suggested you were less than deliriously happy with your life, I could remind you how much worse prison would be.”
“Yeah,” Neal agreed.
“Prison,” Peter said. “With the catatonia and the constant or near-constant sensory distress.”
“Right. Prison, which I made this deal to avoid.”
“Right,” Peter echoed. “The deal where I don’t care about your problems so you should just shut up about them. That deal.”
“I was referring to the anklet deal, actually,” Neal said. “But the complaining deal is fine, too. We’ve been getting along a lot better since then.” He thought so, at least. He was pretty sure Peter didn’t hate him anymore. And really, he felt a lot better about his money and food situations when he wasn’t dwelling on them all the time.
“Yeah,” Peter said. “If by ‘getting along’ you mean ‘suffering and not saying anything because you think I don’t care.’”
Oh, he was on that again. “You did say I should tell you if I had a problem you could help me with. And-like we’ve been saying-neither of us knew you could be doing more than you were to help me with the sensory stuff. Now we know, and you’re going to help.” He shrugged. “Everything’s good.”
“That’s how you sum up this day? ‘Everything’s good’?”
Neal shrugged. “How would you sum it up?”
“I’d sum it up as the day when I worked my Sentinel into a massive episode of sensory distress, for probably the twentieth time, and did absolutely nothing about it until two near-strangers pointed out my appalling negligence.”
“Okay,” Neal said slowly. “I guess that’s another way to see it. I like mine better. Now, if you don’t have plans for the TV, Jon Stewart’s on.”