White Collar Fic: Shackled
Title:Shackled
Rating: R,
Word Count: 5000~
Fandom: White Collar
Characters: Neal, Clinton Jones, Diana Berrigan, Peter Burke
Disclaimer: Any recogniseable characters ot situations belong to Jeff Eastin
Summary: Taken from this prompt at collar_corner; an undercover job goes wrong and Neal finds himself handcuffed to a radiator in a burning building. Oh dear.
AN: This could potentially have a sequel, or turn into a series. It all depends on how much time i have and whether anyone wants to know, ;-)
The sound of screeching tyres is still ringing in Peter’s ears as he pushes the door open before the car has barely stopped. The shape of the door is pressing into his hand, the tiny ridges of metal against rubber sealant and fibreglass interior plastics; the door is still open and he has one foot out of the car and one foot on the gravel pavement as there’s a resounding explosion just ahead of him. He can do nothing but watch as flames burst from the windows of the three story set of industrial offices in front of him. There’s an echoing shout from the surrounding personnel rebounding around him as the building groans and everyone twists away from the bursting shower of glass that falls towards them.
Everyone except Peter, he can’t turn away, transfixed to the spot -
“There’s a fire, boss - Caffrey’s inside.”
“Have you called backup?”
“Fire and EMT are on their way, but they’re way out, Peter. “
“Do nothing until they get there, Diana, you hear me? Diana- what’s going on? Diana? Diana!”
“Peter, Jones has gone in after him!”
“Stop him!
“Peter - “ Peter turns to the sound of a voice, softer, tainted by some form of hard won concern that would have turned his stomach if there was a part of him not screaming for answers.
“Diana, where are they?”
Diana’s expression hardens, and then wilts and it’s a sight that nearly breaks him.
“Boss,” she murmurs, looking back to the building.
Peter follows her gaze and the screaming in his head goes quiet.
***
Neal’s always had a thing for the word ‘no’.
It’s the same niggling determination that rises its head whenever he’s told he can’t or shouldn’t or it’s against the rules. It’s the same thing that he feels whenever he meets a locked door, or feels the cold metal of handcuffs around his wrists.
He’s always had a part of him that hears the word ‘no’ and responds with ‘yes’.
This is a little different, even though it’s the same metallic clasp of handcuffs around his wrists that he can usually slip or pick without thought. If he added it up in his head he knows he could count hours where he’s spent time just picking locks for the fun of it, working every which way to slip out of a set of cuffs, pick a lock, bend his body into torment but just enough to get loose. He’s had to do it in earnest more than once, but often enough it was just for fun, just to test; more often than not just to prove that he could.
This is different, because as he blinks back into focus, dragging heavy eyelids, when he hears ‘no’ echo in his head, this time all he can answer with is ‘maybe’.
This time it takes him almost a minute for his brain to compute that he’s wearing handcuffs at all, linked around a radiator that’s bolted into the scratched wall at his back. It’s a monstrosity of a heater and he’s cuffed to the top rungs so that it holds his hands parallel to his eye-line, but at just the wrong angle that the metal of the cuffs are digging into his flesh and the metal of the radiator against his wrists is getting just a little warm against his skin. It takes far more out of him than he expects as he cants his head back against the wall and squares his shoulders, releasing the pressure on his wrists. There’s the tiniest niggle in his fog hazy brain as he moves that his wrists should hurt, except his whole body feels so heavy and numb he’s sure that there’s a lot of him that’s feeling similar.
Adjusting his position against the wall he eyes his wrists and takes a deep breath in that seems to catch in his throat halfway down and a hacking cough catches in his chest and ricochets through the rest of him and leaves him weak and gasping as it subsides.
There’s a funny smell rising in his nose as he falls back against the wall, trying to collect himself before he thinks any further. But as he leans back against the wall, the way his head tilts, he can see the black outline of a slumped figure in the doorway and his breath catches in his throat again, his chest tight as he instinctively throws his mind back into a realm of darkness he can’t decipher. His memories are absent, and he forces himself not to panic. There’s an overturned chair and a broken table just ahead of him, and a longer table with a computer and printer that seem almost untouched; there’s scattered papers strewn across the floor around him, hurled from the cabinet in a fit of anxious fury. He knows right then that there’s something important in those pages in the same way he knows that his name is Neal Caffrey and that Peter will find him. The back of his mind is pounding at him, thrumming in time with his heart trying to collect itself, trying to get through the fog that’s collected in his head, however, everything takes a firm step backwards as Neal breathes in again and starts to heave once more, the fog collecting in his head not just from the concussion he got when Saunders had slammed him head first into the wall - no, there’s fog slipping into the room from under the door just along the wall, just left of the body; a white fog, curling and twisting and sneaking up Neal’s nose and burning down his throat
Its fog that isn’t really fog, and it takes him a moment for his brain to supply the word, but once it does, he tenses against his restraints. It’s smoke, and smoke means fire, and a fire means there’s something someone wants to get rid of, and considering there’s a body just across the way, and paper scattered across the floor, there are several things that seem to need to be disposed of, and the fact he’s handcuffed to a radiator means one thing more, that he’s something they need to get rid of too.
And so he panics and pulls against the restraints, testing their hold and for a moment, as he’s jerked back against the wall into another choking cough, his chest tight and a sharp and piercing pain running down the whole of his left side, he realises sharply in the haze of everything else, that for every time he rebelled against every ‘no’ he encountered, every you shouldn’t, or you couldn’t, or that’s wrong, or you can’t, that this time, they’re right; he can’t.
This time he’s going to need help.
And as his breath catches again on the smoke and he coughs, hard and gasping, he can’t help but hope that this time, this time the help hurries.
****
Peter could groan as he hears Neal’s voice echo in through the glass before he’s even made it inside the office. He knows that tone, that tone says Neal’s been doing nothing constructive (or completely legal, either) and that he’s going to start pulling at his leash with another of his bone headed schemes, because there’s nothing like Neal doing nothing to set him off into doing something and it’s always, always something he damn well shouldn’t.
“Neal,” Peter says, putting the photographs down inside his folder and closing it casually before he turns his attention to his consultant. True to form, Neal is wearing the smile that always makes Peter nervous, that seems to scream ‘I have an idea.’
Peter hates that smile, it always leads to trouble.
“What do you want?”
“I think I found something.”
“Something that will stand up in court?”
“I’ll have to check something first, but I’m pretty sure most of it will.”
“Do I need to know what that something is?”
“Only what I’ve found, Peter,” he grins and Peter sighs.
“Well come on Sherlock, are you going to share or did you just come to gloat?”
“Someone’s in a mood. Peter, are you in the dog house again?”
“The only one in the dog house is going to be you, Wiley Coyote, if you don’t own up.”
Neal’s face twists into a questioning look that says he either didn’t quite understand Peter really just wants to know what he has, or he did and is just seeing how far Peter will go before he snaps. It’s definitely the latter.
“What have you got?” Neal smiles then, settling on a happy little upturn of his lips that says he’s happy where he’s left things, meaning he got what he was after.
“Well, I think I know how to get to Saunders. Rumour has it that he’s got a new job in the works, which means he’s gonna be in need of a new Fence. Considering we took out his main one two weeks ago, the Dallas field office caught Chester Mayfield fencing stolen Greek statuettes. Which means there’s a vacancy.”
“And of course you can fill in?”
“Why Peter, what a good idea.”
“You sure you don’t need Alex to sit in on this one? Call in a favour.”
“I know how to fence, Peter. It’s a skill I may or may not have picked up during an alleged period of time pre 2006.”
“And I’m guessing you have an alias all set up for this kind of thing?”
“I may or may not have someone who can help with that.”
“Mozzie?”
“My source doesn’t like to be mentioned by name within a Federal building.”
“Ah, of course.”
“Come on, Peter. You’ve looked into this guy, what could possibly go wrong?”
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Peter mutters as he stands up, it’s a plan; it’s a plan that can work. It’s worked before, countless times now, but Neal’s Neal and things still never quite sit right when he goes off on his own.
“I’m a lucky charm, Peter. It’ll be fine!”
***
When Clinton Jones was nine years old all he wanted to be was a fireman.
He wanted to wear the coat and the boots and ride in the truck and save people from burning buildings and rescue cats from trees. He wanted to help save something.
But then he was fifteen and far too smart to just throw everything away by becoming a fire fighter. His Grandma told him he was meant for greater things, that he could save someone in a different way, and she’d pressed another book into his hands and petted his cheek and gave him another biscuit.
By the time he was halfway through his scholarship to Harvard, his lecturer had called him into his office one day and mentioned three letters to him that seemed to tap into that nine year old boy who’d wanted nothing more than to help people. Over a decade later and the FBI had been his home for a lot longer than he’d anticipated when he’d first entered the Academy. His Grandmother was still inherently proud of him, but there is still a tiny part of him that doesn’t hesitate when he runs out of the car and stares up at the industrial building pluming smoke into the air. Whose address is still blinking with Neal’s tracer on his PDA, the pen they gave him hopefully still in the inside pocket of Neal’s expensive tailored jacket.
As he and Diana spill out of the car there is a part of him that knows they have just minutes to get their colleague out of the building and as Diana stares up at the third floor, where spurts of flames are flickering out the window, her radio up against her mouth, Jones knows EMT are too far out to help this time.
And so, without thought, he runs across the stretch of concrete and into the building, serenaded by the sound of Diana yelling at him.
But then the air around him is hot, thick and cloying and there is the roar of flames and the impossible smell of burning sticking to the back of his throat as he runs across the foyer and across the corridor and he has to think on only one thing: get Neal, and get the hell out.
****
Diana’s nerves are frayed to shreds as she stares up at the building. Another small explosion of collapsing wood echoes out and she instinctively takes another step towards the building and then forces herself back. Jones still isn’t answering his radio, and each second that drags by in such agonising slowness is just making her want to scream. She’s been an agent for years now, put through every grind that she thought there was to handle, except this one had come from another angle. It had snuck up on her and there were so many things and simultaneously nothing at all in her training that could come close to helping her right then. Her partner had run into a burning building. Her friend had run into a burning building to save another friend, a criminal that had slipped through the bureau’s fingers for six years before Peter Burke had tracked him down and turned him loose on the rest of the criminal world. A good man risking his life for another good man whose strong sense of moral ambiguity had been the crux of their operation. But it had gone to hell and there was nothing she could do but stand and wait, praying that they’d get out alive and it’s driving her insane.
There is a sudden, louder explosion overhead and a small shout escapes her lips, her heart sinking as the entire building seems to groan.
And then she sees it, a shadow through the smoke.
“Jones!” she yells as a form materialises in the plumes, a slow moving shadow that takes it’s time to edge through the smoke and take the form of Clinton almost carrying Neal. Diana’s reservations disappear in an instant and she rushes towards them, towards the driving heat.
The building groans again as she slides in around Neal’s other side, moving his other arm over her shoulder and her own around his waist to help take his weight. Neal seems to slump a little between them as she and Jones manoeuvre him closer to the car and out of the immediate vicinity of the building. The further they move away from the building the more seems to sink in. Her brain catching up with the bare seconds that have passed since the shadow had taken form and her common sense disappeared.
The pair of them are dirty as an understatement, covered in grey ash and Jones is coughing as they lower Neal to the ground against the car. Neal on the other hand even at a glance is far worse. The air catches in Diana’s lungs as she kneels down next to him, holding his weight and helping move him against the car. His eyes are half open and glassy and for a bare startling moment she can’t help but feel a rush of terror that maybe Jones was too late, but the pulse under her fingers as she touches his neck is thready but there and she breathes a sigh of relief as she holds his head upright, Neal lacking the strength to do it himself.
“He was on the second floor, handcuffed to the radiator,” Jones wheezes as he kneels down next to her. Diana nods and turns her attention back to Neal, the gaze that stares back at her is unfocussed as she tries to meet his eyes and it feels like he’s not there at all.
“Neal?” she murmurs. He’s like a rag doll, dirty and weak and as she runs her hand through his hair in some instinctive motion to calm him or herself, but her heart sinks as she pulls away, her hand bloody. That can’t be good, she thinks, but Jones is talking again and she glances his way. He looks exhausted and filthy and without him, Neal would be trapped and waiting for death if it hadn’t crept up on him in the time that’s passed since they arrived.
“There was a body near the other doorway. I didn’t get a chance to see who it was. The fire was getting in close.” Jones’ commentary stops as he breaks off to cough, but there is a faint wheezing that continues in the silence of his fit, and it’s only at Jones’ nod back at Neal that makes her realise its Neal struggling for breath.
“We have to get him on his back,” she mutters, eyeing Jones and hoping for a moment that he can’t see her panic. But she knows it’s clear as day, its spread across his face as well. A stunned fear at what’s happening, what has happened.
“Mind his hands,” Jones murmurs as she helps turn Neal, his body lolling without the support of the car and as they lay him on his back, while his breathing eases Diana’s shortens as she takes in what she didn’t see before. His suit is singed down the left side, focussed at the top where he had been forced to lean against the radiator, but further down the suit is torn and a darker shadow on the material whisper of injuries she doesn’t want to really find herself. His hands however, are red and blistered in patches from his wrists to his fingers.
As are Clinton’s, she notices as he helps her settle Neal straight.
“Burned them getting him unlocked,” her fellow agent says, offering a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes or hers.
“EMT should be here soon,” she says as a distraction, but whether it’s for herself or for him, she isn’t sure. All she knows is she needs them to come, because a part of her is panicking, a part of her that she really hasn’t felt since she was fourteen and had Charlie’s blood all over her fingers and she couldn’t stop screaming, even though there were NYPD milling around trying to pull her away and take her someplace safe. This useless panic was back. She hadn’t felt anything like this for Donald, she didn’t know what made this different, what made Neal different to the bodyguard she’d had when she was nineteen for nearly three years and that hadn’t really been a body guard but the only man she’d loved and the one who had taught her that the only person who could really protect her was herself. But he’d died what, six, seven years ago now, and she’d never felt so useless in all the time since as she did right then.
“Are you alright?” she asks Clinton, meeting his eyes. He looks like he’s in pain for the first time, and there’s something else, something that seems haunted about him; no longer than four minutes inside that building, and something’s changed him.
“Yeah,” Jones says, nodding. He turns his gaze back down to Neal.
“Just breathe, Neal,” he says down at the prone man and Diana takes that moment to look back the way they’d come in. She can’t help but hope that the sirens she can hear are actually coming and not all just wrapped up in her head because she wants them to be, desperately.
Neal breathes in deep at Jones’ command, which soothes her nerves a little, he might not be conscious but at least he’s alert enough that he can seemingly take orders, except his attempt to breathe in sends him into a coughing fit that makes his body tense under her fingers and makes Jones swear after the EMT’s. Neal is shaking when his coughing finally subsides and his eyelids flicker half closed as he seems to droop and Diana can’t help the tiny spark of fear that runs through her yet again. She looks up at Clinton and sees something similar, and then, then she hears the sound of sirens in the distance and she breathes a sigh.
***
The air is hot and each breath burns down his throat as Clinton moves through the hazy smoke filled corridor, pushing open every door he goes by. He can feel sweat sliding down his back, down the aching muscles as he tries to hold himself low beneath the rising smoke. He should be crawling, hell, he should be outside waiting for the real firemen and not some aloof FBI agent with a nine year old boys dreams riding on his shoulders. But he’s come this far and his stoicism stops him from running back, his loyalty stops him. He doesn’t know if he could live with himself if he turned back now and left Neal to the fire’s whims.
He’s coughing through his tie as he holds it against his mouth and starts up the stairs and into the second floor. There’s more smoke up here, and by Christ it’s hotter. The air seems to ripple and shift as he moves and he lets out a shout of alarm as he opens a door and a burst of heat fans out. It hits like a wave, crashing down on him and it takes him a moment enough to recover and then see something through the smoke. A body, slumped in the doorway. His stomach makes a break for his shoes as he runs into the room, fighting the heat and the smoke burning down his throat. He forces himself lower and he’s halfway across the room when he sees another shape further down the room, a man slumped against the wall, his hands held up above his head with something, secured firmly against the radiator. He shouts in a mixture of relief and something like sheer terror as he recognises the slumped figure. There’s just something about it that he makes out for Neal even before he can properly make out the hair or the shirt with its fancy tie, let alone his face, his head slumped down on his chest, his arms taught against where he’s held up against the wall.
“Neal?” Clinton calls as he runs over to his colleague. Neal doesn’t stir and if he could cross his fingers he would as he sneaks his hand out and feels for Neal’s pulse. It bites under his fingers and Clinton sighs in relief, slapping Neal’s face light enough to try and rouse him.
There must be someone looking out for them because Neal blinks under his touch again and tries to lift his head. There’s a moment when Clinton meets his eyes and something passes between them before Neal tries to take his own weight and he perks up, like a sudden hit of adrenaline was running through him.
Clinton turns his attention to the cuffs by then, a small smile turning his lips as he reaches for the cuffs to turn them with one hand as he searches for the key with his other. Neal makes a sound then, just a half second before Clinton touches the hot metal, but then he does and he pulls his hand away with a hiss. Neal tries to say something then, a croak that stops in his throat as he breaks off into a resounding cough that leaves his sudden strength starting to wane.
There’s really only one thing they can do; they have to get out. It’s a simple fact. Clinton reaches for his belt again, trying to stem the faint rising pain in his fingers as he pulls the key out and turns his attention back to Neal’s cuffs. Neal shakes his head then, that same warning sound echoing in his throat once again, but Clinton ignores him.
“Save your strength so we can get out,” he says, not looking at Neal, focussing on his movements, keeping them precise and needed as he feels his skin burning. It hurts, oh Christ how it hurts. The cuffs come away and for a terrifying second Clinton almost thinks Neal’s skin is about to come away with it, but it doesn’t. His wrists are raw and blistered and burns far worse than Clinton’s fingers, but he’s free and that’s the main thing he focuses on as he slides one arm around Neal and tries to lever him to his feet.
“Come on, Caffrey,” he murmurs and Neal tries to say something again that doesn’t come out as anything more than a wince of pain as they stumble back towards the staircase.
Not a minute too late as there’s a resounding crash behind them and the flames around the body in the doorway burn through and the floor starts to give way.
***
When Peter runs around the car all he can see is a slumped figure laid out on the ground behind a crush of EMT uniforms.
“Jones went in and got him. He’s inhaled a lot of smoke, he was bleeding too. I don’t know how bad. They had him handcuffed to a radiator upstairs.”
“Is Jones alright?”
“EMT have him in a bus, minor burns to his fingers and smoke inhalation, he’ll be fine. EMT’s only been here ten minutes. They haven’t had time to move him yet.” Diana’s sombre as she’s speaking and Peter feels distracted and damn angry and panicked as there’s a commotion in the tiny square of EMT’s and he watches as they finally move Neal to a stretcher and start him towards the bus.
Peter’s barely been at the scene all of five minutes and he’s already ready to leave.
“Peter Burke, FBI, how is he?” he asks bustling over just as they’re raising Neal into the ambulance. Peter has to force himself to swallow hard as he looks down at his partner. Neal’s eyes are closed, and he’s filthy, but he looks pallid and he looks empty and for a moment Peter wants to hit something.
“He needs a short ride to Emergency, Agent Burke, I suggest if you’re coming you get in,” the Ambulance officer tells him shortly and Peter casts a look at Diana who just nods and him. She can take care of everything here.
Peter gets into the Ambulance and the doors slam shut behind him.
***
Neal remembers the hospital. He knows the ins and outs of it well enough.
He knows the familiar stench of overly cleaned air and the burn of antiseptic and the crinkle of starched sheets.
When he first starts to rise out of the darkness he feels each one offered to him, one after the other, like his senses waking up and showing him which parts to focus on. The smells, the touch of familiar rough blankets, the sounds.
The sound of shoes squeaking on lino is not something he’s familiar with in this sort of situation. He knows the pace, the heavy worn steps of an anxious man, restricted by five steps and whatever was keeping him in the hospital bed.
Neal frowns as he tries to think who could possibly wait around in the hospital for him long enough to pace.
His thoughts come to him slowly. Not Kate, Kate never paced, she sat and bit her nails when she was really truly anxious about something. And she never walked that heavy. And Alex, Alex had only waited around long enough once. He’d saved her, and she’d waited for him then, but that had been at Mozzie’s. That hadn’t been here, in a hospital and Alex had never paced either. She was the type to stand in the corner and wait. Alex was an arms folded kind of girl.
Neal had never remembered Mozzie voluntarily going anywhere near something well established unless they were robbing it. Mozzie was the type to bring something to read. He never went without anything to keep him occupied.
The only person besides himself he’d ever known to pace was Peter.
Peter.
Neal frowns again and something must catch because the pacing stops then, but the shoes keep walking and there is an increase in speed, a change in direction and then three steps later they stop again.
“Neal?” His name is said softly, cautiously, like maybe it’s been said before, in the same tone and been unanswered. But it’s Peter. Peter who has always turned up, right when Neal doesn’t want him, at least it had been that way in the beginning, and every time Neal has needed him since; he can remember that now.
Peter was one to pace.
“Neal?” he tries again,
He tries to open his eyes then, because he still can’t see, he can smell antiseptic and clean air and he can smell Peter now too. He can feel a cautious hand on his arm as well and he tries to turn his head towards the touch and that’s enough to change Peter’s tone.
“Come on, buddy. Open your eyes for me, Neal. Come on.”
He tries then, tries to open them and it takes more effort than he’s willing to give, but then they’re open and the world is too bright so he shuts them and groans and gets a little laugh from Peter.
“Come on, Neal,” he says again, and Neal wants to push him away because he doesn’t appreciate being talked to like Satchmo. But then when he blinks again and he sees Peter’s face smiling down at him like it’s something to be proud of and that pesky annoyance starts to dissipate. Peter looks exhausted. There’s something about his face, something pinched that has Neal a little confused. Peter doesn’t give him enough time to ask why.
“I’ll be right back, buddy, okay? Right back.”
Neal doesn’t bother nodding, Peter disappears for a second anyway and maybe a minute passes Neal by, not that he’s sure or cares, he’s happy the world is empty for a moment, letting him get his balance back, because after darkness for so long even the idea of too much moving is almost too much altogether.
It’s an observation he confirms when Peter comes back in with a nurse and doctor on his heels and Neal has to endure not only Peter moving around the room, but them too, and they insist on moving him and asking him things that takes him a few moments to answer and has the lines on the doctors faces becoming a little more pronounced, and has Peter’s stance just further down Neal’s eyeline a little more taught.
In the end it’s explained to him slowly and surely so he understands and feels patronised enough to the extent Peter almost tells him off even though he doesn’t actually say anything, but then Neal sees Peter remember where they are and what he can’t and goes quiet.
It confuses him a little, how things played out because while the doctor said that considering the amount of smoke he inhaled its common he wouldn’t remember what had happened, but for someone who made a living out of remembering the minute details, who made a point of surviving out of minute details, the fact his memory is betraying him sets the entire world upside down.
“How often have you been home since I’ve been in here?” he asks Peter once the doctors have left. He can always ask them later if he thinks Peter’s lying to him. He almost expects Peter to lie to him.
“Almost since you came in.”
“You didn’t go home? What about Elizabeth?” he asks, unnerved by Peter’s honesty. He looks tired enough for Neal to believe him.
“ El came here. She’s been worried about you.”
“I’m alright.”
“You weren’t though,” Peter admonishes and Neal has to look away. He doesn’t really want to think about something he can’t remember. Being slammed into a wall and then handcuffed to a radiator in a burning building was not something he wanted to think about when he knows it’s happened and yet the memory nonexistent. He does however, want to thank Jones.
“I’ll send him over later,” Peter says and Neal nods. “He’s got a few days off, Diana says he’s called in bored already. I don’t think he’ll mind coming round.”
Neal shifts in his bed and the entire thing groans and creaks and for a moment he hates where he is and what’s happened and all of it. Then he makes himself stop. Because Peter’s not allowed to see him when he gets like that. Peter’s seen a lot, been through a lot with him. He knows that because while he can’t remember when had happened three and a half days ago, he can remember the last time he felt a blaze of heat against his back, when Kate disappeared from him almost within reach.
He remembers the explosion, and he remembers how much it hurt, but he doesn’t remember how he dealt with it, and he’s sure that he let something slip then.
He’s more in control now.
“Is this going to cause issue?” he asks after a moment, and thankfully Peter understands what he means, because Neal really doesn’t feel like explaining. He doesn’t feel like anything. They’ve got his morphine up just enough that everything he’s saying slurs and little and keeping his eyes open is hard and everything is a little hazy, but it’s enough to keep the pain at bay. He’s had more than enough burns in the past just from every day stupid things like every Tom Dick and Harry he could meet on the street. He doesn’t want to have to feel these. He doesn’t want to have to think about taking off the bandages either.
But he’ll have to deal with that later.
So instead he settles for murmuring a tiny “thank you,” to Peter as he starts to drift, and he feels Peter’s hand on his arm tighten a little as he answers.
“I’ve never lost a man, Neal, I’ll be damned if you’re the one to break that on me.”
And he knows then, that even though he can’t remember, he doesn’t have to.
He’s safe.
Rating: R,
Word Count: 5000~
Fandom: White Collar
Characters: Neal, Clinton Jones, Diana Berrigan, Peter Burke
Disclaimer: Any recogniseable characters ot situations belong to Jeff Eastin
Summary: Taken from this prompt at collar_corner; an undercover job goes wrong and Neal finds himself handcuffed to a radiator in a burning building. Oh dear.
AN: This could potentially have a sequel, or turn into a series. It all depends on how much time i have and whether anyone wants to know, ;-)
The sound of screeching tyres is still ringing in Peter’s ears as he pushes the door open before the car has barely stopped. The shape of the door is pressing into his hand, the tiny ridges of metal against rubber sealant and fibreglass interior plastics; the door is still open and he has one foot out of the car and one foot on the gravel pavement as there’s a resounding explosion just ahead of him. He can do nothing but watch as flames burst from the windows of the three story set of industrial offices in front of him. There’s an echoing shout from the surrounding personnel rebounding around him as the building groans and everyone twists away from the bursting shower of glass that falls towards them.
Everyone except Peter, he can’t turn away, transfixed to the spot -
“There’s a fire, boss - Caffrey’s inside.”
“Have you called backup?”
“Fire and EMT are on their way, but they’re way out, Peter. “
“Do nothing until they get there, Diana, you hear me? Diana- what’s going on? Diana? Diana!”
“Peter, Jones has gone in after him!”
“Stop him!
“Peter - “ Peter turns to the sound of a voice, softer, tainted by some form of hard won concern that would have turned his stomach if there was a part of him not screaming for answers.
“Diana, where are they?”
Diana’s expression hardens, and then wilts and it’s a sight that nearly breaks him.
“Boss,” she murmurs, looking back to the building.
Peter follows her gaze and the screaming in his head goes quiet.
***
Neal’s always had a thing for the word ‘no’.
It’s the same niggling determination that rises its head whenever he’s told he can’t or shouldn’t or it’s against the rules. It’s the same thing that he feels whenever he meets a locked door, or feels the cold metal of handcuffs around his wrists.
He’s always had a part of him that hears the word ‘no’ and responds with ‘yes’.
This is a little different, even though it’s the same metallic clasp of handcuffs around his wrists that he can usually slip or pick without thought. If he added it up in his head he knows he could count hours where he’s spent time just picking locks for the fun of it, working every which way to slip out of a set of cuffs, pick a lock, bend his body into torment but just enough to get loose. He’s had to do it in earnest more than once, but often enough it was just for fun, just to test; more often than not just to prove that he could.
This is different, because as he blinks back into focus, dragging heavy eyelids, when he hears ‘no’ echo in his head, this time all he can answer with is ‘maybe’.
This time it takes him almost a minute for his brain to compute that he’s wearing handcuffs at all, linked around a radiator that’s bolted into the scratched wall at his back. It’s a monstrosity of a heater and he’s cuffed to the top rungs so that it holds his hands parallel to his eye-line, but at just the wrong angle that the metal of the cuffs are digging into his flesh and the metal of the radiator against his wrists is getting just a little warm against his skin. It takes far more out of him than he expects as he cants his head back against the wall and squares his shoulders, releasing the pressure on his wrists. There’s the tiniest niggle in his fog hazy brain as he moves that his wrists should hurt, except his whole body feels so heavy and numb he’s sure that there’s a lot of him that’s feeling similar.
Adjusting his position against the wall he eyes his wrists and takes a deep breath in that seems to catch in his throat halfway down and a hacking cough catches in his chest and ricochets through the rest of him and leaves him weak and gasping as it subsides.
There’s a funny smell rising in his nose as he falls back against the wall, trying to collect himself before he thinks any further. But as he leans back against the wall, the way his head tilts, he can see the black outline of a slumped figure in the doorway and his breath catches in his throat again, his chest tight as he instinctively throws his mind back into a realm of darkness he can’t decipher. His memories are absent, and he forces himself not to panic. There’s an overturned chair and a broken table just ahead of him, and a longer table with a computer and printer that seem almost untouched; there’s scattered papers strewn across the floor around him, hurled from the cabinet in a fit of anxious fury. He knows right then that there’s something important in those pages in the same way he knows that his name is Neal Caffrey and that Peter will find him. The back of his mind is pounding at him, thrumming in time with his heart trying to collect itself, trying to get through the fog that’s collected in his head, however, everything takes a firm step backwards as Neal breathes in again and starts to heave once more, the fog collecting in his head not just from the concussion he got when Saunders had slammed him head first into the wall - no, there’s fog slipping into the room from under the door just along the wall, just left of the body; a white fog, curling and twisting and sneaking up Neal’s nose and burning down his throat
Its fog that isn’t really fog, and it takes him a moment for his brain to supply the word, but once it does, he tenses against his restraints. It’s smoke, and smoke means fire, and a fire means there’s something someone wants to get rid of, and considering there’s a body just across the way, and paper scattered across the floor, there are several things that seem to need to be disposed of, and the fact he’s handcuffed to a radiator means one thing more, that he’s something they need to get rid of too.
And so he panics and pulls against the restraints, testing their hold and for a moment, as he’s jerked back against the wall into another choking cough, his chest tight and a sharp and piercing pain running down the whole of his left side, he realises sharply in the haze of everything else, that for every time he rebelled against every ‘no’ he encountered, every you shouldn’t, or you couldn’t, or that’s wrong, or you can’t, that this time, they’re right; he can’t.
This time he’s going to need help.
And as his breath catches again on the smoke and he coughs, hard and gasping, he can’t help but hope that this time, this time the help hurries.
****
Peter could groan as he hears Neal’s voice echo in through the glass before he’s even made it inside the office. He knows that tone, that tone says Neal’s been doing nothing constructive (or completely legal, either) and that he’s going to start pulling at his leash with another of his bone headed schemes, because there’s nothing like Neal doing nothing to set him off into doing something and it’s always, always something he damn well shouldn’t.
“Neal,” Peter says, putting the photographs down inside his folder and closing it casually before he turns his attention to his consultant. True to form, Neal is wearing the smile that always makes Peter nervous, that seems to scream ‘I have an idea.’
Peter hates that smile, it always leads to trouble.
“What do you want?”
“I think I found something.”
“Something that will stand up in court?”
“I’ll have to check something first, but I’m pretty sure most of it will.”
“Do I need to know what that something is?”
“Only what I’ve found, Peter,” he grins and Peter sighs.
“Well come on Sherlock, are you going to share or did you just come to gloat?”
“Someone’s in a mood. Peter, are you in the dog house again?”
“The only one in the dog house is going to be you, Wiley Coyote, if you don’t own up.”
Neal’s face twists into a questioning look that says he either didn’t quite understand Peter really just wants to know what he has, or he did and is just seeing how far Peter will go before he snaps. It’s definitely the latter.
“What have you got?” Neal smiles then, settling on a happy little upturn of his lips that says he’s happy where he’s left things, meaning he got what he was after.
“Well, I think I know how to get to Saunders. Rumour has it that he’s got a new job in the works, which means he’s gonna be in need of a new Fence. Considering we took out his main one two weeks ago, the Dallas field office caught Chester Mayfield fencing stolen Greek statuettes. Which means there’s a vacancy.”
“And of course you can fill in?”
“Why Peter, what a good idea.”
“You sure you don’t need Alex to sit in on this one? Call in a favour.”
“I know how to fence, Peter. It’s a skill I may or may not have picked up during an alleged period of time pre 2006.”
“And I’m guessing you have an alias all set up for this kind of thing?”
“I may or may not have someone who can help with that.”
“Mozzie?”
“My source doesn’t like to be mentioned by name within a Federal building.”
“Ah, of course.”
“Come on, Peter. You’ve looked into this guy, what could possibly go wrong?”
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Peter mutters as he stands up, it’s a plan; it’s a plan that can work. It’s worked before, countless times now, but Neal’s Neal and things still never quite sit right when he goes off on his own.
“I’m a lucky charm, Peter. It’ll be fine!”
***
When Clinton Jones was nine years old all he wanted to be was a fireman.
He wanted to wear the coat and the boots and ride in the truck and save people from burning buildings and rescue cats from trees. He wanted to help save something.
But then he was fifteen and far too smart to just throw everything away by becoming a fire fighter. His Grandma told him he was meant for greater things, that he could save someone in a different way, and she’d pressed another book into his hands and petted his cheek and gave him another biscuit.
By the time he was halfway through his scholarship to Harvard, his lecturer had called him into his office one day and mentioned three letters to him that seemed to tap into that nine year old boy who’d wanted nothing more than to help people. Over a decade later and the FBI had been his home for a lot longer than he’d anticipated when he’d first entered the Academy. His Grandmother was still inherently proud of him, but there is still a tiny part of him that doesn’t hesitate when he runs out of the car and stares up at the industrial building pluming smoke into the air. Whose address is still blinking with Neal’s tracer on his PDA, the pen they gave him hopefully still in the inside pocket of Neal’s expensive tailored jacket.
As he and Diana spill out of the car there is a part of him that knows they have just minutes to get their colleague out of the building and as Diana stares up at the third floor, where spurts of flames are flickering out the window, her radio up against her mouth, Jones knows EMT are too far out to help this time.
And so, without thought, he runs across the stretch of concrete and into the building, serenaded by the sound of Diana yelling at him.
But then the air around him is hot, thick and cloying and there is the roar of flames and the impossible smell of burning sticking to the back of his throat as he runs across the foyer and across the corridor and he has to think on only one thing: get Neal, and get the hell out.
****
Diana’s nerves are frayed to shreds as she stares up at the building. Another small explosion of collapsing wood echoes out and she instinctively takes another step towards the building and then forces herself back. Jones still isn’t answering his radio, and each second that drags by in such agonising slowness is just making her want to scream. She’s been an agent for years now, put through every grind that she thought there was to handle, except this one had come from another angle. It had snuck up on her and there were so many things and simultaneously nothing at all in her training that could come close to helping her right then. Her partner had run into a burning building. Her friend had run into a burning building to save another friend, a criminal that had slipped through the bureau’s fingers for six years before Peter Burke had tracked him down and turned him loose on the rest of the criminal world. A good man risking his life for another good man whose strong sense of moral ambiguity had been the crux of their operation. But it had gone to hell and there was nothing she could do but stand and wait, praying that they’d get out alive and it’s driving her insane.
There is a sudden, louder explosion overhead and a small shout escapes her lips, her heart sinking as the entire building seems to groan.
And then she sees it, a shadow through the smoke.
“Jones!” she yells as a form materialises in the plumes, a slow moving shadow that takes it’s time to edge through the smoke and take the form of Clinton almost carrying Neal. Diana’s reservations disappear in an instant and she rushes towards them, towards the driving heat.
The building groans again as she slides in around Neal’s other side, moving his other arm over her shoulder and her own around his waist to help take his weight. Neal seems to slump a little between them as she and Jones manoeuvre him closer to the car and out of the immediate vicinity of the building. The further they move away from the building the more seems to sink in. Her brain catching up with the bare seconds that have passed since the shadow had taken form and her common sense disappeared.
The pair of them are dirty as an understatement, covered in grey ash and Jones is coughing as they lower Neal to the ground against the car. Neal on the other hand even at a glance is far worse. The air catches in Diana’s lungs as she kneels down next to him, holding his weight and helping move him against the car. His eyes are half open and glassy and for a bare startling moment she can’t help but feel a rush of terror that maybe Jones was too late, but the pulse under her fingers as she touches his neck is thready but there and she breathes a sigh of relief as she holds his head upright, Neal lacking the strength to do it himself.
“He was on the second floor, handcuffed to the radiator,” Jones wheezes as he kneels down next to her. Diana nods and turns her attention back to Neal, the gaze that stares back at her is unfocussed as she tries to meet his eyes and it feels like he’s not there at all.
“Neal?” she murmurs. He’s like a rag doll, dirty and weak and as she runs her hand through his hair in some instinctive motion to calm him or herself, but her heart sinks as she pulls away, her hand bloody. That can’t be good, she thinks, but Jones is talking again and she glances his way. He looks exhausted and filthy and without him, Neal would be trapped and waiting for death if it hadn’t crept up on him in the time that’s passed since they arrived.
“There was a body near the other doorway. I didn’t get a chance to see who it was. The fire was getting in close.” Jones’ commentary stops as he breaks off to cough, but there is a faint wheezing that continues in the silence of his fit, and it’s only at Jones’ nod back at Neal that makes her realise its Neal struggling for breath.
“We have to get him on his back,” she mutters, eyeing Jones and hoping for a moment that he can’t see her panic. But she knows it’s clear as day, its spread across his face as well. A stunned fear at what’s happening, what has happened.
“Mind his hands,” Jones murmurs as she helps turn Neal, his body lolling without the support of the car and as they lay him on his back, while his breathing eases Diana’s shortens as she takes in what she didn’t see before. His suit is singed down the left side, focussed at the top where he had been forced to lean against the radiator, but further down the suit is torn and a darker shadow on the material whisper of injuries she doesn’t want to really find herself. His hands however, are red and blistered in patches from his wrists to his fingers.
As are Clinton’s, she notices as he helps her settle Neal straight.
“Burned them getting him unlocked,” her fellow agent says, offering a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes or hers.
“EMT should be here soon,” she says as a distraction, but whether it’s for herself or for him, she isn’t sure. All she knows is she needs them to come, because a part of her is panicking, a part of her that she really hasn’t felt since she was fourteen and had Charlie’s blood all over her fingers and she couldn’t stop screaming, even though there were NYPD milling around trying to pull her away and take her someplace safe. This useless panic was back. She hadn’t felt anything like this for Donald, she didn’t know what made this different, what made Neal different to the bodyguard she’d had when she was nineteen for nearly three years and that hadn’t really been a body guard but the only man she’d loved and the one who had taught her that the only person who could really protect her was herself. But he’d died what, six, seven years ago now, and she’d never felt so useless in all the time since as she did right then.
“Are you alright?” she asks Clinton, meeting his eyes. He looks like he’s in pain for the first time, and there’s something else, something that seems haunted about him; no longer than four minutes inside that building, and something’s changed him.
“Yeah,” Jones says, nodding. He turns his gaze back down to Neal.
“Just breathe, Neal,” he says down at the prone man and Diana takes that moment to look back the way they’d come in. She can’t help but hope that the sirens she can hear are actually coming and not all just wrapped up in her head because she wants them to be, desperately.
Neal breathes in deep at Jones’ command, which soothes her nerves a little, he might not be conscious but at least he’s alert enough that he can seemingly take orders, except his attempt to breathe in sends him into a coughing fit that makes his body tense under her fingers and makes Jones swear after the EMT’s. Neal is shaking when his coughing finally subsides and his eyelids flicker half closed as he seems to droop and Diana can’t help the tiny spark of fear that runs through her yet again. She looks up at Clinton and sees something similar, and then, then she hears the sound of sirens in the distance and she breathes a sigh.
***
The air is hot and each breath burns down his throat as Clinton moves through the hazy smoke filled corridor, pushing open every door he goes by. He can feel sweat sliding down his back, down the aching muscles as he tries to hold himself low beneath the rising smoke. He should be crawling, hell, he should be outside waiting for the real firemen and not some aloof FBI agent with a nine year old boys dreams riding on his shoulders. But he’s come this far and his stoicism stops him from running back, his loyalty stops him. He doesn’t know if he could live with himself if he turned back now and left Neal to the fire’s whims.
He’s coughing through his tie as he holds it against his mouth and starts up the stairs and into the second floor. There’s more smoke up here, and by Christ it’s hotter. The air seems to ripple and shift as he moves and he lets out a shout of alarm as he opens a door and a burst of heat fans out. It hits like a wave, crashing down on him and it takes him a moment enough to recover and then see something through the smoke. A body, slumped in the doorway. His stomach makes a break for his shoes as he runs into the room, fighting the heat and the smoke burning down his throat. He forces himself lower and he’s halfway across the room when he sees another shape further down the room, a man slumped against the wall, his hands held up above his head with something, secured firmly against the radiator. He shouts in a mixture of relief and something like sheer terror as he recognises the slumped figure. There’s just something about it that he makes out for Neal even before he can properly make out the hair or the shirt with its fancy tie, let alone his face, his head slumped down on his chest, his arms taught against where he’s held up against the wall.
“Neal?” Clinton calls as he runs over to his colleague. Neal doesn’t stir and if he could cross his fingers he would as he sneaks his hand out and feels for Neal’s pulse. It bites under his fingers and Clinton sighs in relief, slapping Neal’s face light enough to try and rouse him.
There must be someone looking out for them because Neal blinks under his touch again and tries to lift his head. There’s a moment when Clinton meets his eyes and something passes between them before Neal tries to take his own weight and he perks up, like a sudden hit of adrenaline was running through him.
Clinton turns his attention to the cuffs by then, a small smile turning his lips as he reaches for the cuffs to turn them with one hand as he searches for the key with his other. Neal makes a sound then, just a half second before Clinton touches the hot metal, but then he does and he pulls his hand away with a hiss. Neal tries to say something then, a croak that stops in his throat as he breaks off into a resounding cough that leaves his sudden strength starting to wane.
There’s really only one thing they can do; they have to get out. It’s a simple fact. Clinton reaches for his belt again, trying to stem the faint rising pain in his fingers as he pulls the key out and turns his attention back to Neal’s cuffs. Neal shakes his head then, that same warning sound echoing in his throat once again, but Clinton ignores him.
“Save your strength so we can get out,” he says, not looking at Neal, focussing on his movements, keeping them precise and needed as he feels his skin burning. It hurts, oh Christ how it hurts. The cuffs come away and for a terrifying second Clinton almost thinks Neal’s skin is about to come away with it, but it doesn’t. His wrists are raw and blistered and burns far worse than Clinton’s fingers, but he’s free and that’s the main thing he focuses on as he slides one arm around Neal and tries to lever him to his feet.
“Come on, Caffrey,” he murmurs and Neal tries to say something again that doesn’t come out as anything more than a wince of pain as they stumble back towards the staircase.
Not a minute too late as there’s a resounding crash behind them and the flames around the body in the doorway burn through and the floor starts to give way.
***
When Peter runs around the car all he can see is a slumped figure laid out on the ground behind a crush of EMT uniforms.
“Jones went in and got him. He’s inhaled a lot of smoke, he was bleeding too. I don’t know how bad. They had him handcuffed to a radiator upstairs.”
“Is Jones alright?”
“EMT have him in a bus, minor burns to his fingers and smoke inhalation, he’ll be fine. EMT’s only been here ten minutes. They haven’t had time to move him yet.” Diana’s sombre as she’s speaking and Peter feels distracted and damn angry and panicked as there’s a commotion in the tiny square of EMT’s and he watches as they finally move Neal to a stretcher and start him towards the bus.
Peter’s barely been at the scene all of five minutes and he’s already ready to leave.
“Peter Burke, FBI, how is he?” he asks bustling over just as they’re raising Neal into the ambulance. Peter has to force himself to swallow hard as he looks down at his partner. Neal’s eyes are closed, and he’s filthy, but he looks pallid and he looks empty and for a moment Peter wants to hit something.
“He needs a short ride to Emergency, Agent Burke, I suggest if you’re coming you get in,” the Ambulance officer tells him shortly and Peter casts a look at Diana who just nods and him. She can take care of everything here.
Peter gets into the Ambulance and the doors slam shut behind him.
***
Neal remembers the hospital. He knows the ins and outs of it well enough.
He knows the familiar stench of overly cleaned air and the burn of antiseptic and the crinkle of starched sheets.
When he first starts to rise out of the darkness he feels each one offered to him, one after the other, like his senses waking up and showing him which parts to focus on. The smells, the touch of familiar rough blankets, the sounds.
The sound of shoes squeaking on lino is not something he’s familiar with in this sort of situation. He knows the pace, the heavy worn steps of an anxious man, restricted by five steps and whatever was keeping him in the hospital bed.
Neal frowns as he tries to think who could possibly wait around in the hospital for him long enough to pace.
His thoughts come to him slowly. Not Kate, Kate never paced, she sat and bit her nails when she was really truly anxious about something. And she never walked that heavy. And Alex, Alex had only waited around long enough once. He’d saved her, and she’d waited for him then, but that had been at Mozzie’s. That hadn’t been here, in a hospital and Alex had never paced either. She was the type to stand in the corner and wait. Alex was an arms folded kind of girl.
Neal had never remembered Mozzie voluntarily going anywhere near something well established unless they were robbing it. Mozzie was the type to bring something to read. He never went without anything to keep him occupied.
The only person besides himself he’d ever known to pace was Peter.
Peter.
Neal frowns again and something must catch because the pacing stops then, but the shoes keep walking and there is an increase in speed, a change in direction and then three steps later they stop again.
“Neal?” His name is said softly, cautiously, like maybe it’s been said before, in the same tone and been unanswered. But it’s Peter. Peter who has always turned up, right when Neal doesn’t want him, at least it had been that way in the beginning, and every time Neal has needed him since; he can remember that now.
Peter was one to pace.
“Neal?” he tries again,
He tries to open his eyes then, because he still can’t see, he can smell antiseptic and clean air and he can smell Peter now too. He can feel a cautious hand on his arm as well and he tries to turn his head towards the touch and that’s enough to change Peter’s tone.
“Come on, buddy. Open your eyes for me, Neal. Come on.”
He tries then, tries to open them and it takes more effort than he’s willing to give, but then they’re open and the world is too bright so he shuts them and groans and gets a little laugh from Peter.
“Come on, Neal,” he says again, and Neal wants to push him away because he doesn’t appreciate being talked to like Satchmo. But then when he blinks again and he sees Peter’s face smiling down at him like it’s something to be proud of and that pesky annoyance starts to dissipate. Peter looks exhausted. There’s something about his face, something pinched that has Neal a little confused. Peter doesn’t give him enough time to ask why.
“I’ll be right back, buddy, okay? Right back.”
Neal doesn’t bother nodding, Peter disappears for a second anyway and maybe a minute passes Neal by, not that he’s sure or cares, he’s happy the world is empty for a moment, letting him get his balance back, because after darkness for so long even the idea of too much moving is almost too much altogether.
It’s an observation he confirms when Peter comes back in with a nurse and doctor on his heels and Neal has to endure not only Peter moving around the room, but them too, and they insist on moving him and asking him things that takes him a few moments to answer and has the lines on the doctors faces becoming a little more pronounced, and has Peter’s stance just further down Neal’s eyeline a little more taught.
In the end it’s explained to him slowly and surely so he understands and feels patronised enough to the extent Peter almost tells him off even though he doesn’t actually say anything, but then Neal sees Peter remember where they are and what he can’t and goes quiet.
It confuses him a little, how things played out because while the doctor said that considering the amount of smoke he inhaled its common he wouldn’t remember what had happened, but for someone who made a living out of remembering the minute details, who made a point of surviving out of minute details, the fact his memory is betraying him sets the entire world upside down.
“How often have you been home since I’ve been in here?” he asks Peter once the doctors have left. He can always ask them later if he thinks Peter’s lying to him. He almost expects Peter to lie to him.
“Almost since you came in.”
“You didn’t go home? What about Elizabeth?” he asks, unnerved by Peter’s honesty. He looks tired enough for Neal to believe him.
“ El came here. She’s been worried about you.”
“I’m alright.”
“You weren’t though,” Peter admonishes and Neal has to look away. He doesn’t really want to think about something he can’t remember. Being slammed into a wall and then handcuffed to a radiator in a burning building was not something he wanted to think about when he knows it’s happened and yet the memory nonexistent. He does however, want to thank Jones.
“I’ll send him over later,” Peter says and Neal nods. “He’s got a few days off, Diana says he’s called in bored already. I don’t think he’ll mind coming round.”
Neal shifts in his bed and the entire thing groans and creaks and for a moment he hates where he is and what’s happened and all of it. Then he makes himself stop. Because Peter’s not allowed to see him when he gets like that. Peter’s seen a lot, been through a lot with him. He knows that because while he can’t remember when had happened three and a half days ago, he can remember the last time he felt a blaze of heat against his back, when Kate disappeared from him almost within reach.
He remembers the explosion, and he remembers how much it hurt, but he doesn’t remember how he dealt with it, and he’s sure that he let something slip then.
He’s more in control now.
“Is this going to cause issue?” he asks after a moment, and thankfully Peter understands what he means, because Neal really doesn’t feel like explaining. He doesn’t feel like anything. They’ve got his morphine up just enough that everything he’s saying slurs and little and keeping his eyes open is hard and everything is a little hazy, but it’s enough to keep the pain at bay. He’s had more than enough burns in the past just from every day stupid things like every Tom Dick and Harry he could meet on the street. He doesn’t want to have to feel these. He doesn’t want to have to think about taking off the bandages either.
But he’ll have to deal with that later.
So instead he settles for murmuring a tiny “thank you,” to Peter as he starts to drift, and he feels Peter’s hand on his arm tighten a little as he answers.
“I’ve never lost a man, Neal, I’ll be damned if you’re the one to break that on me.”
And he knows then, that even though he can’t remember, he doesn’t have to.
He’s safe.