Chapter Text
He wakes slowly.
There’s a haze over his lethargic state of mind that tells him he’d had more than just a taste like he had planned to last night. The ache behind his eyes hits when he sits up, as does the brief stint of nausea Neal figures he’ll quell with some dry toast for breakfast and the ginger ale hopefully still shoved in the back of his fridge.
His focus isn’t on his apartment around him, so it takes Neal the time it takes to make his bed until he sees Peter’s form slumped over on his couch.
To his credit, he’s still vaguely hazy from waking up (and the alcohol), but he has to take at least a few seconds to remember the previous night.
Pills. Bordeaux. His hat? No, that can’t be right, it’s resting on the back of a dining room chair. Peter’s calm voice reassuring him as he falls into bed. The worry lacing his tone, hidden like one might hide the truth from their young, naïve child.
Against all better judgment, he calls, “Peter?” in as close to a normal tone as he can.
Neal slaps on a trademark tight-lipped grin on his face, eyebrows raised, as if to show off his child-like demeanor when Peter stares at him. He had only gotten as far as to take his jacket off. It seems he’d changed after work and before he came here, but ratty jeans aren’t the best thing to fall asleep in regardless, and certainly no better than dress pants. “Morning, sleepyhead,” he chides.
“You’re the one with a hangover,” Peter mumbles, rising and rubbing the sleep from his face.
Neal chuckles like nothing happened, because it’s easier than accepting the weakness he’s shown. “Half a bottle of Bordeaux isn’t going to make me blackout drunk.”
“Of course you’re not a lightweight.” Peter smooths out the wrinkles from his shirt as he stands. Neal’s moved to the kitchen, begins brewing coffee, because busy hands keep them from shaking when the anxiety inevitably hits.
Peter joins him in the kitchenette, straying a few feet behind. “Are we going to forget about last night?”
“Is that an option?”
Peter raises an unamused eyebrow. “What do you think?”
Neal, letting the coffee percolate in front of him, finds the courage to turn and look Peter in the eye. He grips the counter behind him with both hands before they shake. “It was a moment of weakness, Peter. It won’t happen again.”
“I have a hard time believing that.”
He feels his hands grow unsteady. He shoves them in the pockets of his sweatpants. “I was tipsy, and not in my right mind, so I had a breakdown. What more do you want me to say?”
Peter follows closely behind. Emotions aren’t his forte, but it seems that worry overrules disability. “I want you to tell me what you were planning to do with the pills I found you with.”
“Kill myself, Peter,” he deadpans before he knows what he’s saying. “That’s a joke, it’s not-”
“But true.”
“No!” Neal grumbles. He runs a hand over his face in frustration. “No. I wasn’t going to kill myself, Peter.”
“Yet you had prescription pills in your hand that certainly weren’t yours!”
“June left them here.”
“You clearly didn’t return them,” Peter argues. Neal begins pacing.
He wants to tell Peter everything. Every emotion he’s denied having, every thought he’s pushed away, all the times he wished himself away. He wants somebody to know, because he’s tired of ignoring his own mind.
But he’s not sure he can make himself.
Instead of admitting to all of it, like the child in him wishes, Neal whispers, “What do you expect from me?” Neal drops into the nearest dining room chair. Peter joins him, and he thinks this is where they were sitting last night. “I’ve been on the run from the feds, I’ve been to prison multiple times, I’ve lost too many people, a little bit of weakness is expected now and then.”
Peter doesn’t seem phased. Neal knows he is anyway. “Weakness means you need to ask for help, Neal.”
He snorts. “What Hallmark card did you get that one from?”
“It’s true.”
And Neal drops his head in his hand, sighing softly. “Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you ever talk to anyone before I had to walk in on you with a bottle of pills in your hand?”
“I told you, I didn’t really think I would take them.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that you were thinking about it.” Peter attempts to catch his eye; Neal only complies for a moment. “So why didn’t you talk to anyone?”
“I never did before.” Peter looks at him, questioning. Neal tries to focus on the light shining through the window behind him instead of the inevitable conversation he’s about to have. His hands still shake. “I grew up with a mom who didn’t see me, and the closest thing I got was an aunt who couldn’t mother me every second of my childhood. I’m not exactly the posterboy for emotional support.”
He stands to get the coffee. “Some habits can’t be nipped.”
“I’ve seen you come back from being a thief, Neal, I think you can learn to lean on people.”
Neal laughs wryly. “I’m hardly what you’d call reformed, that’s not really a good example.”
“But it’s still something.” Peter accepts the coffee given to him with a nod. “There’s an FBI psychologist available-”
“I’m not going to see a shrink, Peter,” he interrupts, quickly taking a sip of his own coffee.
“I’m just saying it’s available.” And with the same fear he saw last night through an alcoholic haze, he continues, “You scared me. I don’t want to have to experience that again if either of us can help it.”
And of course, if there’s anything that will change his mind, anything to make him care, it’ll be Peter. Every single time, it’ll always be Peter.
As they lapse into silence, Neal decides that the embarrassment could be worse. It’s the bitterness, the desire to forget it all happened, that’s far stronger. The part of him that never got to be a child, never got to be nurtured in the way he wishes he could, begs to accept the help, the comfort.
The hardened adult in him reminds himself that he shouldn’t need help.
It occurs to him that it’s Saturday, and he can hardly convince Peter to leave under the pretense of work. He supposes he’ll make the best of it, and in the process, convince Peter that he’s fine. Because he is. It was a moment of weakness.
“Breakfast?” he inquires after a few more moments of silence. Peter nods, a quiet thank you on his lips as he takes another sip. “Isn’t Elizabeth wondering where you are?” he tries, hoping his wife will give Neal an excuse to kick him out and forget.
“I told her where I was last night, and she’s going out to breakfast with a friend.” Something in Peter’s smile is a little too nefarious for a lawman. “I’ve got all morning.”
“ Great, ” Neal mutters to himself, pulling out a carton of eggs from the fridge. “Omelet?”
If Peter wants to argue, he doesn’t, just lets Neal make him an omelet, drinks his coffee, and moves on.
The conversation isn’t over. He knows this, because Peter texts him the next day, just to talk about nothing, and cuts him a little more slack on Monday when Neal complains about the cold cases dropped on his desk. He knows because Peter sees him as a human again, a thing that breaks, a thing that needs love.
He’s awkward, and doesn’t really know how to go about it, but Peter cares.
(Neal likes to think he keeps up his hardened demeanor; but the child in him that begs for attention gets a win once in a while, and Neal stops trying to pretend he doesn’t enjoy being cared about.)