Chapter Text
The laughter in the distance is grating and so is the stench of cigarettes.
If only the floor wasn’t so cold… Neal shifts so he's lying on his stomach. The concrete underneath him is damp and the musty smell reminds him of the couch he slept on as a child. There were always glasses on the coffee table. A lighter. Crumpled dollar bills. Sweet’n Low. A view across the city through colourless bottles and half open blinds. Whatever is pulsating through his body burns with an energy so bright he can almost see it flowing through his veins, into cells and platelets and bone, but he can't move, can't make it dissipate. His skin prickles with sweat and soon he starts to cool and shiver, hard enough that he almost longs for the unbroken heat of his childhood, the endless sunbaked streets and airless motel rooms. At least there were rules back then, certain inevitabilities.
He spits onto the floor and sparks light in his vision. The green is soft and the orange is crisp. White flares across the edges and it looks like a picture taken in harsh sunlight. Kate always took pictures like that, or on the wrong setting, or with a shake, or a blur, or a thumb…
There’s a hand tapping his face, he realizes, and it startles him.
“…yet, pal?”
In the grey-blue light he can see a pair of eyes, hard and unyielding – and a mouth.
Neal says something and the words float across the room in a surprisingly soft, delicate cursive, surreal in its simple beauty; he recognizes it instantly from the notes he used to forge on a Wednesday afternoon. Perhaps this is why he is so good at what he does, Neal thinks suddenly, if all his words look as pleasing and as gentle as this. The man evidently doesn’t agree, and there is another hard slap to his face, then a sharp bite to his arm that makes his eyes water.
He works his jaw tiredly – perhaps the words just need to take on a different shape today – but if he makes any sound, Neal himself doesn’t hear it.
Everything has been replaced by heaviness now, a numb weight that ties his limbs to the floor; it’s disconcerting in its completeness and he wonders if he is actually sinking into the ground itself, a little bit at a time. Maybe he’s dead, or dying, or somewhere in between, though he never imagined it would feel like this; the only death he has ever known has been quick and sudden, an explosion of ash and gunfire. A folded American flag, twelve by eight by four. Golden tassels in the conference room. Peter’s hand on his shoulder. Peter’s hand on his back. Peter’s hand encircling his arm.
Neal wants to call out for him, desperately wants Peter to be here with him in this disquieting place because he is solid and unyielding in a completely different way. Peter wouldn’t let him die like this.
But…there’s blood on his lips and he’s still sinking.
Where is he?
What do you know?
There’s the ground, the leaves outside, and there was the cold and the heat; they are basic components of life, but none of them seem remotely familiar.
Neal scrapes his nails along the space beside his body to check the ground is still beneath him, but only finds air. His nails must have sparked on something though, because the lights are back, and Neal watches in rapture as the flecks of colour simultaneously fade and reignite before him, neon, like fireflies dancing in the dark.
*
The sealed plastic bags were neatly laid out in rows across the table.
A quiet moment passed before Peter reached for one. Inside was a charcoal-grey suit jacket, elegantly tailored, modern, dirty and slightly bloodstained. The next bag contained a broken cell phone, the screen fractured and darkly glinting. Another held a blue, patterned silk tie, and the last, just three shirt buttons, the remnants of a thread, frayed and wispy, caught in the corner of the plastic. “This everything?” Peter eventually asked the man still hovering by the door of the conference room, surprised at how hoarse his voice sounded.
The man stepped forward. “Uh, it is, Sir. If you could just sign here and…here.”
Peter scrawled on the two ‘x’ marks without really looking and the man took his clipboard and left, onto another delivery, another case. Peter looked back at the table and hesitated again. His hands felt like they were shaking but he knew they weren't.
“Maybe you should take a break, Peter. Let me do this.”
Peter glanced at Diana who was standing next to him, face pinched with concern. “I’m fine.”
“No one will think anything of it.” Diana paused. “I’m sure Neal would tell you the same thing.”
“Yeah, if he were here, which he’s not,” Peter said, instantly regretting it. He ran a hand over his face and let out a short breath, trying to even out the tension in his body. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean - ”
“Already forgotten,” Diana said. She gave him a brief smile. “Let’s just take it slowly.”
Peter nodded gratefully before returning his focus to the solemn collection of items in front of him. He’d been snapping at everyone recently, but any attempt to divert him from the task at hand, no matter how well meaning or valid, was unwelcome. He didn’t want to rest, or sleep, or sit down to eat a meal; those were ordinary things, they wouldn’t bring them any closer to a resolution. Breaking the seal to the bag containing the ruined suit jacket, Peter carefully pulled it out, but as the cold fabric unfolded he caught the faint, familiar scent of Neal’s aftershave – something clean and expensive - and his resolve crumbled. He gently pushed the jacket back into the plastic and laid it down.
Leaving Neal's possessions - the evidence - in Diana’s capable hands, he walked purposefully through the bullpen, taking the elevator down to the ground floor and out - savouring the relief of the cool autumnal air and the noise of the city. Instinctively, Peter started along the familiar path towards a coffee shop he and Neal frequented but caught himself, turning to walk back along the avenue. As he moved through the crowded streets, he laid out the facts in his mind, one by one, replaying the chain of events that had led them all to this intolerable place.
There had been no illusions that the case would be straightforward when the National Security Branch first approached them over two weeks ago. Working alongside Organized Crime, the NSB had got word from an anonymous tip that a large shipment of illegal weapons was making its way from Russia to the US, destined for the streets of New York, Baltimore, Washington, and the Russian gang in charge had been looking for some perfectly forged customs papers to smooth their way. The two Americans tasked with the job had already been arrested in Seattle, their communications with the gang intercepted, and along with an agent from Organized Crime, Neal had been sent into that meeting posing as one of the original forgers.
Peter had misgivings from the start.
The gang had received a basic description of one of the men in an email to facilitate the meeting that had been arranged to barter the terms and conditions of the deal; to everyone’s unease, the agent who best fitted the description was a rookie, Tom Richards. Tom was about Neal’s age, and very green, very eager to please. He had an exemplary record, two impressive degrees, one from Harvard and one from Columbia, but none of the street smarts Neal possessed, none of the verve.
Neal, however, had been surprisingly unperturbed by his new partner. “Everyone’s got to start somewhere,” was what he’d said when Peter asked. It was true, of course, but that hadn’t made things any easier. The gang was known for its volatility, for its willingness to kill first and ask questions later, and for the high level of suspicion with which outsiders were treated; a silver tongue and nerves of steel were essential requirements, expensive pieces of paper from the Ivy League were not.
Seven days ago, under a blazing late September sunset, Neal and Richards had met with five gang members beside a warehouse on the outskirts of Jersey City. As far as clandestine gang meetings tend to go, it had started smoothly enough. Neal’s instincts about Richards had been right, and the rookie held his own under Neal’s subtle guidance, but a phone call received by one of the gang members in the middle of negotiations had soured the mood; it had been a tipoff and within seconds all hell had broken loose. The FBI had reached the warehouse in time to find Richards unconscious and a trail of Neal’s belongings leading to a patch of asphalt marred by violent acceleration marks.
Peter pulled up short at the memory, finding himself at the entrance to Columbus Park. The air was bright and sharp after the earlier rain; blackened clouds moved sluggishly across the pale sky with promises of more, the ground treacherously slick with fallen leaves. It still wan't clear what had happened to cause the panic; there was no way for the Russians to know about the earlier arrests and there was nothing in the communications between the FBI and the gang that would raise suspicion. Most likely it had just been a foot soldier getting edgy, or one desperate to impress.
Neal’s voice had still been audible over the wire for a time, as they'd raced to the warehouse. They could hear his persuasive bartering, words designed to take the heat away from a then floundering Richards, to fill out the time until backup could arrive, and the note of panic when he realised it wouldn’t be enough; that sound echoed in Peter's ears constantly.
Taking a seat on a bench just inside the perimeter of the park, Peter watched as a couple of small children chased pigeons across the grass, their shiny yellow rain boots so pristine they could have only been bought that day. He smiled at their squeals of delight as they revelled in their newfound power, but the smile felt strange and hollow on his face. It had been seven days with no leads, no contact, no ransom or demand, with known gang members being followed without success and the harbour police trawling the waterways and riverbanks watchfully.
Peter avoided thinking about why the gang decided to take Neal instead of killing him on the spot. He tried not to think about what they wanted from him, or to imagine how much Neal would be willing to take before he gave.
*
The cold still takes his breath away, like every time before; there is simply no way to acclimatise to this.
Despite the shock of the freezing water, his mind remains foggy, clouded by the remnants of whatever has been coursing through his veins. He can feel bruises on his body now, but has no idea how they got there. Time is fractured and hazy, this moment bearing no demarcation to whatever came before. He has been asleep, or something like it, for what can only be described as an endless amount of space, not time, and that ambiguity is as unsettling as it is frustrating. But now there is a knee in his back, hands crowding his body and water in his nose, and as he counts the seconds, all he wishes for is that vast, endless black space. His chest is starting to ache viciously, lungs bursting for air, and even though he knows it's pointless, Neal tries instinctively to pull away, to wrestle his hands from their human binds and claw his way from this nightmare.
After another long, excruciating moment, the hand holding the back of his head grabs his hair roughly and Neal drags in a shuddering, gasping breath the second he is pulled from the tub of water. He coughs until he retches, trembling so violently that he barely notices the man, Dominick, has moved towards him until he is forced up against the wall.
“Refreshing, no?” Dominik poses the question conversationally, as though he has just offered Neal a gin spritzer.
Neal has no air in his lungs to reply.
“What do you know, huh? How much does the FBI know about us?” His accent is a strange hybrid, a little European, a little East Coast, and Neal still can’t quite place it. “Sam,” Dominik drags out each letter in his lilting, smoke roughened voice, elongating the word. “We both know your federal buddies aren’t coming for you. All you have to do is give me the name of the guy who snitched and you can go.”
Neal laughs breathlessly despite himself. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
Neal shakes his head, gritting his teeth to stop them from chattering. “I'm just a forger." He coughs and spits onto the floor. "I thought we were going to do business. I can still make the papers you want, we can figure this out - ”
“You’re awfully tricky for a forger," Dominik says, almost as if Neal hadn't spoken. "Most forgers don’t learn how to pick locks or know how to override an electronic keypad, but an FBI agent might.”
Neal's breath catches in his throat. He'd made it out, before, heart pounding in his ears, hands trembling and much too slow. That brief, devastating glimpse of the outside world, the labyrinth of trees that stretched out into the distance and the swirl of birds overhead still persists in Neal's mind, the shock never quite fading.
Dominik takes Neal’s hand in his, wrapping his fingers over the tips of Neal’s own; to an outside observer, it might look like a crude gesture of affection. “Are these the hands of a forger, a locksmith, or a federal agent?” He starts to squeeze, pushing Neal’s hand at awkward angle. “Just give me a name.” Dominik tightens his grip in response to Neal’s silence. “I won’t ask again.”
Neal sets his jaw and says nothing. They've been at this a while, but he’s dealt with enough people like this in his life to know that there isn't anything he can do or say that will make this go any differently.
Dominik smiles humourlessly. “Okay.” He wrenches Neal’s wrist back; there’s an audible crack as a wave of electricity pulses through his fingers and up his arm. The pain explodes half a second later and he can’t breathe, choking on every inhalation until he wants to be sick. He sobs, once, twice, unable to stop himself, the shock of the pain completely and utterly overwhelming. The world narrows down to a pinpoint, stripped of colour and shape as he teeters on the edge of consciousness, the sound of his own harsh breathing filling his ears until it's like he's drowning in white noise. " - what happens, Sam, when you continue to lie." Dominick is shouting somewhere in the distance. "This is what you make me do - "
Through the dark edges crowding his vision, Neal catches sight of something metallic, glinting. He's still too dazed to react as Dominik's men move forward. His good arm is bent in front of him awkwardly and there's the familiar sting of a needle being threaded through his skin. He starts to fight then, kicking out blindly, pointlessly, trying to twist out of their grasp. But as he struggles, he feels something bump against his knuckles: a cell phone.
These two fingers, like tweezers.
Without thinking, Neal pulls the phone from the man’s shirt pocket and slides it underneath himself, the crush of the two bodies on top of him disguising the movement. There's a sudden explosion across his jaw as one of the men's fists connects squarely, stunning him with the rattling force. Blood wells in his mouth as he feels the needle plunge into his arm and the cold flush of the drug in his veins.
“A little sodium penthothal.” Dominik’s voice floats across the room, suddenly calm and unaffected once again. “Does wonders for people who aren’t very chatty.”
Neal’s heart starts to slow, the beat of it in his ears strangely distorted like a record playing at the wrong speed. A moment later he's released and allowed to drop back against the wall, searching for purchase as the lines of the room start to waver. The drug sinks into his body quickly, but the pain and adrenaline are still enough to keep him tethered to this moment, panicked with the certainty that he gets out now or never.
Dominic smiles benignly. “Talk to you in a little while, Sammy.”
As soon as the door is slammed shut, Neal forces himself to move. The phone is unlocked, a cheap burner. He types in the number of Peter’s cell, not daring to make a call, no matter how desperately he wants to hear Peter’s voice, wants to be spoken to with kindness, to be told it's all going to be okay even if it isn't. His thumbs are clumsy, his vision swimming, but eventually he sends the message and skims the phone across the room towards the door, chipping it on the wall so that it looks like it had been dropped in the earlier scuffle. He collapses then, finally falling into the soft nothingness. It's disquieting; his body feels weightless, doped, but his mind is growing increasingly unsettled, like there are a thousand words bubbling up to the surface, begging for release.
Time slips, and suddenly Dominik is there again with his laconic smile. “Feeling better, pal?” He crouches down next to Neal, stinking of cigarette smoke and fresh air. “C’mon, tell me who snitched. Give me a name.”
As the sensation intensifies, Neal tries to focus in on one thing, a word, a number, a phrase, something he can repeat in his mind or scream out loud if he has to.
“Just a name.”
Red sky at night, shepherd's delight; red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning
You can't run with the hare and hunt with the hounds
A swarm in May is worth a load of hay; a swarm in June is worth a silver spoon; but a swarm in July is not worth a fly
“Just a name.”
*
It was like a starting pistol had been fired and suddenly everything was in motion. The surface water from the rain soaked streets crashed discordantly against the wheel arches of the car as they sped along the highway, sending plumes of vapour up into the air. The roar of the engine and the water were the only sounds as they travelled in tense silence, focusing, waiting, preparing. The text had come in just over an hour ago and the signal being triangulated from the cell phone died thirty minutes after that. An unknown Jersey number and two heart stopping letters: NC.
They reached the dilapidated industrial building on the outskirts of Plainfield where the signal had last pinged just as the sun was starting to drop into a bruised horizon. Peter’s stomach lurched as they rounded the corner to find two local squad cars parked in the driveway and four officers standing idly by. The red and blue emergency lights flashed silently, illuminating the scarred surfaces of the building. Peter threw his door open before Diana could pull to a complete stop and hit the ground running.
He flashed his badge as he neared the officers. “Have you been inside?”
One of the officers nodded. “Yes, Sir. There’s nobody here, but there are signs of recent activity. There's a modern keypad entry system on the doors and an alarm, but nothing was armed." He gestured towards the road, unhurried. "We got squad cars out patrolling the area in case - ”
Peter ignored him and continued forward, sliding open the heavy metal door and stepping inside.
The building was unlit and completely still. A single corridor led off from a central room where broken furniture and trash littered the concrete floor. Beer cans. Yellowed take-out cartons. Newspapers stained and curling at the edges. Broken glass. They advanced down the corridor, past a make-shift washroom on the right, a tub filled with murky water, checking the building methodically. A heavy atmosphere lingered in the building despite its apparent desertion, like a ghost ship drifting aimlessly in the currents, calm after a storm of violence.
Finally, they reached the last room at the south end. There was a deadbolt on the door, but it wasn't locked. Swinging open with a whine, it revealed a dank and windowless room not much bigger than an elevator car. The room appeared empty at first glance, but as they swept their flashlights across the floor Peter spotted a shirt lying discarded in the corner. He and Diana shared a look as they moved further into the room. Retrieving a pen from his jacket, Peter flicked the material over so that the label was visible: designer, the right size. “It’s Neal’s,” he said, a sharp pang of fear striking through his body; there was blood on the collar. “This is the place. He was here.”
Diana nodded. “Something spooked them.”
There were footsteps in the corridor and Jones appeared in the doorway. “Jersey PD just got a report of a suspicious vehicle driving erratically on a back road three miles north of here.”
*
Light had faded dramatically by the time they reached the empty stretch of road where the vehicle was last sighted. Rain had once again started to fall, great slanted sheets that splintered into the earth. Dense woodland crowded in on both sides, perpetuating the darkness. A radio borrowed from the Jersey police buzzed and chattered quietly in the background as the patrol cars periodically checked in with each other. Peter stared out ahead, trying and failing to see anything beyond the rusty stains on Neal's shirt - wide streaks down the back, and more on the cuffs and hem. The fabric had been stiff with it.
They drove for a further two miles. Then, as they approached a downward curve in the highway their headlights started picking up small bits of debris on the road. Diana slowed the car, and as they exited the corner they were confronted with the wreckage of a sedan lying in the middle of the road. It had clearly pinballed across the two lanes, if the trail of destruction was anything to go by, impacting the crash barrier on one side before bouncing off the other and spinning around to half face the wrong direction. The front end was concertinaed in, the hood popped open, and the glass from the front windows had shattered entirely, leaving a glimmering sheen over the wet asphalt. Diana hit the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road with a screech of tires that suddenly made Peter realise how quiet it was; there were no raised voices, no cries for help. The acrid stench of burnt rubber and petroleum hung in the air.
A heavy weight settled in Peter's chest, the desire to find Neal competing fiercely with the hope that this wasn't the right car, or that he'd somehow escaped beforehand and karma really was a bitch.
They advanced slowly, guns drawn. The car doors were all open, apart from the driver’s side, which was clearly crumpled beyond use, but it quickly became obvious that the car was empty. They moved further around to the where the back end was resting over the white line of the hard shoulder and Peter’s heart stuttered as he registered the sight before him; sitting against the crash barrier several metres away, a gun in his hand, was Neal.
It took a split second for Peter to move from where he was rooted to the spot. “Neal,” he shouted hoarsely, then, louder, “Neal.”
Neal’s grip on the gun tightened as he looked up. Peter stopped dead as he caught Neal’s devastated expression, waving for Jones and Diana to stay behind him. Even from this distance Peter could see his breathing was quick and shaky, his eyes dark and unfocused. There was blood in his hair, streaming down the side of his face, and more, dried stains on his chin and the front of his t-shirt. Peter holstered his weapon and approached slowly but steadily. The gun was resting on Neal’s knee, not aimed at anyone, but his finger remained curled loosely around the trigger.
“Neal? Neal, it’s Peter, okay?”
Neal looked up warily as Peter crouched down in front of him.
“Hey, it’s okay, it’s me, it’s me.” Peter smiled and moved closer, his shoes crunching on the broken glass, and gestured to the gun. “I’m just going to take this for you, okay?”
Neal shook his head, but didn’t otherwise move. “I need it. They might come back.” His voice was totally shot.
“They’re not coming back, I promise. You’re safe now.” He kept his tone soft and even, cautious of letting his own fear bleed through. “Anyway, I’ve got my gun, so you don’t need yours anymore, all right?”
A tense moment passed as Neal’s eyes flittered over Peter’s holster, before he gave a jerky nod. Peter reached out and gently pulled the gun from Neal’s unresisting fingers, passing it to Diana who had moved to crouch beside him. He could hear Jones in the background calling for backup and an ambulance. Peter shrugged out of his coat and draped it around Neal’s shoulders, mindful of his injuries; there was clearly something wrong with his right arm, the way it was cradled against his body, but the thin t-shirt he was wearing was soaked through and there was nothing on his feet to protect against the cold besides a pair of black socks.
“Peter?” Neal’s quiet voice pulled his focus. “I don’t understand.”
Peter took his scarf from his pocket and pressed it against the freely bleeding cut on Neal’s forehead. He could now see that Neal’s pupils were far too dilated, even in the dim light, and his anxiety escalated. “That’s okay, don’t worry, don't worry. Do you remember what happened? Did you hit your head?”
Neal looked him in the eye then, for the first time since they had been there together on that sodden road, and the fear Peter could see made his throat constrict. Neal shook his head slowly. “It was like this when I got here. I’m - I'm not - I don't - ” It seemed as though the words were being shaken out by the force of Neal's shivering, a painful, uncontrollable litany.
Placing a hand on the back of Neal’s head, Peter carefully folded him into his arms and Neal sunk into Peter's hold as if he were the only tangible thing left in the world, his body a freezing, tremulous weight. In the distance, the sound of the other units arriving could be heard, a strange, wailing chorus of sirens, steadily drowning out Neal’s breathing and the patter of the rain.