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White Collar fic: Black Water
Title: Black Water
Fandom: White Collar
Word Count: 4000
Pairing/Rating: PG, gen
Summary: Written for this prompt at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
whitecollarhc. Also for the "drowning" square on my h/c bingo card. Car chases on ice are a bad idea.
Cross-posted: http://archiveofourown.org/works/343254
Freezing rain had turned the entire city into a skating rink, and Neal nearly faceplanted on the sidewalk when he stepped out of Peter's car.
"Smooth," Peter remarked, though his eyes were on the building towering above them. It just figured, Neal thought, that Peter's multitasking talent included the ability to mock Neal and catch lawbreakers at the same time.
"Laugh it up," Neal said, recovering himself against the side of the car. "When you go for a cool macho tackle and end up falling on your ass, I'll be right there taking pictures."
Peter snorted, and walked with care up the ice-slicked sidewalk. It was drizzling gently now, making the footing even more treacherous, especially in the early winter dusk.
"You really think LaVeau is our forger?" Neal asked as he caught up, turning up the collar on his coat. "There's not a shred of evidence connecting him to the money-laundering operation."
"Only because we haven't found it yet," Peter said. "Instinct says he's guilty. And I trust my instincts. But," he added, "we're just here to talk to him, nothing else."
He tapped on the door. There was a sharp, furtive rustle, then silence.
"Mark LaVeau?" Peter called. "I'm Special Agent Peter Burke, FBI. I'd like to talk to you."
After a brief pause, there was a crash and the sound of pounding footsteps. Peter glanced at Neal, raising his eyebrows; Neal met his gaze and then both of them leaned forward to peek through the window in the door.
In the brief moment that he had to look around, Neal saw furniture knocked over, a lamp lying shattered on the floor. Then Peter swore, pushed Neal aside with one hand and tried the doorknob, then delivered a hard kick to the door. A second kick splintered the doorframe and sent the door rebounding off the wall. Warm air washed over them, along with the coppery smell of blood.
Peter, gun in hand, knelt to feel for a pulse in the neck of the figure lying crumpled on the carpet. Neal hung back, but he recognized the guy, and knew Peter did too -- it was one of their informants in the money-laundering ring.
"Where the hell did he go? Is there a back door?" Peter spun in place, drawing his phone out of his pocket and punching a preset one-handed. "Jones? We're at LaVeau's place and we've got a dead body. We need backup yesterday." Outside, an engine revved. "In pursuit," Peter said, "keep you posted --" and then his foot hit the ice on the sidewalk and, as Neal had predicted, he lost his balance and went flat on his back.
Unfortunately it wasn't funny anymore, and all Neal did was help him up. As he did so, a black Hummer -- ostentatious anywhere, but ridiculously so in New York City -- came tearing from somewhere near the house and roared down the street, skidding at the corner.
"Neal, stay here!" Peter snapped, sliding the last few feet to the car and slamming into the hood. "Jones is on the way -- what are you doing?" Neal had slipped into the passenger seat and was reaching for his belt. "Did you not just hear me say Stay here? This is the year's worst night for a car chase."
"So don't!" Neal retorted. "You'll get yourself killed."
"Right, because getting us both killed is much better. Neal, get out of the car! I don't have time to argue -- he's getting away!"
Neal, in reply, buckled his seat belt.
"I don't believe this," Peter muttered, and peeled away from the curb with only a little skidding. "Don't distract me, okay?"
"Don't worry," Neal muttered, sinking his fingers into the fabric of the seat and wondering what in the world he had been thinking. In theory, at least, it made sense not to let Peter chase an armed killer around the frozen streets of the city all by himself. In practice, he hoped it didn't go down in history as the last bad idea he ever had.
The Hummer was immediately visible, far down the street. Peter closed on it rapidly, then lost ground again when it took evasive action, swinging down a smaller street.
"Looks like he's heading for the harbor," Peter murmured. Neal glanced sideways at him; Peter's grip was white-knuckled on the steering wheel. "Neal, call Jones and tell him to track your anklet."
There was a moment of disbelieving silence on the other end of the line when Neal stopped talking. Only the traffic noises in the background let him know they hadn't been disconnected before Jones finally said, "Are you telling me you're actually trying to chase him down in this weather?"
"Well, Peter is. I'm just along for the ride."
"You're both insane."
"You're just now figuring that out?"
"For God's sake, be careful," Jones said.
"You're telling me?" Neal muttered as he hung up. He looked ahead and frowned at the lack of taillights. "Hey, where'd he go?"
"I don't know!" Peter snapped. "It's a goddamn maze."
They broke out of the warehouses onto the edge of the harbor. Lights glittered on the far shore. Peter looped the car around; Neal winced as they slid all too close to a flimsy-looking guardrail, but Peter grimly fought the steering wheel and skidded to a halt. "Damn it," Peter muttered, "where the hell did he --"
Headlights flicked on suddenly between two of the warehouses, bathing the interior of the car in brilliant light. Neal got as far as "Peter, look ou--" before the Hummer slammed into the driver's side of the car with a terrific crunch. The Taurus slewed sideways into the guardrail and, with a shriek of rending metal, they were airborne. The world spun; then a shuddering impact rattled the car.
For a moment Neal was paralyzed with shock, dimly aware of everything around him but unable to move. Then the bitter cold of ice water drenching his legs brought him back to himself in a hurry.
"Peter!"
There was no answer. The interior of the car was completely dark; the engine had died and the Taurus was listing at a steep angle towards the driver's side. Neal could feel water pouring over his knees.
Neal unfastened his seat belt and groped through the darkness, gasping as the ice-cold water swallowed his legs and crept up his hips. "Peter!" He touched Peter's face, gripped his shoulder, and shook him. Peter flinched violently.
"What --" Peter said blearily, as Neal felt down his friend's body, plunging his hands into the cold water, trying to find Peter's seat belt and follow it down to the buckle. He wished he could see -- the sense of touch was all he had, and his fingers were rapidly going numb.
"Neal," Peter said. He leaned forward, his hair brushing the side of Neal's face. "You okay?"
"I'll live," Neal said, and then wished he'd chosen different words. "How can I help?"
Peter fended him off. "Forget this. I've got it. Get your door open before the water pressure blocks it."
Reluctantly Neal twisted away from Peter, stretching in the darkness until, with some effort, he found his door handle. The water in the car was already sloshing around his waist, and throwing his weight against the door had no effect. The power window controls still worked, though, contrary to everything he'd read -- well, for a moment, at least; the window went down halfway and then stopped working.
"Window's stuck," Neal said between his teeth. "Hang on, gonna try to break it."
"Maglite," Peter said. Neal could hear him squirming around, presumably trying to get free. "Backseat."
The front of the car had begun to tilt steeply downward. Neal fought down a rush of panic -- it was like being entombed alive in a coffin that was rapidly filling up with water. He stretched over the backseat and groped until he found the big, heavy flashlight. A few hard blows to the half-open window cracked and then shattered the glass.
"Window's out," Neal said. Reaching through the window to crack loose the larger chunks of glass, he could feel water already lapping against the top of the door. They had seconds, no more -- once the water was over the door, he had little doubt that the car would sink almost instantly. "You ready to go?"
"No." And Neal could hear the ruthlessly suppressed panic under that single strained word.
Twisting around in his seat, he reached for Peter again and found that the water was up to Peter's collarbone. The seat belt was loose; Neal almost got his arm wrapped in it as it twisted snakelike in the water. So what the hell was holding him in? Neal's half-numb fingers touched Peter's billowing jacket, and metal, and Peter's thigh -- in the darkness, it took Neal a moment to put the pieces together and understand what he was feeling. The door, Neal thought, sick with sudden horror, the door buckled when LaVeau hit us; he's pinned.
"Neal," Peter said, his voice tight, "you're between me and the window, so I can't leave until you do. Get out. I'll be right behind you."
"Uh-huh." Neal braced one hand against the seat, his arm pressed against Peter's ribs, so that he could slide a hand down between the door and Peter's thigh, trying to pry him loose. He couldn't get any leverage, and in the water, it was impossible to tell if Peter was bleeding. For all he knew, the twisted edges of the door could be embedded in Peter's leg. Neal had a brief, nightmare vision of dragging Peter free only to rip his thigh open, Peter's life pouring out into the cold water.
"Go," Peter said. He was still moving, struggling to free himself from his metal prison, but his lips were close to Neal's ear and his breath stirred Neal's hair. "That's an order, Neal."
"I am not," Neal said through clenched teeth, "leaving without -- dammit!" His hand slipped; he could feel sharp edges of metal or plastic rip through his skin, but in the cold water it didn't really hurt -- it was a strange, disconnected feeling, like paper tearing, nothing to do with him.
Peter caught Neal's injured hand, his fingers closing around Neal's, squeezing. "Go," he said gently, and then a wave broke over Neal from behind. The angle of the car changed again, rolling back towards the passenger's side as it swamped rapidly through the open window. Neal took a fast deep breath, and then the water closed over his head.
It was like a nightmare, the kind he'd had as a child and again in prison, where he'd tried to run but everything was in slow motion. Like being submerged in syrup. Or, in this case, freezing water. He hoped Peter had had a chance to draw a breath -- there was no way to know, and nothing to do about it now. In the darkness he hooked an arm around Peter's waist and tried to wrench him free, but nothing happened. He could feel Peter's heartbeat against his own chest, a rapid birdlike flutter.
Neal realized that he was dangerously close to a panic attack. Focus. You've been in tighter spots than this. Lose it and you both die.
But he'd survived most of those impossible situations by letting his survival instincts rule him. Neal had good, sharp instincts, and he was damned good at getting out of tight spots -- when he only had himself to worry about. Right now, his instincts were telling him to let go, kick backwards, squirm out the window and swim for the surface.
Leave Peter to die. Or both of them would die in this Detroit deathtrap.
Peter -- flawed and funny and stubborn and infuriating, smart and brave and impatient and annoying as hell.
Peter, who hated just about everything that Neal thought made life worth living, whose idea of the finer things in life included such abominations as football and deviled ham sandwiches. Who smacked his hand from the car radio when he tried to change the station away from the baseball game. Peter, who dragged him to long boring stakeouts and then told him stories that made him laugh, until suddenly it would be morning and he was never sure where the time went.
No. No. Just -- no.
He raised one leg, planted his foot against the door, and thrust as hard as he could, throwing his whole body weight behind it. Nothing happened, and then something gave, with a snap that was felt rather than heard -- and Peter came loose, both of them rolling into the passenger's seat.
There was no time to savor the victory for even a second, not with his lungs aching for air and the car continuing to sink into the dark water. Neal let go of Peter, though every instinct told him not to (at least those instincts that weren't screaming at him to Get out of the car, get out now!) and eeled his way through the window. Then he kicked himself around and reached through the opening to grip Peter's arms and drag him after. Neal couldn't tell if Peter was still moving, still helping, or if it was only the water and Neal's momentum moving them both, but he tried to shut down that line of thinking and focus on getting to the surface as quickly as possible. With a tight grip on Peter's jacket, he kicked towards the watery reflections of lights above him.
His face broke the water and he sucked in a sharp, cold breath of air. Peter was a limp deadweight drifting alongside him. Neal shook him. There was no reaction.
Can't do a thing here. Get to shore. And Jones had better be tracking my anklet right now, or we're both so very screwed.
The roadway where they'd gone into the water was buttressed by a retaining wall, ice-slick and impossible to climb, but Neal dragged Peter out of the water underneath an overhanging pier or warehouse or ... something; he wasn't really sure. All he knew was that it created a sheltered spot with a patch of rocky not-exactly-beach that wasn't too steep to climb out on. He was shaking violently, his teeth snapping together, and Peter wasn't moving at all.
"Peter," Neal said desperately, and shook him, then laid his hand across Peter's lips. Nothing. He slid his fingers down to Peter's throat, and felt, or thought he felt, a flutter against his fingertips.
Please.
He tilted Peter's head back -- noticed, as he did so, that the back of his hand was bleeding freely, the blood mixing with water and dripping onto Peter's blue-white face.
Please. Peter. Please.
Sealing his lips over Peter's icy ones. His own breath warm in his cold mouth.
Peter. Draping his jacket over Neal's cuffed hands before leading him through the FBI bullpen, allowing Neal a little dignity under the curious stares of his coworkers.
Peter, tired and half-drunk on Neal's couch. Immunity. Until the sun comes up.
Peter, shooting the angle of the sun with a sextant (a sextant, what kind of Brooklyn-dwelling civil servant owned a sextant?) and turning to grin at him with delighted, infectious little-kid enthusiasm.
Peter. Taking him up on a crazy work-release idea that any self-respecting bureaucrat would have laughed at. Peter, giving him a chance.
Peter. Peter. Peter.
Neal closed his eyes and breathed for them both, and if he could have poured out his own life into Peter's slack, cold lips, he would have.
He wasn't aware of approaching footsteps until hands pulled him away. Neal fought back, wordless, struggling to get back to Peter until Jones's voice said in his ear, "Whoa, settle down, Caffrey," and Diana slipped past them both and gracefully moved to take his place, as smooth as if they'd rehearsed it.
"Peter," Neal gasped, and then black spots swam in his vision and he reeled back against Jones and they both went down to the ice-covered rocks together.
"You're supposed to breathe for yourself too, you know," Jones said. He shrugged out of his coat and wrapped it around Neal's shoulders. It was still warm from his body heat, and Neal huddled into it, slowly becoming aware of his own body again -- the helpless shivers wracking him, the burning pain in the back of his hand, the dull aches throughout his body where muscles had been wrenched and bruised.
Diana gave Peter a few quick, businesslike rescue breaths, then drew back and felt under his jaw for a pulse. She raised her eyes to give Jones a quick, unreadable glance, then got up on her knees and planted her hands on Peter's sternum.
She didn't get a chance to do more than bear down once, though. Peter's body arched under her hands; he choked, and Diana rolled him onto his side as he gagged.
The wire of tension drawing all Neal's muscles to the snapping point suddenly broke, and he slumped bonelessly into the shelter of Jones's coat. Jones was talking to someone on a walkie-talkie; the words went straight past Neal's conscious brain, as did whatever Diana was saying to Peter as she held his shoulder, supporting him while he coughed and retched.
Diana draped her own coat over Peter, and Neal, somehow, found the strength to scramble over the rocks to kneel beside them.
"Neal," Peter said in a ragged, terrible voice, reaching out blindly, his eyes still closed.
Neal caught Peter's questing hand and stuffed it firmly back under Diana's coat. "Next time maybe you'll listen to me when I tell you that car chases on ice are a bad idea."
Peter's lopsided grin flickered for a moment, and he murmured, "We get the bad guy?"
"Your priorities are messed up, you know that?" Neal said in disbelief.
"Bastard wrecked my car," Peter shot back, then curled up in a wracking, painful-sounding coughing fit.
Jones joined them, tucking away his walkie-talkie. "They just picked up LaVeau at a traffic stop, doing eighty on the Belt Parkway. Paramedics should be here in a minute." He patted Peter's shoulder. "Sit tight, we've got this one."
"Got a good team," Peter whispered hoarsely.
His hand slipped out from under Diana's coat again, and settled against Neal's knee. Neal stuffed it back under the coat again, because the ground was freezing, and honestly. This time he left his own hand atop it, just to make sure it stayed there.
******
It was raining, a cold winter rain, washing away the last vestiges of gray snow and erasing the icicles from June's gargoyles. The balcony was slick and treacherous.
Neal preferred to stay inside anyway, wrapped in a pile of blankets and tranked on muscle relaxants, while June plied him with tea and Mozzie brought him a succession of grainy, dubbed-from-VHS DVDs on the general theme of "things the U.S. Government doesn't want you to know", which was Mozzie's idea of light entertainment. Eventually Neal had raided June's DVD library for some variety, and wandered upstairs with a pile of Hepburn, Bogart, and Hitchcock. June had excellent taste in classic movies. It certainly beat alleged Roswell autopsies for rainy-day movie watching.
He couldn't paint, because his right hand was mostly nonfunctional -- swathed in bandages, mildly infected, and incapable of flexing more than a little. Neal was currently running a low-grade fever; even with broad-spectrum antibiotics, apparently falling into the waters off the Brooklyn shore was contraindicated.
His phone went off, and he paused the movie and wriggled from his blanket cocoon to check the caller ID. He couldn't resist grinning as he answered.
"Peter. I thought El said that if you called me again, she'd take your phone away."
Peter had contracted what was supposedly a "mild" case of pneumonia. He was still in the hospital and on strict bedrest. The crappy weather and doctor's orders to take it easy meant that Neal was housebound, which had resulted in a series of smartphone-game wars until Elizabeth noticed Peter playing Angry Birds when he was supposed to be sleeping.
"Shh," Peter hissed. "My watchdog is currently on a soup run."
Neal laughed. "Elizabeth is still hovering?"
"Like a squadron of helicopters. Er, in a good way. Mostly."
Well, you DID almost die, hovered right on the tip of Neal's tongue, but he didn't say it, because the fear was still too fresh and sharp to joke about. Instead he said, "Did you call for a rematch? Because, don't forget, I beat you the first time with my left hand. Wait'll I have two functional thumbs."
"Left hand? I can't even sit up," Peter protested, his tone almost petulant, and paused to cough. His voice was still ragged and hoarse, and weaker than Neal liked to hear. "Also, Elizabeth really will confiscate my phone if you lead me down that wayward path again."
"You're blaming me? I seem to recall the bad influence coming from the other direction. Of course, if you're a glutton for punishment ..."
"That's it, you're on. Rematch. Later." There was a brief pause, then Peter cleared his throat. "Neal --"
"We don't have to have this conversation," Neal said quickly.
"Yes, I know, but ..." Peter cleared his throat again. "Neal, I think I need to -- Ack, wait, someone's at the door, it might be El --" There was a scuffling sound, as of someone hastily stuffing a phone under a pillow, then some muffled coughing, and a slightly distant: "What the hell are you doing here?"
Neal could recognize Mozzie's voice from the cadence, but not well enough to hear what he was saying. Then Peter's hoarse voice returned. "Neal, why is Mozzie here?"
Mozzie was saying something impatiently in the background. "I don't know," Neal said. "I'm not his keeper. Does he have a pile of DVDs and old VHS tapes?"
"Yes."
"Then he probably wants to entertain you with Roswell autopsies. Just say yes. It's easier than arguing."
"I'm flattered, touched, and preemptively bored and annoyed. All at once."
This time Neal could make out Mozzie's response: "You do realize I can hear you, right, Suit?"
Neal laughed. "Oh, and Peter? You would have done it for me," he said, and hung up before Peter could answer.
He set the phone on the bedside table and scrunched back down into the blankets to enjoy the solitude before Elizabeth showed up with soup -- like he couldn't guess she was on her way over here -- or Mozzie got bored with Peter's unreceptiveness and shuffled back over in search of a more appreciative audience, or June came upstairs with the entire Tiles of Fire collection (plus DVD extras).
Sometimes it still amazed him that he could be this happy, this content, even while he was as close to broke as he'd been in the last fifteen years.
It wasn't about the money. It was about the people. He'd always believed that, but he didn't think he'd really internalized it until the last couple of years.
Neal closed his eyes, listened to the rain dripping off June's gutters, and thought about luck. And life. And other people having your back, which meant getting their back in return.
Someone tapped on the door. He grinned, and extricated himself from the blankets to go let them in.
~
Fandom: White Collar
Word Count: 4000
Pairing/Rating: PG, gen
Summary: Written for this prompt at
whitecollarhc. Also for the "drowning" square on my h/c bingo card. Car chases on ice are a bad idea.Cross-posted: http://archiveofourown.org/works/343254
Freezing rain had turned the entire city into a skating rink, and Neal nearly faceplanted on the sidewalk when he stepped out of Peter's car.
"Smooth," Peter remarked, though his eyes were on the building towering above them. It just figured, Neal thought, that Peter's multitasking talent included the ability to mock Neal and catch lawbreakers at the same time.
"Laugh it up," Neal said, recovering himself against the side of the car. "When you go for a cool macho tackle and end up falling on your ass, I'll be right there taking pictures."
Peter snorted, and walked with care up the ice-slicked sidewalk. It was drizzling gently now, making the footing even more treacherous, especially in the early winter dusk.
"You really think LaVeau is our forger?" Neal asked as he caught up, turning up the collar on his coat. "There's not a shred of evidence connecting him to the money-laundering operation."
"Only because we haven't found it yet," Peter said. "Instinct says he's guilty. And I trust my instincts. But," he added, "we're just here to talk to him, nothing else."
He tapped on the door. There was a sharp, furtive rustle, then silence.
"Mark LaVeau?" Peter called. "I'm Special Agent Peter Burke, FBI. I'd like to talk to you."
After a brief pause, there was a crash and the sound of pounding footsteps. Peter glanced at Neal, raising his eyebrows; Neal met his gaze and then both of them leaned forward to peek through the window in the door.
In the brief moment that he had to look around, Neal saw furniture knocked over, a lamp lying shattered on the floor. Then Peter swore, pushed Neal aside with one hand and tried the doorknob, then delivered a hard kick to the door. A second kick splintered the doorframe and sent the door rebounding off the wall. Warm air washed over them, along with the coppery smell of blood.
Peter, gun in hand, knelt to feel for a pulse in the neck of the figure lying crumpled on the carpet. Neal hung back, but he recognized the guy, and knew Peter did too -- it was one of their informants in the money-laundering ring.
"Where the hell did he go? Is there a back door?" Peter spun in place, drawing his phone out of his pocket and punching a preset one-handed. "Jones? We're at LaVeau's place and we've got a dead body. We need backup yesterday." Outside, an engine revved. "In pursuit," Peter said, "keep you posted --" and then his foot hit the ice on the sidewalk and, as Neal had predicted, he lost his balance and went flat on his back.
Unfortunately it wasn't funny anymore, and all Neal did was help him up. As he did so, a black Hummer -- ostentatious anywhere, but ridiculously so in New York City -- came tearing from somewhere near the house and roared down the street, skidding at the corner.
"Neal, stay here!" Peter snapped, sliding the last few feet to the car and slamming into the hood. "Jones is on the way -- what are you doing?" Neal had slipped into the passenger seat and was reaching for his belt. "Did you not just hear me say Stay here? This is the year's worst night for a car chase."
"So don't!" Neal retorted. "You'll get yourself killed."
"Right, because getting us both killed is much better. Neal, get out of the car! I don't have time to argue -- he's getting away!"
Neal, in reply, buckled his seat belt.
"I don't believe this," Peter muttered, and peeled away from the curb with only a little skidding. "Don't distract me, okay?"
"Don't worry," Neal muttered, sinking his fingers into the fabric of the seat and wondering what in the world he had been thinking. In theory, at least, it made sense not to let Peter chase an armed killer around the frozen streets of the city all by himself. In practice, he hoped it didn't go down in history as the last bad idea he ever had.
The Hummer was immediately visible, far down the street. Peter closed on it rapidly, then lost ground again when it took evasive action, swinging down a smaller street.
"Looks like he's heading for the harbor," Peter murmured. Neal glanced sideways at him; Peter's grip was white-knuckled on the steering wheel. "Neal, call Jones and tell him to track your anklet."
There was a moment of disbelieving silence on the other end of the line when Neal stopped talking. Only the traffic noises in the background let him know they hadn't been disconnected before Jones finally said, "Are you telling me you're actually trying to chase him down in this weather?"
"Well, Peter is. I'm just along for the ride."
"You're both insane."
"You're just now figuring that out?"
"For God's sake, be careful," Jones said.
"You're telling me?" Neal muttered as he hung up. He looked ahead and frowned at the lack of taillights. "Hey, where'd he go?"
"I don't know!" Peter snapped. "It's a goddamn maze."
They broke out of the warehouses onto the edge of the harbor. Lights glittered on the far shore. Peter looped the car around; Neal winced as they slid all too close to a flimsy-looking guardrail, but Peter grimly fought the steering wheel and skidded to a halt. "Damn it," Peter muttered, "where the hell did he --"
Headlights flicked on suddenly between two of the warehouses, bathing the interior of the car in brilliant light. Neal got as far as "Peter, look ou--" before the Hummer slammed into the driver's side of the car with a terrific crunch. The Taurus slewed sideways into the guardrail and, with a shriek of rending metal, they were airborne. The world spun; then a shuddering impact rattled the car.
For a moment Neal was paralyzed with shock, dimly aware of everything around him but unable to move. Then the bitter cold of ice water drenching his legs brought him back to himself in a hurry.
"Peter!"
There was no answer. The interior of the car was completely dark; the engine had died and the Taurus was listing at a steep angle towards the driver's side. Neal could feel water pouring over his knees.
Neal unfastened his seat belt and groped through the darkness, gasping as the ice-cold water swallowed his legs and crept up his hips. "Peter!" He touched Peter's face, gripped his shoulder, and shook him. Peter flinched violently.
"What --" Peter said blearily, as Neal felt down his friend's body, plunging his hands into the cold water, trying to find Peter's seat belt and follow it down to the buckle. He wished he could see -- the sense of touch was all he had, and his fingers were rapidly going numb.
"Neal," Peter said. He leaned forward, his hair brushing the side of Neal's face. "You okay?"
"I'll live," Neal said, and then wished he'd chosen different words. "How can I help?"
Peter fended him off. "Forget this. I've got it. Get your door open before the water pressure blocks it."
Reluctantly Neal twisted away from Peter, stretching in the darkness until, with some effort, he found his door handle. The water in the car was already sloshing around his waist, and throwing his weight against the door had no effect. The power window controls still worked, though, contrary to everything he'd read -- well, for a moment, at least; the window went down halfway and then stopped working.
"Window's stuck," Neal said between his teeth. "Hang on, gonna try to break it."
"Maglite," Peter said. Neal could hear him squirming around, presumably trying to get free. "Backseat."
The front of the car had begun to tilt steeply downward. Neal fought down a rush of panic -- it was like being entombed alive in a coffin that was rapidly filling up with water. He stretched over the backseat and groped until he found the big, heavy flashlight. A few hard blows to the half-open window cracked and then shattered the glass.
"Window's out," Neal said. Reaching through the window to crack loose the larger chunks of glass, he could feel water already lapping against the top of the door. They had seconds, no more -- once the water was over the door, he had little doubt that the car would sink almost instantly. "You ready to go?"
"No." And Neal could hear the ruthlessly suppressed panic under that single strained word.
Twisting around in his seat, he reached for Peter again and found that the water was up to Peter's collarbone. The seat belt was loose; Neal almost got his arm wrapped in it as it twisted snakelike in the water. So what the hell was holding him in? Neal's half-numb fingers touched Peter's billowing jacket, and metal, and Peter's thigh -- in the darkness, it took Neal a moment to put the pieces together and understand what he was feeling. The door, Neal thought, sick with sudden horror, the door buckled when LaVeau hit us; he's pinned.
"Neal," Peter said, his voice tight, "you're between me and the window, so I can't leave until you do. Get out. I'll be right behind you."
"Uh-huh." Neal braced one hand against the seat, his arm pressed against Peter's ribs, so that he could slide a hand down between the door and Peter's thigh, trying to pry him loose. He couldn't get any leverage, and in the water, it was impossible to tell if Peter was bleeding. For all he knew, the twisted edges of the door could be embedded in Peter's leg. Neal had a brief, nightmare vision of dragging Peter free only to rip his thigh open, Peter's life pouring out into the cold water.
"Go," Peter said. He was still moving, struggling to free himself from his metal prison, but his lips were close to Neal's ear and his breath stirred Neal's hair. "That's an order, Neal."
"I am not," Neal said through clenched teeth, "leaving without -- dammit!" His hand slipped; he could feel sharp edges of metal or plastic rip through his skin, but in the cold water it didn't really hurt -- it was a strange, disconnected feeling, like paper tearing, nothing to do with him.
Peter caught Neal's injured hand, his fingers closing around Neal's, squeezing. "Go," he said gently, and then a wave broke over Neal from behind. The angle of the car changed again, rolling back towards the passenger's side as it swamped rapidly through the open window. Neal took a fast deep breath, and then the water closed over his head.
It was like a nightmare, the kind he'd had as a child and again in prison, where he'd tried to run but everything was in slow motion. Like being submerged in syrup. Or, in this case, freezing water. He hoped Peter had had a chance to draw a breath -- there was no way to know, and nothing to do about it now. In the darkness he hooked an arm around Peter's waist and tried to wrench him free, but nothing happened. He could feel Peter's heartbeat against his own chest, a rapid birdlike flutter.
Neal realized that he was dangerously close to a panic attack. Focus. You've been in tighter spots than this. Lose it and you both die.
But he'd survived most of those impossible situations by letting his survival instincts rule him. Neal had good, sharp instincts, and he was damned good at getting out of tight spots -- when he only had himself to worry about. Right now, his instincts were telling him to let go, kick backwards, squirm out the window and swim for the surface.
Leave Peter to die. Or both of them would die in this Detroit deathtrap.
Peter -- flawed and funny and stubborn and infuriating, smart and brave and impatient and annoying as hell.
Peter, who hated just about everything that Neal thought made life worth living, whose idea of the finer things in life included such abominations as football and deviled ham sandwiches. Who smacked his hand from the car radio when he tried to change the station away from the baseball game. Peter, who dragged him to long boring stakeouts and then told him stories that made him laugh, until suddenly it would be morning and he was never sure where the time went.
No. No. Just -- no.
He raised one leg, planted his foot against the door, and thrust as hard as he could, throwing his whole body weight behind it. Nothing happened, and then something gave, with a snap that was felt rather than heard -- and Peter came loose, both of them rolling into the passenger's seat.
There was no time to savor the victory for even a second, not with his lungs aching for air and the car continuing to sink into the dark water. Neal let go of Peter, though every instinct told him not to (at least those instincts that weren't screaming at him to Get out of the car, get out now!) and eeled his way through the window. Then he kicked himself around and reached through the opening to grip Peter's arms and drag him after. Neal couldn't tell if Peter was still moving, still helping, or if it was only the water and Neal's momentum moving them both, but he tried to shut down that line of thinking and focus on getting to the surface as quickly as possible. With a tight grip on Peter's jacket, he kicked towards the watery reflections of lights above him.
His face broke the water and he sucked in a sharp, cold breath of air. Peter was a limp deadweight drifting alongside him. Neal shook him. There was no reaction.
Can't do a thing here. Get to shore. And Jones had better be tracking my anklet right now, or we're both so very screwed.
The roadway where they'd gone into the water was buttressed by a retaining wall, ice-slick and impossible to climb, but Neal dragged Peter out of the water underneath an overhanging pier or warehouse or ... something; he wasn't really sure. All he knew was that it created a sheltered spot with a patch of rocky not-exactly-beach that wasn't too steep to climb out on. He was shaking violently, his teeth snapping together, and Peter wasn't moving at all.
"Peter," Neal said desperately, and shook him, then laid his hand across Peter's lips. Nothing. He slid his fingers down to Peter's throat, and felt, or thought he felt, a flutter against his fingertips.
Please.
He tilted Peter's head back -- noticed, as he did so, that the back of his hand was bleeding freely, the blood mixing with water and dripping onto Peter's blue-white face.
Please. Peter. Please.
Sealing his lips over Peter's icy ones. His own breath warm in his cold mouth.
Peter. Draping his jacket over Neal's cuffed hands before leading him through the FBI bullpen, allowing Neal a little dignity under the curious stares of his coworkers.
Peter, tired and half-drunk on Neal's couch. Immunity. Until the sun comes up.
Peter, shooting the angle of the sun with a sextant (a sextant, what kind of Brooklyn-dwelling civil servant owned a sextant?) and turning to grin at him with delighted, infectious little-kid enthusiasm.
Peter. Taking him up on a crazy work-release idea that any self-respecting bureaucrat would have laughed at. Peter, giving him a chance.
Peter. Peter. Peter.
Neal closed his eyes and breathed for them both, and if he could have poured out his own life into Peter's slack, cold lips, he would have.
He wasn't aware of approaching footsteps until hands pulled him away. Neal fought back, wordless, struggling to get back to Peter until Jones's voice said in his ear, "Whoa, settle down, Caffrey," and Diana slipped past them both and gracefully moved to take his place, as smooth as if they'd rehearsed it.
"Peter," Neal gasped, and then black spots swam in his vision and he reeled back against Jones and they both went down to the ice-covered rocks together.
"You're supposed to breathe for yourself too, you know," Jones said. He shrugged out of his coat and wrapped it around Neal's shoulders. It was still warm from his body heat, and Neal huddled into it, slowly becoming aware of his own body again -- the helpless shivers wracking him, the burning pain in the back of his hand, the dull aches throughout his body where muscles had been wrenched and bruised.
Diana gave Peter a few quick, businesslike rescue breaths, then drew back and felt under his jaw for a pulse. She raised her eyes to give Jones a quick, unreadable glance, then got up on her knees and planted her hands on Peter's sternum.
She didn't get a chance to do more than bear down once, though. Peter's body arched under her hands; he choked, and Diana rolled him onto his side as he gagged.
The wire of tension drawing all Neal's muscles to the snapping point suddenly broke, and he slumped bonelessly into the shelter of Jones's coat. Jones was talking to someone on a walkie-talkie; the words went straight past Neal's conscious brain, as did whatever Diana was saying to Peter as she held his shoulder, supporting him while he coughed and retched.
Diana draped her own coat over Peter, and Neal, somehow, found the strength to scramble over the rocks to kneel beside them.
"Neal," Peter said in a ragged, terrible voice, reaching out blindly, his eyes still closed.
Neal caught Peter's questing hand and stuffed it firmly back under Diana's coat. "Next time maybe you'll listen to me when I tell you that car chases on ice are a bad idea."
Peter's lopsided grin flickered for a moment, and he murmured, "We get the bad guy?"
"Your priorities are messed up, you know that?" Neal said in disbelief.
"Bastard wrecked my car," Peter shot back, then curled up in a wracking, painful-sounding coughing fit.
Jones joined them, tucking away his walkie-talkie. "They just picked up LaVeau at a traffic stop, doing eighty on the Belt Parkway. Paramedics should be here in a minute." He patted Peter's shoulder. "Sit tight, we've got this one."
"Got a good team," Peter whispered hoarsely.
His hand slipped out from under Diana's coat again, and settled against Neal's knee. Neal stuffed it back under the coat again, because the ground was freezing, and honestly. This time he left his own hand atop it, just to make sure it stayed there.
******
It was raining, a cold winter rain, washing away the last vestiges of gray snow and erasing the icicles from June's gargoyles. The balcony was slick and treacherous.
Neal preferred to stay inside anyway, wrapped in a pile of blankets and tranked on muscle relaxants, while June plied him with tea and Mozzie brought him a succession of grainy, dubbed-from-VHS DVDs on the general theme of "things the U.S. Government doesn't want you to know", which was Mozzie's idea of light entertainment. Eventually Neal had raided June's DVD library for some variety, and wandered upstairs with a pile of Hepburn, Bogart, and Hitchcock. June had excellent taste in classic movies. It certainly beat alleged Roswell autopsies for rainy-day movie watching.
He couldn't paint, because his right hand was mostly nonfunctional -- swathed in bandages, mildly infected, and incapable of flexing more than a little. Neal was currently running a low-grade fever; even with broad-spectrum antibiotics, apparently falling into the waters off the Brooklyn shore was contraindicated.
His phone went off, and he paused the movie and wriggled from his blanket cocoon to check the caller ID. He couldn't resist grinning as he answered.
"Peter. I thought El said that if you called me again, she'd take your phone away."
Peter had contracted what was supposedly a "mild" case of pneumonia. He was still in the hospital and on strict bedrest. The crappy weather and doctor's orders to take it easy meant that Neal was housebound, which had resulted in a series of smartphone-game wars until Elizabeth noticed Peter playing Angry Birds when he was supposed to be sleeping.
"Shh," Peter hissed. "My watchdog is currently on a soup run."
Neal laughed. "Elizabeth is still hovering?"
"Like a squadron of helicopters. Er, in a good way. Mostly."
Well, you DID almost die, hovered right on the tip of Neal's tongue, but he didn't say it, because the fear was still too fresh and sharp to joke about. Instead he said, "Did you call for a rematch? Because, don't forget, I beat you the first time with my left hand. Wait'll I have two functional thumbs."
"Left hand? I can't even sit up," Peter protested, his tone almost petulant, and paused to cough. His voice was still ragged and hoarse, and weaker than Neal liked to hear. "Also, Elizabeth really will confiscate my phone if you lead me down that wayward path again."
"You're blaming me? I seem to recall the bad influence coming from the other direction. Of course, if you're a glutton for punishment ..."
"That's it, you're on. Rematch. Later." There was a brief pause, then Peter cleared his throat. "Neal --"
"We don't have to have this conversation," Neal said quickly.
"Yes, I know, but ..." Peter cleared his throat again. "Neal, I think I need to -- Ack, wait, someone's at the door, it might be El --" There was a scuffling sound, as of someone hastily stuffing a phone under a pillow, then some muffled coughing, and a slightly distant: "What the hell are you doing here?"
Neal could recognize Mozzie's voice from the cadence, but not well enough to hear what he was saying. Then Peter's hoarse voice returned. "Neal, why is Mozzie here?"
Mozzie was saying something impatiently in the background. "I don't know," Neal said. "I'm not his keeper. Does he have a pile of DVDs and old VHS tapes?"
"Yes."
"Then he probably wants to entertain you with Roswell autopsies. Just say yes. It's easier than arguing."
"I'm flattered, touched, and preemptively bored and annoyed. All at once."
This time Neal could make out Mozzie's response: "You do realize I can hear you, right, Suit?"
Neal laughed. "Oh, and Peter? You would have done it for me," he said, and hung up before Peter could answer.
He set the phone on the bedside table and scrunched back down into the blankets to enjoy the solitude before Elizabeth showed up with soup -- like he couldn't guess she was on her way over here -- or Mozzie got bored with Peter's unreceptiveness and shuffled back over in search of a more appreciative audience, or June came upstairs with the entire Tiles of Fire collection (plus DVD extras).
Sometimes it still amazed him that he could be this happy, this content, even while he was as close to broke as he'd been in the last fifteen years.
It wasn't about the money. It was about the people. He'd always believed that, but he didn't think he'd really internalized it until the last couple of years.
Neal closed his eyes, listened to the rain dripping off June's gutters, and thought about luck. And life. And other people having your back, which meant getting their back in return.
Someone tapped on the door. He grinned, and extricated himself from the blankets to go let them in.
~