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White Collar fic: Boxed In
Here's the last of my Fandom_Stocking fics for this year! I saved the longest for last. *g*
Title: Boxed In
Fandom: White Collar
Pairing: gen (background Peter/El and Neal/Kate)
Word Count: 3600
Summary: Peter and Neal are trapped together on Christmas Eve, after a case takes an unexpected turn. Takes place in season one, somewhere between 1x10 and 1x13.
Cross-posted: http://archiveofourown.org/works/686474
Peter took in the situation in an instant -- the blinking light, the wires -- and he was already grabbing hold of Neal even as his brain made the conscious leap that This warehouse is wired to blow, get out get out get out --
They were too far from the door, much too far to get out in time, so he shoved Neal in the one direction that offered some hope of sanctuary: a huge, now-empty walk-in freezer, abandoned like everything else in the warehouse. To his credit, Neal either picked up on what was going on or trusted Peter to know what he was doing, because he threw himself into helping Peter drag the door shut.
The door slammed, plunging them into absolute darkness, just as the whole world bucked and a wave of sound hammered them.
Peter leaned against the wall, breathing hard. The freezer hadn't collapsed; he could easily have shoved them into a deathtrap, but it seemed to have held up. Beside him, he could hear Neal's breathing. The glowing light on Neal's anklet was the only thing visible; Peter had never realized how bright it was, but as his eyes adapted to the darkness, it actually cast a bit of light, enough to make out Neal's shape beside him. Peter gripped Neal's arm.
"You okay?"
"Yeah," Neal said. He sounded as shaken up as Peter felt. "It was a trap."
"Looks like it. At least Cruz and Jones are outside." And safe. He hoped.
From the distant, muffled sounds reaching them through the freezer's insulated walls, things had stopped falling. Peter shoved on the door, but it didn't budge, which was when he realized they might have a small problem.
"Think it's safe to open the door yet?" Neal asked.
"Yeah, that might be an issue."
Neal gave a small grunt of effort, and then he said, "The door's blocked."
"Yeah, we're buried. Time to call our backup." Peter pulled out his phone. To his dark-adapted eyes, the glowing screen seemed almost too bright. And it was giving him bad news. "Or not. I'm not getting a signal. Try yours."
Neal's face was ghostly pale in the glow of their mutual phones. "No signal here, either."
"We're buried, and we're inside a Faraday cage." Peter sighed and dropped his head back against the wall. "Well, let's see what we're dealing with."
Using the phones as flashlights, they explored their prison. It didn't take long. The freezer was not large, and contained nothing but some old steel shelves, long since empty of their contents. The air had a dusty, abandoned smell.
It was also chilly. The freezer wasn't still powered, of course, but with the door open, it would have been the same temperature as the ambient air. And it was December in New York. The mercury had been hovering slightly above freezing for days, and neither of them were dressed for prolonged exposure to the cold. Right now, Peter felt okay in his wool coat, but he had a feeling that the business suit underneath wasn't going to cut it for very long.
"Now would be a good time to get some of that escape-artist mojo going."
"I'm working on it." Neal held his makeshift flashlight towards the ceiling. Peter had already turned off his screen, to save the battery; if the phones were their only source of light, they needed to be careful with them.
"Ever been in a situation like this before?"
"Nothing I can admit to," Neal said, flashing him a grin. "And nothing that applies to our current problem."
Peter tried not to think about the "buried alive" aspect of their situation. It was hard not to. He'd never been claustrophobic, but he'd never been buried under tons of fallen debris, either. He caught himself calculating how many cubic feet of air the freezer contained, and made himself stop.
He also tried not to think about the fact that it was Christmas Eve. Not only would it complicate the emergency response -- and Peter felt guilty about the responders who would be kept away from their families by his own team's carelessness -- but Elizabeth would be getting home soon, curling up next to their little tree, opening the boxes of gifts sent by her family and his. Alone.
Glancing at Neal, Peter wondered if Neal, too, had plans that were being disrupted. Spending Christmas with June's family, perhaps? Peter hadn't asked, figuring that he'd get by with checking Neal's tracking data a time or two during the holiday.
"I wonder if we can take these shelves apart and use them to pry the door open," Neal said.
"Worth a try." Even if it didn't work, it would keep them busy, and the work would keep them warm.
They used the screwdriver blade on Peter's little pocket utility knife to unscrew the shelves ("Always be prepared," Peter remarked) and tried several different configurations of the shelves' long upright supports as a lever inserted into the crack in the door. They actually did get it open a few inches, which admitted a wave of dust and smoke. Choking, they hastily closed the door again. By the glow of Neal's phone, the interior of the freezer was now smoggy.
"Great," Peter said, coughing. "Even if we can get the door open, we'll asphyxiate." There was definitely a burning-electrical smell in the freezer now, which gave him a new thing to pointedly not worry about: roasting alive.
"If we can lodge the door open, we might be able to get cell reception."
"Which we can't do," Peter said, "because, air."
But it might work after the dust settled some (and the smoke, but he was trying not to think about the smoke) so they sat on the floor and examined their assets. Besides the two phones and Peter's pocketknife, they had their respective wallets and badges, Peter's keys, a ballpoint pen, a couple of random business cards, a rubber-band ball that Neal was carrying around for some reason, a set of lock picks (Peter's), a set of lock picks (Neal's, which he wasn't supposed to have, but Peter chose to turn a blind eye to), some loose change, and ...
"Neal, whose key is that, and what does it open?"
"It's Cruz's apartment key," Neal said. "I just wanted to see if she'd notice."
"I'm sure she will when she goes home tonight."
"I was planning to give it back," Neal said, a bit sullenly, as Peter confiscated it. "Getting locked in a freezer wasn't part of my plan for the day. Is that everything?"
"Yes," Peter said, well aware of the one item he hadn't removed from an inside pocket of his suit.
"Are you sure?" Neal asked, a glint in his eye, and Peter thought oh crap and patted down his chest. Sure enough, the pocket had been picked, with Neal's usual stealth, and now Neal flourished a brightly wrapped package between his graceful artist's fingers. "Holding out on me, Peter? What's this? Present for Elizabeth?"
"Present for you, actually, grabby hands."
Neal's face changed in an instant, from his bright-eyed "jerking around authority" sparkle, to ... something else, something much softer and harder to read. "Oh," he said, and looked at the package in his hands as if he had no idea what to do with it. "I, uh -- I didn't get you anything."
"It's not anything special, so don't get weird about it," Peter said, embarrassed. "I always get something for the people who work for me." He'd gone around the White Collar office that afternoon, leaving little packages on desks. Nothing major -- a gift certificate here, some movie tickets there. Elizabeth usually gave him some help picking things out. He'd hung onto Neal's present because he knew he'd be driving Neal home, and figured he could hand over the present at the very last minute when he left him on June's doorstep, thus avoiding awkward conversations like the one they were having now.
"Well, yes, I know, but I don't exactly, I mean I'm not really ..." Neal trailed off and turned the package over in his hands. He seemed, uncharacteristically, at a loss for words.
"Actually, now that I think about it, you might as well open it," Peter said. "It could be useful in this situation. Shoulda thought of that earlier."
Neal brightened. "Really? Is it C4?" He tore off the paper, uncovering a pair of black, fleece-lined leather gloves.
"They're probably not up to your usual standards," Peter pointed out. "It's not Italian leather from specially bred cows, fed nothing but a diet of gourmet salad and then tanned under the full moon by a secret order of Benedictine monks using techniques passed down for centuries. Or whatever you'd normally buy. But they're good solid gloves, a decent brand, and they'll last awhile." And it was the only thing he could think of. If he'd thought shopping for Elizabeth was a nightmare, then shopping for Neal was an order of magnitude worse.
Neal tugged them on and flexed his hands. "They fit," he said. He still had that soft, stunned look that he'd worn ever since Peter had told him the package was for him.
"My dad was a bricklayer. I'm good at estimating sizes of things. Runs in the family."
"Peter, this is -- Thank you," Neal said, with unusual sincerity.
Peter redistributed each item in their little pile of assets back to its respective owner; it gave him something to do, and somewhere to look other than Neal. "I'm guessing your last few Christmases weren't much to write home about."
"Not so much," Neal said. "They did give us Christmas dinner. With turkey."
"Really?"
"Well, they claimed it was turkey. We were always a bit skeptical. I had a cellmate who used to count the pigeons on the rooftops and noticed a distinct Christmastime drop in the population. He kept meticulous records."
"Sounds like he would have gotten along well with Mozzie," Peter said.
Neal leaned back against the wall, studying his hands in the gloves and speaking to them rather than to Peter. His voice was pensive and distant, recalling back through the years. "But Kate always used to bring me something. It wasn't usually much. You don't want to have anything expensive in prison, and she was trying to stay under the police radar, anyway. But she'd always make sure there was a little something special for me. Something she'd bought, or something she'd made." He clasped his gloved hands on his knee. "I was sort of hoping she might get in touch this year. Leave me something at June's, maybe."
Which explained, all of a sudden, why Neal had been a little bit distracted and antsy this afternoon. Peter hadn't been sure if it had to do with the holiday or with something Neal was planning with Mozzie. Now he knew. Or at least, now he knew part of it; he also knew that Neal never had just one reason for doing anything.
And while he was still deeply suspicious of Kate's motives, the one thing he couldn't deny was that she'd been a lifeline for Neal in prison, and in some ways she still was. It might be only a fantasy of Kate that he clung to, but this was not, Peter sensed, a good time to try to argue him out of it.
"I hope she does," he said gently.
There were a few moments of silence. Neal flicked off the phone to save the battery, plunging them back into darkness lit only by the firefly glow of his anklet.
"That was quick thinking," Neal said at last. "Getting us in here."
"Yeah, quicker thinking would have been not walking into a booby-trapped meet in the first place."
"True, but this is better than being squashed under a few tons of falling warehouse roof."
"Until we run out of air," Peter said, and then instantly wished he hadn't.
Neal huffed a small laugh. "And I used to think Mozzie was the most depressing person to be trapped in a small space with."
Peter's ears pricked. "And when was that, exactly?"
"Ah, ah, nice try. Like I said, it doesn't have any bearing on the current situation." There was a little scuffling sound. By the faint glow of Neal's anklet, Peter could see his shadow-shape change position. "I know I'm basically the idea guy, but I'm open to input."
"Oh, you're the idea guy?" Peter retorted.
"Isn't that why you took my deal? For my problem-solving cleverness?"
"It was more for your insider's knowledge of the criminal mind, which doesn't seem to be doing us a whole lot of good at the moment."
"I can't help it if I have more experience at breaking into places than breaking out of them," Neal said peevishly, and then perked up. "Hey, was that a thump?"
It had, indeed, been a distant thump, the reverberations shuddering through their metal prison. "Hey!" Peter called. "We're in here!" He banged on the wall with a piece of shelving.
"Ow, my ears," Neal protested, as the echoes died away.
"I don't think they can hear us."
Neal rubbed his ears. "I don't think I can hear anything."
Peter checked his phone, just to see if it had magically begun getting reception. It hadn't. "But this means they're on their way," he said, as much for his own benefit as Neal's. "All we have to do is wait."
"So your plan is to sit here and wait for rescue." Neal sounded skeptical.
"It's a good plan," Peter shot back. "If we come up with a way of getting ourselves out of here, that's fine, but in the meantime we ought to conserve air, conserve energy, and wait for my team to get us out. Our team," he amended, because really, Neal had more than earned the right to be considered part of the team by now.
"I'm ... not so good at doing that," Neal said. "I'm really more of a 'rescuing myself' kind of guy."
"So how's that working out for you?"
This time the silence had distinctly annoyed overtones. Peter reached out, found Neal's arm and patted it. "Don't worry," he said. "There are good people out there, and if I know them, they're working as hard as they can to get us out." He just hoped Elizabeth wasn't too worried.
More silence, then a bit of rustling, and something warm from Neal's skin was pressed into his hand. "Here," Neal said. "Have a glove. We can share."
"So we'll each have one warm hand and one cold one."
"Better than two cold ones."
Which was a point, and right now his hands were cold enough that he wasn't going to argue. Peter worked his fingers into Neal's glove, hoping he didn't stretch it out too much. "Thanks."
"It was your present in the first place."
Peter pulled up his knees and wrapped his coat more tightly around himself. "So, while we're waiting for rescue, what was Christmas at Chez Caffrey like?"
"Oh no you don't," Neal said, and Peter could hear the grin in his voice. "I'd rather hear about you. I can just imagine the Burke family Christmas. I bet you guys were like a Norman Rockwell illustration."
And for all his intentions of using this opportunity to pry out a few more secrets of Neal's past, Peter found himself sinking back into nostalgia about those long-ago Christmases. He told Neal about trips to cut the family Christmas tree on his grandfather's farm, and the year his dad got him a bike and helped him put it together, and the quiet, subdued Christmas after his grandfather died, when the whole family got together at his grandmother's house to help her through the holidays.
He talked himself hoarse, and Neal was an attentive and curious audience, prompting him with questions and laughing in the right places. Every so often, more banging and rattling reminded Peter that they only had to wait; he trusted his team to get them out. If only it weren't taking so damned long ...
But finally the door opened with a shriek of tortured hinges, and hands were reaching in and pulling them out, wrapping them in blankets and shoving hot cups of coffee into their hands. It was dark, the area lit with floodlights.
"Peter!" cried a familiar voice, and Peter turned, startled, as Elizabeth came stumbling over the rubble and sank into his arms. She felt very warm, but she was the one who was shivering.
"I hope they didn't worry you too much," he said helplessly, as she looked up at him with wide eyes that showed the tracks of dried tears.
"Oh, you know me. The original non-worrier," she said, kissing him, and then turned her attention to Neal and gave him a hug. Neal's started/pleased look was much the same as when Peter had given him the gloves.
Speaking of which ... "Here," Peter said, stripping off the glove and handing it back to Neal while he looked around for the rest of his team. "Where's Jones? There you are -- is the area secure?"
"The area's been secure for hours, boss," Jones said, giving Peter's shoulder a squeeze. "One of our teams picked up Hanstead in a hotel room full of explosive paraphernalia, so even if we didn't already have him on grand larceny, we'd have him dead to rights on trying to kill a federal officer. Case closed, Merry Christmas."
"Along those lines," Lauren Cruz said, popping up on his other side, "has anyone seen my keys? Caffrey?"
"I think you'll find they're in your pocket," Neal said innocently, and indeed, they were.
"We've got this, boss," Jones said. "Go home. Eat something. Get some sleep."
"That's exactly what I'm planning to do," Peter said, and looked around for his CI. Neal was hovering quietly on the edge of the conversation. He didn't look unhappy, just tired, and content to be in the background for a while. "Hey, Neal. Got anywhere to be?"
"I do, actually," Neal said. He smiled crookedly. "I'd like to see if that package we talked about ever got delivered. And I have a Christmas invite from June. So I'd better get back."
"I'll give you a ride, then," Peter said.
Elizabeth snatched his car keys with speed that would have done Neal proud. "The only person doing any driving is me, mister. Both of you look a little ragged around the edges."
Peter felt more than a little ragged; now that they were safe, he was very conscious of his weariness, chill, and hunger. He needed food and sleep and a shower, not necessarily in that order. Getting to the car meant running a gauntlet of his coworkers, with well-wishes and holiday greetings and, now and then, actual questions about the case, paperwork and so on. A reporter tried to shove a microphone in his face. But somehow they made it to the sanctuary of the car. Neal slid into the backseat, and El took the wheel.
As El pulled the car around a fire truck and a cluster of news vans, a lone snowflake drifted to settle on the windshield. By the time they were on the road and headed back into Manhattan, it was snowing gently, not a heavy snow but a glittering shower of snowflakes, jewel-bright under the streetlamps, so small and light that they seemed to float in the air rather than fall.
El cranked the heat all the way up, and Peter relaxed into it, drowsing in the passenger's seat.
"Hey, Peter," Neal said. Peter glanced over his shoulder. Neal had puddled into a corner of the backseat, and when Peter's eyes met his, Neal gave him a sleepy smile. "Merry Christmas."
Peter checked his watch; it was, indeed, Christmas by just a few minutes. El took her eyes off the road for a moment to lean over and kiss him.
"I suppose this isn't the way we'd planned to spend it," she said. "But it's not too bad."
"There are worse places," Peter agreed, and Neal made a sleepy little affirmative noise from the backseat.
They didn't talk any more until El pulled over to the curb at June's. Then Neal leaned forward to give her an awkward semi-hug from the backseat. El twisted far enough around to kiss his cheek. "Merry Christmas, Neal. I know you have plans, but you're welcome to come over tomorrow if you feel like it. We have more eggnog and Christmas cookies than two people could possibly eat."
"Thank you," Neal said -- not an affirmative, exactly, but it was heartfelt. He squeezed Peter's shoulder with one gloved hand. "Merry Christmas. And, um, thanks for the present."
Peter wasn't sure what to say in return -- I hope you find what you're looking for, maybe, but the words stuck in his throat, because he wasn't entirely sure that any of the things Neal was looking for would be good for him to have. He settled for backing up his wife. "El's right, you can drop by if you want to. Tomorrow only," he added hastily, realizing he'd just opened the door to having a con artist in his living room every time he turned around. "That's a one-time-only invitation. A special Christmas thing."
Neal smiled, and then he was gone, dusty and tired and wearing bright new gloves, out into the lightly falling snow.
~
Title: Boxed In
Fandom: White Collar
Pairing: gen (background Peter/El and Neal/Kate)
Word Count: 3600
Summary: Peter and Neal are trapped together on Christmas Eve, after a case takes an unexpected turn. Takes place in season one, somewhere between 1x10 and 1x13.
Cross-posted: http://archiveofourown.org/works/686474
Peter took in the situation in an instant -- the blinking light, the wires -- and he was already grabbing hold of Neal even as his brain made the conscious leap that This warehouse is wired to blow, get out get out get out --
They were too far from the door, much too far to get out in time, so he shoved Neal in the one direction that offered some hope of sanctuary: a huge, now-empty walk-in freezer, abandoned like everything else in the warehouse. To his credit, Neal either picked up on what was going on or trusted Peter to know what he was doing, because he threw himself into helping Peter drag the door shut.
The door slammed, plunging them into absolute darkness, just as the whole world bucked and a wave of sound hammered them.
Peter leaned against the wall, breathing hard. The freezer hadn't collapsed; he could easily have shoved them into a deathtrap, but it seemed to have held up. Beside him, he could hear Neal's breathing. The glowing light on Neal's anklet was the only thing visible; Peter had never realized how bright it was, but as his eyes adapted to the darkness, it actually cast a bit of light, enough to make out Neal's shape beside him. Peter gripped Neal's arm.
"You okay?"
"Yeah," Neal said. He sounded as shaken up as Peter felt. "It was a trap."
"Looks like it. At least Cruz and Jones are outside." And safe. He hoped.
From the distant, muffled sounds reaching them through the freezer's insulated walls, things had stopped falling. Peter shoved on the door, but it didn't budge, which was when he realized they might have a small problem.
"Think it's safe to open the door yet?" Neal asked.
"Yeah, that might be an issue."
Neal gave a small grunt of effort, and then he said, "The door's blocked."
"Yeah, we're buried. Time to call our backup." Peter pulled out his phone. To his dark-adapted eyes, the glowing screen seemed almost too bright. And it was giving him bad news. "Or not. I'm not getting a signal. Try yours."
Neal's face was ghostly pale in the glow of their mutual phones. "No signal here, either."
"We're buried, and we're inside a Faraday cage." Peter sighed and dropped his head back against the wall. "Well, let's see what we're dealing with."
Using the phones as flashlights, they explored their prison. It didn't take long. The freezer was not large, and contained nothing but some old steel shelves, long since empty of their contents. The air had a dusty, abandoned smell.
It was also chilly. The freezer wasn't still powered, of course, but with the door open, it would have been the same temperature as the ambient air. And it was December in New York. The mercury had been hovering slightly above freezing for days, and neither of them were dressed for prolonged exposure to the cold. Right now, Peter felt okay in his wool coat, but he had a feeling that the business suit underneath wasn't going to cut it for very long.
"Now would be a good time to get some of that escape-artist mojo going."
"I'm working on it." Neal held his makeshift flashlight towards the ceiling. Peter had already turned off his screen, to save the battery; if the phones were their only source of light, they needed to be careful with them.
"Ever been in a situation like this before?"
"Nothing I can admit to," Neal said, flashing him a grin. "And nothing that applies to our current problem."
Peter tried not to think about the "buried alive" aspect of their situation. It was hard not to. He'd never been claustrophobic, but he'd never been buried under tons of fallen debris, either. He caught himself calculating how many cubic feet of air the freezer contained, and made himself stop.
He also tried not to think about the fact that it was Christmas Eve. Not only would it complicate the emergency response -- and Peter felt guilty about the responders who would be kept away from their families by his own team's carelessness -- but Elizabeth would be getting home soon, curling up next to their little tree, opening the boxes of gifts sent by her family and his. Alone.
Glancing at Neal, Peter wondered if Neal, too, had plans that were being disrupted. Spending Christmas with June's family, perhaps? Peter hadn't asked, figuring that he'd get by with checking Neal's tracking data a time or two during the holiday.
"I wonder if we can take these shelves apart and use them to pry the door open," Neal said.
"Worth a try." Even if it didn't work, it would keep them busy, and the work would keep them warm.
They used the screwdriver blade on Peter's little pocket utility knife to unscrew the shelves ("Always be prepared," Peter remarked) and tried several different configurations of the shelves' long upright supports as a lever inserted into the crack in the door. They actually did get it open a few inches, which admitted a wave of dust and smoke. Choking, they hastily closed the door again. By the glow of Neal's phone, the interior of the freezer was now smoggy.
"Great," Peter said, coughing. "Even if we can get the door open, we'll asphyxiate." There was definitely a burning-electrical smell in the freezer now, which gave him a new thing to pointedly not worry about: roasting alive.
"If we can lodge the door open, we might be able to get cell reception."
"Which we can't do," Peter said, "because, air."
But it might work after the dust settled some (and the smoke, but he was trying not to think about the smoke) so they sat on the floor and examined their assets. Besides the two phones and Peter's pocketknife, they had their respective wallets and badges, Peter's keys, a ballpoint pen, a couple of random business cards, a rubber-band ball that Neal was carrying around for some reason, a set of lock picks (Peter's), a set of lock picks (Neal's, which he wasn't supposed to have, but Peter chose to turn a blind eye to), some loose change, and ...
"Neal, whose key is that, and what does it open?"
"It's Cruz's apartment key," Neal said. "I just wanted to see if she'd notice."
"I'm sure she will when she goes home tonight."
"I was planning to give it back," Neal said, a bit sullenly, as Peter confiscated it. "Getting locked in a freezer wasn't part of my plan for the day. Is that everything?"
"Yes," Peter said, well aware of the one item he hadn't removed from an inside pocket of his suit.
"Are you sure?" Neal asked, a glint in his eye, and Peter thought oh crap and patted down his chest. Sure enough, the pocket had been picked, with Neal's usual stealth, and now Neal flourished a brightly wrapped package between his graceful artist's fingers. "Holding out on me, Peter? What's this? Present for Elizabeth?"
"Present for you, actually, grabby hands."
Neal's face changed in an instant, from his bright-eyed "jerking around authority" sparkle, to ... something else, something much softer and harder to read. "Oh," he said, and looked at the package in his hands as if he had no idea what to do with it. "I, uh -- I didn't get you anything."
"It's not anything special, so don't get weird about it," Peter said, embarrassed. "I always get something for the people who work for me." He'd gone around the White Collar office that afternoon, leaving little packages on desks. Nothing major -- a gift certificate here, some movie tickets there. Elizabeth usually gave him some help picking things out. He'd hung onto Neal's present because he knew he'd be driving Neal home, and figured he could hand over the present at the very last minute when he left him on June's doorstep, thus avoiding awkward conversations like the one they were having now.
"Well, yes, I know, but I don't exactly, I mean I'm not really ..." Neal trailed off and turned the package over in his hands. He seemed, uncharacteristically, at a loss for words.
"Actually, now that I think about it, you might as well open it," Peter said. "It could be useful in this situation. Shoulda thought of that earlier."
Neal brightened. "Really? Is it C4?" He tore off the paper, uncovering a pair of black, fleece-lined leather gloves.
"They're probably not up to your usual standards," Peter pointed out. "It's not Italian leather from specially bred cows, fed nothing but a diet of gourmet salad and then tanned under the full moon by a secret order of Benedictine monks using techniques passed down for centuries. Or whatever you'd normally buy. But they're good solid gloves, a decent brand, and they'll last awhile." And it was the only thing he could think of. If he'd thought shopping for Elizabeth was a nightmare, then shopping for Neal was an order of magnitude worse.
Neal tugged them on and flexed his hands. "They fit," he said. He still had that soft, stunned look that he'd worn ever since Peter had told him the package was for him.
"My dad was a bricklayer. I'm good at estimating sizes of things. Runs in the family."
"Peter, this is -- Thank you," Neal said, with unusual sincerity.
Peter redistributed each item in their little pile of assets back to its respective owner; it gave him something to do, and somewhere to look other than Neal. "I'm guessing your last few Christmases weren't much to write home about."
"Not so much," Neal said. "They did give us Christmas dinner. With turkey."
"Really?"
"Well, they claimed it was turkey. We were always a bit skeptical. I had a cellmate who used to count the pigeons on the rooftops and noticed a distinct Christmastime drop in the population. He kept meticulous records."
"Sounds like he would have gotten along well with Mozzie," Peter said.
Neal leaned back against the wall, studying his hands in the gloves and speaking to them rather than to Peter. His voice was pensive and distant, recalling back through the years. "But Kate always used to bring me something. It wasn't usually much. You don't want to have anything expensive in prison, and she was trying to stay under the police radar, anyway. But she'd always make sure there was a little something special for me. Something she'd bought, or something she'd made." He clasped his gloved hands on his knee. "I was sort of hoping she might get in touch this year. Leave me something at June's, maybe."
Which explained, all of a sudden, why Neal had been a little bit distracted and antsy this afternoon. Peter hadn't been sure if it had to do with the holiday or with something Neal was planning with Mozzie. Now he knew. Or at least, now he knew part of it; he also knew that Neal never had just one reason for doing anything.
And while he was still deeply suspicious of Kate's motives, the one thing he couldn't deny was that she'd been a lifeline for Neal in prison, and in some ways she still was. It might be only a fantasy of Kate that he clung to, but this was not, Peter sensed, a good time to try to argue him out of it.
"I hope she does," he said gently.
There were a few moments of silence. Neal flicked off the phone to save the battery, plunging them back into darkness lit only by the firefly glow of his anklet.
"That was quick thinking," Neal said at last. "Getting us in here."
"Yeah, quicker thinking would have been not walking into a booby-trapped meet in the first place."
"True, but this is better than being squashed under a few tons of falling warehouse roof."
"Until we run out of air," Peter said, and then instantly wished he hadn't.
Neal huffed a small laugh. "And I used to think Mozzie was the most depressing person to be trapped in a small space with."
Peter's ears pricked. "And when was that, exactly?"
"Ah, ah, nice try. Like I said, it doesn't have any bearing on the current situation." There was a little scuffling sound. By the faint glow of Neal's anklet, Peter could see his shadow-shape change position. "I know I'm basically the idea guy, but I'm open to input."
"Oh, you're the idea guy?" Peter retorted.
"Isn't that why you took my deal? For my problem-solving cleverness?"
"It was more for your insider's knowledge of the criminal mind, which doesn't seem to be doing us a whole lot of good at the moment."
"I can't help it if I have more experience at breaking into places than breaking out of them," Neal said peevishly, and then perked up. "Hey, was that a thump?"
It had, indeed, been a distant thump, the reverberations shuddering through their metal prison. "Hey!" Peter called. "We're in here!" He banged on the wall with a piece of shelving.
"Ow, my ears," Neal protested, as the echoes died away.
"I don't think they can hear us."
Neal rubbed his ears. "I don't think I can hear anything."
Peter checked his phone, just to see if it had magically begun getting reception. It hadn't. "But this means they're on their way," he said, as much for his own benefit as Neal's. "All we have to do is wait."
"So your plan is to sit here and wait for rescue." Neal sounded skeptical.
"It's a good plan," Peter shot back. "If we come up with a way of getting ourselves out of here, that's fine, but in the meantime we ought to conserve air, conserve energy, and wait for my team to get us out. Our team," he amended, because really, Neal had more than earned the right to be considered part of the team by now.
"I'm ... not so good at doing that," Neal said. "I'm really more of a 'rescuing myself' kind of guy."
"So how's that working out for you?"
This time the silence had distinctly annoyed overtones. Peter reached out, found Neal's arm and patted it. "Don't worry," he said. "There are good people out there, and if I know them, they're working as hard as they can to get us out." He just hoped Elizabeth wasn't too worried.
More silence, then a bit of rustling, and something warm from Neal's skin was pressed into his hand. "Here," Neal said. "Have a glove. We can share."
"So we'll each have one warm hand and one cold one."
"Better than two cold ones."
Which was a point, and right now his hands were cold enough that he wasn't going to argue. Peter worked his fingers into Neal's glove, hoping he didn't stretch it out too much. "Thanks."
"It was your present in the first place."
Peter pulled up his knees and wrapped his coat more tightly around himself. "So, while we're waiting for rescue, what was Christmas at Chez Caffrey like?"
"Oh no you don't," Neal said, and Peter could hear the grin in his voice. "I'd rather hear about you. I can just imagine the Burke family Christmas. I bet you guys were like a Norman Rockwell illustration."
And for all his intentions of using this opportunity to pry out a few more secrets of Neal's past, Peter found himself sinking back into nostalgia about those long-ago Christmases. He told Neal about trips to cut the family Christmas tree on his grandfather's farm, and the year his dad got him a bike and helped him put it together, and the quiet, subdued Christmas after his grandfather died, when the whole family got together at his grandmother's house to help her through the holidays.
He talked himself hoarse, and Neal was an attentive and curious audience, prompting him with questions and laughing in the right places. Every so often, more banging and rattling reminded Peter that they only had to wait; he trusted his team to get them out. If only it weren't taking so damned long ...
But finally the door opened with a shriek of tortured hinges, and hands were reaching in and pulling them out, wrapping them in blankets and shoving hot cups of coffee into their hands. It was dark, the area lit with floodlights.
"Peter!" cried a familiar voice, and Peter turned, startled, as Elizabeth came stumbling over the rubble and sank into his arms. She felt very warm, but she was the one who was shivering.
"I hope they didn't worry you too much," he said helplessly, as she looked up at him with wide eyes that showed the tracks of dried tears.
"Oh, you know me. The original non-worrier," she said, kissing him, and then turned her attention to Neal and gave him a hug. Neal's started/pleased look was much the same as when Peter had given him the gloves.
Speaking of which ... "Here," Peter said, stripping off the glove and handing it back to Neal while he looked around for the rest of his team. "Where's Jones? There you are -- is the area secure?"
"The area's been secure for hours, boss," Jones said, giving Peter's shoulder a squeeze. "One of our teams picked up Hanstead in a hotel room full of explosive paraphernalia, so even if we didn't already have him on grand larceny, we'd have him dead to rights on trying to kill a federal officer. Case closed, Merry Christmas."
"Along those lines," Lauren Cruz said, popping up on his other side, "has anyone seen my keys? Caffrey?"
"I think you'll find they're in your pocket," Neal said innocently, and indeed, they were.
"We've got this, boss," Jones said. "Go home. Eat something. Get some sleep."
"That's exactly what I'm planning to do," Peter said, and looked around for his CI. Neal was hovering quietly on the edge of the conversation. He didn't look unhappy, just tired, and content to be in the background for a while. "Hey, Neal. Got anywhere to be?"
"I do, actually," Neal said. He smiled crookedly. "I'd like to see if that package we talked about ever got delivered. And I have a Christmas invite from June. So I'd better get back."
"I'll give you a ride, then," Peter said.
Elizabeth snatched his car keys with speed that would have done Neal proud. "The only person doing any driving is me, mister. Both of you look a little ragged around the edges."
Peter felt more than a little ragged; now that they were safe, he was very conscious of his weariness, chill, and hunger. He needed food and sleep and a shower, not necessarily in that order. Getting to the car meant running a gauntlet of his coworkers, with well-wishes and holiday greetings and, now and then, actual questions about the case, paperwork and so on. A reporter tried to shove a microphone in his face. But somehow they made it to the sanctuary of the car. Neal slid into the backseat, and El took the wheel.
As El pulled the car around a fire truck and a cluster of news vans, a lone snowflake drifted to settle on the windshield. By the time they were on the road and headed back into Manhattan, it was snowing gently, not a heavy snow but a glittering shower of snowflakes, jewel-bright under the streetlamps, so small and light that they seemed to float in the air rather than fall.
El cranked the heat all the way up, and Peter relaxed into it, drowsing in the passenger's seat.
"Hey, Peter," Neal said. Peter glanced over his shoulder. Neal had puddled into a corner of the backseat, and when Peter's eyes met his, Neal gave him a sleepy smile. "Merry Christmas."
Peter checked his watch; it was, indeed, Christmas by just a few minutes. El took her eyes off the road for a moment to lean over and kiss him.
"I suppose this isn't the way we'd planned to spend it," she said. "But it's not too bad."
"There are worse places," Peter agreed, and Neal made a sleepy little affirmative noise from the backseat.
They didn't talk any more until El pulled over to the curb at June's. Then Neal leaned forward to give her an awkward semi-hug from the backseat. El twisted far enough around to kiss his cheek. "Merry Christmas, Neal. I know you have plans, but you're welcome to come over tomorrow if you feel like it. We have more eggnog and Christmas cookies than two people could possibly eat."
"Thank you," Neal said -- not an affirmative, exactly, but it was heartfelt. He squeezed Peter's shoulder with one gloved hand. "Merry Christmas. And, um, thanks for the present."
Peter wasn't sure what to say in return -- I hope you find what you're looking for, maybe, but the words stuck in his throat, because he wasn't entirely sure that any of the things Neal was looking for would be good for him to have. He settled for backing up his wife. "El's right, you can drop by if you want to. Tomorrow only," he added hastily, realizing he'd just opened the door to having a con artist in his living room every time he turned around. "That's a one-time-only invitation. A special Christmas thing."
Neal smiled, and then he was gone, dusty and tired and wearing bright new gloves, out into the lightly falling snow.
~