15Of course there is comfort! There is no point in hurt without the comfort but... I don't think that "tender" would fit Peter very much without going OC, so lets say... paternalistic.
My point is not to beat Neal endlessly but more to escalate to have Peter from concerned to mad. Actually the third chapter was about to be the final one but at last moment I decided to divide in two to add some details at the comfort scene, so I get it feels odd by itself. And finally... no, there is no point in writing whump fanfiction, I just enjoy it and I don't know why, but I've discovered I'm not the only one.
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Burke was crossing the door of the Precinct when he saw a detective who had just come down the stairs before him as he pulled his keys and was preparing to get into the public-restroom-blue sedan. The rage he felt inside in that moment could not be perceived by the calm way in which he put his hand on the car door or the controlled tone of his voice, if something, only the dark of his eyes and the heavy frown.
"Excuse me Detective ... I think you and I must have a conversation."
Portman saw from the car seat the FBI badge attached to man's belt and the glance that swept the door frame of the car. He had no doubt who the agent was or what he wanted to talk about with him, it was obvious that at this point Caffrey should have told everything to his handler.
"Agent, please let me apologize, it was all an accident, ok? Could we leave this conversation for another moment?"
"I've heard the story of the so called accident before, but I haven't been able to connect all the dots yet. There seems to be lot of details that do not fit."
"I'm really sorry, Agent... Burke?" Portman was anxious, but he saw that Peter was absolutely determined not to let the matter rest and he couldn't blame him. "This whole Caffrey thing was meant only as a joke that some took too seriously and then... My partner is under a lot of pressure, has made mistakes and I have supported him, I recognize that now he's out of control and I've let him go this far, but he has big problems. Now he should be here to help me finish the report but he has not arrived yet, I have to go get him before he be fired. "
Peter saw the genuine concern in the eyes of the detective. Had not he been in the same situation many times with Neal himself?
"That makes two of us, come, let's go in my car."
The detective thought for a moment, but concluded that the fastest way to get rid of the interrogation of Burke and go find Anderson was actually accompanying the Fed. When he got in the car he told Peter the way to the bar of Martin, but otherwise the remaining minutes ran in tense silence.
"Wait, stop! That's my partner's car!" Peter barely managed to stop by the time Portman had already removed the seat belt and opened the door to get off.
Anderson's car was almost in the middle of the street, not far from the corner they had just crossed. Peter didn't spend too much time parking neatly; he simply stopped the engine and went after the detective. Portman looked puzzled the broken and bloodstain windshield,then he noticed that the car door was half open and wasted no time in going to check inside. Burke was about to ask him something when the muffled sound of a metal thing hitting against something, accompanied by a harsh moan coming from a nearby alley caught his attention and he just quickly run to the place, forgetting all about the detective.
Point blank he found a tall fellow wielding a metal bar strike directly against the back of a thinner man trying awkwardly to stay on his knees. Burke himself gasped and it was like feeling the blow firsthand while in his throat came a furious yell.
"Nooo!" It only took a second to recognize her consultant on the floor despite the pained wince that congested his face, but the other man didn't seem to have listened and with uncoordinated movements raised the bar again, the face transformed with anger. Peter only caught a glimpse as the iron bar rose above the head of the policeman and with a tiny twist of his torso his arms unfolded it to point directly to the head of his partner. His foot acted perhaps even faster than his thought, but in an instant his head was hitting against the body of Anderson as the two flew through the air to fall a few feet away, the FBI agent body over the detective. Burke jumped up, but the bigger man moved couple of steps on his elbows until he hit the alley wall with his back and he lay there with the wide eyes of a deer that is about to be run over.
"You, you bastard!" shouted Peter, pulling out his weapon with bloodshot eyes.
"Agent Burke, calm down, all is controlled now, I will take care of him." said Portman as he approached and knelt next to his partner, putting himself slightly between the Federal's gun and Anderson.
"You beat my friend after running over him!" Peter yelled, his gun still up in both hands and without any intention of lowering it, as still waiting for a good reason not to put a bullet between the eyes of the man who looked at him blankly from the floor.
"Okay Agent, I'll take charge. Your partner is hurt, go with him."
The words of the detective seemed to get Peter out of his trance, he looked to the floor and when he saw Neal lying motionless on his side he holstered his gun and ran to his knees beside him.
"Hey Neal, it's over, I'm here." The young man had rolled into a tight ball, trying to protect his head with his arms. It took the agent some effort to lower them enough to assess his condition. "Neal, look at me, look at me."
The conman blinked a few times before he could focus well enough and stared at him with a puzzled expression.
"Peter? What are you doing here?"
"What does it look like? Saving your sorry ass, that's what I'm doing." Peter growled, trying to hide his concern with anger. Without releasing the arms of Caffrey he made a bit of pressure to lay him on his back. "Help me a little here. What does it hurt?"
"Everything" sighed Neal, not too eager to be on his back and looking forward to roll over himself again… if he had the strength.
Peter looked up and saw with satisfaction that Portman himself had handcuffed Anderson and kept him sitting against the wall, as he called for backup and asked for an ambulance. Burke and the detective locked eyes and they both nodded in silence. Peter could see that this was as shocking for Portman is it was for him. In the meantime Anderson was slumped with his hands behind his back and the gaze lost into his own world, as a bit of blood flowed freely from an ugly cut in the eyebrow. As it was, Neal had not fallen without a fight and Peter could not help a feeling of pride.
But when Peter looked back to his consultant his chest squeezed in distress. Neal's face was full of bruises, with one eye already swollen close and a big lump on his left temple. But beyond the visible to the naked eye what especially worried Peter was the marked expression of pain of the forger, how fast and shallow was his breathing and the slight tremors that shook his body. Shock. The thought ran through Peter as a chill, but though he could not see any apparent bleeding only God knew what damage the car hit and that son of a bitch with his iron bar could have caused and which internal injuries could be hiding, but by now there wasn't much he could do beyond keep Neal comfortable while help arrived.
"Don't!" Neal cried softly as he felt the shadow of Peter moving away from him.
"Relax, I'm not going anywhere," reaffirmed the agent while he wrapped the raincoat he had just took off over his CI, trying to at least keep Neal protected from the cold of the night, given that he had not been able to protect him from anything else.
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Peter entered the room as soon as the nurses gave him the seal of approval, although they warned him that Neal would probably be asleep for a few more hours. Although at least the doctors had not had to cut and open him and anesthesia hadn't been necessary they had explained him that his partner would be in considerable pain, so he'd rather be sedated at the time of his visit anyway.
To his disappointment Neal seemed, if it was even possible, worse than the last time he saw him. Didn't know if it was the effect of the light blue robe against his skin, the pale neon light contrast against his now fully purple and swollen bruises, but for Peter Neal was even paler than when he saw him disappear immobilized into the ambulance. Considering the odds Peter knew he could touch wood that it hadn't been worse. To the broken hand and the various known bruises he now could add a torn knee ligament, a face of a boxer and kidneys so severely beaten that doctors had talked about the possibility of needing dialysis during the first weeks.
The FBI agent settled himself on the unoccupied bed beside Neal. He was tired to the bone and could use some sleep too and had to remind himself there was a reason he was in light duty right now, yet better here than in the waiting room and he was definitely not going home until Neal opened his eyes. Two times the nurses checked on his patient without him noticing a thing but when he woke up a few hours later there was a blanket over him. Peter folded it and used the room bathroom and a few minutes later, with his face washed he could feel that, if not fully rested, the edge o the exhaustion was gone. He was sitting on the bed sending a text message to Elizabeth when he saw some movement on the next bed so he stood and walked over there, to notice how Neal was starting to stir.
"Hey," Neal greeted with all the smile his swollen face allowed. Peter raised his eyebrows when he saw how his eyes were of a blue even more startling than usual of how contracted were his pupils.
"Hey you, how are you feeling?"
"Kind of... hurts," Neal seemed to need his time to think the answer and his eyes droop a bit, almost falling sleep once more, but he blinked a few time to awake himself before talking again. "Peter, you wasted your time playing baseball, your future was in Football"
"Sorry?"
"I saw you tackle Anderson. Thanks"
"Well, I could have arrived sooner and avoided all of this if you had told me what was going on," Peter replicated.
"I can fight my own battles," Neal furrowed.
"I see"
"I said I can fight my own battles, not to win them." And the naughty smile was back.
"Neal..."
"Sorry, but ... as you get into enough trouble on because of me. Nothing I couldn't handle alone. I didn't count with a psycho cop, that's all."
"About that... Detective Anderson mixed antidepressants with alcohol. He already was about to be fired before all this and so you know, he's now held in a rehabilitation center. Portman detective asked me to... "
"I will not judge all New York Police by a bad apple, if that's what he fear." interrupted Neal. "After all, it was a good week, I got what I wanted."
"And what you were looking was worth ending up in the hospital?" Peter snorted.
"Did you know that it was the same Precinct Ellen and my father worked in?"
"Now I know, and if I had known before I would have never allowed you to participate in this case."
"Well, that's why I didn't say anything."
Neal's expression, with a defiant smirk, made Peter want to strangle him with his own hands, but on the advice of Elizabeth he mentally counted to ten.
"Neal, I just wanted to believe that after all you can count on me to these things, I wish that at least you had not lied to my face when I asked you, not once, but twice." Peter said as he sat on the edge of the bed and looked his consultant into his eyes.
Even in the mud of neurons soaked in morphine Neal immediately understood what was Peter's move, he was turning the board and making him feel guilty. And it was working.
"I appreciate all your help, I really do, but I don't need a babysitter" Again he sounded like a spoiled child, but sore and under the influence of who knows how many drugs the argumentative capabilities of the con artist were severely diminished and he could not think of many things to replicate without compromising his loyalty to Elizabeth. "How do you think it was to be the guy who liked to paint at school? You think that made me very popular?"
"Do not make childish comparisons." Peter was very good at not falling in Neal's game; years of experience.
"Then let's go closer. How do you think it was to be the FBI snitch in prison when Kate died?" Neal had never talked about this with Peter had not been drugged up to the eyeballs. "How do you suppose it was every day, for sixty days to have to study who was behind me in the cafeteria line, three meals a day, fearing being stabbed from behind? Did you know that in a laundry you can be beaten with a sack of wet clothes up to knock you off and leave no marks?" Neal dropped his head on the pillow, he was too tense and straining the muscles of his back was like if a dull pain enveloped his entire body.
All the rage that Peter was feeling dissipated as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over him. He also remembered very well all and each of those days. He had asked to the prison authorities to keep Caffrey in solitaire, for his own safety, but Neal had refused and there was nothing that the system could do to force him if he had not committed any breach of discipline. Peter had been furious and had been ready to personally go to the prison to shake some sense into the kid, but Elizabeth had stopped him. "You know Neal, he's a social animal. He has just lost the love of his life, if you keep him in solitaire now that's what will kill him," she had said. Burke had visited Neal as often as he could, had entrusted his security to each and every guard and authority possible, but he was not so naive to ignore the fact that within prisons it was its own world with its own laws, that no outsider could really control. Peter looked at Neal, who was looking stubbornly to the other side of the bed and then looked down. His eyes rested for a moment in a bag with a dark red liquid down attached to the side of the bed. He could have sworn it was a blood transfusion if he didn't know better than the content of the bag was collected urine from the catheter and felt at his own kidneys the brutal blow that had seen Anderson give him and remembering the rage he had felt then.
"And how do you think it feels to see that your partner is lying on the floor, about to have his head open with a crowbar?"
"Quite like see him suffer a car accident caused by the enemies of your father, I suppose," Neal replied, without turning to face him.
Peter ran a hand over his face, this time had fallen into Neal's game as a preschool child. Elizabeth would be furious if she saw them now, there would be another time to assign blames and for recriminations, but it was not this one.
"Here you are not in prison Neal, nor your teammates are like Keller or Wilkes," Peter put his hand on the healthy knee of his consultant and left it there, as if casually. "It's okay if you learn that sometimes there are situations in which you can let someone cover your back
Caffrey continued to look the other way, but this time he didn't want Peter to see that he had bright watery eyes and said nothing because he didn't trust himself to speak past the lump in his throat. The agent could feel the slight tremors in Neal and respected his silence until finally the conman turned to face him, looked him at the eyes and mumbled something that could be understood as an "I know."
"Let's make a deal," said Peter giving a light pat on Neal's knee. "Now you rest, sleep, let the medicines do their thing and when you wake up again, I promise I'll be here."