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Neal woke to a voice screaming his name and total darkness. He felt thick, like the combination aftermath of a hard day and a bad night's sleep, with the bonus of some kind of metallic grit scraping the inside of his mouth. And the voice wouldn't shut up. But when Neal shifted trying to get more comfortable, two things happened.
One, there was pain, lots of it, rippling from his shoulder, his back, his side and hip, one ripple after another spreading to the rest of his body. Two, a massive limitation to his motions. He'd barely shifted his foot before it collided with something jagged and solid. He squirmed in an attempt to position himself in a way that would finally get the pain to back off, and scraped both his tender back and tender shoulder on more jagged limitations.
The result was a nasty collision of instinct; a powerful surge of flight to get away from both the pain and absolute confinement. He kicked out with one foot, slapped his hand against the wall in front of him, then the ceiling above him. Neal wasn't claustrophobic, never had been, but there was pain, and no room, and dry air going stale pouring into his lungs, and all his brain could compute was you're suffocating and trapped and you need to get the hell out, now!.
Then the voice in his ear shouted, “Damn it, Caffrey, answer me!” and Neal stilled, because when that voice made demands that raw and that desperate, you answer.
“Huh?” Neal said. Not his most intelligent response, but he could forgive himself. His brain was on standby, caught between the flight response and regaining his senses. He blinked, his eyes burning with more grit.
“Oh, thank goodness. Neal, what happened, are you all right?”
“What?”
“Neal!”
Neal flinched, scraping the back of his skull against the wall of... whatever it was he was in. Small, tight, forcing his body to lay in a painful fetal curl with his neck bent forward and sideways. A box, then? Neal felt around. No, the walls weren't smooth enough to be a box, too cracked and rough like they'd been mutilated. He could feel pieces of the not-walls jutting out and jabbing him, feel the space pressing on him, scratching him, restricting him. Neal gasped, his hand scrabbling over every inch of everything, tugging at the pieces to see if they would move.
“Neal, damn it, say something!”
“What?” Neal yelped. “What, Peter, what... what's going on? What...?”
“Neal, buddy, calm down. Relax. The building, collapsed, okay? Don't you remember? Calm down and remember because we need to know where you are.”
Neal, closing his eyes, nodded despite the fact he knew Peter wouldn't see. “Kay,” he croaked, his throat sticky and dry.
Calm down, relax, think. He could do that. It was easier said than done, but not impossible. He'd been in tight spaces before – literally – vents, car trunks, crawl spaces....
Crawl space. That's where he was. A crawl space, or what had been a crawl space. But why?
The pain in the shoulder currently crushed beneath his own body throbbed like a child screaming for attention at the top of their lungs. It made Neal inadvertently shift, reminding him of his confinement, giving his flight response foothold to start crawling back. Panic started creeping over Neal, tightening his chest, so he stilled.
Focus, Caffrey. Breathe. Picture fields. Picture skies. Picture the ocean. You're not trapped, you're floating.
“Crawl space,” Neal said. He coughed, and his ribs burned. He said through gritted teeth. “I'm in a crawl space.” Getting away from the bad guys.
That's right. Paintings had been stolen. Neal had been sent in undercover as a fence, with a tiny radio in his ear and a wire taped to his chest. The meeting place: a condemned house on the outskirts of the city, too old and dilapidated to draw attention. There'd been a lot of suspicion, a lot of unease. Something happened. Guns, there'd been panic and guns, Neal running for his life. Neal may not have known the house personally, but past experience with meetings gone bad had introduced him to similar constructions, and houses of this make and model always had hollow walls and crawl spaces.
Okay, not always, he'd been lucky, but luck always favors the prepared and Neal had been prepared as he could get.
Except for the part where the house fell down around his ears. That had been luck ditching him like an obsolete partner.
“Okay, Neal, that's good,” Peter said, his voice like a knife cutting through the creeping edges of persistent terror. It cleared Neal's head enough to feel the embarrassment of his initial panic, because this was nothing. At least, it was supposed to be nothing, because tight spaces were nothing - all part of the job - but there was pain, thick air, no time to mentally prepare himself for enduring this kind of immobility and no knowing when he was getting out.
Panic slithered through the cracks, and Neal's breathing increased.
“Neal,” Peter said firmly. The panic retreated. “Which end of the house, Neal?”
Breathing through his nose, slowing his frantic respirations, Neal thought - oceans, skies, fields - but shook his head. “I can't...” he coughed when dust flowed into his lungs.
Peter sighed. “Neal, I'm sorry, I wish I could say take your time but this place is unstable. I don't know how much time we have.”
“East,” Neal said. “I'm pretty sure... yeah... east end. Definitely east. Toward the back.”
“Good, you're doing good, Neal. Hang tight, we're sending people in. How are you?”
Neal laughed, coughed, and laughed a little more. “I'm not gonna lie to you, Peter.”
“Well, according to you, you never do.”
Neal smiled tremulously, even though it made his mouth hurt. “And I'm not about to start. I've been better.”
“If that's not stating the obvious then I don't know what is. Any injuries we should know about?”
“Probably,” Neal said. Then a muscle in his arm twitched, right along his pinned shoulder, forcing him to be twice as honest. “Yeah, definitely.” Neal panted through the pain. “Can't – can't give you details. S-sorry. A little too dark.”
“That's okay, Neal. One thing at a time. How about air. Can you breathe?”
Neal licked dusty, dry lips, tasting blood. “Won't lie,” he said. “Getting kind of hard.” And it was all panic needed, its thready reach like a tap to the mental shoulder, turning his attention to the limitations of his inhales. He wasn't getting enough oxygen. His body, reacting accordingly, tried to bring in more, but he was contorted, restricting a ribcage already impeded by pain, shrinking his lung capacity to impossibly small. His body compensated by breathing faster, and faster. But it wasn't enough. No matter how fast he breathed, how hard his heart hammered, it would never be enough. His body shuddered and twitched, his legs kicking out against the walls. If he could just stretch, make a hole, if he could get out, just get out, out, out, out...
“Neal, stop it!” Peter bellowed.
Neal froze and would have gone still except for the incessant shakes juddering through his body. But he held his breath, even though it hurt, and listened.
“Neal, slow, shallow breaths, okay? You've got to make what you have last. Slow, shallow, steady.” And like Neal was a pregnant woman in labor – a thought ten times more humiliating than panicking in a small space – Peter breathed with him, the sound like a hurricane roar in Neal's ear, forcing him to follow along like tapping his foot to a song stuck in his head. In, nice and slow, and out, nice and slow.
“You know,” Peter said conversationally once Neal's breathing was under control, “I would think that with all your “alleged” experience with getting in and out of tight places this would be a cake walk for you.”
“Yeah, well,” Neal said. He swallowed. “That's the key word – out of. There's usually a way out. And should we be talking? Wastes air, doesn't it?”
Neal could practically hear Peter's contrite wince. “Yeah, sorry. I'll shut up.”
“No!” Neal said, abrupt and with more desperation than he was comfortable with. He said, more calmly though not by much, “No. You can talk. Just...” please don't leave me alone in the dark, “Just, I don't think I should. Limited air and everything, right?”
“Yeah. Okay, uh... um... hm. Kind of hard to have a one-sided conversation.”
Neal attempted a shrug and wished his hadn't, the joint scraping the ceiling and raining dust on him, waking his awareness once more to his confinement. Neal swallowed back the mindless fear crawling its way toward dominance and said, with paltry casualness, “Talk about your day, then.”
“My day, huh? I think you can guess pretty easy how my day is going. All hunky and dory up until I had to send my CI on an undercover operation in a building that should have been condemned. Seriously, who the hell thought it would be a good idea to meet here? Wait, don't answer that. The same idiots who panicked when a cop car happened to roll past even though it never stopped. Anyway, so the gunfire starts and we're all running inside thinking the CI's been shot. We chase the morons and one of the morons decides to lob a grenade. I kid you not – an honest to goodness grenade. Probably got it at the same Russian surplus store your little buddy gets all his toys. But better the house came down on us than on whoever was trying to renovate the place.”
Silence, just long enough for Neal's heart to seek refuge in his throat.
“Sorry,” Peter said, and Neal's heart eased back into his chest. “I just meant... you know what I meant.”
Neal smiled. “Yeah, I know.” He coughed, long and hard. Speaking was officially out of the question.
“Neal?” Peter said, voice almost tentative with concern, as though fearing the response.
“Good,” Neal finally replied when he was able, but it was all he could say unless he wanted to suffer another rib-splitting jag.
“Where was I?” Peter said. “Oh, yeah. So moron tosses a grenade and the whole place starts coming down. We haul ass out of there just as half the house caves in on itself. Oh, yeah, and my CI is still trapped inside.
“Mm-hm,” was all Neal could manage.
“Neal? You all right? One hum for yes, two for no.”
Neal's answering “hm,” was long and slightly annoyed.
“Yeah, okay, dumb question. I guess if you're making noise I should count that as a win.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Well... hang tight. I know that isn't exactly reassuring but someone's coming for you. Brought fancy equipment to find you and everything. Well, okay, a dog but also some kind of infrared thing-a-ma-jig that's supposed to read body heat. Oh! I think they found you. They're digging.”
“Mm.”
“You know El's going to be pissed. She wanted to borrow your palate again.”
“Mm. Mmm.”
Peter sighed heavily, another roar in Neal's ear. “Yeah, you're right. It's me she's going to be pissed at.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“You're trapped under rubble, Neal. Don't sound so smug.”
Neal smiled. He took a breath, filling his lungs with more dust, and coughed it out. Like all the previous coughs it was painful. Unlike them, it wouldn't stop, and drawing in any more air became next to impossible.
“Neal? Neal!” Peter called. Neal wanted to respond. Crap, how he wanted to but his lungs wanted to breathe and cough at the same time, his heart was freaking out in his chest and panic had him, really had him, swallowing him whole until tears of pain and terror leaked from his eyes. He kicked, he scrabbled, he bucked knowing only the screaming need to get out.
Then like a granted wish, there was light, air – sweet, wonderful air – and voices other than Peter's. But it was short-lived relief replaced by a different kind of chaos, the space still small and hands suddenly touching him, poking, prodding and pressing.
“Neal! Neal! Easy, buddy! Calm down. You need to calm down!” said Peter. “They're almost there. Just hang tight.”
“Easy, sir,” said someone else, someone female. The female voice demanded more clear space and several male voices passed the order along. More debris was moved pelting Neal with rivulets of rock, dirt and bits of wood, but enough space was cleared for someone to maneuver an oxygen mask through the opening and press it against Neal's face.
Not even a glass of real Bordeaux tasted as good as that dry, plastic-smelling air. His world focused to a pinpoint until all that mattered was breathing as much of that oxygen as he could. He barely even noticed it when someone tugged up the back of his shirt . He did notice it when a gloved hand frisked his spine, because it was hitting some very sore, very tender areas. Then more space was cleared, enough for the many people hovering over him to hold him steady while they shifted him enough to slip a brace around his neck.
Then he was out, so slowly it felt like eternity, with numerous hands supporting his body, lifting it up, out and over onto a backboard. Cheers erupted, buckles were strapped in place, and Neal barely controlling the need to bawl at being able to see a sky full of stars.
It wasn't until, loaded onto the ambulance, Peter's face filled his vision that he allowed himself to smile.
Peter, dirty, haggard, exhausted, smiled back.
“Damn it, Caffrey, you don't like making anything easy, do you?”
“Keeps... life interesting,” Neal said.
Peter clasped him on the good shoulder and squeezed.
----------------------------
Neal, like any red-blooded human being, wasn't a fan of hospitals. For him, it wasn't so much the needles and the smell as it was the feeling that he was going from one chaotic moment to the next. He knew he was in safe hands, knew that the doctors would do what they needed to fix him. But knowing was one thing and believing was another, and all his exhausted brain registered was another reason to increase his heart rate. It wasn't panic, not really, but more a sobered terror that kept him aware and tense as a violin string.
But once the mad dash to get him shirtless, X-rayed and bandaged simmered down to the lesser frenetic energy of getting him settled, annoyance overtook fear. Another issue he had with hospitals was that these people had no idea how to leave him alone. He was tired, drugged, and wanted nothing more than to sleep, but the moment he dozed off, he was awake, with a pen-light in his eyes or a blood pressure cuff around his arm. Peter, of course, was absolutely no help. At least he had the decency not to tell him to cowboy up.
“You've earned that much,” Peter said, standing there being witness to Neal at his bare minimum - curled on his good side with only an open gown covering his front and sheet his naked legs. Thank goodness for small mercies, though, that they had let him keep his boxers on, because it was a female nurse currently cleaning the scrapes on his back.
“What I earned is a free pass out of here,” Neal grouched.
“Sorry, bud. You know the drill.”
Neal did, even though his past hospital experience had been few and far between. A dislocated shoulder, broken ribs and bruised hip weren't life threatening, but concussions, even mild ones, were slippery and there would be no shoulder reduction until the doctor was sure Neal wouldn't drop into a coma when they put him under. It was many kinds of suck-tacular.
Once the nurse was finished she had Peter help her roll Neal, gingerly, onto his back. No amount of kid gloves made it comfortable, and Neal was panting by the end. Neal must have turned an amazing shade of green when the nurse quickly handed him a kidney dish. Thankfully, nothing came up. He'd suffered enough humiliations to last him a lifetime, thank you very much.
“Doing okay, there?” Peter asked.
Neal closed his eyes. He'd also suffered enough of his misery being on display. He said, cooler than intended, “Fine.”
“I thought you didn't lie to me,” Peter said.
Neal sighed and rubbed the non-bruised side of his face. “I'm tired, Peter. I would think that would be obvious.”
“Want me to leave?”
Neal startled himself with his sharp and sudden, “No!” The fear in that one word hadn't gone past him, and if it hadn't gone past him it wouldn't have gone past Peter. With the heat of embarrassment spreading up his neck, Neal cleared his throat and said with frayed indifference. “I mean, you can stay. If you want.”
“Okay,” Peter said, easy, light, like he hadn't just heard Neal's borderline panic. He turned, briefly, to grab the plastic chair currently facing the neighboring (empty) bed. In that moment, Neal closed his eyes, took a breath and gathered the fractured remains of his calm.
It wasn't about playing a part. Not this time. Pretend had stopped being viable the moment Peter had heard him freak out over the comm, and between the drugs, the discomfort, the cuts, bruises and sling holding his temporarily crippled shoulder, there was no room for masks of normalcy.
And Neal hated that, and knew that if he didn't get it together, he would say something, do something, they would both end up regretting.
This was Peter. Peter who he trusted. Peter who wouldn't use his current state of being against him.
Peter, the voice in the darkness.
When Peter sat, Neal blurted a sincere, “Sorry.”
Peter waved it off. “Don't worry about it. You should see me in the hospital.”
Neal smirked. “I have, actually.”
It took Peter a bewildered moment to recollect, then nodded. “Right. When I was poisoned.”
“Yeah. In fact, I recall you threatening to throw me back in prison if I didn't help get you out.”
Peter had the decency to look sheepish. “Well, you know... being poisoned does that to you.”
Neal quirked an eyebrow. “Does that mean I can threaten you with jail time?”
Peter chuckled softly. “If it makes you feel better, you can try.”
Neal said, “Thanks, Peter.” Giving it weight, expanding it beyond Peter playing along with their verbal sparring.
Peter answered, “No problem,” hearing what Neal was really saying loud and clear.