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It was a savagely frigid day in New York City, the sky overcast and grey with large piles of dirty snow in the corners of parking lots and on the edges of streets that had turned more into mountains of ice than anything else. Cars skidded, people slipped, traffic was an absolute disaster, and everyone was hunched against the bitter windchill that brought the temperature well below zero.
The city was in a bad mood and most of it’s residents weren’t making any efforts to improve it— the White Collar crime division included.
Peter had been forced to flounder through the snow after Satchmo that morning after the dog had gotten very excited by the snow and then a squirrel and refused to come in. Peter’s suit had been ruined and his shoes were still wet. Also there was the fact that a months-long investigation following a promising lead had turned out to be a dud the day before, putting the case back at square one.
Neal had spent the last night discovering exactly how non-windchill-proof June’s loft actually was and had slept under four layers of blankets, waking up an unpleasant combination of freezing and overheated. Due to the cold the water temperature was lukewarm at best that morning and his shower was four minutes shorter and 87% less pleasurable than usual.
Diana and Jones were both pissed about the investigation they’d spent months on, leading to an utter dead end, and the weather wasn’t helping with their moods either. Even Blake was snappish for some reason that no one bothered to find out.
The fact that one of the probies turned up an entirely new lead only brightened moods for about seventeen seconds until the team realized what would be required to follow it.
“We have to search how many dilapidated warehouses in this weather?” Diana asked in disbelief.
“Seven,” Peter responded glumly, “and six of the warrants just came through. We’ll split up into teams, Jones and Diana you search three, Neal and I will take three.”
“Neal does not want to search three warehouses in negative ten degree weather.” Neal complained.
“Yeah?” Peter’s tone was more peevish than usual. “Well Neal had better cowboy up and put on a pair of earmuffs or else go back to his nice warm prison cell.” Neal sulked as he left the room and put his coat on with as much petulance as possible.
***
The search through the warehouses was as miserable as Neal had expected— moreso actually. He thought he’d been exaggerating when he’d referred to the weather as negative ten when he’d in fact, been stating literal truth. He was, frankly, not appropriately dressed for a day of work that had changed from office to outdoors and, with the maturity of a seventh-grader, made it Peter’s problem.
“Peter, I’m cold.”
Peter just grunted and threw him a scarf he’d pulled from the glovebox.
“This clashes with my tie.”
“Put on the damn scarf, Neal, or you can freeze, I don’t care which.”
They walked in the kind of stewing silence that forms when two people are somewhat fed up with life and each other and finally reached the first warehouse. Peter ordered Neal to pick the lock, waving his warrant when Neal’s eyes lit mischievously and they gave mutual groans as they stepped into the spacious, unkempt building.
“All right, you take this side I’ll take that one,” Peter ordered, hoping to both cover more ground and gain some distance from his whiny CI.
“Can I have your gloves?”
“No.”
“My hands are cold.”
“Too bad, you should have brought your own gloves. Get working, Neal.”
“You didn’t tell me to bring gloves.” At this Peter made an utterly exasperated noise.
“What am I, your mother, Neal? You’re responsible for bringing your own gloves.” Though privately Peter made a mental note to make sure his CI was properly dressed next time, if only for his own sanity. The kid had clearly spent too much time pulling capers in the tropics.
“I can’t work with numb hands.”
“Rub your hands together.”
The conversation continued in roughly the same route for the next few minutes until Peter told Neal to ‘shut it’ enough times that Neal figured he should probably listen lest Peter have an aneurysm.
In actuality, searching the first warehouse wasn’t so bad and consisted of mostly just looking around. But the second one required moving aside multiple metal objects as they searched and the freezing metal only contributed to the dull ache of cold that grew sharper over the course of the half-hour. The skin on Neal’s hands was growing chapped from the cold and wind and he was cursing the fact that he hadn’t at least worn a coat with pockets by the time they started on the third warehouse. This search turned out to be less uncomfortable than he had imagined though as the pain and even the cold began fading into numbness.
By the time they finished Neal was more focused on his numb hands than his bad mood, but Peter’s had not been helped by the fact that the search had been utterly unproductive. They walked almost a mile back to where they’d left the car in silence, hunched somewhat miserably against the wind.
Neal did his best to pull his hands up into his sleeves, more from instinct than the slicing pain he should have been feeling from the bitter windchill. Despite the close quarters with his disgruntled handler he was more than eager to get back into the car.
Neal held his hands eagerly against the car heaters as Peter started the engine, but pulled them back with a small cry a moment later as the heat brought pain rather than relief. Peter gave him a sideways glance.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Neal shook his head but wasn’t quite able to hold back the wince that crossed his face and Peter noticed him clench his hands and pull them quickly up into his sleeves.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, Peter.” It was Neal’s switch from the incessant whining from earlier to this sudden denial that anything was wrong that set alarm bells off in Peter’s mind.
“What’s wrong with your hands?” he persisted.
“They’re cold.” Neal scowled and buried his face moodily into the scarf without elaborating further.
Perhaps it was the combination of Neal’s complaint along with the Taurus’s helpful temperature display of -14 F with windchill for New York City that brought back a twenty-five-year-old memory of Peter’s Boy Scout frostbite training. He reached over with a sinking feeling in his stomach and took Neal’s hand.
“Let me see your hands.”
“Why?” Neal petulantly batted Peter away but the motion was clumsy and ineffective and Peter took hold of his right hand firmly, brushing back the sleeve to reveal the whitened skin.
“Damn.”
“What?” Neal asked, annoyed.
Peter didn’t answer, but his thumb stroked over the back of Neal’s hand with far more gentleness than he had displayed toward his CI the entire day. The skin was pale— too pale.
“Neal, squeeze my hand.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, okay?” Peter’s tone sharpened and Neal reluctantly obeyed as best as he could. His hand felt clumsy, stiff, and numb and Peter’s expression only tightened and he let out a huff of breath that showed in the still-chilly car.
“Dammit.”
“What?” This time Neal’s tone was nervously quiet, holding more worry than annoyance.
“Frostbite.”
Neal looked up sharply, eyes wide and startled, “Can’t you lose fingers from that?”
“Only in the most severe cases but...we need to warm you up ASAP.” Peter was quickly switching to crisis mode, stripping off his gloves and handing them to Neal who fumbled clumsily with them, struggling to put them on. Peter took them back as he noticed the struggle and slid them onto Neal’s hands. “Put your hands in your armpits— just do it, Neal— my house is a few minutes away, we’re going there.”
Peter was worried and quiet and Neal was nervous and quiet as they drove to the house.
You should have said something, was the scolding on the tip of Peter’s tongue, but guilt coiled heavily in his stomach as he was reminded that Neal had said something, more than once, and Peter had ignored it.
“Let me see your hands.” Peter demanded with tight urgency, quickly shedding his coat as they came in the door and pulling Neal to kitchen before turning on the kitchen tap. Neal obediently held out his hands. “Can you feel this?” Peter pinched Neal’s index finger, hard. Neal shook his head, eyes wider than usual with a worried expression that only served to add to the guilt in Peter’s stomach. It was no wonder Neal was concerned, his hands were his precious tools.
Peter let out a breath, gritting his teeth, “I’m really sorry, Neal.”
“Is it...serious?” Neal asked quietly. Peter sighed.
“I think we caught it early enough, the skin doesn’t feel waxy or hard... You’re not gonna lose any fingers, but warming them up will be painful.”
“I didn’t realize— we weren’t out there for that long...” Neal murmured.
“It can happen quickly in temperatures like this, I should know that.” Peter brushed a hand down his face, “I should have realized.” But indulging even for a few moments in self-criticism would be selfish with the semi-urgency of the situation and Peter pushed aside the guilt for the time being.
“All right, let’s get the blood flowing, then we need to soak your hands in warm water. Here, let me see.” Peter sat Neal down, taking his CI’s right hand between both of his own and began earnestly chafing it, trying to rub the circulation back into the freezing limb as well as transfer precious heat.
Peter’s ministrations grew a bit more firm after a few minutes, pressing deeper into the skin, encouraging the blood flow until finally Neal felt some warmth stabbing into his hand. He winced as the warmth brought pain and Peter winced in sympathy. After a few more minutes Peter filled a bowl with warm water and immersed Neal’s hand in it before beginning to chafe his left hand.
Neal resisted the instinct to pull his hand from the water as it began aching intensely, the muscles cramping and skin aching with sharp pain as it began to thaw.
Peter was grimly focused on rubbing warmth into Neal’s other hand but looked up at Neal’s quiet intake of breath to see the tightly controlled expression on his friend’s face, lines of pain pulling at his mouth. He squeezed Neal’s hand a bit more tightly for a moment in a silent apology before nodding for him to begin soaking it and quickly getting up to grab a bottle of Tylenol and a glass of water.
“Here.”
Taking the medicine was more of a challenge than it should have been, with Neal clumsily pushing the pills that Peter dropped in his palm into his mouth before fumbling at the water glass with an all-but-useless grasp. Peter quickly came to the rescue, holding the glass to his lips as Neal sipped, smiling with apologetic amusement at the situation as Neal glared, then winced, flexing his hand in discomfort.
Peter quickly rolled up his sleeves, dipping his hands into the bowl where both Neal’s hands were now soaking, “Here, let me.”
He was massaging more than chafing now, trying to sooth the necessary cramping of the thawing muscle and ease the pain in the frozen skin, taking time to rub each of the fingers with firm strokes before massaging Neal’s palms and the backs of his hands with instinctive ease.
Neal just watched quietly, falling into thought in the comfortable silence.
There was something about the warmth of Peter’s hands as he massaged the feeling back into Neal’s ice cold ones that warmed Neal more than just physically. It was the kindness of the gentle, uncomplicated skin-to-skin contact, the affectionate touch that was given without asking for anything in return. It brought a faint ache deep in Neal’s throat.
No one really touched him like this, ever, besides Peter. Or at least not since he’d been quite young.
It was sweet and simple and just purely caring; utterly unlike anything in prison or even before, and certainly nothing like his childhood. Added to the guilt that Neal could see in Peter’s eyes - undeserved guilt because Neal really should have thought ahead and knew it - it served to complete a picture of something Neal had never had before.
This, right here, was something that kept Neal Caffrey in New York City far more securely than any anklet ever would.
However annoyed as Peter might be with his CI, he still cared. Peter always cared.
Moments like this seemed to characterize their relationship in a way that Neal had never imagined during the days of their chase or when he’d walked out of the prison doors with the anklet for the first time. Well, maybe imagined, but never really expected. Perhaps it was a longing for something exactly like this that had caused him to hand over that green sucker in the first place. In between the snark and high closure rates there were these moments where Peter went beyond the expectations of their professional relationship and tread firmly onto much more personal ground for no other reason than the fact that he cared about his CI.
Somehow, amongst all Neal’s misfortune - perhaps as an apology for it - the universe had also seen fit to put this gruff, law abiding, no-nonsense, sweet, caring, protective FBI agent into Neal’s life. Neal didn’t take the time to think about how grateful he was for that as often as he should.
Sure, Peter was far from perfect, his mood this morning had demonstrated that just fine, but Neal would take a reliable short-tempered friend any day over a smiling, backstabbing one. Because it was Peter— it was always Peter, who had was there to check in, to make sure Neal was okay, and help him when he wasn’t. There were too many moments to count, too many to even remember, small things, tiny things that Peter had done that no one else had ever bothered to do for Neal Caffrey. Things like asking if he needed to talk, clasping a reassuring hand on his shoulder after a long day, or earnestly tending to frostbitten hands.
The ache in Neal’s throat tightened dangerously at this thought and a traitorous moisture burned behind his eyes. He blinked it furiously away, startled by this sudden and uncharacteristic moment of emotion, brought on by something so small as a genuine, caring touch.
Peter was engrossed in the task at hand, falling into a comfortable rhythm. The fact that he was the one to be rubbing the feeling back into Neal’s freezing hands felt only right considering it was his fault that Neal had been hurt in the first place. Peter wasn’t quite sure he wanted to deal with all the other reasons it felt right. It always felt right to be caring for the young man in front of him as he’d found himself doing so often over the past year and a half or so. It could be complicated— it was complicated if he let it be, after all a CI wasn’t supposed to be more than a work relationship, but Peter didn’t feel like letting it be complicated right now. Right now it was simple. Neal was hurting and Peter was there.
Peter looked up after a while, unsure of how long he’d been focused on his task and was startled at the watery sheen in Neal’s eyes. The blue was brightened by the tears as the younger man pulled in an unsteady breath.
Peter’s face lined with concern, his heart throbbing uncomfortably at the sight
“Does it still hurt that badly, Neal?”
Neal roughly dashed away the moisture, his hand dropping back to his knee as Peter unconsciously took it again.
“No, no— yes— it’s fine—“
The last thing Neal wanted was for Peter to know the real reason behind his sudden emotion, but crying from pain was also not the look that he wanted. It didn’t help that Peter was sitting almost knee-to-knee with him, holding each of Neal’s hands in one of his own, thumbs rubbing in absent circles. He was meeting Neal’s gaze, brown eyes warm with a gentle concern that only increased the ache in Neal’s throat.
Neal stood and pulled back, momentarily unable to handle his embarrassingly tenuous control over his emotions. Peter just watched with a small frown, studying his friend’s back with his finely honed Caffrey instinct prodding him intently.
No, Neal wasn’t in pain, he was emotional. Peter wasn’t sure why.
Peter stayed quiet for a few moments, letting Neal pull himself back together before getting up, asking quietly,
“Are you all right?”
“Fine. Better.” Neal said shortly. He turned with a small nod, flexing his fingers. “Thanks, Peter.”
“Don’t thank me, Neal, it was my fault anyway.”
“Don’t— it’s not. You were right, Peter, you’re not my mom.” Peter gave a small smile that melted back into apology,
“You’re still my responsibility. You told me more than once—“
Neal was not interested in letting Peter take the blame, not after the past half-hour,
“Just don’t, Peter. Please.” Peter held Neal’s gaze for a moment before his eyes dropped as he gave a sight nod in deference to the request.
“All right.” He reached and took Neal’s hand again, turning it over and studying it for signs of damage as Neal stood quietly and let him. As he finished the examination he felt Neal’s fingers tightened over his for a brief moment. Looking up curiously he found his friend’s gaze catch his own with unexpected vulnerability. It was a second or two at most before Neal’s eyes dropped again and his grasp loosened— but it was enough.
There was a lost child inside of Neal, Peter had seen that child before. Peter felt a catch in his chest at the gratefulness in Neal’s expression; a gratefulness for Peter’s simple care that was something any child should grow up with...but Neal hadn’t.
Neal was already turning away, embarrassed by the moment of vulnerability but Peter held tightly to the hand in his for a few moments longer than necessary. He met Neal’s wide-eyed gaze with a soft smile before reluctantly letting go, moving to clasp Neal’s shoulder with a familiar grip.
“You could sue me, you know.”
Neal sighed then looked excited,
“Would it get my sentence reduced?”
“Probably not, but you might get some money and a new handler out of it.”
“Hm. Not worth it. I can always get money and it’s not worth the trouble of training a new handler.”
“Shut it, Caffrey,” Peter cuffed him affectionately.
The city was still in a bad mood, cars skidding, people slipping, and traffic as congested as a miserable cold, but not everyone in New York was following suit.