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Published:
2022-06-21
Completed:
2022-06-27
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3,994
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2/2
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Love Grows (And Pain Festers)

Summary:

He’s always felt it-- the ache on the quiet nights, the stinging from old wounds, the shame of failure. He’s rarely had anyone to care about him, and that takes it’s toll.

It should get easier as he grows into his family;

It doesn’t.

Five times he thought about it (and one time someone notices)

Notes:

hello loves! look at that, a vent fic, who woulda thunk

that being said, major trigger warning for suicide!! no character death occurs (because i love my babies and they deserve their happy ending), but it's heavily discussed and i ask that y'all stay safe and know when to click away <3

happy reading!

(this was recently released publicly, so don't be confused by any anon comments)

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

========

 

Neal decides, distantly, that he thought about it for the first time when he was eighteen.

 

(He won’t let himself admit that he’d been thinking about it his entire childhood, maybe not seriously, but it’s always been there.)

 

Ellen tells him everything.

 

He lays in the gutter that night, lays there and thinks about his life, because there’s very little left that he cares about.

 

Why run away when he can’t see anything to run to?

 

Anyone who ever cared about him is gone, gone by his own accord. They all lied and he can’t make himself care.

 

There are other ways to run, his brain supplies, and he thinks of the bridge he passed by before settling in this gutter. Danny- Neal- thinks about how far down it is, how long it would take to find him, who might stop him.

 

He gets colder as he thinks. Rain soaks through his clothes, and he wonders if maybe he won’t have to try at all; maybe the weather will kill him before he can.

 

He drifts off to sleep before he can continue his train of thought. He wakes up in a hospital-- sneaks out before they find out who he is.

 

========

 

He’s twenty; he’s just met Mozzie, and at least someone knows who he is now, but a short man with more conspiracies than truths is hardly enough to stay for.

 

Neal lays in bed most nights, waits for the city to drown out his thoughts but it never does. He stays awake and thinks of the bridges, the pills, the knives. Thinks of them like they’ll comfort him.

 

He tells himself he’s never serious, and maybe he’s not, but he recognizes the ache in his chest and holds onto the pain like a dear friend. He’ll see it for what it is later, but not yet.

 

Then Kate comes along, and he has someone to live for again.

 

Someone who holds him like she loves him ( she does ), whispers reassurances and stays for him.

 

He can stay for her.

 

Neal forgets, for a time, because he’s drunk on her affection and his own infatuation.

 

It doesn’t last, not after Adler, after Nick becomes Neal, but he ignores it for now.

 

========

 

Neal is arrested.

 

Kate visits him. He gets a few minutes of reprieve once a week, just to look at her, hear her voice, talk to her in a way he can’t talk to anyone else.

 

It’s not enough.

 

He holds onto the sound of her voice as long as he can, prays he can get through the week until he sees her again, but he knows he can’t get by on whispers forever.

 

He spies his bedsheets, mentally reminds himself how to tie a noose. At his physical he swipes a bottle of unnamed meds, knows he’ll get away with it until they go searching through cells, and by then, hopefully, he’ll be dead.

 

He never takes the pills. He isn’t sure what stops him.

 

Before they check the cells (they do), Neal wipes the bottle clean of fingerprints and throws it in the yard. They never catch him.

 

Nightly he thinks of all the ways, regrets throwing away the pills while simultaneously grateful he did, thinks of Kate when she’ll come in for her weekly visit and someone would tell her that he’d died.

 

He lasts all the way up until she leaves him;

 

When he runs, he plans to die, just like he planned to die that day when he swiped the pills. But he never does. Neal drives recklessly but swerves back onto the road at the last second every time. His body fights to live while his mind fights to die, and somehow his body always wins and he never really tries . Just endlessly wishes himself away.

 

So he never attempts, not in prison, not when he escapes. Not when Agent Burke is right there, an arms length away with a loaded gun and it would be so easy .

 

He’s dragged back into his cells and he keeps wishing himself away.

 

========

 

When Agent Burke comes for him on that blessed day where he’s almost free, he doesn’t think about the gun strapped to the man’s chest, doesn’t think about the bedsheets at the seedy motel or the pocket knife he scrounged out of a dumpster promptly after arriving. It’s a blessed day because he only sees it as it is-- a day.

 

Not his last day. Not one more day. Just a good day.

 

He doesn’t have many good days anymore, and he’s learned to hide every day behind a smile.

 

So Peter drags him around the city on a leash, and Neal hides behind the smug carelessness he’s learned to show. He’s known for running, but he thinks people should learn to label him as a hider as well.

 

He finds himself alone with a bottle of wine a few too many times, and if anyone ever smells it on his breath when he goes into work the next morning, nobody comments; he’s not hungover, he’s functional and useful, so nobody cares.

 

People care that he’s alive, for the most part, care that he’s an asset, laugh with him over meals and punch him in the shoulder like a sibling might, but he can’t make himself believe it’s real.

 

He might have a family, but a family built on deceit is hardly true.

 

Neal doesn’t have the heart to correct their vision of him, because someone who thinks about the best places to die is someone no one wants as family… right?

 

========

 

He’s back in prison. It’s an excruciating month.

 

If he had the opportunity, he would have stolen the bottle of pills a hundred times over. His family is there but they are a lie, and if he can’t be free soon, his family won’t get him back at all.

 

But Peter comes. He keeps him company, sometimes, like Kate did. That keeps him steady for a time.

 

The rest of the time is spent piecing together evidence to get him free in the vain hope he can last that long.

 

He never tries.

 

But he wishes himself away, and he thinks that’s more excruciating than death.

 

So when he’s free, he drinks expensive wine and good coffee, he relishes in the beauty of life because he’s had too long to forget it. He’s okay for just a little while, okay like a piece of pottery with a crack through it.

 

He’s held together by hopes and prayers, and if someone is to touch him he’ll break all over again.

 

Peter pretends like nothing happens. Jones and Diana welcome him back, but proceed all the same. El and June and Mozzie are sympathetic but assume he moves on, just like he wants them to believe, because Neal Caffrey is smug and pretentious and a little time in prison is nothing.

 

(It tears him apart from the inside out, but nobody needs to know that.)

 

Slowly he stitches himself back together through denial and compartmentalization, and it’s enough.

 

It has to be.

 

========

 

It isn’t enough.

 

Keller comes back. Again.

 

He hits Neal over the head with a priceless painting, which, first of all, that’s practically blasphemy. Neal shoots Keller in the leg, shows off his proficiency with a gun.

 

He drops it quickly while he’s still in his right mind. He hates guns, always has, but that doesn’t mean he can’t use them.

 

(Or doesn’t want to.)

 

He tries to tell himself he’s okay.

 

But Sara isn’t here. Keller is back to haunt him. Peter’s angry, Elizabeth could have been hurt, and the only good thing he finds is that he won’t have to go back to jail yet again.

 

Mozzie talked to him, once, years ago, about a shady guy that would sell him antidepressants cheap and off the books. Told him it might be a good idea after a few too many particularly dark jokes.

 

Neal laughed him off. He’s thinking he shouldn’t have.

 

Things move back to normal, somehow, and even though he found himself on the Brooklyn bridge a few too many times and had to convince himself (and a few others) that he was just admiring the sights, he moves on with them.

 

Elizabeth’s okay. Peter’s anger dissipates. Neal smiles and wow he’s getting sick of faking indifference.

 

But he doesn’t speak.

 

He supposes that’s his first downfall.

 

His smile begins to falter. Not particularly like it should-- his smile is still there, he still grins smugly and hides behind a wall of overconfidence-- but it’s bitter.

 

Neal smiles bitterly, not in anger but in exhaustion.

 

It’s been so long, so many years of gaslighting himself into thinking that nothing was wrong, that when he accepts that things are going wrong, he doesn’t truly try to hide it anymore.

 

Maybe he thinks if he shows symptoms, shows the pain, someone will finally notice the struggle. Ask to help him. Worry over him in a way no one has since he was a teenager.

 

(He has a feeling that if anyone asks, if somebody says those beloved words, “Are you okay?” he’ll deny it anyway.

 

It doesn’t mean he doesn’t wish someone would say it.)

 

He’s halfway through a bottle of wine when he actually makes an action towards the thoughts.

 

Two hefty glasses in and he’s tipsy. Some would argue that he’s good at hiding being drunk, but he’s never been a lightweight and the amount of alcohol he’s consumed makes him think he’s gained a bit more tolerance. 

 

It’s late-- too late for him to logically call anyone, but his phone buzzes on the table anyway. Neal ignores it in favor of tipping his chair back on two legs, taking the last sip of his wine.

 

He isn’t drunk, he’d know if he is, because he feels everything with perfect clarity. Every bone-deep ache in his chest for no discernible reason, the sting of long since healed scars on his thighs, every tear burning at the back of his eyes and low in his throat.

 

He feels it all too deeply, and he thinks that is downfall number two.

 

He used to find little ways to stop feeling when he was in prison, gravel digging into his palms, the tip of his fork to a clothed thigh in the mess hall, a carefully placed papercut to his finger. It was easier to do when he was a teenager, and as an adult he doesn’t even recognize the scars most days, but it’s hard not to when it’s all he craves.

 

It’s when the bottle of prescription meds that June accidentally left on the table yesterday catches his eye does he realize what’s happening.

 

Neal holds it in his hand. Orange plastic, a handful of pills willing to take his life without him even knowing, resting right underneath his fingers. He holds it for what could be hours.

 

Someone tells him, later, that what’s happening is called dissociation. He doesn’t feel and doesn’t register the world, but it happens without him anyway.

 

He wakes up from his little mentally-ill nap when Peter comes in. Neal thinks maybe he knocked and he didn’t hear, but he hears it clearly when Peter speaks.

 

“Neal, what are you doing?”

 

He’s heard the phrase a hundred times from the man, but never in his life has he heard it with the kind of fear with which he now hears it. The phrase is always said in skepticism, when Mozzie’s around, when he plans something less-than legal. It’s never before been said with the emotion Peter portrays now.

 

Neal doesn’t answer his question. He doesn’t know what he’s doing either.

 

“Are you listening to me?” He steps closer. Neal doesn’t glance over. “Neal, can you look at me?”

 

Neal thinks this is when he comes back to the real world again. He looks Peter in the eye and sees the raw emotion in his expression, and suddenly he’s a little afraid for himself as well.

 

The pills are slipped out of his grasp. He doesn’t mind.

 

Peter’s holding onto his hand now, rubbing his thumb over Neal’s knuckles. It feels nice. Calming. Like he has someone who sees him and cares for him anyway.

 

“Hi Peter,” he whispers, not quite smiling, but still happy he’s there.

 

Peter, for his part, is nothing short of relieved. “Hi bud.” He’s definitely smiling. Neal’s a little off his game, but he thinks he sees more sadness in his smile than relief.

 

“Did you take any of those?” 

 

He wracks his brain. Take what? What did he take? He hasn’t robbed anybody, at least not unless for FBI purposes, and-- oh.

 

He shakes his head. He hasn’t taken them, he doesn’t think. He doesn’t remember, but Neal’s pretty sure he would remember if he downed a handful of arthritis pills.

 

“I was worried about you.” Peter’s sitting in the dining room chair next to him now. Neal’s pretty sure he was kneeling before. “You weren’t answering your phone.”

 

“Why were you calling me?”

 

Peter smiles. It’s a wry, sad thing again. “You left your hat in my car. Couldn’t believe you forgot it.”

 

Oh. “I didn’t realize.”

 

“That’s okay, I brought it with me when I came to check on you.” Peter grabs the hat from where he’d set in down on the back of the chair, placing it sloppily on his head. “There.”

 

Something in his chest squeezes at the thought that Peter was worried, that he came to check on him. And everything’s back to where it was before the pain and the hazy memories, and he wants to grab the bottle of alcohol and down the rest of it in one go--

 

“Hey. hey-” Peter removes the hat. “I’m sorry.” Neal doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for; he thinks Peter doesn’t know either. “Just stay with me, can you feel my breath?” He grabs Neal’s hand, places it on his own chest. “Breathe with me, okay?”

 

Neal doesn’t realize it’s hard to breathe until then, until the steady rise and fall of Peter’s chest is accompanied by his erratic heart rate. He’s scared.

 

“That’s it, nice and slow.” His breathing evens out, Peter's heartbeat with it. “Good job.”

 

His heart constricts again, and only at the praise so scarcely given.

 

“Ready to tell me what you were doing?” Peter says softly after a moment of silence. He’s back to rubbing a thumb over Neal’s knuckles, and he thinks he should be worried, embarrassed about his already angry boss finding him so vulnerable, but he’s tired and tipsy and can’t find it in himself to care.

 

Neal shakes his head. “Don’t-- don’t know.” Maybe it’s the alcohol. Yeah, it’s probably the alcohol.

 

“Probably the half-bottle of Bordeaux you seem to have consumed,” Peter confirms.

 

And oh he knows it’s the pain, the ache he’s been hiding from himself for the better part of a decade and a half, but he likes to believe it’s the alcohol anyway.

 

Neal doesn’t realize quite how tired he is until Peter moves his chair around next to him, starts rubbing his back with one hand and begins talking. Neal’s drooping into his side, shamelessly.

 

(It won’t be shameless tomorrow morning, but for now, he likes to pretend he deserves the support.)

 

“I’m going to get you into bed, okay?” Peter says so genuinely, so kindly, Neal almost believes he isn’t mad at him. “We’ll talk in the morning.” A silent and I mean it is passed between them. Neal doesn’t doubt it. But, like stated: embarrassment and shame are a tomorrow-Neal problem.

 

Peter’s leading Neal to his bed, and he’s already in a sleeveless t-shirt and sweatpants, so he doesn’t even think about changing, only crawls under the messed up covers and finds the exhaustion of the night mixed with alcohol drawing him towards sleep.

 

“Sleep well, Neal,” Peter whispers, far away and hazy.

 

And he does.

Chapter 2

Summary:

Peter knows.

Peter knows.

He wishes he could forget the vulnerability he displayed, wants to ignore the pain behind his eyes and the alcoholic haze he gets the next morning, but he can't.

Neal figures, if he's admitted half his crimes to the man, he can afford to be a little more open about his mental state. Just this once.

Notes:

Dudes this was supposed to be out like four days ago ahaha I'm sorry :') I had it fully written and edited like two days after posting chapter one but then I had a birthday party I was baking for, another birthday party I was attending, and then to top it all off I was sick all night.

Fun times with a stomach bug 🤩

But! Now that I don't feel like I'm going to die if I move, I am here! Hope you can enjoy this chapter-- I'm not particularly happy with it, but I already rewrote it once and I think I managed to stay at least slightly in the realm of in-character still lol. Sorry if it feels a little OOC 😬

Oh lastly! Dedicated to all the lovely commenters on the previous chapter. I loved hearing from you guys, and you motivated me when I was pretty sure I was going to drop the story lol

OKAY I"M DONE NOW ENJOY <3

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

He wakes slowly.

 

There’s a haze over his lethargic state of mind that tells him he’d had more than just a taste like he had planned to last night. The ache behind his eyes hits when he sits up, as does the brief stint of nausea Neal figures he’ll quell with some dry toast for breakfast and the ginger ale hopefully still shoved in the back of his fridge.

 

His focus isn’t on his apartment around him, so it takes Neal the time it takes to make his bed until he sees Peter’s form slumped over on his couch.

 

To his credit, he’s still vaguely hazy from waking up (and the alcohol), but he has to take at least a few seconds to remember the previous night.

 

Pills. Bordeaux. His hat? No, that can’t be right, it’s resting on the back of a dining room chair. Peter’s calm voice reassuring him as he falls into bed. The worry lacing his tone, hidden like one might hide the truth from their young, naïve child.

 

Against all better judgment, he calls, “Peter?” in as close to a normal tone as he can.

 

Neal slaps on a trademark tight-lipped grin on his face, eyebrows raised, as if to show off his child-like demeanor when Peter stares at him. He had only gotten as far as to take his jacket off. It seems he’d changed after work and before he came here, but ratty jeans aren’t the best thing to fall asleep in regardless, and certainly no better than dress pants. “Morning, sleepyhead,” he chides. 

 

“You’re the one with a hangover,” Peter mumbles, rising and rubbing the sleep from his face.

 

Neal chuckles like nothing happened, because it’s easier than accepting the weakness he’s shown. “Half a bottle of Bordeaux isn’t going to make me blackout drunk.”

 

“Of course you’re not a lightweight.” Peter smooths out the wrinkles from his shirt as he stands. Neal’s moved to the kitchen, begins brewing coffee, because busy hands keep them from shaking when the anxiety inevitably hits.

 

Peter joins him in the kitchenette, straying a few feet behind. “Are we going to forget about last night?”

 

“Is that an option?”

 

Peter raises an unamused eyebrow. “What do you think?”

 

Neal, letting the coffee percolate in front of him, finds the courage to turn and look Peter in the eye. He grips the counter behind him with both hands before they shake. “It was a moment of weakness, Peter. It won’t happen again.”

 

“I have a hard time believing that.”

 

He feels his hands grow unsteady. He shoves them in the pockets of his sweatpants. “I was tipsy, and not in my right mind, so I had a breakdown. What more do you want me to say?”

 

Peter follows closely behind. Emotions aren’t his forte, but it seems that worry overrules disability. “I want you to tell me what you were planning to do with the pills I found you with.”

 

“Kill myself, Peter,” he deadpans before he knows what he’s saying. “That’s a joke, it’s not-”

 

“But true.”

 

“No!” Neal grumbles. He runs a hand over his face in frustration. “No. I wasn’t going to kill myself, Peter.”

 

“Yet you had prescription pills in your hand that certainly weren’t yours!”

 

“June left them here.”

 

“You clearly didn’t return them,” Peter argues. Neal begins pacing.

 

He wants to tell Peter everything. Every emotion he’s denied having, every thought he’s pushed away, all the times he wished himself away. He wants somebody to know, because he’s tired of ignoring his own mind.

 

But he’s not sure he can make himself.

 

Instead of admitting to all of it, like the child in him wishes, Neal whispers, “What do you expect from me?” Neal drops into the nearest dining room chair. Peter joins him, and he thinks this is where they were sitting last night. “I’ve been on the run from the feds, I’ve been to prison multiple times, I’ve lost too many people, a little bit of weakness is expected now and then.”

 

Peter doesn’t seem phased. Neal knows he is anyway. “Weakness means you need to ask for help, Neal.”

 

He snorts. “What Hallmark card did you get that one from?”

 

“It’s true.”

 

And Neal drops his head in his hand, sighing softly. “Yeah.”

 

“Why didn’t you ever talk to anyone before I had to walk in on you with a bottle of pills in your hand?”

 

“I told you, I didn’t really think I would take them.”

 

“That doesn’t change the fact that you were thinking about it.” Peter attempts to catch his eye; Neal only complies for a moment. “So why didn’t you talk to anyone?”

 

“I never did before.” Peter looks at him, questioning. Neal tries to focus on the light shining through the window behind him instead of the inevitable conversation he’s about to have. His hands still shake. “I grew up with a mom who didn’t see me, and the closest thing I got was an aunt who couldn’t mother me every second of my childhood. I’m not exactly the posterboy for emotional support.”

 

He stands to get the coffee. “Some habits can’t be nipped.”

 

“I’ve seen you come back from being a thief, Neal, I think you can learn to lean on people.”

 

Neal laughs wryly. “I’m hardly what you’d call reformed, that’s not really a good example.”

 

“But it’s still something.” Peter accepts the coffee given to him with a nod. “There’s an FBI psychologist available-”

 

“I’m not going to see a shrink, Peter,” he interrupts, quickly taking a sip of his own coffee.

 

“I’m just saying it’s available.” And with the same fear he saw last night through an alcoholic haze, he continues, “You scared me. I don’t want to have to experience that again if either of us can help it.”

 

And of course, if there’s anything that will change his mind, anything to make him care, it’ll be Peter. Every single time, it’ll always be Peter.

 

As they lapse into silence, Neal decides that the embarrassment could be worse. It’s the bitterness, the desire to forget it all happened, that’s far stronger. The part of him that never got to be a child, never got to be nurtured in the way he wishes he could, begs to accept the help, the comfort.

 

The hardened adult in him reminds himself that he shouldn’t need help.

 

It occurs to him that it’s Saturday, and he can hardly convince Peter to leave under the pretense of work. He supposes he’ll make the best of it, and in the process, convince Peter that he’s fine. Because he is. It was a moment of weakness.

 

“Breakfast?” he inquires after a few more moments of silence. Peter nods, a quiet thank you on his lips as he takes another sip. “Isn’t Elizabeth wondering where you are?” he tries, hoping his wife will give Neal an excuse to kick him out and forget.

 

“I told her where I was last night, and she’s going out to breakfast with a friend.” Something in Peter’s smile is a little too nefarious for a lawman. “I’ve got all morning.”

 

“ Great, ” Neal mutters to himself, pulling out a carton of eggs from the fridge. “Omelet?”

 

If Peter wants to argue, he doesn’t, just lets Neal make him an omelet, drinks his coffee, and moves on.

 

The conversation isn’t over. He knows this, because Peter texts him the next day, just to talk about nothing, and cuts him a little more slack on Monday when Neal complains about the cold cases dropped on his desk. He knows because Peter sees him as a human again, a thing that breaks, a thing that needs love.

 

He’s awkward, and doesn’t really know how to go about it, but Peter cares.

 

(Neal likes to think he keeps up his hardened demeanor; but the child in him that begs for attention gets a win once in a while, and Neal stops trying to pretend he doesn’t enjoy being cared about.)

Notes:

I just installed the new windows update and OH MY GOSH I THINK THESE EMOJIS ARE WORSE THAN THE DREADED ANDROID EMOJIS I am in pain. SOS. Send help. I've fallen and I can't get up.

Notes:

thank you for reading, if you have a moment i'd appreciate a comment, they let me know what kinda stuff you like and i love hearing from you guys <3

now that the obligatory comment call has been placed... if anyone has any white collar requests (mostly gen/family fluff), please leave them in the comments!! i'd love to write them for you if i can. i'm open to writing any canon relationships, but i specialize in familial stuff and it's what i'll most likely chose to write. so drop a request if you have any, and i'll gift the fic to you!

lastly, subscribe for chapter two! i'll be exploring how peter handles the whole dumpster fire that is neal caffrey, but still from neal's perspective. i wasn't sure if i'd be doing it, so sorry for the late update on that, but it's in the works now! i hope to have it out sometime this week or next

all my love, my loves :D