Notes: This is probably more in character to, say, third season Neal and Peter than first. So shoot me, I love the bromance and caring aspect of the series more than I do the antagonistic angle. My Peter is more compassionate and my Neal is a better man than they both were at first. Fanfic is basically wish fulfillment, and I know this is a wish a lot of us have - so I'm putting that ahead of strict faithfulness to remaining in character to that time period.

It does fascinate me is that Peter did come for Neal, after dismissing the idea as laughable. I can't help but see caring in that act, because taking Neal on was as much of a risk to Peter's career as it was a potential asset. There was trust and affection on Neal's part from the very beginning too, despite the fact that he was using Peter to accomplish his goals. At the end of season one he was walking away from everyone without remorse...but it was trying to say goodbye to Peter at the airstrip that brought tears to Neal's eyes. And Peter knew it.

####

WARNINGS? Not a lot. But in case of triggers or the work being too mature for some readers, I do acknowledge the concept that Neal was at risk of being sexually assaulted, and of committing suicide. There may be references to physical assault, solitary confinement, childhood abuse and other unpleasantness. None of it is graphic or "on-screen, though. This is a story of the beginning of a friendship, not a "Neal being in a hell prison, condemned there by an unfeeling Peter Burke who thought he deserved to be in misery" story.

Oh - and this is not presented in an entirely linear fashion.

PETER

Peter buried his head in his hands. He'd caught Neal Caffrey by exploiting the woman he loved, eviscerated his defense at the trial, and even testified against him in front of the parole board.

Neal sent him birthday cards. Not mocking, sadistic, "I know where you live and work" cards, but the real thing.

Neal was one of a kind. Leading him on one of the longest, most exhaustive pursuits - no, the most exhaustive pursuit ever. Breaking out of prison. Getting re-captured by the exact same agent. And almost immediately thereafter, appealing to said agent to let him out again.

Nice job catching me. Now cut me loose like an undersized trout, and we can do it all over again? He was probably one of the first to attempt prison-break-by-FBI agent.

Nice try, Neal.

Actually a little beneath Neal's usual standards, but the guy didn't have a lot to work with.

I know maximum-security prison can't hold me, but you know what would? Something I can cut off with a pair of scissors!

Maybe if this were the high-tech middle ages and the thing was made of un-cuttable steel and welded on. At which point Neal would probably go to an inevitable master alchemist friend and procure a potion to melt it off. So, not even in fantasyland would this fly.

Poor kid.

Peter really had felt for him, walking out and leaving him in that place for the next four years. He'd squeezed his shoulder and wished he could do more. Neal was a sweet guy in many ways. He didn't know what procedures the prison had in place to punish and secure escapees, but he was sure they weren't pleasant.

Maybe he could do what he'd mockingly suggested to Neal. Start writing him about cases. Being asked for advice by the FBI would shoot his ego straight for the moon, though, and the entire criminal population would become privy to the FBI's investigations.

NEAL

Neal sat at the table in a state of frozen shock from all the emotional inputs he was getting. Peter had turned him down flat. The fantasy was over, and as expected as it was, it still hurt.

And then Peter had to go and do one of those things that made him so long to be the FBI agent's friend. He could still feel that firm, caring grip on his shoulder even though Peter was long gone, even though he'd done it too fast in passing for him to react.

And his admin hearing on the escape was tomorrow. He was going into solitary; the only question was how long he'd spend in there. There was still a way to get thrown in prison within prison, and he was dreading it. Not to mention that as hard as it might be to look for Kate from prison, it would be impossible for however long he was locked in one of those dreadful concrete boxes.

He could still feel that squeeze on his shoulder Peter had given him on the way out, and the longing, and the hurt. Not unlike when Peter had arrested him the first time.

Neal had built the FBI agent up in his head during the chase. Wickedly intelligent, ethical, playful, he knew exactly who he was and what he was doing in life. There was something incredibly appealing in his balance of confident control and humanity.

He'd been dreading the arrest. Dreading Peter coming off that pedestal, slamming him down across the hood of a car, playing dirty tricks in interrogation, and becoming not a worthy and refined foe but just another cop.

But the pedestal just took on an added shine. Neal, looking forward to the best battle of wits ever invented, had instead found himself pitifully scared. Worse, he hadn't been able to hide it. And Peter had responded with intuitive compassion, genuinely comforting him, playing with him, and most assuredly not slamming him down on car hoods.

Peter had walked him into the detention center with a reassuring hand on his back, and melted any reserve Neal might have had left by handing him his home number on a business card.

And then he left Neal behind in the detention center, and Neal found himself wrenched not just because he was under arrest or in jail, but because Peter was gone.

"We'd have made a hell of a team," he said softly to the ghost of Peter Burke that lingered in the room. Then he stood up, braced himself, and walked back into reality.

PETER

Peter closed the door and his eyes. He needed to be alone to face this.

I caught this guy. I gloated. It was one of the highlights of my career, catching Neal Caffrey.

Not just because of the accomplishment. He'd come to truly like Neal, and dread getting a call that his body had been dredged out of a river.

Peter had hated delivering him to the detention center, but done it with an enormous sense of relief and compassion. Neal might not be happy, but he was relatively safe now.

Peter was integral to the prosecution and conviction. It'd been a strange experience. He was professionally gleeful, and personally glad that he'd gotten there before some mob enforcer or hit man. He had no reservations about sending Caffrey to prison.

But their eyes had met many times during the trial, and each time Peter felt affection for the guy, smug and arrogant and unrepentant as he was. For his part, Neal had never once looked at him with hate or blame or hurt, and often with a fond little smile.

It had never once occurred to him that Neal would wind up anywhere but a safe, humane, relatively comfortable medium-security Federal facility. He'd developed a genuine desire to help the endearing, playful young criminal mastermind, and that would have been the place and the opportunity to try. Instead, the judge hit him over the head with a two-by-four.

When the sentence came down, it felt like he'd knifed Caffrey in the back. Peter had seen the true panic in Neal's eyes when a punitive Federal judge did the unthinkable and sentenced a nonviolent while-collar first-time offender to the harshest penitentiary in the state.

Peter had been tempted to walk up to the judge and ask what the hell he was thinking. Sure, Caffrey was guilty of enough to qualify for about ten life sentences. But you sentenced on what was proven, not what you thought someone might have done.

#####

When the judge started to read the actual sentence, Peter looked away. There was nobody in the courtroom to whom this was as important as it was to Caffrey. Nobody who was having his future read to him. The man could have whatever privacy he needed.
Then he froze. What the hell?

"Your scoring as a psychopath on the PLC-R gives me no hesitation in treating you as a high-risk offender, and it is my opinion that you should be categorized as one. In the Federal system you would be classified according to your crimes and behavior in custody. As we've seen by the fact that you managed to manipulate even officers at the Federal detention facility into falling for your schtick, this will be far too lenient. On this basis I sentence you directly to a maximum security state facility, Sing Sing Penitentiary, for a period of four years."

Sing Sing State Penitentiary? Neal was a Federal prisoner, convicted of Federal crimes. Sing Sing was a state prison. A maximum security state prison. A first-time offender on a Federal forgery conviction would normally land in minimum security. Caffrey, Peter had suspected, would wind up in a medium-security facility due to escape risks.

Peter closed his eyes. Oh, shit, Caffrey, I'm sorry.

When he opened them again, Caffrey was being shackled by the bailiff. His face was a tightly controlled blank, but when his and Peter's eyes met, there was appeal in them.

Wrenched with guilt, Peter had followed Caffrey back to the holding cell, ready to be loathed and screamed at.

Instead, Peter wound up holding and reassuring a hyperventilating young man who practically crawled into his arms.

####

Peter had to fight his way through bored and uncooperative court officials to get to Neal, and saw the bailiff's eyes flash in hate at the mention of the name Caffrey. "He causing problems?" asked Peter.

"No. Except by, you know, existing."

Peter didn't reply, just followed him to the cell where Neal was, entered with the folding chair the bailiff pointed to when the guy unlocked it, and tried not to startle when the metal door slammed shut behind him. Wow.

Neal was hyperventilating, and trembling. Someone, presumably the bailiff, had locked him in without removing the restraints.

"Hey, kiddo." Peter didn't like seeing him like this. The Neal Caffrey he'd chased didn't do terrified. If he had, maybe some vestigial shred of common sense would have stopped him long before this day.

"H - hey."

Peter put the folding chair down facing Caffrey, sat down, and unlocked the handcuffs around his wrists. Neal wrapped his arms around Peter's back, clinging to him.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of cases where he'd stood by and watched hardened, remorseless criminals walk with sentences that made a mockery of their victims. Plea bargains that let monsters walk.

And now, a playful, non-violent guy was getting thrown by the scruff of his neck into the most infamous prison in the state.

He took a deep breath. There was nothing he could do about it. Nothing but help Caffrey cope, and that felt utterly awful. Relaxing very slightly, the shaking young man pressed his forehead against Peter's collarbone and closed his eyes. And that made Peter almost want to cry himself.

He knew it wasn't his fault. It was the judge's. It was Neal's. It was Neal's lawyer's. The shocking thing was that Neal seemed to recognize it wasn't Peter's fault.

The lack of a kicking and screaming, "you dragged me into this, you did this to me" fit said a lot about this guy. He actually seemed to recognize that Peter cared, that he was down here in this cell to provide compassion and support. And that was one of the most endearing things in the world.

"For what it's worth, I think that was a petty and malicious sentence you don't deserve."

"Th-anks."

"Are you calm enough to understand what I'm saying?" The kid's breath was still coming in hysterical gasps, but he nodded.

"Okay. Sing Sing is a no-nonsense maximum security prison and that's scary as hell. It's metal-barred cellblocks and murderers, and I cannot fucking believe that idiot sent you there. But it's no longer the facility everyone's heard horror stories about. This isn't the Sing Sing of thirty years ago. They don't abuse prisoners."

Neal was crying now, struggling to cope. "Four years. They - just - said they want me in misery for four years. Four years before I get to drive a car again, or go swimming, or see Kate, or even even see you, or Mozzie. I - I at the detention center I don't have to live in a cell. They put me in one, for the first two days I was there, and I just about went insane. I was so - so grateful when they let me out. I can't survive four years in one - Peter, I'm going to die in there."

He was hyperventilating, having a panic attack, feeling like he really was going to die.

"You aren't going to die," said Peter gently. "And you aren't going to be so unhappy that you want to. You will see Kate, they'll let her visit you, and Mozzie too. You aren't going to be on a different planet, you're going to be in New York. And if you want me to get into a car and come see you and remind you of that, I will."

He didn't know how he of all people had made it onto Neal's list of people he couldn't bear to go for four years without seeing, but it was simple enough to refute that one fear.

"I don't understand rules, Peter. People I understand. Not rules. I am going to break them, and I am going to get put in solitary, or beat up, or whatever they do there to guys who don't realize locks on cell doors weren't put there to be picked in your spare time."

"That happen in the detention center?" asked Peter.

Neal shook his head. "No, because they were kind and knew I wasn't trying to be an asshole."

"Or a psychopath?" asked Peter dryly.

Neal fixed him with an odd sort of pleading look. It wasn't "save me," or "help me get out of this." It was "please believe me."

"I'm. Not. A psychopath."

"I believe you," said Peter. "But you present a carefully crafted image to the world, and that image is one that just screwed you. Try showing Neal Caffrey a little more often, maybe you won't get read as a psychopath."

Caffrey's breathing was starting to steady, and he rested his drooping forehead on Peter's upper arm. He was still trembling, but he was listening.

"I was hoping you'd wind up in one of these slick, pretty places that looks like a college campus and houses you in a dorm," said Peter. "I never saw you having to deal with barred cells and guard towers and murderers. But no matter how scary it looks and sounds, it's not a house of horrors."

"Promise?" asked Neal quietly.

They were sitting in a tiny metal-barred cell with a steel bench in the basement of the courthouse. It was ugly, unpleasant, and the bailiff had thrown Neal in there in handcuffs and a belly chain and leg irons. It was complete overkill, and Peter guessed that there had been zero compassion in it for this scared, cooperative person who'd just gotten some of the worst news of his life.

"I promise. If you can handle this cell we're sitting in right now, you can handle Sing Sing. This place is pretty damn dismal."

"I was really hoping not to have to go the getting beat up and raped route," said Caffrey miserably.

Peter hugged him impulsively, and the young con artist melted into his arms, crying.

"Oh, kiddo." Peter patted him on the back. "That's not gonna happen. You're like a walking copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People."

He hugged Caffrey a little tighter. "And you have an FBI agent on your side. If you ever feel like you're in physical danger, or you're being mistreated, you call me. You have an absolute right to be safe in prison. Don't let anyone in the world threaten you or scare you out of that, or tell you you'll just wind up in a segregation unit. I'll have you yanked out of there and into Federal protection before you can blink."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. And I'll be very surprised if I ever get that call. But if I do, I will believe you and I will help you."

"Thank you. Thank you." There was a moment of silence. "Why do I have an FBI agent on my side?"

"For the same reason you're going to be fine in prison. You're a friendly, endearing, smart, cooperative guy who makes friends, not enemies. You make people want to protect you, not hurt you."

"Except for my judge." Neal sounded wounded, not angry. "Except for everyone who testified against me at this trial. I wasn't expecting that to hurt, but it did, sitting there while everyone from you to Sara Ellis - it was like listening in on a conversation where you find out everyone hates you, only I was sitting right there and they knew it."

A con man who cared what people really thought of him, after the crime?

Peter understood the lost look. Neal Caffrey had just met something he couldn't talk, charm, bribe, or fight his way out of. It was the talking and the charm that had landed him here.

"Yeah...well, society and the people in it really don't like criminals. You will have to face that reality. That contempt and dislike is probably going to be the most punishing part of this for you. You aren't going to be beaten, but you are going to be viewed as a felon who's worth a whole hell of a lot less as a human being than the rest of the world. You're not gonna be a rock star any more. I suggest you grit your teeth and take it and work to earn the respect of everyone you meet from the ground up."

"What about you?" Caffrey sounded small and shaky.

"Look at me," said Peter. Caffrey didn't respond. "Neal, look at me," he ordered.

The face that looked up at him almost broke his heart. Confident Neal Caffrey looked small and heartbroken, with tears in his eyes, and a transparent effort to appear brave not doing anything to keep him from looking about seventeen years old. The idea of prison had terrified him, but the concept that people were going to look down on him had crushed him.

"You already did earn my respect," said Peter firmly. "When you shook my hand in that storage facility. When you went through every second of this without bitterness or hate or violence. I respect you and like you despite the crimes you've committed, and that's not common."

Neal looked like Peter had just handed him the world. The tears in his eyes were emotion, not grief or fear any longer. "I'll try not to let you down."

"You're a rather astonishing young man," said Peter softly. He'd never, ever had a suspect react to him this way. "I'm absolutely certain you'll be able to earn the respect and trust of the people you deal with in prison. Just don't expect it to be easy or automatic."

"Challenge accepted," said Neal with a faint twinkle of the playful confidence in his nature starting to show through again.

"That guy from the detention center showing up to your sentencing to tell the judge how awesome you were? That's not a thing they do. He did that on his own time."

"Wow." He put his head down against Peter's chest again. "They were nice to me. I think I'm going to end up really missing that place."

Peter patted him on the back. "I think if people were nice to you at the detention center, they will be at Sing Sing too."

He tried to ignore the bailiff's cruelty, and the fact that he trusted the Federal detention center. They'd never mistreated one of his suspects or let them get hurt. All he knew about Sing Sing was that it was a crowded, underfunded state prison full of violent criminals. It was a warehouse, not a rehabilitation facility. "If it's not okay, call me. No matter what. I will come for you. I will protect you. I will pull you out of there. You call me. You don't let anyone or anything or any threat or shame keep you from contacting me. Trust me. Call me."

Neal nodded.

"Promise," said Peter.

"I promise," said Neal.

"Promise again."

"I swear."

"Repeat it back to me," Peter ordered. He wasn't sure the traumatized Caffrey was really listening, and he wasn't going to be able to sleep at night if he thought there was even a chance this admittedly beautiful, small, and nonviolent young man was going to be walking into a bad prison movie.

"I will call you if I'm ever in trouble, no matter what."

"And?"

"And you'll protect me and get me out and not let me get thrown in solitary."

"Right," said Peter. "I mean every word, and I can back it up. I can't live with the idea you might not call me if you need help."

"I will." Neal hesitated. "Thank you, Peter."

Peter put a hand under his chin and pushed it up, gently forcing Neal to meet his eyes. "I know this is going to be a hard four years, and I'm not going to lie and say I don't think you deserve it. But you don't deserve to be in fear, or pain, or subject to violence. You need to know that, absolutely. You need to know that you'll be okay, because crime is crime and I'm just as determined to keep you safe as I was to catch you."

Neal looked shattered, but his gaze and his breathing were steady now. He finally believed he was going to be all right, that he wasn't being sent off to die in hell. "You hang in there, Neal Caffrey."

"I will," said Neal again. He meant it this time.