Title: Hungry for Your Touch

Author: Ursula
Rating: rating: M

Genre and/or Pairing: Peter/Neal Hurt Comfort

Notes: Yeah, over shopping for stories and ideas at the Kink Memo. Prompt was Neal yearning for touch after prison

Also the hole and 'meatloaf' which was about as wholesome as dog food were still being used fifteen years ago. I have a friend who made it through nearly a year in the hole. He's kind of not crazy.

Spoilers: Pilot

Warnings: Hurt and humiliation

Summary: Neal is punished for breaking the light and for his escape.

1. Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

In the wake of Peter Burke's refusal to take up Neal's offer to work for him, catching his own kind in exchange for the limited freedom of a tracker, Neal felt justified in his brief outburst of temper. He certainly did not intend to break his light and what happened next was out of proportion to a broken light. Breaking it had been an accident, but Neal knew it was useless to protest when the guards showed up, malicious expressions on their faces. Except for Tommy, who was round, soft spoken, and kindly. His favorite guard stood to the side shaking his head, but unable to stand up to the brotherhood of jailors.

Neal shed his coverall as they directed and walked into the cell that wasn't suppose to exist anymore, the one with nothing but an open toilet and a spigot above. No bed, no covers, his naked, lean body shivering and shaking in the dark.

Huddled around himself, Neal tried to find some comfort, tried to imagine Kate, but could only see her walking away. "Goodbye, it's been real."

Moz would hate to see Neal like this. Neal couldn't subject him to this even in his fantasies.

His shoulder felt invisible warmth. Peter touched him as he said no, as he walked away. Neal remembered the firm clasp on his shoulder as Peter headed for the door. He willed Peter to turn back, to hug him.

You dreamed about fucking, but you could get fucked here. It was being touched that Neal missed, the casual stroke of his arm, the playful teases that Kate would offer, hugs from his friends, everyone knew how physical Neal was and everyone loved to pet him and reflect in the light of his happiness. Moz touched him as much as he dared, not that Neal minded, but Moz always felt uncomfortable with his feelings, so stiff and proper for someone who aspired to rebellion.

Some of the guards were kind, but they won't touch Neal. It's too easy to be accused of something. Neal won't take the risk with his fellow inmates; there's no one here that he wanted sexually and accepting a touch was as good as saying fuck me.

Peter Burke though. Peter, he wanted, had always wanted from almost the first time he had seen him.

Curled around himself, Neal thought of jerking off to the memory of Peter's touch, but the steady light of the security camera reminded him why he would not. It was dark and cold, but the camera was still an unblinking, invasive eye meant to catch him in case he broke and tried to escape the only way possible. Neal was not the suicidal type. He would not do it. They could not push him that far, but the physical horror of it drove him deep into his mind, away from the stench of his body, the bruises on his hands, the abrasions on his knuckles. Away from his hunger and weariness.

The days and night were one. Sleep started to elude him. Neal spent hours tracing the walls, feeling every inch of them, so few feet. The cell was a coffin for a living man. Neal circled his cage until he could not stand it. His hands pressed to his temples and he spun like a child, not in play, but in the rocking twisting of an autistic child, locked in the hell of a damaged brain. Neal had a foster brother like that. He would whirl and whirl until he would suddenly beat on the walls until they had to medicate him. Neal twirled until he fell down in the darkness, feeling sick. His heart pounded. He lay on the floor and he could barely keep from sobbing.

There was food at intervals. They called it meatloaf, but it was a dense, tasteless mix of protein, starch, and vegetables mashed into a lumpy square. It met nutritional requirements if you ate it. It was pushed through the slot that would not open from Neal's side. He would lay there, waiting, not for the food, but for the brief light, for the chance of catching the brief warmth of a guard's hand. He never succeeded in grabbing flesh though. They shoved the flimsy cardboard tray through with the tip of their bully sticks. There was no spoon, nothing to eat with. Just the gelatinous clammy surface and the firmer compound of whatever the hell they put in the meat loaf beneath. Neal could not eat it much of it. Most of the time when he tried and forced it down, he gagged on it, threw up, barely making it to the toilet bowl.

If the cell was illegal, it was even more so beyond the scope of humane punishment to isolate a human being for more than a week. Men went mad in here. Neal had seen one guy, a Pima Indian with a scar that bifurcated his broad, brown face, his eyes like black wounds on his rugged face. They said he had done almost a year in the hole twice in his life sentence. They said he was the only man they could not break. Neal was hardly that strong, that indifferent. He was not a weak person, but he loved people, always had. He could stand being alone, liked it when he was thinking or creating, but he was used to being stroked, admired, caressed. He needed it.

OooOooO

Neal had stopped moving, stopped pacing the cell. He locked himself into dreams. He touched the area of his shoulder that Peter Burke had grasped, trying to make it into the agent's hand. He wrote the script differently each time he engaged the dream. Sometimes the guard left and Peter bent him over the table and fucked him. Sometimes Peter only held him, embraced him, had low comforting words that Neal strained to hear.

The sweetness of the gentle tones took a strident tone. "Oh, Christ, what the hell have they done to you? Come on, Caffrey, snap out of it. Come on, look at me. I'm going to get you out. Make that deal. Open your eyes."

Fretfully, Neal curled tighter. "You're supposed to say it nice. You're supposed to hug me."

"Hug you?" Peter said. "Caffrey, it's Burke."

"No, it's never you. It's never anyone. Never. Never."

"Jesus, it is me. Look, I'm right here. I'm getting you out of this hell hole right now and as soon as they can clean you up and get some real food into you, I'm going to have you sign our agreement and you are going to start putting that giant brain of yours to work," Peter said.

Rubbing the grunge from his eyes, Neal saw it was Peter. It wasn't another dream since he would hardly have made it a fantasy where Neal was naked, filthy, mouth dry, and stomach too shrunken to even know it needed food.

"Peter?"

"Yeah, me, do you think you can stand and walk out with some help?" Peter asked.

"Help me," Neal said, as he reached for Peter.

Peter was solid, warm, real. Neal stroked the rough fabric of Peter's suit, wished he could take it off the agent, strip off the durable white shirt, touch the broad and well muscled chest, feel the living, responsive flesh beneath.

"Up," Peter said.

The cell was lit now, even smaller than Neal remembered. There was dish of the 'meatloaf'. Neal didn't remember smearing it on the floor, trying to paint in the dark. He didn't remember washing his hands, but they were clean of the stuff. He started to shake and his legs were going out.

"Here. Wrap this around you," Peter said.

It was a blanket to cover his nakedness. Neal fumbled with it until Peter made an exasperated sound and wrapped it around him.

"No," Peter said. "Don't let yourself give up now. Walk with me. You want to show them that they did not break you? Hold your head up. Hold it up for me."

Peter's smile fed Neal strength, mainlined it to him. He nodded, but he clung hard to Peter's strong arm.

"How long? How long were you in there?" Peter asked. He was angry and Neal flinched, but then he realized that it was not aimed at him.

"It was the night after you said 'no'," Neal replied in a voice that was not his own, a rusty grate of a voice.

"Shit, three weeks? In the dark, in that cage for three weeks?" Peter said.

"How did you know?" Neal said.

Peter leaned closer to whisper, "A guard named Bobby got my number and called me. We have him protected under the whistle blower act."

Neal nodded. Peter's breath smelled of mouthwash and coffee. He sucked it into his lungs as if he could feed on that too.

The infirmary was so far away. So many doors. Slam. Clank. Slam. Clank. It was soul killing music.

"You won't leave me here?" Neal asked.

"Just long enough to fax the documents to my boss once you sign. It won't take long and I have people to watch over you."

Neal could barely stand up in the shower, but he leaned on the wall, scrubbed at himself with one hand. He threw up at his own stench and felt terrible that he had inflicted it on Peter. He tried to scrub at his foul teeth, to wash the nastiness away. When he was finished with his shower, one of the trustees shaved him. It was Hershel, the timid cooker of books. "You're going to be okay, kid. You're going to be fine."

The soft, pallid hands that moved over Neal's face were precious. Tears flowed down his face. "It's all over," Hershel reassured. "easy now. Here, let me help you with your hair."

"I'll take care of it," Peter said.

Any touch would have been paradise, but now it was Peter Burke, the Galahad of his every fantasy in that coffin that testified to man's ingenuity at torment. Neal's hair grew nerve endings as Peter combed it for him. He reached out, touching Peter's face, invoking a puzzled, pitying smile. "You okay?"

Peter let Neal stroke his face for possibly thirty seconds before guiding the hand away. "It's Peter Burke, remember."

"I know," Neal said. His sight was dim and he kept blinking in all the blinding light. He had spent three weeks in darkness. Peter's face was huge in his remaining vision, filling the room. This was how an infant saw. This was how Neal saw Peter who was the midwife to Neal's return to life. He was ushered back into the world by his strange, brilliant, compassionate pursuer.

"You ready to sign now?" Peter said as he helped Neal put on the slacks and tee shirt he had last worn to escape. Looking around at angry guards, Peter enunciated, "Find him a fucking coat. He can't go outside like this. Where's that soup? Come on. Move it."

This was right, making sense. Peter was in charge. The world revolved around him.

Neal signed and Peter looked at the document. He said, "You understand, this is one last chance. I'm crazy to do this, but after this, after what they did to you, I have to take this risk."

Neal understood. He had always been Peter's captive. The only one who could catch him. The only one who could see him. The one who touched him.

OooOooO

A few hours later, his strong body already recovering from the abuse, but still shaky, Neal walked out the door, grinning at Peter waiting. Wanting to run to him.

"Let's see it," Peter demanded.

Neal lifted his trouser leg, showing the intimate reminder of his bondage. He wished Peter would ask for more. Strip him. Touch him.

But no, Neal slid in beside Peter, fumbled with the belt until Peter huffed a sigh and reached around him to fasten it for him. Neal leaned into the sturdy strength and took a deep breath of Peter's hair, some faintly spicy shampoo. He wanted to rub his face against the fine tendrils, but held back barely.

Peter drove away with Neal. Neal was content to watch him, his hand near enough to feel Peter's warmth.

"You should get some sleep," Peter said.

"Later," Neal agreed.

"Are you okay?" Peter asked, reaching over to touch Neal's shoulder when they were stopped at a long light.

Shining, Neal could feel the light of his smile illuminating the car. "I will be."

Tbc maybe