Wow, guys...thanks for the enthusiastic comments! You have no idea how encouraging it is to a writer to know that people are reading and listening. To answer the questions, yes, there is more, and no I'm not going to leave things on a sad note between them. This is planned to be a 3-chapter story. :)

Peter crumbled inside at the pain in Neal's eyes. He'd gotten Neal to open up, but forgotten how vulnerable the person behind that mask could be. "Neal, I'm sorry. You - I'm trying to ease that fear, not make it worse."

It was Neal's own actions that put him in this situation. Neal was an unrepentant con artist who needed to be constantly reminded of his place.

He was also a rather broken person who was startled when he encountered anything resembling genuine caring, and needed to be shown that it wasn't unreasonable to ask to be met with respect and compassion simply for existing. Neal had to be valued, in order to learn to value himself enough to stop endangering his life and freedom for every lark in his path.

Sure, the guy was used to being the center of attention, liked, lusted after, admired, and yes, cared about. When he'd visited the prison in the wake of Neal's escape, it was plain that people cared about him. A lot of people.

But maybe there had always been a limit. Always surface-deep caring, the kind you shed when you go home to your wife at night. Had Neal ever been truly, sincerely cared about? Had he ever been valued and loved simply for his soul? Was all this frantic attention-seeking behavior an unconscious search for something he'd never had?

His very release agreement spelled out in chilling language that he was out of prison solely because of the value of his skill set to the FBI, and if they weren't getting value out of him, they'd dispose of him. Be useful, be obedient, submit your very life to total strangers who want to "borrow" a "tool" or else.

It made a mockery of consent. FBI agents adopted a career that put their lives in danger because they wanted to. They had to fight to get hired, to make it through Quantico, to get positions as field agents. They were never, ever told to go undercover or get fired, let alone thrown in prison.

Yes, Neal wanted to do this, danger and all. He craved field work as much as any agent. But if a drunk person was legally incapable of consenting to sex, a captive of the FBI was incapable of truly consenting to having his life endangered.

Peter had just made him feel safe enough to say out loud, No, I don't consent. Not to working for other agents. And then Peter had to tell him his consent was irrelevant.

How on earth was he supposed to show Neal that he was valued and safe and cared about under these conditions?

He made himself look Neal right in the eyes. "We're using you, we're endangering your life, and if you don't like it, we'd be happy to throw you back in a cell. You deserve this, because you're a convicted criminal. Criminal acts get punished, except when those criminal acts are framing you or handing you over to a killer."

Neal looked back at him, for once at a complete loss for words. Then he walked to Peter's side. "Stand up," he said in a quiet voice.

Peter did, and Neal hugged him. Not a perfunctory sort of hug, but standing close, wrapping his arms around Peter, and resting his forehead against Peter's chest.

Peter held him in a light grip, aware of just how bruised up he was. "If you sued the FBI, you'd win."

"I don't want revenge," said Neal. His head sagged. I just want this.

And maybe that was Neal Caffrey in a nutshell. He accepted that he wasn't in a fair world, and wasn't bent on changing it. Just on finding happiness where he could.

And Peter Burke in a nutshell, Peter had to admit to himself. He didn't accept that it wasn't a fair world, and he was bent on changing it.

"You have no idea how much I admire you," said Neal. "For being able to say things like that."

"And I admire you," said Peter, putting his hands on Neal's shoulders and holding them firmly, pushing Neal away so he could look in his eyes. "For not hating the man who arrested you, or the FBI, or ever giving up or feeling sorry for yourself. For sticking with this and looking for true North with no compass and a sun that rises in a different direction every day. For hugging me when I just told you I can't do the one thing you asked of me."

Neal sat down and studied the table. The half-eaten pizza. His hands. His glass. "I've seen - boilerplate release agreements. I know - you modified mine in a big way to let me live like a human being, and I'm sure you had to fight to get it pushed through. I know you care."

Peter smiled, a sad smile. "Yeah, it was hard. Starting with convincing people I wasn't mad for releasing someone who'd just escaped maximum security on a damn tracking anklet."

He hesitated. He never wanted to tell Neal just how hard he'd had to fight to get his CI released into conditions that would enable Peter to look him in the eyes without wanting to cringe. There was a lot of ugly in that document, and in the reality of their partnership. But maybe Neal needed to hear, right now, that Peter was willing to take a stand for him.

"They - wanted you to be in jail any time you weren't at work. I stuck a knife in that one, but - it was a close-run thing you getting your own place and not your own personal holding cell downstairs. Let alone having any kind of radius beyond your front door, or being allowed to drink, or use computers, or have contact with anyone from your past. It took hearings and meetings and arguments. I will fight for you, Neal. I just - can't pretend I'll always win."

Neal's face twisted, and he held his chin up with dogged determination. "Day one at Sing Sing, after a cavity search and vaccinations and a blood draw, is sitting handcuffed to the wall in an isolation cell with no windows all day awaiting your housing assignment. Then they say you haven't been assigned yet and you're in holding overnight. That's when you get stuck in a ten by ten cell with three other guys and a toilet and handed a protein bar for dinner. There's nothing to sit or lie on that isn't bare concrete."

Peter grimaced, and tried to keep from letting another seething anger surface. The fury and contempt he felt for the judge who'd put a federal white collar offender in maximum security state prison. If you had to put a murderer in his place, that's how you'd do it. Not playful, sensitive, non-violent Neal Caffrey.

Neal didn't miss his expression. "It's not as cruel as it sounds. It's just a temperament test, to figure out who is and isn't dangerous and how you interact with other inmates and handle stress. That helps determine where they house you. Regular life there isn't bad-" he stopped dead and blinked.

"Wow. I just defended prison like you defended the FBI. Point is I'm used to being managed and controlled. Locking me in a cell when I'm not at work sounds awful to you, but I'm just surprised and grateful that you don't."

Peter sighed, stood up, and went to the window.

Be charming and tough and compliant and forgiving, because you are completely vulnerable to the whims of other people. Your only chance is to be so likable they won't want to hurt you. And when your whole life was keeping other people from destroying you, why on earth would you want to avoid being a criminal? Why would you care about not victimizing the society that was victimizing you?

Neal approached and wordlessly pressed a fresh beer into his hand. "Complicated is okay, Peter. Stop being so threatened by it." And then he left for the couch, sitting with his legs up on the coffee table.

Peter mulled over the cringe-inducing story of Neal's introduction to prison. That had been designed among other things to teach him he didn't matter, and had no right to object to being miserable or being treated badly. In some people, it could easily have caused what he was seeing in Neal today.

The attitude that it had been severely unpleasant, but merely an understandable thing to be endured and taken in stride. It was a good attitude, a healthy and confident one, and maybe Peter was over-thinking things.

But to a normal person, that reception would have been crushing. It was clearly intended to be, to inflict hopelessness and fear and submission as a person entered a situation he was already dreading and afraid of. There should have been something of that reflected in the way Neal spoke of it.

"Neal - in prison, when they put you through that 'temperament test' - did you know it was a test, going in?"

Neal shook his head. "I thought it was just to intimidate, break me a little. Near the end I started figuring it out from how close they were watching us."

"Did you complain?"

"No."

"Get pissed?"

"No."

"Get scared and miserable?"

"Yeah. But it wasn't like I walked in there thinking, wow, this is gonna be fun. More like close your eyes, grit your teeth, and get through it."

Yep. He'd gone into that accepting that he was a thing to be controlled and managed. They hadn't been the ones to instill that in him.

Reinvention. It was what Neal did. Become a world-class yacht racer and and expert on breeding beagles? Okay. A compliant and subjugated prisoner? No problem. It didn't have to mean there was anything wrong with him, just that he was very, very good at his line of work.

There was something wrong with that.

Neal was quite probably the most objectified person he'd ever met. Also, the most lacking in identity. Tended to happen when you had forty or so of them.

He was Peter's ankleted prisoner - as Neal had chillingly put it, Peter was his owner. Peter was probably the current top instrument in that objectification, and that wasn't going to change or go away.

But it could be supplemented.

He walked up to Neal, an angle having presented itself. "How do you see me, Neal?"

"What?" Neal was puzzled by the question. "Tall, brown hair, brown eyes..."

"As a boss? A jailer? A co-worker?"

Neal's expression wavered, really wavered, as he tried to decide how to respond.