Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. I make no profit from this piece of fiction, nor do I own the rights to White Collar, or its characters.
Notes:
1) Sorry about the wait! I've been in hospital for a month and I've been busy with summer and college and starting university and blah blah blah...
2) Thanks for the reviews and the favourites and the follows. Means a lot and encourages me to continue. No really, it does. Keep reviewing!
3) This is probably the last chapter befor things get a little hardcore so if you're not ready, now is the time to get off the ride.
Warning; Whump, angst, violence, language, torture and sexual themes probable in this fic.
It was like a beautiful woman at the end of a crowded bar. A precious gem in a dusty old cave. The sun peered up from beneath the sea, reaching up into the thin trails of clouds around it and covering all in its warm pink glow.
Neal wanted to cry. He wanted to throw his battered body to the ground and cry but he didn't. Mainly because it would hurt too much to do so. But also because of what he promised himself.
He would not play the role of the victim.
"Impressive, isn't it?" The man with the voice like butter whispered.
"Yes." Neal breathed the word.
"Like a proud beast, she glows."
Neal looked at the man through one eye, the other almost swollen shut. He was in awe of the sunrise, almost oblivious to Neal's presence.
Next, he looked down at the cliff face below him. He could hurl himself off without anyone stopping him. It would be a way to get out of this nightmare. But within seconds he dismissed that thought. Suicide was not the way of Neal Caffrey. He was not defeated. And he would not be. He could still get out of this.
"Come, let's go back inside." The man said, and Neal was about to ask his name but he stopped himself.
Don't fall for it again.
So he turned back to the solitary house on the edge of the seaside cliff, wondering for a moment just how far from New York he was. The city called to him and withdrawal was setting in. If he had never knew New York he would probably have become a grafter, but the city was like a drug and he was hooked. Being parted from it made his gut clench in yearning.
He was led back into the house and took a moment to observe his surroundings. It was quaint, nicely decorated with mahogany and floral patterns. There were antiques everywhere, expensive ones. Neal had trained his eyes for years to spot such items and now they were all around him.
Questions bubbled up in his mind but he suppressed them because he knew where questions got him. He was a fast learner, especially with pain as a motive.
The man spun and flopped down in armchair without warning.
"Neal," said he. "Take a seat."
Neal sat down on the couch opposite, feeling like an antique himself as his bones and joints ached with every movement and he fought the urge to groan in pain.
The man smiled, and Neal felt that warm punch in his gut. It was nice, but he didn't want it to be.
"My name is Richard Becker. Welcome to my home."
Neal was stunned for a moment, but he was quick to recover himself, as usual.
"Couldn't we have started with that instead of locking me in a room and beating me up?"
Richard seemed less than amused, which sent shivers down Neal's spine.
"I needed you to understand where your place is before we could begin as sort of rapport." He said, his words getting under Neal's skin.
"My place?" He gripped the arm of the couch with what little strength he had. "What do you think I am? And who the hell do you think you are telling me where my place is?"
Neal could play games with dangerous people, but he was not about to be treated like a dog. This man didn't want to play a game, he wanted to make Neal feel inferior, control and manipulate him. That wasn't about to happen.
Richard's expression flattened and he turned his head.
"Jeremy." He said and moments later the large masked man returned to the room.
"No—" Neal whimpered but in mere seconds there were hands upon him. "No, please!" He found himself begging and didn't care. He was too broken, in too much pain already to be beaten again.
Jeremy, the masked man, dragged Neal back to his prison cell and unleashed another attack. An apology bubbled up in Neal's throat, along with several litres of blood, but he swallowed that and spat out the blood.
Begging was one thing. Apologising was entirely another.
When Jeremy was finished with him, Neal was unconscious, bleeding heavily and probably unable to walk.
The evidence was conclusive. Neal had been kidnapped. Guilt made its way through Peter's body like steam through ice, devastating and demolishing all in its path.
"I doubted him." Peter sighed, his hand rested on Satmo's head as the dog perched his chin on his master's lap. "After everything we've been through and all we've done for each other I'm still doubting him at the slightest hint of trouble."
"He's a con man." El shrugged, stroking her husband's arm in the only comfort she could offer. "It's natural to suspect the worst of him. I think we all do." She admitted, biting her lip.
She loved Neal, she really did. But she had done exactly the same as her husband had. The minute she heard that he was missing she assumed he had ran. He'd done it before, but did that mean it was okay to suspect he'd do the same again?
"Diana didn't." Peter remarked. "And I'm supposed to be his friend, I'm supposed to be the last person to doubt him, but instead I was the first one to turn against him. What does that say about my friendship?"
"Don't do this to yourself, hun." El sighed, but Peter was already spiralling.
"I'm always on at him to trust me, to trust the people who are trying to help him. And the minute he's in real trouble I have absolutely no faith in him. I'm a hypocrite…and a jerk."
"Hey, that's my husband you're talking about." She slapped his arm gently. "Now you've got to snap out of this."
"Hun, I—"
"No, it's my turn to talk." Said El. "Fact is we all have trouble trusting Neal, even Diana who must have been fighting her own doubts as well. He brought it on himself with his habits of deception and probably knows how we all feel. He would understand, Peter, and he'd forgive you which means that you have to forgive yourself, get up out of this spiral of self-loathing and go find our boy before it's too late."
Peter was frozen for a moment, and then he smiled.
"You're right, hun. Of course you are." He kissed her head. "Why are you always right?"
"Because one of us has to be." She smiled.
That night Peter got no sleep. He poured over the case files and evidence reports like they were works of great literature, not even pausing when the coffee pot ran dry. There had to be some sort of clue. People don't just get kidnapped by a stranger in the night, not people like Neal Caffrey. It had to be someone he knew, or someone that knew him. There had to be a reason, why.
Why was this happening to him? Why was Richard doing this to him? What had Neal ever done to deserve such pain?
When he awoke he couldn't move. Panic crashed through him like a wave upon the sand as paralysis washed over his body. Had that last beating caused permanent damage? Was he now physically scarred by the trauma?
After a few minutes of blind fear, he started to regain feeling and movement came soon after. Relief was an understatement of what he felt. But then Richard and the masked Jeremy were at his door and he wanted to scream.
