Disclaimer: Blood is red bruises are blue, I don't own, you don't sue.
A/N: The Italics in the middle are when Peter checks out for a bit and we switch to Jones' point of view before Peter gets back.
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Collectable
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Chapter three
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"Caffrey," Peter repeats upon getting no answer, "is everything okay?" Nothing but the sound of his consultant's heavy breathing makes it across the line. "Damn it, Neal! Answer me!" he demands. A slight queasy feeling starts to build in his stomach with every passing moment that Neal doesn't answer.
"Neal… Okay, I get it. I gave you a scare before, are we even yet?" Peter asks, a frantic note to his voice, pleading with Neal to just say something. He listens carefully to the wire feed, hearing nothing but Neal's heavy breathing and his worry begins to mount. It isn't like Neal to suddenly go quiet. It isn't like Neal to be quiet at all.
He gets a tight feeling in his gut, the kind of feeling most good agents get when something is wrong.
The visual is crap without the flashlight and Peter hates that Neal has turned it off. He doesn't like being blind here. The little camera nestled inside the thick black frames he made Neal wear is no good without enough light. Peter can't make out much of the room at all, save silhouettes of large pieces of furniture and even those are blurry, but when something obviously pointy hit the lens right in the middle, well, Peter sees that.
He stares at the dark room, now segmented by a webbed crack and is too shocked to react for a moment, which isn't at all like him. It hasn't escaped his notice that Neal hasn't reached and picked the glasses up again, he is terrified that he may be unable to do so and what that implies.
His blood runs cold, his face turns ashen and he feels panicked. He has felt panic before. Bullets aimed at your person is likely to produce that feeling, but he has never felt blind panic like this before, and it is like all time has stopped and he is frozen in the moment where the knife is flying at HIS consultant's face.
Peter is good in the face of danger. He has to be, he is a special agent for the FBI. He isn't prone to freezing or becoming frantic, not even when scared for his life. Those things lead to bad decisions and are simply not vices he can indulge in.
But now, a wave of panic grips him, like an icy fist around his stomach, and he actually feels completely frozen, incapable of action in any way.
Jones stares at him, bewildered. He has never seen his boss unable to react and they have been in some sticky situations together.
It seems Neal is his Achilles heel, and as much as he likes the guy, ex con or not, having Peter's very own weak spot on their team is going to lead to real danger sooner or later. It was something he was going to have to talk with Peter about. Maybe if he was aware of it he could change it. Jones doesn't want to see anyone re assigned, in Neal's case may be sent back to prison, or worse, dead.
"Peter, listen, you hear that?" Jones puts one hand on Peter's shoulder and points to the speaker that is broadcasting Neal's sound feed, with the other. "He's still breathing." Jones feels silly talking to him like this, like a scared child, but the man has let the panic take over and this seems like the right way to handle it.
Taking a deep breath, Peter looks at the speaker and then at Jones, nodding his head and snapping himself out of the trance he had fallen into.
"Yes, yes. Right, but something is very wrong in there. We have to get him out," Peter insists.
No one is going to argue with him on that one. Not when there are knives flying at Neal's head.
"Okay, want us to suit up?" Jones asks; he isn't trying to step on Peter's toes but the man still looks a little white, so a gentle suggestion for an order wasn't amiss, in his opinion.
Peter nods his assent, "Let me warn him you're coming in first," he says. Reaching into his pocket he turns on the small power box, attached to the little microphone he is wearing on his shirt collar, the one he turns off every time he doesn't have to use it in order to preserve the very short battery life.
"That's it Caffrey, we are coming in to get you." Peter says into the microphone. It seems that Peter is just as good at acting as Neal because his voice comes out sounding strong and commanding, with no indication that his insides have turned to jelly with fear.
"No!" The earnest whisper comes from the speaker and Peter is relieved to hear Neal's voice, but he stares at the speaker it came out of, in disbelief. Neal sounds so adamant that Peter needs to believe that he shouldn't go in after him. However, he can't shake the feeling that something really bad is happening that he is powerless to stop.
"Neal," Peter can't help the relieved breath he exhales as he says that. "What is going on in there?" he asks because he has to know. He has to know why knives are flying at Neal's head, why he sounds so scared, why he is breathing so heavy and why they can't go in and save him!
"Honestly Peter, I don't really know." Well fuck, of all the answers Peter wants that is not one of them. He can't do anything if they don't know what is going on and there is nothing Peter hates more then not being able to do anything, especially when someone he cares about is in trouble… someone he cares about? What the hell? Peter doesn't have time to examine that right now, all he knows for sure is he does, indeed care about Neal and hell if he knows when that happened but it did, and that Neal is in trouble. He can save that introspective crap for later when he has Neal back safe and sound.
"Well, get out of there!" Peter orders with as much firmness as he can muster, as if demanding Neal get out safe would mandatorily make it so Neal could obey, but something in his gut was telling him it wasn't going to be that easy. Something in his gut was screaming at him that this was not going to end well and as he hears Neal's exasperated "I'm trying!" through the speakers, his gut is telling him that, that is very likely the last time he is going to hear Neal Caffrey's voice. Peter is praying that for once in his life his gut is wrong.