Neal sleeps.

Peter ghosts a hand over the top of the conman's head. He lowers himself onto the edge of the mattress and watches, tries to will away the sorry feeling in his gut, in his throat, in his very blood because the kid's sleeping on his stomach when he normally sleeps on his side or his back.

It's sick, this unspoken and unheard apology, because Neal will never even have a hint of it touch his conscious mind. But Peter is sorry, so very sorry. He's sorry that no words came from his mouth but a threat in the park, that no love shone through until the end, because he might not ever use the word, but it's there, love. And Neal, under that slick, well-dressed exterior, is raw and aching for it.

He's sorry for the way he went the extra mile because he wasn't going to at first. He wasn't going to undress his kid for reasons outside of potential incapacitation – outside of a bath or dressing him down for the night, for a fitful rest, for anything but punishment and pain, but it hit Peter like a bullet. It hit him with the same speed that it snapped in the men's restroom that fateful day, and he lost himself in the impact, was left gasping for the mercy that wasn't left in him.

Neal's face. That blush, those downcast eyes, hiding in full sight and not in that easy, subtle way that the kid's gotten by with every second that's ticked away since he started this life, whenever that was. Maybe he was born a conman. Maybe it's like Neal's always saying, that it's his nature. His hands came out of the womb sticky with his mother's fluid and stayed that way.

But that's no excuse, Peter knows, and he touches the boy's cheek, marvels at the softness despite the angularity, at the cascade of youth that fails to leave this slowly maturing person. The system is there for a reason, and it's his job to teach Neal to operate within its bounds.

Still, he's sorry. He's sorry like he should be, because he's never done that to anyone before and he doesn't know all the rules, yet. It's an awkward and intimate consequence, he knows now, and while Neal is his, has and always will be his in so many ways, he's past that age where the man who fathers him sees him comfortably in all states of dress and undress. It's an indignity to have your ass smacked, it's a travesty for your modesty to shoulder some of the consequence.

And yet dressing him afterwards felt right and good. The gentle nature of the act, pulling the underwear up his boy's hips, collecting Neal in his arms afterwards and bearing his warm weight and his hot tears, feeling the kid melt into his clothes, his skin, his body like Neal lacked bones, like he was nothing but a tangible energy that needed Peter to survive that moment.

Peter rests a hand on Neal's back, eliciting a small, sleepy moan. A blue eye opens.

"Back to sleep," Peter orders softly, and the kid wiggles around on the mattress with a grunt, sinking further into it. The eye closes in a rare show of obedience.

Peter tries to will himself up. To go home, to El and Satchmo, to peace and order, but he fails to rise, his hand glued to this warm lump of chaos snoozing the evening away. He's not going anywhere for a while, and his chest aches with the realization that he can't. That he needs to be here. He needs Neal in order to survive this moment.