White Collar Fic: Reliance (1/3)

[nefhiriel]

Title: Reliance
Rating: PG-13
Genre and/or Pairing: Gen
Spoilers: Fleeting ones for the pilot.
Warnings: Prison life. Injuries.
Summary: “Don't sweat it, Peter. Twenty-three hours a day in a windowless five-by-nine cell is really a pretty cozy setup once you get used to it.” Neal smiled over-brightly in the face of Peter's sternest look. “Really, there'

Comments

[nynine]

"He radiated closed-off self-sufficiency. Calm. Misery."
Kudos!

“I fit in much better right where I am. Me and all the other white guys in here. Edging up on constituting ten percent of the population, are we?” I hope everyone took this as I did: that Neal is demonstrating he does NOT in fact fit in, and that the words are Neal's and are to be taken as such. You give other hints that lead me to believe that certain groups segregate themselves, that it is dangerous to try to break into some of these groups, and that Neal's group--white guys--is in the minority. I really think Neal at large is much more cosmopolitan than that, but I guess that in prison he has to follow prison conventions.

Great fic! Thanks for sharing it.,

[nefhiriel]

"You give other hints that lead me to believe that certain groups segregate themselves, that it is dangerous to try to break into some of these groups, and that Neal's group--white guys--is in the minority."

Oh, yes, there's big time segregation, on the part of the prisoners themselves, by race/gang affiliations, especially when it comes to Rikers. For a non-violent white-collar criminal like Neal, it would be a matter of survival to be aware of that. I think you're absolutely right about Neal being of a more cosmopolitan mindset--but, as far as my research into the system goes (again, specifically in Rikers) Neal would quite literally be part of a "ten percent" population of "white guys." It really wouldn't be a matter of his open-mindedness so much as everyone else's lack of it (as I hear it, second hand, of course XD). As far as they would be concerned, he would be "out," not eligible for most gangs, regardless about how he felt about joining one. *grin* Sorry if that didn't come across quite clearly enough in the story