Work Text:
Title: Predisposed
Author: 
marieincolour
Genre: Hurt/comfort, sickfic, schmoopy-schmoop schmooperson.
Characters/pairings: Peter, Neal, El
Warnings: Language?
Rating: G
A/N: I haven't written anything in weeks that didn't revolve around Norwegian local politics in the 12th century, so. Forgive me if this is a bit rusty. I also haven't watched the last half of the newest season, so there are no spoilers, and I don't actually know what's going on on the show. 8) It's pretty much all self-indulgent sickfic all the way through, nothing too hard on the stomach. This has not been beta read, because I wrote it fifteen minutes ago. Enjoy!
Original prompt: by embroiderama: Neal gets sick with a high fever and goes walking outside of his radius. The US Marshals come to get him but don't realize he's sick until Peter (or another character) comes to collect him.
_______________
Predisposed
It's not that he's ever really planning on running, really. He's got no active plans to leave in the near future – and really, the idea of being a free man at some point in his life is pretty fucking tempting, and there's Peter and El and June and... There's just no good reason to leave.
Not all pretty things need to be his, after all. He can just look. And not touch.
And if his eyes stray to the horizon, or get that thousand-yard stare when he thinks of the places out there that aren't New York, and aren't cold and damp and cramped, well. Nobody's going to mock him for that.
Much.
So it comes as rather a surprise when he finds himself handcuffed to a metal table that's bolted to the floor in a concrete room painted an unflattering shade of beige, harsh halogen light directly in his eyes as he squints up at a dark blue coat that very, very clearly reads "U.S MARSHAL".
-
There are things he's predisposed to. Smiling when he shouldn't, for instance, is one thing. Falling asleep on the couch at night with a book on his chest, acting too cocky and too sure of his own charm another, and oh god does he get sick of the sound of his own voice sometimes.
Pneumonia is another. Bronchitis yet another on that list.
There have been a few bad ones, and a few close calls over the years. Sitting upright against pillows and trying to keep from crying out of sheer frustration – no sleep for days will do that to even the toughest guys, gasping and coughing and gritting his teeth against the pain in his diaphragm.
He's been there in damp little flats in Europe, where the walls leak heat and the people next door are banging so loudly the water in the glass on his nightstand ripples. Where fevered dreams bleed into each other, and the frost rose growing on the inside of the double window pane turns monstrous and spreads like the scariest painting he can think of into the room, eating at his fingers, up his arms.
He shivers at the faint memory, can still hear Kate in the hall, frenetic and panicked and trying to get hold of antibiotics she doesn't yet know wont help at all.
There have been others, still as desperate cases, too. Egyptian cotton, silk pajamas. No reason to complain in the world, only there isn't enough air left , and he can remember his back arching up as he wakes with his eyes burning with heat, and..
No.
Best not thinking about.
And yet, even after thirty years of pneumonia and bronchitis and what can only be called an obscene amount of coughing experience, it never fails to take him by complete and utter surprise.
It's just a cold at first. The kind that makes your voice sound funny and hollow and nasal, and you almost want to talk more because it amuses you. But then the fatigue and the sleepless nights hit, and you curl up around your teacup, trying to pretend that your chest doesn't ache and that your ears aren't full of mucus and that turning on the shower so you can inhale the steam doesn't just make you feel like you're choking to death in an obscure, tiled part of the rainforest.
There's a few miserable days at the office, extra layers of wool under his suit that has him sweating one minute and shivering the next, the unfamiliar feeling of clammy fabric clinging to his back and sides throughout the day.
He sends two suits to the cleaners. Showers three times as much as he normally does, sitting on the tiled floor of the bathroom and letting the warm water warm him from the outside in.
Tissues and water glasses and empty cough drop blister packets build up in little piles around his bed, and his cough turns a little chesty, his breath a little wheezy whenever he climbs the stairs.
And then, it's been a week, he must be feeling better.
Right?
Right.
It's time to feel better no matter what his body says, and he's not getting any worse, after all. Mozzie comes over, sits on the couch while Neal putters around the kitchen, putting together cheese and crackers, because he's nothing if not predictable, but cutting the grapes has his head at a weird angle, and oh. Sit down. Better sit down. Chair? Where.
His hands cling to the furniture at his side as he makes his way to the closest chair, and Mozzie laughs at his upright-dizziness.
He has no reason to believe that Neal is getting sick. Neither does Neal, he's just been sick. This is just part of getting better.
Right?
Right.
They talk, long into the night. A bottle and a half of wine, but only half of that inside Neal. Mozzie frowns at him every so often, as if trying to x-ray him with his thick glasses.
When he wakes up and his body wants nothing more than to hang out in bed a bit longer, he has no reason to be worried or suspicious. His body is still clearing itself of snot, he's still blocked up and nasal and coughy, and it's all right to be tired when you've been up half the night, plotting.
But truth be told, he hasn't been this hung over in years.
He sticks to the bed that day. Doesn't feel sick, but he doesn't feel entirely well, either. Just fatigued and worn out, and maybe a little achy.
-
"Hello? Yeah, this is Peter Burke. What do you mean you've got Caffrey? Why would you.. Hang on."
He shifts the phone to his shoulder, trying feverishly to straighten out the knot on his tie that seems to be pretending to be a bow-tie for no good reason at all.
"Yeah? Go on. Caffrey is mean to be at work in..." He checks his watch, frowning a little "...twenty minutes, why is he with you?"
It takes him a moment to gather in what the voice on the other end of the line tries to explain to him.
"He tried to run? How did he try to run? Where did you pick him up?"
He squeezes the fleshy bit of skin on the bridge of his nose tight as he stops dead in the stairwell, El looking up at him curiously from the living room where she's watching morning TV and eating mango yoghurt.
"Yeah, no, I'll be right there."
"Hon?"
"Neal tried to run, I've got to go. I'll call you later."
Her eyes burn into his back as he leaves, jacket still only halfway on on one side, his brief case upside down and clutched under his chin.
-
Neal isn't wearing a suit when Peter enters the room behind the mirror. He's staring listlessly at the table in front of him, a damp t-shirt with a large opening around his neck that makes him look vulnerable and pale in the harsh overhead light.
"Where did you find him?" Peter asks, and the guy next to him shrugs.
"There." He says, pointing to a print-out of Manhattan that's barely outside Neal's original circle. Neal's route is marked in red, looping and swirling across the street here and there, looping itself around a building and then coming to a final halt a block and a half outside his radius.
"Not exactly Europe, is it?" Peter says, his mouth running off with him. The Marshal next to him frowns.
"Radius is radius, Burke. No matter how far."
"Yes, but it doesn't exactly look like he was making an effort to run, does it? What did he do when you found him?"
"I wasn't part of the team that picked him up." He explains, and Peter frowns through the window at Neal, whose hair is ruffled, and who has a tiny bit of blood at the side of his mouth. The neckline of his t-shirt is stretched wide, too, like someone pulled on it.
"I see", Peter says. "I want to talk to him. Now."
-
The little pharmacy bag dangles from his wrist as he stumbles back towards June's, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other while his chest expands as much as it can without disconnecting his ribs from his spine. It stings, he coughs, and then coughs more as the damp air enters his body through his mouth, and his dry throat protests. He feels warm and damp and too dry and too hot and icy cold, his clothes a damp mess of sweat and the kind of shivery wet rain that makes you feel disgustingly clammy instead of properly soaked.
Everything smells wrong, too. Like the only smell left in the world is that sickly salty-sweet ones that comes from infection and mucus you've coughed up and spat out. Like Riga, that one time. He groans at the memory of the cold wooden floors that leaked cold air like there was a wind-machine on the floor below them. Musty sheets and pots and pans left over from a previous tenant, crawling with mold and bugs. He remembers Kate at the stove, trying to warm something for him.
He remembers puking it up, too.
That particular thought has him spitting harshly into the gutter before he can move on, his head bent against the light rain, focusing on the pink and white spots of gum on the pavement in front of him.
He can't remember why he isn't wearing a hat, or why the bare skin of his arms is touching the silky lining of the ancient coat he's got on, and it doesn't really matter. Not really. He wants to go home, needs to sit down or lie down or maybe... Maybe that coffee shop over there, or. No.
Needs to go home. Where's Mozzie, again?
His knees are trembling with the effort soon enough, but the grey buildings around him will open to show him June's house in a moment. Just another moment. He stumbles over crossings and around piles of newspapers left out in the cold morning to be unwrapped and put up for sale. Just a little longer.
And really, how can anyone get lost in Manhattan?
Really fucking easy, it turns out.
He doesn't expect to be slammed harshly against the bonnet of a car, or cuffed and shoved inside before he can really think through what the hell is happening, but sitting down feels nice, and the warm air of the car is damp and fantastic on his throat, even though the lining of his t-shirt burns where it got pulled against his skin. He lets his head loll back, even as a voice says something, shaking him and demanding answers and attention.
It's a long line of being told he's making things harder for himself and cold hands pulling and pushing and demanding things of him, things he can't keep a grasp of, words that slip from between his fingers like trying to hold water, and oh. Water.
His hands are cuffed to the table, so he leans forwards, and sips it up like a four-year old who has overfilled a glass and doesn't want to spill, but the cool water has him coughing harshly, chesty into his elbow, and he closes his eyes as the increased blood flow to his head has him spinning.
-
"Peter" he manages, when Peter's blurry shape finally fills the doorway, cheap suit and horrible tie and all, that puckered, constipated expression on his face again. "Peter."
Peter doesn't say anything until he's closer to the table, but Neal doesn't have it in him to listen. "I don't... I didn't, I swear, I..."
He tries to meet Peter's eyes, but his eyes tear up against the harsh light, and he has to swallow back a grunt of pain as his chest tries to make him cough again – coughingmakesitworsedon'tjustdon't.
"Neal", Peter says, in a voice that sounds like he's tried about twenty times already, but Neal shakes his head like he can explain himself through mime, "Din't, Peter, I..."
There's a soft sigh somewhere next to him, and then a hand is wrapping itself around his neck, and another on his forehead. Warm, calloused. Big. He shivers, leans into it a little. There's a pat to his shoulder, and then the hands leave. The warm, big hands leave and he coughs miserably, chesty again, and his mouth fills with that horrible taste of infection and hurt.
-
"I need a medic in here" Peter says, his voice calm and soothing to keep Neal from hyperventilating in anxiety, his eyes turning dizzily from the mirror behind him to Neal, who's stacked precariously up against the metal table, slumped over his arms again. His eyes are open, but they're not tracking, and his skin is hot and dry, even though Peter feels damp and clammy in the badly ventilated space.
The door unlocks a moment later, and Peter has to take a deep breath in order to not start shouting immediately.
"Unlock him. Now."
"He's still a fli..."
"He's delirious, in pain and sick. Un-cuff him. Now."
The man holds his hands up in a peace offering before closing the door behind him and approaching Neal carefully.
"You try anything, Caffrey, and I'll have you in a permanent cubby hole at supermax before you can say "Michelangelo"", he says, but Neal blinks lethargically out at the room, shifting minutely in his seat. The Marshal tries to have Neal sit up so he can be unlocked, but Neal seems out of range of their words by now, confused and still pouring with heat to the point where Peter can feel it even when his hands hover inches away from his back.
The marshal takes a look at Neal, his head lolling a little now that he's upright, Peter's hand at the back of his neck to keep it from snapping back, and looks apologetically up at Peter.
"Ambulance ETA in four minutes, Burke."
The new voice comes from the doorway, and Peter recognizes the man leaning against the doorframe. Has dealt with him before.
"I'm taking him, or he's pressing charges for negligence."
The man just nods, and Peter can hear his brain gear over to the paperwork he has to fill out.
By the time the paramedics arrive, Neal has passed out, and his lips are slowly turning a shade of purple Peter hopes he never has to see again in his life.
-
Waking up is slow. Like molasses, sweet and heavy and warm. The fabric closest to his skin is clinging to him with perspiration, and he draws in his next breath with a sigh, because even though he's warm, he doesn't like sweat. Really doesn't.
The air he draws in tastes like plastic, and when it hits his throat it burns like he's been walking through the desert for months without water. He tries to lick his lips, opening his eyes to tiny, thin slivers.
"Hey" a voice says, and a hand comes to rest on his forehead. It's small, warm. A ring pulls on his hair a little. "You awake for us now?"
He blinks away the worst of the sleep from his eyes, tries to focus on the figure leaning over his bed.
"El" He whispers, but it comes out a muffled croak behind the plastic and hiss of oxygen, and triggers another round of coughing that has him trying to curl up before El can fold his arm around a cushion against his stomach. He feels the pinch of IV's in both elbows, tries not to dislodge them when he lets his arms relax.
"You're all right, sweetie. You're all right, just breathe."
"'happened?" he croaks, and tries to dislodge the mask. She stops him with a calm hand, but lets go when she notices his eyes fastening on the cup of water on the bedside table.
"Pneumonia" a man's voice replies, and Neal manages to turn his head a little to find Peter leaning against the doorframe, looking frazzled and a little upset.
"The Marshals have agreed to drop charges this once, given the statement from your doctor and the rather dramatic exit you made."
Neal frowns down at the straw El is trying to poke through his lips, and he drinks greedily before it's taken away again, far too soon for his throat but just in time for his stomach.
"I don't.." He mumbles, and his voice is stronger now.
"No, I imagine you don't.", Peter says. "The next time you're getting pneumonia, though, please just call me, and I'll personally bring you a box of NyQuil and take you to the doctor, because that was not worth it."
"Yeah." Neal manages to whisper, his eyelids suddenly drooping shut again. El's fingers scratch his scalp calmly, and he opens his eyes again to see Peter's face softening a little.
"You're okay, Caffrey. Get some sleep. Don't steal my wife."
"Yah" Neal huffs out, mouth twitching into a sleepy smile. When his eyes droop shut this time, he lets them.
-fin-