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Peter Burke knew he went to sleep on the wrong side of the bed—or was it woke up on the wrong side of the bed? He didn’t really know, and he really didn’t care.
It had been a long day at the office, brimming with a fickle case that led him and his CI to a small town a few hours outside of the city. When a surprise snow storm struck out of nowhere, they’d been forced to bed down in a dingy roadside motel, which despite being in a two-stoplight town, had only one vacant room.
Thank God it had two beds. Peter’s mood was sour enough without sharing a bed with a certified bed-hog like Neal Caffrey.
(Sarah had told him about it. He’d never shared a bed with Neal, for the record.)
After a fruitless attempt to find something other than pizza for dinner, Peter had given up and came back with a box of Greasy Nick’s—the name was apt—and they’d settled in for an early evening of reading up on the case.
As if he could sense Peter’s nerves fraying in real time, Neal kept interrupting Peter’s focus by clearing his throat and grimacing.
“The pizza disagreeing with you?” Peter ribbed, trying to keep his tone light. The pizza was certainly disagreeing with Peter. He could feel it sitting in his stomach like a leaden, slick weight. The longer he thought about it, the worse he felt.
Neal shrugged. “No. My throat just feels weird. I think it’s the weather.”
Peter watched him more closely after that—they were sharing a hotel room and if he was coming down with something, the germs didn’t have very far to jump—but Neal seemed to be fine otherwise. No ominously sweaty brow, or suspiciously green pallor. He didn’t seem sick.
Neal coughed a few times to clear his throat, and Peter fought to keep his expression neutral.
If this went on all night, he was going to scream.
“Stop staring, Peter,” Neal finally said, not looking up from the file on his lap, and misreading Peter’s intention as concern instead of annoyance. “It’s weird.”
“Sorry.” Peter wasn’t sorry though. His gut was perfectly tuned to the signal of Neal Caffrey is Hiding Something FM and he’s learned over the years to trust that feeling. If he thought Neal was hiding something, he probably was.
“I’m fine, Peter.”
Peter crossed his arms and leaned back, trying to look nonchalant. “I didn’t say you weren’t. Why do you say that?”
Neal scoffed. “Have the last few years meant nothing to you? I thought we had better rapport than that.”
“Hmm.”
Neal ignored him after that, but Peter knew something was up. Neal coughed a few times, and Peter caught the face he made before he could school it. It was a mess of furrowed brows, and confusion and the slightest tinge of fear.
Peter’s own expression mimicked Neal’s after that. He couldn't help himself. Slowly, his bad mood and prickly irritation over the noise was morphing into concern. What was going on? But Peter knew if he asked, Neal wouldn’t tell him. He’d just smile, and lie, and tell Peter a beautiful story with not an iota of truth mixed in.
So Peter settled in on his queen bed and tried to focus on the files he was supposed to be reviewing. But every time Neal so much as shifted, his attention was drawn across the room. He flipped maybe three pages over the course of an hour, and he didn’t remember a single thing he read.
When did he become such a worrier? Neal was a full grown man. He could handle himself.
No matter how many times he said that to himself, though, it didn’t change a single thing. He was still worried and focused on Neal’s weirdly quiet throat-clearing coughs.
(This kid was going to be the death of him, he swore.)
Before they went to bed, Peter noticed that Neal was breathing funny. Neal, a man very concerned with image, was breathing through his mouth. And if that wasn’t troubling enough, there was also the occasional vague whistling sound emitting from his nose when Neal tried to breathe through his nose.
“What’s wrong with you?” Peter asked, all niceties and pretenses worn down. Something was definitely up, and his sleeves were up, his tie was gone, and he had no fucks left to give.
Neal startled at Peter’s harsh words, but shrugged and coughed to clear his throat. “Sorry. I think it’s just allergies.”
Peter raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never had seasonal allergies before.”
“I don’t usually.” Neal shrugged. There was something he wasn’t telling him; Peter could tell. He always could. “I think it’s just being in a new environment. Tree pollen or something. I’ll be fine.”
A likely story coming from Neal Caffrey, king of Grin and Bear It, but Peter decided not to press. “Okay. Well, let me know if anything changes.”
Neal rolled his eyes, but it was more playful than anything else.
Peter got ready for bed and tried to ignore the worry bubbling up in his gut.
—
A few hours later, around 3am, Peter was woken up by something but he couldn’t immediately place it.
“What the—” he grumbled before turning onto his other side and pressing his face into the pillow. God, this trip sucked. Neal was being shifty, Peter was sore from the crappy mattress, and Reese wanted a report on his desk by—
Then, Peter heard it. What had initially woken him up.
It was more a gasp than a word.
“P’t’r.”
Another desperate gasp. The panicked inhale of someone not getting enough air.
“Pe—“
Peter was scrambling out of bed before he even made the conscious choice to get up.
Neal was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Tears streamed down his face. Veins stood out on his neck. His chest was rigid, shaking under his white undershirt as he tried to breathe in.
His chest was trembling but not moving. His whole body was tight and coiled like a drum. One hand was on his chest, the other was fisted in his blanket. He wasn’t breathing. Neal wasn’t breathing.
Peter’s heart stopped when he found Neal’s eyes. They were pooling with sheer panic. Neal was usually so cocky, so unduly self-assured. Now, it took Peter a second to register the emotion he was reading there.
Neal Caffrey was scared.
“Hey, hey—” Peter sat on the edge of Neal’s bed and held his hands up. He was shaking just as bad as his CI. He didn’t know what to do. What to say. How to help. “What’s wrong? What’s happening?”
Neal let out a shaky sob and his hand reached out for Peter. “I… not since… a kid…” A rattling cough cut him off and he was gasping for breath all over again.
Peter took Neal’s hand and squeezed tight. They would be fine. They’d survived an oxygen-less room. They could figure out whatever this was. “Neal. Look at me. Do you have asthma?”
Neal’s eyes closed and he tried again to take a deep breath. His chest barely moved. “Had. Not… years.”
Peter slipped his other hand between Neal’s shoulders and pulled him up so he was sitting. “Okay.” Peter took steadying breaths for Neal to imitate before he remembered that was the whole problem in the first place. “Do you have an inhaler?”
Neal whimpered and Peter’s heart stuttered.
Oh no. Peter had been calm because he’d thought Neal just needed him to riffle through his suitcase and find his inhaler. If there wasn’t a… Oh. Oh shit.
Peter tugged Neal against his chest, letting his head fall onto Peter’s shoulder, limp and heavier than it had ever been. Neal was shaking, trembling, fighting just to get a real breath. And it wasn’t working. With their torsos flush like this, Peter could feel Neal’s chest and his stomach, clenching and stuttering with every failing gasp.
His chest wasn’t expanding. His stomach was a tight coil of muscle.
Neal wasn’t getting any air. He wasn’t breathing.
“Hang on, kid,” Peter said, his voice cracking at the end despite his best efforts. “I can find the closest hospital and—”
“Snow,” Neal whispered, the word little more than a jagged, warm breath at Peter’s ear. In the beginning, he’d been draped over Peter because he was too sick and too scared to be embarrassed about seeking comfort. Now, Peter could feel him getting weak. His head was probably swimming from the lack of oxygen. Neal couldn’t…
Peter couldn’t watch him die. He couldn’t.
“No! Don’t you dare, Caffrey!” Peter cupped Neal’s head with a hand to keep him in place and fumbled on the nightstand for Neal’s phone. “Stay with me. I need you to stay with me.”
Peter’s fingers always felt fat and sloppy on the keyboard of a phone. This time, they also felt numb. A cold wave of adrenaline spread down his arms, his legs.
Finally, a tinny, “911.”
“Please,” Peter rushed out, “my partner is having an asthma attack and we’re staying at the Ringling Motel off—”
The operator cut him off. “Sir, do you have a car?”
“Well, yes. But the snow—”
“The nearest ambulance is half an hour out because of the lack of snow plows at this hour,” she stated. “If you can, your best bet is to drive yourself.”
“Please, he doesn’t have that—”
“I’m sorry, that’s the best option. I’m sending an ambulance, but it might be too late. If it was me, I’d drive myself.”
Peter almost threw the phone. He would’ve if he wasn’t sure he’d need it again.
Think, Burke. Think. What could he—
The motel phone. The front desk. It was 24 hours.
He fumbled with the clunky old thing and found the button for the front desk.
He started talking as soon as he heard the telltale click of the receiver being picked up. “My name is Peter Burke, I’m staying in room 113. I need you to do something for me.”
The front desk employee didn’t reply but the silence was apprehensive.
“Listen to me,” Peter snapped. “I’m an FBI agent. You’re going to do this under the authority of the FBI.” Neal’s head lolled off Peter’s shoulder and Peter clumsily grabbed at the side of his neck to keep him propped up. Neal was almost fully limp, his breathing had started to feel more like he was hiccuping. It wasn’t making it past his throat anymore. “Hang on, Neal. Just hang on.” Peter swallowed hard, and tried to ignore his own nerves. “I need you to do exactly what I tell you. Go knock on every door until you get an answer. I need a rescue inhaler. Right now. Can you do that?”
A hesitant, female voice. Poor thing, she sounded young. “Like for asthma?”
“Exactly.” Peter put as much authority as he could in his voice. This was a matter of life and death. He needed her to understand that, but if he was too firm, it would scare her and that could slow her down. “The moment you find one, commandeer it, and bring it to room 113 as quickly as you can. Please. It’s my partner. He didn’t bring his and he’s—”
“I’ll do it,” she said, “I’ll start upstairs. There’s some families up there. Maybe their kids have asthma.” The line went dead and Peter dropped the phone onto the floor before remembering it wouldn’t ring if he didn’t place it on the cradle.
“Neal.” Peter fumbled to get both hands on either side of his CI’s face, holding him up in front of him. He was dead weight, eyes closed. Pale as snow. “Hey! Stay with me, dammit. Help’s coming.”
Neal’s lips were turning blue.
“Neal!”
His eyes cracked open for a millisecond and he grabbed onto the fabric of Peter’s sweatpants. His fingers were weak. He mouthed something that Peter couldn’t figure out.
“Please, just hold on,” Peter begged. His own fingers trembled as he held Neal’s face between his hands. Like if he held on to Neal’s body, Neal would hold on to consciousness. “She’s coming. You’re going to be okay.”
A slow shake of the head. Neal’s chest stuttered as he scrambled for another breath. But Peter could tell it didn’t work.
Neal listed sideways and Peter pulled him to his chest before he could fall onto the bed. Neal was soaked in sweat.
“No, Caffrey, don’t—”
Peter’s nose burned. This couldn’t be happening. Not— Not while Peter was alive. Neal couldn’t die. Not in a dirty, roadside motel. Not today. Not like this.
Suddenly, their doorknob jiggled, then opened. A young girl with a knotted mop of blonde curls up in a messy bun scrambled across the room and pushed a small bundle of plastic into Peter’s hand.
It was a freezing cold inhaler.
“It was in someone’s car,” she pleaded, like he would reject it. “I’m sorry it took me so—”
Peter stopped listening. He mumbled something that sounded like a thank you and scrambled to flip Neal around so his back was to Peter’s chest. Neal was just a floppy doll now, limbs askew, but Peter felt the telltale clench of his chest on an inhale.
They had seconds. And Peter would use every last one of them.
“I need you to wake up!” Peter commanded. “One more inhale, Caffrey. Right when I press the plunger. Got it? I don’t know how many tries you get out of an inhaler.”
Neal didn’t react at all. So Peter fumbled and took Neal’s chin in one hand, pressed his finger tips into Neal’s cheeks until his lips opened enough for the inhaler. Neal was completely pliant. It was nauseating. Neal wasn’t meant to be cooperative. He wasn’t—
Focus, Burke.
“Caffrey!” Peter begged. “One more breath, okay? That’s it— just one more. On three. One, two—”
Peter felt it happen the moment his index finger pushed the canister down. The aerosol hissed, and Neal breathed in. It was more of a hitch in his chest, a clench in his abdomen, but it was there. Neal was still fighting.
“One more,” Peter encouraged. He’d known guys on his old baseball team in high school with asthma. He wasn’t mentally present enough to check the tiny print on the side of the metal canister and figure out what medication or dosage this blue hunk of plastic contained. But two puffs was better than one, and regardless of the dosage, it should be fine. (Hopefully.) “One, two—”
That second puff was the one that opened up Neal’s lungs. With a stuttering gasp, Neal finally took a full, real breath.
He coughed, gagged—and maybe, Peter couldn’t really tell—cried a little bit. Peter’s arms came up around Neal’s torso and he held on as tight as he dared. Loose enough not to restrict Neal’s airflow, but firm enough to remind him that he was here. They were both here.
“I’ve got you, kid,” Peter murmured, gently smoothing a hand over Neal’s heaving chest. “You’re alright.”
Neal’s trembling hands scrabbled against one of Peter’s forearms until they finally settled for gripping it. “Pet’r, I—”
“Shhh,” Peter hushed him. Nodded at the girl in their doorway. She was clutching her hands together and staring at them in wonder. Mercifully, she seemed to understand what he meant by the cryptic nod and stepped out into the hall. “You’re going to be just fine, Neal. The ambulance is on its way. We’ll get you a breathing treatment or whatever they’re called at the hospital and you'll be just fine.”
Neal launched into a coughing fit and his fingertips flexed against Peter’s arm. Peter was glad Neal’s expression was hidden from him. He didn’t know if he could face it right now. Face him/ See whatever flurry of feelings was broadcasting across his face.
The telltale red and white lights of an ambulance danced across their room from the window facing the parking lot. Peter could hear the clatter of a gurney being unloaded, the slamming of the doors.
“You’re alright, Caffrey,” Peter said, and he couldn’t tell who he was assuring. His own hands shook just as hard as Neal’s. Despite the rattling breaths lancing through Neal’s chest, and the steady expand-contract-expand-contract of Neal’s lungs against Peter’s chest, all Peter could see was the hue of blue Neal’s lips had turned. The glint of panic in his eyes. The cracked P’t’r from earlier that night.
He’d…
Peter had almost…
Neal could have…
No. Peter refused to go there. Neal’s head was tipped back against Peter’s shoulder. Peter dropped his cheek against Neal’s sweaty forehead, skin to skin. Felt the comforting thrum of his pulse at his temple.
Neal’s breath was still unsteady. Coming out in fits and starts and stuttering like a faulty car engine between his ribs. But he was alive.
“I’ve got you, Neal.” Peter said. Lifted the hand Neal hadn’t secured in a death grip up to his hair and gently smoothed it back. Carded his fingers through it again and again. Neal’s hair was knotted and sweaty. But he relaxed a smidge under Peter’s hand and that was all that mattered. “You’re going to be okay.”
He was barely sure it actually happened. Neal’s lungs could barely rustle up enough air to keep him awake, let alone to speak. But Peter thought he heard Neal mumble, “I know. Thank you.”
When the paramedics came in, they made quick work of setting up an oxygen mask—with some other aerosolized meds, based on the smell—and loaded Neal up onto the gurney.
Peter took his hand and didn’t let go until they reached the hospital. And only then because the doctor couldn’t examine him with Peter standing there.
That night, once it was clear that Neal would make a full recovery, Peter fell asleep in a stiff plastic chair by his bed, his head pillowed on Neal’s forearm, Neal’s fingers curled around Peter’s, even in his sleep.
(The night nurse did her best not to disturb them. They both looked like they were finally at peace.)