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Neal was furious. Quietly furious, but furious nonetheless.
He was furious as he waited in the pharmacy for Peter’s prescription, Peter himself slumped next to him with his head on Neal’s shoulder, so hot with fever that Neal could feel it through layers of wool and cotton. He was furious as he drove back to Brooklyn, Peter zoned out in the passenger seat on the painkillers they’d given him at the hospital. And he was furious while he half-carried Peter up the stairs to the bedroom and helped him put on warm, clean pajamas and crawl into bed. He was even furious as he soaked a washcloth in cold water and wrung it out before folding it in thirds to drape over Peter’s forehead.
But Peter was in no shape for Neal to be furious at him, so Neal held his tongue until he got El on the phone. Then he went out on the back porch, where he could safely vent the anger that had been steadily building ever since Peter had started talking nonsense during a meeting four hours earlier and then unceremoniously keeled over onto the floor. “A raging strep infection” had been the diagnosis at the emergency room. It’d started in Peter’s throat and spread to both ears.
“A hundred and four fucking degrees,” Neal said to El. Swearing was unseemly, but he felt the situation warranted it. “He was delirious. They gave him shots of antibiotics, and said that if it’d been left much longer he could’ve damaged his hearing permanently.” Worse yet, the infection could have spread to his heart. But Neal knew better than to say this to El when she was three thousand miles away. “I could just - I could kill him,” Neal said, closing his eyes and rubbing a hand over his face. “I don’t know how you’re being so calm about it.”
“Well, I could have hysterics,” El said reasonably, “but it won’t get me home any faster or help Peter feel better, and I still have a gala to run tonight. Besides,” she added, quietly, “I trust you.”
Neal’s breath caught. This thing between himself and Peter was so new and tenuous, and he was still a little afraid that El might change her mind. But he knew how big this was. He knew that beneath her surface calm, El was going out of her mind, and he knew what it meant that she trusted him to take care of Peter at his most vulnerable. “Thank you,” he said.
“I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true,” El said. “Crap, is that the time? I have to go, but I’ll have my cell phone on me all evening. Call if you need to, all right?”
“I will.”
“Oh and, Neal,” El added, just before they hung up. “Next time you’re tempted to do something terrifying, remember how it feels to have a partner who’s so reckless with his own safety.”
Neal was still standing with his mouth open when El hung up.
His fury spent, he went back upstairs to check on Peter. He expected to find him asleep, but he was awake and staring blankly at the ceiling. He blinked slowly when Neal sat down beside him on the bed. “Where’d you go?” Peter asked, his voice barely a rasp.
“Downstairs to call El,” Neal said, and picked Peter’s hand up in his own. His hands were too warm, but Neal brought one up to his lips and kissed the knuckles. “How’re you feeling?”
“Terrible,” Peter admitted.
Neal glanced at his watch. “You can have a Vicodin,” he said, fully expecting an argument. But Peter simply nodded. Neal went and got the painkillers from the pharmacy bag, along with a glass of ice water. Peter swallowed one of the pills with the water, wincing, but then he drank the rest of the glass without Neal having to encourage him at all. Neal made a mental note to pick up lots of cold things on the grocery run he’d have to make at some point.
When the glass of water was empty, Peter tilted his head back, resting it against the headboard, and held out his hand to Neal. Neal crawled up beside him, pulling Peter close and letting him rest his head in the crook of Neal’s neck. He was still so hot, but even this wasn’t as bad as it had been. They’d cooled him down at the hospital with ice packs at both armpits and an IV full of saline.
Neal swallowed and closed his eyes. He could recognize his anger now for what it had really been: bone-deep, blood-chilling fear. Strep throat had been a relief after the possibilities his mind had started churning out the second Peter had hit the floor of the conference room.
“‘m okay,” Peter mumbled after a moment.
Neal gave a brief laugh. “You’re not okay,” he replied. “And you scared me, Peter. You really scared me. I thought . . .” I thought you were dying. In that moment, he’d had a flash of the void that losing Peter would leave in his life, even bigger and deeper than the ones that Kate and Ellen’s deaths had left.
“S’okay,” Peter said, patting Neal’s hand awkwardly.
This time. “I know,” Neal said. “I just . . . please don’t do this again, all right? El wasn’t here to notice you were sick, but I was” - and I should have - “and I just - I never want to do this again.”
“‘m sorry,” Peter murmured, sounding genuinely contrite. He fell asleep like that, half-sitting up in Neal’s arms. Neal held him tight, taking a certain comfort in the too-hot heat of Peter’s body.
Eventually, though, he had to move. He woke Peter to take his antibiotics and then eased him down into a position that was more comfortable for sleeping. Neal felt a bit strange about sleeping in El’s half of the bed - he and Peter always slept together at his place, and rarely for an entire night - but he wanted to be as close to Peter as possible, and he was pretty sure El would want that, too.
It was not the best night’s sleep Neal had ever had. Peter tossed and turned, alternately freezing and boiling. When he did sleep, he talked and kicked far more than usual, at least in Neal’s limited experience. Around three o’clock, Neal gave up sleeping in the bed entirely and ensconced himself in the bedroom armchair with a blanket and a book, dozing fitfully and checking on Peter each time he woke.
At some point, he must have fallen asleep out of pure exhaustion, because he woke to the low murmur of Peter’s voice. Neal raised his head, thinking Peter must be caught in another fever dream, before realizing he was on the phone. “Love you, hon,” he heard, and let himself relax. It was Saturday, which meant he didn’t have to figure out how to con the Bureau into letting him stay home and take care of Peter. El would be home by evening. All was well.
“Hey,” Peter mumbled, after he hung up with El. “You awake?”
“Yeah,” Neal said, and pushed himself out of the armchair. He climbed back into bed and pulled a pillow over his lap. Peter lay down with his head on the pillow, and Neal stroked his fingers through his hair. He was still too hot, but definitely cooler than yesterday. “How’re you feeling?”
“Awful.”
“Is that better or worse than ‘terrible’?”
“Better,” Peter said with a sigh. “I have at least a brain cell and a half to rub together. But it still feels like there’s broken glass in my ears and throat.”
“Well, that’ll happen when you get strep throat and don’t tell anyone,” Neal pointed out, trying to keep the cutting tone to a minimum and probably failing.
Peter was quiet for a moment. “It came on really suddenly,” he said at last. “I’d been feeling a little under the weather. I felt worse yesterday morning, but not - not that bad. By the time I got to the office, I knew I was really sick, but -”
“- but you were also half-delirious,” Neal said. “Yeah, I get that.” And delirious!Peter had decided to just cowboy up and power through, because that was what Peter Burke did. And it was hard to be mad at him, really, for being Peter Burke, when that was who Neal was head over heels for.
Neither of them spoke again. Neal closed his eyes, feeling settled for the first time since Peter had collapsed. He’d spent most of the last twenty-four hours either furious or frightened, but now he just felt calm. Centered. Grounded. As though this was exactly where he was supposed to be.
They both slept.
Fin