Title: The One Where Hughes Gets Sick
Author: Solstice1394
Fandom: White Collar
Community/fest: WhiteCollarhc/Fever Fest III
Warnings: Fever and belligerent Hughes
Spoilers: none though this might have been canon in season 1-3
Characters: Neal, Hughes, Peter, Diana, Jones, (gen)
Prompt/Summary: For whatever reason Hughes is undercover with Neal. They get taken or trapped somewhere. Hughes gets sick and Neal has to take care of him until help arrives. Awesome prompt by love_82.
AN: I really am interested in a Hughes whump fic only because I don't think I've see many if any. Well on to the fic let the FEVER FEST continue!
-WC-
As Neal tried to ignore the sound of Hughes wheezing as the older man had caught pneumonia in the damp cell the Cutter brothers had them stored in, he reflected on how they had gotten here. Only a week prior Peter had double finger pointed him into his office. He ignored the cough of his own that was starting in his own chest and tried to keep Hughes brow cool, as he remembered.
# # 1 Week ago 21st floor of FBI New York Offices
"Neal," Peter shouted to the bull pen and giving the double finger point to his CI.
Neal through the pencil he had been twirling over his drawing down and gave up on it for now. He was working on a new drawing seeing the world through someone elses eyes was something he liked to do on his break.
"Yes Peter," Neal staged whispered to his friend once he sat down in front of the man, only to be handed a file.
"We have reason to believe that the Cutter brother's are in town and they are shopping around looking for a fence and a forger," Peter stated as he stretched the kinks out of his neck.
"Do you think they want to make duplicates of whatever they stole or make it seem like, they can sell the duplicates and then reveal the genuine article to make a killing in the market." Neal questioned as he looked at the file studying the information there.
"We don't know yet," Peter surmised as he angled his head towards Hughes office Neal questioned if Peter was still stretching his neck.
"And that where I come in, you want to be the fence?" Neal asked because he could be both but didn't know what Peter was getting at yet. If only he had known then he would have worn more lock picks.
"No, Hughes has an old cover aliases as a fence back when he had my job," Peter in toned it was El's birthday next week and he had too many preparations to worry about an op.
"Hughes is going to come with me, is this a performance review or punishment Peter? I'm not familiar with cooperate edict," Neal stifled a laugh.
"No it's not a joke, the tech teams are swamped with viral and children crimes so they can't put up a cover story for us, so are second option is to used an already built one." Peter explained the other reason why he couldn't go with Caffrey.
"Alright I guess one of my aliases can come out to play with Hughes and the Cutter Boys," Neal stated as he looked at the angel like faces of the Cutter Boys now marred by scars and the other having pierced and gauged it.
-WC-
Hughes was slowly getting worse by the day and the sun was setting on their small window of time, because the sun was rises on day 8. Neal tracker anklet had been smashed when the Cutter Boys saw it. Neal had been told that he would be fine with it on and he had trusted Peter. Now though as he was sporting infected cuts from the Cutter Boys doing what their namesake told them, he was regretting taking it and not asking for a watch.
Meanwhile on the 21st floor, conference room Peter and Jones were looking at a map. They were looking to see where the train yard crossed with an artisan district, that Mozzie had heard rumor of where the Cutter Boys were holing up in.
"I don't know Peter if they aren't here then they have to be in the other 2 options," Jones mused aloud and yawned and took another sip of sludge they called coffee.
"Jones the artisans neighborhood was the only clue we could get off the proof of life tape the Cutter Boys sent us 3 days ago I have nothing else." Peter admitted.
The flat screen displayed a freeze frame of Neal holding a newspaper with Wednesday's date above the headlines. It had Hughes next to Neal and throughout the video Neal had been blinking in Morse code. They had a person from the Harvard crew pick out the train whistle. Now they were just trying to narrow down when, the train had come to see which of the 3 artisan colonies in New York held Neal and Hughes.
There was a rapping on the glass as a beaming Diana held up a file and then burst into the conference room, holding a file a smile held in place. She was beaming towards her boss and Jones knowing where Neal's and Hughes where she was sure of it.
"We found out when the train came around and even better the Cutter Boys have a legitimate business for money laundering, a soap shop in the artisan district that has a train go by a 4:22 every Wednesday." Diana beamed as she pointed to map and saw Peter smile in the first time since this whole mess started.
"Diana I could kiss you," Jones teased as he pulled out his cell phone and got on a phone call with SWAT.
"I think I'll save that for Kristi," Diana jibbed as she disappeared out the conference room to round up the still functioning caffeine filled Harvard Crew.
"El tell Mozzie we know were they are and that we should have them back soon," Peter paused as El said something then, "bye Hon."
-WC-
Neal tried to rouse Hughes as he fought off another fever dream, he wanted this nightmare to end as well. He heard scraping at the door keeping them prisoner. It was a dead-bolt normally not a problem but he had no lock picks nor anything to fashion one with.
He had heard shots fired moments ago, and thought, good those idiots should kill themselves. He felt Hughes stir underneath his arm, so he looked at the older man not seeing any recognition there. He was startled when he heard more scraping against the door, evidently they had put something against the door, that was new.
Hughes jumped from the bed as Neal stared at the door, trying to protect Hughes in case someone tried anything. Neal tried to calm Hughes when he didn't recognize Neal as one of the good guys.
"How did you get out of prison?" Hughes tried to be menacing and all imposing but it was marred by his small voice and coughing from the pneumonia.
"Agent Hughes it's Neal, Agent Burkes CI," Neal tried a little reason and holding himself in an open stance.
"That doesn't answer the question," Hughes shouted to the man in front of him.
"I work for you, do you remember?" Neal tried to reason, he slowly approached Hughes. "Why don't you come back to bed," Neal gestured toward the mattress on the floor with Hughes coat as a blanket along with Neal's a pillow.
"I want to know- ," Hughes shouted but then stopped when he saw fear in the man's eyes. He was scaring the man in front of him.
"I promise I'll tell you but why don't you sit over here," Neal gestured toward the bed again, when Hughes seemed to stop shouting and the scraping had stopped. It was quite, way too quite for Neal's liking but he buried the feeling and tried to focus on making Hughes sit down before he fell down.
Neal coughed a wet cough, which got Hughes attention. "Maybe you should be the one to lay down." Hughes answered like he was being a child stating he could stay up past his bedtime.
Then Hughes got a huge hacking fit, "Why don't we both sit down before we fall down." Neal suggested.
No sooner had they done just that then Peter came storming into the room, finally able to get rid of a large cabinet that had fallen on in front of the reinforced door. Evidently both Neal and Hughes looked bad because he told Jones to get a bus for both Neal and Hughes.
-WC-
2 days later and Neal walked back onto the 21st floor of the White Collar division offices. He went back to his desk and picked up that pencil to see the world through another person's eyes. He had been given an anti-biotic for his pneumonia and had his cuts cleaned. He was done staring at the ceiling, playing chess with Mozzie, and Parcheesi with June and Moz. He was having fun but eventually you could only watch the sick movie collection that Mozzie had so many times. So he had begged Peter pretty much to let him come into work today.
He did not want files brought to him he wanted to draw in peace and, solve a boring mortgage fraud case as long as he did not have to hear a quote. He picked up the file in his in-box sorter the moment it fell in it letting the 2b pencil rest against his drawing while he tried to crack open this poor old ladies misfortune.
He smiled when Peter walked past him and didn't comment on the fact that he had been smiling over being here. He got the double finger point and only half groaned because he did not want to be told to go home just yet. He tried not to limp as he walked up the step to Peter's office. Smiling to himself all the way.
The End!
AN I hope you enjoy fever fest with the rest of us! You can see prompts and more fics at livejournal Whitecollarhc community