Title: Are you Faking, Neal?
Author: Solstice1394
Fandom: White Collar
Community/fest: WhiteCollarhc/Fever Fest III
Genre: Sickfic! & Comedy! A pinch of angst!
Warnings: fever, and gross simulated vomit I don't know ask Mozzie, nothing really.
Spoilers: none though this could have been cannon in season 1 maybe?
Characters: Neal, Mozzie, Peter, El,(gen)
Prompt/Summary: First time Neal called for a sick day, he was pretending (he needed free time because he was up to something) and had to counterfeit his sickness with the help of Mozzie to mislead Peter. Peter figured out the truth. So the next time he calls, Peter doesn't believe him. But this time, Neal is really sick. (gen preferred) Cool idea by Azertynin, thanks for this one I really enjoyed writing this!
AN When I was a kid I didn't have to fake ever being sick. I had the worst immune system as a child, I got everything but it pretty much lasted for 24 hours or like 2 hours. So you know definitely not a man, with 'Man Flu.' Heheehee now onto a sick Neal, let the Fever Fest fun commence!
-WC-
Neal had just gone through hell week, for him. Someone had been taking some of his favorite artist paintings and making, what the perpetrator called art. It had been terrible stealing the originals and tearing them apart to make a 3rd grader collage pretty much. It was a crime worthy of the FBI.
He had been up half the nigh, and most of the week trying to save the rest of the world of art, with the White Collar division. They had finally caught a break last night, and now his part was done, all that was needed was the paperwork. The paperwork the demon of the FBI, if there had been a legitimate reason for him to not become a 9 to 5'er it would be paperwork.
So making a decision, he would live to regret, he called Peter the conversation would haunt him for 2 months were it would then be forgotten and laughed at from then on. Today it would ruin him, because Peter is or better yet was just like every child who wanted to know skip school, he knew all the tricks.
"Peter can I stay home today," Neal asked with a sore throat that any parent would have believed unfortunately Peter was not a parent.
"No, I'm outside come down or I come up," Peter warned his CI.
"Some one forgot to take their happy pills," Neal croaked as he went to the faucet to fill a spray bottle with warm water and salt, then proceeding to mist himself with it.
"Yeah and get coffee so you coming down," Peter asked Neal even though he was already stepping out of the Taurus and being let in by the housekeeper.
Neal soaked himself with the spray bottle and then put the thermometer under a light bulb and stuck it in his mouth. There was a light tapping on the door. Neal croaked to enter and Peter entered there in the apartment Cafferey occupied with his nice suits and land lady.
"What are you doing," Peter asked as he stared at Neal, he saw Neal looked sweaty and those blood shot eyes were not fake.
Neal pulled a piece of paper from his sketch pad and proceeded to write a note, 'taking my tempature.' It read in big capitals Peter rolled his eyes and came forward to feel Neal's forehead and found it cool the sweat was fake he concluded because normal fevers have a warm touch. Sweat with a fever is also warm he grabbed Neal's thermometer and it read 108.
"It's too high you would be brain dead," Peter announced once he read the thermomter aloud.
Neal tried the throat thing because no one thought people could fake it, Peter didn't buy it for a second. He was going to mess with his friends head instead of waitsting the effort. So Peter pulled Neal arm to his face smelled the salt and licked it off tasting the water to salt ratio.
"Your off on the ratio of water to salt content to salty," Peter announced once Neal was done shrieking proving that Neal was faking everything.
Neal just thought to himself, desperate measures as he proceeded to gag and then shouted on his way to the bathroom, "Did you just lick me?"
"Yeah, I grew up with sisters I know most of the tricks," Peter shouted as he headed down the hallway expecting to hear the shower going so they could finally head into work in 20 minutes.
Instead of the shower running he saw Neal retching into the toilet and when Neal finally came away from the toilet there was a terrible smell and look of vomit. Peter noticed one discrepancy, okay maybe a couple. One, Neal had just been faking a fever and a soar throat, and now his stomach was upset. Two Neal was not squeamish in the least unless it came to dead bodies which was his reason for the no killing policy. Three he could tell it was simulated vomit no way did Neal ever eat corn beef and hash.
"You done or do you want to go into work looking like an idiot?" Peter finally asked Neal when Neal caught on to the fact that Peter wasn't buying any of it.
"Fine," Neal conceded only because he didn't want to go into work looking like a hobo.
-WC-
Neal was 20 minutes later down in the car and driving to work to finish paperwork. Paperwork was the spawn of the Earth he decided as they drove. He looked over to Peter wondering how Peter had figured it all out in under 5 minutes.
"How?" Neal simply asked when they where turning off another street.
"Told you I was a brother to many sisters and girls are tricky," Peter smirked and tried to hide all traces of laughing.
"Okay but how did you get the sweat?" Neal asked because he could still feel Peter's tongue and he shuddered remembering. Why did he have to lick me? No why did I want to take a day off? Neal thought as he listened to Peter.
"…my older sister was a great chemist when it came to faking colds, and your salt was way to high, normal sweat doesn't taste like just salt it has a smell too," Peter noted as he looked over to his forger CI. "I got a better question."
"Yeah do ask I mean you just told me something for Mozz to try and perfect his sweat spray." Neal glowered.
"How did you do the vomit, it smelled and it had color that was right," Peter commented as he pulled into his parking spot.
"Mozzie knows a guy," was Neal's only retort as he stepped out of the car and went to go do paperwork.
-WC-
2 months later everyone had been getting a flu that was quick but knocked you out. Diana had had it from Kristi, and then it had gone from there. It burned through, Jones super immune system, Peter and El next. Half the Harvard crew got it, then the other half when Hughes got it. Then when Neal came back from a sting he got it from the receptionist.
He had been feeling it as a tickle in the back of his throat for over an hour. The when the fever set in around hour 2 he wanted to scream only because it looked like a case that he had been working on all day would have to wait. He cried uncle around the time the cough had started producing green snot. Calling it quits, he had made it through to the end of the day, when most of the team left an hour before.
He headed home and tried to sleep in his bed, he pulled his covers over his head and then proceeded for the 24 hour clock to come full circle he had the weekend to sleep it away. He slept most of the first day, only waking to make some tea. He added honey to soothe his aching throat and then told June he was not fit for company. June proceeded to tell him she was a mother and used to colds so she brought him toast with light butter and a good game of sorry.
They played the game as Neal nibbled on some toast trying to fight off the nausea as he played. Then around 4pm the battle between nausea and vomiting won. He rushed to the toilet and then proceeded to be violently ill, to which went and asked her driver to go buy ginger ale and saltines. Neal then slept for the rest of the night after June saw to Neal only to have her self taken down by the virus on Sunday.
Neal then spent Sunday with June and watching "The Man with One Red Shoe" and "Big" there was a Tom Hanks marathon going on but they only made it through those two. Neal conked out before June, and that was how Mozzie found them in them at 8pm Sunday evening. Mozzie then proceeded to get June down to her bed and Make Neal go to bed.
-WC-
Funny enough Neal was not experiencing the same 24 hour flu bug that everyone else had. That was because he was getting two colds at one, his immune system had been fighting off whatever the criminal had been fighting off when this whole situation started a week ago. He had already beaten the 24 hour thing but now he was still dealing with whatever the other guy had. The 24 hour bug had just broken the immune system like a security system would a thief.
"Neal you up here, we're late," Peter stated as he looked at his watch.
"Over here Agent Burke," Neal waved with a tissue clad hand.
"Neal?" Peter question because no way was Neal faking the flu again, everyone had, had it and now everyone was good.
"Do you want to see a magic trick," Neal asked and then proceeded to cover his tissue box with the cover and then whipped it away, only to have the tissue box stay where it was. "Normally it disappears," Neal whined only because his tissue box was supposed to disappear from view.
"Sure it does buddy," Peter laughed as he then sat down on the bed and felt Neal's sweaty forehead only to feel it warm. Peter brushed it off as maybe the kid got the sweat right and then went to hunt for a thermometer hoping it wouldn't be a trick one. He spotted it on the counter next to an old cup of tea.
"Agent Burke can we skip the part about-" Neal was cut off from speaking as a coughing fit attacked. It was wet and did not sound the least bit pleasant.
"It's Peter Neal?" Peter asked because Neal only called him Agent Burke when something was a foot, or Neal wanted to be sarcastic.
"No it's not your Agent Burke you helped me find Kate," Neal clarrafied for Agent Burke so he could see that they were not familiar for first names.
"Neal what's the date," Peter asked so he could make sure his friend wasn't confused.
"January 10, 2006," Neal answered like it was obvious, Peter did not panic instead he looked at the thermometer hoped it wasn't a trick one and stuck it in Neal's ear.
Peter waited for it to beep and then saw that it read 104, he thought maybe Neal was faking acting strange but what he saw made him think twice. He grabbed Neal's arm and marched him down the hallway to the bathroom, turning the water on to lukewarm he waited for the tub to fill.
"Neal I want you to sit in the tub once it's full okay I'm going to get you a towel." Peter then went to the linen closet and grabbed a towel, and then came back to see the bizarre sight of Neal sitting in the tub fully dressed.
Peter sputtered at the sight speechless, until his tongue caught up with his brain.
"Neal what are you doing," Peter shouted to his friend he was starting to get worried.
"You said to get in the tub when the water was full and so I didn Agent Burke," Neal smiled and then faltered when Agent Burke didn't look happy.
"Not with your clothes on," Peter pointed out and then regretted it the minute he pointed it out. Neal pulled off his soaked sleeping shirt and with a squelching sound dumped them in his laundry basket. He then did the same with his underwear and sleeping pants.
"Now I did it right," Neal proclaimed and sat still in the tub feeling the cool water on his hot tongue.
"Yeah you did," Peter rubbed his face in frustration for his friend was doing it way over.
"Agent Burke have you seen Kate," Neal asked once the water seemed to settle and there was an eerie quiet while he sat in the water. Neal missed Kate, he hadn't seen her since he left for Europe.
"Neal you know where Kate is, we go visit her on your off days," Peter explained with a calm as he got the feeling that Neal wasn't faking so much anymore he never mentioned Kate. Yet there was a part of him that thought maybe, Neal was pulling out the emotional, sympathy card.
He heard someone coming into the apartment and little shuffling sounds on the floor outside. He looked up to see June in a robe over some silk pajamas. She looked to Neal and Peter, shocked to see her tenant in the bath and his FBI handler in the bathtub together.
"I grew up in a different time and raised my children in an even different time," June spoke and raised her hand to Peter when he tried to say something. "But either way we at least let the wife know what was is going on."
"June I'm happily married, old fever brains over here is way to high so I'm having him soak in a tub until he admits he isn't sick." Peter stated as way of explination to his situtattion.
"Why would he admit to not being sick he's been sick all weekend," June gave her best ashamed mother look to Peter.
"What he tried to fake an illness before, it was really terrible but I did tell him where he went wrong," Peter defended.
"Well did he fake the last 3 days with me, and me getting sick Agent Burke," June crossed her arms.
"Why am I explaining this to you," Peter admitted as he looked back to Neal and saw for the first time that yeah maybe Neal wasn't faking it.
"That what I want to know because my children only tried to explain something when there was a misunderstanding or they wanted to mislead they were their father's children alright," June gave a look to Peter asking silently 'which one is it now?'
"I'm trying to tell you the truth can you get me the thermometer I need to see if his fever has gone down some," Peter asked to which June uncrossed her arms and went to where the thermometer lay. "They didn't call them 'there-mom-eter's' for nothing," she said under her breath.
"It went down," Peter announced, "maybe now he wont be so confused he thinks its 2005."
"Good I'll get some pjs, he is not leaving this house unless you want to take him to the doctor," June clucked without listening for any contrary.
Peter didn't try and attempt to argue, he knew better than to poke a mama bear. El had barely let him out of her sight when he was sick. She had been pretty much been the same way through the years. He got ready to help June take care of a sick Neal as he helped, the sick man out of the tub taking up the towel he had gotten earlier.
The End!
AN Okay that is my fun and third fever fest fic. I hope you have enjoyed mothering June and a funny Peter and Neal. I was laughing when I wrote Neal and Peter's part tell me if, you liked it?