AN: I have this posted on Archives of our Own and
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own anything.
Brian wanted another day off. The last one didn't work out. This time, he planned on a simple relaxation day with Sinbad. Maybe he would watch a few hours of TV and order pizza. He was running low on his emergency stash on NZT but he was not running low on his other stash of smoke-ables. He only had one problem, or two problems. It depended how you look at it, but he had to get rid of his babysitters, Mike and Ike.
He's fooled his mother a few times when he was younger, or maybe his mother let him believe so. Mike and Ike always got to his safe house by seven am, so he did not have a lot of time to prepare for his new day off. He has to make some tea to at least fake a thermometer, but he had to get rid of all the evidence as well. Rushing to clean up the evidence would make him look flushed and clammy. If he drank some tea around 6:30 am, that would give him plenty of time to get rid of the evidence.
The next step would be raising his body temperature enough to appear sick. Jogging in place? It would make too much noise. Plan B is the old warm washcloth trick. It would work if they try to check his forehead to check if he has an elevated temperature. Timing everything would be critical for his day off and lazy day in to work. Chasing bad guys was good, but a day off sounded way better.
Mike and Ike showed up at exactly seven am. He dozed off around 6:40 am, after making sure all of the cleaning was done. If he overslept, something would look off. They knocked on the door, and he ignored it. Mike slapped his face lightly in hopes of waking him up. It took a while, but Brian was up, although "feeling" lethargic.
Ike thought something was up. Brian was known to pull stunts so he informed Rebecca of his suspicions. Meanwhile, Mike already grabbed the thermometer, which showed a false positive for a fever. The thermometer claimed Brian had a fever of 100.0, but Brian knew that was false. Naz and Rebecca were both informed about his sickness and he was left behind in the apartment for the day.
Rebecca was finally caught up with paperwork for the morning and with no new cases, decided to take a longer break to go check up on Brian. Ike had mentioned to her that he might have been faking a fever, but she wanted to see it for herself. When she got to his apartment, she didn't bother knocking and used her key to get in.
Brian was on the couch flipping though the channels; he didn't hear the door open or Rebecca walk near him.
"Brian!" she yelled, startling him.
"Oh, hey. I didn't realize you were coming over." He replied.
"Ike thought you were faking and wanted to have a day off and use NZT again." She explained, sitting on the empty seat beside him.
"Beer o'clock?" He countered.
"Sure. What's up?" Rebecca knew that was his code for "we need too talk".
"I needed a day. I felt like I'm not myself anymore, so I wanted to relax and smoke all day like I used to. I'm not on NZT, just high on weed. Things are changing really fast." Brian finally admitted.
"Brian, please remember to trust me, and tell me the truth. If you needed a break that bad I'm sure we could have worked something out with Naz. I hate playing catch up."
"Ok, I'm really sorry. Next time, for real, I promise."