DISCLAIMER: White Collar and all characters and indicia thereof are the property of their respective creators and/or copyright holders. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made.
Words, for Peter Burke, were tools. Plebeian things, like bricks, meant to be put together to create a coherent and contiguous whole; building blocks, unromantic, unsubtle. Whenever he found himself in the position of having to put together a meaningful speech he stumbled; it was only thanks to El's astonishing ability to fill in the unsaid blanks that their communication was as good as it, in fact, turned out to be.
Which was why Peter found it almost impossible to explain even to himself why Neal Caffrey's eyes were so
(alarming)
(unique)
(effective)
out-of-the-ordinary. It had to do with the pale clear blue of the iris, but that wasn't all; for some reason the transparent dome of the cornea seemed to be sharper-pitched, as if Neal's pale-blue irises tilted down to the black hole of his pupils, as if there were a bright clear ring of crystal over the entire center of the eye. It meant that you could see very clearly when Neal's pupils expanded and contracted; it meant that when he glanced to the side the light flickered off those tilted iris walls and gave the exact depth and clarity of a forty-carat blue topaz in a Tiffany setting. Those were not ignorable eyes; those were not eyes easy to deny.
Especially when combined with that bright, dazzling, who-me smile and that just-so arch of the eyebrows. For the most part Peter found his desire to strangle Neal less forceful than his desire to stare into those eyes, but sometimes it was a near thing.
Neal had been somewhat pale and subdued all week, and Peter put it down to some disagreement with Mozzie or the fact that the anniversary of Kate's death was a few days away. He certainly hadn't expected to find his CI leaning on the sink in the FBI men's room coughing himself almost sick.
When Neal could gasp in a breath and straighten up he saw Peter in the mirror over the sink and went, if possible, paler. Peter stepped forward and touched Neal's shoulder. "Why the hell didn't you say you were sick? -Go on, get out of here. Go home."
"Can't," Neal said, wiping his mouth, trying for the bright bouncy tone and failing miserably. "June's out of town and the furnace is broken. They said they'd get it repaired sometime this week, but..."
But it was cold as balls outside, and with a broken furnace it'd be no less pleasant indoors. Neal caught a breath wrong and began to cough again, an unpleasant bronchial noise; Peter had to wonder again how long he'd been feeling sick. He reached out to rest the back of his hand against Neal's forehead, ignoring his protests, and frowned.
"Come with me," he said, his tone brooking no refusal.
In the clearer light of his glass-walled office Neal looked terrible; pale, his tie unforgivably loosened, his face and throat sheened with sweat. His hair flopped unbecomingly-it seemed to be possible-over his forehead as he shivered. "Peter, really. I'm fine. This is just a cold or something. People are, are looking..."
He lost the sentence in another fit of coughing, and Peter could tell it hurt. "How long have you been feeling bad?"
"...couple of days? Really, it's, I get this sometimes, it's a cold, it's nothing." Neal leaned back against the chair, eyes half-closed. Peter watched them: glittering pale-blue slits. Far too bright. "-If it weren't for the furnace I'd get out of your hair now but..."
"But the furnace, so shut up, all right?" Peter was tapping through his phone contacts for El's number. "-Hey, hon? What are you up to right now?"
Elizabeth didn't sound rushed, at least. "Hey, you. Not much, sitting around waiting for a vendor to call me back, what's up?"
"It's Neal," Peter said, and heard her indrawn breath on the other end. "He's not feeling so great and it sounds like his place has no heat right now-"
"Oh, hon. I can come get him right away. This isn't a huge event anyway, all I need to do for now is confirm seating and plate price."
Peter raised his eyebrows at the phone, and at his wife's immediate offer to take in their pet criminal. "I was going to say can I get you to watch him for me, but..."
"But nothing, Peter Burke, if Neal's sick enough to worry you he's sick enough to worry me. I'll be there in twenty."
He looked up from the phone, expecting to see Neal crossly gesturing at him to cut it out and stop calling his wife to babysit their CI; Neal was huddled in the chair, arms wrapped around himself, shivering. Worry struck through Peter again, unwanted. "El's on her way," he said. "She'll take you to my place and pour soup into you. I don't have to mention anything about trying to escape, do I?"
Neal looked up at him through the damp hair. "El's coming?"
It was as naked and simple an expression of gratitude as he'd ever seen, and all the snarky remarks regarding anklets and people's wives withered on Peter's tongue. "Yeah, she'll take care of you. Okay? You're going to be fine."
For a moment those astonishing eyes stared back at him, achingly grateful, and then Neal began to cough again, his slim shoulders shaking with it. Peter said several bad words and came around the desk to rub Neal's back, his hand warm and square and capable, not thinking about what he was doing with a palpable effort. Poor kid sounded like he had when he'd had bronchitis in eighth grade; Peter could remember how miserable he had been.
It seemed to help, at least a little; after a moment or two Neal could gasp in a breath and just drooped in the chair, breathing rather more noisily than he would like. Peter went on rubbing his back a moment longer before retreating to his own proper behind-the-desk chair and putting on his fiercest FBI Face.
El was as good as her word; twenty minutes later the elevator dinged and she walked into the bullpen, returning Jones' little wave and Diana's nod. Nobody got in her way as she climbed the half-flight of stairs to Peter's office, or as she blinked at what she found there and dropped her handbag, hurrying over to kneel beside Neal's chair. "Hey, Neal, honey, it's me, it's Elizabeth, you're going to be just fine..."
"Thanks, El," said Peter, who was watching with evident relief. "I think he's been sick for a couple of days but I just found him hacking his lungs out in the bathroom; if there's no heat at his place I don't even want to think about..."
"I'm right here, people," Neal protested weakly. "Really you don't have to-"
More coughing, and El slipped her arm around his shoulders, aware of how thin he was, how hot beneath the fine shirt. "Course we do, hon. Here, c'mon, let's get you out of here."
Everyone was watching. Neal leaned heavily on Elizabeth for a moment or two before hauling himself together, forcing himself to stand upright and steady. She shot a glance at Peter, who returned it with one of his own-okay, yeah, dignity is important-before handing her handbag over and nodding to the pair of them. "Thanks, El," he said, quietly, just before they left the office.
It was about as hard as any of Neal's command performances, crossing the bullpen. He carried his own weight and even managed a glassy grin at some of the agents as they passed; it wasn't until he and El were inside the elevator that he drooped on her shoulder and shivered helplessly. Without the hat he looked desperately young, desperately vulnerable.
El hugged him close, taking some of his weight. When they reached the first floor she gave him a little squeeze. "Can you make it out to the car, honey?"
Yeah. Yeah, he could make it out to the car. He could even try for a jaunty smile, even if it looked somewhat more like a horrible rictus. Neal put one foot in front of the other until they were at Elizabeth's car and he could half-fall into the front seat and give himself up to the coughing fit that he'd been trying to stifle all the way from Peter's office.
"...sorry, El," he managed, muffled in his fist. "I'm sorry about this. I'll be out of your hair soon. Promise."
She reached over and patted his hand. "You shut up, Neal Caffrey. You need to be in bed."