"It's okay," Peter says quietly, his hand on Neal's neck. He lets it slip down between the kid's shoulder blades where he pats twice before relieving both of them of the contact. Neal's bent over the bathroom sink, where the water is still draining, having left his once tear-stained face clean and dewy. He looks in the mirror. Peter looks there, too, sees the eyes still bright blue from emotion, the tip of the angular nose still red from sniffling. "Neal-"
"I'm alright, Peter," Neal says, and sniffles again. He turns around. His hand is working in the loose-fitting T-shirt Peter gave him to sleep in, clutching it and twisting it around his fist, the nervous action making him appear younger than he already does. "I promise."
"You're far from alright." Peter's tone is light, and he brushes his palm over Neal's cheek to reaffirm to himself that his words are true. Sure enough, the uncomfortable heat of fever still resides there. Neal leans into his touch, soaks in the coolness of his hand before pulling away. There's a lump in Peter's throat and he doesn't know what it is and he's not sure he likes it. All he knows is that there's something about Neal, there has always been something about Neal that works its way inside of him and breaks him down. Even before he knew him, even before he knew so much as the kid's name the feeling was there, even if the sentiment wasn't the same: mine.
Neal is Peter's catch, Peter's partner, Peter's responsibility.
"C'mon," Peter says. "El made you some fancy chicken soup. And there are homemade popsicles in the freezer."
Neal manages a small smile. "Really?"
Peter nods. "Pomegranate flavor, I hear."
Neal follows Peter down the stairs, pads into the kitchen in socked feet. He only seems to become self-conscious upon seeing El standing at the stove, stirring the soup. His hands go back to working the shirt for a moment before he gets his wits about him, takes a seat and hides himself behind the table.
Peter waits until he's turned away from the kid before he allows himself a smile at the innocent discomfort. El, too, sets about preserving Neal's dignity by not mentioning the obvious red around his eyes, or the pronounced sniffles he's suddenly acquired, though she throws Peter a quick, furtive glance that asks what happened?
Peter puts a hand on her shoulder and kisses the side of her head. She relaxes under his touch, his unspoken promise of I'll tell you later, stands on her toes and pecks him on the lips.
"Go take Neal's temperature," she orders, and her mouth is a solemn thing, but there's a smile in her eyes.
"Yes, ma'am," he says obediently, does all but salute, and retrieves the thermometer from the pantry.
Satchmo is by Neal's feet when he turns around, gently thumping his tail against the floor as Neal carefully drags his fingers along the dog's head and down his neck before fully immersing his hand in the fur. The dog whines happily, sticks his nose in the fabric of Neal's pajama bottoms in a show of trust and affection.
"Oh-pen," Peter half-sings, and Neal looks up at him with startled blue eyes, as if surprised that he is there. Peter waves the thermometer in front of the kid's face. "It'll only take a minute, buddy. And then there will be soup."
Neal rolls his eyes, half-heartedly mutters something about being infantilized, and begrudgingly opens his mouth. Peter sticks the thermometer in, skims a hand over Neal's hair as the mouth closes shut. If he were a worse person, a worse friend, he might say something about the crying now. How do you not infantilize someone who's made it into your arms and sobbed twice in one day? Especially with someone like Neal, someone with a face like Neal's face, a face that is young and trained into careful innocuousness. Man child. Peter Pan, Peter has called him before, because he could see the alternate universe of this mischief-maker he knows as Neal, hooting and hollering and making bird calls in woods full of fellow amoral children, running wild and taking the most massive of risks for the fun of it, for the thrill, for the beat of his heart in his throat and whatever it is he wins at the end. Kid just needs some pointy ears and a sword.
The thermometer beeps.
"102.3," Peter reads upon retrieving it from Neal's mouth.
"I run hot," Neal says, and the grin he aims up at Peter is a naughty one. It's Peter's turn to roll his eyes, and he lightly taps his friend's heated temple with three calloused fingers in mock reprimand.
"Speaking of running," El says, entering the dining area and setting down a bowl of steaming soup in front of Neal with careful hands. "Where did you think you were going earlier?"
Neal has the grace to blush, to turn his face away from her and towards the table, his voice shy when he admits, "I don't know. Away."
"Away why?"
Elizabeth is in that no-nonsense mode Peter sees on occasions when he gets in too deep in his job, forbidding and loving and conflictive, that thing that reminds him that this is a marriage and marriage, by nature, is not just bliss. She crosses her arms and looks at Neal, obviously expecting an answer.
Neal won't look at her. Kid looks hardened criminals in the face and lies convincingly on a weekly basis, but he can't look at Elizabeth when she reveals that she's more than sugar, more than a wooden support against a heavily leaning Peter. Not that Peter would ever think El wooden, for she's not, and he knows that Neal is too smart to make such a dense error because El is the opposite. El is fire with ice eyes and a maternal edge.
Peter puts a hand on Neal's shoulder and squeezes. "Away why?" he repeats, because he didn't ask earlier, was too set on serving as a dry lawn for Neal's rain of apologies and tears.
Neal shifts uncomfortably, his eyes on his soup. He sniffs. "Is that Romano?"
"Neal," Peter says, Elizabeth's stern tone merging with his own. A united front against a cunning, albeit sickly adversary.
Neal squirms in his seat, looks up at Peter pleadingly. "You said there would be soup after the thermometer."
Peter did say that. He looks at El to tell her so, but the glare she levels at him could kill a mountain lion and the little shake of the head she adds has him taking a seat on one side of Neal. El takes the seat on the other side, puts a hand over the conman's, says in a quiet, controlled tone, "June says you've taken to walking around at night."
"My soup is getting cold," Neal replies, his free hand reaching for the spoon at the side of the still-steaming bowl, but Peter does what he does best and catches that hand before the sneaky fingers reach the stem of the utensil.
"El is talking to you, Neal," Peter scolds gently, because the kid has been through too much recently for him to be gruff beyond the sounding of the one syllable name. "You're the one always talking about manners. Where are yours?"
Neal's eyes flash with something, then– something hard and hot and not at all reflective of the smooth young man Peter has come to know. Something willful, recalcitrant, and febrile. "Gone," Neal snaps. "Gone, like everything else." And he yanks his hand out of Peter's, turns his head back once more to the bowl of soup.
There's a mild and repetitive knock against the table then, and it takes Peter a moment to realize that Neal has the shakes, that El is now holding onto Neal's other trembling appendage with two of her own, is holding it up to her mouth and touching her lips to it.
Peter looks at his wife and his wife looks back. The silent communication is quick and to the point and Peter knows what he has to say, what he has to say to Neal to make it momentarily okay, to calm this chaos and keep the doors closed for the night, to keep his wife and his partner- his boy safe and warm.
He says, "You're not gone." And he puts his hand over Neal's hand. Neal doesn't pull away this time. Peter says, "And we're not gone, either."
Neal looks at Peter, trying so hard to blink that water back into his eyes.
"And you know what, buddy?" Peter asks.
"What?" Neal croaks.
"We've got nowhere to go. And neither do you. So none of us are going anywhere. Not for tonight, anyway."
Neal's hands slow to a stop like a puttering old Chevy. The Burkes release them, watch as their charge picks up his spoon and eats his soup.