HC - Hotel California

From Happy on AO3

Prompt: Neal and Bryce switch bodies. They...don't notice for a while. It's awkward.

(I know identical twins can actually tell each other apart, but for the sake of the story, you can pretend they can't if you want to actually do it.)

Notes: Note quite awkward as eye-opening for the twins. Also, Neal's way of checking who's body he's in is to pull off his shirt.

Neal woke up. Something was off but, he shrugged it off. He climbed out of bed and went through his morning routine on automatic and half-asleep.

The suits seemed a bit off but it was a weekend so he didn't mind; he had a case to finish and a rich suspect to woo into Peter's sting.

Bryce woke up. Something was off but, he shrugged it off. He climbed out of bed and went through his morning routine on automatic and half-asleep.

His gun was missing. Strange and a bit of a worry but he could just get Casey to search for it later; that man had a way with guns.

Neal and Bryce opened their doors. Neither looked around, they just moved.

"Where's your watch Caffrey?" Bryce blinked at the tall, imposing FBI agent Jones who appeared from around the corner.

"Hey Bryce, I thought we were going to breakfast together?" Chuck asked, catching Neal right before the elevator arrived.

Bryce thought there was no way he was in New York. Then he followed Jones into the FBI van and tried to hide his surprise at the tall, New York buildings.

"Jones says you lost the watch?" And there was Special Agent Peter Burke, FBI of the New York, White Collar branch.

Bryce nodded dumbly. What was going on?

"So, you're not Bryce?" Chuck questioned. Neal nodded, glancing out the window at the deep blue sky. There were only a few sky scrapers in sight and nothing as tall as New York's.

What was going on?

"Really?" Peter Burke questioned sceptically. He held out his hand and Diana dropped a watch into it. "Then how come Diana found it sitting on your beside table?"

Bryce sighed.

"Can we just get this done, I have a phone call to make."

The agents exchanged surprised looks.

"Bryce, you are so dead when I find you," Neal grumbled into the mirror. Staring back was a bullet scar, correction, TWO bullet scars! One near the heart and another near the gut. Neal didn't need to be a doctor to know that both were in lethal areas. "'Never been badly injured on the job,' yeah, right! I knew there was more to you faking your death!"

Bryce looked around Neal's apartment, which Peter had kindly taken him to. All Bryce had to do was ask to be dropped home. June's maids had been willing to guide him up to the apartment, after Bryce explained he had no idea where he keys went.

"Neal, what did you do?" he muttered under his breath as he took in the extravagance.

"Oh, Neal, let me see you." Bryce suppressed a flinch as a classy older woman touched his arms. She looked him up and down. "Good. You look alright. No guns or being kidnapped this time?" She smiled and Bryce smiled back, even though he was seething inside.

Kidnapped? Guns? Sure, he knew Neal was working with the FBI but he didn't think it would be that dangerous. The day's sting had been a straightforward one where the wall-street guy gave up without a fight, nothing worse than some of Neal's stories during his more questionable days.

But, kidnapping? Guns? Neal hated guns and when had he been kidnapped? And how many times to prompt a comment like that?

Thankfully, June left soon enough and Bryce hopped onto Neal's laptop to try and find out what he had Agent Burke had been doing.

Neal started when his phone went off.

"Hello?"

"Oh good. You kept my phone." The voice was dripping malice.

"Hello, Bryce. Got me shot yet?"

"Don't even start. I'm looking at your case files."

Neal cringed and almost bumped his knee against the vent wall.

"What was that?" Curse Bryce and his bat-like hearing.

"Nothing."

"You haven't been kidnapped or something, have you?"

"Or something," Neal muttered. "Even though I have your body, fingerprints checked out by the way, it is your body. Although I don't have two bullet scars in places which mean death either."

"Get on with it." He could hear the eye-roll.

"Well, since I'm you but not you, the General -being the lovely lady she is- decided to have me put into 'protective custody' until they sort this out or we go back. Whichever comes first."

"They lock you up in Castle's holding cell?"

"Yep."

"And you're currently escaping said holding cell?"

"Yep."

"Think this'll wear off in the morning?"

"Can only hope." Neal heard something in the distance. "Got to go, I think they've caught onto my escape."

Bryce hung up, wondering how Neal managed to get himself into such adventures.

Bryce curled up in the bed which was too big for him to sleep comfortably.

Neal slept on the Bartowski's couch. Something was poking him.

They tossed and turned.

Neal opened his eyes the next morning to find himself wrapped in luxurious sheets.

"Thank goodness," he muttered, rolling over and going back to sleep.

Bryce felt the couch before he opened his eyes.

"Yay," he muttered dully, seeing the familiar face of one Sarah Bartowski, nee Walker, staring down at him.

"Hey, that's my wife," Chuck joked, passing him a coffee which he gratefully accepted.

The only link they could find, other than Bryce and Neal being twins, was that they had both stayed in the same hotel chain with the same room number and on the same night. Bryce had room 094 in the California branch and Neal had room 094 in the New York Branch.

"Never staying there again," both of them agreed.