Up All Night (White Collar, M, Secret Santa for MoonDuck)

[MoonDuck]

Yay, he made it! ish. Couldn't even charm/cheat his way out of paying so much for the cab.

Neal should have stayed at the gallery… to be further tortured? 

[Zwee]

Hi guys!! Thank you thank you thank you for your lovely comments! You are all wonderful people. More on that at the bottom. For now, here we are: the final chapter!

Hope everyone likes it! ❤️

* * * * * * * *

Neal is awoken unceremoniously by a loud knock at the door a few hours later.

Heart pounding, Neal sits up, gasping. A cough rattles out of his lungs and he reaches clumsily for the water beside his bed. It takes a moment for his dark surroundings to register—his head is swimming.

The knock comes again, more insistently, making Neal’s head pound dully. “Neal!” The door muffles the sound of a familiar voice, and Neal swings his legs over the edge of his bed, his heart still racing. He stumbles out of bed, blinking tears of exertion from his eyes blearily as he switches on the light and heads for the door.

The sudden brilliance ignites the tickle that never seems to completely leave his nose, and before he knows it, his breath is hitching desperately. “EHhh… Hihh’ESCHhoo! Hihh! Hih’KSCHhoo!”

He pulls tissues from his pocket and presses them to his nose, sniffling, as the knocking comes a third time, accompanied by the same voice calling his name more insistently. A second voice comes then, admonishing the first.

Neal yanks open the door with his free hand and stares confusedly at the two people before him, waiting for his mind to put the pieces together. Peter stands on the landing outside his door, holding a grocery bag in one hand and something black in the other. Behind him, Elizabeth gives Neal a sympathetic smile, her arms also occupied by bags.

“Peter?” He croaks. He lets the hand holding the tissues drop to his side as Peter holds up the large black object.

“Forget something?” He asks, and Neal realizes Peter is holding his anklet.

Neal tries to answer, but he still desperately needs to sneeze. He twists away quickly, attempting to hide behind the door as the sneezes come over him, full-force. “Hih’KKTSCH! Hihh’KSCHHhoo! Huhh… Huh’ESCHhhoo!” He sniffles in the aftermath, tries to apologize, but Elizabeth has already pushed past Peter, holding out tissues.

“Oh Neal, honey, you sound terrible! Bless you! Here, take these.”

He accepts the tissues and steps back woozily as El marches purposefully into the apartment, followed rather apologetically by Peter.

“I told her you weren’t feeling well and she… well, you know how she is,” he mutters as he passes Neal to set the bag and anklet on the dining table.

Neal closes the door behind them, head spinning with all the sudden activity. “You didn’t have to do all this,” he says congestedly. “I’m fine, really.”

“Oh yes we did!” Peter says, and Neal can tell by his tone that they are going to have a conversation about the night’s events. He just hopes that conversation can wait.

El cuts in hastily. “Well, Peter had to come by to give you back the anklet. I just convinced him to bring some soup along, and some medicine, and—oh, you look feverish. Come here,” She beckons him forward and reaches up to place a small, soft hand against his forehead. She clicks her tongue after a moment. “You feel pretty warm, honey.”

Neal shivers in spite of himself and sniffles.

Peter sighs in exasperation. His frustration with Neal is beginning to show itself. “Were you hiding this from me all day? Just so you could work the case?”

“Just because I don’t tell you everything I’m feeling doesn’t mean I’m hiding something from you, Peter,” Neal says irritably, his grumpy tone dulled somewhat by all the congestion.

“It does if you tell me you’re fine when you’re clearly not,” Peter counters, but Elizabeth shoots him a stern look from where she has busied herself unloading grocery bags.

Apparently Neal is not to be reprimanded when he is this sick, which suits him just fine. Especially now that the room seems to have pitched sideways. He stumbles forward to catch himself dizzily against the back of the chair.

“Neal?” Peter’s voice is suddenly concerned and Neal becomes aware of a hand cupping his elbow, offering support.

He blinks and rights himself. “Sorry. Got dizzy for a second.”

“Here, sit down.” Peter helps him into a chair and Neal is taken aback to see that his face is transformed with concern.

“Peter, you’re worried about me?” He gives the FBI agent a woozy sort of smile.

“Yes, I’m worried about you.” Peter answers seriously. “You’re white as a sheet and somehow went from the sniffles to influenza in a few hours, of course I’m worried.”

“I don’t have influenza,” Neal starts to argue, but his breath hitches and he has to twist away to sneeze again. “Hihh’ktschh! Hihh… Hih’TSCHhoo!”

“Bless you!” Elizabeth pushes a tissue box she has just unpacked toward him and makes a little sound of sympathy when his breath immediately hitches again.

“Hhh! Hh’ESCHhhoo! Hih! Hh’KSHHhoo! Ugh. Thangk you, El.”

“Bless you, poor thing! Are you cold? Peter, get that blanket for Neal. Can you eat, honey? I’m going to heat up some of this soup I made for you.”

“El, you didn’t have to—thank you,” he mumbles weakly, wrapping the blanket about his shoulders to stave off shivers and staring at Elizabeth in dazed awe.

“You’re feverish and Peter tells me you probably haven’t eaten all day. You need food, fluids and cold medicine before we let you get back to bed.”

“And while she does that, I’m going to put this anklet back on you, before you ‘forget’ again.” Peter makes air quotes as he kneels to lift Neal’s foot onto the chair next to him.

“Am I in trouble?” Neal grimaces.

“I’d say a little trouble. You’d be in more trouble if I hadn’t called June to track you down. She told me you came straight home from the gala looking terrible and that you went right to bed.”

“Would you believe me if I told you I honestly forgot about the anklet?”

“Just don’t let it happen again,” Peter says firmly, but Neal can see his stern resolve crumbling as he surveys Neal’s guilty attempt at a pacifying grin. He’ll have to remember that getting sick is the best way to avoid a reprimand from Peter.

Elizabeth opens a container of soup and Neal can tell it is still relatively warm. She must have just made it when she found out Neal was sick. He watches the way she bustles about his little kitchenette, frowning sympathetically at every cough, sneeze and sniffle, pushing cold pills and tissues at him at every opportunity, and feels a warmth unrelated to his fever wash over him.

He realizes in that moment that for Peter to have called June, taken Kazinsky to the Bureau for a confession, and given Elizabeth enough time to make three Tupperware containers’ worth of soup, it means he had willingly left Neal untraceable for nearly two hours. True, June had told him Neal was home, and Peter had listened to Neal sniffling and sneezing throughout the entire gala, but it still means Peter has put a lot of trust in Neal this evening.

For all his grumbling, his suspicions, his constant jumping to the worst conclusions, Peter trusts Neal enough to let him go a few hours without the anklet.

Neal’s eyes grow suddenly watery as he stares at the two people fumbling around in his kitchen, and he needs a moment to get ahold of himself before he murmurs “Thank you,” so quietly it’s almost to himself.

Elizabeth turns to look at him and gives his shoulder a gentle squeeze. He can tell by the soft tactfulness of her smile that she hasn’t missed the tears, but will spare him the embarrassment of commenting on them. “Any time, Neal,” she says instead, and lays a steaming bowl of soup and a mug of tea in front of him. “Now eat up!”

He has no appetite, he can barely taste through the congestion, but there is something incredibly soothing about the hot saltiness of the soup. The honey in the tea eases the sharp pain in his throat and the need to cough. Neal’s head is growing rapidly more fuzzy as the rest of his symptoms fade in the wake of the utter exhaustion that sweeps over him.

All but the damned tickle in his nose that seems to feel cheated by the sneezes he staved off earlier in the evening. His breath hitches and he grasps desperately at the tissue box, turning self-consciously away from the Burkes.

“Ehhh… Hehihhh… Ihhh… Ihh’KSCHhiew! Hihh-IHHTSCHhhoo! Huh’KSCHhoo!”

He can see Peter and Elizabeth exchanging looks of concern out of the corner of his eye. They have never seen him this vulnerable before, and Neal feels weak, exposed. The tickle still teases at him, but he pinches firmly at the bridge of his nose, assuaging it for some temporary relief.

“I’m sorry to be such lousy c-company,” he sighs stuffily. “I’m just so tired.”

“Oh, honey, you know we don’t mind,” Elizabeth waves off the apology. “I would like to take your temperature before you sleep though, if that’s okay?”

He nods sleepily, pressing a tissue to the base of his itchy nose, knowing instinctively by the achiness and the temperature swings that Elizabeth will not like what she finds.

Peter rummages through one of the grocery bags until he produces a plastic case containing a digital thermometer. El holds it to Neal’s ear until it beeps intrusively. She frowns at the screen, lips pursed, then offers it to Peter, whose eyebrows pinch together.

“It’s not too great, Neal,” Peter says after a moment, although Neal knows it can’t be too high or they would be more alarmed.

“Seriously,” Neal says hoarsely, “I think I’ll be okay after some sleep. This sometimes happens when I… overextend myself,” he avoids eye contact with Peter guiltily while he says this, “but the Tylenol El gave me should kick in s-sooohhn—EHH’tschhoo! Hh-hh-ugh, sorry.”

El clicks her tongue, crinkles her eyebrows together in sympathy. Her heart is so big Neal thinks he can feel it emanating from her, enfolding him like a hug. Or maybe that’s just the fever.

“At least sleep will give you a break from all the sneezing,” she replies. “I can’t believe Peter didn’t catch on to you sooner if you’ve been like this all day.”

If he were feeling less miserable, Neal would use this comment as an opportunity to gloat that Peter doesn’t know everything about Neal, but his head is beginning to tingle as the cold medicine kicks in. Instead, he says, “I wasn’t this bad earlier,” which is more or less true, and gives him an escape from admitting the lengths he went to to hide his symptoms.

“Well let’s get you to bed then, before you get any worse.” Elizabeth says, standing and hovering next to his chair as Neal weakly tries to follow suit.

After a moment to gain his balance, Neal trudges off to bed, still clutching the blanket around him as he pads away.

Peter stares after him in amazement. “If only my younger self could see you now…”

Neal shoots an indignant look over his shoulder. “I could still escape you like this if I absolutely had to,” he insists, his enunciation lazy as the medicine and fever fog his head.

Peter scoffs. “Not with that temperature. And definitely not while sneezing your head off.”

Neal pauses in the wide doorway to his bedroom area, fixing Peter with serious, fever-bright eyes. “If I absolutely had to,” he repeats with an apologetic shrug. Then he turns and falls (less-than-gracefully) onto his bed and burrows deep beneath the comforter.

Peter and Elizabeth share a look that is half-amused, half-amazed as a muffled sneeze and an exasperated groan come from somewhere below the mess of dark curls that is all they can see of Neal.

“I hope you feel better soon, Neal,” Elizabeth says gently, donning her coat and picking up her purse. “I’ll leave everything here for you, and I’m sure Peter doesn’t expect you to come in tomorrow.” She fixes her husband with a fierce look, as if daring him to contradict.

“No, of course not!” Peter says defensively. “Take as long as you need. I don’t want to see you back at the Bureau until you’re 100%, Caffrey.”

“Promise,” Neal mumbles.

The front door opens and the sound of their footsteps echoes in the hall. Neal thinks they have gone, when Peter pokes his head back in the door. “Good work today, Neal,” he says softly, and closes the door.

And, heart swelling with a wave of affection for the two Burkes, Neal manages to drop off to a much-needed sleep at last.

* * * * * * * *

Fin.

I just want to say thank you to everybody who read/enjoyed/replied to this story! Every single one of your comments meant so much to me, and seriously gave me the motivation to finish this story. I kind of wanted to tag every person that left a comment on this story because I cherished every single one, but I thought that'd be a tad extra. Just know I appreciate you! I honestly believe that Neal is so attractive, he’d make having a cold look hot even if we weren’t into that, but it’s still nice to know people enjoy my writing and all the ridiculous things I’m into (which is basically everything you listed in your reply, @phoenix).

Bonus points to @snowshie for figuring out what Neal forgot at the gallery!!

Last but not least, happy holidays to everyone, and especially to my Secret Santa recipient, @MoonDuck!!

[fickle_tickle]

Soo sweet!!!❤️❤️❤️ Great job finishing so fast! It was a great read, especially because it was so in character!

[Prongs]

I agree, even if we weren’t into sneezing, (which I definitely, totally am), Neal Caffrey would still be a babe with a cold. 😍 I loved this beginning to end. You are a lovely writer. (Side note: sooo depressed they took this show off Netflix, I was gonna start a rewatch today! ☹️)

[AngelEyes]

Wonderful ending! Really enjoyed this!!!

[lsbn]

Omg this was so adorable and awesome!!! I hope you write another sometime?? 😍😍😍

[MoonDuck]

I'm sorry for replying so late but the ending is perfect and I wanted to leave a good comment; i haven't had much time since school…

Zwee, I love this whole fic so so so much! The ending is amazing. I love the implied trust between Peter and Neal that takes place when he doesn't have the anklet, and how Peter wants to scold him but El won't let it happen. And Neal's stubborn insistence he could outsmart and outrun Peter if he were still on the run. It's all so sweet. I'm glad he gets taken care of in the end!!  Thank you for finishing this fic and for writing it so beautifully ❤️