White Collar Fic - The Best Medicine

[elrhiarhodan]

Title: The Best Medicine
Author: elrhiarhodan
Fandom: White Collar
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Peter Burke, Neal Caffrey, Elizabeth Burke, June Ellington (Peter/Elizabeth/Neal)
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~1200
Beta Credit: coffeethyme4me, jrosemary
Summary: Peter realizes that Neal, despite his constant good humor, rarely – if ever – laughs. Also, unintentional sick fic.

A/N: Written as an extra day for my Fic-Can-Ukah 2012 meme, the prompt is “What Makes Him Laugh – Peter/Neal” for hoosierbitch.


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Peter knows that although Neal is generally a man of good humor, there aren’t a lot of things that can make him laugh. He’s got a million different smiles, and some of them (at least the ones for Peter) are genuine. He doesn’t walk around with storm clouds over his head, but Peter knows that there’s always an essential core of sadness in his partner.

Too much death, too much disappointment, too much loss will do that.

Peter can occasionally get a chuckle out of Neal, a bark of something that could be laughter with some effort. A pleased smile, though – that’s not hard at all. But in all the years he’s known Neal, he can rarely recall a moment of spontaneous laughter, that instant when happiness is converted to joy and can’t be contained. Maybe that afternoon with Moz and Clinton, when they were preparing for that boxing match, pretending to pummel each other, there was an instant of spontaneity when Neal laughed in sheer delight.

Peter has friends, serious and highly placed men, who break down in tears from a well-timed knock-knock joke or a terrible pun or who find the Three Stooges to be the height of pure comic genius. Peter doesn’t quite understand that. Apparently, even though he’s a guy, he’s either too young or too square to get that type of humor, and he thinks that if it takes Curly, Moe and Larry to make Neal laugh, he – Peter – is in trouble.

He can make Elizabeth laugh. All he has to do is try and flirt with her. She laughs at his efforts, because he’s so damn bad at it. But Neal doesn’t laugh when he flirts with him; he just smiles. In those cases, Peter can tell that they are sincere (as he’s seen, and been the recipient of, too many fake smiles). And those smiles are ever a delight to him; they presage a kiss and usually something even more intimate.

Peter thinks about what would make Neal laugh, he finds himself obsessing over it. They could be spooned in bed or wrapped in each other’s arm and just on the verge of sleep when he wonders, What can make this man truly laugh? His eyes snap open and he looks down at the man sleeping in his arms, and even in the near-darkness, he can see his lips are curved in a smile.

Maybe the laughter doesn’t matter. Maybe Neal’s smiles are enough.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Eventually, the issue recedes into the back of Peter’s mind. He only thinks about it occasionally, like every second Tuesday at six PM, or when someone cracks a joke in the daily staff meetings and they all laugh – all of them, except Neal. Or when they’re a little drunk, and Peter tells him about the time he asked El to stay the night and she ended up moving in, or the first time he met her parents.

Neal grins at Peter’s self-deprecation, but he doesn’t laugh. Peter wonders if maybe he shouldn’t use his courtship as comedic material.

So he ends his campaign and is content with the honest smiles, the happiness that shines from his lover’s eyes and if Peter doesn’t keep trying to find a way to make Neal laugh, he doesn’t forget that Neal doesn’t.

Peter knows that Neal’s not superhuman, though he likes people to think so. Neal can’t run so fast or leap so far that the flu won’t catch him. While he and Elizabeth are diligent about getting vaccinated, apparently Moz’s paranoia about institutional medicine rubs off on Neal, and he ends up paying for it during the week after New Year’s.

El brings Neal soup and tries to convince him to come back to the house for some good old-fashioned tender loving care. His wife calls and tells him that despite her best efforts, Neal demurs. He says he feels like crap and just wants to be alone (and she confesses to Peter that she thinks Neal’s lying through his teeth). Neal does admit to her that he’d love to spend some quality time in their big bed, but just not when he feels the need to puke.

Peter talks to June, and she promises to look in on Neal. She’s vaccinated (and plans to have a long conversation with Mozzie about this), and will make sure he’s drinks plenty of hot tea and takes his medication on time.

Peter worries despite the reports from El and June and even Neal himself (he texts because it hurts too much to talk). Five o’clock can’t come soon enough and Peter curses the uptown traffic, anxious to get to Neal like he hasn’t been since Cape Verde.

He pulls up in front of June’s mansion, double parks and tosses his FBI parking card on the dash, and goes to see Neal. Of course he stops and chats with June, he can’t bring himself to be that rude. And for his pains, she hands him a tea tray and Peter has to admit that those little cookies look tasty and there may be enough for two.

The three flights of stairs to Neal’s apartment are as familiar to him as his own house by now, and he sets the tray down to open the door. He doesn’t knock; he doesn’t want to wake Neal if he’s sleeping.

But he pauses at the unfamiliar sounds coming from the room. Neal is watching television.

Eh, what's cooking, Doc?

Rabbit stew. Gad, I'm such a genius!

Mmm, smells mighty good. But there's only one little thing wrong with it.

There is? What?

No rabbit.

I'm looking over, a three-leaf clover, that I over looked bethree...

Peter can’t quite believe his ears. Not that Neal is watching a cartoon – it’s Bugs Bunny, and if ever there is a classic – but that he’s laughing at the fifty year-old antics of an animated rabbit outsmarting the smug, self-proclaimed “Super Genius” coyote.

He opens the door and steps inside, carefully placing the tea tray on the kitchen counter. Neal’s curled up in bed, the television pulled close. The rabbit keeps getting the best of the coyote and Neal keeps chuckling and chortling and coughing. He looks up when Peter approaches, a mug of tea in hand and gives him a bleary smile.

“Thanks.” He took the mug and sips carefully, wincing as the hot tea hits his sore throat.

As the cartoon comes to its rollicking, clanging, clever end and Neal presses the pause button on the DVD remote, Peter toes off his shoes, drapes his jacket over the footboard and loosens his tie. “Can I join you?”

Neal glares at him. “You’re vaccinated, so of course you’re not going to get sick.” He coughs again, just to punctuate his aggravation.

Peter doesn’t bother to explain that the flu vaccination is a crapshoot most years, and if Neal’s strain is different than the one he’s inoculated for, he’ll be sick, too. Instead, he climbs onto the bed and settles behind Neal, making sure that both of them are comfortable. He fishes for the remote among the covers, finds it, and starts the next cartoon on the DVD. It’s one of his favorites, “The Big Snooze.”

He holds Neal close, paying more attention to his lover’s laughter than to the clever parody on the screen. He wonders if Neal ever sees him as Elmer Fudd, but decides he doesn’t care. If this bit of silliness makes Neal laugh, that’s the only thing that matters.

FIN

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[elrhiarhodan]

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