Fic: Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?
Title: Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Moz, Peter, Neal gen
Spoilers: None
Warnings, Triggers, Enticements:
Word Count: ~3200
Summary: Neal is seriously ill and Peter is beside himself with worry. He receives comfort from an unexpected source.
A/N: From this prompt from virgo_79on the Running Hot fever meme at ariadnes_string’s LJ. Also fills the septicemia/infected wounds box on my hc_bingo card. Everybody wins \o/
Title is a song by Moby.
----
Moz hovers. He’s a hoverer.
It’s a thing. It drives Neal absolutely bat-shit sometimes, but he can’t help it.
He’s always been that way. He chalks it up to a lifetime of being the little guy, the one in the background, easily overlooked and forgotten. When you’re pretty much always marginalized, you tend to accept it and just stay in the margins - on the edges of life where no one notices. Moz uses that to his advantage every day. If people tend not to notice you, then they can’t tell the cops who scammed them out of their money, their jewelry, their art.
But Neal always noticed. It’s one of the reasons he loves the kid. Neal actually saw him, appreciated him, knew his value and made him feel good about it.
Neal has that effect on people. He has that effect on the Suit, even though he doesn’t know it or won’t admit it. It’s one of his super powers, Moz jokes, but he’s not wrong. It’s that aspect of his personality that makes Neal a great con. And a better friend.
Moz wishes he could do that - feel as much for people as Neal does. Sometimes he wonders if something isn’t broken inside himself, or missing. That ability to connect with people, empathize, care - it wasn’t something that helped him survive on the streets of Detroit, and so he never really developed the skill. Does a blind person really miss the sight he’s never had, Moz always reasoned; then it followed that he couldn’t really miss the ability to relate to anyone.
Except Neal, maybe. Neal brings it out of him. Even when Moz didn’t want to give it up.
Moz hovers in the doorway of his friend Neal’s hospital room. He is afraid Neal is dying, and the man he holds responsible for it sits at his friend’s bedside, and Moz has brought him coffee.
----
A random chain of innocuous events - Neal had tripped chasing the Feds’ bad guy of the week, the tracking anklet he wore snagging on some bit of trash, and he’d cut his leg. It wasn’t serious - a few stitches in the ER and he was as good as new. But an infection had apparently set in at an alarming rate, and Neal went from perfectly fine to lying unconscious in the hospital in the space of two days. The doctors were throwing around words like drug-resistant bacteria and septic shock and organ failure.
It had taken hours for the Lady Suit to track Mozzie down, and when he’d arrived at the hospital, the Suit himself was in residence in Neal’s room. Moz’s feelings of resentment and anger toward Peter for allowing this to happen nearly overcame him. But when Peter looked up at him, his anguish was almost palpable. There was panic in his eyes, his clothes were rumpled and in disarray, and he was as pale as a sheet.
“What happened?” Moz said, the demanding tone he’d intended to take dying on his lips.
Peter stepped over to Moz - stumbled was perhaps a better word - and Moz stopped him with a hand on his arm. He was shaking, and it scared Moz more than the sight of Neal in that bed with tubes and wires running out of all parts of him.
“Some kind of infection. They’re running tests.” Peter looked back at Neal, as if there was additional information he could get from him.
“When?”
Peter sank down into a chair along the wall, raking his fingers through his short-cropped hair. “This afternoon. He called in sick this morning. I told him he was a wimp. He laughed. El made me take him soup at lunch and when I got to June’s…” His voice trailed off, and Moz wondered what else might have happened, but he didn’t want to press it.
Peter Burke was a wreck, and Moz literally didn’t think he’d ever live to see the day that would happen. He looked down on him, feeling slightly numb. His best friend was in a coma and the FBI agent that was supposed to have been responsible for his safety was falling apart in front of him.
He watched as Peter’s face slowly crumpled. “What if he dies, Moz? What if he dies and the last thing I said to him was, ‘Cowboy up’?”
There were tears streaming down his face and Moz didn’t know what to do. Truthfully, he did know what to do - he’d seen enough soap operas in his day - but it wasn’t something that came naturally. He put an arm around the Suit’s shoulders and squeezed in what he hoped was a reassuring way, bumping against him awkwardly with his hip. “There, there. Neal will pull through. He always does,” he muttered - rather unconvincingly, he thought.
“I don’t know if he will,” Peter said quietly, staring at his shoes.
“I don’t know what else to say to you, Suit,” Moz answered truthfully.
“Thanks, Moz.”
----
That was more than eight hours ago, and as the longest night in his life morphed into the longest day, and there was no change or improvement in Neal’s condition, Moz offered to go and get them both something to drink.
“Hey, Moz,” Peter says.
Moz starts out of his reverie and looks back at Peter. “You should come out of there,” he suggests. Close proximity to their ailing friend seems to be doing Peter more harm than good. To Moz’s surprise, he complies, takes the coffee Moz offers him and wanders down the hall. Moz looks in on Neal - he has not moved, there is no change, according to the nurses - and decides that perhaps someone else needs him more at the moment. He follows Peter down the hall.
Peter has found a small waiting room at the end of the corridor. A small TV plays CNN with no sound, and there are pamphlets with cartoon doctors warning against the dangers of diabetes and hypertension. He’s staring out of the window as the sun rises, sipping his coffee. Moz stands at another window, mirroring his stance, but watches Peter surreptitiously out of the corners of his eyes.
“He begged me not to leave,” Peter says, apropos of nothing. His voice is dry, without affect. “When I found him yesterday, he was burning up with fever, delirious. He called me ‘Dad,’ and begged me not to leave him alone.”
Moz flinches, imagining the scene; it certainly explained Peter’s state of mind when he arrived the night before.
“I thought he said his father was dead.”
“He said his mother told him his father was dead.”
Peter nods, accepting the fact and not pushing. Moz is grateful for that - it’s not his tale to tell. Peter finishes his coffee and tosses the cup into the trash. “I think I’m gonna need a whole lot more of that. Can I get you some?”
Moz holds up his half-finished cup of tea and shakes his head. “You know, you could go home for a few hours, see your lovely wife. I’ll stay here.”
Peter smiles sadly. “I promised I wouldn’t leave him alone,” he says and leaves the room in search of more coffee.
Moz nods in understanding. He wouldn’t have gone either.
----
Moz stares out the window of Neal’s room. It’s not much of a view, frankly, as it faces over an adjoining parking garage. But he needs to look at something besides the monitors connected to his friend, reporting his vital signs to no one in particular. Peter dozes in the chair by the wall, his long legs stretched in front of him, head cocked at a strange angle. Moz thinks his neck will hurt when he wakes.
There is a noise in the doorway as a doctor enters the room. Moz turns, crosses over and places a hand on Peter’s shoulder. Peter wakes and is immediately alert. He stands, hikes his pants up and shakes the doctor’s hand.
The doctor introduces himself as Dr. Danforth and Moz makes a mental note to check up on his credentials. He looks grim. “I’m afraid the infection on your friend’s leg has been identified as necrotizing fasciitis, and he’ll need immediate surgery to save his life,” he said.
“Oh, my God,” Peter says. “How did this happen?”
“It’s rare, but the infection may have been present at the time of the initial injury.”
Moz’s head is reeling. This doctor is using words from his darkest nightmares. “Will you have to amputate?” he asks, immediately jumping to the worst conclusion. Neal would smack him if he were conscious.
The doctor shakes his head. “I don’t think it will come to that. And once the infected tissue is removed, it will go a long way to improving his condition. There is no other option at this stage. I’ve scheduled the procedure for this morning, and Mr. Caffrey will have to be taken up and prepped immediately. My intern will have some paperwork for you to fill out.”
The doctor leaves and is replaced by a young woman Moz suspects may have just celebrated her Super Sweet 16. She takes them to an empty patient room to explain about the procedure and get a medical history on Neal. Between the two of them, Moz and Peter are able to answer most of her questions. When it comes down to signing something, Moz defers to Peter - there’s no way he’s leaving his signature behind here. Peter doesn’t notice and takes the proffered pen from the young woman. Moz notices his hands are shaking. “Hey,” he says to him, touching him on the wrist.
Peter’s eyes are haunted when he looks at Moz.
“He trusts you to do this, Peter,” Moz tells him, because it is true. Peter nods and scrawls his name on the form. The intern explains where they can wait during the surgery and leaves, her sneakers making squeaking noises on the tile floor.
----
Moz is hovering again.
Peter sits in the waiting room in the surgical wing, and has taken to staring blankly into the middle distance. Moz had to leave the room earlier because of Peter’s incessant pacing. At least, that’s what he told Peter. What he really needed to get away from was the tormented expression on the FBI agent’s face. It had become too much for Moz, having to deal with another person’s anguish on top of his own.
So he’d gone for a walk around the hospital, learning the layout as he would do in any strange place, instinctively. Moz always needs to know at least three ways out of any given place or he doesn’t feel comfortable.
And now he hovers again, watching Peter. Or maybe watching over Peter, because it sure seems like the man needs it. He’d let slip earlier that Elizabeth was in Arizona visiting her parents, which was why she wasn’t there. Moz wishes she was; he craves her comforting presence almost as much as he suspects Peter does.
Peter sighs and leans forward in his seat, rests his elbows on his knees, puts his head in his hands. Because Moz is hovering, Peter doesn’t know he’s there, so Moz is allowed to observe as he likes to - undetected.
He admits to himself that he never would have thought that Peter felt this strongly about Neal, that his relationship with the young man had roots that ran so deep. Moz had always assumed the only reason Peter even gave a damn about Neal was that he viewed him as an asset to the FBI, a tool to be used, wiped down and put away at the end of the job. Peter had a vested interest in Neal’s success, after all, particularly since his performance reflected upon Peter himself. But Moz is surprised to see this angle to Peter, and more surprised that he hadn’t noticed before.
A footstep behind Moz alerts him to the fact that Danforth, Neal’s surgeon, has arrived. Peter has heard him also, and no doubt now knows that Moz had been observing him. Moz doesn’t care, and Peter doesn’t seem to either.
“The surgery went as well as can be expected,” Danforth says before either of them can get a word out.
Moz’s relief is so acute, he barely hears the rest of what the man has to say, but Peter is asking all the right questions. “What if the antibiotics don’t work?”
“We’ll know that soon enough. The next day or so is going to be crucial.”
“And his recovery?”
The doctor sighs, seems like he wants to prepare them for something. Mozzie’s anxiety level ratchets up. “It will be difficult - he’ll need follow up surgeries and skin grafts, but he should have full function when all is said and done. The first step getting the infection under control. We were lucky to have caught it when we did, but it’s going to be a long road to recovery.”
“When can we see him?” Moz asks.
“In a couple of hours when he’s out of post-op. But he’ll be out of it for a while, so you might consider heading home for a few hours’ sleep.”
“Thanks,” Moz says, and with one look at Peter knows that neither of them intends to leave.
The doctor left them to themselves. “Thank God!” Peter says and sinks into a chair and scrubbing his jaw with his left hand. The relief on his face in palpable, and Moz wonders if he looks the same way. He certainly feels relieved - his knees have gone all wobbly.
“I should call June - let her know the news,” he says, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket.
“Good thinking. I’ll call El.” Peter stands and pulls his phone out as well, and they both head for the spot down the hall where the cell reception doesn’t suck. They approach the door together and stop at the same time, realizing they can’t both fit through. Peter turns to Moz and actually hugs him.
“Our boy made it, Moz,” he says, emotion making his voice sound thick.
When he releases him, Moz suddenly can’t see for the fog obscuring his lenses. He clears his throat. “Yeah,” he says, pulling out his handkerchief. “Yeah.”
----
Moz wakes with a snort. He’d fallen asleep at around 2:00 am in a chair in Neal’s room, and he notices that the sun is beginning to rise, which puts the time at about 5:30 am. He glances over at Neal and sees Peter sitting right next to the bed, reading the morning’s headlines to him quietly. Peter has his glasses on, and has apparently reached the sports section, which makes Moz smile. There is no way Neal would be sitting still for that if he were awake.
Peter reports the results of some baseball game and looks over at Neal. He frowns, reaches over and pushes a stray lock of hair off the young man’s forehead, and goes back to his reading. Moz hasn’t moved and thinks that Peter hasn’t noticed he’s awake, so the gesture is completely honest and Moz almost feels like he’s intruding.
It strikes him suddenly that there has to be real regard and fondness between the two men, despite Moz’s misgivings about their relationship. Though Peter is still a Federal agent and Neal, Moz hopes, is a dyed in the wool conman, there is a bond between them that is real and enduring.
Moz decides he approves. “You love him, don’t you?” he says, surprised at his own bluntness.
Peter glances at him over his glasses and seems unsurprised, which tells Moz he knew he was being watched all along. “Of course. He’s my friend.” Peter seems to think over his next comment carefully. “I love his potential, what he will someday be.”
“Ever thought of just loving him?” Moz says, looking him in the eye. Moz doesn’t approve of Peter’s crusade to drag Neal along the straight and narrow and has made no secret of it.
Peter smiles. “I have to believe there’s a better life for him.”
Moz opens his mouth to speak, but is cut off by a moan from Neal. Both he and Peter stand over their friend’s bed, willing him to wake. It takes several minutes, but at last his eyes open.
“Neal?” Moz says.
Neal doesn’t seem to hear him at first. His eyes dart back and forth without really looking at anything.
“Buddy?” Peter says, a hand on the young man’s shoulder.
At last Neal seems to come to himself and looks up at Peter. “You stayed,” he says with a smile.
Peter squeezes Neal’s hand where it lies at his side. “I wasn’t going anywhere.”
Neal looks up at Moz. “Mozzie,” he says happily, and closes his eyes. There is still a smile on his face.
“How are you feeling?”
Neal’s brow furrows as he thinks about the answer to that question. Whatever drugs they have him on must be pretty good. “Bad. I think I’m gonna hurl.”
Moz scrambles to grab the plastic basin the nurse left for this contingency, but Neal’s nausea passes quickly. “What happened?”
“You had an operation, but you’re getting better.”
Neal nods, accepting it, and seems to drift off to sleep. He opens his eyes briefly again. “What happened?” he repeats.
----
Neal’s recovery proves to be quicker than his doctors had predicted, and his friends begin staying with him in shifts so that he doesn’t get bored or lonely. Even Elizabeth cuts short her visit with her parents to return to the city to fuss over him properly.
At last the day of his discharge arrives, and June lets Moz borrow the Jag to bring Neal home. Moz has also brought Neal one of his cane-swords to help him walk, but Neal points out that he thinks he ought to stick with crutches for the time being.
As they wait in his room for the doctor to stop by and give his final sign-off, Neal fixes Moz with the knowing look that always makes Moz expect he’s about to be conned.
“What?” Moz says.
“Peter told me how nice you were to him when I first got sick.”
For perhaps the first time in his life, Moz is at a loss for words. He hasn’t given much more thought to the events of those few days, preferring to forget them as quickly as possible. “Well, he was a wreck,” he finally manages.
“In Whoville they say, the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes that day.” Neal says with a grin.
“You’re quoting Dr. Seuss now?” Moz laughs. “But seriously, this thing has really made me realize that I’ve been a little unfair to the Suit. He really cares about you, Neal.”
“A lot of people care about me,” Neal says, his eyes shining. “Now tell me what made you think you should smuggle that cane-sword thing into a hospital?”
----
Thank you for your time.