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Title: Don't Mess with the Hat
Rating: PG
Characters: Neal, Peter
Summary: Neal's not feeling too good, and not for the reasons he thinks.
A/N: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
frith_in_thorns for This Prompt at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
collarcorner. Sorry it took so long, but I kept having all these ideas that would not work. Plot bunnies, oi.
Don't Mess with the Hat
Peter's driving left a lot to be desired even when he was actually focused on driving and not a case. But his scary driving had only ever been that – scary, sometimes with the occasional threat of whip lash. It had never been bad to the point of carsickness. But not that Neal would know because, damn it, he didn't get car sick. Not once in his life had he ever opened the passenger door and decorated Manhattan's streets with his stomach contents. So he probably wasn't car sick. He probably had the flu, like he'd suspected, like he'd been dreading for the past two days, but he didn't care. He needed an outlet, and Peter's driving was begging for it.
“You have got to let me get a license. I can't take this any more,” he groaned after pulling his head back into the car and collapsing against the seat. Something hard tapped him repeatedly in the arm and he fumbled until his fingers wrapped around the cool plastic of a water bottle.
“Yeah, I'm hard-pressed to believe that one little car ride in crawling traffic can spawn that much vomit,” Peter said.
“You know nothing of the fine art of making someone carsick.” Neal took a mouthful of water, rinsed and rolled down the window to spit. Someone behind them honked but if it was because of Neal's less than impeccable manners, he didn't care. He removed his hat, ran his fingers through his damp hair, slicking it to his scalp, and put the hat back on. “It's the stopping and starting. How about easing on the breaks rather than slamming on them?”
“How about you put the blame where it deserves. You've been undercover for a week. Plenty of time to catch something.”
“Donovan was a germaphobe,” Neal said.
“Yeah, well, I'm sure his cronies weren't. Didn't you say one guy kept picking his nose?”
Neal's stomach clenched threateningly and he moaned.
Peter winced. “Sorry. Look, another three minutes and you'll be basking in your misery in the comfort of home.” But while his voice inflected nonchalant dismissal of Neal's misery, his eyes kept darting to him. “Are you sure Donovan didn't have the chance to slip you anything?”
“Positive. Brought my own water, carried it with me and everything. Didn't touch any food or alcohol until I got home. Never once shook his hand.”
Donovan had been odd on levels that made Mozzie seem normal. He didn't trust, period, and especially didn't like those who trusted too easily. He didn't like to be touched, washed his hands obsessively and wiped down surfaces excessively. Rumor had it he was also fond of poisons and that if he didn't like you, he got rid of you, and poison was so much tidier, quieter, and far less likely to implicate him in anything – depending on the poison - like bullets and knives.
“Okay,” Peter said, placating, though his eyes kept bouncing between Neal and the road.
Donovan never had the chance to go after Neal, Neal was positive of it. Neal hadn't touched anything of Donovan's, had never been out of Donovan's sight until dismissed to go home. Rumor had it that if Donovan was going to kill anyone it would be either before or after the job, and Donovan had been taken down while in the process of switching out two priceless works of art with Neal's forgeries. There was no way Donovan could have poisoned Neal. This was just the flu, probably caught after shaking hands with the nose-picker and fueled by the stress of being undercover with a guy who liked poison.
Neal was sure that if he kept telling himself this his brain would finally believe it. He was usually better at being not paranoid like this, but he was sick after all, and that made it hard to think. But even as fever-smothered as his brain was, he knew he had been careful around Donovan, mirroring Donovan's paranoia to help keep him on his toes. Mozzie would have been proud. And no way would Donovan have slipped him any kind of poison before the job. That would've been plain stupid.
Except... Neal had been feeling rather crappy the last two days.
The flu working it's way up to utter miserable proportions, that was all. Or maybe he was just tired, the stress of being around Donovan having invoked the headache currently pounding his skull and the headache the culprit behind the carsickness. Once out of the car and after a few minutes of deep breathing, he'd be fine. Perfectly fine.
“We're here,” Peter said.
Neal startled like he'd been asleep and rudely woken. “Wow, that was fast.”
“Told you. Think you can get out?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Neal opened the door and eased himself gingerly from the seat. He swayed when the world seemed to drop out beneath him, both his hands clutching instinctively to the door and car with a pale-knuckle grip.
“Is carsickness supposed to make you dizzy?” Peter said seemingly from out of nowhere and startling Neal for a second time. He startled again when Peter took him by the arm, steadying him for when he was ready to test his legs.
“Don't know, never had it before,” Neal said, breathing through another moment of possible nausea.
Peter said kindly, “Take your time. Whenever you're ready.”
When Neal figured the nausea was as tempered as it was going to get, he nodded. The world was a little more steady now that he was upright and the blood had stopped rushing from his head, but there was still something unstable about it. In fact, every so often, it decided to drop again. Not quite as bad, but Peter's hand steadying him most definitely became welcome.
It was a long walk to the door and an even longer walk up the stairs – like climbing Mt. Everest, leaving Neal breathless and his stomach pissed at him. Once inside the near-steady safety of the loft, Peter had him sit on the bed with orders to stay put while Peter fussed around the room; first getting a glass of water that he pressed into Neal's hand, then fetching Neal something more comfortable to wear.
“Damn, Neal, your hand is really shaking,” Peter said after returning with sweats and a T-shirt.
Neal looked at the glass he'd been sipping from, the water's surface vibrating and creating perfect rings. He stared at it, enraptured, when a hand gripping his shoulder brought him back to the here and now. He looked up into Peter's face – his very worried face.
“Think you could change clothes?” Peter asked.
Neal, finding it took too much energy to talk, nodded. He traded the glass for the clothes then stumbled his way to the bathroom, bumping once into the kitchen counter and twice into the table before being physically turned by Peter in the right direction.
“Okay, I'm really not liking this.” Peter said, steering Neal from behind by the shoulders. “When did you start feeling like crap? In the car? Before then?”
“Wasn't feeling too great yesterday. Not so great the day before, either. Thought I was just tired; Donovan would keep us up all night, sometimes, making plans.” Neal swallowed back a surge of bile and decided to stop talking.
They reached the bathroom. Neal needed the help of the sink to keep him steady as he struggled out of, then into, his clothes one pant leg and shirt sleeve at a time, the shirt being rather stubborn about going over his head. He emerged sloppily from the bathroom, and Peter arched an eyebrow at him.
“I know how fond you are of keeping up appearances but that hat really doesn't go with that shirt.”
Neal reached up, removed the hat and handed it to Peter. He'd completely forgotten he had it on. It did explain why he'd had such a hard time getting the shirt on.
Peter, hat in hand, seemed suddenly mesmerized by Neal's forehead. And not in a good way - he was frowning.
“Neal, you have a rash.”
Neal reached up and rubbed at his forehead. “O-kay?”
“It's a really big damn rash. Neal, look at me.” Suddenly, Neal's face was trapped by Peter's hands, forcing him to make eye contact, his eyelids pulled up by Peter's thumbs; first one then the other.
“That's it, I'm taking you to the hospital. I don't like this.”
“What's not to like? I have the flu,” Neal croaked, wishing Peter would stop being so paranoid. He was really tired of paranoid. He was really tired, period, and wanted nothing more than to swallow a few pills, drop into bed and ride out as much of this sickness as he could in near-oblivion.
But Peter wouldn't have it. He ushered Neal back to the bed, steering him away from the various obstacles Neal's body seemed suddenly interested in colliding with. Once he had Neal seated, he shoved Neal's feet into his tennis shoes then hauled him right back up again. It was horrible, the ascent to his feet turning his bones into rubber but his brain into a pounding sledgehammer against his skull, and Peter was forced to momentarily take all of his weight. They were about to head out the door when Neal's stomach felt it high time for another purge. Having already been purged, however, he suffered only dry heaves and a little bile. He would have to remember to apologize to June about that.
The trip down the stairs was, if possible, even worse than the trip up. Neal's body had no desire to stay upright, mostly because the world around him refused to stop rocking and spinning. It forced Peter to take all of Neal's weight - again - just to get to the bottom, and getting to the car was equally as miserable.
Then Neal was huddled back inside the Taurus and lamenting it. He'd just escaped the damn thing, for crying out loud. Peter hadn't started the engine and already the carsickness was returning ten-fold even with nothing left to throw up.
“Damn it, Peter, is this really necessary?” Neal said through clenched teeth. He huddled into the seat, feeling rather chilly in just a T-shirt and sweats, with his arms wrapped around his stomach in the vain hope that he could squeeze it into submission.
“Yeah, I really think it is,” Peter said tightly. Neal looked at him, at his clenched jaw and his knuckles blanched from holding on tight to the steering wheel. “And you can happily hound me with 'I told you so' if this turns out to be nothing more than the flu but in the meantime, humor me. You just spent a week with a guy who collects poisons like stamps and who we can't charge for murdering anyone because he knows how to use the stuff.”
Neal rolled his head the other way to press his forehead against the cool glass and hide his growing trepidation. He had been so careful. He knew he had been careful. There was no way Donovan could have gotten to him.
But the seeds of doubt had been planted the moment Peter had brought the possibility up on the ride home, and those seeds had sprouted. Trepidation turned into full-blown worry that made his heart beat a little faster and his head throb a little harder.
When they arrived at the hospital, Neal needed all the help he could get in getting out. He was sure that whatever was wrong with him was getting worse, because the ground wouldn't keep still and his head felt like it was going to explode. He was only half aware of what was going on around him. He figured Peter must have flashed his badge, or yelled at someone, because there was no waiting. He was loaded onto a gurney where he curled into his aching, clammy self and was whisked away.
It was a terrifying blur, what followed; lots of touching, poking, prodding and words like dilated pupils, rapid heart beat, nausea, rash and delirious. The chaos made Neal's head spin and his heart-rate skyrocket. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he might have tried to make a break for it, or maybe he had dreamed it. He couldn't be certain, everything melting together, thoughts bleeding into reality bleeding into dreams, with Donovan being the one to draw his blood and Mozzie off to the side chastising Donovan, because Donovan was supposed to be a germaphobe so why was he taking someone's blood?
Then Neal woke up. He knew he was awake, the chaos gone and everything quiet except for an annoying, repetitive beep off to the side and someone snoring. Neal turned his head, first to the source of the beeping – a heart monitor – then to the source of the snoring.
Peter was sprawled out in a padded chair, head tilted back in a way that was sure to leave a crick in his neck.
The next piece of input reaching Neal was the fact that he still felt like crap, but not as bad as before. Achy, mouth dry and sour, head still throbbing, but the world mostly steady if he didn't move too much. He cleared his dry, scratchy throat and reached with a weak hand for the plastic cup on the tray by the bed.
“Let me get that,” Peter said, grabbing the cup before Neal had a chance and startling Neal for... how many times had it been, now? A lot, Neal remembered at least that much.
“You really need to stop doing that,” he croaked.
Peter eyed him oddly as he topped the cup off. “Do what?”
But Neal shook his head, in no mood to risk more talking until his throat was moist. Peter, however, wouldn't let him take the cup but held it for him while Neal drank through a straw. He didn't care who was holding the cup, the cold water was Heaven on his sand-paper throat.
“Easy,” Peter said. “Not too much. I still wouldn't trust your stomach even at this point.”
Neal obliged, pulling back. “What happened? Guess it wasn't the flu if I'm here.”
“Nope. Donovan, the sneaky bastard. He laced the inside of your hat with some kind of insecticide.”
Neal's eyes widened. “He messed with my hat?”
“And poisoned you. Priorities, Neal.”
“He messed with my hat to kill me?”
“Better. He laced it just enough to get the process going but not enough to take you out until long after the job. Those guys he had you work with are currently residing in the prison infirmary for the same reason.”
“He used my hat. Against me.”
“He used whatever he could – watches, necklaces, anything you wouldn't thing would be laced. Donovan refuses to tell us why but I'm sure it was because he decided it was cheaper than paying his accomplices. Guess he got a little too overconfident in his ability to poison people. But you'll be fine. You'll feel like crap for a while but the doctors got to you in time.”
“Don't you mean you brought me to them in time,” Neal said. He smiled a little. “Guess it does pay to be paranoid.”
Peter smiled back, then perked up. “Oh, before I forget.” He reached behind him to a bag that had been sitting next to the chair and removed the contents.
Neal's hat. Peter spun it once in his hands. “I had it cleaned – throughly. Not a trace of insecticide left.” He plopped it onto Neal's head. “I'm not sure it deserves it. It did try to kill you.”
“Donovan tried to kill me. The hat was just an unlucky pawn in his twisted game, and I forgive it,” Neal said, adjusting the hat more comfortably on his head.
Peter sighed. “I suppose it did help put him away for both theft and attempted murder.” He snorted. “Near-death by wardrobe. Neal Caffrey you live an odd, odd life.”
Neal, beaming, tipped the brim of his hat and winked. Peter laughed.
The End
Rating: PG
Characters: Neal, Peter
Summary: Neal's not feeling too good, and not for the reasons he thinks.
A/N: Written for
frith_in_thorns for This Prompt at collarcorner. Sorry it took so long, but I kept having all these ideas that would not work. Plot bunnies, oi. Peter's driving left a lot to be desired even when he was actually focused on driving and not a case. But his scary driving had only ever been that – scary, sometimes with the occasional threat of whip lash. It had never been bad to the point of carsickness. But not that Neal would know because, damn it, he didn't get car sick. Not once in his life had he ever opened the passenger door and decorated Manhattan's streets with his stomach contents. So he probably wasn't car sick. He probably had the flu, like he'd suspected, like he'd been dreading for the past two days, but he didn't care. He needed an outlet, and Peter's driving was begging for it.
“You have got to let me get a license. I can't take this any more,” he groaned after pulling his head back into the car and collapsing against the seat. Something hard tapped him repeatedly in the arm and he fumbled until his fingers wrapped around the cool plastic of a water bottle.
“Yeah, I'm hard-pressed to believe that one little car ride in crawling traffic can spawn that much vomit,” Peter said.
“You know nothing of the fine art of making someone carsick.” Neal took a mouthful of water, rinsed and rolled down the window to spit. Someone behind them honked but if it was because of Neal's less than impeccable manners, he didn't care. He removed his hat, ran his fingers through his damp hair, slicking it to his scalp, and put the hat back on. “It's the stopping and starting. How about easing on the breaks rather than slamming on them?”
“How about you put the blame where it deserves. You've been undercover for a week. Plenty of time to catch something.”
“Donovan was a germaphobe,” Neal said.
“Yeah, well, I'm sure his cronies weren't. Didn't you say one guy kept picking his nose?”
Neal's stomach clenched threateningly and he moaned.
Peter winced. “Sorry. Look, another three minutes and you'll be basking in your misery in the comfort of home.” But while his voice inflected nonchalant dismissal of Neal's misery, his eyes kept darting to him. “Are you sure Donovan didn't have the chance to slip you anything?”
“Positive. Brought my own water, carried it with me and everything. Didn't touch any food or alcohol until I got home. Never once shook his hand.”
Donovan had been odd on levels that made Mozzie seem normal. He didn't trust, period, and especially didn't like those who trusted too easily. He didn't like to be touched, washed his hands obsessively and wiped down surfaces excessively. Rumor had it he was also fond of poisons and that if he didn't like you, he got rid of you, and poison was so much tidier, quieter, and far less likely to implicate him in anything – depending on the poison - like bullets and knives.
“Okay,” Peter said, placating, though his eyes kept bouncing between Neal and the road.
Donovan never had the chance to go after Neal, Neal was positive of it. Neal hadn't touched anything of Donovan's, had never been out of Donovan's sight until dismissed to go home. Rumor had it that if Donovan was going to kill anyone it would be either before or after the job, and Donovan had been taken down while in the process of switching out two priceless works of art with Neal's forgeries. There was no way Donovan could have poisoned Neal. This was just the flu, probably caught after shaking hands with the nose-picker and fueled by the stress of being undercover with a guy who liked poison.
Neal was sure that if he kept telling himself this his brain would finally believe it. He was usually better at being not paranoid like this, but he was sick after all, and that made it hard to think. But even as fever-smothered as his brain was, he knew he had been careful around Donovan, mirroring Donovan's paranoia to help keep him on his toes. Mozzie would have been proud. And no way would Donovan have slipped him any kind of poison before the job. That would've been plain stupid.
Except... Neal had been feeling rather crappy the last two days.
The flu working it's way up to utter miserable proportions, that was all. Or maybe he was just tired, the stress of being around Donovan having invoked the headache currently pounding his skull and the headache the culprit behind the carsickness. Once out of the car and after a few minutes of deep breathing, he'd be fine. Perfectly fine.
“We're here,” Peter said.
Neal startled like he'd been asleep and rudely woken. “Wow, that was fast.”
“Told you. Think you can get out?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Neal opened the door and eased himself gingerly from the seat. He swayed when the world seemed to drop out beneath him, both his hands clutching instinctively to the door and car with a pale-knuckle grip.
“Is carsickness supposed to make you dizzy?” Peter said seemingly from out of nowhere and startling Neal for a second time. He startled again when Peter took him by the arm, steadying him for when he was ready to test his legs.
“Don't know, never had it before,” Neal said, breathing through another moment of possible nausea.
Peter said kindly, “Take your time. Whenever you're ready.”
When Neal figured the nausea was as tempered as it was going to get, he nodded. The world was a little more steady now that he was upright and the blood had stopped rushing from his head, but there was still something unstable about it. In fact, every so often, it decided to drop again. Not quite as bad, but Peter's hand steadying him most definitely became welcome.
It was a long walk to the door and an even longer walk up the stairs – like climbing Mt. Everest, leaving Neal breathless and his stomach pissed at him. Once inside the near-steady safety of the loft, Peter had him sit on the bed with orders to stay put while Peter fussed around the room; first getting a glass of water that he pressed into Neal's hand, then fetching Neal something more comfortable to wear.
“Damn, Neal, your hand is really shaking,” Peter said after returning with sweats and a T-shirt.
Neal looked at the glass he'd been sipping from, the water's surface vibrating and creating perfect rings. He stared at it, enraptured, when a hand gripping his shoulder brought him back to the here and now. He looked up into Peter's face – his very worried face.
“Think you could change clothes?” Peter asked.
Neal, finding it took too much energy to talk, nodded. He traded the glass for the clothes then stumbled his way to the bathroom, bumping once into the kitchen counter and twice into the table before being physically turned by Peter in the right direction.
“Okay, I'm really not liking this.” Peter said, steering Neal from behind by the shoulders. “When did you start feeling like crap? In the car? Before then?”
“Wasn't feeling too great yesterday. Not so great the day before, either. Thought I was just tired; Donovan would keep us up all night, sometimes, making plans.” Neal swallowed back a surge of bile and decided to stop talking.
They reached the bathroom. Neal needed the help of the sink to keep him steady as he struggled out of, then into, his clothes one pant leg and shirt sleeve at a time, the shirt being rather stubborn about going over his head. He emerged sloppily from the bathroom, and Peter arched an eyebrow at him.
“I know how fond you are of keeping up appearances but that hat really doesn't go with that shirt.”
Neal reached up, removed the hat and handed it to Peter. He'd completely forgotten he had it on. It did explain why he'd had such a hard time getting the shirt on.
Peter, hat in hand, seemed suddenly mesmerized by Neal's forehead. And not in a good way - he was frowning.
“Neal, you have a rash.”
Neal reached up and rubbed at his forehead. “O-kay?”
“It's a really big damn rash. Neal, look at me.” Suddenly, Neal's face was trapped by Peter's hands, forcing him to make eye contact, his eyelids pulled up by Peter's thumbs; first one then the other.
“That's it, I'm taking you to the hospital. I don't like this.”
“What's not to like? I have the flu,” Neal croaked, wishing Peter would stop being so paranoid. He was really tired of paranoid. He was really tired, period, and wanted nothing more than to swallow a few pills, drop into bed and ride out as much of this sickness as he could in near-oblivion.
But Peter wouldn't have it. He ushered Neal back to the bed, steering him away from the various obstacles Neal's body seemed suddenly interested in colliding with. Once he had Neal seated, he shoved Neal's feet into his tennis shoes then hauled him right back up again. It was horrible, the ascent to his feet turning his bones into rubber but his brain into a pounding sledgehammer against his skull, and Peter was forced to momentarily take all of his weight. They were about to head out the door when Neal's stomach felt it high time for another purge. Having already been purged, however, he suffered only dry heaves and a little bile. He would have to remember to apologize to June about that.
The trip down the stairs was, if possible, even worse than the trip up. Neal's body had no desire to stay upright, mostly because the world around him refused to stop rocking and spinning. It forced Peter to take all of Neal's weight - again - just to get to the bottom, and getting to the car was equally as miserable.
Then Neal was huddled back inside the Taurus and lamenting it. He'd just escaped the damn thing, for crying out loud. Peter hadn't started the engine and already the carsickness was returning ten-fold even with nothing left to throw up.
“Damn it, Peter, is this really necessary?” Neal said through clenched teeth. He huddled into the seat, feeling rather chilly in just a T-shirt and sweats, with his arms wrapped around his stomach in the vain hope that he could squeeze it into submission.
“Yeah, I really think it is,” Peter said tightly. Neal looked at him, at his clenched jaw and his knuckles blanched from holding on tight to the steering wheel. “And you can happily hound me with 'I told you so' if this turns out to be nothing more than the flu but in the meantime, humor me. You just spent a week with a guy who collects poisons like stamps and who we can't charge for murdering anyone because he knows how to use the stuff.”
Neal rolled his head the other way to press his forehead against the cool glass and hide his growing trepidation. He had been so careful. He knew he had been careful. There was no way Donovan could have gotten to him.
But the seeds of doubt had been planted the moment Peter had brought the possibility up on the ride home, and those seeds had sprouted. Trepidation turned into full-blown worry that made his heart beat a little faster and his head throb a little harder.
When they arrived at the hospital, Neal needed all the help he could get in getting out. He was sure that whatever was wrong with him was getting worse, because the ground wouldn't keep still and his head felt like it was going to explode. He was only half aware of what was going on around him. He figured Peter must have flashed his badge, or yelled at someone, because there was no waiting. He was loaded onto a gurney where he curled into his aching, clammy self and was whisked away.
It was a terrifying blur, what followed; lots of touching, poking, prodding and words like dilated pupils, rapid heart beat, nausea, rash and delirious. The chaos made Neal's head spin and his heart-rate skyrocket. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he might have tried to make a break for it, or maybe he had dreamed it. He couldn't be certain, everything melting together, thoughts bleeding into reality bleeding into dreams, with Donovan being the one to draw his blood and Mozzie off to the side chastising Donovan, because Donovan was supposed to be a germaphobe so why was he taking someone's blood?
Then Neal woke up. He knew he was awake, the chaos gone and everything quiet except for an annoying, repetitive beep off to the side and someone snoring. Neal turned his head, first to the source of the beeping – a heart monitor – then to the source of the snoring.
Peter was sprawled out in a padded chair, head tilted back in a way that was sure to leave a crick in his neck.
The next piece of input reaching Neal was the fact that he still felt like crap, but not as bad as before. Achy, mouth dry and sour, head still throbbing, but the world mostly steady if he didn't move too much. He cleared his dry, scratchy throat and reached with a weak hand for the plastic cup on the tray by the bed.
“Let me get that,” Peter said, grabbing the cup before Neal had a chance and startling Neal for... how many times had it been, now? A lot, Neal remembered at least that much.
“You really need to stop doing that,” he croaked.
Peter eyed him oddly as he topped the cup off. “Do what?”
But Neal shook his head, in no mood to risk more talking until his throat was moist. Peter, however, wouldn't let him take the cup but held it for him while Neal drank through a straw. He didn't care who was holding the cup, the cold water was Heaven on his sand-paper throat.
“Easy,” Peter said. “Not too much. I still wouldn't trust your stomach even at this point.”
Neal obliged, pulling back. “What happened? Guess it wasn't the flu if I'm here.”
“Nope. Donovan, the sneaky bastard. He laced the inside of your hat with some kind of insecticide.”
Neal's eyes widened. “He messed with my hat?”
“And poisoned you. Priorities, Neal.”
“He messed with my hat to kill me?”
“Better. He laced it just enough to get the process going but not enough to take you out until long after the job. Those guys he had you work with are currently residing in the prison infirmary for the same reason.”
“He used my hat. Against me.”
“He used whatever he could – watches, necklaces, anything you wouldn't thing would be laced. Donovan refuses to tell us why but I'm sure it was because he decided it was cheaper than paying his accomplices. Guess he got a little too overconfident in his ability to poison people. But you'll be fine. You'll feel like crap for a while but the doctors got to you in time.”
“Don't you mean you brought me to them in time,” Neal said. He smiled a little. “Guess it does pay to be paranoid.”
Peter smiled back, then perked up. “Oh, before I forget.” He reached behind him to a bag that had been sitting next to the chair and removed the contents.
Neal's hat. Peter spun it once in his hands. “I had it cleaned – throughly. Not a trace of insecticide left.” He plopped it onto Neal's head. “I'm not sure it deserves it. It did try to kill you.”
“Donovan tried to kill me. The hat was just an unlucky pawn in his twisted game, and I forgive it,” Neal said, adjusting the hat more comfortably on his head.
Peter sighed. “I suppose it did help put him away for both theft and attempted murder.” He snorted. “Near-death by wardrobe. Neal Caffrey you live an odd, odd life.”
Neal, beaming, tipped the brim of his hat and winked. Peter laughed.
