Rating: NC-17 (OT3 Bedplay)
Fandom: White Collar
Characters/Pairings: Peter/Neal/Elizabeth
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~1450
Summary: Eight Clauses That Define Their Relationship – A Slobber Coated Tennis Ball Is Not The Worst Thing You Could Dream About
Author’s Notes: Because I can’t help but link my fics together, just about each one of the segments references something I’ve written in one or more of my previously written stories. I note this just so you don’t think I’m repeating myself accidentally. This part references These Things Are Important
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Previous Parts:
I – We The People
II – In Order To Form A More Perfect Union
III – Establish Justice
IV – Insure Domestic Tranquility
V - Provide For The Common Defense
VI - Promote the General Welfare
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"Can I ask you a very personal question?" Neal and Peter where sitting on the deck in the backyard, watching Satchmo chase after the tennis ball Neal kept throwing. The question wasn’t an idle one, but something Neal had been wondering about for a long time. He and Peter had been through a lot over the past five years, and now that his own heart was settled, some things were niggling at the back of his brain. And some other things he’d recently noticed.
Satchmo dropped the ball at their feet, and Neal picked it up, and instantly regretted it. It was coated in dog slobber and dead leaf matter. He quickly tossed it away, and watched the lab amble after it.
“You keep throwing it, he’ll just keep bringing it back. That’s what retrievers do, you know.”
“Yeah, but he gives me that look, how can I not play?”
Satchmo came back, dropped the ball again, and Neal obliged him one more time.
“So, what’s your very personal question?”
Suddenly, Neal was uncomfortable. He felt like he was venturing into something he had no business knowing. “Never mind.”
"Come on Neal, ask away."
Neal sighed, and finally asked, "Why haven't you and Elizabeth had kids? Sorry - I shouldn’t have asked. It’s really not my business."
Peter didn’t look wasn't upset at the question. “Why wouldn’t it be not your business, you’re part of this family.” Peter grimaced, “Actually, I am surprised it’s taken you so long to ask. We’ve been getting that question from friends and family for almost as long as we’ve been married.”
“Well, you two have such a strong marriage -- the lack of offspring is unusual.”
“Maybe our marriage is strong because we don’t have to deal with kids?”
Neal gritted his teeth, “Do you know how much I hate when you do that?”
“Do what?”
“That - answer a question with a question.”
“And here, I thought that was one of the things you loved about me.”
“Are you going to answer or just play word games with me?”
“It’s complicated, and it’s not an easy subject to discuss.”
“You don’t have to, let’s forget I ever asked.”
“No, you have the right to know.” Peter paused, and scrubbed at his eyes. "My father had Huntington’s Disease."
At Neal's puzzled expression, Peter explained. "Huntington's is a genetic illness, children of a parent with the disease have a fifty percent chance of having the mutation that causes the disease and if they do, there is an absolute probability of developing it. It’s 100% fatal and there is no cure."
This was not the answer Neal was expecting. He went hot, then cold and everything inside him tightened up, like the start of a panic attack. "You are going to die?"
"We all die eventually, Neal. But no, I won't die from Huntington's. I had the test a few years ago, and the results were negative for the defective gene."
The tightness eased up immediately. "So, you don't want to pass it onto any children you might have." Satchmo dropped the ball at Neal’s feet and he ignored it, too interested in what Peter was telling him to play anymore.
"Actually, I can't. If I don't have the mutation, the disease won't be passed to any children."
"Then why no kids?"
"My father died in '88, it was a slow, awful death. I didn't want to my kids to inherit it."
"Peter, you're confusing me...you just said that you couldn't pass it onto your children."
"Sorry -- it's not something easy to talk about. After my father was diagnosed, I didn't want to get tested, I didn't want to live knowing I was going to die, slowly, badly. But I also didn't want to risk passing it on to posterity, so I had a vasectomy when I was in college. I had the surgeon make sure it was non-reversible."
Neal blinked, trying to absorb the information Peter had given him. "Why did you finally get tested?"
Peter shook his head, ruefully. "I got the flu one winter, a few months after I nearly caught you in Prague. It wouldn't go away, and the weakness lingered for too long. I thought that the disease was setting in, and I couldn’t take not knowing anymore. The DNA results were conclusive; I don’t have the genetic mutation. I will not develop Huntington’s Disease.”
“Elizabeth knows?”
“Of course she does. When things got serious, I told her. I had to know if she could deal with what could happen, and the fact that I couldn’t, wouldn’t give her children. It was one of the hardest things I ever did. I was prepared for her to just get up and walk away. She didn’t cry, she didn’t give me any platitudes or assurances or start babying me, as if I was already sick.”
“I tried to tell her how bad it could get -- my father lingered in pain and dementia for fifteen years until he got an infection and died. It was the worst thing you could ever imagine. He went from a kind, loving man – a history teacher, a Little League baseball coach – to an angry, confused, bitter, weak stranger in about a year.” Peter rubbed at his eyes, wiping at the tears of his memories. “Elizabeth didn’t care that the future could possibly hold nothing but misery. She told me she loved me, and that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me, how ever long that life would be.”
“Wait a second, Elizabeth proposed to you?” Neal laughed in amazement. “I knew there was a reason why I loved that woman.”
Peter smirked. “She beat me by a few minutes; I already had the ring in my pocket.”
Satchmo nudged at Neal’s hand, looking to get him interested in their game again, and Neal idly scratched behind the dog’s floppy ears.
“So you’re not going to get sick and die on me, old man?”
Peter smiled and stared out into the middle distance. “No, not from Huntington’s, but there are no guarantees on anything else. But I don’t think you’ve asked me about this out of idle curiosity. That’s not you -- every question has a purpose. What gives?”
Neal didn’t really know how to blunt the impact of his next question. “Have you noticed anything odd about Elizabeth in the mornings, lately?” Peter wasn’t the most observant person, when it came to his wife, but he wondered how he could be missing the obvious.
He was. “No… What are you saying?”
“Elizabeth’s rushed out of bed, into the bathroom every morning for the past week. Her breasts are bigger, more sensitive and her nipples have turned red. She got queasy last night from the eggplant parmesan.”
“It was greasy.”
“Peter -- we’ve had sex, the three of us, every night for over a month.”
“Neal?”
He didn’t answer. There was no need.
“Elizabeth!!!!!!!!!!!”
”Elizabeth, Elizabeth, wake up!”
El, honey - you’re having a bad dream. Wake up.
Elizabeth Burke opened her eyes, blinking warily in semi-darkness. Peter and Neal were leaning over her, twin expressions of concern on their faces.
Peter said, perhaps unnecessarily, “You were having a nightmare.”
She grabbed his shoulder. “Did we have eggplant parmesan for dinner last night?”
Neal answered. “No, you hate eggplant. We brought in Thai.”
“One of you, turn on a light.” Peter obliged as she sat up.
Elizabeth cupped her palms around her breasts and squeezed gently. She sighed in relief, no tenderness. “Do these seem any bigger to you?” Her hands were still on her tits, holding them out like an offering. Both Peter and Neal grinned at the sight.
“No, they look as perfectly sized as always.” Neal, ever gallant, truthfully replied.
“And my nipples, have they changed color?”
“Hard to tell in this light, hon – I may need to get closer.” Peter leaned in and captured one between his lips. A quick nip and he released it. “Hmmm, still tastes pink.”
She swatted him. “How’s your father, Peter?”
Peter blinked at the non sequitur. “El, you know he’s fine. You spoke to him last week -- before he and my mother left for their cruise.”
She looked at Neal, or more precisely, at Neal’s left ankle. The hard plastic cuff was still there, the green light glowing steadily.
There was one more thing to check to fully convince her that her dream was just that, a dream. But she wasn’t going to run over to the drug store at 3:30 in the morning to get a pregnancy test.
GO TO PART VIII: Do Ordain and Establish This Constitution
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