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01. when Mozzie was posing as a security guard and Neal was posing as a lousy master criminal
Contrary to what certain people had suggested, it wasn't that Mozzie had some kind of fetish for dressing up in a uniform; it was simply that he prefered to keep things nice and easy, and it was a sad but not always inconvenient truth that when you wore a uniform and the right attitude, there was very little people wouldn't let you get away with.
Neal had been wearing a uniform of sorts, too. In a manner of speaking. He'd been dressed like a person who'd been watching too much TV, or perhaps a person who expected to be caught on tape.
Mozzie knew that if anyone were to question any of the people he'd politely (yet firmly) asked to leave this past hour, they wouldn't remember him. Oh, they'd recall a policeman - and some might even recall glasses, but aside from that? Nothing. That was another advantage of uniforms; they tended to get stuck in people's memories to the exclusion of the people wearing them.
Unlike Neal, who was just ... an overly well-dressed young man with a too pretty face and a too flirtatious smile. Unless it was an act and he was secretly a t-shirt-and-faded-jeans kind of guy who was growing a beard (and blonde), Mozzie didn't think much of that kind of get-up.
"Sir?" Admittedly, the part where Neal had replaced Mozzie's copy with one of his own had been reasonably well done. The copy seemed not too poor either, although Mozzie hadn't really taken the time to study it too closely. For the moment, he was mostly concerned with making sure Neal didn't get caught. "Would you come with me, please?"
Mozzie had plans for this museum, and its quite nice collection of paintings. He had no intention of letting some amateur ruin things. Besides, whomever the kid was working for probably wasn't going to be content with getting a copy. So, really, Mozzie was doing him a favor.
"Of course, officer. Is there a problem?" Definitely too much TV, Mozzie thought - that line was simply a cliche. Not that Mozzie spent any great amount of time in front of a TV, but, well, a man heard things sometimes, about these kinds of things.
"A problem?" There were no witnesses to their conversation, which was good. "What makes you think there is some sort of problem, sir?"
"Well." Neal was either a far better actor than Mozzie suspected he was, or he was confused and letting it show, marking him as a lousy criminal. "I simply assumed ... what's this about, then?"
Expensive suits like Neal wore were usually owned by people who had lots of money. People who had lots of money usually felt entitled to all kinds of special treatment. Generally speaking, they weren't polite, or timid, or put up with being told what to do without a solid reason being provided in advance.
"One of the paintings seems to have slipped into your briefcase, sir," Mozzie said pleasantly.
Neal froze. It only lasted for a couple of seconds, but all the same, it did happen. Mozzie sighed inwardly. Young people nowadays simply had no sense of proportion or propriety.
"Am I under arrest?" Neal asked.
02. when Mozzie was naked and Neal had no clothes on
Mozzie was a light sleeper. All things considered, that was probably lucky.
"Who's there?" Silly question, really; if his home had actually been invaded by black ops, it was unlikely they'd take the time to tell him so. "Neal?"
"Hey." Neal's voice sounded far too close, and a little breathless.
"Did you have a bad dream or something?" Mozzie wasn't much for acting motherly, but he knew Neal had been hugged too much as a kid and thus now associated being touched with being comforted. Mozzie supposed a hug wasn't too much to ask for, given that they were friends.
"A bad dream?" Neal was still too open with his emotions. He could mask them, but it always had to be a conscious choice, part of the role. "No, I didn't have a bad dream."
"Oh." The building didn't seem to be on fire, and Mozzie didn't smell gas. "Are we surrounded?"
"I thought you were flirting with me this afternoon," Neal said.
Well. That was a little unexpected. "And?" Mozzie supposed he might (might) have indulged in some flirtatious banter. Neal made it easy, and he was a friend, and Mozzie needed a bit of practice every now and then. In Mozzie's experience though, flirting with someone rarely led to that someone waking you up in the middle of the night. He reached for the light switch and felt his fingers brush past something that felt warm and - "Are you naked?"
Neal chuckled. "Yes."
"So am I," Mozzie said. This could not possibly be good. "Do you need to borrow a shirt to sleep in?" Neal owned more shirts than Mozzie did, but Neal's shirts tended to be expensive. Not really the kind to sleep in, Mozzie supposed.
"Mo-oz," Neal said, in that tone he used when he thought Mozzie was being deliberately slow. "Were you flirting with me this afternoon?"
"I don't know. Was I?"
Mozzie felt Neal's weight shift. "I think you were. So ... "
"So?"
"So I was thinking maybe you'd like to ... "
It was the phrasing that did it, really - not that Mozzie would have considered it otherwise, but it was the phrasing that settled things absolutely and without any room left for doubt or regret. 'I thought that maybe you'd like to'. Better heard as: 'I don't care for it myself, but if you want to, I'm willing to go along'. Like sex with Mozzie was a trip to a museum filled with a style of art Neal didn't really care for.
3. when Mozzie'd been drunk and Neal hadn't been entirely sober
Back in the day, Mozzie'd rarely gotten drunk. He'd enjoyed a glass of good wine, certainly - when someone else was paying for it - but he'd usually limited himself to one or two glasses. A bottle of good wine wasn't for drinking; it was for being sold or traded or used in a con.
Neal didn't work like that. Neal didn't just taste a wine to determine its quality, origin and probable value; he tasted a wine to determine if he'd like to drink it.
Mozzie couldn't say he altogether approved, but he told himself that drinking a bottle of wine someone else had paid for wasn't that different from drinking only a glass. (It was, obviously; a bottle could be stored and passed along while a glass was a limited-time opportunity.)
The thing was, of course, that when you started drinking bottles of wine instead of glasses, chances were that you'd end up drunk - and when you started getting drunk, chances were you'd say or do something you wish you hadn't said or done once you'd stopped being drunk. The kind of something that would have you wake up in an unfamiliar environment, naked, in the company of someone else who was also naked.
"Argh." To call Neal or not to call Neal? "Excuse me, but have you seen my pants?" On second thought, perhaps he ought to find out if calling Neal was even an option first.
"By the lamp." On third thought, perhaps he ought to have checked first whose naked body he'd woken up next to. "Are you ... okay?"
"I am ... hung-over?" Mozzie replied, proud of having gotten the deliberate hesitation just right.
Neal sat up, seemingly completely unbothered by his lack of pants. "That's not what I meant."
"Then you'll have to be clearer in posing your question."
Neal blinked, once. Mozzie liked to think it was because Neal had a headache, too. "We pulled it off, didn't we? The paintings."
"The paintings and the money," Mozzie agreed. "Have you seen my shirt?"
Neal held it out. It looked crumpled, but otherwise unharmed. "Last night ... "
"Socks?"
"Don't you think we should talk about this?" Neal asked. If he sounded hurt, Mozzie told himself, it was only because Mozzie'd taught him a few things about faking his emotions. It didn't mean anything.
4. when Mozzie kept a cool head and Neal fell in love (again)
Neal seemed to think that Mozzie was some sort of idiot. It would have been a little insulting, except that Mozzie knew there was a woman involved, and Neal's intelligence had always seemed to drop dramatically when there were women involved.
Her first name was Kate, her last name was Moreau and her middle name was 'trouble', as far as Mozzie was concerned. She wasn't smart the way Neal was smart, and she wasn't eager to learn the way Neal was eager to learn. Mozzie didn't see how Neal would benefit by the association in any way.
Perhaps it took Neal three weeks to mention her to Mozzie because he didn't see it either.
"I've met this woman," Neal told him over breakfast, twenty-one days after Mozzie'd spent an entirely too exciting night tracking Neal down to the honeymoon suite of the most expensive hotel in town.
"Rich, unpleasant and stupid?" Mozzie asked without much hope.
Neal looked mildly confused, as if he couldn't imagine what possible interest they could have in anyone fitting that description. (The 'stupid' part was optional; smart people got conned, too - it just took a little more work and effort.) "No. I mean a woman."
"Oh," Mozzie said, sipping his tea. "I see."
"She's smart, she's sexy, she likes me - she's incredible."
"Yes - hard to believe any woman would like you." Mozzie didn't bother making his tone ironic; Neal would get that part. "You make her sound like a female version of you."
"Well." Neal smiled. "I guess she kind of is, if you want to look at it that way." Mozzie much prefered not to, actually. Neal was Neal, and other people were ... other people.
"I'm happy for you." And worried, concerned and afraid, but those things were all understood - or would have been, if Neal hadn't been turned into an idiot by a face not nearly as pretty as his own.
Neal's smile turned into something that made Mozzie want to grab a bottle of Bordeaux and lock himself up in his room. "I was thinking we could invite her along on our next job."
5. when Mozzie let go and Neal held on
Neal had changed. Mozzie didn't know if it was simply that he'd never stopped growing up, or if it had been prison, or if it had been the Suit, but he knew that the Neal sitting opposite him now wouldn't crawl into someone's bed in the middle of the night because they'd been flirting with him the afternoon before. He wouldn't get drunk and risk waking up with someone who didn't have the guts to acknowledge what had happened the next morning.
He wouldn't fall in love with a woman who reminded him of all the things he'd been himself, some years ago, before he met Mozzie.
"I know it sounds weird," Neal said, toying with his hat and not looking at Mozzie.
"The truth is often stranger than fiction," Mozzie quoted, because he knew it would make Neal look at him and smile. Neal did, and didn't look away after. "You should do what makes you happy." Neal was old enough to figure that out for himself, Mozzie reasoned. Smart enough - well, who could say? Certainly not Mozzie.
Neal sighed. "I want to know what you think about it. If you were me, would you ... ?"
"If I were you, I'd be you, so I'd be doing what you'd do." Mozzie made a dismissive gesture. "Doesn't work that way, see?"
"Moz." Neal grasped his hand and gave him the kind of look that tended to make women swoon when it was accompanied by declarations of undying love. "Do you think I'm making a mistake here?"