Chapter Text
Neal lay in bed on his side, staring glumly at the wall. His butt hurt. It had been over an hour since Peter had left him, scrubbing a fond hand through Neal’s curls before heading home to El, and Neal had stripped down to his underwear and tucked himself into bed. It was too early to sleep, really, but he was done with today. He’d been shot at, shouted at, lectured, and finally spanked like a toddler. And to make matters worse, it had actually hurt. It still hurt, a constant, prickling burn that especially made itself known whenever he tried to roll onto his back. He hadn’t stooped to a cold shower yet, but that was only because he couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed. Things couldn’t possibly be any worse.
“Neal!”
Things could be worse. Neal groaned, and buried his face in his pillow. “Go away, Mozzie.”
“We were supposed to be meeting at Emiliano’s; tasting night, remember? You didn’t answer any of your phones, I thought maybe something happened with the op.” Neal heard him approach and groaned into his pillow. “Did something happen with the op?”
“No. Go away.”
“Because you’re lying in bed at seven PM on a Friday, and all three of your active phones are on the bedside table.”
Answering them would have required him to move.
“Neal.”
“The op didn’t go so well,” Neal admitted, remembering the shock of the bullet flying past his ear. He sat up, trying not to wince.
“Are you hurt?”
“Not really.”
“What does that mean? Do you need me to get a doctor here? No-name-Nick owes me a favor, I could-”
“I don’t need a doctor, Moz,” Neal sighed. “I blew the op, okay? Peter wasn’t happy about it.”
“He beat you.” Mozzie’s voice went cold.
“No! No.” Oddly enough, Neal felt the need to defend Peter. “Don’t laugh, but he… he spanked me, okay? For risking my life, or whatever. I… picked up something I shouldn’t have, and next thing I knew, the guy’s bodyguards were pointing guns in my face and SWAT was busting in. Peter took me home and spanked me. I’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
“Show me.”
“Moz…”
“I need to see you’re not hurt.”
Muttering under his breath, Neal relented. He didn’t want Mozzie tanking Peter’s credit score. He tugged the duvet down and rolled onto his stomach, pulling one leg of his boxers up to show one reddened buttock, and then the other. “Happy now?”
Mozzie inspected it. “It certainly looks fine,” he said, begrudgingly. “A bit red, but no bruising.”
Neal tugged his boxers back into place and rolled over again, pulling the duvet back over himself. “Still hurt,” he said. “Moz, Peter said if I do anything like that again he’ll do it with a hairbrush. A hairbrush!”
“Better than a bullet to the skull, at least.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Mozzie backed off. “Nothing! But you do seem to have a habit of impulsive behaviour in dangerous situations. What was it you saw? If it was that valuable, I could have gone back in for you.”
“It wasn’t valuable, just some Pandora thing with a charm I hadn’t seen before,” Neal said. “What?”
“You risked your life… for Pandora?”
“I was hardly risking my life, they wouldn’t even have noticed if-”
“Pandora!”
“I think it was a custom.”
“Neal!”
“What?”
Mozzie muttered something under his breath. It sounded suspiciously like ‘maybe the fed was right’.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“If you even imply that this was somehow deserved-”
“I would never say such a thing. State-sanctioned corporal punishment is an infringement on the rights of man.”
“Well, alright then,” Neal said, mollified.
“June has Arnica in her medicine cabinet,” Mozzie said. “And Neal… a word of advice from a man raised in an orphanage in the 60s. Don’t let yourself get spanked with a hairbrush.”