Late Friday Free For All and an Early bonus Saturday Free for all

[phantisma]

I am terribly sorry everyone. Between getting ready to leave on Monday for my first trip to England, and this horrific cold and the meds for said cold, plus running two challenge comms that have major milestones this week, I completely forgot it was my weekend to host

Comments

[nevcolleil]

Neal can't truly claim that he's never hurt anyone in the process of carrying out a long con or a major theft... Neal never goes after anything petty, and losing anything of worth has to hurt, if only someone's pride.

Neal's never directly hurt someone, though, who wasn't in the process of trying to hurt him at the same time. He's never shot anyone, he's never hit someone over the head; he's only ever fought a fair fight with a willing participant (usually far more willing than Neal.)

So he'd balk at what this... this thug is proposing, even if he wasn't sure that the guy is batshit crazy.

And. Yeah. The guy is totally nuts.

"Neal's not cutting something out of somebody's head," Mozzie says firmly, in lieu of Neal

[nevcolleil]

Neal ups his estimation of Aminci from a general, non-descript "batshit crazy" to something more specific - like paranoid schizophrenic - when Eddie tells him where "the Intersect" is located.

"He works in an electronics store... In Burbank."

Right.

"Neal, I don't like this."

"Neither do I, but if I don't do something, they'll kill him, El."

Neal hasn't called Peter. He can't risk involving the FBI in this until he knows more about where Mozzie is being held and why (paranoid schizophrenic, Aminci may be, but he's a smart one. Neal's transport in and out of the building where Aminci is holding Mozzie involved two separate cars, a bag over Neal's head, and a driver with a love of low budget faux-Italian opera (played entirely too loud on the car stereo to be appreciated, even for what it is.)

Neal has called Peter's wife, though. So at least, if worse comes to worst and Neal doesn't show up at the office Monday morning, Peter will know where to start looking for him

[nevcolleil]

Neal isn't certain that he's ever stepped foot into a BuyMore. Not that he's too good to shop in a department store (where Neal came from, he would have had to shop-lift to get his hands on most anything of value that the BuyMore carries) but he's not really a tech guy. He's only ever bought tech for the purposes of pulling off a job, and the kind of technology he used then didn't exactly come shrink-wrapped on aisle 12 for 9.99.

He steps into one today, supposedly with the goal of shop-lifting a person... And the person in question is the first thing he sees. Or, more accurately, he sees a poster on the wall announcing "Chuck" Bartowski as the Employee of the Month. And Neal sighs. Chuck is a pretty average-looking guy, handsome in a boyish way, with dark brown curls and a sort of goofy smile.

Not only does Neal's kidnappee sound entirely innocent, but he looks it too

[lost_witness]

LKjkldfjdslkfjlasdj...I love the setup, Mozzie and Neal and the lines they won't cross, and wouldn't want each other to cross. And, of course, Neal lets El in on it. ;) Heh, oh Shaw, I miss the early S3 him before he became their James Bond-esque villain.

Thank you for the fill, I would love to see where this leads to! If you're inclined to continue, I will be happy to read it. :D

[nevcolleil]

:D I'm glad you like this! I may continue it :) I liked Shaw, too. I think it's kind of cool that he's this tragic character who Chuck used to look up to and now is mortal enemies with, but that dynamic would be so much more interesting if the show had more time to develop it.

[misura]

Aw, Neal! Daring to enter the jungles of Buymoria and encountering the dreaded Shaw beast, who - well, still stuck on S2, so as clueless as Neal there.

Loved Chuck reminding Neal of Peter - 'at his most suspicious', indeed. *g* (And hey, Chuck as the employee of the month! Awesome!)

[nevcolleil]

Thanks for reading this :D It may work to your advantage not knowing Shaw in this case because you can read the character and not subconsciously anticipate him doing something evil :p (in early season 3 he was a good guy and a real source of inspiration and support for Chuck)(in late season 3, things went decidedly south between the two of them)

[daria234]

LOVE this!!!