The Attack of the Love Bug
AU: Neal is Elizabeth's nephew. She and Peter have adopted him and raised him as their own. He is thirteen and develops his first crush on the daughter of one of Dad's co-workers. The young couple become a pawn when the co-worker turns out not to be what they think he is. Yes, there will be some angst, and some whump. Mozzie is Peter's C.I. and mentor to the young boy. In this AU Neal isn't a conboy or a thief because he is being raised in a totally different environment.
Chapter 1: Patience Is No Virtue
Neal was up before his alarm. He was looking over his shoes and giving them a final polish. It was the first day of summer vacation. Some of his friends were all about wasting time with bikes or just hanging out making trouble. Neal had his summer lined up. In two weeks, the summer baseball league was starting. He knew that other teens complained about the time their 'weird' parents spent hanging around. Neal was just the opposite. He could still remember the scary years after the death of his father and his mother's descent into alcoholism and mental illness. He still battled monsters at night and part of him feared he would wake up and be his mother, talking to voices no one else heard or seeing visions no one else saw. He didn't bring them up around Mom. He hated to see the pain that would cross her eyes. He knew he wasn't the only one who still carried scars. He subconsciously rubbed a scar on his forearm. He was startled at getting hit in the face with a towel.
"Hurry up and take a shower. It wouldn't look good for you to be late on your first day." Peter looked at Neal from the doorway, his eyes twinkling with mirth. Hughes had agreed to let Neal volunteer this summer as the office "go-for". He had to do some convincing but she finally agreed on the condition that Neal still play his baseball and to keep up on his art lessons over the summer. Peter would have insisted anyway. Baseball helped Neal to bond with him and be exposed to other positive male influences. Neal had been placed in art classes originally as a form of occupational therapy to deal with his childhood. Neal had a lot of talent and they encouraged him in pursuing art. They also both knew that it would always be easier for Neal to express some things by art then through talking.
Neal pulled away the towel with a mock pout. "I heard YOU get up." He felt a slight catch on his towel. "DAD!" He yelled, jumping up and down, pumping his fist. He ran over to the man he felt was his true father. "I got my first whisker! See? See?"
"First, quit jumping so I can honestly take a look." Peter teased. Neal was in a hurry to grow up since a couple of the boys on the team were already sporting 'whiskers and man hairs'. He laughed with Phil that most were microscope at best and some look applied or accentuated with their mother's make – up kits. He remembered being thirteen and waiting for that mystical threshold to move you from being a child into being an adult. He understood the enthusiasm, but then the parental side wasn't in such a hurry to see Neal grow up. He observed the virgin whisker and wasn't sure how to break it to the young pair of sparkling blue eyes. It was actually a piece of golden retriever fur that was stuck to his chin, probably because someone had been reading past lights out and eating candy. "Well, there is something there…" Before Peter could finish talking, the adolescent had bounded into his bathroom. He rolled his eyes upon hearing the very theatrical groan. Everyone thought only girls were drama queens. Adolescent boys didn't admit it, but they had their own fair sure of internal drama queen.
"SATCHMOE!" Neal groaned. He didn't need to be an FBI agent like his Dad to figure out that the hair belonged to the dog. He yelped as he unstuck it. "I'm never going to get any whiskers or man hair. I'm going to be the laughing stock of the showers. I bet I'm going to be like that kid on the comedy show. I'm always going to look this way."
Peter came in and wrapped an arm around Neal's shoulders. "No, you have never had an organ transplant surgery and you are not on any medications to prevent your body from rejecting it. Neal, you are just a normal thirteen year old. You have also only been thirteen for two weeks. You just need to be patient."
"I am. Peter, its been two weeks, three days, eighteen hours, thirty minutes and" Neal hit a button on his watch, "fifty seconds since I had my birthday. Certain species are already reproducing in that time. It's PUBERTY! It should be going by now." Neal stomped his foot. "Billy called me up yesterday and HE is just starting to shave!"
"Hank said he had one suspicious whisker. Thomas convinced Billy he needed to celebrate the time honored male tradtion of the first shave. Thomas got Billy to lather his face and drag the razor through it. It turned out it was a piece of towel fuzz and all poor Billy has to show for it is a bunch of knicks and scratches all over his face."
"Towel fuzz? Ooh I am so getting him at baseball practice. He was all gloating at me over the phone and it really pissed me off." Neal growled, stalking into the shower. He yelped as Peter caught his bare backside with a towel whip. "YEOUCH!"
"You will do no such thing. His face will be embarrassment enough. If I hear you teasing him about it, I will tell them about how you thought Satch's fur was your first."
"You would, wouldn't you?" Neal sulked. He turned on the shower.
"Now, where are the Jolly Rancher wrappers so I can throw them before your mother wakes up." Peter knew El would lecture the boy and Peter didn't think Neal sneaking candy was criminal. Mothers never understood that kids body clocks, especially male body clocks, didn't keep the same meal schedules as the parental ones did.
"On the bed." Neal called above the shower. "I got you some of the sour cherry and apple you like. They're in the nightstand drawer."
Peter smiled. Neal didn't get a lot of spending money but what he did get he liked to share with Peter and Elizabeth. He used to earn an allowance but he would send it all to JoAnne's care home and never had anything left for himself. They had decided they would buy him most of what he wanted and for big ticket items they would give him spending money for helping at the shop or the office and good grades. Neal had worried about JoAnne until they reassured him they would gather together the money he would have earned in allowance and the fifteenth of every month, El and Neal would go visit JoAnne and make sure the care home got the money for incidentals. El had told him how hard the latest visit had been for Neal. They were trying a new medication and her brain wasn't in the current year. She thought that El and herself were teens and Neal was his father. El told Peter how proud she was that Neal had played along with JoAnne's current view of reality and didn't make a scene. She did say he had cried most of the way home. The medication must finally be helping. On her weekly call, she had remembered Neal completing his first year of middle school and had also remembered his thirteenth birthday. Peter and El loved JoAnne, but they would speak to her first to cage her condition to see if it would help or hurt Neal to talk to her.
He smiled at the sketch Neal was working on of both sets of his parents. It was very good. He had told Peter that it was a surprise for El and JoAnne. He wanted both his mothers to have a picture of him with everyone. He was doing his father with very gauzy, ethereal colors. There were not a lot of details for him. Arthur was a subject no one discussed near Neal. Peter felt that the SOB should be glad in whichever rung of Dante's Inferno he was residing that his son even wanted to include him in the picture. Peter had only met him three times, when he and El were married, Neal's baptism, and Neal's first birthday. Arthur had been drunk and abusive to JoAnne each time. After Neal's birthday, he ordered JoAnne to keep her damn family off his property or he would take a shot gun to him. Everyone tried to alert the authorities but it was a small down, Arthur was second in charge of the police force, and no charges could be filed unless JoAnne opted to and she never did. He knew domestic abuse didn't necessarily cause schizophrenia, but he did believe that the treatment sped up her decline.
"You think it looks ok?" Neal asked nervously. He was still toweling off and chewing his lower lip.
"It is very good!" Peter proudly affirmed. "Now, hurry and dress. Mom had to go to the shop early and if you can put some speed into it, we can go to Mamma May's for breakfast." It was their special place and he would let Neal order the chocolate chip pancakes and real whipped cream. El could have 353 days of good nutrition. Peter claimed his 12 for father/son bonding and sugary bad nutrition. He felt they both got a lot out of their father/son 'appointments'. Neal at first wrinkled up his nose that it couldn't be a 'date' because it was a guy thing and date would bring in all kinds of girl germs. Now, he said a date was with your special person, calling a night out with your Dad a date would be seriously creepy.