In my last update, Mozzie knew about Neal/Bryce's inner nerd. In the first chapter, he didn't. So how did this happen?

Bryce knew he should have been exercising. Or doing target practice or surveillance practice or any of the million things a spy should do on his off time.

Instead, Neal Caffrey just stared at the TV.

He wanted to turn it on, to face the music of what was inevitable. but he just wasn't ready for it. Last time he had spent an entire day sniffling over any mention of anything even remotely related to it.

But this time, this time, he was going to be a man about it. He had faced down terrorists, art thieves, kidnappers, and Sarah Walker when she had just woken up. He should be able to do this one simple thing.

Taking a deep breath, he prepared to press play.

Instead, he heard a thumping coming from the stairs outside his apartment. He lunged for the off button on his tv, but somehow ended up getting his foot tangled in the throw blanket from the couch.

He landed hard on the floor with a thump, getting even more tangled up as he tried to reach the TV and protect his secret.

Maybe he really should have been exercising, he huffed as he lay, mostly immobile, in his uncomfortable perch on the floor.

"Neal, I just met a guy on the street who tried to sell me an Iphone. An Iphone! Did hanging out with the suit to much make me look like a guy who wants a-"

Mozzie broke off, squinting at Neal. Bryce folded his arms, determined to make it look like he meant to be tangled in a blanket on the floor in front of the TV. Mozzie stared at him, then glanced at the TV, which was still paused, taunting Neal.

"Neal?"
He asked, not making a move to help him up. Although he didn't need help. Obviously. So Neal settled on widening his blue eyes to innocence as much as possible.

"Yeah, Moz?"
He asked, trying to free his hands from where they had somehow been caught in the throw blanket.

"Were you watching Doctor Who without me?!"

Bryce almost denied it, but with a glance at the screen, still paused condemningly on the beginning of the eleventh Doctor's regeneration episode, he sighed and simply dropped his head on the floor with a thump.

Instead of being bombarded with questions about his newly-revealed nerdiness, Neal was met with another disapproving glare and a sentence he didn't expect.

"Come on! I understand why you hide your Comic-Con tickets and your limited edition Buffy the Vampire slayer comics, but really, you were going to watch this without me?!"

Neal was not surprised often. He had carefully laid out plans for his plans, and backup plans for those plans. So when he was surprised, he was surprised. "Wait. What?"

Mozzie rolled his eyes and huffed.

"It's time to come out of the nerd closet, Neal."

"The nerd closet?"

The shorter man settled himself on the half of the couch, pretending he wasn't reveling in Neal's confusion.

"The nerd closet, Neal. Anyone with half a brain that isn't clouded with bureaucracy can tell you're buried under a mountain of action figures and cosplay in the nerd closet. Now get untangled from the blankets and press play on this depressingly sad Doctor Who episode."

Like a cat, Neal pretended it was his own idea when he artfully untangled himself, scooted onto the couch he had abruptly vacated, and pulled the blanket that had previously ensnared him around himself.

He hit play on The Time of the Doctor.

And that was how it came to be that two grown men were sobbing into their wine over a TV show at two in the morning.