"Are you going in there first or me?" asked El, as both her and Peter stand outside the guest room. "You've been standing there a good twenty minutes. Does someone need to tell you to cowboy up for once?"
"No, I'm going...this is just not something I expected to tell Neal." said Peter, sighing and opening the door. He walks in and sees his partner dozing with a book on his chest. Neal must have woken up at some point after El left and fallen back asleep while waiting on them. Taking a deep breath, Peter nudges Neal. "Neal, hey, wake up."
"Hm, uh yeah." said Neal with a start, knocking the book onto the bed next to him. He moves it to the nightstand. "I was waiting on you two as El thought she heard your phone rang. Who called at this late?" He adds a bit jokingly, "Surely the team wouldn't think a mortgage fraud would be THAT important."
Peter sits down on the bed next to Neal. "Neal, I have to tell you something and it's serious."
"What is it, Peter?" said Neal, noticing Peter's serious face and glancing at El before looking back at Peter. "What's going on?"
"Mozzie called me. He went by June's to pick up some things after dropping off the burner phones." said Peter, trying to figure out how to tell Neal what's going on. "Keetes followed him and the gist of it is in self-defense Mozzie shot and killed him."
"W-w-what?" said Neal, sitting farther up quickly and holding his abdomen. "No, this has to be a joke, Peter. Mozzie wouldn't hurt anyone." He paused for just a second. "Is Mozzie okay?"
"I'm serious, Neal, I wouldn't lie to you about anything this big." said Peter, wanting to give his friend a hug looking at the pain in his eyes. "And it really happened. Diana is taking care of it, but it should be pretty cut and dry. We had to get rid of a burner phone already though."
Neal doesn't ask, figuring it was for Mozzie and figures he'll find out eventually. "Will he be arrested?" asked Neal, knowing even the idea of it drives Mozzie insane.
"Not if I have anything to say about it...or the team." said Peter. "It's just more knowing you both will have to live with it." Neal gives Peter a confused look and Peter realizes he left out probably the biggest piece. "It all took place in your apartment at June's."
"Oh man." said Neal, burying his face in his hands. He looks up a couple moments later. "Someone has to tell June...and wait, with what gun?" Neal looks genuinely startled and while Peter knows Neal could fake it, this seemed very real.
"I'll make sure she knows." said Peter, "And it appears it belonged to likely Byron, so I guess you could say it's June's. She's out of town, so as long as it's registered she should be fine considering she's not even in this state."
El sits down on the bed on the other side of Neal. "Are you okay, sweetie? That's probably a dumb question, but considering."
"For once, I have to say I feel speechless." said Neal, letting everything he's been told in the last few minutes roll through his mind as it was very shocking. "So I really don't know, El."
El wraps her arm around Neal, while Peter moves to where he can put his arm around Neal as well - both Burke's flanking Neal on the bed. All three are lost in thought and they all knew there would be no more sleep tonight.