Author's Note: I finally got an update together yay!

I took a break from writing in January and was planning on updating my fics in February but then my mental health got even worse and I've been struggling with it ever since.
I appreciate all the follows/favourites/reviews I've gotten and they've been my motivation to get this together.
It might not be the best update but at least it's an update :)

CHAPTER 18

It was clear that trying to get Neal to go to bed alone wasn't the best idea but they didn't give up.
Once Mozzie had gotten sold on the idea to stay up a little longer, he didn't want to give it up and Neal had to learn to go to bed alone sooner or later.
It was Mrs. Suit that came up with another idea and they decided to test it out the next evening.
At first Neal had been reluctant to go to bed, scared that they would try to make him go to bed alone again, but once Mozzie changed into his pyjamas and got into bed, Neal calmed down and did the same.
The adults turned on Neal's night light, said goodnight and then went downstairs as per usual while Mozzie closed his eyes and pretended to try to fall asleep.
His brother snuggled up to him, one arm around his teddy and the other grabbing a handful of Mozzie's shirt.
It only took a couple of minutes before Neal's breathing evened out and the grip on his shirt loosened.

"Neal?"

He whispered but the four-year-old didn't answer him.

"Neal?"

He repeated, a little louder this time but there was still no answer.
Mozzie carefully pulled his hand away from his shirt and pulled back the covers before getting out of bed.
Neal stirred and he froze but when there were no signs of him waking up, Mozzie carefully sneaked out of the room.
He walked down the stairs and into the living room where the adults were waiting for him.
They smiled at him, realizing that this idea had been successful.
Mozzie sat down on the couch next to Mrs. Suit while she pressed play.
She had scoured the internet and found the conspiracy theory documentary that he had missed last night.
Mozzie had become completely engrossed with the documentary and Mrs. Suit seemed entertained by it while the suit constantly seemed to be shaking his head, not at all believing the theories presented.
Even if it was just sitting and watching an hour long documentary, Mozzie felt sort of free.
Of course, he had never seen caring for his brother as a burden but it felt amazing to take a break from constantly watching him and worrying about him.
His little brother didn't even cross his mind as he watched the documentary, he knew that Neal was safe and that right now he didn't need to worry about their uncle or any other threat.
Right now he could just completely relax and watch the documentary.

Since the tactic had worked out so well they decided to continue this way at least until they felt ready to try the first method again.
The second evening went just as well but the third evening didn't work out as planned.
They were in the middle of watching a very interesting movie when they heard a loud cry from upstairs.

"MOZZIE!"

Neal yelled, causing his big brother to run up the stairs faster than he thought was humanly possible.
The kid was sitting up in bed, clutching his teddy close to his chest and shaking as tears rolled down his cheeks.
Mozzie sat down next to him and pulled the sobbing boy into a tight hug.
This had happened a few times before and every single time Neal woke up alone and couldn't see his brother he had a complete breakdown, believing that Mozzie had abandoned him.

"Left me."

Neal mumbled in between the sobs.

"I didn't leave you, kid. I was just downstairs."

His words did nothing to comfort him, in fact they just seemed to make it worse.

"You left me!"

Neal repeated, this time almost yelling, before he pushed Mozzie away from him.
Okay that was new, Neal had always had a breakdown when he woke up alone but he had never shown any anger towards Mozzie.
The four-year-old turned to the Burkes, who had followed Mozzie upstairs but had stopped in the doorway.
Neal put his tiny arms up in the air, reaching for them, and the suit, who was the first on to react, walked over and scooped up the crying child.
Neal clung onto the suit and as the agent started to whisper comforting words and rub his back, the crying ceased.
Mozzie's eyes watered, ever since their mother's death he had always been the only one who could comfort him no matter how upset he was.
When Neal finally settled down and fell asleep in the suit's arms, Mozzie had lost all of his interest in the movie and instead of finishing it, he chose to go to bed.

The next morning Mozzie expected everything to be okay again, he expected Neal to have gotten over it.
It wasn't like Mozzie had actually abandoned him.
Neal however had not gotten over it, instead he was sulking and kept sending Mozzie angry glares.
Mozzie tried to be patient, it was fully understandable that Neal had abandonment issues.

"Kid, come on. I didn't abandon you, I just left you alone for a little while."

He pleaded as he helped Neal put his t-shirt on but the kid didn't respond, instead he just huffed angrily and stuck his tongue out.
Mozzie sighed, this was probably the 10th time he had pleaded with the boy and they had only been awake for a couple of minutes.

"I just wanted some time for myself, Neal. Sometimes I need a break from you."

He regretted his words as soon as they left his mouth because of course him wanting a break from Neal would hurt the kid who wanted to be around his brother every hour of the day.
Mozzie didn't even have the time to explain himself before the four-year-old left the room.
After that Neal decided to completely ignore his older brother, he acted as if Mozzie simply didn't exist.
Mozzie had only had Neal ignore him once or twice before but it was always painful to be treated like air, especially since the younger boy was so stubborn that it was almost impossible to get him to acknowledge you.
He remembered how he had once accidentally broken Neal's favourite toy and how that had resulted in the younger ignoring him for three straight days until he decided to forgive him.

"Neal, please can't we just talk about it?"

Mozzie begged his brother as they sat in the suit's office but as expected Neal showed no sign of even hearing him.
The eight-year-old sighed deeply just as the suit came into the room.

"He still ignoring you?"

Mozzie nodded and the agent turned to Neal.

"Can you please talk to your brother again? That's so much more fun than being mad don't you think?"

He tried but just like all the other times the adults had tried, Neal just shook his head.
The suit gave up and walked over to Mozzie.

"We found a school for you."

He announced and Mozzie swore that his heart stopped.
The suit had talked about finding a school before but Mozzie hadn't expected him to find one this soon.

"You are not going to start immediately. I'm going to make sure that it's completely safe first and you're going to have to do a placement test first since you haven't been in school for a while."
"Do I have to?"

The agent looked at him and probably notice how nervous he was.

"Don't you think it would be fun to go to school and spend time with kids your age?"

He tried but his words only made him more nervous.
Mozzie quickly shook his head, thinking back to his time in school before his mom passed away.
He had hated every single second of it.
The other kids had laughed at him, making fun of him because he wore big glasses and because he chose to spend the recess reading instead of playing with them.
He did not want to go back to that, he did not want to be called a nerd and have his book ripped from his hands or have someone take his glasses away from him.
Mozzie looked over at his sweet little brother, Neal had stayed home with his mother before but now he would be forced to go to preschool.
He definitely didn't want to expose Neal to that environment.
How would the other kids react to a child that rarely talked?
They would probably laugh at him and call him names and Mozzie couldn't stand the thought of his precious little brother feeling the same way that he used to.

"We're not going to school."

Mozzie said and the agent sighed heavily.

"Mozzie."
The suit started to say but Mozzie got up from the chair and left the office before he had the chance to say anything else.

The ride back to the house was tense, despite thinking that his little brother was immature Mozzie had decided to take a page out of his book and completely ignore the suit.
This meant that the entire ride was spent in silence as Neal was busy ignoring Mozzie, Mozzie was ignoring the suit and the agent had just given up on them both.
Mozzie knew that sooner or later he would be forced to go back to school, it was the law after all, but he wanted to drag out the process as much as possible.
Even if the thought of running away in order to avoid being forced to go to school was very, very tempting, he knew that he couldn't throw away the chance of having a real home.
Besides running into their uncle or living on the street was worse than going to school.
When they arrived at the house Neal went upstairs while the suit went into the kitchen to greet his wife and help her with dinner.
Mozzie didn't know who to follow so he ended up sitting on the living room floor petting Satchmo, who was happy for the attention, instead.
Soon the dinner was ready and they all sat down at the table as a tension spread through the room.
Neal seemed to be sulking and wasn't even talking to the adults, the suit seemed to be very tense and poor Mrs. Suit was just caught in the middle of it.
At one point she even looked like she was about to cry and Mozzie felt bad for contributing to the tension in the room.
When she agreed to take them in she probably didn't imagine getting two kids that were this hard to deal with.
That's why Mozzie decided to strike up a conversation with Mrs. Suit who immediately looked a little happier while the agent seemed to relax ever so slightly.
He felt a little less bad when he managed to make her smile but it wouldn't surprise him if this would make the Burkes even more eager to find another home for them.