[it is such a natural idea for the relationship they have!]

It really is. And it's such a fun canvas for all sorts of quandaries about autonomy and responsibility, which are issues they have in spades anyway.

And terrifying Neal is always good fun.

And oh, misverse, misverse, misverse. On the one hand, it has some of the things I've been most happy to scribble out. On the other, wow, I may have bitten off more than I can chew with that one. I write in this extremely non-linear, "Oh, I have a line that would sound good here – and now I'm fascinated by this scene over here – and wait, if I do this, I can put in thematic brackets at the beginning and the end – and hey, I can add one more thematic reference in this scene in the middle" way, so half the time I discover that I have beginning bits and end bits that I'd love to weave together, but that there's an implied story of 60k words between them and whoa how is that going to get there.

But then I get to do things like this:

"Bored?"

"I swear to God, Neal," Peter says, so fast that he must have had that bottled up, "I never thought the chance to take some time off could be this boring. You guys are neck-deep in diamond heists and art thefts–"

"–copyright infringement and mortgage fraud," Neal corrects.

"–and I'm catching up on back issues of Popular Science."

"Oh, did you see the article about the drones that deliver burritos?" Neal asks. Peter shoots him a look, and he explains, "Mozzie."

"Can he even eat burritos?"

"There are places that make them dairy-free."

Peter chews on that, for a moment. "...never mind. I don't care that much. What have you got for me?"

With the banter going, there's a facade of normalcy that Neal isn't sure he wants to interrupt. He makes a vague gesture with his hat. "I know you're not supposed to be in the field, but surely there's some desk work you could be doing in the office?" He puts on an innocent look. "Leaving aside the fact that no one should want to be in an office if they had another option."

Peter gives him the expected exasperated look, at that, then shakes his head. "Hughes thinks that if he lets me into the office, I won't be able to help myself and the next thing he knows I'll be arm-wrestling Columbian drug runners or something. He's also reminded me that between medical leave, accumulated sick days, and vacation days, I could disappear until the end of the calendar year."

"Please don't," Neal says, and Peter raises his eyebrows. "I think Diana will have found a reason to kill me before then."

...and I the chaos all seems worthwhile again.