White Collar Fic - First Jobs
Apr. 20th, 2011 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elrhiarhodanTitle: First Jobs
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elrhiarhodan
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Mozzie
Fandom: White Collar
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~800
Summary: How Mozzie, small time criminal with big time dreams, got his start
______________________
Mozzie was not a native New Yorker, despite his deep affinity for the City and its denizens. No, Moz was from the Motor City, a hard place for an orphan – particularly a scrawny one with more brains than sense. When he was eight, he witnessed his first serious crime – the family he was living with killed one of his foster siblings. That was also the start of his deep mistrust of the system. He had called the police – he snitched – but they never came, nothing ever happened, and little Joey Whatshisname disappeared into a Detroit landfill like so much garbage.
And despite everything – the beatings, the abuse, Moz rose above it. He stuffed himself full of all the learning he could, and not just legitimate stuff like math and history and science, but how to recreate things, and even how to make things that seemed real, but weren’t.
At eleven, the first thing Moz faked was his birth certificate. It was surprisingly easy to get a new name, birth date (which made him a year and a half older) and social security number, all legitimate documents. His real name – the one his mother gave him before she dumped him on the sidewalk in front of a church – existed only in the records for Child Services and the decaying elementary school he was supposed to attend.
When he was twelve (in reality, not but not according to his beautiful new birth certificate), the second thing he faked was the paperwork needed to prove he lived in a middle-class suburb, rather than in a dirty, broken down group home on 8 Mile Road. This got him into a middle school where teachers actually taught and students wanted to learn; where there were books in the library and he didn’t have to worry about getting knifed in the hallways. Yeah – his still got his ass kicked in gym (he told himself it didn’t matter that he always got picked last for team sports), but he was first in his class in all the academic subjects, even though he was eighteen months younger than everyone else (a secret he relished).
The third thing he faked was his parents. The guidance counselor at his shiny upper-middle class middle school was actually smart enough to realize that the very bright young man needed more of a challenge, and thought that an academic promotion would be a good idea (even though skipping grades was generally discouraged). The problem was that the guidance counselor wanted to talk to his parents first, and not just on the telephone. Moz needed a handsome young couple, prosperous – maybe even with a baby – to come in and agree that he should skip ninth grade.
That took a little more effort and he had a limited time to do it. But he was nothing if not creative. He had new neighbors in that row house on 8 Mile, a young couple who had gotten laid off when Ford closed a plant – they weren’t union – but lower management, and not only lost their status, but their home as well. That they had a baby daughter suited Moz even better. In exchange for helping them fill out the forms for WIC support and unemployment and sharing some of street knowledge, they agreed to pretend to be his parents for an hour.
Throughout his high school career, Moz forged signatures on report cards and consent forms and earned a relatively lucrative salary as a high school fixer. It would have been easier if he was a charmer, but smarts worked too, and it didn’t take much to get grades and attendance reports changed.
The young couple who had posed as his parents was grateful for his help and when they recovered from their long cold fall, they offered to take him in – for a little while, until he was ready to start college. They were going to New York, for a new start.
Moz thought about accepting their offer – their domesticity was tempting and the longing for a set of parents was so very tempting, and Mozzie liked their little daughter, Elizabeth too, but he wasn’t a guy who wanted or needed the encumbrance of a family anymore. Not now. He had plans – plans that didn’t involve mommies and daddies and baby sisters.
There were guys who’d could use his skills – and not just for faking things, but for making things happen. Harvard was going to cost a lot of money, and these men paid quite well.
Author:
elrhiarhodanRating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Mozzie
Fandom: White Collar
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~800
Summary: How Mozzie, small time criminal with big time dreams, got his start
Mozzie was not a native New Yorker, despite his deep affinity for the City and its denizens. No, Moz was from the Motor City, a hard place for an orphan – particularly a scrawny one with more brains than sense. When he was eight, he witnessed his first serious crime – the family he was living with killed one of his foster siblings. That was also the start of his deep mistrust of the system. He had called the police – he snitched – but they never came, nothing ever happened, and little Joey Whatshisname disappeared into a Detroit landfill like so much garbage.
And despite everything – the beatings, the abuse, Moz rose above it. He stuffed himself full of all the learning he could, and not just legitimate stuff like math and history and science, but how to recreate things, and even how to make things that seemed real, but weren’t.
At eleven, the first thing Moz faked was his birth certificate. It was surprisingly easy to get a new name, birth date (which made him a year and a half older) and social security number, all legitimate documents. His real name – the one his mother gave him before she dumped him on the sidewalk in front of a church – existed only in the records for Child Services and the decaying elementary school he was supposed to attend.
When he was twelve (in reality, not but not according to his beautiful new birth certificate), the second thing he faked was the paperwork needed to prove he lived in a middle-class suburb, rather than in a dirty, broken down group home on 8 Mile Road. This got him into a middle school where teachers actually taught and students wanted to learn; where there were books in the library and he didn’t have to worry about getting knifed in the hallways. Yeah – his still got his ass kicked in gym (he told himself it didn’t matter that he always got picked last for team sports), but he was first in his class in all the academic subjects, even though he was eighteen months younger than everyone else (a secret he relished).
The third thing he faked was his parents. The guidance counselor at his shiny upper-middle class middle school was actually smart enough to realize that the very bright young man needed more of a challenge, and thought that an academic promotion would be a good idea (even though skipping grades was generally discouraged). The problem was that the guidance counselor wanted to talk to his parents first, and not just on the telephone. Moz needed a handsome young couple, prosperous – maybe even with a baby – to come in and agree that he should skip ninth grade.
That took a little more effort and he had a limited time to do it. But he was nothing if not creative. He had new neighbors in that row house on 8 Mile, a young couple who had gotten laid off when Ford closed a plant – they weren’t union – but lower management, and not only lost their status, but their home as well. That they had a baby daughter suited Moz even better. In exchange for helping them fill out the forms for WIC support and unemployment and sharing some of street knowledge, they agreed to pretend to be his parents for an hour.
Throughout his high school career, Moz forged signatures on report cards and consent forms and earned a relatively lucrative salary as a high school fixer. It would have been easier if he was a charmer, but smarts worked too, and it didn’t take much to get grades and attendance reports changed.
The young couple who had posed as his parents was grateful for his help and when they recovered from their long cold fall, they offered to take him in – for a little while, until he was ready to start college. They were going to New York, for a new start.
Moz thought about accepting their offer – their domesticity was tempting and the longing for a set of parents was so very tempting, and Mozzie liked their little daughter, Elizabeth too, but he wasn’t a guy who wanted or needed the encumbrance of a family anymore. Not now. He had plans – plans that didn’t involve mommies and daddies and baby sisters.
There were guys who’d could use his skills – and not just for faking things, but for making things happen. Harvard was going to cost a lot of money, and these men paid quite well.
