#I wasn’t even in NCIS fandom and I knew this

[bucksboobs]

I’m sorry but imagine saying something as bold as “people don’t ship the men on NCIS” when you run a website called Fangirlish.com. You’re not even Fangirl-esque if you don’t know the history people in the NCIS fandom wanting that old man to bang his subordinates.

[wanderingsoul6261]

Match has been Made

credit for gif goes to k-wame

james beaufort x reader

synopsis: Lydia plays matchmaker for James and her friend

Note: I have Jury Duty next week, so I want to try and get everything done before then, but if not, I will try to have most finished so that I can post them periodically through next week so that I can still provide y'all with content. I also want to start writing for other fandoms, such as Call of Duty, NCIS, Criminal Minds, Uncharted, etc) so if you are interested in more works, keep an eye out for those.

Not a big fan of this one honestly. Might delete it later and do a better version of it. Just didn't have any other ideas for it, so if anyone has a better way for this to have gone, let me know, and I will definitely consider redoing it after some of the others are completed.

Lydia wasn't as stupid as James and Y/N. Maybe stupid wasn't the right word, as oblivious seemed fitting, not that the two were stupid. Although, they were definitely oblivious. Lydia had wanted to strangle them both, considering how blind they were. James, staring all the time at Y/N, not thinking anyone would notice. Lydia definitely noticed. And then Y/N, not even noticing James looking at her and how long he would do so. Lydia also noticed that too. 

Many who also noticed had just thought that maybe Y/N wasn’t interested in him, but Lydia had taken to disagreeing. Y/N was a good friend of Lydia, and therefore, she was also a good friend of James. Y/N and James had initially butted heads quite often at the start of the friendship between the two girls, but over time, it had gradually stopped, and had actually turned into a playful teasing. 

Now, Lydia could tell James was smitten with Y/N just as much as she was smitten with him, and this had sparked Lydia’s plan into getting the two by themselves and admitting their feelings. 

Initially, it also meant getting their driver, Percy involved. He would have a large part to play in the plan, helping her get one or both of them to the Manor, hopefully when their parents were away on their upcoming business trip, and then leaving with Lydia. Percy and Lydia would then find something to pass a few hours by. Whether she went over to a friend’s house, or she treated Percy to a friendly night out for all his work done for the family. 

Percy was inclined to help, considering he too had noticed what was, or the lack of what was happening between James and Y/N. It didn’t matter how he spent the time afterwards. Him leaving the manor would then mean that neither James or Y/N had a way to leave. 

It was a sound plan, and Lydia knew that the probability of it working was high. 

—

“Hey! Y/N!” Y/N turned around at the sound of her name being called. Behind her, Lydia hurried over to her. She stopped, waiting for her friend to catch up so that they could walk side by side. “What are you doing tonight?” Lydia asked. Y/N shrugged. 

“Nothing really. Mom and dad are home but I don’t have anything planned with them. I was probably just going to watch some movies and call it an early night.” 

“Would you want to come over for a bit? Do some swimming. Maybe stay the night? Our parents are out of town for a few nights for a business trip.” Lydia had explained. 

“Who all is going to be there?” She had asked. 

“Just me and James, plus you. Figured the three of us could hang out without the suffocation of a party.” Lydia had explained. 

Y/N thought about it. Admittedly, getting out of the house for a little bit had seemed like a better idea. Lydia could tell she was contemplating it. The way Y/N tilted her head and bit the inside of her cheek, some of the very few mannerisms she possessed that gave away when she was truly thinking about something told her so. Mannerisms that James had appeared to have fallen in love with. 

After several moments, and pausing in the hallway of Maxton, Y/N had given Lydia her answer. 

“Alright. I’ll come over.” 

“Cool! I’ll have Percy pick you up at about 5!” Y/N agreed, telling her that that worked for her, and left her friend behind so that she could move on to her next class, which she also shared with James. 

Lydia watched as Y/N met up with James outside of their next class, a smirk on her face, and then left quickly, before either of them noticed that she was watching. 

“Hey.” James smiled at Y/N as they walked into the classroom. “So did Lydia talk to you yet?” He asked, as they set their stuff down on the shared desk and took their respective seats. “Something about just us three. Swimming. Maybe some movies. Something like that.” 

“Yea, actually. Just before I came here. I told her that I should be free to come over. She said she would send Percy later to come get me.” 

“What about your driver?” 

“Sick. I gave them a few days off.” Y/N flipped through her notes, trying to find where she left off. James watched as she did so, his eyes on her fingers as they flipped through the pages, before he turned his attention to her face. She was concentrated, focused on trying to find where she left off in her note taking. 

“What time did she tell you?” 

“Percy will be at my place at five.” He nodded slightly as she finally looked up at him. “She said I could also potentially stay the night. Mentioned something about how your parents are out of town for a business trip?” 

“Yea. Meetings with potential business partners for their next clothing line.” He explained. “They will be gone most of the week.” She nodded in understanding. James flashed her a smile, one that she had returned as their professor walked in, introducing their topic for the day.

—

Percy was a few minutes early, rolling the car in the driveway of her family manor at about quarter to five. Stepping out of the car, he greeted her politely, flashing her a small smile as she advanced over to the car. 

“Good evening, Percy.” She flashed a smile back at him, thanking him as he opened the back door for her. He had taken her overnight bag, putting it in the trunk of the car. 

“Good evening, Miss Y/L/N. I hope you are well.” 

“I am. Thank you. I hope Lydia and James are treating you well.” She teased. He flashed her a smile of amusement as another voice rang out, just as she climbed into the vehicle. 

“We are treating him just fine.” Y/N was met face to face by James, who flashed her an amused smile as she took her seat next to him. The door closed and the two flashed each other a smile. 

“Miss me?” she asked. Percy climbed into the driver side seat, putting the car into drive and taking the three of them back to the Beaufort manor. James smiled brightly at her.

“Always.” 

Percy watched them from the rearview mirror, taking in the interactions to the two of them. Lydia had been right, about the way the two of them look at each other. The way James looked at her when she was talking, like he wanted to take in everything she was saying and have it memorized. The way Y/N watched as he drew in his sketchbook or the way he watched her as she watched the numerous trees and other flora as they drove. Lydia was right when she told Percy all those days ago about how oblivious they were. The emotions in their faces surely show how they feel about the other, but both are too oblivious to say or do anything.  He smirked, turning his eyes back on the road. 

Arriving at the manor, Percy had stayed with the car, while James and Y/N had gotten out. James took her bag inside, handing it to another person to take to Lydia's room, where she would likely be sleeping. 

Lydia was already outside at the pool when the two finally joined her. She looked up and back at them, a smile on her face. Standing up from where she was dipping her toes into the pool, she walked over to them. She bypassed James, who only playfully rolled his eyes as she hugged Y/N. 

“Glad you can make it. You guys enjoy the water and snacks. I’m going to go and get changed. Be back in a jiffy.” And with that, Lydia was gone. James, who was already wearing some swim trunks with a t-shirt when they picked up Y/N, had taken off his shirt, leaving Y/N the only one who had yet to show her swimsuit. 

Her eyes were on James body for several seconds and had stayed focused on him for several more seconds after he had jumped into the pool.

Y/N had been smart, having put her swimsuit on underneath her clothes before Percy and James arrived at her home. She had slipped off her shirt, exposing her skin and the bikini top that she wore. James had caught sight, his eyes on her before he dipped underneath the water before she could catch him staring. When he had come back up, she had already pulled her shorts off, fully revealing herself in her two-piece bikini. 

While James slowly swam around the perimeter of the pool, Y/N relaxed on a floaty, drifting around the pool. The two relaxed like that for a little bit until one of them realized that one of them was still missing. 

“James.” He had looked over at Y/N, who now sat on the end of the pool, a water bottle in her hand. 

“Hmm?” 

“Did Lydia come out at all?” She asked. “I would have figured that she would be out here by now.” James stopped swimming, moving to stand in the shallow end of the pool. He looked past her, towards the open doors that led into the house. 

“No I haven’t.” He finally answered. His eyes drifted back towards Y/N, where some droplets of water rolled down her stomach. Her hair was wet, meaning that she had slipped into the water at some point and he didn’t notice. She tilted her head in thought, turning her body around as well to look inside the house. 

James watched as she stood up and walked over to the chairs. She didn’t find any sign that Lydia might have even been there in the first place, and no phone was found. 

“Her phone isn’t here. Maybe she has it. I can give her a call.” Y/N walked back over to her own phone, picked it up, and easily dialed Lydia’s number. James watched as she pressed her phone to her ear, but after several seconds, put her phone back down. “No answer.” 

“She’s probably okay. Probably just got caught up doing something else. Maybe she’s taking a nap so she can conserve energy for movies later.” James reassured her, and Y/N agreed. James wasn’t sure where his sister went, and it definitely wasn’t a part of their plans. 

Unless it was a part of her plans. 

Y/N shrugged and had gone back to sit on the side of the pool, her feet dangling in the water. James went back to floating around the pool. His eyes moved over to Y/N several times. They were alone and she was right there. He could say what he wanted and make his move. If he was rejected, no one would know. 

Her eyes were on the book she was reading, invested in the pages and the words that told the story within them. He hovered in the water for several moments before he finally decided to slowly make his way across the pool. 

His eyes had remained on her, watching her movements as he neared her. The way her fingers flipped to the next page. How her expression changed based on the scene she was reading. He was happy to listen to her when she went on and on about a book that was either currently reading or had just finished, having loved the way that she got so much joy and excitement from something so simple. 

When he finally reached her, his hand reached out for the book, gently setting it aside without getting it wet. Y/N was confused, a noise getting caught in the back of her throat as James put his palm on the edge of the pool, hoisting himself partially out of the water and slightly closer to her. He made eye contact with her, before he looked down at her lips. She caught the movement, relaxing as she waited. She knew what he wanted at that moment, and when he didn’t make the move first, she did. 

Her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him even more closer, and pressed her lips against his. He quickly melted into it, one arm wrapping around her waist. James tugged her into the pool once more, before pinning her against the side of it. Her arms remained around his neck, while his arms looped behind her, settling the edge of the pool. 

It was a slow and gentle kiss, allowing the two to enjoy and savor it. Her hands tangled themselves into his hair, and one of his hands moved to her back, his fingers splayed across her skin. James was running out of breath, as was Y/N, but the two hesitated to separate, as both of them seemed to have wanted their first kiss together to go on longer than what was physically possible. 

And when they finally pulled away from each other, they rested their foreheads against each others, breathing heavily, a small smile on their lips. 

“Do you think Lydia left?” Y/N asked. 

“I think this was part of her plan.” James agreed. “Get us alone together. Means Percy was probably also in on it.”  Y/N laughed a little. 

“You sister, playing matchmaker, and Percy helping. Who knew.”

“My guess is that they knew something we didn’t.” He had smiled, kissing her again, this time with a bit more energy. James had stared at her lips, before moving away and planting kisses along her jaw, pressed one final one to her forehead, and then moved back down to her lips. He was kissing her like a man starved of it all.  

“How about we watch those movies?” He finally asked, after finding the heart to stop kissing Y/N and finally allowing her to breathe. She gave him a smile and nodded. 

That was how Lydia had found the two of them. They were laying on the couch in the shared living area that Lydia and James shared, the tv going on in the background. James was on his back, his head against the arm of the couch, and Y/N was asleep on his chest. Her arms wrapped around James, and a blanket was wrapped around her. 

Lydia had smirked, snapped a photo to show Percy that the plan had worked, and wandered off to get ready for bed, leaving the two by themselves.

----

taglist: @honethatty12 @lifeonawhim @ashamedtobewhitemanswhore27 @maryvibess @wheredidmyeyesgo @imasimptoowth @avada-kedavra-bitch-187

@sillyfreakfanparty

[silverstar70]

Fandom: NCIS Character: Alden Parker

Author's note: This is my first fanfiction ever, so please be kind. English isn't my first language so I apologize for any mistake. I was rewatching 20x14. I loved the episode but felt like something was missing. So here it is. Hope you like it!

Make things right

At the ding of the elevator, the team turned in that direction and saw Parker with three boxes of pizza. He walked in silence through the squadroom, no meeting the team’s eyes all pointed on him.

“I wanted to apologize” Parker said quietly, still not looking at them “I know these aren’t the picarones, but I hoped it would work anyway.”

The team, Jimmy and Kasie included, were still at the office to help McGee with the mission reports and thought that Parker went home so it took them by surprise seeing their boss standing there, quiet and vulnerable.

“Depends.” Torres was the first to break the silence “Did you get the pepperoni one?”

“And double cheese”

They ate all together without much of a talking and finished all the reports in record time. Parker was happy with this team, his new team. It was never like that at the FBI and after Jeremy he always preferred to work alone, only occasionally he worked with Fornell, he was a good friend. He knew what happened that night and helped him to move on.

He didn’t know what it would have happened if it wasn’t for Fornell. Right after the accident, he started drinking more than he should, it was the only thing that helped him not to think. He was angry at the world, but especially at himself for not covering his best friend's back.

Fornell arrived at the right time, helped him deal with it. He couldn't forget that night, but he couldn’t let Wills wins again and ruin his career. So, thanks to Tobias, he got back on his tracks and tried his best to learn to live with the guilt. Things went fine for a while, he started living again but as much as he tried, the guilt was still there. Not even Jaremy was able to redeem him from that feeling.

The NCIS assignment came as a fresh start. For the first time since the accident, he loved being in a team again. This team wasn't like the others, and he knew it right away from the loyalty they showed to Gibbs. Loyalties that they had also shown to him by helping him with the Raven's case. He hated himself for the way he had behaved towards them, for yelling at them and for running away from the crime scene without explanation.

Jeremy was right: the team had changed him. They had accepted him as one of the family and, with a little effort at first, he had earned their respect and trust. Now he was no longer just the boss, but also a friend to be counted on and he was proud. He was proud of this team and lucky to be a part of it.

Sat between Jess and McGee’s desks, they finished the pizza doing small talks and soon it was time to go home but Parker needed to make things right with them first.

“I wasn’t completely honest with you, guys. And I own you an explanation.”

“You don’t own us anything, Parker. We’re just happy that things ended well” McGee spoke for everyone, while the rest sat in silence looking at them.

“No, I do. I shouldn't have raised my voice at any of you," addressing Jimmy and Kasie in particular "I was mad, and I took all my anger out on you. You didn't deserve it. This story has haunted me for years and I've never been able to put an end to it and move on. When we found those pills, all the anger I thought I had buried came back and hit me like a train."

He paused for a moment, collecting his thought. They were family, they should know the truth, but it was harder than he thought. What if they’ll think less of him? What if he’ll lose their respect? No, he knew them better than that, but after all he wasn’t Gibbs. They didn’t own him anything.

“Parker, we get it. We would have reacted the same way, we just wished you told us” Jess reassured him. In that moment he blurred out the truth about that night.

“It was my bullet who hit Jaremy’s back.”

The team stood there in shock, looking at their boss in disbelieves, exchanging looks. Seconds passed and no one said anything, Parker was looking down at his hands in shame. He felt embarrassed and scared. After years he founded joy in working in a team once again, a new family, who respected him and trusted him with their life, and now he’ll lose everything because who would trust a boss who might shoot in you back during a raid? But he was wrong, so wrong.

“We have read the report. We know what happened that night, Parker.” McGee said to him, receiving a questioning look from Parker “I mean, we didn’t know this. We know what Jaremy told us. It was a hell, pure fog of war stuff. But, Alden, it wasn’t your fault. Certainly, Jaremy doesn’t think it is and neither do we.”

“We trust you Parker” added Torres.

“We’ll watch your back, and you’ll watch ours” confirmed Jess, while Kasie went to hug him in comfort. He embraced her tight, and a tear fell on his cheek. He wasn’t expecting all this support, but he was glad he was a part of this special team. When he loosed the hug, Kasie stood beside him to show him all her support.

“Thanks guys. You have no idea how much this means to me. I know I am not Gibbs, but I really appreciate your loyalty.”

“You’re right, you’re not Gibbs” Jimmy finally speaks and all turn towards him “But he’s not here now. You are. We’re loyal to you and I am sure it’s what he would want. No one gets left behind”

“Thank you, Jimmy.”

And with that all of them get ready to leave and go home to try to get some sleep. All together walked to the elevators and get inside.

“We still want the picarones tomorrow, though” Torres said before the doors closed and they all laughed.

[ejzah]

In lieu of writing a story, I decided to spend far too much time writing an essay like post on a topic that’s been on my mind recently.

***

Recently I’ve been thinking about characters who change over the course of a series. Particularly, characters who start out fairly normal or serious and then become increasingly more silly, ridiculous, or stupid. For instance, Frank Burns from MASH, Marty Deeks and Eric Beale from NCIS: LA, and Eric Matthews from Boy Meets World, and Tony from NCIS to name a few.

It could be argued that each of these characters had a comedic quality from the beginning. However, comedy was not their sole or defining characteristic. At some point though, the writers seemed to realize that they had a gift for comedy and leaned into that side. The problem is that this occurs with increasing frequency and often without reason.

Some start out as an antagonist, such as Frank Burns. In his first season, he’s described as a “fair” surgeon. He can be ridiculous at times, but is competent enough and mostly known for being overly by the book and military crazed. By the end of his run on the series, he’s a terrible surgeon, constantly makes a fool of himself, and finally ends up chasing after his now married mistress. In this case, instead of making Frank increasingly nasty or, he was made ridiculous to highlight why he wasn’t a suitable leader or surgeon.

In many shows that lean towards the more serious, it’s common to have a character who breaks up the angst, drama, and heaviness. Enter the likes of Eric Beale and Marty Deeks. Though they remained comparatively unscathed compared to some, both characters suffered in the name of comedy.

Eric Beale was a highly skilled tech operator who kept things running from behind the scenes and was critical to the team solving cases. Yet as the series progressed he went an eccentric genius to often odd and ridiculous.

From the beginning of his introduction, Deeks was established as a master at undercover, uniquely intelligent, and capable of using people’s assumptions about himself to his own advantage. Yes, he always talked a lot, but there was usually a purpose. Even in moments when he rambled, it was genuinely funny and not overplayed. However, as the series progressed the very writers who created this extremely intriguing, intelligent, and competent man, seemed to forget these aspects.

In an arc where Deeks is sent to the federal academy, we should have seen him excel. He had years of experience and knowledge compared to his younger peers. Instead, he seemed to forget how engage in arm-to-arm combat, fell asleep during an important task, and could barely keep up during a run. For many fans, this felt like a betrayal of a beloved character we knew.

Often, funny characters are sacrificed to promote a new character. Particularly as a series progresses, instead of letting the newbie gain popularity naturally, they force their merits by downgrading an established character.

You might be wondering, what’s the point of all this? Well, a lot of fans care when their favorite character changes drastically, especially not in a positive way. There’s a difference between a character who can be funny or has select silly/stupid moments, and one who becomes a caricature. We build fandoms our these characters. We invest hours and time, energy and love into writing about them, drawing, and discussing them. Of course it matters when it feels like that same character has been mistreated and disrespected.

I wish that before writers decide to go for the easy laugh, for the stupid joke, for the ridiculous, that they consider the impact on the character and show. It not only destroys your audience’s trust, but also makes it unbelievable when the character is given any content of substance.

[authortobenamedlater]

Fanfic ask J T Y

From these fanfic writer asks.

J:  What’s your favorite fanfic trope?  Have you written it?

I gravitate towards reading and writing “boxed in” stories where two characters are stuck and forced to work out their issues. Or the variation one character corners another and gives a Talk Or Else ultimatum.

I’m sure this trope has another name but I’ve always called it boxed in from the NCIS episode by that name.

T: Any fanfic tropes you can’t stand?

With a couple of very notable exceptions, I hate “x reader” stories. I’m not into smut so that rules out about 95% of these right off the bat. I’m also very much out of the target demo for most of these too. I’m a 30-something married woman with kids and a mortgage and have a very hard time picturing myself as a teenage stowaway on the Razor Crest. I also don’t like when it’s obvious the writer has a sexual fantasy about a certain actor and is disguising it as a reader insert to the point of the character not even acting like himself.

Y: What are your thoughts on your personal satisfaction with something you’ve written vs. the popularity of your stories?  Do you tend to be most satisfied with your most popular stories?  

Well, two of my oldest FFN fics are still getting quite a few hits and even got (complimentary!) reviews as recently as a couple of years ago, and I am NOT satisfied with them anymore. LOL.

Hm. I don’t know. This one is hard.

My most popular Halo fic is Distraction which I almost didn’t post because I thought there’d be no audience for it, or it would get a ton of hate from the TV antis. I sent it to Mr and he convinced me to share it…and as I look now, about half of the 40 comments are him trolling me and everyone. 😂 I wasn’t entirely sure about this fic when I wrote it, and now when I read it I can’t help thinking “Gosh, I didn’t know these characters from a hole in the ground back then.” But people still like it.

On the flip side one of the fics I’m most proud of is Only Human which has very little in the way of comments. This is another fic I was afraid would get lots of hate and sometimes I wonder if a lot of people were just so turned off by Everyone’s Favorite Scene that they didn’t want to engage with any fanfic about it. Regardless, I put tons of effort into it and I’m glad I wrote it.

*opens fic to link to it* Huh, this has way more kudos than I knew about. Maybe it’s not so unpopular after all.

A Marriage of (In)convenience is one of my favorite fics I’ve ever written and I thought it wouldn’t get much interaction because the premise is pretty absurd, but it became probably my most popular story.

I guess all of that long answer to say…it’s a crapshoot. It also seems in contemporary fandom it’s hard to tell how “popular” a fic is because people will share them in Discord servers or on blogs and forums where people read it and love it but that feedback never makes it to the author. So Only Human could all over some platform I don’t use and I’ll never know about it.

I hope that made sense? It’s hard to measure “popularity” and when I get caught up in it, it leads nowhere good.

[sommer-girl]

Fremover, Part IV | Self Para

Date: 16 March 2023 Warnings: Just Anna being a lonely sadgirl at times :/

Anna catches up with Gerta, her once-babysitter and family's housekeeper. They revisit some memories.

Olaf, it turned out, had been right after all. Anna should not have been alone.

Not that she was in total crisis or anything. It was just lonely, laying there on her bunk bed and imagining the rest of the group out at dinner. Anna considered going to bed to simply fast-forward time to the next day, but it was only 6 PM, and Anna was wired not to even start her evening TikTok routine until at least midnight. So that was never going to work.

Still, she picked up her phone and opened the app and killed ten minutes scrolling through videos of dogs demanding The Cheeeeese Tax and BookTokers ranking their February reads and, inexplicably, not a small number of videos about niche drama in the NCIS fandom (Anna had never watched this show). She was just about to give up on this particular distraction when a notification popped up. A text.

Gerta?

Anna and Gerta didn’t text a lot. They spoke on the phone from time to time, but Gerta was quite busy, even with the girls grown up now. Her job had become much more about maintaining the mayoral estate, which was a never-ending task that kept her days very full. And she always talked about how much she missed Anna, which made Anna feel kind of guilty for not being home more often…

It was just complicated. With Dad and Elsa and… everything.

But right now, Gerta’s name lighting up Anna’s phone was hardly complicated at all. She opened the text right away. It was a little like hunger. Sometimes, you don’t realize how homesick you are until home is staring you right in the face.

Anna! I saw your photo on Instagram! I didn’t know you were in Arendelle! she had written.

Anna had that feeling that was growing all the more familiar this week, that people were reaching out and now she had to come up with an excuse to push them away. For once, though, she wasn’t sure she wanted to push Gerta away. She was starting to feel really lonely. 

Yeah! Sorry I didn’t mention. We’re here on a volunteer program and I wasn’t sure how much free time we would have.

Anna hesitated, and then added: I have some free time tonight, though. If you wanted to get coffee or something.

The response was immediate: Of course! I would love nothing more!

Unfortunately, your father is away on business, otherwise I would invite him as well…

That’s totally fine. I’ll see him soon enough.

It was more than totally fine. It was a relief. Now did not seem like the time to sort out her complicated feelings toward her father. Anna just wanted to see someone who knew her. Maybe that would help her figure out who she was again.

~~~

At the sight of Gerta’s smile in the little corner of the coffee shop, Anna practically melted. She rushed into her arms, choking up with tears.

“Whoa there, Anna,” Gerta chuckled, though her expression was slightly troubled. She could see that something was up. “Here, why don’t we sit down.”

“Sorry…” Anna mumbled, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve. “I promise, I’m really fine, it’s just…”

And then, entirely pathetically, the way Anna had been avoiding doing this entire trip, Anna burst into tears. Gerta put an arm around her and rubbed her shoulder, the way she used to when Anna was little. “Hey, it’s okay,” Gerta said gently. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

Anna nodded, pulling her chair out and sitting down. Gerta took the seat across from her. “I messed it all up. Everything,” she said miserably. “I.. don’t really want to talk about all of it—” She couldn’t, actually, because of the Ashleigh of it all, but Anna didn’t want to alarm her by saying she couldn’t talk about it. “But I sort of… had a falling out with a friend right before break. And it just… brought up from stuff for me. I dunno. I guess I just feel like a big fraud. Like I’ve been kidding myself. And like everyone can tell. And I can kind of see now how I messed up, like, a lot over the past year… and I was starting to feel like maybe the friends I do have left might just be… better off with other friends.”

She sniffled. “So I guess I pushed them away, and I was pretty mean about it and… yeah. I just don’t know what to do.”

Gerta’s eyebrows went up in surprise, then down in concern, and then landed somewhere sympathetic as Anna told her story. “Oh, Anna,” Gerta said finally. “That does sound sticky.”

“Yeah,” Anna sighed. “I dunno, I’m graduating soon. Maybe it’s for the best. I don’t know if I’m staying in Swynlake. I don’t know what I’m doing at all.” That was a whole different spiral. Anna tried to not to go down that particular rabbit hole.

Gerta was silent for a moment, frowning to herself. “So you think it’s for the best if you’re on your own?”

Anna shrugged. “It might be just… easier. I’m good at being on my own, anyway.”

That was true, even if it was a thought Anna dreaded. Growing up, she’d had Gerta, of course. And her parents, even if they weren’t entirely available, for different reasons. And she’d had the Internet. But she’d learned how to play pretend by herself. She’d learned how to braid her own hair, how to paint her own nails. She had a book club that she was the only member of. She could do that for two months.

The thought made her ache, though.

“Anna, I just don’t think that’s true,” Gerta said gently. “I just— do you remember when you were seven and you got yourself stuck in a tree?”

Anna laughed wetly, despite her skepticism at this random anecdote. Where was Gerta going with this? “Uhh, vaguely…” 

“I left to go get a ladder and by the time I’d come back, you were ripping up your jacket to try and make it into a rope!” Gerta recounted, which made Anna laugh again. She’d forgotten about that part, but it did sound like something her younger self would do. “It was very clever.”

Anna smiled. “See, I can be on my own.”

“I think the jacket would disagree,” Gerta chuckled. “The point, Anna, is that you are a resourceful person. But there’s more than one way to get out of a tree. And a ladder is usually much more pleasant. And you won’t ruin your jacket.”

“Okay, I see what you mean now.”

“Are you proud of me, Miss Literature, with my metaphors?” Gerta joked with a cheeky smile. 

“Very.”

She was quiet for a moment. Anna supposed she really knew this all along, that the way through this was holding onto the people who cared about her instead of pushing them away. It was just an intimidating thought. All the people she had to apologize to, all the opportunities for people to reject her… and in many cases, they might be justified. Anna’s behavior hadn’t been stellar.

But did she really want to spend the rest of this year alone? And the rest of… well, she’d always thought her uni friends would be her friends for life, right? Was she ready to give that up?

The answer was no. And they weren’t so easily replaced, either, by strangers she projected on or programs she wanted to apply to or hours spent alone with her books. Maybe one day those strangers would become friends or those programs would become real or those books would become her favorites, but the bottom line was that her friends deserved an apology.

“Thank you, Gerta. This helped a lot,” Anna said, taking a sip of her coffee.

“I’m happy to help. You know you can always come to me about these things, right?”

Anna nodded. Much like she had with Olaf just now, Anna had maybe assumed Gerta wouldn’t want to deal with her right now. But they were friends, Anna realized now. And that made all the difference. As long as Anna kept up her end of the bargain. 

“Anyway, catch me up! What have I missed?”

And Gerta talked and talked about the estate and the new cat and the preparations for spring, which devolved into laughing and memories and nostalgia, and by the time Anna was walking home in the slowly-dimming Arendelle sunset, already growing later, she felt better than she had in a long time.

Not everything was fixed. Anna still had a long road to go. But at least, now, she had a ladder. And she had one person holding it, smiling up at her. She just had to remember to look around.

[psychadelickate]

NCIS: Gibbs - Little Brothers

NCIS Imagine: Little Brothers Word Count: 1211 Fandom: NCIS Pairing: Gibbs x Reader Rating: Teen Characters: Gibbs, Tobias Fornell, Diane Sterling, Timothy McGee Gif: Not Mine Prompt: Could you do one where Y/n is Fornells 1 year older sister and in a relationship with Gibbs, but nobody knows so one day neither Gibbs nor Y/n answer their phones and the team as well as Fornell get worried so they go to Gibbs' house first to check there, but find reader and Gibbs, (naked) cuddled up Together and being all snuggly and cute couple and they're totally shocked and Fornell is just like standing there and "Hoky fourth of July weenie roast, what the hell am I looking at?😠"

😅But only if it isn't an inconvenience!

The snow crunching under your boots is the loudest sound you hear at this time of the night. Granted, you don’t expect anyone to be awake at 03H30 on a snowy winter night, but you never know with all the nosy Nellies on this street. On a normal night, you would spend a few minutes appreciating the falling snowflakes and the chill wind that stings your lungs when you breathe in. But tonight, there are more pressing things for you to attend to.

With this in mind, you walk up the pathway and onto the porch leading to the front door. The porch light helps you find your way up the two small steps. You expect one light inside the house to be on, but the place is shrouded in darkness, something you’re not used to. Even when Gibbs to his basement, he leaves the entrance light on, and this unusual behaviour just confirms your decision to return was the right one.

Turning the door handle, you’re at least relieved to find that it’s unlocked, and you enter the house as quietly as you can. You place your bag on the floor, making sure its out of the way before stepping further into the living room. The embers of the fire are slowly dying out and you note the plate still with an untouched piece of steak and what looks like a salad, and a bottle of beer, three quarters full, which has long sweated off. You’re thankful all your nagging about using coasters has paid off, saving the wood coffee table from staining. The man in question, however, is notably absent from the lounge. You’d half expected him to be watching tv or even asleep on the couch but he’s doing neither of those things.

Your next guess as to where Gibbs would be, is the basement, but there’s no light coming up from that direction. Without thinking about it, you walk up the stairs leading to the bedrooms and surprisingly one Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs has fallen asleep on his bed. Well, he’d at least had the forethought of swapping his work clothes for a more comfortable set of ‘home clothes’ as you liked to call it. Track pants and a hoodie.

When you’d gotten the call that Gibbs wasn’t dealing well his current case, you’d thought McGee had been overreacting. In your defence, McGee called you every time Gibbs had the flu and so you didn’t think much of it. However, when Diane, had called you knew you’d be taking the next flight home. You step into the bedroom and take off your shoes. You don’t bother removing anything else when you see how restless Gibbs’ sleep is.

You do the only thing you think might help, you lay down behind him, your chest pressing against his back and you band your hands around his shoulders, meeting at his chest. He stills at your touch, only for a minute and relaxes into your hold.

“Who blabbed?”

“Well hello to you too,” you whisper.

“You didn’t need to leave your conference to check on me,” he grouses though his hand grasping yours tells you differently.

“It’s late, we can talk about this in the morning,” you assure him, squeezing his hands as you kiss his temple.

Gibbs, however, has other ideas and he turns to face you before pulling your mouth to his in a long languid kiss. It’s not long before you’re both caught up in each other…

You’re almost asleep when you remember to turn off your phone. You want to sleep in tomorrow. Not too late, but you really don’t want your alarm to go off at the butt-crack of dawn. You decide to silence Gibbs’ phone as well, keeping in mind his rule about never being unreachable.

The sound of whispering is what wakes you and the gentle squeeze Gibbs gives you alerts you to the fact that he’s awake as well. You don’t want to open your eyes; but the voices are in no hurry to quiet down or even leave. And so, reluctantly, you open your eyes.

Your surprise at the three people crowding the bed is an understatement. You’re thankful you had the common sense to put one of Gibbs’ T-shirts on after your early morning shenanigans with the man.

“Is there a reason you’re in my bedroom?” you ask them, and while McGee looks partly horrified and partly guilty, Diane Sterling’s expression shows neither guilt nor surprise.

“We tried calling Gibbs, but no one was answering, and it wasn’t off. We wanted to check up on him. Then we tried calling you to see if you’d heard from him, since we hadn’t, but your phone was completely off and so we got worried,” the words rush out McGee’s mouth.

Tobias Fornell, however, looks as though he’s about to pop a vein somewhere in his body. His face has already changed three shades of red.

You’re sooo thankful DiNozzo isn’t present.

“Holy Fourth of July Weenie Roast,” are the first words that tumble out his mouth and you really have to restrain yourself from laughing. “What the hell am I looking at?” he continues and you have to credit him with trying to keep himself from imploding. It’s not every day he finds his sister in bed with his best friend.

“Please tell me it’s not what it looks like,” Tobias pleads.

“Sorry little brother… it’s exactly what it looks like,” Gibbs replies. He doesn’t sound apologetic at all.

“And besides, if we say that, it would be lying to a Federal Agent,” you continue.

McGee has enough self-preservation to leave the room, though you see him pulling his phone out of his pocket, to no doubt, Agents DiNozzo and Bishop about their boss.

“Did you know about this?” Tobias asks Diane. She shakes her head indicating she had no idea.

“I introduced them to each other a while back. What I wasn’t aware of, was they hit it off and had started seeing each other,” Diane admits.

“How long ago?” Tobias enquires.

“About five years… give or take.” Diane shrugs her shoulders.

“And you didn’t think to ask me first? She’s my older sister, Diane!” Tobias yells and it’s the last straw for you.

“Hey, both of you, OUT NOW!” you shout and both Diane and Tobias turn to you. The comforter is still wrapped around your waist, hiding Gibbs’ hand resting on your upper thigh.

Tobias looks as though he wants to say something but a glare from you silences him and he stalks out the room, followed by a laughing Diane, who shuts the door behind her.

“You enjoyed that,” you turn to Gibbs who simply smiles at you.

“Not as much as I’m going to enjoy you…” he whispers in your ear as he runs his fingers even higher up your thigh.

“You do realise, my younger brother is out there.”

“They’ve checked up on me. And if Fornell decides to walk in, he’s the one going to be scarred for the rest of his very, very short life,” Gibbs replies, pulling you to him in a heated kiss.

You have a response to that, but it doesn’t matter right now. You have better things to do…

Tag list: @stanathanxoox @iwritetoavoidmyproblems @ladyzombiielove @roxannerolls1 @evy-lyn @messrvpadfoot @diaryofafan17 @mahc1562 @anycsirp @kittenlittle24 @manicmarsupial @cameronmonaghantrashaf @fullmoonshadowwrites @kettnerjanea @dressed-up-just-like-z1ggy @yourdailymemedelivery @ilovemark1951 @xxbeckybeexx-blog @wolviesbabes @alesaab @nocturnalherb16 @countrygal17a @littlemiss3ma @crying-river @andreasworlsboring101 @just-a-nat Masterlist here Character List here

[hopscotchandlemon]

Empty

Prompt number: 26. I’m sure this has never worked, ever

Fandom: NCIS

Rating: General

Warnings/Tags: Bereavement

The house had always been so full. In the past 40 years, you could scarcely remember a time where it was as empty as it was now. You scanned around, looking at the neat piles of boxes.

It had always been a place of such joy, yet now it seemed so lifeless. What had once been a home was now just a shell.

And you felt a swirl of emotion as you walked around the house. The wallpaper had faded around the pictures that used to hang on the walls. If you closed your eyes, you could still see them.

If someone had told you just six months ago that your parents would be dead by the end of the year, you wouldn’t have believed them. While your mom was looking frailer, she was still so independent, her and your dad barely ever went to the doctor, they looked after your sister’s kids regularly.

Then your mom became ill with what the obituary would later states was a ‘short illness.’ She got poorly over the course of a couple of weeks and died 12 weeks after diagnosis.

It broke everyone’s hearts. You were the only one of your sisters who lived away so you’d spent your mom’s last few weeks living with her with support from the rest of the family. You stayed another week to help your dad and get the funeral arranged. Just as you were thinking about returning home, your dad complained of chest pains. Without hesitation, you took him to the ER, but you never got to take him home. He died of what the consultant described as broken heart syndrome.

Suddenly, your family were catapulted into another pit of grief. You called Jethro from the hospital car park, barely able to take in what had happened. He’d driven over to see you that evening and stayed with you until you were ready to go home. A month later, you and your sisters all agreed it was time to empty your parents’ house – your childhood home. You’d made the return journey

When you heard a truck pull up on the drive, for a moment you thought it would be your dad, returning from one of his many errands.

But of course, it wasn’t your dad.

The brief pang of grief was alleviated by seeing Jethro get out of his truck. He’d promised he’d come over at the weekend and help you clear out your dad’s shed. Neither you, your sisters or their partners really understood all the equipment in the shed. Your eldest sister, Martha, had suggested just taking everything to the tip, but you had happy memories of sitting in that shed with your dad as he fixed things. Jethro knew more about the tools your dad used than anyone. It was something they had bonded over. He agreed to come join you and help you sort through it all and decide where would be the best place for the items to go.

As soon as he walked in the door you wrapped your arms around him. It had only been a few days, but the emotional labour of sorting through your parents’ belongings had taken its toll and the warm embrace if the man you loved was something you needed.

Before you started sorting through the shed, you made coffee so that you could catch up with Jethro. He’d been working a case over the last week and hadn’t been able to call you as much as he’d like. Eventually, you had to face that it was time to get the task of riffling through your father’s much-loved tool collection. Jethro led the way, aware that you were feeling a bit daunted by the task. Eventually, you picked up a box and started to look through it. To your surprise, you found something you though your dad would have thrown out years ago. Jethro notices your smile.

“What’s that you got there?”

It’s a jewellery box, it’s meant to play a tune but I’m sure this has never worked, ever. My mom used to keep trinkets in it. I used to love getting them all out on her dressing table and putting them back carefully. Guess it’s not much good to anyone now,” you sighed, tossing it in the box to go to the tip,

Over the course of the rest of the day, you managed to sort through everything. Jethro ran boxes to the tip while you took some things to the good will. There was a box of things Jethro said he could use so you put that with the box of mementos you wanted to keep from when you had cleared the house. Once Jethro returned, you put those in his truck and once you had returned the keys to your eldest sister, you made your way back to DC.

Life slowly returned to normal, or at least, the new normal. The sadness of what you had lost lessened, but never left. Every so often, it would hit you like a train.

One Saturday, Jethro was working in the basement and he called you down. You dutifully headed down the wooden steps and walked over to where he was working.

“What ya doing?” you asked.

“Just fixing a few things. Wanted to show you this,”

He produced the jewellery box that used to belong to your mom, the one you thought had gone to the tip. Pushing it towards you, he encouraged you to open the box. To your surprise, it played a little tune.

“You fixed it. I thought we thew it out!”

With a shrug he looked to the ground. “Thought it might make a good project.”

“I love it, you even painted it. Jethro, I…” your words trailed off as you started to cry. Your boyfriend put his arms around you and kissed your head.

“I think it will have worked at one point. It looks handmade, so I figured your dad might have made it himself. Needed a new mechanism as the other one had been over wound. It deserved a new lease of life.”

“And it’s going to have one. Thank you, my love.”

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter - Monday, November 28th

JOYCE: (points) Buffy, he-he's over here! (The vampire faces her and roars.) Oh, my God! It's Mr. Sanderson from the bank!

~~Gingerbread~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Where You Stand (Buffy/Devil May Cry/Resident Evil/Background NCIS Crossover, T) by madimpossibledreamer

Fire in Her Veins (Knew It Wasn't Rage) (Doctor Who crossover, G) by regenderate

A chain reaction (Willow/Tara, T) by Bl4ckHunter

The Sound You Found for Me (Willow/Tara, G) by punch_kicker15

A Halloween Tradition (Angel/Buffy, T) by angelus2hot

Dusted (Buffy/Spike, G) by theultimatezero

[Chaptered Fiction]

You Drive Me Out Of My Mind Chapter 6 (Buffy/Spike, M) by Geliot99

The Thing About Being on the Road Chapter 11 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by scratchmeout

2187 Days Chapter 8 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Irishrose

The Road to Hell.... Chapter 28 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by All4Spike

D'hummy Story Chapter 7 (Buffy/Spike, PG) by DHoffryn

Something Worth Dying For Chapter 1-5 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by violettathepiratequeen

Favor Chapter 7 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by EllieRose101

Her Prophecy Chapter 3 (Buffy/Spike, R) by BewitchedXx

Learning To Be Love's Bitch Chapter 17 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) by Desicat

Carpe Diem, baby Chapter 11 (Buffy/Spike, Adult Only) by Axell

Bound Chapter 33 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by RavenLove12

Hold My Hand Even Though I'm a Sinner! Chapter 3 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by CheekyKitten

Vacation with a vampire (Sequel to The Sphere) - Part 2 Chapter 11 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17) by Coraline

Sorry Chapter 5 (Buffy/Spike, PG) by EllieRose101

Sand and Fire Chapter 10 (Dresden Files crossover, FR15) by batzulger

[Images, Audio & Video]

Art: BTVS “Every Outfit” “Checkpoint” part 1 Xx by whatshisfaceblogs

Art: 🤷🏻‍♂️ BtVS 420. The Yoko Factor 🤷🏻‍♂️ by tmcarlee

[Fandom Discussions]

buffy is such a bad flirt by silvermars

hilarious to me when people try to explain btvs soul lore by looking at angel by invisible-pink-toast

Was AtS the 'grown up' show? by HardlyThere

What are y'all thoughts on Faith? by gmac

Buffy in a mental hospital continued by Priceless

Making Connor Angel son was a mistake by Guywhoknownothing

Has anyone heard anything from the reboot? by Cyberdemon

Is Buffy a good example of a feminist icon? by Wesxfred

Discussion of The Vampire Slayer #8 - Released 11/23/22 (Boom! Studios) by Buffy Summers

Disharmony by eebieteebie

what’s the most underrated season? by moonwalker_96

Heart Breaking by davect01

When buffy was changed into a rat they had no problem changing her back right away by jschweige

did The Writers not Really follow through with the Riley Drug storyline by sjsharksfan12

Just an appreciation post for Eliza Dushku slayin her sobriety by K0nstantine1313

Justice for Season 6 by iwabs_iwda

I like the ending of the unaired pilot by GreyStagg

how did Angel just enter the property by jschweige

Which "Everyone loses their memory" episode did you like more? by Almighty_Push91

Faith by PopularScarcity2243

Faith and The Mayor by LightBlueSky55

Does anyone have a list of who wrote which episodes? by MachersHouse

Dark Willow is on another level by Omix592

If one of them could survive in S2, who would you pick? by Opening_Knowledge868

Did Buffy confide in Angel? by Itchy_Initiative6180

Thoughts On Buffy's "Chloe was an idiot" speech in Get It Done? by Defvac2

If Whedon wasn't a petty asshole, how might the Buffyverse have changed? by VerbiageBarrage

Interesting that disney+ call it an lgbt show by PICONEdeJIM

Why didn't the Watchers Council kill Faith while she was in a coma/in prison by welmanshirezeo

The Angel Alphabet by moonwalker_96

The Buffy Alphabet by moonwalker_96

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Join the editor team :)

[another-mikaelson]

so i've finally been able to get over enough emotions to put my feelings about the finale out there.

for one, ellie was so out of character this episode. would she ever leak classified nsa files? no. would she ever ice everyone out and quit her job? no. would she literally challenge gibbs to his face? no. would she actually not tell nick about this? NO.

like nick said, she had a choice, and the writers decided to have her make the most un-ellie choice. she would never, NEVER, leave without saying a word. "sometimes there's nothing left to be said" my ass.

don't get me wrong, i'm happy for emily. she's done so much work on this show, and she's one of the only reasons i watched it in the first place. her character was fiercely relatable, and ellick was just another bonus that came along with it.

but the way the writers wrote her off? unacceptable. ellie bishop did NOT deserve to be written off and remembered as a straight up bitch in her last scene.

and that kiss she had with nick? it was supposed to be a goodbye kiss. it was the kiss that got us hyped for this episode, but in the end, that kiss costed a piece of all our sanities (and my sleep, for that matter).

and the way she just flipped him off like he wasn't important anymore absolutely pissed me off. for the majority of this episode, nick's been on her side no matter what, and at the end she just decides to say goodbye and leave him heartbroken.

what the actual fuck.

nick's eyes had more emotion in them in that last scene than ellie did all episode long, and now what? what's nick going to do now? he can't very much cry into a pillow, can he? no.

while we're talking about this, let's dive into ellick.

the writers spent SEASONS building them up, giving us little bread crumbs here and there, and the few major episodes we got with them were blessings to my eyes.

but it was all for nothing.

two episodes ago, we had them finally talk it out, and we all hoped it went well. it finally seemed to be closure for us, and we just wanted them to have a happy ending.

then we got a whole episode with nothing hinting as to what happened.

and out of nowhere, we get a "i didn't mean for us to happen"?? so what the hell happened? can we get answers? the writers canNOT leave us hanging like this.

on ncis's instagram, i can tell we're all not the only ones in this kind of pain. everyone is mad, and the writers need to fix what they messed up for us.

this episode kept me up all of last night. i couldn't get them out of my head, and the way ellie's sent off is the worst character sendoff i've ever seen in my life. they might as well have just killed her off.

at 2:47 am, i finally accepted the reality of emily leaving the show, but the one part i will REFUSE to accept is the fact that they wrote ellie off like this. these fucking writers did us all dirty, and did ellie even dirtier.

another point i'd like to add: what the fuck did odette do to ellie? it's almost like she's been brainwashed. from what i've seen on ncis in the past, the cia is practically evil (see: ci-ray, cia officer walsh), and of all the agencies ellie could've joined, the cia would be the last option.

and ellie would never tarnish her reputation just so she can go on a deep cover op. NEVER. now she'll be on the run for god knows how long, and she'll never be safe again.

nick would never let her go on a deep cover op without him too, for that matter. NEVER.

i guess i can speak for myself here and hopefully a few other people when i say that i've always thought that ellie and nick would end up together. and they're together in my book. they will always be together.

whatever the writers did was NOT okay and unacceptable. they've done this with multiple couples on this show, and of course we fell for it again.

i like the theory that nick knew all along that she was going undercover, and i'm going to keep that theory.

now the question is, how is ellie going to free herself? because i will not go on knowing that ellie's on the run for leaking a classified file, something she might as well have been brainwashed into doing.

and what of nick? how's he going to be next season? is he going to go back into his season 14 self? uptight, tightly wound, untrusting? because if he is, then ncis might as well just end.

in conclusion, i'm not mad at emily for leaving, or mad at the show. i'm mad at the writers. they did us all dirty, and somehow they managed to fuck everything up in just an hour. and i hope they learn their lesson if/when ncis is cancelled because of this.

i haven't been part of this fandom for long. and i know people have been on here longer and those people have much more relatable emotions about this episode, but i just want you all to know that even though i'm a relative newcomer, i'm also hurting. deeply. i haven't smiled since last night. and for someone who smiles 96% of the time, that's saying something.

you guys probably know that i write ellick fics on ao3, and i will continue to do so, just to help out the ellick community, and to keep myself sane. in fact, i'm writing one right now and it should be up soon.

and as much as i hate to say it, i don't think i'll be watching this show as a fan anymore. i might watch it periodically just to see how nick is doing, but that's about it.

this show had a good run, and i'm glad i got to be part of its fandom while it lasted.

until next time x

[lyssalis-corner]

A Note On Writing

Someone asked me the other day, “Why do you write?”. I typically give people two answers to this question, it depends on how much time they have. And what age range I’m talking to.

Answer one; How could I not? I grew up surrounded by good literature and quality storytelling. I was born in 2004, and shortly after my parents cancelled their cable/live TV subscription, because they couldn’t control what advertisements would pop up. I was also a first child, if that helps your mental picture. I watched most of my TV as a child, which wasn’t very much by today’s standards on VHS. I remember Blockbuster. Going to the Library with my mom (who was stay at home) to pick out a new Wiggles or Blue’s Clues. We didn’t have a DVD player (or at least one we used regularly) until my dad, an avid gamer bought a PS3 so he could play TES IV; Oblivion, because he’d heard about how awesome the graphics were. So as a result I also grew up on a steady diet of Fantasy and Sci-Fi. Oblivion, Never Winter Nights, Skyrim. When I was small, my bedtime stories consisted of The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, and even The Silmarillion, and other like titles. We watched Stargate SG-1, Battlestar Galactica, Dark Angel, and others. I also saw The Fifth Element way younger than I should have.

All of those were instrumental in shaping my world outlook. I was only only child for the first five and a half years of my life, and I learned how to ‘entertain’ myself so I could go places with my dad. I learned to read at age six, when my brother was born. I started voraciously inhaling just about any book I could get my hands on, and my parents were quite happy to feed my burgeoning addiction. I went on such adventures. From Magic Treehouse, a favorite, to Geronimo Stilton. I went so many places, and then I would come out of some sort of hyper focus and feel... Empty? It was awful. So, obviously, I needed to do something about that.

My very first bit of writing came about before I really knew how to spell. It was illustrated, in my horrible seven-year-old hand writing, and despite the fact that it was just over a decade ago that I wrote it, I remember it vividly. I got some paper out of the printer, (nothing but the best for my project) grabbed my pencil, and sat down at my desk. It was a piece of Spider-man fanfiction. I’d just watched The Amazing Spider-Man, you see. It was quite possibly my first fandom with drawl. I don’t remember the story, and as I mentioned, I couldn’t spell. My mom was busy, so naturally I wrote the first letter of every word. It’s illegible gibberish.

Next, I wrote a two-page epic called The Wah-Wah Showdown. It was about two babies, in a world, inexplicably filled with only babies, participating in a competition to see who could cry the loudest. It was also illustrated. Then I dabbled in some NCIS fanfiction that will probably never see the light of day, because it is insanely cringe.

At some point, I realized that I had ideas, and that I could actually be writing those down too. And all those stories in my head that I visited in dream-land? I could write those down. It was like I’d walked out of my closet into Narnia. Out of my safe little hobbit-hole in the Shire into the wide, wide world.

Answer Number 2, which actually feeds from answer Number 1. This is the answer I give in simple language to children, and adults who have only asked to be polite. But I’m assuming if you’ve made it this far, you’re invested, so I won’t bother putting into small chunks;

It’s like the opening lines of Icon for Hire’s Magic from the album You Can’t Kill Us, “My seems are breaking, It’s not as fun as it sounds, I’ve got a whole world inside my, begging to come out.” There’s a particular brand of magic coursing through my veins, building up inside me, like a raging storm. It’s something integral to who I am. My deepest impulses are to create. To make things. To craft things that bring joy to others. If I let that sit inside me to long, I can’t function. It feels almost like I’m a soda that somebody shook, and like I’m going to explode. I get this out in a number of ways. I knit, crochet, draw, dance, play music, and I write. It’s exhilarating, to be able to describe things that don’t exist, to go on adventures of my own devising.

I was one of those kids who firmly believed that some day I was going to wander into Narnia. I spent a lot of my childhood waiting. Waiting for Narnia, waiting to find a mysterious tree house int he woods, waiting for a magic portal to come and whisk me off. That deep, deep hunger for adventure has never died. And so I write, trying desperately to finally go on that adventure that I was promised. As a result for my craving for a magical adventure, I’ve done stuff like MagiQuest, and Ren Faires. (I’ve never been larping, but it’s on my list of stuff to try). I’ve been geocaching. None of it has ever actually filled that void left by my first time through Narnia, though. So, I write. I mean, how else am I supposed to ride dragons and cast magic spells?

[nerdyfangirl67]

A Snowy Night’s Kiss - NCIS Reader Insert (12 Days of Christmas)

Pairing: McGee x reader

Warning: fluff!

Word count: 991

A/N: This is a small drabble for a Christmas mini-series I am writing. Each story is different, and are even in different fandoms, but I will try to pull in twelve different themes of Christmas. I hope y’all enjoy this one, and the ones to come!

You let out a groan of frustration as you look at the stack of paperwork you still had yet to finish on your desk. It seemed that you never made a dent in the stack, rather, after each case, it looked to only double in size. 

Tim had long since gone home for the night and you hadn’t the faintest idea where Gibbs was. That meant it was just you and Tony in the half-lit, deserted bullpen. You bite back another groan as you set your pen down, your eyes automatically finding Tim’s empty desk. 

As you stare at his vacant chair, you can’t help but wish that he was actually there. He was your best friend, partner, and love of your life and always made things, work-related or not, better simply by being there. Of course, you had never admitted to him that he was anything more than a partner and friend, despite how painfully obvious it was to everyone but him. Even Gibbs knew.

“Ah, would you just tell him already doll?” Tony’s voice snaps you from your reverie. You turn to him, feigning confusion as you say, “I am unsure of what you mean Tony.”

Tony lets out a bark of a laugh. “Sure doll. The only one who doesn’t know is McOblivious. Heck, I’m sure Ducky even knows by now.” You let out a sigh, knowing you couldn’t fake your way out of this conversation. You turn your attention back to the pen in your hand, fiddling with it as you ask, “What am I supposed to do Tony? I have given him so many hints and he still hasn’t gotten it.” It was quiet for a few minutes after that. 

Then you hear Tony stand up from his desk, his heavy footsteps making their way to your desk, causing you to lift your head to look at him. He grabs your jacket from where it was strewn across the small chair behind your desk. 

“Y/N, you’ve got to tell him. Stop giving him hints, he’ll never figure it out.” Tony says as he holds your jacket up. You quirk an eyebrow at him, unsure of what he was doing. 

“Now. You’ve got to go tell him now.” He adds. You slowly stand up, letting Tony help you with your jacket. You had always wanted to tell him, but could never work up the courage, thus the countless hints you had thrown at him. Now that you knew you would be telling him, a heavy cloud of hesitation and doubt settled over you.

“But, what if he doesn’t feel the same way? What am I going to do then Tony?” You ask quietly as you gather the rest of your things into your bag. 

Tony places a soft hand on your arm. In a moment of complete seriousness, he answers. “Then he is a bigger idiot than I thought.” His words make you turn to look at him. He has a far off look in his eyes as he adds, “Whatever happens, you’ll know it wasn’t because you didn’t put yourself out there. And if he is an idiot, then I’ll be right here for you okay?”

You nod and sling your bag over your shoulder. “Now go and find McNerd.” He says, the familiar glint of humor back in his eyes. 

The drive to Tim’s apartment is short, much shorter than you would have liked, considering the task at hand. You take a minute to compose yourself before you exit the car. 

You reach to grab the door handle of the building when it flies open, catching you off guard and causing you to stumble back. A hand snakes out, stopping you from falling backward. You steady yourself against a strong chest before looking up. Words of gratitude are perched on your lips when you realize that the person still holding you close is Tim. 

“Tim.” You whisper, the words you had been ready, or at least as ready as you’d ever be, to tell him moments earlier, flying out of your head. 

“Oh, Y/N. What are you doing here?” His voice sends pleasant shivers down your spine. 

You step back, in hopes of clearing your head. “I..uh...actually came to see you. I want to tell you something.” You unconsciously pull your jacket around you tighter, in hopes of fighting off the cold December air. 

Tim notices the small act and he pulls you closer, wrapping a strong arm around your shoulders. “Why don’t we step inside?” He suggests. 

You shake your head and step back from him, your body craving his warmth almost immediately. “I’ve got to say this before I lose my nerve.” You take a fortifying breath before you continue. “I love you, Tim. I have for a long time now. And even if you don’t feel the same way, I needed to tell you.” You whisper. 

Fat flakes of falling snow create an eerily quiet, yet tenderly soft, atmosphere as you wait for Tim to say something. He stares at you a long moment before a wide smile breaks out on his face. 

Instead of saying anything, he pulls you into his arms, his lips meeting yours in a deeply passionate kiss. You feel a hand cupping your cheek and another on the low of your back. You kiss him until you have to pull back for a desperate breath. He rests his forehead against yours, his hot breath fanning across your face and causing the few flakes of snow resting in your eyelashes to melt. 

“Y/N, I have been waiting for months to hear you say that.” He mumbles, his eyes half-closed and his lips parted. A half-smile creeps onto your face as you pull his face down to yours, kissing him and telling him all the things you had been wanting to for months. And knowing he felt the same made this moment even sweeter.

[silverstar70]

Fandom: NCIS Character: Alden Parker & Jessica Knight (father-daughter relationship)

Author’s note: English is not my first language so I apologize for any mistakes. I love their relationship so much so I wrote this!

Warnings: father/daughter relationship, Jess teases Parker about his love life.

Summary: On the way back to the office, Jess teases Parker about Dr. Clara Logan. The conversation leads to a more hearth-to-hearth one. Set after the end of episode 8 of season 21.

Words: 4,768k

You deserve to be happy

The road stretched ahead, illuminated by the warm glow of streetlights that flickered on as dusk faded into night. Jess sat in the passenger seat of Parker's car, her eyes occasionally flicking toward him as he focused on driving. He gripped the steering wheel with one hand, his other resting comfortably on the armrest.

Parker could feel her eyes on him. He knew she was waiting for the right moment to strike with a teasing comment. He didn’t need to look at her to sense the grin that was creeping across her face.

He sighed softly. At first, he had hesitated to get close to her, unsure if they would ever find common ground. She was fiery, independent, and at times reckless. He was methodical, calculated, and approached everything with the calm reserve of someone who had seen too much in his life. But somehow, their differences had meshed in unexpected ways.

“You’re thinking too hard, Parker,” Jess said, cutting through the quiet.

He smirked. “Am I now?”

“Yup. Your face always gets that look when you’re brooding.”

Parker shot her a sideways glance. “I don’t brood.”

Jess chuckled. “Yeah, okay, sure. You don’t brood, you ‘think deeply.’ Got it.”

He let her comment roll off him like water off a duck’s back, focusing again on the road ahead. The last few days had been exhausting, the neck pain and being kidnapped didn’t help either. The last thing he wanted was to think about Knight’s teasing comments. But she had other plans.

Jess’s body language had shifted in the past few minutes. He wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but he had a feeling it would be one of those moments that forced him to confront something he didn’t particularly want to.

“So,” Jess finally broke the silence again, her voice casual, but Parker could hear the underlying intent. “Clara.”

Parker’s eyebrows rose slightly, but he didn’t take the bait right away. “What about her?”

Jess shrugged, feigning nonchalance, though Parker knew her better than that by now. “Nothing. She just seems like a good person. Intelligent, brave, funny.”

“She is,” Parker admitted after a moment, his eyes still fixed on the road.

Jess bit her lip to keep from smiling too wide. She could practically feel Parker’s discomfort radiating off him, which only fueled her teasing spirit more. “Mmm.”

Parker sighed. “Knight…”

“She seems to have joined the Alden Parker fan club,” Jess continued as if he hadn’t spoken, her tone dripping with playful amusement.

This time, Parker couldn’t help but roll his eyes, his lips twitching in a small, reluctant smile. “Again with this?”

Jess grinned, her arms crossing over her chest as she leaned back in her seat, clearly enjoying the way she could get under his skin. “Oh c’mon, Parker. Women like you. There’s nothing wrong with that. Besides, she’s totally your type. You should ask her out.”

“I don’t have a type,” Parker muttered, his voice tinged with exasperation. This wasn’t the first time Jess had brought up the subject; he had hoped she would have dropped it by now.

“Oh please, you totally do,” Jess said, laughing as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

He shot her a glance. “Enlighten me.”

Jess didn’t even hesitate. “Vivian, Joy, the Senator, Clara. They all have one thing in common: they’re strong women. You’re drawn to them.”

Parker didn’t respond right away, his face betraying nothing as he stared out at the dark road ahead. But Jess knew him well enough by now to know that his silence meant he was considering her words. He wasn’t one to react immediately, preferring instead to mull over things in that quiet, Parker-like way of his.

After a few more moments, Jess sighed softly. “Look, there’s nothing wrong with it, you know. You respect them, they respect you. That’s not a bad thing.”

Parker’s lips twitched, and the faintest smile finally broke through. “Is this your way of giving me dating advice, Knight?”

Jess shrugged, still smiling. “Someone’s gotta do it. Seriously, though, you could do worse.”

Parker chuckled softly, shaking his head. “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.”

The two fell into silence again, and Parker continued to focus on the road, but her words were running through his mind and maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t that wrong after all. Knight always had a way of getting under his skin, but it was always rooted in something deeper. From the beginning, she had seen through his gruff exterior, recognizing that beneath it was someone who cared deeply, even if he didn’t show it in traditional ways.

They’d been driving for about fifteen minutes when Parker’s stomach began to growl. He hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast that morning and now it was past midnight, and he was starving. They decided to pull over at a small roadside diner. The neon sign flickered, casting a dim glow over the otherwise quiet lot.

Jess rubbed her stomach with a dramatic sigh as they walked toward the door. “I swear, if I don’t eat something soon, I’m going to pass out.”

Parker chuckled, shaking his head. “You’re that hungry?”

Jess shot him a look. “I haven’t eaten since lunch. And you had been kidnapped so I guess you haven’t eaten since this morning.”

Parker shrugged as if that was normal. “I’ve had coffee.”

“That’s not food,” Jess shot back. “You’re worse than Gibbs.”

“Don’t compare me to Gibbs,” Parker said, a half-smile forming on his face. “I eat.”

Jess smirked, passing past him as he was holding the door open for her. “Uh-huh, sure. You eat… maybe once a day.”

Inside, the diner was cozy in that small-town kind of way. The smell of greasy burgers and coffee hung in the air as they took a seat at one of the booths near the window. The waitress came by quickly, leaving menus before disappearing to check on another table.

Jess flipped through the menu absentmindedly, but Parker noticed her eyes kept drifting back to him. He sighed, sensing she wasn’t quite done with her teasing yet.

“You’re still thinking about Clara, aren’t you?” he asked, not even bothering to look up from his own menu.

Jess smirked. “Maybe.”

Parker set his menu down and leaned back in his seat, leveling her with a calm but knowing look. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“Parker, come on,” Jess said, resting her elbows on the table and leaning forward slightly. “I’m just saying… it wouldn’t kill you to try.”

Parker’s expression softened, and for a moment, Jess thought he might actually take her advice. But then he shook his head, his eyes drifting out the window as if the answer lay somewhere in the distance.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I’ve got too much going on right now. The team… this job… I don’t have time to think about that kind of stuff.”

Jess tilted her head, her expression turning more serious. “Parker, you can’t just bury yourself in the job forever. I mean, look at Gibbs. He moved to Alaska to be happy and find peace.”

Parker frowned, clearly not loving the comparison. “Gibbs is a different man.”

“Yeah, but you’re walking a similar path,” Jess countered. “You care about us, about the team. You put everything into it. But what about you? When’s the last time you did something for yourself?”

Parker didn’t answer right away, and she knew she had hit a nerve. Yes, he had his hobbies and Risiko’s game on Saturdays with his father, but after that, he had nothing, no one but the team and the job. Jess didn’t push, though. She let the silence settle between them, giving him the space to think.

Finally, Parker let out a deep breath and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and rubbing his hands together slowly. “It’s not that simple, Knight. Things… things get complicated. And sometimes, it’s easier not to deal with them.”

Jess studied him for a moment, her heart softening at the sight of him so vulnerable, even if just for a second. Parker rarely opened up, and when he did, it was usually in small, measured doses. But this—this was real. This was him letting her in, even if only a little.

“I get that,” she said softly. “I really do. But I’m not saying you have to marry her, Parker. Just give it a try, it might surprise you. Maybe she’s the right kind of strong woman for you.”

Parker arched an eyebrow. “The right kind of strong woman?”

Jess grinned. “Yeah. The kind that challenges you, makes you better.”

Parker’s expression softened. There was something in Jess’s tone that reminded him of the quiet wisdom she often tried to hide behind her sarcasm.

“You sound like my therapist,” Parker said dryly, though his eyes were warm.

Jess laughed. “Maybe I should’ve gone into psychology instead of law enforcement.”

The waitress came by, taking their orders: Parker went with a burger, fries, and, of course, coffee while Jess ordered waffles and a banana milkshake. When the waitress left, Jess leaned back, studying him.

“You know,” Jess said after a while, her voice thoughtful, “you’re not exactly the lone wolf you think you are.”

Parker glanced at her, a little caught off guard. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you act like you’re all ‘I work alone, I don’t need anybody,’ but, like I said, you care about the team.”

Parker’s brow furrowed slightly. “I never said I didn’t care.”

“Yeah, but you don’t show it all the time,” Jess replied, her tone serious but not accusatory. “You think you’re doing us a favor by keeping your distance, but really, it just makes us worry about you.”

Parker let her words sink in, unsure how to respond. Jess was right, as much as he hated to admit it. He had built walls, not because he didn’t care, but because he cared too much. It was easier to focus on the job, on the mission, than to get close to people and risk losing them even though he knew something changed in the past few years.

“You’re like a dad to me, you know that?” Jess said quietly, breaking the silence.

Parker’s chest tightened. He didn’t say anything for a moment, the weight of her words hitting him harder than he expected. He wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

Jess noticed his hesitation and quickly tried to lighten the mood. “I mean, you’re grumpy, you lecture me, you never let me have any fun. Classic dad behavior.”

Parker chuckled, though there was a lump in his throat. “I’m not that bad.”

Jess smirked. “Oh, you are. But it’s okay. I’m used to it by now.” There was a beat of silence, and then Jess’s voice softened again. “Seriously, though. You’ve looked out for me in ways I didn’t even realize I needed. And I know you do that for the whole team. It means a lot.”

Their order was placed in front of them just in time to clear the air from the weight of their revelation. Not that it was a bad thing what they said but they were both too tired to continue on that note. They eat their meal in comfortable silence that Jess broke again after a while, her voice light and teasing once more. “So… Clara.”

Parker groaned audibly, causing Jess to burst into laughter. “We were having a nice moment, Knight. Why’d you have to ruin it?”

Jess grinned, completely unrepentant. “Because I’m right. And you know I’m right.”

She was right, about everything but she dropped the argument to focus on the full plate of waffles with blueberries and whipped cream in front of her. Parker watched her eating for a moment with a grin on his face, he knew waffles were her comfort food after a long day or a tough case. When the plate was put in front of her her eyes widened with excitement like a kid on Christmas morning unwrapping the gifts under the tree.

Jess shot him a look, narrowing her eyes as she noticed his gaze. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said innocently, though the grin on his face said otherwise. He quickly dismissed the subject, taking a bite of his burger but keeping his eyes on her. They fell into a comfortable silence again, finishing their food as the hum of the diner surrounded them. Parker couldn’t help but glance at Jess every now and then, watching her as she devoured her waffles with the kind of joy that made him smile.

Once they finished, Parker paid the check, and they were out to head back to the car. The highway stretched before them once again, endless and dark, but the quiet companionship filled the space. Parker’s thoughts wandered back to Clara and Jess’s teasing.

“Why do you care so much about my love life?” Parker asked after a while, his tone casual but curious.

Jess smirked, not missing a beat. “Because it’s nonexistent and that’s tragic.”

Parker chuckled, shaking his head. “Maybe I’m content with how things are.”

Jess snorted. “Content, sure. But happy? I don’t think so.”

Parker gave her a sideways glance. “And you think a relationship is going to fix that?”

Jess shrugged, popping a piece of candy into her mouth. “Maybe not ‘fix,’ but it could help. You deserve someone, Parker. You’ve got too much good in you to just… waste it all on the job.”

Parker’s face softened at her words, but he didn’t reply right away. He wasn’t used to talking about himself like this, especially not about his personal life—or lack thereof.

Parker sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Maybe. But it’s complicated.”

Jess chuckled softly. “Everything’s complicated with you.”

He smiled slightly, but his mind was elsewhere, drifting back to what Jess had said about him being like a dad to her. He hadn’t really thought about it in those terms before, but now that she’d put it out there, he couldn’t shake it.

“You really think of me like that?” he asked quietly, surprising himself with the question.

Jess blinked, caught off guard by the vulnerability in his voice. She shifted in her seat, sitting up straighter as she looked at him. “Like what?”

“Like a dad,” Parker said, his eyes focused on the road ahead. “You said I’m like a dad to you.”

Jess hesitated for a moment, not because she didn’t know the answer, but because she hadn’t expected him to take it so seriously. She thought back to all the times Parker had looked out for her—those small, subtle moments when he’d checked in on her after a rough case or made sure she was eating during long hours in the field. He wasn’t showy about it, wasn’t the type to give big speeches or emotional pep talks, but he was always there, steady and reliable.

“Yeah,” she said softly, her voice more sincere than before. “I mean it. You’re always looking out for me… for all of us, really.”

Parker’s heart swelled, but he kept his focus on the road, not trusting himself to meet her gaze. “Don’t get me wrong I love my dad; I’d love to spend more time with him but it’s just…I always feel like I letting him down. And then you say something like ‘You did a good job’ or ‘You’re a great team’, ‘I’m proud of you’ and I wish that my father could be more like you from time to time.”

Parker finally glanced over at her, surprised by how much she was sharing. Before he could say something, she continued. “This team is a family, and Gibbs was a father figure to everyone. But I didn’t work with him long enough to consider him as such. So, when you joined the team and we started bonding over being the last ones to arrive, the movies we both like, and the sweet tooth for pastries you turned out to be for me what Gibbs was to the others.”

Parker felt his heart swell in a way that was both painful and comforting. He hadn’t realized how much he needed to hear that—how much he had come to care about Jess, not just as a colleague, but as family.

“I never had kids,” Parker said softly, surprising himself with the admission. It wasn’t something he talked about often, if at all. “I always thought maybe one day I would,” Parker continued, his voice low. “But life… it didn’t work out that way.”

Jess didn’t say anything, letting him talk. She could sense this was something he needed to get off his chest. “This team is a gift that keeps on giving and it’s good to work with people who look after you. I earned a family I didn’t know I needed. And I feel the same way about you, Knight. You’re the daughter I never had.”

Jess felt a warmth spread through her chest as a smile formed on her face. She’d always sensed that Parker cared about her, but hearing him say it, hearing him admit it out loud, meant more than she could put into words. She cleared her throat, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice.

Admitting it out loud was a shock for Parker too, he had never been too vocal about his feelings but after Knight shared hers it was only fair for him to do the same. He hadn’t been so attached to a partner since Jeremy and sometimes this still scared him, being so close to the team scared him because he would never be able to forgive himself if something bad happened to any of them.

Back at the NCIS headquarters, the night had settled into a calm routine. The bullpen was mostly empty, save for a few agents finishing up paperwork. Parker and Jess sat at their desks, the soft glow of computer screens casting a faint light over their tired faces as they filled out reports from the case.

Parker leaned back in his chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Paperwork was never his favorite part of the job, but it had to be done. Near him, Jess typed away, her focus sharp despite the long day. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet since they returned from the diner, but the mischievous glint in her eyes was still there.

He glanced over at her, finding himself thinking about their conversation once again. Parker knew he was not gonna see the end of her teasing until he called Clara. He was never going to admit to her, or to anyone, but he already thought about calling Clara in the morning to know about her wrist. But deep down there was another reason to call her; she intrigued him and he was actually interested in knowing her more.

He shook his head, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, incredulous of what he was about to say. "Alright,"

"Alright, what?”

“I’ll call her,” he said, sounding defeated but with a hint of amusement. “I’ll call Clara.”

Jess’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

Parker sighed. “Yeah, really. But don’t make a big deal out of it, okay?”

Jess grinned triumphantly as she had just won a prize. “I knew you’d come around!”

Just as Jess was about to tease him further, Torres and McGee walked into the squad room, both holding cups of coffee and clearly in good spirits. Torres immediately zeroed in on the look of discomfort on Parker’s face.

“What’s going on here?” Torres asked, raising an eyebrow as he took a seat at his desk.

McGee, ever observant, glanced between Parker and Jess, his curiosity piqued. “Yeah, what’s up?”

Jess couldn’t resist. She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms with a smug grin. “Parker’s going to call Clara.”

Torres' eyes widened in surprise “Wait—Doctor Clara Logan? The one who’s totally into you?”

Parker rolled his eyes. “She’s not ‘into me.’”

“Oh, she’s totally into you,” McGee said with a knowing smirk. “It was obvious earlier in her room.”

“We saw the way she was looking at you, Parker.” teased Torres. “And how you were looking at her,” added in a much lower tone, hoping Parker wouldn’t hear it.

Parker groaned, rubbing a hand over his face, knowing that now that McGee and Torres joined the tease it would be a matter of time before Kasei and Jimmy would join too.

“Right,” McGee said, snapping his fingers. "She is totally your type, man.”

Parker looked around at the three of them, knowing he was outnumbered. He wasn’t going to get out of this without some serious ribbing.

“I don’t have a type,” he muttered, though the argument sounded weak even to him.

“Oh, you definitely have a type,” McGee said, chuckling. “Vivian, Joy, the Sen-“

This conversation was starting to sound too familiar to Parker. “Okay, I get it.” he raised his hands in surrender, interrupting Tim. “I do have a type. I’ll call her tomorrow to check in on how she’s doing. No big deal.”

Torres leaned back in his chair, kicking his feet up on the desk with a smug grin. “You know, Parker, I’ve got some tips for the first date if you need them. I’m pretty smooth with the ladies.”

Parker, busy pretending to focus on his computer, muttered, “I’m fine, Nick. It’s just a call, nothing more.”

“Yet,” Jess chimed in from her desk, not even bothering to hide her smirk.

Parker turned slowly toward Jess, raising an eyebrow. “You’re liking this too much, Knight.”

Jess shrugged, leaning back in her chair with a self-satisfied grin. “What can I say? Seeing you squirm is one of life’s small joys.”

Torres, not one to let a moment like this pass, leaned forward, his grin widening. “Come on, Parker. This is a big deal. When was the last time you even went on a date? Or made a ‘just a call,’ as you’re putting it?”

Parker exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business, Nick.”

“Oh, but it is. We’re a team. Your love life is basically my entertainment at this point.”

McGee chuckled from his desk. “Yeah, Nick’s just trying to live vicariously through you, Parker. He hasn’t been on a real date since... well, ever.”

“Excuse me?” Torres shot back, feigning offense. “I’ll have you know I’m a catch. I could be out on a date right now, but I choose to be here, working hard for justice. You know, priorities.”

Parker gave him a deadpan look. “Right.”

Ignoring Parker’s sarcasm, Torres leaned toward Jess, eyes sparkling with curiosity. “So, really—how did you get him to agree? This is Parker we’re talking about.”

Jess crossed her arms, her grin growing wider as she leaned back. “I wore him down. It’s a gift.”

Torres laughed, nodding in approval. “I respect that. Man, if I ever need to break him, I’m calling you in, Jess.”

McGee, still typing away at his keyboard but clearly listening, added, “Oh, I believe that. Parker, you never stood a chance.”

Parker shook his head, sighing in mock defeat. “I’m surrounded by children.”

Jess snickered. “You love us.”

Parker gave her a sideways glance, his expression softening. “Yeah, unfortunately.”

McGee finally stopped typing and leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. “So, what’s your game plan for this ‘call’ tomorrow? Casual check-in, or are you going to pull the ‘accidental second date setup’?”

Parker blinked. “What?”

“You know,” McGee explained, “you start off by asking about her wrist, make some small talk, then—oh, what a coincidence—she mentions something she wants to do once she’s out of the hospital, and bam! You casually suggest joining her.”

Jess chimed in, nodding enthusiastically. “Oh, yeah, that’s the classic move. And Parker, you’ve got the whole 'I'm a cool, laid-back guy' thing going for you, so you’ll play it off perfectly. ‘Oh, you’re into museums? Funny, I was just thinking about going to one myself.’”

“Or,” Torres interjected, leaning forward with a serious expression, “you could just skip all the small talk and hit her with the Parker charm. Tell her you’re interested in more than her wrist.”

Parker shot Torres an exasperated look. “That’s terrible advice, Nick.”

“Yeah, well, works for me,” Torres said with a cocky shrug.

McGee glanced over at him, eyebrows raised. “Does it, though?”

Torres huffed, giving McGee a look of mock offense. “Hey, you don’t know what happens off the clock, McGee.”

“I have a pretty good idea,” McGee shot back with a grin. “You’re still single.”

Jess laughed, her gaze moving back to Parker. “Don’t listen to them. Just be yourself. You’ve got this.”

Torres crossed his arms, nodding in agreement. “Exactly. You’ve got the mysterious, rugged, older guy thing going for you. Women eat that up.”

Parker sighed heavily, rubbing his temples. “Remind me why I let any of you into my personal life again?”

“Because we’re your family,” Jess said sweetly, batting her eyelashes at him. “And because deep down, you love us. Admit it.”

Parker shook his head, though a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You’re all insufferable.”

McGee smirked, closing his laptop and getting up from his desk. “Well, I’ll leave you to it, Parker. Good luck with Clara.”

“Thanks,” Parker muttered, already regretting the decision to tell them anything.

Torres, standing and grabbing his jacket, grinned as he made his way toward the elevator. “Hey, remember—confidence is key. Just don’t be too smooth, or she’ll see right through it.”

Jess chuckled, watching Torres and McGee leave before turning back to Parker, her tone softening slightly. “Seriously, though—you’ll do fine. She likes you.”

Parker sighed, running a hand through his hair as the squad room grew quieter. “Yeah, we’ll see.”

Jess stood up and grabbed her own jacket, draping it over her arm. “And if all fails, you can blame me.”

Parker shook his head, chuckling softly. “Oh, trust me, I already do.”

Jess smirked, walking toward the elevator. “You’re welcome.”

As they stepped into the elevator together, Parker glanced over at Jess, a quiet smile settling on his face. He didn’t say it out loud, but he appreciated how much she pushed him, even when it was uncomfortable. She had a way of keeping him grounded and making him realize that sometimes, it was okay to let people in.

The elevator doors slid shut, and the soft hum filled the silence between them. Just before the doors closed completely, Parker broke the stillness.

“Thank you, Jess.” His voice low, barely above a whisper. “I mean it.”

Jess turned to him, her expression softening at his words. A genuine smile spread across her face. “I’m returning the favor. For that talk, you had with my father a few weeks ago.”

Parker raised an eyebrow, surprised. “You know about that?”

Jess nodded, her eyes twinkling. “He told me. Said you gave him a lot to think about. Helped him come around.”

Parker looked away for a moment, humbled by the thought that he’d made a difference. “I just wanted to make sure he knew how proud he should be of you.”

Jess smiled wider, feeling a warmth in her chest that she rarely let show. “Well, it meant a lot to me.”

The elevator descended in comfortable silence into the building's parking lot, the ding signaling its arrival at its stop. As the elevator doors slid open, they stepped out into the quiet parking garage. The cool air greeted them as they walked side by side toward their cars.

Without a word, Parker veered slightly in the opposite direction of his car, accompanying her to hers. It was something he did often, a quiet gesture of protection, though he knew she didn’t need protection. Jess noticed, of course, but she didn’t call him out on it. Not tonight.

When they reached her car, Parker paused, his hands stuffed in his pockets. He gave her a small, almost fatherly smile.

“Goodnight, kid,” he said softly, the warmth in his voice unmistakable.

Jess smiled back, feeling that familiar sense of safety Parker always managed to provide. “Goodnight, Parker.”

He lingered for a moment, watching as she got into her car and started the engine. With one last nod, Parker turned and made his way to his own vehicle, the faint echo of his footsteps accompanying him into the quiet night.

[quillvine]

quill’s 500 celebration

You guys thank you so so much for 500!!! I can’t believe I even made it this far and all my love goes out to you. 

I could go on and on and on about how much you guys mean to me and I will under the cut so if y'all won’t be bombarded with that mushy stuff if you don’t want to be.

Now on the celebrations! (these will go from feb 21 to feb 24 i might extend it based on how busy i get during the week)

I feel like I haven’t been open about me as a person so I made a lil emoji ask game thingy based on asked games i’ve done in the past and things i wanna share with y’all :)

🌯: i’ll tell you about a food i really like! 

🌱: i’ll tell you a lil anecdote about my life!

🧸: cast your mutuals as... 

🎡: i’ll shuffle my playlist and tell you is my favorite lyric from the song that comes up

🧳: i’ll tell you about a place i’ve been

🦕: give me a made up fic title and i’ll tell you what fic i’d write to go with it

(full disclosure some of theses might overlap only because my life is not that interesting lmao)

tagging some moots so this gains traction (I don’t want to bother too many of you hehe): @writefasttalkevenfaster @winterscaptain @qvid-pro-qvo @hurricanejjareau @hqtchner @transhotchner

First off, let me tell you all how grateful I am for you. I never expected to make it to 500 at all, especially considering the fact that I haven’t really been posting fics recently. But to see that people are still following me regardless really makes me happy.

All the support I have gotten from you and all the friends I have made along the way really warms my heart and I love every single one of you. You guys have made my life infinitely better and in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

When I first started writing it was in the Tony Stark fandom and some of you are still here from my marvel days. I know this wasn’t the content you guys signed up for but thank you for sticking with me! I’m very very grateful that you guys saw my writing and it’s strange and shitty style and wanted to stick around, you guys gave me the start I needed.

I also owe a big thank you to the criminal minds fandom because that’s really where I gained the most traction. You guys read my fics and really made me feel like I was putting something worth reading out there.

I often think about how if thing had gone differently I wouldn’t have been a part of this fandom in the way I am now (it’s honestly a whole story y’all are getting a simplified version but y’all can ask me abt it) I started watching cm because I needed something to watch on netflix and I wasn’t even going to watch cm I was going to watch ncis.

But, then I saw cm in my recommended went ‘isn’t that the show that was really popular on tumblr in it’s cursed years??? I really should watch that’ and voila my aaron hotchner crush came to be. 

I wasn’t even going to write cm fanfiction, much less in the style I do now, but I remember reading one of tali’s fics on ao3 and leaving a comment and the next thing I knew I was on tumblr of all places posting a fic.

All your kind words and feedback has given me so much confidence in my writing and I am so so so so grateful for every single one of you that has come along with me for this amazing ride. I can’t wait to share what comes next!

xoxo quill

[andipxndy-writes]

holiday mishaps (part 1)

fandom: alex rider x ncis [crossover] warnings: mentions of blood, typical ncis stuff requested by: @lilcoffeecup word count: 4.6k

cross posted to ao3

summary: Alex Rider just wanted a relaxing holiday, somewhere where he could relax without any trouble cropping up. And with Jack and her family, he almost got that. ALMOST. And then he had to go and take a midnight walk. On the other hand... Ziva David swears she recognises the fair-haired witness to their murder case.

notes: this was a fun little prompt to get!! it was originally requested to @theneedlesslobsters, which i was pretty hyped about. this ended up being... a lot longer than i anticipated, though. aimed for 10k, ended up with 30k+. so i’ve split this into 5 parts as best as i could. apologies in advance for any typos throughout :P

holiday mishaps

When Alex had imagined himself going on holiday, this certainly hadn’t been his intended outcome.

Granted, it had been a while since he’d actually been on holiday, and most of the times he’d been on holiday in the past they’d been during the more peaceful times in his life, but just once he was asking for there not to be an eventful screw-up during the MI6-light period of his life so that he could actually relax. Just once.

Apparently, that was too much to ask for.

All he’d wanted to do was go to the mall with Jack, explore a little bit, maybe buy himself some souvenirs to take back home to his friends. The friends he had disappeared from for months before finally returning with his “dead” housekeeper to the home and the school system of his childhood. Of course, switching education systems had been a hell of a lot to deal with, but as an A-Level student now he didn’t find himself trying too hard to play catch-up. He’d even caught up to and surpassed Tom (not much of a feat but he’d take it), which had irritated his best friend to no end. He would have said it made his other friends laugh, but then he didn’t really have any other friends.

But anyway, he’d wanted to go to the mall with his best friend, and that had backfired spectacularly, so now he was paying for it. Not in the literal sense, which is what he’d been hoping to do with a few souvenirs and some new clothes, but more in the metaphorical sense. And he hated that, because there was this whole thing about the customer always being right and not having to pay for something that they were disappointed with or didn’t like and that logic was sorely lacking right then.

How had it backfired? Well, at that specific point in time, he was heading through the mall, weaving through the crowds in an attempt to get away from his pursuer… whoever they were. He hadn’t entered the mall with the pursuers, otherwise he would’ve turned around and gone straight home. They’d somehow latched onto him and recognised him whilst he was there. Whether it was from the case he’d accidentally got involved in, or from one of the many missions he’d done in the past, he didn’t quite know. All he knew was that they were chasing after him and were probably going to kill him if they actually caught up to him. Or rather, that was what he was assuming.

He just considered himself lucky that Jack wasn’t with him but had gone off somewhere else. Even though that meant he was alone, it also meant that she was safer than he was, and hopefully the pursuers had stuck to chasing him instead of her shock of red hair. He would be absolutely fine with that.

Moments later, he was crouched down behind a bench, hoping to whatever deities existed that no one found him or outed him to his chasers. Perhaps if he waited there long enough, they would leave the mall, and he could find Jack and walk out just fine, and maybe go home or to the Navy Yard or wherever he’d be safe. Maybe even one of Jack’s siblings lived close enough for him to head there afterwards and give her parents a break, make the situation less stressful for them. Then they wouldn’t have to explain anything to them too. Yeah, that sounded like a good idea.

It was as these thoughts were running through his mind that exactly what he didn’t want happened.

His phone rang.

***

It would probably be best to explain exactly how Alex ended up in that situation in the first place.

In the teen’s defence, he hadn’t intended to get into trouble in the first place. It had been his idea to take the holiday to the States, yes, but that had been partially because he’d missed out on the A-Level Politics trip to New York and partially because he knew Jack was missing her family. Plus, it had only seemed fair for her to actually see them before she decided to contact them asking if they could help her out finishing her Law degree — as much as Alex wanted to help her out with his own savings, she had refused to take any of it. Which he considered stupid but he wasn’t going to push her. Pushing Jack was a stupid idea in and of itself.

Anyway, the trip had started off really well. Even though Tom hadn’t been able to come with them, Alex really enjoyed it at the start. They went to New York first, for Alex to catch up on the school trip that he’d missed and see all the sights everyone else in his class had spoken about, and they ended up spending most of the time sightseeing and trying various restaurants they’d seen on The Food Network (which Jack had thoroughly researched before they’d travelled). It was different without all of his classmates, but the teen found himself enjoying it more with Jack than the gaggle of twenty-or-so other teens who would’ve been on the trip. Alex thought he would have been stuffed silly for the rest of his life from all of the restaurants they visited, but somehow he always had space for more. Jack, obviously, started calling him a bottomless pit.

After about a week and a half in New York, they’d travelled down to Virginia. That happened to be where Jack’s family lived, and after everything she’d been through the past couple of years Alex was both excited and nervous about meeting them. After all, he was pretty much the reason why she’d stayed in the UK and dropped out of her Law course. Of course, he was also the reason why she was going back to study again.

Apparently Jack came from a military family, and so they lived on the base there. Quantico, Alex believed it was called. He’d been (rightfully) nervous when he’d found this out, but then he actually met them and he realised there had been nothing to actually worry about. He hit it off pretty quickly with Jack’s brothers and nephews and had been more than pleased when Jack told him they were spending a couple of weeks there together, as a huge family. He got in some good bonding time with them, and he even added them on socials so that they could message each other whenever he wasn’t around. Honestly, though, he enjoyed playing video games with them a lot more than he would enjoy messaging them on socials.

It had been whilst he was staying with the Starbright family when everything started to go wrong. Of course, it had been after a solid week of staying with them before anything actually happened, but it was more the fact that something had happened that pissed him off. He couldn’t even take one holiday to visit his housekeeper’s family without something going wrong.

Damnit, MI6.

It had happened on a late night walk. He’d wanted something to snack on in his room (whilst checking messages and playing games on his phone instead of, you know, sleeping), and of course Jack’s parents hadn’t had what he was craving in the house. American snacks just didn’t tickle his fancy like food from home did, but they would have to do. But he wanted something stupidly salty and really unhealthy, not granola bars. Hence, a late night walk. To the nearest convenience store. Which wasn’t too far out, hopefully.

Jack hadn’t minded letting him go out alone as long as he took his phone, and her parents seemed to trust that he’d be safe on the military base, so he’d been fine going out alone. In fact, he was glad to be going out alone. Sure, he enjoyed the company of Jack’s family, but as a self-proclaimed introvert sometimes he just wanted to be alone to recharge. Being surrounded by so many people usually prevented that.

The trip to the store had been pretty quiet. He’d taken his headphones with him, sticking them into his ears and playing some music on his phone as he walked. It was an album that Tom had recommended to him, and he had to admit — his best friend knew his tastes really well. And the store wasn’t even that far away, just as he’d hoped; it was only a fifteen minute walk from the house. The fresh air was nice too, and it gave him the chance to stretch his legs without asking whether he could go out for a morning run and risking someone deciding to join him (read: self-proclaimed introvert). When he entered the store, he headed straight for the snack section, looking through the different options available.

He didn’t really want to buy just cheetos, but he wasn’t really feeling like just chocolate either. It took him a little while to decide on what to buy, but in the end he grabbed a pack of cheetos, a couple of packs of chocolate, and a box of Cheerios to just snack on in his room (he knew what he’d said about healthy snacks before, but Cheerios had light layers of sugar on the outside so they counted as snack-worthy). Jack would probably judge him for it, but at this point he didn’t really care.

The cashier didn’t even really question him, popping a bubble of gum as he paid for his items and took everything in a bag large enough for all he’d bought. He had been half tempted to throw in a couple of sodas as well to make it a full midnight-snacking stock up, but he knew Jack would probably flip out if she saw it.

So yeah, the whole heading to the store and buying things at the store part was perfectly fine. He hadn’t encountered any issues, no one coming after him or anything.

No, the issue started when he was on his way home.

See, on his way to the convenience store, there had been a couple of alleyways that he’d passed on his way over. He hadn’t felt any need to look down them with the directions he’d been given and the fact that he was a bit of a danger magnet, and he’d had his headphones in anyway. If there was anything going on, he was blissfully unaware.

On the way back, though, he only had one in. Which meant that he was still alert as he headed back, listening out for anyone who could be sneaking up on him to mug him or something of the sort. After all, he was carrying a bag of shopping home. Anyone could see him as a target then.

That was the only reason why he’d heard the yell coming from one of the alleyways he’d passed on his way down, and he paused for a moment before backtracking to the entrance of the alleyway.

The alley itself was very dimly lit, so it took Alex a few moments for his eyes to adjust from the more clearly lit main street. When his eyes finally did adjust to the darkness, what he saw made his heart plummet. And then it made his instinctive, protective side kick in — the side that he had somehow honed with his time at MI6.

His need to protect.

And that was how he ended up kneeling beside a body, hands pressed to a wound to stop the man from bleeding out as his groceries sat forgotten to the side. And whoever had attacked the man laying on the ground had fled, though not before Alex had landed a solid few kicks and punches on the guy so that he hobbled away injured. But then, with the actual attacker gone and him left with the blood of a dying naval officer on his hands, he was obviously the main suspect on what had gone from a homicide investigated by the police to a homicide investigated by NCIS.

As if he needed to get involved in a murder case on a Naval base on his holiday visiting his housekeeper’s military family.

***

Cases weren’t so abnormal to encounter first thing in the morning at NCIS. In fact, they tended to spice up the day automatically just by providing something interesting to do other than paperwork and, in Ziva’s case, enduring the constant chatter of her ridiculously chipper coworkers. By chipper, she meant chatting non-stop about anything and everything that came to mind. And by coworkers, she meant Tony DiNozzo. Him specifically.

She honestly didn’t understand how Tony had so much to talk about, and there were many days that she wished he had lost his voice or was suddenly rendered unable to talk. Unfortunately, the moment she’d walked into the office, she’d realised that that day was not going to be one of those days.

“Will he shut his mouth if I gag him?” she asked suddenly, looking towards McGee. The younger agent typed away at his keyboard, barely glancing up when he heard the question.

“No, he might actually like that,” he commented casually, which earned him a playful grimace from Ziva and a look from Tony.

“I’ll have you know, my bedroom tastes do not involve gagging,” Tony pointed out, “yet.” He almost smirked when he saw McGee’s face flush and Ziva gag again, before a glint appeared in her eyes. A glint that made Tony almost regret what he’d just said.

Almost.

“Perhaps your tastes involve other types of bondage?” she asked, almost sounding innocent.

Tony didn’t fall for it one bit.

Before he could respond to her, though, Gibbs marched into the bullpen and towards his desk, halting all conversation. After all, it wasn’t the sort of thing that they wanted to discuss in front of the man. It would have been… ridiculously awkward.

“Grab your gear! Dead Naval officer in Quantico.”

By this point, all three agents had learnt not to question how someone had died on a Naval base, or who exactly had thought it smart to kill someone on a Naval base when there were so many officers living in the vicinity. In fact, they barely said anything as they all grabbed their bags and headed straight for the elevator.

As the doors shut, though, Gibbs casually commented,

“You should see a doctor about those bruises on your wrists, Tony.”

Which, of course, made Ziva and McGee turn to Tony with wide eyes as the more senior agent stumbled over his words, trying to explain himself.

***

When they arrived at the scene, they were almost immediately allocated to different jobs: bagging and tagging, interviews, and crime scene photos. The scene itself seemed to be in an alleyway just off a main street, dumpsters from the buildings either side of the alley placed at varying points along it up until the chainlink fence at the end.

The scene itself, with the dead Naval officer, was about halfway down the alley. Which, at first glance, was a little confusing. Anyone who was running from an attacker would head straight for the chain-link fence and probably get there or get significantly closer before getting caught. Which Ziva didn’t hesitate to point out as she moved to take photos of the scene whilst Tony bagged and tagged evidence.

Tony simply raised an eyebrow at her as he bagged yet another piece of evidence. “You speaking from experience, Ziva?”

Ziva just blinked at him, confused for a moment. “You ask me as if you have none.”

“Experience in being chased or climbing fences?”

“Experience in being caught by your attacker at the fence.” The scowl she got from him only made her smirk, and she turned back to taking photos of the scene before he could come back with any sort of smart comment. If she wasn’t looking in his direction, it made it easier to zone him out and therefore easier for her to do her job. “Am I wrong, though?”

They both knew that she wasn’t wrong.

Before they could really continue their conversation, though (which was held a good way from Gibbs and Ducky so that they didn’t get overheard and told off for slacking), they were interrupted by someone approaching. All Gibbs had to do was send them a look and they’d zoom back off to work for fear of being so seriously told off, so they knew it wasn’t him when the approacher came with a significant lack of yelling or judgement.

In fact, they were just over halfway through their assessment of the scene when McGee had headed straight over, notepad in hand as he straightened his hat awkwardly. Like he was about to say something that the others — more specifically, Gibbs — wouldn’t quite like. He awkwardly met Ziva and Tony’s eyes before he started to speak.

“Uh, so our main suspect… well, the guy that was found at the scene when the officer was dying, he’s uh…”

“Quiet?” Ziva offered, at the same time Tony said, “Eclectic?”

McGee was clearly resisting the urge to roll his eyes at Tony’s comment, and had opted to focus on Ziva for the rest of the conversation. Just so that he didn’t start yelling at the Senior Field Agent. “Yeah, in a way. Like, closed off. He wasn’t really answering the questions, refused medical treatment, and he has a guardian or something who’s come to try and get him to go home with her.”

That was when a frown suddenly appeared on Ziva’s face. Tony was the one who spoke, though.

“A guardian? What, is the guy a kid?”

When the only response was silence, it made Ziva more than a little worried. She’d got a brief glance of the suspect who had been at the scene as they’d approached the scene, and she hadn’t thought he was any younger than twenty. With the need of a guardian, though, that meant he had to be younger than eighteen.

Basically a child. Legally a child. Which meant that his guardian was most definitely allowed to be around during any sort of questioning and interrogation. Sometimes that was helpful, sometimes it was difficult. Very difficult.

And it seemed like McGee couldn’t tell which one it would be.

“Have you told Gibbs?” Ziva asked, glancing over McGee’s shoulder to try and take a look at the person he’d been interviewing. She could barely catch a glimpse, but what looked to be a fair-haired young man was sat on the back of an ambulance, trying to scrub what looked like blood off his hands. She didn’t know what the guardian looked like, but a redheaded woman was standing not too far from him, the only thing between them being a police officer seemingly mediating the whole situation.

McGee glanced over to where Gibbs seemed to be just finishing up with the body, leaving Ducky and Palmer to deal with the body and escort it back for the proper autopsy. “Not yet,” he answered, “though I guess I’m gonna tell him now.”

“I guess you gotta,” Tony responded sarcastically. Ziva nudged him with her foot, sending him a look. As soon as Gibbs approached the group, McGee turned to explain the situation to him, leaving Tony and Ziva to continue going through all of the evidence at the crime scene. They could only hope that the guardian was more reasonable than most guardians tended to be — cooperative and willing to let their ward actually talk.

***

When they finally got the kid to the conference room — because he still seemed more like a witness than a suspect, and because there was a guardian present who probably wouldn’t take too kindly to having their ward being questioned like they were a murderer — they found out that he was definitely a teen, probably around sixteen or so. He was also British, and on holiday to the States with his guardian to sightsee and visit her family. The guardian, on the other hand, was a lot more vocal about the situation than the teen was, almost ready to fight as soon as they’d stepped into the conference room. It had taken the interrogator, who happened to be Ziva at that moment, several minutes to convince her that the teen (who she had by that point had found out was called Alex) wasn’t actually in trouble but was just being asked about his opinion on what had happened. And even then, Alex had to nudge her a couple of times to make sure she didn’t just scream the room down.

When she eventually did calm down, Ziva got a pretty comprehensive understanding of the situation that made her realise that Alex wouldn’t have been in such a situation if someone had just gone with him to the store. Yes, he was capable of walking to a store by himself, but he was also on holiday in a foreign country, in a place that he wasn’t particularly familiar with. But, he was a teenager. Teenagers liked to do things by themselves. She certainly remembered doing things like that as a teen — or, at least, trying to do things like that before getting caught and told off.

She still didn’t quite understand how his guardian had so willingly let him roam the streets of a foreign country freely, but before she’d had the chance to ask such a question, the teen started looking very uncomfortable in what he was wearing. After all, he was still in what he’d worn the night before, and the front of his outfit was stained with blood that would definitely be very difficult to get out. Ziva decided it was alright for them both to go. If they needed any more information, they could call them back in for questioning.

In fact, Ziva made sure to point this out to them. Whilst Alex, the teen, had been seemingly okay with it, his guardian clearly had not. She had a feeling she knew exactly who would pick up if they called them back in for further questioning.

Ziva’s time focusing on her thoughts was cut short when Tony suddenly appeared beside her on her way back from the conference room. She didn’t doubt that he’d been listening in from the other side of the door for anything and everything that could be of interest to their case, as if she couldn’t do the job well enough herself.

“Well, that sounded like a fun conversation,” he commented, and she couldn’t quite read whether he was teasing her or just being sarcastic. She decided the first one seemed a more plausible conclusion and went with that, deciding that the best reaction would be to scowl at Tony before rolling her eyes at him. A usual response to him when he said things like that, and it wasn’t as if he was put off by her reaction if the smirk he gave her was any indication.

“Was the conversation not what you expected?” she challenged as they continued down the hall and exited into the general office area.

He gave a little shrug as they spotted the bullpen across the room, heading over to it. “I guess an interrogation— sorry, a conversation is what you expect of it, not me.”

Ziva glanced over at him as they reached the bullpen, moving towards her desk. It was when she’d sat down that she took the time to really scrutinise his face. “It was not what you expected,” she stated, knowing that was what he meant without even having to ask the question.

He simply raised an eyebrow at her as he sat on the edge of his desk. “Oh, so you’re coming to conclusions without even asking me my actual opinion now?”

Her nose scrunched up as she stood and leaned on her desk, pointing at his face, wiggling her pointer finger a little bit. “Your opinion is written all over your face.”

Tony barely hesitated before turning to McGee at his desk. “Is my opinion written all over my face?”

McGee didn’t even look before answering, “You’re as readable as an open book.”

Before Tony could argue, Gibbs was rounding the corner into the bullpen, causing the two bickering agents to quickly move to stand in front of the plasma whilst McGee remained at his desk, tapping away.

“What have we got?”

As pictures appeared on the screen, Ziva zoned out a little. The image of the teen had appeared alongside the image of the dead Naval Officer, Petty Officer Lewis, and Tony and McGee were rattling off details that they’d managed to find about him — his lifestyle, when he’d last worked, who he was married to, where he lived, where he was from, all of that sort of thing. The kind of thing that would explain if and when he could have found someone who wanted to kill him, that sort of thing. Ziva had already caught up on all of this before going into her conversation with the teen to figure out whether he was actually involved in what had happened to the officer or just an innocent passerby. From what he had told her, it seemed like he was more the latter.

She considered herself lucky that she managed to zone back in just as she was needed for information, and she snatched the clicker from Tony before zooming in on the teen.

“Our first and only suspect so far,” she started, “Alex Rider. Sixteen, British, lives in London with his guardian Jack Starbright.” A few more clicks, and a redheaded woman’s license appeared on the screen beside some of Alex’s extra details. “Alex is a regular school student, clean record, nothing out of the ordinary that would tip him off. Trained in the martial arts, but it seems like more of a hobby than anything.” Another click, and the image of Jack’s license zoomed in. “Jack is an American citizen, born in Virginia and raised on base. Her family are Navy, she has numerous brothers… nothing out of the ordinary with her either. It seems more like they stumbled on the situation out of…” She trailed off before she could finish that situation. She knew exactly what would be said about her observation.

“We don’t believe in coincidences,” Tony commented, glancing towards Gibbs as if he was looking for affirmation.

McGee raised an eyebrow at Tony. “I don’t know, Tony. This looks like a case of wrong place, wrong time to me.” And Ziva agreed wholly with that statement, she really did, even though there was the whole rule about there not being such a thing as coincidences. But she didn’t even need to look at Gibbs to know that he did not agree with that statement at all. He was probably staring at the screen with that usual steely look as he tried to come to a conclusion, trying to work out the case mentally and wait for his team to catch up.

“Question the family,” Gibbs suddenly suggested, moving to his desk to grab something. “Find out more about the kid, and find out more about the Petty Officer Lewis. His past and current contacts. Get more suspects. I need more information, and I want to know everything.”

There was a brief moment of hesitation and everyone mentally assigned themselves a task, before they all parted ways to do what they needed — leaving Tony and Ziva both grabbing their bags as they headed to the elevator, doing exactly as Gibbs asked them to do.

After all, who else would question the family?

[chicgeekgirl89]

Country Roads, Take Me Home: Chap. 6

Fandom: NCIS LA

Characters: Marty Deeks, Kensi Blye, Eric Beale, Nell Jones, Sam Hanna, G Callen

Read Chapters 1-5 Here

A/N: Shouts out to @bluenet13 who made me finish this fic! 

                            ��   XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“Whoa,” Kensi said, putting her hands up. “Bill, what’s going on?”

“Well that’s a question I think we’d like you to answer,” Bill said kindly. “Is there a reason you and Marty were poking around here earlier?”

Kensi chose her next words carefully. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about. We stopped by to see if you were home.”

“I think we both know you did a little more than that,” Bill said. “Mighta seen some things we didn’t mean for you to see.”

“Bill, I’m not sure what you think is going on here, but let’s go back outside and see if we can sort it out.”

“Works for me. Carol’ll want to hear this I’m sure.”

Kensi moved carefully past him and walked to the front of the RV. When she stepped outside she found Carol still sitting at the picnic table with Deeks. But Deeks had his head on the table and seemed off. “Babe? You okay?” Kensi asked loudly, careful not to make any sudden movements. 

“He’s a little sleepy dear,” Carol said. “I think that port really did him in!”

“Okay, what’s going on here?” Kensi asked, worry spiraling through her. Deeks owned a bar, the man could definitely hold his liquor and one glass of port shouldn’t have him face first in his desert. 

“Remember how we told you that you have to keep things fun as you get older?” Bill said. “Well Carol and I started this road trip and thought we needed a little action. Something to spice it up.”

“So you committed a robbery,” Kensi said.

“Well just a tiny one,” Carol said. “But it was so easy. So we went bigger.”

Kensi was trying to listen while also keeping her eyes on Deeks. He was stirring but seemed lethargic. “Did you drug my husband?” she asked incredulously.

“Just a little bit,” Carol said, patting him gently on the back. “If you’d just drunk yours like you were supposed to we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

“You were going to drug us and then drive away,” Kensi said. “Deeks was right.”

“See, I told you they were getting suspicious,” Bill said.

“You called it dear,” Carol said with a sigh. “I should have listened to you.”

“And I should have listened to Deeks,” Kensi muttered. 

“Kens?” Deeks slurred, lifting his head a bit.

“I’m here babe. You okay?”

“I….think ‘m drgged,” he said, eyes glassy and unfocused.

“Yeah you are,” Kensi said. “Just take some deep breaths okay?”

Deeks squinted up. “Dss he havea gn?” 

“Yes, he does,” Kensi said. “So we’re just going to behave and not cause any problems, all right?”

“He prbly cn’ evn use it,” Deeks mumbled.

“Hey, I am the reigning, three time rifle champion of Sheboygan!” Bill said indignantly.

“Of course you are,” Kensi said with a sigh of long suffering.

“Well, now that plan A is all used up, we need to move onto plan B,” Carol said. “I think a little walk is in order. Take in some of that fresh mountain air!”

It was past dusk and most people had retreated indoors for the evening. The few that were out were laughing and chatting and took no notice of the strange parade walking by them. Not that Kensi would have asked for help anyway. There were weapons involved now and she wasn’t interested in getting any civilians shot.

She held Deeks up as they walked, stumbling along over the rocky terrain. He seemed to be all right, if uncoordinated and a little confused. “Wre we gng?” he asked repeatedly.

“Just for a little walk dearie,” Carol said every time, patiently, as if she were talking to a five year old.

“How did you get past the security cameras?” Kensi asked. 

“Oh we just bypassed the feed and spliced in a loop of footage,” Bill said. 

“It’s so easy, our grandson taught us. He’s nine, very bright boy,” Carol said fondly.

“Got a little trickier when it was closed circuit but we figured it out,” Bill said. He’d traded his rifle for a slightly more inconspicuous pistol, another reason no passerby had noticed something off.

“So what’s the plan here?” Kensi asked as they moved further out into the plains. “Shoot us and leave us for dead?”

“Darling don’t be gauche!” Carol said, horrified. “No, we’re going to tie you up. Someone will come along eventually.”

“f we don’t get etn by wlvs first,” Deeks said, coming around enough to be present in the conversation. 

“No wolves in this part of the country,” Bill grunted. “Coyotes’ll get you though.”

They walked for several miles before Bill made them stop. And of course he knew how to  tie knots like a boy scout. “There,” he said after he tightened the last one around Kensi’s wrists. “That oughta do nicely.”

Kensi sent him a pointed glare as Deeks’ head lolled against her shoulder. “Now, you two sit tight,” Carol said sweetly. “You’ll be found by morning.”

“And we’ll be long gone. It really was a pleasure meeting you,” Bill said.

“It was nt ours,” Deeks said, rolling his eyes up into what he apparently thought was an angry scowl but looked more like a fish face.

“No more vacations,” Kensi said, when Bill and Carol were out of earshot. “None. No road trips, no cruises, no flights. Nothing. Home. A dark room. No visitors.”

She worked furiously at the knot in her hands. “Deeks, hey, come on. I need you to wake up and help me here.”

“m wake,” Deeks said, hefting himself off her shoulder.

“The knife in my boot. I need you to get it.”

His current lack of coordination and awareness made things tricky. He ended up with his head in her lap, sliding down along her legs until his hands found her boot. It took several minutes and a lot of awkward maneuvering to retrieve the knife and then another several minutes before he was able to get it into Kensi’s hands.

In no time she had them free and then went to work on her ankles before moving onto Deeks’ bindings. “This was not the kind of tying up I had in mind on this vacation,” Deeks grumbled as she split apart his ankles.

“Now’s not really the time babe. Can you stand?”

“Everything’s a little wobbly,” he said.

She cupped his face and tried to see into his eyes but it was too dark, even with the full moon out. “Well your speech sounds better. Come on. We’ve got a long walk back. And the Weekes’ have at least a forty minute head start.”

She didn’t mention that it would have been a significantly shorter walk if he’d been less drugged. She pulled him to his feet, sliding an arm under his shoulder to help him balance, and off they went, stumbling through the darkness in the direction of what Kensi thought was the campsite.

It was nearing on two in the morning now and they were still nowhere near their destination, when Deeks froze, causing her to stumble. “Deeks, what—“

He dropped to his knees and puked. “Oh god,” he gasped, wiping his mouth. “I hate being roofied.”

“Yeah, I don’t blame you,” Kensi said, putting a hand on his back. “You good or is there more?”

“Help me up,” he said as she hauled him to his feet once again. “Wait.”

They both froze. “What?” Kensi asked.

“I thought I heard something,” Deeks said, squinting to try and see in the moonlight.

Then they both heard it. Hoofbeats. Coming fast. “Is that—“

“Buffalo!” Deeks yelled.

There was an outcropping of rocks silhouetted up ahead and they ran for it, hoofbeats still pounding behind them.

They made it to the outcropping just in time, collapsing against the stones, breathless. “Oh god,” Kensi gasped. “I didn’t know buffalo could run that fast.”

“Neither did we.”

Kensi and Deeks both jumped as they realized that they had once again been reunited with their road trip pals turned hostage takers. And they both looked a little worse for wear.

Carol’s hair was a mess and her knees looked like she’d taken a tumble. Bill was bleeding badly from a wound in his arm. “How did you get free?” Bill asked. “I made those knots tighter than a footballer’s shoelaces.”

“I’m a federal agent,” Kensi said. “And he’s an LAPD detective.”

“No kidding!” Bill said with a chuckle. “Well how ‘bout that Carol. We got the best of an FBI agent and a police officer.”

“I’m not FB—-never mind,” Kensi said with a roll of her eyes. “Let me see your arm.”

“We were just walking back and they came out of nowhere,” Carol said. “I wanted to get a picture of them with my iPhone but it was so dark so we got closer and they just came charging right at us!”

“Yeah well, buffalo don’t really like other people,” Deeks said.

“This looks really bad,” Kensi said. “I think you hit an artery.”

“What does that mean?” Bill asked.

“It means you’re going to die if we don’t get you some help fast,” Deeks said.

“Well how are we going to do that?” Carol asked worriedly. 

“We have a lot of connections,” Kensi said, looking meaningfully at Deeks. “If you give us your cellphone AND the pistol, we can probably help.”

“Well what if we just call 911?” Bill asked.

“They might show up in time, they might not,” Deeks said. “Up to you. You might only lose the arm.”

“Lose my arm?!” Bill cried. “This is my shooting arm!”

“Like we said, it’s up to you,” Kensi said. “Phone. Gun. Or no deal.”

“Bill give them the gun!” Carol said. “Here.” She handed Kensi her phone. “Please you have to help him.”

“Gun,” Kensi said, holding out her other hand. 

“Take care of her,” Bill said. “That’s my best pistol right there.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it is,” Kensi said with a roll of her eyes, handing it to Deeks who immediately emptied the chamber and flung the bullets as far as he could. 

Kensi ripped off a portion of the bottom of her shirt and used it to tie up the wound while Deeks dialed. “Reggie, hey, it’s Deeks. I need a helicopter.”

It was less than twenty minutes before a chopper swooped down and landed in the middle of the plains, scaring the buffalo away and allowing Kensi, Deeks, and the Weekes’ to escape from their rocky prison. Two EMT’s jumped out and hustled toward them. “Please help my husband,” Carol said worriedly. “He’s bleeding out.”

They peeled back Kensi’s makeshift bandage and frowned. “Looks like the bleeding’s stopped. Might need a couple stitches, but your husband will be fine ma’am.”

“I will?” Bill asked, turning to look at Kensi. “But you said—“

Kensi shrugged. “You took us hostage. What did you expect?”

“Now wait just a minute!” Carol said, looking irate as an officer cuffed her. 

“No thanks,” Deeks said leaning heavily against Kensi.

“Hey, I do need you to take a look at my husband,” Kensi said to the second EMT. “They drugged him with something.”

“Oh it was just a little Benadryl,” Carol called. “Nothing dangerous.”

“I thought that port tasted awfully sweet,” Deeks said, swaying a bit.

“Even so, Benadryl and alcohol don’t mix. We need to get you checked out,” the EMT said.

It was not a fun helicopter ride. Bill and Carol chattered away the entire time, as if they weren’t about to be arrested for grand larceny and kidnapping. Deeks had rallied enviably toward the end of their walk but now he slumped against the seat, eyes closed, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

Things got fractionally better when they arrived at the hospital. Bill and Carol were taken away, cuffed, into police custody, but that was where the relief ended. The police wanted statements from both Kensi and Deeks, not once, not twice, but three separate times and no amount of pointing out that they worked for NCIS was going to shake the local PD who were having the most exciting night of their lives in about ten years.

They did give Deeks a look over at the hospital and decided at this point it was best to just let things run their course. He was still a little confused and a lot tired by the time local PD drove them back to the RV park.

“I want a shower,” Kensi said as she got out of the car and pulled Deeks with her.

“I want a nap,” he said as she unlocked the door.

“And where have you two been?” someone asked.

“Oh god!” Kensi yelled, clutching a hand to her chest as she realized there were people sitting at their table.

Eric and Nell were looking at them in a very parental fashion.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Deeks asked. 

“Um, you two were obviously in trouble so we borrowed an old Airstream from my parents,” Nell said. “We got in about an hour ago. You want to tell us about the little adventure you clearly just had?”

Deeks and Kensi exchanged a look. “Let’s just say it involved a herd of bison, a demon dog, and a drugging incident,” Kensi said.

“You were drugged?!” Eric asked.

“Oh my god are you okay?” Nell added.

“Not me,” Kensi said.

Eric shook his head wide eyed. “Callen and Sam aren’t going to like that.”

“Well Callen and Sam don’t have to know,” Kensi said. “That’s why we called you Eric.”

Eric and Nell exchanged a slightly guilty look. “What?” Deeks asked. “You told them already?”

The RV door opened behind them and voices trickled in. “It will be fine. There’s plenty of space for both of us.”

“Have you seen yourself? You’re the size of a small building. There’s no way we can both fit in that tent.”

“You brought them with you?!” Kensi asked.

“Brought is a strong word,” Eric said. “Followed a direct order is more accurate.”

What had initially seemed like a spacious RV now seemed suffocatingly small. “Hey you’re back!” Callen said as he and Sam came inside. “Everything okay?”

“It is now,” Deeks said, running a hand through his hair. “What are you all doing here?”

“We’re making sure you’re all right,” Sam said. “Did you think we wouldn’t find out about that emergency call you made last night?”

“But the call wasn’t to you,” Kensi said in exasperation.

“We still found out,” Callen said. 

“I have alerts set for everyone,” Eric said, as if it should have been extremely obvious.

“Well we don’t need you, everything is under control,” Deeks said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Sam said. “We’re staying.”

“Not in here you’re not,” Kensi told them.

“Oh no, of course not,” Nell said quickly. “No Eric and I will be in the Airstream.”

“And Sam and I are camping,” Callen said. “In a tent. The size of matchbox.”

“That tent has plenty of space!” Sam growled.

“Okay then, if you all don’t mind, we’d like to take a nap since we’ve been up all night,” Deeks said.

“Oh, sure of course, go right ahead,” Eric said.

Nobody left. Callen and Sam immediately dissolved into an argument about whether they were going fishing or hiking first, as Kensi and Deeks slowly made their way to the bed at the back of the RV. “I’m telling you, it doesn’t compare to the ocean,” Sam protested.

“How would you know?” Callen fired back. “Have you ever tried it? Not everything has to be a deep sea, Navy SEAL diving adventure you know.”

“I think we should hit up Glacier Point,” Nell said, studying the map Deeks had left on the table. “Ooh but the Cathedral Rocks look great too.”

“Is anybody getting a good signal out here?” Eric held his phone up high, forehead wrinkled in frustration. 

Deeks looked wryly at Kensi. “Is this what it’s going to be like to have kids?”

“Probably.” She shook her head. “But when they’re actually our kids, we leave them at home with a babysitter.”