#but peeps c'mon they are so presh

[le-amewzing]

clellick hcs

Have some Clellick headcanons, bc there needs to be some Clellick content on my dash~ =w= and i'mma forever have a thirst for clayton ;w;

whenever Torres is upset/frustrated/angry/annoyed, Bishop & Reeves smother him with Aggressive Cuddles™ until they can coax a smile from him

sometimes Torres does a double-take bc Bishop & Reeves dress nicely—but also sometimes alike; there...are blazers...& suit pieces...everywhere he looks

& tbh on occasion Bishop just wears one of Reeves' jackets as her own

then again she also wears Torres' leather jackets & ballpark jackets

conclusion: Ellie Bishop is a jacket thief not that they rly mind

Reeves & Torres always keep snacks on them—for Bishop

need smthg salty? She hits up Reeves

smthg sweet? from the salty one Torres

Ellie Bishop may leave crumbs around the house...but you will never find cheese-dust fingerprints anywhere partly bc she licks her fingers clean, partly bc her boys are kinda clean freaks

when Torres brushes things off/doesn't take things srsly, Bishop & Reeves are there to ground him

when Bishop takes things too srsly, Torres & Reeves get her to lighten up & have fun

when Reeves is brooding, Bishop & Torres coax him out of his shell by being overly dramatic—eventually Reeves cracks a smile, bc no one can beat Drama Queen Nick, & Bishop knows this XD

since previous relationships haven't given her the impetus/opportunity (Jake) or the time (Qasim) to figure out how to be romantic,‎ Bishop makes a concerted effort w/Torres & Reeves

so one morning her boys wake up to discover a love letter from their Ellie

one letter, for the two of them—which isn't rly a problem but

the letter is. practically. a dissertation.

they wanna read it, but holy crap

they only get the chance after encouraging her to binge-watch sci-fi b movies with McGee one weekend

so they make a nice weekend of it, kick back, eat dinner w/o the fear of having someone ask if they're gonna finish what's on their plate and pore over the pages

Reeves finishes first & waits patiently for his boy to catch up bc every few paragraphs Torres has to stop to rub his eyes or temples bc jfc even when romancing Bishop still uses big words & uses a lot of them

altho when Torres is done, he can barely meet Reeves' eyes & vice versa bc wow Bishop is eloquent & managed to capture everything they feel, too

Reeves just loves it, while Torres feels he's been one-upped a little—but every time he tries to find the right words, all he can do is huff & hug & smooch, which Reeves gladly accepts

when Bishop comes home, her boys are surprisingly cuddlier than normal bc of her letter, which tickles her pink...until they actually manage to annoy her by being uncharacteristically clingy—"'kay, guys, I love you, too—but stop now"

considering the end results, Bishop doesn't write another love letter

but occasionally the boys discover love sticky notes from her—ones for Reeves on his neckties, ones for Torres on his haircare products XD

it's a practice the boys adopt, too

Reeves leaves his on her laptop or on the ice-cream carton in the freezer, as well as on Torres' gun or on the steering wheel of Torres' car

Torres places his on Reeves' shoes or on Reeves' badge, as well as on Bishop's hairbrush or in her pencil case

speaking of which, Bishop can draw from memory & from imagination, but her favorite sketches are the poses Reeves & Torres often provide—usually when tuckered out on the couch at home on weekends for every 5 scenes of Torres with his head on Reeves' shoulder, there's 1 of Reeves slumped over with his head on Torres' chest

Reeves knows better than to get btwn them when Torres & Bishop are bickering or even arguing—altho it'd be a lie if he didn't sometimes find it entertaining or cute bc ffs they're short & angry & that's adorable when they puff up their chests

similarly, Torres backs away when Reeves & Bishop are being brainy—on occasion he'll keep up, but sometimes he just calls Palmer so he can be silly & there's no one (aside from Reeves & Bishop) better to be silly with than Palmer—tho one night in jail makes them better-behaved these days

those rare moments when Torres & Reeves are being too "bro" do drive Bishop a little nuts; if ever they're too obnoxious, she drops the ol' "my brothers have been meaning to come visit" line & that sobers them up p fast

Torres' niece comes to visit &, on occasion, to stay w/them, but Torres still doesn't get how quickly she accepted his relationship w/his fellow agents—then again, she likes Reeves & Bishop better than she likes him (or so she teases her poor uncle)

ground rules #1: clothing must be worn at home, even pajamas except on intimate nights bc Nick Torres has a bad habit of going commando &, boy, they love you, but pls put some clothes on unless you're gonna deep clean everything you sit on

ground rules #2: Bishop & Torres keep a dry home for Reeves' good health, but Reeves doesn't veto them drinking—they just go out for a drink on occasion w/o him per his request (best nights usually are when he has a meeting)

on that note, Bishop borrowed reference materials from Abby, & Torres has learned how to make what seems to be every mocktail in the book (fab for when this trio wants to celebrate anything~)

ground rules #3: the only acceptable reason to stay up late is to watch scary movies, not to work—unless they're getting overtime; Bishop is the worst workaholic of the 3 of them, & there have been far too many times to count when Reeves & Torres have woken up in the middle of the night to find her at her laptop—Torres snatches it & puts it away while Reeves gathers her up in his arms to take her to bed (those nights also find her in the middle bc even in their sleep either boy will grab her wrist if she tries to escape, & they just tuck her back in)

Bishop doesn't mind having her hair tousled—Torres does Reeves' shins know the truth of this when he made that mistake once

only Bishop can get away w/booping their noses usually happens when she's sleep-deprived

Torres' infamous little dance has been seen by everyone in the squad by now...but there's an adults-only version for Reeves & Bishop that maybe quite possibly involves striptease idk

Torres teaches Reeves the lyrics to "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" for when Bishop is in a snit Bishop is Not Amused™

random hc: Reeves is too ripped, deffo played rugby growing up; Bishop tries to keep Torres from teasing him about the "booty shorts" part of the uniform...but Reeves breaks out an old uni, & jaws drop B3

^this makes them the nerd (Bishop), the loner (Torres), & the jock (Reeves), altho Reeves protests he wasn't the jock they think him to be, & Torres insists he himself was a jock & not a loner Bishop accepts & approves of her nerd status

basically—Ellick, Clellie, Click, or Clellick...these 3 are such soft goofs, send halp ;w;

[le-amewzing]

Dark Eyes & Dimples

Just jumping in head first with some Clellick content. :3c

Fic: "Dark Eyes & Dimples" [FFN] [AO3]

Pairings/Characters: pre-Clayton Reeves/Nick Torres/Ellie Bishop, Abby Sciuto

Rating: K+

Words: ~1,050

Additional info: romance, friendship, 3rd person POV

Summary: Torres hides out in Abby's lab For Reasons™.

                "Nick…whatcha doing down there?"

                "Hiding, Abby."

                Abby moved her desk chair out of the way and bent over so she could get a better look at Torres. She narrowed her eyes at him, keeping a suspicious smile on her black-colored lips. "I can see that. But one—why?—and two—why in my lab?"

                He pulled his eyes from his phone's screen to look up at her. "It's nice and quiet down here. I get why you can get so much work done."

                "Work, huh? And how is that Candy Crush case going? Got any leads?"

                Torres grumbled and put the game away. He took the hand she offered and climbed out from under her desk—but he glanced at the door and did a poor job of doing so subtly.

                Abby looked at the open metal door, too. "Hiding from someone?"

                He scoffed and rolled his eyes. "No."

                She raised her eyebrows.

                "…maybe."

                "What did you do, Torres?"

                "I'm offended. Why do you have to make the jump that I did something?"

                Abby cocked her head to one side. "You could be hiding from Gibbs for not finishing a report. Hiding from McGee because you broke something of his. Hiding from Bishop because you ate something of hers. Maybe even hiding from Reeves because you bicker half the time you two interact."

                Torres snorted. "What, that doesn't also apply to me and Bishop?"

                She nodded. "Point taken. But you still haven't answered my question," Abby continued, and she led him by the hand out to her lab proper and sat him down on her work stool. She paused only to grab a pack of Twizzlers out of a nearby cabinet, and she passed him one. "So spill."

                Not that he needed the sugar, but Torres gnawed on the candy rope anyway to keep his mouth preoccupied. He did know who he was escaping…he just hadn't exactly figured out why.

                Gibbs and McGee weren't the issue. In fact, they weren't even in the office right now, having gone to help prep a witness in a cold case for her testimony tomorrow.

                That left Bishop, Reeves, and Torres to catch up on paperwork and other details in the office. Normally not an issue, but both Bishop and Reeves had woken up on the right side of the bed this morning, and Torres was never one to be very interested in paperwork, so…

                Torres took another quick look at the open door. He got up and closed it for his own piece of mind.

                "Bishop. And Reeves," he said when he sat back down.

                "Both of them? Yikes."

                He narrowed his eyes at her. "If you're still thinking I did something, then stop, because that's not the case. They're just—frustrating. Frustrating me."

                Her smile was friendly but skeptical. "That's the purpose of friends and family. They annoy the hell out of you."

                Torres grimaced, because "annoy" honestly wasn't the right word. Or was it?

                Upstairs, he knew, Bishop sat in her chair with the kind of perfect posture she never had when hunched over her laptop on the floor, working on touching up some reports to be submitted while managing to catch every last bit of the news despite the low volume of the TV in the background and chatting away with Reeves and Torres. Even if she didn't exactly laugh at every one of Reeves' jokes or clever turns of phrase, she kept cracking a smile. It was distracting.

                And Reeves was no better, leaving his desk on the other side of the partition and skimming his own reports for typos as he joined the other two agents in the bullpen, managing to read nearly as fast as Bishop or even McGee while offering up some quips every few moments and making eye contact with Torres to follow up and ensure Torres wasn't feeling left out. He even, once he finally decided to sit, came and sat on the edge of Torres' desk and offered to help with Torres' reports since Reeves had, in his own opinion, the best grammar skills of them all since his spoke the Queen's English. The offer was said with a smile that was maybe teasing and maybe wasn't. That was also distracting.

                "Distracting, huh?"

                Torres snapped out of his thoughts. "What?"

                Abby sighed and passed him another Twizzler. "You've been thinking aloud this whole time, Torres. It's probably a good thing that you closed the door."

                He'd been…? Oh, hell. He wanted to be deep undercover very far away right about now.

                "Don't worry about it, though. You haven't said anything they'd want to smack you for." She furrowed her brow. "But I don't follow what made you escape them down here. What part's distracting? Are they keeping you from getting work done?"

                "Yes! Exactly. That's exactly it."

                "But how? Is it the chatting? Because they're not very loud people—at least not Bishop. And Reeves offering to help is just Reeves being his sweet old self."

                "No, it's their smiles." Although, even as he said it, Torres knew how absurd he sounded.

                Abby seemed to agree, as she put the candy away and nudged him to his feet. "So you don't like their smiles? C'mon, Nick—even you have to know that's the worst made-up excuse to play hooky." She opened the lab door and waved him on out. "Just head back upstairs before Gibbs returns and comes looking for you."

                He grumbled but thanked her for the candy anyway. Still, he rounded the corner at the end of the hallway and stared at the elevator doors without pushing the call button.

                She had it wrong. Of course he didn't hate their smiles. Who the hell hated someone smiling at them, especially if it were Bishop or Reeves? They both had that crinkled-eye, teeth-always-showing kind of smile that was hard to be anything but genuine. And if they were being playful, the dimples on their chins became more prominent—and their eyes would have that infuriating twinkle in them and—

                Torres banged his head against the wall beside the elevator. Dammit.

                Dark brown eyes that always sought him out and dimples that appeared when they smiled with maybe-not-maybe inviting intentions…

                Nicholas Torres had a type.

                And both Clayton Reeves and Eleanor Bishop fit it to a T.

=w= Nick Torres figuring out he Has Feelings™ is something I will always love. XD I've had some OT3 feelings for Clellick for a while now and finally set down some hcs in a recent tumblr post, and that helped me develop some fic ideas, too (not to mention some doodle ideas). But it was actually in my adventure in grabbing reference photos for these three that I finally noticed the dark eyes and dimples detail I used on poor Torres here, and I find it brilliant that it just so happens to be a canon thing about Reeves' and Bishop's actors. I also need to thank the wonderful thinking music that is the guitar-playing of Rodrigo y Gabriela for helping me focus long enough to get the last string of thoughts down on the page, *lol*; also my papa mew for being quiet when he came home and I was still struggling to find the right words. :D But here's to more Clellick from me, and soon!

Thanks for reading, and feel free to leave an anon/unsigned review via the FFN link or comment via the AO3 link at the top of the post, especially if you enjoyed this!

~mew

[le-amewzing]

home is where the heart is

Some soft Clellick feels just because. =w=

Fic: "home is where the heart is" [FFN] [AO3]

Pairings/Characters: established!Clayton Reeves/Nick Torres/Ellie Bishop

Rating: light T

Words: ~1,060

Additional info: romance, hurt/comfort, fluff, 3rd person POV

Summary: Torres…has had a long day. Luckily, Bishop and Reeves are there for him as always.

                At the end of the day, there's nothing like coming home to those who love you.

                That thought kept Torres going earlier and it keeps him going now, even as he trudges up the stone steps to the apartment complex and fishes out his keys and has half a mind to sleep just inside the front door downstairs, because it's been one of those days, one of those unending days, unending in that night bleeds into day bleeds into night, night that can't be anything but grim especially as the mere thought of the word "bleeds" takes him right back to the bloodbath he and McGee spent documenting for the past twenty-four…or more…hours.

                A bloodbath he really wishes he hadn't seen himself.

                But a bloodbath he's relieved neither Bishop nor Reeves have had to witness.

                Morbid thoughts aside for a moment, Torres pulls himself together, enters the complex, and meanders to the elevator. There's nothing quite like the luxury of riding the elevator to the sixth floor, even if he has only been sitting on his ass today and probably needs the exercise.

                A minute later, he's inside and heading up, and then a hollow, flat ding alerts him that he's arrived. Torres steps out into the carpeted hallway, but four doors down a latch unlocks, and Reeves steps out with a bag of trash as he laughs at something inside.

                He catches Torres' eye, and his smile dims. "Nick," he says. Simple and without the need for a proper greeting or other embellishments.

                It's enough to make Torres muster the tiniest of smiles. He kind of feels like letting his bag slip from his shoulder so he can dive into one of Reeves' big bear hugs, but Reeves has a task literally in hand and Torres knows he's gotta make it inside before he unravels.

                Reeves must suspect as much, since he sidesteps to let Torres by. But he insists Torres catch his eye, too, so the shorter man can read the concern there, and Torres nods back.

                Finally inside, Torres drops his bag by the door, in front of the little table with their key dish, and he follows the sound of Bishop humming in the kitchen. He knows better than to bother her when she's cooking, but— "Holy shit"—his eyes widen—"did you use a whole cup of garlic?!"

                Bishop jolts at his exclamation but laughs, and she glances at him over her shoulder. "What better way to welcome you home, right? But I swear I didn't; it just hasn't cooked down yet." Her smile still bright, she does a double-take—and, just like Reeves, her smile shrinks. "…Nick?"

                He shrugs, as if the day's work really can be shrugged off. "Long day," he states when he feels Reeves' heavy footfall behind him.

                "You know you can't get away with just a 'long day,' luv," Reeves reminds him. He takes the hand nearer to him, Torres' left, and holds tight, even lifting it to show Torres he's grounded here, he's safe here. In his eyes, Torres reads the added "Getting it off your chest will make you feel better."

                Bishop, too, samples their dinner, scrunches her nose, adds a dash of some spice, and covers the pot so she can turn around and face her boys. She takes the single step to cross to him in their tiny kitchen, and she pushes the cuff of her old blue sweatshirt up so she can grab Torres' other free hand. Their fingers entwine, but then the cuff falls over their hands, hiding the comforting gesture.

                Ages ago, Torres still thought of himself as someone who was PDA-allergic. Also ages ago but not as far back, he still thought he had to choose between this blonde brainiac and this British bad boy, especially when the grim thought that they might choose each other and leave him behind still tormented him.

                Now he's grateful that he doesn't come home to an empty apartment, grateful that he's adapting to a life of wanting and needing others around him after a decade of playing the lone wolf.

                So he gives their hands a squeeze—Bishop's with her slender, artist fingers and Reeves' with his stocky, fighter's digits—and begins to relax.

                "Yeah," he confirms, "it was more than a long day. Makes me glad Vance gave you another op to prep for," he directs at Reeves. "And makes me glad you're on that DOD case with Delilah," he tells Bishop.

                Bishop purses her lips and furrows her brow. "Clay and I've been wondering all day. You didn't send either of us a single message, Nick."

                "Cartel stuff."

                In a less serious situation, this is when Bishop whistles in response to the severity of the case. But she doesn't now, because even if they don't each have experience with cartel cases, the gory details from the news are bad enough.

                Torres chuckles nervously, but he doesn't pull away from either of them. "I promise I'll share, honest. But maybe you two can catch me up on your days first?" He raises his eyebrows.

                Bishop and Reeves share a look, and Reeves cocks his head in assent, meaning Bishop has to grumble her agreement. "Fine," she says, "but only if I can start backwards with the tale of how Clayton thought he'd be helpful in the kitchen and started adding things willy-nilly from the fridge." She covers her mouth with her free hand. "No kisses until I've eaten, like, four mints and brushed my teeth twice. Forget garlic breath, Nick—I've got garlic mouth."

                At that, Reeves laughs. "It's not contagious, I assure you," he says with a quick peck at Torres' temple, but then they're both shoving him away just in case, because having everyone in the apartment reek is really not a great idea.

                With that, Torres can feel the day melting away, and the reality of work becomes just another day at NCIS for him. In that moment, the hardest thing to believe isn't the nastiness they have to deal with in their jobs but that he ever doubted that this life, with both Bishop and Reeves, was exactly what he wanted and needed. After all…

                At the end of the day, there's nothing like coming home to those who love you.

                But there's also nothing better than coming home to those you love, too.

Something soft and fluffy-ish because I need them all to be happy and, as always, I fucking miss Reeves. ;w; Tbh, my notes for this little oneshot had Nick being a little more insightful and doubtful of his poly relationship, but I'm saving that for another fic; I do prefer how this one morphed into what you have before you now. -w- And, while I'm kinda curious to know about the days of the other two and how tf Reeves nearly ruined dinner, this is deffo complete as-is. Sometimes all you want is a sketch of your ship…altho now I'm recalling I meant to include a crass joke from Reeves, but I'll just save that for another Clellick. XD

Thanks for reading, and feel free to leave an anon/unsigned review via the FFN link or comment via the AO3 link at the top of the post, especially if you enjoyed this!

~mew