My Best Friend
Once again a little One-Shot to go along with Not Our First Time. Some back story on Eric and Claire's friendship.
Eric Beale was my best friend.
There really wasn't any other way to say it, he was my best friend and would probably remain my best friend until the day we died. We would some day both get married and his future wife was going to have to deal with the fact that I would always remind in his life. She was going to have to accept the fact that I was going to run into their house in an immature fashion on Christmas Day and most likely sit on my best friend in his bed to wake him up. I don't care if he is wearing clothes or not.
I remember moving to LA, after being promoted to Detective and feeling alone and shell-shocked. Then one day, through my caffeine fueled rage, as I go to throw my cell-phone which had once again froze in the Starbucks garbage, came Eric. I had been thankful for Eric since June of 2005, thankful that I had someone to talk to, someone I could nerd out with, someone who was there for me in the same way I was there for him, someone who had no sexual interest in me at all.
I'm not going to lie and say I never had a crush on Eric, because the first few months of our friendship was based on that fact the nice man-child who was kind of tactless and not as funny as he believed he was helped me in my hour of need and offered to buy me a doughnut. Eventually I got used to his nice ways though, how he'd come over after work with ice cream for me and a bag full of take out asking me about my day. How when an under-cover op when wrong he was always the first person at my bedside, reading a book or typing away on his laptop when I woke up or entered the waiting room after a check up.
Growing up my parents had been just as involved as any other, but like any adult I had moved away and began my own life, my emergency contact changing from Dad to Eric's name after two years of living in LA. We seemed to fit, Eric and I, over the 7 years we had known each other we had become our own little family unit and that had only gotten stronger when I started working with NCIS.
I still remember the first day I started, I knew Eric worked for an agency but I didn't know for what part, or what one, obviously. I knew it was something important and with his skills on a computer I knew it was also something that I shouldn't ask too many questions about. Being a Detective though had caused me to be naturally curious and after trying to hack into his computer for what I think was the fifth time, unsuccessfully, he eventually told me he was a technical operator and intelligence analyst, he sometime got orders directly from the navy base in DC and that was all I needed to know.
My first day at NCIS had been nerve wracking, and eventually I was lead upstairs by my new partner only to run smack dab into my best friend. He knew I was coming of course, and that had explained his smirk when I rushed out of his apartment that morning before going home to get ready for my new job orientation. I had punched him in the shoulder, and smacked him on the back of the head shocking Sam before telling him I'd see him later that night before offering an explanation to the older man who looked thoroughly confused.
Eric would always be my best friend though. He was the one who I spent Christmas and birthdays with. Who listened to me complain about work and let me de-stress after cases even if I was just going to cry. My feelings for him never came back after those first few months, he was the brother I never had and I soon realized that as he took on the older brother role in my life, attempting to intimidate dates and calling my step-mom when he thought I was being unreasonable with life choices. Not that I went on dates often.
And sometimes I think he called my step-mom just to annoy me.
"Harry Potter marathon and Pizza Hut, tonight?" Eric calls down from the balcony. I look up from my paper work briefly, giving him a smile and a thumbs up.
To my left I hear Deeks snort before muttering under his breath, "I swear they're related."
Grinning to myself I turn back to my work before making a mental note to stop by my apartment and get my Harry Potter DVDs along with clothes for tomorrow.
"Claireeeeee, don't forget to stop and get your sleepover things!" Eric yells down suddenly making all four of us in the bull-pen jump. I laugh, and once again giving him a thumbs up before watching him rush away talking into his earpiece, his cargo shorts and flip-flops disappearing.
Eric Beale was my best friend, and nothing would ever change that.