A/N: A while back, I had the idea to write a story involving Deep Six, where the story itself became pivotal to the story, not just a side note. So, this is the result. It's set in season 4, after Twisted Sister, but before Driven; so the team is still miffed at Tim for how he wrote the book. No, this is not a bad!team and poor!McGee story. You might say, "Poor Tim!" but not because the team is mean to him. :) I've made up the entire plot of Deep Six and it's probably not what most people would imagine it to be. :)

Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS or its characters. I am not making any money off this story.

Killing the Monster
by Enthusiastic Fish

"Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public."

Winston Churchill

Chapter 1

There was still a bit of a chill at NCIS. Tim had tried to convince everyone that the characters he wrote about were only caricatures of his friends and coworkers. It wasn't meant to be reality. In reality, the point of writing this book had not been the characters. It had been the case. That was the reason for the book and the reason he was happy about its success.

His phone rang and he answered.

"McGee."

"Agent McGee, you have some visitors down here. You expecting anyone?"

"No, Henry. I'm not expecting visitors. I'll be right down."

"They say they're old friends of yours."

"Okay."

Tim hung up and looked around. Tony glanced up.

"Someone else you wrote about, Probie?"

"I have no idea who it is, Tony. ...and I didn't write about you. It was only vaguely supposed to be someone like you. If you're bugged by it, then it's clearly not you," Tim said.

He hurried to the elevator before Tony could say something else. He wished, for the millionth time, that they hadn't found out about Deep Six. He'd started on a sequel, but it was slower going, for more reasons than the reactions of his friends.

He was making up the case this time.

When he stepped off the elevator, his brow furrowed at the sight of the two men standing next to Henry.

"Hello," he said carefully.

"Wow...the little geek has grown up."

That triggered a memory...not a pleasant one, unfortunately.

"What brings you here?" he asked, keeping his voice neutral.

"We wanted to catch up with an old friend."

"You want to take them up, Agent McGee?" Henry asked.

Tim shook his head.

"No. Why don't we go outside to...catch up?" Tim suggested.

"Sure. Let's go."

"If Gibbs comes down here looking for me..."

"I'll let him know," Henry said, but he looked at Tim significantly, obviously noticing the lack of warmth in the interactions.

Tim just smiled his thanks and walked out.

The smile vanished as soon as they were out the doors.

"What are you doing here, Louis?"

"So you do remember us, McGeek."

"Hard to forget," Tim replied with a sarcastic smile. "Louis Dietrich and David Larson. The Palindromes."

"Clever. That's what the little dweebs thought of us, huh?"

"Well, I knew that you two had no idea what a palindrome was," Tim said. "What are you doing here?"

David smiled. On the surface they were keeping it, oh, so polite, but there was something going on.

"My wife gave me a book for my birthday," Louis said.

"Congratulations," Tim said. "You finally learned how to read?"

Louis sneered a little but didn't reply to the insult.

"Imagine my surprise when I knew what was going to happen in this book. Imagine our surprise when we looked at the picture on the dust jacket and recognized our old friend, Timothy McGee, writing under a pseudonym."

Tim didn't show it, but his heart sank a little. He hadn't thought that these two would even crack the spine of Deep Six. Not ever. Reading hadn't exactly been high on their list of priorities in high school. Stepping on those who offended them, yes. Reading, no.

"And?"

Louis dropped the act for a moment and stepped very close to him.

"And what were you trying to pull, writing that crap?"

"It's a novel, Louis," Tim said, keeping himself from cringing the way he had always cringed in high school. "It's fiction. What are you worried about?"

"You think that gets you off the hook?"

"Off what hook? The situation hasn't changed since high school. It's still the same as it was then. ...except that you don't scare me anymore." Tim leaned in even closer. "I'm not a kid anymore. You want to push me around and try it again? Huh? Or...what about Jillian? Does she have anything to say nowadays? How is she doing? You always did perform better with an audience to watch your idiocy...and she certainly did that for you. Maybe she still does. Is she still the cheerleader of the LDDL fan club? Does she do it for you both?"

Louis' expression darkened and he started to get closer, one of his hands clenching into a fist. Tim tensed, ready to react to any physical violence, but David pulled him back.

"No, Louis. Not here."

Louis got himself under control almost immediately. He smiled.

"See you around, McGeek."

"I doubt it, Louis," Tim retorted with more than a little satisfaction. "If you're here to bluster, you've done that. You can't change how successful Deep Six has been, how many know the story. What are you going to do? Claim defamation when it's a fictional novel and your name doesn't appear? How will you explain how you know about it? You worried you'll suddenly develop a conscience?"

Tim grinned, enjoying their powerlessness. It wasn't as bad as what he had felt at their hands, but it was more than he'd ever thought he would have as a teenager.

"You watch your back, McGee," David said.

"I always do...and even better, I have other people who watch my back, too. This isn't high school anymore, and I'm not scared of the playground bullies. You push and I'll push back. I'm working on a sequel now. Maybe I'll put some more reminiscences into it. I wonder how many other people will notice, how many others will start to think about it again. What do you think?"

Louis stepped toward him again, but again, David held him back.

"McGee!"

Tim was actually relieved to hear Gibbs calling him, even if he seemed a little miffed.

"I have a job to do," Tim said. "I think I'll get back to doing it. You can see yourselves to the exit. Don't come here again."

Tim turned to go back to NCIS.

"Think you're tough, McGeek?" Louis spat. "Let's see how tough you are without that gun."

Tim paused and turned back.

"And how tough are you, Louis, when you don't have six other guys around to help you beat up a sixteen-year-old? Or is that 300-dollar suit covering up some actual muscle?"

With that, he went on his way to where Gibbs was standing at the entrance.

"You taking breaks on your own time now, McGee?" Gibbs asked.

"Some...old friends dropped by, Boss. I didn't know they were going to be here. I talked to them for a minute or two and told them I had to work. I'm sorry. Won't happen again."

"Good. I don't care how much teasing those two do, you can't just stop working whenever it suits you."

"Understood," Tim said.

He had no intention of explaining what was going on. Actually, seeing Louis and David so hot under the collar made him feel a little better about the flak he was still getting from his book. ...but it wasn't like he could explain all that to the others.

Some things just needed to be left in the past.

Sometimes, there was no other option.

As he walked in, he saw Henry ready to ask him about them, but he shook his head slightly and Henry got the message. Tim smiled his thanks and followed Gibbs back to the bullpen.

"Drive them away, McGee?" Tony asked.

Tim opened his mouth to retort, but he didn't get any further than that.

Thwack!

Thwack!

"Enough!" he said. "I don't want to hear another word about that book. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Boss," Tony said.

Gibbs looked at Tim who felt a bit irritated. He wasn't the one who brought it up. It was the others. He would have been happy to keep it a secret. If only Sarah hadn't said anything.

"It won't come up again on my account, Boss," Tim said, unable to keep some of the irritation out of his voice.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Everyone got back to work.

That evening, Tim lingered a little bit to let Tony and Ziva get out ahead of him. Abby wasn't as angry at him as the others were, but she was a bit cold as well. Tim hoped that it would only take a few weeks until everything calmed down. He didn't want this to become the norm. Part of him wanted to explain, but he couldn't really, not with how things had fallen out back in high school. He had told Erin Kendall that he joined law enforcement by design, but it hadn't given him the result he'd wanted and so he'd turned to his occasional hobby of writing as an outlet.

If he closed his eyes, he could see it all as if it had happened just yesterday, not 20 years ago. He could hear it and smell it and see it. ...and feel the incredible injustice of being ignored.

With a sigh, he got his stuff and headed out. This wasn't nearly as bad as high school, but it still was disappointing to have this coldness lingering.

"Agent McGee."

"Hey, Henry. Thanks for not saying anything to anyone."

"Those weren't friends."

"No, they weren't."

Henry wasn't in his book, and if he'd heard anything, he hadn't taken it out on Tim. He was as kind as ever and, right now, more than a little concerned.

"Who were they?"

"My former bullies...from high school."

"What were they doing here?"

"They recognized me as Thom Gemcity."

Henry smiled.

"Wanted to rub shoulders with someone famous?"

"Not exactly. They just saw something of themselves in the book and weren't too happy about it...like everyone else here."

"It'll pass. People get uptight but they'll relax. Just got to ride it out."

"I hope it happens sooner rather than later. I know I shouldn't have used names so close to theirs, but it was so much easier to write that way. ...kind of like a shield."

That last part was an accidental slip.

"What do you mean?" Henry asked.

"Nothing. Don't say anything to anyone about them, okay? I don't think they'll ask, not with how they've been acting, but these guys aren't from around here. I haven't seen them since high school. I'd rather not have to go into any detail about my old bullies. They were seeing if they could still intimidate me, but they can't. I'd rather just let the past stay in the past."

"Sounds like a plan to me. I can keep things to myself."

"Thanks, Henry."

"Have a nice evening, Agent McGee."

"Will do."

Tim walked out of the building and got in his car. He drove home and went to bed.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Louis was still fuming.

"What he wrote in there! We can't let him get away with it!"

"He already has, Louis," David said. "And he's right. Nothing has changed."

"Except what else he said. People will start to think about it again, find the things that don't quite fit. He's a cop now!"

"Which is why we should just let it go."

"No! I'm not letting some geek turned two-bit author jeopardize everything I've built. I have a life that I like and I'm not going to let anything interfere with that, David. You got it?"

David sighed and went along...as he always had.

"Fine...but if we're going to do this, it has to be planned out. We have to get away with it. ...just like last time, but if we do the same thing as last time, it's going to look suspicious. We have to be careful. How long are you in town?"

"As long as I need to be. Jillian's learned not to expect me."

"Okay. Sleep it off tonight and we can start talking about it tomorrow...and please, don't do anything until we've made plans. I don't want to go to jail, not for someone like the geek."

Louis smiled. He was getting his way and his temper mellowed.

"We won't. We didn't last time."