A/N: This little nugget has taken inspiration from Eric Beale's comment in Savoir Faire. Not from the whole episode, just this one line!
One shot of Neric, first foray into his pairing. Enjoy! :)
"Did they take the mick out of your body?" Nell babied him when they were at the bar later that night.
"Yes they did." Eric pouted back. They were both more than a little drunk and Nell was now tapping his bottom lip with her finger.
"So they didn't think you had a beach body?" Nell was giggling and Eric was glassy eyed.
"No." Eric shook his head, regretting it the moment the world started spinning.
"What about your little friend at the DMV…Did she think you had a beach body?" Nell said sleepily, and was thankful that Eric was just too drunk to notice her spike of jealousy.
"Don't be so silllyyyy." Eric grinned and rested his head against her shoulder. "She was gayyy, I was most definitely not her type. You're probably more her type." He stared up at her, her outline was fuzzy through his glasses but he was still smiling. He now saw that Nell was smiling too.
"Can we go home Eric, I'm sleepy." She yawned as if to emphasise this point and Eric mock bowed before the pair stumbled to the bar to settle their tab. After they managed to find an uber that would actually take the inebriated pair and found Nell's keys after dumping out the contents of her handbag onto the step in front of her flat, the pair stumbled into her bed.
When they woke up the next morning (thank god for Saturdays and some semblance of a day off) there was a minute amount of awkward mumbling when Nell's iPhone alarm blared. They stared blurrily at one another but there was a wordless agreement to roll over and burrow beneath the covers and nurse their hangovers for a little longer.
The second time round, at a more reasonable hour Nell would wake up before Eric. He wasn't a pretty sleeper, okay she amended that, he wasn't a pretty sleeper when he was hungover but Nell smiled at the sight on her opposite pillow. Then she went a little red as she realised that Eric was half naked. So he must have stripped off at some point during the night, that wasn't a bad thing, she was down to her cami top and shorts but Nell had barely noticed.
His body. It wasn't quite the ripped beach body that Deeks sported, nor the hulking wall of muscle that was proudly named Sam, it wasn't even the deceptive muscular frame that hid beneath Callen's shirts but the sight of her nerdy Eric, half naked in her bed was a sight she could get used to.
She blushed again, the colour of her skin shooting up to match the shade of a tomato when Eric grunted and opened his eyes. Nell darted out of bed, regretting her decision as the world spun once more and the pain in her head ricocheted again, but she made it into her bathroom and noisily started splashing water on her face.
"I vote we avoid tequila for the rest of our lives!" Eric groaned from her bed and Nell couldn't resist the smile flitting across her face.
"Motion passed!" She said through the door.
"Oh please, nothing about motion, or there will be a different type of motion." Eric grunted and he looked up to see Nell stood in her bathroom doorway.
"I can find some bagels or something, we can have them plain."
"With a gallon of water." He stood and stretched.
"No coffee?" Nell's eyes were firmly fixed on the door to her left.
"We can't dehydrate ourselves any more than that tequila did… water now, coffee later." Eric grimaced as the world blurred a little.
"Yes sure." Nell squeaked and escaped from the room as fast as her hungover legs could manage. While Eric would unhappily admit this was a horrendous hangover and ranked top ten since his college days, he still noticed the lithe form of his friend in her cami and shorts. Nell may be considerably shorter but in those shorts her legs went on for days. He achingly pondered why she couldn't look at him this morning and ran a hand through his hair worriedly. Deciding to find out just why his partner was apparently avoiding him, he walked into the bathroom and then he realised why. He stared at the bathroom mirror, as his half naked body filled most of the view.
"Oh." He said quietly, blushing to the roots of his hair.