Their first kiss is under mistletoe and it's at work. He knows it's just a tactic to get him to wear the elf costume she bought him, but even so, her lips are against his, and her hand is on his neck, and he is kissing Nell Jones.
The same Nell Jones he may or may not have feelings for. He's stuck, between thinking he likes her in a more than partner/friend way or just in a best friend way.
The kiss doesn't help.
She knows it's only to get him into the leggings she bought him. She also knows that there are plenty of other ways to get him to dress up for Toys for Tots, but they are standing under the mistletoe and she took the opportunity as she saw it.
She hasn't been kissed in ages, and he always looks so kissable, so it happens. What Nell doesn't know is where her feelings for Eric Beale stand. She likes him more than well enough, but they work together. It could be messy. It could be awkward.
Or it could be like the stupid kiss and be amazing.
xXx
The second time they kiss it's New Year's, nearly two years later. He doesn't care about dressing up anymore. She doesn't need to do much to persuade him to do anything.
His feelings for her are still in the messy area, but he knows it's more than just friend/partner feelings now. He likes her. He wants to possibly be more than just friends with her.
But he doesn't know how to tell her that.
She, on the other hand, has no idea what she feels about him. She pretends she doesn't feel anything more than friendship, but the first mention of another girl and her blood is set on fire.
But she ignores it.
She ignores it until the countdown starts and he's standing next to her. He feels her hand clasp onto his, and he can see some people already coupling themselves off for a kiss at the start of the new year.
He hadn't kissed anyone on New Year's in ages. (And he's pretty sure his last kiss was with her.)
"Eric?" She turns to him, without really knowing why. She just knows if she wants to start off the New Year with anyone, she wants it to be with him.
5…4…3…
"Nell?" He turns to her, but she's already looking at him, and he thinks, maybe just maybe, this could be the year he does something about them.
2…1…
"Happy New Year!"
Their lips touch, but neither of them really know who instigated it.
It's tougher than last time, more teeth, and his hands move to her waist instead of hanging limply at his side. It's longer too, fueled by a little bit of alcohol and a little bit of wanting.
Eric realizes he is kissing Nell, and he smiles in spite of himself.
She pulls back and bites her lip, staring at the ground, but that doesn't stop him from seeing the faint blush that runs across her cheeks.
"Happy New Year, Beale," she says, before walking into the crowd where his eyes can't follow her.
Her blood is on fire, and this time it's because he kissed her and because she wants him to do it again.
xXx
The next time, it's a random Tuesday in mid-July. The case had been hard and she didn't want to go home alone. So instead, they are lying on the floor of his apartment, head to head, staring at the constellation stickers he mapped out on the ceiling.
"Are they accurate?" she asks.
"Yeah. Or they were when I put them up. They are probably a little skewed now."
There's music playing from somewhere which is usually enough to calm her nerves but she's still anxious from earlier that day. They nearly didn't save Callen and Sam and Deeks and Kensi, and it's not their fault, but sometimes being stuck behind a computer is the worst feeling in the world and she feels like a caged animal stuck in OPS.
Eric is telling her about his favorite constellation. He let her come into his space and let her choose which record to play, which he never does, and he lets her just be, because he understands her.
He stops talking, and if she closes her eyes, she would feel alone, except for his breathing. It's not much but it reminds her she's not alone. She's memorized how he takes his breaths and having him next to her is almost enough to shut her brain off.
"Sorry I'm crashing," she says, because she doesn't want silence.
"Nah. I like your company." And he's not lying. He saw her shaking as they left and now she's not, so he considers it a great improvement.
She turns to look at him. She wants to study the way his nose slopes gently and the way his jaw looks because he hasn't shaved in at least three days-but he's already looking at her and her breath catches in her throat.
She's so pretty, he thinks. Beautiful is the word he's actually looking for, but when he opens his mouth to tell her, he is interrupted by her lips crashing against his.
It's awkward in a way, sort of like a Spiderman kiss.
She pulls back and sits up. She shouldn't have done that. It's not okay for her to just kiss him. They are friends, she tells herself. Just friends who sometimes hug each other a little too tight, and sometimes look at each other like they love each other, but they don't kiss! Her hands wrap around her knees and she's shaking again.
"Hey." He grasps her chin lightly and turns her to look at him. "It's okay."
She doesn't know where the tears come from but when he sees them slipping down her cheeks he pulls her forward gently and wipes them away before he kisses her again.
This time it's less awkward. She's still shaking, but his hands settle on her cheeks and for a second she can forget about the what it means or what will happen and she can just think about the fact that Eric Beale is kissing her.
xXx
He nearly dies, again, but this time it's serious. Serious enough that she has to pick him up from the hospital.
He's banged up pretty bad and has a gunshot wound through his arm, but when he sees her he smiles. He smiles like she's his entire world, and she feels like she might throw up.
She likes him. She likes him more than she thinks she should, and when she watched the bullet rip through his arm and when she heard Kensi scream his name just before the coms shorted, she nearly died. Because she hadn't told him.
They had kissed three times but they had never spoken about it. And he nearly died on her, without him knowing anything.
He always thought getting shot would be different. He always thought if he ever got shot, he would be dead. But he's not.
Nell is standing in the waiting room, and even though he can't really decipher her expression she's here and he's alive, and well, he thinks it's a pretty good day to be alive.
He knows he is right about that last thing because when she reaches him, she wraps her arms around him so tight that he almost can't breathe. But it's okay because he's alive. He's okay and she needs to know that. He knows what it feels like to be worried sick about his partner, so he allows her to crush him until it starts to hurt.
"I thought I lost you." Her expression is controlled, but he knows her well enough to see that her eyes are about two seconds from breaking.
"You know you can't get rid of me that easy, Nell."
"You're never leaving OPs again. At least not for another-"
She kisses him the second they get outside. And it's different from every other time. This time he can feel something different in it. This time it's more than just "your here so I'm going to kiss you"; it's more like "you are alive, and you are okay, and I don't know how to feel about you almost dying so take my lips instead".
She knows she is only kissing him because he nearly died; hugging him wasn't enough to let her know he was still alive and breathing. She needs to feel him-to feel his lips pushing against hers, to feel his heart beating against her chest, to feel his fingertips burning into her hips.
He nearly dies, yet she still can't bring herself to tell him how she feels so instead, she kisses him until she's lightheaded and hopes desperately that it gets the same point across.
xXx
This time, it's he who kisses her on Christmas. He didn't want to go home alone. The Beale's are a hard family to deal with on a regular day, and he hadn't gone home for Christmas (or for anything else) in too long of a time he cares to count.
But his mom called. She said she missed him. When he heard her cry into the phone he decided that maybe seeing him mom after all this time would be worth it.
So he said he would be home for Christmas.
"I have a question for you." Eric places something in front of her. It was wrapped, tied with a bow. A Christmas gift.
"What's this?"
He shrugs. "Not the question."
"Oh?" She ignores the gift and goes back to studying something on her computer.
"What are you doing for Christmas?" There's the slightest amount of hope in his voice, something only she would be able to pick up on.
"Umm-"
"Because I'm going home for the first time in about 10 years, and I don't know if I can handle it by myself." He's not looking at her because he doesn't want to see her reaction. He never talks about his family. Never in a concrete way.
All she knows is that he's not an only child. She knows he hasn't seen them in a long time. Nell tries to count in her head all the times he had actually mentioned them and she comes up short.
"What?"
He sighs and sits down, his fingers tapping at the keys so he has something to do with his hands.
"Do you want to come home with me for Christmas?" He pauses. "I'll owe you the biggest favor ever."
She ignores the way his hands miss at least three keys when he speaks, and ignores the present sitting to her left.
They don't look at each other.
"Of course I'll come home with you Eric." She tries to make her voice casual but she's not sure she succeeds.
He keeps introducing her to tons of people and she almost understands why he didn't want to be here by himself. His aunt's house is huge, decorated like something out of a style magazine with the chandelier to boot.
"This is my best friend, Nell Jones."
She's wearing a dress that's way too nice for her to feel comfortable, heels that she doesn't really know how to walk in, and the earrings he gave her as a Christmas present. She feels out of place.
She knows Hetty helped him with the earrings, but they are one of the most beautiful things she has ever seen, and possibly the nicest thing in her jewelry drawer, and she doesn't know if maybe them being so nice means something more than you are my best friend and these reminded me of you or not.
"Meet Nell Jones, my best friend."
Eric's wearing a suit, something she never thought she would see, and she can see the anxiety creeping through his entire body.
She tries to ignore the way he keeps calling her is best friend.
Nell's handling this side of his life better than he thought she would. She smiles and shakes hands and holds on to his arm while he shuffles around the room, saying hi to all of the people he tried to forget when he left for college.
He forgets names and faces, lets his cousins give him bone crushing hugs, watches his sister tear up when she sees him, and hugs his mom hard enough to let her know he's sorry, and Nell stands with him the whole time.
They don't ask questions about her, but they do ask if she's been taking good care of him and if he's eating his vegetables. She tells them she tries her best and the next time they go out to eat she will force him to eat all his broccoli and it makes his mother laugh, and now she can see the resemblance. He has his mom's eyes and his dad's smile and his sister's nose and these are the parts that make up Eric Beale and she doesn't know if this makes him easier or harder to understand.
He's calmer now, but she knows he's not okay. She doesn't know why he left, but she wants to.
She realizes she wants to know everything about Eric Beale, from his family to his heartbeat to how his lips would feel against hers in the morning. She wants to know everything; she wants everything.
"Would you excuse me," she says, brushing Eric's arm as she leaves him with his family. She needs a moment to breathe, a moment to understand that she should have told him how she felt ages ago; before he was shot, after he was shot, in his apartment, in OPs - literally anytime except for now. Because he's busy now, and the last thing he needs is for her to throw a whole new problem into his life.
"Do you know where you're headed?"
She jumps when his lips touch her ear. He wraps an arm around her waist and leads her up the stairs the room he used to stay in when he slept over as a kid. He ignored his family when they all gave him knowing looks as he excused himself from them only a few seconds after she did. But he didn't want her to get lost. He didn't want to lose her.
"Sorry about all that," he says.
She sits on the edge of the bed and shakes her head as she responds, "Don't be. They missed you."
He tugs at his tie and sits next to her. She grabs his hand before she knows why and he tucks a piece of her curled hair behind her ear.
"You look beautiful by the way."
There's no one else in the room, but he's whispering. The moment feels breakable, much like he does, and he wants to tell her thank you, thank you for dealing with him and this and everything, but he doesn't know how.
"I never thought I would see you in a tie."
She's whispering because he's whispering and she wants to tell him that she thinks she may be in love with him but she doesn't know how so she jokes about his tie instead and can hardly refrain from rolling her eyes at herself.
He brushes his lips across her skin, and her eyes shut. She wants more than just forehead kisses and clasped hands. She wants everything.
"Eric."
"Nell."
She looks up at him, and the moment is breakable, but she's made of diamonds and he's made of stars, and he kisses her because he doesn't know how else to say thank you. He kisses her because he wants to.
He pulls back too soon and he shakes his head. "God, I'm sorry Nell."
But she isn't. She wants to see her lipstick smudged on his lips, she wants his hands in her hair, she wants him. But she still doesn't know how to say that, so instead she grins and pulls him back to her by his tie, and kisses him again. She wants to kiss him until the world ends.
The door flies open, and his cousin is there with the girl he introduced as his girlfriend. He smiles, likes he's proud of Eric and sends them a wink.
"Best friends eh?"
And then it's just the two of them again, her in a dress that's way too fancy and him in a tie he stole from wardrobe.
"I'm not," she says, not looking at him, but still holding onto his shoulders.
"What?"
"I'm not sorry."
It's been nearly five years since their first kiss, and she's finally ready to talk about it. He's kissed her five times in five years, and he doesn't want their sixth to be another year away.
"You're not?"
"Nope. In fact, I really want to do it again." She finally looks up at him, and he's looking at her like she put the stars in the sky and she's happy. She goes on in an attempt to prompt him, "And again, and again, and again…"
He kisses her so she understands that he understands. She kisses him back because there is almost nothing in the world better than kissing Eric Beale.
"I think I'm falling in love with you." He says, later that night when someone forces everyone to dance. His hand is wrapped around her waist and his mouth is just a little more swollen than it was earlier and she's so happy she might as well be floating.
They talked about it. She told him she liked him more than she should, and he told her he cared for her in a more than best friend/partner way, and she kissed him again and again and again because she could.
She lets her head fall against his chest and listens to how fast his heart beats.
"Good. Because I think I'm falling in love with you too."