A/N:
If you don't want to know any spoilers for the next season, I suggest you stop reading right now.
This is my take on the season seven tease, that Eric will be training with a gun. The plot-bunny for the story wouldn't leave me alone for days and I finally relented and wrote it down. I didn't even want to share this with you guys, but the lovely Dubigail insisted. She proofread the story, too. Thanks!
Please enjoy the story. Reviews would be nice.
"You ready, Eric?"
The man in question wiped his sweaty hands on his shorts. "Ready as I'll ever be," he singsonged with trepidation in his voice.
"Relax, Beale. You'll be fine," the owner of the voice clapped him on his back in a supposedly reassuring gesture and almost made the younger man stumble from the force of it.
Eric steadied himself and adjusted his glasses that had slid down his nose from the unexpected impact. "If you say so," he answered doubtfully.
Sams' mouth twitched a little in genuine amusement. "I do. Now we've been through this in theory. Wanna walk through it again?" He squeezed the blondes' shoulder again.
Eric nodded hesitantly and sighed. "Take the gun, make sure the safety is still on, adjust stance, hold the gun in the strong hand, keep it steady with the other, raise arms, steel muscles, keep the arms slightly bend to avoid injury from the recoil, take aim, release the safety, pull the trigger," he rattled off without stopping for air, then heaved another deep sigh. He turned slightly and glanced over at the field agent. "I know all that, Sam. We've been through this a million times already," he complained.
The agent shook his head at Erics' irritated antics. "You're right. We have. But theory and practice are two very different animals, Eric. You need to internalize it up here first," he tapped his temple with his pointer finger, "before you even consider going out there in a potentially dangerous situation."
Eric gritted his teeth. "If this is your version of a pep talk it's not helping, Sam," he appraised and glared at the older man.
The senior agent merely raised his eyebrows and held his hands up in defense. "If you're looking for moral support, you should've asked Nate to train you," he brushed him off.
"I'm not asking for moral support here. Just a little more sympathy would be nice," Eric retorted with a snarl.
Sam lowered his head for a brief second. Upon raising it again he chuckled dryly. "Oh, now I'm supposed to cuddle you like a mother as well, Beale? Want me to hold your hand too while you take your first shot?" he teased. Secretly he knew he was having too much fun with the whole situation, but the tech wiz was solely to blame for that. He was making himself an easy target and yanking his chain was just Sams' natural reaction to the younger mans' self-opposed weakness.
Erics facial features hardened with frustration: he had slightly tilted his head to one side, protruded his lower jaw and sucked in his cheeks while biting his lips at the same time. It stood in stark contrast to the techs' otherwise restless body, the nervous clenching and unclenching of his hands and the nervous bouncing from one foot to the other. Sam was even more amused.
"Seriously though, you need to relax, Eric. This is merely your first training session. There's no threat in here – except maybe that brain of yours," Eric glare intensified making Sam smile unapologetically. Maybe, he thought, just maybe it was a good thing to provoke the kid before having him shoot a weapon. The surfer was way too forgiving for his own good.
"Alright then." Sam clapped his hands and rubbed them together in anticipation. "Let's do this. Take a deep breath. Remember the steps," Eric rolled his eyes, but Sam distinctly ignored him. "Go through each and every one of them in your head." The agent watched as Eric rotated his head, his shoulders and deeply inhaled and exhaled to calm himself. The young man picked up the gun with slightly trembling hands. "Watch your breathing and your body tension, Beale. Focus." Eric followed the advice and his hands steadied on the unfamiliar weight in his hands. "Good. That's good. Raise your arms and take aim." The younger man did as he was told. "When you're ready, release the safety and pull the trigger. You can do it. You just have to believe it. Just follow your instincts."
The Technical Operator took one last calming breath and braced himself for what was about to happen. He released the safety and slowly pulled the trigger, felt the unfamiliar strain it put on the muscles in his arms and shoulders. A shot rang out and rang in his ears despite the hearing protection or at least that's what he thought. Instead of the shot it was a clean sharp whistle that sounded from behind him. "Nice shot, Eric!" Sam clapped him on the back. "You can open your eyes now, though."
Eric opened his lids he couldn't remember squeezing them so tightly and dared a glance at the paper target. There was a clean round hole right in the middle of the faceless targets' forehead. His eyes grew wide with shock. His hands started trembling again as he suddenly felt like the metal would burn his fingers any moment. He wanted to get rid of it, but at the same moment it felt glued to his sweaty palms. Sam recognized his predicament immediately and jumped in to gently pry the weapon from his grasp, secured it and laid it back on the small table in front of them.
"Eric?" he asked, still mildly amused and in awe, but he became worried when the younger mans' breathing picked up erratically. A strong hand blanketed the techs' shoulder and squeezed. "Hey Eric, you okay there?" Sam still kept his voice lighthearted, but he grew more and more concerned by the lack of response. Erics' eyes were still fixed on the hole where the bullet had hit the paper.
Sams hands dug deeper into the younger man's joint and it seemed to do the trick. The tech snapped out of his daze with a shudder. "Uh… yeah." He sucked in as much oxygen as he possibly could with one breath. "I'm fine," he whispered shakily.
"Are you sure?" Sam inquired, unconvinced. He noticed the pallor and the fine sheet of perspiration coating the techs' skin.
Eric dared a fleeting glance at his mentor and nodded jerkily. "Yeah. Just need a moment," Eric assured and turned on his heels to find the glass wall closest to him. He leant against it to support his shaking body and keep the weight from legs that had turned to jelly. He didn't trust them to support him right now.
Sam watched him quietly with a strange mixture of the still lingering amusement from earlier and a hint of pride, but mostly with concern. He knew of Erics' passionate dislike of weapons and anything else that held a resemblance to violence, but the reaction seemed a little severe, even for Beale.
"You up for another round?" the agent asked casually after giving the young man a short time for recovery. His breathing had returned to normal, but he was still pale and slightly out of it.
"Uh…" Eric scratched his head nervously and frowned. He raised his eyes to the older man and the flittering emotions in them caught the Navy Seal off-guard. He had expected many things: disbelief, awe, surprise, hope, maybe even a little pride, but not the look of sheer terror. Every glimmer of delight Sam previously felt vanished all of sudden. But before he even had a chance to react to the raw emotion, Eric pushed himself away from the wall and stumbled to the door, head bowed.
"I don't think I'm cut out for this. I'm sorry," he blurted out and left the firing range, leaving a dumbfounded senior agent behind. What had just happened?
"Hey, have you seen Eric?" Sam asked, grasping for Callens' biceps as he passed him on his way back to the bullpen, his eyes roaming around the open work space in search of the curly-haired tech.
Callen raised his eyebrows in curiosity. "He just ran past me," he mentioned. "Looked like he just saw a ghost."
Sam sighed and rubbed his chin wearily. "He might have," Sam offered thoughtfully and rubbed his chin before meeting his partners' confused eyes. G's frown deepened and his eyes silently asked what was going on. Working with him for years and knowing the lead agent as well as he did the Navy Seal could read his nonverbal signs without problem. "We just had our first session in gun training," he elaborated with a sigh.
"Oh, I see," he nodded in recognition and smirked. "Let me guess, you've been too much of a hard-ass and he bolted before he got his first shot in, am I right?" he huffed a laugh. He knew that their resident tech tended to get a little nervous if not scared around the dark-skinned agent.
Sam gave him a pointed look, making G's grin grow even wider. His partner knew it too, but had a hard time admitting it. "Oh, he bolted just fine," Sam agreed, ignoring Callen's teasing. Then he clarified, "after he got his first shot in."
Still amused, Callen went on with the affectionate banter at the techies' expense. "What happened? He missed the target completely? I mean, we know of his lack of eye-hand coordination, but…"
"He took the perfect headshot. Instant kill. With his eyes closed." Sam interrupted him and drew a hand over his bald head. It came to rest at the back of his head.
Callen coughed, not believing his ears. "I'm sorry, what?" Sam gave him a blank look. "Wow. Apparently Eric has some hidden talents he never told us about." He was impressed.
Sam nodded. "Yeah, seems that way.
"Unless it was just a lucky shot," Callen pointed out.
"Yeah, I'm not sure." Sam sighed then looked at his partner, his expression serious. "Although I don't think it really matters anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if he never touches a weapon ever again." He paused for a second and took in the team leaders' questioning gaze. "Eric shut down the moment he realized where he'd hit the target. The poor guy looked close to having a panic attack. He bolted before I had a chance to talk to him, so I can't be sure. But he was terrified. I could see it in his eyes. Something's off G."
Callen chuckled dryly despite the uneasy feeling settling in his stomach now. "Something's always off with Eric, Sam," he pointed out.
Sam twisted his mouth in a half-smile, half-grimace. "Yeah, but this is different."
"I agree. You should probably go find him and tickle that ghost out of him, then," Callen suggested.
Sam took another look around the bullpen, hoping to find the blonde somewhere among the crowd, but he was nowhere to be seen. He would probably either locked in a bathroom stall or hiding out behind his precious computer equipment. "I will."
Eric had taken a short reprieve in the restroom, splashed some cold water on his face and guided himself through the onset of a panic attack with a few breathing techniques that Nate had taught him after Dom's death. Once calm enough he returned to ops and wordlessly plopped down in his chair, determined to get straight to work on whatever he had started earlier.
Nell glanced up, surprised by his early arrival back in ops. "Back already?" she asked nonchalantly.
Eric threw her a quick sideways glance and answered curtly, "Yup."
"So… first lesson in gun training, huh? That went over fast," she commented, waited for a reply but her partner stayed silent. "How'd it go?" she asked casually.
Eric visibly deflated and worried his lips, a sign that he was reluctant to get into this topic right now. "Don't ask," he replied wearily, a warning undertone in his voice. Yup, definitely didn't want to talk about it, Nell noted, but that was no reason for her to stop prying.
"That bad?" she inquired. She turned away from the desk and took a closer look. Her partners' eyes were dark and his jaw was set tightly.
"Headshot," he blurted out. "Dead center."
Nell's brows rose to her hairline. "Wow, that's… impressive! Congratulations!" But Eric didn't look cheerful at all and grimaced at her exclamation. Furrowing her brows in concentration she tried to think of a reason for the techs' strange behavior, but her mind came up with only one plausible conclusion. "Unless you were aiming somewhere else?"
It was Erics' turn to stop typing, both hands dropping down onto his lap. He gritted his teeth together and tilted his head slightly to one side, carefully avoiding eye contact with the Intelligence Analyst. In answer to her question he shook his head vigorously. "Oh, no. I was aiming for the head alright," he exclaimed, voice laced with bitterness. Nell frowned.
"Guess all the gaming against Hettys' rules finally worked in your favor, Beale," the quirky redhead quipped in hopes of cheering him up. She nudged him in the shoulder and then held her hand out for a high five. It caused Eric to at least look in her direction, but he refused to meet her hand midair and shook his head even more frantically. His brows knit together and he looked suddenly angry.
"I don't find this amusing in the slightest, Nell," he retorted. The tech stood from his chair unable to sit still any longer. "How can you joke about something like this?" he asked, barely keeping his agitation under control.
Nell was taken aback by his sudden reaction and concern grew in the pit of her stomach. "Hey Eric, relax! What wrong with you? What has you so riled up?" she tried to calm him down, but to no avail.
"What's wrong?" he repeated in a high-pitched voice. "You want to know what's wrong? Okay, I'll tell you what's wrong!" Eric started pacing back and forth in the room and the only time Nell remembered him doing that was right before his very first time going undercover. He had every reason to be nervous then, but this wasn't nervousness and even her genius mind didn't come up with a valid explanation what had the tech operator in such distress. "Everything is wrong! Every tiny little detail in this whole picture is wrong. It's the quintessential of wrong, don't you see that?"
Nell gaped at him in confusion. "What are you talking about?" If the surfers' unusual behavior hadn't been so disconcerting, Nell probably would have found his agitation amusing.
Eric stopped pacing for a second and gave her an incredulous look, then shook his head and resumed walking back and forth.
"I don't know if I missed out on an important lesson in school here or something, but I don't get it: How can you people be so crazy cheerful about making a perfect kill shot? You don't seriously feel happy about something like that, do you? I just shot a goddang paper target and I don't feel remotely happy about it. In fact, I feel awful for even pulling the trigger! I don't even want to imagine how terrible it would feel to actually shoot at a living being. Paper or not – aiming to kill is like the worst feeling I ever had in my entire life. And yet, here you are celebrating me like I'm some sort of hero for nailing a paper target with a kill shot. How sick is that?"
Eric stopped pacing and faced Nell, breathing heavily like he'd just run a marathon. He ran long fingers through his short curly hair and closed his eyes briefly until he realized that he was met with silence. Opening his eyes he glanced at the small woman and noticed the hard set to her features. Her eyes were glazed over, like she was remembering something unpleasant. The tech winced as it belatedly dawned on him that he had once again put his foot in his mouth and might have hurt his partner's feelings in the process.
"Oh, shit I'm sorry, Nell." He wiped a hand over his face and started fidgeting nervously while his brain was trying to come up with what he could do to make this right. "I was way out of line, I didn't think…" about the fact that she would probably be the last person on earth to feel cheerful about killing someone. She had had to kill someone last year after all and she had felt terrible enough afterwards to not even answer his calls. Lashing out at her was the worst thing he could have done.
But the blonde couldn't finish his thoughts, because he was interrupted. "That's right, you didn't." The blunt words had Erics' head snap in the direction of the doorway where the owner of the voice was standing with crossed arms and a not too happy expression.
"Sam," Beale acknowledged him miserably. He suddenly felt ashamed. For leaving the firing range in such a hurry without so much as an explanation, but even more so for taking his anger out on the one person that least deserved it. Heat rose to his cheeks in embarrassment. "Look, I…"
"No Eric," the bulky man cut him off again. "You don't need to explain. I heard it all." The tech lowered his head and bit his lips. He berated himself for his own stupidity. "Do you really think we take pleasure in taking other people's lives?" Sam asked grimly, incredulously.
The younger man's head snapped up in shock, mouth agape. "That's not what I…"
"Good, because if that's what you meant, you clearly don't know us as well as you think." The tech winced, his pleading eyes met Sams steely ones. "Listen and listen closely, Eric. We are not coldblooded killers. Yes, we were trained in taking kill shots if necessary and yes, sometimes we have to make use of it. But that doesn't mean we like it. We don't find some weird satisfaction in taking someone else's life. But if we want to survive out there we sometimes don't have another choice. It's either my life or the bad guys'. Sometimes it's Callens', Kensis', Deeks' lives that we have to protect out there and more often than not it's a whole lot more lives than that. Lives of thousands of innocent people, including yours."
"I… I know that," Eric defended himself quietly.
Sam nodded. "Yeah. You know it up here." He pressed his pointer finger firmly against the other mans' temple and the surfer winced. "But out there," The pressure suddenly vanished and the agent made a waving motion with his hand, "we don't always have the time to think. Sometimes we have to take action right away to protect ourselves."
Eric looked down, ashamed. "Okay… should I find myself in a life or death situation then," He opened and closed his mouth a couple times fishing for the right words. "I'd rather have the bad guy kill me than be responsible for taking his life, I guess." He sighed and worried his lips.
Sam barked out an exasperated humorous laugh. "You don't seriously expect me to believe that, do you?" he asked the younger man.
"I wouldn't be able to live with the guilt, Sam," he admitted.
Sam nodded and shook his head alternately. "Okay. Okay." He held up his hands in mock-surrender. "That's the big difference between you and us, Eric. You're not a trained field agent nor will you ever be and if you'd rather be shot, that's fine to me," the agent said with forced calm. He was well aware of the figurative knife he was ramming in the techs' heart, but it was all part of his plan.
He was satisfied to notice his success, when Eric responded with an involuntary flinch. Every color drained from his face and the smaller man looked at him with a mix of hurt and horror.
Sam shook his head and crossed the short distance between him and the resident tech operator and simultaneously dropped his hands on his shoulders. "Actually it couldn't be further from the truth. Personally I don't think you'd be willing to die at the hands of a terrorist either. Every human being is born with a sense of self-preservation. Even you, Beale. It's a primal instinct. It seems to have gotten lost somewhere in that brain of yours, but it's there. We just have to tickle it out of you." He squeezed Erics' shoulders. "Hell, that's the whole point of training you with a gun."
The skinny man shuffled his feet, head bowed and eyes focused on the ground beneath him. He nodded and when he finally decided to face the agent again his expression was one of determination. "Yeah. You're probably right, Sam."
The Navy Seal threw up his head in agitation and huffed. "I'm definitely right," he corrected with a pointed glare. Eric rolled his eyes at him. "So you up for another round or not?"
The Technical Operator worried his lips and frowned. "I guess," he answered hesitantly. His head turned to Nell, who had kept quiet throughout Sams' pep talk. The glazed over look had vanished and she stared back expectantly, challenging him to something that he put his finger on. He frowned. "I'll be right down. Need to take care of something first," he directed at Sam, but keeping eye contact with Nell. "Just give me a minute, will ya?" He glanced back at the senior agent for the briefest moment.
Sam gave him a curt nod. "Ten minutes. If you're not down by the range then, you'll have to find someone else crazy and willing enough to take on the near futile task of training you." Eric glared at him, clearly insulted by the remark. The agent smirked satisfactory. "Clock's ticking, Eric."