#beyond the surface

It was late, both of your teams were either home by now or taking a breather from their paperwork in the break room. It was just you two in the bullpen, and when he realized that, he let the words fly from his mouth after a quick head shake. “If I’m so much of an asshole, why the hell you with me, huh?” 

“Something I’m asking myself at the moment.” Your response came back quick, not needing to think of something smart to say, it already lived at the tip of your tongue. That was one thing you and Franks did well. Argue. 

“In that case you should leave.” His reply was delivered just as fast. Eyebrows raised and the pissed look on his face growing as the seconds passed, all while his hands went back resting on his hips. 

“You’re at my desk.” It was at that moment that you placed your hands palm side down over the mess. Internally you were flinching, you hated when things got like this, when they got messy. But the irony in it was you’d hate it so much it’d pretty much become a constant.

“I came over here because I had a shit fucking day and needed to blow off some steam, figured you’d like to join me, not to get shit thrown in my face.” His voice was louder now, it was unlikely someone heard what he said, but they’d probably heard him raising his voice. Lucky for you, that wasn’t cause for alarm around here. Franks was always raising his voice. 

“You forget that I have the same fucking days as you? I sit right across from you,” you pointed to the desk 6 feet in front of yours. “I get heavy caseloads, the same late nights, and I deal with all of that on top of your annoying ass attitude.” Your face twisted at that, turning to look at your work, hoping he’d take the hint and leave you alone but that was wishful thinking.

“I–“

You didn’t let him even start the sentence before you slammed your hands against the desk in an attempt to get him to stop. “And if all you’re here for is to blow off steam, join a fuckin’ gym, Franks. i’m not a fuckin’ game, I have feelings that I don’t just shove to the back of my brain the minute they pop up.” It was a direct shot at him and by the look on his face, he knew it. 

“We really doing this?” That first question felt genuine despite the slight sarcasm in his voice. It was almost pleading, a desperate attempt to stop your arguing. But when you couldn’t hide the attitude on your face, all that went out the window. “You wanna do this?” 

“Won’t be the first time I danced with the devil, Franks.” Another shot. It’s what you’d call your, well, whatever this was. Dancing with the devil. You had a think for reckless behavior. For mess. No matter how much you’d vocalize that you hated it. 

It became a joke. Everytime you’d knock on his door, you’d smile and tell him you were there to dance with the devil. 

—-

One day you literally did it. 2AM in his kitchen, you both were working the same case, both his team and yours were assigned on it, an all hands on deck situation. When you relieved your teams, both of you went back to Mike’s place and made a work station out of his dining room table. When you retreated to grab another cup of coffee from his kitchen, you felt him grab your hand and twirl you around. There was no music, just the sounds of your own laughs and footsteps on the kitchen tile. You rested your head against his shoulder, he began humming a song lightly as the two of you fell into a rhythm of swaying. 

“We aren’t going to solve it tonight.” His voice was soft as he spoke in your ear. 

“We’re close. I feel it.” You also felt the heaviness in your eyes as you fought the sleep coming over you. 

You felt the vibration of his chuckle in your body, the light peck of his lips against your head, slightly touching your forehead a bit. “You’re stubborn.” 

“I just need to find whoever did this.” You brought your arms up tighter around his back. 

He adjusted his arm around your shoulders, now hugging you instead of using your hand to guide you in a slow pace. “This case is different for you, I can tell.” 

“It’s personal. The first victim–” you closed your eyes, you were able to hear Mike’s heart thumping, “she was a friend. Jessica. My brother’s girlfriend.” 

“And Wheeler let you on the case?” Even with your eyes closed and looking in a completely different direction, you could feel the way his brows were furrowed into one another. This was new information to him, but he deserved to know, you just had to tell him at your own pace. 

“We’re short staffed, Wheeler would make me work my own murder case.” It was a joke, but it was true, this was all hands on deck because there were massive gaps in NIS right now. 

“Now you bite your tongue.” He was pulling out of your hug, his feet stopped swaying to look at you, his brows still furrowed. 

“Why would I do that when I got you to do it for me.” Your lips turned to a smirk. 

His face lightened up for just a quick second before he was leaning down and dropping a kiss to your lips, his teeth grazing your bottom lip and pulling it out just slightly before releasing it and looking down at you. 

“You’re dancin’ with the devil, you know that?” He mumbled against your mouth. 

“Havin’ a damn good time doin’ it, too.” You placed a light kiss on his mouth since it was still centimeters away from yours. 

“And if Wheeler finds out?” Now his brows lifted, real curious towards your response. 

“Didn’t see anything about dancing with the devil in the handbook.” You shrugged and brought Mike back in close to you, moving your feet to start leading the both of you in a sway again. 

“Wouldn’t know, I never read the damn thing.” He chuckled, grabbing you right back and falling back into the motion. 

The two of you comfortably fell into a silence, just rocking back and forth, now to the hum of the fridge and the light under the microwave. It was probably 30 minutes of this, before you tapped his chest and looked up at him. Both of you had dark bags under your eyes, but sleep wasn’t going to be next on the list. There was still too much to sift through.

“If Wheeler finds out it won’t matter.” Now you were turning to grab your luke warm coffee, pouring a shit ton of sugar in it and stirring it around although there wasn’t much heat left in the coffee to dissolve it as quickly. 

“And why’s that?” Mike had leaned back on the small bistro table in his kitchen, his arms crossed against his chest. 

“Because we’re understaffed, he can’t afford to fire us for misconduct.” You smirked and turned around, bringing the mug up to your mouth to take a sip. 

Mike laughed at that and shook his head. “If he does say anything, I’ll bring up that dancing with the devil isn’t in the handbook.” 

You were walking past him, back to the kitchen table. “Mm, should be in the training, though.” 

—-

“You’re emotional. You’re immature, you run into shit without thinking first.” He began listing things off. 

“Sounds like you’re talking about yourself.” You leaned back in your chair now, your arms crossed, wondering where this argument was going to go. 

“I learn from the best, baby.” Despite the smile on his face, he was being cruel. Picking at whatever he could to get under your skin. 

It was then that footsteps entered the bullpen, neither of you were looking at who just walked in, your eyes were glued on eachother, the anger and frustration practically burning holes in your faces. 

“Get the fuck out.” You spoke it at a normal tone, but your teeth were gritted and your face was tight. 

“Hey—” He was trying to backpedal now, you could see it in that last second of him staring at you, the flinch in his right eye that said everything he never would. 

“Get the fuck out.” You repeated it, this time pushing off from leaning back in your office chair. 

Franks nodded briefly, like he was taking an order from you and was out the entrance closest to your desk in seconds. 

You knew it was Gibbs who had walked into the bullpen, without bothering to even look in that direction. He spent as much time as possible here, burying himself in the work. 

“The hell was that?” He was walking towards his desk, but took the extra steps to make it closer to yours, dropping a cup of hot coffee down in one of the only clear spots left on your desk. 

“That was Franks doing what he does best.” Your eyes looked over at the coffee cup and nodded in appreciation before bringing it to the permanent spot in your hand as you stared down at the photos you had just removed from a folder once Franks left. 

“Y–“ Gibbs began to speak but you cut him off.

“Gibbs. I want you to think very carefully before you speak.” 

He nodded and moved swiftly to his desk to work. It was just you two, the main overhead lights were off since it was well past 10PM now, the only lights being the desk lamps from yours and Gibbs’s desk. You preferred it that way, it made everything around you disappear aside from the files in front of you. 

Mary Jo had said goodbye about an hour ago, dropping one more folder on your desk based on a request you had asked her earlier in the day. Lala had been in the breakroom with Strickland and had peaked in to say goodbye, too. Randy had gone home at end of day because his kid had a sports game and you had told your team to head home around 7 because you needed to take in this new case alone.. 

You wiped your hands across your face before taking the last sip of coffee. This cup, you decided to throw get up and throw out, simply because there just wasn’t any room to store it on your desk anymore. 

“i know you two are together.” Gibbs’s voice caused your eyes to move towards his, debating what you wanted to say to him, soaking in his words.

“Doesn’t surprise me.” You nodded,”We’re sneaking around investigators, would be a bit alarming if someone didn’t realize.” 

Gibbs did his best job at a knowing smile. “What he do?”

That got you to smile, his immediate instinct was to blame Franks.

“I love your faith in me probie.” You walked over to lean on the side of your desk, your arms crossing along with one leg over the other as you stared at him. 

“Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.” He let out a small chuckle, “plus, I know what that looks like.” 

You looked up at him with sorrowful eyes, it wasn’t a secret that Gibbs had recently lost his wife.  With your hands dropping to grip the edge of your desk, you let out a large exhale.

“If I wasn’t a part of NIS, things would be different. We run things so differently, things I do for my team compared to how he runs his. We work differently. We think differently.  Sometimes I think if I had met Franks in some other life he’d actually care about me.” 

“He cares.” Gibbs answered so quickly, and while you knew that was true, you also knew that with the lives you and Franks had, caring wasn’t always enough. 

“I got put on a cold case.” The sentence wasn’t enough to explain what had caused the tension between you two, but it was something. 

“And he’s pissed about that?” Gibbs wasn’t on your team, but you were aware that he didn’t talk much, so the fact he was open to this conversation with you was intriguing to say the least. 

“He was the lead agent on it 7 years ago.” There it was, the clarity was starting to come to light.

“Ah.” Gibbs understood now. 

“They wanted a new pair of eyes. The case officially went cold the week I started at NIS–it was Mike’s first case as a Supervisory Special Agent– It’s not lost on me the weight of that. Wheeler brought us both to his office, mentioned that Strickland had found new evidence when going over old files and the case was opening back up. It honestly is such a big case I figured both our teams were going to divide and conquer but turns out Wheeler just wanted me to take a look tonight before assigning out my team on it tomorrow. Told Franks to be available to me.” 

“You asked him something and he snapped.” Gibbs put the pieces together, but he was wrong.

Shaking your head you tilted your head. “I wasn’t ready to bring him in yet and he didn't like that.” 

Gibbs nodded. 

“I needed to marinate on it, take in everything without his perspective skewing mine. It’s how I work.” You shook your head, frustration tensing on your shoulders. “Franks knows how I am. Knows I do things on my timeline. I need a fuckin’ minute to check my gut.” 

That got Gibbs attention. “He teach you that? To trust your gut?” The question was inquisitive, like he was curious to instructions on how he best could trust his. 

That got you to laugh, blowing the air out of your mouth you kicked off your desk and looked down at the papers. “He got that from me.” 

Gibbs smirked at that too, he wanted to ask more but he let it be and stood up, making his way over to yout desk to take in the files. “That what you've been doin all night?” 

You nodded, a million thoughts going through your head. 

“And?” That was the question asked where he hoped he’d learn more about trusting your gut, but unfortunately, your gut was coming up short on this one. 

“And I need to ask Franks a god damn question.” You opened your notebook to a long list of notes. “or 20.” 

“They turn the coffee machine off at 11.” Gibbs said, looking at your empties. 

“I’m gonna head out. Change of scenery will do me good.” You grabbed your desk phone and started to press 0 for an operator. “Cab, NIS to Cherry Grove.” As you waited for them to respond you were piling all your work into a pile. “Fuck you mean 35 dollars?” Dropping the papers you grabbed the phone that was originally tucked between your ear and shoulder as if getting the speaker closer to your ear would make the answer change. 

“Surge rates? It’s 1:30AM?!” You slammed the phone down, definitely more angrily than you needed it to be but you were just taking out all the pent up emotion from earlier. 

“C’mon. I’ll drive you.” Gibbs was staring at you, bag slung over his shoulder. 

“Thanks for driving me, Franks drove me in this morning.” You never minded keeping your relationship with Mike secret, but there was something freeing about being so open about it to Gibbs. 

“How do you know when to trust your gut?” The question felt out of left field. It echoed in the cabin of his truck. 

“You always trust your gut, Gunny.” You smirked over at him before pointing in the direction he needed to turn to get on your street. “Right here.” You pointed to the only house with the porch light on. 

As he pulled up against the curb, you both saw Mike sitting on your porch, his elbows leaning on his knees. 

Gibbs didn’t say it, but you knew what he was thinking. See, he cares. 

“I know he cares. He cornered Artie in the men’s bathroom when he heard him tell Roger I was a diversity promotion.” You remembered Artie coming up to you to apologize, it wasn’t sincere, but there was fear behind it. It was likely that Franks threatened him if he didn’t say something to you. 

“Make him sweat it a little bit.” The comment earned you to snap your head towards Gibbs who was trying to hide a smile. 

“Did we just become friends, Gunny?” He wasn’t on your team, so while he was technically below you in rank, there was a little more leeway in how you two could speak to eachother, share things. 

“If we did, you can call me Jethro.” 

That got you to smile back at him with a nod. “You got it, Gunny. See you tomorrow.” 

You had full intentions to make it a point not to share anything on you and Franks but after the little conversation that went on, you knew it wasn’t necessary. 

As you walked up to your house, you stepped right past Mike, not acknowledging him, just placing your key in the door. Franks didn’t look up at you, just kept his elbows resting on his knees, his head looking down at the ground. Gibbs was still parked on the curb, waiting for you to unlock your door. He was well are that with Franks presence he didn’t need to make sure you got in okay, but you’d have to pry chivalry out of Gibbs cold dead hands. 

As you pushed the door open, you spoke over your shoulder. “You comin’ in?” 

Franks was standing up and as you waved him inside, he walked past you into your home, head still down like a sad puppy. Turning to the truck, you offered a quick wave to which Gibbs lifted two fingers in a wave himself, and then you stepped inside your home. 

You kicked your shoes off next to Mike’s, then followed your daily routine of getting home. Placing your bag on the hooks, dropping your badge on the entry table, locking your gun in the safe. Pouring yourself a glass of wine. 

This time though, you cracked open a beer to give to Franks who was sitting at your kitchen table. 

“I’m going to take a shower.” Placing the beer down, you brought your glass to your lips as you retreated to the bathroom. The hot water steamed the room up, it made the condensation on your wine glass drip even more than before as it sat on the soap dish in the shower. 

“On a scale of 1-10, how much do you hate me?” His drawl didn’t scare you, you knew he’d pop in, it’s why you left the door open. 

“8.5” You said as the water trickled down your back, grabbing the wine to take a sip from it. 

“Damn.” He clearly wasn’t expecting it that high. 

“It’s been higher.” You tried to offer some solace. 

“It’s been lower.” Now the shower curtain was being pulled back slightly. His eyes met yours which were looking over at him as you drank the rest of the glass. “Refill?” He held up the bottle and you tipped your glass so he could fill it up. “You wanna dance with the devil?” Putting the cork back in the bottle, he didn’t take his eyes off you. 

“The water’s hot, the way you hate it.” With a smile, the words Gibbs had spoken to you right before you got out of the car were sitting in your head. Make him sweat it a little bit. 

“I was an asshole.”  Those words took you by surprise. Mike never apologized, but he found ways to dance around them with you. 

“Tell me something I don’t know.” You placed the glass back down on the soap dish and tilted your head back into the stream of water. 

“I shouldn’t have been an asshole.” 

With that, you sighed. “Get in.” 

It didn’t take him long to be unclothed and standing inside the tub with you, he was quick to wrap his arms around you, your bodies pressed against each other. He placed a quick kiss to your lips, it was his way of reading where you were, if you were going to pull away, if you melted into the kiss, felt distant. 

As he pulled away, he moved his hand to grip your face, wiping the streams of mascara off your face before leaning in and kissing you again, this time longer and even though he opened his mouth slightly, he didn’t slip his tongue into your mouth, he wasn’t trying to seduce you, he was just trying to make it up to you. 

He leaned to get the shampoo and started to lather the product in his hands before rubbing it on your scalp. You wished it didn’t feel as good as it did, you let out a couple moans as his fingers massaged your scalp. 

“Turn around.” His gruff voice sent a chill down your spine despite the scalding hot water that was currently trickling down it. Turning so now your front was in the water stream, you tilted your head back as he continued to massage your head, his hands then moving down to your shoulders. Each movement moving your back closer against him. You could feel him hard against you, but he did nothing to remedy it, just focused on the suds above your shoulders. “Turn and rinse.” He spoke again and you obliged, washing the shampoo out of your hair. 

The process repeated with conditioner, and then the soap along your body. By the time your shower was done, your muscles were more relaxed than they had ever been. 

“Go, dry up. I’ll be just a minute.” He was turning to let you step out of the shower, your hand in his as you stepped on the bath mat and grabbed your towel. Closing the curtain you heard the water temperature knob squeak, the noise it always made when the water turned colder. You couldn’t help but smile, you always burned your skin in the shower and Franks hated it. Instead of retreating to your bedroom, you plopped up on the sink, waiting for him to finish up. 

As the curtain opened, you let your towel start to fall down, part of your skin starting to peek through as it did. Mike caught your eye and then let his fall down to your body before looking back up at you, searching your face to make sure he wasn’t misunderstanding the context. 

You tilted your head slightly, telling him to come closer to you with no words at all. He stepped forward, his body covered in droplets still, his hair dripping wet but still twirled in those curls that your fingers would get tangled in. His arms rested on the edges of the sink, closing you in between them. Wrapping your legs around him was all the invitation he needed, his face fell immediately into the crook of your neck, sucking the sensitive area of skin there before tracing it with his tongue. While your head fell back, giving him more area to work with, you wrapped one hand around his shoulders and the other fell down to touch him. You pumped his member right against your entrance, the tip just ever so slightly touching you. That mixed with the work Mike was doing on your neck, you could feel yourself get wetter. 

You moved slightly, leaning back against the mirror and pushed your chest out, begging Mike to put your breasts in his mouth and he obliged without any confusion in your body language. 

You let out a loud moan, your hands cupping his face as he sucked on your nipple, bringing your hand into his hair and gripping at those curls tightly. 

Not wanting to wait another second, you grabbed him and began pumping again, this time you could feel he had his own wetness at the tip and you couldn’t help but use his cock to rub it against your clit before positioning it at your entrance, letting it go in just slightly. 

“More.” You spoke into his ear and he didn’t need you to say it twice. He pushed inside you and while you let your head fall back against the mirror again, his fell on your shoulder. Both of you letting out a moan. He stayed there for a few seconds before slowing moving out and pumping back in you, each movement earning a noise from you that he gladly moved to catch in his own mouth. 

He kissed you with passion, they were hard, like his thrusts as they began to speed up. 

“You feel so fuckin’ good.” The words were whispered as your eyes practically rolled back in your head. 

“Think that’s my line, sweetheart.” He chuckled, looking down as he watched himself enter in and out of you, his tongue swiping around his lip like he was hungry for more. 

Widening your legs apart, you brought them from wrapped around his waist to snug parallel against his sides, he used his hands to hold them there as he continued to pump inside you, his grunts making you more wet if that was even possible. Moving one hand to touch your clit, you practically cried out from the tender touch of your own hand. Mike was quick to readjust, dropping his hands from your legs and using one hand to lay on top of yours, his polite way of telling you he’d gladly rub your clit for you and his other hand resting on the mirror behind you for balance. 

You kept your legs where they were, your knees pressing tightly into his side just made him go faster. 

“You look fuckin’ perfect.” You thought he was looking down at you but his eyes were staring right at your face. 

You brought your hand back up to his face, cupping it tightly as his hips grinded. The hand that was resting on the mirror moved to readjust you slightly, just sliding you down ever so slightly to change the angle he was fucking you at and bless him for it because it was then that you cried out as his cock hit that spot that made you come undone with the matching pressure of his fingers swirling on your clit. 

As you reached your climax, the tightening around his cock caused him to come undone. Both of you moaning and grunting before you let your chests rise and fall to catch your breath. He pulled out of you. Your hand still on his face as he did so he brought his own up to hold it there tighter, pressing a light kiss to the inside of your wrist before helping you off the sink. Every muscle he had just massaged in the shower had just tightened up from being fucked on the bathroom sink but it was incredibly worth it, and maybe you could use it as an excuse for this to happen again. 

He bent down to pick the towel up for you, wrapping it around you and using the bottom hem to clean up his mess that was dripping down your leg. Mike grabbed a towel of his own, wrapping it around his waist while you both retreated to the bedroom. He had a drawer with some things in it, so while you were at the vanity putting on your lotion, he was grabbing a shirt for you, and something for him to cover up. The large NIS long sleeve was being handed to you along with a pair of shorts you always wore to bed, then he moved to put his own underwear on. Pulling the cigarette pack out of his jean pockets, he then dropped those belted pants and button up shirt on the ground before picking up a lighter to his cigarette. 

“So Gibbs knows?” His voice was altered as he inhaled the cigarette smoke. 

“It’s almost like he’s a special agent.” You teased as you brought the shirt over your body. 

“So what, you two like friends now or something?” He was teasing you back. 

Smirking, you came up behind him and rested your head against his back, your arms wrapping around his abdomen. “Wouldn’t you like to know.” The words were probably in poor taste, considering he wanted to know so much about your thoughts on this case. It was why he was being such a jerk earlier. After he chuckled a bit, his body language got serious, you felt his body tense up against you.

“You remember when we were workin’ that murder case. The one where your friend was the victim.” 

It should’ve surprised you, the fact that a heavy statement like that did nothing to shake you, to make your gut twist, but it did none of that. All it did was cause your heart to stop for half a second before going back to normal. 

“That case was personal to you.” He nodded, hoping you were understanding where he was going with it, but you weren’t gonna let him not say more. “This–this case. Is personal to me.” 

“I wasn’t shutting you out.” You mumbled the sentence against his back. 

“I know.” He nodded and took a deep breath. 

“Actually have tons of questions for you. I just needed to marinate.” 

“Yea, I get that.” He nodded. “You wanna ask me your questions?” 

“No.” Now it was your turn to not say more than that. 

He nodded again and let out another deep breath. 

“But I have one I need to ask you.” You pulled your head off his back and rested your chin on it instead. “How close were you to him?” 

Him. Just the word made Mike flinch, the difference in both of you, how for you, your old personal case didn’t even cause you to tremble, but for Franks, he physically felt his body react to the question. That was the difference between these personal cases. Yours was closed. The killer was 6 feet in the ground. This case had no sign of closure in sight, and that was now your weight to carry. 

“When he was alive? Not very.”

“But after?” You knew there had to be a point for him to bring up that question. 

“When he died, I’ve never felt closer to him.” The words made him choke up a bit. “I talked to him, when I was working the case, I’d talk out loud to him like he was there with me.” He let out a laugh like he found it hard to believe himself. “He still haunts me.” 

When you saw the name in the folder, you understood entirely. It was his former team member, before he was promoted to Supervisory Special Agent on a different team. 

Just as you were about to speak, there was a knock at your door, a loud one, frantic even. 

Mike was quick to stand up straight, his jeans were on his legs in seconds, his fingers quickly fastening the buckle as he made his way to the door. 

“Stay here.” His voice was firm, he knew you were just as capable as him to deal with whoever was banging at your door at 3AM, but it didn’t stop him from wanting to deal with it himself. 

As the door swung open, his gun in hand and cigarette hanging from his mouth, his face tightened to frighten whoever was there. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Uh, sorry. I was–was looking for my sister.” The stuttering made it very clear the man was stressed, likely in a panic. 

“August?” You spoke your brother’s name, your hands grabbing Mike’s bare skin to move him over, staring almost frozen at the sight of your brother. “What happened?” 

“It’s Jessica, I can’t find her.”  And just like that, the twist in your gut came back. Your eyes closed, and you squeezed Mike’s arm before moving past him and grabbing your manic brother into your arms. 

“It’s okay, Auggie. We’ll find her.” Lie. Mike was trying to rack his brain around everything. “Go lay on the couch, I’ll make you a cup of tea.” 

Your brother hadn’t been the same since losing Jessica. It’s why you put everything on the line to take the case all those years ago. It’s why you wanted to look at this case with fresh eyes-no sway, because the minute someone planted an idea of how things went down with Jessica, you spent 12 crucial hours following that thought just for it to come up as a dead end. You should’ve followed your gut. From that day forward, you always followed your gut.

As your brother moved to the couch, his hands shaking and head nodding as he repeated your words, you turned to Mike. After you told him to go put a shirt on and put on a pot of coffee for you both, you squeezed his arm with one more thing to say.

“The cases don’t have to be cold for them to continue haunting you.”

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