Perceptions
Title: Perceptions
Series: SPNCIS
Author: hunters_retreat
Fandom: Supernatural/NCIS
Pairing: Sam/Dean, Future Gibbs/DiNozzo
Summary: “You did not convince someone you were CDC with a bikini inspector license.”
Author's note: Another awesome beta by smidgeson :P This came from a prompt atcomment_fic of 'they have a fake ID for everything'
“It’s just not possible,” McGee said as they sat around the table, a selection of beer and wine decorating the top. An apple pie had been demolished between them and the remains of the crust, what little there was, sat where Sam could run his finger through. Gibbs didn’t think anyone else noticed that he was doing it, or that Dean had made sure it was placed there for that purpose. When Sam did it again, Gibbs watched Dean glance at his brother with amusement. DiNozzo saw it as well and looked down at the pie and back up at Gibbs. There was a reason DiNozzo had lasted as long as he had with Gibbs and it was a hell of a lot more than being a pretty face.
“Anything is possible if you’re motivated enough,” Dean answered.
“Or pay enough,” Sam added.
“No, you can’t fake those badges. There are too many precautions these days for that.”
Dean leaned forward and smiled at McGee. “Is that a challenge?”
“Dean-” Sam warned.
“Things change Dean,” McGee said with a shake of his head. “Maybe you could get away with fake IDs when you were hunting but now people are smarter than that.”
Gibbs watched Sam drop his chin slightly to hide his smile and Dean grinned unrepentantly. “Oh McGullible, you have so much to learn.”
Gibbs wasn’t sure what would happen next, but he figured it would give him a small measure of peace in the bullpen. Tony would be entertained with whatever Winchester and Campbell were doing and neither brother would do anything to jeopardize their standing with NCIS. It could be interesting.
***
“The FBI is already here gentlemen,” the local cop said as he pointed to the area where the body had been found. Drowning in the middle of a park, except there was no water. They would say the victim was moved but there were three witnesses who saw her drowning where she stood. Gibbs hated the weird ones.
“No way,” McGee stared past the current victim to where the FBI agents waited. Gibbs looked up and had to school his face before he grinned at McGee’s discomfort.
“NCIS? I’m Agent Ford with the FBI and this is my partner Agent Mayhew. Exactly what interest does NCIS have on this case?”
“Dean!” McGee hissed. “You could get in real trouble impersonating a federal agent.”
“I am a federal agent, just from a different branch of the alphabet. Honestly though, the FBI is easy. No one bothers to double check that one except other FBI agents,” Dean answered.
For one brief moment, when Winchester - Campbell he reminded himself. Sam might be a Winchester but it was easier to call him Campbell in the field so they didn’t get confused - was hired Gibbs thought he might keep Dean out of trouble. He should have realized then that Sam was just going to help his brother get into more.
“Are you done?” Gibbs demanded. “There is a dead body here.”
They all looked contrite and Gibbs pushed past to survey the area before anyone could see his smile.
***
“Homeland Security beat you here. They came in this weekend and examined the bodies in the morgue. Went missing two days later,” the security guard said. “Not sure how someone got the bodies out but I was glad to have them gone honestly.”
“Why is that?” DiNozzo asked the guard as he jotted notes down. The team had been called in for a murder and the two previous victim’s bodies were missing. Gibbs wanted to send them to Abby and Ducky for examination but now they’d have to start with just one.
“Swore I heard something every time I went into that room. Like someone was calling to me.”
Gibbs let out a deep breath and was grateful that whatever was doing the killing hadn’t taken the guard as well. He had a bad feeling about this one and the fact that the bodies were missing was confirmation. And he had no idea where Campbell and Winchester were.
McGee walked into the room a second later and his face was red with anger. He had a phone to his ear and he dropped it to look at the guard. “These Homeland Security agents, what were their names?”
“Oh, um Agents Bannor and Agent Stark.”
Homeland Security? Gibbs knew he needed to say something to Dean but the look on McGee’s face was entertainment enough to still his tongue.
“Thank you,” Gibbs said as he motioned McGee aside.
“They have the bodies with Abby already. Apparently they were toxic and would have caused anyone close by to commit suicide. Dean and Sam moved them and have some kind of magic -“ McGee stopped because the man on the other end of the phone began to talk. “Shut up, I know what you said.” He looked back at Gibbs, “They have some kind of hoodoo to keep Abby from being infected by it.”
Gibbs nodded. “Get what we need here then.” McGee nodded and started to walk away but Gibbs watched him go.
“Dean, you can’t just … pretend … yes it’s a … No Dean, I don’t want to know how many felonies you’ve committed. Or Sam. Jesus, Dean just shut up.”
When Gibbs turned to walk away, DiNozzo was there with a small smile on his lips. They really should stop Sam and Dean but they were rather creative in the way they worked and Gibbs could admit to himself that he was fascinated by the way the hunters had to work outside the law for all those years.
Unlike the rest of his team, Gibbs knew how long Sam and Dean had been hunting. He’d seen Dean’s full unedited file and he’d pulled information on all his family members before he’d hired him. He knew everything a piece of paper could tell him about Sam and Dean. He also watched the way Sam and Dean reacted to things and he filled in some of his own blanks. Sam and Dean had hunted on the other side of the law for a long time before the world knew enough for them to go legit.
Gibbs didn’t think they’d actually quit. More than once since Sam joined the team someone had come in with ideas of something they’d seen in the paper that might be supernatural in origin only to have Sam and Dean dismiss it. A few phone calls though and DiNozzo had been able to inform him that whatever the case had been, someone had taken care of it. If it wasn’t Sam and Dean, they were still in contact with a hunting network that made sure things got done.
“They’re gonna get caught,” DiNozzo said as they watched McGee hang up his phone, an angry glare on his face as he looked at it.
“You really believe that?”
DiNozzo sighed. “Nope. They’re damn good at what they do. How did you find them again?”
Gibbs smiled. “Because I’m damn good at what I do.”
***
“You did not!”
“It’s all perception. If you act like you have authority people respond to it. Doesn’t matter what the ID says.”
“You did not convince someone you were CDC with a bikini inspector license.”
“No, I didn’t,” Dean confessed.
McGee looked smug over the pizza in front of them. It’d been a month since McGee had challenged Dean and it had been a month of Sam and Dean getting the jump on every hunt before them. It wasn’t that Dean and Sam were better than the rest of the team, but what they were doing had less channels to go through and Sam and Dean took advantage of it as soon as they saw something out of the ordinary. Gibbs was impressed. McGee was pissed. DiNozzo was amused and Dean was smug. Gibbs wasn’t sure what Sam was. Happy, maybe. Whatever else the last month had given him, he was happy in his skin now in ways he hadn’t been before. Dean’s smile widened as he looked at his brother and Gibbs felt something stir in his gut at that look. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something … off.
“I did,” Sam said as he dished another piece of pizza onto his plate. “Not by choice though. Dean pushed me at the nurse and if I’d backed down she would have known I wasn’t legit and we really needed to see the patients.”
“Alright, enough,” Gibbs finally declared.
They all looked up at him but Winchester just smirked as he nodded his head once.
“I just don’t get it,” McGee admitted. “People are supposed to-“
“People get lazy, or stupid, or sometimes they just get too freaked out by what they’re seeing. Some days the job is just too dark. Sometimes they can’t admit what they saw and they want to pass it off to someone else and douse the memory,” Dean answered.
“It works because we believe it will,” Sam continued where Dean left off. “People are taught to believe a cop or an agent is there to do good. Our authority figures are supposed to protect us and people still fall into that line when they question something. Like when you were a child and you looked to your parents to make it all right for you when you thought there was a monster in your closet.”
“Yeah?” DiNozzo asked. “What did your dad do when you thought there was a monster in your closet?”
Sam finished the beer in his bottle before he answered. “He gave me a .45.”
They laughed as Sam got up to get another beer from the bar but Dean watched his brother’s back. Gibbs understood then. “How old was he?”
Dean looked over at Gibbs in surprise but he must have caught the agent off guard because he answered more honestly than he normally would. “9,” Dean said as he drained his bottle. “It was a long ass year.”
The table was quiet then as everyone realized Sam hadn’t been kidding. The younger brother’s departure had probably been more about the fact that he’d revealed something he shouldn’t than a need for another beer but Sam came back at that moment with two bottles and handed one back to Dean.
“So no more fake agents,” Sam said to Gibbs. “What else are we going to do to entertain ourselves?”
“Do I need to help you find cold cases, Campbell?”
“No sir,” Sam said, holding his hands up in defeat. The table laughed again and this time it was easier. Sam seemed to remember something then because he was asking about an old case that was in storage. He’d earmarked it for further investigation and as they talked Dean leaned closer, his body pressed shoulder to knee to his brother as they both began asking questions.
Gibbs wasn’t sure their questioning would lead to an answer, but Gibbs was damn proud of his team and the way they responded to the questions. Gibbs always said they’d leave no stone unturned to find the people capable of killing others and the two brothers were helping them rip apart the damn forest to do it.
Gibbs sat back and watched them work, even if it was after hours, and he relaxed as his team stepped up to the plate one more time.
On to His Heart, a December Drabbles Day Timestamp
Series: SPNCIS
Author: hunters_retreat
Fandom: Supernatural/NCIS
Pairing: Sam/Dean, Future Gibbs/DiNozzo
Summary: “You did not convince someone you were CDC with a bikini inspector license.”
Author's note: Another awesome beta by smidgeson :P This came from a prompt atcomment_fic of 'they have a fake ID for everything'
“It’s just not possible,” McGee said as they sat around the table, a selection of beer and wine decorating the top. An apple pie had been demolished between them and the remains of the crust, what little there was, sat where Sam could run his finger through. Gibbs didn’t think anyone else noticed that he was doing it, or that Dean had made sure it was placed there for that purpose. When Sam did it again, Gibbs watched Dean glance at his brother with amusement. DiNozzo saw it as well and looked down at the pie and back up at Gibbs. There was a reason DiNozzo had lasted as long as he had with Gibbs and it was a hell of a lot more than being a pretty face.
“Anything is possible if you’re motivated enough,” Dean answered.
“Or pay enough,” Sam added.
“No, you can’t fake those badges. There are too many precautions these days for that.”
Dean leaned forward and smiled at McGee. “Is that a challenge?”
“Dean-” Sam warned.
“Things change Dean,” McGee said with a shake of his head. “Maybe you could get away with fake IDs when you were hunting but now people are smarter than that.”
Gibbs watched Sam drop his chin slightly to hide his smile and Dean grinned unrepentantly. “Oh McGullible, you have so much to learn.”
Gibbs wasn’t sure what would happen next, but he figured it would give him a small measure of peace in the bullpen. Tony would be entertained with whatever Winchester and Campbell were doing and neither brother would do anything to jeopardize their standing with NCIS. It could be interesting.
***
“The FBI is already here gentlemen,” the local cop said as he pointed to the area where the body had been found. Drowning in the middle of a park, except there was no water. They would say the victim was moved but there were three witnesses who saw her drowning where she stood. Gibbs hated the weird ones.
“No way,” McGee stared past the current victim to where the FBI agents waited. Gibbs looked up and had to school his face before he grinned at McGee’s discomfort.
“NCIS? I’m Agent Ford with the FBI and this is my partner Agent Mayhew. Exactly what interest does NCIS have on this case?”
“Dean!” McGee hissed. “You could get in real trouble impersonating a federal agent.”
“I am a federal agent, just from a different branch of the alphabet. Honestly though, the FBI is easy. No one bothers to double check that one except other FBI agents,” Dean answered.
For one brief moment, when Winchester - Campbell he reminded himself. Sam might be a Winchester but it was easier to call him Campbell in the field so they didn’t get confused - was hired Gibbs thought he might keep Dean out of trouble. He should have realized then that Sam was just going to help his brother get into more.
“Are you done?” Gibbs demanded. “There is a dead body here.”
They all looked contrite and Gibbs pushed past to survey the area before anyone could see his smile.
***
“Homeland Security beat you here. They came in this weekend and examined the bodies in the morgue. Went missing two days later,” the security guard said. “Not sure how someone got the bodies out but I was glad to have them gone honestly.”
“Why is that?” DiNozzo asked the guard as he jotted notes down. The team had been called in for a murder and the two previous victim’s bodies were missing. Gibbs wanted to send them to Abby and Ducky for examination but now they’d have to start with just one.
“Swore I heard something every time I went into that room. Like someone was calling to me.”
Gibbs let out a deep breath and was grateful that whatever was doing the killing hadn’t taken the guard as well. He had a bad feeling about this one and the fact that the bodies were missing was confirmation. And he had no idea where Campbell and Winchester were.
McGee walked into the room a second later and his face was red with anger. He had a phone to his ear and he dropped it to look at the guard. “These Homeland Security agents, what were their names?”
“Oh, um Agents Bannor and Agent Stark.”
Homeland Security? Gibbs knew he needed to say something to Dean but the look on McGee’s face was entertainment enough to still his tongue.
“Thank you,” Gibbs said as he motioned McGee aside.
“They have the bodies with Abby already. Apparently they were toxic and would have caused anyone close by to commit suicide. Dean and Sam moved them and have some kind of magic -“ McGee stopped because the man on the other end of the phone began to talk. “Shut up, I know what you said.” He looked back at Gibbs, “They have some kind of hoodoo to keep Abby from being infected by it.”
Gibbs nodded. “Get what we need here then.” McGee nodded and started to walk away but Gibbs watched him go.
“Dean, you can’t just … pretend … yes it’s a … No Dean, I don’t want to know how many felonies you’ve committed. Or Sam. Jesus, Dean just shut up.”
When Gibbs turned to walk away, DiNozzo was there with a small smile on his lips. They really should stop Sam and Dean but they were rather creative in the way they worked and Gibbs could admit to himself that he was fascinated by the way the hunters had to work outside the law for all those years.
Unlike the rest of his team, Gibbs knew how long Sam and Dean had been hunting. He’d seen Dean’s full unedited file and he’d pulled information on all his family members before he’d hired him. He knew everything a piece of paper could tell him about Sam and Dean. He also watched the way Sam and Dean reacted to things and he filled in some of his own blanks. Sam and Dean had hunted on the other side of the law for a long time before the world knew enough for them to go legit.
Gibbs didn’t think they’d actually quit. More than once since Sam joined the team someone had come in with ideas of something they’d seen in the paper that might be supernatural in origin only to have Sam and Dean dismiss it. A few phone calls though and DiNozzo had been able to inform him that whatever the case had been, someone had taken care of it. If it wasn’t Sam and Dean, they were still in contact with a hunting network that made sure things got done.
“They’re gonna get caught,” DiNozzo said as they watched McGee hang up his phone, an angry glare on his face as he looked at it.
“You really believe that?”
DiNozzo sighed. “Nope. They’re damn good at what they do. How did you find them again?”
Gibbs smiled. “Because I’m damn good at what I do.”
***
“You did not!”
“It’s all perception. If you act like you have authority people respond to it. Doesn’t matter what the ID says.”
“You did not convince someone you were CDC with a bikini inspector license.”
“No, I didn’t,” Dean confessed.
McGee looked smug over the pizza in front of them. It’d been a month since McGee had challenged Dean and it had been a month of Sam and Dean getting the jump on every hunt before them. It wasn’t that Dean and Sam were better than the rest of the team, but what they were doing had less channels to go through and Sam and Dean took advantage of it as soon as they saw something out of the ordinary. Gibbs was impressed. McGee was pissed. DiNozzo was amused and Dean was smug. Gibbs wasn’t sure what Sam was. Happy, maybe. Whatever else the last month had given him, he was happy in his skin now in ways he hadn’t been before. Dean’s smile widened as he looked at his brother and Gibbs felt something stir in his gut at that look. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something … off.
“I did,” Sam said as he dished another piece of pizza onto his plate. “Not by choice though. Dean pushed me at the nurse and if I’d backed down she would have known I wasn’t legit and we really needed to see the patients.”
“Alright, enough,” Gibbs finally declared.
They all looked up at him but Winchester just smirked as he nodded his head once.
“I just don’t get it,” McGee admitted. “People are supposed to-“
“People get lazy, or stupid, or sometimes they just get too freaked out by what they’re seeing. Some days the job is just too dark. Sometimes they can’t admit what they saw and they want to pass it off to someone else and douse the memory,” Dean answered.
“It works because we believe it will,” Sam continued where Dean left off. “People are taught to believe a cop or an agent is there to do good. Our authority figures are supposed to protect us and people still fall into that line when they question something. Like when you were a child and you looked to your parents to make it all right for you when you thought there was a monster in your closet.”
“Yeah?” DiNozzo asked. “What did your dad do when you thought there was a monster in your closet?”
Sam finished the beer in his bottle before he answered. “He gave me a .45.”
They laughed as Sam got up to get another beer from the bar but Dean watched his brother’s back. Gibbs understood then. “How old was he?”
Dean looked over at Gibbs in surprise but he must have caught the agent off guard because he answered more honestly than he normally would. “9,” Dean said as he drained his bottle. “It was a long ass year.”
The table was quiet then as everyone realized Sam hadn’t been kidding. The younger brother’s departure had probably been more about the fact that he’d revealed something he shouldn’t than a need for another beer but Sam came back at that moment with two bottles and handed one back to Dean.
“So no more fake agents,” Sam said to Gibbs. “What else are we going to do to entertain ourselves?”
“Do I need to help you find cold cases, Campbell?”
“No sir,” Sam said, holding his hands up in defeat. The table laughed again and this time it was easier. Sam seemed to remember something then because he was asking about an old case that was in storage. He’d earmarked it for further investigation and as they talked Dean leaned closer, his body pressed shoulder to knee to his brother as they both began asking questions.
Gibbs wasn’t sure their questioning would lead to an answer, but Gibbs was damn proud of his team and the way they responded to the questions. Gibbs always said they’d leave no stone unturned to find the people capable of killing others and the two brothers were helping them rip apart the damn forest to do it.
Gibbs sat back and watched them work, even if it was after hours, and he relaxed as his team stepped up to the plate one more time.
On to His Heart, a December Drabbles Day Timestamp