Stand By Your Man
A/N Inspired by the song ‘Stand By Your Man’ and a vanilla custard filled choux bun I had recently that I can’t stop thinking about. Apologies for any mistakes :)
Summary: After Parker, who your beginning to develop a crush on, discovers your hidden talent, you go undercover at a country bar to find a suspect.
Word Count: 2391
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You’d regretted revealing your hidden talent to Alden Parker the minute it had slipped from your lips. It was a moment of weakness on your part. You had initially rejected the agent as Gibbs’ replacement, you told yourself it was because he was too cheery and not as professional as Gibbs, but you knew that your resentment for Parker was, in reality, the manifestation of your sadness at Gibbs leaving and Parker taking his place meant that he really was gone. However, after a particularly hard case which ended with Parker offering you a vanilla custard filled choux bun from a bakery he had found on the drive back to the NCIS building. Your resentment had completely crumbled and amongst the praises for the pastry, in what you believe was a sugar induced moment of insanity, you had confessed your talent for singing to the older agent as a type of olive branch, who had been trying to encourage you to divulge a secret talent to him for the entirety of the case. The grin on his face was what immediately triggered a sense of regret within you, wishing that the pastries’ ability to loosen your lips hadn’t worked and it was that same grin that reignited that flame of regret within you 4 weeks later, when Parker told you that you would all be going undercover at a Country Bar. It was that grin that told you everything you needed to know in a matter of microseconds.
It was that grin that you could still see now as you were standing, dressed in a pair of jeans, a white flowy bell sleeved top and cowboy boots, being handed a microphone to go and sing on the stage of your suspect’s favourite hangout.
Parker had argued that it was imperative that the team could see every face within the bar in order to find the suspect and that the only way to truly do that was to have someone on stage and the rest of the team sat around the bar. You, on the other hand, had not felt the same and had rolled your eyes while Torres sniggered at your annoyance, promising to film the whole thing so he could torture you with it, following Parker’s divulgence of your talent to the rest of the team as well as his plan to catch the suspect. You had silently thanked McGee for not mentioning that he had in fact already heard you sing, (after an evening out drinking with him, DiNozzo and Bishop had led you all to a karaoke bar, which in turn had led to some very questionable renditions of many, many songs), not wanting to have to explain your karaoke too.
But as hard as you tried you couldn’t really be mad at Parker and truthfully you did think that Parker’s plan made sense, it was subtle, you could find the suspect without him realising you were looking for him and keep his attention away from whoever ended up grabbing him in the crowded bar. Over the past four weeks you had softened to Parker, accepting that while he was replacing Gibbs in terms of his job, he was so different from him that he could never take his place. You liked to think of it as a different place, just as good as Gibbs but in different ways. Unfortunately for you during the past four weeks as well as coming to terms with Gibbs’ absence and Parker’s arrival, you had started to develop a crush on your boss. A crush you were almost certain he didn’t reciprocate.
You took a breath and shook your hair slightly before returning your mind back to your current situation, thanking the man who had handed you the microphone before the band began to play the song you had chosen to sing. As the music started to flow to your ears you calmed, the familiarity of the feeling settling in. It’s not that you hate singing in front of people, it’s more that you would rather just gouge your eyes out than have to sing in-front of your co-workers and boss/crush.
‘Sometimes its hard to be a woman’, the words flowed out your mouth effortlessly. As you continued, you shifted your focus from the words you were singing to the faces in the bar, scanning each one for the face of your suspect. However, after a few lines, you realised that there was no way you could get a clear read on half the faces in the bar without getting closer.
So, despite the resistance of every fibre of your being, you stepped of the stage and started to walk around the bar as you continued to sing. At first it was just a brush of your hand to someone’s shoulder so they would lift their gaze and you could see their face, but after a minute of singing you began to get bolder. As you continued to move around the room you found yourself sliding on the edge of the booth McGee was sat at, who like you had been searching for your suspect, and found yourself wrapping your arm over his right shoulder, directing the words of the song at him, and leaning your head on his other shoulder. This elicited a chuckle as he laughed softly at you. If you were being forced to do this, you were at least going to have some fun.
After moving away from McGee, you continued to make your way through the packed bar, the eyes of all the patrons now focused entirely on you, the words of the song falling effortlessly from your lips, and unbeknownst to you wowing the entire bar full of people, including your team. Unlike Jess, who had never doubted your ability to sing, Torres was in utter disbelief, still holding his phone recording you like he had promised, but now with the knowledge that there was very little to tease you with. McGee, on the other hand, was not surprised by your beautiful singing at all, after all, he had heard you sing drunk all those years go with him, Tony and Ellie and he knew if you sounded that good while that drunk, and you had all been very drunk, that sober your voice must be angelic.
Meanwhile, Parker’s gaze had stopped moving around the bar and instead fixed itself on you. When you had admitted to him that you could sing he had thought you would instantly take it back, and from the look on your face at the time he could tell you regretted it. He knew that you, like Torres, were having trouble adjusting to him taking over from Gibbs, but over the past few weeks both of you had been getting on very well. So well in fact, that he had developed somewhat of a crush on you, however, he also convinced himself that being your boss, as well as much older than you, made this crush entirely irresponsible and wrong, besides he was almost certain that you didn’t reciprocate it. In this moment though, he couldn’t take his eyes off you. He had been stunned into silence when he had first seen your outfit as you ran into the elevator which he had just gotten into, as you were about to go to the bar. The words he wanted to say, that you looked beautiful, had sat at the back of his throat and instead he opted for a smirkish smile as he told you he liked the outfit, to which you had rolled your eyes gently while chuckling softly, trying to hide the flush of your cheeks at the fact he had even commented on the outfit. Now Parker was watching as you continued to move around the bar in his direction, admiring your voice and attempting to ignore the way his heart beat faster when you walked over to him as you sang, wrapping an arm over his shoulders as you placed yourself on his lap.
After singing a few lines of the song sitting on Parker’s lap, which was something you knew you would regret instantly the moment you did it, you forced yourself to get up and continue to search the bar as you sang. You were surprised for several reasons when you had sat on Parker’s lap. Firstly, you surprised yourself that you would do something that bold, but more importantly to you, you were surprised by Parker’s reaction, he had smiled at you, laughed softly and placed his arm around your waist, holding you close to him. An action you were sure had caused your heart to stop beating momentarily.
As you continued to sing you tried to shake the thoughts of Parker out of your mind, convincing yourself that he, like you, was undercover, he was just playing the role. Suddenly though you were snapped out of your spiralling as you caught sight of the man you had been searching for, who was staring at you. The suspect was sitting with another man, also looking directly at you. You moved over to them trying not to rush and maintain your cover.
As you reached them, you placed your hand on the man’s shoulder, turning to make eye contact with Nick, McGee, Jess and Parker, as you empathised the words of the song, ‘stand by your man’. You had chosen the song for this specific reason, that when you found the suspect, it would be easy to tell the team where he was. That and the fact that it was a short song and you didn’t want to have to sing longer than necessary.
After receiving nods from all the team, you removed your hand from his shoulder and walked back to the stage, with only a few lines left to sing. As you finished singing and the room burst into applause, the team quickly moved towards the man, their actions hidden from him by the applause, before grabbing and arresting him. The rest of the bar remained mostly oblivious thanks to the noise that was no being created.
You received a small rush from both the applause you received, and the relief that the suspect was now in custody. But as quickly as you had been handed the mic, you handed it back to the same man who had previously given it to you and rushed to the entrance of the bar to catch up with your team. As you left the bar and got outside the first thing you saw was Tim and Jess, who were putting the suspect into one of the cars, but you couldn’t see Parker or Torres. That was until you felt an arm wrap around your shoulders as Nick began to tell you how he was never actually going to tease you, which he definitely was going to do, and sang your praises. Eventually after he came down from the apparent high he was on after you singing, he jogged over to McGee, still giggling slightly, while you just shook your head and smiled.
Not a second later did Parker join you, after having disappeared somewhere, retuning with a box under his arm as he clapped softly, causing you to laugh and blush rather furiously.
‘When you told me you could sing, I assumed you could carry a tune, I didn’t expect you to have the voice of an angel.’
‘Thank you’ you blushed even more at his compliment, avoiding meeting his eyes, ‘just don’t think this will be a regular occurrence, I don’t think I could handle that’ you added pointedly.
He chuckled, ‘I don’t think it’ll be that easy, now they’ve heard you sing’, he gestured to the team, who were still chatting amongst themselves, occasionally glancing over at you and Parker, ‘they are going to try and get you to every chance they get’. This caused you both to chuckle.
‘Oh god’ you groaned, ‘I hadn’t thought of that’, eliciting yet another laugh from Parker, before he moved the box he had perched under his arm and held it in front of you.
‘But since you’ll probably never be given a break from this now, I got you this’ he stated opening the lid of the box to reveal one of the same vanilla custard filled choux buns he had given you all those weeks ago when you first confessed to him your talent.
Your eyes widened in excitement upon seeing the choux bun, taking it out the box and moaning as you took a bite of it. ‘This makes it all worth it’ you smiled, content with the pastry in your hand and completely touched by the gesture.
Meanwhile, by the van the other three agents continued to watch you and Parker after giving up on just sneaking glances at the pair of you.
‘Aww’ Jess cooed as they watched Parker give you the pastry he had bought especially for you, ‘Do you think they realise how much they like each other? Or just how obvious it is?’ she then asked the two men next to her.
‘Oh they have no clue’, answered Nick immediately, smirking as he watched you both.
‘Yeah they’re oblivious. I’m pretty sure they both think the other one doesn’t fell the same’ added Tim, returning his gaze to the two agents in front of him.
‘They’re the only ones who don’t see how much they like each other; I mean it’s pretty obvious to literally anybody else’ added Nick.
‘What’s obvious?’, you asked as you and Parker had made your way over to the three agents standing in a huddle as you continued to eat the choux bun in your hand. Jess and Tim looked like deer caught in headlights, but Nick began to smirk.
‘We were just saying how oblivious people can be sometimes’, looking directly at you and Parker who were both proving his point and being entirely oblivious, adorning expressions of confusion as he then added, ‘you know like the suspect, just sitting their not realising he was about to be arrested by the five agents in the bar.’
‘Oh right’
‘Yeah, that makes sense’.
Both yours and Parker’s answers were met with small giggles and nudges as you all began to move into the cars, which once again the pair of you where oblivious to.
Part 2?
