Keryl Raist's Blog, page 36

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanfiction

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

49. Good Advice, Gibbs' Style



"McGee." Gibbs' voice from behind the partition next to his desk.
"Yeah?" He looks up at Gibbs, sees him standing there, jacket on, ready to go home. Another long day of paperwork in the can.
"Waiting for Abby?"
"Yeah." It's late, NCIS is almost empty, and Tim's actually up to date on his paperwork. Abby's wrapping up a test and will be up in a few minutes, so with a little time to kill, he's looking at beds online.
Gibbs sees what's on his screen, a wrought iron bedframe, the sort with an arched headboard and lots of posts to tie things to, and then looks at Tim, who realizes that three weeks ago Gibbs helped Abby move their bed, so he knows how very unlikely it is they would have moved that bed if they had been thinking about getting a new one. Gibbs eyes flick from the screen and settle on the shoulder he supposedly hurt by tripping on the stairs up to their place. (Which Tony has been teasing him mercilessly about. "Super-stealthy McNinja" being the least of the jibes.) His gaze switches to Tim's wrists, which he's been very carefully keeping his cuffs over all day. Last thing he wants to do is explain to Tony, after that long conversation about nothing being rapey, how he ended up with two bruised wrists and a sprained shoulder.
But Gibbs is looking at his wrists. And he's suddenly wondering if he managed to keep his cuffs down all day.
Tim can feel that gaze on him and begins to blush.
Gibbs shrugs, comes around his desk, half-sitting, half-leaning against the corner closest to Tim, and takes out his pad.
"Wood, McGee. You want wood. Metal's only as strong as it's welds, and for furniture that's not all that strong. My daughter and one of her friends managed to break a metal bed by jumping on it. Look" he begins to sketch. "You want the headboard to end in a flange like this. That flange goes into a slot in the post. They get glued, sandwiched together, and then pegs get driven through it. Same thing on the cross pieces. You build a bed like that, and you can drop it out of a tenth story window and it'll still be in one piece after it lands."
"Uh... thanks, Boss."
Gibbs writes three names on the bottom of the page. "They make good furniture. The sort of thing that'll last forever. No matter what you might do to it."
"Okay. They make your bed?"
"No. I made it. Wedding present for Shannon. You could hit it with a truck, and it won't break."
"Good to know."
Gibbs reaches across Tim and takes his right hand in his. Tim jerks a little at the contact, but Gibbs holds on. He turns it, wrist side up, pulls back the cuff of his sleeve, and pushes his watch up a little. Tim blushes furiously as he does that.
"Pad the cuffs.  Wrap your wrists before you put them on. Washcloth folded in thirds. Everyone you work with knows what sorts of marks struggling against handcuffs leave." He lets go of Tim's right hand and then checks his left. "Your watch is doing an okay job of hiding your right, but borrow one of Abby's wrist cuffs and wear it on your left until you heal. The last thing any of us want is DiNozzo harassing Abby for hurting you."
The idea that that could happen leaves Tim stunned. That it would screw things with him and DiNozzo he gets; the idea that it would make him treat Abby differently was nothing he'd ever thought. He made some sort of noise that certainly could have been ascent, but probably sounded mostly like "Urgh."
"Don't ever leave a bruise on her that shows. You show up bruised, and people'll think you two got carried away. She shows up bruised, and even if you don't end up in jail, no one will ever look at you, or her, the same way again."
In a flash Tim gets that. No matter what either of them might say, a bruise on Abby says she's a victim and he's an abuser. That idea, that he could hurt her, or that she'd be the woman who stays with a man who does that, completely short circuits Tim's brain and a long flustered string of half started sentences flow out of him. The content boiled down to 'I've never hurt her, and I'm not going to."
Gibbs doesn't smile, but his voice is warm, and Tim can feel there's real affection and likely a tinge of fear in this warning. "I know, Tim. I know you, and I know her. But some things other people, and that includes DiNozzo and Ducky, cannot ever see, no matter what."
"Yes, Boss." 

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanfiction

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

So, the thing is, Tim reads, a lot. This was especially true back around 2002 when he didn't have much of a social life and he was still plotting potential first novels. And no, he doesn't read guy on guy smut; it doesn't do anything for him. But over the years trios have been getting more play, and some of them have involved two guys, and sometimes the girl isn't in the middle. And if he's following a story, he's not just going to stop reading because two of the guys are playing with each other.

Though he will start skimming.

But even skimming certain... ideas... wandered into his head, and he began to think that some exploration of this whole prostate thing might be in order.

And, well, he liked what he found. Good things, many, many good things.

But like most of the things he really liked, he was fairly sure this would be something he could do for himself for a special treat now and again, and that would be it.

Pegging, (or bend over boyfriend, which is a term he hates) as he learned it was called, tends to go along with a sphere of Femdom he doesn't much like. He's not into pain, doesn't like humiliation, and would prefer no one ever call him a filthy slut while more or less raping him, even if it is a game.

But having a beautiful woman tie him up and respectfully bugger the ever living daylights out of him, while, say, blowing him, (or teabagging apparently) that hits just about all of his being done to fantasies in one sweep.

So, maybe it was his subconscious trying to get this set up in real life. Maybe just his innate trust in Abby. But three weeks after they started dating again, when they were going through his toys, looking for something for the weekend, he didn't hide the butt plug.

She picked it up,—and well, if you know much about male anatomy, it's pretty obvious that it wasn't designed for use on a girl—looked at him curiously, and said, "You have one of these?"

He looked her straight in the eye, hoping this wouldn't freak her out, and said, "I like them. They feel good."

She smiled and said, "Cool. You'll have to show me how you like it."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"It's not weird?"

"Does it get you off?"

"Oh, God, yeah."

"Then who cares?" She stopped and thought for a moment, her gaze shifting to a different flavor of curious, like an idea that had literally never occurred to her before had just wandered into her mind. "You aren't bi, are you?"

"No." He shook his head. "I like girls, just girls. I just like that, too."

"Okay. Just, straight guys don't usually know about stuff like this." She seemed to realize how that might have sounded and quickly added. "I mean, I'm not calling you a liar. Just it's not a problem if you are—"

"But I'm not." And he's not. At all. He can never remember if 1 or 5 is completely straight on the Kinsey Scale, but whichever it is, he's there. The only way a guy is getting anywhere near Tim's prostate is if that guy has an MD from a damn good medical school.

That weekend he did show her what he did with it, and she tried a few variations on that theme, and he found out that tied up, spun out, and anal meant he'd get off so hard he'd spend several minutes after shaking. Which actually scared both of them, but a bit more reading suggested it was, well, not exactly normal, but not wildly uncommon, either.

But, with all that, from the fantasy stage to yesterday, the idea of doing it to someone else just hadn't hit him. He's certainly read about that too, and he's all in favor of hotter and tighter, but, even after a lot of prep, slowly, and with a lot of lube, he often finds the insertion part pretty uncomfortable, so he didn't see any reason why he'd want to do it to a woman.

But Abby wants to do it.

That is one of the first thoughts to hit him as he wakes, along with What the hell did I do to my left arm? Damn that hurts! Oh yeah. Hmmm... Bed's still under warranty. Can you possibly imagine explaining why you need it fixed? No. New bed then? Guess so.

Abby's still sleeping, so he gets up slowly, untangling himself from her and heads to the bathroom. A hot shower sounds like an excellent idea right now. She might have mopped the semen off of him, but he's still crusty with sweat, sticky from dried lube, and sore all over.

He reaches for his toothbrush with his left hand, and rapidly decides he'll be babying that arm today, if not longer. It's bizarre how doing something with your non-dominant hand is so ridiculously different from doing it with your dominant hand. Tooth brushing isn't difficult, but since he's using his right hand he's actually got to think about how to do it.

Brushing his teeth, he spends a moment really looking at himself. There's a stiff and spiky swath in his hair. Abby was right, that is definitely going to need to be washed. His hair is dry enough that most mornings it just gets a rinse, but today is going to be a shampoo day. His right wrist, the one she had cuffed, has a black bruise from where he was pulling on it, the left, from the rope, has a purple-blue one. And while his left shoulder isn't red, it does look a little swollen.

Well and truly fucked. He smiles a little at that, finds the aspirin, dry swallows it, and gets into the shower.

Two aspirin and hot water helps with being sore. He might not have dislocated that shoulder, but he's certainly sprained it. Explaining how he hurt himself isn't anything he's relishing for Monday. If they had done this three weekends ago he could have blamed it on the move, but they're all settled in now, so...

He can think of a good lie later.

He soaps up, right-handed, which is a little awkward because he's actually got to think about that, too, and makes sure he's gotten all the lube off. He notices that bit of him is sore, too. Not as bad as his shoulder, but he can feel what he was doing last night there, too. And, since Tim is familiar with the gate theory of pain (you only really feel whatever it is that hurts worst) he's wondering if his body just isn't sending him all of the sensations it could.

"Wouldn't you like to be the one doing it?" He remembers her asking him that while he washes himself off, very gently.

The vibrator is slim, about two inches around. And while he's well aware his dick isn't going to set any size records, it's still at least twice that size. Abby might not be tiny, but she's still smaller than he is...

Well, he doesn't have to use his dick. He's got fingers, and the vibrator, and a few other toys that would work. Though, "Wouldn't you like to be the one doing it?" seems to indicate that she's expecting him to use his dick.

She slips into the shower behind him, and rests her head on his back.

"Good morning."

"Hi," he says, reaching behind with his right hand to squeeze hers.

"You were looking pretty pensive there. What's up?"

"Pretty sure I sprained my shoulder when I broke the bed."

"Ow. Okay, mental note, don't spin you out quite that long."

"Nah, that part was fine. I think the bed breaking was the problem. You can pull pretty hard on something without hurting yourself, but if it finally gives you can end up hurt."

"Still, don't want you getting hurt."

"Yeah, I was just thinking about that." He turns to face her, and turns them so she's in the water. "Have you ever had anal sex before?"

"Nope."

He's pretty surprised by that. "And you want me to do it with you?" He'd get her wanting to do it with him if she'd done it before and liked it, but if she's never done it, that sounds to him like something she's just not all that interested in.

She rubs up against him, looking up into his eyes. She certainly looks interested. "Yes."

"I'm afraid I'll hurt you."

"If it hurts, we'll stop."

"Endorphins lower your ability to feel pain." He shows her his wrists, and she kisses them gently. "I'm sore as hell this morning, and I certainly wasn't last night."

"Was last night worth it?"

He doesn't have to think about it. Given the option the only thing he'd change is using an extra rope or two to make sure the bedpost stayed attached to the rest of the headboard. "Yes."

Her look says it all.

"I'll do some research."

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanfiction

McGee centric character study/romance. More grown-up content. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

47. Ropes

Lazy Saturday at home when they aren't on call. The kind of day where they can take the time to really play with each other. Tim's favorite sort of day.

They'd slept in, laid around, he'd gotten some good writing done, and she'd gone to see Kayla Vance, school was out, but they still kept seeing each other for a few hours every week.

After that, dinner at home, a little TV, and then bedtime, early bedtime. (Okay, obscenely early bedtime, it was seven thirty.)

The rope had started at the upper left post on the bed. It was black, silk, the sort of thing used to tie up baroque curtains. (McGee had found it at a decorator's supply store. They'd been looking for fabric for curtains, didn't find any they liked, but did end up with a supply of new ropes in a lot of interesting colors.) It's one end was tied firmly and allowed to dangle into a soft and shiny tassel. From there it looped around McGee's left wrist, also tied firmly, and he grasped the few inches of slack rope between the bed post and his hand. It spiraled down his arm, around his chest and stomach, snaking from the small of his back to his right leg, spiraling from there down to yet another secure knot around his ankle, and one last knot tying that ankle to the lower left bedpost.

He's waiting. Abby tied him up, and left. She's been gone about fifteen minutes, so probably getting into costume, or maybe just making him sweat a little, possibly both.

Doesn't matter, he's comfortable, eager, and feeling good.

His right hand is free, so he's slowly stroking himself. Not trying to get off or anything, just keeping his interest level high.

She comes back, and he smiles at her. She's in heels, stockings, a black silk corset, and a lace choker. Her hair's back in a bun, and she's got her eyes painted black and smoked out.

She's not smiling. She reaches down and slaps his hand, hard. "Bad, McGee. I want your dick touched, I'll do it myself."

A second later his right hand is handcuffed to the right bed post, and he's stretched out as far as he goes. This is less comfortable, quite a bit more exposed, and he really likes it, and hopes she'll take pictures. He can see the dichotomy of the silk and the cuffs in his mind, but because of his position on the bed he can only see one arm at a time, and he'd like to see the whole thing laid out at once.

She kneels between his legs, one hand on each of his hips, and slowly, delicately, the flat of her tongue flush on the inside of his leg, licks from the crease of his knee to his left testicle.

His eyes close and a long slow breath escapes. She's mouthing it, rubbing her lips and tongue over it, and then takes it in her mouth to suck gently. He's trying to thrust, but can't really, not with the way she's pinning his hips.

So he's squirming in a very pleased sort of way, watching her through heavily lidded eyes, tingling all over from the pleasure, and she pulls back, grinning. Her fingers rest lightly on his hipbones.

"I want your hips to stay still."

His hips go still.

She stands up and fetches a pillow and the bottle of lube. Placing them next to his hips. Oh yeah, he knows where this is going and his dick twitches in anticipation, looking forward to her wet, soft mouth on it.

She doesn't get back on the bed. Instead she walks around it to her side, and her nightstand. He knows what lives in there, and his eyes light up even further. She gets one of the vibrators. It's a small, fairly slim one, so, oh yeah, she's going to use it on him.

Vibrator, lube, pillow under his hips. Just thinking about that is making him even harder.

"Hips up."

He complies and she tucks the pillow, folded in half, under him. Then she trails her fingers down his left leg, nails scraping gently, tickling his foot.

"Can you keep this leg still?"

He thinks about it. If she wants his hips still, he'll have a much easier time of that with both legs tied. But if part of this is about the challenge of it, then keeping it free ramps that up further.

"Is the vibrator going to go in me or on me?"

"Both."

His mouth goes dry at that, and he swallows hard. That's something they don't do all that often, but when she does do it to him, it gets him off so hard his whole body shakes for minutes after. "Probably not."

Abby kisses his ankle and smiles at him quickly, and then fetches another rope to tie his left leg down. When she finishes he tugs a little at the binding, and it's good and secure. He's not going anywhere.

She climbs onto the bed, looking sleek and dangerous, perfect in gothic black. For a moment she just kneels there, between his legs, letting him look at her, corset tight, breasts high and round, legs in silk stockings and no panties.

He wants to talk, but she hasn't said he can, so he just looks, and hopes his eyes get how much he's enjoying this across.

Then she shimmies up his body, stroking his legs, hips, thighs, testicles, skipping over his dick, to rub his stomach and chest. She licks his neck, nibbles his ear, and says, "I don't remember saying that you were allowed to start without me."

True enough. She also hadn't said he couldn't either. But, moot point. This is all part of the game, and he's eager to play.

She rises up on her knees, balancing her weight on one leg while the other straddles his neck and hooks under his shoulder and arm. Her weight shifts, settling her pussy inches from his mouth.

He wants to lick, wants to suck, wants to revel in her taste, but she hasn't told him to yet, so he holds still. He inhales deeply, enjoying her scent, and keeps his eyes open so he can look. Nothing on earth more beautiful than Abby's pussy. Nothing.

"Like what you see?"

"Love it."

"Want to taste?"

"Yes. Please."

She lowers herself, just brushing against his lips, teasing him with her body and her control. He doesn't move, because she hasn't told him to, yet, but he wants to.

"You may kiss me."

Thank you. And he does, lips stroking along her skin, tongue skimming wet flesh. She's rolling gently against him, a slow easy stroke that he's got no problem keeping up with. He matches his speed to her hips, taking his cues from how her body moves, and wishes he had at least one hand free so he could add his fingers to the mix.

But he can't, so he doesn't. He rolls her clit with his tongue, keeping up a steady pressure and speed, letting her set the pace.

She's moaning, rich, easy sounds, almost lazy, definitely not sated.

She leans back, grabs the vibrator, and begins to use it on herself while he licks. Using it the way he'd use his fingers, adding some slide, some stretch, a little pressure to the g-spot. She doesn't turn it on, which he appreciates because having his tongue buzzing would be distracting.

Her eyes drift shut, and she plays with one nipple while stroking herself, and he licks, pressing harder, keeping up as her hips roll faster. Her breath, moans, pitch all increase, and he enjoys it, feeling her get wetter, move faster, more turned on against his mouth, making him harder, making him want to thrust along, though he doesn't. He keeps his hips still, and refocuses on his lips and tongue, on getting her off hard and fast and pleasing his lady.

She's moving faster, jerking, less coordinated, and he's having a harder time keeping his tongue where it belongs. But he does, or well enough she doesn't complain, and in a minute he hears her switch from moans to a soft, Ohhh sound, one he knows means her orgasm is seconds away.

And then her body is rippling against his tongue as her thighs twitch. He stops licking and just presses his tongue to her, holding still, knowing how sensitive her clit is right after she gets off.

She rests for a few seconds, and then shifts off of him, leaning down, kissing him, licking his lips, tasting herself, and then passing that taste back to him. "Thank you. That took the edge off nicely. Now, McGee, what to do for you..."

She kneels between his legs and starts by just tracing her fingers up his inner thighs. He wants to sigh. What she's doing feels nice, but he still hasn't been given permission to make noise, so he stays quiet.

She starts to lick, soft, wet, hot, up his left thigh. And he wants to move. He wants to sort of roll his hips, nudge her just a bit to... Oh, yeah, there. She's cupped his balls and pulled them a bit to the side, tonguing the crease where his leg meets his body.

He wants to thrust, to press up against her, just get a little more pressure and maybe, if he could get her just an inch over, because, right there, under his balls, oh god, yeah, that's just God please Abby just right there!

It's the most perfect frustration ever. That whole area is exquisitely sensitive, but it's not his dick. He wants to ripple and roll against her, pull her mouth onto him, fuck her frantically, thrusting hard and fast. And he can't. He's keeping his hips still as she laps at his perineum and strokes his balls.

"Talk to me; tell me how you feel."

"If you don't fuck me, I'm going to die!" Okay, he's not quite there, yet, but part of the fun of the game is being able to say whatever he wants. And he wants to say things like that, wants to put himself entirely in her hands.

"Not yet, baby, not yet." Her hands stroke over his hips and thighs. "You can take more of this. In fact..." He hears the click of the lube bottle opening, and knows what's coming next.

"Oh, God, please, yes." That might do it. He figured out years ago, after a lot of reading, that exploring certain less easily accessible areas of his anatomy might result in very good things. And result in good things it did. What he doesn't know is if he can get off from prostate stimulation alone. He's never tried.

But right now, as she's gently slicking him up, and slowly stretching him out, he's really hoping it can, because if he doesn't get off soon, he's going to go mad.

He doesn't love this part of it. He's tight, that's just how he's built, so loosening up isn't something that comes naturally, but what comes next, that's worth it, well, well worth it.

And, God, her tongue, lapping gently on his balls, making them try to crawl into his body, making him want to come so hard, and her fingers, gently easing the way, slipping and sliding into him, making sure this won't hurt, he was so ready when he felt the cool plastic of the vibrator slip into him.

She sort of swirls it, angling up and gently pressing. His head is back, and he yells, "Fuck! Oh God, please, fuck!" He can feel it all the way from the base of his spine to his balls and down both his legs.

"Abby!"

"You're okay. I'm gonna take care of you."

And, oh God, he's never ever been this turned on and not come.

Her tongue is fast. The vibrator is slow. Slowly easing in and out, slowly buzzing in him. Slowly, or maybe not too slowly, driving him into a wet puddle of insane lust.

He realizes he can't get off if no one is touching his dick. He suddenly knows this for a fact. She can spin him out as long as she wants, keeping him just on the verge of getting off, but as long as she doesn't touch him there, there's no shot of accidentally getting him off.

"Oh, God, Abby, you're killing me."

She held her hand just above his dick, and he can feel the heat of her palm. Don't move your hips. And he doesn't, but he's certainly trying to see if he can get that little muscle at the base of his pelvis to twitch hard enough to at least brush against her palm.

"That's the idea, McGee."

He twitches and almost touches her. She shakes her head. "Bad, bad, Timmy. Nobody's touching your dick anytime soon, I'm afraid." She leans over and blows on it. Hot, moist air, making his hands and feet clench.

Oh, God, that was almost enough. "Please, do that again."

"No. Just trust me; I won't push you further than you can go. But you can go for a good long time." She twists the vibrator, upping the speed, runs slick fingers over his perineum, and goes back to sucking his balls. He wants to buck up at her, thrust into anything, hell the air, just move, just feel, just make that little wand move faster or harder, or just a little more something, anything to get him off.

"Please, Abby, please, please. Just touch it, just a little, please, baby."

Tim is an excellent submissive, especially for someone who isn't one by nature. Some people need to have someone else take charge, make all the decisions, control the encounter, and take care of them. But Tim doesn't need that, he just likes it. He loves laying back and letting Abby take charge. Putting his pleasure entirely in her hands is a treat. But, he also likes being the one in charge, and if anything, he actually leans more to the dominant side than the submissive one.

So, the fact that, as of this point he has never, ever broken a command is something he's proud of. If this was baseball and he was a pitcher, he'd have a perfect no hit career.

But right now all he can think about is how, if he could just move his hips a little, if he could just possibly thrust just the tiniest bit, he could maybe rub up against her nose or hair or something and just please, God, please, get off.

He's pulling hard on the ropes and the cuff, trying to divert that desire to thrust to his arms, yanking on the bed, anything to try and hold his control as she swirls her tongue around him and turns the speed on the vibrator up even faster.

"God, baby, you're really going to kill me. Just please, touch it, just a little, please."

"Oh, I think you can take a little more."

"Noooo..." he moans.

Abby stops. That sounded enough like real pain that she's worried. She scoots up, takes his face in her hands, and says, "You still remember your safeword?"

He nods. He doesn't smile, can't quite smile right now because, God, he wants to come, and that's pretty much shot his ability to reassure her to hell and gone. But he's still got his safeword in his mind, and he knows he can stop this anytime. Just say her name and it'll be done. But he won't. He can do this. He trusts her not to push him further than he can go.

She kisses him sweetly and then slides back down his body. She's sucking his testicles gently as her fingers press his prostate from the one side and the vibrator gets it from the other.

God what she's doing makes him feel like he's coming, but he's not. There's a small pool on his stomach from the drops of pre cum she's coaxing out of him, and his cock's so hard it feels ready to burst, and she still won't stroke it.

Head back, groaning, he pulls on the bedposts again, past words, past any thought but the desire to come.

Then she touched him. Wet, slick hand, two strokes and he was gone, climaxing so hard he couldn't see, riding an arc of pleasure that felt like it was going to consume him.

He heard a loud pop and suddenly everything on his left arm went loose. For a second he thought he might have dislocated his shoulder, but nothing hurt, and once he figured that out nothing else mattered. He just lay there, limp, boneless, completely exhausted and twitching.

She got the vibrator out of him fast, what feels excellent before getting off is really painful once he does. And a few seconds after that she's cut the ropes and uncuffed him. He curls into a little ball on his side, something that always feels good after he comes hard tied spread eagle, and continues to shudder.

She curls against his back, and soothingly strokes his arm and leg.

"You okay?"

He nods and lets her hold him, quietly waiting for his body to recover. He stops shaking after a few minutes. Something about this combination does that to him. It has to be tied up, spun out, and anal, any two of the three doesn't result in him curled in a cum spattered ball, exhausted, shuddering, and high as a kite on endorphins. But all three together... Well, asking if he still remembered his safeword wasn't an idle question, he's been far enough gone in the past that he's forgotten it.

When he stops shaking and begins to uncurl, Abby sits up, untying the rope from his wrist, unwinding it from his arm. He doesn't feel like sitting up, so she doesn't bother to try and get it off his torso. She undoes the knots on both of his ankles, and comes back with a warm damp washcloth.

He lays there, eyes closed, not sleeping, but very peaceful as she wipes his hair, neck, shoulder, and chest.

"That feels good."

"You're definitely going to want to wash your hair in the morning."

"Thanks for aiming this time." The first time they had done this, he'd ended up giving himself a facial, which wasn't a turn on for either of them. "Right when I got off, something popped. What was it?"

"You broke the bed."

That got Tim to open his eyes. He turned to look at the left bedpost and saw that it was indeed no longer attached to the bed, and that Abby must have propped it against the wall when she got the washcloth.

For a second he just stared at it, and then said, "You didn't say I couldn't move my arms."

"True." She smiles, looking at joint where the bedpost came free from the bed.

Tim sits up and fingers the break. "I would have thought the rope would have gone before the bedpost."

"Apparently it's a good rope. Not so good bedpost."

"Looks like the screw pulled loose and it broke from there."

She nods. "Wrought iron for the next bed?"

"Are you going to do that to me again?"

"I intend to."

"Yeah, wrought iron. Steel if they make them." He untangles the rope from the rest of himself, and grabs the washcloth, he can feel there's a wet spot on his shoulder that she didn't get, and a long smear on his knee and thigh from when he pulled into a ball. He debates getting up and really washing off, but right now all he really wants to do is just lay there and tingle, floating on a cloud of oxytocin.

So he does.

Abby undresses, takes her hair down, and curls into his right side, head on his shoulder.

"Thank you."

"For what?" he says. If anyone is going to be giving thanks, he figures that it should be him.

"Letting me do that to you. Letting me see you like that. You look so amazing when you come."

He smiles a little, eyes drifting shut. He kisses the top of her head, inhales deeply, enjoying her scent, and the feel of her breath on his shoulder.

"It looks really intense."

If he had been a little less post-orgasmic-blissed-out, he might have caught on sooner as to where this was going, but he felt like his brain was only tangentially attached to the rest of him at that moment, so he didn't quite get where this might be going.

"Yeah, it really is." He kisses the top of her head again. "Made me see stars. Literal stars. Vision blacking out and white pinpricks."

He's breathing deeply. Not on the verge of sleep, this is more like meditation than sleep, but his mind is pretty blank right now, so sleep probably isn't all that far off.

"You really like it?"

"Usually sore the next day or two after something like that, but yeah. Really, really, words can't describe it, good."

She rolls a little, her chin resting on his chest, looking up at him. He can feel her do it, imagine it in his mind, because his eyes, stubborn little things, just aren't getting around to opening.

"Would you like to do it to me?"

"What do you mean? I've done this to you." And he has. He's spun her out so hard she's been sobbing before she gets off.

"Not all of it."

His mind flails around for a moment, trying to find the missing piece, and finally, with a grinding clunk of a gear crashing into place, he figures out what she's talking about.

"I've honestly never thought about it."

"No?" she sounds really surprised.

He shakes his head, or at least thought about it. It's entirely possible it moved a fraction of an inch. "You don't have a prostate, and, at least for me, the penetration part ranges from pretty uncomfortable to just blah. Never thought it'd be worth it for you."

"Oh."

She's quiet, thinking about that. He feels like his brain is starting to wake up a little, but his body doesn't have the energy to do much besides lay there and breathe.

"Wouldn't you like to be on the doing end of it?"

"Wouldn't mind, but, just, never something I thought much about. You let me tie you up, spin you out, touch every inch of you, worship your body, and you do the same for mine, so... um... yeah, it's just not something I've really spent a lot of time thinking about. If I've got a list of things I fantasize about, that's awfully low."

"Oh."

"But, if you want to, I'm game... Well, not right this second. I don't think I could get an erection if my life depended on it right now, let alone move, but say next weekend..."

"Yeah, I'd like that."

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanfiction

McGee centric character study/romance. More grown-up stuff in here, don't like explicit sex, skip this one. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

46. Clubbing

"I was thinking," Palmer said as he put his beer down. They were wrapping up dinner and getting ready to head out for Laser Tag. "We're all couples now, so we could do something less platonic than laser tag. How about next time we go clubbing?"

Tim rose his eyebrows and smiled at Abby. They go out every month or so, and it's usually fun.

"I'm in," Abby said. "I'm thinking since Tony and Ziva just started dating, they should get to pick where we go."

Ziva nods, smile creeping over her face. "I know a place. Two weeks from today, we go dancing?"

Tony grins. "That'll be fun."

Aesthetics. Tim appreciates aesthetics. And while Tony might not agree, he has a very definite sense of style, as well. Not like the collars on his jackets pop themselves, and it's not like he does it because his neck gets cold.

It's true that the second thing he did when he got some money was get some really nice clothing. And while he's not a clothes horse, he is picky about what he wears. It's also true, that, after having spent close to two thousand dollars on a jacket to have it destroyed less than five hours after wearing it out for the first time, he doesn't wear his good clothing to work.

So, given the information that they were going to a club with an upscale casual dress code and the music is world hip hop, he's taking the time to come up with a decent outfit.

The jeans are Rock and Republic, light blue, intentionally worn looking, not frayed, the t-shirt is dark blue, slight v-neck, the jacket is leather, dark brown, almost black, Armani.

Abby's smiling at him, he can see her behind him in the mirror over his dresser as he slips on his watch.

He's thinking she's amused because it's taking him longer to get dressed than it took her.

Of course, she has it easy. For girls going clubbing is simple, find dress, put dress on, doesn't matter what sort of dress it is, any one will do, (Okay, no that's not literally true, but that's how it looks to him.) apply makeup and heels, and you're ready to go.

She's wearing this little black and pink thing. It's got a halter top, and a very low back, all of her back tattoos are visible, and a swingy, mid-thigh length, pleated skirt. When she's standing you just see a black dress, but the insides of the pleats are bright pink, so when she moves you catch flashes of pink.

Her hair is down and even curled a little, or waved. He's not sure where the line between curly and wavy is. It's whatever happens when she just lets it dry naturally without brushing it under the hairdryer. And whichever it is, he likes it.

He takes a moment to play with his hair a little. It's a slightly messier version of how he usually wears it.

She steps up behind him and turns him to face her. Then she presses up close for a long, open mouth kiss, running her fingers through his hair, rubbing up against him in a manner that's making him think being late for dinner is a particularly good idea. After a minute, she pulls back, grins, and says, "I think that's the look you were going for."

He looks at himself again and adjusts his pants. "Ruffled hair, half-hard, thinking about sex. Not a bad look for me."

She giggles and puts on a pair of knee-high black patent leather boots. "Not a bad look at all."

They met for dinner first. Palmer and Breena were already at the restaurant when they got there, but no sign of Ziva and Tony.

They've been there just long enough for him to give Breena a hello hug, when Ziva and Tony show up. Tim stares at the three couples, and yeah, style.

They might be best friends, but there are some seriously different aesthetics going on here.

He looks at Palmer: brown suit, British librarian cut, red striped shirt, maroon bow tie, then points to himself. "Nine." He points to Tony: navy suit, sharp cut, white shirt, blue tie, red pinstripe. "Ten." And then points to Palmer. "Eleven."

Tony looks confused, Abby's smiling, Breena seems to get it, and Ziva looks intrigued.

Palmer grins. "You think you're Nine?"

"I'm the one in the jeans, leather jacket, and t-shirt."

"I suppose so. But really, Eleven? I don't look anything like Matt Smith."

"The suit." Tim stares at Jimmy's tie. "The bowtie?"

"Speaking of which..." Ziva pulls it off of Jimmy and hands it to Breena. "Not for where we're going."

"Oh." Jimmy undoes the top button of his shirt. "Okay. Still, when it comes down to it, I'm Four."

"I can see that," Abby says.

"Are you guys done with whatever massive geekery this is?"

"Sure, Tony," Tim answers.

Breena says to Tony, "You just got compared to David Tennant."

"Who?" Tony asks.

Tim's mildly surprised that Tony doesn't know who David Tennant is, but then again, he hasn't been in any of the sorts of movies Tony likes.

"Exactly," Abby replies, grinning widely. "So, if you're Nine, he's Ten, and Jimmy's Eleven, which ones of the Companions are we?"

"I'm Rose," Breena says. Beyond the blond hair, Tim's not seeing that at all. He can't imagine Rose in cute, knee brushing, spaghetti strap dress in a fawn colored brown with tiny pink roses all over it. Ziva in tight gray pants, he's not sure if they're denim or suede and isn't about to get close enough to find out, and a sort of swoopy-necked, spaghetti-strapped, tank-top looking-thing with little sparkles all over the neck line puts him more in mind of Rose.

And, while he might not see the resemblance, he does know what to do with it. He holds out his hand to her, smiles, and says, "If you want to see the universe, come with me."

Breena laughs, takes his hand, and lets him kiss her cheek before stepping back to Jimmy.

Jimmy, not to be outdone, says to Abby, "Amy?"

And she steps in close and lets Jimmy kiss her cheek as well.

Tony groans. "What is this, the mating dance of the geeks?"

The hostess turned to them and let them know their table was ready. "Thank God!" Tony says.

By the time they had gotten through the appetizers it was likely Ziva had been convinced to start watching Dr. Who. Tony, though regaled with the joy that is Dr. Who was entirely unmoved by the idea of watching it.

One of the side effects of dating Abby is that he's gone from being a competent dancer to a fairly decent one. And not just for the bits of music that are inside his comfort zone. They go out clubbing about once a month. Not too much dancing at the Jazz clubs he likes, they're more of a sit, listen, and drink sort of space, but the Goth/Industrial ones she likes are the sorts of places they expect you to dance.

So, with practice, and with getting used to not just how she moves, but how the music moves her, he's getting better at dancing, especially with her, and his range of moves is increasing dramatically.

Of course, there's better at dancing, and then there's being dropped in a World Hip Hop/Techno club, the kind of music Ziva likes.

A few thoughts occur to him as they're walking in. First off, there's eighteen years age difference between Breena and Tony, fifteen between Ziva and Tony.

Ziva and Breena are awfully comfortable here. This might not exactly be Breena's favorite kind of music, but it's close enough to her idea of go out and party that she's fine.

He and Palmer are about five years too old for this. December 14, 1977 was a big day for both of them. (He's four hours older than Palmer.) So for them grunge and raves is part of whatever miniscule bits of party culture they picked up.

Abby... well, she's been at this a long time, and didn't stop, so she's got a wide and well-varied level of experience. And sure, she's a lot more Goth than anyone else around, but she gets the music pretty easy. The instruments are different, the lyrics are...well... actually Tim has no idea what the lyrics are. They could be as dark as what Abby likes, but since they aren't in English, he doesn't know. They sound perkier though. The music however, has a similar sort of feel, all beat, lots of percussion, this is grab you by the heart and hips and make you move music.

Like Abby, Tony's prime party days lasted a pretty long time, but he's got the whole frat party vibe thing going on, where the only reason there is music is to get the girls to rub up against you. And this is very much not a frat party.

Tim's getting the sense that if they get to pick the club again, Tony's going to insist on somewhere swanky and cocktail lounge-y.

The other thought that occurs to him as they walk in is that there are about nine thousand twenty-something guys here, all but drooling over his girl, and he's not about to be out-danced by any of them.

"How's the ring hunt?" Jimmy asks as he and Tim bring drinks back to their table.

"Nothing yet. Still looking."

"Promise me, if you haven't found anything by Fourth of July, you'll talk to a jeweler?"

"Why are you so interested in me doing this fast?"

"You have a fascinating definition of fast, Tim. It's June, you've been ring hunting for four months without finding anything."

"Not answering my question."

Jimmy shrugs a little, causing a bit of Breena's drink to slosh over the side of the glass. "Because if you two are engaged before Labor Day, I win the pool."

"Who's in the pool?" Tim's a little surprised he hasn't heard about this before now.

"Who isn't? Gibbs had money on before Memorial Day. Ducky has Christmas."

"Who's got money on Halloween?"

"Last I checked, no one."

"Idiots. Place a bet for me?"

Jimmy glares a little at him, but it's a mostly joking look. "I am not placing a bet for you on when you get engaged, and I'm sure as hell not doing it so that if you win, I lose."

"When does Tony have?"

"Fourth of July."

"Ziva?"

"She had Abby's birthday."

"What's the pool up to?"

"Fifteen hundred dollars."

"I expect a killer wedding present from you."

Jimmy grins. "Any day between July 5th and Labor Day and you'll get one."

He was dancing with Abby, close and fast, and it didn't take him long to notice she was edging them further and further away from the crowd.

By the end of the song, they were against the far wall. She took his hand and led him towards the back of the club.

"I noticed something when I went to the bathroom."

"What?" Tim asks, letting go of her hand to put his arm around her shoulders.

"There's this nice, little," and she nudged him behind a tall stack of liquor boxes, "alcove here."

It was definitely tight quarters, barely enough room for both of them. And, unlike the clubs she likes, this doesn't seem to be the sort of place where people run off and have sex in the back. (The fact that there's no one back there already would seem to indicate that.) Which means this was all sorts of right up his alley.

He's a little drunk, so they're not going to set any speed records, but she's usually pretty happy for that.

He presses her against the wall, facing it. It's a pretty nice wall for the back of a club, no graffiti or cum stains. (It occurs to him the kind of places he goes to with her are a lot different than the kind of places Tony and Ziva go.) For a moment he just looks at her.

All of her back tattoos are visible, and he's going to kiss each and every single one.

His hand traces over her hair, knotting in it, lifting it, and then he places a soft, wet kiss on the nape of her neck, just above the top of her dress. He kisses down her neck, over to her shoulder, getting the first angel, then to the other, and she sighs, and presses back into him, squirming encouragingly.

He licks to the top of the cross, and drags his tongue over the lines, tracing it into her skin, stopping to nibble gently when he gets to the base of it, then slowly eases his way back up to press tight into her back.

His fingers trail down her arms, settle onto her hips, and he grinds against her.

He's inching her skirt up as he asks, breath hot on her ear, tongue teasing her neck between words, "What do you want?"

Her eyes close and she sighs again. His hands, now touching skin, go still on her hips, waiting for her to answer him.

She turns to look over her shoulder, and kisses him, tongue soft and wet, sliding against his. She broke the kiss when she felt him go hard against her ass.

Her hands snake between them, undoing his belt, starting on the button while she says, "One hand on my clit, the other on my nipple, while you fuck me from behind."

"Yes." He bites very gently on her shoulder while she finishes with his pants. He uses his foot to nudge her legs a little further apart, giving him better access.

His left hand pulls her panties to the side, holds them there, and starts on her clit while his dick just slides between her lips for a few strokes. His right hand slips under her top, finding her breast and nipple easily.

She reaches down, gives him some help with the angle, and he slides in deep and sweet, gently swearing against her neck as her body slipped wet and tight against his.

It's true that a little drunk slows him down, but it speeds her up, so it's not long before she's got her hands clutched into the hair at the nape of his neck, shuddering against him. He doesn't stop while she gets off, just slows down, face pressed into her shoulder while he continues to pet her.

When her body stops twitching, he stops, too, pulling out. "Turn around. Wanna see you, wanna kiss you, want you to see me come."

She does, grinning at him.

They're rocking against each other, enjoying it, this is good music to fuck too, nice, steady beat for it, and it's certainly not slow, but it's not too fast, either. Her eyes were on his, lips and tongues encouraging each other toward more pleasure, when her eyes slid to the left.

She's not looking at him anymore. She's looking over his shoulder. He stops kissing, stops moving, wondering if they're about to get tossed out of the club, really hoping they aren't about to get arrested.

"Hi Jimmy, Breena."

His head falls to her shoulder, and he starts to laugh. Of course Jimmy would home in on this, too.

He can hear the smile in Abby's voice. "Give us..."

He realizes she's expecting him to provide a time frame.

"Five minutes," he says, kissing her shoulder, very much not turning to look behind him.

"Fine," Breena chirps, also laughing. He feels a small hand gently pat him on the ass, and then hears, "Have fun."

He looks at Abby, eyes wide, giggling with amazement. "Did that just happen?"

She smiles at him, "Yeah I think so."

"She gets really flirty when she drinks."

"She hasn't been drinking, Tim."

"Huh."

"Five minutes?" she asks him, redirecting the conversation. "You that close?"

"I was before they walked up."

"Five minutes it is, then."

Four and a half minutes later, they were dancing again. And they didn't see Jimmy and Breena for close to an hour. Which suited Tim just fine. He knows that if he sees Palmer he'll burst out laughing hysterically, and he's not sure he wants to explain this joke to Tony.

Okay, dancing with Abby against his front and Ziva at his back was a kick. He's thinking he could get used to the idea that they do this on a somewhat regular basis.

He's also happily imagining what would happen if they were to take the other four to the kind of clubs Abby likes.

Breena'd go for it in a heartbeat, and Jimmy probably would too. Ziva... He's imagining her Gothed out, and likes the image. Tony... that brings a smile to his face.

Yes, going dancing is a good idea.

And even with an hour, when Jimmy did come to sit next to him at their table, (the girls were dancing with Tony) his hair a little messed up and his shirt not quite as well tucked in as it had been before, Tim did burst into hysterical laughter.

Jimmy held his face straight for, oh, nine maybe ten seconds, and then joined him.

Finally he said, "Think Tony got laid?"

Tim watched him dancing with the girls. "Nope. He'd be a lot less keyed up if he had gotten laid."

Palmer smirked. "Hard to do when your girl is wearing pants."

"Hard to do some things if she's wearing pants. Not so hard to do others."

And then they both broke into giggles.

The music slowed down a little, and both he and Jimmy got up to join their girls, and then stopped, and sat back down again, quickly.

Ziva and Tony had paired off for the slower music, and so had Abby and Breena.

Abby had pulled Breena close to her, one hand on Breena's waist, the other on her shoulder. Breena's head was on Abby's shoulder, her hands on Abby's waist. And mostly it was just cute, the two of them swaying with each other. There was nothing overtly sexual about it.

At least, there was nothing overtly sexual about the way they were dancing with each other. The way Tim and Jimmy responded to watching them snuggled in close and swaying with each other was entirely sexual.

"Oh God," Jimmy whispered it, eyes wide, gaze riveted to the girls.

Tim exhaled a long breath, also incapable of pulling his eyes away.

Abby turned them so both of the guys could see her back, and Breena's fingers just teasing the skin of her low back below the hem of her dress.

"I think they're making sure we'll be up for another round," Tim said.

Jimmy shot back the rest of his drink. "I sure as hell am."

Abby slid her hand slowly down Breena's arm, stroking her fingers between Breena's, and Tim groaned quietly.

He stood up, and Jimmy grabbed his arm, yanking him back down into the booth. "No. You do not cut in on them!"

"But..." That sounded significantly more needy and less manly than Tim might have liked, but in a second Jimmy was in exactly the same sort of Oh-My-God-We-Talked-About-This-Hottest-Thing-I've- Ever-Seen boat as Breena slid her foot along Abby's leather boot clad calf, mesmerizing both of the guys with the sight of her small, shapely foot in a cute tan and white high-heeled sandal against the sleek black leather of Abby's boot.

"I don't care how badly you want to touch her. You do not stop this!" Jimmy wasn't sounding particularly in control as he said that.

So Tim sat and watched.

There was no kissing. No really obvious petting. No making out. Just four minutes of the two of them dancing, chest to chest, and occasionally touching in a way they knew would drive the guys crazy. It took Tim a minute to figure out that if the arm petting on Abby's part was deliberate, that Breena's foot lazily sliding up and down Abby's boot had to be as well.

When the song ended, the girls went to them, both grinning madly. As soon as they got near the booth, Jimmy tossed a hundred on the table, grabbed Breena, kissed the ever living daylights out of her, bending her back as he pulled her flush to him, his lips almost attacking hers, for a very long minute, and then headed off.

Tim sat in the booth, Abby on his lap, her fingers lazily stroking his skin below the collar of his jacket as the two of them watched Jimmy and Breena kiss.

And, okay, Jimmy still wasn't going to be showing up in any of his fantasies about Breena, but he certainly had not minded seeing that at all.

Abby kissed his ear, lips wet and soft, sucking gently. "You like that?"

He inhaled shakily. "Fuck, yes."

"Home or here again?"

"Neither of us should drive, and I want way more time than we can get here. There's a hotel three blocks down."

"Good."

Abby stood up, and he tossed his own bills on the table, more than ready to go somewhere private.

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanfiction

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

45. Moving Day

"Am I going to see anything I don't want to?" Tony asked as they packed up Tim's stuff.

"As long as you don't open any of the boxes labeled Bedroom, no, you won't."

"Good." Tony's piling boxes onto a hand cart. That's the first, only time he's mentioned anything about Tim's sex life beyond a bit of light, generic teasing about some mornings being better than others, since January.

"Thanks for helping with this."

"No problem. I ever move; you'll be helping me lug, too."

"Yes. I will." Tim puts one of his boxes on a pallet. He's got it worked out so it should only take them one trip for the boxes and then three more trips for the furniture.

"It's a good day for it."

May 23rd, 2013 had dawned beautiful and promised to be warm and sunny. "Yeah. The new place has a patio, and we've already got a grill set up for the after party."

"So how is it Abby gets Ziva, Autopsy Gremlin, Mrs. Gremlin, and Gibbs to help her move, and it's just you and I over here?"

Tim shrugs. "She's got more stuff than I do? Does a better job of looking helpless? They like her better? No idea. But I'm glad you're here."

Tony puts a box that says Books on it onto his cart. "I thought you had more books."

"I only kept the ones I really love in hardback. All the rest are on my Kindle."

Tony nods. "So, three bedrooms, huh? You know what happens when you get three bedrooms."

It wasn't that they needed a three bedroom place. There had been some pretty nice two bedroom ones they'd thought seriously about. But, when it came down to it, he felt pretty weird having an office all to himself—which he needed, he's a lot happier writing alone, with his music, than with an audience, even if that audience is her—if she didn't have a space of her own, as well. And since they could afford three bedrooms, they got them.

Granted, they aren't entirely sure what she's going to do with her room. But, they'll figure that out as they go along.

"I don't trip over Abby's stuff, she doesn't trip over mine, and neither of us has to use earbuds to listen to our music."

Tony seemed to think that was a good answer, but it didn't exactly get to what he was fishing at so he kept talking. "That, too. But babies happen when you get an extra room. Well known fact, if you've got a space for them, next thing you know you end up with one to put in that space."

Tim smiles, loading up a box of clothing. "Wouldn't mind if it happens. But I think the plan is to get married, or at least get a house, before she gets pregnant."

"You're not freaked out at all about this, are you?"

"Nope."

"It's not if you get married, it's when." Tony shakes his head a little at that. "You and her and the rest of your life and kids and... nothing... not freaked at all..."

"No."

"Forever, really?" Tim's wondering what exactly is going on here, because the look on Tony's face isn't so much disbelief as trying to figure something out.

"Really."

"Seriously, a tiny person, entirely dependent on you for everything, and you aren't freaked?"

"She's not pregnant now, okay? And yeah, when it's real, I might get a bit freaked out by that, 'cause, yeah, tiny person entirely dependent on you is kind of scary, but right now, it's an idea, one I like. Abby pregnant with my kid, that's all kinds of good. A little girl with her smile and my eyes, I like that idea, too. Watching Gibbs with grandkids... Just take a moment and imagine that."

Tony laughs at that. "He'll turn into a puddle of goo or have them ready for the Marines by the age of seven."

"And possibly both."

Tony shakes his head again. "Gibbs making toys for your kid. Yeah, I can see that."

"Someone will have to teach them to sail." And then he looks at Tony for a long moment, "And how to dribble. I can't do that to save my life."

Tony looks very pleased by that, then looks away and grabs one more box. "I think this is ready to go."

Tim nods. "Yep. Service elevator is down the hall on the left." He tosses Tony a set of keys. "It's the Ryder truck right next to the loading bay."

"So, how did last night go?" Tim asks an hour later. They're disassembling his workbench, which is too big to get out of the door in one piece.

Yesterday had been Tony and Ziva's first official date. He had been expecting Tony to talk about nothing else today, he'd talked about the planning for it almost non-stop yesterday, and his silence on it seemed off. Tony's also not behaving with his usual, I-just-got-laid attitude, but Tim's well aware that there's a huge difference between 'laid' and 'just slept with the love of my life for the first time.'

Hunting Ilan broke the wall between Tony and Ziva; Tim could see that. But he could also see that while there was a new intimacy between them, (Of course, that was true for the rest of the group, too. You can't do something like that and not completely have each others' backs.) nothing romantic appeared to be happening until about two weeks ago when Tony started planning last night's date.

"Good."

He doesn't elaborate, which Tim takes to mean that things were either so incredible that Tony hasn't been able to get his head around it, or she slapped him silly and left before dessert.

"You got a Phillips head?" Tony asks.

Tim looks around on the floor—"Yeah"—and hands it over.

They continue disassembling. Tim waits. Tony will start talking about something soon. And if the date is still too personal to talk about, he's not gonna press.

"She slept over."

Tim nods, getting how big of a deal this is to Tony. "At your place, you mean?"

"Yeah."

"First time you've had someone do that?"

"Since Wendy."

"You like it?"

Tony nods. "I need a bigger bed."

Tim smiles, feeling really, really happy for Tony. "Good."

"So, this forever thing, what happens if it doesn't work?"

Tim looks confused at that as he puts his end of the dresser on the pallet. "What do you mean? Like, I get bored and leave? Not gonna happen."

"No." And then it hits Tim, and he feels intensely stupid for not putting this together sooner. Tony's mom died. The first woman Tony ever loved left him. Suddenly he gets something else, Wendy left Tony. He just knows that. Kate left him. Jeanne left. EJ just vanished one day. All the women Tony's ever really loved have left.

Tony's standing, forearms on the top of his dresser, leaning into it, not really looking at Tim. "She was sleeping next to me, spooned up close, 'cause there's not really enough room in my bed for any other position, and all I could think about was what the hell was I ever going to do with myself if something happens to her?" Tony's staring at the wall behind Tim. "Lonely might be better than this. I'm so scared of something happening to her. I don't know if I can even work with her anymore, 'cause if she's in danger, I'll do something stupid to try and help, put everyone at risk."

Tim doesn't know what to say to that. He awkwardly pats Tony on the shoulder.

"You know... Gibbs might be really good to talk to about this."

"Yeah." Tony shrugs. "Or he might tell me that that's a big part of why Rule Number 12 exists. That getting stupidly in love with Jenny made him decide dating his partner was a really bad idea."

"Maybe. But, the worst happened to him, and he's still here."

"Yeah. You ever wonder what he was like, you know, before?"

"Yes. Sometimes." Tim's going to assume that Tony only read the first Deep Six book all the way through because the final version of Black Rock had a really long Tibbs flashback which covered exactly what Tim thought Gibbs might have been like before.

"I don't think he's really still here. Sure, there's a guy named Gibbs, and he's got a lot of history with the guy he used to be, but I wonder if Shannon's husband and Kelly's dad crawled into the ground with them and never came out."

Tim shrugs at that. It certainly could be true. Though he thinks there's still a lot of the old Gibbs left, probably more of him each year as time goes by, but he doesn't know. None of them do.

"Maybe the next time Jackson is in town, you could talk to him."

"Yeah... Maybe." Tony shakes his head. "But it wouldn't help. It won't keep her safe." Tony sighs. "Come on, it's not gonna move itself... Tim?" Tony's staring right at him, making sure he knows that he's dead serious.

"Yeah?"

"When we're out there, if it's ever me or her, the right answer is her."

"I know, Tony."

Two hours later, they're doing the one last sweep through his apartment, making sure nothing's been left. It's as empty as it was the day, almost ten years ago now, when he moved in.

"I think you're set to go."

"Looks like it. Just gotta hand in my keys. Meet you at the truck?"

"Sure."

They've been on the road for about two minutes, pulling up to a light, when Tony says, very carefully not looking at Tim, "So, if I wanted to learn more about ropes and... things... What would you suggest?"

Tim almost rear ended the car in front of them he was so surprised by that. Once he had the van fully stopped he said, "Why do you want to learn?"

"I think Ziva's tastes might be broader than mine."

"Ahhh..." Tim smiles at that. "Okay. You already trust her with your life, so trust her with this, let her know you don't know everything, and just ask her what she likes. You'll have a much better time playing with her than you will trolling online."

"I keep hearing about this book that they're making into a movie soon—"

"NO! Do not go read Fifty Shades of Gray. It's not an instruction manual. It's not even particularly good smut. I can hook you up with better stuff than that if you want it, but not until after you talk to her and get something more specific than 'ropes and things' for what you might want to do."

Tony finally looks at Tim, curiosity in his eyes. "How do you know it isn't good smut?"

This was the part where Tim was not about to say that Palmer had given him a copy after Breena read it to him, and suggested he and Abby might enjoy it, as well. He and Abby had read it, and enjoyed it, but probably not the way Palmer and Breena had. They'd read chapters and ended up rolling around laughing so hard they couldn't breathe. "I read Tony."

"You're grinning."

"Abby and I read it, and that was fun, but the book's terrible."

Tony looks perplexed by this. "How can it be fun and terrible?"

Tim rolls his eyes a little. "It's supposed to be sexy, and we ended up laughing so hard we almost hurt ourselves."

"Oh."

"And it's bad. It's bad on a general level, and it's bad in specific for you because you aren't dating a 21-year-old-submissive who's never so much as touched herself, let alone kissed a guy. It's bad because if I understand you and Ziva right, you're not the dominant one." Tony looks bothered by that. Tim shakes his head. "Oh, come on, it's not like I've just met either of you. And I'm not saying she's a Dom and you're a sub, you're probably both switches, just she leans more Dom than you do."

Tony's just staring at Tim. He finally says, looking a little disturbed, "You really do read, don't you?"

"Oh yeah. Anyway, and more importantly for Fifty Shades, unless I'm really mistaken, neither of you gets off on pain."

Tony nods.

"So, anyway, bad book. Spanking and nipple clamps do not equal orgasms unless you're with someone who's wired that way. Hell, maybe Ziva is, I don't know, and I'm not ever going to know. But you're better off flat out asking her than just trying it one day with no warning." He thinks about that. "Okay, if you think she might like stuff like that, you could suggest reading it with her... But really, if you're gonna do that, tell me, and I'll find you something that's actually worth reading."

"Is a nipple clamp what I think it is?"

"Probably." Tim nods with a little smile on his face.

Tony winces. "Yuck."

Tim says, "Yep."

The light turns green and they continue toward his new place.

The new place is in Arlington. It's closer to work than either of their previous places, and should such days arise as they'd be reliably home by midnight, it's right near a Metro stop.

It is also on the third floor, and there is no elevator.

"Trust you to get a third floor walk-up." Tony says as he's helping Tim get his dresser up the stairs.

"Think of it this way, we kept Abby's sofa, not mine, so the five of them moved that."

"Good point. You kept her bed, too."

"Right. Palmer, Gibbs, Abby and Ziva got to lug that." Abby's bed is a huge four poster. It's beautiful, but, and this is Tim guessing facetiously here, weighs two thousand pounds. "Dressers, mirrors, two desks, a workbench, which is in pieces, a recliner, four book cases, and a ton of computer equipment and tools, and that's all of my stuff."

"So, you're saying we got off easy?"

"Let's put it this way, I'm working on convincing myself of that, and if I'm lucky, I'll get you to believe it, too."

They got up the second flight of stairs and started to hear familiar voices coming from an open door down the hall.

"So, you gonna kiss her?" Tim asks.

"Huh?"

"You know, when you walk in and see her for the first time since this morning. You gonna kiss her?"

That stops Tony. "Thanks, McGee, now I've got to think about that."

Tim grins. "I'm gonna kiss mine."

"You always kiss Abby. You're practically weasels in heat the way you two go at each other."

"Weasels in heat? You've been spending way too long with Ziva."

Tony's looking thoughtful. "Yes."

"Yes?" Tim didn't follow where that yes went in the conversation and looked alarmed. "No, not too much time with Ziva! More time with Ziva is the idea."

"No. Yes, I'm going to kiss her."

"Oh. Good."

By dinnertime, all of the furniture, boxes, and various home accoutrements had migrated from Abby's home and Tim's home into their home.

And, by dinnertime, a good third of them had found new homes. All of the furniture had been reassembled and put into place.

And, by dinnertime, no one wanted to do any more unpacking or moving, which meant it was time to fire up that grill, open some beer, and sit back and relax.

Gibbs took one look at Tim and the grill and shook his head. "You've got good steaks, McGee, let's not kill them." He started rearranging the charcoal into a tidy pile up against the one side of the grill. "Pile it up like this." He pointed to the deepest part. "This part'll be real hot. Steaks start off here, get a nice sear on 'em." He points to where the coals are only one deep. "Then they go here to finish off. Cook 'em gently."

"Thanks, Boss."

He's standing next to Gibbs, both of them on the patio, dousing the charcoal with lighter fluid, ("Not so much, McGee. No need to torch the place.) and watching Tony and Ziva tease each other.

"They look really happy," Tim says.

Gibbs nods.

"Is this cool?"

"Yeah."

"He's really scared."

"I know." Gibbs lights the coals and they burst into a huge ball of flame. He shoots Tim a See, way too much lighter fluid look, and Tim nods.

"Less lighter fluid next time," Tim says, watching the flames dance.

"Good."

"Is she?"

Gibbs watches them. Ziva's sitting in Tony's lap on one of the kitchen table chairs. (They've only got four of them, and since Ducky's over now, they've got eight people in their place.) He's gently stroking the back of her neck with two fingers, and she's smiling as she talks to Abby, who's slicing up cucumbers for the salad.

"Not anymore."

It was so late that it counted as early when Tim collapsed into bed next to Abby. For a while they just lay there, neither of them moving or wanting to move. After their friends left, they spent the next four hours unboxing their stuff and finding new homes for it.

Then he rolled to his side and kissed her gently. "We're home."

She kissed back. "Yeah we are."

Grand Gestures and Day To Day Life 7.0.1

Want to start at the beginning? Head here.



A/N: Okay, I'm placing my official bet for where this season is going to start out. Here's some very dark pre-season warm up. Not sure if the plot bunny will bite again between now and 7.1, but if it does, you'll all be the first to know.

Michael's listening to a cover of Here Without You by 3 Doors Down.

7.0.1.

Michael Westen is not the kind of guy who sits in a club listening to sad music pouting about a lost love.

His cover does.

And he's having a very hard time keeping himself divorced from his cover right now.

One hundred days that made me older, since the last time that I saw your pretty face.

It's been more than a hundred days, but not many. 103? 105? He forced himself to stop counting a while ago.

No. Michael Westen does not listen to sad music and pout. He does not sit, hunched, at a bar, hearing a cover band warbling about being separated from the one person who matters most. Michael Westen has not once done that, not for himself.

Though he does seem to have a lot of covers that do.

He played the game. He played it longer and harder than anyone before him, and likely anyone after. He's smarter, harder, more experienced, and more desperate than anyone who's ever played. He put everything he had into it, including the lives of the only people he loved, including his brother, and he lost.

"You can't have the job and the girl."

He lost the girl.

He lost the love of the job.

These days he's just going through the motions, because it's easier to pretend that he cares than it is to eat his gun. Because, no matter how tempting the weight of it is in his hand, let alone the taste of metal on his lips, he can't do that to his mom.

Of course, he might not have to.

He can see it in his handler's eyes. Once the thing with Card was wrapped, and it took a lot less time than anyone had thought it would, they were left with a man too dangerous to let go, and too broken to give anything important.

That's the point of this and all the other nameless missions they've sent him on. Idiot mission after idiot mission, nothing worth his time or effort. Lots of danger, little intel.

They've sent him off to die.

He's in... Hell, he doesn't remember what country this is.

They say this life is overrated.

Fuck it is. The voices around him are speaking Russian mostly. He's in Moscow. The drink is Vodka, and he's had way more than a few of them.

At the rate he's going, if he doesn't get killed, he's going to wash out in an alcoholic haze, like Sam did.

He read Card's files on him, got to see his psych evals. Words like damaged and broken were in there.

If he was broken before, he's fucking shattered now.

There's not a man sitting at that bar, not anymore. Now there's just... a job.

And the job needs to be done. And maybe he'll be breathing when it's done. And maybe it won't. And maybe, if he makes it to tomorrow, he might decide breathing matters.

Or not.

I think about you baby, and I dream about you all the time.

Maybe tomorrow he won't dream.

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanfiction

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

44. And If We Can't Protect, We Avenge



Tony dropped Abby off at Tim's and then headed toward Ziva's place. He's not sure what to say to her when he gets there. Not entirely sure if he wants her to be there when he gets there.
He parks, sees her car, knows this has to be dealt with, and hopes she'll let him in enough to help.
He knocks on the door. It takes a few minutes but he hears her moving around in there.
She opens the door, in her bathrobe, and he can see pajama pants under it. She's looking sleepy and confused that he'd be there.
"Tony?"
"Can I come in?"
"Yes. What is going on?"
"Just wanted to see you." He flips on the TV and pops the first DVD he finds into the player. She's staring at him, wondering why he'd be doing this. He knows it's unlikely her place is bugged. But it's not impossible, and Bodnar is at least as good as she is at this kind of stuff, so he's not tipping his hand.
"You missed our date night," he says, turning up the volume while sitting on her sofa and patting the cushion next to him, hoping she'll sit down next to him and just talk.
"Do we have to do this at one in the morning?"
"Yes."
She sits down next to him, looking exasperated. "I'm fine, Tony."
"Are you?" His eyes are soft as he asks. "Fine Ziva hangs out with us and plays laser tag and kills Palmer nineteen times in the first twenty minutes. Fine Ziva eats pizza with us, and laughs when we make jokes, and rolls her eyes with me when McGee and Abby get too cute." He leans in close to her, lips an inch from her ear, voice very low. "And fine Ziva doesn't shut us out when she's planning on killing someone."
He can see her understand why he's got the movie on now, and why the volume is on high.
"Tony." Her voice is soft, and she's staring him in the eyes. He's not sure if that look is angry, sad, or pleased.
His hand finds hers, and squeezes gently. "You are not alone. No matter what you do about this, we've got you. McGee is taking care of your computer right now, making sure your tracks are covered properly. Abby and Palmer are ready to make sure that when you're done with Bodnar, no trace of him is ever found. Breena will give all of us an alibi and access to a crematorium if need be. And if you want, I will hold him down while you kill him."
"Tony, you can't..."
"I can, and I will. I meant it, whatever you need, I am here for. And if you want this to be just you and Vance, we'll do it that way, too. But we can't help if you won't talk to us. So, please, talk to me."
And she did.

 When Tim got home, Abby was still up.
"All done?"
He looks at her curiously and mouths the word, "Bugs?"
She shakes her head, no. After attacking Tim's computer, checking to make sure his place was safe was the second thing she did.
"For now." He sat down on the bed next to her.
"You're good with this?" she asks, holding his hand in hers.
He nods. "Yeah. He hired someone to spray bullets into a residential neighborhood during dinnertime on a Friday night to try and stop a peace deal. He killed Mrs. Vance. It was only luck the kids weren't there. Only luck a stray bullet didn't hit someone else. And he was trying to start a war by doing it. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dead people if that had happened. We can't try him without an international incident, and possibly war breaking out. I'm fine with this."
"Okay."
"You?"
"Yeah. Look, I know Ziva's dad wasn't a saint. I know he screwed her over badly, more times and in more ways that we probably know about, and honestly, if it was just him, I wouldn't be fine with this, but Mrs. Vance... That's over the line. We protect our own, and if we can't protect them, we avenge them."
He nods at her.
"What'd you do?"
"Mostly just made it harder for anyone to see what she's doing. She won't tip him off if he's keeping watch on who is watching him. I didn't totally wipe her tracks clean. I'm thinking that when we catch him, she's going to keep looking for him, for at least a year, and periodically after that, that way if anyone better than me does get a hold of her computer, they'll see her hunt for him didn't stop when he vanished."
"Makes sense. Anyone gets a hold of her computer, they'll know you did it."
"Sure, but I don't think it'll matter. Hunting for him isn't illegal. She can claim she was working the case. I can claim I was helping. And, yeah, she's not supposed to be on that case, but I am, and as long as we're trying to bring him in, we're still on the right side of legal. And as long as she doesn't stop looking for him when he finally vanishes, that'll make it harder to pin killing him on us."
She nods at that. He gets up, gets ready for bed, and snuggles in next to her. And, while it's true that both of them understand the need for this, that on an intellectual level both of them know this is right, it's also true that both of them were still awake when the sun rose three hours later.


April 21, 2013 was the last time anyone saw Ilan Bodnar alive. He'd been in hiding for months at that point, but he came up on the facial recognition software on a traffic cam in DC.  
April 22, 2013, a safehouse in DC, abandoned by Mossad in 2006 when it was compromised, burned to the ground. The official report showed that faulty wiring and years of neglect combined to cause the fire.
April 23, 2013 The Slater Funeral Home and Crematorium cremated one unrecorded customer, along with three bags of clothing, a tarp, a roll of duct tape, the carpet and upholstery of a van, and a knife.
No one ever asked any questions. And after it was done, no one at NCIS ever talked about it again. 

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanfiction

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

43. Ziva

Pizza and laser tag just wasn't as much fun without Ziva.

They all wanted to make sure she had space and time to mourn. But it had been three months, and she kept saying she's fine, but she hasn't been coming to play, and they miss her. And even if they weren't dating, yet, it's not like Tim, Abby, Jimmy, or Breena couldn't see where this was going to go eventually.

So, it was fairly natural when four sets of eyes turned to Tony, after Abby asked him, "So, what is Ziva busy with?"

"I don't know," Tony answered.

"You don't know?" Jimmy asked.

"She's not talking to me about it. She's just busy."

"Do you have an idea?" Abby asked, taking a bite of her pizza.

Tony didn't answer for a moment. His expression looked guarded. "Yes."

Once again, four sets of eyes stared at him, so he kept talking. "She said she wanted revenge. She has not gotten revenge. I'm going to assume getting revenge is what's keeping her busy."

The four of them were quiet for a while, it's not like that idea is much of a surprise. Anyone who's even marginally familiar with Ziva can do that math.

No, what has them quiet is what to do with it. Finally Breena said, "You mean she's tracking down the man who killed her dad so she can kill him?"

Tony nodded.

"Then we should help." This time the four sets of eyes included Tony's and they were staring at Breena.

Tony looked like he was about to say something, then he didn't. He stared at Tim as well, who also looked like he was about to say something but couldn't make his mouth form the words. Because while it's true that, should the need arise they will help Ziva with something like this, they don't TALK about it.

Finally Abby said, "We should."

Jimmy stared at the girls, and then at Tim and Tony. He also seems to get the whole, for-God's-sake-we-don't-talk-about-things-like-this concept. He swallowed and said, "If we're going to talk about this, I'm thinking in public is a bad idea."

Tim nodded at him, really fast.

Tim and Abby drive back to Jimmy and Breena's. They don't live particularly close, but if anyone has a secure space to talk, their backyard is probably it.

On the ride, Tim thinks about something that's been hinted about, but he doesn't know for sure. He's fairly certain what the answer is, and he thinks Abby does know.

"Gibbs killed the man who killed Shannon and Kelly, right?"

She doesn't answer, but the expression on her face as she looks away from the traffic at him says it all.

"That's all I needed to know."

They get to the Palmers' place about twenty minutes later. Tony, Jimmy, and Breena are already on the back porch. Honestly, it's a bit cool to be out there, but unless someone has a directional mic on them, and that doesn't seem likely, it should be safe to talk.

For a long minute they all stare at each other, and then Tim says, "Just, for the record, we're cops, so we're not even supposed to be thinking about this, let alone talking about doing it."

"Tim, we're family, and if she needs help, we're gonna give it," Breena answered.

"I'm good with that. I went to Somalia to get her back; I'm in on this, too. I want you to know how serious this is. We"—He gestures to the four of them.—"are all officers of the court, so just talking about this can get us at least fired or tossed in jail. We have a legal obligation to not look the other way when we see someone breaking the law or planning to, and conspiring to murder someone is way off in break the law land.

"Assassinate," Tony says. "This is personal for us, but it's political as well. We do this, it's an assassination."

"Fine, still completely illegal," Tim replies. "Breena, you get caught talking about this, and almost nothing will happen to you. Jimmy gets caught, and he goes to jail. You two still think this is a good idea?"

Breena and Jimmy look at each other. "We're in."

"Great." says Tony dryly, and Tim can see him thinking that Jimmy and Breena aren't exactly the first people he'd call in for help killing someone. Though, as Tim's thinking about it, they're more or less the poster couple for good alibis, and that's always useful. And Breena has access to a funeral home with a crematorium, and that's probably better than an alibi. "But the thing is, I don't think Ziva wants help. She's not talking to me about it. She's telling everyone she's fine. Happy as happy can be. Frolicking about in meadows of pleasantly busy."

"Does she know that help, real help, is not only available, but on offer?" Abby asks.

"I've already offered."

"How did you offer?" Breena asks.

"I told her whatever she needed, I was in for. She told me she needed revenge, and then we didn't get Bodnar, so no revenge. She hasn't said anything about it, or anything along those lines, since."

"Which probably isn't a bad idea. You want to do something like this, and get away with it, not having anyone else helping is a good plan. Especially if you're Ziva. If anyone knows how to do this..." Abby says.

"Yeah, but she has to need some sort of help, right?" Breena says. "If nothing else, she's got to find this guy. And having someone cover those tracks," she's looking at Tim as she says this, "would be good."

"I'll check her computer, make sure anything she's got on it is clean and impossible for someone else to find."

Abby looks at Tony. "Gun or knife?"

"I don't know. Gun?"

"If she goes with a gun, I can make sure, that no matter what, it's never traced to her or the bullets."

"If we get his body, anything too incriminating will vanish," Palmer says.

Abby shakes her head. "No body. A guy as connected as Bodnar needs to just vanish. You and I'll make sure nothing of him is ever found."

Jimmy nods at that.

"Which leaves you with the hard work," Brenna says to Tony. "You're the one who gets to tell her we're here for her, and convince her that if she's going to do this, to not do it alone."

Tony stares at them and says one word, "Gibbs."

"If we do this, we'll bring him in. He'll understand," Abby says.

"Vance," Tim says it.

"Will want to help, too. Hell, that's probably her plan. Her and Vance. Two people, who are really good at what they do. She'll be the knife, and he'll provide the cover. Rule Number Four," Tony replies.

"Rule number four?" Breena asks.

"Best way to keep a secret, keep it to yourself. Second best way, tell one other person. There is no third best," Tim answers.

"So, should we be letting her keep her secret?" Jimmy asks.

Tony sighs, they're all looking at him again. "For now. I'll find out what's going on, and if need be, we'll back her up."

The others nod.

They're getting ready to go, when Tim decides that secret or not for right now, Ziva's not all that great with a computer. "Tony, would you give Abby a lift to my place?"

Both of them look at him.

"No matter what, if we actively help or ignore it and let her do it on her own, she needs someone covering her digital tracks. I've got to get into her computer. Depending on how she's looking, she might be letting Bodnar know she's on his trail."

"I'll come with you," Abby says to him.

"It'll look weird enough if I show up at work at 1:00 AM on a Saturday when we're off. You show up too and..." his words trail off. They could be going there because having sex at work is kinky and fun. Except he should get on Ziva's actual computer to do this, not the lab computers, and they'd be in the lab if they were going to do that. "Home. It'll work better if you're at home."

"You sure?" He can see she's thinking of the same cover he is.

"Yeah. I shouldn't do this from the lab."

"I fit under her desk."

Tony looks really bothered by that, while Tim says, "Even we don't play that far out of bounds."

Abby nods. Yeah, there's already enough scuttlebutt about the two of them without tossing extra gasoline on the fire. "Okay. I'll see you in a few hours?"

"I hope so." He kisses her, and turns towards his car. After two steps he stops and turns back to her.

"You know the burner phone I keep on my workbench?"

"Yeah."

"Go home, attack my work computer with it. Then kill it and get rid of it. That'll be my excuse for going in at one in the morning, making sure all of our computers are safe."

"On it, Boss." He smiles when she says that, and heads off.

One in the morning at NCIS is not nearly as deserted as he would have hoped. It's not that it's crowded, but there are people around.

He gets into the bullpen and turns everyone's computers on. If his computer got "hit," then he'd make sure everyone else on his team was secure, too.

He runs a fairly advanced sweep on all of their computers. Making sure everything is nice and tight. Abby had hit his computer with a pretty nice little worm. Enough that if it had come from someone else, it would have gotten his attention. Not so much as to get into anything interesting.

Then he sits down at Ziva's desk and gets to work.

She's leaving tracks like an elephant charging through a cornfield. It's not that she's particularly bad at this, it's just that there are so many people who are so much better at it.

It takes him close to three hours to get it all wrapped up and hidden.

He's standing up, stretching, turning off her computer, when he hears the elevator open. Shit.

It's Vance. Fuck!

"McGee?"

"Director Vance."

"Working late?"

Lie or assume he's in on it? The knife and the shield. He can't quite read Vance's look, but he thinks Vance knows he's not here at four in the morning for kicks. "Security sweep, sir. Someone tried to hack my computer tonight, so I'm making sure we're all good."

"Uh huh." Vance does not appear to believe this, and he's wondering if he really is that bad of a liar. "And Agent David's computer was in need of extra security?"

"I worked on all of our computers."

"That doesn't answer my question, McGee."

He stares Vance right in the eyes and puts his trust in the idea that Vance is the shield for this op. "Yes. Badly."

Vance smiles, slightly. "Then I'm glad you were willing to come in on your off time to tend to it."

"Thank you."

"Are you done, McGee?"

"For now."

"Then I'll see you on Monday."

It wasn't until he was in his car, driving back to his place that he began to wonder why Vance would be in the office at 04:00 on Saturday.

A/N: So, I've been hearing the spoilers for the future NCIS eppies, and something about Tony being "shocked" by what Ziva's been up to. Now, unless Ziva's been engaging in meditation and yoga, trying to find her inner calm in order to be at peace with what happened to her Dad, Tony being shocked by what she's doing is going to be horrifically out of character. I'm really hoping they've got a twist coming up that I'm not anticipating, or that "shocked" is flat out wrong. Anyway, here's hoping this season wraps up well!

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanfiction

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

42. The Admiral

A/N: So, I liked Squall. But kind of like Hit and Run (which I also liked) cannon Tim and Abby aren't in the same place Shards Tim and Abby are. Sooo... I'm snagging some details from Squall, and ignoring others. (See post story note for more on that.) Anyway, this chapter might not precisely match up with what you saw on Tuesday night.

He guesses it was bound to happen sooner or later. For some bizarre reason Fate seems to enjoy tossing their dads at them, and since his dad actually is in the Navy, the odds were even higher than say two separate cases involving Tony's dad.

Doesn't mean he's happy about it.

Doesn't mean he couldn't have happily gone for the entire rest of his life without running into that man.

But it doesn't matter, because there's a job to do, and he's got to do it.

He stands in the doorway and watches Abby stab the dummy with a syringe over and over. Part of it is just for comfort, getting to watch someone who doesn't think he looks terrible, and won't make a snide shot about his love life. (He knows Penny told the Admiral about Abby, and he very clearly remembers being thirteen and his dad chewing him out about being fat and how he'd never keep a girl if he stayed that way.) Part of it is just liking to watch her work. She looks like she's enjoying this, but somewhat frustrated at the same time.

And part of it is wondering how much she knows about what happened today. He's guessing she already knows about the Admiral being on the ship, because if the look on Palmer's face when he realized what was going on was anything to go by, Jimmy had his phone out and was texting like mad the moment Ducky pulled the ME's van out of the parking lot at Norfolk.

She stabs the dummy again, and he's been lurking long enough. Time to get moving.

He and Abby don't argue. Not really, not about important things. Sure, fussing over what they'll watch on TV or what's for dinner happens, and she can get snappy and he gets sarcastic, but for big things, it just doesn't happen. They walk away, take the time to get themselves right, and then go back and talk.

And that works, for both of them.

Because they both need that quiet time in their own heads before they can let someone else in. And they both respect each other enough to let them have that quiet time.

So he walked out of the lab.

And it's not that she's entirely wrong. There are things he wants to say to the Admiral. But what she is wrong about is that it would make any difference. He doesn't need liberation; he cut himself free years ago; he needs acceptance and appreciation. His dad isn't going to give him what he wants, and since that isn't going to happen, spending more time yelling at him won't serve any purpose.

It's not that he needs to say the words, he has, and he backed them up with action. He needs his dad to hear them, and change because of them, and that just isn't going to happen.

Tim doesn't go straight home after work. For an hour he drives around, not really paying too much attention to where he's going, just letting the miles slide by.

This isn't just about him and his dad, it's also about Abby and hers.

And it's about empathy, and understanding the dad shaped hole in her life is a whole lot different than the dad shaped hole in his.

He gets to a stop light and fires off a text. Are you at your place or mine?

Yours. You ready to talk?

Yeah. Home in twenty minutes.

Have you eaten?

Not yet.

I'll order something for us.

Okay.

They eat first. Just getting it out of the way. Not really talking, a few words here and there on incidentals, like making sure the new place gets the deposit check, and how she has to remember to file her taxes this weekend, and that it's Easter on Sunday, and she'd like to go to Mass early. Little things like that.

And when the leftovers are packed up, and the silverware washed, he leads her to his bed, because this is a bed sort of conversation.

They don't undress. Maybe this is a naked sort of conversation, too, but right now he wants clothing, he wants an extra bit of a shield between him and these words.

He lays on his back, on his side of the bed, and pats hers. She follows him, laying on her side, head propped on her hand.

"Have at it," he says to her. 'Cause honestly, he's not sure he can start this one.

"He's your dad, Tim. You'll miss him, miss the chance to have had him in your life. I don't want you to regret this."

"He's not my dad. If I've got a dad, it's Gibbs or my grandfather. He's just the guy who got my mom pregnant."

"I think he did a bit more than that."

"I don't think shitting all over my life counts."

He stares at the ceiling for a moment, and then turns to her, looking into her eyes as his hand caresses over her stomach. "If you're going to do this, it should be important to you. It should be like breathing." He rolls her onto her back and kisses her stomach, and then looks up at her, resting his chin against her hip. "If you're going to make a baby with someone, that someone and that child should be the most important thing in your life. It should be your joy, and the reason you get up in the morning and the reason why you want to come home at night, and not just some massive disappointment.

"And as far back as I can remember I have been a disappointment to that man. As well as I can remember, my mom and I were never, ever important to him."

He's staring at her, eyes and voice earnest. "And I have been standing up to him my whole life. I didn't go to Annapolis. I'm not in the Navy. I'm a Federal Agent. I'm a best-selling author. I've hacked every secure system that matters. I've killed people to protect others, and I've put killers away, and when none of that made me good enough in his eyes, I shut him out because I don't need someone who will never approve of me in my life.

"I know you loved your dad. I know you still love him. I know you miss him, and I know you wanted more time with him. And I get how important he is for your life, but my dad is toxic, and I don't want him in mine."

She pets him and smiles, gently, at him. "Then why did you call him after you saw Penny?"

"How did you know I did that?"

"You were sad for days after, wouldn't talk about it. So I did some checking around, found an interesting phone number, and went with it."

"Oh."

He's quiet, not sure what to say, he's honestly not entirely sure what made him dial those numbers last year. She waits, gently petting his hair, letting him think about it.

"Hope. We hadn't talked for seven years. I'd gotten onto the best Major Case Response Team. On the job less than a year, and I was on Gibbs' team. I called to tell him, thinking maybe that might..." His voice trailed off, remembering that call. He'd been so proud, and the Admiral shot him down in less than three minutes. "But it didn't. He just got on me about wasting my time and potential. And that was it. I was done with him. But Penny said he loved me, though evidence for that is awfully thin on the ground, and I was hoping that maybe seven years gave him some perspective. Maybe being gone would have made him decide he wanted me around.

"It didn't. I crack a case that saves hundreds of thousands of lives, protect his mom, my grandmother, and he's still pissed I'm not in the Navy. Pissed I'm not the guy designing the sort of weapon we stopped.

"He doesn't love me. He's never loved me. He was in love with an idea of who I was supposed to be, and when I didn't want that role, he got my mom pregnant again, but Sarah was a girl, so obviously she couldn't do it, so he doubled down on me. And by seventeen I was done. I quite Junior ROTC, I turned down Annapolis and said yes to Johns Hopkins, and I left his home and never looked back.

"I've mastered more skills than most people dabble at. I've got credentials out the ears. I've excelled at everything I've put my will to. And eight years ago I figured out that he was never going to pet me for it. I picked NCIS for him, the CIA and FBI both gave me better deals. NCIS was an olive branch, a compromise, but it wasn't enough. Being the best at what I liked was never going to be good enough for him."

She strokes his cheek, and he closes his eyes, then scoots back up to lie face to face with her as she rolls back onto her side.

"I hate this. I'm thirty-five, but he shows up, and suddenly I'm fifteen again. I won't be the man he wants me to be, and I hate feeling how disappointed he is in me."

She drapes her leg over his, and kisses him. "He's a moron."

He looks at her, smiles a little, it's a depreciating look, not a happy one. "Be nice if he was. But he's not. He's smarter than I am, probably than Penny."

"Then he's an asshole, which is worse."

He shrugs. "That's true, but... well, just like your body needs one, the world seems to need assholes, too."

She laughs at that. "Yeah. I suppose it does. He's good at what he does?"

"They don't just hand out flag rank to anyone. So, yeah he's good at that. An appallingly bad husband and father, but he's good with a fleet of battleships."

She takes his hands in hers. "And you were supposed to be good with them, too?"

"Yeah. I'm supposed to have command of my own ship by now. I should have a XO asking me for orders. I should have an Annapolis ring, preferably one commemorating beating the crap out of Army in football." He holds up a hand that's completely ring free. "He didn't want a son; he wanted a clone." She kisses his hand.

"What would I want with a ship?"

"No idea."

"I'm the only Omega in a long and glorious line of Alphas."

"Penny's an Omega."

"I'm the only Omega male in a long and glorious line of Alpha males. Girls can be Omegas or Betas or whatever. He's fine with Sarah. She can be a writer. She gets a poem published in the school lit journal, and he's got it tacked onto the wall of his cabin. I'm a fucking New York Times best-selling author, three times over now, and I'm not living up to my potential." He shakes his head. "God, I hate this. See, fifteen all over again. He sticks around too much longer and my skin is going to start breaking out."

"It's okay."

"No, it's not. It's really not. It's just the way it is, and it's not changing."

"Would you want it to? Be the man he wants you to be, or make him the man you want him to be?"

"No on the first, definitely no on that. And sure, who doesn't want their parents to love them?"

"Penny says he loves you."

"Penny loves me. And Penny loves him. So I think she thinks he has to love me. But I don't think he does, and even if he did, what does it matter if he loves me, if he can't be in the same room with me without disappointment radiating out of every pore?" A short bitter laugh escapes his lips. "I'd rather he was just mildly fond of me, but proud of who I am. Like Gibbs those first few years, he didn't get me, at all, but he at least noticed I was useful. I'll take that over being a disappointment any day."

"Nothing about you is disappointing." He smiles a little at that as well, but it's still not a happy look. "And anyone who isn't full on insane knows that."

"And yet he is. My great grandfather was the first McGee at Annapolis, and that was a big deal then, because it was during the Irish Need Not Apply days, but his dad was hooked into the Boston political machine, so he got in. He was a sub commander in World War I, basically the most dangerous job in the Navy at the time. He never made admiral because the Germans blew him to pieces in 1918. But my dad has his medals, and there are a ton of them, on display in his office at home. My grandfather was a First Lieutenant, three years out of Annapolis when Japan hit Pearl Harbor. He was there, one of the first men to get to a gun and shoot back. His ship sank, but didn't roll over, so he kept firing until there were no more shells, water up to his knees. He finished the war a Captain, but that wasn't enough, so he became a naval aviator. Between World War II and Korea, he was one of the men learning what to do with aircraft carriers. Landing on them, designing them to work better. He was an admiral by the end of Viet Nam. And when he died, back in the '80s, all nine hundred of his metals and flag ended up in my dad's office, in a display case, next to my great-grandfather's.

"You ever see Ferris Bueller's Day Off?"

Abby nods.

"If I had had a Ferris in my life, I would have tossed those fucking medals off a cliff." Tim shakes his head, half-trying to imagine what his dad would have done if he had done that. He guesses the odds are fifty-fifty that he would have gone hot and beat the ever living shit out of him, or gone cold and tossed him out of the house.

"He loved the fact that I was good at math and computers. Had visions of me working on artillery or something, coming up with new and better ways for the Navy to kill people. He hated that I was so 'soft,' and decided it was his job to spend the parts of my childhood when he was home 'toughening' me up.

"The summer I was fourteen, he took me on a boat every single day. Trying to beat the seasickness out of me, like being seasick was something I was doing just to piss him off. Ten hours a day on the weekends. I lost something like thirty pounds that summer, I was so sick. I'd be throwing up, and he'd be drilling me on trajectory arcs. My mom put a stop to it in August when she was buying a second set of new, smaller clothing for me. Why would I even want someone who does things like that in my life?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry."

He tilts his head a little, lifting his eyebrows, his expression saying nothing either of us can do about it.

"You know what really terrifies me?" he asks.

"What?"

"That he did it, and I'm going to have to testify against him. His lawyers will rip me apart, angry kid getting even with his dad. They'll rip you apart, fixing the forensics because you're my lover."

Abby looks deeply non-plussed by that idea. She has yet to meet a defense lawyer she couldn't chew up and spit out, so she takes the conversation in a slightly different direction.

"You think he did it?"

"Not really. I'm not feeling it."

"Good."

They lay there quietly for a few breaths. Her fingers trace down his arm, gently stroking his palm. She kissed him, and he sighed, enjoying the comfort of that touch.

"What was your dad like?"

She smiles, he's been gone long enough that she can enjoy the good memories without puddling up. "He was sweet and gentle. He'd put you in mind of Palmer a little. Curly, brown hair, sometimes inappropriate stories, glasses. He loved cars. They ran a car salvage/junkyard, and when something cool came in, he'd snag it and rebuild it. Deaf, so the house I grew up in was either really quiet, or very, very loud. Music and movies loud enough to feel them, that sort of thing. Or long conversations done entirely by hand." She signed at him for a few seconds, getting the point across. "He had a really expressive face. Lots of looks, like Gibbs. Both he and my mom could read lips and talk, but if it was just the two of them, they preferred to sign.

"I rebuilt the roadster, and the Harley, and he was the guy who taught me how to do that.

"I was a little girl in the south in the '70s so I was supposed to be pretty and polite and find myself a husband right out of high school, and he told me that was complete crap. His girl was going to college and making a life for herself. I didn't have to be a blonde debutante. I could be as weird as I wanted to, and he loved me for all of it."

Tim smiles at her. "That's the kind of man I am going to be for our kids."

"I know."

A/N: So, I write ahead. (Granted I couldn't do all of this one before I saw Squall, but got a good two thirds of it done ahead of time.) And at this point I've got more than 250 more pages of this story, and John McGee needs to be around for some of them. So... he's not dying in the Shardsverse. What was the actual case about? No idea, but not a dead doctor. Likewise, I need more of an edge from Shards John McGee, so he's considerably more of a bastard in my version.

I really enjoyed Tim and Adam together, but it doesn't fit in this story, so, alas, the absolutely brilliant "You work with Ziva? All day? Every day? Really?" scene that's been bopping around in my mind isn't getting into this. (Though it might end up being a stand alone at some point.)

This chapter also marks the end of me trying to base what I'm doing on the cannon. We're into all imagination land from here. Will I continue to incorporate stuff from the actual show? Oh yeah. Especially back story details, yes indeed. But I've got story to tell and I don't want to wait for each new eppy to update.

Happy reading everyone!

Shards To A Whole: An NCIS Fanficiton

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here. Once again we've got a Mature Audience Only tag on this, so skip if you don't like explicit sex.


41. Homecoming

Before his relationship with Abby, Tim got off about four times a week. And "about" had a lot to do with the caseload, how often Tony showed up at his place, how the writing was going, stuff like that. The busier he was the less interested in sex he tended to be.

But most mornings, if he had a little time, his shower didn't just involve getting clean. (Or you could say some parts of him got *very* clean.)

Since Abby, that number has jumped to seven. And he really likes seven. He especially enjoys the fact that it's seven, and he's not doing himself. Not that he's not good at doing himself, just that it's a whole lot better when she's doing it.

So, he's not exactly relishing Afghanistan.

By day three of no orgasms, he's getting something of an edge. His tolerance for stupid mistakes and minor annoyances is dropping. By the end of day three, he's come to the conclusion that Gibbs never jerks off. That's his best bet for why he's always so intense, because Tim's starting to feel it himself. He's not nearly as laid back or mild mannered as he usually is. But Gibbs is just the same as he always is, if anything, he's a little more laid back than usual, because apparently being in a war zone where there are snipers and IED's hidden all over the place and people want to kill them is relaxing to him.

Gif from http://leticiahp16.tumblr.com/So, by the middle of day three, when they are getting ready to finish this, Tim is majorly looking forward to getting home.

Then Dex got shot, and that meant he was stuck in Afghanistan even longer than they had expected.

Day four, when he should be on a plane heading home, but isn't, because Dex can't travel yet, he's getting turned on by stupid things. Supposedly there are women around here somewhere, but he hasn't seen one. Instead he's noticed the arched doorways on the local mosque look a little like a stylized vagina, and that's getting to him.

Day five, there's not much to do. Tony and Ziva have taken care of the stateside part of the case. They've got their end wrapped up. So all they've got to do is wait for Dex to get stable to travel. It's not a terrible wound, but they want to make sure all of the anesthesia is out of his system before putting him on a plane. So, mostly, he's sitting around, trying to keep himself from fantasizing too much about the last time he and Abby made love.

He'd taken the picture of the pendant, put it into Google Image Search, and came up with who it belonged to in about eight minutes. He looked at her and said, "So, all night, huh?"

"We'll just have to find something else to do for the next ten hours," she replied with a smile.

And so they did, putting those fuzzy white lambskin rugs in her office to good use.

Day six, Gibbs keeps giving him these looks, and he doesn't exactly know what those looks mean, but between the looks and getting shanghaied into this trip in the first place he's almost pissed off enough to hit him for it.

Why would Gibbs bring him to Afghanistan? It's not like he relishes this kind of thing under the best of conditions and super-hot girlfriend at home does not equal best of conditions. Plus Tony and Ziva both like to travel; they enjoy dangerous places and roughing it. Meanwhile Tim wants Abby, a soft bed, and a hot shower.

18:00 (DC time) on day six and Dex is cleared to travel. Finally, they're on an airplane heading towards Germany, and in less than twenty hours will be home, where Abby is.

Where Abby is naked, in bed, wet and wanting, and not touching herself, waiting for him to come home and... And he forces himself not to think about that, or the pictures on his phone which he's been aching to see, but has not seen because if architecture is giving him a hard on, porn starring his favorite person on earth is going to kill him.

In Germany there's privacy. So, of course, in Germany they're more or less running from one packed plane to the next. He has literally enough time to pee and nothing else before getting on the next plane.

He tries to sleep in the air. Trying to get himself closer to his normal schedule. And it works, sort of. He can't really sleep on a troop transport. Unlike Gibbs, he never acquired the ability to sleep anywhere, anytime, at the drop of a hat. So he falls into a dreaming three-quarters doze.

He's aware enough of where he is to pull out of the dream of fucking Abby in her office on those fuzzy white lambskin rugs before he gets off.

Gibbs just grins at him when he wakes up, and he growls a little, wondering if he was talking in his sleep. He was talking in the dream, saying some really fabulously, exquisitely, just full on filthy things to her while she rode him. He's hard as a rock and thankful that because of the position he's in and his jacket on his lap, no one can see that.

He's more thankful that he woke up in time and won't have to spend the next however long in slowly drying shorts, with Gibbs, who is full on smirking at him and enjoying this way, way too much, as a seatmate.

Dex stares up at him, big brown puppy eyes, and he pets him. Dex settles his head on his paws and yawns, falling back to sleep.

That's not a bad idea, so he goes back to sleep, and this time, doesn't dream.


It's 15:30 when they land, and Gibbs says, "Go home."

So he does.

He texts Abby when he gets into his car. Just landed. Hour from your place. Her apartment is closer to Andrews than his is, so that's where he's heading.

A minute later he gets one back. :)

You wearing a skirt? He types when he gets to the next stoplight.

Yeah

Take your panties off before you get home, unless you want me to rip them off of you.

His phone buzzes, another text, but he's driving so he forces himself to ignore it. Forces himself not to let the image of her in a tiny, little skirt, no panties, legs wrapped around his hips as he fucks her through the wall distract him from the cars around him.

At the next stoplight, he picks up the phone.

I wasn't wearing any. Haven't for two days. Got a Brazillian wax day before yesterday.

He groans at that. There was another text.

Got an erection?

He types quickly. Since Germany. Am driving. Getting on 95 in a minute. Gonna make you come so hard you see stars.

The light is just changing to green when his phone buzzes. He's four cars back so he reads the text.

Just once?

He types fast. As many as you can take.

And then he's got to drive again.

When he gets to her place, he scans the parking garage but doesn't see her car. He growls a little at that, but grabs his bag and heads up to her apartment. He tosses his things into the living room and stands there, waiting.

Just got home. Where are you?

He paces around the living room, not sure what to do with himself.

Finally, after three minutes his cell buzzes. Five minutes out. You still dressed?

Yeah

What are you wearing?

Blue button down, green cargo pants, black jacket, sneakers. He'd packed for four days and ended up out for six, so this clothing was on its second wear.

Undies?

Black knit boxers.

Everything off.

Yes.

He strips down and wonders how fast he can get a shower. Hasn't had one in close to thirty hours and the clothing he's been wearing isn't exactly fresh.

But she'll be home in three minutes, and he's not that fast. In three minutes all he can get is wet. And she knows he's been on a plane for more than twenty hours, and that the trip lasted two days longer than it was supposed to, so it's not like he's had the chance to get a shower recently or has an overabundance of clean clothing. She would have told him to get a shower if she wanted him to. He's fairly sure of that.

He's pacing the living room, naked, phone in hand, waiting to see if he'll get another text. An idea hits, he can look at the pictures now. He opens his email and begins to look. He'd had thousands of ideas of what might have been in those pictures and most of them were wrong, and none of them were nearly as good as seeing what she had sent him.

He's on the seventh shot, her naked, fingering herself, eyes closed, back arched, chest flushed, looking like she's about to come, when he hears her hand on the door knob. He put the phone down, fast, and yanks open the door.

He looks at her, eyes hungry, body aching for her, cock leaking, and pulls her close. He registers that she does have on a little tan plaid skirt, a white tank top, and her nipples are hard, and then he was kicking shut the door and lifting her into his arms, as she wrapped her legs around his hips.

Her lips and tongue meet his as his cock sinks into her. He groans, loud, almost pained, so happy to be back in her.

"Fuck! Tim!" Her voice is breathy and she locks her feet together on the small of his back while wrapping one arm around his shoulders and tangling her hand in his hair.

He savors being fully in her for a few seconds and then takes two steps, backing her to the wall.

"Gonna fuck you through the wall."

"Please!"

And there was nothing even remotely soft, or tender, or gentle about what came next. Just fast, hard, licking, biting, touching each other as much and as fully as they can, all at once, firework sex. And like a firework, it was over a lot faster than either of them really would have liked.

He was leaning against her, breathing hard, still holding her up, feeling, honestly, embarrassed.

He grins sheepishly. "Okay, that wasn't quite how I had planned that."

She smiles gently and kisses him, stroking his face. "How did you plan it?"

He lightly licks her bottom lip. "Among other things, I envisioned you getting off and me lasting for more than thirty seconds."

She laughs and kisses him again, looking amused. "Good thirty seconds?"

"Fast thirty seconds. I missed you." He kisses her, lips slow and lingering.

"I noticed." She kisses him back, another slow lingering kiss. "I missed you, too." She squirms a little. "I'm noticing something else."

"Yeah, me, too." He's not going soft. And he's not feeling much of what could be called any sort of desire to pull out or go to sleep. In fact, he's still feeling awfully turned on. He thrust against her again, and yep, that felt really good.

She sighs as he does that. "That's nice."

"That's a fucking miracle."

"I'll take it."

"Me, too!"

He thrusts a few times, enjoying it, making sure he's not going to go soft, and when he's feeling pretty sure that he's good to go, he puts her down and drops to his knees.

He unzips her boots and takes them off, sure he'll forget about them if he doesn't take care of them now, then tugs off her skirt and just looks. She's perfectly smooth and hairless, pink lips peeking out between soft white skin. "Ohhh..."

"You like that?"

Tim looks up at her, impossibly wide grin on his face, then kisses her mound, tongue tracing over skin that he'd never seen before. "That's at least a quarter of getting off in thirty seconds." He licks again, fingers following the path of his tongue. "So soft." His fingers slip down further, caressing over the now hairless outer lips, feeling her silky smooth and wet.

His tongue starts to follow. She pulls on his hair and he looks up at her again.

"You sure?"

That stops him. He's staring up at her, a very puzzled look on his face. Okay, yeah he doesn't particularly like going down on her when she's on her period, but she stopped menstruating when she went on Depo, so that shouldn't be an issue. "Why wouldn't I be?"

He watches her slip a finger between her lips, and if it was possible, that made him even harder, and come back wet with his cum.

"Oh." Hmmm... Yeah... That... Screw it, naked and impossibly soft and, God, naked Abby pussy in front of his mouth. No way he's not going to kiss her. "You've swallowed enough of it over the last year. Doesn't seem to have done you any harm." And then he sucks her finger into his mouth.

She lets out a startled half-moan, half-laugh at that, and when he let go of her finger and began tonguing her clit that sound morphs into all moan.

It isn't like he's never tasted it before, though the lingering traces of it on her mouth after she's gone down on him is somewhat different from licking it off her skin. It isn't bad, didn't taste like much of anything really. Sure, he's not saying he wants to drink a glass of it or anything, but it isn't poison, either.

And there is something deliciously kinky about licking it off of her. About spreading her legs, seeing it dribble down her thigh, knowing it's his cum, on her, in her, and he's getting to lick it off. That hit a few buttons he didn't know he had.

There certainly is a thrill at how slippery and wet she is, how open and inviting, and how his fingers could just slide in, stroking her mercilessly, because by the time he had gotten them involved in the action he wanted to get her off as hard and fast as he could.

There were the sounds she was making. The sweetest, hottest music ever, dancing through his mind as he licks and strokes, feeling her get tighter and move faster against him.

Her hands clench in his hair, pulling him closer, letting her fuck his mouth, letting him feel how much she's missed this, wanted it, needed it.

Her thighs begin to tremble, and with a sharp, sudden spasm, he knows she's done. He holds her, tongue pressed gently against her, feeling her body shake, and grins.

He lets her come down for a minute, until most, but not all of the quivers had stopped, and then pulls back, standing up, kissing her, deeply. He thinks about her apartment and the furniture in the living room-kitchen area. The table isn't very stable. The sofa's too low for what he wants to do next. The kitchen counter on the other hand...

"See stars?" he asks.

"Yeah."

"More?"

She nods, smiles, and kisses him again.

He doesn't break the kiss, but begins to head them into the kitchen. She does break the kiss. "Kitchen?"

"Yeah."

"What are you thinking?"

"Putting you on the counter and fucking you blind."

Two steps later, they're in the kitchen and a second after that he does have her on the counter. And yeah, it's just about hip high on him, perfect.

He slips into her, fast, and slides back out, slow. She leans back on her elbows, legs wrapped around his hips, as he strokes her breasts through the tank top. It's almost perfect.

"Sit up."

She does, and he takes off the tank top.

"Perfect," he says kissing her shoulder.

"Perfect?"

He pulls back to look her in the eye. "God, yes, I can feel you and see you, and," he thrusts hard into her, "you feel so fucking amazing. Missed you, missed this, so much."

She arches up to meet his thrust, sighing as his hand slips down.

He's moving slowly, fingers teasing, cock stroking long and smooth. He's watching his body slip into hers, watching his fingers dance on her skin, and he loves the pictures, but seeing this live, feeling it, is so much better than any picture could ever be.

She pulls his head up to look in her eyes, and kisses him hard, tongue moving fast and frantic while his hips slow down even further. He's softly gliding against her, pulling out until only the tip of him is touching her, and then easing all the way back in.

Abby leans back on her elbows again, and he follows her, kissing and nipping at her nipples. Gently stroking with his tongue and then pulling with his teeth. She's rocking against him, eyes closed, mouth slightly open, breathing fast and hard.

"Wanna make you come slow."

"Oh."

"Just gonna keep doing this, nice and slow." His thumb is moving over her clit, firm, focused, but not fast, and his cock keeps easing in and out. His mouth moves back to hers, and with his free hand he pulls her up so they're chest to chest, lips to lips.

"I want you to feel every inch of me. Feel how hard you make me. Feel how much I want you. Feel how every single night I was dreaming of you. Dreaming of you wet and tight on me. Dreaming of your taste on my lips." He licks his lips, still able to taste her, and then kisses her, also wet and slow.

He can feel her body growing tight on his, and she's squirming, because in this position she can't really thrust or increase the speed. Though she can use her legs to pull him into her faster, and does.

"Slow, baby. Just let me do you." He strokes his right hand through her hair, knotting his fingers in it, holding her head still, and kisses her again, deep and soft. "Promise, I'll make it worth your while."

And if tied up and spun out is what gets him off harder than anything else, this is what does it for her. Long, slow, achingly slow strokes, the sort that take control and patience, and right now, he feels like he can do this all night. He can go as long as she might want him to.

So he does.

She falls back to her elbows, head back, mouth open as she moans a little with each breath. He shifts her left leg over his shoulder, so he can slide in a little deeper.

"Oh, God, Tim. Fuck baby." Her cheeks and chest are pink, nipples hard, face looking like she's somewhere between exquisite pleasure and sharp pain.

"Please!" Her hands and feet are clenched and he slows down a little more, thumb barely moving, more pressing against her than any sort of friction. He doesn't stop moving, but he goes so slowly she eventually starts to relax again.

She's moaning now, and it's not precisely a happy sound. It's more a I-was-a-second-from-climaxing-why-did-you-stop-this-is-torture sort of sound.

He's kissing her leg, right hand stroking her nipple, left starting to speed up again, going back to that slow, firm grind. "I've got you, Abby. Gonna make you come so hard it'll be worth a six day wait."

The last time he did this, the last time he had the control to do this, was after Palmer's wedding. He'd already gotten off three times and felt no sense of urgency, so he wanted to see what would happen if he just went slow on her. And she bit him black and blue and scratched his back bloody and came so hard she passed out.

And he can feel his own arousal building, so he knows he doesn't have the control to spin this out as long as he did then, but he can probably get pretty close.

He can feel her tense up again, and again he slows way down, barely moving, but keeping pressure on her clit and nipple. And if she wasn't supporting her weight on her elbows, he's fairly sure she would be clawing his back to ribbons, and he'd be enjoying every second of it.

And again she relaxes.

He starts to slide against her again, long slow strokes, all the way in and all the way out. She's moaning with every breath, and skin pink from her stomach to her forehead.

Her eyes are closed, so he watches himself fuck her. Watches her body, wet and glistening, take him in, and drag against his as he eases out.

He's starting to moan with each stroke, feeling his balls start to creep up and his thighs tense. He forces himself to keep going slow, he'll wreck it if he starts thrusting like crazy, so he keeps pulling all the way out, pushing all the way in, and rubbing his thumb in firm slow circles.

He changes the angle a little. Getting his knees into the motion. Pushing up as well as in.

"Fuck!" she more breathed it loudly than spoke. She pulls her head up, opens her eyes slowly, and stares at him.

That starts to undo him. She's so tight against him, and her eyes are glazed with lust, pupils wide with excitement. He eases back in again, getting that angle again, and begins to move his thumb just a hair faster.

"Don't stop!"

"Not this time."

He speeds up just a little, jaw clenched, shoulders and thighs and back tight, he probably looks like he's in pain, too, but it feels so mind-blowingly good.

She makes these little fast inhaling sounds, followed by a harsh shuddering breath. He flicks his thumb just a little faster and feels her go very tight, and then slip over the edge, her body rippling and twitching around him, moans verging on sobs slipping from her lips.

And that does it for him. This time is slow burn fireworks, blowing their way up his spine and down his legs, through his balls and centered on his cock, and this is the homecoming fuck he'd been dreaming about.

The bad thing about a mind-blowing fuck on the kitchen counter is you can't exactly collapse in a boneless heap with your lover.

He ended up on the kitchen floor, back against the cabinet the pots live in, her foot on his shoulder, his forehead and lips pressed against her calf, as they both just sort of laid around and rested.

Eventually she felt like moving and ended up on his lap. They sat there, snuggling, his fingers petting her hair, her head on his shoulder, neither of them talking, just enjoying touching.

And eventually, the kitchen floor is cold and hard, and the cabinet isn't very comfy, the handle poking him in the shoulder, and his feet are starting to fall asleep because she's sitting on his legs, so he says, "I should get a shower."

She sniffs him. "Not a bad idea."

He laughs, and she stands up.

A few minutes later they're in the shower, and he's groaning with pleasure again. "I love hot water! Oh...God. I don't know who invented the hot water heater, but he was a genius!"

"No stalls, no privacy, no hot water," Abby said, fingers on his hips, watching him throw his head back and let the water flow over him.

He wipes the water out of his face, and steps a little forward, so it's mostly hitting his back and shoulders. "Yeah, I don't recommend Afghanistan for vacationing. Dex and Gibbs had a much better time than I did."

"Dex got shot."

He grins. "Exactly."

She looks up at him, eyes narrowing a little, thinking. "You're bad luck for dogs. Jethro got shot. Dex got shot."

"Dogs are bad luck for me, too. And Jethro got shot because he was trying to rip my throat out." He touches the four tiny scars on his throat left over from their first meeting. "If he had played nice, I would have, too."

She shakes her head and reaches for the shampoo. "Turn around, I'll do your hair."

He does, and sighs happily as she starts to rub her fingers through his hair.

"What's the plan for tomorrow?" Abby asks.

"Back to work. Taking Dex home. Hopefully it's a paperwork day."

She nods at that.

"You?" he asks.

"Probably paperwork. Deposition at two."

They spent the next half-hour like that, talking, getting clean, Tim enjoying his first hot shower in a week.



They get out of the shower and dry off. He's getting ready to start shaving, but she stays his hand.

"Tomorrow's soon enough. I like you stubbly like this, not really a beard, but long enough so it's not prickly. It feels nice."

He smiles and puts the razor down. It's been maybe three days since he shaved last. And yeah, it's a little itchy, but if she likes it, twelve more hours won't hurt.

In the bedroom, he slipped into a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt, enjoying how soft and comfy they are. Nothing about Afghanistan is soft, and he likes soft. She wraps up in her robe, it's long and black and silky, covered in white and pink cherry blossoms. He spends a long minute just watching her. Skin pink from the hot water, hair down, curling a little because she's towel dried it but not brushed it out yet.

He sits on their bed, relishing the easy intimacy of this moment, and the overwhelming comfort and rightness. Rule number eight: never take anything for granted. And right now, he isn't.



"Is there any food?" he asks, looking in the almost empty fridge. He's not feeling much interest in salad dressing, left over Caff-Pow, or turkey slices that are probably a few days past their prime.

"Ice cream," Abby says, opening the freezer, chin on his shoulder. "That's about it. It's lonely eating here without you, so I ate out."

He nods. Grocery shopping tomorrow. But for tonight, ice cream for dinner will do. It's Chocolate Moose Tracks, which is probably his second or third favorite, but since she doesn't much like his top two, (Coffee and Mint Chocolate Chip) and he's not huge fan of her favorite (Cherry Sorbet), it's what they usually get.

They settle onto the sofa, one container of ice cream, two spoons, and the remote. "Did you watch the Walking Dead while I was away?"

"I had to do something to pass the time."

"Was it good?" He's queuing it up on the DVR.

"So good."

"Okay, don't spoil for me."

She feeds him a bite of the ice cream, and then curls up against him as he wraps his arm around her. And that's how they ended the night, snuggled on the sofa, sharing ice cream, watching the Walking Dead.