Telling himself it was ridiculous was doing him no good. Telling himself that it made no sense and was the result of an explosion and a coma didn’t help much either.
Telling himself that if he acted on these new ‘feelings’… ‘feelings’ he even couldn’t even think the word without scorn… if he acted on these new ‘feelings’, all he was bound to get was a reprimand in his file and a punch in the mouth.
Gibbs looked in the mirror and frowned at what stared back at him. Not the reddened, healing burns, those had nothing to do with this, with him. Those had happened to someone else entirely and would fade to nothing soon enough. No, it wasn’t the burns, or the silly looking hair, high and tight taken too literally. It was the eyes, those confused eyes, that shone with new knowledge that he couldn’t parse with old truths.
The Cape Fear had been the last straw, of course, those sailors dying needlessly is what finally sent him packing. But, and he can barely admit this to himself, but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t somehow pleased to have a reason to run. A reason to get the hell out of Dodge, to pretend that what he felt wasn’t real after all. That it was a bad dream brought on by too much morphine.
It hadn’t taken long after being discharged from Bethesda, for Gibbs to be slammed into unreality in the blink of sea green eyes.
He had hurt all over, his skin felt both shredded and stretched too tight and his bones were telling him unequivocally that he was no longer a young man. He was mentally exhausted, Ziva’s visit had brought clarity and pain with her. It was new pain. Fresh and bitter and it fought with the pain he carried with him always, the pain he wore as a second skin, until that skin got ripped off in the explosion and made him raw all over.
He was so full of pain, that he was amazed that he could walk. He was amazed that others could too. That life could go on, that for the rest of world it was SOP. He was amazed that others couldn’t see it, and he felt separate because of it. Separate from the whole of the rest of the world. From Ziva David and the hospital staff the navy men and women. From Jenny Sheppard, who had made him feel ashamed and dirty when he was in the hospital and nothing at all, now that he was out.
Despite the pain, or perhaps because of it, Gibbs put one foot in front of the other. He went through discharge procedures at the hospital and got in a car with Ziva behind the wheel, something he remembered in the first few high speed moments, that it was something he normally did not do. He signed into NCIS as his badge was somewhere else and not in his hand to show security and he rode the elevator and nodded to co-workers who said supportive co-worker things to him.
He was in a haze of pain and a cloud of numbness and mostly strange people touched him with too much familiarity and he thought that perhaps coming here wasn’t a good idea after all.
And then he saw his special agent, Anthony DiNozzo. Looked into the sea green eyes and allowed himself to be warmed by the shit eating grin beaming in his direction. That was it, that was the moment his life lost any hint of the reality he once knew. That was the moment that Leroy Jethro Gibbs, marine and widower and father was burned away, scorched into unrecognizability by a smile.
He had a lifetime of hiding his feelings and burned stiff skin to thank for the fact that the shock of it didn’t show on his face. That the rest of the world, or at least the rest of the team, couldn’t tell that Gibbs’ foundation had been shaken down to bedrock.
Gibbs remembered Tony, he remembered the way he felt about Tony and it wasn’t…it wasn’t this.
Gibbs had met DiNozzo on a case he had worked alongside Baltimore homicide. The young cop had been bold and brash and way too cocky and Gibbs had remembered thinking that the kids Father should have taken him over a knee a time or two. He also remembered thinking he was smart as hell and that Baltimore brass must be thick not to see that Tony’s jocularity was only a cover for keen investigative intellect.
Tony’s looks had meant little to him, other than, perhaps, the distant awareness that they would give him an edge when interviewing woman. He had that advantage himself, though, it had faded a little in recent years. The women who got giggly and stupid around him these days, were usually too mature to giggle and too smart to do stupid.
Now those looks that he had dismissed years ago hit him in the gut with the force of a sledgehammer. Tony stood in the middle of the squad room floor with a welcoming smile on his face and Gibbs was frozen to the floor.
His eyes moved over that smile, white straight teeth, perfectly shaped, pale pink lips, over the rest of his face, each feature more striking than the last. It was strange, Gibbs thought stupidly, there were no flaws to that face. No too large nose, too small eyes, even his ears were small and well set. Eyes painted in greens and blue by a God smitten with the beauty of his own creation.
Gibbs had never seen such gut twisting beauty before; Certainly not in a man, not in a mirror either. As handsome as he‘d ever been he had still had flaws, an overbite that parents of his generation never bothered to fix with orthodontics and as he aged, a myriad more.
Gibbs opened his mouth and closed it again and he couldn’t help himself enough not to wonder what those lips tasted like. His eyes travelled down a tall, rangy body and to his utter shock, lingered at the bulge of Tony’s crotch, covered in fitted, faded denim. His own prick jumped happily in response and a wave of desire so strong it threatened to knock him to the floor swept through his body, tightening his belly and weakening his knees. To his mortification, he swayed on his feet, desire leaving him light headed.
“You OK, Boss?” Tony asked, and was the first to his side, despite the fact that Ziva was closer.
Gibbs shook loose the hand on his elbow with more force than necessary, “Fine.” He muttered. He couldn’t meet Tony’s eyes. He was afraid of what he felt, afraid of what he’d give away if he got trapped in those eyes again.
He didn’t see the flash of hurt he’d caused, wouldn’t have understood had he seen.
The next day passed inside a nightmare. His memory was still fragmented and he raced to put together the facts he knew he knew, yet still could not access. He failed badly, failed those aboard the Cape Fear and failed his team, failed himself and finally, failed Shannon and Kelly.
He could no longer look at Anthony DiNozzo, couldn’t be in the same room with him and couldn’t concentrate when he was. He yelled at the man when he spoke and flinched away when he couldn’t avoid contact.
****
It was all over now, including the paperwork. He’d resigned and he couldn’t regret it. Gibbs stared at his reflection and wondered who it was staring back at him. Could it be that he was unrecognizable to himself. How can a person live inside their own body for fifty years and not know such a truth about themselves? Was Gibbs so monumentally arrogant or delusional to never have had an inkling of this.
He had gone home that night, after pitching his career as far as he could throw it, and gotten rotten, stinking drunk. He wasn’t supposed to drink at all, what with the antibiotics he was taking and the painkillers that still swum about his bloodstream. The lingering pain made working on his boat undesirable and nothing else would stop the thoughts that swirled around his mind, a vortex of lust and confusion.
So he downed glass after glass of Bourbon and didn’t think about Tony DiNozzo. His mind grasped for any distraction and line of thought, no matter how painful, to distance himself from the man.
He went so far as to wallow in memories of his daughter; went over every moment of Kelly’s life. Of her birthdays and Christmas’, of the more precious everydays; Of the time they spent together, her small hands learning diligently, the use of Gibbs’ old fashioned carpentry tools. Of her first day of school when she had wet herself on the drive over and how Gibbs had played hooky from work to take her to the zoo instead. He thought of her and Shannon until he could bear it no longer and tears rolled down his cheeks and he thought that maybe thinking about his senior field agent wasn’t such an awful thing after all.
Gibbs drank still another glass and dug out a few of his dusty LP’s and he played those at full volume and dared his neighbours to call the cops.
He slouched on his beat up couch, half a glass full of liquor balanced on his chest and Clem Snide’s, “Lets Explode” blaring. It was a song the hippies must have loved back in the day and one that Gibbs and his fellow jarheads did secretly. Gibbs sung along, his voice low and soaked in booze, “I don’t want to know me better… I don’t want to know me better”. Gibbs listened to the words as they came out of his mouth and he started to laugh. He didn’t want to know himself better… that’s was exactly the point. He didn’t need this knowledge that turned his world upside down. That made him wonder who the fuck he really was and who the fuck he’s been if not himself.
Gibbs certainly didn’t need to know that the sight of another’s mans ass made his cock stand to attention. That DiNozzo’s mouth would surely send him to hell and that he might go there willingly if he could have just one taste of it. That a smile from his subordinate would deconstruct him. Who would want to know that?
*****
Gibbs took a deep breath and dove beneath the choppy surface. The ocean was rough today but the wind was hot and the water was cool and was the only thing outside of more booze that helped with his hangover. Since arriving in Mexico he’d barely gone a day without drinking. It was something he promised he’d think about, just not today. Today he was going to have his hands full just trying to hang on to his sanity. Holding on to the bits of himself that he could recognise.
Franks was a good room mate, a soothing presence. The man didn’t require anything of Jethro which was good, because he didn’t have anything to give.
Between the explosion and the fresh-again loss of Shannon and Kelly, the disillusioned end to his career, his loss of focus, and the complete break down of his identity, Gibbs was just happy that he could hold it together long enough to not drown himself during his morning swim.
His arms moved easily through the water, brown arm following brown shoulder.
He let all of it go and focussed only on the movement, breath, stroke, kick, kick, kick. Breath, stroke, kick, kick, kick. It was a simple rhythm, but it involved his entire body and the only thoughts he allowed in, were, ‘breath, stroke, kick, kick, kick.”
Gibbs aimed to go further every day and he didn’t turn around until he wasn’t quite sure he could make it back. He would sweat invisibly into the ocean, what was a bit more saltwater after all and he would wait until he felt the first tell tale sign of cramp before he would halt his stroke, turn over and float on top of the water, catching his breath and staring blindly into the hot Mexican sun. He would listen to the echoing vastness of the ocean and the drum beat of his heart and he would breathe deeply and breathe out again, slowly.
His morning swim was mostly free from unwanted thoughts except a time or two when they would sneak in on him stealthy and keen. A few days back, Gibbs had switched out of his float position to tread water and was reminded of Tony so swiftly that he gasped and bobbed and choked on cool salt water.
They had been called out to a crime scene in Virginia, a Colonel had been found dead in his weight room and the grieving widow had decided a week later that it hadn’t been a heart attack after all, despite the local coroners insistence. Regardless of the lame duck of a case, Gibbs was in a good mood, he had an enormous Hawaiian blue roast coffee in his hand, the day was bright and sunny and the black Charger he drove was fast as hell, it hugged the back road curves with V8 horsepower and sports car suspension. It was just he and DiNozzo and the younger man kept up a steady stream of entertaining chatter in between gasps of fear and petrified silence as he hung onto the ‘oh shit‘ handle. It always made Gibbs smile when he scared the shit out of his cocky senior field agent.
Tony lifted up his ridiculously expensive sunglasses and glared at him for just a second before he recovered from a particularly hard left turn and picked up the story where he had left off.
“And Magnum, see, he’s got to tread water all night long or die. it’s a classic, Boss, I can’t believe you didn’t see it.”
Gibbs lost interest in the story line pretty quickly, so he just listened to the pleasant sound of Tony’s voice and concentrated on putting the bureau car through its paces.
It was the treading water that had done it. Brought back the seemingly inconsequential day he had spent with his senior field agent. It had been a good day, it seemed sometimes that every day he had spent with Tony had been a good day. Gibbs halted that line of thinking and kicked off towards the shore. He didn’t tread water again.
The sun had been good for his burns, as backwards as that seemed and his skin had been burnished a dark copper brown. He was tanned all over, except for the creases of his wrinkles, where if he pulled the skin taut, there were stripes of untouched white skin. He swam naked, Franks’ beach was pretty much private and even if it wasn’t, Gibbs’ body modesty had been taken care of during his first month of enlistment. He liked the feel of the water on his naked body, caressing his body with cool fingers and tugging at his balls as he swam.
Gibbs hauled himself out of the water, his legs shaking just a little and his breath coming hard. He didn’t bother leaving a towel on the beach, it just ended up damp and sandy by the time he was ready for it and he walked back to Franks’ hut, hands on his hips, catching his breath.
The shower was rustic, but the water was clean and salt free and it gave Gibbs a private place to jerk off. His climax was never anything more than biological, he didn’t allow any fantasies to help him along. Tug and stroke and shoot. Simple.
His life here was simple. Before he had done it, Gibbs thought that retirement would be interminable. It wasn’t. His days were full enough, he woke up, usually late, swam in the ocean, fixed something or other in Franks‘ ramshackle hut, made dinner and sat in a low slung beach chair, toes dug deep into cool sand and started out with Bourbon and finished with beer. It was a decent way to pass the days. And the longer Gibbs stayed, the more he thought about making his new life a permanent one.
****
“So what’re you running away from, probie?” Mike Franks asked around a mouthful of barbequed steak.
They were sitting outside, plates balanced on laps and cold beers set in little dug holes beside them, sweating into the brown sand.
A fire spit merrily a few yards away, keeping the chill of the night away and roasting foil covered potatoes.
Gibbs took a long pull off his beer and belched, “Took you long enough to ask.”
“I was waiting for you to bring it up, probie. Figured if you wanted to talk about it you would.”
“Y-up”, said Gibbs, “You got that right.”
Franks snorted, “You always were a stubborn son of a bitch.”
“Y-up.”
“It’s been three months since you showed up on my beach, Jethro, face and arms all burned up. It don’t seem like your recovering so much, anymore, as hiding.”
The only response Gibbs made was the steady sound of him chewing and the sharp strike of knife against plate.
Franks sighed, got up and speared another baked potato from the fire pit.
“Ah, what the hell do I care.” He said, settling back down into his chair and pulling the cooler close, digging out a couple of plastic containers. He gingerly peeled the potato from its tin foil and went about drowning it in butter and sour cream.
“Longer you stay, the better my place looks. You do good work for a coward, boy.”
Gibbs knuckles whitened on his knife and the food in his mouth turned to chaulk. He wasn’t going to let himself be insulted into spilling his guts. “I’d watch my mouth, if I were you, old man.”
Franks laughed, and flicked the condensation from his beer at Gibbs. “This old man can still kick your probie ass, don’t think I can’t.”
“Except for the fact that I’m not a probie, anymore.” Gibbs said, his voice suddenly loud and hard.
“Well, if you’re such a goddamned tough guy, why can’t you tell me what the hell’s got you so bunched up inside that you had to come all the way to Mexico to unravel it.”
“What part of, I don’t want to fucking talk about it, don’t you get, Mike?” Gibbs was red in the face and the fork in his hand bent with the force of his anger.
Franks stared resolutely at his friend and protégé, his mouth a hard line, “You talk about it now, boy, or you get gone, come morning. I sure as hell ain’t going to be the one who finds you after you’ve eaten your gun.”
The anger seeped out of Gibbs and he deflated like a balloon. He ran a hand through hair that was longer than it had been since childhood, and sighed, standing up. “Fine, Mike you win. But if we’re doing this, we’re doing it over that bottle of ‘86 Old Pogue I saw hiding in the back of your bookshelf.”
“You know how much that Bourbon, costs, Gibbs?” Mike asked in mock disbelief. his eyes creased with humour.
“Y-up.”
Gibbs didn’t need to talk to Mike about Shannon or Kelly. The man had spent more than a few liquor soaked nights doing just that when they had worked together, there wasn’t anything left to say. Mike already knew just how torn up Gibbs had been and still was. He knew that Gibbs married women who looked like Shannon on the outside, while being the exact opposite inside. Knew that Gibbs had gotten a vasectomy without any of the former Mrs. Gibbs’ knowing about it. That he refused to even entertain the thought of having another child because he had barely survived the loss of his first.
And so once he had gotten sufficiently lubricated, Gibbs started talking about his male subordinate and the decidedly inappropriate thoughts he had about him.
Gibbs’ head was spinning more than a little and the liquor had burned off all of his hard edges. He sat in one of Franks paint faded Muskoka chairs, head tipped back and stared at all the stars you couldn’t see from Washington.
“It’s the goddamndest thing, Mike. To wake up and have a goddamned stiffie for another guy…” Gibbs trailed off and played with the driftwood he had found and carved down to a fist sized ball.
Mike laughed through his whiskey and began to choke.
“You, you have got to be shittin me, probie.”
“Uh?”
“You. You’ve got to be fucking jokin, right?” You telling me all this is about tail? You ran away from your work and your life cause of some pretty little thing got your jockeys damp?”
“Well, first of all, Mike, I didn’t run away from work, I left after politicians decided that it was better to let the Cape Fear blow up than worry about writing a press release.” Gibbs took a long drink and glared at the fire.
“We ain’t talking about that, Gibbs. What? You think I somehow forgot what whores politicians are? But you didn’t need to come all the way down to see me cause you were pissed about what happened at work. If that was the case you would have raised holy hell in DC before you left, called in every favour you had to see that those sons of bitches paid. But you didn’t do that Gibbs, so that tells me that ain’t the reason why you’re here.”
Gibbs stretched his neck hard to the left, letting the trapped nitrogen pop satisfyingly.
“Well, fuck you, Mike.”
“Fuck you right back, probie. So, I ever meet this kid that’s got you turned five kinds of backwards?”
“You telling me, it doesn’t make a difference, Mike?”
Mike stuck a fat, hand rolled cigar in his mouth, chewed off the end and spat it onto the fire. “I hate to tell you this kid, but it ain’t never bothered me one way or the other where you want to stick your dick.”
“You mind explaining that statement?” Gibbs asked.
Franks held a small, smouldering piece of driftwood to the tip of his cigar and puffed until his head was wreathed in sweet smelling tobacco smoke.
“Well, seein as you’re being so obtuse, probie, I’ll spell it out for you. This ain’t your first trip to the gay rodeo.”
“What?” Gibbs asked, in disbelief. “How exactly did you come to this conclusion?”
“I was your partner for 7 years, Jethro, you think I didn’t see all those times your eyes followed a tight ass? A tight, male ass. Hell, the only time I saw you have any interest in a woman period was if she had red hair and a big mouth.”
Gibbs snorted, “Yeah, well, I happen to like redheads.”
“Nah, kid, you don’t. You liked one red head and she’s been gone a long while, now.”
Gibbs shut up after that and so did Franks. He went for a lonely walk down the beach, the only light he had was from the stars above and the only company was the rest of the bottle of Old Pogue.
That night, Gibbs dreamt. It was a dream he had been having for years and one he’d never acknowledged having period.
Kate was there. Alive and whole and beautiful and sharp as a blade. It was an old case that turned out to be pretty straightforward. A lieutenant had found out that her Colonel husband had been cheating on her and killed him. She’d framed his coworkers for the murder and had almost gotten away with it. In his dream, though, it wasn’t the case that Gibbs was focused on. It was Tony. He had gotten wet preserving evidence on the beach and was forced to wear Ducky’s jumpsuit for the remainder of the day. It was too small and too tight and Tony had flushed bright red, standing there with pants that ended twelve inches too soon. His hair was longer back then and he wore it slicked back, but the shower he had taken had washed all the gunk out and his long bangs flopped into his eyes and he looked about all of 20 years old standing there.
Gibbs had taken a long look at him, strode up, thrust him up against the closest wall and shoved his tongue down his throat. He could feel Tony’s soft skin against the palm of his hand, where he held Tony’s neck and the softer skin of his lips, that opened wide and accommodating. The dream swirled and he wondered where Tony’s mouth had gone. He felt the heavy buckle of his belt fall to the side and heard the zip of his pants and when he looked down, Tony kneeled before him. He circled his hips and his prick painted Tony’s mouth with pre-come and the younger man licked his lips and smiled at Gibbs before leaning in and laving the head of his cock with a warm, wet tongue. Tony’s soft hair falling onto his prick, caressing it as his mouth worked him deeper and deeper and Gibbs thrust as far as he could and came and came and came.
Gibbs woke sticky and sated and for the very first time, he woke without the crushing guilt of denial. He wanted DiNozzo, he could say it now, without it turning his guts into shards of glass. He’d wanted him for a while, the coma had just brought things into focus.
Its not that he thought he had a chance with his senior field agent or that he would take it if he did. It was all just a little bit too new for Gibbs to suddenly start day dreaming about playing house with Anthony DiNozzo. The idea was patently ridiculous in the first place. DiNozzo was a lady’s man first and foremost; Gibbs knew that much for a fact. The women who had come in and out of DiNozzo’s life in the five years they’d been working together was a testament to that.
Franks and Gibbs went to a nearby cantina that night for dinner and stayed for a few beers and to listen to one of the local bands. They were called Ritmica Blus
and they played some pretty good jazz and really poor mariachi.
“They play it for the tourists.” Franks said, when Gibbs winced at the discordant mess that followed sweet smooth jazz notes.
Gibbs looked around the bar pointedly. They were the only foreigners in the place.
Franks chuckled, “What’s your point, probie, you ain’t a local yet.”
Gibbs smirked and scratched his beard. He’d stopped shaving a few weeks back and was more than a little surprised when the damn thing grew in completely grey. He decided to keep it though; when he had looked in the mirror he’d reminded himself of his Great Uncle Leroy. Leroy Gibbs had sailed around the globe twice before dying in a Monsoon off the coast of Singapore. He had been a maverick in his day, a free spirit who had made a small fortune in nautical engineering before packing it all in to spend his days on the water and his nights in exotic ports of call.
Gibbs had cut his teeth on stories of his Great Uncle and had eventually joined the Marines in order to live a life of adventure.
That Gibbs had found out years later that his Uncle, had he not died in a monsoon, would have soon succumbed to syphilis, made little difference. He was a man that Gibbs had always admired, a man who had never tamed the wildness he carried inside. Had life and death, oh so much death, not made Gibbs into the man he was now, he liked to imagine that he could have lived his Uncles life. Sailed the boats he made by hand, traveling the world, making love to beautiful women…beautiful men, Gibbs’ newly awakened libido inserted. His gut tightened with desire at even the thought of such a thing.
Of taking Tony on one of his boats, of kissing those plump, perfect lips until they lay breathless and panting side by side, sea breeze playing over hot bodies. Gibbs removing Tony’s shirt slowly, button by button, unveiling the lean chest, lightly covered in brown hair, running his fingers over a flat stomach and tracing the hair that narrowed and trailed below his belt…
Franks hit Gibbs arm covertly and he looked towards the table pointed out. A man and a women, both in their mid thirties, sat laughing, a pitcher of sangria between them, their dark heads together. They could be twins, Gibbs thought absently. Both of them had heart shaped faces with full lips and black, shiny hair. And Gibbs felt absolutely nothing when he looked at them.
“Yeah?”
“They’re brother and sister, Gibbs.”
“Good for them. What’s your point, Mike?”
“Nothing, probie. They’re pretty attractive though, right?” Franks asked, a far too innocent look on his face.
Gibbs spilled some of his beer down his shirt and hissed, “Whatever the hell your thinking, Mike, you can just stop thinking it. You got me?”
Franks laughed outright at Gibbs reaction. “First time I see you get so flustered over a pretty face.”
“You’re forgetting that I know you.” Gibbs glared and tipped his bottle of beer, draining it in one long pull.
“I’m just saying, kid, I hear they, uh, that they’ll work in pairs.” Franks started to look a little uncomfortable and he lit a cigarette, even though he had just stubbed one out.
Gibbs would have choked had Franks said that while he was still drinking anything.
“And you think I want hire a couple of whores for the night. Really, Mike?” Gibbs didn’t need to say anything else, the colour staining Mikes weathered cheeks let Jethro know that his friend was trying to be helpful…as ass-backwards as he went about it.
“Yeah, no, I know, Jethro. I, uh, I wasn’t thinking.”
“Ya think?”
Gibbs went home on his own that night, Mike usually stayed with his pretty bartender a few times a week. That was fine with Gibbs. He had the feeling he was starting to wear out his welcome with his oldest friend, anyhow. It’s not that Franks would have ever kicked him out, hell Mike would have left Gibbs the place free and clear before he did that. It was more that Franks seemed to be making more and more of an effort to ‘fix’ him. Tonight’s laughable attempt was just one in an increasingly long list of helpful suggestions. Earlier in the day, he’d mentioned, ever so casually, that he had Maria’s phone if he wanted to call anyone, she’d left it in his jacket, he’d said with a straight face.
Gibbs had raised an eyebrow, ignored the man and continued re building the deck.
He should have known Franks wouldn’t have let it drop. The man was as tenacious as a bulldog with a bone.
****
Gibbs had just fallen asleep beneath the shade of a tree, his ball cap over his face and chest bare when a body flopped down next to him. He startled awake and reached for his sidearm before he realised where he was and that his 9mm was in Franks’ gun safe in the front hall closet of the shack.
“Should have guessed even Mexico couldn’t loosen you up, Boss. Nice beard, by the way, its very… mountain man.” Tony grinned ear to ear and eased himself onto the sand below, arms folded behind his head.
“Tony?” Gibbs took in Tony’s easy manner, his loud red Hawaiian shirt and baggy shorts and pinched the back of his hand, hard.
Nope, he thought, it wasn’t a sun and booze induced mirage, Anthony DiNozzo was in Mexico… on his back…smiling at Gibbs.
“What the hell are you doing, here? Who’s leading the team?” Gibbs, didn’t actually care all that much about the who was or wasn’t leading the team. He’d not thought about NCIS, the director or MTAC in days and that was just the way he liked it. He’d thought about his old team of course, he wondered how Ziva was coping; he kicked himself for somehow never realising what killing Ari Haswari had done to her. He thought about Abby and McGee, if they were on again in the course of their on again off again romance. He thought about Ducky and chuckled to think about Mother Mallard and whether she’d gotten into any trouble lately…. and he thought about Tony of course. Since finally admitting to his attraction, he thought about him a lot. And not just about his skin and mouth and ass. He thought about Tony’s stories and his intelligence and the way he could make himself the butt of the joke and laugh along with everyone else.
“I decided that I needed a vacation, Boss. Little sun, little sand…. Little bathing suits.” Tony said with a leer. “Sheppard sent over Cassidy to run the team. Poor Paula, probably agreed just to see me.”
“Sure, DiNozzo. So you’re telling me that Sheppard handed you a team of your own and you handed it back to go on a vacation?”
Tony grimaced and played his fingers through the sand. He made a little stick figure hula girl, her skirt, thumb-marks in white sand. “I never said I wanted to run a team of my own, Boss. Sides, I figure if you can take off to ports unknown, then so can I.”
“Y-eah, and speaking of ports unknown, just how exactly did you know where I was?”
“Keen investigative mind, Boss.” Tony said, drawing a second stick figure behind the hula girl and connecting the two with a straight line that ran horizontally from the second stick figures waist.
Gibbs started laughing before he could help himself; he got to his feet and kicked sand on Tony’s pornographic drawing.
“Christ DiNozzo, you don’t change a bit, do you?”
Tony grinned unrepentantly, “Hope not, Boss.”
Gibbs grinned and tugged on his discarded shirt and headed towards the hut, not waiting to see if Tony followed. He’d made it a few yards before he heard the shuffling sound of Tony jogging to catch up.
“So when did you talk to Franks?” Gibbs asked when Tony was within spitting distance.
“Hey, how’d you know I…”
“Keen, investigative mind, Tony? Really that’s the best you could come up with?” Gibbs opened the big old fashioned refrigerator of Franks and pulled out two cervaza’s. The thing was a chipped white monstrosity that surely accounted for ½ of the electricity bill, but it kept the beer at the right temperature and Gibbs found falling asleep to it’s loud hum somehow soothing.
“Cheers, Boss.” Tony said popping the cap off on the chipped butcher block counter.
Gibbs tapped the lip of his beer to Tony’s and then forgot to bring the bottle to his mouth.
Tony was taking deep draughts from his bottle, head tipped back, Adams apple moving and Gibbs could make out just a drop or two of beer that escaped Tony’s mouth and began to wander down his throat.
Tony drained half the bottle before wiping his mouth on the back of his head and burping loudly. “Damn, Gibbs, that’s worth the trip all on its own.”
“A beer, Tony?” Gibbs asked, the words barely making it out of his dry throat.
Tony’s mouth quirked softly, “The beer, Boss, yeah. But more than that, it’s that I’m drinking a beer a stone’s throw away from the ocean, with sand on the door step that’s almost to hot to walk on.”
Gibbs just stared at Tony a moment longer, wanting nothing in the world more than to push Tony out that door, onto that too warm sand and taste every inch of him.
What he did instead was offer him a swim.
He threw Tony’s gear in his room (and tried not to think to much about that) and headed down to the water, stripping off as he went and dumping his clothes and shoes on the old Muskoka chair he often fell asleep in each night. Tony following close behind.
It wasn’t until he was in the water and putting his body through the first part of his swim before he realised he had just gotten naked in front of Anthony DiNozzo.
It wasn’t the first time his senior agent had seen him naked, they’d shared gym facilities often enough for that not to be the case. But it was the first time he’d gotten naked in a way that wasn’t strictly necessary and he was suddenly overcome with an insecurity that made him want to slap himself upside the head. What did he look like to Tony? A few months ago he would have worried about his softening belly but Mexico had been good for him and his waist was as lean and hard now as it had been in the core. Sure his skin was a little looser, but he couldn’t do a damn thing about that. Maybe Tony saw him as a Father figure, he knew the younger man looked up to him. Hell, maybe he’d be disgusted if he knew the thoughts Gibbs harboured, think he was a dirty old man…an old queer. A fag, his mind taunted, before he viciously stopped that line of thinking.
Gibbs face flamed hot with his own ugly thoughts and the ocean water felt cooler against his cheeks. He had a feeling he’d be going a long way out today.
When he returned to the shore, his muscles felt like spaghetti and his breathing was laboured. He almost tripped over Tony who lay half in the water and half out, an empty beer can resting on his chest and a content smile on his sun reddened face. “Wow, Boss who knew you could put Ian Thorpe to shame?”
Gibbs grunted in response and eased past Tony, keeping his back to the younger man and making his way to his clothing with as much speed as possible when one was pretending they weren’t in a hurry at all. He pulled his ripped jean shorts up wet legs and fastened at least one button before pulling his shirt over his head.
He didn’t notice the thoughtful eyes that followed his every move and that glared angrily at the worn denim now covering a bronzed and muscled ass.
Tony was easy to be around and torturous at the same time. Franks had yet to make an appearance since DiNozzo showed up and Gibbs was left in frustrated desire at the younger mans constant presence. It had been almost a week since his arrival and Gibbs spent his time waffling between enjoying Tony’s easy camaraderie and struggling not to throw him down and fuck him through the sand.
Tony had suddenly become a sun baby and took to wearing just a pair of low slung worn-through linen shorts. His Italian skin became more golden with each day and as his skin got darker, his hair bleached blond at the tips and his eyes became impossibly greener.
They worked on Franks’ deck and when that was done, started on the patched and leaky roof. Tony took to the work easily and Gibbs would sometimes just stare at the picture he made, wood nails pinched between full lips and hammer in hand, laying precise hand cut shingle after precise hand cut shingle. For a man who grew up rich and spoiled Tony had no compunction about manual labour. He seemed to relish the work and they would labour in companionable silence, Franks’ small, tin sounding radio playing rhythmic, island music.
Gibbs had asked him one night as they stared into the fire pit and sipped a small glass of good booze, just what Tony was doing spending his vacation time with an old marine when he could be investigating all those tiny bathing suits he talked about.
“What and miss seeing Gibbs in his natural element?” Tony joked, but at Gibbs long stare he shrugged a peeling, freckled shoulder. “I’ve seen all the itsy, bitsy, teenie, weenies I need to see, Boss… I’d rather be here.”
Gibbs let the words settle over him for a long moment and he turned towards Tony before he could stop himself.
His eyes got caught on Tony’s and the younger man moved closer, until they were a bare breath away from each other. Tony’s hand came up and touched Gibbs cheek, short nails scratching lightly at his beard.
“I like this.” Tony said quietly and Gibbs saw DiNozzo’s eyes drop to his mouth.
Tony’s breath whispered over Gibbs lips, it smelled like bourbon and toothpaste and Gibbs thought he was loosing his mind all over again.
He watched as Tony’s lids dropped over his eyes and Gibbs moved the smallest bit closer and closed his own.
The screech that came from the small sail boat was followed by a shriek of laughter, the sound of a floating party carrying clearly over the water to the beach. The men jerked apart at the sound and the moment was gone. Gibbs and DiNozzo leaned back into their chairs, cheeks flushed, drinking liquor that suddenly tasted like ashes and both pretending that nothing of significance had just happened.
****
Since Franks had abandoned Jethro at DiNozzo’s arrival, the younger man hadn’t needed to share Gibbs’ room after all and he slept each night in the Master bedroom. Called ‘Master’ only due to the fact that the spare bedroom was barely bigger than the double bed that was jammed into it.
Gibbs tossed and turned, tangling himself in sweat damp sheets, cursing as he yanked at the top sheet that had somehow wound its way around his neck.
The room was lit only by the pale glow of the quarter moon, there were no street lights or suburban haze here and the shadows threw mysterious shapes on the wall and across the floor.
Gibbs stared at he shadows, feeling a drop of sweat run irritatingly down his neck into the pillow beneath his head. He ran a hand through the damp hair on his chest and briefly wondered if he should haul himself out of bed and go for a swim. He was too tired to trust himself in the water, though, despite how restless he felt and so he shifted in bed again. He flipped onto his stomach, curled one arm around his head and shoved his other hand beneath his hip.
Gibbs was intimately familiar with sleepless nights; he had many throughout his life. Back in DC, when he was too tired to do any physical labour but too wired to sleep he would slip down to his basement, crawl beneath his boat and absorb the smells of sawdust and sweat. He’d go over, in minute detail what the boat would look like when it was finished. The size and placement of the head and galley, what equipment he would fork out for, and what he would do without. It was his version of counting sheep and usually by the time he reached inventorying the navigational hardware he’d need, he’d be well on his way to sleep.
He wasn’t home, though and his boat was thousands of miles away, acquiring a coating of dust.
Gibbs stayed on his stomach as long as he could, hoping his brain would finally switch off; when his hand fell asleep beneath his hip he could have cried at the absurdity of it. Instead, he flipped over again and shoved his pillow behind his head. He lay still for a less than a minute before he the clump of feathers bunched together at the base of his neck forced him to move. Gibbs grabbed the pillow and punched it into the mattress, then he punched it a few more times, in frustration.
“You OK, Boss?”
Tony’s voice broke softly into Gibbs’ aggravation, he looked up to see the younger man leaning against his doorframe. Arms folded over bare chest, a sliver of moonlight slashing across his torso, painting the hair silver.
Gibbs couldn’t make out Tony’s features but he was sure that he was smiling.
“Fine, DiNozzo, just can’t seem to sleep. I wake you?”
Tony stepped into the room, “Nah, can’t really sleep myself.”
Gibbs became acutely aware that the only thing covering his naked body was a thin, sweat damp sheet.
“Oh, I…” Gibbs trailed off. He didn’t know what to say. Tony was standing a foot away from his bed in the middle of the night and he was naked and Tony wasn’t far from it.
“I can help you out with that.” Tony said, taking another step forward until his shin bumped against the foot of the bed
Gibbs tongue was suddenly too big for his too dry mouth.
“How…uh, how would you do that?” he swallowed. The sweat on his skin seemed to dry all at once and a shiver ran through his body, hardening his nipples and sensitizing his skin.
Tony reached out and ran a strong hand up Gibbs calf, over his knee and ending at the base of a lean thigh. He leaned over slowly and placed his other hand on the bed until his upper body was just about straddling Gibbs’ hips.
“I can make you feel good, Gibbs. I can make you feel so good.” Tony whispered, sliding his hand further up Gibbs thigh only stopping when he reached the seam of Gibbs hip, long fingers just brushing crinkly hair.
Gibbs closed his eyes at the wave of sensation that swept over him. His prick jumped and he pushed, involuntarily, into Tony’s wandering fingers.
His sack brushed firmly against large knuckles.
“What…” he asked, “Why, Tony?”
Tony smiled and Gibbs made out the white gleam of his teeth in the pale moonlight. The smile was a predatory one and Gibbs’ prick filled out and lengthened beneath it’s sharp gaze.
Tony kneeled onto the bed, he rubbed Gibbs hip with one hand while he pulled the thin sheet off him with the other. “Because I want to Gibbs. I’ve wanted to for a while.”
Gibbs breath came faster and when Tony grasped the base of his prick and stroked once, firmly, from base to tip, he let out a loud, feral moan.
“Tony.” Gibbs moaned desperately, “This doesn‘t make any sense.” He was so out of his element, he’d swear he was in a particularly erotic dream, if his heart wasn’t pounding so hard he thought he might die.
Tony ran gentling hands down his thighs and he whispered nonsensical things and laid soft kisses on Gibbs belly and sack and one to the very tip of his rigid prick.
“Shhh, I’m going to take care of you, Gibbs.” Tony said, his tongue flicking out to draw a drop of fluid from Gibbs cock into his mouth, “Trust me Gibbs, I’m good at this.”
Gibbs almost laughed, but Tony swallowed him whole and he couldn’t breathe with how good it was.
Gibbs fisted his hands in the bedding beneath him and he arched his hips hard, trying to get himself further down into that warm and wet and mind blowing heat.
Tony pulled back a little and chuckled and the vibrations sent Gibbs’ eyeballs into the back of his skull.
He reached down to touch Tony’s hair, face, anything, to pull him up and against his chest, to finally, finally, finally kiss that tempting mouth but the younger man pulled away, laughter in his voice.
“No this time, baby, this time we do it my way, you OK with that?”
Gibbs could only nod his head, but the movement must have satisfied DiNozzo because he lowered his head and sucked Gibbs prick back into his mouth. He sucked wetly at the head before making his way slowly down Gibbs’ thick shaft. Tony nuzzled Gibbs balls with his nose before ducking his head lower and swiping a wet stripe over Gibbs hole.
Gibbs howled something unintelligible and thrust into nothing, his wet prick drying in the hot Mexican air.
Gibbs could feel Tony’s smile against his ass, as that talented organ tongued its way inside of Gibbs hole, passed the tight ring of muscle. Tony fucked Gibbs slowly with his tongue adding one long finger and then another. He pushed Gibbs lean, bronzed legs apart and then settled each one on his shoulder as he pushed further inside, stroking the quivering walls and brushing the sensitive bundle of nerves deep inside.
Tony coated his fingers with the lube he had pocketed earlier and stroked it inside the older man, opening him slowly, stretching him until three fingers and diligent tongue moved with ease.
Tony shifted forward on the bed, pushing Gibbs legs forward until they braced against the other man’s panting chest.
Gibbs was drowning in sensation and Tony was lighting up parts of his body he didn’t even know he had. He grabbed his knees unconsciously when Tony pressed them back and he lay splayed open for the younger man, presenting himself unwittingly, his eyes unfocused and his lips red and nearly bitten through.
“Fuck, Gibbs, you look so hot like this, I knew you would.” Tony bent over Gibbs body and pressed his mouth against Gibbs’ panting one.
It was their first kiss; it was wet and sloppy and filled mostly with gasping breaths and warm pants of air.
“I’m going to do you now, babe and I’m clean and I know you are so I’m just going to fuck you bareback, the way I always do in my dreams.” Tony panted and pressed the thick head of his cock against Gibbs’ wet hole.
Gibbs groaned and grabbed Tony’s face with both hands, “Do it, Tony, do it. Fuck me.”
Tony’s moaned low in his throat and when Gibbs let his face go, he dropped his head onto Gibbs shoulder and flexed his hips, pushing his cock all the way inside in one long push.
Tony moved slowly at first, fucking Gibbs with long, smooth strokes until the other man’s body became accustomed to it, until he started panting for more, Tony sped up the pace, changing his angle minutely until he got the one that made Gibbs holler and rip the sheets below him with powerful clenching fists.
Gibbs belly clenched hard and his orgasm came over him with the strength of a tsunami and come fountained out of him and his cock hadn’t been touched.
Tony followed moments later when his own prick was squeezed impossibly tight by slick, shuddering walls. Tony fell onto Gibbs chest laughing and panting and he pressed small thankful kisses onto Gibbs’ neck, easing shaking legs off his shoulders. Tony settled his head down onto Gibbs chest and wrapped an arm around him possessively, dropping a final kiss on Gibb’s exposed nipple before shutting his eyes.
Gibbs stroked a big hand through Tony’s sweat soaked hair and grinned to himself. He was nothing but limp satisfaction and he was certain the smile he wore was an idiotic one. His ‘well fucked face’ ex wife number two had dubbed it. Though how she had even recognised something she’d seen maybe a half dozen times throughout their three year relationship was beyond them. Gibbs was fighting to stay awake, fighting to keep this feeling a little bit longer when it suddenly hit him what he’d done.
He’d fucked another man… Correction he’d let another man fuck him and he’d loved it. Marine gunnery sergeant Leroy Jethro Gibbs had held himself open for another man to come inside of. Gibbs shot upright, dislodging Tony from where he lay against his chest.
“Hmph, was up?” Tony slurred, already more than half asleep.
Gibbs eased out of bed slowly grabbing his discarded shorts off the chair near the door and pulling them on.
“Nothing, Tony.” he said, “You go back to bed.”
Tony muttered something unintelligible and wrapped the thin sheet further around himself, snuggling his face into the pillow with a soft, dreamy, sigh.
Gibbs stared at the sleeping man for a long moment before dropping a kiss on his forehead and slipping out the door.
****
The sun had just begun to kiss the horizon as Gibbs sat in his favourite chair, coffee in hand and staring into the new day. He hadn’t gotten up this early since he quit NCIS and he found he missed the quiet of the early morning more than he would have thought.
Gibbs sipped his coffee slowly and absorbed the sounds of the tide lapping against the shore. It was soothing to a mind fraught with contradiction. A shrink he had dated one summer said that watching the tide soothed our primitive brain with memories of our natal experience inside the womb. Gibbs didn’t give a lot of weight to psychology, but something about that had always rung true to him. When Gibbs thought of his future it had always been one of peace and quiet adventure on the ocean.
It had just never included another man at his side. Now, he could imagine it easily, Docking in ports around the world, DiNozzo at his side, exploring countries and peoples he could never have imagined. Checking into fancy hotels when roughing it got to be too much, Tony’s skin sliding over silk sheets… Gibbs scowled as his thoughts went round and round until his mind felt like nothing more than a snake swallowing its tail
He was going on 51 years old, wasn’t that too old to expect him to deal with the events of last night with grace?
Last night… Damn, he’d had the single most pleasurable experience of his life. Last night… last night he hadn’t been in control of himself. He’d arched and mewled and begged Tony to fuck him and when he had…. it was…
The screen door shut lightly behind him and Gibbs tensed listening to bare feet slap lightly against new wood.
Warm arms wrapped around him and Tony leaned down, kissing the side of Gibbs’ neck and running his hands over Gibbs’ cloth covered chest.
“Last night blew my mind, Boss.” Tony whispered sucking a wet round mark into Gibbs’ neck and covering it with close mouthed kisses. “Mmm, you taste good.”
“So all those women, DiNozzo, they all lies?” Gibbs lifted his coffee, deliberately breaking Tony’s hold against his chest.
Tony lifted his head off Gibbs’ neck and he grinned before pressing a kiss to the top of his head, “Nuh-uh, Boss. I don’t lie about sex.”
“You don’t, huh?”
“Nope.”
“So what the hell was this then?” Gibbs asked, though he knew, he knew he shouldn’t. He’d just had his first gay experience and he felt strangely vulnerable and he wondered for just a moment if this was how women felt after sex.
Tony moved in front of Gibbs and dropped to his knees. He took Gibbs’ cup out of his hands and set it on the deck before kissing him. It was soft and slow and wet and exactly how Gibbs liked it. Like he was in no hurry and he could do this for days. Gibbs stroked Tony’s back and ran his hands up underneath his t-shirt feeling soft warm skin.
“This was good, Gibbs. This was so good.” Tony whispered and nipped at his swollen, beard abraded mouth. “I’ve been jerking off over you for years, I never thought I’d ever get the chance to have you.”
Gibbs sputtered a laugh against Tony’s mouth.
“Real charming, DiNozzo.”
Tony grinned proudly and met Gibbs eyes through a fringe of absurdly long lashes. “You’re not going to tell me you haven’t shot a load thinking of me, are you?”
And just like that, it wasn’t so weird anymore. Gibbs didn’t want men. He didn’t want random men the same way he didn’t want random women and what he wanted didn’t make him aberrant. He just wanted to watch Tony when he smiled, and he wanted to laugh when he couldn’t help it. And, hell yeah, he wanted the mind blowing sex that came along with it.
Gibbs wrapped a big hand around Tony’s neck and drew him closer, opening his mouth and mapping Tony’s tongue with his own.
He’d figure the rest out as it came along.
The End.
Story Notes:
I'm a newbie to NCIS and one of the first fics I ran across was born from the prompt, "Gibbs wakes up Gay". The idea stuck... so whoever started the bunny, thank you and I hope you don't mind that I picked the furry little thing up and ran with it
Author's Chapter Notes:
Gibbs wakes up from his coma a different man
Chapter End Notes:
I'm a newbie to NCIS and one of the first fics I ran across was born from the prompt, "Gibbs wakes up Gay". The idea stuck... so whoever started the bunny, thank you and I hope you don't mind that I picked the furry little thing up and ran with it