(vii)
"Are you freebasing? Enquiring minds want to know."
-
"Anything new come up on the case after I took off?" Tony asked, in an effort to not fall asleep.
They were watching infomercials. He had more than a hundred channels, and that's what Abby stopped at. Infomercials. Her eyes were glued to the screen and she was chuckling insanely to herself. Occasionally he thought he saw her mouthing along to the dialogue, but he was admittedly a bit out of it, so he could have imagined that. Hopefully.
("Did somebody say 'Muffins?'")
"No," she replied absently, popping another pistachio in her mouth and placing the shells in the growing pile on his chest. "But Gibbs broke my phone."
Tony blinked. "He what?"
"He broke my phone. I was in the evidence garage turning over every single leaf on a dozen rosebushes – it was like a huge and exhausting and really boring game of He-loves-me-he-loves-me-not...the answer was NOT, by the way – and Jimmy was on a food run for everybody but he was kind of taking forever and I thought maybe he'd been distracted by Agent Lee – can you believe he thinks I don't know about that? You know about that, right? Of course you do - and I was really hungry so I took out my phone to call him and then Gibbs snuck up on me!" she said, as if that explained everything.
"And, what?...he used his glare of doom to make your phone implode for making personal calls on his time?" Tony guessed. "No, wait...he only attempts that with field agents."
Abby stuck her tongue out at him. "Ha, ha. Funny. But no. He snuck up on me and that caused me to freak out and then I almost fell into the wickedly prickly 'Pride of England' roses but Gibbs caught me at the last moment and that sent the phone flying and then McMasters backed over it with the fork lift. Splat. Or, you know, more like crunch. Gibbs was like the chaos butterfly. It flaps its wings in the Amazon and then there's a storm in Africa. He said he'd get me a new one."
"He didn't get ME a new one when he threw mine out the window of a moving car."
"Of course he didn't. That was clearly YOUR fault, Tony. Ooooh. Watch this! This is the best part."
"There are no 'best parts' of infomercials."
"Are too! Now shh!"
("Let me ask you: What is the worst job you have to do in the kitchen?"
"And almost every meal starts with it?"
"Chopping garlic! Stinky, nasty garlic!")
Okay, so he hadn't imagined it. Abby was definitely miming. There was a terrifying, cigarette wielding harridan on the screen, ohh-ing and ahh-ing over perfectly chopped onions in just ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR seconds! Tony didn't think they looked very perfectly chopped. Nothing like Nana Laura's, that's for sure. He yawned. Nana Laura wouldn't have liked this century. Too many people cheating themselves through life. Mio bambino terribile, he could hear her say, as she'd done so many times in the past, man can not expect true happiness as long as he has nothing of his own he can feel proud of. It needs not be some grand accomplishment...This bread that I bake, it may seem like a small thing to some, but it is good, is it not? It melts on your tongue and fills your belly. I take pride in that. I say to myself, I, Laura, made this bread, and it keeps hunger away from us. It is a quiet happiness, but it lasts. I pray to Our Lady every day that you will find something to be proud of, Antonio. Have you?
I try, Nana. I try. The yawn came back with a vengeance, and he stretched half-heartedly, turning away from the tv and into Abby, causing a rockslide in the mountain of nutshells. He couldn't bring himself to care, as he was already slipping into sleep. Gibbs would just have to deal with being one man down for another day, because Tony was not moving...
-
The lab was silent. With no tests to run, Abby found herself playing stupid flash games online. She was congratulating herself on beating the highscore of Cubesteak's Slingshot Surprise, (the goal of which was to shoot pirates with a slingshot by clicking frenetically on the left mouse button), when McGee walked in.
"Heyyy, Timmy!" she greeted. "Check out my mad virtual slingshot skillz!"
"Hello, Abby," he said, with that precise little pause he put between his words when he was either a) petulant or b) playing besserwisser. Looking up at him, she carefully circled option a in her mind. And her day had been looking so good! With the apologizing going amazingly well, and her favourite infomercial on tv, and Tony making that adorable sleepy growly noise when she wriggled out from under him on the couch to go to work, and Gibbs dropping off no less than TWO CafPows even though he knew she had nothing new for him...she did NOT want a cranky McGee raining on her parade and ruining the general awesomeness.
"So...What's up, McGee?" she asked warily. Please let it be about the case. Please let it be about the case. Please let it be about the case.
"Nothing...Can't I just come down to see you?" McGee, attempting to be covert? With HER? Oh, this was worse than she'd thought.
"You can," she allowed, "but you're not. There's something bugging that MIT-approved mind of yours, and I have no idea whatsoever what it is, but I'm sure you think I should know, so you'd better enlighten me."
"I...don't know what you're talking about." he said guiltily, looking everywhere but at her.
"Uh-huh." She took a deep, fortifying sip of CafPow, and shot some more pirates. McGee stayed where he was.
"What's going on with you and Tony?" he blurted, after five minutes of uncomfortable silence.
"What do you mean?" Don't panic, don't panic...he can't possibly know about Tony. There's no way. Unless he hacked my computer. Oh my goth, he didn't hack my computer, did he? The BASTARD! I'm so kicking his ass!
"Come on, Abby, I'm not stupid! The way he looks at you! And the way he's always hanging around down here now! Are you seeing him?"
Abby fought the urge to laugh out loud in relief. Oh. He's just jealous! Then she got pissed off. They had been over for a long time, which had been his idea to begin with, (his reason being that he thought she got 'overly possessive' when he chatted up girls in her lab), and she'd agreed that they were probably better off as just friends, because that was the lamest excuse she had ever heard. She'd gotten over it, and they had fallen back into the rhythm of friends-and-coworkers, and now here he stood, all self righteous indignation, demanding answers as if he had some kind of claim to her. Where exactly did he get off?
Her eyes narrowed. "Suppose I am, how would that be any of your business?"
"Abby! It's Tony!" Judging by his tone, he clearly felt that should be enough to deter her. Huh. Abby's code of honour stated emphatically that it wasn't fair to insult someone if that someone wasn't there to insult you back. (Exceptions were made if you didn't know anyone was listening, because it's hardly your fault if people sneak around in an unsporting manner. Or if you were off on a really good rant, that was an exception too, because you couldn't be expected to know where you were going with what you were saying until you got there). McGee was seriously in violation of the code. She crossed her arms over her chest, going into protective mother lion mode. Oh, it's ON, buster!
"Yeees, and your point is?" She fluttered her eyelashes at him exaggeratedly. "Tony is a catch! He's cute, charming, generous, funny, has taste," she gave him a pointed look, "drives an awesome car, can order dinner in Italian..." she paused, smirking wickedly, "...hey, I know what this is about! You want him for yourself, admit it!" Score!
"What?! No!" he sputtered, turning a rather nasty shade of red. Abby performed an intricate little dance of malicious glee in her head. "Abby! You can't go out with Tony! You know what he's like!"
"Yes, I know what he's like. He's my best friend! And since he's had your back for several years I kind of figured YOU knew what he's like, too, but apparently not! And you can untwist your fugly thursday boxers, because I'm not seeing him! But if I was, and if I ever do, it's STILL none of your business, Timothy McGee!"
"And do you think Gibbs would think it was none of his business, either? Huh?"
She very much wanted to smack him. Hard. "Gibbs, very much like you, actually, has no say in my lovelife at this point. Now I think you should go, because you're just being nasty."
The awesomeness was definitely ruined.
-
Kate, when she was alive, had claimed to have a whole list of reasons why she never wanted to see Tony's apartment. He'd pretended to be insulted, but really, he didn't want her to see his apartment either. It had always been his sanctuary, his den, and he tried to keep it as free of foreign scents as possible. He never took any of his dates there – the luxurious egyptian cotton sheets were for him alone. He could count on the fingers of his hands the number of times there had been more than one expensive cut crystal glass waiting to be washed and dried on the kitchen counter. He hired a service to come polish the floor once every three months, (vacuuming was fine, but a man had to draw the line somewhere) and that was usually it for human presence. Just the way he wanted it. A clean and calm oasis, without threats or aggravations, somewhere to escape the artillery of sounds and scents that assaulted him as soon as he was out the door.
Now, though, his dominion had been thoroughly invaded. Normally this would have sent him into a territorial cleaning frenzy, but Abby's scent drifted langorously through his rooms, blending with his own musk and penetrating everywhere, and to his surprise he didn't mind at all. If anything, it was a bit too nice, almost like the scent of sire, almost like home, and he knew that should scare the crap out of him. For the life of him he couldn't figure out why it didn't.
To be continued.
Author's Chapter Notes:
there is chopped onions. and a little fight.
Chapter End Notes:
hi, sweets. i still don't own ncis. or the magic bullet infomercial. or cubesteak's slingshot surprise.