Warnings: This is unashamedly a high school AU, so cliches abound! It will remain gen for the most part with no intentional character bashing, as I love team friendship fics. That is all. Thanks for your time. :)
Free Fall
Chapter 1: The Move
Free fall. That was the only way Tim could think to describe it.
He knew that the sensation of weightlessness people sometimes experienced in these situations was an illusion, that even if he were currently in a state of free-fall (which he was not), the absence of contact forces acting on his body, not the absence of weight, itself, would result in that unpleasant feeling of having the foundation suddenly crumble beneath your feet.
Yes, free fall felt like an appropriate word choice to his writer's mind as his mother's words rang in his ears.
He tongued the open cut on his bottom lip, a thrill of uncertainty rushing through his veins, "Maryland?"
"Maryland," his mother confirmed. "With your uncle."
The vague image of a man with dark hair and eyes like cold stone flitted across his brain, and he felt more than a little unsettled.
Incidentally, his uncle wasn't his uncle at all. Growing up, his father had, had no siblings, but he did have a cousin, one that was similar enough in looks and personality that most of the small Virginian town that had raised them just referred to as his father's brother; hence, the whole uncle thing. They'd grown apart in recent years for some reason or another. Tim, himself, had only met the man briefly, and he didn't much care for him. The thought of spending any amount of time alone with him was not a pleasant one.
"It's only for a little while, Timothy," his mother said gently, and his bruised face must have taken on a greenish hue for her to use such a tender voice. "Just while we figure out how to go forward."
His cheeks felt suddenly hot at the mere allusion to the day's earlier events, and he knew they had turned that awful scarlet color that they sometimes did when he felt any emotion intensely. The injustice of it all was almost too much to tolerate!
"They're the ones who beat me to a pulp, so why am I the one being punished? It's the middle of the semester; I've got a test in two days that I've been studying weeks for! How is this fair?"
Her warm hand closed over his. "This isn't a punishment, honey. It's a solution to a very serious problem that's gone on for too long. We want you to be safe, and your father and I think this is the best option."
His father...
Tim glanced sullenly down the hall toward the closed doors of a study. Most days, it seemed like the man couldn't even stand to be in the same room as him, much less look at him. Of course he'd think shipping his weakling son off to the other side of the country, out of sight and out of mind, was the best option; Tim could think of at least three equally effective, if not better, alternatives off the top of his head. But his father was a stubborn man, and this wasn't really about his safety anyway, it was about correcting a flaw. In the eyes of Admiral McGee, it seemed his son would always come up lacking.
"Yeah," Tim gingerly pressed a hand to his bruised ribs. He didn't feel weightless anymore, just empty. "Yeah, fine. I'll go. Whatever."
"It's going to be okay, sweetie." His mother smiled encouragingly. "Come on, let's get you back to bed. We'll talk with your father once he's off the phone with Uncle Jethro."
Uncle Jethro just might have been the most imposing man Tim had ever seen.
The grim figure was the first thing Tim saw as he stepped off the plane a little less than 48 hours after that late night conversation with his mother, and it was enough to make him want to immediately about-face and catch the next flight back to Alameda, schoolyard torturers be damned! He kept moving forward, though, noting as he did that the crowd awaiting other passengers had instinctively given the man a wide berth.
He was just as Tim remembered. The hairs around his temples were beginning to gray now, but the same solemn eyes stared out of a face that somehow seemed too worn to belong to a person younger than his dad.
He'd expected some sort of greeting, a hasty Welcome!, or at the very least, an inquiry about the ass kicking that had landed him here, the evidence of which was still painfully visible on his face. Instead, he got a silent gesture to follow the man, who turned on his heel and led the way through the busy airport and out to a haphazardly parked vehicle just outside the entrance.
As he hurriedly climbed into the passenger seat, Tim didn't think he remembered his uncle being quite so intimidating the last time they'd crossed paths, but then again, last time, he hadn't been alone in a car with the man and a loaded gun.
Uncle Jethro, his mother had told him on the way to the airport that morning, worked for the government. NCIS. Some Navy thing. Not quite the same as his dad's job, but no less important. And don't let that macho exterior get to you, Timothy, she'd said, it's all for show.
Twenty minutes later, Tim was pressing himself deep into the Charger's leather seat and clutching the door handle as the car skidded down a side street and nearly collided with oncoming traffic. The blueberry and walnut pancakes he'd eaten for breakfast that morning threatened to make a reappearance, and he swallowed convulsively. Uncle Jethro sighed and adjusted the AC, and Tim reminded himself to kindly inform his mother that the macho thing...yeah, that was most definitely genuine.
His mother had been confident that he and his uncle would like each other, and Tim had even felt slightly hopeful as she had cupped his cheek and sent him on his way with a kiss to the top of the head. He trusted her to never lie to him, so he choked down the knot of fear in his throat and tried to make the best of a crappy situation.
"Uh...th-thanks for doing this, Uncle Jethro. I know this is all kinda sudd-"
"Gibbs."
Tim was startled by the barked interjection. "Huh?"
"Call me Gibbs," the man repeated in a firm voice.
It took Tim a minute before comprehension set in, and when it did, he couldn't help but feel some measure of sympathy for the man. Maybe this is what they would bond over.
"My middle name is Irving," he blurted out eagerly, sounding too loud in the confined space. Uncle Jethro didn't show any sign of having heard him. "I'm just saying...I mean, I wanted to tell you, so you wouldn't feel so embarrassed."
"Embarrassed?" Gibbs asked evenly without taking his eyes off the road.
Losing any semblance of confidence he'd managed to build up, Tim rambled on, as he tended to do in such situations. "Well, yeah, of your name. Jethro," too late, Tim realized what he was saying, "Jethro isn't such...such a...um...I wouldn't think...these days...errr...Nevermind." Tim snapped his mouth shut before he could stick his foot in any further. So much for bonding.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Gibbs scrape his tongue against coffee-stained teeth.
That was certainly a look that promised imminent death.
Uncle Jethro, or Gibbs as he apparently preferred to be called, was going to find a way to make him disappear, and frankly, Tim wouldn't blame him. It was these very social skills, or lack thereof, that got him in trouble in California. Here he was half an hour into his stay on the east coast, and already he'd made an enemy.
The longer the silence between them drew on, the surer he was of his demise. Until...
"Irving, huh?" And if Tim didn't know any better, he'd swear he saw the other man's lip quirk in amusement as he spoke.
Maybe his mother was right.
Tim wasn't sure what he was expecting, but the family home before him certainly wasn't it. As far as he could recall, he had no aunts or cousins on his father's side of the family, but he had admittedly been quite content in his ignorance of them until now.
The neighborhood around them, he noticed, which had previously been a flurry of activity, lawn mowers and gardeners, neighbors chatting and children's games spilling out into the road, had come to a complete standstill the moment he stepped out of the car.
Visitors, it seemed, were a rarity at this address.
Was Gibbs so unpleasant that no one stopped by, or did the nature of his job keep him constantly away? The way the neighbors were staring at him, though, the way they whispered out of the corners of their mouths with wide eyes and crossed arms, you'd think he'd done something horrible. Gibbs was an outsider among them.
There was a story here, of course, and Tim loved a good story-so much so, that he had taken it upon himself to pen a few of his own when time allowed-and he would get to the bottom of this one eventually, but as it was, Gibbs had grabbed Tim's duffle bag and had already jogged up the porch steps without a backwards glance, the implication being that he should follow and follow fast.
Gibbs didn't seem like the sort of man who took insubordination well, so Tim hurried after him.
Several houses down, unbeknownst to Tim, dark eyes tracked his movements with great interest.