Written for the impossible choices challenge. I wanted to do one that didn't involve death.
Title: The Choice
Characters: Tony, Ziva, Tim and Tony's frat buddy Tim
Genre: Friendship
Rating: G
Word Count: 1544
Summary - choice without death.
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The Choice
Tony and Ziva stood at the closed door of a small office crammed into a crowded nook atop a narrow set of rickety wooden stairs. Outside, a disdainful sea tossed choppy waves at the squabbling seagulls on the dock filling the air with a thick, briny stench.
"Let me do the talking," said Tony. "These guys are like the Mafia. You may think you're talking to some little powerless runt but standing behind him in the shadows are a hundred armed henchmen and well connected family members."
"You think they will intimidate me?" asked Ziva incredulously.
"No, I think you'll piss them off enough that they'll kill me."
Ziva narrowed her eyes at him. "Let us just play this by book."
Tony squeezed his eyes together for a moment. "Play by the book or play by ear: not both," he clarified. "I am definitely doing the talking."
He rapped three times in short succession.
"Enter," rang a slightly accented voice.
With a final warning glare in Ziva's direction, Tony gently eased the door open.
"Tony!"
In his wildest dreams, Tony never expected see one of his three best friends in the whole world sitting behind an over-sized mahogany desk which almost touched both sides of the room. Dressed in a shiny black suit with embarrassingly wide lapels and his hair slicked back, Joey looked the epitome of a young Mediterranean male. Or the sad personification of guy pushing 40, desperately trying to a hide a bald patch and still under the delusion he was a stud. Either way, he was a sight for sore eyes.
"Joey!"
Joey rose from his chair, wormed his way around his desk, weaved past two enormous leather armchairs that filled the rest of the room, grasped Tony's proffered hand and launched into a full-blown hug.
Tony felt a warm glow burn deep within him. Joey has been in his Alpha Chi Delta pledge class at Ohio State. At a time when his biological family wanted nothing to do with him, his frat buddies were his life and his three best friends were like the brothers he never had. Each escaping rich yet loveless backgrounds, they satisfied an inherent need for love in each other. The four of them had bonded in a way he had never thought possible: an unconditional friendship which made his real home almost bearable.
Tony took a step back, almost stepping out of the room, and took Joey in. "Man, what are you doing here?"
"I'm running my old man's shipping company and waiting for some damn cops to question me."
"Navy cops?"
"Yeah Navy…hey that's you! I knew you got out of the police force but I forgot you were – what are they? CBSN?"
"NCIS," Ziva offered.
"That's the one." He stopped short and ran his eyes over Ziva. "Hey, no wonder you work there. Do they all look like her?"
"Only the scary ones."
Ziva elbowed him in the stomach. "We would like to ask you some questions, Mr.."
"Joey," the man invited, settling himself on the edge of the desk, "call me Joey. Sit, sit, sit." He indicated the two armchairs facing his desk. "You know Tony and I were in the same pledge class, we did a spring break re-union down in Florida two or three years ago." He turned to Tony with a smile that threatened to split his face in two. "Man, we have to do that again."
"Yeah," Tony enthused, landing in his seat with a hearty thump. "Man, it is so good to see you."
"Mr…. Joey," Ziva adopted a serious tone. "We need to ask you some questions."
Joey stopped his mutual grinning fest with Tony and sobered. "Look, I swear I have no idea how a dozen crates of Navy equipment ended up on my dock."
"Did you meet the Captain?" asked Ziva.
"Yeah, sure: nice guy, good haircut, great taste in shoes…" He paused as he caught Ziva's expression and turned to face Tony. "Look he did all the paperwork, paid his bills and got out on time. I wish all my customers were that good."
"Except that the cargo was stolen," Ziva pointed out.
Joey bristled. "It didn't have 'property of US Navy currently being stolen' stamped on the side."
"OK," Tony raised his hands to calm the mood. "Do you think you could pick him out of some photos?"
"I could try."
"That's all we ask, buddy."
"Ahh, Tony." All three turned at the sound of McGee's voice as he poked his head through the door. "I've packed the computers, is there anything else you want me to do before I head back."
Tony opened his mouth but never got the chance to speak.
"Whoa, look who it is!"
Tony blinked at Joey, then at McGee, then Joey, then Ziva just in case it would help. It didn't. "You guys know each other?"
McGee looked thoroughly confused.
"Well, we've never been formally introduced but I'd know that face anywhere."
Tony cringed. "Don't tell me you read murder-mystery books."
Joey's blank face told him that he rarely read books, let alone knew they came in different genres.
"No, it's porta-potty boy!"
McGee's expression transformed from confusion to pure horror.
"It's 'Mr MIT', 'going to be a big shot one day'. You missed some fine geek-bashing that summer vacation, Tony." He turned his attention to McGee. "All that study and look how you end up," he slapped Tony on the shoulder. "Working for a Phys Ed major: who's the smart guy now?"
Joey's snide grin was infectious, spreading instantaneously to Tony. It was a habit ingrained over many, many years.
"Remember what we used to do to geeks, Tony?"
Tony's smiled slunk away as he saw the pain in McGee's eyes.
"You should have seen what we did to this guy," Joey continued, leering at McGee and inviting Tony's appreciation.
"Hey, man," Tony said awkwardly. "That's ancient history. Probie here's a bud, now."
"I'll take the stuff back to headquarters," McGee mumbled, reversing hastily out the door.
"Still running to mummy, I see," Joey smirked.
"Hey com'on Joey," Tony's voice grew loud with a pleading forcefulness.
"Com'on," Joey sneered. "You remember how much you used to enjoy it. Let's take the nerd outside – just you, me and him."
Suddenly Tony was on his feet with Joey's wide lapels grasped tightly in his fists. "He is an on duty federal agent; you give him the respect he deserves."
Joey regarded Tony with an amused twinkle in his eyes. "You're right – when does he get off work? I'll kill him then."
McGee was already shutting the door.
"Get back in here, Probie," Tony called, not taking his eyes from Joey. His peripheral vision caught Ziva lining up one of her Vulcan death grips but he needed to do this his way. "He's mine, Ziva." He muttered ominously under his breath. "Threatening a federal agent is a crime, Joey: don't make me arrest you."
"I take it back," spat Joey inches from Tony's face, "it isn't worth the skirt," he indicated Ziva, "if you have to work with losers like that every day."
Tony paused examining Joey's face. In his clenched hands he held his dearest frat buddy: the closest thing he had to family. They had crammed for exams together, cheated off each other, got drunk together and tortured geeks together. Oh how they had enjoyed torturing geeks, the many conquests were fodder for laughter-filled nights of frat house tales. Even when he felt completely powerless, geeks were always one step lower in the pecking order.
He shifted his eyes from Joey's face. Hovering uncertainly halfway in the doorway stood a grade A geek: the object of his adolescent derision, the plaything in his favourite childhood sport. McGee: just ripe for the picking.
"Special Agent McGee is a better man than you'll ever be, Joey" Tony growled pushing him back a step and releasing his now crumpled lapels.
McGee's eyes went wide.
"He's no Alpha Chi Delta, Tony," Joey challenged. "You and I: we're frat buddies for life."
"Not anymore," Tony said quietly, turning from him in disgust. "Ziva, take him to the car. He's needed downtown for questioning."
McGee flattened himself against the wall as Ziva bustled Joey out of the room with one arm wrenched behind his back.
Tony stood breathing heavily, his mouth set in grim determination.
"You didn't have to do that, Tony," McGee said steadily. "I could have just left and you and your frat buddy could have made some lame jokes about me and you could have kept your friend. I wouldn't have minded."
Tony focused on the younger agent's face, seeing the earnestness of his words. McGee truly would have relinquished self respect for his happiness. "I would have minded, Probie" he said quietly.
They stood in silence for a few seconds.
"Besides," Tony added, snapping back to his old self. "I couldn't let him kill you: I need you to reach old age."
"Because you want to be lifelong friends?" McGee ventured hopefully.
"Nope," said Tony, wrapping a friendly arm around McGee's shoulders and steering them both out the door, "because I'm saving up 'McGeezer' for when you're old and grey – or bald: I saw that receding hairline when you shaved your head."