GIBBS
If anyone cared to ask (and they won't, if they have any sense), he'd laugh it off and say he doesn't care, don't be so ridiculous, does he look like a teenaged boy, but the fact Kate seems to have been avoiding him all evening is really beginning to bug him.
He feels like an idiot even thinking it, and that annoys him even more. Especially since 'all evening' has in fact been not much longer than an hour, and he has spent the last week protesting that he has no desire to go out for Christmas drinks even just for their team, never mind as a big NCIS group. Not remotely his scene.
He has decided to leave at least three times, and every time either Ducky or Abby somehow magically appears at his side and talks him into staying a little longer, or just... talks, something they're both rather too good at, until he gives up trying to make his excuses and orders another bourbon. Now it's got to the stage where he definitely shouldn't drive himself home, and the idea of calling a taxi or trying to talk someone into giving him a lift seems like much too much effort.
So he's had a reluctant front row seat to Kate's antics.
'Antics' is, if he's honest, not really fair. She's not sticking her tongue down men's throats with reckless abandon, and only a few people have merited kisses on the lips at all. (He's making an effort not to keep tabs. It isn't working particularly well. He has a list.) She's merely working the room, charming her colleagues with smiles and seasonal greetings, and the mistletoe just seems like an excuse, an ice breaker.
Now she's giving Abby a hug and a peck on both cheeks again, and really, it's kind of nice that she's loosened up enough to be having such a good evening. Sometimes she can be altogether too intense, too proper, too straight laced for her own good. That isn't always a bad thing, on the job, but at some point she's going to have to learn to take life less seriously if she is going to last on his team. Even Gibbs will admit that they are an unconventional, quirky group, and a sense of humour is practically a survival trait.
It's taken her a few months to let her hair down, and if a few sprigs of mistletoe are what she needed to express her affection for her coworkers, her friends, then that's a good thing. She's letting everyone know she's happy here at NCIS. That she values and loves them all.
... Except him.
That, in a nutshell, is the problem. He humphs into his glass. Not that he expects or even wants a hug. Never mind a kiss. Obviously. And he's not taking it personally, really he's not.
It's just that he would've hoped that Christmas cheer would at least extend beyond a wave hello when she arrived. He may be her grumpy old boss, but he's worth a little more than that, he thinks. If he'd thought about it. Which he hasn't, obviously.
Or at least, that's what he keeps telling himself.
Finally she meanders over and sits down next to him.
"Hey, Gibbs."
"You forgot your mistletoe," he says, eyes firmly on his glass. Because behaving like the Grinch is always a good way to foster 'goodwill to all men' and all that other stuff.
"Don't need it."
Ouch. He looks at her. His frown is completely transparent, he realises, but he can't help it. She's just made him feel about five hundred. "Oh. I see."
She grins. "No, I don't think you do." He glowers at her for a few more seconds, which she appears to find thoroughly amusing, and then she points upwards.
OK. So, he's sitting underneath a huge bunch of mistletoe. He didn't realise. Feels a bit stupid. But still, she's left him till last and he doesn't feel great about that.
"Guess you're stuck then," he says.
She gives him a strange look. "What?"
"Stuck with me, I mean." God, he sounds pathetic. He really hopes that come the morning they'll all blame alcohol for any embarrassing lapses in his all knowing, all seeing, invincible man of steel act.
"Gibbs." She shakes her head, smiles. "You know kids?"
He gives her a strange look right back, then. Where did that come from? "What is this in aid of?"
"Some of them, they want to eat their dessert first and if you let them then they don't even want their main course."
He nods understanding, although frankly he doesn't really understand why she's talking about this.
"And you have to bribe them to eat their vegetables."
He's getting even more confused. "What's your point, Kate?"
"And then there are the other kids who start with the things they hate worst like sprouts or cabbage, and then eat the rest and then they eat dessert. Saving the best till last." She leans in a little closer. "And some of them even eat it real slow and make it last, so they're the kid who's still licking chocolate off their fingers when the other kids are whining that they don't want their vegetables." Her voice turns low and seductive, and even if he knew what question to ask to make sense of this, out of nowhere his brain seems to be melting out of his ears and he isn't certain he could string the words together.
He really has no idea where she's going, what she's trying to say, or why his heart is thumping so hard in his chest. He is, however, suddenly very eager to find out.
"Gibbs?"
"Yeah?"
She's inches away now, and maybe he does get the mistletoe kiss after all, but he still doesn't understand.
"Something you should know about me."
"Uh huh?"
And the last thing she says, in a murmur meant only for his ears, before her mouth finally lands on his:
"I always, always ate my vegetables first."