Tango-Sigma
Main Characters: Gibbs (NCIS- cannon), Tango-Sigma (NCIS- IC)
Fodder: NCIS, Psychic Wolves
Genre: General
Pairings: N/A
Rating: E
Spoilers: N/A
Notes: Written in part for Psychic Wolves for Lupercalia and for my own intently annoying plotbunnies. Main Lupercalia group can be found here over at Archive of Our Own, under the collection called Psychic Wolves.
Summary: Wolves aren't like dogs even a little. But Tango-Sigma is so nearly a person that he's barely a wolf at all, but part of the team.
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Ducky knew dogs in the sense that he knew his mother's Corgi and their antics, and just how flighty their attention span could be, and how when they shed, the hair gets into everything. It was a small consolation to think that his mother loved them and, blessedly, she did not have allergies.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs never had a dog, and for long as Ducky had known him, Tango-Sigma had never acted like a dog, so much so that the wolf was constantly teaching people new things.
For instance, Tango could be trusted to behave himself in the autopsy room.
For a long time, whenever Gibbs walked in, Tango would plant himself just outside the doors, looking inside longingly until they closed. Gibbs himself would pause, glance back at the doors for just a moment, and then seem to shake himself out of the feeling to see whatever Dr Mallard had found. When he left, he would stop at Tango's side while the wolf stood up, then as one they would head for the elevator, Gibbs' palm resting between his brother's ears, seperate parts of the whole.
The whole thing had always left Ducky feeling like he'd kicked someone's puppy, and so, after some time, he'd gotten a stool and planted it by the table. The next time Gibbs had come down, Tango stopped at the door and Gibbs stopped just beyond it, and they'd both looked at him for a long time.
Ducky had pretended not to notice until they had eased themselves inside, Gibbs stopping by the table and Tango climbing up on the stool, awfully spry for an old Marine with a leg injury.
"What you got, Ducky?"
"Ah, Jethro! I was about to call you! Tango, look at this, wont you?"
It wasn't a grateful expression, exactly. But it left him feeling thanked all the same.
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Tango could also be trusted in Abby's lab.
Gibbs would slip in, CafPow in one hand, and Tango would ease in beside him, all powerful muscles beneath the gray and brown coat that declared him from Timber stock, and Abby would sense them there and turn, multitasking her greeting in voice and sign.
"Hay, Gibbs!" Hello, TS!
Nearly always, Tango was at Gibbs' side there, but sometimes he'd stay by Abby's whenever Gibbs went to look at the big screen, keeping watch at the door like the guard dog he wasn't. Rarely, when Abby was working on something, Tango would hover just outside her door, his sense of smell far too keen to let him inside to stay.
Sorry, TS, she'd sign quickly, and Tango would bob his head in understanding before turning his attention down the halls.
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Unlike many wolves, Tango could be trusted in the darkness of MTAC, at the end of the row of seats or by his brother's form on the radio set.
Sometimes his presence helped; a Marine's brother at his side even in off-duty gave him certification, reminded teams on the other end that this man could be trusted, for all his gray hair and Special Agent status. That he was still a Marine as they all were; a Marine of older years and older wolf.
Sometimes, when Gibbs was particularly frustrated at the people on the other end, Tango-Sigma did not help at all, on all four legs, ears flattened to his skull and a low, angry growl seeping from between bared teeth. But to his credit, the wolf never leap at the image that upset his brother, even if all his own anger and upset compounded upon Gibbs and made the man absolutely insufferable.
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One place Tango never had to be trusted to be on his best behavior was in the basement, and the first time the team had ever seen him nestled in the ribs of a boat, he was gnawing on a barbequed steak and looking positively content.
But Gibbs didn't have a gun in the basement with his boat and his alcohol and all his tools, which meant the injured burglar cowering in the corner had been put there by the wolf and not his human at all.