Gibbs sighed in an increasing bout of frustration. Pointing to the conference room table for what felt like the millionth time, he felt his frown lines deepen into sheer trenches of exasperation. "Tony. Stop giving me a hard time, stop looking at me like that and just get your ass over this table so we can get out of here. I'm not going to ask again, so would ya just move it already?"
Far from moving it, already or at any other pace for that matter, Tony stood firmer to the spot.
"Please, Boss," he blurted out, with a reeking trail of desperation in his words, "Anything but that. I'm sorry I sent McGee to that brothel on his own and pretended it was the crime scene, ok? It was funny at the time, but it was wrong. I get it. I'll ride a desk, I'll do cold cases, I'll do whatever the hell you want…just, please, anything but that." His eyes were wide with pleading misery as Gibbs felt his confusion skyrocket. Glancing down at the belt in his hands, he felt the confusion continue to increase.
"Tony," he murmured, in a much gentler voice, "What's going on? I've used this with you more times than I can count. Why are you freaking out?" He closed his mouth slowly as his protégée sighed deeply, and felt anxiety stir within him. He was always meticulously careful in not drawing out old demons in his second in command, but he genuinely had used the belt with him more times than he cared to remember. And he'd never reacted like this. Sure he wheedled, protested, bargained and charmed but he never came right out and asked for anything else, or spoke with such desperation.
He quickly threaded his belt back through the loops before stepping closer to his muted field agent.
"Tony…what's going on? C'mon, spit it out. What's the matter, what's changed?" Gibbs took in a deep breath and cut right to the chase. "Is it something to do with your…is it something to do with remembering your childhood?" He felt his heart quicken and his stomach sink as Tony looked down at the floor, his breathing quickened and as a red flush crossed the young man's face.
"It's not that," the younger man eventually blurted out, looking up with a still reddening face, "It's nothing like that." Eying his second in command carefully, Gibbs saw nothing but the truth in his words. Feeling the anxiety slip away somewhat, he threw his eyes up to heaven. "Then what is it?" he demanded quietly, "And so help me if you try and tell me that McGee deserved it again. I'm warning you." Glancing down at the belt that was once again fastened around his boss' waist, Tony closed his eyes briefly. There was embarrassment, and then…then there was this.
Unfortunately for him, Gibbs' patience was rapidly returning to thinner ground.
"If you don't spit it out in the next five seconds, I guarantee you that you won't look at a chair the same way ever again. We're working a case, and I've spent the last twenty minutes in here arguing with you about a well deserved tanning. I've had about as much as I'm willing to take, so unless you give me a damned valid reason to the contrary, you can get your ass over that table in the next five seconds so we can get back to work."
Tony gulped.
The boss man didn't make idle threats.
"It'll…it usually…I mean obviously it would, that's basic anatomy…but…it's just…"
Gibbs closed his eyes in despair and focussed all his will power in not wrapping his hands around the kid's neck and throttling the life out of him. "Could you go ahead and put that into a full sentence for me? Sometime in the next millennium should be fine, no pressure."
Tony winced.
Sarcasm was never a good sign.
"It's just," he muttered, trying valiantly to just bite the bullet, "Well, do you remember I was telling you about Laura?" He waited with a still reddened face and Gibbs considered his question in surprise, before nodding his head. Laura was Tony's latest on again off again girlfriend. She was different, he was told, from all the others. He was also aware that she must be different in some degree, because she refused to have any meaningful intimacy with Tony until she was sure he was relationship material.
"I do," Gibbs answered slowly, "What does she have to do with you sending Tim to a brothel to be mauled by those cougars, or you standing there for the last near half hour arguing with me about a hiding that every dog on the street knows you deserve?"
Tony swallowed slowly.
"Well…uhm, you know how I was telling you she was really busy with work, and how she's uhm… reserved in the whole…well, you know…bedroom department…." Gibbs had to bite back a smile at how embarrassed Tony was in trying to repeat the embargo Laura had placed on him. He may be all Casanova bluster in front of the others, but that was just a front. He could tell that the kid cared for this girl, which is why he didn't press the issue and allowed Tony to cut the explanation short with a quick nod from him.
Breathing slightly easier in relied, Tony sucked in some more air. There was no easy way to say it, so he just needed to come and say it. He couldn't help the slightly pleading and yet indignant tone that his words came out in, and nor could he help the desperation he knew was bulging in his eyes. He had waited so long, and Laura…man, she was beautiful. Long dark, shimmering hair, high cheek bones, hazel eyes…a rocking body. Not to mention she was smart, funny, and could make him laugh after the hardest of cases. And she didn't run a mile when he told her what he did for a living.
"And?" Gibbs prompted impatiently, when it seemed Tony was lost in his thought, "What does she have to do with anything in this room?" Tony bit his lip, before he bit the bullet, speech bursting out of him with imploring eyes, and beseeching tones.
"And tonight's the night, Gibbs, tonight's the night….you know, and I can't…well, you know…"
He ran a hand through his sandy brown mop of hair in frustration at his boss' obvious confusion.
"You know…where she's finally going to let me-"
"Yes, I get the picture," Gibbs interrupted tersely with a slight tinge of utter bewilderment, "But, I'll ask you again, and for the last time, what does that have to do with this?" Tony stared, mouth agape in incredulity. Was Gibbs being deliberately dense just to mess with him? The old man might as well have asked him was the sky blue or was water wet?
"Boss… how the hell am I meant to explain having an ass like a freaking baboon?"
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A/N: Just random silliness that popped into my head on an unexpectedly long commute. Two-Shot. In Loco Parentis is up next for an update for those following that.
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