A/N: Hey, guys! I had written a paper for my English class and decided to edit it and post it as a short oneshot.
Disclaimer: If I owned NCIS, my English papers would be television scripts.
I'd been through some weird stuff as an NCIS agent. We've had some strange cases involving ghost ships, disembodied heads found in the trunks of stolen cars, and even cars that kill people. I've learned to expect unusual phenomena. It comes with the territory. But one thing I never expected was to find a single flower laid across the cutting board in the kitchen of my apartment.
I stared at the beautiful flower for what seemed like an hour. The two lone thorns adorning its stem were a sharp contrast to its petals, which were a deep purple. It was oddly familiar; some strange, deep-down part of me could swear that it knew its use. I'd heard the words before in a book, but for the life of me I couldn't remember the name of the story or what the flower was called. All I knew was its use. Placing a few drops of the flower's juice on the eyelids of a sleeping person could make them fall in love with the first living thing they saw.
I instantly began thinking of what I could use it for. Based upon the note the flower had been left with, I presumed that it could only be used once. Tony'sface immediately sprung to mind, but I forced down the thought, trying to think of what else I could do with this amazing power. I have a love of messing with people, and this herb could help me out in that. I could always help out Abby and McGee, who were very stubbornly denying their love for one another, which, in hindsight, should have been my immediate verdict. Nevertheless, considering all the possibilities available, I selfishly decided that it should be used for my own personal gain.
Unfortunately, being the procrastinator that I am, I obviously overlooked the one real issue I faced with my somewhat evil plan: how, exactly, was I supposed to find Tony at a time when he was sleeping? I didn't want to pull some vampire move straight out of Twilight. I'm definitely not Edward Cullen, he certainly isn't Bella, and Tony's the one who likes the supernatural romance novel genre in the first place. Even if we were the aforementioned fictional characters, watching people while they sleep is just plain creepy. In love or not, I certainly am not a stalker… most of the time.
Hence, I arrived at work the following day without a plan. I figured that something would spring to mind while working on paperwork. However, as it turned out, I was too busy resisting the temptation to kill Tony for shooting spitballs at me. And, likewise, while talking to Ducky, I was absentmindedly nodding at the tales of his youth. The ride to a crime scene gave me time to think, but my mind was still blank. The rest of the case was just a blur of Abby's excited babbling, McGee's tech talk, and Gibbs's reminders of his numerous rules. And still, I could think of nothing to do about this situation.
The case went late into the night. After having dealt with obnoxious people over the phone and ridiculous reports for the last hour, all I wanted to do was go home and relax. Unfortunately, Abby was my ride home and she had to finish up some paperwork. I used this time to wander the building and clear my head. With my luck, this didn't work out anywhere near as well as I could've hoped. Because, of course, there Tony was, asleep at his desk in the squadroom, his case file lying wide open.
Fate has a funny way of just placing a flashing sign right in front of your face and telling you to take the opportunity of a lifetime. But for some reason, I couldn't do it. Seeing Tony lying there, looking so innocent and perfect, I realized that I just couldn't taint that by putting this flower to use. I leaned against my desk, procuring the flower from my bag. One-by-one, I plucked the petals off, tossing them into the trashcan under my desk.
"He loves me not," I murmured, pulling off the second-to-last petal and throwing it away in the garbage bin. Taking one last look at Tony, I added, "I wish you felt the same way." Turning away, I tucked the final petal in my pocket. Abby and Tim wouldn't deny that something was between them for much longer.
For those of you wondering as to the flower's origin, it's from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.