The Day of the Leprechaun
Characters: Tony and the G-Team + a Leprechaun
Challenge: Kiss Me, I'm Irish
*slap*
Tony spun around, still holding the carton of eggs he'd been about to deposit in his cart, and glared. Who'd done this?
He was grocery shopping for the weekend and no way was it possible for him to find the possible culprit amongst the crowd of fellow shoppers on this Friday night at the busy Walmart.
No pretty girl to be seen anywhere near. What a disappointment.
Tony put the box of eggs in his cart and carried on strolling through the aisle.
*slap*
There! It had happened again! This time he'd been stretching to his full length, grabbing that bottle of dry Orvieto, whilst holding one from a different winery in his other hand. As a conscientious shopper, he liked to compare prices.
But, damn!, what an impertinent thing to do!
Again he scanned the place for that annoying person who so enjoyed this silly game of slapping people's backsides!
Just like the previous time, he couldn't make out who might've done this.
Getting rather irked, he continued along the racks till he got to his favorite fruit juice of which he dumped a 12 pack in his trolley.
About to continue to the seafood department, he felt another hit to his backside.
Again he pivoted to find out the whodunit. And once more he was unsuccessful in determining who did it. But he did notice the snickering little brats who stuck out their tongues at him. As usual, their parents didn't even notice this. He stuck out his at them in return…yep…right when the parents did look his way. He proceeded to push his cart hurriedly around the corner and, deciding to skip the first aisle for fear of running into that family again, turned his attention to the selection frozen dishes he only needed to pop into the microwave when returning home from work, too tired to start cooking.
Opening the fridge door, he felt the slight sting of another slap on his butt.
Slamming the door shut as he spun around for the umpteenth time, he found this time a little old lady having quite some mirth, before she continued to walk down the aisle, her frail shoulders still shaking with silent laughter.
He was now becoming very VERY vexed and he felt the color creeping into his cheeks as he balled his fists. It took all of his self-restraint to calm down and get on with his shopping.
If only he could get the little bugger…
Sighing, he pulled out the list he'd made to check. His dad was coming to stay, this weekend, and Tony was determined to make a good impression on his old man by serving DiNozzo Senior's favorite Italian dish. To this purpose, he'd drawn up an ingredients list. He wanted to avoid having to dash to the nearest shop in the middle of cooking because he'd forgotten some important ingredient.
Zucchini and garlic. The last items on his list. Thank God!
He checked for the best looking marrows and put them in a plastic bag to weigh when he felt another slap on his by now much abused derriere.
This was getting soooo tiresome. More slowly than the previous times, he turned around, scanning the people who stood close by, when a small giggle made him direct his searching gaze downward.
A toddler's grin met his eyes. A smirking kid – Tony estimated that youth's age to be somewhere between 11-13 - probably the little one's elder brother, was standing about 7 yards away. The mother hurried over and stooped to grab the little one's hand, at the same time apologizing to Tony. He would've thought nothing of it weren't it for the fact she was trying too hard to hide the smile on her face. A losing battle, of course.
Seeing his thunderous face, she shoved the cooing toddler towards her other son before turning to Tony again.
"Pardon me, sir…"
She carefully reached behind his back to detach a sheet of paper which she held out for him to read for himself.
It showed a picture of a pants being pulled down and the text "Póg (nó lí) mo thóin. Kiss (or slap) my ass. "
"I thought it best to take that down. Might save you a pair of burning cheeks…and…you know…" She shrugged towards her sons and the elder shook his head: "Wasn't me! 't Was the Leprechaun that made me do it!"
She sighed. "Boys…"
Tony, about to retort, looked in the direction of the boy's pointed finger.
Yep. There he was. There wasn't the slightest doubt as to whom had taped the sheet on his back.
A diminutive potbellied green-clad gnome like figure, sporting an ugly ginger wig plus ditto profuse beard, was doing a jig as he watched Tony with an idiotic big grin on his wacky face.
- -.-. -. . .
The next day
Tony got off the elevator and walked in his usual swaggering step…which faltered as he closed the distance to his desk, which was all dressed in the Irish colors.
Booting up his workstation, he was met with a surprise as a bleat was heard with every punch on his keyboard.
Ba...baah...beh...baba...baaa...beeeh...
"You're kidding me…" Tony blurted out as he sank down on his chair.
As if on cue, the big flat screen jumped into life, simultaneously with his own screen, starting a YouTube video which showed Tony's trip through the Walmart, being the butt of numerous butt slaps eliciting many gleeful faces in the supermarket.
Then, Tony's mugshot was large on the screen, surrounded by a flock of little sheep, the whole bunch of them in the Irish colors, and a funny marquee reading: "Is meself wishin' yez ivery blessin'!" accompanied by the sound of that flock of sheep bleating and jigging to the traditional St. Patrick's Day tune.
This had his teammates in stitches.
Oh yeah. Paybacks are so sweet! They'd given him as good as they'd got. One Special Agent Timothy McGee in particular, since, for as long as he'd been on Team Gibbs, he'd been on the receiving end of Tony's many pranks.
Before too long, a roar of laughter erupted throughout the bullpen as other employees came closer to see what was going on in our team's part of the room.
Tony, having warmed his seat no more than 5 seconds, sprang up from his chair to charge down on Tim, face crimson with rage and embarrassment.
"You didn't upload that on YouTube! Tell me you didn't!"
The laughter died down almost instantly and Tim and Ziva, finally taking pity on Tony, decided it was time to let him in on the gag. Gibbs, having been a willing partner in crime, just took it all in with a grin which he did his best to conceal behind his mug of coffee. He wouldn't admit it freely, but he certainly wasn't beyond being part of a joke now and then.
"No, Tony." Tim said, trying to appease his friend. "Rest assured. It didn't go viral. Not for real."
"You...you..." Tony was baffled. A gratifying thing to behold.
"Oh, Tony. You're such a cutie in that mugshot." Abby squealed.
"I'd sayyy...your behind rates a 4." Ziva said pensively, then nods: "Definitely a 4."
"Not a 5? Now I'm truly disappointed!"
At least, Tony had recovered his good humor. Both Ziva and Tim had been a bit anxious about how he would take it and his earlier, albeit short, outburst didn't help.
No more than 10 minutes later, when calm had been restored to the squad room, Tony looked over at Tim who was diligently typing away again.
"Tell me, McGoo: who was that Leprechaun?"
Tim looked up. "Er...nobody you know."
"So, someone you know then. One of your gaming buddies?"
"Nope. Just...a Leprechaun...who had no trouble joining in the fun when we asked him politely."
"A bottle of bourbon settled the deal," Gibbs threw in.
Ziva chuckled. Yep, it was such a rare occasion to have Gibbs agree with a prank, let alone participate in one!
Tony's eyes threatened to pop out of their sockets.
Without looking up from his work, Gibbs calmly stated: "Catching flies, Tony..." to which Tony quickly shut his mouth.
- -.-. -. . .
Two hours later...
...and a shriek was heard coming from the interrogation room, followed by some stumbling and other sounds, ending in another person's painful outcry.
Ziva?
To Tim's questioning glance, Tony shrugged and replied: "Had it painted all in green. I guess the Leprechaun was superbly camouflaged and gave Ziva quite a scare. You just can't see them pesky buggers when they're close to a green wall. A first, isn't it? To make Ziva jump?" Tony was way too much enjoying this.
"You did WHAT?"
What if Vance noticed? Or worse! What if Gibbs noticed! Tim was incredulous and he shook his head at Tony's audacity.
Not to mention Ziva! What if she was going to take revenge, using her 18 paperclips? 19! He'd given her one giant paperclip serving as a paperweight.
"You're so dead meat, Tony," Tim muttered as he carefully peeked inside to find Ziva pinning down a poor Leprechaun on the interrogation table, hissing: "One more time you pinch my butt and I'll break your arm!"
Tony joined Tim by the door. "Don't worry. The Director knows. His idea."
FIN