Thank you all very much for your feedback - - it's really encouraging. I'm trying to walk the delicate borderline between the two of them starting to respect each other and becoming saccharine, so if I stray into the mushy territory, please warn me. Lucas's appearance in the next chapter should cause a few problems, of course . . . but for now, he's safely off-screen.
Chapter II
One day, Gibbs decided, he would find a way to work with people who would be genetically unable to hold an intelligent conversation about croissants.
Dinozzo had taken over the spare bed and lay on his stomach nibbling at pastries while he read over spread-out police reports and occasionally threw comments over his shoulder about various arrests made in Lacher's neighborhood, which at least made more sense than the occasional remark to Ducky about the quality of different types of crepes. He had an unerring sense of timing, because every time Gibbs's fingers were starting to itch to smack him with a rolled-up file like a naughty puppy, he would turn around and say that there had been a peeping tom reported two blocks from Ellie's house, and they could maybe check that out in the morning.
At eight, Gibbs grabbed the do-not-disturb sign. "Ducky, get some sleep. Dinozzo, you're with me." He eyed the detective as he stood, legs shaky as a fawn's, and his eyes narrowed. "You awake?"
Dinozzo rubbed ineffectively at his eyes. "Mm. Probably."
"Keep up or stay in the car," Gibbs warned him as they moved into the hallway. He kept his eyes on the elevator at the end of the corridor; the diamond-pattern of the burgundy carpet was making him dizzy. "I don't have time to babysit." Dinozzo's eye-rolling was so dramatic that Gibbs could almost hear it, but he ignored it - - if Dinozzo could stay on his feet for twenty-four hours straight, he could ham it up all he wanted. "We'll check out your peeping tom first."
"Because the best way to start the morning is to interview a sweaty-palmed pervert with a pair of binoculars who reminds you every three minutes that he has a brother who's a lawyer."
Gibbs winced at the description and reconsidered the day plan. "Feel better starting it with coffee?"
"Knew you were all bark and no bite," Dinozzo said, and just for that, Gibbs made him buy the coffee for both of them, which at least wiped the smartass grin off his face. Dinozzo popped the lid off his cup and somehow managed to add three packets of sugar without spilling it all over himself. Gibbs at least had to admire the technique, if not the taste. Dinozzo sipped with raised eyebrows, pulled the cup away, and peered at it. "Huh. This kind of tastes like coffee."
Gibbs drank. "Not bad."
"You ever had hotel coffee that tasted like coffee?" Dinozzo continued staring at the waxed cup with a distinctly mistrustful look. "I don't think I want this. There has to be something wrong with it."
He dropped it in the nearest trashcan on their way out and got a Mountain Dew out of the vending machine.
Thirty seconds into the drive, Tony was grateful that he'd picked a vending machine with bottles instead of cans, because without the option of sealing his drink, he would have had citrus-flavored clothes before Gibbs had made it out of the parking lot. He settled for clenching white-knuckled hands around his knees and trying to remember whether he had ever cleaned up his will and testament after the move. If he had stuck it in the closet along with his old tennis racket, it would probably take an archaeological expedition to unearth it, and all of his money would end up going to Jews for Jesus, or the YMCA.
Thinking about the will at least distracted him from thinking about Gibbs, who had apparently decided that Tony was all right for late night study parties but was obviously supposed to stay quiet in the car and not reach for the radio. Tony rolled his shoulders back into the seat and thought, suddenly, of Lucas.
It had been messy when he had gotten back to his partner last night. He'd known that Lucas would be pissed about being excluded from the investigation, but being pissed had only been round one and Lucas played to the knock-out blow. Tony had taken it, too, because . . . well, Lucas was at least a part-time friend and definitely a full-time partner, and Tony should have been able to get him in. With Gibbs, during the nearly one-sided negotiation process, Tony had felt that he was chipping away at some kind of granite inside the NCIS agent, earning a little respect just for having the balls to stick with it and that good sense to back down where someone else was going to have to play the alpha wolf, and it had felt good. Yeah, Gibbs had pretty much been a bastard so far, but he had also obviously been a bastard who knew what he was doing, and Tony could respect that. But the point, at least from Lucas's side, was that Tony had traded a partnership of nearly two years for the chance to take on a hard sell Navy cop, and when the dust cleared, it was as good a reason as any for Lucas to get angry.
Other than the chance to see the case closed up and maybe get to tighten the cuffs on the guy who had raped and killed Ellie Lacher, the only other plus Tony could see to his Faustian bargain was that maybe people would stop asking him to do all the talking.
He took another shot at Gibbs. "Lucas would be able to help us. You. Whatever."
He practically heard the rubber peeling off the tires as Gibbs stopped for the light. "I told you when you signed up, Dinozzo, that it was a one-man deal." He ticked his fingers against the wheel irritably, waiting. "I didn't stop by to pick up homicide detectives in bulk just because there was a discount."
The light went green and Tony had to hold on to his drink again.
"So you don't want to let too many cooks into the kitchen? You're thinking that one guy with a vendetta beats out an assigned team working around the clock?"
"Actually," Gibbs said, "I was thinking that an NCIS agent and a homicide detective with an ME and two labs in their name ought to be able to find a murderer without having to rely on someone else to tie their shoelaces, Dinozzo, that's what I was thinking. But the one guy with a vendetta sounds like it could work, so either shut the hell up or sit this one out."
Tony replayed that monologue in his head for a minute or so, sucking little drops of liquid off the threads of the Mountain Dew cap.
"God," he said finally. "You must be hell to work for."
"I've been told."
It was like trying to get a straight answer out of a cryptograph, Tony thought irritably, and watched as Gibbs barely missed the chance to pay for some BMW's bodywork. Maybe that was why Gibbs had only come with Mallard in tow - - because his agents would have picked leprosy over time in a hotel room with their boss. He thought about it, but if he asked that question, he wouldn't find out anything, either. He'd be better off quizzing the doctor, who at least seemed to like him. But one thing still bugged him: if Gibbs was so dead set against allowing Lucas or anyone else to tag along and help, why had he let Tony do the same thing? Oh, sure, Tony had the connections, but Gibbs had things like court orders and one hell of a glare, and could probably have been dealt all the cards in Tony's hand eventually.
Maybe he was just impatient. Or maybe it was all lip-service in the name of agency cooperation.
Or maybe Tony was doing something right. He liked that theory better. It inclined him to be a little more forgiving towards Gibbs's occasional moments of complete bastardry, if Gibbs actually liked him.
"Why isn't your team with you?" he asked, and the question that would have been him being a jackass a few minutes ago now came out sounding surprisingly friendly.
"Don't have much of one, at the moment," Gibbs said, and while he didn't sound friendly, he at least sounded calmer. "I just had one agent transfer and I had to leave the other behind to satisfy protocol." He had stopped the car before Tony had even realized that they were in someone's driveway. Gibbs yanked the keys out of the ignition and turned, raised his eyebrows at Tony. "Bet you thought I just pissed them all off, huh?"
"Not exactly," Tony said. He undid his seatbelt and changed the subject. "You've been in town before."
"Once or twice."
"It takes me more than a couple of visits to learn a street grid," Tony said.
The sunlight outside made his head ache, and he wished he'd brought his sunglasses with him. He turned his head, waiting for an answer from Gibbs, but they'd apparently segued back into Complete Bastard and Complete Jackass, because Gibbs was already setting the pace for Max Prestor's front door. He sighed, jogged to catch up, and managed to skid onto the porch before Gibbs rang the doorbell.
"You never struck me as a doorbell kind of guy."
"Thought I'd shoot out the lock?"
"It crossed my mind."
No one answered, and Gibbs flattened his hand against the bell. "He doesn't answer in the next thirty seconds, it'll do more than cross your mind, Dinozzo." His hand fell back from the door and tightened into a fist at his side, but Tony wouldn't have needed the visual to get the point. It was about the little things: the way the muscles in his jaw had tightened, the way the end of Tony's name had become more of a snarl, even the way his fingers had twitched when he'd drawn them into that oh-so-obvious fist.
This stuff was why he pulled off undercover, why they used him for all the talking jobs. He saw things. He didn't always understand them, but he saw them, and most of the time that was enough. Profiling was about being able to extrapolate understanding from seeing almost nothing; what Tony did was about noticing everything and then getting a good idea by default. He needed more information, but it still got the job done. He hadn't needed Gibbs to be obvious.
He raised his hand and smacked the door so hard that it rattled in the frame. "Mr. Prestor! Baltimore Homicide, open up!"
The yellowed blinds moved a fraction of an inch.
Gibbs nodded. "Not bad, Dinozzo."
Tony grinned. "I learned a long time ago that mentioning murder makes things go a lot faster."
Max Prestor was a skinny guy with Coke bottle glasses and so many freckles that Tony's fingers itched for an ink pen to connect the dots. He kept his hands planted against the doorframe, playing scarecrow, as if Gibbs and Tony couldn't push past him and snap his arms like twigs if they wanted.
"I don't know anything about a homicide," Prestor said.
Gibbs showed his badge in one quick, open-close snap. "Special Agent Gibbs, NCIS. Detective Dinozzo, Homicide." A sleight of hand movement that Tony couldn't quite track, Gibbs's hand disappeared into his jacket again and brought out a photograph of Ellie Lacher. Tony didn't recognize it as one of the crime scene shots: Ellie was clearly alive and smiling in this. A school photo, lit up by a blue background. "Do you recognize this girl?"
Prestor raised his chin. "Nope."
"I don't know, Gibbs," Tony said offhandedly. "We might be wasting our time here. I told you, this guy just got off on watching the pretty girls through their bedroom windows. Nothing wrong there."
"It'd be a pretty big escalation," Gibbs said. "Unless . . . how old were the girls, Dinozzo?"
Tony raised his hands and shrugged, flashing the smile this time at Max. "Not sure. Wasn't my case. I mean, after all, Max here didn't kill anyone."
"Unless he did."
"Right, unless he did, because someone who sneaks around outside a house last night and presses his nose to a window so he can watch strangers stripping down for bed might just be screwed-up enough to rape a little girl not even out of a kindergarten yet and then kill her . . ."
"Is that in your line, Max?" Gibbs asked.
He closed the door in their faces.
Back in the hotel room, with the sounds of Ducky's snores still coming through the wall, the two of them went over more files, and Gibbs started to wish he had brought Blackadder along, to hell with protocol, just because then he could pass off his share of the paperwork. Dinozzo wasn't talking to him, as if Gibbs had somehow screwed up the exchange with Proctor back at the house, and silence suited Gibbs just fine, so he combed over the endless array of reports and crime scene notes without a word. Dinozzo kept stifling yawns in the palm of his hand, and when Gibbs turned to see him, he was looking away. Always out the damned window, like a kid watching everyone else out on the playground.
Finally, Dinozzo threw a file across the room and it hit the wall, did a spin, and landed open and broken-winged on the carpet.
"It usually works," Dinozzo said. "What we did there usually works. I've done it before, you've obviously done it before, and it usually works if they're guilty. He wasn't."
"No," Gibbs said mildly, licking his thumb and turning a page. "He wasn't."
"So we've eliminated a suspect, except that's not good, because we don't exactly have a plethora of suspects to choose from. We don't have any, actually. And we aren't going to find them by going through all of this again, because we did that last night, and the best we could get was a fucking peeping tom who threw us off his property." He looked at Gibbs. Maybe it was the light coming through the window making a halo around his face, but he looked younger. Angry and determined and young. Dinozzo pursed his lips and exhaled, cleaning himself out in what Gibbs thought was probably some yoga relaxation technique one of his ex-wives might have recognized. "I can't go all vigilante on this with you, Gibbs, because at the end of the day, I care a little more about the Lacher girl than I do about making myself look good."
"Call your partner," Gibbs said.
Dinozzo sighed and pressed a hand to his face, cutting his profile into two jagged pieces. "I know you have this idea that maybe we can do it all by ourselves, and that's good, and it's good that you kind of like me, or at least think that I know what I'm doing, but . . ."
He threw the cell at Dinozzo's head to shut him up. "I said to call him. Call whoever you think will help."
Dinozzo took the phone in two fingers, like it would bite, and blinked at him, going from hardboiled investigator to skittish rookie in three seconds flat. "Do you want anybody? I mean, one of your people?"
Gibbs had an idea that Dinozzo thought Gibbs had more resources than he actually did. That maybe Dinozzo visualized all of NCIS running smoothly under Gibbs's thumb, as if he were director instead of one of several supervisors. He couldn't decide if that amused him or irritated him. He scratched at his ear to hide a smile and said that Dinozzo could draw from his own pool this time, but to give them the rules.
"I know. You're in charge. All must bow down in worship."
He liked the sound of that. "Or get the hell out of my way."
Listening to Dinozzo calling his partner gave Gibbs the niggling suspicion that the kid had too many different personalities knocking around inside of his head. He would have to tell Abby about Dinozzo, because Abby liked crazy people, and might find these mood swings interesting. Dinozzo turned away from him when he talked, as if Gibbs couldn't hear him through the barrier of a few inches of blood and bone. He watched Dinozzo's back as he walked to the window and toyed with the blinds.
"Hey, Lucas, it's Tony. You want to help us out on the Lacher case?" He half-turned to scrape his fingers against the glass, and pulled the phone back from his ear. Gibbs heard the hissing, diluted sounds of Lucas Bayer's explosion, and then Dinozzo started talking again, continuing his little julienne conversation of which Gibbs could only hear parts. "Yeah, yeah, I know. No, he's not. Yes. Well, that's not really important, is it?" Dinozzo flicked the blinds and a zigzag ray of sunlight chopped the room in half. "You're the first person I called. Are you coming or not? Good. See you in a few minutes."
Dinozzo tossed him the phone. "He's coming."
"Yeah, I got that," he said, and wasn't even being sarcastic. Not really. "He needed a lot of convincing for someone who really wanted the case."
"He's human. He's not happy."
"Yeah, well, a dead kindergartner should be more important than whether or not he plays well with others." That had been why he had let Dinozzo in. The detective had been willing to put aside the traditional pissing contests in order to do the job; his partner was more interested in grandstanding. "And if he wanted the case so much in the first place, he should have talked to me himself."
"He's senior," Dinozzo said, as if that explained everything, as if once someone had been around long enough, they didn't have to give a damn about their job or anything else.
It was such a juvenile concept. Gibbs respected and understood competition, knew the drive that pushed agents to do their best, and hazing was understandably part of the process. But allowing a wet-behind-the-ears detective, no matter how good his instincts were, to take on all the pain that came with the job - - that was sloppy work. Dinozzo seemed competent enough, and Detective Bayer, from what Gibbs could see, took advantage of his competence and good-nature.
Not that it mattered, because protecting Dinozzo wasn't Gibbs's responsibility and it never would be, but it bothered his sense of justice.
"Anyway," Dinozzo said, dropping back onto the bed, "he'll be here soon."
"How long have you been working with him?"
"Almost two years."
It had the sound of a carefully-guarded answer, and Gibbs propped himself up on his elbow to look across to the other bed. Dinozzo was staring off into nothing with a practiced look.
"Where were you before Baltimore?"
"Philadelphia," Dinozzo said. He looked as if wanted to throw another file at the wall. "Peoria. Pittsburgh. Other cities that start with the letter P. I ran out and decided to try B instead. And if you're going to make a joke about two-year warranties or expiration dates, I swear to God I have already heard it."
"No, Dinozzo, any joke I'd make about you would be funnier than that."
"Quit NCIS and do standup," Dinozzo said. Briefly, it seemed as if he would add something else, but then he yawned so loudly that his own eyes widened in surprise. He looked sheepishly over at Gibbs. "Hey, once we get Lucas over here, do you think I can take a nap? I'm getting to the point where I'd sell my soul for forty winks." He cast an envious glance at the wall. "Dr. Mallard gets to sleep. I know I can't do a good TOD estimation, but that doesn't mean I can function indefinitely without getting any shuteye. Just give me, like, ten minutes?"
Gibbs was tempted to say no just to see what Dinozzo would do, but the urge passed. He could spare the detective ten minutes of sleep, especially if he wanted Dinozzo to run interference for the rest of the night. Besides, if Ducky found out that he had kept the kid running all night on Mountain Dew and suspiciously good hotel coffee, Gibbs would have to deal with the never-ending lecture from hell. And if Lucas Bayer showed up looking clean-shaven and well-rested, Gibbs didn't want to have to look across the room and see Dinozzo with his dark circles, sucking it up.
"You can have twenty," Gibbs said, "if you can sleep with the lights on." He waited for an answer, or at least the sound of Dinozzo pulling the covers over his head and collapsing, but there was only silence.
Dinozzo was already asleep.
Well, at least he didn't have to turn out the lights.
