"You good?" Tim asks after he turns off the Porsche, but before he'll take his hand off the keys, still in the ignition, as if, should Tony say no, Tim would immediately turn the car around and drive him to the nearest chiropractor.
Tony rolls his eyes and ignores the pleased tingles in his gut at hearing the question for the umpteenth time this morning. "Yes, McMom," he flips the handle, just cracking open the door. He preps his mind to feel the remnants of the twinge in his back when he twists his legs to exit the vehicle, but before he can get that far, Tim's hand covers his own on the middle console. Tony blinks at the unexpected touch and turns back to his partner.
The tenderness in Tim's eyes should be a surprise, but somehow it isn't. Abruptly, Tim blinks downward, hiding that softness from Tony's view.
"Hey," Tony finds himself whispering, his hand turning around in Tim's grip in order to grab him right back. "Thanks for having my six this morning," Tony bites his lip and any other words that might come out of his mouth. Tim can't know the vivid imaginings Tony's mind recently assigned the phrase, but that doesn't stop Tony from feeling bashful at his word choice.
Tim glances at him sideways, a light blush fills his cheeks, but his partner still admits, "It's a nice six to watch."
Biting his lip, Tony ducks his head, but can't fight his own grin. It's possible he might also be—very slightly —blushing himself. He wants to give the compliment back to Tim somehow, to let him know how much Tony likes putting his hands on Tim's body or maybe just to offer a whisper of the way his stomach tingles when Tim teases him over the phone, but, oddly enough, Tony can't find the words to give Tim back anything of what Tim gave to him this morning. Tony's mouth opens, trying to find something to say despite the block in his brain.
Tim's voice saves them both from whatever unplanned inanities might have otherwise popped out, "But for the next nine or ten hours," Tim teases, "I am going to do my best to keep my eyes," Tim lowers his voice with a smoothness that Tony's slowly becoming accustomed to, "and my hands, as far away from your six as I can."
Tony squeezes Tim's hand, still gripping his, and tilts his head to look at his partner full on. "Don't feel like you have to make sacrifices on my account, Probie," DiNozzo lifts a brow and smirks. It's only when Tim blinks slowly that Tony truly realizes the consequences of publically inviting Tim's touch or even his gaze.
Tim rubs his thumb along the backs of Tony's fingers, and one side of his mouth angles upward a little ruefully, "Don't look," he speaks softly, like it's a confession. "That's what I always used to tell myself."
"About me?" Tony licks his lips and only smiles a very tiny little bit.
Glancing away, Tim's head and shoulders angle inward. His tone barely makes it above a whisper. "About any man I was—" the words stop so abruptly it's as though they fell off a cliff.
And then there's silence in the car. Deliberately, Tony yanks on his door—first open and then shut to make certain it gets a good seal. He swallows hard, knowing he still doesn't have the right words to give to Tim but needing to try anyway—Tim always seems to need to have certain things (feelings) spelled out explicitly. "I never thought about it before," he pauses and then adds, "about guys," or at least he doesn't think he ever thought about it before. It's not always easy for him to be able to tell about those kinds of things, though. "But I think about it all the time now," he blinks and licks his lips, "about you," he clarifies because sometimes McOblivious can be bizarrely blind to his own charms. He doesn't look at Tim at all right now. He can't, so he's not sure if Tim's eyes are on him or not. "It's nothing like I thought it would be," the expression pops out and Tony belatedly wonders if his words are just common phrasing or if maybe he's lying to himself and he has thought of this sort of thing before.
Tony waits. The silence in the car stretches out between them, and Tim squeezes his fingers a little more tightly but doesn't call him on his word choice either way. Tony looks out the passenger window beside him, squints unseeingly towards the new sun. "This all still okay with you?" Tony's jaw locks—irritated with himself—when he ends up asking for reassurance instead of giving it.
Tim's other hand crawls up and flirts with the inside of Tony's wrist while he's still not looking. "Yeah," Probie declares, sounding as bold as he did last night. "You?" Tim's fingers slide a little farther up Tony's arm, beneath the strict confines of his dress sleeves.
Tony nods hurriedly. He feels Tim's eyes on him, feels his partner tighten his grip around Tony's digits with one hand while Tim's still tickling his wrist with the other. "Yeah," Tony pushes the word out anyway, wanting to do better about meeting Tim halfway.
"Truth be told, I'm pretty fantastically okay with this, really," Tim's voice is so low, it breaks when he speaks, but when Tony turns to look—to make certain Tim's really his equal in want—Tim's chest is heaving with the effort to control his breath, but his eyes are both welcoming and focused, his mouth upturned with a friendly smirk.
Tony swallows hard and smiles back, grabbing Tim's flirting left hand with his right, so that they each have both hands above the center console. "I wish we were home right now!" Tony blurts, not really meaning Tim's apartment or his own apartment or even the condo that they might share. Rather he just means somewhere with Tim and a bed and a bit of privacy.
Tim lifts his brow, leans just a little more towards center, "Tomorrow's Saturday," he reminds Tony. "And we're not on call, and we can do whatever we want for however long we want."
Tony finds himself leaning into Tim in response, "Tonight's Friday, McCalender," he counters, "and we can start the weekend the second we're off the clock."
Tim tucks his chin just slightly towards his chest, and for a second, Tony's worried he's pushing too hard, for too much and too fast, but then Tim's lower jaw shoots outward, giving his partner a serious underbite. Tony's only ever seen that look from a closer angle than his current viewpoint, and usually Tim's wearing a lot fewer clothes by then.
Tony knows it makes him a dick, but he seriously wants Tim to keep thinking about him with his little head for the rest of the day. He leans in as close as he dares when anyone they know could come up on them at any second, "I put those two other cherry condoms in my go-bag."
Tim's gaze shoots back up to his in milliseconds, searches Tony's face and then Tim's rough voice declares, "Man! You're such an asshole sometimes!" but he's laughing and rueful and hopeful all at once.
Tony takes in Tim's cursing with a triumphant grin. He feels his own timbre drop low when he flirts back, "Here, I thought you liked my six."
"Tony—!" Tim's breath comes quickly and then his lower jaw juts out farther. Abruptly, his neck angles backward, and he rests his noggin on the Porsche's headrest. "You realize," Tim twists his face back towards Tony's direction, "You're playing a game that goes both ways, right?" Probie lifts an eyebrow in his direction. Half a second later, his brow furrows, like he's worried that maybe that's not even true.
"Yeah," Tony squeezes the hand in his more tightly. "I figured out a couple weeks ago that the two of us swing both ways," Tony waggles his eyebrows, but then has to duck his chin as he wonders whether Tim sees through the lie, if his partner knows that his seemingly daring words are still partly a question to Tim.
When Tony catches Tim's eye again, he realizes that they're each waiting for the other to react, each of them wanting to reassure themselves that they're on the same page. He feels himself smiling at the unexpected insight, and he hopes Tim sees the same thing he does. Tony bites his lip, unsure. Usually, between the two of them, Tim's the one who's more introspective and emotionally observant, but Tony also knows that Tim has a hard time seeing the things about himself that Tony likes so well. He's not sure how to reassure Tim without stepping pretty far out on a limb himself.
You catch me, Tony thinks, not able to keep Tim's words from his head for even an hour, or so it seems. "You—" he licks his lips, wanting to be that man Tim thinks of him as being, "You really get me going. You know that, right?"
Immediately, Tim opens his own mouth to respond, but his lips upturn too quickly for whatever words that might have tried forming, and his cheeks pinken with pleasure. He drops his chin close to his chest and angles his head back and forth as he shyly tries to respond. "Yeah," he finally nods.
"Mmm," Tony hums, nodding back. "You know," he leans in just a little closer, suddenly unable to care if someone can see how near he wants to be to Tim, "You're pretty cute when you lie," he practically whispers the words into his partner's ear.
Tim chuckles nervously, but also angles his neck towards Tony's mouth the way he does when he wants Tony's teeth on his earlobe. Tony bites his bottom lip, raking his teeth over his own flesh like he wishes he could do to Tim's in this moment.
"We are going to have a really," he draws out the word like the promise it is, "really good night, tonight," Tony's mouth is still near Tim's ear. He squeezes his lids tightly shut because he can practically already see the way he wants to move his hands across Tim's body—starting at his partner's naked belly and travelling south from there.
"Gotta get through the day, though, first," Tim allows, more than a little regret in his tone.
Eyes still pinched shut, Tony thinks of Carmen in lock up, of the confession they need to push from little sister Belle, of the loads of evidence that the Bedford County Sheriff's Department would have signed in last night when they placed the younger Lerner in holding. Geez, when he thinks about it that way, he hopes he and Tim can get out of here in a mere nine or ten hours. "I love this job," Tony reminds himself, because, seriously he's never enjoyed going to work so much in his entire life as he has since he's been on Gibbs' team, even more so since Tim and then Ziva became a part of it, too.
"Yeah," Tim shifts away from him as he speaks, pulling both hands from Tony's grip—and that's not what Tony meant at all! He opens his eyes to tell his partner just that, but Tim's still all pinkened smiles once Tony's looking at him again, even if McHe'sGoingTheDistance is now on the other side of the tiny sports car from him.
And all of a sudden, looking at the blush splashed across his partner's face, Tony's breathless. He exhales heavily, tries to make enough room to draw some oxygen down into his lungs.
"Let's get this party started, then," McBashful decrees even as his eyelashes kiss the apples of his reddened cheeks. He pops the trunk and quickly jumps from his side of the Boxster.
"Yeah," Tony agrees a heavy second later in the silence of the empty vehicle. Then he flips the latch and follows his partner into the bustling parking garage.