Gibbs stared at the tickets in his hand and felt his stomach sink. Looking up at the four identical expressions of pleading excitement, he felt it sink even further. "No," he said quietly, "Guys, it's not happening. I know that's not what you want to hear, but there's nothing I can do about it. You know I can't approve leave on a second's notice, especially not for an entire MCRT. It's not workable; you'll have to see if you can get a refund on all of these…" His stomach jumped down another three or four steps at the crestfallen looks that stared back at him. Jones, the team-lead of an intel based team, walked past with a smirk. "You upset your puppies again, Gibbs? They'll learn to bite you know, as they get older." Letting out a small snarl at his retreating back, the beleaguered Jethro sighed and scrubbed a hand across his tired eyes. He purposefully avoided looking at Abby, knowing whatever resolve he was clinging to, would be lost.

Instead, he focussed on Tony.

"DiNozzo. Get on to these uhh…these ticket people, and see if you can swap these for an open ended pass type situation. Alright? Then you can all go some other time, when you've applied for leave in the way you know you're meant to apply for leave." With that, he handed back the tickets with a brusque nod and left the bull pen in desperate search of coffee. Taking his sweet time in returning, he worked hard on putting back on his game face. He would die under interrogation before admitting it, but he would have given anything to say sure, go ahead, go and have fun to the pleading quad, but he couldn't. How the hell could he? They were the top MCRT in the DC area. They couldn't just up and leave when it suited. He pushed aside Tony's insistences that the MCRT headed up by Matthews, had offered to swap their weeks leave in return for his team taking on-call duty for their month, which was fine by the Director. It wasn't that he didn't trust Matthews' team, they were good, but they weren't as good as his team.

And they had just closed a case he felt in his gut wasn't really closed.

He hoped fervently that by the time he got back, the four of them would have moved on and Tony would've secured a refund, or whatever. His hopes were short lived and in hindsight, exceedingly foolish. If anything, when he returned, the situation was even worse. Abby was thankfully gone, but the looks on his boys' and Ziva's faces were even sadder than before. Tightening his jaw and feigning utter indifference, Gibbs strode to his desk and barked orders relating to the closing of the case that was eating at him. Moving slowly and sombrely, just to bug the ever loving life out of him, his team grudgingly got to work. Sighing, he slapped his own computer into action, irritated by how pathetically bad he felt. He was getting soft, he concluded grimly, soft and senile. A few years ago and he would have slapped them silly for daring to ask and now, now he felt bad about being utterly unable to meet their unrealistic demands.

The day passed in a haze of puppy dog eyes and wounded expressions.

Gibbs had never been happier to escape the office. Calling an abrupt halt to proceeding at six, positively a half day for his team, he left before the rest of them and hightailed it to his car. After stopping at the store just long enough to grab a bottle of bourbon, he had changed into his trademark red sweatshirt and jeans when he finally began to relax. Throwing the nails out of the nearest mason jar, he had unscrewed the beautiful bottle of amber liquid when he heard the front door open and a thundering pack of footsteps above his head. Closing his eyes, he felt exasperation burst within him; he just wasn't meant to have a shred of piece in these twenty four hours. Screwing the bottle closed again, he leant over the workbench and waited for the inevitable stampede to burst right through the barriers of his unofficial man cave.

It was them.

All…four of them.

He barely suppressed a squawk of indignation, replacing it instead with a stern look of warning that he was so tired as to barely manage. "Stop it. Hold it right there. If you four are here to whine about that damned holiday, I am telling you here and now, I am in no mood. I put up with your silent treatment and sulking at the office, but I will not put up with it here. You're all barely off being grounded and I have no hesitation in revoking that status, or worse. Are you hearing me?" He glowered offensively, wiping his hands on his work cloth. "Am I making myself clear?" Ziva looked to Abby, who looked to Tim, who looked to Tony, who sighed and threw his eyes up to heaven. "Gee, Boss…that's not exactly a warm city welcome now is it?" Gibbs' quailing look of tired warning had him holding his hands up defensively. "Alright, alright? We are here about the holiday, but-"

"For the love of Jesus," Gibbs growled in interruption, "What did I just say?"

"That you put up with our silent treatment and sulking in the office, but you won't put up with it here. We're all barely off being grounded and you have no hesitation in revoking that status, or worse and are we hearing you, and have you made yourself clear?" Tony repeated sycophantically, with a cheeky grin spreading across his face. Gibbs spluttered in outrage and moved forward to deliver the mother of all head slaps before Tim wisely interceded. "What Tony is trying to say, Boss, is that we have a proposition for you." He smiled and Gibbs' radar was instantly on high alert. "But we have to come clean first; we need to tell you something that we've done…" Groaning, a suddenly exhausted Jethro pulled out a wooden stood and slumped down on it, rubbing his eyes in utter chagrin, not wanting to know what he was about to be told, but knowing he wouldn't rest until he did.

"Just say it fast, for the love of…just say it fast. Like a Band-Aid."

Abby grinned and bounced on the balls of her feet. "Those tickets? For that sun holiday we were talking about? They may not have been strictly kosher…uhh, they may actually be very good forgeries, the author of which will remain unnamed." She backed up a little as Gibbs' head shot up and his gaze narrowed. "There was a very good reason behind said artistic licence. We…we were trying to get you to…" She faltered under his burning gaze, and looked to Ziva for assistance, who picked up the mantel with stoic ease. "We wanted you to come with us to a one week break to Mexico. With Mike, he is expecting us. But we knew you would never come if we presented it to you like this, so we thought you would say yes to just us going on holiday. Which would mean you would be on holiday from work and be free to come with us. There is a ticket booked in your name. But you said no, so now we are…here. In this situation. I guess."

There was a pressing silence as they stared at Gibbs, and he at them.

"Boss…" Tony broke in, hesitantly. "It's been a long, long time since any of us have had a break. And I mean even by our standards, it's been a long time. And well… we got talking about vacations and stuff one night at the bar after work and we realised that…well, that none of us really have any family to go with. Other than uhmm…" he reddened and dropped his gaze to the floor. "Other than this one…but it didn't seem right to go without you. I mean none of us wanted to go…without you. And we know how much you love Mexico, and it's been awhile since you've seen Mike so it just seemed…it just seemed like a good idea…at the time." He silenced himself then, glancing sideways at the other three for support, embarrassed by his openness. Tim came to his aid. "It was all of our idea," he said hastily, "Not just Tony's, you can't blame him." He swallowed nervously as Gibbs merely continued to stare blankly. "Are you mad?"

The supportive nods of the other three reinforced the tentative question and Gibbs slowly rose.

Crossing the distance between them, he crooked a finger at Tony. "Come here," he ordered quietly. To his credit, save for a slight gulp, his right hand man didn't delay or backtrack. As he stopped short in front of him, he waited nervously as his boss considered him. When the hand eventually reached out, he braced himself for a searing headslap. Instead, the light punch on his shoulder was positively avuncular. Speaking lowly, just so that Tony could hear, Gibbs said something that made the younger man's face light up. Smiling his crooked smile at the sight, the eldest of the five crooked a finger next to Tim, who landed beside Tony with equal nervousness. Reaching out once more, and seeing the bracing grimace, Gibbs chuckled as he merely ruffled Tim's hair affectionately. "Come here, girls," he called quietly, completing the line up in front of him. pressing a kiss to each of their heads and then stepping back, he cleared his throat.

Not because it was constricting or anything, just because he wanted to.

"What usually happens when you four skirt around my back and plan things that I don't know about?"

Four faces fell.

He waited, with an arched brow. He was ambushing them, and he knew it.

"Answer me."

Tony swallowed, but as usual, he rose to the occasion.

"You kill us."

Biting his lip to hide the amused smirk that threatened, Gibbs nodded solemnly. Letting the pressure mount to volcanic eruption levels, he lingered his gaze over each of them in turn, seeing their pained shuffling sky rocket. "The last time you lied to me, planned things that I didn't know about and tried to trick me into going along with something I didn't know about, I tanned your behinds for you. And I recall then, telling you in no uncertain terms, that it would be ten times worse the next time you did it. And here we are, at the next time you've done it. So where do you think that leave us? What do you four think is going to happen now?" Four sets of eyes widened in misery so acute, he couldn't keep it up any longer. His face suddenly split into a grin. "It leaves us in a situation whereby even the very best of us, AKA me, have to eat our words sometimes. Thanks…you lot, you've got your heads about as screwed on as I could hope for. Can't say I'm a willing participant, but yeah…maybe we could all do with a break…even me."

He stepped forwards then and rapidly pulled them one by one, into a quick hug, before beaming.

"Damn, I can't wait to back to the Cantina." He winked at Tony and Tim. "There's this waitress there boys', I swear she's-"

"Gibbs!" Abby exclaimed in indignation, to Ziva's supporting nod. "Don't be so objectifying!"

Grinning apologetically, he shrugged.

"Don't worry, there's a few very handsome boys' there too, you'll…" his face fell, his stomach sinking as his two girls' exchanged happily calculating looks. "No no," he blurted out, "Those boys are off limits. They're way too old…and tanned." He shook his head all the more vigorously when Tony and Tim burst into laughter at the devilish expressions on Abby and Ziva's faces. "I'm serious," he growled. "They're nowhere near good enough. One of them has his nipple pierced for the love of…now you listen to me you two; you're not to talk to them, or look at them. In fact, I'm bringing my gun. That's settled. The gun is coming with me."

His stomach sank even further as the girls' joined in with the boys' laughter.

He was struck by sudden inspiration and shrugged with a smirk.

"Fine, go on and do things I won't like. Just bear in mind who we're staying with. You think I'm a hard ass? Wait until you're living under Mike Franks' roof. Especially when he has my full approval to deal with you all in the same manner I would myself." The laughter instantly ceased and as Gibbs set off upstairs to get drinks with a smirk, he distinctly heard the whispered and frantic "he's joking right?" and "he wouldn't do that to us, right?" Pausing on the step that always creaked; he cleared his throat and shouted down the stairs with more than just a hint of mirth in his voice.

"No, he's really not joking and yes, he really would do that to you."

…..

A/N: Final chapter guys! Decided to leave this one here, I feel it's run its course! I don't think I'll be writing another "NCIS whole team/multichapter fic" like this again, so a huge thanks to all the feedback on this one! I really appreciate it, truly. I hope you all enjoyed this, decided to end it on a fluffy note simply because I unashamedly love fluffy team Gibbs.

Till next time!

_Inks

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