A/N: Welcome! Enjoy a series of one-shot, unrelated drabble fics about kisses, hugs and other moments of tenderness between our favourite NCIS team members (I haven't watched enough of the new crew to get a feel for them yet.) Some will be romantic, others platonic, and hopefully a couple (if my muse plays nice) just plain awkward.
Pairing/Setting: Kibbs, romantic. Needs to be crammed in between SWAK and Twilight. We're going to pretend there was just a tiny bit more time between those two episodes where Tony was already back from sick leave.
"Tony!" Kate's voice was audible even before the elevator announced her arrival with the trademark 'ding'.
McGee winced at the fury in the single word, "Whoa, what did you do Tony?" he questioned, glancing across at his colleague.
"Dunno." Tony shrugged. "She hasn't made it to her desk, she can't know I borrowed her deodorant yet. Lilac and vanilla, ugh." he shuddered.
Kate entered, clearly on the warpath. "I can't believe you'd do this!" she crossed the distance between the elevator and Tony's desk in record time, especially for someone wearing heels. "I might actually kill you this time."
Tony leaned back in his chair and put both hands behind his head. "Mornin' Kaaaay-tie" he drawled, studying her with a cocky smirk. "What's got you all hot and bothered?"
She slammed something down on his desk, "Don't act like you don't know DiNozzo. I always knew you were depraved, but seriously?" Tony leaned forward, cautiously poking the layers of paper carefully with his pen, first the brown outer packaging, followed by the filmy blue tissue. Inspecting the contents of the parcel, he laughed and drew out a long feather, the exact shade as the tissue paper.
"Well lookee here McGee, someone's been sending our Katie Honey Dust. Got a secret admirer we don't know about?" he twirled the feather against his jaw experimentally.
"Drop the act!" Kate leaned both hands on his desk, staring him down. "I can't believe that you'd go into my personnel file to find my address for the sake of a sick prank."
"Does that sound like something I'd do? Don't answer that." he dropped the feather back into the wrapping, reaching for the box instead. It sounded exactly like something he'd do, and clearly, Kate shared this opinion, given the disgusted snort she offered in reply. "Hey now, this guy's a spender. This is the fancy stuff." He turned the small white box in his hands, studying the pearlescent finish, the embossed silver print; the delicate catch giving the effect of a treasure chest. "It is a guy isn't it?" This was delivered with a teasing leer.
"You're a pig, Tony!" Kate spat, seizing the feather and wrapping paper, "Give me that," she reached for the box.
Tony studied the box with a smirk. "Hey, if you don't want it..." he flicked the catch open and lifted the lid. "I know plenty of lovely ladies who'd be willing to help me put it to use."
"Give it to me!" Kate swiped and Tony stretched, raising the box out of reach.
"With pleasure," Tony smirked, deliberately misinterpreting her, and clearly enjoying how flustered she'd become.
"You know what I mean!" Kate lunged forward, reaching over the computer screen. Tony stood quickly to dodge her, still holding it aloft and an open box containing powder did precisely what it does when jerked abruptly. A cloud of fine, shimmery Honey Dust flew into the air, almost all of it dumping on Kate's face. Tony fell into his chair again, howling with laughter. Kate gasped, trying to clear her mouth and nose. The rest of the office froze, the last incident with white powder that hadn't been Honey Dust, still fresh in everyone's minds.
"Stand down!" Gibbs moved in rapidly from wherever he'd been, obviously waiting to catch his agents unawares, although he probably hadn't expected an escalation of quite this proportion. "Not a biohazard, just a pair of idiots. DiNozzo, get resources on the phone to bring you cleaning supplies. Breathe, Kate."
"Trying," Kate choked. Honey Dust was safe, but it wasn't designed to be tipped in a single solid mass onto someone's face. She gasped and tried to wipe her eyes, growing more panicky by the second. Little puffs of dust came out every time she coughed, and her lips were caked with the powder.
"Get cleaning DiNozzo!" Gibbs barked. He wrapped his arms around Kate's waist and half carried, half dragged her to the men's room, turning on the tap and pushing her head towards the sink. She was still panicked, wheezing, spitting up puffs of Honey Dust, and fighting back against his hand on her head.
She shook her head frantically. "Can't breathe, it's everywhere!"
"C'mon Todd. Get it together," Gibbs cupped his own hand under the stream of water and brought it up to her mouth, wiping her face for her. "If you can talk, you can breathe," he added more soothingly. It took a couple more splashes from Gibbs before she realised what was going on and she took over. It was several minutes of rinsing and spitting before she turned the taps off.
"Tony went too far this time, Gibbs." Kate panted when she could finally talk again and she dabbed her face with the paper towel he held out. "Gibbs! This is the men's room!" she said incredulously, suddenly becoming aware of her surroundings.
Gibbs leaned back on the countertop with a dry smirk. "Rather I threw you in the biohazard shower?" he reached for several more sheets of the scratchy industrial paper towel and continued feeding them to her as she attempted to tidy herself.
Kate looked over to fix him with an irritated glare but decided not to push it. He would throw her in the shower if it came to it, and she changed topics. "The only way Tony would have got my address is if he'd gone into my file!" she snapped, looking at her sweater. "Oh god, it's everywhere," she moaned, making made a half-hearted attempt to brush it from her front. Her hands were still covered, so only added more powder, the particles settling in the knit fibres. She quickly realised it was pointless and returned to the mirror to try and fix her hair, wet and straggly at the front, still shimmering with the dust in the back.
Gibbs spoke almost too softly to be heard, "He's not the only one who can read personnel files."
"What?" She glanced sideways, from where she was leaning in, using a corner of the paper towel to tidy up her smudged mascara.
"DiNozzo isn't the only person with access to personnel files," He repeated softly, patiently. When Kate's expression remained puzzled, Gibbs' voice lowered in pitch. "You weren't meant to bring it to work, Katie," he murmured. The nickname that she hated so much rolled off his tongue in a completely different fashion to Tony's teasing drawl.
"Oh? Oh!" Her face registered shock as the meaning became obvious. "You...?"
He nodded just once. "Yup."
"How was I supposed to know?" her tone was incredulous and she gave up on trying to fix her bedraggled appearance, turning to face him. "Why in the mail?"
"To let you pretend you never saw it if you didn't want it," he shrugged looking at her sideways. "Post Office musta screwed up again, s'posed to be a card."
Kate shook her head, a little confused. "Why?" she questioned weakly.
"Think you'd like it," he stepped closer. "It's not just one of DiNozzo's cheap tricks... when it's done right."
"Right?" Kate echoed, her breath catching.
"Could show you... if you want?" he offered, holding out his hand. Kate reached towards him, but hesitated for a second, her hand hovering over his upturned palm. "Your call, Katie. You say no, we leave here and go back to work like this never happened," he said, giving her a clear out.
She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth for a second longer, still considering. "Okay," she whispered, laying her hand on his. Gibbs' fingers closed around her gently, and he lifted her hand, still shimmering with the dust, much like most of her upper body, and laid a lingering kiss on her palm. "Tastes like honey," he said in a low whisper.
She shivered visibly, lifted her other hand, tasted the tips of her first two fingers. "It does too. What about romance between agents never working?" her voice became unsteady as Gibbs slowly kissed the Honey Dust from each of her fingers in slow succession.
"Worth a shot," he let go of her hand, tucked her hair softly behind her ear and lowered his face to the curve of her neck. His nose traced a line from her earlobe to her shirt collar, and she arched back almost unconsciously, inviting him to press a sequence of feather-light kisses along her throat. By the time he was done, Kate was gripping his arms tightly to counteract her knees which had become jelly.
"Wow," she breathed.
"That's what they all tell me," he looked almost smug, pleased that he'd managed to turn his subordinate into a breathless quivering mess, and in the men's room at work no less. "Hoped you'd say yes."
"Since when, Gibbs?" Kate asked, suddenly hearing an echo of the moment in the submarine, the colour of the feather, the same shade of the sweater she'd worn that day and joining the dots.
"Oh..." he chuckled softly, took her face in his hands, and brushed minuscule kisses across her brow. "It's been a while," he answered.
"Why now?" she let her arms wind up and around his neck, one hand moving to splay up the back of his neck and into the short silver hair on the back of his head.
"Just gotta feeling might be the only chance we get." He tipped her face up and kissed her, slow and sweet, coffee and honey mingling on both their lips. "So, what d'ya say?"
"Tonight. My place. One condition..." She kissed him again.
"And what's that?" He smirked down at her.
"You get a new feather, I don't want the one Tony's had his paws all over."
Gibbs barked a short laugh. "Anything you want Katie. Now, go help him clean up."
Gibbs was right; it was the only chance they had. The following day Kate, wearing a pale blue blazer she had chosen because of the way it matched his eyes, took a call from Virginia State Police that reported two dead sailors in a car near Fredericksburg. The date was May 23rd, 2004.
Tony knew better than to ask where the feather that had been left on his desk went... or why there were two tucked away on the corner of the workbench the next time he visited Gibbs' basement.
A/N: I know Kibbs is a bit of a controversial pairing, but I kind of like them. I feel like there were a lot of loud looks and subtext going on. He could have loved her.
Reviews welcome as always. Got a few more ideas in the works already, it just takes forever to get them on paper... well screen.
