Credits: Thank you to kate98 as usual, for the beta and for being willing to argue with me about things.
Author's note: Previously published in the NCIS flashfiction challenge 'Midnight.' (triple w-dot-livejournal-dot-com-fwslash-community-fwslash-ncis-underscore-flashfic)
"McGee, shut up." Sometimes the geek could be so, so annoying. This was one of those times. "You're a techno-geek, not a shrink, okay? So don't even go there." Tony turned away and stared out the window. Why couldn't… okay, he knew why Gibbs wouldn't do stakeout with him and why he sent McGee instead, but why couldn't he have told McGee which topics to stay away from? Especially in the middle of the night when things were… touchy.
"I just want to know why…"
"Shut up!" Tony spun around and pointed a finger at McGee. It wouldn't be enough though… he knew it. The question would keep gnawing at the probie, and if he didn't think he'd get an answer from Tony, he'd go asking other people. Eventually someone important would figure it out. "You ever see a person's brains outside their body?"
"Yeah…" McGee looked cautious, like he knew there was more to come.
"Ever wanted to find out what it feels like?" He didn't normally threaten people with violence, he usually left that up to someone who knew what he was doing, i.e. Gibbs. Some things you don't wanna know. Don't ask, don't tell could apply to a hell of a lot of things.
God. How the hell did you explain the complications of living with two alcoholic parents? Not to mention… You wanna know why I swear on my mother's grave when I tell a lie, probie? It's because that's what it is.
Ding-dong, the witch is dead. Of what on the other hand was a secret now known only to an ME, Tony DiNozzo, God and probably the Devil too. Even Gibbs didn't know; the difference was that Gibbs didn't care.
But McGee… McGee wanted to live in a world where things made sense. McGee wanted to live in a world that ran on logic, this-therefore-that, and he couldn't stand things out of whack with what he believed was reality. Therefore, to use the logic term, he had to make them fit. But McGee grew up in a world where your parents gave you a car for your sixteenth birthday, not in one where they immediately cut off your allowance.
'I thought your parents were loaded.' So ran Kate's theory, and true to a given value of true. Mom and Dad had a lot of money… maybe it was still out there, somewhere. Or maybe not, who knew? Not me. In a logical world, Tony would be rich. In this mad, mad world…
People made fun of the way he spent money, but what did saving it get you? Something to pass on when you're dead? Pass on to whom? Besides, he didn't trust banks and bankers… why should he? He knew what they were really like, how they really thought. Why hand his cash over to someone greedier than him?
Image means nothing. He watched the street, glad for the rain that filled the silence and stifled his urge to talk. According to image, bankers were sane, sober and respectable. Four martini lunches and nineteen-year-old mistresses weren't precisely indicative of sanity. At the same time, Image was Everything. Look at McGee – he bought the whole 'dilettante cop' thing. He truly believed that Tony was as shallow as he appeared. Good. As soon as people thought you could think, they wanted to know what you were thinking, and that only led to tears. As long as they thought you were superficial… then that's the only kind of friend they became. Superficial friends, he could handle. Because you knew it was superficial, so when things fell off, they didn't have any knives in their hands that they could stick in your back. Close friends… those were the ones who ended up hurting you, when they decided that being friends should be a one-way effort. Truth be told, all friends were superficial; the problem came when you forgot that and pretended that someone could care about you and not just themselves. Better to be cynical than disappointed.
Gibbs understood that. Gibbs knew what it meant to trust someone with your physical life and not let them near the non-corporeal you. Maybe that's why he and Gibbs could work so well together, despite the obvious differences. They knew not to pry, knew not to pretend that they were 'friends.' They were colleagues, partners… but not buddies, and it was better that way. Now, if only McGee would get the message. God, even Abby didn't try to 'understand' him. Kate gave up on that. So why the hell couldn't McGee?
His thoughts flashed to a girl he met while still in high school, and stupid enough to pick up hitchhikers.
"People don't really care about the truth." She told him, and it was either the weirdest name in history, or not really an answer to his question. "They'd rather have convenient lies."
"Convenient…"
"Something that lets them shape things to the way they think the world ought to be. People like comfort."
He nodded. "Don't say the emperor's naked."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her lips change into the hint of a cynical smile. "Don't say the child is wrong. After all, it's easy to see he must be right."
"Better the emperor is a fool, than we don't have faith." He could understand that. Life went so much easier when you gave people what they wanted to see. What was that Japanese philosophy? Something about the nail that stuck up would get pounded down? Even in the land of the individual, sometimes it was better to blend in with the crowd.
"Whatever makes you happy."
He wondered, now, what had happened to her. Did she get where she was going? Did she get in a car with somebody else and end up a statistic? He'd probably never know. Life didn't work out like the movies, where you got to find out everything. He'd never even found out her name. Funny how you could go for years and never think about something, and then one day it would just pop up, clear as anything. Maybe it was the night and the rain… which was the convenient lie? That she was a hitchhiker, or just someone he nearly ran over on a dark, rainy night while driving a stolen car?
Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe none of it mattered. But he sure as hell wasn't going to tell McGee that.
"You know, we say Gibbs is the cranky one." McGee settled down in the corner and pulled out a book. "But you are way worse than he's ever been."
So what now? The truth, or something easier. Well, that wasn't a hard choice, now was it? "Whatever makes you happy, McGee. Whatever makes you happy."