Challenge word #4: stormy
Leon Vance jumped slightly at the thunder outside. The entirety of his office lit up when the next round of lightening came. Leon felt a twinge in his heart at the thought of his little girls, at home made nervous by the thunder. God, he wanted to be home. His wife was understanding to a point, but regardless of how much work mattered there were some days when home was the only thing he wanted.
Finalizing a copy of a letter to the NCIS office in Souda Bay in Greece, Leon pushed his chair back and stood. Another crack of lightening. He needed to get home, get in bed, and get rid of all the hectic shit at work. Which most often came down to Special Agent Gibbs.
It wasn't that Gibbs was a bad agent, no. In fact he was a damn good one. And he knew it, so when he took 'artistic liberties' in the field and it worked—like he knew it would—there was very little room for argument. It didn't help he had a band of cohorts who enjoyed helping with illegal side projects. Officer David was always up for an unconventional method, although Leon had to admit Agent McGee probably agreed out of fear. And DiNozzo, well, that man was so obsessed with Gibbs he'd do just about anything to make him happy.
That was an odd working relationship if Leon had ever seen one. There was clearly an element of a father/son relationship that frankly made him unhappy—that level of concern and emotional attachment to a coworker would lead to failed prioritization in the field. But Tony was such a devout follower, beyond familial attachment. Since becoming Director, and thus forced into a kind of babysitting role for the Gibbs major response team, Leon had watched more than once how DiNizzo's eyes would just trail after his boss all day. He couldn't seem to help himself from staring at the man and the more Leon paid attention the more obvious it became.
Leon rubbed a hand over his eyes as he grabbed the travel umbrella and overcoat hanging in the corner. He made his way downstairs and stopped for a moment by DiNozzo's desk. He didn't know why, he shouldn't spy on employees, he trusted DiNozzo. He was a damn good agent—actually, that right there was a reason to search his property.
Why would such a talented agent turn down promotion after promotion and when serving as agent afloat make every effort to be demoted to second-in-command at the main base? There had to be a dangerous and generally worrying reason for that kind of occupationally destructive behavior.
Pulling open drawers at random, Leon groaned at the sheer number of porn magazines. Really, could DiNozzo not keep sex off his mind ever? Jesus, he gave a bad reputation to men everywhere. There was a change of clothes, some basic tools for hygiene, including what appeared to be the makings of a hangover remedy.
Opening the drawer on the bottom right, Leon wasn't shocked to find all of the commendations for Gibbs stacked neatly inside. He knew Gibbs hated recognition and he knew DiNozzo adored being Gibbs's second and watching his back. DiNozzo would much rather represent Gibbs than receive the award himself. For all the showy attitude, Leon had yet to see DiNozzo acknowledge his own skills properly. Leon squatted down to pull out the awards, just to count them because he wanted to know how long DiNozzo had been picking up for his boss.
At the very bottom of the desk, Leon found an envelope. Pulling it out because it was on NCIS property and therefore within his right to look at it, Leon pulled the two pieces of paper out of the envelope.
The first was a quickly scrawled note on a piece from a yellow legal pad. Leon struggled to read it, but came up with: Drinks after work. Take your own car. Nellie's.
Leon ignored his gut reaction to the last word—because really, it wasn't likely that the Nellie's in the note was the same discrete, off-the-beaten-path gay sports bar his wife's brother frequented. That didn't fit with DiNozzo at all.
The second note was in the same scrawl: "If you're so damn sick, go home! I don't care how much you wanted to see me; I will be home anyway to take care of your fever!"
Leon just stared at the note. DiNozzo was living with someone, someone who was going to come home and take care of him when he was out with a bad cold with bronchitis two months back—and they were always bad, what with the plague background. Someone who probably worked in the office, since DiNozzo kept the notes here it was easy to connect to the idea he'd gotten them while here. Someone whose handwriting looked a lot like the ridiculous chicken scrawl that—no. Definitely not, not possible.
Leon headed over to Gibbs's desk and frantically pushed through papers until he found a decent sample to compare for handwriting similarities. Holy shit. In the eerie light of the lightening outside, Leon could see the writing matched Gibbs's perfectly.
He turned to Gibbs's drawers and pulled through them, but didn't find anything until he opened the top drawer. It was filled with office supplies like everyone else are but the paranoia and Colombo-type detective work had Leon combing through it all. On a sticky note attached to the bottom of a stack of postage stamp sheets, Leon hit an unwanted jackpot.
Stop wearing that shirt, it distracts me.
And as Leon got behind the wheel of his car after putting everything back exactly the way he found it, he avoided thinking about having read gay love letters or the implications for military work or how to handle looking at DiNozzo and his idolization without twitching ever again. But mostly he tried to convince himself that, as handy as it was, this kind of information shouldn't be used to one-up Gibbs in one of their many procedural debates. Although the look on his face would be priceless.
1) I actually did some research. Nellie's is a legitimate gay sports bar in D.C.
2) Very challenging to be Vance. Any Advice? Thoughts? Praise? (Hint: Pick the last one!!!)
