Tim didn't get very far before his anger dissipated. He slowed his pace, then finally stopped altogether, sinking down to sit with his back against a massive tree-trunk and his knees tucked up under his chin.
He'd never been comfortable with Gibbs's theory that you learn by doing, and feeling, and doing it wrong and then doing it again and again until you get it right. He learned from books. Even when he was learning to shoot, it had been a mathematical calculation of trajectory and force, for him.
And the kinds of things he tried to learn, he usually picked up pretty easily.
So, when Gibbs decided to play DI and teach his hapless subordinates some aspect of Marine training that he suddenly decided was vitally important, Tim invariably quailed inside. Like when his boss had ordered him onto the ground to show him how to break a sentry's neck. The man could have just explained that, when you find a body with its neck contorted like the one lying on the living-room floor, you know you're looking for someone who would know how to snap someone's neck with their bare hands. He really didn't need the first-hand demonstration of how it's done.
Especially since Gibbs's lessons usually entailed something that Tim wasn't, and never would be, good at. He felt like his boss was setting him up for failure.
And, even when his inner voice of reason tried to tell him that Gibbs wasn't trying to humiliate him, to make him feel inadequate, to remind him that he lacked most of the basic traits that the ex-Marine considered valuable in a man, the fact that he invariably did fail at whatever he was supposed to be learning always had him feeling inadequate and miserable.
Tim kicked himself for thinking that today would be any different.
He was right in the first place, when he'd been dreading having his boss teach him how to follow a topographical map. He would have been so much more comfortable just memorising the information on that friendly web-site on orienteering, and parroting enough of it to his troop to get through the day. It wasn't as if a bunch of grade-schoolers would know enough to humiliate him with his lack of expertise.
He never should have let himself start to enjoy spending time with his boss, to let down his barriers, to stop expecting to fail at every moment. He'd let himself start to think that he might get through the day without once again proving his incompetence. So, when he did screw up, he wasn't prepared for it, and the failure had stung even more sharply than usual.
Tim drained the last of the water from the bottle at his waist, wishing that he hadn't dropped the rest of his supplies in an angry huff.
Actually, he wished he hadn't done a lot of things.
He groaned, burying his face against his knees.
He didn't really mouth off at Gibbs like that, did he? It was all just a bad dream or something, right? It can't really have happened.
Because Gibbs was a Marine, and Marines take that being disrespectful stuff seriously.
Tim struggled to suppress a wave of nauseating panic at the realisation that Gibbs would probably spank him for talking to him like that... for screaming at him like that. A moment later, he realised to his dismay that he was facing a spanking in the middle of a forest... Tony had told him that being whipped with a switch was the worst thing, ever... what if Gibbs...?
It was all a dream. It had to have been.
Because even if Gibbs wasn't going to take a switch to him for acting like a cross between a sullen teenager and a hysterical toddler, he couldn't really have said those things to his boss.
Could he?
Convinced that he had just destroyed his career and any hope of earning the respect of the mentor he admired so much, he closed his eyes and curled even tighter into himself, rocking slightly the way he used to do as a small child whenever he was frightened or upset.
He knew he shouldn't care so much what his boss thought of him. But he couldn't help it.
He'd been eager to please this gruff ex-Marine ever since his first TAD assignment with him, during that murder case in Norfolk. Since then, the slightest praise, the occasional 'good job', an approving glance, had been like honey to him. He wasn't quite like a puppy waiting to be patted... but it wasn't that far off, sometimes.
He knew this.
And he felt a quiet embarrassment about being so dependant on this man's approval.
This man, who so clearly loved Tony like the son he'd never had.
And who finally seemed to be accepting Tim as part of his team, offering him advice and encouragement in a softer voice than usual, being almost affectionate in his use of a nickname for his youngest agent.
And who he knew would do anything to protect him, as a member of his team.
It was that sense of belonging that had helped him make sense of his feelings after Gibbs had whipped him that first time. Gibbs was his leader, and he would obey him without hesitation... or would accept the consequences of failing to meet his exacting expectations.
And even if his boss never actually told him that he was forgiven, never offered him the sense of closure that he desperately craved after a spanking, he knew that being allowed to remain a part of Gibbs's team meant that he was still part of that privileged few the older man saw as his.
So he tried, desperately, not to resent the absence of more explicit absolution, of greater recognition of his successes as well as his failures. And he tried not to resent the fact that he would never be as important as Tony so clearly was to their boss.
Most days, he was pretty successful.
But sometimes, like today, it was just too much for him and he felt like he was going to snap in half from the tension.
Apparently, he just had.
A slight rustling alerted him to movement nearby, and he looked up tentatively to find his boss standing over him, carrying both their backpacks, and looking down at him with unexpected tenderness and concern.