Tim rooted through his bag of purchases. A small plastic food storage tub with a tight-fitting cover was already waiting on the hood of his car. Finally finding the elusive avocado, he pulled out the small knife that Gibbs had taught him to carry and cut it open, scraped the soft flesh into the tub, and awkwardly mashed it with the flat of the blade.
Breakfast had been a miserable experience. His ass hurt like hell, and the chairs in the motel dining-room were unpadded wood. He'd squirmed uncomfortably, making a mental note to add a tube of sunburn lotion to the over-night bag he kept at the office.
Tony had met his eyes, silently asking if he was alright, and what he'd done wrong, but Gibbs's presence had prevented him from inquiring openly. And, mercifully, Tony had been sent on some errand as soon as he'd finished eating, sparing Tim from having to dodge his questions while he loaded the evidence into the trunk for the drive back to DC. But he'd still felt very self-conscious, knowing that his partner had no doubt heard what had happened.
And he was sure that the other occupants of the breakfast room were staring at him as well. The elderly woman at the next table had glanced at them several times, and Tim was convinced that she thought Gibbs was an old-fashioned father who had disciplined one of his sons the night before. And from the looks they were getting from a younger couple across the room, he suspected that they'd reached entirely the wrong conclusion about what they'd heard.
And then, however grateful he was to escape from that situation, the alternative was an equally miserable drive home. Despite the padded seat, sitting hurt, and every shift in his position sent fresh sparks of pain shooting through him. He'd finally pulled off the highway in search of relief. A quick prowl through a drug store had confirmed his suspicion that sun-burn remedies would be difficult to find at this time of year, and he'd headed for the supermarket next door, hoping he could remember Abby's recipe.
Now, stopped at the side of an isolated stretch of highway, he spent several minutes squeezing and stirring, adding various ingredients to the messy green mush. He knew he was missing a few things, but he'd done the best he could with what was available at the store he'd found. He'd even found a scraggly aloe plant in the garden centre; it wasn't what Abby had used in her home-made spanking remedy, but, while he knew little about herbal medicine, he knew enough to know that aloe was good for irritated skin. He broke off the plumpest leaf, slit it open, and scrapped out the gooey contents. Satisfied, he fished the tea bag out of the steaming cup he'd purchased at a donut shop he'd passed, and squeezed it over the concoction. He gave it a last stir, hoping that the missing ingredients wouldn't matter too much.
He grabbed the sad-looking plant and stuck it on the floor in the back of the car. He wasn't good with house-plants, usually killing them with remarkable efficiency, but he'd let it take its chances on his kitchen window-sill. It might come in handy, he thought with a self-deprecating smile, as he pulled a pair of loose-fitting sweat-pants out of a tote-bag on the back seat. They'd be more comfortable than the chinos he was wearing, and he didn't care as much if they got ruined by the rather messy avocado-mush.
He retrieved the plastic tub and made his way carefully into the shelter of a thick cluster of shrubs where he could change his pants and apply the 'cream'. He kept a wary eye out for poison ivy. The last thing he needed was to make the problem worse.