He hadn't pushed for anything.
Hadn't leaned too far or too close, just near enough to let her reach for him.
And part of her was dumbed astonished by the fact that he could so easily read her need to have him in her line of sight without necessarily wanting a snuggle fest. Not that he was the overly snuggling type – not in the least. However, he did tend to touch her more than she would have expected months before, when they'd met. He did keep her closely pressed and especially so when they were alone. He did tend to use his hands as a tether when words failed him - or, at least, when he assumed words failed him.
Which was an absolutely ridiculous assumption on his part.
He had a way of speaking the volumes of a library with just his eyes if he wanted to imply importance. His notion that he was poor at communication, no doubt, stemmed from the fact that he was often impatient or gruff and that people reacted poorly to his often tactless need to be concise, clear. Ducky had been both correct and incorrect at once.
He had communication issues – but only in the sense that he had more trouble communicating with himself than with others.
Although, he was awfully impatient sometimes. But he was being infinitely patient with her.
He was beautiful with words, really. Especially when he chose not to even use them at all.
"Can we turn it?" Kate leaned into the counter tentatively, her tone quieted as she tested touching against the bottom hem of the ragged t-shirt, hooking her fingers onto it as he watched the can of soup he'd poured into a pot do nothing but stare back at him.
Confusion mottled his features before he turned a glance aside, meeting the dark of her eyes. "What?"
She loosened from the fabric and stretched her hand up under the shirt, palm pressing against the solid side of him so that she could just finally breathe deeply. "I can't see you with it against the wall like that."
She already already knew he was at her back most all the time - she wanted to see the nearness of him. Visual conformation that he really was as close as he suddenly seemed to be.
"Face the bench?" He offered as he glared back to the pot, as though he was mentally urging it warm faster. "Sure."
"I'm not that hungry, Jethro." She sloped her fingers against his stomach, feeling him clench under her touch as she curled into the side of him and let her cheek rub against his upper arm.
"When's the last time you ate?"
"Yesterday."She traced her nails against skin and unconsciously smiled into how his stomach tensed under the movement, how his body went rigid as she passed her hand lower.
"Then I don't wanna hear it, Todd." Regardless of the fact she knew exactly how to tease his right thigh with just that much pressure, he still managed to use a tone of voice that came off gruff and rough and all business related. "Food is energy. You need to maintain."
"Sir, yes, sir," Kate swept her fingers higher, stroked slowly over him and let her lips kiss words on the back of his neck as she cupped against his length, feeling the hot and pressing twitch of it under the spread of her hand as she breathed out. "Gunnery Sergeant Gibbs."
"Caitlin," her name hissed off his lips like he had no other suitable word for her in his languages, his hand soothing flat over hers as he groaned and pressed her palm still. The minute thrust he made against her fingers was probably more reactionary than point making but she appreciated how full her hand felt between his legs as he groaned.
"You need to eat," he grumbled as he dragged her fingers up the erection she'd started, intentionally grazing her hand hard against it before he drew her palm back flat to his stomach and pressed it still.
"I... I don't know how to tell you how much that means to me." Seemed she was having a truckload of trouble with language on her own – he wasn't alone. "Nobody's ever done something like that for me. I don't know how to say that, though. How to - "
"Ya just did." His interruption was an intentional save, provided with a smile that she could hear through his words.
"You love me." She was surprised by how easy the conclusion was to voice, especially considering how difficult she found it to admit that she was way too deep in something with him. "At least a little bit."
"Thought I'd shown you that."
The repetition of his earlier words, so softly blank but unbreakably true in the middle of his kitchen...
Language was pretty much useless anyhow. Communication was overrated when he was him and she'd likely be a puddle on the floor if she wasn't so tautly trapped around the middle of him.
So she settled for kissing against his shoulder blade, rubbing her face into the shirt that smelled like him and home and damn you for this, I can't stop it. "You know I don't eat tomato soup without grilled cheese."
"What d'you want from me, woman? Jesus." The humor in his tone said he appreciated the joking break from having too serious of a conversation when he was barefoot and leaning over soup with half a hard on. "I make you furniture."
A shrug lifted her shoulders that made her feel and seem and probably look too young to be anywhere near how stalwart he invariably was. "Come to Mass with me in the morning?"
Gibbs just banked her a disbelieving glance over his shoulder, guarding in the way he tipped his head. "Katya."
"I just need to," she shrugged it off again, unable to make any other movement, "accept it in my own way."
"You need to confess," he murmured.
She couldn't help but nod into the veracity of his statement, the very fact he knew her well enough that he said it like he'd seen it coming. "I need to confess."
"Y'don't need to confess a damn thing to me, Kate." A wry and quiet laugh choked off his throat as he shook his head. "I'm twice the murderer you think you are."
"I don't believe that," Kate murmured softly into the kitchen as he turned back over the pot, his back broad as he obviously avoided meeting her eyes.
"Then you're in denial, sweetheart."
She flinched him a glare, regardless of the fact he couldn't see it.
She had the idea he knew it was written over her face, though.
Had the notion that the almost snide placation had been a nudge to get her shoulders straightened again.
"Yeah, well..." the unsteady sway of her voice had him turning his entire body around, shifting to lean to the counter, "that happens when you're... ya know."
It happens when you're ass over tits in love with someone, you simple bastard.
I'm trying to... aw, hell. This is impossible. You're impossible.
"Yeah," the unchecked grin he gave her was worth more than furniture if she had to prioritize the unspoken gifts of his making. "Guess it does."
"You're making me soup at two in the morning," she playfully accused, lifting her jaw into it just to draw out the grin and make it last longer.
"And you're gonna eat it," he answered lazily as he watched her draw closer. "Without complaint."
His hand met the lean of her body toward his, continued the circle he made around her waist with both arms as she pressed up his chest and her nose wrinkled a little in teasing. "But with a sandwich."
"Go change. Wash your face." The kiss he laid against her lips was soft and treaded more nervously than she'd expected, even as his voice shushed affectionate and he raised his lips to kiss her forehead too. "You look like hell."
"Such a charmer, Gibbs." Kate rolled her eyes into pinching along his ribs, untangling from the seemingly comfortable way he'd laced her up against his hips. "No wonder they all divorce you."
He wordlessly but soundly smacked her ass on her way in retaliation and she finally let herself breathe as she laughed and glared at him at once.
She hadn't slept well. At least, not in comparison to how she usually tucked along his ribs and curved on him. She'd slapped at him at one point in the night, when he'd tried to lull the shifting of her body and the sudden rigidity of beautifully toned muscles. To her credit, when she'd woken to her wrists being clamped by his sure hands, she'd just startled still, stayed quiet, stared blankly at him before loosening her fingers still.
And he'd watched the way she stared at him, rubbing his thumbs against her wrists as he'd waited out her indecisive confusion.
Wasn't like he hadn't dreamed the nightmare she'd been having a hundred or so times before.
Wasn't like he wasn't familiar with the gut low feeling of this particular brand of self hatred.
"Stop," he whispered quietly but with more authority than he normally would have, saw how it flared her eyes wider in both stubbornness and anger. "No more, Kate."
It took a moment for her arms to entirely lax loosened into his hands and when he felt her relax into the order he'd made of his words he dragged them up, drawing her against his chest so that she could curl on him.