Timeframe? Early S3-4, post Under Covers anyway. Doesn't really matter beyond that.
As always, enjoy!
"Gibbs... listen!" Ziva jerked her head down the motel corridor with disgust. It sounded like there was either a very unhappy donkey on the loose or a peculiar occult ritual taking place in her room. "I cannot possibly sleep in the same room as... that. You know how dramatic he is when he has a sniffle, and this time he is genuinely sick. Please."
The case had taken them several hours out of DC. The drive time alone had necessitated an overnight stay, never mind the closed ranks of the small-town residents who did not welcome their city visitors asking questions. Two motel rooms, four beds, they were used to the arrangement; as was routine, Ziva and Gibbs simply split in the hall, one to each room and let the others sort it out. She'd ended up with Tony after he'd quickly realised their room had the only working TV.
Dinner had been a sketchy affair. Ziva had browsed the scant offerings at the convenience store, thrown together something resembling a salad and shared it with McGee. Gibbs had kept it simple with a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. Tony meanwhile, had gone against everyone's wisdom and opted for a chilli hotdog from a roadside stand. Said hotdog was now making a violent and noisy exit in their attached bathroom, and Ziva had made a swift escape.
"He had to get the hotdog, didn't he?" Gibbs grumbled. Another unholy noise rose from the next room, and he relented with a sigh. He opened the door fully, letting her follow him into the darkened room. McGee already snored quietly on the other bed. "Fine. You're on the left," he said.
She preferred the right, but asking to sleep in his bed was pushing the line far enough. "Thank you," Ziva said with quiet appreciation, dropping her pillow where he indicated.
Gibbs tossed a sweatshirt at her. "Cover up," he instructed, pulling the matching bottoms over his shorts. Her tank top and long pants could hardly be called revealing, but the less bare skin available to accidentally touch the better. Suitably attired, there was a moment of adjustment as they both took their places, trying to share the blanket fairly without needing to be in each other's personal space. "If you kick, I'm kicking back," he warned with a growl.
Ziva huffed a quiet laugh, she knew it was not an idle threat. "Of all the things I do to my bedmates, I assure you, kicking is not one of them," she whispered with a grin.
Gibbs gave a soft snort understanding the implication. "That's not an option either."
"I will stay on my side of the bed," she promised. She settled on her side facing away from him and quickly drifted off to the (now, thankfully muted) sounds of Tony's discomfort from next door.
McGee woke early, somewhere just before dawn, summoned by the inevitable call of nature. Stumbling back into the room from the adjoining bathroom, he stubbed his toe hard on the doorframe. Glancing sideways to check Gibbs had not heard either the thud or the cry of pain he'd not quite been able to muffle, McGee wondered if he'd somehow used the wrong door and ended up in Ziva's room.
Confused, he looked across to the other bed, checking for Tony; it was empty and he recognised the pillow as the one he'd brought from home. Definitely his room. So why was he suddenly sharing with Ziva and come to think of it, why did she have three arms? He counted again, left hand on the pillow, under her cheek, right hand flopped on the mattress near her chest and a third hand splayed across her middle.
It took a full five seconds of sleepy blinking for him to register. It was Gibbs' arm around Ziva's stomach. He rubbed his eyes and checked again. It was exactly what he'd seen the first time; Ziva, sound asleep, with Gibbs close up behind her, one of his arms wrapped around her body, cuddling her against his chest, the other acting as her pillow. His face was tucked into the curve of her neck, but even without the details, McGee could tell he was just as deeply asleep as she was.
He took a third glance just to confirm he wasn't seeing things. It was 100% full-bodied spooning, he could tell from the lump at the foot of the bed that their ankles were twined together. The light was still dim, but with a squint, he realised she was wearing his shirt too.
"Nope, too weird," McGee murmured with a sleepy shake of his head. "Need backup." With one last, puzzled glance at the bed, he headed for the door.
"I am going to kill you for this, McAss-Crack-of-Dawn." Tony moaned. He looked decidedly worse for wear, the night had not been a pleasant one, alternating between long visits in the bathroom and tossing and turning with cold sweats, with the constant overtones of crippling waves of cramping. Finally, the worst had passed only and he'd fallen into a fitful sleep. Haggard and pale, he heavily resented McGee's sudden appearance in his room and even more the way he was being dragged down the hall less than thirty seconds later.
McGee put a hand on the doorknob. "Shh!" Even though he was hissing, the sibilant warning was loud enough to wake the dead. "Just tell me you see this too!" He opened the door wider and gestured for Tony to enter.
Tony reluctantly stepped over the threshold and fixed his gaze on the occupied bed. "Oh yeah, I see it," he muttered a second later. "I don't wanna be, but I am. What the hell is going on here?" They tiptoed a little further into the room, towards the end of the bed.
"I was hoping you could tell me," McGee whispered back, relieved he wasn't just having some kind of bizarre dream. "When did Ziva leave your room anyway?"
"Dunno. She was there, then she wasn't." He shrugged. They edged themselves closer to the foot of the bed, studying the scene in confusion. "Had more pressing matters at hand than tracking wandering assassins. Like not hurling hard enough to lose any fillings. Didn't you hear her come in?"
McGee shook his head. "Passed out before I hit the pillow, almost. Gibbs was still in the shower when I went to sleep."
Tony squinted suspiciously at their sleeping forms. "You sure they're both alive? Ziva snores like she's been smoking a pack a day since she was six. This is way too quiet for her."
"Yes, I'm sure," McGee bit back in a whisper. "She's probably just grateful to get away from your whining. If you're so worried, check."
"No way, McAlarm Clock. They're your roomies, you check." He emphasised this with a shove between the younger agent's shoulder blades in the direction of the bed. McGee stumbled forward, and caught himself, turning around to return the favour, pushing back. A second later, they were engaged in a silent, but fierce battle of wills and strength, each struggling to push the other close enough to their sleeping colleagues to look for signs of life.
"Ow, ow, ow!" McGee hissed after a minute. Despite his rough night, Tony had emerged victorious, seizing McGee's hand in a strange pinch that he could only have learned from Ziva. It was not only agonising but very persuasive. "Fine, I'll do it!" he gasped. He breathed a sigh of relief as Tony released his grip. Very cautiously, and still shaking his hand with regret, he edged himself around the side of the bed where he could see their faces.
"Well?" Tony demanded quietly, from his much safer position.
McGee cautiously leaned forward, noting as Gibbs and then Ziva's shoulders moved in a slow, steady rhythm. "Yeah, they're both breathing," he announced softly, retreating hastily once he'd confirmed this. They stood there in silence for another minute, studying the scene. "Do you think we should wake them?" he asked at last.
"Not if you value your life. Pretty sure that's an indirect violation of Rule 22... Or maybe 23." Tony replied, tilting his head and squinting in the dim light. "Hey... she's wearing the boss's shirt."
McGee rolled his eyes. "I told you that already."
"Well, it's not like you were making any sense before." Tony jabbed his elbow sideways. Two more shoves and a couple of shoulder punches were exchanged before they returned to the topic at hand. "It makes my stomach turn to say this, but you don't think they...?"
"They what?"
This time Tony rolled his eyes. "Come on, McGee... don't be so naive. Maybe they had a naked nightcap, danced the bedroom ballet, had a little midnight mingle..." He trailed off with an uncomfortable gag.
McGee's eyes widened as he caught on. "No!" he snapped, forgetting to whisper. Gibbs grumbled at the disturbance and both men froze, holding their breaths and waited as their boss turned his face a little deeper into Ziva's neck and slumbered on, apparently unaware of the audience.
"No," McGee repeated more softly now that it seemed safe to talk again. "There's no way, I mean I was right there. And this is the Boss you're talking about. He invented Rule 12."
"If you say so," Tony said with a shrug. He grinned, clearly enjoying how uncomfortable the suggestion had made his partner more than the discomfort of imagining it. "But you didn't hear her show up, who knows what else you slept through?"
"I would've woken up if they'd done that!" he insisted through clenched teeth. "Not that they did. I mean Gibbs is old enough to be her dad."
Tony smirked. "Ooh, touchy. But think about it, you know how she gets when someone mentions Director David. Would totally explain if she had a thing for older men."
"Would you quit talking about it!" McGee's voice rose again, desperately trying to shake the mental image. This time, Ziva was the one who stirred, cuddling a little further back into the body behind her.
"Shh!" Tony hissed no more quietly. The men watched in horror as she laced her fingers through the ones that rested on her stomach and drawing both their hands upward, tucked them under her chin with a sleepy, contented sigh before drifting off again quickly. "Oh god, I think I really am going to be sick again," he groaned and hightailed it out of the room.
McGee didn't even bother with words this time and simply followed him as fast as he could.
The door slammed in their wake and Ziva immediately curled around herself and shrieked with laughter.
Behind her, Gibbs snickered quietly. "You got any idea how hard it is not to break when you're laughing?" he complained when she caught her breath. "Could feel your damn back shaking."
"That was your fault!" she protested. "It tickled when you moved your head, so you did not laugh first. I cannot believe they thought we were still asleep after that fight... They hit the bed twice when they were pushing each other."
Gibbs made an unimpressed kind of noise in his throat. "They're dumber than I gave 'em credit for." He tried to tug his arm back, his hand still laced with Ziva's where she'd tightened her grip in the throes of laughter. "You can let go now, David."
"Of course, sorry." She opened her hand, and they untangled themselves slowly, Gibbs' elbow clicking as he pulled it out from underneath her head.
"You snore, you know that?" he grumbled, settling back into his own space and trying to shake feeling back into his arm. "Not what I signed up for."
"I only said I would not kick," Ziva reminded him with a smirk, rolling to her back and wiping tears from her eyes. The growl from the pillow next to her indicated reluctant acceptance of her technicality.
Gibbs gestured to the far side of the room, the walls were not quite thin enough to silence the angry whispers and bickering from the two agents where they had taken refuge in the other bedroom. "Think we broke McGee," he said with a chuckle.
"You are not putting this one on me, Gibbs!" she scolded with a laugh. "You made the first move as it were, I just woke up like that."
"I wasn't the one holding anyone's hand," he pointed out dryly, then chuckled, reliving the way their audience had fled. "Nice work though, was starting to think they were gonna stand there all morning."
"They needed to leave before Tony came up with anything more offensive and I got up and choked him. It worked," she explained serenely. "Still, I stayed on my side of the bed," she added pointedly.
Gibbs snorted a dry laugh and shook his head. "Only rolled over to smother you," he said in his defence.
"Excuse me?" she demanded. "I may sleep heavily, but I am still quite capable of defending myself against attack!"
He studied her for a second but decided against finding out the details of that particular addition to her dossier. "Told you, you snore. I've flown in attack helicopters quieter than that," he said instead. "Tried to shake you to get you to stop. The only time you shut up was when I was touching you. Figured it was easier to explain that than why I killed my Liaison Officer on a case."
She shrugged lightly as she sat up. "What can I say? I am not immune to human connection. Thank you for letting me get away from Tony last night, however. Even if I disturbed you."
Gibbs issued another dry snort. "Don't get used to it."
Ziva echoed the noise he made with a laugh. "You should not plan on spending any future cases cuddling up in bed with me either, thank you!"
"Hmph," Gibbs muttered. "Didn't hear you complaining."
"Wait..." she turned her head towards him. "When did you wake up?"
"Right before he crashed into the doorframe," he replied. "You?"
She stretched her legs, respectfully keeping to her side of the mattress. "A little longer. McGee would never make a good Mossad Agent, he kicked three things before he even made it into the bathroom."
"Right, so you could've moved."
"It seemed easier to let McGee think he had gotten away undetected. I could have made him believe he'd imagined it. Of course, then he had to go and bring Tony into it too," she paused and rolled her eyes. "You did not move, either."
Gibbs shrugged. "I know better than to wake a sleeping bear."
"I was awake!" Ziva replied indignantly.
Another shrug. "Could've fooled me... 'till you started laughing anyway."
"I already told you, that was your fault! If you had not been breathing down my neck I wouldn't have laughed." There was more conflict next door, loud enough that any pretence of respecting any other guests in the motel may have still been asleep had long since been forgotten and she shook her head pityingly. "I should probably go and see if the drugstore is open. If the night was as bad as he told McGee he should have some Pedialyte, and we both know he is not going to get it himself."
"Find some decent coffee while you're out." Gibbs was making preparations to rise as well. "And give back my damn sweater. Bad enough you took half my bed, you're not getting that too."
Ziva smirked at the gruff tone but obeyed and began to pull it over her head just as the door cracked open slowly.
"Boss? Ziva? I don't want to wake you, I just want my... Oh god! I'm so sorry!" McGee's tentative whisper quickly became a horrified exclamation and the door slammed abruptly. His footsteps echoed back to Tony's room and that door slammed too, followed by more agonised whisper-shouting.
Ziva sighed deeply. "You realise we are going to have to listen to Tony claiming he was right the whole drive home now?" she asked, tossing the shirt onto the bed. "And McGee may never recover."
"That'll teach them to forget Rule 8," he picked up the discarded clothing, shook it out and put it on. "If we get stuck here another night, you're back in your own bed. Don't care how sick he is."
The words 'Horizontal Hora' drifted through the wall followed by another groan of disgust from McGee and Ziva rolled her eyes as she headed for the door. "Oh, I think he is already on the road to recovery."
They were all on the road that evening, heading home once the case was finally cracked. It had been late enough to warrant another overnighter, and the Director had permitted them to stay. Funnily enough, they all agreed a late arrival in DC was better than another night away. Gibbs drove, and Tony sat in the front with the window down, still bemoaning his fate. He still looked pale and tired and had next to no appetite, but he had improved considerably with the help of heroic doses of Pedialyte and PeptoBismol. McGee and Ziva were in the backseat, Ziva watching occasional oncoming headlights whiz by and McGee steadfastly not making eye contact with anyone.
The sleeping arrangements had been explained with varying degrees of success. McGee had nearly stroked out trying to explain that he didn't want any details and wouldn't even listen to the entire situation. Tony, meanwhile, had found that his vocabulary of metaphors and innuendos suddenly ran dry under his boss's gaze. However, in between bouts of whining about his stomach, he carried himself with an air that suggested he didn't quite believe them, glancing at them sideways with a knowing grin and occasionally pestering Ziva.
"So you don't snore for Gibbs but you have no problem depriving me of hours of sleep when we're undercover?" He'd forgotten his stomach for the time being on a long stretch of highway and needed something new to occupy himself.
"It is not my fault you do not know how to behave when there is a woman in your bed, Tony," Ziva said with a shrug, staring out into the darkness. Beside her, McGee smothered a chuckle, a jab at Tony was funnier than any awkwardness that discussing the morning might cause.
"I heard that, McGoober!" Tony turned to glare into the backseat. "At least I'd notice if there was a woman in my bed. You didn't even hear her come into the room! Some investigator you are!"
"Well, you didn't notice her leaving!" McGee rebutted.
"And neither one of you noticed we were awake!" Ziva cut in before the squabble could really take off again. "Gibbs and I were the only ones who actually kept cover in all that."
Tony gave a mocking laugh. "Oh, keeping cover is what you call it these days? More like a morni- Ouch!" He subsided into his seat, rubbing the back of his skull with regret. "Really should keep both hands on the wheel when you're driving, Boss."
"I'm just glad we're going home. This morning was weird enough to last me a lifetime." McGee sighed with relief.
"You should have tried it from my view, McGee. The night from hell, two hours of sleep and the next thing I know I'm being dragged in to see the boss and Ziva all curled up together like... like..." he paused to consider a phrasing that wouldn't earn another slap.
A quiet snicker came from the driver's seat. "Like two hotdogs in a bun."
Tony moaned and clutched his stomach again. "You had to mention hotdogs, didn't you? I think you're gonna need to pull over, Boss."
Rule 8: Never take anything for granted.
Rule 22: Never, ever bother Gibbs while he's in interrogation.
Rule 23: Never mess with a Marine's coffee if you want to live.
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