SquidgeWorld Archive

Moving On
by SandiCh
chapbat@yahoo.co.uk
http://officersclub.tripod.com

When all is said and done, it’s just a day like any other. No flag waving, no fanfares, just another little numbered square on his calendar, no different to any of the other three hundred sixty four. He’d gotten up this morning, gone for a run, eaten a bowl of Cap’n Crunch, just the way he had yesterday; the way he would tomorrow. It’s no big deal.

He taps ‘send’ to email the report to Gibbs, prints out a copy and signs it. Things have been quiet all week and they have been digging into the cold cases to keep themselves busy, following old leads and tying up loose ends. It’s okay in the short term, passes the time, but he misses the action, the intensity of the search, the thrill of the chase. He hopes they’ll catch a new case tomorrow, before the inactivity drives him nuts.

He looks across at Gibbs, deep in conversation on the telephone. His brow is furrowed in concentration and there’s a hint of tension around his mouth – what can be seen of it beneath that god-awful moustache. Gibbs is back – the old one, not the one that tried to reinvent himself down in Mexico. The Bossman, ‘second-B-for Bastard’ Gibbs - there is no question about it. Tony is glad to have him back, to see him whole again, but Gibbs’ return means Tony has had to step down, move aside, go back to being Senior Field Agent again. He can live with that for now, but in the cold, dark hours when the monsters come he has started wondering if he should speak to the Director, ask if the posting in Spain is still open. Better a team leader in Spain than a fifth wheel in DC.

‘Better to have loved and lost.’

Fornell has been making overtures, too, trying to tempt him with shiny FBI shields and the promise of a better life away from NCIS, but it’s too close to home. If he is going to make the break it has to be brutal. Final. No chance meetings at crime scenes, no stumbling into friends in coffee shops, no unnecessary late night diversions past that house on the off chance... Final.

Definitivo.

It’s a little after eight-thirty and his stomach is growling, reminding him of one more missed lunch. Sighing, he pulls a sports magazine from his bottom drawer, rolls it and stuffs it down the side of his backpack, powers down his computer and picks up the report.

As he crosses the bullpen to Gibbs’ desk, the older man returns the handset to its cradle and leans back in his chair, watching Tony’s approach. There’s a look he gets sometimes, an expression that Tony has come to think of as his ‘let’s explain it to the idiot’ look. He employs it when he knows a suspect thinks he’s about to get away with the crime. Tony hopes it was aimed at whoever was on the other end of the phone, because he sure as hell doesn’t want to be the cause of it.

"Report on Petty Officer Yavuz, Boss," he says, dropping the paperwork into Gibbs’ in-tray.

Gibbs rests his elbows on the arms of his chair and laces his fingers across his chest. "How many times you re-write this one, DiNozzo?" he asks.

Tony shrugs. "Just two." His reply is met with the speculative lift of a greying eyebrow. "Okay, so maybe it was – ah – three or - four..?" he says innocently, gaze sliding sideways to Ziva. The Mossad agent is smirking.

"DiNozzo..." Gibbs sighs and shakes his head. They both know it’s a lie, that this is the first and last draft of the report and that every ‘i’ has been dotted, every ‘t’ crossed and the entire document spellchecked – twice – before he was ready to put his name to it. It is a game they have been playing for a very long time, designed to keep the ‘probies’ on their toes. Behind them, Tony hears Ziva snigger, but he’s cool with that. He knows the next time she’s tempted to cut corners in her report she’ll remember this moment. Kate had been the same, perfecting her work so that she always appeared one step ahead of her ‘rival’, unaware that, regardless of their opinion of him, none of Tony’s previous commanders had ever been able to find fault with the quality of his paperwork. That part of his education is about the only thing Tony has cause to thank his father for.

"You heading home?"

"Yeah. Cold beer, frozen lasagne and a movie. You?"

"Same, minus the movie," Gibbs confesses. "Got a boat to finish."

Tony laughs. "How’d you ever get by down in Mexico without the boat to work on?"

"Sublimated by rebuilding most of Franks’ house," Gibbs shrugs. "Think he’s still hoping I’ll go back and finish the hot tub." He moves forward again and reaches for the report on Yavuz.

"What about you?" Tony asks, needing to hear the truth from Gibbs’ lips. "D’you think you ever will?"

"Go back to Mexico? Maybe. If I ever screw up so much I need ..." He breaks off, hesitant, the reality of it implicit.

"A place to hide?"

They look at each other, green searching deeply into blue, blue into green. No words, no confirmation or denial, but Tony finds the truth he needs hiding there. When it happens – if it happens - at least next time he’ll know where to look.

"G’night, Tony." The smile that tips up the ends of the moustache reaches Gibbs’ eyes, and Tony can’t help but answer it with one of his own, even though it all but kills him to remember other smiles, in other more intimate situations.

"Night, Boss.... See ya in the mornin’, Zeee-vah." He winks at the agent, who pokes out her tongue at him.

He can feel Gibbs’ gaze on him all the way to the elevator, but he doesn’t look back and he doesn’t glance in the older man’s direction as he waits for the doors to slide shut. He doesn’t need to, can survive without the constant reassurance now because he knows Gibbs is staying, and suddenly he knows he is, too. There will be other postings, other chances.

Spain is over-rated anyhow.

~~~~~~

He is still thinking about Spain, and Mexico, and about choices made and opportunities lost, as he rides the elevator down. He is certain he has made the right decision and yet, as always, there is room for doubt. Since the day his father threw him out for refusing the path chosen for him he has been second-guessing himself in his life choices. It was what kept him on the move for so long, and even though he feels he has finally begun to put down roots, it’s still hard to break the habit, the constant cycle of long periods of self-doubt interspersed with brief flashes of confidence.

Tossing his backpack into the rear seat he climbs into the Mustang and drives off the lot. Halfway home he decides it’s too late and he’s too tired to bother cooking the lasagne, so he stops for pizza instead. Since he will be eating alone tonight he indulges himself in all of his favourite toppings. The resulting aroma drifting up from the box makes his mouth water.

....

There is a light on in his apartment, which is odd because he’s sure he turned everything off before he left for work that morning. At once his instincts go on alert. There are only two keys – the one in his hand and the one Gibbs holds for emergencies – and he can’t believe any of the women he has dated recently have either the sense or the means to make a copy.

He scans the parking lot for familiar vehicles. His cell phone is in one hand and the other hovers over his sidearm, prepared. And then he sees it, over in the far corner of the lot, half hidden beneath an overhanging tree and away from the streetlights, and just as quickly as it built the tension ebbs away. He pockets the phone and grabs the pizza and his pack before locking the car and heading inside.

Upstairs, he slips the key silently into a well-oiled latch. Low lights and soft music greet him: not at all what he expected. He hangs his coat in the hall cupboard on his way to the walk-through kitchen, where he dumps the pizza on the counter before going in search of –

"Gibbs." He can hear the satisfaction in his own voice and feel the tug of a smile on his lips.
"Hey Tony..." Gibbs is seated on the sofa, a bottle of champagne and two glasses on the coffee table in front of him. He looks relaxed, comfortable, as if there is nowhere else he would rather be at that moment. "What kept you?"

"Stopped for pizza," he explains absently, confused. When he left the office Gibbs was still at his desk, intending to go home to work on his boat. "How did you get here before me?" he asks.

Gibbs answers with a smirk and reaches for the wine, easing out the cork with a satisfying pop. He fills two glasses and, standing, holds out one. After a moment of hesitation, Tony takes it.

"What are we celebrating?" he asks.

A soft laugh rumbles in Gibbs’ throat. "C’mon,Tony. You really think I could forget what today is?"

Tony looks shyly away, feeling the heat climb into his face. He had hoped that Gibbs would remember, of course he had, but hearing him admit it makes all the difference. "I wasn’t sure," he says. "I mean... It’s no big deal really."

"It is to me." Gibbs’ tone leaves no room for argument. He tips his glass towards Tony. "We both know I’m a bastard, but you’ve stayed the course for five years. To me, that’s a big deal, so – Congratulations, Tony." Soft and slow, the warm, deep tone Tony used to describe as Gibbs’ ‘bedroom voice’. It’s so long since he’s heard it and the memories it evokes make him ache with a need he is sure will never again be answered. But what he has now can be enough. Has to be.

Five years. Sixty months. One thousand, eight hundred and twenty six days, plus a little over ten hours. He can still remember that morning, the buzz he felt walking through those doors for the first time, finding Gibbs waiting for him, bumping shoulders as they rode up in the elevator, meeting Ducky and his first encounter with the phrase ‘It reminds me of the time...’ Gibbs handing him his badge, shaking his hand, the warm, gruff voice wrapping around him: ‘Welcome to NCIS, Special Agent DiNozzo’. Five years of good times and bad times, of laughter and tears, of riding the fulcrum between defeat and victory, failure and success, and of it all just one thing that he would change. If he could.

"Thank you Boss," he whispers and takes a sip of the wine, the bubbles tingling on his tongue like the popping candy he loved as a kid. It’s expensive stuff, the real McCoy, and he feels suitably impressed. Gibbs is not a man given to squandering his money without good reason.

"Jethro," Gibbs murmurs.

"I’m sorry..?"

"You always called me ‘Jethro’ when we were - alone, like this."

The breath stalls in Tony’s throat: it’s the closest Gibbs has come so far to acknowledging that a more personal relationship had once existed between them. "You remember that," he says lightly, not quite a question. He doesn’t want to read more into it than is actually there.

But if that revelation comes as a surprise, the next words from Gibbs’ lips rock his world to its foundations.

"Actually – I never forgot it."

"What?" Tony sets his glass down, a shiver running the length of his spine.

Gibbs draws a deep breath and meets Tony’s gaze with guilty eyes. "I never forgot – any of it. Us. What we had." His voice drops almost to a whisper."What we were."

Tony opens and closes his mouth several times before any words come out. "You mean you never had amnesia?"

"Hell yes! Woke up to find I’d lost fifteen years of my life. You got any idea what that was like?"

How could he? Every lousy minute of Tony’s life was indelibly etched into his memory. There had been times along the way when he would have liked to have lost fifteen years – or even just fifteen of the worst days – but it had never happened. "So, what did you remember?" he asks, the question prompting a sigh from Gibbs’.

"Too much," he says, and there is regret in his voice, "and not enough. Look, I didn’t want to do this tonight –."

"I think we have to," interrupts Tony.

"In that case can we at least sit down?"

Tony motions him back to the sofa, seats himself in an armchair, the champagne forgotten, the atmosphere of celebration turned suddenly sour. Gibbs rests his elbow on the padded arm of the chair and leans forward, gaze fixed on the floor at Tony’s feet. His hands, those sensual, work-roughened digits with the nails that are always so neat and clean, writhe together in front of him, the only indication of what this is costing him. Tony wants to reach out, capture them, soothe them, but he holds himself back knowing that if there is the slightest chance they can find their way back from the hell of the last few months, they have to take it, no matter how painful the next minutes might be.

"When I finally shook off the coma, there were just four things I could remember." He counts them off, one by one, on his fingers. "The explosion that put me in the hospital... my wife... my daughter – and you, Tony. It scared the hell out of me."

"Why?"

"Because between my family and you there was – nothing. I had no memory of Shannon and Kelly dying. To me they were still alive. As alive as you were. How could I know they were dead? Dead and buried, and had been for the past fifteen years!" He’s angry now, at Tony, at himself, at the world in general. It shows in every line of his body, in the tight set of his jaw and the fierce spark in his eyes.

Tony shakes his head, trying to understand something way outside of his experience. "I still don’t..."

"I could remember making love with Shannon, as if it was days before, not years... but I could also remember making love with you, and it was like the two things were happening at the same time. I felt like I –" He pauses, scrubs his hands over his face, and Tony can see the hurt in his eyes, the soul deep pain. He thinks of his father and the constant parade of women that strutted through his life, even when his mother was alive, and he knows Gibbs is not like that. He may have had four wives, and other lovers along the way, but never more than one at a time. Gibbs may be a bastard, but Semper Fi is about more than just being a Marine.

He whispers: "Like by being with me you were betraying your wife and daughter," and with that acknowledgement his own anger dissipates. Now he can reach out and enfold Gibbs’ hands between his own, trying to reassure him with a smile as watery blue eyes lift to meet his in despair.

"Or that I was betraying you." The words claw their way, raw and bleeding, out of the older man’s throat. "I love you, Tony. That never stopped, not in the hospital, not down in Baja. It never went away."

"But you did."

Gibbs nods slowly. Sadly. "Yeah."

"Why? See, that’s the thing I can’t understand. If you could remember what we had, and you remembered your family was – gone – why did you leave me?"

"Because I needed – space. I was in love with Shannon and I was in love with you, and in the beginning that went against everything I believed in. I needed time to separate the two parts of my life again. In fifteen years I never really came to terms with losing my wife and daughter. I locked the memories away, glossed over them, tried to bury them three times in marriages I never should have even considered. Before I could even begin to think of rebuilding my future with you, I knew I had to find proper closure for Shannon and Kelly. The alternative was to spend the rest of my life feeling guilty about my feelings for the both of you – and I couldn’t ask you to accept that."

Tony brushes his thumb over the inside of Gibbs’ wrist. "That why you stayed away for so long?"

At first Gibbs says nothing, his gaze shifting to a point beyond Tony’s shoulder. Then, in a voice too small for a force of nature such as Leroy Jethro Gibbs, he sighs "Not exactly."

The avoidance is yet another blow upon the bruise Tony has carried for the past six months. He wonders if there will ever be an end to the pain he is feeling. "Meaning?"

"I know now I should have come back once I got it all straight in my head, but when I started to think about it I realised it was about more than just us. What happened that last day, in MTAC... It destroyed my faith in the system and in myself. Nineteen people died, Tony, because I couldn’t make them listen to me."

"That wasn’t your fault, Gibbs."

"Well, it sure as hell felt like it! Still does when I think about it. Coming back meant coming back to the same hypocrisy, the same bullshit - and I wasn’t ready for that. Wasn’t sure I ever would be."

That’s something Tony can understand. Unlike Gibbs, he had been around to witness the fallout from the incident, the lies and the cover-ups, the bureaucratic tap-dancing that had left too many unanswered questions, too many families without closure. Above all, Gibbs is an honourable man and to be put in that kind of situation, knowing there was nothing he could do to change things, would have been intolerable for him.

"But you did come back."

"Ziva needed me..."

Tony swallows his anger, trying hard not to show the hurt that Gibbs’ admission causes him. "Newsflash, Boss – Ziva wasn’t the only one."

Gibbs makes an odd sound in his throat, somewhere between a laugh and a snort of disgust. "Do you think, Tony, that I would have handed over the team to you if I didn’t believe you could do the job?"

"Leading the team was never the issue," Tony tells him sadly. "Having you in my life was. I didn’t need you here," he says, spreading his arms wide as if to encompass the whole world, then he taps his chest, over his heart. "I needed you here. Do you have any idea how much it hurt, knowing you could come back for Ziva, but you couldn’t stay for me."

"Do you have any idea how much it hurt, knowing I couldn’t stay?" Gibbs counters. "The moment I saw you again I knew you’d moved on." Gibbs’ stretches out a hand and gently – so gently – strokes his fingers over the curve of Tony’s cheek. "You have become everything I always knew you could be, and more, and as much I wanted to be with you again, I convinced myself you were better off without me."

Shivering at the contact, Tony asks, "So – what made you change your mind and stay?"

Silence enfolds them as Gibbs searches for an answer, broken only when he whispers haltingly: "The realisation that my life is nothing without you in it. I want to put this right between us, Tony. I know I can never hope to get back what I threw away by leaving, but I’m willing to take whatever I can get. If that means going back to the way things were five years ago, I have to accept that."

Tony shakes his head. He has all the answers he needs now, and though he may not like everything Gibbs has told him, he knows every word came from the heart. Gibbs truly believed that he was doing the best thing by staying away and he can’t fault him for that, he can only forgive. "Maybe you can, but I can’t."

Fear sharpens the blue eyes and Tony sees the spark of panic. "You saying you... don’t want me here?" The question is thick, heavy with impending loss.

"No, I’m saying that going back to how things were when I first came here – that’s not acceptable, Jethro." He emphasises the name, hears the catch of breath, sees the sudden flare of hope, and he laughs softly. "What? You really think I’d want to lose you again?"

Now it’s Tony’s turn to reach out, caress a cheek that still bares the faint tint of a Mexican summer. It’s the first time he has dared any such intimacy since – He shivers: the last time he and Jethro were this close, this intimate, was the night before the explosion that took away his lover’s past.

"Tell me one thing – Since you came back have you found the closure you needed?"

Gibbs considers this, his gaze never deviating from Tony’s. At last he gives a half-nod, that little wriggle of his head that signifies he is not entirely comfortable with the situation he finds himself in, but he’ll deal with it nonetheless. "For Shannon, yes." He looks away then, worrying at the weave of the fabric on the sofa with his fingernail. "With Kelly it’s...different. It was hard before, but it’s gotten worse since I finally allowed myself to accept that she’s gone. I see her everywhere I go, schools, playgrounds, malls.... Went past a church the other day, saw a wedding party coming out. The bride... " He swallows thickly as the emotion claims him. "You know my little girl would have been in her twenties now? And I looked at the bride – God, she was so beautiful – and I saw the way her... father was looking at her, and I-I realised... ‘s never gonna happen for me. Not now. I am never going to see my daughter graduate... never going to walk my little girl down the aisle... never going to watch my grandkids grow up... and it hurts, Tony. It hurts.so.damn --."

His voice breaks on the last words, the anguish tearing at Tony’s heart. He once heard someone say that parents are not meant to outlive their kids, but he never really understood what that meant until now. He can’t imagine his own father ever mourning him the way Gibbs is mourning his daughter, has never known what it is like to be the centre of his father’s world. For a moment he’s glad that Kelly Gibbs is not around to see how much he envies her, because she will always be perfect in her fathers’ eyes. Gibbs might never get to see her graduate, or walk her down the aisle but then, she will never disappoint him, never let him down. That’s something Tony knows a lot about. His own father went to great lengths to leave him in no doubt about his view of his son’s achievements.

But the feelings are fleeting, gone as quickly as they came. He can no more begrudge Kelly her place in her father’s life than he can begrudge Gibbs his memories of her. The rest, he hopes, will come with time.

He moves from the chair to the sofa, settling beside Gibbs as he has so many times in the past. It’s the wrong time to think about all the nights when need for each other overtook them and they made love right there in the living room, with the lights blazing and the supper cooking and the t.v. blaring away in the corner, but he does it anyway. Maybe, if he’s lucky, they’ll get to do it again one day.
Gibbs watches him change position, a half smile tweaking the corners of the moustache, and maybe he’s thinking about those nights too.

They sit there for a while, side by side, both hunkered forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped: like bookends. There’s a wealth of things that Tony wants to say, some things he knows he needs to say but in the end, when he opens his mouth to speak, just four words emerge: "Stay with me, Jethro."

Gibbs half-turns, watching him in silent appraisal.

"Stay for me. For us."

"Just like that?"

"Does it have to be complicated?"

The softest, sweetest chuckle slips from Gibbs’ lips. "This is us, Tony – how can it not be complicated?" He reaches out, covers Tony’s hands with his own, warm and strong and the realest thing Tony has felt in a long time. "But I’ll stay. For you. For us."

"For you, too?"

And the shy grin is back, lighting him from within. "Yeah, for me too."

"I love you, you know," Tony confesses. "Never stopped." He turns his hands over, lets Gibbs’ fingers fall between his own, and the world tilts once more before righting itself. Finally, they have come full circle.

Gibbs nods, just the once. "I know. Wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t sure of that."

Another silence folds around them, but this time it’s comfortable, warm, reassuring. Hands entwined, they sit there, listening. When they finally accept that the other shoe is not about to fall, they slowly, steadily, begin to relax.

"Wanna share a cold pizza?" Tony asks. Gibbs shakes his head.

"No."

More silence. More listening to nothing. Distantly they hear the sound of a clock chiming, a dog barking, the squeal of brakes. Tony clenches his hands, fingers squeezing the fingers meshed with his.

"Wanna take me to bed?"

Gibbs grins. "Thought you’d never ask..."

***

The mood changes as they make their way, hand-in-hand, to Tony’s bedroom. Where once they would have tumbled, laughing and kissing and groping each other, leaving a trail of designer breadcrumbs as they shed their clothes along the hallway, tonight they are subdued, almost – nervous. Uncertain, still, of themselves and each other. It’s like their first time all over again, back when Kate was new to the team and Tony found himself vying with her for Gibbs’ attention. Dark days when he lived from hour to hour, never sure when the axe would fall and he would find himself on the receiving end of a pink slip. In the end he had gone right to the source of his anguish, begging Gibbs’ reassurance, and Gibbs had smiled at him and promised that he had nothing to worry about, that Tony was far more important to him than just another agent. He had taken Tony by the hand then, leading him quietly upstairs, to the bedroom, and proved to him just how important he was. Tony’s whole life had changed that night.

Now it is about to change again.

In the bedroom he stops and steps into Jethro’s personal space, still holding tightly to his hand, as if he is afraid that Gibbs will turn and run the moment he lets it go.

Looking deep into Jethro’s eyes he asks: "Yes -- or no?" He doesn’t want to ask it, but he knows that to make this work he must give the man this one last chance to back out. But Gibbs’ response is immediate and emphatic, leaving no room for doubt.

"Yes, Tony. It’s always been ‘yes’ – and it always will be."

Tony leans in: Jethro meets him halfway. The kiss has an air of formality about it, a brief connection of lips that is more the sealing of a contract than a prelude to sex. The neatly trimmed moustache prickles against Tony’s upper lip and he pulls back quickly, unsettled by the strangeness of it. He has never kissed anyone with a moustache before – well, except for MaryAnne Knowicki, but that was back in seventh grade and he only did it as a dare, so it doesn’t really count...

He touches his lip where it still tingles and he wonders how those bristles will feel against his skin. Then it’s all forgotten as Jethro’s hands frame his face, and Jethro’s mouth covers his own, and this time the bristles don’t matter a bit.

.......................

He wakes with the sun, to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. He’s warm and comfortable, sated. Content. His body aches, his ass is sore and he has moustache-burn in places he would never have expected to ever have moustache burn... but he doesn’t care. Not anymore. He and Jethro are together again and nothing else matters.

He stretches, turning onto his back. The space beside him is empty, but as he sweeps his hand across the Gibbs-shaped hollow, he smiles. The bed is still warm, telling him that Jethro has not been gone for long. Long enough to brew a pot of coffee and probably drink one cup, his usual morning routine.

He rolls again and pulls Gibbs’ pillow into his arms, curling around it and inhaling the lingering scent of sawdust and musk and – Gibbs. It revives sweet memories of their times together. Even on those nights when they had slept apart, his bed had always smelled of Gibbs. It was something he had always found reassuring – until Gibbs went away.

"You gonna sleep all day?"

There’s a lazy drawl in Gibbs’ voice, so familiar it makes Tony ache. This is the Gibbs that few people ever get to see, the relaxed, sensual side that Tony loves so much. He’s leaning in the doorway, wearing nothing but a pair of dark blue boxers and sipping from his black and gold Marine Corps coffee cup – the one Tony gifted him on the Corps birthday last year. Funny how that feels like a lifetime ago now.

"Well I don’t know," he replies, pushing up on one elbow and raking his lover with an appreciative gaze. "Can you think of something better for me to do?"

Gibbs gives another of those endearing little smirks as he pushes away from the wall and saunters towards the bed. He sits down, hip-to-hip with Tony, and hands him the other cup he has been carrying. "Maybe..." he says coyly and leans in for a kiss.

Right before their lips connect Tony pulls back. He sets the cup on the nightstand and captures Gibbs’ chin between his fingers, turning his face to the light streaming in from the window. "You shaved!"

There’s amusement mixed in with the love shining in the pale blue eyes. "I usually do in the mornings, DiNozzo."

"No, I mean – you shaved. The moustache..."

Pulling Tony’s hand towards his lips, Gibbs kisses his fingers, brushing the newly-shorn mouth lightly across his skin. "Got the feeling last night you weren’t too keen on it."

"No. I mean – it was okay..."

A shrug. "Maybe okay for you – not for me. It – got in the way."

"Of?"

"This..."Gibbs kisses him on the lips; "and this..." nuzzles his throat; "and this..." dips his head to tongue a pebble-hard nipple.

Tony groans and slides down in the bed, pulling Gibbs to lie atop him. "I see what you mean," he breathes. He hadn’t lied, once he got used to it he had been okay with the feel of the moustache but now that it’s gone he has to agree – it is better this way.

He turns his head and captures Jethro’s mouth in a smouldering kiss that seems to reach deep down to his soul. Today is already better than yesterday, and he knows that tomorrow will be even better. They have reclaimed each other and the wounds are healing. The scars will always be there and, given their nature, it’s a good bet something will re-open them from time to time, but they’ll deal with that – together – when it happens. Right now he has all he wants. All he needs.

"You staying the weekend?" he asks as Gibbs’ mouth begins a slow and very thorough exploration of his skin.

Gibbs pauses, looks up at him, a solemn expression on his face. "I’ll stay," he promises, "until you decide to kick me out."

"No more running away?"

"Not unless you come with me," he says. "How ‘bout you?"

"Me?" Tony tries for the innocent charm that has carried him through so many awkward situations, but misses it by a mile. How could he possibly have believed that Gibbs would not find out?

"You, Tony. You’ve had a taste of leading a team now and - I hear there’s an opening in Spain..."

"I’m staying," he vows, meaning it. "Not going anywhere without you, Jethro."

"Then I guess it looks like we’re stuck with each other." He ducks his head and presses a kiss to Tony’s chest, right over his heart. "Think you can live with that?"

"Maybe. One thing’s for sure though..." He gasps as Gibbs’ teeth close around his nipple again. Arching his back, he thrusts his groin against Gibbs’. "Things are about to get – interesting."

The End.