Work Text:
Title: Mad about the boat
Author: Ceindreadh
Email: Ceindreadh@eircom.net
Website: n/a
Permission to archive: Yes
Fandom(s): NCIS
Genre (general, hetero or slash) Gen
Pairing/Characters: no pairings/ensemble fic
Rating: FRT 13
Summary:
Warnings: little bit of swearing
Disclaimer. If I owned the NCIS characters then Tony would be wearing a lot less clothing. So I'm only borrowing them and promise to return them in minty fresh condition when I'm finished.
Notes: I know absolutely nothing about boats and boat building so if I've made any mistakes I apologize.
Summary - the team take revenge on Gibbs for living up to the second B in his name.
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Afterwards, none of them could remember clearly exactly who was responsible for the sequence of events that had led them to this point. But all were clear about one thing...this was all Gibbs's fault.
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Several days earlier...
Gibbs was never the easiest of persons to get along with. There were some who felt he took a deliberate pride in pissing people off. There were others who believed that Gibbs lay awake at night thinking up ways to piss them off. There were those who knew that the second B in his name stood for 'bastard'. And then there were his colleagues.
At any given time, the odds were that at least one if not more of Gibbs colleagues would have been in a state of annoyance towards him. The rate of annoyance for his team wasn't quite as high, but Gibbs still managed to piss some of them off at least once a month.
On rare occasions he even managed to piss them all off in the same day.
Today had been one of those days. No, make that one of those weeks. Gibbs had been in a grumpy humor for days and seemed to have deliberately targeted every member of his team.
He had told Abby to either turn off her music or get something decent to listen to. He had told Ducky to shut up with the stories and get on with an autopsy. Tony swore blind that he had heard McGee crying in the men's room after a particularly nasty encounter with Gibbs during a case. McGee had denied this, on the grounds that Tony couldn't have heard him because he was down in the Gym at the time, working out with a punch bag that bore a picture of Gibbs on it. Kate's sketchpad was pull of drawings of Gibbs suffering various horrible and painful deaths. Even Jimmy Palmer hadn't escaped Gibbs wrath, and had become so nervous one day during an autopsy that he had dropped a pile of intestines all over the floor.
"People, we have got to do something about Gibbs," Abby said to the group one day. They had gathered in a bar to drown their sorrows and bad mouth their boss.
"I think I prefer the idea of doing something *to* him," grumbled Tony. He rubbed the back of his head and winced slightly. Gibbs's swats had become a lot harder in the last few weeks and Tony was tempted to get Ducky to diagnose him with a concussion or something, just to put the wind up Gibbs. But the way Gibbs was acting these days he'd probably just rip up any doctor's cert that Tony could produce and put him on report for malingering. Either that or take him down to the Gym and kick his ass on the grounds that a bit of exercise would cure all ills.
"Does anybody know *why* he's been in such a bad mood lately? That is, worse than usual," asked Kate.
"I heard that Starbucks banned him from entering their latest competition," said McGee. "You know, the one with a first prize of a lifetimes supply of coffee."
"Yeah," said Tony. "They figured it'd put them out of business if he won."
"Really?" said Abby. "And it has absolutely nothing to do with you two switching his coffee for decaf while you were working that case in Norfolk last week?"
"We only did that for one day," protested Tony. "And it was Probie's idea. I just distracted Gibbs while McGee made the switch."
"Well whatever the reason for his bad temper these last few days, we cannot allow it to continue. Jethro has to learn that he must treat people properly, regardless of how provoked he is."
"So what do you suggest, Duck man?" asked Abby. "You think we should maybe stage an intervention?"
"I think perhaps maybe more drastic measures are in order."
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Much later, nobody could remember exactly who had first brought up the idea. Had it not been for the copious amounts of alcohol consumed by all parties, it is likely that the plan would have remained just so much talk. Kate had definitely repeated her earlier suggestion about burning Gibbs's boat. Ducky had been the one to shoot it down. Not, he hastened to add, on the grounds that burning the boat was a bad idea, but simply because it would be well nigh impossible to burn the boat while preventing the house from being incinerated as well.
This led to a brief discussion on how Gibbs was planning on getting the boat out of the basement.
"It's one of those...whasinams..." Tony said, "Ships inna jug...you know..."
"I think you mean bottle," said McGee.
"Don't mind if I do," said Tony. "Next rounds on McGee."
"He could be planning on knocking down part of the wall," said Jimmy Palmer.
This was almost the first thing he had said all night and everybody looked at him in surprise, causing him to blush profusely. "I mean, it's probably not a supporting wall, so he'd just need to knock down enough of it to get the boat out. It could easily be rebuilt." He saw the expressions on the others faces and said quickly, "My Uncle owns a construction firm. I used to work for him during my summer vacation."
Later on everybody agreed that this was the point when the plans went from being just so much beer talking and started to take shape. Now all they needed was a time when Gibbs was going to be out of town.
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The opportunity came sooner than expected. Gibbs was ordered to attend a top security terrorism briefing in New York and was to be gone for at least twenty-four hours. More than enough time by anyone's reckoning.
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Gibbs headed down to his basement with a swing in his step. The briefing had gone well and finished early. The coffee had been plentiful and strong throughout his entire time away. And on the flight home he had been seated next to not one, but *two* redheads.
It was still early afternoon, and Director Morrow had told him there was no need to come back to work until the next day, so Gibbs planned to spend a few hours listening to the TV in his basement while working on his boat.
There was only one slight problem with this plan. Namely, the absence of said boat from said basement.
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"So, let me get this straight," said the cop who had responded to Gibbs 911 call. "You had this boat in your basement and somebody stole it?"
"Yes, Officer," said Gibbs through gritted teeth. "It was here yesterday morning when I left for the airport. And now, as you can see, it's gone."
"And how big was this here boat?"
"About twenty feet or so."
The officer looked at Gibbs in surprise, "You were building a twenty foot boat in your basement?"
"I had *built* a twenty foot boat," snapped Gibbs. "All it needed were a few finishing touches and it would have been ready to launch."
"And how were you going to get it out of here?"
Gibbs looked around the basement as if the thought had never occurred to him before. "It's about building it, not sailing it," he snapped. "Look, are you going to investigate or not?"
"Well the way I see it," said the cop. "It's hard to see that there's a crime been committed. There's no sign of forced entry. You say that nothings been disturbed. And we only have your word for it that there *was* a boat here in the first place."
Gibbs glared at the cop. He knew he should have called Fornell and the F.B.I. instead.
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The original plan had been to take the boat and burn it. Tony had suggested collecting up all the ashes afterwards and mailing them to Gibbs. But when they had seen the finished boat in Gibbs basement, nobody had the heart to destroy it. So another plan was formed.
"Take the boat, bring it for a spin round the marina, take lots of pictures and then return it to Gibbs basement. It'll drive him crazy wondering how the hell we did it."
"Still think we should burn it," muttered Kate.
So with the help of Jimmy's Uncle and with a lot of pushing and shoving, the boat was finally dragged out of the basement and loaded onto a truck that the team had clubbed together to hire for the day.
Ducky had a contact in a small marina not too far away. Once there, they unloaded the boat and brought it down to the water.
It was Abby who insisted that the boat be properly christened before they all set sail in her. She'd even brought along a special flask of extra strong coffee to do the job. But it was Ducky who came up with the name.
"I dub this boat the Marjorie Samantha Catherine," he said, as he poured the coffee and the rest of the team applauded.
"Why did you pick those names, Doctor Mallard?" asked Jimmy.
There was an evil grin on Ducky's face as he replied. "Because they happen to be the first names of Jethro's three ex-wives."
"Okay everybody, all aboard," called Abby.
"I call shotgun," yelled Tony as he, McGee and Jimmy pushed the boat down the ramp to the water.
A few minutes later they were all sitting in the boat, Tony steering and McGee and Jimmy pulling at the oars.
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"So when you say 'a few finishing touches', what exactly had you left to do to it?" asked the cop.
Gibbs ran his hands through his hair. "I had to attach the mast. That was going to be the last thing; there wouldn't have been room to do it in here. The rudder hadn't been connected up properly. And oh yes, I had to caulk it properly."
"Caulk?"
"Cover it with sealant to make sure it was fully waterproof and wasn't going to spring a leak. If you don't caulk it properly then you might as well put to sea in a sieve for all the good it's going to be."
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Afterwards, nobody could agree on who was the first to notice the water pooling round their ankles, but it was agreed that Abby was the first one to react, pouring out her Café-Pow and starting to bail out the water.
Being trained professionals, nobody panicked...much. Although Tony insisted later that it hadn't been *him* who screamed, "Abandon ship!"
It was very fortunate that due to the unconnected rudder, the boat had been going around in circles and was still in shallow waters. But it was still a very wet and bedraggled bunch of NCIS agents and staff that scrambled to shore.
Kate grimaced as she watched the Marjorie Samantha Catherine disappear beneath the surface. "Gibbs is going to kill us."
"Yeah, probably," said Tony. "Well, if he's going to kill us, we might as well go with out original plan."
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And so Tony and McGee and Abby and Kate and Ducky and Jimmy had a nice picnic beside a good-sized bonfire.
Gibbs meanwhile narrowly avoided spending the night in custody for wasting police time and for using abusive language to a police officer.
He never did find out what happened to his boat.
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The End