Shards To A Whole: Chapter 74

McGee centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 74: Home Again

The downside of vacation is that you get back and find out work didn’t stop while you were away. So, walking into the Bullpen, staring at his desk, he saw what looked like a literal ton of mail and reports.

It took four hours to get through it.

And for some reason, Tony and Ziva kept looking up at him and smirking.

“What?”

“Keep looking. You’ll find it eventually,” Tony said.

“Six or so more inches down,” Ziva added.

He felt a thrill when he finally saw it. There was only one thing that he was waiting for in a Fed Ex envelope, at least, only one thing he wasn’t sending to their home.

Tony and Ziva were watching him, and both of them were grinning at him when he found that envelope.

“Come on, open it!” Tony said.

Ziva came over to his desk.  If she could have opened that envelope by looking at it, the ring inside would have been in full view.

He stared at the overnighted package in his hands, and looked at them. “You can see it tomorrow. I’ve got to talk to Gibbs before you two see it.”

“Talk to me about what?” Gibbs asked, coffee in hand, heading toward his desk.

Tim put the package down and shook his head. “Not for now. Tonight, after work?”

“Fine. You two, back to work. Those reports aren’t gonna fill out themselves.”

He heads down to autopsy at close to the end of business that day. A good six inches of paperwork needed to be at least initialed by Jimmy.

“Where are you going?” Tony asks as he got up with the piles of paper.

“Autopsy.”

Tony gets up, too. “I’ve got some, too.”

Tim raises an eyebrow at him. Asking him to take his papers down made sense. Going with him, not so much so.

Once they were in the elevator Tony flicks it off and says, “Okay, come on, show me.”

“No.”

“You took Ziva with you when you got the stones. You showed Jimmy the sketch when you used him as cover to see the jeweler. You can at least let me see the finished ring first.”

Tim thinks about that for a moment. It’s not that Tony’s wrong so much as that he’s just not right, either. There’s a way these things get done, and Tony’s just not the guy who gets to see this first. So, Tim sounds a little regretful as he says, “No. I really can’t. Gibbs sees this first.” Then he smiles at Tony brightly, “But I can ask you to be my best man and stand up with me when I marry her.”

Tony grins. “I’ll take that. First thing tomorrow though?”

“First thing.”

Tony flicks on the elevator and they continued down.

Paperwork.

A minute later, while Palmer was initialing away, he asks, “So, the kilt, is it comfortable?”

“Yeah.”

“Not too drafty?”

“Didn’t bother me.”

Jimmy just nods and keeps initialing papers.

Tony’s staring at him. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of one.”

Jimmy shrugs. “Looked good on Tim. Breena thought it was cool. Everyone tells me they’re comfy.”

WWI Solider

“Who is everyone? McScott over there is the only person I know with one.”

“Are you sure about that, Anthony?” Ducky adds, coming up behind them. The ten minute long soliloquy on the history of skirts as menswear and the warrior tradition of kilts, from the Roman Legions to the Scottish troops in World War I wearing their kilts in the trenches was on point, informative, and set Tim to smirking widely at Tony.

“And of course,” Ducky begins to wrap up, “with the current, and tragically narrow, American understanding of masculine identity, absolutely nothing says I-have-testicles-the-size-of-cantaloupes like wearing one.”

Tony drops his papers. Jimmy and Tim laugh. And Ducky settles into a pleased smirk.

Back in the elevator Tony says, “So they’re comfy?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on, I’ve seen you naked. No matter what Ducky says, they aren’t the size of cantaloupes, and you don’t need that much room to swing around.”

Tim gives him a mildly exasperated look that says, You’re missing the point.

“But that’s not the whole reason for wearing one, is it? I mean, you’re wearing it in like a third of the pictures Abby posted.”

Tim flips off the elevator. “Just one of them. First off, kind of short on space. Traveling with Abby and practically a portable MTAC meant that everything I took with me had to be worn over and over. Secondly,” He debates how to, or if, he should say something like this to Tony, and decides going too into it isn’t a great idea. But in general... “I imagine it’s like how you’d feel in five thousand dollar hand-tailored suit. You wear something like that, you feel good.” Tony nods, he gets that. Maybe not how a kilt might make you feel that way, but he certainly gets it for a suit. “Third, you own anything Ziva really likes you in?”

Tony seems to think about that for a moment. Which makes Tim think the answer is no. Because the level of ‘likes you in’ he’s thinking of should not require thought.

But finally Tony says, “Yeah.”

“You wear it more often because she likes it?”

Tony smiles. “And Abby likes you in a kilt?”

A good thing on so many levels.

“Yeah. She does. She really likes me in a kilt. You like Ziva in a skirt?”

“Yeah, who doesn’t?”

“Why?”

“Why?” Tony seems deeply puzzled that anyone would ever ask him that. Ziva in a skirt is so obviously a good thing on so many different levels he’s having a hard time figuring out how to break that down for Tim.

“Yeah, what about her in a skirt makes you happy?” Tim adds.

“I like the way she looks in one.”

“Good. Anything more than that?”

Tony smirks. Tim considers that answer enough and gives him a meaningful look. “Well, Tony, that works both ways.”

Tony seems to think about that. “So, you’re saying there’s a certain ease of access.”

“Yeah. Ever get a blow job when you’re driving?”

Tony nods, looking surprised. And Tim’s not sure if he’s surprised that Tim would ask or that he’s had at least one, too.

“What? I do vanilla sex.”

Tony shakes his head slowly. “Blow job while driving is your idea of vanilla sex?”

“Not if I’m going over sixty.” And Tim is very pleased that he managed to say that with a straight face,  because the way Tony responded to it was just perfect.

Tony closes his eyes and sighs, then opens them slowly. “Okay, I’m sure you had a point before that deluge of TMI.”

“Just, think about it.”

“This really isn’t the place to be thinking about blow jobs.”

“Not that kind of thinking. The mechanics of it. I mean, it’s great, as long as she’s really careful, otherwise the zipper gets you. And you can’t really spread your legs, so she can’t get to everything. Kilts don’t have zippers, and they don’t limit your mobility.”

“Hmmm.” Tony appears to be appreciating that idea.

“Exactly.” Tim looks at Tony for a few seconds, thinking about what Tony’s been wearing over the last six months. “What does she like you in? You aren’t wearing anything more often than usual.”

Tony smiles. “Something you don’t get to see.”

“Ahhh...”

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