Friday, May 3, 2013

Shards To A Whole: Chapter 78

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


Chapter 78: Halloween


Miller and Monroe
It turns out that an Arthur Miller costume isn’t all that hard to assemble. The glasses were a little tricky; almost no one sells that style of horn rimmed glasses, let alone without any sort of corrective lens, but Tim has legendary levels of Google-Fu so he found a pair. But a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, corduroy pants, and the pipe were easy to find.

And so he was ready to go not too long after they got home from work on Halloween.

And after getting ready, Abby exiled him from their bedroom, and got to work on Marilyn.

There aren’t a lot of trick-or-treaters in their building, but he fielded the knocks on their door. Most of the kids didn’t even seem to notice he was in any sort of costume. Some of the adults who went with them did, and looked at him a little curiously.

Between knocks, he looks over the edits he’d gotten back on Deep Six Four, now tentatively titled The Traitor Within. Nothing too drastic so far, but he’s also only fifty pages in.

He’s really thinking about one comment in the margin when he realizes she’s standing in the doorway to his office.

He looks up at her: platinum hair, red lips, and that white dress, swallows hard, and says, “We might not make it to that party.”

“You really like this?” she asks, stepping in, twirling a little. He immediately notices something else, this time, she isn’t wearing panties.

“God Abby, yeah, I like that. You know what I did when I got home on Halloween 2006?”

She smiles. “Cried about your missing Ice Queen?”

“Who? Trust me, by the end of that night, she was gone... Wait a minute...” He squints a little, remembering something. “You did that on purpose. We were still at work when we got the call. So were you. You went home to change!”

She smiles and looks innocent. “And if I did?”

“That’s just mean. You knew my date was over and then you dressed like that and told me I couldn’t touch.”

“Please, you teased me all the time, too.”

“When have I ever teased you like that?”

“Really? This from the man who promised to tie me up and didn’t.”

It takes him a minute to figure that out, but once he knew what she was talking about he had a comeback ready. “You’re right, I still owe you one for that. And Marilyn, you’re so gonna get tied—”

His phone rings, followed a second later by hers. And if both of their phones are ringing that means he has to get it. He picks it up, sees Gibbs on the caller ID. “I hate Halloween.” He answers the phone. “Who’s dead?”

“Sailor out of Allendale. Texting you the address.”

“Great. Be there soon.”

He looks at her, and she smiles, nodding as she listens to her half of the call out. Then she hung up her phone.

“The first time I wore this, you kept undressing me with your eyes, and I kept fantasizing about you and me in my office. I kept imaging you sitting on my desk chair, me in your lap, and the way you’d look at me as I slid onto you.” She grins at him. “Looks like we’ll get a chance at that tonight.”

He’s giving her his you’re evil look. “Don’t say things like that to me now. I’m already going to have a hard enough time focusing on the case.”

“Hard being the operative word.” She gives him a slow kiss while squeezing him gently through his pants. 

“See you later.” And with those words, and a little skirt flaring twirl, she heads toward her car.




Tony sees him first as he gets to the scene. “I know you’re a writer, but this is walking cliché territory.”

“It’s Halloween, Tony,” he says as he begins pulling on the little blue booties that protect the crime scene from his shoes and vice versa.

“You’re going out as a writer for Halloween? The idea is to be someone you aren’t.”

“I don’t usually look like this, do I? You’ll figure it out when you see Abby. We were getting ready to go out.”

“What could Abby possibly be wearing to make that make sense?”

Gibbs looks him over and says one word, “Marilyn.”

Tim nods.
Tony looks him up and down. “You’re Miller?”

“No. I’m DiMaggio,” Tim shot back, perfect deadpan.

Tony laughs and then looks at Tim, genuinely bummed for them missing out on their Halloween plans. “And once again Halloween strikes.”

“Yeah.”

Gibbs hands him the camera. “Get on it, Miller. Unlike the Ice Queen, Marilyn’ll still be there when we’re done.”




And unlike the Ice Queen, Marilyn was waiting for him when he got back to the lab. And yeah, technically he didn’t have anything to do down here right now. But the computers in her lab work just as well as the ones up at his desk.

And as long as he’s doing something at least vaguely related to the case, he’s still working.

Licking his chops.
Okay, so watching her sip Caff-Pow, perfect red lips wrapped around the straw, sucking gently, might not be precisely the definition of doing something vaguely related to the case, but… Fuck it, he’s goofing off, there’s no good excuse for it, but he’s remarkably unlikely to stop anytime soon.

And just as he settles in to watch, as she’s grinning at him, lightly licking the tip of the straw, and stroking it between her fingers, he feels the hand connect with the back of his head.

“Less screwing in the lab, more catching killers.”

Abby puts her drink down, grins, and says, “Gibbs, I’ll have you know, that as a forensic scientist of the highest caliber, I can do both at once!”

Tim just stands there and tries not to blush too hard.

“Fine, Abbs, but what about Miller over there?”

“He’s helping me do both at once,” she says with a pretty smile. Which was when Major Mass Spec beeped. “Observe, Gibbs, Major Mass Spec is about to reveal to us…” She reads the print out, looks at it like it was wrong, and read it again. “Weird. The makeup Lt. Hennen was wearing was dosed with Rohypnol.”

“Just straight Rohypnol?” Tim asks.

She hands him the print out. “If there’s anything else in there, I’m not seeing it.”

He shakes his head. It’s a combo of gray face paint and Rohypnol, a lot of Rohypnol. Halloween. “Well, that’s not gonna work, at all. You have to ingest it. Might explain why his head was bashed with the skillet, Boss. Whoever did this didn’t intend to kill him at all, or at least didn’t plan to kill him there. But the plan to sedate him didn’t work and they had to grab for whatever was at hand.”

Gibbs is already on his phone. “Ziva, search the whole house, I want you to find the makeup the Lt. was wearing.” He hangs up. “With me, McGee, you can moon over her later. You—“ He shifts focus to Abby.

“I’m already getting samples of everything else he had in his house. Maybe this was supposed to be part of some sort of chemical cocktail. McGee?”

“Chemical cocktail designed by someone who doesn’t know anything about biology.” Then he notices that’s not the sort of comment Abby was looking for.  “Yeah?”

“What was the costume supposed to be?”

“Zombie.”

She looks over the samples in front of her. “Get me the latex prosthetics, the glue for it, the fake blood, and any other makeup colors he had, and fake teeth if there were any.”

Tim’s nodding. He knows where she’s going with this. “He wasn’t finished getting dressed when we found him. I’m guessing something slowed him down, and instead of finding him passed out in costume, they found him putting his makeup on.”

Tim’s taking a step closer to Abby, further away from the door and Gibbs when a hand snakes out, grabs him by the back of the collar, and yanks him out of the lab. “Catching bad guys, McGee.”

“Yes, Boss.”

“Find out what slowed him down and who would have known when he should have gotten home.”

“On it, Boss.”



He got down for five minutes two hours later. Though this time it was business, delivering the samples Ziva had collected.

At least, he had intended to be businesslike about it. But she was standing at her computer, long legs on display, curved beautifully from those ridiculously cute high heels, the skirt just skimming along the backs of her calves, and this time, no white outline of ‘50s style panties.

He placed the samples on her work table, and didn’t exactly sneak up behind her, but he didn’t need to be very quiet, her music was on loud and she was into her work.

She jerked a little when his lips landed on her neck as he pressed up behind her, and then relaxed and smiled.

“The last time you wore this, I could see your panties through the dress. This time you aren’t wearing any. Are you teasing me more this time or last time?”

Her hand slid from the mouse to his thigh, stroking gently. “Depends, which did you like better?”

“Not sure. I’m liking both options quite a bit. There’s something really fine about you in those conservative, white, 1950s panties. And there’s something,” he inched her skirt up until he could feel skin under his fingers, then his hand slid up her leg, stroking over her hip to caress her pussy gently, “scorching hot about this.”

She leaned against his chest and sighed as he touched her. After a few seconds, when she moaned quietly, he pulled his hand away, kissed her shoulder, and stepped back. She turned to face him, once again flaring the skirt, but not holding her hands to her sides, so he got a quick glimpse of thigh. He took the two fingers he had been touching her with, and holding her gaze, licked them clean, biting the top of his index finger lightly.

Then he nodded to the table and smiled. “The samples you asked for.”

“You’re evil.”

“Thank you.” He winked began to head for the Bullpen.

“Are you close?”

He thought that was an odd question. With the exception of him doing himself, she’s seen every way he gets off, so she should know what close looks like. But maybe she’s setting something up with this, so he grins and says, “Nah, just hard.”

She didn’t roll her eyes, but he has the sense she wants to. “The case.”

“Oh. Yeah…” It takes a second for him to switch gears. “Think so, Gibbs and Tony have a guy in interrogation. And in a minute, I’ll be back up there looking through every electronic record he’s got.”

“Well, hurry up.”

“On it, Boss!”




He was sitting behind the glass, watching Gibbs and Tony interrogating the guy. His phone buzzed. Text from Abby.

Who’s in interrogation?

Gibbs and Tony.

No, who are they talking to?

Jim Sloan, he’s called like ten times this week, and was keeping an eye on the vic.

Wrong guy.

???

Unless he’s also the guy who sold our vic the makeup, he’s the wrong guy.

Nope, didn’t do that.

Good. Send Gibbs down soon.

I will.

And while it’s true that you don’t interrupt Gibbs in interrogation, flashing a text to Tony is completely acceptable.

He sees Tony read it and nod. Then he hands the phone to Gibbs who looks at it, glares at the suspect, and then both of them silently leave the room, leaving Sloan just sitting there, wondering what the hell was going on.

Meanwhile, he heads for his computer, time to tell it to find out where the vic got that makeup.




Three minutes later, Gibbs and Tony are in the lab, and Abby is doing show and tell.

“So, you know, whenever we have a chance at a tampered with product, the first step is to figure out how the tampering happened…” she explains how she took the samples, checked the tubes for any trace of tampering, and noticed the red, the unopened tube, had a tamper proof seal over the lid, which made her think the others would have too.

That got her interest, because makeup tubes like this rarely have those seals on them.

Some googling found that there is no Kyllyn Tyme Monster Makeup.

Then she began carefully taking the tubes apart and found that yes, there is some makeup in all of them, and also powdered drugs.

Major Mass Spec was doing its thing, figuring out what was in each of those tubes, but whatever it is, it probably wasn’t intended to be sold to Hennen.

Tim got there just as she was saying that, he added. “Credit card purchase this morning. Spirit-Halloween in Allendale. He got the makeup, hair spray, and a few other things. I’m guessing he got a hold of the wrong makeup.”

Gibbs nods at him, and says to Abby, “Good work Abbs.”

She smiles, accepting the kiss on her cheek as Gibbs turns to head off. “DiNozzo, take Ziva...”

“On it, Boss.”

“McGee, by the time they get there, I want them to know about everyone who works there and who is likely smuggling drugs through the place.”

Tim nods and heads for Abby’s computer.

“Upstairs, McGee.”

“Upstairs main computer is already digging into Rohypnol dealers in the DC area. Upstairs secondary computer is looking into Rohypnol producers, matching formulas to what Abby’s found. Don’t worry, Boss, by the time they get there, they’ll have what they need.”

Gibbs just stared at him for a second, the no fucking around look. And Tim nodded, turning towards Abby’s computer.

It was a half-hour drive with Ziva at the wheel, and by minute twenty-seven he had sent Tony the names of three guys who worked there, all of whom had sealed juvie records for drug issues. The idea that they had moved onto bigger and better things wasn’t impossible.

He’d also sent the name of the guy who ran the shop, because some fast checking showed that he was in debt up to his eyeballs, and fast, easy money might be very tempting for a sixty-year-old on the verge of losing everything and having to start over again.

And then he turned to Abby, who was behind him, working with the makeup and the rest of the evidence, Marilyn costume covered in a lab coat, gloves on her hands, kissed her lightly on the nape of her neck, just above the neckband of the dress, and whispered, “Now I’m close,” before heading upstairs.

The image of her grinning at him, eyes bright through lab glasses, stayed in his mind as he rode the elevator up to the bullpen, heading to his own computers to see if they could link this into a bigger drug case.



It was a little after one when she got the text from McGee. Done. Down in 10.

Which means… fifteen maybe twenty minutes--twenty-five if he really wants to tease her, but she’s hoping he’s more interested in quick today, because she’s feeling awfully ready­­--that seven-year-old fantasy of sitting him at her desk and watching his face as she slides onto him can come true.

Watching Tim experience pleasure is one of her great joys.

The sublime joy of a nutterbutter.
When something gets to him, it really gets to him, and he doesn’t try to hide it. At least, not from her. Like, the first time he bit into a deep-fat fried pickle. He was staring at it warily, not crazy about the idea, because he thought it sounded gross and the fried okra didn’t do anything for him. But she nudged his hand, fairly sure he’d like it, and he put it in his mouth, still looking like this whole ideas was insane, and bit down.

And she got to see it on his face, the way hot, crispy, salty, sour, sweet, and juicy all hit at once. That almost pained expression of How on earth have I gone my entire life not knowing something this good exists? and got to hear the soft, almost moan of a sound that came out of him as he started to chew.

She doesn’t know if he knows that she does this, but sometimes she’ll just stand in the doorway to his office, and watch him listen to music.

He never closes the door to his office, so she doesn’t feel like she’s intruding or sneaking, but sometimes she comes home and she’ll hear his music, so she’ll go over and watch. And most of the time he sees her and waves her in and they talk for a bit.

But sometimes the music just sounds right. And she’d be hard pressed to explain what right is, but she knows it when she hears it, and she knows when she peeks in she’ll see him lounging in his chair, eyes closed, head back, just letting it all wrap around him, and those days, when he just lets himself go, lets the pleasure of it take him over, he doesn’t notice her, and she can just stand there and watch to her heart’s content.

He hums along sometimes, which she assumes means that it’s a piece he’s heard before. And others he’s just silent, index and middle finger of his left hand sort of moving with whatever melody or beat especially has him in its spell.

And she’ll stand there and watch, loving that he can get so into the things he loves.

And, of course, watching is a treat, but knowing you’re causing that sort of pleasure is even better.




There are perks to running your own department. For example, Abby has the keys to the lab. When she locks up, it’s locked.

Since it’s high security, the janitorial staff isn’t allowed in there. Sure, she has to keep the lab tidy herself, but right now that works especially well for her.

Because right now, she’s pulling McGee into her office, and she knows the doors are locked and no one is going to come in.

Technically, it’s not Halloween any more. Halloween ended an hour ago. But they haven’t slept yet, and she still believes in the idea that it’s not tomorrow until you sleep. And it’s still Halloween five hundred miles west of here, so that counts, right?

And he’s kissing her like he’s been waiting all night for this, well he has, and so has she for that matter, and the only thing not perfect about it is he can’t fist his hand in her hair, which she really likes, but his hand on her neck and the other cupping her tush, keeping her firmly pressed hips to hips against him is awfully nice, too.

Likes what he sees.
He pulls back to just look at her, eyes sliding up and down her body, and she smiles at him, loving that. She’s always loved the ways he looks at her, and how it’s changed over the years. The goofy grin he gave her back in ’06, which she just about melted at, is gone. Today his eyes are hungry, confident, and if the term eye fucking means anything, it’s how he’s looking at her right now.

He tilts her head back, thumb on her jaw, and lays a line of open-mouthed, wet kisses along her throat down the v-neck of her dress while she’s pushing them back into her office.

She’s unbuttoning his shirt. Not bothering to take it off, too much effort to take it off, but she wants his skin, wants the feel of his heartbeat against hers and the smell of his skin. And he’s stripping out of his pants, or at least pushing them down to his knees. She’s not paying enough attention to that to know for sure.

Goofy grin circa '06.
What she does know is he lands on her desk chair, and a second later she’s straddled him, realizing this chair really needs to be a few inches wider to do this properly, but for now, they’ll make do.  Her one leg snugs in next to his, and the other ends up over the arm of the chair, and a second after that, she’s holding him steady, and sliding down, watching him as she does it.

He doesn’t close his eyes. He almost never does. But they’re three quarters shut right now, and he’s got that look, that this is so good my eyes want to roll back in my head but I can’t not watch it look. And that always kills her. The way it feels so good, but he won’t shut her out of it. How he never, not when they’re having sex, slips entirely into himself.

His head is back, the line of his throat long and laid bare for her, and she wants to lick it, but she can’t see him if she does that, and that look, those almost closed eyes, lips wet and red, just barely open, teeth gritted. It’s too good to not watch.

The sound he’s making is not a moan. Not loud enough for that. A very long, deep exhale? Probably. Followed by a sharp, fast inhale.

And she can’t lick, not without breaking eye contact, so she strokes her fingers down his throat, down his chest.

His eyes slowly open all the way back up. His pupils are blown, wide and black, a fine rim of olive green around them. She’s read about eye color darkening with excitement, but that’s fiction. Though he is excited, and his eyes are darker than normal, it’s the lighting in here that’s doing it. Indoor lighting often makes his eyes look olive drab. Outside, or in good indoor light, his eyes are a sort of slightly warm-toned jade color. Jade of the stone, not the intense blue-green color often called jade. But that light, milky green, a color that makes her think of Asian-style dragons.

“My dragon.” She didn’t mean to say it out loud, and he looks a little confused at it, but she just smiles, and he lets it go.

His hips start a long slow roll, more grinding his pelvis against hers than trying to thrust, and that makes her want to close her eyes and throw her head back. And she does, feeling his fingers trace down her throat, along her chest, feathering over her breasts, and settling on her hips, encouraging her to move.

Sitting in this tiny little chair, she’s in charge of any sort of vertical motion. She adds a grind of her own, which is mostly for her, and a good firm squeeze, which is for him, and this time there’s no mistaking the sound coming out of him, definitely a moan.

A very pleased moan.

He cants his hips up, that gets a little more friction going, and she starts to ride him properly, as he gets his thumb into the action, finding her clit and stroking in fast, small circles.

This isn’t going to take long. Hours of teasing, anticipating, and wanting tends to make for fast orgasms once the actual sex starts.

And there is nothing, nothing at all, like watching Tim McGee come.

He’s so amazingly beautiful as he gets off. So intensely present. When he’s coming, there’s absolutely nothing else going on with him, he’s entirely in that moment, with her, and she treasures getting to be there for it. And it blows her mind that she gets to see this. Gets him, laid completely open in front of her, every feeling, every ounce of pleasure naked to her.

She watches him come down, basking in her own post-orgasmic glow, as well. Now his eyes are closed, and a blissed out expression, and a little smile, on his face.

She thinks about the first time she saw this, and how different it is now.

Tim McGee circa 2002
Eleven years ago, he was a sweet kid: a nervous, adorable, occasionally-pouty, but mostly just a ridiculously sweet kid. And sex with that Tim McGee was a treat. A very different treat. That was the joy of showing a man he’s desirable. And especially in guys who don’t get treated like that a lot, seeing them feel it, seeing them know it, giving them the gift of wanting them, that’s amazing.

And Tim… she doesn’t know if anyone ever took the time to want him properly before she got a hold of him. She knows he had a steady girl at MIT, but the way he responded to her, the flower seeing the sun for the first time look she got out of him, that made her think no one ever did.

But he’s not that kid anymore. A lot of that sweetness has burned off over the years. Sometimes she misses that. He’s still playful, and there’s still a very deep gentleness to him, but he’s not adorably sweet anymore. He’s harder now, sharper than he probably ever could have dreamed of eleven years ago.

Tim 2013
He’s confident now. He’s the man who can open himself like this, lay himself in front of her and let her in. He couldn’t have done that eleven years ago. And eleven years ago, even if he could have, she wouldn’t have known what to do with it.

But now he’s a man who trusts not just his own worth, but her ability to recognize and value it.

She kisses him, pulls back, watching his face as he relaxes. “I love you, Tim. So much.”

He smiles slowly, stroking his fingers, those long, nimble fingers over her cheek and jaw. “Love you, too.”

She twines her fingers with his, looking at the ring he had made for her bracketed by two of his fingers. He sees her looking at it.

“Getting used to having it there?”

“Starting to. It’ll catch the light in my peripheral vision, and I’ll wonder what that red flash is, and then look and feel all tingly.”

He smiles at that, too, looking very pleased. Then he sighs and lets his head drop back. “Going to fall asleep right here if we don’t move soon. You want to crash here or head home?”

She’s feeling awfully satisfied and lazy right now, not really wanting to go anywhere. But she does want to sleep tonight, and that means unpinning her hair.

“Home. Don’t really want to move, but I can’t sleep with my hair pinned up like this.”

He’s nodding, reaching over for the tissues. They clean up, fast, and in a few minutes are heading toward his car. And while it’s true the Porsche is still his, and the roadster is still hers, usually whichever one of them happens to get to the driver’s side door first ends up driving. They both carry both keys now.

“How about I drive, and you can take your hair down while we head home. That way we can be asleep five minutes after getting in the door.”

“That sounds really good.”

Half an hour later they were home, snuggled into bed, him spooned behind her in their usual sleeping position, and she was just about asleep, when he asks, “What were you saying about dragons?”

She thinks for a second. “Oh. Your eyes are jade-colored. They make me think of those carved Asian style dragons. The Chinese ones with no wings.”

“Okay.” A long, quiet minute passes, while they both breathe softly and edge closer to sleep.

She felt it when he put two and two together. “I’m your dragon?”

“Yeah.”

He bit her very gently on the shoulder. “Grrrrr.”

Next


A/N:  Okay, so, it's not the greatest shot of McGee ever, but it's the best shot of his eyes I could find. http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/sean-murray/images/8929433/title/sean-murray-ncis-photo

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