Shards To A Whole: Chapter 108

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


Chatpter 108: A Bachelor Party

That's a strip club!

“Tony, that’s a strip club,” Tim says as Tony stops the car in front of a large square building with neon images of naked women on it.

Tony looks at Gibbs, who just shrugs. Then he turns toward Tim. “Of course it’s a strip club. I know you may be rusty on what a good time looks like, but this is part of it.”

“I don’t want to go in there!” Palmer says. “I’ve got a woman a thousand times hotter than anything dancing on that stage, just pregnant enough to have incredible breasts, who I don’t have to pay to give me a lap dance so hot it’d be illegal if I wasn’t married to her, and who will then have sex with me, really, really, mind-blowingly great sex, after the lap dance.  Why would I want to go in there?”

Tony sighs and stares at the ceiling of the car. Trust Palmer to miss the point of this. Then he says to Gibbs, “Do not let either of these two plan my bachelor party.”

Gibbs smiles at him.

Tony turns toward the backseat where Tim and Jimmy are sitting and spoke slowly, as if explaining a very simple concept to two especially dull children. “This is a bachelor party. This is supposed to be one last night of drunken debauchery and orgiastic excess before we hand our buddy over to be shackled to one woman for the rest of his life.”

Tim gives Tony his dryly amused look. “Tony, I haven’t sex with anyone other than Abby in more than three years. You’re a bit late on the last night before shackling rescue.”

“Four and a half for me.” Palmer blushes a little when he hears what he’s said and starts to bluster. “Four and a half with Breena, not Abby. Not that I’ve ever had sex with Abby. I mean, well, there was that one time, but that was years ago, and it doesn’t really count if you only do it once, right?”

Tim’s eyes almost fell out of his head, he had them open so wide. And then Palmer suddenly loses his embarrassed bluster and just smirks at him, punching him lightly on the shoulder.

"Just kidding."

“Just kidding. God, you should see the look on your face. That was for the necrophilia thing in your book. I’ve never had sex with Abby. Some hugs, a few kisses on the cheek, the full-body Rolfing when she was going for her certification in that, and, let me add, that really hurt, and the one blow job in the lab.” He sees Tim look like he’s going to explode at that and laughs again. “God, Tim, you are so easy. What’s with you tonight?”

Gibbs is looking very amused and appears to really approve of what Jimmy is doing.

Tony’s staring at Palmer like he’s seeing him in an entirely new light. “You’re really mean, Jimmy. Remind me not to piss you off.”

“Sex with dead people, Tony. Sex with dead people I had to explain to my wife because once she met Tim, she decided she needed to read his books, and Pimmy Jalmer just wasn’t quite different enough from my own name to throw her off the track. Just a shame it took this long get an opening like that. Oh and don’t worry, Tony, I’ve got plans for you. One day...” Tony starts to look really disturbed by that, but Jimmy just keeps blithely talking. “Anyway, perfectly hot woman at home, thank you. Not interested in watching skanks gyrate for money. Beer and laser tag?”

Tim just sits there, staring at Palmer, slowly unclenching the fist that had formed without his brain getting involved in the matter in the least, and nods. “Ummm... yeah... ditto on the hot woman at home thing. And for that matter, so do you Tony.”

“Actually, none of us have hot women at home right now. Right now we’ve got hot women off doing whatever it is they do the night before one of them gets married.” Jimmy and Tim just stare at him. Tony sighs again. “Fine. We will be models of virtue and forgo the hot women we do not live with, and go off in search of beer and laser tag.”

Gibbs finally says something, “What’s laser tag?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be good at it,” Tim answers.

It hadn’t been a ton of beer. Just a decent amount. Enough so they could feel it, not so much Tony couldn’t drive, enough to plausibly excuse a somewhat indelicate question.

“So, my married, once married, and soon-to-be married friends, how often do you get laid?”

Tony’s expecting pretty straightforward answers, somewhere in the range of two to five times a week. Instead he sees both Tim and Jimmy think about it.

“How are we defining laid?” Tim asks.

Gibbs raises an eyebrow at that, and Tony takes over on responding verbally, “McGee, you’re getting married tomorrow, shouldn’t you already know that?”

“Like if we do it once, get a nap, and then do it again, do we count that as once or twice?”

“Did you leave bed in between?” Jimmy asks.

“Who says we’re in bed?” Tim shoots back.

“Good point.” Jimmy nods.

“Why are you getting a nap if you aren’t in bed?” Tony asks, realizing he is way out of his depth here. He’s also noticing Gibbs doesn’t seem to think this conversation is nearly as far out of bounds as he does.

“Sofa’s comfy,” Tim says and then smirks at Gibbs, who looks a little startled. “But say it’s just the basic idea, have sex, sleep, have sex again, is that once or twice?”

“Short nap?” Jimmy asks.

“Does it matter?” Tim responds.

“Probably. Like if we’re talking about do it once, go to sleep, wake up the next morning and do it again, that’s different from do it once, crash, snooze, and do it again.”

Gibbs is nodding, and so is Tim. “True. Call it a short nap, say an hour.”

Jimmy appears to be really thinking about this. “I’d say that counts as once. What about oral?”

“I think that should count,” Tim says.

"Oral always counts."

“Oral always counts,” Gibbs adds with a smile, and all three of them spend a moment just staring at him. “What? You think you’re the only guys to notice pussy tastes great? Guess what? That secret got out a long time ago. Even Ducky knows that.”

All three of them continue staring at Gibbs for a moment. Then Palmer grins. “Really, I think if we’re going to get good numbers here, a straight orgasm count would make more sense.”

“Just the ones with her, right?” Tim asks.

“You’re still doing yourself?” Jimmy looks curious.

“Not often enough to really change the count, just making sure we know what the rules are.”

Palmer’s nodding, that, and apparently this whole conversation, seems reasonable to him. Tony’s realizing that he’s gotten in way over his head here. Those two are analyzing the snot out of this, and Gibbs is sitting back, smirking, and enjoying it.

“And just yours. Not hers. Not everyone,” and here Palmer is looking at Tony in a way that’s making him wish he had never asked this, “can tell when his girl gets off.”

Gibbs just sits there smiling. Laid back, slightly drunk Jimmy is a lot of fun.

“Hey, I can tell,” Tony says indignant.

Palmer just nods. “Sure you can.”

“Have you met Ziva? Do you think she just moans a little and shivers?”

Jimmy thinks about that for an uncomfortably long time. Tony whacks his shoulder and says, “Mind out of the gutter.”

“Just saying, seventy-five percent of women say they fake it at least occasionally, and only ten percent of men think it’s happened to them.” And once again Palmer just stares at Tony.

"Quit looking at me like that."

“Quit looking at me like that. Go stare at him.” Tony nudges Tim.

Palmer looks at Tim, shrugs, and then looks back at Tony again. “Breena read all of Tim’s books. And told me about them, read certain bits of them to me. I know he knows what he’s doing.”

Gibbs starts looking at Tim. Though he wouldn’t admit it, he’s got signed copies of all of the Gemcity books, and, yes, he’s read them. They pretty straight up mysteries. Sure there’s some sex, but not a lot, and none of it featured anything he’d consider particularly impressive technique.

“Well I do, too,” Tony says.

Palmer’s look clearly says, If you say so, but I don’t buy it.

Then Tony notices something, Gibbs is really staring at Tim, so he replays the last few lines of the conversation in his mind and comes up with. “McGee’s books are sexy?” Okay, yeah, there had been that scene where “Tommy” and “Liza” had been making out at the end of Deep Six, and that was pretty hot, but he wouldn’t have called the book sexy.

Jimmy grins. “Some of them are.”

Tim’s glaring at Jimmy. After Jimmy had given them the copy of Fifty Shades, Abby had decided Breena and Jimmy might like some of Tim’s books, and handed them over.

Jimmy grins back. “Payback’s a bitch, Tim. He writes under T.M. Gee as well, and those books are pure smut.”

"Hey, they've got plot and character development!"

“Hey, they’ve got plot and character development!”

“Here’s the plot: let’s get laid. Here’s the character development: how many different ways can I get laid? There’s a three page long sex scene every four pages in those books starring Abby with every other girl Tim’s ever had a hard-on for.”

At that, Gibbs starts laughing out loud.

“You write lesbian smut?” Tony asks, disbelieving.

“Not recently. So, why are you asking, Tony?” Tim asks, desperate to get off this topic.

Tony just stares at him for a long time and then says, “Everyone says you get less sex when you get married. I’m curious. You are married, you were married, and you’re close enough it doesn’t make a difference.”

“You’re getting married in April. Isn’t that the sort of thing you should be asking about before you get engaged?” Tim asks.

“Look, I’m going to marry her, no matter what, I just want a better idea of what happens after.”

Jimmy answers, “Getting married was great for sex. Lots and lots of sex. Then she got pregnant. First and third trimesters were awful for sex. Second almost made up for it. And the first four months of a new baby you go back to being best friends with your right hand, which, honestly, you don’t mind because you’re so tired you can barely breathe, let alone fuck.” Palmer takes another drink, and Gibbs nods at him, silently echoing Palmer’s sentiments. “Okay, look, honestly, it’s like everything else with her. You don’t want to be with her twenty-four hours a day seven days a week three hundred and sixty-five days a year. You just don’t. So, yeah, there’ll be times when you get on each other’s nerves, or you’re too tired or she is, or you just aren’t in the mood for it, or she isn’t and you phone it in to make the other one happy. Even Tim over there, who writes smut and by the way he’s grinning looks like he’s about to come up with a number so ridiculously high we will all be forced to smack him upside the head and call him a liar, doesn’t get laid every single night, or want to.”

Tim grins at Tony says, “Forty-two,” and flashes his eyebrows at him.

And Palmer did whack him upside the head and said, “That’s the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, not how often you get off in a week.”

"Getting off is the meaning of life,
the universe, and everything!

Tim, still grinning, says, “Getting off is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything!”

All four of them laugh at that, and when they quiet down Tim says, “Seven. That’s my weekly average. I don’t think getting married is going to suddenly change that.”

“Yeah, if she likes having sex with you, I don’t see why she’d suddenly stop once she got married. It’s not like Ziva’s doing the whole, use every skill she can to get a man and then treat him as an income stream once she’s got him thing,” Palmer adds.

“So, what’s yours? You asked but didn’t tell?” Tim asks.

Tony takes a long drink of his beer. “Depends on the week, but three to five times.”

“So, you’re doing a sex count and Tim’s doing an orgasm count?” Jimmy clarifies.

“Look, I don’t know what the two of you do, but for me a sex count or an orgasm count is going to be the same.”

Tim nods and looks at Jimmy. “The difference between thirty-six and forty-seven.”

Jimmy shakes his head. “Poor Ziva, stuck with an old snot like you. You know, if you ever need a hand, we’ll,” Palmer gestures at himself and Tim, “be more than willing to help out.”

Tony glares at Palmer. “Poor Ziva, huh, well, how about you? You haven’t answered.”

“Okay, just remember, eight-month-old baby at home, and my wife is eight weeks pregnant so she’s exhausted and nauseous a lot of the time. These days the average is about two. Before Molly, the average was closer to ten.”

“Ten?” Tony asks. “You are a liar.”

“How do you think I’m going to end up with two kids less than a year and a half apart?”

“You suck at birth control?” Tony asks.

Jimmy grins, looking like he was about to fire off something along the lines of Tony should talk, but apparently he caught Tim’s frantic DON’T GO THERE look, and just flips Tony off.

“Gibbs?” Jimmy asks.

Gibbs takes a sip of his bourbon. “Which time?”

Good question. Jimmy looks at Tony, since he’s the guy who started this.

“Shannon,” Tony says.

“Like Tim, seven. But you’ve got to remember, I was away six months a year.”

Tony’s got a really perplexed look on his face. “When did you ever have time to do anything else?”

Gibbs smiles. “You spend that long away, you prioritize when you’re home.”

Two hours later, when he and Palmer went to get another round, Tim said, “You didn’t... with Abby... not really, right?”

Palmer, pretty buzzed, took a minute to figure out what Tim was talking about and shook his head. “Nah. Not saying I didn’t try. We’ve all tried, right? Ducky probably tried. Hell, Gibbs probably tried. But no, never more than friends.”

Tim relaxes when he hears that. He understands guys wanting to sleep with Abby. He figures that all of the guys who have worked with Abby have at least tried. Hell, even Dornaget probably tried, not very hard, mind you, but he still probably thought about it once. Or at least wished Abby was a guy.

Still, having to work with someone else who has, that’s not something he’d relish.

His woman, with his child inside her. No, that’s nothing he wants to share. He thinks about this whole marriage thing, and how it’s supposed to be a sign of just that.

He thinks about his vows. The day before he’d come up with something... not terrible. But he doesn’t love them, not yet.

They get back to the table and Tim asks, “Can we cut this short? I’d really like to head home.”

He can feel Tony’s getting ready to tease him, but he doesn’t. He just looks at Tim and says, “Sure.”

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