Bottom of the Ninth - 2/4

[thefannishwaldo.livejournal.com]

Title:  Bottom of the Ninth

Written for: anyothergirl415 at the ncis_ficathon
Pairings: Gibbs/DiNozzo

Rating: PG-13

Word Count: 17,865 (posted in 4 parts)
Given Prompt:  Tony/Gibbs, a first date or Gibbs doing his best to woo Tony the way a proper gentleman would

Archive: Please ask first.

Summary:
 Gibbs realizes that if he and Tony are ever going to have a relationship, he's going to have to do something about it.  It takes almost a year, but he gets there eventually.
Author's Notes: Thanks every so much to Amadi for her beta job - done fantastically quickly for the size of this story.  She's the one who kept my ghosts from doing jumping jacks. :)

Bottom of the Ninth
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Tony had been a bit snappish at the first practice. Jason had made some ‘modifications’ to the roster, and even though Tony mostly agreed with the changes and agreed they’d make for a stronger team, he was less than pleased with anyone making changes to the way things Chris did things.

At the first game, he’d stomped off, swinging three bats for warm up a little harder than was really good for him when Peterson from the FBI had asked where Chris was.

But what Gibbs noticed mostly was that once the specter of Chris Pacci was exorcised, about the third game in, and Tony was able to really unwind and have fun at the pubs and bars they hit afterwards, he tended to stick close to Gibbs. Even when they played the evenly split, male/female, team from Bureau of Prisons, he didn’t go chasing around the girls who’d split their uniform t-shirts down a good six inches from the neckline.

Gibbs usually managed to command a stool near the bar by force of personality wherever they went. And even when they got there first and Tony could have taken his own seat, he chose to hover just behind Gibbs. Sure, Tony talked to everyone, bought rounds when it was his turn, but he never seemed to stand more than a foot or two away from Gibbs, especially when a smaller place got crowded. Every time he shifted, Gibbs felt him brush against his back or leg. He turned around once, instinctively, to tell him to step back a bit, before realizing that he didn’t mind so much when it was Tony. He tried not to relax back into him whenever Tony put his hand on Gibbs’ shoulder to balance himself as he reached over to pay the bartender or grab his drink. He found himself sitting stiller than normal when Tony’s hand didn’t come up when he straightened. He didn’t want to give Tony the impression he was shrugging him off.

The team had a decent season, only getting truly trounced once – by Army CID, no less – and making it into the play-offs in late September. Gibbs and Tony missed the game because Tony was chained to a killer named Jeffery White, and was MIA the night of the final game.



Losing track of Tony in the middle of the White case had given Gibbs flashbacks to Atlas and finding Tony running from a sadistic and very pissed-off waitress. It was enough of a shock to temporarily dislodge his tongue from his brain when he finally pulled the blood-splattered door open to find Tony sagging against the steering wheel.

“I really liked him, boss,” Tony had said brokenly.

And like a complete ass, Gibbs had taken one look at White’s body and quipped, “I can tell.”

Before he could apologize for letting his mouth get ahead of him, Tony had fumbled his seatbelt off and pushed past Gibbs. He’d gotten about a dozen steps away from the car, before he grabbed his stomach and upchucked on the pavement.

Gibbs trotted after him, “DiNozzo?” He’d never seen Tony get the least bit squeamish over L.O.D. shootings or dead bodies before. Hell, he’d kept himself together even after seeing Pacci. He put a hand on his shoulder. “Tony?”

“I haven’t felt great all day,” Tony said leaning on his knees. “Not much to eat and they spiked me with something last night.”

Gibbs slid his hand over and rubbed gentle circles on Tony’s back. “I’m going to call Morrow and have him send McGee and a couple agents out to help Kate wrap up the crime scene. She can ride back with them. I’m taking you to back to Bethesda and having them make sure that whatever you’re puking isn’t lethal.”

Tony straightened and shrugged Gibbs off. “No, I should be okay now. I just needed to get that crap out of my system. I don’t need a hospital, boss, really.”

Gibbs pulled Tony a few steps away from the mess on the concrete and used the motion to allow him to step into Tony’s space. “Do you even know what ‘that crap’ was?”

Tony shrugged. “Something they put in a bottle of whiskey. I only had a sip – I had to. It would have looked really suspicious for my scum-bag persona to turn down a free dri-“

“So, ‘no’?” Gibbs cut him off. “You got drugged with something you can’t identify that’s making you puke. You’re going to the hospital,” Gibbs said with finality. He softened his tone. “Come on.” He put his hand on the back of Tony’s neck and gently steered him to the passenger side of the sedan. “Sit.”

Tony sighed, but didn’t argue. He was too tired, the adrenaline crash coming on too quickly. He knew he had the choice to either sit or fall. Sitting was ultimately much preferable.

Tony rolled down the window, despite the chill in the air. He needed the fresh air after being in that claustrophobic car with a man who’d damn near gotten the drop on him. He reclined the seat a few degrees and leaned back, listening to Gibbs, who was leaning on the door behind his, telling Morrow to send Ducky and Palmer as well as McGee and a few people who could work with him and Kate to wrap up the crime scene.

Tony’s ears picked up when he heard Gibbs voice come up a little, “Is Garrison arround? Or Simons? Well, yeah, when I can leave DiNozzo with them, but they’re both a couple probies and I’m taking DiNozzo to the hospital. Nah, I don’t think it’s anything life-threatening. He’s mobile, but,” Gibbs leaned up to see Tony through the window. Tony gave a little wave, knowing he shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but unable not to and not up to pretending he wasn’t. “But he’s got some bumps and bruises and he may have been poisoned,” Gibbs finished.

“Yeah… well, no… he says they gave him some spiked whiskey. I’m going to have someone at Bethesda check him out. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay.” And then the click of the phone being closed. Tony watched in the wing mirror as Gibbs went around behind the car. He frowned, trying to figure out what Gibbs was up to as he opened the trunk and then shut it again, coming back around to Tony’s side of the car.

Gibbs opened the door, “Sit up a little.” Tony leaned forward, only then noticing the small fleece blanket-roll Gibbs had retrieved. Gibbs wrapped it around his shoulders before leaning him back against the seat. “Do you even know you’re shivering?”

Tony wiggled one hand out of the blanket and looked at his fingers, surprised to find that he was, in fact, shaking a little. “Too much caffeine?” he tried.

“I doubt it,” Gibbs said reaching up to tousle Tony’s hair before shutting the door. “I’m going to go tell Kate to start working the scene and that Simons and his team will be coming in with McGee to help her finish it.

The last place Tony wanted to be at that second was in a car, but he recognized that staying out on the dock all night wasn’t a good choice either. He shifted so that he could see Gibbs crossing the dock to where Kate was talking to one of the local LEOs. He thought back to what he’d heard Gibbs saying on the phone. Maybe he was misunderstanding, but if he was, he didn’t want anyone to correct him, because it sure as hell sounded like he’d told Morrow that Gibbs would leave a scene as long as Tony was there to take his place. But that neither Kate or McGee were ready to do that yet. It was probably petty, but it made him feel good. It also occurred to him that with him already in the car, Gibbs could have walked a few feet off to have that conversation. He didn’t have to lean on the car – on Tony’s side of the car – for that conversation. Tony could only figure that Gibbs had wanted him to hear that.

A few minutes later Gibbs came back and started the car, turning the heat on for Tony’s sake even though he found it a comfortable, if brisk, fall day. “You want to stop for food before we get back to civilization?”

Tony screwed up his face as his stomach lurched at the idea. Gibbs glanced over. “Guess not.”

Tony tried to sleep as they made their way back to D.C., but even with Gibbs doing reasonably safe speeds and taking the turns on all four tires, his stomach still rolled and gurgled in an unsettling way. He wondered how out of it he looked when Gibbs made several aborted attempts at small talk. Talking about the softball team and some movie he’d seen the last hour of on t.v. the other night while working on his boat and asking several times if Tony was feeling better. Or worse? And on a couple of occasions if he needed to pull to the side of the road if Tony was going to be sick.

It was only as they were passing through the Bethesda E.R. that Tony realized that he looked – and probably smelled – like someone who’d escaped from prison and been on the run through the woods for two days. And had been caught by Gibbs. So it probably struck the various Marines and Sailors sitting in the chairs outside the treatment rooms, as odd that Gibbs had a hand in between his shoulderblades as he led him into triage.

Because they didn’t know what Tony had ingested or the exact amount, he was fast-tracked from triage straight into a curtained off area where the resident vampire descended almost immediately and took four vials of blood before rushing off to the lab, leaving Tony to change into a hospital gown and crawl under the thin hospital sheet and blanket. Once in bed, Tony fell back against the raised head of the gurney. “As if I wasn’t sick and dizzy before they drained half my blood out of me,” he groused, letting his eyes close.

Gibbs stepped out of the corner he’d stayed in to be out of the phlebotomist’s way. He rested a hand on Tony’s shoulder and Tony turned his head just a little and gave him a weak smile for the uncharacteristic show of support.

“God, I’m tired,” Tony mumbled after a few minutes.

“Go ahead and rest. Doc won’t come in until they’ve had a chance to run your bloodwork,” Gibbs told him as he hooked a foot around the leg of the plastic chair and pulled it up closer to the bed.

“You don’t want my report or something?” Tony asked.

“Not right now. It’s not like you’re likely to forget what happened between now and tomorrow. And judging by the looks of White… the case is closed. So get some sleep.”

Tony shook his head, but let his eyes drift shut.. “I cannot sleep in hospitals. Too many weird smells. Too much noise.”

“As I recall, you tend to sleep with the t.v. on at home,” Gibbs told him. He’d learned that the first summer after Tony’d joined NCIS.

The air conditioning in his building had gone out during a stretch of nine days that hadn’t gotten cooler than ninety-five degrees. It had taken Gibbs three days to realize Tony was sleeping at his desk instead of going home to try and sleep in his roaster of an apartment, so at the end of the next night he tossed Tony’s backpack at him at the end of the work day. “Come on. You can’t sleep at your desk any more.”

Tony had looked somewhat shocked, but followed quickly, clearly relieved to know he could sleep both horizontally and comfortably for the first time in a long time.

There had been lots of little ways that hadn’t worked out so well. Gibbs had gone in early for an MTAC call with a Marine in Iraq who had some intel on a guy from his until coming home on compassionate leave, with about ten thousand dollars in drugs stashed in his gear. Tony had locked the door on his way out when he’d left a few hours later which resulted in Tony discovering that one of the reasons Gibbs never locked his front door was that he didn’t actually carry a house key with him. Gibbs had been less than pleased with having to pick the lock to get into his own house.

And Tony had brought his portable DVD player and had a tendency to leave it running on a loop while he slept. Gibbs, who preferred it to be absolutely silent when he slept (not that he couldn’t sleep through noise, but preferred – in his own home – to have it quiet) had been jolted awake several times by gunfire noise leaking down the hall from Tony’s room to his from the damn film.

Tony shrugged, his eyes still closed, his head flopping to the side. “I only put on movies I know backwards and forwards so it’s like white noise. No surprises. Around here you have nurses hollering, and patients moaning – if they aren’t outright screaming - and all kinds of noises I can’t even begin to identify from the machines and stuff…”

Despite his words, Tony did drift off for about half an hour while waiting for his test results. Once he was sure that Tony was really out, Gibbs stepped around the partition curtain and down the hall a few yards in search of the nearest coffee machine.

Tony was still asleep when Gibbs slipped back in. He sat back in the hard plastic chair and watched him for a while. It was a relief to have him back. He realized that this, like the Atlas case, was a kick in the ass that if he wanted Tony to see him in the way he was seeing Tony that he was going to have to be a little more assertive. If Tony had noticed that Gibbs was trying to get his attention, he hid it well. And given that this was DiNozzo they were talking about, it really was logical to conclude that Tony really just hadn’t noticed. Tony didn’t keep much quiet. Ever.


The doctor came in, deliberately rattling the curtain, which caused Tony to bolt upright. “I’m awake!”

Gibbs snickered, but patted Tony on the arm. “You are now.”

Gibbs hovered over Tony’s shoulder as the doctor did a quick physical and then rattled off test results and the two possible chemicals he’d been drugged with and wrote two prescriptions: one to help settle Tony’s stomach and one to bind up the… something that was in his blood and let him pass it. Gibbs wasn’t sure he’d gotten all the details of what had happened, but he was sure he understood what needed to happen next.

Once the doctor signed Tony’s discharge papers, Gibbs handed him his clothes and offered him a hand up. Tony sniffed the scuzzy flannel shirt, wincing at the body odor and blood smells.

“Come on, you’re staying at my place tonight. You’ve still got sweats and a couple t-shirts at my place from when you stayed over last winter when your heat went out,” Gibbs told him as he helped Tony dress. Tony didn’t complain about every stiff muscle and little ache and pain. He also didn’t insist that he was fine and remind Gibbs that he’d been dressing himself since he was four. He let Gibbs help him with his shoes when he realized that the adrenaline crash was leaving him so completely sore that he couldn’t bend over to tie his own shoes.

Once he was up and they were heading for the door, Tony rallied. “I’ll be okay at home. Honest.”

Gibbs shrugged. “Maybe, but you’re not going home.” He had a brief surge of guilt, wondering if using his ability to give Tony orders, knowing that Tony would obey without thinking (though not necessarily without a token protest) was an abuse of power. He wondered if he’d insist that McGee or Kate crash at his place if they’d been hurt. Somehow he doubted it, but there always had been that reciprocal relationship between him and Tony. He’d kept an eye on Tony after the Atlas mess and Tony had fluttered around trying to help out without it looking like he was helping out after Gibbs had been winged in Central America.

Tony crashed with him, even though it hadn’t gone well the first time, last winter when the heat had gone out. He’d been trying to tell Tony to move to a place with a better HVAC system, but his heart hadn’t really been in the jests since that time. The second time had gone better. Tony had found some little speaker pillow thing so that he’d hear his background noise and Gibbs wouldn’t. And they’d both come dangerously close to admitting that it wasn’t such an awful thing to not go home alone after a bad day at work.

And if that was all this turned out to be, so be it. But they’d already established a pattern and Gibbs saw no reason to break it now.

“You have a ‘script for Compazine. I’ve seen you on that stuff before. No way in hell I’m letting you go home and crash around your place stoned on anti-nausea meds,” Gibbs said as they made their way out of the E.R. and down to the Bethesda pharmacy.

Deciding that he was actually arguing against what he wanted, Tony shut up and followed Gibbs out of the E.R.

Tony almost fell asleep in the hard plastic chairs in the pharmacy waiting area while his prescriptions were filled. When Gibbs collected the meds and him, Tony didn’t comment when Gibbs said that it was time for them to both be getting ‘home’. Gibbs couldn’t decide if Tony’s expression was a slight grin at the word ‘home’ or a badly time grimace as Tony stretched as he stood.

Tony did fall asleep in the car. Gibbs hated waking him, but he knew that Tony would be much better off after a quick shower, a light dinner, and his meds. Not to mention that he was already stiff and sore and would be much better off tucked into bed.

Tony swayed as he walked to the door, Gibbs hovering at his elbow like he wasn’t sure that Tony would make it. He was quiet and sluggish as Gibbs helped him strip down and then shoved him into the shower. “Stay there until I come get you,” Gibbs ordered as Tony wrenched on the hot water.

Satisfied that Tony was scrubbing off the layers of dirt and grime as well as the sleezy personality he’d adopted for the op, Gibbs dug around in his fridge until he came up with everything he needed to make Tony a turkey sandwich. He found an orange and peeled it and put it next to the sandwich and dumped a handful of pretzels next to that. He dug a soda out of the back – probably in there since the last time DiNozzo stayed with him since he never touched the stuff.

“You about done?” Gibbs hollered as he passed the open bathroom door on his way to the guest room. He set Tony’s dinner on the dresser and dug out the faded OSU t-shirt and gray sweats Tony’d left behind after the last time when his heat had gone out and he’d been banged up by a woman who hadn’t forgotten how to blow up an office lobby with something that looked like a gray tennis ball.

Realizing he hadn’t heard an answer from Tony he doubled back down the hall. “DiNozzo? You about done?”

“Yeah, boss. I’m good.”

“Are you? Gibbs pressed. “How’s your stomach?”

A lukewarm, “Eh,” was Tony’s only answer.

Gibbs tossed the sweats over the edge of the sink. “Your clothes are on the sink. There’s a towel on the bar. I’m going to get your meds.”



Gibbs had the two pills on the edge of Tony’s plate by the time he trudged out of the bathroom towel-drying his hair. Gibbs itched to reach up and tame some of the wilder spikes, but he wasn’t sure that Tony wouldn’t either bat him aside or laugh himself sick at the idea of Gibbs being touchy-feely.

Gibbs sat cross-legged at the end of Tony’s bed while Tony ate. Tony ate about half of what he was given, raising an eyebrow at the fact that Gibbs had peeled the orange for him, but not saying anything. He even swallowed his pills with the soda without complaint when Gibbs took them off the plate and handed them to him.

“I’m not going to need these meds to knock me on my ass,” Tony said leaning back against the wall.

“Bed time, huh?” Gibbs asked as he took the plate from unresisting fingers. He set it aside and wiggled the blankets and sheet down. “Come on, Tony, crawl in.”

Without opening his eyes, Tony scrunched down, shoving his feet under the sheet and letting Gibbs pull the covers back over him. He was tired. Dead tired.

The fact that he could have gone to sleep the night before and never woken up – for oh so many reasons – caused him to jerk, his eyes opening widely.

“Easy,” Gibbs whispered, stroking his arm as he settled back into the bed. Gibbs fussed with getting the blankets settled back around his shoulders.

Tony made a face before letting out a long sigh. “Will you do me a small favor, boss?”

Gibbs quit fussing and sat on the edge of the bed. “Sure.” Tony hesitated and Gibbs could see that he was about to blow it off with a ‘nevermind.’ “Speak, DiNozzo. What do you need?”

Tony sighed again. “Will you just stay here until I fall asleep? I can’t imagine that’ll be more than all of thirty seconds.”

“Sure, Tony. I’ll stay. You sleep.” Gibbs hitched up a little higher on the bed and he rested his hand on the back of Tony’s head, gently carding his fingers through Tony’s damp hair.

Tony’s next sigh was of pure contentment. And he was right. It was less than half a minute before Gibbs could see his muscles relax and his head sink deeper into the pillow as Tony fell fast asleep.




Gibbs went down to work on his boat once Tony had been asleep for a good ten minutes and Gibbs was reasonably sure he wouldn’t be waking any time soon. It wasn’t even eight-thirty and despite the insanity of losing track of Tony off and on throughout the whole White case, Gibbs wasn’t ready for sleep. He didn’t bother with the t.v., preferring the company of his own thoughts and the rasp of the plane.

Around ten it occurred to him to call Eberhart to check and see how the softball game went. He fished out his cell phone and had the NCIS switchboard transfer him to Jason. After assuring the other agent that Tony was fine – that he’d been a little worse for wear by the end of the case, but was resting comfortably now – Eberhart informed him that they’d lost to ATF six to seven. Jason assured them that it was because they were down two of their best players and that they’d get them next year. Gibbs thanked him and hung up, going back upstairs to check on Tony. In the two hours that Gibbs had been downstairs, Tony hadn’t moved an inch. Satisfied that he was out for the night, Gibbs went back to the boat.

He was glad Tony had badgered him into playing that first year. He was even more glad he’d badgered Tony into playing this year. It was too bad they couldn’t make that last game. He and Tony didn’t make a crazy amount of small talk, and Gibbs knew he was responsible for that, but when they had the chance, the softball team had been a good thing for them to have to talk about. A good reason to spend time together where Gibbs didn’t have to pretend he was always a bastard.

Gibbs knew, probably far better than either Kate or McGee, that as much as Tony talked, he never said very much. Not about himself or other things that really mattered. In talking about softball – in talking at softball, in the dugouts or while carpooling to the field - Gibbs had gotten Tony to talk about himself a little more than he might have otherwise. He’d gotten some pretty serious insight into Tony’s childhood when he’d explaned that sports were the one thing Tony could do to get his dad to notice him. When he did well, when his teams won, his dad paid attention to him at least for a minute.

Gibbs ended up telling Tony about his dad taking him down to Philly every year since he’d turned five, the week after school let out. About how his dad said it couldn’t really be summer until they’d taken in a baseball game.

He pulled his cell back out and speed-dialed Abby. “Hey Abs, I need a favor, and bring a laptop…”