![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
justhuman.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ncisficathon***Continuation of a Round 4 (2009) Ficathon story. Please check out the Round 5 stories.***
Title: Ligers and Tigons and Tony, Oh My (Part 7/?)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
justhuman
Written for:spoonyriffic
Prompt: Tony/Gibbs - Supernatural (the genre, not the show) - a series of strange killings in DC leave our favorite NCIS team puzzled, and soon it is revealed that there is something more nefarious behind it all. First Time fic. Rating between R or NC-17, whichever is best for the fic.
Archive: Please ask
Genre: teamfic, adventure, romance
Pairings: Gibbs/DiNozzo, mentions of canon pairings and maybe a surprise
Rating: NC-17 overall, PG this section
Disclaimer: CBS
Word Count: 7982 this part
Summary: While working a case, Tony runs into a problem with potentially deadly consequences. Now it's up to the team to do what they do best and investigate until they find a solution.
A/N: Many thanks totejas for the beta assistance in this part. As always, all mistakes are mine.
Part 1 - Harvest Moon
Part 2 - After the Harvest Moon
Part 3 - Hunter's Moon
Part 4 - Hunter's Dawn
Part 5 - Drag Hunt
Part 6a - Hunter's Bloodhound
Part 6b - Hunter's Bloodhound
Part 7 - Hunter's Lead
*** Monday, October 5, 2009 - Full Moon, Day 3 - Hunter's Moon ***
The Boss had touched him, rubbed his head - well, technically his hat, but Tony was going to think about it as his head. Before he became anymore lost in the sea of sensory input, he decided to focus on his job. They had a suspect in custody, but they had to pick up their equipment and their evidence. Tony realized that they were never going to eat.
Gibbs was handing out marching orders. "DiNozzo, find out where our suspect bunks and pass it on to Yates. Yates, accompany the MPs and read Johnson his Article 21 rights. Then get the MPs to cordon off the suspect's quarters. McGee, you're with me at the paint shop to gather up the evidence."
Tony frowned. "Boss, all you want me to do is find out where this guy lives?"
"I thought you wanted lunch, DiNozzo."
"What?"
"You caught the bad guy; you can go to lunch. We'll meet you there, unless you want to take McGee's place."
There was a passing moment of fluorescent green envy, complete with territorial imperativeness directed at the idea of McGee getting Gibbs. If nothing else, it was completely out of the natural pecking order. Then the thought of food filled every corner of Tony's psych.
He took off at a run for the paint shop, shouting, "On it Boss!" The paint shop was the last place that he had seen the Seaman Johnson's supervisor.
***
Tony was on his second tray of Navy chow. His experience on the Seahawk had informed his choices when the men behind the counter were slinging food onto his plate. Overall, his lunch was palatable - it still wasn't good, but not nearly as bad as it could have been. Not that Tony cared because it was food. In a way it was good, because it was all that he could eat, packed with protein and carbs, and iced with fat and salt. Frankly, if this was the way it was going to be every month, then Tony was going to volunteer to help out at Norfolk, because it had an even bigger mess than Pax River.
He spotted his team coming and waved. Gibbs rolled his eyes, Tony didn't know why. As they picked out their meals, Tony could see Gibbs pointing and more dishes being loaded onto Cassie and McGee's trays. When they got to the dessert section of the chow line, Tony's wolf ears were able to pick up what they were saying.
"Boss, I appreciate you're concern for my lunch, but I've put a lot of effort into losing the weight." McGee said.
"It's not for you, McGee. You can give it to Tony when we get to the table or you can wait for him to reach his fork over to your tray," Gibbs murmured.
McGee turned enough to glare at Tony, and then he tuned and picked up a second piece of pie. Tony hoped it was chocolate crème.
As they sat down, Tony said, "Tim, I would never put my werewolf cooties in your lunch."
"Yes, you would," McGee said.
Tony thought for a moment and came to the conclusion that he might, but he wasn't about to say that out loud.
"It would become your lunch after you touched it," McGee pointed out. "Wait, where did you get the idea that I'd be worried about your cooties all over my lunch? "
Tony waved his finger toward the chow line. "You were just talking about it-"
"Eat," Gibbs said.
As she sat down, Cassie slid a bowl of mashed potatoes in front of Tony. He was about to complain about the lack of gravy, but before the words were out of his mouth, he was looking at the bottom of the bowl. Then he plunged his fork into the potatoes on his own plate.
"So, Tony, you actually tracked down the perp like a bloodhound?" Cassie asked.
"More like a drug sniffing dog, right?" McGee asked. "What I mean is that Tony didn't follow the scent to the hanger. However, once he was in the hanger, he found the scent."
"This whole dog analogy thing," Tony said with a frown. "Maybe we could work on that-"
"He found the suit," Gibbs said. "Perp borrowed someone else's clothes."
"Hey, it might have been looking for a needle in a haystack, but we didn't know there was a needle until I sniffed it out," Tony said.
"A help, but not exactly a miracle," Cassie said.
Gibbs reached over and swapped one of Tony's empty plates with a slice of pie. Tony's fork already had some meatloaf on it, but that didn't stop him from adding some blueberry pie to it. He picked up the plate and turned to Cassie. "I'm sorry, did you say something?" He did good, and Gibbs rewarded him, and they were jealous - they were all jealous.
"I think I'd have gotten fixated in the guy in the suit," McGee said.
"You can't knock yourself for not having my seasoned senses," Tony said with a mouthful of dessert.
"You did become fixated until we proved it wasn't him," Gibbs said. "Now we have to worry about a few other things like motive."
A chime went off on Tony's phone.
"Alarm? Got a date, Tony?" McGee asked.
"Fourteen hundred. T-minus four hours," Tony said. Gibbs gave him a quick glance, and Tony read approval all over it.
"It's actually a little more than five hours," Tim said. "Astronomical twilight is -"
"Twenty-fifteen," Tony said. "Moon rise is 1911 and to be on the safe side, I should be set by then."
"You said it was 1400," Cassie said. "What are the other eleven minutes for?"
"Setting the MP3 player myself, and a guy has got to have snacks," Tony said and then polished off the meatloaf on his plate. He momentarily wondered if licking the plate was considered bad manners in a military mess. Technically, he knew it was bad manners, but wondered if he could get away with it. Before Tony was able to give it a shot, Tim put a salad in front of him.
"Salad, McGee? Really?" Tony frowned at it before diving in.
"I just thought some vegetable matter wouldn't kill you. By the way, the timer is a good idea," McGee said.
Tony smiled to acknowledge the praise.
"Four hours does seem like a lot of notice," Tim said.
"Not if you get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere," Tony said.
"We're two hours from the Navy Yard; you should start heading back," Gibbs said.
Tony had a mouthful of lettuce and forced himself to swallow before he answered. "I know I have to head back early, but I could stay for another hour-"
"And potentially get wrapped up in whatever we find next. If I let you stay and things start getting involved, I may have to come up with an excuse about why I sent you back in the middle of things."
"Boss-" Tony complained.
"Hey! You nailed the guy, dead to rights. Now you take the evidence we've got so far back to Abby. We need her to match Johnson's DNA to hold him. Then you're set to get to the basement on time. The three of us are going to find a way to wrap the rest of this up and then join you. End of discussion." Gibbs said.
"Come on, Tony, you know what the rest of the day is going to be like," McGee said.
Cassie jumped in. "Talking to everyone on base who ever met the guy and they're going to say-"
"He was so quiet, I never thought he'd murder anyone." McGee rolled his eyes.
Tony sighed and picked up a dinner roll from McGee's tray. "Yeah, you're right."
McGee was glaring at him.
Tony held out his hands and with a asked, "What? Hey, didn't Gibbs put that pie on your tray for me?"
***
Tony stepped into Abby's lab and was instantly awake. The drive back had been boring. Checking the car in, and navigating the security checks in the Navy Yard were routine. Now his world was filled with donuts.
"Tony!" Abby had her arms around his neck and was kissing him on the cheek.
Tony just froze with the box of items from Pax River in his hand - in his hands until Abby let him go and snatched it. "Look, you brought me evidence!" Then she snapped her fingers in his face. "Cat got your tongue or have you just never been kissed by a donut?"
"Abby, I'm not really sure you should be re-enforcing your donut-ness to me," Tony said
She tilted her head and looked at him thoughtfully. "We're getting closer to the witching hour - well, the werewolf hour. I mean, the witching hour is midnight and we need to chain you up long before that."
"Abs," Tony pleaded.
"What I'm asking is if something changed? Does a girl need her handy dandy taser?"
"No. I mean, no! You're somehow a bigger donut than yesterday, but I'm not going to try and eat you."
Abby snatched his hands. "See, you'd have so much more success with girls if you rethought that last phrase a little. Let me show you something."
Tony was being pulled into the office in the back of the lab, trying to connect Abby's words to his growing need for a snack. "Hey! I'm an attentive lover!"
"So you keep telling everyone," she said.
Tony was starting to get worried. "Abby, why-" And then the breath was out of him as he looked at the wide flat box in the middle of her desk. Technically it was just a plain cardboard box, but somehow it had the distinctive air that sparked Tony's imagination.
It wasn't as classic as the rectangular box, whose top flaps formed a tent and a handle. The classic box was efficient, utilitarian, but could let the contents rub together, ruin the finish. The flat box said that the contents we're special, individual and needed the added protection of space. It distinctly printed in pink and orange and the name on the cover read Dunkin' Donuts.
"Abby, I'm not sure that whatever this is, is a good idea, but I want to know more," Tony said.
With a smirk, she flipped open the lid. Inside were a dozen plain donuts with vanilla icing that were lined up in a 4 by 3 grid on their backs, allowing their toppings to shine. They were all unique - individual works of art, arranged to produce a larger piece of art, framed by the flat box. There were chocolate drizzles, coconut, toasted nuts, cookie crumbs and sprinkles in every color of the rainbow.
"I had to make them go in the back and dip some special to get the full range of toppings," Abby said. "Oh and they are not from Building 184 here in the Navy Yard. I went up to 801 Pennsylvania to get these done right."
It occurred to Tony that the overwhelming vanilla donut scent that he had encountered when he entered the lab was a combination of Abby and the dozen lovelies in front of him. This was both reassuring and disturbing, because on the one hand, Abby didn't smell more like a donut, on the other hand she smelled exactly like a donut. For a moment Tony found himself lost in the reverie of it all. As he reached for a donut, he stopped himself and snapped out of it.
"How is this a good idea?" He shouted. Tony wanted it to be a good idea, because he hadn't had a snack in the last twenty minutes or so.
"This is aversion therapy. You are going to keep eating vanilla iced donuts until you never want to see them again."
"Wouldn't that mean that I would start wanting to avoid you?" To Tony, this was complete torture, because all he wanted to do was inhale the entire box.
"I have a theory that you would learn to focus on my dragonfly like qualities," Abby said. "And if you don't, we'll try something else. Now eat!"
"Manga!" Tony said automatically. It was the Italian command to eat that anyone who ever had an older Italian relative knew. Tony grabbed a donut with sprinkles and bit down into the best thing on earth - deep fried dough covered in vanilla sugar. He was still a bit concerned that this would degrade the situation with Abby, but he knew it wasn't going to make him want to avoid her or vanilla iced donuts. She was severely overestimating the impact that a mere dozen donuts would have on him. "Mmmm, do-nut."
"Come on, Homer. Gibbs called a little while ago and wanted us to call back when you got here."
Tony swallowed the last of the first donut and put a second one in his mouth as he carried the box into the main lab.
"Gibbs!" the man himself barked from the speaker.
"Hi Gibbs, it's your favorite forensic scientist with furry special agent Tony."
Furry? She called him furry! Tony wasn't sure he liked that. He was just going to keep eating all her donuts to make her pay for it.
"DiNozzo what the hell do you have in your mouth."
Tony stopped, mid-chew but there would be no fooling Gibbs; he was all knowing. He swallowed "Abby's making me eat donuts."
"Focus, DiNozzo!"
Tony closed the lid on the box so quickly that he probably messed up some of the icing, which just made him wince. "Focusing, Boss!"
"Something's not adding up down here."
"What's not adding up, Boss?" Had Tony screwed up? Did following his nose lead him to the wrong place, the wrong suspect? That didn't make any sense based on the premeditation of the borrowed clothes or the way the guy rabbited when they started pulling together the pieces.
"Motive - we don't have one. Johnson's not talking, or I should say he's talking too much and too confidently. He's hiding something, something more than being involved in this murder. McGee went over his quarters with a fine toothcomb and hasn't found anything yet. I'm about to send in Cassie to get a fresh set of eyes."
"His locker, Boss or for that matter his co-worker's lockers at the paint shop."
Yeah, been there, done that and about to go over it again. I need you to do the same thing with this guy's record."
Paperwork research, not Tony's favorite, but the job Gibbs needed him to do. "On it, Boss!"
"Gibbs, what do you need me to do?" Abby asked.
"What you do best. I need those skin and hair samples ASAP. We need those to hold this guy while we sort out the rest."
Abby stood up and brushed her shoulder against Tony's arm, "On it, Gibbs! Gibbs do you want to hear-"
There was the sound of dial tone as Gibbs hung up on them. Abby punched the button on the speaker. "Well, I guess he didn't want to hear." She picked up the donut box and shoved it into Tony's hands. "You better get upstairs an do the thing you do."
"Aye-aye, ma'am."
The automatic door for the lab slid open for Tony.
"Oh, Tony-"
He turned back toward Abby.
"Let me know when you're done with those. I've got another three dozen back in my office."
All Tony could do was blink at her.
***
Without even looking, Tony slid open the bottom drawer of his desk, reached into the donut box, and came up empty. Then he looked down. He was temped to slide all the fallen sprinkles and coconut to one corner of the box and pouring them into his mouth, but that was kind of a desperate act, especially when there were two more boxes downstairs.
The phone interrupted him from his donut musings.
"DiNozzo."
"Tony, it's Tim. I'm banging my head against a wall, and if I don't figure out something soon, Gibbs is going to take over that activity."
"Whatcha got, McGee." Tony leaned back in his chair with the satisfaction of the go-to guy.
"A key, as in a literal key. I found it above the door jam in Johnson's bedroom."
"Top of the door jam," Tony could here the surprise in is own voice. "How'd you think of that?"
"Cassie and I had just finished going through his quarters for the fifth or sixth time, and Cassie said something about even the dust being in order. I reminded her that I had a Warrant Officer that used to inspect my bedroom when I was a kid. I ran my finger over the door jam, looking for dust."
"Nice!" Tony said. "You're dad actually inspected your bedroom with white gloves?"
"Only when he was mad at me. Finding the key was lucky or at least sort of lucky. Tony, we've got no idea what this key opens. It's too small to be a standard door. It may belong to a heavy lock."
Tony cringed. "That's not good. It means -"
"Yeah, it means that he's got another hiding place and is smart enough not to leave evidence lying around his quarters."
"And it can be something small and stashed anywhere. Okay, let's run it down. You found his car, right?"
"Yes, and Gibbs searched it from end to end. All he found were jumper cables and a spare key to the car stashed in the wheel well."
"Gotcha. What about the motorcycle? Not that there's a lot of hiding space on a motorcycle."
"What motorcycle?" Tim asked. "We checked the base registry. Johnson's car is the only vehicle that has a base permit."
"Ping! According to the state of Maryland, there is a Honda Rebel Base, color red, Maryland plate 350D20, registered to Seaman Johnson. So if he's not keeping it on base, where is he keeping it?"
"Do you have his credit card records?" Tim asked.
"Right in front of me. I don't see anything that looks like a rental space."
"Look for gas stations."
"There are gas stations," Tony frowned at the numbers. "There are some really small purchases of gas on some of these. Just a sec..." Tony turned and pulled his calendar off the wall, checking dates. "And there's a pattern. The gas bought on the weekends is in small quantities."
"Okay, so he leaves the base, picks up his bike and drives it around on the weekends. Maybe if I had the locations that he bought gas I could triangulate where he garages the bike."
Tony thought, Wow, it's good to have McGee around to do stuff like that. "Sure, are you ready for the locations?"
"Let me elaborate. I might be able to triangulate if I had two days to write the scenarios."
"Days? Gibbs, won't be happy about that."
"You don't have to tell me that. I've been experiencing that first hand." Tim's voice sounded a little desperate.
Tony scratched at the back of his neck; he knew exactly what inspired that kind of panic. "Okay, Johnson has a motorcycle that he never brings onto base. Maybe check in with his roommates and co-workers."
Tim sighed. "Right."
Tony bit his lip. "Gibbs said this guy was too confident, like he could get away with anything."
"He's arrogant and smart, or at least smart enough not to talk."
"Then maybe he's paying for a rental space with cash. Maybe under a different name."
"Possible, but not encouraging trying to link him to an alias" Tim said, obviously thinking about it.
"Maybe it's one of those U-store-it places where they let you put your own lock on the shed."
"Tony, that's got potential."
"Of course it has potential. I'm pulling up local storage places. I'll start making some calls to see if I can narrow down the choices."
"Thanks, Tony. How are you doing? I mean you, not the case. Well, technically, I mean both."
How was he doing? How was he doing? "I'm good. Abby's feeding me donuts, and I'm keeping busy digging into Seaman Johnson's record. He's squeaky clean by the way. In that way that smart, arrogant dirtbags are."
"Of course he is. Okay, I've got to start re-interviewing people about a motorcycle. I'll check-in with you later."
"Good luck," Tony said and hung up. Triangulate. Tony rolled the word around in his head. There was no way he was going to do it, but maybe they didn't have to. Tony pulled up an internet map program and began plugging in the gas station addresses. They were scattered around the base and some scenic byways. One gas station kept showing up over and over again - small quantities of gas and the occasional tankful. Tony clicked on the city name and typed "storage" into the search engine.
*
While he was working, Tony did a lot of typing, which seemed to make the third box last a little longer. As expected, he didn't find a storage unit under Johnson's name, but he did find two that allowed people to store vehicles. He had passed that onto McGee, but hadn't heard anything back yet. It had been over an hour.
In the meantime, Tony had started digging a little deeper into Johnson's past. He knew everything significant about Greenbrook, Missouri, which was essentially, nothing other than Johnson had been born there. On shore he had moved through three bases. Johnson had served aboard the Ronald Reagan, doing the same kind of job that they had found him doing. Tony knew that ship had been bad news and was glad NCIS had moved him to the Seahawk, not that his time had overlapped with Johnson's on the Reagan.
Naval air stations were relatively small compared to fleet bases like San Diego or Norfork, but it was still like digging in a haystack. The more he dug, the more his spidey-sense tingled and that made him happy. His spidey sense was something he had always had, it was what made him become a cop in the first place.
Every member of his team had his own style. Gibbs saw right through people and knew instantly how they fit in the puzzle. McGee was able to piece together information that all looked like it was the same color and the same shape. Cassie charmed and coaxed the pieces out suspects and witnesses alike. He had never seen someone seem as sweet as Cassie, when she told a perp that she would put them on death row if they didn't tell her what she wanted. Tony's own style was to pound on rocks until he broke them into small pieces. Then he would pick up the small pieces and look under them. Look under every one, especially the ones that people were ashamed to show.
There were some big interesting rocks in Johnson's record.
Injury and death were a part of active duty even during peacetime. Sailors and Marines worked with ordinance and dangerous equipment. There were demanding physical jobs all over the Navy. Still, Tony decided to take a closer look at the deaths at Johnson's previous duty stations. The list was a fairly typical amount of unexpected medical emergencies mixed with accidents. Tony's spidey sense was tingling over a death at Johnson's last duty station where the body of the deceased seemed to have been severely damaged in the accident. It wasn't unheard of, but the thing was that it had happened at another of Johnson's previous duty station. Then on the shipboard assignment, someone was lost overboard.
Tony read the NCIS Agent Afloat's report on the man that went overboard. It wasn't someone that would have worked directly with Johnson, but they could have passed each other in the hanger decks. There was something there or maybe there wasn't because nothing seemed out of the ordinary at Johnson's first duty station.
Tony grabbed the phone when it rang, prepared for Gibbs. "DiNozzo."
"Tony, this is Ducky. Could you come downstairs?"
Rolling his eyes, Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. "Little busy today for a social call or a blood letting. By the way, I'm beginning to understand the ancient conflict between werewolves and vampires." The last word dragged out, because out of nowhere Vance was standing in front of his desk.
Shark. Vance smelled like a shark. Tony had never smelled a shark, but that's what Vance smelled like.
Vance just stared at him with a distinct look of impatience and non-amusement - very shark-like.
"It's just Ducky, we were arguing about who'd come out on top in the war between- You, you, probably don't want to know about that."
Vance remained implacable.
"Tony! It's not about that!" Ducky called into the phone.
With a quick glance to Vance, Tony frowned at his desk and pressed the phone tighter to his ear. "It's not?"
"It's about the files you asked me to look over."
"You found something?" Tony asked.
"Something, yes. What - of that I'm not entirely sure."
Tony got to his feet. "I'll be right down."
Vance was still there. "What do you have Agent DiNozzo?"
Focus.
"Johnson's record was clean, so I started digging deeper into his previous assignments. I found some accidental deaths-"
"That didn't look accidental?"
"That looked - weird. The bodies were severely damaged. I had the electronic records sent to Ducky."
"And he thinks he found something?"
Tony shrugged.
"What have you heard from Gibbs?"
"The suspect has clammed up, but Gibbs is sure that he's hiding something. McGee found a key; he's trying to find the lock it fits."
Vance nodded and turned toward the stairs. "Keep it up."
And that was it; Vance just headed back to MTAC. Tony had talked about werewolves in front of Vance and somehow survived the experience. What the hell? Focus. Ducky needed him. Taking a donut for the road, he headed to the elevator.
***
"What'cha got Duck?" Tony said in his best Gibbs.
Ducky gave him half a smile and a lifted eyebrow. "I have two apparently different accidents with the same cause of death and what appear to be coincidental secondary damage."
"We don't believe in coincidence," Tony said as he crossed to Ducky who was looking over two piles of computer printouts laid out on an otherwise empty autopsy table. On the other table was Seaman Lawson.
"In both cases, the victims died of asphyxiation."
"Asphyxiation? One of them was run through a piece of machinery that chewed him apart."
"Yes, I was expecting blunt force trauma or exsanguination from the wounds, based on the photos. The determination was that the equipment caused the damage and the asphyxiation. And really, I couldn't blame the examiner for that based on condition of the body, which they found in winter. It would have been impossible to estimate time of death."
Tony inclined his head, remembering the details. "The areas where they were found were both temporarily shutdown, and both men had been missing for 24-48 hours - no one to find them. The other guy died of asphyxiation too?"
"Yes. I find it to be an odd cause of death in both cases, but that's not the oddest detail. In both cases, the victims were missing their right index finger. Now considering the damage that both bodies suffered it wasn't implausible for a digit to have been severed. However, both fingers were severed cleanly and not recovered…"
"That sounds like serial killer territory."
"Trophies." Ducky nodded.
Tony rolled that around in his brain as he went around the table and looked at their murder victim, Petty Officer Lawson.
Ducky joined him. "He died of asphyxiation. If this is related to the other cases you pulled up, perhaps the murderer was interrupted before he could damage the body and take his trophy."
"Maybe. Showing up to his duty station on time would have been a good cover story. Johnson would have gotten off at 1600 and Lawson's roommate wouldn't have gotten off for another hour. An hour is not a lot of time to discretely move a body."
"No it's not."
"Unless he had help," Tony said and then his brain began to roll over the possibility.
"Serial killer are more likely to be solitary, but partnerships are not unheard of."
Tony looked from the dead petty officer to the papers representing the two dead men. "I don't like what's in that paper, but a connection to this case seems-"
"Tenuous."
"Yeah, do you have anything else?"
"Not at the moment."
Tony headed toward the door, saying, "Let me do some more digging."
*
Tony was tired of digging and ready to toss his shovel out the window. He was trying to correlate personnel records - find out who at Pax River had shared duty assignments with Johnson. Sifting through data was McGee's job.
A beep sounded from Tony's watch. "Saved by the bell," he said as he checked the time and then looked again. It was 16:30, which gave him an hour and a half to get back to Gibbs' basement. Where the hell was his team?
Tony reached for the phone to call Gibbs, but it rang first. "DiNozzo."
"Report!" It was Gibbs and he didn't sound like he was in the mood for pleasantries.
'I've got nothing obvious in Johnson's past. He's clean; his bank accounts are clean. I dug into his past duty stations and found two suspicious deaths at two previous duty stations. Both were ruled to be accidents -"
"But you think something else," Gibbs prompted.
"Yeah, there were too many similarities, but I don't have anything to tie them to Johnson."
"Any chance five fingers would tie them in?"
"Wha- Highly probably if at least two of them are right index fingers." Tony was on his feet; he didn't realize that he had stood up. "You found body parts?"
"In the storage shed where he kept his motorcycle. They were in jars of fluid, hidden in a false vent."
"You found it, the storage shed?"
"Not without a lot of looking. We had to go to the doors one by one and try the key. McGee's calling Ducky to drive back down and look at the fingers. Tony, we're not getting back tonight."
"Yeah, you've got a serial killer. I'll get the car-" It hit him like a ton of bricks. His team needed him now and he wasn't going to be able to join them. "I have to get in a car and make it to a previous appointment. Alone."
"Yeah, you do, but you're not going alone."
"Did McGee develop a transporter -- that's a device from Star Trek that lets you-"
"DiNozzo, I've seen Star Trek."
"You have?"
"Everyone has. Abby's going to drive you over."
"Boss!"
"We don't have a lot of choice. Tell me about your suspicious cases."
There was so much rattling in Tony's brain that nothing could come out of his mouth.
"Focus." Gibbs voice was quiet, almost gentle.
Tony reported, because that's what the Boss needed. "Both bodies were found mangled almost beyond recognition in ways that looked like an accident. They were missing right index fingers and died of asphyxiation."
"Like Seaman Lawson."
"Ducky can give you more details when he gets there, but it looks like they were dead long enough that it was impossible to get a time of death."
"Why did we find our petty officer intact?"
"I have a theory, well more like a wild idea, that Johnson's got a partner. Johnson does the initial kill and goes to work on time. Someone who's off duty later in the day goes to the apartment and takes care of the body before the roommate comes home."
"Except one of Lawson's crewmates showed up unexpectedly, found the body, and called us."
"I've been trying to sift through the Pax River personnel and see who's been at previous duty stations with Johnson."
"And?"
"And I haven't gotten very far."
"Send what you've got to McGee."
"Boss, I've got to do something and you've got McGee and Cassie sifting through the crime scene."
"DiNozzo, what do you got to do?
"I-" Tony swung the phone receiver at the desk and stopped just short of striking it. He could here Gibbs snapping out his name. Tony pulled the phone back up to his ear. "I've got to find Abby and make that appointment."
"Call me, the second you're free in the morning." Gibbs hung up, because that's what Gibbs did.
Tony sat down hard and tossed his pen across his desk. He wanted to ignore Gibbs, do what he knew needed to do. But he really couldn't. It was like sitting on the sidelines with a broken leg or a wrecked knee. He had done both in college, and this wasn't any better. This was much worse.
When he was physically messed up, all it took was trying to stand for him to know that he couldn't play. Right now, Tony was alert and fully charged and ready to sink into the damn computer screen and find the bastard they didn't know anything about. While eating a donut. God, he was so hungry.
"Tony?"
Abby was standing in front of his desk and he hadn't seen, heard or smelled her coming, because he wasn't focusing.
"Hey, Abs. Did you talk to Gibbs?"
She nodded. She looked small; she looked afraid.
Tony turned back to the computer and closed up the file with all the research he had done. "I'm going to send this to McGee and then we can go. Abby, you don't have to stay. I'd say you didn't have to come, but it's better if you double check things, make sure I didn't miss anything. Also, I don't have a car unless I steal Gibbs' keys."
"I could hotwire it for you. He wouldn't kill me," Abby said, standing a little taller.
"That was cheerful," Tony said and followed it with a mental Not.
"This is a little hard," Abby said.
"It's a lot hard, and it shouldn't be your problem. Really, once you check the locks, you should go." Tony stood up, yanking a flash drive out of his computer and tossed in his laptop case.
Abby shook her head. "Stop acting like you're in this alone." She stepped up and wrapped her arms around him. "Tony, you're not alone."
***
As soon as they made it back to the house, Tony had ran upstairs and changed into his basement gear. Before Abby had even unpacked all the bags in the kitchen, Tony had slid into a chair in front of a pizza. "Abs, come and sit -"
Tony jumped back so fast that he knocked over the chair he had been sitting.
Abby's eyes flew open. "What? Is it a roach?"
"No!" Tony pointed at the box.
"What?" Abby demanded. "A mouse?"
"Huh?" Tony wondered what the hell she was thinking.
"So what is it?" Abby shouted. "Nuclear bomb, wood chipper, shark?"
"Chicken!" Tony said.
"Yeah, you're looking that way," Abby said, folding her arms over her chest.
Flipping open the lid to the pizza box, Tony said, "This is chicken. It's half buffalo chicken and half chicken marsala. The last time you and I sat down to this kind of pizza-"
Abby marched up to the box, snatched a piece up and bit down, sauce and cheese running down her chin. "This did not turn you into a werewolf! God, I need a napkin." She put the slice on the box lid and waved her fingers.
Tony tossed her a kitchen towel. "Why'd you get the pizza, Abby?"
She frowned at the towel first and Tony next. Then Abby shrugged and wiped her hands. "I'm not going to let that night come between us. You were sick and out of your mind. And while I was righteously scared out of my mind, I've been having a hard time separating werewolf from Tony."
"It's my fault," Tony said and turned away from Abby.
"It's not your fault!" Abby shouted. "Tony, you're sick. You were out doing your job and caught a really bad bug." Abby flopped into a chair.
The only noise for a minute or so was the hum of the refrigerator.
Tony had always thought that he was pretty good with handling unpleasant details, with dealing with a crisis. His father left him in Hawaii; he ordered room service. He didn't have money for college; he signed an IOU to his uncle. Gibbs drove a car off the dock; Tony dived in. Kate was shot; Gibbs was blown up; Tony had handled them all. When Jeanne needed a place to stay, he had…
Tony went around the table and sat down next to Abby. "It occurs to me that I'm used to dealing with…I don't know." He had lifted his hand up and let them fall to his thighs. "Things I can tackle or shoot or move away from or buy a new one. Maybe I'm not so good with the things that I can't do anything about."
Abby took his hand in her much smaller one, a slow smile spreading across her face. "You tackled me to save me when Ari was shooting at me. You're really are very good at being the action hero." She squeezed his fingers. "Do you remember when there was a hit man after me, and a psycho ex-boyfriend stalking me, and-"
"I remember, Abs. It's my job not to let creeps like that hurt you."
"Yes, it is. But it was my job too. I was cowering in an elevator for eight hours, so no one could shoot me through a window. And even though I trusted you and Gibbs and McGee and Ziva to do everything you could to protect me, I also was too much of a scientist to realize that you all couldn't be everywhere. I needed to learn a new job, to protect myself. I mean, I probably wasn't going to turn into Wonder Woman."
Tony looked at her. "I think you're a superhero."
"The thing is that learning to use the taser was a lot easier that accepting that I might need to. Maybe the hard part for you isn't locking yourself in a cage - that's all about action and responsibility and you know how to do that."
Tony picked up a slice of pizza. "The hard part is accepting that I have to. That and I've got to learn how to have a life around locking myself up."
Abby picked up her slice and bumped her shoulder against his.
***
"It's hard to type through the bars," Tony said. He was sitting on the blessedly cool concrete floor inside the cage, working on his laptop that was on the floor, outside the cage. They had headed downstairs fifteen minutes before moonrise and as expected, Tony hadn't changed. They both decided to play it safe with the electronic equipment by keeping outside the cage.
Abby smiled at him. "Have you ever thought about taking up an S&M lifestyle? I've know some doms that would love to have a boy in a cage that can type."
"Ah gee, what a shame that I'm contagious," Tony replied.
"Yes, but you may not be contagious all the time," Abby said, tapping into her own laptop. "And I'm going to prove it one way or another."
"Have you found the right micro-analyzer thing?"
"Not yet, but I will."
"Abs-"
"No arguments, cage-boy."
"Yes, ma'am. Speaking of cages, do you like the gray?" Tony gestured at the walls.
"Wrong shade for you."
"That's what I thought. Maybe Gibbs will let me paint."
Abby stopped typing and cocked her head to the side, thinking. "He might go for desert camouflage."
Tony let that sink in for a moment. "While we're on the topic of decorating, and I'll deny this conversation if you tell anyone about it, do you happen to know anything about taking down wallpaper?"
"My time with Habitat for Humanity has made me a pro-stripper."
"Wow," Tony said.
"You say wow now, but wait until you see my tassels," Abby said with an ever widening grin.
"You can completely revise my opinion about the term if you help me get rid of the Rumtarts upstairs in my room. In what will be my room if Gibbs let's me move in, but Gibbs was pretty clear on the part where I can't move in until the Rumtarts are no longer residents."
"That makes sense," Abby said with a smile. "You're not your best surrounded by young, impressionable cartoon girls."
"What? I'm great with women of all ages, cartoon or not." Tony's watch beeped and sucked the life out of the room - fifteen minutes. He hit the save button on the files he had been working on and took off his shirt and watch. Abby was standing in front of the bars as he closed the laptop and put his items on top. "I'll wait a couple of minutes before tossing the shorts to you."
Abby nodded and moved everything including herself to the other side of the green line.
"Do you think that I can fight it?" Tony said to the walls as much as Abby.
"That would imply a psychological component to the issue," Abby said. "Which, you know, there might be, but I'm leaning toward chemical and biological. I think it would be like fighting cocaine or truth serum or anti-histamines.
"I'm going to try," Tony said. "I don't know, maybe I can build up a resistance." He nodded, and Abby nodded back.
Then it was quiet, other than the Dixieland jazz that Tony had let Abby pick out of his collection. It wasn't his favorite in the genre, but a good compromise with the woman from the Big Easy, who preferred louder fare. Still, as they stared at each other through the bars, the room felt silent.
"Did we go through the checklist? Is there a checklist?" Tony asked.
"There is no checklist," Abby said. "Well, technically, there probably is, but it's with McGee." Abby frowned. "It's Tim, there must be a checklist. He is bogarting the checklist!" Abby planted her fists on her hips.
"I'm sure he wasn't trying-"
"You know, he does this kind of thing all the time. When he finds something cool, he can't wait to tell you everything in excruciating detail."
"Yeah!" Tony agreed.
Abby shrugged and bobbed her head. "Which isn't so bad really, because we like a lot of the same things. Oh, and he lets me tell him all about what I'm doing." She made one, sharp clap with her hands and pointed at Tony. "It's the other side. When he's working on something hard, something he can brag about, he keeps it all in. He doesn't disclose; he doesn't share. He wants to hoard all of the information and take all the credit and responsibility."
"Uhm," Tony said.
"And then this! Gibbs puts him in charge and the next thing you know, Tim gets all in charge and keeps the checklist a secret."
"Maybe-"
"Which, you know, could be kind of sexy. I mean what girl doesn't like being swept off her feet now and again? There was the time when someone was trying to poison me in my own lab and he dragged me out. Which, you know, was really kind of sweet and totally hot Neanderthal way." Abby lowered her voice like an old radio serial. "Abby and Tim both dive to the floor, and Caveman McGee stands up, facing the deadly fumes and drags our heroine to safety by her lab coat."
Tony tilted his head to one side.
Her voice shifted back to normal. "Of course it was dumb. Doesn't anyone listen to the flight attendants doing the safety speech at the beginning of a flight? When the mask drops due to a loss of cabin pressure, please take the mask and pull on the tubing to start the flow of oxygen and than place it over your nose and mouth." Abby ran through the flight attendant motions while she spoke. "The most important part is to put on your own mask and then help others!"
"I can't disagree, I think," said Tony.
"My point is that when you give him a little bit of power, he gets bossy which gets in the way of me getting my way and doesn't get us any closer to a checklist!"
"I was thinking, not that I'll do that if it offends you. But maybe he's got the checklist on that desk he's got in the other room with the cameras."
"Oh my god! I forgot the cameras!"
Abby ran out of the room with the cell, leaving Tony to contemplate the gray walls on his own. After a second and a half, he hated being alone in there. As much as he didn't want any of them to have to deal with this situation, he wanted them all there. His eyes were drawn to the blanket next to the green line - Gibbs' place. He wanted Gibbs there most of all, because Gibbs would always know what to do.
Abby returned, holding a clipboard and pen. "Camera's on, check!"
Tony pointed at the clipboard.
"Don't go there, DiNozzo. Cage locked?"
Tony grabbed the bars and rattled the door.
"Check. Food, check."
"I don't know about that," Tony said.
"Tony, you survived on a goat leg and snacks the other night. We picked up another one and even more snacks."
"I was really leaning toward chicken tonight," Tony said.
"There was chicken on the pizza," Abby said.
"I was thinking more about fried chicken."
"Chicken bones are a choking hazard for dogs!"
"I'm not a dog!"
Abby rolled her eyes. "Ya wolf down your food on a normal day - no chicken bones!"
He wolfed down his food most of his life and had managed not to choke on chicken bones. Although there was the occasional half a hot dog that went down the wrong way.
Abby was running her pen down a list on the paper, making marks. "We've got ice and water. Once you lose your shorts, I think we're set."
Tony rolled his forehead against an iron bar. "You didn't mention weapons."
Abby didn't look at him. "I'm not an armed federal agent."
"You know how to use a gun, Abby, and my weapon is sitting right on the table." Tony pointed at the table in the back of the room.
Abby turned to him and bit her lip. "Tony, I - I just-"
"Abby Scuito, don't make me get bossy on you. You defend yourself."
"Of course I'll defend myself, Tony! I just don't want to have to because if I have to, that means one of us will probably end up dead. We won't get lucky twice."
Tony rolled his forehead against the bars. "I completely agree with you."
"And, Tony, I'm going to try the tranc gun first," Abby said, holding up the gun with a smile.
"You're like a gothy Bond girl. I love Bond. But hey! You may not have time to use both -" Tony's body was suddenly seized with pain. He grabbed the bars and gritted his teeth. When the wave ended, he let go and pushed back.
"You can do it, Tony," Abby said. "Fight it; I'm rooting for you."
"Okay," Tony said, pushing off his shorts and tossing them through the bars. "Sorry about the naked, but it's a billion degrees. Also, my teeth hurt. I'm just- I'm just- " Tony's fingers felt like they burst into flames. "Abby!"
Continued
Title: Ligers and Tigons and Tony, Oh My (Part 7/?)
Author:
justhumanWritten for:
spoonyrifficPrompt: Tony/Gibbs - Supernatural (the genre, not the show) - a series of strange killings in DC leave our favorite NCIS team puzzled, and soon it is revealed that there is something more nefarious behind it all. First Time fic. Rating between R or NC-17, whichever is best for the fic.
Archive: Please ask
Genre: teamfic, adventure, romance
Pairings: Gibbs/DiNozzo, mentions of canon pairings and maybe a surprise
Rating: NC-17 overall, PG this section
Disclaimer: CBS
Word Count: 7982 this part
Summary: While working a case, Tony runs into a problem with potentially deadly consequences. Now it's up to the team to do what they do best and investigate until they find a solution.
A/N: Many thanks to
tejas for the beta assistance in this part. As always, all mistakes are mine.Part 1 - Harvest Moon
Part 2 - After the Harvest Moon
Part 3 - Hunter's Moon
Part 4 - Hunter's Dawn
Part 5 - Drag Hunt
Part 6a - Hunter's Bloodhound
Part 6b - Hunter's Bloodhound
Part 7 - Hunter's Lead
*** Monday, October 5, 2009 - Full Moon, Day 3 - Hunter's Moon ***
The Boss had touched him, rubbed his head - well, technically his hat, but Tony was going to think about it as his head. Before he became anymore lost in the sea of sensory input, he decided to focus on his job. They had a suspect in custody, but they had to pick up their equipment and their evidence. Tony realized that they were never going to eat.
Gibbs was handing out marching orders. "DiNozzo, find out where our suspect bunks and pass it on to Yates. Yates, accompany the MPs and read Johnson his Article 21 rights. Then get the MPs to cordon off the suspect's quarters. McGee, you're with me at the paint shop to gather up the evidence."
Tony frowned. "Boss, all you want me to do is find out where this guy lives?"
"I thought you wanted lunch, DiNozzo."
"What?"
"You caught the bad guy; you can go to lunch. We'll meet you there, unless you want to take McGee's place."
There was a passing moment of fluorescent green envy, complete with territorial imperativeness directed at the idea of McGee getting Gibbs. If nothing else, it was completely out of the natural pecking order. Then the thought of food filled every corner of Tony's psych.
He took off at a run for the paint shop, shouting, "On it Boss!" The paint shop was the last place that he had seen the Seaman Johnson's supervisor.
***
Tony was on his second tray of Navy chow. His experience on the Seahawk had informed his choices when the men behind the counter were slinging food onto his plate. Overall, his lunch was palatable - it still wasn't good, but not nearly as bad as it could have been. Not that Tony cared because it was food. In a way it was good, because it was all that he could eat, packed with protein and carbs, and iced with fat and salt. Frankly, if this was the way it was going to be every month, then Tony was going to volunteer to help out at Norfolk, because it had an even bigger mess than Pax River.
He spotted his team coming and waved. Gibbs rolled his eyes, Tony didn't know why. As they picked out their meals, Tony could see Gibbs pointing and more dishes being loaded onto Cassie and McGee's trays. When they got to the dessert section of the chow line, Tony's wolf ears were able to pick up what they were saying.
"Boss, I appreciate you're concern for my lunch, but I've put a lot of effort into losing the weight." McGee said.
"It's not for you, McGee. You can give it to Tony when we get to the table or you can wait for him to reach his fork over to your tray," Gibbs murmured.
McGee turned enough to glare at Tony, and then he tuned and picked up a second piece of pie. Tony hoped it was chocolate crème.
As they sat down, Tony said, "Tim, I would never put my werewolf cooties in your lunch."
"Yes, you would," McGee said.
Tony thought for a moment and came to the conclusion that he might, but he wasn't about to say that out loud.
"It would become your lunch after you touched it," McGee pointed out. "Wait, where did you get the idea that I'd be worried about your cooties all over my lunch? "
Tony waved his finger toward the chow line. "You were just talking about it-"
"Eat," Gibbs said.
As she sat down, Cassie slid a bowl of mashed potatoes in front of Tony. He was about to complain about the lack of gravy, but before the words were out of his mouth, he was looking at the bottom of the bowl. Then he plunged his fork into the potatoes on his own plate.
"So, Tony, you actually tracked down the perp like a bloodhound?" Cassie asked.
"More like a drug sniffing dog, right?" McGee asked. "What I mean is that Tony didn't follow the scent to the hanger. However, once he was in the hanger, he found the scent."
"This whole dog analogy thing," Tony said with a frown. "Maybe we could work on that-"
"He found the suit," Gibbs said. "Perp borrowed someone else's clothes."
"Hey, it might have been looking for a needle in a haystack, but we didn't know there was a needle until I sniffed it out," Tony said.
"A help, but not exactly a miracle," Cassie said.
Gibbs reached over and swapped one of Tony's empty plates with a slice of pie. Tony's fork already had some meatloaf on it, but that didn't stop him from adding some blueberry pie to it. He picked up the plate and turned to Cassie. "I'm sorry, did you say something?" He did good, and Gibbs rewarded him, and they were jealous - they were all jealous.
"I think I'd have gotten fixated in the guy in the suit," McGee said.
"You can't knock yourself for not having my seasoned senses," Tony said with a mouthful of dessert.
"You did become fixated until we proved it wasn't him," Gibbs said. "Now we have to worry about a few other things like motive."
A chime went off on Tony's phone.
"Alarm? Got a date, Tony?" McGee asked.
"Fourteen hundred. T-minus four hours," Tony said. Gibbs gave him a quick glance, and Tony read approval all over it.
"It's actually a little more than five hours," Tim said. "Astronomical twilight is -"
"Twenty-fifteen," Tony said. "Moon rise is 1911 and to be on the safe side, I should be set by then."
"You said it was 1400," Cassie said. "What are the other eleven minutes for?"
"Setting the MP3 player myself, and a guy has got to have snacks," Tony said and then polished off the meatloaf on his plate. He momentarily wondered if licking the plate was considered bad manners in a military mess. Technically, he knew it was bad manners, but wondered if he could get away with it. Before Tony was able to give it a shot, Tim put a salad in front of him.
"Salad, McGee? Really?" Tony frowned at it before diving in.
"I just thought some vegetable matter wouldn't kill you. By the way, the timer is a good idea," McGee said.
Tony smiled to acknowledge the praise.
"Four hours does seem like a lot of notice," Tim said.
"Not if you get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere," Tony said.
"We're two hours from the Navy Yard; you should start heading back," Gibbs said.
Tony had a mouthful of lettuce and forced himself to swallow before he answered. "I know I have to head back early, but I could stay for another hour-"
"And potentially get wrapped up in whatever we find next. If I let you stay and things start getting involved, I may have to come up with an excuse about why I sent you back in the middle of things."
"Boss-" Tony complained.
"Hey! You nailed the guy, dead to rights. Now you take the evidence we've got so far back to Abby. We need her to match Johnson's DNA to hold him. Then you're set to get to the basement on time. The three of us are going to find a way to wrap the rest of this up and then join you. End of discussion." Gibbs said.
"Come on, Tony, you know what the rest of the day is going to be like," McGee said.
Cassie jumped in. "Talking to everyone on base who ever met the guy and they're going to say-"
"He was so quiet, I never thought he'd murder anyone." McGee rolled his eyes.
Tony sighed and picked up a dinner roll from McGee's tray. "Yeah, you're right."
McGee was glaring at him.
Tony held out his hands and with a asked, "What? Hey, didn't Gibbs put that pie on your tray for me?"
***
Tony stepped into Abby's lab and was instantly awake. The drive back had been boring. Checking the car in, and navigating the security checks in the Navy Yard were routine. Now his world was filled with donuts.
"Tony!" Abby had her arms around his neck and was kissing him on the cheek.
Tony just froze with the box of items from Pax River in his hand - in his hands until Abby let him go and snatched it. "Look, you brought me evidence!" Then she snapped her fingers in his face. "Cat got your tongue or have you just never been kissed by a donut?"
"Abby, I'm not really sure you should be re-enforcing your donut-ness to me," Tony said
She tilted her head and looked at him thoughtfully. "We're getting closer to the witching hour - well, the werewolf hour. I mean, the witching hour is midnight and we need to chain you up long before that."
"Abs," Tony pleaded.
"What I'm asking is if something changed? Does a girl need her handy dandy taser?"
"No. I mean, no! You're somehow a bigger donut than yesterday, but I'm not going to try and eat you."
Abby snatched his hands. "See, you'd have so much more success with girls if you rethought that last phrase a little. Let me show you something."
Tony was being pulled into the office in the back of the lab, trying to connect Abby's words to his growing need for a snack. "Hey! I'm an attentive lover!"
"So you keep telling everyone," she said.
Tony was starting to get worried. "Abby, why-" And then the breath was out of him as he looked at the wide flat box in the middle of her desk. Technically it was just a plain cardboard box, but somehow it had the distinctive air that sparked Tony's imagination.
It wasn't as classic as the rectangular box, whose top flaps formed a tent and a handle. The classic box was efficient, utilitarian, but could let the contents rub together, ruin the finish. The flat box said that the contents we're special, individual and needed the added protection of space. It distinctly printed in pink and orange and the name on the cover read Dunkin' Donuts.
"Abby, I'm not sure that whatever this is, is a good idea, but I want to know more," Tony said.
With a smirk, she flipped open the lid. Inside were a dozen plain donuts with vanilla icing that were lined up in a 4 by 3 grid on their backs, allowing their toppings to shine. They were all unique - individual works of art, arranged to produce a larger piece of art, framed by the flat box. There were chocolate drizzles, coconut, toasted nuts, cookie crumbs and sprinkles in every color of the rainbow.
"I had to make them go in the back and dip some special to get the full range of toppings," Abby said. "Oh and they are not from Building 184 here in the Navy Yard. I went up to 801 Pennsylvania to get these done right."
It occurred to Tony that the overwhelming vanilla donut scent that he had encountered when he entered the lab was a combination of Abby and the dozen lovelies in front of him. This was both reassuring and disturbing, because on the one hand, Abby didn't smell more like a donut, on the other hand she smelled exactly like a donut. For a moment Tony found himself lost in the reverie of it all. As he reached for a donut, he stopped himself and snapped out of it.
"How is this a good idea?" He shouted. Tony wanted it to be a good idea, because he hadn't had a snack in the last twenty minutes or so.
"This is aversion therapy. You are going to keep eating vanilla iced donuts until you never want to see them again."
"Wouldn't that mean that I would start wanting to avoid you?" To Tony, this was complete torture, because all he wanted to do was inhale the entire box.
"I have a theory that you would learn to focus on my dragonfly like qualities," Abby said. "And if you don't, we'll try something else. Now eat!"
"Manga!" Tony said automatically. It was the Italian command to eat that anyone who ever had an older Italian relative knew. Tony grabbed a donut with sprinkles and bit down into the best thing on earth - deep fried dough covered in vanilla sugar. He was still a bit concerned that this would degrade the situation with Abby, but he knew it wasn't going to make him want to avoid her or vanilla iced donuts. She was severely overestimating the impact that a mere dozen donuts would have on him. "Mmmm, do-nut."
"Come on, Homer. Gibbs called a little while ago and wanted us to call back when you got here."
Tony swallowed the last of the first donut and put a second one in his mouth as he carried the box into the main lab.
"Gibbs!" the man himself barked from the speaker.
"Hi Gibbs, it's your favorite forensic scientist with furry special agent Tony."
Furry? She called him furry! Tony wasn't sure he liked that. He was just going to keep eating all her donuts to make her pay for it.
"DiNozzo what the hell do you have in your mouth."
Tony stopped, mid-chew but there would be no fooling Gibbs; he was all knowing. He swallowed "Abby's making me eat donuts."
"Focus, DiNozzo!"
Tony closed the lid on the box so quickly that he probably messed up some of the icing, which just made him wince. "Focusing, Boss!"
"Something's not adding up down here."
"What's not adding up, Boss?" Had Tony screwed up? Did following his nose lead him to the wrong place, the wrong suspect? That didn't make any sense based on the premeditation of the borrowed clothes or the way the guy rabbited when they started pulling together the pieces.
"Motive - we don't have one. Johnson's not talking, or I should say he's talking too much and too confidently. He's hiding something, something more than being involved in this murder. McGee went over his quarters with a fine toothcomb and hasn't found anything yet. I'm about to send in Cassie to get a fresh set of eyes."
"His locker, Boss or for that matter his co-worker's lockers at the paint shop."
Yeah, been there, done that and about to go over it again. I need you to do the same thing with this guy's record."
Paperwork research, not Tony's favorite, but the job Gibbs needed him to do. "On it, Boss!"
"Gibbs, what do you need me to do?" Abby asked.
"What you do best. I need those skin and hair samples ASAP. We need those to hold this guy while we sort out the rest."
Abby stood up and brushed her shoulder against Tony's arm, "On it, Gibbs! Gibbs do you want to hear-"
There was the sound of dial tone as Gibbs hung up on them. Abby punched the button on the speaker. "Well, I guess he didn't want to hear." She picked up the donut box and shoved it into Tony's hands. "You better get upstairs an do the thing you do."
"Aye-aye, ma'am."
The automatic door for the lab slid open for Tony.
"Oh, Tony-"
He turned back toward Abby.
"Let me know when you're done with those. I've got another three dozen back in my office."
All Tony could do was blink at her.
***
Without even looking, Tony slid open the bottom drawer of his desk, reached into the donut box, and came up empty. Then he looked down. He was temped to slide all the fallen sprinkles and coconut to one corner of the box and pouring them into his mouth, but that was kind of a desperate act, especially when there were two more boxes downstairs.
The phone interrupted him from his donut musings.
"DiNozzo."
"Tony, it's Tim. I'm banging my head against a wall, and if I don't figure out something soon, Gibbs is going to take over that activity."
"Whatcha got, McGee." Tony leaned back in his chair with the satisfaction of the go-to guy.
"A key, as in a literal key. I found it above the door jam in Johnson's bedroom."
"Top of the door jam," Tony could here the surprise in is own voice. "How'd you think of that?"
"Cassie and I had just finished going through his quarters for the fifth or sixth time, and Cassie said something about even the dust being in order. I reminded her that I had a Warrant Officer that used to inspect my bedroom when I was a kid. I ran my finger over the door jam, looking for dust."
"Nice!" Tony said. "You're dad actually inspected your bedroom with white gloves?"
"Only when he was mad at me. Finding the key was lucky or at least sort of lucky. Tony, we've got no idea what this key opens. It's too small to be a standard door. It may belong to a heavy lock."
Tony cringed. "That's not good. It means -"
"Yeah, it means that he's got another hiding place and is smart enough not to leave evidence lying around his quarters."
"And it can be something small and stashed anywhere. Okay, let's run it down. You found his car, right?"
"Yes, and Gibbs searched it from end to end. All he found were jumper cables and a spare key to the car stashed in the wheel well."
"Gotcha. What about the motorcycle? Not that there's a lot of hiding space on a motorcycle."
"What motorcycle?" Tim asked. "We checked the base registry. Johnson's car is the only vehicle that has a base permit."
"Ping! According to the state of Maryland, there is a Honda Rebel Base, color red, Maryland plate 350D20, registered to Seaman Johnson. So if he's not keeping it on base, where is he keeping it?"
"Do you have his credit card records?" Tim asked.
"Right in front of me. I don't see anything that looks like a rental space."
"Look for gas stations."
"There are gas stations," Tony frowned at the numbers. "There are some really small purchases of gas on some of these. Just a sec..." Tony turned and pulled his calendar off the wall, checking dates. "And there's a pattern. The gas bought on the weekends is in small quantities."
"Okay, so he leaves the base, picks up his bike and drives it around on the weekends. Maybe if I had the locations that he bought gas I could triangulate where he garages the bike."
Tony thought, Wow, it's good to have McGee around to do stuff like that. "Sure, are you ready for the locations?"
"Let me elaborate. I might be able to triangulate if I had two days to write the scenarios."
"Days? Gibbs, won't be happy about that."
"You don't have to tell me that. I've been experiencing that first hand." Tim's voice sounded a little desperate.
Tony scratched at the back of his neck; he knew exactly what inspired that kind of panic. "Okay, Johnson has a motorcycle that he never brings onto base. Maybe check in with his roommates and co-workers."
Tim sighed. "Right."
Tony bit his lip. "Gibbs said this guy was too confident, like he could get away with anything."
"He's arrogant and smart, or at least smart enough not to talk."
"Then maybe he's paying for a rental space with cash. Maybe under a different name."
"Possible, but not encouraging trying to link him to an alias" Tim said, obviously thinking about it.
"Maybe it's one of those U-store-it places where they let you put your own lock on the shed."
"Tony, that's got potential."
"Of course it has potential. I'm pulling up local storage places. I'll start making some calls to see if I can narrow down the choices."
"Thanks, Tony. How are you doing? I mean you, not the case. Well, technically, I mean both."
How was he doing? How was he doing? "I'm good. Abby's feeding me donuts, and I'm keeping busy digging into Seaman Johnson's record. He's squeaky clean by the way. In that way that smart, arrogant dirtbags are."
"Of course he is. Okay, I've got to start re-interviewing people about a motorcycle. I'll check-in with you later."
"Good luck," Tony said and hung up. Triangulate. Tony rolled the word around in his head. There was no way he was going to do it, but maybe they didn't have to. Tony pulled up an internet map program and began plugging in the gas station addresses. They were scattered around the base and some scenic byways. One gas station kept showing up over and over again - small quantities of gas and the occasional tankful. Tony clicked on the city name and typed "storage" into the search engine.
*
While he was working, Tony did a lot of typing, which seemed to make the third box last a little longer. As expected, he didn't find a storage unit under Johnson's name, but he did find two that allowed people to store vehicles. He had passed that onto McGee, but hadn't heard anything back yet. It had been over an hour.
In the meantime, Tony had started digging a little deeper into Johnson's past. He knew everything significant about Greenbrook, Missouri, which was essentially, nothing other than Johnson had been born there. On shore he had moved through three bases. Johnson had served aboard the Ronald Reagan, doing the same kind of job that they had found him doing. Tony knew that ship had been bad news and was glad NCIS had moved him to the Seahawk, not that his time had overlapped with Johnson's on the Reagan.
Naval air stations were relatively small compared to fleet bases like San Diego or Norfork, but it was still like digging in a haystack. The more he dug, the more his spidey-sense tingled and that made him happy. His spidey sense was something he had always had, it was what made him become a cop in the first place.
Every member of his team had his own style. Gibbs saw right through people and knew instantly how they fit in the puzzle. McGee was able to piece together information that all looked like it was the same color and the same shape. Cassie charmed and coaxed the pieces out suspects and witnesses alike. He had never seen someone seem as sweet as Cassie, when she told a perp that she would put them on death row if they didn't tell her what she wanted. Tony's own style was to pound on rocks until he broke them into small pieces. Then he would pick up the small pieces and look under them. Look under every one, especially the ones that people were ashamed to show.
There were some big interesting rocks in Johnson's record.
Injury and death were a part of active duty even during peacetime. Sailors and Marines worked with ordinance and dangerous equipment. There were demanding physical jobs all over the Navy. Still, Tony decided to take a closer look at the deaths at Johnson's previous duty stations. The list was a fairly typical amount of unexpected medical emergencies mixed with accidents. Tony's spidey sense was tingling over a death at Johnson's last duty station where the body of the deceased seemed to have been severely damaged in the accident. It wasn't unheard of, but the thing was that it had happened at another of Johnson's previous duty station. Then on the shipboard assignment, someone was lost overboard.
Tony read the NCIS Agent Afloat's report on the man that went overboard. It wasn't someone that would have worked directly with Johnson, but they could have passed each other in the hanger decks. There was something there or maybe there wasn't because nothing seemed out of the ordinary at Johnson's first duty station.
Tony grabbed the phone when it rang, prepared for Gibbs. "DiNozzo."
"Tony, this is Ducky. Could you come downstairs?"
Rolling his eyes, Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. "Little busy today for a social call or a blood letting. By the way, I'm beginning to understand the ancient conflict between werewolves and vampires." The last word dragged out, because out of nowhere Vance was standing in front of his desk.
Shark. Vance smelled like a shark. Tony had never smelled a shark, but that's what Vance smelled like.
Vance just stared at him with a distinct look of impatience and non-amusement - very shark-like.
"It's just Ducky, we were arguing about who'd come out on top in the war between- You, you, probably don't want to know about that."
Vance remained implacable.
"Tony! It's not about that!" Ducky called into the phone.
With a quick glance to Vance, Tony frowned at his desk and pressed the phone tighter to his ear. "It's not?"
"It's about the files you asked me to look over."
"You found something?" Tony asked.
"Something, yes. What - of that I'm not entirely sure."
Tony got to his feet. "I'll be right down."
Vance was still there. "What do you have Agent DiNozzo?"
Focus.
"Johnson's record was clean, so I started digging deeper into his previous assignments. I found some accidental deaths-"
"That didn't look accidental?"
"That looked - weird. The bodies were severely damaged. I had the electronic records sent to Ducky."
"And he thinks he found something?"
Tony shrugged.
"What have you heard from Gibbs?"
"The suspect has clammed up, but Gibbs is sure that he's hiding something. McGee found a key; he's trying to find the lock it fits."
Vance nodded and turned toward the stairs. "Keep it up."
And that was it; Vance just headed back to MTAC. Tony had talked about werewolves in front of Vance and somehow survived the experience. What the hell? Focus. Ducky needed him. Taking a donut for the road, he headed to the elevator.
***
"What'cha got Duck?" Tony said in his best Gibbs.
Ducky gave him half a smile and a lifted eyebrow. "I have two apparently different accidents with the same cause of death and what appear to be coincidental secondary damage."
"We don't believe in coincidence," Tony said as he crossed to Ducky who was looking over two piles of computer printouts laid out on an otherwise empty autopsy table. On the other table was Seaman Lawson.
"In both cases, the victims died of asphyxiation."
"Asphyxiation? One of them was run through a piece of machinery that chewed him apart."
"Yes, I was expecting blunt force trauma or exsanguination from the wounds, based on the photos. The determination was that the equipment caused the damage and the asphyxiation. And really, I couldn't blame the examiner for that based on condition of the body, which they found in winter. It would have been impossible to estimate time of death."
Tony inclined his head, remembering the details. "The areas where they were found were both temporarily shutdown, and both men had been missing for 24-48 hours - no one to find them. The other guy died of asphyxiation too?"
"Yes. I find it to be an odd cause of death in both cases, but that's not the oddest detail. In both cases, the victims were missing their right index finger. Now considering the damage that both bodies suffered it wasn't implausible for a digit to have been severed. However, both fingers were severed cleanly and not recovered…"
"That sounds like serial killer territory."
"Trophies." Ducky nodded.
Tony rolled that around in his brain as he went around the table and looked at their murder victim, Petty Officer Lawson.
Ducky joined him. "He died of asphyxiation. If this is related to the other cases you pulled up, perhaps the murderer was interrupted before he could damage the body and take his trophy."
"Maybe. Showing up to his duty station on time would have been a good cover story. Johnson would have gotten off at 1600 and Lawson's roommate wouldn't have gotten off for another hour. An hour is not a lot of time to discretely move a body."
"No it's not."
"Unless he had help," Tony said and then his brain began to roll over the possibility.
"Serial killer are more likely to be solitary, but partnerships are not unheard of."
Tony looked from the dead petty officer to the papers representing the two dead men. "I don't like what's in that paper, but a connection to this case seems-"
"Tenuous."
"Yeah, do you have anything else?"
"Not at the moment."
Tony headed toward the door, saying, "Let me do some more digging."
*
Tony was tired of digging and ready to toss his shovel out the window. He was trying to correlate personnel records - find out who at Pax River had shared duty assignments with Johnson. Sifting through data was McGee's job.
A beep sounded from Tony's watch. "Saved by the bell," he said as he checked the time and then looked again. It was 16:30, which gave him an hour and a half to get back to Gibbs' basement. Where the hell was his team?
Tony reached for the phone to call Gibbs, but it rang first. "DiNozzo."
"Report!" It was Gibbs and he didn't sound like he was in the mood for pleasantries.
'I've got nothing obvious in Johnson's past. He's clean; his bank accounts are clean. I dug into his past duty stations and found two suspicious deaths at two previous duty stations. Both were ruled to be accidents -"
"But you think something else," Gibbs prompted.
"Yeah, there were too many similarities, but I don't have anything to tie them to Johnson."
"Any chance five fingers would tie them in?"
"Wha- Highly probably if at least two of them are right index fingers." Tony was on his feet; he didn't realize that he had stood up. "You found body parts?"
"In the storage shed where he kept his motorcycle. They were in jars of fluid, hidden in a false vent."
"You found it, the storage shed?"
"Not without a lot of looking. We had to go to the doors one by one and try the key. McGee's calling Ducky to drive back down and look at the fingers. Tony, we're not getting back tonight."
"Yeah, you've got a serial killer. I'll get the car-" It hit him like a ton of bricks. His team needed him now and he wasn't going to be able to join them. "I have to get in a car and make it to a previous appointment. Alone."
"Yeah, you do, but you're not going alone."
"Did McGee develop a transporter -- that's a device from Star Trek that lets you-"
"DiNozzo, I've seen Star Trek."
"You have?"
"Everyone has. Abby's going to drive you over."
"Boss!"
"We don't have a lot of choice. Tell me about your suspicious cases."
There was so much rattling in Tony's brain that nothing could come out of his mouth.
"Focus." Gibbs voice was quiet, almost gentle.
Tony reported, because that's what the Boss needed. "Both bodies were found mangled almost beyond recognition in ways that looked like an accident. They were missing right index fingers and died of asphyxiation."
"Like Seaman Lawson."
"Ducky can give you more details when he gets there, but it looks like they were dead long enough that it was impossible to get a time of death."
"Why did we find our petty officer intact?"
"I have a theory, well more like a wild idea, that Johnson's got a partner. Johnson does the initial kill and goes to work on time. Someone who's off duty later in the day goes to the apartment and takes care of the body before the roommate comes home."
"Except one of Lawson's crewmates showed up unexpectedly, found the body, and called us."
"I've been trying to sift through the Pax River personnel and see who's been at previous duty stations with Johnson."
"And?"
"And I haven't gotten very far."
"Send what you've got to McGee."
"Boss, I've got to do something and you've got McGee and Cassie sifting through the crime scene."
"DiNozzo, what do you got to do?
"I-" Tony swung the phone receiver at the desk and stopped just short of striking it. He could here Gibbs snapping out his name. Tony pulled the phone back up to his ear. "I've got to find Abby and make that appointment."
"Call me, the second you're free in the morning." Gibbs hung up, because that's what Gibbs did.
Tony sat down hard and tossed his pen across his desk. He wanted to ignore Gibbs, do what he knew needed to do. But he really couldn't. It was like sitting on the sidelines with a broken leg or a wrecked knee. He had done both in college, and this wasn't any better. This was much worse.
When he was physically messed up, all it took was trying to stand for him to know that he couldn't play. Right now, Tony was alert and fully charged and ready to sink into the damn computer screen and find the bastard they didn't know anything about. While eating a donut. God, he was so hungry.
"Tony?"
Abby was standing in front of his desk and he hadn't seen, heard or smelled her coming, because he wasn't focusing.
"Hey, Abs. Did you talk to Gibbs?"
She nodded. She looked small; she looked afraid.
Tony turned back to the computer and closed up the file with all the research he had done. "I'm going to send this to McGee and then we can go. Abby, you don't have to stay. I'd say you didn't have to come, but it's better if you double check things, make sure I didn't miss anything. Also, I don't have a car unless I steal Gibbs' keys."
"I could hotwire it for you. He wouldn't kill me," Abby said, standing a little taller.
"That was cheerful," Tony said and followed it with a mental Not.
"This is a little hard," Abby said.
"It's a lot hard, and it shouldn't be your problem. Really, once you check the locks, you should go." Tony stood up, yanking a flash drive out of his computer and tossed in his laptop case.
Abby shook her head. "Stop acting like you're in this alone." She stepped up and wrapped her arms around him. "Tony, you're not alone."
***
As soon as they made it back to the house, Tony had ran upstairs and changed into his basement gear. Before Abby had even unpacked all the bags in the kitchen, Tony had slid into a chair in front of a pizza. "Abs, come and sit -"
Tony jumped back so fast that he knocked over the chair he had been sitting.
Abby's eyes flew open. "What? Is it a roach?"
"No!" Tony pointed at the box.
"What?" Abby demanded. "A mouse?"
"Huh?" Tony wondered what the hell she was thinking.
"So what is it?" Abby shouted. "Nuclear bomb, wood chipper, shark?"
"Chicken!" Tony said.
"Yeah, you're looking that way," Abby said, folding her arms over her chest.
Flipping open the lid to the pizza box, Tony said, "This is chicken. It's half buffalo chicken and half chicken marsala. The last time you and I sat down to this kind of pizza-"
Abby marched up to the box, snatched a piece up and bit down, sauce and cheese running down her chin. "This did not turn you into a werewolf! God, I need a napkin." She put the slice on the box lid and waved her fingers.
Tony tossed her a kitchen towel. "Why'd you get the pizza, Abby?"
She frowned at the towel first and Tony next. Then Abby shrugged and wiped her hands. "I'm not going to let that night come between us. You were sick and out of your mind. And while I was righteously scared out of my mind, I've been having a hard time separating werewolf from Tony."
"It's my fault," Tony said and turned away from Abby.
"It's not your fault!" Abby shouted. "Tony, you're sick. You were out doing your job and caught a really bad bug." Abby flopped into a chair.
The only noise for a minute or so was the hum of the refrigerator.
Tony had always thought that he was pretty good with handling unpleasant details, with dealing with a crisis. His father left him in Hawaii; he ordered room service. He didn't have money for college; he signed an IOU to his uncle. Gibbs drove a car off the dock; Tony dived in. Kate was shot; Gibbs was blown up; Tony had handled them all. When Jeanne needed a place to stay, he had…
Tony went around the table and sat down next to Abby. "It occurs to me that I'm used to dealing with…I don't know." He had lifted his hand up and let them fall to his thighs. "Things I can tackle or shoot or move away from or buy a new one. Maybe I'm not so good with the things that I can't do anything about."
Abby took his hand in her much smaller one, a slow smile spreading across her face. "You tackled me to save me when Ari was shooting at me. You're really are very good at being the action hero." She squeezed his fingers. "Do you remember when there was a hit man after me, and a psycho ex-boyfriend stalking me, and-"
"I remember, Abs. It's my job not to let creeps like that hurt you."
"Yes, it is. But it was my job too. I was cowering in an elevator for eight hours, so no one could shoot me through a window. And even though I trusted you and Gibbs and McGee and Ziva to do everything you could to protect me, I also was too much of a scientist to realize that you all couldn't be everywhere. I needed to learn a new job, to protect myself. I mean, I probably wasn't going to turn into Wonder Woman."
Tony looked at her. "I think you're a superhero."
"The thing is that learning to use the taser was a lot easier that accepting that I might need to. Maybe the hard part for you isn't locking yourself in a cage - that's all about action and responsibility and you know how to do that."
Tony picked up a slice of pizza. "The hard part is accepting that I have to. That and I've got to learn how to have a life around locking myself up."
Abby picked up her slice and bumped her shoulder against his.
***
"It's hard to type through the bars," Tony said. He was sitting on the blessedly cool concrete floor inside the cage, working on his laptop that was on the floor, outside the cage. They had headed downstairs fifteen minutes before moonrise and as expected, Tony hadn't changed. They both decided to play it safe with the electronic equipment by keeping outside the cage.
Abby smiled at him. "Have you ever thought about taking up an S&M lifestyle? I've know some doms that would love to have a boy in a cage that can type."
"Ah gee, what a shame that I'm contagious," Tony replied.
"Yes, but you may not be contagious all the time," Abby said, tapping into her own laptop. "And I'm going to prove it one way or another."
"Have you found the right micro-analyzer thing?"
"Not yet, but I will."
"Abs-"
"No arguments, cage-boy."
"Yes, ma'am. Speaking of cages, do you like the gray?" Tony gestured at the walls.
"Wrong shade for you."
"That's what I thought. Maybe Gibbs will let me paint."
Abby stopped typing and cocked her head to the side, thinking. "He might go for desert camouflage."
Tony let that sink in for a moment. "While we're on the topic of decorating, and I'll deny this conversation if you tell anyone about it, do you happen to know anything about taking down wallpaper?"
"My time with Habitat for Humanity has made me a pro-stripper."
"Wow," Tony said.
"You say wow now, but wait until you see my tassels," Abby said with an ever widening grin.
"You can completely revise my opinion about the term if you help me get rid of the Rumtarts upstairs in my room. In what will be my room if Gibbs let's me move in, but Gibbs was pretty clear on the part where I can't move in until the Rumtarts are no longer residents."
"That makes sense," Abby said with a smile. "You're not your best surrounded by young, impressionable cartoon girls."
"What? I'm great with women of all ages, cartoon or not." Tony's watch beeped and sucked the life out of the room - fifteen minutes. He hit the save button on the files he had been working on and took off his shirt and watch. Abby was standing in front of the bars as he closed the laptop and put his items on top. "I'll wait a couple of minutes before tossing the shorts to you."
Abby nodded and moved everything including herself to the other side of the green line.
"Do you think that I can fight it?" Tony said to the walls as much as Abby.
"That would imply a psychological component to the issue," Abby said. "Which, you know, there might be, but I'm leaning toward chemical and biological. I think it would be like fighting cocaine or truth serum or anti-histamines.
"I'm going to try," Tony said. "I don't know, maybe I can build up a resistance." He nodded, and Abby nodded back.
Then it was quiet, other than the Dixieland jazz that Tony had let Abby pick out of his collection. It wasn't his favorite in the genre, but a good compromise with the woman from the Big Easy, who preferred louder fare. Still, as they stared at each other through the bars, the room felt silent.
"Did we go through the checklist? Is there a checklist?" Tony asked.
"There is no checklist," Abby said. "Well, technically, there probably is, but it's with McGee." Abby frowned. "It's Tim, there must be a checklist. He is bogarting the checklist!" Abby planted her fists on her hips.
"I'm sure he wasn't trying-"
"You know, he does this kind of thing all the time. When he finds something cool, he can't wait to tell you everything in excruciating detail."
"Yeah!" Tony agreed.
Abby shrugged and bobbed her head. "Which isn't so bad really, because we like a lot of the same things. Oh, and he lets me tell him all about what I'm doing." She made one, sharp clap with her hands and pointed at Tony. "It's the other side. When he's working on something hard, something he can brag about, he keeps it all in. He doesn't disclose; he doesn't share. He wants to hoard all of the information and take all the credit and responsibility."
"Uhm," Tony said.
"And then this! Gibbs puts him in charge and the next thing you know, Tim gets all in charge and keeps the checklist a secret."
"Maybe-"
"Which, you know, could be kind of sexy. I mean what girl doesn't like being swept off her feet now and again? There was the time when someone was trying to poison me in my own lab and he dragged me out. Which, you know, was really kind of sweet and totally hot Neanderthal way." Abby lowered her voice like an old radio serial. "Abby and Tim both dive to the floor, and Caveman McGee stands up, facing the deadly fumes and drags our heroine to safety by her lab coat."
Tony tilted his head to one side.
Her voice shifted back to normal. "Of course it was dumb. Doesn't anyone listen to the flight attendants doing the safety speech at the beginning of a flight? When the mask drops due to a loss of cabin pressure, please take the mask and pull on the tubing to start the flow of oxygen and than place it over your nose and mouth." Abby ran through the flight attendant motions while she spoke. "The most important part is to put on your own mask and then help others!"
"I can't disagree, I think," said Tony.
"My point is that when you give him a little bit of power, he gets bossy which gets in the way of me getting my way and doesn't get us any closer to a checklist!"
"I was thinking, not that I'll do that if it offends you. But maybe he's got the checklist on that desk he's got in the other room with the cameras."
"Oh my god! I forgot the cameras!"
Abby ran out of the room with the cell, leaving Tony to contemplate the gray walls on his own. After a second and a half, he hated being alone in there. As much as he didn't want any of them to have to deal with this situation, he wanted them all there. His eyes were drawn to the blanket next to the green line - Gibbs' place. He wanted Gibbs there most of all, because Gibbs would always know what to do.
Abby returned, holding a clipboard and pen. "Camera's on, check!"
Tony pointed at the clipboard.
"Don't go there, DiNozzo. Cage locked?"
Tony grabbed the bars and rattled the door.
"Check. Food, check."
"I don't know about that," Tony said.
"Tony, you survived on a goat leg and snacks the other night. We picked up another one and even more snacks."
"I was really leaning toward chicken tonight," Tony said.
"There was chicken on the pizza," Abby said.
"I was thinking more about fried chicken."
"Chicken bones are a choking hazard for dogs!"
"I'm not a dog!"
Abby rolled her eyes. "Ya wolf down your food on a normal day - no chicken bones!"
He wolfed down his food most of his life and had managed not to choke on chicken bones. Although there was the occasional half a hot dog that went down the wrong way.
Abby was running her pen down a list on the paper, making marks. "We've got ice and water. Once you lose your shorts, I think we're set."
Tony rolled his forehead against an iron bar. "You didn't mention weapons."
Abby didn't look at him. "I'm not an armed federal agent."
"You know how to use a gun, Abby, and my weapon is sitting right on the table." Tony pointed at the table in the back of the room.
Abby turned to him and bit her lip. "Tony, I - I just-"
"Abby Scuito, don't make me get bossy on you. You defend yourself."
"Of course I'll defend myself, Tony! I just don't want to have to because if I have to, that means one of us will probably end up dead. We won't get lucky twice."
Tony rolled his forehead against the bars. "I completely agree with you."
"And, Tony, I'm going to try the tranc gun first," Abby said, holding up the gun with a smile.
"You're like a gothy Bond girl. I love Bond. But hey! You may not have time to use both -" Tony's body was suddenly seized with pain. He grabbed the bars and gritted his teeth. When the wave ended, he let go and pushed back.
"You can do it, Tony," Abby said. "Fight it; I'm rooting for you."
"Okay," Tony said, pushing off his shorts and tossing them through the bars. "Sorry about the naked, but it's a billion degrees. Also, my teeth hurt. I'm just- I'm just- " Tony's fingers felt like they burst into flames. "Abby!"
Continued
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-02-07 11:20 am (UTC)I have a bit of a problem with the timeline. His alarm beeped at 14:00 and he was sent back to Navy Yard 4 hours before wolfing time, and Gibbs said it was two hours away. His alarm rings again at 16:30. It seems too tight and odd that all the intervening events at the yard would have taken only 30 minutes.
And seems you have a superfluous 'the' in "the Seaman Johnson's supervisor".
Going to read part 8 now.