Summary: Tobias bites off more than he can chew, Tony and Gibbs have toe-curling sex, and Gibbs has some sweet flashbacks.

A/N: For the OKC fangirls, because you rock. For Libi and Maggie, who had to skip. For Joss and Lisa, who put up with me as a roomie, for DiNozzosPrrobie, because of Agent Idiot and because I think this one is kind of your bag, for Summersquares because there is a list. For all you gentle readers, I love you all so much! Spoilers: Just hints of Twilight and Dead Man Talking. This isn't episode-related. Takes place not long after previous chapter. Disclaimer: They started it. Feedback: Of course!

Gibbs v. Fornell / Gibbs + Tony

Tony closed the door, threw his keys into the bowl, pegged his backpack, and shucked off his jacket, all within the space of one perfectly described circle. It was late and he was tired, but he liked acting as if he owned the place. Gibbs seemed to expect it, which had been a surprise. Gibbs was particlar, even though he left the door open. Smiling, Tony inhaled deeply. His apartment was an apartment, and his father's house had smelled only of marble and money.

"Honey, I'm ho..."

"In here, DiNozzo." Tony heard the note of warning from Gibbs.

Tobias Fornell was hunched over the coffee table in white shirt, skinny tie, and rumpled trench coat, hands hanging over his knees and eyes on Gibbs, who was sitting across. Fornell, always the secret agent, must have parked around the corner.

"Hey, Fornell."

"DiNozzo." Fornell used the fricative. He usually did.

"What's up?"

"I could ask you."

Tony withheld a sigh. Suspicious and arrogant, that was Fornell.

"You could."

"Strategy meeting on Haswari."

"Oh."

Tony almost enjoyed playing dumb in front of Fornell. He shared Gibbs' distrust of the FBI. That wasn't the problem. Tobias, for whatever reason he was in the neighborhood let alone the living room, was plainly curious about Tony's presence and the manner of his entrance.

Best to assume the meeting was a charade. At its end, Tony would still be here, even if Fornell turned it into a game of chicken and stayed all night. Tony held his ground but raised his eyebrows.

Gibbs found Tony's eye and nodded.

"Beer?" Gibbs asked.

Tony went to the kitchen, clinked around loudly in the fridge, and returned with a couple of lagers. He set them on the table, smoking with frost, while Fornell gaped and Gibbs smirked.

"I meant you."

"No thanks, I'm turning in," Tony said mildly. He grinned and trotted up the stairs.

"What the hell was that?"

Gibbs said nothing.

"DiNozzo's boiler go out again? You running a hotel?" The FBI agent took a long pull from the beer Tony had brought him. "You should keep away from Ari, by the way."

"It's me and my team he's after."

Fornell squinted at Gibbs. "Security, then. Tell me, what's your SFA doing here? Wouldn't it be better to have him on Sciuto?"

"Subtle, Fornell."

"Is this about Agent Todd?"

"Kate." Gibbs drank, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "And no."

"I could see it, you know. You were with her when it happened. You want company. Someone you trust..."

Gibbs rolled his eyes. "Spit it out, for godssake."

Fornell inspected a fingernail and said archly, "There's no guest room up there."

"And you know this how?"

"Never mind. So. You're sleeping with the boat. You're racking on this crappy couch."

"Nope."

Fornell flashed a crooked grin and rolled the dice once more. "Come on, Gibbs! Let me in on the joke. Tell me you haven't lost your ever-loving mind."

Gibbs put his bottle down and met his friend's gaze head-on.

"Jethro! In case you didn't notice, that's DiNozzo. That's a bit novel, don't you think? I've seen some freaky bonding exercises, but..."

"But you wanna know if I'm sticking my dick in his ass?" Rule 16.

Fornell promptly choked on his beer, sputtering until Gibbs rose and clapped him on the back. Fornell slumped into the couch in a dazed heap. Gibbs thought he heard laughter.

"Christ, Gibbs!" Fornell coughed out. "You could have spared me..."

Gibbs talked over him. "Never delivered to the back door, Tobias?"

Fornell blinked. "This isn't about Diane!"

Gibbs showed a few teeth and blinked right back.

It's about that overgrown meatball in your bedroom!"

"I can hear you!" Tony called from above.

"Just trying to help a friend!"

"Not helping!"

"Not you, DiNozzo," Fornell muttered.

"Jeez, could you shut the door, Tony!"

Gibbs started up the stairs. He smirked as a door closed before he was halfway up. The shower came on, and he smiled. Random but tuneful humming followed, and he sighed. Gibbs stood on the stair a moment, hand on the rail, damned if he knew what Tobias Fornell thought he needed help with.

Back downstairs, Gibbs scowled and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"Tobias, you learned what you came here to learn. Anything else I can do for you before I throw you out on your ass?"

"Yes, Jethro. Listen to me for two minutes. All joking aside. I know you're reckless, but believe it or not I've always been willing to draw the line at crazy."

"What if I told you he keeps me sane."

"What you are is not sane, Gibbs. Rumor has it DiNozzo sleeps with half the town."

"He sleeps here. Rumor has it you've been following him."

"We think you two are planning an end run to get to Haswari."

"Would be within our rights. Ari will resurface. From what I've seen, that's your fault."

"And from what I've seen, you'll need your wits about you. Playing house with DiNozzo? Really, Jethro?"

Fornell's lips pursed and he sighed.

"Don't get me wrong. I get it, sort of. He's a healthy young buck. The kid's grade-A prime on the hoof, honestly, even if he is big, and hairy, and loud, and... Oh, God, I'm gonna barf..."

"What?"

"Jesus, Gibbs, the look on your face!"

"What!"

"Sweet Mother of Mercy..." Mumbling, Fornell collapsed into the lumpy cushions for a second time. "You're in love with him."

Gibbs didn't kick Fornell out. He listened patiently to his objections, every one of them logical in its way.

It would be professional suicide. Tony was too young and would fail to remain faithful. Gibbs dismissed these, along with several others, as being out of his control.

Issues with Gibbs himself sat a little harder.

"He works for you. He stays here. Knows you like the back of his hand. You haven't given yourself a place to hide, Gibbs."

"Good."

"Good? Jethro, try the other shoe. Let's say he's in love with you. He finds out just how bad at this you really are. He doesn't buy your martyr routine, and he's a guy. You will come to blows...and then he'll leave, just like the rest."

"You're comparing this to my marriages?"

"You're not?"

He wasn't. A whole year with Tony, and he hadn't gone back there, to the way things had soured and how lonely the women had felt: disappointed, confused, nothing in common and no way of holding him to account, him recognizing he had nothing real to give them. He honestly hadn't thought about it once.

All he knew was that his friend, his Senior Agent, his overgrown meatball, was waiting for him upstairs.

Gibbs stood and loosened his shoulders. He yawned and stretched in a fair imitation of DiNozzo.

"I think we're good, Tobias, thanks."

"Excuse me?"

"What's the definition of insanity, Fornell?"

"I'm afraid you've lost me."

Gibbs handed Fornell the coat he'd discarded at some point during the evening, then he opened the door.

"Never mind."

Fornell bade his friend goodnight with a tight smile.

"What's different, Jethro?"

The shower had shut off long ago. Expecting to find him asleep, Gibbs entered the room to find Tony sitting up in bed. He was fiddling with a lamp, a pair of reading glasses, and a history of the Peloponnesian wars.

"The print's really small, Gibbs, but these make it all swimmy."

"Wait a few years, Tony. Don't go borrowing trouble."

Gibbs undressed and plopped into bed. Tony put the book aside after a moment.

"Why did you sit still for that?" he asked.

"Why did you?"

"Your house, your friend." Tony smirked. "Your rules."

Gibbs gave him a look. "Our relationship, Tony."

"You didn't answer the question."

"He talked himself through it."

"Jethro..."

Gibbs knew he shouldn't love DiNozzo's insecurities, but he did.

"You think all I know how to do is run people out on a rail? Sometimes you learn more by listening."

Tony moistened his lips and asked quietly, "You listened? And learned?"

"Yes."

Gibbs heard, felt, saw the worry in the thump of Tony's heart. He straddled him and kissed him hard. Tony's eyes closed and Gibbs remained sitting atop him.

"Remember the first one?" Gibbs asked.

"How could I forget? I thought I was going to die."

"So did I."

Tony had been jumpy and distracted for months after the Voss case. He'd abandoned the basement and had begun spending time elsewhere. Not by himself, Gibbs had hoped.

He only asked the one time. "Keeping busy, DiNozzo?"

Tony declined to answer at all, a condition Gibbs normally would not have tolerated, but their steady, reliable orbit had slipped lately in a way Gibbs found himself hard-pressed to define. Some of it was Pacci, certainly, but no one was alone in that. Another case came along that dragged them to the edge.

A harrowing search for a missing family ended in blood. Tony drove himself as hard as Gibbs did, for if Gibbs was the team's head, Tony was its broad back, if Gibbs the heart then Tony the lungs. If DiNozzo deflated, McGee's fragile confidence would pop like a pricked balloon. Even Kate, with all her swagger, would begin to doubt. They might all wind up on leave, and Tony wouldn't hesitate to blame himself.

Gibbs followed Tony to the elevator at the end of the latest miserable day. The younger man sagged against the back rail, barely holding himself up. They were both too exhausted to speak. Tony's lips might have been set in concrete, never to move again. Gibbs had intended to say something, anything, about the nature of the job, but things leaked out of DiNozzo's eyes that wouldn't be found in any case file, and suddenly Gibbs couldn't take another second of it. He grabbed Tony by the front of his shirt, pressed him to the wall, and licked his mouth open.

Tony gasped, stiffened, and then went limp, consenting with soft, wide-lipped kisses before falling on Gibbs like a man possessed. Near two hundred pounds of muscle slammed Gibbs into the other wall as he groped for the switch. Gibbs' pulse pounded like a rushing river, and as DiNozzo moaned into his mouth and gripped his body, Gibbs realized something. Tony had been bearing his feelings for him as one bears a wound.

They pulled apart, panting, and Tony jumped back, stopping just short of wiping his mouth on his sleeve. His face was full of fear.

"Boss...?"

Gibbs stepped forward, chest heaving, hands raised, placating, his voice shaky. His eyes never left the younger man's.

"All right. It's alright. It's okay, Tony."

They didn't talk about the elevator for a long time after. They kept a wary eye on each other at work, fought the uncertainty and distraction. Sometimes Gibbs was pissy and Tony sullen, sometimes they flirted and smiled. Hangovers became more frequent, then less, and still they didn't talk about it, but they did kiss and fumble against the boat, and Tony's kitchen became a place for laughter and friendly grappling. Night after night they let the physical side take them to new places before they sought the refuge of their separate homes.

Gibbs feared the lack of discussion would be hard on Tony, but DiNozzo accepted it with relief, and for Gibbs that period of discovery stretched out forever, in and around their daily, deadly business, just like the protracted summers of youth. One night when they were unlocking their vehicles, Gibbs thought Tony looked healthy again and wondered if he might be too.

"Ah shit, leave the damn car, DiNozzo. Just leave it."

"Wow. Where did you go, Jethro?"

Tony was on his elbows, staring at him. Gibbs pressed him down, then rolled them and shuffled until he was mostly sitting up with Tony in front of him, face-up in his arms. He kissed at the the younger man's neck and rubbed circles on his chest. He lifted the waistband of his boxers, pushed them down and out of the way.

"Wanna know what's sexy?"

Tony laughed. "You're kidding, right?"

"You up here while Fornell was having a fit."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it. It made me feel like a girl."

"Shut up and watch, Tony. You don't feel like a girl to me."

"...he's big, and hairy, and loud...Jesus, Gibbs, the look on your face!"

All other things being equal, friendship included, Fornell didn't have any special privileges here, to know the pride Gibbs felt in having Tony as a man, the satisfaction of needing him as one. Abby on the other hand had gotten an eyeful of some serious afterglow. She, Palmer, and McGee had rallied without a word of dissent. Ducky was thoroughly in favor, and Morrow - Tom didn't care. Kate's eyes had opened at their own pace, finally catching up with her great good heart.

The team had rights. Tobias? Had marched in uninvited and demanded an explanation. Still, Gibbs had laid it down without defense, and though he didn't recall a time in his life when he'd have pictured himself here, he could remember the exact moment he'd begun picturing this.

It was one of their favorite things. Gibbs felt the rhythms of Tony's breath, smelled his hair. The taste of arousal met Gibbs' tongue on the skin of DiNozzo's neck. Its scent rose from the direction of Tony's belly, and below. Gibbs rested his chin on Tony's collarbone, watching over his shoulder as he stroked him.

They did this often, one against the other, the heft of a hard cock in someone's hand, the other flushed and still or wriggling and moaning. Sometimes the need to move and to penetrate took over, and they would fly apart and change positions.

Tonight he hardened against Tony's back while he played with his erection and his nipples. He sank his hands into the shocking mass of hair that surrounded Tony's cock, deep brown curls that spread to each side and up his lean tummy. He slid beneath him and moved himself up and down between Tony's cheeks, hands on hipbone and thigh, and, lube at the ready, he found what he wanted in the hot depth of Tony's body, his calves tight over Tony's shins, toes gripping, arms vise-like around Tony's chest as he thrust from below and Tony heaved and cried out.

Overheated and dripping with sweat, Gibbs withdrew and relocated. He held Tony's ankles aloft, baring his own back and Tony's legs to the huffing breeze of the ceiling fan. Goose bumps vied with the steamy temperature of sex, and pleasure passed over Tony's face under the light of the lamp. Gibbs wasn't one of the people responsible for the opinion that men only wanted to fuck, and long minutes of touching would follow this just as they had preceded it.

He set about torturing Tony with the grind of his hips.

"Gibbs..."

"Take it. You like it."

"Ya think?"

Gibbs chuckled and leaned in, allowing Tony's knees to bend over the arms Gibbs extended, straight and strong. His hands and his weight bore down beside Tony's shoulders, freeing his back to flex and snap with the deep thrusts that would bring them to orgasm.

"Faster..."

"You got it..."

Tony came at the peak of a long stroke, and Gibbs chased after him, claiming Tony's climax with a shout and driving with the whole force of his body. His own release gathered hot in his groin and gripped his core. It bathed the inside of his skull like a fever. It slammed his eyes shut and raced to the ends of his fingers and toes. He lunged one last time and dropped Tony's legs with a thud and a groan as he emptied himself and fell shuddering on top of Tony.

The fan clicked quietly above them.

Tony, arms flung outward, gave up his grip on the sheet and arched his back. He rubbed Gibbs' shoulders and kissed the perspiration from his face.

"Tony, that was..."

Tony sighed. "It was."

"Amazing," Gibbs murmured.

"Remember the first one?"

"Oh yeah."

Do I fuck you in your bed or mine?

He thought it at Tony with his best dirty stare. Then he said it.

Tony grinned and froze. He looked surprised at his own reaction, and Gibbs was incredulous. They'd been getting each other off for weeks.

"Are we back at square one, Tony?"

"No!"

"Didn't think I'd be talking you into bed, DiNozzo. Don't you trust me?" It was a terrible thing to say. It slipped out.

Tony reached for Gibbs, his eyes revealing a Tony Gibbs had all but forgotten when things had turned sexual. Gibbs could have kicked himself, because he knew. They weren't at square one. They were fast approaching a point of no return, and for Tony that had always meant moving on.

Was DiNozzo ready to pivot? Was he afraid?

Gibbs deferred to the wisdom of his hands and gave Tony a long back rub. Neither pretended the conversation was over. Tony gave his reassurances in the form of kisses, and Gibbs went home.

Worn sweats and tshirt, steeped in work and in memory, were Gibbs' favorite and most deceptive creature comfort. People thought he was thrifty, stodgy, stubborn, out-of-date. More fool they. Clothes, bourbon, sander, planer, and he was set, ready to line up his thoughts along the sturdy ribs of the trusty, all-knowing boat.

Planer. They weren't just fooling around. That had been clear enough in the elevator when Gibbs' gut had struck like lightning and Tony had erupted like dry tinder. If anything, they were holding back.

Sander. Gibbs loved Tony better than the other, shitty people in his life. It was true for him as a boss, long before this. Tony had craved Gibbs' possession from the first, even though he was annoyingly self-sufficient. He was used to being disappointed and had funny ways of measuring success and failure. There were real and significant reasons for this, and someday Gibbs would throttle Tony's father for it.

Brush. As a boy among boys, Gibbs had done the usual comparing, discussing, and rarer touching. In the Marines, he'd lay in his bunk while everyone including him jerked off, but he lacked meaningful experience of the way men had sex with each other. He'd just been going with it. Even so, he didn't have to be told there was a big difference between playing with the equipment and giving up your ass.

Rag. Maybe fucking was a step too far - too violent, too passionate, too personal to be good for either of them. It might change their ownership of one another in unforeseen ways, unbalancing it. Gibbs thought it would make it better, but he was biased.

Whiskey. Whiskey, and he doubted Tony was sleeping either.

Tony got the better of them both. He came over a couple nights later. He grabbed Gibbs by the hand. He led him silently out of the basement and straight up the stairs, straight into his mentor's bed. He turned Jethro on with deadly attention, and he surrendered his body with a tenderness that took Gibbs' breath along with all that remained in his heart.

Tony lay below him, naked and golden. A pillow was under his hips. His ass was round, perfect for touching as Gibbs settled between long, muscular thighs. Tony's head was turned to the side. Gibbs saw thick lashes, and a graceful, knowing smile. And it was sex. No pink gash, no layered folds, no plump, pillowy vestibule, but a tightly muscled entrance, simple and private, a place for him.

Gibbs traced the ring's circle and wet it down with lube. He carefully put his fingers in Tony, then the head of his cock. He pushed in and was swept away by the grip and heat, by Tony's quivering breaths. He cleared his eyes of the sparks and anchored himself as best he could, and slowly and deliberately, he started to move.

Tony found his voice somewhere in the frenzy that came next, and Gibbs was fucking his Tony, Tony of the breathless babble. Between the moans and squeaks and the whispering of Gibbs' name, between the curses and invocations of the deity, Tony informed Gibbs on a few things such as how cool it is getting my ass fucked by the guy I have a crush on , I guess I'm your boyfriend now, and other declarations that made Gibbs laugh and then go mute, trying to bring Tony all the pleasure it was in his power to give.

Afterwards Gibbs started to speak several times but could only smile. Tony's eyes were calm, and there was a translation of his babble in those eyes, there for Gibbs to see from that day forward.

The bed was sweaty, but could wait. After they showered, the sheets cool and only slightly damp, Tony and Gibbs fell back into bed. Only the lamp and the ceiling fan were tireless; the evening had been more eventful than most.

"What about Fornell?" Tony asked. "He said you were making a mistake."

Gibbs heaved a grouchy sigh. "He'll come around, Tony. If he doesn't, so what?"

"Still, Gibbs, he made it pretty clear he thinks you should undo all this." Tony flopped a hand. "With me."

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs sat up. "Look at me!"

"I am."

"No, raise your head, and look at me."

"Ah." Tony obeyed.

Gibbs waved a hand in turn, indicating their bodies where they still touched, sharing warmth, connected.

"I can't exactly unfuck you, Tony," Gibbs said softly. A gentle slap ended in the ruffling of Tony's hair. "Any more than I can unlove you."

"Now. Do you see anybody else in this room?" Gibbs asked pointedly.

"Funny, Gibbs."

It was funny. Funny that Tony was asking for what he needed. Funny the way they'd made a haven for themselves, here and among their friends. Funny how the point of no return had come and gone.