Puerile - Holiday Angst Version

Day 16: Christmas past, present and future

The next day, Gibbs was in fine form, barking at everyone and everything. He had their suspect brought back to interrogation and broke him in 10 minutes flat. With a full confession under their belt including testimony incriminating Jordan Leven, they got a warrant for Mr. Leven’s arrest.

As Gibbs waited for the team to return with Mr. Leven, he couldn’t help thinking about how different this Christmas was compared to past Christmases. It had been a long time since he had a Christmas to look forward to. Most of his Christmases of recent years had been spent alone in his basement hoping for a case and drinking too much bourbon while surrounded by unhappy memories of his dead wife and daughter.

This year was looking up. He had Tony in his life and hopefully wouldn’t repeat the mistakes that had driven Tony out the first time. It seemed to be going ok, so far.

Once the team had returned with Mr. Leven, Gibbs let Tony be the one to inform Mr. Leven that they didn’t need a confession because they already had a witness that had told them everything. Bishop had provided the recitation of Mr. Magano’s confession and Gibbs and McGee had watched from the recording room with satisfaction as Mr. Leven turned a shade of green that wasn’t natural.

After Mr. Leven recovered his wits, he protested that Mr. Magano had lied and proceeded to tell them what really happened. Tony nodded sagely and took it all down. It was obvious to all of them that Mr. Leven was greatly exaggerating, but they’d let the courts fight out who was the most guilty between the two.

Bishop and McGee escorted Mr. Leven down to the holding cell next to Mr. Magano. Before they’d even made it all the way to the neighboring cell, Mr. Leven had resorted to puerile name calling of Mr. Magano. Mr. Magano was returning it in spades.

Bishop and McGee left Mr. Leven in his cell with Mr. Magano in the neighboring cell. They deserved each other. By the time they got upstairs, Tony was already packing up.

“Write your reports and turn them in and then head over to Gibbs’ house for the holiday party, Probies.” Tony skipped out the door.

He had a house to decorate and a party to prepare for. Unbeknownst to Gibbs, Tony had picked up a couple extra items to go with their existing planned decorations. Well not entirely unknown to Gibbs, Gibbs knew Tony was up to something.

Still he’d given permission for Tony to leave early to setup for the party. Just this once, he’d review Bishop and McGee’s reports instead of making them go through Tony. He’d offered to help Tony, but Tony had insisted that he had it under control.

Gibbs knew he was ruining his reputation two days in a row, but he couldn’t help it. He just hoped that the orders he barked this morning helped make up for it or his reputation would be completely trashed by the time the holidays were over. He had his own plans for the holidays besides this holiday party for the team.

In fact, once this party was over the team would not be invited to any of his plans. Only Tony would be, hopefully now and for future Christmases. Gibbs glared at the two remaining team members and tapped his pen impatiently.

McGee was the first to crack and furiously sped up his typing before his boss lost his temper. 5 minutes later, McGee handed his report into Gibbs. Gibbs nodded and sent him on his way.

Tim stopped to pick up the drinks on the way. Bishop meanwhile handed her report in about 10 minutes after Tim. Gibbs shooed her away and breathed a sigh of relief.

Gibbs quickly reviewed the reports including Tony’s and happily signed off on them, thankful that his agents had at least learned to turn in decent reports that didn’t need a ton of corrections. Grabbing his things, Gibbs left the bullpen leaving it empty and full of ghosts of Christmas past. For once, Gibbs wasn’t dwelling in the past and was headed towards Christmas present.

Entering his house, he was happy to see that basically everyone was there for the holiday party. Looking around, Gibbs noticed that Tim had setup quite the array of drinks for them and Abby had filled the house with amazing smells thanks to the food. Tony or someone, but Gibbs didn’t think anyone other than Tony or Abby would have the courage to do it, set up a karaoke system which was currently playing Christmas songs softly in the background.

Noticing Gibbs had arrived and was eying the karaoke setup, Tony headed over and whispered in his ear, “Be thankful I talked Abby out of inviting a claque.”

Before Gibbs could make it further into the house, Abby squealed.

“Kiss. Kiss. Kiss,” she chanted, attracting everyone’s attention.

Ducky, Jimmy, Bishop, Tim, Tony, and Gibbs all looked at Abby who pointed above Tony and Gibbs heads. Tony and Gibbs looked up. The rest joined Abby in her chant of “Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.”

Tony looked at Gibbs. They hadn’t discussed coming out to the team. They hadn’t discussed anything about their relationship in public actually.

Tony still wasn’t sure if Gibbs even could change. Tony froze. Gibbs glared at everyone except Tony as he pulled Tony into a short, but sweet kiss that he hoped would continue for many future Christmases.