Desultory

Tony glared at his alarm clock as it merrily glowed 3:00 AM. He'd gotten home around midnight after his and Jethro's date and had been trying to sleep for the past 3 hours with no luck as his glowing alarm clock was only too happy to prove to him.

His mind was in so much turmoil over the ending of the date that he didn't see himself getting to sleep anytime soon. All he could do was think about Jethro's house being unlocked and wondering if that was an invitation or just Jethro trying to let him down gently. With that thought in mind, he decided to head into work and pray that they didn't catch a case that would keep them late.

After he arrived at NCIS, he first focused on any paperwork that he had left to do including reviewing Probie and Ziva’s latest paperwork as well as getting a head start on their evaluations and sending both onto Gibbs inbox and printing out a hard copy which he placed on Gibbs desk.

Next he moved onto grabbing some cold case files to go through for new leads. By this point in time it was 7am and his body was starting to get tired since he'd been up for practically 72 hours straight with only 6 hours sleep between the previous case and the date.

However, he refused to give into his exhaustion knowing Gibbs usually arrived around 8AM and there was no way he wanted to be caught sleeping at his desk. Especially not the night after their date. Opening the first case file he started going through the basic facts: victim's name, height, weight, age. Etc. Unfortunately for Tony neither case file was interesting enough to keep him awake and his head soon fell onto the desk as he drifted off into dream land.

Gibbs would have been whistling if it wouldn't have ruined not only his image, but his ability to sneak up on people. It was 7:55AM and he'd just arrived at NCIS. It was rare for any of his team to be in this early, but he still made sure to approach the bullpen quietly on the off chance they had and he could gather intelligence through stealth.

While neither McGee nor David were there, he was surprised to see Tony asleep at his desk. That was never a good sign. His senior agent made a habit of goofing off sure, but he never slept on the job unless it had been a long night or multiple nights. Worried that something had happened and he just hadn't been called in for some reason he turned on his computer and pulled up the security footage for the bullpen.

He winced when he saw DiNozzo arrive at 3:40AM. Tony only showed up that early when something was bothering him and given the amount of paperwork awaiting him, whatever was bothering him was serious. Having a sneaking suspicion that this was somehow his fault, he made the decision to invite Tony over after work. For now, he'd let him sleep until shortly before McGee and David would arrive.

Noting that it was now about 8:30 and McGee and David would probably be here soon, Gibbs got up and walked over to Tony’s desk. Shaking Tony’s shoulder lightly, Gibbs quickly stepped back to avoid Tony’s automatic reaction that of punching someone to being touched when he didn’t know where he was. He’d triggered this reaction often enough to know that it was bound to happen and to avoid it. With a soft, but sharp, “Tony.” Gibbs succeeded in waking Tony up.

“Boss?” Tony looked up at Gibbs questioningly before the clouds cleared from his eyes. “Damn it.” He growled to himself realizing he had fallen asleep when he didn’t intend to.

“McGee and David should be here soon. You probably want to mess yourself up a bit more so that it seems like you just came from your date instead of slept at the office. Either that or change into something clean. Your choice.” Gibbs returned to his desk.

Hearing the elevator open and to give Tony a chance to figure out what he wanted to do, Gibbs called out to his two wayward agents. “McGee, David. Go grab a couple of cold cases each. Then come up and finish your paperwork before starting on them.”

McGee and David both stared at Gibbs surprised at the orders as they arrived when it wasn’t a fresh case. Both looked at Gibbs like they were considering arguing before taking one look at his face and turning back around to go back into the elevator and take it down to the cold case storage.

Tony flashed Gibbs a small smile before making himself more presentable which in this case involved messing up his hair and opening up his collar so that it looked like he slept in his clothes and didn’t have time to change.

As McGee and David returned to their desks, they ignored both Tony and Gibbs as they settled into their desks and their work. However, when Tony didn’t say anything McGee looked up and that’s when he noticed Tony’s attire. “Good date, Tony?” He asked getting up and heading over to Tony’s desk in preparation to interrogate him further.

Ziva looked up at Tim’s question and headed over to Tony’s desk to get a better look as well.

Gibbs growled. “Does Tony’s date have something to do with your cold cases?”

“No, boss.” McGee squeaked.

“Then keep your desultory comments to yourself.” Gibbs glared at both McGee and David until they returned to their desks.

That reminded McGee. He should probably talk to Gibbs about Tony possibly doing undercover again. Though maybe now wasn’t the best time. He’d better wait and see how today went before approaching the boss since he didn’t have anything concrete.