Sinecure

“Come on, Gibbs. It’s basically a sinecure. All you have to do is hold my hand and pretend to be my boyfriend. There’s literally no work here. You don’t even have to make nice with the people there.” Tony wheedled.

“What’s in it for me?” Gibbs growled.

“You get to claim this beautiful body as your boyfriend for a night?” Tony joked.

“Ok,” Gibbs stated.

“Plus,” Tony started and then paused as he processed Gibbs’ words, “did you just agree to come?”

“Yep.” Gibbs smirked at Tony and patted him softly on the head as he headed home for the evening.

Tony stared after Gibbs in shock before shaking his head and heading home. The Christmas Party his stepmother was hosting was tomorrow, after all. He had so many preparations he had to make.

Gibbs had been last hope. Everyone else already had plans for Christmas Eve. He still didn’t know why Gibbs agreed to come, but he was glad he had. The Christmas Party was going to be hard enough without at least one friendly face there.

Most people would not consider Gibbs a friendly face, but to Tony he really was. His best memories of Christmas were honestly the first two years he worked at NCIS before Kate joined up. In fact, they were the only Christmases that Tony remembered enjoying since his mother died when he was 8.

His father would never understand. Senior thought that Christmas had to be store bought. His father simply could not understand how sharing a hearth and some well cooked steak and companionship with his boss could be better than all the presents money could buy.

Even the decorations Senior did were store bought. He bought a tree each year and new decorations to go with it. The same decorations were never seen more than one year. Senior claimed that it was a sign of poverty to put out the same decorations year after year. When Tony’s mother was still alive Tony and her would sneak some of their favorite ornaments from previous years onto the tree after Senior had it decorated and Senior would be none the wiser.

Tony couldn’t imagine what his stepmother had planned for this Christmas party, but was sure that she like all of Senior’s previous wives after his mother believed in store bought Christmas as well. Senior definitely had a type, after all. He imagined Gibbs and him were in for a stiff evening full of upper class people that wouldn’t know how to have fun if it bit them on the ass.

However, he couldn’t dwell on that now. First, he had to find the perfect outfit to wear, something Christmassy, but not too Christmassy. He didn’t want to look like he was trying too hard, but he still wanted to look good for Gibbs. Gibbs had agreed to do this without getting anything in return, so the least he could do was make sure that Gibbs had awesome eye candy to look at the whole night.

As tomorrow rolled around, Tony grabbed the gift he’d bought for Gibbs months ago. They often exchanged gifts around Christmas. Never anything grand, but always something heartfelt. Tony had found the perfect gift for Gibbs while he was shopping one day and had kept it all these months waiting to give it to him until Christmas.

Normally, they spent Christmas together, but Tony didn’t want to make any assumptions especially given how badly this Christmas party was likely to go. Gibbs probably wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him socially, once the party was over. Tony wasn’t even sure why he’d agreed to go and bring a plus one on top of it.

If his father had asked, he wouldn’t have bothered. He knew the man had no time for him. That had been made abundantly clear by the number of times the man had stood him up for “business”.

He’d never even met this stepmother. She’d just called him out of the blue, yesterday, and told him it would mean a lot if he came to the Christmas party. When he’d protested that he wouldn’t know anyone there she’d told him to bring a plus one.

He’d tried many other excuses as well, but she had a solution for each one of them. Before he knew it, he was agreeing to come and bring his nonexistent boyfriend. In some ways she was a perfect match for Senior, who could talk practically anyone around to seeing his point of view. She clearly had some of the same skills though with a lot more charm than Tony had ever experienced from Senior.

He parked at Gibbs’ place and took his gift out of the car. He considered knocking, but figured the door would be unlocked. He was right, so he just walked in. He expected to find Gibbs in the basement, but instead he was shocked to see Gibbs come down the stairs in a sharp suit.

His mouth dropped open and he just stared at Gibbs surprised by how well the man cleaned up. It took him a couple of minutes before he recovered enough to close his mouth. Stumbling over his words, he finally shoved the present at Gibbs. “Here.”

Gibbs let his lip curl slightly into a smile of amusement at Tony’s very flattering reaction to his outfit. “What’s this?” Gibbs asked as he took the present Tony handed him.

“Your Christmas present. I figured I’d better give it to you before you decided you never wanted to see me again after tonight.” Tony muttered.

“Oh. Wait here, then.” Gibbs walked into his living room and retrieved his gift for Tony that he’d left under his Christmas tree in expectation of their usual Christmas get together.

When he returned to Tony, he handed him a wrapped package as well.

“Thanks.” Tony murmured softly, “Should I open it now?”

“Go ahead.” Gibbs nodded towards the present.

Tony eagerly tore into the wrapping paper. He paused as he pulled out the delicate thing inside. “This is beautiful,” Tony whispered as he stared at the miniature piano in awe.

“You’re welcome.” Gibbs smiled at Tony.

Tony blinked and realized Gibbs still hadn’t opened his. “Open yours.”

Gibbs slowly removed the tissue paper to reveal the pen knife Tony had put at the bottom of the bag.

Tony piped up. “For when you want to stab that paperwork.”

“Thanks.” Gibbs slipped the pen into his coat pocket.

When Tony made no further move to leave, Gibbs asked his voice tinged with amusement. “Shouldn’t we be going?”

“What?” Tony shook his head as he came out of his thoughts. “Oh, yes. I suppose we should.”

Tony dragged his feet, moving as slowly as possible towards the door, wanting to delay their arrival as much as possible. Gibbs just followed after him extremely amused.

When they finally arrived at the hotel where the Christmas party was taking place, Tony was shocked to find that all the doors leading into the party were adorned with mistletoe. The main one was even guarded by his stepmother who was making sure that everyone and their dates kissed before they were allowed to enter the party.

Tony glanced at the mistletoe and then at Gibbs before whispering, “I’m sorry about this.”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” Truthfully, Gibbs had expected mistletoe. Someone who had managed to get Tony to show up somewhere he clearly didn’t want to was bound to have more tricks up her sleeves.

Gibbs had been courting Tony for a while. He honestly wondered how long it would take Tony to figure out that all the Christmases they’d spent together had been part of Gibbs attempt to woo him. However, Tony had yet to figure that out. So instead of going in for the breath stealing kiss that he really wanted to, Gibbs settled for a softer kiss. It was just a press of lips really, but it left them both tingling as they pulled back.

The rest of the party was completely lost on Tony as he kept touching his lips and glancing at Gibbs as if trying to convince himself that the kiss had really happened. Gibbs looped his arm through Tony’s early on in the evening and used it to steer Tony around, so that he didn’t run into anyone in his current daze. The food provided was mostly finger foods, so Gibbs fed a few to Tony which Tony seemed to eat automatically.

Honestly, Gibbs would have been worried if he hadn’t seen the way Tony continued to worry his lips and glance at Gibbs. He knew then that Tony was busy processing and would eventually come out of it. When everyone started dancing, Gibbs too led Tony out onto the dance floor. Fortunately, Tony was well versed in following and could follow even when he wasn’t paying attention, so Gibbs was able to lead him around the dance floor without any mishaps.

Gibbs was rather proud of himself for managing to not only daze Tony with a kiss, but also to avoid talking to anyone at the party. He’d heard the whispers around the room about how cute a couple they were and what not, but they didn’t bother him. Slipping the keys out of Tony’s pocket, Gibbs drove them back to his place.

When they arrived Gibbs decided to try and snap Tony out of it. Grabbing Tony, he gave him the deeper kiss he’d wanted to give at the party before bundling Tony into his bed for the night and pulling him close.

Tony finally recovered enough to ask, “Gibbs?”

“Sleep, Tony.” Gibbs whispered and kissed his forehead pulling him even closer. “We can talk in the morning.”

“Ok.” Tony responded sounding like a little boy who’d been disappointed too many times and expected this to be another disappointment.

Gibbs hated everyone that had ever hurt Tony and led him to believe he couldn’t get what he wanted, but he knew that only by staying would Gibbs be able to get Tony to trust him and he resolved to do just that.