Reparations (31_days 02/06)
Title: Reparations
Series: None; one-shot
Rating: PG
Characters: McGee, Tony
Pairing: None; gen
Disclaimer: NCIS is not mine.
Word Count: 560
Notes: You guys. I love this show. Today’s 31_days prompt (a constant strain on reason) again.
Summary: Tim has a headache. Tony is aggravating it.
‘Tony!’
Tony stopped doing whatever it was he was doing that was producing the god-awful clanging that was aggravating Tim’s (already pounding just fine on its own) headache. ‘What?’
‘Stop making noise.’
‘What noise, Probie?’
And then Tony resumed whatevering. Tim decided it would be self-defense if he attacked Tony, because he would be doing it in order to save his sanity.
‘What are you even doing?’
The clamoring stopped again, only to replaced by hammering.
‘Uh. My job, maybe?’
‘When did you become a carpenter?’
The lack of Tony’s hammering somehow managed to translate to an indignant pause. ‘Jeez, McGee, did you hit your head?’
‘Yes.’
‘Huh,’ said Tony. ‘So you did.’
Tim sighed and wished the painkillers would start kicking in already.
‘That hard, huh?’ Tony punctuated it with another blow of the hammer that was in serious danger of becoming a murder weapon.
‘Tony, please,’ Tim tried, as much to calm himself (he didn’t feel like going to prison because injuries sustained in the line of duty left him ill-equipped to deal with Tony in a mood) as to please please please make Tony stop banging on things.
‘Yeah, whatever,’ Tony grumbled. ‘It’s done.’
‘What?’
‘McGee, what day is today?’
‘Tony, quit it.’
‘McGee?’
‘Today is Tuesday, February 22, 2011, Tony. Happy?’
‘President?’
‘Obama,’ Tim replied obediently. ‘Did I pass?’
‘Sure. Just tell me why we’re here.’
Tim reminded himself again that he couldn’t kill Tony, because that would land him in jail, and that would be bad. ‘Stakeout.’
‘Okay, you passed.’
Tim muttered a thank-you to God, because the pounding was starting to recede, and the little light filtering through the washcloth over his face didn’t hurt so much anymore. He swapped the cloth for his hand, then gingerly let his eyes acclimatize to the ambient light. His head still hurt, but it was no longer in danger of bursting at the seams, so Tim tried to sit up.
‘So what were you doing in there, anyway?’
‘You seriously don’t remember?’
‘Tony,’ Tim began warningly, ‘why is it weird I don’t know why you were raising hell a few minutes ago?’
Tony said something about some movie Tim had probably never heard of.
‘I have no idea what you just said. And I will murder you if you ask how many fingers you’re holding up.’
Tony quickly hid the offending hand behind his back. ‘Not holding up any fingers, McMurder.’
‘Then I will not murder you,’ Tim gracefully conceded.
‘And I am grateful not to be murdered,’ Tony said. ‘Except now you tell me what happened when we got here.’
Tim reconsidered his promise not to harm Tony. ‘We got here,’ he began, ‘and then. Uh, then a projectile plummeted down from the heavens and tried to embed itself in my skull.’
‘And then?’
‘Uh…,’ he vaguely remembered Tony taking him inside and shoving several pain pills and the washcloth at him, but the memory was painted over with comic-book-effect style OW!s, so, ‘I don’t know?’
‘Ah, McTim,’ Tony sighed, ‘I’d think you’d remember you got brained by one of the surveillance cameras. You disappoint me.’ (He actually pouted.)
That was ridiculous. There was no way. ‘And you expect me to believe this.’
‘Well, yeah,’ Tony shrugged. ‘You were attacked by our own equipment, man.’
‘That,’ Tim decided, ‘seems like something that should’ve happened to you.’