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Dry My Dreaming
Dead my old fine hopes
And dry my dreaming but still...
Iris, blue each spring ― Bashō Matsuo
NCIS / Aberrant Magic
Tony angst
Eventually Tony/Gibbs
Before Bishop's breakup
The new team does not exist
Life is normal for Tony-Gibbs is a bastard, Bishop is annoyingly enthusiastic, Senior is playing the part of a good father, and Tim is Tim. Their newest case even seems normal-a marine shot in the head three times. Only it turns out the victim is a shaman, and the case gets tangled in the Talent community. Tony has avoided magic since he turned twelve and his shaman father kicked him out of the house, not that Senior wants anyone to know he’s a shaman. No, that would damage his reputation. As the case gets more complicated, Tony’s masks and his history start to unravel.
Gibbs has always cared about Tony, but his patience is at an end. No matter what Gibbs says or does, Tony will not pull his head out of his ass and take care of himself. Gibbs feels helpless-like he’s on the front lines with a fellow Marine self-destructing in slow motion, and there’s nothing he can do. The fact that it’s Tony falling apart just makes it all worse. All he can do is push on and hope that Tony is strong enough to survive. Gibbs can’t do anything else because there’s no way to protect Tony, at least that’s what he assumes until a new shaman pushes into his case and changes everything-including how Gibbs sees Tony.
Previous chapters HERE
Chapter Three
Tony dragged himself to work. He’d stayed late to finish SFA paperwork, and he now regretted it because there was no way Gibbs would cut him any slack, not with an active case running.
Well, Tony would just have to suck it up. The elevator doors opened, and he plastered on a smile. “Hello campers, are we ready for another day of hunting down bad guys and bringing justice to the world?” A handful of agents from across the room waved or called, and Tony used that approval to glue himself together just a little more.
“Hey, Tony. Your father called,” Ellie said as Tony came into the team area. And there went most of Tony’s resolve to get through the day.
“Oh?” he said noncommittally. It killed him that Abby was all pro-Senior and so far it seemed like Ellie was starting to fall for the old man, too. The worst part of Tony’s childhood was having friends who were always telling him how cool his father was. And now Tony was caught in that same trap again. Worse, when Tony tried explaining why he had problems with his dad, the others made him feel worse.
Tony doubted that was their intent, but it worked out that way. Tim loved to go on about how he struggled to meet his father’s expectations, but funny enough, Tim had never been abandoned in another state or disowned at twelve. Tony thought those two stories alone should have been enough to make his coworkers look at Senior with distrust.
But no.
Senior had that special brand of charm going, and Tony was almost sure he was doing his shamanism thing again. Maybe he’d found a new wife to give him a little magical boost. Senior had never wanted to train long enough to really develop his skills. First, he refused to apprentice under someone lower than him socially and second he hadn’t wanted his Talent to be public. It meant that he typically worked best when he had someone with more power than him somewhere in the picture. Senior’s fourth wife had been perfect. Beautiful, stupid, magically Talented and insecure. Tony had really thought that marriage would last.
And then her family cut her off from the finances.
The worst part was when Senior tried defending himself. He hadn’t loved her less, he explained with such earnestness, but the lack of money meant he had to work so hard that the marriage had just fallen apart. Senior gave similar answers when Tony came right out and accused him of being a con man.
Senior would never hear anything of the sort. A con man meant to hurt people, and Senior started every project believing that everyone would live happily ever after if they just invested. Senior could tell himself that all he wanted, but the people left behind still lost their life’s savings. Some days Tony wanted to cut the man out of his life, but Senior was his father.
Worse, Senior often didn’t mean any harm. He caused it in spades, but he was like a giant, floppy dog. It didn’t mean to pee on the floor and knock over a priceless vase, and then it would look at you with big eyes and ask how you could be so mean as to yell at it.
Tony had never been good at staying mad.
“Tony?” Ellie called, concern coloring her tone.
“Yeah. Okay.” Tony forced himself to move again. He headed for his desk and starting checking his messages.
“Your father sounded really concerned.”
Tony nodded. “I’ll call him after we close the Richards case. Do we have anything new?” Tony started his computer. Abby’s electronic reports would reach them before the official printed copies.
“Not on the case, but I have some juicy background on the FBI team that supposed to be coming in if we can’t solve this.”
Tony sighed. “Bishop, I get that you like to have all the information, but you need to be more discreet about other teams.”
“What?” She frowned at him.
“If you go digging for dirt, it makes cooperating more difficult.”
She looked offended. “I would never say anything to them.”
“And if someone checked out my background and found out I was accused of killing women after biting them, what would happen if the case we were working together turned out to include a biter?”
Ellie wrinkled her nose. “Awkward.”
“Exactly. And I would know in an instant that they had checked up my record, just like these guys will know. You do not have a good poker face. Sometimes it’s better not to know.”
“Even if it’s juicy?”
“Especially if it’s juicy,” Tony said firmly. Sure, he wanted to know, but he didn’t have the energy to keep up a façade, and he knew it. That meant that the best way to avoid trouble was to avoid having anything to hide. “In general, are they good agents?”
“Most people seem to think so.”
“Then leave it at that,” Tony ordered her. She didn’t look completely convinced, but at least she would follow orders.
Tony wondered how Ziva would have handled this FBI team. Like Ellie, she would have dug up some information on them. She would have shared with Tony, and then Tony would have spent all his time trying to defuse little barbs Ziva would have set into one of the fibbies. She did have a beautifully sadistic streak to her sometimes. Other times, she struggled with all the pain of the job. Tony got the feeling that she preferred assassinations where she didn’t have to stick around and see the aftermath of the violence. But she was gone now, so it didn’t matter.
In some ways that was better. They were so hot and cold that Tony could rarely keep up with where they stood with their relationship. Twice they had gotten so tangled in their own feelings that they’d ended up in bed together, and twice Ziva had held a weapon on Tony and came dangerously close to killing him. That was the sort of rollercoaster Tony didn’t need.
Ellie spoke again. “It’s nice that you’re trying to mend fences with your father. Tim was telling me that he wasn’t exactly father of the year when you were growing up.”
A snort slipped out before Tony could control the instinct.
“Jake’s father had so many problems, but when he died, Jake was really sorry he hadn’t found a way to talk to him.”
“Good for Jake,” Tony muttered.
“What?” Ellie asked a little louder.
Tony really didn’t want to deal with this. “Do you have background on those two Marines?” During the interviews, two of Richards’ teammates had set off huge alarms with Tony. If they weren’t involved in Richards’ murder, they were doing something else they didn’t want NCIS to know about. That gave Tony a lot of incentive to poke around their lives.
“I was going to start with Burnett.”
Tony let out a breath as she focused back on the work. “I’ll take Shaffer.” Ellie was good at digging out hidden information through the computers, so Tony trusted her to get the truth on Burnett. But computers weren’t his thing. He was more about getting people to talk. “I’m going to go get coffee and it might take me a little longer than normal.”
Ellie looked up from her computer. “Oh?”
“I feel a need for some gourmet doughnuts.”
“You’re going to that fancy place right across from the Marine Barracks, aren’t you.”
“Maybe,” Tony said with a wink. He also planned to check out the pub farther down the block and the gay bar to the south. Marines had to go somewhere, and Tony figured Richards, Burnett, and Shaffer were regulars at one of the local spots. He didn’t know which, but that’s what investigation was for.
Ellie started to stand. “I’ll go with you.”
The last thing Tony wanted was company. As long as he had one of the team with him, he had to put up the whole Tony-front, and right now he didn’t have the energy for it. If he was alone, he wouldn’t have to pretend to be okay. “No, you will do your digging. If you finish Burnett’s background, dig into Shaffer. That’s more likely to get us a good lead. What I’m doing is a wild goose chase.”
“Then why go?” Ellie have him a hard look.
Tony gave her a wide, goofy grin. “Because when the hunt pays off, wild goose tastes delicious.” She didn’t have the rank to argue with him, so Tony booked it out of the office before Gibbs showed up and ordered him to take someone or Tim showed up to guilt him into the same. Tim used to be easier to get to back off, but lately he’d been a real pest. Tony didn’t need their good intentions. He needed time by himself. And he needed to find Richards’ killer. That was his first priority.