Fic: Distraction (3/6)
Fandom: Inception/NCIS
Title: Distraction
Word Count: 5500-6000 (this part only)
Rating: R
Genre: romance, crossover
Pairing: Arthur/Eames, Gibbs/DiNozzo, Eames/DiNozzo
Disclaimer: I don’t own Inception.I certainly don’t own NCIS, either the agency or the television series.
Summary: NCIS meets Inception over a PASIV device and a dead Navy SEAL.This round: Gibbs v. Eames.
Author’s Note: special, special thanks to heavenscalyx and lonetread for their beta efforts and for putting up with an unholy amount of unnecessary rewriting angst.Thanks guys.
Chapter Three
Tony hadn’t thrown up before work since his first day at Peoria P.D. Even the Black Death hadn’t driven him to his knees before the porcelain god. One sleepless night spent coming up with Gibbs’ top ten list of favorite ways to fire his senior agent, though, and Tony would be lucky to make it to work before noon. Two hours and as many wardrobe changes into the morning, he was still no closer to exiting his front door. Irrationally, he blamed Gibbs. If the man had ever learned how to work his inbox, Tony could have just emailed the details of this disaster to him from home and coped with rejection, humiliation, and unemployment from the comfort of his sofa. With a bucket.
He was down to the dry heaves by the time his doorbell rang. Because he wasn’t the luckiest person alive, Tony reached for his Sig before he went to answer it. He almost used it when he found Eames staring back at him, looking wrinkled and travel-worn and only too solidly there. Tony shook his head and barred entry by waving the Sig which turned out to be as effective as using bug spray on Cujo.
“Oh. Hell. No.”
“You have vomit on your shirt,” Eames offered by way of a greeting before shouldering his way in and dropping his travel bag on Tony’s sofa. Tony picked up the bag and tossed it back at the man.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing here but you’re definitely not staying.”
“That’s hardly friendly.” Eames looked him over critically and frowned. “You look terrible.”
“Thanks. It’s my impending unemployment look.”
Eames rolled his eyes and wandered into the kitchen. Tony could have told him that his hunt for anything edible in there was doomed to failure; it had been one hell of a long week at work. Instead, he watched Eames hunt and peck and concentrated on not feeling nauseated for the first time in what felt like days. Eames as a cure for puking. Who knew.
“Gibbs isn’t about to sack you for your flexibility in bed partners. From everything you’ve ever told me about the man - which has not been inconsiderable, Anthony - he’s the last bastion of freedom and justice in the modern world.”
“Yeah, well, the bastion isn’t going to have to think twice before kicking my ass to the curb for compromising his case, Eames. It’s not that I slept with you - okay, maybe the part about sleeping with a felon wouldn’t exactly make his morning - but it’s the part where I called you up and told you about the case that’s going to flip his switch.”
“Look. You’re getting your knickers in an unnecessary twist.”
Tony snorted. “I don’t think I even wear knickers.”
“Personal choice. Whatever suits you, really.” Eames emerged from the kitchen with an open box of Captain Crunch. “I didn’t think these could get moldy. You need to go food shopping. More to the point, you need to get me a glimpse of that PASIV device.”
Tony laughed.
“Does that even need an answer?”
“I don’t think your dead SEAL was trying to reach me at all.”
“He dialed your number by accident three times?”
“No. He dialed my number three times to reach Arthur, and there are only two reasons why anyone calls Arthur. Well, aside from me. Either the man had a nasty job in the offing or he was selling something.”
“Great. How does that translate into me violating national security for you?”
“If he was selling something, the PASIV may very well offer some key points as to what that was.”
There was some semblance of logic there, but. “The answer is still ‘no’, Eames.”
“You were clearly planning on going to work today.” Eames gestured at what had once been prime Dolce but was now a sweat-and-vomit stained rag. “Doesn’t NCIS sponsor a bring-a-friend-to-work day?”
“Eames.”
“Just hear me out. Loads of people pay obscene amounts of money for one of my plans, you know. Get me into NCIS. Just two minutes with the PASIV should give me some idea of what Wells was about, might even give me some idea of why he finished up dead on a sidewalk - which I would, naturally, pass along to you.”
“Naturally.”
“And I’ll be gone.”
“And what do I tell Gibbs?”
“You know my take on telling Gibbs anything but, if you must, tell him you tracked the phone number to me and leave it at that.”
“Lie to him, in other words.”
“By omission, perhaps. It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”
It would be the first time he had to live with the lie, though. Tony had come clean about every other lie he’d ever told Gibbs. That sounded vaguely pathetic, even in the privacy of his own mind. He couldn’t believe he was even considering this for one sick minute.
“You can’t go dressed like that,” Tony said before he could debate the voices in his head into a one-way ticket to in-patient psych at Bethesda. “You look like Bozo the Clown. Doesn’t Arthur have the slightest urge to dress you?”
“Arthur admires my personal panache,” Eames lied with a grin. “But lend me something if it’ll make you feel better. Then we should go. In my limited experience, one has a far better chance of successfully breaking and entering into government premises at the earliest possible version of dawn rather than at midday.”
♠
Gibbs strode off the elevator to find McGee already at his desk and picking sprinkles off his damn donut. Tony’s desk sat empty. It was well past oh-seven-hundred. Gibbs mood dipped from sour to absolutely vile. He drank the last of his coffee and tossed the cup in the trash by his desk.
“Where’s DiNozzo?”
“He called to say he was tracking down a lead on that phone number. Hey, Boss.” McGee held up a postcard of blue skies, blue water, and lots of half-naked people on a beach. “Look at what was in my mail this morning. It’s from Ziva.”
No doubt having a good time with Ray. Well, she deserved a break. Gibbs grunted and clicked on his email, mostly because Leon had ripped him a new one at the last weekly debrief for not ‘logging on’ in over a month. That and for holding Tony’s career back because he was selfish in addition to being a bastard. Great. Forty-two new messages. He forwarded them all to Tony. Served the man right. Following up a lead, my ass. It was probably that blonde in the evidence garage. One last fling before Florida.
In fact, Gibbs put an automatic forward to Tony on all his emails. He’d blame it on a power surge or something. His team didn’t believe he could work a damn computer anyway. Tony’s replacement could figure out how to fix it.
Tony’s replacement.
That was never going to be possible.
“How’d it go with Wells’ C.O., McGee?”
His future Senior Field Agent sat up a little straighter in his chair.
“Uh, well, Captain Turner was less than thrilled to see me back on his doorstep at one in the morning. All he would say is that Wells had called in sick that day. Apparently, the commander had been out a lot over the past month with some sort of virus.”
“Did the Captain say what Wells had been working on?”
“No. Well, yes. And no. He said I didn’t have the security clearance to even ask the question. Then he slammed the door in my face.”
“Pull up Wells’ bank statements again.” There had been something there that bothered Gibbs, never mind that McGee thought it all matched up just fine. “I wanna take another look at them when I get back from Abby’s.”
“On it, Boss.”
Gibbs left the bullpen to a symphony of clattering computer keys. McGee would never be Tony. It wasn’t fair to the man to expect him to be, but Gibbs had a suspicion he was going to be unfair to a lot of people once Tony packed up. He might have passed it off as a joke at the time, but he’d always meant it as truth. Tony would always be irreplaceable. To him.
♦
“Well? Is it or isn’t it?”
“Yes and no.”
“Glad you’re here,” Tony muttered, glancing over at the forensics lab door. “Hurry up. She’ll be back any second.”
Eames stared down at the bits and pieces of what had once been a PASIV device but were now no more that metallic detritus of what-might-have-been gathered carefully into a plastic bin. He picked up one of the glass vials, shook the clear liquid within, and frowned. Definitely something wrong here.
“You have to be one of the least patient people I’ve ever met. What I mean to say is that, yes, it appears to have the same basic skeletal framework of a PASIV device, but, no, it is not actually the same as the PASIV devices I’ve encountered in the past. Happy now?”
“Not even close. We need to go.”
“We just got here.”
“Well, we were late.”
And whose fault had that been? Eames resisted the urge to snap at the man. Tony wasn’t entirely to blame for the fact that the dry heaves had continued to plague him, after all. Besides, if Tony hadn’t looked a bit like lukewarm death, their little gothic angel wouldn’t have been persuaded to leave them unattended in her castle while she went to get him a Caf-Pow, whatever the hell that might be.
Of course, Eames had found Abby Sciuto captivating from the start. From the industrial knee high boots to the pig-tails to the Newlydeads blaring out on her stereo, she was a forge just begging to happen. The only problem was the woman’s disturbing tendency to bounce simply everywhere. That and he wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t too much to be believed.
Despite the woman’s apparent penchant for dissecting all things technological, however, the strange PASIV looked as if it remained functional. Eames held up one end of translucent tubing and wondered if the urge to hook himself up constituted addiction, healthy curiosity, or a death wish. Tony removed the temptation when he plucked the tubing out of Eames’ hand and started tossing bits back in the bin.
“Come on, Eames. Your two minutes are up. It’s almost eight and Gibbs will be down here soon. We gotta go.”
Somewhere in the depths of his borrowed suit, Eames’ mobile rang. Unknown Name. Ironically, just one brief day earlier, he would have let it ring through to his voicemail. As things stood, Eames settled for answering in the most nondescript fashion possible.
“Yeah,” he muttered into the handset as Tony eyed him impatiently from the other end of the table.
“Arthur?” the voice on the other end asked, suspicious.
Eames had known already, with near-absolute certainty, that Wells had been trying to reach Arthur. There was nothing scattered on the table in front of him that required a forger’s skill. Even so, confirmation was always appreciated. Thankfully, Eames’ American accent had always been one of his better ones, even before he’d started spending all his free moments with Arthur and his New York syllables.
“Who’s this?”
“You’re a hard man to get on the phone.”
“Not so easy to keep on the phone, either. Who is this?”
“Just a friend of Mitch’s. Have you thought any more about our offer?”
“What offer was that?”
“You know what offer. It won’t be open much longer. Other people don’t share your reluctance to try new things.”
“Jesus, Eames! Hurry the fuck up!” Tony hissed with an agitated rolling motion of his wrist.
Eames turned away from the distraction. God knew it was flattering to think he made this look that easy but holding up his end of a conversation when he had no bloody idea what they were talking about was not actually easy at all. That said, Eames adored channeling Arthur. There was a certain freedom to saying whatever popped into his mind without politely rephrasing it and knowing people were too sodding terrified to call him on it.
“Great. Go talk to them then and stop wasting my time.”
“No, wait. Don’t hang up!”
“You have ten seconds to inspire me.”
“Just give it a test run. Five minutes. It sells itself.”
“Where?”
There was a telling pause.
“You’re local? I heard you were in Istanbul.”
Eames frowned, uncomfortably paranoid with the idea of others keeping such close track of Arthur’s travels.
“I can be,” he said finally. “Tonight.”
“Ten o’clock. Place called The Cage. You know it?”
Eames had misspent his youth in places with names like “The Cage” and, in his experience, they were generally nightmares of loud music, absent lighting, and barricaded exits. But bailing this job meant leaving Arthur in danger which wasn’t an option.
“How do I find you?”
“I’ll find you,” the man said, worryingly, and the line went dead.
Tony made a grab for the mobile before Eames could even snap it shut.
“I’m gonna kill you,” he promised. “What the hell was that?”
“That was me, arranging a meet. Isn’t that what you law enforcement types call it?”
“We law enforcement types call it impeding a fucking investigation, Eames. Who the hell was it?”
“He didn’t say.”
“That’s it.” Tony’s lips set in a thin line. “Give me the phone.”
“Why?”
“We’re tracing the call.”
“Did it occur to you there may be calls here I’d prefer you didn’t trace?”
“You should have thought about that before you started playing undercover agent. Give me the phone.”
“Anthony, really. This is poor thanks for doing your job.”
“How was that doing my job?”
“Well, we have a date with Wells’ partner-in-crime now. That’s a gain, isn’t it? Don’t look so peeved, pet.”
By then, Tony had him bent backwards over Abby’s metal work table at an uncomfortable angle. Eames had little choice but to surrender the mobile which he did with good grace, a grin, and a brief, chaste peck to Tony’s unhappy lips.
Sadly, that was also when Eames glanced over into the icy blue eyes of Leroy Jethro Gibbs.