Brunch by Xanthe

Story archived: http://www.xanthe.org/brunch/

Story Notes:

I haven’t felt like writing since finishing The First Collar, but I

had a conversation with two friends on Saturday which

inspired this little "slice of life" fic. It’s unbeta’d. For Hilde and

DinkyDi :-).

Chapter 1 by Xanthe

It’s late when Tony stirs. He glances at the clock on the nightstand to find that it’s nearly

midday. Hardly surprising as they only wrapped up the case at 3 a.m. and crawled into bed

sometime around 4. He can smell coffee and hear Gibbs moving around downstairs, so he

guesses it’s time to get up.

It’s the middle of summer and the room is baking, the sun streaming in even through the

closed drapes. Tony groans and slides out from under the sheet which was all either of them

could bear to sleep under in the heat last night. His entire body is aching from the stress of

the past few weeks and his muscles protest as he forces them to move. Didn’t he only roll

into bed an hour ago? It feels that way.

His head is pounding and everything seems too bright. Tony keeps his eyes half-closed as he

makes his way to the bathroom – he could walk there in his sleep in any case.

When he’s done, he wanders naked into the bedroom, still in a haze, opens the closet, and

searches around blearily for some clean clothes – only to come up empty. He glances at the

overflowing laundry hamper in the corner of the room and sighs. They’ve spent three weeks

on this case, running from one dead body to another, culminating in a desperate race

against time to stop a bomb taking out half of Quantico. They’ve been coming home late,

throwing off their clothes, crawling into bed, and then crawling out again a few hours later.

Some nights they didn’t make it home at all. They haven’t had time to do any laundry;

they’ve barely had time to eat. He has no clean clothes left.

All he can find is a pair of Gibbs’s old, faded blue jeans. He pulls them on, noticing with

satisfaction that he can actually do them up – which is more down to the lack of eating

these past three weeks than any conscious attempt to lose weight on his part. Still, it’ll be

something to tease Gibbs about later. He fills out the jeans snugly, and he manages a slight

grin at the idea that it’ll give Gibbs a good view if nothing else. He has no clean socks, and he

can’t be bothered to find his slippers, so he walks down the stairs in his bare feet, still half-

asleep. He wonders whether he’ll ever feel human again.

Gibbs is in the kitchen. Tony pauses momentarily in the doorway. Gibbs is dressed exactly

the same as him – pair of old jeans, no shirt, barefoot. Tony’s heart skips a beat, the way it

always does whenever he sees Gibbs. He wonders if that will ever change but it’s been

happening for ten years now, so he suspects not.

Gibbs glances at him and then pours a coffee from the waiting brew and hands it to him

without saying a word.

“Laundry,” Tony mutters to Gibbs by way of explanation for their attire, gesturing at his

jeans with his hand.

“Uh-huh,” Gibbs replies, seeming to understand.

Tony sips gratefully, needing the caffeine hit. When did he last have a cup of coffee? He

can’t even remember. He just remembers running, and driving, and making calls, and

fighting, and nothing else for days and days and days.

Tony opens the fridge and pours a glass of orange juice for himself and one for Gibbs. Then

he gets the crockery and cutlery out of the cupboard and sets them on the table. This is

their Sunday brunch routine whenever they get a chance to have Sunday brunch together.

Gibbs cooks the bacon, eggs, sausages, and tomatoes, and Tony pours the orange juice, sets

the table, and makes the toast. Their dinner ritual is pretty similar; Gibbs does the steak,

and Tony does the beer. Tony has a vague suspicion that Gibbs doesn’t trust him with

anything involving naked flame, but he’s never put it to the test.

“Naked,” he murmurs as that thought enters his head.

“Yeah,” Gibbs says, and Tony wonders if he really can read his mind.

Tony gets the bread out and sticks it in the toaster. He reaches over to the iPod, scrolls

down, finds what he’s looking for, and clicks ‘play’.

“Frank,” Tony says, as the mellow tones of Frank Sinatra croon around the room.

“Mmmm,” Gibbs replies.

Tony gets the butter out and begins spreading it on the toast. He glances over at Gibbs to

see how far along the rest of brunch is. His gaze comes to rest on Gibbs’s body; Gibbs looks

damn good in jeans and nothing else. His skin is stretched taut over finely honed muscle and

the wiry curls of hair on his chest remind Tony of the many nights he’s spent lying with his

head resting there. Tony’s gaze travels along Gibbs’s body, and he frowns; there’s a big

purple bruise on Gibbs’s ribs and his knuckles are grazed, some of the skin missing. He looks

paler than usual and there are dark shadows under his eyes.

Tony isn’t surprised. He suspects he looks just as bad. Two of his fingers are taped together,

both of them broken, and there’s a cut above his left eyebrow. Maybe it’s given him a black

eye. He has no idea; he was too sleepy to take a good look at himself in the bathroom

mirror earlier.

My Way starts to play on the iPod. Tony leans over automatically and clicks it forward to the

next song. Gibbs hates My Way. Tony has no idea why, but he suspects it’s because the song

hits too close to home for him. This is weird, because you’d think it would resonate not

repulse, but then nobody could ever accuse Gibbs of being an uncomplicated man. Tony’s

used to his complexities.

Gibbs passes him by on his way to the sink and pauses behind him. Tony’s body glows at his

proximity, the way it always has since the day he first met him. Gibbs presses a kiss to his

shoulder blade. Just one kiss, but it soothes him like nothing else ever could; Tony smiles.

Gibbs opens the back door and the sun streams in. It’s too hot, too bright, too much. Tony

blinks. The stray cat that hangs around outside comes in and winds its way around Gibbs’s

ankles. Small children and animals love Gibbs. Tony never has understood why exactly –

maybe because Gibbs never talks down to them, or maybe because Gibbs represents to

them what he represents to Tony: safety, love, and a gruff kind of no-nonsense being taken

care of. Nobody’s ever taken care of Tony before.

“I’ve got you under my skin,” Tony sings along with Sinatra, out of tune as usual.

Gibbs throws some of the bacon into a dish and places it on the floor. The cat eats it eagerly,

and Gibbs puts a bowl of water down too. Tony smiles; Gibbs’s secret is safe with him. He’ll

never tell anyone that the hard-assed bastard has a soft spot for waifs and strays. Isn’t that

why Tony is here, after all? It might have taken awhile, but at some point he’d worn Gibbs

down with his puppy dog eyes and eternal hope that he’d one day be allowed to spend the

night in Gibbs’s bed. Now he gets to spend every night in Gibbs’s bed. Life is good.

“I've got you deep in the heart of me. So deep in my heart that you're really a part of me…”

he sings loudly, drowning out Frank altogether.

Gibbs cracks some eggs into the pan.

“Your jeans fit me,” Tony tells him, looking down at his almost comically concave belly.

Damn it, when did he last eat? He thought it was yesterday but it might have been the day

before.

“Uh-huh.” Gibbs gives a little snort as he says that.

“Hah!” Tony says, taking another sip of his coffee. Then he notices that the jeans Gibbs is

wearing are looking a little loose on his hips too; they’ve both lost some weight over the

past few weeks.

Tony glances around the kitchen to see if they’re ready. The sunday newspaper is on the

table where Gibbs must have put it earlier, but he’s missing his…

“Glasses,” Tony says, going into the living room. The place is a mess – the remains of various

take-out meals scattered around. They can clear up later. Tony locates Gibbs’s glasses, takes

them back into the kitchen, and puts them on the table, beside his paper.

Gibbs serves the food onto plates and brings them over to the table. Tony grabs the plate of

buttered toast and brings that over too. They sit down opposite each other, in their usual

places.

Gibbs opens the paper and hands Tony the sports section. Tony takes it wordlessly and

reads as he crams sausages into his mouth. Damn it he’s starving! They eat in silence, apart

from chewing noises and the rustling of the paper.

Tony glances up and laughs. Gibbs looks funny sitting at the table bare-chested, wearing his

glasses as he reads the news section of the paper. Gibbs glances at him over the top of his

glasses.

“Funny,” Tony says.

“Uh-huh.” Gibbs glances back at the paper.

“You,” Tony clarifies.

“Mmm.” Gibbs doesn’t look up again.

Tony starts to feel more human again as he finishes eating. He shoves his plate away with a

happy sigh and pats his now rounded belly.

"Full,” he says.

"Uh-huh," Gibbs says, still not looking up.

Tony moves his leg up and rests his bare foot on Gibbs’s chair, between his open legs,

nudging at his crotch with his toes. Gibbs ignores him and continues reading his paper. Tony

grins and waggles his toes insistently; Gibbs is looking too damn good, just sitting there,

half- naked.

“Horny,” Tony says.

Gibbs turns over a section of his newspaper. “Hmmm,” he replies.

Tony’s grin widens. He refuses to be ignored; isn’t that why he’s sitting here today with

Gibbs, in the house they’ve shared for the past two years - and not alone in his old

apartment?

Tony prods his big toe gently but knowingly into Gibbs’s jeans and is rewarded by what he

feels there. His big toe is very talented and knows exactly what to do to get noticed. Gibbs

puts the paper down on the table and places his glasses on top of it, then looks up, straight

at Tony. He gives an exaggerated sigh.

Tony laughs. “Sex?” he suggests.

Gibbs’s face splits into one of those broad, heart-stopping smiles that even after all this time

have the power to turn Tony inside out. He gets up and goes around to Tony’s side of the

table. He reaches out and caresses the side of Tony’s face with his hand, his thumb gently

brushing the cut above Tony’s eyebrow. Then he leans down and presses his lips to Tony’s

mouth, opening it with his tongue and pushing in sweetly. Tony moans and presses up

against him, his hands going around Gibbs’s back and coming to rest on his denim-clad

buttocks.

Gibbs draws back. He’s still smiling. “Bedroom,” he says.

The End

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