Hot by Xanthe

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

Story Notes:

Back in April, I held a Tibbs iContest on my LJ. You can check

out all the entries and the winners here.

I promised the winners I'd write them all a story inspired by

their icon. Originally, I offered to do drabbles - fics of 100

words exactly. But when I came to do them, I found I wanted

them to just be as long as they wanted to be - so I went with

that.

My apologies for how long it has taken. First I wanted to finish

Two Wolves. Then I broke my ankle and didn't write anything

for a long time. So, I'm delighted to finally be able to post

them now.

The stories vary in size from 300ish words long to nearly 4000

words long. I started out thinking I'd keep them very short, in

the spirit of a drabble, but somehow each one kept turning out

longer than the previous one! Please don't assume any value

judgement from their length; I just looked at each icon and

went where my imagination took me, whether it was a short

‘joke' fic, or a longer, more angsty story. Or, you know, lots of

spanky BDSM ;-).

Sometimes, my imagination was surprising; the best Tony icon

is a story largely about Gibbs, and the best Gibbs icon is a story

largely about Tony. Go figure! I tried to keep all the stories to

one scene - except for the best BDSM icon fic which, once I

had the idea, I knew would have to be comprised of several

short scenes in order to do what I wanted with it, which was to

contextualise the icon.

I did my best to capture some feeling or truth that struck me

about each icon. I hope I succeeded. I'm posting the three

shortest stories today, the longest one tomorrow, and the final

one on Sunday.

Please make sure to admire each icon before you read - the

stories work much better that way!

Thank you again to all the entrants of the iContest for making

it such a great competition. You all rock!

Thank yous: To bluespirit_star and taylorgibbs for beta

and to Nikita, Hilde and Sue for audiencing.

This story is for Theeverdream who made the winning icon in

the Gibbs/Tony romance category. When I looked at this icon,

the two things that struck me were a) why is Tony wearing

that big sweater and b) what sneaky, secret thing are Gibbs

and Tony smiling about? So I wrote this to explain the two!

Chapter 1 by Xanthe

Hot

By Xanthe

“Tony, the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and it’s 80 degrees out here! Why on earth are you wearing that giant sweater? You must be sweltering,” Kate exclaimed, glancing at him as

they crossed the street back to where Gibbs was waiting by the van.

“What? No – it’s not that warm. There’s a definite chill in the air.” Tony gave a theatrical fake shiver as they reached the van.

“No, really, it’s hot. Oh wait – is that it? You think you look hot in that sweater?”

Kate poked him in the ribs, which, luckily, he couldn’t feel because of the very thick sweater.

The very thick sweater that was making him perspire so much that all he could think about were the rivulets of sweat running down his back right now.

“That’s not why he’s wearing it,” Gibbs said, grinning at them.

“It’s not?” Kate raised an eyebrow.

“Nah - he’s wearing it to hide the big hickey on his neck,” Gibbs said.

Kate gave him a look of utter horror. “Tony, that’s disgusting! How old are you? Thirteen?”

“Hormonally? Probably.” Tony leered at her. “And you think anything involving sex is

disgusting, Kate.”

“I do not. Just anything involving you and sex. You’re such an animal, Tony.” She gave him one last withering glance and got into the van.

Tony glared at Gibbs. “Why did you have to go and tell her that?” he hissed in an undertone.

“’Cause it’s true?” Gibbs shrugged, looking completely unconcerned.

“There’s no point me killing myself by wearing this giant, fleecy sweater if you’re just going to tell her the reason why! I might as well go around…you know…” Tony pointed at his neck with an agonised grimace.

“You should. I’d like it.” Gibbs leaned in close. “I don’t like the marks I put on my boy being covered up,” he whispered into Tony’s ear.

This time, when Tony shivered, it was for real.

The End

Disclaimer: Al publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their

respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No

money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.