Title: Dedication
Author: clumsyghost
Fandom: NCIS
Pairing/character: McGee/DiNozzo
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: NCIS is not mine.
Summary: McGee works on his latest novel.
Notes/Warnings: Unbet'd. Established relationship. Butchered bookstore name done on purpose. Comments and crits appreciated.



Through the thick darkness, the ragged bodies crawled laboriously onwards towards their destination. Fear clutched in the hearts of the troops, but only steely, dirty faces stared at him as the captain glanced back to make sure no one had fallen behind. He had realized three and a half days ago when contact had been lost that this mission was an inevitable failure; dawn’s doom was only a few hours away. Knowing that it was his duty to keep his men alive and steadfast until the end, the captain’s mind churned as he tried to grasp at some motivating words he could speak to his company. Giving the signal for the others to halt their weary track, the parched throat gurgled from the lack of use as he took in a deep breath. Turning to face his troop, the captain’s mouth opened, letting his words fall on the fatigued, obedient ears:

“I’m bored!”

Startled, Timothy McGee’s fingers froze over the keys of the typewriter. The grey orbs, once narrowed in concentration, glanced up in confusion as the man struggled to orient himself with where he was. His music continued to softly play on, a sure sign that a miracle had been wrought in Anthony DiNozzo’s tolerance level.

“Come on, McTyper, let’s go do something! You’ve been working all morning, you need a break!” Tony chirped cheerfully, his own emerald orbs sparkling, “Didja know when you write, your mouth gapes open and your eyes bug out like this?!” he added in the same breath, doing a deer-in-headlights impression. Glaring at his partner leaning in the doorframe, McGee let out a low snarl. “Yes, Tony, you’ve told me so three times today. You’ve also interrupted me five times,” he pointed out.

Tony made a face, mimicking his partner’s voice as he finished the rest of the familiar lecture, adding some flourishes of his own, “I’ve got a deadline, Tony, Monday at five, don’t interrupt me until then, you can’t even look at me wrong or I’ll bite your head off!”

Sighing, McGee rubbed his forehead. God, he needed an aspirin. How in the world had he ever thought he could handle his job, writing, the dog, his sanity, and Tony DiNozzo all at the same time?

“Let me see what you’ve got!” Tony sang out, bounding across the room with an evil gleam. McGee stared up at Tony in disbelief as the other man hovered over his shoulder. Scanning the page still in the typewriter, Tony hmm’d and occasionally read a few lines aloud, voice dramatizing all the wrong parts. Attracted by the conversation, Jethro padded up to the door, sitting down at the doorframe with a mournful stare. The canine had long ago learned that while he could rule any room in the apartment, Master’s writing room was off limits. At least the dog had been trained, McGee thought; the same couldn’t be said for his partner.

“Hey, when are you going to do a sex scene between Agent Tommy and MacGregor? I could give you some inspiration for that if you want,” Tony interrupted McGee’s thoughts with a leer. Ignoring the come-on, McGee leveled his best stare at the other man. “Tony, you know I can’t do that. With our jobs, we have to be careful. It’s bad enough that Gibbs suspects, but if Vance found out…” he trailed off, knowing very well what the director’s reaction would be. The director was hell-bent on breaking up Gibbs’ team one way or another; they didn’t want to give him a good excuse.

“Of course boss knows! He knows everything, don’t you boy?” Tony asked Jethro, who replied with a bark, wagging his bushy tail.

“Alright, thanks for the DiNozzo review, but I’ve got at least another fifty pages or so to complete, so if you could just…go do something, please?” McGee begged. Tony frowned, the cheerful smile slipping for a minute. “But Tim…”

“No! Deadline! You knew when we started going out that I have to balance my job with writing, Tony. You’re going to have to be a little less needy for a while, alright?!” McGee shot back. Plastering the wide grin back on his face, Tony merely shrugged. “Hear that, Jethro? That means we’re going for a W-A-L-K,” Tony called out. Giving the agent a look that would rival that of his namesake’s, the dog turned tail and fled the room. “God damit! Even the DOG doesn’t want anything to do with me,” Tony growled. “It’s 102 degrees out, Tony,” McGee called out to his partner’s retreating back. “Like you’d know, McHermit,” Tony muttered to himself.

With an air of defeat, the spurned agent flopped down on the couch, listlessly picking up the remote. Deciding to do some major channel surfing with the volume turned up just to drive McGee nuts, he was distracted by the appearance of said  person. “Oooh, look, the dungeon master has escaped the lair!” Tony called out. The only reply he received was a huff and heavy footsteps. “Time for a potty break?” Tony continued, eyeing behind him. “Toilet’s that way,” he pointed out as the chubbier man sat down in his computer chair. McGee rolled his eyes, pressing his computer monitor on with a bit more force than necessary. Booting up the internet and typing in a few lines of text, McGee sat back in his chair, donning a smug look on his face. Tony continued to stare curiously as McGee printed a piece of paper. It was a quick walk back to the couch where McGee dropped the paper into Tony’s waiting hands. “Here. It’s a code. Try to figure it out, Mr. Bond.”

010001010110111001110100011001010111001001110100011000010110100101101110001000000111100101101111011101010111001001110011011001010110110001100110

Before Tony could reply, the other man had already escaped back to his room, closing the door firmly. Puzzled by all the ones and zeros, Tony turned the paper upside down, then sideways. No matter what he did, he couldn’t make sense of it, but suddenly he was struck by the desire to solve it just to piss McGee off. “Damn nerds. Think they’re so much smarter than the rest of us,” Tony pouted. “Nothing can escape the awesome mind of Agent DiNozzo!” he yelled towards the door. “Ok! First we figure out where he went on the computer!” he stated, jumping off the couch. “What!? Stupid computer! It’s not like the one at work!” Tony whined to a bored looking Jethro. “Minor setback….ok, boss. Help me look for the ‘on’ button…”

With a groan, McGee straightened his posture, listening with a wince to the cracks and pops of his joints. God, maybe Tony was right in that he wrote too much. Suddenly struck by the fact that he had not heard nor seen his partner in a while, McGee glanced down at his watch. Five hours! What on earth had Tony entertained himself with? Wondering if Tony had left, or maybe killed himself, McGee got up to go check, but only got half way across the room before his partner materialized. The grey orbs softened as he took in his partner’s pleased appearance. “Hey, Tony…what have you been doing?”

Encouraged by McGee’s surprising good mood, Tony waved the piece of paper he had been clutching. Momentarily confused, McGee reached out and took it, recognition dawning only to be replaced by confusion. A line had been drawn diagonally through all the 1’s so that it looked like a lopsided X mark. “What did you…?” McGee started off, giving Tony a quizzical look.

“I figured out what it meant! Well, actually, I narrowed it down to three choices. Wanna hear them?” Without waiting for McGee to confirm or deny, Tony barreled on, “Ok, code one: You want me. Why else would you write a bunch of X’s and O’s? Though I prefer kisses and groping to hugs and kisses, whatever floats your boat.  Code two: You want to play tic-tac-toe. In bed?” he added hopefully. McGee let out a snort of laughter, shaking his head. “And three?” he asked, returning Tony’s smile.

“Code three: You want to watch the Matrix…’though I don’t know why. I mean, I’m much better looking than Keanu Reeves, and I actually have more than one facial expression.”  Waiting for McGee’s laughter to subside, Tony shifted impatiently. “Soo, which one is it? First one, right?!”

“Ah, Tony…Thank you…” McGee replied softly, “I know I’m not…” He hesitated slightly, trying to come up with the right words. How much easier it was to write than talk!

“…giving me enough attention? Treating me like a good boyfriend? Putting out enough?” Tony finished for him helpfully. In spite of the words, his tone was light and teasing, and McGee smiled slightly. “Yeah, pretty much. But not the last one. We’re doing good on that.” Tony snorted, but bit back a retort as McGee narrowed his eyes at him. “Right. Well. You know I respect your work. I like to watch you write sometimes. You can really tell when you drift off to la-la-land! I’ve bought every one of your books, and I’ll be the first one in line when they make one of them into a movie. Just please pick a good actor for my character…”

Smiling, McGee leaned towards his partner, capturing the other’s lips with his own. They stood there for a moment, enjoying each other’s presence as Tony deepened the chaste kiss. Withdrawing his tongue from the other’s mouth, McGee was the first to break the kiss, smirking at Tony as they caught their breath.  “I’ve already picked the actor I want to play you, actually.”

Unperturbed, Tony only quirked an eyebrow. “Yeah, who?”

“I’ll give you a hint…his initials are M.W.” McGee replied, taking Tony’s hand in his own and tugging him towards the bedroom.



“Damn fan girls,” Tony muttered in disgust. The agent peered around the large crowd huddled in front of a display, but to no avail. There was no way of reaching the shelf unless he was willing to fight his way through the crowd. “Damn Barney & Nobel’s needs to be bigger!” Glancing at his watch, Tony sighed. He had to be at work in exactly eight minutes, make that seven minutes and forty-five seconds, and he hadn’t even picked up the coffee. Of course, McGee would understand if he arrived coffeeless, but Boss would deep-six his ass to Timbuktu. And only Tim had permission to do anything to his ass, so Tony fought his way out of the bookstore.

He arrived safely with the coffee ten minutes and thirty-seven seconds later. Gibbs thoughtfully waited until he had been relieved of the cups before head-smacking him. Ziva laughed, smirking behind her cappuccino as Tony grumbled his way to his chair. “You are late. Why? Forget to sit your alarm?” Ziva demanded. “No, I don’t sit on my alarm clock, thank you.” Tony shot back, neglecting to answer the first question.

“Oh, well. I stopped by the bookstore this morning,” Ziva continued, ignoring the look DiNozzo and McGee gave each other at her latest language foul-up. Straightening in his chair, Tony narrowed his eyes at her, recognizing the warning signs that the Israeli was about to use some bit of information against him. “You got McGee’s book!?”

“Oh, yes. McGee, very nice dedication page, by the way,” Ziva replied smoothly, holding up the book. “Let me see!” Tony yelped. Gibbs glared as his senior agent raced towards the Israeli’s desk, but Ziva had quickly closed the book, preventing Tony from seeing anything but the cover.

“There’s a copy in your desk, DiNozzo” McGee piped up softly, giving Tony a small smile. McGee watched in amusement as Tony preceded to rummage through his desk contents, but turned his head back to his monitor as his partner found the book. Little moments like these could give their relationship away; in any case, he knew Ziva and Gibbs wouldn’t want to witness one of their sappy mind-reading moments.

Flipping through the first few pages, Tony ‘s eyes were drawn to the dedication page, recognizing his name with delight:


For Big D, whose impatient and whiny friendship supports me more than anything.

Below that was a handwritten note, carefully scrawled out in the blank vastness of the page:

01001001001000000110110001101111011101100110010100100000011110010110111101110101