WAH

[nny]

I am just too freakin' tired to react to anything properly right now, so don't expect sense. The ridiculous artifice of an Inspector week is getting me down; no one deserves Outstanding judgement if their lesson went smoothly due to removing the EAL boys, okay? LEARN TO DIFFERENTIATE, YOU SELFISH LAYABOUTS.

Work day usually starts at 8-8:30, ends at 2:45 - today I got home at 6:30 due to helping a kid make a powerpoint for an assembly that the deputy head wants to take credit for. And it's about Iran. And he wants to include how Tintin went to Iraq in it. What. The. Fuck. I'm just fed up with stupidity in all its many and varied forms, and if I hear another kid make a rape joke, threaten to report me for pulling a hood off their head, invoke any of the permutations of 'your mum' or call someone gay I am seriously going to snap and kill them all. OKAY? OKAY.

I have learned how to get angry. Now need to learn how to switch it off again. XD

Comments

[la_rainette]

*runs to you quickly and hugs from behind*

*runs off again before head can be bitten off*

:p

part 1

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

Tim doesn't knock anymore. He should, probably. Maybe. Or at least he thinks he should, except that implies a set of rules to follow and that's gotten a lot more complicated over the years.

Not that it was any easier before, really, maybe less variables but -

Grimacing at himself, Tim mentally tells his spinning brain to go take a hike. It doesn't matter if he knocks or not. It doesn't even matter if he's supposed to or not. The important part is when he pushes against the cracked, faded paint around the doorknob and steps over the threshold.

Flat air greets him. It's unsurprising, so Tim dumps the bag hanging painfully around his wrist on a counter and starts. Like usual, he does too much. He knows it's too much while he's doing it, but he can't really bring himself to care.

When he finds himself wondering if there are cleaning products under the sink, he revises that statement.

"Okay," he tells the empty, empty apartment. "I think we're through here."

"And just what, McChuckles, are you through with?"

Tim doesn't wince at the anger simmering underneath forced cheer. He doesn't smile nervously or start to babble, and not just because he's trying very hard to stop those things on his own. He doesn't need them here.

Looking across the blanket-strewn sofa, Tim offers a cocky grin. "What I was doing."

"Ah ha! Clever boy." Tony's lips move, and his teeth are bared, but no one could call what he's doing a smile.

Tim's tongue tingles with the need to say I could go. Do you want me to stay? I don't mind if you want to be alone. Normal McGee words that beg for someone to tell him what to do, give him a job, some indication that he's doing the right thing. More and more the answers are coming from internal sources - although a few externals will always mean the most - but he doesn't need it this time.

It doesn't matter if Tony wants him to leave, or wants him to stay. Tim's not giving him the option.

"Here."

Tony stares, surprised, but remains quietly still while Tim gets his jacket off and a beer in his hand, pushing him gently into a sofa specifically messed up to welcome him. "Pizza? Or do you want muscles?"

"You hate muscles. You keep calling them chewy, Bacca."

A Star Trek reference? Tim lets that go with nothing but a raised brow, more concerned with the listless quality in Tony's voice. Sitting seems to have broken something, flakes of that hard outer shell drifting to lay at his feet while he sips and stares at nothing at all.

Muscles it is, then. Tim places the order, getting something non-chewy for himself. The phone makes a double-click when Tim hangs up and briefly he contemplates just deleting it entirely. Just a push of a button, cool, tacky plastic underneath his finger and poof, gone.

Gibbs would do that.

Tim listens. Scowls. Deletes it.

part 2

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

"Why the McFace?"

"That was probably the lamest one you've come up with." Kitchen work done, Tim sits on the sofa and tries not to stare. There are options here, and he's not so good at options. Well, people options.

Tim is good at finding answers. Not providing them.

"Did you grab yourself a beer? You should." Tony's voice always goes rough, like wood rubbed against grain, when he's being sincere. It always warms Tim to hear it, but right now he wishes for the banter they usually indulge in. Tony's shoulders are slumped, fingers listless as they rub against the beer.

Which needs replacing, he notes, and pops up to get another one.

"No. I had - "

Ah. Mentally juggling a few possibilities, Tim goes for the scotch buried at the back of the cabinet above the sink. Why there is a subject of a lot of mental cogitation. It makes no sense.

It also doesn't need to.

Three fingers later, and Tony actually looks at him. "Timothy."

"Tony." Not Anthony. Not those games where they play what-name-now and pull-my-pigtails. Tim wants to erase that word from the lexicon, right now, and idly tries to think of ways to do it. Hack the OED?

"You don't have to be here."

"That's the most idiotic thing you've ever said and you say a lot of spectacularly dumb things. Food'll be here in a few minutes."

"Muscles, right. Which you don't like. Same with my bed all messed up, the way I know it wasn't when I left in the morning."

There's no accusation, which Tim finds he's missing. Just quiet observation, the kind Tony makes all the time and masks with a goofy grin and a dirty mouth. Months and years of wanting to peel back all those layers and all Tim wants now is to reseal them, one by one.

"But you like it when it is."

Things that make Tony comfortable are wild and varied and, at heart, fall on a very small list. One Tim gets a lot more clearly than he did just a few days before.

"Timothy McGee." Tony turns his face into the stupid lights that shine down from his mantel where art is supposed to go, then looks back over at him. He can't see, of course, nothing but burning balls of light and deadspace hovering behind.

But Tim can. And in that moment, Tony leans over long enough to kiss him softly, gently, with a sweetness that Tim's certain no one would ever believe.

Which is only one reason he doesn't try to talk about it.

"Thanks," Tony says, and, "you got me extra garlic in those muscles, right? Because you know what that means!"

Normally it means the beginning of an argument about who gets to eat garlic and why they're alone afterward. Now, Tim just shakes his head with a small smile, and pushes to his feet. "Asshole," he says, and grins while Tony stutters into laughter.

Re: part 2

[villainny.livejournal.com]

*clinghugs*

Thank you. Just about a million times, and then one more on top.

♥

Re: part 2

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

http://ladycat777.livejournal.com/1071701.html?#cutid1

Now with nifty beta'ing! Or at least editing. By me. Sorry.

[ladyflowdi.livejournal.com]

::hugs you so hard:: I'm sorry your day has been shittastic :( :( :( ::SMISHES YOU:: I hope at least by now you're tucked away in bed and forgetting that today even happened.

Or if not, enjoying something fruity and alcoholic.

::SMISHES SOME MORE::