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instantnoooodles · 1 year ago

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things you will see on a road trip across america

-so much desert that you will get scared

-seriously from california to new mexico is terrifying like it’s eight straight hours of pale red desert and the sky is so large that everything, even your car, even your hands, looks like a tenuously small and fragile diorama placed on an endless pale red table and left there to dissolve.

-a gas station that for some reason has large dinosaurs made out of scrap metal. they are 1000% awesome. sometimes they move. take a million pictures.

-a fruit stand that sells the best fruit you have ever eaten. later you won’t quite remember which fruit. strawberries, maybe? peaches?

-small black birds, subtly different in every state. some have gold eyes and some are a little iridescent and some are black from beak to toes. the sparrows they compete with for crumbs look exactly the same wherever you go.

-a completely empty rest stop. no one eats at the concrete tables. no one plays in the tiny strip of grass or gravel. you will find a small and beautiful stone.

-a hawaii license plate, somewhere around ohio. i still don’t know how they get the cars across the ocean. i don’t know why anyone would leave hawaii for ohio. i don’t know why anyone lives in ohio.

-an incredibly weird duck. you had no idea ducks could look so incredibly weird, and you wish you were still ignorant of how incredibly weird ducks can, apparently, look.

-a small folksy roadside waystation that sells fudge and incredibly tacky statues of eagles and wolves and cowboys. if you like fudge, eat the fudge from here.

-a lizard doing pushups. if you are particularly fortunate: many lizards doing pushups.

-approximately one gajillion starbucks shops. don’t bother counting them. it will make you angry.

-a storm somewhere around oklahoma, if you’re lucky. the clouds tower up in fantastic fluffy castles miles and miles into the air and are painted pink and gold and purple and the sky turns a dozen impossible shades of blue and when the rain comes down over your car it sounds like the world is ending.

-weird burrs will stick to your legs. you’ll flick them out of the car eighty or eight hundred miles from where their parent plant was grown, and not be sure whether you should wish the little hitchikers well or not.

-a dog wearing sunglasses with his head hanging out of a car window. this will be the high point of the trip.

-the world’s most depressing restaurant. you will know it when you wind up there and have to eat the terrible food, and listen to the terrible music, and look at all the listless waiters and want to tell them get in my car, for god’s sake get in, i’ll take you out of whatever crapsack little town this is that you can’t get out of on your own. but you won’t say that because it’s rude. maybe they have family here. maybe they even like it here.

-a painting of a sailboat in a motel located at least a hundred miles from any significant body of water.

-several genuinely hilarious postcards. buy them.

-a cat that will not let you pet it. this will be the low point of the trip.

-corn. so much corn you will get scared. who the fuck is going to eat all this corn?

-a small stream in some small woods and the light will come down perfectly and the water will be beautiful and the grass will be beautiful and there will be flowers maybe or the leaves of the trees are starting to turn gold and there are birds chirping and it will be so perfect you will want to stand there and stay forever and live in this little magical painting off the side of the highway and be some kind of highway druid. but instead, you’ll get bored after a while, and get back in the car.

#and it never gets old #and it never will #road trips #also not featured #a restaurant with the best food you've ever had #you can never remember the name but you do remember the sticky table #weird hotels #the weirdest hotels you've ever seen #Lakes! stop and look at the lakes #sand in the car #you have not been to a beach this trip but there is still sand in the grooves of your seat #I miss road tripping #I miss the mountains

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instantnoooodles · 2 years ago

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A Driving Force

An ancient ask from an old friend, it came to me in a dream. Viola.

Gibbs x Reader | No use of [Y/n] | 3.2 k | Mentions of Childbirth, swearing, pregnancy, mentions of sex, fluff with little to no angst

Pregnancy has got you ready to throttle your husband.

Nearly eight months pregnant, and you are going to kill someone.

Someone's name is Jethro.

Jethro, who- after your first baby- thought it would be a swell idea to have another (don't get me wrong, he is more than good at making them, it's the labor and the first trimester that does you in.) Jethro, who is at work and not at home making you tea or rubbing your calves, or doing literally anything other than being at work. It's driving you nuts, and your son may as well be training for the baby Olympics. There's no reprieve, not with a heating pad, not with an exercise ball, not with the piss-poor excuse for a nap you'd tried to take, nothing.

So you do what anyone would've done: You drive your ass to his work and give the security guards some vaguely veiled threats to let you up to the bullpen.

And naturally, he's nowhere to be found.

"I am going to kill that man," you grumble, reclining in his chair, leaning your head back, and closing your eyes. Ironically enough, the background noise helps- you feel more relaxed than at home.

The elevator dings, and in comes the trio. (McGee- you assume- is down in the lab. Jethro says he prefers it to fieldwork some days.) And- naturally- they're yelling.

"I had him!"

"You had shit! That dude outran you by miles! He's halfway to Timbuktu right now!"

"Dinozzo-"

"Boss, I am telling you-"

"Dinozzo."

They stop in the bullpen, and you stand, hand over your stomach, and downright glower at your husband. "Leroy."

Tony's face crumples into something like horror, Kate looks like a bomb might go off, and Jet- well, he looks a little south of terrified. As he should.

"Sweetheart," He walks toward you, hands outstretched, and immediately goes in for a gentle peck on the cheek. You swat him away. He frowns comically.

"Your son is driving me up a wall."

"You shouldn't be driving like this," he reaches down and caresses the bump. Damn him and his soft voice. Usually, you only hear it in the comfort of your home, never at work, and maybe that's what melts your resolve of putting up a fight.

You sigh, slouching into him and leaning your head into the crook of his neck. He takes it all in stride, cupping his hand on the back of your head, drawing circles with his thumb on that place where the base of your skull meets your neck. It makes you fall apart like a card tower. You groan- he has the decency not to laugh, just winds his other arm around your waist. "Is he giving you a hard time?" It's asked softly, gently, kindly, with all the warmth of a roaring fire and the bourbon in the basement. This is the Jet that makes you question if he's really an agent.

"He's been kicking my bladder for hours," you groan into his shirt. It smells like sawdust and mint. "You'd think he's training for boot camp in there."

Jethro rubs gently at your waist- Tony and Kate sit quietly at their desks and have the decency to stop arguing. Tony even takes a field trip to God knows where- it makes you smile. "Better or worse than Dani?"

Dani is your nearly five-year-old. A bundle of joy and Jethro's entire world, she has a smile to light up a room.

And a temper to rival Hell, she gets it from her dad, but he handles her well.

You scoff. "Dani didn't take up gymnastics, and if I recall correctly, you missed the first eight hours of my labor."

"Twenty more to go- didn't miss much." You smack him gently on the back, and he only chuckles and continues to rub the muscles of your hips and neck. "You damn near broke my hand."

"Twenty-eight hours of labor, Jethro. You're lucky I didn't break every bone in your body and shoot you." He mumbles something like 'touche', and you stand in silence for a moment. Jet quietly says 'here' and untangles himself from you (you nearly kill him) until he spins around. Facing your back and winding his arms around to your stomach, he reaches underneath your bump, intertwines his fingers, and lifts.

You come this close to moaning in the middle of NCIS headquarters.

Jet started doing this sometime towards the end of the second trimester when your bump became less of that and more like a mound. (These days, it feels more like a mountain.) The muscles in your abdomen relax, and the relief is instantaneous. Your head lols back onto his shoulder, and you kiss the underside of his jaw. "Thank you."

It comes out in a whisper, but he gets the idea and returns the gesture to your forehead. "'Course sweetheart," And then you just stand there. It could be hours- it could be seconds. Realistically, it was probably closer to ten minutes. Jethro is strong, despite his age and his appearance. If you asked him he could probably do this for another hour and then some. Come to think- he'd do anything you asked him to. And you'd do the same, quite frankly, but right now- right now this is plenty.

Jethro releases the weight of your baby boy slowly, oh-so-gently and it nearly makes you sob (damn pregnancy hormones) and hugs you from the side, careful not to undo the release he's just given you. You peck his cheek, leaning into the embrace, and close your eyes.

And then water splashes down your leg, down your pants, and onto a puddle in the NCIS bullpen.

Motherfucker.

Echoed both in your head and out loud by your husband, Tony chooses this perfect moment to come barreling into the room. "Boss, we got something- oh shit."

"Dinozzo, go get my car," and Jet hurls the keys at Tony's head. Tony, with all his goofiness and jokes, makes none about the situation and beelines for the staircase, Kate hot on his heels.

Contraction number one hits with full speed, nearly taking you to your knees, and Jet hugs you around your waist, keeping you from collapsing and yanking the phone from his back pocket. "If the nurse doesn't give me an epidural this time, you have my full permission to shoot them."

"Yes ma'am," he says, throwing the phone onto his desk. You don't see what he's done with it, you're too busy trying to stand.

The contraction fades, you rise, and Jethro rises with you. "You're early."

"Dani was three weeks early," you breathe deeply through your nose and out through your mouth.

"This is nearly four."

"Well, then, Jet, get a damn move on." And move he does. He makes sure you're standing steady first, before flying behind his desk to grab a bag. You do a double take. "You keep the hospital bag in your office?"

He gives you a quick peck on the cheek, slinging the bag over his shoulder and guiding you toward the elevator. "Been with me for two months now, sweetheart."

You're going to sob.

Jet's gentle hand on your elbow and back gets you both to the elevator in one piece. An agent- you don't know who- is standing there as the doors ding open. Jethro gives him a look that could freeze over hell as he turns around to ask what floor, and the mystery agent steps out.

You poke the 'G' button as another contraction punches through you. Jet gets you to lean against the cool metal wall as the elevator begins to move, and you grip his forearm tight. You're not swearing, not yet, just breathing deeply, but at this rate, you'll be calling the doctor a fuckwad the minute you walk through the hospital doors.

Tony and Kate (bless their hearts) have the car running right out of the elevator in the parking garage. Tony reaches for your arm to help you in but a sharp, "Hands off my wife, DiNozzo!" Stops him dead in his tracks. Kate steps in as Jet throws the bag in the backseat. He opens the passenger door while Kate leads you.

"You're gonna do great, call us when the baby's here, and we'll handle the case, Gibbs." The last part is directed toward your husband, who takes your other forearm as you sit gingerly in the car.

He drives like Jethro. Which is to say: Like a maniac.

You don't complain, even if it feels like you're in the middle of a police chase. He cuts the fifteen-minute drive to the hospital in half, skidding to a halt in front of the maternity wing, and barely remembers to turn off the car before reaching behind him to snag the bag and half-carry you to the doors. You can hardly blink before they've got you in a room, changed into a hospital gown, and are telling you to push.

Mike Leroy Gibbs' labor clocks in at a whopping two hours.

It's a very painful two hours. Jet may have threatened several doctors and nurses to give you an epidural (who complies, you don't know the details and you don't want to.) They whisk him away to check vitals and clean him up, though Jet also threatens to maim or seriously injure someone if Mike isn't in your arms in fifteen minutes.

He's returned rather quickly (you have a feeling you'll have to do damage control when you give a shit.) And he is the cutest bundle of warm brown hair and the brightest blue eyes you ever did see.

You don't let Jethro hold him for something close to an hour, you damn near fall asleep with him on your chest for a little while, but with a soft, "Jet, look at your son." He takes him

Jethro is pretty quiet while he holds him- he was the same with Dani, awestruck by her existence and speechless. He coos at Mike, who's fast asleep, and sways him gently back and forth. He sits down, the armchair pulled as close to your hospital bed as it can get, with one hand cradling your son and the other holding your hand, rubbing gentle circles on the meat of your thumb.

(You crushed his forearm during labor. Not literally, Jethro is still injury free, but there will be bruises in a few days. He knows how sore you are though, and if he wasn't occupied with his new son, you'd be sure he'd be giving you a massage. He was just as good- if not miles better- than when you gave birth to Dani. He was on a case, deep cover, and didn't get the phone call from Ducky or the hospital until you were well into labor. Ducky's phone call was far more urgent- Gibbs drove at least forty over to get to you.)

"Jet, I gotta call Donovan, he still has two more days with Dani-"

"Already taken care of sweetheart."

You're going to melt. Absolutely dissolve into a pile of lovey-dovey goo. "Thank you."

He brings your hand to his lips to kiss each of your knuckles. "He's on his way, your brother drives slower than I do-"

"Jethro, everyone drives slower than you."

The corner of his lips twitch upward at that, and he doesn't argue.

The room is... nice. It's the only way to describe it. You feed Mike, and Jet is respectful and goes to find you OJ while you do it. "It doesn't make me uncomfortable, hun. Figured you could just use some time with him, skin to skin."

Yeah, you're gonna cry.

You actually do, while he's away and Mike has finished. It's not sad tears, they're definitely happy. When Jethro comes back he seems to know it, you don't even have to say anything, he just sits on the side of the bed, curls an arm behind your shoulders, and pets your hair. There are kisses laid atop your head, and he rubs your bicep. He whispers in his soft voice, the one you're so used to hearing that when you visit him at work his 'Boss' tone makes you do a double take. (Is it hot? Absolutely. But there's nothing quite like the quiet tone he uses when he asks if you're ready for bed.)

You sniffle, Mike shifts in your arms as Jethro wipes a tear and a series of gentle knocks at the door sound through your hospital room. One, two, three, four, five, heads poke through the sliver in the open door. "Boss? Can we come in?"

Gibbs looks to you for permission before answering. You nod and smile softly, and he beckons to the agents. Abby and Kate file in first, closely followed by Tim, then Ducky, who holds the door open for Tony, who's carrying two huge plastic bags filled with something that smells magical.

Abby gives you the first hug, careful to avoid your newborn, she wraps an arm around your shoulder while Jethro untangles himself from you to help Tony. ("Did ya buy enough for the whole wing, Dinozzo?")

Kate comes in next, taking Abby's place with a hug around your shoulder. You share grins, and she asks you how the labor was- the conversation is easy and nice. (Everyone knows how bad Dani's labor was. You've come into the office a few times a month, usually with coffee or breakfast, or-hell, even dinner for your husband and his crew when the nights turn long. You used to come in once a week during the first trimester. You and Gibbs would be in the NCIS bathroom with your head in a toilet, hair held back, and circles rubbed on your shoulders. Those were rough days.)

"Do you wanna hold him?"

Kate looks a little dumbstruck. Ducky and Tim are giving her encouraging glances, grinning ear to ear. "Y-you're sure?"

You smile up at her, readjust, and hold Mike out. "Make sure to support his head, arm under his neck, keep the blanket- there you go." Kate kinda giggles- a breathy laugh escapes as she turns toward Gibbs and grins wide. He smiles back- then wider to you- and winks. To this day, it still gives you butterflies.

Kate moves around the room- pacing in circles, bounces your son in the crook of her elbow, and quietly talks with Ducky. Tim comes in for a small hug. "Congrats, Mrs. Gibbs. You feel alright?"

You scoff and pull him in with both arms. "I'm exhausted- I think Jet threatened someone for an epidural."

You give him a peck on the cheek as he steps back, unfolding himself. Tim blushes pink and smiles. "Anything I can do? Food? Clothes?" You nearly start crying again. "I make a mean quiche, waffles too- Abby's can vouch for me-"

You laugh (Jethro's eyes light up at the sound, Tony notices.) "That sounds wonderful, Tim. Thank you, I mean it."

He smiles, genuine, and you get the feeling sometimes Tony and Kate are a little hard on him. Then you remember how they rallied when he was in the hospital from a gunshot wound, and all those thoughts fade away.

"McGee! Get over here!" Tony yells from across the room, gesturing with a plastic knife.

Kate comes over to hand back Mike, but you gesture to Ducky. "Go ahead, Duck. I'm sure you've had your fair share of holding babies, don't make me lecture you."

Ducky smile kindly (everyone seems to be smiling lately, and as cheesy as it sounds, it makes you happy. The my-heart-hurts-with-happiness way. You think the work is thankful, but even that seems too small of a word for what you feel.) Kate hands Mike over, carefully, slowly- his head fits neatly into the palm of her hand, where it waits until Ducky re-settles the blanket over him.

Duckys' a natural- he sways with Mike and regals him with PG versions of his cases. Mike, sleepy and half-conscious, wiggles out of the blanket and wraps one of his teeny-tiny hands around the doctor's fingers. Abby and Kate coo and fold the blanket back over your son. They wiggle their own fingers at him, but Mike stays sound asleep, shifting minutely in Ducky's arms.

Tony comes in next for a one-armed, light hug. (You suspect Jet is behind that- you pull him in all the same. )

"Gibbs mentioned you were hungry," he gestures to the small table ladened with takeout boxes. "Said you were craving pasta."

You pull him back for another, tighter hug, gifting him with a peck on the cheek too, "Thank you, Tony, that's really sweet of you."

He blushes lightly, with a smug sort of look on his face. "You guys can keep the leftovers- McGee's idea."

You give his hand a squeeze instead of words, but he seems to get the idea, winking and holding up your shoulders while you sit up as Jet brings a plate over. He doesn't chastise Tony for his hand placement or the still-visible blush painted across his neck and cheeks, but you're more focused on the heavenly-smelling, rich, and sauce-loaded noodles being presented to you.

You groan. "You are a saint, hun. Thank you." You grab the plate and fork with eager hands. Tony laughs and meanders off to grab a plate of his own while Jet sits on the side of your bed. He's got his own plate- carefully portioned and balanced on one knee as he catches a noodle falling off your fork and nearly onto the sheets.

"Thanks," you reply with a mouthful, but it comes out more like a grunt. Jet gets the message anyway, smiling down at you. You're more at an even height now that you're sitting up, and you watch cheerfully as Ducky looks to you for permission to pass Mike to Abby.

Tim and Kate are chatting quietly. They look over at you and Jet once and a while. (You get the sneaky suspicion you won't have to cook or do chores in the house for months.) Tony is still ladling noodles onto his plate, and you watch as he hands a similar one to Ducky.

You didn't notice when they first entered- or maybe she was hiding it- but there's a little (not-so-little) bag sitting at Abby's feet as she takes Mike oh-so-gently from Ducky. You guess it might be something black- it'll contrast with his eyes, and you giggle internally at the thought. Abby sways over to Tony, rocking Mike in her arms- you think Tony calls him Giblet Number Two, and you roll your eyes playfully.

It hits you suddenly how happy you are, nearly knocks you breathless as you watch everyone crowd around Abby as Mike opens his eyes. This is... wonderful. You don't have words for it: you have everything you can ask for and more, and Jethro seems to read your mind (as always.) He reaches down to squeeze your free hand, looking sideways through his eyelashes. "I'm proud of you, sweetheart."

You smile tearily at him. "I know."

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