Evil Author Day: Hidden

Title: Hidden
Author: Ladyholder
Fandom: NCIS & The Sentinel
Pairing: Tony/Gibbs
Word Count: 1587
A/N: Because you know I had to have written something in this ‘verse before

 

 

There was never a point in Tony’s life that he could point to and say that this moment, this instance was what had made him suddenly realize that he was a Guide. The fact that he was a Guide had been something that had been written into his DNA from the moment of his conception and he had never had to learn what he was. He just knew. He knew how to assess the emotional flavor of any room he entered within seconds and adjust his behavior accordingly. Tony had figured out how to draw every eye in the rooms or fade so far into the background that no one would notice that he was even there.

These were useful skills to have when you were the only child of Marco DiNozzo, founder of the DiNozzo empire. The heir to his throne as the young boy heard his father say many, many times. Normally right before mentioning what a disappointment he was because he wasn’t doing something the way his father would have. But he had learned quiet and stillness and just gazed back at him, hiding the flinches as he was both verbally and mentally screamed at. By the time he was six, his mental shields were strong enough that when he went in for the standardized testing that all school-aged American children did, he didn’t even ping on the testing Guide’s senses.

The school became a place to escape and Tony would have loved it for that fact alone, but he found that he was good at it. In fact, he excelled at it. Every subject that caught his attention, he gave his all to and soon his grades reflected this trend. English, science, history, art, music, everything but pure math got grades that his father actually approved of and even boasted about to his cronies. After all, he had chosen the school, only the best for his son.

As Anthony grew older, his abilities both allowed him to fade even further into the background and conversely made him stand out even more. Like most Guides, the inner beauty of his soul was reflected by an outer comeliness and his father wasn’t above using a good looking son to his benefit. With the advent of puberty, Marco found that his son was attracting more and more attention and not all of it was the type that even he would sanction. When two men who were the unacknowledged predators of their level of society tried to take young Tony from a function, Marco decided to remove the temptation and put his son into boarding school.

In boarding school, the pressure cooker of the students pushed at the natural shields that Tony had formed in his father’s house and eventually broke them. The only saving grace for his classmates was the break happened over one Christmas holiday when he wasn’t allowed home. The school discreetly got him a tutor in his gifts and called home to let his father know what had happened to his son. Tony had been sitting in the room with the headmaster of the school when that call had gone through. The less said about that conversation, the better.

After he had come online, he was rarely allowed home. Sometimes, he felt that his father was afraid of him, but Tony couldn’t accept that as the reason. Or, not the only reason for his father’s behavior. He quickly outstripped his Guide tutor and they had contacted the local Center for additional assistance. The lead Guide there had come out to his school and tested him on what he knew and the strength of his abilities. Once the man had calmed down, Tony had wrangled a day pass out of the headmaster and went to the Center daily for the rest of his time at the boarding school.

He had started attending mixers at seventeen but hadn’t been hopeful. There was something in him that knew that his Sentinel wasn’t going to be found that way. But he had to try and the events were sometimes fun. At least the food was good. And for a kid who was going to college on his own dime and scholarships, free food was a blessing. Ohio State was good for him that way and he thrived at the school.

PhysEd was a good degree in that it allowed him to use his hands and kept him in shape. Plus very useful as a fallback in case his Criminal Justice degree didn’t get him hired for a while. Football, basketball, studying and the mixers where his life for the four years that he was in school until he managed to totally fuck his leg up in a game. Sighing in defeat at the thought of how much rehab he had in front of him, Tony kissed the possible pro career he had been hoping for goodbye. So long easy money.

Damn it.

Knuckling down, Tony finished off his CJ degree and as soon as he was declared healed and whole by his rehab nurses, he applied for a job at a police department. Something, somewhere within him was saying that this was how he was going to meet his Sentinel. He just knew it.

 

~//~

 

The silver-haired man walked out of the conference room and carefully closed the door. Eyes closed he leaned back against it and paused, obviously breathing deeply.

“Jethro?” a hand slowly came up to rest on his shoulder as the owner tried to find out what was wrong. “Was there something wrong with the guy you were interviewing?”

Blue eyes blinking in confusion, Leroy Jethro Gibbs stared at his boss, Director Tom Morrow. “No, nothing is wrong with the guy, more something is really right. And how the hell his last few departments missed this, I will never, ever know.”

“Huh? Gibbs, you sounded like Abby right there. Translate that for me please?” Morrow asked, concern coloring his voice.

Pulling in a deep breath, Jethro tried to contain his excitement. “DiNozzo’s a Guide.”

Eyes round with shock over the news, the Director stared at the man who was his second in command. “You have got to be kidding me. The kid who left three different precincts is a Guide? No one willingly lets a Guide go. Not even us!”

“Tom, you know I’m never wrong when it comes to Guides. Hell, I’ve found several who never got tested and went on to Bond with other Sentinels. He is an Unbonded Guide and a powerful one at that. And DiNozzo knows what he is. He’s too buttoned-down not to know. I want him on my team.”

“Why?”

“Because I haven’t been this drawn to anyone, let alone a Guide since Shannon was killed.”

 

~//~

Like every other Guide how had graduated from the American school system, Tony had gone to numerous Sentinel/Guide mixers in an effort to find his match. There had been several Sentinels who had caused his heart to beat a bit faster in attraction, but none of them sparked the desperate need to Bond that his training told him would happen when he met his true Mate. So after he had graduated college, he had firmed up his shields, told no one about his abilities and become a cop. And that had been enough for almost six years until he had worked a shared jurisdiction case with a Leroy Jethro Gibbs from NCIS. The man was a Sentinel, one with all his senses enhanced and he was Tony’s Bonded Mate.

Applying for the open position at NCIS had been daunting. Gibbs hadn’t acknowledged Tony’s status as a Guide in any way and so he was working blind. The interview process had been grueling and yet liberating. The revelation that he had the job and was going to work with the one man who was his match had been intoxicating and yet… Stepping back onto the grounds of the Navy Yard was both the hardest and at the same time, the easiest thing that Anthony DiNozzo had ever done in his life. The hardest because it was a new place to work, new people, to become accustomed too, and new routines to learn. It was also the easiest because there was something there that just screamed ‘home’ to him, a place where he could fit in and be himself.

Tony sent his empathy out to get a ‘preview’ of his coworkers as he paused outside of the building where he would be working. Most of the minds residing inside belonged to good, decent people, and the few who weren’t were likely suspects given their positioning. There also seemed to be several bonded Sentinels inside and that spoke well of how NCIS handled Pairs and their attendant issues. Taking a deep breath, Tony squared his shoulders and opened the door, it was ten minutes to seven and time for him to get to work.

~//~

Seven AM and Gibbs had been in the office for the last two hours. Snorting at how anxious he was to see DiNozzo, Jethro took another sip of his coffee and then scowled down at the empty cup. The damn thing was empty and a quick sniff told him that the pot in the break room had run dry and burned again. There was no way he was going to be able to drink anything out of that pot until it was cleaned and cleaned well. Time to hit the pot he kept in Abby’s lab.