I had grown up in Stillwater. I was a single child. My best friend was Leroy Jethro Gibbs and we had grown up together, although he hated his name and I'd always called him Jet. We were the same age, we graduated high school together and then he went off to join the Marines. I had never told Jet that I was gay, 'cause truth be told, this was a small town. I had a crush on my best friend but I didn't let that ruin our friendship. So we stayed close friends until he went to join the Marines. Me, I chose to become a cop, so I went to the police academy. I joined up with Baltimore PD and I made my way up to detective by the age of twenty three. Things went good for me and I trained a few kids to make them good detectives too, the ones that were there for the justice.
Anthony DiNozzo was the best partner I'd ever had. He was already trained a little but I worked him hard and showed him some new tricks. About two months before he headed over to NCIS, I had transferred to New York City Gang Unit. I had a friend there that wanted me to move, and I was tired of Baltimore. Plus Tony was ready to work on his own. When he got transferred to NCIS, I was proud of him but we never talked about work. That worked well for me because we talked more about movies, that was our thing.
Then I took a bullet to my knee! Once I was ready to return the doctor basically said my knee would be a mess, possibly permanently but at best I would be out of commission for months and I would only be fit for light duties. So my chief basically said I couldn't be out on the streets so I had to do paper work. Now that really wasn't working for me! One day a friend called me, said he had a security company down in D.C., that did a bit of bounty hunter work on the side. It was good money and he wanted a good seasoned detective working for him. I could see myself doing that, it meant when my knee was back to working properly I could work as a bounty hunter, for now I can handle doing the searches.
Truth be told, doing desk duty was answering the phone a shit load. IN D.C. I would be doing some searches and going around asking questions, looking for a bounty. Which was cool with me. It was like detective work, I just wasn't able to go after them quite yet. I called Tony, who told me his spare room was free and I could rent it until I was ready to find my own place. That was my boy and we were still good friends. He was almost as close to me as Jet had been. The boy actually reminded me of him a little. I hadn't talked to Leroy since he joined the Marine, he had been too busy and keeping in touch was hard. So I just, well I guess, I didn't try to stay in touch either.
We knew kids a few years older than us that went into the military. They came back in wooden caskets. I told him I didn't want to lose him but I had said it all wrong. In fact, it went so wrong that we didn't talk again before he went off. I guess he had never forgiven me! We had said all those awful things to each other, the sort that everyone said & regretted in an argument, and I had never really had a fight that bad with him until then. The fact was that I had fallen for him, and we hadn't spoken since then. I mean there was only one thing I never told him about, and that was that I was abused by my old man 'cause he found out I was gay and he was a damn drunk.
When I got to D.C. Tony told me to come to the office, so I caught a cab to the Navy Yard. I went up to the office after clearing through Security. I hated the crutches and I made it to his desk. I grunted and looked at him.
"Nice set up, Tony. Way better then Baltimore PD." He laughed a little and nodded.
"Yep. And the team is better than a lot of those lazy assholes we worked with."
I smirked and nodded as I looked around. I looked at McGee and figured he was the computer geek of the team, then there was Ziva! He introduced me to them both. She seemed like she was a tough girl and could handle herself. I was looking at Tony and I laughed! He seemed to be doing well, I was proud of the boy. Then he glanced up and spoke again.
"Here's the Boss. He needs to check my paperwork then we can head home, Shawn."
I turned around and cursed under my breath to myself, "Yeah, this is how I reunite with Jet." Tony looked sharply at me, hearing what I'd muttered.
"What? You know the Boss?" I looked at him and just nodded.
"Yeah, we grew up together. We were those kind of friends that no one could separate." Tony just looked curiously at me.
"Tony, show him your damn paperwork so we can go home. I'm starved Tony."
Jet walked over towards us, looking at me.
"So, what, no hello?" I looked at him and stumbled slightly. He grabbed hold of my arm. I winced.
"Jet, I can't stand up any more. Get me a seat." I winced bad.
Gibbs snapped, "McGee get a chair over here, now. And Tony, call Ducky."
I took a deep breath. "Thanks Jet!"
I winced again as he kneeled down and rolled up my jeans. He took the brace off and looked at the knee. He put on a cool cloth that someone had fetched.
"You're not moving into Tony's place. It's got too many stairs, just to get to his place. You're moving in with me, you can sleep in the bedroom downstairs."
I went to stop him just as a small man with a black doctor's bag hurried up to us. Jet introduced him as the Ducky and explained that he is the ME for NCIS. He seemed like a nice man. He looked it over and I continued to wince when he touched it.
"We need to get him to the hospital, this wound is very infected and I can feel some fluid. My boy, whoever did this surgery, did a lousy job. We need to get you to the hospital before it gets to the point where you lose your knee. There was a man once in ….."
Gibbs got me up from the chair.
"Tony, help me! We'll get him to the car and then get him to the hospital. The rest of you guys can go home. Thanks, Ducky. You mind coming to make sure these doctors don't fuck up?"
Jet and Tony managed to get me to the hospital and into surgery. This wasn't exactly what I wanted to happen when I meet up with my best friend again. I wanted to tell him that I was sorry and ask if we were still tight?
Author's Chapter Notes:
He grew up with Gibbs. When Gibbs went in to the Military they fought lost contact. He shows back up in Gibbs life can they both admit to each other they were each others first love when they were teenagers.