tBS – What are the Chances?

Title: What are the Chances?
Author: Saydria Wolfe
Fandom: NCIS, JAG
Characters: pre-Tony DiNozzo/Brad Pitt, side AJ Chegwidden/Harmon Rabb
Prompt: Wet
Tags: Sentinels and Guides are known, Episode related – S.W.A.K.
Word Count: 998
Warning: No beta
Summary: Dr. Brad Pitt gets one hell of a surprise.

 

 

“Lieutenant Commander?”

A hand lands on his shoulder and Brad is instantly aware it’s a bonded sentinel. He looks up to see who needs him but his eyes are blurry. He blinks for focus and wetness rolls down his cheeks, he’s…crying?

“Brad, are you okay?” The Admiral asks.

It’s not time for the Admiral’s monthly unbonded check-ups. That was, what? Last week. His eyes slide to his nurse hovering beside Guide Rabb. She nods to him once and ducks away, back into the room with- with-

“I found my sentinel,” He whispers knowing the sentinel before him will hear regardless of volume.

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

“I’m treating him for Plague.”

The Admiral sucks in his breath and Brad just nods. The Plague pretty much wiped out sentinels in Europe almost 600 years ago because sentinels couldn’t not help. Most of them couldn’t fight the imperative to do everything possible to protect the Tribe and the bacteria had really liked them.

He’s mentally wandering. He’s aware he’s wandering because he doesn’t want to focus on the face that the perfect sentinel for him has an infection that is just as likely to make him dormant as to bring him online.

Christ, he’s lucky he didn’t make Anthony DiNozzo dormant himself, when he broke the asshole’s leg in ‘92.

“You have a duty here,” Chegwidden says, drawing Brad’s attention back to him. “No matter how it goes you have to get him through this. He needs you at the top of your game. You need you at the top of your game because as long as he’s alive there’s a chance he could come online. He’s depending on you, Brad.”

“Right,” He begins nodding and isn’t quite sure how to stop. “Right.”

“What do you need?”

Brad’s mind goes blank but not really blank, thoughts are just going too fast for him to hold on to them. “Uh, Emma. Is good. We can do this. We will do this.”

Rabb moves around his sentinel and pulls Brad up and into a hug.

“What do we need to do?” Rabb asks in his ear after several moments.

Brad pulls back but doesn’t let go. “He’s under the lights, in a controlled setting. We started an IV to increase the efficacy of the streptomycin.” He forces himself to think. “X-rays. We need to find out that status of his pneumonia.”

“Okay, what else? Do we need to find him a reason to pull through?”

Pretty sure Kate has that covered with the sort of challenge/blame/competition dynamic the two have going on. It’s kind of cute, like a sibling thing. Kate is the one that knows his sentinel best on a personal level and she’s convinced the challenge will help. “That’s covered.”

Rabb rears back shocked and Brad has to review what he’s said. “Not that. I didn’t tell him. I can’t, it would be cruel and unethical.”

“Then?”

“He has a co-worker in there with him. She’s not infected but refuses to leave and she’s motivating him to get better. Trying to.”

Flirting with Emma seems to help too. Brad hasn’t picked up any intent or sexual interest in his nurse but the act of it improves his sentinel’s mood. It amuses him, and that can only help.

“What about his family?”

“The hospital hasn’t gotten back to me about them.”

“How long has it been?”

Uh, “Over twenty hours?”

“I’ll find out what’s going on.” Chegwidden offers. “What’s your sentinel’s name?”

“Tony, Anthony DiNozzo.”

The Admiral’s eyebrows shoot up. “Gibbs’s DiNozzo?”

That’s a kick in the chest. His sentinel has a lover?!?

“DiNozzo is Gibbs’s subordinate,” Rabb hastens to comfort. “They are a team. They just investigate together.”

“Best investigators at NCIS.” Chegwidden puts in. “Gibbs is an unbonded alpha sentinel. Probably taking apart whoever did this right now.”

Four hours later, Chegwidden is proven right.

He and Emma are holding his sentinel, supporting him as he chokes up what sounds like an entire lung. He can hear Kate sobbing behind him, saying the one thing Brad’s been refusing to let himself think for hours now.

Emma goes stiff, her eyes fixed over his shoulder and Brad turns to see a complete idiot pushing his way through the room’s airlock.

Just before his can give the man what for, that idiot gives him the best fucking news he has ever heard.

“The bug had a suicide gene.”

“It’s dead?”

“Been dead for over an hour.”

Brad has to spin and grab the bed to keep his feet. He watches the alpha crouch beside his sentinel and growl. “You will not die, you got that?” Tony continues to struggle and the alpha taps his head harder than Brad would advise but he can feel the surge of alpha command as he repeats himself. “I said, you. Will not. Die.”

Tony goes very still. “Got it, Boss.”

The alpha nods and puts something in his sentinel’s hand. He puts Tony’s clenching hand on his chest and says something sarcastic but Brad can’t hear it. Tony’s eyes are on him. He can feel the sentinel’s mind surge like it’s breaking through some kind of barrier and Brad can’t move, he doesn’t want to.

He can feel so much and so little and it’s so focused and- Tony’s fingers inch his hand down the bed until they brush Brad’s gloved hand.

It’s a question. A hope.

Brad shouldn’t. He really, really shouldn’t but he can’t leave his sentinel hanging. He can’t. He pulls off his glove and sets his hand right back where it was.

There’s a hesitation. He can feel his sentinel’s eyes on him like a physical thing. He can also feel acceptance and satisfaction and the first traces of sexual desire he’s felt from the man in damn near two days.

A hand lays over his and he can’t help but smile.

Tony smiles back weakly before closing his eyes, radiating a low-level smugness. “Guide.”

“Sentinel.”

 

 

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5 Comments:

  1. This is a wonderful twist on the tale! Love it!

    Thank you

  2. HELL YES!!!!! 😀

  3. So sweet with an edge of sadness, given the minor detail of the plague!

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