"This is the law of the jungle/As old and as true as the sky./The wolf who keeps it may prosper;/The wolf who breaks it must die."

- Rudyard Kipling.

Someday, his team would kill him. Gibbs knew that from the day he came back from Baltimore with a half-fey who'd inherited his father's wolf curse.

Morrow looked up from the personnel file. "Years of you chewing through my best agents and this is what you bring me?"

Gibbs kept on his best blank look. "NCIS has a non-discrimination policy." Of course, that was more of a formality for the Accords than an actual practice of recruiting nonhumans, but Morrow wouldn't be able to deny the policy.

Morrow didn't look impressed. "So you bring back a half-feral wolf."

"File says the fey side helps him control the shift," Gibbs said mildly.

"And how's he going to get along with your other pet monster?"

"Abby," Gibbs said in a dangerous growl, "gets along with DiNozzo just fine." Admittedly, the first meeting had been tense, especially when DiNozzo had sniffed out the blood hiding in her Caff-POW cup, but once instinct got out of the way, Abby hadn't been able to resist fussing over the injured soon to be agent, and Tony was too contact starved to give more than one confused protest.

"And when he finds a pack and gets divided loyalties?"

Gibbs thought of the way DiNozzo was always a step behind him, of the way he ducked his head every time he feared he'd crossed a line. "Not a problem." He didn't know if that was how real wolves behaved, but he'd seen enough werewolf packs to know what that meant.

"Gibbs," Morrow said slowly, "you know what that means."

Gibbs did. The Accords were very clear on that. "You saying I'm weak, Director?"

Morrow scowled, but Gibbs could see him giving in. "You'll tell me when I need to transfer him."

It wasn't a question, so Gibbs didn't answer. He just grunted an acknowledgement of the statement and left.

Someday, Gibbs would get too old or too injured and DiNozzo would decide it was time for a new leader of the pack. Someday, Abby would get too thirsty or Gibbs would be bleeding too freely.

In the meantime, there were human criminals to arrest and supernatural criminals to be cornered into a challenge.

If his team killed him, they killed him. Gibbs didn't much care.

"A banshee, Boss? Really?"

Gibbs just kept sanding the boat. "Problem, DiNozzo?"

Tony held up his hands in quick surrender. "Banshees are fine. A little shrill, maybe, and kind of frustrating with the whole 'refusal to thwart destiny save once' thing, and I've got to tell you they smell like death, but - "

Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

" - but Kate and I will work it out, I'm sure," he said hastily.

"You've still got seniority," Gibbs reminded him.

Tony relaxed. "That's true. And Abby likes her, so she can't be all bad." He stretched and got too his feet. "Night, Boss." He wobbled a bit as he climbed the stairs.

"Guest room," Gibbs ordered without looking up.

"Yes, Boss."

Morrow was wearing that look again. "I'd hoped it was a good sign you'd chosen Agent Todd."

Translation: He'd thought it was a good thing Gibbs had chosen at least one team member that wasn't likely to kill him. Let him die, yes, but not kill him.

"McGee's human," Gibbs said. "Just like you requested."

"He's human," Morrow agreed. "A human wizard."

"An apprentice wizard," Gibbs corrected. "I'll make sure he doesn't dive too deep." Wizards that used too much magic had a bad tendency to lose bits of themselves and get a bit . . . Homicidal. Gibbs figured he'd get McGee to focus on the tech side of things and just use the magic to ease things along. "And the others are bonding over having a new teammate." Well, uniting against him. Tom-a-to, to-mah-to.

Morrow sighed. "Tell me you know what you're doing."

"Always do," Gibbs assured him.

McGee might kill him one day, but in the meantime, he was useful.

Hand to hand combat was a critical skill at NCIS. They might not be able to arrest a nonhuman, but the Accords allowed humans offended by things like fey kidnappings or trolls eating off duty sailors to force their offenders into a Challenge.

Unfortunately, their opponent got to pick the weaponry, and most of the magic touched preferred not to let humans make up for their weaknesses with high tech weaponry. Thus, hand to hand and archaic weapons.

Since McGee's idea of exercise was carrying a stack of spell books, Gibbs wasn't surprised to see Kate slamming him into the mat.

Tony slipped into the ring with fey grace. "Ready?"

In answer, Gibbs lunged forward, fist driving towards Tony's abdomen.

Tony sprang back. His form shuddered into a large wolf with dagger like fangs and shadows clinging to his coat.

In comparison, Gibbs looked almost frail. Weak. Human.

The match ended with Gibbs' arm pressed against Tony's neck.

DiNozzo shifted back, eyes wide with admiration. "Good match, Boss."

"You're improving," Gibbs allowed.

Someday, he'd fail to win, and it wouldn't be DiNozzo's arm on his neck, it would be his teeth ripping through it.

But not today. Today, DiNozzo glowed at the compliment, and the team fell in behind him as they went to solve the case.

Ari Haswari came. He left. He came back.

And Kate started singing Gibbs' death song.

It was a lot harder to pursue the case when he was trying to manage an overprotective werewolf, a panicking vampire, and an awkward wizard more accustomed to constructs than people and who was suddenly very interested in protection charms.

Kate handed him a bulletproof vest.

"Thought you couldn't interfere."

"This isn't interference. You'll know when I'm interfering."

"You could still die from a headshot," McGee said helpfully.

Tony growled. McGee gulped.

Banshees can only interfere once. Only one thing counts as interference, because only one thing works.

Ari fired a silver bullet.

Kate dove in front of it.

Banshees can only interfere once.

Zina was human. One hundred percent human.

She was, after all, from a long line of hunters. Gibbs wouldn't have expected anything else.

She respected Gibbs and tolerated McGee, but she kept a hand on her knives near Tony and Abby.

"You touch them, you die," Gibbs warned her.

The rest of it - her eagerness to jump straight to a Challenge, the tension that bubbled in the team - he'd manage that, first because Jen demanded it, then because he saw the desperation in Ziva's eyes.

But that first rule still held true.

Vance looked at the personnel files. "Do you have a death wish?" he demanded.

"I've got the best team in NCIS," Gibbs snapped back.

That was all he had. This job. This team. This - family.

There was a reason Gibbs had revoked his right to be Challenged over if one of his team struck the blow.

"You're too close to the issue. I'm splitting the team up - "

"And putting them where? Who else will take them?"

Vance conceded with poor grace.

Ziva left. Gibbs recruited Bishop.

Bishop, who was too thin and who ate and ate and ate.

"I food associate," she claimed.

"Don't care. No food in the bullpen."

Tony grabbed one of her chips. Her eyes turned black, and she lunged forward, teeth too sharp. Tony growled, suddenly larger.

"Enough," Gibbs growled. Both subsided.

Bishop flushed. "Also, I have, um, special dispensation."

He'd figured. "Bring enough to share." Tony's instincts demanded it, and the smell always dragged McGee out of a magic haze.

Gibbs added being eaten to the list of ways he was likely to die.

Bishop and McGee brawled on the mats, her deceptive strength against his experience and flickering spells.

Tony slipped into the ring, exactly as youthfully graceful as he'd been ten years before. "I've been looking forward to this. There's a new move I want to try."

Gibbs - older. Stiffer. Human.

It took every trick he knew to win.

"One day," Tony promised, grinning, before running after the departing McGee and Bishop.

Gibbs waited until the door slammed shut.

Then he collapsed to his knees, hunching over his bruised ribs. Ragged breaths burned his throat.

One day was getting close.

He could ask for a transfer to a safer team. Take a desk job. Retire, even. With the concerned looks Vance kept shooting him, it wouldn't be hard to get approval.

Then what, though? Everything he had, everyone he had, was here.

He wouldn't leave them. Even if they killed him for it.

Getting shot was never a picnic, but it used to be easier to be stoic about it. Now he didn't dare to take the pain mess for fear they'd cloud his mind, and he couldn't afford to rest. Without those things, his chest continued to ache, and his movements were slow. Ducky's less intrusive concoctions could only do so much.

Never show weakness. That was the most important rule, and he was failing. He cracked down harder on his team, desperately trying to stay in control.

It wasn't the idea of dying that bothered him. It wasn't worry for the team either; Tony would handle the team - or, as DiNozzo thought of it, the pack - well.

What bothered him was the idea of looking one of them in the eyes and seeing nothing but disgust or hunger or thirst. Of knowing that while he needed them, the reverse wasn't true.

Then the next case came in. A captain on the verge of retirement whose throat had been ripped out by a werewolf under his command that he'd been mentoring.

Young. Fit. Fierce. Gibbs looked across the deck at his opponent and felt every minute of his years.

It was his duty as Senior Agent to issue a Challenge on behalf of NCIS. His duty to make the kill. His job.

But he knew in his gut that he couldn't win this fight. NCIS was only allowed one Challenge per offender per crime. If he failed, this would go unavenged.

Because of his stubbornness, it would.

He could practically hear the wheels turning in McGee's mind, the questions bubbling in Bishop's. He could definitely hear the growl slowly building in Tony's throat.

It was the only solution. It was Tony's right to Challenge his place in the pack if he saw weakness. He could take out Gibbs, then move on to the perp, since he would then be the Senior Agent on the scene. If Gibbs didn't fight him, he would still be going strong enough to do it.

Tony stalked forward. The growl became a snarl. "You ungrateful, primitive dog." The words were barely comprehensible. "I Challenge you."

The perp backed up, suddenly uncertain. "You can't. You're not - "

Tony's frame was shaking. "Not for NCIS. For the honor of our kind." Tony leaped, shifting in midair.

The fight didn't last long.

Tony shifted back almost sheepishly. "That'll be a load of paperwork."

McGee and Bishop burst into spontaneous applause.

Tony tried to grin, but his eyes were on Gibbs, seeking approval.

Gibbs gave him a rare smile.

Vance looked down at the paperwork. "Fifteen arrests. Three NCIS challenges. And twelve personal challenges?"

Tony shrugged from his place at the conference table. "I have issues."

McGee had on his best emotionless mask. "They offended me."

"I was hungry," Bishop said through a full mouth.

Vance repressed a shudder and sighed. "And Miss Scuito? You're not even on the team."

"They insulted Gibbs!"

"And Mr. Palmer - "

The ghoul gulped. "They insulted Dr. Mallard. Um. Sir. And it was just one for me."

Vance turned to Gibbs.

Gibbs shrugged. "They get results."

"And the transfer I suggested . . . ?"

"Unnecessary," Gibbs said firmly.

The rest of the team agreed.

A/N: Prompt #15 - Die.