It's amazing the kind of inspiration a simple pile of leaves can provide...

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to NCIS or its characters. I do not make, nor do I seek to make, profit from this venture.

There was something about the fall that he'd forgotten. A recollection, dim and elusive, dulled with time and disuse, which he couldn't quite wrap his fingers around.

Maybe it was the light, how it seemed to make everything it touched all golden and soft. Perhaps it was the way the knife-edge of summer heat gently withdrew and left the memory of its passing warmth painted in a thousand fiery colors on the trees. Then again, maybe it was the cool, crisp, sweetly scented air which drifted in through still-open windows in the evenings, made him draw the covers tighter, curl around the new and strangely inviting warmth that inhabited his bed on most nights now. Whatever the case, he was suddenly aware of just how much he'd missed the fall.

Jethro Gibbs wasn't generally one to rhapsodize or wax philosophical about something as inane as the changing of a season or his feelings-if he was being honest, he was usually too busy burying his feelings to spend time analyzing them-but something was different inside of him lately, something warm and solid was shifting and straining within the confines of his boxed-in heart and it had put his head in a decidedly strange place.

He watched Tony across the yard and didn't need to ask himself where the change had started. Every answer he needed was found in the way the afternoon light of autumn played across the younger man's face, sharpening his edges and softening his eyes. Jethro watched the bunch and play of lean muscle through Tony's sweat dampened t-shirt as the younger man leaned against the rake in his grasp, wiping the heat from his brow, and wondered how his life could have come to this point.

Breath quickening as his mind presented him with a barrage of remembered sensations and images-Tony stretched naked on his bed in the moonlight- taste of the man's cum across his tongue for the first time-feeling of firm warmth pressed to his chest in the night-heaviness of impossibly long legs wrapped around his hips, draped over his shoulders, tangled with his own in the sheets-Jethro barely noticed the beads of cool condensation that dripped over his fingers from the two beers he held. His face felt warm even in the slightly chilly October sun and the front of his jeans suddenly tight.

He couldn't be certain when this thing they had started had gotten inside of him. He hadn't meant it to, hadn't thought it could, but here they were anyway, Tony sharing his bed, his home most weekends, cooking him eggs ala DiNozzo for breakfast, cleaning up the yard on a Saturday afternoon with only the slightest of bribes. And him, standing on his back porch with his dick aching and his beer getting warm all because he couldn't stop thinking about DiNozzo's tight ass for two minutes, the way he wanted to put his mouth to the skin at the base of the younger man's throat right fucking now just so he could discover for himself what it tasted like after kissing the fresh fall air. And that didn't even begin to cover the worst of it. To his great dismay he'd found his chest growing tighter, heavier when he looked at Tony recently. The great dusty cogs of his heart were trying to turn again against his will, to cast off the thick rust of memory which had rendered them immovable for so long.

It was fucking inconvenient as hell.

As if hearing his thoughts, Tony turned toward him and his face was hidden by the sun sinking behind. "You gonna stand there and let perfectly good beer get warm?" he called. "You know, you really should just buy a leaf blower, Gibbs."

"What the hell kind of fun would that be?" Jethro pulled himself out of his head, smiling as he descended the steps and walked toward him, squinting into the light.

"You call this fun?" Tony took the offered beer and jerked his head over his shoulder at the enormous pile of leaves he'd raked up from around the yard.

"Depends on how you look at it, I suppose." He sipped at his beer, not taking his eyes off of Tony as the younger man tipped his head back and took a generous swig, letting the cool liquid pour down his open throat until the bottle was half empty.

"All I'm looking at is a big pile of leaves we gotta haul out to the curb before you're gonna let me stop for dinner." Tony raised an eyebrow, daring Gibbs to prove him wrong.

Jethro sipped at his beer again and shrugged slightly, the tiniest hint of a smile playing at one corner of his mouth. "Guess you're just not looking at it closely enough."

He moved fast, swept the rake and the beer out of Tony's hand, tossing his own even as he knocked the stunned younger man off of his feet and backwards into the three foot deep pile. As quick as it was, Jethro still managed to control their fall somewhat, knowing that a mound of dry leaves didn't really provide as soft a landing as it seemed to promise. He hit the ground with his body half on and half off of Tony's in a swirling eddy of fall foliage which quickly fell back to partially cover them.

"What the he-." Tony managed a couple of syllables before Jethro's mouth enveloped his and stole the little breath that hadn't been knocked from his lungs.

Tony's mouth was already open in protest when Jethro's tongue slipped in and filled it, but the younger man's lips recovered quickly from their outraged protest and joined the dance without so much as missing a beat. Dry leaves tickled his cheeks and nose as he chased the deliciously hot taste of Tony's mouth and drank the slightly bitter hint of beer from his lips.

Fingers slipping beneath the soft material of Tony's t-shirt, Jethro heard the little needy noise that escaped his own throat and was swallowed between the younger man's eager lips. He flattened his palm against the heat of Tony's belly, drew sharp teeth down and over his jaw and ground his dick painfully against a thick thigh, near desperate to get closer.

"What the hell got into you?" Tony panted, fingers twisting at Jethro's nape.

"Mmm…pretty sure it was you." His mouth dipped into the hollow of Tony's throat and fingers curled against warm skin as the salted tang of fresh sweat and sunshine mingled on his tongue. Hands at the closure of Tony's jeans now, he didn't even hesitate as he flicked the top two buttons open and dipped his hand inside

"Watch those hands, Marine. " Tony laughed musically and squirmed beneath him just before sweet smelling leaves rained down on Jethro's head and more were shoved down the back of his sweatshirt. "Never pegged you for an exhibitionist."

"Love can make a man do strange things." The words were out before he realized it, before he had a chance to think, and perhaps that was for the best. He was never one to stand on ceremony with things like this. Flowery declarations didn't suit either of them.

Hand still on Tony's cock, he felt the younger man stop breathing for the space of a few heartbeats, felt the smooth, cool palm against the side of his face, and read the question in the shifting grey-green eyes that he didn't even try to avoid. He didn't deny the truth or intention of the offhand statement, there was no point, but neither did he acknowledge it with further explanation or entreaty.

"'Bout time," Tony breathed against his lips after a few moments, thumb stroking the line of his jaw. His eyes were soft now, grey and heavy in the shadows like the edge of a storm.

"Guess it was," he acknowledged.

"Me too, you know." It wasn't a question.

"I know." Jethro nodded, eyes falling shut as he turned his lips into the softness of Tony's palm. He willed himself to breathe, let himself feel the warm ache that seemed to seep out of his chest, the cool fingers of autumn air that slipped against his bare skin, the hard heat of Tony's body beneath him. When he opened his eyes he found Tony still watching, waiting. They were in their own leaf-walled world, shielded from the sun and the wind, hidden from view to enjoy the perfect gravity of the moment for themselves.

The shift of muscles beneath Jethro gave a little warning as Tony reached out and dragged an armful of leaves over them like a blanket. Patches of sunlight illuminated the space between them and the fresh loamy scent filled his lungs.

"You wanna go inside?" Tony's lips brushed fleetingly against his own and the tumescent flesh beneath his fingers pulsed and twitched.

"No." Jethro shook his head slowly, rustling the leaves around them.

A quick flash of surprise and amusement flashed across Tony's features. "I don't want to be the one to remind you that you have neighbors, Jethro, especially not right now, but…"

"Don't call it a privacy fence for nothin'," he murmured, fingertips brushing leaves away from the crux of Tony's neck and shoulder before he molded his mouth to the skin there.

Tony's hand pushed lightly at his hip and Jethro lifted enough so the younger man could wriggle his jeans part way off before rolling onto his side and drawing his knees up, facing away. "Privacy fence doesn't keep the sound in." Tony looked back over his shoulder, shaking his head free of the leaves. "Think you can be quiet?" The words were teasing but Tony's voice was heavy, thick with desire and something much more elusive and weighty.

Pushing his own jeans low enough to free his cock and keep his zipper from rubbing against the backs of Tony's thighs, Jethro swept away the leaves that kept falling between them and fitted their bodies together. "What exactly are you trying to say, Tony?"

"I'm saying you get loud when you fuck me, Jethro. And believe me, I like it." Tony reached around and let his fingers wander the smooth globe of Gibbs' ass, curling his fingers and scraping his nails over the firm flesh. "I'm just not sure the Robinson's next door will."

"Mmm…I can if you can." His mouth traced the long line of Tony's throat and suckled his earlobe.

Tony gave a little moan as Jethro's lips fixed to the spot just below and behind his ear that drove him mad. "What exactly are you saying, Jethro?" He asked breathlessly, pushing his t-shirt and Gibbs' sweatshirt up as high as he could from his current position, seeking the warmth of his skin.

"I'm saying you're loud when I fuck you, Tony." He purred the words against the curve of the younger man's ear and felt him tremble. "And I love it."

It was only a few moments-fingers in his mouth, slicked and stroked against Tony's body, still stretched from their morning fuck in the shower, a couple tugs at his dick and a tight squeeze to milk what lubrication he could from the tip as he pushed inside-and suddenly his world was reduced to the few square inches where their bodies joined and the rapidly throbbing pulse beneath his lips.

Jethro reached up above their heads and captured Tony's outstretched hand, twining their fingers together. His other hand anchored against the younger man's chest as they began to rock slowly together. Their movements were small, connected, dependent on each other. His lips moved restlessly across Tony's freckled shoulder, down the back of his arm, applying his teeth whenever Tony's fingernails bit into his hip.

Everything Jethro had kept locked inside these last few months flowed out of him now, fear, pain, desire, elation, all unchecked for the first time in longer than he could remember. His hand moved up Tony's chest and settled just below his throat. "Love this," he panted against flushed skin, "love you." The words were an ache that crawled up his throat, loosening rusty shards that flowed razor sharp through his veins, spreading the hurt that lived in his chest, diffusing it.

"Jethro…" Tony breathed a gentle plea which was much closer to a sob. The declaration buried itself inside him, burrowed deep.

The ground beneath Jethro's hip was firm and dry and unforgiving. Somewhere beneath the leaves an errant twig poked his flesh, but he was so lost in Tony that all of these things seemed far outside his conscious awareness. He'd always held a part of himself back during sex, refusing to abandon that last bit of control even in the throes of deepest ecstasy. Lying here beneath the weight of an October sky, cast down upon the bare earth, only half unclothed, something in him had finally surrendered.

"Tell me," Jethro's fingers tightened at the base of Tony's throat as he began to roll his hips faster, desperately, breath coming short and sharp now.

"Oh, fuck…fuck, Jethro." Tony shifted, rolling his weight slightly onto Gibbs as he began to stroke his cock brokenly.

"Tell me." He growled the words against Tony's ear and curled his fingers into sweat-dampened skin.

"Love you," Tony choked out, "Love you, Jethro."

He felt the shift between them, felt the old, weary pain lingering in his limbs turn to radiant warmth as the words slipped beneath the fingers clasped lightly around Tony's neck, as the body against his seized and shuddered in sweet, sudden release. Snug heat gripped him, rippling and contracting as he buried himself in one final thrust, mouth open against Tony's shoulder to stifle the tight cry that heralded his orgasm.

Even as Jethro's body convulsed and contracted, he enfolded Tony tightly in his arms, curled around him protectively, refusing to give up any contact, as if he might suddenly lose the thing he had found if he let go even a little. Tony trembled against him and pressed back into his chest, allowing himself to be held as he seldom did. Jethro closed his eyes and lost track of how long they stayed there, wrapped around each other. Eventually he became aware that twilight was setting in, that his skin was growing cold as the sun slipped below the trees and houses.

Tony felt Jethro's arms loosen and he turned over awkwardly to the accompaniment of crunching leaves, wiping his hand on the calf of his jeans, not caring about the stain for the moment. The older man's eyes were calm, settled and content as he had never seen them. He had questions, lots of them, but this change between them still felt too fragile to support the burden of his remaining insecurities. For once it was Gibbs who spoke first, perhaps reading the reservations in his eyes.

"It hurts," Jethro managed. "Loving you…letting myself love you…it hurts, Tony. And that's not on you. Not even a little." He shook his head.

"And you think loving you is a walk in the park on a Sunday afternoon?" Tony gave a rueful smile, fingers brushing gently against a silvered temple.

Jethro laughed despite himself. "No, I bet it isn't."

"So what was it? My wit? My charm? My cooking?" he raised an eyebrow playfully, "My cock?"

Jethro's eyes softened and he leaned forward, brushing his lips against Tony's almost reverentially. "You reminded me why I love the fall."

Thank you for reading!