#ncmad:asks

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @ncmad said, ❝ i didn't know it would be like this. ❞

how could she have? how could any of them accurately predict the unknown? and if they could, if at every turn one could foresee what one would find, know everything before experiencing it, una rather thinks the universe would suddenly find itself a rather dull place.

she keeps the musings to herself, however. ❛ is that good, or bad? ❜

[pathlit]

⤷ ✧ @ncmad said, ❝ i wanna contribute to the chaos. ❞ ( baby ellie !! with her big words , which she 100% learnt from abby. )

he's rarely truly second-guessed bringing ellie to ncis, nor the bonds she's formed with his team. yet there are days like today, when everything seems to be working against them in trivial ways that all but fuel a child's enthusiasm. gibbs could have found no more fitting a word than chaos to describe the boxes and boxes of paperwork occupying what seemed like the entirety of the bullpen, for the files scattered across desks and the floor, their contents strewn. ❛ I don't think we need any more chaos, kiddo. ❜

in fact, he might just string whoever was responsible up by the thumbs. ❛ — and don't let anyone try to convince you to help clean it up, either. they're responsible; they can fix it themselves. ❜ how many hours it would take to get all the paperwork back in the right files and all the files back in the right boxes gibbs didn't quite want to consider.

[pathlit]

⤷ ✧ @ncmad said, ❝ i am in love with an idiot. ❞

if he'd had his way — by which meant if he could say what he thought without consequences — he'd have retorted that shouldn't be in love at all. much too young and all that. though what age gibbs would have labeled as acceptable for his daughter to fall in love...

it wouldn't be the first disparaging comment he's made, nor would it be the last, but somewhere, in the back of his hard skull, lurks the awareness that the more he pushes back, the more obstinate he is, the more he drives a wedge between them and the more she'll keep from him. never mind that he'd love nothing more than to shove the guy out the door and never let him back in. and that was the mildest of the actions he'd contemplated with no small sense of satisfaction.

despite his best efforts at good behaviour, as jen had labeled it, he can't wholly help himself. ❛ well, how about ditching him and trading up? I'd gladly break the news to him. ❜

[owedfavors]

⤷ ✧ @ncmad said, ❝ there’s a kind of time travel in letters, isn’t there? ❞

❛ in those that remain. ❜ faded ink, crumbling pages. even the most delicate of touch seems like to turn all that history to dust. the first officer has no doubt that many are lost already ❛ but there is in story, too. that's all they are, now. stories. ❜ all they ever are, una supposes as she pulls another bundle, carefully tied with a ribbon — fabric unfamiliar — from the chest. a story written to another. friend, family, foe. presenting that which you wish to share and concealing that which you would rather not.

she's no anthropologist, and this lies so far beyond the realms of her expertise — or interest, that she sighs as she stands. ❛ we'll take them back with us, let linguistics and anthropology departments have them. ❜ they'll appreciate it more, draw more from it.

[basementboat]

⤷ ✧ @ncmad said, ❝ If you ask me, it's soft porn. No one needs to massage garlic oil into a leg of lamb that much... ❞ ( ellie having to study for culinary school, is probably sat at the spare desk in the bullpen. )

her words catch him mid-rifling through his desk, sorting folders until he can emerge with the one he needs. there’s a half a second in which they nearly pass him unregistered, before he turns in her direction with his accustomed stare. those are not, after all, sentences he cares to hear from his daughter. ❛ you, ❜ he manages eventually, standing to cross and spin her laptop in his direction, ❛ need to stop spending time with dinozzo. before you start making me seriously reconsider this whole culinary school idea. ❜

he cuts assessing the video in question short at the feel of his team approaching — no doubt as intrigued by ellie's choice phrasing as he himself had been displeased. he closes the window ( not the tab, and it's only after it all disappears that he considers that, like as not, she had needed the rest of those tabs ) and returns the laptop to her care. ❛ find new study material. ❜

[basementboat]

⤷ ✧ @ncmad said, ❝ i’m trying to fix your hair, so hold still. ❞ from little ellie having to stand on a chair to reach.

❛ my hair's fine. ❜ after all, there is scarcely much of it to make a mess of. still, in a perfunctory effort to smooth it, he runs his fingers over the crown of his head, jostling hers aside. then, with no greater ceremony, he pushes a hat over it all, concealing the apparently offending hair — and effectively undoing any success their combined efforts might have had. ❛ we don't have time, kiddo. let's go; get down from there. ❜

[timeracing]

⤷ ✧ @ncmad said, ❝ I am a beacon of joy. ❞

❛ oh, positively joyful. you can see it beamin' out of your ears. ❜ he gestures unnecessarily with his index fingers to his own ears. yet for all his sarcasm was scarcely insufficient, he adds, ❛ — warnin' everyone off. ❜