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"He is, how do you say it? Dropping dead gorgeous."
"Drop dead gorgeous."
"Why, Tony. Such language."
"I think he just meant that the expression is 'drop dead gorgeous', not 'dropping dead gorgeous'."
"You think, McGee?"
"Still not Gibbs."
Anderson Cooper was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a stupid person.
He'd brought coffee - one for Gibbs, and none for himself, because the way Gibbs worked was, if he liked you, he'd find a way to steal your coffee and then smile at you innocently as he drank it, and if he didn't like you, then the whole exercise was pointless anyway.
"If you're here about the suicide ... "
"The presumed suicide," Anderson said, because Gibbs didn't give away information like that, especially not before he'd drunk your coffee and maybe strung you along for a couple of minutes, simply because he could (and also, Anderson had concluded, because he sort of liked your company even if he didn't much care for your profession).
Gibbs made a dismissive gesture with the hand that wasn't holding the coffee. Anderson wrote himself a mental memo to the effect that he did not need to remind Gibbs to watch his words around people from the media.
"Seems kind of low-profile for someone like you," Gibbs said. "Something I should know?"
"No comment." Anderson wondered how many people had ever gotten to use that line on Gibbs.
Gibbs smiled faintly. "Fair enough."
Anderson smiled back. He'd been told he had a nice smile, if never by Gibbs. "How's the coffee?"
"It's all right," Gibbs said, in a tone that could have meant anything, from 'awful, actually' to 'best damn coffee I've ever tasted'. (The truth, Anderson assumed, was somewhere in the middle.)
Behind him, Anderson could faintly hear the sounds you heard in any office, whether it was a company trading in socks, a publisher of comics or NCIS. Gibbs drank his coffee. Anderson looked at Gibbs's hands and wondered how things were going with the boat, wondered if he'd get to find out.
"So," Gibbs said, dropping the empty cup in a waste basket. "Let's talk."
"Let's."
On some days, Anderson was glad he wasn't claustrophobic.
(On most days, he was simply glad to be alive. That was a gift, too, and something to be valued, he felt, rather than to be taken for granted.)
"He is attractive, yes?"
"Definitely."
"Something you want to share with us, McGee?"
"Unlike some people, I am secure enough in my masculinity to acknowledge and yes, even admire, another man's attractiveness."
"Sounds like a crush to me."
"I think it is very brave."
"You do?"
"Not many men would be willing to go against Gibbs in a - how do you put this? A manner of the heart?"
"A matter of the heart. And I'm not. I'm simply saying that he looks good."
"Oh, he's simply saying he looks good."
"Good enough to eat, yes? Is that not how the expression goes?"