Ficathon fic: Essence -- NCIS -- Tony, Gibbs/Tony
Title: Essence
Fandom: NCIS
Rating: light R
Many thanks to the wonderful
pinn2480 for making this much better than it originally was, and even agreeing to work on the last version in the middle of last night -- though I certainly hope it was only 'late evening' for her. All remaining mistakes are of course mine.
The rest of the notes, including the quotes used, can be found at the end, but for now, on with the story.
Essence
Tony can't quite remember the first time he tasted blood. He has a memory, a vision of himself at age three or four or five, running or stepping down stairs and falling, biting his lip, cutting through the superficial skin and feeling that bitter, almost acid flavor on his tongue. All of these versions had probably happened at one point or another, but he has no way of arranging the memories into some semblance of chronological order and so he'll never know.
He'd thought it should matter, once, but he's long learned that it doesn't. There have been countless other times since, all blurring into one another but for the end: that same undistinguishable slight shock as the realization of what he's tasting hits him, followed by the physical reflex of sucking until the wound has nothing left to offer. He can recall a blinding flash of light, the lack of a gunshot and an electric current shooting through him, but the causes are never as important as the consequences.
***
1. Nescience
His mother's blood looks alien and dark, too dark, almost black. The intensity of it shocks him and he can't understand why she's so pale when her blood is so dark; shouldn't it be giving her color? But of course it isn't, he realizes, because it's not in her body anymore. It's gone, probably all of it, because it's stopped leaking a lifetime ago and her heart would keep the flow going if there was any left.
He can sense the logic flaw in there somewhere without needing Mrs. Thompson to point it out for him, but he's too tired to look for it. "Anthony," she's saying, "look for it Anthony, it's right here in front of you," but he's not in algebra class right now, he doesn't have to listen to her. She shouldn't be here, anyway: only two people can fit comfortably in the front seats and if she stays there she's going to hurt his mom, bump into her leg or hit her with her elbow or something. He'll kill her if she does, and he doesn't even care that she hears him think it -- he's just had a car accident, his head hurts, and his mom has some kind of blood disease that turned it all black. It has to be hurting her, too, and Mrs. Thompson should really go warn someone instead of sitting there frowning at him. He's really tired, and he can't do it himself.
He leans his head back on the car seat and blinks, and when he re-opens his eyes she's gone and the sky is suddenly much darker. Probably because of the blood shading it, he muses, and that's really worrying because what if the blood starts shading the sun, too? That would really suck. His parents would never allow him to go out as much if it was always dark, and he'd never get to spy on Missy McArthur sunbathing naked in her garden again, and his mom's skin would stay white and it would make her really angry, even more so than she'd been earlier.
Maybe they could get rid of the dark blood? They'd have to find normal blood to fill his mom up, but he wouldn't want to give her the sick blood back, anyway, and that way things could go back to normal. Yeah, that would probably work. He'd have to explain it to the paramedics when they got there -- and damn, how long ago had Mrs. Thompson left to warn them? Everything seemed to happen very slowly around him, and even his thoughts don't have their usual flow, but shouldn't they be there already? He had a history paper that he had to finish for tomorrow and he was supposed to meet Chip and Mike later, and his dad would never let him go out if he was late for dinner or didn't have his homework finished.
The sun, though. Maybe Mrs. Thompson had gotten lost in the dark? Or maybe the blood had swallowed up all of the lights and the ambulance couldn't get there? He should do something, find them and guide them or something -- his mom still hadn't woken up and the lack of blood was probably hurting her even more than the dark blood had. But if the paramedics and the doctors couldn't find them with all of their diplomas, how could he ever hope to find the way himself? He hadn't even finished high school; there was no way he wouldn't get lost.
"Think, Anthony, think," Mrs. Thompson was saying again, and he really wanted to hit her now, or yell at her or do something, because what did she think he was doing, here? Not like he could spy on Mark Jenkins, what with the little geek sitting all the way in the back of the trunk, and he really wanted to cry because it wasn't fair, damn it! He'd never hurt the guy, had even paid him instead of simply threatening him like everyone else when he'd needed help for his English papers. The least he could do now would be to give Tony a hint, something to get Mrs. Thompson off his case.
Mark's lips were twitching, though, he could see that now, but no sound came out of them until they'd been closed for several minutes, and then the whispered "blood" echoed loudly in Tony's and of course. No wonder the guy was heading to Harvard early, he was a genius: all Tony needed to do was wash off the blood by himself, and the lights would come back and help would get there. It was so obvious he started laughing, a full booming laugh that had him clutching at his head to keep it from falling off. He didn't even notice Mark and Mrs Thompson and his father all laughing too before he calmed down enough to take his hands away, and then the unfamiliar sight of their faces deformed by their smiles got him going again.
Haphazardly, he grabbed the jacket he'd thrown on the floor when he'd gotten into the car and started sweeping up the blood that had gathered next to it, his arm still shaking from the leftovers of the laugh. Next to him, his dad was giving him a thumbs up and Mrs. Thompson was smiling her approving smile, and his own threatened to burst his face in two. The jacket wasn't really absorbing the blood anymore, too full of it already, letting it leak onto his fingers and down his arms to his elbows instead. But he kept working, washing up the part of the wheel where his mother's head wasn't resting, careful not to get any on her.
His dad was taking up a lot of place, though, and he kept moving around and shaking Tony's arm until the jacket swiped her right cheek, leaving a trail behind it and God, his mom would be really mad, now, even more than she'd been when she'd picked him up from detention. He had to get it off of her before she saw it, before it dried off and left a permanent imprint on her face. But he couldn't just stop cleaning up the blood, could he? No-one would ever be able find them, if he did.
He started going faster, frantic to finish and not paying attention to his dad anymore, accidentally bumping into his glass of Scotch but not even minding. His whole world consisted only of the jacket and the blood and the stain on his mother's cheek and he didn't even notice the man talking to him through the broken window until he saw the light. Small and round and when he turned around, the yellow-white glow of it made him blink and look at the windscreen instead, and that was when he saw the other lights.
He sighed in relief. Artificial, but that meant he'd done enough for now; they'd have to take care of the sun themselves. He dropped the jacket just as he heard a loud noise and turned his head to his left to see two men trying to break open the driver's door. The first man, the one to the right of Tony, was still talking to him but the words made no sense to him, drowned out by the never-ending repetition of Mark's whisper. He stuck his thumb into his mouth, sucking and licking it clean but careful to spit out the dark blood when he was done and, leaning over, he touched it to the end of the trail and carefully washed his mother's face clean.
She opened her eyes, then, and smiled at him, extending a bluish hand to stroke his hair off of his own bloody forehead. He smiled back, pride and accomplishment lightening his head, and he closed his eyes, confident that she would take care of everything else for him.
***
2. Cognizance
Jeffrey's blood is thick where Tony's is thin. Rougher, and it doesn't ooze out from his throat like Tony's does from his hands. It should be the other way around, Tony knows: his blood filled with fries and hamburgers and too much cholesterol, and Jeffrey's slippery with false weakness and health. It's all wrong and it makes the situation seem even worse than it already is.
There are shallow cuts at the tips of Tony's fingers, trailing down to his left palm and across the deeper, more serious cut there that's already swelled up and ugly, and blood's leaking everywhere. He lets the gun fall from his right and listens to the muted thud it makes as it lands on the passenger's seat, then brings both hands up to his face to examine the damage --
(Jeffrey)
-- the knife caused. The same straight line runs through both of them, following the beginnings of his lifelines and abruptly cutting through them beneath his middle fingers. There's either irony or justice in that, Tony thinks, and he bites back a snicker that he knows both Kate and Gibbs would take as a reason to temporarily question his sanity. Murderer and victim, killer and innocent, and whichever way it goes --
(rule number 0.5)
-- you never laugh after you've taken a life away
***
3. Wisdom
There are things Tony does in his line of work he never expected he'd have to do. Aiming to kill someone. Inform clueless parents of their child's death.
Washing off a friend's blood.
There are only three spots on the left side of his face: two on his forehead, barely an inch apart, and one on his cheek, flirting with his smile-wrinkle. He'd find that ironic if he took the time to think about it, but he's too busy trying to count for that; not that easy a thing to do as it would seem, counting droplets of blood. Numbers aren't the actual problem, of course; he's had them down for almost thirty years, and they dance in his head to the sound of a waltz: one two three, uno dos tres, un deux trois�
But blood leaks, and try as he might to number each of them, palming the smooth surface of the mirror and mentally checking them off one at a time, they insist on running around and forming new, bigger blotches. Just like rain on car windows, he thinks. You could try and try to follow one of them from top to bottom but it would inevitably meet others on its path and melt with them, again and again until you were left to wonder how some of them could stay stranded.
It's the same, really, except instead of water it's Kate's blood, and there's no car nor its windows, only a hospital bathroom and Tony's face in the mirror. And instead of rain splattering on the car roof, he hears Abby's screams and Ducky's muffled sobs and Gibbs' silence shutting out everything else, even McGee's imagined cry of pain as a bullet tore through his flesh.
Kate doesn't make any sound. Her body lies alone, stored away in a drawer, cold and unmoving. Tony doesn't know if her soul is with any God right now, if it's floating around somewhere or if it never existed in the first place, but what he knows is that it's not here anymore. It may very well be conversing with McGee's comatose one, but it's not accessible to those for whom it matters anymore; Abby, her parents, him.
He feels a sudden flash of understanding for the people refusing to wash a loved one's scent off their clothes, for those clutching desperately at cremated remains. The only piece of Kate he has left is smudged on his skin, and he wants to use it as ink and permanently mark his face, needs to inject it in his veins to make it merge with him. He watches with distant fascination as his tongue comes out, vainly trying to lick whatever it can but not managing to catch anything. What splattered his mouth is long gone, washed away during one of the several times he's thrown up in the previous hours.
The door on his left opens just as he moves his hand from his mirrored brow to the lone spot on his cheek's reflection, the sweat on his palm letting it glide with barely a whistle. Gibbs' steps are clipped and measured as he approaches the sink, and Tony doesn't even have to move his eyes away, recognizing the man from them alone.
"DiNozzo. We've been looking all over for you."
Uno, duo, trio, he singsongs to himself, and wonders if in another language, different "we"s are used depending on the number of people involved. "I was right here."
He feels Gibbs' eyes on him, staring at him with an intensity that rivals his own. Forcibly tearing his eyes off his reflection, he turns his head just in time to catch Gibbs' barely perceptible nod and his lips part, "McGee's out of surgery."
He should probably nod or do something, but Gibbs' eyes have become agitated now that Tony's facing him, moving back and forth from one side of his face to another and never settling, and the idea that he could force Gibbs to drop his gaze obscures any other thought, makes him nauseous in a way he hasn't yet been today. So he turns back to face the mirror, hiding away most of his temporary scars and resuming his contemplation.
"I'll be right there," he answers the unvoiced question, and watches in wonder as his lips move and deform his mask, rendering it alive. Gibbs turns back to the door and in the resounding clickety noise of high heels shutting out everything else, Tony silently words 'eins, zwei' and brings his hand away from the mirror. He watches himself smile and deform the third spot, and roughly wipes it off.
'Drei'.
***
4. Salvation
The funeral had held in Boston, in a small cemetery overlooking the bay. The small alleys had been filled with gravel and boarded with grey rocks, contrasting with the fresh grass and the groves of flowers. There had been ancient benches placed under age-old trees, and the spring sun had been shining through the leaves, whitening the greyish paint on the benches and giving a sense of out of time-ness reinforced by the 19th century's structure of most of the graves.
Tony had hated it.
It had been so pretty and perfect; so filled with good intentions and hope and love and things that had nothing at all to do with death. Death was supposed to be pain, to be loss and endings and hatred and guilt, and he'd wanted to step out of the group and shout it, make all of these so well- meaning people understand that she was dead. She was never coming back, never going to laugh or eat or shop or have a date, it was all over. He'd wanted to physically shake them, just grab their shoulders and do it; he'd felt the need in his body, the rage mounting in his throat and expending throughout his body until it had reached even the tip of his fingers: they'd started twitching, madly trying to find release.
And then Gibbs gripped them.
Gripped, not held, and only his fingers; his hand had had nothing to do with it. He'd turned his head, sought out Gibbs's eyes, but the other man had been staring upfront at the priest, not thinking or acting like anything was out of place. So Tony had gone along with it, had thought 'Kate' and then forced his mind to stay focused on the scene in front of him. And somehow, through the prayers and the committal of the body, through the ride back to their motel and the greasy dinner McGee had bought at a fast-food on the way, the grip had seemed to remain.
It probably hadn't, he realized, but he couldn't remember a second when he hadn't felt the pressure, the heat punctuated only by the cool scrap of Gibbs' watch bracelet on the back of his hand. It had kept on until now, when they were lying against each other, barely touching but for their fingers and their arms, extended out of the way over the pillow.
The heat was just as strong all over them, though, radiating from their legs to their mouths, their lips parted and barely an inch apart. They were breathing each other's air, breathing into each other, and the sudden thought that they were the only ones left of their team who still had that chance was the right incentive. Tony crossed the space between them, brought his head forward and suddenly they were touching and then kissing, messily and with teeth clinging and tongues soothing and Tony thought this was close to Heaven as he'd ever get. He wasn't even aware of the rest of his body until he heard the rustle of sheets and realized that they were rubbing against each other, and only then did he feel the pleasure spike through him, only intensifying the electricity he could feel their kiss generate.
His heart began to thrum loudly and his hips sped up accordingly, and he knew that he was close. He tried to open his mouth wider, to swallow up Gibbs' but it never seemed to be just enough, always just out of reach and he settled for trying to melt them together, interlacing their tongues as far as their teeth would allow. He couldn't even get enough air in anymore, but it didn't matter. He only wanted completion, wanted to feel the connection and the rightness and the bliss. He felt Gibbs moan against his lips and a rush of heat on his thighs and teeth closing in, biting and slicing and flashes of goodyeslifepleasurehotwhitestrong made any intellectual thought disappear, and his fingers disentangled as he let go and came.
He was vaguely aware of the weight lifting from the mattress and the heat leaving him, but an instant later it was back and he opened his eyes to see Gibbs carrying two washcloths. He handed one to Tony, who nodded in thanks and wiped himself clean, then gave it back as Gibbs once again got up and left. But instead of going back to the bathroom, he put them on the night table and sat on the edge of the second bed.
"Hey."
"Hey."
"Don't you think you'd sleep better over here?" Gibbs asked as Tony made no movement to follow him, and damn the man, but his eyes and his tone never betrayed a single thing. He was right, though, so Tony abandoned the wet and sticky sheets and sat down next to him.
It should be awkward, he knew, there should be unsaid words and impossible situations hanging between them and rendering the atmosphere un-breathable, but somehow it wasn't. Instead, there was their thighs touching and their skin tingling with leftover intensity, calmed and under control. Gibbs brought a finger to the corner of Tony's mouth and whispered "I'm sorry."
Tony blinked exhaustion from his eyes, "Why?"
Gibbs silenced the word halfway through with his finger, tracing the lips then the tongue, and when he held it up to Tony's eyes, it shone under the light of the motel's red neon sign. Except the 'No Vacancy' sign reflected white on the headboard, he realized, and then he knew, could recognize that it wasn't a pearl of saliva that Gibbs was showing him but blood.
"It's all right," he started to whisper, but the tingling he'd felt up to that point materialized into pain halway through the words, so he took the presented finger and the others in his fist and laid down, using his grip to lead Gibbs to him. The neon sign flickered through the window, bringing and taking awaydarkness with it, and Tony knew it was.
Notes: I used both of these quotes:
Feel free to ask just how those transformed into the story above, but since the explanation is likely to be long and rambling, I'll hold on to it until someone specifically asks me to write it down.
For those who may be interested, I wrote this while listening to Wild World by Cat Stevens, California Dreamin' by The Mamas & Papas, Never Be The Same Again by Melanie C., Tomorrow Never Dies by Sheryl Crow, Jealous by Sinead O'Connor, What if God was one of us by Joan Osborne and Kiss From a Rose by Seal.
Fandom: NCIS
Rating: light R
Many thanks to the wonderful
pinn2480 for making this much better than it originally was, and even agreeing to work on the last version in the middle of last night -- though I certainly hope it was only 'late evening' for her. All remaining mistakes are of course mine.The rest of the notes, including the quotes used, can be found at the end, but for now, on with the story.
Essence
Tony can't quite remember the first time he tasted blood. He has a memory, a vision of himself at age three or four or five, running or stepping down stairs and falling, biting his lip, cutting through the superficial skin and feeling that bitter, almost acid flavor on his tongue. All of these versions had probably happened at one point or another, but he has no way of arranging the memories into some semblance of chronological order and so he'll never know.
He'd thought it should matter, once, but he's long learned that it doesn't. There have been countless other times since, all blurring into one another but for the end: that same undistinguishable slight shock as the realization of what he's tasting hits him, followed by the physical reflex of sucking until the wound has nothing left to offer. He can recall a blinding flash of light, the lack of a gunshot and an electric current shooting through him, but the causes are never as important as the consequences.
***
1. Nescience
His mother's blood looks alien and dark, too dark, almost black. The intensity of it shocks him and he can't understand why she's so pale when her blood is so dark; shouldn't it be giving her color? But of course it isn't, he realizes, because it's not in her body anymore. It's gone, probably all of it, because it's stopped leaking a lifetime ago and her heart would keep the flow going if there was any left.
He can sense the logic flaw in there somewhere without needing Mrs. Thompson to point it out for him, but he's too tired to look for it. "Anthony," she's saying, "look for it Anthony, it's right here in front of you," but he's not in algebra class right now, he doesn't have to listen to her. She shouldn't be here, anyway: only two people can fit comfortably in the front seats and if she stays there she's going to hurt his mom, bump into her leg or hit her with her elbow or something. He'll kill her if she does, and he doesn't even care that she hears him think it -- he's just had a car accident, his head hurts, and his mom has some kind of blood disease that turned it all black. It has to be hurting her, too, and Mrs. Thompson should really go warn someone instead of sitting there frowning at him. He's really tired, and he can't do it himself.
He leans his head back on the car seat and blinks, and when he re-opens his eyes she's gone and the sky is suddenly much darker. Probably because of the blood shading it, he muses, and that's really worrying because what if the blood starts shading the sun, too? That would really suck. His parents would never allow him to go out as much if it was always dark, and he'd never get to spy on Missy McArthur sunbathing naked in her garden again, and his mom's skin would stay white and it would make her really angry, even more so than she'd been earlier.
Maybe they could get rid of the dark blood? They'd have to find normal blood to fill his mom up, but he wouldn't want to give her the sick blood back, anyway, and that way things could go back to normal. Yeah, that would probably work. He'd have to explain it to the paramedics when they got there -- and damn, how long ago had Mrs. Thompson left to warn them? Everything seemed to happen very slowly around him, and even his thoughts don't have their usual flow, but shouldn't they be there already? He had a history paper that he had to finish for tomorrow and he was supposed to meet Chip and Mike later, and his dad would never let him go out if he was late for dinner or didn't have his homework finished.
The sun, though. Maybe Mrs. Thompson had gotten lost in the dark? Or maybe the blood had swallowed up all of the lights and the ambulance couldn't get there? He should do something, find them and guide them or something -- his mom still hadn't woken up and the lack of blood was probably hurting her even more than the dark blood had. But if the paramedics and the doctors couldn't find them with all of their diplomas, how could he ever hope to find the way himself? He hadn't even finished high school; there was no way he wouldn't get lost.
"Think, Anthony, think," Mrs. Thompson was saying again, and he really wanted to hit her now, or yell at her or do something, because what did she think he was doing, here? Not like he could spy on Mark Jenkins, what with the little geek sitting all the way in the back of the trunk, and he really wanted to cry because it wasn't fair, damn it! He'd never hurt the guy, had even paid him instead of simply threatening him like everyone else when he'd needed help for his English papers. The least he could do now would be to give Tony a hint, something to get Mrs. Thompson off his case.
Mark's lips were twitching, though, he could see that now, but no sound came out of them until they'd been closed for several minutes, and then the whispered "blood" echoed loudly in Tony's and of course. No wonder the guy was heading to Harvard early, he was a genius: all Tony needed to do was wash off the blood by himself, and the lights would come back and help would get there. It was so obvious he started laughing, a full booming laugh that had him clutching at his head to keep it from falling off. He didn't even notice Mark and Mrs Thompson and his father all laughing too before he calmed down enough to take his hands away, and then the unfamiliar sight of their faces deformed by their smiles got him going again.
Haphazardly, he grabbed the jacket he'd thrown on the floor when he'd gotten into the car and started sweeping up the blood that had gathered next to it, his arm still shaking from the leftovers of the laugh. Next to him, his dad was giving him a thumbs up and Mrs. Thompson was smiling her approving smile, and his own threatened to burst his face in two. The jacket wasn't really absorbing the blood anymore, too full of it already, letting it leak onto his fingers and down his arms to his elbows instead. But he kept working, washing up the part of the wheel where his mother's head wasn't resting, careful not to get any on her.
His dad was taking up a lot of place, though, and he kept moving around and shaking Tony's arm until the jacket swiped her right cheek, leaving a trail behind it and God, his mom would be really mad, now, even more than she'd been when she'd picked him up from detention. He had to get it off of her before she saw it, before it dried off and left a permanent imprint on her face. But he couldn't just stop cleaning up the blood, could he? No-one would ever be able find them, if he did.
He started going faster, frantic to finish and not paying attention to his dad anymore, accidentally bumping into his glass of Scotch but not even minding. His whole world consisted only of the jacket and the blood and the stain on his mother's cheek and he didn't even notice the man talking to him through the broken window until he saw the light. Small and round and when he turned around, the yellow-white glow of it made him blink and look at the windscreen instead, and that was when he saw the other lights.
He sighed in relief. Artificial, but that meant he'd done enough for now; they'd have to take care of the sun themselves. He dropped the jacket just as he heard a loud noise and turned his head to his left to see two men trying to break open the driver's door. The first man, the one to the right of Tony, was still talking to him but the words made no sense to him, drowned out by the never-ending repetition of Mark's whisper. He stuck his thumb into his mouth, sucking and licking it clean but careful to spit out the dark blood when he was done and, leaning over, he touched it to the end of the trail and carefully washed his mother's face clean.
She opened her eyes, then, and smiled at him, extending a bluish hand to stroke his hair off of his own bloody forehead. He smiled back, pride and accomplishment lightening his head, and he closed his eyes, confident that she would take care of everything else for him.
***
2. Cognizance
Jeffrey's blood is thick where Tony's is thin. Rougher, and it doesn't ooze out from his throat like Tony's does from his hands. It should be the other way around, Tony knows: his blood filled with fries and hamburgers and too much cholesterol, and Jeffrey's slippery with false weakness and health. It's all wrong and it makes the situation seem even worse than it already is.
There are shallow cuts at the tips of Tony's fingers, trailing down to his left palm and across the deeper, more serious cut there that's already swelled up and ugly, and blood's leaking everywhere. He lets the gun fall from his right and listens to the muted thud it makes as it lands on the passenger's seat, then brings both hands up to his face to examine the damage --
(Jeffrey)
-- the knife caused. The same straight line runs through both of them, following the beginnings of his lifelines and abruptly cutting through them beneath his middle fingers. There's either irony or justice in that, Tony thinks, and he bites back a snicker that he knows both Kate and Gibbs would take as a reason to temporarily question his sanity. Murderer and victim, killer and innocent, and whichever way it goes --
(rule number 0.5)
-- you never laugh after you've taken a life away
***
3. Wisdom
There are things Tony does in his line of work he never expected he'd have to do. Aiming to kill someone. Inform clueless parents of their child's death.
Washing off a friend's blood.
There are only three spots on the left side of his face: two on his forehead, barely an inch apart, and one on his cheek, flirting with his smile-wrinkle. He'd find that ironic if he took the time to think about it, but he's too busy trying to count for that; not that easy a thing to do as it would seem, counting droplets of blood. Numbers aren't the actual problem, of course; he's had them down for almost thirty years, and they dance in his head to the sound of a waltz: one two three, uno dos tres, un deux trois�
But blood leaks, and try as he might to number each of them, palming the smooth surface of the mirror and mentally checking them off one at a time, they insist on running around and forming new, bigger blotches. Just like rain on car windows, he thinks. You could try and try to follow one of them from top to bottom but it would inevitably meet others on its path and melt with them, again and again until you were left to wonder how some of them could stay stranded.
It's the same, really, except instead of water it's Kate's blood, and there's no car nor its windows, only a hospital bathroom and Tony's face in the mirror. And instead of rain splattering on the car roof, he hears Abby's screams and Ducky's muffled sobs and Gibbs' silence shutting out everything else, even McGee's imagined cry of pain as a bullet tore through his flesh.
Kate doesn't make any sound. Her body lies alone, stored away in a drawer, cold and unmoving. Tony doesn't know if her soul is with any God right now, if it's floating around somewhere or if it never existed in the first place, but what he knows is that it's not here anymore. It may very well be conversing with McGee's comatose one, but it's not accessible to those for whom it matters anymore; Abby, her parents, him.
He feels a sudden flash of understanding for the people refusing to wash a loved one's scent off their clothes, for those clutching desperately at cremated remains. The only piece of Kate he has left is smudged on his skin, and he wants to use it as ink and permanently mark his face, needs to inject it in his veins to make it merge with him. He watches with distant fascination as his tongue comes out, vainly trying to lick whatever it can but not managing to catch anything. What splattered his mouth is long gone, washed away during one of the several times he's thrown up in the previous hours.
The door on his left opens just as he moves his hand from his mirrored brow to the lone spot on his cheek's reflection, the sweat on his palm letting it glide with barely a whistle. Gibbs' steps are clipped and measured as he approaches the sink, and Tony doesn't even have to move his eyes away, recognizing the man from them alone.
"DiNozzo. We've been looking all over for you."
Uno, duo, trio, he singsongs to himself, and wonders if in another language, different "we"s are used depending on the number of people involved. "I was right here."
He feels Gibbs' eyes on him, staring at him with an intensity that rivals his own. Forcibly tearing his eyes off his reflection, he turns his head just in time to catch Gibbs' barely perceptible nod and his lips part, "McGee's out of surgery."
He should probably nod or do something, but Gibbs' eyes have become agitated now that Tony's facing him, moving back and forth from one side of his face to another and never settling, and the idea that he could force Gibbs to drop his gaze obscures any other thought, makes him nauseous in a way he hasn't yet been today. So he turns back to face the mirror, hiding away most of his temporary scars and resuming his contemplation.
"I'll be right there," he answers the unvoiced question, and watches in wonder as his lips move and deform his mask, rendering it alive. Gibbs turns back to the door and in the resounding clickety noise of high heels shutting out everything else, Tony silently words 'eins, zwei' and brings his hand away from the mirror. He watches himself smile and deform the third spot, and roughly wipes it off.
'Drei'.
***
4. Salvation
The funeral had held in Boston, in a small cemetery overlooking the bay. The small alleys had been filled with gravel and boarded with grey rocks, contrasting with the fresh grass and the groves of flowers. There had been ancient benches placed under age-old trees, and the spring sun had been shining through the leaves, whitening the greyish paint on the benches and giving a sense of out of time-ness reinforced by the 19th century's structure of most of the graves.
Tony had hated it.
It had been so pretty and perfect; so filled with good intentions and hope and love and things that had nothing at all to do with death. Death was supposed to be pain, to be loss and endings and hatred and guilt, and he'd wanted to step out of the group and shout it, make all of these so well- meaning people understand that she was dead. She was never coming back, never going to laugh or eat or shop or have a date, it was all over. He'd wanted to physically shake them, just grab their shoulders and do it; he'd felt the need in his body, the rage mounting in his throat and expending throughout his body until it had reached even the tip of his fingers: they'd started twitching, madly trying to find release.
And then Gibbs gripped them.
Gripped, not held, and only his fingers; his hand had had nothing to do with it. He'd turned his head, sought out Gibbs's eyes, but the other man had been staring upfront at the priest, not thinking or acting like anything was out of place. So Tony had gone along with it, had thought 'Kate' and then forced his mind to stay focused on the scene in front of him. And somehow, through the prayers and the committal of the body, through the ride back to their motel and the greasy dinner McGee had bought at a fast-food on the way, the grip had seemed to remain.
It probably hadn't, he realized, but he couldn't remember a second when he hadn't felt the pressure, the heat punctuated only by the cool scrap of Gibbs' watch bracelet on the back of his hand. It had kept on until now, when they were lying against each other, barely touching but for their fingers and their arms, extended out of the way over the pillow.
The heat was just as strong all over them, though, radiating from their legs to their mouths, their lips parted and barely an inch apart. They were breathing each other's air, breathing into each other, and the sudden thought that they were the only ones left of their team who still had that chance was the right incentive. Tony crossed the space between them, brought his head forward and suddenly they were touching and then kissing, messily and with teeth clinging and tongues soothing and Tony thought this was close to Heaven as he'd ever get. He wasn't even aware of the rest of his body until he heard the rustle of sheets and realized that they were rubbing against each other, and only then did he feel the pleasure spike through him, only intensifying the electricity he could feel their kiss generate.
His heart began to thrum loudly and his hips sped up accordingly, and he knew that he was close. He tried to open his mouth wider, to swallow up Gibbs' but it never seemed to be just enough, always just out of reach and he settled for trying to melt them together, interlacing their tongues as far as their teeth would allow. He couldn't even get enough air in anymore, but it didn't matter. He only wanted completion, wanted to feel the connection and the rightness and the bliss. He felt Gibbs moan against his lips and a rush of heat on his thighs and teeth closing in, biting and slicing and flashes of goodyeslifepleasurehotwhitestrong made any intellectual thought disappear, and his fingers disentangled as he let go and came.
He was vaguely aware of the weight lifting from the mattress and the heat leaving him, but an instant later it was back and he opened his eyes to see Gibbs carrying two washcloths. He handed one to Tony, who nodded in thanks and wiped himself clean, then gave it back as Gibbs once again got up and left. But instead of going back to the bathroom, he put them on the night table and sat on the edge of the second bed.
"Hey."
"Hey."
"Don't you think you'd sleep better over here?" Gibbs asked as Tony made no movement to follow him, and damn the man, but his eyes and his tone never betrayed a single thing. He was right, though, so Tony abandoned the wet and sticky sheets and sat down next to him.
It should be awkward, he knew, there should be unsaid words and impossible situations hanging between them and rendering the atmosphere un-breathable, but somehow it wasn't. Instead, there was their thighs touching and their skin tingling with leftover intensity, calmed and under control. Gibbs brought a finger to the corner of Tony's mouth and whispered "I'm sorry."
Tony blinked exhaustion from his eyes, "Why?"
Gibbs silenced the word halfway through with his finger, tracing the lips then the tongue, and when he held it up to Tony's eyes, it shone under the light of the motel's red neon sign. Except the 'No Vacancy' sign reflected white on the headboard, he realized, and then he knew, could recognize that it wasn't a pearl of saliva that Gibbs was showing him but blood.
"It's all right," he started to whisper, but the tingling he'd felt up to that point materialized into pain halway through the words, so he took the presented finger and the others in his fist and laid down, using his grip to lead Gibbs to him. The neon sign flickered through the window, bringing and taking awaydarkness with it, and Tony knew it was.
Notes: I used both of these quotes:
"Don't throw yourself like that in front of me ". (Damien Rice)
There is none who cannot teach somebody something, and there is none
so excellent that he cannot be excelled.
- Baltasar Gracian
Feel free to ask just how those transformed into the story above, but since the explanation is likely to be long and rambling, I'll hold on to it until someone specifically asks me to write it down.
For those who may be interested, I wrote this while listening to Wild World by Cat Stevens, California Dreamin' by The Mamas & Papas, Never Be The Same Again by Melanie C., Tomorrow Never Dies by Sheryl Crow, Jealous by Sinead O'Connor, What if God was one of us by Joan Osborne and Kiss From a Rose by Seal.