This is total silliness - somewhere between whump and crack. Don't take it too seriously...
How could I be lost?
He'd been on carriers before, knew his way around - or at least liked to think he did. When Kate had more or less challenged him, he'd been confident he would find his way to the Urinalysis Coordinator's office long before she did.
Then he'd ended up in the ship's laundry.
Tony was just glad that at least she hadn't been there to laugh at him. Of course, that was slender comfort, since in all likelihood she was having a laugh at him elsewhere. Possibly in the Urinalysis Coordinator's office, where he was supposed to be.
She'd never let him live this down.
Right now, though, he'd be grateful to put up with her teasing, as long as that meant he was no longer lost in the bowels of the ship. He'd almost stopped and asked for directions a few times, but pride had stopped him from actually going through with it. Eventually he'd got to the point where he'd run out of pride, but that didn't help much. Apparently he'd gotten so lost that there was no one left to ask, and the only company was the echo of his own footfalls. The noise of the ship's engines and the ever present racket of aircraft above were still in evidence, but as for fellow human beings, there were none to be seen.
"I wonder if aircraft carriers have rats?" he wondered aloud, then instantly regretted the thought. Especially when his mind, hearing the creaks and rattles of the ship around him, suddenly started to hear those sounds as rat feet scuttling back and forth, carrying disease with them. Didn't the Black Death start with rats or something? Of course, no one got the plague any more, but still. He couldn't help imagining the rodents watching him from the shadows, beady eyes fixed on him... Possibly thinking, "Lunch!"
He was reasonably sure rats didn't routinely eat humans, but down here, where hardly any people came? Any rats that had managed to survive this long had probably eaten their way to the top, cannibalising the lesser creatures, becoming big and strong and feasting on the flesh and blood of any humans who unwittingly came down here alone, hiding in the dark like vampires, or...
Oh crap. Why did his brain have to think about that. Rats = bad. Vampires = bad. Rats + vampires? He cringed at the thought, even as he reminded himself it was ridiculous, just his imagination working overtime.
"We should stay in pairs." The line slipped out, and he shuddered. He really had to stop watching so many horror movies. Or just stop getting lost aboard aircraft carriers. Considering the ribbing he was liable to get from Kate for this, probably the latter.
The ship seemed to be getting darker and darker. Surely people came down this way occasionally - after all, there must be a reason there were stairways and doors and stuff, right? - But either there was a light switch he'd missed, or else whoever worked down here had bionic vision. At least, terrible though the consequences had been, they weren't investigating a violent crime aboard this particular ship. If he'd been walking through these dark, narrow, creepy, spooky, ominously quiet, decidedly eerie (he gave himself a mental headslap and quit with the synonyms) corridor expecting a killer hiding in the shadows - some covert CIA operative gone bad, or maybe a highly trained Mossad assassin with deadly instincts and ninja moves - then that would be much worse.
Though of course, now his brain had supplied the image, he was expecting to find a murderer around every corner. At least on board a ship he was unlikely to be faced with an ex girlfriend seeking revenge, but that wasn't much comfort.
His father had always told him that an active imagination was of little value in the world, and Tony had always protested, pointing out the music, literature and film that human beings had conjured out of nowhere. Of course, his own preference was for the movies, but when trying to prove DiNozzo Senior wrong, it was always best to have more than one arrow in the quiver. Right now, though, he'd happily trade in his overimaginative brain for one that could find a way out of this particular black hole without populating every shadow with a new kind of death he could suffer.
Though who needed a murderer or a disease when at this rate he would die of hunger before he managed to escape. They'd probably never find him, and some future MCRT would be called out to identify his skeleton from dental records when the ship was finally decommissioned...
He was about ready to curl up in a corner, whimpering softly, when up ahead he saw what looked like a ladder. Could it be...? Was it...? His pace increased till he was nearly running, and when he reached the ladder he grabbed on to it, clinging to it and breathing hard for a few moments.
Once he'd regained his composure a little, he looked up and... Thank God! More light. He scrambled up the ladder, then another, and then pushed through an unmarked but unlocked door and... he could've passed out from sheer relief. People. Light. Hustle and bustle,
"Thank you, thank you, thank you..."
One of the sailors gave him a strange look, and he pulled himself together. No point letting anyone know just how freaked out he'd gotten.
He glanced up and down the corridor, and spotted a shapely Petty Officer with dark hair in a perky ponytail.
"Ah, excuse me?"
When she turned round, her eyes were deep blue, and Tony made a mental note to get her phone number before he left the ship.
"Hi, I'm very Special Agent Anthony Dinozzo - you can call me Tony - I'm here on an investigation and I'm looking for the Urinalysis Coordinator's office. Can you give me directions?" He flashed his most winning smile at her, and her cheeks flushed a little pink. Definitely gotta get her number...
"Sure, Special Agent Tony," she said with a flutter of her eyelashes. "It's right along here, I... I'll show you, if you'd like?"
He grinned again. He might even beat Kate there after all. And he'd met a pretty girl. Better and better. "Thank you, Petty Officer...?"
"Carnahan. Julia Carnahan."
"Thanks, Julia." He placed a hand lightly on the small of her back as she gestured for him to accompany her down the corridor. "That's a very pretty name."
He was rewarded for his compliment with a dimpled smile. Maybe his diversion hadn't been such a bad thing after all.
I don't really think Tony is either hopeless or cowardly no matter how this fic might make him appear. I just ran with "how can I be lost" and ended up putting in every bête noire, phobia, bad experience, or person with whom he's had a bad experience that I could think of. Somewhere between whump and crack... I was tired :-o :-D