A/N: I have no idea how to categorise this, and I even took out the relationship tags because they seemed pretty misleading. I decided to err on the side of caution and bumped this up to M for the mention of sex and the overall subject matter.
Also thanks to Fingersnaps for a comment she had Ducky make which inspired me re: Ziva's thoughts about Tony's death.
the long goodbye
it's the fall that's gonna kill ya
They never talk about him. He's the unspoken presence in the room, and Tim is fairly sure this is the most unhealthy way imaginable for them to deal with losing a team member. Neither of them seems to care.
Of all the ways Tim imagined Tony might die, something so senseless was not one of them. It should have been a hail of bullets, or at the very least chasing some bad guy. Despite himself, he can still clearly remember Tony's face as his foot hit the patch of black ice, the way his eyes went wide as he realised he was losing his balance, the look of utter fear as he fell backwards into thin air.
Tim's not certain, but he thinks the image might never actually leave him alone. It certainly hasn't yet. He also suspects it's the only time he ever saw Tony really, genuinely frightened, and it was the last emotion Tony ever felt, and the idea haunts him.
His hips move a little faster, his body attempting to block out these thoughts by forcing him to feel, and he's not sure whether it's gonna work this time or not, but still he drives himself into Ziva's body like he's searching for something more than release. Because he is.
Ziva is stretched taut, her fingernails digging into his neck, biting so hard on her lip she's probably going to leave a mark.
Tim suspects she doesn't care. He has no idea what she's thinking; he's not sure if he even wants to know.
For her part, Ziva is doing her best not to think about anything.
Certainly not to think of seeing Tony fall, the way she ran but was too late, too far away, as if she somehow could've caught him had she only been closer, faster.
The sickening thud as he hit the ground, the way he looked up at her, surprised and shocked and hurt, tried to say something, choking on his own blood; the way his eyes lost focus, the way his breath just stopped and it was so painfully clear the man who'd been an unstoppable force had finally met an immovable object and lost.
It seems wrong Tony died this way, wrong and cruel, but Ziva also sees an odd poetry to it. The fatal instrument of his demise was nothing less than the Earth itself; nothing less than hitting an entire planet was enough to take out Tony DiNozzo. In amongst the pain and the sadness, she takes a perverse pleasure in knowing that.
She screws her eyes tight shut and wraps her legs harder around Tim's backside. She's not sure if this will continue to work, but in this senseless, post-Tony reality, it's the only thing that still feels real.
They never kiss. It wouldn't seem right. Of all the things this is about, love and romance do not feature. Intimacy is not what they're looking for.
This is about pain and release and connection and fear and grief. This is about survival. They're mourning a man they both loved. More than either of them ever realised or ever told him.
They're bound by death, and neither of them is sure whether this is the cure or the punishment. They never talk about him. He's the unspoken presence in the room as they fuck the feelings away against a broom closet door.
It's sad and it's unhealthy and it's the only thing that helps.
