Tony/Ziva, also known as fluttering in and under ribs inducing lovebirds. Rated T for safety. Set after season 5. Not a one-shot. Tony is beating himself up over both Kate's and Jenny's deaths. Ghosts from his past are haunting him, snatching life out from under and over him. He blames himself and he blames Ziva. She might be the only one who can turn his life back the way it used to be . But time is running out; for both of them. You are wonderlovely in every way possible if you review and I want to improve so please comment. It is different but I am different and that difference often turns into weird letters and words and sentences. Please forgive. Oh and enjoy and don't beat me up for writing about bruised inside-and-outside Tony. He is still wonderful, I swear.
Fall came late that year. It came on day when the sky was mourning the sun, letting wander lusting ocean soak the city with its chlorine breath and trees with their soon-to-be-dead leaves. He woke that morning, with ache in and all over his skull and a burning sensation in the back of his throat. It felt as if someone had twisted his gut inside out. Not that it mattered. His gut never spoke, whispered or uttered anything useful anyway.
His eyelashes were matted and glued together, forcing him not to watch the wreckage that sometimes (and lately all the time) was shown in his mirror. As he feet touched the floor he realized how cold it was. Damn. He must've left the front door open. Again. Or forgot to pay the heating bill. Again. The air was as stale as his own vodka-dripping breath. But he liked it. He liked the realness of it all. Bird flesh on his limbs and aching in the roof of his mouth. It whispered sweetly to him that all this was reality, these blessed moments in not remembering, not fogged up mind and veins filled with spirit(s). It always came crashing down on him though. Reality, that is. When he passed the beer bottles with their slit throats and saw the wine stain on the couch. Redder than spilled blood, sipping out in every corners, marking its territory. That shattering moment in the morning was always when he remembered. Jenny's death. How he had caused it. And before her; Kate's death. He could have and should have prevented both of their murders. He hadn't. He hadn't because he was a coward on spider legs, sneaking past death's sticky grip and leaving others – people he cared about – to be the ones who were clawed and caught and swallowed whole. Again and again. He was a coward. He snorted once before acid burned his tongue and he threw up, all over the couch, blending guilt with evidence of failure.
He could barely see the outside. He opened his jaw wide and let his breath scrape the windowpane. The window fogged up more, making invisible letters visible and see-through. He remembered this. He'd written it sometime last night (or was it the night before?). It was absolute nonsense and all he could remember was having his head high in bits and pieces of drunken clouds. Coffee clearly wasn't going to do it this morning. And he had to go to work. First day back after a three-month leave. His therapist had told him to take some time off. Get out of the city. Get some air. And oh how he'd glued that pebble-toothed smile on like he always did in situations like these. Said "Oh yeah. Good idea." The same way he always said "On it boss." When he'd come home that night he'd for the first time since college gotten completely smashed and woken up in a bush somewhere in the middle of nowhere. He vaguely remembered falling, falling tripping believing he could fly into an old pool and breathing the dead leaves in water whirlpools beneath his feet and breathing the chlorine. He'd had bruised knuckles and face and inside. Well, at least he had gotten out of the city.
He was nervous now. He had kept this façade nice and strong for years months days now. It had cracked too much, though. Like and old statue, he'd fallen apart piece by piece, the artist who made him long gone. The artist. Yeah right.
He was nervous to meet Gibbs. McGee. Abby. Ducky. Even Palmer. But most of all he was nervous to meet Ziva. She had been right there, when Jenny died. Stood next to each other in that soul-filled room, watching naked empty bodies of enemies and a friend. They had drunk in the dark together. He didn't like the way she always stared right through him – spider-web ribs and all that red and sticky inside – like she could touch and make wonderful of every single emotion that had ever passed through his nerves and heart. She didn't understand, though. She couldn't possibly imagine. This was her fault, too. He got angry now. The same way he had felt throughout the whole, tripping dust-hot summer. Every-color-hot rage and a stabbing sensation from somewhere inside. Anger took away the ache in his head, a bit. He liked that. It was Ziva's fault, too. She didn't have the right to look through him. Like she knew him. Knew his past and knew who he really was. Oh the cliché of it all made him laugh until the fakeness almost turned reality inside out.
In the elevator, he has the feeling that he is on his toes, feet, feet slipping and he is falling, crashing down in moody ocean waves, salty promises about fornever drowning him. That's how it feels. Not like he's going up. His lungs are almost exploding and his knee is already scraping rock bottom as the doors smoothly glide open.
As he works his way to his old desk, there's an almost snow-still silence. His fingertips are buzzing like colorful insects and he sees brown and golden and gasp gasp. She turns around at that exact moment, neck bird-like, her lips apart like that, puffy bottom lip dropped and fluorescents all sparkly white-brown in her eyes. He hates her. He hates the way she gets up, the way she flings her skinny arms with lack of downy softness around his bowstring-tense neck. He hates the way her all-own scents bore into his pores and mind.
As she draws back she is breathless, trying to steal air from his crammed oxygen space. Her smile is there, dimpling her cheeks and eyes.
"Hello, Tony." Her voice. Goddamn her voice. Going all around him, trying to pull words out from beneath his throat. Her want and need is too big for him. So he grins with his mouth but falter with his still-saltwater-stinging eyes.
"I see McGeek hasn't taken away your love for me." And her key bones soften and unlocks and she is giggling, crystal clear and painful all the same.
Oh, how normal it all is now.
He hates her. For her normality, for the way she isn't guilt-ridden by his ghosts.
When she slips her hand around his wrist her touch burns more and in other buzzing places than vodka in a dried-out stomach does.
Thank you ever so much for reading this little piece of not-really literature. There will be more, enough to make you overfed with depressed Tony if this chapter didn't already do the trick. Please review, my darlings.