Title: Disappear
Author: Revanche
Disclaimer: Navy NCIS is owned by CBS, or at least TPTB.
Spoilers: None.
Rating: Light R. Slash.
Summary: Stormy nights and new definitions.
Notes: Many thanks to fauxcynic for the edit . . .
xxxxx
Lightning flickers in the distance, volatile streaks of electricity there and gone, a contrast to his present quiescence. The storm is faraway: he can barely hear the rumble of thunder over the constant white noise of city life. Lightning cracks, just for a second, illuminating the clouds and casting long shadows on the ground. What would it be like to be there, to exist inside that quicksilver flash, that blinding heat?
Sometimes, he thinks that he wants to know. And sometimes he's scared that he'll find out.
The keys are cold metal in his pocket, cold metal against his fingers. Rough edges, biting. Always carry a knife; the world is full of sharp things and though some are pretty, most will kill, and you must always be on guard. This is not a lesson he wanted to learn, but one that he has been taught, many times over. By those who were well-intentioned and those who were not.
This is when it is easiest to think, when the world has gone dark and silent, when no one can see him. When no one is looking, and when thoughts come easily, unbidden. This is why he's usually out in search of lights and glamour and life or, failing that, why he stares at crime scene photographs and interview transcripts, searches for truth in over-exposed photos and recitations of alibis. And so this is when he does his best work -- because every lapse in concentration is weakness, is vulnerability -- but right now, there's nothing to do, nothing to hold his attention. Only cold cases, trivial offenses. And so his mind wanders and he thinks of things that really are best left alone, unremembered.
Like -- his father's favorite glass had shattered like -- lightning, sparks etching across his vision. His mother's mascara had run as she'd stared at the blood warming the side of his face, and she'd asked him to blame it on the help. Please. It had been a Wednesday afternoon, sunny and warm, and his ears were still buzzing with radio static, DJ patter, monotonous bittersweet songs.
She'd asked him, and it hadn't been the last time, or the first.
He recalls this now with distance, with a sense of unreality, of time having passed, and he wonders if he's making all of these memories up, creating them from nothing, because he does it so often, anyway. Avoid and deny through lies and smiles and slowly-cracking facades. It's a survival skill and maybe it's become a way of life. He's turning fictional, but there's nobody around to notice. Nobody who'll know the difference.
And maybe that bothers him, too.
His hands are stiff with cold, with disuse. The storm continues. It seems calm, serene, methodical. He counts the time between thunder and lightning and translates miles into minutes, into hours. How long does he have before he will be at the center, before it will be overhead? He presses his palm to the window, pulls it away and stares at his fingerprints. And wonders how long it would take him to get to the front door, to twist the key in the ignition, to get lost, to just go. Because when it comes down to psychoanalysis --
He wants to run. Wants to run, now. Literally or metaphorically. To get the hell out, because this will not end well. Not today, not tomorrow, but at some point in the future. And it will be worse for his having stayed, now.
The first beads of water hit the windows and an airplane arcs through the sky, its lights brighter than the stars, than the city below. His sweater rasps as he crosses his arms and he feels vulnerable, exposed. He dresses in layers, expensive leather and wool and cotton, because layers are easily definable and obvious and if he wears enough, maybe nothing will get through. He knows it's stupid, but that doesn't stop him from doing it. Never has. Layers hide. Layers hide scars. Muffle actions. Smother words.
He dresses in layers. He's learned to do this. Grown up with it. It's what he knows.
Maybe it's the weather that makes him shiver, the cold air seeping in around the windows, through his skin. Or maybe it's the chill grey sky, the starkness of this room, the harshness of his thoughts.
Maybe he should have gone when he had the chance.
But he should have done a lot of things, should be a lot of things. He should be dead, for one, because he ignores things like safety and values and rules in favor of momentary validation, fleeting affirmation. He knows it, and he knows that it's sad and pathetic and nobody else can ever know, but that doesn't make a difference. He doesn't care. And maybe because of that, he should have died a long time ago. All things considered, his being alive makes little statistical sense. But this isn't the first time he's had this thought, and it won't be the last. It's familiar, but it will be gone by day, chased away by warmth and sunlight, by forced invulnerability.
It's a familiar thought, but one he's having less and less. It's no longer a mantra, a motto, a curse. And he knows that this scares him, and that fact in itself scares him, too. Because he's still not sure that this is right. That this is where he belongs. That he should be here. Hell, he knows he shouldn't be here. The problem is that he can't bring himself to leave.
The problem is that he keeps coming back.
"What are you thinking?" Gibbs asks, coming to stand next to him. He lets the curtains fall closed against the rain.
"It's really warm in Puerto Rico right now," he says, a reflex. Gibbs' hand hits the back of his head and he smiles, just a little, because it's almost like an embrace. "Can't sleep," he says, because it's true. He did try, sprawled across the age-faded couch cushions, staring at the plaster whorls on the ceiling as though reading the future in tea-leaves.
"So stop thinking about . . . Puerto Rico," Gibbs says reasonably. Sometimes he thinks that Gibbs is the sanest person he knows, which is scary.
"Doesn't really work like that, boss," he says, because this is a game that they are going to play. They have played it before. Sometimes he thinks that it's all they ever do.
"Then do something about it," Gibbs says, because even here, he's all about taking action, taking control. He leans forward to close the distance, his lips warm and dry against Tony's, and then he slides down, his mouth against his neck, against the edge of his jaw, and Tony shivers as his tongue slides into Gibbs' mouth, as Gibbs' arms tighten around him, hands sliding lower. The heaviness of his own breath. The slight, almost imperceptible, and infinitely familiar tilt of Gibbs' head. Tony's hands wrapped in the cotton softness of his shirt, age-worn denim between his legs. And as Gibbs steps back, breaking the connection, Tony realizes that he hadn't been able to feel Gibbs' heartbeat through the layers of clothing. The revelation is chilling and it stings, and his hands are fevered, his body too hot, as he falls against the bed. Gibbs' mouth burns along his collarbone as he eases his jeans and boxers down, and Tony thinks that he will never wear layers again. He turns, sighing, and he hears denim sliding, plastic tearing, and he knows, knows, that he will never be able to leave.
Because he has never been more alive. Or closer to dying, because a line of reasoning states that he will not be happy until he is dead, and he thinks that this, this, must be happiness.
Dawn is tinged with gold, frosted with white, and as he rests next to Gibbs, close as though melded, melted, he thinks that he's just living in the fallout. The aftermath. Except he's not sure when the storm occurred, or if it's still pounding, falling, one dreary day after another.
Sometimes, he thinks that maybe -- maybe -- it was a long time ago.
And maybe, just maybe, he's getting over it.
xxxxx
End