Tony arrived home from his lip reading coaching and chucked his backpack onto the sofa, it was filled with notes and books he had bought about sign language and lip reading. He was really taking it seriously. He looked at his watch, it was two in the afternoon, that meant he had two hours before McGee was going to pick him up. He kicked off his Armani shoes and slid onto the couch taking up the Xbox controller.
His lip reading coach: Matt, was a really nice guy. He was younger than Tony but was an expert on the subject, he knew Abby who had met him through her parents and they got along well. Matt's brother had lost his hearing when he was a kid and it had inspired him to help teach the necessary communication to people that were in the same situation.
Tony was looking forward to Jimmy and Tim coming along to his sign language class tonight, as he had warned them the teacher was a real tool and annoyed Tony a lot, so Tony did the typical DiNozzo thing to do- and annoyed him back. Mostly it was through screwing around in the class, flirting with the ladies and then pissing him off further by getting everything right. Tonight it would be more entertaining since he would have a familiar audience to perform to, other than the cluster old men with hearing aids.
Tony lazily hung around his apartment waiting for Tim to arrive. Two days earlier Margaret from next door had dropped by with a lasagna and a flower, he had no idea how she knew about his accident. Apparently she had caught Ziva, Abby and McGee breaking into his apartment to set it up for him and they had told her the news. He had stuck the small flower in a half filled coffee mug and set it on the kitchen bench. The lasagna was sitting between a couple of microwave dinners and some old pizza in his fridge.
Tony was peeling himself away from his Halo3 Xbox game when the lights in his apartment flickered on and off, Mcgee was here.
He slung his backpack over his shoulder and grabbed his wallet and mobile phone from the kitchen counter before making his way to the front door. He stopped and looked into his reflection in a picture frame on his way to the door; smoothed down his hair a bit and flashed a smile at his own reflection before unlocking the door and swinging it open.
Tony exited just as McGee was about to press the door bell for a second time, he stepped out of the doorway and locked the door behind him. McGee stood to attention and put hit hand stiffly to his forehead with his palm facing out before throwing it out in a stiff salute. It was the sign for hello. Tony watched stone faced as McGee performed the gesture awkwardly, the whole thing screaming for a good teasing session. Tony just held his laughter inside and performed his reply with a stone-cold serious expression. He threw his right leg and arm out wildly to the side before whipping them inward and clicking his heels together, he thrust his hand forward into a solid salute and sent his arm flying out towards the ceiling before army-marching briskly towards the elevator. McGee groaned inwardly at his mistake before hurrying after him.
"Hop to- Solider! Keep up, Mcgee!" Tony called a little too loudly.
They entered the grimy elevator and rode down to McGee's car. Palmer was standing next to the silver Porsche Boxter and smiled as the two approached. Tony hurried forward slightly and ran his hand down the entire side of the car before patting its bonnet.
"Oh McGee, you should bring darling Portia here along more often, how are you baby?" He said speaking to the car.
McGee pointed at Tony and then to the passenger seat, clicking his fingers. Tony straightened swiftly and smiled his 100 watt DiNozzo smile at Tim.
"Tim, Timothy, Timmy-darling," He said sweetly.
"No." Tim said out loud, Tony got the message.
"My best buddy in the whole wide world?"
"No"
"Did I ever tell you, you're my hero?"
"No"
"And everything I would like to be? … Sort of..?"
"No"
"Didn't I?"
"No"
"Please Timmy? I'll be ever so careful! I'll treat her like a newborn?"
"There is no way in hell you are driving my car, Tony"
Tony gave McGee a death stare and then looked across at Palmer who had been watching the conversation flying back and forth. He was sitting in the front passenger seat craning his neck to get a better view of his bickering co-workers. Tony walked over to the front passenger seat with his eyes still focused on McGee in the death stare, he tilted his chin back and looked down at Palmer with the same look in his eye.
"Back seat, Palmer. Move it or lose it."
Jimmy reluctantly agreed and moved into the squashy backseat, his lanky legs pressing up near his knees. Tony bundled himself in and Tim started the car up and jumped a mile high as his self-confidence building CD blared over the speakers. He shut it off quickly and looked over at Tony wincing in anticipation at the teasing he was about to endure, Tony couldn't help himself when it came to Tim's CD's. But of course Tony was staring absently out of the front windscreen, ignorant to what had just happened. Tim breathed out. He was almost thankful.
"This is discrimination against the handy-capable, McGee. Are you proud now that you have butchered a helpless, disabled young man into a downward spiral of lowering self-esteem? All it could have taken was a simple joy-ride in Portia here, but no. You'd rather watch this attractive, defenseless, vulnerable man cry over something so simple as a little love and attention? I am very disappointed in you."
Tony rambled on as he rummaged through the compartments in the front of the car, looking for something incriminating to use against McGee in his teasing session. McGee watched and didn't stop him, he had already cleaned out his car in preparation for the journey. When he didn't find anything he leant back in his seat and stuck his feet up on the dashboard. McGee winced as he did so but didn't stop him.
McGee smirked at Tony's touching speech and stretched his hand out to stroke the side of Tony's face in reply. Tony jerked back and battered his hand away before spitting on his own and rubbing it on his cheek as if trying to clean the spot where McGee had touched him.
"Forget the love and attention bit, keep your dirty paws off me McPedophile."
Palmer and McGee talked on the ride there while Tony sat in silence playing with his mobile phone, it was too difficult to try and follow their conversation when he could only see half of Tim's face and none of Jimmy's.
They pulled up at the community center and the three jumped out, Tony was jittery with excitement.
"Lets go, lets go. Hop to! Move your toosh Gremlin! Oh, and don't worry- I brought the garlic." Tony said hopping from one foot to another.
Jimmy smiled cautiously at Tony, unsure of where he stood between the two men he was with, they seemed to have a closer yet slightly dysfunctional relationship with each other. They entered the center and looked about the small hall. There was a projector screen set up at the front of the room and a while board. Tables and chairs were set up facing the board like a school setting and had papers neatly laid out on them. The room was filled with a mixture of older and younger people, they were greeted at the door by a pompous looking middle aged man, with pants pulled up to his armpits. Tony scooted up to him and patted him on the shoulder.
"Hey, hey man! Long time no see!" He said playfully to the teacher who stood stiffly as Tony patted him. "What's it been like, 24 hours now? Jeez! I missed you man! I'm looking forward to this lesson, Mr. Professor guy, Sir"
The teacher narrowed his eyes at Tony and signed something harshly; Tony smiled sweetly and slid passed. Palmer and McGee both shook hands with the instructor.
"Good evening, I'm the instructor here at this American Sign Language lesson and am running the course, my name is Paul Brown. This is you're first sign language lesson?" Paul said and signed the words at the same time.
"Yeah, I'm Tim and this is Jimmy- we aren't deaf." McGee said back, he never thought he would see the day when he found a guy nerdier than he was!
"Alright, great. Most of the people here are not hearing impaired, only about 5 of the 30 people attending have hearing problems. Are you two here with anyone?" The instructor asked, obviously missing that they had arrived with Tony. The two men um'ed and ah'ed their reply, but were interrupted by Tony yelling at them from across the room, startling people around him.
"Hey Elf-Lord! Gremlin!" Tony half yelled, loud enough for them to hear. "Palmer! McGee! Are you two deaf? Hurry up! Stop talking to Professor Fancy-pants and get over here!"
The instructor turned back to them. Jimmy laughed nervously.
"Tony?" Paul asked flatly.
"Yeah."
"Good luck."
And the two made their way over to the tables as Paul made his way to the front of the room, switching on the projector and seating himself at the laptop. They each had a few exercise sheets set out in front of them and Tony had a load of extra books he had brought, along with a box of what looked like rubber bands. Paul started off the introduction of the class and explained what they would be learning this lesson. McGee and Palmer had clearly missed a few lessons and were just going to pick it up from there. As Paul spoke he typed his words up on the screen on the projector so the deaf people of the class read them. Tony had them sitting right up the front of the class. Tim could see that five of the seven other people in their row were staring intently at the screen as Tony was; the hearing impaired people of the class were seated up the class as to get the best view.
Paul was talking about grammar and the use of verbs and lack of words like 'be', 'are' and 'is' in sign language. He explained the different arrangement of words in a sign language sentence and made some examples. It was at about this point that the first rubber band hit him in the forehead. He blatantly ignored it. McGee felt a strange pang of empathy. He'd been in that exact position.
In the first ten minutes Tony managed to drive Paul to the point where he had to close his eyes and breath to contain himself. Tony was leaning back as far as he could go on his chair and looking back into the eyes of a young woman seated behind him. With his head resting on her desk. He signed something to her and made her giggle before speaking out loud.
"Hello there, my name is Anthony DiNozzo…And you, may I say, have incredible eyes! Are you an eye model by any chance? You could be, you know, you have excellent lash extension. The colour is fantastic too, something to do with lipochrome pigmentation: amber, nice."
Palmer and McGee watched on amazed as Tony finished all his worksheets in a flash and settled with blowing annoyingly loud bubbles with his gum. Paul walked briskly over to Tony and stood in front of him with his hands on his hips.
"Stop it, Tony. You are disrupting the class." He said to the other man, out loud.
"WHAT?" Tony practically yelled at him, cracking a smile as he stuck both his hands behind his ears. Paul signed something quickly and then folded his arms.
"I beg your pardon?" Tony squinted at him in confusion. Paul frowned deeper, knowing Tony had understood him and was faking the confusion he signed two words in reply. STOP IT.
"Alright, Paul. Calm your farm."
Tony leaned back on his chair a little further and balanced skillfully as he signed something back after his voiced reply. It appeared to be a long sentence and left Paul red in the face. It seemed to mean something to different to what he had said.
The two sitting next to Tony were slightly impressed. Paul signed back something furiously, McGee reached forward and pulled out his own copy of an ASL dictionary and looked up the signs, raising his eyebrows when he found what they meant. Tony laughed.
The lesson finished three hours after it started. The trio walked a couple of blocks down the road to a favorite pizza place of Tony's for dinner. Palmer now walked in between them and was ten times more confident with the two then when he arrived earlier in the afternoon. It had been evident that Tim and Jimmy had been learning a little at home, Jimmy in particular and kept up with the lesson well. They were both amazed at how nobody in the class seemed to be as advanced as Tony.
They slid into the pizza place and into a small booth on the other side of the restaurant. They ordered a couple of pizzas and pulled out their books and dictionaries while they waited. Tony was surprised and slightly flattered at the effort the two other men seemed to have gone to learn ASL. They both had dictionaries and had each learned a few basic phrases by heart. The conversation they had over dinner was basically all broken American Sign Language they had gotten from the small books, finding nouns and verbs and stringing sentences out of them.
Tony wasn't sure if Jimmy and Tim knew how much this meant to him, them learning Sign Language and coming with him to the classes. They said they planned to come to every one that they could make. It was nice to know they he wasn't the only one that had to put the hard work in for this to all work out. Underneath the main reason for his hard work in the coaching and lessons, apart from the obvious need for normality, was something that Tony hadn't quite come to terms with, something he was oppressing. He couldn't sit still for long anymore, not that he could before. But this was different. He had been hiding from himself, and hiding from his thoughts, every time he didn't have something to do or something to throw himself into his mind would wander. He had no control over the taunting thoughts that cropped up inside him and the only way he could delay them for a little longer, or soften them a little was to find something else to do and focus completely on it.
Tim knew that Tony had refused to see a councilor, it had been predictable. There had been an obvious change in Tony since the incident, that was completely expected though, it was impossible for him not to be changed by it, but Tim had picked up on something. He had kept his theory to himself until an elevator conversation with Gibbs. Gibbs had pulled the emergency switch and plunged himself and the other agent into the eerie blue light. McGee had stood there nervously forcing himself to keep eye contact with his boss. Gibbs voiced his concern for DiNozzo indirectly and had touched a little on Tim's new theory. After a nervous battle with himself to spit the words out (He still couldn't handle being in such a close proximity alone with his boss), Tim managed to voice his opinion. They both agreed that Tony's miraculous change to diligent, hard-working young man overnight might be something they should be slightly concerned about. Tony needed his friends.
The drive home was a lot different to the one on the way to the community center. Tony sat himself facing Palmer without his seat belt on and the two of them badgered McGee the whole way there about a mystery woman. Tony had found an image of an attractive young woman on McGee's phone at the restaurant and had been tormenting him ever since. McGee cursed himself for being so careless, he had grown slightly lazy over the month Tony had been absent from work; ordinarily he would not have been as careless as to leave a photo like that on his phone and usually went to great extremes to hide personal items and such from his co-worker. Lucky this one was only a picture of him and his niece. Tony was yelling questions and taunts out and Palmer was communicating any slight replies Tony might have missed across to him. Tony grew board of the game and let the idea tickle his mind, that maybe McGee's claims were true and it was in fact his niece.
By the time they arrived at Tony's apartment to drop him off, Tony was feeling extremely car sick from sitting the other way. He staggered out the car still rambling about American football as McGee backed the Porsche away to drop Palmer home.
Tony pushed open the front door and flung his bag of books into the kitchen, he kicked the door closed behind him and slothed his way into his bathroom to take a shower. His mood seemed to drop the moment his friends had driven away, back into the cold and dark apartment by himself again. Whoopee. He stripped off his shirt and stood staring at himself in the mirror, it was ugly. He hated the strange splodge that ran from his cheek to his neck and his arm was an unsightly mess, still partially bandaged: at least he could hide it.
His mood darkened. He just stood and stared at himself in the mirror but not really seeing his reflection properly.
He had been with a lot of girls before and he hadn't been shy about it. He was getting older now though and he still wasn't sure where he was at. No matter what his teammates and friends seemed to believe, he wasn't as superficial at they thought. He hated that they thought that, he was quite the opposite. It was easier to appear ignorant than portray his emotions. And now it seemed a little too late, who was going to go with the blemished, deaf, wreck? Nobody. That was always the answer in the end. Nobody, he was alone in the silence.
He cursed. He missed his life, he missed his old life. But this was his life now, and would be until he died. It may be rid of Sinatra and the Sean Connery accent, but it was better than no life at all. He had to keep telling himself that.
God, why did good days always end like this? He mentally Gibbs-slapped himself and spun away from the mirror. He had to keep away from these sorts of thoughts, he had to keep positive. He ran a hand through his hair and started the shower. Alright, what was the sign for shower? He tried to remember it and practiced it in a sentence feeling slightly stupid but thankful for dumb distraction. It took his mind of his mind.
He really needed to get back to work.
I take suggestions, criticism and comments.
I get obscenely excited over them actually, even more so if they aren't demeaning.
PS. Hint, hint.