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The taste of nicotine was sweet in Tony’s mouth as he took in another long drag of the cigarette pressed between two fingers, watching as the tip burned and shriveled before the ash disintegrated and filtered into the air. It was rather rhythmic in Tony’s opinion to watch something begin to burn and disappear right before his very eyes while he enjoyed the peace it brought him. After holding his breath for a few moments, he allowed it to billow out from his partially opened mouth.
When he brought the cigarette back up to his lips to take another strong breath in, the gleam of the burning tip caught his eye once more. He twirled it around his fingers momentarily before bringing it down to touch the inner portion of his wrist on his opposite hand, momentarily wincing at the pain it brought.
The edges of his skin around the butt of the cigarette began to hiss from the heat, singeing the pink flesh directly under his skin. Tony twisted the cigarette to force it deeper, unable to hide a wince when his flesh began to bubble. It was nothing serious yet, but with added pressure it could turn into something that would need some care and maybe even some medical attention from a professional such as Ducky. Although Tony wouldn’t want it to go that far; he wasn’t the one solely in control of his actions he felt.
“What the hell are you doing, DiNozzo?”
Tony immediately pulled the cigarette from his skin and tucked the arm back at his side, lowering the one foot that he had bent and pressed against the wall that he had been leaning against. The cigarette fell from his grasp, stomped out by the heel of Tony’s shoe. His head turned to the side to see his Boss heading towards him, a look of fire and shock clear in his usually intense gaze. It was a look that Tony had seen in him before, just not when looking at him.
“Uh...Boss. I didn’t hear you coming,” Tony murmured, pressing the now aching wrist press against his leg, struggling not to wince.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs was nothing if not persistent. It may have been true that Tony hadn’t heard Gibbs coming, but surely he would’ve guessed he would’ve sought him out after he slipped out of the bullpen rather angrily, not even responding when Abby had called to gain his attention. She had wanted to go after him, but Gibbs had been insistent that he would see to Tony, and now he was relieved that he had or seeing Tony behave this way would’ve broken her heart.
“That is clear. Now, care to tell me what you’re doing,” Gibbs repeated.
Tony instinctively began to pick at the burned skin around the cigarette burn. “I...uh....just, was....um...” Tony lifted his hand and scratched behind his neck at the nape of his neck, fingers brushing against the soft hair he found there.
Gibbs reached forward and grasped Tony’s wrist, bringing it forth in front of his vision, ignoring when Tony gasped in pain and attempted to pull his hand free.
Gibbs turned Tony’s wrist over, the red and blistering tissue catching his attention. He drew a thumb lightly over it and Tony pulled his hand back and clutched it against his chest, eyes flashing in pain. His body shook in rage, mouth partially open though no words came out. Tears threatened to fall, and it took all of Tony’s concentration to make sure that they didn’t.
“Ducky,” Gibbs ordered deliberately and slowly. “Now.”
Tony had known Gibbs long enough to know that there was no reason to even try to argue with him, despite what he may be feeling. He would lose that argument every time and possibly earn himself a headslap in the process. Though, purposely burning himself with the lit end of a cigarette would get him far more than a headslap he was sure.
It only took Tony’s brain a moment to process what Gibbs had said. In that timeframe, though, Gibbs reached out and gave Tony a nudge against his shoulder, forcing his senior field agent forward.
Tony mind ran on autopilot, prompting him to head toward the NCIS headquarters building. Each step was a challenge as though his feet were made of cement, clunking and slamming into the ground, making everything he did uncoordinated. He was waiting for Gibbs to make a comment about the way he was walking, yet his Boss remained quiet, which wasn’t unlike him.
Gibbs watched Tony’s movements like a hawk, especially the way that his hands kept moving into his pockets and shifting about. It was beyond fidgeting at this point. He had seen Tony anxious before and this was even beyond that. He was petrified; logic seeming to be fleeting and Gibbs still wasn’t sure that Tony wouldn’t bolt the other direction.
They headed into the elevator with Tony continuing to be uncharacteristically quiet. He took one corner while Gibbs took the other, gaze fixed forward as he hit the floor designation to the ME’s office.
“Are you going to scold me or something,” Tony suddenly asked.
Gibbs raised an eyebrow before suddenly reaching forward and pressing the emergency stop in the elevator. It came to an abrupt halt, momentarily jarring both men where they stood.
“DiNozzo—“
“Yeah, no, I am not having this conversation right now.” Tony reached past Gibbs and flicked off the emergency stop, bracing himself when the elevator started to move once more.
Gibbs stayed where he was, not rushing forward to stop the elevator again. He sensed this was one situation not to push his agent through, instead one to let him guide himself through. Gibbs was far from leaving him to his own devices, though this was one situation he hadn’t come across before and would be lying if he said he wasn’t out of his element.
The elevator dinged and the door opened, DiNozzo leading himself out without waiting for Gibbs to follow. Part of him wished that his Boss would just go back to the Bullpen instead of following him, but the echoing sound of steps behind him gave him the answer—not quite the one that he was hoping for, but an answer nonetheless.
Tony headed into the morgue, the familiar whizzing sound of the doors greeting his ears.
Dr. Mallard suddenly looked up from his desk, spinning around on a stool to face him. “Ah, Anthony. What a surprise. What can I do for you, my boy?”
Tony opened his mouth to answer, but Gibbs suddenly beat him to it.
“Are you familiar with burn protocol, Duck,” Gibbs questioned.
Ducky tipped his head to the side, surprise skirting across his face. “I believe so, Jethro. Though I’m not quite sure what you are referencing. I haven’t hear about any injuries from anyone living that would need my attention.”
“That’s because he’s right here.” Gibbs stepped back and looked to Tony, gaze unreadable to anyone that didn’t know him. Unfortunately, Tony wasn’t one of those people.
Tony stepped forward shyly, barely meeting Ducky’s troubled gaze. “A burn? However did that happen?”
Tony remained surprisingly tight lipped, shuffling from one foot to the other. He half expected Gibbs to chime in with something, or Ducky to offer some long winded story to break the tension, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
“No matter. They’re all treated the same way.” Ducky headed over to the nearest exam table and patted the surface. “Hop up here, Anthony, and show me this burn of yours.”
Tony strode over and reluctantly slid up onto the table, muscles momentarily contracted while he looked to Gibbs while Ducky grabbed his bag for his living patients. “You don’t have to stay here, Boss. I think the Duck Man can handle it.”
Gibbs crossed his arms over his chest and stood his ground.
“Okay, or not,” Tony muttered, looking away from Gibbs’s piercing gaze that left him feeling uncomfortable and almost queasy.
Luckily, Ducky returned a moment later and set down his heavy bag beside Tony. “Alright, let’s see what exactly we’re dealing with.”
Tony begrudgingly pulled his arm from where it had been still tucked at his side. He flipped his hand over, revealing the perfect circular burn directly in the center of his wrist. The skin was puffy and blistering, pus collecting under the granulation tissue. The swelling spread from the initial burn, retaining water when Ducky gingerly touched with two fingers around the initial burn site, watching not only how the pink tinged skin reacted, but also Tony’s expression and his physical reaction to it.
“The is perfectly circular. If I had to guess I would say this was caused by the butt end of a cigarette. But you don’t smoke.” Ducky appeared to be speaking almost to himself until he looked up, clear confusion on his face.
Tony bit on his bottom lip, nearly drawing blood in the process. “Uh...I-I may do it every now and again, but just like one or two a day at the most. It’s nothing major!”
“Dear, Anthony, you really should not be smoking with the state of your lungs after your bout with Y-Pestis! Your lungs are already scared as they are. Any tittle thing could possibly cause a relapse or increase your risk of lung cancer,” Ducky continued without end in sight.
Tony wanted to blurt out that he didn’t need a lecture at the moment and he fully understood his risks and the potential damage he was doing to his body, especially his lungs. He felt it every time he took in a deep breath, or when he smoked more than one cigarette a day. Truthfully, one was even pushing it and he often felt out of breath and prone to coughing fits after, which was why he only smoked after work and never anywhere anyone from NCIS could see him. Today was just one of those days that he couldn’t wait.
“Can we save the lecture for later, maybe....Ducky,” Tony requested, stealing a fleeting glance at Gibbs, dropping his head once more when Gibbs looked back in his direction.
Ducky nodded vigorously. “Yes, of course. There is always time to talk about healthy habits, especially as it deals with your lungs. But, until that time comes, let me see just what we are dealing with.”
Tony was only partially relieved to be moving the subject onto his cigarette burn. No matter how much he pleaded in his head for Gibbs to find something interesting, preferably something that took him away from the morgue and back into the bullpen; perhaps even outside NCIS headquarters such as on a case. Anything would be preferable to him watching this whole scene unfold.
A single touch to the center of the burn had Tony pulling his arm back, fixing Ducky with a glare.
“I was about to ask how tender it was, but I see I answered my own question.” Ducky took step back from the table and motioned to the sink. “We’re going to wash it off in cool water first and the I’ll apply some ointment and wrap it. The last thing we need is that to become infected. Cigarettes aren’t the cleanest object in the world.”
“You may be going a little overboard,” Tony argued. “It’s really nothing. It hardly even hurt.”
“It was hardly nothing, DiNozzo,” Gibbs answered as he took a step toward the slightly cowering agent. “If I wouldn’t have come up, how long would you have held it there?”
“I have everything under control!” Tony quickly lowered his voice. No matter how angry he became at Gibbs, he couldn’t remember the last time that he had raised his voice at him, nor when it had ever helped him accomplish anything when anyone else did so. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
Sensing that there was more to the story, and more that the two men needed to work out on their own, Ducky headed over to fill a bowl with cool water. He bathed the burn and the skin around it, brushing off the ash and dirt from Tony’s skin. Applying the ointment was easy enough and then wrapping his wrist in gauze was almost second nature to him, despite the fact that he almost never had live patients. He secured it with some tape before nodding to him, and then to Gibbs.
“That should be all that you need. I’d like to check on it in a couple days to make sure that it’s healing and there is no sign of infection. But, do call if you you notice any discharge, swelling, or immediate burning discomfort.” Ducky reached to grab his medical bag, taking a deliberate step back. “You know, it’s about time I took my lunch, but you two are welcome to stay as long as you like. It is much....cooler down here.”
Tony didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know exactly what Dr. Mallard was doing. Although he would’ve preferred to go home and be done with it, the chance of Gibbs letting him go without having some semblance of a conversation was next to none.
Once the doors hissed closed to signal Ducky’s escape from the situation, Tony instinctively pulled his shirt sleeve down to cover the gauze. “I think that McGee is waiting for me to—“
“McGee can wait. There’s something more important things we need to discuss right now.”
“More important than a dead Marine? Clearly someone replaced the real Gibbs with an imposter because nothing is more important than a dead Marine,” Tony joked, a small goofy grin showing on his face.
Gibbs wasn’t falling for it for a minute.
“Neither of us are leaving until we have this conversation. What the hell were you thinking, DiNozzo?”
Tony ducked his head forward, bracing himself for a headslap. When that didn’t come, he kept himself still braced forward just incase. “You and Ducky are making a bigger deal out of this than you need to. It’s a simple burn, so what?!”
“It’s not just the burn. It’s the smoking in the first place as well as how you’ve been acting for the past couple months. You’re not even acting like yourself anymore.”
“Oh really? And how do you think that I should act? Because at least I’m acting like something happened!”
And there it was. It was what Gibbs had thought all along, but for Tony to openly say it, even when he was clearly pushed to do so, allowed the needed wiggle room in the conversation Gibbs had been hoping for. A balance would have to be forged to have a conversation truthfully with Tony and not risk making things worse, especially with tension already being as high as it was.
“This is about Kate,” Gibbs murmured.
Tony gave a shake of his head. “Just forget I said anything.” He tried to push himself off the table and walk past Gibbs, anxious to get out of the situation by any means necessarily.
To Tony’s frustration, Gibbs blocked his way, forcibly placing himself whenever Tony attempted to stand to leave. It was an interesting situation to have Gibbs so insistent that Tony stay by using anything besides his words as Tony would usually listen to whatever his boss told him that depicted an order. The same could not be said for things at the moment.
“I’m not moving until we talk about this,” Gibbs told the younger man sternly.
Tony drew back, bringing his hands up to his hand to dig his fingers deep into his scalp. “We don’t need to talk about this. Okay, I’m fine!”
Going from one extreme to the other wasn’t quite what Gibbs was expecting. Then again, none of this sounded like the Tony that he had grown to know and care for. A change of tactic may have to be employed for this.
“You’re not fine. Losing Kate impacted everyone. You think you’re the only person going through hell with it?” Gibbs head tipped to the side. “But you haven’t said a word about it.”
Tony bunched his hands into fists and shook his head. “What will it matter? It won’t bring her back, it won’t change what happened, and everyone else has just moved on. Her desk is empty and no one even mentions her.” Tears collected in the corners of his eyes as he shook his head. “Why can everyone move on but me?”
Gibbs sighed deeply and lowered his head so that he was eye to eye with his agent. “Tony, look at me.”
Tony nearly jumped in shock that Gibbs had called him by his first name. He could count the amount of times that had happened and it never ended all that well. It forced him to straighten, eyes momentarily widened.
“Just because we haven’t said anything doesn’t mean we don’t miss her. I thought giving you space to work through this would be best for you instead of bringing it up. It seems I was wrong.” Gibbs tasted the sourness of admitting that he had been wrong, but he hoped if he kept going Tony wouldn’t comment on it. “But this...” Gibs took Tony’s wrist in his hand, tightening just enough around the wound without touching it so that Tony’s attention snapped back up. “This is not the way to go about it.”
Tony’s face began to crumble as he pulled his hand back against his chest. “I don’t think that I can do this, Boss.”
Gibbs suddenly reached out and tapped Tony on the back of the head. It was rather gentle for a headslap, but Tony received the message all the same.
“You can and you will. Her memory lives on. Do you think that she would want you to give up just because she’s not here?”
Tony was surprised by Gibbs rather gentle reminder. He glanced up and pondered for a moment before shaking his head, tears beginning to fall.
Gibbs wasn’t sure if he had ever seen Tony cry, not even when they had to call in Kate’s death or when she was in autopsy. He had remained detached and cold, focused on finding Ari just as Gibbs had been. The exhilaration and thrill of the chase was now over, yet the emotions they all felt still remained. They may deal with them differently—very differently actually—but they were still there.
Against all instinct, Gibbs reached out and pulled Ton’y close. Tony instinctively tensed, unsure how to react to it. He wasn’t sure if his boss had ever shown him any sort of physical affection besides the headslap, which one may argue that was not affectionate. Either way, Tony still tensed in his grasp with his arms at his side.
“You can’t do this to yourself,” Gibbs murmured after a moment.
That was all it took for Tony to almost go limp, shoulders shaking with sobs. “She’s gone, Boss,” Tony choked out between sobs. “She’s gone and she’s not coming back!”
“I know.” Gibbs rubbed his hand up and down Tony’s back. He had done the same thing with Kelly when she would be upset and cried about something, and he hoped it would have the same comforting affect. “I know.”
If someone would’ve told Tony that one day he would cry in the arms of his boss, he would’ve laughed in their face and called them an idiot. Yet, here he was, relying on Gibbs to almost keep him upright as he cried, unable to stop no matter how he tried. The pain from months of concealing and bottling was erupting with a passion and he was powerless to do anything besides embrace it.
“It’s going to be alright,” Gibbs continued, hoping that talking would help Tony through. “It’s going to be okay.”
Tony didn’t believe Gibbs for a moment, not that he would actually say it.
Kate was gone and nothing, nothing he ever did was going to change that.