NCIS Fic: Fine is a Four Letter Word - Gen - 26/30
Title: Fine is a Four Letter Word - Chapter 26: Fading
Author: Emeraldsong (originally posted on ff.net as Secretchild)
Rating: T, mainly for language
Genre: Gen, angst, hurt/comfort, friendship, family
Characters: Team fic, but strong focus on Tony/Gibbs father/son relationship and Abby/Tony friendship.
Summary: When Tony collapses while pursuing a suspect, he insists it's just the flu. Things are never that simple.
Disclaimer: Nope, still not mine.
It's alright,
This could be a rough night.
So hold tight,
This is not a fair fight.
-The Fray, "Fair Fight"
Gibbs snapped the phone shut for the last time, then deposited it in his pocket. He'd said the words three times and he could still taste them, bitter in the back of his throat. Tony was moved to ICU last night. Wasn't giving bad news supposed to get easier the more times you repeated it?
Ziva and McGee were on their way - in fact, he'd actually heard Ziva getting into her car before they were half done with their conversation, peppering him with questions that he barely managed to respond to before she let the next one fly. He'd briefly considered giving her the same warning he'd given Abby, but decided to save his breath. Besides, he wasn't completely certain Ziva had ever actually used her seatbelt in the first place...
And then there had been McGee, with just as many questions that Gibbs couldn't answer. He'd been getting frustrated by that point; when they had been about to hang up and McGee slipped in one last "Um, Boss?", he'd snapped "I don't know, McGee!" with such force that he almost apologized. Almost.
McGee had taken it in stride. Probie's getting tougher, Tony would have said. "I was just going to ask - do you need anything?"
It had caught Gibbs off guard. "Do I what?"
"I just figured, you've been there since yesterday. Is there anything you need? Clothes or something? So you don't have to leave."
The words nearly undid him. Gibbs sank down on the arm of the vinyl chair, feeling suddenly very tired. He'd been about to refuse, when he remembered the number of times he'd cursed a blue streak - usually in his head, occasionally out loud - when Tony wouldn't accept even the smallest offer of help. Never ask your people to do something you wouldn't do yourself. "Yeah," he finally said. "That'd be good, McGee. Thanks. Door's unlocked."
Now, the phone weighing in his pocket, he walked back through the ICU to Tony's cubicle. Tony looked to be asleep when he came in, but Gibbs could tell he was awake, just too exhausted to do anything about it. Still, Gibbs stayed as quiet as possible as he sat, elbows braced on his knees, and studied Tony's face. Dark shadows circled his eyes, and the paleness of his skin emphasized the livid red of his cheeks, testament to the fever that still burned through his body. And was he imagining things, or was there a tinge of blue to Tony's lips? It was the oxygen mask, he decided. Or a shadow from the monitor. Or a trick of the light.
Don't you do this to me, DiNozzo. Not like this.
He wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting there when he heard a voice. "Agent Gibbs?" One of the nurses stood in the doorway. "There's a young lady in the waiting area asking for you."
Gibbs nodded. "Tell her I'll be right there."
"Abby?" Tony spoke for the first time since Gibbs had come in.
"Probably."
Tony sighed. "You called them?"
"Nope. Sent smoke signals."
"Boss, you really gotta work on your fear of technology." Even stringing together such a brief sentence had left him needing to catch his breath.
"They'll want to see you. You up for it?"
"Sure. Gonna be boring, though."
"I don't think they're expecting a one-man show, DiNozzo." Gibbs stopped, suddenly reluctant to leave him.
Tony sensed his hesitation. "Better go, Boss. Abby's gonna storm the barricades."
As Gibbs left, he realized that Tony never had opened his eyes.
The entire team was in the waiting room by the time Gibbs emerged from the ICU. Abby was pacing, high-heeled leather boots clattering on the tile floor, but as soon as she saw Gibbs she came straight to him. "Gibbs," was all she could manage. He pulled her close, resting his chin on her head as she buried her face in his chest, allowing himself to take a bit of comfort even as he gave it.
"How's Tony?" McGee was sitting beside Ducky, a cloth duffel bag at his feet.
"He's stable," Gibbs said, trying to keep his voice neutral. They were looking to him for information and for reassurance, and he didn't know how much of either he could provide. At the very least, he could keep from making things worse.
"'Stable' does not tell us much, Gibbs," Ziva said. She was leaning against the wall, arms folded, apart from the rest. To Gibbs, she looked both worried and as though she were itching to lay into someone, anyone. He knew the feeling.
"Well, that's pretty much what it boils down to. He still has a fever, his breathing isn't great, but he's holding his own."
"Boss, do they at least know what's wrong? I know you said pneumonia, but there's so many things that could cause it."
"They're still trying to figure that out, Timothy," Ducky said. "Testing, unfortunately, takes time; in the interim, he's being treated with broad-spectrum medications to cover the most likely possibilities."
"Can we see him?" Ziva asked.
"Two at a time, no more than ten minutes," Gibbs said, quoting the ICU visiting rules. Just because he didn't exactly follow them didn't mean they didn't have merit. "Ziva, McGee, you two go on back. He knows you're coming." He'd half-expected Abby to protest, but she remained silent and still at his side, watching as a nurse met Ziva and McGee at the doorway to lead them through to Tony.
"Abs?"
"I'm fine, Gibbs."
"Uh-huh." He waited, but she didn't say anything else, and he frankly didn't have the energy to pry it out of her. Now that the adrenaline rush of the past several hours was subsiding, he was beginning to feel the weight of sheer emotional and physical exhaustion. He settled for putting an arm around her, figuring she'd tell him when she was ready. Abby thrived on words and hugs, and he knew that when one failed her, the other became even more important.
She still hadn't spoken by the time Ziva and McGee returned the mandated ten minutes later. They both looked shaken, but McGee offered Gibbs and Abby a tremulous smile. "Let's go, Abs," Gibbs said, but she didn't move.
"Gibbs," she said, looking up at him. "I don't know if I can do this."
He started to reassure her, tell her of course she could, she'd been doing it all along, but McGee beat him to it. "Yes, you can," he said, crouching in front of her. "It's still Tony."
"I know, but..."
"Abby, he called me Elf Lord, McWorrywart, and told me I really needed to go outside more often because he's in the ICU and I'm still paler than he is. Trust me. It's still Tony."
She managed the smallest of laughs, and let McGee pull her to her feet. Gibbs gave McGee a grateful look as he followed her through the door.
Abby's new-found bravado lasted until they reached the doorway of Tony's cubicle. Gibbs heard her suck in a breath and felt her tense at his side. He cursed himself for not doing a better job of preparing her - he'd tried, but there was only so much he could do. Gibbs had been with Tony the entire time, and he still had trouble believing how ill he looked compared to just the 24 hours before. To Abby, the change would be even more shocking.
She didn't stop, but she also couldn't keep a few tears from escaping, and she wiped them furiously away as she went in. Tony smiled when he saw her and patted the space beside him. Seeing her hesitation, he said softly, "You won't hurt me, Abs."
She sat down and tried to return the smile, but it was shaky at best. "Tony..."
"Hey." He reached out to touch her damp cheek. "There's no crying in baseball."
"Too easy," she replied. "A League of Their Own. Tom Hanks and Geena Davis."
"And Madonna. Don't forget Madonna."
She sniffed, finally smiling for real. "I used to have black lace gloves like the ones she wore in Who's That Girl."
"Used to?"
"Jethro ate them when he was staying with me last month. Before my landlord kicked him out."
Tony looked up at Gibbs. "Boss, what'd you do to get kicked out of Abby's place?"
"The dog, DiNozzo."
"I knew that."
They stayed a bit longer, but Tony was tiring quickly, and by the ten minute mark he was clearly struggling to keep his eyes open. "Time to go, Abs," Gibbs said.
"I'll see you later, Tony," she said, getting up carefully so as not to jostle him too much. Tony smiled and lifted his hand in a gesture of farewell, but didn't speak. Air was fast becoming a precious commodity.
Gibbs placed a warm hand on her shoulder as they walked down the hall, and she made it all the way to the waiting room before finally giving in to the tears.
Morning slipped into afternoon, and the sun was sinking low in the sky by the time Gibbs and the rest of the team finally left the ICU. Abby, Ziva, and McGee had spent most of the day in the waiting room, making brief visits to Tony when the clock and the nurses permitted. Gibbs had resumed his post in the chair beside Tony's bed; the staff had long since given up on trying to make him leave, and whenever Tony's rasping breaths gave way to wracking coughs, they found that Gibbs' presence actually helped to keep the younger man calm and the episodes to pass more quickly.
On her last visit, Tony had grabbed Abby's hand when she stood up to leave. "Abs," he said softly. Gibbs usually would have pegged it as a teasing whisper; over the course of the day, though, talking had become increasingly difficult as Tony fought harder for breath. "Take the boss...downstairs and feed him...would ya? You know how...he gets when his...blood sugar's low."
"DiNozzo," Gibbs warned.
"See? Cranky."
"C'mon, Gibbs," Abby said. "Tony's right. You need to eat." He let her drag him down to the cafeteria, picking up McGee and Ziva on the way, and the four of them spent an interminable hour picking at their food. Gibbs mostly nursed his coffee and listened to the others' silence, their usual banter absent. None of them were really hungry, and when Gibbs finally got up to place his nearly-full tray on the belt, the others followed with a palpable sense of relief.
Ducky had stayed with Tony while Gibbs ate, or what passed for eating. When the ME met him outside Tony's cubicle, Gibbs had confirmation that the churning in his gut was not just too much black coffee on an empty stomach. "What is it, Duck?"
"He's not doing well, Jethro," Ducky said bluntly, knowing Gibbs would appreciate the honesty. "He's beginning to show signs of hypoxia - somnolence, confusion. Dr. Pitt is waiting on some additional lab results to check his blood gases, but he indicated that we may need to consider more intensive respiratory support."
Gibbs closed his eyes briefly, letting the words sink in. More intensive respiratory support - medicine really did have a euphemism for everything. He kept his voice low, so Tony wouldn't hear. "And what do you think?"
"Jethro," Ducky sighed. "The tests are a formality at this point. Tony's lungs simply aren't able to oxygenate his body properly on their own - you can tell that by looking at him. All the blood gases will do is tell exactly how much we need to compensate for."
It was exactly what Gibbs had feared he'd say. "Understood, Duck. Tell Pitt to let me know as soon as he gets the tests back."
"Of course," Ducky said. He patted Gibbs on the arm as he left - the only one who could get away with such a gesture. Gibbs watched him go, then looked through the doorway at Tony. The bluish cast to his lips was no longer something that could be passed off to poor lighting, and Gibbs knew that if he looked down, he'd see that Tony's nail beds had taken on a purple hue as well. Ducky was right; his body was starving for oxygen.
Tony looked up as Gibbs came in. "Boss?" He spoke the word tentatively, testing his lungs to see if they would let the little puff of air through without rebelling. His voice sounded hollow, muffled by the mask, but the coughing fit he feared didn't come. "Where...?"
"Still the ICU, DiNozzo."
"Oh. Right." Tony was quiet while he digested that information. He remembered now. It didn't surprise him. His chest tightened, and he squeezed his eyes tight against the pain, willing his lungs to cooperate, just for a little while, just long enough for him to rest. Amazingly enough, they obeyed, and he returned his concentration to breathing. In and out. Two such simple words, ones that carried so little meaning most of the time.
Until they suddenly meant everything in the world.
"Boss?" he managed. "You...thinking what...I'm thinking?"
"That depends," Gibbs said. "If you're back on Megan Fox and hot fudge, then hell, no."
Tony smiled faintly. "Not...your type...not a...redhead..."
"Less talking, more breathing."
He makes it sound so easy. "No...suicide gene...this time, Boss."
Gibbs was silent for a moment, and Tony knew that they had, in fact, been thinking the same thing. "You better not be quitting on me, DiNozzo."
"Not...up...to me..."
"The hell it isn't." The words didn't surprise Tony, but the vehemence behind them did, as though Gibbs was taking it as a personal insult. Gibbs had never understood the concept of giving in gracefully, Tony thought. Until now, neither had he.
"...Abby here? …tell her...something…" His chest felt like it was in a vise, and Tony stopped and closed his eyes again, putting all his focus into breathing. He could feel it, whatever it was, attacking his body, zeroing in on the fragile, scarred tissue of his lungs. It was moving fast, so fast, and he had nothing left to fight it with.
"She'll be back later - you can tell her when she gets here."
Tony shook his head weakly. Later seemed a very, very long way away. "...too...tired..."
"Hey!" He felt Gibbs' hand connect with his head, gentle, yet still somehow firm. "You can be tired later, DiNozzo. Right now, you fight, or you answer to me. You got that?"
"Got..gotcha..."
"Good." The same hand came to rest on his shoulder, like a blessing. They sat like that for awhile, breathing in tandem, both focusing again on the in and the out.
"Boss? If I can't...'m sorry..."
"Dammit, DiNozzo - you keep apologizing and I swear I'll…" Gibbs trailed off, unable to finish his usual warning.
Tony heard the roughness in his voice, and corner of his mouth quirked in a smile beneath the mask. "Yeah, I...know...Boss. Love...you too." He expected a derisive snort, or at the very least a chuckle, but when neither came he risked a glance at Gibbs. He was watching Tony with an unreadable expression - or maybe, Tony realized, he just didn't want to read it. When Gibbs caught his eye, though, his face softened, and he gave a slight nod.
Don't get all sappy on me, Tony wanted to say, but he started coughing again - more of a choke than a cough, really, a friendly reminder from the crap in his chest that it was there and it wasn't going away. Once again, he felt Gibbs' strong hands lifting him, supporting him. The fit was short-lived; as quickly as it started, it stopped, his body simply lacking the energy to keep trying to clear his lungs.
He closed his eyes as Gibbs moved the mask back in place over his nose and mouth, begging his lungs to accept some of the sweet oxygen, just a little, just enough to hold back the blackness at the edges of his vision. Gibbs tried to lower him back to the bed, but he shook his head, hoping he would understand. Laying down made it even harder to breathe, if that was possible. He must have made his point, because he felt the bed move beneath him, and when he was eased back this time he was still almost sitting up.
It didn't help much - each breath still felt like he was trying to suck oxygen through a straw - but it was enough that the sensation of suffocating subsided a bit. "Better?" Gibbs asked. Tony nodded, but didn't open his eyes. He heard footsteps enter the room, then Brad's voice: "Agent Gibbs? Can I speak to you for a moment?"
He felt Gibbs hesitate beside him. "Go..." Tony said. "Not going...anywhere. Promise." Gibbs said nothing, just gave his shoulder a quick pat before he left. Tony listened to both sets of footsteps die away, then returned to his mantra.
In...out...
Author: Emeraldsong (originally posted on ff.net as Secretchild)
Rating: T, mainly for language
Genre: Gen, angst, hurt/comfort, friendship, family
Characters: Team fic, but strong focus on Tony/Gibbs father/son relationship and Abby/Tony friendship.
Summary: When Tony collapses while pursuing a suspect, he insists it's just the flu. Things are never that simple.
Disclaimer: Nope, still not mine.
It's alright,
This could be a rough night.
So hold tight,
This is not a fair fight.
-The Fray, "Fair Fight"
Gibbs snapped the phone shut for the last time, then deposited it in his pocket. He'd said the words three times and he could still taste them, bitter in the back of his throat. Tony was moved to ICU last night. Wasn't giving bad news supposed to get easier the more times you repeated it?
Ziva and McGee were on their way - in fact, he'd actually heard Ziva getting into her car before they were half done with their conversation, peppering him with questions that he barely managed to respond to before she let the next one fly. He'd briefly considered giving her the same warning he'd given Abby, but decided to save his breath. Besides, he wasn't completely certain Ziva had ever actually used her seatbelt in the first place...
And then there had been McGee, with just as many questions that Gibbs couldn't answer. He'd been getting frustrated by that point; when they had been about to hang up and McGee slipped in one last "Um, Boss?", he'd snapped "I don't know, McGee!" with such force that he almost apologized. Almost.
McGee had taken it in stride. Probie's getting tougher, Tony would have said. "I was just going to ask - do you need anything?"
It had caught Gibbs off guard. "Do I what?"
"I just figured, you've been there since yesterday. Is there anything you need? Clothes or something? So you don't have to leave."
The words nearly undid him. Gibbs sank down on the arm of the vinyl chair, feeling suddenly very tired. He'd been about to refuse, when he remembered the number of times he'd cursed a blue streak - usually in his head, occasionally out loud - when Tony wouldn't accept even the smallest offer of help. Never ask your people to do something you wouldn't do yourself. "Yeah," he finally said. "That'd be good, McGee. Thanks. Door's unlocked."
Now, the phone weighing in his pocket, he walked back through the ICU to Tony's cubicle. Tony looked to be asleep when he came in, but Gibbs could tell he was awake, just too exhausted to do anything about it. Still, Gibbs stayed as quiet as possible as he sat, elbows braced on his knees, and studied Tony's face. Dark shadows circled his eyes, and the paleness of his skin emphasized the livid red of his cheeks, testament to the fever that still burned through his body. And was he imagining things, or was there a tinge of blue to Tony's lips? It was the oxygen mask, he decided. Or a shadow from the monitor. Or a trick of the light.
Don't you do this to me, DiNozzo. Not like this.
He wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting there when he heard a voice. "Agent Gibbs?" One of the nurses stood in the doorway. "There's a young lady in the waiting area asking for you."
Gibbs nodded. "Tell her I'll be right there."
"Abby?" Tony spoke for the first time since Gibbs had come in.
"Probably."
Tony sighed. "You called them?"
"Nope. Sent smoke signals."
"Boss, you really gotta work on your fear of technology." Even stringing together such a brief sentence had left him needing to catch his breath.
"They'll want to see you. You up for it?"
"Sure. Gonna be boring, though."
"I don't think they're expecting a one-man show, DiNozzo." Gibbs stopped, suddenly reluctant to leave him.
Tony sensed his hesitation. "Better go, Boss. Abby's gonna storm the barricades."
As Gibbs left, he realized that Tony never had opened his eyes.
The entire team was in the waiting room by the time Gibbs emerged from the ICU. Abby was pacing, high-heeled leather boots clattering on the tile floor, but as soon as she saw Gibbs she came straight to him. "Gibbs," was all she could manage. He pulled her close, resting his chin on her head as she buried her face in his chest, allowing himself to take a bit of comfort even as he gave it.
"How's Tony?" McGee was sitting beside Ducky, a cloth duffel bag at his feet.
"He's stable," Gibbs said, trying to keep his voice neutral. They were looking to him for information and for reassurance, and he didn't know how much of either he could provide. At the very least, he could keep from making things worse.
"'Stable' does not tell us much, Gibbs," Ziva said. She was leaning against the wall, arms folded, apart from the rest. To Gibbs, she looked both worried and as though she were itching to lay into someone, anyone. He knew the feeling.
"Well, that's pretty much what it boils down to. He still has a fever, his breathing isn't great, but he's holding his own."
"Boss, do they at least know what's wrong? I know you said pneumonia, but there's so many things that could cause it."
"They're still trying to figure that out, Timothy," Ducky said. "Testing, unfortunately, takes time; in the interim, he's being treated with broad-spectrum medications to cover the most likely possibilities."
"Can we see him?" Ziva asked.
"Two at a time, no more than ten minutes," Gibbs said, quoting the ICU visiting rules. Just because he didn't exactly follow them didn't mean they didn't have merit. "Ziva, McGee, you two go on back. He knows you're coming." He'd half-expected Abby to protest, but she remained silent and still at his side, watching as a nurse met Ziva and McGee at the doorway to lead them through to Tony.
"Abs?"
"I'm fine, Gibbs."
"Uh-huh." He waited, but she didn't say anything else, and he frankly didn't have the energy to pry it out of her. Now that the adrenaline rush of the past several hours was subsiding, he was beginning to feel the weight of sheer emotional and physical exhaustion. He settled for putting an arm around her, figuring she'd tell him when she was ready. Abby thrived on words and hugs, and he knew that when one failed her, the other became even more important.
She still hadn't spoken by the time Ziva and McGee returned the mandated ten minutes later. They both looked shaken, but McGee offered Gibbs and Abby a tremulous smile. "Let's go, Abs," Gibbs said, but she didn't move.
"Gibbs," she said, looking up at him. "I don't know if I can do this."
He started to reassure her, tell her of course she could, she'd been doing it all along, but McGee beat him to it. "Yes, you can," he said, crouching in front of her. "It's still Tony."
"I know, but..."
"Abby, he called me Elf Lord, McWorrywart, and told me I really needed to go outside more often because he's in the ICU and I'm still paler than he is. Trust me. It's still Tony."
She managed the smallest of laughs, and let McGee pull her to her feet. Gibbs gave McGee a grateful look as he followed her through the door.
Abby's new-found bravado lasted until they reached the doorway of Tony's cubicle. Gibbs heard her suck in a breath and felt her tense at his side. He cursed himself for not doing a better job of preparing her - he'd tried, but there was only so much he could do. Gibbs had been with Tony the entire time, and he still had trouble believing how ill he looked compared to just the 24 hours before. To Abby, the change would be even more shocking.
She didn't stop, but she also couldn't keep a few tears from escaping, and she wiped them furiously away as she went in. Tony smiled when he saw her and patted the space beside him. Seeing her hesitation, he said softly, "You won't hurt me, Abs."
She sat down and tried to return the smile, but it was shaky at best. "Tony..."
"Hey." He reached out to touch her damp cheek. "There's no crying in baseball."
"Too easy," she replied. "A League of Their Own. Tom Hanks and Geena Davis."
"And Madonna. Don't forget Madonna."
She sniffed, finally smiling for real. "I used to have black lace gloves like the ones she wore in Who's That Girl."
"Used to?"
"Jethro ate them when he was staying with me last month. Before my landlord kicked him out."
Tony looked up at Gibbs. "Boss, what'd you do to get kicked out of Abby's place?"
"The dog, DiNozzo."
"I knew that."
They stayed a bit longer, but Tony was tiring quickly, and by the ten minute mark he was clearly struggling to keep his eyes open. "Time to go, Abs," Gibbs said.
"I'll see you later, Tony," she said, getting up carefully so as not to jostle him too much. Tony smiled and lifted his hand in a gesture of farewell, but didn't speak. Air was fast becoming a precious commodity.
Gibbs placed a warm hand on her shoulder as they walked down the hall, and she made it all the way to the waiting room before finally giving in to the tears.
Morning slipped into afternoon, and the sun was sinking low in the sky by the time Gibbs and the rest of the team finally left the ICU. Abby, Ziva, and McGee had spent most of the day in the waiting room, making brief visits to Tony when the clock and the nurses permitted. Gibbs had resumed his post in the chair beside Tony's bed; the staff had long since given up on trying to make him leave, and whenever Tony's rasping breaths gave way to wracking coughs, they found that Gibbs' presence actually helped to keep the younger man calm and the episodes to pass more quickly.
On her last visit, Tony had grabbed Abby's hand when she stood up to leave. "Abs," he said softly. Gibbs usually would have pegged it as a teasing whisper; over the course of the day, though, talking had become increasingly difficult as Tony fought harder for breath. "Take the boss...downstairs and feed him...would ya? You know how...he gets when his...blood sugar's low."
"DiNozzo," Gibbs warned.
"See? Cranky."
"C'mon, Gibbs," Abby said. "Tony's right. You need to eat." He let her drag him down to the cafeteria, picking up McGee and Ziva on the way, and the four of them spent an interminable hour picking at their food. Gibbs mostly nursed his coffee and listened to the others' silence, their usual banter absent. None of them were really hungry, and when Gibbs finally got up to place his nearly-full tray on the belt, the others followed with a palpable sense of relief.
Ducky had stayed with Tony while Gibbs ate, or what passed for eating. When the ME met him outside Tony's cubicle, Gibbs had confirmation that the churning in his gut was not just too much black coffee on an empty stomach. "What is it, Duck?"
"He's not doing well, Jethro," Ducky said bluntly, knowing Gibbs would appreciate the honesty. "He's beginning to show signs of hypoxia - somnolence, confusion. Dr. Pitt is waiting on some additional lab results to check his blood gases, but he indicated that we may need to consider more intensive respiratory support."
Gibbs closed his eyes briefly, letting the words sink in. More intensive respiratory support - medicine really did have a euphemism for everything. He kept his voice low, so Tony wouldn't hear. "And what do you think?"
"Jethro," Ducky sighed. "The tests are a formality at this point. Tony's lungs simply aren't able to oxygenate his body properly on their own - you can tell that by looking at him. All the blood gases will do is tell exactly how much we need to compensate for."
It was exactly what Gibbs had feared he'd say. "Understood, Duck. Tell Pitt to let me know as soon as he gets the tests back."
"Of course," Ducky said. He patted Gibbs on the arm as he left - the only one who could get away with such a gesture. Gibbs watched him go, then looked through the doorway at Tony. The bluish cast to his lips was no longer something that could be passed off to poor lighting, and Gibbs knew that if he looked down, he'd see that Tony's nail beds had taken on a purple hue as well. Ducky was right; his body was starving for oxygen.
Tony looked up as Gibbs came in. "Boss?" He spoke the word tentatively, testing his lungs to see if they would let the little puff of air through without rebelling. His voice sounded hollow, muffled by the mask, but the coughing fit he feared didn't come. "Where...?"
"Still the ICU, DiNozzo."
"Oh. Right." Tony was quiet while he digested that information. He remembered now. It didn't surprise him. His chest tightened, and he squeezed his eyes tight against the pain, willing his lungs to cooperate, just for a little while, just long enough for him to rest. Amazingly enough, they obeyed, and he returned his concentration to breathing. In and out. Two such simple words, ones that carried so little meaning most of the time.
Until they suddenly meant everything in the world.
"Boss?" he managed. "You...thinking what...I'm thinking?"
"That depends," Gibbs said. "If you're back on Megan Fox and hot fudge, then hell, no."
Tony smiled faintly. "Not...your type...not a...redhead..."
"Less talking, more breathing."
He makes it sound so easy. "No...suicide gene...this time, Boss."
Gibbs was silent for a moment, and Tony knew that they had, in fact, been thinking the same thing. "You better not be quitting on me, DiNozzo."
"Not...up...to me..."
"The hell it isn't." The words didn't surprise Tony, but the vehemence behind them did, as though Gibbs was taking it as a personal insult. Gibbs had never understood the concept of giving in gracefully, Tony thought. Until now, neither had he.
"...Abby here? …tell her...something…" His chest felt like it was in a vise, and Tony stopped and closed his eyes again, putting all his focus into breathing. He could feel it, whatever it was, attacking his body, zeroing in on the fragile, scarred tissue of his lungs. It was moving fast, so fast, and he had nothing left to fight it with.
"She'll be back later - you can tell her when she gets here."
Tony shook his head weakly. Later seemed a very, very long way away. "...too...tired..."
"Hey!" He felt Gibbs' hand connect with his head, gentle, yet still somehow firm. "You can be tired later, DiNozzo. Right now, you fight, or you answer to me. You got that?"
"Got..gotcha..."
"Good." The same hand came to rest on his shoulder, like a blessing. They sat like that for awhile, breathing in tandem, both focusing again on the in and the out.
"Boss? If I can't...'m sorry..."
"Dammit, DiNozzo - you keep apologizing and I swear I'll…" Gibbs trailed off, unable to finish his usual warning.
Tony heard the roughness in his voice, and corner of his mouth quirked in a smile beneath the mask. "Yeah, I...know...Boss. Love...you too." He expected a derisive snort, or at the very least a chuckle, but when neither came he risked a glance at Gibbs. He was watching Tony with an unreadable expression - or maybe, Tony realized, he just didn't want to read it. When Gibbs caught his eye, though, his face softened, and he gave a slight nod.
Don't get all sappy on me, Tony wanted to say, but he started coughing again - more of a choke than a cough, really, a friendly reminder from the crap in his chest that it was there and it wasn't going away. Once again, he felt Gibbs' strong hands lifting him, supporting him. The fit was short-lived; as quickly as it started, it stopped, his body simply lacking the energy to keep trying to clear his lungs.
He closed his eyes as Gibbs moved the mask back in place over his nose and mouth, begging his lungs to accept some of the sweet oxygen, just a little, just enough to hold back the blackness at the edges of his vision. Gibbs tried to lower him back to the bed, but he shook his head, hoping he would understand. Laying down made it even harder to breathe, if that was possible. He must have made his point, because he felt the bed move beneath him, and when he was eased back this time he was still almost sitting up.
It didn't help much - each breath still felt like he was trying to suck oxygen through a straw - but it was enough that the sensation of suffocating subsided a bit. "Better?" Gibbs asked. Tony nodded, but didn't open his eyes. He heard footsteps enter the room, then Brad's voice: "Agent Gibbs? Can I speak to you for a moment?"
He felt Gibbs hesitate beside him. "Go..." Tony said. "Not going...anywhere. Promise." Gibbs said nothing, just gave his shoulder a quick pat before he left. Tony listened to both sets of footsteps die away, then returned to his mantra.
In...out...