[NCIS] Tony DiNozzo, Insides
Title: Interior Design
Fandom: Navy: NCIS
Characters: Tony DiNozzo
Prompt: Insides
Word Count: 502
Rating: G
Summary: He runs and he hides and he does everything in his power to guarantee that his insides stay inside, and his outsides are just as much a mask as ever.
As a people person, as a cop, as Tony, he’s seen a lot of insides. He’s seen the insides of people’s apartments, he’s peered through windows and kicked in doors, intruding into their homes and judging their possessions. He looks everything over, runs trained eyes over dirty laundry, sentimental objects, framed photographs. He catalogues the food in the fridge, notes how many dirty dishes are in the sink, checks the quality of the dishware. When he flashes his badge people let him waltz into their lives, digging up secrets and horrors that really should have stayed buried.
He also sees the insides of people, asks increasingly personal questions until they’ve spilled their deepest secrets out for him like a buffet. He picks at their ambitions, their motivations. He digs up old childhood traumas, no matter how insignificant. He always disarms suspects with a cheerful smile, with playful eyes, and then he pokes and prods until they’ve told him what he wants to know.
Those things, they make him feel guilty, they do, but not as much as seeing the interiors of people. Everyday, he sees blood and guts and bones, spread across stained carpet, thrown into a river, tossed into the bin. He sees what belongs inside a body, on the outside, thrown away like garbage.
He’s used to seeing people cry. Victims, suspects- family and friends of both. His team. Himself. He almost thinks that watching someone cry is more intimate than having sex, watching the usually inevitable showing of emotion. Watching tears leaking down pale cheeks, it almost makes Tony feel dirty. It makes him feel like a voyeur, like he’s viewing something he wasn’t meant to see, and it’s horrible, knowing that he might have been the cause of so much pain. It almost makes him feel dirty because after the first dozen times, you cease to be affected.
Once, in Baltimore, Tony watched an autopsy. He watched that asshole doctor cut open that body like he was slicing up a roast turkey, no care for the body, for the person. A year later, he watched Ducky slice into a body, watched him talk to the body comfortingly, even as he removed it’s organs. It’s funny how even in his mind he can never call them corpses.
After seeing so many insides spread before him, so easy for him to see even though he really, really shouldn’t be privy to them, he makes damn sure that his aren’t put out there. He makes certain that any deep dark secrets he has stay buried. He ensures that no one knows the truth about his private life. Not much he can do about the physical, but he tries not to die. He tries really, really hard.
And he makes damn sure that everything he does is hidden in a careful mask. He runs and he hides and he does everything in his power to guarantee that his insides stay inside, and his outsides are just as much a mask as ever.
Fandom: Navy: NCIS
Characters: Tony DiNozzo
Prompt: Insides
Word Count: 502
Rating: G
Summary: He runs and he hides and he does everything in his power to guarantee that his insides stay inside, and his outsides are just as much a mask as ever.
As a people person, as a cop, as Tony, he’s seen a lot of insides. He’s seen the insides of people’s apartments, he’s peered through windows and kicked in doors, intruding into their homes and judging their possessions. He looks everything over, runs trained eyes over dirty laundry, sentimental objects, framed photographs. He catalogues the food in the fridge, notes how many dirty dishes are in the sink, checks the quality of the dishware. When he flashes his badge people let him waltz into their lives, digging up secrets and horrors that really should have stayed buried.
He also sees the insides of people, asks increasingly personal questions until they’ve spilled their deepest secrets out for him like a buffet. He picks at their ambitions, their motivations. He digs up old childhood traumas, no matter how insignificant. He always disarms suspects with a cheerful smile, with playful eyes, and then he pokes and prods until they’ve told him what he wants to know.
Those things, they make him feel guilty, they do, but not as much as seeing the interiors of people. Everyday, he sees blood and guts and bones, spread across stained carpet, thrown into a river, tossed into the bin. He sees what belongs inside a body, on the outside, thrown away like garbage.
He’s used to seeing people cry. Victims, suspects- family and friends of both. His team. Himself. He almost thinks that watching someone cry is more intimate than having sex, watching the usually inevitable showing of emotion. Watching tears leaking down pale cheeks, it almost makes Tony feel dirty. It makes him feel like a voyeur, like he’s viewing something he wasn’t meant to see, and it’s horrible, knowing that he might have been the cause of so much pain. It almost makes him feel dirty because after the first dozen times, you cease to be affected.
Once, in Baltimore, Tony watched an autopsy. He watched that asshole doctor cut open that body like he was slicing up a roast turkey, no care for the body, for the person. A year later, he watched Ducky slice into a body, watched him talk to the body comfortingly, even as he removed it’s organs. It’s funny how even in his mind he can never call them corpses.
After seeing so many insides spread before him, so easy for him to see even though he really, really shouldn’t be privy to them, he makes damn sure that his aren’t put out there. He makes certain that any deep dark secrets he has stay buried. He ensures that no one knows the truth about his private life. Not much he can do about the physical, but he tries not to die. He tries really, really hard.
And he makes damn sure that everything he does is hidden in a careful mask. He runs and he hides and he does everything in his power to guarantee that his insides stay inside, and his outsides are just as much a mask as ever.