Epiphany, by thedaytheystop
Title: Epiphany
Author: thedaytheystop
Challenge: Holiday
Characters: Tony, Jeanne, Gibbs
Category: Angst, gen-ish
Rating: R
Length: 1,862 words
Please comment! Spoilers for season five.
Summary: It’s harder to be alone during the holidays, when the Christmas present he bought for Jeanne in May is still hidden in the coat closet. Tony's defenses start to slip, Gibbs forces him to get help, and things start to change for the better.
Tony's not gay. Not even bisexual. Tony has never had a sexual fantasy about another man, not even if there were multiple women involved. Tony's never sneaked a peek in the locker room, never had illicit thoughts about the group showers.
Tony's not being defensive, not lying, just being coldly, plainly honest. He's not gay.
When Tony does dream, when he wakes up with the sheets twisted around his thighs and sweat cooling on his chest--he wakes thinking of Jeanne.
It used to be the girlfriend of the week, the occasional porn star, the occasional actress. Whoever was ingrained enough in Tony's short-term memory to be dragged into a dream.
It used to be Kate.
Then it stopped, because bullet holes don't go well with wet T-shirts.
(So Tony doesn’t let himself dream about Ziva.)
When Jeanne happened, Tony felt, for once, complete.
(Jeanne's gone.)
Tony asks himself if he made the right choice. Every single day. He thinks of Jeanne and France and children and old movies and watching as La Grenouille walks her down the aisle (and then the Director slaps handcuffs on him, because Tony's still a federal agent and more than a little bit vindictive). But he thinks of her. He misses her.
And sometimes--not too often, but at least once a week--he looks at them, at his team, and he's filled with rage, anger raising the heat on his face and tightening his chest and threatening to brim over into his words, making him grip his pens so tightly they leave an imprint on his hands. Because they don't know Jeanne, they never did and they never will, and they expect him to--act like everything is normal, like none of it, none of it ever happened--and--they expect him to choose them. Expected.
(And he did, and he hates himself, but he's human and irrational and spreads that hate to them, too, even as he’s pulling them out of the freezing ocean or teasing them about their fear of heights.)
Three months later, when Jeanne's long gone and is probably dating a new doctor at her hospital in Marseille and Tony's still going home alone to his cold, empty apartment at the end of the day, Gibbs makes him go to a shrink.
It's probably because Tony finally snapped, just a little, and subdued and cuffed a suspect a bit more roughly than was entirely necessary.
(It’s harder to be alone during the holidays, when the Christmas present he bought for Jeanne in May is still hidden in the coat closet.)
Gibbs corners him in the elevator and lets Tony protest. Yell, even. He only threatens Tony once and head-slaps him twice the entire ten minutes they are in there.
The shrink is a guy, which is kind of weird--Tony's had shrinks before, and they've all been women. Tony's ducked the questions with his smiles and even fucked one of them in her office during what turned out to be his last session.
But Dr. Hill isn't a woman.
"Your boss says he's been noticing some anger management issues. Your colleagues seem to think you're depressed. One notes that you've lost weight. The director claims you're doing perfectly well. I'm getting a conflicting picture of you right now, Agent DiNozzo."
Tony just sits and waits.
"May I call you Tony?"
"Sure," Tony says.
"Okay, Tony. Let's start with some questions."
Hill tries to meet Tony's eyes. Tony just rearranges himself in his chair, not looking at the other man's face.
Hill sighs, just audible enough to be deliberate and Tony jerks his head up, frosty. Fine.
"Are you angry that your relationship with Jeanne Benoit was ruined by the outcome of your mission?" Hill asks, picking up a pencil.
"Yes."
"What would have been your ideal outcome?"
"I shopped for a ring." Tony says, too quickly to think about the words, and damn, that's going to bite him in the ass.
Hill's eyes flash with surprise but he's quick to hide the reaction. Tony doesn't miss it. Teeth. Ass.
"Is your anger about Ms. Benoit transferring into your work?" Hill says, after a pause.
"Straight to the point, aren't you," Tony bites back, looking away.
"You're being fairly direct with me, more than I expected in a first session. I'm just trying to return the favor," Dr. Hill says.
"Fine. Yes."
"Care to elaborate?"
"She gave me a choice. I chose--I don't know why but I chose, I fucking chose thi--" Tony stops himself, feeling the flush rise up his neck, the bile in his throat. "Sorry."
Hill doesn't offer some platitude like "No need to apologize," and Tony's grateful for that. He just nods.
"If you had the choice again, would you choose to continue your relationship with Ms. Benoit?"
Hill's question is expected, and he's not being mean, but Tony's already angry and exhausted and feeling belittled and he just--
"I'm sorry, I can't," Tony says shortly, and bolts. "I can't."
Tony bursts out of the door and into the hall (on the top floor of Headquarters, of course, because he's too complicated and classified to go off-base) and Gibbs is there, waiting, and Tony just wants to punch him.
So he does.
Or, rather, he tries, because Gibbs isn't blind and sees him seething and is a whole lot faster than Tony gives him credit for, so when Tony's fist flashes forward Gibbs catches it and wrenches his body, slamming him against the wall and holding his forearm across Tony's neck.
"Calm down, Tony," Gibbs orders, voice quiet and deathly low. "Now."
Gibbs is pressing against him, unyielding, and Tony's head hurts and his arm hurts and he swallows bitterly and tilts his head back, giving Gibbs' elbow more access to his throat. Submitting.
Gibbs doesn't miss the movement and releases Tony, stepping back with raised hands.
"Go home, DiNozzo. I don't want to see you until Monday."
It's Wednesday. That's two days off. Gibbs never gives Tony days off. Tony's mouth is dry.
"I--"
"I know, DiNozzo. Just go."
Tony turns and goes--flees--and tries not to think about why Gibbs was waiting, if he had his own appointment with Hill or if, more likely, he knew that Tony would make a break for it and planned to be there when he did.
Tony enters his apartment and all of the lights are off (dark, empty, cold, nothing like Jeanne's) and he stumbles over a pair of shoes (messy, abandoned, nothing like Jeanne's) and retaliates by punching the mirror in the front hall, once, twice, three times until it shatters, a spiderweb of cracks giving way to a cascade of flying slivers.
Tony stands in the middle of the glass and doesn't get cut, not even once, and in the end he picks up a piece and slices lightly along his arm and feels it bleed, just because.
On Monday Gibbs doesn't look at him, just sends him upstairs. Dr. Hill is waiting. The first thing he asks about is the band-aid on Tony's arm.
It takes three days for Tony to break. Three days of stony near-silence, clipped, angry, defensive answers to Hill's questions, three days of shoving sandbags in his walls.
On the fourth day Gibbs stops Tony in the elevator before the session.
"You will be more cooperative, DiNozzo, or you will lose this job," he hisses, and Tony hates himself because while that would solve all his problems--he could be with Jeanne, he could do what he wants, it wouldn't be his choice--he can't do it, can't disobey, can only close his mouth and nod numbly and sit in Hill's goddamn chair and start talking.
"Gibbs told me I had to talk," he starts, because Hill should get an explanation--and then Tony loses whatever semblance of control he had, and it's all coming out. "They don't know. They don't know her. They've seen her picture and seen her apartment and her clothes and her job and know that she rode in my car and maybe we slept together and we were looking for a house, but they don't know her, and they don't know me anymore, and they made me--I had to--choose them, and then it's like nothing ever happened, no acknowledgment, not a hint that I've lost everything and they've demanded my full attention again and I just--"
Tony leaves three hours later and Gibbs doesn't stop him on his way out. On the fifth day Gibbs lets him sit down at his desk and start researching the latest case.
At the end of a hellish week, when they finally have the Marine in the hospital and his bitter ex-girlfriend in jail, Gibbs smiles and says "Good work, DiNozzo. See you Tuesday,” and hands Tony a bottle of bourbon.
Tony remembers, belatedly, that it is Christmas--well, Sunday is Christmas, and they have Monday off. He goes home and drinks the bourbon until he’s brave enough (or dumb enough, or pathetic enough) to scrawl her French address, put all the stamps he can find on the envelope and run to the mailbox barefoot in the snow.
(Jeanne won’t get it until Epiphany, but the sentiment is still there. She will start to remember, even as Tony will start to reluctantly forget.)
Once it’s gone and the hangover wears off (and the next day’s hangover, after Tony finishes Gibbs’s present to forget his disastrous annual Christmas Eve call to his grandmother), life starts to change. He feels a little better, a little more like smiling.
Instead of Jeanne, he thinks about the cases. He thinks about the suspects. He does background checks on witnesses. He dreams about spreadsheets and cross-referenced databases. Dr. Hill says these are good signs.
Tony could fool himself and say he's rediscovered his love for the work, but that's not it.
He's not gay-there probably isn't anything that could make him switch, that could turn that innate longing for one type of body or another on its head-but he's realized why he chose, why he stayed, even when Jeanne and Spain and better judgment have called him away, and it's Gibbs.
He lets Gibbs smack the back of his head and slam him against the wall to make a point and yell at him in the mornings before Gibbs has his coffee and, if Gibbs ever asked, Tony would get down on his knees.
He's pretty sure Gibbs would never ask, but, if he did, Tony would. Blow him, bend over, in the men's room, in the boat, whatever. He’d let Gibbs hit him, let Gibbs fuck him, let Gibbs use him and hope (pray) that he won Gibbs's approval.
(Dr. Hill would say that it was unresolved father issues, if Tony ever asked, even though Tony's never discussed Giacomo DiNozzo with anyone, not even Gibbs.)
(Jeanne comes back, six months later, and Tony gets to use the ring.)
(Gibbs hands it to Tony during the ceremony, and his smile has a hint of sadness and a lot of pride, and maybe that makes Tony feel more complete than Jeanne alone ever did.)
Author: thedaytheystop
Challenge: Holiday
Characters: Tony, Jeanne, Gibbs
Category: Angst, gen-ish
Rating: R
Length: 1,862 words
Please comment! Spoilers for season five.
Summary: It’s harder to be alone during the holidays, when the Christmas present he bought for Jeanne in May is still hidden in the coat closet. Tony's defenses start to slip, Gibbs forces him to get help, and things start to change for the better.
Tony's not gay. Not even bisexual. Tony has never had a sexual fantasy about another man, not even if there were multiple women involved. Tony's never sneaked a peek in the locker room, never had illicit thoughts about the group showers.
Tony's not being defensive, not lying, just being coldly, plainly honest. He's not gay.
When Tony does dream, when he wakes up with the sheets twisted around his thighs and sweat cooling on his chest--he wakes thinking of Jeanne.
It used to be the girlfriend of the week, the occasional porn star, the occasional actress. Whoever was ingrained enough in Tony's short-term memory to be dragged into a dream.
It used to be Kate.
Then it stopped, because bullet holes don't go well with wet T-shirts.
(So Tony doesn’t let himself dream about Ziva.)
When Jeanne happened, Tony felt, for once, complete.
(Jeanne's gone.)
Tony asks himself if he made the right choice. Every single day. He thinks of Jeanne and France and children and old movies and watching as La Grenouille walks her down the aisle (and then the Director slaps handcuffs on him, because Tony's still a federal agent and more than a little bit vindictive). But he thinks of her. He misses her.
And sometimes--not too often, but at least once a week--he looks at them, at his team, and he's filled with rage, anger raising the heat on his face and tightening his chest and threatening to brim over into his words, making him grip his pens so tightly they leave an imprint on his hands. Because they don't know Jeanne, they never did and they never will, and they expect him to--act like everything is normal, like none of it, none of it ever happened--and--they expect him to choose them. Expected.
(And he did, and he hates himself, but he's human and irrational and spreads that hate to them, too, even as he’s pulling them out of the freezing ocean or teasing them about their fear of heights.)
Three months later, when Jeanne's long gone and is probably dating a new doctor at her hospital in Marseille and Tony's still going home alone to his cold, empty apartment at the end of the day, Gibbs makes him go to a shrink.
It's probably because Tony finally snapped, just a little, and subdued and cuffed a suspect a bit more roughly than was entirely necessary.
(It’s harder to be alone during the holidays, when the Christmas present he bought for Jeanne in May is still hidden in the coat closet.)
Gibbs corners him in the elevator and lets Tony protest. Yell, even. He only threatens Tony once and head-slaps him twice the entire ten minutes they are in there.
The shrink is a guy, which is kind of weird--Tony's had shrinks before, and they've all been women. Tony's ducked the questions with his smiles and even fucked one of them in her office during what turned out to be his last session.
But Dr. Hill isn't a woman.
"Your boss says he's been noticing some anger management issues. Your colleagues seem to think you're depressed. One notes that you've lost weight. The director claims you're doing perfectly well. I'm getting a conflicting picture of you right now, Agent DiNozzo."
Tony just sits and waits.
"May I call you Tony?"
"Sure," Tony says.
"Okay, Tony. Let's start with some questions."
Hill tries to meet Tony's eyes. Tony just rearranges himself in his chair, not looking at the other man's face.
Hill sighs, just audible enough to be deliberate and Tony jerks his head up, frosty. Fine.
"Are you angry that your relationship with Jeanne Benoit was ruined by the outcome of your mission?" Hill asks, picking up a pencil.
"Yes."
"What would have been your ideal outcome?"
"I shopped for a ring." Tony says, too quickly to think about the words, and damn, that's going to bite him in the ass.
Hill's eyes flash with surprise but he's quick to hide the reaction. Tony doesn't miss it. Teeth. Ass.
"Is your anger about Ms. Benoit transferring into your work?" Hill says, after a pause.
"Straight to the point, aren't you," Tony bites back, looking away.
"You're being fairly direct with me, more than I expected in a first session. I'm just trying to return the favor," Dr. Hill says.
"Fine. Yes."
"Care to elaborate?"
"She gave me a choice. I chose--I don't know why but I chose, I fucking chose thi--" Tony stops himself, feeling the flush rise up his neck, the bile in his throat. "Sorry."
Hill doesn't offer some platitude like "No need to apologize," and Tony's grateful for that. He just nods.
"If you had the choice again, would you choose to continue your relationship with Ms. Benoit?"
Hill's question is expected, and he's not being mean, but Tony's already angry and exhausted and feeling belittled and he just--
"I'm sorry, I can't," Tony says shortly, and bolts. "I can't."
Tony bursts out of the door and into the hall (on the top floor of Headquarters, of course, because he's too complicated and classified to go off-base) and Gibbs is there, waiting, and Tony just wants to punch him.
So he does.
Or, rather, he tries, because Gibbs isn't blind and sees him seething and is a whole lot faster than Tony gives him credit for, so when Tony's fist flashes forward Gibbs catches it and wrenches his body, slamming him against the wall and holding his forearm across Tony's neck.
"Calm down, Tony," Gibbs orders, voice quiet and deathly low. "Now."
Gibbs is pressing against him, unyielding, and Tony's head hurts and his arm hurts and he swallows bitterly and tilts his head back, giving Gibbs' elbow more access to his throat. Submitting.
Gibbs doesn't miss the movement and releases Tony, stepping back with raised hands.
"Go home, DiNozzo. I don't want to see you until Monday."
It's Wednesday. That's two days off. Gibbs never gives Tony days off. Tony's mouth is dry.
"I--"
"I know, DiNozzo. Just go."
Tony turns and goes--flees--and tries not to think about why Gibbs was waiting, if he had his own appointment with Hill or if, more likely, he knew that Tony would make a break for it and planned to be there when he did.
Tony enters his apartment and all of the lights are off (dark, empty, cold, nothing like Jeanne's) and he stumbles over a pair of shoes (messy, abandoned, nothing like Jeanne's) and retaliates by punching the mirror in the front hall, once, twice, three times until it shatters, a spiderweb of cracks giving way to a cascade of flying slivers.
Tony stands in the middle of the glass and doesn't get cut, not even once, and in the end he picks up a piece and slices lightly along his arm and feels it bleed, just because.
On Monday Gibbs doesn't look at him, just sends him upstairs. Dr. Hill is waiting. The first thing he asks about is the band-aid on Tony's arm.
It takes three days for Tony to break. Three days of stony near-silence, clipped, angry, defensive answers to Hill's questions, three days of shoving sandbags in his walls.
On the fourth day Gibbs stops Tony in the elevator before the session.
"You will be more cooperative, DiNozzo, or you will lose this job," he hisses, and Tony hates himself because while that would solve all his problems--he could be with Jeanne, he could do what he wants, it wouldn't be his choice--he can't do it, can't disobey, can only close his mouth and nod numbly and sit in Hill's goddamn chair and start talking.
"Gibbs told me I had to talk," he starts, because Hill should get an explanation--and then Tony loses whatever semblance of control he had, and it's all coming out. "They don't know. They don't know her. They've seen her picture and seen her apartment and her clothes and her job and know that she rode in my car and maybe we slept together and we were looking for a house, but they don't know her, and they don't know me anymore, and they made me--I had to--choose them, and then it's like nothing ever happened, no acknowledgment, not a hint that I've lost everything and they've demanded my full attention again and I just--"
Tony leaves three hours later and Gibbs doesn't stop him on his way out. On the fifth day Gibbs lets him sit down at his desk and start researching the latest case.
At the end of a hellish week, when they finally have the Marine in the hospital and his bitter ex-girlfriend in jail, Gibbs smiles and says "Good work, DiNozzo. See you Tuesday,” and hands Tony a bottle of bourbon.
Tony remembers, belatedly, that it is Christmas--well, Sunday is Christmas, and they have Monday off. He goes home and drinks the bourbon until he’s brave enough (or dumb enough, or pathetic enough) to scrawl her French address, put all the stamps he can find on the envelope and run to the mailbox barefoot in the snow.
(Jeanne won’t get it until Epiphany, but the sentiment is still there. She will start to remember, even as Tony will start to reluctantly forget.)
Once it’s gone and the hangover wears off (and the next day’s hangover, after Tony finishes Gibbs’s present to forget his disastrous annual Christmas Eve call to his grandmother), life starts to change. He feels a little better, a little more like smiling.
Instead of Jeanne, he thinks about the cases. He thinks about the suspects. He does background checks on witnesses. He dreams about spreadsheets and cross-referenced databases. Dr. Hill says these are good signs.
Tony could fool himself and say he's rediscovered his love for the work, but that's not it.
He's not gay-there probably isn't anything that could make him switch, that could turn that innate longing for one type of body or another on its head-but he's realized why he chose, why he stayed, even when Jeanne and Spain and better judgment have called him away, and it's Gibbs.
He lets Gibbs smack the back of his head and slam him against the wall to make a point and yell at him in the mornings before Gibbs has his coffee and, if Gibbs ever asked, Tony would get down on his knees.
He's pretty sure Gibbs would never ask, but, if he did, Tony would. Blow him, bend over, in the men's room, in the boat, whatever. He’d let Gibbs hit him, let Gibbs fuck him, let Gibbs use him and hope (pray) that he won Gibbs's approval.
(Dr. Hill would say that it was unresolved father issues, if Tony ever asked, even though Tony's never discussed Giacomo DiNozzo with anyone, not even Gibbs.)
(Jeanne comes back, six months later, and Tony gets to use the ring.)
(Gibbs hands it to Tony during the ceremony, and his smile has a hint of sadness and a lot of pride, and maybe that makes Tony feel more complete than Jeanne alone ever did.)