FIC: Though I Grow Restless, I Stay Still (Tony, PG)
"Ten Incomplete Regressions" is shaping up to be a little longer and a little sadder than "Ten Nonlinear Moves." Currently, seven of the ten regressions are finished: they feature snooping, normalcy, Bond girls, Freudian slips, Three Dog Night songs, bruises, and implied demonic possession. But I couldn't let "Requiem" pass by without responding to it in some way: I also have to add recs for celestial1 and Tweeter's follow-ups to the episode on NCIS Special Ops. Go forth and read.
ETA: For some reason, I confused Tweeter with Richefic. That's weird. It's Tweeter, not Richefic, who already has a Requiem-fic up! Sorry!
Obviously, "Requiem" spoilers below the cut.
(The cold gray water, the white-crested wave, the disappearing sand; these things once meant the end of the world.)
From the edge of the dock to the water in one clean, unprepared movement: he did not realize he would dive until the shock of the cold undid the hot, tight muscles in his right hand (even in the water, he could smell the blood and the gunpowder), but by then, he was already swimming. Choppy, unthinking, graceless. He would cut through the water or the cold would cut through him. (Brief and uncolored memories of old swimming lessons, how to extend, how to hold his hands, how to kick his legs, the butterfly, the backstroke.) The light coming through the water was crystalline white and the steady movement of the tide made it shudder, like unedited film, like near-death glimpses at pure-grace heaven. He had not thought to inhale before he dove. His chest was tourniquet-tight, his eyes black-rimmed.
He did not need to see them to know they were there: he saw them with his hands, with his heart, with his fear. (But his eyes were open under the water.) The windshield peeled back easily, like tearing rice-paper, flimsy and cool and sharp underneath his hands, but she was warm and lax and easy, a waterlogged rag doll, a human body heavy with hope. (He had to save her first. He could not always wonder why he reached for one hand and not another, could not save Gibbs and then always worry that he had chosen love and time over common humanity. No one would forgive him. He would not forgive himself.)
On dry land again she was still and white. (Sleeping Beauty.) The timer in his head ran to zero. It was harder to dive when he knew what the world looked like under the water. He held his breath and rediscovered winter. Already December in the ocean.
Gibbs did not move. (But if Tony closed his eyes, he would not know. Silence and blindness as mercy. Recasting the apocalypse.) It took him too long to get through the jumbled wreck of the seatbelt, too long to gather Gibbs in his arms, too long to break the surface of the water. Too long and too cold, like ice crystals on his skin, slowing him down, stiffening him. (If someone so much as touched him, he would shatter.) They were not breathing. They still were not breathing. There was no light and no air. (Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.) He breathed frost into their mouths. His hands on their hearts. (Here at the end of the world.)
He thought he saw the clouds pull back.
(Eternal Father, strong to save.)
Then he saw their hands close around each other and he felt their warm skin beneath his chilled hands. (And grace.) But it was not enough. He moved his arms and legs against the pier, still swimming. Slivers of glass ground into his hands, his knees. The sky was wide and milky white: he thought it was like looking up at the world through the water, watching the ripples play in the light.
All around him, silence and whiteness. (His life for theirs, his breath for theirs. Anything.) The ice was tight and cold on his skin, in his chest, in his mouth. The cool of the sea-salt on his lips.
(For those who peril on the sea.)
ETA: For some reason, I confused Tweeter with Richefic. That's weird. It's Tweeter, not Richefic, who already has a Requiem-fic up! Sorry!
Obviously, "Requiem" spoilers below the cut.
(The cold gray water, the white-crested wave, the disappearing sand; these things once meant the end of the world.)
From the edge of the dock to the water in one clean, unprepared movement: he did not realize he would dive until the shock of the cold undid the hot, tight muscles in his right hand (even in the water, he could smell the blood and the gunpowder), but by then, he was already swimming. Choppy, unthinking, graceless. He would cut through the water or the cold would cut through him. (Brief and uncolored memories of old swimming lessons, how to extend, how to hold his hands, how to kick his legs, the butterfly, the backstroke.) The light coming through the water was crystalline white and the steady movement of the tide made it shudder, like unedited film, like near-death glimpses at pure-grace heaven. He had not thought to inhale before he dove. His chest was tourniquet-tight, his eyes black-rimmed.
He did not need to see them to know they were there: he saw them with his hands, with his heart, with his fear. (But his eyes were open under the water.) The windshield peeled back easily, like tearing rice-paper, flimsy and cool and sharp underneath his hands, but she was warm and lax and easy, a waterlogged rag doll, a human body heavy with hope. (He had to save her first. He could not always wonder why he reached for one hand and not another, could not save Gibbs and then always worry that he had chosen love and time over common humanity. No one would forgive him. He would not forgive himself.)
On dry land again she was still and white. (Sleeping Beauty.) The timer in his head ran to zero. It was harder to dive when he knew what the world looked like under the water. He held his breath and rediscovered winter. Already December in the ocean.
Gibbs did not move. (But if Tony closed his eyes, he would not know. Silence and blindness as mercy. Recasting the apocalypse.) It took him too long to get through the jumbled wreck of the seatbelt, too long to gather Gibbs in his arms, too long to break the surface of the water. Too long and too cold, like ice crystals on his skin, slowing him down, stiffening him. (If someone so much as touched him, he would shatter.) They were not breathing. They still were not breathing. There was no light and no air. (Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.) He breathed frost into their mouths. His hands on their hearts. (Here at the end of the world.)
He thought he saw the clouds pull back.
(Eternal Father, strong to save.)
Then he saw their hands close around each other and he felt their warm skin beneath his chilled hands. (And grace.) But it was not enough. He moved his arms and legs against the pier, still swimming. Slivers of glass ground into his hands, his knees. The sky was wide and milky white: he thought it was like looking up at the world through the water, watching the ripples play in the light.
All around him, silence and whiteness. (His life for theirs, his breath for theirs. Anything.) The ice was tight and cold on his skin, in his chest, in his mouth. The cool of the sea-salt on his lips.
(For those who peril on the sea.)