"Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"
~ Clarence Oddbody, It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Tony doesn't believe anything he reads in the newspaper; he doesn't believe in a higher power, or in the inherent goodness of man. He doesn't believe that it's okay to act first and seek forgiveness later on, even if it is one of Gibbs' rules, and one that Tony has become an old hand at using over the years. Tony doesn't believe in his own father - not that he's ever trusted the man - although in recent months Senior has come a long way towards redeeming himself. Sadly, Tony no longer believes that one day he'll get the chance to meet Sean Connery and they'll exchange lines from James Bond movies over a couple of chilled martinis, shaken and not stirred.
But worst of all, Tony no longer believes in 'It's a Wonderful Life,' and it's his loss of faith in his favorite holiday film's life-affirming message that bothers him more than anything else. Now when Tony watches 'It's a Wonderful Life' he pictures Brenda Bittner, saturated in muted grays, driving George Bailey's car through the driving snow. She crashes his old car headlong into a tree, then gets out and staggers to the bridge with thoughts of suicide dancing in her head.
Tony has seen it before, that self-destructive behavior that cycles around until it comes back and not only hits you, but takes out everyone else who is fool enough to stand within the fifty-foot kill zone. He's seen it ¬- hell, he's fucking well experienced it - and he knows that kind of hurt stays with you for years, for a lifetime, no matter how much you deny it has any effect on you.
She can solve her problems by jumping off that bridge for all he cares because he's not responsible for her, and damn her for being selfish and dragging everyone down with her.
***
It's like the undertow that almost caused him to drown when he was eight, during that summer the family spent at the Jersey shore. To this day, Tony vividly remembers getting knocked off his feet, sucked into the ocean, and then rolled over and over by an incredibly strong wave. His body tumbled and was scraped along the sand, then hauled so close to the surface that he could see the crystal-blue sky through the shimmering water, only to rollercoaster to the bottom again.
Even though Tony knew it was going to be the death of him, he took a big breath anyway and inhaled seawater instead of oxygen. His lungs ached and the sparkling blue ocean turned an ominous inky black and Tony knew for sure that he was drowning, but a minute later he was gasping and choking and the wave was receding, having tossed him up on the beach like so much flotsam. Or is it jetsam?
When he struggled to his feet, wobbling on weak legs and coughing and crying like a little kid, out of sheer relief, his parents were there but they were so busy quarreling over what color the tablecloths should be at the party they were hosting that weekend, they never even noticed their kid had almost drowned, not twenty feet from where they stood. Tony was hurt and angry that nobody had witnessed him practically drowning, but he wasn't particularly surprised either.
Tony walked unnoticed past his parents, over the searing hot sand and into cool of the rented cottage, and put on his favorite T-shirt with 'Magnum PI' emblazoned across the chest. It covered the worst of the abrasions that scored his stomach. He watched TV until it was cocktail hour and when his mom came in and ran her fingers lazily though his hair and asked if he was okay, Tony smiled brightly and said, "I'm fine."
*
Sometimes it's so damned hard to get back up but he keeps doing it anyway.
***
Tony doesn't believe in the current SecNav, who delivers another hand up the backside when he invites Tony into his office and orders him to desist with his on-the-side investigation. Tony has spent his free time, which doesn't amount to much these days, trying to track down EJ. Nobody but him seems terribly concerned about her, even though she is not only missing, but is missing with a piece of lead in her side. It didn't take a lot of brainwork to figure out that Davenport, the former SecNav - whose obsessive fondness for Cuban cigars and Russian playwrights seems wildly unpatriotic - is taking care of his niece in his customary covert manner, and that the current SecNav has neatly brushed the whole thing under the table and expects it to stay there. Lock the box and throw away the damned key.
For all the things Tony doesn't believe in, there are still a few that he does believe in, like doing the right thing, although he's clinging to that life raft with torn and bloodied fingernails. He has a bad feeling that one day soon the cold dark sea that's incessantly dragging at his waterlogged clothing is going to win what has been a very long and exhausting battle.
Tony knows that no matter how neatly you tie up loose ends, the rope tends to unravel at extremely inconvenient times, but he lets his anger and frustration at the SecNav go. No matter how much Tony despises the machinations of those at the top, he isn't quite ready to jump off the sinking ship.
And even if Tony doesn't believe in himself with quite as much confidence as he did just a few years ago, he believes that he still has integrity and that he can make a difference to a very few people in the course of his job. He also believes in Gibbs, who taught him that those things are important.
He believes in Gibbs.
Whether or not it's a good thing, Tony relies upon Gibbs being there, being the rule by which he measures. He is Tony's lifeline whether Tony wants it or not, but sometimes Tony does not want anyone to be there for him, especially Gibbs, no matter how perverse and ungrateful and plain obstinate that might be. Tony figures that if he's going to fall on his face then it should be up to him to damn well get back on his own two feet again. Or not.
Gibbs is always there though. He's a rock, supportive in his impatient, tight-lipped kind of way, and to give him credit, Gibbs doesn't often extend his hand. He'll help but he won't actually do it for you. The thing is that Tony knows that no matter how badly he fucks up, all it takes is for Gibbs to look at him expectantly and he gets his act together and gets back on the damned horse �" or in the boat because they are, after all, Navy cops.
Gibbs is the only one that matters, the only voice that can get through to him when push comes to shove, when despair casts its pall, when the image of Brenda smashing her car into a tree jumps to the forefront of his mind and won't stop replaying in a never-ending loop.
A movie comes to mind, one from the 90s, when Christmas Day is repeated multiple times, giving the character - a 13-year-old selfish boy ¬- a chance to right what's wrong and get his head out of his ass long enough to recognize a key truth. Tony doesn't need to relive Christmas because he already knows what went wrong. He understands the truth. He just can't accept it.
*
Tony believes, truly knows with unerring conviction, that Gibbs is the only person in the world who will always be there for him, and that's where the true miracle lies, not in old movies or in Christmas sentiment, or buried somewhere amongst the regrets of his past.
It isn't exactly regret that Tony feels. It's more along the lines of nostalgia tugging at him when he thinks that his life could have been, should have been, somehow different. Back in Baltimore he should have tried harder to get past the shit that went down with Danny, and persevered, stuck with his job. He should have turned right around and convinced Wendy they could make a go of it; he should have done whatever the hell it took to get her to put his ring back on her finger. He should have taken that raise in rank and pay, bought that little house they had their eye on, and had a mortgage and a couple of kids, and maybe a dog, and by now he would only have a handful of years left until he's done his twenty.
He'd mapped out a new path for himself on the day in college when he'd acknowledged that his broken leg meant the end of one set of dreams, and that it was time to work on another. Tony knows where he went wrong and veered off that new-and-revised path. In fact, he can pinpoint the exact day and time that he took that sharp left-handed turn, and sometimes, when he thinks about it too deeply, he's almost ashamed that he took the bait so damned easily. He can't even think of Baltimore without thinking of Gibbs, the Navy cop who made off with his perp, and stole both his neatly arranged future and his heart all in one fell swoop.
No, Tony shouldn’t call the path he chose wrong, just not what he planned, or expected. But that's life, isn't it? Tony isn't sure that the choice to follow Gibbs was even his to make. Someone else, a higher power, took the reins that day. Oh, Tony was willing, all right, but it was Gibbs who had pushed him in the right direction and then put his stamp on Tony - the one in indelible ink that says 'Property of Leroy Jethro Gibbs.'
There have been times when Tony's belief in the man, in Gibbs, has been sorely tested, but after doing a lot of soul-searching and with Gibbs being unerringly patient, in his impatient way, they have persevered and have come out the other side tempered - not like steel but like glass. "Tempered glass is safer and stronger, tougher," Gibbs points out, looking at him with those blue eyes that bore right into his soul. It frightens Tony that Gibbs believes in him so absolutely, that Gibbs thinks he's that strong. Tony knows that if - when - he falls apart, the tempered glass will break into a million little pieces, and because Tony believes in Gibbs, he knows that Gibbs will be there to sweep him up.
Tony wonders how it is that he has come to believe in another person so intrinsically that he's placed his very life in his hands.
***
Story Notes:
Rating: R or FRAO
Warnings: Slash, language, m/m sex, dark theme, talk of suicide.
Themes: Tibbs Christmas, Gibbs/DiNozzo, established relationship, angst.
Written for: Tibbs-Yuletide
Spoilers: Mentions of episodes up to 9x10, Sins of the Father.
Disclaimer: Only playing with the characters.
Summary: Set during Christmas 2011. Tony has lost faith in a lot of things that once seemed important to him, but he still believes in Gibbs. This is good because Tony is going through his annual Christmastime meltdown and needs all the help he can get.
Length: 6500 words in 3 parts
Thanks to: your_icequeen, mamamia1964, and Lacy for betaing and guidance, though I've added a lot since it was betaed. Comments are always appreciated!
Author's Chapter Notes:
Set during Christmas 2011. Tony has lost faith in a lot of things that once seemed important to him, but he still believes in Gibbs. This is good because Tony is going through his annual Christmastime meltdown and needs all the help he can get.
Chapter End Notes:
Rating: R or FRAO
Warnings: Slash, language, m/m sex, dark theme, talk of suicide.
Themes: Tibbs Christmas, Gibbs/DiNozzo, established relationship, angst.
Written for: Tibbs-Yuletide
Spoilers: Mentions of episodes up to 9x10, Sins of the Father.
Disclaimer: Only playing with the characters.
Summary: Set during Christmas 2011. Tony has lost faith in a lot of things that once seemed important to him, but he still believes in Gibbs. This is good because Tony is going through his annual Christmastime meltdown and needs all the help he can get.
Length: 6500 words in 3 parts
Thanks to: your_icequeen, mamamia1964, and Lacy for betaing and guidance, though I've added a lot since it was betaed. Comments are always appreciated!
Warnings: Slash, language, m/m sex, dark theme, talk of suicide.
Themes: Tibbs Christmas, Gibbs/DiNozzo, established relationship, angst.
Written for: Tibbs-Yuletide
Spoilers: Mentions of episodes up to 9x10, Sins of the Father.
Disclaimer: Only playing with the characters.
Summary: Set during Christmas 2011. Tony has lost faith in a lot of things that once seemed important to him, but he still believes in Gibbs. This is good because Tony is going through his annual Christmastime meltdown and needs all the help he can get.
Length: 6500 words in 3 parts
Thanks to: your_icequeen, mamamia1964, and Lacy for betaing and guidance, though I've added a lot since it was betaed. Comments are always appreciated!