#001: Fading - NCIS (Anthony DiNozzo, Timothy McGee)

[jack-infinitude.livejournal.com]

Title: State of the Heart
Author: jack_infinitude
Fandom: NCIS
Characters: Anthony DiNozzo, Timothy McGee
Prompt: fading
Rating: PG
Warnings: Slash, character death.
Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS.
Summary: It is his life, everything he holds dear, memories and love alike.
A/N: AU story that takes place in of season seven. There are no spoilers. Xposted to 10_fics, kissmeprobie and my journal. ETA 9-9-09: made two changes to the text, and corrected a spelling error.




The T-shirt is faded blue, and has long strings of black, cracked kanji printed across the front. Tony takes good care of it in spite of its age; he has re-sewn the seams many times (enough so that he doubts that any of the original thread is still left) while the collar and hem are ripped and missing chunks of fabric from years of wear and tear. On the back, where a tag would be, are the worn initials T. M. that DiNozzo keeps rewriting with a laundry marker. There is also a black fabric square patched onto the shirt front, surrounded by washed out stains that might have once been scarlet and are now an ugly brown.

Tony tried to wash those stains away after he got the shirt. He had spent hours at his kitchen sink with various detergents, working himself nearly to tears trying to get them out. Nothing had worked, though, and he had finally given up. The faded blue shirt had then spent a year in his closet on a hanger as DiNozzo debated whether to throw it out or give it away.

Tony can’t read the kanji; he has only a vague idea of what the shirt says (though he has a feeling that it is a joke to do with cats and eternal love). The shirt is also just a little bit big on him, stretched out from its previous owner. But it wasn’t meant for him; he isn’t the one who wanted it, isn’t the one who patiently waited in line for an hour to buy it. He is simply the one who inherited it in a blast of blood and pain.

He wears it to work sometimes; usually when he’s overslept, and needs to throw something on. People remark on the black patch and foreign lettering but Tony pays them no mind. He has had possession of the faded blue shirt for going on three years now, and it is by far the oldest and most raggedy of his tops. It had been worn regularly for many years before becoming DiNozzo’s property, and had not been treated well prior.

But it is now one of Tony’s most prized belongings, cared for and constantly mended, as well as rescued twice from the give-away bag during Abby’s whirlwind cleanings of his apartment. Tony has kept this shirt when others have been thrown out or sold or given away, and as far as he cares, he’ll never let go of it when it means so much.

He doesn’t wear it when he sleeps. If he wears it when he sleeps then he will be visited by dreams of dead eyes and long hands limp in pools of blood; and those are the dreams that leave him broken when he wakes up, shivering and split open all the way to the outside. He would much rather remember grey eyes, small smiles, and sweet, savage kisses that he missed.

So Tony keeps it. He will keep it until he is so old and infirm that his life is drained simply by the breaths he takes, until the day he dies. The faded blue shirt is his life, everything he holds dear, memories and love alike.

Comments

[annieb1955.livejournal.com]

This is stunningly and beautifully sad. Blew me away. (And I don't usually read DiNozzo/McGee)

[jack-infinitude.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed this little foray.

[annieb1955.livejournal.com]

I passed it along to my sister who loves DiNozzo/McGee and she asked me to tell you she loved it too