Fic: Exit Stage Right (Part Two) Gen
Sep. 26th, 2011 04:03 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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ncisficathon *O*O*O*O*O*O*O*
Danny chugged down his fifth cup of coffee in what felt like hours. It settled like a ball of lead in his stomach, but it was the caffeine that was doing a number on him. It was like a thousand ants were marching up and down just under his skin. His tongue was thick and floppy in his mouth and he had a nasty case of the shakes. He pretty much gave up on the whole taking thing since words tended to shoot out of him mouth at impressive speeds and everything came up more jumbled than that current major’s love life.
He figured that it was a small price to pay. There was just something about really bad hospital coffee. Tony had once told him, in one of his drugged-up-to-the-gills philosophical trips, about how hospital coffee making things easier on people; something like the consistency of the familiar. Like the fact that hospital coffee would always taste like turpentine being comforting. Why else would anyone drink the stuff.
Someone passed him a fresh cup and Danny took it wordlessly. A uniform had braved weaning him off with water, but that took about as well as someone trying to Irish-up his coffee and that one he’d thrown-up all over himself. He took a moment to mourn his Dolce Cabana silk shirt. It was a favorite with a simple but elegant trim and a shade of blue that didn’t make his hair look like a flame. Now it would be probably be incinerated along with all the biohazards waste the hospital produced. There was no way that stain would ever come off.
“Any news?” The Major floated over to him, wordlessly grabbing the still full cup in Danny’s hands and dumping it into the nearest trash can. “I’m cutting you off.” The Major pointedly glanced down at Danny’s legs that were doing a merry-go-round across the linolen floor.
“Nothing yet.” He said when the question penetrated through the jittery mess that was his brain. “The nurses won’t tell us much more than they’re working on it.” He hoped some of that made sense with his tongue fumbling in his mouth much in the same way a fish did on a hook with about the same results.
The Major eyed him carefully. It was the same look he tended to give DiNozzo when he was on one of his sugar highs and bouncing all over the place. Except Tony lapped up attention like a hyper-active puppy. Danny swallowed hard and reached for the cup that wasn’t there.
“Alright then; I’m going to head over to the nurse’s station and see what I can find out.” He clasped a hand on his shoulder, “Drink some water or something before you have a heart attack, okay?” And went off with a flourish. The sea of suits and uniforms parting to let him pass in the same way he figured the red sea had for Moses.
Danny watched him go, along with about every pair of eyes in the room as the Major strolled over to the nurse’s station, his face set in his command look. The nurse on duty, though, didn’t seem too impressed and from the way the Major was frowning, Danny figured he got about as far as Danny did.
“That nurse’s got some brass ones.” He heard someone say, a detective from fugitive apprehension team that Tony worked undercover for about a year ago. “Wonder if she’s married.”
Danny snorted, he always heard that those guys in FAT were a little touched in the head, but he didn’t figure them for masochists.
The waiting room was pretty packed, mostly with uniforms and DTs though a few stray civies wondered in and out. He wasn’t surprised. Tony was freakishly popular even outside their prescient and with the civilians. He had a charm and a sly way about him about him that Danny didn’t even bother trying to match. It made people like Tony and in turn, made their jobs a whole lot easier.
Danny shifted in his seat, the damn plastic kind that were impossible to get comfortable in. If Tony were there with him, he’d probably quip about the subtle torture methods that they should probably incorporate. Danny’s back certainly felt like it was knotted in all the wrong places. Add that to the eye sore of colors that decorated the waiting room. The walls had a tropical theme to them, with a bright, eye searing orange and pink and the chairs a banana yellow. The only relief came from the light grey linoleum flooring.
“Anthony DiNozzo?” A voice rang out and every head in the waiting room popped up like some bizarre collection of jacks-in-the-box. The room went dead silent and Danny was up and moving. Every eye burned into his back and when he reached the doc, the Major stood at his side.
There was a doc there, tall, about as tall as Tony and with an impressive mop of blond hair that would be the envy of any surfer. He started talking, a lot of medical mumble jumble that Danny floundered to understand until the Major stepped in with a simple “In lamest terms, Doctor.”
The doctor, a Steven Rogers2 – Danny read his name three times just to be sure – started, he cleared his throat before continuing. “Sorry about that, Detective DiNozzo has a grade 3 concussion. It’s nothing overly serious but it’s common to experience some short-term memory loss. Most people tend to lose the time before they got concussed, minutes, hours. The worst case I’ve ever had the patience lost an entire day.” Which meant that Tony might not remember enough about what happened to be a reliably witness against Lloyd. “He’d likely experience headaches for a while but that should be the worst of it. He also has three cracked ribs on the right side, and several cracked bones on his right wrist. There’s a mild sprain his left wrist and some pretty nasty contusions mostly on his right side. He should be fine in a few weeks but we’re going to keep him overnight for observation.”
“Okay, so basically he’s fine.” Danny summed up because that didn’t seem fine to him.
“Yes, he’s fine.” Danny felt something loosened in his chest. Behind him there was a chorus of sighs, back slapping and hard handshakes like they’d just closed a major case instead of not losing one of their own.
Danny’s knees felt a little weak but he grudgingly accepted his own hand shaking and back slapping even if a few nearly knocked him off his feet.
The Major dispersed the crowd and was saying something else to the doctor. Danny had stopped paying attention. He wanted to go home and crash for the next twenty-four hours, he wanted to go back to the barn pound his fist into Lloyd’s face. Mostly he wanted to check on his partner and erase that imagine of Tony, crumbled against the alley’s wall like some marionette with its strings cut.
“Can I see him?” He hadn’t realized he’d spoken out loud until both the Major and Doc Rogers – Tony was going to love that – were staring at him.
The Major eyed the doc in a significant way until the doc finally said with a resigned air, “He’s resting at the moment but I suppose you can see him for a few minutes.”
Danny stayed rooted to the spot – his body was still doing the Macarena – until the Major gave him a shove. Led by Doctor Rogers, there came through a set of double doors and a long, painfully bright hallway. Tony’s room was a typical hospital room with a second, unoccupied bed and nurses scurrying about, doing all sorts of things with syringes and I.V. lines.
He stopped at the doorway, watching his partner. Tony looked like hell; his pallor was off by at least three shades, his eyes looked bruised and sunken. His wrists were in a case and wrapped up in a pile of bandages respectively.
Danny swallowed down vile that suddenly wanted to make an appearance. It could have ended very differently. He ran a hand roughly through his hair. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, he wanted to say, I didn’t know. But he didn’t. It was lame ass excuse and he knew it. Lloyd almost killed his partner and it’d only been luck that led Danny to them, luck that that single gunshot hadn’t splattered his partner’s brains all over the wall.
“Damn it, Tony.” He muttered and watched Tony’s chest as it rose and fell.
[1] DT is a slang term for detective.
[2] Steven “Steve” Rogers is the name of the comic book character Captain America.
Part One
Danny chugged down his fifth cup of coffee in what felt like hours. It settled like a ball of lead in his stomach, but it was the caffeine that was doing a number on him. It was like a thousand ants were marching up and down just under his skin. His tongue was thick and floppy in his mouth and he had a nasty case of the shakes. He pretty much gave up on the whole taking thing since words tended to shoot out of him mouth at impressive speeds and everything came up more jumbled than that current major’s love life.
He figured that it was a small price to pay. There was just something about really bad hospital coffee. Tony had once told him, in one of his drugged-up-to-the-gills philosophical trips, about how hospital coffee making things easier on people; something like the consistency of the familiar. Like the fact that hospital coffee would always taste like turpentine being comforting. Why else would anyone drink the stuff.
Someone passed him a fresh cup and Danny took it wordlessly. A uniform had braved weaning him off with water, but that took about as well as someone trying to Irish-up his coffee and that one he’d thrown-up all over himself. He took a moment to mourn his Dolce Cabana silk shirt. It was a favorite with a simple but elegant trim and a shade of blue that didn’t make his hair look like a flame. Now it would be probably be incinerated along with all the biohazards waste the hospital produced. There was no way that stain would ever come off.
“Any news?” The Major floated over to him, wordlessly grabbing the still full cup in Danny’s hands and dumping it into the nearest trash can. “I’m cutting you off.” The Major pointedly glanced down at Danny’s legs that were doing a merry-go-round across the linolen floor.
“Nothing yet.” He said when the question penetrated through the jittery mess that was his brain. “The nurses won’t tell us much more than they’re working on it.” He hoped some of that made sense with his tongue fumbling in his mouth much in the same way a fish did on a hook with about the same results.
The Major eyed him carefully. It was the same look he tended to give DiNozzo when he was on one of his sugar highs and bouncing all over the place. Except Tony lapped up attention like a hyper-active puppy. Danny swallowed hard and reached for the cup that wasn’t there.
“Alright then; I’m going to head over to the nurse’s station and see what I can find out.” He clasped a hand on his shoulder, “Drink some water or something before you have a heart attack, okay?” And went off with a flourish. The sea of suits and uniforms parting to let him pass in the same way he figured the red sea had for Moses.
Danny watched him go, along with about every pair of eyes in the room as the Major strolled over to the nurse’s station, his face set in his command look. The nurse on duty, though, didn’t seem too impressed and from the way the Major was frowning, Danny figured he got about as far as Danny did.
“That nurse’s got some brass ones.” He heard someone say, a detective from fugitive apprehension team that Tony worked undercover for about a year ago. “Wonder if she’s married.”
Danny snorted, he always heard that those guys in FAT were a little touched in the head, but he didn’t figure them for masochists.
The waiting room was pretty packed, mostly with uniforms and DTs though a few stray civies wondered in and out. He wasn’t surprised. Tony was freakishly popular even outside their prescient and with the civilians. He had a charm and a sly way about him about him that Danny didn’t even bother trying to match. It made people like Tony and in turn, made their jobs a whole lot easier.
Danny shifted in his seat, the damn plastic kind that were impossible to get comfortable in. If Tony were there with him, he’d probably quip about the subtle torture methods that they should probably incorporate. Danny’s back certainly felt like it was knotted in all the wrong places. Add that to the eye sore of colors that decorated the waiting room. The walls had a tropical theme to them, with a bright, eye searing orange and pink and the chairs a banana yellow. The only relief came from the light grey linoleum flooring.
“Anthony DiNozzo?” A voice rang out and every head in the waiting room popped up like some bizarre collection of jacks-in-the-box. The room went dead silent and Danny was up and moving. Every eye burned into his back and when he reached the doc, the Major stood at his side.
There was a doc there, tall, about as tall as Tony and with an impressive mop of blond hair that would be the envy of any surfer. He started talking, a lot of medical mumble jumble that Danny floundered to understand until the Major stepped in with a simple “In lamest terms, Doctor.”
The doctor, a Steven Rogers2 – Danny read his name three times just to be sure – started, he cleared his throat before continuing. “Sorry about that, Detective DiNozzo has a grade 3 concussion. It’s nothing overly serious but it’s common to experience some short-term memory loss. Most people tend to lose the time before they got concussed, minutes, hours. The worst case I’ve ever had the patience lost an entire day.” Which meant that Tony might not remember enough about what happened to be a reliably witness against Lloyd. “He’d likely experience headaches for a while but that should be the worst of it. He also has three cracked ribs on the right side, and several cracked bones on his right wrist. There’s a mild sprain his left wrist and some pretty nasty contusions mostly on his right side. He should be fine in a few weeks but we’re going to keep him overnight for observation.”
“Okay, so basically he’s fine.” Danny summed up because that didn’t seem fine to him.
“Yes, he’s fine.” Danny felt something loosened in his chest. Behind him there was a chorus of sighs, back slapping and hard handshakes like they’d just closed a major case instead of not losing one of their own.
Danny’s knees felt a little weak but he grudgingly accepted his own hand shaking and back slapping even if a few nearly knocked him off his feet.
The Major dispersed the crowd and was saying something else to the doctor. Danny had stopped paying attention. He wanted to go home and crash for the next twenty-four hours, he wanted to go back to the barn pound his fist into Lloyd’s face. Mostly he wanted to check on his partner and erase that imagine of Tony, crumbled against the alley’s wall like some marionette with its strings cut.
“Can I see him?” He hadn’t realized he’d spoken out loud until both the Major and Doc Rogers – Tony was going to love that – were staring at him.
The Major eyed the doc in a significant way until the doc finally said with a resigned air, “He’s resting at the moment but I suppose you can see him for a few minutes.”
Danny stayed rooted to the spot – his body was still doing the Macarena – until the Major gave him a shove. Led by Doctor Rogers, there came through a set of double doors and a long, painfully bright hallway. Tony’s room was a typical hospital room with a second, unoccupied bed and nurses scurrying about, doing all sorts of things with syringes and I.V. lines.
He stopped at the doorway, watching his partner. Tony looked like hell; his pallor was off by at least three shades, his eyes looked bruised and sunken. His wrists were in a case and wrapped up in a pile of bandages respectively.
Danny swallowed down vile that suddenly wanted to make an appearance. It could have ended very differently. He ran a hand roughly through his hair. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, he wanted to say, I didn’t know. But he didn’t. It was lame ass excuse and he knew it. Lloyd almost killed his partner and it’d only been luck that led Danny to them, luck that that single gunshot hadn’t splattered his partner’s brains all over the wall.
“Damn it, Tony.” He muttered and watched Tony’s chest as it rose and fell.
[1] DT is a slang term for detective.
[2] Steven “Steve” Rogers is the name of the comic book character Captain America.
Part One
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