And I'll Tell You No Lies (1/1)
Title: And I'll Tell You No Lies
Author: Calliatra
Rating: FR15
Category: Gen
Pairing: None
Character(s): Tony
Genre: Character Study
Words: 4,120
Warnings: Language
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer:: All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: There are things Tony doesn’t think about and that no one can find out about, or so he tells himself. There’s a line between self-preservation and cowardice, and it should be obvious, but somehow it isn’t. There are little things that influence big choices, and many places to get lost along the way. Written for the No More DADT Challenge at NFA.
A/N: I’m very unsure about this fic. I’ve never seen Tony as anything but straight, so writing this felt pretty weird. The plot bunny just wouldn't let go, though, so, for better or for worse, here it is. Feedback would be nice. :)
Note: Tony said in “Flesh and Blood” that his mother died when he was eight. He’s never mentioned anything else about her, though, so my interpretation is that she wasn’t around much even before then.
* * *
Anthony DiNozzo, Jr. was seven years old when he first heard the term ‘fag.’ “Damn fags,” his father muttered, as two men holding hands bumped into them in the crowded passage. Tony didn’t know what a fag was, but he knew better than to ask his father about something he mentioned in that growly tone of voice. Anthony DiNozzo, Sr. was a very busy man who didn’t often have time for his only son, and Tony was careful to cherish the time his father did spend with him, and to not make him angry by doing things like asking too many questions.
Today was a big day for Tony. His father was taking him to a baseball game. He had promised to do that almost a year ago, but business had gotten in the way, and it hadn’t been mentioned again. Tony had held on to his hope, though, and had mentioned it again the other week. His father being home for dinner was always a big occasion, and Bertha, their cook, had gone all out. There was deer, slowly roasted in the over for hours to make it impossibly tender, gravy that was thick and rich and went perfectly with Bertha’s famous potatoes, which by virtue of a few secret ingredients were so much more than just potatoes. All in all it served to put Tony’s father in a good enough mood that when Tony brought up the long-forgotten promise, he willingly agreed to take him to the next game.
So what if his father had mentioned meeting a business partner at the game? So what if they would be sitting in the VIP section, where you had a great view but were far away from all the real excitement so that people could talk business in peace? His father was still taking him to a baseball game, and Tony was determined that this was going to be a perfect day. He didn’t know what “fags” were, but they made his father angry, so they must be bad. Well, he wasn’t going to let fags ruin his perfect day, so he asked his father a question about the game and soon all irritation was forgotten.
*
“Nadya, what’s a ‘fag’?” A week later, the question still hadn’t left Tony’s thoughts, so he turned to the one person who never seemed to mind when he asked questions, and who always took the time to explain things to him. Nadya was his nanny - no, wait, he wasn’t supposed to call her that anymore, his father had said. Seven-year-olds did not have nannies, so Nadya was his oh-pear now. He had asked his father once why everyone else’s mommies did the things for them that Nadya did for him, but his father had gotten angry and Tony had never asked again. Anyway, he liked Nadya. She was always nice to him, she let him watch movies if he’d finished with his homework and when he was sick and his throat hurt she put him in bed and got Bertha to give him ice cream.
At his question, Nadya got the look on her face that she had had when he had asked her where babies came from, so Tony knew fags were not something he was supposed to talk about. But like she had when he had asked about the babies, Nadya sat down with him and explained. She told him that even though it took a man and a woman to make a baby, sometime a man would fall in love with a man instead. It wasn’t really normal, but there was nothing bad about it, and calling these men ‘fags’ was not nice. They wanted to be called ‘gay’ or ‘homosexual’ instead. Tony liked Nadya, and he usually believed what she said, but he knew she was wrong about this. His father had called them “fags,” so it had to be okay to call them that. And his father didn’t like them, so there had to be something wrong with them. Tony resolved to not like fags, either.
*
By the age of thirteen, Tony had developed a distinct liking for girls. It was this liking that had him spending the hottest days of his summer vacation at the public outdoor pool. Well, that and the fact that his father would never be caught dead anywhere near there. He had made abundantly clear his dissatisfaction with his son, whose report cards clearly indicated he was focusing more on sports and friends than schoolwork. The phone calls about pranks Tony may or may not have pulled on some of his teachers hadn’t helped any. If his father had hoped boarding school would instill some discipline in Junior, he was sorely disappointed. But as long as he wasn’t home, he was at least not directly confronted with that disappointment. Though of course he told himself he kept coming to the pool purely for the girls in bikinis.
Another hot day found him lying on a towel on the grass beside the pool when a movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He looked up just as somebody jumped from the high diving board. The body was blur as it fell gracefully through the air and seemed to slide into the water without so much as a splash, and Tony stared in fascination. Not many people dared to jump from the high diving board.
A head emerged from the water, followed by a pair of broad shoulders. Strong arms reached out for the edge of the pool, and Tony stared, hypnotized, at the water glistening on the toned muscles and firm torso as the guy pulled himself up out of the pool. His eyes drifted to the bright red swimming trunks, which the water had made clingy, when suddenly an awareness of just what he was staring at pierced the pleasant fog in his mind.
In a flash Tony was on his feet gathering up his things, and then he was rushing out through the gate and onto the street and anywhere, just away from the pool. He didn’t go back all summer.
*
High school was occasionally problematic. There were contact sports, and sweaty changing rooms, and communal showers. He kept his eyes on the ceiling (because always looking at the floor was just plain suspicious) and a repertoire of good jokes at hand. Also, he leered at girls. That part was easy to do. It earned him quite a few dirty looks, and also a reputation. The reputation was helpful, and for every other dirty look he got a flirty smile, so all in all, things went well. He was a jock if ever there was one, star quarterback for the school’s football team and yes, he dated only cheerleaders.
The aftermath of a particularly rough practice found Tony in the showers later than the rest of the team. The coach had wanted a word and between that and trying to catch a glimpse of the cheerleading squad as they trained on the now free field, he was the last one into the shower, and pretty soon most of the others had left. A quick glance to his left confirmed that only Sean, the second wide receiver, was left, and he was preparing about to get out, too. Good; a nice, solitary shower would be relaxing, for a change. Sean, however, caught Tony’s eye and gave him a look that had his heart skipping several beats and then trying to make up for them all at once. As much as Tony wanted to pretend he didn’t, he knew that look only too well; it was the one the more forward girls sent his way all the time. He snapped his eyes back to the oh-so-familiar ceiling and got out of the shower as quickly as possible.
It stayed with him, though. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he couldn’t quite deny it to himself. He had been tempted. And that just wasn’t right. He was a jock, no, scratch that, he was the king of jocks. He was the smartass who gave the teachers guff and got away with it. He was the star athlete everyone cheered for at every game. He wasn’t a fag. Except, apparently he was, at least in part. Well, that was just one more thing to add to the pile of things he didn’t want to think about and no one could know about, the pile guarded by thick walls of silence and a huge arsenal of jokes to deflect and deter anyone who came to close.
There were lots of things in that pile. Little things, like the way he didn’t really like beer all that much. Slightly bigger things, like the fact that what he had missed most about home when he had first been sent to boarding school wasn’t the home movie theater (like he told everyone), or even Bertha’s cooking; it was Nadya. And the really big things, like this. Or the fact that he hadn’t actually talked to his father in longer than he cared to remember. No, he definitely didn’t want to think about that. Or about what his father might say if he found out about this.
*
College changed things. Taught him a lot, and made him let go of a fair number of his prejudices. Somewhere along the line, Tony came to accept that he was bi. He even had a few experiences with guys. He was still a jock, though (because really, what was jockier than a major in Phys Ed?), so he kept it quiet. Somewhere in his mind he knew that the two weren’t irreconcilable, not anymore, but he also knew it wouldn’t be easy, and he wanted to keep at least some part of his life easy.
College had also taken his father out of the picture. Refusing to follow in his footsteps and spend his life sipping scotch and negotiating backroom deals was apparently the ultimate betrayal, punishable by exile from the family. So he went to Ohio State on a football scholarship and told himself it was better this way. No more trying to please a father who was virtually unpleasable, no more trying to live up to a standard that was ill defined and forever out of reach. He could do whatever he wanted to, now. Provided he could do on his own.
No family money to fall back on, no home to return to, and no real plans for the future, he immersed himself in his fraternity. Drinking and partying and picking up girls became a way of life, a steady, stable constant, and he’d be damned if he did anything to endanger it. The small voice in the back of his mind telling him he was being a coward was easily ignored. “Not now,” he told it. “Later, when everything else is worked out.”
*
Then he was a cop. A rookie with a smart mouth and no respect for authority, and he told himself that coming out would be like hand delivering a plan of a fortress’ weaknesses to the leader of attacking forces. The hazing wasn’t so bad, as long as they had nothing on him. He could do menial labor, run pointless errands and suffer whatever indignities they came up with without ever losing his trademark grin, because none of those things were really that bad. Tony just really hoped none of them would come up with the idea of looking into his family history.
Good instincts and a quick mind got him his shield and a transfer to Philly. There he was the new guy, young and green and irritating to a fault, though he had learned turn down the sass enough to stay out of trouble. It was a rough and tumble kind of place, where respect was a currency of far higher value than even the ever-present drugs, both inside the station and out dealing with dirtbags. Cops were tough guys, bad-asses in the image of John Wayne and if one thing was sure to make his life hell in every way, it would be admitting to getting it on with men.
Gay was unmanly, gay was weak, gay was everything you did not want to be. Gay was the absolute worst possible insult, and it was employed with great frequency, though generally clad in coarser language. He adapted. When he found himself pinning a fugitive suspect against a wall and yelling at him that he was a fucking faggot, Tony applied for a transfer.
By the time he got to Baltimore, he’d gotten very comfortable in the closet. It protected him from harassment, and it wasn’t as if it was difficult to stay in. All he had to do was date hot chicks, the more the better. It was a pretty pleasurable task. But in the back of his mind, the voice was back, much louder this time. “I’m not a coward,” he told it. “I just don’t want to be known as ‘the guy who bangs guys’. I don’t want to be a damn activist, I just want to be a cop!”
*
Then came Gibbs. Waltzed through the doors of Baltimore PD and took over just like that. Graciously allowed Tony to help on what was supposed to be his case and then had the audacity to slap him on the back of the head like a misbehaving dog. When, at the end of the case, Gibbs offered him a job he didn’t have to think for a second, and that was that.
He met Abby and Ducky and got to know Gibbs and realized that here it wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter where he came from, how he dressed or who he slept with, just as long as he got the job done. It was a good feeling, but at the same time, coming out was simply not an option, or so he told the insistent little voice. Though NCIS was a civilian agency, it was still under the Department of Defense, meaning “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” applied.
Time passed. The voice kept making itself heard. “Coming out would mean losing the job,” he told it. Never mind that Gibbs would never, ever let one of his agents be fired over this. “It’s the rules, stupid as they are, and they apply to everyone.” Never mind that he made a habit of breaking almost any rule he came across. “I’m not a coward!” He thought he heard a mirthless laugh.
*
He had consciously avoided following the debate around the repeal. He blocked it from his thoughts and changed the channel whenever it came up on television. Acknowledging it would have meant facing the prospect of being free to come out. But how could he? Remarking to people he had just met - and who had never known him any other way - that he wasn’t straight would be one thing, but announcing to his friends, the people he had been closest to for the past ten years, that he had been deliberately misleading them about his sexuality? That was not a prospect he wanted to face. So he ignored the news and told himself he just didn’t want false hope.
He couldn’t avoid noticing when the bill was signed into law, it was just too big a news item. The policy remained in place for the time being, however, and he told himself he was just being cautious. Politics were fickle, you never knew what might happen next.
*
It followed that the news took him completely by surprise. There had been nothing on it on TV or in the papers for months, and though he knew it was only the calm before the storm he had let himself be lulled into a sense of security. Then, one day, ZNN was on in the bull pen, background noise as always until Ziva grabbed the remote and turned up the volume.
“…yes, Tom, it’s definitely a big day for everyone in the military. There is no clear prediction about what the overall effect of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal will be, but an extensive study has been conducted in all branches of the service, and both the President and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have assured the public that military readiness will not suffer in any way. The repeal was of course hotly contested my Senator John McCain, who maintains…”
Ziva turned the volume back down, but it was McGee who spoke. “Wonder if this is going to change things around here?”
“I do not think very much will change,” Ziva mused, “except that some people will no longer have to lie about their private lives.”
“I don’t know. This is actually a pretty big deal; I’m sure we’ll be noticing some differences. What do you think, Tony?”
Tony didn’t answer. He wasn’t even really aware he’d been spoken to. His heart was racing, his hands were shaking, his mind was buzzing with far too many thoughts and emotions and the only thing that stood out clearly was a single certainty: This is it.
“Tony?”
With difficultly, Tony forced his mind his immediate surroundings back into focus. “What? Sorry, I was just thinking of all the hot lesbians who can now make out right here in the open…” He forced his face into a leer.
Ziva rolled her eyes and McGee shook his head, which was expected and exactly what he was going for. Gibbs, however, was giving him an odd look.
The rest of the day, Tony was distracted. The little voice was not so little anymore, and it was impossible to shut up. “You’re a coward,” it said. “Every minute you don’t come out, you’re delivering more and more proof.” But if he was a coward, what exactly was he afraid of? His relationship with his father was screwed up way beyond being influenced by this, there was no hazing or anything of the kind to be avoided, and his job was no longer on the line, if it ever even had been. So what was it that he feared?
It was the pile, he realized. That well hidden and even better defended pile of things he didn’t want anyone to know about, the one that few people even suspected existed. Bringing one thing from that pile out into the open would mean admitting to the pile’s existence, and that was something he most definitely did not want to do.
For all the incessant chatter he kept up about seemingly every aspect of his life, Tony was, in truth, a very private person. The things that mattered most to him were the things he spoke of least, if at all. He cultivated the image of a shallow idiot and kept his secrets close and guarded. Even those who got the closest, who knew there was far more to him than he let on, never more than glimpsed them.
Coming out would mean exposure in so many ways, some of which Tony wasn’t sure he could handle. Not coming out, on the other hand, would mean admitting to cowardice, and if there was one thing Tony refused to be called, even by a voice in his head, it was a coward.
All in all, it was no wonder Tony was distracted. It was somewhat of a wonder, however, that Gibbs let him get away with it. He got headslaps, sure, which was reassuring, but nothing beyond that, which was worrisome. He put on his best clown mask and pretended he was just being slightly more, well, clownish than usual, and it seemed to fool McGee and Ziva. But he caught Gibbs giving him a thoughtful look several times throughout the day, and when he finally told them all to go home Tony was the first in the elevator.
It was all a mess. It was a huge mess of past and present and choices and emotions and he was lost, completely, hopelessly lost without any idea of where he was, where he was going or even where he was coming from. There really was only one place to go, and Tony’s feet (and hands, he had to drive, after all) had taken him there before his mind even had a chance to make itself up.
*
Gibbs didn’t comment when Tony took a seat on the bottom step of the basement stairs, didn’t even acknowledge his presence aside from glancing up briefly from the chunk of wood he was carving. Tony wasn’t exactly sure what he had expected, but this felt right, so he didn’t push it.
He sat in silence, because he honestly didn’t know what he wanted to say, or what he wanted to hear. All he knew was that he was lost, and that this had seemed like the place to come. Gibbs was silent because, well, he was Gibbs, and Tony was aware that for all it seemed like Gibbs was simply ignoring him, he was actually giving him space to gather his thoughts. The problem was, of course, that he really didn’t have enough coherent thoughts at the moment to gather anything.
After a while he gave up and sighed heavily, looking at his Boss for help. There was no way the man didn’t know why he was here, not after the way he’d been acting all day. Gibbs looked up again, took in Tony’s body language, and got up to pour some bourbon into two mason jars. He sat down next to Tony on the stairs and passed him one of the jars before taking a long sip from his own.
“What are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know.” Not knowing really was the only thing he knew, at the moment, and life had to have reached new levels of screwed-up-ness for him to be sympathizing with a Greek philosopher his twelfth grade Cultural Studies teacher had completely failed to get him interested in.
He wondered what he wanted Gibbs to say. ‘It doesn’t matter’? But it did, and they both knew it.
‘It won’t make a difference’? He wasn’t nearly naïve enough to believe that. ‘Everything’s going to be fine’? He almost snorted at that thought. What he really wanted was for Gibbs to tell him what to do. Or, better yet, come up with a magical solution that had him not having to do anything. For a second he seethed in fury at the world for making him face this choice, for presuming something about him and then making him stand up and correct it, or have a coward return his gaze from the mirror every morning. The anger ebbed away almost as quickly as it had come. The world couldn’t help the way it was anymore than he could, and laying blame would help no one.
“What would you do?”
Gibbs reply was a slight tilt of the head and a half smile that said ‘You know me.’
Of course he did, and of course he’d been aware of how futile the question was even before he’d asked it. Gibbs wasn’t like him. The man redefined the concept of “private” with several added layers of concrete and reinforced steel. He didn’t ever talk about who he dated unless he got married, and when he did that he was unapologetic. None of which helped Tony.
“Sometimes,” Gibbs said slowly, “You can’t get something done in one strike. It’s just too tough, too much to handle all at once.” He glanced at the piece of wood now lying abandoned on his worktable. He had been whittling at it for some time, and while it hadn’t yet taken on any recognizable shape, it no longer looked like a random block of wood, either. “So you go slowly, piece by piece. And you make sure in between that it’s looking the way it’s supposed to. It takes a while, but it gets done.”
Tony took a second to absorb the message, then turned to look at Gibbs. The other man met his gaze, steady. After a moment, he looked away again. “Thanks, Boss.”
Gibbs squeezed Tony’s knee briefly before getting to his feet; it was as much of an ‘everything will be all right’ as he was ever going to get, and it was enough. He rose as well and started up the stairs as Gibbs sat back down at the table.
“Hey, Tony.”
Already on the landing, Tony turned around.
“Door’s unlocked. Always.” Gibbs was looking him straight in the eye, making sure he got the message.
“Yeah. I know.” And he did. That made two things he knew.
It was a start.
* * *
Author: Calliatra
Rating: FR15
Category: Gen
Pairing: None
Character(s): Tony
Genre: Character Study
Words: 4,120
Warnings: Language
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer:: All recognizable NCIS characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: There are things Tony doesn’t think about and that no one can find out about, or so he tells himself. There’s a line between self-preservation and cowardice, and it should be obvious, but somehow it isn’t. There are little things that influence big choices, and many places to get lost along the way. Written for the No More DADT Challenge at NFA.
A/N: I’m very unsure about this fic. I’ve never seen Tony as anything but straight, so writing this felt pretty weird. The plot bunny just wouldn't let go, though, so, for better or for worse, here it is. Feedback would be nice. :)
Note: Tony said in “Flesh and Blood” that his mother died when he was eight. He’s never mentioned anything else about her, though, so my interpretation is that she wasn’t around much even before then.
* * *
Anthony DiNozzo, Jr. was seven years old when he first heard the term ‘fag.’ “Damn fags,” his father muttered, as two men holding hands bumped into them in the crowded passage. Tony didn’t know what a fag was, but he knew better than to ask his father about something he mentioned in that growly tone of voice. Anthony DiNozzo, Sr. was a very busy man who didn’t often have time for his only son, and Tony was careful to cherish the time his father did spend with him, and to not make him angry by doing things like asking too many questions.
Today was a big day for Tony. His father was taking him to a baseball game. He had promised to do that almost a year ago, but business had gotten in the way, and it hadn’t been mentioned again. Tony had held on to his hope, though, and had mentioned it again the other week. His father being home for dinner was always a big occasion, and Bertha, their cook, had gone all out. There was deer, slowly roasted in the over for hours to make it impossibly tender, gravy that was thick and rich and went perfectly with Bertha’s famous potatoes, which by virtue of a few secret ingredients were so much more than just potatoes. All in all it served to put Tony’s father in a good enough mood that when Tony brought up the long-forgotten promise, he willingly agreed to take him to the next game.
So what if his father had mentioned meeting a business partner at the game? So what if they would be sitting in the VIP section, where you had a great view but were far away from all the real excitement so that people could talk business in peace? His father was still taking him to a baseball game, and Tony was determined that this was going to be a perfect day. He didn’t know what “fags” were, but they made his father angry, so they must be bad. Well, he wasn’t going to let fags ruin his perfect day, so he asked his father a question about the game and soon all irritation was forgotten.
*
“Nadya, what’s a ‘fag’?” A week later, the question still hadn’t left Tony’s thoughts, so he turned to the one person who never seemed to mind when he asked questions, and who always took the time to explain things to him. Nadya was his nanny - no, wait, he wasn’t supposed to call her that anymore, his father had said. Seven-year-olds did not have nannies, so Nadya was his oh-pear now. He had asked his father once why everyone else’s mommies did the things for them that Nadya did for him, but his father had gotten angry and Tony had never asked again. Anyway, he liked Nadya. She was always nice to him, she let him watch movies if he’d finished with his homework and when he was sick and his throat hurt she put him in bed and got Bertha to give him ice cream.
At his question, Nadya got the look on her face that she had had when he had asked her where babies came from, so Tony knew fags were not something he was supposed to talk about. But like she had when he had asked about the babies, Nadya sat down with him and explained. She told him that even though it took a man and a woman to make a baby, sometime a man would fall in love with a man instead. It wasn’t really normal, but there was nothing bad about it, and calling these men ‘fags’ was not nice. They wanted to be called ‘gay’ or ‘homosexual’ instead. Tony liked Nadya, and he usually believed what she said, but he knew she was wrong about this. His father had called them “fags,” so it had to be okay to call them that. And his father didn’t like them, so there had to be something wrong with them. Tony resolved to not like fags, either.
*
By the age of thirteen, Tony had developed a distinct liking for girls. It was this liking that had him spending the hottest days of his summer vacation at the public outdoor pool. Well, that and the fact that his father would never be caught dead anywhere near there. He had made abundantly clear his dissatisfaction with his son, whose report cards clearly indicated he was focusing more on sports and friends than schoolwork. The phone calls about pranks Tony may or may not have pulled on some of his teachers hadn’t helped any. If his father had hoped boarding school would instill some discipline in Junior, he was sorely disappointed. But as long as he wasn’t home, he was at least not directly confronted with that disappointment. Though of course he told himself he kept coming to the pool purely for the girls in bikinis.
Another hot day found him lying on a towel on the grass beside the pool when a movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He looked up just as somebody jumped from the high diving board. The body was blur as it fell gracefully through the air and seemed to slide into the water without so much as a splash, and Tony stared in fascination. Not many people dared to jump from the high diving board.
A head emerged from the water, followed by a pair of broad shoulders. Strong arms reached out for the edge of the pool, and Tony stared, hypnotized, at the water glistening on the toned muscles and firm torso as the guy pulled himself up out of the pool. His eyes drifted to the bright red swimming trunks, which the water had made clingy, when suddenly an awareness of just what he was staring at pierced the pleasant fog in his mind.
In a flash Tony was on his feet gathering up his things, and then he was rushing out through the gate and onto the street and anywhere, just away from the pool. He didn’t go back all summer.
*
High school was occasionally problematic. There were contact sports, and sweaty changing rooms, and communal showers. He kept his eyes on the ceiling (because always looking at the floor was just plain suspicious) and a repertoire of good jokes at hand. Also, he leered at girls. That part was easy to do. It earned him quite a few dirty looks, and also a reputation. The reputation was helpful, and for every other dirty look he got a flirty smile, so all in all, things went well. He was a jock if ever there was one, star quarterback for the school’s football team and yes, he dated only cheerleaders.
The aftermath of a particularly rough practice found Tony in the showers later than the rest of the team. The coach had wanted a word and between that and trying to catch a glimpse of the cheerleading squad as they trained on the now free field, he was the last one into the shower, and pretty soon most of the others had left. A quick glance to his left confirmed that only Sean, the second wide receiver, was left, and he was preparing about to get out, too. Good; a nice, solitary shower would be relaxing, for a change. Sean, however, caught Tony’s eye and gave him a look that had his heart skipping several beats and then trying to make up for them all at once. As much as Tony wanted to pretend he didn’t, he knew that look only too well; it was the one the more forward girls sent his way all the time. He snapped his eyes back to the oh-so-familiar ceiling and got out of the shower as quickly as possible.
It stayed with him, though. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he couldn’t quite deny it to himself. He had been tempted. And that just wasn’t right. He was a jock, no, scratch that, he was the king of jocks. He was the smartass who gave the teachers guff and got away with it. He was the star athlete everyone cheered for at every game. He wasn’t a fag. Except, apparently he was, at least in part. Well, that was just one more thing to add to the pile of things he didn’t want to think about and no one could know about, the pile guarded by thick walls of silence and a huge arsenal of jokes to deflect and deter anyone who came to close.
There were lots of things in that pile. Little things, like the way he didn’t really like beer all that much. Slightly bigger things, like the fact that what he had missed most about home when he had first been sent to boarding school wasn’t the home movie theater (like he told everyone), or even Bertha’s cooking; it was Nadya. And the really big things, like this. Or the fact that he hadn’t actually talked to his father in longer than he cared to remember. No, he definitely didn’t want to think about that. Or about what his father might say if he found out about this.
*
College changed things. Taught him a lot, and made him let go of a fair number of his prejudices. Somewhere along the line, Tony came to accept that he was bi. He even had a few experiences with guys. He was still a jock, though (because really, what was jockier than a major in Phys Ed?), so he kept it quiet. Somewhere in his mind he knew that the two weren’t irreconcilable, not anymore, but he also knew it wouldn’t be easy, and he wanted to keep at least some part of his life easy.
College had also taken his father out of the picture. Refusing to follow in his footsteps and spend his life sipping scotch and negotiating backroom deals was apparently the ultimate betrayal, punishable by exile from the family. So he went to Ohio State on a football scholarship and told himself it was better this way. No more trying to please a father who was virtually unpleasable, no more trying to live up to a standard that was ill defined and forever out of reach. He could do whatever he wanted to, now. Provided he could do on his own.
No family money to fall back on, no home to return to, and no real plans for the future, he immersed himself in his fraternity. Drinking and partying and picking up girls became a way of life, a steady, stable constant, and he’d be damned if he did anything to endanger it. The small voice in the back of his mind telling him he was being a coward was easily ignored. “Not now,” he told it. “Later, when everything else is worked out.”
*
Then he was a cop. A rookie with a smart mouth and no respect for authority, and he told himself that coming out would be like hand delivering a plan of a fortress’ weaknesses to the leader of attacking forces. The hazing wasn’t so bad, as long as they had nothing on him. He could do menial labor, run pointless errands and suffer whatever indignities they came up with without ever losing his trademark grin, because none of those things were really that bad. Tony just really hoped none of them would come up with the idea of looking into his family history.
Good instincts and a quick mind got him his shield and a transfer to Philly. There he was the new guy, young and green and irritating to a fault, though he had learned turn down the sass enough to stay out of trouble. It was a rough and tumble kind of place, where respect was a currency of far higher value than even the ever-present drugs, both inside the station and out dealing with dirtbags. Cops were tough guys, bad-asses in the image of John Wayne and if one thing was sure to make his life hell in every way, it would be admitting to getting it on with men.
Gay was unmanly, gay was weak, gay was everything you did not want to be. Gay was the absolute worst possible insult, and it was employed with great frequency, though generally clad in coarser language. He adapted. When he found himself pinning a fugitive suspect against a wall and yelling at him that he was a fucking faggot, Tony applied for a transfer.
By the time he got to Baltimore, he’d gotten very comfortable in the closet. It protected him from harassment, and it wasn’t as if it was difficult to stay in. All he had to do was date hot chicks, the more the better. It was a pretty pleasurable task. But in the back of his mind, the voice was back, much louder this time. “I’m not a coward,” he told it. “I just don’t want to be known as ‘the guy who bangs guys’. I don’t want to be a damn activist, I just want to be a cop!”
*
Then came Gibbs. Waltzed through the doors of Baltimore PD and took over just like that. Graciously allowed Tony to help on what was supposed to be his case and then had the audacity to slap him on the back of the head like a misbehaving dog. When, at the end of the case, Gibbs offered him a job he didn’t have to think for a second, and that was that.
He met Abby and Ducky and got to know Gibbs and realized that here it wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter where he came from, how he dressed or who he slept with, just as long as he got the job done. It was a good feeling, but at the same time, coming out was simply not an option, or so he told the insistent little voice. Though NCIS was a civilian agency, it was still under the Department of Defense, meaning “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” applied.
Time passed. The voice kept making itself heard. “Coming out would mean losing the job,” he told it. Never mind that Gibbs would never, ever let one of his agents be fired over this. “It’s the rules, stupid as they are, and they apply to everyone.” Never mind that he made a habit of breaking almost any rule he came across. “I’m not a coward!” He thought he heard a mirthless laugh.
*
He had consciously avoided following the debate around the repeal. He blocked it from his thoughts and changed the channel whenever it came up on television. Acknowledging it would have meant facing the prospect of being free to come out. But how could he? Remarking to people he had just met - and who had never known him any other way - that he wasn’t straight would be one thing, but announcing to his friends, the people he had been closest to for the past ten years, that he had been deliberately misleading them about his sexuality? That was not a prospect he wanted to face. So he ignored the news and told himself he just didn’t want false hope.
He couldn’t avoid noticing when the bill was signed into law, it was just too big a news item. The policy remained in place for the time being, however, and he told himself he was just being cautious. Politics were fickle, you never knew what might happen next.
*
It followed that the news took him completely by surprise. There had been nothing on it on TV or in the papers for months, and though he knew it was only the calm before the storm he had let himself be lulled into a sense of security. Then, one day, ZNN was on in the bull pen, background noise as always until Ziva grabbed the remote and turned up the volume.
“…yes, Tom, it’s definitely a big day for everyone in the military. There is no clear prediction about what the overall effect of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal will be, but an extensive study has been conducted in all branches of the service, and both the President and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have assured the public that military readiness will not suffer in any way. The repeal was of course hotly contested my Senator John McCain, who maintains…”
Ziva turned the volume back down, but it was McGee who spoke. “Wonder if this is going to change things around here?”
“I do not think very much will change,” Ziva mused, “except that some people will no longer have to lie about their private lives.”
“I don’t know. This is actually a pretty big deal; I’m sure we’ll be noticing some differences. What do you think, Tony?”
Tony didn’t answer. He wasn’t even really aware he’d been spoken to. His heart was racing, his hands were shaking, his mind was buzzing with far too many thoughts and emotions and the only thing that stood out clearly was a single certainty: This is it.
“Tony?”
With difficultly, Tony forced his mind his immediate surroundings back into focus. “What? Sorry, I was just thinking of all the hot lesbians who can now make out right here in the open…” He forced his face into a leer.
Ziva rolled her eyes and McGee shook his head, which was expected and exactly what he was going for. Gibbs, however, was giving him an odd look.
The rest of the day, Tony was distracted. The little voice was not so little anymore, and it was impossible to shut up. “You’re a coward,” it said. “Every minute you don’t come out, you’re delivering more and more proof.” But if he was a coward, what exactly was he afraid of? His relationship with his father was screwed up way beyond being influenced by this, there was no hazing or anything of the kind to be avoided, and his job was no longer on the line, if it ever even had been. So what was it that he feared?
It was the pile, he realized. That well hidden and even better defended pile of things he didn’t want anyone to know about, the one that few people even suspected existed. Bringing one thing from that pile out into the open would mean admitting to the pile’s existence, and that was something he most definitely did not want to do.
For all the incessant chatter he kept up about seemingly every aspect of his life, Tony was, in truth, a very private person. The things that mattered most to him were the things he spoke of least, if at all. He cultivated the image of a shallow idiot and kept his secrets close and guarded. Even those who got the closest, who knew there was far more to him than he let on, never more than glimpsed them.
Coming out would mean exposure in so many ways, some of which Tony wasn’t sure he could handle. Not coming out, on the other hand, would mean admitting to cowardice, and if there was one thing Tony refused to be called, even by a voice in his head, it was a coward.
All in all, it was no wonder Tony was distracted. It was somewhat of a wonder, however, that Gibbs let him get away with it. He got headslaps, sure, which was reassuring, but nothing beyond that, which was worrisome. He put on his best clown mask and pretended he was just being slightly more, well, clownish than usual, and it seemed to fool McGee and Ziva. But he caught Gibbs giving him a thoughtful look several times throughout the day, and when he finally told them all to go home Tony was the first in the elevator.
It was all a mess. It was a huge mess of past and present and choices and emotions and he was lost, completely, hopelessly lost without any idea of where he was, where he was going or even where he was coming from. There really was only one place to go, and Tony’s feet (and hands, he had to drive, after all) had taken him there before his mind even had a chance to make itself up.
*
Gibbs didn’t comment when Tony took a seat on the bottom step of the basement stairs, didn’t even acknowledge his presence aside from glancing up briefly from the chunk of wood he was carving. Tony wasn’t exactly sure what he had expected, but this felt right, so he didn’t push it.
He sat in silence, because he honestly didn’t know what he wanted to say, or what he wanted to hear. All he knew was that he was lost, and that this had seemed like the place to come. Gibbs was silent because, well, he was Gibbs, and Tony was aware that for all it seemed like Gibbs was simply ignoring him, he was actually giving him space to gather his thoughts. The problem was, of course, that he really didn’t have enough coherent thoughts at the moment to gather anything.
After a while he gave up and sighed heavily, looking at his Boss for help. There was no way the man didn’t know why he was here, not after the way he’d been acting all day. Gibbs looked up again, took in Tony’s body language, and got up to pour some bourbon into two mason jars. He sat down next to Tony on the stairs and passed him one of the jars before taking a long sip from his own.
“What are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know.” Not knowing really was the only thing he knew, at the moment, and life had to have reached new levels of screwed-up-ness for him to be sympathizing with a Greek philosopher his twelfth grade Cultural Studies teacher had completely failed to get him interested in.
He wondered what he wanted Gibbs to say. ‘It doesn’t matter’? But it did, and they both knew it.
‘It won’t make a difference’? He wasn’t nearly naïve enough to believe that. ‘Everything’s going to be fine’? He almost snorted at that thought. What he really wanted was for Gibbs to tell him what to do. Or, better yet, come up with a magical solution that had him not having to do anything. For a second he seethed in fury at the world for making him face this choice, for presuming something about him and then making him stand up and correct it, or have a coward return his gaze from the mirror every morning. The anger ebbed away almost as quickly as it had come. The world couldn’t help the way it was anymore than he could, and laying blame would help no one.
“What would you do?”
Gibbs reply was a slight tilt of the head and a half smile that said ‘You know me.’
Of course he did, and of course he’d been aware of how futile the question was even before he’d asked it. Gibbs wasn’t like him. The man redefined the concept of “private” with several added layers of concrete and reinforced steel. He didn’t ever talk about who he dated unless he got married, and when he did that he was unapologetic. None of which helped Tony.
“Sometimes,” Gibbs said slowly, “You can’t get something done in one strike. It’s just too tough, too much to handle all at once.” He glanced at the piece of wood now lying abandoned on his worktable. He had been whittling at it for some time, and while it hadn’t yet taken on any recognizable shape, it no longer looked like a random block of wood, either. “So you go slowly, piece by piece. And you make sure in between that it’s looking the way it’s supposed to. It takes a while, but it gets done.”
Tony took a second to absorb the message, then turned to look at Gibbs. The other man met his gaze, steady. After a moment, he looked away again. “Thanks, Boss.”
Gibbs squeezed Tony’s knee briefly before getting to his feet; it was as much of an ‘everything will be all right’ as he was ever going to get, and it was enough. He rose as well and started up the stairs as Gibbs sat back down at the table.
“Hey, Tony.”
Already on the landing, Tony turned around.
“Door’s unlocked. Always.” Gibbs was looking him straight in the eye, making sure he got the message.
“Yeah. I know.” And he did. That made two things he knew.
It was a start.
* * *