Jack/Tony. Sigh.
Nov. 16th, 2003 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
3pipeproblemI like this one. It's hard to explain without a) spoiling things and b) depressing the hell out of myself. So, yeah. Jack/Tony (so very implied) post 3:00-4:00. Written for the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
contrelamontre regret challenge in 55 minutes. Spoilers, needless to say. Angst on top of angst.
Jack knows he's direct. It's why he thrills to the cold feel of a gun in his hands—preferably a shotgun, so direct the recoil burns into his shoulder. He doesn't lie, doesn't evade. He etches his anger or impatience or...or pain, he admits, into someone else’s body. Gunshot wounds are for him what meaningful nods of the head and gossip are for others.
So he shouldn't be surprised at this. He’s failed before, and he knows that also. Knows that all too well, wears his failures with the ease and naturalness of a scowl.
It's only fair, he thinks, that his failures are as direct as he is.
It's not enough that Tony has been shot. Wouldn’t be enough for him to get the call from Chase, to clutch the phone as close as possible so that his ears ring from the yelling, so that every other infuriated word is drowned out by static, it's so loud.
No. Here he is kneeling at Tony's side, leaning over his friend, pressing his hand against the wound in the vain hope that it'll staunch the flow of blood. Typical of his life (and his job, and himself)—that the only thing he can think to be grateful for is the fact that Tony is shot in the neck.
Because that way, even as the blood pours over his hands, if he concentrates hard enough, he can feel a faint pulse beneath it all.
He's cradled the dying almost as much as he's held his own daughter, and he's beginning to wonder if that's just the way it is. As though he still needs to be taught that "blood on your hands" is more than an expression.
He doesn't even know if Tony's dying, and the irony of that is so...he doesn't finish the thought, gasps out a desperate laugh.
Most people know death when it stares them in the face, when its blood soaks through their hands so they have to wipe them, one at a time, on their shirt, because after all maybe the blood's clotting beneath those hands that stink of gunpowder and he wouldn't want to fuck that up.
Jack used to think of Tony as his opposite. He took the light and the dark of their hair color and lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling, flung it as far as it would go.
He marked off everything Tony had, on his fingers sometimes (to think that Tony's blood runs between those fingers now), always drew the same conclusion. That Tony had everything he'd lost.
It hurts, he realizes now, because they're the same. Sometimes he used to look at Tony and remember some incident from ten years ago, then spend the rest of the day wondering why.
But right now, Jack's glad he threw up thirty minutes ago. Because that means there's nothing left to do but press harder on Tony's neck, ignore the irrational fear that he'll crush the other man's windpipe.
The EMT taps him on the back and Jack tears his hand away from Tony, levels his gun at the frightened medic before he realizes what's going on.
"Sir--"
Jack, thinking the man is about to accuse him of having shot Tony, sneers. "Put a goddamn bandage on that." Gestures at the wound, flinging Tony's own blood back onto his face.
He watches the medic pull clean white gauze across Tony's neck, is smearing some of Tony's blood onto his pants when the guy glances over his shoulder and says mildly, "You should have applied pressure to the wound."
And for once Jack doesn't answer. Doesn’t even look up, because this time it's not about being direct.
Because he knows there are a lot of things he should have done.
contrelamontre regret challenge in 55 minutes. Spoilers, needless to say. Angst on top of angst.Jack knows he's direct. It's why he thrills to the cold feel of a gun in his hands—preferably a shotgun, so direct the recoil burns into his shoulder. He doesn't lie, doesn't evade. He etches his anger or impatience or...or pain, he admits, into someone else’s body. Gunshot wounds are for him what meaningful nods of the head and gossip are for others.
So he shouldn't be surprised at this. He’s failed before, and he knows that also. Knows that all too well, wears his failures with the ease and naturalness of a scowl.
It's only fair, he thinks, that his failures are as direct as he is.
It's not enough that Tony has been shot. Wouldn’t be enough for him to get the call from Chase, to clutch the phone as close as possible so that his ears ring from the yelling, so that every other infuriated word is drowned out by static, it's so loud.
No. Here he is kneeling at Tony's side, leaning over his friend, pressing his hand against the wound in the vain hope that it'll staunch the flow of blood. Typical of his life (and his job, and himself)—that the only thing he can think to be grateful for is the fact that Tony is shot in the neck.
Because that way, even as the blood pours over his hands, if he concentrates hard enough, he can feel a faint pulse beneath it all.
He's cradled the dying almost as much as he's held his own daughter, and he's beginning to wonder if that's just the way it is. As though he still needs to be taught that "blood on your hands" is more than an expression.
He doesn't even know if Tony's dying, and the irony of that is so...he doesn't finish the thought, gasps out a desperate laugh.
Most people know death when it stares them in the face, when its blood soaks through their hands so they have to wipe them, one at a time, on their shirt, because after all maybe the blood's clotting beneath those hands that stink of gunpowder and he wouldn't want to fuck that up.
Jack used to think of Tony as his opposite. He took the light and the dark of their hair color and lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling, flung it as far as it would go.
He marked off everything Tony had, on his fingers sometimes (to think that Tony's blood runs between those fingers now), always drew the same conclusion. That Tony had everything he'd lost.
It hurts, he realizes now, because they're the same. Sometimes he used to look at Tony and remember some incident from ten years ago, then spend the rest of the day wondering why.
But right now, Jack's glad he threw up thirty minutes ago. Because that means there's nothing left to do but press harder on Tony's neck, ignore the irrational fear that he'll crush the other man's windpipe.
The EMT taps him on the back and Jack tears his hand away from Tony, levels his gun at the frightened medic before he realizes what's going on.
"Sir--"
Jack, thinking the man is about to accuse him of having shot Tony, sneers. "Put a goddamn bandage on that." Gestures at the wound, flinging Tony's own blood back onto his face.
He watches the medic pull clean white gauze across Tony's neck, is smearing some of Tony's blood onto his pants when the guy glances over his shoulder and says mildly, "You should have applied pressure to the wound."
And for once Jack doesn't answer. Doesn’t even look up, because this time it's not about being direct.
Because he knows there are a lot of things he should have done.
