Work Text:
A moving death
by ceindreadh
"You know, this is just like that episode of Magnum P.I.," said Tony, to the empty room. "When he goes for a hike to get away from it all and gets trapped under an old plane." He coughed, and then groaned in pain as his bruised ribs made their presence felt. "And nobody's going to miss him in time to save him." He pushed again at the bookcase, which was pinning him solidly to the ground, in a vain hope that it might suddenly have decreased in weight since the last time he'd tried it. "Except of course for the whole being indoors and under a piece of furniture. But the 'nobody will notice I'm missing until I'm dead', yeah, that's right about it."
With hindsight of course, it was really his own fault for deciding to move furniture with an arm that wasn't quite fully healed. But it had seemed like a great idea at the time, right up until the point where he'd lost his grip and the bookcase had come crashing down on top of him. He was pretty sure he'd cracked some ribs in the fall, and possibly re-broken his wrist. And with only one good arm, he hadn't the strength to raise the bookcase enough to slide out from under it.
He could have phoned for help, if he hadn't left his cell charging beside his bed. And shouting for help wasn't really an option, because it hurt just to draw breath.
The last time Tony had felt this bad, this trapped had been four years ago in the isolation ward at Bethesda. Then of course it had been the damage to his lungs that was making it so painful to breathe. Now it was the protruding edge of the shelves pressing into his already damaged ribs that was doing it. But then as now, worse than the pain was the total feeling of helplessness. The knowledge that he could die like this, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do to stop it.
It wasn't that he was afraid of dying. He'd been a cop for almost six years, an NCIS agent for even longer. He'd been shot at, almost stabbed, had put his life on the line more times than he cared to remember. It was a part of the job, and one that he'd always accepted. But to die like this? Trapped underneath a crappy piece of furniture that he'd never liked anyway. No, this wasn't going to happen. With all the strength remaining in his body, Tony braced himself for one final attempt at moving the bookcase. "On the plus side," he told himself, "Gibbs won't be able to kill me for being such an idiot, if I'm already dead!" He gritted his teeth and pushed.
And the bookcase moved.
end