*NOTE* This story is being co-written in roleplay back and forth format, not written for regular fan fic format, so if it reads a little odd in places, the authors really don't mind and hope any readers they may have don't much either. Thanks!
~~~~
The man almost had an orgasm on the spot. He smiled again with a lick of his lips. Gibbs, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, was actually trying to bully him, and he loved it!
"Because you're mine. If you'd care to step outside, I think you might have a better chance of believing me." Because the house wasn't on the same street as it should have been. The house wasn't even in the same state it should have been. Everything but the yard around it was different. "And then we can come back in here and watch a nice show on the television. It's called NCIS ... and you two are the stars."
Tony blinked, his hand unwavering but his naturally cocky attitude when under stress coming out at hearing that. "I bet I got top billing."
That made the man laugh. "Sorry DiNozzo, but when it comes to you and Gibbs, there's nothing top about you."
He winked at him, and Tony started to gasp. "Wh...Wh.... What?"
There was some Tv show crap again. He was sick of all the confusion. He wanted answers. Now.
That smile and that damn smirk and innuendo...Gibbs shoved his fury down by sheer Marine self control and will. "I'm nobody's and him? He belongs to me." Knowing Tony had this little weasel covered, Gibbs let him go after driving his knee against what he felt hardening against him.
"Cover him. He moves, ya shoot." Gibbs lowered his voice to an almost whisper, the malice evident in his tone. "To kill."
With that threat/promise delivered, Gibbs strode outside but his steps faltered before be was off his porch. He glanced back but he knew this was his house. He knew every nuance of it. But the rest was foreign to him.
He rushed around, looking at the back yard, the hedges, even the front yard where he'd reburied Kelly's lunchbox again last year...
All of it was as he knew it, but everything else? He'd never seen this before...
"DINOZZO!" he called out, trying like hell to keep the control and command in his voice. He had to keep Tony calm while he figured this out. "Come look. Gotta see this..."
"Let's go, PeeWee," Tony grunted, grabbing the gasping man by the arm and yanking him outside to where Gibbs was. The little smirks and sexual innuendo had definitely gotten to him. He felt gross just touching the intruder and was more pleased than he should have been to have seen Gibbs knee him so ruthlessly in the crotch. "Oh ... Oh .... " Tony's hand fell away, his other hand holding the gun almost dropping it, only years of law enforcement training keeping it tenuously there in his shocked fingers. "Jesus Christ .... I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Boss."
"Ya think, DiNozzo?" Gibbs replied, finally letting a little unsteadiness into his tone. He moved close, taking the gun from Tony though he holstered instead of aiming in. "Breathe evenly," he said in an undertone to Tony. It always worried him when DiNozzo breathed shallowly, remembering him struggling for air and fighting for his life.
Gibbs turned his attention back to the other man. "Start talking." It didn't matter if the explanation didn't make sense. There had to be something they could hold on to.
"I'd be delighted to." The man swept his arm out at the strange neighborhood around them and said with a grin, "It's not Oz, it's Havensport, and neither of you have ever been here before because in your reality it didn't exist. And I use that term lightly," he chuckled. "Reality. Here is where it is, where you were wasn't true .... not one bit." He put his hand out to them. "I'm Thomas Hilton .... yes, related to THOSE Hiltons." Meaning, he had a lot of money and time on his hands. "And I can't tell you how pleased I am that my little experiment is showing signs of promise. I knew you two were being held back by those chickenshit writers afraid to buck the system and show the world what was hiding in your eyes. I knew it!"
"Experiment?" Tony was definitely breathing shallow. "I don't feel so good, Boss," he mumbled, finding it even difficult to swallow now as he started to become light headed, swaying slightly on his feet.
It still didn't make any sense and he was disgusted by the grins and smirks. "Explain," he growled again. What was all this bull about TV and writers and DVDs. He didn't care who the guy was related to.
Gibbs saw that Tony was starting to lose it, whether it was whatever drugs he'd been given or what, Gibbs wasn't sure. He glared at the man, slinging Ton's arm over his shoulder. "Easy. Gonna go inside...easy." He had bottled water in there at least. His own cast iron stomach didn't feel so good and panic was threatening to rear up if he let it have its head.
"If you hurt him I will kill you. Slowly," he said to the stranger.
"I don't doubt that for a minute," Thomas said, sighing with pleasure to see Tony immediately fall into Gibbs, throwing his arms around the man and hanging on as if for dear life. Superior, best friend, father figure, Tony felt it all as he softly moaned in anguish, letting Gibbs bring him back into the home and take care of him.
Tony was essentially a deadweight that Gibbs hauled into his rarely used den and placed on the couch. "Gonna get ya some water. Bottled," he said, crouching down and trying to look into Tony's eyes. "Tell yourself you're gonna be fine, DiNozzo."
Gibbs went into the kitchen, grabbing two fridged bottled waters and a large saucepan. He filled the saucepan with water and dropped the bottles in, squeezing gently to see if any bubbles appeared. When none did, he pulled the bottles out, doing a quick visual exam before wiping them down. Didn't look like they'd been tampered with.
He slipped back silently into the den, cracking the one bottle and handing it to Tony before sitting on the arm of the couch in a casually relaxed but still ready position, making in clear any advances or aggression from the weasel would be dealt with. His own bottle sat beside him, ready to either be drunk or used as a weapon.
"Didn't I tell ya to explain? I have to do it for ya?"
"I'm gonna be fine," Tony muttered to himself, rocking back and forth on the couch as he held that bottle of water in two hands almost as tightly as he'd held Gibbs. "I'm gonna be fine." It hadn't been easy for Gibbs to get a clinging Tony off him, and now that he was, now that Tony wasn't holding onto the one constant in his life he trusted more than anything, he was falling deeper into that anguish, not quite able to pull himself together yet in this unbelievable situation he'd woken into.
Because it was very unbelievable; the more the man spoke, the more agitated Tony became.
"Clones. Everything you know of your lives, your friends, families, all of it .... never really happened. They don't exist. They never existed, and neither did either of you, until I paid to have you cloned. Which means," he added with a snicker, "you may very easily run into another Gibbs and DiNozzo out on the streets some day. In fact, I know of at least one other pair of you in Havensport." He opened his suit jacket and threw down a stack of DVDs. "Watch them. Your whole lives are on there, things no one should know ...... but they do know ... because you were nothing more than characters on a show until I chose to bring you to life .... as my clones."
"Oh God I'm not gonna be fine," Tony whimpered, the rocking gaining speed as his knuckles on the bottled water turned white and the plastic held on his clenched thighs exploded water all over him under that pressure.
As he spoke, Gibbs moved forward, lost in his own rage and fury. Control was a thing of the past and he growled low, grabbing the man by the throat. "My family is real," he said in a near whisper. "They. Are. Real."
It had been so long since he'd been in hand to hand combat and even then he had never laid his hands on anyone with this depth of anger. He was gonna kill this weasel. But something came through to him, a whimper? And that broke his fury just enough. He needed this bastard. He hated it, but they needed him.
Instead, he knocked the man out by working the pressure point at his neck, letting the little weasel fall to the ground. "Pissed yourself, figures." Gibbs crossed the room and back to Tony, glancing down at the DVD packaging, knowing that could be faked.
"DiNozzo," he said quietly. "Stay with me here. This is bull. Has to be bull." Tony was rocking, covered in water, and it aroused every protective instinct in Gibbs. He sat on the arm of the couch again, turning to face Tony and pulled him close. "C'mere, DiNozzo.C'mere." His hand went into Tony's hair as he pressed the shaking man against him. "C'mere. I'm here..."
Shaking visibly and near tears. Tony's face fell right into Gibb's chest as he clung to the man again, his mouth opening to draw in huge gasping breaths, close to hyperventilating and only the scent of the man filling his lungs keeping him from screaming. "It's not fine, Boss, it's not fine. It can't be fine. It'll never be fine."
Tony didn't care that his crotch was soaking wet and he was trying to climb into Gibbs, desperate for body contact. This wasn't sexual. This was a frightened young man dropping his guard completely and utterly in the arms of an older man.
"I know," Gibbs whispered into Tony's hair. "I know." He was shaken to the core as well as he was used to shoving his emotions away. But the thought that they hadn't existed that he didn't have a wife and daughter, hadn't experienced that pain...
And Abby...Duck...Jenny, who he'd cared about once, McGee, Ziva. KATE.
He tightened his arms around Tony, sliding down the arm of the couch and pulling Tony almost onto his lap. He was desperate to hang onto someone, some thing. And it seemed fitting that his second in command was the one he needed to hang onto.
"We're real. I'm here. I'm here, Tony. Hang on..."
Moving on instinct only, not at all thinking rationally, Tony did go into that lap. He sat in it like a child and buried his face in the man's neck, squeezing his eyes tightly shut as if he were in a nightmare and at any moment he could open them and he'd be back in bed with the blonde.
"Don't leave me, please don't leave me too," he begged, terrified that somehow, some way, Gibbs would be taken from him as Abby and Ziva had. "I need ya, Boss, I really need ya, please don't go too."
It was the thought of being alone, truly and completely alone if Gibbs was taken away too, that finally pushed Tony DiNozzo over the edge. He started to cry.
Gibbs blinked a few times in shock when he could almost feel Tony crack and then the tears start. This position should have been ridiculous, should have been almost comical, but their emotions were so raw that he didn't care if their audience woke up and mocked them. "I'm not leaving, Tony. Not going anywhere." He knew they had to look at those damn DVDS. They had to get clearheaded, but he was falling apart, Tony was even worse.
"It's no less real because some dirtbag tells us it is. We went through hell together. Wasn't imagination." Gibbs spoke in bursts of sound, trying to do anything to help. "Got the scars, Tony." He shifted DiNozzo to the side and looked at his left shoulder and then his right upper arm. The left one had taken a through and through from Ari, the right had been injured in Colombia. Tony had been there for both.
"Scars. Tony...I have scars. Bet you do too. Look at me...we're real." He forced Tony's chin up. "We're real."
Those strong arms around him sure felt real. That hard body against him, that hot breath on him, all felt very real.
"Yes Papa Geppetto," he quipped weakly and quickly wiped at his wet cheeks with one hand. "Sorry Boss. Lost it for a moment there. I'm okay now ..... I am ..... yeah ..... I can handle the truth," he said in a bad Nicholson imitation.
But still he sat on Gibb's lap, still his arms stayed wrapped around the other man as he stared into those blue eyes, trusting that other man to make everything better.
"It's okay, DiNozzo," Gibbs assured in a gentle voice. "Pretty shook up too." He didn't know if he should admit that to Tony but he felt he owed his agent honesty. He couldn't help comparing Tony sitting on his lap to Kelly curling up. And to Shannon snuggling. They were real. He remembered them. Just as real as Tony was pressing against him, chest to chest, ass to harden-- He blinked a few times, unable to believe he was starting to react to Tony's closeness. He hadn't been with anyone but his hand since he and Mann had split... but this was DINOZZO. He could have understood if it was Abbs...it would have been a more normal male reaction. But DiNozzo??
He shifted minutely, rubbing Tony's back, trying to take a little of the pressure off himself. "We really have to watch those DVDs," he said quietly. Tony's eyes bored into his, pleading with him, and that vulnerability was working on him almost as much as the closeness was. "Told ya I'm not going anywhere and I meant it."
"I know. Thanks." Gratitude not just for the reassurance from his superior but for the honesty too. It actually helped to know that Gibbs was just as upset as Tony, but as usual he was better at hiding it. "Before he wakes up, yeah, should watch'em now."
He slowly disentangled himself from that lap and those arms, doing it slowly and calmly as if it were no big deal, just something natural between two close men dealing with panic and nothing to dwell upon. Not even the reaction he was feeling under his ass made him move any faster. Being utterly convinced that Gibbs was straight, Tony told himself it was only because of warmth and pressure, that even Vance could have been sitting there and it would have happened, a natural bodily reaction and nothing more, nothing to freak out about since Tony was convinced he was straight too.
But as he extricated himself, there was a moment when he actually pressed harder into that lap, rubbing the curve of his flank across it in a seemingly innocent move, but perhaps not so innocent when he flushed and quickly turned his eyes away from Gibbs just before landing on the other side of the couch.
Gibbs swallowed hard and subvocalized a little sound when he felt the drag and press against his hard cock. And he knew Tony knew exactly what he was doing. He stood, fumbling with the DVD case and clumsily putting the disk in. Abbs had bought him a TV with a DVD player and had given him the card to a place that could take home movies and make them into DVDS. He'd done that and now had the memories preserved digitally. She'd also made a couple of NCIS home movies she'd given him last year, taking moments from the feeds.
He thought about putting either of those in before settling instead on the packaged DVD, season 1. He shoved the remote into Tony's hand and sat close, maybe even too close, instinctively knowing that they would both need each other to get through this.
The DVD started. There was the president...KATE. KATE was on the DVD. Gibbs blinked rapidly as the opening credits started and he saw names with their faces. Mark...and Michael. Not Gibbs and DiNozzo. Then they were on screen. Their faces, their voices. The office...the basement of HIS HOUSE. And yet they'd LIVED this!
"Still with me, Tony?" he asked, knowing his voice was unsteady.
"Used to think fainting was for pussies ...... but I'm getting dangerously close to one, I think," the man whispered, squirming very uncomfortably at seeing details of his relationships with women, especially Ziva, on that screen for Gibbs to see too. His crotch was still wet, but nothing was done to dry it yet. Tony muttered, swore, hissed and groaned at various scenes they watched, all the time pressing the line of his body to Gibbs' for grounding.
Gibbs flicked the DVD off. He'd seen enough and he knew Tony had as well. He stood in front of Tony now, forcing his chin up. "You're not gonna faint on me," he ordered in a soft voice. He glanced down, a darker stain drawing his eyes. Had Tony pissed himself, was he that far gone?
"DiNozzo, you gotta hold it together, for me. Because I need you just as much as you need me." He'd never been this honest and vulnerable with Tony before but if ever there was the time...
"You .... You need me?" Lower than a whisper, it was throaty, tremulous. He looked up at the man and slowly nodded. "For you, Boss. For you." Tony threw his arms around the man's middle, pressing his face into Gibbs' abdomen. "What are we gonna do? I'm not Michael, you're not Mark ...... We don't have jobs, we don't have friends ..... "
"Yeah, I do." Gibbs silently begged Tony never to use that voice on him again. It screamed sex and his cock was still hard. "We're Gibbs and DiNozzo," he said firmly, trying to ignore the feel of Tony wrapped around his waist. "we never forget who we are. And long as I'm alive ya got me." He pulled back, jerking his head toward the guy still laid out on the floor. "He said we belong to him. Don't know what that means. But I'll figure it out, DiNozzo. Let me deal with this for now."
He was just as at sea as Tony was, but he couldn't let on, couldn't ruin Tony's faith in him. "We have each other and you're a damned talented investigator and ya think on your feet. So do I. We'll get out of this, ya understand me?"
The man on the floor began to groan, waking, and Tony quickly jumped back, releasing Gibbs completely. "PeeWee's gonna want his Playhouse back," he sneered.
"You didn't have to .... " Thomas sat up slowly, rubbing his neck. "I'm not your enemy, and hurting my property is the last thing on my mind, but if you persist you'll force my hand and it'll be the pound for both of you."
"Oh I had to," Gibbs assured, sending him a brittle smirk. "What the hell do you mean, your property. And the pound? We're human, not dogs, though DiNozzo here sometimes acts like an eager puppy." Gibbs knew he was bluff and bluster now, but it pissed him off that the other man could see it so easily. "Explain. In a way we understand." He gave Tony a 'stick close' look
"You're human-based clone, not fully human," Thomas said as he climbed to his feet and brushed off his suit, wincing to see that he needed new pants now. "And perhaps showing you would be better than trying to explain it. We could go on a little field trip." He smiled patiently and then pointed to Tony's middle. "Just as soon as you find a dry pair of pants too. Check the master bedroom closet. I made sure half the wardrobe was yours, half was his. Toiletries in the bathroom too for both of you. Unless you two prefer to live apart?"
Tony hated himself. He honestly hated himself for the flash of panic he knew showed in his eyes before he could stop it. If Gibbs kicked him out to live alone, he didn't know what he'd do.
"Live...what?" Gibbs asked in a low voice. Wasn't Tony even given a choice. "DiNozzo, upstairs...with me." Master bedroom closet. Live together. Were they gonna be puppets? He looked at the man before they turned away. "Do we have any free will left or are we supposed to do what you want?" How could they know what was real, if that was the case?
Easy," he whispered to Tony, feeling like he was calming a skittish animal. "Easy, Tony. Focus on me."
"Oh there's free will .... sometimes," Thomas assured them, following behind but staying in the hallway. "I built this house for you, Gibbs. I made it all exactly as you'd remember it, but if Tony doesn't want to live here, or you don't want him to live here, I'll rent him an apartment on the other side of town. I just thought .... " Thomas shrugged, though he was smirking again. "Well, it IS a house big enough for the two of you .... and you certainly don't have to share a bedroom."
"Focusing, Boss," Tony whimpered as he kept his eyes locked right on Gibbs'. With every word Thomas said, and now the thought of sharing a bedroom with another man, with Leroy Jethro Gibbs of all people, Tony felt like he was losing himself bit by bit, all the color draining from his face again. "Focusing."
"I bought this house with my wife," Gibbs replied, emotion roughening his tone. "Leave us alone." He walked into the bedroom, pulling Tony in beside him, then closed the door and braced the dresser against it. "Ball is in your court, DiNozzo. Rather have you here, Spare bedroom. Den. Wherever. Don't like the idea of you being so place with...him." He tried to breathe deeply.
"We don't have to do what he says, Tony. If there's punishment I'll take it." Gibbs had to look at this as an enemy action, Pee Wee, as Tony called him, an enemy combatant. "We'll comply until we have more intel. Then we're outta here. Together. Means I need you here. Tony...I need you here..."
He reached over, a finger under Tony's chin. "You gotta focus here. Talk to me. Let me help."
There was a huge lump in his throat, and for a moment Tony wasn't sure if he was going to be able to swallow it or not. He started to gag, making a sort of wheezing noise, and then he was suddenly back together again, putting on a grin and rolling his shoulders as if he were preparing to battle.
"Spare bedroom, eh? Well it's not the Ritz, but since I'm tapped out unless PeeWee's set us up with bank accounts, I'll take it. I'm not letting that little fucker rent me anything. I'd sleep on your front lawn before that." He moved over to the closet and found himself a new set of clothes, more casual since he could see no reason to dress up again as there was no date to impress or work to go to that day. "Think he's got my size shorts in the dresser with yours?" he asked Gibbs as he started to strip.
Nothing weird about undressing in front of Gibbs, he told himself. Tony was proud of his body and had certainly been in many situations with men where this was perfectly normal.
But it was Gibbs ....
(TBC)
DUE TO THE UNIQUE NATURE OF THIS STORY, AND THE ONGOING STATUS OF IT, THIS STORY IS MOVING TO A MAILING LIST ONLY FORMAT. PLEASE EMAIL ME IF YOU'D LIKE TO BE ADDED TO THE LIST.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.