Chapter 20
The first thing Tony became aware of was the pain. Every muscle in his body hurt, his head felt like it would roll off his shoulders if he moved it. His arms, legs and groin area burned and ached where the sheet touched his skin. He laid completely still, his eyes closed as he tried to figure out what had happened to him. An annoying beeping sound filled the room and Tony realized he was hearing a heart monitor. Was he in the hospital? He didn’t smell that familiar scent of antiseptics that would normally be present. Tony attempted to open his eyes, needing to see where he was, but the light hitting them caused shooting pains in his head. He slammed his eyes shut and moaned as he tried to shut out the bright light.
“Ssshhh, Anthony, you’re going to be fine.” The familiar Scottish voice quietly spoke and the light dimmed.
“Dr. Mallard?” Tony whispered, his voice raspy.
“Yes, my boy, it’s me, and I believe I told you to call me Ducky.”
“Ducky,” Tony whispered back. “What happened to me?”
“It appears you took quite a fall, young man, and touched the electric fence.” Ducky kept his voice low and calm. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
Tony gave a sad little laugh as he turned his head away. “You call that luck? I would have been better off dead. You should have just let me die.”
“I do not want to hear that kind of talk out of you again, do you understand me?” Ducky raised his voice this time, angry at Tony’s statement. “I don’t care how hard you feel your life is right now, nothing is so bad that death is a better choice.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Ducky,” Tony said as he fought to keep tears from falling. “You’re not the one being forced to become a sex slave to some asshole.”
Tony’s heart monitor began beeping faster and faster, becoming more irregular, the more upset he got. Ducky quickly grabbed a syringe and injected the medication into Tony’s IV port. “You need to stay calm, Anthony, your heart rate is a bit irregular due to that shock you took.” Ducky rinsed out a cloth in a bowl by the bed, and laid it across Tony’s forehead. “Now, you rest, sleep is the best thing for you.” Ducky ran his hand through Tony’s hair as Tony’s eyes slowly closed when the sedative began to take effect.
A voice from the doorway drew Ducky’s attention away from his patient for a moment. “How’s he doing, Duck?”
Ducky walked to the door, his eyes scanning Gibbs with concern. “Lucky to be alive.” Ducky gripped Gibbs arm and tried to lead him away. “Let’s go sit in the other room, Jethro. Let the boy sleep.”
Gibbs pulled his arm out of Ducky’s grip and leaned against the door frame. “No, Duck, I need to be here. I’m not leaving.”
Duck leaned against the other side of the door, confused over Gibbs actions. “What happened here, Jethro? You said you would explain.”
Gibbs dropped his head and released a deep sigh. “I fucked up, Duck, that’s what happened.”
Ducky’s response with one single word, “How,” seemed to break something free in Gibbs and he surprised Ducky by opening up with the whole story.
Gibbs pushed off the door-frame and went to the side of the bed. He gently ran his hand through Tony’s hair and watched as the man slept, or so he thought. Even though the sedative had relaxed and calmed him, Tony was still awake and hearing every word Gibbs said.
“I had it all planned out, Duck. I wanted this time to be different, not like years ago when I ran the slave training center. I wanted to make his training as easy on him as I could. To take it slow and give him a chance to get used to the idea, to get used to being touched and handled.” Gibbs left Tony’s side and leaned against the wall next to Ducky, his eyes still focused on the bed. “I thought, just maybe, if I handled it right I could actually help him learn to enjoy it.”
“Learn to enjoy it?” Ducky couldn’t believe what he had heard. “Are you serious? The boy was ripped from his home, wrongly convicted of terrorism and thrown into slavery. He now has to face being forced to submit when things are done to him, and he has no say in the matter, and you thought you could teach him to enjoy it?”
“Yeah, Duck, I hoped maybe, just maybe I could help him through this and not make this the nightmare it usually is,” Gibbs shot back. “And you know that, if it’s done right, male with male sex can be very enjoyable.”
A grin tugged at the corners of Ducky’s mouth as he remembered a few past encounters of his own. “Yes, well, be that as it may, that doesn’t tell me what happened to put young Anthony in that bed.”
Gibbs took a deep breath and let it out as he looked back at Tony. “Like I said before, Duck, I fucked up. I started the oral sex training this morning…”
“This morning?” Ducky cut Gibbs off, surprise filling his voice. “You just got around to blowjobs this morning? You’ve been up here close to two months. By now his training should be completed and you’re just starting the end stages now? At this rate you won’t have him finished for at least another month.”
“I’m perfectly aware of how much more training he has,” Gibbs snapped back. “I told you I was going slow, trying to make it easy on him, but then I lost control.”
“In what way?” Ducky asked.
“There was an…incident. I snapped, lost control.” Gibbs turned to face Ducky, a look of shame on his face. “I reverted back to my old slave trainer days. I became that bastard I swore I would never be again.”
“Oh my.”
“Ya think?” Gibbs looked back at the young man lying in the bed, his voice lowering as if he were speaking to just himself. “There something about that kid that makes me lose control. I don’t understand it.”
“Oh, don’t tell me.” Ducky moved closer to try to look Gibbs in the eye but his gaze never left the figure on the bed. “You have, haven’t you, Jethro? You’ve fallen for the boy.”
Gibbs head whipped around so fast that Ducky took a step back. Neither man noticed the beeping of the heart monitor begin to speed up. “No, that’s crazy. Of course I haven’t fallen for him. He’s just another slave that has to be trained,” Gibbs replied, sounding affronted.
“Is he? Are you so terribly sure?” Ducky shook his head and looked back at Gibbs. “You forget, my friend, I’ve known you many years and the last time you looked like this, acted like this, was when you were with Shannon. You, my friend, are falling in love.”
“Don’t go there, Duck,” Gibbs growled before looking back to the bed.
“You know, Jethro, you are allowed to speak of her and of Kelly.” Ducky’s voice softened as he spoke. “They were an important part of your life. You loved them, and they loved you. When you lost them, you lost a large portion of yourself.”
“I lost everything I was when they were taken from me.” Gibbs sounded so defeated. “Their senseless deaths are what helped make me that slave trainer I was back then.” Gibbs looked back at Ducky. “I’m not ashamed of what I did back then. If what I did saved one person from going through that kind of hell…” Gibbs’ voice suddenly broke and he took in a deep, shuddering breath. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall.
“Yes, well, you’re exhausted and need to get some rest yourself.” Ducky raised his hand to still any arguments from Gibbs when he started to shake his head. “With the sedative I’ve given him, he’ll sleep till morning. Now let’s go sit in the main room in those rather comfortable looking chairs while I make us a nice cup of tea.”
Gibbs looked back at the bed before pushing off the wall and heading back to Tony’s side. A hand grasping his arm stopped his movement.
“The alarms on his monitor will alert us should anything go wrong.” Ducky grabbed Gibbs’ arm and pulled him towards the door. “You’re not going to do him a bit of good if you exhaust yourself and become ill. Now, how about that tea?”
Gibbs took one last look at the sleeping man on the bed before following Ducky out the door. “I don’t drink tea, Duck, but I’ll take some coffee.”
***NCIS***
Tony cracked open his eyes to watch the two men leave the room, and then opened them completely to stare at the ceiling. He couldn’t believe what he had heard Ducky say. Gibbs, the rough and tough slave trainer, was falling for him? Ducky must be out of his mind to believe that. Then again, if it were true, maybe he could use that to his own advantage. Not that he believed that old bastard was actually in love with him, but if he played his cards right, maybe he could still get out of this. In order to do so he would need to hear what those two were discussing in the other room.
Tony sat up on the side of the bed with a low groan, his body protesting every movement. He had a bandage around his right wrist, and he had areas on his arms, legs and penis where the skin appeared to have been scrapped off and were raw. Looking around he realized he was in the master bedroom, Gibbs’ room, in Gibbs’ bed. His gut clenched at the thought. Gibbs had to have carried him into the cabin after his escape attempt, carried him in and put him in Gibbs’ own bed. Maybe there was something to what Ducky said and for some reason that pleased Tony. Of course he told himself it pleased him because it meant he had an angle he could exploit, and for no other reason.
Biting his lower lip to keep from crying out, Tony pushed off the bed and staggered to the door. Leaning against the wall just outside the room, Tony fought off the dizziness that threatened to take him to the floor. From this spot he would be just out of sight of the two men talking, but he could hear their conversation.
***NCIS***
“He goin’ be okay, Duck?” Gibbs asked as Ducky handed him his cup off coffee. “Is he looking at any long term effects from that fence?”
“It’s possible, but I don’t think so.” Ducky took his own seat and sipped his tea. “Thank the good Lord that when he fell he only grazed the fence. If his arm had landed more solidly or he had actually come down on top of it, well, you wouldn’t have had to worry about any more training for the lad.” Ducky saw a look of relief cross Gibbs’ face. “He will, however, need time to recover. He’ll be weak and his heart may occasionally have some arrhythmias which may leave him short of breath.”
“Great, just great.” Gibbs placed his forehead in his hands, his elbows on his knees. “Just how long are you talking about, Ducky? He still has some training ahead of him.”
“I would say a week, minimum.” Ducky shook his head, stopping Gibbs’ protests before they started. “It will take time for the arrhythmias to calm down. Once they do he’ll start regaining his strength. Also, those abrasions he has on his arms, legs and genitals will need to be cleaned and the ointment applied at least twice a day. Until those are cleared up, well, let’s just say any form of sexual encounter will be a bit painful.”
“Maybe he should have thought of that before he tried to climb out on that limb and escape,” Gibbs growled as he stood and began to pace.
“Now, Jethro, I know what you keep saying that second b in your name stands for, but even you aren’t that much of a bastard.” Ducky took another sip of his tea. “You would not purposely inflict unnecessary pain on anyone, especially not that boy.”
“Yeah, and just what am I suppose to do when the powers that be decided I’ve had enough time to train him and they order me to bring him back? What do I do when that happens, and I haven’t completed his training for his new master?”
“I guess it’s a good thing the President offered him to you then.” Ducky sat his empty cup down on the end table. “That way it won’t matter if his training is complete.” Ducky looked at the dark scowl on Gibbs’ face with a look of total innocence. “Well, it won’t, will it?”
“And how, may I ask, do you know about the President’s offer?” Gibbs eyes narrowed as he looked Ducky up and down. “I know I never told you about it.”
“No, no you didn’t.” Ducky returned the glare. “You should have, but you didn’t. Director Morrow did, however.”
“Oh God, Duck, tell me you didn’t tell Morrow about this.” Gibbs’ gut clenched in fear. “If they find out he tried to escape they will take him from me, uh, from here, and they’ll give him to some other bastard who could be ten times worse than me.”
“Jethro, do you really believe I am that stupid?” Ducky smiled. “Young Anthony had a slight training accident that required my services. Our dear director was just hoping that; since I was going to be here anyway, I might be able talk you into changing your mind.”
Gibbs shook his head and turned away. “I can’t take him, Ducky, no matter how much…I’m just not good for him. He deserves someone much better than me.”
“And just what makes you think you’re not good for him?” Ducky stood and grasp Gibbs’ shoulder and turned him around. “You told me you were going to make sure he went to someone who would treat him right, with respect, who wouldn’t abuse him for abuse’s sake only. I don’t see anyone fitting that description any better than the man standing here in front of me.”
“Oh, you think so? Well, let me let you in on a little secret then, Doctor. The man standing in front of you is such a great person that he lost total control because he was accidentally spit on. In fact, he’s so exceptional that when he lost that control he viscously forced his dick inside the man’s mouth, over and over…”
Ducky quickly cut Gibbs off. “I think I have the picture, you don’t need to continue. Just don’t let that one incident guilt you into believing you’re not worthy of taking possession of the boy. If you were to ask my opinion, I would say it’s just another sign that you care more deeply for him than you’re willing to admit.”
“Even if that were the case, Ducky, after what I did and what I still have to do, he’ll hate me for the rest of his life. I guarantee you he’ll never want me anywhere near him after all this.”
***NCIS***
Tony was in total shock at what he heard the two mean discussing. The President himself had offered him up to Gibbs as, what, a reward for a job well done? As compensation for forcing him to do something he didn’t want to do? At least that’s what Gibbs had intimated was the case, that this was a job he never wanted, but felt compelled to do. Was he nothing more than a prize to be handed over?
Tony suddenly felt short of breath, a pain in his chest starting to build. The room began to spin and his legs felt like they were made of rubber. Pushing off the wall, Tony stumbled back through the door and headed for the bed. His vision began graying out and Tony felt himself falling, crying out when he hit the floor. He heard footsteps rushing into the room as he clutched his chest, fighting for every breath.
“Tony, Tony, can you hear me?” Gibbs’ frantic voice reached Tony’s ears as if from afar. “I’ve got you; you’re going to be fine. Ducky, do something!”
Tony felt his upper body being lifted and he was pulled against Gibbs’ chest, his protective arms wrapped around Tony. “Help me, please,” Tony whispered and then his world went black.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Ducky tries to help Tony understand his new life