Hiding in Plain Sight: 15/21
Oct. 24th, 2008 07:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xantheficTitle: Hiding in Plain Sight: Part Fifteen
Author: Xanthe
Fandom: SGA/NCIS crossover
Pairings: Gibbs/DiNozzo, John/Rodney, Carson/Caldwell, Teyla/Ronon, Ziva/McGee, and some other pairings that would spoil the story if I revealed them. Gibbs/Ducky friendship.
Rating: NC17 for explicit BDSM sex (m/m slash, femslash and het) and spanking.
Author's Notes
Summary: When a serial killer murders three marines on Atlantis, NCIS are called in to investigate. However, their arrival brings complications for everyone – revealing a lie, a prophecy, a secret and a nemesis.
Part Fifteen: Tony wanted to smash his fist into something, preferably Gibbs’s face, but he was too tired to move. His body was shaking more violently now; he just couldn’t seem to get warm.
Hiding in Plain Sight
By Xanthe
Part Fifteen
Gibbs had learned in the Marines how to snatch a cat nap whenever you could, however cold, wet, hot or downright uncomfortable you were. He could even sleep standing up if need be. Now, exhausted though he was, sleep wouldn't come. All he could do was stare at Tony, lying in his sick bay bed, and wonder how the hell he'd managed to be such an idiot for so long.
Five years was a long time to pretend you didn't love someone; for Tony, as well as for him. They were both damn idiots, he decided. Hearing Tony talk all those long hours during that rescue had been a kind of hell – an illuminating kind of hell. Seeing his own behaviour from Tony's perspective had been painful; and then hearing Jordan's spin on it – well, that had been almost as bad.
When Shannon and Kelly had been killed Gibbs hadn't been there to protect them. He hadn't known anything about it until it was too late. Watching Tony being tortured and damn nearly killed in front of him and being unable to help him had been worse in a way. Even knowing the Daedalus was on its way hadn't helped when he didn't know if it would get there in time.
Gibbs sat in the chair beside Tony and held his sub's hand between his fingers, stroking the skin gently the whole time. Shannon hadn't made it but Tony had, and Gibbs had learned that it didn't matter whether you took a sub to your bed or not, because the thought of losing one you were in love with hurt just the same, either way.
Gibbs watched as Carson entered the room and went over to where Rodney was lying. John stiffened, a low growl sounding in his throat. Gibbs was fascinated by their dynamic. Although Rodney was safe now, John seemed unable to come down from the toppy headspace he was in, and viewed everyone as a threat, even Carson, who was treading very carefully around him. Gibbs knew what it was like to almost lose a sub, and he knew that he was being over-protective towards Tony right now, but even so he wasn't in the kind of headspace John was. Their earlier easy camaraderie during battle was long gone; John didn't even reply when he spoke to him now.
Carson stood by Rodney's bed and John came over, still growling softly. It was like having a rabid dog in the room – no wonder Carson was being so cautious.
"I've run all the tests I need to run and it's all fine. No hidden injuries or fractures. So if you want to do that lifebondy, healing thing you do, then that's fine. It'll speed up Rodney's recovery time at least," Carson said. "I can't pretend I'm ever really comfortable with the idea of someone else sustaining injuries in the process of healing, but I know I'm wasting my breath even mentioning that to you right now," he said to John.
Sheppard didn't even acknowledge him; his eyes were fixed on Rodney's face.
"It's okay, Carson. I'll take it from here," Rodney said, looking at his top.
John didn't wait for an invitation; he jumped onto the bed with a kind of lupine grace and got on all fours, hands and knees on either side of Rodney's body. Then he lowered his head and did that weird thing Gibbs had witnessed before – he sniffed at Rodney's injuries, particularly where there was a cut or any kind of an open would. His mouth travelled over the bruises on Rodney's jaw and then up to his forehead, licking as he went. It was animalistic, and oddly compelling. Gibbs found his fingers tightening around Tony's hand protectively.
Rodney reached up to unwind the bandage from around his head but John snarled and batted his hands away.
"It's okay…stay with me," Rodney said, lying back again and allowing John to unwrap the bandage. Gibbs glanced at Carson, alarmed, but the doctor shook his head and signed to him that it was okay, and not to speak. Then Carson took a step back and leaned against the wall.
Gibbs watched as John ripped the bandage from Rodney's head. His movements were strangely graceful but very determined. Rodney had a nasty gash on his forehead which Carson had neatly stitched. The entire area was bruised, and the severity of the injury had caused both Rodney's eyes to blacken. He looked just as bad as DiNozzo.
John gazed at the wound, transfixed, and then he moved his hands and took Rodney's head between them. He sniffed the newly revealed injury and then his tongue darted out towards it. It was a strangely intimate act, and Gibbs felt almost as if he shouldn’t be watching.
Rodney held still, moaning softly, and John growled in response. Something was happening, but Gibbs didn't know what. Both men seemed to be entering a trance-like state. John was kneeling, straddled over Rodney's chest, his hands on either side of Rodney's head, and Rodney's hands were resting on John's hips. The two of them, for just a second, looked as if they were one being. It was an odd sensation, and then it passed, and John sank down onto the bed beside Rodney. Rodney sighed, and wrapped his arms around his husband, holding him close.
Gibbs peered at them, intrigued; the wound on Rodney's forehead now looked much less severe. The swelling had gone down considerably, and the scar was now pink and puckered, much further along in the healing process than it had been a few seconds earlier. He frowned, and glanced up at Carson who shrugged.
"Lifebond," Carson sighed.
When Gibbs leaned over further, he could see there was a newly formed scar on John's forehead, about as far along in healing as Rodney's. He also seemed to have acquired some faded bruising around his jaw and eyes.
At that moment John raised his head, reacting, visibly, to the fact that Gibbs had leaned towards them, and Gibbs froze. He felt, instinctively, that John was responding to him as a top and a potential threat, and not as Gibbs any more.
"Easy," he murmured, settling back in his chair again. "I'm not going anywhere near him."
He decided right then and there that he would give Rodney a wide berth from now on. He remembered the day he'd first met these two, and how he'd instinctively known not to shake Rodney's hand. Gibbs trusted those toppy instincts innately.
"The rest will have to wait until we get home," Carson told him softly, coming over to him.
"The rest?" Gibbs whispered, incredulously. "What more is there?"
"John won't come down from this without Rodney's help," Carson replied. Gibbs remembered something John had once told him; 'Rodney's the only one who can handle me,' and now Gibbs was starting to understand what he meant. He could see that Sheppard was a top in a great deal of pain right now and he suspected he knew just how Rodney was going to handle him when they both recovered from the healing they'd just done.
If it had been bad for him, watching Jordan assault Tony, he wondered how it had been for John, going through the same thing with his lifebonded partner. Gibbs didn't pretend to understand lifebonding but he knew it was a powerful force. The fact that if one part of a lifebonded couple died then the other did too was testament to that, and yet people felt the urge to lifebond so it had to bring with it great advantages – like the accelerated healing via the sharing of injuries that he had just witnessed.
The Daedalus arrived back at Atlantis half an hour later. Tony was so out of it he slept through the entire thing which was a relief. Gibbs knew his sub well, and he suspected there would be difficult times ahead – for both of them.
He walked alongside Tony's gurney to the infirmary and watched as Carson got Tony and Rodney settled in a small side room.
"My people?" Gibbs asked, as Carson's team worked. "Any idea where they are?"
"As a matter of fact, yes," Carson replied. "They're all next door." He gestured in the direction of the main infirmary. "None of them are long-term patients but there were a few minor injuries that needed taking care of. I trust my staff but I asked that they keep your people here so that I can check the care they've been given and agree to discharge if it's appropriate. This room here is for longer term care – we'll keep Tony in here for awhile. John and Rodney should only need a day or so before they can be discharged but your boy will need longer."
Gibbs glanced at Tony, and then at the infirmary door.
"He'll be fine in here," Carson told him firmly. "Go see your people."
It was hard, but Gibbs managed to wrench himself away. He really needed to see for himself that all his subs were alive and well, and he knew Tony was in good hands.
He had barely walked through the door to the main infirmary when someone threw themselves at him and he found himself with an armful of Abby. Her arms and legs were wrapped tightly around his body, and he almost toppled over backwards from the force of her hug.
"Easy, Abs," he said, throwing his arms around her and inhaling the scent of her hair.
"Gibbs!" she squealed, kissing him enthusiastically. "Thank god you're okay. I mean, they told us you were okay but that's not the same as seeing that you're okay. You are okay, aren't you?" she asked anxiously, finally jumping down from him and surveying him anxiously. "You don't *look* okay," she said, her eyes travelling down his face and fixing on the bloodstain on his shirt. "Oh my god – you're not okay! Is that your blood?" she asked, her fingers going towards his shirt. He caught them before they got there.
"No. It isn't."
Her eyes widened and she looked even more upset. "It's not Tony's blood, is it?" she asked. "Because they said he'd been really badly hurt. Is it Tony's blood?"
"No, Abby – it isn't Tony's blood either," he told her gently, putting an arm around her shoulders and kissing her cheek.
"Is it the bad guy's blood?" she asked, in a horrified whisper.
"Were you hurt?" he asked, ignoring the question and gazing at her searchingly. She *looked* okay – she had dark shadows under her eyes and her skin was pale, but he guessed that was the same for all of them.
"I'm fine. Evan ran almost a marathon and then swam for miles to reach me," she said, and he noticed the little glow in her eyes as she spoke about the colonel. He felt a little jolt of pain at that, knowing she'd found another top who could take care of her just as well as he had, but he was pleased for her all the same.
"He's a good man."
"Yes he is," she agreed happily. "He was injured by one of those dino-bird things that live on that planet. He's been stitched up but they won't let him go until Carson says they can. All Carson's staff are terrified of him – it turns out that Carson is *really* toppy in the infirmary – who knew?"
Gibbs grinned. "Is Tim okay?" he asked. Abby took hold of his hand and pulled him towards the back of the room.
"See for yourself," she said, leading him in the direction of some beds where several familiar faces were sitting. Ducky got up, came over to him, and enveloped him in an embrace.
"Jethro," he said softly, holding Gibbs tight for one long, heartfelt moment, and then releasing him.
"Hey Duck. All's well," Gibbs told him, although the expression in Ducky's eyes informed him that his lie hadn't been remotely successful.
"Anthony?" Ducky asked.
"Doing okay. Considering," Gibbs muttered. He knew Ducky had been watching the whole thing on the plasma back on Atlantis, so he knew what Tony had been through.
"I told them that Tony was in a bad way but I didn't tell them the details," Ducky said in an undertone, gesturing towards the beds.
"Thanks." Gibbs nodded, tiredly, wondering how much they needed to know.
He walked the final few strides to where the others were and was relieved to see Tim sitting up in bed, his arm freshly bandaged. Ziva was beside him, hovering close, and he could see from the expression in her eyes that she'd undergone some kind of transformation. She looked happier and more at ease with herself than she had in all the time he'd known her.
"Tim…you okay?" Gibbs asked, leaning over to ruffle Tim's hair affectionately. Tim looked startled, the way he always did whenever Gibbs was kind towards him.
"I'm fine. I got off easy compared to Tony, I think," Tim replied. "Is he okay, boss?"
"Not right now, but he will be."
"Can we see him?" Ziva asked.
"Can we?" Abby repeated eagerly.
He shook his head. "Not yet. When he's ready."
"Nobody will tell us what happened to him," Ziva said, her dark eyes never leaving Gibbs's face. "Just that he has been hurt and is very ill."
"He is. And, well, it's a long story." Gibbs deflected the enquiry easily.
"It was bad, wasn't it?" Tim asked. "I mean, I know Abby and I both went through hell, but something even worse happened to Tony, didn't it?"
Gibbs took a deep breath. "It was pretty bad. But you know, DiNozzo," he said, with a wry grin, trying to keep his tone light. "He bounces back. He'll be annoying the hell out of you all within a few days I'm sure."
That seemed to satisfy them, and they all relaxed, visibly.
"And Rodney?" Abby asked. "They said he'd been hurt too." Gibbs smiled at her, knowing how much she loved the irascible scientist. She'd seen in Rodney, all along, what it had taken him and Tony a lot longer to see.
"He's going to be okay," he replied. "He and General Sheppard are…healing each other. Somehow I don't think they'll be accepting any visitors for a few days, either."
Gibbs turned to the second bed, where Colonel Lorne was perched, his arm heavily bandaged and supported in a sling.
"Colonel, thank you for doing such a fine job," he said. "I understand that you lost a man out there and I want to offer you my condolences."
"Thank you, sir," Lorne said. Abby said he'd run and swam for miles to reach her and Gibbs could believe that, looking at the man; he was dead on his feet. "We're holding a memorial service for Lieutenant Rice in a few days, sir."
"I'll be there," Gibbs promised. "Now, I gotta get back to Tony in case he wakes up."
He knew they were all still worried but hopefully less so now that he'd had a chance to talk to them. He shook Lorne's good hand, bestowed a kiss on Abby's forehead, tousled Tim's hair again and cupped Ziva's cheek in his hand, and then turned and left. Ducky followed him, as he had known he would.
"Jethro – no offence, but you look terrible," Ducky said, catching up with him and grabbing his arm. "Have you eaten anything? Or slept at all? And you really could do with a shower, a shave, and a change of clothes." His eyes lingered pointedly on the bloodstain on Gibbs's shirt.
"Not now, Ducky," Gibbs said, pushing him away. Ducky caught up with him again, and this time he wouldn't be brushed aside.
"While you've been worrying about all of them, I've been worrying about you," Ducky told him. "I know you, Jethro, and you don't have to play the big, strong top for me." Gibbs stood there for a moment, body taut and tense, and then he sighed, and sagged against his friend.
"He's in a really bad way," Gibbs confided in him. "And I'm finding it hard to handle what I heard, what I saw…what he went through. I don't want to be apart from him for a minute. I can't stalk the poor guy his entire life so I hope this feeling fades."
"You both went through a lot," Ducky told him soothingly. "It's natural you feel like this. Give it a couple of days and you'll feel more like your old self. In the meantime, you aren't superhuman, Jethro, and you need sleep like everyone else. Why don't you take a shower – there's one in the infirmary so you won't be far away from Tony. I'll get you a change of clothes and then you can bunk down in here. I'm sure Carson won't have any objection to that."
They reached Tony's room, and Ducky pointed at John and Rodney, who were curled up in each other's arms, fast asleep.
"See – partners are clearly allowed to stay," he said, with a little grin.
"I'm not Tony's partner, Ducky," Gibbs replied tersely.
"He's your collared sub, Jethro," Ducky pointed out.
"No – he's not even that any more," Gibbs reminded him, and he saw the look in Ducky's eyes as they both recoiled from that memory.
"Jethro, in his heart that's all he'll ever be," Ducky sighed.
They stopped beside Tony's bed, and Gibbs saw the wince that crossed Ducky's face as he caught sight of Tony for the first time. There was no getting away from how bad Tony looked; his pallor and the nature of his injuries also made him seem younger and more vulnerable than either of them was used to seeing him.
"Oh Anthony," Ducky whispered, running a gentle hand through Tony's hair. He looked up at Gibbs. "Jethro, I'm so sorry. If I'd known, all those years ago, that this would happen - and all because of me…"
"Not your fault, Ducky," Gibbs told him firmly. "Jordan was responsible for his own actions, brain tumour or not. Besides, he was always a violent, sadistic bastard, even back when you were married to him, well before he fell ill. All that illness did was make him feel like he had nothing to lose by coming after me. He wanted to hurt you but most of all he wanted to hurt me, and he sure as hell succeeded there."
"But he didn't win," Ducky said. "You got there in time, Jethro, and all your subs survived."
"Guess that Athosian prophetess was wrong then, huh?" Gibbs said with a wry grunt.
Ducky shook his head. "I thought you didn't believe in fortune tellers?" he said, with a tight smile. "Of course she was wrong, Jethro! I never for a moment thought you'd lose them. You've trained them all far too well for that. If you could have seen Ziva in action - and Abby and Tim held it together admirably under extreme duress. I have to say, also, that Colonel Lorne is quite the hero from what I can gather."
"You think he's going to steal Abby away from me?" Gibbs asked. Ducky smiled.
"You only rescue us, Jethro – you never say you'll keep us forever. You let Stan go, remember?"
"Yeah." Gibbs nodded. He felt so tired he wasn't sure he could stand up for much longer.
"Shower," Ducky said, turning him around and pointing him in the direction of the bathroom.
"Only if you stay with him – I don't want him to be alone if he wakes up," Gibbs said. "Send someone else to get me a change of clothes – but don't leave him."
"Very well, Jethro." Ducky pulled him down and kissed him on the lips. "Now go, because otherwise you'll be no use to him at all when he *does* wake up."
Gibbs went; Ducky always had been the only one of his subs he'd take orders from.
~*~
When Tony awoke he was back on Atlantis and had somehow slept through the transport from the Daedalus's sick bay to Carson’s infirmary in the city.
This room was bigger and brighter but he felt unaccountably depressed. Now that the immediate euphoria of being rescued was over, he found there were snatches of memory that he kept replaying over and over again. Being tied so tight for so long, helpless, with his blood draining from his body; Jordan undressing him; Jordan hitting Rodney with that chain and Rodney going down; being held down while Jordan whipped him with the buckle end of his belt; rough hands on his ass, seeking entry…
He gazed, unblinking, at the bed next to his, the flashbacks replaying endlessly in his mind. After a few minutes he realised that there were two people in that next bed, one of them fully clothed, the other in an infirmary gown. He focussed on them, trying to distract himself from the snatches of memory that kept flashing in and out of his mind. John Sheppard was wrapped around Rodney like a man clinging to a rock in a storm. He looked spent, his body tense and suffused with raw emotions he couldn’t process. Rodney was just holding him, one hand gently soothing John’s back as they lay there.
Tony envied them their closeness. They were clearly going through something pretty big right now but they had each other, and he had no doubt they’d get through this.
He was suddenly achingly aware of a sense of aloneness, and the nakedness of his own throat. He put his hand up to his neck and felt bare skin where there hadn’t been bare skin for five years. He remembered how he’d felt when Jordan had ripped his collar off him; the collar that he’d worshipped for all these years, giving it a power over him that maybe it didn’t deserve. Now it was gone. He wondered why Gibbs hadn’t just fastened it back on him while he was unconscious, and the fact he hadn’t made him wonder if Gibbs even wanted him back as his sub. That thought made his stomach ache, but, at the same time, he was aware of a little voice inside asking if he’d accept Gibbs’s collar this time around in any case. A lot had happened in the past few weeks and it was time he faced up to some questions he’d been avoiding for a very long time; which was another reason why all this enforced bed rest was going to kill him.
He turned to get away from the overwhelming sense of togetherness in the next bed, and found Ducky sitting beside him, reading a book.
"Casino Royale?" Tony muttered, reading the title on the spine. Ducky glanced up and smiled.
“Ah. Anthony. How very good to see you awake again,” he said, his eyes awash with happiness and relief.
“Where’s Gibbs?” Tony asked.
“He’s asleep.” Ducky gestured with his head at the bed behind him, and, over Ducky’s shoulder, Tony saw Gibbs lying there, flat out, eyes closed. “Carson tried to send him back to quarters but he wasn’t ready so the good doctor allowed him to sleep here. I don’t think that’s an uncommon occurrence around here,” Ducky murmured, glancing at the entwined bodies of John and Rodney Sheppard on the next bed. “Although, somewhat unorthodox. It wouldn’t work in autopsy, but I suppose one must cut the living more slack. As for Jethro – he was dead on his feet. I’m not sure how many hours he’s been keeping going but if Carson hadn’t given him a bed here he’d probably have had to admit him anyway, from pure exhaustion. As it was he’d only agree to take a nap if I promised I’d sit with you and not leave.”
“Don’t you think he’s taking the protective top thing too far?” Tony asked. “I mean, it’s over, I’m fine. It wasn’t such a big deal.”
Ducky gave him a look of combined pity and disbelief. “Tony, it *was* a big deal,” he said softly. “It was a huge deal.”
“Nah, it wasn’t. It wasn’t any worse than that case where I…”
“Tony, we saw it,” Ducky interrupted.
Tony froze. “What?”
“We saw it. All of it,” Ducky told him, his earnest blue eyes full of compassion behind his spectacles. "And I'm so sorry you had to go through all that at Randolph's hands. I feel so very responsible. I had no idea he was capable of something like this and it all stems from my…"
“Who’s we?” Tony asked quietly.
“Oh. Uh…" Ducky blinked, looking as if he wished he'd kept his mouth firmly shut. "Well, myself, Richard Woolsey, and a couple of other base personnel back here on Atlantis. Steven Beckett had the feed patched through onboard the Daedalus so he could keep track of what was happening. And the audio…” Ducky paused.
“Oh go on, Ducky. Make my day,” Tony muttered, gesturing with his head that Ducky should continue.
“Well, Gibbs, John Sheppard, Carson and Cadman all had audio during the entire rescue.”
“Audio?” Tony closed his eyes, trying to remember exactly what he’d said.
“They heard everything that went on in that room,” Ducky said, in an apologetic tone. “From the beginning.”
“Right.”
Everything exploded in his head and Tony had to get away from it. He shoved aside the sheets covering him and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Ducky got up in alarm.
“Tony, what do you think you’re doing?”
“I need to use the head,” Tony said, in a determined tone.
“My dear boy, just hold on and…” Ducky began. Tony tried to rip the IV line out of his arm and, in his haste, fumbled it.
“Help me get this damn tube out!” he growled, unable to bear it for another second.
“I should get Carson,” Ducky said, looking around frantically for help.
Tony’s fingers picked at the IV in his arm while another wave of impotent rage flooded through him and he flashed back to being tied down to that steel bed with a different tube in his arm, just lying there, helpless, for hours on end as his blood drained out of his body. It had been like a living death and he couldn't get it out of his head.
“Get it off me! Get this damn tube off me!” he said hoarsely, scrabbling frantically with his fingers.
Ducky swooped in and took care of the IV, quietly and gently, and when he was done Tony got off the bed, and looked around, swaying, for the way to the bathroom. The room swam around him but he was determined. He couldn’t stay here. He couldn’t just stay here after what Ducky had just told him. All these years of preserving himself behind a carefully constructed mask and Randolph Jordan had blown it apart in the space of less than a day. He felt physically ill.
“Here…I’ll take you,” Ducky said, grabbing Tony’s arm before he fell. Tony leaned on him and allowed him to walk him over to the bathroom. Then Tony fumbled for the door, pushed it open, got inside, and closed it behind him, locking Ducky out.
“Tony! You can’t stand properly!” Ducky remonstrated, trying the door from the outside. “Tony – open the door, please,” Ducky begged.
“Fuck it, Ducky, I’m not totally useless - I can damn well piss on my own,” Tony yelled at him through the door.
Then he turned towards the sink…and stopped, as he caught sight of himself in the mirror.
“Well Gibbs sure as hell was right about that – you don’t look pretty, DiNozzo,” he said to his reflection.
He tottered closer to the mirror, and rested his hands on the sink to hold himself up. He was as white as a sheet, his hair sticking up in a dozen different directions, and the bruises on his face were spectacular. They were a variety of colours ranging from dark purple to light yellow, via green and violet in between, and they covered his entire jaw. His cut lip looked as swollen and painful as it felt, and there was an ugly bruise on his forehead. His surgical gown was half-open at the back, revealing the dressings on his shoulders and he had all kinds of interesting bruises on his thighs but, most of all, his eye was drawn to his neck, and the complete absence of the collar that was usually there.
He ran his fingers over the pale line where the collar had been, and gazed at himself. What had he said during those six hours he’d been tied up alone in that room with Rodney? Snatches of jumbled conversation came back to him and he flinched. What had he been thinking to give all that away, even if he had thought he was only talking to Rodney and not the entire damn universe and everyone in it? And Gibbs. Particularly Gibbs.
He had spilt his guts to Rodney like some love-sick young sub. Had he admitted to not sleeping with anyone in five years? His stomach clenched; all those years of flirting, and asking Gibbs’s permission to bed a variety of good-looking tops, and now he was caught out in what suddenly seemed like a really bad lie because he’d never gone through with it with anyone. It had all been just to try and make Gibbs jealous, to provoke a reaction, to try and see if he could get Gibbs to *care*.
“Failed there, DiNozzo,” he muttered, and then he remembered something else. He remembered Gibbs looking into that camera and telling him he loved him. “Poor bastard,” he said to his reflection. “After hearing you whine on like an idiot for hours on end the least he could do was tell you what you wanted to hear right before you got raped and murdered.”
His stomach churned, and he half-turned, half-fell in the direction of the toilet and just managed to get to it before throwing up. He vomited strenuously for a few minutes, his ribs aching as he heaved. Then he sat back against the wall, body trembling from the exertion.
Shit. Years and years of hiding, of being so careful never to let anyone see the truth, and now he’d just let it hang out to the entire world. He felt so…known. People had seen him naked, ass up, witnessed some psycho knocking him around and trying to rape him, and, worst of all, they’d heard every damn fool thing he’d told Rodney Sheppard. He was such an idiot.
“Tony.” Gibbs’s voice, outside the door. “You okay in there?”
“I’m fine. Just leave me the fuck alone,” he snapped. The last thing he wanted was to go out there and face all those people. Why couldn’t they just leave him be so he could wallow in his embarrassment by himself?
“DiNozzo, open the damn door,” Gibbs said. Tony made a face at it. That was one order he wasn’t going to obey any time soon.
“Son, you really shouldn’t be out of bed.” Carson’s voice – firm but gentle. “It’s not just the cuts and bruises – you lost a lot of blood and your body is still in shock. We nearly lost you back there. You can’t just expect to get up and start walking around like nothing happened, lad.”
Tony gazed at his wrists; they were covered in lacerations and deep, dark bruises where he’d tried to escape from Jordan’s cuffs. Did Ziva, Abby and Tim know, he wondered? He didn’t mind Abby so much, but Tim? He shuddered at the thought of how the probie would look at him if he knew about his hopeless, one-sided love affair with their top. He was the flippant one, the one who played around and played the field and never let anyone get close. Except he had. He’d let all of them get close; Gibbs, Ziva, Abby, Tim, Ducky.
“That’s why you’re not supposed to stay anywhere longer than eighteen months, DiNozzo,” he chided himself. “Well, that and the fact you always end up in a workplace discipline room too many times and that's no fun at all,” he added with a grimace. Wasn’t that why Gibbs had collared him? So he could keep him out of the NCIS discipline room and take care of any punishments himself, and, in the process try and save Tony from himself? “Whatever it was, it had fuck all to do with him being in love with you,” he reminded himself. “Just Gibbs’s rescue complex kicking in.”
“Tony, son, you need that IV,” Carson said through the door. “Why don’t you just open the door and we can get you back to bed, give you some more meds, and make you more comfortable.”
“This is my fault I’m afraid,” Tony heard Ducky murmur. “I should never have told him that he’d been observed and overheard. I had no idea he’d react so negatively.”
Observed and overheard. Tony felt his guts heaving all over again, and he pulled himself over to the toilet and threw up into it a second time. His entire body ached, his head was pounding, and he felt like he was going to die. He’d never felt this terrible before, not even when he'd had the plague.
He heard something hard pounding against the door, and then a second time. The third time Gibbs’s boot slammed into it, it flew open, and Gibbs strode into the bathroom. He took one look at Tony, cradling the toilet in his hands, and sighed.
“Don’t make me go back out there, boss,” Tony whimpered, gazing up at Gibbs pathetically, and then he turned back to the toilet and heaved up again.
“Okay, Tony. Hold on.” Gibbs pushed Carson and Ducky back out, although not before a terse argument with Dr Beckett, and then Tony heard a whispered discussion and something that sounded like an angry admonition from Carson. Whatever the altercation was about Gibbs clearly won it because he reappeared a few seconds later with a blanket, which he threw over Tony’s shoulders, before shutting the broken door to give them some privacy.
He went over to the sink and filled a cup with water and then handed it silently to Tony, who took it, gratefully.
“Gonna heave again?” Gibbs asked.
“Not right now,” Tony said, sipping the water gingerly. He hurt in so many places he wasn’t sure which was the worst. He realised he was shivering and pulled the blanket more closely around himself.
Gibbs sat down on the floor opposite him, back against the sink, and gazed at him. Tony noticed that he’d had a shower, shaved and changed into some different clothes, and he wondered when he’d done that.
“I seem to remember saying some stuff – stupid stuff,” Tony said, aiming for his usual flippant self and failing spectacularly. “I was out of it at the time so it was probably crap.”
“It wasn’t,” Gibbs stated firmly, and there wasn’t any possibility of an argument with the finality of his tone. Tony stared into those blue eyes opposite him for a long time, wondering where this went next. No wonder Gibbs hadn’t wanted to collar him again; the man must think he was a total basket case.
“I spilled my guts in that room. How many people heard that? How many saw me being held down and nearly raped by that bastard? And how many have they told about it?” Tony rasped out.
“Not many saw it – and I guarantee you that none of those that did will say a thing about it,” Gibbs told him. “Not to you or to anyone else unless it's what you want; and if you don’t want to talk about it you don’t have to.”
“Except to the shrink.” Tony made a face.
“That’s what she’s there for,” Gibbs replied. “Tony, none of this is your fault. And I’m proud of you. You hung on in there like a damn fine agent and did your job even despite what that bastard did to you. You kept your wits about you and got those keys off Jordan; you managed to get them to Rodney even when you’d had half the blood drained from your body.”
“Didn’t work though,” Tony said. “Had to wait for the big bad tops to come charging in and do all the rescuing. Still, you must have enjoyed that. You like rescuing people.”
“Tony…” Gibbs began.
“Fuck it, Gibbs. You weren’t the one hanging there with your ass out and some psycho’s hands groping you all over!”
“Is that what's bothering you most?” Gibbs asked, blue eyes searching.
“No – just one thing among many,” Tony muttered. He gazed at the floor for a long time, and then looked up. “He took my collar from me, boss,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, I know.” Gibbs nodded wearily.
“You gonna put it back?”
“You want me to?”
“I don’t know.” Tony gazed at the floor some more.
“Then let’s talk about it later – when Carson says you're better,” Gibbs said, reasonably enough.
Tony wanted to smash his fist into something, preferably Gibbs’s face, but he was too tired to move. His body was shaking more violently now; he just couldn’t seem to get warm.
Gibbs got up, came over to him, and sat down beside him. He put an arm around him and pulled him against his body. Tony wanted to resist but he didn’t have the strength, and besides, it felt good. And it was warm. He wasn’t used to being this vulnerable around anyone, and couldn’t imagine any other scenario in which he’d let Gibbs do this – or in which Gibbs would want to. Damn it, that whole thing with Jordan must have looked really bad from where Gibbs was standing to make him behave like this.
“I was married once, a long time ago,” Gibbs said, suddenly and unexpectedly. Tony glanced up at him.
“Uh, you’ve been married three times, boss,” he pointed out.
“Four,” Gibbs told him.
That got Tony’s attention. He glanced up again. “They all red-haired women?” he asked.
Gibbs gave a wry smile and nodded. “Yeah. They were.”
“You’re not…this isn’t some big confession that you’re a monosexual is it?” Tony asked, because it wasn’t like he hadn’t wondered this before. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being monosexual,” Tony added hurriedly, as Gibbs glanced down at him, a perplexed look in his eyes. “And it’s not as weird…uh, unnatural…or whatever, as being non-dynamic. That’s really kinky and you’re *clearly* dynamic. Overly so, some might say, judging by the amount of subs you’ve collared. But if you’ve only married women, maybe you’re monosexual. Which is okay of course…uh…if you are. Which you might not be.”
Gibbs waited until he’d finished and then screwed up his forehead. “Interesting,” he commented. “I’ve always wondered just how long you could continue one of your ‘thinking out loud’ speeches if I didn’t I interrupt. Now I’m kind of glad I always stopped you. No, Tony, I’m not monosexual. Or, as you have so correctly identified, non-dynamic.” He moved his hand a little and slapped Tony lightly on the back of his head, then kept his hand there, stroking Tony's hair gently.
“Yes boss.” Tony nodded, feeling himself start to warm up again. “So what happened to your first wife, boss?” he asked softly.
“Shannon was witness to a drug-related killing while I was out fighting in Iraq,” Gibbs told him. “She was NIS’s star witness…and she was murdered, along with our daughter, by the man she had been going to testify against.”
“You had a daughter?” Tony looked up, startled.
“Yeah. She was eight years old when she died. Her name was Kelly.”
“Like your boat,” Tony murmured.
“Named it after her,” Gibbs told him. “After they were killed, I tracked down the man who murdered them and emptied the contents of my gun into him. I wish I could say that it helped, and I suppose it did, a bit, but it didn’t heal anything. I joined NCIS, met Ducky…and married three more times, always looking for what I had with Shannon, and always making the same mistake, as Ducky has pointed out to me, several times.” He rubbed his chin ruefully with his free hand.
“Marrying redheads?” Tony asked.
“Marrying period,” Gibbs winced. “But yeah, marrying people who looked like Shannon, because I couldn’t let Shannon go. After the third failed marriage, I called quits on it. Clearly the problem was with me, so I decided not to take another sub to my bed again, and definitely never to get married.”
“Why are you telling me this, boss?” Tony asked softly. Gibbs’s arm was warm and strong around his body and he liked the way it felt. He rested his head wearily on Gibbs's shoulder.
“Because, like you said, you spilled your guts back there, and I thought you might appreciate it if I returned the favour,” Gibbs told him.
“Who knows?” Tony asked. “About Shannon and Kelly? Who knows?”
“Ducky. He’s known since he first met me. And Ziva…” Tony looked up sharply. “I didn’t tell her, Tony. I never would have told anyone else about this ahead of you,” Gibbs said firmly. “She did a dossier on me when she was with Mossad. When she joined NCIS I swore her to secrecy. They’re the only people who know. And now you.”
“I’m sorry,” Tony said, sincerely. “That’s a terrible thing to carry around all these years. I had no idea. You are one secretive bastard.”
“As are you, Tony,” Gibbs murmured. Tony winced, and glanced at him. “Five years, Tony – and all those times you asked me if you could sleep with all those many and varied tops?” Gibbs raised an amused eyebrow.
“Just trying to make you jealous,” Tony muttered.
“It worked, Tony. It worked.”
“If it did, I never saw any sign of it.”
“Can’t blame me for being as good at keeping secrets as you,” Gibbs replied with a wry grin.
Tony felt that ache in his gut subside, and some of the tension leave his body. Okay, so the whole experience had still been a living nightmare, but Gibbs was giving him back something he’d lost by sharing something of himself. Now, at least, it wasn’t all one-sided.
"I am sorry," Tony muttered. "Losing your wife and little girl like that…I can't imagine how that must have felt. And I don't blame you for wanting to keep something like that to yourself. Boss, I have something to confess – awhile ago I got curious and I have to admit I did some digging on you. Felt bad – and I know it was a lousy thing to do – that’s why I stopped – but I found four marriage certificates. Figured you had your reasons for lying and saying you’d only been married three times so I let it drop but…I just want you to know I’m sorry I went looking."
Gibbs shrugged. “It’s okay - I knew about that, Tony,” he said.
“You did? How?” Tony asked, alarmed.
“I know everything,” Gibbs told him and Tony had to grin at that.
“Yeah…sometimes I think you actually do, boss,” he muttered.
Tony felt his eyes closing. God he was tired. Gibbs turned, put both his arms around him, pulled him in close, and kissed his forehead gently.
“C’mon. Time to get you back to bed,” he said. Tony gave a whimper of protest as Gibbs pulled away and he was no longer encircled by those warm, strong arms. Gibbs opened the door, and Carson was beside him in seconds, checking him over.
“You, are a terrible patient,” he admonished Tony, his eyes anxious. “You’re worse than Rodney Sheppard. No, you’re worse even than John Sheppard and he’s the worst I’ve ever known.” He shone a light into Tony’s eyes, making Tony bat his hand away in annoyance. Carson glanced at the contents of the toilet, and sighed. “See – that’s why you weren’t supposed to get out of bed,” he scolded. “Gibbs – can you help me get him back there?”
Gibbs took one of Tony’s arms and Carson the other, and he was glad of the support because now he had no strength left in his body whatsoever. The two of them carried him back to the bed, and then Carson fussed around him inserting tubes and injecting him with something that made him feel warm and fuzzy almost immediately. He struggled against his own weariness for awhile, but Gibbs sat down on the chair beside the bed and held Tony’s hand loosely in his fingers, and Tony registered, hazily, that it seemed Gibbs *did* do hand-holding after all.
“Go to sleep, Tony. I’ve got you,” he said, and Tony was asleep within seconds.
~*~
End of Part Fifteen
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Hiding in Plain Sight: Part Sixteen
Author: Xanthe
Fandom: SGA/NCIS crossover
Pairings: Gibbs/DiNozzo, John/Rodney, Carson/Caldwell, Teyla/Ronon, Ziva/McGee, and some other pairings that would spoil the story if I revealed them. Gibbs/Ducky friendship.
Rating: NC17 for explicit BDSM sex (m/m slash, femslash and het) and spanking.
Author's Notes
Summary: When a serial killer murders three marines on Atlantis, NCIS are called in to investigate. However, their arrival brings complications for everyone – revealing a lie, a prophecy, a secret and a nemesis.
Part Fifteen: Tony wanted to smash his fist into something, preferably Gibbs’s face, but he was too tired to move. His body was shaking more violently now; he just couldn’t seem to get warm.
Hiding in Plain Sight
By Xanthe
Part Fifteen
Gibbs had learned in the Marines how to snatch a cat nap whenever you could, however cold, wet, hot or downright uncomfortable you were. He could even sleep standing up if need be. Now, exhausted though he was, sleep wouldn't come. All he could do was stare at Tony, lying in his sick bay bed, and wonder how the hell he'd managed to be such an idiot for so long.
Five years was a long time to pretend you didn't love someone; for Tony, as well as for him. They were both damn idiots, he decided. Hearing Tony talk all those long hours during that rescue had been a kind of hell – an illuminating kind of hell. Seeing his own behaviour from Tony's perspective had been painful; and then hearing Jordan's spin on it – well, that had been almost as bad.
When Shannon and Kelly had been killed Gibbs hadn't been there to protect them. He hadn't known anything about it until it was too late. Watching Tony being tortured and damn nearly killed in front of him and being unable to help him had been worse in a way. Even knowing the Daedalus was on its way hadn't helped when he didn't know if it would get there in time.
Gibbs sat in the chair beside Tony and held his sub's hand between his fingers, stroking the skin gently the whole time. Shannon hadn't made it but Tony had, and Gibbs had learned that it didn't matter whether you took a sub to your bed or not, because the thought of losing one you were in love with hurt just the same, either way.
Gibbs watched as Carson entered the room and went over to where Rodney was lying. John stiffened, a low growl sounding in his throat. Gibbs was fascinated by their dynamic. Although Rodney was safe now, John seemed unable to come down from the toppy headspace he was in, and viewed everyone as a threat, even Carson, who was treading very carefully around him. Gibbs knew what it was like to almost lose a sub, and he knew that he was being over-protective towards Tony right now, but even so he wasn't in the kind of headspace John was. Their earlier easy camaraderie during battle was long gone; John didn't even reply when he spoke to him now.
Carson stood by Rodney's bed and John came over, still growling softly. It was like having a rabid dog in the room – no wonder Carson was being so cautious.
"I've run all the tests I need to run and it's all fine. No hidden injuries or fractures. So if you want to do that lifebondy, healing thing you do, then that's fine. It'll speed up Rodney's recovery time at least," Carson said. "I can't pretend I'm ever really comfortable with the idea of someone else sustaining injuries in the process of healing, but I know I'm wasting my breath even mentioning that to you right now," he said to John.
Sheppard didn't even acknowledge him; his eyes were fixed on Rodney's face.
"It's okay, Carson. I'll take it from here," Rodney said, looking at his top.
John didn't wait for an invitation; he jumped onto the bed with a kind of lupine grace and got on all fours, hands and knees on either side of Rodney's body. Then he lowered his head and did that weird thing Gibbs had witnessed before – he sniffed at Rodney's injuries, particularly where there was a cut or any kind of an open would. His mouth travelled over the bruises on Rodney's jaw and then up to his forehead, licking as he went. It was animalistic, and oddly compelling. Gibbs found his fingers tightening around Tony's hand protectively.
Rodney reached up to unwind the bandage from around his head but John snarled and batted his hands away.
"It's okay…stay with me," Rodney said, lying back again and allowing John to unwrap the bandage. Gibbs glanced at Carson, alarmed, but the doctor shook his head and signed to him that it was okay, and not to speak. Then Carson took a step back and leaned against the wall.
Gibbs watched as John ripped the bandage from Rodney's head. His movements were strangely graceful but very determined. Rodney had a nasty gash on his forehead which Carson had neatly stitched. The entire area was bruised, and the severity of the injury had caused both Rodney's eyes to blacken. He looked just as bad as DiNozzo.
John gazed at the wound, transfixed, and then he moved his hands and took Rodney's head between them. He sniffed the newly revealed injury and then his tongue darted out towards it. It was a strangely intimate act, and Gibbs felt almost as if he shouldn’t be watching.
Rodney held still, moaning softly, and John growled in response. Something was happening, but Gibbs didn't know what. Both men seemed to be entering a trance-like state. John was kneeling, straddled over Rodney's chest, his hands on either side of Rodney's head, and Rodney's hands were resting on John's hips. The two of them, for just a second, looked as if they were one being. It was an odd sensation, and then it passed, and John sank down onto the bed beside Rodney. Rodney sighed, and wrapped his arms around his husband, holding him close.
Gibbs peered at them, intrigued; the wound on Rodney's forehead now looked much less severe. The swelling had gone down considerably, and the scar was now pink and puckered, much further along in the healing process than it had been a few seconds earlier. He frowned, and glanced up at Carson who shrugged.
"Lifebond," Carson sighed.
When Gibbs leaned over further, he could see there was a newly formed scar on John's forehead, about as far along in healing as Rodney's. He also seemed to have acquired some faded bruising around his jaw and eyes.
At that moment John raised his head, reacting, visibly, to the fact that Gibbs had leaned towards them, and Gibbs froze. He felt, instinctively, that John was responding to him as a top and a potential threat, and not as Gibbs any more.
"Easy," he murmured, settling back in his chair again. "I'm not going anywhere near him."
He decided right then and there that he would give Rodney a wide berth from now on. He remembered the day he'd first met these two, and how he'd instinctively known not to shake Rodney's hand. Gibbs trusted those toppy instincts innately.
"The rest will have to wait until we get home," Carson told him softly, coming over to him.
"The rest?" Gibbs whispered, incredulously. "What more is there?"
"John won't come down from this without Rodney's help," Carson replied. Gibbs remembered something John had once told him; 'Rodney's the only one who can handle me,' and now Gibbs was starting to understand what he meant. He could see that Sheppard was a top in a great deal of pain right now and he suspected he knew just how Rodney was going to handle him when they both recovered from the healing they'd just done.
If it had been bad for him, watching Jordan assault Tony, he wondered how it had been for John, going through the same thing with his lifebonded partner. Gibbs didn't pretend to understand lifebonding but he knew it was a powerful force. The fact that if one part of a lifebonded couple died then the other did too was testament to that, and yet people felt the urge to lifebond so it had to bring with it great advantages – like the accelerated healing via the sharing of injuries that he had just witnessed.
The Daedalus arrived back at Atlantis half an hour later. Tony was so out of it he slept through the entire thing which was a relief. Gibbs knew his sub well, and he suspected there would be difficult times ahead – for both of them.
He walked alongside Tony's gurney to the infirmary and watched as Carson got Tony and Rodney settled in a small side room.
"My people?" Gibbs asked, as Carson's team worked. "Any idea where they are?"
"As a matter of fact, yes," Carson replied. "They're all next door." He gestured in the direction of the main infirmary. "None of them are long-term patients but there were a few minor injuries that needed taking care of. I trust my staff but I asked that they keep your people here so that I can check the care they've been given and agree to discharge if it's appropriate. This room here is for longer term care – we'll keep Tony in here for awhile. John and Rodney should only need a day or so before they can be discharged but your boy will need longer."
Gibbs glanced at Tony, and then at the infirmary door.
"He'll be fine in here," Carson told him firmly. "Go see your people."
It was hard, but Gibbs managed to wrench himself away. He really needed to see for himself that all his subs were alive and well, and he knew Tony was in good hands.
He had barely walked through the door to the main infirmary when someone threw themselves at him and he found himself with an armful of Abby. Her arms and legs were wrapped tightly around his body, and he almost toppled over backwards from the force of her hug.
"Easy, Abs," he said, throwing his arms around her and inhaling the scent of her hair.
"Gibbs!" she squealed, kissing him enthusiastically. "Thank god you're okay. I mean, they told us you were okay but that's not the same as seeing that you're okay. You are okay, aren't you?" she asked anxiously, finally jumping down from him and surveying him anxiously. "You don't *look* okay," she said, her eyes travelling down his face and fixing on the bloodstain on his shirt. "Oh my god – you're not okay! Is that your blood?" she asked, her fingers going towards his shirt. He caught them before they got there.
"No. It isn't."
Her eyes widened and she looked even more upset. "It's not Tony's blood, is it?" she asked. "Because they said he'd been really badly hurt. Is it Tony's blood?"
"No, Abby – it isn't Tony's blood either," he told her gently, putting an arm around her shoulders and kissing her cheek.
"Is it the bad guy's blood?" she asked, in a horrified whisper.
"Were you hurt?" he asked, ignoring the question and gazing at her searchingly. She *looked* okay – she had dark shadows under her eyes and her skin was pale, but he guessed that was the same for all of them.
"I'm fine. Evan ran almost a marathon and then swam for miles to reach me," she said, and he noticed the little glow in her eyes as she spoke about the colonel. He felt a little jolt of pain at that, knowing she'd found another top who could take care of her just as well as he had, but he was pleased for her all the same.
"He's a good man."
"Yes he is," she agreed happily. "He was injured by one of those dino-bird things that live on that planet. He's been stitched up but they won't let him go until Carson says they can. All Carson's staff are terrified of him – it turns out that Carson is *really* toppy in the infirmary – who knew?"
Gibbs grinned. "Is Tim okay?" he asked. Abby took hold of his hand and pulled him towards the back of the room.
"See for yourself," she said, leading him in the direction of some beds where several familiar faces were sitting. Ducky got up, came over to him, and enveloped him in an embrace.
"Jethro," he said softly, holding Gibbs tight for one long, heartfelt moment, and then releasing him.
"Hey Duck. All's well," Gibbs told him, although the expression in Ducky's eyes informed him that his lie hadn't been remotely successful.
"Anthony?" Ducky asked.
"Doing okay. Considering," Gibbs muttered. He knew Ducky had been watching the whole thing on the plasma back on Atlantis, so he knew what Tony had been through.
"I told them that Tony was in a bad way but I didn't tell them the details," Ducky said in an undertone, gesturing towards the beds.
"Thanks." Gibbs nodded, tiredly, wondering how much they needed to know.
He walked the final few strides to where the others were and was relieved to see Tim sitting up in bed, his arm freshly bandaged. Ziva was beside him, hovering close, and he could see from the expression in her eyes that she'd undergone some kind of transformation. She looked happier and more at ease with herself than she had in all the time he'd known her.
"Tim…you okay?" Gibbs asked, leaning over to ruffle Tim's hair affectionately. Tim looked startled, the way he always did whenever Gibbs was kind towards him.
"I'm fine. I got off easy compared to Tony, I think," Tim replied. "Is he okay, boss?"
"Not right now, but he will be."
"Can we see him?" Ziva asked.
"Can we?" Abby repeated eagerly.
He shook his head. "Not yet. When he's ready."
"Nobody will tell us what happened to him," Ziva said, her dark eyes never leaving Gibbs's face. "Just that he has been hurt and is very ill."
"He is. And, well, it's a long story." Gibbs deflected the enquiry easily.
"It was bad, wasn't it?" Tim asked. "I mean, I know Abby and I both went through hell, but something even worse happened to Tony, didn't it?"
Gibbs took a deep breath. "It was pretty bad. But you know, DiNozzo," he said, with a wry grin, trying to keep his tone light. "He bounces back. He'll be annoying the hell out of you all within a few days I'm sure."
That seemed to satisfy them, and they all relaxed, visibly.
"And Rodney?" Abby asked. "They said he'd been hurt too." Gibbs smiled at her, knowing how much she loved the irascible scientist. She'd seen in Rodney, all along, what it had taken him and Tony a lot longer to see.
"He's going to be okay," he replied. "He and General Sheppard are…healing each other. Somehow I don't think they'll be accepting any visitors for a few days, either."
Gibbs turned to the second bed, where Colonel Lorne was perched, his arm heavily bandaged and supported in a sling.
"Colonel, thank you for doing such a fine job," he said. "I understand that you lost a man out there and I want to offer you my condolences."
"Thank you, sir," Lorne said. Abby said he'd run and swam for miles to reach her and Gibbs could believe that, looking at the man; he was dead on his feet. "We're holding a memorial service for Lieutenant Rice in a few days, sir."
"I'll be there," Gibbs promised. "Now, I gotta get back to Tony in case he wakes up."
He knew they were all still worried but hopefully less so now that he'd had a chance to talk to them. He shook Lorne's good hand, bestowed a kiss on Abby's forehead, tousled Tim's hair again and cupped Ziva's cheek in his hand, and then turned and left. Ducky followed him, as he had known he would.
"Jethro – no offence, but you look terrible," Ducky said, catching up with him and grabbing his arm. "Have you eaten anything? Or slept at all? And you really could do with a shower, a shave, and a change of clothes." His eyes lingered pointedly on the bloodstain on Gibbs's shirt.
"Not now, Ducky," Gibbs said, pushing him away. Ducky caught up with him again, and this time he wouldn't be brushed aside.
"While you've been worrying about all of them, I've been worrying about you," Ducky told him. "I know you, Jethro, and you don't have to play the big, strong top for me." Gibbs stood there for a moment, body taut and tense, and then he sighed, and sagged against his friend.
"He's in a really bad way," Gibbs confided in him. "And I'm finding it hard to handle what I heard, what I saw…what he went through. I don't want to be apart from him for a minute. I can't stalk the poor guy his entire life so I hope this feeling fades."
"You both went through a lot," Ducky told him soothingly. "It's natural you feel like this. Give it a couple of days and you'll feel more like your old self. In the meantime, you aren't superhuman, Jethro, and you need sleep like everyone else. Why don't you take a shower – there's one in the infirmary so you won't be far away from Tony. I'll get you a change of clothes and then you can bunk down in here. I'm sure Carson won't have any objection to that."
They reached Tony's room, and Ducky pointed at John and Rodney, who were curled up in each other's arms, fast asleep.
"See – partners are clearly allowed to stay," he said, with a little grin.
"I'm not Tony's partner, Ducky," Gibbs replied tersely.
"He's your collared sub, Jethro," Ducky pointed out.
"No – he's not even that any more," Gibbs reminded him, and he saw the look in Ducky's eyes as they both recoiled from that memory.
"Jethro, in his heart that's all he'll ever be," Ducky sighed.
They stopped beside Tony's bed, and Gibbs saw the wince that crossed Ducky's face as he caught sight of Tony for the first time. There was no getting away from how bad Tony looked; his pallor and the nature of his injuries also made him seem younger and more vulnerable than either of them was used to seeing him.
"Oh Anthony," Ducky whispered, running a gentle hand through Tony's hair. He looked up at Gibbs. "Jethro, I'm so sorry. If I'd known, all those years ago, that this would happen - and all because of me…"
"Not your fault, Ducky," Gibbs told him firmly. "Jordan was responsible for his own actions, brain tumour or not. Besides, he was always a violent, sadistic bastard, even back when you were married to him, well before he fell ill. All that illness did was make him feel like he had nothing to lose by coming after me. He wanted to hurt you but most of all he wanted to hurt me, and he sure as hell succeeded there."
"But he didn't win," Ducky said. "You got there in time, Jethro, and all your subs survived."
"Guess that Athosian prophetess was wrong then, huh?" Gibbs said with a wry grunt.
Ducky shook his head. "I thought you didn't believe in fortune tellers?" he said, with a tight smile. "Of course she was wrong, Jethro! I never for a moment thought you'd lose them. You've trained them all far too well for that. If you could have seen Ziva in action - and Abby and Tim held it together admirably under extreme duress. I have to say, also, that Colonel Lorne is quite the hero from what I can gather."
"You think he's going to steal Abby away from me?" Gibbs asked. Ducky smiled.
"You only rescue us, Jethro – you never say you'll keep us forever. You let Stan go, remember?"
"Yeah." Gibbs nodded. He felt so tired he wasn't sure he could stand up for much longer.
"Shower," Ducky said, turning him around and pointing him in the direction of the bathroom.
"Only if you stay with him – I don't want him to be alone if he wakes up," Gibbs said. "Send someone else to get me a change of clothes – but don't leave him."
"Very well, Jethro." Ducky pulled him down and kissed him on the lips. "Now go, because otherwise you'll be no use to him at all when he *does* wake up."
Gibbs went; Ducky always had been the only one of his subs he'd take orders from.
~*~
When Tony awoke he was back on Atlantis and had somehow slept through the transport from the Daedalus's sick bay to Carson’s infirmary in the city.
This room was bigger and brighter but he felt unaccountably depressed. Now that the immediate euphoria of being rescued was over, he found there were snatches of memory that he kept replaying over and over again. Being tied so tight for so long, helpless, with his blood draining from his body; Jordan undressing him; Jordan hitting Rodney with that chain and Rodney going down; being held down while Jordan whipped him with the buckle end of his belt; rough hands on his ass, seeking entry…
He gazed, unblinking, at the bed next to his, the flashbacks replaying endlessly in his mind. After a few minutes he realised that there were two people in that next bed, one of them fully clothed, the other in an infirmary gown. He focussed on them, trying to distract himself from the snatches of memory that kept flashing in and out of his mind. John Sheppard was wrapped around Rodney like a man clinging to a rock in a storm. He looked spent, his body tense and suffused with raw emotions he couldn’t process. Rodney was just holding him, one hand gently soothing John’s back as they lay there.
Tony envied them their closeness. They were clearly going through something pretty big right now but they had each other, and he had no doubt they’d get through this.
He was suddenly achingly aware of a sense of aloneness, and the nakedness of his own throat. He put his hand up to his neck and felt bare skin where there hadn’t been bare skin for five years. He remembered how he’d felt when Jordan had ripped his collar off him; the collar that he’d worshipped for all these years, giving it a power over him that maybe it didn’t deserve. Now it was gone. He wondered why Gibbs hadn’t just fastened it back on him while he was unconscious, and the fact he hadn’t made him wonder if Gibbs even wanted him back as his sub. That thought made his stomach ache, but, at the same time, he was aware of a little voice inside asking if he’d accept Gibbs’s collar this time around in any case. A lot had happened in the past few weeks and it was time he faced up to some questions he’d been avoiding for a very long time; which was another reason why all this enforced bed rest was going to kill him.
He turned to get away from the overwhelming sense of togetherness in the next bed, and found Ducky sitting beside him, reading a book.
"Casino Royale?" Tony muttered, reading the title on the spine. Ducky glanced up and smiled.
“Ah. Anthony. How very good to see you awake again,” he said, his eyes awash with happiness and relief.
“Where’s Gibbs?” Tony asked.
“He’s asleep.” Ducky gestured with his head at the bed behind him, and, over Ducky’s shoulder, Tony saw Gibbs lying there, flat out, eyes closed. “Carson tried to send him back to quarters but he wasn’t ready so the good doctor allowed him to sleep here. I don’t think that’s an uncommon occurrence around here,” Ducky murmured, glancing at the entwined bodies of John and Rodney Sheppard on the next bed. “Although, somewhat unorthodox. It wouldn’t work in autopsy, but I suppose one must cut the living more slack. As for Jethro – he was dead on his feet. I’m not sure how many hours he’s been keeping going but if Carson hadn’t given him a bed here he’d probably have had to admit him anyway, from pure exhaustion. As it was he’d only agree to take a nap if I promised I’d sit with you and not leave.”
“Don’t you think he’s taking the protective top thing too far?” Tony asked. “I mean, it’s over, I’m fine. It wasn’t such a big deal.”
Ducky gave him a look of combined pity and disbelief. “Tony, it *was* a big deal,” he said softly. “It was a huge deal.”
“Nah, it wasn’t. It wasn’t any worse than that case where I…”
“Tony, we saw it,” Ducky interrupted.
Tony froze. “What?”
“We saw it. All of it,” Ducky told him, his earnest blue eyes full of compassion behind his spectacles. "And I'm so sorry you had to go through all that at Randolph's hands. I feel so very responsible. I had no idea he was capable of something like this and it all stems from my…"
“Who’s we?” Tony asked quietly.
“Oh. Uh…" Ducky blinked, looking as if he wished he'd kept his mouth firmly shut. "Well, myself, Richard Woolsey, and a couple of other base personnel back here on Atlantis. Steven Beckett had the feed patched through onboard the Daedalus so he could keep track of what was happening. And the audio…” Ducky paused.
“Oh go on, Ducky. Make my day,” Tony muttered, gesturing with his head that Ducky should continue.
“Well, Gibbs, John Sheppard, Carson and Cadman all had audio during the entire rescue.”
“Audio?” Tony closed his eyes, trying to remember exactly what he’d said.
“They heard everything that went on in that room,” Ducky said, in an apologetic tone. “From the beginning.”
“Right.”
Everything exploded in his head and Tony had to get away from it. He shoved aside the sheets covering him and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Ducky got up in alarm.
“Tony, what do you think you’re doing?”
“I need to use the head,” Tony said, in a determined tone.
“My dear boy, just hold on and…” Ducky began. Tony tried to rip the IV line out of his arm and, in his haste, fumbled it.
“Help me get this damn tube out!” he growled, unable to bear it for another second.
“I should get Carson,” Ducky said, looking around frantically for help.
Tony’s fingers picked at the IV in his arm while another wave of impotent rage flooded through him and he flashed back to being tied down to that steel bed with a different tube in his arm, just lying there, helpless, for hours on end as his blood drained out of his body. It had been like a living death and he couldn't get it out of his head.
“Get it off me! Get this damn tube off me!” he said hoarsely, scrabbling frantically with his fingers.
Ducky swooped in and took care of the IV, quietly and gently, and when he was done Tony got off the bed, and looked around, swaying, for the way to the bathroom. The room swam around him but he was determined. He couldn’t stay here. He couldn’t just stay here after what Ducky had just told him. All these years of preserving himself behind a carefully constructed mask and Randolph Jordan had blown it apart in the space of less than a day. He felt physically ill.
“Here…I’ll take you,” Ducky said, grabbing Tony’s arm before he fell. Tony leaned on him and allowed him to walk him over to the bathroom. Then Tony fumbled for the door, pushed it open, got inside, and closed it behind him, locking Ducky out.
“Tony! You can’t stand properly!” Ducky remonstrated, trying the door from the outside. “Tony – open the door, please,” Ducky begged.
“Fuck it, Ducky, I’m not totally useless - I can damn well piss on my own,” Tony yelled at him through the door.
Then he turned towards the sink…and stopped, as he caught sight of himself in the mirror.
“Well Gibbs sure as hell was right about that – you don’t look pretty, DiNozzo,” he said to his reflection.
He tottered closer to the mirror, and rested his hands on the sink to hold himself up. He was as white as a sheet, his hair sticking up in a dozen different directions, and the bruises on his face were spectacular. They were a variety of colours ranging from dark purple to light yellow, via green and violet in between, and they covered his entire jaw. His cut lip looked as swollen and painful as it felt, and there was an ugly bruise on his forehead. His surgical gown was half-open at the back, revealing the dressings on his shoulders and he had all kinds of interesting bruises on his thighs but, most of all, his eye was drawn to his neck, and the complete absence of the collar that was usually there.
He ran his fingers over the pale line where the collar had been, and gazed at himself. What had he said during those six hours he’d been tied up alone in that room with Rodney? Snatches of jumbled conversation came back to him and he flinched. What had he been thinking to give all that away, even if he had thought he was only talking to Rodney and not the entire damn universe and everyone in it? And Gibbs. Particularly Gibbs.
He had spilt his guts to Rodney like some love-sick young sub. Had he admitted to not sleeping with anyone in five years? His stomach clenched; all those years of flirting, and asking Gibbs’s permission to bed a variety of good-looking tops, and now he was caught out in what suddenly seemed like a really bad lie because he’d never gone through with it with anyone. It had all been just to try and make Gibbs jealous, to provoke a reaction, to try and see if he could get Gibbs to *care*.
“Failed there, DiNozzo,” he muttered, and then he remembered something else. He remembered Gibbs looking into that camera and telling him he loved him. “Poor bastard,” he said to his reflection. “After hearing you whine on like an idiot for hours on end the least he could do was tell you what you wanted to hear right before you got raped and murdered.”
His stomach churned, and he half-turned, half-fell in the direction of the toilet and just managed to get to it before throwing up. He vomited strenuously for a few minutes, his ribs aching as he heaved. Then he sat back against the wall, body trembling from the exertion.
Shit. Years and years of hiding, of being so careful never to let anyone see the truth, and now he’d just let it hang out to the entire world. He felt so…known. People had seen him naked, ass up, witnessed some psycho knocking him around and trying to rape him, and, worst of all, they’d heard every damn fool thing he’d told Rodney Sheppard. He was such an idiot.
“Tony.” Gibbs’s voice, outside the door. “You okay in there?”
“I’m fine. Just leave me the fuck alone,” he snapped. The last thing he wanted was to go out there and face all those people. Why couldn’t they just leave him be so he could wallow in his embarrassment by himself?
“DiNozzo, open the damn door,” Gibbs said. Tony made a face at it. That was one order he wasn’t going to obey any time soon.
“Son, you really shouldn’t be out of bed.” Carson’s voice – firm but gentle. “It’s not just the cuts and bruises – you lost a lot of blood and your body is still in shock. We nearly lost you back there. You can’t just expect to get up and start walking around like nothing happened, lad.”
Tony gazed at his wrists; they were covered in lacerations and deep, dark bruises where he’d tried to escape from Jordan’s cuffs. Did Ziva, Abby and Tim know, he wondered? He didn’t mind Abby so much, but Tim? He shuddered at the thought of how the probie would look at him if he knew about his hopeless, one-sided love affair with their top. He was the flippant one, the one who played around and played the field and never let anyone get close. Except he had. He’d let all of them get close; Gibbs, Ziva, Abby, Tim, Ducky.
“That’s why you’re not supposed to stay anywhere longer than eighteen months, DiNozzo,” he chided himself. “Well, that and the fact you always end up in a workplace discipline room too many times and that's no fun at all,” he added with a grimace. Wasn’t that why Gibbs had collared him? So he could keep him out of the NCIS discipline room and take care of any punishments himself, and, in the process try and save Tony from himself? “Whatever it was, it had fuck all to do with him being in love with you,” he reminded himself. “Just Gibbs’s rescue complex kicking in.”
“Tony, son, you need that IV,” Carson said through the door. “Why don’t you just open the door and we can get you back to bed, give you some more meds, and make you more comfortable.”
“This is my fault I’m afraid,” Tony heard Ducky murmur. “I should never have told him that he’d been observed and overheard. I had no idea he’d react so negatively.”
Observed and overheard. Tony felt his guts heaving all over again, and he pulled himself over to the toilet and threw up into it a second time. His entire body ached, his head was pounding, and he felt like he was going to die. He’d never felt this terrible before, not even when he'd had the plague.
He heard something hard pounding against the door, and then a second time. The third time Gibbs’s boot slammed into it, it flew open, and Gibbs strode into the bathroom. He took one look at Tony, cradling the toilet in his hands, and sighed.
“Don’t make me go back out there, boss,” Tony whimpered, gazing up at Gibbs pathetically, and then he turned back to the toilet and heaved up again.
“Okay, Tony. Hold on.” Gibbs pushed Carson and Ducky back out, although not before a terse argument with Dr Beckett, and then Tony heard a whispered discussion and something that sounded like an angry admonition from Carson. Whatever the altercation was about Gibbs clearly won it because he reappeared a few seconds later with a blanket, which he threw over Tony’s shoulders, before shutting the broken door to give them some privacy.
He went over to the sink and filled a cup with water and then handed it silently to Tony, who took it, gratefully.
“Gonna heave again?” Gibbs asked.
“Not right now,” Tony said, sipping the water gingerly. He hurt in so many places he wasn’t sure which was the worst. He realised he was shivering and pulled the blanket more closely around himself.
Gibbs sat down on the floor opposite him, back against the sink, and gazed at him. Tony noticed that he’d had a shower, shaved and changed into some different clothes, and he wondered when he’d done that.
“I seem to remember saying some stuff – stupid stuff,” Tony said, aiming for his usual flippant self and failing spectacularly. “I was out of it at the time so it was probably crap.”
“It wasn’t,” Gibbs stated firmly, and there wasn’t any possibility of an argument with the finality of his tone. Tony stared into those blue eyes opposite him for a long time, wondering where this went next. No wonder Gibbs hadn’t wanted to collar him again; the man must think he was a total basket case.
“I spilled my guts in that room. How many people heard that? How many saw me being held down and nearly raped by that bastard? And how many have they told about it?” Tony rasped out.
“Not many saw it – and I guarantee you that none of those that did will say a thing about it,” Gibbs told him. “Not to you or to anyone else unless it's what you want; and if you don’t want to talk about it you don’t have to.”
“Except to the shrink.” Tony made a face.
“That’s what she’s there for,” Gibbs replied. “Tony, none of this is your fault. And I’m proud of you. You hung on in there like a damn fine agent and did your job even despite what that bastard did to you. You kept your wits about you and got those keys off Jordan; you managed to get them to Rodney even when you’d had half the blood drained from your body.”
“Didn’t work though,” Tony said. “Had to wait for the big bad tops to come charging in and do all the rescuing. Still, you must have enjoyed that. You like rescuing people.”
“Tony…” Gibbs began.
“Fuck it, Gibbs. You weren’t the one hanging there with your ass out and some psycho’s hands groping you all over!”
“Is that what's bothering you most?” Gibbs asked, blue eyes searching.
“No – just one thing among many,” Tony muttered. He gazed at the floor for a long time, and then looked up. “He took my collar from me, boss,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, I know.” Gibbs nodded wearily.
“You gonna put it back?”
“You want me to?”
“I don’t know.” Tony gazed at the floor some more.
“Then let’s talk about it later – when Carson says you're better,” Gibbs said, reasonably enough.
Tony wanted to smash his fist into something, preferably Gibbs’s face, but he was too tired to move. His body was shaking more violently now; he just couldn’t seem to get warm.
Gibbs got up, came over to him, and sat down beside him. He put an arm around him and pulled him against his body. Tony wanted to resist but he didn’t have the strength, and besides, it felt good. And it was warm. He wasn’t used to being this vulnerable around anyone, and couldn’t imagine any other scenario in which he’d let Gibbs do this – or in which Gibbs would want to. Damn it, that whole thing with Jordan must have looked really bad from where Gibbs was standing to make him behave like this.
“I was married once, a long time ago,” Gibbs said, suddenly and unexpectedly. Tony glanced up at him.
“Uh, you’ve been married three times, boss,” he pointed out.
“Four,” Gibbs told him.
That got Tony’s attention. He glanced up again. “They all red-haired women?” he asked.
Gibbs gave a wry smile and nodded. “Yeah. They were.”
“You’re not…this isn’t some big confession that you’re a monosexual is it?” Tony asked, because it wasn’t like he hadn’t wondered this before. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being monosexual,” Tony added hurriedly, as Gibbs glanced down at him, a perplexed look in his eyes. “And it’s not as weird…uh, unnatural…or whatever, as being non-dynamic. That’s really kinky and you’re *clearly* dynamic. Overly so, some might say, judging by the amount of subs you’ve collared. But if you’ve only married women, maybe you’re monosexual. Which is okay of course…uh…if you are. Which you might not be.”
Gibbs waited until he’d finished and then screwed up his forehead. “Interesting,” he commented. “I’ve always wondered just how long you could continue one of your ‘thinking out loud’ speeches if I didn’t I interrupt. Now I’m kind of glad I always stopped you. No, Tony, I’m not monosexual. Or, as you have so correctly identified, non-dynamic.” He moved his hand a little and slapped Tony lightly on the back of his head, then kept his hand there, stroking Tony's hair gently.
“Yes boss.” Tony nodded, feeling himself start to warm up again. “So what happened to your first wife, boss?” he asked softly.
“Shannon was witness to a drug-related killing while I was out fighting in Iraq,” Gibbs told him. “She was NIS’s star witness…and she was murdered, along with our daughter, by the man she had been going to testify against.”
“You had a daughter?” Tony looked up, startled.
“Yeah. She was eight years old when she died. Her name was Kelly.”
“Like your boat,” Tony murmured.
“Named it after her,” Gibbs told him. “After they were killed, I tracked down the man who murdered them and emptied the contents of my gun into him. I wish I could say that it helped, and I suppose it did, a bit, but it didn’t heal anything. I joined NCIS, met Ducky…and married three more times, always looking for what I had with Shannon, and always making the same mistake, as Ducky has pointed out to me, several times.” He rubbed his chin ruefully with his free hand.
“Marrying redheads?” Tony asked.
“Marrying period,” Gibbs winced. “But yeah, marrying people who looked like Shannon, because I couldn’t let Shannon go. After the third failed marriage, I called quits on it. Clearly the problem was with me, so I decided not to take another sub to my bed again, and definitely never to get married.”
“Why are you telling me this, boss?” Tony asked softly. Gibbs’s arm was warm and strong around his body and he liked the way it felt. He rested his head wearily on Gibbs's shoulder.
“Because, like you said, you spilled your guts back there, and I thought you might appreciate it if I returned the favour,” Gibbs told him.
“Who knows?” Tony asked. “About Shannon and Kelly? Who knows?”
“Ducky. He’s known since he first met me. And Ziva…” Tony looked up sharply. “I didn’t tell her, Tony. I never would have told anyone else about this ahead of you,” Gibbs said firmly. “She did a dossier on me when she was with Mossad. When she joined NCIS I swore her to secrecy. They’re the only people who know. And now you.”
“I’m sorry,” Tony said, sincerely. “That’s a terrible thing to carry around all these years. I had no idea. You are one secretive bastard.”
“As are you, Tony,” Gibbs murmured. Tony winced, and glanced at him. “Five years, Tony – and all those times you asked me if you could sleep with all those many and varied tops?” Gibbs raised an amused eyebrow.
“Just trying to make you jealous,” Tony muttered.
“It worked, Tony. It worked.”
“If it did, I never saw any sign of it.”
“Can’t blame me for being as good at keeping secrets as you,” Gibbs replied with a wry grin.
Tony felt that ache in his gut subside, and some of the tension leave his body. Okay, so the whole experience had still been a living nightmare, but Gibbs was giving him back something he’d lost by sharing something of himself. Now, at least, it wasn’t all one-sided.
"I am sorry," Tony muttered. "Losing your wife and little girl like that…I can't imagine how that must have felt. And I don't blame you for wanting to keep something like that to yourself. Boss, I have something to confess – awhile ago I got curious and I have to admit I did some digging on you. Felt bad – and I know it was a lousy thing to do – that’s why I stopped – but I found four marriage certificates. Figured you had your reasons for lying and saying you’d only been married three times so I let it drop but…I just want you to know I’m sorry I went looking."
Gibbs shrugged. “It’s okay - I knew about that, Tony,” he said.
“You did? How?” Tony asked, alarmed.
“I know everything,” Gibbs told him and Tony had to grin at that.
“Yeah…sometimes I think you actually do, boss,” he muttered.
Tony felt his eyes closing. God he was tired. Gibbs turned, put both his arms around him, pulled him in close, and kissed his forehead gently.
“C’mon. Time to get you back to bed,” he said. Tony gave a whimper of protest as Gibbs pulled away and he was no longer encircled by those warm, strong arms. Gibbs opened the door, and Carson was beside him in seconds, checking him over.
“You, are a terrible patient,” he admonished Tony, his eyes anxious. “You’re worse than Rodney Sheppard. No, you’re worse even than John Sheppard and he’s the worst I’ve ever known.” He shone a light into Tony’s eyes, making Tony bat his hand away in annoyance. Carson glanced at the contents of the toilet, and sighed. “See – that’s why you weren’t supposed to get out of bed,” he scolded. “Gibbs – can you help me get him back there?”
Gibbs took one of Tony’s arms and Carson the other, and he was glad of the support because now he had no strength left in his body whatsoever. The two of them carried him back to the bed, and then Carson fussed around him inserting tubes and injecting him with something that made him feel warm and fuzzy almost immediately. He struggled against his own weariness for awhile, but Gibbs sat down on the chair beside the bed and held Tony’s hand loosely in his fingers, and Tony registered, hazily, that it seemed Gibbs *did* do hand-holding after all.
“Go to sleep, Tony. I’ve got you,” he said, and Tony was asleep within seconds.
~*~
End of Part Fifteen
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Hiding in Plain Sight: Part Sixteen