Fic (2/2)
Enosichthon: King of the Deep
DiNozzo/Gibbs, R


Tony sits in interrogation until it is necessary to sleep in interrogation. When Tony wakes up with the hard, dirty metal of the table pressed up against his face He is there and He is smiling. He looks at Tony and He grins.

Tony flinches but he’s not entirely sure why.

“Good Morning.” He says.

“Good Morning.” Tony has been trained for the response to be if not immediate than at least not hesitant. He leans on His elbows and He hums. Tony’s breath fogs the scratched metal surface of his pillow. From Tony’s view He looks impossibly large, looming.

“Cold?” He asks, with His laughing, shifting hands.

Tony admires for a moment how the setting seems to match; the glossy iron table, the stone walls, His eyes and the ageing hue of His hair. His smile. All brutal. All grey.

Tony’s hunger is chilling his bones.

“It’s like being in the Bahamas again.” Tony whispers. “I can barely take the heat.”

He gets down close like He used to in the beginning with His inquisitive, encompassing stare. He presses His hands on the table and He leans forward like a cat on the prowl, batting butterflies with sheathed claws. Tony wants to lick His weathered hands like the last One made him. Tony wants to feel the callouses and taste the sweat of His life lines. Maybe Tony could read the loops of His name there. When He runs His hands thickly through Tony’s hair Tony can feel his own future like a plow through the brain.

Tony shivers and wets his lips.

“I’ll turn down the heat.” He promises. “Have a nice day.”

Tony closes his eyes and drifts to the ocean. Away.

****

“How’s the food in this place?” Asks He, the man in the tight bronzed skin.

Tony tries to wet his mouth but he has no wet left. Tony is bleeding the wood shaving smells of Him. Smacking his sandpaper tongue against a desert palate Tony is a faltering thing.

“I wouldn’t know.” Tony breathes.

Tony imagines he sees a flash of anger in His hands. A sliver of concern in the lines of His jaw.

Tony has become unruly as the days pass, pressed to steel. The Man stands. He smells of coffee and sweet sweat.

“It was good to see you Anthony.” He says. “I’ll be back to see you again.”

Tony watches his sway and breathes.

*****

The next day. The next minute. The next hour. The next week. The next sob and He is in the room with blood on His hands

It spits from His fingers, clean and red. Invisible crimson.

A cowering man saying cowering things nips at His feet with his ears close down to his horsey face.

“This man has come to bring you dinner. How considerate, correct?”

“How considerate.” Tony follows Him. Tries to hear the meaning to the words and not the Man. Tony fails. White noise. White noise in his brain. “How. Considerate.”

It is soup and bread from the cowering man. It is bowls and spoons and milk. That’s what it is. It is not considerate.

He sits and He leaks a softness in His lips and the corners of His eyes. When they are alone Tony looks to Him and breathes the gift in.

Tony leans over and smells the full sweltering richness that could be sliding down his throat and moans. Tony makes pitiful wanting sounds and doesn’t care for pride enough to hate himself. Tony lifts his hands and touches steam like he’s touched silk and velvet. Like he’s touched dirt and grass and flesh. Tony closes his eyes and touches that warm breath just like he hasn’t touched Him.

Tony sighs from the love in it. The agony.

And then Tony flips the tray so He can feel it too.

“Can you feel it?” Tony yells. “Can you feel it too? How. Considerate. How considerate!”

The silence from Him is an emptiness of upheaval. The silence from Him is wide-eyed and open-mouthed. He can feel it though. It’s running down His neck and His face and His hands and seeping through His skin. So very hot and beautiful but Tony is wondering...Tony is wondering why he even wanted to share that beauty with Him.

It seems like He is wondering too.

****

“Anthony,” He asks. “Why are you in restraints?”

Anthony. Anthony. Anthony. Who the fuck is Anthony? Who is the motherfucking, sonofabitching, fucking fuck is Anthony? Tony says it loud. Loud in his brain. Loud in His face.

He shapes a laugh that catches in His throat and Tony pulls and pulls and pulls but Tony can’t be...can’t be close to His skin. Tony bites just barely there, just barely fucking there, but He’s fast and He moves aside. Tony snaps and snaps and breaks the bitter air of his absence.

He jerks close like a lightning flash and He growls against Tony’s neck like a feral dog. Tony feels the rumble like a scream and he gasps back, cold up against the wall. His hands are on Tony. On Tony’s shoulders. They. They. His hands.

“Oh. Oh God.” He mutters to Tony, monotone. How considerate. His eyes are sheathed knives.

“Oh.” Tony pants back, pressing into ten grasping brands, two electric clamps. “Oh. Oh God.”

Tony feels his eyes curl up and his tongue flex in his own mouth. A high sound falls out of him like teeth and blood. Tony presses and presses and thrusts against His hands. He breathes hot against Tony’s lips and says, “Do it. Do it now.”

Tony stretches taught against Him, just barely touching, and obeys. Tony can barely comprehend the wave of sensation but he rides it out with His lips just barely begging for Tony’s neck.

Tony swells, ebbs, and sags, spent.

Through the lull Tony snaps helplessly fast and catches salt against the fine sandpaper grain of His jaw. He doesn’t gasp but He flinches away and laughs. Laughs, laughs, laughs as Tony gasps against His pleasure for air.

“No wonder they weren’t feeding you.” He says, eyes hot and overcast. “You would have made an excellent marine. How many guards have you taken out? Three? Four?”

“Eight and a half.” Tony says, rolling. Drugged from pleasure. He snorts and Tony feels liquid gold against his lips and moans as it shivers him over. Chicken soup from a clean plastic spoon and all Tony feels is His heat. Rich heat.

“Who was half?” He asks.

Tony closes his eyes and works the flavor against the roof of his mouth. Tony’s so wet, so warm. Too much.

“You.” Tony whispers to Him. “I’ve got nearly all of you.”

There’s a long, hard moment of silence and lookless warmth but Tony feels the spoon on his lips and the fall of fluid regard. The hum belongs to Him.

“You could be right.” He says. “You’re a clever little thing.”

Tony opens his mouth for more. Tony drinks it up from His steady hand. In silence.

When they are done and the spoon scrapes bottom, Tony, eyes soft shut, feels the calloused drag of His hand against his jaw, and thinks three quarters of Him. I’ve got three quarters now.

*****

“Tell me about your previous handler.” He says, reading from a manilla folder. “There’s nothing about him in your file.”

Tony hasn’t read a word in nearly one and a half years.

“You’re wearing blue.” Tony says, looking at Him. The gloss makes Him warm and bright and slick around the edges. “That’s my favorite color.”

He smiles and it’s a real smile. The quirk of His lips hides His teeth but shows His amusement as clear as color.

“Good.” He says. “I wore it for you.”

Tony would touch the worn cotton but his arms are chained to the back of his chair. Tony wants to touch it so very badly. Tony strains against his shackles for long moments until he’s panting and sweating against the sweet, cold surface of the table. When Tony looks up His head is cocked as if to say, ‘Are you done now?’

Tony suddenly feels like a child, toeing the sand.

“Sorry.” Tony whispers. “Sometimes I just want to get away.”

“That’s understandable.” He smiles. “Now tell me about the last one.”

He touches the feather of his silver hair and leans down on one arm. He is constantly leaning, Tony realizes, or bending, or stretching. It’s as if He’s showing the options available to someone not constrained to their seat. It is a listening pose, as if He is waiting with baited breath. Tony feels as if he’s been waiting all his life.

“He was a dishonorable discharge. A heavy man. He had dirty eyes...hazel. All mixed up in his head.”

The Man nods his head. Go on.

“He thought-” Tony laughs a little. “He would make me lick his boots. His hands. He thought it would make me feel degraded. Worthless...”

“A broken man is worthless.” He says. Tony nods. For a moment they seem to be living on the same thread.

“So I licked his boots, I licked his hands, but it was my choice. I was waiting.” Tony says.

“What were you waiting for?” He asks. His voice is choppy, like a storm.

“For him to think I was in little pieces....” Tony gets lost in the memory until He snaps his fingers like a crack of lightning. Tony remembers.

“What did you do?” He asks, all close and sweltering.

“I bit off his fingers.” Tony says, but He looks disbelieving and disappointed. For some reason that makes Tony breathe fire.

“I did!” Tony hisses. “Bit them off with his knife. Bit his feet. Bit his shit-covered eyes. Licked them clean for forever.”

The Man is held breath and clenched jaw. He is wide eyes. He is thin lips.

“Why?” He says. “Why would you do that? Why not just kill him?”

Tony is hurt that He doesn’t understand.

“Well,” Tony says, scattered. “He told me to it, didn’t he?”

Tony can tell He understands now, but Tony sees something in His eyes that grates like chalk on slate. The Man is writing new words all over Tony when He thinks Tony won’t notice. The Man is all white with thought-dust.

“He asked you to do other things too, Tony.” He is so barely soft. “You didn’t do those things.”

“Asked me for the numbers. Those hidden money-numbers.” This is the first time they’ve spoken of them. “The mixed-up man was asking for him. For my father. That man wanted those dirty things so those were the things I gave him.”

“Would you give me anything I wanted?” He asks, hushed. Tony closes his eyes, sways in his seat, and thinks it over.

“Probably not.” Tony tells him.

“Why?” His eyes are just so clean. Tony wants to touch. Tony wants to touch. Tony wants to touch. Him. So. Bad.

“You’d never ask. When you want it good enough, you’ll just take it from me.” Tony wonders how He looks without a grey wall frame. “You already know you can.”

He is silent and He still.

“Take it from me.” Tony goads. “ Do it. I know you want to. Just take it.”

The Man shakes his head but Tony’s liquid gold is already deep in His ears. He can’t shake it out.

“Not today, Tony.” He speaks. “Not today.”

*****

“Today?” Tony asks.

He turns around and walks out the door. Tony sighs. No then, not today.

*****

Tony is moved back to the cell with the great black window. When the lights are low it seems to be a shifting, watery thing. Tony almost expects the glass to crack and the water to come crashing through. Sometimes Tony looks for whales and dolphins and he hears their whispering, echoing moans and knows they must be trapped too. Tony’s hidden neighbors. When Tony is counting days on his toes and comes to the smallest one, the broken one, he looks up into that dark reflection of himself and says, “I won’t ask anymore.”

He comes through the door eight and three quarters of a heartbeat later.

Tony pulls against the rattle of restraint and breathes.

*****

“You’re more coherent these days.” He says, a manilla envelope unfolded before Him like a spread of wings. “Is there any particular reason why?”

Tony exhales wearily because the days have become almost unbearably slow. When the madness descends they’re beautifully absolute.

“I’m eating less food. Less medication. Also, not getting beaten every day is a plus.” Tony touches his own face and traces the ridges there, restraint free. He hates the scratchy feel of his own stubble. “They used to play games with me. Loud music, bright lights every time I nodded off...your interrogation style is much more, um, delicate.”

“That’s a very good word.” He says. He tilts his head back and scans the cell. “What do you remember about your life away from here?”

Tony is suddenly, intensely confused.

“Like the infirmary? Or the shower?” Tony prompts.

He seems confused too, and then His eyes eclipse and He grimaces.

“Never mind.” He says.

****

It’s as if He’s magic because once He says ‘your life away from here’ Tony starts to swim through dreams. The visions are few but bountiful and in them Tony is a man. Tony is a man with long legs, soft clothes, and smiles that don’t pull at the cracks in his brain.

Tony is happy there in a gentle life and the comparison to Tony’s waking world is sharp and desperate. If Tony is carefree in those fictions then he knows what it’s like to be miserable in his own, dank corner of the world.

In the dreams He is there and He touches Tony all the time.

“I can almost taste your name.” Tony whispers to Him. “I think I heard it in my sleep.”

He doodles something on bright white paper.

“Maybe you did.” He says.

Tony hasn’t been restrained for many interviews now but sitting across from Him Tony still keeps his hands down low, under the table. Tony has been very good. It was one of His early lessons: Trust Must Be Earned. Tony feels as if he has been suffocating for days under the burden of waiting. Patience is infinitely tiring.

He’s amused, Tony can tell from the way He continually glances up from His reading. These last few days Tony has been in a state of continual discomfort. He has spent more time with Tony in forty-eight hours than He has in an entire month and He has spent this time with Tony doing absolutely nothing. He reads, He draws, He writes personnel reports. He does everything but talk to Tony and it’s driving Tony completely and utterly batshit.

“You’re fidgeting.” He says, shifting onto His elbow. “If you have a question then you should just ask.”

It’s an invitation if it’s anything.

“You may have noticed,” Tony says, “that I have been very well-behaved.”

He grins. He closes his book. “I have noticed.”

“You may also have noticed,” Tony continues, “that I haven’t kicked the shit out of any guards or orderlies...even when I’ve wanted to.”

“Yes,” He says, “The guards and orderlies have appreciated that. Thank you.”

“So....” Tony, well, he turns sunrise colors. Sailor’s warning.

“So...?” He answers, his blue eyes wide in what seems to be anticipation. Tony finds that as his days become more clear certain things become more clouded. He is one of those things.

“I was wondering if maybe,” Tony has also noticed that they are in the windowless, camera-free room. “If maybe I could touch you.”

He doesn’t seem too surprised, in fact He doesn’t seem to be surprised at all.

“Do you know what Stockholm Syndrom is, Tony?” He asks.

Tony’s previous flame is magnified and engulfed by the one that takes over his body like a brush fire. He sounds so fucking condescending. Tony is very tempted to take a swing at Him but Tony is smart enough to know that it is exactly what He wants.

“Yes.” Tony snaps sharply. “It’s the part where I don’t kill you right now because I like you.”

“Okay.” They stare for a moment until He nods and says, “Okay Tony. Go ahead.”

Tony just crosses his arms and glares. “I think you should go know.”

He smiles, like drowning, picks up His things and leaves.

*****

Tony rouses to the sound of knocking but he mistakes it for thunder and wakes expecting the mighty hand of God. Just knocking, but it signals something that feels at least a little bit holy. Knock. Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock. Knock. Knock. The sound of Asking Permission.

“What?!” Tony doesn’t know why he’s yelling, only that the sound is bouncing against the metal staccato.

“Can I come in?” For a moment Tony doesn’t quite comprehend that it’s not Him...that it’s some female. It’s some female with a rich, foreign voice. Tony’s heard it somewhere in his sleep.

“Fuck off.” Tony yells from his cot in the corner, adrift. “Go the fuck away.”

Tony wishes he didn’t sound quite so desperate.

“He asked me to come check in on you, Tony.” The voice is muffled but strong. She’s probably lying....but what if she’s not? Can Tony really take the chance?

Yeah. He can. He will. Fucking games.

“Then you tell that son of a bitch that He can go to hell.” Tony yells. “Tell Him, and I know He’s standing next to you, tell Gibbs, that fucking bast-”

Tony feels the echo of his own words like the heavy slap of a blade. Tony opens his brain and screams.

*****

Tony wakes up in restraints again, only this time he’s melting, he’s melting saltwater. Tony’s melting out of his skin in copper and ocean and hot, hot sand.

He’s there and He’s melting too.

“Oh my god.” He says softly to the shell of Tony’s ear, an echoing wind, “I don’t understand what’s happening to me.:”

Tony breathes it in a cresting wave. “I don’t understand what’s happening to me,” Tony sobs, “Oh my God. Gibbs, I don’t understand.”

“Tell me.” Gibbs whispers. “Tell me what’s happening.”

“No goddamn it. You tell me.” Tony is breaking in the storm. Falling apart in the hurricane. Gibbs is there. Gibbs is touching Tony and holding Tony. Gibbs is Poseidon in a churning ocean. Tony shatters on the waves.

It’s a gentle thing to be wrapped in His arms.

“Tony.” Gibbs whispers. “Tony. You’ve got me. You’ve got me. Please Tony. Stop fighting. You’re safe. You’ve got all of me.”

He listens to Gibbs’s careful hands and lets go of the wreckage. Tony can feel the clinging splinters of his broken life in the rough caress of his fingers.

Tony stops treading and sinks deep into the ocean. Gibbs is waiting there for him through the salt at the bottom of the deep.

Tony dives.