Disclaimer: DPB owns NCIS, Magnum P.I., several nice houses, a boat and a few not too shabby cars (the last three statements are pure conjecture on my part). Tom Selleck owns the mustache (I'm sure he has it in a box somewhere) and maybe some of those Hawaiian shirts and very short shorts he wore back then. I own loads of shoes, way too many purses and a veritable jungle of houseplants. See how I'm getting the short end of the stick here? Whoever owns Nkiss remains a mystery.
Summary: Post Angel of Death, otherwise completely unrelated to canon as we know it. Tony is in trouble… it's short, just read it.
Spoilers: Not really, no.
A/N: Many thanks to probette aka Louise Hargadon, wonderful friend and my beta for this story. I owe her a lot of things, you owe her not having to put up with my arbitrary punctuation, idiomatic mishaps and wayward spelling. Any mistakes you might find are entirely mine!
This is my first so I'm careful and rating this (probably way too conservatively) M for violence although it's just one short moment.
Totally Magnum!
"I never thought I would say this, but I really don't enjoy being tied up by you as much as I anticipated."
Tony tried to look over his right shoulder but a sharp pain prevented him from completing the task. She twisted the chair around with surprising ease considering their relative weight and height and he suddenly sat facing her in view of the heavy steel door with the shiny new lock that looked like it wouldn't be easy to pick.
Not that it mattered since his hands were cuffed behind his back and she'd used cable wrap to tie his feet to the legs of the hard, wooden chair he was sitting on. The quick military way to handcuff someone when you didn't have the real thing at hand. That combined with the rope tied around his waist to secure him tightly to the back of the chair made any idea of flight seem utterly ludicrous.
"So you work for NCIS?!" It was really more of a statement than a question.
"Well, gotta make a living somehow and Nkiss seemed as good a place as any. Besides, I look good in letter apparel. Always have. I was a jock in high school and played football and basketball in college and now I've got the NCIS jacket..."
His voice trailed off when he realized he'd started babbling.
"Nkiss? I've never heard anyone call it that before" she snorted. She smiled in spite of herself but it was a mean, lifeless grimace of a smile.
"Yeah, I tend to get a little silly under pressure." He could feel a lump growing where she'd struck him with a heavy object he'd never seen coming.
"I hope you like it here," she said, irony dripping from her voice. "I made sure to make this as much to your taste as possible."
She pointed to the wall to her right and Tony's eyes followed her finger. It was a big, bright poster showing Tom Selleck in his most famous role – Thomas Magnum, P.I. – wearing one of his loud Hawaiian shirts and those ridiculously short shorts. Tony frowned.
"I know how much you love that show," she said. "And this is all going to be perfect, I promise."
She produced a small portable stereo system from the big bag he hadn't noticed until now and after pressing a button, he could hear the first notes of Mike Post's theme song for the show fill the stale air in what he assumed was a basement where nobody would hear him scream.
She came up behind him and twisted the chair so he sat facing the wall that sported the poster.
"I have to take care of some business but I'll be back in a little while. Make yourself at home," she taunted and walked out of that steel door, locking it safely behind her.
Great. How could he let this happen? More precisely, how could Jenny let this happen? And why had he ever agreed to this stupid undercover op in the first place? He needed to think and do it fast. Why couldn't the Magnum, P.I. theme be a one-minute song like those for other TV shows? Granted, he did like the song and would play it in his car when driving on the highway with the top down in his Mustang but right now he'd have given anything for a little silence to gather his thoughts. A little aspirin for the throbbing pain in his neck wouldn't hurt either.
After what he knew to be three minutes and twenty-three seconds the music stopped and he took a deep breath. After two more seconds it started again. Oh goody. Was this a new form of Chinese water torture and she was simply going to drive him insane by locking him in a room with that song on constant repeat facing a wall with a Tom Selleck poster? He needed to get out of here or try to reach somebody for help but he was tied to this chair pretty expertly and she had taken his cell phone from him. Not that he was likely to get any reception in a room with no windows and a steel door that was probably underground.
On the fifth repeat he thought his head might explode. On the tenth he was convinced he wouldn't survive another minute of it and would never again be able to enjoy anything Magnum-related in his life. On the twelfth the door opened and she came in again carrying a Magnum ice cream bar she was licking seductively. She had another one still wrapped in her other hand. She set down a shopping bag and slowly walked over to the stereo.
"Enjoying yourself yet?"
At least she switched off the music.
"The other one's for you if you want it. Double Chocolate. I'm not sure how you're going to eat it though, since your hands are tied. I should've thought of that."
Her voice was pure malice. She dropped the second ice cream on the floor.
"I brought you something else."
Casually she tossed him a small packet that landed in his lap. He stared down at it. TROJAN MAGNUM LARGE SIZE CONDOMS. Surely she had to be kidding.
"It's everything Magnum for you today," she cackled, seemingly dying over her own joke. "Don't see how you'd use these if you can't even eat your ice cream." She was screaming with laughter now.
Now she bent down and produced a magnum size bottle of Taittinger.
"My dad prefers cognac but I love champagne, especially this brand, but then I'm sure you found that out while you researched both of our lives."
She shock the bottle with her left hand and let the cork come out with a loud pop. Tony started in his chair at the sound. Champagne spilled everywhere and she drank from the bottle, the expensive liquid running down her arm.
"I know that's not how you open it but what the hell, the look on your face was worth it!"
All of a sudden she became very still. She reached inside her coat and pulled out a shiny object she handled with the utmost care.
"Know what this is?"
She regarded the object with a look that conveyed reverence and, for lack of a better term, tender affection.
"A .44 Magnum, a Colt Anaconda," Tony replied.
"Yes, that's right." She turned and hit the play button on the stereo again. She waited for the song to finish, all the while aiming the revolver directly at Tony.
"Jeanne, you don't have to do this. It doesn't have to end this way."
She laughed a hollow, lifeless laugh and wiggled her finger on the trigger.
"I don't? Sure, because you didn't lie to me for months, you didn't just sleep with me hoping I'd tell you something about my father's weapons deals, because we can talk about it, right? Find a solution? Because you can explain?"
She spat out the last word as if it had caused a bitter taste in her mouth.
Tony noticed a small stain on her black and white polka dot coat where a drip of ice cream had landed that she'd brushed away impatiently. When she had sucked the ice cream stick clean she tossed it aside.
She hit play again and refocused her aim. Suddenly she pulled the trigger and the bullet hit the wall behind him, missing his left ear by maybe an inch.
"You didn't think it was going to be this easy, did you?"
Her lifeless eyes had become even colder and it was as if he could feel the cold burning through his forehead. She was completely insane.
"Hell hath no fury," he thought to himself and wondered why he found it amusing. Maybe he was going insane himself? Apparently she had put the CD on repeat again. Mike Post was on his third round and suddenly dying didn't seem like such a bad thing after all.
A screeching sound that might have been a laugh started him out of his momentary mental absence and he saw her raise the gun to her head and pull the trigger. When she had fallen to the ground, her blood was all over the poster on the wall.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ziva woke with a start. Sweat was pooling in the hollow at her throat and glistening on her upper lip as she sat and tried to find her bearings. She groped for the light on her nightstand and after she'd found it made her way to the bathroom where she stuck her head under the cold, clear stream of water coming from the tap of the bathtub.
It was only a dream, a nightmare of the extremely scary and bewildering kind. She grabbed a towel and dried her hair. A bête noire. Jeanne was gone and Tony was safely tucked in his bed where he belonged. She knew because that's where she had left him two hours earlier when she had insisted she sleep at home to take care of some errands first thing in the morning.
"I shouldn't eat this much pizza right before going to bed," she thought to herself. "My stomach just can't handle it. And no more Magnum, P.I. marathons either."
A smile played on her lips when she fell asleep. She knew she'd say yes if he asked her again.