AU ALERT: I've changed a lot about the Tony you all know and love. I've changed the rules for lawenforcement and I've done a...just read it. Some foul language and mental illness alerts everywhere. Mentiuons of attempted suicide, childabuse (nothing sexual I promise)...if you're wondering about anything in the story, ask and I shall answer. I don't respond well to flaming or people saying stupid stuff about the decease I have depicted in this story without knowing why I wrote it first. Enjoy the story :D
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It's not surprising for the tiny boy. He's just four years old and he's playing with the teddybear his mom bought him, trying to keep quiet as mommy and father exchange angry words.
"Hello."
Tony looks up but doesn't see anyone. It's a friendly voice that makes him all warm inside, it's a woman but not like mommy or anyone else he's heard.
"I'm your friend."
"Okay," Tony smiles and starts playing with his teddybear again. She's his new friend and he calls her "Fairy" because she sounds like a "Fairy". Sometimes he even sees her and she's beautiful. Green almondshaped eyes, long white hair, tanned skin and petite. She's so beautiful he sometimes wants to cry when he pictures her in his head. She comforts him when he's scared or sad, and she helps him when he's unsure of what to do. She's his friend, his only friend.
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He's drawing in kindergarden now, not like the other children, NEVER like the other children because he just can't draw like they do. He looks down and see his hands and his feet, and he knows he has a head so he draws feet, arms and hands and a head, the body itself is just a round thing. The girl next to him leans over to help him draw straight and "Fairy" shrieks.
"DON'T LET HER TOUCH IT! SHE'LL RUIN EVERYTHING! HIT HER! HIT HER!"
But Tony doesn't want to hit the girl, he's never hit anyone in his entire life and he doesn't want to hit anyone now, not like father does, he's not his father, he's not!
"HIT HER HIT HER HIT HER HIT HER HIT HER!"
Instead Tony quickly shoves the table sending crayons and paper flying through the air. The yellowishcoloured wooden tabel topples over and a couple of the children in the room begin to cry. One of the women looking after them comes over and puts her hands on her hips. She looks mad and her red hair dances in the sunlight still streaming in from the window. She grabs his hand and he follows the jeanclad legs out into the kitchen where they can be alone. She picks him up and puts him in a chair before she proceeds to tell him how bad he is for doing what he did...but Tony's not listening to her, he's busy listening to "Fairy."
"You've shamed me, Tony. You've shamed me! I've ALWAYS done what's best for you, and suddenly you won't listen to me. I have no choice but to bring in Oscar, Oscar and I will always help you, remember that. We're your only friends."
The lady is done being mad at him and gives him a hug before putting him back down onto the floor. Tony wonders why she's mad, he didn't hit the girl now did he? "Fairy" has explained that everyone can hear her, and that Tony himself can hear everyone elses "fairies", it's just that their "fairies" are quiet when they're with others, and Tony's "Fairy" is not. She says it's because she cares more about him than other "Fairies" do about their children. Tony nods, it all makes sense to him.
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Tony doesn't like Oscar. When Tony is in bed at night and looking up into the ceiling of his canope bed after mommy has tucked him in, Oscar begins telling him about vampires and how they will kill his whole family unless Tony does exactly what "Fairy" and Oscar says. His voice is loud and male but not like anyone he knows...he's different. Scarier. "Fairy" still makes the decisions but she leaves most of the talking up to Tony and Oscar. Oscar always knows how to put Tony in his place.
"I've been dead for thousands of years, Tony, I know how the world works. I'm trapped inside you, it would be a liberation if you were dead."
Tony's not sure what death means yet, but he remembers when father collapsed sobbing by the phone because Tony's uncle had died. Tony wasn't allowed to come to the funeral. Tony wasn't allowed to come with his mommy and father to a lot of things.
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Then comes Lady, when Tony is seven. She's annoying, almost like a younger sister. Lady wants Tony to wear suits so she adores Tony's mother who dresses him in sailorsuits. Tony hates the sailorsuits but he loves mommy so he lets her dress him and besides, it keeps Lady from singing.
Lady loves to sing. She sings at every chance she gets and Tony hates it because Lady REALLY can't sing. She can't hold a single note, her voice breaks all the time and she can't hit a note either so when it's time for the pianolessons Tony protests, he doesn't want to play the piano because Lady sings and Tony's head always hurts when she sings.
Refusing to do the lessons makes father angry and he hits Tony and he hits mommy who suddenly decides to turn into mother and smell like father does. Lady teaches Tony how to serve Mint Juleps and Whisky on the rocks and Tony is suddenly gratefull for the annoying Lady who seems to be loved by Oscar and "Fairy".
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Joseph comes later. Tony doesn't really mind him but he's a snitch. Joseph keeps track of time down to the second. Tony has started school, just barely, and Joseph just turns up.
"Joseph will help you keep track of time. You've wasted enough of it," Oscar says. Tony knows he doesn't have a choice.
Joseph always know where Tony is supposed to be. He tells Tony exactly what to do at all times, and Tony hates him for it. 06:31:22 Tony MUST be rinsing shampoo out of his hair. 07:41:38 Tony MUST be in school. Tony does what he says because it's easier that way.
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When Tony is 8 years old, mother dies. She hasn't been mommy for a very long time. That's when Boy shows up. Boy is a small and scrawny child with big round glasses and short brown hair, he looks a lot like Tony himself. Boy always gets Tony in trouble with father. Boy wonders how the alarmclock is put together, and makes Tony wonder about it too so he takes it apart...but no one knows how it's put together again so father beats him for ruining mothers alarmclock and forbids him to ever enter The Room again.
Boy loves The Room. The Room is where mother stayed, and father refuses to change anything about it. Boy often cries about not getting to go into The Room, so father beats Tony for something Boy does. It's really unfair but Tony doesn't fight father about it.
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At age 11, Tony is sent to boardingschool. The teachers are mean and the shrink Tony's being sent to says a lot of things that makes no sense. Lily turns up after one of the sessions. Tony loves Lily. Lily is older than him and she just loves to "hang out". Tony doesn't know who she is but he's got the feeling that he'll be seeing a lot of her in the future. Actually he hopes he does because Lily is much nicer than the rest of the voices constantly chattering in his head.
Lily loves music and movies, just like Tony. She makes smart remarks about others and Tony does the same so they often laugh together. Sometimes Lily says the other voices in Tony's head are crazy, that makes Tony laugh, so when others look at him like he's insane for talking to Lily Tony begins to think...maybe it ISN'T normal to hear voices?
The shrink says he'll grow out of it and dismisses him when he asks about hearing voices. He says it stems from the trauma of losing his mother at such a tender age and Tony accepts it. He really begins to believe they'll go away.
He's not really disappointed when they don't.
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Tony has just turned 13 when father says not to come back home again, ever. Father says Tony is not his son anymore and that he hopes Tony dies. The voices comfort him and Tony accepts their help in getting over a minimal loss like father.
Tony begins to act out too, he yells at people and he hits the walls and screams his head off before being dragged out of the classroom and to the principal who threatens to call Tony's father and throw Tony out of school. Tony doesn't care. He stops listening to the voices and that makes Oscar angry because his threats are no longer enough. Tony doesn't have family left to kill.
"Don't make me show myself to you!" Oscar threatens. Tony doesn't listen. He wishes he had because the first time he sees The Dead Man, Tony nearly dies in fright.
He's by his desk in the room he's supposed to call home while at school doing his homework when he sees him out of the corner of his eye. To be honest he only sees some kind of figure standing at the rock outside his window, across the street at first. Then he turns to look more closely and he falls off his chair.
On the rock, there is a rotting corpse unlike anything he's ever seen before. It's mainly just bones and rotting skin, some places the skin has come off and Tony can see tendons and pieces of dry meat, but mostly he can see white and yellowish bones. The Dead Man wears a vest, a shirt and a long green coat, his pants are grey and torn in places, he even has a black cane with a silver tip and top, and his tophat. He has no eyes, just eyesockets with maggots crawling out of them. His jaw is broken off at one side and hangs down to his bony chest so Tony can see his spine through where the teeth should have been. He has no nose either, just two holes where a healthy sniffingdevice should have been. But The Dead Man talks in Tony's head.
"You should've listened to me boy! This is me!" Oscar says.
The Dead Man turns up everywhere Tony goes, and he sure likes to scare Tony. Sometimes Tony is just rounding a corner, carrying his schoolbooks like a normal childwhen The Dead Man turns up inches from Tony. Tony always shrieks and falls on his ass, sending his schoolbooks and papers flying through the air. The other kids always laugh at him.
"They can't see me." That's what Oscar says to Tony's puzzled look.
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Tony is seventeen when he's chatting with some people on IRC, a chat-programme that lets him talk to people in the entire world. He talks to a girl who suddenly says: "It's medication tiiiiime." He recognizes the line from One Flew Over The Coocoo's Nest starring Jack Nicholson and asks her why she takes medication. She says because doctors always say she's crazy. They say she's schizophrenic. She's admitted to a psychiatric hospital. He asks her what she thinks. She says she hears voices. Tony asks her if hearing voices is normal and she responds by saying: "HAHAHAHAHA!". She asks if HE hears voices and he doesn't respond. She tells him her advice which is never to tell anyone because they will lock him in a room and throw away the key. Tony turns off the computer and picks up his backpack with numb fingers.
When he comes back to his room he suddenly understand that hearing voices isn't normal, and that his life has been a lie. It's not easy to think about and he's scared. He goes back to the computerlab and does some research, he discovers that there's not a lot of people out there hearing voices, and that no one can hear HIS voices. He's sick!
"You're not sick, Tony, you can talk to the dead. Do you think we'd stick around if you were sick?" "Fairy" is comforting him. It feels nice. It feels like when mommy was alive and Tony lets himself be lured in and comforted by her words.
Tony's world is shattering around him but he doesn't care. He has the voices and they're the only thing he has had his entire life. They're the cloest thing to family he will ever have.
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Tony is eighteen when he just can't do it anymore. Everything hurts, as it has for a lot of years. Everything is hitting him in just the wrong places and his body is so heavy he can't lift his hands even though he's well trained. Last year Brad Pitt broke his leg, not the actor, another footballplayer. Tony doesn't play football anymore even though he was a good player. He was going to go pro. Now he lays in bed and he doesn't get up when the doorbell chimes. He doesn't want to get up. He doesn't want to see anyone. He just wants to die.
Tony has a lot of pills in his apartment, painkillers, sleepingaids...and he takes them. He takes so many that he doesn't remember being driven to the hospital by his friends, he doesn't remember having a tube shoved into his stomach or recieving charchoal for all the pills he's taken. He doesn't remember puking black liquid at the staff.
But he remembers waking up.
Tony says he overestimated, that he was partying, that he feels like a moron. They nod and write and finally lets him go home. The voices tells him what a good boy he is for being able to manipulate himself out of being admitted to the psychward.
Tony still wants to die.
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When Tony is 19 years old, reality becomes a bubble. Reality isn't real. Sometimes when he's in class, a vortex opens up in a wall and tentacles shoot out ready to grab anyone in the vacinity before dragging them into another dimension filled with terrors beyond Tony's wildest dreams. Tony starts to skip school and go to his apartment, because he needed somewhere to be alone.
Tony locks his door and refuses to let anyone in, not that people come around that often. The voices tell him that he's being monitored, and that if he sees someone he loves the voices will kill them like they killed his mother. Tony believes them and he doesn't open his door when the doorbell chimes. He manages to send textmessages to a couple of his friends. He leaves money under the doormat and his friends shop for food before leaving it on his doorstep. Then they leave. He can tell they're concerned because he's not answering the door but when they try to call him he sends them angry messages because he's just trying to protect them! He doesn't want them to die, why can't they understand that?
Tony doesn't take out his trash and he's scared, he's scared because he can't go outside. It smells horrible inside and his landlady has asked him kindly to remove his trash but Tony doesn't dare go outside.
Tony also goes over his apartment at least seven times every day, searching for cameras. When he's in bed at night he knows the pople in the Green Room, the one with all the greenglowing computermonitors, are watching him with nightvision, recording his every move and his every sound.
When it passes, which it really doesn't it just gets a little better, his friends band together and clean up his apartment. His landlady is grateful for Tony's friends.
His voices are grateful that Tony is listening to them.
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Tony is 22 when he's had enough of the voices, he's managed to begin dragging himself off to see a shrink. The shrink gives him medication but Tony hates how he feels on those pills so he says "no thanks" and the shrink accepts it. Tony likes the shrink, he's funny and smart and everything the voices (well except for Lily) aren't. Together they try to find a cause for the voices and bit by bit Tony finally manages to find out who he is and who he was. He finally has something real to hold on to.
Tony manages to crawl out of the Dead Place, the place where all he wanted was to die. It feels weird, being in the Living Place, where he fights to survive each day, but it's nice. Better than the Dead Place.
The shrink says Tony has to face facts, that he will hear the voices every day for the rest of his life, but Tony doesn't lose hope because of that, no, he becomes more determined to survive, to thrive, to win! The shrink is impressed by the work Tony is doing.
Piece by piece, Tony manages to put his life together but it's still not complete. Then he becomes a cop. His shrink okays it and he talks to Tony's teachers who agree that Tony seems healthy enough. They make exceptions for Tony and Tony is living again, breathing again, seeing colors again. The wind is fresher, the air is cleaner, and Tony is running faster than he ever has.
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Tony doesn't like Maryland anymore. They ask his voices to lead them to perps and Tony doesn't like that. The voices become worse and Tony moves on. It's the same. Then Tony goes to Baltimore and it's good for a while, Tony thrives, he makes friends, and he's suddenly a Detective. Then they begin too.
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Tony is 28 years old when he meets Gibbs on a case. After the case Gibbs says Tony is his, now. Tony belongs to him. Tony likes to belong and it was time to leave Baltimore anyway. People laugh and say he won't last a week with the strict Agent Gibbs, but Tony wants to prove them wrong.
"You're a failure." says "Fairy".
"You won't make a year! You're too stupid!" says Oscar and stands by the road as Agent Gibbs drives by with Tony in the passengerseat. The Dead Man never changes but Tony's not afraid of him anymore, in fact he barely sees him. Just when the emotional stress becomes too much.
"YOU'VE BROKEN OUR DEAL!" screams Tim and Tony snickers to himself earning a raised eyebrow from Gibbs. That's okay, he'll know soon enough.
"I wonder how this car is put together." that's Boy. Tony smiles again, he feels giddy.
"Let me sing you a song about failing, Tony, you'll understand," says Lady and Tony groans inwardly, the giddy feeling is all but gone when Lily speaks.
"You know all your voices are stir crazy, right?" she asks and Tony can't contain the laughter bubbling from his chest. Gibbs is now looking like Tony is crazy and he's right to, because Tony knows he's crazy, but it's alright, Tony's okay and he's alive.
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Tony doesn't know how it happened but Gibbs has become Tony's friend. He wasn't kidding when he said "You belong to me now." As often as they can, they spend time together. Gibbs knows all about the voices, and he's not afraid of Tony anymore than he's afraid of following his gut. Gibbs always follow his gut, and his gut says that Tony is a remarkable young man. He's right, because Tony is alive and reading through the statistics that is remarkable. Tony should have been dead, lord knows he's certainly tried enough times to kill a gigantic herd of elephants. Tony hasn't tried since he landed in the hospital and the psychiatrists tried to admit him. Gibbs knows that too.
They eat chinesefood and watch movies, Tony talks about the voices and Gibbs is fascinated, not horrified, he listens and asks and Tony begs him not to tell anyone else. Tony just wants to be normal. Gibbs responds by saying Tony's secret is safe with Gibbs so Tony smiles, he grins, he jokes around because he never got to do that when he was sick, the voices wouldn't allow him.
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Tony never tells Kate until she's dead. The voices takes the credit for her death but Tony brushes them aside because he doesn't have time for it, he's grieving and he's trying to find Ari, the man who killed Kate.
Tony isn't surprised Gibbs spares him the trouble. He's surprised at Ziva though, because she knows so much about him it should've been easy enough to find out that Tony really is crazy. Gibbs explains he's had it stricken from Tony's records but he keeps the files at Ducky's in a fireproof safe in case Tony becomes crazy again. Tony smiles, he belongs to Gibbs now and it feels good.
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Tony's managed to create rooms in his brain. He's created dungeons to lock his voices in and he doesn't see The Dead Man anymore because he's locked away with the voices. He's created a gigantic room where he can lock the door and the voices can't peek in. They can't see what he stores in there, and Tony only stores happy memories in that room. He spends a lot of time in there until the voices are a background noise, like white noise. Gibbs congratulates him and says Tony is the strongest person he knows. Tony blushes and hugs Gibbs who hugs him back.
When Tony stands later that night, Gibbs is taken aback by the honesty in Tony's voice when he calls for everyone's attention. Ducky, Palmer, Abby, McGee and Ziva are all there and Tony tells them about the voices. They're all very quiet until they jump up and hug him. They say he's strong and smart and that they love him, to never hesitate in asking for help and then Gibbs hug him again and says how proud he is of Tony.
Later that night Tony understands why the voices doesn't have anymore power over him. He HAS a family now. He doesn't need the voices to help him anymore. He looks over his family as they keep talking until Gibbs touches his shoulder. Tony looks up and Gibbs jerks his head in the direction of the backyard behind Gibbs's house. Tony follows him.
Outside, they sit down on the patio, and Gibbs hands him a box. Tony opens it to find a beautiful knife, disguised as a beltbuckle. Tony reads what has been engraved on it.
"You are my family. LJG."
Tony doesn't need the stupid voices anymore. He has a family now and he will have all the support he will ever need. He might never get rid of them completely but right now, everything is okay. Tony is alive, the night smells good and Gibbs is holding him while Tony cries.
Life is good.
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AN: So...what did you think? I'm very nervous about this story, seriously, it's scaring the crap out of me. I'm always happy for reviews :3