Trauma
Tony looked at the screen in front of him blankly. It was set to it's standard dark blue background and the icons clearly placed deliberately on the right side. He stared at the middle of the computer screen, obviously either extremely bored or in deep thought.
'Stop it please!'
He shivered and turned his head away, mumbling and scratching the back of his head.
'No! Please, I have not done anything!'
He shook his head once more and licked his bottom lip as his heart began to speed up a little, perspiration beginning to form on his brow.
Dark..cold..damp..humid..sweltering..cramped.
'I see we have somebody knew, shall I get you well aquatinted?'
'P-Please..'
'Please what? Do not hurt you? Are you trying to command me when you are the one who is obviously bound by the hands in a pitiful chair, locked inside a room with no one to save you? I find it offensive to deny my offer..all I want is to get to..know you..'
He breathed out shakily and began to rub his temples with his thumbs on either side of his head. Taking a shaky breath in he looked around the office, everyone was busy to their work, typing in various things, luckily too busy to notice him.
'Do not scream..it'll only make it worse..'
Various images flashed across inside his head, one that were not for the weak of heart. He had only been able to sit and watch as the events went on, straight faced and emotionless. Up until now.
He hadn't been talking as much since they had gotten back from that godforsaken place. Most people had let him be and he was partially thankful for this as he really just thought he needed time to himself, alone to his thoughts even though they were usually not pleasant.
Those who had not gone on the mission which were everyone but around four, had all made quiet notes to themselves that perhaps the notorious Dinozzo had gone slightly mad with the heat and he had come to terms with this with a few minor symptoms.
Even Tony had to admit that perhaps he did look partially crazed when he sat at his desk staring off into space, or turned in a corner talking to himself audibly. It simply wasn't normal behaviour. However, many decided it was best to leave him at his thoughts and soon he would slowly slide back into himself, talking to normal people instead of himself, looking at his screen, reading, instead of blankly out into space.
Tony finally calmed himself enough to swivel back around in his chair to look at the screen for more then a moment while consciously knowing he looked a bit unnerved.
Sudden footsteps hit the floor, coming closer and closer to Tony's desk but the young man didn't seem to eve take the slightest notice of this and continued to look at the picture on the screen.
"Tony,"
The voice was familiar, he would give it that. He looked at the computer for another moment, going over the voice again and again in his ehad until it finally registered, someone was talking to him, someone he knew, someone he saw everyday, someone important, someone...
Gibbs!
Tony, instead of reacting at an alarmed rate, he instead, slowly looked up, something was evidently wrong when the reaction was so slow and subtle, much unlike Tony's usual personality.
"Tony, is everything alright? You don't seem...youself."
"I'm fine boss, just uh, staring off a bit. Spacey.."
Gibbs looked at him for a moment, hands on hips until he finally sighed and nodded. "Heat can work in mysterious ways son, but listen, do you remember rule number seven?"
Tony thought for a moment, he never forgot a single rule, up until at that moment. He waited for a moment, hopeful it would come to him like a long lost boomerang. But then it hit him.
"Be specific.." Tony started,
"When you lie." Gibbs finished for him when Tony decided to trail off.
Gibbs raised an eyebrow, getting no more responses he sighed once more and nodded. "Listen, it might of just been the heat, the anxiety, the adrenaline rushes. It may of just sucked the living life out of ya'. But no matter what, if your going to contribute to this case, you've got to get a move on. If you can't do it, take some time, you honestly deserve some, you're not acting normal, Dinozzo."
"Yes sir and no sir. I will speed up in the case, I refuse to accept the days off. I don't think spending time alone is in my best interest at the moment boss.."
Gibbs raised an eyebrow, since when did Tony give a serious and intelligent sounding comeback without a smirk or smile? Something to break the seriousness?
"Like I said before, you're not action normal, Dinozzo, not normal at all." Gibbs said as he strode back to his area, only turning back once to see the younger man's following eyes.
There was something about that kid...that was just never steady in the past week and he could almost put his finger on it, but just barely before it slipped from beneath his grasp. He wanted badly to send him to a doctor, to get him some treatment. But he wasn't sure exactly what kind of doctor to send him to.
(.)
Tony looked at the ceiling above him, licking his bottom lip once more as he studied the meticulously carved words. They were deep, defining and rich. Different words scattered amoung these, all various and seemingly random.
Some were random words, others were random phrases. But they were so carefully done, it looked as though it took quite some time to carve each letter into the paneling. To this, it took great dedication, showing a one-track mind, but also showing some psychological issues as the phrases were so intriguing. They were random, pushed and untranslatable.
"STAIN"
"STAINS SHOULD BE"
"TRUE FACES"
"MASKS WE WEAR HIDE THE"
"TRUTH IS UNDERLYING"
It hardly fit together to make out anything of even partial sense. These were some signs of psychosis, perhaps even schizophrenia. But it seemed unlikely that an officer would be unnoticed as mentally unstable when facing everyone daily, it would seem at some point that even though he may would be a great actor, at some point he would slip up and would have to psychologically evaluated.
It didn't fit together.
Unless, he didn't kill himself and was actually framed.
The man who was killed, the officer, Dubenache , yes, there was a gun next to him, perhaps not is ownership, perhaps so. No one had seen the gun before, but could it be ruled off that this was another mans gun who wore gloves when using the pistol, shot the man and put Dubenache's fingers onto the gun to frame him of the crime, put the fire weapon next to him, but he only did this all after he had snuck in and had carefully carved the phrases with a trusty knife which had to be pretty sharp to be able to do it in such a quick burst of time and so perfectly.
He also must of been an expert carver.
Tony thought all these thoughts over and over in his ehad, making sure it all made sense to himself and what the facts of the case that he gotten so far.
Yes, it fit together, perhaps he could bring up his theory to his boss, perhaps some bonus point could be earned plus he may not be so worried about him anymore if he played it off correctly. It would also help out with the case.
"Gibbs, boss, what if it wasn't Officer Dubenache but instead someone else?"
"Tony, all evidence point out that it was him, people aboard even said he was becoming unstable, talk of killing himself was no uncommon for the man."
"Yeah, but think about this. Those carvings up there on the ceiling, they don't seem to flow together in any particular order, right?"
"Your correct."
"There a bit random wouldn't you say."
"Particularly irrelevant to us, I would say."
"Okay, now your just trying to sound more intelligent then me.." Tony muttered with a soft smile.
"Continue Dinozzo, I'm getting interested." Gibbs replied with half a smile cracked.
" Well, that leads me to believe he must of been a bit unstable."
"Exactly as I said before."
"However, suicide patients wouldn't of been able to take such great amounts of time and effort to making each word perfectly clear, so crisp, visionary."
Gibbs stayed silent and let his eyebrows lower in deep though. Tony felt a bit of air rush through him as he felt the whole room having their eyes locked in on him.
"It shows signs of schizophrenia, or even more so, deep psychosis. Deep psychosis or schizophrenia doesn't just come out of no where in the span of a few weeks and get to the point where they kill themselves. If they had psychosis, they would of had it from the moment they were traumatized, usually as a child, sometimes young adults. I'm guessing, something deeply traumatizing didn't happen on this boat within those few days, even schizophrenia, if it's risen usually arises from something traumatizing happening. Now, this theory has tons of loopholes and big bunny holes and whatever but just listen to me here on out,"
"My guess? Dubenache didn't kill himself. He was deeply depressed and perhaps slightly suicidal. Someone who was literally psychotic came in with gloved hands, spent over an hour with fine detail into his handy carving work as he is deeply disturbed and went straight to work on killing the officer. He killed the man quickly and put his hands all over the gun, trying to get it so that it looked as though it had been Officer Dubenache's gun all along, since he's been on the boat. All this leads up to one disgruntled, suicidal looking man."
"If Dubenache had been shown as schizo or psycho, he would of been kicked off a long time ago, he didn't become one over night and then kill himself. And besides all this, those carvings, besides taking a lot of time, take a lot of actual skill. Had to of been a carver and from Dubenache's reports, he was terrible at a knife, they thought of even banning him from all knives available to him at all since it looked as though others may of been in danger if he kept one on him, could hardly handle it."
Gibbs opened his mouth slightly, a bit taken back and then swallowed as he raised his eyebrows. "Well Tony, that is quite the theory and I take it into account gratefully, everybody heard that right?"
Everoyne in the room nodded and then gave astonished looks towards Tony.
Gibbs walked by and patted him on the shoulder before leaning into his ear. "Maybe your starting to cool off kid. Good job, keep up the good work."
"Alright everyone! Back to work!" Gibbs finally yelled out as he backed away from the younger man and clapped his hands, letting everyone finish their sampling collections.
Tony stood with a stupid grin on his face, feeling just a tad bit better then earlier and a lot prouder.
(.)
Tony looked own the hall, watching as it seemed to wind endlessly. He had looked down hallways like these many of times in his life, especially one that he had seen not too long ago.
'Let us walk..'
Tony gulped as the rest of the team started to round the corner and come to where he stood still like a concrete statue. He had to go, he didn't want Gibbs thinking he was mentally incapable of continuing the case when he had just proven himself not too long ago.
'Stop! I will not be handled like this by a monster!...Oh, please! I am so sorry! I will never-'
CRACK
'Please!'
CRACK
'PLEASE!'
Screams cluttered the hallway, long buzzes filled his cotton-filled head, and he stumbled forward as he heard another screech.
'I do not understand what you want from me!'
'I cannot stand..'
'Sir, sir please..'
'G-G-GET AWAY FROM M-ME!'
'AHHHH!'
He breathed heavily and clutched his chest as swallowed down a hard lump in his throat.
'Anthony Jr. I told you to stay in this hotel room!'
'You've been gone two days daddy, I was hungry and there wasn't any food in fridge..'
'Y-You get in th-tha...that room NOW!'
'Daddy? Daddy please! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'ma bad boy! I'm sorry!'
'You'll learn to do as I say boy..'
He let out a pained yell and then immediately covered his mouth as he tried to stand up straighter.
"Tony?" A familiar voice called out, it was Abby with a very worried expression planted on her pale face as she looked down where the hallway began, the most narrow and slightly claustrophobic hallway in the boat. She knew, however, that Tony was not a claustrophobic in any sort of way.
When she didn't get a reply but rather more people who shared the same emotion towards Tony at that moment, she began to worry more.
"Tony!"
Still no reply however he did stand up straight and then raised his hand up in a sign of recognition, as if to say he were alright but that's not the way it seemed. Tony took literally four steps into the hallway, shoulder still brushing the side before he leaned against the wall and slumped down onto the floor, shaking uncontrollably.
On the cold metallic floor, lied the man as he screamed out, a thousand vision scorching what was reality.
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