A/N: So, despite the fact that most of my other stories are on hold right now, I've decided to post a new one, in the hopes that, if I can just get the spare plot bunnies out of my head, I can get back to work on my usual crowd pleasers; Secrets and Special Friends, Killing Kate, etc.
A little warning for all those who may know my other stories; this one is a supernatural fic, along similar lines to Angel's Soul and Devil's tears. The creatures described in this particular story are my own creation and are known as Benpyri (plural) or Benpyr (singular). They are humanoid creatures who, while not immortal, can live indefinitely if not killed by external forces (ie- bullets, knife wounds, strangulation, etc.). All normal forms of murder or accidental death will kill a Benpyr, however, because of heightened senses and quicker reflexes, they are less likely to be caught in deadly circumstances. This does not stop them form getting killed in wars, in accidents in the wilderness, animal attacks, murder, or other such tragic events.
In the lifetime of a Benpyr, childhood is from birth to age twenty-five, and the twenty-fifth birthday is the average beginning of puberty where the Benpyr child will undergo what is known as the change. Prior to the change, Benpyr children are no different from humans, but afterwards, their senses are stronger, their reflexes are faster, and their bodies cease to change, while their blood cells deteriorate faster. They are most emphatically not vampires, but they do ingest blood to replenish their systems. Once human or animal blood has been ingested, the toxins in a Benpyr's own blood will eat away at it and begin to digest and change it until it has deteriorated to the same level as the rest of Benpyr's blood, and then the cycle repeats.
Because of this toxin in a Benpyr's blood, if a human were to ingest it or the blood that carries it, the human's own blood would undergo the same process as a Benpyr's. Some humans will survive this process, and others won't, all depending on the physical health and strength of the human.
Benpyr children, existing in the same way as humans until the twenty-fifth birthday, are not meant to undergo the change because they are not yet any stronger than humans. When they are subjected to the change, they are held to the same rules as any human who was changed and may very well not survive. Those who do survive will continue to grow until the age bracket of twenty-five to thirty-five, and then their growth will stop, just as all others do. The stress of the too-early change often causes their hair to go grey early.
Humans who are changed will have the same results if they are changed before age twenty-five, but will not grow at all if changed after age twenty-five. Clearly, Benpyr's can give birth to children of their own, but the gestational period is one year instead of nine months, and they are not fully grown until twenty-five as previously stated.
The full story of the history of the Benpyri community will be explained throughout the story, but I will at least describe a few very basic things now. The Benpyri are ruled by a monarchy, and the royal family was originally the Persian Sassanid empire, but during the wars with the Roman Empire, they were dethroned and slaughtered. Assassination attempts had occurred before obviously, and had often succeeded, but only during the Persian-Roman wars was the royal family completely wiped out in a coup led by Roman Benpyri who took advantage of their country's invasions into Persia. The revolutionaries ruled for a brief period, but were soon overthrown and replaced by a new king who began a chain of ill-fated kings; each one was assassinated or chose to resign after no more than a century.
Also provided in the author's notes; a brief character profile for the NCIS team.
Gibbs: An ancient Benpyr with no idea as to his heritage. He awoke at age seven after the change with total amnesia from the trauma of the event. He grew up on the streets of Persia along with many other orphans of the war, learning on his own how to handle his condition. He married young, but his wife and unborn daughter died during childbirth. He never married again, but did go through the Benpyri equivalent with three other women over the following two thousand years. He had no more children.
Ducky: As a human, he served with Gibbs in the Scottish Royal Army during the early thirteen hundreds, and when he was mortally wounded in battle, Gibbs changed him in an attempt to save his friend. The two have remained close ever since and know much about each other. It was Ducky who first prompted Gibbs to search for his birth parents and sire.
Tony: A young Benpyr, barely fifty years old, he was born of a Benpyr mother, and a human father. When his father discovered the truth of his wife and son, he became abusive towards the boy, and Tony ran away at age sixteen. He learned to fend for himself, much as Gibbs did, and it was this commonality that forged the bond between the two men.
Abby: An early starter, she went through the change quickly at age twenty-three, four years earlier, and almost died during the experience. The daughter of two Benpyri, her father an old friend of Gibbs's from World War one, Gibbs quickly offered her a job when he recognized her talents for forensics.
Kate: Born human at the turn of the eighteenth century in then-colonial America, she was turned shortly after her thirtieth birthday when she was attacked on the road home from her parents house. She had bitten her attacker, and swallowed some of his blood before being knocked unconscious. She has no memory of anything else that happened that night, but when she awoke, she could sense the difference in herself, and she ran from her husband, a British diplomat twelve years her senior, and made her own way pretending to be a widow. As the times changed, she flourished in woman's new-found power, and was soon working in the Secret Service before being recruited by Gibbs and NCIS.
Morrow: A human-turned-Benpyr, born in 1933 and changed at age forty, he already had experience as a political figure, so he was placed at the head of NCIS so as to better monitor the Benpyri population within the Navy. He discovered Gibbs and Ducky in 1991, and, knowing the two came as a packaged deal, he hired Ducky as a medical examiner, and Gibbs as an agent. After some training with humans Jennifer Sheppard and Mike Franks, Gibbs was given his own team of Benpyri agents so that Morrow would have an MCRT team devoted to cases that involved the Benpyri community.
Gerald: A young human who was turned into a Benpyr at twenty-two and has only just turned twenty-six. He works as Ducky's assistant and lives as the ME's lover.
The following are people who may or may not appear, so I am simply describing their stories in case they do.
Ziva: A super-soldier experiment based in Israeli Mossad where young agents were asked to volunteer to be changed so that they could be trained as weapons. She was changed at nineteen and trained for a year before the program was shut down. Betrayed and abandoned, and mostly unable to comprehend her condition, she fled from Israel to America from her father, the man who led Mossad and had urged her to volunteer.
McGee: The son of two Benpyri, his father was killed serving in Desert Storm when he was eighteen. He devoted the rest of his life to the cause that his father had so steadfastly believed in- the marines and the navy.
Now that I've bored you all to tears and written an author's note longer than the chapter I'm publishing... I'd just like to remind everybody to read, review, and suggest improvement or progress at any time. Reviews guilt trip me into writing new chapters (Ask the Secrets and Special Friends fans, it worked a couple of times for them.) and make me feel like I'm not talking to a brick wall. Hope you enjoy the following story. I give you...
The Colour Red
The silver haired man stood in the center of the conference room, staring blankly at the cream coloured walls, his whole body quivering with fury. After years of searching, years of hoping, years of desperate belief that he would find the truth, he gave up and only then was he presented with this blasphemous lie? He had very little faith in this world, but what little he did lay shattered at his feet, and all he could think was she's pregnant. It was with growing horror that he recalled the news he had considered so glorious only days earlier. Because it was one thing for his own name to suffer this tragedy, but for her to have to live it with him, and for their unborn child to be affected... That was too much for him. There was no way that fate was this cruel. It was a lie, he was sure of it, and he would make damn sure that everyone else knew it too.
With that decision made, his eyes snapped Back to the only other person in the room and he almost flinched when he saw Tom watching him sympathetically. "There's no way, Tom." He declared certainly, just as he had when he'd first heard the news. "It's just the bastard's sick way of having a little fun. My father is not a traitor."
"It doesn't matter who your father is, Jethro." Tom assured him. "Sins of the father, and all that. It doesn't apply to you. His Majesty knows you're nothing like Remus."
Gibbs shook his head. "No, you don't get it, Tom." He said firmly. "It does matter because I am not the son of a traitor, and I won't have people saying I am. Why is this asshole still walking around free anyway? Everyone knows what he did."
Tom sighed, pulling out a chair and dropping into it tiredly. "I've often wondered that myself." He admitted. "It never seemed to make much sense for a man like Remus to walk free. My only guess is that His Majesty intended to keep an eye on Remus so that he could find any other possible enemies of the crown."
"Which wouldn't exist if Remus wasn't there to turn them!" Insisted Gibbs.
"Look, not you're wrong, but that's not in our control." Morrow reminded the other man. "His claim on you is. So what I'm asking you to decide is, do you want to fight this? If you fight and lose, it'll be announced to the world. If we ignore it, it may stay quiet."
"Remus won't let it lie." Pointed out Gibbs quietly, uncrossing his arms over his chest. "He'll spread the word no matter what. I can't afford to have my reputation crushed by this. I'd be ruined, Tom, my life, my reputation, and my career. I have to fight it."
Morrow nodded. "I was afraid of that."
The petite brunette watched Gibbs pace, her lips pressed together tightly as she sat on a cleared off space on his work table in the basement. "It's not so bad." She said finally, hoping to break his reverie as he paced alongside his boat.
Gibbs looked up in shock. "How can you say that Katie?" He demanded. "It's extremely bad! Do you have any idea what'll happen if it gets out that I'm the son of the most dangerous man in our world? I'd never be able to work in law enforcement again, and I'd have a target on my back for the rest of my life. And what about you and the baby?"
Kate bowed her head, recognizing his point. "I didn't think about that." She murmured sadly. "But what if it's true, Jeth? What do we do then?"
He shrugged. "It's not true, so we'll never have to find out."
Her lips pressed tighter. "It's all very well for you to say that now." She said darkly. "But the world isn't perfect. Just because you're a wonderful man doesn't mean that your father isn't a traitor. We can't prove it Jethro! And as long as that's true, his claim will stand unless someone else contests it." He didn't say anything and Kate stared at him in shock. "Oh my God, that's what you're hoping for, aren't you?" She gasped. "Jethro, it's been almost two thousand years!"
"One thousand, eight hundred, seventy four." Specified Gibbs sourly.
"And if you haven't been claimed in all this time, what makes you think you'll be claimed now?" Demanded Kate, folding her arms under her breasts in a warning. "Do you really think that if your father never cared about your emotional well-being that he'd step up now just to save your reputation?"
When he looked up, he looked tired, hurt, and vulnerable, and Kate made a small, apologetic noise in the back of her throat as she slid off the table. She slipped over to him and wrapped her arms around him from behind, nestling her cheek against his back, between his shoulder blades. He set a hand gently over hers on his stomach, stroking her fingers slowly, and neither of them seemed inclined to move any time soon.
He wished that Kate could be here, that he could hold her hand while he went through this. He stood in the room with the king, a man he'd only met once before in his life, and Tom Morrow, and Remus Catalan, the man who claimed to be Gibbs's father and sire. Gibbs cast a dark glare over Remus, this being the first time he'd ever met the man.
It occurred to him that he'd expect none of the horrible deeds attributed to Remus just by looking at him. Remus was a distinguished looking middle aged man, his hair almost jet black with streaks of grey running through it, he was clean-shaven, and the clothes he wore gave him the air of being a trusted and upstanding college professor. The lenses of his square, black framed glasses glinted in the light, and his dark brown eyes gleamed with intelligence, his lips curved with a contemptible smirk. He appeared arrogant, yes, but not outwardly ugly or cruel, and for once, Gibbs hesitated. Maybe his reputation was unearned? Perhaps Remus was a man who gained a traitor's reputation because he disagreed with the king and had been relegated a scapegoat because of it. It wasn't unheard of after all.
But then Remus turned his head slightly to look at Gibbs, and the younger man could literally feel the air around him get colder. A shiver ran down his spine, and, even though he refused to move or show his discomfort, he was sure that Remus knew. The man's smirk grew, but it never reached those icy cold eyes, and Gibbs found that, for the first time, he was the one to break eye contact first. When he had looked into the man's eyes, he had recognized them. He'd remembered. He'd seen this man striding out of a room in a richly furnished hall, and been dimly aware of a woman's voice calling after him from inside. But he shook this aside. There was no way it was true, and he'd never believe it.
Throughout all of this, the king had been muttering under his breath with another man dressed in the colours of the royal house, although a standard uniform no longer existed. But now, he waved his hand and the servant disappeared as the king straightened up on his throne and turned to look back at the two men standing in front of him. "I have received written statements from the both of you." He announced, his voice deep and rich, just as Gibbs remembered. It was a soothing voice, a charismatic one, and it was often suggested that His Majesty's voice was the source of his power, rather than his throne. "And I have read through each one carefully. It is my decision that the evidence in this case is overwhelmingly strong in favour of Remus Catalan, but not conclusive. I'm afraid that no judgment can be made without solid evidence. Agent Gibbs has requested this trial in order to establish a final decision, and as such, I ask that you give me something definite Catalan, or I'll rule in his favour."
The smirk hadn't left Remus's face, and that worried Gibbs. A lot. He shifted his weight nervously, causing Morrow to rest a steady hand on his shoulder, as Remus began to speak. "I know of a birthmark in the small of his back, a small mark, like a snake." His voice was smooth and low, but it didn't have the same comforting quality as the king's did.
"That's a well documented mark." Objected Morrow, speaking for the first time.
The king nodded. "It is. Something more substantial, please, Remus."
Remus nodded and Gibbs got a churning feeling deep in his gut from the glint in the other man's eye. "I can tell you the exact moment I changed him." He offered, and the king nodded. "I had been away for very long, and I was looking forward to coming home to my family. But when I arrived, I found my son near death after having been attacked while out riding."
What frightened Gibbs most of all was that he could remember this, every detail of it, as the images unfolded before him like a flower in bloom. A looked on as a small boy lay, bloody and broken, beside a young mare, a stallion a short distance away with a man's arm sprawled out in view behind the horse's corpse.
"He was only seven years old." Gibbs held back a flinch at that, refusing to show his anxiety. "And the guard who usually rode with him was dead nearby. I was so panicked, that all I could think of was saving my son. I knew that, although he would transform naturally at twenty-five, he wasn't old enough yet and he would not survive without help. So I changed him early, despite all reasons to the contrary."
And Gibbs could remember that too, Remus's face hovering over his, leaning down to examine his wounds.
Morrow glanced over at his friend and saw that he'd gone pale, and he knew, just knew. Remus's story was the truth. The king was also watching Gibbs, and he nodded slowly. "Do you dispute this, Agent Gibbs?" He asked quietly.
"I..." Gibbs couldn't find the words to speak. He couldn't lie to his king, could he? But he also couldn't allow his name to be sullied by Remus. "I don't..." The words dried up on his tongue, and he closed his mouth slowly, lowering his eyes.
"I see." The king stood up slowly, glancing sorrowfully at Gibbs. "Then, by royal decree, it shall be known that Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs has been claimed as a son by the traitor Remus Catalan."
A/N: So, this is the first chapter, and I'm already writing the next bit, so hopefully this story might actually make it. I know it's a bit soap opera-y, but I hope you'll bear with me, and I hope you enjoyed. Evil cliff-hangers will happen, and there will be flashback chapters. Explanations will be given, and drama will naturally ensue. Please review, and please look out for updates!