Part 3
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Okay, there is some David & Don in this part. I haven't written about these two before and the characters don't really lend themselves to this type of story but I thought at some point David needs to be "part of the family" ;o). If you don't like this then hopefully you'll like the next. It'll be all Colby and Don.
As always thanks for the kind reviews. It makes me happy to read them.
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The next morning Don picked Colby up from the hospital and brought him to the Eppes house. He had already gotten a bunch of Colby's stuff and put it in the guest room to make the younger man feel at home.
"Do you want to have breakfast or did you get enough at the hospital?" he asked.
Colby looked at him sheepishly, "Breakfast would be nice. I didn't eat at the hospital. But don't you have to go to work?"
"I took the week of – someone needs to keep you out of trouble." Don responded with a grin.
Colby blushed in surprise and embarrassment. He could not believe that Don would spend his precious vacation days on him. "But that is really not necessary. I promise I'll be good."
"Colby, I want to be here with you. And I was just joking - this isn't really about keeping you out of trouble or supervising your grounding. I want us to spend some time together and get back to normal, ok?" Don explained. Colby gave him a grateful smile in return. It was nice to feel wanted again.
Don continued, "Now, how about I make us some eggs and then you can take a nap or spend some time up here reading. Dr. Greene will be here in the early afternoon."
Colby's face fell. "Do I really have to talk to Dr. Greene?" he whined, "I don't want to and I don't need to either. I already feel much better."
"I am glad to hear you feel better." Don's voice grew stern. "But yes you have to talk to Dr. Greene until HE tells me you don't need to."
"That is so unfair. I am a grown man after all." The young agent grumbled petulantly.
The team lead just looked at him with a raised eye brow, "Uh huh. This is not up for discussion."
"But Don …" Colby tried to protest again but was cut of by Don spinning him around and placing a couple smacks on his behind. "It's enough. You have one choice only. You can speak to Dr. Greene or you can speak to Dr. Greene with a sore backside. Do you understand?"
"Yes sir. I speak to him." Colby replied contritely.
"Wise choice. But make no mistake. If I hear that you are not cooperating with him or if I get the sense you are lying to the doctor you will answer to me. I hope I made myself clear." Don wanted to make sure his agent got some professional help.
"Yes sir." Colby repeated.
"Alright, then let's go have breakfast."
The morning went well in the Eppes household. After a nice long breakfast which Colby and Don used to talk about a lot of things that had nothing to do with their troubles of the recent weeks Colby indeed took a nap until Dr. Greene arrived.
After speaking to the young agent for two hours the Doctor asked Don for a word.
"Is he okay?" Don inquired worriedly.
"Yes, I just wanted to let you know whatever you and your team did in the last 24 hours already worked wonders. He is on his way to getting better. I had a long talk with him about medication dependencies and alcohol and we laid down some ground rules you should be aware of. I gave him some things to read on the subject and I am sure he'll share that with you. We made an agreement that there will be no alcohol for him for at least 8 weeks. Also he will go off all the meds immediately besides one which we adjust to a lower dosage for three days before taking him off. You can expect some nightmares and insomnia but in a week or so that should all start getting better. Just let him rest during the day if he doesn't get enough sleep at night and do the same yourself." The doctor explained.
"Oh good." Don sighed in relief.
The doctor continued, "So how are you doing?"
"Drained I guess and … I don't know," Don answered, "I just wish he was feeling better and we could all go back to the way things were. And even more I wish I could get around punishing him. He's been through so much – we all have."
"I understand that, Don. But you and I know that Mr. Granger needs to feel sufficiently punished in order to forgive himself and move on. He expects a hard punishment and deep down he knows he's been pushing for it." the doctor responded.
"I know," Don sighed, "When do you think we can do it? If I have to do it then I'd rather get it over with."
"In my eyes there is no need to wait. He is physically recovered from yesterday's events and his emotional recovery will be helped in the long run." Seeing the look in Don's eyes the Doctor continued. "You are doing the right thing. Let that help you through this and call me if you need me. If you don't then I'd like to come back in a couple days to see how things are progressing.
"Sounds good. Thanks for coming over." Don walked the Doctor to the front door before going upstairs to see his agent.
Colby was in his room reading in Dr. Greene's material.
"Hey, how did it go?" Don asked.
"Alright. He was nice. And he gave me all this stuff about dependencies and things. I guess you want to have a look at this too?"
"Yes, I do. And thank you for talking to Dr. Greene." Don responded.
"It's not like I had much of a choice." Colby answered with a little grin obviously not holding a grudge.
"No, I guess you didn't." Don laughed.
The rest of the afternoon the two men read through the Doctor's information and talked a lot. Still feeling a bit emotionally raw Colby told Don very openly how he started to take more and more pills and mix them and how that had numbed the pain and emotions and allowed him to sleep. Don's heart went out to the younger man.
Later they had dinner with Alan, Charlie and David who came to visit. After dinner David asked if he could speak to Colby in private which they did for the next two hours. Don never knew what had been said between the two friends but he figured that David apologized and that the two of them somehow made up. When David came back downstairs he found Don by himself – Charlie having to go back into the office to finish some work and Alan being out on a date.
"How did it go?" Don inquired.
"Good, I think. He was pretty tired and is sleeping now." David sat down with a sigh.
"And how are you feeling?"
"I don't know. I am glad he forgave me and I am happy that I don't feel angry at him anymore but I still feel bad for what I did. I let him believe that I hated him and I could see what it did to him the whole time. I just wanted him to suffer for betraying our friendship and I didn't care how much he was hurting." David responded sadly.
Before Don could say anything David took a deep breath and very quickly continued, "And I feel rotten that he is going to be spanked while at least part of this is my fault. I am really sorry. You said yesterday that you think I deserve to be punished and I just wanted to let you know that I'll accept whatever you think is fair."
Don looked at his agent flabbergasted. He had been disappointed the previous day but he had definitely not planned on punishing David. Actually he had never imagined to be in a situation where he'd have to do more than mildly reprimand David who could normally be trusted to follow the rules and stay out of trouble. Very hesitantly he said, "Are you sure this is what you want?"
David nodded with a miserable look on his face. The team lead could tell that his agent felt incredibly guilty and probably needed to feel like he had paid some sort of price before he and Colby could really go back to being friends on equal terms. So the team lead nodded with a heavy heart and said, "Ok, just go to the den and wait for me there."
A few minutes later Don entered the den ping pong paddle in hand. He closed the door and went to his agent. "Are you absolutely sure about this? You have apologized and made up with Colby and I won't think any less of you if you walk out of here now."
With a shake of his head David just said, "I am sure."
"Ok, I am very proud of you for admitting your mistake and for accepting the consequences." With these words Don beckoned his agent to stand up and follow him to the back of the couch. There he instructed him bend over but allowed him to keep his clothes in place. Don figured that his proud agent would respond better to this style punishment than to being put over his bosses' knees.
David complied embarrassed but without protest. Putting a hand on the agent's lower back Don moved close to his left side to provide some contact and stability before starting the spanking with his open hand.
SPANK SPANK SPANK SPANK SPANK
His hand landed rhythmically all up and down David's butt - even though this was only the warm up he spanked hard wanting to keep this punishment as short as possible. David could not believe how much Don's hand stung after a while even on his slacks. But he knew he had been out of line and was determined to take his punishment.
Don continued his steady hand spanking for about two minutes. By that time David started having trouble staying completely still and started to squirm slightly
Getting the first reaction out of his agent Don grabbed the ping pong paddle he had placed on the couch. David was too concentrated on his smarting backside to see what was going on but he knew what was happening and tried to steel himself.
When Don started spanking him with the ping pong paddle he could not help grasping with every swat. This hurt so much worse than just the hand spanking.
Don decided to drive the point home with a dozen hard swats to David's undercurve and a little lecture, "You know" SMACK "why we are here" SMACK "You do not" SMACK "treat your friends" SMACK "this way" SMACK "or anybody else" SMACK "for that matter" SMACK "I hope" SMACK "we don't have to" SMACK "repeat this ever again" SMACK SMACK SMACK
A few tears made their way down David's cheeks by the time Don was done but otherwise he was still in control. Don put the paddle aside and helped his agent up. Sensing that David would not appreciate too much contact at this point he just gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze and then left the room to give him some time to compose himself.
A couple minutes later Don came back with two beers and asked David to sit down on the couch next to him.
David looked skeptical but didn't dare to disagree so he sat down gingerly.
"You okay?" Don asked. David just shrugged.
"Okay, I guess that is good enough for now. Just listen to me for a moment. You have been punished and we won't speak of what happened again. Colby has forgiven you and I hope you have too. I am glad the two of you worked it out and I am still very proud that you came to me and accepted your punishment like you did." Don told him genuinely.
Two more tears made their way down David's face at the praise and he looked away embarrassed. Don pulled him into a quick side hug. "It's okay. There is no shame in crying. Trust me, I have done my fair share." He said with a little smile.
"YOU?" David asked disbelievingly. Don nodded still smiling a bit, "Sure. And if I pulled a stunt like the ones Colby seems to be getting into lately I'm not sure my Dad nor his friend our esteemed director would hesitate to dish out the same medicine."
David didn't really believe him but laughed a little at the thought and instantly felt better. The two of them shared some beers and talked about the events surrounding Colby with a sense of hope to be able to go back to being something like a family – though Don knew that his youngest agent still had some ways to go. And he wasn't wrong. A couple hours later Don woke up from a horrible scream out of Colby's room.
He rushed over there with Charlie on his heels. Colby was sitting up in the bed sobbing obviously just woken from a horrible nightmare. Don sat down next to him and pulled him into a hug. "It's okay. I have got you. It was just a dream."
It took less than a minute for Colby to calm down but he was wide awake now and feeling very embarrassed about acting like a child. "It's okay. You can go to bed. I'll be fine." He tried to shoo the brothers away. They looked at each other.
"No way," Charlie said, "I am staying here till you go back to sleep."
Don looked at his brother proudly, "Well I guess it's a slumber party now," He grinned, "Why don't I go get us something to drink and maybe a video to watch. He turned to Colby, "Even though young man you should know that videos are not a usual part of being grounded in this house."
Colby blushed a bit. "Can I help you?" he asked. Don sensed that his agent wanted to tell him something and nodded. "Sure. Charlie, maybe you can get pillows and blankets?"
Don and Colby went downstairs and while Don got soft drinks he could see the internal struggle in Colby. "Just spit it out," he tried to help his agent along.
"Well … I just … I just wanted to know … when you are going to punish me?" Colby looked embarrassed at the floor.
Don looked at him. He should have seen this coming. Instead of an answer he asked back, "Do you want to get it over with or would you rather wait a couple days?"
Colby looked at him surprised at the choice, "Get it over with I guess."
Don sighed. "Ok, then we'll get started tomorrow afternoon."
Colby just hung his head but said softly, "Ok."
"Now let's go see if we find a movie you like and try to forget about punishments." Don proposed putting an arm around his youngest agent's shoulders.
And that is what they did. But there wasn't much sleep to come by for the rest of the night – at least for Colby and Don – Charlie fell asleep curled up on the floor sometime during the first movie whereas the other two watched two more before falling into a light slumber.
