2200 hours.
Tony DiNozzo woke, startled. He lay still, feeling the coolness of the concrete seep up through the thin silk blanket beneath him. Tony glanced around as his eyes adjusted to the dark room. The cellar was never very bright, but Nikola Bronislav, his current owner, usually kept a dim light on in the hallway upstairs. It filtered through the ajar door at the top of the cellar steps, lighting the sleeping bodies of Bronislav's other three slaves. They were all snoring peacefully. Tony tilted his head, hearing nothing. He was just about to lie back down when he saw a shadow move across the light at the top of the steps. With a sinking heart, he recognized the shuffles of his master, heading to the kitchen as he often did in the middle of the night. He'd make his alcohol-infested tea drink and get wasted off of it, then spend the next couple hours or so cursing everything and everyone until he passed out. He was a mean-ass drunk and the worst insomniac Tony had ever known. The guy slept as little as Abby had, back when Tony had a real job that meant something. Tony paused, an image of his happy friend flitting through his mind for a few painful seconds before fading into obscurity. His heart clenched as he tried and failed to hang onto the image. Her dark pigtails, her bright red smiling lips. He swallowed thickly. He was forgetting what his friend looked like. He had already forgotten her voice. Tony shook his head. Abby was dead to him. It had become wrenchingly obvious that his own flesh and blood family couldn't care less about where he was. They had abandoned him to a slave's life of torment, so why did he even think he could count on his former coworkers? He'd only been working at NCIS for two years when China exploded onto the scene. NCIS didn't owe him anything. He thought briefly of Gibbs and Ducky and even Director Morrow before shoving the thoughts roughly out of his head. They were dead to him too.
He pushed aside the blanket and slid his state-issued slave sandals on. Bronislav didn't like bare slave feet dirtying up his floors. Tony had learned that the hard way. He tugged at the inch-and-a-half wide steel collar wrapped around his throat and rubbed at the red marks it left on his neck. He and the other three slaves took turns dealing with Bronislav on the nights when he'd be hitting the bottle. Tonight Tony was the lucky one. He stood and carefully stepped over the others before creeping out of the cellar.
He headed towards the light in the kitchen and dropped to his knees in the doorway. Bronislav's head was in the fridge, his hands rooting around in there for a late snack. He glanced up and saw Tony kneeling there, head down and hands on thighs. He regarded the slave a moment and returned to searching for food.
"Why are you awake, 846?" He mumbled through a thick Slovakian accent.
"I heard your footsteps and thought I could be of service." Tony said softly. The man grunted.
"Put a fire on."
"Yes, master."
Tony rose and walked into the den next door. Bronislav liked to hunt, and this room was tribute to various heads of deer and moose and bears that he had killed over the years. The room was large and the growling heads gave it a creepy, claustrophobic feel. Tony always thought it looked like some sort of pit of hell with all the snarling carnivorous beasts on the walls that looked like they wanted to break through the drywall and rip everyone to shreds. A huge fireplace dominated the center of the far wall. Tony had been allowed to fall asleep in front of a crackling fire on occasions when Bronislav was happy with him or off in another part of the house, drunk and yelling and breaking things, too far gone to notice Tony curled up in front of the warm fire. It was especially nice in the winter, when the concrete floor in the cellar seemed colder than a slab of ice. Though Tony was hardly the man's favorite slave, and the treats in front of the fire were rare. When he was sober, Bronislav doted on the two women he kept as slaves, going as far as letting them eat when they pleased and allowing them to have thinner, smaller, more comfortable leather collars instead of the huge thick metal ones he and the other slave boy wore.
Tony picked up a few logs resting in a box in the corner. He arranged the logs and lit them, coaxing the orange flames higher with bits of kindling. Pleasant heat billowed and the flickering light illuminated pointed white teeth and shiny black plastic eyes. Tony took a blanket and laid it on the back of his master's favorite chair, just in case, before kneeling respectfully by the fire. He sighed. The heat felt good on his bare chest and back.
He had been owned by Bronislav for about nine months, putting him just shy of having been a slave for five full years…ever since China took over after destroying the US government and economy, and well, pretty much everything else.
Nikola Bronislav was one of Ching-Lan's thugs. It was run like the mafia in a way. Ching-Lan played the role of the godfather and her hired men and women were the rest of the family acting as her eyes and ears. The Godfather. Tony smiled. That was a good movie. God, he hadn't seen a movie in ages. None of his owners had been film buffs, unfortunately, and Tony had a laundry list ten miles long of movies he hoped to someday catch up on. There really wasn't much else to hope for. Unless someone changed the 'under forty' law or he got bought by Steven Spielberg it looked like everything was pretty much staying how it was now. He was far too well broken in to try and escape again, not like during the first year. Tony shuddered. Masters tended to hate their property running away. He only had ten more years until he was free…
The Slovak man came into the room. He glanced at the fire and then to the armchair.
"Why is my chair so far? Move it closer to the fireplace, slave."
"Yes, master." Tony rose and dragged the chair a few feet closer to the flames and knelt again near the fireplace. Bronislav grunted and sat down.
"It's too hot, you moron. You put too many logs on."
Tony dropped his forehead to the floor and spoke clearly. "I'm sorry, master."
"No, you're not. Get up!"
Tony lifted his head and stared dully into the fire.
"You've always been an insolent one, 846."
Tony did a mental shrug. It was true.
"Your earlier master, she did a poor job of training you. I should have 430 give you a whipping tonight."
Tony gulped and straightened up.
"That's not necessary, master." Tony said, keeping his tone as respectful as he could manage. "I'll work harder at keeping a civil tongue."
Bronislav didn't answer as he drank his hot beverage. It had a potent, not quite unpleasant spicy menthol smell. It turned the man into a nightmare, sending him into a destructive frenzy. He stared into the depths of the cup and casually pointed at the floor beside the chair. Tony rose and went to the indicated spot beside the armrest before kneeling again. He could still feel the fire, but it wasn't as pleasant and warm now.
"You don't sleep, 846?" The man muttered into his cup.
"Not when my master needs assistance." Tony replied. It was easy after a while, to answer like this. To tell the masters how great they were and how your life was theirs and all that crap that all owners liked to hear. He learned early to always put the needs of the master before his own, and that seemed to serve him well for the most part. His first master had drummed that notion into him thoroughly…with his fists, and his whips, and his chains. Eventually, after a year, right around the time Tony decided it would be smarter just to submit, the old bastard got sick of his disrespect and sold him to an overbearing woman with dark hair and a fondness for his ass. And when she found a younger, hotter slave at auction, Tony was sold to Bronislav.
"Sleepy slaves are clumsy slaves." Bronislav said. "Don't want to repeat what happened last week, hm?" Bronislav patted him clumsily on the head in what Tony supposed was meant to be a brotherly gesture. Like they were both in here willingly, great pals recounting tales of big-game hunting. The effect was lost somewhat by the fact that he was kneeling on the carpet, half-naked and collared like the possession he was.
"No, master." Tony said. Being tied up outside for forty-eight solid hours in the rain was not an experience he ever needed to have again. Bronislav's hand returned to his cup and he slurped his sanity away.
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