A/N- Thanks to honus47 for reviewing and great suggestions!

Warning - whumpage ahead.

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Chapter 43

Deeks woke slowly, disoriented and nauseous. What the hell had happened? Where was he? He thought back to the last thing he remembered and worked his way forward. He remembered entering the warehouse after arguing with Callen that something was off, splitting up from Kensi, someone behind him, the smell of chloroform. Okay, chloroform would explain the nausea. He'd been knocked out with it once before and he didn't react well that time either. Kensi! His eyes snapped open and he frantically tried to look around the room he found himself in, trying to find out if they had also taken her or any of the rest of the team. The movement started him swinging and he realized he was hanging by his wrists, only his toes able to reach the floor. The rocking motion made him feel worse and he fought down the urge to vomit. He planted his toes as best he could to stop the swinging.

Once he was stopped, he carefully tilted his head back to look up at his hands above his head. His wrists were tied with rope that was slipped over a hook suspended from the ceiling. He slowly twisted his left hand so that he could take hold of the rope with it, instead of just hanging from it. Once he had it firmly in his grasp, he did the same with the right hand. He pulled himself up a little to relieve the tension on his shoulders, worried about them dislocating if he hung here too long, his toes leaving the floor so that he started to swing a little again. He had good upper body strength, the reason why he beat Callen on the rock climbing wall 9 times out of 10. He wished he was there now, he'd let his team leader win for the rest of eternity. Lowering himself back down so that his toes touched once again, he slowly moved himself by tiptoe in a circle, taking in the layout of the room and the fact that he was alone. He sighed in relief, for the moment anyway it appeared he was the only one taken. With that worry gone, he took stock of his situation.

The hook he was on was not the only one hanging from the ceiling, it was dotted with them in various stages of rust and disrepair, all connected to a grid work of rusting metal tracks. They reminded him a little of the hook Talita had hung Thapa from the first time he had met the small Ghurka. He suppressed the immediate feeling of grief over the loss of his friend. Even after all this time, it still hurt to know he wasn't out there in the world somewhere, doing whatever it was that Ghurkas did. Turning back to the more urgent matter at hand, he continued to scope out the room. There were sluices around the edges of the room, drains spotting the floor and large water spigots without hoses. Abandoned meat packing plant, maybe? Great.

Looking down he saw he'd been stripped down to his boxers. The realization made him feel unexpectedly exposed and violated. He was suspended over a raised wooden platform that looked pretty new. He wondered if the elusive 'they' had built it especially for this situation. He knew he didn't want to hang around to find out. Jeez, was he really making bad puns in his own head? He started to lift himself up again, hoping that he might be able grab hold of the hook and slip the ropes off it, when he heard footsteps approaching. He lowered himself back down and hung his head, pretending to still be out.

"Detective Deeks, I know you're awake. Don't play opossum with me." a deep voice said. "Detective! Look at me!" When Deeks didn't comply, the man stepped up onto the platform and punched him hard in the stomach. He couldn't help the groan that slipped out and he looked up at his captor, a tall dark haired man he didn't recognize.

"I don't know you! Why are you doing this?" he asked.

The man stepped closer "You're right, we don't know each other but my boss knows of you and he's the one who ordered this. I'm just along for the ride." He reached out, grabbed Deeks hair and pulled him closer. "Still, I'm going to enjoy this." Whispering into his ear, the man said softly "We do have a connection, however, Detective. A pretty little federal prosecutor the boss had me take out several years back. I understand she was a friend of yours. I would have liked to get her in the same position you're in but, the boss wanted her dead, so I followed my orders. Pity." The man let go and started to turn away, taking his eyes off him, confident that the detective could do nothing.

Deeks felt a roaring in his ears and literally saw red. Lifting his feet off the ground, he pulled his knees into his chest and thrust them out and up, using his grip on the ropes as leverage, catching the man in the face as he started to turn back with both his heels and pushing him off the platform. He felt something crunch through his feet and the man hit the ground with a satisfying thump, his head bouncing off the concrete. Stunned, he lay there for a moment before raising a hand to his face. "You bastard! You broke my nose!"

Getting up off the floor he advanced on the wildly swinging man. "You'll regret that Detective." He moved up onto the platform and swung a right hook at Deeks's face, one he couldn't avoid or protect himself from. His head snapped to his right and he felt his lip split. The man started using him as a heavy bag, punching him in the stomach and kidneys over and over for what felt like hours, cracking, if not breaking, at least three ribs. Deeks was close to blacking out when another man entered the room. Seeing what was going on, he rushed over and grabbed the man beating him.

"Carl! What the hell? Cut it out! The boss wants him alive, not beaten to death. We need him, at least for now."

Deeks now had a name for the dark haired man. Opening the one eye that hadn't swollen shut; he poked the bear and said "Yeah Carl. Wouldn't want to upset the boss!" The man's face scrunched up and he punched Deeks again in the stomach. The other man started to drag him away.

"What the hell are you doing Carl?"

"Look at me Sean! The bastard broke my nose and probably gave me a concussion!" Carl wiped the blood away from under his nose and held it out to his partner. Sean looked at Carl's obviously broken nose and then up at the beaten man hanging from a hook, barely able to touch the ground.

"How?"

"Never mind how, he did and he has to pay!"

"He'll pay later. Right now the boss needs him alive or this will never work. NCIS is going to ask for proof of life and we can't give them that if he's dead. Once we're done, you can do anything you want with him. In the meantime, why don't you head out to one of the boss's pet doctors and get your nose set, cool down."

Carl finally nodded and then moved back up onto the platform, watched warily by both Sean and Deeks. He stepped up close to Deeks and said "This isn't over detective. I can find plenty of ways to make you wish you were dead while keeping you alive. Think about that while I'm gone!"

Deeks looked the man in the eyes and opened his mouth. Carl waited to hear what the man would say next. Instead of saying anything, Deeks decided to stop forcing back the nausea and promptly vomited blood and the contents of his stomach all over Carl's front. The man's eyes widened in shock and Deeks let out a pained laugh. "You, you…" sputtered Carl, looking down at the mess all over his suit and shoes.

He lifted his right arm to take another swing at Deeks when Sean grabbed it from behind and pulled him away. "Enough Carl! Go get cleaned up and see that doctor! I'll take care of the mess in here. You'll get your chance later."

Carl took one last hard look at Deeks, hatred shining from his eyes and mouthed at him "This isn't over." He turned and stomped out of the room, leaving Deeks alone with Sean.

"Your partner's a loose cannon, Sean. He's not going to listen to you for long."

Sean looked at the detective speculatively, the man had somehow managed to break Carl's nose while hanging from a hook. He would have paid good money to see that, Carl was not exactly his favorite person. He only worked with him when the boss ordered it. He moved closer to Deeks, careful to avoid the mess on the platform. "I know exactly what kind of man my partner is, Detective Deeks. You let me worry about handling him. You have more important things to worry about right now."

"What's this all about? I know you guys work for Steve Parks. I was never involved in his arrest or prosecution. What's his problem with me?"

"It's not his problem, it's a…friends…problem."

Deeks looked at him in confusion and suddenly it clicked. "Timmons."

Sean nodded. "Give the man a cigar."

"Why the hell would Parks be working with Timmons? The man isn't a judge anymore; he can't help Parks get out of jail. And what does that have to do with me anyway?"

Sean smiled at him. "There were two plans, detective. Plan A was to get you to agree to help Paul Timmons. We were then going to plant a significant amount of money in a bank account in your name, money that would look like it came from Mitchell Timmons. The plan was that Timmons would then blackmail you into getting rid of the evidence against him before his trial. If you didn't cooperate, you'd be threatened with exposure as a crooked cop who took a bribe from a known criminal. You should have taken that road; it would have been less painful.

Deeks looked at Sean in amazement. Did they really think that would have worked? "And Plan B?"

"Ah, plan B. Plan B is the situation you find yourself in now. We offer you up in exchange for releasing Judge Timmons from jail and flying him to a non extradition country."

Deeks burst out laughing, his probable broken ribs and bruised face complaining loudly the whole time but unable to help himself. "Mr. Timmons will never get out of jail unless he's found innocent at his trial, which will never happen. Why would you ever think that anyone would release him in exchange for me? Neither LAPD nor NCIS would ever negotiate something like that! The only thing you'll get out of this is jail time when they find and arrest you, and I promise you, they will!"

"Do you mean so little to NCIS that they would just let you die?" The smile had yet to leave Sean's face.

"What I do or don't mean to NCIS is not germane to this situation. They're not going to let a known criminal walk, just to get me back. They know full well that I probably wouldn't make it out alive anyway. Why would Parks go through all this effort to help someone who's of no use to him anymore?"

"Let's just say that the boss and Judge Timmons share a special relationship."

Deeks eyes widened at Sean's implication. "They're what, like, involved?"

Sean laughed. "Such a polite way of saying they're lovers, detective. Are you homophobic? Does the idea of a relationship between two men bother you?" Deeks shook his head no.

Sean moved closer and ran a finger down Deeks's face. "Pretty, even as bruised as you are." he said softly. He continued to move his finger down onto Deeks's chest, pausing to brush it over his abs, left to right, and then down to his waist, still talking. "We'll see how things work out detective. However it does, it's of no concern to me. I just do what I'm told." He ran his finger around the inside of the waistband of Deeks's boxers, causing his skin to crawl. Deeks forced himself to show no reaction but he was starting to think he would have preferred that Carl had stayed.

Sean stood back and laughed. "You hide it well detective but I can tell you were, shall we say, concerned about my intentions? Don't worry, you're not my type." His face hardened. "You pull any of the crap on me that you pulled on Carl, and you'll wish you didn't live long enough to regret it. You'll find that Carl is the easier of the two of us to deal with." Deeks grinned and took in as deep a breath as he could and spit blood and saliva directly into the man's face. Sean's face blanked and then he threw an upper cut to Deeks's jaw that knocked him out cold. The man stared at the unconscious detective hanging in front of him and found himself hoping that the man was right, that no one would negotiate Timmons's release in exchange for him. He'd like to see how long the detective could keep up his smart ass comments and actions. It might be…interesting.