A/N: This is the place I will keep all my one-shots that have something to do with the elements: earth, wind, fire, water, sharknados, etc. The one-shots will be just that—one-shots. None of them will be related to each other. They won't necessarily be in the same timeline. They'll all center on Tony and Ziva, but their relationship might be different from one 'chapter' to the next. Some might be fluffy, some might be dark, and quality may vary. The only common thread is that they'll have something to do with the elements. Updates will probably be slow. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: Disclaimed.

CAMPING

He has never claimed to be the outdoor type.

Gibbs built his own cabin in the woods. Ziva used to hike through the forest as a training exercise. McGee was a boy scout. But Tony? He's always been upfront that he likes his shoes to stay clean. He doesn't do bugs and leaves and muck. He likes to shower every day and get coffee from an espresso machine. He likes running water, electricity, reliable shelter and not having to dig a hole every time he has a bowel movement. Getting back to nature isn't something he longs for, but rather something he partakes in when he has no other choice.

And this trip deep into the mountains in Shenandoah National Park is not a matter of choice.

The team has spent all day getting to this point off the beaten track, and there will be more ground to cover tomorrow before they reach the most inconvenient crime scene Tony has ever heard of. He is duty bound to contend with the trees and the rocks and the dirt in this instance, or else he would have dug his heels into the gravel of the established campsite miles back and rented a cabin with a bed and plumbing for the night. Or, better yet, he would not have left the navy yard. Sometimes his oath to protect and serve others does not serve himself all that well.

He has attempted to keep his moaning about all the nature and hiking and camping to himself, partly because he knows the others expect him to moan and he doesn't want to prove them right, and partly because it is hard to moan while you are hiking uphill with 50 pounds on your back. The will is there, but the breath is not. And so on the way up the mountain he positioned himself at the rear of the pack, right behind Ziva, and kept his eyes on her, well, rear. Without her denim-clad derriere leading the way, he may not have kept up.

But kept up, he did. And his reward for the effort is to spend the evening on a thin bedroll in a tiny tent in the middle of nowhere. But at least he will share it with Ziva's derriere. Gibbs is too polite to bunk with a female agent, and too easily irritated to share with Tony. It is enough to bring a smile of relief, and perhaps indulgence, to his face.

Their tent is pitched ten yards from Gibbs and McGee's. After a dinner of sandwiches and conversation about the case, he retires to his sleeping bag to stretch out his aching body. Sleep comes before he plans for it—honestly, he slips away by 2100—and he thinks he would have slept right through until dawn had his partner not woken him with her entrance to the tent. Her hand catches on his ankle as she clambers inside their polyester cocoon, and then her knee finds the inside of his calf with force. He grunts his displeasure as she curses her apology.

"What're you doing?" he mumbles.

"Sorry," she hisses, and he opens his eyes in time to see her close the zipper on their tent. She crawls onto the bedroll beside him, and when she flops down he catches the scent of campfire and Ziva. It's a nice combination.

"I fell asleep," he states beneath a yawn.

Her elbow almost smacks him in the face then, but he forgives it when the move leads to her stripping off her long-sleeved t-shirt. Her camisole provides barely sufficient coverage.

"What's the time?"

"About ten," she replies softly, then lies down on her back, unzips her jeans and wriggles out of them. The dark is not oppressive enough to obscure her thighs from his gaze, and he gives thanks for his superior night vision.

"The others go to bed?" he asks, determined to at least sound innocent even if his thoughts are decidedly not.

She turns on her side, facing him, and settles against the pillow. "Mhmm. They are probably telling each other ghost stories by now."

She surprises a laugh out of him and he turns towards her as his immediate need to sleep ebbs away. "Or talking about chicks."

Her face pinches in disgust. "Ugh, Tony. I do not want to think of Gibbs like that."

He thinks it over and finds similar distaste in his mouth. "Yeah, me neither," he says, lowering his voice so that he won't be heard in the other tent. "But it's what guys do on camping trips."

She smirks playfully and gently kicks his shin. "And how many camping trips have you been on in your life, Tony?"

"Some," he replies vaguely. "Are you calling my outdoorsiness into question?"

Ziva chuckles. "Oh, no," she says with forced sobriety. "You are the original mountain man."

He scratches at his 10pm stubble. "I'm growing a beard and everything."

"Tell me about your camping trips."

"Aren't you tired?"

One bare shoulder shrugs to her ear. "No. Are you?"

"No, but I just had a nap."

She shakes her head. "I do not need a nap."

"But it's bedtime." He feels like he is pointing out the obvious, but she seems unconcerned.

"I am not sleepy."

He wonders how, after a full day of hiking, she can accomplish that. It probably has something to do with age and fitness. Sometimes he envies her.

"Tell me about your camping trips," she implores again. She takes a teasing tone, and he takes mild exception to it.

"You don't think I've ever been, do you?"

"Of course!" she protests, but she is clearly overcompensating in her attempt to cloak her lie. Well, he'll show her.

"Remember me and Gibbs went to Arizona to find that artist woman?" he says, starting with a tale that she cannot refute. "We rode horses and camped under the stars."

"It sounds very romantic, Tony," she purrs.

He ignores that. "There was that time me and McGee camped out overnight at a crime scene and watched the sun rise," he goes on.

"Do you always camp with men?"

He actually thinks about that, and then finds himself let down by the answer. "Yeah," he says dejectedly. "You know, I think you're the first woman I've slept under polyester with."

"I am touched," she says. "We will have to take a photo for prosperity."

"The first time I went camping, I was 12," he tells her, conjuring the ancient memory from the caverns of his mind. "I was actually at summer camp, but there was only one night of real tent camping. All the other nights we were just in regular boarding rooms."

"Did you enjoy it?"

"I didn't like the bugs." It is the first thing that he thinks of, followed quickly by something seedier. "But I remember there was about ten of us—all boys—crammed into a tent about this size and looking at some kid's dad's copy of Playboy."

"Ten 12-year-old boys looking at Playboy?"

He vaguely remembers Miss August 1983. "Yeah."

Ziva does a full body shudder. He doesn't blame her, but he's grinning.

"I became a man that summer, Ziva."

She holds up her hand to stall further explanation. "Please do not tell me what you mean by that."

He does anyway. "I made out with Sherry…um…" He squeezes his eyes shut as he tries to recall his paramour's full name. "I want to say Wells, or something like that."

She softly tut-tuts him. "You do not even remember her name."

"It was 30 years ago," he explains in response to her faux disappointment. "No, I don't remember."

"Did you kiss her with tongue?" she asks.

He eyes her strangely. This mischievous, teasing side of her is one he is acquainted with, and one he has great affection for. But she doesn't let it out that often. "What the hell is this mountain air doing to your brain?" he asks, but is careful to make sure that she knows he's a fan.

She chuckles and bumps his leg with her foot again. "I apologize. You do not kiss and tell when you really like the woman, even if you cannot remember her last name. I will remember this."

"Well, I'm a gentleman."

"Of course."

"The other time I went camping was when I was about 20," he told her. "I think it might've been Labor Day long weekend or something." He stops to grin indulgently. "I was seeing this girl, Julia."

"Last name?"

"I don't know," he says dismissively. "But I remember she wore cherry-flavored lip gloss and always wore this necklace with a charm of a cherry on it. And she was hot."

"Obviously."

"Her and some of our friends really wanted to go camping," he continues. "And I really didn't, but she convinced me it'd be romantic to sneak away from the campsite and have sex in the woods. And even though I know that's how horror movies start, I went along with it. So we all piled into two cars, and she sat next to me on the drive up into the mountains." A grin stretches across his face again. "She fell asleep on my shoulder, smelling like cherries, and I thought I fell in love with her."

"Cherries are delicious," Ziva says with a nod.

"Yeah, but by the time we got to the campsite a couple in the other car had a huge fight, and Julia spent the weekend consoling her friend. Instead of sharing a tent with her, I shared it with some other guy I didn't really know and who snored really badly."

"I hate people who snore."

He chuckles at her continuing playfulness. "So I slept outside and got about 100 bug bites. On the second night me and Julia managed to get away for about fifteen minutes for some over-the-clothes action, but that was it. Really disappointing."

Her expression is torn between amusement and disgust. "Romantic," she says flatly.

"You know, I saw her just last year," he remembers. "You were there. We went to some office building to interview some guy about something—"

"Very specific," she cuts in.

"And she got in the elevator with us. She had a kid with her, but I didn't realize it was her until she got off on another floor. She was eyeballing me."

"You did not notice a person eyeballing you?" She seems disappointed in him.

"I'm not a very good federal agent," he says flippantly. "And I sort of did, but you were talking about a massage you'd had on the weekend and I was kind of distracted by that."

She frowns as she stares at him. "I do not remember the last massage I had."

He flashes her a predictable smile. "Well, that's our plans for the weekend taken care of."

She drops her eyes to look him up and down with a half smile, but doesn't address the suggestion. "Well, if those are your previous experiences with camping, they do not sound too bad. Aside from the bugs, why don't you like it?"

"I like being close to modern conveniences."

Her eyes float to the roof of the tent. "Hmm," she hums thoughtfully. "I have always found that camping is kind of…hot."

He thinks she may be doing this on purpose, but she succeeds in grabbing his attention anyway. "Really?" he drawls. "Do tell."

She shrugs as she rubs her top leg up and down along her bottom one for just a moment, and the swish of skin against skin makes every single part of him take notice. "It is dark, you are usually in a secluded location, jammed into a small space with another person. Little privacy from each other."

Although he has not been keeping a definitive list, he thinks that if he tried, he could probably remember every time he has been jammed into a small space with her. It is not that he has been blessed with the photographic memory that she once claimed to have, but rather a matter of having the kind of brain that collects and stores his close-quarters interactions with beautiful women. And particularly those beautiful women with whom he'd like to be in close quarters with on an on-going basis.

Her shoulder rises and falls again as she continues with her thought. "There is something…intense about it. I have had very satisfying sex on camping trips in the past."

He purses his lips as he tries to work out what the appropriate response is. Show me? Tell me? Convince me? "Don't you get dirt in interesting places with that?" is what he comes out with.

Ziva turns her head into her pillow and laughs a deep, throaty laugh. "I suppose you must weigh the pros against the cons."

"It's mostly pro, right?" he guesses.

"I think so."

His mind goes off in a very interesting and explicit direction as they watch each other and, almost like a switch is flicked, the tension between them rises. It could be the dim light that is tricking him, but he is sure that she is giving him a more considered look now, as if weighing up some more personal pros and cons. And God, so is he. It would be very easy to roll towards her now, drive his hand into her hair and start kissing those perfectly pink lips. So very easy, and it is so very enticing. She's right—camping is hot.

She parts those lips as they keep watching each other, and his heart starts pounding like it was when he was climbing the mountain today as he waits for her to say or do something. Perhaps give him a lead to follow. But then she seems to think better of it, and she catches her bottom lip between her teeth. The action drives some sense into him. He can't possibly be thinking of doing this. It's got to be the goddamn mountain air. It makes her playful and him crazy. He's got to let it go.

He draws a deep breath and lets it out, and as the tension dies again he gives her an acknowledging look. The corner of her mouth curls up in response—recognition of what almost happened just now. He clears his throat.

"So, where have you been camping?" he asks, moving this right along.

She releases a breath and lifts her hand to brush her hair off her neck. "All over."

"Israel?"

"The world."

He rolls his eyes at her. "Whatever, Phil Keoghan. I suppose bugs don't bother you?"

She makes a face like she is half and half on that. "Not usually. But I had malaria when I was a teenager."

He feels his eyebrows shoot upwards. "Are you serious? How come I never knew that?"

"You never asked," she replies reasonably.

"Why would I?"

"I don't know."

"How old were you?"

"Fifteen."

"Where were you?"

"I contracted it on a trip to South Africa, but I was back at home by the time I got sick."

For some reason, his brain is having trouble comprehending this. He has never known anyone who has had malaria before. It seems so...well, exotic is the wrong word, but it's something like that.

"Was it awful? Because it sounds awful."

She nods. "Yes. It was awful. But I recovered."

He thinks about horrible diseases he's had that could compete with malaria, but comes up empty. "I had pretty bad gastro once," he tells her.

Ziva laughs, because she knows as well as him that the comparison is ridiculous. But he is trying to make her laugh, and because they are jammed together in a small space in the mountains, she lets him.

"Did you eat a bad kebab?" she asks, and then covers her mouth as she yawns.

"No. It was just one of those things." He pauses for a beat. "Thanks for asking."

"Well, I care," she says.

He grins and then knocks her hand with his. "You're finally getting tired."

"Hm, a little."

"I'm sleepy," he admits. "Got another long day of hiking ahead. And then another on the next day."

She takes the hint with a nod. "Then we should get some sleep, yes? We can pick this up again tomorrow night."

He holds his hand out to her, palm up. "Deal."

She slaps his hand in agreement. "Deal."

He shifts onto his back. "Don't take offense, but I usually sleep on my left shoulder so I'm going to show my back to you. It's not personal."

"I know. Goodnight."

"Night," he says, and rolls over to get as comfortable as he can on a thin mat on the ground.

They are quiet and still for just a minute before he hears her shift and then she presses her body against his back. He barely has time to react before her arm wraps around him and she grabs at his chest.

"What are you doing?" he asks, chuckling to cover his surprise.

Her mouth is right behind his ear, and her voice sends shivers down to his bones. "Just giving you a little over-the-clothes action." She waits until he starts laughing before she follows him.

"Thanks," he tells her, and then reaches back to grip her butt in response. He only remembers that she's in nothing but panties when the heel of his hand settles on skin instead of fabric. He holds his breath and squeezes his eyes shut as he waits for her to bring pain upon his tired body for the transgression, but this relaxed, teasing, camping-in-the-woods version of Ziva doesn't seem bothered by it. He thinks he might have to get her out in the wilderness more often. If his body can hold up under the strain of hiking.

"Hey, Tony?" Her breath tickles the back of his neck and makes his hair stand on end.

"Yeah?"

"I snore really badly," she whispers, as if this is news to him.

He laughs into his pillow and takes a chance by squeezing her butt. "Yeah. I know. But I wouldn't leave you alone in bed over it."

"You really are a gentleman," she says, and wriggles herself closer against him.

This isn't the type of camping he's used to. But if this is the way Ziva does it, he thinks he could get used to it.

END.