Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS, the thomas crown affair, or we are scientists. I'd like to own Keith Murray. but I don't.
Hi again
This is a oneshot fluffy Tiva thing, for Tiva lovers everywhere :) This was written with We are Scientists's "After Hours" in mind, and although I recommend listening to the song (the youtube URL will go on m profile), but it is by NO means compulsory, and just as good to read (I hope!) without the song :)
Enjoy!
Tony slides his sig into its holder and locked his drawer without looking up. His head feels the weight of Gibbs' weekly supply of coffee, mainly thanks to the psycho stalker that smacked him round the head with a hardback earlier in the day. That would teach him never to try and get hold of a criminal in a library. When he looks up, he notices his partner isn't packing up and the desk light illuminates her concentrated expression. "You are going?"
"Uh huh. What's with the scribbling?"
She keeps her eyes on the paperwork, but her voice drops as she sighs. "My apartment is being treated – the woman next door to me apparently has termites."
"So...you've got nowhere to stay?" he asks, although it's more of an invite.
"Abby offered me her apartment, but I did not want to sleep in a coffin, and so did McGee, but Abby told me he talks in his sleep. Your snoring is bad enough; I would probably end up putting a gun to his head." Tony laughs as he meanders round his desk, complete with backpack, to stand in front of hers and shrug.
"Casa de DiNozzo's always free if you want more than your desk to sleep on."
Ziva finally looks up, a cynical smile on her face as she quips back to him:
"I assumed you had a date, Tony. Has it been a while?"
He doesn't want to talk about that.
"Look, I'm going to Lucario's for a drink first. You can come, and then, I dunno, we could watch a movie. My friend got me The Thomas Crown Affair for Christmas last year, watching it for the 20th time won't do any harm. Wanna come?" He shrugs again to enforce the fact that it's her choice, and he remembers overhearing Ziva's comment to one of their suspects that "His shoulders work a lot better than his mouth".
Much to his delight she starts filing her paper away, puts her gun in her bag and switches off her lamp, leaving the two in only the light of the ships from the Navy yard.
"Are you sure this bar is open?"
"Uh, yeah. It's usually pretty empty by this time of the evening."
She smiles, making his heart come close to melting as she rounds the corner of her desk. He grins back his DiNozzo grin and realises it's become a reflex for whenever she does.
They reach the bar – a modern-looking glass-fronted building with blue lights streaming the front of the glass. He opens the door to the clear air of the empty riverside bar and is greeted by a small, balding man wearing an apron designed for someone half his size.
"Antonio! I am not seeing you in here with a bella for a long time." Ziva smiles politely and moves onto a stool a few seats away, while the porky bartender pours them both a drink of something expensive. He slides Ziva's along the bar platform to meet her hand.
"Yeah...well," Tony mutters under his breath as he sits down, "it's been a while."
Luca may be old, but he's got good hearing. "Ah, Antonio. The right girl will come." He nods to Ziva, who's drawing figures of eight with her finger on the bar. "Bellissima. Why have you not...made your move?"
Honestly? He doesn't know.
"I don't know. Never the right time, Luca."
"There is always time, Antoni." Luca raises his eyebrows and notices that the atmosphere in the empty bar has got ever so slightly tenser since the two partners came in. He starts to make his way to the other end of the bar, followed by his mop-and-bucket he knows as his child. "I will leave you to talk."
Tony slides out of his chair and into one closer to his partner.
"You're bored."
"Yes."
He laughs. "So...do you want to stay at my place tonight?"
"I have nowhere else to go. McGee locks his apartment at eleven. Abby will be asleep; I do not want to disturb her in the middle of the night. I do not want to wake either of them." She tosses her hair to one side and pulls the Alice-band off the front, her fringe falling forward to cover one of her eyes. Unbeknownst to him, Ziva knows he's staring.
"I'm awake now. You won't need to wake me up." He jokes, starting to feel the effects of whatever powerful concoction Lucario has served them.
The Israeli tips her head back and laughs, running a hand through her hair. Her partner has known her long enough and been to enough bars with her to recognize it as a sign that she lacks the judgement of her sober self.
He thinks about how he'd normally be spending an evening like this. Drive home, watch television, then mope about for a while thinking of how to tell his partner that he loves her. He loves her. It never seems to amount to much, those words. Except...if and when he tells her, he knows that it might be the most important thing she ever hears. He hopes, anyway.
"Antonio?" Luca's voice makes him and his partner spin on their stools to face him.
"I am closing up for the notte. Buono to see you again, and Ziva," he bows theatrically, "It was bello to meet you."
Ziva smiles again and replies, "Buono to meet you, Lucario," as they walk out of the door. Lights switch off behind them as they walk to Tony's mustang. As they walk, Tony suddenly realises what Gibbs' interpretation might be of Ziva coming to work in the morning in the same car as him.
He can't help grinning as they get out of the car at his apartment building. If every night were like this, it would be his equivalent to cloud nine. The tiredness is evident in her eyes when he opens the door to his apartment for her, and the moment when their eyes meet seems to last about a decade, until he walks in after her, shuts the door, and throws his keys into the torn wicker bowl on his kitchen surface.
"So. Movie?"
"Yes, you were talking about The Thomas Crown Affair. I have never seen it." She says, walking into the adjacent TV room. Tony would usually offer her a drink – but his head was ringing, as he suspected hers was, and he reckoned that a bowl of pistachios would suffice another glass of hard alcohol.
"You like pistachios, right?"
"What are mustache-ios?" He snorts, but deep down he can hear the crease in her strict Mossad training through the falter in her voice.
"Pis-tachios. They're nuts – Old DiNozzo intoxication remedy, dating all the way back to 1999." He loves hearing her husky laugh through the doorway. He also loves the fact that, as he walks into the living room, she has already set the DVD to pause on the opening credits, volume at exactly the right level, resolution right, brightness right. He loves that she knows how to operate his array of DVD players and Blu-ray players that sit below his wall-mounted television. He loves that he fits with her.
Ziva's sitting on the worn-out couch, feet curled under behind her; with a pillow propping her head up, coat strewn on the floor and a blanket covering her stomach. Her body language makes it look as if she's about to pass out with exhaustion, and he makes a mental bet with himself of the possibility of her actually lasting to the end of the film.
"Hey. You're in my seat."
Tony grins and she reluctantly shifts along to let him sit next to her. His feet carve a footstool out of the pillows and cushions on the floor, and he lays his arm on the armrest. "Pistachio?"
He hands one to her, and hears the crack through the opening credits as she opens it and the crunch of the nut. It reminds him of those movies where you see that married couples pick up annoying habits, but it actually makes them want each other more. In the words of Chandler Bing, could he want her more?
The movie goes on, but Tony's mind is preoccupied with the fact that Ziva is now stretched out over the sofa, resting her head on the "Ohio State" of his chest. He winds her curls round his fingers, even at the risk of a paperclip attack, and he can feel sleep hanging over him.
It would be so easy just to give in – to fall asleep with her in his arms. So he gives in.
And so they stay like that, both drifted off into unconsciousness, and in the morning she finds him with her hair still entangled in his fingers.
A/N: Here's the deal. this is NOT a songfic. NOT NOT NOT. There is a version of this with that song's lyrics in it - if by popular demand people want me to, what I can do is upload the version with the lyrics as the latest chapter of my songfic collection Shuffle. please review saying if you want me to or not!
Lotts xx