Author note

Okay, so I may very well be shooting myself in the foot for posting this because this is just a spur of the moment posting. This little idea has been meandering around in my mind for quite some time and I'm hoping that posting this will sort of conquer some of my unsureness about this little piece. It's hopefully going to be a multi chap that may or may not be rated M in the near future my bet is on 'may' personally, because I love the sex. But there shall be plenty of warning.

And this is completely unBETA'd and I just have no CLUE what's going on in my mind, or why I'm even here posting this. But, oh well, what's the worst that could happen, right? Haha

Enjoy

Warnings: Some course language.

Disclaimer: Don't own... simply playing.

Becoming Human

Chapter One

Pet

Pay no mind what other voices say
They don't care about you, like I do, like I do
Safe from pain and truth and choice and other poison devils,
See, they don't give a fuck about you, like I do.

Humanity is such a beautifully disastrous thing. Its intricacy resembles that of a spiders web; held together by a network of relationships, tensions and the ever so present range of human emotion; which is so deserving of its own web of intricacy.

Tony DiNozzo is almost certain that if it were truly a physical entity, his web with one Ziva David would span a chasm. The tension between them is sometimes so thick it could be carved by a knife, which he's sure she's not too averse to trying given her love of all things sharp and shiny.

They'd been through so much since the beginning, since that time when she'd sauntered into the bullpen with that contradictory guarded-yet-carefree gleam in her eye and lilt to her voice. They had both been so young then; they each hadn't been ready to appreciate the other so they had hid behind pretence for so long, flirting and teasing mercilessly to hide trueness and raw emotion.

But as the years wore on, and their pretence began to wear out, they started peeking into each others lives a little; prying more than was deemed comfortable. Simple questions that, at first, would be shut down continued to grow steadily into something bigger and more daring. Both parties were decidedly interested in the other, but by no means interested in sharing their own. So their relationship just continued to teeter totter. That was until one day, as though the Earths balance was somehow upheaved, a part of that web broke and the teeter totter came to a abrupt halt sufficiently jarring both Tony and Ziva into an unforeseen state of alarm.

It had been raining for two weeks straight; a perpetual drizzle which was sufficiently making its way onto Team Gibbs' last nerve. It's amazing how much longer processing a crime scene can be when most of the evidence has been washed away with a raging torrent.

Tony is on his hands and knees in the gutter, dirty water seeping through the material of his pants as an equally dirty look is seeping onto his face. Gibbs had instructed him to search high and low for a possible murder weapon used to kill Petty Officer Lara Hale, whom they expected had her throat slit after behind raped in the alley they were investigating.

"That's a good look for you," Ziva chuckles smugly from behind him, her booted foot making contact with his behind as she stops beside him, "Still no luck on a murder weapon?"

He straightens his spine and shoots her a glare, "What do you think? We're not all able to go inside and have tea and crumpets with the neighbours, now are we?" he snaps, referring to her questioning possible witnesses.

She smiles at that, and pats him on the back. She'd been uncannily touchy all day, it was kind of creeping him out. "Oh Tony," she smiles, "are you forgetting that time you made me crawl through a dumpster?"

That brings a smile to his face, "No but you were new then, it was your job – and oh," a scary sort of brightness lights up his face and he's standing up suddenly," and guess what... probie, you still are so start looking."

He points a demanding finger toward the gutter and she, in turn, points a rather terrifying one at his face. "Pull rank on me and I will pull my knife on you, got it?" she states in such an alarmingly low tone that he has to back up a half a step before he can form a response.

"Oh really?" he smirks, reclaiming his half a step, "Not following orders, Probie? I might have to have a word with the boss about this..." he's in her space now, surrounding her, not giving her any room to move.

It is such a familiar scene, like one of those movies he's watched a million times, or a book she's read.

"Gibbs would not be on your side," she chuckles, looking down before cocking her head to the side and meeting his gaze, "He would kill you... or at least, I hope, let me."

And he's chuckling along with her now, too, because he knows she's just kidding. They had become remarkably close, even though neither is prepared to admit it. Even when she had burst through the door of her apartment to find him gasping for air on the floor alongside her rapidly bleeding-out boyfriend, she'd found something inside of her that had restrained her from just shooting him. He knew that had been her first instinct, after all. And even after pondering this many a night with his prized bottle of vodka, he'd came to the conclusion that she must have felt something beneath everything that had happened, something for him; because she'd had another opportunity to shoot him in Israel, just days later when she had been not so hard-pressed and she hadn't.

He had just wanted to protect her, whether she thought she needed the protection or not, he had to do it for his own sanity. For that to be on his conscious, her falling prey to MOSSAD and Daddy David, knowing he could have done something to stop it; it would eat away at him like a termite in a wooden house.

"How about I kill the both of you and call it a day," Gibbs' voice comes from behind him and Tony's snapped out of his reverie so fast that he's left reeling, and nearly hits Ziva like a domino, but she's pushing him back to his feet, and he's turning to look at Gibbs with an apologetic smile."I sure do think things would get done a lot faster around here if I did," he mutters before heading over to where McGee is taking photographs of the deceased Petty Officer.

Tony and Ziva share one more glance, as Ziva gives him a knowing raise of the eyebrows before sauntering over to something shiny stuck between the grates of a drain. She picks up a knife and gives him a quick smirk before bagging it and turning on her heel.

And even though they still hide behind this pretense, they care about each other a lot. Tony feels the need to protect her, and even though she gets irritated by his persistence; beneath it all she feels the need to be protected.

It's very short - I know - but it's kind of a teaser if you will. Originally I was just going to post that first bit which I swear will come back in to play later down the track. And this story will become all kinds of serious, and sometimes not so serious and just... that is of course if you would like it to continue.

And if you haven't heard the song Pet by A Perfect Circle, it's what really gave me the inspiration to being this. I'd like to bring up the concept of Tony protecting Ziva in greater detail later, because this just didn't cut it as the thoughts on this song. But this, of course, is not the main point of the story.

Basically, this is going to be a chronicles telling of how Tony makes Ziva more 'human' but we'll see just how much this plays into it, and how much of a tangent my mind goes off on, shall we?

Let me know if you would like me to continue... thanks for reading! :))