A/N: These stories really are all over the place. Today, the three musketeers and humor.
Day 14: Write about a chimney.
All three of them had doubtful looks on their faces, as they stood staring up at the dead petty officer—dressed as Santa—slumped into the chimney.
"So…who goes up there?" McGee asked hesitantly.
It was hard to tell with McGee, but Tony thought he looked even paler than usual asking that question. The Probie gave him a wary glance and Tony merely grinned at him. And, oh look, he turned paler than the snow covering the roof.
As entertaining as torturing McGee was, Tony knew sending him up on a roof, let alone a snow-covered one, was a recipe for disaster. So after chuckling he said, "Don't worry, McQueasy, Ziva's on roof-scaling duty."
He turned to her just in time to see her shrug nonchalantly, grab her kit and walk towards the ladder. He frowned, not that he'd expected Ziva to give him a hard time about his decision, but he suddenly worried about how safe it was up there. Even for a light-footed ninja like her.
"Shouldn't you wait for the crane?" He said.
Her scoff wasn't very reassuring, and when she crawled onto the sloped roof and snow fell down to the ground below with a slight thud, McGee wasn't the only one feeling queasy. Tony suddenly had visions of her falling down and breaking her neck.
Ziva carefully walked to where the body of the petty officer was slumped over the chimney. The way she was leaning this way and that way to take pictures and look for evidence, had both McGee and him cringing with wide eyes.
"That height working crane thingy should be here any minute, Ziva," Tony yelled.
Ziva met his eyes with a smirk, and that just made his hackles rise. This was hardly the time to show off.
"He's holding an almost empty bottle of vodka," she yelled back.
She shifted and held onto the chimney to move past the body to the other side. Tony watched her snap more pictures and lean over to look into the chimney. His stomach clenched, why hadn't he stopped her from going up there.
"His Santa hat appears to be stuck inside the chimney. I can't tell very well from here, but his face appears to be covered in soot. Maybe if I get a better angle-"
"NO!" Tony yelled. "You don't need to get a better angle, you need to come back down."
Ziva stood up and casually leaned against the chimney with a raised eyebrow. There was a click of the camera and he looked at McGee sideways.
"What? Abby will think this is a great picture," he said and shrugged.
Tony looked back up at Ziva on one side of the chimney, the dead petty officer wearing a Santa suit on the other, his head inside the chimney.
"It's morbid," he said focusing on McGee again.
"It's Abby," McGee said.
Tony tilted his head, the Probie had a point. From the corner of his eye he saw Ziva was on the move again.
"Hey, get your ass down here. Now," he shouted as he walked up to the house.
"I am fine, Tony, I have cat-like agility," she said.
"Yeah, well, you've already lost at least half of your nine lives."
Ziva tried to cross back around the chimney to where her kit was. She held on to the top of the chimney, when a brick came loose and she lost her balance and fell on her back.
Tony's eyes went wide and he lurched forward on instinct. As Ziva slid down the roof, all the snow ahead of her went over the edge first, covering Tony. The snow had barely registered as his pulse raced, and when she failed to hold onto the icy gutter, he still had his arms open, ready to catch her, now standing in three feet of snow. Her momentum, and his inability to move in the snow, made him fall back.
Ziva looked down at their current position, and said with a grin, "My knight in snowy armor."
Tony's gaze drifted from her eyes to her mouth, and back. "You're on top of me…again," he said in a low voice, a small smile on his lips.
Another click of the camera, and Tony noticed McGee standing next to them with a grin.
"Don't worry, guys, I got everything on video."
Ziva dropped her forehead on Tony's shoulder with a groan, while he grabbed a handful of snow and threw it in McGee's general direction.
A/N: Thank you for the continued support, it means a lot to me.