Eventually, they got their cookies in the oven. It took far longer than it strictly should have, but that was the fun of doing Christmas cookies. There was no stress or urgency about them. It was supposed to be fun. Even if they had to deal with flour explosions.
And this was fun. Lots of fun. He got to hang out with Ziva outside of work. There was soft Christmas music playing in the background from his iPod. The kitchen was filled with these amazing smells, and there was cookie dough to steal from the bowl, despite Ziva smacking his hands with a wooden spoon. Not that that stopped him. It hadn't stopped him when his Nonna was baking, and it certainly wasn't going to stop him now. Even if Ziva was more accurate with that damned spoon.
"I'll tell Gibbs that it's your fault if I can't shoot straight tomorrow," he threatened after a particularly painful rap to his knuckles.
"You will be able to shoot fine," Ziva said with a roll of her eyes but thankfully put the spoon down.
"I might not," he said, putting a very ridiculous pathetic expression on his face in a bid for sympathy, of which he got none. "You might have broken my fingers."
"You would know if I tried to break your fingers because your fingers would be broken," she assured him.
Which really wasn't reassuring at all. Seriously, who said something like that? When they were baking cookies, too.
[xxxxxx]
Tony thankfully stopped trying to steal cookie dough after that particular threat. Which meant that they could actually put it on the next baking tray. Ziva didn't even know why he enjoyed eating it raw like that. It did not taste good to her. And it had a weird texture. When she informed Tony of this opinion of hers, he recoiled. Like, actually, physically recoiled. Not to mention the look of absolute horror that graced her face. It was all quite dramatic.
"Who doesn't like raw cookie dough?" Tony asked incredulously.
"I do not," Ziva replied, rolling her eyes.
She had given it a taste when Tony had first brought it up. It just didn't taste good to her. It was sticky and clumpy and *raw*. The texture was all weird and wrong. Nothing like a cookie. No, she definitely did not like it.
"You know," he let his eyes rove up and down her. "That apron is *very* flattering on you."
Tony leered and leaned dangerously close over her to prove his point. She pushed him away, literally pushing on his chest, having no patience for his flirting when there was baking to be done. She had priorities even if he didn't.
"Aprons are not flattering," she chided, absentmindedly running her hand through her curls before she realised that she still had flour on them. Dammit. Flour was never easy to wash out.
Tony ran his eyes up and down her, something usually gave her a thrill but right now she wanted to both keep an eye on the cookies *and* she was throughly distracted by all the flour on her. How did she even manage to get this much on her? Magnetism? Why did Tony not have as much flour on him?
"Oh, on you, it definitely is."
She raised an eye row at him disbelivingly. How did being in an apron covered in flour make her look sexy? It was not like her clothes were wet or something. If anything, she looked ill. This was silly, even for Tony.
But Tony was right there in front of her giving her what McGee referred to as 'bedroom eyes'. But that was normal for Tony and her, just not when she was covered in flour. Seriously, how did it get this bad?
"You're going to make me burn the cookies," she reproached him in an attempt to get him to stop.
She didn't normally mind him looking at her like that, in fact she usually gave as good as she got. But that was when there weren't cookies to be dealt with. Which was far more important. She thought that he would agree with that considering his insistence on cookies in the first place.
"Yes, because it's going to be just *my* fault," he said sarcastically but stepped backwards.
They didn't want to actually have any accidents with the cookies, after all, did they? No, they didn't. Definitely not.
There was going to be no wasting of cookies in *this* kitchen. Mainly because Ziva knew that she would never hear the end of it from Tony if they did. They just had to exercise some self-control.
"It will be," she told him.
It wasn't like she was going to blame herself, was it? That would just be silly. Especially when she had Tony right here.
Unfortunately, they didn't even heed their own advice and got distracted again. This time, it was because Tony had noticed that Ziva had flour on her nose, and he simply couldn't resist the temptation. He had no self-control whatsoever, that was something that was already well known. So he gave in. And he flicked it.
It turned out that Ziva didn't like having her nose flicked. Who would have thought?
Of course, this led to her trying to hit him in retaliation. He said tried to because he actually predicted this (for a change) and (miraculously) managed to dodge it. This led to her chasing him around her apartment in an attempt to get her revenge. Which she got. Several times over. By flicking behind both his ears. Both of them! Do you know how much that stung?
It turned out that that took up *just* enough time that the timer went off. When they were furthest from the oven. Because of course they were.
They both ran to the oven, and he absentmindedly realised that in their antics, they had left a trail of flour behind them. Or, well, Ziva had because she was more covered in it than he was, somehow. But that didn't matter because that was definitely the smell of cookies burning!