FIC: Death is That State (Navy NCIS) Ari/Ziva, Ziva/Jenny
Title: Death is That State
Author: rysler
Rating: NC-17
Source: Navy NCIS
Pairing: Ziva/Ari (underage, non-consensual incest), Ziva/Jenny
Summary: Ziva backstory. AU. Spoilers for Kill Ari, Part 2.
* * *
When they were kids, Ari came into her room at night. He did things to her that she could remember vividly. A breeze might touch her neck. Her nerves would tingle as if it were his breath. As if he were still real and not dead and buried with her bullet in his brain.
The first time she was thirteen.
"Come on, show me your tits," he slurred in Hebrew mixed with English slang.
Ziva felt dirty just hearing the words. She said, "No."
Ari knelt on the edge of her bed, menacing, like a serpent, his eyes glittered slits in the dark. Father had always called her his mongoose. She pulled the sheets further up her neck.
Ari said, "Where else am I going to get a look?"
"Maybe in those pornos you have."
"That I stole from under your bed, Ziva? Playboy? Curve?"
"I prefer Hustler," she said.
"You keep the good ones to yourself. The sexiest girls." He sneered, and crouched forward on the bed. She shoved at his thigh with her foot. He grabbed her ankle. She froze. "Come on, Ziva. I want to feel one."
"You said you just wanted a look," she said.
"Close your eyes, Ziva. You won't feel a thing," he said. His laugh sounded sharp. Abrasive. Like even his voice could burn the clothes off her skin. She felt her flesh burning already.
"No," she said again, but his hand was already sliding up her calf.
"I'll give you cash," he said.
Ziva frowned. He was bigger and stronger, and no one would believe Ziva if she screamed. Not after so many years of Ari being a good boy, and her getting into trouble. Yet he was negotiating. Weak. She sneered and narrowed her eyes. "You'll drive me to Tel Aviv on Sunday." One touch would be worth it, she thought, to have this little victory over Ari.
He frowned, but nodded.
She closed her eyes and felt the clammy fingers close around her breast. His palm rubbed against her nipple and it hardened. She flinched. He stayed above her nightgown, rubbing in circles, squeezing gently. His hand felt different than her own, when she had mimicked his motions. She'd never let another girl touch her, but she wished right then that she had, so she could escape into the memory and wash away Ari's touch.
His hand felt good and bad at the same time. She wanted to cut it from his wrist, but she wasn't sure she wanted it to stop. Her eyes stayed closed and her back stayed rigid. His breath grew raspy, and then he left, stumbling off the bed and slamming the bedroom door behind him.
He avoided her for a month after that, but when he returned, he was bolder.
At fifteen she made clear to her father what she was going to do with her life.
"Mossad."
"But darling. You could do anything if you just kept yourself out of trouble at school. Law. Politics. Be a doctor, Ziva. Don't--"
"Mossad," she said, and she could tell that he was pleased.
At sixteen, she carried a gun, spied on her classmates, and gathered intelligence at dance clubs. Ari carried a gun, too. He was a better shooter. And he was sadistic enough to press the barrel against her temple while talking to her in bed. One night, he even tried to make sense of it.
"You know our family. We can't trust anyone else. Not inside. Not outside. There's only us, Ziva. Family."
"Family," she repeated dully, as his hand pressed bruises into her hips.
"Just you and me," he said, as his nails dug into her belly. He was naked on top of her, still on top of the blankets. He didn't like to see her naked, until he had to.
She didn't respond.
"Just you and me, Ziva, right?" He was panting. His cock pressed against her ribs.
She merely smiled at him.
He slid under the covers and pressed his knee between her thighs. She brought up the knife she'd hidden in her palm and pressed it against his balls.
"Shit, Ziva!" He arched up above her, trying to get away from the touch of cold steel.
She smiled at him, and flicked her wrist. A thin line of blood creased his scrotum. He scrambled away, holding the blankets bunched around his waist. "I won't come back," he said. "I promise."
She sat, sliding herself up his chest, reaching around his neck until the blade pressed into his jaw. "You will. You still have more to teach me."
He groaned. The first groan she had torn from him fully on her terms. After that, she practiced with him. She learned how to stop him from coming in order to extend his agony. She learned how to make him come when he didn't want to; to make him helpless, vulnerable. She learned how deeply to cut to cause him pain, to make him weak with blood loss, to leave thin white scars where no one could see.
She taught him, too. How to please her. How to lie to her. How to fear women.
When she got her first assignment in the United States, she thought she would be free of him.
But there he was. Always he was sitting in the car next to her, or sharing her apartment, or meeting her on street corners, or touching her in clubs.
"It's so good that you can work together," her father said. "So good that you have someone you trust."
She kept learning. She learned that everyone was just like her brother. Just like Ari, wanting the same thing from her. Taking it. Men and women were the same, thinking they had the upper hand on her, spilling their secrets like they spilled their seed.
The first time she gave without negotiation, she was twenty-two.
"You are getting over a man," she said to the redhead in the dingy hotel bar.
Qatar hadn't had much to offer Ziva until she saw the woman. Ziva knew her as Jenny Sheppard, Special Agent, Naval Criminal Investigation Services, United States Government. She knew who was smuggling drugs on Naval ships in the Black Sea. Cocaine that ended up in Jerusalem, and ignited fires on an already burning city. Made Israelis violent and careless. Made Palestinians poorer than they could afford to be.
Jenny wiped impatiently away a tear. "Is it that obvious?"
Ziva smiled. She took sip of her tonic water. Jenny waved at the bartender for a refill. "What was he like?" Ziva asked.
"He was... a man," Jenny said, with a sigh.
"They all are."
Jenny chuckled, and said, "Yes. They are." She studied Ziva's profile. "Do you like men?"
"No."
"Better that way," said Jenny.
"You'd think."
"It's not his fault," Jenny said, and sighed. "Whatever made him who he is... That's not his fault."
"Are you saying all men are broken?"
"I'm saying they can't be fixed." Jenny gave her a sidelong glance.
"And yet, you are still sad."
"I'll get over it," Jenny said, and patted Ziva's hand. Her touch lingered, and her fingers gently encircled Ziva's palm. Ziva felt something cool and metal touch her skin, and when Jenny's hand withdrew, Ziva let hers fall flat on the bar. The disc was under her hand. Her mission was done. She could finish her drink and leave.
Jenny was silent, watching her. Ziva slid off the barstool. She reached for her wallet, but Jenny spoke. "I'll get that," she said to the bartender, who nodded.
Ziva said, "All that talk of men... I need to go freshen up." She squeezed Jenny's shoulder as she passed to leave the bar, and left her room key in Jenny's jacket pocket.
Upstairs, Jenny panted in her ear, and curled her hand on Ziva's stomach. "Is it just because I'm attractive?"
Ziva chuckled, rolling over to face Jenny. She whispered, "It is because you still know how to be sad over something as trivial as love."
Jenny smiled, and leaned closer to kiss her. Ziva drew back from her lips. "Is it because I am attractive?"
"There's no way I can follow your poetic answer," Jenny said, and slumped onto her back. "I figured you would know what you're doing. You had that look. And you do. Where did you learn... all that?"
"Mossad."
Jenny was staring at the ceiling, and Ziva studied her eyes, and said, to modify, "Family. That's how I learned."
"I understand. NCIS is like my family, too."
Ziva closed her eyes.
Jenny shifted on the bed, and then a hand touched Ziva's cheek. "What's your name?" Jenny asked.
"If we ever meet again, I will tell you."
"Fair enough," said Jenny, and straddled her hips.
When she was twenty-seven Ari died. The man she killed him over sat on the edge of a desk. Ziva thought, when you save a man's life, you are responsible for them forever. Even if your brother murdered someone he loved. Death for death. Life for life.
Special Agent Gibbs was every bit the broken man Jenny had described, and Ziva could guess, with her closest sibling newly dead, exactly what he felt like.
"I am... bound to you... to NCIS... " she said, halting over the words she'd never spoken in any language she knew.
Gibbs frowned, and said, "If it's an honor debt, I don't want--"
She waved his words away. "It's an assignment."
Her father had told her she was no longer welcome in Israel. That she was no longer his daughter. Hunting Ari had been necessary to appease the United States government, but killing him was unforgivable. Her father would not believe that Ari would betray his people, especially not for something as petty as a personal vendetta against his own family.
He would only believe that Ziva would betray him, because the blood was visible on her hands, and in the report Gibbs had written.
"Ziva..." Gibbs was saying her name as he stood up from the desk, and put his hands on her shoulders. "It's not just an assignment. I know what you did to save my life." He cupped her cheek.
She closed her eyes and took in the touch of his rough fingers against her face. "No," she said.
Gibbs flinched. She felt his fingers jerk before withdrew his hand.
"Ziva, whatever you're thinking in that crazy Mossad head, I would never--I'm not going to--" She opened her eyes to see him looking appalled, his eyes wide. "You don't owe me anything. You are welcome in NCIS," he said.
He was the first man not to want anything from her; to understand that he'd already taken enough. She asked, "Then what does that make us? What is left?"
He gazed steadily at her, and brought his hand back to her cheek. "I'm sorry."
Ziva shrugged. "Don't be. One brother... for another." She leaned into his touch. Gibbs smiled. Their eyes held, and Gibbs dropped his hand.
Ziva stuck her hands in her pockets, and said, "You will not touch me... Because I said no?" She smiled. The expression felt ridiculous to her lips, but she felt safe for the first time since she was twelve years old.
He smiled back. "Bewitching woman."
She walked past him to the door of the office, calling, "You don't know the dozen of it."
"Half, Ziva. You don't know the half of it."
"I was trying to be generous," she said.
He stopped short.
She smirked.
"You're going to be a good agent, Miss David."
"Thank you, Special Agent Gibbs."
Gibbs led her to the main corral of NCIS so that she could be with the team. Her new family. Ziva looked around her, taking in NCIS. If it was home, it wasn't much to look at. Cubicles and outdated computers and young boys with bad hair that she had to trust with her life. But Gibbs was there, laughing. Jenny was there, leaning over the balcony, looking sadly down at them.
Ziva felt, if she were going to die for what she did to Ari, she would be happy to die here.
END
Author: rysler
Rating: NC-17
Source: Navy NCIS
Pairing: Ziva/Ari (underage, non-consensual incest), Ziva/Jenny
Summary: Ziva backstory. AU. Spoilers for Kill Ari, Part 2.
* * *
When they were kids, Ari came into her room at night. He did things to her that she could remember vividly. A breeze might touch her neck. Her nerves would tingle as if it were his breath. As if he were still real and not dead and buried with her bullet in his brain.
The first time she was thirteen.
"Come on, show me your tits," he slurred in Hebrew mixed with English slang.
Ziva felt dirty just hearing the words. She said, "No."
Ari knelt on the edge of her bed, menacing, like a serpent, his eyes glittered slits in the dark. Father had always called her his mongoose. She pulled the sheets further up her neck.
Ari said, "Where else am I going to get a look?"
"Maybe in those pornos you have."
"That I stole from under your bed, Ziva? Playboy? Curve?"
"I prefer Hustler," she said.
"You keep the good ones to yourself. The sexiest girls." He sneered, and crouched forward on the bed. She shoved at his thigh with her foot. He grabbed her ankle. She froze. "Come on, Ziva. I want to feel one."
"You said you just wanted a look," she said.
"Close your eyes, Ziva. You won't feel a thing," he said. His laugh sounded sharp. Abrasive. Like even his voice could burn the clothes off her skin. She felt her flesh burning already.
"No," she said again, but his hand was already sliding up her calf.
"I'll give you cash," he said.
Ziva frowned. He was bigger and stronger, and no one would believe Ziva if she screamed. Not after so many years of Ari being a good boy, and her getting into trouble. Yet he was negotiating. Weak. She sneered and narrowed her eyes. "You'll drive me to Tel Aviv on Sunday." One touch would be worth it, she thought, to have this little victory over Ari.
He frowned, but nodded.
She closed her eyes and felt the clammy fingers close around her breast. His palm rubbed against her nipple and it hardened. She flinched. He stayed above her nightgown, rubbing in circles, squeezing gently. His hand felt different than her own, when she had mimicked his motions. She'd never let another girl touch her, but she wished right then that she had, so she could escape into the memory and wash away Ari's touch.
His hand felt good and bad at the same time. She wanted to cut it from his wrist, but she wasn't sure she wanted it to stop. Her eyes stayed closed and her back stayed rigid. His breath grew raspy, and then he left, stumbling off the bed and slamming the bedroom door behind him.
He avoided her for a month after that, but when he returned, he was bolder.
At fifteen she made clear to her father what she was going to do with her life.
"Mossad."
"But darling. You could do anything if you just kept yourself out of trouble at school. Law. Politics. Be a doctor, Ziva. Don't--"
"Mossad," she said, and she could tell that he was pleased.
At sixteen, she carried a gun, spied on her classmates, and gathered intelligence at dance clubs. Ari carried a gun, too. He was a better shooter. And he was sadistic enough to press the barrel against her temple while talking to her in bed. One night, he even tried to make sense of it.
"You know our family. We can't trust anyone else. Not inside. Not outside. There's only us, Ziva. Family."
"Family," she repeated dully, as his hand pressed bruises into her hips.
"Just you and me," he said, as his nails dug into her belly. He was naked on top of her, still on top of the blankets. He didn't like to see her naked, until he had to.
She didn't respond.
"Just you and me, Ziva, right?" He was panting. His cock pressed against her ribs.
She merely smiled at him.
He slid under the covers and pressed his knee between her thighs. She brought up the knife she'd hidden in her palm and pressed it against his balls.
"Shit, Ziva!" He arched up above her, trying to get away from the touch of cold steel.
She smiled at him, and flicked her wrist. A thin line of blood creased his scrotum. He scrambled away, holding the blankets bunched around his waist. "I won't come back," he said. "I promise."
She sat, sliding herself up his chest, reaching around his neck until the blade pressed into his jaw. "You will. You still have more to teach me."
He groaned. The first groan she had torn from him fully on her terms. After that, she practiced with him. She learned how to stop him from coming in order to extend his agony. She learned how to make him come when he didn't want to; to make him helpless, vulnerable. She learned how deeply to cut to cause him pain, to make him weak with blood loss, to leave thin white scars where no one could see.
She taught him, too. How to please her. How to lie to her. How to fear women.
When she got her first assignment in the United States, she thought she would be free of him.
But there he was. Always he was sitting in the car next to her, or sharing her apartment, or meeting her on street corners, or touching her in clubs.
"It's so good that you can work together," her father said. "So good that you have someone you trust."
She kept learning. She learned that everyone was just like her brother. Just like Ari, wanting the same thing from her. Taking it. Men and women were the same, thinking they had the upper hand on her, spilling their secrets like they spilled their seed.
The first time she gave without negotiation, she was twenty-two.
"You are getting over a man," she said to the redhead in the dingy hotel bar.
Qatar hadn't had much to offer Ziva until she saw the woman. Ziva knew her as Jenny Sheppard, Special Agent, Naval Criminal Investigation Services, United States Government. She knew who was smuggling drugs on Naval ships in the Black Sea. Cocaine that ended up in Jerusalem, and ignited fires on an already burning city. Made Israelis violent and careless. Made Palestinians poorer than they could afford to be.
Jenny wiped impatiently away a tear. "Is it that obvious?"
Ziva smiled. She took sip of her tonic water. Jenny waved at the bartender for a refill. "What was he like?" Ziva asked.
"He was... a man," Jenny said, with a sigh.
"They all are."
Jenny chuckled, and said, "Yes. They are." She studied Ziva's profile. "Do you like men?"
"No."
"Better that way," said Jenny.
"You'd think."
"It's not his fault," Jenny said, and sighed. "Whatever made him who he is... That's not his fault."
"Are you saying all men are broken?"
"I'm saying they can't be fixed." Jenny gave her a sidelong glance.
"And yet, you are still sad."
"I'll get over it," Jenny said, and patted Ziva's hand. Her touch lingered, and her fingers gently encircled Ziva's palm. Ziva felt something cool and metal touch her skin, and when Jenny's hand withdrew, Ziva let hers fall flat on the bar. The disc was under her hand. Her mission was done. She could finish her drink and leave.
Jenny was silent, watching her. Ziva slid off the barstool. She reached for her wallet, but Jenny spoke. "I'll get that," she said to the bartender, who nodded.
Ziva said, "All that talk of men... I need to go freshen up." She squeezed Jenny's shoulder as she passed to leave the bar, and left her room key in Jenny's jacket pocket.
Upstairs, Jenny panted in her ear, and curled her hand on Ziva's stomach. "Is it just because I'm attractive?"
Ziva chuckled, rolling over to face Jenny. She whispered, "It is because you still know how to be sad over something as trivial as love."
Jenny smiled, and leaned closer to kiss her. Ziva drew back from her lips. "Is it because I am attractive?"
"There's no way I can follow your poetic answer," Jenny said, and slumped onto her back. "I figured you would know what you're doing. You had that look. And you do. Where did you learn... all that?"
"Mossad."
Jenny was staring at the ceiling, and Ziva studied her eyes, and said, to modify, "Family. That's how I learned."
"I understand. NCIS is like my family, too."
Ziva closed her eyes.
Jenny shifted on the bed, and then a hand touched Ziva's cheek. "What's your name?" Jenny asked.
"If we ever meet again, I will tell you."
"Fair enough," said Jenny, and straddled her hips.
When she was twenty-seven Ari died. The man she killed him over sat on the edge of a desk. Ziva thought, when you save a man's life, you are responsible for them forever. Even if your brother murdered someone he loved. Death for death. Life for life.
Special Agent Gibbs was every bit the broken man Jenny had described, and Ziva could guess, with her closest sibling newly dead, exactly what he felt like.
"I am... bound to you... to NCIS... " she said, halting over the words she'd never spoken in any language she knew.
Gibbs frowned, and said, "If it's an honor debt, I don't want--"
She waved his words away. "It's an assignment."
Her father had told her she was no longer welcome in Israel. That she was no longer his daughter. Hunting Ari had been necessary to appease the United States government, but killing him was unforgivable. Her father would not believe that Ari would betray his people, especially not for something as petty as a personal vendetta against his own family.
He would only believe that Ziva would betray him, because the blood was visible on her hands, and in the report Gibbs had written.
"Ziva..." Gibbs was saying her name as he stood up from the desk, and put his hands on her shoulders. "It's not just an assignment. I know what you did to save my life." He cupped her cheek.
She closed her eyes and took in the touch of his rough fingers against her face. "No," she said.
Gibbs flinched. She felt his fingers jerk before withdrew his hand.
"Ziva, whatever you're thinking in that crazy Mossad head, I would never--I'm not going to--" She opened her eyes to see him looking appalled, his eyes wide. "You don't owe me anything. You are welcome in NCIS," he said.
He was the first man not to want anything from her; to understand that he'd already taken enough. She asked, "Then what does that make us? What is left?"
He gazed steadily at her, and brought his hand back to her cheek. "I'm sorry."
Ziva shrugged. "Don't be. One brother... for another." She leaned into his touch. Gibbs smiled. Their eyes held, and Gibbs dropped his hand.
Ziva stuck her hands in her pockets, and said, "You will not touch me... Because I said no?" She smiled. The expression felt ridiculous to her lips, but she felt safe for the first time since she was twelve years old.
He smiled back. "Bewitching woman."
She walked past him to the door of the office, calling, "You don't know the dozen of it."
"Half, Ziva. You don't know the half of it."
"I was trying to be generous," she said.
He stopped short.
She smirked.
"You're going to be a good agent, Miss David."
"Thank you, Special Agent Gibbs."
Gibbs led her to the main corral of NCIS so that she could be with the team. Her new family. Ziva looked around her, taking in NCIS. If it was home, it wasn't much to look at. Cubicles and outdated computers and young boys with bad hair that she had to trust with her life. But Gibbs was there, laughing. Jenny was there, leaning over the balcony, looking sadly down at them.
Ziva felt, if she were going to die for what she did to Ari, she would be happy to die here.
END