#israclixlioncss

@israclixlioncss​

She was the light of his life. 

If someone had asked him years ago if he thought he’d love a child like this he would have said no, would have explained that he didn’t know how to love a child, that he didn’t have the best example of what a father should be. Then he’d met Tali, heard her call him abba for the first time, and he knew that his heart was sold. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for that little girl. He would give her the world.

And he had. He’d resigned from NCIS immediately and set off with Tali, determined to keep her safe from the fate that had befallen her mother. New York was as good a place to hide as any, an easy place to build a new identity. The tug of familiarity it brought didn’t hurt. He could raise Tali in New York, could keep her safe from anyone who might come to hurt her because of who he and Ziva were. Tali would be protected.

It was a Thursday, movie day, and Tony was walking to Tali’s Hebrew school, ready to pick her up for their nightly tradition. The old theater that his mum had taken him to was still open, still playing the classics. He had started the tradition with Tali when she was four and struggling to learn English. The same method that had taught him English had taught his daughter, a tradition he’d been proud to carry on. It was something he could give her of his mum, something that would connect her to family.

His mind was on the movie, on what Tali would tell him she’d learned today, on the crowds around him. That was the only reason he saw her standing there, leaning against a tree on the other side of the street, looking achingly like the little girl he was about to pick up. Tony pulled up short and stared at her for a few minutes, wondering if she was really there or if she was a ghost. Then she glanced away from the school and their eyes met and he knew. This was really her.

Crossing the street, Tony fought down all the emotions he was feeling. He didn’t want to lose control in front of the school, didn’t want Tali to see him angry or upset. He’d calmed down a lot from the hothead he’d once been. He wouldn’t lose his temper.

Send me an emotion and I’ll describe how my Muse expresses it non-verbally.

[ @winewomenwit ]

There’s an honesty to his eyes. Though the entirety of his face is a mask––fragile though it may be––his eyes have never been so skilled. It’s a chink of sorts in an otherwise perfect disguise. 

Because Mossad Agent Eyal Lavin doesn’t make mistakes. He doesn’t do things that he should give him pause. He is cool, calm, and collected. A professional. He does his job. Nothing more. Nothing less. 

And yet, in his eyes––so carefully focused on the ground, just past the other, anywhere but meeting their gaze––there is a sadness, an almost maudlin quality, as though he’s already trying to figure out how much this regret will haunt him. How often will he return in his mind to the beginning of the road not taken? How often will he wonder, speculate, lament over what might have been had he just––?

Regret in the form of having upset his other and better half––he isn’t certain exactly what he has done, but she’s crying and so it must have been something––is a crushing weight. It pushes down on him, slumping his shoulders, bowing his head, his eyes just barely raising to focus on her because this should be a punishment, seeing so strong a woman cry.

It’s times like these, few though they are, when he wonders if he had made a mistake. If perhaps she wouldn’t have been better off with some other man. With someone who had less baggage, fewer ghosts and skeletons.

He is hesitant, an evident pause after his first step toward her, but at last he goes to her, envelopes her in an embrace, presses soft kisses to her forehead, to her tear-stained cheeks, then to her lips. There’s never a word spoken and yet the meaning is clear: 

@israclixlioncss || @kidonassxssin

Here are Malachi’s re-edits. I wasn’t quite sure what kinda feel you were going for, especially with you considering a new theme, so I did a few different fonts and then the lower four I did a little bit more with the background so that it didn’t look so empty and was a little more symbolic, I suppose? Hope this will at least work until I can get the new ones made! 

@israclixlioncss. Here’s the revised promo images. I swear I’ll get the new ones edited together before too long. Sorry for the wait. :’)

“Is that such a bad thing?” she questions, a chuckle escaping her. 

After ten years spent away from him––of having to deal with her mother and everything that had entailed––she is more than happy to spend so much time with her אבא.

The light sound of Ziva’s laughter only seems to brighten her own smile even more, and of course, hearing Eyal’s borderline indignant ‘I heard that’ from the other room almost makes her laugh again.

She likes being around the couple that she’s come to consider her aunt and uncle (though, technically, she already has an aunt and an uncle with Chana and Nadiv). They tease each other and laugh together, and there’s no doubt that they love each other. What’s more, it’s just nice to see a couple so happy. It’s a kind of reassurance that it is possible, despite what her father might say in his disillusionment or what she has observed for herself.

Not-doing-too-good sentence starters

@israclixlioncss

“That obvious?” she questions, her voice a little rough. She’s not sure why she even bothers asking. She’s really not surprised. As terrible as she feels, it should probably be obvious to anyone who even glances at her. 

Clumsy Starters

@israclixlioncss

“But, Aunt Ziva, the step very clearly intended to trip me,” the young woman replies with an easiness and a humor borne of the past few years living with her father. Because a couple of years ago, she would have taken the other woman’s statement as a reprimand, a criticism of her, just as her mother would have meant it.

“Aaaand, I suppose that it succeeded……” she adds after a moment, looking down at her now scuffed up and bleeding knee. 

The smile he presents her with is nothing short of icily fake.