#ugh ok

OK I think I should start by talking about the backstory I have for them! For context, I see them as half-brothers that share their mom, but each of their dads are also OCs of mine (though only Mama has art).

Somewhere between 24 and 28 years pre-show, Li Shui and David Medvedev (an immigrant from this world's equivalent of eastern europe to Hidden Kingdom) were young adults in love. Both thrill-seekers and silly by nature, the farm girl and the woodcutter were a bit of a flash in the pan, pranking people and having fun. However, once Shui became pregnant, she started trying to be more serious and responsible, as she saw being a mother as a serious commitment that required her to shape up. David didn't follow suit, and their relationship started to sour. By the time Kui (who picks up the nickname Hurricane as an adult) was born, they were both pretty over the relationship and now they were disagreeing on parenting decisions too. They're both stubborn and a bit hotheaded, so things quickly deteriorated. Kui wasn't even a year old yet when they broke up, and since David argued he was more capable of protecting the baby, he ended up convincing her to let him bring Kui with him back to his home; not too-too far, but enough that the farmer wouldn't be able to visit often. To be honest, there were definitely things they could have done to get on better terms. Still, they were both too bull-headed to figure it out, and they separated.

So David goes back to his home and Shui is a single farmer again, but more mature now. It's during this time that she slowly falls for one Hua Min, a local teacher who previously served as a guard for the village. He was someone she'd known for many years, but never held interest in due to finding his more reserved and stoic manner really boring. After the chaos with David, though, she found comfort in his more structured and honestly kind of awkward nature. Somewhere between two and four years after the first, her second son, Rong (later to be called Archer), was born.

When the youngest boy was about three years old, David and Kui returned to their village. It turns out that David had had a really bad falling out with his family back home and no longer felt safe there, and not really knowing what else to do as well as having grown himself since they left, went back to the village he'd lived in with Shui. Turns out that being a single father is hard and he'd been forced to mature, at least to a degree, and had plenty of time to reflect on his time with her and realize that he still liked and respected her and wanted her in their lives. Overjoyed at seeing her oldest again and seeing how David had grown, she welcomed them back, though the man was on a sort of probationary period to see if they could get along again. Min actually took to them well too after a bit of apprehension, he respects David's strength and dedication to the family, not to mention that he's genuinely a good father. Despite their different personalities and David's honestly complex feelings about Shui, the men end up being great friends! By the time a room is added to the home for them, everyone gets along quite well, all things considered.

Them moving back in means that now, her sons (around 5-7 and 3) got to meet! They're relatively similar to their adult selves: Kui is confident, sociable, and enjoys cooking and woodworking, while Rong is quiet, anxious, and snippy for a young child. Compared to the adults, they take a bit longer to warm up to each other. Kui was used to living in a town that had few children his age, but their new home had more and he really wanted to make friends! The boy that lived in his own house, however, seemed intent on sticking with him whenever he could. Kui couldn't actually tell if the kid liked him at all, considering he didn't really talk and was often either grumpy or crying, but he wanted to be near him anyway, so he must like him at least somewhat, right? Well, the local kids that Kui desperately wanted to befriend were not kind about the new boy from far away with a strange accent and a perpetual tag- along in the form of a "baby". This strained the boys' relationship for a bit as Kui blamed Rong for the other kids not wanting to be friends with him, but he quickly came to the conclusion that the little brat seemed to look up to him a lot and was rather lonely, so why should he reject the only one who actually seemed to want to be his friend? In his own way, but still.

So then they actually hang out! Rong shows Kui cool rocks and things he's collected (which just so happen to often look like arrowheads), Kui rambles about the adventures he had in his father's village and on the way here, they go exploring around their village, and Mama starts trying to teach them to cook! Unfortunately, only one I'd then ever gets good at it, lol. Turns out the little one does talk, he's just very, very shy. Non-family people freak him out, and he quickly takes to hiding behind his new brother too instead of just Mama and Dad. Kui's cool with that, he likes the idea of being strong and protecting people, even when said people is just his little brother that bites if you wake him up when he's not ready.

When they're about 10-12 and 8-ish, they're very much the little terrors they grow into: they play pranks on others on town, goof off when they're supposed to be helping, etc. In an attempt to encourage patience and responsibility, Min offers to teach them both to use a weapon of their choice, but only if they behave. They agree readily, and David joins too cuz Why Not, with their choices being rather obvious if you know them: Kui and David choose axes, Rong chooses archery.

We all know Gibbs had a thing about coworkers dating. It was rule #12, probably because of whatever happened with Jenny. Despite them being on separate teams, he gave Tony hell about it when he started dating EJ.

It was made to seem as though Tony and Ziva never got together because of Gibbs' rule. But Gibbs knows what it's like to find and then and lose the love of his life, so why wouldn't he make an exception?

I don't think the rule had much to do with physical safety? It seemed like it was more to avoid a complicated dynamic working together if the couple didn't stay together. Tony and Ziva had an intense connection all along, and they worked well together in the field. I don't think that would've changed had they officially gotten together.

I have no doubt he loved Tony and Ziva like he loved Kelly, so maybe making rule #12 so bright and shiny was just a misguided way of trying to protect them? But it just doesn't quite make sense to me. Gibbs always seemed so ridiculously wise about everything, so why not this?

And maybe it wasn't all Gibbs. Maybe Tony and Ziva, whether or not they actually vocalized it to each other is aside the point for the moment, were so attached to Gibbs and being a part of their team family that they didn't want to risk officially getting together and breaking rule #12 and upsetting the dynamic. Because I don't think it was a matter of them not wanting to risk their friendship or partnership. They both, albeit somewhat indirectly, expressed interest in each other i.e. talking about Jimmy's wedding, when they were stuck in the elevator after the bombing, when Tony told her she looked good with the diamond she was holding and when they held hands after the crash, when he told her he couldn't live without her in Somalia. I could go on.

Gibbs was so supportive of Tony when he found out about Tali and of Ziva when she came out of hiding, so why the hell would he keep them apart? He knew what it was like to lose the love of his life. I just don't get it