The Dog, the Fence and the Superhero
"Check out what I found!"
Callen looked up from his newspaper as Deeks sauntered into the bullpen. Sam was still finishing off his morning coffee so he didn't respond at all, and Kensi was having one of her high sugar, low maintenance days where she came in wearing a hoodie and a mane of directionally confused hair. Taking one look at Deeks, she snatched up her purse and pushed away from her desk. "Don't care. Need chocolate."
There were a couple moments silence while the cop watched his partner stomp away. Then he turned his attention from Callen to Sam, and back to Callen again.
"What did you find?" Callen dutifully asked, keeping his face as neutral as possible so as to discourage further conversation.
Of course the team leader was aware that his go-away-I'm-not-really-listening look, was pretty close to his I'm-all-ears-but-too-cool-to-show-it look. It was the downside to being generally suave and mysterious.
Deeks dumped his bag on the floor and produced a small glass object from his jacket pocket, shaking it a couple times before placing at the head of his desk. Callen watched the glittering particles swirl around inside the glass for a few minutes before he responded.
"It's a snow globe."
Deeks grinned widely. "It's a personalized snow globe."
"You have a very low excitement threshold," Callen said drily, returning to his newspaper.
It was time for Sam to take over the conversation. The former SEAL rubbed a hand across the back of his neck and bumped his now empty coffee cup off the end of his desk into a waiting garbage can. He blinked in their direction and then began a slow descent to his desktop.
Callen watched in dismay as Sam nodded off in face-plant position.
"I found this little cart on the beach where they'll take a picture and put it into a snow globe for you!" Deeks started playing with the ornament again, watching the glitter roll from one end of the ball to the other. "And I found this one that looks just like the beach across from my old house where I used to play. It was perfect! Not that I was really impressed by the service though. Would you believe the vendor told me the photo was too 'gross' to frame in a snow globe? Like he knows anything about gross. You should have seen Cap before the surgery-"
Intrigued, Callen finally dropped his paper and strode over. "Deeks, give it here." Prying the snow globe out of Deeks grip, he held it up to the light to see.
Inside the sphere of glass, a little beach scene with palm trees and plastic waves was visible. But the main attraction was a photo inserted into the middle of the scene. On first glance, it was a cut-out of some wild pig, or perhaps a hairy Manatee. Callen peered at it more closely, and realised it was actually some sort of black haired dog with a wide scar down the front of his face, obliterating his left eye and ending on the side of his muzzle. Most of his left ear seemed to be missing as well, but the dog's tongue was still lolling out in happiness.
"Wow. And I thought Monty was the ugliest dog ever."
"This is Captain America." Deeks patted the snow globe fondly. "He was the first dog I ever owned. I think he was a poodle-bulldog cross."
"I didn't know that was even possible,"
"Well I can't be completely sure. But Mrs McCain's cat attacked him and his whole face swelled up with all this puss and stuff-"
"Deeks!" Callen protested, grimacing.
"But the good thing about the story was, my Father said we were going to have to put him down, but Mrs McCain felt so bad that she paid for the vet bills and Captain America had his eye and left ear amputated, but he was fine after that." Then the liaison started debated the merits of 'fine' when you were missing an eye and you look like doggy Frankenstein, but Callen had stopped listening.
The dog looked familiar. It wasn't often you saw a black dog with such a striking scar. The fact that he was called Captain America, and had only survived thanks to a generous neighbour started internal alarms going off.
He had met this dog before, in the arms of a snotty-nosed little blond boy with curiosity issues.
0 0 0
It was hot out, and the sun was beating down on Southern California like it had never heard of Ozone when Callen wandered out into the backyard, glad that these particular foster parents weren't attempting to do any parenting at the moment. At the age of fifteen, he was resigned to the fact that he wouldn't be staying very long, but it was still worth it to check out what he could do to pass the time while he was here.
This foster family lived on the outskirts of LA in a white-washed rancher. It was a dumpy place, surrounded by pre-constructed houses and scraggly yards, but it was within blocks of the water, so that had to count for something. Callen had started a habit of rating foster homes a couple of years back, and without the beach, this place would have been hard pressed to break even with most trailer parks. The back yard was pretty much empty. Even the grass wasn't making much of an effort.
Callen found a slightly less sad patch and dropped down on it, leaning back to stare at the blue sky. Tilting his head to the side, he found he could see up the side of the house to the road where a little boy and a small black dog were running across the street towards them. Bored out of his mind, Callen sat up, just in case they were going to get hit by a car and cause some excitement.
Instead the little boy crossed traffic safely and skipped up to the house next door, disappearing behind the fence.
Sighing, Callen collapsed back on the grass, wondering what he was supposed to do with himself until school started again. He could walk down to the beach. But he didn't own any swimming shorts at the moment.
"Hey you. Big sleeping kid. What's your name?"
If it hadn't been such a high pitched voice, Callen would have been on his feet in an instant. But the voice of a child didn't set off so many automatic alarm bells. Instead he sat up slowly, looking over to see a face peering at him over the top of the neighbours' fence.
It was the little boy from the road, sizing him up with a critical eye while he clung to the top of the fence.
Callen shrugged. "What's yours?"
Instead of the expected and annoying 'I asked first', the boy hoisted himself up by both arms, and swung his legs over to sit on the top of the fence. "My name's Marty and I live next door. You're a frosty kid, right?"
The little guy looked to be around seven, with a shock of white-blond hair on top and a turned up nose. His shirt was freshly grass-stained and his knees green as well.
Callen shoved his hands into his pockets and came over to the fence, unsure if he wanted to get too close to the kid. He looked like the kind that ended up giving you lice or maybe even fleas. They usually had a bit of an aroma as well. Surprisingly enough, this kid just smelled overwhelmingly of salt-water. He had the remainders of a split lip, and there was a bit of bruising over his left eye.
"Foster, not frosty. I'm Callen, and yeah, I'm staying here for a bit."
Looking at the kid face to face, Callen found himself feeling inclined to like the guy. He looked like a bit of a goof, with awkward proportions for his size, and disarming eagerness in his bright eyes.
"Cool name. Kal-En. Kinda like superman, huh?"
Callen blinked. "I guess."
"I'll be your friend if you want. But if you try and hurt my dog I'll beat you up."
"How old are you, kid? I'm fifteen already."
"Eight." Marty replied. "Doesn't mean I can't beat you up. I know where my Mom keeps some pepper-spray."
Callen laughed. "I'm not going to hurt your dog, Marty. So don't touch the pepper-spray, you'll probably just get it in your face."
The kid gave him a long hard stare, his little face slack with inner concentration. Then he made his decision and broke into a huge smile, a ridiculously open and joyful thing for a face that dirty. "Okay!"
The teen couldn't help the small smile of amusement as Marty jumped back down into his own yard. Callen could just see the top of his hair over the fence.
"Awesome. I'll bring him over. The Jacksons don't mind us hanging out unless I get in a fight or Captain America bites their frosty kids."
A moment later three panels in the fence popped out, and Marty scrambled through, a medium sized dog at heels. Callen dropped to his knees and reached out a hand to the excited dog. It was terribly energetic and friendly, despite the fact that it looked rather monstrous.
Smiling happily, Marty flopped down beside the two of them. When he hit the ground, Callen noticed that small streams of sand trickled from his pockets.
"So what do you want to do?"
"I don't know."
Marty rolled over onto his stomach, watching Captain America beg for scratches from the new neighbour. "Do you want to play a game, or maybe go swimming, or do sandcastles, or find something to eat, or dig a hole, or work on my-"
"I don't really care what we do, kid." Callen cut him off.
A mischievous light caught Marty eyes. "Really? You don't care?"
"Mm. No?"
That hesitant answer signalled the start of the busiest few weeks of summer Callen had ever experienced.
0 0 0
In the span of a few minutes, dog trailing after him, Marty had scurried through the fence, disappeared into his house and returned with a thin cardboard box under his arm and a couple tubes of glue between his teeth. It was a kit for a model plane that he couldn't figure out how to assemble on his own. The kid practically pounced on Callen, pushing the instructions into his hands and pestering him into explaining exactly what all the directions meant. Although Marty ended up with his hair glued to the collar of his shirt, and the plane was almost furrier than Captain America, they did manage to get the model assembled by the end of that hot summer day.
The kid came back the next day, and the next, and the next, each time with some new thing under his arm, or a new plan for the two of them.
The second day he had a stack of board games, and he wanted Callen to show him how to play chess, checkers, monopoly and scrabble all in one day. Next he wanted help climbing the tree up the road where he couldn't reach the lowest branches. After that he brought over a stack of books that Callen had to read out loud and decipher all the big words from.
Callen ended up feeling a bit like a babysitter, especially when Marty dragged him down to the beach and showed him off as a 'supervisor' so the adults at the surf shop would let him use one of their surf boards. The kid was actually pretty good though, and he provided an old pair of his Father's swim shorts so Callen could paddle along beside him. He got water up his nose, sand into every crevice possible, and a rather horrible sunburn, but he couldn't help but somehow absorb some of the absolute joy Marty seemed to take in splashing around in the ocean. It was the first time the older boy really understood why some people liked their home state of California so much.
The amount of time they spent together in those couple summer weeks could have earned him several hundred bucks if he had actually been baby-sitting Marty and his slobbering sidekick Captain America. But as often as he had been used as a baby sitter by other foster parents, this was a little different.
For one thing, no one had dumped the responsibility on him. There were no adults forcing him to keep an eye on the rambunctious eight year old. More importantly, he wasn't being asked to entertain the kid either. Marty came with all his own ideas of how to spend their time, and if he even saw an inkling of boredom creeping into the teenager's expression, he whipped up something new to try out. Although his response was often wildly inappropriate, the kid was good at reading people.
When it came time for Callen to move on a couple weeks later, he wasn't looking forward to telling the little kid from next door. Marty hopped through the fence around ten that morning, and started bouncing a rubber ball on the back porch. It seemed to be some rule of his that he never stepped into the kitchen or went anywhere near the front door.
Hearing the regular beat of the ball on the wall outside, Callen tipped back his cereal bowl, swallowing down the rest of the milk. He dumped the bowl and spoon into the sink and slipped out the back door. Marty gave the ball one last bounce that rocketed off into the back yard and then he turned to look at Callen.
"Hi!"
The older boy wiped a hand across his mouth and tried to think of some way of breaking the news that wouldn't result in a lot of tears and snot.
"Whatchoo thinking about?"
"Huh?"
Marty had moved in front of him, arms crossed, looking up. He was always asking that question. It was his second favourite after 'Why'. Most of the time Callen just answered 'Stuff' to the former and 'Because' to the latter, but sometimes the little guy managed to weasel a more involved answer out of him.
"So, um, I'm not going to be here much longer, Marty."
"No?"
Callen sighed. "No. I've gotta go live somewhere different now."
"Because you're a frost- fosty er kid?"
"Yup."
The teen watched Marty considered this carefully, waiting for the little blonde's face to fall. Callen had seen plenty of crying in his life, and it never got any less traumatic in the little ones.
Seeing a perpetually happy kid cry would probably be even worse.
But nothing happened.
Marty glanced down as Captain America skittered onto the porch, pressing the escaped bouncy ball into his master's hand. "Man. We were having fun, too."
He gave the ball an especially hard bounce back into the yard, and stuck his tongue out at the retreating toy. Then he turned back to Callen, let out a little huff of air that might have been the faintest edge of a pout, and asked, "But can you play now? Or do you got to pack your stuff right away?"
"I guess... yeah, I can play for a bit." Callen relaxed a little, seeing no signs of an oncoming tantrum. He followed Marty off the back porch, feeling a little disoriented by the kid's reaction. "Sorry, you know, that I've gotta leave."
"That's okay," Marty turned back to grin happily at him, already planning the details of their last hurrah. "It's not your fault. Everybody leaves."
0 0 0
Callen rubbed his thumb over the top of the globe, giving the ghost of Captain America a long hard look. Who would have guessed that stupid dog would be one of the few good things he would remember from his childhood.
"Um. Callen? He's not that interesting."
"Huh?" The older agent turned to look at the cop beside him. The funny turned up nose was still there, although the kid's hair had darkened a little with age. Callen watched Deeks' lips curl back in a smile as the cop grew nervous and amused at the same time. That smile, the ridiculously joyful one still transformed his face in the same way. And he still asked way too many inappropriate questions.
Callen gave Deeks a long look. "You always did act like a goof."
"Huh? I what?" Deeks' eyebrows shot up a little, as he caught the team leader's weighted use of the past tense. "What are we talking about now?"
"Cap followed you everywhere, and you smelled like wet dog and salt water all summer. And there was that garbage can lid you painted with a red and white bull's eye..."
Deeks' blue eyes had gone impossibly huge. "Um. How did you, you can't... You can't know that."
Gently placing the snow globe back on the cop's desk, Callen nodded to himself, letting the memories slowly drift back to the surface. "You used to pop a couple boards out of the fence to get through. I had to go over the top because I couldn't fit. One night Captain America went right under the fence and he spent the night sleeping on my feet while I sat on the back porch."
There was an audible gulp from the cop as he dropped into the chair that Kensi had vacated. "I don't know you, Callen. I mean I didn't know you, before, uh – How do you know that?"
Callen let out a little bark of laughter. "Didn't your neighbours host foster kids for years?"
"Yes. Yes they did." Deeks blanched white. "You- you were in foster care. You lived with the Jacksons?"
"Yup."
They both stared at each other for a few minutes.
Callen was caught in a circle of fresh childhood experiences he hadn't thought of in years. He had gone swimming, climbed a tree, built a model airplane, done so many things that weren't anchored to a memory of childhood trauma. He suddenly had a new window to look back through.
Deeks was just shocked. It was kind of like the time the hot waitress at this adult bar pinched him on the cheek and told him she was an old baby sitter who used to change his diapers when she was in highschool. Not something you were expecting, or necessarily looking for at all.
"Your house was down by the beach, right? A yellow house with white shutters? I think I was around fifteen, and you were just a little guy. I was only there for a couple weeks."
Deeks nodded, trying to get his head around the idea. "Wow. Well. There were so many kids that moved through there. They were hosting foster kids before I was even born."
He gave Callen another glance, checking once more that the agent was really serious. Sometimes it was hard to tell if the agents were pulling his leg. "I don't remember much about most of them. Most of them wouldn't play with me. Some of them were nasty as hell... I remember one big guy taught me poker. He was nice; some of them were nice."
"Poker on the pier by the beach, and the cards kept blowing into the water," Callen remembered.
"Damn Callen, that was you?" Deeks had gotten to the point where he couldn't possibly look more stunned. "You were that big kid? I don't even remember what his head looked like. He was too tall."
Callen stood up, only a foot and a half taller than the cop when he was sitting down. He gave Deeks a pat on the head. "I guess the little goof grew up."
Deeks blushed, and then burst into laughter. "I can't believe it. This is so weird. Who would have guessed we both met each other before? I was sure I was the only one that made it out of that neighbourhood." He kicked back in the chair, open and closing the drawers of his partner's desk with one hand until he found the packet of Skittles. "And in law enforcement, too. Wouldn't that show up my old training officer. Ha!
"Wait till Kensi hears about this. You can vouch for what an awesome little kid I was," Deeks added on.
Watching the cop, and very very old friend pour a stream of candy into his mouth, Callen smiled softly.
It wasn't the neighbourhood that had haunted Callen for years. It was the lifestyle a kid falls into when he's raising himself. But that aimless lonely teenager had made it here, made it to a real life. And he was suddenly very glad to know that another dirty, wild little kid had made it with him, smile still intact.