Assume that this take place sometime after the end of season 5 and that Deeks and Kensi still have not figured their thing out. This will be a short multi-chapter story. Huge thanks to aprylynn for the beta. For Nelly.
And as usual, I do not own NCIS Los Angeles, Deeks, Kensi, Cadillacs, or anything of the like.
"Do you even know where you're going?"
Kensi scowled without taking her eyes off of the road. "Yes. I know exactly where we're going."
"You sure? Cause I think we might be lost," Deeks teased.
"Just because you have no sense of direction does not mean we are lost."
Opening the glove compartment box, Deeks pulled out an old folded map of Southern California. Unfolding it and flattening it out across the dashboard, he made a grand show of scouring the map. "Nope. I don't see Bumfuck, Egypt on here. Are we even in Cali anymore?"
"Ass," Kensi grumbled, accelerating faster. She didn't know exactly where they were, but she had a pretty good idea. "And you sir, are a shitty navigator. Eric said we take this county road 22 miles and the old barn or whatever it is will be down a dirt road on the right. We've been on this road 11.6 miles, so we're halfway there. Quit your bitching."
Glaring at her, he folded map back up more neatly than he originally found it and placed it back in the glove box. He continued glaring when she started tapping her hands on the steering wheel to the Ke$ha song that came on her iPod. "You're really irritating, you know that?"
"Isn't that usually my line?" She was partially right; it was a phrase they both had uttered numerous times recently. Unlike on television or in books, unresolved sexual tension between two people didn't just keep getting more and more exciting. It merely put both of them on edge, especially when left alone with each other. They both knew it was a problem but refused to acknowledge or do anything about it, choosing instead to just apologize to each other after venting their aggressions and falling back into their old familiar patterns. Communication problems, they always said.
Deeks reacted as usual and ignored her comment, stretching his legs out and adjusting his jeans. "It kinda sucks that the GPS is disabled in this car. I mean, I know why it was, it would just be nice to have it. If we ever got lost or something."
"Ugh! Just shut up," Kensi snapped. "You have a freaking GPS app on your phone, use that if you don't trust me."
"I already tried that. Put the address in and it literally said," Deeks held his phone up to her face, "Does not exist. You're fucked. Good luck."
Kensi glanced briefly to her right. "It doesn't say that."
"Made you look. But it really doesn't recognize the address."
"Are you surprised? I mean, hello, potential terrorist storage facility. They probably built it out of-" She paused, staring at the road ahead. She was coming up on a small intersection and clearly had the right of way, but there was an old pickup truck approaching at what appeared to be a very high speed and wasn't slowing down at all. Kensi herself was driving at 80 miles per hour, and let off the gas to start slowing down but soon realized it wasn't good enough. The next conversation felt like it happened in less than two seconds and more than two hours at the same time to her. "Shit shit shit, that guy isn't stopping!"
"What guy?" Deeks looked up from phone as Kensi slammed on her brakes. "Whoa whoa, swerve swerve swerve swerve!"
"I'm gonna fucking flip this thing if I swerve!"
"You're gonna fucking flip this thing if he slams into us too, so fucking swerve!"
Kensi gritted her teeth, still trying to stop the small SUV and yanked the steering wheel too late as the truck barreled down on them, slamming perpendicular against the passenger side of her Cadillac. All she could see was white as she temporarily lost all sense of gravity and consciousness.
The clouds were not as soft as she expected. At least, that's the first thing that came to Kensi's mind as she started becoming more aware of her surroundings again. Airbags, not clouds, she thought. Truck. Crash. She's upright, but she thought she was upside down. So quiet, why is it so quiet? The more conscious she became, the more she realized it wasn't quiet at all. Her ears were ringing, and she could hear the sound of a horn blaring. Airbags. Truck. Deeks. Deeks?
"Deeks?" Her voice cracked and she coughed, wincing in pain. "Deeks, say something." Blinking her eyes to focus and pushing the loose airbags away from her, Kensi twisted her head to the right. "Deeks? Deeks," she said more urgently. Her partner's head was tilted at an angle and his body was twisted; his top half was facing her and his bottom half...well, she couldn't tell. "Shit."
Kensi's heart started pounding in her ears as she untangled herself from her seatbelt and tried to check on her partner. She slowly noticed the damage to her vehicle more and more as she struggled to reach him. It was more cramped than usual, with the ceiling smashed in and the passenger door practically pushed in as far as the center console. Her window isn't broken, but Deeks' appeared to be because he was covered in glass. She desperately thought she needed to touch him, to fix him, but all that mattered to her at that moment was finding out whether or not he was breathing.
"Come on, come on." Leaning close to his face, she put her hands on his neck to check for a pulse while she listened for breathing. His breath tickled her cheek and she breathed a sigh of relief. He was alive. Unconscious, but alive. She started looking him over as best as she could. Most of his legs were trapped under what was left of the dashboard, to the point where his feet weren't even visible. Nothing appeared to be wrong with his arms or chest. The release of the airbag had burned the right side of his face and he had a large gash above his eye.
A drop of blood landed on his cheek, followed by another. Kensi wasn't thinking clearly and couldn't figure out that it was coming from her, not him, until she tasted blood on her lips. It was her nose bleeding, and she nearly cried out when she touched her face. Fingering the tip of her nose gingerly, she could feel it was already swollen and clearly broken. She felt around the backseat through the very small opening between the seats and was suddenly thankful that she was a huge slob when her fingers brushed a piece of clothing. She wiped Deeks' face and then held it against her nose, now feeling around for her phone to call for help.
"You can wake up at any time now, ya know," she muffled through cloth. If Deeks was awake, she thought he'd probably make a joke. Maybe something about how he knew she loved the sound of his voice. Or he'd question the panic in her own voice and tell her that he knew that Badass Blye was actually terrified to live without him. Both of which she'd deny despite being true. "Please wake up."
Her phone was nowhere within reach of her, and her ear com flew out during the crash. Sticking a finger in Deeks' ear, she felt that his was gone too. His phone had landed in the center console but she already noticed it was smashed beyond repair. "I told you to get one of those bulletproof cases, but noooo, you had to have the waterproof one!" She's not sure why she's fussing at him exactly, since it physically hurts her and Deeks isn't even awake to fight back with her. Somehow, it's making her feel better.
"We've got to get you out of here," Kensi spoke more softly. Pulling the handle on her door, she tried to push it open but it wouldn't budge. Next she kicked it, but still nothing. She grunted loudly in frustration and crawled gently over Deeks, pushing the airbag out of the way to see if she could climb out of his window.
A small groan escaped from Deeks' lips; it was so soft she could barely hear it but felt the vibration against her stomach. "Hey. Hey hey hey, can you hear me?" Her position was beyond awkward at this point, but she tried to look back at him and rub his face anyway. "Deeks? Hey?"
Silence greeted her again and she sighed, dejected. "I'm going to be right back, okay?" The passenger window was mostly open, with just a few shards of glass protruding up from the base of the window. "Ah shit," Kensi grumbled as she dropped her bloody cloth on his shoulder and grabbed the roof of the car through the broken window, twisting her body to pull herself through. Just as she thought she'd pulled herself out, her gun holster caught on the window frame. "Sorry Deeks," she said as she used his arm to push off with her feet. Her holster came free and she tumbled backwards, landing on her side in the grass with a whimper.
That painful feeling was familiar to her; she definitely had a cracked rib, or worse. Grasping her side as she stood up, Kensi looked back through the window again at her unconscious partner before taking in the scene of the accident. The Cadillac had flipped at least once, but miraculously landed upright again in a grassy area off the main road. About 50 feet away was the old pickup. The front of it was unrecognizable and the horn was blaring continuously. As she approached it slowly, it became evident why; the driver, an older man with grayish hair, was thrown partially through the windshield. The rest of his body was pressed against the horn on the steering wheel.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to hold down her breakfast burrito threatening to rise up at the sight of the man's broken skull through the window. Obviously she'd witnessed more gruesome scenes than this before, but today it made her queasy. She pulled open the passenger door of the truck and looked inside for a cell phone, car phone, CB radio, or just anything she could use to call for help. But there was nothing but empty cigarette packs and trash littered everywhere.
Kensi stepped back again and looked up and down the roads in the intersection. There were no other cars to be seen anywhere. Thinking back, she remembered that she'd only passed a couple of vehicles during that long stretch of county road. Of course there were no stores, or gas stations, or even houses within sight of the accident. Panic started to set it in as she realized she was essentially alone and helpless. Deeks was hurt and she had no idea how badly. She had no way of communicating that she needed help, that he needed help. Her only consolation was that even though both of their phones were likely ruined, they still had GPS trackers in them. Nell would begin to worry if they didn't check in soon. Maybe Sam and Callen would come looking for them.
Adrenaline was keeping her going, and she didn't need to give up. As she walked back to her destroyed Cadillac, she knew what her top priority was: Deeks. And there were only two things she could do at that point: wait, and pray.