One Hundred Heartbeats
Summary: It's what all of them would do, each and everyone. OneShot/Drabble- Kensi, Deeks.
Warning: Six drabbles, unrelated.
Set: Story-unrelated. Might hint at one or the other episode, but nothing clear. Spotted the hints?
Disclaimer: Standards apply.
A/N: Sept 2013. Part of a massive upload session. All the fics posted this month were started sometime this year and only finished recently. Don't expect me to do this often. :)
This story was sitting around on my drive for ages. I realized it wouldn't get better by keeping it there.
i.
"Go."
One glance, silent communication.
"Go! Go!"
As urgency rises in her voice, she knows he can hear the desperation in it, too. Normally, Kensi Blye would never allow herself to lose control enough to let her emotions shine through but in this case, it doesn't matter. Besides, it's not herself she is desperate to save.
It's Deeks.
"Damnit, Deeks, go!"
His face shows his internal fight, the impossibility he thinks is the task of leaving her behind. But it is possible, she knows it is. They all knew, when they took up their jobs, that the day would come they would have to make a decision. This is the day for her – and for Deeks, as well. But her more-than-stubborn partner refuses to move, continues to try and stop the flood of blood that drops from her side. She doesn't even feel the pain, which, she supposes, is bad. It's almost over, then. She tugs at his shirt with her weakening hands and hates them for not being able to grip tightly.
"Deeks! They're coming!"
"Let them."
Desperate, she drops her hand to her side, feels the cool metal of her gun. There is only one thing she can do to make him leave, she supposes. Strange how it all falls into place. Her view never seemed so clear before.
She knows what he will do. It's what they all would do, each and every single one of them. There is no question when it comes to them. These people are her family, and her family is her life.
Her hand is steady when she lifts her gun.
Deeks had made his decision long ago. She proves to be, ultimately, more stubborn than him.
ii.
He is digging his own grave, day by day.
It keeps getting deeper with every word he doesn't think about first before he utters it; with every thoughtless, panicked answer he throws at her to deflect her. Not that it matters. Her fire-eyed stares burn through him nevertheless, leave him squirming and sweating and he wonders how she can have this effect on him when no one else (except, perhaps, for Hetty) has. Normally he is better than this; he's not become who he is without deflecting, lying, pretending and such. Somehow all his carefully constructed walls, all his finely-honed skills fail him when she stares at him like this. And he cannot even blame her. In retrospect, when he lies awake late at night and replays the ever-growing stupidities he uses as arguments and excuses, he blushes with shame. Has he really said that, and to her face, even worse? The only reason Callen and Sam haven't killed him yet, he reckons, is the fact that both men are waiting for Kensi to do it herself.
The worst mistake ever was him telling her he was trying to protect her.
Or perhaps it was when he more or less directly told her he didn't see her as a woman?
It was subterfuge on his part, really. And, anyway – she always reacted like that, no matter whether he told her he wanted to protect her or when he told her he saw her as a person in her own rights who didn't need to be pampered.
So no. He can't blame her for wanting to shoot him. She probably will, one day.
iii.
One hundred drops of blood and one hundred steps, one hundred flowing seconds and one hundred heartbeats and time never seemed so slow and so fast before.
Forty-seven. Forty-eight. Forty-nine.
Kensi can see them from where she stands – the dark car and the shadows of three men standing there, watching, waiting, always alert. She can see the spine-breaking tension in Deek's shoulders, the anticipation in Callen's profile, the anger and worry in Sam's body. She can see it all so clearly she feels like standing next to them, so close she can almost feel them – what she cannot feel is her body, anything around her. Neither the gun pressed to her head nor anything else.
"Go," says a voice directly next to her and she moves forward, numb and cold.
On the other side, Deeks starts moving, as well. Sixty. Sixty-one. This is wrong. Kensi shifts to turn around and feels the cold metal between her shoulder blades. "Keep moving."
Sixty-eight.
Sixty-nine.
Seventy.
Deeks walks towards her and she can now see he's looking at her, the same intensity in his eyes she saw when he told her he would protect her. She doesn't care about protection – all that matters is that she is walking back but he is going in the wrong direction.
"What's this supposed to be?" She snaps. A rumble behind her but the gun at her head doesn't flinch as the man fucking laughs.
"Never heard of prisoner's exchange before, Agent Blye?"
Oh no. Oh-the-hell-no. She stops. Deeks stops. The world stops.
Eighty-five.
Eighty-six.
Eighty-seven.
"Walk, Agent Blye, otherwise neither you nor your partner will live."
Deeks' eyes are deep and blue and darker than she has ever seen them before.
Eighty-Nine.
She reads something in them that speaks of hope, of a plan, and it's exactly what makes her know that there is none. Not today, not now, not this time. Callen and Sam watch.
Ninety.
Ninety-one.
She starts moving again. Deeks starts forward, as well.
Ninety-three.
Ninety-four.
She feels Callen's and Sam's gaze on her but refuses to break eye contact with Deeks. Her partner is a stupid, annoying, childish cop with a heart that's far too big for his own good and if nobody was able to stop him from this stupidity she'll have to save his ass, as usual.
Ninety-seven.
A last nudge and the man with the gun stays behind. She almost falters in her step, then continues forward.
Ninety-eight.
As they pass each other, Deeks is so close she can see the tiny spark of doubt in his eyes. Almost involuntarily her hand reaches out, as, the same time, his lifts a fraction to come up to meet hers.
Ninety-nine.
"Hands down!" A man's voice barks behind her.
One hundred.
They pass each other without touching.
iv.
At one point he has wormed his way in and Kensi wonders what it is that makes him want to stay.
In a constantly changing, shifting life her only constants are the people she gets up to see every morning: Sam and Callen, those men closer than brothers and like brothers to her, too. Hetty, who made a family in a place nobody ever would have thought it would be possible for people who never fit in anywhere because they were to broken to. Nate, whose letters only reach them once in a while but who still is with them, even if it's only in their minds. Nell and Eric, the perfect team in everything that counts and in more. And, of course, Deeks.
He infuriates her.
He nags and brags and annoys and makes her laugh.
He drags her out of her darkest thoughts, takes her out for lunch when she needs a break, challenges her when she has to go beyond her own boundaries. Somehow he became her partner, and somehow, even more inexplicable, her best friend. They're well on the way to being another pairing like Sam and Callen, minus the You know I still love you part. Plus the I hit you when you get cheeky and the Of course you're the most serious person in the world and the Donut-stealing thing and when did it become comfortable, like an old sweater too worn to use in public but too beloved to get rid of it? Comforting in a way that scares her on some days, but on others, she is glad they have what they have.
It's why it hurts so much when he lies to her.
There are no words to end such a partnership, no letters stringed together to make sensible sounds that can describe how it feels like to know this is the end. It is why she cannot bear to remember the few days she thought they really were over, why she still trembles with ice-hot rage when she thinks of how he lied to her. Didn't trust her. Or rather: played her, knowing full well only her true, white anger at him leaving would be enough to fool his superior. Kensi's better in close-combat fighting, in navigating in a desert, in survival training. But when it comes to it, Deeks is the better liar.
It probably should make her even angrier.
He pulled it off well, pretending to leave, pretending not to be able to say anything. Or was it an act, as well? Had he speculated on angering her even more? When she slips into his car a few days later she is telling the truth: she isn't angry. She's furious. And hurt. And – relieved. This was an act. It'll be over soon.
Had she really, at the beginning, fought to keep her out of her life? She couldn't imagine it without him anymore.
v.
This time Kensi has her excuse ready when the call comes.
No suspect, no mission. Just another ordinary night and she is only half-dressed – or perhaps the term still half-dressed would be more accurate – and the blond man before her stares at her with hazy eyes as she fumbles for her cell. His hands ghost over her shoulders, hot and teasing, but she does not even feel the sensation.
"What's the matter, Kristen?"
The use of her cover name snaps her back to reality and she gives in to the insane urge that suddenly has grabbed her and holds on to her tight: she turns in panic. Because one thing Deeks taught her is that she is a bad liar, and another thing he taught her is that sometimes it's the easiest to just give in to what she feels.
"Sorry!" She hastens to find her skirt, her top, her shoes. A few hours ago she was willing to give anything for the exact reprieve this man is offering her and now she cannot think of anything else than the fact that there is some other place she has to be right now.
Her phone vibrates. Fumbling with her shoes, she answers it.
"I'm on my way. Pick me up."
She whirls around to look at the man who is still sitting on the edge of the bed, now visibly confused and almost angry.
"What's your address?"
He tells her. She tells Deeks. Only then, she turns to face him, and she sounds sincere because in a way, she is. It's a minor, insignificant way (blue eyes look at her filled with something she does not want to see and yet craves and she has to get his eyes out of her mind) and he's not someone who matters. But she's willing to accept he was willing to help her, and she owes him at least a realistic show. (Why? It's not like she'll see him again. She likes to think it's Deek's softness that's rubbing off on her.)
"I'm so sorry," she apologizes again. "There's an emergency. Family."
What makes her story so plausible is the fact that there is real horror on her face. The fear pumping through her chest is real, and the bad feeling slowly growing in her stomach is more than real. Real as hell. There is an emergency. Its nature is family. Hetty is the head and the heart and the steadfastness of the team and special ops without her is unthinkable.
The last time she hit the distress button, there was a threat in form of a man who wanted her gone. This time Kensi doesn't yet know what has happened but something tells her it is bad.
Very bad.
"My grandmother…" Her voice trembles. A tiny part of her wonders whether this is an act or not. Hetty is like a mother to her. To all of them. She feels fear pool in her stomach. The man sees her distress and interprets it correctly. Quickly, he gets up.
"Will she be alright?"
"I don't know." Kensi grabs her bag and her jacket. "This has happened before. It was bad then."
Blond and half-naked and gorgeous and obviously full of understanding, the man rests his hand on her shoulder for a second. The gesture almost is comforting and she again feels his hands on her. Before she shoved him aside. Much, much earlier that week, when everything had been alright.
She crosses the corridor, opens the door of the apartment.
"Listen," she says. "I'm so, so sorry. I…"
"It's okay," the man tells her and smiles She quenches down the memory of another smile, right before he leaned in. "Just give me a call in case…"
"Yeah."
Before further awkwardness ensues, she's off down the stairs and exits the building. A few minutes later, a car screeches to a stop right in front of her.
"What were you doing here?"
"Not your business."
His hurt silence tells her he still is angry. He has every right to. Distress call, her brain buzzes, again and again. Deeks drives, his hands clenched around the steering wheel. In profile he looks ridiculously good, even in the dim darkness of rushing headlights of cars at night, Kensi thinks and curses herself for the thought.
Hetty.
Hetty first.
vi.
She hides in herself more than she hides in anything in life.
Hides in the broken glass that is her heart and that nobody can touch, in the depths of darkness that are her soul and which nobody can reach. Callen searches for his past and breaks a little bit more with every new discovery. Sam searches for peace for the world, for happiness and for a way to make everyone's life safe and with every time he fails, he sees the broken faces of his family. Hetty searches for forgiveness she never found because she doesn't accept what she is offered, feeling too guilty to take an outstretched hand and to hold on to it. Nate searches for purpose, for a reason why he left his office and exchanged his pen for a gun and for a way to return again because the blood that now mars his hands is what binds him to the team more than anything else. Deeks searches for a family and a partner and a friend and a lover. He searches for constancy in a rapidly changing, ever-shifting world and none of them can give it to him because they are only shadows of what they could be, dark mirror images of another Callen (who knows his name) and another Sam (who trusts others to protect), another Hetty (who accepts their love for her), another Nate (who returns), another Deeks (who accepts himself) and another Kensi. And Kensi doesn't search at all. Kensi hides, buries herself deep, deep underneath fear and regret and pain and loneliness and she feels like an empty book. Too realistic to believe in salvation, too old to not know the world. She is an empty shell, regardless of how she acts and what others think, but the paper is too old and brittle to write on again. Her story is already written and lain down to the last page (paragraph, sentence, word and letter) and attempting to change it is futile.
So she hides in herself and prays no one will find her and, at the same time, feels like crying because it will never happen.
And she goes out and does what they always do and does her best.
It never will be enough.
A/N: If I might predict your reaction? You will either be annoyed that these snippets aren't fleshed out better than they are. In that case I can just say I did warn you. These are drabbles, and confusing and messed-up is the way I want them to be. Also, they have no logical chronology, and at least one of them does not fit into story canon. Or you understand what I've done here or at least accept it, and maybe you will even have enjoyed the read a little bit. And that would make me very, very happy.