"This is our target." Nell pulled up a driver's license with name and photo on the big screen in Ops.
"Ooh…nice," Kensi commented lightly, earning surprised looks from all of her colleagues. "What? I can't appreciate a good-looking guy?"
Nell cut through the awkward moment with more intel. "Lately he's been frequenting a place called Spurs."
"Spurs?" Deeks echoed. He'd thought he knew about all the clubs in Los Angeles, but this was one he hadn't heard about.
"It's pretty new," Nell elaborated, tapping the screen of the tablet in her hands and pulling up more images. "It's a Western-themed nightclub that opened roughly a month ago. He was there opening night, and subsequent surveillance footage places him there again practically every single night since then, for hours at a time."
"Could be meeting a connection in there," Sam ventured logically. "Nightclubs are perfect cover for that."
"Or he's addicted to their hot wings," Callen answered with a smirk, recalling another establishment famous for its food and women.
"Or he likes all the eye-candy," Deeks chimed in. "Can't say I'd blame him for that."
Kensi just looked at him, summing up rhetorically, "It always comes down to that with you, doesn't it?"
"Which is vastly different from you drooling over 'Cutie-Pie' up there," Deeks countered sarcastically.
He turned his attention back to the giant screen, focusing on some of the scantily-clad waitresses and female patrons. "Back to my point…I do count at least half-a-dozen pairs of Daisy Duke shorts within a single frame of footage there."
Callen and Sam considered his observation with a serious air.
"Play the video again, Nell," Callen requested.
There seemed to be credence to Deeks' notion, for the guy did appear to be especially appreciative of the waitresses and other sexy female customers around him.
"We could flaunt Kensi in front of him," Callen suggested. "Get him to open up to her…reveal his connection."
Of course, Kensi thought scornfully. Why use my skills as an agent when I could play Barbie instead?
"Deeks will back her up," Sam nodded, liking the plan.
"Stop by Wardrobe on your way out, Detective," Hetty directed him. "I have a pair of Wrangler jeans with your name on it."
Deeks swallowed a suddenly dry throat. "Wranglers?" he repeated uncertainly. "What's wrong with my own jeans?"
Hetty gave a pointed glance to his rather loosely-fitting denim. "You want to blend, Mr. Deeks…not stick out like a sore thumb."
Ugh. This already didn't bode well for him. He was a surfer, not a cowboy.
Nevertheless, he and Kensi were fitted for their cover roles, and when the sun went down they visited their target's presumed location.
For once, Deeks was grateful that Kensi drove. He wasn't entirely sure that these jeans would allow his legs the movement needed to step on the gas or the brakes.
"Oh my god," he groaned, prying himself out of the vehicle's passenger seat and shaking his legs out when both feet were on firm ground.
Really, this mission was just an excuse to put Deeks in a tight pair of Wrangler jeans.
Because he couldn't see any other logical reason that he and Kensi would be there, in a redneck sea of flannel shirts and cowboy hats, to spy on someone who may or may not have a connection that they could exploit for the purposes of their case.
Because it was new and possibly not well-known or popular yet, Spurs had neither a line of waiting club-goers outside nor any roped-off barriers to keep them orderly. There was only a pair of bouncers on the inside of the rustic wooden double-door entrance.
Country music greeted them loudly, and although Deeks kind of liked the song currently playing, he tuned it out in favor of focusing on their job at hand.
He resisted the urge to remove the massive wedgie those jeans were giving him — he'd find a more private location for doing that — and instead draped his left arm across his partner's shoulders in a display of affection and possession as they entered the nightclub.
Kensi snuck an arm behind his back, too…poking the tips of her fingers into the already beyond-skin-tight right pocket at the back of his jeans.
"Really?" he squirmed uncomfortably, to her amused delight.
Kensi grinned unashamedly at him, milking it for all it was worth. "Just playing the part…Sugar Buns."
He was so going to burn these jeans when this was over.
He missed the relaxed roominess of his own jeans. It was a miracle that these hadn't split in half when he got into the car.
Deeks glanced at his partner. So far, the only highlight of this costume was the fact that Kensi had to look the part, too.
She pulled it off much better than he did. Probably because she'd been allowed to wear her own personal jeans, they having already been sufficiently tight to gain wardrobe approval from Hetty.
That shirt she had on was definitely not hers, though.
Light-pink, plaid, and sleeveless, she wore it over a bikini top with the front sides pulled into tails and tied together cutely in the front of her cleavage.
And that exposed a great deal of skin all around from the low-rise waist of her jeans up to about the bottom of her rib cage.
Deeks didn't have to wonder where Kensi had hidden her gun, because there was no way that outfit was concealing anything.
Which was why Kensi was also carrying a purse. Normally she didn't — not even in her off-duty time — but on this particular op she had to. There was simply nowhere else to put her gun.
Kensi didn't need to wonder where Deeks had stashed his weapon either. She could feel it pressed against her right side from where he wore it under his open vest and below his left armpit like many cops preferred to do.
She could have teased him about wearing a bra holster, if only it was in the front and not on the side.
As it was, she knew it felt weird for him to have his gun there, as he was used to poking it into the back of his jeans.
But thanks to those Wranglers — and the unnecessary belt with the enormous silver buckle —there wasn't even a millimeter of space left over for his Beretta.
The handle of it would have shown anyway, since he wore a button-down cotton shirt tucked into the waistband, instead of his usual t-shirt left untucked that he could easily pull over his gun.
Kensi was loving the cowboy hat perched on Deeks' head. It may have felt foreign to him, but it looked damn good to her!
As if hearing her thoughts — or maybe it was just irritation at the object of her thoughts — Deeks abruptly jerked the hat off his head and shook out his mop of hair in small relief.
He thought about throwing the hat in the nearest trash can, but decided against it after envisioning Hetty's wrath in his mind.
Instead, he dropped it onto Kensi's head.
"Much better," he quipped with a grin.
He curled his toes and stretched them back out inside the cowboy boots on his feet. They, at least, were pretty comfortable.
Even if they did make him strut and swagger more than he was accustomed to.
"There's our guy," Kensi voiced in a low tone, her fingers slipping just a teeny bit further into his back pocket.
It was a miracle that the pocket didn't fly off his butt and take out someone's eye. How in the world did she even find enough room to get her fingers in there?!
Deeks squirmed again, and not just because of the tightness of his pants. It was the combination of that and her hand which was — by all intents and purposes — cupping his backside.
Not that he minded her hand on his backside…he was just at a complete disadvantage right now and he didn't like that one little bit.
"Go find us a seat, kitten," he ordered with a fake southern accent, dropping his arm from Kensi's shoulders so he could give her tight-jeaned rear a healthy slap.
It propelled her forward an unexpected half-step and she stumbled slightly, causing her hand to involuntarily jerk away from Deeks' back pocket.
She recovered her footing and stabbed a mental dagger at him over her shoulder. "You're gonna pay for that one," she promised ominously.
"I think I already did, what with you groping me just a second ago," Deeks replied evenly.
He got back at her some more by placing his hand on the invitingly exposed flesh just above the waistband of her jeans as he closely followed her to a table off in one corner.
Kensi sat first and Deeks took a chair directly across the table from her. That way, he could see behind her and she could see behind him.
Please don't rip, he silently prayed for the seat of his jeans as he sat carefully in the chair. He was positive that the seams were stretching to their absolute limit.
Deeks could honestly say this was his first time trying to blend in as a cowboy. But he was sure that he looked as uncomfortable as he felt in those dreadful circulation-killing pants.
"Would you sit still?" Kensi hissed at him across the table.
"You try sitting still with denim riding up your ass," he shot back in a loud whisper.
Kensi glanced around furtively, hoping that nobody's attention was drawn toward them because of her antsy partner.
Deeks stopped squirming abruptly as his vision landed fully on the cleavage displayed prominently right across the table from him.
"Enjoying the view?" the owner of that cleavage challenged in a distinctly clipped, unamused tone.
"Hmm?" he dragged his gaze back up to her mismatched eyes.
She glared back at him, giving both sides of the front of her shirt a stiff tug in an attempt to cover herself a little better against her partner's obvious ogling.
Deeks looked away, a hot blush creeping up his neck.
This was a really bad idea.
Kensi fastened a single button over the lowest part of her cleavage, which did help to pull the shirt closed just a bit more.
She would have buttoned another one, but she was relying on that cleavage to catch the eye of their intended target and hopefully get him to warm up to her and spill some secrets.
Kensi turned her head one way to observe the man they were spying on, while Deeks visually browsed the crowd in the other direction to watch for any dangers lurking.
Satisfied that nobody was onto them, Kensi finally said quietly, "Alright…I'm going in."
She stood and readjusted the front of her shirt, causing the button to pop back open on its own.
Kensi didn't seem to notice it, but Deeks sure did. He looked away quickly once more, grinning from ear to ear as she passed by him to waylay their mark.
Deeks rose from their table too, making his way toward an empty stool at the end of the bar. He perched there nonchalantly facing the crowd and scanning it surreptitiously while keeping Kensi and their target safely in sight from the corner of his eye.
They were connected by earwig comms, so he could hear every word that was exchanged.
And since Kensi was again facing in his direction partway…he still had a pretty good eye-full of her feminine 'charms'.
Well, at least he got some kind of reward for enduring an evening in these horrible Wrangler jeans.
And that poor guy Kensi was talking to — his eyes nearly popped out of his head when she flirtatiously leaned forward to rest her elbows on the table with her cleavage naturally front-and-center.
"Careful there, pussycat," Deeks murmured into the earwig from his observant spot. "You don't want to give him a heart attack."
He didn't expect a reply, and Kensi didn't give him one. But she did continue to look coy and sexy with their mark purely for her partner's non-benefit.
Deeks was too miserable to be jealous.
He shifted on his bar stool. This wasn't any better than the chair at the table. It was worse, in fact.
Wranglers of Death. That's what he was wearing.
Now he almost hoped they would split, just so he wouldn't ever have to wear them again.
Deeks had never lost his pants before (though he knew Callen had once on an op somehow)…but his desire to ditch these Wranglers of Death was growing bigger and stronger with every passing moment.