Title: Fathers and Sons
Author: DizzyDrea
Summary: Callen's past returns to haunt him, but surprisingly, it's Deeks who comes to talk him through it.
Rating: T
Spoilers: Reznikov, N., Personal, Ascension
Author's Notes: So obviously, spoilers ahead for Reznikov, N.. That must be said up front, just so you're not spoiled if you don't want to be. That said, this story is less about what happened in the episode and more about how Callen deals with that, with help from an unexpected source, because Muse thinks Callen and Deeks should be friends. References are also made to the Season 2 episode Personal and the Season 5 episode Ascension.
Disclaimer: NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles and all its particulars are the property of CBS, Paramount, Donald P. Bellisario, Belisarius Productions, Shane Brennan, Shane Brennan Productions, and a lot of other people who aren't me. I am doing this for fun and for practice. Mostly for fun.
~o~
The only light in the room is the flickering of the projector lamp as the film sputters and flaps on the spindle. He's watched it five times already, and he's not sure he'll ever get enough.
The images are grainy, old and of poor quality, but they are the most precious he's ever seen. He recognizes his own face in the man on the film. It's the first time he's ever seen himself when he looked at someone else; it's the first time he's ever seen himself truly belong, the first time he's ever been the center of someone's world.
It is at once exhilarating and heartbreaking, because those days are long gone, and he doesn't remember them. In some ways, that's a good thing; you can't miss what you can't remember. But in other ways, it's a terrible hole in his life he knows will never quite be filled. He should be used to it by now, but he isn't, and it's never more obvious than on days like this.
A knock at the door startles him from his thoughts. The clock on the mantle says it's way past time for polite company. He considers not answering, but the knock sounds again, louder this time, more insistent, and he can't just ignore it.
He wipes his eyes with his hands, brushing away the evidence of the tears he wasn't crying as he rises from his chair and stumbles to the door. He thinks maybe it's Sam, and if it is, he won't feel in the least bit guilty telling him to fuck off. Sam would understand.
But it isn't Sam. He swings the door open to find Marty Deeks standing on his doorstep, looking determined and yet slightly guilty at the same time.
"Deeks," he says, acknowledging the other man with a nod of his head.
Deeks smiles that sheepish smile he has, the one that makes women swoon. Not that he knows, but he's heard. "Callen."
"So, what brings you here?"
He's not going to ask how he found the house. If he had to guess, he'd say Hetty gave him the address. Henrietta Lange isn't the most subtle woman on the planet on a good day, and today was about as far from a good day as it gets. One team member—the Deputy Director, and if he thinks about that too much, he'll give himself a headache—in the hospital, another with bumps and bruises. A dozen dead men in an alley that they'd had to explain to the LAPD.
Deeks shrugs. "Just checking up on you. Today was… rough."
He has to wonder why Deeks came and not Sam. What did Hetty hope to accomplish by sending their resident surf bum instead of the best friend G Callen has ever had?
"You can tell Hetty I'm fine," he says, cringing a little at the note of hostility creeping into his voice. He can't help it if he resents her just a little, for all the times she's tried to freeze him out of knowledge about his past. He never said he didn't have issues.
"Yeah, look, I know you probably don't want to talk about this, but can I come in?"
Callen stares at him for a long moment, but he can't find anything but sincere concern staring back at him. Deeks was a broken mess after the Sidorov thing, hiding for weeks and never looking anyone in the eye, but he's meeting Callen's stare now, strong and unflinching, and he's got to give the guy credit. Most people don't last more than a few seconds before they cave.
Callen sighs. He should send Deeks back to Hetty with a not-too-subtle message to leave him the hell alone, but he doesn't. Instead, he stands back, swinging the door wide and watching Deeks wander into his home.
When he's closed and locked the door, he moves to stand beside the man, who's only taken a few steps inside.
"Wow, you really know how to fix up a place," he says, trademark grin in place. "Don't get me wrong, I like it. Kind of a Boho chic meets Salvation Army vibe."
Callen snorts. "What can I say, I'm a simple guy." He pauses, thinks if he rushes Deeks along, he can have the man out of his hair and go back to—but what would he be going back to? Wallowing in a past he can't get back? That's not going to help, and he knows it.
Making his decision—and he vows he'll try to figure out later exactly why he did—he moves past Deeks into the kitchen, switching the projector off as he passes it. "Want a beer?"
He hits the switch on the floor lamp, casting a golden glow over the room, further emphasizing the Spartan nature of his décor. He pulls two beers out of the fridge, handing one to Deeks as he enters the kitchen.
"Come on," he says.
He pops the cap and chucks it at the sink. Deeks follows him outside to the patio, twisting the cap off his own beer as they settle into the two camp chairs Sam brought over. It's pathetic, he'd said, that you don't even have a chair to offer a guest, before he'd plunked the two chairs down and settled into one with his own beer.
Callen had wanted to say that he didn't have a reason to have chairs. It was only ever him at home, so why bother? But Sam comes by often enough for beer and the occasional steak, that he doesn't feel unsettled by the intrusion like he had at first. And now there's Deeks, sitting on his back patio, staring up at the stars twinkling overhead as he sips at a beer. It's so normal that for a moment, Callen feels this strange sensation in his chest.
They don't talk for a while, just sit and drink. It's nice, actually, that Deeks doesn't feel the need to talk. It's strange, too, because that's usually all the man does, but for some reason he's keeping his peace tonight.
Eventually, he breaks the silence surrounding them. "You know, I used to envy you. Back when we first met."
"Me? Why?"
"You don't remember your family, didn't grow up with one," Deeks says quietly. "There are days when I'd give anything not to remember what it was like."
"At least you knew your father, even if he was an asshole," Callen says.
"Oh yeah, he was definitely an asshole," Deeks says, chuckling without humor as he tips his bottle back for a long pull. "But the thing is that I had to grow up too damned fast, because of what he did. He was never going to win Father of the Year, but there were days when I wished—"
Callen cocks his head. "Wished what?"
Deeks sighs, his voice hushed in the cool night air. "Wished he loved me just a little bit more. I don't know if it would have changed anything, but it would have been nice to know he cared, you know?"
"Yeah, I know," Callen says.
He can hear the sadness of innocence lost too soon, and it's a familiar sound. Deeks was older when he entered the system, but Callen knows what it feels like to be shunted around from foster home to foster home. It's not fun, knowing you're only there for a little while, until they find someplace new for you.
"So, is your dad the reason you become a cop?"
Deeks shrugs. "I figured that just because I couldn't get justice for myself didn't mean I couldn't get it for someone else."
"You did get justice, though," Callen says. "Your dad got what was coming to him."
"Nah," Deeks says, shaking his head. "I was just a kid who got in a lucky shot. I just can't help but wish that someone had cared enough to see what was going on and do something about it before it got to that point."
Callen nods. He knows that feeling, has seen too many kids in bad situations and wondered why no one did anything. It's disheartening to know that it still happens today but that's why they do what they do: to make it better for someone else.
"So, why'd you become a 'super spy'?"
Callen can hear the air quotes clearly, and he chuckles. "Because I can. Because I'm good at it, becoming other people. Living in thirty-odd foster homes had to be good for something, right?"
"Do you like what you do?" Deeks asks with a sly look his direction.
Callen has to think about it. "I'm good at it. And it's important work."
"Not what I asked," Deeks says.
Callen considers his answer carefully.
"I do what I do because other people can't. If I have a choice between saving one innocent person or a dozen guilty men, I'm going to save that one person every time. That's what I like about my job: that I help make people's lives safer, better. Sometimes we're the only ones who can, so it's important that we keep doing what we do to make sure that happens."
Deeks nods, then falls silent.
Callen thinks that maybe the two of them can understand each other better than the others, because they've both lived the same pain, though they've reacted to it in totally different ways. Deeks became a lawyer and later a cop, using his beach-bum persona to lull people into underestimating him even as he takes them down with skill and determination, while Callen used his ability to disappear into another persona to become a spy and stop the evil in the world before it can hurt the innocent. Where Callen deflects with silence, Deeks talks. A lot. They're polar opposites who've been shaped by their life experiences, for better or worse.
But here in the dark, he can see the truth. All he's ever wanted was to know his family, know who his father was. He's often wondered if he'd be a different person if he'd grown up knowing the man. And beside him sits a man who knew his father, had been forced to shoot him in order to protect himself. He'd been influenced by his relationship with his father into becoming a cop with a strong sense of justice, just as Callen has learned to fight for those without a voice because he hadn't been able to speak for himself as a child.
It seems the height of irony that both of them are the men they've become because of their fathers.
He leans forward, holding out his beer bottle. "To fathers and sons."
Deeks stares at him for a long moment before raising his own bottle and tapping it against Callen's. "Fathers and sons."
~Finis