AN: This is a piece I originally wrote back in January and have been toying with ever since. I wanted to get enough distance from it to check it wasn't just a cathartic reflection of the time I wrote it. Believe it or not, it actually started out as an idea for my Rom/Com Densi fic (Strawberries & Cream) about food and how terrible we've been led to believe Kensi's cooking is. I can't say it went exactly to plan but I think it is true to their characters.
Disclaimer: NCIS and NCIS LA and everything associated with them is owned by CBS.
Summary: Kensi's world gets temporarily knocked off its axis and Deeks is there to try and help her pick up the pieces. 'There was always that wall that kept part of her hidden. But now all he could say was that it was different and he'd stay for as long as she'd let him. Even if it meant food poisoning and the tears, he'd stay.' Densi.
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Counting the Hours
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It tasted like day old porridge served in bowls that hadn't been washed since having tomato paste in them and it was completely the wrong colour - a bright, gaudy red - but, for the first time since leaving his abusive step-dad behind, Deeks ate what was on his plate and didn't complain. He did not complain that his chicken was the same consistency as rubber, his broccoli so limp it hardly maintained its shape and there was sludge which he supposed was gravy but it neither looked nor tasted like it. He even made it through the dessert which was halfway between jelly and rice pudding and seemed to be flavoured dishwashing liquid lemon for some inexplicable reason. He didn't even mention the fact that they should have eaten at least four-hours ago if it could be considered a proper evening meal.
It was, without doubt, the worst dinner he'd ever had but he wouldn't have given up his seat at this table for the world. In fact, he was beginning to think he'd come back each day for more if it meant being entitled to sit here. Sure he'd also have to be prepared to share his dinner table with books, magazines, clothes and various other household items that really should live somewhere else. He'd need to be up for the mammoth clean up effort to restore what had once been a kitchen (before dinner perpetrations had begun) and the fact that it would be the only real cleaning that would ever happen here.
For the first time in his entire adult life he wasn't running from the domestic scene. Hell, if anything he was starting to see the appeal in buying a house; investing in brick and mortar if it meant getting to share it with her.
Always when he got too close, when he started to get comfortable at someone else's place the nightmares would return. The flashes of broken chairs and broken bottles, of blackening bruises on beautiful faces and the single shot which changed his life forever. He'd never stopped to wonder if he was running so he wouldn't become that guy or just the belief that there was no domestic bliss, only the illusion. Because he'd learnt it so young he didn't even realise he was running until he had both feet out the door and all his stuff with him. Then he'd say to himself, that it was just that he didn't settle down and it had started to develop strings. He'd always assumed he could be so comfortable here because it wasn't more. Because it was take-away and beer and bad reality tv and despite both of them being aware of it, testing the boundaries, wanting more, there wasn't anything more. There was always that wall that kept part of her hidden. But now - now all he could say was that it was different and he'd stay for as long as she'd let him. Even if it meant food poisoning and the tears, he'd stay.
Because it had been 74 hours since he'd been allowed to crash on her couch.
72 hours since he'd braved dismemberment and wrapped his arms around her, letting her take her anger out on him rather than listen to any more muffled tears.
70 hours since he'd realised going back to the couch wasn't an option and accepted his damp shirt and battered torso in exchange for getting to lie with her arms wrapped around him after she'd cried herself to sleep.
60 hours since waking up with her head pillowed on his chest and realising it was real - the good and the bad.
59 hours since she'd woken and rather than pushing him away had pressed a sleepy kiss at the base of his throat before snuggling closer and drifting back to sleep.
57 hours since he'd managed to slip away without her waking for long enough to gather food and go to the bathroom only to return to find she'd missed him and that the chocolate pop tart may as well have been invisible because she reached for him instead.
56 hours since he'd forced her to eat - first the pop tart, then some trail mix and even managed to sneak electrolytes and protein powder into her chocolate milkshake - worried she'd pass out from lack food.
50 hours since he'd started gently to find out if any more arrangements had to be made and she'd gone through half a box of tissues while he made a list of people to call and details to confirm.
45 hours since he'd set down the phone and crossed the last item off his list. Initially she'd insisted she would take over once he got past the friends (she didn't say it but he knew she didn't want them to hear her cry and the tears had come each time she'd reached for the phone) but she didn't stop him when he continued on, relaying questions on the rare occasion it wasn't something he could answer.
40 hours since he'd started talking; telling her things about his family, about his work, about himself that he'd never told anyone else and that he probably never would ever tell again. Because right now she needed to hear about people overcoming some of life's cruel twists and she needed the soul-scouring truth rather than his happy-go-lucky jokes and bad passes. And he'd talked till his throat was bone dry. Talked till some of that terrifying darkness had shifted from her eyes.
30 hours since she'd started slipping tiny snippets of her past into dull moments in the shows neither of them were really watching. Each one like a tiny gold coin, precious but heavy, weighing her down.
25 hours since he'd scooped her up off the couch and carried her to her bed, leaving the reruns of America's Next Top Model on quietly in the background because the silence would bring back that haunted look.
17 hours since he'd coaxed her out of bed with the promise of pancakes and managed to make her smile by insisting he could only make them in the shape of moths because you couldn't make butterflies without blueberries and all he'd been able to find was cinnamon sugar and icecream.
15 hours since he'd had to rescue her; wet, cold and miserable from the shower she'd decided to take but been unable to summon the energy to leave when the hot water ran out. And even though she was still the most gorgeous woman he'd ever seen and he'd been imagining her in showers almost from the moment he'd met her, there was no hesitation in swaddling her in two of her huge white towels until the only skin he could see was her toes and the face that was pressed against his shirt. There was no hesitation in holding her; promising to keep her close and make her warm. No hesitation in pressing a kiss to her forehead and leaving her to change once the trembling had stopped and the embarrassment set in.
12 hours since she'd waited, pale and demurely dressed in black on his sofa while he changed into the suit he'd convinced Hetty to have waiting for him so she wouldn't have to come into the Mission.
10 hours since he'd stood beside her while the coffin was lowered into the ground. Her hand gripping his as though it was the only thing keeping her from falling to pieces.
4 hours since the last guests had finally gone and the seemingly inexplicable cooking frenzy had begun.
3 hours since she'd started to explain the importance of each dish; the memories of Sunday dinners back when her parents had been together and she'd believed in love being forever.
2 hours since realising she wasn't just cooking for the mother she'd loved and lost, this time for good, but also for him - to say what she couldn't.
1 hour since picking up his spoon and knowing, with absolute certainty, that he was about to eat what was normally considered inedible and discovering that he didn't care. She'd made it and that was enough.
For the first time in his life he understood what it meant to love someone and need nothing in return. Having been let in behind her walls, trusted enough to share her grief and allowed to care for her on the most basic level - he might still want to have all of her, to be allowed to give her everything but this was all he needed.
So he'd keep on counting the hours and hoping that by the time she was back kicking ass and saving the world, Kensi Blye would realise she didn't need him but wanted him to stay anyway.