Roses. He has a dream and she's in it and the heady scent of roses permeates and now every time he sees her, he smells them again. Strong, maybe not the natural scent of the flowers, but just as alluring. She doesn't smell like them at all is the funny thing, so Deeks isn't sure why his subconscious provided her, bare skin and wicked, two-toned eyes, and that scent, paired together like a present, all wrapped up with a bow. All he knows is that every time he sees Kensi he smells roses, and every time he smells roses, he thinks of her naked.
This is a problem.
It's not like he hasn't thought of her naked before. Truth be told, he got pretty down and dirty the night he met her, when he was Jason Wyler and she was… Tracey? He doesn't remember the name she gave, he just knows that he'd seen right through her cover. Clearly he hadn't known she was a federal agent, but she hadn't been who she said she was, either. Deeks likes to believe this is his amazing detective's intuition at work, but he knows it's just because he's been born with this gift of reading Kensi, and only Kensi.
This is where the problem comes to a head – she can read him just as readily, and he's been caught more than once staring, those eyes of hers biting into him curiously, her sharp mind working. It's just a matter of time before she strips through to his thoughts and then their professional relationship is ruined forever. The idle joke here and there, a little bit of flirtation. That's one thing. But the thoughts Marty Deeks has been having lately… well, those are a completely different story.
His thoughts are PG, however, compared to the newest things his subconscious has been serving up: Kensi and "nothing but a smile," and, even better, Kensi and the tiniest, reddest, laciest pair of panties he's ever seen before. They're red like the blood they spill together every day and they cling to the curve of her ass as she bends over for him. There's roses again, roses, the curve of her ass, and the curve of her smile as Deeks gets up and crosses the room. One, two, three steps and he's closed the gap between them, his hand sliding from ribs to waist to hip. He'd just slipped his fingers under the waistband of those incredible panties when his alarm had gone off, jerking him back into reality.
Now when Kensi smiles at him from across the bullpen, that slow smirk of hers before she says something cute and rude, it's all Deeks can do not to get turned on. Ugh. Seriously, what is he, fifteen? He doesn't feel too terribly bad about it though, because he's 99% sure that smile of Kensi's has crumbled weaker men.
He's not scared that if Kensi finds out about their little rendezvous' in his dreams that she'll be mad or uncomfortable. Au contraire, Marty Deeks has always been confident (even, perhaps, when he shouldn't be). What he is scared of is what it could do to their fledgling partnership. There's a bit of trust, has been since she first slipped her hands into his and they counted to three to save her from the trigger trap. That trust is fragile though. Most trust is. Theirs, although strongly rooted, is just a little seedling and it needs time, and what it definitely doesn't need is the messiness of a relationship, sexual or otherwise, to stamp it into the ground. So Deeks really doesn't know what to do. The tension is so fierce it just burns its way further into his subconscious, until Kensi visits his dreams nightly. Sometimes she isn't even there physically, but the scent of roses is and Deeks knows in his head that she's not far off. He takes cold showers every morning and dreams of her every night. It's one way to live.
Really, he's been trying to be subtle about it. As subtle as Marty Deeks can get, at least, which is about as subtle as a bull stampeding through a china store. Usually it gets him what he wants and where he needs to be, but right now? Not so useful. He's been pressed on the partner thing and he knows Kensi can tell, knows that she's mentally tallying every time he asserts, "She's my partner."
There's just something about having a partner, and it's not that grade school group shit he's talking about. Before NCIS, he'd never had a partner. Now every day is their backs pressed together as they clear buildings, and it's worry, too, a worry Deeks has never felt before. He knows she lost her first partner, that it's a sensitive subject, and he also knows he can't lose her. He won't lose her.
The heist thing had him worried. She'd tried to lie and say she was fine, but, hello. His Kensi ESP wouldn't let her get away with that. "You only say you're fine when you're not fine," he pointed out, and fuck, she'd sounded so lost when King shot Asher.
Kensi is resolute throughout the rest of the mission but Deeks is wary. "I'm going to be with you every step of the way. Even if you don't see me, I'll be there," he reassures her, and the team has never seen him this serious before but he doesn't care. This is serious, and you know what else is serious, too? This asshole hitting his partner in her face. Deeks hits King vengefully hard and even though it hurts, it feels good. Later, back in the bullpen, he watches Kensi carefully. She's "fine." Right.
Deeks doesn't call before showing up at her house later that night and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't curious about how she lives. When Kensi opens the door, the dark bruise stemming from the corner of her mouth a blatant reminder of their day, he gets to see. Deeks grins in spite of her injury, holding up the beer and the bag of burgers. She lets him in and he settles on the couch, scoffing at her choice of television.
They start drinking, which is their first mistake. Deeks gets up to throw their trash away and use the bathroom, and that's his second mistake. There's a candle on the vanity and the smell is so strong he's surprised he didn't smell it the moment he stepped into her house. The neurons fire in Deeks' head and he leans against the sink, eyes closed as the scent memories assault him. What are the chances that she'd have this? Shit's getting freaky. He washes his hands and comes back to sit down next to her, pursing his lips as he stares at her bruised mouth. She notices him looking and frowns, reaching fingers up to splay across her skin.
"Stop looking at it," she says, trying to laugh it off. "I'll be fine by tomorrow. The feeling's already coming back."
Deeks shakes his head at Kensi, taking a sip of his beer and then holding the cold bottle up to her face, like she'd done previously.
"You okay, Kens?" he asks after a long pause, his other hand coming up to cup her jaw. He's handsy without the alcohol and now he's feeling brave, his inhibitions about fucking up what they have set a bit to the side.
When she opens her mouth to say "I'm fine," Deeks stops her by putting a finger against her lips. She closes her eyes for a second and he closes his too, the bottle still against her face and the scent of the rose candle still in his nostrils. He'd have a hard-on if he wasn't so concerned for her. Watching your partner get punched in the face is a bit of a buzzkill. When he opens them, hers are open too, staring at him inquisitively.
"Just a rough day. You know. Nothing this won't take care of," she says, reaching to take his bottle from her face so she can down the rest of it. She sets it on the edge of the messy coffee table and glances over at him and that's all it takes before he's moving in next to her, guiding her down on the couch with him and easing an arm around her. The Slanket would be great right now, but hindsight is 20/20. Deeks feels better with Kensi there in his arms, like he can relax for the first time today, and something tells him she's glad he's there too, because within minutes he's asking, "Kens?" and she's sound asleep, her chest rising and falling slowly.
The first thing Deeks realizes when he wakes up the next morning is that he can't recall dreaming about Kensi. The second he realizes is that he has morning wood, and he sits up to pull back from her before she can notice.
"I'm too tired to care," she assures him in a groggy voice and Deeks flushes, then laughs. "It's biology," he insists, and she just rolls over onto her back with a sleepy smile, looking up at him "Yeah, yeah," Kensi yawns, rubbing at her eyes. "Whatever you wanna call it."
Deeks just gives her a boyish smile, shaking his tousled head. "So, partner," he starts, tone already wheedling. "Since I got the beer, you get the breakfast. Sounds fair to me."
The response he receives is that look Kensi gives him when she thinks he's out of his mind, and his tactic is to grin at her until she finally gets up. While she goes into her bedroom to change, complaining the whole way, Deeks sits back and does damage control.
What he comes up with is that… everything's okay. No roses, no dreams, no uncontrollable hormones or awkward silences. Just his partner and the first real smile he's seen on her face since Asher was shot. He relaxes against her couch and watches the door and when she comes out, dressed in her usual jeans/Henley combination, Deeks adds, "Oh, and I want a soy latte, too."
The reaction, a wad of paper balled up and thrown at his head, is Deeks' cemented answer.
They're okay.