"No Safe Place"
An NCIS: Los Angeles Story
There wasn't anything remarkable about the night Jason died. No 'dark and stormy' or 'hot and balmy'. It was just a night, unremarkable as any other. After all, it wasn't the night that changed his life.
It was what happened that night.
The night he truly learnt there was no safe place.
Being four and going into the foster care system was a memory that was so patched and faded, he wasn't even sure what was true anymore, except the feeling he was no longer safe.
That was one feeling he knew very well.
Too well, by now.
Being tossed from home to home, 'family' to family, belongings roughly shoved into a garbage bag, arriving at the latest new school smelling like it, being shoved around, all through elementary and middle school. Whispers of 'foster kid', 'new kid' and 'weirdo' quickly becoming the resident background music to his life.
Distrustful, pitying and smirking glances tossed his way from adults and children alike, 'poor thing', 'there must be something wrong with him', 'he's probably a drug addict or something', 'I bet his parents just didn't want him' following him around like the wind on a summer day.
Hoping to stay, only being told to go time and time again. Rules develop- never trust anyone, never show anyone if it hurts, if something is wrong, because they'll only use it against him. Never get attached to anything he can't carry with his own two hands. Never think of people as 'friends' but 'associates' so it wont matter when he was forced to move state yet again, to some other place he'd never been. Never try too hard, but don't flunk. Stay right in the middle- smart enough not to need help, but not so smart he'd get pushed towards academic things, towards 'attention'.
Invisible.
After all, you can't hurt what you can't see, right?
Being yelled at for doing the dishes wrong on his first night, for not knowing everything that was apparently so obvious he just had to be an idiot if he didn't know.
Being left outside because he was five minutes late home from school.
Having his new 'parents' inform him he was second rate to their 'real' child and that he should be so lucky to even be allowed inside.
Being tossed around at school, only to go through it again at 'home', and knowing if he fought back, that was all anyone would see- a violent foster child, who needed 'discipline'- so he never fought back, even when he spent the next two weeks at school cradling his arm against his ribs to try to ease the pain, spinning excuses of falling from trees, down stairs, tripping, bike accidents (even though there was no bike).
So he kept his head down, relishing the 'homes' that left him alone, or were even nice to him, surviving each one- until that one.
When he first met Jason- almost three and a half years older, definitely taller, typical pretty boy/jock look- gelled hair, bomber jacket. He knew he was gonna be victim to a daily ass kicking. Life had taught him this.
He was wrong. Jason took to him like a duck to water- buddying with him at school, despite the weird looks he got for the first two weeks (why's Jace hanging with the new kid?). Covered for him with the new foster parents too, warning him of the man's violent habits when drunk (which was fairly often).
He taught him about music- what was cool, what was trash, showed him how to play guitar- just enough to 'impress the girls' when he 'finally grew some muscles'.
The one thing Jason tried and failed to convince him of, was that one day, Callen would find his 'safe place'. "It doesn't have to be an actual place, G-man," Jason would say, "It could be a thing or even a person, but you will find it, G, it's just gonna take time." The confidence in the teen's voice almost made Cal want to believe him.
It was the closest he'd ever come to letting go of all his rules. But even his tenuous hold on those rules- that had helped him survive thus far- didn't protect him from what happened that night.
The night when the older boy, who'd taken to giving 'G' a new meaning every day was beaten to death by the bare hands and empty bottles of their viciously drunk foster 'father'.
They didn't protect him from the police and their never ending questions, the pitying looks, the annoying 'counselors' who were supposed to help him 'deal with this traumatic event', the looks, the whispers.
Eventually, though, he re-built his rules and his walls and for a long time, no one came close to breaking them.
Until Sam.
Callen had been with NCIS for some time before he and Sam were paired up, and had had several partners before him.
Sam was the first one who didn't give him weird looks at his name ("G.") or try to fit him into any slot. He didn't thro him pitying glances when he noticed Callen slip onto one of the couches and go to sleep, obviously not having a place of his own. He did, however, offer him his couch and, when they had time from work, offered to pretend to be his real estate agent, something that quickly became an act of relaxation for the both of them in their down time.
He went shooting with him, tried to teach him (the first time he'd done this, Callen spent two days almost entirely silent, while re-runs of Jason and he ran through his mind, threatening to break his carefully built walls to nothing), even fed him ("Don't want my girly partner faintin' on me, G.").
Time passed, cases came and went, and G never touched on those days spent in silence, and Sam never asked.
So when the counterfeit case came around and their young suspect wouldn't talk about who killed his friend, Callen spoke. But he wasn't really talking to the kid, he was telling Sam, and when he felt the taller man's eyes on him, he knew his partner had received the message.
So at the end of the case, when everyone was heading home to their houses or apartments and G- who had made no attempt since the Russian incident to find any place- was getting ready to maybe go for a walk after doing his report before turning in on the couch on the ground floor, he was surprised to find Sam there, holding his bedroll (which had been banned from use by Hetty) tucked under his arm, a take out bag in the other, Callen raised a brow in question.
"My place, no arguments, G." Sam stated, eyes firm but kind and genuine.
And in that moment, Callen knew. Jason was right- he did find his place- in his best friend.
His safe place was with Sam.
Finite.
Hope you liked.