Chapter Four: A Pop At The Cherry
"I'm not going out there." Sam steadier himself by holding onto the side of the washbasin. To be more precise, he stopped himself from falling over only because he was gripping on to the porcelain with a death grip. These heels were proving trickier to master than he had anticipated. And the balls of his feet were aching like fun already, after only a few moments. No doubt he'd have fallen arches and bunions before the night was over.
"We've still got to get our makeup done." Deeks surveyed his reflection critically. "We really need to get bigger mirrors in here. I can only see bits of myself." He bent his knees and slowly lowered himself towards the ground. "Makes it kind of hard to get the overall impression."
"Your butt looks huge, if that's what you're worried about." Callen adjusted his falsies, which seemed to have a life of their own.
"Does not." Deeks bounced up quickly and twirled around. "It actually looks kind of good." he said complacently after a careful examination and a couple of surreptitious clenches. He looked across at Callen. "But those pencil pleats add about 10 pounds onto yours."
"Really?" Callen pushed him away from the mirror. "Oh God, it's true. My butt looks the size of Alabama," he said mournfully. "That settles it: I'm not going out there either." He and Sam both stared at Deeks.
"Okay. I get the message. I'll text Hetty. She can damn well come to us for once." There was no way Deeks was going out there alone, not now he knew how the early Christians felt walking into the arena and just waiting for the lions to be released. He reached down automatically, before realising that, unlike his pants, the dress had no pockets. "How the hell do women manage?" he muttered and dropped to the ground, where his pants were still lying in a heap.
"That's why they tote their pocketbooks around with them everywhere." And then filled them up with all kinds of junk, so they weighed about ten pounds, Sam thought. Men were just more organised, lead a more streamlined life.
"Kensi doesn't. I'm not sure she even has a pocketbook."
"Kensi's not like normal women."
"True enough." Where on earth does she put all her junk then?
"Staging a sit-in, are we gentlemen?" Hetty breezed in, followed by Kensi and Nell. "Well, in this one case, the mountain has indeed come to Mohammed. I'll be looking after you, Mr Callen." He looked like a rabbit hat had been caught in the headlights of an oncoming car and was just sitting there in the middle of the road, bleakly resigned to its fate.
"I can do my own make-up," Sam said quickly, as Nell approached him.
"Oh no you can't," she said forcefully and stared up at him. Given that Sam was wearing heels, she only came up to somewhere around his chest. The chest that was now artificially enhanced by a pair of chicken fillets (size: extra large). "Eric!" Nell had a surprisingly loud voice for someone so short.
"Eric's not doing my make-up either."
Nell managed to stop herself from kicking him in the shin, but it was a close-run thing. "Funny. Eric's bringing in some chairs, Sam. This is going to take a while, so you may as well be comfortable. " She gazed around curiously, having always wondered what the men's restroom looked like: pretty much like the women's, she thought, except for the urinals, obviously. Only it smelled strange – like a mixture of mildew and sweat, with an undertone of damp dog. Maybe it was decades of testosterone festering away?
"How come I get landed with you?" Deeks glared down at Kensi.
"I guess it's your lucky day."
"You look different without make-up."
Despite herself, Kensi rose to the bait. "Different how?" A good different or a bad different?
"I dunno," he shrugged. "Just different. Like your eyes don't look so dark or something."
"Oh." Kensi considered this for a moment and then took a long hard look at him. "That dress actually kind of suits you," she confessed.
"What?" Deeks' voice rose at least an octave and it wasn't just because the sudden movement made the control panties cut in painfully, although that certainly didn't help. "Guys – help me out here."
"Kensi – no man ever wants to be told he looks good in a dress," Callen said. "Believe me."
"Don't worry, G – you're not in any danger of that happening to you any time soon."
"Is that the pot calling the kettle black, Sam? Jealous are we?"
"Why would I be jealous of you?" Sam flared back. I look damn fine – for a man in a dress.
Deeks gave Kensi a long-suffering look. "See what you've started? Just don't mention Callen's 'Bama butt if you want to avoid nuclear meltdown."
"Is it safe to come in?" Eric hovered nervously outside the door, deeply regretting his actions earlier in the day. Given their awesome reputations in a fight, baiting the guys probably hadn't been the wisest thing to do. And when it came to Kensi, it was downright suicidal.
"Go and collect them from him, Nell." Kensi didn't want the atmosphere in the room to get any worse than it already was. And she wasn't thinking about the fact that the place could certainly do with a few dozen air-fresheners dotted around.
"That's better!" Hetty said jovially, once Callen was seated. "I think we'll give you a rose-petal complexion, darken your eyes and give you ruby red lips. That should do the job. An exercise in contrasts, if you like."
"Do I have a choice?"
"What do you think?" Callen submitted to her ministrations without another word.
Nell surveyed Sam intently. "You've got the colouring to carry off something pretty dramatic. So I'm going to go for gold and green on your eyes. And loads of eyeliner."
"Do you have to?" He sounded completely miserable, but that was partly because sitting down was putting pressure on certain parts of his anatomy. Sam realised that it wasn't just the balls of his feet that would be aching tonight, but his balls in general. Oh well, things could be worse, he supposed – like if he had a little piggy tail poking out of the back of his frock. But apart from that, this was pretty much as bad as it could get.
"Who's the mouse now?" Deeks asked and then smiled up at Kensi. "Go on – do your worst."
"Have a little faith. I'm just going to pluck your eyebrows a bit." Well, quite a lot actually. They're kind of shaggy.
"You are not," he said emphatically. Deeks was pretty easy going as a rule, but Kensi had crossed a line there. Temporary changes were all very well, as were shaving parts of himself that were normally hidden underneath clothing. But no way was he going to be running around chasing criminals with plucked eyebrows.
"Am too." She advanced towards him, brandishing a pair of tweezers.
A hand shot out and grabbed hold of her wrist. "Enough, Kensi. I'm not joking here."
Her eyes widened in shock as he increased the pressure. "Okay. There's no need to be a bully about it." He let go and Kensi badly wanted to rub her wrist to try to lessen the sting, but she wasn't about to give Deeks the satisfaction of seeing he'd hurt her.
"There's also such a thing as taking a joke too far." Deeks saw the reddening mark where his fingers had gripped her and immediately felt contrite. "Did I do that? I'm really sorry, Kensi."
"Don't flatter yourself. It would take more than you to hurt me, Deeks. Point taken about the eyebrows. I'll just fudge the illusion by shading a darker line. If that's alright with you?"
"I can live with that." Deeks shut his eyes and just prayed he wouldn't look too ridiculous.
The three women worked in away silence, punctuated only by the occasional instruction to "look up" or "purse your lips." Finally, they were finished and ready to reveal the results of all their labours.
"I never appreciated how much effort women go to," Sam confessed, staring at his reflection in awe. For a macho guy, he made a pretty impressive drag queen. Somehow Nell had managed not to compromise his masculinity, for which he was truly thankful.
"Me either." Deeks blinked in shock as he surveyed himself and then looked sideways at Callen. "You look like Divine."
"Thanks. Do you really think so?"
"Callen – Deeks didn't say you looked divine. He said you looked like Divine. You know – the big fat guy in drag? The ugly one in Hairspray who wasn't Rikki Lake. Personally, I think you look more like Jack Lemmon."
"In Some Like It Hot?" Callen gave Deeks a hate-filled look. He looked nothing like Divine – did he?
"No. Just Jack Lemmon in general." It was fair to say that Hetty wasn't quite as adept with makeup as either Kensi or Nell, Sam thought. She'd managed to turn a good-looking guy into an ugly parody of a woman. He glanced as Deeks and couldn't help smiling. "You look like a woman."
"Wasn't that the idea?"
"No. the idea was to make us look like drag queens. You actually look like a woman." It was rather disconcerting. If he'd been walking behind Deeks, and not known it was him, Sam actually might have been attracted to him. And that was truly terrifying.
"He's right," Callen admitted. "Apart from the eyebrows."
"I told you they needed to be plucked." Kensi was glad to have been vindicated.
"I always said you were a pretty boy. And now Kensi's just proved me right. Bet you're the first to pull tonight." Sam gave him a knowing wink.
That was one bet Deeks would be glad to loose.