Fluffy Hair and Nosy Bosses

Disclaimer: Nuh-uh.
A/N: Cars run on gas, I run on chocolate, and it appears that this story runs on reviews, seeing as ya'll got some great suggestions. Thanks to Fallenqueen2, Craftygirl11, storyfan101, TMVH50, emceejay, AgenFraniJones, PurpleHipposRock, NCISRookie33, Sweet Lu, trytofindme, ncisloverinnc, shestarsky, HayNSW2711, fiveOFan, sunny irish, kath46, two guests, guest m, Oloryn, fanficlover, stront, SuchASeaweedBrain, and SupernaturalGeek for leaving one.

Cat. Barn. Horse! Bag!

"Hold on Steve, I have to take this." Danny turned away from his partner and answered his phone. "Hello?" Deep breathing came bouncing over the line. "Hello? Hello? Are you breathing into a paper bag?"

The breathing paused. "Maybe." It started up again.

Danny turned back to Steve, "Give me a minute. I'll meet you at the car." Steve nodded and started down the stairs. Danny pulled the phone back up to his mouth. "Lay off the bag and give me some clue as to what is going on."

"The cat is out of the barn! The horses have left the bag!"

"Okay, I think what you mean to say is that the cat is out of the bag and the horses have left the barn. Still not an explanation." Danny's gestures punctuated the sentence, even if they couldn't be seen. Short breaths filled the space and Danny resisted the urge to bang his head against the wall.

"They know!" The two words hissed along the airwaves, sending a chill down Danny's back and brought back the night spent watching Lord of the Rings in the theatre. The two memories that stood out was regretting drinking his Super Gulp during the previews and the weird little creature, Gall? Gallum? Gull? Gollum! screeching.

"Know…hold on." Danny pulled the phone away from his mouth and called down the staircase, "Steve, I know you're at the bottom waiting. This is going to take longer than I thought. Could you pick me up some lunch?"

There was some shuffling and then finally, "Okay. But I wasn't listening!"

"Sure you weren't. Make sure there isn't any pineapple on whatever creation Kamekono has today." He waited until he heard the bang of the door before heading back to his office; this was going to take a while, he might as well sit down. "Run it from the top."

Kensi and Deeks had been sitting in the same place for two hours. The team had been following the movement of a package in an attempt to find a new drug kingpin that had found his way onto their radar. Sam had used his connections to slip said package to the right person who was unknowingly passing a tracking device to one of the lieutenants. Both men had shown up and after completing a complicated handshake, the package was stowed in the lieutenant's truck. Kensi had tailed the man to what they suspected was the headquarters. The lack of movement had somewhat confirmed that suspicion. They stayed until all the lights went out and movement ceased. Deeks placed a booster for the tracker's signal high in a tree and then they drove back to their headquarters.

They headed inside to grab their respective car keys so that they could head home for at least a couple hours of sleep. Kensi headed straight for the coffee pot, more than likely to see if there were still any donuts left. Deeks smirked as he watched her rustle through the table's contents. Finally, he heard her walk up behind him and she knocked the back of his leg with her foot. He turned, wondering what donut she had found, and instead found something for him.

In his defense, he had been leaning against his desk and didn't quite straighten up as he turned. Further in his defense, he's pretty sure that button wasn't undone in the car.

She was going to kill him once she figured out what he'd gotten a look at but before he could figure out if is was folds in the shirt or if he had just seen a teeny tiny bit of a lace edged bra, a mug appeared in his sightline.

"Coffee? It's still hot."

Deeks latched onto the distraction. Anything to pull his eyes away from something that was most definitely going to get them aggressively removed by an angry brunette. "Sure!" He grabbed the cup and took a big gulp.

Bad mistake.

Hot.

Very hot.

He swallowed, but tears formed in the corners of his eyes. He blinked to clear them, and found his beautiful view had moved on.

"I told you it was hot." Kensi rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, but how it could it be this hot after…" Wait, he'd blinked to clear those tears and then they were gone. Why were the lockers blurry? He blinked a few more times, but they just became more blurry. Then they skidded sideways. "Uh oh." He dropped back and sat down hard on his desk. He fumbled to put down his mug, trying not to drop and break it.

Kensi ran up and peered at him through concerned eyes, "Are you okay?"

"He's fine, just slightly sedated." Callen wove past Kensi to grab Deeks' one arm and Sam appeared just as suddenly and grabbed the other. They manoeuvred him over to the couch and sat him up, propped up with pillows.

"You drugged him!? You used me to drug my partner?! You said you wanted him to drink coffee so that you'd win a bet! Why are you here?" Kensi was trying to process what she had just unwittingly done.

"It'll wear off in a couple of hours. No harm done." Sam waved Kensi off.

Deeks' head rolled back and he found himself staring at the ceiling. There were pretty
lights above him. He lifted his hand to grab onto one of the pretty lights, but someone pushed his hand back down. That was rude, the pretty lights were winking at him, they deserved a high five.

"High five."

"Okay, Deeks, you with me?"

"Beaks? I don't see a bird." Deeks giggled, if he squinted and opened his eyes the lights would go different colours.

"Marty, we have a question for you." Sam patted Deeks' cheek to get his attention. Kensi was pacing behind the partners, but every time she tried to get closer, one of them would strategically place themselves in her way. "Callen, is this going to work?"

"It has to; since his phone got blown up the contact number is gone so we need the name from him."

"Is he okay?" Kensi blurted out, frustrated that she had been dragged into this.

"He's fine." Sam once again waved off Kensi's concern.

"Marty, what is the real name of D-squared?"

Deeks stopped looking at the lights and gazed at his two teammates in front of him. They looked so serious, maybe he should try and help them. Then they would leave him alone and he could finally high five the lights. "D-squared is gone. Boom. No more." It was the truth, he wouldn't lie to them. But they didn't look any happier.

"What are you doing?" Kensi stopped pacing and planted her fists on her hips.

"Nothing!" They answered in unison.

"I should hope not."

Cold tentacles of fear rushed down the spines of Sam and Callen; they froze, remembering that a predator spots its victims by their sudden movements. Their eyes slid to the side and they communicated through eyebrows and squinting. Oh, who were they kidding? They just drugged Deeks in an attempt, yet another failed attempt, to chase down a ghost.

Callen turned, as nonchalantly as one could while attempting to protect one's most vital of organs. "What are you doing here?"

Hetty stared up at her team leader, slowly blinked and pursed her lips. The lack of emotion on her face was as worrisome as the fact that her hands were hidden behind her back, covering whatever she might be holding in them. "I assume for the same reason as you." She gestured towards Kensi with her left hand, keeping her right hidden, "to hear the report on what happened at the hand-off."

"Us too." Sam smiled a big grin at his boss, moving slightly to shield Deeks from her view.

She nodded, cocked an eyebrow, glared at both men, and then turned to walk to the staircase.

Callen and Sam, through a series of nods, eyebrow lifting, and face twitches, made a decision. They turned back to Deeks whose head was tipped back at an impossible angle and was softly snoring. Callen kept one eye on the staircase while Sam cradled Deeks' neck and moved in to lie on the one end of the couch. He then lifted his feet to the other end. Callen handed him a blanket and Sam shook it out and covered Deeks up. The blanket was neatly tucked in all while Kensi stood cross-armed and glaring at the partners.

"He's going to be fine. Stop trying to light us on fire with the heat of your stare." Callen hissed at Kensi.

"I'm not trying to light you on fire; I'm trying to explode your head, obviously."

"We didn't think you'd care." Sam tried for innocent, but fell short into smarmy.

Kensi huffed and gestured at Deeks, "He'll be fine; he's had worse happen to him. What I don't appreciate is being used. Honestly, was there ever a bet?"

Callen and Sam suddenly found their shoes very interesting.

"Are you ever going to do something like this again?" Kensi pierced them with a stare. "And let me be clear, there is only one right answer."

"No." They sighed in unison.

A whistle sounded from above. They looked at each other, curious because Eric wasn't supposed to be there yet. The three walked towards the stairs to find Hetty standing at the top, calmly waiting. She raised an eyebrow. "What, did you think that Mr. Beale is the only one able to create such a sound? Will Mr. Deeks be joining us?"

Callen and Sam shuffled their feet but Kensi was the first to speak up. "No, he's tired and using the couch for a nap." Hetty nodded slowly and then turned to walk back to Ops. Kensi mouthed 'You owe me' to the sheepish partners and climbed the stairs to follow Hetty. Callen and Sam followed, leaving the snoozing Deeks to sleep off his spiked coffee.

"So they drugged your coffee and then what happened?" Danny was trying to make sense of the rambling and non-specific story Deeks was attempting to tell him.

"All I remember is landing on the couch somehow and staring at the lights. I wake up this morning on the couch all tucked in under a blanket and a missing team."

"Where are you now?"

"The file room because no one comes in here. I think they finally got it out of me." It sounded as though Deeks was squeezing the words out of himself.

Danny sighed, it wasn't that either of them were trying to hide what they were doing, it was just…it was nice to have someone else that understood the craziness that was caused by being on a specialized task force. He was mentally preparing for the upcoming comments that were sure to come from Steve once the secret made its way from Sam. He was still thinking when there was a bit of a commotion on the other end of the phone. There was rustling, Danny guessed Deeks had dropped the phone and some muted voices. Suddenly the voices came through clear enough to understand.

Is that Mr. Williams? ... Uh, what? You, uh … Yes, I remember him and his insubordination. Tell him hello from Ms. Lange. Cheeky, that one. Like someone else I know.

This was followed by more rustling and then Deeks came back on the line. "Well, uh, turns out she knows but no one else. Apparently I mumbled on about the lights and then passed out."

"How does she know?" Danny felt a rush of relief.

There was a heavy moment of silence. "Dude, she's Hetty Lange."

"Right…dumb question. Glad to know everything's okay. By the way Grace says hi and asks that you visit Willy if you can."

"I'll do that. I should get back to work."

Danny looked up to see Steve coming down the hallway. "I have lunch to eat. Good luck with the terrible two."

Steve knocked on the door and dropped a bag onto Danny's desk. "No pineapple, as requested."

Danny pulled out an apple and orange. "What's this?"

The corner of Steve's mouth pulled up, "He was making fruit salad; didn't feel like cutting it up for you if you were going to dictate his flavour choices."

Sometimes it would be more productive to just bang his head against the wall.

A/N: One, storyfan101 suggested that Kensi may open a button to get her way, and so she did. Two, we've been in LA for a while now, but this one was too good to pass up; next time, back to Hawaii!