Gifts – 500 words

They all stared suspiciously at the parcels in front of them. They were covered very neatly with foil wrapping papers with bows on top. Bows.

"Does he really have to play into every stereotype?" Callen asked, picking the bow off the parcel that was addressed to him.

"Are good wrapping skills really a stereotype?" Sam queried, still not having made any move to touch his.

"They are if he's flamboyant about it."

And somehow, he had managed to be flamboyant in the way he had wrapped these parcels that were now in front of him.

"It's Kirkin, of course he was flamboyant about present wrapping," Deeks, poking his shiny blue wrapped present. His had the most ribbon on it and he would really rather not think about why.

But the question here was why on earth had Anatoli Kirkin got them Christmas presents? That was strange even for that man.

"How did he even get the presents to Hetty?" Sam asked.

She had been the one to give them the parcels. Without an explanation of how she got them, of course.

"Do you think they're booby-trapped or something?" Kensi asked.

Callen shook his head and grinned. "He wouldn't want to harm Deeks."

Sam also grinned. "Yeah, he likes him too much."

Deeks shuddered at the reminder of Anatoli Kirkin's attraction to him but he did have a point.

"Hetty wouldn't give us something dangerous," Sam said confidently.

"I'll go first," Kensi offered when no one else made a move to.

Tearing off paper with her usual abandon, she was soon left with a cardboard box. She opened it and her eyes widened.

"Oh, wow!" Kensi said when she opened hers.

"What did he get you?"

She lifted a leather object out. "A knife holster, look."

They all looked and were suitably impressed. It was obviously a very well made one of a deep brown. An eagle had been burnt into it, standing tall and proud.

"Very nice," Sam said approvingly as Kensi slipped on of her knives into it. It was a perfect fit.

That seemed to be the signal for the rest of them to open theirs. Sam got a box on ancient war strategies used in the Far East, Callen got two gift vouchers to that restaurant he and Anna liked (though, how Kirkin knew that was beyond him) and Deeks got...

"Wow."

"Cool."

"That's amazing."

There were three small canvases, each depicting a beach scene; one with cresting waves, one of footprints in the sand and the final of the sweeping LA coastline. In each there was a silhouette of a person who looked very like Deeks.

"That's amazing," Kensi said. "Think he painted them?"

Deeks didn't answer as he stared at them, tracing the paint strokes.

"Does that mean we need to get him a present now?" Callen asked. "Return the gesture?"

"What do you even get a member of the Russian mob?" Deeks wondered out loud.

"Maybe we should just wrap you up," Sam suggested.