A Little Wake-Up Call

"Is that blood?"

"Uh, no?"

"Deeks, that's not a question you're supposed to answer with another question," Kensi said worriedly, staring at Deeks' beat-up face from her position on her hospital bed.

"Okay, fine, yes, it's blood." Deeks wiped gently at his sore nose, which had begun to slowly seep blood again. He kicked himself mentally, he thought he had stopped the bleeding before he had come to visit.

"What happened to you?" Kensi asked, reaching toward him with a toddler-like grabby hand. "Come here."

"Why?"

"Just come here," Kensi said again, frowning slightly.

"No, you're gonna hit me," Deeks replied, backing up a step.

"No, I'm not!" Kensi paused. "Well, maybe. Just come here."

Deeks came closer, sitting down on the edge of her bed with a sigh. Kensi punched him in the shoulder with a short laugh.

"Ow," Deeks deadpanned, looking at her, unamused.

"Seriously, what happened to you?" Kensi asked, tone actually concerned as she used a gentle finger to trace down the bruising and cuts on his face.

"Well, I got the crap beaten out of me today," Deeks admitted, rubbing the cut that was butterfly bandaged on his forehead.

"What, you couldn't handle the big bad guys by yourself?" Kensi teased with a grin.

"Okay, for your information, Kensilina, there was only one guy."

Kensi raised an eyebrow. "One guy."

"But! You didn't let me finish! But he was the size of the Incredible Hulk, I swear!" Deeks protested.

"Where were Sam and Callen?" Kensi asked, her expression turning concerned as she gently ran her fingers down the bridge of his nose, where an angry red cut showed itself.

"Fighting off the others," Deeks replied, wincing as she touched the wound.

"I should've been there," Kensi said dejectedly, face falling, seemingly crumpling in on herself. I should've been there to back you up." Tears sprung to her eyes. "I'm not going to be able to do that ever again."

Deeks frowned, hands going to rub up and down her arms. "Baby, you've gotta stop saying that. You're gonna come back, and you're going to be better than ever, okay?" Deeks tried to encouraging, bringing a hand up to brush tears from her cheeks.

"What if something happens to you? And I won't be there to save you?" Kensi asked adamantly. "I'm going to be stuck here, I'm never going to get better."

"Hey!" Deeks said firmly, grasping her shoulders, giving her a gentle shake. "If you keep thinking like that, you aren't going to get better, alright?" Deeks was getting frustrated with Kensi's constantly downing attitude towards herself. "You are going to get better, and you are going to come back, and if I have to say that a million more times, I will!"

Kensi looked a little shocked at Deeks' words, so he softened his expression and let go of her arms, which he hadn't realized he was squeezing so tight.

"I, uh, I'm sorry if that scared you," he said after a moment, sitting back. Kensi offered the tiniest hint of a smile.

"No, thank you, I needed that," she said, shifting uncomfortably on her bed. "I kindof needed a wake-up call, I've been kindof awful lately." Deeks grinned, reaching for her bad hand, gently stretching her fingers and kneading her palm with the pad of his thumb.

"I love you," Deeks replied in lieu of a "you're welcome," smiling gently.

"I love you too," Kensi replied.

"And you'll always have my back, okay? No matter where you are," Deeks emphasized again, squeezing her hand.

"Okay," Kensi replied with a smile.

...

I'm sorry this was so short. It also felt really stiff and kindof not great, so I hope to go back and do some edits when I actually feel like writing. It was all I could do to get this typed out and published. Just not feeling it at the moment.

Also, please please please give me prompts, I'm running rather dry at the moment. I know what I'm going to do for the ending chapter, and I think I want this story to be about 15 chapters long, so we've got a lot more ground to cover.