A/N: This is a continuation of a story I wrote a while back as requested by cbetham on Tumblr. It involved Deeks questioning if his career had made him numb to violence and such.
"Are you ok?" Kensi asked, her breathing steady even though they'd been running for about 30 minutes.
"What do you mean?" he said, swiping his arm across his damp forehead. She sighed, or maybe she was just taking a deep breath.
"I don't know. You've been acting…weird."
"You always think I'm weird." He tried to sound like his usual flippant self. Obviously Kensi didn't buy it, because she knocked him with her elbow.
"Deeks, you know what I mean. You've been really quiet lately. And before you say that you are never quiet, yes you are. This is different. Yesterday you barely talked at all and I keep finding you staring like a deer in headlights," she said. Her voice wasn't overly concerned, but Deeks knew she wouldn't just let it drop.
Sighing, he came to an abrupt stop. Kensi ran several more steps before she realized he wasn't beside her anymore and then walked back to him, her brows furrowing.
"What's going on, babe?"
"It's that Monster case we had a few weeks ago. It…" he looked past Kensi, shaking his head as he tried to gather his thoughts. He wanted to blurt out the fears that had been plaguing him, but knew it would be too much all at once. "I can't stop thinking about it. What about you?"
"Yeah, that was really awful. I've had a couple nightmares too, but you know we see some pretty terrible things with this job," Kensi said, shrugging. "It comes with the territory. I just wish we'd able catch the actual killers." She made a face and he knew she was thinking about how (in her mind) they'd let the bad guys slip through their fingers.
Rubbing at his jaw, Deeks tried to think of another way of wording his concerns without actually coming right out with it. It would probably be best to work up to revealing that he thought he was slowly turning into a psychopath.
"It's just, uh, do you ever think about the effect that cases like this have on us?" he asked, his gaze flicking to Kensi for a moment before he resumed staring at the waves in the distance. From his brief look, Kensi was watching him with a frown, her hands planted on her hips. She seemed confused. "I can't help feeling like we're not the same people that we were when we started this job."
"Of course we're not the same." Kensi turned his face towards her with two fingers, her expression tender. She moved his sweaty hair back from his forehead. "We're not so naive anymore and maybe we're a little jaded sometimes, but, Sweetie, you are still the same loving, wonderful man I met 9 years ago."
It wasn't the reaction he was hoping for.
Forcing his disappointment back, he smiled at Kensi and leaned in to kiss her.
"Have I ever told you how much I love you?" he murmured. Kensi rose up on her toes to keep their lips pressed together for a few more second. When she dropped back down, she patted him on the chest and started running again.
"I'll race you back home!" she shouted over her shoulder.
It should have made him smile, but all he felt was the ever increasing sense of doom. Despite Kensi's assurance that he hadn't changed, he knew that wasn't true. And if they didn't leave NCIS, it wouldn't be too long before Kensi realized the truth.
Maybe when he got home, he'd call a friend of his who had mentioned selling his bar. Decision made, he ran after Kensi, who had a good head start. When they got home, he would pretend that nothing was wrong. He would tease, he would laugh, he would be the man Kensi expected him to be, just like he did every day.