A/N – Just a short offering to get me through to the Season Opener. Hope you like it. A lot in Kensi's head, but plenty of Deeks, too. Let me know what you think.
Evade. Reject. Deflect. Diffuse. De-escalate. Confront. Survive. Escape. Those were the rules of the street. Jade taught her well when they found each other, and although there's been lots of training, lots of experience, and lots of time since she was alone and fifteen, Kensi still remembers the lessons imparted by her only friend from that episode in her life.
They come back to her at strange times – the rules. The very first rule for a girl on the street is to be invisible – you don't need the rest if no one notices you. Not pimps, not gangs, not cops, not good Samaritans. Invisible is your first line of defense. But if you can't be invisible, Jade's rules could get you out of a bad spot every now and then.
It's been a long day. It's been a long few days and Kensi is behind on sleep. She and Deeks have crashed two different locations and sat on an office building waiting for a suspect to appear. Eventually the team tracked him down. A Navy civilian trying to finance his retirement by selling secrets. NCIS OSP stopped that from happening.
Kensi asks Deeks if he wants to grab some dinner, but he looks at the clock on his phone and hedges.
"You have plans tonight?" she asks, unable to stop herself. She spins away from him, gathering her fingers in a fist, immediately annoyed at herself for pushing. She doesn't want him to see her disappointment. He'd been texting a lot today and every once in a while she caught him with a goofy smile. It struck her now that it maybe it was the smile of a man with a story to tell about the night before or one hoping to have a story to tell tomorrow.
And if Deeks is dating someone the last thing she wants to do is hear about it. All the banter and tension and attraction were hard enough to deal with without listening to him be happy with someone else.
"Nevermind. Don't answer that. Have a good night." She takes off.
"Kensi!" he calls out to her, but she's gone.
And the only way to combat the frustration at herself and unfairly at him is to exhaust herself. She has the perfect idea. The gym at the mission seems to public to her – people she knows and know her, so she opts for someplace much more crowded but where she's anonymous. An alias has a membership at a gym with locations all around town. Time to find a drop-in kick boxing class and let loose.
It only takes an hour before she's lined up in front of a freestanding heavy bag. She looks up at the guy who took a bag next to her. He winks.
Evade.
She moves to a different bag.
And she punishes it. She hears the instructions and executes over and over again, and when the fifty five minutes are done she's dripping in sweat with tired muscles. She leans her back against a wall in the gym drinking her water and catching her breath before she stretches.
A guy comes up in front of her and takes a sip of his own water right in her face.
"Good workout," he offers. She just nods. "How about we go reward ourselves with a drink?"
Reject.
"No, thank you," she returns, and pushed herself off the wall. She finds an empty section of the mat floor and starts stretching.
She stretches never losing track of where he is in the gym. She never makes eye contact, never lets on that she's watching him - a habit of the job that she can't just let it go. The guy who winked at the beginning, too. She can tell you exactly where they are and makes a mental note that this time at this gym isn't going to be a repeat for her.
When both guys have moved on she makes her way to the locker room. She showers and changes and takes her time. She wasn't the one with plans for the night, so she has no timetable. Back in the car she turns music on a little too loud and decides that she needs food and maybe a drink.
She checks messages on her phone, and there's one from Deeks.
Deeks: Everything good? You took off kinda fast tonight
Kensi: Good
A delay. She gave him no opening for conversation. He relents.
Deeks: Catch you in the morning
Make that a few drinks.
So she finds herself a place with Mexican Mules and small plates. She orders a drink and something to eat, and one drink becomes two. Then she orders the third. That needs to be her last, though, because she is absolutely not leaving her car here tonight and asking Deeks for a ride to work tomorrow. If he's had an overnight guest the last thing she wants to chance is having to hear about it.
When Ego walks into the bar the air changes. He tries to take up all the space. He and his friends are louder than they need to be, more animated than the occasion calls for. This isn't their first stop, either. Kensi tries to be invisible, throwing her hair into a messy ponytail figuring the clothes she wore for work, the unkempt hair and the no make-up will do the trick. It doesn't.
When Ego makes his way over to Kensi and makes himself comfortable she doesn't look at him. She also never bothers to get his name, so Ego it is. The first time he offers to buy her a drink she pretends not to hear him. The second time she says no.
Reject.
"No – I'm good. Thanks." Conversational but clear.
But he isn't dissuaded. "Awww, come on, beautiful. Just one and we can get to know each other a little better."
Deflect.
"No, thanks. It's been a long day. I'm sure you'll find someone who'll be much better company."
Ego orders her a drink anyway, and despite her clear indications to the bartender she isn't interested the drink appears in front of her.
"It'll hurt my feeling if you don't take it."
Well, she wouldn't want to do that, right? Because that's' what girls are taught. Make sure if you say no you do it in a way that doesn't make them angry. Don't piss them off. Joke and demure so you don't make a scene.
Diffuse.
"I really appreciate it, but trust me, this is a bad idea for both of us. Maybe one of your friends wants it."
"I didn't buy it for someone else."
De-escalate.
"No, I know. It just isn't going to happen tonight. I'm really sorry." The being sorry part is a lie. "I have an early shift tomorrow and I need to hit the road."
But he isn't having any part of it. Could be his general nature or could be alcohol induced bravado, but he isn't taking the rejection with any amount of grace. He reaches out and grabs Kensi's forearm.
"Listen, bitch."
Just like that she went from beautiful to bitch in all of thirty seconds because he didn't get what he wanted. He put his hands on her, and that is Kensi's point of no return. There are a lot of things guys can say in a bar that annoy her, but once they touch her they forfeit a graceful retreat.
Confront.
She grabs the wrist that holds her arm, and breaking free she twists it so that it is off to the side and uncomfortable.
"Walk away," she says with narrow eyes and tone that leaves no room for interpretation.
She gives him a second to think about his discomfort and then she twists just a little more to let him know it could be a lot worse. By then all his friends are watching, and embarrassment gets the better of him. She releases him and he puts his hands up in front of his body in mock surrender and backs back to the corner he crawled over from.
Kensi settles in. She orders another appetizer and asks for a glass of water and waits for Ego and his friends to move their bar crawl on to the next location. If she leaves now she worries he'll follow and it will be a thing. Better to eat something and give everything a minute to calm down.
Her plan works because Ego and his friends make their way out. She can't entirely see them through the front window, but it looks like they pile into an Uber and are off to find another bar to ruin the atmosphere of. She gives it fifteen minutes and settles up her bill. It must have rained while she was in there, because there's a light sheen to the pavement as she makes her way to the car.
She turns the corner and it just registers in her mind that he's there when he pulls her arm and spins her around. When she tries to counter his momentum her boots slide on the pavement, and she stumbles into the bricks on the side of the building.
Survive.
This is the part that's changed the most since she was fifteen and uncertain. Now she knows exactly what to do and how to do it. She pushes herself off the wall, and it's the last moment Ego has the advantage. Her elbow, forearm and fist hit him quick succession. She puts her hand across the back of his head and sees how much he likes his head hitting the brick surface.
Not a lot, from the sounds of it.
When he turns she puts a knee into his stomach and he hits the ground dazed.
Escape.
But she can't just run. She's a grown woman now, and people with cell phones look to be calling 911. The LAPD will respond. They'll talk to the bartender. She paid with her own credit card and they'll do a wellness check to make sure she's ok. Her name will flag as federal law enforcement and they'll call NCIS, so the only way for this to go away quietly is to stay and sort it out.
Her long day just got a lot longer.