AN: Another "previously posted on Tumblr for Densi-mber" fic, a day early in deference to the holiday tomorrow (Merry Christmas to those who celebrate!). This can be considered a response to the "Moms share holiday baby stories of Kensi and Deeks with the couple" prompt, even though I wrote it before that. Thanks go out to Phnxgirl for the inspiration to write about Little Martin (and Little Kensi). When she gets around to finishing her current story, you'll know what I mean. And yeah, I basically doubled my 1,000-word limit on this one. Not sorry!
"Leave it, we'll clean up later," Kensi insisted as Julia and Bertie tried to rinse off their dinner plates.
"We, angel?" Deeks teased.
"Okay, maybe I'm hoping for a Christmas miracle and we'll find everything washed and put away when we wake up in the morning."
"There's a better chance of Monty licking the dishes clean and burying them in the backyard overnight than Santa and the reindeer straightening up, Ms. Claus," Deeks said as they settled in the living room and he topped off the ladies' wine glasses. "Everything was delicious, Moms. You two are goddesses in the kitchen, I don't think I've ever had a better Christmas Eve meal." He popped open another beer for himself, realizing he'd had more than his fair share of holiday libation tonight. But it seemed to do the trick, as it really had been a nice evening with their parental units. Even better because Guy was out of town visiting his own grown children.
Kensi smiled at their mothers, "You know, the first time you guys met, when we were trying to get you to come out to a restaurant for Christmas dinner and you both wanted to cook, Deeks didn't think it was a good idea to have you share a kitchen. I for one knew it would work out beautifully."
"Wow, sugar plum, way to throw me under the bus."
"In all fairness, it would have been awkward that first year, considering we'd just met," Julia conceded. "But after all the time we've spent together since then, Bertie and I have become good friends and it's a treat to cook beside her."
Bertie held up her wine glass, "Here's to something good coming out of Kensi's coma. Aside from Kensi, of course."
They all toasted, and Kensi kept her glass aloft. "And to spending the holiday with family."
Bertie jumped on that opening. "Speaking of family, when will you two be adding to yours? Julia and I aren't getting any younger, you know, and we'd like to spend time together doing more than cooking. Maybe visit a hospital for something good for a change, if you're picking up what I'm putting down."
"I think you need to put that glass down and keep it there, Mama," Deeks told her. Apparently he wasn't the only one who'd had too much to drink tonight. Not that Crazy Bertie wouldn't have made that same statement when perfectly sober.
"Maybe you should set a wedding date first," Julia suggested.
"Nah, I already told them they didn't need to wait for that. It's not like either one of them is going anywhere, they're so in love," Bertie replied.
"That's true, but we're thinking we'll try this the traditional way: wedding first, kids some time after that," Kensi said.
Julia was thrilled to have confirmation that they were still planning to have children, "You'll be wonderful parents."
"Well, heaven knows with all your secret agent experience, you're ready for it if yours end up as rambunctious as Martin here."
"Thanks for the love, Mama. You sure you're not trying to talk us out of having kids?"
"Aww, come on. You know I love you," she reached across the coffee table pat his cheek. "But do you remember the Christmas you were eight?"
"You'll never let me live that down, will you?" Deeks said.
"I should have realized then you'd make a living snooping into other people's lives. Good thing you seem to have gotten better at it."
"What happened?" Kensi asked.
"Your fiancé couldn't wait for Christmas to open his presents. About a week before, I heard noises in the middle of the night and thought someone had broken in. I crept out of my room with a hardcover book as a weapon only to find this one had snuck into my bedroom closet while I was asleep and pilfered all the presents. He'd unwrapped them, took inventory, and was trying to re-wrap them when I found him."
Kensi and Julia laughed.
"Oh, no," Julia said.
"Except he didn't realize until it was too late that he had no idea how to wrap a gift. He had more tape, glue, and paper on himself than on any one box. Every roll of wrapping paper was completely unrolled and strewn around the living room, and half of it somehow ended up stuck to the walls."
"Glue?" Kensi managed to ask.
"I was desperate!" Deeks shrugged. "I needed to know if those were the same presents that would supposedly be from Santa."
"Lucky for both of us your father was at the bar."
"I may not have known how to wrap a present at that tender age, but I knew enough to wait until the old man was gone to pull a stunt like that."
Wanting to keep the conversation light, Julia shared, "You know, Kensi could be pretty sneaky too when she was curious about something. We used to decorate our tree a few weeks before Christmas, but we always put the star on top after Kensi was asleep on Christmas Eve. Don told her it only appeared then because it was full of the spirit of Christmas."
Deeks grinned, "I can see where this is going."
"One year, I think Kensi must have been about four, shortly after Don and I went to bed, we heard a huge crash. We ran into the living room to find the tree toppled over and Kensi inside it. Seems our little angel wanted to see the spirit of Christmas up close, so she moved all the gifts out of the way, crawled under the tree, and tried to climb up from the inside, where the branches were thickest."
Deeks burst out laughing and turned to his blushing bride-to-be, "We are so going to have to tie our kids into their beds every night in December!"
"And take the knobs off the stove," Julia advised. "I think she was eleven when she almost burned the house down because the rule was that we didn't open presents until after a family breakfast. Kensi thought she'd work around that by waking us up with the aroma of French toast at three in the morning."
Kensi took over, "Instead it was the smell of burnt bread and eggs that did the trick. And it just got very smoky; I didn't even come close to starting an actual fire, Mom."
"Yeah, she was saving that up for after we moved in together," Deeks joked, knocking Kensi's shoulder with his own.
"Right, because you don't drive Kensi nuts with your obsession about the Christmas lights, Martin," his mother said.
"What? What are you talking about? Kensalina appreciates the appealing appearance of our Christmas lights."
Kensi said, "You mean with all the," Bertie chimed in and said with her future daughter-in-law, "clean angles and smooth lines?"
"Go ahead and mock me, but we have the best-looking house on the block."
"You ought to after all the time you spent practicing hanging those damned lights inside the house year-round. Not to mention climbing all over things like an ape because you didn't want to use a ladder." Bertie looked at Julia, "With your monkey and mine as parents, our grandkids will be primed to join a travelling circus."
"Nice, mom," Deeks reproached.
Chuckling, Kensi said, "Things make so much sense now."
"Honey," Julia said slyly, "I have to apologize for saying you nearly set fire to the house that Christmas morning. I was wrong. It was during one Hanukkah that you were practically a pyromaniac."
"Okay, Mom, you're cut off too," Kensi moved Julia's glass away from her.
"No, I want to hear this," Deeks encouraged.
"There's nothing to hear. I brought the menorah outside during the day to try to light the candles with a magnifying glass," Kensi defended.
"And when that didn't work…?" Julia prompted.
"Wait, let me guess!" Deeks all but shouted. "She tried flint and steel, a stick and shoestring, and a battery and steel wool." He could read on Kensi's face that he was exactly right, so he put his arm around her and kissed her cheek, "Props to you for keeping the fire outside the house, baby."
Bertie loudly cleared her throat and glared at her son. Deeks' smile quickly faded. Catching on, Kensi said, "Oh ho ho! Deeks set fire to something, didn't he?! In the house! What happened?" She looked between her fiancé and his mother.
"Martin was eleven when that movie Home Alone came out and he was convinced someone was going to break in and steal his Christmas presents since his father was out of the house for good by then. He borrowed a blowtorch from that delinquent Ray's garage and rigged it to ignite if someone came in the back door."
"It would have worked too if Mama hadn't made me take it down."
Kensi laughed her scary laugh and the family stared at her. Once she regained her composure, she ruffled Deeks hair and explained, "You sound like every villain at the end of Scooby Doo, Shaggy."
Julia teased, "Well, they'll be a handful, but at least your kids will be beautiful to look at while they get into all that trouble."
"Oh yeah," Bertie said. "Those good looks and the well-practiced ability to feign innocence will keep you two on your toes for sure."
"That's it," Kensi threw up her hands. "I'm not raising any sneaky pyromaniac monkeys. Thanks Moms, you've talked me out of giving you grandchildren."
"I'm with my ladybird on this one," Deeks agreed, taking one of Kensi's hands in his own. "Sneaky pyromaniac monkeys don't sound nearly as cool as mutant ninja assassins."
"Oh, don't get your panties in a twist," Bertie said. "You know it's not all bad. There's also plenty of good about having high-spirited and clever children."
"Such as?" Deeks asked.
Bertie was quick with an answer. "You had so much energy you were super excited about pretty much anything. I could have given you an empty coffee tin for Christmas and you would have found about a dozen different ways to play with it."
Deeks looked at her askance, "You did give me a coffee tin one year."
"Yeah, well, it wasn't a gift or anything," his mother waved him off. "Just something to keep you busy for a while."
"Kensi, you were just as well-occupied with any reading material about the Marines or whatever base we were living on. You really were quite easy growing up," Julia said sincerely.
"I wouldn't give back a second of it. Even though he may have been a little devil at times, my Martin was all heart," Bertie said.
"He still is," Kensi added, squeezing Deeks' hand.
Eying her son, Bertie asked, "Do you remember when you were in seventh grade and you got caught doing other kids' homework for money?" The woman's eyes misted as she turned to Kensi and Julia and explained, "He wanted to buy me something really special for Christmas."
Julia exclaimed, "Oh my goodness! Kensi was in fourth grade when she did the same thing, only it was so she could buy more presents for the Marines' Toys for Tots drive!"
The foursome hadn't finished laughing when Deeks furrowed his brows in thought. "So I was twelve and you would have been, what, nine? That happened the same Christmas, Kens!"
"I guess great minds really do think alike," Kensi said, leaning into Deeks to give him a quick kiss.
Bertie stood up and toyed with her phone. "And on that note, I think it's time to hit the road. What do you say, Julia, should we leave these two great minds to their baby-making?"
"Or wedding planning, whichever they prefer," Julia said.
"Perfect, there's a Lyft less than ten minutes from here. I'll drop you off on the way home."
Fifteen minutes later, Deeks locked the door behind their mothers as Kensi set the alarm. Putting his arm around Kensi's waist and making their way toward the bedroom, Deeks asked, "So did they really change your mind about having kids?"
"Nah. But I know one thing for sure."
"What's that?"
"The moment our kid starts to crawl, we need to put security cameras in every room and the perimeter of the house, linked to our phones," Kensi suggested.
"Obviously. And taking the knobs off the stove probably isn't a bad idea either."
"We can do that now as far as I'm concerned," Kensi half-joked. "Oh, and we should probably only ever live in a single-story house. No telling what havoc our kids could wreak with stairs and a high roof."
"Done," Deeks agreed, yawning. "And maybe we can get our hands on a lifetime supply of Overwatch spray…"
AN2: My next (and last) weekly Densi-mber installment should be up next Saturday or Sunday and will, predictably, take place on New Year's Eve. But I may have one or two more "bonus" Christmas Eve/Christmas Day drabbles that you can expect during the week, if you're interested.