"Don't make me take off my belt." The belt is the worst. The look in his dad's eyes is enough to make him want to piss his pants, but he stands his ground. If he runs, he's gonna catch him, and beat it out of him. If he tells a bad lie, he's not gonna be able to sit down for the next week. But the truth isn't an option.
His mom cowers in the corner, eyes shining. "Gordy," she says meekly. Marty wishes she would stay out of this.
"Shut up, Roberta."
In his nine miserable years living with his dad, he's figured out how to handle these kinds of things. He looks up at his dad, and doesn't let himself tremble. "I didn't break it."
"Don't lie to me, son."
"I'm not." He keeps his voice steady, and tries not to sound too defensive. That's always a dead give away. "After you fell asleep last night – " (passed out) " – there was a little earthquake. Mom tried to wake you up and everything. We didn't even realize the clock was broken until we came out and saw it in the kitchen."
One of Gordon's huge hands grabs the little boy's chin, forcing Marty to look up into the face of a monster. His dad's thumb pushes painfully against his chin. "You know what happens if you lie to your dad, don't you?"
It makes Marty's mouth burn just thinking about it. Being forced to gargle a few tablespoons of Texas Pete for a couple of minutes always makes him cry, and he's a pretty tough kid. But it's only happened a few times, when he was younger. Before he learned. He impresses himself with his lies, sometimes. And every time the taste of hot sauce touches his tongue, it makes his lies better the next time around. "Hot sauce."
"That's right." Marty glances at his mom again, and the guilt clinging against her is almost palpable. The clock had shattered against their fold out dinner table when she was trying to dust the top of the windowsill next to it. She tried to pick it up and hide the pieces, but Gordon had woken up and walked out of the bedroom before she could hide it. He assumed it was Marty's fault before either of them could say anything.
Pain shooting through his jaw forces his eyes back to his dad's. "Look at me. Are you telling the truth?"
He trusts himself. Lying's the best way out, and he's pretty damn good at it. His voice remains steady, earnest even, and his eyes hold his dad's. "Yes."
His head drops when his dad finally lets go of him. He doesn't allow himself a sigh of relief, but he grins a little when Gordon turns away. The more he has to lie, the better he gets. And the better he gets, the easier it becomes.
She's young, blonde-haired, and skinny as hell. Her legs are knobby sticks that tremble as she stands in the corner, her clothes half torn off of her, her face bloody and swollen. She doesn't even look old enough to drive.
When she has her make-up on, and her light hair down and curled so that it distracts from her face, and what little cleavage she has is pushed up with one of her bombshell bras, she can pass as being of legal age. It's the only reason he agreed for her to be his informant in the first place. But seeing her scared and vulnerable like this reminds him that she's just a kid.
Bruises mar her exposed skin. She says, "He's going to kill me."
He's a police officer, but so is Boyle, so this definitely won't be standard procedure. "Frank," Deeks says, taking a step closer to his former partner, who's currently aiming his pistol at a wide-eyed, shaking teenager. "Listen to me, Frank. She didn't give you up."
"Yes, she did, you son of a bitch." He moves his finger to the trigger of his gun. Tiffany whimpers, and closes her tear-filled eyes.
Before Deeks knows it, he's on top of Boyle, and he fights his gun out of his hands and into his own. But the asshole doesn't stop. He fights with Deeks until he escapes out of his grasp by punching him square in the jaw, and he scrambles over to Tiffany. He grabs her by the throat and squeezes. Damn him, Deeks thinks. Then he pulls the trigger on Boyle's gun.
He wipes his prints off of it, presses Boyle's dead finger against the trigger, and lays it beside Tiffany. Then he gives her his flannel to wear over her torn shirt, tells her to wash her face, and to run. Later, he'll find her, and give her a new name, and a new beginning, and a story to rehearse. He cleans off the doorknob and anything else he may have left fingerprints on, and then he leaves.
He gets paranoid, years after, and goes back to the hotel room. If the case is ever reopened and they find his DNA, he needs a valid reason for it being there. So he tells Kensi his house is being tented, lays down on the bed he murdered his partner next to, and closes his eyes, but can't sleep. He trails into the mission at two in the morning, forgetting that he's supposed to pick up Kensi from the airport because she was in Hawaii. She doesn't suspect anything.
Four years later, he's arrested for the murder of Francis Boyle. He gets away with it. He leaves Hetty in all of her cynical glory at the mission, and joins his girlfriend for drinks. She drapes her arm around him and leans into him, right in front of the guys. He laughs with them, even though he doesn't feel like it. He's so tired. He doesn't know how he's still going.
Kensi sees through his happy exterior, and puts her hand on his thigh under the table. "I'm pretty tired," she says. "Maybe we should call it a night."
"Yeah, G can hear the couch in the mission calling his name."
"Whatever, man. The life of a wanderer isn't one you understand. You're too domesticated."
"You sound bitter, 'cause you don't have a loving wife waiting for you at home. It's okay. I would be too."
"Night, guys." Kensi finishes the last sip of her beer before scooting out of the booth after Deeks, grabbing his arm as they make their way to their cars. "You going back to your place?" Kensi asks, squeezing his bicep.
"It's late. My mom's probably asleep. And I wanna be with you."
"My place, then." She lets go of his arm. "I'll follow you."
At her house, even though he's exhausted, he needs to take a shower. He feels gross. He probably doesn't smell that great either. He lets the water run over him, down from his hair to his back, and the steam mounts around him. He rests his head against the side of the shower and closes his eyes, trying to quell the many thoughts running through his mind. He thinks maybe Callen and Sam suspect he did it, and makes a mental note to initiate some guys' nights with them. He knows that Kensi's able to put it together anytime, but he doubts she already has.
He needs to stop lying to her. Between all of the little white lies he's told over the years without a second thought (sometimes just for the hell of it) and all of the big ones that he knows are going to bite him in the ass, their relationship's basically floating on a piece of debris in a sea of deception, all of his creation. Well, at least he has a valid excuse for not telling her about the murder. Her ending up as an accessory isn't something either of them want. But even with all of his justifications, that doesn't mean she isn't going to be pissed. That doesn't mean that this couldn't end them.
He just feels like shit. About himself, who he is. About her, and how she deserves so much better. And physically, he's beat. He thinks he's getting too old for all of this.
He hears the door creak open, and then her lithe, bare body silently slides inside next to his. She offers him a little smile, raising her head to kiss him. "I thought you fell asleep in here."
"Long day," he comments between kisses. She nods, and grins as she trails her lips down from his jaw to his neck. He tries to pull away from her when he realizes what she's doing. "Kens, you're tired."
"I missed you." She shrugs before continuing her trail of kisses lower, lower…
It's the worst blowjob he's ever received in his life. Not to say it doesn't feel amazing, and quality wise it's on up there with the best of them, but he feels impossibly guilty and undeserving and depressed when she's done. He wants to cry.
She grabs his hand and leads him out of the shower, wrapping him in a towel before putting on a set of silky pajamas. He steps into a pair of boxers, and even though he just wants this day to end and go to bed, he follows Kensi into the living room. She sits on the couch, and he slides onto the floor in front of her. She picks up a comb from the side table and starts to sweep locks of his hair away from his injured face, working through the knots with a tenderness he never would have dreamed she possessed before they started dating. He closes his eyes as she worries about the cut.
"Did you get it checked out by a medic?"
"Uh-uh. It's shallow, though."
She knows he's right, so she lets it drop. "Jumping into a twenty foot deep marina with your hands cuffed behind you wasn't a smart idea."
"Neither was hanging out so that bastard could kill us, and then toss our bodies down there anyway."
She's silent for a beat, and then her quiet voice fills the space between them. "You scared me."
He opens his eyes for the first time since the conversation began. "I'm sorry."
She runs the comb through his hair one last time, and he allows his eyes to flutter shut again. "Let's go to sleep."
He nods, and under the sheets, she rubs his back until he falls asleep. His last thought before drifting away from consciousness is that this woman is going to be the end of him.
He only makes it a week before telling her. She'd given him guilt-inducing head again the night before, and it's too much. It's killing him. He has to come clean before Christmas, and before their anniversary. He can't start another year with her on a shaking foundation of accumulated lies.
But she already knows. She already knows, and she's not even mad at him. Not really. He thinks about how she's everything he's never deserved for the millionth time.
It's after dinner at Sam's place when he's showing Kensi how much he loves her that he figures maybe she knew how to ease the confession out of him after all. He's not the only one who knows how to get what he wants, but going down on him the past few nights, starting with the night he got back from jail, is a great manipulation technique. He smiles to himself, remembering when he referred to her as a fickle mistress.
"I get it now," he tells her, as she lays half on top of him after they're done making love, staring at her hand resting on top of his heart, his arm securely around her.
"Hmm?" she asks, barely looking up at him, too sated to move even her head.
"You've been extra nice. You wanted to guilt me into telling you."
"Mmm, maybe," she admits, reaching for his hand. He meets hers on his stomach, rubbing his fingers over hers.
"Should've known. You hardly ever give me blowjobs."
"I prefer sex," she says in her 'get over it' voice.
"Wanna know a secret? So do I." Because there's nothing better than having her, being with her in a way he never wants to be with anybody else; because there's nothing better than this, her pressed against him with flushed cheeks and a perfect, lazy smile painted across her face. "Now I'll know, if you ever suck me off, I'm in trouble."
"You weren't in trouble."
"I should be." There's that guilt again. Damn it to hell. He should not get to lie here next to her, hold her and have her for his. He should not be here right now, with her.
"Listen to me," Kensi says, her words soft but insistent. "Listen, baby. I never want you to be afraid to tell me the truth. The parts of me that have overreacted in the past, like when I hit you, and all of my aggression… I'm not that person anymore. I'm not the person that punishes who she loves because he does what he thinks is right."
He thinks for a minute that maybe she's still trying to make him feel bad, but she's already gotten his confession. Her words are genuine, and even though they warm his chest, they cause a lump to form in his throat. "You should hit me more often, Kens. Your boyfriend is a major fuck-up."
"No…" He hates seeing her cry. He hates it even more, knowing that she's crying because of him. But what he told her is nothing but the truth. He tries to do the right thing, he tries to protect people, he tries and tries, and he always gets bit in the ass for it. It's depressing as hell.
Even more depressing are the tears falling on his chest. One of the many tears he's been fighting since he told her the truth escapes down his cheek. Today's been a day full of celebration and holiday cheer (even despite the gruesome quality of the case), and he's ruined that for her, too.
"Sorry…" he mumbles, unsure what exactly he's apologizing for. He wasn't expecting her reaction, to say the least. He half-expected her to laugh it off, because he really is a joke.
His apology seems to break her out of her trance. "Deeks. You're not a bad man. I don't care how many times you've heard it before, I don't give a damn about your mistakes. You are the best man I've ever known."
"Your dad would have something to say about that."
"You remind me of him. He died, trying to protect somebody he didn't know from Claremont. You were tortured to protect Michelle, you… you waterboarded that cleric for me, Deeks. To save me." His breath catches. He told her about Afghanistan a couple of months ago. He'll never forget the look on her face, a mixture of gratitude and heartbreak. "I hadn't seen that reckless selflessness in somebody since I lost him, until I met you."
He hears her, but her words don't make much sense to him. Surely she isn't comparing him to her father, the figure that was the opposite of what he had when he was growing up. He was her idol, still is. And here she is, comparing him to her dad. He doesn't get it.
"You are a good man, Marty Deeks," she tells the man that she thinks he is, kissing where his heart is. "To all of the people you've saved, Tiffany, your mom, me… you're our hero."
It's easily the sweetest thing anybody has ever said to him. He kisses her lips, and then wipes away both of their tears. "I love you so much."
She hugs his midsection, holds her partner close. "I know." She takes his words from earlier. "Do you know how much I love you?"
"Now I do." He kisses her head, and reaches over her to turn off the lamp. His next words are spoken into darkness. "Thank you."