A/N: Thank you for all the reviews! I feel so popular. I love hearing what you think. Constructive criticism is welcome too!
Deeks hung his hand out the window, catching the breeze. If he wasn't driving, he would have stuck his head of the window too. And if he wasn't worried that the woman in the passenger seat would think him crazy. He bobbed his head along with the country song playing on the radio. Country wasn't his usual style but the woman had a glare that could rival a death ray. The beeping alert of a text message startled the both of them. Deeks glared at the cell phone that sat in the old pick up truck's ashtray. "You know, for an emergency phone, they're using it an awful lot."
"You ate the last of Kensi's doughnuts," Nell deadpanned, raising an eyebrow at him. "What did you think she was going to do?
"Not send me to the shops at 4o'clock in the morning. I mean, who eats doughnuts at 4 am?
"Kensi," The petite redhead answered simply, teasing him slightly.
"And also insulting me by insisting I need a babysitter," Deeks glanced at Nell, "No offence."
She shrugged, "None taken. If it makes you feel better, it was Sam that insisted I go with you. He didn't think you'd get real food."
"Hey," The detective objected. "It is perfectly normal to exist on a diet of beer, cherios and bananas."
"Are you going to check that?" She nodded to the still beeping phone. She didn't want to touch his idea of a healthy diet; there was too much wrong with it.
"No," He snorted, speaking as if that was the obvious answer. "It's going to be Kensi telling me to hurry up or she's gonna t-ball my testicles."
"No she won't," Nell argued. "That's just the sugar withdrawal talking."
"So you agree she's an addict!" Deeks exclaimed gleefully. "Callen and Sam don't believe me and wouldn't help me stage an intervention."
"Maybe they like their noses the way they are," Nell suggested pointedly, knowing that an intervention would not go well.
"Yeah," He nodded, agreeing with her. "But she wouldn't hit you," He added hopefully. "Come on, think about her future. She could keel over from a sugar induced coma."
"Just drive Deeks," Nell shook her at him despairingly. He was like a racehorse – a one track mind that just kept going round and round the same circle.
"You know what?" He paused, waiting for her to say something.
"What?" She indulged him, feeling like an adult indulging a child.
"We're gonna stop," He pulled off the side of the road and turned off the ignition.
"What are you doing?" She asked, confused and panicked. "Why are we stopping in the middle of nowhere?"
"Because I'm staging a one man intervention slash deprivation," Deeks declared. "It's for Kensi's own good. She can learn to go a few hours without sugar."
"You do realise she will not be happy with you, right?" Nell asked, clarifying what was an established fact. Depriving Kensi of food was a sure fire way to end up in the hospital or morgue.
He shrugged, "When is she?"
"Now I see why people call you two children," Nell muttered, running a hand through her cropped hair. "Okay," She sighed loudly, "If you're going to be like this, can you at least drive ten more miles?"
"Why?" He looked at her suspiciously.
"You'll see when we get there," She answered elusively. If he was going to act like a child, she'd return the favour.
He huffed as he turned the ignition back on and drove back onto the road, "We're not going to get jumped by Sam and Callen are we? This isn't some big practical joke on me is it? Or am I just being paranoid?"
"Yeah," She drew out the word, giving him a strange look.
"Can you blame me?"
She cocked her head, "Not really."
The phone beeped again and Deeks felt like throwing it out the window. "I'm ready to kill that thing."
"I think Sam and Callen would kill you for that."
"I know. That's the only reason that thing is still alive," He grumbled, glaring at it as it beeped again.
Nell glanced out the window, "You can stop here."
He obeyed, pulling over and peering out the windscreen to see a dilapidated park. "Did you plan this?" His eyes widened. "No, you couldn't have. This was my idea. You couldn't have planed this."
Nell took off her seatbelt and jumped down out of the pick-up truck, "I can read."
"What's that got to do with anything?" He hurried to join her, wanting answers.
"There was a sign a few miles back," Nell answered with a small shrug, pulling an empty water bottle out of the car. "If you're going to make us waste time, we might as well be comfortable."
"This place has seen better days," He looked around the park. There was a rusty swing set adjacent to a small, wooden construction with a slide.
"Haven't we all?" Nell mused as she went over to the tap and filled up the water bottle.
"Thanks," Deeks snagged it off her before she could take a sip and gulped down half the bottle. "I was parched."
"Obviously," She said dryly and refilled the bottle. She ambled over and sat on one of the swings. She propelled herself forwards with her feet, swinging like a pendulum. "So do the texts say?"
Deeks fished the phone out of his pocket. He may be ignoring Kensi but he wasn't stupid enough to go without a means of contacting anyone. Who knew what was in the desert. "If you don't get here soon, I'm going to kill you," He read. "Well that can be avoided by not going back at all. Kidding," He added quickly, noting Nell's glance. "And the next one's just asking where we are. No threats. That's odd."
"It's Callen," Nell explained.
"How can you tell?"
"Everyone uses different grammar structures and has specific word choices. It how we identify people sometimes," She said offhandedly. "No big deal."
"We should probably reply to him though. Kensi on my back I can handle, Callen and Sam being mad at me, not so much."
"Tell them Goldilocks is scared of the three bears," Nell offered, still swinging.
"What's that code for?" The detective asked, knowing that the nonsensical sentence had to make sense to someone.
"Callen will know and he won't bother us for a few more hours," She evaded the question.
"Nell," Deeks approached her. "What aren't you telling me?"
"It's nothing," She said quickly. "Nothing important."
"Nell," He repeated, looming beside her. "I have ways of making you talk."
"You're not going to torture me," She rolled her eyes at him and swung even higher.
He grabbed the chain, making her fall forward a little before she caught herself. "Wanna bet?"
"Deeks…"
"Tell me," He ordered, standing over her.
"No."
"Okay then," Deeks took hold of the other chain and started twisting them, spinning Nell in a tight circle. "Are you going to tell me now?"
"No!" She laughed.
"Really?"
"I'll never tell."
"You could've made it easy for yourself," He stepped back and let the chains untangle. Nell was spun in a fast circle, laughing as she twirled through the air. The momentum made her spin in the other direction. Deeks grabbed the chain again and starting twisting it. "I'm gonna keep doing this till you tell me."
"I'll be sick," She pointed out.
"I'll have my answer," He countered.
"Fine," She sighed, giving in. "It's a code for the team. Goldilocks is you,"
"Not an obvious codename at all," Deeks rolled his eyes.
"The three bears refers to Sam, Callen and Eric. It was the three little pigs but Callen made me change it."
"What's Kensi?" He couldn't help the grin rising on his face.
"Rapunzel," Nell looked up at him. "And I'm little red riding hood."
"Wow, Hetty must have been having an off day when she came up with those."
She glanced back down at the ground. "It was me."
"Seriously?"
"Yes," She shrugged. "It was better than the number system there was before I came. You were zero then."
"I think I prefer Goldilocks," Deeks commented.
"I thought so," She gave him a small smile.
"Come on," He offered her a hand up. "We'd better get moving or Mama and Papa bear will eat us."
"What about baby bear?"
"Eric doesn't have that much of a bite."
A/N: This was originally supposed to be Sam and Nell shopping but I got writers block and came up with this on the swing instead. Nell and Deeks actually going shopping next chapter is much funnier, I promise. I nearly fell over from laughing too hard when I came up with the idea. I just had to split it because it would be way too long. Tell me what you think of this one please!