For TwilightPony21, who helped me believe I could write Kensi and Callen like this.

SPOILERS: for "Neighborhood Watch" and probably actually AU. I wrote this before the ep aired. Most of it anyway, like 2000/2600 words. As usual, due to the conversation the characters probably seem a little OOC, but I think this time they fit for the universe they happen to be inhabiting.


The Desperation in Deception

When she gets back from her undercover with Deeks, she rounds on Sam first.

"That was a low blow."

He smirks. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Deeks is smirking too, Kensi knows. She shoots his her most withering glare, sees his eyes widen. Yeah dumbass, she thinks to herself, this time, you've gone too far.

Because they really have. She and Callen can take a lot of ribbing, and she knows that Callen trusts her on an op. They've already had that discussion. Nothing comes between them and the job. If it does, it ruins them in the process. That sure as hell does not mean she doesn't have the right to be pissed off.

She's been manipulated. Again. Callen learned his lesson the first time. Maybe it's time for Sam and Deeks to learn too.

"I should send you home to him," she snaps, not caring that she's dumping all of their cards on the table. She's tossing things into her bag, part of her dreading what she's going home to. It was an undercover. He's not going to be mad at her for doing her job. Even if doing her job meant pretending to be married to Deeks. They've been tossing about the idea of coming clean to the team, mostly because knowing and knowing are two very different things.

"So it is true!" Deeks crows triumphantly. "You and Callen are sleeping together."

At least he has the brainpower to lower his voice when he accuses her. Still, it doesn't affect her anger at all. "We've been sleeping together for almost a year, you idiot," she snaps back, trying not to take too much pleasure in the way her eyes widen. Even Sam seems a little surprised.

"A year? No way."

Kensi shoots Deeks another glare. She wants to kill him. She wants to kill them. She hopes their little practical joke has backfired entirely. "A year."

Sam is the first one to change his tune. "We knew at Christmas time."

She rolls her eyes. "Long before Christmas," she responds. "I moved in in February."

Deeks actually drops to a chair then. "Moved… in…?"

"Happy now?" she snaps at them both.

"Hey, Kens, we didn't-"

"But you did," she argues, defensive. They're all entitled to their private lives. Hell, Sam is one of the most private people she knows. He of all people should know how Callen is about these things, if not her too. "You did, Sam."

She knows they haven't irreparably broken anything. That doesn't mean she can't lead them to believe it, that she can't show them how angry she is. She can play the dutiful housewife because that's her job, but they're not just seeing how she was seething beneath it all. The one time, one time, they decide against using Kensi and Callen as a couple to try and get them to explode and it does worse.

"We're a team," she says, venom loud in her voice. "Team members don't manipulate other team members. They don't play team members against each other for the truth. They don't have alternative agendas on the job."

Because that's totally part of it. If they'd done something at a club, while the team was out for drinks, pulled a practical joke outside of ops to get them to admit their relationship, Kensi knows this wouldn't hurt so bad. Instead, it's something entirely different. It's a grating betrayal of trust, an underhanded 'calling out' that's never been part of their team dynamics.

"Would you have told us if we'd asked?"

Kensi sighs, looking up at her on-paper partner. They are good together, she knows that and she doesn't intend to burn bridges here. "Six months ago? No. After Christmas?" She shrugs. "We've gone back and forth about it."

Mostly because talking about it makes it real. Still, after saying 'I love you' out loud, rather than just knowing the emotions exist, makes it real. How much more real can their relationship get after that? They're both tangled up in it now, both emotionally and physically.

She eyes them both as she lifts her bag over her shoulder. "You guys owe Callen… something," she says, unsure herself. She's not sure what kind of man she's going to find at home when she gets there. Because in a way, this is a betrayal to him so much bigger than the one for her. He must have known early on that they were plotting this.

Merits of putting Deeks on the mission aside.

Then she's shaking her head at them. "Night, guys."

She blasts music in the car, hoping some of the tension will leak out of her pores. It doesn't, though, and she doesn't feel much better walking in the front door. She drops her bag with a sigh, locking the door out of habit and pausing. She hears it faintly, the grunt of a workout and wants to both smile and shake her head.

At least he's predictable.

She takes the time to change into workout gear. She could go down naked, but that takes some of the fun out of it. Plus, sometimes they both need a really good fight before either of them can start mending the issue. She definitely doesn't want to do that naked.

Sure enough, she finds him downstairs, beating the crap out of one of the bags they've had installed. The basement is their own home gym to work of the personal things. Not that OSP is a bad place for it, but when it comes to them, the things they have to work out together, they much prefer knowing they don't have an audience.

She leans against the banister at the bottom of the stairs, watching him, the play of muscles under his shirt, the sweat across his back. His shirt is soaked, a testament to the emotions bottling up inside him. She knows he's aware of her. He told her once, in a rare show of absolute vulnerability, that the little hairs on his neck stand up when she's in the room. He always knows she's there. But still, she gives him another few moments.

"Deeks or Sam?" she speaks up finally.

His fists drop. "Either."

She nods, even though he doesn't turn to face her. "I won't stop you from hitting them both."

He turns then, watching her with eyes tinged with flint. He's pissed. She gets that. She's still pissed too. All she can offer him, however, is a shrug. And a sparring partner.

She moves to the mats first, he follows. He takes the first shot. She blocks easily. He's not trying just yet. She knows that. He never tries at first. He tests how much she's ready to do, how hard she's ready to fight. She rolls her eyes and doesn't disappoint. She takes the next swing. They trade easy, warm up blows, mostly because she's not warmed up yet.

Then they start fighting for real.

It's not the first time and it sure as hell won't be the last time they take this out on each other. At least as far as they're willing to go. It takes him twenty minutes to pin her, arm across her throat, but instead of putting pressure on her trachea, he leans down and seals his mouth to hers.

She gets this too.

Sweaty, chest heaving, he uses one hand to support himself while the other slides up and down her sweaty side. The exercise has made her hyper sensitive and her body arches without thought. Of course, maybe it's just Callen. Either way, as his hand cups her breast, her breath is already heaving and it's less about the exertion of the exercise and more about the way his hands play her body.

Or maybe it's play with her body.

Either way, she moans, putting a little more effort into it, letting him know that even if she shared a bed with Deeks for the duration of the mission, it's not Deeks she thought about. Callen is the one she wants, the one she wishes was there. He wastes no time with her sports bra and tosses it away, taking her in with a greedy gaze. He swoops in for her nipple without warning and Kensi lets out a groan that turns into a squeak when his teeth are rougher than she anticipated. He gentles, but only marginally and she moans in disappointment.

He lifts from her chest, looking more than a little animalistic, eyes blazing. It makes her clutch at his shoulders, arch into him because she wants it. She wants him. However he needs to take her. His groan reverberates against her skin as he dives into her again, mouth, complete with teeth, on her shoulder. He's going to leave a mark. She doesn't care. In fact, she revels in it, in that famous control she can make him lose.

He takes the breast he neglected, providing a strict counterpoint to his fingers teasing the other. Her hands scratch at his t-shirt, lifting it in the process. When she gets it high enough, when she can feel his stomach pressing against hers, she breathes out his name. He lifts his head and she tugs on his shirt. He growls, but yanks away from her long enough to send his shirt the same way as her bra.

Kensi wraps here legs around his waist when he comes back to her, arching to press the heat she knows he can feel against his groin. His head drops to her shoulder and she grins. He's closer to losing it than she'd thought.

"Stop playing," she whispers in his ear, lets her breath wash hotly over his ear. "Take me, G. Like you want to."

There's a split second, then he's yanking at her pants. She's worried for a minute, because he has the strength to rip them and she's so picky about her workout gear, but he lifts off here, encouraging her to arch her hips. Her hands push at his shorts, pushing them down his legs. Her eyes darken when she sees he's gone commando and she groans. Her panties follow and he positions himself above her.

He slides through her folds, not sliding into her, but against her. He hits her clit every time, not hard enough to do anything but tease.

"Callen," she groans.

"Mine," he says. Or tries, anyway. It comes out in a low growl that makes her shiver.

She hisses. "Yes. Yes, yes, yes."

He's sliding into her on her next breath and her eyes flutter closed as her body accommodates him. She's so wet that it's a stronger thrust than she's anticipating. She grunts with the impact of his pelvis against hers, but it makes his eyes glitter with new discovery. They've had passionate sex before, strong sex, but this is bordering rough and he's thrilled to discover she likes it. So he puts more force behind his next thrust and while her breath catches with the pressure, her eyelids flutter in pleasure. Her nails are digging into his shoulders on and off with his thrusts.

"Harder."

He's a little surprised by her demand, but it's an easy one to give into. He adds more force behind his thrust, watching her face as he feels her clench around him. She hikes her legs higher around his hips, digging her heels into his ass when he gets there. He speeds up the pace, slamming into her. She meets his thrusts with a tilt of her hips, using her legs as leverage. He can feel them rippling against his hips.

"Yes, G," she hisses into his ear. "So close."

He can feel it in the tensing of her muscles, the clenching of her hands against his shoulders. He manages to get one of his arms beneath her thigh, arching it towards her stomach. It changes the angle and she lets out a keening moan. He's not sure he's ever heard that sound before and it sends him so close to the edge he's reciting case statistics in his head. He pauses in his thrusts despite the push she gives him with her heels. He reaches up for her hands, pinning them beside her head and attaches his mouth to her neck.

It takes three rough thrusts to send her over.

He's seconds behind her.

She pants beneath him until he manages to get a hold of himself. She groans when he lifts off her and rolls. Goosebumps pop up all over her skin as she turns her head to look at him. "I wish it had been you," she says.

He looks over at her, eyes still glassy. She almost smiles.

"It was… a learning experience," she goes on quietly.

"Kens?"

She sighs. "I just…" She turns on her side to face him. "I think we could do it, Callen."

It takes him a mission to catch on. When he does, the breath leaves his lungs. He thinks they have a chance in suburbia. She thinks they could work, together, as a couple, living the oft-quoted 'American Dream'. "What?"

She rolls back until she's looking up at the ceiling. "I… I want it."

He almost misses it because she says it so quietly. "Kensi-"

"We don't know that we can't do it," she argues immediately, because she knows exactly where his mind is going. "I can do it. I know I can do it now."

"You were undercover."

"Exactly." That's exactly her point. If she could do it while under that much pressure, to do it for real would be a snap.

Her eyes are sparkling. She knows they are. Because she can see it. Her and Callen. Maybe not that high end of suburbia, but she can see a future. She can see them building a future. And for the first time, she wants them to build a future.

That future.

"Callen, we're not going to have NCIS forever," she whispers. She's still staring at the ceiling because she can't look at him. She doesn't want to look at him. She doesn't want his eyes telling her everything she knows he's thinking.

She knows it's not that he doesn't have faith in them. He lives with her. He loves her. There's nothing that tells her it's them he's worried about. She knows he's not questioning her either. She has the background of a fairly stable family, she's not as closed off as he is… She could do the family thing, even if the likelihood was remote until now.

He doubts himself. He's always doubted himself. He's not made for permanence. Not the permanence Kensi experienced in her time with Deeks. This is what he can do. This is all he can do.

"It can't be that you don't want it," she whispers. "It can't be that you haven't thought about it."

Dreamed about it maybe, but he knows he doesn't have to tell her that. They all think about getting out of the game, finding a way to make a real life instead of the pieces of the fake ones they live on their missions. But those fake ones… Well, they save the real ones, don't they? They do their jobs so others can live the American Dream she wants to talk about. The American Dream she wants.

The American Dream he can't give her.

"Kensi."

She sighs, and he realizes with a disgusting amount of surprise that she really does know him. Hot on its heels is the realization that he's open to her. He's an open book. There's nothing he can do or say that she can't predict.

"I know," she says, pushing herself up. "But it's always good to dream."

Even as she's walking away naked, he can't help but think that this one is going to come back to haunt him. This is the wake-up call they both needed, the moment they realize that this isn't going to work.

The worst part is, he knows it could. He knows it has.

And yet, he can't stop thinking he's gone and screwed up.

Irreparably.


This is actually the first chapter that feels like there's actually a part II. As in the necessity for one is there. Those of you who know me know I have to fix the problem or it's not the end of the story!

Speaking of problems, this was written in fits and starts so I'm not entirely sure how the flow is going to work or if it did work. Spelling and grammar are mine, naturally, and probably there, because I'm not perfect and if real authors can have spelling mistakes in their published work, I figure a couple in mine won't kill anyone.

Thanks for reading and please drop me a line :)