The case, which had been just as hard and demanding as they had expected, had actually worked in the favour of Eric and Kensi, the pranksters. They had needed a couple of days, in which their next prank would be growing nicely, so it had worked to their advantage. Everyone had been completely absorbed in the complexities of the case and so the pranks, and the blame game that had accompanied them, had been mainly forgotten so no one would be expecting what was to come next.
The case was completed a couple of sleepless days later and all that was left to show for their work was a couple of dead bodies in the morgue, a disarmed bomb, several bruises on Callen's chest and massive piles of paperwork for each of them.
The day after, they were sent home to sleep, the entered the bullpen to see Sam's laptop sat innocuously on his desk. Normally, Sam would have been highly suspicious of the return of his laptop after so long but he was still so sleep deprived, as were the others, as he picked it up ready to use anyway.
He flipped the screen up but paused in complete shock. Deeks, who appeared to be falling asleep on his desk, looked over to see what was going on and did a double take, then laughed loudly.
"Taken up gardening, Sam?" he asked, in between guffaws.
This caught the attention of the others and they wandered over to see what was going on. When they caught a sight, however, they joined Deeks in his laughing. In between the rows of keys there was cotton wool, in which cress was growing.
Sam went to pull the cotton wool out but was stopped by his partner.
"You can't kill it, Sam. It's a living thing!" he said jokingly and dramatically.
Sam glared murderously at him but left the cress alone. Starting up the computer, Sam just decided to type around the cress.
There was peace and quiet for the moments that it took for Sam's computer to load but when it finally did, his growl of displeasure didn't go unnoticed. Frankly, it would have been hard for them not to notice because it was so loud.
They all rushed to get a look at his screen again and, despite his shielding of it, Callen managed to pluck the computer off the desk and set it on Deeks' instead. The three burst into fits of laughter as they assessed the screen and it's new and improved background.
"Never knew ... you were a fan ... of Hello ... Kitty!" Kensi managed to get out finally, laughing so hard she was nearly crying.
"Mr Deeks, while I find your laptop wallpaper enlightening and fascinating, it is somewhat distracting and unfitting for a professional agency. I suggest you change it as soon as possible. And also, I realise you may lack space to do so at home, but a computer is not an adequate or effective place to grow plants. I suggest you rectify that as well."
Hetty had done it once again, sneaking up on them all and scaring the living daylights out of them before exiting before Deeks could protest. By the time he started, if you can call 'but ... it's not ... not fair ...' as starting to protest, Hetty had already disappeared to goodness knows where and his protests were ineffectual.
That small episode did cheer up Sam however, who had taken over from Deeks and was now almost falling off his chair laughing, much like Callen and Kensi who were having to use Sam and Deeks' desks to keep themselves upright.
When all parties calmed themselves down enough to either sit up straight or walk back to their desks, they all got down to work and the day seemed to be going relatively normally, excluding the morning's computer amusement.
After a long day's work, all the team were called up to Eric's domain to go over some of the details of the case that Eric had been in charge of but when they returned to their desks, they saw Hetty peering at Sam's computer screen.
As they got closer, however, they registered displeasure on her face. Sam paled and wondered what it could be. It was possible that it was his computer background, he hadn't got around to changing it yet, but unless Hetty really disliked Hello Kitty then he doubted it would cause that level of displeasure, although he wasn't entirely sure!
"Mr Hanna, what is the meaning of this?" Hetty asked as soon as the team were within their bullpen.
"What Hetty?" Sam asked, genuinely confused.
"Don't you play that game with me mister. You know what I mean. This," she said spinning the laptop around. On the screen there was a google page open and typed in the search bar was 'ways to kill your boss'.
The other members of the team eyes widened upon seeing the screen but wisely they refrained from laughing to avoid Hetty's obvious anger, although that may have been speaking too soon as Deeks lost his battle with his laughs and they burst out. With Sam still opening and closing his mouth in wordless confusion, Hetty rounded on the unsuspecting Deeks.
"So you think this is funny you do you? Well I have a little task for the two of you. My office ... Now!" she demanded.
"What but I didn't ..." Hetty's glare cut Deeks off before he could finished and he watched as she stalked away.
The silence following her departure was broken by her call of "I'm waiting!", sending Deeks and a still confused Sam running towards her piles of paperwork that were set out as revenge.
Kensi and Callen sat at their own desks, still not daring to let their laughs out and refusing to look each other in the eye in case they set the other off, but they could still hear when Hetty found Sam's paperwork that he had typed up that morning including his case report.
"Mr Hanna, are you feeling a little unwell today perhaps?" Hetty asked.
"No Hetty, why?" he asked, still as confused as ever.
"Then I suggest you re-read your case report then. And let me get this clear, I do not appreciate being referred to as the little boss." This was punctuated by the throwing of the file at Sam but unfortunately for him, Deeks scooped it up from his shell shocked hands first and escaped off to his partners desk to read it, hiding behind his partner as he went.
Eric had been on top form with Sam's computer, having hacked it from his lair earlier and setting up the google search for Hetty to find at just the right moment, watching her on security cameras to get the precise timing. He had also changed words in autocorrect when he was given the laptop by Kensi while she was growing the cress.
One sentence in particular in the report was spectacular. Sam had typed what he thought would say 'Hetty apprehended the suspect by drawing her weapon at him though no rounds were fired'. It turned out to say 'The little boss scared into submission the naughty naughty villain by drawing her water gun at him though no rounds were made to go boom' and that was just a few of the changes.
Callen, Kensi and Deeks were in fits of laughter as they read the report. The changes were inspired, almost as though the person who had done it, knew what Sam was going to say and had changed certain words for maximum comedic effect. Kensi knew that this wasn't the case but that Eric had read many of Sam's earlier reports to get a feel for how he wrote and which words would be best to change and obviously it had paid off as it was hilarious.
When Sam finally got his hands on the report, he was furious and embarrassed all at the same time, apologising profusely to Hetty and saying he didn't know what had happened. He corrected the report, writing it by hand this time so a computer couldn't change what he was saying and proof reading it twice. It was the best report he had ever written but had taken him three times as long to do.
Sam had tried to find out who had embarrassed him like that but he had no luck, he didn't know where to start really. Kensi and Eric had some great footage to add to their other footage of Callen, Sam and Deeks and were feeling a little better. Both had been teased by the team and this was great payback and a lot of fun.
Next chapter up and once again unbeta'd so I hope it's ok. Thank you to all the people who told me about the problem with the last chapter, hope it won't be the same with this one. If you like it please review.