First line prompted by anonymous on tumblr. Warning: slightly more mature than usual.
"Just take me home."
Deeks nods wordlessly, swallowing the question he knows she doesn't want to hear. Kensi crosses the bullpen and he follows, fingers digging into the strap of his messenger bag instead of falling gently on the small of her back.
The radio fills his car with noise, but the silence is still suffocating. He opens the window to let in the cold night air, but he still can't breathe.
He pulls into the driveway and steps out of the car, and an image flashes before his eyes. He sees a two-story house, flower boxes in the windows, a sprawling green yard with a tire swing, and a trike parked haphazardly by the front step. When the vision fades he sees reality: a small, beachfront bungalow, sand sprinkled beneath the two surfboards leaning on the wall beside the door.
It's not less than the first picture, not worse, just - different. Sometimes he wonders what that life would feel like, but his musings are always cut short by the feel of Kensi beside him and the confidence that he's made the right decision every step of the way. This is the life they've chosen. This is the life he loves.
The screen door squeaks as Kensi steps through it, pulling him out of his head.
He loves this life, but that doesn't mean it comes without downsides.
He finds her in the bathroom, the shower already running. Her hair's still wet from the one she took at the mission, but she's peeling off her clothes anyway.
"Kens," he starts.
She shakes her head and pulls back the curtain. "I'll be out in a minute."
His face falls and his heart clenches and he doesn't know what he should do, what he should say, if there's anything to say, but he wants more than anything to be beside her and he allows himself to believe she wants that too.
He slips out of his clothes and into the shower, where his wife of exactly two months is scrubbing furiously at her skin with what's left of a bar of soap, angry, red scratches following in its wake.
He covers her hand with his and slows her movements, guiding it up and down her forearm slowly, gently, the water falling across their bodies and burning them both.
She looks up at him, eyes filled with tears and he brings his free hand up to cup her cheek.
"I'm so sorry," she says, as her tears spill over. "I'm so sorry."
He presses his lips to hers with all the words he knows won't be enough. The soap drops to the floor as his other hand wraps around behind her, pressing her body into his.
"It's okay," he promises between open-mouthed kisses, his hand sliding down and slipping between their soapy bodies. "It's okay."
Her breath hitches when his fingers reach their destination, dipping inside her, following in the wake of a man that wasn't him. He tries not to feel the shadow of him there, tries to concentrate on the familiar feel of his wife against his skin.
"This is different," she says, her hands clutching desperately at his sides, and he wonders if she knows exactly what he's thinking or if she's saying it for herself, if she needs to be reminded.
"This is different," he agrees. That was the job and this is life and that wasn't love but this is, oh this is and he will never, ever let the job take that from him. "This is us."
She lets a sob escape into his mouth as he presses her against the tiles.
Together, they wash everything away.