A/N: For today's prompt: Decorating for Christmas. Takes place during season seven.
"Hey, I finally found the boxes of Christmas decorations," Deeks crowed excitedly, coming in from the garage with a medium sized plastic container and a not so insignificant amount of dust bunnies clinging to his hair and Christmas sweater.
Kensi had rolled her eyes when he put it on that morning, mentioning that it was in the 60's, but Deeks had merely whistled Rodolph the Red Nose Reindeer a little louder. He'd also proclaimed it Decorating Day which in the Deeks' household was apparently the second of December (barring any unavoidable interruptions).
"Awesome," she replied with forced enthusiasm which Deeks either didn't notice or chose to ignore.
"The Christmas lights for the tree are in here and I think I found all the decorations. Why don't you start putting these on the tree while I get the rest of the stuff?" Apparently it was a rhetorical question and Kensi felt her eyes widen in mild panic as he placed the box in her arms.
"Um, Deeks…" she started to say but he'd already turned around, consumed with his plans and excitement.
"Oh, and you might need to check some if some of strands are working cause they were a little wonky last year," he added over his shoulder.
"Fantastic," Kensi muttered to herself. Deeks was so happy and she didn't want to ruin this for him, but she didn't even know where to begin. Hanging Christmas lights was never one of the things her Dad had taught her. He had usually taken care of things like that himself, if he decided to put up lights at all. Then between being homeless as a teenager and associating Christmas with Jack leaving, she'd never bothered to figure it out for herself.
Sighing, she glanced over her shoulder and finally sets the box down and took off the lid. There were several neatly looped strands–or as neatly as unboxed lights could be–stacked together. It definitely looked like Deeks' work. Personally, she would have just thrown them in and bothered with the mess the next Christmas.
She removed the top set gingerly; it had large, old-fashioned looking bulbs of various vibrant colors that she vaguely remembered seeing at Deeks' apartment the last few years. Carefully, she uncoiled the strand and then turned to face the tree they'd picked out yesterday after work.
It was about seven feet tall and suddenly seemed massive and an impossible feat to conquer.
"Ok, you can do this, Kensi," she said, looking over her shoulder again. She didn't know what was taking Deeks so long, but he would undoubtedly be back at any time so she laid down on her stomach underneath the tree and started wrapping the strand around the very base.
Branches kept poking her in the face and after just a couple minutes, her arms were sticky with tree sap. The lights kept getting tangled, but after a lot of swearing and pointless shaking she managed to get the majority of the strand wound around the bottom branches.
"How's it–um, what the hell are you doing?" Deeks asked as he came in from the garage. Kensi jerked in surprise, tangling her hair on a couple of branches.
"Hanging the lights," she answered in a would-be light tone, scrambling out from under the tree.
"It looks more like you were trying to strangle the tree." He looked close to laughing and Kensi felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment.
"Fine, I don't know how to put Christmas lights on a tree," she admitted tightly, crossing her arms defensively. Deeks frowned and asked,
"What are you talking about, everyone knows how to decorate a Christmas tree."
"Well I don't. It's something that I never learned how to do. So there it is, I ruined Decorating Day." Deeks raised his hands, his eyes wide with surprise.
"Whoa, slow down. Nobody ruined anything. So you can't put on Christmas lights, big deal. I'll show you how." Kensi took a deep breath and muttered,
"I just know how much you were looking forward to doing this together."
"Aw baby, come here," he said and tugged Kensi into his arms. "Believe me, there's lots of things that could ruin today, but you strangling the tree is not one of them. I promise." Kensi nodded and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
"Thanks." She was starting to feel a little silly about her outburst now and smiled sheepishly. "And I'm sorry I freaked out."
"Don't worry about it. I just can't believe there's finally something that Kensi Blye doesn't know how to do," Deeks teased and she whopped his arm lightly with the back of her hand.
"Shut up and show me the right way to do this thing. Also, I'm not sure if we can get this strand back out, it's kind of tangled up in there."
"Yeah, that's definitely not coming out unless we cut the branches off."
"Alright, you don't need to rub it in." Kensi said with a roll of her eyes.
"Ok, so first of all, you want to start at the top and work your way down. And secondly, it usually helps if you don't unravel the whole thing or you just end up wasting a bunch of time untangling it every few seconds," he explained, selecting a new strand and demonstrating the appropriate length.
"That would have been nice to know before I wasted ten minutes on the damn thing." Deeks ignored her and added,
"And if you're like my mom, this would be the point where you break out the eggnog or peppermint schnapps."
"I think I'm beginning to see why you enjoy decorating so much," she said wryly, unraveling a couple more feet while Deeks intertwined the lights around several branches.
"Hey, Decoration Day is not complete if you don't end it a little tipsy and wondering what you did with the tree topper," he explained as though it made perfect sense. Despite herself, she couldn't help but get caught up in Deeks' enthusiasm.
"Well, if all else fails we can make a star out of tinfoil and spray paint it."
"That's actually not a bad idea." Kensi just shook her head and said,
"You are so ridiculous. But I'm glad you're enjoying yourself."
"Are you kidding? This is the best Decorating Day ever," he said happily, taking a step back to admire his work. He pulled Kensi into his side as they looked up at the half decorated tree.
"Mine too," Kensi agreed, pushing up on her toes to kiss Deeks.