Chapter Text
They were all pretty grateful to put Kai in their rearview mirror, even if they'd rather have been putting her in the county morgue. It took almost an hour to find Dom's missing button cam and by the time everyone had gotten back to the office, the sun was setting and they were all dragging their feet.
Paperwork took twice as long as normal. Everyone was hyper-aware that Vance would be going over everything with a fine-toothed comb. Ten or twelve times.
At a little after eight, Kensi disappeared and came back a minute later with both six packs of beer that she'd found in the fridge.
"I think it's time to declare this working day over," she said disappearing into the corner of wardrobe where the couch and several chairs had been tucked away.
Everyone who hadn't already gone home followed, dragging themselves away from the table and dropping into various seats around the room. Callen and Sam commandeered the couch, Kensi the recliner and Dom dragged in a desk chair. Eric sprawled out on the floor. Kensi popped the tops off the beers with the edge of the table and passed them around. "This was one fucked up case."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
There was a long silence before Eric started rambling about his Facebook account and eventually roped Dom into their previous debate about which social networking sites were better for various purposes. Sam and Callen tuned them all out, slouching against the back of the sofa, G's feet on the small table.
Eventually Kensi got dragged into the conversation, but Sam stayed out of it, taking over Kensi's job of making sure everyone had beer. Dom seemed to be pacing himself, but everyone was on their seconds and Sam reached over to see if G wanted one more. Somehow, without Sam even noticing, G had slumped down, his shoulder pressed against Sam. "Hey, Kensi," he whispered as he tried to see G's face without moving too much, "He asleep?"
Kensi tilted her head and studied G in the yellow light, "Looks like it."
Sam shook his head. Figured. He shifted in a way that would cause G to slide just a little more and fall against him, instead of staying propped so oddly against the couch cushion. Unfortunately, the shift made G try to catch himself and Sam got an elbow in the ribs for his trouble.
"Oh, ow, G!"
G mumbled something and tried to sit back up, but couldn't find a way to push himself back without putting his weight on Sam.
"Alright, alright, hang on," Sam said, pushing on G's shoulder to hold him up and hold him still. "Dom, toss me that throw pillow."
Dom grabbed a brocade pillow from the small pile in the corner and tossed it to Sam.
Sam set the pillow against the arm of the couch on his side and carefully moved Callen to lie down against it, his head and shoulders in Sam's lap. "Go back to sleep, G," Sam mumbled as Callen shifted and got comfortable, mumbling something incomprehensible into Sam's leg.
Dom was pretty sure his jaw was heading for the Mexican border it dropped so far. Eric and Kensi didn't seem to be fazed, so he didn't say anything, but he wasn't sure he wasn't doing a crap job of not staring.
He was sure that he had outright failed in being at all covert in his observation when Kensi toed him with her boot. He immediately brought his eyes down to his beer bottle and fumbled around for a way to restart his conversation with Eric about computers, about cyberfriends in Myanmar, anything.
Nate came in, giving him a blessed distraction. "How we holding up?" Nate asked as he grabbed one of the few remaining bottles and leaned on the wall.
"We're fine, Nate," Kensi answered for them all. "Tired, but unscathed."
Nate slowly surveyed the room, making eye-contact with everyone, to be sure Kensi did in fact speak for them all.
He paused when he saw Callen asleep across Sam's lap. "Tell me Callen wasn't drinking," he told the room.
"He's a big boy, Nate," Sam answered for his still unconscious partner. "I don't think a beer or two means he has a drinking problem or something."
"No," Nate answered quickly, "But he is on painkillers. Enough that the pill alone will drop him on his ass. The alcohol's effect will be considerably magnified."
Sam glowered at the back of G's head, looking like he wanted to slap it. G slumbered on obliviously. "He having problems with his back again?" Sam wasn't privy to all the details, but somehow Nate had convinced G to let Nate decide when he needed to take the pain pills that had been prescribed for the muscle aches and spasms that had persisted long after G had been shot.
Nate raised his eyebrows, but didn't answer. He understood that Sam and the rest of the team were as much family as G would ever have, but he still had to keep up at least the pretense of following the rules of doctor/patient confidentiality. And when it came to Sam and G, not answering was as good as agreeing.
Sam nodded. "Besides sleeping until noon tomorrow, this going to give him any problems? Breathing or whatever?"
Nate shook his head, "Shouldn't. But all the same, it might be better if he wasn't left alone tonight. Provided anyone can even drag him out of here to his… where is he staying now?"
"Right now? Right here," Sam said. "I'll stay here with him."
"A few more beers and we'll have a reason to camp here," Kensi put in. "Speaking of…" she leaned forward and rifled through the collection of bottles only to discover that they were all empties. "Damn. Anyone here still under point oh-eight?"
Dom smiled, "I'll drive you home."
"Screw that. You can drive me over to the nearest liquor store so we can get some more beer." She tossed him the car keys. "You drive, I'll buy."
Dom caught the keys easily and stood, following Kensi out to the car.
<{*}>
They were just out of the parking lot when Kensi shifted to watch Dom in the passing streetlights. "So… What was your issue with Sam and Callen back there?"
"Issue? No issue," Dom replied quickly, keeping his eyes on the road.
"You looked like you swallowed a live goldfish," Kensi told him.
"I was just surprised. I mean, it makes more sense now that we know that Callen's on meds, but…"
"But?" Kensi pushed.
"I just… I got to wondering… if it was you, you know as my partner, if you were the one falling asleep like that… I'm not sure I'd just have you lay down on me. I'd probably get up and give you the whole sofa. But then I started thinking that maybe I wouldn't – maybe I'd do what Sam did - but it's different because, well… you know…"
"Sam and Callen got over worrying about what people think of the two of them a long time ago," Kensi told him. "Sam, Callen and I were the first three NCIS agents assigned to OSP. We were here in L.A. and setting up shop in the old warehouse with Eric for almost a month before Macy got assigned to babysit us and about a hundred more people came in to help us. After three years I've learned one thing – as much as G acts like he trusts someone, he usually doesn't. I'm not even sure he completely trusts me outside of the job. He trusts Sam. And Sam fought hard for that trust. Neither one of them are going jeopardize that over what someone else might think."
Dom pulled into the store's parking lot and turned off the headlights. "I wasn't judging. I honestly don't care if there's something else going on there, I was just… caught off guard."
"Jealous?" Kensi asked flippantly as she climbed out of the car. "Afraid that I won't let you sleep on my lap the next time you decide to mix drugs and alcohol?"
"Very funny," Dom shot back as they made their way into the liquor store. But he couldn't completely get the idea out of his head. Not that he was particularly interested in Kensi – not that he couldn't be under other circumstances, but she was his partner – but that Sam and Callen had that level of extreme trust and that they were that comfortable with that level of intimacy, even in front of others. He couldn't honestly say that he wasn't just a little bit jealous of that.
He filed the whole thing away to turn over in the back of his mind during the next long stakeout or the next time he got more than three thousand hits on a computer search that had to be manually sorted. He also resolved to watch the other agents just a little more closely. He wasn't lying when he told Kensi he didn't really give a damn. But it was a puzzle he really wanted to solve now. Just to know. Just to prove to himself that he could do covert. That he could find information and make enough observations to prove or disprove a theory without anyone else knowing what he was up to.
Kensi bought three more six packs and Dom drove them back in silence. They wouldn't go through all that beer tonight, but it was a good idea to keep the fridge stocked for the next hellish case.
When they came back in, chatting about whether or not Kensi had been flirting with the store clerk on purpose because she'd forgotten her I.D. or just out of habit, they found Eric in the chair next to the sofa. He hissed "Shhh," as they came in and nodded in the direction of the sofa.
Someone had taken G's shoes off and he'd curled up on the couch, his head still on Sam's lap. Sam's feet were on the coffee table and his head was against the back of the couch, as soundly asleep as his partner.
Kensi giggled and grabbed the blanket that had been folded over the back of the chair at one point, but was on the floor near the couch now. She carefully covered the two of them as best she could without putting the blanket over Callen's face. "Good night, lightweights," she whispered as she stood back up. "Okay Dom, I'll put the beer away and then take you up on your offer to drive me home. Eric? You good?"
Eric pulled himself out of his chair and began gathering up the empties, trying to put them into the trash bin without making a lot of noise. "I'm good. Dom and I'll clean up so Hetty doesn't kill us tomorrow."
Dom grabbed a couple of bottles and gently lowered them into the half-full wastebasket. One slipped and it clattered against the others already in there. G startled but didn't wake. Dom grimaced and moved more carefully to avoid making any more noise. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Sam's hand came up to the top of G's head, calming him, even as they both remained asleep.
Dom carefully removed the liner from the trashcan and took it out back to the dumpster, turning over everything he'd seen in his head. He had quite a lot to think about and even more reason to watch them very carefully.