Practice, an NCIS-LA story by glacis. Rated NC-17. Set in first season, after ep. 7 ‘Pushback.’

~~

Henrietta sighed, careful not to let the children hear her. The latest operation had not gone as smoothly as one might hope, and the morning-after quarterbacks were deconstructing every moment in the ops room. Silently, she moved to where she could see and hear, but remain unseen. She didn’t usually have to intervene, but if needed, she would be there.

As always.

~~

Sam glanced from his absorbed partner over to the rest of the kids on the playground. They should really have known better than to challenge Callen when it came to undercover work.

It started out, like it usually did, in the ops room, with Nate hanging out in the back watching them, Kensi hovering near Sam with Dom hovering near Kensi, Eric bouncing around like a puppy, and G slouched against the table, staring at the surveillance photos from the last op. Dom and Kensi were undercover as lovers, something she pulled off a lot easier than he did, and that wasn't just lack of experience. Eric was teasing Dom about his stiffness, making dirty puns, and Dom snapped.

"It's not as easy as it looks!"

"Looked more like it was hard than easy," Eric sniggered, and Dom rolled his eyes.

Kensi made a noise more like a growl than a word, and Sam figured he'd better say something before she scalped both the idiots.

"Kensi didn't have any problems, and Dom will loosen up with some practice," he inserted, taking attention off Volcano Kensi, just to have Nate screw up and turn the spotlight right back on her.

"One of the burdens, and opportunities, of being the sole female agent, is getting a lot of field practice in these types of situations." Nate sounded like he was trying to reassure Dom, but all he did was piss off Kensi even more. Before she could blow, intervention came from an unexpected quarter.

"It has nothing to do with being a woman," Callen mused absently, still staring at the photos on the wall. "It's about being comfortable in the character."

"Thank you, Callen!" Kensi barked, glaring at Dom, Eric, and Nate in turn.

Only Eric looked unfazed, used as he was to being the object of a woman's wrath (when he was getting any attention from a woman at all). "You have to admit, Kensi, there's some advantage to having feminine wiles. Takes a guy time to learn that!"

Sam smothered a grin. This should be interesting.

"Nonsense," Callen answered before Kensi could.

Turned out to be a bit more interesting than he expected.

"How so?" Dom asked, playing the straight man perfectly.

Callen finally stopped staring at the photos and glanced around curiously at the group. "It's about a character, not a cliché. Cliché doesn't work undercover.  Gives you away from a mile, and that'll get you killed faster than anything else.  Nothing screams 'cop' more than being uncomfortable in your skin."

"I was more uncomfortable about her skin than mine," Dom admitted, then rushed on, "Not in a racial way or anything, it wasn't about that, it was more that I didn't want to do something stupid that would be offensive -"

Callen cut in again, rescuing Dom from winding himself into a knot with his own tongue. "It's not about race, Dom, or about gender, or even about sex."

This time Kensi looked confused. "We were pretending to be lovers. How can it not be about sex?"

"It's about people," Callen answered. Confused looks met him from all around, except Sam, who just looked resigned. Something weird and illuminating was about to come from his partner. He just knew it. And he'd be on the receiving end. As usual. He braced himself, and tried to relax for the impact at the same time. Oxymoronic response, but well trained into him after three years as G Callen's partner.

"Okay, well, I'll show you." Callen shrugged, then walked over to stand in front of Kensi, keeping their profiles to the rest of the group, so everyone could see what was happening. "If I may?" he asked politely.

Kensi gave him a clueless look and nodded. "Sure, whatever, go for it."

"It's about selling a character, and a relationship for that character," Callen directed over his shoulder to his audience. "Say Kensi and I are undercover, as lovers. As my character, her lover, I would show that I was comfortable with her, touching her casually, intimately, affectionately, but appropriately for the public sphere."

As he spoke, he was doing exactly that, casually touching her face, tucking her hair behind her ear, smiling at her. Kensi gradually relaxed as he moved, exactly as he'd planned, because then he said, "I would probably kiss her," and leaned in to do so.

The kiss was practically in slow motion. Callen tipped his head, Kensi automatically tilted hers the other direction, and their lips met softly, in a peck, that gradually deepened. Her hand came up to rest on his shoulder, as his came up to cup her cheek. By the time he finished, well, THEY finished, and Callen pulled out of the kiss as naturally as he'd gone into it, Kensi was flushed, her lips swollen, her eyes a little glazed.

She looked just exactly like a woman who'd just been kissed by her lover.

"Okay?" Callen asked very quietly, and after a few seconds, the glaze cleared, and she grinned wickedly at him.

"Sure!" It was obvious she was enjoying the moment, but not enough to compromise her professionalism. Just what should be, for an agent on an op.

Callen grinned back at her. Then he turned to the rest of the crew. "See? Trust and selling the character. I trust Kensi to be on for me and I'm on for her, so we both get through the op in one piece."

"But that's about practice, isn't it?" Dom asked, echoing Eric's earlier words.

"No, not completely, or even primarily," Callen corrected him. Then he turned and headed toward Sam.

Sam felt his eyes widen for a moment before he got control of himself. Yeah, this is where it would get freaky.

Callen planted himself next to Sam, again presenting a profile to the group so everyone could see them interact.

"Sam, have I ever kissed you?" he asked bluntly.

Eric made a sound like he'd swallowed a bug. Nate's eyes rounded, as did Dom's, while Kensi suddenly looked oddly predatory.

"No," Sam answered patiently, "you're not really my type."

"Ah, but if we were undercover, my character WOULD be your character's type." He glanced over at Dom, who'd gotten distracted slapping Eric on the back to stop his choking. "Dom, pay attention. This is important."

Dom slipped and hit Eric a little too hard, but Nate caught him before he hit the floor. Sam managed not to crack up, then Callen snarled at them, "This could save your life one day, but if you're too hung up on your childishness to learn, that's up to you."

The room went quiet, Eric and Dom practically standing at attention, while it was Kensi's turn to smother a smirk. Sam gave her a warning look and she stilled, looking at them attentively.

"Functionally, as a character, there is no difference whatsoever between pretending to be Kensi's lover and pretending to be Sam's."

"But I always thought gay sex was rougher than straight sex," Eric piped up, then shrank into himself when everyone turned to look at him. "At least that's what it says in what I've read on the net," he muttered, blushing so hard he was turning purple, "not that I've read a lot, I was just surfing -"

Once again Callen intervened, this time saving Eric from choking to death on the foot shoved down his own throat. "It's not about sex." Eyeballs all over the room swiveled back to him. He shrugged. "Yeah, sometimes gay sex is rougher than straight sex, because guys can loose control a little more with another guy than with a woman, and not be as afraid of hurting their partner."

Sam could swear he could hear people blink, if anyone in the room would have, or breathe, but nobody was. Everybody, himself included, was focusing on Callen so hard it was a wonder his partner didn't spontaneously combust. G didn't act like he noticed.

"But as I said, this is about selling a character, not sex. If you go in acting like a cliché, then it won't sell, you'll get made, and you'll get killed. Period.  So you don't act like a cliché. You act like a guy with his lover." He then turned to Sam, and in the exact same tone he'd used with Kensi, he asked, "If I may?"

Sam stared into those calm blue eyes and found himself nodding, trusting his partner to know what the hell he was doing, even if Sam was totally unsold on the idea. The corner of G's mouth curved up for an instant, and Sam relaxed.

Showtime.

Callen ghosted a hand down his arm, in a move that the rest of the group had seen innumerable times. G wasn't usually a touchy-feely guy, but he touched Sam sometimes, and did it just exactly like he was now. Sam relaxed further, still watchful, but letting G take the lead. "Given that Sam is less overtly affectionate than Kensi, my movements with him would be more subdued, but that has to do with the personality of my partner in the op, not his gender."

G's hand brushed against his, and Sam found himself reacting as he would with his wife, brushing fingertips in a subtle touch that somehow screamed intimacy.

"Given the context, for example, if we're in a private club, and we have to sell that we're lovers, not just friends, I would probably kiss him." It seemed perfectly natural, at that moment, for Callen to lean in, precisely the way he had with Kensi, and peck Sam on the lips.

Then he slowly deepened the kiss, and Sam let him, because it still felt perfectly natural. It continued to feel perfectly natural as G's tongue slid over his, then withdrew, inviting Sam's tongue to follow, which it did. Sam felt G's hand warm on his cheek, holding him steady as they kissed, and his own hand raised to rest at the small of G's back, steadying his partner in return.

They came out of the kiss as easily as they'd gone into it, Sam was hard, but he was in control, and he knew if he'd been in an op, his situational awareness would only be heightened, not distorted. Which was a little weird, considering his partner had just turned him on like a supercharger with a single kiss, but hey, it was Callen, and things were usually a little weird around Callen.

G leaned back, staring intently up into Sam's eyes, and asked, "Okay?" In that instant, Sam was back in the ops room, and G was still G, and Sam was still Sam, and Sam understood the concept of selling a character in a completely different way.  For the first time, he got an inkling of how G could be the chameleon he was.

For the first time, he felt a little loss at that.

Still, he grinned, and said, "Yeah," and let it lie.

G didn't grin back, but he nodded, and there was understanding in his eyes before he turned to their rapt audience.

"Now if Sam and I went undercover as lovers, we would sell it like that, not as an abstract concept, or a cliché." He looked directly at Dom. "Would you buy it?"

Dom nodded, a strangled, "yes" barely legible from him.

"That's not practice, although practice always helps. That's selling a character, and keeping that character all the way through to the end, so you don't get made, and don't get killed."

"Thus endeth the lesson," Hetty's voice came from the doorway.

Eric, Kensi, Dom and Nate jumped. Sam stilled. Callen just looked her way and smiled.

"A useful one it was," she continued as she came into the room. "Now where are we on this operation?" She gestured at the screen.

It took Eric a few moments to reboot his brain, but he launched into an explanation of the intel they'd gathered from Kensi and Dom's work the previous evening, and just like that, it was business as usual. If Dom and Eric were a little googly-eyed, and Nate looked more thoughtful than usual, and Kensi was a little flushed, no one said a word.

They were, after all, professionals. And that had, indeed, been a useful lesson.

Not one any of them would ever forget, anyway.

Especially Sam.

~~

The next few weeks were a little strange. Eric kept getting caught staring at them, then jumping, blushing, and avoiding them for a day or so, only to repeat the cycle. Dom watched them with all the subtlety of a tank going through the jungle, while Kensi watched them with more subtlety but an odd gleam in her eye. Nate looked at them like they were a puzzle to solve, a puzzle he was half-afraid of cracking, but that wasn’t too unusual. Hetty sailed through life on her own majesty as always, and Callen seemed to be oblivious to it all, which meant he was perfectly aware of what was happening and waiting to see what they would all do. If anything.

Sam acted just exactly as he had before the Exhibition. He was damned if Callen was going to get under his skin.

Well, any more than usual, and in any way that others would notice.

It took a run-in with the Russian mob, solving the mystery of who tried to kill Callen, and over a month before the crowd decided there really WASN’T anything to watch for, and life returned to what passed for normal at NCIS-LA.

Beneath all that normality, Sam was conflicted.

Wasn't like it was the first time a guy turned his crank. He'd had fuck-buddies before, and it was what it was, nothing more. Didn't get in the way of his family, because it wasn't about that - it was something else, and he'd never had a problem with compartmentalization before.

But he had an uneasy feeling about G. There was a vulnerability running right next to the toughness, a fragility that was different from his Seal buddies. G could break, in ways Sam would kill to prevent, and would pretty much die to avoid causing.

As usual, it was his wife who brought things to a head. The woman knew him better than he knew himself, which was downright scary sometimes. One Sunday morning, when the kids were otherwise occupied with videogames and soccer and running around with the rest of the neighborhood ankle-biters, she snuggled next to him on the couch and stole a sip of his coffee. He grinned down at her hands, wrapped around his on the mug.

“So who is he?” she asked, perfectly calm, like she was talking about the weather.

It was a damned good thing she had hold of the mug or they’d both have been wearing hot coffee. He stuttered, and stared at her, and shook his head.

“You’ve been treating me like a porcelain princess lately, which is lovely if ridiculous. The last time this happened you were hooked on a guy in your unit. You were jumpy as a cat then, too. After a couple days layover in Honduras, you were relaxed and back to being you again. So, who is it? Is it Callen? Or the new guy?” She took another sip and patted his hand when she let go of the mug. “What was his name? Dominic?”

“No, not Dom,” he responded automatically. He’d never told her much about his work, couldn’t since it was classified, but she always knew the names of the guys in his unit. He blinked, and shook his head slightly to clear it.

“It is Callen, then.” She smiled wickedly at him. “Bring him over for dinner. I want to check him out.”

“Gah,” was the only thing he could say. He cleared his throat. “Not sure I could get him to come. Offered him the sofa after he got out of the hospital. He said it was too loud.”

“Ah,” she gently mocked him. “He’s shy, then.”

Sam made a noise that could have been agreement, but he couldn’t really get his mouth to work. She took pity on him.

“Baby, I know you love me. I also know every once in awhile you go ass over heels for a guy you work with, usually somebody you protect, and always somebody you admire. Obviously, Callen’s making you itch. If you don’t scratch it, you’ll go crazy.”

“You… you’re okay with that.” He could see she was.

“Always have been.” She leaned up and kissed him. “I know you. I knew you when I married you. I love you, and you love me. I know this. Do I feel threatened? Never have. Never will. You don’t leave me, and I won’t have to get your gun and shoot your boyfriend. You don’t lie to me, and I won’t have to get your gun and shoot you.”

He gulped. She was incredible. She was also dead serious.

“I would not lie to you, honey.”

“I know,” she reassured him.

“I would never do anything to hurt you.”

She actually rolled her eyes. “If the last three didn’t hurt me, this one won’t.”

His eyes widened. God. She’d known about all of them. Probably before he’d even done anything.

She shook her head at him, then her gaze sharpened to a glare. “Unless you were thinking of leaving me for him.”

“God, no!” he rumbled immediately. She grinned.

“I know,” she repeated, then patted his hand again, and stole his coffee back, emptying the mug. “You don’t have to tell me about it, and you don’t have to pretend it isn’t happening.” She gave him another wicked grin. “But he is kind of cute, so if you ever want to share…”

He cracked up, and she laughed with him. When they settled down, he sighed. “You’re a little crazy, you know?”

She snuggled in closer, and answered impishly, “Married you, didn’t I?”

He had no answer for that, except to chase her up the stairs and back into bed, where he proved that any desire he had for his partner was not stopping his desire for her at all.

The next few days were weird for him, but no one else noticed, or so he thought. The Tuesday afternoon, a week after Sam’s conversation with his wife, G cornered him in a quiet hallway at headquarters.

“Everything okay, Sam?” G asked, staring intently at him.

Sometimes Sam could swear G had lasers in his eyes, because they were burning right through him. His wife had a point. His partner was definitely getting to him. Before he could answer, G went on.

“Was it the kiss? ‘Cause it didn’t seem to be bugging you, but something is, and you’re getting distracted, which is not a good thing –“

G seldom babbled, and when he did Sam could usually shut him up with a pithy insult, instigating a round of ‘old married’ comments from the peanut gallery. This time, there was no audience, and Sam didn’t bother with words. He reached out, took G’s face in his hands, and kissed him.

Deeply.

When he came up for air, G was looking a little dazed, but also a little upset. Sam shook his head.

“No, G, it wasn’t the kiss. That was a good lesson, for Dom, even for Kensi. No, it just got me thinking.”

“That kissing me would be a good idea?” G sounded stressed.

“More like, taking you someplace private, getting naked, and getting busy would be a good idea.” Sam’s matter-of-fact recitation stopped Callen in his tracks.

“But… but… it was just to show… about a character… it wasn’t us… me… I mean…”

He trailed off, and Sam took pity on him. “Yeah, it wasn’t personal, but it was good. Gave me the idea that more wouldn’t be a bad thing.” He kissed G again, keeping it up until G sagged against him, then drew back enough to look into those blue eyes again. The pupils were blown, and going by the hardness G was absently grinding into his thigh, his partner wasn’t exactly against the idea. “Then my wife told me to go for it,” he grinned down at G’s stunned face, “and I had to agree. So what do you say?”

“Your wife…?” G croaked out. Sam’s grin widened, turning wicked. Callen stared, never having seen that particular expression on Sam’s face.

“Yeah. So, she thinks it’s a good idea, I think it’s a good idea,” he paused and shifted a little, grinding his own erection against G’s belly. G caught his breath. “What do you think?”

“Maybe Dom wasn’t wrong after all.” He reached up and kissed Sam back before Sam could ask what the hell he was talking about. When he took his tongue back, Sam licked his lips. Damn, but Callen could kiss. “Maybe we could do with a little practice.”

Sam pulled him close, then pulled him further into the depths of the maze of hallways in the heart of headquarters. “Practice makes perfect,” he growled, heading for a crash room he’d scoped out when they first moved in. He didn’t think anybody else knew about it, and he swept it regularly for bugs, so they could get some privacy there.

And get naked.

And get sweaty.

Thought was father to the deed, and just as he’d suspected, kissing wasn’t all G was good at…

Sam had been a boy scout, then a SEAL, so ‘always prepared’ didn’t begin to cover it. He had lotion that could double as lube, and he’d stashed condoms four days before, along with a couple pillows and the least-scratchy blankets he could scrounge. G was impressed.

“Love nest? This is a lot better than sleeping on the couch. Maybe I should camp out –“

Sam sighed. His partner and shiny things… like a magpie, he was. Before G could get sidetracked again, Sam stuck his hand down the front of G’s jeans.

That worked.

G bucked up into his hand, and started pulling at his shirt. One thing about his partner, once he focused, he was like a steamroller. Sam grinned and let him have at it.

It was obviously not the first time G had been with a guy, and Sam wasn’t any kind of a virgin, so the usual first-time awkwardness wasn’t there. They were comfortable enough as partners to practically read one another’s minds, and that worked just as well with sex. With very little fumbling, they were naked on the blankets, kissing and touching, biting and licking, tumbling together. They ended up with Callen sprawled on his back, hands winding in the blankets as Sam settled between his thighs.

He’d been wondering about G’s taste ever since that kiss. His mouth tasted damned good, and so did the rest of him. G didn’t make much noise, and a dim part of Sam’s mind wondered how much of that was early training, trying to be invisible in all those foster homes, trying to survive. But most of his brain was caught up with slick skin and bunching muscles, smoothing over G’s dick and down over his balls, back over his perineum, dipping at his hole, then back again, over and over as Sam sucked.

Didn’t take long to drive G completely out of his mind, but he still didn’t make much noise.

With each pass, Sam went a little further, until he had a couple fingers in, and G was bucking against his hold, coming down his throat, cramping around his fingers. It was fucking hot, and kind of beautiful, his partner spread open like that for him, trusting him that much, wanting him even more. It took every ounce of Sam’s considerable self-control to ride out G’s orgasm, gentle him down, then gently slide up along his body and settle in. He shifted a pillow over to support G’s back, and bent G’s knees back as he moved further up between his thighs.

Sam was kissing G even as he entered him. That got a noise, a throaty moan that broke through their kiss, and it was a hell of a turn-on. He shuddered and froze for a moment, but G wouldn’t let him, humping down on to him, forcing him in further.

Hot. And tight. And holy fuck, but that felt incredible.

G was getting hard again, as Sam worked his way in, inch at a time. By the time Sam hit his rhythm, and could trust himself not to blow his wad in the first rush of sensation, G was moving like an eel underneath him. Sam reached down between them and caught G’s dick, sliding around it, pulling it on the down stroke, countering every thrust.

That earned him another moan, louder this time, a little more out of control. Sam answered with a growl, and buried his face in G’s throat, biting and sucking at it, tightening his hold on G’s dick.

Nothing that good could last very long, and neither of them did. Sam came first, hard enough to make himself dizzy, and G followed right after. They were shaking as they came down from the high, and Sam took his time, kissing, gentling, pulling out slowly. G still winced, but Sam took care of him.

With G settled in the blankets, Sam tied off the condom and tossed it, then reached for the wipes to clean them up. G stared at him, bemused.

“What? You know I’m ready for anything,” Sam teased him.

G grinned back. “So I guess you don’t need the practice?”

“Shut your mouth and get your skinny ass over here,” Sam ordered him. “We need all the practice we can get.”

For once, Callen did as he was told.

~~

Henrietta reached over to the internal camera control board and switched off a particular monitor feed. She’d been expecting this for months, but Callen could be extremely hard to get, and Sam could be somewhat oblivious to the finer innuendo in his partner’s actions. She trusted Sam not to hurt Callen, and she trusted Callen not to let his relationship with Sam interfere with their work. Given what she’d heard vis-à-vis Sam’s discussion with his spouse, there would be few to no negative ramifications on the home front from it as well.

She smiled, and inhaled the sweet fragrance of her Nilgiri Nonsuch tea. She would, of course, keep a close eye on the children. But she had a good feeling about this partnership.

A throaty moan echoed through her office, and her eyes popped open. Quick as a flash, she killed the audio feed. Glancing over at Nate, staring quizzically through the grate, she smiled serenely and toasted him with her tea cup. He smiled back uncertainly and went about his business.

She hid her smile behind her cup. Things were exactly as they should be in her domain.

As it should be.

END