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"You spent the night at Sam's, didn't you?" Eric asked, straight after 'good morning' and probably a good half minute before G's first cup of coffee, which G figured was a perfectly good excuse to reply with a vague 'hm?' that would permit him to deny everything later.
Not that there was anything wrong with spending the night over at a friend's, obviously. It wasn't as if he was ashamed or anything - or, well not of spending the night on Sam's couch.
"How'd you know?"
"A certain spring to your gait this morning, Mr Callen?" Hetty, bearing tea, one cup of.
"I walk funny?" Put like that, it sounded - all right, next time, maybe he'd be sticking to that 'hm' after all.
Hetty pursed her lips slightly. "Funny is such a ... funny word. You look happy, Mr Callen. Good for you." A pat on the shoulder (for what, Sam wasn't sure he really wanted to know) and she was gone again, leaving him with Eric, who shrugged.
"Personally, I knew because Sam sent me a picture."
"He what?"
"You looked cute," Sam said, looking entirely unrepentant when G cornered him, full of righteous indignation.
"I looked cute?" Sam was baiting him, of course Sam was baiting him. Didn't mean G had to like it or anything. "What am I, a teddy bear?"
"You're a guy who fell asleep during a movie marathon after swearing he wouldn't," Sam said. "Be glad I left it at a picture." And that would be the thing G'd been feeling just a little bit bad about just now, but never mind; some things were way worse than needing a bit of shut-eye after a hard week's work.
"Oh, yeah, you could've drawn a fake moustache or something. Because that'd have been mature." To be fair, he probably would have gotten here without noticing a thing.
"Mature, no. Called for, absolutely. Instead, I took one, small picture and I got you a blanket."
"A blanket, wow. I was still cold when I woke up." He had been, too, this time.
Sam gave him a look that informed G how very much Not Impressed with his whining Sam was. (And yet, next time - if there was a next time, which obviously there shouldn't be, because G Callen was not a man who regularly fell asleep during a movie marathon - but if there would be one, he was pretty sure Sam'd get him an extra blanket, and then G would complain about waking up too hot the next morning, because that was just the way it worked.)
"I could also send a copy of that picture to Hetty."
"Or we could forget about the whole thing. Coffee?"
"I could do with some coffee."
The 'forgetting about the whole thing' thing lasted about five minutes. On second thought, maybe G should have known; no reason why Sam would only send the picture to Eric.
"You're cute when you're asleep."
"Thanks, Kensi." There. Gracefully and quickly dealt with, if he did say so himself. He grinned at Sam, who put on his 'I'm an inscrutable ex-SEAL' expression. G could tell me was grumbling on the inside, though.
"Sam's a lucky man."
Sam grinned back. "Thanks, Kensi."
"What was that all about?"
Sam tried to look innocent, which was something he did about as well as 'harmless'. "What was what all about?"
Nice try, buddy. Except not. " 'Sam's a lucky man'?" And Sam had agreed that he was, indeed, a lucky man, possibly - no, probably just to annoy G a bit extra, but even so.
"I guess maybe Kensi wishes she had a cute guy sleeping on her couch, too."
G guessed that maybe Kensi wished she had a cute guy, all right, but he didn't think she'd want him sleeping on her couch. "I'm not cute."
"You're adorable," Sam said, and he looked way, way too sincere. Like he actually, seriously meant it.
"I'm not asleep." Well, it would be one explanation - if Sam proceeded to suggest they find a more private place next, or just jumped him right here, right now with clothes conveniently flying every which way and to hell with privacy, G'd be sure this was, in fact, just another one of those weird dreams people sometimes had.
Sam remained disappointingly distant and fully dressed. "Still only on your second cup of coffee - close enough for me."
Okay, so maybe G fantasized about sleeping someplace else than Sam's couch every now and then. It wasn't a crime. Sam might even be flattered, if G told him. (Hey, it wasn't impossible. Just a matter of ... phrasing.)
The thing was: Sam's couch was hot and cold and noisy and uncomfortable and not really a substitute for sleeping in Sam's bed, even if it probably was the closest G was ever going to get - at least when he stipulated Sam's bed also had to have Sam in it, awake and happy to be there.
The thing was: "I want a rematch."
"A rematch?" Sam arched an eyebrow. "In what?"
"Not falling asleep on your couch while watching a movie marathon."
"That's not a competition, G; that's just common courtesy." But Sam's eyes were saying that he was game, if G just played his cards right.
Approach A: the Golden Oldie. "Are you chicken?"
"No," Sam said, mentally rolling his eyes (G could always tell).
Approach B: the Sam Special. "Please?"
"Fine. You bring the beer."
"I'll bring the beer."
"And the - "
"Popcorn, yes, sure."
Some guy was chasing another guy around a lake because the one guy had slept with the other guy's girlfriend who was pretending to be the one guy's cousin while she secretly was the other guy's sister or something like that, and G reflected that in addition to the beer and the popcorn, he also ought to have insisted on bringing the movies because for all that this wasn't a competition, Sam was clearly and blatantly trying to cheat here.
"You know, when a guy tells another guy he's cute, sometimes, it sends people the wrong message." That made it sound like he minded. "It's not that I mind, but - you know."
Sam was looking at the TV as if this was actually his idea of High Cinema. "No, I don't."
G hoped he was faking it. "We're close, but not like that. I mean, the thought of kissing you - " Made him want to scoot over a bit closer - not that Sam wasn't pretty close, already; well within accidental touching distance, in fact. Wouldn't take much to accomplish full-body contact.
"What?" Sam had finally turned away from the screen. He didn't look grossed out or anything but, well, they were just talking.
"I want to," G said. His lips were dry. He licked them, quickly, efficiently, not like he was trying to make a show out of it or anything, but he noticed the way Sam's gaze flickered to his mouth when he did it.
He wondered if he'd simply missed it all the times he'd licked his lips before, if Sam had maybe been looking all along, and G'd missed it, because he hadn't been paying attention, hadn't been expecting to see anything and so hadn't even bothered watching for it.
Well, wouldn't be the first time he'd made an idiot out of himself.
"What's stopping you?" Sam asked.
"Good question." He should probably move. The guys in the movie got into it with swords, because they were idiots, clearly, who wouldn't recognize a good thing when it was right in front of them, their for the taking.
Sam shook his head, then grinned, leaned forwards and kissed him.
"Now that is what I call walking funny," Eric said the next morning at the office, which pretty much ruined whatever had been left of the afterglow right there and then, because sheesh.
G'd honestly thought it'd been some sort of urban legend. Sure, he figured they'd be telling other people at some point, but having those other people know when you'd had sex the night before (and the morning after, and after the morning after, in the shower) was kind of a buzz killer.
Plus, where was the justice in straight people never having to deal with that sort of problem?
"Looks perfectly normal to me," Hetty said with a determined nod of her head. "Not the couch this time, then, Mr Callen?"
She knew. Eric - well, likely as not he was just jerking G around a bit, but Hetty actually knew. And approved, clearly, which made all the difference somehow. "No, not the couch this time. I got a good night's sleep in a real bed." Well, half of that was true.
"Excellent," she said.
And G decided that yeah, it was.
Better than excellent.