Category Archives: 4×23 – Parley

Decidedly Deeks Mini Fan Fic by Kadiedid

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A Hazard of the Job

by Kadiedid

 (Editors Note:  This story takes place right before Deeks goes undercover as Max Gentry in Parley)

“Really Kens, I’m fine,” Deeks insisted as he sat on his couch and stared at the blank TV.

Kensi had turned it off in frustration when she couldn’t get him to talk.  Deeks not talking.  It was a strange concept to say the least.

“If I said I was ‘fine’ there is no way you would let it go and you know it.  Talk to me, Deeks,” she said softly, in hopes he would finally open up about what was bothering him.  He had been distant and quiet for a few weeks and she was going to get to the bottom of it one way or another.

“Kens, there’s nothing to tell.  I’m fine… I mean good.  Why do you keep asking what’s wrong?”

“Because you don’t talk anymore.  Because you avoid me after work and because you look at me like you’re in trouble,” she said worried.

She had barged into his apartment when he had declined to join her for a burger after work for the umpteenth time to find him drinking a beer on his couch, staring at the ceiling.

“I can’t take this anymore, Deeks.  You’re keeping something from me and I can’t help you if you won’t let me.”

“Who says I need your help?  I told you to drop it, Kens,” he said angrily.

“Fine.  You don’t need my help.  I can deal with that.  What I can’t deal with is the loss of my best friend,” she spat.  “I’ll leave you to do whatever it is you were doing.  I have to go.”  She stood quickly and stalked toward the door, hoping to get out before her emotions took total control of her heart.

“Kensi, wait!” he said as he jumped up and followed her to the door.

She stopped but wouldn’t turn to face him.  She waited for him to speak.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“Sorry for what?” she whispered.

He reached for her arm and turned her to face him.  He was surprised to see what could only be described as tears in her eyes.

“I’m sorry for putting you through this.”  He reached up as if he was about to brush her cheek but suddenly stopped and dropped his hands.  “I wish I could tell you but I can’t.”

“Why not?  I don’t understand.”

“Do you trust me, Kens?” he asked softly.

“You know I do, Deeks but evidently you don’t trust me,” she said sadly.

“That’s not true,” he said as he sighed.  “I trust you with my life, Kens. With… with everything.”  He looked at her worried face and slowly put his hands in his pockets as if he was afraid he might touch her.  “I’ve been asked to work on an undercover assignment for Granger and he told me not to tell anyone about anything, especially you.  I don’t like it, but just telling you what I have could get me fired and I don’t want to give Granger an excuse to split us up.  Please, please trust me.  I’ll tell you about it when I can, OK?”

Kensi felt as if a knife had been shoved into her heart.  ‘What kind of undercover assignment?’  ‘Why had Granger left her out?’ ‘Was it dangerous?’

Suddenly she understood.

There was a woman involved.

Instinctively she had known but didn’t want to acknowledge the signs.  It unfortunately explained his strange behavior of late.  But why did it bother her?  She had no claim to him or what he did in his spare time.  Or did she?

There was nothing she could do but nod her head in agreement.  He reached over to open the door and waited for her to walk through it.  He closed it behind them then walked with her to her car.

“See you tomorrow,” she said flatly.

He hesitated for a moment as if he had more to say, then looked away and sighed.

“I’ve got to go to work. Goodnight, Kens.”

She watched with a heavy heart as he trudged toward his car and drove off into the night.

@DeeksFreak

@DeeksFreak

Welcome to Karen, aka Katiedid as a new member of Team Deeks!  We hope to see a lot more of her work on the pages of Decidedly Deeks in the future!

BOX5

Congratulations to Evi!  She is our winner of What Was in the BOX Contest! We agree there doesn’t need to be anything in the box!  Obviously Deeks doesn’t care anyway or he would have opened it by now.  It was all in the game! Although, Eric Christian Olsen revealed this week that he actually knows what is in the box and that it will be revealed sometime this season!

Evi:  Please send your name and address to diane@ncislamagazine.com and we’ll send a Decidedly Deeks wrist band out to you!

 

Decidedly Deeks: Max Gentry….The Man in the Mirror

 Max Gentry:  The Man in the Mirror

by @Phillydi

@Deeksfreak

@Deeksfreak

From the personnel audio file of Marty Deeks as transcribed by Nate Getz:

Every time I watch Max Gentry take off the black leather jacket, I swear it will be for the last time.  The mission is over and I can’t wait to get as far away as possible from his stink.   You want to know why I hate the guy so much?  He appears on the scene so willingly and then sneaks off into the night like a thief.  Maybe it scares me that I don’t have to reach so far down into my soul to pull this monster out.   I know Max gets results and he’s good at his job.  So I let him do my dirty work but I wind up despising myself in the end.   I like to pretend I just invented him out of the blue one day and that he stalked me from the LAPD to NCIS… but the truth is, he has been part of my life for a long, long time.   Yes, I know Max Gentry very well.  As I told Hetty once, this is an alias I can do without…

______________________________________________________________________________________

The last time Deeks went undercover as Max Gentry in Parley, it seemed his conscience was bothering him even more than the first time we saw him in season two.  Granger’s orders were clear:

                    Get into the bar, get friendly with the hostess and find out about the diamonds. 

Yet during the entire mission, Deeks struggled with his feelings and wondered if he was doing the right thing.  As an undercover guise, he had taken on this particular identity on many occasions.  Yet now it seems he was desperately fighting to exorcise Max from the depths of his very being.

Undercover missions are part of the job at NCIS, and they can be a life-changing experience for anyone in law enforcement. Some agents are naturals at it like Deeks but it can definitely lead to some soul searching moments especially if it hurts to deal with the guilt and betrayal of the people who have come to trust in you. For Deeks, Max Gentry is a persona that tears away at the very core of his humanity.   So who is Max Gentry and why does it torment Deeks so much to put on that leather jacket?

Max Gentry is introduced in season two during the episode, Plan B when Hetty exclaims:

                      So this is the infamous Max Gentry! 

Standing in front of a full length mirror, Deeks is already deep inside his cover, wearing a black leather jacket and a bad-ass attitude.  He laments that this is an alias he did not miss, which leads us to believe that he must be very well acquainted with Max Gentry. Deeks seems to be uncomfortable eyeing Max in the mirror, but ironically you can tell this identity fits the man like a glove.  Perhaps Deeks invented Max as a persona he could use when he was on the streets as a teenager or going in and out of juvy detention centers.  It could have been a coping mechanism or a way to feel strong and invincible while trying to survive on the streets.  The gentle, sweet-natured man that we have come to know as Marty Deeks, might have had a much harder time surviving in the urban jungle of his youth.  Max became Deeks’ super hero guise.  He kept him safe and untouchable in his muddled world.  But along the way Max stopped to pick up some undesirable traits as well.  Even Hetty knows his reputation was less than stellar.

Deeks survived life on the streets with his best friend, Ray Martindale who taught him to never shoot back…always shoot first.    Deeks may have craved Ray’s life style more than he would ever admit.  Martindale was probably a huge influence on Deeks, a big brother type who helped him develop the Max façade and encouraged the shooting of his father.  When Ray gave Deeks a gun to project himself, in a twisted way, he also gave him hope and a future.  Deeks will never be able to repay his debt to Ray for this reason.  They are brothers-in-arms.

Another scary aspect for Deeks is who looks back at him when he looks into the mirror.   Perhaps it’s an exact replica of his father who stares back at him. Children pick up so many of their parents mannerisms and behaviors that it was probably easy to channel his father’s more ominous side into Max. Regardless, it would be quite disturbing to see the man you hate so much scowling back at you from the glass.

Who does Kensi see when she looks at Max Gentry?  Ray asks Deeks if his partner knows about his former life and Deeks is embarrassed.  Is it because Ray is teasing him about his ‘thing’ with Kensi?

….or maybe it’s because he doesn’t want Kensi to know about Max:

                     He’s just some guy….

But in reality Max is dark, humorless, sarcastic, sexy, sexist, charming, secretive, nasty, smooth, and mean.  He’s the epitome of bad ass and the bad boy every girl falls in love with.  He tries to convince Kensi that he doesn’t like being Max but he also knows that some days it’s all too easy falling back into this persona.

Undercover work is one of the most stressful jobs a cop can undertake.  Becoming isolated from family, friends and their environment can lead to depression, anxiety and a change of personality.  Even his teammates can tell that Deeks is in way too deep when he goes undercover as Max.

Callen confront him:

                       The only thing that’s not real is your alias and even then I’m not sure. 

Callen’s been there before and can tell Max is very real to Deeks.  Kensi can also see he’s a lot closer to the masquerade than he comprehends.  Deeks finds it difficult to reintegrate back into his normal life when he realizes that he is afraid to tell Nicole Martindale the truth about his feelings towards her.  His feelings are very real.  He likes being Max and she demands to know the truth but his silence forces her to brand him a coward.

ParleyThe next time he puts on the leather jacket again, Deeks finds it’s getting too hard to carry around the guilt associated with going undercover as Max.  He feels sympathetic to the person being targeted by Max and in this case it’s Monica, the hostess from the club.   While Monica is experiencing the thrill of stealing the diamonds and living on the run with Max, he’s acting more like a worried mother hen than the harden criminal he is supposed to be portraying.   As she prances around half naked in front of him, Max covers his eyes, embarrassed by her overtness.  Monica wonders why he is acting so weird.  Maybe besides having to lie to Monica, this time he knows Kensi is listening to every word.  His partner will get to find out more about the boy/man he once was. The identity served him well on the streets when he was younger but he has since changed and he doesn’t want the woman he loves knowing about this part of his checkered past.

After Nicole, Kensi  had taunted him:

                               Why is lying so easy but recanting and telling the truth isn’t?  

Marty Deeks has a conscience and unlike Max Gentry, he has to come clean.  After she is taken into custody, Monica faces Deeks and claims he took advantage of her.  He tries to apologize by claiming what they did together wasn’t with him…it was with Max.

But Monica’s not buying it:

                                You are so lucky to have a friend like Max

Deeks is speechless because he has no way to refute her accusations.  He knows she’s right, just like Nicole before her.  As she whispers in his ear before he leaves, perhaps her parting words are that she prefers Max Gentry more than the man sitting in front of her?  Deeks looks defeated and stunned.  When he walks out of the boathouse, perhaps we have finally seen the last of the infamous Max Gentry?

As long as Deeks remains an undercover cop or becomes an NCIS agent, he is going to have to continue his covert ways.  But it’s for certain that Max Gentry will always remain the one identity that will eat away at his soul the most. Max may have come from a time in Deeks’ youth when he needed the extra self-confidence for protection.  Or perhaps Max is a part of his DNA structure and a side of his family that he would rather not acknowledge.  Either way he is going to have to make a decision.  It may be time to forgive and forget his troubled youth and move on.

Will we ever get to see Max Gentry again?  For Deeks sake I hope not, but maybe he still needs to look at the man in the mirror one last time to say good bye so he can make peace with the person he once was and to celebrate the honorable man he has become.

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Next week we celebrate Deeks’ birthday to coincide with the one year anniversary of NCISLA Magazine. Join us in two weeks for a mini fan fic by @Kadiedid which takes place right before Purity as we continue to delve more into the undercover persona of Max Gentry.

Parley Trivia: Cross Fit

©DanielaRuah

©DanielaRuah


Not only Kensi & Sam do CrossFit WODs but many others around the globe as well…

CrossFit is the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide.

Our program delivers a fitness that is, by design, broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival, many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the specialist.

The CrossFit program is designed for universal scalability making it the perfect application for any committed individual regardless of experience. We’ve used our same routines for elderly individuals with heart disease and cage fighters one month out from televised bouts. We scale load and intensity; we don’t change programs.

Learn more about CrossFit on their website www.crossfit.com – including Workout Of the Day…