A/N: I'm hard-pressed to believe this is the last chapter of 'Flavors'. My, my. Cliche flavor, but unorthodox update (Oooh, that was fun alliteration...). It's different from the others.

Whipped Cream

She never did quite understand his affinity for whipped cream.

She herself liked it well enough, if it was gracing a slice of cheesecake or making pretty her classic morning latte. She had once or twice indulged in finishing off a can by emptying the sparse contents left onto her tongue, but she wasn't obsessed with the stuff.

One Leroy Jethro Gibbs, on the other hand, was a different story.

The man loved whipped cream. And for someone who denied having virtually any semblance of a sweet tooth, that was saying something.

She'd even seen him sneak whipped cream onto his coffee once. Just once. And he didn't know she knew.

It was mind-boggling, really. Whipped cream was everything Jethro was decidedly not—sweet, foamy, fluffy, girly, et cetera. Yet he would devour it right out of the can like it wasn't weird at all.

She may have mocked him about it in Paris, but she had come to discover that if he was getting into the whipped cream, he was pissed that something was bothering him. It was like his strange, Jethro-ish way of moping like a girl; his comfort "food" that he didn't want to admit meant he needed to be cheered up.

She didn't particularly mind the quaint whipped cream affinity—if he was eating it, it usually meant he was in a vulnerable place.

Not to mention he tasted damn good.

Naturally, to her senses, Jethro tasted damn good anyway, but licking whipped cream off of his lips and tongue was like eating desert. You know, with whipped cream on top. Irresistible.

She knew, then, when she sauntered down his basement stairs one boring Sunday afternoon and found him in faded, worn clothes amidst his workbench, tools, and NCIS effects with not a mason jar of bourbon but a can of fresh, cool whipped cream, that he was in a mood.

Maybe it was his time of the month.

Her eyebrow arched and she smirked at the thought; her foot clicked on the concrete basement floor and he looked up, pausing, his blue eyes narrowing at her as he lowered the can from his mouth and swallowed.

He looked at her warily.

Jenny pursed her lips, parting them slightly as she prepared to whip a snarky remark at him—but her eyes flicked to something next to him on the counter, and she paused. Dusty old pink box, open, a few children's colouring pages peeking out of it.

She closed her mouth.

It clicked, without warning. Kelly had no doubt been a typical little girl. Whipped cream reminded him of his daughter.

Jethro cut his eyes in the direction she was looking and she immediately fixed her eyes back on him, a little of the sass gone from her walk as she strolled forward closer. His eyes slid over her t-shirt and gym shorts, taking in her cursorily tied up ponytail, perhaps wondering what brought her here after a work-out.

She reached out to touch his shoulder, and paused suspiciously, curling her fingers in sharply. He had arched an eyebrow mischievously, something leaping up to gleam in his cobalt eyes.

"Jethro—"

He twisted his wrist slightly to the side, smirked wickedly, and squinted one eye as if in concentration. Then, he did what any hot-blooded male in the presence of a can of whipped cream and an attractive female would do—he sprayed it on her.

He got her good.

Jenny let out a shriek.

The saccharine white foam oozed into her hair and her lips and neck and all over her t-shirt, turning her into a sugar-snow-monster of a redhead. Her green eyes flashed in outrage and he thrust salt into the wound, casually, tasting another bit of the whipped cream before he chucked it behind him on the counter with a smirk.

He reached out to push her hair back and she slapped his hand away, attempting to look furious while a smile tried to break through. He caught her hand and pulled her towards him, pressing his lips to the corner of her mouth. She tried to kiss him back best she could, her senses assaulted by too much sweetness and the surprise of his action.

He grinned and scraped his teeth down to her neck, licking whipped cream off of her skin.

Jenny laughed.

She had never been the woman to get turned on by food on her body in bed—it was messy. She had to admit, though, to a bit of jealousy for Jethro's 'whipped cream affinity', and if he wanted to lick the candied white dessert topping off of her, she claimed victory over it as his favorite comfort food.

Where was the angst, ask you? I can't find it either!
THE END