“Doubtful,” he countered, shoving him towards the plating components. “Highly doubtful.”
“Wanna bet on it?”
“Stakes?”
“When I win? Dinner.”
Syler paused, considering. It was already two o’clock, but it wouldn’t take more than a few hours to lay the remaining plates and affix the weaponry. He could afford the delay. “Alright. Finish her off by five without help. Otherwise, I want Pho. I’ll even let you keep your salary.” Arthur grinned. Syler settled in against the workbench, reaching for a tablet, prepared to win in under an hour.
---
“I’ll take an order of those tasty burgers from your dive bar,” he announced shortly before five p.m., wiping his hands off on a rag. Syler was absolutely stunned. He’d even waxed the car. By hand. “And I want Sonya as my own in the field.”
Somewhere in the course of the afternoon, his agent had slipped out of his jacket and removed his dress shirt entirely, presently clad only in one of his too small cotton undershirts normally reserved for the gym. It clung unreasonably to his arms and shoulders, stretching sinuously across his broad back, and did things to Syler’s brain that should be patently illegal.
“Right,” he heard himself say faintly.
Twenty-One
“Mmph, fuck me, those were exactly as good as I remembered them being.” Arthur flopped down on the couch, head in Syler’s lap, and it was like the last frantic month and a half hadn’t happened at all. Syler smiled, hand carding through his hair fondly. “Thank you for dinner, sweetheart.”
“Thank you for finishing my car.”
“My car,” he corrected, “because you’re definitely assigning Sonya to me.”
“Not quite sure that’s how that works, Dufault.” Pleading blue eyes found his. He sighed. “Maybe.”
“Yes!”
“Oh my god, you overgrown child, that isn’t how this works at—”
“Am I interrupting something?” Both men froze, two sets of eyes darting to the doorway. Agent Garcia stood there in all her raven-haired glory, hip leaned against the frame.
Syler jumped up, dislodging Arthur, who muttered roundly. “Francesca! What are you doing here so late?”
The other agent smiled, slipping over and pressing a kiss to his cheek by way of greeting. “Last minute assignment to Panama, cariño. I’m afraid I won’t make our dance Friday night.” She smoothed a hand over his shoulder, adjusting the lapel.
He grinned, shrugging. “S’alright. There’s always next time, and we’ve been a bit busy down here lately anyway.” First ambush aside, Syler was more than a bit chuffed to be counted among the members of the little group of agents and senior staff who went out every Friday; he hadn’t had regular drinking friends since grad school and Sampson and Alvarez sang hilariously bad karaoke duets. “Want to go pick out a few toys from the armory?” He asked, grabbing his key card.
“You call her Francesca?!”
Syler blinked stupidly, astounded by the sheer hurt in his voice. “I—yes? Why wouldn’t I?”
“Well, you’ve certainly never called me Arthur. And what’s this about dancing?”
“We go out on Friday’s when our schedules overlap.” He looked helplessly at Francesca, whose lips were pressed firmly together. “Honestly, what’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. Have a great night.” He shut the door with a resounding click, gone. Syler swallowed, throat suddenly dry. You could hear a pin drop in his office.
“So,” he finally dared to breath, “armory?”
She nodded slowly, following him out into the hall, accepting her equipment issue without question. Even the specialty earrings he’d painstakingly embedded with tiny explosives were met with silence. After pocketing her passport, she just stared at him. Syler fidgeted self-consciously, waiting for the inevitable.
“So tell me,” she finally said, “are you still pretending that nothing is happening between you or was that line an actual pile of steaming garbage?”
Syler closed his eyes, exhausted by the prospect of another round. “Oh, not this again.”
“His head was in your lap, Perrin.” Syler’s jaw shut with an audible click, protests dying in his throat. She nodded as though he’d acknowledged her point out loud. “Look, I’ve known Arthur Dufault for over ten years. On the best of days, he’s a force of nature, so I’m going to give you the benefit of overwhelming doubt and assume that you’re blindly oblivious and not willfully stringing him along while you decide whether or not he’s worth it.”
“I’m not—”
Francesca silenced him with a quelling look, dark eyes daring him to look away. “You are. He’s spent the last six months almost slavishlydevoted to you. He picked you as a handler. He goes home in your car. He sleeps on the couch that he gave you,in a room he arrangedspecifically for you, just so he can be near you. He seeks comfort from you, calms down for you, trusts you. He wants you, clear as day, and you let him.”
Syler swallowed, the truth of it undeniable. “I didn’t mean…”
“I know you didn’t, but the result is the same,” she murmured, eyes and voice softening as she ran a consoling hand over his shoulder. “Make up your mind, Syler. He deserves that much.” With a quick press of lips to his temple, she was gone.
---
Syler spent the remainder of the evening locked away in his office, slumped on the couch, head in his hands, hopelessly attempting to avoid his own feelings. It had been a much more effective strategy in the days before his little family of brutally honest CIA spies came along, all too ready to tear apart his carefully constructed excuses and denials with the same ruthless efficiency they applied to their work.
A soft knock on the door interrupted his ongoing pity party, door clicking open by override code. Maria sat down beside him, door shutting quietly behind her as she slipped an arm around his shoulders.
“Time to deal with it then, huh?”
He let out a watery sigh. “Suppose I have to now.”
She hummed, rubbing soothing circles down his back. “You know I’m married to another member of the agency, right? Not a field agent, mind you, but I get it in every other sense. It’s
