“Jesus, how’d you draw that short straw?”
“I volunteered. We can’t afford to be without a senior security staffer right now and they deserve time with their loved ones.”
“And you don’t?”
“You people are my loved ones, Arthur.”
Arthur stopped abruptly at the admission, breathless. He grinned, a small private thing. If he couldn’t have anything more than that, he realized, he’d still be satisfied. He adored the man beside him. He pressed a hand to the small of Syler’s black, delighting in the faint shiver it elicited, and guided him to the passenger side door. “Let’s go for a ride, sweetheart.”
---
They enjoyed an entirely too short half hour of testing Sonya’s top speeds before Syler regretfully informed him that he needed to get back to the branch. They’d have to leave an assessment of her off road capabilities for another day, though she did handle magnificently on fresh snow.
“Does Mother Boothman not allow you out past dark yet?” He quipped. Hazel eyes rolled. His heart clenched a bit. Business as usual, really.
“I’m telling her you said that,” he promised. “Shift change over is at four o’clock. I need to be there.”
“Please tell me you’re not sleeping at the agency all week,” he begged.
“Fine,” he answered, tone flat, “I won’t.”
As they pulled back into the parking lot, Arthur forewent the vehicle’s assigned parking stall and stopped at the elevator. The younger man shot him a puzzled look. “You’re not running off to take her bouldering or something else I wouldn’t approve of now, are you?”
“Cross my heart,” he grinned.
“Your eyes are doing that twinkling thing again. You know, the one that promises trouble.”
“Would I do anything to cause you trouble, darling?”
“Every moment of our acquaintance, Dufault. Every last one.”
In lieu of answering, Arthur reached over to tuck the fringe of his scarf back into place in his jacket. He tried desperately not to flatter himself into believing his handler was blushing. That road was paved with nothing but heartbreak as he should well know by now. Syler shook his head, stepping out of the car. “I promise I’ll bring her back in one piece before the night is out.”
Syler fixed him with a look. “I’m holding you to that.” He made his way into the elevator, shooting more than one speculative glance over his shoulder until the doors closed.
Arthur let his easy demeanor drop, sighing. An entire week manning the office. Christ, that was almost as depressing as his own plans to get drunk and wallow alone at home. He knew he shouldn’t, he really did, but he was already considering where he could requisition a small Christmas tree for Syler’s office on such short notice. He was setting himself up to be disappointed all over again, and he’d only have his own bleeding heart to blame for it. Still…
‘You people are my loved ones.’
Oh, what the hell.
---
Syler sequestered himself in the data labs upon returning to the branch and assuming shift lead control for the duration of the holidays, alone but for a handful of technicians and junior officers handling comms. He left his jacket, hat, and scarf in his office on his way, but kept the gloves. So sue him, his hands really were always cold and just maybe he enjoyed looking at the monogrammed gold embroidery on the inner wrist.
He knew he hadn’t broadcasted his exact intentions clearly enough to Arthur in the hour they’d been together, but it was a start. He was, despite it all, still inherently nervous about these sorts of things. Besides, he thought, flicking a strand of hair out of his eyes idly, it’s not like the other man was going to want to spend his Christmas holiday locked up in the office with him. He probably had plans like other normal, well adjusted people. He’d ask him on a proper date after New Years.
That settled, he pushed his glasses back up his nose and pulled up the logs on the ongoing Pyrona debacle. Eventually, he figured, he’d stare at it long enough to find something useful to go on. There was something just on the edge of his consciousness, an important clue he was overlooking that would shed some light on the entire mess, but he just couldn’t pin it down.
When it had only been one hacker with a particularly ballsy encryption algorithm, he’d been impressed. Now that he was looking at a small group of hackers seemingly sprung from the ether who utilized the same protocols in seamless tandem, he was baffled. Even his own hand picked team struggled to keep up and they were each experienced professionals, notorious in their own right long before they’d come to the agency. Unknown entities like this didn’t just appear out of thin air and this particular group was improving with every hack, right up until the moment they went radio silent.
“If you frown any harder, your face will get stuck like that.”
Syler startled back to reality, spinning to find Arthur leaned casually in the lab doorway. He glanced at the clock overhead reading just after eight p.m. “Is the car still in one piece then?”
“Not a scratch. Come on, dinner time.”
Syler blinked. “Don’t you have other plans?”
“Just you,” he announced, and lord help him but Syler melted a bit, logging out of the system and heading for the door without argument, following obediently along back to his office. He came to an abrupt halt when he exited the hallway.
“Arthur, why is there a tree in the middle of my desk?”
His agent shrugged casually. “Because it’s Christmas and there was no space for it on the floor. You can even plant it after New Years. I left it in the pot.”
“You got us a tree. Oh my lord, you got us a tree.”
“We can decorate it after dinner, yeah?” And with that, he pulled him into his office.
---
Things were as they always were, Syler reflected later that night. Arthur’s head
