“I don’t suppose—” he began.
“Under no circumstances are you ever allowed to drive her,” he stated, tone final. His handler stepped out, eyes pleading and mouth pressed into an impressive pout. His lower lip was even quivering. Arthur stood firm.
“Had to try,” he conceded, trailing a hand over the hood as they headed for the elevator up to his floor. He curled right back into Arthur’s side once the carriage doors closed, head dropping onto his shoulder. He lived in the CIA owned complex, which was convenient and secure if entirely too close to the agency for Arthur’s liking. At least he didn’t have to worry about leaving Lucy in the parking garage. Operations installed the security system down there themselves.
Syler guided him down the hall of the top floor, units reserved for executive and deputy staffers, coming to a door at the far end. He had a concealed palm reader under the number plate in lieu of a key. “I lose them otherwise,” he admitted sheepishly, pushing the door open and reaching back for Arthur’s hand.
Now, if Arthur were being entirely honest, he’d admit he was cautiously optimistic that he was going to be invited in. Perhaps enthusiastically, maybe directly into the bedroom. So sue him, he was still halfway convinced this was all a very good dream and he wasn’t about to stop imagining possibilities on account of probabilities. He didn’t, in any universe, expect to be frozen in the doorway, paralyzed by the sheer chaos contained in those four walls.
“Perrin, what the actual fuck happened in here?”
Syler blinked slowly, still not entirely sober. “I did warn you that my office is really just an extension of my apartment, didn’t I?”
“There are server banks in your cupboards!”
“They’re well anchored to take the weight and I wasn’t using them for anything else,” he defended.
“That,” Arthur replied, “is not normal.”
“I’m not normal,” Syler stressed, turning to face him with a fortifying breath. “I’m just not. I’m a raging disaster, actually. My living room is a second shop with a couch, three workbenches, and no chairs. I’ve never actually eaten a meal at my kitchen table and the only reason none of it has encroached on my bedroom is because I dedicated the larger master suite to being my home office. So,” he finished weakly, “if you don’t want to come in, I get it.”
Arthur swept his eyes from one end of the open floor apartment to the other, slowly taking in the scene. The kitchen cupboards were, indeed, open facing and entirely lined with server banks. Their branching wires ran along the top edge of the wall into the living room and disappeared into the hallway on the right, presumably leading to the bedrooms. Some of them were fiber optic, casting the space beyond the reach of the kitchen light in a faint green and blue glow. The center island had a breakfast bar with a laptop and a soldering iron, half-assembled earwigs scattered across the counter near a fruit bowl of hand tools.
The living room beyond was a mess of half-finished prototypes and empty coffee mugs. A dangerously overfilled built-in bookshelf took up the entire far wall, its contents spilling onto the floor from the bottom most shelf. The lamp beside the couch looked like a steampunk inspired fever dream illustration brought to life with spare parts and the dining table housed academic journals arranged entirely by color. Finally, he noted, the Christmas tree he’d gifted Syler was tucked on the corner of the table, a space cleared for it to sit by the window.
Syler was deflating by measures as he took in the room. His eyes softened as he reached out a hand to tuck a stray curl behind the other man’s ear. “I keep guns strapped to the underside of every table I own. Who am I to judge?”
His handler gave him a hopeful smile, tugging him inside and shutting the door, leading him down the hall. As promised, the small bedroom was spared from the chaos of the rest of his home. He pressed a hand to the small of the shorter man’s back, reassuring, and was rewarded by Syler leaning into him, yawning into his shoulder.
It was entirely too late to start anything and they really needed to talk first. Arthur breathed out slowly, encouraging the other man to do the same, his hand stroking through Syler’s hair as he sat him on the edge of the bed, helping him out of his sweater when another yawn overtook him, before bundling him under the covers. He was getting up to leave when a tugging at his wrist stopped him.
“Stay,” he ordered, hazel eyes half-shut and head buried in his pillow, entirely too lovely to deny. Two hours into the first day of the new year, Arthur found himself drifting off with dark curls pressed to the underside of his jaw and lithe arms tucked around his waist, perfectly at home.
Twenty-Five
Syler came to slowly, just this side of too hot, his breath muggy where it hit skin, nuzzling deeper into the other man’s neck and brushing a hand across his chest, curling into him further before sighing, blinking his eyes open, all at once pleasantly wide awake. He drew a hand down his agent’s side, taking time to count each rib, before fitting it against his hip and squeezing gently, humming contentedly as a hand stroked up the center of his spine in turn. “Good morning,” he murmured.
“Happy New Year, sweetheart.”
He pressed his lips lightly to the underside of Arthur’s jaw, smiling as the hand trailing up his back came to rest in his hair, tugging gently, drawing him up. He shifted his weight, settling on top of the blond, left hand gliding up to cup his jaw, thumb rubbing absent circles into the faint stubble there, morning bright blue eyes looking up at him with unabashed adoration. He dropped a kiss on the other man’s mouth. “Very.”
Arthur grinned
