Chapter Text
“Mother fucker! ” Derek cries, holding his nose. Dex at least has the good grace to look sheepish, though it’s only a subtitle to his pissed expression. “What the fuck was that for?”
“I’m not used to other people touching me.” Dex says, and it sounds like half an apology, which Derek figures is all he’s going to get. “I forgot I wasn’t back in-- back home.” Dex wrinkles his nose in a way that lets Derek know that that’s not at all what he wants to say, which makes him curious.
“Where the hell did they even keep you?” he asks, getting up off of the floor. His nose isn’t broken, though he makes a mental note that Dex has a killer right hook. He wasn’t one of those defenseless Q types, then. “It definitely wasn’t at the HAUS; I’d’ve seen you before now, if so.”
“Maine.” Dex says, rolling his shoulders and settling back into his seat, seemingly more calm. “Like, really fucking remote Maine. Cabin in the woods type of deal, except with really good wifi. It wasn’t too bad.”
“I’m not the woodsy type, so, I’ll take your word for it.” Most of the flannel that was in his civilian clothes was designer; Derek had grown up in Manhattan and had been camping exactly once, for training.
“What, Mr. Champagne and Armani’s never roughed it? I’m so surprised.” Dex rolls his eyes, sitting forward and grabbing his laptop.
“Oh, I’ve done a few things rough.” Derek snorts, smirking and enjoying the way Dex’s face automatically goes red. “I just can’t sustain a lifestyle that way.”
“I
hate
you,” Dex groans, holding his laptop to his chest like that would create some kind of barrier between the two of them. “Did you wake me up for a reason, or did you just want to be annoying?”
“Always the latter,” Derek says, settling back in his own seat. “But, you said to wake you up when we were about to land, and, we’ve got five minutes til be we start our descent. Figured you’d want to be awake before then.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Dex mumbles, and he starts shoving his things into the one bag he brought with him. Derek thought it was kinda weird that he wouldn’t have more-- a case or something with all his gadgetry. There was a lot less hooplah to this quartermaster business than he thought, apparently.
They land not long after, grabbing their suitcases and rolling through customs checks. The entire time, Derek can’t help but watch Dex with some mix of curiosity and wonder. He looks somehow relaxed and tense, eyes wandering everywhere and lingering on ads and people. Derek gets the blinding reminder that, holy shit , this is the first time Dex has left his secret cabin in half a decade, and that, maybe--
Rome, 2013
“It’s really pretty out here.” Derek says as he slides along the side of a building, trying not to fall to his death.
“Nurse, you’re trying to scale a fucking building, stop appreciating the architecture.” Dex snaps. Derek laughs.
“It’s pretty, though,” he repeats. “You ever seen it?”
“I can Google Rome, yes.” Dex says, still sounding annoyed, but now a little cagey, too. Derek frowns as he tries to figure out how to get past a window without being spotted.
“No,” he says. “I mean, like, in person.”
Dex is silent for so long that Derek’s about to question it before the other man blurts, almost faster than Derek can process it: “I’ve never left the country.”
“ What ?” Derek cries, probably very nearly revealing himself. He brings his voice down and hisses “Dude, no way. You’ve never even been to, like, Canada?”
“I just said never, didn’t I?” Dex says, and he sounds embarrassed now. “Keep your fucking voice down; there’s guards through that wall, dumbass.”
“I’m taking you to see Rome one day.” Derek says a few minutes later, after he makes the jump he needs to and is back to moving along the building. “And Paris, and London, and Madrid, Cairo-- everywhere. Me and you, dude, around the world.”
“Get the information, Agent Nurse.” Dex says, voice quieter, and Derek might be imagining the edge to it that sounds like tears. “And then we’ll talk.”
“Oh my god.” Derek says. “Holy shit!”
Dex frowns, eyes snapping to him. “What, what is it?” he asks, voice low. “Do you see something, someone hostile?”
Derek frowns. “Wha-- oh, no, sorry. I was just thinking.”
“Think to yourself.” Dex says, and averts his gaze again, brow furrowed.
“This is the first time you’ve left the country.” Derek says. Dex’s eyes go wide for a moment, and he’s blushing again, but he still won’t look at him.
“Yeah, well.” Dex says, obviously trying to avoid addressing it, but finding no way out. “I didn’t think you remembered that.” he finally mumbles, and acquiescence.
“Forget my promise?” Derek asks, eyebrow raised. “Never-- I don’t forget shit like that. Told you I’d show you Paris someday, didn’t I?”
“Technically, you’re not showing me Paris.” Dex says, but he’s smiling now, and finally meeting Derek’s eye. “I’m showing my own self Paris-- and, it’s not like you’re going to be able to take me to Eiffel Tower or anything; we’re here on business, Nurse.”
“Maybe we’ll get to wrap up early.” Derek says, but he already knows they won’t. It was needless to say that there was more to this all than met the eye, and even the most simple of milk runs would turn into three month operations in half a second.
“Yeah, right,” Dex says, rolling his eyes. “And maybe I’ll buy a ranch in Wyoming.”
“Why the hell would you voluntarily move to Wyoming?” is Derek’s question as they step out off the airport. All Dex does in reply is make a frustrated noise and roll his eyes, though Derek doesn’t miss the deep breath he takes. “I don’t get much fresh air.” he recalls Dex saying, time and time again. Derek really needs to stop thinking about all this stuff, because it’s starting to give him chest pains and butterflies.
Dex is uneasy again as soon as they step out onto the street proper, people surrounding them. He presses close to Derek’s side, and Derek lets him without comment, both because it has its tactical advantages, and because he enjoys the warm presence at his side.
Despite the fact that he’s a solo agent, instead of working in a partnership like Bittle and Jack, or Chowder and Farmer, Derek isn’t a creature of solitude. He’d grown up an only child, and though he had no doubts that his mothers loved him, they’d both been busy and unintentionally distant, and if it were at all possible he got affection even less working for SamWELL, despite the fact that he’d somehow been built up into a lady killer- that actually probably had to do with his history of honeypot missions, but, he couldn’t exactly be blamed for that. He’d grown up not exactly touch starved, but always touch starving , and he’s learned not to take any kind of closeness for granted.
“We, apparently, have hotel reservations now.” Derek almost jumps from how close Dex’s voice is. Not hearing it through a speaker is going to take some getting used to, he knows, but he also thinks that he may never get used to it. Dex holds up a phone he produced from seemingly nowhere, but probably his back pocket, and shows Derek an email. [email protected] is the name in the address bar, and Derek can’t help but smile.
“Gotta love Shits.” he says.
“Get us a cab.” Dex says, but there’s the edge of a laugh in his voice, and it makes Derek smile wider.
Dex is doing something on his phone the whole cab ride, and Derek keeps himself from looking over his shoulder by taking in the scenery. “You gonna bother looking up from that thing?” he asked, almost offhandedly.
“You gonna bother remembering what’s at stake here?” Dex asks, deadpan. Derek doesn’t have to look away from the window to know he hasn’t lifted his head.
“Chill,” he says. “I know what I’m doing here.”
“Technically, you don’t.” Dex says, still not looking up. “Since I still haven’t figured it out.”
“Then figure it out.” Derek says, shrugging. Dex actually does look up this time, but only to glare.
“Fuck you.” he says, which Derek reads as ‘I’m trying’, so he lets it go.
Their hotel is nice; not extravagantly so, like the ones Derek would normally be staying in, trying to lure or impress a high-ranking mark. It’s nice in the normal, average way hotels are, but the way Dex is looking around the lobby when they enter makes Derek think that this is another luxury he’d never experienced. “You wanna scope the lobby out while I check us in?” he asks. Dex makes a vague humming noise in reply, sliding his phone back into his pocket and wandering off.
The reservation, as always, was under Derek’s real first name, and a fake last name-- Derek Poindexter; what kind of name even was that?-- and checking in was easy. He nods Dex towards the elevators after a moment, and Dex follows, seeming at peace with the security of the lobby.
The room is two beds, a bathroom, and very little else, but Dex automatically takes to checking it out like any of the maybe twelve pieces of furniture there could be bugged- which, Derek reasons as he watches him take apart the bedside lamp, is potentially true , but also highly unlikely. “Dude,” he snorts, taking the bed closest to the window. “Chill.”
“Fuck off .” Dex looks like he wants to throw the light bulb at him, but graciously just puts it back into the lamp and starts getting set up on the other side of the room.
“Are you gonna sleep, or?” Derek asks, because it’s pretty late, and because Dex kind of still looks like he needs a good nap.
“Nope.” Dex doesn’t even bother looking at him, continuing to set up his-- frankly, way too many-- laptops and gadgets on the small desk in the corner. “I’ve got work to do.”
“Dude, how do you function ?” Derek asks, because he was used to sleepless nights, sure, but after as many as Dex must have on a regular basis, he’d be more useless than a groggy zombie.
“Generally with a lot of caffeine and spite.” Dex shoots back, as if that’s a normal answer.
“I’m sleeping.” Derek says, and Dex just shrugs.
“Suit yourse-- Jesus Christ, what’re you doing?” He had apparently chosen the moment Derek started pulling his shirt over his head to look up from his work, but, Derek couldn’t be bothered to be embarrassed.
“Getting ready for bed?” he says, voice muffled by the fabric of his shirt as he pulls it the rest of the way over his head and tosses it onto the bed. “I’m not gonna sleep in my clothes, dude; that’s uncomfortable.”
“I don’t care what it is!” Dex splutters, entire face flushing bright red. “Could you at least do it in the bathroom, or something?”
“Bro,” Derek says. “Chill. It’s not a big deal; I don’t sleep naked or anything.”
“I don’t care .” Dex says again, but the octave of his voice implies otherwise. “Just-- whatever. Whatever, do what you want.”
“Always do.” Derek says with a shrug, and goes back to undressing. Dex keeps his back studiously turned, fiddling with his tech more than Derek thinks is strictly necessary, but Derek doesn’t question it. He probably should have known better than to just blindside Dex with some semi-nudity, but also, he figured that full immersion was going to be the only way to go here. Neither of them could afford to have him off his game because he was busy walking on eggshells in an attempt to shelter Dex. He was a big boy, and a full agent, and despite the stupid little voice in Derek’s head telling him that he needed to be protected, Dex could handle himself.
He settles down not long after, leaving the light on for Dex’s benefit; he’s slept in worse conditions. “Good night.” he calls, and gets a grunt in reply. He chooses, with false hope, to read it as ‘sweet dreams’, and closes his eyes, drifting off soon enough to the sound of Dex’s fingers dancing across the keyboard.
Derek wakes up to screaming. He’s out of bed and on his feet immediately, eyes darting around the room to find the source of the noise and the threat; he identifies the first as Dex easily enough, and the second as--
Empty air. There was no one in the room, and after rushing over, Dex didn’t seem to be bleeding. “Dude,” he asks, a little breathless, brow furrowed. “Are you okay? What happened, are you--”
“I’m fine, Nurse.” Dex is speaking through gritted teeth, and refusing to meet Derek’s eye. “I fell asleep, sorry.”
“That doesn’t explain the screaming.” Derek says, but upon closer examination, it kind of does. The rise and fall of Dex’s chest looks almost forced, and if he’d been sleeping, then that meant that--
“I have nightmares, alright?” Dex snaps, pushing himself away from the desk and away from Derek in one move, scrubbing at his eyes. “I’m usually alone when I have them, and not in some weird hotel room, so that probably made them worse. It’s not a big deal, alright? I’m fine.”
“You need to get some real sleep, man.” Derek says, instead of stepping forward and doing something absurd like pulling Dex into his arms, because that was likely to get him punched again. “Lay down. I can stay awake and watch the room, if that’d make you feel safer.”
“Don’t make it weird; I said I was fine.” Dex huffs, but his voice is gentler and his breathing has evened out a little bit. “I need to finish this up before I go to bed, anyway.” He gestures back at one of his laptops.
Derek squints at the screen, but can’t tell what any of the fast-moving text filtering across the screen says, so he turns back to Dex. “What is it?”
“It’s an algorithm for solving the code that’s on that drive.” Dex answers, scooting back over to the desk. “I linked it to the cryptology database back at WELL, and it’s running through all the possible combinations of encryption or code this could be- hopefully, we’ll find at least a partial match, and can have something to go off of.”
“Fucking sweet .” Derek gives a low whistle. “So, is it not done?”
Dex looks like he actually has to consider this, brow furrowing. “I mean, it mostly is, I guess.” he admits finally. “But, I was going to stay up and watch it, so--”
“So, you’re not doing that anymore.” Derek cuts in. “ Sleep , man. I know you’re used to being mission control and shit, but, you’re not sitting alone behind a desk anymore.”
“Technically I am, right now.” Dex says, gesturing at his setup. Derek rolls his eyes.
“You know what I mean.” he says. “Go to sleep, Dex. We’ve got the fucking time, believe me; there’s gotta be thousands of combinations for that to run through.”
Dex stares at him for a full minute before he sighs and nods. “Fine.” He pushes away from the desk and stretches, kicking off his shoes and flopping onto the bed Derek hadn’t been sleeping in. He doesn’t undress more than that, or get under the covers, but he wriggles around into weirdly contorted position with his back to the wall that Derek has to assume is somehow comfortable. “Turn the light off.” he yawns, eyes falling shut. Derek snorts.
“You got it, bro.” he says, and does just that before climbing back into bed. “Night, Dex.”
“Whatever, Nurse.” Dex huffs, and Derek chooses to read that the same way as he had before.
He waits until he hears Dex’s breathing even out before he drifts off again.