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Dylan has a file the size of a phone book.
Agent Zoe de Vera doesn't have time to read it all, and more importantly, she doesn't have the fucking stomach for it. It sits on her desk, held down by the first heavy thing she could find since her paperweights have a limited number. She's skimmed it twice, once more thoroughly than the former, and after the sinkhole disaster she has found herself staring at it whenever she starts to feel a little too cozy with the power her rank affords her here.
There's so much shit to do, to review and organize and relay to other teams, to coordinate and delegate and bitch about, and the constant crash of metal on concrete and screaming Hiss and Mold from Dylan's feed becomes simple background noise to her own battle with bureaucracy. So when there's an extended pause of nothing but her charge's exhausted breaths, she almost doesn't take notice. But -- like a background process on one of the Bureau's minicomputers -- something in Zoe's mind blips online in her internal radar, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up in response. It's like her body feels it coming -- that moment right after you stub your toe and the pain hasn't yet bloomed white hot, that second of cold, unbearable dread.
"Uh, Zoe?"
She's nauseous, weirdly. It doesn't sit right in her body. "Yeah, Dylan?"
"Am I supposed to..." he draws out slowly, unsure, and Zoe can all but feel the quick rise and fall of his chest alongside hers. Can feel her lips screw up in a frustrated pout, wondering if his face matches hers.
This is getting weird. "Time is unfortunately Hiss, Faden," she rolls her left shoulder absently, rubbing her hand over her coat seam. And Mold and Patterns and lord knows what the everloving fuck else.
"Do...do I still have to, uh," he huffs, exasperated. She can sense his face heating up despite the resignation in his sigh. Why does she know him this well? "Requesting permission t-to, relieve myself, Agent de Vera."
She feels like a dick for it later and a little bit in the moment, but something snaps free and clear in her mind and Zoe's odd nausea disappears entirely as she cracks up laughing. "What the hell, man? All that anxiety for-- You're a grown ass man, Dylan, I don't give a flying fuck if you have to go pee, dude. Take five, by all means."
There's shuffling on his end of the call, and the connection feels more distant despite the signal holding strong as ever. "I just didn't know if... uh, ok. Cool."
Zoe squints at nothing while her smile fades, as a stiff breeze comes through the open walls of her office and the files she hadn't deemed important enough to pin down fly out into the open sky. The thin plaster boards along the one side rattle in place, and the din she'd tuned out starts to feel omnipresent. Three different conversations are going on at once around her, at varying levels of distance but all clearly audible here in the Watchtower. Private conversations, things she shouldn't know about her subordinates being laid out for everyone and their mother to hear. Rustling tarps between the cots, boots on unfinished concrete floors, a stream of liquid pouring--
Barely suppressing a disgusted groan but not a scowl, Zoe flips off the radio feed. God knows she doesn't want to be responsible for furthering whatever weird complexes Dylan has (or at least, no more responsible than she is as an active agent of the Federal Bureau of Control and Fucking Human Rights Violations) but she hasn't even ever been comfortable with a partner using the toilet while she's in the shower. In fact, the whole goddamn Watchtower feels borderline suffocating suddenly, despite the space and the free air conditioning. She hasn't had a real moment of privacy in at least a week, falling asleep to the snores of her colleagues, filing their requests for toilet paper and menstrual pads.
A week. Looking at Dylan's file again, all the black ink covering sins she can only guess at, now her nausea is completely her own.
The phone book of nightmares is a few inches to the right side of her radar screen, held down with a planter housing a truly stubborn little succulent plant that just won't give up the ghost. She doesn't know if it's been watered in the last month, its certainly been dry for as long as she's had it.
Zoe de Vera flips back on the radio, and is greeted by the whooshing of air as the little green dot on her screen jumps a meter over a gap between rooftops. She has to stop herself chewing on the inside of her cheek.
"Uh..., Dylan?"
"Yeah, Zoe?"
"You don't have to... ask, anymore."
"Oh." Oh, Zoe's mind plays on a loop. Along with do I still have to and just didn't know. "Uh, okay. Sorry."
She pinches her eyes shut and bites her tongue successfully for once. Complexes, fuck. "Ah, apology accepted, for leaving your radio on while whizzing." She snorts, ignoring the knot in her stomach. "Please spare me next time."
"Wait, I can turn it off?"
Zoe holds her face to her skull as she groans with her whole chest. "Yes, Dylan, its a two way radio. You have both the ability and my official permission to fucking turn it off when you need a moment of privacy. Did no one tell you that?"
She's gleefully surprised at the hard edge to his voice when he responds, "Do you think anyone told me that?"
The pages of the P6 file flutter slightly under the planter. As a kid, Zoe couldn't stand having someone wait outside the stall for her after lunch. She doesn't think she's gotten any less shy in that department, even if she's grown more blunt and confident in every other way. She's always had the opportunity to relieve herself alone, or, at least to complain about it if not. To be vulnerable on her own terms.
It's only been a week with the port-a-johns across from her "office".
"Well," Zoe clears her throat. "On record for my superiors: I fucking hate the FBC's disgusting lack of ethics and the entire goddamn Prime Candidate Program. May all you responsible for it rest. In. Piss."
On the other side of Manhattan, she hears Dylan huff a laugh as she does the same. Feels the air tug at her hair as the green dot jumps another meter. Grins, and hopes Dylan is grinning too.