Work Text:
Ethan calls Brandt on his IMF cellphone, which is normal, and tells him to pack his boring analyst clothes, which is not.
"Fine," Brandt says, and packs an extra suitcase with power ties and argyle sweaters.
Benji picks him up from the Tucson airport in a giant ugly rented SUV with what looks like three full server racks in the back.
"Christ, Benji," Brandt says, "Are we doing a job or starting a dot com?"
Benji proceeds to rattle off a series of explanations for why they have enough tech power to run a small nation but it all boils down to the usual Benji-speak of: I think this shit is really cool, so we're doing it. It's this kind of logic that usually leads to Brandt jumping into cavernous access shafts or getting shot.
"That was just the one time," Benji says.
Brandt rolls his eyes. It's been more than one time.
Benji continues to babble about firewalls and encryption protocols and something called PKI; Brandt closes his eyes and lets it all wash over him. When he'd been just an analyst Brandt had studied a lot of old WWII intelligence reports. Apparently, back then, IMF agents used to break into enemy buildings and/or beat the shit out of hostiles to get what they needed. In comparison to the jobs the IMF pulls these days, they sound almost relaxing.
"Home sweet home," Benji says, pulling the SUV into an almost-invisible, unmarked driveway.
The safe house this time is an actual house in the foothills, a massive estate that may or may not have been a dude ranch in its heyday.
Once through the front door, Benji embarks on his usual search for the darkest, coolest room with the most electrical outlets. He disappears down a flight of stairs to what Brandt assumes is a basement with a, "Dying for a pint, mate," and a grin thrown over his shoulder.
Brandt says, "Sounds great, get me one too if you're buying." Benji's laugh echoes back from what sounds like a cave.
Brant goes to find Ethan and Jane.
Ethan, because he's Ethan, is wearing sunglasses and cowboy boots when Brandt finds him on the back porch. Jane is perched next to him, sipping at a glass of what smells like good bourbon and occasionally smiling in a pinched-off way at whatever Ethan's mumbling about.
"Agent Brandt," Jane says as Brandt pulls within earshot.
"Agent Carter, Agent Hunt," he says, half-sitting, half-falling into a low lawn chair. He probably should have checked for scorpions first.
Despite its usual portrayal in the media, not all espionage and intrigue happens in interesting places. Their first post-Ghost Protocol mission was a milk run in Middle of Nowhere, Georgia (the state).
Unprepared for the long stretches of hurry-up-and wait, Brandt finished the one book he'd packed too quickly and then spent four hours listlessly watching a Storage Wars marathon.
"If I spend one more hour in this house, trailer, whatever, I'm going to lose it," Brandt had said, on the verge of climbing the walls, desperate.
Benji had finally looked up from the endless scrolling text of the server logs he was tailing. "You, too?"
Brandt remembers saying the first thing that came to his mind, which happened to be, "You want to get out of here?" He'd winced at the time at how cheesy it had sounded.
Benji'd snapped the lid of his laptop shut with probably more force than necessary, and said, "I thought you'd never ask."
Since they were still miles away from anything to actually do, they ended up at a dry-county Applebee's drinking iced tea and playing cards for five hours. It was still better than Storage Wars.
Brandt gets to the room he's been assigned, checks for bugs out of habit, and unpacks his suitcases.
This is actually one of the nicer places they've been assigned to.
In comparison to some of the shitholes they've been stuck in (like Middle of Nowhere, Georgia or an abandoned opium den in Afghanistan) Tucson is awesome. The safe house is decorated like a rustic, desert-themed bed & breakfast with dried-out cow skulls hung on the walls and Indian rugs on most flat surfaces. The effect is surprisingly charming.
Before long there's a knock at the door. Brandt opens it to Benji holding a six-pack of Dos Equis in one hand and season one of The Walking Dead in the other.
"If you don't want to sleep with the lights on," Benji says, "I also have Glee for some reason."
Benji has a brother in Bristol with odd taste in the DVD sets he sends on gift-giving holidays. Brandt sympathizes because Brandt has his mother.
For Christmas, Brandt got a tie from Benji, a new untraceable cellphone from Ethan, a wicked-looking bowie knife from Jane, and his mother inexplicably sent him a DVD of Cowboys & Aliens. He immediately forgot about the DVD and didn't think about it again until he got the call about their next operation and he found it near a stack of unread paperbacks (also from his mother). He'd grabbed a book for the plane ride and the DVD, too, thinking that maybe Benji (of anyone he knew) would be willing to watch it with him.
It turns out that Benji was. Benji was also up for watching everything else his mother had sent him over the last five years, including: Battlestar Galactica (the new one), True Blood, Lost, Life on Mars (the British version), and Stargate: Universe.
Another thing most people don't know about covert ops is just how much downtime you actually have on most missions.
"Be there in five," Brandt says.
For reasons unexplored, tucked into a back corner of the basement behind the area Benji has claimed as a workroom is a windowless room with rows of theater seats, an optical screen, and a color-corrected projector. This comes in handy, given that the people who prepare IMF mission briefings are inordinately fond of PowerPoint slides, just like every other government agency.
Brandt arrives five minutes early and finds Benji, who has already set up a laptop in the corner with enough cables coming from it that it resembles a small, boxy squid.
"Good morning!" Benji says, cheerfully. His shirt, which is orange & blue plaid, is actually giving Brandt a headache when he looks at it too closely. All the clothes Benji wears are ugly, and to make it worse he wears a lot of them all at once, even in warm climates like Arizona.
"It's 90 degrees outside," Brandt says.
"Don't look at me like that. Gingers do not tan," Benji says, "We only burn."
The promise of instantaneous sunburn is Benji's usual explanation for his blatant fear and loathing towards the sun, but it's a lie. Benji only burns after he first breaks out into a riot of freckles. Brandt has had inappropriate thoughts about those freckles. He's also, against his will, developed a thing for ugly plaid shirts.
Brandt shakes his head, clearing his mind. This is never a productive line of thought.
Ethan arrives, heads to the A/V setup and starts step one (out of seventeen) of IMF's identity verification protocol.
Jane strides in with a cup of coffee, nestles into a chair to Brandt's right. Benji hits the lights by the door, takes a seat in the second row.
Ethan enters a final passcode and the briefing activates.
Their target is a man named Mark Cade, 37 year old telecommunications mogul. He has a BS and an MBA from Harvard, a small fleet of private jets, and a net worth of 6.7 billion. He gives millions in stock options annually to charity and coaches a little league baseball team with a decent record.
"And," Ethan says, drawing the word out for no discernible reason, "He calls his mother every Sunday."
What makes Mark Cade interesting to the IMF is that he lives with his sister, Renee, who happens to be selling weapons-grade plutonium to Iran. Getting to Renee's operation would mean gaining access to a larger network of people the IMF would like to know more about.
Renee is a ruthless, brilliant mercenary who is as paranoid and protected as a mid-sized military installation. She runs her whole operation out of the house she shares with Mark and breaking into the house unnoticed isn't really an option. The compound was custom-built for the Cade siblings with private tennis courts, an Olympic-sized infinity pool with a view of the mountains, and more security controls than the Apple prototype labs.
She has no discernible weakness or access points, besides Mark. Luckily, Mark has a thing for slightly awkward blond men.
The mission that they've all chosen to accept is to use Mark to set up electronic surveillance on Renee.
It becomes pretty clear, pretty quickly that Brandt gets to seduce the rich guy this time.
"Well," Ethan says, "You did volunteer."
Ethan has made it through this entire Mark Cade, this is your life! presentation without actually pulling up a picture of the guy. When he finally does, it becomes clear to Brandt that as well as being absurdly rich and phenomenally successful, Mark Cade is really hot.
"Shit," Benji says. Brandt looks back at him, is more than a little surprised at what he sees. Brandt doesn't have to be the best intelligence analyst in the country to read the obvious panic on Benji's face. Well that's new.
"We need inside," Ethan says. "Agent Brandt is our best option."
Best meaning: cheapest, quickest, and least likely to get all of them killed. It's rare in Brandt's experience that the best option is the one they actually get to use. Ethan's plan is surprisingly simple, if they can pull it off: get Cade to invite Brandt over, plant bugs. No masks, no jumping off of anything. Brandt is warming to it, which is why it's confusing when Benji says, "I don't like this plan, it won't work, have you thought about tunneling?"
Ethan looks at Benji in disbelief, pulls up an overhead schematic of the Cade compound. "Ground vibration sensors, infrared here, here, and here," Ethan says, pointing to various points on the satellite overview. "Guards, fences, of course, and because it's Tucson, no vegetation on the compound besides palm trees and cacti."
Benji looks for a moment like he wants to say something more, but Jane glares at him and he drops it.
To his credit, Ethan only pauses momentarily before saying, "This is the plan."
Jane says, "Without an explicit invitation, we're not getting in."
"So how do we get an invitation?" Brandt asks.
"Well," Ethan says. "We know he plays tennis."
Brandt finds golf courses in desert climates disconcerting. The tennis courts at the Tucson Country Club are nestled in a healthy grass lawn that abruptly drops into hard-packed dirt and scrub brush beyond the reach of the irrigation system. Dubai struck him the same way, the jarring sight of lush greenery against a backdrop of rolling sand dunes. Brandt always has to push down his immediate sense of revulsion at this kind of ostentatious use of water in a place otherwise desperately dry and thirsty.
Brandt makes his way to Court 7 where Mark Cade is doing warm up stretches against one of the posts holding up the net.
"Mark is it?" Brandt asks, extending a hand. "I'm Will."
In his ear, Benji grumbles, "Will? You're going with Will? I bet you even think of yourself as Brandt."
Brandt glares up at the nearest security camera.
Jane hisses, "Are you going to talk this whole time?"
Benji mumbles, "Sorry, sorry. I'll be quiet."
"Will?" Cade asks, reaching out and warily shaking Brandt's proffered hand. "I thought I drew Nils in the first round?"
"Nils called in sick," Brandt says.
Benji quickly breaks his vow of silence to say, "He was exhibiting sedative-like symptoms. Could be contagious."
"They called me to fill in," Brandt says, working hard to keep a straight face.
Cade gives him a somewhat visible once-over. "You'll do," he says, smirking. He has an attractive, slightly predatory smile.
"Likewise," Brandt says.
Brandt loses the match two sets to one, putting up a decent fight considering he hasn't touched a tennis racquet since college. More important, between sets and during breaks as they're changing sides he makes panting small-talk with Cade.
Ethan had said the phrases act naturally, be yourself, and just relax by themselves or in combination at least a hundred times when they were talking out strategy, so he doesn't really put up much of an artifice. He answers Cade's questions honestly about where he's from (Oklahoma), what he likes to do (run, watch science fiction, read books about baseball), and where he got that hideous shirt (Benji).
The one thing he does lie about is his job. If anyone asks, he works for a firm that does green construction, water reclamation, and xeriscaping. Jane thinks it makes him sound down-to-earth, like a guy with a conscience. Benji asked how to spell xeriscaping three times.
After the last point (a fantastic down the line serve from Cade, followed by a pitiful return and about two seconds of volleying from Brandt), Brandt strides to midcourt for the traditional post-game over-the-net handshake.
"Great game," Cade says, holding on to Brandt's hand for longer than strictly necessary.
Brandt smiles, trying to imbue it with as much aw-shucks earnestness as he can summon these days. "I'd love a rematch sometime," he says.
Cade doesn't let go of his hand and Brandt can feel his heart start to race, feel a blush creeping up across his face. Cade has really interesting, clear blue eyes; Brandt can't bring himself to look away.
"How about I buy you a drink instead?" Cade says, finally releasing his hand.
"Uh," Brandt says, intelligently.
"Agent!" Jane hisses in his ear.
"Yes!" Brandt says, coming back to himself. He finally remembers to pull his hand back, and Cade laughs. He has a really good laugh.
"You're adorable," Cade says, leaning in slightly. Brandt's heart starts going like a jackrabbit.
Out of nowhere Brandt's earpiece goes haywire, screeching for an endless few seconds into his brain like a speaker picking up reverb. Brandt noticeably flinches, grabbing his head and praying Cade just thinks he has a headache.
"You alright?" Cade asks, concerned, laying his hand on Brandt's shoulder. It's been a while since someone touched him that wasn't trying to kill him.
"Fine, fine," Brandt says, right as he hears Benji saying, "Sorry! Sorry again! My fault!"
Cade looks at him sideways, says, "I don't think I believe you."
"No, really, I'm fine," Brandt says and smiles, shaking his head. He darts a quick, questioning look at the security camera.
Cade drops his hand from Brandt's shoulder, reluctantly, and Brandt finds himself missing the weight, the warmth. Cade looks at his watch. "Next round of play starts in an hour, but are you free later? Tonight?"
Brandt remembers to actually say something this time, without Jane prompting.
"Absolutely."
Despite having brought almost his entire wardrobe, Brandt really doesn't know what to wear.
Brandt hasn't been on a date in a long time. When he'd been an analyst, he'd lived for a while in DC and let his sister arrange blind dates for him. The longest relationship from that had lasted for three months. Since the whole Ghost Protocol thing, he hasn't been in one place long enough to see anyone on a regular basis. And when he has down time on a mission these days, more often than not he winds up in Benji's room drinking beer and watching Doctor Who.
Benji. Until today, Brandt had blithely assumed that Benji was exactly what he seemed to be: terrible dresser, freakishly competent, and not particularly interested in Brandt. But that didn't go very far toward explaining Benji's wildly erratic behavior today.
Maybe Benji was just having an off day? Even highly-trained IMF field agents are capable of completely losing their shit every once in a while.
Brandt realizes he's spent the last 10 minutes staring blankly into the closet in his room. Was he supposed to wear a suit? If this was another blind date with one of Kate's friends, he'd wear a suit.
His sister had a habit of setting him up with people she knew, but the only people she knew were high-powered litigators and K Street lobbyists. It's all fine if you like $350 bottles of Bordeaux and in-depth discussions about ethanol subsidies or constitutional law, which she does, but Brandt doesn't. His idea of a perfect date is a frozen pizza, a box of wine, and a DVD set of the original Star Wars movies. Basically, it's the hanging out he does with Benji, plus sex.
Benji again. Was he jealous of Cade? Was that why he was acting so off? Brandt starts to think dangerous, slightly hopeful thoughts, and then he thinks again that he's reading too much into it.
When he'd gotten back to the safe house, Ethan had said, "Well done," Jane had patted him on the back in approval, and Benji had looked at him awkwardly for a minute before saying, "Right, well, I need to… solder something."
It's pretty obvious that whatever Benji is dealing with, he's going to deal with it by avoiding Brandt entirely.
When not accidentally deafening Brandt.
Or setting off the smoke detector in the basement.
Brandt runs towards the sound, taking the stairs four at a time, and storms into the basement gun-first. What he finds when he gets there is Benji flapping a towel at something on fire on his workbench.
"What the hell are you planning on doing with that?" Benji yells, gesturing at Brandt's gun. "Were you going to shoot the fire? That's brilliant!"
Brandt shoves the gun into the waistband of his pants, says, "OK, dumb move."
Benji gapes, "Yeah, you think?"
Luckily, that's when Jane runs in with a fire extinguisher. She puts the fire out in a series of quick, efficient moves that could be used as an example in fire safety training. It takes about 20 seconds. After it's out, she stomps out the sizzling ashes with the butt of the now empty fire extinguisher, then calmly turns and walks out of the room. Brandt stands there, staring at her and feeling more like a dumbass than a highly trained IMF agent. Jane has this effect on people, sometimes.
After she's gone, Brandt surveys the foam-covered, hissing and smoking wreckage. It turns out Benji really did need to solder something.
"What were you," Brandt starts to say, but when he looks up he sees that Benji is blatantly staring at him. It takes Brandt a few seconds to realize he isn't wearing a shirt. "Oh right," he says, "I was getting dressed."
"I can see that," Benji says. Brandt crosses his arms. He has a perverse urge to say, hey, my eyes are up here.
"What the hell happened here?" Brandt asks.
Benji reaches into the foam-covered mess on the workbench, comes back with a badly burned paperback, the half-gone cover reading:
CHIL
O
DU
It looks remarkably like the copy of Children of Dune that Brandt lent him last mission.
"I put the soldering iron down without looking," Benji says. "I was distracted." For this whole operation so far Benji's been distracted.
"What's going on with you," Brandt asks. "I haven't seen you this off since… I've never seen you this off."
"It's just, you know, this and that," Benji says unconvincingly.
"No," Brandt says, slowly, "It's not. It has something to do with this operation."
Benji stiffens, says, "It isn't any of your business." On a good day saying none of your business to Brandt is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Today hasn't been a good day.
"None of my business!" Brandt yells. "You made it my business when you nearly burned the house down!"
"Well it didn't burn down, so you should," Benji starts shouting, but abruptly trails off, distracted again, says, "Christ, would you put a shirt on already?"
Brandt moves closer to Benji instead of father away, which would be the reasonable choice, says, "Or what?" His heart is going like he's in the middle of a firefight and Benji looks half furious/half turned on. How long has this been going on? It's not possible Benji's always looked at him like this and he just hasn't noticed.
"FINE," Benji says, throwing his hands up. "It's not like you don't already know." And he moves quickly (you can forget, sometimes, that he's a field agent), putting his hands on Brandt's waist and kissing him, uncoordinated and slightly off.
Holy shit! What? This is not something he already knew! If this had been something he knew already they'd have been doing this months ago!
Brandt hears himself gasping into the kiss, realizes he's grabbed Benji by the back of his neck.
Holy shit!
Benji's hands go from grabbing his hips to shoving him back and it takes a second for Brandt's addled brain to process why -- footsteps on the stairs. Light tread, short heel, probably Ethan's cowboy boots.
Brandt can only imagine what Ethan thinks when he sees what's at the bottom of the stairs: the smoking wreckage on the workbench, Brandt bewildered and shirtless, Benji looking panicked.
Ethan shakes his head and says, "Get it together, the both of you."
Benji says, "Hey!" right as Brandt says, "Me? I didn't even-"
Ethan cuts them both off with a slashing gesture and a glare. He says, "We leave in 15."
Brandt stands, frozen in place, attempting to process. He looks helplessly over at Benji, which only serves to get his brain stuck in a loop of thinking you should do that again.
"Agent Brandt," Ethan says. "Move."
Spurred into action only by years and years of training, Brandt nods, walks to the stairs. It takes a lot of effort not to look back at Benji on his way out. Jesus, they don't have time for this. The have a job to do. He has to get his head in the game.
Brandt gets back to his room, puts on a button down/sweater/tie combination, realizing only after he gets in the car that he's wearing the tie Benji gave him for Christmas.
Between the end of the tennis match and 2000 MST, a series of phone calls morphed 'a drink' into dinner at a local brewpub. The place Cade chose has a chilled-out atmosphere, college basketball on the TV over the bar. It's the kind of place Brandt would have picked out if he'd known about it.
No security cameras inside, Ethan is babysitting from the end of the bar in a hastily acquired U of A jersey.
Benji is faking mechanical trouble in the parking lot and bugging Cade's car to the nines. By the time he's done there will be enough sensors on the undercarriage of Cade's Lexus to map the surface of the entire compound, pick up all sound in or around the car, and piggyback on any Wi-Fi signal in a 100km radius. This hybrid, kitchen-sink sensor is what Benji had been soldering in the basement. He's hopeful it'll be all they need, but likely it'll only turn up the prairie dog tunnels on the grounds, Cade's taste in satellite radio, and his Netflix queue.
Jane is off-site, keeping tabs on the sister. It helps, every once in a while, to remember that charming, handsome Mark Cade has a ruthless, psychotic sister that needs to be stopped.
Cade's waiting by the Please Be Seated sign when Brandt walks in.
"Will!" Cade says, warmly. "You look fantastic. I love the tie."
Cade looks absurdly good. He's wearing a casual, GQ-cover kind of outfit, probably provided by some sort of independent style consultant. Brandt feels overdressed and nervous, which is good, he's supposed to be slightly awkward. Awkward is Cade's type.
Cade steers them to a booth in the back, talks Brandt into a cheeseburger and a pint of something called Monkeyshine. If he's half as effective at talking people out of their money as he is at charming men into greasy food and dark beer, Brandt understands how he's a billionaire before the age of 40. If that persuasiveness is a family trait, that's one more reason Renee Cade is extremely dangerous.
The cheeseburger is surprisingly good, the beer more so, and Brandt has chemistry with Cade, the kind you can't really fake.
Somewhere between talking about baseball (Cade, being a transplant from Massachusetts, is a fanatical Red Sox fan) and arguing over politics (like many white men with lots of money, Cade is a Ron Paul supporter), Cade asks, "You're not seeing anyone, are you?"
Brandt's brain briefly stutters over the memory of kissing Benji. Seeing someone? There wasn't a good answer to that.
Benji's voice comes in over his earpiece saying, "All done here. Heading home, good luck."
Brandt takes a sip of beer to hide his unintended hesitation, says, "Not right now, no."
Aside from that brief hiccup, it's easy to focus on just Cade. He's clever, knowledgeable about almost anything Brandt can think of to talk about. And, unlike most high-powered businessmen that Brandt's met, Cade doesn't even check his cell phone once over dinner.
Turns out the IMF is leaps and bounds a better matchmaker for him than his sister. It's one of the better dates Brandt's been on in years, aside from the fact this isn't a real date, this an operation. Renee Cade is about to take a rare trip out of town and their window of opportunity opens and closes tomorrow night. Brandt has tonight and tomorrow to establish trust, a connection, and enough momentum to rocket them through to the next phase.
Cade picks up the check and together they amble out into the warm Tucson night, bumping shoulders every few steps. Cade, ever the gentleman, walks him to his car.
When they get there, Brandt says, "So…"
Cade moves in and kisses him, presses him against the side of his rented SUV. Brandt opens his mouth in surprise, and Cade moves in closer, deepening the kiss.
Brandt hears a shocked gasp. It's not him and it's not Cade, which leaves…
Shit, Benji wasn't supposed to see that. He wasn't even supposed to be on site anymore.
A car alarm sounds from the other side of the parking lot, startling Cade.
Cade smiles, embarrassed, moves to step away, and Brandt kisses him this time. He has to sort of psych himself up to it -- something he wouldn't have had to do if he'd never met Benji Dunn. Cade smiles into the kiss.
Cade starts to whisper, "Do you want to-"
Brandt's phone rings.
"Don't yell, this is part of the plan," is what Benji says when Brandt picks up. This isn't the plan; Jane calling pretending to be his sister was the plan.
"Now?" Brandt says, actually following the plan.
Benji says, "While you can't really yell at me, I wanted to say I'm sorry I've been a prick all day. And that I'm sorry about what happened, uh, in the basement. You know. Won't happen again."
"No," Brandt says between gritted teeth, "It's OK. I understand."
"You're just doing your job," Benji says, "It's hard to remember that, you know, in the heat of it. And anyway, it's not like I, you know, like we ever. Before. Anyway, you should probably take your sister to hospital now."
Brandt desperately wants to ask like we were ever WHAT? He says instead, "No, don't worry about it, I'll be right there."
Cade, who seems to be auditioning for Prospective Boyfriend of the Year, looks genuinely concerned. "What's going on? Everyone OK?"
"Yeah," Brandt says, "My sister just sprained her ankle, needs a ride to the doctor."
"Oh, wow. That's terrible," Cade says.
"I've got to go," Brandt says, sounding reluctant, even to his own ears.
"Not a problem," Cade says. For a long second Brandt is afraid he's going to offer to come with, but he doesn't. "Tomorrow?" He asks, instead. Hopeful.
"Absolutely."
Ever since Brandt's been back from his date with Cade, Benji has been conspicuously absent. He's managed to have conveniently just left every damn room in the house right before Brandt's entered.
Around 1730, Brandt decides this shit has gone on long enough.
Brandt goes looking for Benji, finds Jane instead.
"Agent Brandt," she says, catching him by the arm. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"
He's learned not to say no to Jane when she asks like that.
Jane steers him into the living room, sits him down on one of the Indian-blanket covered couches. She opens with, "Ethan thinks… because of his past, Ethan is convinced that no relationship is worth the risk." As conversations starters go, it's not her best move.
Brandt asks, "Do you think that?"
Jane shakes her head. "No," she says. "With Trevor…"
Jane trails off; lost in some memory Brandt isn't a part of.
The generally accepted RUMINT on Jane and Agent Hanaway is that they were in a relationship when he died; some even have them secretly married. Brandt's heard it from plenty of people and if he didn't know Jane, he'd have believed it. Knowing Jane, that explanation seems too clean and clear-cut when her reality has too many sharp edges. Jane has regret in her voice when she talks about him, not just loss.
He'd asked Benji about them once, but Benji had looked pained, said, "Best not to talk of the past, sometimes."
Jane visibly pulls herself together, sits up straighter. She says, "With Trevor I was dumb. I should have said something and by the time he said something…" She quickly runs her thumb under her right eye. "You never know what will happen. So stop being dumb."
Brandt thinks it's a little unfair to call him the dumb one in this situation.
Jane says, "What you have... The way you two take care of each other, ever since the beginning. You should take the chance."
Brandt blinks. Ever since the beginning? Has he been that obvious? "Have you known the whole time?" he asks.
Jane laughs, a little watery. "No!" she says, "Of course not. We thought you were already together."
Brandt's brain screeches to a surprised halt. "What?" he asks.
Jane nods, says, "We weren't 100% sure, but we thought at least since Georgia."
"The state or the country?" Brandt asks, then says, "No, doesn't matter, don't answer that."
"Did you actually play cards at Applebee's?" Jane asks, curious.
He'll be the first one to admit that if it wasn't true, it would sound like a really terrible cover story.
"What did you think we were doing," Brandt starts to ask, cuts himself off, "No don't answer that either."
Some things make sense now that didn't used to, like how his room is always next to Benji's, sometimes with a connecting door. Or why Benji is always the one to pick him up from the airport. Or why Ethan and Jane have been blaming him for Benji's recent freak outs. Brandt doesn't blame them for assuming; looking at it from the outside he'd draw the same conclusion.
Brandt stares down at his hands so he doesn't have to look Jane in the eye. "It wasn't like that," he says. "Not from the beginning like that."
When Brandt first met Benji, he'd been having what could easily be described as A Bad Day.
Brandt's first impressions of Benji were, in order: 1) why is that guy glaring at me, 2) the British guy is actually kind of foxy, and 3) that t-shirt is hideous.
Horrifying sartorial choices aside, if they'd met in any other context Brandt would have asked Benji if he wanted to get a drink sometime. But they didn't meet in any other context, they met in a Russian boxcar while Brandt's relatively expensive suit was still dripping river water. All Brandt had wanted at that moment, besides saving the world from a psycho with a nuclear launch device, was dry clothes and a nap.
What he got was dry clothes and all-expenses paid trip to Dubai. He still doesn't really know why he had nodded yes when he'd been asked if he was in on that particular mission, but he did. Once he had, once he'd said yes to embarking on a batshit crazy plan to save the planet, there wasn't a lot of getting-to-know you time with the rest of team. When they landed in Dubai time seemed to speed up suddenly, and then Ethan nearly cracked his skull open on the side of a building, Jane kicked a woman out of a 119-story window, and Benji convinced him to jump 25 feet into an oven. It was probably the best team-building exercise of all time, but Brandt felt afterwards the he'd probably missed some sort of window of opportunity re: the surprisingly foxy British tech guy.
After that they were on missions in Georgia (the state), Bolivia, Croatia, Georgia (the country), and Benji went from being a stranger of above-average attractiveness to being his friend, the guy he watched Farscape with.
Brandt had thought he'd been looking, that there had never been the slightest indication that Benji was interested. And after what happened in Dubrovnik, Brandt had been satisfied with just knowing that Benji was alive.
He'd thought they already were all they were ever going to be, he'd assumed it was too late to start over.
Jane leans forward, puts her hand on his in a more overt gesture than she usually goes for. She says, "It's never too late."
Until it is goes unspoken.
20 minutes away from moving out on this op, Benji absolutely has to be in his work room or Ethan will kill him. So Brandt finally finds him.
"I need to talk to you," Brandt says, descending into the basement.
"I need to talk to you, too." Benji says, and for a second Brandt thinks they're on the same page. "We need to run down your gear before you go."
Brandt rubs his eyes, trying to push back what feels like an approaching tension headache. Apparently, Benji's entire strategy about whatever's going on with them is to pretend nothing ever happened. That strategy never works, that strategy is in fact insane.
"OK," Benji says, pointing at a small, easily concealed vial of clear liquid. "This is your sedative here. Standard issue, flavorless, untraceable, should take him under for about three hours. Long day, decent bottle of wine, boring movie, he nods off and voila! He wakes up, you're watching late-night CNN and no one is any the wiser."
Benji grins up at him, an old shared joke between them; Brandt passes out exhausted on Benji's couch all the time. He's come to more than once, groggy and disoriented to Benji watching 1AM reruns of Anderson 360.
"Why didn't you wake me up?" he'd asked once.
Benji'd said, "You looked tired."
Brandt smiles a little at the memory. Benji keeps looking at him in a way that can only be described as fond, and for a second Brandt finds himself involuntarily holding his breath. Except then Benji says, "And here we have your listening devices and your server interface." Brandt breathes out, disappointed. Benji holds up small, credit-card sized objects, designed to fit into his wallet. "Try and get the server done first and I can work you through the rest once I get a peek inside."
"Right," Brandt says, since they're obviously just… not talking about it. "Where am I going?"
"Well, depends on where you start from. Easiest accent point is," and here Benji pauses for a lot longer than he usually does explaining access points. "Right, easiest access is coming from the bedroom." Benji sort of winces, pushes on. "You can do the living room as well, but there are no cameras in the bedroom and fewer between there and the servers."
Benji is obviously uncomfortable with the idea of Brandt being in Cade's bedroom, but Benji is just going to let it go, apparently. Like he did over the phone. Brandt pushes down hard on the urge to hit something. Right now only two people in the world think Brandt really wants to have sex with Mark Cade: Mark Cade and apparently Benji.
Brandt looks Benji in the eye. "Alright then," he says. "I get in there, we play a game of Jenga, I knock him out, and you and I go to town."
"Jenga?" Benji asks, confused. Brandt had said play a game of Jenga because it was easily the most innocuous thing he could think of two people doing. This seems to have been lost on Benji.
"Yep," Brandt says. "I like Jenga. You don't like Jenga?" At this point Brandt wishes he'd chosen a better game to make his poorly masked point with. Yahtzee?
"I like Jenga fine," Benji says, sounding a little perplexed.
"Great," Brandt says. "Fantastic." This is going badly. He likes problems better when he can shoot at them to make them go away. He spent years writing exceptionally boring COMINT briefs just to avoid this kind of confrontation.
Benji looks at him sideways, leery. He says, "Are we not actually talking about Jenga?"
Brandt shakes his head, sighs. "If I ask you what's going on, are you going to kiss me again?"
Benji looks briefly horrified, then defensive. He says, "I said I was sorry-"
"Yeah, you did." Brandt says, "You didn't ask if I wanted to do it again."
It seems to take longer than normal for Benji to parse what Brandt's trying to tell him.
Brandt continues, "That doesn't seem fair. Between you and the IMF I'm not feeling a lot of self-determination recently."
"You want to… do it again?" Benji asks, flat.
"Christ, Benji, yes." Brandt says. Somewhere between Georgia and Georgia, Brandt had stopped thinking, I wish Benji would shut up, and started thinking, I wish Benji would shut up and kiss me. He really hasn't stopped thinking it since.
Benji raises an eyebrow, disbelieving still. It's a good thing neither of them work in intelligence.
Brandt doesn't let Benji think about it anymore, moves in and presses their lips together in one quick move. Benji freezes for a long second and Brandt is terrified that he's misread the situation completely; it wouldn't be the first time. He pulls back, stomach churning, ready to apologize, when Benji comes to life against him.
Benji snakes a hand around his waist, reels him back in and kisses him. Benji kisses him and kisses him and kisses him until he's nearly drunk on oxygen deprivation. Benji presses closer, their bodies fitting together easily, naturally.
Brandt gasps as Benji grinds into him, breaking the kiss for desperately needed air.
"Brandt," Benji says into the scant space between them, his words pulled into Brandt's panting breaths. "Brandt, I need to tell you that-"
Brandt's phone rings. It's Cade.
"Shit." He looks at his watch. Shit. It's 1840, if he doesn't leave right this second he's going to be late. This is why he isn't team lead: given the choice between making out with Benji and completing the operation, Brandt is pretty sure he'd pick the wrong thing.
Brandt takes a few deep, heaving breaths, tries to bring himself under control. He hits the answer call button on his phone, says, "Mark! Good to hear your voice."
Benji pulls away, steps back and back, further and further away from Brandt.
Cade is meeting with his sister, who he says is always late, which will make him run late, so could Brandt wait for him in the bookstore across the street from the restaurant? He'll be there as soon as humanly possible.
"Sure, that works," Brandt says. "I'll see you soon."
Brandt hangs up the phone. Benji has moved to the far side of the room, put his workbench between them. Each foot of physical distance feels like a mile.
"What did you need to tell me?" Brandt asks Benji. Brant is pretty sure he was going to say something important.
"You, uh," Benji says, "You need to keep the server interface separate from the credit cards in your wallet. Don't want to risk any magnetic interference."
Brandt's headache is back. "Sure," he says.
"Coms check," Ethan says from somewhere on the second level of the bookstore, covering the exits and feigning interest in the manga section.
"Frigg to Odin, got you loud and clear," Jane mutters. She's is in the coffee shop, keeping one eye on Brandt and skimming Brit lit with the other.
"Loki here," Benji says. He picked the codenames this time. It shows. Benji is in a truck parked outside, monitoring both the interior of the bookstore and the GPS location of Renee's personal cell phone, finally en route to Scottsdale.
Brandt is wandering through the self-help section, evaluating his life. He picks up, puts down The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
"Brandt," Benji says over the radio. "I mean Thor. I, uh, I need to tell you something."
Brandt freezes. Now? He's doing this now?
Brandt should really stop Benji from saying what he's about to say. This is easily the worst possible time: Jane can hear them, Ethan can hear them, anyone with a sophisticated ham radio in a 10km radius can hear them. Brandt, though, can pretty much guess what Benji needs to tell him and Brandt selfishly wants to hear him actually say it. Brandt wants to hear him acknowledge this thing that's been happening out loud.
"Yeah, what?" Brandt says. To a casual observer, Brandt looks like he's talking to himself in front of Crocheting for Dummies.
"About Cade," Benji says. "I don't want you to have sex with him." He also says, "Wow that is so much easier to say when I don't have to make eye contact."
Brandt can see Jane from this vantage point, reading Great Expectations and sipping a lo-fat sugarless something Brandt can't pronounce. She looks startled. He doubts it's anything Pip or Estella has said.
"Why not?" Brandt asks.
Benji pauses and Brandt thinks he's going to chicken out. "Well because," Benji finally says, "I'm, uh, in love with you. I really don't want you to sleep with anyone who isn't me. Pretty much ever."
Brandt's heart skips a beat. He knew it was coming, but it still hits him like a blow to the solar plexus, nearly knocks the wind out of him.
"Ok," Brandt says, heart in this throat. "I can live with that."
Benji pauses for a really long time before saying, "Really? Wait, really?"
"Sure," Brandt says. "I accept your terms."
Jane takes a long sip of her espresso concoction, hiding a smile.
"Mazel tov." Ethan says, "Loki, I need eyes on the parking lot. Thor, target entering in through the south entrance."
Brandt mutters, "We'll talk. Later."
Cade walks into view.
"Will!" Cade says. "You're still here! I'm sorry about that, but she's leaving town and she never trusts I'll remember to feed her cats."
After dinner, on the way outside Cade asks, "Can I invite you over for a glass of reasonably priced wine?"
Brandt hesitates minutely.
"Too fast?" Cade asks, leaning back.
"That's cute," Benji mutters in his ear. "That totally works for me." Since the impromptu commitment ceremony in the bookstore, Benji over the radio has been half phone sex operator, half Geek Squad. It's doing more for Brandt than is really normal or healthy.
"No," Brandt says, "Not too fast at all."
Cade takes his phone, programs his address into Brandt's GPS. It's 21st century chivalry at its finest, though Brandt could probably get from here to the Cades' house on foot using a sextant.
"If you get lost in my neighborhood," Cade says very seriously, "You get eaten by coyotes."
"Well, yeah, who hasn't used that old 'eaten by coyotes' line," Benji scoffs.
"I promise to drive carefully," Brandt says. Cade smiles and waves and disappears into an Audi.
Brandt gets into his rental and immediately says, "You're driving me crazy."
He can practically hear Benji's ridiculous grin as he says, "As long as you're thinking of me luv, that's all I care about."
Brandt's amazed Ethan hasn't threatened to shoot him yet.
"Ok, from the bedroom, remember it's a left down the hallway, another left through the door into the basement," Benji says cheerily. "The floor is pressure sensitive down there, so you're going to want to take out the control panel at the top of the stairs early. Or if you're feeling especially agile, you can get to the door by monkey-baring across the room using the drop ceiling. Got that?"
"I am not doing that," Brandt says, "Ethan didn't get this shit job why?"
"Because Ethan cannot quite pull off a sweater vest the way you can," Benji explains. There's also the fact that Ethan has a haunted, caged-lion stare when he's on a job that only attracts people who are into intensity/want to date a secret agent. Also, Ethan is still secretly married.
"Server room door?" Brandt prompts.
"Right." Benji says, sounding distracted. Benji's possibly really into sweater vests. "Lock is a key code reader, the fancy new kind where the numbers scramble, which if you're bypassing it entirely just seems more useless and showy than usual. Should be easy enough and then you're in like Flynn."
Brandt makes the last turn onto the meandering drive that winds up to the Cade compound. "Cameras?" He asks.
Benji says, "Nothing between the bedroom and the basement door." What that really means is that when Brandt gets to the basement door he has to make like Spider-Man to attach control mechanisms to the cameras without being seen.
"OK," Brandt says, "Get inside, knock out the rich guy, get to the basement without being seen, get to the server room without touching the floor, get the door open without knowing the code, and hack into a server configuration we haven't seen before. In three hours or so."
"Preferably less," Benji says, cheerfully.
Brandt sighs. "Great."
Brandt pulls up to the gate, gets waved in by security.
"Good luck," Benji says, "Have fun, you know, playing Jenga."
The interior of Cade's house belongs in the pages of Architecture Digest. Brandt might have actually seen it there.
Cade guides him into a room that looks like it should come with a full-time Sommelier, pours them both a glass of what is absolutely not reasonably priced wine.
Cade leads him into the kitchen, says, "You have to try some of this cheese Renee found the other day." He turns his back to rummage through a brushed-steel monstrosity Brandt assumes is a refrigerator and Brandt takes the opportunity to dump the vial of sedative into his glass.
Cade plies him with expensive hors d'oeuvres, takes long gulps of wine while Brandt takes minute sips as appropriate, and secretly dumps most of it out into houseplants when Cade isn't looking.
There are many reasons why Brandt doesn't drink very much when he has a choice. The last time he'd been genuinely drunk was a mission gone south.
"How was getting drunk part of the plan?" Benji had asked; propping him up they walked back to the hotel.
"They were… watching. Had to make it… convincing," Brandt had said. And then, because being drunk makes him say stupid shit, he said, "You smell like my ex-boyfriend."
Benji had almost dropped him.
"You're plenty convincing," Benji'd said.
Benji had treated him weird the whole next day. Looking back, Brandt thinks he finally understands why. Nevertheless, Brandt has stuck to a two drink maximum ever since.
Cade finishes his wine, finally, sets the glass carefully down by the sink, and grabs Brandt. They stumble down the hallway, Cade's hands all over him, his hot breath in Brandt's ear whispering things Brandt prays his earpiece isn't picking up.
The hallway cameras are turned towards them now, which is vaguely unnerving, but it means he'll be in a blind spot coming from the back of the house later.
Cade's speech is already beginning to slur. Not long now.
The bedroom is entirely antique furniture, imported from Japan. A massive, low ebony bed dominates the center of the room, which is where Cade is steering him, shedding clothes along the way.
"Christ look at you," Cade says, reaching for the hem of Brandt's sweater vest.
It should only be a few more seconds until he goes under, but it feels like an eternity.
Cade yawns, says, "I must be more tired than I think I am."
Brandt catches him when he drops, settles him down onto the bed in a comfortable position.
"OK," Brandt says. "He's out."
"Three hours," Benji says. They have work to do.
Anderson Cooper is absolutely insufferable and Brandt has no idea why Benji likes him so much. Brandt changes the channel, ignores Benji saying, "Hey I was watching that," in his ear.
"Oh wow," Cade says, coming to. "How long was I out?"
Long enough. Benji's been spending the last thirty minutes making happy, vaguely obscene noises in Brandt's ear. Brandt can only assume that means he's gotten through the firewall.
"A couple of hours," Brandt says.
Cade smiles at him, brilliant white teeth catching the dim light. "You stayed?" he asks. The delighted, surprised look on Cade's face gives Brandt the impression that Cade probably dates a lot of gold-digging scumbags.
Brandt says, "I wanted to."
"Why didn't you wake me up?" Cade asks.
Brandt thinks of what Benji's said to him, before. He says, "You looked tired."
Cade says, "I'm wide awake now." He then yawns, loudly, and looks sheepish.
Brandt says, to Cade, "Go back to sleep, I'll be right here." To Benji, he says, "See you in the morning."
The alarm on Brandt's phone goes off at 0645. Cade mumbles in his sleep, rolls towards Brandt and drags him into a sleepy, octopus-like embrace.
"I have to go," Brandt says, shoving ineffectually at Cades' arm. Brandt could break Cade's arm if he really needed to leave, but this isn't that kind of plan. As much as Benji would like it to be.
"I have to go," Brandt says again.
Cade says, "No you don't," and fits his body against Brandt's back, skimming his hand down Brandt's chest and… lower. Brandt's heart kicks into higher gear, half hey that feels good and half shit shit go go go.
A second alarm goes off on his phone, louder than the first. Brandt only set one. This one must have been triggered remotely. Benji's up early it seems.
Cade lets go of him, says, "Turn that damn thing off."
Between mashing the screen to turn off the first alarm and the second one activating, Brandt's phone has travelled a foot away from the bed on the nightstand. To get to it at all, he has to heave himself half out of the bed and at that point it's easy enough to let momentum carry him to his feet.
Looking back at the bed is a mistake. Cade looks like an ad for men's underwear. It takes a lot of effort not to crawl back into bed and let Cade do… whatever to him. But. Benji.
"Work," Brandt says.
"Right," Cade says. "That. I've been known to do that from time to time." he looks at his watch. "Are you sure you can't stay an hour or so? I'm expecting Renee back by eight." That's good, it means that this fake relationship is going well enough that Cade wants him to meet his psychotic arms-dealing sister.
"Early meeting," Brandt says because he absolutely, 100% cannot meet Cade's psychotic arms-dealing sister without potentially blowing this thing completely.
Cade nods, stands and stretches like an Olympic swimmer before a dive. Benji, Brandt thinks, Benji.
"Let me pour you a cup of coffee before you go," Cade says. Brandt is pretty sure that's code for let's make out in the kitchen, but Brandt could really use a cup of coffee.
Brandt makes it out of the house at 0745. He's pretty sure Benji's going to notice the hickey.
Brandt gets back to a lot of activity at the house. Now that they're up on Renee's communications and heavily encrypted file system, Ethan and Jane have been kick-started into action, tracing down new leads and correlating what they've found with things they already knew.
Compared to the people she's dealing with, Renee Cade is small time, but the IMF is very interested in the bigger fish she's swimming with.
Jane looks at him, smirks at the rats nest that is his hair. "He's in the basement," she says.
Benji is in the workroom, as usual. He's whistling and, from the gleeful look on his face, decrypting something that should be beyond the capabilities of mortal man.
Brandt runs his hand through his hair in a futile attempt to look like he wasn't making out with another man 20 minutes ago.
Brandt clears his throat, loudly. Benji doesn't look up.
Brandt coughs. Nothing.
"Benji," he says, exasperated.
"What?" Benji says, distracted, glancing up only briefly.
"What?" Brandt echoes back in disbelief. In an independent ranking of Brandt's life-choices, not having sex with a billionaire potential underwear model in favor of being ignored for the rest of his life by a cryptography-obsessed geek is probably not in the top 10.
"Yes what," Benji says, finally looking up and giving Brandt his full attention. He gets an odd look on his face, says, "Oh you're back."
Brandt wants to yell a lot because he's been back for five minutes; most of those spent getting Benji's attention. He doesn't, though, because the odd look on Benji's face intensifies and Benji starts stalking towards him with intent.
Brandt manages a weak, "Hey there."
Benji reaches where Brandt is standing and without any hesitation shoves his hand into Brandt's hair, pulls his head slightly to the side and bites over where Cade had left a mark on his neck. "Knew you'd see that," Brandt gasps. Benji looks up at him, rolls his eyes, goes back to unsubtly biting Brandt's neck. Jesus.
Brandt says, "We actually need to talk."
Benji looks at him, raises an eyebrow. "About what? Politics? Religion?"
Benji shifts forward, grabs his ass and grinds into him, a completely unambiguous gesture. Brandt goes from mild, background turned on to rock hard in an instant.
"You know, usually boys have to buy me dinner first," Brandt says.
Benji says, "I bought you crisps?" This is true. Benji had handed him a bag of kettle chips (his favorite) when he'd picked him up from the airport. Benji grins, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I like you, you're a cheap date."
Brandt stalls Benji's hand where it's reaching for the front of his pants, says, "Hey, hey, I don't put out on the first date."
Benji, who clearly doesn't agree, bats Brandt's hands away and grabs his belt.
Brandt's head falls back against the wall. Fine, they don't have to talk.
Benji undoes Brandt's belt, shoves his pants and underwear down so that they're pooled at Brandt's feet, trapping his legs awkwardly. Brandt frantically toes off his shoes, kicks his way out of his pants, and then he's standing there, still wearing two shirts and a sweater vest but otherwise naked. Benji's still fully clothed.
Benji gets one hand on his ass, grabbing roughly, and another wrapped around Brandt's cock. Jesus.
Brandt scrambles to get his shirt off, shoves Benji's hoodie down off his arms. Benji takes his hands off of Brandt, leaving him bereft and wanting for long, torturous minutes as Benji strips down.
Naked now, Benji grabs Brandt's upper thigh, maneuvers it up around his waist and pulls their bodies into alignment. Brandt can feel Benji's cock against his, hot and damp and mother of God hot. Brandt gasps, accidentally bangs his head back into the wall again.
"Don't hurt yourself," Benji says, threading his hand through Brandt's hair to the back of his head.
"Nnng," Brandt says, pushing his hips forwards against Benji, trying for better friction. Benji kisses him, tongue slipping past his lips, forcing his mouth open.
Kissing Benji, Brandt thinks extremely unlikely thoughts like inevitable and perfect. Things he'll regret/re-evaluate at later dates.
"Do you want to," Brandt says when they break apart, breathing heavy. "Do you want to finish that DVD of the Walking Dead?"
Benji bites Brandt's lip to make him stop talking.
One of Benji's hands is travelling from his knee to his ass and back in long, maddening, distracting strokes. It's not nearly enough.
Brandt jams his ankle into the back of Benji's knee, making Benji's leg give out and sending him stumbling backwards. Benji recovers quickly, grinning, kicks out, and takes Brandt down to the floor with surprising efficiency. The aqua shag carpeting (how old is this house??) is soft, cool against Brandt's back.
Benji grabs something off the workbench, follows Brandt down to the floor.
Brandt, curious despite himself, asks, "What the hell is that?"
Benji smirks. "A little WD-40 never hurt anyone," he says. Brandt is fairly sure he's joking.
Benji pushes his way between Brandt's legs, says, "I'm going to fuck you, is that ok?" Brandt loses the ability to speak, grabs Benji's shoulders and drags him down, instead.
Benji immediately detours from the fucking-him plan, decides to suck Brandt's dick first. Brandt's awareness is reduced to jolts of overwhelming sensation, one after another. He's dimly aware of Benji wrapping his hand around the base of his cock, of Benji tonging the head, setting an unrelenting, fantastic rhythm.
Brandt pulls together enough brainpower to gasp, "Hey, I'm going to-"
Benji pulls off right before Brandt comes, semen going what seems like everywhere as Benji strokes him through it. They probably aren't getting their security deposit back on this rental.
Without much pause, Benji slicks up (with what, who knows) and presses two blunt, calloused fingers inside. Brandt pushes down into it, nerve endings on fire. Benji growls, surprisingly possessive, pushes deeper in until he hits a spot that makes Brandt's hips buck, involuntary.
"Only me, ever, yeah?" Benji says, adding a third finger, twisting.
"Yeah," Brandt gasps.
"Good. I'm not much for sharing," Benji says, lining them up and driving home.
Brandt is over-sensitive, every thrust on the verge of too-much and painful, but it's still fucking amazing. Benji's thrusts go quickly from controlled to ragged and then on one last push, Brandt can feel his dick twitching and pulsing inside as he comes.
Benji collapses against him, squashing Brandt between his weight and the ugly carpeting. Brandt shoves at his shoulders until eventually he pulls out and pushes off.
They lie on the floor side-by-side, sucking in deep, heaving breathes and staring at the ceiling.
Brandt says, "That wasn't talking."
"Sure it was," Benji smirks. "Christ," he says, "That was…"
"Yeah," Brandt says. It was.
He should send Cade, Ethan, the whole IMF thank-you cards.
Benji rolls over to him, kisses him in a showy, exaggerated way, an author signing his work. He then stands up, goes to his workbench again and comes back with a rag from who knows where that was previously used for who knows what and cleans them both off.
Brandt stands up, various muscles twitching oddly, pulls on his pants and undershirt.
Benji puts his discarded boxers on, doesn't bother to put on anything else, and goes back to his laptop. One bout of sex on the floor and his usual layering goes right out the window, apparently. Brandt can't help staring. Benji doesn't quite have a six pack, but damn he's in shape for a guy who used to play a lot of World of Warcraft.
"Besides, what's there to talk about?" Benji asks.
Brandt thinks about it. He has a point.
Brandt finally asks, "Are you still going to want me if I don't have strange men chewing on my neck all the time?"
Benji looks at him sideways.
Right, ok, dumb question.
Brandt falls asleep in Benji's room watching Jimmy Fallon and waiting for Benji to come to bed. Benji doesn't actually climb in until half past three and when he does he shoves his freezing-cold feet against Benji's legs.
Benji won't move when Brandt gets up in the morning, rolls over and pulls one of the pillows over his head when Brandt tries to wake him. Eventually, Brandt gives up, goes for a run around a local park.
Brandt spends most of the afternoon in the basement digging through an inch-thick file on Iranian nuclear development, keeps getting distracted by Benji typing rapidly on his laptop and laughing out loud in odd bursts. Brandt pads up behind him to see what's so damn funny, just sees an open chat client and a browser window full of cat macros. "Yusuf," Benji says, "Back at headquarters."
So this is what it's going to be like, Brandt thinks; overwhelming fondness, tinged with constant agitation. It's not that different from his usual time spent with Benji, except for the part where Benji holds him down and jerks him off in celebration when he breaks through a particularly difficult layer of security.
He could get used to it.
"How's it going over there," Brandt asks, bored. The hard part of this leg of this operation is over for Brandt, but Benji only has a few days to collect whatever intel he can before they have to hand off the wire to a long-term surveillance team.
Benji mutters incoherently around the pen he's holding in his teeth, absorbed by the network traffic that's spiked since Renee Cade returned home. He's pointedly ignoring the live video stream of Mark Cade on the back patio saying to Renee, "I met someone, you'll love him when you meet him."
On the surveillance feed, Cade walks into the back yard and pulls out his cell phone. He dials an unseen number, presses the call button, and Brandt's phone rings.
Benji spits the pen out of his mouth, says, "Don't answer that," and grabs for the phone. Brandt gets to it first.
"You know I have to see him again," Brandt says, "At least once. I should probably stay overnight again, you know, to be convincing. My sister only has so many ankles."
Benji growls, invades his personal space. Brandt slaps one hand over Benji's mouth, answers his phone with the other.
Brandt can see Cade's face light up when Brandt says hello. It's a strange, dissonant sensation talking on the phone with Cade while watching Cade talking on the phone with him. Cade gestures a lot, even though he doesn't know Brandt can see him. It's kind of endearing.
Brandt says has an inescapable commitment tonight ("Fuck yeah you do," Benji growls into his other ear), but he's free tomorrow.
Brandt has lunch at an expensive Italian restaurant with Cade, dinner at an In-N-Out Burger with Benji. Benji doesn't order fries, steals half of Brandt's instead.
Brandt is trying not to over-think things, but he's at heart an analytical kind of guy. What's really boggling his mind is the timing. He says, "So you've had this thing for me..."
Benji blanches. "I wouldn't call it a thing," he says.
Brant just sort of looks at him, because, really? "So you've been nursing this heartbreakingly massive thing for me since, what?" he asks. "Since we met?"
"Well not right at that moment," Benji says. A drop of mustard falls off his burger, hits his shirt and is immediately lost in the hideous swirling pattern on the front.
"Dubai?" Brandt asks. "Mumbai? Was it someplace where the name ended in bai?"
Benji sighs. "Around then, yes, fine."
"That was eight months ago!" Brandt nearly throws his hands in the air. He should really give back his analyst of the year award. First the thing with the dead guy and the flare and now this. "Were you ever going to tell me?"
Benji sighs again, says, "Well, no."
"Benji," Brandt says. "Benji, Benji, Benji, for the smartest guy I know, you are such a dumbass."
Benji whines, "I know. Believe me I know."
For the last eight months, Brandt has been walking out of Benji's room at the end of most nights, feeling like he's leaving something important behind. He's been getting his best sleep sacked out on Benji's spare futon. He's been reading Slashdot. He let Benji install Ubuntu on his personal laptop.
For the last eight months, Brandt has been wishing that Benji felt exactly like Benji has apparently felt for the last eight months.
"Ok," Benji says, "Here's what an idiot I am. I really thought, oh no that's it." Benji starts talking in a slightly condescending, higher-pitched voice. "He'll leave the IMF and stay here with this man and adopt Nicaraguan babies and you'll have lost your shot completely… and I was thinking about that instead of where I was putting down that damn soldering iron."
Brandt takes a second to run that through his Benji-to-English translation algorithms. It doesn't help. "Nicaraguan babies?" he asks.
Benji shakes his head. He says, "I… don't really know where that one came from, I'll be honest with you."
Brandt scratches his head. "Are there a lot of orphans in Nicaragua?"
Benji sighs, ignores him. He says, "I'd pretty much given up all hope and then there you come in all James Bond and shirtless and I apparently do not have very much self-control. You're very fit, you know." Benji looks up at him, grinning like usual, like they're sharing a really funny joke no one else gets.
Benji glances away after a minute, turns serious. "I didn't know what I'd do if I lost you. Honestly, it hadn't occurred to me that I could."
Brandt thinks, now or never, asks, "Do you remember Dubrovnik?"
Benji shakes his head no, which is what Brandt expects. He's pretty sure Benji doesn't even remember being in Croatia at all, the chemical agent he was exposed to. Brandt barely remembers it himself; he'd stayed up for a week straight by Benji's hospital bed. Thinking back, it was weird that Ethan and Jane had let him, but they'd apparently known more than he had then.
"Jane had to physically restrain me from executing an unsanctioned hit on the people responsible," Brandt admits. "She wouldn't have been able to stop me, if you hadn't recovered."
Benji looks at him, surprised. The three of them had agreed at the time not to tell him about that, ever.
"Benji," Brandt says, "I love you."
Benji looks him in the eye, serious, says, "I know."
Brandt stares at him.
Benji ruins the effect somewhat by cracking up laughing. "Oh, sorry, sorry, couldn't resist, I love you too."
Brandt resents the implication that he's the Princess Leia of this relationship.
"When we get back home, you're moving in with me," Brandt says, not a question. "I hate your place in Arlington."
Benji blinks at him a few times. "You know what? I hate my place in Arlington, too."
With that settled, Brandt drinks the rest of Benji's milkshake.
Brandt meets with Cade one last time over coffee to break up with him.
The Will Brandt who lives in Tucson, Arizona has suddenly been offered his dream job -- in Dubai. Or he's about to be hit by a drunk driver, but that option is much messier, only to be invoked if Cade is so into him he'll propose a long distance relationship in Dubai after four dates.
"Faking your death will take forever," Ethan had said during their latest strategy session. "The paperwork is a nightmare."
Well, he would know.
"Darling," Benji'd said. "I want you to know that I would, and have, now that I think on it, follow you to Dubai." Brandt's fairly sure they were both following Ethan, but he hadn't bothered to correct. "It will be much better this way. You're the one who got away and was immediately swept into the arms of a man from Gloucestershire that you met in Dubai. When you describe me, please put Oxford-educated somewhere up front."
Cade looks gutshot when Brandt breaks it to him.
"Dubai?" Cade asks.
"I applied before we met," Brandt says. "I should have told you, but I never really thought I'd actually get it."
Cade says again, "Dubai?" His voice sounds more tinged with disbelief this time. "There isn't enough desert here for you to work with?" Cade makes a sweeping gesture, encompassing in it a vast field of scrub brush and saguaros. Brandt has easily had enough desert for all eternity, but Cade doesn't need to know that.
"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity," Brandt says, trying to sound earnest and not too overeager to be breaking Cade's heart.
When Brandt had woken up this morning, Benji had been awake already, lying in bed and listening to NPR. When he'd noticed Brandt stirring, he'd rolled over and said, "Do you know what day this is?"
Brandt had mumbled something incoherent and flailed wildly at his alarm clock.
"Today is break-up day," Benji had chirped, painfully cheerful. "In celebration, I'm making pancakes." He'd kissed Brandt quickly, bounded out of bed and jogged off toward the kitchen, yelling something about eggs at Ethan.
The pancakes had been delicious.
It's these kinds of thoughts Brandt has to shove deep down if he didn't want to seem like a horrible human being.
Brandt can see the thoughts flickering through Cade's mind rapid-fire. It's rare in people like Cade's experience not to be able to fix a problem with money. Brandt can only hope Cade thinks he has too much integrity to be bought off.
"When do you leave?" Cade asks.
"Next week," Brandt says. "Sunday."
Cade whistles. "That's not a lot of time."
Brandt shakes his head. "No it's not. Moving is going to be a nightmare. I don't think I can drive a U-Haul to the UAE."
Cade looks at him for a long time, searching for something, and then visibly comes to a decision. He holds up his latte and says, "To your no doubt bright future. I'm sure you'll get plenty of sunshine where you're headed."
They go their separate ways in the parking lot, Cade saying only, "Goodbye Will."
Brandt watches him get into his Mercedes and drive off, has a perverse urge to shout mission accomplished.
The rest of the team is in the process of stripping down the safe house when Brandt gets back. Ethan brushes past him out the front door carrying two grocery bags and a sniper rifle case.
He pauses, asks, "I don't have to kill you do I?"
Brandt shakes his head no.
Ethan nods, and says, "Seriously, you have no idea how much paperwork. Good work."
Down the hall Brandt can hear Benji saying, "That's funny, for a minute there I thought you said Tehran!"
Brandt does a final sweep, first of the room he was nominally assigned and then of the room he's been sleeping in recently. He grabs his suitcases from the foot of the bed and Benji's phone charger from the nightstand where he always forgets it. Benji's on his sixth (seventh?) charger; Brandt usually packs an extra for him, even though his phone has a different adapter.
He finishes looking around, takes two steps out the door and smacks into Benji.
Brandt puts down the suitcases, holds up the charger.
Benji takes it from him, says, "We seem to be going to Tehran."
Brandt shrugs because, sure, why not, what else was he doing? He asks, "Is this going to involve me jumping off of something?"
Benji thinks about it, says, "Knowing Ethan, yes." Benji pauses, then says. "But I'll catch you. Probably."
Brandt knows now from long experience that that's the most reassurance he's going to get. Still, better than nothing.
"After you," Benji says. Brandt picks up his suitcases, checks to make sure Benji is following, and together they move on to the next thing. Like usual, like always.
Benji says, "Shit, you should probably meet my mother. If she asks we've been dating since August."
Brandt looks at him sideways, raises an eyebrow.
"Long story," he says, shaking his head. "I'll tell you about it in the car."
Well, Brandt thinks. Not exactly like usual.
He'll get used to it.