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There’s a lot that can go wrong in a mission; objectives left unmet, intel left ungathered, points left uncaptured, too much damage, not enough damage, someone dead, someone not dead, the list is endless.
So while yes, Mason and Woods’s trip to Yamantau went wrong, Mason thought that a sprained wrist and a few bumps and bruises didn’t exactly constitute a loss.
Woods seemed to feel differently.
By all accounts, he appeared to be acting fairly normal. No one could see through the front—no one except for Mason.
Nobody had thought anything of it when he snapped at Hudson on the flight home, nor when he waved Bell off upon returning to the safe house, nor when he told Park to ‘get her shit together’ when she placed a ream of newly developed polaroids down on a desk near Woods, only for him to promptly knock them over.
That was just Woods. Everyone knew he couldn’t stand the sight of Hudson; if anything Bell had seemed to find it amusing when Woods returned their greeting with an absent-minded ‘yeah… you’; Park had just rolled her eyes, something she did at least twice a day at Woods.
They didn’t know Woods like Mason did.
Woods’s argument with Hudson had been over how long the flight back to Berlin was, potentially setting the record for the dumbest thing Woods had ever picked a fight about. And for as much as he liked to give Bell a hard time, Mason knew that he was rather fond of the kid; such a blatant dismissal of their friendliness wasn’t exactly his style. As for Park, that was pretty par for the course, other than the fact that, on any other day, Woods would have at least picked the photos up off the floor.
No, there was definitely something up with Woods. Unfortunately, feelings were the one thing he wouldn’t talk about.
“Riveting conversation there,” Mason had remarked when Hudson had finally hung up on Woods, just before leaving Russia. “You really know how to pick your battles.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Woods huffed. “Bastard had it coming.”
“Did he now?”
“If he wasn’t so much of a” —Woods hesitated, fishing for something offensive to call Hudson—” bastard, I wouldn’t want to be a pain in his ass.”
Clearly, his insult skills were lacking today.
“Because it’s just so tempting,” Mason snorted.
“See? You get it.”
After that, Woods had fallen into an uncharacteristic silence. The pair had hopped out of one chopper—Belikov’s—and into another—god-knows-who’s—without so much as a word spoken between them. Woods had taken up the seat across from Mason, crossed his arms, and stared unyieldingly outside.
“Hey, Woods,” Mason called after nearly an hour of silence. “Everything alright?”
A helicopter, with the deafening roar of its rotor blades, was hardly the place for this conversation, but Mason had reached his breaking point. He was never much of a talker—the shuts up to Woods’s never shuts the fuck up, as Hudson had once said—but a feeling of wrongness had already begun nagging at the back of his mind with the lack of conversation.
“Yeah,” Woods called back rather confidently. “Why? Do I look not alright?”
How could Mason ever explain in this environment?
“No, just quiet.”
“We’re in a fucking helicopter,” Woods retorted. “What, you wanna talk politics? Philosophy? I can do philosophy.”
Mason rolled his eyes. It was enough to satisfy him for now, though; as much as he hated to admit it, Woods’ stupid quips did often help to put him at ease, especially when it was Woods he was worried about.
But for now wasn’t going to last forever.
When they returned to the safe house, Mason had intended to confront Woods again, the incidents with Bell and Park only strengthening his resolve. But by the time the dust had settled and Mason had a chance to approach him, Woods was nowhere to be seen.
That had worried him even more.
Apparently, according to Adler, Woods had left to ‘go do something, I don’t know’. How helpful. Even Adler had seemed a bit startled by Mason’s asking, however. Woods never went anywhere without inviting Mason along, let alone not even mentioning it to him.
Anxiety gnawed at the back of Mason’s mind as it so often did when it came to Woods. For all his bravado, Woods was a complicated creature— a goddamn onion, Mason smiled at Woods’s words despite himself. He was the only one Woods had ever let see those layers, but even then, Mason knew there was so much more to Woods; layers upon layers that he could spend his whole life peeling back, that he would spend his whole life peeling back if Woods would let him.
But, for all Mason’s concern, nearly thirty hours without sleep and a fall that just maybe should have killed him were taking their toll; he was completely exhausted. Every minute brought him closer and closer to losing his battle against sleep.
Still, that hadn’t stopped him from pulling a chair up by the entrance to the safe house and sitting down. He had intended to wait for Woods to return, even after the others had begun packing it in for the night, but that plan quickly changed. It didn’t take long for him to begin dozing off, nearly falling out of his chair in the process. His eyes had shot open to find a rather startled Lazar staring him down where he had caught himself mid-air.
“I don’t think you should sit there.”
Mason shook his head and pushed himself back upright, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “I’m fine. Just waiting for Woods.”
The look on Lazar’s face was unreadable as he leaned against the table behind him and studied Mason. “You don’t think he’s alright?”
“He can handle himself,” Mason replied with more confidence than he actually felt. “Just making sure he gets in before curfew.”
Lazar let out a soft snort of amusement at that. “Of course, because we wouldn’t want Hudson to be angry with him.”
Mason smiled. “You get it.”
After another moment of studying Mason, Lazar hugged his arms over his chest and sighed. “I’ve still got work to do,” he nodded his head back, motioning to the table behind him. “I’ll be up for a while.”
The implication was clear, and although reluctant to leave his post, Mason decided to take the offer with something akin to relief. He rose from his chair, his joints protesting with a sharp ache, and began making his way to where they all bunked together at the back of the safe house.
Before passing Lazar, he stopped. “2 a.m.”
Lazar furrowed his brow. “What will you do?”
Good question—what would Mason do? It’s not like he had any way to get ahold of Woods or any means to find him. “Just get me up.” That wouldn’t stop him from trying.
While he looked less than thrilled at the idea, Lazar relented with a nod. “Sure,” he hummed softly, sliding off the table to retake his seat in front of it. After a pause, he added; “He’s lucky to have you.”
The smile on Mason’s face was bittersweet. “It goes both ways.”
With that, Mason was off to bed. He headed down the hall, tip-toeing past the beds of his sleeping teammates as he entered their shared living space, each cot shoved in its own little corner for some semblance of privacy.
He plopped down on his bed, casting a stray glance at Woods’s, which only sat a few feet away. As Mason’s head hit the pillow, he had one last fleeting wish: he would wake up with sunlight streaming through the old windows set high, high on the walls, and look at his best friend's peacefully sleeping face.
That wasn’t what happened.
It was pitch black still when Mason woke up, having rolled onto his side in a way that made his bruised ribs crack with a thunderous pain that woke him out of a sound sleep.
The first thing he did after rolling onto his back was to squint through the darkness at Woods’s bed. It took his eyes a minute to adjust, but when they did, his heart sank; Woods wasn’t there.
At least he had woken up on his own, meaning it wasn’t yet 2 a.m., the imaginary deadline he had set for Woods’s return.
Mason fumbled around with the bag of personal belongings he kept next to his bed, wincing slightly as he stretched to reach it. Finally, he found what he was looking for, pulling a little silver watch out of the bag, its numbers glowing a faint green. Mason flipped it around and read the time— 3:23 a.m.
He sat bolt upright.
That wasn’t right.
It was a struggle getting out of bed slow and quiet when all he wanted was to sprint down the hall, grab the keys to whatever car he could find—Adler’s, most likely—and drive up and down the entirety of Europe until he found Woods. However, he managed to keep his composure, silently padding his way across the room.
A quick stop in front of Lazar’s bed made his eye twitch; Lazar was asleep.
Once Mason made it past the door and safely out of the room, he stormed down the hall, determined to find some way, any way, to contact Woods, to bring him back, to-
He stopped dead in his tracks as he reached the main room.
There in the corner, at one of the desks, was Woods.
He was more next to the desk than at it, leaning back in a metal folding chair, smoking a cigarette while staring off into nothing. A dusty, old lamp sat on the desk beside him, its dim yellow light not doing much to fend off the darkness, instead only serving to cast a warm glow across Woods’s features.
“Woods?” Mason called out without a moment of hesitation.
Despite surely having heard Mason barreling down the hall, Woods jumped at the sound of his voice. “Mason? Hell, I thought you were Hudson,” he huffed, shaking his head a bit but not turning to meet Mason’s gaze. “Why are you up?”
“I could ask you the same.”
Woods shrugged half-heartedly, taking another drag of his cigarette. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Mason crept closer, his eyes never leaving Woods’ sullen expression. He grabbed a chair and set it down facing Woods. “Neither could I,” he said, taking a seat.
“Yeah right,” Woods narrowed his eyes in disbelief. “Lazar said you just about smacked your face off the floor. Last thing you need is more fucking injuries.”
A wave of guilt passed over Mason; Lazar had waited up for Woods. That gave him at least a few brownie points in Mason’s book.
Not really having a comeback, Mason simply shrugged. There were other things on his mind besides his apparent lack of sleep, something he was starting to want more and more now that the adrenaline was wearing off.
He leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees as he looked up at Woods.
“Whatever you’re about to do,” Woods cut him off before he could even begin. “Don’t. You always give me those fucking doe eyes when you want something.”
Mason felt his lip twitch into a smile. “I just want to talk.”
“God, just ask me for money or something would you?” Woods laughed. It was a hollow sound, only an approximation of the usual, contagious laugh that always had Mason chuckling along with it, no matter how unfunny whatever Woods had said was.
“What’s wrong, Woods?”
His face soured. “Nothing, quit asking.”
When Mason visibly flinched at the sharpness of his tone, Woods sighed and tried again, this time softer. “I get it, you think something’s wrong, you’re worried, whatever. But I’m fine, Mason.”
Why did he always have to be so difficult? That wasn’t the whole truth and Mason could feel it like a splinter in his mind. Woods was tough as nails and twice as stubborn; getting him to spill whatever was troubling him was never easy, and this was no exception.
“You don’t expect me to believe that.”
“I do, so drop it.”
“Woods, you’ve been acting like a prick since before we even left Russia. We get back and then you just, what, take off for a four-hour drive in the middle of the night for fun?” Mason snapped, sitting up to meet Woods’s eye. “So no, sorry, I’m not fucking believing that.”
There was a hiss of burning wood as Woods crushed his cigarette directly onto the table, leaving a charred hole beneath it. “I said drop it,” he growled, his eyes piercing through Mason as he sat up straight. “I don’t want to fucking talk about it.”
It was a struggle for Mason not to roll his eyes as he leaned back and crossed his arms. “You never want to talk about jack shit.”
That pushed Woods over the edge.
“What the fuck do you want me to say, Mason?” He snarled, his voice echoing harshly through the oppressive silence of the room. “You want me to say I’m fucking pissed at myself for letting you get hurt? For almost getting you killed?” He slammed a hand down on the desk, rising out of his chair to tower over Mason. In this position, the warmth of the lamp had left him almost entirely, leaving his face not much more than a thick shadow with sharp, glimmering eyes.
“You could have died on that shit-ass mountain,” his voice darkened. “You could have fucking died and it would have been my fault, and I never would have gotten to say-”
Suddenly, it was as though all of the fight had been knocked out of him. Everything about Woods softened, his words fading to nothing as he crashed back into his seat
Mason blinked a few times, watching as Woods utterly deflated. Once he regained his bearings, Mason leaned in close, resting a hand over Woods’s where it sat on the table.
“Never would have gotten to say what?” The words were barely more than a whisper, like Mason was afraid that any sudden movement might break Woods.
Maybe it would.
Woods was sickeningly soft as he responded;
“That I’m- that I’m in love with you, Al. I’m so, so in love with you.”
Suddenly the ache in Mason’s side, the stinging in his wrist, it didn’t feel quite so painful.
At his silence, Woods shied away— Woods, shying away, the thought made Mason’s head spin—and started to backtrack. “Forget it, okay? Just—Let’s just go to bed and-”
Whatever else Woods was going to propose was cut off as Mason jumped forward, pressing his lips to Woods’s. It was quick, just enough to get Woods to stop talking, but Mason already wanted more.
“Shut up, Frank. For the first time in my life, I am asking you to shut the fuck up.”
Woods snapped his mouth shut, his eyes wide as he stared down Mason in shock. Mason settled back into his own chair, scooting it closer with a foot as he did. His hand, still resting atop Woods’s, squeezed gently, his thumb rubbing small circles into Woods’ skin.
“I’ve been waiting for you to say that for nearly a decade,” Mason breathed, watching as the gears in Woods’s head began to turn.
“So you’re-”
“ Yes, Frank. I’m in love with you too.”
All at once, the clouds parted and the rain stopped pouring and whatever other cliche, crappy metaphors Mason could think of happened. Woods’s lips were on his again, the time with a surety and passion that made Mason all but melt.
This is what he had been waiting for; for Woods to let him in; for Woods to let Mason love him.
As they parted, Mason tasted the smile on Woods’s lips.
“I’m still pissed,” Woods hummed softly, his breath tickling Mason’s cheeks.
“It’s not your fault,” Mason replied, punctuating his sincerity with another kiss.
“Whatever,” Woods huffed, though there was no bite left to his words. “Let me make it up to you.”
“How do you plan on doing that?”
Woods smiled, bumping his nose against Mason’s playfully. “However you’d like.”
Even if there was nothing to make up for in Mason’s eyes, he couldn’t deny he liked the sound of that.
“I have some things in mind.”