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It’s cold.
That’s all Mason can think as he blinks the sleep from his eyes. It takes a few tries to get them open, and for a moment he feels as though his eyelids might have frozen shut.
He also wants to attribute the way he’s shaking to the cold, but he knows better than that. Shaking is all he seems to do these days.
As the fog in his mind starts to lift, he suddenly becomes aware of a hand on his thigh. It’s a warm weight, so different from the light, freezing air around him, which threatens to suffocate him.
“Woods?” The words drawn from his throat are slow and sluggish. But there’s no response to them, so Mason takes it upon himself to investigate. He rolls onto his back, the unrelenting bed of concrete below him having long ceased making his joints ache. Everything aches nowadays; pain is something he knows rather than something he feels.
While his mind catches up to what’s happening, the figure above him cocks its head. “Mason, you alright?”
Mason thinks he could jump for joy at the sound.
“You came for me,” is all he says instead, lying breathless as he gazes up at the fuzzy image of Woods hovering over him in the dark.
“‘Course I did,” Woods smiles—Mason can’t see it, but he knows it's there. “C’mon, let’s get you out of here.”
Mason tries his best to sit up, but it’s as though there’s a weight on his chest tethering him to the ground like an anchor. I can’t , he wants to say, you have to help me. But the words don’t come out, and so he sits there, unmoving.
“C’mon,” Woods repeats, irritation creeping into his tone. “We don’t got all day.”
I’m trying, Mason wants to tell him. His heart is slamming in his ears by the time Woods stands, a towering shape above him.
“I’m not fucking waiting on you, Mason.” His voice is filled with ire, and he turns, his boots echoing coldly as he leaves Mason again—leaves him there to die.
“Don’t go!” Finally, the words escape Mason’s throat, clawing out of him like a trapped animal searching for freedom as his whole body leaps to life. “Don’t fucking leave me, Frank!”
But now that he’s sitting up he can see; there’s no one there.
“Mason?” A second voice, one less hazy, responds. “Mason, my friend, there is no one.”
“Reznov?”
Another shape materializes from within the darkness, but this time Mason can make out its features. Reznov’s sharp eyes are trained on him, filled with a pity that makes Mason breathe a sigh of relief even as his stomach curls.
“You had a nightmare, no?” Reznov asks, his usual loud, commanding tone dropped into something more tender. Mason nods.
Reznov crouches down to sit beside him on the meager gathering of rags he called a bed. The heat of another body—a real one—pressed against his was a welcome change.
It takes all of Mason’s strength not to cling to him.
As though sensing his thoughts, Reznov wraps an arm around Mason, drawing him in close until Mason is all but lying on his chest. “It is okay, my friend,” Reznov hums, petting Mason’s hair with his free hand. “You will see your friend again. Until then, I am here.”
If Mason had thought the feeling of another body was hot, the feeling of tears on his face would have been scorching.
He’s certain Reznov can tell he’s crying, but he can’t bring himself to care. All he can do is allow himself to be held, something that’s starting to feel like heaven.
“Thank you,” Mason breathes out once his tears finally begin to dry. When had his fist grabbed onto Reznov’s jacket so tightly?
“Do not thank me, Mason. I only do for you what I know you would do for me.”
And Mason would. He would do anything for Reznov; Reznov is the sole reason Mason has yet to forget what love feels like.
He presses closer to Reznov, who in turn responds by holding him tighter. “You must rest now,” Reznov instructs him, pressing a kiss to the top of Mason’s head as he says it.
If that’s what Reznov wants, then that’s what Mason will do. It’s not as though he can’t feel the darkness swimming into the edges of his vision once again. As it overtakes him, the last sensation he has is Reznov’s body tangled with his own.
It’s jarring when he wakes up alone.
Even more jarring still when he wakes up in a warm bed.
He’s already sitting upright, his sheets soaked through with sweat, and still that incessant shaking plagues him. Whether awake or asleep, that’s all he ever does; shake.
It’s dark still, not as dark as it is—was—in Vorkuta, but enough that Mason can’t quite figure out where he is. A base in Vietnam, a CIA testing facility, and a safe house in Berlin are all possibilities.
“Mason?”
Mason’s head shoots to the doorway, and for an instant, he can just make out the faint edges of Reznov, those glittering eyes staring back out at him from the shadows.
Then the figure moves.
“Woods?”
Woods moves closer at the acknowledgment, padding over to the bed with a deliberateness meant to avoid startling Mason. His eyes, Mason can now see, are laced with concern.
“You were screaming,” Woods’s voice nearly catches on the word as he sits down on the mattress beside Mason. “Thought you were being fuckin’ killed up here.”
Mason doesn’t respond at first, his senses finally flooding back to him in a way that’s all too overwhelming. He’s at home, he realizes; in his bed—his and Woods’s bed.
“You didn’t seem in a rush,” the words feel sloppy as Mason says them, but they’re out before he can question it.
Woods has half a mind to be offended, his brow furrowing as a harsh look comes over him, making Mason’s stomach drop. Don’t leave me.
The look evens out after a moment, but Woods still won’t meet his eye. “I was running up here ‘til I heard you say Reznov.” His name is like venom on Woods’s lips.
To Mason, it’s more of a poison; a poison he never tastes but always feels gnawing away at him. “You’re upset.” He feels like a little kid when he says it, and that makes him feel hopeless.
Woods looks up at him, his eyes wide. “No, Al, I’m not upset, It’s” —he runs a hand through his hair—”I get it.”
Adrenaline is one hell of a drug Mason thinks, because then he’s saying something even stupider than before. “I miss him.”
He might as well have thrown a punch. Woods doesn’t react, simply glancing away from Mason, his mouth hardening into a thin line, but that’s all Mason needs to see.
A silence settles over them as Woods hesitates to respond; Mason couldn’t even begin to imagine what was going through his head. Finally, Woods places a hand on Mason’s blanket-clad leg with a sigh. “Really that special, huh? Guy had to have been the second coming of Christ.” His tone is fond in a way that makes Mason smile bittersweetly. “Wish I met him.”
Mason has a hard time believing that. “Really?”
A beat, then; “Yeah, I do.”
And Woods means it.
“Can you come back to bed?”
Woods glances back up at him hesitantly but with a spark of something akin to hope in his eyes. “‘Course. Just try not to scream in my ear.”
The joke falls flat, but Mason can’t help the smile on his face regardless. “Only if you stop punching me in your sleep.”
“No promises,” Woods smiles back.
Woods crawls over him, onto his own side of the bed before tucking the blankets back around them both. Once he’s settled, he lifts up an arm in a silent invitation.
Taking it is a no-brainer.
He presses in close to Woods, who wraps his arm around Mason and holds him tight. “‘Love you, Al,” Woods breathes, pressing a kiss to the top of Mason’s head as he says it.
“‘Love you too, Frank,” Mason hums against Woods’s chest, those words feeling like something of a promise.
Darkness rests over Mason’s vision again once his eyes flutter shut. As he lets sleep—real sleep—overtake him, the last sensation he has is Woods’s body tangled with his own, where it belongs.