Chapter Text
Frank Woods
Burgas Province, Bulgaria
February 8, 1991 - 13:56 EET
“Jesus, what the fuck happened?”
Woods held the door open for the trio, Marshall and Sev awkwardly walking sideways through the door as they practically dragged Case between them, each supporting one arm and holding onto him tightly.
Their grip kept shifting, Case was dragging his feet on the floor rather than walking, forcing the shorter two to carry him along.
Sev began, “He was exposed to the Cradle. He—”
“What in the fuck do you mean he was exposed to the Cradle?!” Woods immediately interrupted, his voice raised.
Case snapped his head towards him, like his words were gunshots that barely missed him. His eyes were wide and filled with a level of terror that didn’t seem fit for everything Case was, pinprick pupils staring right through him.
It felt like he was staring directly into Woods’s very being and saw something that terrified him enough to have him shaking in place, even as Marshall and Sev continued to drag him along.
“…Yeah,” said Sev, knowing the look Case just gave him was as good of an explanation as Woods was going to get, “I don’t know what happened back there, but it was bad.”
When they got him to the couch, they laid him down but didn’t let go of his hands, muttering about something.
They must have come to a conclusion with their conversation; Sev nodded at Marshall and looked around. Seemingly remembering Woods was still there, she backed away to make room for him, never letting go of Case’s hand.
“Can you take over for me? I need to find the first aid kit.” When all she got in response was a confused look, she held up the hand she was holding and nodded towards it.
Woods’s look of confusion only grew, now mixed with annoyance. Before he could protest, Marshall spoke for the first time since they walked through the door.
“Woods, please.” He looked tired, very much begging Woods to not be himself and just go along with it.
He sighed and pushed himself forwards, taking Case’s hand from Sev. He was taken off guard by how tense he was, straining his hand to the point of it shaking in place yet not squeezing. Every so often his fingers would twitch like he had either forgotten that Woods was there or was trying to test his grip.
“Why are we holding Case’s hands?” Woods asked after a few seconds, losing his patience with the secrecy.
Marshall took a moment to answer. “In the van, if we let go, he’d start scratching himself. Tore his skin up before we could stop him.” Marshall carefully pulled up Case’s arm and gently moved his sleeve, pulling it away from his skin as he did.
His entire forearm was red with lines extending from his wrist to his elbow and continued further past where the sleeve had been moved. The shallow abrasions glistened where they broke the skin but didn’t go deep enough to draw blood.
“Guter Gott…”
Before Woods could prod further, Sev returned with a first aid kit in hand and Felix in tow, who had a similar reaction to Woods at Case’s current state.
“I’ll take over for now,” Sev declared as she opened the kit and began pulling stuff out. She turned to Marshall. “You take Woods and Felix and give them a brief.”
Her tone left no room for argument, but Marshall tried anyway.
“But what if he has another seizure? Or gets violent again? Or starts—?”
His pessimistic (and concerning) listing was cut off by a glare from Sev. He met the challenge, staring back just as hard, but Sev won.
Marshall sighed, sad and angry. Without a word, he stepped back and nodded his head towards the kitchen, indicating for Felix and Woods to follow him.
He led them outside near the training area, avoiding Felix’s questioning look as he did.
“So what the fuck happened?” Woods gruffly repeated his question.
Marshall leaned his back against the railing and crossed his arms. “I don’t know.” His voice was quiet, defeated.
“Then tell us what you do,” Felix said calmly, “Just start from the beginning.”
He took a second to gather his thoughts and then a deep breath. “There was an elevator, but it was stuck half a floor down. I dropped on top of it and moved onto a platform. When Case tried to do the same, the car came loose. He grabbed onto a ladder, but it broke.”
Marshall paused.
“I couldn’t catch him.”
The admission weighed heavily in the air, his guilt pouring from him.
“Case fell. All the way down. I heard a splash — guess the lower levels were flooded — and some coughing. When I asked for a sit-rep, he said he was okay but his mask broke and he had inhaled something.”
He paused again. The sound of crashing waves below and wind whistling through the trees around them was out of place, the calming white noise trying to weasel its way into the dreary conversation.
“That was the last thing he said before going completely radio silent. Next we saw him, he was seizing in the biotech lab.”
“What the fuck?” Woods mumbled in surprise, even more confused than before.
Case was never a talkative person, one of those types that only speak when they have something they need to say, but it wasn’t like him to just stop communicating outright, especially on a mission.
If anything, he spoke more over the radio during missions, even adding in quick quips and sarcastic jabs on top of whatever update he was giving; It was like they were his opportunity to get out all of the mocking statements he’d been saving up.
He would never just stop communicating.
“How long was he alone for?” Felix asked; If he was as perturbed as Woods was, he was much better at hiding it.
“Maybe two or three hours?”
“He was exposed to a lethal biological weapon for two to three hours?” Felix repeated incredulously, that calm demeanor cracking slightly.
“I- I don’t know.” Marshall’s head dropped again.
The silence returned.
They could try to pretend that Case would be fine, but…
They all heard the audio logs that had been brought back from Iraq, what happened to the brothers they had been experimenting with. If Woods remembered correctly, it took the brother who had been forced to inhale the Cradle just four days to turn homicidal.
Would it take Case more or less time? Would he kill them or himself first—?
No, absolutely not. Nope. Nuh-huh.
“Did you learn anything about the Cradle?” Woods asked, almost sighing in relief at finding something new for his brain to chew on.
“A batch of it was taken last summer,” Marshall began, more than willing to focus on anything other than the likelihood that their friend might be dying.
He paused again.
Woods realized with a growing sense of hopelessness that dragged him down further the longer the silence went on that that was the only thing they had learned.
A mission that might kill Case, and the only positive to come from it was confirmation of obvious information that they already knew.
Marshall’s eyebrows pinched and he stared at the floor, trying to find anything else, probably coming to the same realization as Woods.
“It’s some kind of hallucinogen, makes people violent— or scared? He was definitely seeing shit we weren’t.”
“Do you know what he might have been seeing?” Felix asked, probably unaware of the way his hands were trying to pop his fingers over and over.
Marshall inhaled as if to speak but stopped and exhaled harshly, taking longer to figure out how to answer. “After maybe 20 or 30 minutes, Sev and I heard gunfire from the lower floors. Sev asked him if someone else was down there but she didn’t get an answer. The shots never overlapped, so we know it was just Case. What we don’t know is who — or what — he was firing at.”
Woods leaned forwards and rubbed his eyes harshly, trying to logic through everything in a way that didn’t leave him more confused and hopeless.
“Oh, don’t worry, it gets worse!” he sarcastically said upon seeing Woods’s reaction. “When we found him, he was lying on the floor in front of an elevator from the lower floors. He looked like he was having a seizure with an LMG and a shotgun, both almost out of ammo, next to him.”
Felix voiced the thought Woods had as well, “…He went in with a marksman rifle, no?”
“Yup, it was on his back, the mag full, with all of his reserves. All the gunfire we heard, and he never fired a shot from his gun.”
Woods felt a headache growing behind his eyes. “What? He ‘found’ two guns in an ‘abandoned research facility?’” He didn’t like that his words made sense. He didn’t want them to be anything other than sarcastic. But they’d need something on hand for when their experiments stepped out of line.
Felix butted in, “You said it was a hallucinogen, yes? Is it possible…?”
“We were seeing shit too?” Marshall finished. “Maybe? But the guns are still in the van, you can check yourself.”
“How much gunfire did you hear?” Woods asked.
“It almost never stopped after it started,” Sev answered, pushing open the door to join them. “Following the shots was the only reason we were able to find him and the biotech lab.”
Marshall immediately pushed off the rail he was leaning against. “What are you— Is Case—?”
“Out like a light. Finally relaxed enough to fall asleep and crashed.” She moved further down the walkway, her eyes staying trained on the windows, stopping when she could see Case.
Marshall followed quickly behind, only relaxing when he too had a visual on him. Woods and Felix shared a look before apprehensively following.
He felt like they were on a trip to the zoo and Case was the main attraction, everyone lining up to watch the spectacle.
Woods didn’t stare for long. He didn’t like the way Case’s hands kept shaking, reminding him too much of post-mortem twitches. He didn’t know if it would be better or worse if he was completely still.
Silence hung over them.
“What the hell do we do?” Marshall whispered in a voice that was likely meant to stay with himself. He looked like he was mentally preparing a funeral.
Woods couldn’t take it.
“Okay, so Case hallucinated his balls off—,”
Sev bristled and turned to him like he was insane. “Now is not the fucking—!”
“—Clearly he shouldn’t be left alone, for everyone’s safety — ours and his.” Woods hated being forced to be the rational one. “We don’t know anything other than he inhaled something deadly and isn’t dead. You got some files and shit from the facility, right?”
“Yeah?” Marshall answered blankly without sparing him a glance, like if he looked away, Case would be gone when he turned back.
“Great,” he threw his hands up like the solution was obvious, “So Felix works on the porn disc, you and Sev go through the shit from the facility, and I keep an eye on Case.”
He brought his hands together like a project manager who had just delegated everyone else to do the work. “That wasn’t so difficult, now was it?” Woods tacked on, never able to resist being an asshole.
“What? No! That’s not— Did you ignore everything I said?” Marshall almost shouted, his attention now fully on Woods. “Did you ignore everything I said about him seizing? And being violent? About him shooting more bullets than he had?”
“Oh, I see how it is. You think that because I’m in a wheelchair that I can’t—”
Marshall raised his voice further, “He didn’t even recognize us as people! We don’t know what the hell he was seeing, and I have a feeling we should be damn grateful for that! He was terrified. You can’t talk him out of a hallucination — he probably would have shot us if he realized he still had a gun on his back!”
“Marshall—” Sev started.
“Yes, I know,” Marshall interrupted, plummeting from the height of his sudden anger back down to where he started. He rubbed his face with his hands like he was trying to reset himself. “I’m worried, okay?”
“I gathered,” Woods said in his own messed up version of compassion. “Look, I’ll check him for any weapons and we’ll make sure he’s never left alone. If something happens, everyone will still be close enough to help.”
“Yeah, Okay,” Marshall nodded. He sighed sadly again and looked like he was about to say something stupid like a thanks, so Woods interrupted him.
“Shut up, go do something away from me.”
At the very least, the comment pulled a half-hearted chuckle from him, even if it was just a reflex. Marshall glanced back through the window one last time before following the walkway to the front of the house, probably to start unloading the van.
Felix spoke up for the first time in a while. “You do know the disk isn’t actually porn right? I was joking earlier.”
“No shit,” Woods deadpanned, “Go work on the porn disk, beanstalk.”
Sev shook her head as she walked ahead to hold the door open for them. He waited for Felix to go first, heading back to his little corner of tech shit in the ops room. In the doorway, Sev stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
“You… do know Case might not make it, right?”
“Of course I fucking do—”
Sev rolled her eyes and clenched her jaw, frustrated with what she thought was an apathetic attitude. “This is a very delicate situation—”
“And this isn’t my first rodeo,” Woods said with finality, already impatient with everyone assuming he was too incompetent to grasp the situation at hand.
She sighed heavily, anxiety still present in the way she glanced around, trying to find another thing to nit-pick. “If anything happens, you get someone, alright?”
Yeah, like he fucking said earlier.
“I’m not—”
“I know you’re not incapable because you’re in a wheelchair, I’d give the same warning to Felix if he was watching after Case.”
“I know, I just said that to grind Marshall’s gears. I was gonna say I’m not as stupid as you guys think.”
Sev leveled him with a very unimpressed look. “Why do you always—”
She paused. “Wait. What did you mean ‘it’s not your first rodeo’? Has this—?”
“Enough talking, let me do my part. Go check on Marshall before he convinces himself that the Cradle’s existence is his fault too.” Woods rolled along, threatening to run over Sev’s feet if she didn’t move.
From behind him, he heard her grumble foreign curses and throw her hands up in frustrated defeat before turning to follow after Marshall. He smiled, proud of himself for successfully annoying everyone into fucking off.
Woods was very well aware that Case might not make it through the night. It was why he volunteered in the first place; They were all well acquainted with death, but not like this. This was a hell that Woods was rather familiar with, regardless of how much he hated it.
But he didn’t let himself wallow in misery, he had a job to do.
He rolled towards Case but as soon as he saw him a pang of terror struck him, immediately filled with the fear that Case might have already slipped away, his hands completely still.
But as he got closer, he saw instead that Case was awake, his eyes staring up at the ceiling, unfocused, blinking occasionally. Woods shook his head; he’d hoped the kid would have gotten at least a little more rest.
“Already up, huh?” Woods asked to announce his presence. He’d grumbled about holding Case’s hand earlier, but now he did it without Marshall pleading for him to, keeping two fingers on his pulse point.
Case’s heart was racing and he had no reaction to the touch.
Woods didn’t know if Case was there enough to hear his words, but he wasn’t going to make him suffer in silence. Without letting go, he started telling some stupid story about the adventures of Woods and Mason with only a few major embellishments as he worked to get his remaining gear off.
It was very awkward to do one-handed, but he succeeded. His triumph was a little overshadowed by the concern of Case having a fucking hatchet hidden away on him, but that was a question for later.
Woods wound up pulling Case’s arm around a bit, refusing to let go in case he suddenly flat lined in the two seconds Woods wasn’t checking his pulse, as he tossed the gear away to get it out of arm’s reach.
With it all out of the way, he went to take his spot next to the couch but was surprised to see Case staring right at him again. Whereas before he’d been staring in horror, this time he looked utterly grief-stricken. Like Woods was dead and Case was staring at his casket.
“Case? You alright?” The answer was an obvious hell no, but the unspoken question was asking if Case would react to Woods speaking directly to him. Unfortunately, the answer to that was also a firm no.
Case’s chest started shaking and Woods worried it was a seizure like Marshall had mentioned, but instead a tear rolled down his cheek. His grief looked so genuine, Woods almost felt like he needed to check his own pulse to make sure he was still alive.
Not knowing what else to do, Woods clasped both of his hands around Case’s and went off on yet another rambling story and lied to himself that it was helping.
…
After maybe an hour of unmoving, petrified staring, Case finally fell asleep again. It wasn’t long after that footsteps approached from behind, their owner remaining quiet, but he didn’t have to see him to know that Marshall had come to check up on them.
“Can you bring him a blanket and pillow or something?” Woods asked without turning, knowing that he would be happy to help.
The footsteps rushed off to fulfill the request, not even taking a minute to return with the requested items. Marshall helped him cover Case with the blanket, the pillows set aside for now out of fear of waking him up if they tried repositioning him.
“How is he?”
Woods sighed. “He was able to fall asleep, so could be worse.”
“Any violent outbursts?”
“Nope, just staring at me like I’m bleeding out in front of him,” Woods answered, trying to erase the horrified look that had haunted Case since he walked in from his mind.
Marshall was beginning to echo that expression.
“Did you know he had a hatchet?” Woods asked on a gamble, not knowing if it would lighten the mood or make it worse.
“What?” Marshall asked, giving him a weird look.
“Yeah,” Woods helpfully answered and pointed to where he had tossed it along with the rest of his shit. Marshall walked over like he was preparing for it to jump out at him at any point and gingerly picked it up, examining it.
Marshall side eyed him as he turned it over in his hands. “Did you check this?”
Woods bristled at the idea that he missed something obvious. “No, I was a little fucking busy, if you didn’t notice,” he deflected, gesturing to where he was still holding Case’s pulse point.
Marshall, used to his antics by now, only examined the hatchet closer. Looking confused, he handed it to Woods as he asked, “Is that blood?”
Woods met his eyes with a confused but concerned look before he grabbed it. “Thought you said Case had to ‘ve been alone because of the gunshots?”
“That’s what I thought before I found out he had a bloodied hatchet.”
The hatchet was a lot older than he had realized; The edge was dull enough for him to be able to run his fingers along it while applying pressure without getting cut. Marshall had gestured to the butt of the hatchet, where splotches of red mixed in with the steel that had been darkened by time.
He scratched at it, but it didn’t flake, practically one with the metal. There were more splotches of it dotted around the entire head of the hatchet, only noticeable when he held it up to the light streaming in from the windows.
What grabbed his attention more than that was how light the metal on the bit was, like the dirt and rust had been scraped away in uneven lines. It revealed that the hatchet had, at one point, been the typical and expected light gray instead of the black that it was now.
Marshall was staring at the hatchet, quietly mumbling to himself as he tried to figure out how Case got his hands on a hatchet and also bloodied it with no one there to have bled.
It was impressive how he could run through a problem and every possible answer and solution by himself just by thinking aloud, but it was headache-inducing to listen to while trying to focus on something else.
“The blood looks years old,” Woods interrupted, “If he used it today, it wasn’t as a weapon.”
“What?” Marshall snapped out of his thoughts.
“It’s too dull to solve 2+2, he probably used it to pry something open,” Woods supplied, using his master detective skills. He pointed at the spots that had lighter metal along the edge, the way it tapered back to the bloodied, aged look the rest of the head had in odd, jagged lines.
Marshall got a weird look on his face. “How old would you say the blood is exactly?”
“I don’t know,” Woods said in a tone that asked how on earth he was supposed to know that. “Very?”
Case twitched harshly, almost pulling his arm out of Woods’s hold. They both stopped and stared with baited breath, making sure his chest was still moving up and down. Woods held Case’s pulse firmer as if it would help either of them.
After a while, Marshall asked quietly, “Maybe about ten years old?”
Woods almost forgot their conversation, not expecting Marshall to keep pressing for a date that was anyone’s guess. “You know what?” Woods said sarcastically with a shrug, “Sure. Why not? Ten years.”
Marshall looked rather done with his shit. “Ten years old, as in the same time frame as the ‘incident’ they referred to in those audio logs? And a few of the files from the facility?”
“Oh shit…” Woods mumbled. It was possible, but still didn’t tell them anything. “But it’s still a reach and a half—”
“Adler said he worked there ten years ago, right?”
Woods leaned back in his chair, his eyebrows furrowing as red string began to connect various events in manic and tangled lines.
They had a few puzzle pieces that fit together, but they were all from different puzzles with different pictures. It felt almost too specific to not be related, yet that still didn’t give them anything other than a year long period that might connect random events. And it still didn’t shed any light on what happened to Case.
“Would Adler work on human experiments like that?” Marshall asked, struggling to find the right questions.
Woods snickered to himself.
“Nah, not like that,” he lied, the real story being too complicated for him to bother with. “He probably knows more than he let on, as he fucking always does, but I don’t think he would have been directly involved,” Woods explained, praying he was right if for no other reason than to not be called out on his lie.
He handed the hatchet back to Marshall who stared at it again, like they had both missed some magical inscription that would explain everything.
“Could be ten years,” Woods said, “Could be two. It might be connected, but right now it’s nothin’ more than a shot in the dark.”
“I…” he started, messing with the handle like he was testing the weight of it. “I’m going to figure out what we’re doing for dinner.” He dropped the hatchet back into Case’s pile of gear and walked silently into the kitchen.
Again, they finally found a door that could have held answers, only to open it and find more questions. A lot more questions.
“What the hell happened to you,” Woods whispered, watching as Case twitched like he was having a nightmare.
He was really looking forward to when Case would be coherent enough to provide some answers. And he ignored the part of him that cast doubt on the probability of that ever happening.
Because Case would pull through. Woods would kill him if he didn’t.
…
Woods could just barely see the movement in the kitchen from where he was sitting. It seemed soup was on the menu (a harsh switch up from their normal dinner of stew) and Felix had thankfully joined to help Marshall.
He had yet to waiver from his vigil at Case’s side, never letting go of his wrist for even a minute. Just because it was more work to let go or something, definitely not because he was worried. Definitely not.
He was still talking to Case even though his conversation partner was asleep, but he was whispering now, not wanting the cooks to overhear their private conversation.
Sev dropped in after the sun had fully set, delivering the bad but expected news that what little information they had been able to pull before evacuating with Case didn’t tell them anything new.
She brought a blanket too but Woods didn’t know if she had brought it for Case or if she knew Case already had one and brought it for him. She stayed in the doorway between the small sitting room and the kitchen, talking to Felix and Marshall about the hatchet debacle but constantly glancing back at Case like she didn’t trust that he was asleep.
It was in the last ten or so minutes of it cooking that the dreaded question was asked: Do they wake up Case so he can eat now or wait until he wakes up on his own?
(“If he wakes up on his own,” Sev had unhelpfully corrected, receiving glares even if she was right.)
Woods was nervous, he’d admit it.
At least, when it came to Case’s sleep, that is. Because that was all he was nervous about. To entertain anything else would be losing faith in Case and Woods couldn’t do that to him.
When Marshall had been briefing them on the situation, Sev said he was out and yet had quietly awoken not long after. Now, he had stayed asleep for the past several hours. The only evidence that he was alive was the racing heartbeat beneath Woods’s fingers and too-fast movement of his chest.
Woods and Marshall were in favor of waking him up while Sev and Felix were in favor of letting him sleep.
The “letting him drift away peacefully instead of dying scared” part of leaving him be was left unsaid.
Woods refused to admit that they might have a point. Case was too stubborn for a gas cloud to be the thing that kills him. But the decision was made for them.
There was no waking him up or leaving him alone when he shot up, kicking the blanket away like there was some invisible attacker on top of him. Woods let go of his wrist immediately on instinct, pulling back right before Case jerked and snatched his arm back.
Chaos erupted immediately; Sev, Marshall, and Felix rushed in to see what happened. As soon as Case was there enough to see the movement, he practically threw himself off of the couch, tumbling over the armrest. The look of horror had returned tenfold.
The armchair that was behind him was knocked to the ground with Case landing on it in a way that had to have bruised his ribs something good. But he paid it no heed as he continued his scrambling, desperate to get his back to a wall but too out of it to know where the walls were.
Case reached to his belt on his right side as he pushed himself against the desk in the corner, grabbing at where the hatchet had been. The look of fear somehow grew worse once he realized he was unarmed. He was like a snake coiling up in the corner, unable to run and preparing to strike.
Woods didn’t dare to take his eyes off Case as he held up his hand to tell the others to stop. If Case was still seeing shit, three unknown figures rushing towards him would only make his panic worse.
His eyes constantly bounced between all of them, seeing all of them as threats but waiting to see which one was the most pressing. At least he was seeing them, even if it was some twisted version that left him heaving for air.
“Case?” he called his attention, almost too quiet for his vocal chords to work. Case’s eyes snapped to him.
“Do you know where you are?”
No answer, just heaving breaths and more staring.
“You’re at The Rook, Adler’s old safe house, remember?”
It looked like he could hear him, but whether or not he understood the words was another question entirely.
“Why don’t you get back on the couch? I’m sure it’s more comfortable than the floor.” Woods felt like he was talking to a toddler. But if a toddler had seen the horrors of war and was also strong enough to body-slam a juggernaut.
Woods slowly approached and held out his hand, taking over a minute to traverse less than eight feet. Case stared at him for a while, his pupils slowly constricting.
His eyes bounced to where Felix, Sev, and Marshall were standing by, blinking like he had something in his eyes and was trying to get it out. Case was shaking violently, but Woods stayed steady, even as his hand grew tired from where it stayed outstretched.
As his breathing calmed, Case stared at the hand, his fingers twitching like he wanted to accept but was scared to move. A minute, maybe more, probably more, of nothing— Of patience and waiting, his offer steadfast.
(It had become a tradition for them to sit on the balcony and drink a cup of coffee as the sun rose every morning. For whatever reason, instead of sitting on one of the benches or dragging out a chair, Case would sit next to him on the ground, his legs dangling off the balcony in one of many spots where the railings were broken.
And every morning once their cups were empty, Woods would offer him a hand even though he couldn’t actually do anything to help him up. And every morning, Case accepted it graciously even though he never pulled on his hand at all.)
(It got to the point that one morning, Woods didn’t offer him a hand before he started back inside and Case stayed where he sat, staring at Woods like it was the ultimate betrayal.)
(Yes, he did go back to “help” him up, though he scoffed at the grown man’s antics.)
“Marshall made soup for dinner,” Woods added, pulling out a soft tone he hadn’t used in a damn long while. Case’s focus snapped back up to him, like he was surprised that Woods spoke, like it was the first thing he’d heard from him.
Another twenty seconds of tense waiting.
“Don’t worry, Felix helped so it should be edible.”
Case bounced between staring through Woods’s soul to looking down at the hand that was offered and back. Each time he looked up, his eyes seemed more glassy.
Case shakily reached forward and accepted the offer.
As per usual, he did not pull on Woods’s hand at all, only taking it for show as he stood on his own. Woods moved out of his way, picking up his discarded blanket as he went.
When he turned, he saw the trio staring on, waiting to see what would happen. He gave them a nasty look and made a quick shooing gesture, refusing to let them spook Case again. Certain he had scared them off, he returned to give Case a reassuring look, but the man wasn’t looking at him.
Case was picking up the armchair to right it, his arms shaking like he had spent days clinging onto the edge of a cliff. But when he tried setting it down, he found one of the legs had broken, hanging on by a thread.
“C’mon,” he said, picking up one of the pillows and propping it against the armrest, “I’ll get Marshall to look at it later.” He patted the pillow before giving Case some space. But he still stared at the now broken chair, a look of terror replaced by sorrow.
Woods repositioned himself to be in his line of sight, the movement thankfully catching his eye. “And if it can’t be fixed, I’ll wait ‘till Adler gets his ass back here to break it into firewood in front of him.”
He followed Woods’s suggestion of sitting on the couch, mindlessly repositioning the pillow. That was how most of his movements seemed — mindless. Woods took it as an improvement all the same.
“Here,” he said, handing him the bundled blanket, “Marshall got you a blanket earlier.”
Instead of shaking it out and getting under it, Case pulled the blanket closer to him, holding onto it like a child would a stuffed animal. He was still shaking.
He risked a glance to the three stooges in the doorway but they were just standing there staring, just as helpful as they had been earlier. He practically saw a light bulb go off over Felix’s head and he turned back to the kitchen.
Woods refused to look at Case with anything that could be misconstrued as pity. He knew how that shit felt. He moved close enough to put his hand on the arm rest, close enough that he would have felt the cushion dip. The only thing he could think to say was, “I’m still right here,” whispered at the ground, a gamble on if it was even loud enough to be heard.
Case’s breathing was stuttered and choppy.
Felix slowly walked in from the kitchen. Woods raised his head quickly.
“I brought you some soup, if you feel up for it,” Felix said quietly, gently setting a bowl that was more broth than soup down on the coffee table.
Woods couldn’t tell if Case heard him until he minutely shook his head no. Felix and Woods shared a concerned look, an action that was quickly becoming a hallmark of the day, and Felix slowly backed away like he was trying to get away from a rabid animal that would lunge at the first sign of weakness.
With mindless yet robotic movements, Case shifted to lie down on the couch, still holding the wadded blanket to his chest. He curled up as if he didn’t have enough room and closed his eyes, the silent message delivered loud and clear.
He turned to the ever-watching trio and shrugged while shaking his head.
But Felix’s light bulb still had some juice (filament?) left in it; He went back to the kitchen and returned with two bowls of soup, handing them off to Sev and Marshall. When they just stared at him, he gestured to the sitting room like they were stupid before heading back into the kitchen once more.
They reluctantly found seats after a silent argument that was mostly aggressively gesturing and pointing; Marshall pulled out the bench from the piano and Sev sat on the small, empty space on the couch. With the way they’d tiptoed around, you would think they were walking through an uncharted minefield.
Which, given that they were the only two to see how Case was immediately after his exposure, may have been perfectly warranted.
After bringing Woods’s bowl in, Felix grabbed a chair from the dining room and joined as well. When he sat down, everyone looked at him and waited to see what he would do.
He made a hand gesture like he was trying to tell them to keep going. When everyone only looked more confused, he sighed silently but exasperatedly before he said, “I have made a lot of progress on the disk so far.”
His tone was forcibly casual but his eyes were anything but, looking at each of them like they were idiots.
“I think just a bit more time and it will be cracked,” he added, strained, his eyes now bouncing between them and Case, who had not moved at all since he lied down. No one had taken a bite of their food.
Woods knew what he was trying to do but he wasn’t sure he had it in him to hold a casual conversation when Case looked like he was on the verge of tears next to him. “I… uh, I cleaned some of the weapons that were… around.”
His tone didn’t sound any better than he felt and he hoped that could be the end of his contribution and that the other three would pick up the mantle.
“You uh— You know that generator I mentioned in the basement?” Marshall halfheartedly mumbled, “The one I couldn’t get to work?”
“Mmh?” Felix nodded, relieved that someone else was making a better attempt at prompting a conversation. Woods wasn’t too surprised to glance over to see Case awake, listening in and glancing in the vague direction of whoever was speaking.
Marshall lightened and gained a very small, wistful smile and stared into his bowl as he stirred it, determined to not make accidental eye contact with Case. “Before we left for Iraq, I asked Case to take a look.”
Sev played into the game and interrupted him. “Let me guess, one hour?”
Marshall huffed a small laugh and corrected, “Try ten minutes.”
They chuckled. It was tired and sad but genuine all the same.
He continued, his smile a little less sad, “I thought he was coming up to ask for a flashlight or tool or something! But he just finds me, says ‘It’s working, dunno what it does,’ and then goes back to his little spot in the training area. Took me three hours before I gave up.”
“I saw him glaring at the piano the other day,” said Sev, the first to actually take a bite of food, “I doubt it will be long before he either smashes to pieces or uses it to solve the DaVinci Code.”
The others continued talking but Woods couldn’t bring himself to participate. He ate his food because it was warm and in his hands and he’d been in enough war zones to know that you don’t squander something like that, even if you can barley bring yourself to move the spoon from the bowl to your mouth.
He knew that what they were doing was good — Case was visibly relaxing as they prattled on — but Woods couldn’t fucking stand how it felt like a damn wake. Like they were sitting in plastic chairs circling a round, plastic table, telling stories and laughing because the only other option was to cry.
But at least when people do that, the deceased is in the next room over with a few walls and lies between them. But they weren’t even waiting for him to die. They just talked like Case wasn’t there, laid across a round, plastic table circled by plastic chairs, forced to listen, unable to contribute, unable to be heard.
But Case didn’t look like he was frozen in terror or consumed by grief so maybe Woods needed to get over himself.
Case’s arms had even eased around the blanket; he still held onto it, but it was no longer clutched tightly to his chest. And he looked like he was making an effort to breathe slowly, in through his nose and out through his mouth. He had yet to eat, but Woods knew when to accept small victories.
When his own bowl neared empty, he was happy to make his dirty dishes someone else’s problem as he kept his promise of maintaining his vigil at Case’s side.
With Case holding the blanket Marshall got him, Woods took a risk of not being within three feet of Case as he rolled over to grab the blanket Sev had dropped off. Shockingly, nothing changed in the five seconds he wasn’t right by his side. He tossed the blanket over Case, pulling it for him and making sure he was covered.
During the clean-up, Sev dropped off a bottle of water and packet of crackers in place of the untouched bowl of soup.
By that point, it was well past late o’clock. Sev and Marshall were turning in after that fucked up mess of a mission and slowly trudged upstairs, throwing sad, lingering looks over their shoulders as they went.
He tried grabbing a random book off the coffee table, but it actively hurt his brain to try to read what Adler considered to be “literature,” so he wormed Felix into bringing him something worth his time before he slithered back off to his corner to keep doing whatever it was Felix does in place of sleep.
He returned with a blanket, a beer, a book, and a reminder that he’d be in the ops room all night. (Within shouting distance.) Woods nodded but made no commitment to calling if he needed help.
Felix turned off the overhead lights as he left, leaving a few warm, dim lamps to light the room. Woods almost moved to turn the off as well, but…
If Case fell asleep earlier with the overhead on and sun blasting through the windows, the small amount of light the lamps gave probably wouldn’t bother him. Besides, thinking a fear of the dark to be childish is about as stupid as trusting the government and he had a feeling that Case had dealt with more than enough shadows for the day.
And the light let him see that Case was actually looking better. He wasn’t breaking into a cold sweat or shaking like he was about to go hypothermic; Hell, if Woods wanted to be hopeful, he’d say Case almost looked like himself.
But the line between hopefulness and stupidity was never as clear as people wanted it to be as they grew entwined and tangled together in a knot impossible to unravel.
Maybe he didn’t have hope. Giving up on someone was bad but sometimes it felt like hoping for the best doomed them just as much. But he did have trust. He trusted Case. Case was a damn good fighter but better than that he was smart; he knew when to push forward and fall back and when to lay down his arms.
If Case determined that this was a fight that wasn’t worth the sacrifice, then Woods would trust him. It was his call and Woods would stay beside him every step of the way, even if it ended with him writing another eulogy.
But for now, Case stuck his arm out from under the blanket before he had to reach for it. He was both relieved and saddened by the sight.
Case’s heartbeat was still far too fast for comfort but it had calmed considerably from how it had been just a few hours prior. Small victories.
“G’night, Case,” Woods whispered and patted the armrest his head laid against.
He settled in for the night, a book, a beer, and Case’s thankfully steady pulse to accompany him.