Patron Saint of Rarepairs

Darkness is something that Mason has grown used to. Waking up in the dead of night—a cold sheen of sweat sticking to his skin, throat dry, as though every ounce of moisture was desperately attempting to escape his body while he slept—the first thing he notices is how dark it is.

The observation is rendered moot almost immediately. If someone, maybe the U.S. government, for one, were kind enough to give him a dollar for every time he woke up panicked and afraid in a pitch-black room, so thick in its shadows that he couldn't even see his fingers mere inches from his face, he'd be a rich man. And hell, that's after only ten years; he'd hate to see what kind of money another ten or twenty years would make him.

Maybe that's why he doesn't bother to turn on a light when he stands up, slipping his way out of bed, out of his bedroom, and down the hall, feet pattering all too loud against the hardwood floor in the silence.

The only indication that he's in the kitchen is the feeling of cold tile under the skin of his feet, and the small reprieve of light offered up by the window over the sink. It's not enough for him to see in any meaningful way, but it's enough to finally make out his surroundings on more than intuition. There's the massive, black shape of the kitchen counter hugging the wall, and right at its edge, the fridge. Beyond that, the wall stretches past the kitchen, into the living room, and to the fuzzy, inky shape of the couch.

Mason narrows his eyes. Had he forgotten a blanket on the couch before he went to bed?

Something rests bunched up on the arm, an unnatural—too natural, maybe—shape slung over the edge, trailing down the length of the cushion, culminating in something long and gangly dangling off onto the floor.

He squints more, eyes straining in the dark, heart picking up speed as his mind races to catch up and tell him what his gut already knows.

There's a body on the couch.

It's not moving, either; whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, he isn't too sure of yet. For a paralyzing moment, he just stands there, unsure of what to do, unsure of whether it's even real.

Then it does move.

In fact, it coughs. A horrible, flemmy sound rises from it, capped off with a hearty, "Ugh, fuck."

And that's when it hits him. "Woods?"

The body visibly jumps, quite a feat considering Mason still can't even see it too well. "Fuck! Mason, don't scare me like that."

All Mason can think is what the fuck is Woods doing in his house at three o'clock in the morning?

"What the fuck are you doing in my house at three o'clock in the morning?"

Woods finally sits up from his cushiony resting place, head turning to, presumably, look at Mason. He clears his throat again as he rises, and with the sound of a fist hitting his chest, seems to dislodge whatever was stuck in his throat. "Figured I'd come say hi," he snarks, and Mason can hear the smile on his face, even if he can't see it.

"At three in the morning," Mason repeats. It's not a question.

"Yeah," Woods makes an exaggerated movement that might be a shrug. "Y'know, locked myself out of my apartment, figured you gave me your spare for a reason."

There it is. "You locked yourself out, so you broke into my apartment?"

"Hey, I didn't break into shit. You gave me the key."

Not entirely untrue, but at this point, the distinction between breaking in and letting yourself in uninvited felt trivial to Mason. This wasn't exactly what he had in mind when he had that key made. "I could have shot you."

Woods scoffs. "Like you would have even seen me."

And suddenly, Mason finds he doesn't have the time, or the patience, or the energy for this. Rather than answering, he walks to the cupboard, grabs a glass, and heads for the sink. The faucet turns on with a gentle rush, cold water quickly filling his cup.

"Really," Woods takes his silence as permission to keep goading, lying back down, and getting comfortable for his incoming diatribe. "You're shit at nighttime surveillance. Bet your squad has had to save your ass a dozen times. You're lucky you've got me now."

Mason turns the faucet off without a word, padding back to the edge of the kitchen, to the hall that leads to his bedroom. Woods's momentary pause is enough to give him the opening he needs. Mason closes his eyes, bringing his free hand up to block them completely.

"Goodnight, Woods," he replies simply and angles a finger away from the glass he's holding. With it, he flicks on the lights.

Danny is livid.

Rusty can tell from the moment he steps out of the van. The thin-lipped grimace, heaviness to his step, the way his eyes skate over Rusty without a second glance—that isn't like Danny at all.

For a minute, Rusty thinks that they didn't get the pinch with how uptight Danny seems. Add that to the way Linus slinks out behind him, slamming the van door shut like something inside was chasing him, and it seems like a sure-fire mission fuck-up.

But as they draw closer, Rusty's read on the situation starts to change. Nothing in Danny's eyes cries for help—nothing says you better start thinking. In fact, Danny doesn't look like he's thinking much at all, besides maybe a distant echoing string of curses. And Linus? He looks like a dog that's been caught gnawing on the sofa. He must've found something real interesting on the pavement, too; his eyes never leave it as he blindly shuffles after Danny.

As they enter the hotel, Rusty has the passing thought to ask Danny what exactly had happened. He thinks better of it, though. There would be better times to ask.

In the elevator, for one. That would be much more entertaining.

So he settles for a casual, "Hey," sucking down the last spoonful of ice cream like he can't tell anything is wrong. The lack of questioning seems to settle Danny's apprehension at least, even if he glares at Rusty's snack like it personally insulted him.

It's a quiet, awkward moment as Rusty follows the pair to the elevator, tossing his empty cup in a trash can on the way, taking his time to really savor the moment. He waits patiently as they all shuffle in, watching as Danny and Linus stick to complete opposite sides of the little room.

Only once the doors safely shut and the elevator begins to move does Rusty finally ask: "So, you boys have a nice trip?"

Silence.

Neither Danny nor Linus answers, Danny clearing his throat in a clear signal of don't ask, as Linus shuffles uncomfortably.

"Come on," Rusty goads. "No takers?"

Again, silence.

"Tough crowd."

Finally, someone bites. "Why don't you tell him, Linus?"

And?

Silence.

Rusty turns to look over his shoulder at Linus, who is currently in the process of trying to burn a hole in his sweater with his eyes. "It's- I just- I messed up." He relents with a shrug that, while masquerading as casual, makes him look like a teenager who got caught out past curfew. "I made a mistake, ok?"

"Yeah?" Rusty prompts, but Linus just shrugs again.

On Rusty's other side, Danny jams his hands in his pockets. "He got caught by security after I told him to stay in the van." The eyeroll is audible in his tone.

"Oooh, caught by security, huh?" Rusty laughs wolfishly, turning back toward the door. It's not like Linus is going to look at him anyway. "Yeah, that's a bad one."

"Yeah," Danny grunts. "A real bad one."

"Come on, guys!" The loud ding of the elevator reaching its destination undercuts Linus's cry. "I get it—I messed up, we've established that! Can we let it go now?"

"Let it go," Danny scoffs, half to himself, as the doors slide open. He wastes no time pushing past Rusty and out into the empty hallway. "He almost cost us the whole job, and he wants to let it go."

As Rusty follows close on Danny's heel, he turns around to Linus with a grin, his arms outstretched as if to say you see how it is. "Guess that's a no."

"Come on!" Linus starts again, but Rusty doesn't stick around to listen; he's sure this won't be the end from Linus or Danny—or anyone else in that van, for that matter. Sticking around for Linus's incoming spiel does not sound like his idea of a fun evening.

Instead, as he heads out of the elevator, he calls back to Linus with a laugh, "Maybe if you hurry you can get Saul on your side before the other guys get back." This, Rusty decides, is going to be a fun evening.

Rusty wasn't going to sleep. It was a fate he had resigned himself to the moment Danny showed up at his door, dressed in a suit, wired and ready to go just shy of midnight. As far as Rusty was concerned, Toulour was the biggest asshole he'd ever met this side of the Atlantic, and that was saying a lot; Rusty had met a lot of assholes in his line of work.

When he'd first invited Danny in, he thought he'd have an easier time pumping him with a few more espressos and letting him watch reality TV all night. Sleep seemed like the last thing on Danny's mind.

So it was a pleasant surprise when, over an hour ago, now, Rusty had commented on some TV advertisement or another—he honestly couldn't remember at this point what it had been—and gotten no reply. It had taken him a minute to notice, the wine not exactly helping his observational skills, and when he did, he called out Danny's name. There had been no response to that, either.

Next to him, Danny was fast asleep, curled into the thick hotel couch cushions, wine glass still resting in his hand. He looked comfortable.

Thank God it hadn't taken much to knock him out. But that left Rusty with his own sleep problem; it seemed like he would be the one watching TV until the sun rose.

Since then, Rusty had sat in the dark alone, drinking water—he had no idea when either of these things had happened, the lights turning off or the bottle of sure-to-be-expensive hotel water appearing in his hand—and he was starting to feel marginally better, which also meant more awake.

He was dreading the night to come. Sure, he'd never been much of a sleeper, but pulling off one of their most difficult lifts on no sleep at all? That was something Rusty wasn't looking forward to. He didn't even have the luxury of Danny's espressos.

At some point, it occurred to him that maybe trying to fall asleep on the couch wasn't helping his cause. Even if Danny had managed to get cozy, sitting straight up with the light of the TV in his face wasn't exactly Rusty's idea of a comfortable evening.

He started to sit up, flicking off the TV and plunging the room into blackness. A quick glance to his left told him he hadn't woken Danny up. In fact, Danny hadn't so much as moved a muscle—his wine glass still sat in his hand, tucked against his chest.

Leaving Danny with a glass overnight might not have been the smartest idea; drunk or not, Rusty could decide that much. They wouldn't want to spill it on the carpet or anything. God only knew how much the damage fees for red wine would be.

Rusty leaned over, pressing in close to Danny and lifting the glass from his hand. He set it down on the coffee table as gently as he could, a valiant effort if not an entirely successful one, and settled back on the couch to get his bearings.

Maybe it was the sound of the glass being set down, or maybe just how much he was moving, but something he did, he did wrong; there was a soft hum from next to him as Danny sat up a bit.

"Hey," Danny called softly, voice rough with sleep and wine. "What are you still doing up?"

Great question. Rusty didn't really know. "Sitting here."

Danny hummed in an unquestioning acknowledgement and sighed. Before Rusty could even think of getting up, an arm wrapped around his shoulders. Danny dragged him down as he readjusted, settling to lie across the couch, pulling Rusty against his chest in place of the now abandoned wine glass.

"Go to sleep," Danny urged, swinging his legs up onto the couch clumsily. He encouraged Rusty to do the same with a tap of his hand.

For a few seconds, Rusty just blinked into the darkness, bent over awkwardly so that his top half was lying on Danny, while his legs dangled uselessly off the couch. It was uncomfortable, but he couldn't bring himself to move. Pressed into the fluffy fabric of Danny's robe, he became aware of just how warm his face was and how hard his heart was beating in his chest.

It was the wine, he told himself. Just the wine, and nothing else. For now, he could almost believe it.

"'S okay," Danny encouraged when Rusty didn't move, running his fingers over Rusty's short hair. "I've got you."

Through the haze over his brain, and the darkness, and the lingering sparks of adrenaline, it felt like time had stopped. He wanted to say something, anything. But what would he say? Speechlessness wasn't a thing Rusty knew, and yet.

He wanted to say Danny had finally done it, he was about to cross a line, had already crossed a line, had gotten Rusty's hopes up that he might keep crossing that line. But Danny's breath was slowing again, and there was nothing Rusty could say. That was for the best, he decided. He never had to say much around Danny anyway.

It's quiet. In the bottom of Adler's stomach, there's a pit. Soon enough, there will be no going back.

Case is just delaying the inevitable; Adler knows as much. He's not even sure if the kid realizes it; he's just pacing back and forth, walking the house over and over as though he has nothing better to do. Occasionally, his footsteps stop, and Adler can hear him talking, first to Felix, then to Sevati, then to Marshall.

Adler nearly wants to take pity on him. Hell, he understood the feeling. Even after all these years, he still got a little rough around the edges when something big was happening. And if that little chip Felix found in Harrow's arm was anything to go off of, something big was happening—real soon.

But Christ, if Case wouldn't just get on with it. Why Marshall seemed to always leave these things up to him was beyond Adler. When Adler left it to someone else, there was a reason; it was about control, about gaining the trust of a flighty teammate. But Marshall? Above all else, he seemed to just trust Case's judgment. It made Adler sick.

For what it was worth, he liked Case. Maybe even a little too much. He was rather friendly—nosy, Adler might even say—despite his general quiet disposition, not to mention that he was quite a force to be reckoned with; Adler had never seen anyone so willing to take a, well, anything—bullet, punch, bioweapon—for his team.

It reminded him a lot of someone he would rather forget.

They both had that same tendency of wasting time, too. Made everyone like them more, sure, but it had driven types like Adler—Sims and Hudson, too, in their days—a little nuts. Adler had always been of the belief that if something needed to be done, it was best just to do it. There was nothing in their field that anyone truly wanted to do, so why waste time wringing hands about it?

Again, Case's steps echoed closer, on his umpteenth lap of the Rook. Adler grit his teeth, braced a hand against his desk, and tried to ignore the amused snort it got out of Woods across the room.

This time, though, he turned into the briefing room. For a moment, Adler nearly had his hopes up; perhaps Case had finally decided to get on with it.

Tough luck. Case idled silently in his peripheral, clearly in no hurry.

"We're almost ready," Adler opened rather pointedly, the short nod from Case ensuring that he understood at least on some level what Adler was getting at.

Deciding it was better to get comfortable, Adler leaned back against his desk. He brought the cigarette in his hand to his lips as he met Case's eye, finding himself lucky that Case had taken his usual mask off. The guy had an odd habit of staring, but it made Adler a bit easier that he wasn't face-to-face with anything resembling a balaclava.

"How well did you know Harrow?" It was an odd question to be met with as an opener. But then, Adler thought, that was one of the things he liked about Case. He didn't dance around the point.

How well had he known Harrow? All those years of bringing her up the ranks, and this is where it landed him. He thought he had known her, but then, maybe he was just getting too comfortable. Maybe everyone else was getting a little too easy to predict, letting the Harrows of the world slip through that much easier. "Obviously not well enough."

It was vague, intentionally. Case didn't need to know the details, and Woods, who was rather unsubtly eavesdropping, didn't need to know any more than he already did. "When Harrow was at Langley, she held a lot of promise. Curiosity, intellect, ambition." Adler's eyes settled beyond Case as he readjusted against the desk; that much was true. But then, it didn't take a rocket scientist to see those traits in Harrow. Case had known her long enough. "I tried to guide her in those early years. Maybe I wasn't the right one for the job."

Case nodded slowly, taking it in. Sure, his answer shirked off quite a bit of responsibility; he could've done more, tried harder, not tried at all. But something told him Case had already figured that out. Adler didn't like that.

Even more, he didn't like that Case seemed to sense that too, evident when Case changed the topic: "What are you putting together?"

"Its official name is phenosorazine," Adler flicked the ashes from his cigarette. They fluttered down onto the concrete floor between him and Case. "But MK-Ultra coined it 'Separation'."

Now that was a name he hadn't heard in a long time, hadn't said in even longer. The program had cooked up all sorts of nasty little tools, some of which could still be taken advantage of now. And some of which Adler wished were still around.

"I've had it for a while. Let's just hope it doesn't have an expiration date."

There was a soft laugh from Case, and something that might've been that's for sure, but Adler couldn't quite tell. "What's it do?"

Adler almost smiled. Almost. "In most test subjects, it fragmented their psyche. A form of induced schizophrenia."

It had worked the first time; put him together an effective weapon—Frankenstein's imperfect monster. Some days, he missed being the scientist. It was almost nice to play the part again. "We're gonna find the part of Harrow that's willing to talk to us." Not that she would enjoy it. The first lab rat hadn't either.

"What happened to the other test subjects?"

It was like a kick to the head, a shot of adrenaline right to his system, being asked directly. Thoughts and words were quite different, after all. Adler could feel Woods's eyes on him from across the room. He knew Woods wouldn't sell him out, not after all this time, but he wasn't in the habit of making Adler's life easier, either.

What could he say? They died was the correct answer, but not because of the drug or any side effect. Unless, of course, one considered whatever mess he had made to be a side effect. In a world where it hadn't become quite so complicated, what would the answer be? They lost their mind? Suffered both physically and mentally? Probably would've killed themself if Adler hadn't saved them the trouble?

That's the story Woods had, anyway. Not that Adler thought he believed it; Woods was smarter than that. But it was better than dealing with the fallout of being honest; Woods had always liked Bell more than Adler had.

Even if that was true, Adler doubted Woods still saw Bell's eyes staring back at him from under every knitted mask.

"Don't ask," Adler dug the toe of his boot against the floor, watching little cigarette ashes flutter down on the worn leather.

Case didn't press any further, simply watching Adler in a curious silence for a moment. Then he nodded. "Five minutes," he called to Woods, turning away and disappearing to god-knows-where. And that was different. Bell had never known when to stop.

"Sounds good," Woods returned. His eyes were still glued to Adler.

He knew what was coming once Case's footsteps echoed into the distance. Woods didn't come any closer, sitting perfectly still on his side of the room. "So," his tone was level, one of genuine curiosity, even. "That what we're telling people now?"

Adler turned, meeting his gaze dead-on. It wasn't hard to read Woods after all these years. As much as he was challenging Adler, it was an honest question. With another drag of his cigarette, Adler pushed a hand through his hair. "It's a long story."

"And we don't have time."

"You understand."

Woods rolled his eyes. He moved his chair closer to the evidence board, pulling a few notes off of it and sorting through them in his lap, trying to seem, or maybe feel, busy. "CIA shoulda been studying Stockholm Syndrome. That's where the money is."

Maybe. It was hard to forget Bell waiting on him like a dog.

"You get off on this shit or something?"

Adler put his cigarette out.