#deltaxtalks

“Don’t fucking forget me, it’s a long walk home.”

Woods’s last words echo through Mason’s ears as the helicopter touches down at the second exfil site. It's a small clearing, the only break among the seemingly endless forest that Woods had been stationed in.

And it’s empty. 

“Woods,” Mason calls over his headset, beating the pilot to the punch. “Woods, where are you?”

There’s no response.

“Woods,” Mason tries again, concern creeping into his voice. “Woods, come in.”

Still, nothing. The pilot glances over her shoulder at him and studies him with a frown.

“I’m going to look for him.” 

“Make it fast. You blow your chances, and I can’t guarantee I can come back,” she warns.

It’s a risk Mason’s willing to take.

He hops out without another word, traversing his way through the heavy snow back in the direction Woods would have come from. The forest is silent, eerily so, and it makes Mason’s heartbeat seem that much louder in his ears.

Where the fuck could Woods have gone? The exfil site had been far enough away from the base that there shouldn’t be another soul out here. They still had at least a few more minutes before Soviet soldiers would be swarming the forest.

Right?

“Woods?” Mason calls out tentatively, not wanting to attract any more attention than he has to. “Woods, you out there?”

The uninterrupted maze of trees and blinding snow turns Mason’s stomach into a knot. There isn’t a single sound that isn’t Mason; the hammering of his heart, the puffing of his breath, the chattering of his teeth. It’s only him.

Until it isn’t.

“Mason?” A voice calls out—Woods’s voice.

If the snow weren’t so thick, Mason would have been sprinting. Instead, his boots plod along clumsily in the direction of Woods.

When Mason finds him, he’s propped up against a towering mass of rock, leaning heavily against it. He looks a bit ragged, but as Mason approaches, he can tell that Frank is more than just out of breath.

The snow beneath him is red, and so is the trail of footprints behind him. Footprint is a strong word, Mason realizes as he nears—the path he carved is a mess of churned-up snow, as though something was being dragged.

“What happened?” Mason asks as he reaches Woods, his hand instinctively shooting out to hold Woods’ side, steadying him.

“It’s fine,” Woods waves him off but winces as he does so. “Fucking Reds put some kind of trap down. Couldn’t see it in the snow; nearly took my fucking foot off.”

He grimaces as he bends his knee, raising his foot above the snow for Mason to see. It’s hard to assess the damage, but his boot sports freshly gouged, reddening holes in its leather.

“Must have been one hell of a trap,” Mason notes sourly as Woods lowers his foot again. There’s a searing flash of anger through him, and a pressing need to roll a few grenades into the base below that he pointedly ignores. “Come on, let’s go.”

Mason presses close to Woods’ side, positioning himself between Woods and the rock before wrapping an arm around him. Woods briefly seems like he wants to protest, but a sharp glance from Mason has him thinking better of it. He allows Mason to hold him up, taking as much weight off his injured foot as he can.

They set out at a crawling pace; as much as Mason knows they should hurry, every wince and grunt from Woods has him slowing down further and further until they’re hardly moving at all.

“I’m not made of glass, Mason,” Woods huffs as they inch closer to the exfil site. “Pick up the pace.”

Mason furrows his brow but says nothing, nor does he speed up.

“Al,” Woods pats Mason’s shoulder where his hand holds onto it. “I said let’s go.”

“You’re hurt,” Mason replies simply, never taking his eyes off the trees ahead of them.

“Yeah, and I’ll be dead if we don’t get out of here.”

Fine. If Woods wants to pick up the pace, he can do that.

Mason stops altogether; Woods would have toppled over with the abruptness of it if he hadn’t been leaning nearly all of his weight against Mason. Before he can even question it, Mason is bending over, scooping Woods’s legs up with his free arm.

“Al, what the fuck are you doing?” Woods squawks as Mason picks him up. “If you want to pick me up like a bride, you gotta ask me to marry you first. Put me down.”

“You wanted to go faster,” is the only response Mason gives.

Now, not having to worry about Woods hurting himself more, Mason is able to trudge along at a more reasonable pace. It's not fast by any means, and his arms tire quickly, but anything is better than listening to Woods in pain.

After a few attempts at arguing that Mason quickly shuts down, Woods finally gives in, resting his head against Mason’s chest.

It feels like forever before the helicopter is in sight again, and Mason can see the pilot checking her radar anxiously. She brightens when she sees them and begins fiddling with the controls, preparing for takeoff.

“You boys made it just in time,” she informs them, tapping a display on the control panel showing a rapidly approaching group of dots. “Another thirty seconds and we’d have some company.”

“You hear that, Mason,” Woods snarks as Mason sets him down on one of the seats. “We almost didn’t make it.”

“Can it, Woods.”

“You know, I almost think you enjoyed it,” Woods hums as Mason sits down beside him. “You gonna patch me up when we get back too? Make me some soup, even?”

Mason rolls his eyes, playfully whacking Woods’ shoulder as he shakes his head. The helicopter finally makes lift off, the deafening whir of its blades drowning out Mason’s reply;

“No, you know what man, fuck Hudson.”

The outburst was sudden, but Mason looked thoroughly unperturbed, not even bothering to look up from his book. He was sprawled out on the couch in Woods’s living room; the shitty old brown one that he always claimed was too soft and too small, yet never let Woods throw out. “You can’t just tell him to fuck himself every time you disagree with him.”

Woods stopped pacing around the room, something he had been doing for nearly half an hour by this point. “Why the fuck not?”

“Because that’s every time he tells you what to do.”

Woods crossed his arms and huffed, his gaze creeping up the bare walls as he mulled over his anger. “What can I say? I’m a free thinker.”

In response, Mason simply hummed, unconvinced. After a moment’s pause—finishing reading something he found far more interesting than Woods’s tantrum, no doubt—he tacked on; “You must have been a nightmare as a kid.”

That was certainly one way to put it. “Excuse me, but I was a fucking saint.”

Mason let out a soft snort of amusement. “Sure. I imagine your parents were thrilled with your decision-making.”

“Yeah. Not that they had to deal with it for long.”

“And why’s that?”

“Ran away.” It was short, simple—too short and simple for Woods. Mason’s eyes finally left his book, only for a second. Then he paused. 

His eyes flicked back to Woods’s.

“I’m sorry.” He sat up a bit and closed his book, something Woods cringed at. He didn’t need pity. “I didn’t know.”

It wasn’t something that bothered Woods—hell, it wasn’t even something he thought about all that much—except that he knew that was a lie. Somewhere in the back of his mind, those memories played on a loop, over and over again. Just thinking of it made his heart skip a beat; he could already feel the lump in his throat. 

“It’s fine,” Woods responded, his voice sounding flat even to his own ears. “It doesn’t bug me.” But if that was true, then why did the words catch in his throat when he tried to say them?

Evidently, it wasn’t convincing enough to Mason either. His eyes stayed on Woods, watching him closely as he asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Woods let out a bark of laughter at the offer; as much as he loved Alex, he thought that there were better things to do on a couch than an impromptu therapy session. “It’s fine, Al,” he waved Mason off. 

But as much as he wanted to return to being angry, he couldn’t. His frustration with Hudson was gone, whisked away in an instant, and in its place, he felt nothing but exhaustion.

“That’s fine,” Mason responded, but he extended an arm to Woods. “Come lay down.”

Leave it to Mason to always know exactly what he needed.

He crawled into Mason’s lap readily, sprawling out on top of him. If the couch was too small for one person, it was impossible for two. But Woods wouldn’t change it for the world.

Mason said nothing as he held Woods, running his fingers through his hair soothingly. It was quiet, peaceful even, and Woods felt the need to ruin it.

“I was twelve,” he offered, unprompted, his voice muffled in Mason’s chest.

The fingers in his hair paused for only an instant, but it was enough for Woods to sense Mason’s surprise.

“Why did you do it?”

“I didn’t like being told what to do.” He could feel the way Mason’s breath hitched in a slight laughter. But it was painfully true; he had given up a home, a family, safety, all just because he wanted to be independent

Mason laid his head back on the arm of the couch, letting out a soft sigh as he did. “I don’t see why you joined the Marines then.”

Woods shrugged. “Realized I was wrong. Sometimes it's nice, not having to call all the shots yourself.”

He could feel the slight bob of Mason’s head as he nodded in agreement. “Very wise of you.”

Woods lifted himself off of Mason’s chest enough to playfully glare at him. “Don’t sound so surprised. You think I’m stupid, Mason?”

Pretending to think on it, Mason turned his gaze to the ceiling and pursed his lips. “Sometimes.”

With a laugh, Woods thumped his fist against Mason’s side, spurring Mason to giggle along with him. “Fuck you,” he snorted, flopping his head back down.

After their laughter died, Mason pet his hand through Woods’s hair again, ducking down as he did so to plant a kiss on the top of Woods’s head. His voice was soft when he finally asked, “Was it worth it?”

Woods thought on it a moment; the long nights spent in cold, abandoned buildings, stealing for food, having no one and nowhere to call his own, and how it all led him to join the Marines, the CIA—how everything had led him to Mason.