Chapter Text
Ryan felt his arm itching for the fourth time in the same hour. The clock by his bedside… cotside? Was ticking loudly, he swore he could hear it along side the beating of his chest and the rushing in his ears. Sweat beaded along his forehead and soaked into the wool of his mask, another trickled from his neck down the length of his spine. His mouth was dry despite how warm his face felt. He could feel his teeth sticking to the inside of his segmented lips. His skin felt tight where scar tissue dimpled and pitted.
"Got somethin' for you, Captain Baker!" One of the Vulture's called out. He was a good kid. Lanky, talked too much. Got loud without realizing it, kind of skittish. His scent gave away a lot, Ryan had recommended he wear suppressants when they were in the field.
Ryan blinked.
The clock ticked.
He raised his head from his hands clasped together and couldn't put a name to the kid's face. His skin pulled as he opened his mouth. His lips stuck to his teeth briefly, peeling apart before he spoke.
"What?" His voice came out raspy and raw, unused in the last few hours as he sweated out another high.
"Some Aussies that were down in Saigon earlier were askin' around for you. Said they had something to bring out to camp. Marley offered to bring it up for 'em but it's addressed to you."
"Why would it be addressed to me?" He questioned numbly. It didn't make any sense to his quiet mind, the thoughts didn't shift past his basic line of questioning.
"I'unno." Kid shrugged, then held out a small, rectangular box wrapped in brown paper. It wasn't very big.
A stray thought crossed his mind that maybe it was something from home, but there was no one left there to send him something. After staring at it for another thirty seconds, he straightened. Kid in front of him startled at the sudden movement, but his arm remained outstretched, box in hand.
Another bead of sweat rolled down the back of his neck and disappeared into the collar of his shirt.
Finally, he reached out and took it from the kid's hand. The brown paper was textured beneath his scarred fingers. He caught the scent of his own surprise leaking through his suppressant patch.
The kid shifted his weight for a few moments, staring at him like he was waiting for a thank you. He probably was.
Ryan's eyes flicked up towards him.
He knew what he looked like in the mirror. Bloodshot eyes that carried visions of the past in his memory. Pale, gaunt cheeks and his disfigured skin. That was why he hid beneath the heavy wool of his mask. He knew his dead stare scared the kid but he did it anyway, lifelessly staring until his scent flared with anxiety and he darted away, leaving Ryan to his own devices.
With the rest of the squad—what little of them remaining after the last mission—huddled together away from him, Ryan finally felt comfortable opening the small box. He tore the brown paper wrapping with unsteady hands. His fingers trembled as he peeled it back.
Inside was a letter, coffee-stained paper with ink scrawled across it in slanted, sloped handwriting. It had his name scrawled atop of it. There was something about the letter that made him pause and stare at it. His vision centered on the care taken to write his name—Ryan Baker—in black ink. Who could have possibly-?
The item that actually caught his eye and forced him to think beyond the shape or size of it was the shiny enamel pin that sat neatly nestled in a cloth—a handkerchief. It was white, embroidered with a repeating floral pattern of yellow flowers that he didn't recognize.
No… no. He squinted at the flowers and the wool was heavy over his mouth as he let out a heavy breath. He did recognize them.
Yellow bushels that were a defining feature of the Western Australian Golden Wattle. Vincent had drawn them with a read-thru colour marker that one of the nurses had rustled up after he'd bothered them over and over again for something to occupy his one arm not in a sling. He talked about them being the national flower of his home. His tongue was heavy in his mouth, both dry and salivating at the same time. He felt it pooling on his tongue. He sucked in a warm breath between his teeth against the damp fabric of his mask.
His fingers ghosted over the enamel, which warmed in the humidity of the Vietnamese jungle. It took him slow moments to parse the raised letters on the enamel, putting the words together. The meaning of them escaped him but somewhere, somehow, he knew they were important. He lifted the box towards him and sniffed curiously, searching for any scents that might give away the origin of the mysterious parcel that arrived.
He set aside the enamel pin to fold open the pages with his name on it. Curiosity prodded at him, as his thumbs stroked the textured edge. There was a scent clinging to the pages; citrus and sandalwood that ignited something through the haze in his mind. He inhaled deeply, covered nose pressed against it.
Even through his mask he got a good whiff of the scent that coated the pages. The tart scent of longing in the citrus, the deep sense of calm from the sandalwood. It settled a part of his hindbrain that had been on edge ever since he was discharged back into the field after his extended stay in Okinawa.
He'd come to know that scent. Memorise it like the back of his hand. What he distinctly remembered that it was home. Not Florida with it's muggy heat, not Vietnam, where he spent more time ankle deep in the mud sweating his ass off than he did with his eyes closed at night. It was the way citrus and jasmine clashed together and melded into something warm and comforting. Home…
Home was with Vincent.
He didn't allow himself to think of the alpha that he mated in a hospital bed, not when he was here. Not when everything was simply out of his reach.
But this was his scent.
The package Ryan was holding in his hands right now. It was his scent.
He nearly ripped the pages in his haste to open them with trembling hands. His face felt hot, his skin prickled. He swore he felt more sweat on the back of his neck. The pages crinkled underneath his squeezed fingers, creasing the paper. There were so many words in the page, words and words scrawled in hasty ballpoint pen like the author had too many things to and not enough time to say them.
So he started reading.
Dear Ryan
Ryan
To my mateHow do you start a letter to someone you haven't seen in close to a year and you don't know how much you need to grovel so they forgive you?
Like that, Ryan guessed.
To… the love of my life… my mate who I have thought about day after day after day for the last 539 days. Yes I've counted. Roy said that makes me a freak. Wally just said I was whipped and you know what, he's right. I still kicked his ass for it.
There were heavy handed pen marks in the lines where there weren't any words, loops as though Vincent had tried to get the pen writing again on the pages to the point where he left indentations info the paper.
Ryan.
I wasn't exactly sure if this letter would reach you but I had to have
hpp, hoe oh if I could just fucking spellhope. You're a hard man to track down darl, but I'm nothing if not annoying and persistent. Captain's been pissy with how much of a pain I've been about getting a message to you considering we didn't know if you were still deployed or not. Did you know there's a damn lot of Ryan Bakers enlisted? You're my favourite one though. I think you're my favourite person ever… or is that just a given with mates?This letter might come as a shock. I know. I love you, I'm sorry.
I was a fool not to insist on coming home with you. I never wanted to abandon you, to leave you mateless halfway across the ocean and I regret it every day that I didn't fight to be with you. I'm sorry I just left without a word.
I'm sorry I'm not there with you. That is my misgiving as a mate. I have to do better. I will do better.
I miss your hair, I miss your scent. I miss your warmth. I miss the way you fit against me the most. In my arms. I don't think I've ever stopped dreaming about how it felt to hold you. I think I won't ever run out of listing things I miss about you but that might take up all the fucking pages I have.
Please don't I hope you hav IPlease don't say you've forgotten me. I think about you every day. Roy's been a dickhead over it and calling me a lovesick fool but I think I'm just a fool in general for thinking I could spend the rest of my life without you.
I want to come see you. I never forgot you.You are my everything.I'm going to do right by you, Ryan. My mate. You're my mate. And I should've done this right by you from the start so Ryan, would you allow me to court you, as you should've been?
I don't have much on base that I can give you, what makes a good courting gift? I don't know, but maybe my flight pin might be enough for now. I don't know if you remember what the words mean, but they… they seem so poetic when I think about where you are. "Per Ardua Ad Astra" means through struggle to the stars-
Sometimes I- Some days I hope- Maybe-There are some nights where I look up at the sky, and I wonder if we share the same stars. If we do, are you thinking of me too?
I'm rambling too much… even on paper. Can I write that? God this isn't a diary why am I writing that.I love you. And I want to court you like a true mate should court you. So this is my suit, would you accept?
Will you write
Please write back. I miss you so much.
I hope I
Don't forget meWrite soon, you have all my love,
Vincent Wyatt.
At the bottom, in the same sloped handwriting, was a return address.
Ryan traced his fingers over the indentations in the paper of Vincent's soft and gentle words. He pondered their sincerity, the lines that had been crossed out and rewritten multiple times as he apologized for the distance between them.
He read what Vincent wrote again; 'If we do, are you thinking of me too?'
Was he worried that Ryan would forget the promises between them? Was he worried that Ryan would think that the bites they shared meant nothing?
It had been countless and countless of days and nights where Ryan had been lost in his own head and he thought about the mark on his throat or the scars on his shoulder. The heated memory of warmth pressed against his back as his mate touched and caressed him with the possessiveness of a man that refused to let anyone take what was his. He felt those hands countless of times in his dreams and while he was lost to the pusillanimous behaviours that kept his consciousness from remaining in the present.
Vincent Wyatt was neither man not an alpha that Ryan would forget.
He clenched the papers in his hands. That was just the first letter. That was the first of- he didn't even know how many of them were folded into the thick stack of pages. Vincent must have been writing for days—or until he ran out of paper. He couldn't help the chuckle that tore out of his throat. It was… far more than the familiar rush on endorphins when he fell into the rush of morphine through his veins.
It wasn't the discarnate memory of pure bliss from the first few months he laid swathed in pristine white sheets. This wasn't the warmth of a window brimming with ethereal light. This wasn't the comfort granted to him by a stolen syrette in the middle of the night.
This was the warmth of blood trickling into the hollow of his throat and down his shoulder. This was the burning memory of hands branding his hips and holding him tight. This was hot breath against the shell of his ear, pleading slurred around sharp fangs. This was-
It was real.
Another chuckle broke past his segmented lips, warm against the inside of his woollen mask. He dug a thumb beneath the ribbed and textured fabric and tore it over his mouth and nose so he could press his bare, pitted skin and nose into the pages. So he could inhale the reality without the stale scent of sweat and his own miserable stench in the way.
He stood, legs moving before his mind and the rest of his body caught up with him. His body was searching for something while his mind remained transfixed on the fact that Vincent had found him. His mate had managed to get a letter to him, his mate wanted him.
"Uh, Captain?"
The same skittish kid, beta scent sharp with concern. It broke his concentration and forced him to actually look over at them and acknowledge that he was actually there.
"Pens." He rasped. "Pens, and paper. Now!"
He had to-he had to let Vincent know.
The kid looked at him with wide, deer-in-the-headlight eyes. Like he was surprised that Ryan even asked for something in the midst of coping mechanisms. But he scurried off at Ryan's pale jade stare. He knew in his heart the kid deserved more of an explanation than that, about the way he reacted, more than just a stare.
One day he would do that. One day when it wasn't too much and the weight of his dead brothers made him want to shrink away. The bite on his throat throbbed. He pressed the pages back to his face to inhale the comfort since he couldn't pour the citrus and sandalwood into his veins.