.mackfts:
When Adam pulled away ever so slightly, Mack whined loudly, before tugging on the fabric of his shirt to pull him back. When, instead, he tried to meet her eye, she stared back, her forehead creased as she frowned back at her best friend. He was being firm with her, and she knew that this far more serious side to Adam was reserved only for the kids he taught, his patients, and anything that he deemed a high level of importance.
Sniffing, Mack chewed down on her lip as she bit back a sob that was threatening to tear through her throat. While she hadn’t ever been one of those people that acted like crying was some sort of cardinal sin, she also didn’t like to think of herself as the kind of person that got all weepy for no apparent reason, and she hated the thought of letting her guard down with Adam. He was the one person that she could let her guard down with, but she wanted to try and remain strong, and not let the whole experience get the better of her.
“I know, I know,” she muttered, keeping her voice low so that Adam wouldn’t hear the way her voice cracked as she spoke. “I just… I feel so stupid. Who the hell takes a drink off a total stranger in a club? I’m not saying, like, that I deserved it or anything, but…”
She trailed off, unsure how she had ever intended on finishing that sentence. All she knew was that she was going to continue beating herself up about the whole thing. The fact that she’d been idiot enough to let a guy like that gain such easy control to her upset her beyond belief, but what terrified her all the more was the idea that it could have just as easily been Bailey, or Dakota, or anyone else.
Upon hearing Adam’s threat, Mack offered her friend a weak smile before pulling his hand towards her and clasping it into her own. She knew he wasn’t a violent person, and that he’d never wrongfully attack or harm another person – it sorta went against his job description, and all – but she appreciated the thought that Adam was all too ready to take out some creep for laying a hand on her.
“If you got your hands on him, you’d land his ass in jail, and nothing else,” she told him firmly.
While she did appreciate the sentiment, she hated nothing more than to think of Adam landing himself in trouble on account of her. Which brought her to the thought of Dakota and Bailey, who she had no doubt probably got a few swings in here and there. If she knew her sisters, she knew they wouldn’t stand back and let anybody take advantage of her – or one another. While the Nelson sisters were much like most siblings in that they fought and bickered over varying matters, they always had each other’s back, no matter the situation, and Mack would fight her way through hell and back for both of those girls.
“Bails and ‘Kota, they didn’t get themselves into too much trouble, did they?” she questioned. She figured it redundant to ask if they’d gotten into any trouble, knowing they’d never let a situation like that slide in a million years.
The second she raised the subject of her sisters, however, she heard a ruckus outside of her bedroom, the sound of Bailey’s voice meeting her ears. While it wasn’t out of character for Bailey to be loud, or to be caught causing a scene, Mack was sure even her baby sister had a little more tact as to start drama with Dakota the morning after Mack had been spiked. Whatever was going on outside, she figured it had to be at least a little bit serious.
“I have… no clue…” she muttered, a useless answer in hindsight.
As volumes rose higher, and Bailey’s voice grew all the more closer to her bedroom door, Mack’s ears finally became attuned to the other voice that seemed to be yelling right back at Bailey, just in time for her bedroom door to burst wide open.
“Oh shit,” she whispered, shooting a glance at Adam.
Still keeping a tight hold on Adam’s hand, Mack bolted upright at the noise, the bedsheet slipping off to reveal her and Adam as she stared back at the figures in the doorway. While Bailey stared on, wide-eyed, flushed, and glaring at Roy as though he were Satan himself, Dakota stood behind them, offering a weak, apologetic smile to her sister and Adam.
“Roy? What’re you, uh… what’s going on?”
“Mack, stop,” Adam urged his best friend. No matter how embarrassed she felt – and the red tinge on her cheeks visible even in the dim early morning light of her room suggested that it was a lot – Adam needed her to understand that the ordeal hadn’t been her fault.
He’d sat in the back of ambulances, draping blankets around the shoulders of girls who had made the call they needed after similar situations. Some of these girls hadn’t had sisters like Bailey or Dakota and had been forced to go through it themselves, collapsing against Adam and bursting into tears or sometimes shying away from him entirely. Being a first responder meant he’d seen it all, but he never shared those experiences with anyone else, not even Mack. They were private, but always left a bad taste in his mouth seeing as most of the girls all managed to reach the conclusion that it had been their fault. Adam hadn’t had much of a female presence during his upbringing what with two fathers and four brothers, but he’d always known that ‘no’ meant ‘no’ and no amount of alcohol could change that.
“Who spikes a drink?” he reasoned with her.
Instead of labouring his point, he rolled his eyes at her insistence that things wouldn’t get violent. Adam wasn’t particularly known for throwing punches, always jumping in to stop them hitting their mark instead. He’d been bottled in bars way too many times to count, but that was a byproduct of his career.
“Are you saying I’m not tough?” he teased her. “I could’ve speared the bastard and put him on a spit. My Scouts would love that, they’ve been asking about roasting pigs for weeks.”
Snorting at her question about her sisters, Adam had to remind himself that Mack was genuinely concerned. He couldn’t blame her when Bailey and Dakota were always getting themselves into scrapes though.
“When does Bailey ever not get into trouble?” he pointed out, although his laughter was cut off by the brewing argument outside.
Mack seemed to realise what was happening before he did if her whispered curse was anything to go by, but Adam was a little slower on the uptake. It wasn’t until Mack’s bedroom door swung open harshly and clanged against the adjacent wall that he saw who was behind it.
“Aw, here we go,” he rolled his eyes when he spotted the red and angry face of Roy.
As soon as the other man saw just who was in bed with his girlfriend – fully clothed and innocently cuddling like they had been doing for years before his Neanderthal ass came on the scene – his face grew redder and more livid and at once accusations started getting thrown around. Adam received all of them with an indifferent expression, barely flinching when Roy stated that Adam had no right to be climbing into bed with his girlfriend.
“Maaaaaaaaack,” Adam whined petulantly, the long drawn out noise cutting through Roy’s tirade. He turned to his best friend. “He’s trying to be a better caveman than me!”
Naturally that didn’t go down well and Roy was off again, asking what placed Adam in such high esteem that he got to cuddle under the sheets with Mack while he was forcibly kept outside by her sisters.
“You done, Barney Rubble?” Adam asked tiredly, chafing the corner of his eye. “Maybe if you walked into this century and invested in a working phone, you’d have a clue what was going on.”
He couldn’t help but turn to Mack and raise an eyebrow.
“Again, I need to ask: this guy? Really?”
