Sentence starter: "Well, shit." ;-)
Mac blinks lazily, as the world slips hazily in and out of focus. He’s on the floor in a bare room. Four walls, a concrete floor and a closed door. His thoughts skitter over his mind like insects on the surface of water, never staying still long enough to make sense. Something is wrong, that much he does know. He digs for a memory, something, anything, that he can anchor himself to and start figuring this out.
He remembers eating pizza in front of his fire pit. There’s an itch of a memory that tells him there’s a missing mission between then and now but the harder he tries to recall it the further it slips away.
Mac sits up and for a moment he could swear that he’s on a boat as the floor shifts beneath him, causing him to throw out a hand for balance before he realises its his own dizziness and vertigo instead.
"Well, shit."
This isn’t a head injury, he knows he’s drugged, but whether it was used to initially subdue him or is now being used to control him, or loosen his tongue, he’s not sure. He hates not knowing and the vulnerability it causes and he wishes Jack was here as much as he hopes he’s mounting a rescue to come bursting through the door any second now.
“Hey, hoss.”
Mac whips his head around to see Jack blinking himself awake and upright behind him. So much for a rescue. How had he missed Jack?
Oh yeah.
Drugged.
“Jack, you okay?” He croaks and clears his throat.
“Peachy.” Jack says, as he checks himself and winces when his hand finds a tender spot on his head. “You?”
“Yeah. Just drugged.” Jack’s head whips around to focus on him. “I don’t remember what happened, but I’m okay otherwise.” Mac quickly reassures, stretching the truth. Jack looks sceptical but he must be doing a half-way decent job of looking okay because Jack lets it go for now.
“What happened?” Mac asks, trying to distract Jack away from him and back to their situation.
“Does it make a difference?”
Probably not, Mac agrees with a silent tip of his head.
“Long story short, the mission went FUBAR, we got caught and right now we just need to escape. How about I fill in the details in for you when we’re safe and sound on the exfil flight?”
“Sounds good.”
Mac is more than ready to get out of here. He staggers to his feet, Jack staying close just in case but letting him find his balance by himself. His hand brushes the wall, just enough to steady him and remind his brain which way is up. Now that he looks again the room isn’t as bare as he thought it was, there’s some kind of air vent up high on one wall and an outlet in the corner. And although he’s clearly been searched, they didn’t find the paper clip he always has hidden on him. His mind starts sluggishly searching through the possibilities.
Jack paces the room, keeping up a familiar monologue of disparaging comments about their accommodations and their captors parentage. Its entirely unhelpful and absolutely what Mac needs right now.
“I’ve got an idea.” Mac says.
“Really?” Jack answers with a surprising amount of scepticism, Mac throws a glare at him and Jack shrugs. “That’s your ‘I’m gonna puke’ face, not your ‘I have an idea’ face.”
Mac raises a shoulder in a shrug as well.
“That might also happen.” He admits, suppressing a smile when Jack backs away a few inches, before he ungracefully kneels and starts using the paper clip to take the cover off the outlet.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once Mac gets the door open, they’re barely halfway down the corridor when there’s a commotion of boots and shouting and before they can find somewhere to hide, black clad soldiers round the corner. Front and centre of the tac team is a familiar face.
Jack.
It stops Mac in his tracks and the lack of forward momentum causes him to stumble into the wall, Jack’s hands are on his shoulders a second later stopping him from falling entirely.
“Hey, hoss.”
Mac doesn’t answer, but looks behind him. Jack’s also standing there, smiling gently. He turns back to the Jack kitted out in tac gear.
Jack’s frowning, “You okay, bud?”
Mac nods and looks back again, but this time the corridor is empty. He feels nauseous and leans into Jack a bit more.
“Damn, what did they give you?” Jack asks as he studies Mac, trying to get a look at his eyes. Mac clings to Jack, pretending its for balance but mostly its for the tactile reassurance, now that he thinks about it, the other Jack hadn’t touched him once in their prison cell. But how can he know escaping isn’t a hallucination? Is it just wishful thinking? Mac focuses on Jack, the warmth of his hand and the roughness of the tac vest and makes the decision that this Jack is real, and not a hallucination. Taking a deep breath, he pushes the doubt to the back of his mind.
Jack is real.
“Take me home, Jack?” He says, wishing it hadn’t come out like a question.
“Of course.” Jack says, and when Mac meets his eyes he sees an understanding there that could never be expressed in words. Slowly, Jack starts manoeuvring them back down the corridor, never once breaking contact with Mac. “Once we stop off at medical first, but I gotta warn ya, you scared us this time, Mac. You’re going to have to put up with a little extra helicopter parenting for a while and not to mention some A-grade hovering from the others, did they feed you at all? Because Boze has about a week’s worth of baking...”
Mac lets Jack’s rambling wash over him.
Jack is real.
And he’s going home.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Woohoo! Finally finished all my asks! I hope you enjoyed them!
