Chapter Text
Try 1
Mac woke up with a gasp, adorning a pale face and sweat-soaked hair. For one dizzying moment, he didn’t know up from down - everything was dark around him.
“Woah! Hoss, you're alright!”
Jack's voice and the feeling of his hand on Mac's knee grounded him in this darkness. He blinked twice, and suddenly the old car in which they were waiting came into focus. Mac groaned, his body one big ache, and took a deep breath - he needed to concentrate. Jack and him were on a mission, even if for now it only involved a fifty-hours-long monitoring of a pretty boring house.
“What was that?” Jack asked softly, brows creased in worry.
Mac shrugged, still getting his bearings. He felt his neck pop when he straightened and stretched it and, in general, he was feeling the kinda gross you feel after waking up from a too long nap. He was in the backseat, behind the passenger seat,and Jack was at the wheel, which explained why the latter was only touching him on the knee and not doing an entire body check.
“No, seriously kid” Jack insisted, clearly creeped out by Mac’s freak out. “Nightmare?”
“I don't know” Mac mumbled while rubbing his eyes, his heart still hammering in his chest. “I don't remember anything except… uh… the fact that I was afraid...” The last part was whispered, but Jack heard it nonetheless.
“The fear?” The ex-delta nodded, his smile sad but heartfelt. “Yeah, I get it kid. Sometimes these are the worst kind of nightmares, it only put you on edge for days.”
Mac sighed and Jack seemed satisfied enough to pat his knee and take back his hand. He knew enough about nightmares and Mac to know not to press the issue. The moon shone bright in the black sky and the dashboard indicated that it was a little past 2am. There was something smothering in the air, a heavy presence making Mac's body way too tight for himself, and each of his breaths similar to tiny needles piercing through his lungs. With one shake of his head, Mac tried to clear his thoughts.
“Do you want to sleep?” he finally asked Jack, one hand massaging his temple. “I don't think I can sleep again right now, and it was nearly my turn to keep watch anyway.”
“I won't lie kid, that's hella tempting” Jack laughed quietly. “Nothing's happening here in any case, Aaron went to bed an hour ago or something. It's not even raining anymore!”
Aaron. No official last name, a lot of unofficial ones. The guy they had been monitoring for more than two-day straight, who was supposed to be a bloodthirsty drug lord with many contacts and an important ongoing deal but, as of now, had only been an average forty-years old with a worrying obsession for golf. His house was isolated from any forms of life, surrounded by a forest and, for safety reasons, Mac and Jack were monitoring him from a little road hidden by a patch of trees, having managed to sneak cameras and micros into his house. Thus, they had been able to see, in a much too high definition, Aaron slouched on his couch in dirty clothes all day. Mac knew better than to trust what he was seeing; however, he couldn't help but be bored by the facade. Jack too hasn't stopped complaining past the three-hour mark. And, for most of the day, it had rained non-stop, adding to the somber mood.
“C'mon, let's switch” Mac ground out, stretching one last time.
The cold outside their crappy car was a welcomed slap in the face, clearing Mac's head and lungs. He looked at the tall trees, the moon standing even higher above them, not one star in sight. The smell of nature after heavy rain was bordering on nauseating. Mac was still uneasy, his dream permeating the air as a thick fog would do, but the blond was more and more able to rationalise it. He had had his share of nightmares, he should know how to deal with them better now, he had no reason to… Mac sighed. If only it was that easy to escape a nightmare. He was growing frustrated.
Jack must have felt it because his warm hand patted Mac’s shoulder. He didn’t say anything, probably because he knew that his partner was embarrassed, but his eyes were kind and comforting. It didn't help the knot in his stomach, but it was something.
Jack got in the back seat and closed the door, obviously cold.
Mac went to open his door on the opposed side.
Everything was icy and dark and terrifying and smelling of the end and Mac couldn't breathe. It was as if his dream was coming to life around him.
There was a cold hand holding his heart in its palm.
Chaos erupted in an instant - Mac automatically threw himself down as bullets rained over him, thankfully coming from the other side of the car. The backdoor opened and Jack crawled out of it, crashing roughly against the dirt. There was a pause between the shots, which allowed Jack to spring up and fires a couple of bullets himself before going down again. The new round was like thunder crackling in Mac's ears, a weird throwback to one of the times he was tased. He felt as frozen as if he was still being electrocuted, his eyes wide but unseeing, his body numb to the world around him.
Everything was too slow and too fast at the same time. Mac wanted to help, to do something, but all he could think about was the beat of his heart in his throat and the dreary dream he had.
As fast as it had started, the bullets stopped. Mac held his breath, expecting another round, but it seemed that they were truly left alone now. He was biting his lips, nearly making them bleed, as anger took over him: he had been frozen and helpless, as if he was a rookie, only because of a stupid dream he couldn't seem to shake.
“... You ‘k?”
It was asked so faintly that even a breeze could have swallowed the sound. But Mac heard it, and he heard the pain, the exhaustion, the blatant fear in it too. And suddenly, his dream of blood and tears was real, too real, and he was trying with trembling hands to keep Jack from choking on his own blood.
“No no no no no…”
Mac kept whispering it, wishing his hands to suddenly be able to seal and heal a wound magically, wishing science to be wrong for once, wishing his calculations to be false because he was just an idiot who froze when Jack needed him and oh god he's going to die and I'll be dead with him .
A cold hand stroked his cheek, taking away his tears to leave blood in their place.
“C'mon… D'n't cry…”
And Mac cried harder without a sound, trying to focus on Jack's smiling face through the blur of his tears. Of course his partner would try to cheer him up even as one of his lungs collapsed. Of course Jack would smile, knowing that at least, it was him and not Mac. And Mac couldn't slow time, couldn't go back, could only cry and beg and pray.
He saw with perfect clarity the light in Jack's eyes go out, his skin so pale it was nearly translucent.
And Mac's hands were so dark with blood that they looked alien, the hands of a monster that couldn't save his friend.
The night was cold. The hand of terror wrapped around his heart. Mac sobbed. The hand squeezed. His heart burst.
Mac woke up with a gasp, adorning a pale face and sweat-soaked hair.