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In his long career, Jack Dalton had woken up in all manner of adrenaline-fueled, abrupt, and terrifying ways. He had more than a few buckets of dirty, freezing water thrown over his head, he’d been slapped awake, forced into wakefulness because of pain, kept awake for hours with loud music blaring every time he closed his eyes, and had once woken up with a massive hangover in a dumpster outside a random bar in Texas. Okay - that one might have happened more than a few times in his early twenties, but who was counting.
He would have picked any one of those experiences to relive over waking up to the loud ringing of his cellphone, his partner’s name popping up as the contact, at three forty-two on a random Tuesday morning.
“H’llo?” Jack answered groggily, his eyes barely focusing enough to take in the early time on his alarm clock.
“Jack,” Mac’s weak voice cut through the fog of sleepiness, and had Jack sitting up in bed, and throwing off the covers in less than a second.
“Mac, what’s going on?” Jack asked, clicking his bedside lamp on and blinking against the sudden light burning against his retinas. “You okay? Why ain’t you sleepin’, hoss?”
“Jack,” Mac groaned brokenly, the words barely above a whisper. Jack jumped out of bed, nearly tripping over a stray boot that was, for some reason, lying right in the middle of his bedroom. He pulled on the closest pair of jeans, holding the phone to his ear using his shoulder, and grabbed the boots off the floor.
“What’s wrong?” Jack asked, taking the phone back in his hand as he raced through his apartment. He swore under his breath when he couldn’t immediately find the car keys he usually kept on the table by his front door, and racked his brain to try to remember where he put them when he got back from their latest mission not even six hours earlier. “Are you hurt? Are you at home, hoss?”
“Yeah,” Mac hummed, the word barely perceivable in Jack’s ear.
“Yeah, you’re hurt or yeah, you’re at home?” Jack’s heart hammered in his chest as he waited for the answer.
“Both.” Mac begrudgingly admitted. That was all Jack needed to know. As soon as he found his keys, which happened to already be in his pants pocket, Jack charged out the door. He raced down the staircase towards the parking lot.
“I’m on my way, bud, just stay on the phone with me, alright?” Jack listened closely for an answer as he pulled onto the main road. He only lived a few miles away from Mac’s neighborhood and could be there in ten minutes if he needed to be. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Mac didn’t answer.
With cold dread sitting heavy on his chest, Jack checked the phone to make sure the connection hadn’t been lost. The phone call was still going, which meant Mac just wasn’t answering.
“Mac!” Jack put more force behind the words, falling back into the military tone he only pulled out on special occasions.
“Jack?” Mac gasped, the word ending in a choked cough that sounded more than a little painful. “What?”
“There you are, kid.” Jack sighed, taking the corner into Mac’s neighborhood a little too hard. He nearly dropped the phone when another car blared it’s horns at him from the other lane. “You got me all worried. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on with you so I know what I’m walking into.”
“Fell.” Mac said in a clipped tone. The answer had Jack frowning in confusion.
“Where did you fall?” Jack demanded, frustrated that he wasn’t getting the answers quicker, but also terrified about what was causing Mac’s one word responses.
“Not...me.” Mac said, which only added to Jack’s confusion. He was pulling into Mac’s driveway when Mac added, “On...me.”
“Something fell on you?” Jack asked, his mind going through every possible thing in Mac’s house that could have fallen on the poor kid. The list of possible assailants was alarmingly vast.
“Yeah,” Mac gasped again. “Bike. Heavy.”
“That old motorcycle you’ve been working on?” Jack asked, another wave of fear cutting through him. He’d helped Mac maneuver that old hunk of junk a few times before and knew first hand how deceptively heavy the thing was. If it fell on Mac when he was working underneath it...no wonder the kid sounded like an elephant was sitting on his chest.
“Yeah,” Mac admitted, actually sounding a little embarrassed despite his pained tone. “Sorry.”
“No need to apologize, man.” Jack tried to keep his voice lighthearted as he ran up the walkway to Mac’s front door. “I’m just glad you called. Is Bozer home?”
“Leanna’s,” Mac explained tiredly. Jack sighed at the bad luck of it. Of course, Bozer had been spending way more nights at Leanna’s than at home lately so it wasn’t surprising, but it sucked that it meant Mac didn’t have anyone in the house when the bike landed on him and he had to wait for Jack to get there.
Jack thanked his lucky stars that he had a spare key to the house so he didn’t have to break the door down, which he would have gladly done to get to Mac faster, and finally got inside. All the lights were off except for in the living room. It didn’t take long for Jack to see the problem.
Mac was definitely trapped under the heavy weight of the half-fixed bike. It lay on top of his torso, trapping his arms underneath the metal frame, so only his legs were unencumbered. He kicked out weakly, muscles tensing as he tried - and failed - to get free. His cell phone was laying haphazardly by his shoulder, like he had wedged it out of his pocket, dialed Jack's number, put it on speaker phone, and slid it up the floor toward his head but didn't quite make it all the way there.
With an adrenaline rush that made Jack understand how parents could lift cars off their children, Jack easily hefted the bike off his kid. It clattered loudly to the side, forgotten, as Jack took in Mac’s pale face.
“Hey,” Mac smiled weakly as curled to the side and tried to lift his arms to cradle his hurting chest.
“Hey yourself, kid.” Jack grimaced as he took in Mac’s grease-stained shirt and overall miserable appearance. He wasn’t moving well, and Jack thought he should probably stop him from moving at all. He placed his hands on Mac’s shoulders, watching the younger man’s face closely for any sign that Jack’s actions were hurting him more, and frowned when Mac stilled easily. If Mac wasn’t putting up a fight, Jack was worried. It was as simple as that.
“What hurts?” Jack asked.
“I’m good now,” Mac said, and Jack fought the urge to roll his eyes at the obvious, and yet totally expected, lie. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Jack leaned back on his heels, releasing Mac’s shoulders when he was sure the kid wasn’t going to try to do something stupid like try to move again before he had a chance to assess him for damage. “Now what hurts. You can’t tell me that didn’t suck.”
“Oh, yeah.” Mac huffed out a half-laugh that immediately caused him to flinch, as a sharp gasp of pain escaped him. “It...definitely sucked.”
“Right,” Jack stopped waiting for the answer, and immediately started hiking up Mac’s shirt to find out for himself just how ‘good’ his idiot-genius partner really was. He hissed out a sympathetic breath when he caught sight of the damage. Mac’s rib cage was littered with the beginnings of what was sure to be heavy bruising. Mac wouldn’t be sitting up without pain for weeks. The absolute worst of it was right over his sternum. It looked like he had been given unnecessarily violent chest compressions, which meant broken ribs at the very least. “Ouch, man, I think we better bring you in to get this checked out. It looks real bad, homie.”
“No,” Mac’s eyes were their brightest shade of vibrant blue. Jack had seen that sharpness in them too many times before. It was always a clear, tell-tale sign that Mac was in more pain than he was letting on.
A more fortunate person might have been able to get out of that accident unscathed, but Mac was never that lucky.
“I’m fine.” Mac tried again, but Jack wasn’t letting that fly. He wasn’t about to race across town to save Mac from his own living room just to have him die of internal bleeding because the kid was too stubborn to get medical attention when he clearly needed it. Their partnership had many layers, and one of them was that Mac was a genius everywhere except when it came to his own health, which is where Jack would take over and become the voice of reason.
“Nope, you’re not.” Jack insisted. “End of discussion, dude.”
“Jack-” Mac tried to protest again, his already pale face paling even more when he tried to shift again.
“How ‘bout this,” Jack knew his plan had the potential to be dangerous, but he also knew how stubborn Mac could be. It could be equally dangerous to waste time by arguing with the blond any longer. “If you can stand up, I’ll back off. How’s that sound?”
“Fine,” Mac glared weakly, gritting his teeth against the pain he knew was coming. Jack held his breath, waiting for the inevitable, when Mac gathered all his strength and attempted to push himself into a seated position.
He didn’t get far.
As soon as the muscles in his chest were activated, Mac cried out harshly. His eyes slammed shut as he curled into himself, shaking hard.
Jack felt like an ass, and his concern-dial turned all the way up to one hundred, but at least Mac couldn’t argue about it anymore - he was getting help. End of story.
“Jack,” Mac gasped out, tears streaming down his face, as he curled even tighter into the fetal position. “Help.”
It was such a simple word, but hearing it from his stubborn partner shattered Jack’s heart.
“I gotcha, kid.” Jack locked away the rising tide of emotion that threatened to swell up and overwhelm him as he got his arms under Mac’s back and knees and lifted him with the same adrenaline that helped him haul the bike off Mac in the first place.
Mac yelped at the sudden motion, his hand gripping Jack’s shirt as the other guarded his chest, and held on tight as Jack all but sprinted with him back to his car.
“Jack…” Mac whispered, breath skipping painfully in his chest, as Jack carefully lowered him into the passenger seat.
“Hold on, Mac.” Jack said, taking in Mac’s pale-blue lips. His own heart was jackhammering away in his chest because everything about Mac’s condition was screaming - WRONG. He needed help maybe faster than Jack could get him there, but Jack could definitely get him there faster than an ambulance. It felt like a catch 22. Whichever path he chose, it felt like it was going to be the wrong one.
There wasn’t time to debate it, though, so he stopped thinking about how everything could go even more wrong and instead focused on getting Mac help - fast.
As soon as Jack jumped into the driver’s seat, he threw the car in reverse, and nearly took out Mac’s mailbox as they backed up.
“Sorry, man.” Jack said automatically, but he knew he was apologizing for more than just almost damaging the mailbox.
Sorry he didn’t get there faster.
Sorry he wasn’t around as much lately and Mac had to lay there in pain alone.
Sorry he made Mac try to get up which made everything so much worse.
Jack wasn’t sure which version of the apology Mac took, but any of them would do.
“You didn’t…” Mac sucked in a tight breath. “Drop the bike...on me.”
That at least was true, but usually Jack came around a lot more so Mac would be able to work on it when there was someone else there. Things had been weird since Mac returned from Nigeria, and Jack couldn’t help but think that something was bound to go wrong as a result of it. Jack had been keeping his distance, avoiding Mac even, and Jack couldn’t help but think that even though it was an accident, Mac getting hurt was a clear consequence of that strain in their relationship.
Or maybe he was just overthinking it.
Either way, none of that mattered when Mac jerked in the passenger seat when a particularly painful breath caught in his chest.
Jack’s eyes cut from the road to his partner at the choked sound he made just in time to see all the tension leave his body in a rush as Mac suddenly fell into unconsciousness.
“Mac?” Jack reached out, shaking Mac’s arm to try to get him to respond. Mac’s head lolled against his chest but other than that he didn’t move. “Mac!”
The resulting silence was deafening.
“Don’t worry, man.” Jack’s fingers found the pulse point in Mac’s wrist. The beat was strong but too fast. Mac was still breathing - barely - and his heart was still beating, but he was out. Even though it didn’t seem to be quite as life or death as some of their trips to the hospital, Mac clearly needed help. “I’ve got you.”
The hospital lights were a beautiful sight and Jack pulled right up to the doors of the emergency room.
He didn’t care that he wasn’t allowed to stop there, all that mattered was that Mac was right where he needed to be.
They could deal with the rest later.
The End.