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Mac wasn’t as used to waking up groggy as one might expect.
Sure, it happened in their line of work but luckily not on every mission. They got captured, sometimes injured, sometimes tortured, but mostly they came out the other side with nothing more than sore muscles and adrenaline crashes.
That clearly wasn’t going to be the case this time.
“Mac,” Jack’s voice cut through the murky waters of newly gained consciousness. Mac groaned, deep in his chest as he fought his way to the surface. “Mac, you with me yet?”
Mac merely groaned again, head twisting to the side where Jack’s whispered voice was coming from.
“Geez, what did he drug you with?” That was a good question. Mac couldn’t open his eyes yet but he was starting to get some feeling back in his body. Fear kicked his molasse brain into gear and he finally forced his heavy eyelids open. Everything was fuzzy in front of his eyes, dark and flickering against concrete walls.
Mac shook his head, desperate to gain back his normally perfect sight. Everything ebbed and weaved around him, twisting and contorting in front of his eyes and Mac had to close them or risk throwing up everything he had eaten in the past couple of days.
“Jack?” He heard his own drugged voice calling out. There was a slight shift somewhere to his right and a heavy sigh of relief.
“It is good to hear your voice, man.” Jack admitted. “I was starting to think you had checked out on me for good.”
“Never,” Mac blinked a single blue eye open again and this time the world started tilting back into place. He was laying down on something hard, tight straps wrapped around his ankles and wrists. He tried to lift his arms but couldn't get more than an inch before the restraints stopped him. There were thicker straps around his stomach, chest, and thighs. The only thing he could move was his neck which certainly didn’t put his chances of escape any higher. Another glance to his right showed Jack in the exact same position on a long metal table. The room was cold, metal drawers lining the walls.
“That’s good to hear,” Jack told him. “How are you feeling?”
“Slow.” Mac wanted to explain that he felt like he was stuck in quicksand, his thoughts trying to move through crystallized honey, his tongue felt too heavy. “Tired.”
“Yeah, he drugged you with something nasty.” Jack tutted. “Sorry, hoss. I should have been able to stop him.”
“Are you...okay?” Jack didn’t sound drugged but if someone was able to get the better of him than they must have hurt him somehow.
“Got me with a goddamn taser,” Jack grunted, fighting against his restraints. “I don’t know if you remember but he got you with it, too. Took us down and injected you with something before shoving bags over our heads and throwing us in a van. I think he knew I was memorizing the route because he tased me again. I woke up the same as you, tied up here.”
“Guess we found who we were looking for.” Mac blinked lazily at the fluorescent light directly above him. “Wasn’t expecting the morgue.
“Me either, hoss.” Jack agreed. “But don’t worry, man. We’re not gonna end up like the other victims.”
“If we do,” Mac started but Jack cuts him off.
“We’re not, okay? I’m not gonna let him anywhere near ya.”
“Jack.” Mac ran his eyes over Jack’s seven point restraints. Realistically, there was nothing Jack would do to stop anyone right now. Mac refused to say it, though, not wanting to add to his best friend’s guilt. If the pattern remained the same then Mac was going to be the first one killed. The younger man was always drained of blood, the older man was always executed with a bullet to the head. No matter what happened, Mac was grateful that it would be fast for Jack when the time came even if he couldn’t say the same for himself.
“I know,” Jack seethed through gritted teeth. He pulled harder on his restraints and Mac wanted to tell him to stop, that he’d just end up hurting himself, but he knew Jack wouldn’t listen anyway. “I just don’t like that it sounds like you’re giving up.”
“I’m not.” Mac promised. He didn’t want that to be their end so he pushed against the drugs still working their way out of his system and looked around as much as he could, taking in every corner of the morgue. There had to be something he could use. They were in their normal clothes and Mac could feel the outline of his swiss army knife in his pocket but he couldn’t move his hand enough to get to it. “Besides, Riley and Bozer are looking for us. They’ll find us.”
“In time?” Jack muttered, mostly to himself, as the sound of slow footsteps made their way up a long hallway just outside.
“We’ll get through this.” Mac said quickly. He needed Jack to believe it, too.
Jack chuckled under his breath. “Pretty sure that’s my line, kid.”
Mac could still hear him shifting, pulling against his restraints, as the footsteps got closer. Mac felt his own heart thudding painfully against his ribcage. His hand scrabbled more desperately for his knife and he worked it higher up his pocket. If he could keep that up, he’d get to it in no time. That was as far as his plan went but he could trust himself enough to know that he always thought of something.
The man who walked in looked completely normal. His hair was light grey. He wore thick rimmed glasses, khaki pants, and a blue button up shirt with a yellow hospital cover over it. He didn’t look at either agent when he walked into the room.
It wasn’t often they went after serial killers but it wasn’t completely out of their repertoire of missions - one of the first missions Matty sent them on was to catch who they thought at the time was the Zodiac Killer.
The thing that always surprised Mac was how ordinary they were. The man had killed eighteen people and he looked like an accountant.
“Hey man,” Jack said. “I don’t know what you’ve got going on in here but the kid and I don’t want anything to do with it, okay?”
The man looked over at them curiously before walking over to Jack’s table. He peered down blankly.
“And what exactly do you think is going on here?” The man asked. His voice was soft, quiet. He had the demeanor of someone who could walk down the road and never be noticed by anyone.
“As far as we’re concerned, there’s nothing going on.” Jack said. “We haven’t seen anything.”
“You’ve seen my face.” The man said. “And you can stop with the innocent bystander act. I know you have been trying to find me - trying to stop me. I saw you both at my house the other day, poking around in things that don’t belong to you.”
Mac’s eyes widened. The house they had searched belonged to Lester White. They thought he was a victim, not the killer. They didn’t think they were that close yet. Apparently they were wrong.
“Then you know we don’t work alone, right?” Jack said. “Our team will be looking for us and they're pretty good at finding us when we get in trouble, right Mac?”
“Exactly,” Mac added. If the team was going to have enough time to find them, they had to stall as long as possible. “They will find you, but if you let us go, we can work out a deal.”
“Are you saying you can keep me out of prison?” Lester asked, making his way over to a tray of supplies by Mac’s head. He picked up a butterfly needle that was connected to a tube and moved so he was standing directly behind Mac, peering down at him darkly.
“No,” Mac admitted. “But we can stop you from getting the death penalty.”
“You think death scares me?” Lester asked, pushing Mac’s head to the side. Mac’s heart thudded harder beneath his ribcage as the needle slid into his neck. From the corner of his eye, he could see the tube fill with blood. Lester placed the end of the tube into the drain behind Mac’s head.
“Hey, leave him alone!” Jack yelled, fighting against his restraints, but Lester ignored him.
“Death doesn’t scare me.” Lester said. He may as well have been doing the dishes. “Does it scare you?”
“Doesn’t death scare everybody?” Mac asked. Luckily the needle was small so he wasn’t bleeding too quickly but every other victim that fit Mac’s description had been completely exsanguinated.
“It shouldn’t.” Lester said, patting Mac’s cheek almost comfortingly. “At least not like this. I’ve heard it feels like floating away, or falling asleep. Do those things sound so bad?”
“Yes.” Mac said. He had almost bled out before, twice, from their failed missions in Cairo and Lake Como. He knew what it felt like to slip away, knowing if he fell asleep he wasn’t waking up again. There were certainly worse ways to die but Mac didn’t want to die at all.
“Then you’re just like the others.” Lester said. “You better find a way to make your peace with it then. Say goodbye to your friend and don’t fight the darkness when it comes to take you. It’s easier that way.”
Lester’s attention turned back toward Jack who was desperately fighting against his restraints. “It’s your job to watch him go and then this will all be over for you, too.”
“Screw you,” Jack jerked against his bonds again but it was no use. They were tied down tight.
Lester merely shrugged before leaving the two agents alone in the morgue.
“Jeez, are you alright, dude?” Jack asked as soon as Lester was gone. He craned his neck to try to get a better look at the blood draining slowly out of Mac.
“So far,” Mac said. He pulled his head away from the needle, the tubing, but the needle stayed firmly in his neck.
“How long are we talking here, Mac?” Jack asked nervously. Mac went back to work trying to get his swiss army knife out of his pocket. If he could cut through the restraints on one of his wrists, he could pull the needle out of his neck, get himself and Jack free, and then they could take Lester down.
“Donating a pint of blood takes about ten minutes.” Mac explained automatically. “There are ten to twelve pints in the average adult body. At most, I’d say I have about forty minutes.”
“That’s not a lot of time, man.” Jack’s voice was thin, weary. Mac knew how helpless the older man must have felt. There was very little they could do other than wait for the team to find them. Despite the low odds, Mac kept going for his knife. He wasn’t willing to give up that easily.
“I know,” Mac agreed. “We have to trust that Riley and Bozer will get here in time.”
“They don’t even know where we are,” Jack pointed out. “Hell, we don’t even know where we are. And, I hate to point this out, but you’ve already been bleeding for ten minutes.”
“Then I’ve only lost a pint.” Mac tried to go for the silver lining but that wasn’t the point. They were already running out of time, even if Mac still felt fine. In another ten minutes, he’d definitely start feeling it.
“You have to promise me something right now,” Jack was leaning as far over as he could, unwilling to take his eyes off Mac. Mac nodded. “You tell me what you’re feeling, okay bud? I need to know exactly what’s going on with you. We’re both in this together, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Mac agreed. He had to admit, he was grateful Jack was there. He didn’t want to believe they wouldn’t escape, or get rescued, but their chances were looking pretty bad.
“You go kaboom, I go kaboom.” Jack promised. “I’m right here.”
Mac’s eyes burned with the intensity of the promise. He had to blink away the tears that threatened to fall, swallowing back the lump in his throat. Jack was there. He wasn’t alone.
“Thank you,” Mac realized he barely ever said those words to Jack. They didn’t always need to but the idea of Jack not knowing was unacceptable. “Just in case.”
“Nah, man, we’re not starting on the goodbyes already.” Jack tried to infuse as much levity into his voice as he could but it fell flat. “We’ve still got thirty minutes, right? That’s plenty of time for Riley and Bozer to get here.”
“I know,” Mac tried to pull away from the needle again but there was no use. He was so close to getting his knife out of his pocket. He just had to keep trying. Mac turned his head back toward Jack and the world dipped a little. “It’s just-”
“What, hoss?” Jack gently pried. “You feeling something?”
“How long has it been?” Mac asked, he couldn’t see the clock but Jack’s eyes went right to it.
“About fifteen minutes now.” Jack told him. “What is it?”
“I’m just getting a little dizzy,” Mac said. “Not bad but I think it’s safe to say I had closer to ten than twelve pints.”
“Of course you did,” Jack frowned at their bad luck. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”
“Yeah,” Mac shivered gently as his breathing picked up a little. Finally, his knife fell out of his pocket, landing with a solid thud on the table.
“What was that?” Jack asked and Mac simply held the knife up for Jack to see. Jack beamed at the beautiful sight.
“I’m gonna try to cut myself lose,” Mac explained, blinking against another wave of dizziness. “How long?”
“Twenty minutes, man.”
That wasn’t good. At twenty minutes, that would be about two pints. That wasn’t completely dangerous, some people donated that much at a time, but their timeline was getting shorter. His fingers felt numb as he tried to pry the large blade out one-handed. The clamminess was getting worse.
“Talk to me, hoss, what’s going on over there?”
“I can’t get it open,” Mac grunted as he lost his grip and the knife thudded back to the metal table. He tried to breathe through the anxiety bubbling up inside him but it was getting more difficult by the minute. All he could focus on was the needle in his neck, his heartbeat that only seemed to be thudding harder in his chest, and how cold the room was getting.
“Hey, Mac?” Jack’s worried voice cut through the fog and he opened his eyes. “You gotta say something, here. I’m starting to freak out.”
“I can’t get it,” Mac told him through gritted teeth.
“Let’s try again, okay?” Jack coached gently. “You’ve got this.”
“Okay,” As soon as Mac breathed deeply, he found the knife easily. He closed his eyes, running his thumb over the familiar tool, and continued to breathe. After a moment, he tried again. The blade flipped open enough for him to get his thumb inside and pull it open. It clicked into place with a firm snap.
“Got it!” Mac said triumphantly and got to work sawing at the thick restraints around his wrist. It was going to take a while but at least they had a chance.
“Good job, bud.” Jack smiled. “How are you feeling?”
“About the same,” Mac wasn’t sure if it was just the adrenaline keeping new symptoms at bay or if he was really doing okay. “How much time?”
“I don’t think we need to keep saying it,” Jack winced as he stared at the clock. “Just keep doing your thing, man.”
“Jack,” Mac insisted. Somehow, it was worse not knowing.
“Okay, fine, it’s been twenty-seven minutes.” Mac halted his work. It felt like time was moving too fast. With renewed vigor he started sawing away again.
A few minutes later, his vision whited out, which would have been fine except in the brief half-second he passed out he let go of the knife. It clattered uselessly to the floor.
“Damn it,” Mac grunted, head shifting on the table. Black spots were dancing across his vision, now.
“Mac?” Jack called out to him. “Talk to me, brother. You’re scaring me again.”
“Jack?” Mac twisted his head to the side, the needle sharp in his neck as the blood continued its steady pace. He could hear it pattering into the drain behind his head, like a faucet on low. Too much. He was losing too much.
“I’m right here,” Jack promised again. “You awake?”
“Yeah.” Mac’s tongue felt uncomfortably dry. He felt like he could drink a gallon of water and still be thirsty. He didn’t even care that his knife, maybe their only way out, was gone.
“Keep talking to me,” Jack was sounding farther away. Maybe his timeline was off and he had less time than he thought? It wasn’t an exact measurement, just an educated guess. Educated guesses could be wrong. “Keep your eyes open!”
“They are,” Mac insisted. Didn’t Jack know how tired he was?
“No, they’re not.” Jack said sadly. Mac didn’t like it when Jack sounded like that. He forced his eyes open, unsure when they closed in the first place, and made himself look at his best friend. Jack looked like a live wire, coiled and ready to jump out of his skin. He was pulling desperately against his restraints but it really was no use.
“Jack?” Mac asked again, not knowing what he was asking but needing to anyway.
“Right here, bud.” Jack said. “Just breathe, okay.”
“Time?” Mac asked. Jack’s eyes glanced to the clock before glossing over.
“Thirty-six minutes.” Jack told him. That was it, then? Mac felt tears flooding his eyes once more and he couldn’t stop one from escaping. It fell down his cheek, into his hair below.
Everything was fading in and out, swirling around in great starbursts of color. Sleep pulled at him and he thought he had never felt so tired before. His eyelids were so heavy.
“Hey, hey, this is no time to sleep!” Jack’s voice faded, there but drifting away. And Mac fought against the heavy, fought against the darkness, but it was pulling at the edges of his mind.
“Jack…” Mac breathed, feeling the shock of blood loss taking hold, taking over, dripping down the drain like it wasn’t important.
“Stay with me, Mac!”
Mac felt another tear fall from his hooded eyes down into his hairline as he stilled. He felt like he was only a millisecond away from falling asleep but he couldn’t go without Jack knowing just how much he meant to him. It wasn’t fair that their story should end like that, not when they still had so much to do.
With a gentle flutter of eyelashes against pale skin, Mac watched curiously as his vision flickered out.
He didn’t see the door burst open, Riley and Bozer charging in with a tac team close behind. He wasn’t aware of Riley untying Jack as Bozer ran up to him, pulling the needle out of his neck immediately. Jack was at his side in a second, unbuckling the restraints as fast as he could. He swept Mac into his arms, his kid limp and unresponsive - too pale.
Mac didn’t feel as his arm fell limp, his head tilted back, in Jack’s arms. He didn’t hear Jack’s soothing words of comfort, encouragement, as they ran out of the morgue. The sun burned Jack’s eyes as he flew toward the waiting ambulance and placed Mac on a waiting gurney.
Mac didn’t see as Lester was led into a police car and driven away, as the ambulance doors slammed shut and the sirens screamed out like his faltering heart rate on the monitor.
When Mac opened his eyes again, it was to the steadier beat of a stable heart rhythm. As the fog cleared, he felt a gun calloused hand in his.
“Jack?” Mac slurred, exhausted but safe.
“Hey there, bud.” Jack’s voice was soft. “We made it.”
Mac smiled faintly, grateful their luck had held out one more time, before drifting back to sleep.
The End.