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Mac was fully aware that he was a ridiculous contradiction.
Because the last person he wanted around him right now was his over-protective, worrying, blow everything out of perspective partner.
And yet, the only person he wanted around him right now was… Jack.
He’d been sat on the sofa for days minutes hours too long, trying to settle the vertigo that was swaying and spinning and swirling in his head. Through trial and unfortunate error, he found if he stayed absolutely still and breathed with meditation-like control and kept his eyes firmly closed it was fine tolerable.
His plan to meet Jack for lunch was looking more and more unlikely and he tried to will his body to stop, he didn’t want Jack to find him like this, clutching a hastily grabbed mixing bowl to his chest like his life depended on it.
“Mac! What’s going on? You oversleep?”
Jack sudden and loud voice appeared as if conjured out of nowhere. Without thinking Mac opened his eyes, just in time for the world to circle in a sickening revolution and for Mac to see Jack’s worried face before he promptly made use of the mixing bowl. He jammed his eyes shut again groaning.
“Awww, man.” He heard Jack’s sympathetic voice as a warm hand rubbed up and down his back. “Guess that answers that question.”
Mac blew out a shaky breath and spat into the bowl. The violent waves of nausea settling into a slow swell.
“You done?”
“Yeah.” Mac whispered, accepting the cool glass he felt pushed into his hand, and rinsing his mouth.
A gentle tug and the bowl disappeared from his hands, he didn’t hear Jack move but he heard the kitchen tap a moment later. Focusing on his breathing like a lifeline, he slowly inched backwards, until his head was resting steady against the back of the sofa, another point of anchor.
He heard Jack’s footsteps returning this time and felt the sofa dip next to him.
“How long has this been going on, bud?” Jack asked softly.
“A while.” Mac replies, embarrassed that his voice wobbles even on the two short words.
“You should have called, I’d have come over sooner.”
“Sorry. Couldn’t.”
“What do you mean you couldn’t? Your phone’s right here on the table.”
There was a soft grunt and subsidence as the sofa shifted with Jack’s movement. Mac clenched his jaw to avoid shouting stop as his brain sloshed against his skull.
Then there was silence.
This was why he didn’t want Jack around.
He could picture Jack looking at his phone. Then at Mac. Then at the table sitting not three foot away.
“Mac, are you telling me you couldn’t reach your phone?” Jack asked slowly.
“Mmm.” Mac agreed. “Vertigo.”
“Vertigo?”
“Bad vertigo.” Mac concedes.
“Oh, man. That sucks.” Jack said with emphasis, they’d both had too many concussions to not be intimately familiar with that feeling. “What triggered it? You didn’t hit your head did you?”
“No, no head injuries. I don’t know what caused it.” Mac lied. This was another reason he didn’t want Jack around. He was going to want answers.
Please drop it, please drop it, please drop it, plea--
“Okay, can you walk? We need to get this checked out, what if this is side effect from those damn nanobots?”
Mac started to shake his head, immediately aborting it as his head tumbled into a spin. He threw out his hand for balance, somehow connecting with Jack’s arm, and he squeezed it hard as if the tighter he held onto Jack the quicker he could find his balance again.
And oh he loved that Jack stayed silent and waited out the crashing wave of dizziness with him. He simply put his hand over Mac’s and w-a-i-t-e-d.
“Mac?”
“I don’t need to go anywhere, it’ll pass.” It was a weak argument, one that Jack would see straight through.
“Mac.”
“Jack.”
“Mac.”
Mac sighed.
“I’ve already seen a doctor. It’s the nanobots.” He confessed. “Either the chamber or the bots messed up my inner ear. Keeps causing these vertigo attacks. Trust me, the doctors have run every test they can think of. It’s nothing dangerous, I’ve just got to wait it out.”
Jack squeezed his hand and sighed so gently that Mac probably wouldn’t have heard it if he hadn’t been relying on his hearing quite so heavily.
“So this is the real reason why the docs grounded you for a month?”
“Partly, stress makes it worse.” Mac admitted with a wince, “and partly because they didn’t want us on missions while the bots break down. They’re just being cautious really.”
“Is this permanent?”
“I hope not.” Mac said fervently. He’d almost take a gun shot wound over this, at least he’d be able to open his eyes and move his head.
“Does Riley have this too?” Jack asked suddenly, as if worried he needed to be in two places at once checking up on her as well.
“No. Its just me who’s the lucky one.” Mac said miserably and barely refrained from adding ‘again’, he didn’t want Riley to suffer but he’d be really grateful if the universe could stop kicking him so hard.
“Mac, if you were any luckier you’d be dead.” Mac heard Jack quickly suck in a breath as he realised what he’d just said.
Mac had been dead.
Jack had been dead too.
There’d been too much ‘dead’ between them recently.
Silence stretched out between them. A silence that would never had happened before. It would have been brushed off, joked about, memories of previous close calls shared… something. But they were still figuring out how they fit together after so long apart, after everything that had happened. Sometimes their relationship felt like they were picking up right where they left off and sometimes it felt clumsy, like jigsaw pieces that didn’t quite fit any more.
“What can I do?” Jack asked quietly, breaking the silence.
That question, at least, was easy.
“Help me to my room, I wanna lie down.”
“You sure you’re up for walking? Why don’t you lie down on the sofa?”
It would make more sense but it wasn’t what he wanted. Mac wasn’t sure how to put into words, to explain to Jack why he wanted his bed and not the sofa. It was less a practical thing and more a comfort thing, a feeling. He’d feel less vulnerable in his room, in the comfort of his bed. But how to explain that to Jack? He frowned, the frustration building until--
“Yeah, okay. I get it. Bed it is.”
Oh.
I get it.
He’d forgotten Jack did that. He’d missed Jack doing that so badly. Reading him like a book even when sometimes he didn’t even know what he needed. Damn, he’d missed Jack. A wave of a different kind rose up in Mac, filling his eyes with tears that he tried not to let escape his closed eyes.
“Can you stand?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Okay then, remember slow is smooth and smooth is fast.” Jack said and Mac sensed him standing in front of him. If he could open his eyes he imagined he’d find Jack standing with his arms open, like a dad behind a small child, ready to catch them if they fell.
Mac pushed up, and for a moment all was fine. Then it felt like his tether was cut and he was tilting,
leaning
pitching
--falling--
Into Jack.
“Whoa, careful. I got you. That’s it, lean on me.”
Mac turned his face into Jack shoulder, letting the soft words and Jack’s solid presence settle him until his world felt steady again.
“You good?”
“I’m good.”
Mac tried to remember all the times they’d done this before. It was a familiar dance, shuffling along, leaning on the other, trusting the other to guide them. Some good memories, fuzzy from too much beer, some not so good, and some he’d rather not remember, doused in grief and pain. He counted up to eight times and could have gone much further, before they finally reached the bed and Mac slowly and smoothly manoeuvred himself into being horizontal. His head settling into the pillows while the light behind his eyelids dimmed as Jack closed blinds and curtains.
“You need anything else?”
“No.” Mac said quietly but the word stay was perched on the tip of his tongue. He didn’t need anyone to stay with him. This would pass. He didn’t need company or reassurance or comfort. He just needed to be still, in the quiet and dark. It would pass.
Jack didn’t move.
Was he waiting for Mac to tell him to go? It was going to be a long wait if he was, Jack hadn’t been back for long enough for Mac to be able to do that. The words wouldn’t come.
But still, Jack didn’t move.
“It doesn’t feel right to leave.”
“You can stay.” Mac quickly said, too quickly. “If you want, I mean I don’t mind.”
“Yeah?” Jack said, and it might have been Mac’s imagination but he swore he heard hope in that word. Maybe Jack needed him just as much as Mac needed Jack.
“Yeah.”
Jack carefully sat on the other side of the bed, making Mac glad once again that he’d splurged on one of those fancy mattresses that minimised movement. His hand dropped down onto Mac’s shoulder, patting it twice before resting there at the top of his chest, a warm reassuring weight. It grounded Mac. Jack’s presence reminded him which way was up, helped calm the tumultuous sea that lived inside his head. Always had done, even with everything else that had changed. It anchored him to the here and now and the most important thing to Mac right now was that Jack was with him.
“Please don’t leave.” The whispered words escaped Mac without his permission. Again. He wanted to add.
“I’m not.” Jack replied. “Not ever again, bud.”
And finally.
Finally, the vertigo began to ease until Mac felt like he was floating on a tranquil sea as he drifted off to sleep.