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“Mac if you’re ever caught, you’re better off killing yourself.”
That was the one thing jack learned from being in the field. The one thing that Mac took to heart that Jack said. Mac’s mind twisted it into a challenge of staying alive. Proving that he could survive and escape if anything ever happened.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
— — — —
“Leave him alone!” Jack ground out from between his teeth.
“We’re just taking him somewhere more comfortable.”
Jack didn’t want them to take Mac away from him. Out of sight anything could happen to the EOD tech. Bad things happened to techs out here in the desert. It was Jack’s job to stop them from happening to Mac. These men were the reason that EOD techs needed their own personal bodyguard.
Mac was unconscious. He couldn’t fight back.
The men grabbed him by the arms intending to drag him off to some new corner of this hell where Jack couldn’t keep an eye on him. He couldn’t let that happen.
“No.”
“Fine, you want to watch?” the man snarled lips pulling back and showing his teeth. Jack wanted to quip that he looked like a puppy trying to be intimidating but was just ugly. He hadn’t gotten the chance before one of the goons was kicking Mac, “you missed some of the best parts already. I bet you wish you would have seen it.”
Jack could hear grunts and cracking of bones.Focusing on that instead of the words that man was spewing. Mac swam into consciousness as the pain became more than Mac being unconscious could take. Immediately Mac tried to squirm away from the assault.
“Don’t go anywhere. If you do, we might not be so polite to your friend over there.” The ringleader addressed Mac directly. The EOD tech didn’t seem to hear everything through the haze and ringing. Mac tried to sit up putting his hands underneath him.
“Nuh-uh,” the man said, kicking out Mac’s arms from underneath him and standing with his full weight on the arm. “You didn’t have permission for that.”
Jack’s chest felt ready to burst at the sight of his scrawny little tech underneath the man who twisted his foot - grinding Mac’s broken bones together.
“You’re friend here wanted to watch. If you step out of line, well, he’s dead.”
“No!” Mac’s determined voice rang out clearer than anything else to be heard.
“He said the same thing.” The man finally removed his body weight from Mac’s frail arm. As soon as it happened the goons were there peeling him off the floor and leading him over to a through filled with water. “No more now. You can tell me when you want it to end. It will all be over.”
Mac’s body was surrounded by ice cold water - it stung from the cold and the grime that was seeping into his injuries. Jack noted that an infection would be bad if he and Mac ever made it out.
Then Mac’s head was underwater. Jack could see the moment where his body began to claw tooth and nail for air. Water sloshed over the sides of the tub, and just as Mac began to fall limp they dragged him out. Jack watched as he coughed and sputtered the water from his lungs and after not even one clear full breath his tech was being shoved under again.
Jack wanted to tear these men apart. He knew the only reason he was here was leverage against Mac. These people weren’t even trying to get information from them. Simply this was torture and Jack was forced to be a part of it.
Mac could tell them at any time to stop. They said they’d kill him, and Jack assumed he’d follow soon after. Jack wanted Mac to tell them to stop. That way he wouldn’t have to hurt anymore.
Mac was forced under again and again. Water filled his lungs before being forcefully ejected when the men dragged him up. It burned, and he wanted it to stop, but then he’d look at Jack and the struggle would renew.
“He’s so pretty isn’t he?” the ringleader teased while the blonds head was underwater. “They keep making them younger and younger. Maybe it’s a trap to keep us out of their hair.”
Jack lunged at the man’s insinuations that Mac was just bait, a pretty plaything for them. He wouldn’t stand by and let that happen to his tech. “As soon as I am out of here you’re dead.”
“You keep saying that guard dog, yet you are still stuck there tied to that chair unable to stop anything I do to your pretty little thing.”
Jack just glared further. Watching as Mac’s head was pulled from the water again. The water was tinted red now as Mac coughed it up. He was shoved under again.
“We don’t want him hearing how much you want his pretty ass all to yourself now, do we?”
Jack twisted against the bonds as he tried to escape.
“The longer you struggle the longer he stays under.” the man shoved harder at Mac’s head. “Answer this and I'll let him up. Have you ever thought about him like that laid out underneath you?”
“No.”
A smack from one of the goons made Jack’s head turn with the force of it.
“Don’t lie to me. Have you ever had him like that?”
“No.”
“That I believe.” the man yanked Mac by his hair, tossing him away from the water tub. On instinct Jack tried to catch him, and Mac tried to catch himself. In doing so Mac landed with force on his broken wrist causing him to scream.
The man stood above Mac looking between the blond’s prone form and Jack. “you know what to say if you want this to end.”
A knife slipped into the man’s hand and pressed against Mac’s pale flesh. Mac wasn’t even coherent and was barely conscious after the water boarding display. He cut Mac’s shirt while Jack watched on with a distinct look of blankness. He already let it slip how much he cared about Mac, doing anything more could get them killed faster.
Jack was better at withstanding torture though. He could take it - the CIA had taught him that.
“Don’t do that. You'll regret it.” Jack snarled as his hands worked at the bonds as he had been doing for a while now.
“Want me to do it to you?” the man smiled brandishing the blood covered knife in Jack’s direction. The dried blood made the blade dull instead of that shine. It made him shudder inside. That knife could have so many diseases, and the man was determined to use it.
Jack nodded a yes at the same time Mac shook his head no.
“Mac, you’ve done enough.” Jack tried to sound comforting, but no words could be in this situation.
“That’s enough. Choose. Whoever takes whatever I choose for the next ten minutes will earn you both some alone time.”
Mac’s body lay on the floor, barely breathing and soaked to the bone. Jack couldn’t let him do that. He didn’t have a choice though not when Mac spoke first telling the man that he was already here and convenient.
Jack watched in horror as cuts and slices - never deep enough to kill- just enough to feel maybe a bit of blood, appeared on Mac’s body.
The man left not long after as he promised, untying Jack and leaving the two in a nasty roach infested hellhole.
“Comeon kid. We’re getting out of here.”
Mac’s head just rolled to face Jack, confusion in his eyes. Nothing in the world made sense to the genius right now, and Jack really needed him to be functioning.
“Jack?”
“Yeah. it’s over, they've gone for now.”
“You were right. I should have killed myself.” Mac sounded far more broken than one session of this mess.
“How long have we been here?”
Mac looked away. Jack had been knocked out in his nest and brought along for the joyride. He had assumed that he woke before anything happened to them, as it turns out he was wrong.
“Mac, how long?”
“Three days.”
Jack should have noticed the markings on Mac that hadn’t matched up to his original theory right away. He hadn’t then, but now he did. That man was playing him. They’d had them for days without Jack being any the wiser.
“I should have blew that bomb, Jack.”
Jack had a horrible realization then. There were three options.
Priority one: Mac and Jack got out safely as they could. Jack could navigate them - and knew Mac could too - based on the stars back to base.
Priority two: die getting Mac to safety. Jack wasn’t above this option. He wasn’t about to lose a tech or his streak of sending em back stateside in one piece and alive.
Priority three: they both die here in this hellhole.
Jack was running out of time. Mac was running out of time.
They had nowhere to go but out.
“Mac? I know it hurts, but I need you to make a bomb.”