Work Text:
Mac was on the ground.
A small cloud of dirt around him from where he fell, several small pops from bullets landing near him, and an ever growing puddle underneath him.
Routine. It was supposed to be routine. That was a word going on Jack’s Do Not Say list, along with simple, easy, quick, quiet, slow, and boring. Every time someone said any one of those words, everything went to hell in a hand basket real fast.
They’d been out of rotation for the good part of a week, catching up on sleep they’d missed whenever they had to go out. Mac had been assigned to inventory while they stayed on base, Jack was in charge of drills, and while he wasn’t doing that, he was normally keeping Mac company.
“You mean to tell me, you honestly enjoy doing inventory of everything in here? I knew you liked numbers but even I think this is pushing it a bit, don’t ya think?”
“If liking numbers and having to count things multiple times keeps me in the shade, I won’t complain.” Mac smirked at Jack before turning back to the roster in hand.
“You out of the sun? Brother you’re so pasty white you need to be in the sun. I thought California boys were supposed to be all tan and say hang ten a lot.”
“Just because you fit all the stereotypes for Texas doesn’t mean others will fix the stereotypes of their states.”
“I dunno, Jackson fits everything you’d expect from someone from Ohio.”
Mac rolled his eyes. “Can I help you with something?”
“Yup. We’re heading out. Call came in, Luke’s EOD got heatstroke; can’t do nothin without shaking. They’re headin back now but didn’t get a chance to get the last IED that got called in and were the most refreshed to go get it.” He gestured to the surroundings. “How long until you can be ready?”
“Give me like fifteen minutes.”
***
Fifteen minutes later, after finding his replacement to take over the inventory job, Mac had gotten geared up and was waiting for Jack at the Humvee. That was probably a new record; nearly a full week out of rotation without having being injured first.
“When you say fifteen minutes, you really mean fifteen minutes.” Jack said as he joined Mac. “You’re like some sort of— human clock.”
“Or, I generally know how much time my work takes so I can accurately give you an estimated time of when I’ll be finished.” Mac replied.
“Know how much time your work takes. If you knew then why are the most common words out of your mouth when you’re doin your thing out in the field is I don’t know?”
“No bombs are the same so I can’t give you an accurate time.” They both got in the vehicle. “Or I know exactly how long it’ll take every time and just like making you suffer in the hot sun.”
“I knew it. You’ve got to be some sort of android or robot.”
“Beep boop.”
The drive to the location wasn’t a long one, at least not as long as others before it. The whole drive was filled with Jack telling a story about a cousin that had come tire riding down a hill and into a lake, miraculously dodging traffic to get there.
“Okay, what the hell is tire riding?”
“Ya know, where you get a big tire and ya sit in it and ya roll down a big hill and pray that you stop without getting hurt. Dunno if that’s the actual name for it but that’s what we call it.”
Mac had a smile throughout the whole story, mentally going over everything Jack said and thinking of the science behind it all and how having the tire be heavier on one side would actually increase the speed tenfold, making it nearly impossible to stop. He didn’t feel the need to tell Jack though, seeing as how he said the only way to stop without crashing into anything was to bail out.
It had gotten him thinking of other things, mainly how big Jack’s family actually was. Every time they went out, there was a new person and a new story, or if the story was a particularly detailed one, it might’ve run through two or three bombs.
It got Mac stuck in his head, how big Jack’s family was; older brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, cousins upon cousins. And then there was Mac, an only child who barely had one parent his whole life. He didn’t count the Bozers in that, seeing as they were basically his family after his father left and grandfather died, but it just wasn’t the same.
Jack had told him that when their tours were up, he would be more than welcome to travel to Texas and see the farm. That was also a new thing for him, to be wanted by someone that didn’t know his full story.
“You got that look again.” Jack’s voice snapped him from his thoughts.
“What look?”
“The one where you get stuck inside your own head. Somethin goin on I need to know about?”
“Nope.” Mac popped the p before changing the subject. “They say anything about the IED?”
Jack rolled his eyes at the change. “Nothin that I heard about, why? Somethin make this one special?”
“Possibly. A few of the guys have been saying a lot of them have new components on, you know— dead wires, kill switch, secondary timer that took forever to differentiate from the real one— all of them have been from the sector we’re going in to. I’m just wondering if it really will be a regular one.”
“We can only hope, right?”
“I mean I’d prefer quick and easy ones to—”
“Ah hell, you went and said it.” Jack interrupted. “I can’t believe you.
“What?”
“You said the forbidden words. I think there’s a piece of wood in the back. Knock on it for me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There are six words, ya hear me? Six words that you absolutely do not say in any line of work, especially this one, and they are quick, quiet, slow, boring, easy, and simple. Nothin good comes from sayin them and you just went and said two, so get that bit of wood and knock on it.”
Mac raised a brow. “But you just said all of them.”
“Explainin them doesn’t trigger them. I think there’s salt in the aid kid. Throw it over your shoulder.”
“Jack—”
“Nuh uh, I’m serious man. You may not believe in superstitions but they’re there and you’ve gone and woken them up.”
“That’s not how they work. The textbook definition is a belief or way of behaving that is based on fear of the unknown and faith in magic or luck.”
“Exactly!” Jack exclaimed. “You can’t tell me that this whole situation doesn’t fell like that right now? Nearly a full week off rotation, cut short because someone got sick, with supposedly modified bombs? That doesn’t sound the least bit strange to you?”
“No, Jack, it just sounds like another routine day.”
Jack huffed before going into a story about losing a rabbit’s foot when he was younger, and how many things went wrong until it was found. Mac just laughed, trying to explain how everything was coincidence but Jack wouldn’t hear any of it.
***
“Okay hoss, how’s it look? Any alien tech or signs of the robot uprising?” Jack’s voice rang though Mac’s earpiece. “Maybe an extra spoon or phaser?”
“Nope, nothing like that.” Mac answered with an eye roll. “It does have some other components though, but I don’t think they’re attached to anything.”
“You wanna just set it off? Save you the pain of having to go through it all?”
“No. If they’re setting up modified IEDs then it’s be better to disable and bring it back in as few pieces as possible so we can catalog and know what we’re working with if there’s more.”
It looked relatively normal, few more wires, extra clock screen that had numbers painted on along with one that had twenty minutes counting down, switches that did nothing. The thing that stood out to him was two rather large glass cylinders attached to the bottom, each filled with some sort of liquid. They didn’t look like they were wired to anything but he couldn’t see the tops and wasn’t going to risk moving it.
“I’m not sure how long this will take.”
“You’re already the slowest bomb nerd there is. Do what you gotta. I got your back.”
Mac got to work, carefully pulling of pieces of the outer shell. He saw things he knew, things he could dismantle with his eyes closed, and then there were all the extras; wires poorly soldered together, plastic casings changing colors, what looked like literal pieces of scrap thrown in. Whoever put the thing together either had no idea what they were doing or knew exactly what they were doing.
Everywhere around him was quiet except for Jack spouting off another family story. According to the information, it wasn’t supposed to be a ghost town. When they did their sweep, there was old remnants of people being there at some point, but not recently, not a month at least. It made him wonder if the intel was bad or just not up to date.
All of it just fed into his paranoia, causing him to look up every few minutes.
“Yer real twitchy today.” Jack said.
Mac shook his head, turning his focus back to the device in front of him. “Feels like someone’s watching me.”
He hated it. He knew Jack hated it. He’s gotten good at trusting his intuition, his gut feeling, and if he felt like someone other than Jack was watching him, then there was probably a fair chance someone was.
“You just keep doin yer thing. I gotcha.”
Of course he did. Jack was the one to put Mac’s safety before everything else, even his own. There was no one Mac would trust more to watch his back. But there were things that were out of either of their controls sometimes.
“I— think we should just blow it.” Mac could practically feel Jack’s confused look. “I just, I dunno, I have a feeling that we should leave.”
“Alright hoss.” Jack’s voice was calm. “I keep tellin ya to trust yer gut and if you think it should blow, then make it blow.”
Mac didn’t like having to explode the bombs they found. He liked picking them apart, seeing what made them tick and how they worked. It helped with categorizing what group was placing them. Just by himself, Mac had seen about fourteen variations of IEDs. The one in front of him would be fifteen, and he didn’t know if it was similar enough to the others the guys were talking about to say it’s from the same person.
So needless to say, he didn’t want to explode it.
But he couldn’t keep working knowing someone other than Jack was watching him.
Thinking that made him feel guilty, made him feel like he didn’t trust Jack as much as he though he did to be able to protect him from whatever was out there, if anything was out there at all. But Jack trusted him enough to just follow him on a I’ve got a bad feeling. No one else would’ve listened to him on that.
He got out his C4 and line, preparing to take care of everything as quick as possible. When he stood, he heard a shot, one that didn’t come from Jack, and he dropped.
Dropped right on top of the still active IED.
There was a crunch, glass breaking, and several more shots that were blasting in his ears. He hear Jack yelling for him, through his earpiece and in the village. He felt a liquid beneath him but couldn’t feel anything except for parts of the IED digging into his chest. That was either very good, or very bad.
He didn’t know how long he stayed like that, mere seconds or minutes, not daring to move until all the shooting was done. Maybe whoever shot him would think he was dead, or maybe he was currently dying of blood loss that very second. Either way, not moving was the plan at the moment.
He didn’t know how long it was until the shooting stopped. He didn’t move or attempt to talk. He barely registered Jack still yelling for him, only it was much louder and closer than before.
“Come kid, don’t do this to me. Not fair if you go kaboom without me. We had a deal.”
That nearly got a humorless laugh.
“Mac?”
It was when Jack was right next to him did it occur to him that he was still laying on a live IED.
“Jack—”
“Where you hit kid? Can you move at all?”
“You need to leave.”
“Yeah, not gonna happen hoss. You got a puddle under you and I ain’t boutta just leave you here to deal with it on your own.”
“It’s still live.” Mac looked at him. “I don’t know how long is left on the timer. You need to go.”
“And I said it ain’t gonna happen. You go kaboom, I go kaboom.” Jack said. “Now I’m gonna be as gentle and careful as I can to try to patch you up, but I need you to tell me where you were hit because you ain’t got an exit wound.”
“Jack if I’m bleeding out on top of a live IED, I’m not going to let you try to patch me up. There’s no point.”
“If you weren’t already injured I’d smack you. Where are you hit?”
Mac huffed. Jack needed to leave. There was no point in wasting completely good first aid if he was just going to die anyways. Then something popped into his head. “How longs it been?”
“What?”
“Since I told you we needed to blow it. How longs it been.”
Jack looked at his watch. “Bout six minutes, give or take a few seconds.”
That couldn’t have been right. Mac distinctly remembered the clock saying four minutes and thirty-five seconds when he stood to set up the C4.
He shifted carefully, slowly putting his arms on the sides and pushing himself up. Jack hovered, ready to lunge at him the second his arms gave out, but he didn’t have to.
Mac pushed himself fully upright so he was sitting back on his feet. He fully understood why Jack was adamant about him being hit; the whole of his front was red, but it wasn’t blood. He didn’t know what it was.
He turned his attention to the IED in front of him. The clock wasn’t on anymore and it was also covered in red.
Ah. The cylinders. They were broke.
Mac let out a tired laugh. “It got shorted out.”
Jack just looked at him. “So, you’re not hit?” When Mac shook his head, Jack leaned over and hit him upside the back of the head. “Don’t do that! Do you understand how scared I was when I heard the shot and then saw you go down? Three snipers shootin at ya and I was sure one of them gotcha before I got a chance to take them out!
He flinched back slightly at Jack’s raised tone. “I wasn’t thinking. Sorry Jack.”
“You got a super smart brain and that was the time you decided to stop thinking?.” Jack hung his head and shook it before turning back to look at Mac. “The hells that stuff anyways if it ain’t you bleedin out?”
Mac looked down at himself. “Dunno. Some sort of acidic mixture? Also like rust but it’s not the right color.”
“What if it was nitroglycerin?”
“Pure nitro is colorless and odorless. Either way, I hope it doesn’t stain.”
“Doesn’t stain. Kid nearly gets shot and blown up and he’s hopin that it doesn’t stain. Do you wanna take a look at my hair because I’m pretty certain now you’re the reason I’m going grey so early in life.”
They sat for another minute or so before getting up and heading back to the Humvee, Jack giving Mac a once over just to be sure he wasn’t hurt at all. Jack had called in everything that happened in the last few minutes and Mac had actually detonated the IED despite changing his mind and wanted to try and keep it all in one piece.
They both relaxed a bit as they headed back to base.
“Okay so maybe this one wasn’t as sim—”
“Ah—! Don’t you even think about finishing that sentence.”
Mac snorted. “Okay it wasn’t those words, but it wasn’t really out of our normal.” He smirked and mockingly added, “Do you want to add routine to your list?”
Jack slapped him in the shoulder.