Mac existed for a while in a sort of dark and hazy place where he knew he was hurting, but he didn't have to acknowledge it. His brain just toyed with memories of his fruitless mission to Paris, his fight with Jack, his repeated apologetic phone calls.
He'd done the whole 'I'm not speaking to you' thing to Jack before, but it was rare that Jack ever did it to him. Maybe he'd gone too far this time, pushing his friend away. But, no. Not Jack.
That was the thing, above all others, that most characterized Jack as a friend. He forgave. It didn't matter if you deserved it; if he loved you, there was nothing you could really do that he wouldn't forgive.
And Mac knew how Jack felt about him. Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes, most often when he was alone, in the dark, trying to sleep, he would question it. But not because of Jack. Mac just often had the totally irrational thought that he wasn't meant to have a family, that people would leave him, that there was something fundamentally unlovable about him. It was a dark place to go.
Usually, after one of those long, difficult nights, Jack would just show up in the morning, apropos of nothing with take-out coffee and bagels and his big booming voice. He'd throw an arm around Mac's shoulders, tell him he was too skinny most likely, and feed him bagels and pretend he didn't know anything was wrong. That was usually how Mac managed to pull out of those dark places.
He was in the dark now, he thought fuzzily. Ah, hell, and he hurt, kind of everywhere. He felt cold metal under him and cutting into his wrists. His brain felt sluggish and slow and his eyes really didn't want to open. Too bad, he thought and forced them to.
It took him a minute to even process his surroundings. Well, this wasn't good. Where the hell was he? He looked around, but his eyes wouldn't focus on anything and his head swam. Maybe he could deal with more immediate problems.
Why did his wrists hurt? Handcuffs. Okay, could deal with handcuffs. But what could he use? He started testing the cuffs and trying to get a sense of the chair he was restrained in, not really able to think it through, but knowing those were the motions he should go through.
He wondered muddily if by some miracle whoever had … what had they even done? He realized he couldn't remember. As he pulled on the cuffs, an aching pain he'd been able to mostly ignore reasserted itself with a painful stabbing. It was vaguely familiar, and one he knew he hated. He took in that he was hooked to a bag of some IV solution with an unnecessarily large needle, and he began to piece together why he felt so groggy and useless, why he couldn't remember.
He did have the cheerful thought that for as much as the IV hurt, it hadn't been started by someone who was particularly expert at it. He didn't particularly want to study it, or even look at it if he was honest, but it yielded some reassuring information. There wasn't much in the way of bruising around the needle, so that had to mean he hadn't been here for long.
And the fact that he was drugged meant they wanted something. Someone who wanted something had something he could use, even if it was just their desire for information. He didn't know what good it would do, but he yelled, hoping to get whoever it was to come and reveal why he was here.
After a few frustrating minutes, he stopped yelling and just sat. The chair was cold, cutting into his back, his arms. Speaking of arms, the right one ached miserably and now that he was aware of it, he could feel the needle poking him mercilessly. And his head, it ached and swam; he could barely get his brain to function.
He started trying harder to ignore his physical surroundings and get his thoughts to order themselves. He thought he was starting to get on top of whatever the drug was doing to him, at least a little, and he was beginning to almost have an idea for how to get out of the cuffs.
Then he heard it. The unmistakable whistle of a stone-cold killer who definitely wanted him dead. Except if he was here, cuffed to a chair, and drugged to the gills, Mac didn't think it was going to be a merciful double tap. He swallowed as Murdoc descended the stairs.
When he felt the killer's liquid dark eyes on him he thought, not for the first time, that he knew what a mouse must feel like when being stalked by a cat with a playful streak added to its efficient hunting instinct. And he knew he was about to be batted around like an unfortunate rodent before Murdoc grabbed his arm and drove the IV needle in deeper.
Mac tried not to make any noise at all but god damnit, that hurt, and the drug it was delivering was lowering his defenses. However, when Murdoc let go and sat down in front of him, he did have the fleeting thought that the pain had cleared his mind some.
And since this was clearly going to be an interrogation, of the really unpleasant variety, Mac was grateful for that. Unless Jack just battered down the door, Mac's mind was the only thing between him and a messy painful death at Murdoc's hands.
