"Aren't you going absolutely crazy?" Tan asked Mack. "I mean, you've been basically cooped up in here for a week now. How are you not climbing the walls?"
Mack smiled at him. He loved it when Tan crawled into bed with him, lying close enough to him so he could touch him without jostling him so much it hurt. Right now, he had a hand on Tan's head and was scratching him like he would Newt.
"Because I'm not as impatient as you?" he teased.
"Hey now, that's not nice to say to the person who's been taking care of you," Tan protested, but Mack could tell he wasn't serious by the way his eyes sparkled. Still, he would never take him for granted.
"You have, and you know how grateful I am."
Tan lifted his head for a second and sent him a dark look. "Shut up. I've told you before I don't want your constant gratitude. Stop thanking me for doing what is completely normal."
After saying that, he dropped his head again, and with a smile, Mack went back to petting Tan. He was almost like a little puppy, that one, constantly seeking affection and loving it when he was scratched and rubbed. His little kitten because he certainly had claws that could come out at random times.
Austin had told him what had happened with Tan when Mack had been unconscious, and it had scared the living daylights out of Mack. Like Austin, he’d felt guilty for not seeing this coming. How could he have missed the signals that Tan was getting this bad?
Unfortunately, he hadn't known much more about PTSD than Austin. He knew the name, had a general idea of what it meant, but that was it. They'd agreed to keep a close eye on Tan and try to get him to talk.
That last part wasn't easy, since Tan seemed to be determined to keep them at a distance, at least when it came to talking about the past. Not that Mack could fault him for that. It wasn't like he enjoyed talking about what had happened to him. In fact, he'd done his very best to not think of his parents, his family, the things they had done to him. He had in the beginning, when they had just escaped from the camp, but that had been mostly because everything he’d experienced had reminded him of the messed-up way he'd been brought up.
Now that he felt a little more acclimated to the outside world—though, of course, that world had changed dramatically as well after the Zagorians had invaded Earth—he'd tried to forget about the past. Which would make pressing Tan into talking about his trauma more than a little hypocritical.
"But seriously, sweetie, how do you manage to do nothing?" Tan asked.
"I'm not doing nothing," Mack protested. "I've managed to read a little, you have been reading to me, and I've talked to both of you. And don't forget that I still sleep a lot."
"Sure, but that still leaves a couple of hours a day where you just lie there and stare at the ceiling."
Mack pushed down the irritation that welled up inside him. Tan had no way of knowing he was dragging up bad memories. "Why are you asking?"
Tan gently pushed himself up into a sitting position, then looked at Mack with a frown. "Because I’m impatient and easily bored out of my mind, so if there's some secret to what you're doing, I’d like to know. But you're evading my question. That's not like you at all."
Mack smiled at him. "You're perceptive."
Tan rolled his eyes. "I know I am because trust me, it didn't escape my attention that you're still not answering. If you don't want to talk about it, just tell me to butt out."
"Who needs to butt out of what?" Austin said as he entered the room.
"Me, I think, out of Mack’s business."
Tan didn't sound happy, and Mack didn't like it. There were few things he hated more than hurting Tan, even unintentionally. "I didn't say you needed to butt out. You suggested that yourself."
"Because you won't tell me what the problem is," Tan snapped, then immediately held up his hands. "I'm sorry. That was… I didn't mean to get snappy with you. I just don't understand what I'm doing wrong."
Austin settled on the bed as well, pulling up his legs and facing both of them. "Obviously, I'm missing context here since I just walked in, so who wants to fill me in?"
Mack kept his mouth shut. He was more than ready to let the whole thing go, so it was up to Tan now.
"All I did was ask him how he didn't get bored out of his mind lying here in bed, and he won't tell me," Tan said, his voice still rich with frustration.
Austin sent Mack a look. A look that told him he knew Mack had his reasons. "Babe, if Mack doesn't want to answer the question, that's his prerogative. You can't keep pushing if he doesn't want to talk about it."
"I know, but I don't understand why. It's a simple question."
Austin sent him another meaningful look, and Mack let out a sigh. "Just like you’ve experienced things you don't like to talk about, there are things in my past I don't like to be reminded of. The question you’re asking touches upon something that is painful for me, okay?"
Tan's expression changed from frustration into devastation. "I didn't know. I thought you didn't want to tell me because you didn't trust me or because you didn't think I could do it."
"Do what?" Austin asked, clearly still not following entirely.
Mack took Tan's hand. "I promise you, it has nothing to do with you. It's not some trick I'm doing, some technique I could teach you. It was born out of necessity, but the circumstances of that are painful for me to drag up. Does that make sense?"
Tan nodded, still looking guilty. "I'm sorry I asked. I didn't mean to hurt you."
"Come here," Mack said, giving the softest of tugs on Tan's hand, and Tan settled back into his previous position close to Mack. "I'm not upset with you. I sometimes forget that you can't read my mind."
Warm breath out of Tan's mouth ghosted over his skin. "I'm still sorry. I get pushy sometimes, and I’m not good with social cues."
"You're perfect the way you are," Mack said, and as soon as the words were out, heat crept up his cheeks. Why did he keep saying stuff like that? It was too mushy, too much. Normal people didn't blurt out things like that.
Tan leaned back and smiled at him, one of those sweet smiles that made Mack's belly twirl and spin. "Thank you. You always know what to say to make me feel better."
Whew. That seemed to have gone over well. Mack breathed out with relief as he stroked Tan's hair again.
"How does it look outside?" he asked Austin. He'd better switch topics before the conversation turned back to the very thing he didn't want to talk about.
"About two inches of fresh snow overnight. No signs of disturbance anywhere around us."
"That brings the total snowfall to, what, fourteen inches this week?"
Austin nodded. "It sucks not to have a weather forecast. I have no idea how farmers did it back in the old days. How do you know when to plant or harvest or fertilize when you don't know what the weather is going to be like?"
Mack grinned. This was a subject he and Tan had been talking about the day before, how Austin was someone who needed facts. He didn't like not being in control, and remarks like this proved it. "I guess they were a lot better at interpreting the weather just from observation."
"Well, my most recent observation is that it's snowing," Austin said dryly. "More like flurries, but the sky is gray, so there could be more coming."
They’d discussed the consequences of snow in detail, and ultimately, they’d agreed that it had both upsides and downsides and that neither seemed to outweigh the other. Tan, who clearly had gotten tired of the whole thing, had simply stated that since Mack was bedridden anyway, none of it mattered, and it wouldn't until he was well enough to do anything. So, Tan had pointed out, the whole discussion was moot. They had to stay inside, they had to eat, they had to stay warm, and everything else was a bonus. Sometimes, not being a worrywart seemed like heaven to Mack.
"I've brought the radio," Austin said.
Neither he nor Tan seemed to be able to find the radio stations as easily as Mack. They didn't have enough finesse and were both too impatient to turn the dial slowly, a millimeter at a time so they wouldn't miss even the weakest signal. There were many stations now, some crystal clear, others hard to understand, but they were all sharing the information they had. Some of it got retracted later, but other information was confirmed by various sources, lending credibility.
Similar radio broadcasts had popped up all over the world, and it was how news was now spread. And everywhere around the world, stations did a personal hour at six in the evening local time. They read messages from people trying to find loved ones, death notices, even birth announcements. It was wonderfully normal and so absurdly strange at the same time.
They listened for a while to several broadcasts, but Mack heard nothing new, just the daily updates on attacks from bots or aliens, on known casualties, the status of the oil drilling, and more. One thing piqued Mack’s curiosity, however. Multiple reports from within the CUS mentioned platoons of soldiers that had been spotted. CUS soldiers. How were the aliens okay with that if, as Pax had said, they did interfere when groups got too big? That was something to ponder, and he turned off the radio.
Tan had been right about Mack having a lot of time to think, and he’d come up with a plan of his own. "I think I'm ready to get out of bed today," he announced. "It's been a week, I didn't develop a fever, the wound looks rough, but it's not red or warm, and it's time for me to get moving again."
"Bobbi didn't give us a time for when it was okay for you to move. He just said you shouldn't put any strain on the wound," Austin said for what had to be the tenth time. At least. Not that Mack was counting.
"I know. But I'm the best judge of how I feel and what I'm ready for, don't you think?"
"What I think is that you are one hell of a stubborn person who is perfectly capable of pushing through his own limits if he thinks it serves a bigger purpose," Austin said with one eyebrow raised, and Mack cringed a little with how right that was.
"I promise you that's not the case here. I feel good. Of course it still hurts, but that's not strange, considering I got shot and was patched up using rudimentary equipment."
"Rudimentary equipment," Tan muttered. "He closed that wound with a fucking sewing kit. That's not rudimentary. That's barbaric."
Mack chuckled. "Imagine how soldiers must've survived for millennia before the invention of modern medicine. The old Romans and Greek used similar methods to treat wounds, you know.”
"Sure, and were their mortality rates comparable to ours?" Austin asked, his tone a little sharp.
Mack knew why. Austin had fought him hard on taking antibiotics, but Mack had steadfastly refused. They didn't have that many, and they might need them later, he’d explained. Besides, he wasn't even sure if they would help prevent infection. They might help fight it off once he had one and stop it from spreading, but his parents had always insisted on letting the body do its own work first and only helping it if needed.
"I’ll take it easy," he said.
"I guess you'll have to get out of bed at some point," Austin grumbled. "But I swear, if I see you overdoing it, I’ll hurt you myself."
"Aw,” Tan said, chuckling. "What are you going to do, big guy? Spank him? Put him over your knee?"
That made them all laugh, relieving the tension in the room.
"Seriously, I’ll be careful," Mack said, and Austin nodded.
"I’ll hold you to that."
Yes. Freedom beckoned.