Chapter Text
The waiting room had a little fake Christmas tree on the reception desk, and Mack had been staring at it for the better part of an hour.
It was a sad little thing, honestly — plastic, pre-lit, a few ornaments clustered on the side that faced the room and none at all on the back, the kind of decoration a busy office puts up out of obligation. But it was a tree, and it was Christmas, and staring at it made Mack think about Will, which was most of what Mack's brain did anyway.
Because Will was gutted about the timing. That was the thing Mack kept coming back to, turning the fake tree's few sad lights over in his mind while somewhere behind that door a surgeon dug four teeth out of his boyfriend's head. Will had been putting this off for months. The dentist had been on him since training camp — they're impacted, Will, they're going to become a problem, you don't want them becoming a problem mid-season — and Will had kept pushing it, and pushing it, not because he was scared, though he was, Will hated anything medical, hated needles, went pale at the sight of a dentist's chair, but because there was genuinely never a good time. That was the brutal math of the season. You didn't get a week off. You got a night, maybe two, wedged between a back-to-back and a road trip, never enough to be knocked flat by surgery and swollen and useless and healing. There was no window. There was never a window.
Except Christmas.
Three days. The twenty-fourth through the twenty-sixth, the longest stretch of nothing they'd get at this time of the year, no games, no practice, no traveling — the only week on the entire calendar where a guy could get his whole face taken apart and have time to put it back together before anyone needed him on the ice again. The dentist had pointed it out weeks ago. If you keep waiting, do it over the holiday break. It's really your only shot until summer. And Will had looked so crestfallen about it that Mack's heart had physically hurt.
Because Will loved Christmas. Loved it more than any grown adult Mack had ever met, loved it the way little kids love it, the whole shameless overflowing thing — the lights up on the first of December, the movies on repeat, the baking, the Mariah Carey ban he lifted for exactly one glorious month a year, his mom's traditions carried on a thousand miles from home. It was Will's favorite time in the entire world, the thing he counted down to starting in October, and now he was going to spend the front half of it swollen and drugged and eating applesauce instead of his mom's cookies.
"It's Christmas Eve," Will had said, that morning, small and glum in the passenger seat on the way to the appointment — Mack driving, for once, because you couldn't drive yourself home from anesthesia. He'd had his hood up and his knees pulled toward his chest and he'd looked about nine years old. "I waited all year. I had plans. We were gonna do the whole — the cookies, and the thing at Toff's, and—" He'd sighed, a big tragic put-upon sigh. "Now I'm gonna be a swollen little gremlin for half of it. I'm gonna miss my own favorite holiday."
"You're not gonna miss it," Mack had said, reaching over to squeeze his knee at a red light. "It's three whole days. You'll be down for one, one-and-a-half tops, and then you'll be back to being unbearable about Home Alone before you know it. And I'll be right there the whole time. I'll make it good, I promise. Cross my heart."
"...You'll make me cocoa?"
"I'll make you all the cocoa."
"The real kind. Not the powder."
"Do I look like a man who'd betray you with powder in your hour of need?"
That had gotten a small reluctant smile out of him, finally, and Will had turned his hand over and laced their fingers on the console and held on the rest of the drive, quiet and nervous, and Mack had run his thumb over Will's knuckles at every light and thought about how much he loved this ridiculous, Christmas-obsessed, needle-fearing person, and how he'd do just about anything to take the nervous look off his face.
And then they'd gotten there, and Will had gone pale in the waiting room, and gripped Mack's hand too hard, and Mack had bent down and kissed his temple and murmured you're okay, I'll be right here when you wake up, I'm not going anywhere, and they'd taken him back, and Mack had spent the last hour with a plastic Christmas tree and a laminated flossing poster and a low steady hum of worry that he knew was disproportionate and couldn't switch off.
So when the door beside the reception desk finally swung open and a nurse leaned out and said, "You here for a Will Smith?" — Mack was on his feet before she'd finished the name.
"Yeah. That's me. Is he okay?"
"He's all done, he did great, everything went perfectly." She was smiling in a specific way, the way of someone who'd recently witnessed something very funny and was still enjoying it. "You can come on back. Fair warning, though — the sedation hit him pretty hard. Some people it barely touches. Him?" She huffed a small laugh. "He's going to be a real character for the next few hours. He's completely fine. He's just — very, very out of it."
"Out of it how," Mack said, following her through the door, the worry in his chest already loosening at he did great.
"He's been talking," the nurse said, leading him down a short hall. "Since about thirty seconds after he came up. Nonstop. You'll see."
And then they came around the corner, and there was Will.
Will was reclined in a chair, bundled in a blanket someone had tucked up under his chin, and his cheeks had already started to puff out around the gauze packed in his mouth, round and swollen so that he looked like a chipmunk who'd made some poor decisions. His hair was a complete disaster, sticking up in every direction. His eyes were at half-mast and pointed in vaguely the same direction as each other but not quite. There was a little smear of something at the corner of his mouth. He looked wrecked, and puffy, and absolutely deranged, and Mack felt his whole chest cave in with a fondness so enormous and so sudden it nearly took his knees out.
Will's glassy gaze drifted across the room, snagged on Mack, and then his whole swollen face lit up like Christmas morning.
"Mackieeee," he slurred around the gauze, delighted, muffled, trying to sit up and getting tangled in the blanket. He turned to the nurse beside him with the urgent air of a man sharing critical information. "Thas him. Thas — d'you see. Thas my boyfriend. I told you 'bout him."
"You did tell me about him," the nurse confirmed, patting his shoulder, visibly delighted.
"He's so pretty," Will informed her, in a stage whisper that was not remotely a whisper, gazing at Mack with wet, unfocused adoration. "Look at his — look at his whole face. Isn't he pretty? Say he's pretty."
"He's very handsome," the nurse agreed.
"Hi, baby," Mack said, crossing to him, fighting down a grin, his face already going hot. "How you feeling?"
"Mack." Will grabbed his hand with both of his own, clumsy, and clutched it to his chest, and looked up at him with enormous devastated sincerity. "Mack. Mackie. Did you know. He plays hockey." This last directed back at the nurse, like breaking news. "He's not — he's not jus' pretty. He's captain. He's the captain. They gave him the — the letter. The C. 'Cause he's so good. He's so good at hockey, you don' even — he scored a goal, he scores lotsa goals—"
"Okay—" Mack said, going redder.
"—an' he made me banana bread one time," Will barreled on, gripping Mack's hand, gazing up at him like he was recounting the great romances of history, "his mom's — no, uh, Crosby’s recipe, that’s his hockey mom y’know, an' he — an' he carries my bag sometimes, my hockey bag, an' he's so—" Will's eyes welled up, abruptly, overcome. "He's so nice to me. He's so nice to me, an' he's so pretty, an' I love him so much, I love him more than — more than anything, more than hockey, an' I love hockey so much—"
"Oh my God," Mack said, and he was gone, completely gone, torn straight down the middle between wanting to melt into the floor and wanting to gather this ridiculous, swollen, weeping, loyal disaster of a person up into his arms and never once put him down again. His whole face was on fire. Both nurses were openly grinning now, one of them actually pressing a hand to her chest. "Baby. Okay. I love you too. I love you so much. You gotta maybe stop telling everyone in the building—"
"He's blushing," Will announced to the room, scandalized, thrilled, pointing at Mack's face with a wobbling, triumphant finger. "Look at him. He does that. He goes all pink. He gets shy, when I say he's pretty, 'cause he's — he's shy, an' he's captain, he's both, isn't that — how is he both, it's not fair, he's so—" Will dissolved into muffled giggles, and then his face crumpled with fresh emotion, and he tugged Mack's hand harder against his chest. "I'm so lucky. I'm the luckiest — nurse. Nurse lady. Am I not the luckiest."
"You're the luckiest," the nurse agreed, delighted. "Hands down. Okay, sweetheart — can I borrow your handsome captain for just a minute? I need to go over your aftercare with him, and then I promise he's all yours again."
Will considered this proposal with the deep, furrowed gravity of a man being asked to make a terrible sacrifice. His eyes went between the nurse and Mack, weighing it. "...Can he stay where I can see him," he said finally, small.
"He'll be right over there. You'll be able to see him the whole time. I promise."
"'Kay." Will loosened his grip on Mack's hand with heartbreaking reluctance — and then immediately reached out and caught the hem of Mack's shirt instead, holding onto that, a compromise, an anchor. His swollen face was so earnest it hurt. "But don' take him far. He's mine. I — I called it. I called it first. Long time ago."
"Nobody's taking him anywhere," the nurse said solemnly. "He's all yours."
Mack bent down before he stood, unable to help it, and pressed a soft kiss to the top of Will's disaster of a head, right into the mess of his hair. "I'm right here, okay?" he murmured. "Not going anywhere. Just gonna listen to the nice lady tell me how to take care of you, and then I'm taking you home and putting you on the couch and giving you all the ice cream you can eat. Sit tight. Watch me the whole time if you want."
"I will," Will said, with total sincerity, and let go of the shirt, and settled back into his blanket to do exactly that.
The nurse steered Mack a few feet away — just out of Will's reach but well within his line of sight, which turned out to be essential, because the second Mack was more than three feet away Will fixed him with the unblinking, moony, betrayed-but-adoring stare of a golden retriever whose person has inexplicably crossed a room, and did not look away for one single second of the entire conversation.
"So," the nurse said, lowering her voice, still visibly delighted. "He's going to be like this for a few hours yet. It'll wear off gradually. But I'm going to tell you everything, because I promise you he will not remember one word of any of it." She pulled out a printed sheet. "Now. He's going to be swollen and sore for a good few days, worst around day two or three, so you've got your work cut out for you over the holiday..."
And Mack listened, and nodded, and took the sheet, and asked good questions, and behind him — bundled in a blanket with his cheeks puffed out like an overcommitted chipmunk — Will watched his pretty captain take careful notes on how to look after him, and gave him a tiny gauze-muffled wave every time their eyes met, and Mack's heart, roughly every fifteen seconds, tried to climb straight out of his chest.
Three days, Mack thought, glancing back at Will, who beamed at him, swollen and loopy and radiant and his. Will was worried he'd miss Christmas. He wasn't going to miss a thing. Mack was going to make sure of it — was going to spend every one of these three days making it the best, softest, most looked-after Christmas Will had ever had, gauze and swelling and applesauce and all.
Once she finished giving Mack instructions, the nurse got Will into the wheelchair, which was its own small production — Will was cooperative but uncoordinated, all long loose limbs and no working sense of where they were, and he kept trying to help in ways that were the opposite of helpful, so it took Mack and the nurse together to pour him gently down into the seat and get the blanket tucked back around him and his feet onto the footrests.
"Hospital policy," the nurse explained, when Mack raised an eyebrow. "He rides out in the chair, no walking. Which — honestly, look at him. He couldn't walk a straight line to save his life right now."
"'M an athlete," Will informed her, deeply offended, listing gently to one side.
"You're a very talented athlete," the nurse agreed, straightening him back up. "Who is extremely high right now and is going to ride in this chair."
Mack crouched down in front of the wheelchair, hands on Will's blanketed knees, and got his loopy, half-mast attention. "Okay, Smitty. Here's the plan. I'm gonna go get the car and pull it right up to the doors, okay? Two minutes. The nurse is gonna stay right here with you the whole time, and then I'm gonna come right back and we'll get you loaded up and take you home. Cool?"
Will considered this, blinking slowly, and then nodded. "'Kay."
Mack pressed a quick kiss to his forehead, stood, grabbed the aftercare sheet and the little bag of gauze and prescriptions the nurse handed him, and headed for the doors. "Be right back, baby."
"'Kay," Will said again, watching him go, and he seemed fine, he seemed genuinely okay with it, right up until the exact second Mack disappeared around the corner and out of sight.
And then Will's whole swollen face crumpled.
It happened fast. One moment he was blinking placidly after Mack, and the next his chin was wobbling, his eyes were filling, and a low, muffled, heartbroken sound came out from behind the gauze. By the time the nurse looked down at him, alarmed, fat tears were already rolling down his puffy cheeks.
"Oh — hey, honey, hey, what's wrong?" She crouched beside the chair. "Are you hurting? Is it your mouth?"
Will shook his head, miserable, tears streaming, and got out, thick and slurred and devastated: "He left."
"He didn't leave, sweetheart, he's just—"
"He left me." Will's face was a picture of pure anesthetized tragedy, crying in earnest now, his hands twisting in the blanket. "He — he saw my face. He saw it all — all big an' puffy, an' ugly, an' he — he doesn' want me anymore 'cause I look like a — like a chipmunk, an' he left, an' I don' blame him, look at me, m'so—" A sob. "M'so ugly now—"
"Oh, no, no, no—" the nurse started, biting back what was very clearly a laugh, torn between sympathy and delight. "Honey, that is not what happened, I promise you, he is just getting the—"
"He's gonna find a prettier one," Will wept, inconsolable, staring at his own hands. "One with a — a normal face, an' — "
And that was the moment Mack came back around the corner.
He'd been fast — car pulled right up, mere minutes — and he came through the doors already reaching for the wheelchair handles, and stopped dead at the sight of Will sobbing his swollen heart out in the chair, tears pouring down his puffy face, the nurse crouched beside him valiantly not laughing.
"Whoa — hey, hey, hey—" Mack was across the room and on his knees in front of the chair in an instant, hands flying to Will's face, his heart lurching. "What happened? What's wrong? Is he in pain, is his mouth—"
"He's not in pain," the nurse managed, her voice slightly strangled. "He, ah. He thinks you left him."
Mack blinked. "I — what? I was gone thirty seconds—"
"Mackie." Will's whole face transformed the instant his blurry eyes focused on Mack — from devastation to shattering, watery relief, fresh tears spilling over. He grabbed for Mack with both clumsy hands. "You came back. You came back."
"Of course I came back, I told you I was—" Mack cupped his wet face in both hands, thumbs sweeping away tears, completely bewildered and completely undone. "Baby, I said two minutes, I just went to get the car, what — why are you crying, what happened?"
"I thought—" Will hiccuped, gripping Mack's wrists, gazing at him like he'd returned from war. "I thought you left me. 'Cause my face is all — all big an' ugly now, an' you saw it, an' I thought you went to go find a — a prettier boyfriend with a normal face—"
"A prettier—" Mack's face did something complicated, cracking straight down the middle between heartbreak and helpless overwhelming fondness. "Will. Will. No. Oh my God, no. Baby, listen to me." He pressed his forehead to Will's, careful of the swollen cheeks, both hands still cradling his face. "There is no prettier boyfriend. There's no such thing. You are the prettiest boyfriend that has ever existed in the history of the entire world, okay? Big puffy chipmunk face and all. Especially the big puffy chipmunk face. I'm obsessed with your big puffy chipmunk face. I would never, ever leave you."
Will sniffled wetly, searching his face for the truth of it. "...You still want me? Even puffy?"
"I want you so much, even puffy." Mack kissed his forehead, his hairline, the top of his head, everywhere. "You're stuck with me, Smitty. Puffy face and gauze and everything. I'm keeping you forever. Nobody prettier out there, nobody nicer, nobody I'd carry a single bag for but you. Okay?"
"...'Kay," Will whispered, mollified, the tears finally slowing, gazing at Mack with wobbly, adoring, tear-streaked devotion. Then, small: "Don' go get the car without me again."
"I have to get the car, baby, it's how we get home—"
"Take me with you."
"...Yeah," Mack said, giving up entirely, his heart a puddle on the floor. "Yeah, okay. I'll wheel you right out to it. We'll go together. Come on." He stood, and got behind the chair, and squeezed Will's shoulder, and the nurse — wiping her own eyes now, from laughing — held the door.
And Will, reassured, beloved, and no longer abandoned, settled back into his blanket with a contented, gauze-muffled sigh as Mack wheeled him out into the cold bright afternoon toward the waiting car, and announced, to the parking lot at large, "Thas my boyfriend. He came back for me."
"I sure did," Mack said, and leaned down to kiss the top of his ridiculous head, and did not stop smiling the entire way to the car.
Getting Will into the car was, like everything else that afternoon, a production.
Mack wheeled the chair right up to the open passenger door, set the brake, and spent a solid two minutes carefully transferring one extremely loopy hockey player from the wheelchair into the seat — a process complicated mostly by Will, who kept trying to "help," which involved grabbing Mack's shoulders and going boneless at the worst possible moments and narrating throughout.
"There we go. Easy. Watch your head—"
"I have a head," Will confirmed, ducking a full two seconds too late and clearing the doorframe by pure luck.
"You do have a head. Good job. Okay — sit, baby, there you go." Mack got him poured into the seat, guided his long legs in one at a time, and reached across him for the belt. Will watched this happen with the wide reverent eyes of a man witnessing a magic trick.
"You're buckling me," he breathed, delighted.
"I'm buckling you."
"'Cause you love me."
"'Cause I love you, and 'cause you'd forget to do it yourself." Mack clicked it home, gave it a tug, and smoothed the blanket he'd brought from home over Will's lap, tucking it in around him. "There. All set. Comfy?"
Will beamed at him, cheeks round and puffy, eyes gone soft and gooey. "Comfy. You're so good at buckling. Best buckler I ever saw."
"High praise." Mack shut the door gently, came around, got in, and — because he knew exactly what this loopy Christmas-obsessed disaster would want more than anything on earth right now — tapped the screen. The car filled with the warm crackle of Will's Christmas playlist, Bing Crosby first, because Mack knew the order by heart.
Will gasped like he'd been handed the moon.
"Christmas music." He turned to Mack, swollen and overwhelmed. "You put on my — you know my — Mackie. You love me so much."
"I really do." Mack pulled out of the lot, careful, both hands on the wheel, and eased them into the road at a speed that would've embarrassed a funeral procession.
The playlist rolled. The snow came down. Will gazed dreamily out the window for a while, drifting, humming a little off-key, and then slowly seemed to register something. He looked at the passing scenery. Looked at the speedometer. Squinted.
"Mackie," he said, puzzled. "Why're ya drivin' so slow."
Because it was true, and even Will's anesthetized brain had clocked it — Mack, who normally drove like he had somewhere to be, was crawling, taking the corners like the roads were made of glass, braking early and gentle at every light, both hands locked at ten and two in a way that was frankly more Will's style than his own.
Mack glanced over at his sleepy, swollen, gauze-cheeked boyfriend, and knew, with total certainty, that Will would not remember one word of this later — which somehow made it easier to say the soft true thing out loud.
"'Cause I've got precious cargo in the car," he said.
Will's whole puffy face went round with wonder. He sat up a little against the belt, gasping, immediately scanning the car — the footwells, the back seat, the console — for it. "Precious cargo?" he whispered, awed, thrilled. "What is it? Where — is it in the back? Mackie, what's the precious cargo—"
"It's you, Smit," Mack said gently, reaching over to rest a hand on Will's blanket-covered knee. "You're the precious cargo. Gotta drive careful. Got the most important thing in the world sitting right here."
And Will just — melted. His hands came up to his own puffy cheeks, his eyes welling instantly, his whole face crumpling with the enormous weight of being loved. "Me?" he breathed, wobbly. "I'm the — I'm the precious cargo?"
"You're the precious cargo."
"Mackie." He was tearing up again, gazing at Mack like he'd never heard anything so beautiful in his life. "Thas the — thas the nicest—" His voice caught. "Am I really? Even with my — my chipmunk face?"
"Especially with the chipmunk face. Most precious cargo there's ever been." Mack laughed, easing them through another light at a crawl. "So yeah. We're going slow. Not risking it. Not with you in here."
Will settled back into the seat, both hands pressed to his chest now, utterly overcome, watching Mack drive with slow, drifting, teary adoration. "You're so good everything," he informed the windshield, dreamily. "Buckling. Drivin'. Bein' — bein' nice. An' hockey. An' your face."
"Thanks, buddy."
"You're welcome." Will yawned, enormous, jaw cracking, and winced at the pull on his sore mouth, and immediately forgot he'd winced, sinking deeper into the blanket, his head lolling toward Mack's side of the car. The playlist crooned low. The heater hummed. The snow drifted down soft and slow across the glass.
"You warm enough over there?" Mack asked, at the next light.
"Mm." Will's eyes had gone heavy, half-lidded, tracking Mack's profile with sleepy devotion. He reached over, clumsy, and patted vaguely at Mack's cheek, missing and getting his jaw. "You got a nice face. I like all the parts of it. I'm gonna look at it forever."
"Yeah?" Mack turned just enough to press a kiss to Will's drifting hand. "Forever's the plan."
"Good," Will sighed, deeply satisfied, his hand going lax and sliding down to rest on the console. His words were softening now, slurring at the edges, the anesthesia and the warmth and the Christmas music finally hauling him under. "You an' me. An' cookies. An' when my face works again m'gonna make you the — the real hot chocolate, not the—"
"Not the powder," Mack murmured.
"Never the powder," Will agreed, scandalized even mostly asleep, his eyes sliding shut. "I'd never do that to you..."
"I know you wouldn't, Smitty."
"...love you, Mackie," he breathed, barely a sound, his head tipped against the seat toward Mack, reaching vaguely across the console even as he went under.
And then Will's breathing went slow and even, his puffy face slack and peaceful, and he was out — mid-thought, mouth slightly open around the gauze, one hand still stretched toward Mack on the console.
Mack drove the rest of the way home through the falling snow, slow and gentle and careful, Bing Crosby low and the world gone soft and white outside. He had so much chirping material now — the nurse, the wheelchair tears, the buckling, the precious cargo — a whole arsenal for later, for weeks, and he intended to use every scrap of it.
But for right now he just reached over, careful not to wake him, and covered Will's hand with his own on the console, and kept them both between the lines, driving his precious cargo home so gently through the snow that his sleeping boy didn’t wake up until they got home.
Will stirred as the car slowed into the driveway, surfacing slow and reluctant, blinking against the gray afternoon light with his puffy face creased from the seatbelt.
"Hey. We're home." Mack cut the engine and came around to his side, and the transfer from car to house was another slow careful production — Will loose-limbed and sleepy and only half-cooperative, leaning most of his weight on Mack, shuffling up the walk through the light snow. He walked like a newborn deer. Mack had to physically bite the inside of his cheek, because normally — normally he'd be merciless about this, they both would, — and he was already stockpiling it. You walked into the house like Bambi on the ice, Smitty. I've got video in my head. Forever.
"'M walkin'," Will mumbled, immensely proud, listing sideways into a doorframe.
"You sure are, buddy." Barely, Mack didn't say, swallowing the grin. "Best walker I ever saw."
Inside, the tree glowed in the corner. Mack steered him down onto the good deep couch and Will went boneless with a contented sigh, and Mack disappeared for thirty seconds and came back with his own hoodie, the soft gray one Will was always stealing, and worked it over Will's head while Will "helped" by putting one arm through the neck hole. Mack fixed it without comment. Then the blanket, Will's favorite, shaken out and tucked up to his chin.
"There. Comfy?"
"Comfy," Will confirmed, muffled, swimming in the hoodie, and Mack had to turn away for a second and press his lips together, because Will looked unhinged — puffy-cheeked, gauze-mouthed, drowning in gray fleece, blinking up at him like a very content potato — and if Will had been even ten percent more coherent Mack would already be on the floor laughing and Will would be threatening his life. As it was, Mack just grabbed the remote and put on Home Alone.
Will gasped, delighted, and Mack lost the fight and let out a small huff of a laugh, quickly disguised as a cough. "Yeah, yeah, your movie. Watch your movie. I'm gonna go get you some food, okay? Soft stuff. Potatoes, jello, that kind of thing."
"'Kay," Will said, and Mack made it four feet before the smallest, most pathetic sound stopped him.
He turned. Will had half sat up out of the blanket, one hand outstretched, chin already wobbling. "Where're you goin'."
"The kitchen, baby. Right there. Twenty feet." Mack pointed, and had to fight the smile off his face, because God, the tragedy on this man, you'd think Mack was shipping out. Later — later he was going to describe this to Will in loving, excruciating detail. For now he kept it gentle. "You'll hear me the whole time."
"...oh." Will surveyed the twenty feet like it was an ocean. "Okay." He lay back down, visibly being brave, and Mack got two more steps before, tiny: "...can I come."
"You can't come, you gotta rest—" Mack sighed, already folding, because he had never once in his life successfully held a line against a sad Will and wasn't going to start today. He came back, crouched, brushed the hair off Will's forehead, biting down hard on the laugh threatening to escape. "I'll be fast, and I'll talk the whole time so you know I'm here. Deal? Watch the movie. Kevin's about to booby-trap the house."
"...'kay." Then Will's face went soft and guilty, and he caught Mack's sleeve. "M'sorry m'bein' so clingy. I don' mean to. M'bein' a baby. You go."
And that killed the laugh dead, right in Mack's chest, because — God, even like this, even loopy out of his mind, Will was apologizing for needing him. Mack crouched back down and cupped his puffy cheek. "Hey. No. You're not being a baby. You had surgery, you're all drugged up, of course you want me close. That's allowed. Cling all you want, I love it. I'm not going anywhere." He kissed his forehead. "Twenty feet. Talking the whole time."
And he did — narrated the entire operation at a shout, okay getting the potatoes, I'm the best potato-masher in the league, still here, still here, getting the jello — while Will watched the movie and called back sleepy commentary, and it worked, and nobody cried, and Mack grinned to himself the whole time over the sink.
He came back with a tray: mashed potatoes, jello, ice cream waiting in the freezer. Helped Will sit up, handed him the spoon. Will took it with the fierce focus of a man accepting a great responsibility.
And immediately dropped it. Hand too loopy, spoon clattering into the bowl.
Will stared at it, deeply betrayed. Tried again. Missed his own mouth by a solid inch, smearing potato across his puffy cheek.
And that — Mack couldn't help it. A laugh escaped him, just one, before he could stop it, and he clapped a hand over his mouth, because it was so funny, it was the funniest thing, this enormous professional athlete defeated by a spoonful of mashed potato, and every instinct in his best-friend body wanted to howl about it. But Will's face was already crumpling, so Mack strangled it fast.
"—okay, hey, hey, I'm not laughing at you," he lied, valiantly, still fighting his own mouth. "Okay, I'm laughing a little.But lovingly. It's a very loving laugh. You just — you missed your whole mouth, buddy, you got potato on your cheek."
"I can't," Will said mournfully, chin wobbling, potato on his face.
"I know. It's the anesthesia, your hands are useless right now." Mack took the spoon, sat down beside him, wiped the potato off his cheek with his thumb, still grinning helplessly. "It's fine. C'mere. Let me."
"...you'll feed me?" Wobbly. Hopeful.
"Course I will." Mack scooped a small bite, blew on it out of habit, held it up. "Here. Small. There you go. Good." I'm never letting you live this down, he thought, warmly, the second your brain comes back online I'm telling you I hand-fed you jello and you cried about the kitchen, and out loud he just said, "Good job."
Will let himself be fed, gazing at Mack with enormous swimming adoration. "You're so good at this," Will sighed around the jello.
"Feeding you? It's a real talent. Years of training."
"No, but—" Will's puffy face went earnest and dreamy, his eyes soft, tracking Mack's hands. "You're so — you're so gentle, an' you blow on it even when it's not hot, an' you—" He gazed up at Mack, overcome, and delivered it with the full solemn weight of a man sharing a profound truth: "You'd be such a good dad."
Mack's hand froze halfway to the bowl.
"You would," Will pressed on, gathering steam, oblivious, wobbly-eyed and sincere. "You'd be the — the best dad. You'd feed the baby jello an' — an' blow on it, an' carry the diaper bag, 'cause you always carry the bag, you never even ask, an' you'd — you'd be so nice to it—" His chin wobbled, moved by his own vision. "Our baby'd be so lucky."
And Mack — who was not, in fact, remotely prepared for that on a Tuesday afternoon with a spoon of jello in his hand — felt his whole chest cave in, felt his face go hot and then soft and then hot again, because Will was loopy out of his skull and would not remember one word of this, and had just said our baby like it was the most natural thing in the world, like it was already decided, like it was a thing he thought about.
"...yeah?" Mack managed, his voice come out a little rough. He cleared it. "You think so, huh?"
"Mm." Will nodded, absolutely certain, and opened his mouth for the next bite like he hadn't just detonated something enormous and quiet in the middle of Mack's ribcage. "The best. Someday. When we're — when we're ready." He accepted the jello, chewed carefully, swallowed, and added, with great tenderness, "You'd blow on all its food. Every bite. I know you would."
"...Yeah," Mack said, thick, and had to look down at the bowl for a second, blinking, grinning stupidly at the mashed potatoes, his heart doing something enormous. "Yeah. I would. Every bite, Smitty."
"See." Will settled back into Mack's side, deeply satisfied, mission accomplished, already drifting back toward the movie. "Tol' you. Good dad."
And Mack sat there feeding his ridiculous, swollen, loopy boyfriend jello on the couch with Home Alone playing and the snow coming down, filing this one very carefully away — not for chirping, not this one, this one he was going to keep somewhere else, somewhere warm, to take out and look at later — and thought, with a sudden fierce ache, that someday didn't actually sound so far away, and that he wouldn't mind it one bit.
"Eat your jello, precious cargo," he said softly, and held up the next bite, and Will did, beaming, and neither of them said anything else about it — but Mack thought about it for the rest of the night.
Will made it about halfway through the movie after that.
He'd been fading for a while — Mack could feel it, the way Will's sleepy commentary had gone slower and softer and further apart, the way he kept losing the thread and asking what was happening and then forgetting the answer before it finished. He'd eaten what he could, and Mack had set the tray aside, and Will had immediately migrated the way he always did, boneless and shameless, tucking himself into Mack's side until he was more or less lying against his chest, one hand fisted loosely in the front of Mack's shirt.
"This is the best part," Will informed him, muzzy, at a part that was not, objectively, the best part.
"Yeah?"
"Mm. S'all the best parts. You're in the tradition now. Every year. Forever."
"I'm honored to be in the tradition."
And then Will just — went. His breathing evened out, slow and deep. The hand in Mack's shirt went lax. His head, tucked into the crook of Mack's neck, got heavier by degrees, and his whole worn-out, swollen body sank into Mack's side, warm and boneless and finally, completely still.
Mack looked down. Will was fast asleep — mouth slightly open around the gauze, puffy cheek smushed to Mack's shoulder, drowning in the gray hoodie with the blanket pulled to his chest. And his hair, that ridiculous golden mess, wrecked from the surgery and the car and the hoodie, had fallen all across his face, one soft curl catching on his lashes with every slow breath.
Mack lifted a hand and brushed it back, careful, gentle, his thumb grazing Will's temple. Will didn't stir. He just breathed, slow and safe, and turned a fraction deeper into Mack's neck, chasing the warmth. The curls fell back over his eyes. Mack moved them again. He wasn't in any hurry.
The movie played on low, and the tree glowed in the corner, and the snow came down soft and endless outside — and Mack sat very still so he wouldn't wake him, one arm around his sleeping boyfriend, the other hand moving slow through his hair, and let himself start planning tomorrow.
Because tomorrow was Christmas.
He could see the whole thing from here, sitting in the tree-glow with Will asleep on his chest. They'd sleep in — God knew Will would need it, would probably be at his worst tomorrow, day two, when the swelling peaked. Mack made a quiet mental note to have the ice packs ready, the meds on schedule, the soft food stocked. He'd get up first and make the cocoa, the real kind, no powder, he wasn't a monster, and he'd bring it to Will in bed so he wouldn't have to move. And then, when Will was up and settled on the couch with his blanket, they'd do presents.
Mack's eyes drifted to the base of the tree, to the small pile of wrapped boxes there. His for Will. Will's for him — Will had been maddeningly smug about whatever was in the flat one, had caught Mack shaking it last week and nearly tackled him. Mack didn't even care what it was. He cared about Will's face, the way Will lit up over presents, gave and received, the way Christmas morning turned him about six years old. Mack had gotten him good things. He hoped — he really hoped — that Will wouldn't be in too much pain to enjoy it. That was the only worry sitting under the warm plans. Please don't let him hurt too bad tomorrow. Let him have his morning. He waited all year. If Will was miserable Mack would just make it a soft, slow, horizontal Christmas, presents in bed, movie on, no pressure — but he hoped Will would feel good enough to be happy. That was all he wanted.
And then, in the evening, the team party at Toff's.
Mack ran through that too, his thumb moving idle through Will's curls. That one depended entirely on how Will felt. If he was up for it, great — Cat would fuss over him, the guys would take one look at his puffy chipmunk face and absolutely destroy him, and Will would love every second of it because he loved the guys and loved a party and loved Christmas. Mack was already looking forward to watching that, honestly. If Will wasn't up for it, they'd skip it, or Mack would put in a short appearance and come right back, no question, no guilt. Will came first. Will always came first. But Mack had a good feeling. By evening the worst of the grogginess would be gone, and even swollen and sore, Will at a Christmas party was one of Mack's favorite things in the world to witness.
Either way, Mack thought, looking down at the sleeping wreck of him, it was going to be a good Christmas. Late cocoa, soft food, presents by the tree, maybe the party. He'd promised Will he wouldn't miss the holiday, and he intended to keep it, gauze and swelling and all.
The movie ended. The room went quiet except for Will's slow breathing and the soft tick of the radiator. And Mack sat there a while longer, reluctant to move, before his back finally reminded him that a couch was not a bed and Will would be sore enough tomorrow without adding a crick in his neck to it.
"Okay, Smitty," he murmured, low, into Will's hair. "C'mon. Let's get you to bed."
Will made a small protesting sound and burrowed deeper, and Mack huffed a soft laugh and gathered him up — one arm behind his back, one under his knees, and Will was heavy and loose and warm but Mack got him up off the couch with a grunt, blanket and all, and Will's arms came up around his neck on instinct, his face tucking into Mack's throat.
"Where're we goin'," Will mumbled, half-surfacing.
"Bed. Real bed. You'll thank me tomorrow." Mack carried him carefully up the stairs, slow, one step at a time, Will a warm bundle against his chest, and eased the bedroom door open with his elbow. He laid him down gentle on Will's side of the bed — the right, always farther from the door — and Will sank into the pillows with a long contented sigh, still swimming in Mack's hoodie, and Mack drew the covers up over him and tucked them in around his shoulders.
"There." He brushed the curls off Will's forehead one more time. "All set."
Will's eyes fluttered, catching him, soft and sleepy and adoring even now. "You comin'?"
"Yeah. Two minutes. Gonna get your meds and some water and the ice pack, and then I'm coming right to bed, okay? Right here." Mack pressed a kiss to his temple, careful of the swelling. "Not going anywhere."
"...'kay," Will breathed, already sinking back under, one hand reaching out across the empty half of the bed toward where Mack would be. "...love you, Mackie. Best Christmas."
"It's not even Christmas yet, buddy."
"...has to be the best," Will mumbled, certain, eyes closed, smiling faintly against the pillow. "...you're in it."