Hey, hey, hey, guess who just did their first 5+1 fic! I wrote this because these two losers have rapidly been taking over my life, and also because I for some reason love seeing Mac sleeping in a car while Jack drives. Not sure why.

Warnings for: implied violence, aftermath of violence, I guess? Honestly, it's nothing worse than they've had on the show.

Is anyone out there doing NaNoWriMo? If so, how's it going?

Happy Veteran's Day to any veterans out there. Your service is appreciated immensely.

The first time:

Jack took in the monotony of the sand surrounding him. He was working another mission for the CIA, over in Afghanistan. His assignment was to find a bomber known only as "The Ghost." He had been attacking many different locations that the army had been in, and had most recently taken out a senior EOD technician named Alfred Pena. Jack was here to try and find out who and where this guy was, and how to stop him.

The man was waiting at the drop-off point, where he had been set down by a helicopter and was waiting with a few soldiers for the truck that was supposed to take them back to the current army base in this area.

After a few more moments, one of the soldiers gave a shout, pointing to a cloud of dust in the horizon. The cloud steadily grew nearer, and soon a sandy-colored truck pulled to a stop in front of the soldiers and Jack. The soldiers, after a brief conversation with the driver, climbed in the back, leaving Jack to hop in the front with the driver.

Jack found, to his surprise, that the driver was a young man, no more than nineteen. He glanced over at Jack for a moment, nodding his head with a quiet, "Sir," and then turned the truck around and began to head back to base.

Jack kept quiet for a few minutes, until the young man broke the silence. "Are you the CIA agent, sir?"

Jack looked over at the kid, nodding as he said, "Yeah, that's me."

The kid's lips thinned. "I heard you're here to catch the Ghost?"

Jack nodded a silent affirmation, watching the blond. There was a few more beats of silence as the kid continued to drive, and then the younger man said, biting off the end of each word, "I hope you catch him, sir."

Jack nodded. "So do I."

Silence filled the truck once again, and it continued its way steadily back to the American encampment. Suddenly, the teen swerved to the side, jerking hard on the wheel. Jack was thrown against the side of the truck, banging his arm hard against the door. The blond barely spared a second to glance over at him before returning his gaze to the road. "Hold on tight, sir. There's a patch of landmines here that I helped plant. We'll be out of them in a minute."

Jack felt something inside his brain go blank. They were driving over landmines, and doing so while going about eighty miles an hour.

He internally screamed at the absence of a seat belt and gripped the seat as hard as he could while bracing his feet on the floor. He held on for dear life and wondered who, exactly, this young man was.

The second time:

Jack glanced at the young man in front of him. They had just begun to work together in the DXS, and Jack was still a little unsure about the man that he only knew from working beside in the military. They hadn't caught the Ghost, but they had developed a casual friendship.

Never in their short acquaintance had Jack seen the young man this focused, though. He was driving through a crowded street in the downtown of an obscure Peruvian town, riding on a small motorcycle with Jack seated right behind him. They were attempting to catch a terrorist that was in a white Hummer, just in front of them. The car was making what seemed like impossible turns and taking alleyways that should have been too small for them.

Also, they had driven down a long flight of stairs that had been much safer for the people in the car than it had been for Jack and MacGyver.

Jack kept his mouth shut for the most part, wanting all of MacGyver's attention to be focused on the road, and, you know, not dying. When he saw a large bridge in front of them that the terrorists blew up as soon as they crossed it, though, he had to say something. "Mac!" He shouted in his friend's ear. "Please tell me you see that!"

Jack couldn't see the younger man's face, but he could feel it.

The idiot, who must've had absolutely no self-preservation instincts, was smiling.

Jack was going to kill the teen if they died doing whatever crazy stunt he was planning. MacGyver shouted back, the grin evident in his tone, "Just trust me!"

With that (not) reassuring statement, the blond wrenched the motorcycle to the side and drove it up a conveniently placed skateboarding ramp that somehow gave them enough momentum to get across the small river.

Jack really wished that seat belts on a motorcycle were a thing.

Jack wasn't even going to question the physics of how they made it across; he was too thankful for surviving.

(After they caught the terrorist, Jack would find out that he had bruised MacGyver's ribs slightly from how many times and how tight he had clenched his arms around the teen's slight body during that car chase.)

(He couldn't quite bring himself to feel guilty when he remembered all the death-defying stunts that had been pulled with virtually no warning given to the older man.)

The third time:

Jack clenched his hands around the seat as the car careened around a turn. "Careful," he snapped at MacGyver.

The younger man looked over at him, blood-stained hands gripping the steering wheel as tightly as he could. The kid's eyes were alight with fear as he looked over at his friend.

His friend who was currently bleeding out in the passenger seat.

Macgyver replied, a slightly hysterical note to his voice, "I'm trying. I just want to get to a hospital or something before you, you know, die."

Jack took a deep, grounding breath. "Look, Mac, there's nothing you could've done. There's not really some kind of contraption that you can whip up in three seconds to prevent someone from being shot in the chest. Just drive, and there'll be medical supplies and doctors waiting with the plane."

MacGyver's lips thinned, and he didn't reply. Instead, he continued to keep his eyes focused on the road and his mind on his only mission at hand: get Jack to a doctor in time before he bled out.

(They would make it, but just barely. Jack would flatline twice before he stabilized, and MacGyver didn't stop blaming himself for three months.)

The fourth time:

Jack shut his eyes. "I hate this. I hate you. I hate that Thornton let you go for a ride in this thing because we completed the mission. Tell me when it's over."

MacGyver was probably laughing, the little-

MacGyver was definitely laughing, and wasn't even trying to hide it from Jack. "C'mon you have to admit that this is pretty cool. I've always wanted to drive a race car."

Jack groaned as he felt his body being pulled to the side with the force of the turn. He kept his eyes firmly shut as he said, "Yeah, well you know what I've always wanted? To live to be fifty, which won't happen if you don't drive more carefully."

There was a light laugh from the younger man. "You either drive like the world's oldest grandma or you drive like everyone's about to die."

Jack opened his eyes at that, a bit outraged. He immediately snapped them shut again as he realized how fast the car was going. "That's because I either follow the rules of the road, or we're literally in a situation where everyone's about to die, slow down you speed demon-"

He was cut off as MacGyver suddenly sped up.

At least this time he had a seatbelt.

(He would take revenge on his friend by driving extra carefully every time he took the kid somewhere for the next three weeks. MacGyver was annoyed, which made riding in the race car almost worth it.)

The fifth time:

Jack was barely keeping his eyes open. The rough movement of the car hurtling over the bumpy forest floor jostled his injuries, sending spikes of pain through him, which kept him from sinking into the bliss of unconsciousness.

Also, MacGyver kept yelling at him whenever he closed his eyes, but Jack wasn't quite sure what that was about.

Might've had something to do with the giant hole in his abdomen, though.

Jack felt floaty-ish. And floaty-ish was definitely a word, because Jack had just said it, and you can't say things that aren't words.

So there.

MacGyver cursed as the truck went over a rather large root, making Jack lose consciousness for a few seconds. He resurfaced in the waking world to hear MacGyver doing an amazing job of imitating a sailor. Jack frowned. "'S not good to swear," he slurred. MacGyver looked over at him, his face breaking into a tired smile as he said, "You better stay awake and make sure I don't do it anymore, then."

Jack thought about this for a few moments, then replied, completely seriously, "'Kay. 'M responsible for you. Don't swear. Don't put red clothes with white clothes. Cereal and orange juice sounds like a good idea, but it tastes h'rrble."

MacGyver suddenly laughed, a slightly hysterical sound. Jack frowned slightly, not sure what his friend found so funny. "D'n laugh, 'm giving you advice."

MacGyver kept his eyes on the road, but nodded his head obediently. Jack continued, satisfied.

(Later, he would find out that he had given MacGyver advice on what and what not to do in all kinds of situations, including but not limited to: bachelor life, missions, talking to one's superiors, and trying to make friends. The latter had apparently been supplemented by examples from Jack's childhood.)

(Also, talking to MacGyver had kept him awake, which, he was told, had kept him alive.)

And one time Jack drove:

Jack and MacGyver walked out of the building, trudging to Jack's car through the thick blanket of snow that had covered the ground in their absence. The blond and the brunet had been on a mission in Russia for two weeks, and were subsequently sick of the snow, but neither had the energy to complain about it.

Jack approached the passenger door, knowing that his friend had somehow ended up with the keys to the car (the younger man hadn't been able to stop fidgeting on the flight back home, so Jack had finally thrown his car keys at him and told the blond to play with them if he needed something to keep him busy. Then Jack had gone to sleep.). After a moment, he realized that MacGyver had leaned against the driver's side of the car when he was looking for the correct key, but had fallen asleep.

Standing up.

Jack sighed in fond amusement, shuffling over to the driver's side of the car and taking the keys from his friend's jacket pocket. Then, nudging his friend into semi-awareness, he got the younger man loaded into the passenger side of the car. MacGyver didn't even open his eyes, instead falling back into sleep as soon as he let himself half-fall into the passenger seat; he attempted to curl up as if he was in bed, but found that he couldn't, and so settled instead for letting his head fall onto Jack's shoulder.

Jack chuckled to himself and strapped the seat belt around MacGyver. He gently ruffled the (not a teen, his birthday had come and gone while they were on the mission) younger man's hair as he stood up.

The older man sat in the driver's seat, starting the car and turning up the heat. He began the drive back to his house, knowing that Bozer wasn't expecting MacGyver to arrive back home for another thirty-six hours. Besides, he was too tired to make two stops tonight.

He smiled at the small snore his friend (younger brother, really, because who was he kidding?) emitted, and began the drive home.

Did anyone catch the reference to the older MacGyver show?