OPINION POLL: so I'm at a bit of a crossroads here. I have more to say with this fic, could probably get another three to five chapters out with some thoughts I have about the aftermath and fallout, both personally and with the Agency, but if you guys are getting tired of this fic, it's also possible to wrap it up with the next chapter. So I'm opening it up to hear from y'all: do you want to see more from me with this one, or should I call it here?
As always, thanks for your support, and I hope you enjoy the chapter. I figured we were all finally due some comfort after the last 10 chapters. (sorry for the length of the chapter, it... got away from me a bit)
(warning: deals heavily with the direct aftermath, including description of, recent past emotional/psychological/physical abuse.)
Jack will never, for the rest of his life, be able to completely escape the image he's confronted with inside James MacGyver's house.
The decision to forego knocking in favor of a well-placed shoulder to the wood of the door is one easily made. Even on the front porch, the raised voices inside the building are clearly audible. Actually, no. Raised voice. Singular.
Out of whatever he'd been expecting, whatever Jack thought he'd find when he got the message - just a location ping from the GPS app on Mac's phone and three little dots indicating further typing that just went away after several long seconds - and raced to the place indicated, this was… This was nothing he'd have ever seen coming. Even with Delta instincts, CIA training, Phoenix experience, it takes a long fraction of a moment for Jack to process what he sees when the door flies open, banging loudly off the interior hallway wall.
James is there, in the living room, voice booming like bottled thunder and hand a vice around Mac's wrist. He has his son pinned to the wall with one hand, Mac's own clenched fist shoved back against his chest and trapping him there. James' other hand is pulled back, about to deliver what is, judging by the blood dripped from Mac's chin down the front of his shirt, not the first blow of this altercation. Mac's eyes are squeezed tight shut and he's shaking, hard enough that Jack can see it from across the room.
That split piece of a second is all it takes for Jack to gauge what's happening and shut off every part of himself shrieking with white-hot, incomprehensible panic, and move into action. There is, at the moment, room for only one objective.
Get James off Mac. Now.
If there is any satisfaction to be found in the nightmare Jack has walked into, it's in the feeling of the fistful of James' shirt he snatches up to pull him in one swift yank away from Mac, and in the feeling of the man's head snapping hard to the side with the force of the right hook Jack sends square into his jaw. James is down in a second, the momentum of the pull and the punch sending him several feet away. He's obviously dazed, falling heavily to the side upon his first attempt to get up.
Jack takes a step towards him, ready to finish what he'd started with that punch, already winding up to express exactly the kind of overwhelming, all encompassing rage and grief he feels at the sight of the blood on James' knuckles. Mac's blood. This man has Jack's kid's blood literally on his hands and by the time Jack is done with him, he'll-
"Jack."
There is only one thing in the world that could've stopped Jack just then, frozen him in place before he could even come within range of James, and that is it. Mac.
Mac's voice, barely audible yet slicing through the crashing rush in Jack's ears. Mac's voice, splintered and involuntary, throwing pause over what Jack was about to do, what he's so sure is the right course of action. He wavers, and Mac says it again, just his name, in that horrible tone of voice Jack will never be able to forget the sound of. It seems like such a simple thing - James hurt Jack's boy, James needs to pay. One plus one is two. Except…
The fact of the matter, bare and plain, is that what Jack has just walked in on is abuse. He's interrupted an outburst of violent abuse, wherein Mac's father had him pinned, bleeding, to a wall, clearly having hit him at least once already and just moments from doing it again. And the conclusion based upon this is that the last thing Mac probably needs right now is to see Jack, the next best thing he's had to a father for more than half a decade, engage in a violent outburst of his own.
Though he wants nothing more than to make James pay, rain down holy hellfire on the man until he understands exactly what it is he's done, there is something Jack doesn't want that is stronger still, overriding anything else. And what he doesn't want is to cause, for any reason, by any means, even the slightest bit more pain to Mac. Forcible, immediate revenge, tempting though it is, won't help Mac right now. Realistically, seeing Jack give James the beat-down he thoroughly deserves would probably compound the fact that he's very obviously scared shitless and traumatized as hell. So, exercising the most restraint he has probably ever had to deploy at once in his life, Jack un-clenches his fist, takes a deep breath, and steps away from James.
Turning, he looks to Mac, and the sight leaves Jack with the breathless, gutted feeling of having just had a switchblade jammed under his ribs and twisted. Mac is still pressed back against the wall, this time of his own accord, and his entire body is rigidly still. His wrists, pulled tight to himself like he's guarding them, are mottled with red marks, evidence of just how tight James' grip had been. It promises deep bruising later, as does the similarly discolored skin on his jaw beneath where his lip has been deeply split. Mac is staring vacantly at where James lays sprawled on the floor, and he's visibly swallowing every so often. His shoulders move with shallow breaths that seem to be taking conscious effort to continue drawing in.
Given the nature of how they met and the job they continue to do together, Jack has seen Mac pretty badly off on numerous occasions. He has seen his partner bled near to death, screaming in pain so long and hard that he lost his voice for three days afterward, catatonic or panicking in the aftermath of the kinds of things that terrible people do to the kinds of people who try to stop them. He's seen Mac hurt in ways that still keep him up nights, seen him with his defenses and composure stripped in ways people who knew him in their day-to-day wouldn't believe. This time... This is near the top of the list.
Okay. Okay. There are things that need to get done now that can't get done if Jack is still overwhelmed by his own emotions, by how much it hurts to see how much Mac is hurting, physically and otherwise. So he tries, to the very best of his currently limited ability, to compartmentalize - something Mac has always been better at than him. What does his training say? What is the protocol for this?
Before you can tend to or comfort the victim, you have to neutralize any continuing threat posed by the attacker.
As if punctuating the point, a groan rises from where James is still down on the floor. It peters off into the vague shape of a word, one that may have been a name, and Jack feels his anger spike back up higher than it had been before. He turns on James, hyper-aware of Mac behind him, and points one accusatory, just slightly shaking finger at him.
"You'd better keep it down, there," he says, voice a measured sound of cold, clear warning.
Turning back, he hates having to make Mac think about any of this, to problem-solve in the aftermath of what's been done to him, but the threat posed by James must be addressed before anything else. He's dazed for now, sure, but what happens when his head clears?
"Anything we can use to keep him from running off?" Jack asks Mac, trying to sound as calm and in control as possible. "Handcuffs, zip-ties, something…"
No response. Mac just keeps looking at James, where the man has given up on his second attempt at standing, hunched over his forearms braced against the floor. Jack clears his throat to get Mac's attention, and feels a sharp stab of guilt when he gets a sharp inhale in response. At least Mac is looking at him now.
"Anything we can…" Jack trails off when Mac pushes off the wall, a small, undisguisable wince playing across his face, and walks into the kitchen. He glances over his shoulder at James, says, "If you know what's good for you, you'll stay put," then follows. He doesn't have any faith in James knowing what's good for him, but he's almost definitely concussed from the punch, and as yet unable to stand, and Jack does have faith in gravity.
There's a rattling sound in the kitchen, and Jack rounds the corner in time to see Mac close a drawer, a roll of duct tape held in one hand. His face is blank, eyes vacant, and it scares Jack more than if he'd found Mac collapsed against the counter sobbing, having a panic attack, breaking kitchen appliances. With the knowledge that they have to get back into the living room with some expediency, Jack can't help but do something now, make some effort to take care of the kid has so, so badly needed him for so long.
Reaching out to him, Jack goes to put a hand on Mac's shoulder, offer what small amount of comfort he can while they're still in this awful house. He's barely made contact, fingers brushing the fabric of his shirt, when Mac flinches sharply away. He curls in on himself and ducking his head away and saying so quiet Jack almost didn't hear it, "Don't."
It's the second time in the last few days that Mac has reacted like he thought Jack might be about to hit him, and nothing over the course of Jack's entire life to date has broken his heart quite like this fact does. It makes him hate James impossibly more. Hate is not a word he uses lightly, and he feels that it is completely justified. The man has hurt Mac so deeply for so long that he can't be completely sure that Jack won't do the same. He's made sure that for Mac, nothing and no one is safe any more, and Jack hates him for it.
When Mac looks back up, his face is finally displaying something other than emptiness. He looks embarrassed, apologetic, like he wants to say something, but can't. Jack puts as much empathy and understanding into his own expression as he can, and smiles gently.
"Okay," he says, voice conveying no blame, no sense of betrayal at Mac's frightened reaction. All Jack wants to do right now is fold Mac into his arms, hold him tight and promise it'll all be okay, protect and care for him the way he deserves to be protected and cared for, the way a father ought to do. But something else a father ought to do is prioritize the wellbeing of his brutalized child over what he wants to do, and at the moment Mac doesn't seem capable of handling physical contact. "Okay, no touching just now, that's fine. That's alright."
Moving slowly and cautiously, Jack takes the roll of silver tape from Mac, then moves deliberately towards the sliding door to the backyard. "Here's what we'll do, alright? You're gonna go outside and wait for me back there. I'm gonna make sure he doesn't take off, then I'm gonna call Matty to come deal with him, and then you and I are gonna get you home. Okay?"
After a few seconds, a hesitant nod, followed by a hoarse voice, only the third word Mac has spoken this entire time.
"Okay."
It would be a lie to say leaving James duct taped to his own bannister didn't involve some degree of satisfaction. Jack leaves the man there, half-expecting shouting to follow him, the main reason he'd told Mac to wait outside. If there's anything Mac doesn't need right now, it's to hear whatever poisonous shit was likely to come out of James' mouth as his coherence returns to him. Contrary to expectation, though, James stays silent. Not a word is exchanged between them before Jack turns and exits the house.
The still quiet of the backyard grows oppressive and stifling soon after the door closes behind him. But they can't talk about what happened inside just yet, not with fresh blood still sporadically dripping from Mac's chin onto his shirt, and James visible from where they're standing. Not with the way Mac still can't look him in the eye, the shuttered, defensive posture with which he's standing there. So Jack turns on the tried and true part of his brain that produces prolific amounts of directionless babbling, and just talks. Most of it is about what they'll do next, how they'll wait here until Matty gets there, and then they'll get in Jack's car, and Jack will take him home. How it'll all be okay.
He talks himself in circles, speaking in a low rumble that sits at half his usual volume. It's how you talk to hurt animals and frightened people you share no common language with, meaning conveyed predominantly through the sound of words rather than their content. Jack wouldn't place bets on how much of what he's saying is actually making it through to Mac right now, but he hopes the sound of his voice is striking the chord it always seems to, when the kid's injured or scared or for some reason out of his right mind.
Matty's arrival is blessedly swift, and her immediate takeover of the situation at hand equally as welcome. She moves with authority and confidence, and Jack can see underneath the surface the barely contained wrath that matches his own. Before she's hardly arrived, she's got James packed away into a van with the doors shut behind him, and is standing in the living room with Jack, who doesn't know what to say.
"Matty, I- He was- When I got here, James-"
"It can wait," Matty says firmly, interrupting him. She takes Jack's wrist, squeezing tightly. "We have to talk about this, obviously, but that can wait. Everything else can wait. I've got James. Can I trust that you've got him?" Her gesture out towards the backyard takes Jack's focus back to Mac, still there. He'd been loathe to leave his young partner out there alone, but he'd had to talk to Matty, and putting Mac in the same room as James ever again was not a choice he was going to make.
"Yeah," Jack confirms around the lump in his throat, the tightness in his lungs. His agreement is fierce and certain, over the sense that he's lying, that he's already failed at the promise he's making. "I've got him."
"Take him home," Matty orders. Her hand is still warm on his wrist, an anchor point, a refute to the doubt circling Jack's mind. Tough shit, that grip seems to say. Doesn't matter if you failed before, he needs you now. "Take care of him. Call me when you get the chance."
Jack nods, and she's gone.
"Okay, kiddo," he murmurs, walking back towards the sliding door. "It's time to go home."
The drive home is wordless and the air inside Jack's car is heavy. It's a short trip, and Mac spends the entire journey with his head against the passenger's seat window, watching the scenery. It feels like that first night again, when James drove Mac home after the first time he'd hit him, only this time his cut lip is impossible to hide. His lip is split on the outside, his wrists are throbbing, and the back of his head repeatedly reminds him of the integrity of James' living room wall. And the man driving is different this time, too.
Mac would almost rather it was James, not Jack, taking him home after an incident of violence left him too shaken and unbalanced to so much as speak. Because Jack being here means Jack knows. It's been playing on a loop ever since that door opened. He knows. He knows. He knows.
It's not paranoia this time, not the spooked-rabbit conclusions of a hypervigilant brain. It's just a fact. Jack knows. He knows about James, about where that almost-black-eye had really come from, has surely pieced together that it's been a lot more than just those two times. Jack knows, and Mac has no idea how he's going to react.
When they get home, Bozer's car isn't there, and it's not until he notes that absence that Mac remembers he doesn't live alone, and that would've been one hell of a conversation he just isn't ready for quite yet. They enter the empty house alone, Jack allowing him space while still giving the impression of shepherding him, guiding him in and to the couch, where they both sit down.
"I've gotta ask," Jack says, in a tone indicating he really, really doesn't want to. Mac doesn't want him to either. Whatever it is, he doesn't want Jack to ask, because as soon as he does, Mac knows he's going to tell the truth. He's going to tell Jack whatever he wants to know, and probably lose complete control of himself in the process. "Do you… Do you need a hospital?"
That hadn't been what Mac was expecting, and he's startled enough by it that he almost laughs. Almost. But he sobers quickly, when he realizes Jack has no idea how badly he might be hurt, what kind of beating he may be imagined he'd missed in the build-up to the scene he'd walked in on. It's really not that bad, Mac almost says. He sees the look on Jack's face, though, and thinks better of it.
"It's just what you can see," he says, his voice sounding disconnected, like it's someone else speaking and he's only listening from somewhere far away. "Maybe another- a bruise or two. I'm… I don't need a doctor." I'm fine joins not that bad in the pile of things Jack probably doesn't want to hear right now. Mac doesn't want to upset him any further. He doesn't want to cause any more trouble, god knows his life has just cracked down the middle and spilled an almighty mess right onto Jack's. He doesn't need to add anything more to the nightmare he's already dragged the older man right into, the nightmare he never signed up for.
Mac did. He let this happen. He signed up for this, and now Jack knows, and it's hurting him to know, which means Mac let that happen to. He's the reason Jack is hurting so much he's been half afraid his partner might cry a few times over the course of the last hour and change, and Mac is not what could be called impressed or happy with himself over it. He can't make it worse.
"Alright. In that case, I'll, uh, I'll be right back, okay? I'll be just a minute." Jack's hand hovers for a second near Mac's shoulder, then is gone with him, headed in the direction of, presumably, the bathroom medicine cabinet.
He watches Jack go down the hall, and the instant he rounds the corner out of view, Mac's blank look crumples. He drops his head into his hands, face contorting into a silent cry, an expression of wordless agony. His shoulders heave up and down, frantic breaths he has to fight to keep soundless. Mac's face hurts, his head hurts, his arms hurt, his chest hurts, everything hurts. It all hurts, so bad, and he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what he wants.
Well, that's not true. He knows exactly what he wants. He wants Jack.
More than anything, Mac wants Jack to return, to sit down on the couch next to him and pull him into a hug, tell him it'll all be okay, that it wasn't his fault, that he didn't bring this down on himself. (That Jack still loves him, even though he's caused so much trouble, brought about the deep reservoir of pain he's seen in Jack's eyes every time the man looked at him.) It's terrible, and stupid, and unfair, that all he wants is for Jack to hold him, comfort him, when he'd been the one to pull out of Jack's reach, back at the house. Jack had gone to touch him, and Mac had jerked back and said 'don't', told him not to. Jack had accepted it so easily, so kindly, that Mac had wanted to explain.
It's not about you, he'd wanted to say. I'm not scared of you I know you won't hurt me, but he… The only time James ever touched me at all like you do, like I was someone he loved, was right after he hurt me. Sometimes, after he hit me, he'd rest a hand on my back, squeeze my shoulder, that kind of thing. It was the only time he was ever physically affectionate, and it's… I can't, this soon after he- It's too soon. It's too much like him. It's not about you.
But he hadn't said anything. He'd just stood there in the kitchen and shook and now Jack probably thinks he's too messed up to be touched at all, and he's done this to himself. No matter that he wants to be touched, no matter that he has no idea how to ask for it. So, in a self-pitying, heartbroken spiral, Mac allows himself, for this moronic, humiliating, juvenile moment to just want. To think of the way he's never felt as safe, as much like someone's son, as he does the times Jack has held him, and want.
By the time Jack returns with a washcloth, Mac has schooled his face back into a mask of reserved calm. He sits, still and quiet, while Jack perches on the coffee table across from him, and offers the cloth.
"You can do it yourself if you don't… But somebody needs to clean up that face, buddy." Jack's voice is quiet and patient, and Mac just closes his eyes and tilts his head, wordless permission to go on.
The washcloth has been wetted with water that's neither cold nor hot, but pleasantly warm, and that small detail of care for not just Mac's health and safety but his comfort in this moment is enough to make his eyes sting fiercely behind closed lids. Jack cups a hand around the back of Mac's neck, gentle and just as warm, supporting his head with a strong, steady touch. The first contact of the washcloth takes Mac by surprise and he flinches, jolting back a little against the palm holding him still.
"Sorry, kid," Jack murmurs, stopping what he's doing and waiting. He says nothing else, doesn't speak a word while he waits for Mac's breathing to even out, for the hammering pulse he can surely feel in Mac's neck to calm and slow. The cloth is guided over his face with just enough pressure to get the job done, cleaning the blood away with painstaking cautiousness. When the mess made of his lip has been tidied, the hand the hand supporting his head leaves for a moment, precise fingers laying steri-strips over the deep split.
"Don't think you need stitches," Jack says, still in that quiet, quiet voice. The hand returns, thumb stroking over the hair at the nape of Mac's neck. "Should probably keep putting those on for a couple days though. So it doesn't scar too bad."
Scar. The thought of a scar hadn't even occurred to Mac, the possibility of a permanent reminder of what James had done being with him forever one that had escaped him entirely. It's a sickening, unexpectedly devastating thought, and Mac's breath catches. His shoulders jerk once, hard, and it's a miracle he makes no sound.
"Mac…" There is more heartache in that one word than Mac has heard in Jack's voice in recent memory, and it's all over.
Mac's resolve crumbles completely and he falls forward. It feels anything anchoring him has gone, and he's lost what small amount of control he'd ever had. And Jack, well. Jack catches him. Jack's arms catch him before he can fall, pulling him in and holding him close. The embrace is light, until Mac presses into it harder, wordless dismissal of the concern about aggravating any hidden injuries. The hold tightens then, granting what Mac won't or can't use words to ask for. That hand is returned to the back of his head, other arm wrapped over his back in a protective grip that makes him feel like he's wearing armor.
He's not crying. For anything else Mac can say right now, he isn't crying. He's shaking, and his breathing is erratic, feeling Jack's arm pressed to the back of his ribcage with every heaving gasp of air, but he isn't crying.
I'm sorry, he thinks, wild and frantic. I'm sorry, Jack, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
It's not until Jack makes a hushing sound, squeezing him fractionally tighter and whispering 'not your fault', that Mac realizes he's speaking out loud.