once more airplanes for the win for getting me to write things. enjoy this chapter! it was one of my favorites to write but also one of the ones i'm most nervous about.

this chapter's title is sourced from sleeping at last's song atlas: nine.

chapter warning: fairly intense confrontation between james and mac.


It's thrilling in a way it would be impossible to explain to somebody not in his exact situation, walking into DXS for the first time without his gun. Tiny sparks of adrenaline fizzle up and down Mac's spine, and there's a lightness in his steps that makes the very ground underneath his shoes feel like it's made of new material. He wonders, in an odd turn of a mood, if this is how the people in the fairytales felt, when they had curses lifted off them. The gun had only weighed about a pound and a half, but the way he's walking now, it may as well have been a hundred.

Mac's hip is bare and his head is clear and Jack is grinning at him like he's done something worth being proud of, and it almost doesn't feel real. It almost feels like things are finally shifting in the kaleidoscope lens of his world, shapes knocking against one another until they make a picture that looks more right. One he might be able to, if he keeps twisting, make some sense of.

Until the moment he rounds the corner, still laughing a little at something Jack said, and there stands James. They weren't even supposed to be meeting with him today, just coming in to go over some things about their last reports with Matty. They're not even near the hall of Directors, planning to meet with Matty in a regular conference room, and yet here he is, down some random hallway in DXS. If Mac didn't know better, he'd wonder if James had been waiting for them.

"Angus," his father greets him, eyes flicking up from the tablet in his hands. He glances briefly to the side and says, sounding even less interested, "Dalton." After giving cursory acknowledgement to Jacks presence, his attention comes back to Mac, and for a long moment he's silent, just looking at Mac with that same appraising look he's worn for years.

Mac starts doing the calculations automatically, cataloguing what he's said and done and failed to do in the last few days, looking for something James could be mad about. Disappointed in. Irritated by. He can't come up with anything, except for failing to use his gun when Reed was holding the lab hostage, but they've already… been over that. James already made his stance on the matter perfectly clear, and while he's never shown himself to be above bringing up past mistakes, he generally doesn't seek Mac out specifically to talk about something they've just been over.

Realizing what he's doing, Mac swallows hard and tries to shut the thought process down. He's got no reason to be behaving like this, not when he doesn't even know that James is unhappy with him - he can hear it now, an argument they'd had a hundred times when he was a teenager, and James didn't appreciate the way Mac reacted to everything he said like he was being chastised. I haven't even said anything but your name and you're already acting like I'm yelling at you, James had snapped, time and again. Makes me feel like I've done something wrong when all I want is my son's attention.

"You're early for your meeting with Webber," James says, eventually. "That's good. Try not to waste her time, she's a busy woman."

"Yes, sir, I know." Mac tries not to sound like a sullen teenager when he says it, and James narrows his eyes. "We're on our way."

"Better get going, then." Stepping to the side, James gestures out towards the hallway. "Don't want to keep her waiting."

Grateful to get away from that stare, and generally not finding his father especially pleasant to talk to, Mac is happy to follow the direction and continue on toward the conference room they were going to meet Matty in. Jack hasn't said a word throughout their brief interaction with James, and still doesn't as they pass him. Mac is grateful for that - there's enough tension between them, he doesn't want anything to happen that would risk escalating it further.

Just as he's about to pass James' sightline, his voice calls back down the hall, stopping Mac in his tracks.

"Angus, stop."

Ignoring the little pricks of fear that immediately spike into the back of his neck, Mac does as he's told. He feels it rather than sees it when Jack stops too, taking one last step until he's so close behind Mac's shoulder they're almost touching. It calms his nerves somewhat, and Mac tries to focus on that as he looks James in the eye and says, "What is it?"

"Your gun. Where is it? Your jacket rode up, you're not wearing it."

The air in the hall has grown heavy and suffocating, Mac's heart beating so loudly in his throat he's afraid James will be able to see it, throbbing against his skin. All of his giddiness, all of the lightness he'd felt, is gone, replaced by the crushing sense that he's made a huge mistake, deluded himself by thinking deliberately defying that rule James has been so insistent on for so long. What had he been thinking? What was I thinking, what was I thinking, what-

The smallest brush, a split-second touch against his back, disguisable as a shift in stance, reminds Mac that he isn't standing in this hallway alone. Jack is standing right there behind him, as solid as he'd sounded down in the range when he'd told Mac to stop carrying in the first place. He remembers how easy it had sounded, when Jack told him to just stop, remembers Jack's hands on his shoulders just a few minutes ago at the front of the building, fingers affectionately ruffling through his hair.

We won't let him, Jack had said, in the range, and Mac thinks it again now, repeating it like a mantra to himself as he straightens up his posture. I won't let him.

"It's down at the range," he says, and the lie burns in his mouth. He swallows down the immediate urge to take it back and tell James the truth and pushes on, giving just enough detail to satisfy suspicion but not enough to pique more of it. "It wasn't firing right, I asked one of the techs to take a look at it."

For a moment longer, James just looks at him, his expression hard to read from fifteen or so feet away. Then, he nods, and turns back to what he was doing, without bothering to verbally dismiss them but clearly finished with the conversation. It takes everything Mac has not to collapse back into Jack, to instead turn around and step away from him, continue on their way down the hall.

Jack doesn't bring it up, the question about the gun or the lie Mac had answered it with, not until after their meeting with Matty. They're in Jack's car, on the way to drop Mac off at his and Bozer's house, when he mentions the interaction.

"That was quick thinking back there," Jack tells him, voice deceptively casual. His eyes stay focused on the road, hands in their easy grip on the steering wheel. You'd think he was talking about the weather or the newest Star Wars movie, the seamless way he'd brought it up, but for Mac, there's no mistaking what he's talking about, though he doesn't identify it directly. "He's gonna ask again, though. Do you know what you're gonna say to him when he does?"

Actually, Mac has been thinking about this. For the better part of the day, it's the only thing he's been able to focus on – what the hell he's going to do when the inevitable happens, and James does ask again. He's embarrassed to admit, even in the privacy of his own thoughts, that he'd only been half paying attention to their meeting with Matty, which could've been an issue if it had been about anything more serious than going over a few questions she had about their after-actions. Instead, he'd been thinking about James, and the gun, and the brick wall they were barreling towards.

When James asked, he'd lied. It had sounded good, too – it wasn't the first time he'd left the weapon down there while not on active assignment, getting something about the mechanics repaired or adjusted. But it's a temporary patch, and that lie, while it had saved his ass in the moment, will do him in if he continues it. It's going to spiral, getting bigger and becoming a delicately balanced house of cards, unless he confronts it head on. Unless some kind of truth comes out. Which is how he's come to the conclusion, thinking through it and metaphorically watching as until there's only one left, that there's only truly a single way forward.

Jack is still talking when he zones back in, some suggestion that Mac doesn't even half think about before he interrupts.

"I'm going to threaten to quit."

A beat of stunned, empty silence. Jack is staring at him from the driver's seat, eyes wide, and it's only the irritated blare of a car horn behind them that prompts his attention back to the road, the car lurching indelicately back into motion.

"You're going to what?" he asks, obviously shocked.

"When he asks me about the gun again," Mac says, doing his best to sound more sure than he feels about it all, "and I tell him I won't wear it, and he starts on me about it, I'm going to threaten to quit. I'm going to tell him that if he tries to force me to carry it, I'll walk."

"Damn." The word is quiet and impressed, though undercut somewhat by what follows it. "Are you sure? Like, you're sure you're gonna be able to do that?"

"Yes I'm sure," snaps Mac in return. He's a little mad at the question, at the hesitance in Jack's voice. Like Jack doesn't seem to think he has the spine to do it, that he's actually so weak and obedient that he's completely incapable of telling James no, even when there truly is no other option. The thought pushes him forward into something else, the need to make it very clear to Jack exactly who has to protect who here. "Listen, you can't- You can't say a word to him about it."

"Mac," Jack hedges, obviously uncomfortable with the direction this is going, "there's no way I can just stand there and listen to it if he starts in on-"

"You're going to have to." If it weren't for how seriously he needs to make Jack understand this, Mac would feel bad for interrupting him again. "He will fire you. He won't fire me. He may get mad, he may rage, he may stand there and shout at me for a full sixty-minute hour, but he can't force me to do this. Like you said, I'm not going to let him. So either he's going to drop it, or he'll have to let me quit, and there's no way he's going to let me quit."

It's impossible to tell what Jack is thinking. His mouth is twisted down into an uncomfortable grimace, forehead creased in a frown, but he doesn't say anything in response, not right away. He thinks hard, through two more intersections, before he nods shortly, and says, "Okay."

The entire thing has Mac feeling a little nauseated, sick to his stomach, throat tight and cheeks hot. The easiest thing, obviously, would be to give in before the fight even happens, to put the gun back on and take his marching orders like the good soldier he's been playing as long as he can remember. But he can't. Not now that he's had a taste of what it's like to not have to haul that thing around with him all the time, not now that Jack has put the idea in his head.

It isn't just the gun, either. It's every time Jack has frowned and snorted in disapproval at some order James gave them, made some side comment to Mac later about the way James spoke to him. It's the idea that, for the first time since his doomed first partnership, there was someone standing opposite James saying listen, there's another way. It doesn't have to be like this. Things can be different, and I can help.

They don't talk any more for the rest of the ride. Only the sound of Jack's favored classic rock station breaks the still air of the inside of the car, quieted to nothing when they pull up outside the house. Mac goes to get out of the car, and he's about to shut the door behind him when a voice stops him.

"Hey, Mac."

He freezes, just for a moment gripped by the echo of the same fear he'd felt in the hall with James when he'd thought he was in the clear, only to be stopped by his snapped name. It fades immediately, though, when Mac turns back and sees how Jack is looking at him, leaning a little towards the open passenger's side door. His expression is kind and there's a very small smile on his face, genuine enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes.

"I'm proud of you."

Something raw and soft in Mac's chest gives a small, wounded cry, and he swallows hard around a sudden lump of broken glass. It almost takes him to his knees right there on the sidewalk, hand going white-knuckled around the car's doorframe. Stop it, he wants to tell Jack, shout at him, You can't keep doing this to me, wants to break down on the grass, wants to bury his face in his hands and sob so hard something deep and cracked and ugly in him shreds its way through his chest and makes it out into the open.

He doesn't do any of that. Mac doesn't manage to speak at all, but the look on Jack's face, so understanding it almost makes him angry, says he isn't expected to. So he nods once, short and sharp, and closes the door. As he turns and walks inside, thinking about what he's going to say to James, the risk he's taking, it still throbs there in his chest, hot and aching and terrifying all at once. I'm proud of you.

When it happens, Mac is ready.

They're about to leave, to get on the plane, when James asks him about the gun. It's impossible to tell if he'd specifically been watching for it, or if he'd just happened to notice it isn't there, but either way, it doesn't matter. It's time to face the music, and Mac has been rehearsing his solo for a week.

James sends Jack out of the room almost immediately, when Mac lifts his chin and gives him a stone-faced look at the question. Mac is grateful, because he's sure this is about to turn ugly, and if Jack tries to step in, he's going to be out the door before he can finish a sentence. If James gets even the hint of an idea that this was Jack's idea, it's game over, and every time Mac thinks about walking back in here without his partner behind him, it's scarier than the last.

"We've talked about this a dozen times, Angus, I don't have time to play these games with you right now." The Director's voice is steel, threatening a sharpened edge if he has to push any harder than this. "Go and get your gun."

"No."

"I'm going to tell you one more time," James says, his voice rising a notch, taking a step closer. Mac has to fight the urge to step back in turn, to hold his ground. "You are going to go and get your gun, right now."

"No, I won't. I've decided I won't be carrying any more."

The words hang heavy and final in the air, out now and unable to be taken back. James is, for once in his life, struck completely wordless by what Mac said. His eyes are furious and uncomprehending, his hands in fists at his sides. Mac blinks and sees two decades of a clenched jaw and balled fists, hears the echo of slammed doors and cupboards, of James taking quick steps towards him with narrowed, angry eyes. He sees all of this and for once, he doesn't back down.

For once, Mac looks James in the face, and stands his ground.

He has to. He knows, with an abrupt, cold clarity, that this is it. This is the moment he has to make a choice. If Mac gives in now, if he lowers his eyes and backs down, that's the end. He'll lose a piece of himself he'll never get back, he'll never be anything other than what James wants from him, the person James expected him to be. Mac has spent twenty years trying to force himself to be that person, and it's an odd thought that's crossed his mind lately, in the days since their conversation in that car.

I'm proud of you, Jack had said. He's been dreaming about it, in the hazy moments right before he wakes up in the morning, that split-second moment over the passenger seat of his car. Mac realizes, with a strange kind of calm as if this has been a long time in the making, that he cares more about being the kind of man Jack would be proud of than he cares about being the kind of man James would be.

"DXS needs me," he says, and it's amazing, how the words carry only the barest hint of a tremble. "You need me. If you force me to carry that gun, I'm going to walk out the front door, and I'll walk up to the first agency that'll take me, and you know I wouldn't have a minute's trouble finding one, not with our reputation. How is that going to look for you, dad? What are people going to think if your best agent, if your son jumps ship, this soon after you had your entire agency ripped to shreds by an infiltration? How embarrassed are you willing to be over whether or not I carry a gun? And who, who can you possibly trust to help you find Walsh?"

The air between them sits balanced on a razor's edge, ready to tip one way or another at the slightest breath. Mac wonders, a touch hysterically, if this might be the moment James finally snaps and actually hits him. It's been twenty-four years coming, he's been expecting it as long as he can remember. It wouldn't be a surprise at all if this is what finally does it. He can't stop watching his father's hands, out of the corner of his eye, waiting for it to happen.

It doesn't happen. James is the first to look away. He takes a step back with his face twisted in a dangerous glare, hands still in irate fists, and says, "Fine. Have it your way. Don't come crying to me when your attitude gets you shot again. Get the hell out of here before I change my mind."

Mac is willing to let him have it, to act like he's the one who somehow made this decision, if it means this conversation is over. He's got what he wanted, he doesn't need the last word, too. James, however, has no such reservations. As Mac is walking past him, he's suddenly yanked back, a hand snatching the shoulder of his jacket and pulling him roughly to a stop. He's unable to rein in the hard flinch, eyes closing for a moment as he braces himself.

James only speaks, snapping merely inches from his ear, "This had better be a one time thing, Angus. If you try and pull some ridiculous, insubordinate stunt like this again, you're going to be out of here so fast you won't know what happened. If I can't trust you to follow orders meant to keep you safe, what the hell can I trust you with?" He releases Mac's jacket and walks away, past him to exit the room first.

Mac takes a moment to collect his composure, then follows. Jack, who was anxiously pacing in the hall, walks quickly up to him, and it's all Mac can do not to flinch again.

"Well?" Jack asks, glancing down the hall towards where James's retreating back is still visible. "How'd it go?"

"It's over." Mac feels numb with relief, a shudder going down his spine as he says it. "I did it. I won, he's not going to make me carry."

There's something tempered and held back in the excited relief Jack displays, moving more slowly than Mac gets the feeling he wants to when he reaches out, grips Mac's shoulder, shaking him a little in excitement.

"Oh hell yes, way to go, kid. I knew you could do it." A bright, elated grin stretches across Jack's face, the exact opposite of the way James had just looked at him, and Mac fights down the childish impulse to take that last step forward and tuck himself under that outstretched arm, hide his face in the collar of Jack's jacket. He can almost feel the phantom of the leather under his hands, sturdy and safe.

But he can't do that, can't let himself go another step farther in giving Jack the opportunity to realize exactly how much Mac is starting to rely on him. It's one thing to know it inside his own head, to relive the what-if of losing him night after night, dreaming of that day in the snow but with a whole host of new endings, it's another entirely to let Jack know about any of it. So instead, Mac back, out of Jack's reach and towards the door. They still have a mission to complete, after all.

It's a short one this time, made to feel shorter still without the weapon weighing him down with every step he takes. It's so quick, in and out, that Riley isn't brought along, instead staying back to assist IT with a massive network of offshore accounts another field team uncovered earlier that week. They got home two days ago, and now it's approaching sunset on a Saturday in the front yard of the house. There's moderate wind today and light cloud cover brought with it, and there's a chill not usually present this time of year. It makes the air smell fresh and new, stinging a little when Mac breathes too deeply.

A dull thwack accompanies an impact on his shoulder, and Mac whirls around to see Bozer, grinning and dancing back away from him. The foam weapon in his hands is still raised, and he arches his eyebrows, a wordless question of well? What are you gonna do about it?

What Mac is gonna do about it is to raise his own weapon and swing back in retaliation, only to be caught by another swipe from the side, this time coming from Riley. The imitation sword she holds, a battered thing of bright neon green, is nowhere near hard enough to do any real damage, but he staggers dramatically back anyway, howling in a comic imitation of a pained cry.

Riley about doubles over, laughing and breathless, hand not holding her green monstrosity braced against her knee. It started getting cold out when the wind picked up, and so she's wearing one of Mac's CalTech hoodies. The grey and orange item of clothing is too big on her, baggy over her shoulders and sleeves pushed up past her wrists, and something about seeing her in it makes Mac feel warm and happy.

(It's a good thing, too, because the moment she'd put it on, Riley had looked Mac in the face and gravely informed him he would absolutely not be getting it back.)

"Point to Riley for a perfect sneak-attack," Jack calls out from where he sits in a lawn chair in the driveway, half-finished beer stuck in the mesh cup holder. His phone is stored away and he doesn't have a notepad, so if he's keeping track of these points, Mac has no idea how.

Bozer had been helping a friend who was ramping up for a production of Cyrano, spending about two or three nights a week assistant stage-managing for her. They'd just moved, he'd informed Mac, from running their fight choreography with foam boffer swords to actual dull-edged steel, and then unzipped a duffel bag, showing several brightly colored foam weapons stored inside. The boffers were borrowed on a whim, Bozer wildly excited by the idea of getting to try them out for himself, and now here they are, he, Mac, and Riley chasing each other around the lawn in a free for all, with Jack appointing himself the referee and awarding arbitrary points for whatever he decides they should get them for.

"Point to Bozer, too," the man calls over a moment after awarding one to Riley, causing her to stand up and spin towards him, pointing her boffer sword at him accusingly.

"Excuse me," Riley calls, though she's still smiling widely, "Bozer did not sneak attack anybody there, Mac just wasn't paying attention."

"Yeah, but he executed a pretty sweet distraction for you. Another point to Bozer because I said so."

"Jack!"

"Do you want to make it three? I can do this all day."

While they're arguing about points, Mac takes the opportunity to go for Bozer, swinging the boffer, only for Bozer to dodge out of the way just in time, landing another shot over Mac's back.

"A point to Mac."

Now it's Bozer's turn, indignant voice demanding, "Why does Mac get a point, I'm the one who tagged him!"

"Mac gets a point for being the only one who hasn't argued with me about points."

When Mac looks over at him, Jack gives an exaggerated wink, then goes wide-eyed and points to his left. The warning comes just in time to dodge away from Bozer's hot pink sword, which skims the edge of his hoodie. Abandoning that course of action, Bozer drops the boffer and, weaponless, tackles Mac, knocking them both into the grass.

"Point for Bozer."

"He didn't even use the- hey!" Riley yelps as Mac catches her across the shins with his yellow boffer. She leans down to snatch it away from him, apparently figuring they were all throwing the rules to the wind at this point, and when she does, he reaches up to grab her wrist and pull her down with them.

Riley lands half on his chest with an indignant, wordless shout, knocking the wind out of him and then remaining there. All three of them lay in the grass together, the ground cold and hard under Mac's back, Riley sprawled half across him and Bozer trapping his opposite arm under his own body. He could get them off easily, probably nab all three boffers and be the supreme winner of the entire haphazard 'fight', but he finds he'd rather stay there, in that disheveled, undignified pile, not caring that anyone could drive by and see.

The clouds are finally clearing up, and it's late enough that a few stars are beginning to dot the sky, far enough from the city that they can shine through the haze of traffic and bright downtown lights. Mac breathes deeply, Riley's elbow jabbing him in the ribs, his arm going numb under Bozer's back, and looks up. He can hear Jack laughing at them from the driveway, the shutter click of what he thinks is his partner's phone camera, and despite the wind making his nose and lips numb, he feels warm in a way he can't describe.

It's the happiest he's been in a long, long time. Maybe it's the happiest he's ever been. For just that moment, he's not Agent MacGyver, he's not his father's prized operative, he's not even a genius at getting out of tight situations. He's just Mac. He's just twenty-four, and happy, and laid out in the grass, lightheaded and dizzy with normal. It feels good. It feels right.