Chapter Text
Jack had been to the principal’s office more than once when he was in school. He hadn’t been a bad kid, just spirited, some might say mischievous. His momma had said he was a “damn fool who acted like he didn’t have the sense God gave a June bug,” but she hadn’t always understood the subtlety of his sense of humour. Everyone had laughed at the Halloween prank with the skeleton when they’d stopped screaming, and he did those frogs from the science labs a favour - they were going to be dissected - he was a hero for setting them free! The amphibian population of his town had tripled after his little stunt and Jack still felt like he had contributed to the local ecosystem.
He had been to Mac’s school once after he’d officially adopted him to fill out paperwork and meet the principal and he’d expected he’d be back again before too long for lots of reasons, all of which would be good. Like Mac winning an academic award. Like Mac winning all the academic awards because he was so brilliant. Jack planned to take a selfie with his boy on each of those occasions and send it to his mom with the caption, ‘Look at me now, Ma!’
Jack wiped the palms of his hands on his jeans and read the posters on the wall again (“We may be different fish but in this school we swim together.” “TEAM – Together We Achieve More.” “Hard work is a two-way street, you get back exactly what you put in.”) He'd never expected to be called in to see Mac’s principal because his son had been in a fight.
Chattering voices and the footfalls of dozens of sneaker-clad feet echoed through the corridor beside the office. High school sounded the same as it had when he’d been a student. It smelled the same too - a mixture of rubber soles, cafeteria food and hormonal awakenings. Jack tried not to tug at his collar. It had been years - okay - decades since he’d been in education but being surrounded by the sensations of his own high-school days while being outside the principal’s office had the back of his neck prickling like he was the one in trouble. The memories of his anxiety and his mom’s yells of, “Jacky, what have you done now?” were strong and uncomfortable to recall.
“Mr Dalton?”
Dr Albright, the principal, stood by her office door with Mac behind her. Mac was slouching like he was trying to make himself seem smaller with his arms wrapped around himself, fists freshly adorned with bruised knuckles gripping his sleeves. Wary eyes, one of them blackened, looked resolutely down at his feet and Jack spotted a bruise spreading out from his jaw up towards his lip.
“Ah, kiddo,” Jack whispered under his breath.
“Mr Dalton, Mac has been suspended for the rest of the week for his part in the fight. We do not tolerate violence in this school. Since it’s the first time your son has been involved in a situation like this I’m not going to put it on his permanent record but I will not be able to be so lenient in the event of further incidents.”
“I understand, thank you.” Jack beckoned to Mac. “Let’s go home, buddy.”
Mac was as far away from Jack as he could possibly be while managing to stay in the same car. He was pressed against the passenger side door turning a pen over and over with restless fingers.
“So,” Jack said into the silence that had buzzed with tension since he and Mac had left Dr Albright’s office, “would you like to tell me what happened?”
“Donnie Sandoz was giving Bozer a hard time,” Mac said without looking up.
“Donnie Sandoz? Isn’t he in the grade above you? Big kid, looks like a pro wrestler had a baby with a bullfrog?” That joke earned him a small twitch of a smile.
“He is. He was being a jerk and picking on Bozer. Bozer was ignoring him and he started to walk away when Donnie grabbed his arm and called him a…” Mac looked at Jack, his eyebrows raised as he willed him to understand, “…you know. A bad name, I don’t want to say it.”
“Ah.” Understanding dawned, followed quickly by outrage. “He called him…?!” Jack made a mental note to call Bozer’s mom later to see if he was okay. Then he made a note to call Donnie’s parents to talk to them about their son’s manners.
“So I told him to let go of Bozer. He didn’t. Then we got in a fight.”
“Okay,” Jack said, digesting this. “Okay. Does the principal know what Donnie did?”
“She does, he’s in more trouble than me.”
“Okay. Good. Okay.” Jack couldn’t stop repeating himself. Nothing about what haf happened was okay and he didn’t know how to start dealing with any of it. “You were defending your friend and I can’t be mad at you for that,” he said. “It’s important for good folk to stand up to people like Donnie and I’m proud of you for doing what you thought was the right thing. But,” Jack cleared his throat, dreading the conversation he was about to start, “when Mr. Hernandez called me he said that it took two teachers to pull you and Donnie apart. That you wouldn’t let him go and didn’t want to stop fighting. I think there’s more happening here than just you standing up for Bozer.”
Mac had unscrewed the pen in his hands and was straightening the tiny spring from inside it between his thumb and forefinger. He looked away and answered in a small voice. “I don’t like bullies.”
“Okay.”
Mac had been Jack’s son officially for just over a month. They’d been in each other’s lives and had loved each other for much longer than that but they were still working on knowing each other as family and learning how to truly communicate. Mac was still guarded and Jack was still uncertain of how best to reach him. He didn’t want to push Mac and frighten him into withdrawing but he was sure it would be good for him to open up and talk, that if he shared some of his fears Jack would be able to help allay them.
There were layers and layers to what had happened that day, Jack knew. Mac had been defending his friend, that was true, but that wasn’t what was making him huddle into himself, retreating from Jack as if he were afraid to be seen. He’d been quiet that morning, for the last few days really. Holding himself back from Jack and answering his questions with polite monosyllables.
Mac felt most comfortable when he was busy and Jack reasoned that if he had something in his hands and a task to complete he would talk more freely than if he felt confronted by Jack sitting him down on the couch and trying to coax answers from him. He made a decision and took the next turn.
Mac looked up in confusion. “I thought we were going home?”
“Not yet, son. I have a couple of things I need to do at the stable. I can take you home and you can wait for me there if you want.”
“Can I come with you? I can help - if you want me to - and it will be good to see the horses.”
Pitchfork in hand, frame stiff with tension, Mac moved hay around near Pepper’s stall like the straw had personally offended him. Sweat darkened his hair and the collar of his shirt and the expression he wore under his bruises was grim and unforgiving. Jack had let Mac work for almost an hour, hoping that he would burn off some of the nerves that had made him flighty and tense since being collected from school, but since he seemed determined to work himself into the ground Jack decided to call a halt.
“Mac! Coffee time!” Jack walked over to his son with a mug in each hand. “Come on, sit down for a spell, you’ve earned it.” He put a mug down on a bale of hay next to Mac and sat on one opposite him, taking a sip of his drink as he watched Mac lean his pitchfork against the wall next to Pepper’s stall. Pepper put her head over her door to watch the comings and goings of the stable and Mac ignored the coffee, instead reaching to stroke his favourite horse’s muzzle.
“Your coffee’s getting cold.”
“Jack.” Mac’s voice was soft and sounded worn, thin and drained of colour.
“Normally you can barely wait for the stuff to cool down before you’re chugging it.”
“Jack.” Mac closed his eyes and rested his forehead against Pepper’s. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Jack stretched out his legs and sighed. “You’ve seen through my cunning plan then? And here I was thinking I was being all strategic about sneaking in a little one to-one time.”
“Please, just, please can we not talk about it?”
“I think we have to, son.” Jack sat forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “You’re not okay. And if you’re not okay then I can’t be okay. If there’s a problem I need to know what it is before I can help you fix it.”
Mac silently shook his head, his head bowed and his shoulders rigid. Jack ached for him. He wanted to pull Mac into his arms but he was wound so tight that Jack feared he would flinch away from his touch and that would be painful for them both. Physical reassurance would have to wait until Jack had cracked the prickling defences Mac had pulled around himself. He just hoped he could find the right words to put chinks in that armour.
“Can I ask why you don’t want to talk about it?”
“Because it’s bad.” Mac’s hand moved over the velvety softness of Pepper’s nose. He still had his back to Jack. “The things I’ve been thinking and the way I’ve been feeling are awful and you shouldn’t have to hear them. You deserve better.”
“I don’t want better. I’m not asking for the family-friendly, Disney Channel version of your thoughts. I just want the truth, buddy. And the truth just is. Just like fire is hot and ice is cold. Those things can hurt you but they’re not out to cause you pain, they just are what they are. Talk to me, son.”
Silence.
“Mac?”
Mac shook his head, motionless apart from that tiny movement.
“Please?”
“I’ve been waiting for you to hurt me!”
Jack didn’t see what had happened between the moments when Mac had been silent and when he spun around roaring out his pain with his fists clenched and his eyes wild with sorrow and hurt. Between one heartbeat and the next something had broken in his son, and seeing it happen drove Jack’s breath from him in a rush as if he’d fallen into a frozen river and been impaled by the shards of ice he’d broken through.
“See!” Mac pointed to the devastation on Jack’s face. “You’re hurt! I’ve hurt you! I know you wouldn’t ever do that, but in here,” he pounded on his chest with a closed fist, “there’s a part of me that’s waiting for you to hit me.”
“Mac...” Jack breathed out through the anguish in his heart.
“Don’t tell me it’s okay,” Mac threatened.
“It’s…”
“It’s not okay!” Mac screamed, picking up his coffee cup and throwing it against the wall to shatter into pieces. Pepper gave a shocked snort and drew her head back into her stall. “It’s fucked up and it’s stupid and it’s disgusting. I hate it.” He slid down the wall beside him to sit heavily on the floor, looking defeated and more world-weary than someone his age ever should. “I hate it.”
Jack didn’t move. In the past he’d worked with horses who’d lived with abusive owners and he knew that the ones who kicked and bit were the ones who were hurting the most. He knew not to approach suffering creatures too soon, giving them space to snarl and rage until they had worked their anger out and felt safe with the person who’d stayed by their side. He had to tightly grip the bale of hay he sat on, pieces of straw digging into his palm, to steady himself enough to stay still when all he wanted to do was run to his son.
“So you’ve been anxious,” he said in a low even voice, “and you’ve been feeling guilty about feeling anxious, so you went into school today and…” He left the sentence open, hoping Mac would fill in the gaps.
Mac raised a knee and rested his elbow on it, shoving a hand deep into his hair.
“I was always waiting for James to get mad at me. It didn’t matter how careful I was or how hard I tried he would always be angry with me about something. I’d leave the house before he woke up, I’d be quiet when I was home so I didn’t disturb him and I did everything he told me to but he’d still get mad at me and…” Mac flinched, drawing back into himself. “I’m still waiting for that to happen with you. Every day I’m waiting and feeling like it has to happen soon but then it doesn’t, so I go on waiting and the pressure of expecting any minute for you to…” Mac impatiently brushed a tear from his cheek. “I felt like the anticipation was crushing me, like I couldn’t breathe under the weight of it and I started to want it to happen, for you to…to…” he raised his hand, drawing it back with a threatening force, “to finally get it over with. And this morning you told me to have a good day and promised we’d get pizza for dinner and I was wishing that you would just…” Mac screwed his eyes shut and turned his face away from Jack, his chest heaving with suppressed sobs.
Jack didn’t know James MacGyver’s address. He’d deliberately avoided knowing it. All he knew was that James had moved away and that was enough for Jack. He had no intention of ever contacting him. He wasn’t part of their lives. And right then Jack was grateful he’d made that decision because if he knew where James lived there would be nothing that would stop him from driving to the man’s house and making him pay for putting that look on his son’s face. For putting that heartbreak in his eyes. Jack watched Mac’s tears flow and his expression twist with self-recrimination and pain and swore that if he ever laid eyes on James MacGyver again he would make that bastard suffer.
Jack swallowed hard against the burning lump in his throat. He couldn’t stop his own tears but he fought to shed them as silently as he could; Mac didn’t need the guilt he would undoubtedly feel if he saw that he had upset Jack.
Mac rubbed his sleeve across his eyes. “Do you know how tectonic plates work?”
“Yeah,” Jack replied slowly, confused by this non sequitur. “They’re big pieces of the Earth’s crust, they kind of float around on a big sea of lava and volcanos form where they break, right?”
“Yes, the plates move against each other and when all that weight pushing, pressing and grinding together gets too intense the rock cracks and lava bursts out. I was so tired of being scared and feeling guilty for being scared, it all felt like too much.” Mac sounded exhausted. “Then I saw Donnie grab Bozer and I…”
“You erupted.”
“I’m sorry.” Mac curled up, dropped his head, covering it with his arms. “I’m sorry you were called into school. Donnie was trying to hurt Bozer, I thought he was going to hit him and I couldn’t watch that happen. I wanted it all to stop, I just got so angry.”
Jack finally stood and walked over to his son, dropping to sit on the floor next to him and lean against him, resting his chin on the top of Mac’s head. “You went all Mount Vesuvius on Donnie’s ass.”
“I’m so sorry.” The words were muffled by tears and the fabric of Mac’s shirt.
Mac slumped against Jack, who gladly took his weight. The relief of finally having his son in his arms burned in Jack’s chest and thawed the ice that had been lodged under his ribs. He wrapped his arms around Mac and pulled him against his heart.
“I’m sorry,” he heard Mac whisper again. “I’m sorry. I know you wouldn’t hurt me but I couldn’t stop being afraid.”
“Shhh.” Jack brushed his hand through his son’s hair in the way he knew Mac found soothing. “It’s okay. I understand.” He waited until Mac’s sobs had calmed and repeated. “I do understand.”
He wasn’t using empty words or platitudes. He understood what Mac had been feeling, he’d been there himself. Irrationally afraid, bracing for the violence that was constantly expected but impossible to predict. He waited until Mac looked up at him with reddened eyes before continuing.
“I found it hard when I got home from my time in the Army.” Jack sighed to himself. What had he just told Mac about the truth? That the truth didn’t aim to hurt, it just was. And Mac had been honest in response, painfully so, revealing a truth so raw and barbed that it cut him when he’d exposed it. So didn’t he owe Mac his own truth in return? Bare, unadorned and real in a way that would help him? “Okay, that’s the nice way of putting it," Jack said, "that’s how I’d tell my grandma this story. The God’s honest truth was that when I got back home from the Army I couldn’t hardly function. Everything was a struggle, I was barely managing to do all the normal things you take for granted like getting out of bed, leaving the house and driving my car. It all felt overwhelming. I was always waiting for an attack to come from somewhere. I’d prowl around my house checking that the doors and windows were locked over and over again and when I went to the store I’d watch everyone to see who there might be a threat. I once almost decked some poor guy when he reached in his jacket for his wallet because I thought he was going for a gun, and there were times when I had to just drop my shopping and leave because I couldn’t cope with all the lights and sounds and the press of people. I understand what living in a place where you don’t feel safe can do to you.” Jack held Mac a little tighter and closed his eyes, hating that he and his son shared that. “And I know what it’s like when you get somewhere where nothing will hurt you, how your brain knows it but your body is still trying to keep you alive and you find yourself doing and thinking things that don’t make any rational sense.”
“You were in a war zone though.” Mac shook his head. “You had enemies who were armed with guns and bombs.”
“You’ve just told me that you didn’t ever feel safe. That you were always anticipating an attack. How are those two things different?”
Jack didn’t add, ‘And you were a child. You were young and innocent and the person hurting you was the person who should have been protecting and loving you unconditionally.’
Mac fell silent, thinking. Jack could practically hear cogs turning in his head.
“But you’ve been so good to me and I thought terrible things about you, like I was accusing you of, you know.” He ducked his head, his cheeks flushing with shame. “I feel like I’ve betrayed you and I owe you more than that, you deserve better.”
“Deserve better?” Jack fought to take the heat from his tone. He didn’t want Mac to hear his anger and think it was directed at him. Because Jack was angry. He was angry that his son had been made to suffer and was still suffering and he was angry with himself for not seeing what Mac had been going through. He should have known that Mac would find the change in his life difficult to adjust to and that he would hide his feelings. He’d been so focused on how happy he was to finally have Mac as his own he’d missed the signs that Mac was struggling. Jack had believed that Mac was happy, and he had been, but if he had really thought about it Jack would have realised that Mac’s old life wasn’t something he could just leave without it haunting him. “Better than what? Better than you? There’s nothing better for me than you, kiddo. I don’t need you to be perfect, I need you to be you. I love you. I will always love you. When you’re scared, angry, happy or feeling like a tectonic plate on volcano day I’ll love you.”
Mac let out a stuttering breath and burrowed deeper into Jack’s arms. Jack felt something shift in him, the frightened tension crackling under his skin fading as he exhaled.
“I love you too.”
Jack kissed the blond hair tickling his cheek. “It gets better. You have to work through it but it does get better, I promise. We’ll figure it out together.”
Pepper poked her head out of her stall and nudged Mac, snorting softly.
“Sorry I scared you, girl.” Mac stroked the horse’s head and Pepper whinnied and nosed at Mac’s shirt pocket. He laughed, a tired huff of amusement that Jack was heartened to hear. “I don’t have any snacks to give you though.”
“She’ll understand. She’s a very smart girl.”
“Didn’t you call her a Godforsaken, thick-headed, stubborn donkey yesterday?”
“I did. And she is. But she’s also smart. People can be more than one thing, horses too.”
Pepper gave up her search for treats and went back to munching loudly on her feed. Mac rested against Jack, limp and heavy. The occasional tremor ran through him but Jack felt sure that the firestorm had passed and the fear and guilt his son had been carrying with him were crumbling into ashes. They stayed on the ground together listening to the sounds of the horses and watching dust motes drift in the sunlight. Jack hugged Mac close, wishing he could keep on doing just that forever, standing as a barrier between his son and every part of the world that had the potential to do him harm.
Eventually Mac started to twitch restlessly.
“Do you think you’ll be ready for pizza soon?” Jack asked. He felt that it was time to wrap up their heart to heart. At least until they needed to have it again. Revealing a truth to others was gruelling and the one Mac had let Jack see sat deep inside him in a place where his oldest hurts and greatest fears had settled. He needed time to recover and grow used to living in a new world where the name of the thing that scared him had been spoken aloud, where everything was new and honest and Jack still loved him.
“Yes.” Mac’s voice was steady. He wriggled against Jack’s arms and Jack reluctantly opened them to let him up. “What kind are you going to order?”
“Why are you asking?” Jack slapped a hand to his chest and pulled an affronted expression. “Don’t you trust me?”
“Well,” Mac wrinkled his nose, “you do remember what happened last time?”
“You ate that pizza!” Jack protested.
“It was pizza, of course I did.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “We’ll negotiate, how about that? I’m sure between us we can find a way to make it work. Okay?”
Mac smiled. His expression was at once fond and exasperated, brave and fragile, open and hopeful. Jack couldn’t have loved him more. “Okay.”
“Come on, son. Let’s go home.”