Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

At 3:01 AM on a quiet Tuesday, the early morning silence of the warehouse district by the docks is shattered when a small office attached to one of the warehouses explodes. Flames shoot high into the night sky. Despite the dramatic destruction, no nearby buildings are harmed.

At 9:01 AM that morning, MacGyver is sitting in Pete’s office discussing a potential problem in Thailand when Pete’s secretary knocks on his open door, walking in with a manila envelope.

“A courier just dropped this off. He was emphatic that it is urgent, and for your eyes only.”

“Hmmph. He was, was he?” Pete narrows his eyes skeptically, then shrugs. “Eh, well, let’s see what we’ve got.” Pete slits open the top of the envelope and two 8-by-10 color photos slide out.

The top photo shows a strange and grisly image: a stack of meat with some protruding bones has been arranged in an office chair behind a plain desk. The top of the macabre pile has a piece of paper stuck to the front of it, with a crude smiley face drawn on.

“If this is someone’s idea of an art project, I don’t much care for it,” Pete grumbles, shaking his head. He slides it across his desk to Mac and looks at the second photo. This one shows a fireball engulfing the desk. The pile of meat is visible only as a dark silhouette in the shape of a man.

If Mac hadn’t seen the previous photo, he would have believed this one showed the office blowing up and fatally engulfing a person in flames.

“What the–” Frowning, Pete flips this photo over. On the back, in small, neat handwriting they both recognize is the address of the warehouse that had blown up earlier this morning.

Pete looks up at him. “What is this? A threat? Is Murdoc threatening to kill someone?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Mac responds thoughtfully. “Look.” He taps at the metal nameplate visible on the desk in both photos. “We know a Mr. Jones who would like the world to believe he is dead. If you ask Susie to dig into who owns this warehouse, my guess is it will be Murdoc’s old accountant.”

“So what is he doing here? Taking credit for killing his old accountant? Why, as a threat to anyone stupid enough to do business with him? Ha!”

“Dollars to donuts, he’s spread rumors around the criminal world that blames Jones for being the leak that tipped the authorities off about so many of his criminal associates, leading to all those recent arrests.” Mac thinks back to what he heard on the morning news. “That explosion was precisely crafted to create that fireball, leaving only traces of flesh and bone while doing no harm to anything beyond that building. He’s taking credit for eliminating that threat to the criminal world, and he’s letting us know that he has provided an excellent cover for Jones’ transfer into witness protection.”

Pete taps his fingers on the desk, restlessly. “I suppose it does help to cover his own ass. We may as well benefit from it as well. If you’re right about his accountant owning that warehouse, it’ll convince people that he’s dead alright.” Pete nods firmly. “Alright, we’ll send a copy of the second image over to the police. Let them draw their own conclusions. The first photo I’ll send down to classified storage. Now, back to this thing in Thailand…”

Chapter Text

Following his successful rigging of the LA warehouse explosion, Murdoc opts to fly into Lincoln, Nebraska. He’s not in any hurry, so it’s a good time to vary his route. He is going to check in on his Kansas business interests, put in an appearance for his neighbor Amy to maintain his cover, then scour the dark web for a new project. He hopes MacGyver is suitably impressed by the photos of the explosion he engineered. Getting the fireball just right to convincingly engulf the figure in flames for the photograph was an artistic triumph. He hopes Mac is a fan of that art. Sending the photos of his explosion to the Phoenix Foundation felt delightfully naughty, like passing a flirty note right under the teacher’s nose.

Murdoc buys a cheap sedan from a used car lot with a fake ID and a fistful of unlaundered cash. Then he makes his way leisurely south. He spends a couple of hours at a cafe in Salina, Kansas, just to watch how normal people act and brush up on his rendition of the local accent. Then he drives on to Wichita to see his beholden smugglers.

It has been long enough since he set them up with their latest business expansion opportunity that it is time to offer them something new, to inspire them to continue giving him money every time he drops by. Fortunately, he has a couple of ideas for that.

Murdoc still has the smuggler’s boat, Art & Alibi, which has now passed through several shell companies, shelf companies, and straw buyers. It has had a name change and a bit of new paint, obscuring its history enough that he feels like the boat can be put back to its intended use. He also has his list of recently vacated smuggling opportunities, courtesy of Mr. Jones. He particularly has his eye on some crates of expensive alcohol which he knows to be stranded at a warehouse in Mexico while the owners scramble to find another way to transport them into the USA without paying import fees.

On the outskirts of Wichita, Murdoc swaps the car he drove down in for a much more expensive one that he keeps stored there. He takes it through a car wash to clear off the accumulated dust. He pulls into the parking lot of Hawthorne Imports just as the sun starts to set and drives past a line of semis backed up to the long loading dock. Business is good. He has timed his visit, as always, for Darren’s day off; running into him here would be awkward at best.

Murdoc swaggers into the warehouse and looks around for the owner. Hawthorne sees him and waves him back to the main office.

“Mr. Green! Come have a look at this. We have a whole new line of imports. Lined this one up myself. This is the first one to arrive, en route to sunny California.” Hawthorne rocks back on his heels, puffing out his chest in a ridiculous display of self-satisfaction.

Murdoc lifts an eyebrow. Hawthorne making his own contacts means more potential revenue, but the added independence is going to make it harder to keep the smuggler under his thumb, keeping those lovely payments coming. “What is it?”

Hawthorne picks up a crowbar and pries off the side of a crate, unveiling a clear plastic container inside. “Meet Gertrude!” he announces with relish. “Isn’t she a beaut? She’s an Albino Guiana Rattlesnake, fresh from Brazil by way of Mexico. Look at that rattle! She’s a three thousand dollar snake, and a batch of others are to follow as soon as she gets to her destination safely. At least a fifteen hundred dollar snake, each one of them.”

Fortunately, Hawthorne is absorbed in examining the snake and misses seeing Murdoc’s face freeze in horror. Gertrude lifts her head and looks out at the room with beady red eyes. Murdoc turns and paces across the office, to put space between himself and the nightmare in the crate. He stares at a random map on the wall, thoughts racing.

He has to put a stop to this right now. He has to come up with a reason beyond ‘snakes are horrible creatures’ to do that. Hawthorne is not on the same level of anything as Nicholas Helman, but it doesn’t take a genius to use such an obvious weakness against someone. He suspects he knows exactly how far he would get with Hawthorne by pointing out the environmental impacts of introducing a new invasive species. As though America needs a non-native rattlesnake. Murdoc is absolutely not going to be a party to infesting California with yet another species of venomous snake.

He has a brief vision of the new snakes spreading like many invasive species do, flourishing and entrenching themselves into every unlikely nook and cranny. No natural predators, they thrive until venomous snakes are everywhere. Hiding under any rock, down any shady alley, up under the eves of formerly welcoming houseboats.

He focuses on the map in front of his eyes. Shipping routes, labeled with cargo vessel names and arrival dates. Hm. This snake just arrived and the rest are to follow soon, Hawthorne said. He pivots slowly.

“Three thousand dollars isn’t your cut, though, is it?”

“Well, no–”

“You get what, a third?”

Hawthorne frowns faintly. “Five hundred for Gertrude, about three hundred apiece for the big batch.”

Murdoc shakes his head regretfully. “Hardly worth the additional jeopardy of transporting live animals, is it? They get sick from something and die en route, the client won’t pay. Poachers are unreliable. They get caught frequently, so there is an irregular supply and they can sink your whole business when they rat you out. It exposes your whole operation to a lot of risk.” That sounds so plausible he almost believes it himself, now that he hears himself say it.

Hawthorne looks annoyed. “I made a contract for these, I’m not going to back out of it.”

“Your contract is to bring the next batch over on the Kali?” he asks, naming the ship he saw on the map. “Tuxpan, Mexico to Houston, Texas?”

“That’s right.”

Murdoc lets his frown deepen. “The Kali has been flagged for intensive search by dogs as soon as she makes port in Houston. It is not a concern with your normal cargo, but live animals are going to be a real problem.”

“I have a reputation to uphold! I can’t back out of contracts.”

Murdoc shrugs. “Your reputation is hardly going to be improved by letting cargo get caught by Customs, is it? If you let them know that you have a source in Customs that has tipped you off that the trade route is too hot to move live animals from Tuxpan to Houston right now, that’s going to bolster your reputation, not harm it.”

Hawthorne pauses. “Is that true about the search? You have a contact in Customs warning you?”

“Oh yes,” Murdoc lies blithely, making a mental note to tip off Customs. “That’s one of the things I came here to talk to you about.”

“I was running my business just fine for years before you swanned in here with your lazy friend and your fake purses,” Hawthorns says resentfully.

Murdoc smiles and spreads his hands in a conciliatory fashion. “New opportunities bring new risks. The key to growing an operation like this into a shipping empire is choosing the right ones. It takes a shrewd businessman to know when to pivot to something more profitable. As it happens, I come bringing you a new business opportunity today, one far more stable and lucrative than live animal smuggling.” He pauses for effect, then says enthusiastically, “alcohol.”

Hawthorne is still frowning, but thoughtfully now. Murdoc keeps talking without giving him a chance to voice any objections.

“The demand for live animals comes and goes according to the whims of what exotic pets are fashionable. But the demand for high-end spirits is constant. Crates and crates of the finest rums are simply languishing in a warehouse in Tuxpan right now. And best of all, dogs cannot smell whether import taxes have been paid. They will breeze right through the added security measures.” Murdoc pauses briefly for dollar signs to start gleaming in the smuggler’s eyes, then adds, “But I could not, in good conscience, bring you in on this major new transporting venture, if you were also carrying live animals on that route. Not with the risk that brings to your cargo. If the dogs alert on your containers, they will do a manual search of them all.”

Hawthorne pauses. Clearly, the idea of breaking the contract he was pursuing on his own leaves a sour taste in his mouth, but the potential for income is considerably higher with what Murdoc is offering. Reluctantly, he asks, “What kind of volume are we talking here?”

Murdoc continues smiling persuasively as he pulls out some papers and hands them to Hawthorne. “The numbers speak for themselves. Is your other contract able to offer this kind of steady income?”

By the time Murdoc leaves, briefcase full of cash from the last quarter in hand, they have concluded a deal for the alcohol smuggling. He did not mention the Art & Alibi. Clearly, Hawthorne cannot be trusted with that lovely little boat now. The smuggler is already chafing at being dissuaded from pursuing his own scheme for expansion. Murdoc suspects that it will not be long before Hawthorne starts to explore ways to break free from him entirely. It’s a good thing he never does business unarmed. Perhaps he should find a way to get out of this business himself before Hawthorne moves against him.

Out of sorts despite the briefcase full of cash, Murdoc walks to his car making a mental list of things he needs to do, starting with switching cars to go to his Kansas City home and put in his appearance there. Then he needs to make a couple of calls to get Customs to raid the Kali when it makes port in Houston, arrange to get the crates of rum to Tuxpan before the Kali docks there so that he can pretend they were there all along, check the internet for anything interesting in the criminal world, and make an important business call to Japan.

Deep in thought, he doesn’t notice Darren, called in to work at the last minute today, walk out of the break room.

Nor is he close enough to overhear when Darren asks out loud to no one in particular, “Why is my wife’s neighbor here?” but Hawthorne is.

Oblivious to Darren’s confusion and Hawthorne’s sudden interest, Murdoc heads home to finish his errands and scour the dark web for opportunities to make money, amuse himself, or maybe even both.

Once Murdoc works through his list far enough to check his online contacts he finds a listing which changes all his remaining plans.

Chapter Text

MacGyver doesn’t see where the dart comes from; it whizzes out of nowhere and hits him in the neck as he is walking home. He jerks it out and looks around frantically, but sees no one. Shortly he isn’t seeing anything at all. He crumples slowly to the sidewalk as the drug takes effect.

Murdoc waits until MacGyver is unconscious before coming out of hiding to collect his prize. He is trailed by two burly men who do the actual lifting and carrying while Murdoc supervises. Once he has got the unconscious man alone in the back of a van and has checked his vitals he allows himself a brief moment to run a finger down MacGyver’s cheek.

“Sorry, Peach,” he murmurs.

Then he crates up MacGyver for delivery to his well-paying client.

In a building across the street, Raúl removes the telephoto lens from Murdoc’s camera and packs it carefully away. The film he pockets to develop according to Murdoc’s precise instructions.

The next morning, for the second time that month, Pete opens a mysterious envelope of photographs hand delivered to his office. This time when he sees the photos, he leaps out of his chair and begins bellowing for agents to report to his office even while he starts frantically dialing the phone.

Mac regains consciousness gradually. The first sense that comes back to him is hearing. A familiar voice is speaking. It’s making him uneasy, but he can’t quite place why.

It is Murdoc speaking, he realizes slowly. His voice has an enthusiastically menacing edge to it. The meaning of the words hasn’t penetrated his groggy mind yet, but the suspicion that he isn’t going to like what’s happening increases.

Memory trickles back in disjointed fragments: the dart to the neck, falling to the ground. He had been heading home after an uneventful day, unaware of any impending attack. He tries to bring a hand up to his face, but finds himself unable to move more than a fraction of an inch. He forces his eyes open and sees that he is tied down to a heavy table. Not artistic rope work, but all too secure. He strains futilely at the rope holding his wrists down while glaring at Murdoc’s back.

Murdoc looks dapper in his white linen suit. He is ignoring Mac and talking to a camera, radiating competence and control. A surge of adrenaline jolts Mac to full alertness as Murdoc confidently says, “Of course I have made sure that the drugs will be completely out of his system before his planned execution.”

Mac closes his eyes and pretends to be unconscious while he thinks. There is something wrong with this situation, and not the normal sort of “about to die painfully” wrongness. It’s not that he can’t believe Murdoc could kill him. He knew the risks when he made the decision to start sleeping with the mercurial assassin. He’s not going to protest, after all their history, that it is impossible for Murdoc to revert back to his old, murderous ways. Heaven only knows what Murdoc gets up to during the weeks in between his visits. Which, hey, maybe he ought to start asking about. If they get through this. That’s not a relationship talk so much as basic survival and maybe he should have thought of it that way sooner, to avoid being blindsided by words like “his planned execution.”

He pushes aside that thought and works out what is bothering him: the problem with this scenario is that if Murdoc were planning his imminent demise, he would have Murdoc’s undivided attention. He knows this with unshakeable certainty: Murdoc would kill him with the zeal of someone indulging their fondest obsession, mixed with at least mild regret. It’s a flash of revelation he knows most people would not find comforting: that this is not Murdoc’s approach to actually murdering him. But this is Mac’s life. At the moment, this insight is reassuring.

He turns the thought over in his mind. Killing Mac would not be a casual job. There is no way Murdoc would ignore Mac in favor of performing some inane spiel for his client. It would be intimate. No amount of money, no threat in this world, could shake Murdoc’s obsessive focus with him, not if Mac’s death were finally on the line. There’s something else going on here. He cautiously reopens his eyes just a crack.

Mac knows that most people would not categorize this revelation as Murdoc caring about him, but whatever is between them is hot and volatile and he believes in the strength of it, whatever it is, down to the core of his bones. Murdoc is ignoring him, therefore Murdoc is not currently trying to murder him. Despite appearances. It feels good to have arrived at this understanding, because Murdoc is currently punctuating his speech to the camera by stabbing the air with a very large knife.

“He ought to be coming around soon,” Murdoc says cheerily. “I have something quite special planned for this evening. I do hope you enjoy elaborate embellishments as part of an execution. I pride myself on the style and uniqueness of my services, a true artistic statement with each death.”

On the other hand, not even Murdoc would have gone to this amount of trouble and involved this many supporting players—without moving his head he can see a pair of guards in some kind of uniform flanking the door—just to annoy Mac. So while he may not want to murder Mac, it appears that someone does.

Murdoc leans casually back against the table as he makes a dramatic gesture for his unseen audience. This puts the small of his back against Mac’s fingers. Mac carefully extends his fingers up under Murdoc’s jacket, fingertips questing over the warm leather of the sheath the assassin habitually wears there. Mac slips one of Murdoc’s throwing knives from its accustomed spot. Once he has it, Murdoc straightens up and finally deigns to glance down at him.

“Why, look who is waking up,” he says to his unseen audience.

The power flickers out and Murdoc says very quietly, “ninety seconds.”

The power comes back on.

Mac begins carefully cutting the rope holding him down, using Murdoc’s body to conceal the action from the camera and the guards.

“Yes, there was a brief power outage here, but it’s back on now,” Murdoc says seriously to the camera.

Murdoc pushes away from the table and Mac hastily conceals the knife under his hand. Murdoc strides briskly over to the door.

“Murdoc!” Mac yells indignantly, feeling that he needs to contribute to this performance. “You won’t get away with this! People will come for me.”

“Oh, he’s certainly awake now,” Murdoc says to the camera in an amused tone. He looks at the guard to the left of the door, ordering, “go check out the electrical room, make sure no one is messing with things.” The guard there gives a sharp nod and walks away. To the guard on the right he says, “you, check in with the perimeter. Make sure there hasn’t been a disturbance anywhere. I don’t want to get caught by surprise if someone is trying to mount a rescue mission.”

The second guard nods and speaks into a walkie talkie, then touches his earpiece and stares into space, focused on the reports he is receiving as all the guards check in. The lights go out a second time. In the faint light filtering down the hall, Mac sees indistinct motion and hears the hollow thump of someone being hit over the head. The guard slumps to the floor.

“Wasn’t he on your side?” Mac asks, shaking the severed rope off one wrist and quickly cutting the other ropes holding him down.

“Obviously not.”

There’s a sound of running footsteps and a question yelled in Spanish, then another pair of guards burst into the room. Mac lies still, as though still bound. Murdoc cringes away from the guards and backs into the far corner, holding up his hands. The guards follow, putting their backs to Mac. He slides off the table and hits one in the back of the head. When the other guard turns to see who is attacking them from behind Murdoc punches him, a flash of brass knuckles catching the dim light.

Murdoc gives the unconscious guard a contemptuous kick. “Terrible training,” he says scornfully. He drags the first guard he knocked out into the room, positioning him in a corner out of sight from the door or the camera.

“Trade you.” Murdoc holds out Mac’s Swiss army knife; Mac exchanges Murdoc’s throwing knife for it.

“What’s going on here? Where are we?”

“Does the name Rafael mean anything to you?”

Mac blinks. “From Barracca?” he asks in disbelief. “He is supposed to be in prison for life.”

“Someone should have told him that. Oh wait, someone did and it really pissed him off. I do not know what you did to earn his ire, but he has devoted quite a lot of money to seeing you dead.” Murdoc efficiently strips the first guard’s jacket off as he talks.

“I may have been involved in him losing control of a rebel army a few years back.”

Murdoc glances his way in the dim light. “Should have killed him. It seems he has spent those years amassing wealth and power, building up new troops intent on getting revenge.”

“And he hired you to kill me?”

“It was take the job myself or let him hire someone else to kill you, so yes. Give me a hand with these men.” They drag the other two guards out of sight while Murdoc continues, “I have been surrounded by Rafael’s people since I got here. I have not had much freedom to move around. I can get us out of this building, but after that I am not sure how or frankly if we can get out of this compound.”

“Guess we should get moving then.”

“Stay out of sight for a moment.” Murdoc tosses him a bottle of water. Then he pulls on the guard’s jacket and beret and steps out into the dimly lit hall just as Mac hears the sound of many footsteps pounding down the stairs and towards their room.

Mac hears Murdoc snapping orders in Spanish, in an uncanny vocal mimicry of the guard who is lying unconscious on the floor. Mac downs half the bottle of water in one long swallow.

Mac chokes on the water as he hears Murdoc yell “¡Muerte a Santina!” in conclusion.

“¡Muerte a Santina!” several men echo fervently. Then a dozen men in military uniforms rush past the room, thundering down the stairs and away.

Murdoc returns to the room, tossing the beret and jacket on the floor next to the guard. “I sent them off to guard a lighthouse a couple of miles away and I told them to keep their radios turned off until sunset, so that’s the reinforcements taken care of. Now we just have to worry about the guards actually on duty.”

“Death to Santina?”

“They seem to enjoy yelling that a lot around here. I have no idea who Santina is, but it appears to inspire them. Lots of fervor, little sense.”

“She’s the president of Barracca, and Rafael’s former field commander. When did he get out of prison? And why didn’t President Santina warn the Phoenix Foundation?”

“About 5 months ago and if you want to ask her we’ll have to rescue her. This was slated to be a double execution. I regret to say, your death was merely scheduled to be the warm up to the main event. Honestly, I am offended on your behalf.”

“Do you know where they are holding her?”

“I do. Rafael has her with him. You are aware, if we leave Rafael alive, he’s just going to keep sending more assassins after you. Which is a problem, unless you are sleeping with a lot of other assassins.”

“Just you,” he says lightly.

Murdoc hesitates, looking distracted.

“We can rescue Santina and bring Rafael with us to face justice,” Mac continues, firmly staying on topic.

“He is a dick and he kills people,” Murdoc says, pragmatically. “It is far safer to kill him.”

“You’re a dick and you kill people. That’s not reason enough for us to kill him unless it’s necessary to rescue Santina. I think Barracca will do a better job of keeping him locked up this time.”

“It’s plenty of reason for me to kill him. You know what will happen if he talks, right? The world will find out we’ve been working together. You will be fired. Various associates of mine will put two and two together and come after you, me, and Mr. Jones. We will have to kill a lot more people, and the whole thing will be very tedious. All in all, killing Rafael here and now ends this with the least amount of death.”

“I’m not killing a man to hide anything I’ve done. If we have to face the consequences of our choices, we’ll face them as they come.”

“Even if they do manage to keep him locked up, he can get his followers to seek revenge on his behalf.” Murdoc smiles and spreads his hands enticingly. “You don’t have to do it personally. I’m right here and happy to help.”

“If you need a better reason to avoid committing murder then let me give you one: you don’t kill anyone who is not an imminent threat to someone’s life and I’ll get us out of here alive.”

“You do have a plan then.”

“Sure. Well, part of a plan. More of an intent.”

Murdoc gives an amused snort. “We should get moving. Rafael is making Santina watch the preparations for her execution. I suppose we will see how things play out. I will do my best to avoid unnecessary murders if he cooperates.” Murdoc’s tone of voice conveys how unlikely he considers Rafael’s cooperation.

Mac nods.

Murdoc’s mood shifts abruptly and he smiles brilliantly at Mac. “If you need to go on the run, let me know. I am very, very good at evading pursuit.”

“Can we get moving now?” Mac asks, exasperated.

Murdoc bows and gestures to the door with a theatrical flourish.

They make it to the first floor without meeting anyone. Coming around the corner, the guard who was sent to check out the electrical room nearly runs into them. Murdoc punches him without hesitation, knocking him out before he can process the supposed assassin’s change of loyalty.

Their luck ends just outside the front door of the building as a dozen men come running towards them, shouting and gesturing. Mac can’t make out many of the words, but the meaning is clear enough. He ducks behind a truck as they open fire.

Murdoc pulls out a semiautomatic handgun and shoots back at them, three quick shots, then ducks for cover next to Mac.

“Hey! No guns.”

“I would like to defer to your sensitivities, it is just that I would also like to survive the day.”

Despite his words, he doesn’t resist as Mac takes the gun out of his hands and disassembles it. Mac tosses the pieces out into the open, where guards shoot at them. “Do you have any more?”

“I was hired as an assassin,” he says to Mac’s disapproving look. “These are–”

“The tools of your trade, yes, I remember.” Mac reaches under his jacket and removes the other semiautomatic from his shoulder holster. Pieces of metal go sailing off in different directions. “I think it’s safe to say your cover is well and truly blown. Any others?”

Murdoc sighs and pulls a small pistol from an ankle holster, relinquishing it regretfully.

Mac looks at him.

“I hope not dying today is okay with your moral sensibilities,” Murdoc says tartly.

“It’s a bit early to assume we won’t die today.”

“That’s the spirit.”

The shots Murdoc fired have made the guards wary of approaching, but that won’t last much longer. Mac absently disassembles the pistol while looking around for something he can use to get them out of here. He hefts the pistol’s cylinder in his hand, then throws it towards the shooters pinning them down as though it were a grenade. There are shouts of alarm and curses as the shooters take cover from the apparent threat.

“You do understand that when you blow people up or knock a building down on them, you kill them just as dead as a gun does?” Murdoc asks mildly.

“Not the point,” Mac says shortly. Then, because they are going to be rushed any moment and need to get moving, “where are we headed?”

“You see those two red buildings?” Murdoc points at a pair of buildings, the tops of which are just visible from their hiding place. “If you were to look down between them—not that I recommend a long look at the moment—you would see a brown wall. That is the side of the arena where the executions are scheduled to be carried out at sunset.”

Mac pops his head up just long enough to get a glimpse of two long narrow buildings full of windows, a road to the arena passing between them. A bullet hits the wall behind him as he pulls his head back down. The guards shoot with renewed enthusiasm, having seen a glimpse of their target.

“I hope you have a better approach in mind,” Mac says grimly. The windows overlooking the road make it extremely unlikely that they would survive a direct run down that path.

Murdoc grins. “I do, yes. That little white building over to the side? That is the entrance to an underground tunnel which leads to a gladiator-style entrance to the arena. It was used to bring greyhounds in for dog races when this place was first built. We just have to get over to that building.”

The small building Murdoc points out is about 20 yards away.

“Any idea how we can do that when they are shooting at us?”

“Oh, that is just temporary,” Murdoc says breezily.

Mac looks at him. “Yeah?”

“Listen to that rate of fire! They are so excited to be firing at us. They are going to need to reload any moment.”

“And?”

“Like any sensible unit, they have all standardized on one type of ammunition. They chose 9mm rounds, generally an excellent option.”

“Uh huh.”

“I couldn’t get to their guns, but I swapped out all their spare ammo for very similar looking .38 specials. As soon as they reload and try to fire that—”

Someone shouts in the distance. The gun fire falls off and more men yell in confusion and anger.

“Their guns are all jamming,” Mac finishes for him. “Good job.”

Murdoc looks pleased.

Mac cautiously pops his head up for a look. “I don’t think they are going to give up and go home. Run!”

Mac slams the heavy wooden door closed and Murdoc drops a massive bar across it just before the first of their pursuers hit it from the outside. Mac leans against the door for a breath of relief. That door will slow down the pursuit quite a bit.

The interior of this little building is utilitarian, with a large ramp leading down into a tunnel. The tunnel heads, as promised, in the direction of the arena. He pushes off from the massive door, ignoring the shouts and orders which can be heard from the other side, and heads down the ramp.

The sides of the tunnel are lined with heavy duty cages, ominous but empty. As they near the middle of the tunnel, it flares out and Mac can see a control station. Presumably, an operator could monitor things from here to know when to send out the next… “What did you say this place was used for?”

“Dog races, in theory. Dog fights in fact. Probably other fights as well. The former owner died an unpleasant and unmourned death. Rafael has been making his own additions since taking it over.”

“Ahh.”

A monitor crackles to life, showing an image of Rafael. He is outdoors, presumably in the arena ahead.

“Murdoc, you traitor! You have turned on me, and for what? To try to rescue this doomed man, in the heart of my base of operations, the center of my power? You will both die for this. I should have known better than to trust a British man. Do you have anything to say for yourself before I take your wretched lives?”

Mac catches Murdoc’s hand before he can hit the key to respond and says, “don’t answer that.”

Murdoc narrows his eyes.

“We don't need to justify ourselves. Let him talk. He’ll distract himself. Maybe let some information slip.” Mac thumbs the nearby mic to transmit and says, “isn’t that a bit racist?”

“Racist? Racist?” Against the British?” Rafael launches into an impassioned list of crimes the British empire committed.

Mac smiles faintly. “He majored in international politics and minored in world history. That should occupy him for a while.”

Murdoc is still glaring at him. “I never–”

Mac smiles wider. “The first time we met.”

Murdoc’s eyes narrow, as he thinks about it. “Bloody hell.”

They walk away from the guard station, Rafael’s diatribe growing fainter in the distance. When they reach the end of the tunnel, the sunlight is almost blinding in comparison with the underground passage. It opens onto an arena floor of packed bare dirt, with high walls all around and viewing stands across one end.

On the far side of the arena, near a second tunnel entrance, Rafael stands. Behind him is a small squad of guards. One of them holds Santina, her hands tied behind her back. She is angrily chewing a gag. Even restrained, Rafael is keeping a careful distance from her.

As they appear, Rafael addresses them in a carrying voice accustomed to delivering stirring speeches to a crowd. “As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, ‘a social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.’ We are a true revolution, and though the course of our progress may have been slowed by Santina’s treachery we will prevail in the end. The people demand it!”

Having delivered this last bit of inspirational speaking, Rafael motions the guards to drag Santina into the tunnel. Once they are all inside, Rafael lifts a cover to hit a shielded switch on the wall. A section of floor slides back, revealing a shallow pit across the entrance to the tunnel. Rafael disappears into the dark tunnel after Santina and his guards.

They cautiously cross the arena and look down into the pit. It’s only about 18 inches deep. There is a single large snake near the center of the pit. Mac leans out to be sure he has a good view of all the corners of the sunken area, but the snake census does not change.

“Just one?” Mac asks out loud, looking at the single snake curiously.

Murdoc distrustfully eyes the single albino guiana rattlesnake basking in the California sun and doesn’t respond immediately.

“Maybe they had budget cuts,” Mac muses.

“MacGyver,” Murdoc says nervously.

“Maybe the full shipment of rattlers hasn’t arrived yet. Or perhaps they were still testing out the snake pit?”

“MacGyver.”

“Surely they didn’t build a whole snake pit intending to have just one snake in it?”

“Maybe this one killed and ate the others. She’s probably that territorial. Look at her. She’s huge. She looks like a cannibal. Or maybe,” Murdoc’s voice rises in both volume and pitch, “she killed the person who was supposed to be delivering the other rattlesnakes. We can’t go through here. We’ll have to find a way around.” He glances frantically around the arena, but it was designed to keep participants in.

“Don’t worry about it. One snake is easy to deal with. Especially a rattler, they are good communicators. They’ll let you know how they are feeling.” Mac pulls out his Swiss army knife and inspects the wall near the tunnel entrance as he speaks. He pries free a length of wooden trim.

“I’ll let you know how I’m feeling right now.”

Mac hefts his prize, a piece of wood about 4 feet long.

“Yes, good,” Murdoc says, nodding. “You can beat it to death.”

“The trick with getting past a single rattlesnake,” Mac drawls easily, “is that you have to keep it just the right amount of pissed off.”

“Pissed off?” Murdoc asks, alarmed.

“That’s right. You let it get too relaxed, it’ll uncoil and go exploring, poking around, get itself into trouble.” Mac taps the dirt near the snake, which coils up into a wary ball. “But of course if you piss it off too much, then it feels like it has to defend itself and that’s not going to end well for anyone.”

“You know how hard it is to get antivenom out here?”

“Where are we anyway? You never said.”

“A small private island off the coast of California.”

Mac considers. “Probably not so far from a hospital then, for a direct flight.”

“Sure, if you take a helicopter. Pity that Rafael is unlikely to loan you his helicopter, since he brought you here specifically so that he could watch you die.”

“There is that. Stay behind me, move forward when I move.”

Murdoc ducks behind MacGyver, peering around his shoulder anxiously, hands clamped firmly to MacGyver’s waist. Mac steps down into the pit and moves cautiously forward, occasionally tapping the ground near the snake with the strip of wood. Murdoc reluctantly follows.

“North American hospitals do not carry antivenom for guiana rattlesnakes, because they aren’t supposed to be here.” Murdoc sounds particularly bitter about the fact that this snake isn’t native to the area.

“Drugged up and shipped across the ocean to this compound against your will?” Mac asks the snake. “I know how you feel.”

“Don’t empathize so much with something that might try to kill you.”

Mac risks looking away from the snake to glance over his shoulder and make eye contact with Murdoc, amused. “Why not? It’s been working well for me.”

“Keep your eyes on the snake,” Murdoc hisses.

The snake watches them skirt warily along the edge of the pit, keeping as much distance from it as possible. Just as they reach their closest approach, it coils tighter and shakes its rattle in warning. Mac freezes and Murdoc, behind him, isn’t even breathing.

“It’s okay,” Mac says soothingly. “We’ll walk away now. Give you some distance.”

He eases slowly past. The snake watches them intently. Finally, they make it to the far edge.

Once they step up out of the pit, Murdoc slams his hand onto the button on the inner wall and the pit slides closed.

Murdoc passed through this way once before, when one of Rafael’s men showed him around. This tunnel is laid out in a mirror image of the other: smooth tunnel walls near the arena that give way to suspiciously sturdy cages past the control station.

The monitors on this control station remain dark as they pass. There are a couple of dirty mugs next to a coffee pot. As they approach the end of the tunnel, it starts sloping upward. As soon as they can see a slice of blue sky through the open doorway at the end they split up, hugging opposite sides of the tunnel and easing slowly forward to see what waits for them.

From outside in the bright daylight, it will be difficult to see into the dimly lit tunnel. From inside the tunnel, they can clearly see a small open plaza in front of a two story building.

“Rafael’s headquarters,” Murdoc says quietly.

There is no doubt that this is where Rafael has taken Santina: there are about twenty guards standing in formation in front of the building. They all wear the same military-inspired uniform topped with a beret.

“Keep an eye out here,” MacGyver says softly. “I’ll see if I can find something to use as a distraction.”

MacGyver backs away from the entrance, then strides down the tunnel to the control station. Murdoc splits his attention between keeping an eye on the troops waiting in formation in front of him and sneaking glances back down the tunnel. Macgyver is carefully wiping out the coffee pot when a shot rings out from inside the building.

MacGyver hurries back, dumping a bottle of something into the coffee pot as he approaches. They crouch in the tunnel, trying to glimpse any clue to what is happening.

After a tense pause a window slams open on the upper floor of the building. Santina leans out and looks down at the troops. “¡Viva Barracca! ¡Viva la democracia!” she yells to them.

Several of the guards throw their berets in the dirt and take up the cry. They turn on the other guards, shooting some of them before they can react. The orderly formation of guards breaks down into a general brawl.

Santina is pulled away from the window by unknown hands.

MacGyver and Murdoc stay low in the tunnel as gunshots ring out both inside and outside of the building ahead.

Civil wars are messy. Rafael escaped prison by having people loyal to him infiltrate Santina’s government. Apparently, she has returned the favor and infiltrated his troops with her own.

Rafael’s loyalists outnumber Santina’s people and despite having killed or incapacitated several in the initial surprise, Santina’s men are being forced into a desperate, defensive cluster. The last three of them break and run for the cover of nearby trees.

Rafael sticks his head out of the window in time to see them running away. “After them!” he snaps at his troops. “Do not let the traitors escape. Take at least one alive.”

Rafael’s remaining guards race off in pursuit of Santina’s people.

There is a loud thud from inside the building and Rafael turns away from the window. Seeing the coast temporarily clear, MacGyver and Murdoc sprint across the open area and through the door into the headquarters building. They slam shut the door, and shove a heavy table up against it.

Most of the first floor is one open room. A grand staircase leads up to a balcony overlooking the room. Probably originally built for large parties and dramatic sweeping entrances; Rafael uses it to address his troops with presumably rousing speeches. It is also serving as their mess hall, with heavy wooden tables scattered through the room.

“Offices are all upstairs, in the back,” Murdoc says.

There’s a short hallway leading back from the balcony, with doors leading to offices. On the ground floor, there is one door leading to an area directly under the offices.

“Through there?” MacGyver asks.

“Kitchen.”

They can hear Rafael upstairs yelling orders into a radio.

“Alright. Is there a second entrance to Rafael’s office?”

“There is a window and the wall looks climbable. Stone blocks with good gaps between them.”

“Okay. I’ll distract him–” MacGyver breaks off as Rafael appears on the balcony above them.

Rafael is holding a gun to Santina’s head, dragging her along. They are followed by three guards. Seeing the two of them below, Rafael pushes Santina to one of his guards and fires down at them. They duck under a heavy table.

Sounding furious, Rafael yells, “how did you make it in here?”

“You brought me here, remember?” MacGyver responds.

“Murdoc! You! I thought you were reliable. Your reputation was impeccable. You could at least tell me what persuaded you to turn on me and support the corrupt system led by Santina.”

MacGyver says very softly. “Don’t engage. He’s trying to stall until his backup arrives.”

Rafael sneers,“I see now you are nothing but a fraud, a lapdog for the tyrannical capitalistic system.”

MacGyver clamps a hand over his mouth. “No explanations, no gloating, just take him out.”

Murdoc’s brain whites out for a few seconds and he is going to have to talk to MacGyver about that later because with those whispered words in his ear and warm breath caressing the side of his face, in the space of one breath he has come perilously close to developing a kink for murdering at MacGyver’s command. Which MacGyver probably does not want. Unless he does, in which case Murdoc will gleefully abandon all his plans, his fortune, and his future to enthusiastically embark upon a glorious murder spree. Although they will need to survive the next few minutes to do that so he desperately needs to get his head back in the game. MacGyver is looking at him expectantly. He manages to nod.

After a moment, Rafael snaps, “Fine. My soldiers will make quick work of both of you when they return.”

Footsteps retreat and the office door slams shut. A cautious glance up shows that the whole party has gone.

MacGyver breathes a sigh of relief, then shakes his head. “Even with a distraction, we can’t rush four of them holding a hostage. We’ve got to convince him to send out a couple of those guards.” He glances around the room again, and strides towards the kitchen, still carrying the coffee pot. “Let’s see what we have to work with.”

To Murdoc’s eyes, the kitchen area looks perfectly normal and not very promising in terms of items to help defeat armed soldiers. Meals are prepared there for all the occupants of the island. There is a door in the back of the kitchen, which leads back outside.

MacGyver opens the door and they look out behind the building. There is a clear area paved with local stone. Beyond that the lush tropical vegetation forms a dense wall of greenery. There is a roof access ladder mounted on this wall. Perhaps they could come down from the roof into Rafael’s office somehow?

MacGyver spins around, moving with sudden purpose. He grabs the cook’s tape player, a boombox with “Auto-Eject” advertised in silver letters across the front. He pops out the tape and covers the write-protection square so that he can record on it. He rewinds the tape briefly. Then he motions for quiet and hits record. After about thirty seconds, he nods and says “make some noise.”

The two of them bang around pots and pans. MacGyver scrapes a chair loudly across the floor. Not to be outdone, Murdoc smashes a glass vase by throwing it against the wall. The tape hits the end and the recording light blinks off.

MacGyver turns to the industrial stovetop. It runs on propane, which is more reliable than electricity on this isolated island. The old fashioned system does not even use electricity for ignition but relies on striking a flint and steel. MacGyver fiddles with the screwdriver attachment of his Swiss army knife for a moment, and pulls free a knob complete with attached striker unit. Switching to the awl attachment of his Swiss army knife, MacGyver punches a hole in the thin metal of the coffee pot and forces the striker through it.

MacGyver shifts his attention to Murdoc.

“How much wire are you carrying?”

Murdoc blinks. MacGyver isn’t waiting for him to answer. Long fingered hands deftly snag the end of one garrote wire sewed into the seam of his linen jacket and pull it loose. Then he unbuttons the top button of Murdoc’s shirt. Those fingers brush the hollow of his throat as MacGyver catches the tiny loop at the top of the wire and pulls the second piece out of his button placket.

“Good,” MacGyver says. “That should be enough.” He quickly splices the wires together in a figure eight knot with a few deft twists. He ties one end of the wire to a cabinet on one side of the door. He props the door open with a chair, and ties the other end of the wire to a chair leg.

Murdoc watches with interest as MacGyver cuts off a bit of extra wire and ties one end to the knob of the coffee pot contraption he is building. He searches for a moment through the cabinets and chooses a metal mixing bowl. He ties the other end of the second wire to the bowl’s handle.

“Stay here.”

MacGyver climbs the ladder to the roof as quietly as possible, carrying the coffee pot and the boombox. Murdoc can see him carefully arranging things on the edge of the roof, the metal bowl balanced very carefully on its side. MacGyver hits play and heads back down.

The tape plays the silent part as he climbs. Just as MacGyver gets to the kitchen door the loud noise section starts. They pull the door mostly closed and both peer out through a small crack. MacGyver’s body presses up against him from behind as they angle for a good view of Rafael’s office window.

A guard sticks his head out from the window, looking around. Murdoc feels a sharp pang of regret at his lack of a gun.

The recording reaches the end. The tape deck pops open, knocking the bowl off the roof with a loud clang. The weight of the bowl pulls the striker and ignites whatever is in the coffee pot, which explodes with a deafening bang and an impressive plume of smoke.

MacGyver pulls away and Murdoc pushes down a feeling of loss.

Yelling is heard from upstairs and footsteps pound down the stairs. MacGyver crosses the room to stand on the chair next to the door and Murdoc crouches on the counter on the other side. Two of the guards run through the door, towards the roof access on the back of the building. The first man trips on the wire across the opening and the second, unable to stop in time, trips over the first man.

Murdoc punches one of the men, knocking him out. MacGyver punches the other, then shakes his hand, hissing in pain. Murdoc slips his brass knuckles back into his pocket.

“Hitting them is supposed to hurt them, not you,” he comments dryly.

“Thanks for the professional tip,” MacGyver replies. “Rafael will be expecting his men to return. If we split up, one of us can make some noise outside his door. That should focus his attention in that direction. The other one can go in the window and free Santina.”

“I’ll take the window.”

MacGyver looks at him.

“Look, your skillset may be,” he waves vaguely, “almost everything. But direct, potentially lethal confrontation? That is mine.”

MacGyver is still looking at him steadily, waiting.

Murdoc adds, in the grudging tone of a small child being forced to promise not to eat all the cookies, “I will do my best to leave everyone alive.”

MacGyver nods shortly. “Be careful.”

Murdoc flashes him a brilliant grin and a mock salute.

Murdoc climbs up the wall to Rafael’s office. He is highly aware of how exposed his position is if Rafael’s troops chose this inopportune moment to return and check the back of the building. Nonetheless, he moves with caution, to avoid making noise and alerting Rafael or the remaining guard. His fingertips fit easily into the gaps between the stones. His boots find some traction on the rough-hewn blocks.

When he reaches the window, he looks in. Rafael is lying on the ground, motionless. Santina is free and is tending to a minor arm injury for the last guard.

“That’s a pity,” he murmurs to himself. “MacGyver is not going to be forced to go on the run with me.”

There is a noise at the door and Santina pivots, aiming a handgun at it.

“Don’t shoot,” Murdoc calls.

Santina whirls around, pointing the gun at him.

“Don’t shoot me, either,” he says, exasperated. “You saw me with MacGyver, right? Rafael was trying to kill us? That’s MacGyver at the door now. We were coming to rescue you.”

Santina lowers the gun slightly. “You are that mercenary that Rafael hired for the executions.”

“Yes.” He does not want to explain his allegiance. MacGyver would be annoyed if he had to go on the run after all. “I am hardly the only one on this island whose loyalties Rafael was mistaken about.”

He is saved from further interrogation by the sound of the magnetic relay lock on the door clicking open.

They all look towards the door. It drifts open and after a few seconds MacGyver’s face appears, cautiously checking the room from the bottom of the doorframe. Seeing that no one is shooting at anyone, he stands up sheepishly and strides into the room.

“President Santina, it’s good to see you well.” MacGyver says and looks down at Rafael.

Murdoc pulls himself in through the window.

“Rafael is dead,” Santina announces with clear satisfaction. “I took him down with the help of Diego here, once the other guards left. Was that your doing?”

“Yeah. We were trying to get you out. Why didn’t you let the Phoenix Foundation know Rafael had escaped?”

“I was handling the situation. He has been a constant thorn in the side of the democratically elected government since his arrest. We had many people planted in his organization. When he escaped, we thought we could use the opportunity to finally deal with the last of the dissenters.” She adds, a bit reluctantly, “I did not know he would capture you as well. I am sorry.”

Murdoc takes a cursory look at the body. Very dead. He pulls a throw blanket off a nearby chair and drops it over Rafael’s face, to show that he can observe a normal amount of decorum for dead bodies.

Santina looks out the window. “I do not know where the rest of Rafael’s men have gone. I also do not understand where the rest of my men are. We infiltrated this compound with many more men than were in formation today, but Rafael called in all of his guards. Had he uncovered so many of my men and executed them, he would have surely been gloating.”

“I believe you will find your men guarding a lighthouse on the north side of the island, with their radios turned off,” Murdoc volunteers.

Santina glances sharply between Murdoc and MacGyver, who shrugs. “We didn’t know they were with you.”

She laughs suddenly and punches MacGyver in the shoulder. “You are still as tricky as ever.”

“Well…”

“Diego and I, we will go and get them. Hopefully, before Rafael’s few remaining troops find them.”

“It’s mostly jungle between here and there.”

“My favorite terrain! I have spent too long in boardrooms and meetings. It will be good to be out in the jungle again, however briefly.”

“President Santina,” MacGyver says, “I would appreciate it if you could keep our involvement here today quiet.”

Santina smiles. “I can do this for you, if you will do one thing for me.”

“What is that?”

“Do not come to Barracca. You are a good man, but trouble follows you.”

MacGyver nods impassively.

“Come, Diego! I will show you a few tricks to move unseen through heavy foliage.”

Diego, who looks to be about nineteen, and rather stunned by the events of the afternoon—or perhaps by the personal attention from the president of his country—nods and stands even straighter. He trails after her as she strides decisively out of the room.

Murdoc’s tension evaporates with her exit. He blurts out, “oh, we did survive,” then laughs.

“So far,” MacGyver says lightly. “We still need to get back home somehow.”

“We only need to get you to the helicopter pad. Pete should be here before too long.”

“Pete! You sent him a message?”

“I made arrangements.”

MacGyver puts his hands on Murdoc’s shoulders and looks him in the eye for a long moment. “Thanks, Doc,” he says softly.

“My pleasure,” he says inanely, feeling slightly intoxicated from the warmth in those brown eyes.

MacGyver brushes his lips across Doc’s temple, then wraps an arm around his shoulders and they head out of the building. “Maybe next time you could give me a heads up before you knock me out on the street.”

“Maybe you could give me a heads up about how many empires you have toppled and how many rich and powerful people you have pissed off.”

“Most of it is classified. And the rest is highly classified.”

“Who would I tell?” Murdoc asks, wide-eyed and faux innocent.

They emerge from the building and Murdoc leads the way to a path nearby, walking through the foliage to the helipad at the top of a slight rise.

“You did a good job with the warehouse explosion.”

“Did you enjoy my photos?”

“I did. Not sure Pete liked them very much though.”

Murdoc laughs. He looks up at MacGyver. “Well, if we have some time to kill…” he trails off suggestively.

The sound of helicopter blades makes them look to the east, where a trio of large helicopters is approaching.

“Pete, your timing is terrible, as always,” Murdoc says to the approaching helicopters. He sighs dramatically. “Well, much as I would enjoy giving you a chance to work out your gratitude and/or annoyance with the day’s events, it appears that your people are arriving, which is my cue to make my exit.”

“I expect Pete would be willing to give you a lift out of here, under the circumstances.”

“Just because Pete is willing to act on my tip to rescue you does not mean he would be any less enthusiastic about a chance to shove me out of a helicopter mid flight. Let’s not tempt him. I have arranged my own transportation separately.”

“Someday, we really need to talk about what you do with your spare time.”

Murdoc flashes him a brilliant smile and winks before melting into the trees. Now he just has to lay low and avoid Santina and her troops until Raúl shows up with the Art & Alibi.

He is looking forward to getting home and taking a long hot shower.

On his way home, Murdoc stops by a bookstore.

It is time he stopped putting this off. He picks up some books on accounting. How hard can it be?

It has been months since he lost his accountant and Murdoc still has not been able to find a competent replacement who hits the rare combination of “crooked” yet “reliable” that he needs to manage his finances. Besides, he does not like being dependent on anyone. He got through medical school. Learning accounting cannot be more than a minor irritation.

On his way home, Mac stops by a library.

It’s time he stopped putting this off and consulted an expert. It’s not like there’s a book on how to ornamentally immobilize annoying, flamboyant assassins. Is there? Well. He knows someone who would know.

“Oh, look who’s not dead,” the librarian drawls as Mac approaches her desk.

Mac ducks his head bashfully.

“So how is your flirty would-be murderer? Also still alive?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What do you need today?”

“I was looking for a reference on those sorts of knots, actually.”

She grins. “I think I can help you out.”

Chapter Text

Murdoc wakes up early the next morning to make a call to Japan. Managing global smuggling operations can require keeping inconvenient hours. Six am Kansas City time is eight pm in Tokyo. He has only been in this time zone for a few hours, just long enough for a nap, but he has already been forced to postpone this call too long; he is not putting it off merely to get more sleep.

He stares blankly out the window at the early morning light for a moment. It would be 4 am in California right now. MacGyver is probably sleeping on his couch, or trying to. Murdoc has already had a busy week, not the least of which was rescuing MacGyver. Suddenly he wants nothing more than to spend a few hours in the calm quiet of MacGyver’s living room while he watches some terrible western and tinkers with some arcane contrivance.

Shoving that image aside, he makes his phone call.

“I need that crate loaded on the ship along with the artwork you are transporting next week. (pause) Yes, I know it is heavier than a painting, that is why it is stamped ‘car parts’ and why I am paying import fees for a lot of engine parts that it does not contain. (pause) No, it cannot wait six months for your next shipment. In six months time I could legally buy it here. There is no point in smuggling something that it is legal to purchase. If it does not arrive on time, I will be paying you a personal visit. (pause) Yes, I am threatening you. In what way is that unclear? No, do not try to answer that. Listen to me, that crate had better make it safe and sound to American soil with your next shipment or I will see to it that you have brief but very profound regrets about your priorities.”

Hanging up, he mutters “idiot” at the phone, then stares at the wall for a moment, sighs and decides he is not getting back to sleep any time soon. Murdoc gets out of bed, kicks aside an accounting book bristling with darts from impromptu target practice, and heads to the kitchen.

Starting a kettle for tea, and grimacing at the lack of fresh food—only spending a couple of days a month at “home” does have its drawbacks—he wanders over to look out at the back yard.

Amy is there, sitting at a table on her side of their shared patio. Seeing him, she waves vigorously. He opens the sliding glass door and takes a deep breath of fresh air as he settles more firmly into his suburban neighborhood persona.

“Matthew! I didn’t know you were home. Have a muffin!”

Looking from the wide array of baked goods in front of her to the nearly empty mug of coffee, he asks, “What’s wrong?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You are either starting your own bakery or you are stress baking. Either way you haven’t slept.”

“Oh,” she sighs. “Darren wants to go back to court and try to force visitation rights. Ugh, why did I have to fall for his whole...” she waves her hands around, searching for words, “...air of danger and mystery?”

Despite the fact that Murdoc finds nothing about Darren particularly dangerous or remotely mysterious, he feels an unexpected pang of sympathy, which he ruthlessly suppresses.

“You have a restraining order.”

Amy waves a muffin around. “Paperwork, legal documents, dates for this and that, and apparently he can force me to show up in court to present the papers to a judge. Anyway, I have six different types of muffins and I’m not sure I have that much freezer space left. What’s your favorite flavor?”

“Have any with peaches?”

She looks intrigued. “Not yet. Peach and… cinnamon? Cardamom? No, no, wait! Ginger.”

“Make it spicy,” Matthew suggests with a grin.

She rushes back inside with a new baking inspiration. Murdoc snags a muffin (banana and…something) and heads back into his own home to resume his accounting studies. He would far rather be begging for mercy he does not deserve from a brilliant troubleshooter who refuses to shoot anything, but he has no excuse to go back to LA yet. Reluctantly, he cracks open a new book. It had better be more useful than the last one or he is just going to kidnap a professor and make him talk.

Mac came home with three books. Two of them are stashed discreetly in an upstairs cabinet. The one entitled “Advanced Macramé Techniques” is sitting on his counter.

He is not looking at the book. He has eight strands of twine that he’s trying to keep proper tension on; he couldn’t spare a hand for the book even if he were following it.

Pete walks in without knocking and looks at Mac, who is frowning in concentration as he carefully twists the strands of twine together to create an ornamental hanger for a potted plant.

“Doing some ‘Mac’ramé’, huh?” Pete chuckles and flips through the book. “I don’t see that one in here.”

“I’m improvising,” Mac says easily.

Pete nods. “Say, didn’t your last set of houseplants die when we spent that week in Romania?”

“Yeah. I’m going to try hanging these outside. Maybe they can get some rain if I’m away. If that doesn’t work, it might be time for cacti.”

“Well, I hate to pull you away from it, but we have a situation that could use your attention…”

Murdoc finishes the latest book and throws it across the room, disgusted.

He is already bloody familiar with assets and liabilities. Usually his are more imminently lethal, but it is not like the concepts are complicated. In fact, he is familiar with most of the principles in these books. Misleading people with deceptive statistics and hype is something he expects from Steady Freddy, the card sharp at the local dive bar. Turns out, supposedly reputable global markets use exactly the same cons. He is vaguely disappointed that they are not more sophisticated.

The accounting books are supposedly teaching techniques to spot these deceptive practices, of course, but they can not teach that without outlining how they are done. It is not hard to read between the lines. Particularly when you already know how the backroom bar bet version of these cons work.

It is time to go back to his place in LA and look over some of the records he copied from Mr. Jones. Sort out what Mr. Jones was up to with his money and experiment a bit himself. Though it is a shame to risk his own money for that. He narrows his eyes thoughtfully.

Mac comes home after camping for the weekend, dumping his gear in a pile to put away later. He opens the fridge to get some orange juice and blinks at the nondescript white paper box next to the juice.

He takes the box out cautiously. It’s lightweight, like the bakery box it appears to be. Setting it on the counter, he presses his ear to it: no ticking, that’s good. He gently touches the sides of the box and feels them flex like a normal paperboard box, not encountering anything solid or mechanical.

Mac slides the blade of his Swiss army knife under the red and white twine holding it tied shut and cuts it. Slowly, feeling for any unexpected obstacles and listening for any clicks, he lifts the lid just enough to peek inside. Seeing nothing but baked goods, he opens it the rest of the way.

Half a dozen peach muffins are nestled in brightly colored tissue paper. There’s a small card:

Just passing through
I will catch you next time
So to speak
XOXO

Mac keeps an eye out, but it’s another two weeks before he sees Murdoc in person.

Chapter Text

Mac comes home from a long day of fruitless activity at the Foundation. He had been preparing to fly down to rescue a group of civilians caught in the midst of a skirmish along the Nicaragua/Honduras border when word came in that they had made it out safely. Which is great news, obviously.

But, mission aborted, it left him going home alone on his birthday. He has no plans because he had expected to be out of the country. It’s a good ending for the people who had been in danger, so he’s trying real hard not to be disappointed that it leaves him unneeded and alone on his birthday.

He unlocks his door and pushes it open, then stops. There’s a shipping crate in the middle of his living room. That wasn’t there when he left this morning. Four feet tall, two feet on a side, it’s made of cheap plywood and there’s a peach sitting on top. There is a single yellow balloon tied to a slender wooden skewer which is stuck into the peach.

Well. Today just got a lot more interesting.

He closes the door slowly behind him. He is intrigued, but also on alert. His sour mood has evaporated. There’s a note under the peach:

Happy birthday! When you opened the door, it started a timer. If you want your present, you had better work fast. XOXO

Now, when someone who likes to make bombs has left you something that looks very much like a bomb, that’s not the time to be rushed into opening strange boxes.

Mac circles the crate, examining it from all angles. Superficially, it looks like a standard shipping crate except… he crouches down and looks closely at an incongruous inch long bit of metal along the center of the bottom side: a pressure plate. That’ll trigger something if he’s not careful.

There’s another one on the opposite side. Two more along the top. He’ll need to keep pressure on them when he pries the crate open, and he’d better start with the top because lifting the whole crate off of the bottom would probably snap the wires leading to the top plates.

Mac rummages around in a drawer and comes up with a couple of magnets, which he carefully applies to the top pair of pressure plates. Fortunately, they are made of a magnetic metal and the magnets stick to them, holding them down. He carefully pries the top of the crate off with a screwdriver.

With the top off, he can trace the wires from the pressure plates to the contraption in the middle. There’s a big timer counting down and as he looks at it, it hits a line labeled “Lights!” and there’s a spark under a metal mesh dome and a candle is lit by an electric spark igniter. Above the candle, but under the protective dome, is a tiny round bottom flask full of some clear liquid that begins to bubble enthusiastically. At a guess he’s gonna need to do something before that liquid all boils off.

Various ornamental LEDs also turn on. They glimmer festively around the inside of the box, red and yellow and green dots of light. The timer also has lines for “Camera!” and “Action!” and while he’s not sure about “Camera!” he knows he doesn’t want to let it get to “Action!”

Stripping insulation off of the pressure plate wires, he uses a spare bit of wire to connect them together, shorting the circuit and preventing it from being broken as he breaks down the rest of the crate. The round bottom flask is held up by a metal ring; the ring is held up by a bar leading off to the side. It attaches to a pivot point and the other end has a tiny counter weight which hovers ominously over an electrical contact point. It is slowly descending towards that contact as the liquid evaporates.

The mesh dome over the flask would seem to allow water to be added to replenish the liquid level in the flask, adding additional time to disarm it, but he doesn’t trust this apparently easy cheat.

In addition to the various ornamental lights, there’s a barely visible beam of light passing through the liquid in the flask. Cautiously, Mac sniffs the air above the flask. Iodine. He licks his finger and gently touches it to the dome, then licks it. Sodium bisulfate. Yeah, pouring water through the mesh would pick up some of the sodium bisulfate and turn the iodide solution black, blocking the light beam, and doubtless triggering the mechanism. There would be a small delay before the color change, but at the temperature of boiling water not much of one.

Mac looks over the rest of the contraption. A ring of bricks stacked three high contains and directs the potential blast from a dozen evenly spaced cherry bombs that surround a wrapped parcel in the center. Thoughtful, that would spare his furniture by directing the blast straight up and down, blowing a hole in the bottom of the houseboat instead. Murdoc always did have a sense of humor.

Each cherry bomb has an electric ignitor like the one that lit the candle; they would light simultaneously and while he might have time to snuff out a couple of them there’s no way he could put out all twelve short fuses before they went off.

The ignitors are all attached to a ring that holds them in place. The cherry bombs are not attached to that, they are all held in place by their own, separate ring. The ring that holds the ignitors is held up on short stakes, but it does not appear to be held down by anything other than gravity. Unfortunately, it is a wooden ring so he can’t use the magnet trick on it.

What he needs is something to lift that ring up. Half an inch is all he needs to get those ignitors safely away from the fuses, but there’s no way to reach the ring directly. The timer ticks around and hits “Camera!” and there’s a click and a flash from across the room. Glancing up, he realizes there’s a camera concealed in a bookshelf. Well. As long as it doesn’t get to “Action!” that shouldn’t be too embarrassing.

Mac retrieves a bottle of hydrogen peroxide from the first aid supplies under his sink. He carefully unties the balloon, deflating it. He snaps the slender wooden skewer that it had been attached to in half.

Using these nonconductive wooden sticks, he maneuvers the empty balloon down past the edge of the wire mesh dome and carefully nudges it into position so that the body of the balloon is under the wooden ring holding the ignitors. Then he holds the mouth of the balloon up and open with one stake while he takes the other stake and carefully tilts the top of the round bottom flask over, spilling some of the iodine liquid into the balloon, leaving just enough in the flask that he still has a few seconds to pull this off.

Popping the top off of the hydrogen peroxide, he squirts it through the dome into the mouth of the balloon. The mixture begins to foam violently as soon as the hydrogen peroxide hits. He pinches the mouth of the balloon shut with his stick and the balloon bulges upward as the foam rapidly expands inside it, lifting the ring of ignitors free of the cherry bomb fuses.

Something clicks and the ignitors flash, attempting to light the fuses, but they have been displaced upward far enough that only one, on the far side from the balloon, lights. Lifting the protective dome out of the way, he snuffs that one between his fingers and, with a triumphant grin, pulls out the gift wrapped package that was in the center just as there’s another click and flash from across the room.

The package is wrapped in festive birthday paper with images of lit firecrackers all over it. He unwraps it carefully, but there are no more traps. Indeed, it weighs practically nothing. Under the paper is a small box which contains only a single ticket for a hockey game, LA Kings vs Calgary Flames. A hockey game that starts in—he checks his watch—20 minutes. He’d better hurry.

When Mac gets up to the ticket counter, he hands over his ticket. The woman behind the window looks at it, grins, and calls someone else over.

“Raúl will show you to your seat. Have a nice evening,” she tells him with a cheerful smile while he blinks and looks at the familiar face approaching.

Raúl waves Mac along.

“Raúl? You still working for Murdoc?”

“Mr. Murdoc does offer very good benefits.”

“Did he smuggle you into the US?”

“No, no smuggling.” Raúl pauses and reconsiders that. “Well, only a little smuggling. Mr. Murdoc smuggled me out of Bolivia and to the border of the USA. There, I applied for asylum. Mr. Murdoc has a very good lawyer.”

“Huh.”

Raúl grins cheerfully. “There is a Bolivian drug cartel that wants me dead, you know. Because I helped expose their operations! The lawyer says it is an excellent case.”

“Uh, shouldn’t I be going out there?” Mac waves in the general direction of the rink, and the seat listed on his ticket, which they are walking away from.

“No, no, come this way.”

Murdoc did set this up, so really, how had he expected it to follow a predictable script? There could be another puzzle or trap waiting. He feels a stab of anxiety at the thought of missing the hockey game which is about to start.

The strains of the anthem being sung drift out of the main arena as Raúl leads him to a door and opens it on a small private box. There, he can see Murdoc himself, a champagne glass full of amber liquid in one hand, his feet propped up on the window sill, looking out over the ice.

At the sound of the door opening, Murdoc looks over and grins, bouncing to his feet. He’s wearing black jeans and Mac’s yellow Minnesota sweatshirt. He must have taken it earlier when he left the present.

Something shifts in his chest at the sight of Murdoc waiting for him here, cheerful and casual and comfortable in his stolen shirt.

Mine, Mac thinks, startlingly himself with a jolt of possessiveness which is not about the shirt.

Murdoc sets the glass down and waves Raúl away with a quick thanks.

“You made it, excellent. They are about to do the kick-off or drop-off or whatever they do. I have no idea what is going on down there,” he says, with a wave at the window. “Drink?” he holds out a second champagne flute of amber liquid. “It is mostly pineapple juice, with a splash of ginger ale.”

Mac takes the glass with one hand and with the other he catches Murdoc’s hand and holds it. “Thanks,” he says softly.

Murdoc’s answering smile is unironic, for once. “Happy birthday, Peach.”

The whistle and yells of the game starting pull his attention towards the ice but he keeps Murdoc’s hand in his.

MacGyver explains the basic mechanics of hockey in between excited exclamations about the events unfolding on the ice. Murdoc pays attention because he doesn’t like it when he does not understand something. The way MacGyver’s face lights up when he talks makes it easy to focus. Plus, the announcer keeps saying things such as, “he’s trying to find that open hole on the back side,” with apparent seriousness.

Yet, by the time the buzzer sounds the end of the first period, Murdoc’s attention has started to wander. He toys with his glass of juice.

“Why don’t you drink alcohol? Alcoholic in the family? Afraid to lose a few of those brain cells?”

“I like to stay in control of my faculties. I can make enough bad decisions without any help.”

“Ahh, yes. Cheers!” Murdoc toasts brightly.

MacGyver gives an amused snort. “I’m glad to see Raúl is doing well.”

“He likes America.”

“You need connections with people. Not just me. And not whatever criminals you do business with, armed to the teeth. Ordinary people. Preferably people who do not see themselves as standing apart from society.”

“That sounds so common.”

“I think you might enjoy having regular people around. Friends, most folks call them.”

Murdoc looks skeptical.

“By the way, you wouldn’t know anything about a group of people unexpectedly being released in Honduras earlier today?”

“Hmm, sounds terribly altruistic. Clearly that could not possibly have been my doing.”

“Of course not.” He takes a sip of the sparkling juice. “Out of curiosity, how did you activate the bomb on entry? I didn’t find the trigger for that.”

“Oh, that part was a lie,” Murdoc says airily. “The bomb activated when you opened the box. Really, MacGyver, you should not believe everything you read. A bomb maker is hardly a reliable source of information.”

It is the second intermission and Mac is excitedly going on about lifetime achievements and other statistics. Murdoc stopped following the details a while ago, but the enthusiastic gleam in MacGyver’s eyes still has his interest.

Murdoc eyes the large window looking out over the ice, which stretches almost floor to ceiling. Almost. There’s about 18 inches of opaque wall under the window.

“I bet there’s enough cover we could have sex there without anyone noticing,” he suggests with a wide grin.

Mac gives him an exasperated look.

“What? There’s 12 more minutes left of this break. I’m sure you could manage. And if not,” he smirks, “you can just pop your head up and watch the game while you fuck me.”

“Absolutely not.”

Murdoc gives a faintly amused huff and slides sideways in his seat, managing to lean his head against MacGyver while putting his feet up on the wall.

“Fine. I got us a room at the Ritz-Carlton anyway. I would not want the excellent bed there to go to waste.”

MacGyver runs his fingers through Murdoc’s hair.

As the third period stretches on, Murdoc puts his hand on MacGyver’s knee. When MacGyver shifts around, cheering or yelling, Murdoc casually slides his hand a fraction of an inch higher. He is focused on making his movement as casual as possible, blending it in with the responses MacGyver has to the game.

He has his own little game here. It is just like brushing past someone on the street and picking their pocket. He wants to see how far he can get and what will happen when the other man deigns to notice exactly how far up his hand has gotten.

He is not paying any attention to the progress of the hockey game, so he is surprised when a particularly important (apparently) goal makes MacGyver leap to his feet, cheering. He is hauled to his feet by the hand he had so painstakingly inched halfway up MacGyver’s thigh, but before he has time to regret that lost progress, MacGyver is kissing him soundly.

“Go team,” he says breathlessly when MacGyver releases him.

When they reach the privacy of the hotel room, Murdoc slides the deadbolt closed with a flourish and turns to present himself to MacGyver.

“I will take anything you wish to do to me tonight, birthday boy,” he says, smiling suggestively. “My only stipulation is that you do not tie me down to anything.”

“That’s a generous offer,” MacGyver says.

“Based on your reaction to a little wax, I do not think you are interested in inflicting any pain I would not thoroughly enjoy. I am willing to take a chance that you are not going to reveal something truly unexpected.” He gestures, a casual dismissal of any consequences. “If you do, I will have learned something about you. Informative either way.”

“Is that right?” MacGyver asks.

Frustratingly, he has yet to move.

“I am willing to stake my evening on it, yes. You are creative but I highly doubt you will want to do anything I can not handle.” Murdoc pauses. Perhaps he should have stuck to his usual plan of irritating MacGyver until he stopped thinking about being noble. “In fact, if it will encourage you to be more bold in your choices, we can use a safeword.” He waits a beat, then adds condescendingly, “If you know what that is, Peach.”

MacGyver hums thoughtfully. “Alright. I do have an idea.”

“Which is?”

“I think I’ll make it a birthday surprise.”

“I do hope it begins with undressing. You will find that I am entirely firearm-free this evening, for your enjoyment.” Murdoc holds his arms out and does a slow turn, showing no weapons, which they both know means nothing.

“Perhaps we should start with your safeword. What do you want it to be?”

Murdoc grins wide. “Disaster.”

“Alright.” MacGyver moves into his space, resting a hand lightly on the small of his back and looking into his eyes. “You are always so impatient.”

“On the contrary,” he says, his words starting to go breathless as a second hand joins the first, “I spent days setting this up. Everything in its proper time, and now is the time for action.”

He watches MacGyver's face as he shifts his hands down to the sides of Murdoc’s waist. There is a hint of surprise as his hands encounter the usual gun holsters there, followed by a flicker of skepticism, of disapproval. He lifts the yellow Minnesota sweatshirt to expose the holsters, lips parting on words of reproach, no doubt.

Then he sees the contents of the holsters: a bottle of lube in one and a bottle of massage oil in the other. MacGyver’s face goes through rapid shifts: surprise, amusement, exasperation.

He rather thinks exasperation is his favorite.

“Don’t mix those up,” he says, as MacGyver extracts the bottles and puts them on a bedside table. “The oil is not condom-safe.”

MacGyver looks him up and down. Murdoc meets his eyes innocently, with the sure knowledge that nothing else he is carrying is visible.

“I assume you also have condoms there somewhere.”

“See if you can find them.”

MacGyver’s reactions while disarming him have always been extremely funny; he is expecting this evening to outdo them all. He is accustomed to hiding a full arsenal of nasty surprises under a slim fitting (albeit custom tailored for the purpose) suit. The oversized fit of his purloined sweatshirt provided novel opportunities for planning an evening of indulgence.

MacGyver pulls the sweatshirt up over his head and tosses it aside. He stands back to survey what he sees: the row of clothespins clipped to one strap of the holster harness, a leather cock ring circling one slim bicep, a rigger’s gauntlet of thin black rope covering one forearm.

At a gesture, Murdoc turns to display the strip of condoms along the back of the harness, held on by carefully placed nipple clamps: the clamps biting only the edges of the packaging, and the chain connecting them stretched taut so as not to give anything away by jingling.

MacGyver removes items one by one, dropping them onto a growing pile on a bedside table. Murdoc watches his face with glee as he discovers a butt plug under the bottle of lube in one holster and a small candle (he does not think MacGyver will go for wax play tonight, but he does like to keep his options open) in the other.

“Do you think you can handle what’s in my pants, birthday boy?” Murdoc taunts.

“I suppose all these things are items you are sure you can handle.” MacGyver muses. “So you have stacked the deck before declaring that anything is on the table.”

“I have provided a few things as a courtesy, but I am confident that with your noted improvisational talents, you can repurpose these basic items into anything else you might require.”

MacGyver fingers a strand of the rope thoughtfully.

“Not that I doubt your ability to contrive a way to tie my hands together without rope,” Murdoc adds, calling upon his notorious acting skills to sound casual about that prospect, “but it might be a tad utilitarian. The rope has a certain aesthetic quality that a torn bedsheet lacks.”

His boots come off next, one yielding a slender vibrator in lieu of the dagger he often carries there. MacGyver unbuckles his belt and jeans, then spends a moment puzzling out how the flogger wrapped around his waist is held in place (clamps are so versatile). The tight fitting jeans did not provide cover for much else, but there is a leather band around one thigh, holding a tiny bullet vibe suggestively near sensitive body parts. Each calf is wrapped in red rope, a match to the rigger’s gauntlet on his arm, a familiar heart motif worked into the side.

“Now what are you going to do with all that?” Murdoc asks, looking coyly up through his lashes at MacGyver. He is fully naked now, stripped of his clothes and his toys.

“Going to leave it all here while we take a shower, Doc.”

He feels a rush of emotion at the nickname. Vulnerability, at the reminder that he has allowed MacGyver to know his true background. The pride at his old accomplishments, the shame of the old loss, the pride again at MacGyver seeing him as more than just a murderer, despite everything. The name Doc does not quite suit who he is now, but it is better than Murdoc coming from this man at a time like this.

MacGyver strips off his own clothes efficiently. He is not so terribly shy behind closed doors, but he does not seem interested in displaying himself either. A shame, he would look fantastic wearing nothing but a sheen of massage oil, lit by the warm glow of a dozen candles. Perhaps that is something Doc should arrange in the future.

Under the spray of warm water, MacGyver slides his hands over Doc’s body, slick with the hotel’s scented shower gel. He is content to let those hands roam over him, talented fingers gently rubbing at the faint marks which remain from the rope and other accouterments he wore all evening.

He is pulled into an embrace, his back against MacGyver’s chest. Warm fingers slide suds up his chest. As MacGyver’s hands move slow and sure up his body. Doc leans back into him, pleased to be touched, proud of his body, content to be adored.

“Close your eyes,” MacGyver murmurs and he does without thinking about why.

A spike of alarm interrupts his relaxation as soapy fingers gently wash the concealer off his scarred cheek. Of course, MacGyver knows those scars are there. He saw the damage there before he had it fixed by a skilled surgeon. And MacGyver saw the lingering traces after, when Murdoc left his cheek deliberately, defiantly, uncovered in their first hotel encounter, despite not allowing anyone else to see his scarred face since it had healed.

The first time he allowed those residual scars to show, he was angry. MacGyver was bleating about leaving some faint red marks from candle wax on his body while his face was permanently scarred by their previous encounters. See what you actually did to me he had thought. That anger seems distant now, but the reminder of it is an unsettling jolt.

MacGyver washes off the last of his disguises, leaving him exposed, without his comfortable pretenses. The way he is being held, with an arm around his chest, MacGyver must surely have noticed his increased rate of breathing. He lets out a slow breath and wills himself to relax. He pushes the old memory aside, concentrating on the current sensations, the warm water and the naked man pressed up against him.

A hand shields his eyes and MacGyver murmurs, “hold your breath,” and then the arm around his body shifts him slightly and warm water cascades over his face. He spends a moment enjoying that: warm and wet, with his arms held against his sides, can’t see, can’t breathe… then the water shuts off and MacGyver is drying him gently with a towel.

Back in the hotel bedroom, MacGyver looks into his eyes and grins, soft and daring, enticing, one of those looks which must inspire the civilians he herds out of danger to follow his lead.

“You said anything, so long as I don’t tie you down, so I guess I’ll have to find a use for this other than restraint.” MacGyver picks up the coil of black rope he unwound from Murdoc’s arm earlier. “Something ornamental, then.”

“Certainly.”

MacGyver’s hands find the center of the rope as his eyes roam over Doc’s body and he feels his cock, already slightly alert from the shower, perk up a bit more.

“Hands behind your head.”

He obeys and MacGyver leans into his space. He can feel the other man’s body heat, feel the air currents from his movements as arms reach around behind him. The rope settles around his waist. Front to back, then wrapped around again to form a rope belt. Then the two ends of the rope are tucked and pulled downward, split apart…

MacGyver looks him in the eye and says, “spread your legs” which he does with alacrity. The ropes pass on either side of his balls, under his body and back up to attach to the center of the rope belt in the back. MacGyver presses against him, warm and still damp from the shower, tucking his chin over Doc’s shoulder to look down his back to tie the ropes off.

MacGyver steps back and reaches for one of the red ropes. He takes one end of the rope and ties it to the center rope on the right in a lark’s head knot. He trails warm fingers around to the center line in back and ties it there. He slides his fingers along skin back to the front, so close yet so far from Doc’s slowly hardening cock. His hand shields the sensitive skin there from the friction of the rope as he pulls it through. The force from tightening each knot shifts his weight towards MacGyver, briefly. Then the release of tension allows him to rock back onto both feet until the next knot.

MacGyver drops into a crouch as he weaves the rope back and forth, working his way down the right side, pulling the center rope further and further open as he does so. When he finishes with that piece of rope, he picks up the other piece of red and ties it the same way on the left. The black ropes are spread wide now, several lines of red rope covering his hips on either side. The red and black ropes form an elliptical frame for his cock in front and doubtless his ass in back.

“Looking good, Doc. What do you think?”

MacGyver puts one hand on his lower back and guides him over to a mirror. The ropes shift deliciously, resisting his movement as he takes the few steps. Doc looks at himself: cock rising up in the center of the frame of black and red ropes.

“I think you have learned a thing or two. A Marquise hip harness, is it?”

“That’s what the book said,” MacGyver replies easily. “I guess the male form would be Marquis.”

“It’s the name of the tie,” he says absently, admiring different angles in the mirror. “Like the cut of diamond. I do not think it matters who it is on.”

MacGyver guides him over to the bed, then turns away, fishing his Swiss army knife out of the pocket of his discarded pants and looking around the room speculatively.

Doc arranges himself on display, naked but for the ropes, propped up on one elbow on the leopard-patterned throw blanket, a contrasting backdrop for his pale skin and—he can not resist running one hand over a rope-clad hip again—the colorful ropes accentuating his body.

He watches as MacGyver turns slowly in place, examining the room. He focuses on the window: airy open-weave cream colored fabric draped loosely across the blackout blinds, which are currently closed.

MacGyver reaches up and carefully cuts a single vertical strand of the loose weave, then spends a moment gently freeing it until he holds a single delicate strand, about a meter long. He coils it up and sets it on the nightstand next to the pile of things Doc brought.

He chooses a different item from that pile, the bottle of massage oil. “Lie face down,” he says; Doc is happy to oblige.

Knees press against the rope on his hips as MacGyver straddles him. Firm, oil-slicked fingers glide up his back, then knead the back of his neck, working down to shoulders and spine while he melts into the bed.

MacGyver’s hands stroke down his lower back, which arches eagerly up into those hands without his conscious decision. Lordosis response a corner of his mind says, clinical and self-mocking. Then MacGyver’s hands are pulling him further up and back, are rubbing massage oil all over him, and thankfully his inner voices shut up in favor of savoring the sensation.

Knees shift, releasing him.

“Turn over.”

Hands guide him to lie where MacGyver wishes, with his arms up over his head. He is surprised to feel thread being laid across his palm. He tilts his head up to see MacGyver lean down, passing the thread under the corner of the bed before placing the other end of the thread in his free hand.

“Hold on to those. Don’t break the thread.”

“You should know I am not good at self restraint,” he says with a mixture of arousal and dismay.

“That’s what makes it challenging,” MacGyver says, entirely unperturbed by the protest. Then he dips his head and licks a nipple and Doc squeezes his hands into fists, holding his arms in place, leaving himself open and vulnerable as sharp teeth nip lightly at delicate skin. MacGyver raises his head and kisses Doc, warm and lingering, before turning his attention lower.

MacGyver takes his time, alternating soft presses of lips and tongue with gentle bites, as though building up a catalog of Doc’s responses to pain and pleasure applied to his lips, neck, nipples, and then, shifting lower, inner thighs.

Licking his thumb, he trails it up one thigh and across sensitive bits in a slow tease and Doc is vaguely aware that he makes an impatient noise.

“Don’t worry, you’ll have a chance to finish before morning.”

“Before—!”

“It’s my birthday,” he says, far too cheerfully. “And you said you were confident you could handle anything I would like to do.”

“Bloody hell.”

Doc mentally curses MacGyver’s infuriating self control. Neither his cutest pout nor barbed words are going to make MacGyver fuck him any faster than MacGyver wants to.

Neither will threats. “I am going to kill you.”

“Somehow I don’t think so.”

He sounds amused. Bastard.

“Not even you can get off with this slow tease,” Murdoc complains.

“I am enjoying myself,” MacGyver says, without speeding up.

“You are torturing me.”

“Good thing you’re into that.”

“I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

“You never had the chance,” MacGyver says easily and he feels his cock twitch in humiliation and desire, at being so casually, justifiably, dismissed. “And my death would hardly get you what you want, now would it?”

That is hotter than it has any right to be.

“This is cruel and unusual punishment,” he accuses. “You enjoy making me suffer.”

“Maybe you just haven’t asked nicely enough yet.”

Doc growls low in his throat at the idea that MacGyver might make him beg for more. He should have specified he was willing to take any physical pain. He should have remembered, in all his planning, that MacGyver is, above all, unpredictable.

Humiliation not at what he wants. At least, it has never been on the long list of things that got him off before. Nonetheless, he continues to hold himself spread open and vulnerable, on MacGyver’s command.

The uncertainty, the fact that MacGyver freely uses or ignores all his toys (which, yes, were a bit of a suggestion for the evening’s events) and does whatever he wants instead fuels his sudden sense of helplessness. He can feel MacGyver’s eyes on him. Held in place by nothing more than an order to stay.

Doc presses his eyes closed and allows himself to be lulled into a delicious, agonizing daze. His skin tingles, sensitized and yearning for more touch at the same time his mind goes blissfully blank, waiting for MacGyver to decide when it is time to move on.

Suddenly, MacGyver dips his head and sucks the head of his cock into his mouth: warm and wet and exactly what he has been aching for. Doc jerks, involuntarily, at the suddenness of it. He catches himself, not fast enough. The ends of the thread hang from his hands, damning and incontestable evidence, as he looks down to meet MacGyver’s eyes.

Everything had been going so well.

For a few long seconds, his cock is still held in the warmth of MacGyver’s mouth, but that mouth has stopped moving. Doc holds his breath, watching as MacGyver’s eyes flick across the incriminating loose ends of the thread, hoping that somehow he will just keep going. Then MacGyver pulls off, leaving his cock unattended, bereft in the cool air.

Doc starts babbling frantically. He hears himself say, “you can fix it, you fix things, I’ll be good, do anything you want, I can make it up to you,” as words tumble out of his mouth, barely registering, as he tries to bargain, to find an angle to play, to claim that—despite all evidence—he can be good, that he is worth a second chance.

MacGyver squeezes his shoulder and waits until he stops for breath.

“Hey,” MacGyver says gently.

“Tie me down, you could tie me down, use the rope, tie my wrists to the bed, I’ll be good.”

“No, I agreed to one rule: not to restrain you like that.”

“I hate that rule.”

“Of course you do,” he says. “But we are going to follow it anyway. Get up on your knees.”

Doc obeys hastily.

“Good. Spread them a little more.” MacGyver pulls over a pillow and puts it behind him. “Now lean back. Don’t move your knees. There you go, just like that.”

Doc leans back, body a taut arc, resting his weight on his elbows.

MacGyver stands up and circles around the bed, fishing a belt out of their discarded clothing. Doc braces himself but MacGyver merely leans over, passing the belt around below the bed where the thread had been.

“Reach up here.” He guides Doc’s arms up over his head; he can no longer support himself on his elbows, now all the strain is on his thighs and abs. “There you go, a little farther back. Good. Hold on to this.”

He places the ends of the belt in Doc’s hands. He can not move without releasing it, but at least it will not break. He is holding himself up with his thighs, his shoulders pressing down on the pillow MacGyver put down under him, giving him a precious few centimeters of lift. The rest of his body is stretched taut, abs straining, his cock on display between his spread legs, and his hole exposed for anything MacGyver has in mind. He flushes at the thought of how he must look.

A warm hand rests briefly on his stomach. “Stay just like that.”

And then, MacGyver goes back to taking his time: slow and gentle caresses of fingers and tongue. An occasional nibble. Except that now his thighs are burning with the exertion of holding himself steady while MacGyver indulges himself. Bent back like this, he cannot even see the delicious sight of MacGyver’s casual exploration of his desperately hard cock. All he can see is the wall behind him and the ceiling, so he closes his eyes and concentrates on breathing and holding still as MacGyver licks a long, slow stripe up the underside of his cock.

Finally, he feels MacGyver take his cock into that gorgeous mouth of his again. Doc feels a groan of pleasure escape him as MacGyver slides further down. The warm, firm pleasure of his mouth is joined by a hand gripping the base of his cock.

There is the sharp click of a lid opening and a moment later cool, wet fingers rub across his hole. The hands and mouth fall into a rhythm, steadily building pleasure. The fingers start to slip just inside, a stimulation that any other time would have his full attention, but now is incidental to what that talented mouth is doing on his cock.

When his pleasure finally peaks, MacGyver stills and holds his cock, warm and secure, though it. When he pulls off, Doc lifts his head enough to see him licking his lips. Abruptly, he is aware that those fingertips are still resting just barely inside him. He feels the bed shift as MacGyver moves up between his legs and leans forward over him.

“I’m going to have you stretch out your legs, but don’t let go of the belt.” MacGyver slides his free hand under Doc’s body, lifting the weight off of that side. He gratefully extends that leg, hissing as the muscles are allowed to relax. Then MacGyver turns him the other way, a bit more awkwardly—reaching across his body since he seems unwilling to move his other hand—releasing the other leg, and he can finally relax.

“I hope you’re not tired yet,” he says, bumping his hard cock against Doc’s inner thigh. Then he is lifting Doc’s legs up, hooking them on his shoulders. Doc may be flexible, but he has never had someone exploit that so ruthlessly, arranging him and using him like a doll. His muscles are relaxed from the relief of strain and the endorphins of his orgasm and he moves unresistingly, feeling like clay to be molded into whatever shape MacGyver wishes.

“Good boy,” MacGyver murmurs approvingly in his ear, before brushing lips across his cheek.

MacGyver snags a condom with one arm and opens the wrapper with his teeth. He finally removes his fingers to get the condom on, then immediately that delicious cock is bumping against his hole. MacGyver enters him in one smooth stroke and pauses, giving him time to adjust, muscle clenching and relaxing. The sensation is perfect: hot and tight and slick in the best way. It is nothing compared to the look in MacGyver’s eyes, though: greedy and delighted.

When MacGyver starts fucking him with a slow controlled roll of hips, Murdoc groans in frustration and starts pleading for him to go faster, harder. MacGyver murmurs, “not yet,” and changes nothing.
The leisurely movements tease him, the stimulation almost—but not quite—enough to build towards another peak. He squirms within his limited movement and pulls hard against the belt, trying to angle for more but MacGyver adjusts without missing a (slow, relentless) beat.

Murdoc starts babbling, trying to find some combination of words to goad MacGyver into speeding up, giving him more, only vaguely aware of his own words, “use me, fill me up, breed me, make me take it, MacGyver.”

MacGyver rests one hand lightly on his throat, caressing his carotid arteries. He needs something and if MacGyver is not going to give it to him by fucking him hard and fast, he will take the implied order of a hand on his throat, forcing him to be good, to wait.

He relaxes into it, going quiet, helpless, and focused on the feel of his own pulse under those fingers. The lightly threatening hand combined with the slow fucking; he drifts and takes the sensations given to him and waits, hard and desperate, until he is allowed more.

Gradually, MacGyver picks up the pace; he hears himself moan as he finally gets the stimulation he has been aching for.

When he starts to come again, MacGyver surprises him by pressing down, cutting off the blood flow through those arteries for a few precious, well-timed seconds. He comes so hard he sees stars. Or maybe that’s the oxygen deprivation. Either way, he should know better than to underestimate this man.

He relaxes and watches MacGyver’s face as he finishes, biting his lip and making a satisfied sound deep in his throat.

MacGyver snags a discarded towel, left on the floor after their shower, getting to his feet and starting to clean up.

“I don’t know if they covered this in medical school,” he starts casually, “but breeding requires—“

“Oh shut up.” Murdoc grabs a pillow and chucks it with deadly aim. MacGyver ducks to the side, moving his face directly into the path of the second pillow. Murdoc cackles in triumph.

“I’ll just keep trying then.”

“If I let you.”

“I’ll make it up to you.” MacGyver looks at him, all big soft puppy eyes. “I’ll buy you breakfast.”

“You were going to do that anyway,” Murdoc says airily, suppressing relief that MacGyver plans to stay the night with him.

“Probably,” he admits.

“I have to save up my money for those all inclusive trips I take you on,” Doc adds.

“You mean when you kidnap me and put me in life threatening situations?”

“You enjoy it.”

MacGyver scoffs but does not, Doc notices, quite deny it.

“Your fascination with potentially deadly things—”

“Is profoundly unsurprising?” Doc suggests dryly.

“Is probably unhealthy.”

“You mean like a tendency to run towards danger?”

MacGyver huffs dismissively. “I really shouldn’t starve too many of your brain cells of oxygen.”

“I can spare a few.”

“The risk—”

“You are good with risk,” he interrupts. It gets your attention, he thinks. “I could not be any safer.”

MacGyver extends a hand and pulls him up. “Let me untie that so you can shower.”

“You knew I would fail at that stupid thread thing,” he says accusingly as MacGyver starts to undo his knotwork.

“I wasn’t sure,” MacGyver says, then grins. “But I did think it would be informative either way.”

Doc rolls his eyes.

MacGyver kisses his temple. “Thanks for a very good birthday.“

When MacGyver gets out of the shower, Doc is sprawled across the bed. It isn’t really possible for a man who is 5'8" to take up an oversized king bed by himself, but Murdoc has always been ambitious.

Chapter Text

Jennifer is lying on MacGyver’s couch, staring at the early afternoon sunlight moving across the wall, when she hears the door rattle. She sits up, relieved that MacGyver is home. She could really use his advice right now. She had to let herself in when she got here, and there’s never any telling how long Mac will be gone. The lack of food in the kitchen made her worry that he might be gone for days or weeks. Also, she hasn’t eaten today.

It’s not MacGyver at the door, though. It’s some strange man. She tenses up. There’s a back door, as well as the window upstairs. If this is one of MacGyver’s friends, surely he’s not a bad person? But she doesn't like being caught alone, in a secluded space, by a strange man.

The man stops short, just inside the door (closed it behind him, damn; if she has to try to escape that way she’ll lose a precious second opening it). He looks just as shocked to see her as she is to see him. He’s holding a white bakery box and he’s wearing a suit. He doesn’t look like a delivery guy (no one delivering bakery goods is going to have a key to someone’s place, she berates herself immediately) but maybe he’s just dropping something off.

Jennifer glances at the back door, gauging the distance, then back at the man. She licks her lips nervously, trying to figure out how to ask who he is and why he is here without potentially angering him. Before she decides on phrasing, he shifts slightly and speaks.

“Oh. Hello. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here.” His voice is lighter than she would have expected, with a British accent. Something about him seems… odd, but not threatening.

“I’m waiting for MacGyver,” she admits. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

“I believe he left town for a few days,” he says, sounding regretful.

“Oh great.” Jennifer throws herself back down on the couch with a heavy sigh. “He didn’t even leave anything to raid in his fridge.” After a moment, she realizes that she has taken her eyes off of him and sits back up quickly, but he hasn’t moved.

“How did you get in here?” he asks.

“Oh, MacGyver always leaves an upstairs window unlocked.”

He blinks. “Good to know.”

Should she not have told him that? But he seems to have a key, so surely MacGyver trusts him to be here. She frowns worriedly, hoping she didn’t say the wrong thing.

He holds out the bakery box. “Why don’t you have a scone and tell Auntie Murdoc all about it?”

“Murdoc? That’s a funny name.”

“My friend calls me Doc.”

“Friend, huh? Just one?” She sighs heavily again. “That must be Mac, I guess, since you are here, bringing him scones? I think he might be my only real friend these days, too. My friends at school don’t exactly understand…”

He wags the bakery box at her again and smiles encouragingly.

“Those scones are for Mac,” she protests weakly.

“MacGyver told me I should keep my plans flexible.”

She bites her lip, hesitating. He sets the bakery box down on the counter and moves into the kitchen area. There’s something about the way he moves, sort of fluid and… swishy.

She remembers Brenda pointing out a guy who moved like that when they were working a party. “He’s not interested in what we’re selling, that one,” Brenda had said with a laugh. “He’s more likely to be our competition.”

So. He’s probably not interested in… harassing her.

She gets up and moves cautiously towards the bakery box.

He’s poking around in the kitchen; he seems to know where to find things because he produces a teakettle Jennifer had no idea MacGyver owned and snags a box of tea off of a high shelf.

“I’ll make us some tea. Do you like Darjeeling?”

“I don’t know,” she admits.

He makes a tsking sound, “Americans don’t know good tea.” He frowns judgmentally at the box in his hand. “Which this is not, to be honest, but perhaps MacGyver has some milk around.”

“I’ve never had milk in tea,” she says, wrinkling her nose. Milk is good in coffee, it’s the only thing that makes it drinkable. But she isn’t so sure about what it would do to tea.

He fixes them both cups of tea, in mismatched mugs, failing to find milk or much of anything else in the fridge. He complains about this theatrically and she finds herself relaxing enough to giggle at his over the top indignation.

The tea is… okay. And the scone is really good, with chunks of fruit and some kind of spice she’s not familiar with. She feels a lot better after having something to eat.

Murdoc… Doc? nudges the box at her, silently encouraging her to take a second scone. “Tell me how you came to be hiding out in MacGyver’s home.”

She looks at his open, kind expression. He doesn’t seem like he would judge. There are faint crow’s feet at the edges of his eyes and a sort of world-weariness about him that suggests he might not be shocked at her past. So, to her own surprise, she finds herself giving a true if highly abbreviated version of how she came to know MacGyver and why she cannot go home right now as she picks at a second scone.

“We all sell something, dearie,” he says quietly. “Our bodies or our minds, one way or another.”

He rummages through one of the drawers under Mac’s bookshelf and produces a deck of cards.

“Do you know how to play poker?”

Jennifer frowns. “Gambling?” she asks skeptically. Not like she has any money to lose. If she had any money, she could solve most of her problems right now. Not about going home, but at least she’d have food, and could maybe even get her own motel room to sleep in.

Murdoc hums noncommittally. “Poker is considered a game of skill, my dear. There is some randomness in the way the cards are dealt but the real game is not in how you play the odds, but in how you play your opponent.”

Jennifer wrinkles her nose, focusing on the first part of that. “So, math?”

“Oh, there are some numbers, but they are rather basic. I can write out everything you need to know on a couple of notecards. Less than you might have to memorize for a math exam, I expect, and these numbers can make you money. But the numbers are not the skill part of poker. That is just knowing the basic rules of the game. The skill is acting.”

Jennifer brightens cautiously. “Acting, huh?”

“Acting and reading people. I expect you are pretty good at telling if someone is happy or angry, even if they try to hide it, aren’t you?”

Jennifer looks down at the table and nods.

“We are going to put that hard-won skill of yours to use.” Doc shuffles the deck with a flourish as he talks. He’s not even looking at the cards when he does it. “You want to judge how good your opponent’s cards are by how he reacts, what he feels, when he looks at them. And you want to fake being happy or upset at your own cards so you mislead him into betting the way you want. If you can mislead someone about your intentions, you can easily get them to hand over their money.”

“You’re a conman!” she blurts out.

“Some days,” he says agreeably.

She squints at him suspiciously. “MacGyver won’t talk about what he does for work, either.”

“There is some overlap in our skill sets,” Doc allows, dealing out some cards. “Now the most important thing to know is how to pick your opponents and your place. You wander into the dark backroom of a bar—if you could get in at your age—and someone is likely to pull a gun and take back your winnings before you leave. Not very useful to win, if they are going to steal it back, is it?”

Jennifer groans. “The last thing I need is another reason for someone to attack me.” She bites her lip; that came out sounding worse than she intended. Doc doesn’t seem to notice, though. He goes right on.

“But I think you should be able to do just fine, playing your fellow high school students.”

Jennifer thinks about that. She has taken to spending quite a bit of time loitering around her school, avoiding home. She can probably get a few of the other kids who hang around after school into a game easily enough.

“Remember to tell them you just learned how to play,” he says with a wink. He grabs a notecard and writes a list on it. “This is a ranked list of what hands will win. The royal flush at the top will beat anything. Take a notecard like this with you and put it on the table when you play, everyone will see that you barely know what you are doing, and they will underestimate you.”

She nods.

“Okay, now here’s another list. Don’t show this one to anyone. Same hands, but these are the odds of getting that hand. This is going to help you make better decisions than your opponents.”

Jennifer makes a face.

“This is just memorization, and knowing these numbers is going to earn you money.”

She focuses on the list and nods, determined. The list is not that bad. Like Doc said, she’s memorized more than this for a quiz, and that didn’t have practical benefits. She suddenly realizes that he wrote all those numbers out from memory. “Are you a professional gambler?”

“Not of poker,” he says evasively. “Now on to some conventional and accurate wisdom: never draw to an inside straight, and such.”

They play for a couple of hours, until her head is swimming with advice on poker and how to avoid trouble. Most of the types of trouble he thinks she might need to avoid, she’s never even heard of, which is a bit alarming since she had felt that she had already seen the depths of the criminal underworld. But apparently a month of working the streets did not begin to cover the problems this strange man has seen.

As evening approaches, he orders a pizza. Not long after it shows up, he gets a call on the most compact and expensive cell phone she has ever seen. He doesn’t answer the call, but after checking the number, says he has to go.

“If you get into real trouble, tell MacGyver to contact me and that I will take a professional interest in sorting out your family situation.”

“What does that mean? What do you do?”

“I am between jobs right now; don’t worry about it. Consider it a code phrase. Say my name and ‘professional interest’ and I assure you MacGyver will be inspired to new heights of creativity to solve your problems.”

Jennifer gives him a big hug. As she drops her arm casually down towards his pocket her arm grazes the distinctive hard shape of a handgun. Startled, she steps back without going for his wallet. Even knowing the gun is there, she can’t see it. Custom tailored jacket, she thinks, confused. Expensive, much more expensive than it looks.

She raises her eyes up to his face and sees that he knows exactly what just happened. She raises her chin a little, defiantly, refusing to be intimidated. He grins approvingly.

A sudden thought strikes her. Cards, guns… “Is ‘Doc’ like ‘Doc Holliday’?”

He laughs. “Doc Holliday was a dentist, but close enough, I suppose.”

“Oh.”

“Remember: stay in school. There are a lot of easy marks there.” Doc gives her a conspiratorial wink on his way out the door.

Jennifer stares out the window after him as he leaves, and jams her hands in her pockets. Alone again. Then she frowns and wiggles her fingers. She slowly pulls a wad of folded twenty dollar bills out of her pocket and stares at them.

Chapter Text

When Mac and Pete get to the top of the ski slope, they come across a woman crouching in the snow, fiddling with a broken clasp on her ski. She has dark blonde hair, pulled back securely, and a white jacket with pink trim.

“I can’t believe it broke just as I got off the lift. What horrible timing!” she exclaims in a distraught voice with a faint Texas accent.

“Let me have a look at that for you, ma’am.” Mac crouches down to examine the mechanism while Pete breathes a quiet sigh of relief at the reprieve from skiing. “Hm, do you happen to have a bobby pin?”

She pulls a bobby pin free from her hair and hands it over with a puzzled frown. Mac bends it and twists it and in a moment the ski is firmly secured.

“There you go. You’ll have to twist it to get it off but that will hold until you get to the bottom of the slope.”

She looks at her ski, torn between amazement and doubt.

“Could you follow me down, just to be sure I make it?”

“Sure will. I’m headed that way anyway,” Mac says with a friendly grin.

At the bottom of the slope, the woman beams at Mac with relief and gratitude. “You really did it! You saved my afternoon! Mr…?”

“You can call me Mac. Oh, and this is Pete.”

Pete waves, still trying to catch his breath.

“Mac. It’s so good to meet you. I’m Emily. Let me buy you a cup of hot chocolate for being my knight in shining armor.”

“Oh, it was nothing, really.”

Pete wheezes, “Go! Have hot chocolate! Let me take a breather.”

Emily slides her oversized sunglasses down and smiles warmly at Mac over them. Pete sees Mac reconsider.

“Yeah, okay. Hot chocolate sounds great.”

Pete watches them walk off toward the resort together with relief.

“Is something up?” Mac asks as he offers her his elbow.

“I was bored.” Emily tucks one gloved hand over his elbow.

“Pete could recognize you.”

“Please. I am not an amateur. I’ve been fooling Pete for years.”

“I’m surprised you aren’t wearing fur.”

“Fur is murder.”

“Exactly.”

“No challenge in it though.”

The pair of them linger over hot chocolate by the fireplace for nearly two hours.

Meanwhile, Pete enjoys some quiet time watching a game on the tv in the resort bar. He’s not drinking anything but soda, just in case he gets dragged back up to the ski slope again, but it’s looking more and more like this is going to be the best afternoon he’s ever had at a ski resort with Mac.

From his seat at the bar, Pete sees Emily head upstairs and a few minutes later Mac comes in to find him.

“I feel bad leaving you alone here after I made you come all this way, Pete. Do you want to join us for dinner?”

“Oh no, no. You go ahead. Have fun. I’m going to treat myself to room service and fall asleep early. After all that fresh air and exercise, I’m happy to call it a day.”

“You sure?”

“Emily seems nice. You should relax, get to know her, enjoy your evening. It’ll be good for you.”

“If you’re sure…”

Mac trails off as Emily sweeps into the room. She’s wearing a turquoise dress now. The top is clingy and it has a long, flowing skirt. She’s wearing white heels, white fingerless gloves, and a white scarf. When she turns, he sees that the dress is cut low in the back. Small glittering earrings dangle from her ears, matching a sparkling necklace.

“Quite sure! I’m heading up now. Enjoy yourself, Mac.” He nods at Emily, “Ma’am.”

“Have a good evening, Pete,” Emily says warmly.

Mac waits until Pete is out of the room before he offers Emily his arm and casually says, “Pete thinks you could be a good influence on me.”

Emily leans into his shoulder as she laughs.

“I’m surprised you’re wearing something so low cut,” he murmurs into her ear. “Where are your knives?”

“Oh,” Emily says with a wicked smile, “they’re here somewhere.”

“Okay,” Emily says over dinner. “Most dangerous bomb you ever disarmed.”

He considers. “Bomb bomb or…?”

“Any explosive device. Disarmed, disabled, defused,” she waves her champagne glass expansively, indicating anything of the sort.

She’s not actually drinking the champagne he’s noticed, but she’s getting a lot of use out of the glass: sliding her fingers suggestively up and down it, toying with it, running a fingertip around the rim…

“Well now, there was the time I stopped a nuclear power plant from exploding. That count?”

“I would say that counts,” she says and nods at him to go on.

“Someone had been stealing nuclear material and he didn’t take kindly to being found out.” He considers his next words as he takes another bite of his meal. “I did have some help on that one though, so maybe it doesn’t count.”

“Oh?”

“It was my ex who called me in to help. She was the head research scientist there and she was the one who had found evidence of the theft.”

“Oooh, do tell.”

“One thing led to another and the thief shot up some of the panels in the control room so the place started to go critical. Had to climb up on one of the towers and release the pressure so we could get coolant flowing again.”

“Yes, fascinating,” she says dismissively. “Tell me about your ex.”

“Oh. She’s a real smart gal, done really well for herself. Hates traveling, though.”

“Yes, I can see how that would be a bit of a problem.”

Mac waits until Emily takes a sip of her water to casually add, “Not at all like the ex who left me to become a nun.”

After dinner they go back to Emily’s room, since Mac is sharing a room with Pete.

“I am going to freshen up,” Emily says. The Texas accent is gone now that they’re alone, her voice shifting to a feminine version of Murdoc’s usual British accent. She brushes her lips across Mac’s cheek before disappearing into the bathroom.

He glances around the room while he waits. Emily’s afternoon skiing outfit is neatly folded on the dresser next to a white suitcase with a pink luggage tag. Giving in to curiosity, he looks at the tag but it simply says “Emily” with no other information.

The bathroom opens and Emily emerges. Mac freezes for an instant as he processes what he is seeing. Who he is seeing. Without thinking about it, he had assumed that Emily would go the way of Cherry, discarded as the latest obsolete disguise. That is not what has happened. Instead, she is standing in front of him, a challenging, even defiant, gleam in her eye.

She has shed her gloves, her shoes, her scarf, her jewelry; she stands in front of him barefoot. Dark pink nail polish on her toenails matches that on her fingernails, both a pleasant contrast to the turquoise dress. The long blonde wig is gone; her own chin length hair hangs forward to softly frame her face instead of being slicked back in the style Murdoc has favored recently.

The instant of hesitation, his startled blink, he can’t help that; it’s surprise. Then he smiles softly.

“You look lovely.” He follows her hands with his eyes as she sets down her white leather clutch, and a pair of knives on top of it. “And even better, unarmed.”

She smirks up at him, a familiar expression. “Are you sure?”

He closes the distance between them and wraps one arm around her waist, hand coming to rest on the smooth skin of the small of her back where knives are so often sheathed. It’s not that he doesn’t have any questions. But he’s been flirting with her for hours and from the way she is looking at him, he doesn’t feel that addressing those questions is the highest priority for either of them right now.

“This area seems clear,” he murmurs, amused and playful, in her ear as he runs his hand slowly up her back to cup the back of her neck. He moves his hand over her shoulder and down to her wrist, then back up without encountering any unexpected metal. “Good here, too.”

Mac slides his thumb up her neck into her hair and kisses her for a long moment, then moves back down.

“Don’t,” she says softly, when his searching hand shifts forward to her breasts. He drops his hands back down to her waist and tilts his head questioningly.

“You will just have to take my word for it that I am not carrying any weapons in my bustier. In fact, you do not get to remove any part of my attire today.”

She is speaking lightly, but Mac can see the tension in her shoulders.

He knows his disappointment must show on his face.

She smiles slightly. “I think you will be able to work around that restriction.”

Mac considers.

Disarming a bomb is a more creative exercise than people give it credit for. It’s like chemistry in that way. Some people think of science as boring, but it’s not at all, not when you are stepping into unknown territory.

Once you have a hypothesis you can use standard techniques to test it. But that initial insight requires a certain mental flexibility, an ability to rethink assumptions, to take a step back and see things in a new light.

Now, in a lab setting, you can try multiple approaches until things work out. Diffusing a bomb rarely gives you that luxury so it’s real helpful if your guess is right the first time.

This feels just like that: volatile and potentially explosive. There is a highly motivating goal, and it’s fun to try, but a misstep could let it all blow up in his face so he needs to get this right—or at least not really wrong—on the first try.

Murdoc, Emily—his brain stutters over the correct name for a moment, trying to reconcile the past and present, then settles on “my partner” for now—always plans out every detail meticulously. So there is a way forward; he just has to find it.

“You’re a difficult woman,” he says. Emily’s shoulders lose some of their tension and he knows he’s got the right tack.

Since she planned this encounter, the cut of her dress is no accident and might be a clue to the right approach. He puts a hand on her leg and slowly slides it up the warm, smooth skin under her skirt. His questing fingers brush against lace. Lace over the soft give of balls, which he caresses gently in passing, up to the semi-hard shaft, held straight up against her body.

She lets his hand map it out, but when he squeezes experimentally she frowns. With a twinge of regret, Mac shifts his hand away and sees her relax. Moving on to other areas, he discovers that her ass is bare: her panties are completely open in the back.

“Have you been wearing these all day, Emily?”

She grins wickedly. “Since I changed into the dress. Why, are you thinking about how easily you could have pulled up my skirt at any time?”

“Mmm, there were probably knives in the way.”

“Maybe there were earlier, but there are none there now.”

Suddenly—despite the knives—this scenario reminds him of something: teenage explorations, when he and his date were both inexperienced; enthusiastic yet nervous. Being allowed to make out, with limits. To slide a hand up her skirt, as long as he didn’t go too far.

The two of them have never been like that: Murdoc had known what he wanted from the start. It had taken him some time to convince Mac that the whole thing wasn’t a trap, that he—that his partner—was interested in something other than finding new ways to fight.

Something must have shown on his face because Emily narrows her eyes and asks, “what?”

Mac smiles at her, nudging her to sit on the edge of the bed with him, where he puts an arm across her bare shoulders, his other arm coming to rest on her knee, just up under the skirt.
“This is just like 1968. My date had strict instructions on where I could touch her then, too.”

Emily laughs softly, as he had hoped.

“Did you go down to Lover’s Lane to make out?” she asks.

“The drive-in movie theater.”

“Mmm. Driving your parent’s car?”

“She drove.”

“How progressive.”

“Well, she had bench seats.” He bites back a gearstick-in-the-way joke. She’s starting to relax, but the situation still feels precarious.

Mac gently sucks on her earlobe, soothing it where Emily’s clip-on earring must have pinched all evening. He slides his hand under her knee, under both knees, and pulls her onto his lap before she knows what he’s doing.

She gives a little laugh, breathless and giddy. Her skirt is rucked up in the back, her bare ass on his lap. They make out for a while, his hands drifting from one permitted location to another as she twists and arches into his hands, breathing harder.

He kisses her neck, burying his nose in her hair. Then he blinks, surprised: Emily smells mellower somehow, sweeter than the sharp and spicy scent he associates with Murdoc.

“Did you change your shampoo?” Mac mumbles into her hair.

“Among other things.”

“You smell different. Nice.”

“You don’t like how I normally smell?”

“Both are nice. Different is all.” He strokes her back lightly, kissing the back of her neck again. “Different is good.”

She leans into his chest, hip pressing against his cock, which is starting to feel painfully constrained.

“Condoms?” he murmurs in her ear. It’s an efficient question, meaning do you have them? and where? but mostly is that on the agenda for this evening?

“Bedside table.”

“Fantastic.” He stands up, lifting her with him, and lays her down on the bed. He produces condoms and lube from the bedside drawer and quickly shucks off his own clothing before he sits on the bed next to her.

“Do you want me to…?” Mac slides his hand slowly down her stomach.

“Don’t!”

“Okay… okay…” he says soothingly. He considers. Coming untouched is great, but it’s tricky to pull off with any reliability, and that’s even without factoring in that they are both pushing 40. He wants her to have a good time, and he’s starting to feel a little pressure to pull that off within the limits she has set.

Mac snags the pillows from the other side of the bed, piling one on top of the other in the middle of the bed. With a few nudges and suggestions, and a pause to make out again along the way, he gets her laying facedown, the pillows under her hips, lifting her ass up.

Mac moves to kneel behind her, and brushes his lips across her exposed lower back, enjoying her little moan of pleasure.

When he enters her, she makes a high pitched, pleading little noise. After a moment to adapt, she presses back into him. He sets up a steady rhythm, deliberately rocking her forward and back, letting her grind discreetly into the pillow.

She seems to be enjoying herself. When he gets close, he needs a little something to push her over the edge. Mac leans down, careful not to alter his rhythm, and bites the junction between her neck and shoulder. She finishes with a satisfying groan and he follows right after.

“I’ll take the bathroom first.”

“Alright,” he says, taking the hint that she wants to clean up without him there.

When Emily comes back, she has washed off her makeup and changed into a red silk negligee with ruffles across the chest. After he takes a turn cleaning up, she snuggles against him; he curls around her, tucking an arm around her waist.

When he wakes up the next morning, Murdoc is sitting in a chair near the bed, wearing only black silk boxers. He is stripping the nail polish off his fingernails. Mac stares blearily at the bottle of nail polish remover. Acetone, he thinks groggily. Polar solvent. Flammable. Useful for softening certain types of plastics.

Without looking at him, Doc pours a second cup of coffee and offers it to him. He drinks it gratefully while Doc finishes his task. He hasn’t yet applied the makeup he uses to hide the web of faint scars across his face; Mac sees the early morning light glint off them.

Eventually, Mac figures he has to start somewhere, so he asks quietly, “Is Emily who you want to be?”

“Sometimes. Not usually.”

An amusing revelation slowly builds in Mac’s mind.

Murdoc glances at him and scowls. “What?”

“Oh, it’s just that Pete never could figure out how you made such a convincing woman.” Mac grins at him, eyes sparkling with humor, an invitation to join in on the joke.

Murdoc smiles briefly, but doesn’t respond. He starts laying out clothes and weapons to get dressed.

“Planning to go out?”

“I have a plane to catch.”

He seems guarded, tense. Not quite as bad as that first morning when Mac thought he looked on the verge of beating a nonfunctional coffeemaker to death, but Mac doesn’t want him to leave in this mood.

“That’s a shame. Late night was really great, don’t get me wrong, but…”

“What?”

“Well, there’s this man I have this thing with, see, and I haven’t had him in my bed in weeks.” Mac puts a light emphasis on “man” and sees Murdoc go still. He barely breathes, hoping he got this right.

Mac draws back the covers invitingly.

Murdoc hesitates, then says magnanimously, “I suppose I could catch a later flight.”

Mac beams at him.

“I think you look best like this,” Mac says to his breathless partner a short time later.

“Male?”

“Begging.”

As Murdoc cools down from a spectacular orgasm, his eyes slide open to see MacGyver propped up on one elbow, smiling down at him with unabashed delight. He knows, with post-coital clarity, that he is in love with this ridiculous man.

It wasn’t fair to spring Emily on MacGyver without so much as a word of warning. In public, sure, as a disguise, but not… but MacGyver just rolled with it, warm and open, curious and experimental, like he was with everything he did. Murdoc knew when he did it that it was more likely than not to be a complete disaster. But courting disaster to the point of self-destruction has always had too much appeal.

MacGyver effortlessly handled his destructive tendencies, took it all and made a spectacular evening out of it.

Now MacGyver is beaming down at him like he has had an unexpectedly fantastic weekend and what is Murdoc supposed to do in the face of that?

He wants to hunt down everyone who has ever threatened or offended MacGyver, cut their heads off, and leave the heads in a pile on MacGyver’s perpetually unused bed.

MacGyver would not appreciate this romantic gesture even slightly.

Truly, he has terrible taste in men. It is a bit late for that realization to be helpful. He sighs and rubs his eyes, refocusing on what he needs to do this morning. His highest priority is to get out of this hotel room before he blurts out something regrettable.

It’s still early when Mac lets himself back into the room he is sharing with Pete.

Pete, unfortunately, is already awake.

“Well! Seems like your evening turned out just fine!” Pete is grinning at him teasingly and he just knows he’s going to be hearing about this for weeks. “You going to be spending the day with her today?”

“She had an early morning flight out.”

“Oh no! You think you’ll see her again?”

“Emily said she travels a lot. I think she might make it to LA sometime.”

“That’s fantastic,” Pete says sincerely. “I’m really happy for you, Mac.”

Chapter Text

Murdoc finds it increasingly difficult to stay away from LA for weeks at a time. Yet MacGyver had been clear from the outset that one of the things he liked best about this relationship is that he still had all the freedom of living alone, with only infrequent encounters.

Therefore, Murdoc finds himself setting up a sniper’s nest in a newly rented office of an LA skyscraper with a view of the water. A view of a certain dock, with a certain houseboat in residence. Crouching behind a pair of tripods, he makes sure both are lined up to sight on the same target.

Murdoc arranges a few fake plants in front of the tripods. As long as he carefully keeps to proper surveillance techniques, this is information gathering: strategic, not pathetic.

The view through his spotting scope shows MacGyver moving around in his kitchen, cutting up a block of tofu and assembling something in a casserole dish. Once the dish goes in the oven, Murdoc dials MacGyver’s cellphone.

Through the scope, he sees MacGyver lift his head and go over to a bookshelf, pulling out a large book and, behind it, the small phone.

“Hello?”

“Blown up any good buildings lately?” Murdoc purrs by way of a greeting.

“What, don’t you already know?”

“I could have missed something. It happens. I do travel a lot.”

MacGyver smiles softly, leaning back against the kitchen counter. Perfect. Murdoc turns to the other tripod, lining up the shot, and quickly snaps half a dozen photos through the telescopic lens.

“Are you in LA now?”

“No,” Murdoc lies reflexively, defensively. He immediately regrets it and amends, “maybe later this week.”

Is tomorrow sufficiently later this week? Would that come across as a spontaneous surprise, or just needy?

“Could be interesting.” MacGyver says, crossing his long legs at the ankle.

Nice. Murdoc snaps another photo.

After he gets off the phone, Murdoc doodles idly on a notepad as he considers possible dates that he can organize in less than 24 hours. Dinner and dancing is trite, but they have never done it and the chef at a certain French restaurant owes him a favor so he could secure a spot at the chef’s private table for tomorrow night.

As for dancing, would MacGyver want to be seen out at a gay club in LA? For that matter, would he want to risk being seen out in LA anywhere with Murdoc?

Perhaps it would be better to charter a private plane to San Francisco. To his knowledge, no one would recognize MacGyver there. Good reservations on short notice will be more expensive but that’s fine. He grins to himself. They could spend the afternoon shopping on Folsom Street and he could try to make MacGyver blush. Then dinner, dancing… he remembers MacGyver awkwardly sitting in a corner, loud music blaring around him. Maybe not dancing.

Taking a class together? He would have to find a skill they both lack, which is a bit of a challenge. It would be a shame to sign them up for, say, glassblowing classes only to discover MacGyver was a competitive glassblower in his youth and Murdoc had somehow missed that bit of information.

He thinks of the tofu casserole. Cooking classes, now, that seems promising. He smirks to himself. Especially if it can include advanced knife skills, just to make MacGyver a little bit nervous.

Skydiving would be fun, but only if they could land someplace very secluded, to make best use of the adrenaline. Probably not time to set that up for tomorrow. SCUBA diving… they are both SCUBA certified, but there are better places for that than the California coast; he will have to think about chartering a private boat somewhere tropical another time.

Sailing. Yes, that’s perfect. He has a few surprises up his sleeve for that one. He can dock his sailboat to MacGyver’s houseboat and whisk him away for a day of sailing, fishing, and fucking on the open ocean with no one else for miles. Pack an elaborate spread of food and they can stay out overnight.

He is staring out the window, mentally sorting out the finer details of their itinerary when a major problem appears.

Jack Dalton strolls up the dock and disappears into the houseboat, making Murdoc scramble for his spotting scope, cursing that he doesn’t have any audio surveillance measures in place at the moment. His last bug had been smashed and replaced with a small note saying “Nice try, Doc” and he hasn’t had a chance to replace it yet.

Through the scope, he can see MacGyver reacting to whatever Dalton is saying, waving his hands in the air, alternately exasperated and amused.

He should have killed Dalton before. He suppresses the thought that killing one of MacGyver’s closest friends would have made anything between them impossible.

It should be Murdoc making MacGyver roll his eyes in exasperation. Murdoc making him smile reluctantly. It should definitely be Murdoc dragging him off on some wild scheme. MacGyver just remembers to pull his casserole out of the oven and shove it in the fridge before he trails Dalton out of the house to his Jeep and leaves.

Murdoc curses loudly, kicking his chair across the room. He pulls both throwing knives from their sheaths at the small of his back, throwing them across the room in a fit of pique. They embed themselves in a column, carbon steel quivering from the force of the throws, exactly parallel and three centimeters apart.

He groans and slumps to the floor, lying on his back in the mostly empty office. He cannot be jealous of Jack fucking Dalton, a bungler whose only skill is repeatedly managing to barely save his own skin, usually by persuading MacGyver to do it.

Perhaps that part, though: how effortlessly Dalton commands MacGyver’s full attention.

He allows himself a few minutes of staring at the ceiling, resenting MacGyver for almost being his perfect partner but remaining committed to noncommitment, easily distracted and tempted away by other people’s problems.

Then he gets up and starts making a plan. No one can be a bigger problem than Murdoc and anyone who thinks they can compete at that is going to regret it.

MacGyver may be determined to stumble through life without any plans, but that just means he is going to get swept up in someone’s plan and next time it can bloody well be Murdoc’s, not Jack fucking Dalton’s.

So. Goals.

He wants to be able to drop in anytime and command MacGyver’s attention. He wants his boyf—his fuckbuddy to want him around more often than once every few weeks. He wants to stake a claim and show the world that this man is his. He would also like to murder anyone who challenges that claim, but MacGyver would disapprove of that. Murdoc can be reasonable. He can confine himself to pointed words and veiled threats, so long as any hypothetical interlopers can take a hint.

What he needs is a proper plan to achieve these goals, no matter what MacGyver thinks about it. And for the first part of that proper plan, he needs a way to get MacGyver’s attention.

Murdoc contemplates destabilizing one of those little dictatorships the CIA keeps setting up in Central America. That would suit his current mood, but the US government would not send MacGyver in to fix that. Not because he lacks the skills, but because someone high up in the governmental chain of command clearly has enough sense to keep MacGyver away from the USA’s shadier operations.

Murdoc gives a put-upon sigh, which echoes in the empty office. It is ridiculous, unforeseeable, that he should fall in love at his age. He doesn’t want to care about MacGyver’s wellbeing, he wants to irritate MacGyver into fucking him good and hard.

MacGyver wants to blunder through life ping-ponging from one disaster to another? Fine. Murdoc is the master of being and creating disaster.

He has risen to the top of more than one highly competitive career. Metaphorically and literally cutthroat professions. He has money, resources, an established base of power worldwide. He did not anticipate this complication in his life, but he knows how to develop a strategy and execute a scheme.

The first few steps of the plan he needs are clear to him now. He will have to take MacGyver’s approach on this: go in with the beginnings of a plan and adapt on the fly.