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Lying doesn’t seem like such a bad idea when he says it…Okay. That’s a lie too. Lying is always a bad idea. Mac knows this.At least it’s always a bad idea when there’s no good reason for lying, and wanting to save face and avoid an uncomfortably personal conversation with a new friend is not a good enough reason.Riley is really great, though. They’ve only known one another for a couple of weeks. They met in the lobby of the same think tank they both work for now, waiting to interview for different positions within the company. Mac now works on a DXS research and development team, and Riley’s got a position in the IT department. They became fast friends. Something about the beautiful, badass hacker makes Mac feel really comfortable for some reason. And she seemed to take a liking to Mac, too, right away. That rarely ever happens for Mac… certainly not with women. And almost never without the woman then expressing an entirely different intent behind her side of the connection than Mac can offer in return.Mac doesn’t believe that that’s what Riley has been doing in questioning Mac about his relationship status over the course of the past week. Mac’s not great at finding women he can be friends with who don’t have ulterior, romantic notions, but he’s more or less capable at spotting those notions when they exist. Eventually. And Riley’s only ever treated Mac the way he wants her to see him - as a good buddy. They’ve gone out together several times now, for latenight burgers after work, or beers or to listen to a local band…. And Riley’s never treated any one of those occasions as anything other than a couple of friends and coworkers spending time with one another outside of work. Riley’s even told Mac, at length, about an on-again off-again flame of hers that sounds like it might be on-again pretty soon.But it’s become a sort of reflex for Mac, when a woman starts prying into his lovelife, to distract and deflect. And Riley’s proven to be incredibly resistent to both of those techniques. If anything, admitting to her that Mac’s decided he really only wants to have romantic relationships with men going forward has only increased her efforts to find out everything there is to know about Mac’s romantic life. And tonight, Mac just- He’s tired. He only has a probationary status at the DXS so far, a security clearance that comes with a workload consisting of intellectually rigorous tasks so rigorously contained and regulated that Mac’s starting to feel like he’s still interviewing for the job he thought he’d earned.
Mac doesn’t want to spend the whole night either anticipating and evading Riley’s next question about what kind of men Mac wants to date going forward… Is he only into guys his own age or would he mind dating someone older? Is he looking for someone “nerdy”, like him? (No offense intended or taken. Mac described himself that way, unprompted.) Or nerdy in a similar but different way - whatever that means… Or weighing, for the dozenth time, how awkward it would actually be to just fess up and explain that while Mac’s decided to date only men from now on, here at the not-so-tender age of twenty-seven Mac still never has. Mac’s had more to drink tonight than he usually does - in part because he’s trying to manage the stress of considering his options. And that stress combined with the dogtags Riley is wearing this evening - dogtags Mac’s never gotten a good look at but that he’s glimpsed around Riley’s neck before - have made Mac feel maudlin. Especially as he drinks and thinks about his lovelife - and the lack thereof.The truth is, not only has Mac not actually dated a man yet, despite his desire and determination to do so, he hasn’t really even met a man he’s seriously put thought into wanting to date since-Well, since an embarrassingly long time ago, in terms of romantic and sexual attraction. Not that everything about Mac’s romantic and sexual attraction to that man isn’t at least somewhat embarrassing to Mac in retrospect, considering the circumstances.Mac was full-out, hands-down, starry-eyed infatuated with his overwatch back in Afghanistan, where Mac served one tour as an EOD tech. He was a special forces sniper and a sergeant, assigned to watch Mac’s back as Mac traveled the desert disabling bombs and retrieving explosive ordinance for the Army. The man was handsome. Funny. Sweet, once you got to know him… And a goddamned badass with any weapon Mac had seen him handle, including his fists, like some sort of real-life superhero.It’s embarrassing to Mac now because the man was almost certainly straight. And even if he hadn’t been, he hadn’t even liked Mac when they first met. They slowly developed a friendship as the other man’s final tour came to an end, a fact that’s made Mac fear, more than once - what with how vivid his memory of the Sarge’s dark eyes… the scent of him, Mac remembers from whenever they were forced to linger close to one another, remains even after several years - that perhaps his “infatuation” wasn’t just-Well. Regardless. The other man had seemed about as reluctant for them to part as Mac had been, when it came time for him to ship home ahead of Mac. He even said that he’d have requested another tour, just to stick around and watch Mac’s back for that little while longer, if he didn’t have an ex back in the States whose kid had gotten into some kind of trouble and needed his help. Mac’s pretty certain that the Sarge and his ex aren’t exes any longer, and that the man’s at home, happy with his family, as Mac sits here even years later lusting after someone else’s devoted husband - some lucky kid’s doting step-father.Mac’s mostly drunk. He’s feeling down about himself. He’s feeling cornered by Riley’s interest in the least interesting part of his whole life… And he’s only really picking up on half of what Riley is saying to him, he’s become so distracted by his own, unhappy thoughts.“I know, I know, I know… I’m being kind of pest about it,” Mac doesn’t hear Riley say. “I’ve kind of clued into the fact that you’re not looking for any matchmaking any time soon. I’m just… I’m trying to find somebody for my- For my friend. He works at DXS too, in security. We’re both kind of crazy protective of one another, which is weird, I know, since we aren’t technically related, like by blood or anything? But he’s really important to me, and he, like, just came out. He’s got zero experience dating men, but he deserves somebody, you know? I mean, he got hung up on this one guy, a long time ago, and I swear, he still talks about him non-stop-”Mac does hear that last part.And, drunk, he can at least pretend that lying doesn’t seem like such a bad idea in light of the idea that Riley’s words have just given him. Or, at the very least, exaggerating.“I am too,” Mac blurts out, stopping Riley’s rambling explanation - apology? - mid-sentence. “Still… sort of hung up on someone…”“Really?” Riley asks. "Afraid so," Mac answers, and Riley's shoulders slump. That sucks. Mac’s initial reason for lying was to avoid disappointing her, but at least she isn’t grabbing her beer and leaving Mac to his bad decisions.No, she does something much worse. She keeps talking. "Damn. Well, again, I'm sorry for bugging you about it," Riley says. And before Mac can revel in the success of his technique, she adds, so casually... as if the words don't totally spin Mac's night on its head: "I just really think you and Jack would hit it off."Mac almost chokes on his next swallow of beer.When Riley's through pounding Mac in the back, and Mac's through coughing barley and hops out of his lungs and can speak again, he says, "Jack?" Even though he's relatively certain he's overreacting. That it's just a funny coincidence that Riley should happen to say that name, after Mac's just been thinking it throughout the night. There are bound to be many, many Jacks in the world. What are the astronomical odds that Riley could even possibly be talking about-"My sorta, not really step-dad, Jack?" Riley says, "He's the friend I was talking about."And as she says this, her phone rings, lying there on the tabletop between them, so that Mac clearly sees the photo that flashes across Riley's screen. In it, a man stands next to Riley with one arm slung over her shoulders. Side by side, the resemblance between them is clear. It's nothing physical - but their matching smirks tell Mac everything he needs to know about the relationship between Riley and her "sorta, not really step-dad".It's the first time Mac's ever seen the man out of uniform, and he's styled his hair into a faux hawk of all things, which he somehow pulls off perfectly. He’s wearing sunglasses, but Mac knows his face - Jack’s face."Speaking of the handsome devil," Riley says, totally missing the look of panic and shock that has stretched across Mac's face. "Hang on. I should take this." Riley slips off her stool and away with her phone as Mac silently reels from what he's seen. Riley has a picture in her phone of her with Sergeant Jack Dalton, the guy Mac was more-or-less infatuated with back in the Sandbox. Who is apparently out and single, right here in Los Angeles, right now... And Riley had been feeling Mac out to see if she should try and set Mac up with him.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jack doesn’t have the greatest track record when it comes to not pissing off James MacGyver.This is something of a concern to Jack and those who care about him because James, after all, is Jack’s boss. James is an asshole, mind. But still Jack’s boss. And while Jack would argue that the solitary fact that, for all of the many times that Jack has pissed the man off, he hasn’t fired Jack yet-“The key word there, Jack, is yet,” Matty says to him.Which is true. That is a true thing that his oldest friend and, like, underboss, has said.But counterpoint to her claim-“Well, it’s not my fault the man’s got so many stupid rules,” Jack grumbles over the rim of his froo-froo-y little wine glass, and wishes again that Matty hadn’t slapped him and told him ‘No!’ when he’d tried asking a server to try and smuggle him in some beer instead. Or that Jack hadn’t listened to her.“It’s not a stupid rule, Jack,” Matty argues. “You oversee all of our tactical operations back of house. You have to maintain an appropriate-”Jack’s already nodding, emphatically, before Matty can finish her reminder.“-personal and professional distance among subordinates and auxiliary tactical unit operatives,” Jack parrots, making a face. “I know the rules, Matty. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t know that they were so stupid, now would I?”Jack’s really pushing the limits of Matty’s patience, and he knows it. But she knows the way Jack does things. It’s the very reason that she called Jack when she started on at the Phoenix, and the reason she put Jack in command of TAC. The key word there being 'command’... ‘Oversee’ is a bullshit word MacGyver uses to downplay Jack’s pull among his own goddamned men, so that when James doesn’t like a call Jack’s made - nevermind that it’s the right one - he doesn’t sound like such an arrogant prick vetoing it.The way Jack does things is this: he doesn’t ask any of his guys to go anywhere he wouldn’t go with them, with anyone at their six that hasn’t earned his trust. And by trust, Jack doesn’t mean ‘a bunch of words on a bunch of papers Jack’s read and added more words to.’Did Jack spend his Friday night at DB’s house at a celebratory barbecue for his Bravo team leader’s kid’s birthday alongside the rest of DB’s team?Yes. Yes, he did. Oversight be damned.Jack’s lucky enough to have garnered enough esteem from one of his most-trusted captains to warrant an invite to a personal occasion - hell yeah he went. The way Jack does things is the sensible way. It doesn’t make sense to Jack to trust men he doesn’t know, so he knows his TAC units. He talks to them. He takes an interest in their lives - involves himself in the way that he knows from experience is appropriate, nevermind what procedure tells him about ‘personal and professional distance.’And if Matty didn’t agree with him about it, she’d have lost patience with Jack already.Instead, she gives him a look that is about as close to apologetic as Matty Weber’s looks get and says, as Jack kills his glass of probably ridiculously over-priced, sticky sweet whatever-bubbles-up-like-that-while-you-drink-it: “Yes. But if you’d acted like you knew them in Baja, James wouldn’t be on the warpath now about whether or not you’ve been sticking to that particular rule, now would he?”Jack opens his mouth - but closes it again just as quickly.“I’ll give you Baja,” he says. “That was my bad.”It was Javier’s bad, technically - that man could start a bar brawl at a bar mitzvah, and probably has - but same difference. Once more for the people in the back: Jack puts no one at his men’s six that hasn’t earned his trust. It just so happens that the only one Jack could trust to meet his men on the Bravo team down in Baja to clean up Bolt’s mess, in that instance, and not blab about it was Jack himself.“And maybe if you just admitted that to James,” Matty suggests. “We could put that whole, ugly snafu behind us and move on already.”“The man went-” Jack starts - probably much too loudly, startling the server passing nearby into almost dropping his tray of bubbly stuff in dainty glasses. Jack snags one just as it almost tips over the edge of the server’s tray and keeps it, nodding to the penguin-suited man in apology. “The man went and posted a five page manifesto about policies and procedures to immortalize the one time - the one time - I’ve needed help breaking back out of a Mexican prison,” Jack says, bitterly, as the server skitters away. Not pouting, alright? Just... saying. Bitterly. “The big drama queen. Believe me, he’s got no desire to 'move on that easy,” Jack adds.Matty grumbles, sipping primly from her own glass - something that sounds an awful lot like the word ‘manifesto’, muttered disdainfully. “I reserve judgement on who’s.the bigger drama queen between the two of you in this scenario, Dalton,” Matty says. Which at least isn’t her disagreeing with him that James had maybe... overreacted about that one little international incident Jack’s men, and Jack by default, had let themselves get mixed up in.But then she points at him and says, “But I still expect you to make an effort to fix this. Yes, you,” she emphasizes, before Jack is even aware of the face he’s making, much less can put words to.In fact, the one and only thing that Jack takes a real notice of - out of his and Matty’s conversation, there on the peripheral of the dance floor at this big, smarmy, inter-agency shindig MacGyver insisted they all go to - moments before James finds Jack and Jack makes the monumentally happy accident of opening his mouth at the wrong time and pointing in the wrong (and yet so right) direction... Is the sympathetic softening of the tension around Matty’s eyes and mouth as Matty says, “Look, James is... going through a lot right now. And it’s possible some of that is manifesting itself in James’s... issues with control-”“Oh, you think,” Jack pops off all the same.Matty glares him silent. And adds, “Can it, Jack,” for good measure.“Some of that may have just come to a head,” Matty says, in typical, cryptic Matty fashion, “so things should get better if you let them.” She fixes Jack with her strongest, typical, willing to cut you Matty glare, and commands: “At the very least, don’t do anything to make things worse in the meantime.”Which is not at all what Jack is trying to do when James finds him shortly after that, and the tense smalltalk James employs to veil his interrogation of Jack fails to make that interrogation feel like anything but. “Oh, you know me, boss,” he snarks, thinking - about two seconds too late - that he’s perhaps underestimated the froo-froo-y bubbles he’s been drinking kind of quickly. Because they make it entirely too easy for Jack to smile in James MacGyver’s face, point randomly in the direction of a group of new Phoenix Foundation recruits clustered within visual range, and say, “I just love my inappropriate lack of personal and professional distance. In fact, I spent last night getting anything but distant from that little cutie right there.”Okay, so Jack’s point isn’t entirely random. He’s spotted the hot, young blond standing on the fringes of the cluster around HQ a time or two and wondered each time about him. He’s a pretty boy - face like he ought to be gracing some runway somewhere even fancier than this meet-and-greet MacGyver’s made Jack suffer through; eyes as blue as the sky, but sharp. Jack figures once all the entrance interviews are over, the kid’s gonna end up operating out of some cubical somewhere in the building, earning his spot on top of the pecking order of Phoenix personnel in R&D or one of the PR or IA departments. He’ll probably be calling shots out of that cubical, too, and having the glorified grunts operating underneath him - like Jack - saluting him for it before long.If Jack hasn’t messed that up for him by suggesting to the big boss, before the guy’s even got his foot in a door, that falling into bed with a wildcard like Jack Dalton is the kind of decision-making that Oversight can expect out of the kid.“You what?” MacGyver asks, after entirely too long an uncomfortable pause, looking - and sounding - colder, and creepier than Jack has ever heard him. Which is saying something....specifically, it’s saying that that’s exactly the expectation he’s picked up from what Jack’s just said to him.Oops.Jack sobers from the shot of adrenaline guilt brings him, and he curses, starting damage control immediately. “Look, that’s not-”But James has turned sharply on his heel, and headed off to confront the kid before Jack can so much as say four words to fix what he’s just fucked up.“Oh, shit...”Jack all but tosses his tiny glass onto the nearest linen-covered tabletop, and takes off after James to try and head off the shitshow he’s unthinkingly started, ruing the damned dumb arrogance in him that had prevented him from just doing what Mathilda told him to do like a sane man for once.“James! Uh, Oversight, sir - Mr. Mac-”“Of all the petty, childish ways to act out, Angus, this is how you chose to spite me??” James is already exclaiming, having reached Blondie - Angus, apparently - before Jack’s entreaties have even reached his ears.He’s stopped in front of Angus. Jack skids to a stop just to his left. The other new recruits scatter in varying degrees of fascination or terror, and Jack has no idea what’s happening whatsoever.But Blond- But Angus... He looks cool as a cucumber. He looks James MacGyver, Mr. Oversight himself - his boss and the man in complete control of his professional and probably political future, unless Jack’s really missed something big here - right in the eyes and smirks and says, “What? You wanted me here, right? So I’m here.”He can’t have any idea what James is yelling at him about. So he’s obviously already done something - something other than have sex with Jack - worthy of being yelled at by one of the CIA’s most legendary former analysts. And he does no more than blink, the briefest flash of shock flitting across eyes that drift to Jack and flutter when MacGyver continues:“And making yourself at home, reportedly. Really, Angus? If you had to sleep with anyone at the Phoenix just to piss me off, did you have to pick Dalton?” “Hey-” Jack begins to protest, not even knowing himself whether he’s protesting on Angus’s behalf or his own.Not that it seems to matter. No one pays him any attention.“Despite what you may think, Dad,” Angus is saying instead (And Jack’s brain full-on screeches to a stuttering halt; “D- Did you just say Da- Did he just say Dad?”) “You’re not in control of and the cause of everything I do.”And then- (Jack’s brain screeches out of halt-mode and into overdrive, trying to process the double-time thumping of his heart; the blood rushing through his ears) - Angus marches right past his father, for god’s sake Jack is some sort of fuck-up savant, grabs Jack by the face and kisses the shit out of him.And.Well.If Jack was ever going to get himself fired for any reason, he’s most certainly getting his ass fired for this. He might as well enjoy the crime he’s going to do time for.Jack wraps his arms around Angus Pretty Boy MacGyver, Jesus, and kisses the boy back with all he’s got. The younger man’s breath hitches, gratifying, and Jack finds himself smiling as his boss storms away. He is going to pay dearly for the stupid, self-sabotaging thing he’s done tonight - not to mention the stupid, self-sabotaging thing MacGyver Junior’s done, presumably, just to make his old man blow a gasket. But it’ll almost be worth it to have met a man as equally batshit crazy as himself - not to mention one that feels this good pressed up against him.When they come up for air, Jack is still smiling. And is rewarded for it when the prettiest pink blush spreads over Angus’s handsome face.“Hi,” Jack says dumbly, smiling into that face.“Hi,” the kids says somewhat awkwardly, but he doesn’t immediately press back against Jack’s arms, which don’t immediately release him.“So... that was one hell of an introduction. I’m Jack... Dalton, as you’ve heard.”“I’m- Everybody calls me Mac,” Angus - Mac - responds. Because of course they do. No way is Matty going to believe that Jack pointed him out at random, and Mac’s face falls a bit as he misinterprets Jack’s sigh as having something to do with him, presumably. “And I promise I’m not usually that bratty. Or... likely to randomly assault a stranger with my mouth. I’m really sorry.”He doesn’t look it. Embarrassed, yes - he keeps rubbing a hand at the back of his neck, looking adorable, and glancing as if helpless not to between Jack’s eyes and his lips. And then there’s the one gaze that drops down the length of Jack’s body before it snaps back and transforms itself into another one of those charming blushes, and Jack knows he’s found even more trouble than previously realized.Oh goodie.No, seriously. Jack lays on the Dalton charm when he grins at Mac, to make it clear that he did not sigh resignedly over getting spontaneously kissed by a pretty boy.“No apologies necessary,” he says. Holding up a hand to forestall Mac‘s automatic protest. “Although, if you feel that you have to apologize, seeing as how we’ve probably gotten at least myself fired with that little stunt, you could take me out of here and buy me a beer. It would be greatly appreciated.”Actually, at this moment, Jack would greatly appreciate just the getting him out of here portion of his request, alone. He sees Matty making a beeline for him from across the room and turns, leading Mac in the opposite direction with the hand Mac seems not to mind when Jack unthinkingly places it at the small of his back.Jack’s relatively certain Matty has remote access to Jack’s car, even though she’s always promised him she’d never touch the GT. So Jack genuinely needs an assist to leave.“Oh my god, I promise I won’t let him fire you over this,” Mac is saying in the meantime.“Naw - odds are fifty-fifty it’d be over this in particular. I’m not too good at not pissing off your old man,” Jack admits.Finally, Angus - Mac - smiles for real.It’s a sight to see.Jack tries not to stare too obviously as they board an elevator, but going by the continued color flushing Mac’s fair complexion, Jack’s not sure he’s succeeded.“Me neither,” Mac says.“Well, then. It sounds like we’ve got a lot to talk about.”“Yeah,” Mac agrees, gaze sharpening again beneath his apparent shyness. “Starting with... why does my dad think you and I are sleeping together?”Jack can hear Matty hollering “Dalton!” from a distance, but the elevator doors are already closing.“Oh, man. That is definitely an over-beers kind of story,” Jack says.“I can’t wait to hear it."