This Trophy Isn't Real Love

Chapter 12

Not hurting Mac is something that has never been very high up on Jack's priorities list. This seems wholly contradictory to… just about everything, but the fact of the matter is, it didn't have to be a priority. It was just a fact - hurting Mac was so out of the question there was never a need to prioritize it. Now… Now everything is shifted and tilted and Jack is ripped harshly between wanting to hold his kid as tight as possible and the question of whether hugging Mac just a shade too tightly is going to hurt him by aggravating an injury Jack doesn't know about.

Sure, Mac said it's 'just what you can see, maybe another bruise or two', and from a standpoint purely cataloguing physical injuries, it's not that bad. He's got a split lip that will likely scar, at least for some time after it heals, there's still that fading black eye, the red imprints of James' hands around Mac's wrists that still hadn't faded by the time they'd dealt with the blood on his face. If he's telling the truth, and his clothing is only hiding 'another bruise or two', then it's so far down the list of 'times Mac has been hurt, ranked by severity' that it doesn't even place.

Knowing this, though, it's not enough to erase the thousand 'what-if's that have run through Jack's mind before he'd outright asked Mac if he needed a doctor. Ever since the word 'abuse' entered Jack's mind, the questions have bombarded him - what kind of damage could Mac have concealed from them with long sleeves and careful movement? Jack had caught himself wondering if James had ever broken bone, if his partner's back was striped with ugly welts, if Mac could've kept that hidden from them. He still sees it when he blinks, those imagined wounds, and it informs the way he holds Mac now.

At least Mac has stopped apologizing. He's gone quiet, head heavy against Jack's collarbone, slumped forward and curled in on himself in Jack's arms. Protectiveness buzzes, fierce and aching, in Jack's chest as he sits there, determined not to move before Mac is ready to.

"It's okay," he murmurs, mindless and without meaning or direction, words just for the sake of saying them. His heart hurts, his lungs hurt, everything about this hurts, and it's an active struggle to not get up off this couch, march back over to James' house, and see holy hellfire rained down on the man for what he'd done. But, again, taking care of Mac needs to come before even daydreaming about revenge on his father, so Jack does his best to put James out of his mind and focus on the boy in his arms.

Jack curls his fingers through blond hair, touch light and careful over where he knows Mac's head had been knocked into the wall. He tries to convey as much comfort and safety as possible with the touch. Harsh, struggling breaths push back against the arm he has wrapped below Mac's shoulder-blades, and it makes that protective ache throb acutely.

"It's okay," Jack says again, rubbing his palm over Mac's side. "It's alright, kid, it's all gonna be okay." He knows he has no right to promise that, no guarantee he's not lying just to get Mac to calm down before he hurts himself. What he does know, though, is that he's going to do absolutely everything in his power to make it true, and for the moment at least, that's going to have to be enough.

Jack would've been perfectly fine to stay there forever, content to fabricate a reality where as long as he holds Mac in this protective embrace in this quiet, empty house, nothing can touch him. Just while they're here, in this moment, Jack can keep him safe. Just here, love is enough to keep him safe. But, much though he might be loathe to admit it, Jack knows it can't last. This house won't remain quiet and empty forever, and indeed that quiet emptiness could shatter at any moment. Because someone else lives here, and more than that, there are other people in the life Mac has constructed here in Los Angeles aside from the two of them.