MacDoc, Ex-Gifted Kid Kinks, and The Intellectual Arms Race
So I’ve been writing If Life Is Gonna Fuck Me, and I’m drafting up the new Katabasis chapter… so here’s some Thoughts.
There’s a reason Murdoc calls Mac his Truly only worthy companion.
It’s not just dramatics and obsession though it’s definitely those too, it’s respect. Reverent, awed, and potentially very horny (depending on how you feel about it) respect.
See, Murdoc doesn’t actually want to kill Mac. Not really. That would mean the game ends, and Murdoc lives for the game. He needs Mac’s mind aimed at him like a loaded weapon. He needs the challenge, the chase, the look in Mac’s eyes when he figures the plans out, when he beats him at his own game. Because the truth is, Murdoc has a competence kink so severe it’s fucking terminal.
He doesn’t want someone weaker. He doesn’t want anyone submissive or beneath him. He wants someone who can win. Because if you can outmatch Murdoc, if you can survive him, if you can dismantle his plans and walk away smarter, with clean hands, and fuck without any weapon other than your own mind and the things around you. Then you’re exactly what he craves, someone who could keep up with him, someone who burns just as brightly as he does, someone equal.
And Mac? Mac hates that he understands this.
He hates that Murdoc’s traps are the most fun he’s had in months. Mac hates that when Murdoc says, Good boy, Macgyver! or God you’re clever while pressing a gun to his head, he feels it all the way down his spine.
Because Angus Macgyver, boy scout, genius, golden moral compass of Phoenix, has a praise kink, but it only lights up when someone actually gets him. When someone sees how fast his mind moves, how precise his hands are, how much effort he’s hiding under that casual flannel. When someone is so sincere that he can’t convince himself it’s a lie. And Murdoc sees all of it.
So what happens?
You get a kink feedback loop so intense it might count as an international incident.
Murdoc sets a trap. Mac disarms it. Murdoc is like You’re incredible boy scout. Murdoc’s pupils are blown and he’s high on the sheer sight of it, Mac is cocky and confident and will actively snap and snark at him while trying to ignore the heat working its way through his body.
Rinse, repeat, explode something.
The point is, this is not your average enemies-to-lovers. This is intellectual foreplay. This is two brilliant and thoroughly unhinged men slowly destroying each other because it’s the only way they know how to connect.
It’s courtship under fucking cold war conditions. It’s mutually assured destruction, if either of them give into their dynamic then they’re both fucked.
Murdoc doesn’t flirt with flowers or soft words. He flirts with mind games and precision hits, every confrontation is another chance to say, Dazzle me Angus.
And Mac answers with explosive grace. With beautifully improvised solutions, with a mind so fast and so wildly destructive that it makes Murdoc start composing wedding vows in his head on impact.
Or dirty talk, you know, whatever works.
And it’s not just about survival, survival would be taking the shot, letting someone kill Murdoc and putting that problem to rest forever. But the problem is that Mac wants to play the game too.
He wants to earn the praise. He wants to be the one Murdoc can’t beat. He wants to hear Murdoc call him brilliant and infuriating, and he wants to hear him whisper mine like it’s a religion.
They are each other’s favorite puzzle, the dopamine and adrenaline hit, the feeling of flying and falling and being alive, and god help them if they let themselves fall into each other. Because there’s no coming back from that. Because from that moment they’ll belong to each other and nobody else.
They’re not just enemies to lovers, they don’t learn to see past the flaws, they like the flaws. Mac wants Murdoc reverent and unholy, and Murdoc wants Mac wrathful and bitter. It’s enemies and lovers. It’s I’m the only one allowed to kill you and I can’t do it anymore. It’s You’re the only one who understands me and I’m not sure if I want to kill you or kiss you.
It’s the savior and the person who never care about being saved.
It’s the villain and the prince that never wanted his throne.
And at its base level it’s Fuck Macgyver is hot when he’s ruining my life and God I want Murdoc to call me clever.
