#this is nowhere near the peak of mac's temper btw

[recklessrex]

216 - Macavity & Chaos Twins

First of all trigger warning: violence, abuse, injury, blood, child abuse

This story involves descriptions and discussions of violence. I wouldn't call it super graphic, but it's enough for me to caution those with triggers. Blood and injuries are mentioned, but not in detail. An adult causes mild physical injury to a minor. If any of these things are potential triggers for you, you may want to skip this one.

Sorry it's quite a bit longer than I'd intended. I'd put it under a cut but I'm stuck using mobile and it won't let me. Just rapid scroll if you'd like to skip.

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Okay so if you're still reading

This takes place some years before the current timeline, when Mungo and Teazer are in their early to mid teens. Bomba is in her early 20s, Demeter hasn't met her or Macavity yet (which is why she doesn't appear in this story), and my OC, Sullivan, has known him for about 5 or so years.

(Note: "mot" = "adult or teenage woman" A word I first saw in a fantasy novel, I use it where many other Cats writers might use the word "queen." Just a personal preference of mine. I find it less awkward, plus I think it's neat that it's "tom" backwards)

Beware: Long Fic

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“You know how you can smack something to get it to work? I wish I can do that to people.”

Macavity eyed the two kits chattering away before him as he lounged in his favorite chair. He wasn't sure what to make of them, or their little presentation. He was torn between annoyance and amusement.

They were certainly bold, he had to give them that. They couldn't have been more than 15 or so, the girl perhaps even a bit younger. Two nameless, no-account brats with, as far as Mac could tell, no existing connection to his gang whatsoever.

Yet here they were, stood fearlessly in the middle of his lounge, explaining to the most feared gang leader in the Junkyard how they wanted in on a heist they had no business even knowing about. Mac was sorely tempted to be impressed just by the sheer figurative balls of these two, but he'd wait and see how this went.

At Mac's side, seated on the ottoman that went with his chair, his chief "henchrat," Sullivan, grimaced under his elaborate Rat-mask. Sully had little patience for these young intruders or their antics. He just wanted the little punks gone, so they could get back to business. But Mac had so far said nothing, and so Sullivan would say nothing. As long as Mac wanted to hear them out, they could speak. But they'd better hurry it up…

Several other Cats in the gang, mostly in Rat-masks like Sullivan's, were scattered around the room, some seated around a table covered in maps and other papers, others stood against the walls or lounging in other pieces of furniture strewn about the room. Some listened to the intruders' speech with mild interest, some glared, others quietly mocked or rolled their eyes at the duo, or muttered to each other. All kept an eye on Macavity, and on Sullivan. If their boss and their captain were fine with these two idiots trespassing on their turf for now, then the rest of the gang was fine with it too. But the moment either on them gave the signal, the little brats would be outta there, and probably more than a little worse for the wear.

A large Rat-masked Cat called "Hoover" leaned his back against the door with his arms crossed. He glowered menacingly at the talkative teens' backs. He wasn't sure how they got in, but if the nosy punks tried to escape while the boss still wanted them here, they weren't getting out through Hoover.

A Cat that was not in a Rat-mask leaned against the back of Mac's chair on the opposite side of Sullivan, occasionally reaching down to stroke the fur of his head, chest, or shoulders. She was the newest mot in the gang, a tall curvy young bombshell with the boldest, most beautiful red fur Mac had ever seen. Her name was Bombalurina, but Sullivan called her "Bombalicious." Mac called her what most people called her: "Bomba."

Bomba wasn't sure where she'd seen the girl of the pair before, but she was quite certain she had. She watched the girl with keen interest, but tried to keep her expression something close to boredom. She didn't want to arouse anyone's suspicions til she was sure what she was dealing with.

Normally only "the rats" and a few other people relevant to a particular job were allowed in the lounge while plans were going on, but Mac… sort of knew Bomba… sort of. He remembered her from when they were kits, though they never interacted much since he was 8 years older than her, but she used to play with his kit brother sometimes. Even though his brother had been a couple years younger than her, she still let him hang out with her and her friends, and Mac had once caught her scolding some girls more her age for picking on the younger boy.

Mac remembered Bomba's kindness to his baby brother, and found himself trusting her, despite the insistence from at least one of the other mots and a few of the rats that she must be a spy. As far as he knew, Bomba had not been living with the Jellicles for at least a couple years now. He wondered if she even remembered him from her youth.

When she'd first arrived, he'd asked Sullivan what he thought. His short, stout friend had shrugged and said he'd keep an eye on her, but that she didn't come across to him as having an agenda. Mac trusted Sully's opinion.

"And that's why we like to respectfully ask you to include our services in your upcoming endeavors," concluded the boy, using words Mac would never have guess were in his vocabulary. He hadn't seemed like the brightest bulb. Neither of them had, but the boy especially gave off major airhead vibes. Macavity raised an eyebrow, maybe there was more to them then he'd realized.

Then again, maybe the dumb kit had just memorized the line.

"And what exactly do I get out of this?" he drawled in his deep, silky, menacing voice.

"Uhhh…" said the boy, looking worried for the first time, though Mac wasn't sure if it was because of the question or just Mac's tone.

"You've told me why you want in, but why should I want you in?" Mac elaborated. He was starting to lose his patience. Surely some advantage to the gang had been part of their plan? Surely they hadn't taken such a huge risk by invading his heist meeting just to tell him why they feel they have a right to take part? Surely they didn't think he gave a shit about where some no-account kitten gang had drawn their turf line against other no-account kitten gangs? Surely they weren't that stupid?

"Right," started the boy, "well you see, uh…"

"You see," the girl took over, indicating herself and her companion with a couple jerks of her thumb, "we're a notorious couple of cats!" The boy, recovered from his brief bout of nerves, nodded sagely.

"Yeah, that's right!" he piped proudly. "Notorious!"

Mac raised an eyebrow and looked down at Sully. His loyal friend looked up at him. Mac couldn't really see Sully's eyebrows through the mask, but he knew Sully was as amused as he was. Or, well, maybe "amused" wasn't the right word…

"You, uh.." Sully said to the pair, fighting back a dry chuckle that wanted to rise from the back of his throat, "you do know what 'notorious' means, right?"

"Uhhh…" the teens chorused, looking at each other.

"Well known," explained Sullivan, not waiting for them to come up with an answer. "Famous. Renowned in dis-reputation."

"Oh yea we know that," claimed the boy, nodding.

"Yeah!" echoed the girl.

"Really?" asked Sullivan flatly, crossing his arms over his husky chest.

"Oh yeah! Sure we do!" exclaimed the girl.

"Pfft of course," said the boy, posing arrogantly.

"Pfft," echoed the girl, making a show of rolling her eyes.

"Then why have I never heard of you?" Mac asked slowly, dropping an extra degree of ice and menace into the words. He liked watching them squirm. At his side, Sullivan smirked.

"Well uh.." stammered the boy, "erm…"

"Ahh well, uh, you see, uh…" tried the girl.

Macavity grinned wickedly, allowing the expression to serve as an implied threat. The pair squirmed more. The boy gaped, wide-eyed, at the crime boss. He tried to speak, but couldn't make a sound. He looked rather entertainingly like a fish, repeatedly opening his mouth to start speaking and then closing it again. The girl, meanwhile, blinked, shook her head, and cleared her throat.

"Ahem, well, I suppose we aren't notorious enough to reach the ears of such an illustrious Cat as yourself," she said, trying some flattery, "but we're a damn good team."

The boy snapped out of his fish-trance to nod proudly and seriously.

"We can do all manner of things for ya!" he announced.

"Like what?" Mac asked. He was getting bored.

"Like everything!" the boy boasted.

"We're the sneakiest sneak thieves," the girl elaborated.

"And burglars!" added the boy, who obviously couldn't be prouder of this fact.

"And acrobats!" the girl practically sang. She did a cartwheel as demonstration. Mac wasn't sure how she thought cartwheels would be of service to him, but at least he was slightly less bored.

"And Teazer 'ere can pick a lock like nobody's business!" The boy jerked a thumb at his companion.

"And Mungo can creep quieter than a Mouse!" added the girl, who was apparently called Teazer. "And so can I o' course, Mungo's just even quieter."

Bomba's ears had perked up at the name Teazer. Hadn't she known someone named Teazer as a kit? She was more sure than ever that she knew this rambunctious girl, but she couldn't place where…

"And we're tougher than we look," continued the boy, apparently called Mungo.

"Yeah, especially together," Teazer agreed, puffing herself up to try and look intimidating. It wasn't very effective. "Nobody crosses us."

"Yeah nobody," echoed Mungo. They seemed to echo each other a lot.

When they were finished, Macavity sat silent, regarding them. Sullivan watched his boss and waited. The gang watched Macavity, and Sullivan, and waited.

Bomba watched the duo as they resisted the urge to start squirming again under the silence. She vaguely remembered a much younger kit in her tribe, at least 6 or 7 years younger, that was called "Teazer." But that kit had been a boy. It must have been a different Teazer. She remembered it had been short for something…

Finally, after a full minute of silence, Macavity spoke.

"I have many other Cat's that can do all of these things." he said slowly. "What makes you special?"

"Can any of em do it all at once?" Teazer retorted immediately. Mungo looked worried though, glancing around the room at all the masked criminals that were surrounding him as though seeing them for the first time.

"Probably," answered Mac. It was a lie, but he suspected the kits were exaggerating too, and besides, he wanted to see how they reacted. "What else ya got?"

The girl hesitated, but didn't squirm. Her eyes darted to her sides, and Mac knew she was resisting the urge to glance nervously around the room like her friend. The boy pulled his attention away from the sneering, glaring thugs and addressed Macavity again.

"Look you need us," he said plainly.

"Yes, so you say," Mac drawled, "but why?"

No answer. The kits exchanged glances.

"You've yet to explain this to me." Mac layed the ice on thick, but the kits didn't squirm.

"Well?" demanded Sullivan. "You heard him! Either come up with a decent answer, or get lost! Quit wasting our time!"

"We can go anywhere," Teazer said suddenly, her voice calm and confident. The boy nodded quietly at her side. "We can get into anywhere," she went on, "and I do mean anywhere."

"Don't matter where," Mungo continued, his voice as calm and serious as his friend's. "Don't matter the security. If we want in, we find a way in. No one and nothin' can stop us."

They were both suddenly in serious business mode. No squirming, no nerves, no arrogant posturing, no showing off or silly antics, just two very serious kits, staring him dead in the eye, perfectly calm. Macavity suspected this was more than a boast, and it would make them quite valuable if it were true. But he was no fool. He would make them prove it.

"And you expect me to believe that?" he drawled.

"We got in 'ere, didn't we?" Teazer said, still calmly, but with a touch of teenage attitude, staring at him sassily as if challenging him to argue. Mungo raised an eyebrow and smirked, but said nothing. Neither of them broke eye contact.

Sullivan looked up at Mac. He waited. The gang waited. Bomba waited. The kits waited. Seconds ticked by. Sullivan, and only Sullivan, saw the smirk fighting to take form on his friend's face.

Finally Macavity, the most feared gang leader in the Junkyard, chuckled a low chuckle that rose into full hearty laughter. Sullivan joined him, chuckling his own nasally chuckle, then wheezing in laughter. They were finished before the rest of the gang were recovered enough from the shock and surprise to join in. Most of them didn't get the joke anyway, didn't understand what was so amusing about these punks to their fearsome boss and his fearless second-in-command.

"You're in," Macavity told the kits, who had started to squirm slightly again when he'd started laughing. He couldn't fault them that, he had a very intimidating laugh, even when it was genuine.

Now they grinned wide, and launched into speeches of gratitude, promising he wouldn't regret it and so on and so forth. The much of rest of the gang murmured to each other, unsure of how they felt about this new addition, except Hoover, who stood silently by the door, and Bomba, who was still contemplating where she'd seen this kit before, and of course Sullivan, who wrinkled his nose at the talkative little brats but said nothing, waiting for his boss.

Mac said no more, but waved a signal to Sullivan. No one else looking would have known what the signal meant, but he knew it was his cue to take back control of the room.

"Shut up!" said Sully, standing up and stepping forward. Everyone shut up. Mac's chief henchrat may have been the shortest guy in the room, but his bulk, his mask, and his crisp, commanding voice made up for what his height lacked in intimidation. He pointed a clawed finger at the two grinning kits.

"You're in, but you ain't big fish yet. You're at the bottom of the tank, eating algae off the dirt and gravel. That's your place. Don't forget it." He paused for a second to let that sink in. They nodded their understanding.

"Now sit down and shut up!" Sullivan finished, "You've wasted enough of our time."

"Do we get a cool mask like yours?" one of them asked as Sullivan returned to his seat.

"No! Sit down!" he shouted, gesturing angrily at them with one meaty arm. Mac chuckled at his irritated friend and rested a hand on his shoulder.

Still grinning, the kits tried to find seats on the nearby sofa but found it was suddenly full, the thugs that were seated in it stretching out and spreading their legs until there was no room. Looking around they saw similar things happening around the room. Single, unoccupied chairs were now taken up by people that had previously been standing. Only Hoover remained standing, still guarding the door. The runts were no skin off his nose. As long as they stayed out of his way.

Undaunted by the lack of seats, the duo found a spot close to the table where they would be unlikely to be stepped on and obediently sat down on the floor. They smiled up at Sullivan, who nodded his approval. At least they could follow instruction.

Meanwhile Bomba was too distracted trying to remember where she knew Teazer from to sit down at first, though she did plant her rear on the arm of the Mac's chair when he gave her thigh an encouraging tug. The brat couldn't be the little boy named Teazer from her old tribe, unless… nah she would have needed surgery, and she looked way too young for that. How would she even afford it? No it couldn't be. Bomba gave up, crossed her legs, and leaned against Mac, wrapping her arms around his maned head and running a hand along his collar bones.

The gang didn't settle so easily. A few of the higher players tried to stay focused on their planning, but the majority the gang (minus the somber Hoover, the now contented Bomba, and the annoyed but faithful Sullivan) gradually broke back into murmurs amongst each other. They apparently had already forgotten their captain's anger, or had mistaken it as being for the new brats only. The brats in question, meanwhile, weren't paying attention at all, not that there was much to pay attention to with the state the room was in. They were playing some kind of game where they pretended to slap each other's hands, but didn't make any noise.

Sully itched to get them all back on track, but, as always, he stoically waited for Mac. Sometimes his boss liked letting a room run out of control. He found it entertaining, in certain mood. But a glance up at his old friend told him he was not amused. Even sat in the loving arms of the hottest mot in the gang, he had clearly fallen into a considerably bad mood. Ignoring Bomba completely, he glowered darkly at his very, very distracted gang. But still he said nothing, made no signal.

Sully hesitated, then laid a comforting hand on his friend's knee. Mac looked down at him, his face unreadable, then looked back out at the room again. Sully followed his gaze, keeping his hand on his knee. He waited.

Finally Mac sighed. He lifted arm to rest his elbow on the arm of the chair not occupied by Bomba's very fine rear end, and let his head rest against his fist. His glower softened.

“You know how you can smack something to get it to work?" he said.

"Yeah?"

"I wish I could do that with people.”

When Sully didn't reply, Mac looked down to see his loyal masked confidant staring up at him. Half his expression was obscured by the Rat-mask, but Mac could see the straight, seemingly unamused line his mouth was making, as well as the tiny almost undetectable little twitch in one corner of his mouth.

"What?" he asked, fighting a smirk of his own.

"Boss," Sullivan said flatly.

"What?"

"Boss."

"What?!" Mac couldn't hold this in much longer.

"You do that all the time!"

Mac threw back his head and howled with laughter, and Sullivan doubled over laughing as well. Neither quite knew what it was about this they found funny, but they couldn't help it. They laughed together, Sully wheezing and snickering alongside Mac's deep rolling chuckle. The rest of the gang fell silent, then some of them nervously tried to chuckle along to a joke they didn't understand.

"Shut up!" Mac roared and jumped to his feet, nearly knocking poor Bomba off the arm of the chair. Sullivan swallowed his laughter, put on his best stony face, and stood just behind Mac at his right side. His place.

Everyone stared at Mac, who glared and showed his teeth, a growl rumbling deep in his throat. His hackles were raised, making his red mane stand up like a fiery halo around his head. Suddenly he swung his right arm out in a wide arc, over an unflinching Sullivan's head, to strike the face of an unmasked Cat at the table with the back off his hand. The Cat, a safecracker they were outsourcing for this gig, tumbled backwards off the bench. Bomba, new enough to be shocked and surprised at this outburst, got up from the chair and quickly put it between her and Macavity.

The furious ginger tom then charged to the other side of the table, where the masked Cats that sat there and nearby shrank away, putting their hands up defensively and shaking their heads to ask for mercy. Finding their body language suitably submissive, Mac turned away from the table to take in the rest of the room. Near his feet were the new brats, staring at the floor and trying to make themselves as small as possible. They had shifted a bit away from the table, and the boy, Mungo, had placed himself between Teazer and Macavity. He briefly glanced up at Macavity, then snapped his eyes back to the floor.

On the sofa across the room two masked thugs looked at each other, then back at Macavity with frowns and narrowed eyes.

That would not do.

Macavity snarled and swiftly crossed the room to the sofa, giving Mungo a sharp kick in the stomach along the way. He took his claws out and swatted one thug across the mouth, where his mask didn't protect him, and with the claws of his other hand, slashed the other thug from shoulder to sternum. Both cried out. Mac let out a bellowing growl to silence them. The thugs cowered, whimpering and holding their wounds. A third thug seated on the sofa turned his head away and lowered his gaze to the floor. Suitably submissive.

At the door, Hoover was watching this unfold, seemingly unbothered, staring unblinkingly from beneath his mask. Macavity turned and spotted him, and in three steps he was upon him. He grabbed the much larger tom by the side of the neck, using just enough claw make it smart, and dragged his head down level with his own, snarling and baring his clenched teeth.

"Sssitt" ordered Macavity in a low, soft voice that promised pain it if not heeded.

Hoover obediently lowered to the floor. Sitting crosslegged with his back against the door, he broke eye contact by turning his head slightly and staring at his boss's left knee. Suitably submissive. Macavity let Hoover go.

Sullivan had watched it all impassively, but when Mac had gone after Hoover, who was never a problem, he had shifted slightly on his feet, fighting his discomfort.

It's good for show, he told himself. Biggest tom in the room. Reinforces his dominance with the whole gang. He knows Hoover would submit easily. The others don't necessarily know that. It's good for show.

He allowed himself a tiny sigh of relief when his boss had let the big tom go. If Mac had held on to him for much longer he would have had to try to gently remind him to chill the fuck out, without undermining his authority.

Unfortunately, Macavity had turned around in time, and was familiar enough with his chief henchrat's body language, to see his reaction. He growled and glowered and bared his teeth. Sully didn't flinch, but sent a pleading message with his eyes.

Easy, boss. It's enough. Please calm down.

Only Mac was looking at Sully. Only Mac saw the troubled, almost sad look in his eyes. Neither of them were telepaths, and so Mac couldn't know exactly what Sully was trying to tell him, but he knew that look. It was the look Sully always wore when Mac's temper flared hotter than was safe for either of them. It was a look that Mac associated with a calm, comforting voice.

"It's okay," his friend would tell him, "it's alright. Take it easy, you're alright."

Though Sully was silent now, Mac could hear those soft, soothing words in the back of his mind when he looked in his friend's eyes.

It was a look Mac associated with the gentle weight of an understanding hand on his shoulder, or his arm, or his knee. It was a look that made him feel strange, unfamiliar, but not unpleasant things. It was a look that awakened a protective instinct in him, though he was only mildly aware that it was himself he was protecting his best friend from.

It was a look that calmed Macavity's heart.

It was not a look of fear, nor was it truly one of submission.

But it was suitably submissive. For his purposes. He told himself that as his glower softened, his lips curled back down to cover his teeth, and his bristling mane smoothed back into it's normal wild shaggy state.

In truth it wasn't submissive at all. Macavity had been soothed. With one gentle look, the most feared gang leader in the Junkyard had been subdued.

The whole exchange, from growling at Sully to silent plea to dampening fury, had taken no more than five seconds. No one else in the gang had noticed. They were too busy not making eye contact. Mungo was doubled over on the floor, holding his stomach and trying not to make noise, while Teazer knelt beside him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders protectively, her head layed against his back. Only Sullivan was looking at Mac, and no one was looking at Sullivan.

Except Bomba. She was watching anxiously from behind Mac's chair. She had seen her new lover lock eyes with the obnoxious little fatass that was in charge of the rat squad. Had seen his rage melt away like nothing. Now she looked from Sullivan to Macavity and back again, trying to make sense of what she'd just witnessed.

Macavity sneered his annoyance at her, but did not bare his teeth. She offered him a small nervous smile, just trying to stay on his good side. He did not return it. His temper was under control, but his mood had not improved. He stalked silently back to his chair, giving Sullivan the tiniest of nods on his way. Sullivan knew his cue.

"Alright listen up!" shouted the rat captain, looking around the room at the nervous eyes that looked up at him. "No more chit-chat! No more bullshit! Let's get back to business!"

Sullivan didn't look at Macavity as he passed him, and Macavity didn't look at him either. He silently glided by and flopped hard into his chair. Bomba, to her credit, didn't flinch or back away at his approach, but she didn't come around to sit on the arm again. Nor did he encourage her to. Instead, she leaned one arm against the back of the chair with as much an air of nonchalance as she could muster.

A minute ago, literally one minute, he would have been annoyed and probably offended at her behavior, but in this moment he admired and respected her for it. Macavity's thoughts tended to run like that, all over the place. Increasingly so, these days.

Despite Sullivan's firm orders, it was only when the boss was seated again that the room cautiously started reorganizing itself. The safecracker was helped to his feet by a masked Cat, and returned to his place on the bench. Teazer quietly helped Mungo sit up and the two sat in silence as other Cats nearby returned to the table and started ruffling through papers. Hoover, already where he was supposed to be, didn't move.

"You two," Sullivan pointed a claw at the two bleeding thugs on the sofa, "get yourselves cleaned up, you're bleeding all over the upholstery!"

They didn't need to be told twice. They scrambled from the sofa and made for the door, finding it blocked by Hoover.

"Let 'em out." ordered Sullivan.

Hoover stood, opened the door, and slammed it closed again after they had exited, nearly catching one of them by the tail. Then he crossed his arms and leaned against the door once more. Macavity glared a warning from his chair, and Hoover silently slid his back down the door until he was again seated crosslegged on the floor.

"Everyone else, get focused!" Sullivan continued. "And stay focused! No more games! We have work to do!"

Sullivan looked around the room, and, satisfied they all would behave themselves for now, returned to his own seat at his boss's side. From his chair, Mac quietly and gently reached out to stroke the short, sweaty, taupe-grey fur on the back of Sully's neck with his fingers. Sully's shoulders relaxed. He leaned into the touch.

"There's other ways to get shit to work you know," he muttered softly. Mac took his hand away. Sully looked up at him.

"And smacking it might not do anything but break it."

Mac said nothing. His attention seemed to be on the Cats at the table, who were discussing a blueprint. Sully sighed and patted Mac's arm, which was now resting on the arm of the chair.

"But you do you, boss..."

"Hnm," grunted Mac.

"… just…"

Mac's head didn't move, but his eyes flicked down to regard his loyal companion, his expression blank, silently granting him permission to say whatever he was hesitating to say.

It's okay, Mac tried to tell him with his eyes, I won't get mad.

But still Sully hesitated, finally he sighed again and said "We can talk about this later."

Sully had wanted to tell his boss that he thought he should reign it back a bit, for his own good as well as the good of the gang. But this wasn't the time or the place. Anything that could be taken as arguing with him, including questioning his methods, should be done in private. Undermining him in front of everyone, right after they had just gotten the room under control again, was a very bad idea. He didn't know how Mac would respond to it, but more importantly, he did know how the gang would take it, and Sully reckoned it wouldn't go well in the long run. Just not a good idea.

So he waved it off until later, when they could talk in private. He patted Mac's wrist again, letting his hand rest there a moment before taking it away, and turned his attention back to the discussion over the blueprint.

Bomba, the only Cat within earshot of their conversation, watched the two is them with interest. She had no idea what to make of these two, or their strange relationship.

Well, she thought, at least the tall one's hot.

From the door, Hoover had seen the quick gentle touches between the boss and the captain. He paid it no mind. He knew the two were close, that it wasn't like that, and that it wouldn't matter even if it was. He also knew better than to assume a little bit of sentiment (or even intimacy) made either of them weaker somehow.

And it wasn't any of his business anyway.

On the floor near the table, Mungo and Teazer tried to focus on the discussion, but it was difficult seeing how they couldn't really see the papers being discussed. Not to mention Mungo's very sore abdomen, and the fact that they suddenly had a lot to think about. They each wondered to themselves, had they gotten in over their heads?

Sullivan listened to gang discuss routes and patrols, the safecracker piping with helpful information such as how much time he'd need and so on. Tension had crept back up into Sully's back and shoulders. He didn't like jobs like this. He didn't like outsourcing. He didn't like new faces. And he especially didn't like when his boss was in a mood. He knew (or rather he hoped) Mac would never hurt him, not even in a mood like this. But it wasn't all about his own personal safety. He just didn't like his friend's dark moods. Not one bit.

Brooding, frowning, jaw clenched, sweating under his stupid mask, and trying his hardest to stay focused (set a good example, dammit, he thought to himself) Sullivan leaned against Mac's chair. He felt Mac's fingers lightly stroke the back of his neck yet again. They lingered there, just for a moment, just enough to relieve some of his tension, then returned to the arm of the chair.

Sully shifted so that his elbow brushed his friend's leg, letting it rest there a moment, as a return gesture of affection. Then both returned their attention to the business at hand, both in an ever-so-slightly better mood.