#they're too sickeningly in love and something's gotta add an edge to it and that something is DADDY ISSUES

[workingforitallthetime]

Bro… that podcast made Mack sound deranged… and like, not in the usual good way. Punching and damaging the windscreen because he took “25 minutes” is… bad-deranged.

to the extent that you are serious about the opinion expressed in this ask, i must emphasize that i am not in the business of passing judgment about real life hockey boys, and i am especially not in the business of real life worries about them or their partners.

what i AM in the business of is fiction! and my business happens to have a robust subsidiary in daddy issues, and from that perspective this incident is ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING.

once more with feeling: fiction. fiction fictiony fun fun fiction.

when i listened to the tale of the windshield incident this morning confetti rained down upon me and a giant sign lit up with words spelled in lightbulbs that said GENERATIONAL CYCLE OF ABUSE. where did mack learn this behavior? oh maaaaaaybe from the father who took his frustrations out on his kids via hill sprints? maaaaaaaybe from the guy whose wife once looked directly into the camera and announced with grim matter-of-factness that "i'm not scared of him."?

sheriff rick's in town making sure that everyone's following their program, and i am fully willing to believe that when something didn't go according to sheriff rick's schedule, sheriff rick did not have the healthiest ways of expressing his emotions. i am also fully willing to believe that mack absorbed all of that, learning by example that when your partner unexpectedly inconveniences you it is fine to show your frustration physically, and if anyone objects, you respond by minimizing your actions and blaming them for breaking their own windshield.

FURTHERMORE, i am intrigued by how hockey culture -- a culture in which violence is understood to be a reasonable and even expected response to certain slights -- could reinforce the appropriateness of a reaction like this, to both mack and will. how far would mack have to go before will would identify an act of violence as inappropriate? would he ever?

what i'm saying is that i'd like a scene at the livermore ranch, some kind of family gathering. some kind of mild inconvenience: will forgot the salad they were supposed to bring, or one of the kids hit the switch for the dome light and the battery in the range rover died. mack punches something, breaks something. there's a split second of awkwardness but rick gets the conversation going again. maybe one kid gets a little teary about it and the celebrini cousins make fun of them.

later, in the kitchen, robin catches will's eye. they understand each other. they're not scared.