Obviously, I'm a little new to this fandom... I've only been watching MacGyver for a few months, and I still haven't finished the entire series yet. But with that being said, I do have a bit of experience with writing fanfic, and it looks like Murdoc has replaced Carlton Lassiter as my big muse.

I'm a little nervous about this, for a variety of reasons, but if anybody is interested, I'd really like to share a pair of MacGyver fics that I have. I've been sharing them with a few of my friends, and they seem to like the stories, but some of them don't actually watch MacGyver, and I'd really appreciate some constructive criticism.

One of them is a crossover with Psych. The main character, Shawn Spencer, becomes Murdoc's protege...because seriously, they have a scary amount of things in common. The story skips around a lot in time and basically shows their friendship from beginning...to end. Penny Parker makes a cameo and MacGyver plays a pretty important role in the story, especially in the last 3 or 4 chapters. The story's set after the end of both series (and a lot of it takes place in the present day), so it's kind of a look at Murdoc's life when he gets older. It's about 19,000 words.

The other takes place probably between "Obsessed" and the end of season 7. Mostly because I don't know how MacGyver actually ends yet. Anyway, it's a straight-up MacGyver fic that started life as a Murdoc/Penny one-shot...and then it blew up to 30,000+ words. The first half or so is mostly happy, and it centers around Murdoc and Penny Parker. The last half or so is a bit more serious and it's more about Murdoc and MacGyver. It has some cool moments, y'know...like Murdoc singing in the shower, MacGyver getting hit in the head more than once (including kiwis), MacGyver and Murdoc getting into trouble (of course), and Murdoc showing human emotions with regards to his sister. I'm sure there are lots of continuity errors, because I didn't realize until I came to this forum that apparently Mac moves out of the houseboat in S7... Anyway, if you've ever wondered what Murdoc dreams about at night, this is the fic for you.

Both are PG. Both pretty much paint Murdoc as a protagonist.

Crossover fic is here: http://psychfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=4589

Murdoc/Penny fic is here: http://www.psychfic.com/community/showthread.php?t=4314

I don't mind to repost the story text here if that's what's preferred on this forum... I just decided to link to them because I'm lazy.

Next to Axminster and Emperor Palpatine, Murdoc is my all time favorite bad guy! Keep them coming 😃😃😃

You know I will!!! ....after I finish wrapping up the last bit of that second fic, though. Can't leave it hanging on a cliffie!

Thanks for the encouragement, Barry! Clearly you have good taste in villains.

Finished a Murdoc one-shot... It's a little over a thousand words, and it's set one day before the events depicted in "Partners" (i.e., the day before Pete & MacGyver first met). Rating it PG because nothing is described in detail, but...Murdoc is a little unclothed, so you have been warned. Let me know if the rating needs to be changed or...anything, really.

*********************

A New Game

The water was nearly scalding hot, hot enough to make every inch of submerged skin flush red and to send the blush of heat crawling up his chest and neck. The room would be full of steam later and he’d have to wipe off the mirror at least six times. He didn’t care. He liked it this way.

He also liked the white layer of foamy bubbles, the scent of roses. He dipped his hand beneath the water before running it over his face. He heaved a sigh and sank further into the water.

Bathing was his time to think---or to not think, and slip away. Whichever the moment called for. At that moment, he was most definitely not thinking. There would be plenty of time for precision thought tomorrow.

Peter Thornton, his greatest nemesis to date, had just arrived via plane earlier that day. He would be looking for Murdoc, trying to interrupt the assassin’s business. But Thornton would never think to look for “Sarah.” Not until it was too late.

He chuckled to himself as he grabbed the straight razor from the edge of the bathtub. Lathering his left leg with soap, he ran the razor across his toes, up his shin, over his knee, and down the length of his thigh. Painstakingly, he repeated the process several times until both of his legs were hairless and smooth. He ran a hand over his right knee, silently wondering at the new texture of his warm skin. It was always curious to feel this sensation after he hadn’t shaved for a period of time. Always such a change to drop into the habits of pretending to be a woman after he hadn’t used that disguise for a while. Being a woman, in many ways, made business easier. Women were delicate, easily manipulated, physically weak…innocent. Even now, in this feminist, sort-of equalized modern society, nobody expected a serious professional killer to be a woman. Particularly not when all the federal agents had been instructed to look for a man.

Murdoc tapped the flat of the razor idly against his lips. With his lean build, average height, and talent for acting, he could easily pass as a woman with the proper costuming. Becoming Sarah wouldn’t even be a challenge. It was a shame, really. For years now, his favorite vice was tormenting Peter Thornton…but at this point, the cat-and-mouse chase was getting dull. Time to end this long-standing rivalry and move on to something else.

But what?

Murdoc sighed and placed the razor on the edge of the bathtub. He was thinking, and he specifically had gotten into the bath to avoid thinking. Closing his eyes, he leaned back into the bubbles and tried to drift away. He stayed there until the bubbles had gone tepid and the water, lukewarm. He had no desire to move. No desire to think. Or to feel.

To feel.

He was long past feelings at this point. Most emotions were dangerous. Fear, jealousy, greed, lust, love, compassion, mercy...the list of useless and risky feelings just went on and on. The only truly useful emotions in Murdoc’s business were rage (in moderate but effective amounts), pride (enough to make one ambitious but not arrogant), and---believe it or not---a healthy dose of excitement. Yes, excitement---that spark of inspiration that triggered the true potential of an assassin, unlocking passion for one’s job and the creativity to do it well. Excitement meant motivation, which meant more contracts fulfilled and greater notoriety, which in turn led to movement up within the ranks…

And Murdoc had always been an eager hitman. Well-controlled, naturally, with a discipline and courage that bordered on the supernatural---but his pure drive to elevate killing to an art form was what made him a truly great man. Without his drive, his passion for his craft, Murdoc would never have risen above the common rabble of street thugs. He took contracts that no one else ever could or would fulfill, and he transformed those murders into world-class crimes that left authorities all over the globe scratching their heads. One of his greatest pleasures in life was being able to confound both criminals and law enforcement alike before slipping back into the veneer of shadows without a trace---and making a handsome profit each time.

People wondered how he did it. The answer was simple. If you love what you do, then you’ll never work a day in your life. That’s what people say, isn’t it?

Murdoc smiled a little to himself as he rested in the water, touching his bare and hairless knee once again. This little ritual of his, paying close attention to every little detail, dropping into character before a big kill… This was all part of the show, the rehearsal before the performance. Killing Peter Thornton in addition to the original contract would be an all-too-delectable grand finale, putting Murdoc’s skills on display to the entire world yet again. He licked his lips. The curtain was almost ready to rise.

Then Murdoc frowned. He’d missed a spot. Just a tiny swath of hair along the right side of his leg. He picked up the razor and swept it across his skin; everything had to be perfect.

He winced. “Ouch.” The sound of his own voice, a quiet and almost involuntary whisper, seemed to echo in this little hotel bathroom. A thin tendril of red wound its way into the water, mingling with the last remnants of unpopped white bubbles floating on top of the soap-slicked water. “Clumsy this evening, aren't we?” he muttered to himself. “Well, tomorrow, everything will be perfect.” He sighed. “Everything’s always perfect.”

Perhaps a little too perfect.

If excitement was what had set him apart as a true killer, then he was going to begin losing his touch soon if he wasn’t careful. The lit candle of his excitement was almost burned out. Thornton was the most fun that he’d been having lately; with no competition from the other assassins and a long run of too-commonplace contracts, his life was getting…boring. He found that his elaborate ideas for death had run out long ago. Over the past few years, his kills had gotten more and more utilitarian; ruthlessly efficient, but lacking in passion, style, theatrics. No fun; strictly business. And Murdoc was getting tired of it. He needed a new game to play.

Perhaps if he broke his favorite toy, the DXS would send him a new one to play with. Hopefully, someone as clever, if not as dedicated and perseverant, as Thornton had been.

Murdoc smiled again has he rinsed his own blood away from the straight razor and lifted himself from the water. Yes… A new toy would be exactly what he needed.

A fresh start… A new game… A second wind.

Soon, Murdoc told himself as he carefully dried each part of his body with a soft white towel. Soon he would once again feel excitement. Soon, he would again feel alive and valuable and inspired.

Yes…

Red lipstick, a practice run of Sarah’s looks and voice, joined with Murdoc’s face in the fogged-up mirror. Crimson lips smiled and forgot about the slight trickle of scarlet rolling down from his cut to the tiled floor.

Tomorrow, there would be excitement. Tomorrow…

Everything would be perfect.

********************

Thank you so, so much, Barry! You make me feel like I've got my own cheerleader.

That's really great!

Thank you so much! Glad you liked it.

If things go according to plan, there will be more where that came from soon.

Oh, very good

Thank you, Rocket! Your feedback means a lot to me.

A wonderful little insight into our favourite bad guy. Thank you for sharing.

Thank you so, so much!

I'm looking forward to what you come up with on the VS!

Thank you, MacsJeep! I appreciate the vote of confidence.
I've got about 5,000 words so far, and hopefully I'll be finished with it soon. (Fingers crossed!)
I'm just hoping that it'll turn out to be halfway decent.

Wrote another Murdoc one-shot while I was trying to break through some writer's block the other day. (Darn it, Mac! Stop being hard to write and start cooperating already! ) A couple nights ago, I was listening to a song and for whatever reason, parts of it happened to make me think of Murdoc and Sonia from "Halloween Knights." I guess something about their dynamic always seemed...interesting to me, so this little what-if scenario crept into my mind. It takes place shortly after "Strictly Business" and I borrowed a lot of inspiration from U2's "If You Wear That Velvet Dress."

Rated PG because Murdoc is doing his job.

*********************

Fallen Stars

“You failed.” Two very simple words, but very sharp, especially coming from her lips. He hadn’t been looking forward to reporting to her for this exact reason; he knew all along that she would hold his shortcomings over his head until the end of time.
He glanced around the darkened, utilitarian apartment as he spoke. “Yes. I suppose you're very pleased with yourself, aren’t you, Sonia? Don’t bother to deny it. You wanted to see me fail.”
Sonia shrugged. “I wasn’t planning to deny it. I knew that you couldn’t kill MacGyver. I had no intention of taking it easy on you, not after what you did. You betrayed all of us, Murdoc.”
“Refusing a contract is hardly a betrayal.”
“Once in, never out. You know this business. You knew what would happen.”

“I knew what would happen to me,” Murdoc snapped, boring his eyes into hers. “But Ashton should never have been drawn into any of this.” He tore his dark gaze away from Sonia Chapel’s face. “But you knew that, didn’t you? You knew what she meant to me. You were the only person that I trusted with my secret. I know that you told Nicholas Helman about her. You’re the only one who could have found her. Don’t act like I’m the only one who knows what it means to betray someone.”
“Of course I betrayed you,” she replied. “It was business. Helman made me his right-hand woman, and look where I’m at now---in charge of the Board of Directors and one of the most powerful people in the world. I’d have been stupid not to side with Helman; it was the only way to advance my position.”
“You could have sided with me,” Murdoc said quietly. “Nicholas would still be dead---we could have killed him together---and you would still have his position. You never had to breathe a word about Ashton to anyone. You could have just let me go quietly, with what was left of my reputation intact. Instead, you chose to ruin my life.”
“What are you trying to do, Murdoc? Make me feel guilty? You should know me better than that by now.”
“I thought I did, but clearly, I was wrong.”
“One night, Murdoc. It was one night. And it was years ago. That’s not enough to stop me from stabbing you in the back. There’s no honor among thieves. Won’t you ever learn that?”

“It was more than one night,” Murdoc replied stiffly. “It was years of working together, training together, climbing up the ladder together. Mutual respect. Besides, we’re not thieves. We’re assassins, and we should have a little more respect for ourselves. …But perhaps you’re right, Sonia. Perhaps I do need to learn.”
“I’m glad we finally agree on something,” Sonia said, voice even and unemotional as always.

“I could have done it, you know. If I’d really wanted to.”
Sonia’s lip twitched into a slight frown. “Done what?”
“Killed you. When I was asking you to let me rejoin HIT, and I threw the knife at you to make a point about how I cheat. I could have killed you. Easily.”
She scoffed. “No, you couldn’t. I had more than enough time to dodge that blow.”
“You were able to dodge it because I allowed it. If I wanted you dead, Sonia, you’d have been dead long ago.” Murdoc paused. “I thought about it, back when I was working with MacGyver. He warned me against killing anyone that night, but I considered eliminating you anyway instead of knocking you out. I knew that you would come back to haunt me. But I chose to let you live.”

“You should have just ended me right then and there, back when you had a chance. But you never were what I’d call an efficient killer, Murdoc. Effective, maybe, but not efficient. You think too big, get these delusions of grandeur, like you’re some kind of great phantom or something. At the end of the day, all that really matters is getting the job done. Murder isn’t an art or a craft. It’s not a talent or a way of life. It’s a job. That’s all. One day, you’ll get that through your thick skull, and maybe then you’ll get to rejoin HIT.”

Murdoc scoffed at Sonia’s words. “My dear, I will never again ask to rejoin HIT. I’m finished with you---all of you. In fact, the only reason that I came to report my failure personally is so that I could get a good long look at you one last time before I vanish into the shadows forever…and because I have something else that I want to ask you.”
Sonia narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “And just what might that be?”

Murdoc leaned in close, very close, close enough to make Sonia reach for the automatic pistol strapped to her belt in case he tried anything nefarious. He was close enough that she could feel warm air rushing across her cheek as he spoke. “Was it worth it to you? Betraying me, selling out Ashton, humiliating me in front of everyone---has all of it been worth it to you?”

Sonia’s eyes burned colder than distant stars as she forcefully answered: “Yes.”

Murdoc’s voice was practically a purr. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”
Ever so slowly, he backed away, dark eyes glinting like a cat’s pupils reflecting moonlight. “You know, my darling Ms. Chairman, before power went to your head, I used to be very much in love with you. Or something close to it, anyway. Yes, I used to believe that you were the most beautiful woman in the world. But I had my heart stolen by another not too long ago, and even though I foolishly let her slip away, I did learn something from that experience.”
Sonia rolled her eyes; Murdoc always talked too much. “I know that you’re waiting for me to ask you what you learned so that you can wrap up your little spiel. Just cut to the chase already, would you?”

Murdoc laughed, his customary eeriness sending a slight chill down her spine. “I learned that you’re really quite ugly. And you’ll be even uglier when you’re dead.”

Sonia’s eyes widened in instant understanding---and instant fear. “What did you do?”
“Poison. Aerosol. My own creation. It’s absorbed through the skin. I sprayed it on your hand while we were talking. When you reached for your gun, I was sure that you’d noticed and that you were going to stop me, but---well, you’ve probably lost sensation in your fingers by now, so you couldn’t shoot me if you wanted to. You’ll be dead in a matter of seconds.” He chuckled, a grim smile searing across his features. “Better death through chemistry, I always say.”

Involuntarily, Sonia sank to the floor, her body functions shutting off one by one like a candle melting into a pool of wax. The poison had reached her lungs; she struggled to breathe. “Murdoc… Why?”
“Because there is honor in me, a code of honor that you forced me to violate in addition to violating it yourself,” Murdoc said, “and I don’t tolerate failure any more than you do. Perhaps next time---if there is a next time---HIT will consider its actions more carefully when business becomes personal.” His smile grew wide. “But this time, I highly doubt that we’ll see HIT rising from the ashes. No… This time, HIT is just as dead as you are. Lights out, my darling.”

By the time Murdoc finished his beautiful speech, Sonia was very dead and he was pontificating to a purple-faced, asphyxiated corpse. He shrugged, snapped a photograph, and made his secretive exit from her residence; the body would be found in the morning with no forensic evidence to connect him to the crime.
He ran his hands over the picture of her horrified, contorted face as he walked down the deserted midnight sidewalk. He usually sent snapshots like this to the Phoenix Foundation, but this one---this one he wanted to keep. Sonia Chapel---the woman who was as beautiful as she was deadly, and the assassin who was almost as good as Murdoc---was dead, and without her leadership, Homicide International Trust would be ruined…permanently. Murdoc smiled. He may have failed yet again to kill MacGyver, but his success in avenging his sister and his stained honor was even sweeter.

When he got home to his warm bed, Murdoc slept soundly until morning, dreaming of his dear sister and his lost love and the elusive MacGyver, not waking until the clean daylight shone in through his windows.

Whoa! That was awesome!

Thank you! I'm surprised that someone actually liked it.

Nice job on both your stories!!

Thank you!

I love this! You write Murdoc so perfectly 😊

Thank you! That's high praise and you made my day!

I feel a deep kinship with Murdoc. I probably shouldn't take too much credit, because the way I see it, I'm just writing down what he tells me to say.

If only I can get MacGyver to be just as cooperative, then I'll be in business.

Sanguine, how about doing a Murdoc episode for the VS? Season 9 doesn't have one yet...

Rocket, you have no idea how truly that would delight me. I will begin work on it immediamente! Would you prefer good guy Murdoc or bad guy Murdoc? Or both at the same time?

Good guy or bad guy... Up to you.

For me, Murdoc always walks the line between the two - a bad guy with some scruples, some things he won't stoop to. But his innate badness always shows through at some point, usually just in time to drop MacGyver well and truly in the poo!

Have fun

Sounds good. I have a short list of ideas, so I'll noodle around and see what I come up with. I'll get it to you as soon as I can. This is going to be so much fun!

It's kind of funny that my viewpoint on Murdoc is almost the inverse of yours. I see Murdoc as a basically decent man who happens to do a lot of very, very bad things (and enjoys the challenge of doing them). He'll lie, cheat, kill, steal...but at the end of the day, he's just a lost soul. It's weird for me to see that just about everyone else, including my brother, sees Murdoc as an evil person and not just a villain. ...I don't even know if any of that made sense. It's been a long day. 😜

I too wonder what made Murdoc the way he is.

I think he probably started out as a reasonable human being, but I reckon something in his past has turned him to the bad and he's found that actually he's pretty comfortable there!
His desire to succeed at any cost and to survive to have another go if he fails eclipses any desire he has to do the right thing, so to me he's definitely a bad guy, but...

I do wonder what made him that way

He had to have started out as a normal-ish kind of guy. I've been wondering if maybe it could have something to do with his parents dying. We know that both of his parents are dead and that he's been taking care of Ashton in secret for years. Maybe after they died, he started doing illegal things to earn enough money to support her. And over time, he found out that he had a talent for that line of work and that he enjoyed it. We also know that Nicholas Helman was his mentor. Is it possible that Helman found this young, desperate man and manipulated him---molding him into the perfect assassin?

Murdoc also kind of strikes me as being a little quirky. ...Okay, a *lot* quirky. (He is a madman, after all.) Could it be that since he's always been different, he grew up being one of those types that wants revenge against the world for mistreating him? Maybe to the point where he dehumanizes "normal" human beings, thus making them much easier to manipulate and kill? And then, when he met MacGyver, Mac would have been different. And because MacGyver, in his own way, is just as much of an oddball as Murdoc is, Murdoc is actually forced to acknowledge him as someone whose existence is valuable---which, even though it doesn't stop Murdoc from trying to kill him, *does* force Murdoc to respect him.

...I don't know if that made sense outside of my head.

I do stalk MDB a lot on his social media, and I like to take screenshots of things that he posts about Murdoc to help me stock back ideas for character development. A couple weeks ago, someone asked MDB how he was able to bring so much life to Murdoc. MDB tweeted back that for him, the key to playing villains is that they don't care if they live or die.

And I just thought that that sounded so spot-on for Murdoc, because he takes so many risks and is willing to throw everything away just for one more chance to kill MacGyver. It definitely makes you wonder what happened in his life that would cause him to not care if he dies.