Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Charlie was thinking again. That was something that usually got him in trouble. Even still, while the others argued about something at the bar, he held his beer and thought. 

He was thinking about irony, about how it was ironic that he had spent years hopelessly pursuing the waitress, and that only when there was hope for a relationship, he realized what she was actually like. Which was to say, really annoying. 

He was thinking about Mac, too. Mac, who more often than not had a distant look on his face these days. Mac, his best friend since grade school, his first friend, his favorite friend. Mac, who was finally, finally out of the closet and free to be who he was. Finally okay with himself. So it was only ironic that another important person in Mac’s life was gone.

And Charlie was thinking about that, too. He was thinking about how it would probably be nice for that kid to grow up knowing his dad. About how weird he felt when he thought he had a son, and about how much crazier it maybe was for Dennis. Dennis, who very rarely allowed himself to be vulnerable. Dennis, who grew up thinking he knew his dad. Dennis, who was perfect from his hair to his shoes. Charlie was pretty sure that Mac was in love with Dennis. Everything about that seemed to make sense, from the roommates thing to how Mac had practically worshipped Dennis since they had met in high school. But that was whatever. Charlie felt like his friendship with Dennis was strained sometimes, but that was okay because he usually had Mac anyways.

Charlie’s thinking was cut off by a hand waving in front of his face.

“Charlie? Dude, you’ve just been sitting there for the past five minutes,” Mac said, sounding reasonably concerned. “What’s up?”

Charlie wasn’t sure what to say. “Uh, yeah, sorry. I was just thinking.”

Dee scoffed. “Yeah right Charlie. What was it this time? Something about rats again?”

“Shut up, Dee. Are you okay dude? How much paint did you huff today?” Mac’s eyebrows were doing that thing that made them look like a squiggly bracket on a keyboard.

“I… I don’t think I did that yet today? I kind of follow a schedule for that, involving cat food dinner and putting on socks.”

Frank chimed in. “It helps with the screaming cats.”

Mac didn’t even pretend to understand that, even if it was something that had been explained to him before. “Right. Well, we were just talking about how long it’s gonna take for Dennis to come back. Frank and Dee think it’ll be a while, I say a week or two at most.”

Charlie looked around. Dee had an uncomfortable look on her face. Frank had the same expression he normally wore, wide eyed and pouting. Mac just looked very sure of himself.

“Hey Mac, I don’t know how to break it to you, but I don’t really think Dennis is coming back. Did you see that kid? That kid has cuter puppy eyes than you. He’s blonde, dude. There’s no way Dennis is gonna let a kid like that end up like a kid like me or you. That kid is gonna get to have a father because for once in his life maybe Dennis is making the right decision.”

...is what Charlie was thinking. Instead, he let out a vague “dunno” sound and took a drink from his beer.

Mac’s life was very rarely consistent. There was not a lot that he could rely on, not enough constants he could wake up to and look forward to. Some things, sure; his mom’s constant smoking. Falling just short of his dad being proud of him. Poppins always coming back, no matter how matted and greasy and falling apart he was.

Mac guessed Charlie was like Poppins, in that same dependable way.

Dennis, on the other hand. Dennis was a more recent constant than the others. Because of this, perhaps it should have been obvious that Dennis would be less reliable than the others. But it isn’t fair for Mac to have had to assume that. It wasn’t fair that Dennis left.

After a few weeks without him, Mac felt the absence hit him hard. He felt the realization only then, that maybe Dennis wasn’t coming back. Maybe Dennis would come back, but not anytime soon. It was enough to devastate Mac, not that he would admit it. He did stay home from the bar for a bit though, just to wallow for a while.

He wasn’t expecting the knock on the third day. Although some idiot voice in his head screamed ‘Dennis is back!’ Mac knew better than to get his hopes up this time. He answered the door to find Charlie with his eyebrows raised in concern. Pasting on a smile, Mac let him in and tried for casual. “Charlie, what’s up!”

Charlie’s eyes widened. “What’s up? What’s up with you, man! You haven’t been to the bar in days. Dee and Frank are the worst in group conversation.” Mac shut the door, and Charlie seemed to cut himself off as he gave Mac a glance-over. “Really though, are you doin’ okay? You’re lookin’ a little…” At this, he just made a series of faces that made sense to Mac before looking around at the rest of the apartment, moving his weight from one foot to the other.

Sitting down on the couch, Mac shrugged and grabbed at his own hands. “Yeah, uh, I guess I might be… I might be…” Shame coiled in his gut as he felt his face and neck heat up, and everything in his mind was trying to stop him from getting emotional over this. He swallowed and tried again. “Maybe I’m a little surprised, is all.”

Charlie sat down next to him and sighed. “About Dennis?”

Mac couldn’t say anything, so he closed his eyes and nodded, swallowing again.

Charlie moved closer and wrapped an arm around Mac, who opened his eyes and leaned into him a little bit. They were both quiet for a little, before Charlie breathed in a little and turned towards Mac. “Hey, would it be okay if I stayed here? Like, not to live here, because I know you like it to be clean and stuff, but maybe I could stay overnight until he gets back. I could keep my stuff at mine and Frank’s apartment, it would just be like a giant sleepover. Like when we were kids. Except I can sleep on the couch, if you want.”

Mac blinked and thought it over. It sounded… ideal, somehow, like something they both had always wanted to do as kids. “You’re gonna have to shower at least 4 times a week if you’re staying in my bed.”

Charlie smiled in a way that made his eyes crinkle a lot. “C’mon, you think that’s too much for me? I’ll shower every day if you really need me to. I just don’t see the point.”

Mac grimaced. “You’re gonna have to brush your teeth daily, too. Your breath smells like cheese.”

“That’s because I was eating cheese. I was nervous, I thought maybe something happened, yanno?” Charlie looked down and started rubbing the back of his neck. “I guess I- I know Dennis is your best friend, and I know I’d be really upset if you just left, especially if we were roommates.”

Squinting his eyes, Mac felt like something was off about that sentence but he felt too out-of-sorts to figure out what. “Yeah. I guess I just. I really trusted him, I thought he would be here. Like, I just refurbished it! And it sucks that he isn’t here. Especially because what if-” He inhaled deeply and let the rest out quickly. “What if part of why he left is because I’m gay.”

Charlie blinked. “What?”

Mac shook his head and made a frustrated noise. “You know! Like. Apparently you all knew it, but. Maybe it’s like, he realized how uncomfortable it made him to live with me since I’m… Since I’m openly gay now.” Charlie took his arm from Mac’s shoulders and Mac felt his heart drop to his stomach until Charlie grabbed his shoulders with both hands to make Mac face him.

“Mac, all of us knew. I don’t know how soon the others did, but I know I realized it in high school. That’s because you never hid it from anyone except yourself. All of us talked about it because every time it came up around you, you just, you just-” Charlie made his own frustrated noise and face. “You wouldn’t have it! So we could only talk about it by ourselves together, and when you finally decided to come out on the ship it was such a relief! But then you… you just took it back! And that was the most annoying thing you have ever fucking done! But when you looked at us after signing that paper, you looked like. I don’t know. Like we hurt you for assuming you’d do that again. And I knew you couldn’t do it anymore, you couldn’t bottle yourself up anymore. And I know that everyone else was as glad as I was when we realized you were really out. There is no way that Dennis was upset that you came out of the closet. There’s no way he cares that he’s living with an openly gay friend.”

Charlie let his hands drop and put his back against the back of the couch again, staying turned towards the conversation a little with his hands on the couch cushions.

Mac took some deep breaths. His face and neck, which had calmed down before, started to feel hot again, and his palms started to sweat as he felt his eyes well up. He wished he had sleeves on his stupid fucking shirt to wipe his eyes on. “A-are you-” Mac’s voice caught in his throat, but when he cleared it some tears fell over and he felt awful. “Are you sure you wouldn’t be more comfortable sleeping on the couch?”

Tentatively reaching towards Mac, Charlie tried to rub the tears away without being too weird. “Dude, if you think being openly gay is going to make you suddenly want to jump my bones when we’re sleeping I think you have some bigger issues to worry about.”

Mac couldn’t help but laugh, even as the tears started to come faster and Charlie gave up on chasing them, instead pulling him in so he could cry on his jacket. Mac felt arms rubbing his back comfortingly, and chose to pretend he was in grade school and that they weren’t adults so this would feel normal again.

Chapter Text

That first night, Charlie made sure to wash his clothes (another request from Mac) and take a shower, brushing his teeth carefully since they were already pretty loose. Mac was already in bed on his phone when Charlie came in, dressed for bed. “Whatcha looking at?” Charlie asked, looking curiously at Mac’s phone before sliding under the covers.

“Some kind of Kinsey scale thing.”

“I’ve looked at a lot of those. I’m kinda in the middle.”

“Wait, what do you mean? How did you even read the stuff?”

Charlie looked almost embarrassed for a moment, and Mac felt sort of bad for asking. “Actually Artemis helped me. She says I probably have dyslexia. But I’m pretty sure I’m not that smart anyways so I don’t think that I could read if I didn’t have dyslexia. If I do.”

Mac stopped him. “I don’t think you’re necessarily not smart? Like, you’re definitely a dumbass. But not worse than any of us at the bar. Wait though, you’re not straight?”

Charlie smiled and shook his head. “Nah. I’m not really into any of it honestly? Like, I know I was really into the waitress since high school but after we did it, I realized that I never really wanted to do it that much. Not just with a girl. I thought maybe she would be different but she really wasn’t, and then she was just really annoying and mean. Dee said she was always like that.”

“She was.” Mac set his phone on his dresser.

“Well, I kinda feel like I wasted a lot of time for nothing. All I know is that romance is nice but I’m kind of scared that’s gonna happen again, that I’ll chase somebody and realize they’re awful. I don’t care about the whole sex thing. I just really like that warm feeling you get with a person you’ve always admired and daydreamed about, you know?” Charlie looked over, feeling flushed, and realized that he had been fidgeting with his hands and that he was rambling a bit.

“I get that I guess. Not the sex thing, but that’s personal to everyone I think. Love is nice. Even like the friend kind of love, like for the people at the bar. I hate you guys but not actually, it’s more of a nice feeling most of the time.”

Charlie got lost in thought for a moment. He did love everybody at the bar, but Mac got a different kind, the deeper kind reserved for his favorite person in the world. They grew up together, they helped each other through everything up until a certain point, and Mac had earned that love.

But what if it felt different because it wasn’t platonic?

Mac’s voice pulled Charlie from his own head. “I’m sorry about the waitress, Charlie.”

Clearing his throat, he felt speechless. “I-it’s okay, you never actually did anything anyways. And even if you did, nothing was really going to help it.”

Charlie heard the sheets rustle and suddenly Mac was closer to him. “I just mean the general sorry, like when you just pulled me into a sorta hug earlier today, like ‘hey sorry Dennis is gone but I’m here to make it better.’ I don’t want you to feel bad about the waitress anymore.”

“I don’t.” Charlie turned away and grabbed a pillow with one arm.

Something clicked suddenly in Mac’s mind. “Wait. Did you… today did you call Dennis my best friend?”

Tensing, Charlie wondered how this was related. “Yeah. So?”

“Charlie, that- okay, look. Dennis is great and he’s nice to have as a friend sometimes, but that’s not like us. Dennis isn’t my best friend dude. That’s your position. I know we agreed to just all be best friends but you and I know everything about each other, and Dennis can’t even open up to anybody.”

When Mac stopped, Charlie swallowed and turned back over to look at him in the dark. His eyes were serious and anxious. “How come you wanted to live with Dennis?”

“Hey man, I love you but your sense of hygiene is worse than a stray dog’s.”

“That place doesn’t have plumbing, dude! I showered when we were kids!”

Mac rolled his eyes. “Fine, yeah. I did think it was going to be more convenient to live with Dennis. But not because I like him more, okay?”

Charlie shrugged and nodded. “Yeah okay. Hey, could we play nightcrawlers?”

Shaking his head, Mac turned over. “Goodnight Charlie.”

“Night Mac.”

It was comfortably warm when Mac woke up, so he kept his eyes closed for a few more minutes until he realized it was because there were arms around him. He looked over to find Charlie’s face buried in his shoulder blades. “Charlie!”

“Hm.”

“Dude, get up! You’re spooning me.” Mac felt Charlie’s head dig deeper into his back and sighed in exasperation. The arms wrapped tighter around him and he inhaled sharply at the surge of affection that crawled into his gut. Ignoring it, he reached for his phone and checked the time. They had slept a ridiculous amount of time. “We need to go, Dee’s probably already at the bar.”

Charlie grunted and reluctantly loosened his hold, pulling himself away from Mac.

“At least you’re finally gonna be there. Without you and Dennis, it’s just Frank and I trying to figure out what to do every day and Dee shrieking about how impossible and insane our ideas are.”

Mac stood up and stretched. “That doesn’t sound too different than usual.”

The two of them got ready for work and headed to the bar, where Dee bitched them out for a bit before giving up. She was really just glad that they had showed up.

It was a slow day, and they were able to close early. Charlie was the last to leave, and Mac offered to wait for him. He said he wanted to stop at Frank’s apartment first to grab something, so Mac went home and showered before watching TV.

Charlie came home an hour later eating a can of cat food.

“Dude! What the hell are you doing?” Mac started, standing from the couch.

Looking confused, Charlie held up a forkful of cat food. “What does it look like I’m doing, I’m eating some cat food before bed.”

“No! No. New rule. No eating cat food in this apartment, Charlie.”

Charlie frowned. “What if it’s dry cat food?”

“No.”

“What if it’s dog food?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Whaaaaat if… I eat it before I get here?”

Mac sighed. “I mean if you really have to, sure, I guess.”

“Can I eat this outside?”

“Please can you just let me make dinner tonight? Okay? With no cat food? Or dog food?”

Charlie took a moment to consider this, looking into Mac’s eyes and seeing that he was being serious. It reminded him of when they were kids, staying over Mac’s house. After his dad was arrested, his mom wasn’t always awake to make them food, so Mac would read the directions on a box to make them something to eat. “Alright.”

Mac smiled wide, and Charlie immediately felt as though he had made the right choice. It was more than that, though; it was a feeling that made his heart rise into his throat and put a smile on his own face. It felt like that time in Jersey with the waitress. But better. He threw away his cat food and washed his fork off in the sink as Mac got out a frozen pizza.

Charlie sat down on the couch, and after a minute Mac joined him. They watched Jeopardy and Mac laughed at Charlie’s absurd questions to the answers. Mac was surprised when Charlie got a question right, to which Charlie just looked at him.

“This is a show for geniuses, dude. That was a super hard one!”

Charlie shrugged. “Yeah, but it was about cleaning. I’m a janitor, bro. That would be like if there was one about working out or something. You’d probably get it right because that’s more your thing, you know?”

Mac almost blushed as he felt his chest swell with pride. He was proud of Charlie for understanding a concept like specializing in a subject, and he was proud of himself for being the guy who specializes in working out. “You’re right, man. You might not be good at reading yet, but you understand stuff. Can you tell I’ve been working out though? Like, is it obvious?” Mac flexed a muscle in his arm to show off.

Charlie cleared his throat. “You’re always working out. You don’t look any different than usual.” It wasn’t true, though; most of the gel had worked its way out of Mac’s hair, giving it a disheveled charm that Charlie found incredible. Mac’s huge brown eyes were twinkling as he looked to Charlie for approval, something that hadn’t happened much since they were kids. And Mac’s lips seemed redder than usual, as if he had been chewing on them recently. It was very distracting and Charlie had to remind himself that staring at your best bro's lips was off-limits.

Mac sagged and frowned, and Charlie found himself backtracking. “I-it’s just, you know, you always look super ripped, so I can’t really tell the difference if you got buffer or whatever.”

Eyes lighting back up, Mac opened his mouth but was interrupted by the timer on his phone going off. “Oh, the pizza’s done.”

Chapter Text

After they ate, Charlie took his shower and put on night clothes. When he walked into the bedroom, Mac was already laying down under the covers tiredly. Charlie followed suit, struggling to get comfortable.

“Can you stop thrashing around?”

“I’m not thrashing, I’m just settling in.”

“It’s literally like you’re throwing your body around.”

Charlie huffed and strained himself to sit perfectly still, but he was still violently shaking, except now it was more like vibrating than thrashing. Mac scooted closer and put a hand on Charlie’s arm. “Hey, hey, calm down! Relax. C’mere, relax.”

Looking over at Mac, Charlie leaned into his touch. He felt embarrassed, even though Mac had seen things like this from him frequently. “I just have so much energy right now. I really probably am the weirdest guy in the world, right?”

Mac frowned and shook his head against the pillow, rubbing circles on Charlie’s arm with his thumb. “No. That’s gotta be Cricket at least.”

Huffing out a laugh, Charlie was smiling hard. “I mean, I guess. Why do you mean, though?”

“That guy was somebody, you know? He had the church and a bunch of people respected him. He seriously threw all of that away for Dee.”

Charlie shook his head. “No way dude, I really think he would have ended up the same anyways.”

“That’s even weirder!”

“Well I guess. But are you saying he’s weird because of his thing for Dee?”

“I mean, I do think that’s weird but that’s not really it.”

Charlie thought for a second, wondering whether or not he should say what he was thinking. His hesitation startled Mac, though.

“What? What is it? Hey, you’re making me feel better by being here. If I can’t make you feel better by, you know, letting you talk to me… That’s really sad, dude. We’re best friends.”

His lack of filter threw Charlie for a loop; Mac hated looking sappy. He hated crying, even by himself, as he had once confessed to Charlie in middle school. This seemed heavier than crying somehow. So Charlie felt obligated to tell the truth. “I had a thing for Dee before.”

Mac sat there, his thumb stilling on Charlie’s arm. His eyes were a little bit wider. He opened his mouth, closed it, and continued rubbing circles before looking down. “I’ve had a crush on Dennis.”

Charlie smiled and nodded. “I guess he is pretty, in a really sterile way.”

“How do you know what sterile means?”

“Hey, do you remember hiring me as a janitor at the bar?”

Mac sighed. “Right, yeah, I get the relation. But really, it isn’t just how he looks.” Cutting himself off, he leaned even closer to Charlie. “He just always seems so sure of himself, and even though that’s definitely something that I want for myself it works really well for him as a person. He doesn’t doubt himself, like there’s no second guessing. He just goes for it.”

“You know, you’re really good at faking that. I always thought you were confident.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“How often do I lie to you?”

“The paint thing, for starters.”

“That was because I knew you’d yell at me for enjoying a perfectly safe beverage! Honestly, though, I always thought you seemed pretty full of yourself.”

Smiling goofily, Mac shook his head. “But you do know what the difference is, right?”

Charlie did know. Charlie knew that the differences between Mac and Dennis were so high in number he could make the world’s largest venn diagram and still run out of room on the sides with plenty of space in the middle. Charlie knew that if he made a pros and cons list for Dennis and another for Mac, Mac’s list would have a lot of pros and Dennis’s would have a lot of cons. Most importantly, Charlie knew what Mac was talking about. Mac was talking about his own inability to be honest with himself for years. So Charlie nodded and stopped Mac’s thumb with his hand, feeling carefully at the spot between his thumb and pointer finger. Mac made a face, but no attempt to stop him, so Charlie continued. “I think you’re even more sure of yourself than he is of himself, at this point.”

Mac considered this, but it was a bit hard to think with Charlie stroking that weird sensitive part of his hand. He could barely think at all, and it struck him as his eyelids drooped that he might be falling asleep. “G’night Charlie,” he mumbled.

Charlie stopped stroking Mac’s hand but didn’t move his own from where it was resting. He felt lucky that Mac knew exactly how to calm him down. With this thought, he hummed and let his own eyelids fall shut as sleep took him.

When Charlie woke up, he was alone in the middle of the bed. He wasn’t sure why he was ending up in that part of the bed lately; he always preferred to sleep on the edge of the bed so he wouldn’t be too close to Frank.

Looking back, though, sleepovers with Mac had always been like this. If Mac woke up first, Charlie would wake up alone on Mac’s side of the bed and find his friend downstairs watching television. If Charlie woke up first, he would be warm all over from being so close to Mac the whole night. Sometimes Charlie’s arm was under Mac’s neck, which kind of sucked because it would fall asleep and feel awful and sometimes it took everything in him not to start yelling. But sometimes Charlie would wake up pressed against Mac, which would make his heart beat too loud and his hands sweat too much and he always had to back up and breathe for a little without someone in his space, to have some room to think quietly about having such a warm and nice friend. Nice when he was sleeping, of course. A conscious Mac was generally closer to ‘tolerable.’

The smell of bacon and eggs cooking roused Charlie from his sleepy childhood thoughts. He yawned and got out of bed, making his way to the kitchen where Mac was standing over the stovetop. Mac looked over tiredly and acknowledged Charlie with the hand that wasn’t prodding the eggs. Charlie rubbed some sleep from his eyes and sat at the table. “Could you make me some bacon too please?”

“Already on it man. Did you not want eggs too?”

“I can eat eggs but I’d rather do extra bacon.”

“That’s fine, I’ll eat the eggs.” Mac started scooping bacon onto a paper plate lined with a paper towel and handed it to Charlie when he was done. “Save some for me.”

Charlie set it on the table and admired the crispiness of the bacon before eating. He looked back at Mac in all of his breakfast-making glory. “Your hair looks good like that. You might be able to reel more in if you left it like that more often.”

Mac’s eyebrows pulled together but he relaxed quickly. “You’ve always said that. I just like it slicked back when I go out.”

Charlie shrugged and turned back to the bacon. He felt an almost-foreign embarrassment in his stomach and tried not to focus on it. “Can we go to the park today?” There was a less-than-popular park nearby where Charlie liked to watch dogs. When Mac was still in the closet, he would try to pick up chicks while Charlie enjoyed their dogs.

Mac finished cooking his eggs and turned off the burners. “Sure yeah, we’ve got some time. I woke up early because you drooled on my goddamn arm.” Sliding the eggs from the pan to a plate, he sat next to Charlie at the table.

“I can’t control what I drool on when I’m sleeping!”

“Ideally you wouldn’t drool at all. In an ideal situation, you aren’t here at all. Ideally, Dennis would be here, or I could handle myself.”

Charlie winced at that one. “I know you can handle yourself.” He opened his mouth to say more, but couldn’t think of anything over the weird ache in his chest. Instead, he ate another strip of bacon and ignored it. He knew he probably wouldn’t be able to think of anything good to say anyhow.

Mac had already started eating his eggs and could feel Charlie looking at everything except him now. His shoulders sagged a bit and he looked at what little bacon was left.

“Hey, I asked you to save me some.”

“Sorry.”

Mac took what was left. “Did you like it then?”

Charlie put his head in his hands. “It was ideal.”

That made Mac scoff. “What does ideal mean to you?”

“It means it was great, thank you for making breakfast.” Charlie grabbed his jacket and went outside. Mac sighed and finished eating, setting the dishes next to the growing pile next to the sink. He didn’t have the energy to do them right now. Or for the past few weeks, really. He needed a nap, so he laid down on the sofa and closed his eyes for a bit.

When he woke up, he heard some dishes clacking together and tried to make his brain understand what could have possibly been happening. “Charlie? Or am I being robbed?” he tried sleepily.

“No, it’s Charlie. Just Charlie, doing Charlie work like Charlie does I guess.”

He sounded frustrated. “What the fuck are you talking about?” Mac got up and found Charlie finishing the dishes in the sink.

“When I got back from smoking you were asleep again so I did the dishes.”

“Why were you smoking?”

“I guess Dee got me addicted. It kinda sucks. I just do it when I’m stressed sometimes.”

Mac frowned. “Thanks for doing the dishes I guess.”

Charlie shrugged and gestured to the dishes. “It is Charlie work anyways. And you made food so I figured I would. Y’know, do something too. Since I’m here.”

“Yeah. You don’t have to stay here though, you know, you can leave whenever you want and you don’t have to stay for breakfast. I’m not great in the mornings.”

Charlie nodded. “Definitely not ideal.” This made Mac laugh for some reason, so Charlie smiled despite everything.

“You’re right. But anyways things wouldn’t be any better if Dennis were still here. He didn’t even like how I set up the apartment.”

“You did turn his room into a sex chamber.”

“It’s a gym! That is an exercise bike!!”

“I’m sorry, what exactly is an exercise bike?”

“The Ass Pounder 4000.”

“Are you hearing yourself say those words right now dude?”

Chapter Text

Upon Charlie’s request, they brought a box of old granola bars to the park to feed pigeons. Charlie opened one, picking out the chocolate bits and eating them. At Mac’s confused stare, he explained. “Chocolate isn’t good for birds.”

There weren’t a lot of dogs or people out today, it was a bit chilly. They sat on a bench and Charlie started tossing out granola bits, which quickly attracted a lot of pigeons. The birds fought each other for the few bites, which Mac found ridiculous.

“These are Philadelphia pigeons, they get plenty of food. There’s food in every trash can.”

Charlie threw the rest of the granola bar to the pigeons after checking for chocolate pieces, then inspected a nearby trash can. “Eh, I think they just took the trash yesterday. All that’s in here is half a burrito,” he grimaced, then reached in and fished it out, holding it up.

“Okay, that’s disgusting. Put it back. No, please don’t eat that-”

“It’s still warm!” Charlie argued around a mouthful.

Mac stood up and batted it out of his hands, throwing it back in the garbage. “We have food at home, Charlie! You look like a homeless guy.”

“Oh! Okay, so, you expect a bunch of pigeons to trek through the dark dungeon of a trashcan to eat that, but when I do it, suddenly I’m ‘disgusting’ and, and a ‘homeless guy’?”

“Yes. And listen, go ahead, feed the pigeons so they don’t have to raid trash, but you’re a goddamn human being. Don’t eat trash, Charlie. You could get really sick, you never know what kind of person was on the other end of that burrito!”

Charlie frowned and opened another granola bar, trying to come up with an argument to that point, but his breath hitched when his eyes landed on a figure in the distance. He squinted, then toppled backwards and hid behind the garbage can, grabbing Mac’s wrist to pull him down too. “Okay okay okay listen, now I know I look super crazy but let’s stay down here okay, stay down here and don’t make a sound.”

“Charlie what are you doing? What’s going on-”

“Oh, nice! So now you’re hiding from me behind a garbage can?”

Mac looked up to see the waitress with her hands on her hips, glaring at Charlie.

“Oh, shit.”

Charlie was cowering behind the trash can, but he played it off (poorly) by standing up, turning to the waitress, and saying, “Oh, hey, didn’t see you there.” At this, Mac stood up too.

“Right, so then who was I just making eye contact with a minute ago?”

Charlie cleared his throat and shuffled awkwardly. “Uhh, it must have been somebody else I guess. There’s a million people who look just like me I bet.”

The waitress crossed her arms. “So you think you’re just gonna stalk me for years, try to get me pregnant, then disappear? What the hell is wrong with you, Charlie?”

He couldn’t bring himself to look at her, so he was mostly looking at his feet and looking around the park. “You scared off all my pigeons.”

She scoffed and jabbed an angry finger at him. “You ruined my life! I realize that you have no idea how the female reproductive system works, but I have nothing to eat except the cat food in your apartment and the food from the woman’s shelter! If I’m having this baby, it’s probably going to end up as fucked up as you are, you stupid dickweed!”

Charlie felt such a horrible dread that he had to grab Mac to lean on. He felt his whole face flushing with shame and he finally looked at the waitress, unable to think of anything to say. Mac took a step behind him and used both arms to hold him by his shoulder and his waist. Charlie gasped until Mac whispered in his ear, “Follow my lead, okay?”

And then it didn’t matter what was happening, because he trusted Mac.

“What the fuck did you just call my boyfriend?”

His soul hit the ground, and Charlie could swear he felt time stop.

The waitress didn’t react for a moment, but then she was wide-eyed and gaping. She looked between Charlie and Mac several times before trying to use words. “You? Are you, I mean, do you? Are you fucking kidding me?”

Charlie sighed heavily and leaned back into Mac’s chest, and Mac buried his face in Charlie’s hair. Mac leaned in towards Charlie’s ear again and whispered, “Don’t worry, just relax.”

The waitress huffed. “Alright, so you have yourself a little boyfriend to protect you now, is that it? Because that doesn’t excuse you from being a father, Charlie! You better come up with a plan, because I am having this baby and you are taking care of it!!” She stormed away from them with her fists clenched.

Mac grabbed Charlie’s shoulders and started to lead him in the direction of the bar. His small friend took a deep breath. “What! What? Wh…”

“Shhh. Seriously, just relax. It’s alright,” Mac tried to comfort him because he knew how worked up Charlie could get.

Charlie spoke in broken fragments the entire walk to the bar, but most of them made sense. He repeated things about being a ‘stupid dickweed, just like she said’ and having ‘no goddamn clue, need to come up with a plan, dude.’

As soon as they were inside Paddy’s, Mac explained what happened to Dee while Charlie screamed at Frank in the office.

“So, this is it, like, he’s seriously gonna be a daddy?” Dee seemed to understand what a concerning idea this was.

“Right, see the thing is she didn’t say that outright, but the layers of implication were thick. I told her I’m Charlie’s boyfriend so she’ll leave him alone I hope.”

“Oh, so, so this is a thing now? You’re Charlie’s boyfriend?”

“No, Dee! I said I’m Charlie’s boyfriend so she’ll back off and quit, like, stalking him and shit.”

“You mean like how he stalked her for years?”

Mac made a frustrated sound. “Charlie has attachment issues.”

Sitting upright, Dee pulled her eyebrows together in a way that made Mac think of Dennis. “Does he? Does that make things okay in some universe?”

“Jesus Christ, Dee, I’m only telling you this shit because we need to figure out a goddamn plan.”

“No, actually, you need to figure out a plan. I don’t need to do anything.”

Mac glared at her suspiciously. “What’s up your ass?”

This seemed to make Dee outrageously angry. “What’s up my ass? Oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s just that every single time things go wrong for one of you guys, you come to me for one of my genius plans! But do you know what happens when I have a problem? You call me a bird, or a skank, or you make everything a thousand times worse! Or, or you ask me to raise your goddamned baby, or some stupid shit! I am not raising Charlie’s stupid baby!”

Mac’s eyes went wide. “Why the hell would we want you to do that? That’s a horrible idea, you would be a terrible mother!”

“You just completely ignored almost everything that I said!” Dee made a sound of utter exasperation and shook her head. “I give up. I don’t know what to tell you, why don’t you two be the gay dads to the baby.”

At this, Mac’s eyes lit up and he smiled ridiculously. “Dee! You’re a genius! That’s exactly what we were gonna do with your baby, but then it wasn’t your baby at all. Thank goodness for that, I guess. But hey! That actually is the perfect idea.”

Dee rolled her eyes and shook her head again. “I almost wish I hadn’t said it. You two are gonna kill that baby.”

Mac shrugged. “Hypothetically, I feel like it could be great. But we’ll see.”

Chapter Text

Before work ended, Charlie was calmed down a bit. This was a relief to Mac, but also to Frank, who had to sit through his episode without much advice. Charlie was mostly quiet the rest of the night, but he did pull Mac aside close to when the bar closed.

“Hey, so I’ve been talking to Frank, and he said that the waitress has actually been hanging out at my apartment a lot lately, like stalking me you know? So I’m probably not going to be going there a whole lot until I can come up with a plan.”

Mac nodded. “Yeah, I get that. If she shows up at my apartment, I’ll just fend her off with my sweet karate moves.”

Charlie smiled at that. He didn’t stop smiling the whole way to Mac’s apartment, so Mac guessed he must have said something right. As soon as they were in the apartment, Charlie dove into the couch. Finding this amusing, Mac sat down next to him and started running his hands through Charlie’s hair comfortingly. “What’s on your mind?”

There was a loud sigh as Charlie lifted his head a bit. “I hope today never happens again.”

“Well, strictly speaking, it literally won’t. But I will try to like, prevent future situations like that from happening.”

“You’re my boyfriend now.”

“We’re fake boyfriends,” Mac clarified.

“But that still means we have to do things real boyfriends do! So what’s the point in saying that, like, how is that any less stressful than having a real boyfriend?”

“Charlie, a real relationship implies that there’s always that underlying stress of like, ‘what if we break up?’ Since we aren’t actually dating we don’t have to worry about that. We can fake break up anytime, no sweat.”

This thought did nothing to soothe Charlie’s nerves. “Right.”

Mac pulled his hand from Charlie’s hair and started to play with his own hair. “What are you gonna do about the waitress, dude?”

“I don’t know yet. Maybe she can live with Frank and I’ll just live in the sewers or something. I don’t want to live with her. I’d rather live with a bunch of rats. Then my kid can be friends with rats too.”

“Your train of thought is fucking absurd.”

“I hope my kid doesn’t have to kill a bunch of rats.”

“I hope a bunch of rats don’t kill your kid.”

“I would absolutely not let that happen.” Charlie looked more sure of this than anything, as if he knew anything about how to protect a child from the infinite dangers the world presented.

Mac, however, seemed to have the same illusion in his own mind. “I wouldn’t either.”

“For your own kid?”

“Well I mean, yeah, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to end up with my own kid at this point, so. I was talking about yours, honestly. Which I would absolutely defend as my own kid.”

This was the best news Charlie had heard all day. “Uncle Mac!” he exclaimed, sitting up on the couch and punching Mac’s arm. “You’re gonna be this kid’s favorite uncle.”

Mac’s cheeks heated and he gave a lopsided grin. “Can we teach them karate?”

“Hell yeah we can teach them karate, what kind of stupid question is that?”

For Mac, that was the best news he had heard all day. “You know I’m not gonna let you live in the sewers, right? You can stay here until she figures out her shit, if you need to.”

That hadn’t been something Charlie had considered. “Is that really okay?”

“Yeah, but the rules are still in play. No cat food, you have to shower and stuff.”

“Of course yeah.” Charlie did look hesitant, despite his words of confidence.

“I’m serious, Charlie, no cat food. Or dog food.”

Charlie was silent for a moment, then nodded somberly. “No pet food.”

That night after Mac rinsed the gel from his hair, he was pretty much ready to go to sleep. Once they were both comfortable under the covers, Charlie seemed to have other plans.

“I think I’m going to leave Frank most of my trash. There’s a couple of things I can’t get rid of, but the other stuff I bet he’ll enjoy more than I do. I’ll have to go through it I guess. I’m gonna have to buy a thing of paint for the walls over there, because that’s something the waitress was bitching about. I really don’t want to run into her again, Mac. Hey, remember how you couldn’t shake Dennis’s prom date for a few months after that happened? And like, she’d always find you? That’s how I feel right now. Or, or maybe I just feel like I’m the waitress now, and she’s me. Except she can’t be me, because I’m me-”

“Wait a second, Charlie, you knew about that?”

“The prom thing?”

Mac nodded with his eyebrows drawn together.

“Well, yeah dude. She was always looking for you, and she knew we were friends so she asked me where you were a couple times.” Charlie shook his head in an irritated fashion. “She was never nice to me, but when she couldn’t find you she was all smiles, like,” Charlie threw his voice, “‘Hey there, Charlie, do you know where Ronnie could have gone?’ You must have really seduced her, somehow. One time I saw you trying to get away from her so I yelled you over.”

“Oh, shit, I remember that!”

“Yeah? I grabbed a bunch of street cats one night and lured them to stay right near her house. Tried to screw you over by giving one of them this little necklace-sign that said ‘Mac loves you.’ But I guess it just scared her off.”

Suddenly Mac was laughing hard, even wheezing. Charlie was a little spooked until Mac calmed down enough to speak. “Dude, I tried everything to get her off my back! I thought it was some kind of divine miracle when she stopped bothering me every day. You saved me from her.”

Charlie smiled and laughed. “Not on purpose!”

“Why did you do that?”

“I guess I was jealous. It felt like, like you wanted to be around anyone except me in high school, so I wanted you to see how much other people sucked.” Neither of them smiled after that. “I didn’t like being the dirtgrub, I missed hanging out with you. That’s why I did all that stupid shit in front of Adriano. You were always hanging out with Dennis.”

“That’s because Dennis was actually cool, Charlie.”

“Yeah? You really still think that, after all this time?” Charlie looked at Mac incredulously. “Because I never thought Dennis was as cool as you did. Honestly I don’t think anybody in school thought as much of him as you did! But whenever I hung out with you, I felt cool, because I thought you were kinda cool, Mac. Not like, some stupid kid who thought he was a god, type of cool. Just cool because you were my best friend I guess.”

They sat in silence for a bit, before Mac spoke up. “That’s kinda gay, dude.”

“You’re kinda gay, dude.” Charlie was smiling again, and so was Mac.

“No way, it’s not gay if it’s on the moon.”

“But we’re not on the moon though?”

“Guess you’re right then.”

“Hey, did you know this one guy said we’re all made of stardust?”

“David Bowie?”

“No no, you’re thinking of that Ziggy song. No but this guy, he’s some big famous scientist, and he said that we are literally made of stardust.”

Mac furrowed his brows. “You mean Neil deGrasse Tyson? Bro, that’s the same guy who said Pluto isn’t a planet!”

Charlie frowned. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah man! He made up some shitty rule about planets having to be a certain size.”

“Aw, how is that even fair? That’s like, that’s like if they tried to say that if you’re not tall enough you aren’t even a person! Who would be tall enough?”

“Sorry Charlie, you don’t qualify for humanity anymore.”

“Poor Frank. That guy’s like. Five feet tall.”

Chapter Text

The next morning Charlie and Mac slept in because it was Sunday and the bar was closed. Charlie woke up first, on his back with an arm around Mac. The first thing he did when he opened his eyes, after blinking a few times, was to hold Mac closer. Only because of what he saw on the ceiling, that is.

He took in some breath and sat rigid.

The tension disturbed Mac, who woke up slowly. “Wha’s happ’nin’?”

Charlie shushed him and relaxed, rubbing his hand soothingly along Mac’s back. “It’s alright, go back to sleep buddy. I’ll handle this.”

Although Mac’s first instinct was to close his eyes and press his face back against Charlie, his mind supplied him with memories of that phrase.

“Don’t worry buddy, I’ll handle this.”

Sixth grade, Charlie’s house, huge spider in a corner of the room.

Mac’s eyes shot open and his body stiffened. “Where the fuck is it?”

Charlie just kept rubbing his back. “Right on the ceiling. I’m lookin’ right at it. House centipede. Pretty big. Don’t look.”

Mac looked up. “Fuuuck,” he drew out, fisting his hands in Charlie’s shirt.

“Goddamn it, even when I try to help you. Don’t listen to Charlie, look at the giant bug!”

Without responding, Mac looked away from the giant bug to look Charlie in the eyes.

Charlie sighed and stilled his hand. “If you make a run for it, that thing will move and there is no way of knowing where it’s gonna go.”

“Charlie, you gotta save me. I am freaking the fuck out, dude, that thing is freaky as shit.”

“Obviously I’m gonna save you. But I need you to do exactly what I say. First of all, calm down. It’s two inches big and if it bites you, it’s hardly even a bee sting.”

“Charlie, you are not letting that thing bite me.”

Shaking his head, Charlie confidently dismissed him. “Of course not. But if it did bite you, you’re fine. Now come on, stand up with me.”

Mac stood up, guided by Charlie’s hand to know exactly how slow to move. Charlie’s eyes didn’t move from the ceiling. Once Mac was out of the bed, Charlie held him still and stood up himself. “Now just move real slow to the door.” When he got there, he looked at Charlie for further instruction. “Run to the kitchen and grab me a tupperware container with a lid. I need it in ten seconds.”

Half an hour later, Charlie had somehow caught the house centipede without killing it, which did not go without comment.

“If you let that thing outside it’s just gonna come back!”

“It’s probably just gonna get lost and die, dude.”

“That would be a blessing, but why wouldn’t you just kill it then? Like, wouldn’t it be more merciful to have killed it on the spot than to let it die out there?”

“Don’t try to out-moral me, I kill rats for a goddamn living Mac! Out there, the world is a choose-your-own-fate adventure, okay?”

Charlie ended up making a Grilled Charlie for breakfast. Mac settled with a cup of coffee and far too much complaining, in Charlie’s opinion.

“There is no reason that sandwich should exist dude. You burn the shit out of the pan every single time you make it- I swear to god, Charlie, if you ruin one of my nonstick pans, I am going to make you wish you’d never been born.”

“Will you please relax? It’s comfort food, I’m a little stressed. And in case you don’t recall, both of my parents tried to keep me from being born. So in every scenario, I would definitely be born. There isn't a universe I’m not born in. And I bet that one smart science fucker would disagree with that but it absolutely wouldn’t make sense for me to survive in this universe and not survive in a different one.”

Mac contemplated that. “That’s… that’s actually a really good point. But it’s completely moot anyways, because God only created one universe and it’s the one we live in… which means you’re technically still right. There isn’t a universe you weren’t born in.” He took a drink of his coffee and sat back against the couch.

Turning the burner off, Charlie grabbed his sandwich and threw it on a paper plate. “Ouch, ouch, ouch. Glad you agree that I always end up being born.” He sat down on the couch and leaned over his plate.

“Please don’t get crumbs on this couch, it’s a really nice couch.”

“Noted. Also, we’re gonna have to talk about this fake dating thing.”

Mac looked over at him. “Okay. What about it?”

“Well I mean, I don’t really. Uh. I don’t know how to do that?”

“Don’t worry about it Charlie, it’s just like real dating.”

“Yeah.”

Mac felt guilty with how obvious the situation was. “Right, you haven’t really. Yeah. Oh.”

Charlie’s face scrunched up and he got defensive. “Nah, no, that’s not, no! It’s just I haven’t like- a relationship is a-a private matter, I’m good at hiding relationships. Dee and I had to hide our relationship, and that went great! Went really well, nobody noticed.”

“Don’t tell me you had a relationship with Dee!”

“I told you I had a thing for her.”

“That doesn’t mean relationship, Charlie! That means you liked her, which I assumed meant she didn’t like you back.”

“Why’d you think that?”

Mac huffed and shrugged. “So what kind of relationship was this?”

“It was a lot of like, kissing and touching I guess.”

“Okay, a physical relationship. So you two were friends with benefits?”

“I guess there were benefits, yeah. It wasn’t really bad kissing.”

After taking a swig of his coffee, Mac sighed. “That’s a starting point, okay. Our relationship is gonna be so much better, I promise. But in our fake relationship, we’re going to have to kiss.”

“Oh yeah, absolutely. In front of the waitress especially,” Charlie agreed, ignoring how his heart skipped a beat for a second and getting up to throw away his empty plate. “I feel like we should probably let Dee and Frank know we’re not actually dating.”

Mac thought back to his conversation with Dee about Charlie’s kid. She would definitely try to address the realness of that if they said they were faking something. “No way dude, they’ll definitely ruin it! We’re just going to have to up our game to convince them. It has to be extra real, we’ll need a story and everything.”

“Fine, okay, that’s a good idea anyways. How about uh, you’ve been in love with me for years, but you thought I was straight.”

“Tacky. Overused. And they’ll never buy it because I never showed any signs of being gay, so-”

“I have no words for the level of denial you live in.”

“Shut up. Alright, plan coming together here.”

Turning towards Mac, Charlie gestured with his hands. “Lay it on me.”

“You’ve been in love with me since high school.”

Charlie’s heart punched him in the guts, but Mac continued none the wiser.

“You always thought you were straight, but when I came out you felt relieved for some reason, and it led you to question your own sexuality.”

Charlie was pretty sure he’d stopped breathing at this point, but he knew what Mac was saying was important and he had to listen.

“Eventually, between me coming out and you questioning yourself, you realized that our friendship has been hiding a layer of repressed love since high school. Now, we’ll figure out how I managed to reciprocate your feelings later, because even I can’t piece together that puzzle.”

Charlie could tell that Mac was completely oblivious to how his story had hit him. Using that to his advantage, Charlie fought a rising blush and laughed off his nerves. “‘Layer of love’ sounds so fuckin’ stupid.”

“I don’t see you coming up with any genius ideas!”

“I saved you from a big scary bug this morning.”

“Don’t patronize me! And don’t change the subject!”

Charlie really, really wanted to change the subject.

Chapter Text

Around 3, Mac left Charlie in charge of the apartment with very strict and shouty instructions to NOT SET THE PLACE ON FIRE, CHARLIE! And less important ones, such as DON’T GO LOOKING FOR ANYTHING UNDER THE SINK, CHARLIE! And even more disappointing ones, like AND PLEASE CAN YOU NOT SNEAK ANY CAT FOOD IN HERE WHILE I’M GONE? So Charlie watched TV and scowled at how boring everything was, with no Mac, and nothing to huff, and no cat food. He was even a little bummed at not being allowed to play with fire.

When Mac came back, though, he had a pizza in one hand and a case of beer in the other. Charlie had to forgive him.

“Hey-o! Beer and pizza night?” Mac said, grinning widely. “And you’re still here! Still safe, no fire anywhere, wow! I’m proud of you dude!”

“Yes, yeah! And, and I really wanted to like, tie some bed sheets together and crawl out the window to go exploring, but I didn’t! Because you know, I felt like, maybe that might be not allowed too.”

“You bet it was, really glad you didn’t do that one buddy.” Mac sat down the beer and pizza on the coffee table and sat down on the couch next to Charlie.

Charlie smiled. “So what took you so long? You must have been gone for like, two hours or something.”

“Uh, actually it’s only been half an hour. Charlie, can you not read clocks? Your sense of time is really bad, man.”

Reaching for the pizza, Charlie’s smile faded a little. “Well, yeah, I can read clocks. I just, you know. I wasn’t paying attention to any clocks. I was so bored, just watching the news this whole time.”

Mac shrugged, even though he was pretty sure that Charlie couldn’t tell time. “Okay, the news is pretty boring. Why don’t we watch something awesome, like Lethal Weapon?”

By midnight, they had watched the entire Lethal Weapon series, including their own versions, and finished their pizza and beer. Now they had the news on again, but they weren’t paying attention to the TV at all anymore.

“Hey Mac?”

“Huh Charlie.”

“D’you think Roger and Martin were in love?”

“What? Charlie, what about like, Martin’s wife? Or Rika? Or Cole? And Roger had a wife and kids, remember?”

Charlie squinted. “Dude. You’ve had, like, girlfriends ‘n stuff. Gay people can have kids, you’re totally ignoring what I said.”

Mac huffed and blushed. “I know gay people can have kids!”

“Yeah, and you can like, be married to one person and still fall in love with a different person.”

“That’s shitty, though.”

“Yeah it’s shitty, but obviously it happens. Probably the leading cause of the divorce epidemic, you know?”

Turning onto his side instead of sitting, Mac looked at Charlie. “Maybe.”

Charlie turned on his side to face him. “Do you think the waitress is jealous that you’re my boyfriend?”

“Fake boyfriend. And I don’t know, do you want her to be?”

“No. A little bit. I don’t know, I don’t want her to be jealous of you. I just want her to see how it feels for once.”

“There is no way she ever felt the same way about you as you did about her. That’s just a fact. But she’ll definitely be jealous once she sees us making out.”

Charlie made a face. “How are we gonna kiss, dude? Is it gonna make our friendship weird?”

Mac thought it over. “I think our friendship is already weird, bud. You spoon me every chance you get.”

“Okay except that’s unconscious spooning and it doesn’t count!”

Narrowing his eyes, Mac had a realization. “You’re worried this is going to be like you and Dee, aren’t you?”

“Maybe a little.”

“Charlie, we aren’t in a real relationship. Nothing’s going to-”

“See, you keep saying that, but we’re going to have to be around each other all of the time!” Charlie interrupted. “And, and you’re going to have to- to kiss me, and hold my hand, and call me all sorts of stupid pet names-” He cut himself off, covering his face with his hands.

Mac raised his eyebrows. “Hey, come on. Calm down, come here.” He pried Charlie’s hands from his face and wrapped his arms around him for comfort. “Don’t freak out, it’s alright. See, this is alright, and everything is going to be fine, because we’re too close already to let this bother us, okay? I don’t mind being around you all the time.” His hand found its own way into Charlie’s hair, which was pretty soft. “They’ll just be friend kisses. Totally platonic intimacy. Bro hand-holding. And the only pet name I can imagine calling you is babe, like that shitty Styx song.”

Charlie looked at him. “‘Lady’ is so much better.”

“You want me to call you lady?”

“No, idiot, the song.” He swallowed nervously. “We should practice kissing so I don’t fuck up in front of the waitress.”

Mac’s heart sped up, and he wondered if Charlie could hear it beating out of his chest. “Um, alright, yeah. D-do you want to practice like, now? Or-”

“Yeah, now is fine.” Charlie was feigning nonchalance.

Mac pulled him closer. “Okay.” He moved his hand from Charlie’s hair to the side of Charlie’s face. He closed his eyes and kissed Charlie gently.

They both tasted like pizza and beer, which was in no way ideal, but the kiss was so cathartic that it didn’t matter. Chaste kissing led to making out on the couch, and even though he didn’t feel as though they had been kissing for very long, Charlie pulled away first.

“I gotta pee, dude.”

Mac froze and blinked, then laughed hysterically. “Get the hell off the couch, babe.”

Charlie laughed too, untangling himself from his not-boyfriend and getting up to go to the bathroom. “If I’m peeing, wake me up!”

After showering, Charlie was full of thoughts.

“Hey, that was actually not bad kissing.”

Mac nodded. “Surprisingly, not the worst kissing ever.”

Charlie shoved him. “I’m not that bad. But I meant like, I don’t usually like kissing.”

“You’re just not used to kissing a master.”

“Bator,” Charlie finished, smirking. Mac punched his shoulder. “You’re probably kinda right though, I usually only kiss people who kind of hate me.”

“Yikes. Hate kissing. Stay away from that stuff.”

“I would tell you ‘I tried’ if it were true.”

“Well. In the future try, at least.”

A few minutes of silence passed before Charlie asked, “So uh, does cuddling fall under the ‘totally platonic intimacy’ column?”

Mac rolled his eyes and moved towards Charlie. Once they were snuggled together and settled, Mac exhaled. “You know, I’m pretty glad you’re not into the idea of leaving Philly. I don’t think we’d be The Gang with just me, Dee, and Frank.”

“We’re already barely The Gang anymore. I miss Dennis’s stupid face too, you know. Not as much as you do, but he really was my friend. But yeah, the only reason I would really leave Philly is if we decided to actually do the leather shop in Arizona. I wouldn’t make it out there on my own you know.”

Mac nodded. “Yeah Charlie, I know.”

Chapter Text

Mac dreamed about a little girl with green eyes and brown hair throwing rocks at a train next to him and Charlie, and woke up to a cold and empty room. Sitting up, he called out, “Charlie?”

“Mac!” Charlie shouted from the kitchen, and made his way into Mac’s room. “I’m doin’ breakfast lunch!”

Mac blinked and rubbed his eyes blearily. “It’s called brunch, buddy.”

“It’s called frozen waffles, but with cheese! And eggs, and peanut butter!” Charlie was clearly thrilled, so Mac held back a grimace and smiled fondly.

“Alright then. Don’t burn anything, I’m serious. Could you start some coffee? I need a few minutes.”

“Coffee is started. And I made extra eggs. For reasons of platonic intimacy.” Mac laughed and laid back down.

He tried to think of who the girl in his dream could have been; he’d read somewhere that every face you see in a dream is a face you’ve seen somewhere in reality, but he wasn’t entirely convinced by that. Her face looked entirely unfamiliar to the point he wanted to call it vuja de, the opposite of deja vu. He tried to think of every girl he had ever met in grade school, of every kid he’d seen on the streets, but no image he could come up with matched the girl in his dream. Shrugging it off, he got back up and went to the kitchen for breakfast lunch. Brunch. Duh.

Charlie started talking almost immediately after Mac sat down at the table. “Have you ever seen that ‘Detention Club’ movie?”

Mac sighed tiredly. “Bro, it is too early for this shit, just give me an hour to wake up here before I have to start dissecting your sentences, alright?”

Frowning, Charlie put his hands up. “Oh I’m sorry, am I speaking French or something? Nobody told me I could speak different languages, on top of being a talented musician and cook. And even on top of being able to like, wake up early, and save bugs and distressed grown men who are afraid of bugs-”

“A lot of men are afraid of bugs, it doesn’t diminish masculinity in any way. You were a little freaked out by that thing the other day.”

“They are a little freaky, yeah. But they eat pest bugs so I try not to kill them when I can.”

“They are pest bugs!”

“Only when there are a lot of them.”

“There is one of you, and you’re still a pest!”

“The best pest,” Charlie smiled to himself. “King of pests.”

Mac did his best to stay irritated, but he felt it sliding from him quickly. “You’re the worst pest, and if you were the king pest I would have you decapitated.”

“Outdated form of punishment, they go to Royal Prison now.” Mac was pretty sure this wasn’t true, but he didn’t know enough about monarchy to dispute it. “Pests can be like, pets, you know? Like, a bunch of rats is an infestation, but one rat is a pet. Also, last week Dee showed me this video on her phone, and it was some kind of giant rat with all the little baby rats hanging off the sides, it was so cute.”

Raising his eyebrows, Mac sighed. “I really am not sure what kind of animal you could be talking about. Are you sure it wasn’t a dog?”

Charlie hummed. “It could have been, yeah. But it definitely had a rat face.”

“Might have been a chihuahua.”

“Pretty big for a chihuahua.”

Later in the day, when they got to the bar, Charlie made a beeline for Dee.

“Dee! Hey! You gotta show Mac those funny kittens, he is going to love them!”

Dee blinked. “Oh, hello Charlie. So tell me, are you referring to the video I showed you last week? Or did you have a dream about some other interaction we had, that I was not aware of?”

Charlie sighed and tapped the bar a few times with the palm of his hand impatiently. “Yes! Yeah, of course, that video. With the weird bears.”

“Alright babe, you must have lost it. Show me these raccoons, Dee.”

Dee couldn’t help but laugh. “I mean, if you insist… wait, did you just call Charlie ‘babe’?”

Charlie looked confused, but Mac nodded and wrapped an arm around him. “Yeah, Charlie and I are dating.” Then Charlie remembered.

“Oh, oh! I forgot to tell you, sorry Dee, Mac is my boyfriend now, so… yeah.”

Dee shook her head. “Mac, you told me you were pretending to be his boyfriend so the waitress would fuck off.”

Shit. “Uh, actually, actually that is what happened, but then we talked about it, and-”

“Yeah, I’ve been in love with him since high school, actually-”

Mac nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly, yeah. Charlie has been in love with me this whole time, but he thought he was straight, which is so funny, because he’s clearly an otter-”

Dee held her hand up. “Okay, so how-how exactly did you, Mac, end up swooning for this filthy little illiterate bastard?”

“Hey!”

“No, Charlie, all of those words are correct,” Mac explained quickly, thinking on his feet. He stared at Charlie, and Charlie made eye contact with him. They were close enough to kiss, and Mac felt his heart jump into his throat. “Tell me Dee, how could you resist a face like this?”

Charlie looked down and smiled, blushing red. Dee made a fake gagging noise, which was as disgusting as her real gagging noises were.

“Are you gonna show him the video or not?” Charlie asked, unable to stop smiling. Mac gave him a little space but held Charlie’s wrist and rubbed it with his thumb.

She huffed and pulled up a video on her phone and showed Mac. “They are kinda cute though, huh?”

Charlie nodded. “Yeah they are! Right? Aren’t they?”

“Charlie, those are possums.”

Charlie put his hands on his knees. “They’re what now?”

“Those are not rats, or dogs, or bears. They’re possums, and they like to pretend to be dead, so they can get run over by people who think they’re actually dead.”

“That actually makes them sound like lemmings,” suggested Dee.

Mac nodded. “Yeah, actually it’s not on purpose. They do that because they’re stupid.”

Charlie squinted and held up a hand. “Or, did you ever think that maybe they just wanted to choose their own destiny?” He raised his eyebrows as if he had made a clever point, at which Dee shook her head and Mac corrected him.

“No, because they are incapable of intelligent thought- Dee, have you tried explaining any of this to him?”

“Believe me, I have made an effort. Your job now, bitch,” she smirked, giving finger guns.

“So- so what makes other animals so much different than like, dogs or cats? Everybody thinks they have minds of their own, and they do! So how come whassums-”

“Possums.”

“What makes possums completely different?”

Mac’s patience was drying. “We made dogs and cats smart. Or at least dogs. God chose dogs to be man’s best friend, it’s in the Bible.”

Frowning, Dee looked at Mac. “You don’t actually think that, do you?”

“I am not dealing with any of your blasphemy today, alright Dee? ‘Dog’ is literally just ‘God’ spelled backwards.” Mac walked away, and Charlie followed him.

“Okay, but did you at least think they were cute?”

Mac inhaled deeply, trying to alleviate some stress. “Yeah, they were kinda cute.”

Chapter Text

By the time they got home, Mac was very tired of Charlie’s energy. He had been chatting happily all night, which made Mac glad to see, but also had him pulling on his own hair.

Walking through the front door, Charlie suggested, “What if possums aren’t playing dead, but we’ve been playing alive this entire time?”

“Okay what the fuck is wrong with you today?” Mac asked, turning to face him. “What’s going through your mind right now that would make you have a thought that weird?”

Charlie’s eyes widened. “Nothing, man, I just thought, like-”

Mac shook his head quickly. “Nuh uh, no, if you lie to me right now, you are sleeping on the couch tonight.”

Charlie looked down. “No, no, I just have a lot of thoughts going through my head is all.”

Blinking, Mac took a step back. “About last night?”

There was a beat of silence before Charlie shook his head. “Please don’t make me sleep on the couch.”

Mac nodded. “Extremely convincing. Do you expect me to sleep on the couch?”

Charlie’s heart broke a little and he shook his head.

“Great! I will see you in the morning, and we can absolutely talk then. But I’m just one person Charlie, I can’t handle all of your weird thoughts and questions at every given moment, and I can’t deal with you not talking to me about actually important stuff, not tonight.” Mac stepped into his room and closed the door. Charlie stared after him before entering the kitchen and raiding the fridge for cheese.

“Charlie! Goddammit dude, I can not handle this right now.”

Charlie blinked awake, wondering distantly when he had fallen asleep. He squinted and realized that light was shining in through the windows and that he was lying on the kitchen floor. “Wh… How… kitchen?” his mouth said, clearly without much use of his brain.

Mac huffed and Charlie turned to look at him. “Yes, Charlie, kitchen! Where you left the fucking refrigerator door open and scattered cheese all over the floor like rat confetti.”

This was true. For reasons unknown to man, the kitchen looked like a cheese party. Shredded mozzarella was everywhere, and a few squares of American cheese tiled the floor, lined up next to Charlie as if it was something he had left unfinished last night. “Uh. I don’t really remember this happening.”

There was a sigh. “I left you alone for like eight hours. Just… clean this up. It’s absolutely disgusting, the electricity bill is probably gonna be through the roof.”

Charlie made a face. “Because of… cheese?”

“No, because you left the refrigerator running!”

Charlie really wanted to make a stupid joke, but Mac was definitely really angry, and Charlie wasn’t sure how the joke would go anyways. So he just said ‘oh’ and started to pick cheese up off the floor.

“Don’t you dare eat that cheese either, the kitchen floor is filthy and I do not wanna have to haul your ass to a doctor.”

“Name one time I’ve ever been sick.”

“When we were supposed to sing Boyz II Men.”

“Name another.”

“Charlie, I could name five more.”

“I bet none of those incidents have anything to do with me eating something questionable.”

“Guarantee all of them have something to do with your entire weird lifestyle.”

Honestly, Charlie couldn’t think of an argument for that.

At the bar that night, Mac ignored his irritation with Charlie. Things at the bar lately already felt different and the remaining gang needed to try to keep it together. Apparently Mac wasn’t doing a great job, though, because Dee sensed something was up.

“Lover’s quarrel?” she asked him.

Mac squinted. “What do you mean?”

“You guys just seemed a lot closer yesterday. Something happen?”

Might as well be honest, Mac thought. “Charlie had some kind of cheese freakout last night. It was all over the kitchen and he was sleeping on the floor. He left the fridge door open.”

Dee looked concerned. “Did you do something to make him nervous?”

“I know he does the cheese thing when he gets nervous! It’s still a bullshit thing to wake up to. Besides, he usually eats the cheese. This time it was just. Everywhere.”

Beside Mac, Dee shrugged and nodded. “He’s a little weirdo. At least now he’s your problem.”

The bar’s office door opened and Frank waddled out, wide eyed as usual. Charlie followed after him, eyebrows drawn together with his hands on his hips. Frank looked at Mac.

“So you and Charlie are both gay now?”

Mac’s eyes widened and his eyebrows jumped up. “Uh, yes? Why, who cares?”

“Who cares? I care! Charlie, why wouldn’t you tell me that before sharing a bed with me for ten years?” Frank pointed an accusatory finger at Charlie.

“Maybe because I didn’t know? It shouldn’t matter to you!”

“Frank, this definitely has nothing to do with you. Just because Charlie slept in the same bed as you doesn’t mean he ever wanted to bang you, that’s disgusting,” Mac pointed out.

Charlie nodded. “It is disgusting. My standards are-”

“Set pretty low?” Frank gestured to Mac. “You think this says good things about your standards?”

“Hey!” Mac protested.

“That’s my boyfriend, you shithead!”

“What’s so great about him, huh?”

Charlie almost looked caught off guard, but then shrugged. “He’s my best friend, and he loves me back?”

Frank made a disgusted noise and turned back to Mac. “And what about Charlie? Filthiest kid in the world, what does that say about your standards? Ha!”

Mac nodded. “Pretty gross sometimes. Charlie, what are you doing to my standards, babe?”

Charlie smiled crookedly and looked down, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. When he looked back up, he suddenly looked extremely uncomfortable. Mac looked around the bar and realized why. He edged his way to Charlie and put an arm around him warmly before the waitress made her way over to them.

“Hi there Charlie,” she said carelessly. “Guess what? I basically live with Frank now. And I’m definitely pregnant.”

Charlie leaned into Mac. “Thanks, but I didn’t ask.”

Mac inhaled sharply. Damn.

“That’s right, you didn’t, did you? You must have been too busy asking your boyfriend stupid questions, like what it would be like if the president was a raccoon.”

“He never asked me that!” Mac defended. “He did ask once about what it might be like if the Queen of England was a bunch of rats in a trench coat.”

“We were in tenth grade, come on!”

The waitress looked uninterested and unimpressed. “My point is, I don’t even need you. I don’t even care about this baby.”

“Well, actually, could you please care about the baby? Because I’ve thought it over, and I will take care of the baby. I mean it, I’ll do my best, just take care of it while it’s in your stomach, and I’ll handle it after that, okay?”

This took her by surprise. Mac held Charlie closer when she didn’t say anything. Charlie was shaking indistinctly. “That’s a huge responsibility, Charlie,” she finally said.

Charlie nodded. “I know. I’m learning to clean up my own messes.”

The waitress pointed at Mac. “Is he going to help?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna try to help,” Mac confirmed.

She narrowed her eyes. “So you two are serious?”

“About what?” Charlie asked.

“Everything. You two are actually dating?”

“Yeah,” they answered almost simultaneously. Charlie felt his face start to heat as guilt stabbed at his core. Mac carefully pulled him in for a kiss, and Charlie remembered this was supposed to happen. They were supposed to kiss in front of the waitress. So he made sure to put his heart into it. When they pulled apart, Mac was breathing a little faster.

The waitress actually seemed convinced. “Alright, I guess you two are kinda nice together.” She shrugged. “If you promise you’re going to take care of this kid, I’ll take care of it until I can squeeze it out.”

Charlie looked kind of grossed out by the phrasing, but he nodded and breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks. Take care of yourself too, I guess.”

Giving a weird smile, the waitress nodded and left Paddy’s.

Frank shook his head. “Dammit Charlie, now you’ve got a kid with two dads.”

Charlie looked at Mac. “Better than no dads, right?”

Chapter Text

When they got home, Charlie sat down on the couch. Mac joined him, stretching his legs comfortably. Charlie looked at him with an unreadable expression, then put his hand on Mac’s shoulder. “Hey, so, I think I got weird last night because I normally really don’t like kissing, but I think maybe I do with you. And I know that sounds weird, but it might be because I’ve known you like my whole life, and it just isn’t as scary or weird as it always was with other people.”

Mac blinked. “Why couldn’t you just tell me that yesterday?”

“That was super hard for me to even tell you just now. I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable with everything that’s going on. You’re really saving my ass here, and I know you’re not doing it because I’m a great kisser,” Charlie pointed out, looking down and playing with the hem of his shirt.

Swallowing anxiously, Mac shook his head. “I’m not, no. I’m doing it because you’re my favorite.” His face went red and he looked surprised by his own admission. Charlie didn’t seem to notice, and was laughing.

“I’m not your favorite, dude, you don’t have to say things like that. I know Dennis is your favorite, you guys have just always had that weird bond since you met him.”

Mac sighed. “Dennis isn’t my favorite. Hanging out with you is like… like listening to my favorite song at full volume with headphones on, you know?” He paused and shifted as Charlie seemed to be trying to understand him. “I really don’t want to talk about this right now. But you are right about one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Your kissing could use some work.”

They practiced kissing up until going to sleep that night.

Several months passed without incident; Charlie’s stuff was at Mac’s apartment, and they had adjusted to living with one another. Charlie had developed a better sense of hygiene, and Mac got used to waking up next to a living furnace. He also learned how to deal with some of Charlie’s reactions better- while he had already been familiar with most of them, he wasn’t used to witnessing them as much as he had when they were kids.

It only made sense for everything to go south just when things were looking up.

It was a Saturday at the bar, and Charlie and Dee were having an important conversation.

“So I have huge, important news that Mac already knows about and I’m sure you’re gonna be upset about that-”

“He’s your boyfriend, you’re getting married, whatever.”

“We aren’t getting married! I don’t even know how long this is going to last.”

Dee stared at Charlie. “You look nervous. You gay, lovestruck fool. You want it to last, don’t you?”

Charlie closed his eyes and tried not to say anything. He couldn’t deny it was true, but it had gotten Mac and himself into more arguments than anything, both wondering how long they could keep up this front. Thankfully, these arguments usually ended in what Mac called “a platonic cuddlefest” which ironically sometimes made Charlie feel worse. But also fuzzier and warmer.

When Charlie opened his eyes, Dee was raising a brow and smirking. "You know, I think Mac feels the same way. He does want to help you raise your kid."

“That's closer to what this is about. The waitress is having a girl.”

Dee’s expression changed completely into one of shock, then excitement followed by anger. “That bitch! Why would she tell you before telling me?”

“Uh, Dee? I’m the father?”

“She’s my girlfriend, you idiot!” Dee’s hand slapped over her own traitorous mouth.

“Charlie isn’t an idiot!” Mac yelled from the next room, quickly making his way to them. “What are you guys fighting about? Were you being an idiot?” he asked Charlie.

Charlie looked at Mac, his mouth hanging open, then pointed at Dee. “She’s banging the waitress!”

Shaking her head, Dee’s eyes were wide. “We’re not just banging!”

Mac gasped and looked back at Charlie. “I’m the only one who hasn’t had sex with the waitress! I’m the only one who hasn’t betrayed you!”

“Actually I’ve been coming to terms with some stuff, and I’m not sure it was betraying me when anybody did it-”

Charlie didn’t get to finish his thought before the bar door swung open dramatically.

Everyone turned to see who dared to interrupt such an incredible conversation. Charlie blinked, Dee’s face fell to stone cold apathy, and Mac’s eyes shone with hope as the familiar figure stepped in.

“So, did everyone miss me?”

The rest of the night was filled with Dennis talking about North Dakota. Dee seemed to be ignoring him pretty well, and Charlie was trying to be friendly without making Dennis think he actually cared. Mac was hanging onto every word and firing back questions.

“I’m telling you, you guys have got to get out of Philly. The Badlands are spectacular, full of mountains and bison.”

Mac nodded excitedly. “Bison!”

“And what exactly is a bison?” Charlie pondered.

Dennis laughed. “A bison is a type of buffalo, buddy! You still haven’t looked through an encyclopedia since I left! Classic Charlie.”

Mac joined in laughing, but Charlie only smiled softly with his eyebrows drawn a bit. “Encyclopedia?”

“So what happened with your son? Is he like you?” Mac asked, desperate for Dennis’s attention.

Dennis shrugged. “I’m teaching him to be. But genetically, he isn’t. I had a blood test done and he wasn’t mine. Got into an argument with Mandy, had to cool off for a bit so I took a plane here.”

Mac startled. “Wait, so you’re telling me that isn’t even your kid?”

“Well, he is now. I don’t want to put him in that situation.”

At this, Dee finally spoke up. “You’re trying to convince us that you’re actually thinking about someone besides yourself in this situation?”

Dennis looked caught off guard for a moment. “Well, I still am thinking about myself. Where would we be if Frank hadn’t been there?” He laughed. “What if our mom didn’t have the money to raise us, what if- what if she had been like Charlie’s mom? You clearly see the difference between me and Charlie, right guys? I mean, I might still actually have kids of my own, I’m attractive enough, I look like I can afford to have kids. I have charm. Charlie won’t be in a serious relationship, he’s not gonna have kids, and that’s for the better. What would Charlie’s kids be like? Probably stupid, and disgusting, and ingesting poisons like cat food. Not to be harsh, just in all honesty.”

The bar was very quiet as everybody took in Dennis’s words and looked at Charlie, who was staring strangely at Dennis. Mac’s expression had become less friendly as Dennis continued talking, and now he was looking at Charlie. Charlie shrugged, nodded and walked to the back alley. Sending a final glare at Dennis, Mac followed Charlie.

Dennis lowered his eyebrows in concern. “Where’s Mac going? I thought he’d take my side in this.”

“Mac’s going to go comfort his boyfriend, who’s also expecting the waitress, my girlfriend, to pop out his kid in a few months now.”

Dennis hissed in a distressed breath as Dee left angrily. “Yikes.”

Chapter Text

Mac went outside to find Charlie lighting a cigarette shakily. It seemed to take him a few moments to notice Mac after lighting it, but once he did, he turned toward him almost indiscernibly. Mac sighed heavily and leaned in, forcing them both to sit on the concrete steps outside the door, and started rubbing Charlie’s arms. “Charlie, hey, c’mon buddy, you’re not about to let him treat you like that.” He frowned for a moment. “I’m not gonna let him treat you like that, that was bullshit. He has no right to say things like that about you. He puts himself on the highest pedestal and treats the rest of us like. Like some kind of dirty animals that aren’t good enough.”

“Rats,” Charlie mumbled absently. Mac nodded immediately.

“You’re right. Like rats. Not even pet rats.”

Charlie shook his head and took a drag silently. He was staring at Mac carefully, and Mac felt as though his very soul was being checked on. He wondered if Charlie had been keeping an eye on it their whole lives, then shook that thought because it sounded dumb.

“All of us fuck up a whole lot, you know? He doesn’t fuck up less than the rest of us. If he was that perfect, he wouldn’t have been hanging out with us in the first place.” Charlie nodded at Mac’s words, his eyes lit up from the flame of his cigarette, exhaling as though he hadn’t breathed in forever. “Dude, that smells like garbage. But if that’s gonna help you eat less cheese and drink less paint then whatever,” Mac shrugged and helped Charlie to his feet. “I’m takin’ you home, you need a good rest. I’m gonna kick Dennis’s ass for you later. By the way, an encyclopedia is just some kind of huge dictionary.”

“Yeah, I thought maybe it was?”

After taking Charlie home and promising to be back soon, Mac returned to Paddy’s with every intent to kick Dennis’s ass.

It caught him by surprise when Dennis walked toward him as soon as he entered.

“Hey, Mac, there’s so much going on right now-”

“No shit, you’ve been gone like, half a year.”

“Yeah, I know. And-”

“No, no. Hang on a second, because you’ve been talking all night, and there are a few things I want you to understand perfectly clear,” Mac started angrily. “First of all, Charlie didn’t deserve that heap of shit you threw at him today. The whole time you’ve been gone he has had nothing bad to say about you, yet the first thing you do coming back is make him feel like he doesn’t belong in the position he’s in right now. He is so excited to meet his daughter and you know what? So am I. And she’s gonna have so many supportive parents that she won’t ever be as scared and confused as we were growing up. If you ever talk about Charlie like that again, I’m just gonna have to kick your ass, dude.”

Dennis looked tense, but nodded in understanding, holding up his hands defensively. “Hey, I know I’ve been off the grid for a while, and that’s probably got something to do with why everything is so hectic, so,” he paused, and it seemed he was having trouble saying the next words. “I’m sorry I didn’t call to check up on everyone.”

Mac’s brows furrowed. “Things aren’t really more hectic than usual, I don’t think. We’ve been mostly fine without you. I might even go as far as saying some things are better than before you left.”

If Mac was trying to hurt Dennis, it was unsuccessful. “When the hell did you and Charlie hook up?”

“We aren’t ‘hooking up,’ Charlie’s my boyfriend.”

Dennis rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever, I just mean. How did that happen?”

Averting his eyes, Mac blushed and shrugged. “I’m not sure. We’ve always been close.”

“Well, sure man, but I just always thought that we were closer.”

Mac almost wanted to tell Dennis everything, to ask if there was ever a chance between them, to tell him he was right. But in his mind, all he could think of was Charlie, warm and sturdy with his limbs wrapped around Mac like some kind of small hairy octopus, sleeping with a lazy, contented smile, always trusting Mac to protect him however he could. Being around Charlie had always made sense, and he was just so linked to Mac’s childhood that being around him felt like being someplace cozy. Like some kind of home in itself. Dennis wouldn’t even share the bed with him when he asked, and Mac wasn’t even sure how he could trust him fully anymore. Plus, Dennis was giving off a jealous vibe that kind of made Mac feel a sick satisfaction.

Taking all of this into consideration, Mac shook his head gently. “Charlie and I are like two halves of the same fucked up person. That’s why you’re friends with both of us,” he paused, trying to remember something he’d said a long time ago. “I guess we’re kind of a package deal.”

Dennis just sighed and nodded. “A pretty awful package, dude, you guys lose in Chardee Macdennis every single time! How do you two even communicate?”

“Hey, we’re gonna win someday soon. And you should apologize to Charlie, he missed you too, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah. I will. I need to stay at the apartment for a few days, okay? Then I’m flying back to North Dakota for a while. I’ll keep in touch this time.”

Mac hissed in a breath. “You can only stay if Charlie forgives you. He’s been living with me.”

“Seriously?”

“You were gone, you weren’t gonna say anything. Besides, you didn’t even like how I redecorated it!”

“The dildo bike, Mac! In my room!”

“Well, the exercise bike is still there, so you’ll have to sleep on the couch. You close the bar, I need to talk to Charlie about this first.”

When Mac got back to the apartment, Charlie was moving around with intent in his eyes. Mac looked around to see several stuffed bags and an open box which held several of Charlie’s things. “Dude, what are you doing?”

Charlie looked up at him, then back down at what he was doing. “Well, uh, Dennis is back now, and you could probably break up with me at this point. I mean, I’m sure this has probably dragged on too long, and maybe you would rather have a shot with Dennis instead of pretending that you’re like, uh. In love with me and everything.”

Mac blinked as Charlie played with his own hands for a bit. “But what about the kid?”

Shaking his head, Charlie closed his eyes. “That was always gonna be on me anyways. Don’t worry about it, I’ll uh. I’ll figure it out. Maybe my mom could help or something, I don’t know yet.” But Charlie seemed unsure of himself when he finally opened his eyes, and Mac felt everything change. Suddenly, Mac’s head was spinning, but everything made sense at once. He stepped toward Charlie and took his hand gently, but firmly.

“What if we get a house, a house near the school, and what if I help you raise her because maybe- maybe I just always want to help you, and I want to see you do better, and when I’m around you I feel like maybe I’m doing something better with my life? What if e-every time I know we’re just a couple of fucking idiots who don’t know what we’re doing, I think about you, and it’s like I just don’t care anymore, as long as we don’t know what we’re doing together?”

Charlie was frozen for a moment, only shaking slightly and staring Mac dead in the eyes, trying to gauge if he was serious or not. Mac’s eyes were wide and earnest, and maybe a little bit scared and nervous. Which Charlie thought was a little ridiculous, because how could he not know?

“Mac, I think I’ve been in love with you since high school.”

Mac smiled, eyes shining with tears and hope. He pulled Charlie by the hand for a kiss, a real kiss this time, with no audience or pretending to ‘practice.’ When they pulled away, Mac held him gently by the scruff of his neck and said, “I’m not sure I can even remember how long I’ve loved you.”

Smiling goofily, Charlie was quiet for a moment, just absorbing what was happening.

“Hey Mac?”

“Yeah babe?”

“Could we just, could we please try not to squander this? Can this be different than everything else please?”

Mac held him closer and nodded. “We can have this. It isn’t a scheme anymore, remember?”

Charlie nodded back and yawned. “Can we snuggle now?”

“Duh. Oh shit, but uh. First, Dennis needs to stay here a few nights, but it’s only with your permission, and he’d stay on the couch, and he has to apologize first.”

“My… parmesan? He needs cheese?”

Mac sighed in exasperation. “No, he’s only allowed to stay if you’re okay with it.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s fine. I don’t care. And if he wants cheese it’s in the fridge.”

“I am going to teach you how to read and give you some vocab lessons because this is getting ridiculous.”

“Yeah, I know. I was worried that I was gonna feel like Tom Hanks with my daughter.”

It took a second for Mac to understand what Charlie meant. “That’s Forrest Gump, dude. Tom Hanks is just the actor.”

“Right, right yeah.”

Mac picked Charlie up bridal style and was met with a squawk of protest which he ignored, carrying him to the bed and laying him down before kicking off his shoes and crawling in bed with him. They cuddled and kissed until Dennis got home and gave Charlie a decent apology, which Charlie accepted tiredly.

Later, just before they fell asleep in each other’s arms, Charlie couldn’t help thinking that he was probably going to get too hot later in the night, but also that he might have been the weirdest guy in the world, but also the luckiest.

Mac had a similar thought, but fell asleep before finishing it, because he was probably more comfortable and happy than he’d been his whole life.