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Of course Dennis knows that Mac tries to distract him from his birthday every year.
You'd have to be an idiot to miss it, but even then, you'd still know—when they left the bar the other night Charlie had seen them off saying, "Oh, you're doing your," hand waving, "thing tomorrow, right."
Every 18th of August, like clockwork, he wakes up to Mac's most recent attempt at "secretly" forcing Dennis to eat before being swept up in whatever Mac thinks will keep him from realizing that yes, he is another year older, that his skin sagging that much closer to the ground, to the grave, or some other morbid shit.
For the record, Dennis tries to reciprocate, in his own (obtuse) way. Mac actually likes birthdays, but whenever he starts getting intense and overwhelmed in regular situations, Dennis tries to drag him out of whatever it is so he can start to forget it. It's just a comfort thing. No need to look any closer.
And it's not even that Dennis minds it. In fact, he almost feels the opposite. He can't help it. Other than clinking shot glasses with Dee at the bar first thing in the morning, it's his last remaining birthday tradition. No cake, no expensive but impersonal presents, no off-key singing, no sneaking next door to Dee's room at 12:01 to tell her "happy birthday" only to wait another five minutes for her to return the favor like the smug bitch she is. Just a shot of whatever and Mac trying to take up as much mental space as possible.
(Technically the "tradition" only started about a decade ago, when they all started turning thirty-five. Dennis hadn't even known the date until they'd been in the middle of a vodka and sour gummy worms run, and they'd split up, Dennis heading for the booze while Mac grabbed the worms. Dennis got to the counter first, and he got carded, and the teen behind the counter made some crack about the date and his age, and Mac was almost too late to keep the kid from getting decked, yelled at, sobbed at, or any combination thereof. Since then, Mac runs him ragged every summer, always carefully avoiding any alcohol they don't already own.)
This is what Dennis is thinking about as Mac dumps ice and tequila and whatever else in the blender.
He's thinking about Mac eight years ago, in the passenger seat a few blocks from home, the look on his face when he found the bag of sour gummy worms shoved into his pocket, unpaid for.
He's thinking about Mac this morning, in the passenger seat again, running him ragged across a series of strip malls under the pretense of finding some made for "as seen on TV" kitsch nonsense they both knew Mac didn't really want.
He's decidedly not thinking about Mac in wherever, halfway across the country, one year ago, doing who knows what while Dennis tried to refrain from drowning himself in the nearest lake, public pool, or former hockey rink, now marsh.
"Shit."
And then Dennis is doused in slush, and any fond feeling he might have been approaching evaporates.
"Wh—"
"Sorry!"
Mac starts patting him down with a fistful of paper towels so forcibly that Dennis can feel the legs of his chair sinking into the tile.
"Mac— Mac."
Dennis grabs at the wad being shoved in his face, his hand wrapping around Mac's, which are cold from the ice. Everything smells like citrus and saccharine, and he feels like he should be more pissed, but instead the whole thing just feels funny. Maybe it's because they've been sampling the product, as in the series of shots they did at the bar to decide which tequila to steal. Maybe it's the fact that Mac won't stop letting Dennis touch him, that the longer he keeps their hands touching the more Mac smiles, he won't stop smiling. Maybe it's... he doesn't know, maybe it's the weather.
"Mac," Dennis says again, with a different inflection that is new but familiar. Mac is still smiling. Dennis almost smiles back. "Finish the drinks."
Mac rolls his eyes with his whole head but does it anyway.
Dennis zones out a bit after that, watching Mac go through the familiar drink making process. Sometimes he misses the mysterious allure of mixing drinks, the way it always looked in the movies with the tricks and flips, the excitement, Tom Cruise in a black button-up. Alright, he definitely watched that movie a few too many times in middle school, but still—drinking used to be like a sexy secret, but now it's just work. Ice in the blender, tequila liqueur lime juice, actual lime, salt, and fin. Automatic; rote. He could do it in his sleep.
(He missed it, a little, when he was away.)
Except watching Mac play out those motions now is different. There's the aspect of watching from the outside, sure, but more than that is the fact that it's Mac—Mac, whose every type of movement is so familiar to Dennis after years of exposure, every day, for so long...
Mac's barely finished the first drink before Dennis has sucked it down.
This is why Mac gets worried: Dennis isn't ever totally out from under that cloud of Despair, and whenever he realizes that, all he wants is to get real drunk, real fast. No amount of mother-henning can distract from that.
"Hey Mac?"
Mac shuts the freezer, tub of ice cream in hand. "What's up?"
Dennis meant to ask him something but he can't remember what. It's been bugging him all day, but only ever subconsciously, and since he hadn't put it into words while sober he definitely isn't going to be able to do so four margaritas deep.
Instead he asks, "Is that mint chocolate chip?"
"Yeah, dude." Mac shoves a giant spoonful into his mouth. "You want some?"
Dennis nods. Mint chocolate chip is his favorite. He forgets that he forgot.
It's not until they've migrated to the living room, where their drinks set up and pile of discarded plastic glasses have free reign over the coffee table, that Dennis realizes he doesn't feel it.
He doesn't feel like he's dying—or at least, any more so than usual. At this point in the day, right before the booze starts really kicking in, it's like he can feel the rate at which his atoms are decaying speed up, buzzing all along his skin until he dulls the feeling with more shots. This year... nothing. No careening around a corner like a cartoon character and running straight off a cliff; no weightless moment of dread before gravity kicks in and drags him back down.
The lack is somehow more unsettling, and so Dennis takes another shot.
"Have you ever wanted a birthday party?"
Mac stops mid-rant about... something stupid and Mac-ish like why sleeves are bullshit or how many parking meters he's kicked into spitting out free money or something. He looks confused, which is fair, because (despite having asked the question himself) Dennis feels the same.
"Why...?" Mac's eyes squint, then widen. "Oh shit, dude, do you want a birthday party? You should've said something earlier! Or, like, ever."
"No, I— I've had birthday parties, Christ, Mac, of course I have, obviously." If Dennis's hand-waving is a touch too wild, too close to hitting himself in the face, so be it: he's drunk. "I just mean... have you?"
"Yeah, all the time as a kid." Mac unfolds his knees from where they've been folded up against his chest. "In elementary school or whatever, all the kids in the neighborhood would go to each other's parties, mostly for the cake. Why?"
The last remaining sober part of Dennis first wants to point out that wasn't the question, and then also is dubious as to how good whatever birthday parties that white trash bastard had could possibly have been. But sober Dennis is out for the night (and, to be honest, a bit of a bastard himself) and drunk Dennis can't speak. He's stuck on the fact that if he stood up right now he would get dizzy, and if he fell over it would probably be onto Mac, and he wouldn't mind that, would he? Either of them. Mac would make a good landing pad, a safe place to fall back on.
"What?" Pause and rewind. "I guess I was just... It's my birthday, y'know?"
Mac snorts. "Yeah, Dennis. I know."
Dennis must be really far gone if Mac's most overt sarcasm is still completely lost on him.
"Well like... I was thinking about birthdays, right? But I don't... get them."
He doesn't mean to say any of it, but say it he does, and when he looks up and sees Mac leaning forward slightly, he starts talking a bit faster.
"Cuz me and Dee never had birthdays as a kid, which I guess was a good thing, you know how our Christmases went—"
"You had birthday parties, though," Mac interrupts. "In high school. I remember."
"Only cuz we threw them ourselves." Dennis leans forward too far into Mac's space, but it doesn't matter. "Mac, that's lame, that's sad. We're sad."
"You're not sad."
"Are you sure?"
Mac frowns but says nothing. For a moment, Dennis is hit by a sharp twinge of gratefulness for Mac's tiny kindness in not taking the path that this conversation could very easily have followed.
"Who has their first birthday party at fourteen?"
He grabs another drink.
"Losers..."
He trails off without realizing he hasn't finished the sentence.
Then: "That's who."
Then: "I don't know if I've ever had a birthday that isn't us having a birthday."
That's not quite true. There was one—last year, all of which he's forgotten—but even then she called. Neither of them said anything about why she was calling, or why he picked up this time, and without hesitation, or why neither of them jumped down each other's throats the entire time. (Alright, they poked at each other, sure, but even even that was drastically kinder than their usual fare.)
But Dee's on vacation—she left him behind. For fun. He broke the unspoken rule, and the levee is out, and there's no holding back the flood.
"I don't think she did it to leave you behind, dude," Mac frowns. Dennis doesn't notice he hadn't meant to say that out loud. He just takes another drink.
"Hey Mac?"
"Mhm?"
"Do you ever wonder what our lives would be like if we had never met?"
Mac rubs his eyes. "You should not be able to put drunk words in that good a order, dude."
"I don't think I would've made it out of college," Dennis continues. "Mac." He pokes his companion's face. "Mac."
"Mhm."
"Mac." More poking.
"What, dude? What?"
"Do you think Charlie would be so good at bashing rats if it weren't for us?"
That gets Mac to laugh, which was the point. Another drink: for good behavior.
Dennis goes nonverbal sometime after Mac's reenactment of a fight from some movie, so Mac puts on "just some music, y'know" to fill the silences. It takes about twenty minutes for Dennis to realize that they're all Dennis's favorite songs.
He's in the middle of saying something about the pile of garbage Charlie and Frank had brought in the other day—that's right, he lost the debate over keeping the shit in the bar because Mac didn't have his back—when he remembers that wait, Mac hates Lou Reed.
"Dennis?" Mac waves a hand in front of his face. The only real sign that he's drunk is how clumsy it is; Dennis can feel the air pushing the curls off his forehead. "You still in there?"
"Yeah... Hey, Mac?"
Mac hums in response, again, just like he has every other time Dennis has said it over the past couple of hours, but it's strained now. Dennis has been racking up/throwing back more drinks, but Mac has mostly just been sitting there, listening to Dennis ramble, occasionally humming a song stuck in his head. It's never the same as the one in the speakers, but Dennis isn't as annoyed by that as he usually would be.
"I ever tell you why we call her Sweet Dee?" Dennis asks, spinning a plastic glass around with one finger.
They don't, really, anymore, but Mac doesn't interrupt. He's definitely listening now.
"Our mother," Dennis starts with a drawl, "was terrible. I mean, I know, she's my mom, but she was a real bitch. Not to me. I was an angel. But she was just awful to Dee."
For a second, Dennis doesn't continue. To be honest, he feels a little sick. He closes his eyes and all he sees is a long line of Dees with identical looks of betrayal over something as simple as hugging their mother back. Mac slides him a bottle.
"She only ever called her Deandra, and Dee hates that shit," Dennis says after another drink. He means to draw it out like she always did—the long "ah" sound, the snooty accent—but it gets stuck in his throat before he even tries.
Mac hums and takes back the bottle with no resistance. "I called her that when we met and she kicked me in the shin so hard my leg stopped growing. I'm all lopsided now, man."
Not true, but Dennis ignores it.
"But when we were little, and she was being really mean, like, way over the line, Mom would call her 'sweetie.' And, and later I'd say—"
Dennis laughs, but it's mean, and a little sad—mean to his past self, and sad he isn't still that person.
"I'd say, 'Maybe she meant sweet Dee.' Like she was only ever gonna get called Dee in a mean way. Then she'd get mad at me instead, and we would fight it out, and she'd feel better. And then it was just... what I called her."
And then his voice is just sad. He doesn't say anything about the look on Dee's face the first time he says it, like she knew immediately what he was trying to do, or the way she stared at him the first time he said it in front of other people. He doesn't say anything about why he stopped saying it (although, to be fair, he himself doesn't even know that). He doesn't say anything about whispering it into the phone at 12:35 a.m. before a long pause and "goodnight" on both ends.
Mac might be saying something (he usually is) but Dennis doesn't hear it, too busy staring at his final drink, made with the last of the tequila and far from the last of the ice. With enough concentration, Dennis can convince himself that he sees each bit of slush collapsing, bars of crystal melting into the empty spaces in each flake, getting denser and smaller, folding in on itself until the whole thing is one warm, wet mess.
When he blinks, the ice is still there.
"Dennis? Dennis."
A blink and then two. "...Mac."
"Yeah." Mac pats his hand and pulls back before Dennis notices he was ever there. "Hey dude, you wanna watch one of your David Finch movies?"
"Fincher," Dennis corrects absentmindedly. "No."
"Not even Fight Club?" Mac grins at him like it's some conspiracy. "Brad Pitt's got some sweet pecs in that one, dude."
"Yeah... Nah."
He's still maybe thinking about it (about Dee, about Brad Pitt's sweet pecs, about the empty space above his hand) when he sees Mac's face, which is really all it ever takes to change his mind. "No, yeah, let's do it."
"Nice!"
Mac's fist pump is as endearing as it is embarrassing, and Dennis is far gone enough that he can't pull back his grin. They're just sitting there, smiling at each other, until Dennis forgets they ever meant to do anything else.
Then Mac stands, stooping briefly to kiss Dennis's forehead before heading for the TV. Dennis doesn't suddenly feel warm so much as realize that he has been the entire time.
"You know, Fight Club is actually super gay?"
"Yes, Mac, I read it."
"Like the subtitles?"
And normally Dennis would roll his eyes or snap at Mac or something, but it's his birthday and he owes himself a gift, so when Mac sits back down, Dennis sinks into his side.
"Hey Mac?"
Mac's hum is sleepy now, and Dennis doesn't blame him; with Mac's arms around him, the warm darkness of the movie washing over them, and a healthy amount of tequila in his system, Dennis is also barely awake.
When Dennis doesn't continue, Mac starts to sit up more. "What's up?"
His head slides down on Mac's chest until he can mumble into his own sleeve, "Thank you for the birthday."
"I didn't give you a birthday, dude, your mom did."
"You know what I meant."
"Nah, I know."
Dennis doesn't have to look up to know what smile is on Mac's face as he squeezes Dennis closer. On the TV, Brad Pitt is flickering, but Dennis, for once, feels whole.
When Dennis wakes up, it is 3:58 in the morning, he is mostly dressed, and he desperately needs to pee. He's not entirely awake, but as he peels himself off Mac, it knocks something loose in his brain, something he knows he should remember, in his own voice. When he lays back down the exact same way—right leg hiked up just a bit farther than completely comfortable, both hands finding their wrinkled spots gripping Mac's shirt at his shoulder and side—the shape of the memory rises to the surface, and it's fuzzy and ill-defined, but under his cool touch it warms quickly. As Mac's arms find their ways back around Dennis's shoulders and over the length of his thigh, the shape bobs in his thoughts, and he goes to sleep feeling like it might be love.
When he wakes up, he won't say anything about the inkling, but the underlying feeling won't leave. When he falls asleep, he hopes it never will.