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The night never picks up again. Whether it's that word's gotten out about the worm-and-Anthrax bar or their popularity really had been a freak accident the whole time, the bar stays empty for the rest of Valentine's Day.
As if a bar on Valentine's Day wasn't sad enough.
After Charlie and Frank disappear, after it becomes apparent that Dennis has stop talking for the night, after Dee slips out of sight, Mac sighs and leaves the remaining regulars to self-police while he tucks the crate under the stairs in the basement.
The bar is still quiet when he emerges, putting Mac officially on edge. Paddy's is rarely quiet, unless everyone is deathly bored or feuding—but it is quiet, and worse, Dennis is missing. Two strikes.
He's not missing, though. As soon as Mac looks away from where he'd been expecting Dennis to still be standing, he finds him (not that it resolves anything).
"Hey," Mac says gently as he approaches the booth Dennis is posted up in.
Dennis doesn't move (not an entire strike on its own; more like one... whatever strikes are made of). He looks like a photo, but not the way he normally does.
Dennis is always trying to look like a model, and sometimes it works, sure, but this is different. He doesn't look posed or "statuesque", just very still and far away, like that photo of the dirty lady from the Great Depression. Folded up in the back in the booth, he has one foot on the floor and the other pulled close to his body. A piece of hair has fallen over his forehead. A bottle of vodka is in his arms.
Mac slides into the opposite seat just as Dennis moves, but it is only enough to bring the bottle to his lips; he still doesn't look up.
"I put your gift in the basement," Mac tries. "I think maybe the rocket's still coming, but either way, it's not gonna fit at Dee's place."
Dennis drinks, then: "My Valentine."
It feels combative, but something tells Mac it's not aimed at him. "Yeah, dude."
The blue trim of the bottle cradled against his chest doesn't match his shirt, but it still goes with him—like he's not the complete set without it. Dennis is a self-contained image, and something is hidden in all that that Mac can't see but can feel the edges of bleeding into the air.
"It's weird how it's the same word for the gift and the person."
"I guess. I never thought of that."
"You get a Valentine from your Valentine," Dennis says, and he finally looks over. His gaze is heavy, but Mac won't look away.
"Yeah."
Mac says it with as little inflection as possible before folding his arms on the table and leaning forward slightly, just to see what Dennis will do.
What Dennis does is, at first, nothing, which itself says a lot. He just keeps staring back, looking for something. It's almost the look he has when he's waiting for Mac to give in on something, waiting for a "Yes, Dennis, you look great," a "No, Dennis, you can have the couch," but not quite. He's waiting for Mac to say something not because he wants to hear Mac say it, but because he can't say it himself.
Only Mac doesn't know what to say. He just sits there, staring back, hoping Dennis finds what he's looking for.
Dennis doesn't, or maybe he does. He doesn't know. He's not even sure what he's looking at. It's Mac, obviously, as Mac as he's ever been: Hawaiian shirt, giant eyes, shiny hair. His face is open (painfully so) with every whisper of a thought telegraphed across his brow. (Or maybe he's not that easy to read, but he is, at least, to Dennis.)
He's sitting right there with his eyes open, his whole body open, leaning forward and just looking, and for once Dennis can't bring himself to propel them apart like matching magnets.
It feels, inexplicably, sacrilege to act how he usually would, despite the fact that it's an abysmally usual situation. Having Mac with his proverbial hand stretched out across the table is hyper familiar, but knowing what it's like to have Mac's heart, his heavy heart, in his own arms changes everything.
For a moment, it had felt good, even with the extra weight of everyone's eyes on him, like he was holding the only thing he was ever meant to hold. It had felt better than good. It felt right. But it got too heavy, and he had to put it back down in the hay.
Dennis takes one swig, then another, staring at the wall behind the bar.
"You good?" Mac asks without a hint of judgement. He obviously doesn't except Dennis to answer, but answer Dennis does.
"I can't believe you got that for me," he says, clear as a bell and too fast, too stressed. "I can't believe you knew, I didn't even know—"
"I know," Mac cuts Dennis off before he can start hyperventilating, himself unnerved, but when Dennis looks back, he knows it's far from over.
"That's the point, Mac," Dennis snaps, "you know, but you don't know—"
He trails off and stares into the bottle with a seasick expression so he doesn't have to watch Mac put together any pieces.
"Know what?"
"There's something I should tell you," Dennis mumbles.
After a moment, Mac scoots forward more.
"You can," he prompts. "Whatever it is, you can."
"No..."
Dennis's arm emerges from his cocoon and sets his bottle on the table.
"I should tell you," he concludes after another pause, "but I won't. I can't."
Mac doesn't know what to say to that, and so he says... nothing. He says nothing, tracing made up patterns in the dots of Dennis's shirt, and imagines he can hear Dennis mentally counting the seconds before he can flee without confrontation.
"I gave Dee fifteen bucks so you could have the bed to yourself tonight," Mac says when Dennis starts to get up.
He wants to reach out but he knows that would just make the moment go faster. As it is, the moment stops.
"Where are you gonna go?"
"Wherever." Mac waves his hand in his exaggerated I can do this now, I'm gay way. "To be honest, dude, I got so used to that couch, I think I might miss it."
It's so obvious a lie that Dennis doesn't feel the need to call him on it. Instead, he does the kindest thing he can.
"You could stay," he says, sliding out of the booth. It's not an offer but a statement; not the most groundbreaking thing he almost admitted to today, but somehow the worst.
And Mac just nods, and goes to grab their coats while Dennis puts away his vodka, and the bar is quiet, instead of silent.
When he returns, Mac holds up Dennis's for him, his internal debate over whether to just hand it over or help Dennis put it on playing out on his face. It's another gesture Dennis is confounded by, but he's revised his response. Another second and Dennis just takes it, but he's carefully uncareful and their hands touch—barely, but Dee slept in the middle last night. It's the first time they've touched all day; it feels significant, but unsurprising, so he says nothing.
The familiar motion of shrugging on his jacket seems to bring Dennis back into his body, his regular self, but he can't undo the shift that's happened inside. He'll have to work harder to hide it but... That can wait til tomorrow, right?
"Did you know," he says as he holds open the door, "your Valentine was also the patron saint of plagues, epilepsy, and beekeepers?"
"Yeah, and fainting." Mac slips past him with a typical Mac-like smirk. "Right up your alley, dude."
Dennis almost laughs, and when he follows Mac, it's not from far away. He's imagining getting home—wearing an age-old hoodie even though it's ratty and too warm this close to each other, his arm half-asleep under his own head, Mac's hair damp against his fingers, Mac's arm warm around his waist—before they've even reached the car.