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Mac tells Dennis he has a boyfriend and then looks at him expectantly, as though he thinks Dennis is going to say something about it.
“...Okay?” Dennis says.
“Okay?”
“Yeah? Good for you or whatever, man, why should I care?”
Mac starts to give him the puppy dog eyes, then seems to stop himself.
Interesting.
“Whatever, dude,” Mac says. “Anyways, he’s like, super hot and funny and cool and gay.”
“Okay, Mac.”
Mac sees this boyfriend of his a lot.
Dennis could go out and sleep with a woman. He could easily get someone, of course he could. He just doesn’t feel like it; he’s too good for all of them.
So he sits at the bar and drinks with Dee.
“Y’know, I used to be the only lonely one in the gang,” she comments one day.
He gives her a withering gaze.
But everything is fine, Dennis prefers being alone. Mac is annoying as shit; he’s almost never home but when he is, Dennis can barely even look at him.
He texts Mac to ask him to dye his hair, and Mac never responds.
He calls Dee later that night, and she comes to the apartment to find him curled up in the bathtub, his hair half-done.
“Can you dye it?” he asks in a low voice.
“Jesus Christ, Dennis.”
Dee is still a stupid bitch, obviously. And he’s really just doing her a favor by hanging out with her so much. She needs a friend, poor girl, and he’s really quite a kind person.
He rants about this for at least five minutes one day while he’s super drunk. Dee stares at him in disbelief the whole time.
“I can’t believe you’re still this far up your own ass.”
“I have...neeeever been up an ass," he slurs.
“God, am I gonna have to drive you home?” She wrinkles her nose in disgust, but lets him lean on her on the way to her car.
By the time they get back to the apartment, he’s half-asleep, slumped against the seat. Mac is there. He helps her carry him inside, and he can hear them talk in hushed tones outside his bedroom door, but he has no idea what they’re saying.
Mac keeps up with him a little more after that. He starts making breakfast for them again, dinner sometimes, even.
Dennis didn’t miss this, of course, he doesn’t need Mac trying to be his wife or some shit, but...it’s nice. Fine. It’s nice.
He doesn’t expect what comes soon after.
Mac stands in front of him, fiddling with his hands, not meeting his eyes. “I’m moving out.”
Dennis stares at him in shock. “You’re...what?”
“I’m moving out. I’m gonna live with Will.”
“Who the hell is Will?”
Mac throws his hands in the air. “I can’t believe you!”
Oh, the boyfriend. Dennis met him once, he thinks: he vaguely remembers him. He was pretty perfect, actually. Some venomous part of his brain says, Mac doesn’t deserve that.
He steps towards Mac. “So you’re just gonna leave me?”
“Don’t make it like that.”
“Oh, I think that’s exactly what it’s like, Mac.”
“If you didn’t want me to leave you, you shouldn’t have left me!”
Dennis freezes. “That’s...that’s different. I came back.”
“I’m not talking about North Dakota, I’m talking about...emotionally, dude? Where the hell did you go?”
“What do you mean?” Dennis says coldly.
“Dude, you know what I mean. This is exactly what I’m talking about.” Mac turns to leave.
“Wait,” Dennis says, placing a hand on his shoulder. Mac looks down at it, then shrugs it off.
“You had so many chances, Den. Goodbye.”
“I thought you were starting to reconnect with Mac or whatever the shit you guys do,” Dee complains when he shows up at her doorstep.
“He’s moving out,” he says, and pushes past her into her apartment, sitting on the couch.
“He’s...what? You two have been living together for what, twenty years?”
“Twenty-three. Do you have alcohol?”
“I always have alcohol, brother.”
Mac still works at the bar, obviously, but they haven’t actually made eye contact since he left.
Then again, they made real, true Mac-and-Dennis eye contact maybe twice in the two years before that. And Dennis is self-aware enough to know that was his fault.
There are a lot of inner voices inside him, and one of them sounds suspiciously like Dee saying goddammit.
Mac brings Will to the bar a couple weeks together. Oh, yes, he’s just how Dennis remembers him: such a nice guy. Such a wonderful, wonderful man.
But really. What motivated this guy to date Mac of all people? Before he can stop himself, he’s cornering him and asking him about it.
Will sounds confused. “Mac is great, what do you mean?”
“You have to know...come on, doesn’t he. Annoy you all the time? How needy and clingy and desperate he is?”
Will raises his eyebrows. “I’m not sure I like the way you’re speaking about my boyfriend.”
Dennis scoffs. “Oh, shut up and drop the act. I know Mac better than you’ll ever know him.”
“Well, I’m hoping to stay together for the rest of our lives, so even if that’s true now, it won’t be forever.”
Dennis gapes at him. “You’re...holy shit, you know he doesn’t have money or anything, right? Seriously, what do you see in the guy?”
“Apparently it’s hard for you to believe, but I just like him as a person.”
“Bullshit, no one likes Mac as a person.”
Just then, Mac walks up and smiles tightly at Dennis. “Thank you for your kind words, Dennis. Really appreciated.”
Dennis takes a swig of his beer. “Nothing you haven’t heard before.”
Will looks back and forth between them in horror. “Mac, how are your friends so horrible?”
“Oh, like you’re so much better-”
“Dennis,” Mac interrupts. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
They end up in the office. Mac shuts the door and just looks at him for a few seconds, before saying, “What is wrong with you?”
“I just want what’s best for you, Mac, who the hell is this guy?”
“Since when have you ever wanted what’s best for me?”
“Since always, I’m your best friend!”
“Oh, bullshit, we haven’t been best friends in years and you know it! Can’t you just be happy for me?”
“No!”
“Then I can’t talk to you!”
“Fine!”
“Fine!”
The conversation seems over, but Mac makes no move to leave, so Dennis takes the opportunity.
“When did you stop…” he forces the words out, “...loving me?”
Mac is speechless, then laughs. “God, I don’t know, Dennis.”
Dennis takes a step towards him, then stops, unsure what to do with himself. But apparently it motivates Mac, who steps forward and wraps his arms around him.
Dennis tenses up, then allows his head to relax onto Mac’s shoulder. “Did you ever stop?” he murmurs.
Mac doesn’t respond.
He tries again, slightly different this time. “Are we okay?”
Mac pats his back. “Yeah, sure, we’re okay.”
“No, I mean it. Are we?”
“Of course we’re not, we’re never gonna be okay. Even before...everything, we were fucked up.”
“Oh.”
Mac shrugs. “But who cares? We don’t have to be okay, we have each other.”
Each other. Quickly, Dennis steps away. “No, I-”
Mac looks at him sadly. “This is why I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“What?”
“I can’t stand you, dude. The not-feeling shit, or the suppressing big feelings shit, or whatever you’re calling it now, I can’t stand it.”
“Well, I can’t stand your having-feelings shit, but I miss it anyway!” he spits.
After a second, Mac says, “Your hair needs to be re-dyed.”
“Dee’s been doing it.”
“Dee doesn’t know shit, I can do it way better than her.”
“You won’t do it anymore,” Dennis says bitterly.
“I’m saying I’ll do it now.”
Dennis sighs. “Okay.”
Dennis sits in the bathtub, Mac’s hands threading through his hair.
If Dennis closes his eyes, he can pretend they’re young again.
If Dennis closes his eyes, he can pretend they’re old and married.
If Dennis closes his eyes, he can pretend Mac’s never existed and this is just some nameless, faceless figure taking care of him. God, maybe. He’s never believed in God, but he could believe these were His hands, coming down from Heaven to guide Dennis to righteousness.
“Mac, do you believe in God?” he asks suddenly.
Mac pauses. “Uh, I think you know the answer to that already.”
“Yeah, but...I don’t know, it could have changed or something.”
“I mean, I guess I’m less extreme or whatever now, but yeah, God is still real and all. He’s somewhere up there right now, watching us.”
“Can you pray to him for me?”
“About what?”
“Just for me. Tell him to make me okay.”
“I already do that every day, dude.”
“Oh.” Dennis settles back into the tub. The thought should make him angry, but he actually feels content for once.
Will breaks up with Mac.
Dennis tries to be sad for him. But he can’t help but feel a little victory over both of them.
Mac is his again.
“You don’t have to try to be comforting, dude,” Mac says. “I know you’re happy.”
“Why would I be happy? What do I stand to gain from this? I don’t even like you.”
Mac takes the bottle of beer from him and takes a sip. “Shut up, Dennis.”
Surprising even himself, Dennis complies.
“Out of pure, unbiased curiosity,” Dennis asks a couple days later, “why did he break up with you?”
“He’s too classy for me, you know that.”
“Anything else?”
Mac rolls his eyes. “And he was jealous of you.”
Dennis grins and leans back. “Yeah.”
“When are we gonna say it?”
“Huh?”
“Y’know, like...well, now I feel weird saying it outright, because I guess I don’t know for sure if you want that, but...”
Dennis should be protesting right now, he should be filled with white-hot rage. But all he feels is a sense of defeat. Mac has finally broken him down. It doesn't bother him as much as he'd thought it would.
“Yeah.” He takes a breath and prepares himself. “I love you.”
The words are. Well, he wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re nice to say, but...okay, yeah. Maybe they are. No one needs to know that.
Mac is staring at him, his jaw dropped. “Dude, that is not what I was talking about at all. I was talking about if I was gonna move back into the apartment.”
“You were- what- of course you’re moving back into the apartment, dumbass!”
“I don’t know, I was just- wait, you said it.”
“Said what?”
“Y’know. I love you. You said it.”
“You didn’t know I-?”
“Obviously I knew, Den, but I didn’t think you’d ever actually say it.”
Oh, God, Mac looks so happy it’s sickening. “Yeah, yeah. It’s not like I’m gonna make it a habit.”
“That’s okay. I will.”
Begrudgingly, Dennis does not scream. Instead, he stands up, walks to the other side of the table, and leans down to kiss him.
When he’s done, Mac beams up at him.
“Ugh, you’re going to be insufferable,” Dennis grumbles.
“You love me, you said it yourself.”
“Tell the whole world, why don’t you.”
“Don’t worry, I will.”
And Dennis doesn’t doubt that.