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“Oh, good, Charlie, there you are.” Dennis says, shutting the back office door behind him.
“Sup?” Charlie asks, looking up from the doodles he had been drawing in the margins of the bar’s books.
“I gotta ask you a favor, man, and it’s…it’s huge. Think you can handle it?” Dennis asks, brow furrowing.
“Yeah, man, hit me.” Charlie replies, straightening up in the office chair, looking excited at just the prospect.
“I mean it. It’s just you and me, you can’t tell anyone, not even Frank, you understand?” Dennis insists, eyes narrowing as they meet Charlie’s.
“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” Charlie replies, hand motioning to encourage Dennis to hurry along to his point..
“Okay.” Dennis lets out a breath, seemingly satisfied with Charlie’s answer, “I’m…going to ask Mac to marry me.” He holds his hands up, fingers splayed to add theatrics to the announcement.
A vibe which Charlie apparently wasn’t picking up on.
“Why?” Charlie replies simply, brow creasing.
“What do you mean?” Dennis asks, expression falling in disappointment and confusion.
“I mean…like what’s the scheme?”
“There’s no scheme.”
“Oh, so we’re just pranking him? I don’t know, man, that’s pretty serious for Mac…”
“No, no, there’s no scheme, no joke. I’m being serious here. I legitimately want to ask Mac to marry me.” Dennis explains, brow still creased.
“Oh…why?” Charlie asks, confusion still smeared across his face like spray paint.
“Why? Because I’m in love with him and shit! And we’re probably going to spend the rest of our lives together anyways, might as well get the tax benefits from it.” Dennis explains with a shrug, and then after a beat adds, “But mainly for the love and shit.”
“You’re in love with Mac?” Charlie asks, voice raising a bit in obvious surprise, “You should tell him that, man, he’d be so excited.” He adds before his attention zeroed back in on his doodles.
“Charlie, I have told him, he’s very aware.” Dennis replies, confusion now sprouting on his features again.
“Really? Huh…feel like he would have told me about that.” Charlie replies looking thoughtful. “Wait, I’m confused…how are you in love with Mac?” He adds, tilting his head up.
“What do you mean…how?” Dennis asks, now questioning if he wants to stick around for this conversation.
“Like…you’re straight, how are you in love with Mac?”
“Well…I…I’m not straight, exactly.”
“Dude, you’ve slept with so many women! You’re straight!” Charlie chuckles with a shake of his head, like it’s Dennis who doesn’t understand.
“Well…technically, I’m…I mean it really depends how into labels you are.” Dennis reasons, seemingly talking to himself, with a small shrug.
“Labeling what?”
“Sexuality. You see, Charlie, Sexuality is fluid…”
“Man, I don’t want to talk about sex fluids. It was bad enough when we talked about gender fluids.” Charlie sighs.
“...And while some like to adhere a label to that which sexually attracts them. I, myself, seek a much more…free flowing perspective when choosing a partner.” Dennis continues, seemingly not hearing Charlie’s interruption.
“What are you talking about, man?” Charlie asks through a light laugh, shaking his head gently, seemingly in disbelief.
“I’m not straight, Charlie, I’m closer to bisexual or pansexual, if we’re getting into semantics.” Dennis replies with a pointed look. “I’m sexually attracted to hunky, handsome men as much as I am to beautiful, big breasted women.” He adds quickly, voice rising as he gesticulates his point first by making the outlined figure of a busty woman’s body with his hands followed by a quick flex of his biceps.
“I thought you were bipolar.” Charlie replies simply.
“No.” Dennis replies quickly, arms falling to his sides, “...I mean...clinically, maybe, but....” He adds thoughtfully before Charlie interrupts again.
“And now you’re saying you’re attracted to pans? Pans? What’s next, pots?”
“Charlie, these jokes are five years too old.” Dennis hastily interrupts loudly, reaching the end of his ability to carry this conversation, and ignoring the still confused expression on Charlie’s face. “I’m attracted to women and men , specifically Mac .” He adds pointedly.
“Attracted to Mac? I gotta tell ya man, I’m just not believing it.” Charlie chuckles.
“How can you not believe it when I’ve been in a relationship with Mac for over half a year?” Dennis asks, hands going to his hips after motioning towards the door behind him, brow furrowed.
“Well, I don’t really believe that…either…” Charlie replies slowly.
“MAC!” Dennis turns and opens the back office door, “MAC!” Dennis shouts again as he passes the bar.
“Why are you screaming?” Dee screams, stopping near the hightops on her way back towards the bar.
‘Where’s Mac?” Dennis asks, looking about the bar for the beefy backup he needs.
“He’s still out with the keg guy.” Dee replies like that should have been obvious. “What’s up?”
“This idiot doesn’t believe that Mac and I are dating.” Dennis replies simply, motioning over his shoulder towards Charlie.
“You’re doing what with Mac?” Dee asks, brow creasing.
“Oh, not you, too.” Dennis sighs, devastation dropping from his features to his words.
“I think I figured out what’s going on.” Charlie interjects, “Mac hypnotized Dennis.” He adds like it was the most logical conclusion.
“No!’ Dennis whines, looking over his shoulder at Charlie.
“I’ve thought that for a while.” Frank pipes up. He had been sitting at the bar this entire time, reading over something or other in the paper in front of him.
“Yeah, yeah, it makes sense! Mac got someone to hypnotize Dennis so now Dennis thinks he’s in love with Mac and he wants to bang pans or something. You know like how they make people turn into chickens!” Charlie explains, bulldozing over Dennis’ persistent objections.
“He did not!” Dennis shouts.
“No, that makes sense, Charlie!” Dee exclaims pointing at him.
“Right! So we gotta find Mac and make him get the guy to break the curse.” Charlie goes on, excitement building in his voice as he continues.
‘No! Stop it! You guys are idiots!’ Dennis shouts as the backdoor bangs open.
“Move it!” Mac’s voice booms from the alley. “Move it, move it, out of my way!” He calls out to absolutely no one in his way. Mac was in the bar’s main room in another moment, a keg lifted against his hips as he raced on tiny footsteps from the back alley door to the keg room across the bar. The rest of the gang had stopped their fighting to watch as he raced from one end to the other until he disappeared through the doorway.
A clanging thump of the keg being dropped to the floor followed by Mac’s raucous groan of success rang through the bar.
“AHHHH-did you guys see that? That asshole said I couldn’t do it, but I knew I could still do it! Did you see it?” Mac shouts as he walks back into the main room, finger pointing accusatorily towards the back alley where the keg guy remained.
“Yeah, it was great, babe, can you come here a sec?” Dennis asks, reaching out to motion towards himself as he walks around the bar towards Mac, all while giving the other man a reassuring nod.
“Sure, what’s up, honey?” Mac asks, moving to meet Dennis midway. Dennis turns to face the rest of the gang who had slowly followed him (except for Frank who didn’t see the need to get up from his stool when he could see them just as blurry from his spot at the bar) as Mac places his hand on Dennis’ shoulder, gaze moving from Dennis to the rest of gang.
“These idiots, apparently, beyond all reason, were not aware that we’re a couple.” Dennis explains, arms crossing against his chest.
“What?” Mac asks, brow creasing, as he looks from Dee to Charlie. He sounds more hurt than angry.
“We figured it out.” Charlie declares, hands going to his hips, “And, dude, getting Dennis hypnotized is not cool.”
“What’s he talking about?” Mac asks Dennis, turning to face him.
“Oh, that’s the other thing - instead of believing me, that we’re in a relationship, they’d rather believe that you hired a guy to hypnotize me into being in love with you.” Dennis explains to Mac, looking back at him and choosing to ignore the idiots across from them.
“Dude!” Mac shouts and looks suddenly to Charlie, “I should have done that years ago, would have saved so much time.” Dennis gives Mac a shove in response to that declaration, pulling Mac’s attention back to him, “But I didn’t.” Mac adds quickly.
“I know you didn’t!” Dennis shouts.
“Wait.” Mac says quickly, looking back to Charlie and Dee, “You two knew about us, we told you!”
“You did not!” Dee replied loudly, offended.
“Yes we did, we were literally standing right there.” Mac replies pointing to the bar.
-7 Months Ago-
“Attention! Gather ‘round everybody! Attention!” Mac shouts coming out of the back office, grabbing the portion of the bar top that was on a hinge and pushing it up before holding it in place for Dennis to walk behind the bar first in front of him.
Dee looks up from her phone for a second. Charlie raises a brow at the same time as he raises his beer to his lips. And Frank graces them with a look before going back to his magazine.
“We have an announcement!” Dennis snaps, grabbing their attention for at least a moment longer than Mac had managed to hold it.
“What’s up?” Charlie asks, taking another drink.
“Dennis and I…are together.” Mac declares with a face wide grin. The two stand in silence, waiting for some sort of reaction from the other three. Frank looks back down to what he was reading, Dee has already looked back at her phone before Mac got the statement out, and Charlie didn’t look entirely phased. “Yeah, we just…we finally talked everything out.” Mac goes on, thinking it might help in getting a reaction.
“We understand this is pretty…life changing stuff, so if you have any questions, you know, especially for me…go ahead and ask.” Dennis pushes, looking between the three seated in front of them.
“Nah.” Dee replies, eyes still on her phone.
“Good for you guys.” Charlie adds, turning and hopping off his stool. Frank doesn’t so much as add anything as he makes a noise that might either be a fart, his nose clearing, or he might just be agreeing with Charlie.
-present day-
“That’s what that was about?” Charlie asks, brow creasing.
“Yeah…what did you think…” Mac starts, features mirroring Charlie's expression.
“Well…you two were together behind the bar so I just figured you guys were telling us…that you were together…behind the bar…” Charlie explains slowly.
“Dee!” Dennis loudly interrupts, not wanting to hear any more of Charlie’s asinine excuse and desperate to hear literally anything else.
“Yeeeah, I’m going to be honest with you…” Dee starts looking back at Dennis, “I was not paying attention to anything you two were talking about.” She admitted with a cringed up face.
“Are you kidding m…”Dennis shouts, fists coming up to press against his forehead, Mac patting his shoulder.
“If I paid attention to every announcement you guys made I’d have wasted years.” Frank notes, flipping the page in his paper.
“But how did you guys not notice after?” Mac asks, still patting Dennis’ shoulder to calm him down.
“Notice what?” Charlie asks.
“Us…we…I mean we’ve kissed in front of you guys.” Mac points out.
“I kissed Mac on the mouth this morning before he went out to meet the keg guy.” Dennis points out, voice at least a few octaves lower than it previously was at. That was at least a positive sign that he was calming down.
“Yeah, like that, what did you guys think that was about?” Mac asks, looking between Charlie and Dee again.
“I mean…I kinda just thought it was a new weird Mac and Dennis thing.” Charlie admits with a shrug.
“Yeah, we’ve seen you guys do gayer shit before.” Dee adds with a shrug of her own.
“Like what?” Dennis snaps, face pinched in offense.
“You have not!” Mac shouts in anger.
“You rubbed each other's nipples in the bar.” Frank speaks up.
“You’ve pretended to be a gay couple like three or four times.” Charlie adds.
“I walked in on Mac dying Dennis’ hair once.” Dee piles on looking to Charlie.
“I caught Mac jerking off to Dennis’ sex tapes.” Charlie replies.
“Oh, he did that all the time, even when they were at my place.” Dee rolls her eyes, “I caught them coming out of the shower together once.”
“Youse guys used to stand on each others toes all the time, that’s not normal.” Frank interrupts with a shake of his head, flipping another page in his paper. “Feelin another man’s breath on ya face all the time when ya talkin.” Frank goes on, “Not normal.” He mutters more so to himself with a shake of his head.
“So…you just thought that I was platonically kissing my gay best friend on the mouth?” Dennis asks with a pointed look that showed how big of idiots he thought they were.
“...Yeah.” Charlie replies with another shrug.
“It made sense.” Dee adds.
“Idiots. I’m surrounded…” Dennis shrieks before sighing as his eyes roll towards the heavens.
“Okay, well now that’s settled. You guys are idiots, Dennis isn’t hypnotized, and we’re together. I’m gonna go get the second keg cause that guy’s probably pissed waiting out in the alley.” Mac reasons, moving to step behind Dennis. Before he got entirely behind him he gave his shoulder a pat to catch his attention and then leaned forward to meet him halfway in a kiss. They stayed there, lips pressed together for a beat or two, before pulling back.
“Woah!”
“Hey!”
“No, no, no!”
The other three members of the gang shout their general disapproval in the minimal display of affection between the other two.
“What?” Mac asks loudly.
‘What is your problem?” Dennis asks, looking back at them.
“That.” Charlie says, making a face of disgust.
“What?” Dennis asks.
“Charlie!” Mac whines in disappointment.
“No, listen!” Dee interjects, “It’s not a gay thing, I just don’t want to see my brother swapping spit in front of me!”
“Yeah, I don’t want to watch my two best friends doing it either.” Charlie adds.
“Wait, they’re your best friends?” Dee asks.
“What about me?” Frank shouts.
“Frank, we’re different, you know that!” Charlie calls back, not even bothering to turn around. He doesn’t seem to notice he’s ignoring Dee either.
“Well, get over it! We’ve been doing it for months and you didn’t have a problem before.” Dennis points out making a general shooing motion towards the rest of them.
“Yeah, but that was before I knew it was a sex thing!” Charlie explains, voice raising.
“A sex thing?” Dennis shouts, eyebrow raised.
“Yeah, that’s what kissing is! You’re kissing cause you wanna have sex, but you can’t cause you’re in the bar!” Charlie explains.
“Oh, we’ve had sex in the bar.” Mac replies with a nod and a smirk.
“Yeah we have.” Dennis chuckles, holding his fist up to which Mac, chuckling now, bumps with his own without having to look.
“Gross!”
“That’s disgusting!”
“Too bad!” Mac shouts with a loudly forced laugh, “We own the bar. We can have sex in the bar!”
“And we can kiss in the bar!” Dennis adds enthusiastically.
“I say we vote!” Dee shouts, “All those in favor of Mac and Dennis keeping their spit to themselves…”
“What is with you guys and spit?” Dennis asks himself.
“…in front of us, raise your hand!” Dee finishes.
“In front of you?” Dennis asks, voice raising and falling within one word out of shock.
Charlie and Dee stand stone faced with their right hands raised.
“Well, too bad for you two losers, we own the bar!” Dennis replies loudly.
“Yeah, but not a majority share, that’s Frank.” Dee points out, literally pointing back at Frank with her free hand. Attention drawn, the other three look back at the older man at the bar.
“I’m open to negotiation.” Frank declares matter of factly.
“Yeah?” Dennis yells, now genuinely curious.
“Yeap.” Frank replies calmly with a nod.
Dennis holds his finger up before slowly turning and placing his hand to Mac’s chest and stepping back away from the other two. The couple take a few steps before leaning their heads together to an abnormally close degree, but nothing out of the ordinary for them (even before they got together as a couple). Charlie and Dee, having lowered their hands, can hear the other two whispering, but not exactly what it is they’re whispering to each other.
Finally, Dennis turns back around and faces the rest of the group.
“The Macdennis caucus have deliberated and propose the following amendments.” Dennis starts, straightening his back with a tilt of his head, not too unlike that of a cobra getting in position to strike, “First, we’re grownup ass men. We’re allowed to kiss whenever we want. However, we are willing to contain ourselves in front of mixed company and therefore will limit ourselves to closed mouth kissing lasting under five seconds at a time in front of you. With the exception of when a scheme is successful or we’re celebrating something - in which case we’re allowed beyond those limitations within reason.”
Dee and Charlie turn to look back at Frank, obviously not having enough sway to deliberate with him. Frank doesn’t move much, his gaze doesn’t even really shift from Dennis.
“No more bangin in the bar.” Frank replies, elbow resting on the bar as he points at the couple.
Dennis looks back at Mac wordlessly. Mac looks back at Dennis for a moment before tilting his head up to look at Frank with a shrug, “We already pretty much covered the whole thing, so sure.”
Dennis turns to look back at the group, Dee and Charlie wearing matching disgusted faces, “We accept your terms.” Sounding like he had gotten something over on them.
“Agreed.” Frank replies with a solemn nod. Charlie and Dee let out matching groans, obviously feeling slighted in the exchange.
“Great! So, it’s settled, we can kiss and you guys know we’re boyfriends.” Mac says, staying in his spot behind Dennis, but his hands moving to the other man’s hips.
“Boyfriends?” Charlie asks.
“What are you guys 12?” Dee laughs.
Dennis sighs, eyes closing briefly, “Mac, explain.”
“That’s my fault.” Mac says, following Dennis’ instructions, “See, Dennis is actually being really sweet.” He explains, briefly laying his chin on Dennis’ shoulder before straightening back up, “Since I didn’t come out for so long I never really got to have an actual real life boyfriend when we were kids, ya know, so he’s letting me call him that for awhile until he can’t stand it any more.” Mac smiles.
“I guess that’s cute…kinda sad…but cute.” Dee replies, looking like she was still thinking it over as she said it.
“Better use it while you can before you have to start callin him fiance like a fancy pants. Right, Dennis?”
Charlie says it like it’s nothing. Dennis’ eyes shoot open and glares. Mac’s brow creases in confusion. Dee turns to face Charlie, brow raised in confusion, but definitely wanting to know what he’s talking about.
“Huh?” Frank flat out asks, not bothering to seem shocked, just wanting to get to what Charlie must have mistakenly meant.
“What?” Mac asks in his soft way of asking things when he can’t quite believe what’s being said. If Dennis turns around to face him right now he knows he’s going to see those big cow eyes twinkling with hope. He won't be able to take it.
Dennis takes a deep breath, closing his eyes again briefly before glaring at Charlie and then slowly turning to face Mac.
“Mac…” Dennis starts.
“Dennis.” Mac interrupts, those big brown eyes staring right at Dennis like he’s just hung a star.
“Mac.” Dennis repeats to try and reign Mac back in with just his tone, “Charlie’s an idiot, you know…” Something changes in Mac’s expression, something small and subtle that breaks Dennis’ heart and makes him instantly regret that he was even hovering his foot above Mac’s heart ready to smash it with those words.
“Hypothetically speaking…” Dennis starts again, sounding more thoughtful than desperate to explain this time, “If what Charlie was…insinuating, were true,” He reaches up, tugging on his ear as he tries to find the words, “...If something were to happen where that…what Charlie said, were the case. Would you…want that…to happen?” Dennis asks, finally raising his gaze to meet Mac’s with a curious look.
“Yes!” Mac replies loudly, and quickly, ‘Yeah…yeah I would.” Mac replies with a nod, voice calming just a bit.
“Okay…” Dennis breathes, straightening up.
“But…wait.” Mac interrupts again, hands raising as if to physically stop Dennis from going forward, “I still want you to do…whatever you were going to do. That’s not me saying yes…like saying yes…that’s saying yes, do it…how you were going to.” Mac replies, having seemingly caught on to exactly what Dennis was trying to ask.
There are countless benefits to understanding someone to the point of not having to have a full, important, conversation when standing in public in front of your family.
“Oh…right, yeah…” Dennis replies, sounding somewhat relieved, “Okay, yeah I can still…do the thing.”
“Right, I want you to do the thing…and when you do I’ll say yes.” Mac replies, hands motioning from one side of his body to the other.
“Good! Okay, yeah that’s good.” Dennis replies, nodding to himself, his gaze dropping somewhat.
“Hey.” Mac pipes up.
“Yeah?” Dennis asks, head rising to look back up at him.
“After you do your thing, and I say yes…can I do the thing too?” Mac asks curiously, “I just…I know how you like to be the center of attention, and it seems fair, and I want to.” Mac adds, motioning to Dennis before folding his hands together.
“Really?” Dennis asks with a smile blooming on his features, “Yeah, man, I’d like that.”
“Yeah? Okay, cool.” Mac smiles sheepishly.
“Hey, what are you guys talking about?” Charlie calls out, having at some point grabbed a handful of barnuts and slammed them into his mouth on his way back to stand next to Dee. He must have gotten bored with the silence on his side of the room and wanted in on the other side’s conversation.
“What?” Mac asks quickly.
“Nothing!” Dennis calls as he turns around, “Nothing for you to know, Charlie, since you can’t keep a goddamn secret to yourself!”
“What did I do?” Charlie asks in a whine, mouth still partially full.
“Wait, he didn’t just pull that out his ass? Are you two seriously…” Dee starts, but gets interrupted by Dennis.
“Shut…:" Dennis starts, glancing around to make sure he has everyone’s attention, “Shut up, bird!”
“Ha! Bird, shut up!” Mac adds to pile on the distraction. Charlie falls for it, pointing at Dee with a laugh, squawking out a loud ‘bird!’ of his own.
Frank’s laughter joins the fray as Dee throws her hands up, turning and marching off to pretend to be working instead of dealing with them. Charlie looks back at Dennis and Mac, laughing through a mouth still partially full as he bends his arms back in mock wings. Dennis cackles, hands coming up together in a brief clap. Mac laughs out full throated, leaning forward into Dennis with an arm wrapped securely around the other man’s waist. Mac reaches out with his free hand, pointing over Dennis’ shoulder as he lets out another loud, “Bird!”
Moments later Dennis finally looks back to Mac over his shoulder and asks, “Didn’t you leave the keg guy in the alley?”
“Oh shit!” Mac swears and then quickly kisses Dennis’ cheek, “See ya, hon.” He breaks free of him and scampers towards the alley door, shouting out to the awaiting keg guy that he was coming.
“And I’ll deal with you later.” Dennis adds lowly, briefly pointing towards Charlie who stops smiling immediately. Dennis narrows his eyes, keeping his gaze on Charlie for a few steps as he walks back behind the bar. Charlie’s brow creases as he watches. Once Dennis makes it behind the bar Charlie quickly turns and races back out into the alley after Mac.