Chapter Text
Dennis is seventeen and huffs in the late September sun.
He tugs at his collar. The two layers of shirts stick to his skin. It’s 85 degrees, and it’s supposed to be fall, but this – whatever this is – is definitely not fucking fall. He shouldn’t still have to deal with the leftovers of summer, not when the leaves are changing to fantastic oranges and yellows, and he’s able to order pumpkin spice lattes at his favorite coffee shop on the corner of Third and Sycamore. It’s preposterous that it’s this hot outside today. It doesn’t help that a pounding headache brews behind his eyes, threatening to spread back toward his temples.
“You good, Den?” Mac asks, already in his spot under the bleachers. He’s rolling a joint, hair messy and tie loose around his neck.
Dennis carefully takes a seat in the grass, close enough to Mac that their shoulders touch. He rolls his eyes as Dee’s back brace squeaks. The bird plops down unceremoniously and begins squawking about random bullshit. He pulls his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around his shins and hiding his face in the middle, trying to ignore the quick thumping of his heart. He takes shaky, uneven breaths. A fresh wave of dizziness washes over him. His whole body tingles.
“Um, Den?” he hears, but Mac’s voice is underwater.
Dennis keeps his eyes closed and buried in his knees.
“Oh shit. Is this that thing? Are you having a thing right now?” Dee asks. He shrugs away the boney hand on his shoulder, stomach rolling.
“What thing?” he hears Mac asks. He sounds worried.
“You know how he passed out in gym twice this week?”
This time, he feels Mac’s hand on his lower back. He knows because it’s warm and firm. Dennis shivers as Mac gently rubs up and down his spine. He wavers unsteadily in place, heart beating nearly straight out of his chest. Okay. Okay. Okay. Breathe. Gotta breathe through it. It’ll be over soon. He doesn’t hesitate to lean into the comforting touch. Doesn’t even bat an eyelash when he feels himself being tugged at until he’s got his head on Mac’s shoulder.
“It took Mr. Clayton, like, ten minutes to wake him up,” Mac says. “Wait. Is this why he wasn’t in school on Tuesday?”
Dennis doesn’t want to talk about Tuesday. Doesn’t want to even think about that tilt table test that made him almost die.
“Yeah. Josefina took him to some specialist. Turns out he’s got a thing.”
“A thing?” Mac asks, his voice high and uncertain. “What kind of thing?”
And Dennis tries to hold on. He really does. It’s just so hard, and the feeling of falling into himself with the rapid heartbeat is too much to handle. He exhales, lying limp against Mac, and fading away from reality.
A reality where Dee utters the diagnosis out loud, making it all too real.
A reality where Dennis wakes up a few minutes later with his head in Mac’s lap.
A reality where Mac cards his fingers through his hair, and Dennis doesn’t push him away.
Dennis is twenty and wakes up freezing in his room at the frat house.
He feels like he just spent the night on a merry-go-round with the worst hangover of his life, but, in reality, he went to bed early and entirely sober for once.
Dennis pulls the comforter tighter around him, burying his cold nose in the fabric. His teeth chatter as he fights through a violent wave of nausea, and why today? Why right now? He was doing okay. Active, even. He and Mac played basketball just a couple days ago, and he was fine. He never even had a single irregular heartbeat during the game. He whooped Mac’s ass 21-15, and Mac hurdled the ball over the fence, and Dennis avoided staring at how hard Mac was breathing, how his chest heaved up and down, how good his arms looked in his sleeveless tee.
“Morning,” he hears.
Mac is brushing his teeth, barefoot and only wearing boxers.
Dennis gulps. Hides his eyes. His heart pounds relentlessly, restlessly, picking up pace every few seconds.
Sweat beads on his temple.
“You okay?”
No. Not that tone. Mac always sounds so desperate, so worried, when this happens.
“Den?”
But Dennis’ ears fill with the pounding of his pulse instead of the sweet nothing of Mac.
He shivers.
Mac is there in an instant, minty breath and all. He climbs over Dennis on the twin XL bed and lies down. He doesn’t dare move him. Last time he did, they were eighteen, and Dennis threw up all over his chest. Instead, Mac drapes an arm over his side, grounding him in place. The trembling lessens. He feels Mac place two fingers on his wrist, feels him thinking way too hard and counting his heartbeats.
“It’ll be over soon,” Mac whispers. “I’m right here.”
Dennis fades away, eyes rolling in the back of his head. He dreams of Mac.
He always dreams of Mac.
When he comes to, Mac is still there, unwavering and solid where Dennis is unsteady and weak.
“You were gone a long time,” Mac whispers. “Do you wanna go to the ER?”
Dennis shakes his head quickly. Closes his eyes and nearly passes out again at the movement.
“No.” It comes out a whimper.
“You sure?”
Instead of daring to move his head, Dennis squeezes Mac’s hand instead.
“Okay.”
He’ll be okay. He’s always okay.
Dennis lies in bed, shivering intermittently as Mac keeps him grounded, whole.
It seems like hours later before Dennis dares to move an inch. When he does, his heart leaps but slows down after a few seconds. Mac helps him sit up.
“Bathroom,” Dennis manages.
“You gonna barf?” Mac asks.
Dennis rolls his eyes. “Gotta piss.”
“Let me help.”
Dennis’ legs threaten to give out from beneath him as he stands. Dizzy. He’s dizzy.
He doesn’t have to say anything though before Mac scoops him into his arms, showing off his construction muscles in all their glory.
“I’ve got you,” Mac whispers.
Dennis believes him.
Dennis is twenty-four and scowls at the mess on the floor.
“Jesus,” he mumbles.
Broken glass. A lot of it. Brown liquid pools on the hardwood.
He sighs, placing the cardboard box clutched in his hands on the bar top. Mac and Charlie are around here somewhere, and, seriously, could they not at least clean up after themselves? On top of that, look at all the inventory they’re already losing out on due to careless mistakes.
Paddy’s Pub is opening in less than a week, and there’s still so much left to do. Dennis hasn’t even gotten a chance to decorate yet. He wants something tasteful and lowbrow, but, if he has to hazard to guess, Mac’s going to win the decorating argument because he’s passionate about Irish Catholic bars and shamrocks. So many fucking shamrocks. The dude even has a shamrock tattoo on his thigh that Dennis is enamored with. But he won’t ever tell Mac that because that’ll just make the dude go absolutely insane, and his ego will blossom until he’s out of control, and then Dennis will never ever in the history of his life live it down.
Dennis grabs a roll of paper towels. Carefully kneels down, knees popping as he begins to wipe up the mess. The liquor – Fireball by the smell of it – soaks the paper towels quickly, and, okay, this isn’t going to work. He’s going to need something besides these paper products to clean all of this up. He rolls his eyes and goes to stand up.
And crashes right back down.
He doesn’t know how long he’s out, but when he comes to, vision blurry and nauseous, Mac is there.
“Whoa whoa whoa. Stay still, Den. There’s glass everywhere.”
Dennis blinks. “Glass?” His voice is quiet and hoarse.
Mac carefully sits him up, propping up his back against the bar. Dennis tugs his knees to his chest. His jeans are wet. Blood pools on the left leg. But Dennis doesn’t feel it. Not really. His head hurts. His body is on fire and freezing at the same time. He rubs at his eyes with the palms of his hands and hisses. Blood. More blood. There’s a piece of glass in the meat of his left palm.
Fuck fuck fuck.
His head spins.
Mac taps his cheeks and gently grabs his chin, looking him like he’s an alien or something. Dennis knows he isn’t an alien, but his body feels alien to him. It’s betraying him in every sense of the word. His eyes fall closed, forehead cradled by Mac’s hand. The room is hot and heavy and swirling around in galactic hues of purple and blue.
Later on, Dennis regains consciousness in the emergency room, hooked up to an IV. There are stitches in his palm and knee. Mac looks like he’s on the verge of tears, whispering a prayer by Dennis’ bedside.
“Hey,” Mac whispers. His eyes are bloodshot and glassy.
Mac cards his fingers through Dennis’ sweat dampened hair; Dennis leans into the gentle touch.
“I missed you,” Mac says softly.
Dennis hums. “Missed you too…”
Dennis is twenty-nine and sits beneath an umbrella at the pool.
His head in his hands, he stares at the wet concrete below and focuses his remaining energy on breathing. His heart is a heavy, wet sponge. The beat is irregular and irritated. His nostrils flare as nausea pours over him. He shivers in the mid July heat, curling in on himself on the beach chair as best as he can. A tingling sensation travels from his skull all the way to his fingertips.
“Den?”
He feels a towel being draped over his bare shoulders. A hand on his neck right where his pulse pounds.
Mac crouches. He tilts Dennis’ chin up ever so slightly and forces him to make eye contact.
Dennis blinks through the brain fog.
It’s absurdly hot. Skyrocketing toward 100 degrees. But the gang wanted to go to the pool, and Dennis couldn’t say no. He misses out on a lot. So much. Mac was hesitant to even let him come, given how sensitive he is to the heat, but Dennis was feeling good. In fact, he woke up early that morning and went on a walk with Mac around the park. They napped on the couch until Mac’s phone rang with Charlie screeching at them both.
He was feeling good, but now he’s not, and it’s going to take weeks for Mac to let him come outside in this capacity again.
Not that he cares right now. Not exactly. Everything feels fuzzy and foreign.
“I’m gonna get you some ice,” Mac says. “I’ll be right back.”
Dennis whines and almost grabs onto Mac’s hand with his cold, clammy one, but he doesn’t. His body won’t let him.
When Mac returns, he helps Dennis lie down and puts an icepack on his forehead.
“Better?” Mac asks.
Dennis nods. “Sorry.”
He hears Mac sit down nearby.
“For what, Den?”
He sighs. “This.” He gestures vaguely. “Feels like I ruin things all the time.”
“You’ve never ruined anything,” Mac says softly, sweetly. “I’m sorry you feel like shit.”
Dennis almost chuckles but doesn’t.
Instead, he listens to water splashing and inhales the scent of chlorine, a smell he’s always found oddly comforting.
The world filters in and out of focus for a little while. Eventually, he rolls over onto his stomach, pillowing his head with the towel and letting his right arm dangle toward the ground. Mac covers him up with another towel and adjusts the icepack until it’s lying on the back of his neck.
“You don’t have to sit here with me,” Dennis says after a while has passed. Mac is still sitting beside him, now reading a motorcycle magazine behind dark sunglasses.
“I want to,” Mac says. He doesn’t take his eyes off the magazine.
Dennis almost pushes, but he doesn’t.
He falls asleep not long after that and dreams of Mac.
Dennis is thirty-three and wakes up with Mac hovering over him.
He blinks and pushes away Mac’s hands on his forehead and shoulder. He should lean into the touch, should melt like ice cream, but his skin is on fire, and he doesn’t want to be here, not anymore. Tears stream down his cheeks, and he hiccups wetly, teeth chattering as he hauls himself into a sitting position. The moment he tries, his vision goes entirely black and his heart pounds, but he’s conscious enough to feel Mac ease him back against the pillows.
“Just relax, Den. I’ve got you,” he hears.
“Mac,” Dennis whimpers. The world around him is dark and bleak. “Scared.”
Only he isn’t scared of monsters in the closet or librarians pushing him to the floor at school or old ladies touching him with their wrinkly skin. He’s scared of this. This thing that’s like a switch inside of him, able to toggle on at any moment. There’s no control or comfort. There’s no way to brace for an attack. It’s just him, floating aimlessly in this galaxy without any sense of time or direction. When he was diagnosed at seventeen, he had no idea that POTS would rule his world like this, and it fucking sucks.
“Why are you scared?” Mac asks, voice barely above a whisper.
Mac sits on the edge of the bed beside him.
“I don’t like this,” Dennis says. His lips are trembling.
“I don’t like it either, Den,” Mac says. “But I can’t imagine how much you hate it.”
Dennis scoffs. He rubs his eyes with his fingertips. “I… I’m just tired.”
“I know.”
Mac runs his fingers through his hair, and Dennis shivers, fighting through another round of tears. He sighs and squirms and tries to get comfortable, but his face is hot, and the rest of him is freezing, and he just wants this – this horrible sinking feeling – to go away once and for all. He feels like he's trapped within another version of himself.
Dennis lets out a distorted cry when Mac gets to his feet, taking the minimal security Dennis felt away with him.
“Shh… Shh… I’m right here,” Mac whispers.
Dennis feels the bed dip. Feels Mac gather him up in his arms the best he can. Feels Mac rub his hipbone with such tenderness, with such love, that he crumples up and lets himself cry. Mac lets him. Dennis doesn’t know what he did to deserve Mac’s overwhelming patience and adoration. But Mac is always here for him, no matter what, and he just… He just doesn’t –
“Den?”
The voice breaks him from his thoughts.
He sniffles. Mac wipes his cheeks. “Yeah?”
“I love you,” Mac whispers.
Dennis inhales sharply. His breath gets caught in his throat.
“You… You love me?” Dennis questions, voice breaking.
Mac nods. “I’ve always loved you.”
“Even though I –”
“Even though nothing, Den,” Mac says. “I love you.”
Dennis settles in, lets Mac’s words warm him and bring him back to life.
“I love you too, Mac.”
He feels whole, complete, as Mac holds him.
His mind, just moments ago so sinister and cold, eases. He breathes in deeply and smiles.