Archive of Our Own

Hell yeaaah, the boys are back in town, baby!

Okay, maybe the boys aren’t that boyish anymore, but never mind that; tonight they’re not 40, tonight they’re going to paint the town red. Well, okay, they are still 40, but tonight they’d decided to have a college-style big night out after closing anyway. Well, Dennis hadn’t decided; this time he was merely following along with the bending whims of the Gang. 

Dennis is so wasted already, and he really, really shouldn’t be, but he had to. He had to because he had to be sneaky . If he had said no to raging, the gang would have been like whaaat, and then Dennis would have been like nooooo and then Mac definitely would have been like hmmm??? 

So. He had to rage! And raging properly has always required pregaming.  He has enough red wine and tequila in him to be very, very foolish. Probably enough to power a small star. Mac’s wasted too, but not as wasted as Dennis is wasted. But he is. Preeeeetty damn wasted. Dennis is counting on the fact that tomorrow is Sunday, which will give him and Mac a full day to recover from whatever state they end up in after tonight, before Dennis’s big surprise. 

Dude, he’s so excited! He’s gonna bat the ball out of the yard with this. Finally he’s gonna get the upper hand on Mac, because man, Mac had done some serious wooing when they’d at long last got together. Plus he’s always saying all this cute shit, man, and doing nice stuff for him. It always feels like, whatevs, like Mac gets off on it as much as Dennis does, probably. But Dennis knew he needed to step up his romance game to keep up, so when he saw the chance he snatched Frank’s credit card, and booked two nights away for them in a resort in the Poconos. 

On Monday morning he’s gonna wake up early, pack their bags, wake up Mac (he hasn’t decided yet if he’s going to kiss him awake or if he’s going to sing him a gender-bent rendition of “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” Maybe he can work in both) and then tell him the plan. They will shower together, jump in the Range Rover, grab breakfast to go from Wendy’s, and hit the road.

But that’s not all, no baby! He’s booked not just some ordinary hotel room, but the honeymoon lodge! They’re going to have some time to hit the slopes straight away that morning, but then they’re on Sweetheart Time. Room service, hot tub in their little private garden, rose petals in the bed, and check this out: he’s bought some LSD from Bill Ponderosa, so they’re in for some psychedelic banging, baby!

It’s a 10 out of 10 plan. He’s gonna blow Mac’s mind, and show him that, while Dennis might have had a slow and bumpy start in the feelings department, he’s an excellent study, and once again obviously better than Mac at everything they do. And yes, of course it’s a competition. It always is! 

They’ve taken ages to leave the bar because Charlie and Frank had to be hosed down in the basement after a sewer extravaganza. But really, they smelled grotesque, and Dennis would have set them on fire if he had been 100% sure their funerary pyre wasn’t gonna stink just as much. Dee, still gagging as they left the bar, clearly wishes to have burned them anyway.

They walk to a slightly less seedy bar than Paddy’s, with a proper DJ instead of a jukebox. Not that there’s anything wrong with their jukebox - Dennis has curated that collection with utmost care. But a DJ means some dancing swank .

It’s not really that far, hence the walk, and Mac and Dennis hold hands. It’s one of the new things they do, in front of the gang. Sometimes. Dennis still doesn’t like to look too… soft. 

It’s not cause it’s gay. Hell, he wouldn’t mind giving everyone a shocker about their sexual exploits now and then (if only Mac didn’t beat him to the punch every single time - irritating; the way he tells it isn’t even badass, just TMI), but the vulnerability is a lot for him to handle still. 

Even if it’s been two months already, and the reaction from the rest of the gang has been beyond anticlimactic. Dennis knows they don’t really give a shit. On a certain level, he guesses he doesn’t either, but he still has expectations to meet. If only his own. 

He gives Mac’s hand a squeeze, and Mac looks at him, squeezes back and lets out a little burp. Dennis is so drunk that it makes him laugh rather than scoff. 

They have made it to the bar, the music is thumping, and Frank is already ordering shots. Dennis is swaying to the music, Charlie’s downed two shots and is heading out to dance already, followed by Dee (who’d taken three shots, the absolute bitch), leaving only two on the bar. 

“What the fuck, Frank? Why did you only order seven shots?” Mac asks loudly over the music. 

“They have an offer! The Lucky Number!” Frank explains, and grabs one of the remaining shots, the grappling grubby goblin.

“Oh, c’mon!” Dennis yells. “Are we supposed to fight each other for the last one??”

Frank is already on the way to the dancefloor, shuffling in his stupid ‘go for it’ dance. Dennis feels something cold against his hand. 

“You have it, Den,” Mac’s saying, pushing the glass towards him. Dennis smiles at him, feeling … Bubbly? Giddy? It’s difficult to describe. 

“So gallant, Mac, very nice,” he acknowledges, before downing the shot. It’s a lovely reposado that goes down so smoothly he doesn’t even feel it until the burn rises up from his stomach. Once again, Mac has done something romantic. In any other circumstance even this small gesture would remind Dennis of how much work he’s got to do, but knowing the trick he has waiting up his sleeve allows him to bask in the kind deed. “Here,” he crowds Mac against the bar, “for your troubles,” he says, and gives him a kiss. 

They don’t usually do this in front of the gang, but they’re all off somewhere else, so Dennis can really lean into it. The combination of all their different drinks - Mac’s pregaming choice for the night had been beer and whiskey - is not really working for the kiss taste-wise, but they’re long past caring about such matters. Mac is sighing and Dennis can feel it between them, little puffs of air from his nose, and the rise and fall of his chest against Dennis’s. 

Gosh, they could just do this all night. One thing he hadn’t anticipated was how much making out (like, really, old-fashioned kissing and groping and hickey-giving) would be involved in being in a relationship. Not at their age. It gives him hope, makes him believe for a second maybe it’s not all downhill from here, and they can stay young in some way, make up for the lost time. 

He is very tempted to tell Mac to forget about partying and just take him home. They would be fresher in the morning, go do their small shift at the bar without feeling at all like dying.

But isn’t that the final admission that he’s getting old? Dennis doesn’t really feel like giving up on anything tonight. He wants to party with Mac, he wants to surprise him, he wants to try his goddamn best for him. 

So Dennis takes hold of Mac’s hand and leads him out to the dance floor.

…

The hangover is like nothing he’s ever experienced, and he’s done crack. 

Okay, maybe it’s not as bad as that. Nothing is ever as bad as that. 

But Jesus, he feels rotten . 

“Uuuuuugh,” a broken groan past his lips. Mac stirs next to him and starts coughing. 

“Ew, dude, was I smoking last night?” 

“Yep.” His mouth is so dry he feels his lips sticking to his teeth like Velcro. He wants to follow that with You asked me to buy you cigarettes, and if I end up smoking them now it’s your fault, asshole , but it’s too much effort. 

Mac drags his ass to the bathroom and pisses with the door open. Dennis wants to tell him off, but it’s like his bones are crumbling from within; there’s this heaviness he can’t shift, and he’s breaking out in little shivers. Mac comes back, popping open a pill bottle. He holds out two little capsules to Dennis, who attempts to get up with almost no success. 

“Is it that bad? Can you dry swallow these?”

“Nnh.” Dennis shakes his head, and his brain bounces inside it. Mac looks pretty horrible too; he’s green around the gills and Dennis probably has about a minute before Mac rushes off to throw up. He stands up to grab the pills, holding onto Mac’s shoulder. His vision goes out for a second in a blood rush, goddamnit...

“You okay?” He can see Mac again. Dennis nods, and so Mac runs off to the toilet, getting there just on time, apparently. He hears retching followed by a series of very nasty wet splashes.

Dennis finally gets the pills down. His head is killing him, but honestly, even worse is the whole body ache. The back of his arms, his kidneys somehow, they all feel warm and tender. This hangover needs to fuck off, pronto. 

Hair of the dog, that’s what he needs… okay, eventually. Right now maybe dry toast will do. He pops one slice of bread in the toaster for himself and another for Mac, gets some peanut butter out of the cupboard. There’s nothing in the kitchen to pair the PB with, but Mac’s not fussy. 

“Man, I threw up so much,” Mac says unnecessarily, back from the bathroom. He drags his feet to the kitchen counter and locates his toast. “Sweet, thank you Den,” he leans in to kiss him on the temple. “I brushed my teeth.”

“Hm,” Dennis leans on the kiss. “I’m so hungover.”

“Yeah… maybe we overdid it yesterday. I’m still impressed about that awesome split you did on the dance floor, though!”

It was pretty awesome, if Dennis says so himself. His hips are killing him today in retribution, but it’s a bit difficult to isolate that pain from the general state of shittiness his whole body seems to be in. He nibbles on the dry (and now cold) toast. Tea would be nice, but thinking on it, the only thing he wants to manage right now is dropping onto the couch. He waits for Mac to get his toast too, before pulling him over by the hem of his t-shirt. 

“Couch,” Dennis indicates. Mac follows him and they fold into their favorite position of late: Mac lays down, half propped on the arm of the couch, and Dennis lays half on top of him, head on his chest and arm around his waist. It’s a great position for Mac to stroke Dennis’s hair, which is what he promptly does. Good boy. 

“Den, are you sure you’re okay?” 

“Hm. Hungover. Told ya.” He has an additional really bad feeling, a grip around his stomach that has nothing to do with the alcohol consumed, and everything to do with being a fucking idiot and putting his own romantic trip in jeopardy.

“You’re usually more pissed off when you’re hungover. Did you catch something? It was a bit chilly last night.”

“Just need a drink later.”

… 

He does have a drink later, after he perks up a little. Several, in fact, because it’s a Sunday at a bar that has an average of 3.5 clients per day, and the rest of the gang is still recovering too, so all there is to do is keep drinking until they start to feel human again. 

However, he hates to admit it, but he’s still feeling considerably less great than he usually does at this point in the hangover process. Has he finally reached the point of no return, of being actually as old as he sometimes feels? God, he could cry. He gets more and more irritated every time Mac asks him if he’s okay, or even when he can just feel Mac watching him. He’s fine, everything will go according to plan, and tomorrow by this time they will be soaking in a hot tub, watching the snow fall and giving each other underwater handjobs. 

In fact, he’s starting to feel so well already that he decides he’s gonna go for a run after they close. He announces it, and gives Mac a look to shut up the objection that’s clearly rising on his lips. 

When they get back to the apartment, Mac’s still watching him closely as Dennis puts on his running gear. 

“Will you stop that?” Dennis tells him. God, he’s in a rotten mood. Not ideal for romance, but he knows he’ll feel better once things go according to his careful and brilliant plan. 

“I’m not doing anything, dude,” Mac replies, and he really isn’t, he’s just propped against the door frame, arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed. 

“You’re fussing. I’m fine.”

“No you’re not, you look sick!”

“I’m going for a run. Move.”

Mac looks like he’s actually thinking about locking Dennis in his own room, a plausible enough idea, especially because Mac is on the side of the door that has the big lock. Why had he uninstalled the rest of the bondage facility again? 

Oh, yeah, Mac knocked into the clock one morning, setting the bed to vibration mode, and they both freaked out and thought there was an earthquake. 

“Because I love you, I won’t stop you if you really want to go,” Mac says, and Dennis fidgets a bit at the word “love,” as he’s prone to do. It’s not that it makes him uncomfortable. It’s just a bit like those wire whisk things to massage your head: certainly pleasurable, but on the verge of overstimulating. “But can I at least come with you?”

“You don’t have the stamina that I do,” Mac gets red in the face and opens his mouth, no doubt to yell something defensive, but Dennis doesn’t let him get there. “You’re going to slow me down. And you were smoking last night, so you’ll be wheezing after five minutes and it’s going to be annoying… I’ll go on my own. So move. Please,” he adds. 

Mac reluctantly moves aside. Dennis stops next to him, says “I’m fine,” again. He kinda wants a hug, but also wants to make a point, and one defeats the other, so he just leaves.

…

By the time he comes back, Mac’s gotten some dinner from that place that caters to Mac’s beefcake friends from the gym. Poached chicken breast, broccoli, brown rice. He’s ordered salmon, too, splitting the chicken and fish so that they both can have some of each. 

Dennis manages only about four bites. He’s not even restricting himself, he’s just not in the mood. Mac’s fallen asleep on the couch, watching Thundergun. That must be it - Dennis is probably sleep-deprived too, after last night. So he jumps in the shower (well, drags himself there, anyway) and then goes to bed, waking Mac so he can come with. 

“How was the run?” Mac asks later when they’re laying down. He’s already half asleep. 

“It was great,” Dennis answers. His whole body disagrees, but Mac doesn’t have to know that. 

… 

Dennis wakes up at six the next morning after a hellish night. He’s been sweating through the sheets, going through revolving stages of too hot and freezing cold, tossing and turning the whole while. 

And he still feels rough. God-fucking-damnit. He has every intention to power through and start packing without waking Mac, but he can’t find the strength to do it. 

The alarm and Dennis’s restless movement under the covers finally rouse Mac, who reaches out to touch Dennis’s chest without opening his eyes. “Wow, you’re soaked,” he mumbles. His hand caresses up to Dennis’s neck and carries on until he’s stroking his cheek, the soft skin under his eye. He takes the hand again suddenly and opens his eyes to stare at his own thumb. 

“Dude, are you crying?”

“What? Of course I’m not crying,” Dennis protests, but really. He feels as if he might.

“You feel really weird,” Mac turns on the bedside lamp. “Oh shit, dude, something’s not right with your skin!”

“What?” Okay, he’s starting to panic a bit. He gets up and heads directly to the bathroom mirror. He can’t see anything at first, but then he notices there’s a weird burst blister right where Mac touched him, under his left eye. There are more blisters on his neck. 

He pulls his shirt off and feels sick when he sees his chest is scattered with them. 

Mac comes in after him and looks at them closely. 

“Dennis, have you ever had the chickenpox?”

…

Who the fuck gets chickenpox in his forties???

Seriously. It’s preposterous; he doesn’t have the chickenpox. He just sweated through the night, and as a man with pristine and sensitive skin, he reacted to the excessive sweat. So what if he has some blisters? They’ll be gone in a day. 

“You are seriously overreacting,” he spits out. Mac ignores him and carries on reading something on his phone. “Who gets somebody in a chokehold to get them to the clinic?”

“It was a pretty good chokehold.” Oh, so that’s worth an answer? Dennis feels increasingly itchy. And scratchy. Mac hadn’t let him use his loofah in the shower, in case the blisters got worse, and Dennis had still been pretty freaked out, so he went with it. But probably because of that, he wasn’t clean enough, and that was why he was itching. 

He reaches up to his irritated chest, but Mac grabs his wrist. 

“Don’t scratch, Dennis! If it’s chickenpox you're gonna leave marks, or it could get infected, or you could get shingles. I’m not sure which one is most likely.”

“You’re being ridiculous. I don’t feel sick at all anymore, I’m doing so much better than yesterday.”

“You were feeling sick yesterday? Dude, I’m your boyfriend, you gotta tell me about these things! I asked you a million times and you lied to me!” Dennis squirms in his seat. Mac doesn’t look angry, just frustrated and disappointed, which is a dirty trick to make Dennis feel bad. 

The doctor calling them in saves Dennis from apologizing. 

“Hello to the both of you.” He’s a southeast Asian man in his mid-fifties with big-ass glasses and an even bigger bald patch on the top of his head, which Dennis gets too much of a glimpse of as he sits down. “So, what’s the issue here?”

“We think he might have the chickenpox,” Mac blurts. Dennis doesn’t comment. 

“You didn’t catch it during childhood or adolescence?” the doctor asks. 

“No, I didn’t.”

“Have you been in contact with any children recently?”

“Not at all. My son lives in North Dakota and I haven’t seen him in a month,” he sighs, squirming in the chair because he’s getting all itchy again. “I do not think I have chickenpox, for the record.”

“He was feeling horrible all day yesterday, Doctor,” says Mac, the swine, still trying to bypass Dennis completely just to fucking snitch on him.

“Well, let’s do a quick examination,” the doctor says, smiling placidly. “Please Mr. Reynolds - that is, this Mr. Dennis Reynolds, come over here, by the curtain.”

“Oh, we’re not married, just dating,” Mac chirps. Dennis feels self-conscious, but also a bit like challenging the doctor to disapprove. He merely signals Dennis to take off his shirt, and proceeds to examine the blisters, poking softly around them. 

“Turn around, please,” he requests. Dennis feels him touching here and there, on this shoulder blade, his lower back. “Yes, you most certainly do have the chickenpox Mr. Reynolds.”

“C’mon, really?” Dennis closes his eyes and groans.

“And given your advanced age, you have to be especially careful.”

“Excuse me??” he (regrettably) squeaks. 

“Chickenpox can have dangerous consequences for adults. I’m going to give you an antiviral, please take it every eight hours. Also, Tylenol at the smallest sign of a fever, and check your breathing. Any respiratory issues, make sure you come to the emergency room, as chickenpox can lead to pneumonia symptoms in adults. Are you a smoker?”

“He is, but not an everyday smoker, more like a social smoker,” Mac pipes in. 

“Even more so, then. Don’t scratch, as it can scab and get infected, and you could scar from that. You can try calamine cream, keep it in the fridge.” He fills out a couple of prescriptions and hands them to Dennis with a smile. He turns towards Mac. “And you, sir, have you caught the chickenpox already?”

“Yeah, I had it when I was like five,” Mac replies. 

“That’s fine then, try to not touch any of the blisters, wash your hands thoroughly if you do. You’re not very likely to catch it a second time, but it can happen. Mr. Reynolds, you’ll have to quarantine for ten days minimum, or until the blisters scab over fully.”

“What, I can’t leave the house at all?”

“You will put people at risk if you do, especially pregnant women, and people with weaker immune systems.”

“Those are really not going to be a problem in our daily life.” 

“Regardless,” the doctor insists. “Let yourself take a rest, and be nursed back to health. Good day.”

…

He feels weirdly… poisonous, all the way home. It’s fine when they’re in the car (he had to give Mac a very stern look to get him to drop the subject of Dennis not taking the wheel), but on the way from their parking spot to home he startles at every person they come across, moving at least a yard away from them. A group of kindergarteners walk past them, at least thirty of the little brats, and Dennis holds his breath the whole time. 

“We’re nearly there, Den,” Mac says, which is idiotic. They’re outside their own door; he knows they’re “nearly” there. 

“You know, I should ask for a second opinion. Someone like me getting chickenpox past infancy is absolutely preposterous.”

“It does happen.” Mac stores the calamine lotion in the fridge and starts rummaging through the rest of the meds, opening boxes and taking out the instructions to read. His face is scrunched in concentration. 

It’s so irritating. Dennis doesn’t quite have a red fog over his eyes, but there’s definitely a pinkish tint. He’s clenching his fists compulsively. 

“Yeah, but I know I don’t have it. I have full control of my body, so I should know more about what my body is going through than some quack we’ve never even met! I mean, where did this so-called doctor go to school?”

Mac just carries on reading, or pretending to read, and knowing he’s purposely not engaging with him infuriates Dennis even more. He grabs the car keys back from the kitchen table. 

“I’m going out,” he announces. Mac finally looks at him, dropping the instruction sheets, eyes round and panicky. 

“Wait, Dennis, you can’t!” he whines. 

“You don’t have to worry, I’m only going to be in my car. Innocent bystanders will be safe from the Dennis Plague,” Dennis mocks. 

“I’m not worried about other people, I’m worried about you! What if your fever rises, and you faint while driving? What if it gets worse and you get pneumonial, like the doctor said?”

“It’s pneumonia,” he corrects, “and I’m not gonna get it, because I don’t have the chickenpox!”

He slams the door on his way out and does a little run to the car he’s not very proud of, but he knows he has Mac on his heels. He just about manages to lock the car door on his boyfriend’s face.

“Dennis! Please!” Mac pleads, puppy eyes on full blast, but Dennis starts the ignition and just drives away. 

… 

He spends twenty minutes on the highway, yelling at other drivers because he needs to let out his frustration somehow.

This is exactly the kind of thing he was wary of about being with Mac. One step in the wrong direction and suddenly Dennis is the damsel in distress, being told what he can or can’t do? Bullshit. Mac doesn’t know the first thing about taking care of anything to start with, and what is he even gonna know about chickenpox? He had it when he was five, for crying out loud! He probably spent it like every other crummy kid, wriggling around in his bed wearing mittens and being a pathetic little bundle of whines. 

Now, Dennis knows how to handle himself on the rare occasion that his body doesn’t respond as predicted. Just give it time - push it down - it will all sort itself out. He knows his own body better than anybody else, and that includes Mac, no matter how much of a quick study he thinks he is. That also includes whatever quack that puts his finger in the air and randomly declares that Dennis has chickenpox.

Absurd. 

And, you know, it’s a slippery slope. You let yourself be nursed to health and then there you have it, before you know it you’ve shown too much of your ugly side, and people simply don’t stick around for that kinda shit. Just because people don’t have an organized system in place doesn’t mean they’re not going around D.E.N.N.I.S.ing people. It's unavoidable: if your Dependence gets too Nurtured, the natural thing to happen next is to find yourself Neglected Emotionally. Even if someone is too stupid to codify it and purposefully reap the results for themselves, that’s just human nature. 

Mac likes to think of himself as the sheriff of Paddy’s, and imagine that he’s got a good little Christian heart in him, but he can be a bastard just as much as any other member of the gang. If that hoax of a doctor is right, the Poconos trip is definitely cancelled, which means Dennis is gonna lose relationship points to start with. How long will besotted little Mac stay by his side if he starts to think Dennis isn’t pulling his weight for them as much as Mac does? And let’s not forget that the stupid chickenpox symptoms ain’t gonna be pretty to witness, and apparently might leave him ravaged, never to be pretty again, and that total loss of worth will be the straw that breaks the goddamn camel’s back

God, why did it have to be an illness that messes with your skin? He’s had an absolutely militant skin regime for thirty years only to be permanently marred now? Fuck his life.  

But no. Of course he isn’t ill. He had an allergic reaction to something, that’s all. He can’t let a couple of teensy blisters or spots or whatever they are, get in the way of his life, now that it’s sailing more or less smoothly. Well, life never sails smoothly for too long for any of the gang, for whatever reason, but it’s been good lately, man. It’s been… it’s been so good. 

He’s left the highway, and is driving around town again. He stops at a traffic light, turns the radio on. Brian Adams’s “Everything I Do” comes up. He punches the radio back off. 

He looks at his reflection in the rearview mirror and is immediately disgusted by the five spots he can see on his face. The one under his eye that Mac touched by accident is looking swollen and messed up. He has another one next to the right eye, underneath his eyebrow. 

Goddamnit! He hates this feeling, he absolutely hates it. His stomach is tied in knots, he’s shaking from nervous energy, feeling frozen to the bone. He’s clenching his jaw compulsively, as the panic rises in him along with some bile that makes him cough. 

The car behind is honking at him, and Dennis can’t tell how long it’s been doing it. He starts the Range Rover but the motor stalls, sending him into a fit of rage. 

“GODDAMNIT YOU FUCKING SHITHEAD, ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?? ARE YOU HAPPY NOW THAT THE FUCKING CAR CAN’T GO? IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED YOU FUCKING COW???”

He carries on in this fashion for a while, he’s not sure how long. Eventually he comes back to awareness, starts the car again and drives on. After a while he spots his gas station of choice, and parks in a handicap space. Fuck it. 

Dennis feels like shit. Worse than that. He feels like he’s about to cry. 

There’s a card that he’s been saving, hoping it would never need to be played. When he unblocks his phone, he can see about ten missed calls from Mac, and a few from Dee. There’s also thirty-four Whatsapp notifications glaring at him. 

The number he’s looking for is saved under **+ND+**. It’s nearly 2:00 PM on a Monday, 1:00 PM in North Dakota, which means his contact is probably going to pick up the phone. He kinda wishes this would have happened at 2:00 AM on a Saturday, so he would at least have the satisfaction of fucking up the man’s night. 

Dennis presses ‘call.’

“Hello, Dennis,” comes the reply, after only a couple of rings. It’s like the bastard was waiting for Dennis to come crawling back. Son of a bitch. 

“Hall,” Dennis has always refused to call him by the honorific “Dr.,” preferring to use only his surname, as if he were a co-worker he doesn’t particularly like but with whom he’s obliged to work. 

“It’s been a long time. Are you still in Philadelphia?”

“We really don’t need to do small talk,” Dennis replies, relishing in being unpleasant. 

“You called me,” Hall says. “I would ask you what I can help you with, but you don’t like that term.”

Anger immediately spikes within him. 

“That’s so patronizing of you,” he sneers. “You know why I don’t like that term? Because I don’t need help. Why can’t people get that through their thick skulls?”

“People?”

“Yeah, people! All of you, obsessed with perceiving me as helpless. It’s so goddamn irritating.”

Hall just waits for Dennis to carry on, which makes Dennis want to keep quiet. He’ll speak when he feels like it, not on pain of some passive-aggressive silent treatment from a glorified shrink from North Dakota, of all places.

“...they think I have chickenpox,” he finally mumbles. 

“Oh?”

“I didn’t… I didn’t get it as a kid. It’s stupid, I don’t socialize with little children, or the people in charge of them. I haven’t seen my son in ages, and last I know he was okay.”

“It’s very contagious.” What a pointless comment! 

“It’s bullshit, though. I feel fine, okay? I might have had a couple of off days, but honestly, why are people so invested in seeing me fail? I guess when you reach the level of excellence that I’ve achieved, you inevitably become someone that people want to take down, to drag to their own miserable plane of existence.” 

“Is that what you think is happening?”

“Well, that’s not the point! The point is, I’ve handled myself on my own since I remember, and I’ve done a pretty good job, thank you very much. I don’t-”

“Aren’t you tired, though?”

It throws a wrench into the cogs of the argument he was building. Dennis realizes, in horror, that his eyes are prickling; he’s unbearably sad.

“...Ha. What for?”

“Of handling everything on your own. I know you prefer it that way, but-”

“-That’s not-- I… actually I’m not. Alone. Anymore.”

Hall doesn’t comment on that, but Dennis can nearly hear the smugness in his breathing through the phone. What a piece of shit.

“Are you happier? I know you’re discontent right now, but overall?”

“...I am happier,” Dennis bites out. His chest feels constricted again. He’s tempted to gouge out his own eyes, just to feel something other than sorry for himself. What a stupid reaction, he is happier, goddamnit!

“There’s an interesting fact about illness,” Hall says, thankfully not digging deeper into Dennis’s current state of happiness. “It’s completely arbitrary.”

“Well, not really.”

“On a level, it is. You can, and should, vaccinate to prevent those illnesses we are already aware of, but the thing is, some people might be resistant and fall ill despite vaccines, and other people might feel justified in their anti-vax views by the fact that they didn’t vaccinate and never become ill regardless. The fact is: people do get ill, and so we should action whatever measure within our control. But ultimately, we are not responsible for falling ill. Does it make sense?”

“What’s your point?”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I swear to God, if you’re just going to Good Will Hunting me…”

“You can allow yourself to be weak. As any human, you deserve care, and love, ill or not. Now you have someone close to you, and especially if you are not feeling entirely well, you should let them care and love you.”

“I don’t… I don’t want to make them think I’m-- Look, it’s just, right now it’s chickenpox, but the reality is, I’m not getting any younger. It’s all downhill from here, I can’t get my best years back, so… I’m trying to make the most of it, to give whatever best I still have to--” he nearly says ‘him’ but he’s not quite there yet, not with Hall. He’s talked to him about Mac often enough, but he just doesn’t feel inclined to discuss his relationship woes with him. 

“The process of opening up to your loved ones can be challenging. But I think it’s fair to assume there’s very little they don’t already know about you.”

Dennis goes through exactly how much they both know about each other. Even before they started having sex, he had seen nearly every side of Mac. He’s seen him fat, thin, shitting his pants, covered in puke, bruised, dressed as Taiwan Freaking Tammy. And, as much as he’s liked to think he’s been in full control of what Mac has seen of him, he knows Hall’s right, that Mac has probably already seen the worst he has to offer. 

“Isn’t it a bit… I don’t know. Sloppy? To get to a certain stage and just give up?”

“You wouldn’t be giving up anything, but opening up and giving them everything you have -- not just the nice bits.”

Dennis looks at himself in the mirror, and sees another blister he hadn’t noticed on his neck. He’s starting to itch quite a lot by now. 

“I’m not gonna pay you for that sort of Fortune Cookie wisdom.”

“I know you won’t. Get well, Dennis.”

… 

Dennis spends ten minutes doing some breath exercises in his car. He’s not sure for how many seconds he’s supposed to inhale, and how many he has to exhale, he’s just trying his best to not feel helpless and then terrified because he doesn’t have direct control over this. 

He’s getting lightheaded. He needs fresh air. Just five minutes outside, right by his car, until he clears his head enough to drive back home. Might as well give Mac a call, so the police aren’t at the apartment when he gets back. 

Dennis has time to take one deep breath outside before someone throws a blanket over his head.  

“I GOT HIM, FRANK!” Charlie’s shrill scream sounds weirdly muted. Dennis tries to wriggle free, but Charlie’s got an iron grip around his arms, and he doesn’t really have the energy to try that hard anyway.

“Charlie, it’s fine, I was already going home,” he tries to explain, but Charlie’s still busy yelling. Dennis realizes in horror that somebody, likely Frank, is lifting his feet, and between the two idiots he’s being carried to the back seat of his own car. 

“Charlie, I can’t see shit in this goddamn suit,” he hears Frank. “My glands are swelling inside this helmet, I gotta take it off.”

“No, Frank, you gotta keep it on, you heard Mac! He’s like super contagious, man!”

“Back in my day we had all these things at once. I caught the mumps, the smallpox, the scarlet fever and the death shits, all in one week, and I’m still alive!”

“The death shits? What the hell are the death shits?”

“It was, you know, what’s its name. Malaria.”

“Well I don’t know what that is either. Anyway, drive on already!  Mac is gonna drive me crazy, dude, he’s being so annoying.  I’m this close to going back to burner phones.”

Inside his blanket bundle, Dennis peers at his own phone with all the missed calls and messages. He opens his chat with Mac. It has a dozen lengthy texts, and then a shorter one - the last one - saying simply: “come home.” 

The brevity makes his blood go cold. He types ‘I was heading home,’ hits send. He can see Mac typing something back, but no reply ever arrives. Dennis tries to push down the feeling of dread and puts his phone in his pocket.

A peep outside of the blanket reveals that Frank and Charlie are wearing Charlie’s Bubble Boy suits, which seems incredibly ill-advised. Frank is already half blind; the last thing he needs is a poorly cleaned diver’s helmet between him and the road. 

They somehow make it to his street with minimum reckless driving (although he’s still lying on the seat, so he can’t really see what’s going on on the road). He’s managed to open his email during the ride, and contacted the resort in the Poconos to cancel the reservation. He doesn’t even have the satisfaction of Frank being charged a hefty cancelation fee, as he went for the option with insurance because it was more expensive. 

Before Dennis leaves the car they make sure he stays wrapped up with the blanket over his head again, and they want to carry him. 

“Guys, I’m not going to run away, this is ridiculous,” he tries to reason. He’s feeling increasingly worse, like he’s running a fever. 

“No, man, you gotta do the blanket burrito thing, then we carry you upstairs, Dee leaves the apartment without you breathing your germs onto her, and then you go inside.”

“Why do you give a shit if I give Dee the chickenpox?” he asks, blanket dutifully in position nonetheless. At this point all he wants to do is get back home and see how much damage control is needed with Mac. He gets out of the car and tries to trust the two clowns insisting on carrying him. 

“Look, we’re already going to have two people less at the bar while you get better. I don’t wanna have to be behind the bar too, I will get overwhelmed, I’ll lose it with the customers, it’ll be a whole thing.” Charlie trips and Dennis’s heart leaps to his throat, but he doesn’t get dropped, thank God, even if his ass stays too close to the ground for comfort. 

“Mac! Open up the door, we got him!” Charlie yells. Frank drops Dennis’s feet, so he can finally stand upright. He hears the door opening, and then Dee’s honking. 

“Wait! Let me outta here before I catch it! About time you showed up, dickbag, we all have places to be.” She pushes past them and Dennis can hear her gargantuan feet kicking down the hallway.  

Somebody, either Frank or Charlie, pushes Dennis inside the apartment. He lands against what he assumes is Mac, who still hasn’t said anything. Dennis hesitantly pushes the blanket away and dares to take a look at the situation. Mac studies him in silence, surveying his face and neck. He’s frowning, so probably not looking great, huh? Dennis tries to swallow the embarrassment. 

Mac heads to the kitchen and comes back to the living room carrying the antiviral and a glass of water. “Take your meds,” he tells Dennis, who is slightly stunned at the firm tone. “Now.”

“...Yeah, okay” he grabs the box and struggles to open it, finally getting one pill out and swallowing it dry, taking a sip of water afterwards. Mac continues to look stern. “Look, I’m-”

“You should take a shower and change clothes,” Mac says, not letting Dennis finish his apology. Mac heads to the bedroom and gets Dennis’s sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a change of underwear. He gives the bathroom door a pointed look, and Dennis can only walk towards it and start to shed his clothes, even if he wants to argue that he showered before they went to the doctor.

Mac follows him into the bathroom. He’s scanning Dennis’s chest and back. He looks so serious, and for the first time in years, Dennis doesn’t know what he’s thinking. They lock eyes through the mirror, and Dennis has to tear this out of his chest, or it will choke him: “Are you mad at me?” he asks. 

“...I should be,” Mac replies. “But not really. How are you feeling?”

“Like crap,” he admits. He reaches out to get the shower started. He can feel Mac’s heat behind him. It gives him shivers, having him this close and still not close enough. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Getting sick sucks,” Mac kisses his shoulder, very briefly. “C’mon, get in the shower, it will help with the itching. Don’t get it too hot though, I think you have a fever. Do we have a thermometer?”

“Not sure… Maybe check that drawer in the living room.”

Mac leaves him to shower. It’s a little unusual - Mac really likes to be there when he’s washing, watching him, very often giving him pervy looks and doing sexy stuff. That’s not likely to happen now, Dennis thought glumly, not with him looking like a freakshow and probably about to faint or something similarly weak and gross. 

And, even if he said he wasn’t, Mac probably was upset. Dennis knows Mac doesn’t like thinking he’s leaving again. Not that he even could right now, wrecked as he is.

Mac comes back with Dennis’s bathrobe and the thermometer.

“That looks a little too steamy, dude,” he says. Dennis turns the cold tap open half a millimeter. 

“I’m cold,” he mumbles. It’s even worse once he finishes up and turns the shower off - he starts to shiver violently, his teeth clattering. Mac helps him put on the robe, ties off the belt and wraps one arm around his waist for good measure. It could have been pretty sweet, but Mac decides to jab him in the ear with the thermometer. 

“Ow!”

“Sorry, just stay still-”

“I am still!”

“Is this an ear thermometer, even?”

“No, you dumbass!”

“Oh... Do we have to put it up your butt?”

Dennis grabs the thermometer, tempted to throw it at Mac’s face. Or to shove it up his ass without a warning, like he did to his ear - see how he likes it. He places it under his armpit instead, keeping up a face of annoyance but leaning on Mac anyways. 

“How much?” Mac asks when it beeps. Dennis just shows it to him. “Shit, you’re at 100!”

“That’s not super high, right?” Dennis can’t help but sound uncertain. 

“It’s gonna be fine. Get dressed, I’m going to make you some oatmeal, and then I’m going to get some Tylenol in you.”

Dennis’s eyes follow Mac as he heads to the kitchen. Something’s different about him, and it’s setting him on edge because he can’t tell if it’s good or bad. He sets the thought aside for some other time when he doesn’t feel like shit, and gets dressed. Mac’s microwaving some instant oatmeal, browsing something on his phone at the same time. He looks up to smile at Dennis when he walks into the kitchen, but he can tell he’s distracted by that small furrowing of his brows. 

Oh shit. Maybe. Maybe it’s really bad? Does Mac know something he doesn’t, did he have a secret exchange with that doctor and learn that Dennis is more in danger than he thinks?

The microwave dings, and Dennis’s worried mind goes into overdrive for a hot couple of minutes while he watches Mac stir the oatmeal in its mug, add maple syrup, cold almond milk. A sprinkle of cinnamon. He tries it off the back of the spoon before handing it to Dennis, along with the Tylenol and another glass of water. 

Dennis scoops some into his mouth automatically, and its sheer perfection gives him so many additional annoying emotions: he’s so angry at himself, and he’s so grateful for Mac, and he’s so very sorry overall. He notices, alarmed, that his throat is tight. 

“Den, c’mon, what’s wrong?”

He looks up, puzzled. The oatmeal is clearly more than magnificent. “Nothing, it’s perfect,” he manages to say, raising the mug, before being engulfed in a hug. Well, Mac isn’t as big as he likes to think, and Dennis is still that last bit taller than him, so maybe he’s not quite engulfed, but the hug is fierce and Dennis feels sheltered. 

“You look so sad, baby,” Mac says. “It’s going to be okay. It’s just the stupid chickenpox.”

“I know,” Dennis replies. He still feels wobbly, but he believes Mac. A little bit.  

… 

His fever goes down, which is good, and so far the itching is not terrible. But he’s bored to tears. There’s a limit to how many times they can re-watch the films they’ve already seen a million times. He’s so bored he even texts Dee a meme. 

She spends fifteen minutes typing, and when she finally sends a response it’s so lame that Dennis sends her back 198 varied bird emojis. 

He takes his meds again, Mac reminding him like clockwork. He also sets a pint glass of water on the table, pushing Dennis to keep drinking, refilling it whenever it’s empty. He really is thirsty - his lips are getting chapped and he has a weird feeling in his gums. 

At some point he must fall asleep. He wakes up at around six, to the smell of something burning and the sound of the smoke detector beeping. Mac’s fanning at it with an oven tray that looks to have some carbonized stuff stuck to it. 

“Sorry! Sorry! The smoke’s nearly gone,” and indeed the alarm does stop screeching. “I’ve opened all the windows, it will be okay in a minute, just stay there in the blanket!”

“What the hell were you trying to do?” Dennis burrows deeper inside his blanket cocoon. 

“Just some... gym...meal. Protein heavy, so I can bulk up, you know,” he says, still fanning vigorously. “Erm, by the way, you hungry?”

“...I don’t think it’s safe for me to answer that.”

“What? Oh, no, no, this was definitely just for me, I wasn’t- You don’t even like… protein.”

“...Okay, whatever, man. I could eat a bite, but no takeout.” The thought of greasy food makes Dennis’s stomach queasy. He’s also getting itchier, especially on his sides and the back of his thighs. He tries patting himself awkwardly, and it does nothing to soothe the itch.

Once the smoke is cleared and Mac finishes tinkering around the kitchen, they sit to have dinner. Mac has peeled, cored and sliced an apple for Dennis, and also buttered some toast for him. It’s simple, but perfectly satisfying, unlike Mac’s dinner, which seems to be a bowl of half-burnt kindling. 

“You really shouldn’t eat anything that carbonized,” Dennis comments. He bites into one of his apple slices and winces. His gum stings. He prods at the sore spot with his tongue. 

“Nah, it’s alright,” and he really is just getting on with it and eating the mess. But Mac has never been fussy about food, or even that interested in it, except for when he got fat. He’s always been content with whatever kept him fueled, either for the gym or just everyday collapse avoidance, with the occasional binge on crap like chips or donuts. He’s always been stuck at the diet of a ten-year-old, and when he tries to care about what he eats now, it’s only because he needs it for muscle mass.

“What was it, anyway?” Dennis asks, wrinkling his nose at the variously shaded brownish-black lumps.

“Sweet potato, some peppers, onion. Just trying something I saw online...for working out. Our oven must be busted though. I should have known that would mess it up, because I’m a very intuitive cook.”

Dennis is about to tell him exactly what the definition of intuitive is, but then he bites his toast with the side of his mouth that’s got the sore, and he has to swear like a dockworker instead. 

“SON OF A LIMPING WHORE!”

“Whoa, dude, what happened?”

“I have a stupid sore on my gum.” It’s right on top of his right upper canine. Mac gets up and steps into his personal space, actually reaching out to pinch Dennis’s lip aside and expose his teeth. Dennis tries to bite him. 

“Hey! Behave?” This time Mac’s attempt at an authoritative tone only manages to come out as whiny. 

“Just ask me, asshole,” Dennis grumbles before showing him the sore spot.

Mac scrunches his face looking, as Dennis’s mouth gets dry. 

“Yep, it’s another one of those blisters.”

“What? Can I get blisters in my mouth too?? Jesus, exactly how much misery am I supposed to expect? I’m covered in itches I’m not allowed to scratch, I can’t leave the house, and now eating is going to hurt? Fucking bullshit, man!”

He can feel himself getting moody (moodier, if he’s honest). He pushes the last bit of apple around the plate. 

“C’mon, just one more bite,” Mac negotiates. Dennis pouts, rubbing an itchy spot on his chest. “No scratching!”

“I’m not, I’m just rubbing…”

The idea of having nine more days of this makes him feel suicidal. Mac is still waiting for him to eat the piece of apple. “It’s turning brown,” he says, and Mac sighs and eats it himself. 

Mac puts their plates in the sink, and Dennis goes back to the couch. He keeps patting his itchy spots, which are getting wild now. The one under his eye is insufferable, it’s making his whole face twist and scrunch, which probably means he’s going to get (more) wrinkles after this.  Terrific. 

“Meds,” Mac says, handing him the pill. He also touches his forehead with the back of his hand. “Take your temperature, I can’t tell if you have a fever again.”

“I thought you were super intuitive, man,” Dennis says in a mocking tone. Mac doesn’t reply,  just gets up from the couch, goes to the counter and gets the thermometer again to toss to Dennis before starting up their laptop back on the coffee table. 

They look for something new to stream so Dennis won’t go insane, and opt for The Irishman. It’s all right. It ain’t Goodfellas, but at least it’s not Predator again. It doesn’t fully distract him from the itchiness, or the fever (which, it turns out, he has), but it does beat total boredom. 

It’s one long-ass movie. Mac falls asleep for half an hour of it, and then Dennis has to catch him up to speed, but they laugh together at the weird CGI that tries to make DeNiro look young but can’t erase his old man movements. It distracts Dennis a bit from his misery, but then it’s time to go to bed, and he’s still itching like crazy. 

“Goddamnit, fuck this, I don’t care if I end up like the Elephant Man.” He yanks his t-shirt off, but before he can scratch that spot on his abdomen that’s making him lose his mind Mac gets a hold of his hands.

“Calm down, dude!” 

“Don’t you fucking tell me to calm down, dickhead, I’m going crazy here!” 

“Lay down.” It’s not a request. “Dude, lay down right now.” 

If he wasn’t feeling like microwaved trash, Dennis could be seriously into this tone. Hell, he is very into this, despite feeling like microwaved trash. Maybe if they rock the casbah he can forget about being sick. 

“Pants off, too.”

… Well, this train has left the station, all a-fucking-board. 

He peels his sweatpants off and lays on top of his duvet, which feels heavenly cold on his back. 

Mac stalks around the bed, staring at him. Dennis knows he’s only checking the state he's in, but it’s also Mac, who has a long and proven record as a voyeur, so Dennis knows he must be getting off on this too, on some level. He’s getting itchy again, and his hand goes down to his thigh of its own volition to rub a blister. 

“Hands off,” Mac orders, in that beautifully youthful timbre of his. Jesus, what a lovely treat this is turning into. “Hold onto the sheets,” he says, and, after a beat, “close your eyes.”

Dennis obeys. If this was reversed, he would have to use a blindfold on Mac. Not because he’s not obedient, but because he really likes to watch, he can’t help himself. To be fair, that impetuousness extends to most of Mac’s behavior - he’s not usually contrary for the sake of it, but he is a man of passions and impulses. 

Dennis feels something cold and wet on his chest, right where he’s the itchiest, and it’s such a relief that he lets out a little moan. The bed dips, Mac’s warmth comes to his right, on his side. Another touch, impossibly cold, and then Mac starts blowing on whatever he’s dotted Dennis with, which makes it feel even more refreshing. It’s soothing Dennis so much, he could purr. He’s forgotten all about banging Mac; this is a thousand times better than sex. 

Well, if Mac can keep the authoritative act after Dennis recovers, and put it to good use, that could bring back a strong competitor. 

“Turn around,” Dennis jumps a little as Mac gets his underwear down. “Sorry, I saw a couple of blisters here when you were in the shower.”

The feeling of what must be that calamine cream on the sores on his back, along with Mac’s tender ministrations, is lulling him to sleep again. Mac stands up so he can reach the back of his thighs and knees. 

“Do you need any more?” Dennis hears him, right next to his ear, whispering. He shakes his head into the pillow a bit, feeling heavy. He’s sinking into unconsciousness, mercifully leaving the day behind. 

… 

Mac lets his breath out slowly, once he’s sure Dennis has fallen asleep. He also has to readjust himself a little bit, because that was. So hot. Mac knows himself to be a horny bastard, and that won’t be put away even when his beloved is ill. He’s just too much of a man, sadly. Mac has always suspected his testosterone ran way higher than other men’s. It’s just not immediately noticeable because he’s also a man of intellect (not a nerd, though. Never a nerd). 

He gently pulls Dennis’s underwear back over his ass, and goes to get the blanket from the living room to cover him with, since he’s fallen asleep on top of the duvet. He’ll probably wake up at some point in the night and be pissed off because he’s cold, but Mac can sort that out when the time comes. 

The mess in the kitchen from his failed sweet potato and pepper soup experiment is still waiting for him. The tray has had a soak, but he’s going to have to scrape it with a knife or something because there’s still some charcoal-looking pieces of veggies stuck to it. He would throw it away, but they don’t really have any other trays. 

Recipes are so tough, man. He just can’t get his brain to remember the steps more better, and every time he has to go back to read the same lines again and again. He ends up mushing up the instructions, and getting frustrated and improvising, and then a lot of the time it still doesn’t want to work. It’s bullshit. It’s like the math of eating. 

But he really wanted to step up his game for Dennis, and that fancy soup had felt like a good step. He’s always had high aspirations for himself, but especially since Dennis and he started dating, he has been working hard to not let himself go, like so many people do when they get into a relationship. He’s still hitting the gym super hard, he’s reading a lot of search entries on romantic couple stuff, and yeah, sometimes the results are hit and miss, but the thing is, nobody is gonna come and tell him he’s not trying his damn hardest. 

In fact, that had been the problem, according to Dee. When Dennis had ran away and taken the car after they were back from hospital, Mac had gotten super anxious, and of course blasted out a couple of texts, nothing excessive, just to alert the gang and to try to convince Dennis to not run away, especially not to North Dakota, even if he wasn’t gonna mention North Dakota, because what if Dennis read that and thought, ‘huh, North Dakota, that’s an option’?

Charlie, Frank and Dee had sensibly obliged his request for them to come to the apartment. Mac had assessed the situation calmly, briefed everyone on their roles and decided to wait at home, in case Dennis came back. Also, as Charlie had pointed out, because of how deep his love for Dennis was, it might mean his judgement would be clouded. Not likely, as Mac always kept an ice-cold mind, especially in stressful situations, but it was better not to take risks.

Dee had stayed behind with him, not that he gave a shit about it. He would have shooed her away in any other situation, but he was still texting, and needed to stay focused. 

“Can I give you some advice?” she’d said. 

“No thank you,” had been his instant answer, but she had just sat down on the couch beside him and carried on talking.

“You gotta stop panicking so much about Dennis.”

“I’m not panicking, Dee. Maybe you’re not realizing how high the stakes are. He could get really sick, he could faint at the wheel, or he could--”

“He’s not going to leave,” she said, and actually took the phone from Mac’s hands, snatching it with her freakishly big hands to read his private messages. 

“I know that!”

“Then why are you writing an essay that’s basically you crying and begging him not to leave you?”

“Look, Dee, you wouldn’t understand the subtleties of our communication, when a relationship is as deep as Dennis’s and I’s--”

“There’s nothing subtle about twenty-six messages.”

“... What’s your point?”

“You need to stop acting so unsure, it comes across so freakin’ desperate… And also, you know Dennis is like, the master overthinker, right?”

“He is very smart, Dee, the man can’t help it!”

“Well, that’s why you have to start making some decisions for him! Don’t ask him if he’s going to take the meds, just go ‘here’s your meds, you little bitch, you can have some water if you’re lucky.’”

“... Yeah, that’s really not gonna play. Do you even know him?”

“That’s the thing, Mac: I do! And, I know you. You never shied away from telling Dennis what to do before. In fact, every one of us has had our balls busted by you over the years. My brother was the least bothered of everyone by that shit, to put it mildly.”

“Look, our relationship is full of complexities, Dee, and I don’t expect you to understand them.”

“All I’m asking you is to trust me on this one. God, you told him you love him so many times, this is embarrassing. Here, let me help you,” and then the bitch had gone and texted Dennis from his own phone. “Here you go, assertive, direct, and if you put a little bit of the fear of God in him, that doesn’t hurt.” She’d then shown Mac the screen, with ‘Come home’ as the last message to Dennis.

He had broken into a panicked sweat, tried to grab the phone but she kept blocking him, why the fuck did every one of his friends always managed to do that??? 

“You can’t do that! I can’t talk to him like that! Oooh, you bitch, he’s gonna be so mad when he gets back, I’m gonna kill you!”

“He’s not gonna be mad, Mac, and you know what? You should be mad!”

“Huh?”

“He just had a hissy fit and left, without telling you where he was going, knowing you would get worried! He’s being a dickbag, and I know you two like to be dickbags together, but this is bullshit. You should tell him he’s being a child when he gets back. Here, jerk.” She had then finally tossed the phone back at him.

Mac hadn’t really known what to say to that. She was right, kinda. It was shitty of Dennis to just bail, especially after Mac had specifically asked him to stay. 

At that point, he had gotten a text from Charlie that said WEE GOTIM. 

“Look, I know he can be an asshole,” he said, showing Dee the message at the same time, “but all I can think about is that he’s ill, and he doesn’t-- he likes to have things under control, and this is probably throwing him off a lot.”

“Hm. See, you are right there, he does like to have his little sociopath rules and string people around with his evil plans, but underneath that is a man that really gets off on being manhandled.”

“Well, there’s a great deal of switching back and forth…”

“Ugh, not that! I mean he needs somebody that takes proper control, so that he can let go. You hesitate too much, you ask him for too many instructions. Be assertive! Be bossy! When he gets here you grab those pills and you shove them down his throat and tell him to thank you!”

“Alright, alright, Jesus. I’m not enjoying you being bossy…” His phone beeped again and he nearly sprained his thumb trying to unlock it, because it was a text from Dennis. “He’s coming home!”

“We know he’s coming home, Charlie and Frank got him.”

“Yeah, but he was already on his way.” He had read the text again, not able to hold back a massive smile.

“Wow. Okay, give what I told you a thought, though. Remember: assertive.”

He had tried, and goddamnit, it had worked. But even though that meant that some of what Dee said could be true, Mac couldn’t listen to her and be mad at Dennis, how could he be mad? Dennis was sick, and probably scared, and feeling not at all like the Golden God. He had asked Mac about his feelings! He had apologized! He nearly cried just because Mac had made him some oatmeal, for fuck’s sake.

It makes him want to do even more nicer stuff for him. It was awesome to have Dennis depending on him (without having to poison him this time!), being all cuddly. Although, that part could become a bit of a problem, because it gets him all excited, and now is definitely not the time to be getting off (you horny bastard). 

He’s decided to do his best to make sure Dennis knows he’s always safe when Mac’s around, and in the course of that he’s also going to nurse him back to health like a fucking pro. 

…

“WHAT THE FUCK MAC??”

Okay, so that has not gone according to plan. How was he supposed to know you can’t put foil in the microwave? He was trying to soften up some butter to make pancakes, and had instead ended up summoning lightning and thunder (which was kinda cool) and a very dodgy smell (infinitely less cool).

“Sorry, sorry!” 

Dennis walks into the living room with the couch blanket around him, looking a bit like a babushka. Mac leaves the microwave dish in the sink, wipes the melted butter off his hands and walks to him, doing an ocular patdown on his symptoms. 

Same blisters as yesterday on his face and neck, doesn’t seem to have anything new. Mac tilts his head up a bit, brushing a kiss against Dennis’s lips, mindful of the sore in his mouth. They feel a bit dry. He needs to fish out that Neutrogena lip balm from the medicine cabinet.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, and Dennis sighs against his neck where he's buried his face, and is now wrapping his arms around Mac. Niiiice, morning cuddles. He nearly squeezes the Christ out of him, but he remembers the chickenpox spots on time, so he just settles his hands on the small of his back.  

“Why didn’t you sleep with me?” Dennis asks, still slumped against his neck.

“I didn’t want to be all over you, moving and shit, and waking you up,” he replies “But I rigged up one of our walkie-talkies with a rubber band and left it on the floor next to you, in case you needed anything.”

He reaches back to the kitchen counter, where he’s left the other walkie-talkie while he was making breakfast. Dennis is looking at him, and Mac feels a bit like he’s been watched by a big cat. 

“Are you okay?”

Dennis walks away from him, inspecting what’s going on in the kitchen. “What were you doing?” 

“...Cooking pancakes.”

“Really? Mac, it’s a Tuesday, I can’t be stuffing my face every morning like it’s the weekend! I shouldn’t even be having breakfast today.”

“You’re sick, you really should be carbo-loading now, dude.”

“No! No carbs, no sugar, no butter, for fuck’s sake! It’s bad enough that I’m ridden with this chickenpox bullshit, I can’t be getting all… sloppy!”

“Well, I thought--”

“Clearly, you didn’t!”

Mac’s mind starts racing, trying to find out what to do to deescalate the situation. Dennis gets like this sometimes, and usually Mac remembers what Dee’s psychologist told him that time, and just tries to fix it by talking, but what if Dee’s right, and it’s better if he’s just assertive?

How does he do that, though? In this situation? Tell Dennis to shut up? Force him to eat the pancakes, once Mac manages to make them? Those options sound super wrong. Dennis is looking at him, and Mac can see his jaw is all clenched up, which means he’s already getting on his nerves without even talking. 

He needs time to think, so he turns to start the coffee pot, washes away his most recent attempt at pancake batter. He texts Dee when he hears Dennis turning on the TV. 

Den’s pissed off, not sure Y

Not sure Y I should care

That bitch. 

How can I B assertive?

Tell him to stop acting like a bitch. 

Yeah, he wants to have his face attached to his head by the time that conversation finishes, so he’s not doing that. 

Not that

Rough night? Maybe that’s Y he’s bitchy, Dee texts. 

“...Did you, um, sleep well?” Mac dares to ask, taking a tentative look at Dennis, who turns toward him so fast Mac’s sure he’s given himself whiplash. He’s getting red in the face, and there's a vein popping on the center of his forehead. 

“Are you fucking kidding me??”

Shit, shit, shit. He turns again and cleans the last pan, taking ages scrubbing it (he’s probably ruining the pan, and that’s their good pan, goddamnit, but he needs something to do while he waits for Dee to reply to his last text, which was just the S.O.S. emoji). 

I need more info, can you call?, she finally replies. 

He can’t call her with Dennis at hearing distance. Right, locate the exits, think of an evasion plan. He sees his gym bag next to the door. It’s actually filled with his dirty workout gear, but it’s as good an excuse as any other. Mac dries his hands, and desperately tries to play it cool. 

“I’m off to the gym, then...since you don’t want any breakfast.”

Eye contact is always tricky in these situations, but he frowns really hard to try to force his face to look towards Dennis. Thankfully, he’s not looking at Mac, he’s still on the TV. 

“Whatever,” Dennis says, still not looking at him.

“There’s Tylenol on the counter with your antivirals, in case you feel a fever coming on.” He just can’t help himself. 

“I have eyes, I know where the pills are.”

“Of course,” Mac says, distracted because his phone is vibrating in his pocket. That bitch Dee is calling him already before he’s even had a chance. “Text me if you feel like talking to anyone,” he adds, lamely. But he finally manages to grab the gym bag and keys, and close the door behind him. 

…

Dennis is not very proud of the sound he makes when he hears the door click closed, confirming that Mac has, in fact, left the apartment. It’s a bit like a shocked, strangled gasp.

For a while he’s still deep in his outrage about pancakes, and Mac leaving him to sleep on his own, and giving him fucking chaste, grandma-like pecks on the lips, instead of proper kisses. 

However, after the red fog fades, fear wraps its tendrils around him, holding him like a vice. He’s done something irrational and very stupid to somebody that has done nothing but take care of him for the past 24 hours (not to mention the past 25 years). 

That’s it, Mac must have finally been repulsed by him. Not only physically, but he simultaneously got a new glimpse of Dennis’s ugly, needy, moody side. If he wasn’t already sick of him after Dennis ran out on him, he would be now, what with Dennis throwing a hissy fit because of… carbs. 

And Mac had given it as good as he got it, goddamnit. He must really be getting fed up, to have talked to Dennis like that. 

As predicted, it’s all going downhill from here. Dennis has never had a great character, but at least he was beautiful enough to attract people, to keep Mac looking at him like he was the second coming of Christ. Without that, what’s he got to offer? The chickenpox ugliness has unveiled to him the fact that even if he doesn’t scar this time around, he’s not immune to future unsightly diseases, or age itself. 

Age has already been bad enough, placing a tire of unresponsive fat around his waist that doesn’t budge no matter how healthy, or how little, he eats. Even when he gets a pump on in the gym, there’s this permanent softness around his former edges that he just can’t firm up. It’s so fucking depressing. 

Meanwhile, Mac has only gotten more buff with age, gaining what Dennis might even call a quasi-distinguished air. He has a sprinkle of grey on his temples and in his beard that suits him perfectly. Not to mention, he’s fucking sculpted, and he has the kind of metabolism that will take him straight back to being skinny and taut when he gets bored of the gym. 

And he’s sweet , when he wants to be. Dennis can’t even manage to be sweet when he finds the desire. Most of the time his head doesn’t let him, and when he finally goes for it, the universe takes a gigantic dump on his plans and gives him chickenpox and makes him cancel romantic weekends. 

His stomach gurgles. He drags his feet on the way to the kitchen, and sees the cleaned up remains of what looks like enough bowls, pots and pans to prepare breakfast for three people. Yet there are no pancakes in sight, and a bottle of Aunt Jemima on the counter. He checks the trash and there’s a fuckload of eggshells. 

Boy, Mac had really tried, huh? 

Dennis pinches the bridge of his nose, breathes in and out. He needs to get a fucking grip, get his intrusive thoughts under control, because he’s not seeing the forest for the trees, and he’s acting crazy and driving Mac away. 

He sees his antivirals on the counter. He dry-swallows one, and opens the fridge to eat something so he doesn’t have it on an empty stomach. 

Maybe that should've been done in the opposite order, but he’s trying his best to be good without Mac. 

…

After all that, Dee had offered absolutely no help. Just said it was good that Mac left, and that he should go take a walk and give Dennis space for an hour. 

Well, he did say he was going to the gym, so he might as well do that. His gear was a bit musty, but nothing too horrible. He stops at the Wawa to get coffee and a protein bar (he ended up not having any breakfast, after all) when he sees a familiar face. It’s a very familiar body, too. 

“Carmen!” 

“Mac, oh my god!” She's wearing glasses now, which look really nice on her, like she’s an eyewear model. Her hair is dark like it was when they first met. “It’s been years! Well, I’ve seen you here and there, popping around with the gang, but you know what I mean.”

“Right! When was the last time? At the hospital, with Dee?” she nods. “How old is the kid now, by the way?”

“He’s nine,” she beams. “We named him Robin.”

“Cool.” It’s a bit awkward, standing there not saying anything, just smiling at each other, but he is very happy to see her. “Wow, nine, almost ten years, that’s so long… We’re getting old.”

“You’re looking great, though.” He melts immediately, she just has this way of making him feel amazing, man. And it’s even better now, because he’s not going stupid trying to figure out his feelings about banging her.

“You too, you look just the same, so good.” He realizes she’s holding a box of the same antiviral meds they had to buy for Dennis. “Are you sick?” he asks, pointing at the box.

“Robin is. Chickenpox,” Carmen says, Mac chiming in with her triumphantly on the last word.

“Yeah, my-- uh, Dennis has it, too. He never had it as a kid, it must be making the rounds now, huh?”

“Half of the kids in Robin’s class have it, it’s a mess. So, you and Dennis? That’s cute.”

She doesn’t jump to making it all about him being out, which is nice. And Carmen probably had been one of the first people to know he was gay, apart from the gang, even before he knew himself. 

A waft of coffee smell hits him. “Hey, are you in a rush?”

…

Dee calls Dennis, and he’s so desperate to escape the prison of his own brain that he picks up. “Whaddup?” he asks, trying to sound casual.

“How are you?”

“...Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I don’t know, last time I checked you had an illness that could potentially make your balls explode and shrivel, so call me crazy for wanting to check up on you.”

He’s covered by a cold sweat. “The fuck you say about my balls?”

“I’m joking, dickrag. If anything’s gonna bust your nuts it’s gonna be me, not the chickenpox.”

“Don’t you have avian flu to catch?”

“Is Mac there? I’m texting him but he’s not answering.”

“He never answers your texts anyway,” Dennis hesitates for a second. “He’s at the gym.”

“...Okay. Why are you saying it like he left you for Ryan Reynolds?”

“Fuck off.”

“Back at you, asshole! I hope you tear your face off scratching your spots.”

“We had a fight,” he blurts out. “I… I started shit this morning.” She remains quiet, but he can nearly feel the twin mind-reading vibes emanating from the other side of the line. “He was making me pancakes.”

“On a Tuesday?”

“I know. It was… It was still nice. I flew off the handle for no reason.”

“Very mature of you to say that.” 

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Honest to God, I’m not! What was the big deal, though? Don’t eat the pancakes.”

“Look, it really wasn’t about the pancakes. He’s been distant.” Again with the silence. He huffs in frustration. “He’s like, taking care of me but not… Not all over me. And he left me to sleep alone last night.”

Dennis swears he can hear a ‘aw’, but Dee hasn’t said anything. Is this his own twin mind-reading activating? 

“So let me check if I understand correctly: your boyfriend is nursing you to health instead of trying to fuck you every two seconds while you’re ill and feverish, and that’s hurting your feelings?”

“Oh, so you do get it.”

“No I don’t get it! I don’t get it, Dennis! This is really not the time to look for sexual validation, or whatever the fuck it is you’re doing!”

He’s been walking around the house while talking to her, and he finds himself in front of the bathroom mirror. Even ignoring the spots, he’s not wearing any makeup, and his dark circles are popping, making him look like a Tim Burton character. The facial hair that he usually shaves every morning religiously is shadowing his face, giving him an unkempt, filthy look. 

“... But I feel so shitty, Dee,” he admits, in a small voice. “I feel worthless.”

He regrets his words, he really does. They make him sound like such a hopeless wreck. Dee sighs at the other side of the line. He clears his throat, trying to go for a lighter tone, “Never m-”

“I know you’re probably going to lash out at me after hearing this. But you have to find different ways to get self-esteem that are not through people wanting to have sex with you. I know that’s always been your default, but that’s not what your thing with Mac is.”

“What are you saying? Mac’s been consciously or subconsciously trying to get in my pants since 2008.”

“No, he’s been in love with you since high school, and has let you lead him on since 2008. Banging you, or being banged by you, is certainly a bonus for him, don’t get me wrong, but you know it’s not just about that.”

Dennis can’t really say anything to that. 

“Stop being such a maxi-pad to him, at least for your ten days of quarantine, and then you can plow.”

He wants to tell her off, but maybe he’s too sick for that too. Or too old. 

“...I was gonna take him to the Poconos for a couple of days.”

“Damn. Were you trying to get him to agree to some weird fucking you’re trying to give a whirl?”

“What? No! C’mon, I-- I just want… I just wanna do better.”

“Well, he’s never going to have the kind of money to raise you on that, so after that trip you're always gonna have the upper hand.”

“Hell, I don’t even have that kind of money.”

“Frank’s card?”

“Yep.”

“Sweet.”

…

Mac regrets the coffee idea a little, mainly because once he sits down he can’t really come up with more stuff to say to Carmen. She’s just smiling nicely at him, stirring sugar into her coffee. 

“You still with… uh...”

“Nick. Yes, still happily married. But never mind that, you and Dennis, when did that happen?”

“Two months ago.” His chest puffs out a little. “It’s pretty sweet.”

“I bet,” she smiles even broader. “You’ve had a thing for him for so long.” 

“Oh. You knew about that?” 

“You were always talking about him,” she says, leaning forward to pick at a loose thread in his hoodie. “How did you two get together?”

He’s all too excited to tell her, but after he takes a breath he finds out he doesn’t have a big story to tell her. Dennis never gave him anything like a love confession, it was more like a ‘permission to proceed granted’ situation between them. 

That sucks a bit. They should have done it like in Brokeback Mountain. Well, not exactly, because seriously, that ending can eat a dick, and not in the fun way. 

“Uhhh. I don’t know, I kinda didn’t really know my feelings for ages, and once I realized I was- When I was out, I mean, then he wasn’t really on board with me being like, all over him. Which, you know, it’s fine, because consent, right? So I was like, that’s cool too, we’ll just be best buddies, as long as I get to stay close to him. And one day he was like hey man, I actually am okay with it if you’re still game. So then we banged and now we’re together.”

God, that’s so lame! He should have included some sort of plot where he saved Dennis from thugs, or he did a love declaration-slash-karate display so powerful it had won Dennis over.

Carmen’s biting her lip though, looking all ‘awwww you guys!’, so maybe it’s still cool. 

“That’s so cute! Friends-to-lovers is the best, you know that’s actually how Nick and I got together?”

She goes on about how she met her soft-body husband and Mac kinda spaces out for a bit. He doesn’t have the greatest attention span, and now he’s stuck thinking about what Carmen said about him and Dennis. Friends-to-lovers is cute, yeah, but isn’t it kind of meh? It’s been domestic as fuck at their home, which is totally sweet, but shouldn’t he be giving Dennis a more epic romance?

Mac does tell him that he loves him quite often. Maybe he has to say it more? Or louder. Or with music - he should ask Charlie about that later. Their sex life is pretty epic, they’ve definitely ticked a lot of the boxes on Mac’s list, but maybe he could have a go at Dennis’s list. Oh, wait, they did do that one thing with the zipties… 

Mac definitely needs to be more romantic. The problem is, whenever he thinks about romance, all that comes to mind are chick flicks, and outside of that one experiment with that couple and the dead kid, that’s never been their style together. Also, Dennis has seen pretty much every single rom-com in history, so he’s gonna be onto it if his boyfriend rolls in with something from Pretty in Pink. 

“But anyway, sorry, I got carried away with my story! How is Dennis handling being sick?” Carmen asks, interrupting his train of thought. 

“Oh, he’s so mad about it. He doesn’t like being ill at all. It’s weird, because usually he likes me doing stuff for him, but now it’s like a big deal if I make him breakfast.”

“Aw, bless him. Maybe he’s just feeling helpless.”

“So what, I’m here to help him,” Mac says, matter-of-fact. Because, duh, that’s why you always have a sidekick, to get you out of jams. It doesn’t matter if it’s getting the bill when your buddy is broke, or shoving a thermometer up their ass if it needs to go there - I mean, chances are it might need to go there, they probably aren’t getting the right temperature reading and couldn't they just try? Just to see it through? 

He tries to get back on track with the conversation, “He’s gonna to get bored, though, if he has to stay indoors for nine more days. We’re running out of things to watch.”  All of a sudden, he has a eureka moment. “Carmen, do you have any, like, gay love movie you could recommend us?”

…

Dennis’s fever is going up again, but he can’t even be worried about that, because his whole brain is running in circles eating itself because Mac’s still not home, and yeah, okay, it’s just been four hours, but still. He spends an hour and a half tops at the gym these days, plus there’s only a ten minute walk to get there and then to come back home, which means he should have been back ages ago. Unless he’s still feeling pissed off. But Mac hasn’t been pissed off with him like that in ages. 

Even when he was mad at him in the past, his modus operandi wasn’t to put distance between them. He would sulk, and Dennis would pretend he didn’t give a shit, and then Mac would get bored of not talking to him, and everything would be okay. 

He could call him, but as usual he can’t find the right words to say. ‘Please, come back’? ‘I’m sorry?’

He’s apologized so much since he got ill, and it should be getting easier every time, but the words turn to dry cotton in his throat. It’s not a matter of pride, but sheer unfamiliarity. He has never had a person whose forgiveness he cared so much about. He’s always had Mac, and sure he was important to him, but in the last two months Dennis has opened himself up to him in such ways that it’s like he’s turned their relationship into porcelain. Sure, it’s even more precious for it, but it feels like it won’t survive a tumble, not like their old Tupperware friendship. 

Dennis’s heart leaps out of his throat when he hears the door unlocking. He gets up from the couch so fast he’s momentarily dizzy and can’t see properly; as Mac walks towards him, Dennis can only make out a blurry, multicolor shape. 

“I got news!” Mac announces. Dennis’s vision comes back and he’s stuck in place, this time in astonishment, and not low blood sugar. 

Mac is carrying flowers. 

He’s also carrying a plastic bag from the Wawa, and his gym bag (which is oozing a tremendous stench; he’s more than happy to see Mac put it on the floor and kick it towards his room). 

“Sorry, I know I’ve taken a while, I ran into Carmen at the Wawa,” he says, leaving the flowers and bag on the kitchen table. Dennis follows him, still in a bit of a daze. Mac starts to take items out of the plastic bag. There are rolled oats, fruit popsicles, a small tub of sea-salt, a packet of thin mints and a bag of protein shake mix. 

“Carmen-your-ex Carmen?” Dennis asks, watching Mac carefully. So far Mac seems to be back to a general happy-go-lucky demeanor. 

“Yeah, her kid’s got chickenpox too!” He finishes putting all the groceries in place, turns towards Dennis, and it’s like their eyes are locking for the first time since Mac left this morning. It sends his heart into a frantic beat. “Oh, wait, c’mere.” He steps closer to Dennis, hands reaching out towards his face, which he holds very carefully. “Hey.”

These still give him butterflies, their little ‘hey’ moments. Ever since they first got together. Dennis melts with relief and undivided endearment. “Hey,” he replies. 

Mac kisses him, still with more care than usual, but he makes a satisfied sound that’s been missing for the past day and a half. He pulls down softly on Dennis’s chin, parting his lips and kissing him again. “Hm. You feel hot. Do we have a vase?”

“What?” Dennis opens his eyes, which had slid close with Mac’s kisses. “Yeah, we should have one on that shelf.” 

“Great,” Mac goes to fetch it, presumably. “Can you believe that kid is nine by now?”

“Dee’s baby? Yeah,” Dennis takes a closer look at the flowers. He can recognize Birds-of-Paradise, and white lilies, but there are other purple ones, with a long waxy stem and a conical crown of flowers, like little closed umbrellas. Each tiny flower looks like an elongated blueberry. It’s a fantastically flamboyant bouquet. 

Mac’s back in the kitchen with the vase. “What’s with the flowers?” Dennis finally asks, and Mac flashes him a smile, clearly delighted with the question, even if he’s simultaneously shrugging in a very bad act of nonchalance. 

“I got them for you,” He arranges them carefully in the vase. 

“Oh,” is all Dennis can say. Nobody has ever gotten flowers for him. It’s not really common when you’re a dude, to get a bouquet, especially when you’ve led the life of a straight playboy. He likes the feeling, though, having Mac picking something that beautiful with him in mind. “Did you pick them out?”

“...Do you like them?” Mac asks. He’s getting closer, getting a hold of Dennis’s hands, bringing them to his lips and kissing the knuckles of the right one, then the left. 

“They’re gorgeous,” Dennis manages to say, with a husky voice. He’s gone through a lot of emotions that morning, and after thinking 1. Mac didn’t find him attractive anymore, 2. That he had fucked up things yet again, Mac coming back with a Boyfriend 2.0 act is really a lot to take in. 

“Right, I’m not gonna lie, I had a little help, but there’s a story for each one of the flowers, and I sort of was behind that part, wanna hear it?” Dennis nods, lets his forehead touch Mac’s, and allows himself to wrap his arms around his shoulders. “Wow, Den, you need to take some meds, you’re really burning up.”

“Okay.” Anything Mac says, he will follow every command like an industrious little dog, he’ll kiss his hands too, his loving hands that care so much for him, that bring flowers and love, so much love, for Dennis, despite the harsh words, and the ugliness, and the chickenpox. 

He really does have a fever, he’s gone into extreme-of-consciousness inside his own mind. 

Mac moves them both, without breaking their embrace, towards the sink, like a waltz. He’s filling a glass with water, and opening drawers to produce a couple of Tylenol capsules. Dennis takes the water and meds from him and ingests them dutifully. He goes back to wrapping his arms around Mac, and wishes his arms were thrice as long, so he could wrap more of them around more of Mac, make him into a Dennis mummy. 

“Tell me about the flowers,” Dennis asks. 

“So, the white ones are lilies, I kinda just picked them up because the girl at the flower store told me I needed a third flower to create a harmony. Also, they’re pale, and smell nice, just like you.”

“I’m not that pale, am I?”

“You are, but in a sexy way. Anyway, that other flower, the one that looks kinda freaky, it’s called Bird-of-Paradise. I was asking her about flowers for men, and she spent a long-ass time giving me a woke speech about flowers not having gender. I told her, okay, I’m cool with that, we don’t do gender at our bar anymore either, but listen, lady, I don’t want to give my boyfriend some lame normie flowers for straight chicks! So, she showed me a bunch of the exotic ones, and they just reminded me of you, sharp, and like they could fly away all graceful.”

They do look like they’re mid-flight, but Dennis is not going to fly away, no, he’s grounded, he’s more like a penguin now. Penguin flowers wouldn’t look as pretty, though, so he’s going to agree with Mac, so he can keep these and not get stuck with penguin flowers. 

“And the purple ones are the best!” Mac continues. “They’re called grape hyacinths. Hyacinth was also this dude from Sparta, who was like the most beautiful beefcake in the old Greek times. A bunch of gods and mortals were in love with him, but in the end he shacked up with Apollo, and they spent their time banging and exercising at the gymnasium, and playing frisbee. Pretty sweet deal, right?” 

If it was a Greek myth, that Hyacinth guy probably ended up getting the short end of the stick, but Dennis is not gonna ruin the story. It’s a lovely flower. The bouquet is sitting beautifully in its vase, filling their kitchen with color. 

“Why did you get me flowers, Mac?” Dennis, still holding him close, kisses him before and after saying his name. 

“I need to step up my romance game, dude. Like, big time.”

“...What?” 

“Yeah, man! Look, I have a pretty sweet deal here, and I want to show you, and the big man upstairs - because let’s be honest, he just has to be involved, and I’ve collected a lot of points all these years through my godly ways - that I appreciate it.”

“Appreciate what?” Fever loopiness and Mac’s train of thought are two things that should never happen together. Dennis cannot string these concepts together. 

“You, Den! Us! One doesn’t land a Hyacinth every day, that’s epic! So I gotta turn it up a notch so I’m living up to our awesomeness.”

“So you would be Apollo in this scenario?”

“Well, of course,” Mac scrunches his face in a wordless ‘duh,’ before his brow raises again in comprehension. “Oh, I see what you mean, Apollo technically is like a golden god, but I’m not pretty enough to be Hyacinth, Den. It’s decided, I’m Apollo. Also, I’m a morning person, which kinda makes sense with the whole sun god thing.”

Dennis is just staring at him, trying to understand Mac’s out-loud reverie. He catches the two important bits: Mac is saying that Dennis is pretty, and that he wants to appreciate him. What the fuck, he’s supposed to be the one executing the grand gestures, Mac is not allowed to deliver any more romantic fucking bombs until after Dennis gets their asses to the Poconos, goddamnit!

He suddenly realizes what must be behind this whole thing. His brief moment of relief and joy turns to mush again, leaving space for self-pity and glumness.

“You spoke with Dee,” he says, and there you go, Mac looks guilty. Dennis tries to get away from his embrace, like a pissed-off cat, but Mac doesn’t let him, and he’s too weak right now to claw. 

“Calm down, Den, I can explain-”

“I don’t wanna hear it.” 

“I’m sorry, bro, I know I should have looked at you in the eye and asked you this morning!”

“Like I would ever admit anything like that! And the other thing was a surprise!” Dennis yells. 

“Uh? Other thing? What are you talking about?” Mac lets go of him, which is both satisfying and exactly the opposite of what he wants. Dennis storms out of the kitchen, goes into his room and slams the door on his face, but Mac just opens it and follows him inside

“C’mon Den, talk to me! I don’t even know what’s going on, are you hallucinating or something? Do we need to go to the hospital?”

Shame and rage implode within him. He turns towards Mac and seeing him standing there, just genuinely worrying about him, makes him feel even shittier, like he’s a broken dam of unpleasantness and Mac’s there getting drenched in the flow, foolhardy, still trying to help. 

“You talked with Dee, and she told you what I told her, and now you’re just trying to comfort me like you always do, even when you don’t want to, because you’re just… I don’t know at this point, you’ve gotten either too nice or too scared to be honest with me.”

“Dude, you gotta help me out here, because I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I spoke with Dee, but she didn’t tell me dick.”

“Yeah, right…”

“I swear! Okay, I admit it, I knew you were pissed off and I should have asked you directly, but she said it would be more better to give you space, and I-”

“Oh, yeah, I can see that. Well, you didn’t need her to tell you to give me space, you’ve been giving me plenty of space since we came back from the clinic...”

Dennis knows how this goes. He’s seen this pattern many times before growing up, when his parents would try to find any excuse to rip each other apart. He loathes, loathes , to mirror his parents in any way, but there seems to be a curse he can’t repel. He knows now is the moment when Mac retorts ‘yeah, and here’s some more space for you, fuck you!’ and just storms out.

“I have?” he asks instead, putting Dennis out of balance. “And that's a bad thing?”

He’s stepping back into Dennis’s personal space, looking too calm. He’s even - is he smiling?

“Yes, of course it’s a bad thing!” Dennis yells. As he can’t figure out any other response to Mac’s attitude, he’ll carry on with anger. Mac’s caged him against the side of his dresser. 

“So what you’re saying,” he’s still smiling. Is he trying a ‘kill them with kindness’ strategy? He’s looking at Dennis like-- “is that I owe you an apology,” --like he said something nice, instead of unleashing vitriol. His hands are on Dennis’s hips, carefully pulling him against his body, “because I should never leave you?”

It’s an exaggeration, and it doesn’t quite reflect his feelings, but he's still in the last stages of feverish delirium, and lets his first primal instinct take over. “Yeah…” he mutters, allowing his hungry hands to wrap around Mac once again. 

He is goddamn blushing, shit, and Mac is lapping it up, he has literal heart eyes. He closes them and rubs his nose against Dennis’s. “Okay,” he says, shrugging. 

“...Okay?” he questions belligerently.

“I’ll never leave you,” Mac repeats. Dennis hides his face in Mac’s shoulder and lets out a pained groan.

“Dude, why do you make this so difficult for me… I hate you.”

Mac leans back and touches Dennis’s chin, making him look him in the eyes. He looks worried and confused again. Shit. 

“...That didn’t come out right,” Dennis wanted to explain without revealing his own romance strategy, but there’s no way around it. He sighs. “I was trying to step up my romance game too.”

“You were?”

“Yes, and it’s so fucking frustrating! You’re always so good at this, goddamnit, and I keep trying to catch up, but then I end up fucking things up like-”

“Come on, give yourself some slack! What about that time in Guigino’s? You sang ‘Wind Beneath Your Wings’ to me, dude, in front of a full restaurant! How can you say you fuck things up?”

“...I had a surprise for you. We… We were supposed to go to the Poconos for two nights, last Monday.”

The whole ruined thing is nearly worth it anyway, just to have Mac looking at him like that. He’s gaping at him, eyes all round and his eyebrows are shooting up. “Dennis!” he exclaims, “Dude!  That’s so cool!”

“I got us the honeymoon lodge,” Dennis continues, with his mouth downturned. “We were gonna order room service, drink some Veuve Clicquot, take some LSD and bang on it. Oh, and there was a hot tub in this private garden...”

Mac lets go of him to turn and cover his face with his hands. “Dude, you’re killing me, that is the sweetest thing anybody’s done for me,” he says, his voice muffled. 

“But I didn’t do it! I caught the fucking chickenpox and had to cancel the reservation. I did it before coming back, after I… freaked out, after the doctor.”

Dennis is starting to feeling better, fever-wise, but he’s brought back to himself all the disappointment and frustration from his failed plan. These kinds of things are not supposed to be such a big deal, but when he’s honest, he knows he’s got some control issues that make them a bitch to handle, and he doesn’t even have the energy to get over it anymore. He’s just sad. Mac had come back to hold him while he listened to the explanation, and is now watching him with his eyebrows furrowed. 

“It doesn’t matter that it didn’t happen in the end, Dennis, you worked so hard on doing something so romantic for me! That’s like ten thousand romance points. Well, we don’t really have a formal system, we’ll have to put one in place, but you get my drift.”

“Hm… I s’pose. Did you like the plan, then?”

“I love it. And I love you,” he hugs him tighter. “You didn’t fuck things up, God just sent us a curveball. It is a shame you had to end up cancelling the lodge, though.”

“You promised to never leave me, so we can still go, when I get better,” he sinks further into Mac’s arms. He’s swaying them a little. “Do you want to, though? Leave. Sometimes, I mean, not like, forever.”

“Nope,” is the immediate answer, without an iota of hesitation. 

“Not even when I yell at you, or get pissed off about stupid stuff?”

“I get pissed off about stupid stuff all the time too, Dennis.”

“But when about when all of this… goes to shit?” Dennis vaguely signals with one hand at the length of his body. “I know I’m all gross right now, and you... You didn’t sleep with me, last night.”

Ugh. Such a pitiful voice. It’s out there in the world now, though. 

“Oh. Is that why you were upset this morning?” he snorts. “Dude, you literally just got the chickenpox! Your skin is like super delicate, and you’ve been having a fever, I thought you might need a break from waking up to me humping you.”

Dennis knows this makes sense, of course it does. One of the many voices in his head - one that sounds annoyingly similar to Dee - is telling him he’s dumber than a bag of dicks. But he’s still depressed, clammy, full of boils, sporting a two-day stubble (not a look that’s ever worked for him), and he hasn’t applied anything beyond some light concealer since Saturday. 

He is also a very, very vain man that’s on the forties stretch, and he has very recently acquired a boyfriend that’s known him in his prime, who is now looking indeed like Apollo. A greying-at-the-temples-in-all-the-right-ways, suddenly-grew-an-ass, doesn’t-gel-his-hair-to-shit-anymore Apollo.

Dennis is definitely not feeling like a Hyacinth. If anything, he’s feeling like whatever happened to Hyacinth after pissing off some other god, or whatever the hell happened to him in the end.  He needs to check the wiki entry on this story later. 

“You could be grossed out,” he says against Mac’s shoulder. “It’s all getting pretty gross. Or you could not get it up, at times. You might even just be over it at some point. I mean,” he tries to laugh it up, but all that comes out is a sort of pathetic little weeze, “you’ve kinda arrived at this past the best before date, so it’s gonna happen sooner rather than later.”

Mac sighs. “Den, you gotta stop that. Last time this happened you burned your face off with acid. Of course at some point we’re not gonna get our dicks hard for each other all the time... But while you’re thinking about the shriveled dicks of the future, you’re missing all the full-on boners of the present.”

“Okay, that has to be the worst take on carpe diem I've ever heard,” he replies, but he’s laughing for real now. “I only remember being woken up to you humping my ass like twice, does that happen often?”

“Dude, all the time,” Mac loosens up his hold on Dennis so he can look him in the eye. “I just wake myself up before you have time to notice. And there's also the couple of times I’ve woken up grinding my ass into your dick.”

Dennis smiles properly for the first time in the past 24 hours. He snakes a hand around and gets a hold of Mac’s ass. “I remember those.”

“You were awake?” Mac’s smiling, sounding slightly breathless. “I really wanna french you, but is your mouth still hurting?”

“Meh. Not enough to miss that,” he replies, pulling him in harder, going for a fierce kiss. Feels like a long drink of spring water. Mac’s still being mindful of his face, holding it gently so they don’t smoosh against each other, but the kiss is open-mouthed, wet and long and fabulously dirty. 

“Dude, I- I gotta calm down,” Mac pants when they break the kiss. “Jesus Christ.”

“Tell you what,” Dennis slides a hand under his t-shirt, feeling his taut stomach and the v that slopes towards his groin. He knows there’s a vein that pops up after Mac gets a pump at the gym that seems to travel directly to his dick... Ah, there it is. Like clockwork, the minute Dennis strokes it Mac starts to rut against his thigh. “We’re gonna jump in the shower, you’re gonna jerk off while I wash, and I’m gonna watch you come on the tiles.”

Mac whimpers in lieu of an answer, and Dennis feels something right slide into place, like a perfect little wooden peg. As much as he’s liked having bossy Mac, he wouldn’t give this power up for anything in the world. 

…

By the time they leave the shower, Mac feels like he’s going to pass out. Not just from the literal heat (Dennis had taken advantage of Mac being extra stupid from all the blood travelling to his dick, and set the shower temp to something around 115 degrees), but also from his and his boyfriend’s steamy activities. Dennis had been extra commanding, telling him exactly how to touch his dick, boring holes into him with his eyes. He had also dragged out the actual bathing for as long as he was able to, even asking Mac to wash his back and ass with one hand, while still touching himself with the other hand, and forbidding him to come until Dennis was clean. 

Plus, Mac was still riding the high from learning about Dennis’s sweet secret plan to romance the fuck out of him. 

Never mind the tiles, Mac had hit the fucking ceiling! That was gonna be a bitch to clean, but that’s a problem for later. 

Dennis hadn’t gotten hard, he probably still wasn’t feeling 100%, but that’s fine. Probably for the best, because if Dennis really wanted to go in for the kill it would have been way too difficult to resist. The internet said it took over 2-3 days for the blisters to start to scab. They should be able to control themselves for a couple more days, right?

For the rest of the day, they kill the time as best as they can. Dennis journals for a while, Mac calls Charlie who tells him what’s been happening at the bar and how annoying Dee is being. Mac tells him about meeting Carmen, and Charlie flat out refuses to believe that kid is nine years old. Like, he forbids Mac from explaining the math to him because it’s fucking him up. 

From time to time Dennis walks to the kitchen - to get a glass of water, to eat a couple of saltines - and every time, he stops by the flowers. He touches the grape hyacinths, or smells the lilies, and smiles, and Mac’s heart just melts . 

“Carmen gave me loads of gay movie recommendations, do you wanna watch some?” he asks later, when they sit down for dinner. 

Dennis snorts and rolls his eyes, but he shrugs. “Yeah, why not.”

He falls asleep on the couch halfway through My Own Private Idaho. Too bad, because Dennis knows the Shakespeare play it’s based on, and he had been explaining some stuff to Mac. On the other hand, though, it is one of those depressing unrequited gay love stories, so whatever. 

Mac does get a couple of kinky ideas from it, though, so it’s not completely wasted. He’ll save that for later. 

He wakes up Dennis after the film is done, brings the meds he’ll have to take in the middle of the night with a glass of water to the bedroom. He also grabs the calamine lotion, because Dennis gets itchiest right about now. 

“If it gets too bad I can dust you with cornstarch,” Mac says. They are laying down, both of them back to the natural order of things, in Dennis’s bed. 

“What am I, a chicken drumstick?” Dennis quips. “Wait - does that work?”

“‘Parently? Carmen told me about it,” he’s feeling so sleepy already. “We can try that tomorrow…”

“Mac,” Dennis calls. “Thank you.”

“Anytime, bro. Love you.”

He feels Dennis scooting closer. The last thing he hears him say before falling asleep is “Yeah.”

…

Since he’s already seen My Own Private Idaho (ages ago, to impress a girl with his knowledge of indie cinema. He had also done the research on both Henry IV and V, which led to him getting the most spectacular knee-trembler after they left the theater) Dennis allows himself to catch some sleep on the couch, after the day’s roller coaster of self-loathing. 

He wakes briefly at the scene when River Phoenix tells Keanu Reeves about his unrequited love, and it pulls at his heart because he can see Mac saying those exact words to him. Hell, Mac has shared similar feelings with him, that he refused to return for many years. And despite not getting anything back from Dennis, Mac’s love and companionship has never faltered. 

It kinda finally hits him, that what Mac has for him, what they have for each other, goes beyond sex and passion and, as Mac so poetically phrased it, getting it up for each other. It’s camaraderie, and banter, and a connection they don’t share with anybody else. 

Mac is happy to continue giving all those things to him, on top of quite honestly some of the best sex he’s ever had. It feels exceptionally stupid to have spent time imagining a world where that doesn’t happen. 

That said, the little show in the shower had really boosted his ego. He had been super close to getting hard, but last time he checked he had two of those fucking blisters in his groin, so he had willed his dick to go soft, saving the visual in his wank bank. 

Similarly, going back to sleeping together had felt just right, despite the discomfort - adding body heat under the covers doesn’t seem to bode well for the itch. But as Mac just breathes out his love for Dennis, that he can’t quite respond to, not yet, it sets his world at peace.

… 

There’s an evolution to the chickenpox maladies as the days go by. 

Grooming is still impossible, as the blisters have scabbed over and he can’t really trim or shave. Dennis’s erstwhile laser beam treatments stopped working years ago, and since all his money was being divided between Maureen (may she rest in pieces), Brian Jr, and several unwise financial decisions, he had resorted to good old-fashioned trimming and shaving. 

Now, people won’t assume this of him, because Dennis treats his grooming the same way as he treats any other aspect of his appearance: raising it to the highest standards. But the thing is, he’s a hairy bastard. He has curly hair, and while he’s not quite hirsute, what he has does tend to get a bit unruly, and it grows fast. 

His cheeks are dark with stubble, his chest, stomach and happy trail have gone slightly lumberjackish, and well, there’s a dusting of hair in his unmentionables. It makes him feel very sloppy indeed, but he takes some comfort in knowing he only has five more days ahead of him like this, and it’s just Mac seeing him in this state. 

“Dude, your hair is getting long!” Mac says. Dennis had been trying to not pick at the scab on his cheek, tapping it lightly instead as he reads a magazine. He raises his eyes, irritated by the comment. 

“Yeah, I know, Mac, we have mirrors around here. I was going to get a haircut and then all this shit happened, I’d get one right now if I could.”

“Don’t bite my head off, it looks nice,” Mac reaches out, pulling on a curl and watching it spring back. “More to grab,” he adds, with a godawful attempt at waggling his eyebrows sexily. 

But. You know. It doesn’t not work. He plays it cool and does a quick self assessment. He doesn’t feel too rotten today. No fever in the last 24 hours. And that sore in his mouth is gone. 

“Wanna put it to the test, baby?” he asks, pretending to still be perusing the magazine, like he doesn’t care either way. He likes to throw a ‘baby’ here and there, mainly because he knows it pushes Mac’s buttons just right. 

Also, Mac is one year younger. If anybody is gonna be baby, it’s him, despite how freely he also likes throwing the term at Dennis. 

Annoyingly, Mac is just checking his phone and smiling to himself, not really taking Dennis’s words seriously. Dennis waits until they make eye contact again, and does some brow waggling of his own, until it dawns on Mac. “You serious?” he asks, lowering his voice even if there’s nobody to hear. 

“Am I a man that offers to suck your dick often?”

It is true. He doesn’t mind, but it’s an acquired taste he hasn’t developed yet. He likes the things he gets from blowing Mac, like the sounds he makes, or the adoring look on his face after he comes. But it doesn’t sit well with him that he can’t control the faces he makes while doing it, and the chances of looking foolish with a dick in your mouth are too high for comfort when you want the person to want to keep seeing you. 

He does have a thing for come, funnily enough, and especially soiling Mac with it. If blowing him is going to get Dennis to see Mac splattered, he’ll do it today, no hesitation, no surrender. 

Mac’s doing his stupid little ocular patdown, trying to see if Dennis is really well enough. He’s getting red in the face already, though, which likely means he’s a second away from jumping him respectfully.

Dennis gets up from the kitchen table, finishes his tea and gives himself a big stretch. 

“Alright, hoss, where do ya want me?”

…

Mac short-circuits for a second. He stares at Dennis, standing before him, all scruffy in his grey sweats and t-shirt. He’s looking a bit like he’d been turning tricks at a truck stop for a ride home. 

He kinda also looks like some of those porn stepdads. Not totally, yet, but definitely getting there, if the beard keeps growing out. Mac’s own pajama pants are tenting under Dennis’s blue gaze. 

“Couch,” he manages to say, finally giving up on the increasingly-distracted ocular patdown. He’ll have to just assume Dennis wouldn’t have offered if he hadn’t been feeling up to it, as all his brain cells are now focused on getting to fuck Dennis’s mouth regardless. 

Dennis steps into the living room, still making that expression like he doesn’t give a fuck, but Mac knows it’s part of how Dennis gets off sometimes. It also gets Mac off, especially when he manages to make him break character. 

He likes that whole truck stop lizard fantasy, so he’s going to keep it in mind. Maybe if a lowkey test run works he can tell Dennis about it, and they can act it out properly another other day. 

Usually he’d like to make out a little before Dennis goes down on him, but he’s gonna try to stay in character, even if it’s not his strongest skill. So he follows Dennis over to the couch, sits down, and starts stroking himself through his pants to get a full stiffy. He throws a cushion on the floor as an afterthought, since he knows Dennis will complain about his knees otherwise. 

Dennis is watching him, all intense. Mac can almost see the cogs going in his brain. Like a sex Sherlock Holmes. Hey, there’s probably a porno about that, he’ll definitely have to google that later. 

“All right, boy, get to work,” Mac says. He can’t quite work a casual tone and sounds instead kinda cheesy and too loud, but Dennis’s eyes did the squinty(suspicious)-big-squinty(evil) dance, so Mac knows he’s getting it. He gets his dick out and crosses his arms behind his head, because he knows his arms look massive when he does that. 

Dennis kicks the cushion into place, kneeling on top of it between Mac’s legs. He runs the palms of his hands over Mac’s thighs, getting close to his dick but not doing anything to it yet. Mac can feel his hot breath on it, though; he’s breaking out in shivers already. He holds in a noise when Dennis gives him some first licks, and another when he mouths at the head. 

But this whole deal was about hair grabbing, so he plans to get to that once Dennis makes his dick nice and wet. He still hasn’t put it inside his mouth, just licked it up and down, stroking the length with the flat of his tongue and putting lots of spit on it. He’s not using his hands for this at all, just keeping them holding onto Mac’s legs, which means that at times Mac’s cock bobs and hits his face. It’s so different to do that and not feel Dennis’s smooth skin, but slightly prickly stubble. It makes the blowjob extra masculine (or maybe extra gay, he’s not sure. Probably both. Nice). 

Dennis finally gets the head of Mac’s cock inside his mouth, sucking lightly at it, then fluttering his tongue against the ridge underneath. Mac’s hips jerk and he lets himself groan. He finally reaches out to Dennis’s hair, combing the fingers of one hand through it. It’s so soft, and there’s a good shock of it on top now. Mac gets a firm hold, positions Dennis right where he needs him, and pulls down. 

He’s not trying to choke him with his dick, so Mac pushes just enough that Dennis's mouth will go down halfway, then pulls back, and down again, setting a rhythm. Dennis helps out, following the lead, keeping his teeth out of the way. Mac pulls him away completely, takes his cock in hand and rubs it against Dennis’s face. Dennis sticks his tongue out, flat and glistening with spit, and Mac slaps his dick against it a couple of times. It sounds so filthy, it’s fucking amazing . 

“I’m gonna fuck your mouth,” he warns, but he knows he can’t hesitate too much or Dennis will snap out of the roleplay, so he gets both hands on Dennis’s curls, pulls him down and angles his hips just right, so he’s nearly getting his whole length inside, just shy of touching his throat, and then gets a rhythm going again. Dennis is clawing toward his own crotch, but his eyes have gone all glassy, his eyelids are relaxed and he’s taking his cock like a champ. 

“Yeah, take it,” he pants out. His voice is a bit more moany than he’d like, but that’s his sex voice; he can’t get all gruff like Dennis can. He takes a firmer grasp and holds Dennis’s head while fucking deep into his throat for couple of seconds, then pulls out completely. Dennis gasps. He’s got drool on his chin and a wild expression, he’s looking at Mac like he managed to surprise him, and he’s very horny about it. 

Mac tries to keep cool even though he wants to shake a triumphant fist in the air. He gets Dennis back to his cock, “suck harder,” he instructs, and his voice breaks on the last syllable when Dennis does exactly that. “Ah, fuck.” He lets his head fall on the back of the couch, and starts fucking Dennis’s mouth in earnest, shallow enough to keep from making him gag, but including a couple of deeper thrusts every now and then. With the last one he feels Dennis moaning around his dick. He straightens up his neck and sees that Dennis is fully hard now, and his eyes have slid closed.

“You’re loving this, aren’t you?” he asks, happily plunging deeper once again. 

…

Dennis is so hard it’s getting painful, but he’s ensuring he doesn’t get any friction on his dick while he’s doing this. He wants to make it last, because oh boy, did Mac surprise him or what. 

His scalp is starting to sting, which is adding to the whole tidal wave of sensation: the stretch of the corners of his lips, the slick wet feeling of his saliva and Mac’s precome on his chin and cheeks, the tension on his throat every time Mac goes to town, keeping Dennis in his rightful place, choking on his dick. 

Oh fuck, he’s gonna come. He moves his hand from Mac’s muscular thigh and pinches himself in the forearm, trying to stop his orgasm. Not yet, come on, Reynolds, get a grip! But he’s feeling dirty, and debased, like he’s a fuckthing, and that’s a first, despite the number of people in the past acting as fuckthings for him. Mac and he had got up to some kinky stuff (he still gets a boner every time he remembers the day with the zipties) but Dennis with a face full of cock, pretending to be a rentboy or whatever Mac is imagining, that hadn’t made the list yet. 

Mac’s hips snap up involuntarily, making him gag for the first time. He expects Mac to start to apologize, but instead he looks utterly unrepentant, and he’s already manhandling him back to deepthroating. “Too much for you?” he asks cockily, the little shit. Dennis loves it.

As a reward, he drives himself further, trying to relax his throat around him, his nose buried in Mac’s treasure trail, and Mac makes a beautifully wounded sound. “I’m gonna come, Den, I’m gonna come...”

Dennis had planned to make Mac come all over his own chest, which is a classic in the Reynolds-McDonald household, but he feels inspired. He pulls back enough that only the head of Mac’s cock is in his mouth, and makes eye contact as best as he can, hoping he gets the message. 

“Oh, fuck,” Mac whimpers, and comes inside his mouth. Thankfully it’s not an overwhelming quantity, probably due to Mac’s ritual morning shower jerk-off. Dennis gets up from the floor, ignoring the pain on his knees as much as possible, and straddles Mac. He grabs his face, parting his panting mouth further with his thumb, and lets the come fall from his own tongue in heavy droplets into and around it. Mac is moaning as if he’s coming again, sticking his tongue out, just letting it happen. He swallows what he gets, and collapses back on the couch, catching his breath. 

“Jesus Christ! Jesus. Christ,” he gasps. Dennis is on fire, he needs to come so much, he grabs Mac’s hand and presses it against his rock hard erection. Mac blinks, shaking the stupor away, and stares at him. Schooling his face into a frown, he says: “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“...What?”

“That isn’t my problem, is it?” he says, caressing Dennis through his sweatpants with the knowing touch Dennis has grown familiar with in the past two months. It’s a very caring touch, too. He takes his hand away, however, and just sits back. “You sort yourself out. You can hump my leg, for all I care.”

…

Mac doesn’t really know how this is gonna play. But, hey, if Dennis doesn’t like it he can just apologize, blow him back or whatever Dennis wants. Everybody will be happy. 

But he wants to try this, see if he can push it, because Dennis is always in control of the narrative and that means he usually scripts their sexy times too. But he’d liked being bossed around, he’d been so good; Mac is still reeling from how good that blowjob had been. So, he wants to try to keep the reins for a bit longer, see if Dennis likes it. 

“You want me to… Jerk off, or something?” Dennis asks, eyes squinty(suspicious) again.

“I don’t know,” Mac says. He even pretends to check his phone, like he really doesn’t give a shit. “You’re the one with the hard dick. I already got what I wanted from you.”

Yeaaah dude, he’s really happy with his character! Fuck you Dennis, who’s good at acting now? Dennis is still evaluating the situation, and Mac is tempted to just give up and give him what he needs, because it must be difficult to think when you’re this horny, even if you’re as smart as Dennis. 

Dennis shakes his head, like he’s trying to clear it. He looks back at Mac and there’s a shadow of a smile that gives him the shivers. He’s still straddling him, kneeling too high above to actually get any friction. He looks dead into Mac’s eyes, lowers himself down until that’s no longer the case. Mac opens his legs a bit so he can ride him better, but he’s still trying hard to not change his expression. 

But really, if he had a tail, he’d be wagging it. 

Dennis grabs his shoulders more firmly, strokes them with his thumbs. The point where Mac’s thigh and hip are in contact with his hard cock feels like it’s two hundred degrees. Dennis grinds down, slow but deep, bites his lip. And then he drops a bomb. “ Please .”

Aaah, fuck! Mac can’t think of anything to say to stay in character. Dennis never, ever asks for things. It is very rare, even when they’re fucking, for him to say please this or that. That’s usually Mac’s gig. 

His phone vibrates in his hand, a message from who the fuck cares, but that gives him an idea. 

“Please what?” he asks. Dennis grinds against him again, harder. 

“Please, help me come,” he’s putting a little moan into it, keeps humping. 

“Tell you what,” Mac says, trying so hard not to smile, because, goddamn, he’s so pleased with himself. He’s a fucking genius, this is why he’s the brains. “You have…” he sets a timer in his phone, shows it to Dennis, “30 seconds. After that, I have shit to do, so you’re on your own, from… now.”

…

Dennis fucking loves this man. He can’t say it to him out loud yet, but he loves the everloving fuck out of him. He’s going to shower him with rose petals, he will take him to Guigino’s four nights a week. Never mind the Poconos, Dennis will set sail with him around the world.

He glances at the timer. 28 seconds now. 

Dennis gets going. He grabs onto Mac’s shoulders and starts grinding like a horny Jack Russell Terrier, not caring how it looks or what his face is doing. He’s just riding that muscular leg like his life depends on it, and the best part of this whole situation is, what happens if that timer goes off before he comes?

“Ah, fuck, goddamnit,” he grunts next to Mac’s ear. Mac’s not doing anything, he’s just looking at Dennis, trying to appear nonplussed, bless him, and occasionally reaching out to hold his hips so he doesn’t tip sideways. It’s not enough, and it’s too much, because Dennis wants to drag it out despite the deadline. 

He takes a glance at the phone and he can see he has 18 seconds now. He really wants to kiss Mac, get a filthy wet smooch to add to the sensations, but he’s not allowed, he can just get himself off as fast as possible, he’s lucky he has a leg to hump, after all he’s nothing, he’s a dirty little slut… 

“Shit,” he needs more. He probably has only 10 seconds left, but his eyes are screwed shut, face buried in Mac’s neck, he can’t see the timer. His dick is so wet that he can feel that the front of his pants is tacky. He risks a peek at the phone. Five seconds. 

Dennis gets a leg on the floor to get leverage and pushes Mac so he’s laying down on the couch, on his back. Dennis is back to straddling him, finally getting the angle right, stroking his clothed dick against Mac’s hips, and what a wonderful thing gravity is, because it’s allowing him to fall fully on top of Mac, and finally, there we fucking go! 

He’s coming for ages, ears full of static. The timer goes off, and it brings him back to Earth. Mac is trying to reach out for the phone to hit ‘end,’ but it fell to the floor when Dennis pushed him. Dennis looks down at his crotch - his grey sweats are so stained they’re sporting a huge dark patch. 

The alarm is still going off, but he doesn’t give a fuck. He falls down towards Mac’s chest, and Mac is there to catch him, arms around Dennis, rubbing his back very carefully so he doesn’t scratch off any scabs. Dennis bursts out laughing, partially out of breath and sounding slightly deranged. 

“Oh my god, Den, that was so hot!” Mac says, and then he’s laughing too, delighted. “You okay?”

Dennis tries to talk, but his throat is desert-dry. He swallows and tries again, but he can’t come up with any words to describe how he feels. He holds Mac’s face, kisses him, and again, and again. Things are slowing down now, the world around them feels like treacle, and they’re just floating away in it. 

He opens his eyes, with a degree of effort because his lids feel so heavy, like he’s high, and Mac is staring right back at him, smiling. 

“I did good, huh?” he says. Dennis nods, kisses him again. He’s feeling all soft now, and there’s an initial struggle with himself to just stay there, without finding something else to distract him, some other emotion to fidget with, instead of all this tenderness. He breathes in, feels Mac kissing him, and eases himself back into it. 

‘You’re good,’ he thinks, but can’t say the words. ‘You’re so good to me’. He tries to kiss the thoughts, not just onto Mac’s lips, but also his cheeks, his nose, his chin. Mac keeps giggling, maybe because he thinks Dennis keeps missing the target. 

Eventually, they get up. Dennis has to face the mundane task of wiping himself down and changing out of his stained clothes. When he comes back to the living room there’s a bottle of vitamin water on the table, and a small bowl with trail mix. Mac insists he has to drink and eat to replenish his electrolytes. 

Dennis gives him some shit about it, but he takes a gulp of the water - grapefruit flavored - and chomps down the food, for Mac’s sake. (Baby) Boy did good, after all. 

… 

They get to day seven of the chickenpox stretch, just trying to keep Dennis distracted, mainly, because he no longer gets a fever, and he’s not that itchy anymore, probably thanks to Mac’s awesome oat baths (even if it turns out you’re not supposed to just pour rolled oats into a hot bath, because they will turn it into a just a bath of gloopy oatmeal, and clog your tub and then you have to spend two hours scooping wet oats out of it while Dennis yells at you. He had figured out the right stuff, eventually, these powdered oatmeal packets to put in the water). 

Mac comes back from the gym one day, and sees Dennis rummaging through the DVDs he brought from Mahndo Video. Mac puts the gym bag in his room and walks back into the living room. For a while, he just wants to look at Dennis. He’s standing under a beam of sunlight coming from the window, and the light is making the lighter browns, and auburns, and (even if Dennis doesn’t like them) beautiful silvers in his wild curly hair shine. It’s also making his beard a rich chocolate brown. Dennis rubs his chin and jaw absentmindedly, and Mac can hear the raspy scratch from the other side of the room.

Okay, enough staring, he needs to touch now. Dennis looks so goddamn cozy too, black sweats and a blue t-shirt with a deeper blue hoodie on top. Mac stands next to him and Dennis leans in for a one-armed hug and a kiss. His clothes are warm from the sun, and he smells niiiice , he’s washed his hair and put on that honeydew hair mask while Mac was out. 

It’s so great to have this. He’s always thinking that, on autopilot, meaning, he’s happy with his life, so much happier than he had ever hoped. And it’s not like he was miserable before, because he’s never been one to cry and bitch about life. Mac is a man of action, always jumping to the next pressing thing at hand, like working the next scheme, or taking care of his mom, or trying to get chicks (granted, that was a long time ago), pursuing the infinite ways of the badass. But he never before had this level of… Argh, Dennis could probably come up with the word. 

Reminds him of what Charlie had in his childhood home. Not only a place to sleep, and get some meals, and keep your toys in, but a place to feel all cozy and safe. He remembers his own home as little more than four walls and a roof, always too cold or too hot depending on the season, always smelling like stale cigarette smoke. Always too silent. 

He shakes himself off, because he’s sounding a bit too much like a pussy inside his own head, and he’s not a man who dwells in the past. He’s a man that stares at his present in the eye and takes it for a totally badass yet tasteful dance, with an awesome final lift. 

“How was the exterior world?” Dennis asks. “Did you just go to the gym?”

“I went to see Charlie at the bar, too, he tricked me into helping him unload the kegs for the week, the little shit. I told him, dude, I haven’t even been here, it’s just you and Dee who polished off all this beer! Why should I shoulder booze I’m not even gonna get to drink?” 

“Hm,” Dennis grunts in disapproval. “I miss getting sloshed at the bar...”

“I know you do, bro, me too. What movies are you looking at?”

“This one’s good,” he’s holding a DVD case that has the Obi-Wan guy - young Obi-Wan - on the cover, and some other dude that looks more like a chick. There’s an electric guitar too, which does up the coolness. Mac remembers Carmen saying that the music was good, and the bands she was talking about all sounded right up Dennis’s alley, soft-core femme rock shit. 

But despite the probably inferior soundtrack, Mac is an excellent boyfriend and got the film for Dennis. He had been hoping they might never get to it, though, if he’s quite honest. Or that they could have had a Predator break between all these serious gay drama flicks. The last movie they watched was Rent, which was awesome because the songs were pretty solid (if you took out that corny-ass one about the stupid candle) and it was about people saying ‘fuck you’ to paying for shit. But it had also had AIDS, and gays dying, and that had sucked. 

“Yeah, we can watch it tonight. I might fall asleep though, I’m pretty knackered. Rex dared me to do more deadlifts than him and I nearly split my glutes in half on the way to victory.”

“No pain, no gain, bro,” Dennis replies, and then the son of a bitch grins and slaps his ass. 

…

Dennis is a genius, so he already knows Mac is going to love Velvet Goldmine, despite all the “early 80s glam-rock femme shit” comments (the heathen isn’t even getting the decade right). Because what the film lacks in beefcakes, or a decent American accent for Ewan McGregor, it makes up for with absolute rock bangers and gay, gay-ass love stories. 

He just hopes Mac will be able to power through the film’s über-artistic bits, the Oscar Wilde quotes, and the dramatic shots that are just there for the sake of being dramatic. 

“So what, am I supposed to believe Oscar Wilde came to Earth in a spaceship?” Mac quips as the movie begins. 

“No, of course not. It’s a re-imagining,” Dennis replies, shoving chips into his mouth. He’s really enjoying not having that sore on his gum anymore; he can eat all the salty and sweet stuff he wants (and shouldn’t be having) now. “Like, the characters are supposed to be David Bowie, and Iggy Pop, and Mick Ronson, but not really. They mix in a lot of stuff, but it’s supposed to be about, you know, the spirit of the age.”

“Hm…” Mac takes another swig of his beer. Dennis puts his hand out, silently requesting Mac to pass the bottle to him. He takes a sip before giving it back. He had been relieved to hear that antivirals didn’t lose effectiveness when mixed with booze. They had been getting him a lot more fucked up than usual, though, so he’s gotta be careful. But c’mon, he’s not going to deal with adult chickenpox and withdrawals. “You’re gonna have to keep explaining me shit, dude, I’m way out of my depth with this.”

For once, Dennis doesn’t mind. Probably because he’s already seen the film. He couldn’t watch it when it was released (wasn’t even on his radar, it being a very small British film), but he had come across it at Blockbuster when he was in college. The cover on the VHS had been rather  more inspiring than the DVD version Mac had gotten, featuring as it did a shirtless Ewan McGregor wearing silver pants. Dennis, who had always wanted to be a rock god, had been immediately drawn to it. 

On screen a young Jack Fairy has been kicked around by bullies at school. His lip is bleeding, and he uses the blood as lipstick, painting himself a fabulous red smile. 

“That’s badass!” Mac says. “I hope his dad doesn’t catch him doing that, though.”

“Why’s that?”

“Hm... Well, he’ll get chewed out. First off, this is supposed to be ages ago, so his parents are probably super homophobic, and he is not being subtle about it.”

“Well, he’s embracing the idea that he’s different,” Dennis frowns, looking back at his own past in his mind’s eye. “Dee and I used to play with our mother’s make-up.”

The TV speakers explode with Brian Eno’s “Needles in the Camel’s Eye,” if he remembers correctly. The lyrics soon confirm it. There’s a fantastic shot of the 70s youth running across London in platform shoes, covered in glitter. 

“Was your mom pissed off at you?” Mac asks. Dennis unglues his eyes from the screen, looks back at him. “For putting on make-up, or using hers,” Mac clarifies. 

“She didn’t give a shit. I think she was amused. Also, it gave her the excuse to fish more money out of Frank’s wallet to buy brand new cosmetics. Frank, on the other hand, had plenty to say about it. A whole book of colorful terms. It bothered me most of all that he would think me stupid enough to, I don’t know, wear it to school. You never played around with make-up as a kid, I imagine, since you’re still alive?”

Brian Slade, a.k.a. Maxwell Demon, is on screen, giving what was supposed to be his last performance, ended by a fake murder attempt. A necessary hoax to kill the character he’d created, an alien that was taking over his life. He’s wearing a shiny blue spandex catsuit, bejeweled and with a high feathered neck. His hair and lips are blue as well. There’s feathers falling from the ceiling, like pale blue snow. The whole scene is breath-taking. 

“Dad never laid hands on me,” Mac says, eventually. Dennis had nearly forgotten what they were talking about. Mac’s looking at the TV, coming more awake. “Hey, that’s Batman!” he says, finally recognizing Christian Bale when the film follows his character in 1984 New York, watching closely for a minute before finally continuing. “...Make-up wasn’t my thing anyway. But I remember that he didn’t let me keep my Cabbage Patch Kid.” 

“Really, Mac? Out of all dolls, you chose the absolute fugliest?” 

“I got it for Christmas one year. Well, I guess I Christmas-stole it from Nikki Potnik’s house. I can’t remember exactly what Dad said about it…” 

Their faces are turned toward the movie in silence, but Dennis is waiting for Mac to finish the story. “If he was anything like Frank, he probably said it was gonna make you queer,” he says. Mac’s face is scrunched, like he’s still trying to remember. “Anyways, fuck dads, they’re all shit.”

“Oh, that’s it! He asked me why I was playing with it, and I told him I wanted practice being a dad for when I grew up and got to have kids.”

Dennis is very tempted to stop the film. He nearly snaps his neck to look at Mac. “What?”

“Don’t freak out dude, I’m not gonna start filling papers to have a kid mailed over from China or whatever gay dads do these days,” Mac says, ruffling Dennis’s hair as if he’s a scared poodle. 

He wasn’t going to say anything, but Jesus fuck, is he relieved. 

“Then Dad said that chicks handle all that shit, and he grabbed the doll and put it in the trash.”

“What a dickhead.” 

Mac’s silence at Dennis’s insult feels like progress. His blind defense of his father has been losing steam since the Big Gay Dance Disappointment. Good. That piece of shit Luther can rot in hell, whenever he gets there, and he can keep a seat warm for Frank. 

“So, uh, what’s the deal with Batman?” Mac changes the subject, pointing at the TV with the hand holding his beer.

“He was at that concert when the guy in the leotard got shot, but he also had big homo fanboy feelings for him.”

“Oh?” He sounds completely awake at that. On screen a journalist interviews a young man, reporting on the new Glam movement. The guy has long hair, and is holding his girlfriend by the shoulders. 

“ So you're saying you're bisexual? ” the reporter asks. 

“ Yeah. I like boys. I like girls. They're all great. No difference, is there? Mr . BBC, ” he adds, with a cheeky defiance Dennis covets for himself. 

Not that he’s felt pressured to define himself in any way, at least not with the gang. If anything, he was expecting Mac to be more annoying about it, asking him about his specific labels, or finding excuses to define exactly how gay Dennis was at the moment based on certain practices. Instead, he seems to have taken Dennis’s walk on the wild side with the same happy-go-lucky approach that's been characteristic of him the last year or so. A bit don’t ask, don’t tell. 

The film carries on following Brian Slide through his underdog beginnings. Dennis really hopes Mac hangs in there and doesn’t give up on the movie, because if he remembers correctly, there’s a really good scene for him after all this. He knows he’s not gonna give a shit about Brian Slade, as his music is more on the dancehall side, and he’s just a skinny twink with big lips. In any case, the film is obviously way too slow for Mac, not nearly Thundergun enough to keep his attention. Mind you, this isn’t usually Dennis’s taste either, but he’s feeling nostalgic. 

“You would look good in those clothes, Den. You used to wear your hair a little bit like that.”

“What, like a mod?”

“No, man, I don’t even know what that is. I mean that little Bowie mullet you had going on, with the sideburns.”

“That was not a mullet, dude, get out!” Dennis protests, but he’s smiling. He should go find a picture from that era. “Also, you’re full of shit saying you liked that style. You crapped all over my spandex when you wanted us to be Chemical Taint, or whatever.”

“You looked good, that just wasn’t the direction I wanted to take the band in. I wanted us to be punk. Not that anybody else bothered to care, anyway…”

“Oh, speaking of punk, this is the bit I wanted you to watch.”

…

Mac has really been struggling with this one. Some of the songs are pretty good, for sure, but there’s too much backstory and time jumps for him to really follow or even care to try. The clothes are kinda cool, if you like that sort of thing, very Drag Race. It is definitelys an absolute bulge-fest, he’ll give it that much. He hasn’t seen this much dick-and-balls outline since the last time Charlie wore Green Man. 

But it’s not really doing much for him. He’s always been a beefcake kinda man, Dennis is the only skinny pretty boy he’s ever liked. And this Brian Slade jabroni has nothing on Den’s definition. Mac makes a mental note on getting back to massaging his pecs as soon as they get over the chickenpox. He has to keep his man nice and limber. 

At least Dennis is carbo-loading at last, he’s nearly polished off that bag of chips. Mac tries to stop staring, since he’s supposed to be paying attention and some punk shit is happening in the film. It was just hard to tear himself away from the ol’ ocular patdown. It’s funny. At some point in his life, he had started looking at Dennis, and it’s like his attention locked down on that. Like those Magic Eye patterns, at some point the vision of Dennis had just popped into Mac’s world, and from then on his eyes could not leave him in the background. 

His mind stops wandering because there’s an amazing guitar riff coming out of the TV, and then the drums join in, and with a piercing scream - “Loooooooooord….!” he’s screeching into the microphone - the Obi-Wan guy appears back on screen. He’s bare-chested and wearing black leather pants. He’s shoving his hand inside them, grabbing his dick, and when the camera changes angle he’s moved onto shoving the same hand into the back of his pants, fingering himself, or at least making it look like it. 

“What the fuck, dude,” Mac mutters. “Who is this animal?” 

He means that in the best possible way. 

“Curt Wilde,” Dennis replies. “Keep watching.”

As if he could do anything else! This guy is a powerhouse. He’s jumping around, oiling himself up and covering himself liberally with gold glitter. As he carries on jumping and screaming his song into the mike, a golden cloud flies off him. 

“Dude, this is fucking great, this is exactly what I wanted for Chemical Toilet!” but he has to stop himself. “Oh. Well, not this part,” Obi-Wan is stripping on stage. “Shower or grower?”

“It’s a bit of both, he probably has a nice dick in whatever stage. A dick for all seasons, in a way. Oh, this is the big finale, watch out,” Dennis warns, and in the film Curt Wilde breaks a bottle, or actually a fuckin’ Molotov cocktail, and flames break out in front of the stage. The guitar is deafening, and the drums are synchronised with the beating of his heart. 

“Wow,” is the only thing he can say, as the scene finishes and the movie goes back to the pretty boy. Dennis is grinning at him. 

“Told ya that you’d like it! The next bit is pretty boring, though, go get me one of those popsicles and then you can go ahead and fall asleep if you want. I’ll wake you up when Obi-Wan fucks Batman.”

“Dude, for real? You really can tell this film is European...”

He gets Dennis his popsicle (blue, the best flavor) and gets comfy, swapping their usual positions on the couch so he’s the one half-laying on top of Dennis. He reaches up and kisses his hairy face, wondering how it would feel if he didn’t have a beard himself. Food for thought. 

… 

Amazingly enough, Mac finishes the film without falling completely asleep (although Dennis is pretty sure he got a bit too relaxed on top of him during the parts when, admittedly, the pageantry went a little over the top, and definitely whenever the ex-wife was talking). They’ve brushed their teeth and Dennis is applying face cream to the parts he can reach that aren’t covered by stupid facial hair. 

“I can’t wait to get rid of all this,” he mutters. Mac rinses and spits one last time, dries his face on his towel. He’s opening his mouth like he’s about to say something, but then doesn’t, just smiling to himself instead. Dennis's eyes follow him as he leaves of the bathroom. “Amused, are we?” 

“I am, yes,” he hears from the bedroom. 

“Oh?”

“Cause that beard probably isn’t even itchy anymore. You just feel… I don’t know. Untidy, or something.” 

Dennis finishes his nightly skin routine and gives himself a last look in the mirror. He lifts his t-shirt to see his chest hair situation, and it’s not as bad as he feared, but it’s far from ideal. The extra hair makes his skin look even paler. At least he isn’t covered in brown scabs anymore - the only ones remaining are under his eye, and behind his neck. He’s very tempted to just pick that one off, since he can't be confronted by the sight of an oozing suppuration or future scar back there anyway. He’s already mercilessly picked at all the ones in his scalp, knowing he’ll be dead before he goes bald. 

“What’s your point?” he asks Mac, still staring at his own reflection. “So I feel like shit and I look like shit, what’s funny about that…”

Dennis hears a sigh, and Mac walks into the bathroom again, hands on hips, as if he’s saying ‘what’s this nonsense now?’ 

“You still look great, Dennis,” he says, addressing the reflection. “I mean, to start with, it’s really not such a big deal, but it does look great on you! You’re a total daddy.”

“Please, let’s not bring that character back… Do you really think so, though?” 

“Are you fishing for compliments?” Mac asks, getting closer, circling Dennis’s waist, resting his chin on his shoulder from behind. 

“What if I am?” Dennis turns towards him, nudging his head against Mac’s. A bit like a cat. He feels in a kitty cat mood sometimes, more and more since they’re together. God knows he’s got enough fur to pass for one now. 

“I like it,” Mac says, snaking one hand under Dennis’s shirt, caressing his belly and chest. He gets on his tippy toes and scratches his beard against Dennis’. “I like you all wild like this.”

Instead of getting excited, Dennis finds himself feeling an inconvenient wave of emotion, weirdly knocking loose a bit of compassion towards himself. He doesn’t choke up, or get teary or some shit, but his chest feels tighter. Mac still has a hand on his heart. “I like you when you shave, too. When you just had a haircut and your ears look a bit too big.”

“Hey,” Dennis protests, but there’s no bite in it. 

“I really like you when you’re dressed up for monthly dinner. I also wanna jump you when you’re dressed down, in your sweatpants, in your pajamas.”

“...But I’m not even your type, though,” Dennis says, because it’s been nagging him since they started watching the movie. “I’m more of a Brian Slade than a Curt Wilde, and I’m definitely not a beefcake. Never was.”

“So what? I’m a complex man,” Mac sees Dennis’s arched brow through the mirror, but he has the decency not to respond to it as a challenge. “And so are you.”

Dennis sighs. Doesn’t he know it. But recently, he’s been feeling that his complexities are there only to make a mess out of his life, to keep him from seeing the forest for the trees. Mac carries on stroking his chest hair, down to his stomach and back again. It’s so soothing. 

“You’re not wrong, you are different,” Mac says. “You’re like nobody else I know. It’s never simple, or boring, or quiet, when you’re around. You turn up the volume on my life.”

There’s something in there Dennis doesn’t want to shatter by asking for further explanations. A glimpse of a house that was too quiet, with people who never understood, never talked, never cared. He knows the feeling well, too, of everything going mute around you. Empty houses and empty eyes, watching over but not really seeing. 

Dennis turns around. Mac keeps his hand inside his shirt, caressing Dennis’s torso as he changes position, until it’s resting on his back. Their foreheads touch. Dennis leans forward and gives Mac a kiss. “Awww, thank you. You’re so sweet,” Mac says soppily. God, his smile. 

Dennis clears his throat. He doesn’t want to share this yet, but he has to, even if his whole body and mind are ordering him to shut it in. Even if he’s getting the fight or flight tingles. He kisses Mac again, to work up his courage. They’re slow, shallow kisses. Dennis reaches out so he can hold Mac’s face, covering his neck, jaw and cheeks. 

Dennis bites the inside of his cheek. C’mon Reynolds, just grow a spine. 

“I love you,” he whispers to Mac. His stomach is doing somersaults. The world, to his astonishment, doesn’t crumble under his feet. He breathes in, and on the exhale, it leaves his lips again, unrestrained and free: “I love you.”

Mac’s smiling. He’s smiling so much, and then he starts sniffling.

“Agh, sorry, I’m really happy, don’t take it the wrong way,” he says. His eyes are getting red. “I love you too, Dennis. I love you so much.”

Dennis wants to tell him he can let himself cry, they’re both kinda into it, but he just smiles back. It splits his face in two. He’s bursting with an exultant feeling. Mac surges up to kiss him, and he tastes a bit salty. Dennis hopes it’s not snot. 

He’s gonna move past it, though, and just kiss him back.

...

Mac wakes up the next day with a plan. They have two more days until Dennis can be declared completely chickenpox free, and he plans to use them well, because after that he knows real life will throw a roundhouse kick into the walls of their intimate little universe. 

He’s still reeling from Dennis saying that he loves him. Of course, Mac knew he did. He knows Dennis loves him, probably did when they were in high school too, only he hadn’t realized back then that they could have this. Social construction and internal homophobia will do that to you, Mac knows, because he’s gone through a number of pamphlets and he’s now a graduate of the University of (Gay) Life. 

But it had rocked his world to get to hear him say it out loud. Dennis could be so, so cute. 

So Mac’s gonna prepare something special. He needs to start with giving Charlie a call. He looks to his left. Dennis is lying on his back, with the duvet halfway down his chest, one arm thrown up over his head. He’d decided to go to bed only in his boxers. His current scruffiness only serves to frame his angelic other features, bringing them to the spotlight. He looks a little like this Saint Sebastian painting Mac saw when he was a kid, and for a while he just wants to stare in solemn admiration, as he had done with the painting. Dennis shifts, turning his back to Mac, and Mac’s thoughts abandon any religious inclination to start working towards “waking up” humping that ass. 

As he reaches out to spoon Dennis, he reminds himself again to call Charlie later.

He also needs to remember where he’s kept those little blue shorts. 

… 

“Charlie I swear to God, if you cut me again I’m going to put my goddamn thumb through your eye and you’ll have to go hang out with Liam McPoyle!”

“Calm down! You’re making me nervous with all the secrecy! I wasn’t expecting to have to help you out like this!” 

“You were just supposed to check out the situation! I know there was probably nothing back there! I don’t know why you had to get out the straight razor again, you’re just chopping me up at this point--”

“Well, excuuuuuse me! I guess your old friend Charlie doesn’t know what’s best anymore, hmm??? Go on back to your stupid fancy boyfriend, I’m sure he can help you.”

“...You know I can’t do that, this is supposed to be a surprise. If you’d let me explain--”

“--I don’t wanna hear about it, man, I never want to hear about any of it!” 

“...Fine. Just stop it, you’re done there. Okay,” Mac stands in Charlie’s god-awful mess of a living room, and turns around. “What do you think?”

“You look so fucking weird, man.”

“What? No, it’s gonna be good, this will work, I just need the outfit. It would all make sense if you’d just let me--”

Charlie cuts him off with a shriek he keeps up for two minutes straight.

“OKAY, Jesus, you don’t need to get like that! I’ll leave. And... thank you, Charlie.”

“Good luck, man. Again, I don’t care to know about it, but well wishes on your freaky shenanigans, and on never ever telling me about them. Great, okay, bye.”

…

Just two more days. Dennis runs a hand through his hair, pulls on a curl over his forehead that stretches all the way to his lower lip. Completely out of control, has Mac been spraying him with Miracle Gro? 

After he had woken up to a half-asleep Mac humping him with some rather impressive morning glory, they had fooled around in bed until late, giggling like schoolgirls. Mac had gotten especially carried away with the giggles, and with making a lot of suggestive eyebrow motions and winking at him as if they were in a torrid secret affair. 

Well, there was nobody really to keep anything from in their apartment, but Dennis had felt like humoring him anyway, winking back, saying “excuse me, sunshine” or “just a second, babe” in his suggestive lower voice whenever he passed by to grab a mug, or his journal. And since yesterday’s reaffirmations on how much Mac liked his disheveled look, he was putting on as much of a show as he could as he stretched, scratching his beard or ruffling his hair, and catching Mac staring every time. 

Dennis can feel it in the air, like static before a storm. They’re gonna have an epic bang today, he just knows it. This morning he had received some absolute top notch fingering (only spoiled a little by Mac running out of bed to wash his hands after Dennis came, exclaiming ‘oooops, brown alert!’, obscenely followed by ‘Dennis, my dick is gonna explode, come and jerk me off!’), and they had been absolutely crackling against each other for hours after. Dennis had found himself cornering Mac against the door as he was leaving for the gym, just keeping him there, staring him down. Mac had looked back, trying to keep on a serious face, but clearly hyper and horny. 

“Get the lube,” Dennis had told him, delighted as he watched goosebumps appear on his arms. He added for good measure, “Don’t take too long.”

“You’re gonna make me walk out of here with a boner,” Mac had said, a little breathlessly. “Again.”

Dennis could have offered to help him get rid of it before leaving the house, but where was the thrill in that? So he’d given him just a peck on the lips and then pushed him out of the door. 

While Mac’s been away, Dennis has cleaned himself thoroughly, taken his meds, and noticed the last of the scabs fell from under his eye during the night, as evidenced by the contents of their sheets. Now that he’s clean and he’s also eaten a banana and some toast, he’s getting impatient about Mac coming back. 

Right before he starts to undo his sweatpants to send him a dick pic and a ‘hurry up’ message, he hears the door opening. 

“About time,” he says, before turning and being rendered speechless. 

…

This could be a really bad idea. Catastrophic. But Mac’s made a decision, and he’s stuck to it. The worst that could happen is that Dennis laughs at him, and since Dennis laughs at stuff he does on a daily basis, he knows he’ll survive. 

He needs to also, once again, ask the Lord to help him play this cool. He’s not totally sure if God will be super happy about what Mac and Dennis are about to do - Mac’s still not 100% on the all-beloved-children-of-God argument, and even on the good days when he’s almost positive He’s cool with it all, he can probably admit that asking the big guy upstairs to help him with buttsex-related stuff is a little cheeky. 

But the whole thing would be so much better if he manages to do it just like in the pornos, with the guy being a bit clueless. He thinks Dennis will fucking love it. So Mac just needs to ignore how much he actually wants to plow, until he can start showing exactly how much he wants it, while making it look like it’s naughty. He jerked off in a public toilet before getting home, and he hopes that'll do the trick. 

Who knows, maybe it will all turn out to be for nothing and Dennis will actually be super put off by what he’s done. Mac does feel very strange, himself. 

Mac opens the door, finally, after stopping to take a deep breath. Dennis is standing up, checking something on his phone. He looks up, says “About time,” and then he actually looks at Mac like he’s nosy Wally for a second, before his jaw drops. 

“...Your beard .”

…

Flabbergasted doesn’t describe it. He doesn’t even know what to say, it’s been so long since he’s seen Mac’s bare face. 

“That’s so weird, dude,” he ends up saying, but it’s not, like, creepy-weird. It’s just. Weird. “Did you plan this?”

“What do you mean, of course I planned it,” Mac scrunches his face. “Is it really bad?”

Dennis honestly can’t decide. He gets closer. It’s so strange to smell the aftershave on him. His cheek is silky-soft to the touch. Dennis’s brain is having a hard time understanding this is Mac’s face, like it used to be, but not really. He still had some baby chub on his cheeks, last time he did anything like this. There’s a sharper jaw, now, and laugh lines here and there. Fewer than the ones he’s counted on his own skin, though, that’s for sure. 

He does look younger. Like, not in his twenties or anything, but younger than Dennis is. His new non-shitty hair styling helps. 

“You’re being really quiet, bro, it’s freaking me out,” Mac asks, smiling hesitantly. 

“Sorry, wasn’t my intention. I’m just drinking it in,” Dennis closes the distance to try a kiss, curious as to how it will feel now. Oh. Oh, that’s interesting. He does it again, and the electricity from this morning comes back into life a little. “Why did you do it?”

“I don’t know, just… You were upset about not being able to look the way you like to. So I wanted to do something to pull me out of my comfort zone too, even us out.”

Dennis feels he should be a bit upset about this. It’s… mollycoddling. It also assumes Dennis has some sort of schadenfreudian need to fulfill. That part isn't super far off, the feeling of leverage is nice. It is awfully kind of Mac to risk looking worse just so Dennis will feel better. 

However. This is Mac they’re talking about. There must be something in it for him somewhere. 

Dennis puts his Sherlock Holmes hat on, metaphorically speaking. 

“That’s very nice of you. I mean, you did have control over this, as opposed to my thing, so I’m not so sure about the comfort zone. But I guess I do need to give you points for going that extra mile,” he accepts. Mac beams at him, before stepping to the side and heading to his room. It’s still… eerie. Like having a stranger in the house. 

“Right, I have an idea for today,” Mac says from his room. “I wanna give the house a proper clean-up today.”

Well, that’s a bucket of yuck puddle over Dennis’s hopes for a mega bang. 

“Jesus. Why?”

“It’ll be nice, since we’ve been cluttering it up, staying inside quarantining you. And it will leave us tomorrow to do absolutely nothing before we have to go back to the bar.”

“Hm,” Dennis concedes. They have been pretty sloppy these past eight days, in general. There’s an abundance of dirty cups, glasses, and little plates with crumbs on them strewn about the apartment. “I’m surprised that Dee and Charlie haven’t been all up on your grill about staying with me and not helping out at work.”

“Oh, they have, though. I understand, they rely so much on me being there to play such an intrinsically important part of the bar dynamic. You know, as the cooler.”

He can’t help but roll his eyes back, but Dennis is still intrigued. His gut feeling is telling him to be on the lookout. Mac is still sorting stuff in his room. God knows what stuff is even there to sort through; maybe he’s dusting his crucifixes. 

“You don’t need to do anything though, Den. You should be resting anyway.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I wasn’t gonna do shit…” Dennis mutters. “What are you doing?”

“Just getting into something more comfortable, I don’t wanna get bleach on my Dickies.”

Dennis is about to launch a cunning strategy to make Mac forget all about cleaning, but then Mac steps into the living room again and Dennis’s brain short-circuits. For fuck’s sake, Mac needs to stop throwing him curveballs already.

“What are you wearing?”

It should be funny. It really should be funny, because c’mon. Those matching little shorts and tee? Why does he even still have those, that’s their track and field uniform from school for Christ’s sake. They are awfully snug on him, aren’t they? Mac’s taken off his boots, but he’s still wearing socks. Sports socks, actually, with little red stripes along the elastic. 

There’s something oddly twinky about this whole scenario. Or perhaps twunky. Mac isn’t young enough to look close to a 2003 Brent Corrigan, but he does look like a South Philly HIIT coach for cougars. Or he could be a late-in-life pool boy, like things hadn’t gone great for him and he’d needed to stick with that as a full time career, after his band broke up. 

“Oh, these? I’ve had them around for a while, and they’re just perfect for cleaning purposes.” Oh, Dennis has him, right there! Mac rehearsed that, he can just tell. “Plus, they give me so much leg mobility.”

“I bet they do.” Even Mac’s tacky shamrock tattoo looks different these days. Usually Dennis doesn’t even register it (he’s been trying to get Mac to remove it with laser beams like the others, because it’s so discolored and misshapen at this point, it kinda looks like his leg is moldy), but now it’s only making more evident how very short those shorts are. 

“You can just sit down, Den, it won’t take me too long,” Mac says, and Dennis expects him to just get going, but he’s just looking at him, like he’s waiting to see where he’s gonna sit down. Dennis gives him the benefit of the doubt, because that’s just standard procedure: you gotta see where the person is going to sit to make sure they’re not in the way. Maybe Mac really does just want to clean up, and needs to base his starting point on Dennis’s lounging choice.

“Sure,” he says, and sits down on the couch. He opens the magazine he has in front of him on the coffee table, for good measure. He hears Mac moving stuff in their cupboard, and for a second he really gives up on this having any other meaning, but then Mac comes back into the living room, broom in hand, and starts sweeping right in his line of vision. He’s also chosen to sweep with his back to Dennis, even though it makes for awkward routing. 

It’s the little butt wiggle that lets him know his fate is sealed. Mac definitely has a plan. 

…

Mac has a plan, and he’s gonna try to stick to it as much as possible, but the adrenaline from executing the plan might actually be his downfall. He feels tempted to divert from his brilliant and carefully laid-out steps at any second, but he does his best to stretch out his attention span, and carry on with: 

1. Twink-i-fy self. 
2. Clean around like in that scene in My Own Private Idaho, but make it sexy.
3. Turn honest-to-god cleaning act into Naughy Cleaning Boy act.
4. Drive Dennis mad with desire to bang. 
5. Bang. 
6. Repeat bang (if applicable). 

So far, so good. Dennis had been okay with him shaving. He hadn’t seen yet how much he had shaved, actually - Mac didn’t do his legs since he isn’t really that hairy on the thigh, and also, it will make the unveiling of his chest that much more of a reveal. 

He’s making a show of sweeping around, making sure to showcase a lot of ass, without making it tacky. When he peeps out of the corner of his eye (challenging as this is for him, he’s a master of stealth) he can see that Dennis is watching him. He’s still on the same magazine page. Mac finishes with the floor, and gets all the plates and mugs and shit from the table, taking the moment of real actual tidying up to calm himself down. The anticipation isn’t quite getting to him yet, but those shorts leave very little to the imagination, and the minute he starts to swell Dennis is gonna know he’s up to something. 

Mac takes everything to the kitchen, grabs the broom again and sweeps the rest of the living room. He has the mop ready, and he makes sure to go from the kitchen to the TV stand, finishing around the table and the couch. He asks Dennis to lift his feet, mops underneath them, and then makes a show of appraising his handywork. 

“Right, I guess now I have to wait for it to dry,” he says, making sure Dennis is listening. He’s stopped even pretending to read the magazine, and he’s looking right at Mac. Good.  “I’ll just sit down for a bit.”

“Yeah, take a seat, baby,” Dennis says, and there’s a glint in his eye that makes Mac feel kinda like a mouse in front of a cat. “You’ve been working so hard…” he adds, which has a chance of being sarcastic, but he’s saying it with a serious face, getting a bit closer to Mac. “Going to the gym too, keeping nice and tight.”

Oh, God, compliments. Mac feels a blush creeping from his neck up, tries to fight the smile that is threatening to spoil his oblivious boy charade. He rubs his neck, as if he’s just embarrassed, looks away and says, “Gee, thanks for noticing.” Bites his lip for good measure, even though he thinks it might be overkill. “I feel pretty sore after today, actually.”

He’s recycling his Coach Murray's seduction plan from back when a bit, but he did put the technique to the test several times in the Rainbow raging days, when he first came out, and it’s solid, so no reason why he shouldn’t give it another go here and now. 

“Do you?” Dennis asks. “Where are you sore?”

Mac opens his legs, as sluttily as he can without going straight to ‘insert here’, grabs his inner adductor and says “Here,” still trying to sound shy.

“Oh?” Dennis scoots closer, and now their thighs are touching. “I’ve pulled that muscle myself many times. Let me take a look at it.”

Mac swallows, and it’s not even part of the script. His throat is going dry. Dennis is all curls and scruff and deep voice next to him, and he’s reaching out with his big beautiful right hand towards Mac’s inner thigh, pushing his own hand away. Dennis is definitely onto him by now, but he’s playing along, locking eyes with him, hypnotizing him like the snake from Jungle Book. He squeezes softly and Mac has to bite his lip for real.

“Is it tender?” Dennis asks. Mac nods, mentally ordering his dick to stay down. “How did you hurt yourself?”

“I was trying to get more flexible,” Mac says and gives Dennis his most powerful puppy eyes. 

Dennis smirks, he’s still squeezing and caressing Mac’s thigh, his thumb stroking a bit underneath the shorts. “That’s commendable. I’d like to see how flexible you are.”

Mac is really not that flexible at all, but he tries to imagine that he’s not himself, he really is this oblivious twink guy that fancies Dennis, who’s like a hot but more mature man than him, and the possibility of them banging is not the inevitable thing it is, but something that really really depends on him, like, luring Dennis. “Oh,” he says, “I think I could put it to the test for you sometime, if you want.”

Dennis is leaning into him more, and Mac realizes that he’s smelling him, nose hovering over his neck, before letting out a satisfied growl. Like Mac smells good enough to eat. He’s gotta get out of there, or he knows he’ll soon be happy to ruin his own plan for a quick fuck on the couch. He clears his voice, saying casually:

“Oh, would you look at that, the floor is dry now.” He gets up and grins like mad as soon as his face is turned away from Dennis. “I’ll just quickly get the kitchen done.”

…

It’s hard to tell what their characters are supposed to be, so far. Dennis has established there’s a role play that involves, if not an age gap, an experience gap. Mac is acting more naïve (with a heavy-handed side of sluttiness), and sort of leaving space for Dennis to fill a more mature, slightly predatory role. 

The thing is, he really is cleaning, which gives the whole thing an added dimension of verisimilitude, and Dennis certainly can appreciate that level of commitment. Mac’s taken the Lysol bottle out of the kitchen cabinet and is scrubbing surfaces, putting tableware and cutlery away and sweeping and mopping there too. It looks like Mac’s trying to get the real cleaning out of the way before doing his next bit, so Dennis watches him from the couch. 

But, to be honest, Dennis is stirring up just watching him clean, which is a first. He’s always felt satisfied like a lazy cat when Mac decided to clean the house, because it meant Dennis didn’t have to do it. But now he’s seeing this in a different light, the sweat making its way down Mac’s forehead, the small dark patches of it gathering under his armpits, where it makes his t-shirt stick to his back. The t-shirt’s sleeves are very tight on Mac’s muscles. At some point he lifts it to dry his forehead with, and Dennis dries out his eyes trying to find out if he’s seeing what he thinks he’s seeing. 

He gets up and stalks towards the kitchen, silently, and leans on the door-frame. Mac’s doing the dishes, as efficiently as he’s done everything else. Dennis steps behind him, braces himself on the counter, caging Mac in. Mac jumps a bit, to Dennis’s delight. “You’re really working up a sweat there, eh?” he murmurs against his ear. He’s starting to smell muskier, adding to a symphony of manly scents: the aftershave, his rosemary soap, the deodorant he steals from Dennis. 

Mac is scrubbing a glass. “Do you need anything? Am I in your way… Mr. Reynolds?”

Dennis grips the counter harder. His crotch is about half an inch away from Mac’s ass, from those stupidly snug blue shorts. “No baby, you’re doing great,” he growls. Mac opens the tap to rinse the glass, and the water bounces off it awkwardly, splashing all over him. Dennis gets some droplets on his cheek and hair. Mac’s startled into backing that ass full into his crotch, giving him some delicious friction. Dennis wants to bite the flesh between his neck and shoulder. 

“Sorry, Mr. Reynolds, I… I got all wet,” Mac turns around, and Dennis sees the outline of his dick through the sodden shorts. Mac’s getting hard, and Dennis hasn’t even touched him that much. He gets stiffer under Dennis’s watch, and is doing a pretty decent job of looking embarrassed. Only the shadow of a smile betrays his act. 

“Oh my. We’re gonna need to get you out of those.”

…

Yes! Yes please! Peel them off of me, just rip ‘em right off. 

Mac tries to clear his head. The cold water should have done that, kill his boner a bit. But he had felt Dennis stalking him like a panther, and then his heat was right there, trapping him against the sink, but not touching him. Mac could feel him smelling him again, like he was a werewolf, or some other wild supernatural beast. His hair is falling over his eyes as he stares at Mac’s dick, straining against the wet shorts. 

“I still need to do the bathroom… I might get wetter, after all,” Mac says, about ready to just give up the innocent act. He’s been dying to get a leg over Dennis since this morning, and he’s always been a man with so much pent-up longing for this bastard, now right in front of him.

“I don’t know, sweetie, those look very uncomfortable,” Dennis says, licking the corner of his mouth, so sexy. His beard is framing his lips now, drawing attention to them. Like Mac needs the encouragement. 

“It isn’t that bad,” Mac takes hold of Dennis’s hand, still on the counter behind him, and decides to fully jump into Step 3, guiding his palm to cup him over the shorts. “See? They’re really not that wet,” he adds, a bit out of breath under Dennis’s touch. 

Dennis is breathing hard too. He’s keeping his hand still, just feeling Mac’s dick get harder against it. It’s so weird, because basically nothing is happening, but it’s still crazy intense between them. Dennis’s other hand moves away from the counter, snaking around towards Mac’s ass instead. 

“You’re right,” he says, in that hard whisper of his. “Not too bad, they’re bone-dry in the back,” he strokes across his glutes and Mac can’t help letting out a little horny sound. Dennis ignores it, and after another moment that feels thick with how hot they are for each other, he moves away. “I’ll let you carry on, then.”

Mac clears his throat, his heart is racing. “Thank you, Mr. Reynolds.”

He’s really pleased with himself for adding that touch. He’s definitely seen that Dennis has enjoyed being called by honorific in the past, when they’ve been out and about, by servers or valets. A little bit too much, in Mac’s opinion, especially when they were hot. He’s gonna make that work for him tonight.

Mac makes a short work of tidying his room, going through the motions from years of routine. He quickly grabs the lube he bought while he was out, hiding it as best as he can as he walks into Dennis’s bathroom. He throws a look over his shoulder, to make sure Dennis is going to watch him. He’s not even going to bother with the bowl, he stores the lube in the cabinet, and then he’s just bending over, scrubbing the bathtub good. He really gets in there, ass in the air, and he keeps looking over his shoulder to Dennis, who is watching him from the door, rubbing his jaw like he’s deciding what to do with him. 

Time for the finale. He grabs the shower head, runs the water nice and warm and clears all the lather and scum from the tiles and tub. Once everything is clear he makes it look like he wants to put the shower head back on its hook but doesn’t quite reach, making some frustrated noises. 

“Sorry Mr. Reynolds, I can’t seem to get it up,” he resists the urge to wink at Dennis because, get it? Get it up, like his dick! “Can you get it up for me?” 

Ah, damnit, he’s winked. Oh well. Dennis rolls his eyes at him, but he’s smiling and getting closer, stalking him like prey. “You’re a young man, you shouldn’t have any trouble getting it up,” he says. God, Dennis is so good at words, man. “Let me just give you a hand.”

Mac still has his left hand on the tap, and once Dennis has hooked the shower head, he opens it. Water falls all over Dennis’s face and chest, soaking his t-shirt. He jumps away, but too late, Mac’s job is done. He closes the tap and goes to Dennis, pretending to be repentant. 

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Mr. Reynolds, I must have slipped” he says, but he tries to say it like he isn’t sorry at all, like he’s a naughty boy. “I could help you out of those wet clothes?”

Dennis looks good enough to eat, his t-shirt is sticking to his chest, and he’s ruffled his hair even more trying to get the wet strands out of his face. He smiles at Mac and bites his lip, which has always been a weak spot for him. It makes him want to bite it too, pull it from between Dennis’s teeth. “Well, help me out then, honey,” Dennis says. Mac reaches out and grabs the wet t-shirt, lifting it away. Dennis lets him peel it off him, and with his arms up like that he reminds Mac of Saint Sebastian again. His nipples are stark pink against the dark hair on his chest. 

“I think you should take off your pants too,” Mac tells him. His eyebrows kinda get out of control and do a brazen waggle. Dennis snorts, but man, they’re in business. 

“I don’t know, they feel pretty dry to me…” he says. “Tell you what, I’ll take mine off, if you get out of your wet clothes too.” 

Mac pretends to think about it. “I guess that’s fair,” he agrees, and takes off his shirt. He’s pretty excited about the chest reveal, he hopes it’ll be even better than his last one. 

Judging by the way Dennis is staring at him, he totally succeeded. 

“Good. What about your pants?” Dennis asks, dropping his to the floor. He’s standing there in his black tight boxers. Mac follows his treasure trail and his eyes land on the increasing bulge underneath, widening before jumping back up as he slaps his forehead in fake surprise. 

“Oh, will you look at that! They must have dried out while I was cleaning the tub.” They actually are still a bit damp, but they look superficially dry. Regardless, Mac is hard, and Dennis is zeroing on his boner, making him go even harder. 

“I bet you they’re gonna be soaking wet in the next ten minutes. You might as well take them off now.”

Before Mac can start to ask what he means, Dennis has closed the gap between them, and is reaching out to touch Mac’s shaven chest. He spreads his fingers, rubbing his pecs, his nipples, just the way he knows drives him crazy. Mac holds onto Dennis’s hips, really trying his best to not just grab his dick. Dennis strokes his chest, fingers petting down to the patch of skin below his belly button. 

“Mr. Reynolds,” Mac breathes out, “what are you doing?”

“You’ve been dying for me to touch you since you came here,” Dennis replies. “Parading around in those tight little shorts, shaking your ass at me. You know what you’re doing.”

Fuuuck yeah he does!

“I- I don’t know what you mean.” Dennis is grabbing his ass now, bending down and kissing his chest, licking from one nipple to the other. He looks at Mac from under his eyelashes before rubbing his beard against one of them, and Mac’s knees buckle. “Ah!”

“What are you saying, baby boy? You don’t want me?” Dennis gets a hand on Mac’s hard-on, gives him a squeeze through the blue shorts. “Because this is telling me otherwise.”

“It… it feels good,” Mac admits, God, his hips are going on their own, humping against Dennis’s hand. Dennis turns them around so Mac’s closer to the sink. He pushes him until his ass touches it, and then gets his hands under his thighs and fuckin’ lifts Mac up, propping him on the counter. That’s so fucking hot, he’s always the one carrying Dennis around (which he doesn’t mind, he loves it) but this makes Dennis seem so butch. 

He’s giving Mac one hell of a heated stare, as he stands there between his open legs. Mac rests his hands on his shoulders. One creeps up to Dennis’s hair of its own volition. He licks his lips, staring at Dennis’s, hoping it will be enough of a hint. 

“You want a kiss?” Dennis asks. “You gotta ask for it. Nicely.”

“Please, kiss me, Mr. Reynolds,” Mac begs. “I think about it all the time.”

Dennis gives him a punishing kiss, all teeth and tongue and burning lips. It’s so passionate, they are so good at this! Mac might bust a nut just from their performance alone. Or from the whisker rash he’s already getting, his face and lips are tingling. If this is how that feels, he might have to get himself some beard oil, to make it easier on Dennis’s skin in the future. 

“You asked so nicely, you deserve a reward,” Dennis says, before sinking to his knees. He nips at Mac’s inner thighs, sucking a hickey at the edge of the shorts, making Mac moan. He then starts mouthing at his cock over the pants, soaking the cloth with his saliva, pressing with his tongue up and down the length, closing his mouth around the head and drooling on it. His lips are shiny with spit. He wipes them with the back of his hand. “Are those wet enough now to get rid of?”

… 

Mac nods shyly at him. He’s faking it, of course, but he’s not doing a bad job at it at all. His face is flushed and his pupils are blown out, the eyelids hooded with arousal. Dennis wishes he had his phone with him to take a pic. He finally peels the little shorts off, Mac lifting his ass from the counter to help, and now he’s sitting there in his underwear and socks.

“Are you gonna be good for me?” he asks. Mac nods again. “Stay still.”

He goes to the living room to get his phone, hiding it behind his back. “Close your eyes. Get your cock out of your underwear,” Mac, forever trusting, obeys. “Put your hands behind your head.”

Dennis snaps a picture. “Open your eyes,” he takes another. 

“Mr. Reynolds, what are you doing?” Mac asks, flashing him a devastatingly handsome smile. 

“Just keeping a few souvenirs. But who knows, if they end in the wrong hands…”

“Oh, please! We wouldn’t want that to happen!” he exclaims, flexing slightly. Dennis takes another pic. “I’ll do anything, Mr. Reynolds.”

“Good boy.” He gets rid of his black boxers, standing naked in front of Mac, who hasn’t moved his arms yet, still waiting for Dennis to give him permission. He doesn’t. He closes the distance, extends his hands to touch his nipples again, rubbing them softly with his thumbs. Mac makes a high pitched sigh, shifting his hips. Dennis kisses him again, licking into his mouth, nice and slow like he’s seducing him. Mac’s arms are trembling, but he keeps them in place. 

His neck is so warm under Dennis’s mouth, and smells and tastes like that aftershave, the vague tinge of alcohol-base product bitter in his tongue, but adding pleasantly to all the sensations. He bites the space between neck and shoulder, like he wanted to before, pinching his nipples again. He feels like his character would want to make things good for Mac, make him crazy for it, to ensure he’s amiable to whatever comes next. 

“You think about kissing me all the time, eh. What else have you been thinking about?” He traces his shaven torso with careful, nearly torturous, fingers. Mac licks his lips, eyes following the patterns Dennis’s hands are tracing. 

“I’ve been thinking about you fucking me,” Mac’s voice is shaking along with the tremor in his arms which he’s still dutifully holding up. 

“That’s pretty bold. But honesty should be rewarded, so here, you can do whatever you want with your hands now,” Dennis concedes. Mac reaches out immediately to his lover’s dick and the damp hair on his head, pulling him into another kiss, stroking him. His touch rips a strained sound out of Dennis, a moan that he tries to hold back but ultimately has to let out, and Mac greedily laps it up, straight from his lips, which he’s kissing, and kissing, and kissing. 

Dennis’s hands grab his arms, pressing on the muscles bulging there, his hands trace a ladder up his shoulders, his neck. His fingers find their way into the short hair at the nape. They’re just panting into each other’s mouth at this point, too excited to have a remotely coordinated kiss. “Where…?” Dennis asks, Mac barely lets him get the word out before answering “Here,” sliding off the sink until he’s standing up again.

“Here? You sure?” They’ve fucked in the bathroom before - they’ve fucked everywhere in that house by now, there really aren’t a lot of firsts left. Actually, the last time they did it in the bathroom it was Dennis taking it in the shower. But this time Mac turns around, pressing his ass against Dennis’s erection as he bends over for a second to open the sink’s cabinet and hand Dennis a bottle of lube stored there, before assuming the position, making eye-contact with him through the mirror. 

Oooh shit. Yep, never done that one. Goddamnit, he wishes he had a camera set up in here, so he could keep the double image of them fucking for posterity. He keeps his eyes on Mac’s while he leans in, chest-to-back, and bites his right ear. Just a teensy nibble. Mac’s eyes roll back in his head and he breaks out in goosebumps. 

“How clean are you?” Dennis asks, then kisses the freckles in his shoulders, following a pattern as if he’s joining the dots of new constellations. He’s caressing his ass, getting a nice handful, uncapping the lube bottle with his other hand. 

“I really got in there earlier today, should be good to go.”

“Where did you do this?”

“Gym showers.”

Dennis knows their gym has individual facilities, but he lets himself imagine for a second they were shared showers, that Mac’s been so eager to get fucked by him that he cleaned himself right there in front of all the other dudes. His dick is twitching against Mac’s ass. When he moves away there’s a smear of his precome there. He knows his knees are gonna scream bloody murder at him later, but he kneels on the tiles anyway, spreads Mac open and gives him a rewarding lick that make his legs buckle. 

“Oh no, Mr. Reynolds, you can’t,” Mac moans, super phony. He’s clearly fucking loving this, but his commitment to playing the shy infatuated boy toy is remarkable. He’s squirming away from Dennis’s tongue, but he holds him in place, bites both cheeks. “Steady…” he orders, before getting back in there, licking him all the way from his balls, broad sweeps of his tongue, and it only dawns on him at that moment: “You’ve shaved here too.”

Mac lifts his head from the cradle of his crossed arms to look at him through the mirror, nodding, with a smile so smug Dennis has to slap his ass, he just has to. “Ah!” he gasps, but doesn’t lose the smile, the cheeky little shit. 

Dennis gets hold of Mac’s cock, guiding it into his mouth from behind, enjoying the startled - and delighted - noise he gets out of him. He’s so wet too, Dennis doesn’t linger, Mac could come just like this. He gets up with a degree of effort, and drops a nice amount of lube on his hand, smearing it all over is dick, spilling some more over Mac’s asshole and goes for it with two fingers, first pressing around it, circling and stroking down to his taint, before pushing inside him. Mac can’t seem to hold his head up, he’s biting his forearm and has his face contorted with pleasure. So happy with so little, Dennis thinks, pressing forward, stroking in and out for a while, caressing his back with the other hand, like he’s a nervous horse. He really isn’t, he’s already pressing his ass down, driving Dennis’s fingers deeper into himself. 

He reaches up to Mac’s hair, gets a hold of it and pulls so he’ll prop himself on his elbows, on the sink, looking at himself in the mirror getting fingered. Dennis curls the two fingers inside of him, hitting the bullseye, judging by Mac’s frantic hip thrusts. He’s not making a lot of sounds. Not yet, anyway. His mouth is half open and he’s looking at Dennis with heavy lids and dark pupils.

Thank fuck for the lube because Dennis can’t find a lot more patience in him to prep Mac further, he spills a godawful amount of it on his cock and on Mac’s ass, swipes the head of his dick over his crack, pushes Mac’s buttcheeks together against his cock and rubs himself against the crease a couple of times. He can’t make Mac wait any longer. He positions himself and drives in slowly, fighting to keep his own eyes open against the pleasure so he doesn’t miss any of Mac’s facial expressions while he bottoms out inside him.

He gets nearly all the way in, allows himself a couple of shallow thrusts, and Mac’s breathy moans are allegros and adagios in his ears. However, he stays just there, knowing it won’t be long until Mac gets pushy for more.

“More,” Mac requests, like clockwork. Dennis gives in a little, just half an inch more, before going back to the gentle fucking. 

“I don’t know if you can take it,” Dennis says. “I don’t want to hurt you, baby, you’re gonna have to let me know just how much.” 

With that, he moves his hands again from Mac’s hips, resting them on the counter instead. Mac doesn’t linger, pushing back to get more of Dennis’s dick in him, but he doesn’t have the leverage to do it properly (and Dennis is purposely not cooperating). After a while he huffs a frustrated noise. 

“Please,” he begs. He’s so far gone his expression is more pissed off than anything else. Dennis smirks at him. 

“Please what?” 

“Please, fuck me harder!” He doesn’t sound like he’s asking at all. More like demanding, and Dennis appreciates that too. After a beat, Mac hastily adds “Mr. Reynolds.”

“As you wish,” he concedes, grabbing his shoulders and snapping his hips, burying himself up to the hilt, to Mac’s high-volume delight. He gets a nice rhythm going, long, powerful thrusts that reduce them both to a moaning, hard-breathing mess. 

He stops for a second, burying his whole length into Mac until his pubes are pressed against the small of his back, one hand cupping his abdomen, because he’s gone so deep he could almost feel his dick pressing out there from within, and Mac fucking screams. 

…

He could pass out, he could die, he could be smited by God and all his archangels right now, and he would go a happy man, Jesus fucking Christ have mercy. Dennis is drilling into him, eyes fixed on Mac’s face through the mirror, and his expression is hard and intense, nearly unforgiving. But if the punishment is getting plowed like this, Mac will find out what he did wrong and make sure to be a repeat offender. 

Dennis’s hand is sliding from his shoulder to his chest, searching for his nipple, rubbing the palm against it roughly. Only the sink’s cold ceramic against his dick is keeping him from coming, and a sudden slap on his ass puts that to the test. Mac grinds his teeth and holds it, but it’s so tough, because Dennis has a big dick, and he knows how to fuck him hard without making it hurt. He also has the stamina to keep it going for so long; Mac usually comes embarrassingly soon. It does things to him to be submissive like this - well, he’s usually pretty submissive, in the sense that giving Dennis what he wants is what gets him off the most, but this way he can really feel at Dennis’s mercy. And his mercy is not something that’s always on the table. The uncertainty sends shocks of pleasure all over his body. 

Mac knows it’s a fucking lost battle with him looking like that, goddamnit, he really looks like a total fucking daddy, he doesn’t even like that term, but hnnnng, Mac can see the grey in his beard and in his curls and it’s working for him, he’s feeling his hairy belly on his lower back, his pubic hair touching his ass with every thrust. And he’s catching glimpses of himself in the mirror, he’s not looking too closely, but the overall image is of a mature Dennis fucking a younger version of Mac, making a fantasy long held feel like a sudden reality.

He gets so close to coming he panics a bit, blindly reaching for Dennis’s hand on his chest, and guiding it to his cock. “Please, please, I’m gonna come,” he says, slurring the words, he feels drunk with want and need. Dennis gets the memo, thank God, and presses on the base of his cock, slowing down his thrusts at the same time. They’re both slick with sweat all over, Dennis leans over his back, gives him clumsy kisses on his shoulders, “Calm down,” he breathes against his shoulder blades, “I’m not gonna last long if you… if you’re like this.”

“Huh?” Dennis doesn’t answer him, instead nuzzling against the back of his head, and then he’s grabbing onto his hips, slamming inside of him once again. Mac’s vision goes white for a second, and he has one, two, three more thrusts that he feels in his teeth before coming all over the sink and the bathroom mirror, uttering a half-choked “Dennis!”

Dennis pulls out of him, looking like he’s gonna have a heart attack. He wipes the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand, signals with his head at the splashes of come in the mirror. 

“Lick it,” he orders Mac, who obliges, licking sloppily, fogging the mirror with his agitated breath. Dennis turns him around when he’s happy with his work and gives him a deep kiss, holding his face almost reverently. He’s still hard. Hell, Mac’s still hard, and he just came his brains out. 

“Come here,” Dennis says, taking his hand, the bottle of lube and pulling Mac down as he sits on the bathroom rug, back to the side of the bathtub. Mac straddles him, waiting for Dennis to lube up and position his dick against his ass. He takes it again, sitting down on it carefully, because he just got one hell of a pounding, but it’s all good, they’re both nice and slick, and his dick is twitching again. 

Dennis is fighting to keep his eyes open, making these beautiful girly moans, which means he is far gone.  There’s no role-play there anymore, no method, he just needs to get off. Mac rides him, finding the rhythm Dennis likes, really going off like he’s giving a lapdance his rent depends on. Dennis has a hand curved around the side of his neck, his thumb resting on his cheek, touching the corner of his mouth. Mac turns his head, sucks it into his mouth at the same time as he grinds down. He’s feeling that dick rearrange his guts, but the look on Dennis’s face is worth it. 

“Beautiful,” he says, staring at Mac, breath hitching. Mac bends down, kisses him as best as he can mid-thrust, burying his hands in his hair.

“I love you,” he tells him, and Dennis grabs onto the back of his neck, his hips give a powerful thrust up and he’s coming inside, lifting his hips off the floor, and lifting Mac as well with the strength of his orgasm. Dennis collapses back down, but a last spasm that buries his dick deep one more time tips Mac over, and before he realizes it he’s coming again.

...

He’s come so hard that the pressure around his dick from Mac’s second orgasm is almost too much. It makes him shiver violently, skin pebbling on his thighs and arms. Mac looks so pretty, he’s pink in the face, dripping with sweat that makes his hair lose its hold, falling damp over his forehead. 

They both need about ten full minutes just to get their breath back. Mac lifts his hips away from Dennis’s softening cock, and just falls on his back on the tiled floor, wincing a bit. 

“That bad?” Dennis asks him, nudging him with his foot. 

“Nah, the floor’s just cold as fuck.”

He snorts. “I almost forgot your years of training with a ten-inch dildo bike.”

“Dude. Nothing could have prepared me for a fuck like this. Congratulations.”

“Likewise, my good sir.”

When the sweat gets too chilly on their skin they stir, bones aching both from the sex and from sitting down too long on uncomfortable surfaces. Mac starts the shower and jumps in. “Or would you prefer a bath?” he asks Dennis. 

“Let’s save that for the Poconos,” he replies, joining him under the deliciously warm stream. “Thank you, by the way,” he wraps his arms around Mac’s waist and gives him a squeeze, pressing his face against his shoulder blades.

“Dude, thank you! I tried so hard to come up with a plan, but I wasn’t sure what the angle should be, and you’re usually better at coming up with these things. It was awesome though, right?”

Dennis nods, and lets Mac rant away. He didn’t mean the role-play, but that’s okay. He’ll try to tell Mac what he meant at some other point. For now it’s good to just stand there under the shower with him, not even trying to fight his smile, even though he knows it’s a very goofy one.

…

It takes them a month, but they finally make it to the Poconos. They’re able to get the honeymoon lodge again, and even though it’s a little warmer now, they definitely still soak in the hot tub outside while they watch the stars, like those Japanese mountain monkeys. 

They’ve gotten to the mushy stage, all lovesick looks and wandering hands, and Dennis feels he’s three seconds away from getting his underwater handjob, before something lands on the tub, splashing away. 

“What the fuck is that?” Mac screams, nearly jumping out. Dennis grabs the floating thing. It’s pink, and bigger than a basketball. Two pineapple ring eyes stare back at him. 

“Rum ham,” he sighs, already resigned. As fucking expected, the familiar hellish symphony of three voices yelling over each other soon reaches their little mountain-top paradise.

“Dennis! You had to go and get the most expensive lodge, you weasley son of a bitch!”

“Cat food, Charlie?? You left my clothes behind and filled my suitcase with fucking disgusting cat food?”

“Oh my God, quit yapping already, Dee! I have your clothes right here!”

“They’re in a garbage bag, Charlie! A used garbage bag!”

“That was good enough for me, why isn’t it for you?!”

Mac has just sunk further down, closing his eyes and sporting a defeated expression that probably matches Dennis’s. 

“You told her about the trip,” Mac says. It’s not a question. He sighs and opens his eyes again, reaching out for the rum ham. He tears off a big chunk, then splitting it in two and offering half to Dennis, who takes it and sinks back down too.

“Dee, you fucking bitch.”

FIN