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i.
The first time it happens, it's almost an accident.
Weirdly – maybe the most weird thing about it – is that it doesn’t even take place in the apartment. They’re at the bar, way after last call. It’s more morning than night by this point, but Dennis hasn’t been sleeping well lately. And by “not sleeping well,” Mac finds out, he really means “not sleeping at all,” averaging a couple hours here and there but otherwise, nothing. As much as he tries to shrug it off, pounding coffee and energy shots to stay upright, it’s obvious that he’s been falling apart for the past few days.
So when Mac comes back from the back room to find Dee and Charlie long departed and Dennis asleep at the bar, with his head down on the dark wood, half-resting on one elbow, he doesn’t say anything. Dennis has kind of been a bag of dicks these last few weeks, ever since this whole insomnia thing started, and if allowing this to happen makes his own life even the slightest bit easier or more pleasant, he’s game.
So he waits around. He’s not sure why. He could just leave Dennis there and lock up. But it’s raining outside (and it’s really fucking coming down, it’s disgusting out there) and for some reason, it just seems like it would be a total dick move to do that. Not that he’s any stranger to dick moves. But something in his gut tells him to stay.
So he sits down at a table with a copy of Men’s Health. He’s lost in “The Chest and Shoulder Blaster That Will Leave You Spent” (very informative) when Dennis starts to stir, and he hops up and strides to the bar, laying a hand on Dennis’s back.
“You okay, man?” he asks. “You were out for a while.”
“Shit,” mutters Dennis, rubbing at bloodshot eyes with one hand as he sits up gingerly. “’m so fucking tired.”
“Yeah, no shit,” says Mac. He doesn’t move his hand away, just lets it rest there between Dennis’s shoulder blades. “Don’t worry about it, okay? I got you. I’ll drive you home.”
“What time is it?”
“It’s late,” Mac says. Dennis starts to hop off the bar stool, but falters and stumbles just a little, all groggy and shit, and Mac instinctively reaches out a hand to steady him. Dennis throws his arm around his shoulder, and Mac grinds his molars involuntarily, the way he always does when Dennis initiates touch between them like this, the way he does when he’s trying not to feel what he’s feeling.
They stop at the door to put on their jackets and Dennis’s fingers are still fumbling a little. He looks fucking annoyed with himself, as if a grown man shouldn’t have trouble putting on a jacket, and his pissed-off look is actually weirdly endearing. Leaning against the door and feeling a flash of what is either bravery or idiocy, Mac reaches out and zips his jacket for him, fiddling with the zipper just a little bit when he lays it flat on Dennis’s chest.
They’re really close together. Dennis gets that knowing smile on his face, the one he gets when he realizes he's about to get what he wants, and Mac suddenly realizes how trapped he is, his back against the solid wood of the door and one of Dennis’s hands resting on his arm.
He knows what’s about to happen the second before it does, when Dennis rests his forehead against Mac’s and dips his head, the bridges of their noses barely brushing together. There’s a split second where Mac lets his eyes slide shut before Dennis closes the gap between them.
They don’t discuss it. Dennis finally goes to the doctor the next day and gets a prescription for Ambien.
ii.
Kissing Dennis is like a shot of whiskey and a sucker punch. It knocks the air out of him, burns when it goes down, spills through his veins like something hot and sticky and wrong. It feels like he's never needed anything else more than he needs more of this.
The second time is on the couch. There’s a movie on the TV that neither of them are really able to focus on. Pirahna 3DDD. A classic. Mac’s not super thrilled about missing every other scene, really. There’s a half-empty bowl of popcorn and half a dozen empty bottles on the coffee table and while Mac’s peripheral vision isn’t so great, he keeps noticing Dennis looking at him sideways, quiet and knowing, like he wants to eat him alive. Mac might let him.
They kiss hard this time, nothing like the first time, and Mac swallows his hesitation and just lets it happen. It feels good, better than good, like maybe everything he knows is wrong and this is actually good and right and perfect. He parts his lips and Dennis sinks his teeth into his lower lip, nipping and tugging and being thoroughly rough. It’s nothing like the last time and he opens his eyes. He can feel Dennis smirk against him, hears his own shaky exhale and pulls away.
He’s had a full boner for a couple minutes now. That’s going to be hard to fit into this whole plausible-deniability defense he’s working on, for Jesus and stuff.
“This isn’t –” He doesn’t have an ending for the sentence he’s started. Dennis just smirks again, laying his hand on Mac’s thigh and letting it rest there, heavy as lead and seemingly hot as molten steel, the tips of his fingers barely moving against the rough denim.
“Sure,” Dennis says. “It’s not.”
“I’m not –”
“I don’t need to get into a whole fucking conversation about it. Do you want to get off or what?”
Mac takes a deep breath and nods. Dennis looks at him like he’s about to unhinge his jaw and swallow him whole, like one of those pythons they saw on Animal Planet back before the thing happened with the cable company.
When he comes, he’s filled with clarity and shame. Dennis wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
It’s just another thing they don’t talk about. They don’t finish the movie. Mac skips confession that week.
iii.
Mac has a set way of dealing with problems, which is to let them build up until they’ve grown too big to ignore, then yell at everyone to stand back while he kicks the shit out of life.
It’s not like this has ever steered him down the wrong path before, okay? Because his life is great. He’s doing great. But this whole thing has become a problem and he’s no longer sure how long to let it ride.
He tries not to think about it. He doesn’t want to put words to all of this. Although, he guesses, you can only have bad-idea, usually-drunk gay sex with your best friend before it really starts to weigh on your conscience.
He’s in a war of soul versus dick, and maybe soul versus heart as well, as much as he extra-doesn’t want to think about that. The justifications just keep coming. It’s not like God personally came down to smite him after the whole thing with the tranny, right? And that was at least as bad. And he confessed all that, so it’s all cool and off his record. That’s part of the sweet deal that is Catholicism, the part he explains to Dennis that night: “It’s like, yeah, technically it’s a sin. But you can pretty much do any sin as long as you confess afterward. I mean, they tell you not to do it again, but if you do, just come back and confess and it’s all good.”
Dennis gets that glazed, turned-on look at this. “And you tell your priest everything?” he says, practically growling, full-on Big Bad Wolf next to Mac on the couch.
“Pretty much,” Mac shrugs, and Dennis looks like he’s having some sort of idea, but he doesn’t voice it, and Mac doesn’t ask.
Sometimes he can feel his faith start to falter, usually when Dennis has him on his knees, fingers threaded in his hair, alternating soft tugging and sharp pulls and whispering soft, reassuring praise; “Good boy” this and that. Sometimes he thinks it’s no different this way, bowed in supplication to the man he loves. Shit.
iv.
“Tell me I am your God,” Dennis says.
“I don’t know, man.”
“You have to say it. Tell me I’m God. Say it, Mac.”
He says these things, seems to take pride in pushing Mac to do things beyond his limits, never takes no for an answer. Sometimes Mac can’t tell the difference. Sometimes he wonders if Dennis is a god. Sometimes the thought wavers in his mind, that this is all a test of faith, that God wants this for him.
Sometimes the opposite thought flickers in at the grey edges of his mind, that this is all a game to Dennis, part of a system or scheme he’s not yet in on. He senses that Dennis finds pleasure in taking him to that edge and back. But he’s always there in the aftermath, flushed and spent and, for at least a short period, calm. It gives him something too, takes the sharp edge off when he’s having a bad day. Sometimes Mac thinks Dennis needs this as much as he does.
He finds a phrase in Dennis’s handwriting scrawled on a notepad when he’s looking for a specific tape in his room one day. “Puzzle pieces,” it reads. He’s scribbled over the top, but the word is still legible. The words ring in his head when Dennis calls from the living room.
v.
Mac steps into the confession booth. Runs his hand across his mouth, down the corners of his lips that still feel wet and burning hot no matter how many times he rubs at them. Heaves a sigh that comes out shaky.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”