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theentiregdtime · 5 years

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maybe different is okay.

It’s a perfectly normal Tuesday night movie night.

The selection screen of the Predator DVD is playing on a loop, Mac is in the kitchen popping popcorn, the lights are down low, and Dennis is twisting the cap off of his first beer of the evening. Everything in the apartment is as it should be.

Yep, perfectly normal movie night.

Except that it’s their first once since…

Dennis runs his thumb along the edge of the bottle, gazing into it like it’s a magic 8-ball about to reveal the secret to dating your lifetime best friend. It’s got nothing to share, though, aside from the sound of the liquid sloshing inside.

He made Mac promise, though. He made him promise it would be the same as always and he wouldn’t make it all weird.

Nonetheless, Dennis is certain he’s going to Mac it up somehow. He’s going to lean over onto him or run his fingers through his hair or-

Well, they always do that shit. But he’s definitely doomed to do something strange and couple-y, and Dennis might not know what it’ll be yet, but it’s already too much. The overwhelming pre-embarrassment of it is twisting his stomach into half-hitch knots.

Sure, no one’s around to see it or make fun of them, but… Dennis still feels so visible and so self-conscious and so out.

He doesn’t want to feel that way tonight, doesn’t want to spoil Al Dillon getting impaled on an invisible blade just because he feels like the exact same fucking thing is happening to him, but with less blood.

“Here we go,” Mac hums like a dutiful wife as he sets the bowl down in the middle of the coffee table.

Dennis presses play on the DVD remote and Mac plops down in his seat so gracelessly, the sofa wobbles like an old waterbed.

He doesn’t know why he always waits for Mac to sit down before starting the movie- they’ve seen it quite literally thousands of times, to the point that they’ve memorized every line, every scene, every detail- to the point that nothing about it is new anymore.

But it’s their movie night, it’s something they do together, so Dennis always waits. He waits because Mac would do the same for him. He waits because, if he waited twenty years for Mac, he can wait another five minutes for him.

Dennis relaxes as well as he can manage as the 20th Century Fox logo makes a big fucking deal out of nothing for about a minute and a half. If Mac actually follows the rules, he’ll stay on his side and keep his hands to himself, and for once, just for one fucking night, he’ll focus his attention on the damn TV. They’ve never done this before, but he’s sure they can manage not to drape their legs together under the same blanket this one time, out of respect for Dennis’ lingering unease.

He scoops up a handful of popcorn and holds it in his cupped palm, tucked between his knees, picking pieces out and tossing them into his mouth as the opening credits fade into the stars and cut to a poorly animated, but still totally awesome spaceship hurtling towards Earth.

Mac makes the best popcorn. He always does. Every time Dennis tries, despite following the directions religiously, he cocks it up and burns it. Mac insists the package is bullshit and instructions are a liar sometimes, tells him he has to sense when it’s done with his heart- and that makes no goddamn sense, but Mac comes through like a hero every time. And he always melts butter in the microwave and sprinkles the perfect amount of salt on it, and suddenly, it seems ridiculous that Dennis ever tried to be with anybody else, because no one could make popcorn half as good as Mac does. And he’s so fucking relieved Mac isn’t making it for someone else and that he never will.

“What’s up?”

Dennis realizes he’s been staring.

He swallows hard and the warm, homey feeling in his stomach freezes over like he’s choked down a block of ice.

“I’m just, uh…” -he wants to curl into Mac like he usually does, doesn’t want it to have to mean anything, wants it to be simple and familiar and safe- “checking. Making sure you’re not gonna be weird.”

Mac whips his hands through the air in a cut-it-out slicing motion.

“No way, ba- bro,” he vows. “You won’t catch me slipping, I swear.”

He just slipped!

Dennis’ breath stutters nervously, falling into what he passes off as an annoyed sigh. He reaches for his beer and takes a much-needed swig. Desperately, he tries to focus on Dutch strolling up with a cigar between his teeth, strong arms threatening to burst out of his t-shirt, backdropped by a swarm of attack helicopters- which is normally such a cool entrance.

Dennis can’t appreciate it properly, though, or even pay attention to it, because Mac swipes the bottle off the table and takes a long, slow sip from it like its his own- Adam’s apple bobbing, lips slick against the rim, fingers clasped around the neck. When he sets it back down, he leaves it right in front of Dennis, as if encouraging him to take another drink and pass it back, as if they’re sharing the damned thing. Why Mac cannot simply go fetch his own lager from the fridge is beyond comprehension.

“It’s been a long time, General,” Dutch remarks.

Yeah, it’s been a long time, Dennis thinks as he watches his beer instead of the screen. It’s been decades of nights much closer than this, of nestling together on the sofa and sharing a handful of popcorn and drinking from the same bottle. It’s nothing new, it’s the same storm every week, so why does it feel like the clouds have parted and everything’s too clear? Why does it feel like the curtains are blown wide open and everyone can see in through the window? Like the veneer is gone? Like everything has changed? Like the whole world has shifted, and everyone on Earth felt it, and everyone is suddenly watching them?

That’s probably not what Dutch Schaefer is talking about, though. It’s just been a long time since he’s seen the General.

Dennis makes more than a few frustrated attempts to cozy into the couch, but no matter what he does, he can’t seem to find a position he can stand for more than five seconds- and he doesn’t know why, but he does know it’s really fucking irritating. He shuts his eyes and rolls his neck, and he can’t even focus on the movie, because it feels like he’s using all the strength left in him to hold his head up.

Usually, by now, they’re fully engaged and reciting the dialogue over the film word-for-word. Usually, they’re cheering and laughing and shouting at the characters as if they can hear them. Usually, at this point in the night, Mac’s arm is along the back of the couch and Dennis is leaning his head against it and they fit so well together. There are smoothly-carved puzzle pieces, there are chips stacked into a can, there are heaps of folded shirts fresh out of the dryer- and then there’s Mac and Dennis on a Tuesday night, curved against and wrapped around one another like they’re two halves of the same body.

But they’re out of sync tonight, because in all his genius, Dennis demanded that Mac mind his business- so he’s going to have to hold his own head up. It feels so fucking heavy.

When he makes a move for the bowl, he realizes Mac’s hand is already there and recoils from the wrist like a startled snake. Mac takes notice, out of the corner of his eye, and nonchalantly drops his fistful of popcorn into Dennis’ open hand. Then he grabs more for himself and goes right back to sitting miles and miles away like nothing ever happened.

Dennis doesn’t know how to react, so he doesn’t- just keeps his unblinking eyes aimed at the TV. They’re both looking on in eerie, unsettling quietude, like this is all part of some twisted experiment and they’re chained to their seats with their eyelids clothespinned open. They’re a couple of mannequins from a nuclear family posed in the living room right before the atom bomb drops.

The tension in the air hangs thick like jungle vines and the three feet of space between them feels like the thousands of light years Predator traveled to reach his hunting grounds on Earth. Awkward and uncomfortable are insufficient words to describe what this is, but if there’s one thing it isn’t- it’s definitely not fun.

It plays out like that for a while. The atom bomb never does drop on them, but the dread only grows with each passing minute, until it feels like Dennis’ insides are shifting and collapsing to make room for his anxiety to grow.

He’s always liked Predator, no matter how many times they make it their feature presentation, but it seems to have lost its magic. The blood splatters are grey and the gunshots are silent and the one-liners fall flat.

Everything is normal, so it should feel normal. The same components are there, but they aren’t in the right place. It’s like an earthquake has hit and everything’s toppled over and clattered and rolled away, and Dennis doesn’t know how to put it back exactly the way it was.

They’re hardly halfway through the movie when Mac’s hand lands on his thigh. Strong fingers curl around his bare skin, nails grazing against his leg hair, a warm palm burrowing into his flesh.

Dennis’ eyes drop to stare at it with cautious horror, like it’s an alien creature and it’s going to attack him if he makes even the slightest movement. He licks over his lips and gulps, mouth chapped and throat dry.

“Mac…”

No response. Mac is transfixed by the TV, watching intently through Predator’s thermal vision as if wrapped up in the mystery of what he looks like, as if it’s the first time he’s seen the damn movie. Maybe it is the first time he’s really, truly watched it instead of throwing kernels at Dennis or scratching his head as he rests it in his lap or pausing to make stupid jokes and earn a laugh from him.

Dennis clears his throat, but his voice still comes out small.

“Mac,” he repeats.

Mac’s wide eyes dart over to Dennis like he’s noticing him for the first time.

“What?” he asks, the stench of alcohol wafting off of his hot breath in waves.

“Arms and legs inside of the vehicle, man.”

Suddenly, Mac realizes what he’s doing and draws his hand back with all the sharpness of a rat narrowly escaping a spring trap.

“Dennis,” he whines, and oh hell, he’s going to complain, because Mac can’t possibly do one goddamn favor for his best friend without bitching and moaning about it all night, “this sucks, dude.”

God, it sucks so much.

“No, it doesn’t, Mac! It’s the same as it’s always been. Nothing is different.”

There’s a long silence in the room, no sound aside from the swelling Silvestrian music filling the empty space. Dennis doesn’t need a reply, because he already knows what Mac is going to say: it is different, man, they’re official now, Mac is his boyfriend or whatever, so he wants to be treated like it- or something along those lines. Not that any of it is a lie, but either way, he doesn’t want to hear it right now.

When Mac responds, that’s not what comes out.

“Maybe different is okay sometimes,” he says; gentle, kind, pleading, patient, more than Dennis ever could have asked for.

For some reason, the unpredictable hair-trigger that is Dennis Reynolds decides to shoot it right back in his face.

“Oh yeah? Is it? ‘Cause if different is so great,” he snaps, pointing violently around the room as he speaks, “then why are we watching the same goddamn movie we watch every week, eating the same thing, sitting on the same couch, and doing the same shit we’ve been doing for twenty years, Mac?!”

He pretends not to see the way Mac’s face crumbles, because if he did see it, it would be burned into his brain until the day he died.

“I thought you liked it,” he mumbles sheepishly.

I do like it, Mac, a better boyfriend would say, I’m just scared of how much. It just feels like I’m not supposed to.

“Just- Watch the movie, all right?” the boyfriend Mac is stuck with, unfortunately, says.

So they do. They fall right back into their rhythm, or lack thereof, sitting out-of-place on opposite ends of the sofa and only coming into contact with each other through the spit on the rim of the lager bottle. Mac’s pulled himself so far back, he’s going to flip right over the arm of the couch if he scoots away any more.

Eventually, he starts ignoring the beer and popcorn entirely, and doesn’t say a single word. He only sits there, looking all pouty- and not the playful, puppy-eyes, stuck-lips kind of pouty. He seems genuinely fucking crushed.

Dennis doesn’t need the weight of that in his stomach, too, there’s no more space left for it. He doesn’t have the emotional vacancy for guilt when he’s already housing so much fear and confusion and self-loathing.

He feels so much like Dutch in these moments.

He swears that he’s alone, that they’re alone, but he can’t shake the terror in the hollows of his chest like someone is watching him- not from the top of a tree, not shrouded by a cloaking device, but perched somewhere in the back of his mind to remind him that he should be embarrassed, he should be disgusted, he should be ashamed of himself; that these things should be behind closed doors, and they are behind closed doors, but they still don’t feel alone. They’re never fucking alone, because somebody is always kicking down their door or crawling in through the window or texting or calling or appearing out of nowhere. Nothing can ever stay just between them.

The absence of Mac’s warmth, of his arm around him and his hand on his leg, is like a phantom limb.

This isn’t normal. It isn’t fucking normal, it’s the weirdest it’s ever been. They don’t feel like themselves and Predator doesn’t feel like Predator, and by the time Blain Cooper is declaring “I ain’t got time to bleed”, Dennis is thinking about how many nights they’ve spent watching movies, tangled up but not together, sharing a blanket but not their feelings, wearing each other’s clothes like roommates don’t, falling asleep in each other’s arms like best friends don’t- and then suddenly it comes to him:

He doesn’t have time to bleed.

They have waited so fucking long for this. They’re approaching the back half of their lives, about to tumble down the other side of the hill, and the clock is ticking louder than it ever has.

Every day of their lives, something didn’t happen. It didn’t happen for more than two decades. They came so close, over and over and over again, time after time, and it still never happened.

And then, one day, it did.

One day Dennis Reynolds and Mac McDonald looked at each other and realized, Oh, shit. There you are.

One day they stopped waiting.

And it should be so, so damn perfect- but they’re choosing to spend it like this, tense and distressed and scared, so fucking scared to look it dead in the eyes.

It comes to Dennis all at once, how stupid it is.

It’s stupid to be afraid to live in a home you’ve spent twenty-five years building.

It’s stupid to spend all your life painting a portrait and never step back to see the whole picture, it’s stupid to write a novel and stop right before the ending, it’s stupid to put all the pieces of a puzzle together but the last one, and it’s fucking stupid to watch the same movie they’ve watched nearly every week for as long as they’ve lived together without their favorite part- without them.

He looks over at Mac, at fucking Ronald McDonald, at his best friend, at his blood brother, at his boyfriend- and he’s looking at everything. The last puzzle piece snaps into place and finally, he can see the image clear as day.

They haven’t been together for twenty-five years, but they’ve been together for twenty-five years. There is no different, because they’ve always been the same.

And there’s no invisible alien in the room with them. No one is spying on them through infrared vision. No one is hunting them for sport. Dennis has nobody to be afraid of.

He makes the mortifying decision to ignore the anxiety in his chest and say something, because if he doesn’t start talking now, it’s going to spill out of him all wrong, and goddamn it, he’s so tired of saying the wrong things.

“Mac…” he whispers, and Mac’s porter-brown eyes are on him in an instant. “Make it weird.”

Mac stares at him soft and vulnerable and red-faced, like he’s asked him to kiss the air out of his lungs, push him down into the couch, grind against him until he breaks like sugar glass.

“What?” he asks, gently, not like he didn’t hear it, but like he doesn’t believe what he heard.

“Make it weird, make it normal, just-” Dennis catches himself shouting and lowers his voice, dropping his shoulders from where they’ve gone up on the defense. Vicious animals lash out because they’re afraid, and Dennis doesn’t want to be afraid anymore- he is, but he doesn’t want to be, damn it. “Fix this, man. It sucks.”

The makings of a smile form at the edges of Mac’s mouth, and his eyes go soft as melted butter. He’s missing the climax of the movie, Predator dropping his mask to the floor of the jungle so Dutch can see him face-to-face, so they can fight with honor, before Dutch calls him one ugly motherfucker. He’s missing his favorite part because he won’t look away from him, and somewhere deep down, Dennis finds room for a new feeling. He hopes that maybe this is Mac’s new favorite part.

“Lay down,” he directs him.

Dennis leans back slowly, inch by inch, and he can’t think straight. He knows he must be eyeing Mac like he’s a predator, though- not the cool alien kind, but the wild animal kind- because his smile grows into something full and genuine and reckless.

“I got this, babe,” he laughs under his breath, and oh boy, it’s not like Dennis needed another reason to feel like he’s burning to death.

Something about Mac’s half-lidded eyes and his daredevil smile and beer-bathed breath comes together to make Dennis comply without putting up a fight, and he falls all the way down onto the cushions.

When Mac instructs him to scooch, he complies, too- and rolls over onto his side to make space behind him. Mac barely fits against his back, but it isn’t awkward. It feels like it always does, like it’s supposed to, like something that was broken snapping back into place. And when Mac’s arm curls around the shape of his waist, fingers touching him soft like he might break, Dennis wants to play the rest of the movie in slo-mo to make the last six minutes take up the whole night.

There’s a satisfaction in watching Predator die like never before, in seeing him choke on his own neon green blood. Dennis lets the invisible eyes he feels watching him die, too, and he and Mac are finally alone. It’s finally just between them.

“You okay?” Mac murmurs in his ear, and it’s the dumbest question Dennis has ever heard.

The “fine” he says back is the understatement of the fucking century.

Maybe that’s why it doesn’t get through Mac’s thick skull.

“You sure? I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable, Den.”

Dennis is more comfortable than he’s ever been in his life, he thinks, knows, as he reaches up to thread his fingers into his best friend’s and pull their hands down over his stomach, right where he can still feel the ghost of what he’s tried to bury there. Mac’s knuckles brush against him and the knot unwinds, if only a little.

He’s still scared, but maybe that’s all right, because a home is never really built. You repaint. You take down the walls. You move the furniture around. You fix the cracks and patch the leaks and heal it time after time after time.

But it keeps on standing if the framework is good, and he and Mac are building on some pretty damn decent foundations.

“I’m okay,” he answers, instead of telling him he thinks they’d still be standing at the end of any raging storm in the world. “Different’s okay.”

It’s less like Dennis is reassuring Mac and more like he’s reminding himself. Different is okay, because this whole relationship thing, it’s like the stuff on the shelves at the grocery store. It’s the same shit with different labels.

And yeah, maybe Dennis doesn’t know how to put everything back exactly the way it was, but he knows how to pick up the pieces and make something new, and that’s even better.

The credits start to roll and he catches the shape of them in the reflective blackness between the words, and on the outside, they don’t look like people who should feel guilty or angry or humiliated- they look like a pretty goddamn normal couple.

“Mac?”

“Yeah?”

Dennis doesn’t know how to say it. How do you tell someone that this feels like the beginning of something that’s been happening nearly your entire life? How do you tell someone that, it might be shitty right now, it might be shitty over and over again, but the first steps are always the hardest and everything gets easier from there? How do you tell someone you’re going to have your bad days, you’re going to snap at them and shut them out and treat them so bad they almost leave you? But you’re going to keep moving uphill, you’re not going to fall back down- and the view from the top, the view at the end, it’s going to be so fucking worth the climb.

He’s going to feel sick right now. He’s going to feel nervous and terrified and nauseated and weird. He might never stop feeling that way. But even if he doesn’t, there’s going to be something good there, too. The roof might tear and the paint might chip away, the shudders might bend and the windows might break- but the foundations will still be good. And they’ll keep building on that, no matter how many times they’re forced to start over, no matter how many times they fuck it up, no matter how many times they have to try again.

Because that’s how you build a home. You build it every day, knowing it’s never going to be perfect and it’s never going to be done and, sometimes, it might be so destroyed and so different you hardly recognize it. But you build it every single day.

How do you tell someone you’d never be able to do this alone? How do you tell them you’d never be able to do this with anybody else? How do you let them know that, no matter how much of this is their fault, no matter how many of these ideas they put in your head when you were young, no matter how many times you caught their guilt like the common cold, they still make you brave? How do you tell someone that you’re scared right now, but you know it’s going to be fine, because they’re going to be there to catch you if you falter?

A lot of people would say I love you. Dennis doesn’t.

“You want to watch Predator 2?”

Mac laughs like it’s the best idea he’s ever heard in his life.

“You know I do, man.”

And just like that, it’s a perfectly normal Tuesday night movie night.

#me using a thousand references to the 1987 action blockbuster predator to describe mac and dennis' relationship: haha take THAT straight men #this is gonna be up on ao3 too if y'all are interested!#i don't know what to say except that i hope you guys like it and your kindness inspires me!!#it's always sunny in philadelphia #it's always sunny #iasip #dennis reynolds #mac mcdonald #macdennis #fics #my writing #there are too many different metaphors in this but i'm too tired to care so enjoy!

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