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It was raining outside, but that didn't stop the sun from shining through the clouds as it set. It was unsettling to see the rain fall in the golden waves. There was enough light that they could still see well in the apartment without having to turn on any lights. They had put on a movie at some point, but neither was processing what was being said.
"I don't think I can take much more of this man." Dennis had said without looking away from the television. It made Mac turn his head, though.
"We can put something else on. Or just turn it off."
"That's not what I meant, and you know it."
Dennis finally turned away from the screen, and Mac wished he didn't. He can deal with Dennis mad, deal with him sad or fucked up or anything, anything that wasn't the expression of pure exhaustion on his face.
"What did you mean then?" Mac knew. But he didn't have the words for it in his head, because if the words didn't exist, the problem couldn't.
"All of this," Dennis rolled his eyes and gestured to their apartment and themselves. "We've been doing the same things for decades, the same dynamic that moves at a fucking snail's pace. Being the same old assholes, never moving on, never changing. I'm tired of it."
"You went to North Dakota." Mac pointed out, curling in on himself. "You could have stayed or gone somewhere else, and we would have never known. You chose to come back here."
"Because there's nothing else, Mac. But honestly?" Dennis let out a small, humorless laugh. "Nothing is better than being here."
"We can change it then!" Mac cleared his throat, trying not to raise his voice, because if his voice got too loud, it would mean something. "We can move somewhere else, get new jobs, and build new lives. Just, we can try." Dennis's expression stayed flat. "Can't we?"
"You use that word a lot. 'We.' Am I not allowed to exist without you? Can you not exist without me?" Dennis held up a finger before Mac could speak. "I know you can't; you've made that abundantly clear since high school, and you know what, Mac? You've dragged me down with you. Time and time again, you have forced me to depend on you because of your own insecurities, when you could be doing something actually worth your time."
"Don't act like you're so innocent, Dennis." Mac dug his nails into his arm. "Ignoring the small things, there's the group you started to control me. Johnny, we can't forget about him."
Dennis looked away again with a shrug, looking bored when presented with his own misdoings. "You pushed me to do shit like that; you got too annoying. But I'm done with it, Mac, this stupid song and dance. If I keep up things like this, I'm going to fucking lose it." Dennis stood up, cracking his back.
The panic dropped onto Mac like an anvil. "Dennis? Where are you going?"
"I don't know. Somewhere that's not here with you." He looked like he was going to grab his shoes, but Mac jumped up and grabbed his wrist. Dennis just sighed and weakly tried to pull his hand back. "Let go, Mac."
"No!" He couldn't stop himself from being loud because Dennis needed to understand him. "Not unless you promise to stay!"
"Mac." His voice hardened. "Drop it."
"Am I too boring? Is that it?" Mac guessed, pressing Dennis's wrist to his chest. "We can fix that. What do you want me to do? Because I'll do it, Dennis, I swear I will."
"I want you to let me go." He snarled, tugging at his hand harder, but still not using his full strength.
Mac gripped onto Dennis's wrist tighter; the surrounding skin was turning white. "I can't! You fucking know that you can't ask me to do something you know I can't do! That's the worst thing you've ever done to me, considering everything else you've done to fuck up my life."
Mac forgot that Dennis can be strong. He did have a gym membership at one point, and he liked to have some muscular parts in order to impress hookups but not look so muscular that it would be a pain to maintain. Just looking at Dennis, the first thing you don't think about is physical strength. Mac was reminded that Dennis slapped the right side of his face hard enough that he felt like he got whiplash, the impact shocking him enough that he dropped Dennis's hand.
They stared at each other. Mac grabbed his red face, staring at Dennis in shock. Dennis's eyes were wide, but not regretful. They didn't move again, just stared until one of them dared to break the tension.
It was Mac who took in a deep breath and dropped both hands to his side. He looked at his socks, not being able to look Dennis in the eye. "You can hit me more if you want." Not being able to see Dennis react to that hurt him, but looking at him would have killed him.
A hand hooked under his chin and forced him to make eye contact with Dennis. He stared at Mac like he was a puzzle, and Mac prayed that he looked cool and confident rather than unsure and lightheaded. The hand on his chin ran over the part where Dennis had hit him and pressed down slightly, forcing Mac to bite back a wince. "I wonder if it's going to bruise?" Dennis muttered to himself, and Mac knew he wasn't supposed to answer.
Dennis's hand let go, and Mac continued eye contact with him. The hit to the other side of his face was as sudden as the first one but more planned, with Dennis making sure to angle his slap to smack Mac's nose and put more power behind the hit. It made Mac stumble this time, falling backwards onto the couch.
He felt his eye water when impact with his nose was made, and Mac looked up at Dennis with red eyes, waiting for what would happen next. Mac felt something running down his nose, and he brushed it away, assuming that he was fully crying. He was surprised when his finger came back red and the liquid was still falling. Dennis walked slowly over to him, staring at the blood like a shark in the water. He grabbed Mac's face again and wiped away some of the flowing blood himself. Dennis looked at the blood on his finger, then licked it off.
Mac no longer cared that blood had most definitely stained his shirt, mesmerized by Dennis consuming his blood. Dennis sat right next to him, Mac, thigh to thigh, and cradled Mac's face with his hands.
Kissing Dennis was something he had desired since high school, when they were both less cruel, and Mac assumed the reason he was drawn to Dennis was friendship and friendship alone, because God wouldn't curse him to like another boy. Instead of the roughness Mac knew Dennis usually used when kissing, this was gentle, the way that Dennis was treating him. When he was done tasting the blood on Mac's lips, Mac opened his mouth and let Dennis explore as he was pulled into the man's lap.
This could have been a dream. Mac's been having them since the beginning, when he would always ignore them and pretend he didn't dream about his best friend's hand traveling around his body and the two of them doing things that the Bible would not approve of. But when he accepted his sexuality and had the realization that he was never getting into Heaven no matter how much he begged, he no longer saw the harm in the nighttime indulging.
He only knew this wasn't a dream because it was bloody and his face still hurt, along with the lingering fear of Dennis disappearing from his life. Mac's dreams never brought him pain; that's how he knew they were dreams.
Dennis pulled away, and Mac tried to follow. "Shh." Dennis placed a hand over Mac's mouth. "Come on." He pushed Mac off of him and wordlessly walked into his room. It took Mac's brain a second to catch up before he followed him through the open door. Dennis closed it behind Mac and pounced.
Mac let himself be pushed hard onto the mattress; Dennis followed him, straddling Mac as the two sat against the headboard. Dennis caressed Mac's lip, and no blood came back. Dennis frowned but poked Mac's mouth.
"Open for me." Mac didn't think twice; he just opened his mouth just enough that Dennis could slip in his fingers. Dennis took both hands and had Mac's open wider, his fingers brushing against Mac's teeth. "Y'know, for someone with such godawful hygiene, your teeth aren't that bad." Mac felt himself preen at the praise, expecting mostly insults to be hurled at him. "But god, you don't know how often I've thought about tearing them out."
He squeezed down slightly, and Mac got the hint to unclench his teeth. Dennis reached in further, running his fingers all around his mouth. "Whenever you talk too much or try to grin at me whenever you should not be grinning, I imagine strapping you down to a medical table and prying out your teeth one by one. I wouldn't even use pliers, but I know it would hurt more if I use my hands to wiggle out each one and toss them aside just to get to the next one. The next day I could present you with a necklace made from your own teeth, and you would just eagerly accept it, grinning with your gums all on display. Isn't that right, baby boy?"
Mac nodded. If that's what Dennis wanted to do, that's what Mac would give him.
"That's right." Dennis looked happier with Mac than he had in years, with no more resentment in his eyes. "You'll let me do a lot to you, won't you? You let me make all of your life choices to help you get to where you are now, and you knew I was Johnny, didn't you? I know you're smart enough to put simple things like that together."
Mac couldn't talk, but he hoped Dennis understood he was agreeing by the vigorous nodding.
"Do you have a gag reflex?" Dennis questioned with a grin, fingers inching towards the back of Mac's throat. "I can't remember; I wouldn't be surprised if you trained it out of yourself." Mac did have a gag reflex, despite trying to get rid of it with previous practice. He gagged, and Dennis's fingers went down his throat; the tears that had dried were getting wet again.
Dennis let him choke a little bit. He wasn't going deep enough to make Mac puke, but just enough that he had to keep reminding himself to breathe through his nose. When Dennis finally removed his fingers completely from Mac's mouth, it felt oddly empty. Dennis wiped off the saliva in Mac's hair, making it stick up even more than before.
"God, don't you look completely fucked up right now?" Dennis laughed, ruffling Mac's hair. "It's very unattractive."
"Sorry, Dennis." Mac coughed out, throat hurting.
"It's alright, Mac. Just be grateful I'm here for you." Dennis's hand wandered down and stopped to cup the back of Mac's neck. "If I wasn't here for you, who would be? No one else can stand your annoying ass, let alone bare to be intimate like this with you. Hell, your own father hates you, and your mom is apathetic at best." The hand squeezed a bit, not enough to cut off air, but enough to remind Mac it was there. "Hell, I barely stand you these days. In fact, most of the time I hate you. Just seeing your face or hearing your voice makes me want to slit my throat, or preferably, yours."
"I'm sorry." Why couldn't he stop crying? Mac was a man; he was strong, he was holy, and he had to be better than them. Dennis was awful too, with the things he said, the actions he took, and the manipulation through the years. Why was Mac being singled out, and why was he letting Dennis do so? "I can change."
Dennis's grip on his throat tightened for not even a second before letting go completely. Mac didn't even have the time to suffocate or choke. "No, you can't. Neither of us can change, Mac; some shit is just like that."
"Please, Dennis!" Mac rested his head on Dennis's shoulder, hoping the other wouldn't be mad about the multiple stains it would bring to his shirt. "Let me change, just fix me!"
"We can't be fixed."
Mac couldn't let that sentence process, because then the regret would set in, and he had no reason to regret. He leaned forward to kiss Dennis, much less gently than they had before. Dennis let him, grabbing a fistful of Mac's hair to guide him.
Dennis pushed Mac away after a few minutes. "What are we doing right now, Mac? What are you doing?"
"We're making out." Mac rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock." Dennis lightly slapped Mac, more so in the way you would swat away a fly than do real damage. "Why are we doing this?"
Mac was sweating; it was mixing with the tear trails on his face. "Because we want to? Because we'll have sex soon, right?"
Dennis cocked his head, looking inquisitively at him. "Is—" He hesitated. "Is that what we're doing?"
"We can do whatever you want to do, Den!" Mac smiled, wrapping his arms around Dennis's torso. "I just assumed you would have sex or whatever. Like I said before, I'll do whatever you want." Whether it be sex or Mac getting brutally murdered, he would be okay with it, as long as Dennis was doing it.
The quiet atmosphere melted when Dennis growled. "God, you're so fucking pathetic, Mac. You can't make a single choice for yourself; you just throw yourself in my direction and make me choose! Fine." Dennis reached over to one of his drawers and pulled out a bottle of lube. "We're having sex, I guess, because you can't say straight up what you want."
It wasn't real frustration; Mac could only tell because Dennis couldn't look him in the eye when saying it. He was looking off to the side while he spewed his poison because he, like Mac, was unsure and nervous. It was nothing like Mac's fantasies but everything he knew it would be.
Dennis tossed the cap randomly to the side. "Clothes off." He demanded, already unbuttoning his own shirt. Mac followed his lead, carelessly throwing each article on the ground of Dennis's neat bedroom. By the time Mac tossed his briefs to the side, Dennis was already naked and pouring an amount of lube on his fingers that Mac knew would not be enough to make it painless.
"Get on your hands and knees." Dennis snapped his fingers, moving out of the way so Mac could move into a position where he could only stare at the headboard or look down at the pillow. Mac wasn't the most thrilled at that. wanting to see Dennis while they fucked.
"But I want to look at you." Mac complained while getting into the position Dennis asked him to.
"You can either have sex with me like this, or you can watch me when we have all of our clothes on." Mac shut his mouth.
Dennis wasn't gentle when shoving in a finger, but Mac was grateful he didn't do them all at the same time and that he was actually getting some preparation. Dennis was pumping in and out heedlessly, more focused on talking to Mac than on what he was physically doing.
"You've been so fucking desperate for me for years; are you happy you're getting what you want?" He curled his finger to punctuate his sentence. "You acted so pitiful that you're finally going to get my dick, all because you wouldn't let me leave the house. That would be considered a low for most people, but considering you're getting off on it, I doubt you care that much."
"You said you were going to leave me." Mac complained, and Dennis sped up his pace.
"Haven't you been listening to anything I've said, Mac? I can't stand you most of the time, but we can't fucking leave each other. I tried, but I came back from North Dakota, didn't I? Relief can't exist without pain, shadows can't exist without light, and you can't exist without me. That's the way that things go, because no matter how much we want to and try to separate, we're fucking stuck, man." He laughed boisterously. "No matter how hard we try, we're all fucking stuck here!"
Mac didn't notice there were three fingers until Dennis removed all of them. He looked over his shoulder to see Dennis rubbing lube on his dick, once again not using as much as he knows he should have. When Dennis was done, he looked up and glared at Mac. "God, I can't fucking look at you during this; that's why I have you sitting like that!" Mac turned away with a murmured apology.
Dennis didn't hesitate to stick his dick inside, and Mac let out a small yelp. Dennis had used just enough lube that not every move was painful, but it was absolutely too dry, and Mac didn't mind as much as he thought he would because it was Dennis. Despite not being able to look him in the eye and not feeling as much of the man's warmth as he wanted, it was still Dennis.
"Is this really what you've been wanting all this time?" Dennis asked between thrusts. "You're so hopeless. Maybe if you didn't waste the majority of your life pining over some asshole, you could have done something better with your life. Instead you've been hit, bled, and degraded, and for what? Just so you can continue to hump my leg until one of us ends up in the ground sooner or later, probably sooner at the rate we're going."
"You know how I feel about you, Den." Mac knew he wasn't allowed to say it; otherwise, the fragile line they were walking on would snap.
By the way his hair was yanked hard, Dennis knew what Mac meant. "Don't say it." He sped up his pace and grabbed Mac's dick, stroking him. "Don't do that to me, Mac."
With how Dennis was fucking into him and jerking him off, it wasn't surprising when Mac came, getting it on the bedsheet and his own stomach. Dennis kept pounding into Mac for about another minute before Mac felt Dennis release inside of him. They stayed in the position until Dennis pulled himself out of Mac and didn't wait before standing off of the bed.
"Where are you going?" Mac asked, anxiety spiking. Dennis stared at Mac, naked and disgusting on his bed, looking like a kicked puppy. Dennis's staring would have unsettled him if he wasn't glad that Dennis was looking at him again.
"I'm going to shower." He muttered and stalked out of the room.
The fear that Dennis was actually leaving stayed until Mac heard the shower turn on, and he relaxed. Dennis wouldn't appreciate Mac showering with him, and Mac didn't feel like cleaning up, because once the dried blood, tears, and cum were gone, the two of them could pretend it didn't happen. Even though the way cum was leaking out of him wasn't a pleasant feeling, Mac didn't want to have to lie just yet. He took up space on one side of the bed and closed his eyes, willing himself to just fall asleep.
He was barely conscious when the door opened again and Dennis walked inside. He felt Dennis stare at him, then walk to the front of the room. Mac heard the VCR and opened his eyes to see Dennis taking out the tape and grabbing a Sharpie. It was too dark to see what was written, but when Mac saw Dennis putting it away, he let his eyes close again and tried not to think about the way he felt the mattress shift.
(He woke up the next day; Dennis was gone already with no clues that he had ever slept next to Mac. Despite the dried cum all over his thighs, the first thing Mac did was kneel down to check Dennis's sex tape box. He had to dig down to the very bottom of the box, but sitting in the corner, the label hidden against the box, Mac found what it said and was surprised to see something different from the usual star ranking. 'Mac xxxxx').