Archive of Our Own ^beta

Well, that's just teenage talk/
Pinky swear that you won't go changing

i. mac & dee

Dee is caught halfway between sleep and waking, sweating through her sheets in the thick June heat, when her bedroom window creaks open. There’s the sound of a muffled curse, and then a person tumbles inelegantly to the floor, collapsing into a heap. Adrenaline courses through her, jolting her awake.

“What the fuck?” Dee shrieks, scrambling to turn on the light on her bedside table. Fear sits hot in her throat until she finds the switch and the light casts Mac McDonald into relief, scowling and rubbing at a fresh scrape on his elbow, looking a little bleary around the edges as he pulls himself up. 

Mac glances up and rolls his eyes at the way she has her sheets yanked up to her chest, covering her sports bra and naked torso. “You wish, bitch,” he says, and Dee feels a tangled mixture of relief and irritation knot in her chest. 

“You broke into my room at three in the morning just to insult me?” 

Mac sighs and scuffs his dirty sneakers on her white carpet, runs a hand through his floppy hair. Despite the shitty tattoos and pockets stuffed full of quarter bags he looks like a little kid most of the time, younger than his seventeen years. Dee graciously decides not to share this observation, waits as he rubs at his drooping eyes. “Counted the windows wrong,” he explains, begrudging. “Thought this was Dennis’s.” 

Dee considers this. “I didn’t know you and Dennis made a habit of sneaking into each other’s windows in the middle of the night,” she says, not quite as bitchy as she could be. 

The friendship between Mac and Dennis remains a mystery to her even three years later, their antagonism and closeness, the way they toss punches and then go for dollar slices after. It’s different for her– she and Dennis have something cellular that keeps her from ever really walking away, no matter how hard she tries. She doesn’t understand why Mac keeps on choosing this, why Dennis chose him. She resents and envies it in equal measure. 

“I was selling at a party on Chestnut,” he explains, still sulking a little at her presence, like he isn’t the one that broke into her room. “I’m too wasted to walk all the way home.” 

Dee examines him with a critical eye. He looks tired and a little out of it, bleeding onto his dirty t-shirt, but his vowels have only just begun to blur. She’s seen Mac drive a car way more fucked up on at least four seperate occasions. 

“Well, you’re shit out of luck, pal,” she says. “Dennis is out with that skanky sophomore. Apparently she’s having another depression attack and needs Dennis to go talk her off the ledge.” 

Mac groans loudly. For all that the two of them don’t really get along, Mac can always be counted on to bitch about Victoria, with whom Dennis has been obsessed with for at least two months now. Victoria with the bleach blonde hair and skinny, alley cat ribs, always bumming their cigarettes and whining about how she hasn’t eaten anything that day when Dennis drags her along to hang out with them all. 

“Ugh,” Mac says, disgusted. “Can’t she just kill herself or fuck him already?” 

“Apparently she’s failed four times. It’s embarrassing at this point.” 

Dee grabs a shirt from the floor and takes the opportunity to slide it on. Mac doesn’t even flick a glance at her, and Dee considers being offended before thinking better of it. 

“I hope she dies,” Mac mutters, finally going to close the window, loud creak piercing the quiet. Dee flops over the side of her bed, hair swishing against the floor, to dig out one of the beers she keeps stashed underneath. She cracks it open on the edge of her nightstand and takes a swig before the foam runs over. “I’ll drink to that,” she says, swilling a mouthful. It’s so late and so odd for Mac to be in her room that the entire thing has the feeling of a dream, something a half beat off from the rest of reality. She’s not wearing her brace and she feels naked and exposed without it, even with a t-shirt on. 

Mac perks up at the sound of the beer opening. “Gimme,” he demands, pinching his fingers at her in the way that he knows she hates. 

“Get your own, asshole.”

Mac rolls his eyes. “I’ll split this with you,” he barters, producing a crumpled joint from one of the pockets of his thrifted denim jacket. 

Dee considers the offer. Mac’s bud is always shit, but it’s not like she has anything better, and God knows she needs something if she’s ever gonna fall asleep after this shitshow. “Yeah, alright,” she says, and peels back the edge of her pink, floral comforter. “Get in.” 

Mac looks suspiciously at her and Dee makes a face. “Relax, weirdo,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’m not gonna molest you.” 

He scowls like a displeased kitten. “Fuck off,” he says, but gets into the bed next to her anyways, the two of them tucked under the covers like children at a sleepover. Dee digs a hot pink lighter out of the drawer in her nightstand and flicks it once before she passes it over. Mac nods and lights up the joint, sucking until the end glows orange. He coughs through an exhale of smoke and passes it over, the smell already permeating the room, and Dee hands the beer off to him. 

They drink and smoke in companionable silence for awhile, Dee grabbing the rest of the six pack out from under the bed for easier access. Mac is humming something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like Radiohead, a little out of tune. 

The combination of substances softens her, leaving her almost fond of the boy slumped against her shoulder, eyes darting back and forth like he’s having imaginary arguments in his head. 

She’s lost in thought and blissed out by the time he finally speaks, starting a little at the broken silence. “You think Dennis is banging that girl right now?” he asks, searching. Dee wants to be gentle with him but can’t quite manage it. 

“Hopefully,” she says, and cracks a fresh beer to place in his hand, cold comfort, grabbing the empty from his lap and tossing it aside. “That way he’ll get it out of his system and realize she’s a gross little slut.” 

Images flash behind her eyes, Dennis laughing too loud at Victoria’s bad jokes and lighting her cigarettes, the cloying smell of her shoplifted vanilla perfume, the way she doesn’t even seem to care that he tracks her movements like gravity. Crying about having a difficult home life. Hatred curls through her, pure and true. 

“Yeah, I guess so,” Mac says. “He’s never even around anymore. It sucks.” 

Dee is too drunk now, or too high, or maybe it’s just too late at night. It’s like a car accident in slow motion. She can’t afford generosity, but she gives it away for free. “He leaves, but he always comes back,” she tells Mac, voice raw. “Just gotta remember that.” 

Mac’s swallow is a little thick, but she has the tact not to mention it. “I fucking hate him sometimes,” he says, but it comes out mostly tired, no real heat. 

Dee leans her head on top of his, inhales his scent of cheap boy shampoo and weed and sweat. Ronnie the Rat was never anything to her, not until Dennis made him that way. “Yeah,” she sighs, and steals the beer despite Mac’s noise of protest. “Me too.” 

Time passes idly again after that, the two of them going until the joint is at a smoldering end and there’s only a mouthful of beer left in the bottle. Dee glances at her alarm clock and realizes that it’s past four in the morning and really, truly late. Mac is half passed out against her, warm and familiar, and sleep pulls heavy on Dee’s eyelids. 

“Hey,” she says, jostling him until he makes an irritated noise and blinks several times. “Dumbass. Don’t fall asleep on me.” 

Mac sits up only long enough to steal the last drag from her fingers and stub out the joint in one of the empty bottles with a quiet sputter. Dee swigs the last sip of the beer and abandons the bottle on her nightstand. 

He doesn’t seem to mind, just curls back into her like a cat. “Can I stay here tonight?” he asks her, sleepy and young, rumpled in her sheets. The presence of another person is strange, the body heat radiating off of him a bone deep comfort. Every bit of rationality she has is telling her to kick him back out the window he came from and luxuriate alone in all the empty space. 

“Whatever,” she says instead. “Don’t steal the covers.” 

“Yeah, okay,” he says, and shuts his eyes. Dee leans over to flick off the light and curls up next to him, booze and weed pulling her head down like a lead balloon, the deepest of night before dawn breaks. 

Mac drapes an arm around her waist, fucked up and nearly unconscious. “G’night, Dee,” he says, slurred and whispering, like it’s a habit. “Sweet dreams.” 

Dee feels a pressure on the back of her eyelids like she’s going to start crying. “Yeah, you too, Mac,” she says instead, and falls instantly to sleep.

ii. charlie & dee 

Charlie and the twins are sprawled in plastic lawn chairs in the backyard of the Reynolds house, chain smoking and waiting for Mac to show up so they can go bowling. Charlie examines the ash building on the edge of his cigarette, the world loose and hazy from the paint thinner he huffed earlier. He’s enjoying the perfect level of high, everything gone soft but still holding its shape, listening to Dennis and Dee bitch at each other about their dorm room assignments. He doesn’t understand why they’re going to school together if they hate each other so much, but nothing they do ever makes much sense to him. 

“Hey, hey!” Mac calls as he comes around the side of the house, a bounce in his step that means he’s excited about something. Charlie hopes he found some old guy to buy them beer for tonight. Bowling sucks without alcohol, even if you do have a nice high going on. “What’s popping?” 

Dennis ashes his cigarette into Dee’s half full can of Coke. She smacks him hard on the arm. “Took you long enough,” he says, all cool, like he hasn’t been whining about Mac’s absence for the last forty minutes. Charlie doesn’t roll his eyes, but it’s a near thing. 

“Oh, sorry,” Mac says, crashing into the empty lawn chair, all limb. He snags the cigarette from Dennis’s fingers and sticks it in the corner of his mouth, ignoring Dennis’s ensuing squawk of protest. “I was a little busy getting us invited to Stacey McKenna’s graduation party tonight!” 

Dennis’s face lights up as he claps Mac on the back. Charlie feels something sink in his stomach. This isn’t going to end well. “Dude, you’re kidding! How did you swing that?”

Mac blows a shitty smoke ring and passes the cigarette back over, thrilled as a kid with a good report card. “Promised all the free joints she could smoke,” he gloats, watching Dennis intently to gauge his reaction. Charlie notices to the side as Dee curls up on herself, pulling her knees up to her chest with a creak from her brace, going in to chew on a thumbnail.  

“Bribery, nice,” Dennis approves, meeting Mac’s broad, sunny grin. “What time?”

“She said eight, so like nine?” 

“Smart,” Dennis says, and Mac all but floats off the ground. Charlie wonders idly if anyone else recognizes how fucking weird they get around each other, and decides they must not. Well, maybe Dee, who’s looking back and forth between them like she’s watching a tennis match. “Dude, there’s gonna be so many desperate chicks at this thing. Every girl wants a big summer romance before they go away to school.”

Mac slaps his outstretched hand, even as his face falls a fraction. “We’re gonna be banging hotties left and right,” he says. 

Dennis leans back in his chair, returns the cigarette to his mouth. “Well, you know I am,” he says, a cruel tilt coming to his mouth the way it always eventually does. “Hopefully you’ve improved your seduction skills after what happened last time.”

Mac huffs in protest. “Fuck off, man,” he says, all bravado. “That chick was gay, I told you that already. Obviously, I would have pounded her otherwise.” 

“And your first problem was letting that stop you! Anyone can be gay or straight under the right circumstances. You simply lacked the technique.” 

“That’s not true, man,” Mac immediately protests, voice going all serious. “You couldn’t pay me to go gay. That’s like, the worst sin of all time, dude.” 

Dennis’s mouth pinches, displeased, and Mac stares hard at the ground like he’s waiting for it to swallow him up. “Sure, Mac, sure,” he appeases, but his voice has something nasty in it lurking at the edges. Discomfort squirms in Charlie’s stomach. He wishes teleportation devices were real, so he could get out of here and go hang with some dinosaurs or something. 

“We might have to do a liquor store run if we want to pregame,” Dee says mercifully, breaking up the tense silence. “The vodka from yesterday is almost dead.”

Immediately, Mac and Dennis round on Dee, previous spat seemingly forgotten. Charlie says nothing, just watches it all unfold in front of him like a nature documentary on the History Channel. 

“Oh, Dee,” Dennis croons, voice saccharine. “Poor, poor, not invited Dee.”

“Come on, Dee,” Mac snorts, as if annoyed at being made to even have the conversation. “You didn’t really think we were gonna bring you, did you? 

Dee makes a sharp noise of protest, fumbles to grab the half empty pack of cigarettes off the grass. “You guys are assholes!” she snaps, messing with the lighter. “I always bring you when I get invited to parties!” 

“Yes, and we would appreciate that,” Dennis says. “If anyone ever invited you anywhere. As far as I can recall, the only parties you’ve ever invited us to were ones you heard about while eating your lunch in the bathroom stall. 

Charlie feels a little bad for Dee, getting the brunt of Mac and Dennis’s shared irritation, but not as much as he’s glad it isn’t him drawing the short edge of the stick. He stays silent, just scoops the pack from the arm of Dee’s chair and lights his own fresh cigarette, giving him something to do with his hands. 

“Whatever,” Dee says, and a tight, fanged smile blooms on her mouth, an expression Charlie usually only ever sees on Dennis. “Have fun striking out and then jerking each other off, then, assholes.”

“Dee, you stupid bitch!” Mac roars, leaping out of his chair to tower over her. Dee doesn’t even blink as he shakes his finger in her face. “Don’t even joke about something like that!” 

Dee just smiles back at him, saying nothing, cool and satisfied, and Dennis grabs Mac by the sleeve of his t-shirt, pulling him to sit back down. Mac is breathing hard, furious, but Charlie watches as Dennis twitches for a second, looking at Dee like he’s trying to figure out a really hard math problem before his face shutters closed. 

“Charlie, buddy, how about you?” he says after a moment, smile pinched. “You in?”

Charlie shrugs awkwardly, head going a million miles an hour. He knows one thing, and that’s that he doesn’t want to get anywhere near that whole thing. “I dunno, man,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “I just huffed a lot of paint thinner, so…”

“Seriously, man?” Mac asks. 

“I can’t be around too many people right now, dude!” he protests. “I’m like, feeling the urge to bite, and I don’t know how well I can control it in a crowd.” 

Mac shoots him a look, but doesn’t say anything. Disappointment twinges faintly in Charlie’s stomach, a longing for when they were kids and could reach each other’s minds in a single glance. 

“Right,” Dennis says, standing and brushing invisible dirt off the knees of his new jeans. “Well. In that case, Mac, let’s blow this bitch.”

Mac stumbles to his feet, gives Dee and Charlie a salute. “Later, losers,” he says, and then follows Dennis back into the house, the glass door sliding shut behind them. Charlie risks a glance at Dee, who’s watching them go intently, chewing her nail bloody.

“You don’t have to stay,” she says, edgy, not looking at him. She stands up from her chair, moving to go sit on the back porch, and Charlie follows half a step behind. She rummages around a purse that’s been left on the table and produces a little bottle of paint. Charlie eyes it curiously, wondering what it is and whether it can get you fucked up. “I know you only come around here to hang with Dennis.” He sits in the chair across from her, bouncing a restless knee. 

Charlie is really only half listening, watching as she unscrews the cap and drags the tiny brush along her chewed thumbnail, painting it bright pink. “What are you talking about?” he says, half a beat too late. “I come around here to hang out with Mac. Dennis is only nice to me when he wants me to entertain the popular kids.”

Dee looks away from her hand and up at him at that, making direct eye contact. Charlie doesn’t like it, floats his gaze up to stare at the ceiling. “Okay, Charlie,” she says. “Whatever. You can hang around awhile, if you don’t have somewhere else to be."

The only other place Charlie has to go is home, which is an unappealing option for reasons he’s never going to explain. He gets comfortable in the chair instead, watches as Dee goes to do the next finger. The stuff smells strong and chemical, sending an itch through his veins that he tries to ignore. 

“I just try to live in the moment,” he says airily, and then finally indulges his curiosity. “What’cha got there?”

Dee flicks him an unimpressed glance, like it’s a dumb question. “Nail polish,” she says. 

“Cool!” Charlie enthuses, leaning closer to examine it. “Does it make your nails super sharp?”

“What?” Dee says, reproaching. “No, it’s just for decoration. Like makeup for your nails.”

Charlie isn’t sure what faces have to do with nails, but decides not to press the issue. “Sweet,” he says. “Can I have some?” 

“Sure,” she says, going back into her shiny little bag. “I’ve got purple, blue, red, green, and pink.”

“Can you do more than one?” he asks. 

Dee scrunches up her nose. “Yeah, but I don’t think that’s gonna look good.” 

“I like all the colors,” Charlie protests. “I don’t wanna pick! What if it makes the other colors feel bad?” 

Dee rolls her eyes but obliges, lining up the miniature bottles on the table, abandoning her own half-dried nails. “Whatever you say, Charlie.” 

He wiggles his fingers at her and then sets them down on the table, and Dee takes the top off of the bottle of red, swiping it over his thumb. He shivers, the weird cold feeling of skin under nail, and Dee licks her pinky to wipe a little smudge off his skin. She works quick and familiar, an ease that she rarely has with anything. 

“So, why didn’t you want to go to the party?” she asks him after a minute, trying too hard to seem casual as she paints his nail bright blue. 

Charlie makes a face, goes to fidget until Dee smacks at his hand to keep still. “I don’t know,” he says, trying to put the weird feeling into words. “It just wouldn’t be any fun. I don’t like hanging out with Mac and Dennis when they’re like that.” 

Dee nods. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” is all she says, and he wonders what she really thinks about that whole thing. 

“Why did you want to go?” he asks her back, curious. He doesn’t see the appeal in playing their punching bag, the way she protests but continues to take it, always getting kicked and coming around for more. Then again, he realizes, she probably thinks the same thing about him. 

Dee gives a short, miserable little laugh. “Because I’m an idiot,” she says, bitter and wry, way different from her usual steeliness. He doesn’t say anything, just waits. “Every time I think something else is gonna happen, and they’re finally gonna like me,” she says at last, a cynical smile tugging at her mouth. 

“Dude, they love you,” Charlie protests, and then immediately backtracks. “Well, maybe not Mac. But I’m sure Dennis loves you, in his weird, fucked up way. You’re his sister.” 

Dee just shakes her head, blonde hair hanging in her face so that he can’t make out her expression. The little polish brush pauses on his pinky finger, like she’s forgotten what she was doing. “Maybe when we were kids,” she says, brittle and honest. “Not anymore.” Then, as if realizing it’s too much truth: “Here, blow on them a little. It’ll make it dry faster.” 

Charlie pulls back his right hand and follows the order, blowing warm, gross air onto his fingernails. Dee’s done them in a rainbow, and he admires the bright, glossy polish. 

“I think you’re way cooler than Dennis, anyways,” he says, tugging up the momentarily abandoned thread of conversation as she grabs his other hand, unable to leave it alone. It seems important that she should know this, that she doesn’t go away to school thinking the way to win is to be like her twin. 

“Really?” she asks, skeptical, wielding the miniature brush in one hand 

“Yeah! You got that cool X-Men shit going on,” he says, gesturing to her brace. Dee winces, but Charlie continues undaunted. “And you never try to get me to eat weird stuff. And you’re the only one who knows how to unlock your Dad’s liquor cabinet. I’d rather hang out with you than any of those assholes. They’re just gonna chug beer and suck each other’s faces.” 

Dee smiles a little, and a strange warmth curls in his chest. He’s not lying– he really does like Dee, in the rare times they ever hang out one on one, when it’s safe enough to drop the act. 

“Thanks, Charlie,” she says, picking up the pink again. “I’d rather hang out with you, too. Not that I’d ever say that to anyone else.” 

“Well, it can be our secret then, I guess.”

“Sure. Secret.” 

Silence falls idly after that, not really uncomfortable. Charlie gives in and huffs experimentally from one of the bottles and sparks immediately fizzle up through his brain, turning to an ash that blunts him quiet. He tips his head back into the high, struggling to keep his feet on the ground as his head spins. Dee catches it and takes a huff for herself, giggling as the vertigo sets in. Her hand-eye coordination weakens considerably, but she doesn’t abandon the job, painting the last nail with fanfare. 

Charlie shakes out his hands to get them dry quicker, and Dee watches him, something considering around her eyes. He’s high and happy, enjoying the cooling summer air and orange light of near sunset. The bright colors of his nails feel good on his eyes, he keeps staring at them, the careful way that Dee painted them. 

“Charlie, can I ask you something?” she says, breaking the reverie, going back to her own nails. 

“Yeah, sure,” he yawns, reclining back in his chair, prodding experimentally at one pinky to test the dryness. “As long as it’s not what Mac did at the seventh grade field trip to Six Flags. I’m sworn to secrecy on that one. Signed a blood oath and everything.” 

Dee just blinks at him. “Didn’t he piss his pants riding Skull Mountain?”

He throws his hands up in the air, irritated. “Damn it, Dee!” he scolds. “Now I’ve broken my oath.” 

She rolls her eyes. “Relax, you’re not the one that told me. Dennis already did when he was wasted.” 

Charlie considers this grain of information. “Well, I guess that’s okay, then,” he decides. 

“Anyways, my question?”

“Oh, right, that. Go for it. I’m an open book.” This isn’t strictly the truth, but Charlie’s always had a flexible relationship with truth. It’s true enough , which is all that matters. 

“Why do you never try to get girls with Mac and Dennis?” Dee asks, but it’s not mean, it sounds like she’s actually asking. Charlie’s never really thought about it before, takes a second to chew it over. 

“I don’t know,” he says finally. “Cause girls are gross, I guess.” 

If Dee’s annoyed by this it doesn’t show, she just keeps on looking at him. Charlie is a little too high and unscrewed, anything could come spilling out. He tries to tread carefully. 

“Are you gay?” she asks, but her tone stays gentle. 

“No. Boys are gross, too.”

She seems like she’s trying to make sense of it. Charlie gave up on that a long time ago. “So you don’t like anyone?” 

He shrugs. “I guess not. I dunno. I got better shit to do than that. Kissing seems gross, anyways. All of those tonsils and spit. Yuck.” 

“So you’ve never kissed a girl before?” 

Charlie suddenly gets suspicious. “Wait, are you trying to make fun of me?” he asks, in case the nail paint stuff has gotten too far to his head and now he’s getting conned into being Dirtgrub. “Because this has been kinda nice, and I don’t want to have to call you a dumb bitch or whatever.” 

Dee looks softer than usual, or maybe that’s just the setting sun and the combination of substances, her hair lit gold by the dying light. “I’m not making fun of you,” she says, posture perfect and tensed by the brace. “I’ve never kissed anyone, either.” 

This surprises him, what with the way Matty Mara used to go pawing after her in the hallways at school. “Really?” he asks, genuinely not getting it. “Why not?” 

Dee huffs, irritated by the question. “Because no one’s ever wanted to,” she snaps, embarrassed and vulnerable. 

“Dude, I’m sure that’s not true,” Charlie says, sincere. “You’re all pretty and stuff, and you have that sweet metal shit going on. I’m sure guys are lining up around the block to kiss you.” 

Dee looks right at him, really looking, like she can’t believe anyone is telling her something nice. It’ll make Charlie kinda depressed if he thinks about it for too long, so he stares at the colors on his nails instead, waving them in front of his eyes. They seem to wave back. 

“If they are, I've got the wrong address,” Dee says with a snort, screwing the last bottle shut and putting it back in the purse. Her nails are hot pink and shiny, a few little smudges where she got sloppy. “Hey, can you go grab the cigarettes?” 

A cigarette sounds great at the moment, and Charlie nods and jogs back over the lawn, grabbing the abandoned pack from one of the lawn chairs. He grabs one and passes the pack over to Dee as she hands him a lighter. He inhales and the smoke grates sweet over his lungs, stabilizing the high. Dee follows suit, holding the cigarette carefully with her drying nails. 

He exhales, and the idea comes to him, simple as anything. “Well, hey, do you want to try it?” he asks. 

Dee looks him over, like she’s trying to decide whether he’s serious or not. “With you?” she asks. 

Charlie isn’t offended, even if he maybe should be. He sucks down another lungful of smoke and shrugs. Everything is silly and loose and kind of ridiculous, the two of them left behind and making the best of it. 

“Yeah, why not?” he says, all casual, like they’re talking about pizza toppings. “Two birds and one net, or whatever. It can be a double secret.” 

Dee puts her cigarette down on the table, letting it burn through the coating on the wood. The fumes curl toxic and perfect, and Charlie’s head spins. 

“Yeah, alright,” Dee says, and leans into him, curling one bony hand into the collar of his t-shirt and tugging hard. Their mouths bang together, awkward and sudden, and Charlie laughs a little, teeth clacking together. Dee’s mouth is dry and soft and, and he tilts his head after a second, bettering the angle. Her lips part against his, and she flicks her tongue over the seam of his mouth, weird and good and a little gross. 

He opens his mouth on instinct and slides his tongue into her mouth. She tastes like cigarette smoke and artificial watermelon and saliva, both of them moving into each other awkward and eager. Charlie curls a hand into her hair and pulls a little, liking the feeling of the silky, corn gold strands between his fingers. Dee makes a small, surprised sound, and he swallows it, sinking his teeth into her bottom lip. 

They make out for a couple of minutes, and it’s nice, like something to pass the time. He likes the way her sharp little nails dig into his shoulder, the way her breath stutters into his mouth. They finally pull back, both breathing hard and a little surprised. 

“That was nice,” Charlie says, just for something to say, looking at Dee with his spit coating her chin. 

“Yeah, it was,” she agrees, wiping a hand over her mouth and smiling at him, a little shy. “You wanna go watch Basic Instinct?”

Charlie groans. “Ugh, the one with the sexy serial killer chick?” he asks. “Can’t we watch Wayne’s World instead?”

Dee rolls her eyes. “You always want to watch Wayne’s World,” she complains. 

Charlie can’t believe he has to explain this. “Um, yeah,” he says. “‘Cause it’s the best movie ever made, duh.”

“Whatever, fine,” Dee acquiesces without much fight. “But you have to go grab the tequila Dennis keeps in his sock drawer.” 

“Deal,” Charlie agrees, and smiles at nothing as he walks into the house.

iii. charlie & mac 

Mac paces around the kitchen as he waits for Charlie to pick up the fucking phone, annoyance piercing him when he finally hears a voice on the other end. It’s eleven in the morning, but Mac is already wired from the four cups of coffee he drank while waiting around for Charlie. There’s a loud scraping sound that drowns out whatever Charlie says to him in greeting, and then ensuing noises of a struggle. 

Mac holds the phone away from his ear and squints at the faded cabinets, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. The two of them are supposed to be going out to look for jobs today, now that summer is really here. “Charlie?” he asks, irritated. “What is that sound? You were supposed to be here like an hour ago, dude.”

“Yeah, I got a major situation here, man,” he replies, sounding hassled. “You need to get over here like right now.” There’s a distinctive sound of meowing on the other end, and Mac pauses. 

“Dude, what is that?” he asks. “Are you holding a cat right now?” 

“Four of ‘em, actually,” Charlie corrects, and Mac pinches the bridge of his nose, a headache already starting to build in his sinuses. “I found a nest of them outside, man, and they were all wet and shivering and shit, so I brought them in. I just tried to give them a bath in the sink and they did not like it.”

“Jesus Christ, Charlie,” Mac groans, any hope of them actually doing something productive today rapidly evaporating. “First of all, it’s a litter, not a nest.” 

“Litter? Dude, we’re not putting these kittens in the trash. What the hell is the matter with you?” Suddenly, like being thrown into a wall, Mac sees Charlie at age nine, the bus home from their third grade class, going over the vocabulary books every day and nothing ever sticking right. He can’t muster up as much annoyance as he wants to. 

“The kittens have a home, Charlie,” he says, mostly patient “And also probably a mother cat. You need to go put them back in whatever gutter they came from.” 

Charlie makes a noise of protest. “It’s still pissing rain outside,” he says, and there’s another tiny, pathetic meow. Mac starts to cave despite his best intentions. “And I only found them because they were like, crying and shit. They’re little baby cats, Mac! We have to take care of them.” 

“Poppins loves the rain,” Mac says, just to be shitty, but he glances out the window. It’s pouring down hard, one of those Philadelphia summer storms that feel almost Biblical, like the whole world could just up and drown. “He eats the mud.” 

“Yeah, whatever,” Charlie snaps. “Poppins bit my left nut the last time I saw him.” 

“That wasn’t his fault! He’s a guard dog, he was, like, bred to protect people,” Mac counters, instantly defensive. “Obviously, he thought you were going to attack me and sprang into action.” 

“I was standing up to get the TV remote!” 

“Yeah, in a threatening manner–”

“Oh my god, fuck you dude, just admit it–”

“He didn’t know whether you were going for the remote or my neck–”

“He’s feral, Mac! He’s goddamn feral–”

“Whatever, Jesus Christ!” Mac exclaims, giving up the rapidly devolving argument. “Fine, I’ll come over and help you with the kittens.”

“Great,” Charlie says, instantly satisfied. “You think that cats like cheese? Or is that only mice?”
Mac sighs and says a quick prayer that Charlie doesn’t murder any of the kittens before he makes it over. “Whatever you do, don’t feed them cheese,” he instructs firmly. “Just- try and keep them alive for twenty more minutes.” 

“Dude, I’ve got this,” Charlie replies. “I think they think I’m their mother now.” 

That doesn’t bode well, but Mac doesn’t have the time to unpack it. “Alright,” is all he says, wondering how the day has already gone so off track, the way it always does, despite his best efforts. “I’ll see you in twenty.” 

He doesn’t bother to shower, throwing on an old t-shirt that he cut the collar and sleeves off of with a pair of kitchen scissors. Dennis and Dee are gone for the week, their annual Fourth of July excursion to the Jersey Shore, and their absence pulls Mac and Charlie back into the rhythms of their childhood, the dozen and change years before they’d ever heard of the Reynolds twins. Things are easier and a little worse, Mac and Charlie wandering around Philadelphia all day long, hopping the turnstiles to take the train and pooling their spare change to buy hotdogs. 

For one week every summer the long drift of his childhood comes back, that comfortable and gross boredom. He can never decide whether he missed it or not. 

He slides open Charlie’s door half an hour later, not bothering to knock. His mom is probably at work, and Uncle Jack isn’t living there right now. The house is as familiar to him as his own, the cluster of magnets on the fridge and spotless tiled floors. “I brought the milk,” he calls out as he walks in, shucking his sneakers by the door. 

He walks through into the living room and finds Charlie there, a kitten perched up on his shoulder and clinging on for dear life. “What do we need the milk for?” he asks, cuddling another one wrapped in a towel in his lap. 

Mac rolls his eyes at the whole thing. “You know, for the stupid cats,” he says, annoyed at having to explain. “To give them, like, a saucer of milk. They love that shit.” This seemed to be basic and instinctual knowledge in line at the Wawa, but now he isn’t so sure. 

“A saucer ?” Charlie asks, not a clue what he’s talking about. Mac huffs out a breath. 

“Yes, a saucer, Charlie,” he says. “A saucer of milk.”

“Um, we don’t have one of those, dude,” he says, like Mac’s an idiot. “I’ll go find a bowl. Here, hold this.” He immediately deposits the bundle he’s holding into Mac’s arms, and he scrambles, trying to get a grip on the thing. The kitten is tiny and fluffy and gray, and it immediately curls up in the crook of his elbow, purring. 

“Um, hi,” Mac says to it, rocking back and forth in an effort to be maternal or whatever the fuck. “I’m Mac. You are very small. And clingy.” The kitten sinks its little needle sharp nails into the skin of Mac’s forearm in reply. 

“I named that one Muffin,” Charlie says helpfully. 

“That’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard,” Mac replies, indignant. Clearly this is a special kitten, deserving of a special name. Certainly not a breakfast food. “You cannot name him Muffin.”

“Hm, well, already did,” Charlie replied, turning away towards the kitchen, not giving a fuck. “You can put him down. Name one of the other ones. They’re over in that laundry basket.” 

Mac turns and true to Charlie’s word there’s a laundry basket propped in front of the couch with another towel thrown inside it, two kittens curled up and sleeping. One of them is pure white, the other spotted in the same gray as the kitten he’s holding. 

He places the gray kitten down and scoops up the spotted one, a little smaller than its siblings. “Hey, buddy,” he croons, curling the kitten up under his chin and then placing a kiss on top of its head. It’s fluffy and pissed off, giving Mac the cat equivalent of a glare. “I’m going to give you a totally tough, badass name.” An idea occurs to him. “Hey, what about Mac?” 

“Might get confusing!” Charlie calls, eavesdropping from the kitchen. Mac concedes the point. 

“Oh, yeah,” he says, and holds the kitten up in front of him, considering. The kitten yowls, displeased at being yanked away from the warmth of his arms. “Oh! I’ve got it. We’re gonna call him Spike.”

He pulls Spike back into his arms and the kitten claws to curl up at his neck, clinging to the collar of his t-shirt and making weird little crying sounds. “Sure, that works,” Charlie says, and appears again, holding two shallow bowls of milk. “Okay, here guys! Who’s hungry?” He sets the dishes down and all four kittens dart over, the one still perched on Charlie’s shoulder jumping down. The kittens start lapping at the milk. It’s fucking adorable. Mac hates them. 

“I feel like they need some real food, too,” he says, getting invested now as he glances at their hungry little ribs. He remembers seeing a roadkill cat last week, hit in the middle of an intersection, full grown and gray with a white patch over one eye. 

“Mhm, yeah, maybe,” Charlie says, distracted, petting the one he seems to like best. “Should we kill a mouse for them?” 

Mac considers this. “Maybe just this once,” he decides, already plotting how they’re going to find and slaughter a mouse. “But after that they gotta kill their own mice. We have to make sure they’re raised to be self-sufficient. It’s a tough world out there for street cats. We should probably teach them how to fight, too, before we send them back out.” There’s a twist in his gut at the thought, but he wants to give them at least a decent chance out there in the world. 

“Dude, we’re not putting them out on the street,” Charlie says, cuddling the white one up to his chest while it protests at being pulled away from the milk. “We need to go find them good homes and shit.” 

“They’re cats, Charlie,” Mac counters, though he privately agrees. It still seems stupid to get too attached, to really care about something. All the more room to get your heart broken. “They can take care of themselves.” 

“They totally can’t, they’re just little babies! Do you really want to throw fluffy little baby cats into the sewer and call it a day?”

Mac resigns himself. “I didn’t say anything about sewers,” he complains, but acquiesces. “Fine, okay, whatever, we’ll go out this afternoon and knock on doors. Or, hey, let’s go to a Wawa parking lot and give them away there! That’s perfect, dude, someone will come for half off wings and take a kitten to go!” 

“Okay, fine,” Charlie says, but he doesn’t sound thrilled at the prospect. “But we have to make sure they’re not going to some wack job. Like, what if we give one to some guy, and it turns out he’s a cat killer? I’m just saying, we gotta be responsible about it. I don’t want them to get skinned and turned into trophies or whatever.” 

“Ooh, yeah, true,” he says, wincing at the thought. He gets an idea, pointing a finger at Charlie. “Okay, when we find someone who wants one, you’ll hold the kittens and feel out whether they’re picking up a bad vibe or shit. Meanwhile, I’ll question the punk, and make sure that it’s all above board. We see anything suspicious, and bam- ” He swishes his arm through the air in a karate chop. It’s definitely impressive. “No kitten for you!”

Charlie nods, excited. “Yeah!” he says, and rubs the kitten against his cheek. “This is a great plan.” 

Mac considers for only a second before he officially abandons the last hope of them doing something productive with their Tuesday. “Yeah, but,” he says. “It’s still like gross out, dude. I don’t want to go sit out in the rain. Maybe we should keep them, like, just for the night. We can give them away tomorrow.” 

“Yeah, and we shouldn’t be so quick to take them away from their brothers and sisters,” Charlie instantly agrees. “This is probably the awesomest day they’ve ever had.” 

“Okay,” Mac says, relieved and a little confused by Charlie’s logic. “Tomorrow for sure, though.”

“Oh, definitely,” Charlie says breezily, in a way that does not bode well for their job prospects tomorrow either. He nods at the kittens. “Let’s take them to the basement, so they’re, like, contained.”

Mac nods and clumsily scoops the kittens up to plop them back into the laundry basket. They whine and squirm in protest, tumbling out of his hands and leaping out as soon as he’s placed them in, trying to get back to the milk, and he curses as one tries to bite him. Charlie watches him struggle, making absolutely no effort to help. He’s flushed and annoyed by the time all four are sequestered back into the plastic bin, kind of embarrassed by the expense of effort. 

“You want a beer?” Charlie asks. It’s barely a question, even though it’s just gone noon. 

“Yeah, sure,” and Charlie heads towards the kitchen, before he stops all of a sudden and turns on his heel. “Do you guys?” Charlie asks, and Mac has no clue what he’s talking about until he realizes he’s talking to the laundry basket. 

“Charlie,” he says, trying to be firm. “They do not want beer. They’re kittens, dude.” 

“Shit, true,” Charlie says. “Sorry, babies. You gotta wait until you’re fourteen like the rest of us,” and Mac glances up at the ceiling, begging the Virgin Mother for some goddamn patience. 

They head down to the basement, Mac clumsily maneuvering the yowling laundry basket, and sit down on the couch, the same couch that’s been there since Mac could still shoot chocolate milk through the gap in the front of his teeth. They crack the beers and clink glasses, drinking in companionable silence. Charlie turns on the channel that runs Sunday morning cartoons all day long.

There’s a weird timelessness that comes over him when he’s hanging out with Charlie like this. He could be eight, or twelve, or sixteen again, it doesn’t matter. His whole life has been marked in time spent down here, watching the light change through the little window and picking at dried gum in the carpet, gorging himself on the snacks Mrs. Kelley brought down. It’s familiar as his own toothbrush in the cup by the sink. 

Charlie digs an empty fast food bag and a bottle of glue out from under one of the couch cushions. He starts drizzling glue into the bag, chattering all the while. Mac doesn’t really like the feeling of a glue high, like his brain is a rubber band that’s been snapped, but Charlie makes substance abuse look as casual and commonplace as checking the time or blowing your nose. 

“And dude, then I went to look underneath the cardboard box–” he’s saying as he passes over the bag, and Mac takes it, pinching the grease stained bag and huffing it into his lungs. The dizziness hits immediately, making him feel stupid, and he slumps back into the couch. “Motherfucker,” he breathes, his own breath too loud in his ears. 

The kittens must have gotten out of the laundry basket, because one scales his knee to settle onto his chest, purring deeply. It feels great. The sounds from the episode of Tom and Jerry currently playing wash over him, warped and strange. He has no idea how Charlie manages to talk so much on this stuff. 

It’s a few minutes later and the feeling is just starting to return to his body when he tunes back into Charlie’s monologue. “Okay, well, hear me out,” he’s saying, in between starts and stops as he hits the glue. “What if all four of us kept one? Oh, that would be so awesome,” and Mac opens his eyes to watch as one of the kittens in question shits on the rug. “They could be, like, our avatars! We could dress them up to look like us!” 

“You’re out of your fucking mind,” Mac replies on instinct, though it takes him a second to remember why. “Dennis and Dee are going away to school, dude,” the words souring his mood. “You’re not allowed to have pets in dorm rooms, I don’t think.” He pauses, thoughtful. “Also, I think Dennis and Dee might kill them.”

“Oh, yeah, true,” Charlie says, crestfallen. Mac almost feels bad. “But, hey, well, you and I could still do it! And then we’d only have to find two homes instead of four. Cut the work in half. I’ll take George, and you take Spike, and we put up the other ones. 

Mac blinks. “George like….George Lucas? Like Star Wars?” 

Charlie just nods and waves a hand in the air, like duh. 

He decides not to question it, moving on to the real heart of the matter. “Dude, I can’t do that,” he says. “Poppins totally doesn’t want a little cat blowing up his spot.” Mac is loyal to very few things in this world, and the list can mostly be narrowed down to his parents, God, and Poppins. Dennis is probably also on the list, but he pushes the thought down. 

Charlie lets the glue bag drop to the floor. He’s definitely out of his mind. “Yeah, but like, Poppins is barely around,” he says. “And your mom doesn’t even let him into the house. Keep the cat in your room and boom! You’re golden.”

“That is a lot of responsibility, Charlie,” he says, not quite sure why he’s arguing. Maybe arguing is just what he does best, the autopilot his brain goes on when getting fucked up. “Do you even know how hard it is to take care of a cat?” 

“Psh, yeah, of course I do, dude,” he says, and picks up his third beer from the floor. He swigs. “It’s not like it’s hard. You give them food, and then, like–” he pauses, takes another sip. “Well, I think that’s basically it.” 

“No, Charlie, that is not it,” Mac replies, and pulls himself up out of his sprawled position to go grab another beer from the sixer that Charlie brought down, not wanting Charlie to drink them all. He cracks it open on the coffee table and flops back down, foam running over his wrist. “They need, like, litter boxes and toys and shit.” 

Charlie just rolls his eyes, like it’s a trivial detail. “Okay, fine, so we go to PetsMart, I pull the fire alarm and you go grab the stuff we need.” They’ve done the same thing at countless places before, when they needed to grab munchies or the McDonald household was on its sixth week without laundry detergent. 

Brilliance strikes him, a way to fill two objectives at once. “Okay, dude, I know!” he says. “What if we get jobs at PetsMart? That way we’ll get an employee discount and we can totally afford all the stuff.” He’s pleased with himself, getting the job done that easy. He takes a sip of beer in celebration.

Charlie, rather than marveling at his genius, just scratches at his head. “Why are you so hung up on us getting jobs, anyways?” he asks. “I’m gonna be real, dude. I don’t get it. It seems so boring . ”

“Bro, we have to get jobs,” he says, knee jerk, because everyone knows that’s true.

Everyone except Charlie, that is. He scrunches up his nose. “Yeah, but like, why ?” he asks, and Mac is struck dumb. 

“So that we can be like productive members of society!” Mac exclaims, vehement. “Like everyone else with a high school diploma.” 

Charlie just snorts at that argument. “Dude, I only went to high school so I could hang out with you there,” he says, all honesty. “I don’t really care about that whole thing.” 

“What whole thing?” Mac asks. “Being a living, functioning person?” He knows he’s right, but logic always breaks down in the face of Charlie’s fucked up reasoning. If he doesn’t do something they’re going to be like this for the rest of their lives, rotting away on this same couch. 

“No, like, being a grown up,” he replies, as if that makes sense. “I just don’t really feel like it, you know?”

Mac knows. Of course he knows, but that isn’t the point. He feels like he’s fighting with his own brain, still glue slow. “Charlie, no one feels like it,” he says. “It just totally sucks and you do it anyway.” 

Charlie, for all of his peculiarities, never really does anything that he doesn’t want to do. It might be what Mac admires most about him. “Sure,” he says, slow and patronizing. “But like, no one is making us. So like….why should we?”

“Jesus, I don’t know, Charlie,” Mac says. He thinks of Dennis and his button downs and his upper class sensibilities. He wants to be a part of that, but there are no words to make sense of it. Dennis is headed off to college, Mac and Charlie will be left behind after. There has to be something to fill all that time up. “What are we gonna do otherwise?” 

“Like this, basically, I dunno,” Charlie says easily, like he’s thought it over and it’s no trouble. “I just want to smoke weed and find cool rocks and chill out. I’ve never really planned on doing that whole adulthood thing.”

There’s a faint betrayal that rings in Mac’s chest at that, that Charlie has not imagined their kids playing together while they grill and toss back beers and all that shit the way that he has. The two of them as grown ups and settled into suburban, comfortable lives. It’s a pipe dream, of course, but it’s worth at least a shot. 

“We can’t do this forever, man,” he says instead, resigned. He can’t decide whether it would be a blessing or a curse. 

“Don’t be dumb, Mac,” Charlie says, easy and reassuring. “Obviously, we’ll die at some point.”

This fails to comfort him. “That’s your plan?” he asks. “Doing this until we die?”

Charlie finishes off his beer and makes to grab another. They’re going to have to head to the liquor store soon and linger outside until some old geezer agrees to buy for them. 

“Well, I haven’t worked out the specifics,” he says airily. “Anyways, what about you? What’s your big dream ? Your career path ?” They skipped every single career planning class senior year, getting high under the bleachers instead. The guidance counselor never said a word about it, just sighed and glanced out the window, like she also knew it would be a waste of everyone’s time. 

“Maybe I’ll become a priest,” Mac says, vocalizing the thought. It’s stupid, but it’s also all he’s got. “That’s what Matty Mara is doing.” 

“Okay, buddy,” Charlie says, indulging him. “You do that, and I’ll do my thing.” 

“Yeah,” Mac agrees, feeling terrible even though he can’t quite figure out why. At least he has Spike, who he guesses now belongs to him, purring on his chest. 

“Cheers, dude” Charlie says, and passes a fresh beer over to him. At least there’s always this. “Happy kitten day.” It’s barely past two, but it might as well be midnight. Mac picks up the abandoned glue bag and huffs again. He might as well. 

“You know, I guess I wouldn’t mind doing this forever,” Mac says, really high and a little drunk. If he’s being honest, it wouldn’t be so bad to spend forever in this basement, huffing glue and watching old movies. He knows Charlie like he does his own handwriting. 

“Cheers to that, pal,” Charlie says, and it’s almost enough.

dennis & charlie 

Dennis wakes up on a random floor with hangover crust gluing his eyelids shut and late July sweat slicking his back. He rubs his hands over his eyes and groans out loud, trying to remember where he is and what the fuck happened to him last night. 

Flashes of the evening come back in a disjointed blur. Pregaming for the party with Mac and Charlie and Dee, the subsequent screaming match with Dee over who got the last of the tequila, Charlie drinking it all while they were busy arguing. A house on the outskirts of Philly that Mac’s cousin told him about, a keg stand, way too many cigarettes. Falling down the stairs outside the house and smacking his eye into the railing hard enough to see stars. More shots, Dee hugging him and slurring something furious in his ear that he couldn’t hear over the music. Then all black. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he says out loud, and opens his eyes to stare at the ceiling. His entire body hurts, like he got his ass kicked in a fight. Thank God he’s still mostly drunk, because he’s not prepared to deal with the hangover that’s going to set in in about three hours. 

He glances around the room and sees a random sprawl of sleeping bodies, draped over every surface. Must have been a hell of a party, he wishes he remembered more of it. Dennis rises to his feet, wincing at the weird pain from sleeping on a hardwood floor, and heads over to the kitchen to scope out the scene. 

Charlie is awake and humming, stirring at something on the stove. Dennis blinks and glances at the time flashing on the stove. 9:02 AM. Charlie’s always kept weird hours, but he’s somehow still surprised to see him. 

“Dude,” he says, still rubbing sleep out of his eyes. “What the hell are you doing?” 

Charlie spins to look at him, an apron he found God knows where draped around his neck but left untied in the back. It’s one of those cheesy Kiss the Cook! ones they sell at the Dollar Tree. Jesus Christ Dennis thinks but doesn’t say aloud. 

“Um, what does it like, man?” Charlie asks, impossibly patronizing. “I’m making breakfast.” 

Dennis pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs a world-wearying sigh. Everything is still slightly unsteady around him, the world appearing with a soft, blurred out focus. He’s finding it somewhat difficult to be Dennis Reynolds. 

“Yes, Charlie, I can see that,” he says, only a little snappy. “What I’m confused about is why you are making breakfast in a kitchen that is not yours with food that does not belong to you.” 

Charlie just sidles a look at him, sly and knowing. “Well, last night you didn’t seem too keen on figuring out whose beer you were drinking,” he says. Dennis’s stomach sinks. He was banking on everyone else getting too blackout to remember to give him shit. 

“Those are entirely different things,” he argues instead. “We were invited to the party. We were not invited to eat strange food out of the fridge.” 

“Hm, well, no one put their name on this carton of eggs, so,” Charlie says, with an air of finality about the matter. “Finders keepers losers sleepers, and all that.” Then a second later, like it’s just occurred to him. “Also, like, we definitely were not invited to the party.”

“That’s not-” Dennis starts to argue, before deciding it’s pointless. “You know what, whatever, it’s fine. You making omelets?” 

“Yeah, I found some mushrooms and some weird cheese in the fridge. This is like some Food Network shit.” 

Dennis glances into the pan, and it looks surprisingly edible. His stomach pangs with hunger, the dinner he skipped last night certainly responsible for the blackout. 

“Hey man, you want some?” Charlie asks, enthusiastic. Dennis considers, this many calories so early in the morning versus how many he must have puked out last night. He can always add some more sit ups in later. 

“You know what, sure,” he agrees, surprising himself. “But get that piece of shell out of the eggs, for the love of God.” There’s a huge chunk of shell in the mess of the pan, he has no idea how Charlie missed it. 

“Dude, the shell is the best part!” Charlie says. “It has like all the calcium that makes your bones grow and stuff. And it makes the eggs crunchy.” 

“Okay, well,” Dennis replies. “If I’m feeling a little calcium deficient, I’ll just go get a glass of milk. Not add shell into my omelet.” 

Charlie, obstinate, just continues stirring, whistling something under his breath. Dennis loses patience and hip checks him. “Just move over, let me do that,” he snaps, and Charlie hands him the wooden spoon without a word of protest. 

It’s not actually too bad of a job, once he’s picked out the chunks of shell. Charlie scrounges up some paper plates from a random cabinet and when the eggs are done Dennis divides them up, swearing when he burns himself on the hot pan. Charlie managed to make coffee before Dennis woke up, and he pours him a mug while he’s working, stirring in a lump of sugar with one finger. 

“You want to go eat on the porch?” Charlie asks once they’re situated, utensils located in a drawer. “I slept there, it’s nice.” 

Dennis rolls his eyes but follows him out through the screen door, onto the tiny porch with a faded floral couch. “Why did you sleep on the porch?” 

Charlie just shrugs. “Dunno,” he says. “More comfortable, I guess.” Dennis is about to give him shit and then remembers that he slept sprawled out on the floor, probably getting splinters in his ass. 

“Yeah, alright,” he says and sits down, propping up his paper plate on one knee. “At least it’s not hot as shit out yet.” 

It’s been a hot, blue summer. Days keep going by before Dennis can get a hold of them, very late nights and hungover mornings blurring in quick succession. He can feel summer starting to slip through his grasp, future crashing forward like a train,  and it scares him in a way he can’t talk about. 

“You have a good night?” Charlie asks, absentminded, spooning a mouthful of eggs. Dennis remembers to be a person and goes to take a bite too, surprised by how good it actually is. Charlie’s childhood neglect yielded some positive attributes, at least. 

“Yeah,” Dennis replies, chewing. “Good for being in the shitty part of Philly.” He takes his coffee cup off the ground and takes a sip, made correctly by Charlie with one sugar and a splash of milk. 

“Dude, this neighborhood is way nicer than the ones Mac and I live in,” Charlie says, wrinkling up his nose at him. 

“Yeah, and it just barely hopped over the bar that was on the floor.” There’s a faint pang of regret that rings through his chest. It’s still early, and Charlie isn’t fun to spar with like Mac and Dee are, it always just feels a little mean. “There was lots of beer, at least,” he tacks on in a halfhearted apology. 

“Hey, you kicked ass at those keg stands, dude,” Charlie says, accepting the peace offering. As always, the compliment strikes Dennis just right and softens him.

“What about you?” he asks, trying hard to be actually curious. “Good night?”

“Oh, yeah, man,” Charlie says, taking another bite. “Best night. There were a ton of cool magnets on the fridge.” 

Dennis glosses past the magnet comment, quite generously, if he says so himself. “What’s going on tonight?” he asks. It’s not yet Thursday, which means there’s a half chance they won’t be able to find anyone throwing down, which means they’ll just get drunk together instead. He knows it’s not really cool to get wasted in his basement with his sister and two friends, but it’s not the worst thing in the world. He secretly likes it when they get trashed and do karaoke, belting along to Friday I’m in Love. There’s a tiny part of him that hopes Charlie says that the evening’s dead, a part that he quickly stuffs down. 

“Dunno,” Charlie says, mulling it over. “I think Nicki Potnick’s having a thing.” 

“Ugh,” Dennis groans. Nicki Potnick is a four at best, and he’s on the prowl again after that whole thing with Victoria didn’t work out. All those hours listening to her weep on the phone, and he didn’t even get a blowjob out of it. The psych ward doesn’t take visitors, but he wouldn’t bother if they did. “Last resort.” 

Charlie nods in silent agreement. Dennis takes another sip of coffee and the edges of a hangover start to take root in him, a pulse of nausea in his stomach. He’s going to have to drink his mother’s white wine spritzers all afternoon to avoid puking. He coughs into his fist. “Man, I need a cigarette,” he says, patting at his empty pockets like they’re suddenly going to produce one. 

“Oh, here,” Charlie says, and digs a pack out from under one of the cushions. Dennis doesn’t know whether he stashed it there or just got lucky, and doesn’t bother to ask, just accepts the cigarette and lighter that Charlie proffers. 

He lights up, wincing a little at the burn of menthol in his lungs. He doesn’t like menthols but smokes it anyways, the burn of it settling his stomach and erasing the headache that’s starting to set in behind his eyes. He exhales in relief. 

“Thanks, bro” he says, meaning it, and Charlie nods, grabbing one for himself and taking back the lighter. 

They smoke in companionable silence for a few minutes, occasionally sipping on their lukewarm coffees. Dennis feels relaxed in a way that he rarely does. There’s little need for artifice around Charlie, he’s so in his own world that he barely notices the people around him. Dennis doesn’t need to preen and posture, doesn’t need to do anything but sit here and embrace the silence. 

“This is a perfect morning,” Charlie says suddenly, and Dennis glances over at him. His paper plate has been abandoned and he looks blissed out and peaceful in his gray hoodie, cigarette perched between his fingers. 

“This?” Dennis asks, confused. “Really? It’s Wednesday.” 

Charlie just nods. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s Wednesday, and I’m only a little hungover. I’ve got a cigarette, and a coffee, and one of my best buddies. This is the good times. What more could a guy ask for?”

Dennis considers the point. He certainly hopes this isn’t the good times of his whole life, that getting fucked up in the suburbs isn’t the peak of his existence, but it isn’t so bad. “Not much, I guess,” he says, and goes to take another drag off his cigarette. There are a lot of things he could wish for, a lot of things he could change, but this singular moment is good. He might even miss it, once he goes off to college, all the stupid nights and subsequent mornings. He could still be anything and he’s still here. 

The screen door opens suddenly with a creak and Mac and Dee shuffle out, looking like all hell. Mac has sleep ruffled hair and a fat lip, and Dee is wearing a blanket draped around her shoulders like a cape. Suddenly he doesn’t feel so bad about his own blackout. 

“Wow,” he says, grinning. “What car ran you over last night?”

“Kill yourself,” Dee replies, apparently too hungover to muster up anything more creative. 

“I need coffee, and then I need to go the fuck home,” Mac groans, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “Stupid cat needs to be fed.” He’s wearing a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and the flex of his arm makes something in Dennis’s mouth run dry. 

“It’s in the kitchen, pal,” he says, playing at being a good host. “Go help yourself. Milk is in the fridge.” Mac nods and heads back inside. Dee remains, shuffling closer to them and glancing at the plates. 

“Wow, did you guys make breakfast?” she asks, still wearing that stupid blanket. Like cold water he remembers a flash of last night, Dee’s nails digging into his shoulders as she hugged him and hissed into his ear that she fucking hates him, you fucking asshole. Any lingering goodwill from his positive mood evaporates. 

“Yeah, and it’s the best food I’ve ever had in my entire life,” Charlie says. 

“I’m so hungry,” Dee whines. She’s so goddamn annoying. “Can I have some?”

“Go make it yourself, if you want it so much,” Dennis snaps. “Charlie and I hunted and gathered the materials, we prepared the meal, and we aren’t sharing.” 

Dee looks put out, huddled in her blanket and miserable, looking kind of young, or maybe sick. She should have brought her stupid fucking brace, Dennis thinks to himself. She always refuses to wear it to parties, and then her spine hurts, and then her treatment is set back another month. She’s a fucking idiot. He’s so done trying to convince her to put the stupid thing on, decides immediately that when they’re at college she’s all on her own. 

“Come on,” she protests, voice nasally and obnoxious, scraping his fragile eardrums. “I’m so hungover, and I’m starving. ”

Dennis is about to cave despite himself and go make her a plate when Charlie speaks. “Well, we kind of ate it all already, so…” he says, trailing off, and Dennis exhales, immediately grateful. 

He nods in approval at Charlie. “Exactly,” he says, assured. “So even if we wanted to, which we don’t, there would still be none for you to have.” 

There’s the sound of breaking glass from inside the house, and then Mac swearing. None of them go to investigate. 

“Douchebags,” Dee curses, but gives it up. “I’m getting coffee, and then we’re getting the fuck out of this shithole.”

“Yeah, alright,” Dennis says, and then decides to push his luck. “But you’re driving.” 

Dee scowls and gives him the middle finger. Dennis just laughs, stubbing out his cigarette, and she goes into the kitchen, the faint sounds of an argument between her and Mac immediately starting up. He decides to light a fresh cigarette, and Charlie follows suit. 

Charlie grins at him, knowing. “The good times,” he says, holding up his coffee cup. Something complicated stirs in Dennis’s chest. Things are good as they can be, really. 

“Yeah, buddy,” he says, giving in. “Cheers to the good times.” The two of them clink their coffee cups like it’s a champagne toast.

v. dennis & dee 

It’s past two in the morning when Dee slips from the kitchen into the garage, twisting the door knob slowly so the sound doesn’t get one of her mother’s stupid little bitch dogs going. The naked light bulb is switched on, and she turns to see Dennis already there, smoking a cigarette in his pajamas on the faded old leather couch, abandoned there after one of Barbara’s redecorating sprees. 

Dee glances him over on instinct, trying to read his mood before she speaks. Dark circles ring Dennis’s eyes and there are a couple of empties littered on the floor by his feet, spine slumped with booze. He’s wearing an old pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a hoodie that’s a size too big. She goes down the stairs. 

“Hey,” he says, voice low, and Dee curls up on the couch beside him, tucking her feet up underneath her and shivering a little. The garage is always freezing, even in the dead heat of August, random shit crammed in every corner. 

“Hey,” she replies, and grabs the pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her sweatpants. She steals the lighter Dennis has on the middle of the couch, and lights up, smoke floating immediate and familiar through her lungs. She exhales a sigh of relief, curling up into one arm of the couch and letting the silence wash over her. Exhaustion thrums against her eyelids, but she’s been trying and failing for hours to get to bed. 

Late nights in the garage are like a pause from everyday life, the only time these days that Dennis and Dee can be something honest with each other, almost nice. They don’t snipe at each other, don’t go hunting for weaknesses to exploit, don’t gnaw on any shred of vulnerability that might give them the upper hand. Instead they smoke and drink and sometimes talk but mostly don’t, rarely needing language to read each other’s minds. The savage, embryonic darkness snared between them is more than enough, a wound that never stops bleeding but comforts all the same. 

Dee thinks it’s probably because they both don’t sleep well, certified insomniacs from the time they were born. Barbara enjoys reminding them that she had to hire two separate night nurses when they were infants because they woke up every hour and screamed until someone came in. In childhood it was the same, the two of them pitching hysterical fits at bedtime and then staying up long after, sometimes sneaking into each other’s rooms to play board games or do puzzles or read quietly. They’ve never grown out of it, and Dee knows that Dennis sneaks the concealer out of her makeup bag to cover the marks under his eyes in the morning before she wakes up. 

It’s too exhausting to fight when it’s this late and private, too exhausting to pretend that they don’t understand each other on some instinctive, chemical level. They could be the only people in the entire world. It’s her favorite time, her happiest time, though it’s probably kind of embarrassing and pathetic to admit to it. 

“You pack yet?” Dennis asks, breaking the silence after a minute, and walks to the fridge to grab a beer from the case that’s always there, magically refilled by the silent staff that flit around their cold, manicured house. He grabs two and cracks them open with an elegant flick of the flighter, passing one over to her. The generosity of it stabs her. She takes the beer and swigs it, Corona sans lime. 

“No,” Dee says, despite swearing up and down that she had every box ready at dinner. “You?”

“Nah, that’s a problem for tomorrow,” Dennis replies. They leave for college in four days. Dee still doesn’t know why he chose the same school as her, not when she’s the one that got in and committed before he even got off the waitlist. She’s never asked why, but the curiosity keeps at her. She wonders if they’ll still do this in college, or if they’ll wait for dawn alone in matching dorm rooms, staring at a pockmarked ceiling. 

“It’s weird,” she says. “That we’re, like, really leaving.” 

She can’t imagine any of it, what life looks like without the weight of her family around her neck all the time like a yoke. The brace is still there, a reminder, but she has an appointment date set for getting it off. She could invent herself all anew, could find friends and hobbies and boyfriends and a real life, like people in movies do. It’s as terrifying as it is thrilling, maybe more so. She drinks. 

“Yeah,” Dennis sighs, instead of his usual bitchy remark about how he’s headed for the greatest time of his life. “I know what you mean.” He looks pensive and thoughtful, young with the sleeves of his hoodie dangling down past his fingertips. It's hard for Dee to remember that there’s something really wrong with Dennis when he looks like this, red eyed and sleepy, hair soft and mussed without the presence of gel. 

He shifts in his seat and in the slope of his neck she can see him at their sixth birthday party, holding her hand as they cut the cake, smiling at her without a trace of guile. She wonders if the genetic poison had already started to uncurl within them even then, if the line between affection and cold possession had already begun to blur. 

“I keep thinking we’re just going to head back to high school in the fall,” she admits, and goes to light another cigarette. The pack is half gone, she has to remember to pick up another tomorrow, so she’s good and stocked for move-in day. Barbara already told her she had to figure out her own way to get to school, and Dee had almost broken a mirror in her fury. At the fucking least they could have gotten her a car like they did for Dennis. 

“Thank God we’re not,” Dennis says, with a viciousness that surprises her. She’s pretty sure high school sucked for her way more than it did for him. “I’ll fucking kill myself before I ever set foot in that place again.” 

He takes a drag off his cigarette, angry and disconcerted, running a hand through his hair in the thoughtless way he does when he’s upset, fucking it all up in the back. Something prickles all the way up her spine. She doesn’t know what he means, except– 

“Yeah, me too,” she says thoughtlessly, buying time to mull it over. She’s not stupid, knows there’s something that she’s missing. Something that happened around sophomore year that made him different, scarier. A switch flipped and suddenly he was easier to snap, his insults more vicious and violence quicker to surface. She thought it was Mac, for a long time, before she realized it started a couple months before that. She has one guess left, but it’s too fucked up to really contemplate. 

She’s avoided it, the whole subject, as a kind of generosity. The same way Dennis cranks up the music in his room when she pukes in the bathroom across the hall after dinner, affording privacy the way it’s so rarely given to them. But the two of them have never had secrets, not where it counts, and she can’t stand this not knowing. It’s unbearable, unthinkable, to have Dennis go someplace in his head that she can’t reach. 

She’s only had one beer but it’s hitting her, the initial tipsiness that sobers before it becomes full on drunk. She stormed out of family dinner ten minutes in, after her mother’s nitpicking questions became too much to stand. She only managed three bites in between all the arguing. 

She wants to push at the fragile peace between them, and it’s barely her fault. Their parents raised them as dogs; no wonder there’s a barbarity that lingers in them both. 

She swallows the last mouthful from the bottle and rises to get a second drink. She glances at Dennis, and he chugs the last of his too, wiping his mouth. She grabs two more from the fridge. Dennis passes the lighter to her to open them, and she does it clumsily, fumbling with the caps. She passes one over when she finally has the stupid fucking things opened, and Dennis takes a long sip from his. He’s really drunk, she knows, was probably drinking rum in his bedroom all afternoon before stumbling down to dinner.

“Dennis,” she says, tentative, feeling it out. There’s a chance he won’t even remember, if she keeps them drinking after. “Can I ask you a question?” She knows that the ease could snap at any moment and leave the two of them bloodied, and it scares her. She doesn’t want to be the one to ruin Garage Time, the last good thing they really have. She doesn’t know if there’ll be anything left after if she does.

Dennis just rolls his eyes at her, half hearted, taking a drag off a fresh cigarette. “Depends,” he says, blowing smoke directly at her face. “Will it suck as much as that one did?”

It’s only with the usual amount of his normal shittiness, but Dee sucks in a breath anyways and tries to soften the blow, bracing him so he doesn’t go fucking ballistic. “Listen,” she says. “I mean it.”

I mean it, the secret password of their youth, a phrase uttered by Barbara so many times in childhood that they started parroting it soon as they learned to talk. In adolescence I mean it was their secret code, meaning cut through the bullshit, just for a second. It’s not to be used lightly, a power that will become meaningless if abused. It’s the only thing in the world that can make either of them finally drop the act.

She can feel next to her as Dennis’s entire body tenses. It’s been years since either of them have said it, years since they’ve really asked something of the other. High school eroded the last dregs of that simple affection. Now there’s just this uneasy arrangement where they know each other’s minds backwards and in the dark but refuse to ever speak it out loud, hurting each other instead of themselves. She can’t help wondering if this is a mistake, palm slick against the neck of the bottle. 

“What,” Dennis says, flat, ash building on the end of his cigarette. He sounds scared behind the sudden coldness of his tone. She is too. She can never forget that he’d hate her if they weren’t related. 

It’s now or never, and her heart thumps sick in her chest. She almost pussies out, asks him some bullshit about Mac instead, just true enough to get by him. Dennis’s kindness is such a fickle thing, one wrong move and it’ll all be blown to pieces, doubling down on cruelty to make her forget that there’s anything else there. 

She sucks in a sharp fast breath and says it, eyes closed. “What happened with you and Ms. Klinsky?”

It’s terrible. She recognizes they’re headed straight for disaster but has to ask anyway, has to know once and for all, after wondering and fearing it for so long. 

He flinches before he can stop himself. There’s a beat when neither of them move or take a single breath. Silent, Dennis stands and walks back over to the humming fridge, digging through the chicken breasts and old ice cream in the freezer until he locates the handle of vodka that Frank stashes back there for emergencies. Dee watches as he unscrews the cap and tips the bottle down his throat, barely wincing as he takes a massive swig. She understands that this is the only way he can stand to do this. She loves him for trying. It hurts. 

He passes it over to her after a moment. Fair’s fair, and she can’t do this sober either. She tips it back. The vodka burns down her throat, awful as the moment. 

Dennis sits back down on the couch and presses his face into his hands, so she can’t make out his expression. “She banged me, is all,” he says, trying for bravado, or maybe comedy, but it still comes out small. He screwed up on the delivery, if a word of it was true he would have said that he banged her. 

Hearing the truth is different than the suspicions she’s held onto for years, Dennis disappearing for hours at school and coming back all wrong, talking to her fast with bright eyes and shaking hands. That time she casually flicked a hickey on his neck in the kitchen and he immediately turned and smacked her head into the wall, so hard that she knew he wasn’t fucking around, that he would really beat the shit out of her if she ever did it again. 

She thinks of Ms. Klinsky, with the lipstick feathered in the lines of her mouth and frizzy hair. Fury rises in her, sudden and savage. Dee pictures tearing out her throat with her teeth and blood spurting from the arteries. She could gouge out her eyes with a rusty spoon, could electrocute her with a car battery, could stick her fingers in a dashboard lighter until the flesh melted off. Dee could kill her. There’s no justice violent enough to make up for the crime. 

She knows instinctively that if she voices the anger Dennis will flip on her, shut right back down or lapse into the kind of violence that comes too easy. In kindergarten Dennis would go after anyone who gave Dee a hard time on the playground with his fists, if only so he could knock her teeth out himself. 

She takes another long mouthful of vodka and fights a gag, her body rejecting it. She doesn’t care, forces herself to keep it down. She hands it back to Dennis and he does the same exact thing, the same exact wince. Warmth crawls up through her, booze loosening everything but something horrible and sick still sitting right on her chest. She turns, suddenly brave, and leans into him, pressing their shoulders together. They’re the same animal, where it really counts. She was his before she was brain matter. 

They can’t come back from this moment and that’s the worst part, she knows it. They’ve both always hated anything they couldn’t undo or quit, scholars in revisionist history. She knows already that this night will never be spoken of again but it doesn’t fucking matter, it’s already in her like poison. She can no longer avoid knowing. They are liars caught in truth. 

“I’ll kill her,” Dee says finally, quietly, dropping her forgotten cigarette onto the floor. This is their shared language, a remnant of the ebb and flow of the way they taught each other to talk. Dee got it first, is the truth, recited toddler babbling to Dennis until he caught on. But he’s the one that taught her to walk, according to Frank. They are the sole possessors of one another’s childhoods, the only other witnesses to it all. 

Dennis exhales a sharp, noisy thing, like all the breath’s been punched out of him. “Yeah?” he asks, and it’s tentative in a way that turns her stomach to acid. Dennis never sounds unsure if he can help it. 

“I will,” she vows, and Dennis’s eyes drift shut for a moment, posture loosening. He relaxes back against her shoulder, head tipping against hers. 

“Yeah, okay,” he murmurs, warm and drunk and tired against her, reeking of smoke and familiarity. “Maybe tomorrow, then.” 

“Sure,” she agrees, and in a week’s time they’ll be flung on opposite sides of campus, pretending they don’t know each other at all, walking past each other in the dining hall with only a lingering glance. “Tomorrow.”

vi. mac & dennis 

Mac wakes up to the sound of the phone ringing, the blare of the landline bleeding in through his dreams. He groans out loud, a knife going through his skull, though he can’t immediately tell whether it’s from the ten shots he took last night or the fistfight he got into right after. He scoops the phone off the cradle and presses it to his ear, sprawled in bed with his eyes still screwed shut. The cat purrs against his side, warm and nice, even though taking care of it has turned out to be a total bitch. 

“Y’ello,” says a familiar, impossibly aggravating voice. Mac finds himself totally awake. 

“Dennis?” he asks, like the clarification is really necessary. Everything is still too bright and loud. “Jesus, what time is it?” 

Mac can all but hear him roll his eyes. “It’s 9:45, you heathen,” Dennis says, as if he ever bothers to roll out of bed before noon if he doesn’t have to. Then, sly: “How’s that head?” 

“Jesus, fuck you, dude,” Mac groans. “Like you didn’t start that whole thing.” All four of them went to the big end of summer blowout at Sophia Mercuri’s house last night, their last night out before Dennis and Dee go off to school, but it was barely past midnight when Dennis got into some altercation over the rules of beer pong with half the football team. Mac doesn’t regret jumping into the fray, even though he really should. All four of them got kicked out immediately after and went to go drink themselves unconscious in the Reynolds basement. Mac has no idea how he got home, Dennis must have driven him wasted. 

He just laughs. “I may have started it, but you definitely finished it, pal,” he says. “I recommend punching with a closed fist next time.” Mac finally makes to sit up, the itch of an argument pulling his spine straight. 

“I know how to fight, man!” he protests, too loud for the quiet of the room. “It’s not my fault those edibles were definitely laced!” 

Dennis scoffs. “Mac, those were your edibles,” he says, like he’s talking to a child. “You made them. You would know if they were laced.” Mac, quite charitably, does not point out that Dennis fell out of the car before they even got to the party and attempted to roll onto the curb while Dee screamed at him from the passenger seat. 

“Not true, dude,” he says instead, going for logic. “Charlie was over when I was making them. He could have put any kind of weird shit in there.” 

“Whatever, I don’t care,” Dennis snaps, which means Mac has won. “What are you doing right now?” 

This is a stupid question, seeing as Mac would probably leave in the middle of Mass if Dennis asked. It doesn’t matter where he is. He drapes one arm over his still closed eyes and prays that when he opens them he’ll be less fucking stupid. 

“Um, sleeping,” he replies, dumb and instinctive. 

Once more, the sound of Dennis rolling his eyes is all but audible. “Okay, well, go get your ass in the shower and come over,” he demands. “I have a shit ton of stuff to bring to the car and Dee’s metal contraption has severely hindered her ability to carry heavy loads.” 

Mac briefly considers making a joke about Dee and heavy loads before deciding it’s too much of an effort for this time of morning. All at once, through the fog of his hangover, he remembers that Dennis leaves today, really leaves. He’s been dreading it for so many months that there’s something absurd about it actually happening, right now when they’re in the middle of this conversation. 

“Dude, no offense, but I really don’t want to do that,” he says, a bite of truth to it. 

“That’s funny,” Dennis replies, easy. “I can’t seem to remember asking whether you wanted to or not.” His voice is breaking up a little over the phone, and Mac can picture him in his bedroom, pacing back and forth until the phone cord is yanked straight. “I’ll see you in twenty minutes.” The dial tone beeps not a second later, Dennis forever unable to stand not getting the last word. 

Mac uncovers his eyes and looks at the gritty ceiling, the water stain that looks like an angel if you squint. Every cell in his body is screaming at him to stay in bed, to sleep off the hangover and the fight and the premature grief already sloshing low in his stomach. 

“Fuck me,” he says out loud, and heads off for the shower. 

Thirty five minutes later and he’s standing in Dennis’s bedroom, stripped bare but for the neat stack of boxes that tower in front of him. It’s strange and terrible to see it this way, the posters untacked from the wall and closet emptied, rug neatly folded up and leaning by the door. He’s spent so many hours in this room, getting high and listening to music, watching Dennis pace and rant while he laid on the bed and thwacked a tennis ball back and forth against the wall. Wasted hours, nothing serious, just a way to pass the time before a decent party started or Charlie finally brought some glue over. Yet somehow it suddenly weighs down on him, that endless spill of minutes coming to a close. 

“Jesus, how much shit do you own, man?” Mac asks, slightly stunned by the sheer magnitude of it. If he had to move it wouldn’t take much more than a duffel bag, which gets depressing when he thinks about it for too long. As always, Dennis takes up too much space, more than his fair share.

“Mac,” Dennis sighs, as if it’s obvious. “I am a soon to be college man of refined taste. It’s important that I have the necessary accommodations to maintain my lifestyle.” 

Mac plucks up a ratty stuffed elephant crammed in the box closest to him. “Dude, haven’t you had this since you were like, six?” 

Dennis’s face closes, the way it does whenever his fantasies bump up against other people’s truths. “Put that down!” he snaps. “That’s private. Here, carry this.” He lifts a box seemingly at random and shoves it into Mac’s arms. It appears to be full of nothing but hair care products, yet nevertheless is heavy as shit. 

Mac accepts the weight and adjusts slightly, hangover ricocheting through him. “If you go get me a cup of coffee,” he barters. 

Dennis sighs a world wearying sigh, as if no one has ever suffered so much as him. “Fine, whatever, deal,” he says through an eye roll, heading down to the kitchen. Mac can’t believe that everything is so normal, that he’s hauling shit down to the Range Rover like Dennis won’t be lost to him in a matter of hours. As if Dennis isn’t about to go off and live a whole new life that Mac won’t be a part of. 

He distracts himself with the task at hand instead of thinking about how bad this whole thing sucks. Dennis brings him up four aspirin and the promised coffee, too much milk and not enough sugar but Mac sucks it down in between trips, willing the caffeine to settle the headache that sits like an anvil between his eyes. 

The Range Rover fits more stuff than Mac thought it could, the seats in the back folded down and loaded full of boxes. It’s barely been an hour when he’s coated in sweat that smells like tequila, sick and miserable in the August heat. 

“Can we take a break, man?” he asks finally, straining as he slides in a box of pilfered dining ware from the Reynolds household. “My arms are about to fall off.” 

Dennis curls his lip, but the armpits of his t-shirt are soaked through with sweat, and the natural curl of his hair is just starting to show from the humidity. “God, you’re pathetic,” he says, but slams the trunk closed. “Fine, but only if we can smoke.” 

“Yeah, deal.” Mac’s sure he’s got something on him, slaps at the pockets of the jeans he slept in until he locates what he’s looking for. “I’ve got a spliff, but it’s kind of old.” Old and shittily rolled, if he’s really being honest about it, but he was hoping to sell it for too much cash at the party, up until Dee roped him into a third round of shots. 

Dennis examines it, like he can offer up anything better. “I suppose that will suffice,” he sniffs, and Mac fights an eye roll. 

They migrate from the driveway over to the porch. The summer heat hangs thick and stifling, late August, and Mac swats at the mosquitoes already making a meal of him as he collapses into one of the lawn chairs. He lights up the spliff and inhales long, hoping the weed knocks out the last of his hangover. 

“Where are your parents and Dee, anyways?” he asks, the question that’s been banging around his skull for the past half hour. All he has to go by is the television, but he’s pretty sure that family is supposed to be present for these kinds of things. 

Dennis purses his lips, which means he’s annoyed. He steals the spliff from Mac’s fingers and sticks it in his mouth. “Well, let’s see,” he says, exhaling smoke into the humid air. “Frank is on a business trip, and my mother is having a spa weekend with the girls. Dee, lacking her own friends and a car, had to hire a moving service with her leftover Christmas money from Nana. I think she took a taxi this morning.” 

Sometimes Mac forgets that rich families are also unhappy. He can’t imagine having anything to complain about, if he had a house as clean and white and huge as Dennis’s, if he had two parents that were at least sometimes around. Still, the oddness of it strikes him. “That seems kind of weird, man,” he says, treading lightly lest he draw out the rage always sleeping under Dennis’s surface. 

Dennis shrugs, hits the spliff again, sucking in long enough that he coughs on the exhale in a way he would never normally be caught doing. “It’s a superior arrangement, actually” he explains, hoarse, lying through his teeth. “Frank dropped us off at summer camp once and rear ended a bus full of kids. Took forever to settle the litigation.” 

“If you say so,” Mac says, unconvinced but also unwilling to fight about it when they have so few minutes left. 

Dennis is on a roll now though, a little high and absolutely grandiose, waving his arms in the air with the spliff stuck in the corner of his mouth. He can’t tell which one of them he’s trying to persuade. “Anyways, it’s not like I need them anymore,” he continues, passing the roll over. “I’m in college now. I’m an independent man. Moving onto bigger and better things. Time to leave all that behind.” 

This strikes a chord of fear into Mac. For all of his angst over Dennis leaving, he’s never really believed that college would be the end of them. That Dennis would drop everything and just pick up a new life like a change of clothes. He takes a big hit and feels it shudder down his lungs, trying to think of anything that will assuage the fear suddenly rushing through him. 

“So, what,” he asks, stupid but he can’t think of anything better. “You’re not even gonna see Dee anymore?” 

It seems as good a stand-in as any. After all, they’re going off to the same school. Dee has a blood connection to Dennis that Mac will always lack. 

Dennis just shrugs. “If high school was anything to go by, Dee and I will be running in very different social circles,” he says. “It’s a big campus, but I’m sure we’ll run into each other eventually. We’ll get lunch or something.” 

The ease with which he seems ready to cast off his entire life terrifies Mac. He wonders if he’s also up on the chopping block. Does Dennis not remember the movie nights, the stumbling walks home from parties at four in the morning, the hundreds of skipped classes spent under the bleachers? Does he not even fucking care? Is it really possible that none of it mattered to Dennis, not even once? 

“Right,” Mac says, instead of the dozen accusations waiting under his tongue. 

Dennis shifts, like he’s uncomfortable. “Well, what about you, man?” he asks, casual, but something sharp behind the words. “What the fuck are you gonna do with your life?” He makes a grab for the spliff but Mac pulls his hand back, takes another massive hit for himself. A mistake, he realizes instantly on the exhale, now officially too high to be having this conversation. 

“Well,” he says, stalling as he tries to think. “Now that I graduated my Dad is totally gonna let me take on more responsibility in the business.” This isn’t strictly true, more like Mac said it and Luther didn’t verbally disagree with him, just nodded and made an uninterpretable sound, but it’s the best he’s got. 

Dennis finally loses patience with Mac bogarting the roll, wrapping his fingers around his wrist and yanking his hand over towards his own face, inhaling smoke between Mac’s fingers instead of bothering to grab it for himself. Mac loses his train of thought entirely. Dennis’s fingers are always cold, clinging too tight. 

Dennis raises an eyebrow as he pulls back, finally releasing his wrist. The spliff is nearly dead, and Mac can breathe again. “So your plan,” he says on the exhale, supremely unimpressed. “Is to keep dealing shitty weed to high schoolers?” 

“It’s not shitty,” Mac says, picking the easiest argument to distract from the point. “It’s the best stuff in town.” Never mind that he ratted out any other decent plug in the school district. 

He steals the last hit for himself and grinds it out on the wood slats of the porch, leaving an obvious burn mark behind. Something to be remembered by. He always smokes too fast with Dennis. 

“But, really, seriously, man,” Dennis presses on, like Mac is just fucking with him about his life being one huge dead end. “What the hell are you gonna do?”

Mac doesn’t know how to explain it to Dennis, the right words to make him understand that no one in the world gives a shit what he does, that he’s going to drift exactly how he’s drifted for the past eighteen years and no one ever expected anything else. He doesn’t have the bank account or the ambition, the right scaffolding to carry him along to Dennis’s bright, shiny future. It’s the dividing line that runs between them, the space between Friday night football and the graveyard shift. He doesn’t need a plan when he isn’t going anywhere. He’s trying, anyways, as best he can. 

“I dunno,” he says, too stoned and dragging the words out, desperately wishing for a change in topic. “Charlie and I are gonna try to get jobs at that pizza place that just opened on Egmont.” 

He knows the answer isn't going to be good enough for Dennis, but his truths rarely are. “Well, are you gonna move out of your mom’s place?” he asks, sending another acidic, uncomfortable jolt through Mac’s stomach. His hangover sits just underneath the high, and he feels sick and distant, wishing he had never even bothered to come over in the first place. He thinks of security deposits, credit checks, co-signers. 

“The market sucks right now, dude,” he bullshits, done with the judgment that clouds Dennis’s voice. Like Dennis could do any better if he was trapped inside Mac’s life, if he had to deal with the stifling weight of bills on the table and stale cigarette smoke and a mother that sees straight through you. Like Dennis has any idea what it’s like to stop fighting but still get your ass kicked anyways. “I’m just gonna save up for a couple months, ‘til I can find a totally sweet place. I have a lot going in my life right now.”

He does have a lot going on. He has Sunday Mass and Tuesday night movie night. He has to throw rocks at trains with Charlie, has to pour the cereal in the mornings and remember to go pick up milk in the afternoon. He has to count loose change to pitch in for the electricity bill, has to remember to scoop Spike’s litter box. There’s no room for anything else. There’s no time to dream up a better, shinier life. He’s never minded before, because he never really minds things when Dennis is around. Dread sits on his lungs like a lead vest at the dentist’s. 

“Yeah, okay, Mac,” Dennis says, all superior, letting it go, and for one clear moment Mac hates his guts. 

“C’mon, let’s finish the last of the stuff,” he says, stifling the riot happening in his chest. “It’s getting hot as shit out.” Sweat clings to his t-shirt, makes him feel gross. 

Memories yank at him as he jogs up the stairs in front of Dennis, tugging up a laundry basket filled with nothing but sneakers. He’s angry and can’t quite get to the source of it, a mess of emotions that he doesn’t want to examine too closely. 

Dennis doesn’t remember the first time they ever spoke. Mac does. It was at Adriano Calvanese’s fifteenth birthday party, a month into sophomore year, a kegger so rowdy it got busted up before midnight. Mac had gone there to deal uninvited, still awkward with the dime baggies shoved in his back pockets, but he had ended up getting fucked up anyways, drinking to ease the nerves he always got trying to approach the popular kids.

By nine thirty he was puking in the guest bathroom upstairs, running water to muffle the sound, vomit fluorescent from the UV Blue he had poured down his throat only minutes prior. He had his palms pressed flat to the cold tile to try and keep his head from spinning. 

He was gagging into the toilet bowl and praying for deliverance when the bathroom door opened behind him. He flinched, apologies and excuses already pouring to his mouth, and turned to watch as Dennis stumbled heavily in. 

Mac had always been intimidated by Dennis Reynolds, in the generic way he was intimidated by all popular kids. All he knew back then was that Dennis had a jaw like a movie star and a rich daddy and a slow, fluid walk. Dennis wore crisp polo shirts and laughed too loud and skidded his Range Rover into the school parking lot. Dennis had never looked at him, not once, even with all the times Mac stared at him in the cafeteria at lunch. 

“Hey, man,” Dennis now slurred, leaning heavily on the wall. He had a bottle clutched in one hand like a life vest, and he went to take a sip of it, tipping beer all down his front.

Mac coughed and spat, disgusting but he couldn’t help it, mortified at being caught like this. “Um, hey,” he said, and yanked up the bottom of his t-shirt to wipe his mouth. Dennis tracked the movement, eyes glazed and mouth pulled in a curious way. 

He eyed him up, like he was trying to place him through six layers of beer goggles. Mac knew from the vacant stare and flushed cheeks that Dennis was most likely blackout, a car spinning down the highway with no driver to stop it. “Hey, you’re, ah- Ronnie the Rat, right?”  

“It’s Mac,” he mumbled, embarrassing flush rising in his cheeks and the nausea still riling at him, the terrible, spinning feeling of being truly fucked up that he wasn’t yet familiar with. Yet something still thrilled in him at Dennis recognizing his face, however slightly. 

“Why are you vomiting blue?” he asked, lip curled in judgment and voice so slurred it was mostly just vowels. 

“UV Blue,” Mac explained with an involuntary shudder, and Dennis nodded, taking another sip of his beer. Mac felt the urge to vomit rise in his chest again, a gag building in his throat. He glanced at Dennis, who was leaning casually against the sink and watching him like he planned to hang around for a while. The whole thing was humiliating enough without Dennis actually watching him throw up. “Um, do you mind, dude?” he asked, nodding towards the door.

Dennis blinked at him, a little peeved. “Yeah, whatever, man,” he said, belching heavily as he stumbled to leave. He waved one hand lazily over his head as he went, not bothering to turn around, and slapped the door frame. “See ya, Mac,” he had said, and then disappeared, leaving him in the cold bathroom. 

Mac had thrown up, instantly, stomach trying to yank itself out of his esophagus, but all he could think about was Dennis, whether he maybe would be game to play a round of flip cup with him later, or want to do a round of shots. 

Of course, by the time Mac finally did get back downstairs Dennis had his tongue shoved down the throat of some freshman girl, and an hour after that everyone was bolting down the street and into the woods as cops shone flashlights and shouted. 

Dennis thinks the first time they spoke was a month later, when he hit up Mac for weed under the bleachers after sixth period with a slick Hey, Ronnie . Mac keeps the truth a secret that burns warm in his chest whenever he thinks too long about it. He still drinks UV Blue sometimes, even though he can’t stand the taste. 

But he knows a lot more things about Dennis Reynolds now than he did then. He can list them. Dennis coughs into his left fist when he wishes he had a cigarette. Dennis tips his head back when something makes him really laugh, like he’s smiling up at God. Dennis chews his hangnails bloody and inflamed. Dennis has nightmares that make him mutter feverishly in sleep. Dennis has eyes that flicker car crash blue. 

This is what he thinks about as they continue to move the last of the boxes, caught up in remembering, trying to ignore the shittiness of the present. He finally notices that the room is truly empty, everything Dennis is taking with him packed neatly up and Mac is still here. 

“Is that the last bag?” he asks, nodding at a stray duffel bag abandoned in the corner. 

“Yeah,” Dennis says, hands on his hips as he surveys the room, like a king looking out over his territory. “This is it.”

The air changes, Dennis’s mouth twisting thoughtful like he’s considering something. Mac can’t breathe all of a sudden, terrified that this moment is the last of Dennis he’ll ever have. 

“Are you going to miss me?” Dennis asks, and it sounds like he’s really asking, eyes red rimmed. He’s wearing a faded green t-shirt with their high school’s logo on the front, high cheekbones and elegant neck and skinny arms. His lips are chapped. His nose is slightly crooked from a break he got as a kid when Dee ran him over with a Barbie Jeep. He’s the most stupidly good looking person Mac’s ever seen in real life. 

Mac doesn’t reply, not a fucking clue what to say that isn’t pure bullshit or much too honest, and Dennis steps closer to him, too close, Mac’s pulse going a hundred miles an hour in his chest. He knots his hand in the bottom of Mac’s shirt and tugs him in close by it, knuckles pressed low and intimate against Mac’s bare stomach. It’s all impossible, unforgivable. Mac shudders. 

“Tell me you’ll miss me,” Dennis says, half frantic, staring him straight in the face and twisting Mac’s t-shirt in his fist until his knuckles blanche white. Mac can’t breathe, still can’t think of a single thing to say. He can’t decide whether it’s hatred or something worse coursing through him, echoing in his racing pulse. He wishes he never met him at all. 

“I won’t,” he says, a miserably poor lie, about to punch Dennis in the face just to get this moment over with. It’s unbearable, every single second of it, words slicing through him like sex or surgery. 

“You will,” Dennis says, soft and deadly. It’s a threat and a promise and a dare all at once. “I know you will.” Mac realizes, all at once, with an immediate and unavoidable truth, that he is someday going to have to choose between divine salvation and this half monster boy exhaling smoke and spearmint gum and stale coffee into his face. He knows he’s going to stall it out forever. He knows he’s going to choose wrong in the end. 

It must be in his face, stripped of all defenses, because Dennis places one chilly, slim hand on his neck, resting easy across his pulse, gentle in a way that could turn instantly to violence. His breath stutters. The feeling in his chest could set a street on fire. 

“Maybe a little,” he breathes out, stupid and too late. Dennis grins ferociously and slants his mouth hard and fast over Mac’s before he can even blink. It’s not a nice kiss. It’s wet and messy and there’s too much teeth and spit, Dennis yanking his hair so hard it hurts. Mac falls into it, desperate and searching, and just like that it’s over, Dennis leaning back and wiping a hand over his wet, chapped mouth. 

He steps back and slings the last duffel bag over one shoulder. He has that terrible grin on his face, the cat that caught the canary. Mac feels like he’s been caught robbing a bank or torching a car, something really unforgivable. He wants Dennis to do it again. 

“See you at Thanksgiving,” is what Dennis says instead, clapping a hand on Mac’s shoulder and squeezing tight enough to hurt. His hands are steady but he can’t hide the wildness of his breath, snared up and caught in his chest like he’s fighting to exhale evenly. 

Mac is still stunned, doesn’t say a single word as Dennis leaves, closing the door softly behind him. He hears gravel crunch as a car pulls out of the driveway a minute later, and then it’s over, easy as that. He stares at the room, stripped bare, only the barest traces of Dennis left behind. Mac carefully presses his fingers to his swollen, bruise tender mouth, like he’s doing the sign of the Cross.

He laughs once. “Jesus Christ,” he says out loud, and knows he’s going to be fucked for a long, long time. 

fin.