gore, self-harm, and suicide warnings for those concerned.
Dennis Reynolds has dreams of killing people. His friends. His family. The people he is supposed to care about but can't figure out why he doesn't. They're more like nightmares, to him. Far from any kind of comfort that dreams usually bring. He only finds shame in them.
He doesn't talk about them. Not with anybody. Not even Mac.
Mac calls Dennis his best friend. He only says it back because it seems to make Mac happy. And that's all Dennis wants. He's there for him when he wakes up in the middle of the night with big, pathetic tears running down his face. He understands that Dennis doesn't want to talk about it. And yet, every night, he imagines his hands around Mac's neck. He feels him struggle and claw for air until his last breath is pushed out of him. He imagines being responsible for killing his best friend, who is (thankfully) still there when he jolts awake.
It hurts more than anything in the world knowing that there are people who love you when you don't (can't?) love them back. Dennis knows how much it hurts. His friends tell them that they love him. They tell him every day in their own ways. He says it back, but he's on the verge of vomiting whenever he does. Hearing that they love him brings him nothing. No joy, no safety. They just dig deeper the hole that is already inside of him, where every meaningful and genuine feeling is lost to. If they knew who he really was, what was festering inside of him, they could never love him. He never tells them.
There are moments, terrifying moments, where he seems to give in. Dennis feels the fiction of his nightmares intertwine with the reality he lives in. He gets angry. Angry beyond any kind of anger a reasonable person should feel. He drinks. He screams. He punches the walls so hard that the plaster cracks and his knuckles are left bloody. He hurts himself so he knows that the blood isn't coming from somebody else. Sometimes it doesn't end with just his own pain. And Mac understands when Dennis hits him. He knows that maybe it might make Dennis feel better afterward, so he lets it happen. Because he wants Dennis to be happy, even if it means a bloody nose and sprained fingers.
Mac tries his hardest to stay out of the way, however. He'll lock himself in the bathroom and turn the shower on to drown out his roommate's screaming. He tries to keep his breathing steady and controlled because somebody has to be calm. He has to stay calm. For Dennis. And when the thundering of Dennis' rage slows, Mac uses all of his strength to unlock the door.
Dennis is usually on the floor, trembling like a leaf in the wind. He's curled in on himself, protecting himself from an unseen threat. Mac, as brave as he can be, will go to comfort him, wrapping his arms around him and whispering quietly that everything will be alright (even though he doesn't know that for sure.) He knows perfectly well that if he wanted to, Dennis could reach up and strangle him. But he never does, even if his dreams tell him that he should. Because he never wants to hurt anybody. Sometimes he just does. It never makes him feel any better, even though he thinks it's supposed to.
He sinks into Mac's warmth, whispering "I'm sorry." over and over again until he is too weak to speak because the prospect that he would even consider harming Mac makes him feel sick. It makes him feel disgusting. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
He lays awake at night wondering if he really is sorry. Because if he thinks about doing it, and thinks about it a lot, then saying sorry means almost nothing at all.
Maybe he should just do it. Just get it over with. It's easier to give in than to fight it. And it's even harder to resist when his friends already think that he's a serial killer. They think that he's a sociopath; that he feels nothing (or at least they did until he had to scream at the top of his lungs that he does, in fact, have feelings.) It just seems so easy, to take another person's life. He could prove everybody right for once.
But he never does. Because he can't. And he doesn't want to. He still dreams every night of goring his loved ones; cutting them up and covering himself in their blood. "Loved ones." The people that he is supposed to care about. But he doesn't (or, again, cant?). He wishes he could love them in the ways that he is meant to. He wishes he could love Dee like she was his sister. He wishes he could love Frank like he was his father. He wishes he could love Charlie like he was his best friend. He wishes he could love Mac like he was…
But he doesn't (once more, can't?). No matter how hard he tries. And the only person he wants to kill is himself.