There wasn't any change in how Dennis treated Mac, not at first. They still bickered and had movie nights and ganged up on Dee. The change came when it came time for their monthly dinner and Dennis suggested a fucking gay bar.

"Jesus Christ dude, just because I'm out now-"

"You aren't listening," Dennis hushed him, "Look, you can back out if you want to, I just thought you might want a fun night out, that's all." God, like he didn't know exactly what he was doing, phrasing that innocently as a challenge.

"I can get that on my own," Mac grumbled, "You don't have to pander to me."

Dennis folded his arms over his chest. "Did it occur to you that I want to go too?"

It was the last thing that had ever occurred to Mac, and his reply came out as a spluttering of disjointed sentence fragments until he could re-order his entire world view. "Why the fuck would you want to come to a gay bar with me?" His mind was right on the button but he couldn't get himself to push it. "I mean, are you-"

"No." Dennis waved the idea aside with a breezy motion of his hand. "But my blood brother is, and these dinners are about both of us."

"Oh." His heart was still pounding in his throat and, he realized, his palms were sweating. "Well fine, but don't jam me up if I find someone hot there. And don't lead anyone on just because you can."

Dennis's mouth tightened into a thin line and quirked up crookedly. "Can't promise anything."

Mac huffed out a short breath. "Fine. I'll change."

The bar wasn't at all what Mac had pictured, in fact it looked a lot like a sports bar if sports bars hired solely fit, shirtless men as wait staff. The Phillies were on across the screens of four separate tv's and they had good beer. Mac stayed quiet as he sipped his, watching Dennis as he surveyed the room. "What do you think?" he asked, leaning into Mac's space.

"I think two beers isn't much of a dinner." Mac said, curtly skirting the question.

"Well they do have food, you know."

"This stuff is all carbs."

"So?"

Mac rolled his eyes. "So you won't eat any of it and I'll feel like a fat ass eating fries in front of you, and I told you we didn't have to come here so I'll feel like an idiot." He didn't sound as nonchalant as he'd hoped.

Dennis huffed out an exasperated breath. "If I promise to share the fries or the potato skins or whatever fried crap you want to get, will you please try to enjoy the night?"

"If you're gonna get all irritated about it—"

"Then let's go somewhere else, huh?" He was challenging Mac again, daring him to up the ante, and Mac still couldn't fathom why. Instead of taking the bait, he signaled over a waiter, a lean, hairless man in dark jeans, and ordered sliders.

"I'm happy to go somewhere else," he said as cordially as he could manage, "But let's not go on an empty stomach."

"Somewhere else" ended up being a full-on gay club by Mac's doing. If Dennis wanted a game of chicken, well, he could have it. This was Mac's territory. He even let himself get separated from Dennis to dance on his own, and when a muscular, blue-eyed man sidled up to him to offer him a drink, he didn't turn it down, didn't say he was there with someone already.

An hour in, though, he realized he couldn't see Dennis anymore, not even out of his peripheral. He stood up, giving a dismissive wave to the man next to him, and meandered into the gyrating clump of people at the center of the room and would have gasped aloud if he'd been able to hear it over the music.

Dennis was there, in the center of it all, with his head tilted back and the lights playing over the pale skin of his torso. He was shirtless, gleaming with a thin sheen of sweat, like—

Like a golden god.

The flutter in Mac's chest was back, and he let it grow, trying to breathe steadily as he watched Dennis. When Dennis had tried stripping it had felt like this, that same anxious excitement, the same drifting thoughts. Mac wasn't the only one paying attention, either, Dennis was attracting stares from six or seven men around him, and though he didn't seem as if he noticed, Mac knew better, knew he was basking in it. He felt agitated for some reason. It wasn't like Dennis was keeping him from dancing or drinking, there was no reason he couldn't have his own night without his friend.

This was their monthly dinner though, and Dennis had spent all of it trying to make some kind of point about how accepting he was of Mac and Mac's lifestyle and Mac being his gay friend, and this was exactly the kind of thing Mac had stayed in the closet to avoid, this cloying, pandering bullshit leaking into their friendship, making Dennis insist that Mac pick the place for dinner like they were on some kind of date—

Oh.

God, was that was this test was about? To see if Mac was attracted to him like he was one more candidate to be D.E.N.N.I.S'ed? As the thought came crashing into his head, Dennis turned, just slightly, and found Mac's face, grinning, and that smug look was too much. He stalked forward with his jaw set, ready to punch his lights out.

It surprised him as much as it did Dennis when he took his friend's face in his hands and pressed his lips to his.

Dennis pulled away, sputtering "What in the hell, man?"

"If you're gonna push me like this you gotta be prepared for when you go too far," Mac seethed. "Whatever version of your system this is, congrats, I'm attracted to you and all, but you know goddamn well you're just playing me and you don't do that to your blood brother."

Dennis' eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "You're attracted to me?"

Mac's eyes widened in disbelief. "Don't fucking do this. There's no way you didn't know after your little stripper scheme." He saw the shadow of Dennis' adam's apple bob in his throat. "We should probably go somewhere quieter if you're really gonna do this right now."

"What exactly am I doing?"

Mac leaned back in towards him, letting his voice drop to a growl. "Just put your damn shirt back on so we can get out of here."

Outside, the air was cooler and swimming with exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke, but it felt like an improvement from the cramped sweatiness of the club. Dennis came stumbling after Mac, tugging the hem of his shirt back down. "I'm not trying to use the system on you," he said straightaway. "I mean maybe I wanted to see where our boundaries are now, but I wasn't ever gonna—"

"Hold on, what do you mean our 'boundaries'?"

Dennis shoved his hands into his jeans pockets, staring pointedly at the sidewalk. "You're right," he admitted, "I knew you were attracted to me. And I honestly kind of wanted to see what it would take to get you to act on it. If you would risk ruining our friendship."

A thin, burning thread of anger wound its way around Mac's windpipe, choking his voice into a rasp. "I'm the one ruining our friendship? You force me into some fucked up gay bar date with my straight best friend and I'm the one ruining things because I took some of the bait?"

"I'm not your straight friend," Dennis said quietly.

"You said earlier—"

"I'm not gay," he shot back. "But I've known I was bi for a long time now."

Mac felt his lips moving, but no sound came out, like he was a fish gasping for oxygen. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?" he asked at last.

Dennis still hadn't looked at him. "I thought it might get your hopes up. I wasn't ready for you to be coming on to me or for it to be a thing-"

"So you just made my coming out into a thing."

Dennis let out a long breath, too close to a sigh. "You kissed me." It wasn't an accusation, just stating a fact, but it pricked at Mac, made him feel defensive, like a bird puffing up its feathers.

"Well shit, did I ruin everything?"

Dennis took a small step towards him. "Yeah, I think so. I can't gloss over that one."

Mac's heart thudded. Dennis had to be kidding. "So what, we're not friends now? Because I kissed you once?" He was trying to sound indignant but it came out as a strange, sad sound.

Dennis came yet closer and traced a finger down Mac's jawline. "I don't know what we are now," he murmured, "but I think it's time we called it more than friends."

He kissed him, softly, outside, where people could see, and his warmth seeped into Mac's chest as his heart beat out a cheer.