Work Text:
Although per tradition Mac didn't decorate until Christmas Eve with Charlie, he found himself trying to brighten up the apartment in the weeks leading up to Christmas. It started small, but he ended up with more decorations than ever before (which was a low bar.) He found some for cheap and borrowed a few off of porches who surely wouldn't miss them. The holiday presence was kind of nice at first, but by Christmas, the sight of tinsel was more depressing than anything. Dennis would have hated the whole thing, but Mac had carried this feeling that it would be nice for him to come home to— not that there was an indication that Dennis was coming home… but that's what people were supposed to do at Christmas, to go back home, if even just for a visit. (Mac chose to ignore the fact that Christmas was also a day focused on kids, where parents spent their time focused on their kids, not their former roommates.)
Dennis never gave a fuck about Christmas historically, but Mac always liked having him around for the holiday anyway, even though he bitched about any festivity they encountered or Mac attempted... He may be an asshole and a Grinch, but he was still supposed to be there with Mac. Mac always counted on it, way more than he realized he did until Dennis was gone. After all this time he couldn't have imagined they would ever be this far apart, never for this long… and never like this, stretching on indefinitely, for forever, if Dennis stuck to his word and stayed in North Dakota.
Mac tried to imagine what it would be like if Dennis was home. It could make him feel worse by comparison and sometimes it was hard to imagine, but they knew each other so well, Mac could usually fill in the blanks. He would take Dennis' bitching over the silence, any day, if only he has the chance.
There was of course a rather vast difference between what Mac wanted it to be like if Dennis was home this year and what it would actually be like. Sometimes he reconciled these differences better than other times.
In his more far fetched fantasies, Dennis was liable to burst in the door any moment, clad in a colorful Christmas sweater the likes of which he had never owned and a Santa hat too probably. And he would declare that not only was he home for Christmas but he was back for good! Screw starting a family, he wanted to be back with Mac. Mac would smile so wide, more genuinely than he had in all these months living alone, that was for sure!
Dennis would be holding a box wrapped in shiny paper with a bow, and once the shock had almost worn off he would hand it to Mac. And Mac, he would say that having Dennis back was the greatest gift he could have ever hoped for, but Dennis would insist he open it, so then Mac would tear into it happily.
It would be something perfect for Mac of course. Because Dennis had always known him so well. What it was didn't really matter that much, all that mattered was Dennis would be home, and then they could both be happy. They could spend Christmas together, they could watch some stupid holiday movies and make fun of them— and Die Hard too, which was not stupid— and they could have hot cocoa spiked with Dennis' beloved creme de menthe. They could feast on whatever carry-out was open, and before the day was over they would join the gang to throw rocks on trains, as per tradition.
When they got back home from hanging with the others, they would warm up on the couch together. That's when Dennis would finally let Mac hold him in his arms, and he would tell Mac how he had missed him so much. He would promise that he wasn't going anywhere for that long again.
Sometimes in the fantasies, there was mistletoe too. Dennis would hang it up by surprise and once Mac saw it, Dennis would meet his eyes and nod to give him the go ahead, and Mac could finally, finally know what it was like to taste his best friend.
But Dennis never came through that front door, not all season. No matter how much Mac hoped or prayed. And he did pray about it a lot. Even at Mass on Christmas Eve, when he knew he was supposed to be focusing on the glory of the birth of the Lord, Mac's mind was still on how empty the apartment felt these days, and he promised God all kinds of things that were truly out of his depth for the sliver of a chance he could get his best friend back, if only for the holidays.
He found it hard to be thankful for shit or to care to celebrate at all. When he walked to the bar, he resented the kids playing and laughing in the snow, the couples keeping close together as they wandered the chilly streets.
He half-assed decorating with Charlie, and he could tell Charlie was over his mopey ass, but he let it slide more or less this year. They slammed back various bottles of liquor like it could make them forget how much Christmas actually sucked, and Charlie eventually passed out in the back office, leaving Mac to sit at the bar and wallow in his loneliness.
If it wasn't sacrilegious, Mac would admit that he really hated this bullshit holiday. Everywhere there were reminders that people were supposed to be happy and spending time with the people they loved. That's all Mac wanted really, but instead he was all alone, as he would be for the foreseeable future.
Mac kept drinking, hoping it would knock him out sooner or later. Maybe then he would at least dream of better days.