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They had a small apartment in New York City. It wasn’t much but it was a roof over their heads. Their landlord was friendly, he liked Dallon but the building didn’t allow pets. Dallon already told Brendon that when they got a house, they were totally adopting a cat. But for the time being, that wasn’t an option so Dallon settled for cuddling with Brendon at night.
It was fall and Brendon was busy, too busy apparently to go out and buy groceries. He asked if Dallon could do it before the store closed. Dallon was anything if not a good boyfriend so he said sure. He grabbed his trenchcoat and left the apartment. Dallon was almost to the grocery store when he heard this god awful sound. He walked down a side road to find the sound.
There was a cat. He was covered in fleas and most of his hair was missing. He looked like he was skin and bone and Dallon worried about the poor thing. He was pretty sure if he left the cat here, he’d die on the streets. So yeah, Dallon did the only thing he knew. He picked the cat up and tucked him inside the jacket. It was warmer there.
Dallon walked home quickly, his arms cradling underneath the cat. Brendon looked up when he got there, giving Dallon a curious look.
“Groceries?” He asked standing up and moving towards where Dallon stood in the doorway. All Dallon could do was shake his head. It was pretty obvious he didn’t have groceries, didn’t even stay out long enough to have picked anything up. “So what’s in your jacket?” Brendon finally asked, eyeing the lump that hid under Dallon’s coat. Dallon looked down, winced a little at how obvious it was and then looked back to Brendon.
“Nothing,” he lied.
Brendon reached out, trying to press against the lump. Dallon leaned back to try and avoid it but he couldn’t get far enough away. Brendon’s hand pressed into the cat and with how skinny he was, there wasn’t much give. He let out a strangled meow, the same broken and pathetic sound that Dallon had heard on the street. Brendon glared at Dallon.
“Show me.”
Dallon sighed, carefully opening the jacket to reveal the cat who, in all honesty, looked like something the devil might keep as a pet.
“That thing is disgusting,” Brendon said, scrunching his nose and stepping back.
“He is not, he just needs some love and a bath,” Dallon said, starting towards the bathroom. Brendon was following him, eyebrows raised.
“You’re going to give a cat a bath? Have you lost your last brain cell?” Brendon asked and Dallon shrugged. He was sure the cat would appreciate his skin being cleaned. Who knows how long he’d been on the streets.
“Yes,” was all Dallon said.
“We can’t keep him you know,” Brendon said, feeling a little bad that he was telling Dallon to give up the cat. He obviously cared enough to pick the cat up and want to take care of him.
“We can keep him,” Dallon mumbled as he started running the tap. The cat sat on the floor patiently, smelling the floor while Dallon gathered his least smelly soap. He looked back at Brendon who was rubbing his temples, obviously worried about what the landlord would say about them deliberately breaking the rules. Brendon was about to tell Dallon to put the cat back when Dallon interrupted him. “His name is Pasta.”
And that settled it. Dallon had named the cat and there was nothing, absolutely nothing that Brendon could say to get rid of Pasta. Brendon could threaten a breakup and he was almost a hundred percent sure Dallon would choose the cat over him. He sighed and left Dallon to his bathing. He sat on their bed, contemplating what they were going to do. They had to hide the cat from others and from the landlord. Not that that would be impossible but every once in a while, the landlord came through the complex to check fixtures. How could he explain away a furry creature running across their tiny apartment.
Brendon didn’t even flinch when he heard Dallon shout. He didn’t even feel bad when Dallon came running from the bathroom with blood on his arm. It was pretty obvious that Pasta did not like the bath.
Dallon was on the floor at Brendon’s feet, groaning about death and other things. Brendon just watched as Pasta dripped water on their floor, walking from the bathroom. He wasn’t sure if a cat with most of his fur missing could look smug. If they could, Pasta was smug.
It took a couple weeks but Pasta did get better. He put on some weight and his hair started to grow back. It was patchy still but his skin was healing, after all. Brendon had pulled an all-nighter and was tired. They were also out of food.
“Baby, please go to the store,” Brendon mumbled, the words sounding as mushed as his cheek was against the pillow.
Dallon grabbed his trench coat and started the walk down to the grocery store. He went a different way than the time when he had found Pasta, trying to avoid any more potential cats that he couldn’t leave out on the streets. His attempt failed.
There was a cat who looked like he’d been hit by a car. He was bloody and limping. There was absolutely no way that Dallon could just leave the cat. Surely Brendon would understand. And just like last time, it was cold out and he felt bad. This cat might have had more hair but he wasn’t immune to the chilly air. He wrapped the cat up in his coat and hurried home.
Brendon was passed out and didn’t even move an inch when Dallon walked in. He knew the cat wouldn’t be up for much playing so he set the cat in the closet, figuring he could stay up that night to clean the wound up and hopefully help save the cat. He’d skip the bath this time, though. He had enough cuts on his arm from the last time to think it might be a good idea to try again.
He whispered to the cat that he’d be home shortly and begged him to stay quiet. Dallon ran back to the store and got the groceries, hopefully, to keep Brendon from being so suspicious. He didn’t know how long he’d be able to hide the cat for from him but maybe by the time Brendon found out, he’d be in too deep and Brendon wouldn’t say anything.
The groceries didn’t take long and he set them on his counter. Dallon walked into their bedroom, intending on hanging his coat up but thinking that maybe that would be a bad idea. He threw it on the bed and this time, the sound startled Brendon out of his slumber.
“Oh, you’re home,” he mumbled, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes. “Got the groceries this time?” He asked and Dallon nodded. He looked over to the closet briefly, no sound coming from it. He was slightly worried about the cat but he didn’t make any move to go and check. Brendon sat up and rubbed his eyes, standing up.
Brendon grabbed for the coat on the bed, moving to go to the closet and hang it up.
“Wait!” Dallon yelled, knowing that he would just make Brendon more suspicious but he had to try and stop him. Brendon turned to look at him, eyebrows raising.
“What did you do, Dallon?” He asked, pausing and thinking and changing his mind. “What did you bring home?” He asked instead and Dallon swallowed, shrugging his shoulders.
Brendon opened the closet, looking down to the ground to find a tan cat sitting there, looking up at him.
“What is this?” Brendon asked. It was very obvious what it was but he wanted Dallon to admit that he brought another cat home.
“Nothing,” Dallon said dumbly.
“You sure?” Brendon tried and Dallon kept to it.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, walking forward and picking the cat up off the floor. “Come on, Spaghetti, let’s go clean up that booboo,” he whispered, Brendon hearing it easily. He sighed, sitting down on the edge of the bed with the coat on his lap.
“No more cats!” He yelled as Dallon shut the door to the bathroom so he could clean the wound without fear of the cat running and hiding. Brendon looked down at the coat and realized the only time that he wore the jacket, he somehow managed to come home with another cat.
“And I’m burning this jacket!” Brendon added as an afterthought.
Pasta followed Dallon around everywhere, he was very attached and very thankful that Dallon had rescued him and it showed. Spaghetti, Dallon assumed, was an older cat and had probably been a stray his whole life. Not that Dallon minded that the cat was a loner, he assumed that Spaghetti preferred it that way. Pasta slept tucked into Dallon’s side and Spaghetti slept at Brendon and Dallon’s feet. It was nice.
A happy little family.
The landlord came around for checks and Brendon almost shit himself when he knocked.
Dallon answered the door calmly, the cats sitting on the couch staring at the door, unsure of what to do with a new person present.
“Just coming b- what is that?” He asked, pointing to the couch. Dallon picked up Pasta, the friendliest of the two and carried him over to the landlord.
“Nothing, I don’t know what you mean,” Dallon said sweetly.
The landlord reached out, petting the cat.
“As long as I don’t see a cat or hear anything,” he said and Brendon was in the back making frustrated noises.
The door closed and Brendon collapsed on the couch.
“How do you get away with so much? I don’t understand.”
Apparently, Brendon never learned. He asked Dallon to get the groceries, too invested in a show he was watching on their small television to think through the potentially bad idea it was. Or maybe Brendon was under the impression that “no more cats” had no loopholes. Obviously, he didn’t know Dallon well enough.
He grabbed the trenchcoat and Brendon didn’t even look up, didn’t notice his impending doom, or, well, something similar.
Dallon tried to keep his head up, keep from looking down dark allies where a sick cat might be lurking. He wasn’t trying to bring home another sickly cat.
But as hard as he tried, a box that he almost tripped over was hard to walk past. It said free on the front and Dallon heard tiny meows coming from inside and it pulled on his heart. They sounded so scared and he had to open it up and look inside. There were three tiny kittens, one of which was definitely the runt, at least half the size of the others. It was barely snowing outside and there wasn’t a blanket in the box.
Unlike an older cat who had lived through much more, these poor babies wouldn’t survive the night out in the cold and how was Dallon supposed to know if someone would take them home or if they’d continue walking past. He didn’t want to walk down the road tomorrow and find this box still with three kittens but silent as the night.
He picked up one of the babies, making a choked noise when the small white cat nuzzled into his hand. He couldn’t put the cold thing down, no way. Dallon looked around real quick before he carefully slipped the kitten into his pocket. They were all small enough for it. The second white cat went into his other pocket before he picked up the orange runt, holding him up for a moment. Dallon knew he needed the extra warmth. He slipped the last one into the inside coat pocket, keeping him as close to the warmth as possible. Dallon hurried home and when the door closed, too soon to have gotten the groceries, Brendon turned and scanned him carefully.
“What did you do? Where is it?” He asked, immediately suspicious of Dallon. This time, though, he wasn’t clutching a cat in close to his chest, his jacket laying flat against his chest.
“Nothing? Baby, what are you talking about?” Dallon asked, standing in the doorway. He didn’t know if he should just try to hang the coat up and talk his way out of it later or get it over with now.
Dallon wasn’t given a choice.
Brendon stood up, pressing in the center of Dallon’s chest, barely missing where the tiny kitten was curled up in the pocket. Brendon dragged his hand down Dallon’s side until it found a small lump in his pocket. He reached in and Dallon swallowed.
Out came one of the small kittens and Brendon was almost speechless. Almost.
“Is this all?” He asked and Dallon shook his head but the movement was small. Brendon glared and reached for the other pocket, pulling out the other white kitten.
“I thought I told you no more cats?” He asked and Dallon shrugged.
“These are kittens, not cats, and Brendon-”
“I don’t want to hear the sob story,” Brendon said, attempting to hold up a hand but instead, he just raised a small furball to Dallon’s face.
“What did you think was going to happen? That I wouldn’t notice two small kittens running through the house?” He asked and Dallon thought for a moment before nodding.
“Yeah, maybe.”
Brendon sighed, setting the two kittens down, rubbing his temples. Dallon slipped the coat off, deciding that he’d break the news of a third kitten in a little while.
He was about to hang up the coat when Brendon turned around, gasping. Dallon looked down at the coat and he’d almost gotten away with a third but there was a small ear poking out of the pocket.
“Dallon!” He yelled, lunging forward to grab the coat. He was gentle as he pulled the smaller kitten out. The kitten looked at Brendon and reached a paw out, letting out the tiniest meow. Dallon watched as Brendon’s face softened.
“His name is Tomato,” Dallon said, smiling at him.
“No, his name is Noodle, I have named him Noodle,” Brendon said, for the first time getting involved of the naming of the cats. Dallon wasn’t going to try and argue.
“The other two are Ricotta and Parmesan,” Dallon said softly and Brendon just nodded.
They kept them all. Brendon made it explicitly clear. No other animals were allowed nothing. Dallon agreed. Even to him, five was a lot.
It was a few months later when the landlord came around and it was clear he knew there were more.
“No cats?” He asked as he crouched down to pet Pasta. Ricotta ran up to him, nuzzling into his leg and he continued to pet both while Brendon and Dallon assured him they had no cats. He nodded and continuing down the hall.
Noodle took to Brendon about as quickly as Brendon took to Noodle.
The small kitten followed Brendon like a puppy. If Brendon was home, Noodle was either on top of him or between his feet. Brendon couldn’t even pee alone, not that he minded.
One day, Noodle learned he could climb Brendon from his pants to his shoulder and while Brendon winced at the claws meeting his skin, he loved the small little kitten so he allowed it.
The cats all insisted on sleeping in their bed. Noodle slept on Brendon’s cheat and Lasagna continued to sleep at their feet. Pasta, Ricotta, and Parmesan were a smattering between them and on their heads but it was cute so they allowed it. Even the cats had a silent agreement with their humans that when they decided to cuddle in bed, the cats rearranged to allow Brendon and Dallon their night together.
Their cats were their life.
It only made sense to involve the cats when Dallon bought a ring.
Specifically Noodle.
Brendon was asleep, sleeping like the dead when Dallon picked Noodle up off of his chest. The cat definitely didn’t like that, meowing as Dallon quickly left the room so not to wake Brendon.
He slipped the ring onto the collar right when he heard Brendon’s confused groan.
“Babe, where’s Noodle? Is he okay?” He asked, the concern evident in his voice. There wasn’t a morning that he wasn’t awoken to a mouthful of fur. The cat was in Dallon’s hands crying and Dallon set him on the ground. Noodle took off running back to the bedroom and Dallon quickly followed.
He climbed his way onto the bed and into Brendon’s arms and it took a minute before Brendon saw the ring when Noodle tried to headbutt Brendon.
“Yes,” he said, fighting back tears.