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Mordecai was not a very sociable person. People in his apartment building knew this, and didn't try to engage him in small talk. They had, for the most part, accepted that he was better off left alone and that trying to force him to talk with them would only end up painfully awkward for everyone involved.
Then Brick came along.
Brick was the kind of guy that people liked to have as a neighbor. He was cheerful, helped people for the sake of being friendly, and had the strength to move any kind of furniture. It was kind of like having a Golden Retriever move in. Not just because of the personality, but because Brick was also loud and prone to breaking things accidentally when he got too excited.
Considering how much Mordecai valued his personal space, Brick was more or less a nightmare. He was pretty sure he was the only person that the bigger man hadn't yet made friends with, but he had no intentions of changing that. The companionship of literally everyone else in the building would have to suffice. Mordecai was still trying to figure out how Brick had the time to hang out with so many people, not that he'd admit to being interested. Or how Brick had the sanity, for that matter, though he was fairly certain that anyone who willingly spent so much time around people was a particular kind of crazy.
Yeah, everyone ran into Brick eventually. Mordecai more often than most, because due to some cruel joke of the universe, their apartments were across the hall from each other. It was utterly exhausting. He had no idea how he'd survived this long. He couldn't exactly move because his new neighbor wanted to be friends with him, though, so he'd decided to just bear it until Brick got it through his head that Mordecai would never be friends with him.
Things got complicated when Brick got cats.
Mordecai wasn't aware of this for a while. He'd put a decided amount of effort into being unapproachable, and he didn't really consider it a tragedy that he missed out on local gossip. Despite this, he could only avoid someone like Brick for so long. When Brick started regularly bringing home bags of cat litter and feather toys, Mordecai noticed. And there was one thing that the building wasn't aware of: Mordecai loved animals.
Thus came the dilemma that faced him. Spending time with Brick was a decidedly undesirable thing. Brick was loud and friendly and Mordecai would rather be friends with an alligator, because even if the alligator tried to eat him, it would do so quietly. But continuing to avoid and ignore Brick meant that Mordecai wouldn't be able to see his cats. And he knew there were multiple ones, because he'd once overheard Brick saying 'hello girls' when he came home. Dammit Brick.
Above all things, however, Mordecai was stubborn. He had successfully gotten Brick to stop trying to invite him to group events like cookouts and theater nights a matter of days ago. Relinquishing that hard-fought victory was not something he was eager to do. And he knew that once Brick saw any sign of friendliness, he would never let go of it. Like a wolf latching onto a weakness in a deer. Except instead of teeth, it was all smiles and cheerfulness and booming laughter. Like a hypersocial wolf who wanted to be friends with the deer when all the deer wanted was to be left alone because too many people had tried to force him to act like someone he wasn't and then been angry when he wanted to go back to being himself. Okay, so maybe that was a little too specific.
Mordecai's plans to keep Brick at arm's length were going great until a particularly rainy Wednesday morning. His laptop charger had decided to stop working for no discernible reason the day before a major deadline, and Mordecai had promptly panicked. Not that he'd admit that to anyone else. The fact that the downpour had been a sudden one meant he'd gotten soaked in the parking lot a minute ago and was in the furthest thing from a good mood. All he wanted was to plug in his stupid fucking laptop and let it charge while he changed into some warm clothes.
Then a can of cat food rolled into his foot while he was unlocking his door. He paused to stare at it for a moment before a momentous crash nearly scared him out of his skin and he whipped his head around. Brick was standing there in the hallway a few feet away with a forlorn look on his face, a ripped wet paper bag in his hands, and a small mountain of cat food cans piled at his feet. He looked up and it was almost a little unsettling to see him not smiling.
“Should've got plastic,” Mordecai said, motioning to the bag. Looked like the bottom had fallen out from the weight of the cans. No response. He bent over to retrieve the can that had rolled over to him and turned the tin over in his hands so he could read the label. Kitten wet food. Brick had kittens? Now that just wasn't fair. He wordlessly stepped sideways and held out the can for Brick to take.
“Thanks,” Brick said. Mordecai just shrugged one shoulder, not intending to let the conversation progress any further, but Brick seemed to have other ideas as he knelt down to begin gathering cans. “Didn't even know I ran out of cat food 'til this morning. I foster kittens and I got one last week who's a tiny little thing that still needs to be fed every few hours. Someone picks her up in the mornings when I have to go to work but I get up to feed her through the night.”
“If you need someone to look after her, I work from home,” Mordecai let out in a rush, then promptly fled inside with barely enough time to touch the mezuzah on his doorway before he slammed the door shut behind him. What had he just said? Why had he said it? Had he been around to see Brick's shocked look give way to a warm, open smile, it probably would have made sense to him. But as it was, he just dropped the charger package on his couch and pulled his shirt over his head so he could get changed, making a face at the water dripped across the tile floor.
Over the next week days, things got progressively worse. His latest client was asking for increasingly impossible things. And was, of course, unwilling to pay for the overtime it would take to get it done as fast as they wanted it. When the job went past the desired due date, it somehow became Mordecai's fault even though he'd said this would happen. Twice. And now they wanted to meet with him every day to go over progress. Sometimes he really hated people... He'd been getting stress headaches the last three days in a row.
Ironically, this distaste for humanity in general was what led to Mordecai knocking on the door of the friendliest person in the building. He'd been distracted thinking about Brick's kittens ever since Brick had mentioned one being small enough to need feeding every few hours. He was half convinced that Brick had mentioned that on purpose to get Mordecai over here. Whether that was true or not, he was stressed and cranky and really just wanted to hold something fluffy and warm until some of it went away. Especially since this job was only halfway done.
“Look, I really don't like you, but you have kittens, so I'm going to be over a lot.”
Brick blinked, clearly not having expected that as an opener, but Mordecai was far too tired to muster up the energy for manners. If Brick shut the door in his face, well, he couldn't say he'd be surprised. Instead he got a smile and Brick stepping aside to let him in. Huh.
“C'mon in,” Brick invited him. “The kittens will be happy to have someone else to play with.”
Mordecai was immensely curious about what the inside of Brick's apartment would look like. Turned out there wasn't much. A couch under the living room window, which Mordecai highly suspected was only placed there so the cats could easily access the windowsill. A wall-mounted tv, a dining room table holding a laptop and a collection of several empty glasses, and about a dozen cat toys scattered across the floor. There were pictures on the walls, presumably of Brick's family, but even Mordecai knew better than to just stare at those when they were still strangers. He didn't even know Brick's name – because he wasn't for a second believing that the other man had been named as such by his parents.
All of those thoughts were swept away when a kitten popped its head out of a cardboard box that was sitting by the couch. It leaped out and scampered across the room to valiantly pounce on his loose shoelace and Mordecai couldn't help a quiet chuckle. He crouched down to pick it up, not minding at all when it batted at his chin. Kittens were always curious about new people and he certainly counted.
“That's L,” Brick supplied helpfully. “She hasn't really liked anyone so far. Funny that she took to you right away.”
“Must be a bad judge of character,” Mordecai said, and was surprised to find he liked that that made Brick laugh.
As soon as he started scratching behind L's ears, she settled happily in his arms and started purring. It was a surprisingly loud sound for such a little creature. He kind of felt like he was holding a chainsaw or a jet engine. When he stopped petting her, she pawed at his hand and pulled it back towards her, and Mordecai went back to giving her the attention she clearly thought she deserved. There wasn't much that could beat an affectionate kitten when it came to stress relief. Of the other possibilities, well, suffice it to say none of them were ones he'd be suggesting to the most annoying neighbor he'd ever had. Who had accepted Mordecai's weirdness and invited him in to play with kittens, so maybe Mordecai would have to reevaluate the annoying part. Maybe.
“The younger kittens are in the spare bedroom, if you wanna see 'em.” Brick told him. “It's easier to cat-proof the one room, and, well, I was kinda worried I'd step on 'em if they were roaming around the house.” He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
“Sounds like a solid reason to me. You're a pretty big guy.” And it wasn't often that Mordecai said that. He was still kind of peeved that Brick was actually taller than him somehow. But that wasn't what he needed to bring up right now, so he just set L down and followed Brick into the spare bedroom.
“That's Nacho, Toast, and Pear. They're six weeks old. And the youngest one,” Brick said, picking up a kitten half the size of the others, “is Simba.”
“Holy shit. That's adorable.” Mordecai sat down cross-legged on the floor and wiggled his fingers in front of him. All three of the older kittens came scampering over to check him out. They were tabbies, so they were fairly identical apart from the varying amounts of white on their paws and chests. But he had no issues with essentially seeing triple considering how cute they were. Getting into his lap proved to be too much for Nacho, unlike her sisters, so she sat down and meowed piteously at him until he relented and picked her up.
“You'll never get rid of her now,” Brick commented.
“Man, I'm all right with that. Look at 'em. I haven't had any pets since I lost my bird a year ago. Never had cats, either, 'cause I didn't want anything to happen to him. Cats'll hunt, y'know?”
“Yeah, they get chatty when they see something out the window.” Brick sat down next to him. Simba, who was small in the first place, looked absolutely tiny in his hands. “What kind of bird did you have?”
“Cockatiel. I raised him from an egg when I was twenty and he lived another twenty years.”
“So he was your best friend?”
Mordecai looked up at him in surprise. “Yeah. Most people, when I mention him, they say some bullshit about how he was 'just an animal'. But he was a lot more than that. Got him just a couple weeks after my first apartment. It was a whole new life for me and I wanted someone to share it with.”
“What's your best mem'ry with him?”
“You really wanna hear?”
“Yeah.”
Despite the fact that Mordecai had been trying to hold onto his distaste for Brick, he was finding it harder and harder to do so. Instead he scratched under Nacho's chin, ignoring the way Toast was trying to eat his wrist, and talked about the time he'd taught Bloodwing to scream 'fuck off' in response to someone knocking on the door. It got Brick to laugh, and Mordecai was beginning to like that.
Somehow they spent two hours talking. Mordecai still wasn't sure what prompted that, but he had to admit that he was no longer stressed. Partly because of the kittens, and partly because of Brick – who was a surprisingly good conversationalist.
“You can stay for dinner, if you want,” Brick offered.
“Nah, I gotta get back to my place and get some more work done.” The corner of Mordecai's mouth twisted down in displeasure. He'd like to stay but he couldn't prioritize this over getting his job finished. He needed the money, after all. Living was expensive and he didn't need to get any more attached.
Something he kept telling himself until he ended up at Brick's door again the next afternoon. And the next. And the next. And the next. Every night until Shabbat, because despite it all, being with Brick wasn't what he'd consider restful. He had no idea if Brick was a Sunday-off kind of guy, so he left Brick alone that day too. Then Monday and Tuesday were some of the most stressful days he'd had in years, so he ended up not going back to his neighbor's door until Wednesday, desperately trying to avoid backsliding after nearly a year of sobriety. Any kind of distraction was fine by him.
“Rough day again?” Brick asked.
“Yeah,” Mordecai sighed.
Brick smiled at him and Mordecai could feel some of his stress ease out of his shoulders. “Come say hi to L.”
L, for her part, seemed to recognize Mordecai on sight. She ran right up to him with a cheerful chirp, rubbing her head on his leg and flopping over his foot so he couldn't walk past her. He smiled at her and picked her up like he had yesterday. She really was a darling. And somehow that led to him sitting on the couch watching Atlantis: The Lost Empire, with Brick sitting next to him, and L and Pear fast asleep in his lap.
It was... nice. The couch was soft and Brick radiated warmth. Mordecai was having to fight back a yawn by the time the credits for the movie started rolling. How'd he even get here? He'd been so determined to keep Brick at arm's length, right up until he'd found out that the other man had cats. And then it had all gone out the window and he'd started showing up here almost every day. He needed to get back in control of himself before he did something stupid.
Something stupid like accepting Brick's invitation to come over for dinner the next evening. On the bright side, when Brick asked about menu restrictions, he didn't get weird when Mordecai said he was Jewish. They actually had a nice conversation about which foods were kosher and how strict Mordecai was about following kashrut. And even though he wasn't going to admit it out loud, it meant a lot to him that Brick didn't say something to the effect of, 'Can't you make an exception this once so it's easier for me?'
That didn't stop him from being kind of nervous about the idea. He was still trying to figure out why he'd said yes! Brick just had something about him that got past all of Mordecai's carefully cultivated barriers. It had to be the cats. Mordecai was going to blame it on the cats. Definitely the cats.
“Uh, hi,” he said awkwardly when Brick answered the door the next night. “I've never been to a dinner party kind of thing so you're not expecting me to know my manners, right?”
Brick chuckled, a low rolling-thunder kind of sound that brought the ghost of a smile to Mordecai's face in return.
“Haven't expected manners since you skipped sayin' hi to go with 'I don't like you but you have cats'.”
Yeah, that was fair. Mordecai wasn't too great at first impressions and most people didn't want to put in further effort once they realized that he was, essentially, a porcupine. Prickly, vaguely nocturnal, and made weird noises when approached by people.
“Holy shit,” Mordecai breathed out, stopping short as he saw the table. There was a roast chicken, green bean casserole, kugel, and chocolate babka bread, all set out in glass dishes. Two places had been set next to each other and there were half a dozen small candles clustered together in the middle of the table. It was actually really pretty.
“I didn't make the babka,” Brick admitted, scratching at the back of his neck. “The recipes I found looked kinda scary. But I got it from a Jewish bakery!”
“Wait. You made the rest of it?”
“Tried my best. I don't know if it's gonna taste right, 'cause I don't cook a lot. But I looked up how to make it all the right way, so there's that. I hope. I used a parve cream of mushroom for the casserole.”
“Wow. That's... wow. I thought you were just gonna get takeout or something. This is great, man. I, uh, thanks.”
“You're welcome!” Brick said cheerfully. “You seemed to really like the Atlantis movie so I found Treasure Planet. It's drawn kind of the same way.”
“Awesome,” Mordecai said, a genuine smile coming to his face. It had been a while since he'd just... relaxed. Maybe he should do this more often. But he didn't really have a lot of friends, and most people who were outgoing enough to want to be friends with him wouldn't leave him alone when he wanted to be. Brick seemed different. Which was a dangerous thing to say, sure, but... maybe this once, it'd turn out all right.
He must have been more tired than he realized, because shortly after the part in the movie where the golem-looking guy went overboard, Mordecai fell asleep with Brick's arm around his shoulders and L purring in his lap.
When he woke up, it didn't take him long to realize what had happened. Or to realize that Brick was asleep right next to him, with Mordecai's head almost on his chest, and Brick's face in Mordecai's dreads. Now what? Would he wake Brick up if he moved? Would that be rude to just disappear? Brick stirred next to him and he froze up, waiting to see what would happen.
Brick sat up and yawned, moving in a way that made Mordecai think he stretched. Then he leaned back over and kissed the side of Mordecai's head and murmured, “Mornin', Mordy.”
Mordecai had to look at him when that happened, shifting back with what he knew must be a kind of apprehensive look on his face. He just wasn't sure what to do with a situation like this, where they'd just fallen asleep cuddling, or with a guy like this, who had made dinner just for him and picked out a movie in the hopes he would like it and actually made it easy to talk for hours.
“You okay?” Brick asked cautiously.
“I don't know,” Mordecai whispered. “I don't know what I'm doing.” It was hard to say that, hard to look Brick in the eyes and wait for him to reply instead of running away. But he couldn't shake the feeling that if he stayed here, something good could happen for once. And he was tired of being alone.
“That's okay,” Brick said, much more quietly than Mordecai would have thought possible a few moments ago. “I don't always know what I'm doing either. We can learn together.”
“If I wanted to stay, would you stay with me?”
“Of course.”
Mordecai moved around a little, until he found a position where he could comfortably lay half on top of Brick, with his head on Brick's chest, a knee half across the other man's lap, and one big arm around Mordecai's shoulders. It was a little awkward at first. He knew he had pointy elbows and knees, and he didn't want to accidentally jab Brick anywhere. But once he settled on a place, it felt nice. Hell, not just nice. It felt like coming home.
When he woke up the second time, he was still snuggled up to Brick, but they were decidedly more horizontal. It must have been an awkward angle for Brick to sleep at. Mordecai decided he didn't mind. He's sandwiched between Brick and the back of the couch, and while he'd admit it was a little tight, it also made him feel protected in a way he couldn't quite put his finger on. He decided not to put too much thought into it, he overthought things at the worst of times and he didn't want to ruin this too.
L was perched on the windowsill above him, and Mordecai made a quiet sound under his breath, trying to attract her attention without waking Brick up. He got lucky. A few moments later, he had a cat sprawled on his chest who seemed to greatly appreciate being scratched behind her ears. Damn. He could get used to this.
It was early afternoon, judging by the angle of the light from the window. Mordecai's honestly surprised by that. He usually didn't sleep well, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd slept with someone else. Not in the literal sense anyway. Even though his apartment was right across the hall, he ended up asking to use Brick's shower for convenience's sake. That got a chuckle out of the other man that made it all too apparent that he saw right through Mordecai's excuses, but neither of them mentioned anything and Brick just told him how the shower worked.
That was how he ended up leaning against Brick's kitchen counter, sipping coffee from a mug decorated with chibi cats. He was wearing one of Brick's sweaters, a shapeless grey thing that was slipping off his shoulder and had sleeves so long he'd had to push them up to his elbows. It was unbelievably soft, though, so he didn't mind. L was nowhere to be seen for the first time since he'd visited. Brick had gone into the other room to feed all the cats and he was pretty sure he wouldn't see any of them until Brick made sure that Simba ate enough.
Footsteps heralded Brick's return, and Mordecai pulled himself out of his thoughts to watch the other man. Brick had put a burrito in the microwave before going to feed the cats and Mordecai watched him take it out with some interest. He'd declined to have one himself, not only because he had no idea what the ingredients were, but because he just didn't want to start his day off with that. And he'd bet that Brick was overestimating how much it had cooled in the few minutes he'd been gone. Yup. Mordecai snickered into his coffee as Brick took a bite and immediately started swearing about how it was too hot.
“What, you think that's funny?” Brick asked. He made a face that Mordecai couldn't quite place, but assumed was an attempt at getting sympathy.
“Yup,” Mordecai answered. “You couldn't feel it was hot through the wrapper?”
“Well, yeah, but I thought it cooled down.”
“Clearly not.”
“Thanks for your input.”
“You're welcome, I know it's very valuable to you.”
“Not as valuable as you are,” Brick told him, and in the shocked moment before Mordecai's brain started functioning properly after such a compliment, Brick leaned in and –
Oh.
It wasn't a long or deep kiss, but it left Mordecai feeling breathless anyway. He leaned in and pressed their foreheads together, closing his eyes and just letting himself exist for a moment. Everything else in his life was so fast-paced and loud. He could take a couple seconds for himself. Himself and Brick.
“I think I like you,” Mordecai said.
“I think I like you too,” Brick replied.
“Good.” He leaned back and opened his eyes, unable to help a smile at the openly fond expression on Brick's face. It had been a long time since anyone had looked at him like that. The other man leaned in to kiss him again, and this time Mordecai set down his coffee to let his hands wander. It was nice. Really nice. He swore under his breath when his phone started vibrating where he'd left it in the living room. Then again when he went to see who was calling and saw it was a client.
“I gotta go,” he said regretfully.
“Can you come back for dinner again?” Brick asked. “Maybe tonight?”
Mordecai paused, pleasantly surprised. Yeah, he and Brick had been getting along great so far, in a way that he hadn't expected, but that didn't mean that he'd ever thought that Brick would actively seek his company. He couldn't say he minded. If Brick wanted him around, Mordecai wasn't going to refuse. And he'd be able to say hi to L again too.
“Yeah, that sounds great.” He finished his coffee, gathered up the clothes he'd changed out of, and sighed. Man. He just didn't want to leave... He stretched up to kiss Brick's cheek and flashed him a smile. “See you tonight, big guy.”
Now he just had to spend the day focused on his work instead of Brick. Easy.
The day was not, overall, what could be considered a success. He'd managed to handle a certain asshole client without threatening to strangle them, which was a bonus. And he'd finally figured out a piece of code that had just about had him ready to throw his entire laptop out the window, which was nice. But when it had come to sketching out a website layout idea, the squares and rectangles had taken a back seat to what turned out to be a rough portrait of Brick and L. Whoops. Mordecai gave up on work with that, telling himself that at least it was the evening and the rest of the day had been productive.
“You came back,” Brick said, sounding almost delighted. He was barefoot and had a hand towel over his shoulder, with a can of something in his hand. Mordecai decided not to feel guilty about apparently interrupting dinner preparations.
“'Course I did. Had to return the clothes I borrowed.”
“The ones you're still wearin'?”
“Exactly,” Mordecai replied with a smirk, his gaze flicking down and up over Brick's body to accentuate his point. Brick's eyes widened in realization and Mordecai stepped inside, nudging the door shut behind him with his foot.
Mordecai shoved at the pillow a little to make it fluff up more before lying down with a content sigh. Brick's bed was a lot more comfortable than Mordecai had expected, but he wasn't about to whine. He didn't have any complaints about Brick himself, either. The borrowed clothes, well, he still couldn't believe that Brick had ripped the shirt like that, but at least the sweatpants had made it through okay. Probably. He wasn't actually sure where they'd ended up, they were quite possibly out in the hallway somewhere.
“I think you owe me a shirt,” Brick said, his fingers tracing up and down Mordecai's spine.
“Do not,” he grumbled. “You're the one that ripped it like some kind of crazy Hulk.” Brick chuckled and a pleasant quiet stretched between them for a few moments. The only sounds were their breathing and the steady, comforting whisper of skin against skin as Brick's hand moved up and down his back. Mordecai was contemplating a nap when Brick spoke again.
“If I asked you to stay, would you stay with me?”
Mordecai turned his head to watch Brick for a moment, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth at the sheer sincerity in the other man's eyes. “Of course.”