Work Text:
Mordecai came home to darkness. The single lamp in the living room had been flickering for months, and had finally followed through on its threat of burning out while Mordecai had been - begrudgingly - delivering packages for Benson. He stepped through the threshold and instinctively looked for Rigby, who was napping lazily on the sofa – the television relaying static. Mordecai threw his satchel on top of him and then collapsed onto his feet, letting out a tremendous groan in the process. Rigby echoed the sentiment before tossing him his controller and changing the TV input back to Super Spooky Smash-Out 3. They picked up right where they left off last night.
At 9:27am, Mordecai drags himself out of bed, never-minding the fact that he’s already an hour late for work. As he oozes into the bathroom, snapping on the light and squinting at his reflection in the mirror, he picks up his toothpaste only to discover it is mostly empty. Rigby hadn’t bought his own tube in ages. Mordecai throws the empty bottle at the laundry-covered lump in the bedroom and gives a satisfied smile at the unhappy noise the impact draws out.
Lunch breaks at work are spent discussing the latest gaming development they’re too broke to buy over cheese-coated double-meat burritos. Mordecai stopped protesting long ago when Rigby stole nachos off his plate.
Honestly, neither of them know HOW they get into so much trouble. They were just messing around with cursed artifacts, hoping to score inter-dimensional swag from vicious hell beasts, why do things falls apart so easily? They won the game of Haunted Hopscotch fair and square – meaning they cheated – and now they found themselves in an unnecessary sprint down an alleyway filled with giant cheese wheels. Rigby rolls as many as his short arms can reach behind him in an attempt to block off their pursuer. The portal is so close. Mordecai reaches behind him and makes a blind grab for Rigby, hurling him by his coat collar through the glowing dumpster and sliding out behind him to the other side. The sunlight is crisp and bright, and they blink for a moment before dusting themselves off. Rigby mentions grabbing a bottle as Mordecai checks his watch. It’s just past their afternoon break.
This time, they enter the darkened household together and fall onto the couch shoulder-to-shoulder.
“Duuuuude. She was TOTALLY into you.” Mordecai says, glancing to his side.
“No way dude. She threw a sprite in my face, then charged the tab to my bill.” Rigby groaned.
“Maybe you should have bought her more than a Sprite. Like a meal, or something.”
“Man, do you know how much I’m gonna have to work to pay off two dollars and forty-six cents?”
“Like a hundred years!” Mordecai said, bursting into laughter.
Rigby responds with a hard elbow to Mordecai’s ribs, receiving an arm-punch in return. Rigby attempts to sock his ear, but Mordecai’s long arms beat him to it and holds his face in place 5 feet away from where he’s sitting. Rigby screams through Mordecai’s spindly fingers and contents himself with jabbing Mordecai in the knee instead. Mordecai’s laughter rings out through the darkness.
On days when they run out of cereal, Mordecai cooks breakfast – heaving earned that privilege by burning their only frying pan fewer times than Rigby. This batch of eggs doesn’t turn out so lucky, so he scoops the most blackened lumps onto Rigby’s plate and saves the brownish pieces for himself. Thankfully, Rigby chose moments later to descend down the staircase and missed the deceit. His hair is sticking up like wayward coat hangers and he’s wiping drool from the corner of his mouth. The site is so ridiculous. The corners of Mordecai’s mouth twitch as he offers Rigby his plate with false selflessness.
Rigby goes out for the night, having sweet-talked – meaning begged – his way into another date with Sprite-Lady. Mordecai sits on the couch, mindlessly blasting his way through the same level of Brain Burster Balooza he’s been stuck on for weeks now. He crosses his legs, then uncrosses them. After another failed attempt, he gets up to get a bottle of Brew, and spends 3 minutes holding it in his hand as he stands in the center of the kitchen. He wanders back out to the living room and switches to cable, then wonders why he did that and goes back to the input for gaming. He sits down, moves to another cushion, and takes a halfhearted sip. He spends more time than he’d like to admit watching the game’s title screen replay the same gameplay demo over and over again.
Mordecai crunches through the leaves he’s supposed to be raking and finds Rigby throwing rocks across a pond at the park. He nears him with a friendly punch to the arm, and Rigby offers him one of the stones in his hand – a flat, oval-shaped piece of granite with a small groove in the center. Mordecai draws his arm back to toss it, the pockets it when Rigby returns his attention back to the water. They have at least 10 minutes before Benson finds them again.
This time, it’s Mordecai’s turn to go out. Sprite-Lady’s friend with the nose freckles had been more impressed with Mordecai’s gracious offer of anything off the Happy Hour menu, and agreed to a night out at anywhere that wasn’t a restaurant. Rigby sits on the sofa, slumped into the cushions and eyes unblinking at an intense round of Narcotic Ninja. Mordecai watches behind the sofa for a brief moment, an alien fondness washing over him, then ruffles Rigby’s unkempt hair before heading out the door.
The next morning, Mordecai smashes his alarm clock and stares blearily at the angry red numbers. As he pulls himself up as if by strings and drags his feet across the floor, they catch on something hard and lumpy. He stares down in post-sleep confusion, only to find the blanketed form of Rigby 3 inches from his bedpost. He wonders why Rigby can’t stay on his side of the room lately as he struggles to maneuver around the form of his sleeping friend, who has seemed to grow roots during the night. As Mordecai precariously attempts to stand, his feet inevitably catch and he crashes to the ground, twisting awkwardly over Rigby with a hard thump. He gives out a tremendous groan, while Rigby merely shifts in his sleep. Mordecai’s knees are bent over Rigby’s back and his blanket is twisted up in his arms. He marvels at Rigby’s ability to sleep through Armageddon, then slumps his head to the side and figures he may as well catch another 10 minutes while he’s back on solid ground.
Benson is not pleased. He’s shrieking at Mordecai and Rigby, his face turning its trademark shade of scarlet, and Rigby is doing the best he can to defend themselves – which is remarkably hard to do when there’s nothing to defend. Mordecai can’t find a good place to interject, and finds his silence furthered when Benson turns his anger specifically to Mordecai. Benson always assumed Mordecai would turn out to be the more capable one, which hardened Mordecai’s resolve to prove Benson wrong at all costs. Mordecai takes a startled step back, and Rigby’s arm shoots out across Mordecai’s torso. Rigby is short, and barely reaches Benson’s neck, but he shoves himself in-between Mordecai and Benson anyways and furrows his deep-set eyes in the closest thing to passioned anger Mordecai has ever seen. After the outburst, the boys are walking back to the supply closet, and Mordecai finds himself smoothing his thumb over his skipping stone in an anxious rhythm.
That night, the boys stay in. Sprite-Lady’s Friend invited Mordecai to a movie, but it doesn’t feel right, and all he can do is apologize for “losing his mojo.” He and Rigby sit shoulder-to-shoulder on the couch, watching the sequel to Paktu: Professional Panther. As the movie progresses, Rigby recognizes the subtle reference to Paktu’s old love interest from the original 1980s series, and nudges Mordecai’s knee with his knee to get his attention. Mordecai’s face lights up at the realization. Their knees stay touching. Rigby falls asleep on his shoulder as the tape runs out and the TV turns back to static.
Rigby had just thrown his controller at the screen as Mordecai comes through the doorway, phone near his face and eyes reflecting pools of excitement.
“Man, what’s the point in special content if you gotta pay for it?” he whines to Mordecai.
“Dude, I just scored the pre-order of Nighttime Nunchuck Nihilator! Benson paid us yesterday and it was just enough – I’ve been online since 4am!”
Rigby jumps up from the couch. “No way! I thought you were out with that freckle-nosed girl all night! Don’t tell me….she’s into Nighttime Nunchuck Nihilator too??” he asked, awed.
“No way man. I cancelled with her so I could watch the presales and grab the special 2-player edition.” He replies, shrugging.
“Duuuuude” Rigby crosses the room and holds out his fist. Mordecai grabs it and they fist-bumped, pulling each other into a one-armed hug. They stay for just a moment too long, and Mordecai smooths his hand across Rigby’s shoulders before releasing.
It’s finally the weekend, and the record player is blaring some strange concoction of music coming from a record that Rigby may or may not have filched out of an old box of Benson’s belongings they found in a storage shed at work. It sounds like yodeling and cat sneezes, and Mordecai is sliding across the tile in his socks, a bottle of Brew in his hands as he attempts to Moonwalk. Rigby is waving his hands above his head as though tranced, and when they catch site of each other, suddenly they’re both laughing. Mordecai slides over to Rigby and claps him on the shoulder, gripping him tightly as Rigby is thrown off balance. Rigby compensates by leaning too far, and propels himself straight into Mordecai’s forehead. There’s a loud crack from the impact, and they give out hot bursts of laughter to accompany the sudden stars and spots that are obscuring their vision. Mordecai moves his hand to the back of Rigby’s, trapping his forehead against his own, and closes his eyes as his laughter turns hysterical. He can’t understand why he’s laughing so much, but it feels even better than watching Rigby get Sprite thrown in his face. Waves of euphoria flood him, and without any real conscious decision, he tilts his lips down and touches Rigby’s forehead. He pulls back and stares at Rigby, who’s shocked expression mirrors his own.
A moment passes. Then another. A particularly loud screech comes from the record player, and that seems to settle it: Rigby bursts out laughing, and yanks Mordecai back down to his level, meeting his lips. Mordecai’s hands tighten around Rigby’s shoulder blades, and he deepens the kiss, using his height to pull Rigby to the floor with him. They’re on their knees, the tile bruising them through their jeans, but the discomfort isn’t even registering. Mordecai’s hands wander up to Rigby’s insane head of hair, nothing like the neat ducktail he keeps his bright blue coif at, and he thoroughly enjoys running his fingers through it as his lips crash into Rigby’s.
He grips Rigby’s temples as he tilts his own head, desperate to get as far into Rigby’s face as he possibly can, and Rigby runs his hands up and down Mordecai’s neck, occasionally digging his nails into his throat when Mordecai’s tongue finds a particularly good spot in his mouth. Mordecai groans, and grabs Rigby by the collar, yanking him up and crashing his way through the kitchen with him, never separating as he maneuvers them onto the sofa in the next room.
Neither of them can envision how this must look. It’s strange, and that was coming from two friends who really felt they had a handle on the bizarre. They keep the image out of their minds, the adrenaline far too intense to stop now, and sink into the cushions as the kissing intensifies. Mordecai turns so his back is on the arm of the couch, and Rigby uses his slight frame to hop on his knees and nudge them in-between Mordecai’s legs. There’s a tightness below, and Mordecai shudders and pulls away as Rigby goes after his jaw line. He’s jumped through portals and dimensions and babysat Death’s children, but this is still the fastest he’s ever moved.
His attention snaps back to the present moment as Rigby grips his shoulders so tight, they’re balling up his shirt. His sternum is close to Mordecai’s, and he can feel the heat radiating off his body. Mordecai closes the gap so their collarbones are touching, his protrusive neck bones grinding against Rigby’s stockier shoulders. The sensation is astounding. He’s breathing heavily, and every time his chest heaves, it rubs against Rigby’s.
Mordecai moves his hands to Rigby’s waist, cueing Rigby to return the kissing to his mouth. Their lips reach for each other in nothing less than assault. Rigby is straddling Mordecai’s lap, his knees splayed across his legs, and everything from Mordecai’s neck down is pulsing. He imagines his skipping stone, and finds a familiar rhythm in the way he rubs his hands up and down Rigby’s ribcage. They’re sinking onto the sofa as the sun dips below the mountains, plunging the room into twilight with the broken lamp a smirking spectator across from them. Benson’s records shriek in the background, eventually running their course and leaving a quiet hum of noise in the background. Mordecai’s mind echoes the static.
Mordecai wakes up in his own bed. There’s something hot curled into his stomach, and it takes a good few seconds of reflection to realize it’s Rigby. He lifts his head a few inches to stare over Rigby’s sleeping form and to the alarm clock on the nightstand. It reads 10:14am. Yesterday was Sunday and they’re late for work. He punches Rigby on the arm, then awkwardly pats his head apologetically. Rigby squirms and balls his fist into Mordecai’s chest, filling Mordecai with a foreign affection. He squeezes his arm and figures there are worse things to accompany Benson’s morning yell.
When they get to work, it’s business as usual – meaning hardly any. Mordecai and Rigby are standing shoulder-to-shoulder as Benson begins his tirade, and his voice reaches record-breaking decibels.
“-irresponsible, lazy, and stupendously distracted! I’m getting less work out of you both than if I had hired infants! What have you two been doing these past few weeks?!”
Mordecai opts for the simple explanation. “Each other.”
Benson blinks, and some of the scarlet fades from his cheeks. For a brief moment he’s quiet, and when he opens his mouth, Mordecai and Rigby stiffen for the retort.
“Well…..good. Maybe if you two start acting like one, I’ll finally get the work of a single person out of you both. Go fish leaves out of the pond, and so help me if I find a single petal floating there by the time I come to check on you.”
Mordecai turns as Rigby gives an ironic salute. As they walk towards the pond, Rigby bumps into Mordecai’s shoulder, and Mordecai turns his head down in a foolish smile. His stone rests at the bottom of his pocket as he runs his fingers once through Rigby’s hair, and the static inside his head is filled with a joyful flurry.