Chapter 21: A Warm Respite
The climbing gym had always been Josh’s cathedral. The textured walls were his scripture, the chalk dust his incense, the rhythmic grunts and soft landings his choir. He’d built the Pipkin youth program from the ground up, teaching not just technique but trust—trust in your body, your gear, your spotter. For six years, he’d watched tiny faces screw up in concentration, then explode with joy at reaching a new hold. He was good at it. He knew he was.
The higher-ups from corporate rarely visited. When they did, it was usually a blur of handshakes and bland compliments. Today was different. Two men in crisp polos and one woman with a tablet clipboard watched his advanced youth class with expressions of detached assessment.
Josh was demonstrating a dynamic move on a complex overhang route, his tail a fluid fifth limb finding purchase on a micro-ledge. “See, the momentum carries you through,” he called down to the five young Pipkins watching from the safety mat. “Your tail’s not a safety line here, it’s a pivot point. You commit.”
He stuck the landing on the top platform, a mere six inches off the ground for a human, a cliff-face summit for him. The kids cheered. He grinned, wiping chalk on his shorts.
The woman with the clipboard spoke first, her voice not loud, but it carried in a lull. “An impressive display of… natural agility.” She didn’t smile. “But for an instructional environment, we’re considering a more standardized curriculum. One focused on universal safety principles, less on… species-specific acrobatics.”
Josh’s grin froze. One of the men nodded. “We have liability concerns. Your methods are inventive, Josh, but they’re not scalable. A human instructor could teach both populations simultaneously.”
The air left the room. Josh stood on his platform, feeling suddenly, painfully visible. A specimen. “My methods work because I understand their bodies,” he said, his voice tighter than he wanted. “The center of gravity, the tail leverage—”
“Precisely,” the woman cut in, tapping her tablet. “A niche understanding. We’re looking at broader demographics. Integrating the classes. Your role would shift to more of a… assistant capacity. For the human lead instructor.”
They said more. Words like “streamlining” and “cross-species engagement” and “professional development.” They didn’t say “replacement,” but the shape of the word hung in the chalk-dusted air, clearer than any route he’d ever mapped.
He finished the class. He was professional. He high-fived tiny hands, packed the gear, forced a laugh. The moment the last kid was collected, the energy that usually buzzed in him like a live wire snuffed out. He felt hollow. A gimmick.
He didn’t go to the living room. He didn’t seek out Malcolm’s strategic mind or Patrick’s fiery defense. He couldn’t bear the look in their eyes, the immediate, righteous anger. It would make it real. He went upstairs, bypassing the workshop where Willum’s sander whined, and shut the bedroom door.
He didn’t cry. He vibrated. He curled into a tight, furious ball on Willum’s pillow, his face buried in the fabric that smelled like cedar and them. His tail, his proud, powerful tail, coiled around his own legs so tightly it ached. His shoulders trembled not with sadness, but with a rage so pure it was silent. They’d reduced his passion, his expertise, his cathedral, to a “species-specific acrobatics.”
The sander downstairs stopped. Footsteps, heavy and familiar, came up the stairs. The door opened slowly.
Willum took in the scene: the usually boundless Josh, a clenched fist of misery on the pillow. He didn’t ask. The tremor in that small, athletic form was a language he understood. He crossed the room, his movements deliberate and quiet.
A large shadow fell over him. Josh didn’t uncurl.
Warm, callused fingers slid beneath him, encompassing him completely in a single, secure scoop. No hesitation. No question. Willum cradled him against his chest, and the solid, steady thump of his heartbeat against Josh’s back was the first real thing in hours.
Willum carried him to the bathroom. Sunlight slanted through the window, glinting off the chrome taps. The clawfoot tub was empty. Willum set Josh down on the closed toilet lid, a temporary island, and began to run the water. He tested it with his elbow, adjusting until it was a deep, soothing heat. He poured in a capful of lavender oil. The steam began to rise, fragrant and soft.
Only then did he look at Josh, who still hadn’t moved from his ball. “Can I join you?” Willum asked, his voice a low rumble in the steamy room.
It wasn’t ‘what’s wrong?’ It wasn’t ‘talk to me.’ It was an offer of sanctuary. Josh gave a tiny, stiff nod.
Willum undressed quickly, stepping into the bath. He settled against the sloped back with a sigh, the water rising to just below his collarbones. He extended a hand, palm up, towards the toilet lid. “Come on.”
Josh uncoiled, moving stiffly. He climbed onto the offered hand, his own fingers icy. Willum brought him to his chest, right over his sternum, and let him find his footing on the wet, smooth skin. Then, with incredible care, Willum cupped his hands together, creating a warm, private lagoon in the larger sea of the bath. He lowered Josh into it.
The heat was an instant shock, then a relief. It seeped into his knotted muscles, into the cold fury in his bones. The water in Willum’s palms was the perfect depth, buoyant and safe.
Willum began to massage his shoulders with the tip of one giant finger. The pressure was perfect, finding the rock-hard tension between Josh’s shoulder blades. “They don’t see you,” Willum whispered, the sound vibrating through his chest and into the water around Josh. “They see a category. They’re blind.”
The words cracked the dam. “They said my teaching was ‘niche,’” Josh spat, the heat of the water and Willum’s skin finally thawing his voice. It came out ragged. “That a human could do it better. That I’m an assistant.” He slammed a tiny fist against Willum’s chest, a futile, wet smack. “I built that program. Those kids… they trust me because I know. I know what it feels like to miss a hold because your tail weight is off. I know the fear. I know.”
“I know you know,” Willum said, his finger now working in slow, firm circles down Josh’s spine. “The kids know. That’s the only knowing that matters.”
“It’s not enough!” Josh’s shout was tiny, muffled by steam and skin. He was crying now, angry, hot tears mixing with the bathwater. “It doesn’t pay the bills. It doesn’t stop them from taking it away. I’m just a… a novelty. A strong little novelty.” The defeat in his voice was worse than the anger.
Willum’s hands, the basin of them, tightened around him slightly. A full-body hug. “Look at me, Josh.”
Josh raised his head, his shaggy hair plastered to his forehead, his blue eyes bright with misery.
“You are Josh Mattison,” Willum said, each word deliberate, water dripping from his chin. “You climb things that scare me to look at. You teach kids to be brave. You fill this house with so much noise it chases the quiet out of my head.” He leaned forward, bringing his face close to the little world in his hands. “You are not a novelty. You are my friend. And your worth is not theirs to decide. It’s mine. It’s Mal’s, and Pat’s, and Ty’s. It’s every kid who reached the top because you believed they could.”
Josh stared at him. The corporate words—niche, scalable, demographic—began to blur, to dissolve in the steam and the absolute, unchanging truth of Willum’s gaze.
His tail, coiled tight around his own legs for hours, finally loosened. It unspooled, drifting in the warm water between Willum’s palms. A surrender. He slumped forward, pressing his whole body, his face, against the solid wall of Willum’s chest. The sobs that came now were different. Cleaner. Washed out by the heat and the words.
Willum just held him there, in the cupped sanctuary of his hands, as the bathwater slowly cooled around them. He hummed, something tuneless and deep, a vibration that traveled straight into Josh’s core.
Later, when the water was tepid and Josh’s breathing had evened out into hiccupping sighs, Willum pulled the plug. He stood, water sluicing off him, and wrapped a large towel around his waist. He lifted Josh, towel-clad and spent, and cradled him against the crook of his neck.
“They can’t take what you are,” Willum murmured, his lips brushing against the damp hair. “They can’t even see it.”
Josh didn’t answer. He just hooked one small hand around the collar of Willum’s skin, his tail weaving a loose, tired brace around the familiar landscape of his friend’s neck, and held on. The anger wasn’t gone. But it was held. It was shared. It was floating in a warm pool between them, and for now, that was enough to keep it from drowning him.
It was floating in a warm pool between them, and for now, that was enough to keep it from drowning him.
Willum padded back to the bedroom, the hardwood cool under his feet. Josh was a quiet, damp weight in the hollow of his neck, his breathing still hitching occasionally. The door was ajar, a stripe of yellow light cutting across the floor from the lamp on the nightstand.
When Willum returned them to his room, the others were already there, sitting on the nightstand as they waited for them. Malcolm was perched on the corner of a book, his glasses off, rubbing his eyes. Patrick leaned against the base of the lamp, arms crossed, foot tapping a silent, anxious rhythm. Tyler sat perfectly still, a charcoal pencil forgotten in his hand, his grey eyes wide and fixed on the door. The air in the room was thick with shared tension, a silent council awaiting a report from the front.
Willum set him down on a clean pillow before he turned to dry and dress for bed. The motion was gentle, deliberate. Josh curled slightly into the dry fabric, watching through half-lidded eyes as Willum retrieved a towel from a drawer and rubbed the remaining moisture from his hair and chest. The simple domesticity of it, the sheer normalcy, was a balm.
Pat, Mal, & Ty were on him in seconds, dog piling on the pillow with Josh at the centre. It was a quiet, careful avalanche.
“Okay, what’s the damage?” Malcolm’s voice was all business, but his hands were already moving, checking Josh’s arms for any strain. “Do we need to file a formal complaint? I’ve drafted three different opening statements.”
“Screw statements,” Patrick muttered, his usual scowl deepened by concern. He flopped down beside Josh, his shoulder pressing against him. “Just give me names. And their coffee orders. I have thoughts about laxatives.”
Tyler didn’t speak. He just wiggled into the space on Josh’s other side, his tail curling loosely around Josh’s ankle. He rested his head on Josh’s bicep, a silent pillar.
Josh let out a shuddering breath that was almost a laugh. “No poison. Yet.” He swiped at his nose. “They’re just… corporate morons. They think a human can teach the kids better because it’s ‘scalable.’” He spat the word like a bad taste.
“Idiots,” Malcolm pronounced, his fingers now combing through Josh’s shaggy hair. “They’ve confused efficiency for quality. It’s a common, tragic error.”
“They didn’t even watch the kids,” Josh whispered, the hurt raw again. “They watched me. Like I was the exhibit.”
Patrick’s tail smacked the pillow. “Then they’re blind and stupid. The kids adore you. You make that plastic rock wall seem like a damn epic. They can’t replicate that with a powerpoint.”
After a few minutes of playful bickering and laughter, a deeper chuckle came from above. Willum was standing at the edge of the bed, dressed only in sleep pants, grinning softly down at his friends. The lamplight carved the planes of his chest and shoulders, casting the four of them on the pillow into sharp relief. His warm brown eyes held a tired, profound contentment.
With slow movements, he scoops the pile into his palm before laying down and depositing them on his chest. The world tilted, then settled into the familiar, gentle rise and fall of his breathing. They rearranged themselves in the landscape of him. Malcolm claimed a spot near his collarbone. Patrick sprawled over his sternum. Tyler tucked himself into the dip below his throat.
Josh ended up centered over Willum’s heart. The steady, mighty thump-thump-thump vibrated through his entire body, a physical percussion drowning out the echo of worthless words. He lay his cheek flat against the warm skin, listening to the life of it.
“They can have the title,” Josh said into the quiet, his voice muffled but clear. The decision solidified as he said it. “They can have the lousy, scalable curriculum. But they don’t get the kids. I’ll start my own thing. In the park. In the damn garage.”
Willum’s hand came up, a vast horizon that settled over them all. Not crushing, just holding. A ceiling of calluses and care.
“We’ll build a wall in the workshop,” Willum rumbled, the sound resonating under them. “A better one.”
Malcolm sniffed. “I’ll handle the liability waivers. And source funding.”
“I’ll design terrifying posters,” Patrick said, a real grin in his voice now. “With dramatic lighting. ‘Defy Gravity with the Has-Been.’”
Tyler pinched Patrick’s leg. Then he traced a small, deliberate circle on Willum’s skin, right over his heart. A blueprint of support.
Josh closed his eyes. The anger was still there, a cold, hard stone in his gut. But it was no longer alone. It was surrounded by this: the smell of clean cotton and Willum’s skin, the weight of Malcolm’s head on his hip, the points of pressure where his friends touched him. The steady, undeniable drumbeat under his ear saying here, here, here.
They would figure it out tomorrow. The how, the logistics, the fight. For now, the defeat was held at bay, outnumbered and overwhelmed on the familiar territory of their home.