Chapter 6: The Morning After
Travis woke to the weight. It was familiar, but the quality of it was all wrong. Mavis was curled on his chest, a compact, warm bundle, but he wasn’t nuzzling. He wasn’t kneading with his tiny feet.He was perfectly, unnervingly still. His head was tilted, one large, velvety ear pressed flush against Travis’s sternum, directly over his heart.
Travis held his breath.The morning light was the color of weak tea. He could feel every point of contact: the slight prick of claws through his t-shirt, the brush of fur, the concentrated attention.Mavis’s voice, when it came, was a murmur against his skin. “It’s still racing.” He didn’t look up. “You’re not better.”
The words were a cold splash.Travis had slept, yes.A deep, dead sleep. But the machinery inside him was still whirring at a frantic, unhealthy pitch. He hadn’t reset.He’d just… powered down temporarily.
“Mave, I’m—” Travis began, the automatic apology forming on his lips.
“No words.” Mavis’s command was soft, but absolute.He finally lifted his head.In the dim light, his eyes were dark pools. He placed his small hands on Travis’s chest and pushed himself up to sit. “You use them to lie to yourself.To dilute things.Be quiet.”
Travis closed his mouth. He let his head fall back onto the pillow, staring at the ceiling.He felt laid bare. The ritual of the previous night—the reclamation—had been seismic, but it hadn’t repaired the fault line.It had just shown him where it was.Mavis shifted. He began to move his hands, not in a playful tickle or a possessive grip, but with a slow, deliberate purpose. His fingers traced through the sparse hair on Travis’s chest, combing through the strands, untangling invisible knots.It was methodical.Almost clinical.A meticulous grooming.
Travis’s breath hitched.It wasn’t sexual.It was something more profoundly intimate. It was care of the most basic, animal kind. The kind one creature offers another when it is too frayed to care for itself. Each slow pass of Mavis’s fingers was a silent demand: Be here.Be solid.Be mine.
He felt the knots in his shoulders, the ones he hadn’t even acknowledged, begin to loosen. The frantic thumping under Mavis’s ear began, incrementally, to slow.His eyes stung. This was the punishment, and it was worse than any sulk or distance.It was this merciless, gentle attention.
When Mavis had finished with his chest, he moved to Travis’s throat. He used the very tips of his fingers, tracing the line of his jaw, the tendons of his neck.It was an inspection. A cataloguing of tension. He worked in silence for a long time, the only sounds their breathing and the faint rustle of sheets when Travis shivered.
Finally, Mavis crawled up and settled in the hollow of Travis’s throat again.He nestled there, but his earlier stillness was gone. Now, a fine tremor ran through his small body.
“I was so scared, Travis.” The whisper was wet, cracked open.Mavis’s face was buried against his skin. “When you left the bed, I understood.The email… it’s a sickness with you. But in the park?” His tiny hands clutched at the fabric of Travis’s shirt. “I watched you from under the bench by the willow.You were so far away. You were looking at those stupid, beautiful flowers and you were gone. I thought… I thought the part of you that knows how to come back to me had gotten lost. I thought you weren’t coming back.”
The confession landed in Travis’s gut, a heavy, hot stone. He’d been so wrapped up in his own failure, his own hollow victory and self-disgust, that he hadn’t even considered the view from the wall.He’d framed everything as his own personal collapse. He hadn’t seen it as an abandonment.
He brought a hand up, curling it around Mavis’s body, holding him close.“I’m here,” he said, his voice rough. “I’ll always come back.”
“You say that,” Mavis mumbled into his throat. “Your body was there.Your mind was somewhere else. That’s not here.” He pulled back, his fur damp.His eyes gleamed.“You need to prove it. To both of us.”
Travis nodded, helpless.“What do I do?”
Mavis considered him. The vulnerability hardened back into a familiar, pragmatic resolve.“First, you feed the machine.Not your feelings. The machine. Then, we work.”
The thought of food made his stomach twitch, a faint echo of yesterday’s revolt.But the twitch felt weaker. Meticulous, Mavis directed him.Toast again, but two slices this time, with a smear of apricot jam. A full mug of tea, not a thimble. Travis ate at the kitchen island, Mavis perched on the edge of the butter dish like a watchful gargoyle.Every bite was monitored. Every swallow was a silent triumph.His stomach accepted it, a quiet, grumbling thank you.
After, Mavis pointed to the shower.“Wash the park off. Then we go to the room.”
The work room.The other half of the house.Travis obeyed. The hot water scalded his skin, turning it pink. He scrubbed, trying to physically slough off the residue of yesterday’s despair. When he emerged, towel around his waist, Mavis was waiting on the bathroom counter, sitting beside his folded clothes.“Dress,” Mavis said. “Properly.Not for hiding.”
Travis pulled on clean jeans, a soft grey henley. He felt almost human.The food sat securely in his stomach. The hollow had been filled, first with toast, then with Mavis’s fear, which had transformed into a terrible, clarifying fuel.
He walked down the short hallway that connected his private space to his professional one.He unlocked the other door.
The work room was all clean lines and controlled chaos. A large L-shaped desk held two massive monitors, a tablet, a scatter of precisely-arranged pens. Shelves held design awards, books on typography, and client binders.The walls were painted a restful, light grey. One wall was all windows, looking onto the small, tidy backyard.This was his territory. His proof of competence.
Mavis leapt from his shoulder to the desk, scampering across the mousepad to stand in front of the central monitor.He turned, tail twitching.
“Pull up the bakery files,” he said.Travis sat down in his ergonomic chair, the leather creaking. He woke the computer, navigated to the Elise’s Artisan Bread folder. The logo files, the mock-ups for the signage, the social media templates—all there, crisp and perfect on the screen.
“Look at it,” Mavis commanded.Travis looked. He saw clean vectors, thoughtful color choices, a harmonious typeface pairing.He saw his own skill, rendered in pixels.
“This is real,” Mavis stated, tapping the screen with a tiny claw. A smudge appeared on the glass.“This is the thing you made.Mullins’s email was about this. But the email isn’t this.The email is nothing. This,” he tapped again, emphatically, “is the truth.You built this.You defended it. You won it.”
Travis stared at the designs. He saw the clever integration of the rolling pin, the elegance of the wheat sheaf icon.Pride, clean and unobstructed, finally seeped in.Mavis was right. He had won this.Not an apology, but the preservation of his own good work.
“Now,” Mavis continued, his tone shifting, becoming businesslike. “Open your calendar.”
Travis clicked over. The week stretched ahead, a grid of client calls, project deadlines, and blank spaces.“The victory is here,” Mavis said, pacing across the keyboard. “But it needs to be fortified.You let one man’s noise disrupt your entire ecosystem. We can’t allow that.So we build a barrier.”
“What kind of barrier?”
“Routine. Predictability.Small, non-negotiable wins.” Mavis pointed a tiny finger at the screen. “You will block off two hours, here, every morning.Not for client work. For your own projects.The weird font you wanted to design.The woodcut poster series. Something that has no client, no approval, no Mullins. Just you and the work you love for the sake of it.”
Travis felt a spark, the first genuine flicker of excitement in days.“Yeah. Okay.”
“And,” Mavis said, leaping onto his wrist, “you will eat lunch. At this desk.Every day.I will supervise. We will make it a thing you do, like breathing. You will prove to your stomach that nourishment is a fact, not a negotiation.”
It sounded simple.Absurdly simple. And yet, after the turmoil, it sounded like the foundations of a fortress.“And what about…” Travis hesitated, glancing towards the bedroom door.
Mavis followed his gaze.His expression softened, just a fraction.“The ritual remains. But it’s a celebration.Not a repair.We repair here, in the light. We celebrate there, in the dark. Do you understand the difference?”
Travis looked from the bright, orderly work on the screen to the intense, fierce creature on his arm.He saw the strategy now. Mavis was compartmentalizing his world into defendable territories.The professional, the personal, the primal. Each with its own rules, its own reinforcements.“I understand,” Travis said.
“Good.” Mavis climbed up his arm, settling into his favorite spot in the crook of Travis’s neck, half-hidden by the collar of the henley.His voice was a warm vibration against Travis’s skin. “Now, start.Design something pointless and beautiful. I’ll be right here.”
Travis took a deep, steadying breath.He opened a new document. The blank canvas glowed on the monitor, full of potential.His stomach was quiet.His heart beat a strong, steady rhythm. The weight in the curve of his neck was an anchor. He selected a tool, chose a color, and began to draw.
He moved the stylus without thinking, letting his hand wander. Lines formed on the screen, not geometric or intentional, but organic and sinking. He didn’t plan the deep, rough gouge of negative space that consumed the center of the canvas. It just happened.
His drawing… well it more so reflected his current emotional & mental state. Empty, a barren hole with a single silhouette standing in the centre, coloured cold and muted. The figure was tiny, arms at its sides, facing away into a wash of grey and bruised violet. But it was something that wasn’t required, it was something he decided to make, even though it was a glaring reminder of what he’d done.
Mavis, who had been a silent, warm weight against his neck, stirred. He shifted, then crawled out from under the collar of Travis’s henley for a better view. He watched the screen, his whiskers twitching. Travis’s hand froze, stylus hovering. He felt caught.
“Don’t stop,” Mavis said softly.
“It’s not the font,” Travis muttered, shame heating his ears. “It’s just… garbage.”
“It’s the first true thing you’ve made today,” Mavis corrected. He moved then, a quick, fluid scramble down Travis’s arm. Mavis climbed up the chair and sat himself on Travis’s shoulder, leaning close to the screen. His nose almost touched the glowing void. “It’s the park. It’s the hollow victory. It’s the hole you fell into.”
Travis swallowed. “Yeah.”
“Good.” Mavis settled his weight. “Now make something in it.”
“What?”
“The hole. Put something in it. Not the silhouette. Something else.”
Travis stared at the bleak composition. The idea of adding anything felt like a violation of its truth. But Mavis’s quiet pressure was absolute. He selected a new brush, one that mimicked charcoal. He hesitated, then made a single, hesitant mark near the silhouette’s feet. A small, rough shape. A stone.
“More,” Mavis whispered.
Another stone. Then another. They weren’t pretty. They were just there. He added a few sparse, scratchy lines that could be grass, or cracks. The hole was still a hole. The colors were still cold. But it was no longer barren. It was a landscape. It held something.
“It’s not happy,” Travis said, his voice rough.
“It’s honest,” Mavis replied. He nuzzled against Travis’s jaw, a brief pulse of warmth. “And you put the stones in. You didn’t just stare into the hole. You acknowledged it, and then you built in it anyway. That’s the barrier.”
Travis saved the file, naming it ‘stones.psd’. He didn’t close it. He left it open on the second monitor, a quiet testament. His stomach, full of toast and tea, made a soft, contented gurgle. The sound was almost comically normal.
Mavis’s ear flicked, catching it. A low, approving hum vibrated through Travis’s shoulder. “Listen to that. The machine approves.” He leapt down to the desk, tail swishing. “Now, the scheduled win. Client call in ten. The one with the yoga studio. You’re prepared.”
Travis blinked, shifting gears. He closed the drawing and pulled up the yoga studio mood boards. The transition from raw introspection to professional presentation was jarring, but the path between them felt clearer now. He had a hole. He had some stones. He had work to do.
When the video call connected, Travis was composed. He talked about serene color palettes and flowing type. He was articulate, confident. The client nodded, smiling. From the corner of the monitor, Travis could see Mavis, a tiny blur of brown fur, performing a slow, exaggerated sun salutation on the scanner bed. Travis didn’t smile, but something loosened behind his ribs.
After the call ended successfully, he leaned back. “Show-off.”
Mavis flopped onto his back on the cool glass. “You needed the reminder. Breathe. Bend. Don’t break.” He righted himself. “Lunch time.”
The ritual was new, so the tension returned as Travis stood. He walked to the kitchen, Mavis riding on his shoulder. He assembled a sandwich—turkey, cheese, lettuce—his movements deliberate. He carried it back to the work room, against every instinct that said to eat hidden in the living room.
He took the first bite at his desk. He chewed. He swallowed. Mavis watched from beside the keyboard, a silent sentinel. The second bite was easier. By the fifth, he was tasting the mustard. His stomach accepted it all without protest.
“See?” Mavis said, his voice full of a quiet triumph. “It’s just fuel. It’s not a verdict.”
Travis finished the sandwich, crumpling the napkin. The simplicity of it, the mundane victory, was profound. The afternoon passed in a flow of productive work, punctuated by Mavis’s occasional commentary or his sudden naps in the pencil cup. As the light through the windows began to soften into gold, Travis felt a different kind of tiredness. Not the exhausted depletion of the park, but the earned fatigue of a day rebuilt.
He saved his work and shut down the monitors. The room was quiet. Mavis was sitting on the closed laptop, grooming his paws.
“We fortified,” Travis stated.
“We did,” Mavis agreed, not looking up. “The first day is always the hardest. The walls feel theoretical.” He finished his paw and hopped onto Travis’s waiting hand. “They’re more solid now.”
Travis carried him back through the connecting door to the bedroom. The space felt different. Not a site of failure, but just a room. The bed, the headboard, the framed hole. They were just features. The meaning was what they poured into them.
Mavis leapt from his hand to the pillow. He didn’t retreat to the wall. He didn’t initiate the ritual. He simply sat, waiting. The choice was Travis’s. Celebration, or quiet. Travis looked at the hole, then at Mavis on the pillow. The hollow feeling was gone, but a deep, warm ache of connection remained.
He walked to the bed, but he didn’t kneel. He lay down on his side, facing Mavis. He curled his body, making a space in the cradle of his arms. An invitation.
Mavis’s eyes gleamed in the twilight. He understood. He scampered into the offered space, burrowing against Travis’s chest, his tail wrapping around Travis’s wrist. This was the celebration. This quiet, breathing fact of chosen proximity.
“Tomorrow,” Travis whispered into the soft fur between Mavis’s ears.
“Tomorrow,” Mavis echoed, his voice muffled against Travis’s shirt. “More stones.”