Chapter 3: Midnight Torture
The hum of the refrigerator downstairs clicked off, plunging the apartment into a deeper silence. Travis slept, the deep, heavy sleep of someone who had spent the day wrestling with fear and drywall. His body was a landscape of shadows under the thin sheet, one arm thrown over his head, his breathing slow and even.
Mavis stirred.
Warmth enveloped him, a perfect, humid cocoon. The fabric of Travis’s boxer briefs was soft against his back, the waistband a secure band holding him snugly against the firm plane of Travis’s lower abdomen. It was dark, the kind of profound dark found only in deep pockets and closed spaces. And the smell—musky, clean salt, uniquely Travis—filled his senses, a comforting and familiar perfume. He secretly loved it here. It was warm, dark, secure, and smelled strongly of his human. The complaints were purely performative, a necessary ritual to maintain his mischievous dignity.
He stretched, tiny joints popping, and pressed his cheek against the skin. He could feel the steady, slow thump of Travis’s pulse beneath him, a giant, rhythmic drum. A wicked little idea, born of absolute security and affection, took root.
Travis was dead to the world. This was prime territory.
Mavis shifted, wriggling until he was positioned along the crease where Travis’s thigh met his torso. He leaned in and pressed a single, tiny kiss to the skin there. Travis’s leg twitched in his sleep, a minor seismic event. Encouraged, Mavis continued, laying a trail of feather-light kisses along the sensitive inner seam of Travis’s thigh, each one a soft, precise dab of warmth.
A low, unconscious sigh escaped Travis. His hips shifted slightly, turning toward the sensation.
Mavis smiled in the dark. He moved upward, his tiny hands now tracing the trail of coarse hair leading from navel to groin. He avoided the center, instead sketching slow, idle circles around the base of Travis’s soft cock. He could feel it begin to swell, a slow filling of blood and heat against his knuckles. Travis’s breathing hitched, caught in a dream.
Emboldened, Mavis closed his small hand around the girth, not to stroke, but to feel its weight and warmth. He nuzzled against it, then let his tongue dart out, tracing a vein from root to tip with agonizing slowness.
Travis moaned. It was a deep, sleep-thick sound, full of helpless pleasure. His back arched a fraction, pushing himself gently into Mavis’s ministrations.
“Mmm…” Travis mumbled, still mostly asleep. “Don’t… stop…”
Mavis didn’t need telling twice. He took Travis fully into his mouth, as much as he could, which wasn’t much, but it was enough. He worked with a dedicated, rhythmic focus, his small head bobbing, his hands holding the base steady. He listened to the symphony of Travis’s body—the catch in his breath, the tightening of his stomach muscles, the faint, helpless tremor in his thighs.
Travis’s hands, which had been limp at his sides, fisted in the sheets. He was awake now, swimming up through layers of pleasure. “Mavis,” he breathed, his voice gravelly and raw.
Mavis pulled off with a soft, wet sound. “You were dreaming,” he whispered, his own voice vibrating against Travis’s heated skin. “Sounded like a good one.”
“You’re terrible,” Travis gasped, but he was smiling, his face half-buried in the pillow.
“You love it.” Mavis resumed his work, now using his hands in tandem, a coordinated assault of tongue and twisting strokes. He knew every rhythm that drove Travis wild, every sensitive spot. He focused on the head, swirling his tongue with relentless precision.
It didn’t take long. Travis’s breathing fractured into short, sharp gasps. His whole body tensed, a bowstring pulled taut. “I’m gonna—” he managed, a warning and a plea.
Mavis held on, drinking him down as Travis shuddered through his release, a series of helpless, jerking thrusts into the warm, accepting darkness. Travis collapsed back onto the mattress, boneless and spent, a sheen of sweat cooling on his chest.
For a long moment, the only sound was their mingled breathing. Travis’s heart hammered against Mavis’s tiny back.
Finally, Travis lifted a heavy hand and placed it over his own stomach, cupping the small shape beneath the fabric. “You,” he said, his voice thick with sleep and satisfaction, “are a menace.”
Mavis snuggled deeper, thoroughly pleased with himself. “You’re welcome.” He was perfectly content, nestled in the afterglow and the overwhelming sense of safety. The outside world, with its orange terrors, felt very far away.
Travis’s hand remained, a warm, heavy weight. “Think we plugged all the holes?”
The mood shifted, the comfortable haze pierced by reality. Mavis sighed. “For now. It’s a clever thing. It’ll find new ways. Or make them.”
Travis was silent for a minute. “We need a better system. An alarm.”
Mavis scoffed, a tiny puff of air. “What, like little bells on strings? It’s a cat, Travis, not a goblin.”
“Something that tells us it’s in the walls before it’s right at our hole,” Travis insisted, his mind starting to turn over the problem, the post-coital languor fading. “Something you can hear from anywhere.”
“I hear everything in the walls,” Mavis said quietly. “Everything. Mrs. Gable in 3C crying at night. The guy in 2A’s… questionable taste in music. The skitter of roach legs. A cat won’t be subtle.”
“But if you’re asleep? Or with me?” Travis pressed.
Mavis had no answer. The vulnerability was back, souring the sweet air. He extracted himself from Travis’s underwear, crawling out from under the waistband and up Travis’s body to perch on his chest. In the dim light from the cracked screen door, Travis could see his small friend’s serious face.
“I can’t stay in here forever, Travis,” Mavis said, his usual bravado gone.
“I know.” Travis raised a finger and gently mussing up the mouse-man’s hair. “Those patches should keep the thing out, and I’ll ask the guy to patch any holes since his cat keeps getting in here”
Travis raised a finger and gently mussed up the mouse-man’s hair. “Those patches should keep the thing out, and I’ll ask the guy to patch any holes since his cat keeps getting in here.”
He said it with more confidence than he felt. The statement hung in the dim air, a fragile bandage over a deep wound. The silence that followed was filled with the memory of scraping claws and copper-colored eyes.
“You’re all sticky,” Mavis observed, changing the subject with a tiny wrinkle of his nose. He poked Travis’s damp chest.
Travis became aware of his own skin—the cooling sweat, the faint, musky scent of sex, the gritty residue of drywall dust from their earlier work. It all felt suddenly grimy and oppressive. The pleasure Mavis had coaxed from him was now just another layer of film. He needed to wash it all away, the fear and the sweat and the clinging dust.
“I need a bath,” Travis announced, the decision solidifying as he said it. He pushed back the sheet, the cool air hitting his skin. “A really hot one.” He looked down at the small figure on his chest. An impulse, born from the lingering warmth of their closeness and the sharp edge of the night’s fear, took hold. “You should come. It’ll be warm. You can… float or something. In a cup.”
Mavis stared at him, his large eyes unblinking. “Float. In a cup. In your bathwater.” His tone was flat.
“In clean water, in a clean cup,” Travis clarified, already swinging his legs out of bed. The floorboards were cool under his feet. “Come on. It’ll be… nice. You’re probably dusty from the walls anyway.”
Mavis seemed to consider the logistics, then the inherent ridiculousness of the offer. A slow, wicked grin spread across his tiny face. “You just want an audience.”
“I want to not smell like a construction site and regret,” Travis said, standing up. He stretched, his back popping. “And I don’t want you out of my sight. Not tonight. So it’s either the cup, my pocket, or back in the waistband of my dirty underwear. Your call.”
Mavis scrambled down Travis’s torso and leapt nimbly to the floor, a tiny, pale shape in the gloom. “The cup,” he declared. “But if you drop the soap on me, I’m diving for the drain.”
Travis chuckled, a low, tired sound. He walked to the bathroom, the old pipes groaning as he cranked the hot water tap. Steam began to fog the mirror almost immediately. He grabbed a clean, white ceramic mug from the sink counter, rinsing it thoroughly.
Mavis watched from the bathmat, arms crossed. The room filled with a thick, warm humidity. The sound of rushing water was loud and domestic, drowning out the quiet threats of the building.
Travis tested the water with his hand, adjusting the temperature until it was just shy of too hot. He sank the mug into the filling tub, letting it fill with clear, hot water. He then carefully placed it on the closed toilet lid. “Your chariot awaits, my lord.”
“Very funny,” Mavis muttered, but he climbed the towel hanging from the rail and peered over the rim of the mug.
“Very funny,” Mavis muttered, but he climbed the towel hanging from the rail and peered over the rim of the mug. The water was clear and very still, a tiny, contained sea. He dipped a cautious hand in, then pulled it back sharply. “It’s boiling. You’re poaching me.”
“It’s perfect,” Travis said, sinking into the tub with a heavy sigh. The water sloshed, lapping against his ribs. He leaned back, closing his eyes as the heat began to melt the persistent knot between his shoulders. The day’s grit—sawdust, sweat, fear—started to dissolve.
Mavis watched him for a long moment, then, with a resigned shrug, clambered over the porcelain edge and dropped into the mug. The water was indeed scalding. He gasped, then relaxed as his small body adjusted. He floated on his back, staring up at the water-stained ceiling where steam was gathering. It was oddly peaceful, buoyant and weightless.
Travis opened one eye. “You good?”
“I’m a tea bag,” Mavis stated flatly, kicking his little feet to spin in a slow circle. “A very sophisticated, fragrant tea bag.”
A genuine laugh escaped Travis, echoing softly in the small, tiled room. The sound was foreign even to him. He watched Mavis drift, a tiny, pale island in the white cup. The ordinary absurdity of it was a balm. For a few minutes, the only sounds were the drip of the faucet and the gentle slosh of water as Travis shifted.
He soaped his arms, the lather smelling faintly of pine. The mundane action felt like a reclamation. He was here, washing. Mavis was there, floating. The orange cat was, for now, elsewhere.
“It didn’t scratch today,” Mavis said quietly, breaking the silence. He wasn’t looking at Travis; he was watching a droplet of condensation race down the tile wall.
Travis paused, the washcloth in his hand. “No.”
“It watched. From the fire escape. When you went out for the mail.” Mavis’s voice was matter-of-fact, devoid of its usual theatrical flair. “It just watched.”
A cold thread, unrelated to the bathwater, wound through Travis’s stomach. The sense of safety evaporated. They were on a schedule, observed and cataloged. He sank lower, until the water touched his chin. “We need a new plan.”
“The steel wool will hold,” Mavis said, but it sounded like he was trying to convince himself. He paddled to the edge of the mug and clung to it, resting his chin on the ceramic. “For a while.”
“That’s not a plan, Mavis. That’s a delay.”
“Well, my expertise is in interior design and subtle torment, not siege warfare,” Mavis snapped, then sighed. “Sorry. It’s just… watching. The watching is worse than the scratching.”
Travis understood. The scratching was an attack. The watching was a promise. He dunked his head under the water, holding it there to let the heat soak into his scalp, to drown out the thought. When he surfaced, blinking, Mavis was watching him with an unreadable expression.
“Thank you,” Mavis said, so softly Travis almost missed it over the drip of the tap.
“For the bath?”
“For the steel wool. For the pocket. For… this.” He gestured vaguely at the mug, the steam, the shared, vulnerable quiet. “It’s stupidly dangerous for me to be out here like this.”
“It’s stupidly dangerous for you to exist at all,” Travis replied, his voice low. “So we’re even.”
They lapsed into silence again, but the tension had shifted. It was a shared burden now, acknowledged and shouldered together in the steam. Travis finished washing, the motions slow and methodical. Mavis continued his lazy rotation in the mug, occasionally flicking water with his fingers.
After a long while, Mavis cleared his throat. “This is getting boring. And my fingertips are wrinkly. I look like a tiny raisin.”
“You want out?” Travis asked, moving to sit up.
“Not out. Just… relocated.” Mavis paddled to the side of the mug facing Travis. “Move me onto the edge of the tub. I want to watch you not drown.”
Travis reached out, his large hand dwarfing the ceramic. He was careful, so careful, as he closed his fingers around the mug. He lifted it, water sloshing gently, and set it down on the flat, cool edge of the tub. From this new vantage point, Mavis had a perfect, dizzying view of the vast, soapy landscape of Travis submerged in the water.
“Better?” Travis asked, leaning his head back against the tub’s rim.
Mavis didn’t answer immediately.
Mavis didn’t answer immediately.
He was staring at the broad expanse of Travis’s shoulders, the way the soap bubbles clung to the dark hair on his chest. The steam rose in lazy tendrils, softening the edges of the room. Travis’s question hung in the humid air, simple and mundane, but it felt like a keystone holding up something much larger. It was all too much—the scalding safety of the mug, the vigilant worry in Travis’s eyes, the sheer, exhausting fact of being so relentlessly looked after.
“Much.” He sank further down into the water, hiding the blush in his neck from his human. He hadn’t been cared for like this since he left his family home five years ago. The memory was a sudden, sharp ache behind his ribs, a relic from a time when his world was larger than a single apartment’s walls.
Travis watched him submerge, only his eyes and the top of his head visible above the waterline. He understood the retreat. He didn’t poke. He just reached over and ran a soapy finger gently over the crown of Mavis’s damp head. The gesture was absurd and tender. Mavis felt his throat tighten.
“Your fingertips are wrinkly,” Travis observed, his voice a low rumble in the steamy room. “You look like a pissed-off little prune.”
“Charming.” Mavis popped back up, sputtering. The moment of vulnerability passed, washed away by the familiar, comforting rhythm of their mockery. He slicked his hair back. “At least I’m a clean prune. You still look like you lost a fight with a bag of flour.”
Travis glanced down at the lingering drywall dust clouding the bathwater. “Fair.” He settled deeper, the water line rising to his chin. “We need to talk about the watching.”
The warmth instantly felt thin. Mavis paddled to the other side of the mug, putting the ceramic wall between him and Travis’s grim face. “Talking about it doesn’t make it stop.”
“Ignoring it makes us stupid.” Travis lifted a hand