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It started, as most things did, with Derek noticing something.
The thing he noticed was that Fies was round.
Not round in the way cats were sometimes round, the compact, dense roundness of a well-proportioned animal, but round in a new way, a way that had arrived gradually enough that he hadn't registered it as change until this Tuesday morning when she jumped onto the bed and the landing had a different quality than usual. Heavier. More committed.
He sat up and looked at her.
Fies looked back at him with the specific expression she deployed at close range, the one that meant: I require something and I require it immediately.
Derek looked at her midsection.
"Hm," he said.
She meowed. It was not a small meow. It had the emotional register of someone who had been waiting for a very long time and found the delay unreasonable.
Derek got up and fed her, her morning portion, the measured amount he'd noted on the side of the bag when he'd started managing her feeding schedule in week three of living here, because the schedule had been inconsistent and Derek preferred consistency for systems that benefited from it, and then stood at the kitchen counter with his coffee and watched her eat and thought about the roundness.
He mentioned it to Avery at breakfast.
"I think Fies may have gained weight," he said.
Avery looked up from his toast. He looked at Fies, who had finished her food and was now sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor cleaning her face with the dignity of someone who had no concerns whatsoever.
"She looks the same to me," Avery said.
"Her landing was different this morning," Derek said. "The weight distribution is off."
"You can tell she gained weight from how she lands."
"The impact had a different quality," Derek said. "It's a measurable variable."
Avery looked at him. Then at Fies. Then back at Derek. "She's fine," he said. "Cats get a little chunky in winter. It's cold."
"That's not a documented-”
"Derek. She's fine."
Derek looked at Fies, who looked back at him with the expression of an animal that had nothing to be concerned about.
He filed it.
He did not, however, stop thinking about it.
This was, he acknowledged, a pattern, the way things he filed tended to stay active in the background, running a low-level process, surfacing periodically in the way of an unsolved variable. He had been doing it since he was small: noticing things, filing them, returning to them when context accumulated. It had been useful, mostly. It had decoded a cipher stack. It had identified a disappearing mountain as a puzzle rather than a threat.
It was currently being applied to his cat's weight distribution.
Over the following week he paid attention in the specific way Derek paid attention to things: thoroughly and without announcing it. He noted the times Fies approached her bowl. He noted her energy levels, which seemed normal, she remained willing to sit in inconvenient locations and to knock things off surfaces and to wake him up at 6am by sitting directly on his face, all of which suggested no illness. He noted her coat, which was healthy. He noted her behaviour at mealtimes, which was where things started to not add up.
The behaviour at mealtimes was: enthusiastic.
Not mildly enthusiastic. Not the routine enthusiasm of an animal who had learned that the sound of the cabinet meant food. The behaviour was emphatic, sustained, and, Derek was choosing his words carefully, performed. There was something theatrical about the way Fies communicated hunger that he had always observed and attributed to natural feline communication and which he was now, in retrospect, wondering about.
He looked at the kitchen in the mornings with new attention. He looked at the bowl, the position of it, the small scoop on the side of the food bag. He was certain he was feeding her. He was certain the portions were correct. He was certain the schedule was consistent.
He was missing something.
He just didn't know what.
"She still looks fine to me," Avery said, on day five of Derek's covert observation, without looking up from his laptop.
"I haven't said anything," Derek said.
"You're watching her eat with the cipher face," Avery said.
"I'm observing."
"You've been observing for a week."
"I have questions about the data," Derek said.
Avery looked up. "What data."
"Her weight gain is inconsistent with her current intake," Derek said. "She's gaining weight on a measured, consistent portion. Either the portion size is wrong, there's an underlying health issue, or there's a variable I haven't identified."
Avery looked at Fies, who was eating with the focused efficiency of an animal getting something done.
"Book the vet," Avery said. "She's due for a checkup anyway."
Derek booked the vet.
He would later reflect that he had been, at this stage, three feet from the answer. That the answer had been in front of him every morning. That the answer had been, in fact, eating a second breakfast while he stood at the kitchen counter with his coffee and failed to connect the variable.
He would reflect on this with the specific feeling of someone who had solved significantly harder problems and had somehow missed the obvious one.
He mentioned it to the vet six weeks later, at Fies's routine checkup, which Derek had noted in the house notebook and which they had both attended because Avery attended Fies-related appointments the same way he attended most things Fies-related: with the full investment of someone who had opinions.
The vet, her name was Dr. Chua, she had the efficient warmth of someone very good at dealing with both animals and their people, weighed Fies first. She wrote the number down. She looked at her chart.
"She's gained 400 grams since her last visit," Dr. Chua said. "That's significant for a cat her size."
Derek looked at Avery.
Avery was looking at Fies with the expression of someone who was deciding whether this was actually a problem.
"Has her diet changed at all?" Dr. Chua said. "Any new treats, different food, anything like that?"
"No," Derek said. "Same food, same portion. I measure it every morning."
Avery said, at the same moment: "Same food. I do her morning portion before Derek wakes up, so he doesn't have to-”
They both stopped.
The room was quiet.
Derek looked at Avery.
Avery looked at Derek.
They both looked at Fies.
Fies was sitting in the carrier in the center of the exam table. She was sitting in the specific way she sat when she had assessed a situation and found it beneath her attention, upright, front paws together, expression of someone who had been brought somewhere inconvenient and was waiting for it to be over.
Dr. Chua looked between them. Her mouth was doing something she was visibly controlling. "Is it possible," she said, with the careful neutrality of a medical professional, "that she's been fed twice?"
The silence lasted approximately four seconds.
"Yes," Derek said.
"Oh no," Avery said, at the same moment, but in a tone that was not entirely oh no.
Derek looked at him.
Avery looked at Derek. He looked at Fies. He pressed his lips together. His shoulders were doing something.
"Avery," Derek said.
"I'm not-” Avery's shoulders moved again— "I'm not laughing."
"You are."
"I'm processing," Avery said, which was not an accurate description of what was happening.
Dr. Chua made a note on the chart with the focused energy of someone buying herself time. "So she's been receiving double portions," she said. "For how long, approximately?"
Derek thought about week three. About identifying the feeding schedule as inconsistent and deciding to implement a system. About measuring the portions every morning with the small scoop on the side of the bag and feeling, with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had solved a problem, that this was being handled.
"Approximately four months," he said.
"Four months," Dr. Chua said.
"Four months," Derek confirmed.
Avery made a sound that was absolutely a laugh, briefly and involuntarily, and then converted it with significant effort into a cough.
Dr. Chua looked at the chart. She looked at Fies. She appeared to be a person who had seen many things in this examination room and was adding this to the list. "Can I ask-” she said, "how did the miscommunication occur? Were you both on different schedules or-”
"I implemented a morning feeding schedule," Derek said. "It's logged in the house notebook."
"I didn't know about the notebook," Avery said. "I was doing the morning feed before Derek woke up. I thought I was helping."
"The helping," Derek said, "was the problem."
"I didn't know you had a system," Avery said.
"I have a system for everything," Derek said.
"I know that now," Avery said, and his shoulders were definitely doing something again.
Dr. Chua put the cap on her pen with the decisive click of a woman who had heard enough. "So," she said, "to confirm: for four months, your cat has been receiving her morning portion from-” she looked at Derek— "you, at your usual time-” she looked at Avery— "and then from you, shortly before, under the impression that she hadn't been fed yet."
"Yes," they both said.
"And she gave no indication that she had already eaten."
A pause.
"No," Derek said.
Dr. Chua looked at Fies.
Fies looked back at Dr. Chua with the expression of a cat who had been brought somewhere cold and smelling of other animals and was enduring it with patience.
"She's very healthy otherwise," Dr. Chua said, in the tone of someone choosing to find the positive. "Good coat, clear eyes, no concerning indicators aside from the weight. She's just-” she paused— "comfortable."
"She's been running a long con," Derek said.
Dr. Chua looked at him. Her professionalism was doing significant work. "I would characterize it more as opportunistic behaviour that was inadvertently rewarded," she said. "Cats don't plan ahead in the way-”
"She timed it," Derek said. "She waited until I returned to bed and then found Avery. Consistently. For four months."
Dr. Chua looked at Fies again.
Fies continued to look at the middle distance with the expression of someone who had no comment on any of this.
"She's very food-motivated," Dr. Chua said finally, which was the professional version of: I cannot argue with you about this.
Derek looked at Fies.
"I see," Derek said, to Fies, for the second time.
Fies looked at the middle distance.
"I see," Derek said, to Fies, for the second time.
Fies looked at the middle distance.
Derek had decoded a cipher stack in seventeen minutes. He had outtalked an eldritch entity using Minecraft logic. He had survived eleven days in a dimension that should not have existed and navigated his way out of it with a combination of game knowledge and raw stubbornness. He had spent a week running background observations on Fies's behaviour looking for the unknown variable.
The variable had been Avery. Giving her a second breakfast. Every morning. For four months.
He had been three feet from the answer the entire time.
He had been scammed by four kilograms of cat for four months.
Dr. Chua prescribed a diet plan, reduced portions, specific measurements, and could they please designate one person to manage the feeding to prevent duplication, and sent them out with a pamphlet about feline weight management and the dignified professionalism of someone who had definitely said one person to manage the feeding on purpose and with feeling.
They walked to the car.
Derek was carrying the carrier. Fies was in the carrier. Avery was walking beside Derek with his hands in his pockets and his mouth in the controlled position of someone exercising significant restraint.
"You can laugh," Derek said.
Avery laughed.
It was not a small laugh. It was the full version, the one that came out when something had been held back long enough and released all at once, and it echoed slightly in the car park and a woman walking past looked over and Avery had to stop walking for a moment to get through it.
Derek stood with the carrier and waited.
"Four months," Avery said, when he could.
"Yes."
"She was, every morning, she was doing the face-”
"Yes."
"And you fed her-”
"Yes."
"And then I came out and she did the face again-”
"Yes, Avery."
“-and I thought you'd forgotten-”
"I had not forgotten," Derek said. "I have a system."
"She knew you had a system," Avery said, which set him off again briefly. He pressed his hand over his mouth. "She knew exactly, she timed it, Derek, she waited until you went back to bed and then she came and found me-”
"I am aware of the mechanism," Derek said, with the dignity of someone who was aware of the mechanism and was not happy about it.
Avery looked at him. His eyes were very bright. "Are you, are you actually annoyed?"
"I am," Derek said, "experiencing a reaction."
"To the cat."
"To being systematically deceived," Derek said, "by an animal that I live with and observe daily and whose behaviour I believed I had an accurate model of."
Avery looked at him for a moment. Then he said, carefully: "You decoded an eldritch cipher."
"Yes."
"In seventeen minutes."
"That's correct."
"And Fies-”
"Avery," Derek said. "I am aware of the irony."
Avery pressed his lips together. He looked at the carrier, at Fies inside it, who was looking at the grille of the carrier door with the expression of a prisoner who finds the conditions unacceptable. He looked at Derek.
"She's very smart," Avery offered.
"She exploited a gap in our communication," Derek said. "Which is-” he stopped. He looked at the carrier. "Which is actually a reasonably sophisticated strategy for an animal operating purely on instinct and hunger."
"Are you," Avery said slowly, "complimenting her?"
"I'm acknowledging the methodology," Derek said. "It was effective. She identified that two people were managing her care independently, identified the information gap between them, and exploited it consistently for four months without triggering suspicion in either party." He paused. "It's not a compliment. It's an objective assessment."
Avery stared at him.
"It sounds like a compliment," he said.
"It's an assessment," Derek said.
Avery looked at the carrier. "Fies," he said, "Derek is complimenting you."
Fies said nothing. She was looking at the grille.
"She's not going to respond to that," Derek said.
"I know," Avery said. "I just wanted it on the record."
They sat in the car for a moment before driving, which had become a habit of theirs, the specific pause of two people who had somewhere to be and were in no hurry to be there yet. Fies was in the carrier in the back seat. The car park was doing its quiet weekday thing.
Avery was still smiling. The big version was gone but the small version was still there, the one that sat in the corner of his mouth, and Derek had been observing it for four months and could read it accurately.
"In my defence," Avery said, "she always looked hungry."
"She always looks hungry," Derek said. "That's her face."
"I didn't know it was just her face."
"I should have-” Derek stopped. "I should have told you I was managing the feeding. When I implemented the schedule. I noted it in the house notebook but I didn't say it to you specifically."
Avery looked at him. "Derek. It's not your fault our cat is a con artist."
"Our communication gap enabled the con," Derek said. "That's partly attributable to my-”
"Derek," Avery said. "Our cat scammed us. That's the whole situation. We don't need to assign proportional blame."
Derek was quiet for a moment. "I've been outsmarted by a cat," he said, in the tone of someone who was still in the early stages of processing this.
"She's a very good cat," Avery said.
"She's a manipulative cat."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive," Avery said. He looked at the carrier. "She's still a very good cat. She just also has, apparently, incredible range."
Derek looked at the carrier. Fies had, at some point, turned around in the carrier and was now facing them. She was looking directly at Derek with the expression she deployed at close range, the one that meant: I require something and I require it immediately.
"No," Derek said.
Fies kept looking at him.
"Absolutely not," Derek said. "You have received your portion for the day. The vet has issued a diet plan. You are on the diet plan."
Fies blinked once, slowly.
"The slow blink doesn't work on me," Derek said. "I've read about the slow blink. It's a social bonding mechanism. I know what it is."
"It's working on you," Avery said.
"It is not."
"Your voice went soft on 'I know what it is.'"
"My voice is at a consistent register," Derek said.
"Derek."
"Start the car," Derek said.
Avery started the car, smiling the small smile, and Fies settled in the carrier with the air of someone who had evaluated the situation and was prepared to wait, because she was very good at waiting, because she had been waiting every morning for four months with extraordinary patience and it had worked out very well for her until today, and even today had not gone entirely badly.
That evening Avery told him why.
Not the how, Derek had understood the how, the mechanism was clear, the information gap and the timing and the face deployed at two separate targets with consistent success. He understood the how. He had not, until Avery said it, understood the why.
They were on the couch after dinner, Fies between them in the specific position she had claimed as hers, not on either of them, squarely between, touching both, a position that in Derek's assessment suggested she had decided they were collectively hers, and Avery said, not looking at him, looking at his phone:
"I started doing it in the mornings because you were still sleeping late then. After the hospital."
Derek looked at him.
"You were getting up later," Avery said. "You were still, the sleep was still off. And Fies kept coming and finding me when I came out to work and she'd do the face and I thought-” he paused— "I thought you'd forgotten. Or that you'd got up in the night and fed her and forgot you'd done it. Or that you were having a bad morning and hadn't got up yet. I didn't want to wake you to ask." He looked at his phone. "So I just fed her. Because it seemed easier. And she seemed hungry."
"She always seems hungry," Derek said. "That's her face."
"I know that now," Avery said. "At the time I just thought-” he shrugged, small— "I thought she needed feeding and you were still asleep and I could handle it."
Derek was quiet for a moment.
He thought about the early months. About the sleep being off, it had been, the King's world had done something to his circadian rhythm that had taken weeks to fully correct, and he had been sleeping later than usual, surfacing around nine sometimes, which had been its own small embarrassment. He thought about Avery coming out to work in the mornings and finding Fies and concluding, every time, that the feeding had been forgotten. About Avery handling it without waking him. About Avery handling a lot of things without waking him, quietly, in the early months.
"I had not forgotten," Derek said.
"I know," Avery said. "Now."
"My system was functional."
"Your system was correct," Avery said. "I was the unknown variable."
Derek looked at Fies, who was sitting between them with the specific weight of an animal who had been the cause of a four-month administrative discrepancy and felt no particular way about this. Her eyes were half-closed. She was warm against Derek's leg.
"You were trying to make sure she was taken care of," Derek said.
"In case you couldn't," Avery said. Simply, without making it heavier than it was. "Just in case."
Derek sat with this.
The just in case of it. The way Avery had been, for four months, every morning, a small redundant just in case, running his own backup system because Derek's sleep was off and Fies needed feeding and Avery handled things when they needed handling without announcing the handling.
"She didn't need the backup system," Derek said.
"I know," Avery said. "She very much did not."
"She used it against us."
"She did," Avery agreed. "She used the backup system as a second food source and she did it for four months and she has no remorse."
"None," Derek said.
"Zero," Avery confirmed.
They both looked at Fies.
Fies opened one eye, looked at both of them, and closed it again.
"I should have told you about the notebook," Derek said.
"I should have asked if you'd already fed her," Avery said.
"The communication gap-”
"Derek," Avery said. "The cat scammed us. We're allowed to just let that be the whole situation."
Derek was quiet.
"It's a little funny," he said.
"It's extremely funny," Avery said.
"It is," Derek said, "objectively, extremely funny."
"Yeah," Avery said.
"I'm still annoyed," Derek said.
"I know," Avery said. "That's also funny."
Derek looked at Fies, who had, at some point, shifted infinitesimally closer to his leg. The warmth of her was specific and familiar and had been there every morning for months, every landing on the bed, every face deployed at close range. He had been observing her for four months looking for an unknown variable and the unknown variable had been, the entire time, that two people were trying to make sure she was taken care of and neither of them had said so.
He thought: that's actually fine.
He didn't say this. He picked up his coffee instead.
But Fies was between them on the couch, warm and comfortable and thoroughly accounted for, and the house notebook said Fies & household, and that was, Derek decided, more or less accurate., Derek noted in the house notebook, formally implemented as of the fourteenth of February, which was a date he had not selected deliberately but which Avery found very funny and which Derek refused to acknowledge as significant.
The protocol was: Derek fed her. One person, designated, measured portion, same time every morning. He wrote it in the notebook under a heading that said Fies: feeding (single) with the date and the portion size and a note that said consult Dr. Chua re: reassessment in eight weeks.
Avery read the notebook entry and said: "You wrote 'single' in brackets."
"For clarity," Derek said.
"In case anyone else reads the notebook and considers feeding her."
"In case I forget the context," Derek said.
"You won't forget," Avery said.
"No," Derek said. "But the record should be accurate."
Avery looked at him. "You're still annoyed."
"I am not annoyed," Derek said. "I am implementing a corrective system."
"Because the cat got you."
"Because the system had a gap," Derek said, "and I am closing the gap."
Avery pressed his mouth together. "And if Fies does the face."
"Then Fies does the face," Derek said. "She can do the face. The face is not actionable information."
From across the kitchen, Fies, who was sitting in her designated spot with the awareness of an animal who understood when she was being discussed, did the face.
It was, objectively, an extremely good face. The precise combination of large-eyed and slightly pitiable that communicated, without words, a long history of suffering and an urgent present need. Derek had observed it hundreds of times. He understood the mechanism. He had read two separate articles about feline emotional communication since the vet visit, both of which confirmed that cats did in fact learn to deploy specific expressions to elicit responses from humans, which meant this was deliberate, which meant—
"Derek," Avery said.
"I see it," Derek said.
"What are you going to do."
"Nothing," Derek said. "I am going to do nothing because she has already been fed and this is the face and the face is not-”
"Derek."
“-actionable-”
"You're going to feed her," Avery said.
"I am absolutely not-”
"Derek."
Derek looked at Fies. Fies looked at Derek. She added, to the face, a small sound, not quite a meow, something softer, the specific register she used when she had identified a target and was making a final approach.
"This is manipulation," Derek said.
"Obviously," Avery said.
"She knows exactly what she's doing."
"She really does," Avery agreed.
Derek got up. He got one of the small treats from the bag on the counter, one, singular, which was within the parameters of the diet plan, and put it on the floor in front of Fies, who ate it with the speed of someone who had been waiting politely for a resolution that had taken longer than necessary.
Derek sat back down.
Avery was looking at him with the expression he got when something had happened that he was going to remember for a long time.
"The face is not actionable information," Avery said.
"It was a treat," Derek said. "Treats are within the diet plan parameters."
"Uh huh."
"It was one treat."
"It was," Avery agreed.
"She still needs to lose the weight," Derek said.
"She does," Avery said.
"I'm not, I'm not going to do that every time."
"Okay," Avery said.
Derek looked at Fies, who was cleaning her face with the unhurried satisfaction of someone who had, once again, achieved her objective.
"She's doing it on purpose," Derek said.
"Yes," Avery said.
"She has identified that I will respond to the small sound."
"She identified it," Avery said, "because you responded to it."
Derek sat with this. "She's been studying me," he said.
"You live together," Avery said. "She's been observing you the same way you observe things. She just has different goals."
Derek looked at Fies. Fies had finished cleaning her face and was looking back at him with the settled expression of someone who was comfortable with how things had gone.
"She's going to do this every day," Derek said.
"Probably," Avery said.
"And I'm going to-”
"Probably," Avery said.
"This is going to undermine the diet plan."
"It's one treat," Avery said. "The vet said treats were okay in moderation." He paused. "Write it in the notebook."
Derek looked at him.
"Seriously," Avery said. "If it's in the notebook it's part of the system. Then you're not being manipulated, you're following the protocol."
Derek was quiet for a moment. Then he got the notebook. He found the Fies: feeding (single) entry. Under the portion note he added, in his usual handwriting: one treat permitted post-feeding if face deployed. see: Dr. Chua diet plan, treat parameters.
He put the notebook down.
Avery was doing the shoulder thing.
"If you laugh," Derek said.
"I'm not laughing," Avery said. "I think it's a very reasonable system."
"It is a reasonable system," Derek said.
"Very thorough."
"Thank you."
"'If face deployed,'" Avery said.
"Avery."
"That's going in the video," Avery said.
"It is absolutely not-”
"The notebook entry, Derek. 'One treat permitted post-feeding if face deployed.' I'm filming the notebook."
"You are not filming the notebook," Derek said. "The notebook is a private document."
"The notebook has Fies's name on the cover," Avery said. "In your handwriting. You labelled her notebook."
"It's the house notebook-”
"It says Fies & household on the cover, Derek, you put her name first-”
Derek looked at the notebook. It did say Fies & household on the cover, which he had written in week two without thinking much about it, because the notebook had originally been started to track the plant schedules and Fies's vet appointments and it had seemed accurate at the time.
He looked at Fies.
Fies looked at him.
"You are a manipulative animal," Derek told her, "and you have won nothing."
Fies slow-blinked.
"That still doesn't work on me," Derek said, but his voice had gone soft again on me, which Avery noted and which Derek was not going to acknowledge.
He picked up his coffee.
Avery picked up his.
Fies settled on the kitchen floor between them with the comfortable weight of someone who lived somewhere warm and had successfully negotiated her dietary parameters and had every reason to be satisfied with how things had turned out.
The notebook said Fies & household.
The treat was in the protocol.
Outside the February morning was doing its thing, and the kangkung on the windowsill was six days into its growth, and the spinning robot was on the kitchen table waiting for something to come within range, and the house was the house in all the ways it had become the house, full and specific and theirs.
Derek wrote one treat: deployed in the margin.
For accuracy.