dot.

40: Tiro is Useless, According to Felix

"Seriously? How are you not getting this?" Felix and Tiro were bickering over solitaire while Dot watched from the side, getting more and more annoyed at how long it was taking them to start playing.

  "It's an eight and a nine, you said I should put numbers like that together."

  "They're both red! Listen to me, idiot. It has to be alternating red and black."

  "But that's a stupid rule-"

  "It's still a rule! Do you even want to learn how to play or not?!" Felix's frustration grew steadily more apparent as Tiro refused to obey even the most simple rules of the card game. They had already played a few rounds of go fish before this, but then got had gotten bored and asked to play solitaire instead. Tiro, the newest addition to their card-game-obsessed trio, had clearly developed a mental block against the single player game.

  As entertaining as it was to watch them argue, Dot was getting a bit sick of it and just wanted to play the game. He had half a mind to kick Tiro out of the group and play like normal, but even if he was confident enough to do so, he knew the man would mope around and become even more of an annoyance than he already was.

  He slumped his head down onto his knees and chewed on his skirt a little. It was nice to chew on things, even if they were not edible. He found it calming.

  "This is stupid."

  "You're stupid."

  The men's bickering turned childish, Tiro looking ready to rip the cards up at any moment and Felix feeling like he should hit him in his silly little unable-to-play-solitaire face.

  Just as Felix was about to act on the impulse, Dot blew a loud raspberry to remind them that he was, in fact, still here and that he would quite like them to stop arguing over Tiro's incompetence and just play.

  "Right- sorry Dot." Felix shuffled the cards up again and laid them out in front of the bat hybrid, crawling over to come and sit by him so they could work on trying to win the game together without Tiro.

  Tiro snorted and spread his legs out, stretching to pretend he didn't care about the rejection. Who even needed card games anyway? He had a girlfriend, he thought to himself smugly, and turned away to pick at the grass in boredom.

  Digorn hadn't come in today, which was a blessing as it meant there had also been no experiments and no pain; but was also annoying in a way, since it meant the day had been insufferably dull.

  There really wasn't much to do in this room except draw on the wall with the single crayon they had, pick at grass, climb trees or play cards. It was mind-numbingly boring, and Tiro had no idea how Dot hadn't lost his mind, being trapped in here alone for most of his life. Probably because Nimue always came in to visit him, he thought- she really couldn't stay away from the boy for very long.

  The revelation that Nimue was his mother was jarring- he really hadn't expected it. If anyone, he had privately thought to himself that Cynthia was the more likely option, but the more he thought about it now, the more obvious it seemed that Nimue had been telling the truth.

  How many times had she outright referred to herself as his mother? How many times had she given up her time off to stay with him? Why else did it tear her apart so much to know that he hated her? He thought back to when Dot had been very young, how she had spent every waking moment with him and completely devoted herself to loving him. At the time, he had thought nothing of it- back then, his only thoughts about Dot were ones full of hatred at how he was her favourite. But now, her behaviour made much more sense, and he just couldn't shake his guilt over his past actions.

  He had done so many horrible things to Dot, things he could never erase or take back. The hybrid's shattered leg, completely incapable of movement, was a constant reminder of that. And he had done it for such a stupid reason as well; one that had festered inside him for far too long. He desperately wanted to apologise, but couldn't ever find a good time to do so.

  Pathetic, he thought. I am so pathetic.

  Back with Felix and Dot, the pair had already won their first game and were busy shuffling the cards up in preparation for a new one.

  Every time the older man moved his newly attached tail would twitch along with him, flicking up sometimes involuntarily and even making its owner jump sometimes. Felix didn't exactly hate it, but he sure as hell didn't like it either. What would his parents think? And Leander- Leander surely wouldn't react well to the knowledge that his older brother was now a pale excuse for a monkey hybrid.

  Until now, he had pushed any thoughts about his family far back into his mind, preferring not to think about them and churn his gut up with anxiety. But now that Nimue had a plan and their escape was imminent, he couldn't help but let his mind wander and settle on the people he loved most.

  They would accept Dot, he knew that. The boy was like a son to him, and he was sure that with a little persuasion from his mum that even his dad would come around and end up loving him just as much. It was just himself he was worried about.

  To meet someone as a hybrid and accept them for how they were was one thing, but for your own son to come home with a tail add on and ask for immediate acceptance was quite another. In the back of his mind he knew they wouldn't be so cruel as to kick him out, so he was more worried about the way they would look at or feel about him. He just wanted to be their son, not some freak that went out for a social experiment and came back part animal.

  For now, however, he did his best to push his worries back, focussing on playing with Dot and keeping him happy. Although the hurricane of 'what if's' swarmed him like thousands of stinging wasps, he knew he had to stay strong to make sure that Dot didn't pick up on his anxiety and develop his own qualms about the escape.