dot.

44: A Pirate Flag and a Second, Smaller Pirate Flag

  "Dot, psst. Dot!" Felix whisper-hissed into the hybrid's ear to wake him up, taking care not to disturb Tiro as he did so. Luckily, the straw haired man was a deep sleeper, so he wasn't too worried about the prospect of him waking up.

  Nimue had vanished while he was outside 'peeing', and he hadn't seen her since.

  Good. She creeped him out.

  The boy he was trying to stir finally opened his eyes, but not without lightly beating Felix back with a wing to get revenge for being woken up so early.

  He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and sat up, yawning widely and staring at Felix as he demanded an explanation for the disturbance of his sleep.

  "I'm pretty sure I know where we are. When I was out 'peeing' earlier, I looked around a bit and saw this massive pirate flag flying on top of this hill just behind us. You're probably thinking, 'what the hell Felix, this isn't even relevant let me go back to sleep you're so annoying', but you see- I put that flag up there. Like twenty years ago. We're not even that far from my house!"

  Dot sat up straighter and gave Felix a grin. Seriously? From here, they could just walk to his house and be done with Nimue and Tiro? It was almost too good to be true.

  "Honest! It's even got a smaller flag that Leander put up there a few years ago as well. I'd recognise it anywhere."

  The bat hybrid reached out his wings to wrap them around Felix's shoulders so the man could lift him up and carry him away. He wouldn't miss the hut- it had rained a bit earlier in the night, and every so often a drop of water would slip through the raggedy ceiling and hit him, which didn't exactly make for a good sleeping experience.

  Felix lifted him up and they snuck out of the shed together, the crisp night wind hitting them like a slap to the face. "Chilly out, innit?" He said with a grin, and began the long trek up and over the hill.

  There had been no sign of Nimue since she had raced from the shed a few hours previously, which was definitely a good thing. Even though the pair knew that Tiro was a deep sleeper, they had no idea about her. What if she had woken up while they had been talking about sneaking out? Or worse, what if she had seen them leave and chased them?

  Luckily, however, neither of those things happened and the journey up to the top of the hill was one without any stress- despite being one that chilled both Felix and Dot to their cores.

  When they were about halfway there, the sky let loose and each tumbling cloud that crowned it released bucketsfuls of spiteful, spitting raindrops onto the struggling pair. They had no real way of countering this so Dot merely hugged Felix tighter in a bid to gain more warmth as the older man strung together hateful sentences full of words he would never say in front of his mother.

  After much struggling and swearing, they finally reached the top of the hill and leant back against the pole that held up the pirate flag to rest for a little bit. The rain was still coming down in waves and they knew they couldn't stay doing nothing for long, but Felix's legs ached and Dot was no longer able to hold himself up on the man properly: he would just keep slipping down until he readjusted himself and the fatiguing cycle began anew.

  "This is a bit of a crap walk." Felix stated, and Dot nodded weakly. He had shoved his talking card up the front of his shirt before they had left, and the rough, unforgiving edges were continually rubbing against his sensitive skin, scratching it until it was red and leaving him feeling rubbed raw.

  He exhaled heavily and then yawned, feeling his butterfly pendant press into his chest as he did so.

  The pretty piece had gone almost entirely unthought about for the past couple of weeks, Dot only using it to fiddle with or to chew on the cord occasionally. But now he was just a downhill march away from actually meeting the family he had heard so much about, he couldn't help but ponder what it would be like.

  Would they be angry that Felix had given him the necklace? It had been a gift from his grandmother, after all. And what if they didn't like him?

  He had asked himself the latter question too many times to count recently, so much so that it didn't even feel like a real sentence anymore- just a meaningless set of syllables that only existed to give him extreme anxiety.

  Would Felix be willing to keep him, if the man's family did reject him? Or would he rather stay with them, and leave Dot out in the cold?

  No, he wouldn't do that.

  Right?

  His own paranoia was his worst enemy, eating him up inside more and more with every inch he moved closer to the family in question.

  "Right," Felix slapped his thighs with an air of finality and stood up with a heavy grunt. "Let's get a move on, shall we?" He held out a hand to pick Dot up, this time carrying him bridal style so that there was no longer any problem about him slipping down as he walked.

  They were only a few steps into the walk when Felix stopped in his tracks and split his face in a grin. "Hold on a minute." He muttered and placed Dot onto the ground in favour of running off into the trees on the left of the hill.

  Where was he going?

  Dot stared at the menacing treeline, dark and impenetrable, as he waited for Felix to come back.

  The rain had slowed now, a mere drizzle compared to the downpour of earlier. His clothes were soaked through and so was his hair, and yet he felt the best he had in years.

  Being outside was messy, it was cold, and it was uncomfortable: and yet, it was the most incredible thing he had ever experienced.

  The feeling of the rain on his skin, of the wind that bit him and the grass that tickled him; all components of the glorious world interacted and affected him in ways he had never previously thought possible. He was even okay with the weird feeling his damp clothes left on his skin, since even the rain out here that soaked them was truly, irrevocably and unapologetically alive.

  Felix came sprinting from the trees clutching two faded red things under his arm, grinning like he'd just had the most incredible idea in the history of the universe.

  "Look! Me and Leander- Leander and I, oh, whatever- we used to go sledging down this hill when it snowed! Of course there's no snow here now, but," he kicked the ground and somehow managed to smile wider when his shoe kicked up some of the mud to reveal slippy dirt underneath. "I think we can still make it work."

  He placed the two red things down on the ground and messily clambered into his, which he was now far too big for. "So, Dot," Felix pressed his hands to the ground in preparation for take-off as Dot sat in his sled and positioned himself to match him.

  "I'll race you to the bottom!"