dot.

37: Mango?

  "Felix, I need you to come with me." Crita stood in the doorway, looming there like some sort of ghoul.

  "What for?" The man made no effort to move, instead staying by Nimue, Dot and Tiro. Dot was still intensely staring at Nimue with an expression nobody could quite place- and his mother was ignoring him just as hard.

  "I will not repeat myself. The boss wants you. Nimue, he needs you as well."

  Oh. She knew what this was about. Grudgingly, she stood up and looked down at Felix, nodding her head towards Crita in a gesture for him to follow. "It's not bad. You might like it, even. But there's no getting away from it so you might as well do it the easy way." Seeing how he was still hesitant, she remplified her message. "The less painful way."

  Dot pushed him up, knowing that the less painful way was always the better way. He looked back at the hybrid before stumbling over to Crita, following her out of the door in silence.

  Their short walk into a spacious white room was uneventful- Felix didn't even bother to question Crita on what was going to happen to him, because he knew she wouldn't give him the answer.

  Nimue walked on the other side of the woman, looking less proud than usual, sort of... sunk in on herself. He didn't know if it had been Dot's reaction to her saying she was his mother that had taken it out of her, or whether it was just the fact that she was being kept the same way she had kept her son for so long that had done it. Either way, he struggled to feel sympathy. What kind of a mother would use her son like that? Not one that deserved forgiveness, surely.

  Digorn laid Felix out face-down onto an operating table, and the first wave of anxiety hit him.

  "Wait, what is this?" He piped up to question, turning around and sitting up to face the boss.

  "You won't feel it."

  Crita threaded a clear mask through a hole in the table and Digorn pushed him back over so his face was looking through the hole, his assistant fixing the mask onto his face as Nimue looked on in shame.

  The tall woman then went on to tie restraints to Felix's wrists and ankles to stop him from thrashing about, hindering his movement down to only struggling shuffles.

  A gas flooded the mask, tasting oddly like... mango?

  "We thought you'd appreciate a flavoured one." Digorn sneered, as Crita retrieved a small box from one of the cupboards and gave it to Nimue, who then sat down by Felix and pulled his shirt up a little.

  He continued to struggle, pulling on the restraints as best he could until his movements slowed, became sluggish, and then stopped completely as he was forced to sleep.

...

  "How are you feeling?" Dot and Tiro were crouched over the man, the latter speaking softly so as not to shock him.

  Felix slowly struggled awake, rubbing his eyes and groaning. He felt tired; the sort of tiredness you feel after waking up from a long nap. He gave a great yawn and stretched before lowering himself back down to the ground and curling up.

  Wait, what?

  He jolted upright and looked down at his lower back, unable to comment on what he found.

  A weird, thin tail jutted out of him, with sparse hairs dotted about it, giving it a thin coating of dark brown fuzz.

  "Um, what?" Were the only words he could manage to get out as he stared, neck beginning to hurt from keeping it turned for too long.

  "This has been the plan for ages," Tiro admitted, "I wanted to warn you, but I didn't know how you'd react."

  "Okay, but, what? What is it?" He felt oddly calm, because he was sure it couldn't be real. This certainty was furthur exemplified when he tried to move the tail and found he couldn't, then touched it and was unable to feel his hand through the appendage.

  "In honesty, it's your... finger." Tiro touched the tail gently and then took his hand back, not noticing how Felix glared at him like he had just said he ate chairs for a living.

  "What?!" He spat the words, whispering harshly as if he was afraid of making this situation real by speaking too loudly. "My ​​what you say? Tiro, are you taking the piss?"

  "Erm... no. Nimue and I worked on it for a while to modify it. She wanted another hybrid, you see, and since she wasn't going to let you leave she thought you would be the perfect-"

  Felix cut him off, jumping up and grabbing the front of his shirt roughly, pulling him towards himself in fury. "Oh so you just thought you wanted another lab rat right? Something else to own?

  Another? Something else? Dot chewed on his lip, not liking the implication that he was lesser than them. ​​​It's not my fault I was born like this.

  Usually, he would have broken them up by now, but since Felix's words stung fresh like a salted wound he decided to do nothing instead.

  "Tell me the truth right now Tiro, or God as my witness I will beat you so badly you'll never be able to walk again." Felix held him down, threatening him with a grave expression.

  "It wasn't my idea! Honest! But I just thought that maybe you might like it! Since-"

  "I might like it?? Tiro, are you mentally okay?? You've gone and shoved a bloody tail up my ass! Why the hell would I like that? I ask again, are you mad??"

  "Let me finish-" Tiro frantically looked to Dot, who was squatted a few paces away, forgotten. "I thought you might like it because it makes you more like Dot! Because now you have something to relate to each other with, and I know you want to be like his dad or something, so I figured it would make sense for you to have something in common!" Tiro finished his ramble and winced away from the fists he was sure were going to come, then tentatively opened his eyes again when nothing happened.

  Felix dropped him and shuffled over to Dot, who was still upset about what he had said earlier. He rubbed the bat hybrid's hair and ran a thumb along his own tail, deep in thought.

  "Dot, do you like it?"

  The boy looked down at the tail, full of spite. Felix thought of him like a pet too? Just when he finally thought he had found someone who recognised the human in him, he went and called him a lab rat. Dot nodded to answer his question, but shied away from the hug Felix offered afterwards.

  Yes, he liked the tail. If Felix wanted to think of him as a pet, then fine: Felix could be a pet too.