dot.

49: Up Yours

"He's not here." Tensions were rising as Nimue refused to let go of James' collar, the older man holding his hands up in surrender as if he had nothing to hide as Dot and Felix listened in from the other room.

  A few moments previously, Tiro had made a weak attempt to restrain Nsia too, only to be thrown aside to where he now stood just behind James, flushed at the shame of being so easily defeated as he made a pact to himself to work on his fighting skills.

  "Where else would he be?"

  "How would he know our address? He's never even been outside before."

  Tiro froze at this. How were they supposed to answer that? If Felix and Dot really weren't here, then they'd just broken into the house of two innocent civilians and shown aggression towards them. He looked to Nimue in a bid to get her to stop being violent, only to be taken aback when he realised that she was not nervous. In fact, she was smirking.

  "I never told you our hybrid had never been outside before." She threw James back against the wall, dodging Nsia when she tried to attack in retaliation. "Tiro, look for them." She commanded, and he obeyed without question.

  He ran into the kitchen- empty. The bathroom, empty. All the while, Felix and Leander were crouched behind the sofa with their hands over their mouths, desperate to remain hidden as Dot peeked his head over the top.

  "Get down!" Felix hissed at him, tugging on the bottom of his skirt to exemplify the message.

  Dot obliged, tucking his head down behind the sofa, but it was too late.

  "In here!" Yelled Tiro, waving an arm in Dot's direction and clambering onto the sofa to look behind it. "They're behind the sofa."

  Before any of the people that were hiding had the chance to attack or even react to his statement, both Nimue and Tiro were already standing over the sunken piece of furniture.

  "There you are." Said Nimue, resisting the urge to reach out and pick Dot up.

  James and Nsia sprinted to the room together after that, both looking a little worn out. This was a bit too much stress and physical exertion for them, seeing as they weren't as young as they had once been.

  Dot could sense that a bigger fight was coming. While James was busy yelling at the two intruders, desperately attempting to get them to leave him and his family alone, Nsia seemed to be pumping herself up for something- and he knew just from being around the both of them for so long that neither Nimue nor Felix would go down without trying to resist.

  He paused, and assessed his options. He could make a break for it, and risk being treated even worse than he was used to in the outside world; he could try to fight- this likely wasn't the best idea, taking into account his lame leg- but he could at least try to cut one of them with his claws perhaps; or he could, as much as he didn't want to spend any more time with the pair than he had to, convince them to calm down and stay with him.

  After some more careful consideration as he sat stationary behind the sofa, Dot decided on a plan of action. Problem was, he wasn't sure how the doctors would react to it.

  Using his working leg to propel himself, he sprung out from behind the sofa and wrapped his arm-wings around Nimue to try and calm her down before she actually tried to hit Nsia or James. He was trying to stun her, to take advantage of how much she wanted his affection: and it worked incredibly.

  She clasped her arms around him too and yelled at Tiro to stop, commanding him to retrieve her son's yellow card so they could speak. In a way, Dot was shocked at how little she suspected he could be doing something less than loving- but then again, she wasn't exactly known for having the most stable mental state in the world.

  'stay'

  "Stay? Stay where?"

  'stay here'

  "What you on about? I won't let them stay." James butted into the conversation. "They told me my son was dead." His eyes darkened as he glared at Nimue, her slight hands still holding tight onto the light fabric of Dot's white-yellow striped shirt.

  Nimue didn't have a response to this. To be fair, she did do that. And she didn't regret it- as much as she believed Felix would win in a worldwide contest of 'most annoying', she had to admit that he did make Dot happy. In her opinion, that was worth the pain she had caused another family with the fake news.

  'stay here please' Dot added a third word onto his sentence, making Nsia speak up for him in pity.

  "How about we let them stay, just for the night? We can talk things out and decide on what we're going to do next. We'll all stay awake so they won't be unsupervised, and if we're all happy by the tomorrow then we know they won't break in again."

  Silence flooded the room as everyone considered her words. Dot, for one, was pleased that she thought this: it was exactly what he wanted. If they could all talk it out and manage to not fight until tomorrow, then everything could be sorted peacefully. The less commotion they made, the less likely it was that Digorn would be able to find them.

  "I don't like it." James once again made his opinion clear, silencing Felix when he opened his mouth to protest before continuing on with what he planned to say. "You're both horrid and I won't let you stay in my house for any longer than I have to."

  "If we don't talk this out now, then it'll never be over." Tiro said. His hair was messy, falling over his face in loose, straw-like clumps as he panted and his heartrate slowly came back to normal as he recovered from the earlier alteration.

  "James, let them stay for a few hours. We won't let them hurt anyone here and come morning, we'll kick them out. I promise." His eyes softened a little as his wife spoke, heart aching as the battle in his mind between knowing she was right and his unwillingness to put his family in danger grew steadily more frantic.

  "Fine," he spat, and uncurled his fists. "But both of you, give me your phones."

  Nimue handed hers over after only the slightest hesitation, while Tiro was subjected to a rather humiliating pat-down after stating he hadn't brought his with him.

  Once it had been confirmed that Tiro truly had left his phone back at the lab, James stormed off again with Nimue's and climbed back upstairs. He threw himself back down onto the bed, shoving the device under his pillow only to snap his head back round towards it when it started to ring.

  With a tentative hand James reached out to grab it, watching it ring for a few short moments as he read the name of the person that was calling so late at night.

  "Hello?" He picked up and held it to his ear, biting his thumbnail as he waited for a response.

  'You're not Nimue.'

  "Correct."

  'Where is she?'

  "Why do you care?"

  'She's mine and she should be here with me. Explain why she isn't, and do it now.' The voice was demanding, equally as furious as it was sleepy. Its owner had clearly only just woken up and was not willing to humour the stranger he was talking to.

  "You can't really own a human though, can you Digorn?" James snorted and decided to say the man's name this time, in the hope of making him even more angry. That way, when he turned in Nimue to him, hopefully she'd be punished for escaping. A fitting end for someone who had hurt his family.

  'Maybe you can't. But I can. So where is she?' It was barely a question anymore but an order, the words in Digorn's statements losing all meaning as he was consumed by his anger.

  "Up your arse." James replied with a smirk, and hung up before the man had a chance to respond.