Tiro pov

"How are you doing? Does it hurt?"

Tiro wiped around the wounds on Felix's shoulders with a cotton swap dipped in antiseptic before bandaging them up properly and disposing of his bloodied shirt.

Felix refused to respond to him, turning his face away and staring at the wall.

"Dot did this, didn't he?"

Silence.

"Look, I know he's just a dumb beast, but-"

"Don't call him that." Felix interrupted him harshly, keeping his eyes fixated on the wall. "He's not a dumb beast. If you hadn't messed up his leg, he never would have hurt me in the first place."

Tiro sat down opposite the man and stared at him, sliding a hand under his shirt to relive a painful itch. "So you think it's my fault?"

"Yes."

"All of it?"

"Yes."

"You're wrong."

"I'm not."

"You are. It's Nimue's fault."

"How so?" Felix blankly stared back at the man, utterly unimpressed. "She told me herself that she didn't approve of what you did to him."

"It's her fault I did it."

I n a sudden change of tone, Felix grabbed Tiro's face roughly and jerked it towards his own, delighting in how his expression filled with fear at the violent action. "Explain it to me, Tiro. Did Nimue tell you to do it? Did she approve it? Tell me, or you'll leave with more bruises than you walked in with."

The straw-haired man stared up at Felix in terror, wanting to move away from him but not having the strength to remove the hand that was clasped securely around his jaw.

Shifting slightly upwards so as to reveal his mouth, Tiro drew in a deep breath. "Nimue isn't what she seems."

"I know that."

"Yes, but you think she's just some weird sadist that puts up a pretty front, right?"

Felix remained silent, keeping his hold on Tiro with narrowed eyes.

"She's genuinely nice. Well, she used to be."

"I don't believe you."

"I'll explain it to you, but you have to let me go first."

The man holding him captive raised an eyebrow before grudgingly releasing him and rubbing his aching shoulders. Tiro jerked his head away from the man and took a few seconds to recover, breathing deeply and fiddling with the fabric of his trousers.

"Are you going to say anything?" Felix challenged him.

"Um, yes, I..." He nervously clamped his hands around the bottom of his shirt and pulled it upwards and over his head in one swift motion, revealing the skin beneath.

Felix stared at the skin on his chest, reaching a tentative hand out to stroke it- but falling back before he reached the man's body, deciding against the move. "Is it... real?"

Tiro nodded.

"You're like him?"

Tiro shuffled his feet and kicked the ground a little, clenching his hands around the fabric of his shirt as he slowly shook his head. "No. I'm a failure."

He didn't want to continue after that, but Felix's expectant face told him he was going to have to.

"Well... I um, well, Nimue," His words failed him and he took a deep breath to calm down before he went on to explain. "Nimue's always had an obsession with making a hybrid. It's not anything deep, I'm pretty sure she was born wanting to do it. She never really cared about which animal the human was combined with though, so she tried all sorts. I've known her since forever, we were neighbours as children. Even as a child she'd cut bugs in half and stick them back together all wonky, just to try and make something new."

Seeing Felix's disgusted expression, he desperately tried to redeem the woman: "I did find it a little weird, honestly, but she was a kind person in general and so I didn't question her on it too much. The teachers liked her and she'd always help out the younger students at school, and then at home she did lots to help around the house and was always respectful to her parents. We were close friends at this point, and she was never anything but lovely to me."

"As we grew up, she became more and more invested in creating a hybrid. She put all her energy into studying biology, skin grafting, tissue culture, genetic engineering- the works. Basically, if she thought it could help her achieve her goal, she'd study it."

"Then, when we were... seventeen, or maybe sixteen? No, just turned seventeen- she disappeared."

"Where did she go?" Felix spoke in a hushed tone, almost as if he was scared she'd hear them talking.

"I don't know. She never told me. But when she came back she was different. She'd opened up a facility- this one- and told me she had almost achieved her goal. That she'd had a few minor successes, even. I was happy for her, of course. Then she asked me two things: she said she would like me to work with her, and she said she wanted to try something with me."

"Why would you agree to that?"

Tiro pushed his chair backwards and tilted his head towards the ceiling, using one arm to scratch the skin on his chest and keeping the other hanging limply by his side. "Truth be told, I liked her. A lot. Still do. I just wanted her to like me back, so I agreed to what she wanted."

"Did something go wrong?" Felix reached out a hand towards the his chest, poking it lightly before jerking away. "It feels weird."

"I mean, that's how it's supposed to feel. But yes, what she tried to do to me didn't exactly go as planned. She considers me a failure."

"That's a bit harsh."

Tiro didn't respond to this, he merely stretched and continued on with his story while staring absentmindedly at the textured ceiling.

"A few years of obsession later, she created Dot. If I'm honest I've no idea how she managed it, but what matters is that she was ecstatic. All her time and attention went towards him, and I was cast aside like the failed side project I was."

"I hated him. I hated him so, so much. I would give anything for her, anything, and yet she only cared about him. He got her love without having to even do anything for it but I, I who had agreed to give up my humanity for her- I got nothing but disappointed stares and pain on my chest. I remember," Tiro let his eyes flutter shut and swallowed thickly. "One night, when he was only little, Nimue sent me in to check on him. He was just... lying there, not even doing anything. So useless and yet so, so wanted. Unlike me."

"What did you do next?" Felix's voice had dropped to something akin to a whisper, full of fear and anticipation.

"I grabbed a pillow and held it over his face. I wanted to kill him, Felix. And I almost did. But then Nimue caught me in the act- Christ, I'd never seen her so angry before. She pushed me off of him and beat the life out of me. From that moment onwards, I knew our relationship could never be the same."

The silence in the room was so thick you could almost feel it, filling the space like an alien, pulsating blob of discomfort.

" Do you regret it?"

Tiro curled his fist up as tight as he could, grimacing as his nails bit down into his palm. "Everyday."

"Wait, if she loved him so much then how come she hurts him now? It doesn't make sense."

"It was my idea. I told her how much money we could make off of experimenting on him or lending him out to people." Tiro sighed, and pushed his hand through his hair while looking down at his chest. "I don't know. I just want him to hurt."

"But surely she didn't want him to hurt, right? How'd you convince her to let him do clinical trials?"

"We only did light stuff in the beginning. Nothing that would actually cause him pain. But over the years, I think she got drunk on the money and convinced herself it was okay to do these things to him. Now, she does whatever she wants and genuinely sees nothing wrong with it, as long as she gets paid. She's completely delusional."

"But you do awful things to him too. Nimue says his leg will probably never recover."

Tiro snorted. "Good."

"So you hurt him because... You like Nimue, but she likes him better?"

"Essentially."

"I think you're a horrible person."

"Most people would."

Felix rubbed his shoulders again and furrowed his brow. "When I get out of here, I'm going to tell Dot's story and you'll all go to prison."

" Oh, Felix," Tiro lolled his head towards the man and smirked, glaring at him through half-lidded eyes. "She'll never let you leave."