[Isaac does not speak or cry out to alert Hector, his harsh life seemingly having taught him to suffer always in silence.
Hector meant to keep vigil this night. He sits propped against the cave wall near the entrance, his makeshift club within arm's reach. Without cloak and with the fire dying, he's shivering, but in spite of the discomfort and of his own resolve, he's fallen into a doze.
It's movement that stirs him back into wakefulness. A shift in the labored breathing across the cave, and the quiet struggle to prop himself up. Hector looks out beyond the cave, but neither sees nor senses a threat.
He pushes himself up straighter, and calls out in a whisper,]
Isaac, are you well? Keep still. I'll rekindle the fire.
[His own body is stiff and slow to respond. The chill and the uncomfortable position he's forced himself into are taking their toll. But he needs to move. It's not only himself he has to take care of now, and the weaknesses of his flesh do not excuse him of the responsibilities he has assumed.
Groaning, he flexes his fingers and toes, trying to will away the pins and needles as he crawls to the fire.]
[Isaac doesn't look up from the knife, a muscle flexing in his jaw as he twists it a little harder through leather and into the flesh of his hand.]
...I live yet, don't I?
[He grates out, lowly, feeling his face stiffen under Hector's attention, his scrutiny.]
Go back to sleep.
[It's a demand, because it has to be. Because a plea is out of the question. But he doesn't expect Hector to listen, already smouldering with annoyance.
He thought he had outgrown nightmares; he had lost too many nights already to panic gripping him by the throat and shaking him awake, his head stuck someplace where dreams and memories would blur and he wasn't always sure of what was and wasn't, and if he could ever feel safe again. It's funny, he thinks to himself, how pain always lasts longer than pleasure. If someone cuts another deep enough, one scars over. But as he's seen with Hector, there's no lasting mark for the kindness one may have felt, at some point; nothing to show for the briefest moments of something approaching happiness. Wounds could heal in time, with or with magic, but the body and mind are wired to remember them, to hold onto terrifying lessons that came of them for the rest of one's life.]
Not until I start the fire again. We could both do with the warmth.
[Hector gives the dying coals a prod with a stick, and wonders what has Isaac so waspish. He only offered to rekindle their campfire.
Was it the light? Isaac might have stirred to relieve himself, or to relieve himself in the cover of darkness... only he’s never been shy about doing either in front of Hector.
He breaks the stick and feeds it to the smoldering embers, coaxing life back to them.
Isaac is akin to a feral cat, he reminds himself; bold when he has strength and a means of escape, but dangerous when vulnerable. Hector will do more harm than good, trying to press any closer while he’s wounded.]
If you need privacy, I’ll leave you alone... just as soon as I’m sure you won’t freeze.
[He gives the fire a little more kindling, trying to build it up so that he can step outside with the assurance that Isaac will be safe and warm within.]
[Hector feeds and stokes the fire and Isaac's impatience only swells with it, fingers squeezing around the dagger hilt. However long he needs to wait before the flames burn steady is too long, he decides; it's easier to leave Hector behind, seeking privacy on his own terms rather than having him walk away and being left to mill around, awkwardly expecting Hector's return at any moment. The bracing pre-dawn air would soothe his aching head, if not help to clear it - if he can get to it.]
If a herd of mindless human cattle have not ended me yet... [he rasps through his teeth ] ...then a draft surely will not.
[The wobbliness in his legs when he pushes to his feet begs to differ; he's already a little woozy and breathless from the effort, forehead sheening with a sickly sweat. But his determination is unwavering. He doesn't need coddling, he tells himself, turning and staggering for the cave's mouth, putting an arm out to feel his way along the wall. Crimson stirs and stretches its wings, patiently awaiting a command that never comes.]
[The next bundle of sticks snap in Hector’s hand and scatter into the fire.]
The draft might not finish the job, but a stiff wind looks like it could finish the job. Sit your ass down.
[He forces himself up, though his foot is still asleep and his back muscles protest. He nudges the pile of tender and kindling with his boot.]
If you can’t bear my presence, then you tend the fire and I’ll go. Because I warn you, I’m your match in stubbornness and if you go out, I will as well, and we’ll both be cold and miserable and the wolves will find this cave and ravage all our supplies.
[Isaac stumbles to a stop, bristling - but just as his authority no longer has the weight to bend Hector to his whim, Isaac himself defies what sounds less like a suggestion and more like an order. He won't sit, much less after what it took to stand. But he is compelled to turn himself around, reluctantly, leaning up against the wall. Despite the healing still running its course at an accelerated rate, he can feel a sharp pulling in his chest as his breathing sharpens, deepens.
He shows his teeth.]
Since when have we fused at the hip?
[It's a question he's answered before, his mouth twisting from a scowl to a grim, knowing smile, briefly. But the real question is not when but why, when Isaac has done nothing to reward Hector's persistence or the attention Isaac thought he had always wanted. The attention he had killed for.
He tosses a hand helplessly, letting it slap to his side.]
What is it you want from me? [Frustration leaks into his voice.] ...A pat on the back for your noble efforts to tame the savage beast? My flesh, having claimed yours?
[It’s not something that can be hidden, so Hector owns it, quiet and resolute.]
I want you to be well, Isaac. For all you balk against it, we are bound. Any ill will I bore against you before has been put aside.
[He steps to where he’d laid Isaac by the fire and bends to retrieve his discarded cloak. He tosses the bundle of fabric at Isaac’s shaking form.
He is trying to be patient, trying not to let him temper get the better of him and force them both even further back til they lose every halting step forward they’ve taken together.
He can’t force Isaac to stay without doing more harm, but if he leaves, Isaac might stay or return sooner to their shelter. Hector retrieves a hook and line from the bundle of supplies he traded for earlier today.]
Wander if you must, but while you deny yourself shelter, so shall I.
[If they’re both up and pushing themselves early to their graves anyways, Hector is going to go sit by the pond and see if there’s any night-fishing to be had.]
[Swallowing, he stares at him in silence, unmoving when the cloak lands in a crumpled heap at his feet. He can smell the blood on it.
Well.
There's no such thing for him. He'd never be well and Hector surely knows it; he wouldn't know what to do with happiness if he had it, or even properly recognize it. And if he somehow did, he'd spend every waking moment braced for disaster, waiting for the other shoe to drop and for something to try ripping what little he had from his grasp, if he didn't manage to do it himself by them. Scoffing, he finally stoops to lift his cloak, draping it over his shoulders as he whirls around, pressing forward. His jagged shadow lurches across the cave wall.
He's a lost cause -- or Hector and Julia wouldn't have left him in a castle to die, a voice whispers -- and whatever else he had done to Hector when he pushed into him, whatever misguided emotions and sense of responsibility the experience instilled in him, it'd only be a matter of time before it all fell away and Hector would give up on him.
again]
You are wasting your time. [He warns, stepping away from light and smoke into the night that spreads around him like a thick, dark blanket. No stars. Sighing, he leans up against dirt and rock and lets his sore, heavy-lidded eyes fall shut, pulling in a breath past a twinge of pain in his ribs. Then another, telling himself he doesn't need the fire nearly as soon or as badly as his body thinks it does.
The flesh is weak.
A wind stirs the old, creaking pines, whispering through long grasses. It's cool over his gleaming temples, his neck. He coughs lightly at a tickle in his lungs and settles back, hunching. A faint dusting of something pollen-like has gathered in his hair and eyelashes and the fur draping him, unfelt.]
[Hector watches, rigid but relieved, as Isaac dons his cloak. That much comfort, at least, he will have against the chill.]
My time is my own, to be spent how I will.
[He grumbles, and makes to brush past Isaac and head for the pond when Isaac begins to cough.
Slight though it it, Hector rushes close, visions of internal bleeding and punctured lungs in his mind. He gets a breath of the spores as he clasps Isaac by the shoulders and leans close to study his face for signs of distress in the darkness.]
What...? Isaac, go back inside....this air is foul this night....
[Even as he speaks, he begins to lose focus on his words.]
[Leaves rustle under Hector's boots: he's come out after him, the stubborn bastard. Isaac clenches his jaw, expecting him to linger, to fill the night with talk. But Hector moves past him, marching on ahead -- and then, with sudden urgency, doubles right back before he can begin to feel grateful.
Isaac starts at his touch, stiffening. What he sees when he lifts his head isn't Hector's face - or much of a face at all. His eyes are rolling back into his skull all the way, his skin bulging and rippling, splitting as bloated maggots push through it like wet paper. Wide-eyed, Isaac rears his head back and wrenches himself out of his grip, wincing as he grasps for his dagger. By the time he has dropped into a fighter's crouch, poised to slash at him, Hector is Hector again, staring back at him.
Isaac feels his stomach pitch. He keeps his blade raised, wary. It jitters in his fist.
It doesn't make sense - of all the doppelgangers and shapeshifters that have ever taken Hector's form, none have ever been able to reproduce the aura of Dracula's magic rolling off their bodies. Their bond remains unbroken, every fibre of his being tingling-alert with the certainty that this really is Hector and that nothing has changed. No dark spirits sliding into his body and taking possession of him.]
[Isaac twists out of Hector’s grip, which is not unexpected, but the reach for his dagger is.
Hector staggers back, seeing the dagger morph into a torch to light a pyre. The stench of smoke and burning flesh choke his lungs.
He has no weapon, but he twists the fishing line around his hands in a makeshift garrote.
Something in Isaac’s countenance shifts, or seems to shift in Hector’s drugged eyes, and the torch becomes a bloodied stake torn from a jagged gash in Isaac’s side. Isaac, so cynical and cruel, who had nonetheless tried to trust in humanity again at Hector’s behest.
Hector twists his hands to untangle the rope, disgusted at the idea of strangling the life out of Isaac. The fish hook tears at his skin, and blood dribbled out, a little dark river in the black of the night.]
[Isaac's muscles tighten, rallying all the desperate strength and readiness they have left when Hector seems like he might lunge at him with that silvery fishing line -- and he almost lets out a strangled laugh despite himself, because this was always going to happen. Every road destined to lead to this, to Hector biding his time until he couldn't bear it anymore, couldn't take another minute watching him go unpunished by everyone but himself while the memory of Rosaly continues to eat at him, its claws in too deep in Hector for him to ever escape.
But then a beat passes and then another, the two of them still taking measure of each other, and Hector's stance hasn't shifted. Isaac watches the inky drip of blood down Hector's hand, his gaze hard and searching his face for an explanation and only finding an expression he can't place.
His lips peel back.]
Do it! [He spits the words at him, feeling too vindicated, too angry, to let himself recognize the disappointment weighing heavy in his heart.] Consummate your precious revenge, if you can!
[In the thick brush comes a sudden thrashing, interrupting him. He throws a wild-eyed glance over his shoulder, staring into darkness. Branches snap and rustle away, and in the chaos he hears an angry, rhythmic grunting and someone screaming, a woman's scream splitting the night. He can't see but he knows what he's hearing, knows it to his bones. And it goes on until he grits his teeth and can't stand it, shooting a look to Hector - Hector, the merciful - who isn't reacting to it, as if he's lost his nerve.
Just as Isaac takes a purposeful step towards the sobbing struggle, determined to put an end to human and monster, half his wish is granted. There's a harsh, wet snap of a sound -- and then nothing at all. A deathly silence that's just as piercing as the wailing that came before it.
A hulking shape slowly emerges from the shadows, dragging a limp body behind it by the leg. It stops halfway towards the trees, turning its head Isaac's way -- and when their eyes meet, lock, Isaac feels a jolt run him through, the hairs on the nape of his neck lifting. The echoes of a sharp, white fear from what could've been years ago or only yesterday throbbing in his chest. His body hasn't forgotten; maybe it never would. But while some things may never change, enough has, when Isaac draws himself up against the chill and the weight of his cloak and remembers that he's still here - that he survived on his own, stronger for it - and that he
(can't move, can't get free, screaming past a sob of futile rage locked in his throat)
would put this beast down for good. He points his dagger at the demon. Even from a distance he can feel its breath, burning hot on the back of his neck, somehow. Sick-smelling, heavy with rot. ]
I killed you once before... [Isaac narrows his eyes] ...and my only regret is not making a place for your head on my mantle. But tonight I shall gladly rectify my mistake!
[It turns its body towards him now, bigger than it ever was, even with its wings pulled in. Still missing the middle toe on its left foot, and the part of one ear Isaac had managed to slice off. Its snout wrinkles in something approximating a smile. With a lazy swing of its arm, it hurls the corpse in Isaac's direction. It ragdolls, hitting the ground with a meaty thud before tumbling to a stop at his feet, limbs splayed brokenly. Fingers still twitching. Her long hair is tangled with leaves and twigs and her dress is ripped up the knee, legs scraped and stained with blood. The face - the half that hasn't been crushed to a jawless pulp - is turned to one side, eyes still begging for help.
A look that reaches into Isaac and grabs him by the guts, twisting them inside-out.
He goes weak at the middle. Staggers back a step, his breath coming in short, shallow heavesr.
Julia's body splits and blurs and joins again in his vision. And right there, while the world spins around him and his eyes burn, he can almost feel some part of his mind fracture, crumbling away from the rest.
The demon waits, smiling.
Blood rocks his skull and Isaac goes blind, never hearing the unhinged scream that claws its way out of him as he rushes the monster and slams his dagger up into its laughing throat, jerking it down through sinew and bone and cartilage to the breastbone. It topples, choking, spurting blood, Isaac landing on top of it. He punches the blade deep into its grinning skull, sobs ripping his throat, raw, animal sobbing, as it squeals out and he stabs it over and over again until its forehead collapses and its jellied eyeballs leak down its face like runny egg.
But all that's on Isaac's knife is dirt, clods of it flying from the soft spot in the ground he's driving it into.]
[Hector and Isaac stare at one another, both tense and poised to spring. Isaac goads him on, but Hector's tongue feels too sluggish and dry to croak out a protest.
Then Isaac turns suddenly, leaping toward some unseen threat, and Hector follows. His eyes cannot reconcile what they see.
Isaac, snarling as he tackles...himself. Twin forms claw at one another in the dirt, tearing at identically tattooed flesh. They sneer and curse at one another, and Hector knows deep within his bones that Isaac will kill himself if Hector doesn't intervene.
He dives into the fray, determined to save the other Forgemaster from himself.]
[He's shaky and nauseous, unmoored. Gasping like he's drowning. From somewhere far away, Hector is hurtling towards him. But he never hears it, going boneless when their bodies crash together - knife flying from his hand - and the world tilts sharply in his vision. He drops to the dirt, a fresh surge of adrenaline slamming into him. Blood thunders in his ears and in the hollows of his skull, his nerves spitting fire. There isn't a part of him that doesn't ache, spent by his own ferocity, his own violent, whiplashing movements, but the instinct to fight back is still there - is all he has left. Dizzied, he shoots an arm out for his dagger and snatches it, crying out as he swings at his side, a broad, sloppy arc. Not knowing what he's slashing at or if it's there at all.]
[Hector reaches with his power to summon his fairy as he struggles against Isaac. He isn't sure which one he tackled, the smoke-tinged, curse-mad Isaac or the bleeding, vulnerable one who wanted to spare his sister and who ventured into danger trusting Hector's words. Maybe there is no difference between the two.
They roll against one another, bucking and thrashing. Hector tries to get his arms around the flailing limbs, to pin Isaac down until he can heal his wounds and calm his rage.
The blade of Isaac's knife carves a line across his chest, ripping fabric and flesh both. It's a blind attack, not nearly as destructive a move as Isaac could make if he actually aimed, this close within Hector's defenses.
Hector cannot block the attack and keep his hold, and something within him cries out not to let go. He has to protect someone. He has to save someone. He has already failed one lover; to let another die is worse than death itself. As long as he keeps Isaac here, in his grasp, that other dark Isaac cannot destroy him.
His fairy's glow -- bright like flame, like a funeral pyre -- appears behind Hector's head, casting the writhing man below him in Hector's shadow.
Heal him he orders his devil, even as the knife comes back around for another stab. He tries to shush Isaac, to sooth him, but the next slice of the blade has him gasping back a ragged sob of breath. His vision, already so strange and blurred, unfocuses.]
[The ground feels like it's shifting under him, opening to swallow him whole - and through a fog of fury and dread and terror, his body twisting and struggling on its own, he realizes that enough of him has already made its peace with letting the enemy wrestle him down and kill him. Or not kill him. It makes no difference what it wants; the sad joke is on it, with nothing left of him to rattle, to break.
His knife jerks free, dripping. And as it readies for another thrust, Isaac waits for release, hopes for it, like a sick, rotting brain waits for a bullet. But it drives back into his attacker instead, and it breaks the hold the other has on him long enough for Isaac to wrench himself out from under its weight. Panting raggedly, he rolls around to face it, his eyes raw and wet. He squints against the glow of what he recognizes as Hector's fairy. Hector is there too, just behind it. Dark blots of blood spreading through his tunic.]
Murderer! [Isaac screams, unhinged, his arms high over his head as he lurches for him like a mindless living corpse before slamming his dagger down on any part of Hector he can reach, all his weight, his futile rage, behind it.] You let her die!
[Shuddering, he deflates, his body crumpling over the knife still tight in both his hands.]
[Isaac writhes like a worm, squirming his way out of Hector's hold when it is weakened from the slashing wounds he's taken.
He tries to regain the upper hand, reaching out to seize Isaac's wrists to stop him from attacking.
Murderer! Isaac hisses. His face shifts and warps, until Hector is staring at his own face. You let her die!]
I....
[There is no denying the accusation. Hector brought Rosaly's death, with his love, his selfish love that prioritized his happiness over her safety. She would still live, had he not loved her.
Hector stops struggling, and lets the knife strike land.]
if this doesn't work for any reason, I'm happy to change it, just lemme know
[His head is swimmy, pounding so hard his vision jitters. He breathes and breathes, the bile in his throat not going down without a fight. The image of Julia's mangled body has burned itself into the insides of his eyelids. There's no escaping it. Or the screams that knife through his mind, echoes on echoes.
He's accepted pain as an inevitability of being alive, and learned to make room for it, always working to tamp down and pack older memories away if he couldn't twist them into something useful. But there's no room left, this time. He can't any more -- he can't.
The last dim spot of light has gone out in his world and he knows he doesn't deserve to go with it, to have the luxury to die on his own terms. But he doesn't deserve to live, either, if she can't. If her final, terrifying moments are in any way Hector's fault, than he knows it's his own, just as much, for standing there and doing nothing. For being like any leering, soulless monster. The humans can't be all wrong, he decides, seeing what they see in him.
His dagger squelches loose from Hector's leg, slimy with blood. And after a long moment, Isaac lifts his head with it, staring through him as he makes to put that same blade to his own throat and jerk it across.]
[The knife blade punches in and out of Hector's leg, and the shadowed portion of his soul welcomes the pain. It is right, that he should be ripped apart for his crimes, for the very stain of darkness that has shrouded him since birth.
The bloody blade forces him to look up, and Hector sees Isaac once more, despairing and lost. Fitting, that they should die together, two sides of the same warped coin.
'Hector, don't curse yourself.' Rosaly's voice echoes from far away and long ago. 'I don't know your pain or your past...but they aren't important. Don't be a captive to them.'
Rosaly would forgive what he does not, can not. And if Rosaly could find goodness worth nurturing in one forgemaster, surely she would in the other. Hector has to find it, cultivate it, because Rosaly is no longer able to.
Hector's vision is swimming as the blood drains freely from his wounds, but he takes decisive action, reaching out and seizing Isaac's wrist to stay his hand. The fairy at his shoulder glows brighter, focusing its healing magic on Isaac. It takes more power than Hector anticipates, and his knees buckle.]
[The fairy's work can't touch his brokenness but it gives him the strength to try and wrest his arm free while he hisses curses, refusing to fail at this too. But when Hector won't let go and his own body has nothing left to give, no power to drive knee or elbow into Hector and win their tug of war, he does the only thing he can do: he angles his blade downwards, towards his chest, and clamps his free hand around Hector's offending arm, straining to force the tip of his knife where it should be. A push is all it took to bring him to the edge of despair, and another would finish him. Quickly, he hopes, if only so the fairy wouldn't knit his unwilling body back together if he survived.
He arches his back and presses himself into the knife, close enough to feel the point dimpling his skin. Close enough to feel the heat of Hector's panting breath and see the slow draining of life and colour from his face. To see a strange powdery residue speckling his skin. It seems fairest that Hector should look him in the eyes when his hand runs the blade through him, willingly or unwillingly.]
Do it! It's what you had wanted!
[Isaac shouts at him, a gob of spit hitting Hector's cheek. His desperate grip squeezes tight around his glove, his body trembly-electric on the inside.]
I killed your woman! I raped you of the only happiness you have ever known and will ever know in your wretched life, and I ran free while her ashes scattered to the wind!
[Hector fights to hold on to consciousness. He tightens his hold on Isaac's wrist, a bruising, crushing grip. His free hand goes for the blade to turn it from Isaac's breast. Blood drips from his torn hand onto Isaac.
Through gritted teeth, he growls out.]
And I will have to live with that. WE will have to live with that.
[If Isaac wants punishment, there is none crueler than that. But in it, there is also hope, though Isaac does not know how to see it.
The fairy heals and cleanses, sending a warm, tingling aura over Isaac. Hector's vision swims, and he struggles to dig his fingers into a pressure point to force Isaac to drop his weapon before he slumps over.]
And what gets high... must come down. Something like that.
[Hector's thumb grinds into a nerve cluster and weakens his stubborn grip, little by little, until Isaac is forced to let go, hissing. He wants to grab Hector by the collars and shake him senseless for thinking it's his place to choose and to judge what he does with his own life. But Hector's last few words to him, before he collapses, land like a gut-stab, reminding Isaac that what he deserves isn't and never will be an easy out.
His arms drop and he falls back onto his knees, sagging.
The wind picks up, swirling around them and tugging at his cloak, but not enough of Isaac is there to notice while he throbs with hate, hate for himself and for Hector, and for the howling, furious sobbing he can't bite back.
Hector may have fought and won the battle for Isaac's life, but not the war.
Mid-crying jag, he doubles over with a coughing fit that's just as violent, hacking thick and wet until he brings up a whitish phlegm from the bottom of his lungs. Gulping down deep, shuddering breaths, Isaac dries his face on his arm, his mouth, slowly going cold. His head hurts; his skull is clamped tight around his brain. And for the first time in a long time comes a thought he had as a boy the nights he had huddled in some dark, dusty corner of the library - the only place, it had seemed, where there was some semblance of order: he wants to go home. But home is nowhere. It's just an idea of a warm, comfortable place that never existed.
Shadows and projections shimmer around him, fading. When he knuckles his eyes dry one more time and dares to look around, he realizes both Julia and the demon's remains have disappeared. No trampled, blood-slick grass marking where either corpse had lain. Only Hector is still there - at least for the moment - with more wounds than Isaac remembers inflicting.
He doesn't know when he finds the will to climb to his feet again, and then, finally, to drag Hector over dirt and grass and the ragged cave floor to the fire, for what feels like for hours. Or why, beyond petty tit-for-tat. He feeds the dying embers with a barely-controlled wisp of magic, struggling to push past the aggressive ache in his temples and have Crimson pull a small measure of energy from Hector's fairy and from his own body to pour into Hector's. Crimson's capacity for healing can only pale in comparison to a creature whose sole purpose revolves around treating injury and disease. But what his devil offers is enough to buy some time until it has absorbed and returned with something more.
The glow of the fire draws Isaac's attention to the dust furring Hector's cheek. He thumbs it off him, rubbing it between his fingers. It the same stuff that had smudged off on his glove when he had wiped his own face.
Soon, there'd be wood to gather. But for now he sits himself down, moving only to grudgingly unshoulder his cloak. More dust clouds the air, when he does: a piece of a puzzle slotting into place in his head. He vigorously shakes it out, away from Hector, before tossing it over him.]
[The first thing Hector becomes aware of, when he wakes, is the queasy turning of his stomach. His throat spasms, and he twists into his side so he doesn't chock as he vomits. His insides twitch, and his belly tries to force out more than he has left, wracking his body as he gags on air.
The shuddering passes and he flops back down on his back, letting his face loll to the other side so he can press his feverish cheek against the cold stone.
A cloak tangles around his arms, restricting his movement. Isaac's, not his....
He remembers...Isaac, pinning himself to the ground and driving in his knife... Isaac's face turning into a mirror image of Hector's...the accusation 'Murderer' that he could not deny...
Nightmares. He remembers nightmares, for what else could they be?
Along his chest, on his hand, in the meat of his thigh, he feels the throb of blood beneath scabbed flesh. A nightmare that can inflict wounds...the sort of thing that scared villagers would say resided in the forsaken castle.
He senses no threat now, but there had been danger. Something to do with Isaac.... He can taste the fear in his mouth, as foul and bitter as the aftertaste of his bile. He'd almost lost Isaac.
He peels open his eyes and forces his aching head up from the cool stone to look for him.]
[Isaac stirs, lifting his head from his arms at those spluttering gasps, the first signs of life in what feels like days. Squawking, Crimson leaves its post at Hector's side and pads back to its master, cocking its head slightly when Isaac opens his mouth only to cough again, his body still working to purge what's left of the nastiness colonized in his lungs. A long few hours on his own - time he's had to carve fresh tally marks into his arm and watch the bleeding slow to a stop - have seen a slow draining away of abject fear and hopelessness and the return of rational thought, the truth of his reality breaking through and reaching him, finally, like a ray of sunlight piercing a heavy fog bank.
Julia isn't dead.
She never was, because he can still feel her dimly, far to the east, on the other side of the mountain pass they crossed days ago.
Isaac dries his mouth and slides his gauntlet back on over blood-smeared skin with a stiff tug. He catches Hector's gaze a moment while snapping the buckles on, his own red-rimmed and tired, smouldering with powerless anger towards an enemy with no face, no blood. All Crimson had found, deeper in the woods, was a patch of myconid easily set ablaze. The others sucked themselves back into the dirt.
Hector had sensed something awry, he remembers. Something in the air. But not soon enough.]
[Hector's eyes find Isaac, sitting up of his own power, and seemingly in better shape than Hector (though that doesn't seem hard). Hector lets his head slump back down. He heaves out a long breath.
The pounding of his head is killing him, and his lungs feel heavy, every breath labored.
Closing his eyes, he raises one hand and waves it in the vague direction where he thinks he left the supplies he picked up yesterday.]
...so....breakfast?
[It comes out in a croak. Honestly, all he wants is maybe a gallon of water, to drink or to drown himself in, he's still undecided. But he bought that damned slanina for Isaac, and Isaac will eat it if it kills him.]
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no subject
Hector meant to keep vigil this night. He sits propped against the cave wall near the entrance, his makeshift club within arm's reach. Without cloak and with the fire dying, he's shivering, but in spite of the discomfort and of his own resolve, he's fallen into a doze.
It's movement that stirs him back into wakefulness. A shift in the labored breathing across the cave, and the quiet struggle to prop himself up. Hector looks out beyond the cave, but neither sees nor senses a threat.
He pushes himself up straighter, and calls out in a whisper,]
Isaac, are you well? Keep still. I'll rekindle the fire.
[His own body is stiff and slow to respond. The chill and the uncomfortable position he's forced himself into are taking their toll. But he needs to move. It's not only himself he has to take care of now, and the weaknesses of his flesh do not excuse him of the responsibilities he has assumed.
Groaning, he flexes his fingers and toes, trying to will away the pins and needles as he crawls to the fire.]
no subject
...I live yet, don't I?
[He grates out, lowly, feeling his face stiffen under Hector's attention, his scrutiny.]
Go back to sleep.
[It's a demand, because it has to be. Because a plea is out of the question. But he doesn't expect Hector to listen, already smouldering with annoyance.
He thought he had outgrown nightmares; he had lost too many nights already to panic gripping him by the throat and shaking him awake, his head stuck someplace where dreams and memories would blur and he wasn't always sure of what was and wasn't, and if he could ever feel safe again. It's funny, he thinks to himself, how pain always lasts longer than pleasure. If someone cuts another deep enough, one scars over. But as he's seen with Hector, there's no lasting mark for the kindness one may have felt, at some point; nothing to show for the briefest moments of something approaching happiness. Wounds could heal in time, with or with magic, but the body and mind are wired to remember them, to hold onto terrifying lessons that came of them for the rest of one's life.]
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[Hector gives the dying coals a prod with a stick, and wonders what has Isaac so waspish. He only offered to rekindle their campfire.
Was it the light? Isaac might have stirred to relieve himself, or to relieve himself in the cover of darkness... only he’s never been shy about doing either in front of Hector.
He breaks the stick and feeds it to the smoldering embers, coaxing life back to them.
Isaac is akin to a feral cat, he reminds himself; bold when he has strength and a means of escape, but dangerous when vulnerable. Hector will do more harm than good, trying to press any closer while he’s wounded.]
If you need privacy, I’ll leave you alone... just as soon as I’m sure you won’t freeze.
[He gives the fire a little more kindling, trying to build it up so that he can step outside with the assurance that Isaac will be safe and warm within.]
guess who is being a stubborn shit
If a herd of mindless human cattle have not ended me yet... [he rasps through his teeth ] ...then a draft surely will not.
[The wobbliness in his legs when he pushes to his feet begs to differ; he's already a little woozy and breathless from the effort, forehead sheening with a sickly sweat. But his determination is unwavering. He doesn't need coddling, he tells himself, turning and staggering for the cave's mouth, putting an arm out to feel his way along the wall. Crimson stirs and stretches its wings, patiently awaiting a command that never comes.]
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The draft might not finish the job, but a stiff wind looks like it could finish the job. Sit your ass down.
[He forces himself up, though his foot is still asleep and his back muscles protest. He nudges the pile of tender and kindling with his boot.]
If you can’t bear my presence, then you tend the fire and I’ll go. Because I warn you, I’m your match in stubbornness and if you go out, I will as well, and we’ll both be cold and miserable and the wolves will find this cave and ravage all our supplies.
[Stubborn idiots don’t get apology bacon.]
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He shows his teeth.]
Since when have we fused at the hip?
[It's a question he's answered before, his mouth twisting from a scowl to a grim, knowing smile, briefly. But the real question is not when but why, when Isaac has done nothing to reward Hector's persistence or the attention Isaac thought he had always wanted. The attention he had killed for.
He tosses a hand helplessly, letting it slap to his side.]
What is it you want from me? [Frustration leaks into his voice.] ...A pat on the back for your noble efforts to tame the savage beast? My flesh, having claimed yours?
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[It’s not something that can be hidden, so Hector owns it, quiet and resolute.]
I want you to be well, Isaac. For all you balk against it, we are bound. Any ill will I bore against you before has been put aside.
[He steps to where he’d laid Isaac by the fire and bends to retrieve his discarded cloak. He tosses the bundle of fabric at Isaac’s shaking form.
He is trying to be patient, trying not to let him temper get the better of him and force them both even further back til they lose every halting step forward they’ve taken together.
He can’t force Isaac to stay without doing more harm, but if he leaves, Isaac might stay or return sooner to their shelter. Hector retrieves a hook and line from the bundle of supplies he traded for earlier today.]
Wander if you must, but while you deny yourself shelter, so shall I.
[If they’re both up and pushing themselves early to their graves anyways, Hector is going to go sit by the pond and see if there’s any night-fishing to be had.]
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Well.
There's no such thing for him. He'd never be well and Hector surely knows it; he wouldn't know what to do with happiness if he had it, or even properly recognize it. And if he somehow did, he'd spend every waking moment braced for disaster, waiting for the other shoe to drop and for something to try ripping what little he had from his grasp, if he didn't manage to do it himself by them. Scoffing, he finally stoops to lift his cloak, draping it over his shoulders as he whirls around, pressing forward. His jagged shadow lurches across the cave wall.
He's a lost cause -- or Hector and Julia wouldn't have left him in a castle to die, a voice whispers -- and whatever else he had done to Hector when he pushed into him, whatever misguided emotions and sense of responsibility the experience instilled in him, it'd only be a matter of time before it all fell away and Hector would give up on him.
again]
You are wasting your time. [He warns, stepping away from light and smoke into the night that spreads around him like a thick, dark blanket. No stars. Sighing, he leans up against dirt and rock and lets his sore, heavy-lidded eyes fall shut, pulling in a breath past a twinge of pain in his ribs. Then another, telling himself he doesn't need the fire nearly as soon or as badly as his body thinks it does.
The flesh is weak.
A wind stirs the old, creaking pines, whispering through long grasses. It's cool over his gleaming temples, his neck. He coughs lightly at a tickle in his lungs and settles back, hunching. A faint dusting of something pollen-like has gathered in his hair and eyelashes and the fur draping him, unfelt.]
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My time is my own, to be spent how I will.
[He grumbles, and makes to brush past Isaac and head for the pond when Isaac begins to cough.
Slight though it it, Hector rushes close, visions of internal bleeding and punctured lungs in his mind. He gets a breath of the spores as he clasps Isaac by the shoulders and leans close to study his face for signs of distress in the darkness.]
What...? Isaac, go back inside....this air is foul this night....
[Even as he speaks, he begins to lose focus on his words.]
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Isaac starts at his touch, stiffening. What he sees when he lifts his head isn't Hector's face - or much of a face at all. His eyes are rolling back into his skull all the way, his skin bulging and rippling, splitting as bloated maggots push through it like wet paper. Wide-eyed, Isaac rears his head back and wrenches himself out of his grip, wincing as he grasps for his dagger. By the time he has dropped into a fighter's crouch, poised to slash at him, Hector is Hector again, staring back at him.
Isaac feels his stomach pitch. He keeps his blade raised, wary. It jitters in his fist.
It doesn't make sense - of all the doppelgangers and shapeshifters that have ever taken Hector's form, none have ever been able to reproduce the aura of Dracula's magic rolling off their bodies. Their bond remains unbroken, every fibre of his being tingling-alert with the certainty that this really is Hector and that nothing has changed. No dark spirits sliding into his body and taking possession of him.]
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Hector staggers back, seeing the dagger morph into a torch to light a pyre. The stench of smoke and burning flesh choke his lungs.
He has no weapon, but he twists the fishing line around his hands in a makeshift garrote.
Something in Isaac’s countenance shifts, or seems to shift in Hector’s drugged eyes, and the torch becomes a bloodied stake torn from a jagged gash in Isaac’s side. Isaac, so cynical and cruel, who had nonetheless tried to trust in humanity again at Hector’s behest.
Hector twists his hands to untangle the rope, disgusted at the idea of strangling the life out of Isaac. The fish hook tears at his skin, and blood dribbled out, a little dark river in the black of the night.]
full blown lost it
But then a beat passes and then another, the two of them still taking measure of each other, and Hector's stance hasn't shifted. Isaac watches the inky drip of blood down Hector's hand, his gaze hard and searching his face for an explanation and only finding an expression he can't place.
His lips peel back.]
Do it! [He spits the words at him, feeling too vindicated, too angry, to let himself recognize the disappointment weighing heavy in his heart.] Consummate your precious revenge, if you can!
[In the thick brush comes a sudden thrashing, interrupting him. He throws a wild-eyed glance over his shoulder, staring into darkness. Branches snap and rustle away, and in the chaos he hears an angry, rhythmic grunting and someone screaming, a woman's scream splitting the night. He can't see but he knows what he's hearing, knows it to his bones. And it goes on until he grits his teeth and can't stand it, shooting a look to Hector - Hector, the merciful - who isn't reacting to it, as if he's lost his nerve.
Just as Isaac takes a purposeful step towards the sobbing struggle, determined to put an end to human and monster, half his wish is granted. There's a harsh, wet snap of a sound -- and then nothing at all. A deathly silence that's just as piercing as the wailing that came before it.
A hulking shape slowly emerges from the shadows, dragging a limp body behind it by the leg. It stops halfway towards the trees, turning its head Isaac's way -- and when their eyes meet, lock, Isaac feels a jolt run him through, the hairs on the nape of his neck lifting. The echoes of a sharp, white fear from what could've been years ago or only yesterday throbbing in his chest. His body hasn't forgotten; maybe it never would. But while some things may never change, enough has, when Isaac draws himself up against the chill and the weight of his cloak and remembers that he's still here - that he survived on his own, stronger for it - and that he
(can't move, can't get free, screaming past a sob of futile rage locked in his throat)
would put this beast down for good. He points his dagger at the demon. Even from a distance he can feel its breath, burning hot on the back of his neck, somehow. Sick-smelling, heavy with rot. ]
I killed you once before... [Isaac narrows his eyes] ...and my only regret is not making a place for your head on my mantle. But tonight I shall gladly rectify my mistake!
[It turns its body towards him now, bigger than it ever was, even with its wings pulled in. Still missing the middle toe on its left foot, and the part of one ear Isaac had managed to slice off. Its snout wrinkles in something approximating a smile. With a lazy swing of its arm, it hurls the corpse in Isaac's direction. It ragdolls, hitting the ground with a meaty thud before tumbling to a stop at his feet, limbs splayed brokenly. Fingers still twitching. Her long hair is tangled with leaves and twigs and her dress is ripped up the knee, legs scraped and stained with blood. The face - the half that hasn't been crushed to a jawless pulp - is turned to one side, eyes still begging for help.
A look that reaches into Isaac and grabs him by the guts, twisting them inside-out.
He goes weak at the middle. Staggers back a step, his breath coming in short, shallow heavesr.
Julia's body splits and blurs and joins again in his vision. And right there, while the world spins around him and his eyes burn, he can almost feel some part of his mind fracture, crumbling away from the rest.
The demon waits, smiling.
Blood rocks his skull and Isaac goes blind, never hearing the unhinged scream that claws its way out of him as he rushes the monster and slams his dagger up into its laughing throat, jerking it down through sinew and bone and cartilage to the breastbone. It topples, choking, spurting blood, Isaac landing on top of it. He punches the blade deep into its grinning skull, sobs ripping his throat, raw, animal sobbing, as it squeals out and he stabs it over and over again until its forehead collapses and its jellied eyeballs leak down its face like runny egg.
But all that's on Isaac's knife is dirt, clods of it flying from the soft spot in the ground he's driving it into.]
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Then Isaac turns suddenly, leaping toward some unseen threat, and Hector follows. His eyes cannot reconcile what they see.
Isaac, snarling as he tackles...himself. Twin forms claw at one another in the dirt, tearing at identically tattooed flesh. They sneer and curse at one another, and Hector knows deep within his bones that Isaac will kill himself if Hector doesn't intervene.
He dives into the fray, determined to save the other Forgemaster from himself.]
Isaac, stop this!
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They roll against one another, bucking and thrashing. Hector tries to get his arms around the flailing limbs, to pin Isaac down until he can heal his wounds and calm his rage.
The blade of Isaac's knife carves a line across his chest, ripping fabric and flesh both. It's a blind attack, not nearly as destructive a move as Isaac could make if he actually aimed, this close within Hector's defenses.
Hector cannot block the attack and keep his hold, and something within him cries out not to let go. He has to protect someone. He has to save someone. He has already failed one lover; to let another die is worse than death itself. As long as he keeps Isaac here, in his grasp, that other dark Isaac cannot destroy him.
His fairy's glow -- bright like flame, like a funeral pyre -- appears behind Hector's head, casting the writhing man below him in Hector's shadow.
Heal him he orders his devil, even as the knife comes back around for another stab. He tries to shush Isaac, to sooth him, but the next slice of the blade has him gasping back a ragged sob of breath. His vision, already so strange and blurred, unfocuses.]
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His knife jerks free, dripping. And as it readies for another thrust, Isaac waits for release, hopes for it, like a sick, rotting brain waits for a bullet. But it drives back into his attacker instead, and it breaks the hold the other has on him long enough for Isaac to wrench himself out from under its weight. Panting raggedly, he rolls around to face it, his eyes raw and wet. He squints against the glow of what he recognizes as Hector's fairy. Hector is there too, just behind it. Dark blots of blood spreading through his tunic.]
Murderer! [Isaac screams, unhinged, his arms high over his head as he lurches for him like a mindless living corpse before slamming his dagger down on any part of Hector he can reach, all his weight, his futile rage, behind it.] You let her die!
[Shuddering, he deflates, his body crumpling over the knife still tight in both his hands.]
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He tries to regain the upper hand, reaching out to seize Isaac's wrists to stop him from attacking.
Murderer! Isaac hisses. His face shifts and warps, until Hector is staring at his own face. You let her die!]
I....
[There is no denying the accusation. Hector brought Rosaly's death, with his love, his selfish love that prioritized his happiness over her safety. She would still live, had he not loved her.
Hector stops struggling, and lets the knife strike land.]
if this doesn't work for any reason, I'm happy to change it, just lemme know
He's accepted pain as an inevitability of being alive, and learned to make room for it, always working to tamp down and pack older memories away if he couldn't twist them into something useful. But there's no room left, this time. He can't any more -- he can't.
The last dim spot of light has gone out in his world and he knows he doesn't deserve to go with it, to have the luxury to die on his own terms. But he doesn't deserve to live, either, if she can't. If her final, terrifying moments are in any way Hector's fault, than he knows it's his own, just as much, for standing there and doing nothing. For being like any leering, soulless monster. The humans can't be all wrong, he decides, seeing what they see in him.
His dagger squelches loose from Hector's leg, slimy with blood. And after a long moment, Isaac lifts his head with it, staring through him as he makes to put that same blade to his own throat and jerk it across.]
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The bloody blade forces him to look up, and Hector sees Isaac once more, despairing and lost. Fitting, that they should die together, two sides of the same warped coin.
'Hector, don't curse yourself.' Rosaly's voice echoes from far away and long ago. 'I don't know your pain or your past...but they aren't important. Don't be a captive to them.'
Rosaly would forgive what he does not, can not. And if Rosaly could find goodness worth nurturing in one forgemaster, surely she would in the other. Hector has to find it, cultivate it, because Rosaly is no longer able to.
Hector's vision is swimming as the blood drains freely from his wounds, but he takes decisive action, reaching out and seizing Isaac's wrist to stay his hand. The fairy at his shoulder glows brighter, focusing its healing magic on Isaac. It takes more power than Hector anticipates, and his knees buckle.]
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He arches his back and presses himself into the knife, close enough to feel the point dimpling his skin. Close enough to feel the heat of Hector's panting breath and see the slow draining of life and colour from his face. To see a strange powdery residue speckling his skin. It seems fairest that Hector should look him in the eyes when his hand runs the blade through him, willingly or unwillingly.]
Do it! It's what you had wanted!
[Isaac shouts at him, a gob of spit hitting Hector's cheek. His desperate grip squeezes tight around his glove, his body trembly-electric on the inside.]
I killed your woman! I raped you of the only happiness you have ever known and will ever know in your wretched life, and I ran free while her ashes scattered to the wind!
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Through gritted teeth, he growls out.]
And I will have to live with that. WE will have to live with that.
[If Isaac wants punishment, there is none crueler than that. But in it, there is also hope, though Isaac does not know how to see it.
The fairy heals and cleanses, sending a warm, tingling aura over Isaac. Hector's vision swims, and he struggles to dig his fingers into a pressure point to force Isaac to drop his weapon before he slumps over.]
And what gets high... must come down. Something like that.
His arms drop and he falls back onto his knees, sagging.
The wind picks up, swirling around them and tugging at his cloak, but not enough of Isaac is there to notice while he throbs with hate, hate for himself and for Hector, and for the howling, furious sobbing he can't bite back.
Hector may have fought and won the battle for Isaac's life, but not the war.
Mid-crying jag, he doubles over with a coughing fit that's just as violent, hacking thick and wet until he brings up a whitish phlegm from the bottom of his lungs. Gulping down deep, shuddering breaths, Isaac dries his face on his arm, his mouth, slowly going cold. His head hurts; his skull is clamped tight around his brain. And for the first time in a long time comes a thought he had as a boy the nights he had huddled in some dark, dusty corner of the library - the only place, it had seemed, where there was some semblance of order: he wants to go home. But home is nowhere. It's just an idea of a warm, comfortable place that never existed.
Shadows and projections shimmer around him, fading. When he knuckles his eyes dry one more time and dares to look around, he realizes both Julia and the demon's remains have disappeared. No trampled, blood-slick grass marking where either corpse had lain. Only Hector is still there - at least for the moment - with more wounds than Isaac remembers inflicting.
He doesn't know when he finds the will to climb to his feet again, and then, finally, to drag Hector over dirt and grass and the ragged cave floor to the fire, for what feels like for hours. Or why, beyond petty tit-for-tat. He feeds the dying embers with a barely-controlled wisp of magic, struggling to push past the aggressive ache in his temples and have Crimson pull a small measure of energy from Hector's fairy and from his own body to pour into Hector's. Crimson's capacity for healing can only pale in comparison to a creature whose sole purpose revolves around treating injury and disease. But what his devil offers is enough to buy some time until it has absorbed and returned with something more.
The glow of the fire draws Isaac's attention to the dust furring Hector's cheek. He thumbs it off him, rubbing it between his fingers. It the same stuff that had smudged off on his glove when he had wiped his own face.
Soon, there'd be wood to gather. But for now he sits himself down, moving only to grudgingly unshoulder his cloak. More dust clouds the air, when he does: a piece of a puzzle slotting into place in his head. He vigorously shakes it out, away from Hector, before tossing it over him.]
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The shuddering passes and he flops back down on his back, letting his face loll to the other side so he can press his feverish cheek against the cold stone.
A cloak tangles around his arms, restricting his movement. Isaac's, not his....
He remembers...Isaac, pinning himself to the ground and driving in his knife... Isaac's face turning into a mirror image of Hector's...the accusation 'Murderer' that he could not deny...
Nightmares. He remembers nightmares, for what else could they be?
Along his chest, on his hand, in the meat of his thigh, he feels the throb of blood beneath scabbed flesh. A nightmare that can inflict wounds...the sort of thing that scared villagers would say resided in the forsaken castle.
He senses no threat now, but there had been danger. Something to do with Isaac.... He can taste the fear in his mouth, as foul and bitter as the aftertaste of his bile. He'd almost lost Isaac.
He peels open his eyes and forces his aching head up from the cool stone to look for him.]
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Julia isn't dead.
She never was, because he can still feel her dimly, far to the east, on the other side of the mountain pass they crossed days ago.
Isaac dries his mouth and slides his gauntlet back on over blood-smeared skin with a stiff tug. He catches Hector's gaze a moment while snapping the buckles on, his own red-rimmed and tired, smouldering with powerless anger towards an enemy with no face, no blood. All Crimson had found, deeper in the woods, was a patch of myconid easily set ablaze. The others sucked themselves back into the dirt.
Hector had sensed something awry, he remembers. Something in the air. But not soon enough.]
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The pounding of his head is killing him, and his lungs feel heavy, every breath labored.
Closing his eyes, he raises one hand and waves it in the vague direction where he thinks he left the supplies he picked up yesterday.]
...so....breakfast?
[It comes out in a croak. Honestly, all he wants is maybe a gallon of water, to drink or to drown himself in, he's still undecided. But he bought that damned slanina for Isaac, and Isaac will eat it if it kills him.]
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imma fudge some travel times here so Isaac doesn't have to wait around for days
LOL fucking pumpkin
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no real kids for them is probably for the best, lol
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HOW DARE HECTOR HAVE NEEDS OF HIS OWN
HE’S NOT SAYING IT SHOULD totally absolutely BE HIM
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hope this timeskippery is okay -- let me know if you wanted anything changed
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