[He won't pretend the convenience of a ready-made meal and the taste of wine isn't desperately tempting after weeks of making do with unseasoned meat and berries, keeping away from more than a sip at the bottle as not to dullen his senses. But this is what Hector wants. He wants him to fold, fostering a codependency for reasons Isaac can guess at, but that he tells himself don't matter to him. Anything Hector has to offer will only hold him back.
How cautiously and carefully Hector is laying his bait, though, he thinks. A far cry from the Hector Isaac saw in that cave, aggressive and daring, grabbing him because he could, and get away with it. It's the only Hector he trusts as real.
He looks away from a breeze fretting one of the castle's ragged banners and stares into his eyes, blood pumping in his head and pushing at his sinuses. His devil turns from the plant-creature and looks on, impassive.]
To me, you could oh so nobly offer the clothes off your back [he seethes, lowly] and your life - and 'twould make no difference at all. You have shown me who you are...
[A corner of his mouth goes up, but it's a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.]
...under all your preaching of kindness and mercy, and these hollow gestures made in some insulting attempt at conciliation. [A step closer, closing the distance.] Make no mistake: you are a beast as much as I, Hector - only you hide behind your masks, and your gentility, and then think it your right, your duty, to still my hand when I seek to strike down those who would have my head. [A snarl wrinkls his nose.] There is nothing on this earth that will absolve you of all the blood you spilled in service to the Dark Lord, and I will not have you drag me into your desperate pursuit of forgiveness.
[Isaac's words are like a physical blow to his stomach. He turns away, fists and teeth clenched.]
You think I don't know that I'm hell-bound? There is no redemption for my soul.
[And no reunion with his love. Hector can never clean the stain of blood off of his hands, but he can stop adding new layers to it. He can stop hurting others. It's a clumsy, doomed effort, but that does not absolve him of the burden of trying, for the sake of the people who aren't irrevocably damned. Isaac wouldn't understand.]
Go eat, Isaac. It's just food. I won't join you.
[He wants to take a page out of Isaac's book, and lock himself up in his rooms so he can lick his wounds in solitude.]
[His eyes burn cold. He stays rooted to the spot, the muscles in his chest tight around his ribs like loops of rope.
Another man could have stepped back and taken that out, fuming in silence, because confrontations and the sheer, full-bodied energy it takes to sustain the anger that he has for this long are exhausting. But he's not here to make life more convenient for Hector, to make things more pleasant for Hector when, most days, he's barely functional at best, relieved when he's so bone-tired from overwork that he doesn't dream at all.]
Fuck your soul. Fuck redemption. [Said with a deathly calm, every word laced with venom.] They matter not a damned thing. We will all burn -- the only difference from one wretch to the next is that some will sooner than others. If you are not in any hurry, then you would best hear me now, for I shall say this but once more: my life is not yours to meddle with as it suits you... and I am not yours to mold into more pleasing a shape. I am not yours.
[His throat moves, jaw sharpening. He doesn't blink.]
[If the previous accusations deflated Hector, this new one fills him back up with cold anger. Hector turns back to Isaac, an incredulous look on his face.]
I haven't touched you, Isaac. It's just food. You need it to live. What is it about my presence that has you so afraid?
[Because that's what it is, isn't it? This refusal to accept any help, these protestations of a relationship that isn't there. Isaac is threatened, and is baring his teeth in response.
They are both just animals in the end. Isaac, the feral cat, hissing at anyone who gets too close, and Hector, the domesticated dog who keeps coming back no matter how many times he takes those claws to the face.
He snorts and shakes his head.]
Fine, eat or starve. You're right- you belong to none but yourself. If you choose to waste away into your grave, I can do nothing but watch it happen. You've made that very clear.
[He's hit with a hot surge of outrage and incredulity of his own, fury punching through his veins.]
You tread on thin ice!
[He hisses into his face, hating how Hector tears him down, painting him as someone who has never fed or fended for himself, a life spent entirely at the mercy of others' generosity. Hating how viciously every word cuts to the bone, even if, with every gash Hector opens, comes the bitter relief of knowing he hadn't surrendered his body in a moment's recklessness, and to someone this determined to make him feel lowly and weak, an ugly helplessness all over again.]
Much good it is being lord when you will not bend to me.
[Hector is beyond his control - but he knows this better now than he ever has, forced to acknowledge his presence in spaces he never meant to share, and to remember how suddenly the feeling of his touch on his skin had changed, putting him on edge.
A coward, Hector had called him then. Neither of them thinking it possible, maybe, for Isaac - a wolf in human skin - to keep from following through and fucking Hector into the ground, because that's what he's supposed to have done. Throw his head back and laugh, drunk on the power of having dragged Hector down to his level, making a miserable, needy wreck of him.]
If you meant to do me a kindness, then you would have left this place a very long time ago. But your lingering here is and has always been in your best interest, hasn't it?
[Isaac doesn't want him here, doesn't think he needs him here, but Hector saw him nearly die thrice. Hector is here as a two-fold shield, to protect the world from Isaac, and to protect Isaac from the world.]
And as I recall it, you didn't want me bent. Would you have that of me now, a thrall to your whims?
I would not have to ask. 'twas you who all but threw yourself onto my cock, like a bitch in heat, when I had wanted nothing more to do with you. [He chuckles. It scrapes in his throat, humourless.] You got what you deserved.
[Color rises in Hector's cheeks, for all his resolve to be cool and distant.]
That was a particularly dissatisfying lapse of judgement, and one that does not bear repeating.
[Hector takes matters into his own hands now since then, although he's pretty sure at least one succubus has come sniffing around the borders of Isaac's keep, drawn by the tension he can't quite relieve on his own.
He looks at Isaac, with his gaunt face and dark-ringed eyes, working himself to death, and thinks they are both getting what they deserve.]
[He looks away, a cold, remote feeling coming over him again while he stands there, his nails piercing the palms of his gloves. It's unfair, being mired with regret while Hector lets that same night wash off him like nothing happened, with a matter-of-factness to his tone that is almost properly convincing. Hector may be hurting, but he isn't bleeding openly. Still has some dignity for a man who had downright begged for cock.
His fists squeeze tighter.]
I could have snapped your neck.
[No trace of remorse or uncertainty colours his voice. Could've - even should've, something whispers to him - left a body in the cave for the rats to find, like those of the few demons he has shoved out the tower window they came through in the last half year, their laughter still ringing in his ears. But he hadn't, Isaac thinks, having laid back and let things happen, and for longer than they should've. Lost and dizzied with lust, running hot and cold. He can feel a twinge of phantom pain in his forehead, though the wound closed long ago. Nothing left of it but a memory; the only thing a devil's healing couldn't smooth away.]
No, you couldn’t have. At least admit that much- neither of us is going to kill the other.
[They are doomed to dance around one another, never bringing it to an end. Hector has accepted it, and the fact that Isaac hasn’t is infuriating.
He narrows his eyes at Isaac.]
What was it that made you stop that morning? I couldn’t have hurt you, in that position.
[He’s replayed it in his mind, cast through various lenses of regret, anger, and confusion, and it has never made sense to him. Isaac smacking his head when he tried to press on, yes, but what cause was there for that initial retreat?]
[He snaps, unsure who between them he's trying more fiercely to convince and frustrated that there is any convincing to be done at all. That Hector must consider him delicate and fragile - like a woman, his mind suggests, unhelpfully - if he thinks of himself as an actual threat.
Between Hector and the demons he's had, up against walls and pressed into floors and bent over his worktable, Isaac can't deny that there's no comparison: Hector is stronger than the company he chooses to keep. But what Hector also has that they don't are inhibitions. And though he has some fight in him when desperate - Isaac better understands this now, not all of him wary of it - he has never seemed to share his hunger for power and control. Not to the same extent, anyway, or they may not have both been alive to have this conversation.]
Then why? You asked for a warm body, and I gave it to you.
[He clings, stubbornly, to the fact that he had delivered on his promise. Hector hadn’t performed poorly; Hector’s lovers, few though they were, did not leave his bed unsatisfied.]
Yes, [he whirls on him, an accusation sharp in his tone] and I changed my mind! 'twas not what I had wanted - and that is all!
[A few beats pass. His breath comes in harsh, rasping pants, shoulders locked. No danger here - though his heart won't stop kicking at his ribs like it wants out. It takes an incredible effort just to will his hands to open, to stay loose at his sides.]
You did enough. [He adds, lowly, eyeing him.] ...You served your purpose.
[Hector bites back a retort that Isaac should have known what he was getting, he liked it enough the first time around. No, be cool. Collected. He huffs out a breath he didn't realize he was holding.]
Well, regardless of what you want or don't want, it won't happen again.
[Gods, he wishes he sounded resolute when he said it. As if all it would take to break that resolve wouldn't be for Isaac to show up at his bed chambers and demand it.]
[He turns away, silent, needing space to breathe. But he has the sense the even whole courtyard to himself wouldn't be enough. Maybe not even the entire country.
He leans up against a dead tree, and slides down it into a crouch after a while, realizing his hands have clenched again on their own. Which is just as well when he can feel a trembling in his fingers. It's just the exhaustion catching up to him. Just the stress he's placed himself under, funneling as much of his lifeforce into his creations as he could. Just the cold. There are no shortage of excuses he can tell himself, and not a single one of them is honest, and he could live with that. He could live with silence, he tells himself.
But the words are crawling up his throat with nowhere else to go anymore, forcing their way through his gritted teeth.]
I saw her. [He tells the ground; the only way he can say it.] My sister. I heard her screams and knew not it was her until her body lay bloody and broken at my feet.
[His fingers push through his hair. Snatching fistfuls of it, knuckles blanching, pressed tight to his skull.]
'twas all a fucking lie!
[He breathes and breathes, his sides heaving, his eyes darting over the ground in desperate search of something.] ...She was never there, in the woods; I feel her now, up on the mountain. Alive. But I can still hear her, begging for mercy while she is ruined and torn apart.
[A cold, queasy dread shifts in the pit of his stomach.]
[Hector's voice comes out as a whisper, gruff with horror. The visions Hector had seen that night...they were nothing in comparison to what Isaac had suffered.]
I'm sorry. I didn't know. [There is a cliff that spans between what Isaac needs and what he will accept, so Hector steps near the tree and kneels, but doesn't reach out to touch him. Isaac's love for his sister is the only piece Hector has seen of him that is good. For that to be so perverted....
Gods, he wishes he possessed Rosaly's patience and gentleness to try to bring some modicum of comfort to Isaac.]
I know that you know she is safe...and what you saw will never come to pass.... She is protected. My strongest innocent devils keep watch over her. She will have forewarning of any threat, mortal or supernatural, and between her wards and the forged creatures who reside with her, she will be safe.
[Hector knows that Isaac knows all of that, and that the knowledge will not stave off the memories that come in dreams. Only time and numbness will do that.]
[He stares hard at the ground, hearing and not hearing, his ears roaring. Hector is an arm's length from him and a world away, his aura crashing over him. Waves pounding and pounding at an unmoving rock. Isaac can't bring himself to confront what he thinks he'll find in that face, self-disgust already curling hot in his gut.]
She was wise never to have followed me.
[He hisses.
To the castle, he means. Six years his junior and wise beyond her years, the gift of foresight aside. How could he have protected her when he couldn't protect himself? When it had taken him three years, three years too long, to bring Abel's first form into being? His first devil with a whiplash temper to match his own and strength that he could count on. Strength that let him fear the vulnerability of sleep just a little less knowing that for every unkind thing breathing at his door, smelling anxiety and human flesh, there were gentler eyes watching the rise and fall of his side. A guardian at his bedside that could wound and kill unprompted, prepared to save him in ways he wishes it had been there to do when his own hand and dagger had failed him.
Hector can't promise him anything. But if there's any justice in the world, any at all, then Julia wouldn't ever know that same fear with those devils at her side. She'd never be alone.]
She had stayed in Cordova, saying goodbye to a brother whose existence had gone unspoken about, a nameless baby unmeant to have lived; he left for the castle, never looking back.
He wouldn't bow to a creature and was broken, given something he could never give back; only a day after, he had wiped his nose and dried his face and picked himself up, setting to work forging his first spear before he had even learned how to used it.
She looked him right in the eyes while Cordova was falling, the two of them alone in a house, and he could see in her face she was scared by the Isaac she saw; he let her run, sending his men the other way.
He isn't sure if Julia is smarter than either of them, when what he did was only what he felt was right. What had felt like the only real choice he could make and live with. But she is more patient, more graceful. More deserving than them of a life better than the hand she was dealt. But it is what it is.
Isaac lets his hands fall, reluctantly. They dangle between his knees, opening and closing; he looks up, briefly, only to answer.]
'twas a damned patch of myconid. Crimson found them first, burning to ashes what it could before they vanished into the earth.
All that, and done by pure chance by creatures who bear no malevolence toward us. Damn....
[That is shit luck, though Hector should be used to that by now. But the fact that it wasn't a targeted attack almost makes it worse. At least then, he could fine a purpose in it, could formulate a plan to defend himself or even avenge himself. There is a certain helplessness in being the victim of a random attack.]
I've seen no sign of any more nearby, but I will look out for it especially next time I venture out.
[He will have to train his devils to recognize it and respond to it as they do to more animated threats.]
[Isaac stares dully at his hands, kneading his wrists, fingers keeping busy to keep from shaking. He's not in the frame of mind to consider the possibility of another freak accident of that sort, or to really care. The whole keep could be overrun tomorrow, blanketed in floury myconid spores, and he'd hardly know the difference when reality and illusion blurred. His blackest thoughts already lie too close to the surface of his mind, and giving some of that pain a voice has only made his throat hurt and his chest grow tighter, as if his body is resisting the idea of finding relief, afraid of him knowing something different.]
I am no fragile waif in need of your protection.
[He rasps, latching onto a different thread of their conversation, one they keep circling back to only to arrive to the same infuriating conclusion every time: that Hector doesn't seem to think he's strong enough on his own.]
Think you that I flit about the castle being waited on hand and foot, fed and bathed and dressed, while others yet fought my battles for me? That I would shrivel and die without your intervention?
[He shoots him a cutting look, baring his teeth.]
I am a devil forgemaster! [Stabbing a finger into his chest:] I bled for this!
I don't believe you need anything from me, Isaac. You fight for everything goddamned thing you do. But there is no sense in you redoubling efforts I am already making. I have to make food for my own purposes, so why should you not also benefit from that, so that you can devote more of your time to your other efforts?
[Hector is half-exasperated that he has to explain specialization, a basic pillar of human society, to Isaac, and half-saddened that Isaac probably doesn't believe he can allow himself to rely on anyone else. He presses on.]
It is not pampering for me to be on guard of an enemy we've both run foul of. It would be foolhardy for me not to be.
[He leans back and lifts an eyebrow at Isaac.]
As for 'waiting on you' and 'bathing and dressing' you, I haven't proposed that. Granted, I think you could benefit from giving yourself a break; that is true of almost anyone. If you allowed yourself a massage, or a nice bath, I bet you'd be twice as productive in the lab as you've been while driving yourself to exhaustion.
[Gods, if Isaac would consent to allow Hector to pamper him, just for an hour, Hector absolutely would do it. Because Isaac doesn't need anyone to care for him, but Hector needs someone to take care of.]
[Hector makes it sound so effortless. Giving in, reaching for the rare helping hand when it's offered. He has always struggled with being told that his way of doing anything is inefficient or wrong, that his best isn't good enough, but he can't deny any more than he can admit aloud that what Hector is telling him does make sense; he can recognize that his own bitterness has turned him away from making more sensible, pragmatic choices.
All that's come of digging in his heels is pity. And being asked to show some kindness to himself and to the body he's run ragged and carved his unrest and hurt into, to treat it just a little less like a tool, a means to an end, the way Dracula had. It's just the sort of thing Julia would have said, if she saw him now.
He's glad she can't. Or that if she already has, in one of her restless visions, that he has no way of knowing it.
He swipes at his face, angrily, his eyes filling, burning.
All he wants is to feel like himself again. Proud and vicious and unstoppable. He wants to smirk crookedly at this talk of massages and indulgent baths and answer with a snide proposal of his own, inviting Hector to wipe his ass for him if he was that eager to be of service. The laughter that used to come so easily to him doesn't this time, not today.
Something else snags low in his throat, a soft, choked noise, and he has to look away, hands fisted.]
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How cautiously and carefully Hector is laying his bait, though, he thinks. A far cry from the Hector Isaac saw in that cave, aggressive and daring, grabbing him because he could, and get away with it. It's the only Hector he trusts as real.
He looks away from a breeze fretting one of the castle's ragged banners and stares into his eyes, blood pumping in his head and pushing at his sinuses. His devil turns from the plant-creature and looks on, impassive.]
To me, you could oh so nobly offer the clothes off your back [he seethes, lowly] and your life - and 'twould make no difference at all. You have shown me who you are...
[A corner of his mouth goes up, but it's a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.]
...under all your preaching of kindness and mercy, and these hollow gestures made in some insulting attempt at conciliation. [A step closer, closing the distance.] Make no mistake: you are a beast as much as I, Hector - only you hide behind your masks, and your gentility, and then think it your right, your duty, to still my hand when I seek to strike down those who would have my head. [A snarl wrinkls his nose.] There is nothing on this earth that will absolve you of all the blood you spilled in service to the Dark Lord, and I will not have you drag me into your desperate pursuit of forgiveness.
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You think I don't know that I'm hell-bound? There is no redemption for my soul.
[And no reunion with his love. Hector can never clean the stain of blood off of his hands, but he can stop adding new layers to it. He can stop hurting others. It's a clumsy, doomed effort, but that does not absolve him of the burden of trying, for the sake of the people who aren't irrevocably damned. Isaac wouldn't understand.]
Go eat, Isaac. It's just food. I won't join you.
[He wants to take a page out of Isaac's book, and lock himself up in his rooms so he can lick his wounds in solitude.]
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Another man could have stepped back and taken that out, fuming in silence, because confrontations and the sheer, full-bodied energy it takes to sustain the anger that he has for this long are exhausting. But he's not here to make life more convenient for Hector, to make things more pleasant for Hector when, most days, he's barely functional at best, relieved when he's so bone-tired from overwork that he doesn't dream at all.]
Fuck your soul. Fuck redemption. [Said with a deathly calm, every word laced with venom.] They matter not a damned thing. We will all burn -- the only difference from one wretch to the next is that some will sooner than others. If you are not in any hurry, then you would best hear me now, for I shall say this but once more: my life is not yours to meddle with as it suits you... and I am not yours to mold into more pleasing a shape. I am not yours.
[His throat moves, jaw sharpening. He doesn't blink.]
Lay your hands on me again, and I will kill you.
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I haven't touched you, Isaac. It's just food. You need it to live. What is it about my presence that has you so afraid?
[Because that's what it is, isn't it? This refusal to accept any help, these protestations of a relationship that isn't there. Isaac is threatened, and is baring his teeth in response.
They are both just animals in the end. Isaac, the feral cat, hissing at anyone who gets too close, and Hector, the domesticated dog who keeps coming back no matter how many times he takes those claws to the face.
He snorts and shakes his head.]
Fine, eat or starve. You're right- you belong to none but yourself. If you choose to waste away into your grave, I can do nothing but watch it happen. You've made that very clear.
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You tread on thin ice!
[He hisses into his face, hating how Hector tears him down, painting him as someone who has never fed or fended for himself, a life spent entirely at the mercy of others' generosity. Hating how viciously every word cuts to the bone, even if, with every gash Hector opens, comes the bitter relief of knowing he hadn't surrendered his body in a moment's recklessness, and to someone this determined to make him feel lowly and weak, an ugly helplessness all over again.]
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[He wants to shake Isaac, to get it through his thick skull, but he’s promised not to touch him. Hector keeps himself restrained.]
You could take it to deny me of it later, if you won’t accept it any other way. You are the lord of this castle. Take it as your right.
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Much good it is being lord when you will not bend to me.
[Hector is beyond his control - but he knows this better now than he ever has, forced to acknowledge his presence in spaces he never meant to share, and to remember how suddenly the feeling of his touch on his skin had changed, putting him on edge.
A coward, Hector had called him then. Neither of them thinking it possible, maybe, for Isaac - a wolf in human skin - to keep from following through and fucking Hector into the ground, because that's what he's supposed to have done. Throw his head back and laugh, drunk on the power of having dragged Hector down to his level, making a miserable, needy wreck of him.]
If you meant to do me a kindness, then you would have left this place a very long time ago. But your lingering here is and has always been in your best interest, hasn't it?
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[Isaac doesn't want him here, doesn't think he needs him here, but Hector saw him nearly die thrice. Hector is here as a two-fold shield, to protect the world from Isaac, and to protect Isaac from the world.]
And as I recall it, you didn't want me bent. Would you have that of me now, a thrall to your whims?
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I would not have to ask. 'twas you who all but threw yourself onto my cock, like a bitch in heat, when I had wanted nothing more to do with you. [He chuckles. It scrapes in his throat, humourless.] You got what you deserved.
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That was a particularly dissatisfying lapse of judgement, and one that does not bear repeating.
[Hector takes matters into his own hands now since then, although he's pretty sure at least one succubus has come sniffing around the borders of Isaac's keep, drawn by the tension he can't quite relieve on his own.
He looks at Isaac, with his gaunt face and dark-ringed eyes, working himself to death, and thinks they are both getting what they deserve.]
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His fists squeeze tighter.]
I could have snapped your neck.
[No trace of remorse or uncertainty colours his voice. Could've - even should've, something whispers to him - left a body in the cave for the rats to find, like those of the few demons he has shoved out the tower window they came through in the last half year, their laughter still ringing in his ears. But he hadn't, Isaac thinks, having laid back and let things happen, and for longer than they should've. Lost and dizzied with lust, running hot and cold. He can feel a twinge of phantom pain in his forehead, though the wound closed long ago. Nothing left of it but a memory; the only thing a devil's healing couldn't smooth away.]
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[They are doomed to dance around one another, never bringing it to an end. Hector has accepted it, and the fact that Isaac hasn’t is infuriating.
He narrows his eyes at Isaac.]
What was it that made you stop that morning? I couldn’t have hurt you, in that position.
[He’s replayed it in his mind, cast through various lenses of regret, anger, and confusion, and it has never made sense to him. Isaac smacking his head when he tried to press on, yes, but what cause was there for that initial retreat?]
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Of course you couldn't have!
[He snaps, unsure who between them he's trying more fiercely to convince and frustrated that there is any convincing to be done at all. That Hector must consider him delicate and fragile - like a woman, his mind suggests, unhelpfully - if he thinks of himself as an actual threat.
Between Hector and the demons he's had, up against walls and pressed into floors and bent over his worktable, Isaac can't deny that there's no comparison: Hector is stronger than the company he chooses to keep. But what Hector also has that they don't are inhibitions. And though he has some fight in him when desperate - Isaac better understands this now, not all of him wary of it - he has never seemed to share his hunger for power and control. Not to the same extent, anyway, or they may not have both been alive to have this conversation.]
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[He clings, stubbornly, to the fact that he had delivered on his promise. Hector hadn’t performed poorly; Hector’s lovers, few though they were, did not leave his bed unsatisfied.]
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[A few beats pass. His breath comes in harsh, rasping pants, shoulders locked. No danger here - though his heart won't stop kicking at his ribs like it wants out. It takes an incredible effort just to will his hands to open, to stay loose at his sides.]
You did enough. [He adds, lowly, eyeing him.] ...You served your purpose.
[If only that were true.]
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Well, regardless of what you want or don't want, it won't happen again.
[Gods, he wishes he sounded resolute when he said it. As if all it would take to break that resolve wouldn't be for Isaac to show up at his bed chambers and demand it.]
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He leans up against a dead tree, and slides down it into a crouch after a while, realizing his hands have clenched again on their own. Which is just as well when he can feel a trembling in his fingers. It's just the exhaustion catching up to him. Just the stress he's placed himself under, funneling as much of his lifeforce into his creations as he could. Just the cold. There are no shortage of excuses he can tell himself, and not a single one of them is honest, and he could live with that. He could live with silence, he tells himself.
But the words are crawling up his throat with nowhere else to go anymore, forcing their way through his gritted teeth.]
I saw her. [He tells the ground; the only way he can say it.] My sister. I heard her screams and knew not it was her until her body lay bloody and broken at my feet.
[His fingers push through his hair. Snatching fistfuls of it, knuckles blanching, pressed tight to his skull.]
'twas all a fucking lie!
[He breathes and breathes, his sides heaving, his eyes darting over the ground in desperate search of something.] ...She was never there, in the woods; I feel her now, up on the mountain. Alive. But I can still hear her, begging for mercy while she is ruined and torn apart.
[A cold, queasy dread shifts in the pit of his stomach.]
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[Hector's voice comes out as a whisper, gruff with horror. The visions Hector had seen that night...they were nothing in comparison to what Isaac had suffered.]
I'm sorry. I didn't know. [There is a cliff that spans between what Isaac needs and what he will accept, so Hector steps near the tree and kneels, but doesn't reach out to touch him. Isaac's love for his sister is the only piece Hector has seen of him that is good. For that to be so perverted....
Gods, he wishes he possessed Rosaly's patience and gentleness to try to bring some modicum of comfort to Isaac.]
I know that you know she is safe...and what you saw will never come to pass.... She is protected. My strongest innocent devils keep watch over her. She will have forewarning of any threat, mortal or supernatural, and between her wards and the forged creatures who reside with her, she will be safe.
[Hector knows that Isaac knows all of that, and that the knowledge will not stave off the memories that come in dreams. Only time and numbness will do that.]
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She was wise never to have followed me.
[He hisses.
To the castle, he means. Six years his junior and wise beyond her years, the gift of foresight aside. How could he have protected her when he couldn't protect himself? When it had taken him three years, three years too long, to bring Abel's first form into being? His first devil with a whiplash temper to match his own and strength that he could count on. Strength that let him fear the vulnerability of sleep just a little less knowing that for every unkind thing breathing at his door, smelling anxiety and human flesh, there were gentler eyes watching the rise and fall of his side. A guardian at his bedside that could wound and kill unprompted, prepared to save him in ways he wishes it had been there to do when his own hand and dagger had failed him.
Hector can't promise him anything. But if there's any justice in the world, any at all, then Julia wouldn't ever know that same fear with those devils at her side. She'd never be alone.]
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Yes, she is much smarter than either of us.
[And Hector has learned from his mistakes. He has done for Julia what he’d failed to do for Rosaly. He’s given her the tools to keep herself safe.]
What was it that gave us such visions? I didn’t sense any demons about that night.
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She urged him to forgive; he couldn't.
She had stayed in Cordova, saying goodbye to a brother whose existence had gone unspoken about, a nameless baby unmeant to have lived; he left for the castle, never looking back.
He wouldn't bow to a creature and was broken, given something he could never give back; only a day after, he had wiped his nose and dried his face and picked himself up, setting to work forging his first spear before he had even learned how to used it.
She looked him right in the eyes while Cordova was falling, the two of them alone in a house, and he could see in her face she was scared by the Isaac she saw; he let her run, sending his men the other way.
He isn't sure if Julia is smarter than either of them, when what he did was only what he felt was right. What had felt like the only real choice he could make and live with. But she is more patient, more graceful. More deserving than them of a life better than the hand she was dealt. But it is what it is.
Isaac lets his hands fall, reluctantly. They dangle between his knees, opening and closing; he looks up, briefly, only to answer.]
'twas a damned patch of myconid. Crimson found them first, burning to ashes what it could before they vanished into the earth.
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[That is shit luck, though Hector should be used to that by now. But the fact that it wasn't a targeted attack almost makes it worse. At least then, he could fine a purpose in it, could formulate a plan to defend himself or even avenge himself. There is a certain helplessness in being the victim of a random attack.]
I've seen no sign of any more nearby, but I will look out for it especially next time I venture out.
[He will have to train his devils to recognize it and respond to it as they do to more animated threats.]
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I am no fragile waif in need of your protection.
[He rasps, latching onto a different thread of their conversation, one they keep circling back to only to arrive to the same infuriating conclusion every time: that Hector doesn't seem to think he's strong enough on his own.]
Think you that I flit about the castle being waited on hand and foot, fed and bathed and dressed, while others yet fought my battles for me? That I would shrivel and die without your intervention?
[He shoots him a cutting look, baring his teeth.]
I am a devil forgemaster! [Stabbing a finger into his chest:] I bled for this!
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[Hector is half-exasperated that he has to explain specialization, a basic pillar of human society, to Isaac, and half-saddened that Isaac probably doesn't believe he can allow himself to rely on anyone else. He presses on.]
It is not pampering for me to be on guard of an enemy we've both run foul of. It would be foolhardy for me not to be.
[He leans back and lifts an eyebrow at Isaac.]
As for 'waiting on you' and 'bathing and dressing' you, I haven't proposed that. Granted, I think you could benefit from giving yourself a break; that is true of almost anyone. If you allowed yourself a massage, or a nice bath, I bet you'd be twice as productive in the lab as you've been while driving yourself to exhaustion.
[Gods, if Isaac would consent to allow Hector to pamper him, just for an hour, Hector absolutely would do it. Because Isaac doesn't need anyone to care for him, but Hector needs someone to take care of.]
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All that's come of digging in his heels is pity. And being asked to show some kindness to himself and to the body he's run ragged and carved his unrest and hurt into, to treat it just a little less like a tool, a means to an end, the way Dracula had. It's just the sort of thing Julia would have said, if she saw him now.
He's glad she can't. Or that if she already has, in one of her restless visions, that he has no way of knowing it.
He swipes at his face, angrily, his eyes filling, burning.
All he wants is to feel like himself again. Proud and vicious and unstoppable. He wants to smirk crookedly at this talk of massages and indulgent baths and answer with a snide proposal of his own, inviting Hector to wipe his ass for him if he was that eager to be of service. The laughter that used to come so easily to him doesn't this time, not today.
Something else snags low in his throat, a soft, choked noise, and he has to look away, hands fisted.]
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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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