#anyways here's 4000 words of absolute fuckery

[reddogcollar]

Morning Routine

In which I make Hector have a breakdown. That's it. That's the plot.

Warnings for suicidal tendencies and a panic attack

sorry for weird formatting but its late and idc abt formats anymore <3

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The only window in the cell at the top of the Garrison Tree was a small one, eye level with the table in the room so Hector could see the streets below sitting down.

Sometimes he was grateful for that. Sometimes it made him feel bitter. Most times the height made him dizzy.

Every time he wished the window had been carved up higher, or bigger, so that it'd let more light in the room.

As it was, even with the sun rising, the dark felt oppressive.

The dark wood that everything was carved in didn't help.

The dark probably wasn't actually that bad to anyone else, but to him the shadows writhed and whispered. He couldn't tell whether he was imagining the blue glints of light that would be a vile's eyes.

Even with his ties to dark magic severed, he could still see them.

He just couldn't do anything about them anymore.

Not that he really could before, he'd just learned to ignore them instead of banishing them. They'd quickly become one of his least important problems, after his brother came.

Now he was stuck in a tree with little company other than the dark.

And oh, did the dark love to talk. He tried not to feed into it, if he learned to ignore them again they'd probably get bored toying with him, but their favorite choice of topic had quickly become everything Hector had done.

You could only try not to react to your sins being recounted by the dead for so long.

It left him spending most of his time at that table, next to the window where the meager light poured in. Currently there was a tin plate of untouched food keeping him company.

The viles where stuck in the dark. They couldn't get near him in the dark.

He'd take to burning candles where the shadows were thickest, day and night if he could, but the last time he tried to light a candle he'd felt sick. He could practically feel the wax melting, running down his withered hand.

Just thinking about the sensation now made him short of breath.

Even after a year, he hadn't quite recovered from Manfred's antlers in his lung, and the resulting infection after Vincent had neglected to take care of the wound.

Working himself up did nothing to help his weakened lungs.

The viles crowding the room took notice, they noticed everything, and took to taunting him about how it felt to get stabbed, how it felt to stab the queen, how it felt to have his body stolen from under his feet.

"Did it burn?"

"Did it make you feel powerful?"

"Did it make you feel helpless?"

They all talked at once, he had a hard time deciphering what their taunts actually were. Somehow that was worse.

At least the sun was up.

Right on time, like everyday for the past year, the door creaked open and Drew stepped into the dark. The sunlight didn't read all the way across the room.

The sight of the viles crowding around Drew, like sharks to chum in the water, made Hector's stomach turn.

It always did, no matter how many time he saw it.

Drew payed them no mind, he didn't even know they were there, while he lit the candles that had been placed around the room.

Hector had lied when he asked why he couldn't simply do it himself.

He'd said he'd struggled to do it with one hand.

Which wasn't really a lie, he'd struggled. The struggle was just mostly him trying not to vomit.

By now, lighting the candles had become part of Drew's morning routine. He couldn't tell whether Drew minded that or not.

"Morning, Hector." Drew spoke to him first. More routine.

Hector failed to speak until all the candles were lit, no more shadows clawing at Drew, ineffectually trying to cross plains of existence and rip him apart.

"Good morning, Drew." Hector's voice seemed pathetic to his own ears. Thin and uncertain. Drew probably dreaded the sound of it. Hector certainly did.

Drew pulled out the second chair at the table, sitting with Hector.

That was a recent addition to the routine. With no more sightings of the Wyld Wolves, more of Drew's mornings had been freed.

Why he spent them in the Garrison Tree was beyond Hector.

"How were you last night?" Drew asked. The question was a guise, and one he asked every morning.

He wanted to know if Hector was truly alone in the cell anymore, he wasn't stupid enough to pretend anyone would actually care about his well-being anymore.

"I was alright." Hector lied, he always lied. He'd been far from alright, he hadn't even slept.

He was lucky he'd only cried early on in the night, it was less obvious like that. He wasn't in the mood to be pitied.

Drew nodded, accepting the lie whether he believed it or not.

"How'd last night treat you, Drew?" Hector asked, though by now he was sure he knew the answer.

"Better than most nights." Drew said, and Hector couldn't tell whether it was a lie or not.

Drew's answer surprised him, it was rare that he had a decent night. He'd confided in Hector briefly about nightmares, one morning after not getting any sleep three nights in a row.

Nightmares about endless battles and the risen dead.

He never asked whether those dreams about the risen dead took place in Cape Gala or Icegarden. The answer probably would've been both.

Hector nodded, accepting the answer whether it was a lie or not.

"I'm glad."

That was the truth, at least. Out of everything, Drew deserved a good night sleep at the very least.

The silence stretched on after that. Hector had a lot to say to Drew, but he'd said it all before. He couldn't imagine Drew had much to say to him.

The silence wasn't necessarily comfortable, Hector looking out the window and Drew staring at Hector like he could pry something out of him.

Whatever he might want was beyond Hector.

He'd already answered every question that applied to him.

"You haven't eaten in the mornings for the past week." Drew said, surprising Hector again.

It was true he hadn't had much of an appetite all year, especially not recently. Why in Brenn's name Drew would keep an eye on his eating habits though baffled him.

There wasn't anything he could do with that information.

"In truth, Drew, I simply haven't felt the need to eat lately." The last time he'd really felt like he had to eat was after Vincent was truly gone.

His brother hadn't really deigned to take care of the body he'd stolen.

"You do eat at least, don't you?"

Hector turned away from the window to look at Drew, though not directly in his eyes. He couldn't make eye contact with anyone yet.

He was going to ask where this sudden concern was coming from, when one of the candles fizzled out, having burned itself away completely.

He'd been aware that the candles were burning low now, but the sudden lack of light was jarring.

The sunlight didn't even reach all the way across the table, without the candle Drew was again bathed mostly in shadow.

The viles swarmed him immediately, wrapping around his throat and clawing at his face. The only thing they wouldn't touch was the White Fist.

The sight of them stole the air from Hector's weak lungs completely, practically punching it out of him and making him double over, hunched over the table unable to breathe.

He thought of all the times he'd used Vincent to break someone's neck and his stomach rolled.

He was thankful it was empty.

Baffled by Hector's reaction to a candle going out, Drew stood and went around the table. Into the sunlight. It shook the viles off him instantly.

Still, Hector couldn't look at him.

He couldn't look at him without imagining how it'd feel to break his neck with a vile.

He shook, gripping the table edge and hunching lower till he was practically laying on the table top.

The edges of his vision were going dark, he still couldn't breathe.

The room felt distant now, caught up in his mind thinking about how many lives he'd put an end to a year ago, and how many more he was ready to take.

The justification had been easy then, it was war, he was trying to survive, he wanted what was best for the Wolf's Council.

Now it all made him feel ill.

He could hear the viles, gathering in the shadow left by the candle, whispering about he should've let Dutchess Freya kill him in Icegarden.

He couldn't help but agree.

Drew placed his hand on his shoulder, in a way that should be comforting. It always had been.

Now it made him choke and tremble.

His grip on the table became white knuckled and Drew pulled his hand back.

He found himself completely ungrounded without it.

If only he could make up his mind.

About his allegiances, about whether he wanted to live or die, about whether he wanted Drew's help or not. His life would be so much easier.

"Hector."

At first Drew's voice melted in with the shadow's taunts, indecipherable.

"Hector."

Quiet and ready to rip him apart, behind the wall of his own tumultuous thoughts.

"Hector, look at me."

He jolted upright, pushing himself away from the table but not letting go of the edge, and looked at Drew in the sunlight. As intact as the war had left him.

Distantly, Hector noted he'd started crying at some point.

It didn't seem important though, compared to how every breath was being strangled out of him.

"Hector-" Whatever he was going to say was lost when Hector grabbed him by the collar of his greencloak, hauling himself up.

The White Fist wrapped around Hector's comparatively fragile wrist.

"Drew," Hector choked out, finally making up his mind, "I need you to help me."

Drew nodded, talking before Hector was done, "Of course, Hecto-" Only to be interrupted again.

"You need to kill me, Drew." Out of the corner of his eye, Hector could see the shadows. Writhing and laughing. Always writhing and laughing.

Drew seemed appalled at the idea of it. Of course he was. He'd paled at killing Opal, Count Croke, he probably would have had a hard time killing Leopold, given the chance.

Drew wasn't a killer, even after everything. It wasn't smart to ask him to kill him.

"I won't do that, Hector." Drew said, the Whit Fist tightening around Hector's wrist. If he wasn't careful he might break it.

"You don't understand, I can't live like this, in a dark room afraid of the dark!" He wheezed, his lungs burning at the effort of pleading and keeping himself upright at the same time.

"There's nothing to be afraid of up here-"

Hector cut him off with a choked laugh. There was so much to be afraid of, all the time.

"You don't know anything about that." Hector coughed, his grip on Drew's collar the only thing really keeping him standing at the moment. That and the hold the White Fist had on him.

"What do you mean by that?" Drew's face turned from disgusted and worried to skeptical in an instant, shutting Hector right up.

What a way to gain someone's trust, telling them you still viles.

What a way to get killed, on the other hand. Telling your jailer you still see viles.

"Viles, Drew! I mean viles! The dead! I've seen them since I communed the first time and they're still here, so kill me, because it didn't work!" His demands would probably hold more power if he wasn't choking and practically relying on Drew to hold him up.

He was crying consciously now.

"By Brenn Drew," He continued, begging now, "It's horrible, they're everywhere and they don't ever let me rest. Please just let me die, this is torture. I know what I deserve but please just let me rest."

He'd collapsed in earnest now, coughing and wheezing while Drew did all the work of holding him up.

It didn't seem that hard for him.

Carefully, Drew pried Hector's fist from his collar and had him sit back down, human hand on his shoulder. Like he was keeping him there.

"I'm not killing you Hector. Gretchen was right that there's another way." It was obvious there'd be no convincing him. Hector would live and that'd be that.

He kept going anyway.

"This is cruel, Drew. You're supposed to kill murderers, not torture them." He'd stopped crying, and he could breathe again. The episode had left him barely able to whisper.

He was exhausted.

"It's not supposed to be torture." Drew protested, one hand still left on his shoulder.

"It is anyways."

"It'll get better." Drew squeezed his shoulder before letting go.

He pulled the chair out of the dim shadows, the viles scraping at him while they could, and sat in the weak sunlight next to Hector.

They stayed quiet for a measure of time, Drew letting Hector catch his breath until he could speak up again.

"Why do you object to killing me so much?" It was obvious to Hector that his moral compass hadn't changed at all, but he was so ready to behead him on the top of Bone Tower, what changed?

"You're my friend, Hector," Drew said it like it should've been obvious. In a way he almost believed. "Gretchen was right that it wasn't the only way. You can live a life."

"Live a life stuck in a tree full of demons?"

"It doesn't have to be like that. Now enough of this. You're not dying today and that's final." Drew pushed the chair back, standing up. "I need to go. I'll be back tonight."

That was new. He'd never been by at night. Though, he'd given him enough reason to keep a closer eye on him.

Hector could only nod while Drew went to the door, where he stopped.

"I'll have more candles brought by. In the meantime, you should eat."

With that, he left him alone in the room.

All according to the routine.