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Hugo watches as Lycaon dispatches the final ethereal from the group that had skittered out from a side room. His moves are sharp and efficient, clean and precise. Far from what they had been once. He recalls having escaped into a hollow after one of their first jobs and meeting a mob of monsters. Back then Lycaon was barely contained aggression and brute strength. Hugo had always been the controlled one, the one who didn't waste energy and moves on an enemy already defeated. The one who understood fighting was an art in and of itself, and not just pummeling with your fists until it stopped moving.
So when had they swapped places?
Not that he thinks of fighting as any less of an art. Oh no. But it's a tired art these days, one he's grown bored of. Hugo, despite what most may think, knows himself all too well. And he knows he's grown more reckless in battles, wanting to end things quickly, or even simply take out his bottled up aggression on something that doesn't matter. An ethereal is no longer a person, so it's not taking a life. If he slaughters a dozen of them no one balks or looks down on him. No one says he's gone too far, or accuses him of breaking his oaths.
And in those interim years Lycaon has learned control and restraint, even more so than Hugo had ever had. Not that restraint has really ever been in his vocabulary. Lycaon doesn't waste anything, everything hitting just so, and moving on to the next. And when he's finished not a tear in his uniform or fur out of place. It's… infuriating as much as it's impressive.
The perfectly composed housekeeper. How much work he must have put in to become that. It twists inside Hugo, a dark snake hissing treachery. Once upon a time he could barely remember lines to pull off what they needed to accomplish their goals of justice for the less fortunate. But he can change himself so entirely to serve the very people they stood against? Hugo may have been the one to break their oath, but he was never the traitor.
No there was once a time he would never have even considered the idea of standing against Lycaon, against his partner. And to think it was never true for Lycaon. It's leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.
Even worse is the fact that the synergy between them hasn't disappeared. Years of teamwork untouched in nearly half a decade and it's like they were never apart. Despite all the animosity, despite the changes in their styles, despite how different they were, they could still coordinate and synch up perfectly in a fight. It's almost enough to make Hugo miss it, to make him long for those days before Lycaon had turned his back on him.
"How come you never did it?" He asks after a stretch of silence as they head for the control switch.
He glances back to see the ruffled look on this wolf's face. The defensiveness as he tries to work out what Hugo means by that. "What was I meant to have done?"
He shoots him an amused smirk, even if his amusement is only on the surface. More for his reaction than anything else. "Kill me. How come you never killed me, Lycaon?"
And he's rewarded by a wide eyed ruffled look, followed quickly by dark scowl. And that glare. So familiar. Angry and hurt, as if Hugo had betrayed him. What a hypocrite.
"If you'll recall, I don't take lives. I don't have the right or authority to choose whether someone lives or dies."
Ahhh yes, the self-righteous bullshit Hugo expected from him. The same as it had been back then. Only evil people play with the lives of others. So instead of putting a direct stop to that evil, you only hope you can save those endangered. And if you can't, then you leave them in the hands of the ambiguous justice of a flawed system and hope they do the right thing. A system that can be bought just as easily as a video tape rented from the proxy's store. A system proven to be corrupt repeatedly.
One needs only to look at the latest scandal with Bringer. But of course it's all too easily swept under the rug when you can lay the blame on one or two people and pretend the rest of it is good and clean. No, a system like that can't be trusted with justice.
"That's not what Jack believed." Hugo chides, "At least not when it came to me."
Lycaon frowns at him. "What are you talking about? Those were our mentor's words."
Hugo laughs. "Oh sure. Never take a life, for it's not our right to. Unless evil is too far rooted in someone's darkness that they can never find the light, right? Unless that someone is…me, no?"
"I…" Lycaon hesitates. It's sad. Pitiful even, because Lycaon had put so much trust and faith in their mentor. Hugo hates how much Jack shaped Lycaon's life back then, like it had been all him and Hugo was just another sheep. Like Hugo hadn't been espousing those ideals since he left home. Like Hugo didn't understand the injustices between the high society and lower class more than many.
"You know I overheard that conversation between you two. Jack praising you, telling you what a good dog you are. Then saying how I'm not as good. How I'm headed down a dark path, and you are the only one who can stop me. I take a good deal of solace that he was not alive to see himself 'proven right'."
Hugo smiles at him. A smile he knows Lycaon is all too familiar with, because it’s a smile he only really gives him. Bitter and fake. A smile when you know the world only views you one way, so you may as well be what the world thinks you are. And for Hugo, it would seem that is a monster.
He'll be the monster. Someone has to, and he would rather it be him than others. So a monster is what he'll be.
He just wishes that at least one person would know better. But alas…
"That-- I would-- How could you say such things?" His voice has taken on that angry growl as Hugo finally starts getting beneath that layer of controlled veneer.
"I'm just repeating what I heard. And what you think, right? About how all along our beloved mentor was right about me." He's stopped now, turned around so he can lean up and sneer into Lycaon's face. So Lycaon can't run from this. So he can't run from this.
Once upon a time it was the two of them against the world. Two kids from both sides of the tracks who saw the injustices in the world and had the ambition to do something about it. And back then he thought it would be the two of them against anyone and everyone else forever. Back then, the two of them was all they needed at the end of the day.
Then they found someone to guide them, to organize them, to teach them all the nuance and detail. And along with all that came morals and righteousness. To take all they dreamed of and put restrictions and rails on it. At first it hadn't seemed so bad. After all there should be lines they don't cross. But Hugo had always thought that those lines applied to those like them. The less fortunate, the dirt beneath high society's jewel encrusted leather heeled shoes.
Lycaon believed in them, though. He followed them and took those values as his own. And when it came down to the worst of it, the most evil piece of shit scum Hugo has ever known, to someone who had no problem throwing away the lives of even his own children to profit and climb, Lycaon's morals would not be shifted. When it came to the evil that motivated Hugo in the first place, an evil who had caused irrevocable harm to Hugo and countless others Lycaon could not, would not stand beside Hugo in removing it.
And then he condemned him for it. The one person who Hugo had hoped would understand and stay by his side through this condemned him and abandoned him, treating him as nothing more than the monsters they fought.
"So why haven't you done as he bid you? Why haven't you killed me yet, Lycaon?"
He hates the way the wolf's visible eye shifts down and away. Like he can't stand to look at him. "Because I still don't think it's my place to take your life. I never thought Jack was right about you, and I still don't. You've done some reprehensible things, but you're not so far beyond saving as there is no hope."
"Tch," Hugo steps back. "Yet you still think I need saving. What happens if you're ever faced with a moment where you have to choose. The life of another, or sticking to your precious ideals. Would you kill me if I threatened your beloved proxy?"
He watches Lycaon visibly tense at those words. His shoulders tighten, his fist clenches, his eyes narrow. "You have no reason to hurt the proxy, and I don't believe you would. As I said, you're despicable, but you're not a monster."
He can't help it, Hugo laughs. He laughs, and laughs, a hand covering his face as he laughs at the hysterical joke that Lycaon can't possibly fathom. And after far too long the laughter dies away. Unsurprisingly Lycaon looks as if he thinks Hugo must have finally lost it.
Still, his words pull at something in the heart Hugo thought long dead. He'd used the vestiges of it to care for Vivian, and even that he had passed off to that beloved proxy. Her beloved proxy. At least with Phaethon Vivian should be able to move on from him.
He takes a moment, breathing, staring at the cracked corrupted floor. Ether is a familiar heaviness that weighs on him. External and hardly noticeable after so many years in and out of hollows. But the heaviness, the unfathomable weight that settles between him and Lycaon in stifling. He wants to crumble under it and let it crush the air out of his lungs.
But he can't.
He still has plans, real monsters that must be taken down. Bastard's that really should have no right to live. Mysteries to solve.
He finally turns his head to look back at his old friend, the traitor. Their eyes lock and for a moment it almost feels as if rest of the world falls away. All that exists is the two of them. For a moment they're teenagers again with only each other to rely on. For a moment they're all they have in the world again.
And then the moment passes and reality rushes back. But the feelings linger. An anxious, hesitant idea forms. It sprouts and blossoms in an instant and he can't just shake it away.
Maybe… Just maybe Lycaon can be the key.
Straightening up, he lets that grin slide across his face. The devlish one he knows Lycaon hates. The one Lycaon used to love. The one that means trouble, and mostly for Lycaon. The wolf frowns at the expression, but there's no way he can know what is going through Hugo's mind. Not yet anyway.
But he will. Hugo is confident that when the time comes, Lycaon will know exactly what he's going to do. And with any luck and a terrifying degree of unearned trust he hopes Lycaon will do what needs to be done. He'll understand. He has to. Because this is going to blow it all wide open.
"Perhaps." He finally replies. "But do you? Still know me? You better be absolutely certain Lycaon." Once again he holds his gaze. The world doesn't fall away this time, but that weight between them only grows heavier. It will crush him eventually. But not yet.
Not yet.