ALSO thinking about how Hector can repay people for all the kindness they’ve been showing him
He’d want to return the favor the same way, like they can talk to him if they need to but. that’s not how it works. And he’s not good at offering advice and such anyway. He can’t just give out a coupon for 1 free venting at him and he will sit there and listen, but like you gotta come at him for that because he doesn’t know how to approach this. If he notices that something’s wrong at all.
There’s not really An Object Hector can get or make that’s very meaningful (aside from being a nice gesture or something). But what he can do is give Gage some days off. Pick up some of his responsibilities once in a while, and cut Butch some more slack, so that the two of them have more time to spend together, because that makes them both happy. Maybe volunteer to look after Lily once in a while if they’ll let him. Give her some cool shit too. Give Butch and Gage tasks he knows they’ll enjoy and do the less fun stuff himself. Stuff like that.
Aside from that - I did mention it a few times that Hector goes pretty hard with friendship. Getting protective in dangerous situations is part of that, but mostly it’s little acts of service. Repayment for grueling emotional support would be more of the same stuff he already does, just... increased.
Like in general, if Hector hears through the grapevine that Gage or Butch are wanting or needing something specific, that immediately becomes his next (secret) priority project.
An example that’s been floating around in my head for a while: take the hypothetical scenario that Butch lost or broke their glasses. They’re gone, beyond repair, or just about to fall apart. Ignoring the institute for a moment (or assuming Darryl hasn’t made enough progress yet to get personal favors like that), it’s really damn hard to get a replacement. One that’s functional, not half busted already, and most importantly, has the correct prescription. Enter Hector, who now scours every inch of every ruin he enters to find glasses and specifically seeks out places that might have some, collecting every single one, every empty frame, every disassembled piece. Buying all the damn glasses in the market, if there are any. Tasking caravans with acquiring more. Trying to learn how to make glasses himself with the tools he has at his disposal. In the end he just has a giant pile of glasses, all kinds of prescriptions because he doesn’t exactly know what Butch needs, and all kinds of frames so they’ll hopefully find something they find aesthetically pleasing. Then he steps back from it for a moment, looks over this mountain of glasses, considers how many hours he’s spent on this. And gets cold feet. Like, oh shit, no one even asked him to do anything, he just saw Butch was understandably upset about their glasses, but maybe they found a replacement already?? And Hector just went waaaay overboard completely unprompted. They’re gonna think he’s weird and creepy oh no-
And that’s how a metric fuckton of glasses just happen to find their way inside Butch’s workshop through a very strange turn of events. And after a few hours of going through everything, Butch finds a pair they’re pleased with and all is well.
and despite how Hector tries to pretend he knows of nothing, there’s not many people around with a) the knowledge that Butch needed new glasses, b) the resources to get so much crap, and also - Hector’s acting a little too interested but totally not interested but do you like the new glasses Butch, asking for no particular reason---
This went on a little long but that’s basically how Hector do. Hear of something, think to himself ‘hm I could help’, go overboard as hell, second-guess himself, go through with it anyway and pretend it wasn’t him. Or acknowledge it was him but lie that it was totally no big deal, he whipped it up in 5 minutes haha, nothing worth mentioning, he was gonna throw it away anyway
