Title: crack
Fandom: How to Get Away with Murder
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: past Wes/Rebecca
Length: ~750 words
Contents: Spoilers for all aired episodes, canonical guilt and betrayal

Summary: Wes talks to the NYPD detectives.

It isn't a difficult decision.

The interview room is dark. Wes knows it's a psychological tactic, to make the room feel more intimate while increasing the subject's uncertainties at the same time. The low light certainly doesn't rule out a video recording, although Vince would strenuously object to the use of any recording made without Wes's knowledge. It's illegal, and unethical, and there's no reason to assume they're not doing it anyway.

Vince is an honest attorney. Less effective than Annalise, Wes is sure, but a lawyer who actually keeps to the law. Wes was starting to think they didn't exist. Vince's suit is the brightest spot in the room, reflecting light onto the table like a beacon. He is steadfast and reliable; an open book.

Having Vince -- good, honest, trustworthy Vince -- helps sell Wes's story about Mahoney. Wes isn't ashamed of using him like that. On Wes's list of sins, hiding behind a better person doesn't even count.

But the NYPD detectives don't want to talk about Mahoney. They want to talk about Annalise. They're investigating her for murder, they say, and watch Wes's face.

Wes has faced worse. He doesn't blink.

He fully intends to let Vince puff up and cancel the interview -- until the detectives show him Rebecca's file.

At that point, Wes isn't sure if it's a decision at all. Maybe it's more of a reaction to months of lies and anger and self-recrimination. Maybe it's just seeing Rebecca's face again, her mug shot, pinned to a case file.

All the shadows in the room flicker through Wes's vision, and for a moment he wonders if he's going to pass out, or throw up. But he can't. There's nothing in him that's decent enough to react like that any more. He let Annalise lie to him because he wanted to believe her. He wanted to be safe more than he wanted the truth.

Looking at the images of Rebecca's body in the woods, Wes understands that he deserves to go to jail. They all do, every single one of them. But maybe, just maybe, Annalise deserves it more.

Wes agrees to testify against her.

The NYPD officers are smug, even when he asks for immunity. They pretend their sympathies about Rebecca. They try letting him stare at her picture in silence, waiting for him to crack and start spewing his grief all over the interview room. They think he's just a student, just a fool that they can string along and then stab in the back at the last moment.

Maybe he is a fool. Certainly, he has been, to trust Annalise. But he's been taught better than those detectives have, and he isn't going to crack. Not without a deal that covers him.

Not even then, if he's honest. Wes cracked months ago, with Sam Keating's blood pooled on the floor around him. He cracked, but Annalise held him together until the cracks couldn't break him any more. He supposes he should be grateful to her for that. He's as broken as he can get, but he won't break down.

If there's one thing Annalise has taught them, it's how to keep moving.

Vince tries to talk him out of it, of course. Vince seems to think that Wes is being emotional -- and okay, yes he is, but that doesn't make it a bad decision.

Or make it a decision Wes can change, anyway. Too many months of lying and letting it eat him up inside. Vince is a good person, and a good lawyer, and he doesn't understand that darkness. He'd never lie for Wes. He'd never cover up a murder.

So Wes fires him. It'll make Wes look even more vulnerable to the detectives when they come back, to see him alone in their cold, dark room. It'll make him look like someone that Annalise could bully into covering up a murder.

Maybe it'll make him look like the student he was before he got into her class. He was that person once: naive, defenseless, looking to do good in the world and having no idea of the evil in it. In him.

Thinking back, Wes can see his first mistake: covering for Annalise's affair with Nate. He thought he was doing the kind thing, but really, he was just cracking the door to let the darkness in. Every compromise, every moment of shame and weakness afterward... came from that decision.

It's the little things that seal your fate.