spotsalone | angelo and the hickster's post-belle arctic adventures

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angelo and the hickster's post-belle arctic adventures

MUTINEERS

SOLOMON TOZER

MARINE (T)

GEORGE HODGSON

LIEUTENANT (T)

CHARLES F. DES VOEUX

MATE (E)

MAGNUS MANSON

AB (T)

JOHN LANE

BOATSWAIN (T)

JOHN DIGGLE

COOK (T)

WILLIAM PILKINGTON

MARINE (E)

JAMES RIGDEN

COXSWAIN (E)

JOHN SULLIVAN

CAPT. OF MAINTOP (E)

ROBERT FERRIER

AB (T)

ROBERT THOMAS

MATE (T)

John Diggle

COOK

John Diggle

COOK

mutineers:

Sgt. Solomon Tozer, marine (T)
Magnus Manson, AB (T)
Lt. George Hodgson, lieutenant (T)
Charles Des Voeux, mate (E)
Pvt. William Pilkington, marine (E)
John Diggle, cook (T) - lung damage from inhaling goodsir's evil cloud
THE STUPID FOX
~~Pvt. James Daly, marine (T)~~ - mauled by the Tuunbaq
~~Edmund Hoar, captain's steward (E)~~ - throw into the water by the Tuunbaq
~~"Pvt." Thomas Armitage, gunroom steward (T)~~ - mauled by the Tuunbaq
~~Harry Goodsir, surgeon (E)~~ - rescued by Silna after the Tuunbaq attack

boat boys:

John Lane, boatswain (T)
James Rigden, coxswain (E)
John Sullivan, captain of the maintop (E)
Robert Ferrier, AB (T)
Robert Thomas, mate (T) - actively dying of scurvy for the crime of having two first names
and perhaps eventually lt. little depending on how much of our minds we lose along the way
~~Thomas Terry, boatswain (E)~~ - died from scurvy before the mutineers showed up
~~Thomas Work, AB (T)~~ - died from scurvy before the mutineers showed up

angelo cr chart
mutineers cr chart...

timeline:

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[ Tozer knows, then. Angelo supposes it would be hard not to realize even if one weren't a closer confidant - everyone had seen the old owner of this coat in it, he must assume. Very well then. ]

Of course he did. I trust that isn't an issue? We're all in the same boat after all.

[ A horrible pun made only half-intentionally, but it does so offer itself here. Angelo doesn't look up from his needlework but there's a small provocative grin at his lips. ]

[ Tozer huffs out what might be a wry laugh, though his expression does not change. ]

Who do you think helped him steal it?

[ He does sit now, taking the bench opposite Angelo. It's easy to forget how young he is—or, looks, anyway. Could be more evidence that he's some kind of witch. Who makes lieutenant at his age? ]

I made my choice a long time ago. There's no changing allegiances now.

[ Even if Tozer did take issue, what would be the point? ]

[ And there it is - the bragging about having known Hickey for longer, about understanding his experiences in the arctic that much more intimately. A few days ago, Angelo would have bristled at it openly, but now it's only his grip on the fabric that is tightening. He may be an outsider to this place and these people, but there is a tie connecting him to Hickey that none of them can hope to imitate as well. It's been good to reaffirm that, even though it's made their path forward all the more complicated to navigate.

No changing allegiances, huh? Angelo huffs. Hickey will be glad to hear that, for whatever reason. ]

Good. It'd be a waste. [ A beat. ] I hear you went through a lot together.

[ Well, that means nothing as of yet. "Hear" could very well just mean he's picked up details from context clues. No one enters into this situation and assumes these men simply dropped out of the sky, starving and stranded.

But it's plain to see that Angelo is an outsider. There's the obvious fact that he is, but he hasn't taken pains to integrate himself with the men, either. He avoids them as often as he can, unless he's barking orders. He's arrogant and curt and has a strange way of speaking. Their small crew merely tolerates him; even without Hickey's influence, they're in no position to turn away an able body. ]

And did you hear of that before or after you chose to join us? I can't fathom why any man would sign up for this.

Of you? Not until I met you.

[ There's a bit of satisfaction in being able to say this spiteful bit so truthfully. Hickey had explained the basics to him, mentioned 'the men', but Tozer as an individual had been a non-existence until introductions were due, the same as everyone else. ]

But I knew what I'd be getting into.

[ Not enough, he can admit now. But he wouldn't have been able to imagine the scope of desperation even if Hickey had explained it in much greater detail. Angelo has known hunger, he's known injury and violence, but he hadn't known how merciless the so-called mother planet could be.

He's quiet for just a second. Tozer doesn't deserve to know why he's here, what he went through before it all, but it's true that his presence continues to be an unexplained mystery that likely haunts the others. ]

When the path diverged before you, didn't you also bet on Cornelius to lead you where you need to go? This wasn't much different.

[ He notes the intended insult, but it doesn't faze him. Hickey is neither sentimental nor forthcoming. Hell, it may be a good sign that he kept those details to himself. He never talks about Gibson, either.

What does catch his attention, though, is the way Angelo talks as if he and Hickey have some history together. They must, given how they are with each other, but it's another thing to hear it said so plainly.

He'd rather ask where it is that Angelo needs to go, exactly, but he doubts he'll get an answer. Instead: ]

How did you meet him? I spoke with him not a minute before you showed up out of the blue. Hardly enough time to place bets.

[ The timeline... does not make sense, no matter how he spins it, even factoring in some supernatural explanation behind it all. ]

[ In truth, the time magic involved in it all still gives Angelo a headache as well. He's lived through weeks of timeloop, and yet the idea that Hickey could meet him, die, and resurrect again all within a pocket dimension that wasn't observable from the outside? It's bizarre. All their experiences together weren't real to this world, and yet Angelo remains as living proof of them. Even most of the supplies they had brought are gone now.

Even if he told the truth, Tozer likely wouldn't believe him. It's something Hickey had been partially banking on, but that doesn't make Angelo feel any more like sharing freely. Or at all. ]

No, it's not. [ Then casually, as if wholly unrelated: ] Where do you think my uniform is from?

[ Tozer just stares for a long moment. He has no bloody idea where the uniform is from. They both already know that. He bites back a rumble of anger, his patience for all the secrets threatening to boil over. He already understands so little about this place, their situation. If they make it back to England, he suspects he won't understand home anymore, either. ]

We've got a problem, you and me.

[ There's a growl to his voice, though he tries to keep his tone even. Neither one of them are friendly people. An olive branch might be mistaken for a weapon. ]

And we need to work it out. Fighting each other's just a waste of energy.

[ He pauses, jaw clenching. ]

You handled yourself well against the creature.

[ This manages to catch Angelo entirely off-guard. He'd been prepared to spend a few minutes exchanging thinly veiled barbs, not to be put on the spot like this. It's what Hickey would want, surely, for him and Tozer to bury the hatchet here and become a harmonious tool of control for him to wield... Angelo knows that, but a larger and much more unruly part of him hates being spoken to this way, even when it's cushioned with a compliment.

For the first time in this conversation, he puts his sewing work down in his lap and looks properly at Tozer. His signature scowl is on display in full force. ]

We both did, and we got out alive.

[ It's the one grudging bit of respect he has for Tozer. ]

So where's the need for things to change? I'm an outsider here and none of you will ever accept me. What's the use in playing at being comrades when we already get things done as is?

Because it's going to get harder, this.

[ He thought this would be a more difficult truth to point out than it is. It's a harsh reality, but it's one he's been aware of for weeks now. He'd been so optimistic when he all but begged Hickey to return to the ships. What little hope he had left died out once he realized how slowly they were progressing, even with the mysterious gift of supplies. There isn't enough time—and yet there's too much, all at once. ]

We aren't going to make it out this year, you know. The ice will close up on us again before the month is out. We'll be stuck for another seven, eight months, assuming there's leads again come spring. Then it's hundreds of miles to the nearest port. How long do you think that'll take us? We haven't got the strength for full sails.

[ Tozer slouches forward, folding his arms across the table. Angelo took stock. He knows how little food they have. Half of them are ill and the other half will be soon. Tozer doesn't need to paint the full picture of what's to come in the months ahead. ]

Wherever you came from, you're part of this now. Accept that, and perhaps the men will accept you.

[ If there is one thing that Angelo cannot stand, it's being lectured by old people who have already lost. There'd been much and more of that from the older soldiers at home; the veterans who were continuously mourning a war they failed to win. Hung up on past defeats, they'd rush into new defeats over and over, obstructing the path to the future with their debris. Where do old farts like that get off lecturing the young?

Tozer's tone now has the same know-it-all-quality to it. Tozer, who would be dead without Hickey's magical intervention. Angelo exhales sharply. ]

You think I've been treating this like some kind of pleasure cruise? That I've been hauling that godforsaken boat over the rocks for fun?

[ There's an increasing edge to his voice, undisguised anger creeping in. ]

I'm doing my part. More than my part, because I have more strength left than most of you, and I'm expending it to keep this group alive. Where do you get off claiming I don't see myself as part of this, when I'm living and dying with this ship all the same?!

[ Of course this would be the reaction. Maybe bothering with Angelo is a pointless endeavor. Maybe there's no reasoning with him.

But Tozer has already started this, and he's not about to be cowed. ]

Put a thumb in it. You're not the outsider you think you are. You'd be even less so if you didn't take such pains to set yourself apart.

[ His eyes drop back to Angelo's foreign uniform, just for a second. Would Angelo still speak to him this way if Tozer was dressed like a proper Marine? He was stripped of his own uniform as he was court martialed. He could've found it in the wreckage of Terror Camp, more than likely, but he knows he doesn't deserve to wear it anymore. ]

Our situation is too dire to care where you've come from. We need all of us at our best if we hope to make it through this.

[ It's hard for Angelo not to notice the way Tozer's gaze trails down towards his Neo Zeon jacket - the uniform is a point of pride that he is clinging to desperately now that he can afford to, and he is hypersensitive to any attention to it. It's frustrating that Tozer is correct, then. He has been using it to set himself apart, to raise himself above those shambling corpses that call themselves a crew. He's still Lieutenant Angelo, Full Frontal's right hand man, even here at the end of the world.

Unfortunately, that makes this another sore spot. ]

You still care whose colors I wear, even now? Are you too proud to accept the cooperation of a foreign military, even when you're dying?

[ ... Angelo himself would be, but that is besides the point. ]

That's not—

[ He cuts himself off with a growl, leaning back from the table. Where did Hickey find this brat?

Tozer takes a deep breath and scrubs his hands over his face. ]

None of us know a damn thing about you, Sauper. Pride's got nothing to do with it. It's trust we're lacking, and we won't last another year without it.

[ That is the core of the issue, Angelo agrees, but he can't see the easy way out of it that Tozer suggests must exist. ]

So the situation is too dire to care, yet you must still know?

[ He inhales slowly, exhales at half the speed of that again. He needs to calm down. Causing a scene here would mean Hickey has to get involved, and he'd rather avoid putting any more strain on that relationship right now. ]

But here's the catch. You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Or do you actually buy that I'm from behind the moon?

Edited 2025-07-11 20:41 (UTC)

[ Truthfully? No. Of course that sounds like horse shit to him, but— ]

We've spent more than a year squaring up against a creature that consumes souls. There is no earthly explanation for your sudden appearance, nor for Hickey's...

[ Hickey's what? Tozer can't even put words to the strange aura that surrounds him since Angelo arrived. He thinks better of trying to complete that thought. ]

Say we make it back to London and start telling stories about what's happened here. We'd sound mad, but it wouldn't make the stories any less true.

[ It's a solid argument on its face, but Angelo believes none of it. Even if Tozer were able to square away the bear and not just start rationalizing it the moment he gets the chance, there's a world of difference between accepting a foreign god and a man from the distance future.

And Hickey... His brows furrow a little when Tozer trails off. Hickey surely must seem otherworldly to everyone here, after the miracle he's pulled off. There might not be anything to this. Yet this hint towards suspicion is something they will have to keep in mind. Hickey's immortality is a great weapon and a dangerous secret. In its own way it makes him vulnerable. A cigarette case is quick to disappear in the endless oceans of earth.

This conversation is really giving him a headache, and he's not getting any sewing work done either like this. What a bust this evening is. But Tozer isn't leaving yet, and Hickey did tell him to play nice. So here goes nothing. ]

Fine.

[ He has no mind to breathe a word of what transpired in Chateau Ambregris, but his own recent past is less of a danger to share. There's nothing anybody could do with that information. ]

Until recently I served Captain Full Frontal of Neo Zeon, a man fighting for the liberation of the space colonies. For the past three years, I've been the head of his royal guard and his right hand man, both in combat and in administration. That's been my cause, and one I would have gladly died for, but the path towards that is closed to me now. Does that help? Do you trust me more for that information?

[ He sounds so spiteful... ]

[ Oh what the fuck. ]

It's a start.

[ And it is, regardless of how ridiculous it all sounds. Neo Zeon means nothing to him. Space colonies? The hell kind of name is Full Frontal? And in what world would someone so young be made head of any royal guard?

But there's no explanation that wouldn't set Tozer's mind spinning, and enough dots do connect to let him accept this as the truth. He's never heard an accent like Angelo's, never seen a uniform like his, never seen a man with purple eyes. This story may as well be true. ]

It does explain your level head when the creature attacked.

[ And his penchant for barking orders. And his lack of hesitation in rifling through Tommy's corpse. Tozer grits his teeth.

It does not explain much else, though. ]

But you don't trust any of us, do you? Save for Cornelius.

[ It feels odd to use his given name with a near stranger, but it underlines his point. ]

[ I trust him least of all, Angelo thinks, but it has the aftertaste of a lie. His reasoning may be telling him that this something with Hickey will end in nothing but blood and pain for him, but his mind is set on seeing it through to the bitter conclusion anyway. That's not trust, but it may just be functionally indistinguishable. He really has fallen quite low.

But none of this has to concern Tozer. Instead... ]

Trust is a fool's errand.

[ It's true, this is a thought that he's held onto his entire life. If you do not trust, you cannot be betrayed. If you do not want, you cannot get hurt. As long as you empty yourself, you can keep on living. ]

But I know we share a common goal and can't reach it without each other. I'm not a fool, Sergeant. You need me alive and healthy, and vice versa.

[ A fool's errand, huh? Tozer isn't sure what to make of that, but he's unhappy to hear it. Why, he's not sure. The rest of Angelo's answer is enough to satisfy him for the time being. Angelo's larger opinion on trust does not matter to him. ]

Maybe so, but we need the men to trust us. Hickey especially if he's going to hold rank. He's closer to losing them than he realizes.

[ Probably, anyway. He can't claim to know Hickey's thoughts anymore. He does know how their crew operates, though. He can sense the uncertainty as they all begin to realize the impossible odds still stacked against them, the relief of making it to the ship wearing off. There's some stability for the moment, but it won't last on faith alone.

Tozer leans in again, voice lowering. ]

You'll need some help, keeping all those secrets. The men are noticing. Even Manson is letting his mind wander.

[ There's a pointed look at the mention of Manson. It's not a card Tozer is eager to play, but he's found his inroad. ]

[ 'We', 'us'. Instinctively, Angelo bristles at the way Tozer is trying to insert himself into the way Hickey and he stand apart, but... Better Tozer try and put himself back in the in-group than work against them, isn't it? That's the argument Angelo had been making, anyway, before Hickey had to go and make it personal instead.

And speaking of personal... Tozer appears to be willing to use blackmail to get where he wants to be. It's lowly, but it's a kind of low that Angelo is familiar with. It's only the mention of Manson that makes him tense up before he can think to stifle his reaction.

Here he'd begun to hope they'd have gotten away with... well, with which part? Hickey's injures are the likely conclusion and the biggest issue, but something about that phrasing is... suggestive. And Hickey had mentioned that that would be a problem in its own right.

Angelo leans in as well, his eyes a glare. ]

Is he now. And just where do you think that mind of his is going? Surely you're man enough to say it plainly.

[ Well, since he asked. ]

Cornelius healed up quick, didn't he?

[ He's nervous, saying it outright, though his soldier's composure hides his nerves well. He may be overplaying his hand. If he's wrong, this will go poorly. Manson is too earnest to lie about something like this, but how much does Tozer trust Manson's judgment? Manson, who believes in ghosts and trembles at the thought of their crewmates down in the hold.

Tozer trusts his own eyes, though. He hopes that's enough. ]

[ !!

Angelo is not known for his pokerface, and unfortunately his expression contorts instantly at this. The saving grace is that shock and anger are related emotions to him and his face reacts to them in similar ways - his brows furrow, his nose scrunches up, the line of his mouth tightens. ]

He's lucky to still be alive, yes. I'd know, I re-do his bandages twice a day.

[ In truth it had just been the two of them sitting in the room for a bit, much closer than before. Angelo updates Hickey about his efforts with the clean-up, Hickey runs his hands over Angelo's shoulder. A strange new dynamic that doesn't seem to fit right just yet, when they're no longer delirious with exhaustion. ]

[ Tozer grins. Credit where it's due: Angelo recovers quickly, and his story would likely convince most of the crew, or at least get them to stop asking questions.

But if there's nothing to hide, then why give a story at all? He ought to be confused by the assertion. ]

Understood, lieutenant. I'll be sure to relay that to the men.

[ His tone is lighter now. Conspiratorial. He's found a need to fill, a role to slot himself into that neither Hickey nor Angelo could manage themselves. Someone needs to keep the crew level. He'll keep their bloody secrets, even from himself, if that's what it takes. ]

[ Angelo likes neither that tone nor that smile. Tozer looks like he's won and Angelo just let him. The injury to his pride is already considerable, and the actual tangible danger is even greater. The way Tozer is flaunting the sway he holds (that Angelo doesn't hold) makes more than clear that he could relay all kinds of things to the men, and they would listen.

It's hard to imagine that he'd actually do it - undermining Hickey's leadership would just weaken them all and risk the lives of the whole group. But it's a threat nevertheless, made with profit in mind. Tozer wants more from them than they are currently giving. Angelo needs to talk to Hickey about this, and quickly, but first he has something else he needs to ask. ]

Why come to me about all this? I'd think you'd trust Cornelius more than anything that comes out of my mouth, even when the subject is my person.

angelo and the hickster's post-belle arctic adventures

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