Cornelius Hickey (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spotsalone) wrote2025-04-11 07:04 pm
spotsalone) wrote2025-04-11 07:04 pm
Entry tags:
angelo and the hickster's post-belle arctic adventures
angelo cr chart
mutineers cr chart...
timeline:
- arrival; late july, mutineers' hill
- tent chats; early august, temporary camp
- spotting the ships; late august, terror camp
- tuunbaq attack; sept 1, ice floe camp
- boarding terror; fellas it's gay; early sept, hms terror
- dog to dog communication; early sept, forecastle
- bark bark bark; early sept, on deck
- coat! and post-tozer debrief; early sept, angelo's cabin
- 🌶️; early sept, hickey's cabin
- the dogs are unionizing(?); mid sept, cargo hold
- tozer/captain stuff, look at them having an adult conversation; mid sept, greatroom
- little rescue mission; early oct, terror bay
- post-little debrief; early oct, hickey's cabin
no subject
At least you knew what you were signing onto.
[ He kneels to help Angelo with the linen, holding up the sides to keep the hay contained. For the moment, order is restored. This feels like a much safer topic of conversation. ]
The officers had some choice in the matter, and 'course they stood to gain the most from it. The rest of us only expected to be away for a year or so.
[ Even for the crew that did sign up of their own accord, work is work, and you take it where you can get it. Tozer heard Hickey make a case more than once that joining up wasn't truly voluntary, given the pay and prestige of a polar expedition is so much greater than the average voyage. Most among them are not here for the glory of it, the thrill of adventure, no matter how hard Sir John tried to push that narrative.
The argument worked on a few of their numbers, anyway. Mutiny became synonymous with freedom and free will. Hickey didn't need to convince Tozer of that fact. ]
Has anyone told you why we're out here in the first place? The Passage, and all.
no subject
To find a trade route for the Empire, yes.
[ When they've filled the linen up, he takes the ends back from Tozer to knot it into a proper bag. It doesn't entirely escape him how easily they can work together without exchanging orders, when it comes down to it. It's not the first time it happened, but he's never been in a state of mind to notice before. ]
So the core can exploit more colony residents for their labor in order to have easy access to more goods.
no subject
With the linen tied up, Tozer hefts it over to their pile and stands again to extra another crate. Maybe this is the key to their getting along, then. They're more amicable when they're moving and working. ]
Careful, there. Some among us may take issue with such a statement.
[ Especially from an outsider. It even pricks at Tozer a bit, though he doesn't disagree. What does Angelo know about England? What right does he have to judge it? Flawed though it is, it's still the only place Tozer can call home. That must count for something. ]
Is that an opinion you formed yourself?
[ It sounds like something Hickey would say, if not in those exact words. ]
no subject
Of course it is.
[ Angelo is not keen on self-reflection and checking his biases, so the idea that it is a premature and ill-informed one doesn't even cross his mind. ]
The British Empire is not history's only Empire. I grew up in the colonies, under the yoke of the Federation. It's all the same shit.
[ In truth, his family had been fairly wealthy merchants when they were still alive. Angelo hasn't truly been born into the oppression he describes, merely assimilated into it. But these are like-wise self-reflections he is not prone to. ]
no subject
Britain exists in your history, then? You're... from the future?
[ Somehow, he hadn't considered that possibility. Angelo's presence in general is a lot to wrap his head around, but there's something more disconcerting about him being from here but not at the same time. Does he know what happens to them, then? To England? In Angelo's world, all of them must be long dead by now.
Except Hickey, apparently. That may be the most disconcerting piece of the entire puzzle. ]
no subject
[ He'd kind of been hoping that Hickey had already covered this in his summary of the castle, but... actually, he should be glad that he didn't. It means Hickey is truly honoring his conditions, down to the letter. His past is his own to share, even the details that do not matter. ]
Your Empire hasn't existed for hundreds of years in my world. Don't ask me if that means I'm from a future or the future, I understand that as little as you do.
[ Fucking Ish and his weird complicated magic shit. Angelo has not tried particularly hard to make sense of it, but it does give him a headache anyway. ]
no subject
That's... disorientating.
[ Tozer pries open another crate. His fingers are nearly too stiff to function anymore. They best be done with this soon, though he wouldn't be surprised if Angelo conjured up some reason to keep them working down here for longer, just to make good on his earlier threat.
Whether or not Tozer would go along with it remains to be seen. For all his defiance earlier, he's not one to refuse an order just to prove a point. ]
And what will you do, should we survive this? You may still think yourself an outsider on this ship, but we're a forgiving sort compared to London.
[ He says it with genuine concern, already falling into the habit of helping again, but he expects Angelo to take it as an insult regardless. ]
no subject
[ And neither does Hickey - even if they weren't set to leave this world whenever Ish provides the next opportunity for it, if there is one place they won't return to its that. Angelo's questions about Hickey's past have always gone nowhere (quite unfairly, he thinks) but the fact that there's nothing left for him in Britain had been made abundantly clear. ]
And some things about the world never change. People are people. I have enough experience that I'll get by fine.
[ If anything, it'd be easier to vanish into the anonymity of some city, somewhere at the other side of the world, than it is to try and integrate himself here with this small group of people already all-too-familiar with each other.
Angelo glimpses into the crate that Tozer has painstakingly pulled open for them and huffs. It's soap. Something they hadn't been in danger of running out of anytime soon, but it's always good to have some more. The scent is rose.
Like the soap that almost got him killed, once.
He'll get by fine, yes... ]
no subject
Where else would Hickey go? Surely he's not going to let Angelo part ways—even if he may have promised to do so.
Tozer almost lets the comment slide by, but then, Angelo wouldn't have brought it up if it was a secret. ]
You're not going to stay with Cornelius?
[ It takes him an extra beat of hesitation to figure out the best angle for prodding. ]
I'd expect he would object to that plan. Is this going up?
[ He kicks at the crate of soap. They don't need it, but Angelo is rather obsessed with cleaning... ]
no subject
Of course I'm staying with him.
[ The defensive rebuttal is out before he fully takes in (with some appreciation) that Tozer has clocked that Hickey would not let him go either. They're a set now, inseparable. It's for the best that everyone sees that plainly. ]
You came all the way up here and you still think all roads lead to London?
[ Really, he does wonder where he and Hickey will end up at the end of it all. They'd promised to go to Angelo's world, but that prospect feels even more foul now that they've had their fights.
Angelo shuts the box and gives a belated nod. And then after a beat of consideration: ]
Yeah, we'll take it. We've gotten enough for now. Let's grab what we got and move up.
[ God knows they're both freezing. ]
no subject
I didn't have a choice to be here. None of us marines did.
[ It feels important to make sure Angelo knows this. He's not eager to dwell on it, though. Tozer nods in return, and then picks up the makeshift bag of hay to toss up to the orlop.
But he pauses again, jaw working as he considers something. ]
You've got it wrong, by the way. I don't dislike you.
[ Tozer isn't going to dwell on that, either. Instead, he hauls himself up the ladder so that Angelo can start passing him crates. There's work that needs doing. ]
no subject
Is that so.
[ It's not a question, not really, just a flat acknowledgement that he's heard what Tozer said. Angelo finds the content too hard to believe. He is easy to dislike. It's something he's been aware of for a long time, and consciously made his armor. At the castle, that armor turned against him. Here it seems to serve no purpose one way or another, it just lingers between himself and the crew. Angelo doesn't mind. He has no desire to form bonds.
So he just grabs the crate of traitorous soap, and gets to work. ]