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
Hickey has Angelo handle the sack of tins while he carries the duffel of guns, undoubtedly the heavier load of the two. Tozer is left to haul Little up and over the miserable ridge by himself, and he is not surprised by this. No one says a word as they make their way back to the ship. No one looks back to the camp once they're clear of it.
It's a brutal climb, with the sledge catching awkwardly every few steps and the shifting rocks as uncooperative as ever. This would be hell even if he were well fed and rested. Now, he's not even a third of the way up before his lungs are heaving painfully and heart is thumping at a frightening pace. Little hardly weighs anything anymore, but Tozer may as well be hauling a boat by himself. The sledge clatters along over the uneven stones, and every so often, Tozer hears a weak groan from behind him. He doesn't have the breath to apologize.
Hickey and Angelo only pause to wait for him at the crest of the ridge, and once he catches up, they start off on their own again. His legs urge him to stop and rest a moment, but he knows he'll never get up again if he sits. Instead, he tells himself the path downhill will be easier. It isn't.
They return to the boat, and then they return to the ship, and even rowing slowly isn't enough to let Tozer catch his breath. His arms are shaking as they haul Little onto the deck, much to the surprise of the men standing watch. Hickey, of course, explains nothing, only issuing a curt order for Hodgson to watch for Pilkington and Des Voeux to return to the shoreline. Someone will need to row out and collect them. Hodgson balks, trying instead to follow them below deck, fumbling through half-formed questions.
"Lieutenant," Hickey snaps. "You are not needed here."
Hickey does shoulder the brunt of the effort in lowering Little through the hatchway and into the sick bay. Tozer knows he's only doing this to put on a show for the men, but he doesn't argue. He barely made it down the ladder himself.
They manage to lay Little in one of the berths after Tozer refuses to let Hickey leave him on the center table. Not even Angelo follows them into the sick bay. Stunned murmurs drift in from the forecastle, and Tozer can hear enough to know that most of the commentary is about the chains in the skeletal lieutenant's face. He yanks the curtain closed without a word.
Hickey stands over Little, studying him curiously as if trying to puzzle out how he hasn't yet expired. At first, Tozer finds it disgusting, the way Hickey regards him as a specimen instead of a man—but then, he remembers the thought he'd had back at the camp. Hickey's flaws are his strengths, somehow. This detached, cold curiosity is to their benefit, and it must be their circumstances that have rendered him so emotionless in the face of these horrors.
Perhaps Tozer's insistence on rescuing Little was foolish in the same way that Hickey's insistence on breaking form to retrieve Lady Silence was foolish. Perhaps they both let their need to take action override their better judgment. Perhaps, too, the Hickey that is sharp enough and brave enough to fight off the Tuunbaq with a makeshift bomb can only exist inside of that detachment. Tozer doesn't allow himself to feel fear in the face of danger, either. Not when there's a job to be done. ]
Thank you.
[ Hickey straightens and looks up at him, expression as unreadable as ever—but he doesn't smile, and that says enough. Tozer turns away to look for a washrag, and by the time he turns back, Hickey is gone.
That night, Tozer suffers through another nightmare. Canvas snapping in the wind, rocks clattering, the horizon blurring against the endless expanse of gray. The landscape tries to claim him. Shales slip away like sand under his boots, sharp and frigid and churning, dragging him under as the frantic bodies dragged Heather under. Gibson's butchered carcass rotting in its pathetic grave. The wreckage of Morfin's skull staining the rocks. David Young's face, crushed under the massive weight of the earth. Tommy, mangled and frozen, floating alone somewhere in this uncaring labyrinth. His own hands bound, led to the gallows, led south, the sickening taste in his mouth, a wind so cold that it feels like knives on his face, a streak of blood on the ice, a head ripped apart at the jaw, skin flayed from his palm, the crack of a whip striking flesh, Hickey's hands cradling his head, a chain around his wrist—
Mr. Collins stands over him as he is consumed by the shales. The fate that should have been.
Tozer wakes with a tight pain in his throat and pricks of tears in his eyes. The cabin is dark still, the ship silent save for the light lap of the waves, the pans of ice bumping against the hull. He scrubs his hands over his face, breathing in time to the sway of the sea beneath him. Then, he goes back to sleep. ]