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
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 TuunbaqEdmund Hoar, captain's steward (E)- throw into the water by the Tuunbaq"Pvt." Thomas Armitage, gunroom steward (T)- mauled by the TuunbaqHarry 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 upThomas Work, AB (T)- died from scurvy before the mutineers showed up
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
no subject
So the ships have been maintained in your absence... that ought to save us some time.
[ If they had to free every vital part of the ship out of the ice that had begun to claim it, they might not make it out of here in time. Even Angelo with his limited understanding of sailing boats can grasp that.
With the hill ahead looking easily conquered, he does once again dare to venture ahead of Hickey, pace just short of what would be described as 'rushing'. After the drudgery of their ever-unchanging daily haul, he is starved for something new to behold - and he is rewarded as soon as he reaches the upper ledge.
When he'd arrived here, the endless white of the shale as seen from the hill had filled him with an odd sense of foreboding. Now, he's become used to the vastness around them, so what strikes him about the pack is not the expanse of it but the color. The shale was white only when compared to all the dirtied men and objects in it - compared now to the purity of the ice in the strait, King William Land is a dirty grey.
The ice is nearly blinding, but Angelo can't tear his eyes away. White, white, white, pure white. He is full of stains, inside out, but the immaculate white before him doesn't seem to care about that. A mercilessly beautiful whiteness that swallows him up and drowns out all his sin. The dark blue streaks of waterways barely register to him at first, despite ostensibly being what they are looking for. ]
It's so untainted... it's gorgeous...
no subject
Water.
Directly ahead of their spot on the ridge, a fissure as wide as a city street has opened up. It spiders out into the ice, carving it into floes and bergs. Once Hickey's eyes adjust to the blinding expanse of white, he can see the pack churning in slow motion.
There's leads, and plenty of them. They can surely save at least a day or two sailing, though he suspects it won't be entirely easy going. Navigating these channels and avoiding the crush of the bergs could become challenging. They'll likely need to camp on the ice, as well. What an adventure this will be.
A shape on the horizon catches his eye. He squints at it a moment, and then his hand darts out to grab Angelo's sleeve. ]
Look.
[ Excited is not an accurate description of his tone, but only because Hickey is not an excitable man. There's real surprise in his voice.
A few miles ahead, two ships are drifting toward them. It's difficult to say how much progress they're making from here, but each ship has some sails up and they're far closer than were a few months back. There was a break up, after all.
Idly, Hickey snickers at the thought that this all could've been avoided. This march was pointless, as with the rest of Crozier's plans. Imagine how far along these ships could be by now if they were manned by full crews?
But that doesn't matter now. Crozier is likely dead, and if he isn't, he will be soon. Hickey has the ships, as well as nearly his full complement of followers—and then some. He's won, hasn't he?
Grinning, he points out to the ships. ]
That's Terror and Erebus.
no subject
Now as a young man, tired from an endless march, his heart finally skips a beat at the sight of those seafaring vessels. Though these sailing boats are nothing alike to the Rewloola, he still expects that he'll feel much more in his element once they board. Being a lieutenant on a ship, that's something he knows how to do. The details will come to him with time, surely.
When Angelo turns back to Hickey it's with an unusually bright smile. There's hope at the end of this ice pack, and an end to their mind numbing drudgery. They're standing close, condensed clouds of breath mingling. Right now, that doesn't cause Angelo any discomfort. The ice in front of them is vast, but their world is small, intimate even. ]
We made it, then. We'll sail.
[ A victory for the two of them. The men back at camp don't matter. ]
no subject
Or rather, the empire. The world, the universe, is much larger than he once realized, and some force operating within it appears to have finally seen him. He's had a streak of something akin to good fortune these past weeks. Despite the setbacks, it's all worked out in his favor in the end, although most of that can only be attributed to luck—or divine orchestration. Ish snatching him, his death somehow granting him immortality, even the odd circumstances that led his life to becoming entangled with Angelo's. His tenacity left him open to making the most of those opportunities, but he did not create them for himself.
He would have classed the ships on the horizon as more of that luck if he were here alone. But Angelo turns to him with that shining smile, we made it, and it hits him that he's due to celebrate not just how hard he's worked, but a real accomplishment.
He and his men are here because of him. His leadership broke them free from Crozier, from the empire, and he put them here, in prime position to take advantage of these favorable new winds. They will come out of this alive. His plan has worked. ]
We made it.
[ His voice is quiet, his smile lopsided and soft. He's shy in his elation. Relief is a vulnerable thing.
For a beat too long, his eyes linger on Angelo's. Purple, what a striking color. Elias inhales, and he looks as if he's about to speak—but he thinks better of it, allows this moment to remain what it is. His hand drops from Angelo's sleeve. ]
We've plenty of work ahead of us yet. Speed will be a priority, as we'll need to catch the ships before they move past us. I expect the leads will be difficult to navigate.
[ They're likely to lose sight of the ships once they're on the water. The pack is still mountainous despite the thaw. ]
no subject
So what if it's a banal victory? What if it's a meaningless trial he has taken on out of sheer desperation? What if there is no end goal worth a damn? They still made it. There is time to feel guilty about his satisfaction later, when he's back in the unpleasant grey of the camp. With the white of the pack ice in front of him, he feels clean.
Hickey gets back to business, and Angelo lets his eyes drift back to the boats at the horizon. ]
Then we need to send De Voeux up as soon as we get to camp, and make sure everyone else is well-rested for the haul tomorrow.
[ As rested as can be, anyway. They all sleep like shit, knocked out by sheer exhaustion.
Yes, they should get back to camp. The day isn't going to last forever, and they will want to pack up their belongings bright and early in the next morning to cross the maximal distance in a day. Still, Angelo finds himself hesitating. The brightness up here is dreamlike, and returning to their men will mean facing their misery head-on. Whatever slight cloud of calm has come over him now will dissipate as if it had never existed. Angelo bites the inside of his lip. He can't bear the thought of sharing their private gratification with those pests just yet.
Angelo holds out a hand towards Hickey. ]
You have your cigarettes on you, right?
no subject
As for the question, he lets out a slight chuckle. ]
Of course. I'm not going to leave them where they'll get nicked by the others.
[ No one would dare tamper with his things, but he'd never risk it regardless. The case perpetually lives in the inner pocket of his coat, and he fishes it out now to pluck out a cigarette for each of them. He strikes a match, then waves for Angelo to lean in a little closer so he can light both of them at once behind a cupped hand.
With that settled, he moves to lean against a crag of ice jutting up behind them, briefly casting a glance back toward camp. There's a small fire going now, and he can just make out Diggle preparing the spirit stove for supper.
Hickey keeps forgetting that such details are still relevant to Angelo, given he's no longer bothered by hunger himself. It's easy to think of Angelo as a mysterious spectre, too. He wears that attitude well enough. What was it he'd told Hodgson? He came down from behind the moon? The memory gets a laugh out of him. What a cover story—and one that Hickey will never ruin for him. Let the men stay blinded by their mutual intangibility. ]
Have you been on a ship before? Out on the water, I mean.
no subject
Once, yes.
[ He takes a deep drag from the cigarette before continuing. Smoking is a habit he'd also been in as a younger teenager, but it feels different now. Back then it had been frantic, a way to placate his shaking hands and a way to poison himself on his own terms. It had tasted like filth, but that hadn't mattered. Anything would do, in those days. Cigarettes, alcohol, drugs... Though addiction would have spelled his death, Angelo had danced on the brink of it, just to dull all sensation of being alive. Smoking now has a more leisurely feel to it. He doesn't feel compelled to it often, either. It's a thin invisible string connecting him to the Elias of that fateful night at the Promenade, and a small diversion for moments of downtime. ]
A class trip, back when I still went to school. Our colony only had smaller ponds, but we went to a neighboring one for a weekend, with a large artificial lake. The boat was tiny, basically just a restaurant on the water. I don't remember much of that trip, just that I hadn't wanted to go.
[ Leaving his mother for several days had been terrifying. ]
no subject
Those concepts will settle for him over time, he assumes. They're not important now. Instead, he watches Angelo smoke. It's a good look for him—and Hickey likes how conspiratorial it feels between them. ]
Why didn't you want to go?
[ He could point out that boarding Terror will be nothing like that, but it's a given. He'll also wait to warn Angelo about seasickness until they're properly on the water. ]
no subject
Is that why he isn't evading the question? Her color? Or is it the calming smell of nicotine? The way Hickey smiled at him just a bit ago? Or just that he's tired of keeping it all inside forever? ]
... I hated staying out overnight. Even though the house I lived in was a horrible place.
[ He exhales another puff of smoke and turns his head to glance at his companion as he continues speaking. It's difficult to imagine what Hickey will make out of this story, so it feels paramount to watch for his reaction - and maybe stop speaking, if need be. ]
But within that house... there was a singular sanctuary, a bed with clean white linens, that housed my mother. She couldn't leave it - she was more of a ghost than a woman already. I hadn't realized that yet, not truly, but I still felt afraid whenever I left her for too long. I thought she'd fade away if I let her out of my sights.
[ And she did, but that was later. The best and worst thing that could have happened to Angelo at the time. ]
no subject
Then again, there have been clues, haven't there? Angelo's obsession with laundry, cleanliness, purity... With the way he describes the scene, Hickey guesses his mother is the root of it. ]
She was ill, then?
[ His tone is measured, gentle but neutral. He finds it a bit awkward, discussing things like families and parents. It's a touchy subject with most in one way or another, and Hickey can't relate in the slightest. Although he lacked a family, he never had much want for one, either. That longing in him died out early, when he realized it was pointless to pine after impossible things.
To Hickey, a bedridden mother sounds more of a terrible burden than anything cherished, but he knows better than to let that opinion slip through now. ]
And you took care of her.
no subject
[ It bothers Angelo a little that he can't read Hickey's reaction properly, but then... what reaction is he supposed to have to this? This past is Angelo's, a pointless little anecdote to anybody else. Sharing it serves no real purpose - if anything, all it does is give Hickey power over him. And still, he finds that he wants to keep speaking. Up here on the ice wall they're in a bubble of their own... Not safe, because nowhere is safe without the Captain, but something close to it. ]
Physically, my mother was fine. It was her mind that was gone. And no matter what I would do, she never once recognized me again.
[ Ten years. Ten long years of being tied to a ghost on a bed, anxiously looking into eyes that would look right through him. A woman who was awake and yet already dead. Some days she would speak, but she'd never say his name. Angelo's childhood had been spend at her bedside, with futile attempts to fill that empty vessel with life once more. ]
All I could do was "pray". That was the payment for letting us stay at that place.
[ A hollow 'prayer' given into moist bedsheets. An offering of tears. Angelo doesn't elaborate on it. ]
She died when I was about to turn 13, and I could finally run away.
no subject
He's about to risk asking what happened to her, but he stops short, brow furrowing as he remembers something. As contentious as their conversations have been about Angelo's polaroids, Hickey did not actually get much of a look at them. He quickly recognized what he was witnessing and had the mercy to look away for both their sake.
But he does recall a woman in one of the pictures. He wrote it off at the time, assuming it part of some larger context he was not aware of and did not want to be. Now, the image slots into place. Ah. ]
That can't have been easy.
[ There's a beat. Hickey chews on his cigarette. ]
I didn't have parents.
[ It's an emotionless statement. He has no desire to open his own book right now, but he's at a loss for what else to say. It'd be one thing if he was angling for something specific, but he doesn't do that much with Angelo anymore. ]
Where did you go, after?
no subject
To the actual question, Angelo shrugs. ]
Here and there. I left the colony by stowing away on a spaceship, and found a bigger city to disappear into, and then a few others after. Stole some, dug through a lot of garbage, the whole nine yards of gutter scum survival.
[ It took him a while to get good at it, and he got caught and beaten a lot. Going from being waited on by maids, even if those maids disdain you, to having no money to buy even a slice of bread was... a transition period, for sure. That's not part of the story he wants to tell to Hickey though, he'd prefer to seem more competent and aloof right now. ]
In the end, I found out I was better at taking it than I was at taking from others. A certain type of man will pay a lot for a pretty face with the right bits attached.
[ It's kept deliberately casual, but the increased frequency at which he raises the cigarette to his lips during this part of the narration betrays that he's still somewhat nervous about it. ]
no subject
Mm. I understand. Survival is not glamorous.
[ Said with a tone suggesting he's been there himself, at least when it comes to disappearing. He can't relate to the specifics, but he's made that sort of decision before, sinking into depravity just to keep his heart beating. He's come to view that willingness as a form of rebellion.
He tucks a stray strand of hair behind his ear, taking a moment to watch the sun drift slowly toward the horizon. ]
You played to your strengths. That's admirable. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
[ At that, there's a knowing grin. ]
Though you've never had issue standing up for yourself, have you?
no subject
If Hickey had met him then, had seen the depths of his degradation, would he still have called it admirable? Surely not. A man such as him would always see better options. A man like him would always have had a goal to look towards. So there's no reason to get excited, but...
It's a little too late to pretend that he hadn't felt anything. Too late to return that grin just as casually, when he's feeling almost flustered. It turns into a smile that feels out of place on his face in its unusual bashfulness. ]
If you'd employed even half of the honeyed words you're using now back then, maybe you'd have avoided a beating.
[ Maybe. But probably not. ]
no subject
If I had, I would've deserved the hit even more. I would've been playing you.
[ He says it easily, but as the words leave his mouth, he wonders if that's the first time he's ever outright admitted his tactics. Manipulation doesn't tend to work when others know to watch for it. His cunning nature is no secret anymore, but even still, he maintains a level of plausible deniability if he refuses to confirm its truth.
He takes another pull of his cigarette. What a smile Angelo is wearing now. ]
But I'm not now. Do you trust me?
no subject
Only the Captain is worth trusting.
All the lightness collapses in on itself, and Angelo's chest suddenly feels tight. Elias' smile is familiar and comforting - when did it become his smile that comforts him? When did he start to think 'a man such as him'? Elias is trash like himself, the only person at that castle with no right to look down on Angelo, so when did his judgement start mattering? Nicotine in his lungs and claws in his heart, Angelo is being corrupted. And even though he goes to search for Frontal's guidance in his heart, the red figure remains dispassionate, looking out the viewport towards an abyss Angelo cannot follow to.
The Captain isn't here. Elias is. It hurts. ]
I'd be a fool to trust you.
[ Anyone would be, when Hickey is a self-confessed manipulator, and a survivalist beyond compare. Angelo could leave it at that, climb down the wall and end the conversation here, effectively protecting his soul. He could even wander off from camp, disappear into the ocean of ice floes, and remain fully Frontal's until the end of time. A monument to loyalty, preserved for eternity.
But what use would that be, to anybody? Though it suddenly stings with renewed intensity, Angelo has chosen Hickey. ]
But I believe you. I believe that you mean it.
[ And if he's to get hurt for it, it'll have been his own fault.... but he'd make Hickey pay for it all the same. ]
no subject
That's precisely why it stings, hearing the answer said so simply. Hickey's easy smirk morphs into something tighter, a careful mask to hide his true reaction. Angelo has been on the receiving end of every ounce of benevolence Hickey has been able to conjure in himself since arriving in that palace. It's worth little compared to the readily-supplied selflessness of so many others, he knows this, but he... Perhaps he's slipped too low on the face of that cliff, as well. Perhaps he made the choice between survival and camaraderie sometime long before he met Angelo and there's no recovering that lost ground, not when self-preservation is so deeply rooted within him.
And really, how far would he bend himself for Angelo's sake? He is kinder to Angelo than most, but there is no great sacrifice in that kindness. He felt noble for a time, having taken a bullet in coming to Angelo's aid, but...
That's not the calculation you made in your head when you did it, is it?
He should not have asked. He should've let this moment be as it was, too. ]
Not much difference between those things, is there?
[ Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. He'll have to analyze all of this later, when he's not navigating a conversation he's made treacherous.
He glances out at the ships again. They've begun to furl their sails for the night. There's still some daylight left yet, but they likely can't afford to make use of it with their skeleton crews. That will change soon. Bothering with two ships is pointless, to start. He'll consolidate their crews, their supplies. They'll run with full sails, get as far south as they can before winter closes in, chart a new course if they have to. Complete the Passage, likely—and then burn the charts. Bugger the empire. They don't get to build their trade routes on the backs of dead men.
He's lost for a moment in that strategizing. This is what he's best at, isn't it? Survival may be no salve for loneliness, but he's yet to meet a man that can outclass him there. He's capable of more than anyone realizes—even Angelo.
But survival is a cheap goal, he reminds himself. He can do better. His attention returns to Angelo, and again his expression shifts as his confidence returns. Now, there's determination in his eyes. Angelo followed him out here to see what it means to truly live, by Hickey's definition. Up to now, he hasn't bothered to define such a goal further. He likes to keep his options open, as he's said.
The goal is clear to him now: He will change Angelo's mind. Hickey wants to be trusted, wants to be wanted, as sorry of an admission it is. He will earn this. ]
We ought to be heading back.
[ Though he makes no move to go. ]
no subject
But he does believe him. Angelo finishes his cigarette with a last deep drag and then puts it out on the ice. ]
Yes, we should.
[ He also looks quite hesitant to put that plan into action. He's not particularly eager to be alone with his new-found realizations - but then again, being with Hickey is just as bad, isn't it? He'll never get his head on straight as long as he's spellbound by the other's presence. With a sharp inhale, Angelo turns towards the camp.
As he starts walking, he turns his head back to Hickey and adds, as if in afterthought: ]
Next time we have a minute, tell me how you got to be here.
[ A story for a story. ]
no subject
Angelo starts back down the wrack and Hickey holds his spot leaning against the ice ridge for a moment. The ships out on the water feel so close that they've made him impatient. He is not tired. He doesn't want to rest, to linger in this unease when they could be charging forward.
He pushes off the ice, then tosses the remains of his cigarette toward the water and turns to follow Angelo. ]