singillatim | A beautiful fiction I invented to keep out the cold

Who: Chloe Frazer & others
What: Catch-all; open prompts
When: March and April
Where: Around Milton

Content Warnings: Self-injury content related to the echo effects. Descriptions of canon typical violence and murder. Talk about hunting/eating animals.

Chloe doesn't trust Methuselah as far as she could throw him, and a trip through a mine where she's forced to rely on the goodwill of a bunch of cop types does not sound like her idea of a good time. Also, sticking around Milton when most of the people who 'patrol' (imagine her air quotes) are away is a great opportunity to snoop in people’s houses.

Anyone who remains in or returns to Milton may find her either doing her usual wild running in the woods, checking her snares for snacks, or sneaking around newly empty locations to see what's been left behind.

Aurora nights are a different thing, however. Chloe likes to think that she's done her best to do right by the people that she cares about, but the truth is she's cut a few throats in her day, stepped over others to make sure that she would wind up on top. Something about the aurora this month brings every one of those memories roaring back. It has her running faster, drinking until she can't see, and doing risky climbs onto (and jumps between) rooftops, trying to escape the feeling.

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“I'm fine.” If he doesn't feel it, it's worse! It doesn't feel like normal guilt (not that Chloe really knows what that feels like) but that doesn't mean she can just talk about it!

“I just... I just need a break.”

Chloe is totally not fine.

There's no way he isn't picking up on that, despite her answer. It takes one person who shoves down all their feelings to know one, after all, and Billy can see all the signs of it.

Still, rather than pointing that out right away, the man goes quiet, like he's contemplating something. He glances around them for a moment, and then back at her.

"And jumping across rooftops is that break for you?"

He doesn't sound extremely cynical about that, but perhaps still a little bit unconvinced. It's more of an opinion than he'd allow to filter through in his tone around most people, but Chloe has proven to be trustworthy so far. Enough so that he feels like he can show it a little bit more.

Normally Chloe would be proud of Billy getting a bit sarcastic, showing a little spine, but not to her!

“Oh, like a guy that signs on to a polar expedition doesn't know what it's like to crave an adrenaline rush?” And a guy who married Cornelius Hickey, at that.

This is why you have to be careful what you wish for!!

Still, Billy is hardly offended by that reply when it's just plain untrue to him. Untrue enough that he raises a sceptical eyebrow. Sure, there are definitely some people on the ships that signed up because they thought it would be some sort of crazy adventure - which it did turn out to be, though likely not for the reasons they expected - but Billy would certainly not count himself among them. He's very content with things being calm and normal, thanks.

"Do you think that is the only reason anyone signs up for the service?"

(There's definitely no excuse for marrying Hickey though, yeah.

That's just Billy being a little freak.)

“Well. That and the money, I guess.” Please tell her you at least got decent hazard pay, Billy. “Why else would you take that kind of risk?”

Adrenaline, money, and the joy of discovery are pretty much why she does anything.

".. miss Frazer, there is simply no place in society for someone like me," he points out.

It would sound self-deprecating in any other context, but Billy absolutely does not blame himself for that fact. He fully blames society. In fact, he doesn't even think he has to explain it to Chloe. Even if she's not from the same time as him, and even if apparently different sexualities are more accepted in future times, surely she'll understand it all the same.

Billy is incredibly risk-averse, after all. There's no way he would go on a polar expedition for that sake. No, it's just that it's the furthest he could get away from society.

"It was either this, or being forced to live a life that was not mine."

“Oh.” Okay, that's something that Chloe knows, too. She’d set out on her own way too young because it had been the only way she could imagine to keep being herself. In the end she hadn't had to run that far - and can't imagine having to do what Billy had done - but she’d taken some pretty big risks in the criminal underworld, hadn't she?

“I see. That's obviously not why I do this.” Although really, it kind of is. “I like climbing, and running and jumping. Pushing my body to the limit. You can't think about anything else. It's the most free you'll ever feel.”

See, as hard as it might be for Chloe to imagine willingly going on a doomed Arctic exploration, it's just as hard for Billy to imagine finding jumping across rooftops.. fun.

Not that he doubts her. Chloe is such a wild type that he imagines she's entirely telling the truth here. It's just a little hard to wrap his mind around on a personal level. Though it can't hurt him, as long as she isn't asking him to join her.

"Is that also why you went down into that cave the first time we met?"

It feels like quite a while ago now, with everything that has happened here ever since - but Billy still remembers. It had been a.. surprising encounter in some ways, after all.

It's hard to believe in some ways that that had only been a few months ago. Chloe hadn't really known anything at all, back then.

“I mean, kind of? Crawling around in weird ruins to find stuff that may or may not still be there is what I do at home too, so I'm used to it.” And luckily for them both, since she’d known about the kinds of traps that were in there. “And I don't like relying on charity, you know? If I get there first I know I'm getting my share.”

"Certainly," he says, easily agreeing. It had been the entire reason he had gone into the caves too, after all, despite knowing it wasn't exactly his sort of thing. He just didn't trust anyone to bring him back a share of the potential cache down there if he didn't go to grab some for himself. It's a mindset he very much understands, it's a place where his own way of viewing the world meet Chloe's own.

But there's something new here too.

"But.. is that what you did before? For a living?" Just.. wandering around in weird ruins?

Granted, maybe Billy's own job kind of was exploring places no one else wants to go too, but at least he wasn't the one who thought it up, okay!! And while it suits Chloe's general demeanour, it's still a little surprising to someone from the kind of society Billy comes from to imagine a woman having a job like that.

“I did other stuff, too.” Treasure hunting might be her calling but it's not exactly a stable line of work. “But mostly, yeah. I was just wrapping up a job when I got taken here.”

Hopefully Sam doesn't run off with the tusk in her absence.

“This is the longest I've spent in one place in… god, decades?”

".. no wonder you seem to be doing fine here, even if you might be stuck in one place."

Maybe that part suits Chloe a little less. It'd explain why she's taken to - apparently - instead just.. jumping across the rooftops..

"You must know well how to fend for yourself." How could she not, given the kind of work she's doing back home?

“Yeah. Sometimes I work with a partner, but it's easier on my own.” Honestly Chloe isn't sure that's true anymore - she and her last partner had really bonded despite the rocky start - but she wants it to be. Wanting anyone around long-term is scary because it puts you in a position to get hurt.

And, as this feeling has been reminding her, she can't let someone down if she works alone.

A beautiful fiction I invented to keep out the cold

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