1. I've heard teeth can explode in air this cold. Imagine.

[bestsir]

Who: Harry Goodsir and divers hands.
What: Continuations from Harry's TMD threads, plus open to anyone else who wants in.
Where: All around.
When: In the days leading up to September's event.

Harry has found a house. It's much like the others, but what catches his attention is that it appears to have been owned by a person—a woman, he concludes from the clothing and other belongings left behind—with an interest in natural history. There's a bookcase in the front room with a variety of scientific and medical texts—nothing scholarly per se, but popular studies accessible to lay readers. He cannot find any other trace of the former inhabitant—no body—and so after wrestling with his conscience for a bit, he eventually gathers up what seems most personal and puts it all in a storage closet. Just in case.

He'll open the door to anyone who stops by.

Otherwise, he is out and about, making himself useful where he can.

Comments

[bestsir]

It's Goodsir's turn now to burn with shame. Crozier's words come back to him: You're clean, Goodsir. Clean. Even as your hand is forced by swine.

Forced, but he still did the thing.

"He wanted me to anatomise Gibson. For—for meat," he says, his voice steady and quiet as it ever was. "I refused until he threatened to torture Hodgson. So I chose the welfare of the living man over the disposition of the dead—a lesser wrong, but a wrong nonetheless."

And the hell of it—which puts a bleak, humourless smile on Goodsir's face—is that it isn't even the worst thing.

[fidior]

Those words are what finally lifts the other man's head, slowly, eyes finding Goodsir's face and staring there. The words are almost... impossible for Little to process. Never could he have fathomed such a horrible concept; it's difficult now to, to make sense of it. To accept such a thing as truth. His mind buzzes with a disconnect, and again, this moment feels as though it is happening to someone else.

He stares, listening as the horror continues. Feeding on a man, threats to torture another.... So that's why Hickey wanted Goodsir? Not to serve as a doctor to help sick men, but....

"Did he... truly do it?" Little can barely speak the words, expression anguished. Even now, some sliver of him clings so desperately to the hope that no man could actually do such a thing. "....Feed on Mr. Gibson?"

[bestsir]

Goodsir nods.

Dead, sir, and consumed. I'm sorry.

"I had told Gibson that ..." He draws a deep breath, ashamed now of what he said. "That he must prepare to die; the scurvy was killing him swiftly and he could no longer haul. And so Hickey murdered him in front of me, and, as I said, coerced me into reducing him to meat."

He looks at Little, his expression tired and hollowed out. "As I said to the captain—however unpleasant this is to hear, I must put it into words nevertheless."

[fidior]

Murdered Gibson.... outright. Not even as deviously as he'd killed Irving — spinning an entire web of lies, blaming innocents for an act of incomprehensible brutality.... no. Not that, anymore.

Outright murder. In front of Goodsir's eyes, no less, and then... having him butcher a human being...... Little sits there in his shock and despair, as the familiar scent of fresh tea somehow co-exists alongside everything that is abnormal and horrendous.

He can't voice anything for awhile. Doesn't want to voice what comes next, at all. But eventually it must, though Little has to force it from his own throat, these dreadful words.

"Was that also his.... intention, with our captain?" To have him killed. Eaten. Why else would Hickey have him stolen?

[bestsir]

Goodsir shakes his head. "I know not what he intended for our captain, but I do know that he was angry to find him hurt—asked me to treat his injuries, commanded his men to leave him be."

[fidior]

Why should Hickey be concerned for Crozier's injuries...? And with that thought, another horror — the captain was not necessarily... injured when Little parted ways from him, which means that those men harmed him. (Which ones? Did Hodgson also take part? Had every man so quickly shed his loyalty?) If Little had been with him... if he could have protected the captain.... God, how it aches.

But even through that, there is some relief. Hickey did not mean to... consume Crozier, so perhaps that horror was not his fate. But then, what of the other men....?

"...Then, did Hickey plan to feed on the other men instead? Hodgson...." He shakes his head, slowly, pained. "Dr. Goodsir, I fear they may all be dead now. All of the men."

[bestsir]

He ought to tell Little what he did. The poison.

But he's already put so much on the man. One more thing ... he can't bring himself to do it; his shame is too deep, and his dread. So he only nods agreement, miserable.

"Perhaps. Hickey's plans were not a matter of mere survival. I believe he sought a kind of victory over the land, its people, the creature ... but whatever his intent, the lives of others were merely incidental."

[fidior]

How had it happened...? That one man could become such a pivot towards disorder and corruption? Perhaps one could say warning signs had been evident from early onwards; Edward remembers a ranting Hickey's inability to stay silent even when commanded, a clear disregard for not only the first lieutenant's orders but the captain's himself. And certainly, Crozier progressively displayed a particular distrust in the petty officer, one that at times even Little found to be unfairly judged without evidence (before he was, of course, proven wrong with the gruesome evidence found in poor John Irving's stomach itself). But that it could turn into this...

"....I recall, back when he forced the lady Silence aboard," Little begins quietly, voice thick with despair and exhaustion. He's... exhausted, as he suspects Goodsir may also be; he can practically feel the waves of weariness radiating from the other man. Both of them here in the face of so many horrific things done, confessions made.

"...He had much to say about the... creature. He said he'd seen it. Watched her communicate with it." He pauses his sombre thoughts, another creeping inwards as he slowly looks back up to Goodsir.

".....Did he also harm her? Silence— was she there, in that camp, with you? With him?"

He knows she had been let gone by then, but... it seems horrifically suiting that Hickey would somehow find her and order her taken there with his band of hostages.

[bestsir]

"I believe she's with her people now," Harry says, and his expression softens at the mention of her. "He has not so much as glimpsed her since she left us."

[fidior]

Little nods softly, looking down at his own gloved hands again. One less person for Hickey to... destroy, as he's certain that he would have, if ever given the chance again. He would kill Silence.

But as to everyone else.... what is to be done now? Are he and Goodsir truly the only survivors?

(No, in short time, he'll learn of another. Of that fiend himself, here with them.)

Little stays quiet and miserable for a few more long moments, watching his tea. It's likely getting cold by now, but he can't bring himself to drink it.

"I don't know what to do now, Dr. Goodsir." He still hangs onto the title, the one that the captain and so many of the men had begun using for Goodsir. It was a comfort.

"...What do we do now? We are trapped in this.. impossible place. Our men are gone... our captain. We are alone."

[bestsir]

"I am—" he begins, and trails off before he can finish the sentence, no doctor. It doesn't seem worth the effort.

"We try to live," he says simply. He's thought about this, and it's the only conclusion he has come to. "There are others here, others who will need help, and who do not understand how to survive in a place like this." There's a sad, brittle smile on his face. "At least we have that, and we may do some good."

[fidior]

Live.

Little's head stays hanging for a moment longer. The captain's final order to him — meant as a surface gesture, covering up a truer order beneath.... and yet the terrible irony that Little and those men ended up following it, in the end. Trying to follow it. He does not know if they were successful, back in their own world.

Ache and guilt threaten to consume him, and he sits there, shaken. But through it, Goodsir's words are... something to hold onto. Others to help. To protect.

'we may do some good'

Finally, Edward pulls his mournful gaze back up to the younger man.

"You are right. It's... it's what we must try to do. Some good." Surely it will be what fuels him in these coming weeks, to help and protect, in the ways he failed.

"Thank you. I am deeply sorry to have added more burdens to your heart." Poor Goodsir has already suffered so much, and Little knows what he's told the man is yet another dreadful weight. He feels sick from the confessions, that the sick were left behind. That no rescue attempt would come for those at Hickey's camp.

"I'll not bother you for longer," he adds, beginning to move to stand. "But I am grateful that you are here. I thought... I was the only one."

To be the last left behind.... is a horror of its own.

[bestsir]

Goodsir rises, goes to him, and places a light hand on his shoulder.

"We must look after one another, you and I," he says. "And the others here as well. My door is open to you whenever you like."

[fidior]

Standing now, Little lifts his head as the other man approaches and places that hand upon his shoulder — a light touch, but no less significant. A gesture, in this moment, of closeness, and to Little, of comfort.

They are not alone. Survivors, somehow, impossibly, to this place.

"Thank you." He gives his head a gentle tip forwards, and there is much more to say, perhaps; his heart is heavy, there is much to process — but there is time. In the days and weeks to follow, he'll make certain to keep an eye out for Goodsir on his daily patrols, and especially after learning that Hickey is here... Certainly, Edward will be fretful that the man may target Goodsir.

"Be well. I will speak with you again soon," he promises, clapping one of his own hands gently against Goodsir's shoulder in return as he moves towards the door.