he's got that dog in him

[friendsfordinner]

Who: Hickey & OPEN!
What: tracking training! couples talking! dog??
When: throughout the month.
Where: in Milton and the surrounding wilds.

Content Warnings: usual Hickey warnings apply (possible talk of violence, cannibalism, starvation, Terror's everything)

( catch-alls and closed starters within. hmu if you want one! )

Comments

[balancedlight]

"I'm a doctor!" she yelps. She knows about diseases. And while the cooked flesh of a person is no worse than any other cooked flesh of a mammal, there are parts that should never be consumed. And she highly doubts Hickey knows the difference.

"You are - absolutely incapable of understanding. You did not ask me or tell me."

[friendsfordinner]

"Yeah, cause I know how you'd respond!" Hickey yells back. "I know how everybody would respond. D'you think I'd want to do that? D'you think I enjoy something like that? I did it because of that month before, because I knew that if the Darkwalker kept up what it was doing, we'd have no food! I thought I was keeping me and mine safe!"

[balancedlight]

"I am not yours," she tells him, her voice lowering to something no more than a whisper. "I was never yours. Not yours to protect. Not yours to manipulate and lie to. Not yours to make me feel like I owed you for your lies."

And she reaches back to slap him across the face.

[friendsfordinner]

Hickey takes the slap. He doesn't try to move, he doesn't try to do anything different. Instead, same slightly cold, slightly steely expression on his face, he sarcastically asks Sveta,

"Did that feel good? Do you feel better? Or has absolutely nothing changed?"

[balancedlight]

She looks at her hand. "It feels good and it feels better. At least you get some small consequence for hurting me."

Sveta steps away and then turns her back on him to storm away.

[friendsfordinner]

Hickey's not letting this conversation die. He starts to follow Sveta, calling out to her with a glare in his voice,

"You're my friend. I like your company. That's the whole bloody reason I wanted to keep you alive in the first place! Forgive me for wanting to look out for the people I like."

[balancedlight]

Sveta pauses, looking up to the sky.

"Friends do not lie to each other. Especially when it comes to what they do with their own bodies."

[friendsfordinner]

That 'friends do not lie to each other' is new to Hickey. He frowns, looking over at Sveta before he asks, in complete honesty in his voice, "What did you want me to do? Tell you what it is? I know what you're answer would be. You'd call me a monster and refuse to eat. You'd starve. I don't want that to happen."

[balancedlight]

She flinches at those words and shoves her hands in her pockets before she does turn around.

"But that would have been my choice. And I'm not going to starve. You aren't the only person looking after me."

[friendsfordinner]

"I know," Hickey says, as he takes a few steps closer to Sveta. There's something gentle in his tone. It's a calculated gentleness, deployed entirely to keep her on his side, but it's sincere enough that the fakery could be overlooked.

"But there wasn't much I could do during all of that. There wasn't much any of us can do. So I did what I could, focusing on me and my friends."

[balancedlight]

She shakes her head, taking a step back. "But you didn't ask. And you killed someone. He didn't have to die."

[friendsfordinner]

"I didn't plan on killing him," he points out. "It happened during that mess, when we all were changed by the Darkwalker. He attacked me first. I retaliated."

[balancedlight]

"You didn't have to kill him," she mutters. "And you don't feel anything about it."

[friendsfordinner]

"Like I said, he attacked me first. I wouldn't have killed him if we weren't in the middle of all that mess."

Hickey's emphatic about this. As far as he's concerned? He's not in the wrong.

[balancedlight]

"You didn't have to kill him," she repeats, shaking his head. "You need to learn how to be a friend."

[friendsfordinner]

"I thought I had to at the time," Hickey simply says. "You know what it was like. You know how we were all out of our mind. Obviously I wouldn't have killed him if everything was normal, but it wasn't."

[balancedlight]

She shakes her head again, taking a step back. "No. Not everyone killed."

[friendsfordinner]

"Not everyone was attacked," he retorts. "You didn't have anybody come at you with a knife, did you?"

[balancedlight]

"No, of course not," she snorts.

[friendsfordinner]

"Then you don't know what it's like. Then you have no reason to judge me for what I did, how I reacted in that moment."

[balancedlight]

"I do," she tells him firmly. "I do have a reason to. You made bad choice after bad choice and still see nothing wrong with it."

And she turns again to walk off.

[friendsfordinner]

"I hope the next time this happens, you're out of harm's way," Hickey calls out, frown on his face, as he watches Sveta leave.