OPEN | look for the sign of daniel, consider the clues

[extramuralise]

Who: John Irving (extramuralise) + OPEN!
What: Catch-all for August! Various thread/event aftermaths, attempts at usefulness, and perhaps even a bit of Bible study?
When: Throughout August (with perhaps some overflow into September & allowance for older thread continuations)
Where: Milton & surrounding areas.

Content Warnings: Will be added as needed!




( Choose your own adventure! Feel free to PM / plurk me @ reggiemantle for plotting. Happy to also write/respond to personalized starters. )

Comments

[extramuralise]

Anger swells again within that brief silence, so much that Irving just can't bring himself to simply swallow down a response and keep on walking, thereby ignoring Gibson having had anything more to say at all.

No; these words do need spoken.

"I'm well aware of that," Irving replies coldly, cutting his gaze back briefly. "But perhaps you might like to inform the company you've been keeping."

The idea that Hickey and Gibson might be at odds about something so significant just seems unthinkable to Irving, despite rationally knowing that Hickey thrives by his chaotic impulses, whereas Gibson generally has a more practical head on his shoulders. Chalk it up to yet another reason why the two of them, as a pair, come as such a stark affront to Irving's delicate sensibilities; surely Gibson can't be so foolish as to truly believe Hickey's many deceits and fictions, can he? A man like Hickey just seems far too wicked, far too cunning and too pleasure-driven, to even be capable of such empathy that it takes to... to love, but damn it all if he hasn't got a way about him that can be, regardless, often quite terribly convincing.

That much, Irving can understand. Yet there's still far too much that he doesn't, and likely won't ever.

He should have done more to protect Gibson back then, Irving knows; hindsight is cruel that way. But the question still remains: if Gibson's own lover would much rather see Irving dead, then to what ends should Gibson want him kept alive instead?

(It's not that deep, Irving: Gibson hadn't even known it was you he was saving.)

And what would Hickey think, Irving is almost tempted to ask, if he knew you'd just spared me?

'This is not even the first time I've saved you,' Gibson also said, but this statement is even harder for Irving to decipher, for much the same reasons he's confused that Gibson would save him now.

(Unless the intention has simply been to humiliate him this entire time, in which case, well done.)

"When else, then?" He finally adds after having drawn no definitive conclusions for himself, barking the words out without turning around. Despite himself, he'd feel guilty not to even acknowledge the action, although he can't recall when it might have taken place. "So I might be more properly grateful to you."

[notarat]

"What do you think?"

He speaks, even though the other man isn't looking around to see him after asking that question there. A part of him wishes that he could at least see the other's face while saying this, to see Irving's reaction to these words - mostly because he isn't too sure what exactly it would be, and there's a morbid curiosity within him about it - but this will have to make do.

At the very least he does want to have spoken these words to the other. He wants the thought to live in the other's head, even in the middle of this chaotic night. Maybe especially in the middle of this chaotic night, because who's to say either of them is definitely going to make it out alive through all this?

"He wanted to kill you, of course."

Billy hardly feels like he has to define which he he is talking about. Not when there's only one person who has shown such urges towards the other man in the first place. Not when he is practically the specter hanging between their every conversation now.

(It doesn't really feel like throwing Hickey under the bus to admit this either, since he's pretty sure Irving knows. It's hardly something no one could guess.)

"I convinced him to not do it."

[extramuralise]

Indeed, the answer — 'he wanted to kill you, of course' — is not especially surprising, but still Irving turns back as if in aid of absorbing it.

By now, having the benefit of further knowledge and context as to what happened after Hickey... did what he did to him, Irving has occasionally (during those rare times when he can even bear thinking of it at all, that is) attempted to make sense of Hickey's motivations in that moment, puzzling over a small handful of profoundly unimaginative theories as to why, exactly, Hickey should have wanted to kill him right then, in that place, in that particular manner.

Because if Hickey had simply wanted Irving dead — out of spite, out of hatred, out of a lust for vengeance born of a misplaced, long-harbored grudge, or even merely out of plain boredom — there would have doubtless been ample opportunities for him to try even before the great exodus of both ships. After all, Irving had taken no great pains to ever seek Hickey out again since the initial confrontation concerning Gibson, so the element of surprise would have easily been Hickey's to claim whenever he'd wanted to; the fact that he hadn't suggests more to Irving that killing Farr and himself had likely been... impulsive, rather than premeditated, but what Gibson's telling him now seems to contradict this possibility.

'I convinced him not to do it.'

And once again, all Irving wants to ask is: But why?

"Was butchering me once not already enough for him?" Irving asks, hands shaking at his sides. His eyes, winter sky pale, are wide and round as marbles; he feels completely at a loss how to comprehend Gibson's motivations, now. "Yet you would choose to spare me— why, then? Why him?"

It's not even a rhetorical question: part of Irving needs to understand this. He doesn't want to, but he needs to, or else he might never be free of it.

[notarat]

He knows the answers to all of Irving's questions, really. He knows why Hickey wanted to kill Irving so badly - or at least, he's pretty sure he does, insofar Hickey's motivations can ever fully be understood - and he also knows why he stopped Hickey. He knows it didn't really have a thing to do with Irving, and instead so much more with not wanting to cause some huge scene for no reason, not wanting this entire town to turn on Hickey even further when all Billy wants to do is live a quiet life now.

Maybe the reason he doesn't answer in an instant is the fact that he isn't sure which parts of that to share with Irving. Maybe it's that there's something kind of nice about leaving the other hanging for a moment. Leaving Irving to feel perhaps a fragment of what he felt when the luitenant discovered him in the middle of things with Hickey below deck. It only feels fair.

Maybe both reasons weigh heavy enough that rather than starting with an answer, there's first another question.

"Why do you want to know?" It isn't said in an antagonizing sort of way - but, really, it might be kind of difficult in this moment to read what William Gibson's intentions are at all with asking that. There's something carefully calm about the way he says it, like he's shoving any hint of why he's returning Irving's question with one of his own all the way down.

[extramuralise]

"To know is not the word for it," Irving begins slowly, although he thinks that the answer to why he should ever want to must surely be self-evident enough. Nothing can nor will ever be able to absolutely guarantee his (or anyone else's) safety, but understanding the dangers which are there can certainly help to... guard it.

As he continues, his voice grows softer, though ungentle, like a hiss.

"All I want is... simply to understand, that's all... how else am I meant to live with knowing that he's nearly within arms reach of my own doorstep?" It's more information than Irving would have liked to give, but Gibson seems disinclined to believe anything less than Irving laying his vulnerabilities out bare— and perhaps still not even that.

"And exactly what makes you so sure that you'll be any safer, Mr. Gibson? Surely you're not so naive as that."

[notarat]

Something faintly twitches near his lips when he listens to that last part, but there's not too much of a pause or hesitation before he speaks up again.

"We have been sharing a bed for most of a year now." There are many ways he could have worded that. The fact that this one was chosen is no coincidence. It's partially to emphasize his point here - is there any position that would make one more vulnerable, even compared to how close Irving already feels to Hickey in this place - but also just as a slight dig. To rub that fact in, even if he doesn't linger on it. "If he would have wished to harm me, surely he would have done as much by now."

Despite the fact that this obviously isn't the most friendly conversation, he is honest about this one. Perhaps surprisingly honest, considering who he's talking to, considering how much he has held from Irving in the past. The truth is that he's never felt fear for Hickey, not even when he woke up in the snow here with the knowledge that the man had murdered him - but the fact nothing has happened since has only strengthened that feeling.

"He is not that complex. If anything, I would say he is rather easy to read."

Like he's implying Irving could do the same, if he just tried.

[extramuralise]

It isn't as if Irving didn't already know that the two men would have been sharing a bed all this time, of course, but he still flinches vaguely upon hearing as much finally be spoken aloud, because it forces him to actually imagine it, briefly and indistinctly, alongside any other strained and silent acknowledgement.

If he felt at all willing to lower himself down to Gibson's level of crudity in this moment, Irving might then have been moved to ask the other man how long he and Hickey had previously been — figuratively or literally — 'sharing a bed' before Hickey had still ultimately betrayed him, yet Irving holds his tongue. Not only would it make for a needlessly vulgar and awfully childish retort, but also a far crueler one than Irving feels comfortable allowing himself, even if he does believe that the question stands.

"But can't you see that he's already harmed you?" Irving protests quietly, frustration and pain mingling on his face. "Several times before, you would have had me believe."

A story which Irving now assumes must have been either exaggerated if not outright false, although he can't entirely rule out the possibility that Gibson has been coerced and manipulated by Hickey again (because goodness knows the man is capable of all that and worse).

Yet still Gibson's answer somehow frustrates Irving all the more, because does he truly believe that Irving hasn't tried understanding or empathizing with Hickey before? But some people are simply beyond his help, and even further beyond his comprehension, or at least that has certainly been the sum total of Irving's experiences with the man. Not only that, by now Irving is quite sure he doesn't want to understand Hickey any more deeply; if anything, the notion disturbs and almost frightens him to the point of the near revulsion, although it'd be difficult to put into words exactly why.

Apart from the fact the man is an unrepentant heathen, malcontent, and murderer, that is— perhaps it could, indeed, be as simple as that.

"You give him far more credit than he could ever earn or deserve, Mr. Gibson, least of all from you." He shakes his head. "I'll be keeping you in my prayers."

[notarat]

There is so much he could argue here. In fact, there is a lot here that a part of him is practically chomping at the bit to argue. After all, he doesn't feel like he can just let the notion that he is giving Hickey credit stand. There's something about the very idea of it that feels utterly disagreeable to him in the most fundamental sense. Not to mention that he could tell Irving that of course he lied to him about all the things Hickey did-- but he's sure the other man already understands as much, if not deep down.

But then there's that final line, and that feels even more disagreeable with him. It erases all the thoughts of the other things he wanted to say from his mind, something about the thought of Irving praying for him making his skin crawl.

He has to get away from this man right now. He will take the chaos of the night over this, actually.

Several complicated emotions pass across the man's face before he shakes his head, as if to shake those off.

"If you think I am giving him any credit whatsoever, then you are sorely mistaken." Apparently he did at least want to get in that one, since the thought of anything else makes him feel even worse - but he doesn't say anything else after it. (Granted, those words might not exactly clear anything up for Hickey, since there is no easy logic as to why he would be in a relationship with Hickey and yet still be saying that--)

But apparently he doesn't feel like giving any clarification. He just turns, disappearing into the darkness and the turmoil of this night.