#LoveWins

[friendsfordinner]

Who: Cornelius Hickey & OPEN
What: hey. hey guess who's married. guess. take a guess. bet you can't guess, OKAY it's Hickey
When: early October, post Forest Talker attack
Where: Milton

Content Warnings: as always, the possibility of canon-typical Terror warnings (mentions of gore, cannibalism, period-typical homophobia, murder, all of Hickey's crimes. etc.). Will mention in the thread if they occur.

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Hickey's basically married now!

Yeah, sure he's considered himself basically married ever since Billy arrived here. They're living together, after all, and as long as Hickey's got Billy, he hasn't really felt any lust or desires towards any other people (except Crozier) (that's different). And he does love Billy. At least, he's pretty sure he does. Love's a weird feeling and it's something that Hickey has never really been able to put a name to or identify in himself, so yeah, it might as well be love! And Billy's been wearing the ring that Hickey gave him. And they've both been upfront about it with each other, to the point where Billy said that he and Hickey were together during that awful town meeting.

So yeah, they've been basically married already. But Billy gave him a ring (looted off some corpse, not entirely romantic but something the ever-practical Hickey approves of), so now they're officially married! What do you mean most marriages involve a priest or signing a contract in front of the law, they don't have either of those here! This is as official as it's going to get!

So naturally, Hickey's going to gloat.

He goes about his day to day life in Milton. He'll check out the notice board, he'll rummage through what abandoned buildings he hasn't yet rummaged through, he'll go on a little walk. But every time he spots someone, he adjusts his hair, brushing it behind his ear. And then brushing it behind his ear again. And then he'll lightly scratch his neck. Or he'll wave them over. And hey, just ignore the fact that all of Hickey's obvious stupid little tells are with his left hand and just ignore the fact that all of his obvious stupid little tells are blatantly him just showing off that ring finger. With a ring on it.

Hey did he mention he's married???

Comments

[friendsfordinner]

"The rest of the world can fuck themselves," Hickey dryly points out, with a little shrug. "Even if I was the most well-behaved boy on the entire expedition, the rest of the world would still judge us."

People are going to judge Hickey no matter what. They judge him on his accent, on his preferences, on his lot in life. Might as well give them something to judge, huh? Do enough actions and people will judge you on that, not on your being.

[goingtobeunwell]

“Yes, yes, we all know how you feel about the world.” As though it had ever been a grand mystery.

Being persecuted for simply being is a difficult way to live. Unfortunately Hickey’s always gone three steps ahead and made his existence an active problem for the people around him.

“You haven’t seen a wolf around here, have you?”

[friendsfordinner]

Oh.

Fuck.

"I've been seeing plenty of wolves lately," Hickey shrugs. "People have that new gift, yeah? Some of ours can turn into them. Looking for a specific one?"

[goingtobeunwell]

“A smaller wolf,” he tells him, somewhat warily. The wolf was such a tame thing, and Hickey is such a beast when it comes to survival. What if telling Hickey about the creature drives him to seek them out?

“I assume it was one of the children.”

[friendsfordinner]

Fuck.

"Y'know we don't have any children here," Hickey points out. "The youngest are what, Kate? Levi? They're both old enough to work. Hell, Kate Marsh already might have been married if she lived in our time."

She's certainly pious enough that Hickey could see that. Kate Marsh, marrying the first man she sees, perfectly happy to do her Christian duty.

[goingtobeunwell]

Deflecting. He isn't certain if he's doing so to avoid suspicion, or because he genuinely doesn't know how to hold a real conversation.

"A smaller person then," he amends, scowling slightly. It isn't worth fighting over something so stupid.

[friendsfordinner]

A part of Hickey wants to point out that whoever that wolf is, they're probably perfectly normal sized, they just have a smaller wolf form. The vast majority of Hickey knows that's suspicious as hell, so he keeps quiet.

Instead, he shrugs before, "Haven't seen anything like that around. What, worried for that beast?"

[goingtobeunwell]

He is worried for the beast, but showing even that much weakness in front of Hickey isn't advisable. "It's been spotted in this area," he says, pausing briefly. "It's likely moved on."

Don't go looking for it now, Hickey. If he has to find out one more pet of his has been killed and eaten by this man, he's going to snap.

[friendsfordinner]

There's something odd about this conversation. Crozier's frowns, Crozier's hesitation, the way he phrases and pauses and talks about things. How he asked the question but then seems to want to talk about anything except that.

"You think I've hurt the beast," Hickey muses. "You don't want to tell me more because I'm me. Because of course I'd hurt the captain's dog."

There's a moment where Hickey frowns, not entirely sure what to say next, before he settles on, "I'm not a monster, y'know. If situations were different back home, never would have dealt with Neptune in the first place."

[goingtobeunwell]

It’s a surprising level of self-awareness Crozier’s never seen from Hickey before. He stares back at him, mouth parted in slight shock at the insight, then narrows his eyes.

“I think you’re an opportunist. If the wolf seemed weak you’d prey on the beast, just as you did to the dog.” Just as he had with humans and anything else that happened to fall into his orbit.

[friendsfordinner]

The dog? What...ah.

Hickey rolls his eyes slightly before pointing out, "D'you know why I ate Neptune? Because we had no other options. You were more than happy to lie to the men about our useless provisions, but I wasn't going to let myself sicken and die because of trivialities like the chain of command."

[goingtobeunwell]

“You’ve made your motivations perfectly clear, whether I’ve asked to hear them or not.”

And because he’s feeling rather poorly about the whole interaction, he pauses and then adds, “if you’ve eaten this animal you’d best pray to god I don’t find out.”

[friendsfordinner]

"I haven't eaten that animal," Hickey groans, rubbing the bridge of his nose in irritation. "It's probably bad for me anyway. Last wolf I ate made me sick."

In retrospect, he probably shouldn't have mentioned that he's eaten a wolf before now.

[goingtobeunwell]

He doesn't react to Hickey having eaten a wolf, or Hickey's vexed admittance to having not eaten what had become a pet. He shakes his head slightly.

"Not the worst thing you've put in your mouth," he grumbles, turning away from him.

[friendsfordinner]

"Considering that the worst thing I've put in my mouth, you've also put in your mouth, no need to throw stones."

It's Goodsir. It's Harry Goodsir. They both ate part of Goodsir.

[goingtobeunwell]

He was thinking the cooked flesh of his own loved one, but perhaps Billy Gibson isn’t as important to him as he’d like everyone to believe. But Crozier already suspected that - the most important person to ‘Hickey’ is himself, of course.

“Nn,” says Crozier, continuing to head in the opposite direction. The less time he spends around this man the better. His disposition is naturally more cheerful when he hadn’t encountered him directly for a few weeks.