singillatim | see who I am in the lion’s den

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see who I am in the lion’s den

Who: Cornelius Hickey & Edward Little.
What: Following a concerning Missing Person announcement in the Community Hall, Little decides to check in on someone he fears may be connected.
When: Early October.
Where: Hickey's dwelling in Milton.

Content Warnings: Mentions of mutiny, torture, and cannibalism are likely to come up, potentially in introspection and/or dialogue.

Someone has gone missing.

There are certainly a variety of dangers in this place. The wolves, the wilds themselves.... and then the strangeness without explanation: the spasmodic flickers of ghosts, the hush of a Voice whispering reminders of all the worst parts of a person, coaxing them towards an ending. There are many factors that could be responsible for a person abruptly gone.

Little immediately thinks to one, and it's with a sickness deep within himself. In his time here, he's... learned from Goodsir, about the atrocities that Hickey had apparently committed in that camp. Of course, he had not seen any of it with his own eyes, and evidence is impossible to procure in this place. He has only the word of poor Mr. Goodsir himself — nothing that Little doubts, not from that man, but some part of him struggles still to accept these nightmarish truths.

All Little can do is hold to what he has known and been trained for, even amongst all that is so unfamiliar. It means keeping order. It means doing things fairly. And so he's oddly calm on the surface as he heads out towards the home Hickey's claimed as his here, though his gut aches with so many ghosts, regrets, and questions. (Should he have killed this man, back when he'd first bumped into him, in this place? He had Hickey at gunpoint. Is someone in Milton dead because of him?

If he had killed Solomon Tozer, could all of what followed been prevented?

It's an unfathomable horror to think that the crime of taking the life of one man may have saved the lives of so many others.)

The lieutenant steps up to the door and draws in a slow, steadying breath before he raises a fist and knocks against it, hard and firm, solid sounds. His shoulders are squared, posture assured, steady.

"Mr. Hickey," he calls, voice rich, deep and clear, meaning there to be no surprises with his appearance; he'll proclaim who he is right at once. Edward isn't here to cause turmoil, but to find truths and evidences. His shotgun is strapped to his back as usual, but he leaves it there out of his hands, not aimed like before.

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"Of course," Hickey says, with a little nod. And, because he sees the opportunity to twist the knife just a little bit more. "You saw my notice. I have opened my doors to anyone who needs aid. This includes you."

Look at how generous and altruistic he is! Such a nice guy, that Mr. Hickey.

He turns back towards the fire, stoking it and keeping it going, letting Little poke around as much as he wants. The mess in the kitchen turns out to be a poor attempt at butchering an animal. The strips of the meat are small, the blood is far too little to have come from a human, and there are small tufts of rabbit fur on the floor or in the sink. It is literally just 'Hickey caught a rabbit, needs to work on his skinning and butchering game, and has been far too lazy to actually clean up.'

Oh yes, he'd seen the notice. And of course, the worry and horror is exactly where Hickey means it to be — that his door is open, that anyone may come in. Any soul unsuspecting of what this man is capable of.

Edward glowers before he moves away again, towards the kitchen. It's slow, cautiously, and he glances back over his shoulder as he walks, wary to turn his back to the other man. His nerves are still prickling, an anxious fretfulness making his chest tight, but he had become paralysed before, and he'll not allow it to happen again.

He moves into the kitchen, taking his time with looking around, thorough. Though it's an unpleasant sight to greet him, the little mess of blood, skin, and fur, it's clearly from an animal. (What did you expect to find as "evidence", Little? An entire dead body lying on the table?)

Stone-faced, Edward quietly opens a few cabinets as he moves around, checking.... but although he finds nothing particularly strange, his stomach is curling. He thinks of what Goodsir had told him. The.... reason that Hickey took him, kept him. What Goodsir in particular was able to provide. After a long while of more glowering silence, he calls from the kitchen.

"Learning how to prepare meat, are you? I suppose it's more difficult than one may think."

And Hickey just watches, keeping an eye on Little as he moves through the house, inwardly gloating over the fact that for all the lieutenant's worries, there's nothing there. There's no sign of any ill-doings. Because why would there be? Hickey knows the value of appearance. He can place nice right now. He can blend in with everybody else. He'll put his knife to the throat if the situation calls for it but right now? It doesn't. Right now calls for someone who's happily part of the herd.

Edward's comments about preparing meat cause Hickey to let out a small little chuckle.

"It certainly is." And because Cornelius Hickey has never known where to stop, because he's the sort of person to keep pushing, keep being trouble, see how far he can go, he continues with a wry smile and a, "I had some help last time."

Little doesn't want to say it outright. Maybe there's multiple reasons for that: one being a concern that revealing it will inevitably reveal he'd gotten the information from Goodsir. It could make the man a target for Hickey (if he isn't already one).

There's another part to it, though. Again, it goes back to the horror of accusing someone of something false. Edward believes Goodsir, has absolutely no reason to doubt him at all, but.... it's still difficult to truly follow through on such a horrific claim when he hadn't seen evidence of it for himself. When he remembers how... unfairly the captain had treated Hickey, as Edward believes it had been, no matter if Crozier was ultimately right in his assessments of the man... At the time, it was unfair. It was too much. The lashing, the punishments. There was no evidence, back then, that this man was any sort of monster. He did not deserve what was given to him.

It's one of many uncomfortable turmoils within Little. He stays in the kitchen, expression tight and struggling (no doubt failing) to conceal his distress, as he listens to that response. Part of him wants Hickey to say it, to admit outright to it, because then... Little can truly, truly believe it. Truly follow through with that horror, and what it may mean.

"No one that wanted to provide that help to you, I'm certain," he finally answers, quietly. Both of them, not outright voicing the most horrible part of it.

"...I wonder how it is that you convinced those men of anything," Little adds after a moment, eyes narrowing. "At gunpoint? Perhaps knifepoint? Is that how you came to acquire Lieutenant Hodgson?"

Edited 2023-10-28 03:44 (UTC)

At the mention of Hodgson, Hickey can't help but laugh. "He was the first one of yours I recruited."

Irving never would have happened, mostly due to the man's personality. Little never would have happened—and it's not like Hickey would have wanted him anyway, indecisive wet blanket that he is. But Hodgson. Hodgson, obviously the most popular among the men. Someone who wants to seem important and wants to be recognized but never really got there. Who was always a little to the side, even among Crozier's inner circle, and who never really knew what to do with it.

"He came willingly. We ran into him after that business with tuunbaq, when the bear attacked the camp. He joined my crew rather than die." Hickey shrugs before, "People will do unexpected things to want to live. The smart will do whatever it takes."

Of all the men he'd seen make an appearance over that slope, it was Hodgson that was the worse shock. One that Little still hasn't fully been able to process through, beyond those surface thoughts. Of course Hodgson was threatened — Goodsir told him as much. Told him how Hickey threatened to harm the second lieutenant if Goodsir didn't do as told. It's surely how Hickey stole him away at all — threatened the poor man. Little hasn't assumed any differently, hasn't remotely entertained any differently.

That isn't what Hickey says, however. Edward freezes where he'd been looking through another cabinet, slowly moving away from it and back into line of sight. He wants to see the other man's face.

"You're spinning lies. Just as with what happened to Lieutenant Irving — you're lying." His heart is a tight fist within his chest, squeezing harder, harder. He doesn't look away. He needs some sign, any sign, that this man is being deceitful.

"The men were afraid of you. Of what you were capable of. Lieutenant Hodgson would never join you of his own accord."

What he sees instead of any sign of deceit is manic certainty. Hodgson did join. Granted, he might have joined mostly because they found him, on his own, about to eat his boots. That still counts. Hodgson still saw sense. He still had things under control in the end.

"I gave guns to the men. Tozer. Des Voeux. Private Armitage. Any one of them could have shot me dead where I stood at any time. But they didn't." That mania still sparkles in his eyes, that look of absolute delusion flitters as Hickey continues. He keeps his voice calm, level, like he's talking to a scared child or a particularly stupid horse.

"D'you know why? Because they knew what was what. Because they wanted to survive. How many men did your little group have left in the end, hmm? I know you lost Fitzjames. Hartnell. Probably a dozen or so more died in between the time my men and I left and we obtained Crozier. D'you know how many I lost in that time? Two. And of those two, one of them slit his own wrists."

As far as Hickey's concerned? Goodsir doesn't count.

"The guns" elicits a haunting memory in itself, because before Hickey gave those men guns, Little did. He certainly hasn't forgotten, how it all played out like some nightmare as the last threads of everything fell apart in the fog. Each name is a flinch within him, of the mutineers: Des Voeux, Armitage, Tozer.

If he'd stopped it then, what might have happened? What might have been prevented?

He's staring, staring, at the sparkle of Hickey's eyes — something that he might've once found bright, charming, and now knows what perhaps Crozier always did. But too late. All of it is too late.

"Silence!" he hisses, and he's feeling himself move forward again, only this time he doesn't catch himself. That anger from before hasn't left, he'd only swallowed it down and down and down the way he always has. It boils, that anger, along with so much horror and hurt and shame, and though he doesn't yet know which man Hickey refers to with that — one of them slit his own wrists — it's the final straw. Little gets in Hickey's personal space now, glaring. He lets himself do what he couldn't before — looms, an aggressive stance. It isn't something he ever wanted.

"The other one. The other man you lost." His voice trembles with emotion. "You used him for— meat. You fed from him."

He's angered Little.

Good.

It's refreshing to see how easily the good lieutenant loses his standards, how quickly Little becomes just like the rest of them. Hickey looks up, matching that ferocity with a manic intensity of his own. Little's going to feel real bad about this later, and Hickey is relishing in that.

He suspects he's going to get punched in the face for this. But Cornelius Hickey has never met a metaphorical bear that he wasn't going to poke.

"I used both of them for meat."

So there was more than one. It shouldn't be surprising, but the information is abhorrent within him, makes him want to gag.

He knows who the first man was. William Gibson — the officers' steward. He'd known that man for the past three years, shared much space with him, much time. Getting too intimately familiar with the crew was not something Little did much of, not like some of the other lieutenants, who tried to befriend the men, treated them more like companions (Hodgson and Le Vesconte, looking at you); as the captain's First, Little was more businesslike than anything.

....But there was still companionship there, and perhaps something even deeper than that formed, in those years all of them spent together on the ice. A bond between all of them, one forged from only such horrific circumstances. That man was one of his men, and under his protection.

And there was another...? Another, butchered and used like an animal. Little's gloved fists tighten, and he's so tense it's palpable, painful. His eyes are filled with anger, true anger, one he so rarely allows to show.

He doesn't strike Hickey, though it would be a lie to claim the desire wasn't there. No, he doesn't touch him, though he stays very close, using his height and weight, pressing inwards, nostrils flared.

"And you forced Goodsir to.... prepare them. Butcher them." His lip curls. "Did you then force the others to... eat? To make everyone into a devil like you?"

Little, please stop asking horrible questions if you don't want horrible answers.... but he has to know, the extent of this, and he suspects Hickey will be honest about this much, at least. Wanting to gloat of it.

Indeed, Hickey is honest. His eyes sparkle with excitement, there's a manic air about him, as he gives Little a cavalier little shrug.

"I forced Goodsir to butcher Gibson. Everyone ate of their own free will." Gibson. Not Billy. Not to Little. He knew they served on the same ship, he knew that Gibson was Little's steward, but as far as Hickey's concerned? None of those men really knew him. None of them truly gave him the time of day. Not like Hickey did.

So it's just Gibson. Billy in private. But like hell he's going to show any signs of that internal battle, of the still complicated feelings Hickey has about carving into the man he could have loved.

"The other one we ate from was Goodsir himself. I took care of the butchery myself." If you could even call it butchery. Goodsir wanted to break it all down into parts, to remove the Billy Gibson of it all. No man. Just meat. Hickey could have done the same. But why would he do that when he had a perfectly good signal to send out? Follow his orders. Stay by his side. Don't do anything rash. Or you'll just be a corpse, splayed out on a table, sliced into, like this man was.

"And again. I forced nobody to eat. My men were simply hungry. It's the duty of a captain to provide, to care for his men. And didn't I do just that? Certainly did it better than those mystery tins—at least what I offered didn't weaken us." There's a pause as Hickey shakes his head. "Though technically speaking, I did force Crozier to eat. The rest were sensible enough."

Everyone ate of their own free will.

Little can't hide the way his jaw stiffens, the way his eyes flash with some quiet horror. No. It can't be true. Hodgson wouldn't....

...But he'd never expected to see George coming over that hill along with the others. Everything had happened so quickly, he hadn't had time to process it, but it's been one of many horrors nestled within him, playing itself over again and again in his nightmares. Hartnell shot, Crozier's eyes wet, Little's gun still lifted, so tense he felt like he might die from it. There was Hodgson, who should've been standing beside him, who should've come back with him.

What Hickey says next steals the focus of his horror, then. Goodsir was the other man that was consumed. Goodsir. And Crozier was forced to feed on him....

Suddenly, Edward's fist is closed around the front of the smaller man's clothing, and his breathing is ragged. It isn't red that he sees. Only white. Blank and blinding, like the ice itself.

I'll hurt you, he thinks, and later, the thought will make him unbearably ill. In this moment, it's all he can see. His words come out strained and hoarse; it feels as though someone else is saying them.

"Stop.... Stop speaking, Mr. Hickey."

Edward is there. Against him. Fist closed around his clothing. He's angry, he's distant, he's going to do something about this and Hickey is thrilled. To have pushed Little to this point, past any claims of decency or respectability or good English values he so desperately craves. Shows how useful you are now, yeah Lieutenant? Push a man far enough and he becomes just that. A man. Nothing more, on equal footing with the rest of them.

Hickey's eyes are shining with a bright mania as he looks up at Edward. There's only on question on his mind as he watches the lieutenant look down at him.

"And what'll you do if I don't?"

What will he do? To this man who has committed such horrors? Murdered and mutilated, lied, mutinied, consumed? This man who even now holds no remorse for any of it? In truth, Hickey frightens him. Little can't understand the mind of someone like this — a man who does not see other men with respect and human compassion. A man who could so easily take his blade to someone, who would turn his back on decency. A man who could become worse than an animal, who could do things that can hardly be imagined.

There is much anger inside of Edward Little, bottled up and swallowed down over so many years, anger and hurt and frustration. For a moment, his gloved hand tightens with tension against the smaller man's clothing, fingers curling inwards. What will he do? There are many things he would like to do.

His mouth parts, breathing ragged, and then he slowly lets go. No. He won't do anything to Hickey. Not now. Not like this. He shudders, looking deeply shaken, voice strained.

"I am going to continue searching these premises, and then I am going to take my leave."

What will he do.

The answer, to nobody's surprise, is fucking nothing. Because that's the sort of man Edward Little is. A man who can't take initiative on his own. A man who looks for others to make decisions. A man who fails. He looks annoyingly smug as Little lets go. Because of course he would. Rest of the Terror crew would be pleased if Little throttled Hickey then and there. But that would involve making a tough choice, and God forbid Little do that.

"Yeah, that makes sense." There's a smirk on Hickey's face as he points out, "Can't avoid me forever, though."

Little has always believed that there are times where it requires more strength to not act. And perhaps, in his particular position, that most times it is the case. A good lieutenant should wait, trust the rules of sensibility, place his faith in the process of how things should be done. He should not allow emotion or personal upset to colour his experience.

(But what does one do in the face of a murderer? Of a man who has... killed his friends, his brothers, his men? Stolen his captain? Had men butchered and eaten like cattle? What does a good lieutenant do when someone like this has completely shattered all that is normal?)

He does want to hurt Cornelius Hickey. He wants him to pay for what he's done. But he can't exert that justice himself. It... it wouldn't be right. It would only cause further harm. (Right?)

...For now, he steps back, though his fists are still clenched and his eyes are dark, pupils swollen, angry. His breathing is so tight it hurts. 'Can't avoid me forever.' It feels like something looming, a dark cloud. What else will Edward Little be unable to avoid forever?

He turns and walks away, hating the man behind him, and hating himself perhaps even more. And he'll spend some time searching the home, but will be unsurprised when he finds nothing. No evidence of a young man's kidnapping and slaughter. Nothing. All that's left to do is leave, stomach a tangle of knots.

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see who I am in the lion’s den

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cw: reference to suicide

cw: reference to suicide and cannibalism, hashtag #TerrorThings

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SORRY FOR THE ESSAYS, ur giving me so much good food I gotta ramble about it!!!

sure does suck to learn all the secrets, ned!!!

the truth will set you free! unless it just gives you a nervous breakdown (◕‿◕｡)

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A good place to wrap, unless you'd like to tack on anything else after!!!