Holland March (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
questioningmermaids) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
singillatim2023-11-02 01:15 pm
questioningmermaids) wrote in singillatim2023-11-02 01:15 pm
boogie wonderland; ota
Who: Holland March + open, Holland + Huaisang
What: March spends some time contemplating, talks distilling with Huaisang
When: Nov 2nd
Where: Community hall
Content Warnings: usual cw for alcoholism
His supplies are running low. There's only so much you can scavenge in a place like this, but when you chain smoke like a chimney and drink like a fish eventually what you can scrounge up is going to disappear. He's got a little left, sure, courtesy of a gas station raid and the basement Huaisang's got, but supplies aren't infinite.
It gets him thinking. Makes him antsy. March enters the community hall like he usually does, a frequent visitor like most of the small little community they've all managed to put together, but he's never really done much. Drank some coffee, chatted. It's hard to tell if he even realizes he's the village idiot.
Today, though, he's set up in a little corner and is making sure his gun is cleaned along with sipping his morning caffeinated sludge. He's less animated than usual, less talkative, simply staring into space as his hands go through the motions. If not interrupted, he'll eventually speak.
"We're really fucked here, huh? Completely." Holland knows he should curve the negativity, but it's starting to get to him more than he'd like admit. He's been adamant they're all probably going to die within the month since day one but there's less of a joking tone towards it this time.
He wants to help sure. Pitch in, even. Mostly he's just worried about how tiny his booze stash is getting.
After coffee there's a far less depressing revelation, said just as solemnly.
"...Should I hunt?"
"We gotta do something."
March doesn't bother to announce himself when he opens the door to Huaisang's place, spending far more time there than he probably should. His scarf is taken off, the hat is dumped unceremoniously onto the floor.
"Hey. Huaisang? Huaisang, we gotta do something. You know what I did today? Math. You know what that math was for?"
He's already flopping onto the nearest available surface, aviators still on.
What: March spends some time contemplating, talks distilling with Huaisang
When: Nov 2nd
Where: Community hall
Content Warnings: usual cw for alcoholism
i. Weapons cleaning + contemplation;
His supplies are running low. There's only so much you can scavenge in a place like this, but when you chain smoke like a chimney and drink like a fish eventually what you can scrounge up is going to disappear. He's got a little left, sure, courtesy of a gas station raid and the basement Huaisang's got, but supplies aren't infinite.
It gets him thinking. Makes him antsy. March enters the community hall like he usually does, a frequent visitor like most of the small little community they've all managed to put together, but he's never really done much. Drank some coffee, chatted. It's hard to tell if he even realizes he's the village idiot.
Today, though, he's set up in a little corner and is making sure his gun is cleaned along with sipping his morning caffeinated sludge. He's less animated than usual, less talkative, simply staring into space as his hands go through the motions. If not interrupted, he'll eventually speak.
"We're really fucked here, huh? Completely." Holland knows he should curve the negativity, but it's starting to get to him more than he'd like admit. He's been adamant they're all probably going to die within the month since day one but there's less of a joking tone towards it this time.
He wants to help sure. Pitch in, even. Mostly he's just worried about how tiny his booze stash is getting.
After coffee there's a far less depressing revelation, said just as solemnly.
"...Should I hunt?"
ii. Huaisang;
"We gotta do something."
March doesn't bother to announce himself when he opens the door to Huaisang's place, spending far more time there than he probably should. His scarf is taken off, the hat is dumped unceremoniously onto the floor.
"Hey. Huaisang? Huaisang, we gotta do something. You know what I did today? Math. You know what that math was for?"
He's already flopping onto the nearest available surface, aviators still on.
no subject
"...I do," comes the quiet reply after a moment or two. His heart feels an odd ache; in the end, hope had done little to save him, or any of the men he cared about. The men he was responsible for.
....But holding onto that hope meant that along the way, he did not become like Mr. Hickey, or the mutineers, or the men who had become worse than animals, turning on one another. Doing horrible things, atrocious things. He had stayed Edward Little. Surely that mattered... didn't it? It had to matter. And it had kept him going through the horrors of it all. Perhaps it can help others in this place to keep going, as well.
"Before my arrival in this place, I was in a situation not dissimilar to this. The ship I was serving became trapped in the ice, for some... years. We became low on provisions, supplies." He pauses for a moment before continuing. "Men became.... frightened, angry, and desperate.
...I understand why it is easy to fall to those things, but... there are people in this place relying on us. If we can help ourselves not to fall to despair, then we can help them. We can do good here."
Now he's echoing Goodsir's words to himself, words that helped Edward immensely when he was feeling his own despair so strongly.
no subject
But there's a sincerity to Little's words, an earnestness that's hard to fake. If the whole scphiel about his crew turning on him is true--and why would it be fake?--then the guy's gone through a lot and still has the balls to be hopeful.
March tries to bury down the ugly feeling of jealousy by reaching up and scratching at his facial hair, as if the touch can somehow jostle him out of it. It's fucked up to be envious of someone who from the sounds of it went through hell on earth, but the guy's got gumption. Moxie, even.
"You're crazy," March says bluntly. He means it, shaking his head, and then speaks again.
"I think we kinda need that sort of crazy here, though."
no subject
And being called "mad" can be meant teasingly. Perhaps that's... how March means it...? Little isn't one for teasing, joking around (what the modern folks might affectionally call 'a stick in the mud'), but even he understands that concept, at least.
So he's awkwardly pausing for just a moment, gathering his thoughts before he offers a little smile.
"I'd like to do what I can, for the people here. And you can, as well — already, you're teaching me some new things, after all."
Words like boogie and icky... the meaning of which he'll look forward to, in the coming days... but he recalls that listless look to the other man, clearly bothered before.
"...But if anything in particular about our circumstances is troubling you, you may always have my ear."