singillatim | prelude

prelude

January 1st 2015

Do you remember yesterday? What is tomorrow?
How will you face this quiet apocalypse?
— Raphael van Lierop.

As the old year falls and the new year begins, the skies fill with light. An Aurora comes on the last day of December, and with it the usual signs of it: the ethereal noise, the cracks and pops in the air, the stuttering of electrics as they struggle to power on and then blare and flicker. It is, as Interlopers have come to know, business as usual — in terms of the Auroras within this world. However, something a little different happens this time.

Interlopers will fall asleep all over the town of Milton. Even the ones who fight sleep and try to stay up into the small hours of the night will find themselves drifting off for a short while — as if their eyes just feel too heavy to keep open, and their minds slip into a deep kind of quiet darkness without their realising. And at first, there is nothing — nothing but the quiet dark. Something peaceful, almost.

A dream comes.

The first thing you notice is blood in your mouth, the cold in your bones, the deafening din in your ears — as if you are caught in static and the sound of howling winds through pine trees. You are afraid. At first, you do not know why. You find yourself on your knees in the snow. The skies are filled with green light, the air is thick with smoke. And then the realisation comes:

This is the ending of all things.

You look up, to the sight before you: a huge, shapeless shadow. Towering above you, over you. A head peers down at you: a cluster of three wolf skulls, eye-sockets glowing green and terrible, and their three open maws, dripping with more green. The sound it makes is unnatural, you cannot put it into words. The darkness draws in, you are so cold, so tired.

This is the ending of all things.

It is so hungry. You are so tired. The world falls away, you cannot see the stars, the dark hiding them from view. Were they even there to begin with? Or did they go out? You have forgotten. And you know, you know—

This is the ending of all things.

The skies glimmer, licks of strange, colourful wisps curl above — a voice screams out your name, from the static and winds. Through the noise. A woman’s voice. You have heard this voice before, in the lights and noise. Do you see? What could be? What you could become?

Can you hold on? Please. A hand grips your shoulder, but as you turn — the dream ends.

For some, they snap into waking with a shout or cry. Some will shudder awake to find tears in their eyes. All over Milton, the Interlopers wake: shaken, unsure, afraid. They will awaken to the dark: the Aurora is gone — slowly fading from the night skies into an otherwise calm and clear night.

It is a new year.

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Crozier looks as though he's seen a ghost, because the truth of the matter is that's all William Gibson's been to him up until this moment. Just another ghost of a man he's let down, haunting King William Island while his remains (or what exist of his remains) bleach in the sun. He's visibly startled by the sight of this man, more a reminder of just how much he'd failed them all.

"Mr. Gibson?" he whispers. "Mr. Gibson, is that you?"

Of all potential reactions he expected, this apparently wasn't one of them. The other's whisper of his name just seems to make Billy look more uncertain in turn. Mostly because the reaction doesn't seem like Crozier, and yet it clearly is him after all, considering he knows who Billy is.

"--Yes," he manages after he gathers himself again, a moment later. No use giving any other answer, when the denial would be too obvious. His gaze nervously flitters away for a moment, but then returns to the other man, still looking unsure. He does add, however: "I arrived here only a little while ago."

There should very well be a pang of betrayal, shouldn't there? Here's another mutineer, someone who aligned himself with Mr. Hickey and stole away countless innocents, alive again and standing before him when so many were still dead and gone. But the anger barely even registers when he sees him, tall and gaunt and utterly tragic through and through.

He wonders if he knows his end.

"Have you found the others?" he asks quietly, a little more sharply than his initial response.

There's a nod at that question.

It's a little tempting to leave it at that - for various reasons. He's never been the most talkative person around with most people, especially not his superiors, and it's not like he wants to go head first into a discussion about certain things, especially when that sharpness sneaking into Crozier's tone implies a lot.

But Billy knows it's inevitable. They're all stuck in a tiny town. It's going to happen sooner or later. The wake of an awful dream might not be the best time for it, but sometimes you have to rip off the band-aid, right?

"I assume you mean to ask if I have met Mr. Hickey here, sir," he therefore adds, not looking the other man fully in the eyes, but still being honest. "I have."

It is his meaning, but the answer's not good enough. The answer doesn't tell him if he needs to be wary or sympathetic to Billy Gibson, and he continues to stare as though hoping to be able to see right through him.

"What's your last memory, Mr. Gibson?"

He absolutely does not like that gaze. There are way too many things Billy keeps close to his chest on a regular basis to enjoy being looked at like someone is seeing everything about him all at once, or attempting to do so. It reminds him a little too much of Irving down in the orlop, and he feels his heart beating faster with the adrenaline of panic.

It's part of why he doesn't answer immediately, instead taking a second. The other part is the answer itself, considering he doesn't very much like thinking about it, let alone speaking on it.

But the answer does come.

"Dying," he simply answers, managing to actually look at the other man this time around. The look in his eyes is honest, if not with a side of something a little fussy. The next words come without pause, this time. "Mr. Hickey put a knife in my back. Everything faded. Then I found myself here."

There. It's not lying if he's just only admitting to the parts he can share with Crozier, right. It's not even like he's hiding anything about the mutiny as much as he's hiding a much more personal matter, anyway.

That's three of them now. Jopson, Goodsir, and now Gibson who've come through the Aurora to this place at the moment of their deaths.

Gibson is dead. Consumed.

Goodsir's own words, he remembers the soft stab to the gut when he heard it, unsurprising considering how hard they'd fought him for poor Tom Hartnell's body but still horrifying nevertheless. But does Gibson himself know?

Crozier averts his gaze.

"You'd choose him again, Mr. Gibson?"

Edited 2024-01-16 03:01 (UTC)

There's a brief moment where he can't help but wonder if the other man is reading him for filth by asking that sort of thing right after Billy just said Hickey put a knife in his back - considering that's exactly what he did. Choosing Cornelius again, despite it all. An inevitability at this point, like the tides.

But he quickly realises that's not it. Of course it isn't. It's just like he told Hickey in the first place - the captain doesn't see you at all. Billy knows that he, too, is not important enough to be seen either. Crozier has no idea.

"If you would allow my candor, captain," he starts, "I do not think there is much to choose here in the first place. We are no longer on an expedition. What sort of mutiny do you imagine Mr. Hickey could possibly lead in a place like this?"

"Candor's welcomed when there's no rank involved," he reminds him. "There's no longer an expedition, there's no longer a ship. No rank and file, no Admiralty."

He's not a captain. He's nothing here, a man with a snow knife and a broken body.

Crozier sucks in his breath sharply and takes a step closer to Gibson, staring up into his gaunt face.

"It isn't the mutiny, Mr. Gibson, although I worry about his intentions. No. He stuck a knife into your back, you said it yourself. Was it an act of mercy, or one of cruelty?"

He thinks of his last moments with Fitzjames, the begging and soft pleading, the quiet prayer as he waited for his second to take his last breath.

The topic inches just a little too close to everything he doesn't want to talk about. Billy would honestly admit to every detail of the mutiny, every part he's had in it, owning up to it all - but this? It feels impossible to answer the other man's question without mentioning or even just implying the thing that exists between him and Cornelius. It is impossible to admit it without thinking about the one event Billy has been trying his hardest to shove out of his mind ever since he arrived here.

It feels a little like watching Irving's face in the orlop way back, making his heart knock around inside of his ribcage with panic, not helped by this night's dream still looming over him. It's a small miracle he doesn't instinctively fall a step back when Crozier steps closer. Especially when all he wants to do is run far away from this situation.

"Both," he answers. Honesty takes the reigns in regards to the direct answer to that question, perhaps because of the panic, perhaps due to the lack of any suitable lie here.

Even if it's harder to explain the reason behind his answer, trapped between everything he doesn't want to say.

".. I am sure it may sound ridiculous, but every man has his reasons for making his choices."

It only sounds ridiculous when Crozier thinks back on those last hours in the mutineers' camp, the way Hickey decided who would live or die as though that covenant with the tuunbaq hadn't just been all in his head. But Gibson's reasons for returning to Hickey's side are his own, and his judgement - harsh as it initially seemed - is tinged with sympathy.

"We hold onto what we know," he says quietly. Even if it may be to their detriment in the end. In a place so hostile and foreign a person clings to what's comfortable, which he absolutely sees Billy Gibson doing now despite the fact that his leader ate him.

"I given up command, Mr. Gibson. Without the Admiralty's hand guiding us, without a ship or crew, I lack the authority to be anyone's captain. You owe nothing to me."

Even if he still believes, deep down, that he owes so much to them.

His gaze snaps over to the other man the moment he hears that first part of what he says, something slightly nervous in his eyes.

It's the closest anyone has gotten to reading Billy here on this particular topic. It's surprising and nerve-inducing all at once, even if it's also a convenient excuse to hide behind. Yes, it's just because it's familiar (though it is familiar, too) and nothing more than that. Clearly. If the way Crozier seems to see through him remains at that level, it's fine, he tells himself, even though it's getting dangerously close. The ring he's still wearing burns against his skin underneath his clothes.

Billy frowns, though. Maybe his mind is desperate to leave the particular topic of Hickey behind before anything unfortunate slips out, but there is another thought entering his mind at the rest of what Crozier says.

".. You've changed."

Not that Billy necessarily thinks the other would cling to the title of captain, so far away from home. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't. It's more that the last time he saw Crozier, it was at the gallows. It was during the speech the other gave, more passionate than he had seen the captain in a long time. The same speech where he warned people away from Hickey.

There seems none of that left in the other right now. Billy may not have had Jopson's proximity to the other man, but he can read the signs well enough to tell.

"What happened?"

Maybe that question is a little more forward than the usual for him, but Crozier said it himself, right? There's no authority. No ranks now.

Just because he's not his captain doesn't mean he's willing to give up his secrets so easily. Gibson is not like Little, who continues to hope for the best and lives without knowing how he perished, and who carries more of his affection than the steward. But he doesn't want him to suffer; he isn't cruel.

Not anymore at any rate.

"Haven't you changed?" he replies simply. Gibson died after all. "You wouldn't expect us to stay the same, would you?"

He may not necessarily have expected Crozier to give him a straightforward answer, but apparently Billy didn't expect this specific one either. He blinks once, then twice, visible surprise passing through his gaze as he does so.

"I feel I am the same as I've always been. The others don't seem necessarily changed either." Sure, everyone seems to be doing worse than before, but.. that's kind of a given, considering what they all went through. But he wouldn't count that as different. Not in the same way as Crozier.

The answer was a little quick because of the surprise, honesty slipping out before he has a time to turn it over in his mind, decide on how he feels about being honest about that one. Maybe it's why he pauses for a second after it, this time picking his words a little more carefully.

".. Lieutenant Little especially seems unchanged." A bit more of waffling, unsure of what to share and not share, especially when that field has grown even more complicated in the face of a lack of ranks here. But-- "Concerningly so."

The others have certainly changed, though perhaps not in passing. Harry Goodsir has a glint of ferocity behind his eyes now, a hidden streak of cruelty, and Thomas Jopson is certainly more generous and devoted to the community in a way that spoke to his quick turn as lieutenant. Edward Little -- Little's desperation is clear, his guilt, his complete lack of confidence. It's heavier now, harder for him to shake.

And Hickey is just unhinged, but if he spares any more consideration for that man's moral character he's going to find himself trying to stab him in the night.

"Much happened after you fled from Terror Camp, Mr. Gibson. Lieutenant Little was one of the few officers still standing in the end, and he continues to carry that burden."

What burdens did William Gibson carry, if any? Did he lose sleep over the men he helped destroy, the man he helped enable?

"Look closer at them all. Look closer. The change is there."

For a moment he doesn't answer. He doesn't do anything to indicate he thinks Crozier is right, but he doesn't speak up to refute the other's opinion either. Billy is just silent - even his expression is hard to read in any specific way. Maybe he's thinking about it all.

Then he does slowly speak.

"They want you to be the one to look closer at them, not me."

It's still a little strange, speaking so candidly. He's plenty used to it, sure, but-- in his own mind, never out loud. He has to resist the instinct to add disclaimers, to swallow any with all due respects that he usually retreats behind. Though there's no harshness to the statement now, even in its directness. It sounds more like an observation, an assessment.

"Men like me go unseen." A pause, and then added: "Understand I don't mean this as a justification of my actions." He knows what he did was bad for others, after all. It's why he didn't blame Goodsir for his harshness in the face of his near-dead state. This wasn't even the reason for his contribution to the mutiny. It had just been survival.

Instead he's trying to explain something else entirely with those words, however indirectly. Something more related to the questions the other man asked earlier. "I only mean to say that this is why we hold onto what we know."

Truly, William Gibson's time as a steward as served him well. If he's thinking anything at all, any sort of disagreement or argument, there's no sign of it in his expressions. He's neutral, careful. He has to be, even now.

He knows that his men are desperate for him to see them. They can't quite let go of his importance, the way the chain of command made his voice the loudest, even if he's completely impotent in this place. One day they'll understand that, and perhaps then they'll let go of that unearned respect they've given him.

Crozier will relent to argument, because it's a good point, and a fair one at that. He nods gently and steps back, returning the young man a bit more of his space. "It's a matter of survival, in all ways." We hold on to who others know us to be because it's safe, we hold onto traditions because they bring us comfort.

He's given up both those things. It must drive them all mad.

".. in all ways," he repeats, as if in agreement.

(He knows that Crozier isn't thinking of the same way as Billy himself is. The other still doesn't know. No one knows. At least that's one matter he doesn't have to worry about right now, not as long as none of the men showing up are Irving.)

It might not show, but he is a little more at ease now - mostly at having his space back again, but also now he's feeling a little less like he might be getting grilled. Instead he thinks about the other saying those words. Survival in all ways, yet Crozier doesn't sound like he's trying to survive at all. There seems to be nothing passionate about it about him. It's as if the survival doesn't matter anymore at all.

Billy is smart enough to not remark on it further, but he does file away the thought. Just in case. Hopefully it makes Crozier less of a potential problem here, at least. Unless Hickey doesn't know to leave well enough alone. (Knowing him, he definitely won't.)

He almost turns to walk away, but then he realises there's maybe one thing he should say here.

"You won't have to expect trouble from me here. I am not telling you this as a captain." Crozier made the whole 'no ranks' and 'you don't owe me anything' part pretty clear, and Billy sure is no Edward Little who doesn't know how to survive without dropping it. "Just as someone who is looking to survive, Mr. Crozier." And survival sure is made harder when stuff from back home ends up being dragged on in this place too.

He didn't anticipate trouble from William Gibson the first time around, and his associations with Cornelius Hickey had been proved more dangerous to Gibson himself in the end. If he continues his dalliances despite the danger it may pose to him then that's a matter for him and him alone.

"I wish you peace then," he says quietly, giving him one last poignant nod. "Success in survival, and peace."

Peace. It's all he can stand now.

That's a fair enough answer to him. It's all he wants for himself as well - even if he's actively making it harder on himself by opting to stick with Hickey.

But he's glad enough to get away from this encounter, especially when interacting with anyone else from the ships makes him feel so actively antsy. So Billy, too, just gives Crozier a last nod before he turns and walks away.

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prelude

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cw: talk of death & stabbing

cw: murder and cannibalism

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I AM SO SORRY, I thought I replied to this!!

oh gosh it's okay, i just thought you were busy!! thank you for getting back to it <3

<3!!

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