"Good," Hickey says, with a little nod. It's not good. It never will be, not as long as the rest of Crozier's dogs seem intent on replaying the same battles, going through the same motions.

"So what are you going to do to make sure something like that doesn't happen again? I'm willing to put all our past behind us. They aren't."

"Haven't I been doing that?" he points out, a small, deceptively innocent tone slipping into his voice. "I've been keeping to myself. Helping out with the community, being a model citizen. I'm not the one who spread the word of Goodsir's butchery. And there are plenty of sins in your past that I've been keeping to myself."

Hickey gives Crozier a small shrug before, "Course, I'll be more than happy to drag those up if your men can't leave me alone. I wonder what the people here will think when I tell them you were perfectly willing to abandon your men? They'll certainly look at you and yours differently if I mention the lash."

Hickey shakes his head before pointing out,

"You might not see it. But for me, it's clear as day. You ask Thomas Jopson or Edward Little to jump, they'll respond 'how high.' You ask them to move something, they'll jump to it. You tell them to lay off me and stop the pointless gossip? They won't like it, but they'll do so."

He's absolutely people's keepers. Not Goodsir, the man only had eyes for that girl, their Lady Silence. But Hickey's not an idiot. It's easy enough to spot respect, admiration, longing in a man's eyes. Crozier might dress in furs and live in an igloo, but those men still think of him as the captain. And what the captain says, goes.

"Easy enough to prove me right. Appeal to their reason and tell them to leave me and mine alone."

"Well you didn't do it well enough, did you?" Hickey snaps as he points at the now darkening skin around his eye. That 'leave him alone' sure didn't go over very well, considering he got beaten black and blue, huh Crozier?

Forgive him for being a little muddled, getting your head beat in will do that for you!

"Here's hoping he actually listens."

"In that case, worry more about your own than me," Hickey says, with a little shrug. "Again: I wasn't the one who started a fight. Believe me or not, but I am perfectly fine easing into a peace between us."

Because it would really piss off Jopson and the rest.

"I'm not the one starting shit," he points out, one more time. Hickey gives Crozier a little shrug before,

"Have anything else to say? If not, piss off."