Thomas Jopson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lieutenantsteward) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
singillatim2023-11-02 08:20 pm
lieutenantsteward) wrote in singillatim2023-11-02 08:20 pm
There's a certain Slant of light
Who: Jopson and OTA
What: Just being a sad scurvyed, lead poisoned cold boy
When: Arrival and after
Where: Outside of town, then around! Never too far from center.
Content Warnings: illness and disease, talk of death, more TBD
Jopson pushes himself up from the snow, a feat that already has him worried. If this is indeed heaven, then God's picked a poor place. If this is hell, well, Jopson almost yeans for the warmth of hellfire. He tucks his forelock behind his ear, touching the hair that’s gotten far too long, taking stock of himself. Shoes. Trousers. Feet that aren’t frozen yet. Fingers that work and only hurt when they move. A coat -
- he’d been wearing this coat when he was promoted. When things didn’t seem so bleak. This rifle, pointed right at Hickey. And the kit in an inside pocket?
The devil has a terrible sense of humor.
So.
He walks.
Only when the woods clear does he see the town in the evidence of small fires and smoke that billows up in around dilapidated buildings. His feet give out long before the first house is within reach, but he uses the rifle to keep himself up.
He calls out with the last bit of strength remaining in his skeleton where each bone strikes the other.
He can walk. It’s a miracle in itself, considering the last memories he has before coming here are of dragging himself across frozen rocks and ice and everything falling apart around him. It's the feast in the hall, it's the clatter of plates and cups and silverware. It's the feeling, the unending, yearning maw of guilt and horror and grief and loss all over again. It weighs on him, even here.
He takes several breaks as he tries to map out the place. He should be resting, he knows he should be, but it feels good to be upright, to have a view that isn’t the inside of the tent.
He leans against the walls of homes, of stores, and catches his breath in the sunshine. As it starts to get dark, he’ll return from where he came - a structure of four walls that had once been someone’s home.
Of course, once Jopson’s mostly back on his feet, the first thing he needs to do is make himself presentable. There’s no reason to be sloppy. Not here. Not when he can move about, when everything doesn’t seem bleak.
There’s a house he’s found but is loath to claim as his own. It feels wrong, somehow. But still, that’s where his belongings, meager as they are, rest. That’s where his fire sits. That’s where he boils his water. And that’s where the filthy mirror is.
After cleaning it, he walks outside of his house, scissors in his hand, catching what light he can while he can. The beard is more difficult, considering the quality of knives he’s seen around, but he can at least trim his hair. The back is more difficult and he tries to turn a bit to do it himself, but it’s proving quite ineffective.
It also doesn’t help that he’s still recovering. Shaky hands and coughing fits do not a clean trim make.
What: Just being a sad scurvyed, lead poisoned cold boy
When: Arrival and after
Where: Outside of town, then around! Never too far from center.
Content Warnings: illness and disease, talk of death, more TBD
[I. Arrival - Closed to Crozier]
Jopson pushes himself up from the snow, a feat that already has him worried. If this is indeed heaven, then God's picked a poor place. If this is hell, well, Jopson almost yeans for the warmth of hellfire. He tucks his forelock behind his ear, touching the hair that’s gotten far too long, taking stock of himself. Shoes. Trousers. Feet that aren’t frozen yet. Fingers that work and only hurt when they move. A coat -
- he’d been wearing this coat when he was promoted. When things didn’t seem so bleak. This rifle, pointed right at Hickey. And the kit in an inside pocket?
The devil has a terrible sense of humor.
So.
He walks.
Only when the woods clear does he see the town in the evidence of small fires and smoke that billows up in around dilapidated buildings. His feet give out long before the first house is within reach, but he uses the rifle to keep himself up.
He calls out with the last bit of strength remaining in his skeleton where each bone strikes the other.
[II. Should You Really Be Outside? - OTA]
He can walk. It’s a miracle in itself, considering the last memories he has before coming here are of dragging himself across frozen rocks and ice and everything falling apart around him. It's the feast in the hall, it's the clatter of plates and cups and silverware. It's the feeling, the unending, yearning maw of guilt and horror and grief and loss all over again. It weighs on him, even here.
He takes several breaks as he tries to map out the place. He should be resting, he knows he should be, but it feels good to be upright, to have a view that isn’t the inside of the tent.
He leans against the walls of homes, of stores, and catches his breath in the sunshine. As it starts to get dark, he’ll return from where he came - a structure of four walls that had once been someone’s home.
[III. This is a Good Idea - OTA]
Of course, once Jopson’s mostly back on his feet, the first thing he needs to do is make himself presentable. There’s no reason to be sloppy. Not here. Not when he can move about, when everything doesn’t seem bleak.
There’s a house he’s found but is loath to claim as his own. It feels wrong, somehow. But still, that’s where his belongings, meager as they are, rest. That’s where his fire sits. That’s where he boils his water. And that’s where the filthy mirror is.
After cleaning it, he walks outside of his house, scissors in his hand, catching what light he can while he can. The beard is more difficult, considering the quality of knives he’s seen around, but he can at least trim his hair. The back is more difficult and he tries to turn a bit to do it himself, but it’s proving quite ineffective.
It also doesn’t help that he’s still recovering. Shaky hands and coughing fits do not a clean trim make.
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"It is a start," Goodsir says with a small smile. "I don't doubt you need supplies—provisions—let me help you. I have some idea of where to find what you might need."
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Goodsir takes him around to the empty stores and other buildings where food, fuel, and other necessities are available, and once they have enough to start with, he walks with Jopson back to the man's dwelling.
For the time being, he restricts the conversation to the most mundane things—the day-to-day of life in Milton, who is who, and so on. The harder things—the presence of Hickey and Little, the question of what happened when Fate led them on their separate paths—that can wait until they're comfortably seated somewhere.
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The small home he's sleeping it has been halfway cleared of anything resembling personal effects of the previous owners. Taking breaks throughout, Jopson's turned it into somewhat of a functional and minimal dwelling. But there's a dying fire in the fireplace and a few blankets on the bed and that had been enough to survive the first few hours.
"I've seen Captain Crozier," he remarks feebly, his feet taking him to one of the comfortable chairs and lowering himself into it to rest. He can and will help Goodsir in a moment, but this will do.
For now.
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Goodsir sets down the provisions on the nearest flat surface and goes to poke at the coals, adding some more wood to the fire.
The comment about Crozier gives him pause.
"As have I," he says after a moment.
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It isn't a question; more of a declaration of the obvious.
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"It has been nothing but surprises," Goodsir says, with a touch of dry humour. "He turned up on my doorstep and I thought he was having an apoplexy."
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Goodsir can't help but laugh softly at that.
"I have been living with the unexpected since I woke up on the outskirts of this town, two months ago now," he says. "I don't mind admitting that some surprises are more welcome than others. Have you—have you encountered the others from our expedition?"
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"Yes. Lieutenant Little."
And that's all he says for now, choosing instead to fiddle with the corner of a blanket.
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The shortness of the reply doesn't escape Goodsir's notice. And he puts that together with what Little told him, about the vote, about the sick men being left ...
Oh. Oh no.
"He told me that ... that the sick were left behind," he says quietly.
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We.
He raises his chin slightly. "I watched them leave."
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Goodsir shakes his head, appalled.
"That was ill done," he says softly. "I am so sorry to hear that. I know that means little, but ... it should not have been thus."
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"It is strange, being here," Goodsir says after a short silence. "After one has ... resigned oneself to one's fate, as it were. It took me a little while to decide what to do with it."
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Jopson doesn't ask, but he understands it. He doesn't know if he needs an explanation for it.
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He still can't say it. He can't explain why he feels that Jopson might ... understand, somehow, but that doesn't make it any easier.
"Mr. Hickey's talk of survival was no proof against scurvy or starvation."
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He looks up. "Has he been a bother to you?"
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"Insinuating and irritating, but no great bother," Goodsir says. "Not yet, at any rate. But I have my eye on him—it is only a matter of time, I expect, before he finds some trouble to stir."
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Goodsir nods. "Between the two of us, at the very least, I think we may prevent him from doing worse."
He pauses, realising that Jopson can't know what happened in the mutineers' camp. As difficult as it is to say, he's got to tell him.
"But we must be careful, for I've seen what he will do to survive. He murdered Billy Gibson before my eyes, Jopson. When he saw that Gibson would be more use dead than alive."
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"As did I." Goodsir scrubs his hands over his face and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, as if to do so would wipe away the memory of Billy Gibson's dying eyes.
"I was ... I was unkind. I told poor Gibson that he was dying, and when Hickey enquired further, said it was unlikely he would be able to haul any further. Hickey went out, returned with his knife, and ..."
He shakes his head. "There was nothing I could do." His voice cracks, a note of guilt.
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"There was nothing you could do. You had every right to be unkind, even then, even to a dying man. We were all dying."
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