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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"Pack of wolves were around not long ago. Some kind of siren temptress on the lake before that." One of those sounded a lot more plausible than the other but Rorschach had learned there was a lot more threats than just the ones nature could throw at him here. He would have thought them impossible had there not been the existence of a man who could literally warp reality back in his own world.
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"Around? How close?"
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He didn't believe they were completely gone for a second. They'd be back, he was certain of it, when hunger and desperation made them come back to hunt the people for food.
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"Were you able to skin them?" he wonders.
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Thomas isn't entirely certain of his skills, but he knows now how the people are. The ones Crozier has been living with.
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Rorschach didn't know the name, but to be fair, he'd only learned the names of like three people in the entire town. It was apathy or disinterest that made him make such a deliberate choice. Names meant getting familiar with people. Familiarity meant either caring too much about people or feeling contempt for them once they proved themselves to be awful.
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How else to describe Captain Crozier in a way that would make him stand out? He's a formidable force. He's everything in the world to Jopson.
He says none of that.
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A few moments after Thomas gave the details of his captain, Rorschach looked out at the horizon once more before he started to climb down the tree. His movements were swift and steady, the kind made by someone who was used to doing a lot of athletic movement on a daily basis. He soon reached the bottom.
Back on the ground, it was more apparent that Rorschach, for all his intimidating presence, was quite short. He was only 5'5", though every inch of that filled with rage and determination. He came a little closer to Thomas with the same sort of body language a feral cat might have had around someone they did not know: wary and ready to bite.
He continued on with the conversation they'd been having before as if there hadn't been an entire pause when he descended. "Will look him up. Know how to make clothes but never worked with fur before." At least that explained where the strange face he wore came from. He'd made it himself.
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"Then it would be good to work with him. I have mended clothes, made clothes, but I have also never worked with fur. I'm not help to you in that."
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"Got any other skills?" He asked curiously.
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He closes his eyes a moment, gaining his strength. He's certainly going to need to rest after this.
"I was a Captain's steward. I have plenty of domestic skills that seem to be lost to some."
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cw: misogyny
Nevermind he himself knew how to sew. Rorschach could be a complete hypocrite like that, his black and white worldview allowing for little flexibility in his mind. Tasks like cooking and cleaning were effeminate to his point-of-view.
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"Already enough village idiots here. Be useful and you might survive."
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He does offer him a smile on top of that.
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Then he shoved his hands in his pockets. "Careful cutting your hair," he said by way of a parting greeting. Then off he went, silent footsteps despite crunching through the snow in his boots.