Fic: Awaiting The Ferryman (Ripper Street, Hobbs/Jackson)
Title: Awaiting The Ferryman
Fandom: Ripper Street
Characters: Dick Hobbs/Homer Jackson, Susan Hart
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Spoilers: Set after the episode 'A Man Of My Company'
Summary: In which death is only temporary and Hobbs visits Jackson during the Captain's time locked away in a police cell.
Author Notes: First part of the To Live Is To Drown 'verse. Inspired by eudaimon's wonderful Hobbs/Jackson fic. Thanks for reading this through and for inspiring me <3
The ring burned hot in Hobbs' pocket. He swallowed and wet his dry lips. He had a mission and he couldn't falter now, not after everything. He slipped down stairs he knew so well, shoulders hunched and face hidden. The people that needed to know knew of his presence, everyone else had to be held in the dark. Thankfully, the men who knew had kept their promises - he easily gained access to the cells, all empty excepting one.
Captain Homer Jackson, who wasn't Jackson but was, slouched in a corner, his hat still improbably on his head. Hobbs' heart squirmed familiarly and he gazed for a precious few seconds, drinking in a sight he'd been sure he'd never see again. He'd heard rumours about Captain Jackson ever since the American had begun working for Inspector Reid, but now some had truth to their bones. It was the ones without truth however that had proved the most dangerous.
Hobbs’ hand went to his pocket, to where the ring rested. He remembered Miss Hart’s face when he’d turned up on her doorstep, wet through and worse for wear and terribly embarrassed about it. She’d taken one look at him and had hurried him away from her girls and their customers. He’d only blushed a little, or so she’d said.
She’d held his face tight between her hands, so tight it’d been painful, and her expression had been as intense as any Inspector Reid had worn when facing a criminal.
“He killed a man for you.” Hobbs had flinched and squirmed but Miss Hart had held him fast, her eyes never leaving his, seeing everything. “Prove your worth.”
She’d dressed him in clothes only slightly too large, Hobbs had blushed to think of why she might have had a closet filled with men’s clothing including undergarments, and had sent him on his way, her eyes saying more than any words from her pinked mouth could have. He’d been learning how to read Miss Hart ever since Captain Jackson had made mention of how she spoke more in the silences than through any words.
Captain Jackson shifted in his cramped position, maybe trying to prevent his limbs from stiffening. Sound from above stairs burst through and Hobbs quickly moved forward before time was snatched away from them again. He wasn’t sure at all of his welcome, nerves making his fingers clench tightly.
At the footfalls, Jackson looked up and paled considerably, as though he’d laid eyes on a ghost. Oh. Hobbs tried for a smile.
“You’re mighty spritely for a dead man,” Jackson told him, his voice normal even as his face told of his astonishment and disbelief.
“I thought I was dead for a while,” Hobbs confessed, walking as close to the bars as he dared. “But I…I coughed away the cloth he pushed on me and he could not get to me again since navvies raised the alarm at our spectacle. I…fell into the water, leaving my jacket behind. Inspector Reid thought me drowned for a time.”
The Captain managed a nod and then shook his head, as though shaking away a thought. “This place plays with the mind. I’ve seen spectres before in such circumstances.”
Hobb’s expression twisted and he ventured closer, hating the look on Captain Jackson’s face, the mask and the bars. How many faces did the Captain have? He hadn’t dared ask Miss Hart, but Inspector Reid had once ventured that it was likely many in order to successfully avoid the law.
“Would you conjure me in civvies from Miss Hart’s room?” he tried, desperate amusement too much in his tone. “I thought…I thought you liked me Blue?”
Jackson looked at him, drinking Hobbs in with his eyes alone. He and Miss Hart were very alike, Hobbs had noted so more than once before. Now he swallowed, his heart pounding hard and so loud that he feared someone upstairs would hear it. Jackson finally took a step or two forward.
“A visit from a dead man, even one so recently revived, is not a favoured sign,” he said, hands wrapping loosely round the bars.
Hobbs shook his head, relieved beyond belief (and propriety, but propriety had receded as a high concern in a way that would greatly alarm his sister, should she ever hear about it). He dared to step closer to the cell, aware more than ever of the Captain’s warmth in this cold drafty place. Jackson’s eyes still hadn’t left him, it made Hobbs feel warmer still, consumed by the feeling and embarrassed for it all at once.
“The story of my death is circulating at Inspector Reid's command,” he revealed in a rush. “He thinks I may be of use out of uniform until the end of this case has tallied.”
Captain Jackson nodded slowly, his gaze flickering up and down Hobbs. Hobbs licked his lips, trying hard to keep his thoughts from getting crooked - he still had more to say - and plunged a hand into his pocket. He pressed the ring to Jackson’s hand. Jackson's eyebrows arched in total surprise.
“The Inspector is of a mind that you need this, no matter the outcome,” Hobbs explained.
He didn't add that he'd asked for such a duty, even though it had brought him to a place he should be avoiding at all costs. And Inspector Reid had somehow allowed it, with a look like he’d wanted to say something but the chance was denied him because Sergeant Drake had called urgently for his attention. Jackson silently stared at the ring - the ring of Matthew Judge, a name that Hobbs simply couldn’t associate with the man who’d run chipped callused hands over him and had teased him in all manner of scandalous ways, both inside and outside the station. When Jackson slid the ring home onto his finger though, Hobbs nodded - even if the name didn’t fit anymore, the ring did.
Jackson abruptly cut off that thought by grabbing a hold of Hobb’s too-loose shirtfront and pulling him flush against the bars. Hobbs could feel the cold iron through his borrowed clothing, an oddly pleasing contrast to the burning kiss the Captain was currently pressing to his mouth. Hobbs let out a whimper; he was pinned in place but had no wish for freedom. Jackson sank teeth into Hobbs' bottom lip before licking at the pain like a drowning man; Hobbs vividly recognised the sentiment. His fingers spasmed and reached for Jackson.
When Jackson forced them both to take air, Hobbs found his breath barely returned. Jackson kept a firm hold of him, warm and close and his eyes holding a look that made Hobbs' skin feel alight with so many things. His fingers clenched around Jackson's arm and he tried to tally the Captain, to take in every detail, because Inspector Reid had said there was a possibility that Jackson wouldn't be absolved. A possibility. The very thought stole what tortured breath Hobbs’d managed to gather, a pain too raw to put into clumsy words blooming under his worn and wanting flesh and bones.
Jackson's thumb brushed at Hobbs' mouth, then his jaw, with a casual almost-affection that did distractingly peculiar things to Hobbs. “You stay away from the ferryman, Hobbs, lest I escape the noose.”
Hobbs opened his mouth, to say what he wasn't sure, when the noise upstairs announced Chief Inspector Abberline's presence. Hobbs started and unhappily began untangling himself from Jackson, who kept his eyes dead on Hobbs. Hobbs stared back a moment, still trying to drink more in, and daringly, because all was so uncertain, brushed fingers against the ring on Jackson's hand. He hoped his meaning was clear, for there was no more time granted to them.
Hobbs lifted his collar and scurried away, reaching a dark corner before any Blues who shouldn't see him caught sight of a dead man's face. He had the permission of Miss Hart to use Jackson's room as he wished and a few hours left to glean what he could from the streets, with the hope that he'd have no need of copper for his eyelids or for another visit by the Inspector to his mother.
He dared not look back as he hurriedly climbed the stairs, acting for all the world like a messenger boy. His lips burned with remembrance though; it was something to keep parts of him warm in the grim days ahead. Inspector Reid had claimed they would be grim, his eyes speaking of personal experience. Hobbs hadn't asked questions, he was learning more every day without them.
-the end