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Goodsir loathes him. It's never a question these days. He loathes the man that's forced his hand to desecrate others' bodies, perhaps even hates him for it. For dragging him further and further into the cold, their numbers winnowing down until it is just them.
He loathes the fact that he is here for his hands and his tongue, because Hickey never learned to butcher, and Inuktitut was beneath him. He is a forced guide at what feels like the end of the world, and cannot remember the last time he saw another person until today.
He could leave the man to die, since the Tuunbaq took Hickey's hand off. Could leave him tongueless and hopelessly abandoned. A roughly treated wound and trouble swallowing could kill even the best of men. Hickey has never been the best of men.
But he cannot remember the last face he saw since abandoning the mutineers, and he is as good as a physician nowadays, constantly tending as he is to the other man. First do no harm, and face to face with a Netsilik party he cannot make his treacherous tongue condemn a man to death. Not out here. Not when they've survived this long by the skin of their teeth.
It takes too long for him to remember what he would have known easily months, maybe even a year, ago. "Sick. Help, please. Hunger, sick, please." It's a jumbled mess that would ashame his past self, but there is a sheer bright relief burning in his chest when the leader of the group seems to grasp his intentions.
They are fed, and furs shared with them. When the group settles for the evening, making a snow-house for the night, Goodsir finds himself exactly where he's been for the last few- days, weeks? Pressed against Hickey's side so they both remain warm, an essential need become habit. There is a loathsome relief that comes with resting his hand against the other man's chest, monitoring his heartbeat even now. Making sure illness won't steal away the last thing he has left.
(Goodsir is not a covetous man. He is not Hickey, after all. But he doesn't pull away when Hickey's own hand curls at his side, a reciprocation of need. Man cannot survive alone, and they are both men out of place.)