Pitchiner cautiously strode into the Dining Saloon, the silver gun in his hand reloaded and ready to fire. He rushed forward out of the water that was encroaching on the dining space, ducking to his right as a wooden trolley slid along the deck and into the tide. Spotting the exit ahead of him, he ran forwards to check the way out, only to find it barred.
The ship continued to creak unhappily around him, the stress on the structure mounting. He slowly strode towards the main dining area, pausing as a bright spark exploded with a spakzzz, darkening the room as all of the ceiling lights failed. His attention shifted to another trolley that began to roll towards the sinking bow, laden with breakfast china which tinkled as it moved. The heavy object plunged into the water and came to a rest against one of the dining tables.
The delicate sound of moving porcelain and glassware had begun to grow as the scene of chaos in the once formal room continued to build. The heavy chairs were toppling over backwards as the tables themselves became submerged. The Englishman looked back towards the open entrance to the saloon as it sunk further beneath the surface. If he didn't hurry, his way back would soon be blocked.
He spun around suddenly as a third trolley slid straight into him, causing the plates to rattle loudly as it bounced against his leg. He strained to hear any sound other than the cacophony that surrounded him.
Unbeknown to Pitchiner, Hiccup and Jack were positioned only a few feet away from him, crouched behind one of the larger tables. From their hiding place they watched as the Englishman patrolled with the pistol.
The American turned to his lover and pressed a finger to his lips, silently instructing the Scotsman to stay in hiding. As quiet as a mouse, the artist stealthily shifted over to the next table aft, keeping still as soon as their pursuer turned back in their direction.
"I know you're here!" Pitchiner called out, his voice malevolent but confident. "No use prolonging this. It's only a matter of time." he strode over to the port side and surveyed the surroundings. Half of the room was now completely under water, exit via the Grand Staircase was no longer possible.
Knelt behind the table, the water was now level with Hiccup's chest, making him desperately want to move so he could get to higher ground.
An involuntary shiver ran through the young man's body, causing him to jerk forward and bang the chair beside him into the table.
Pitchiner froze and faced toward the source of the sound.
"There you are." he greeted as he approached. "Where's the other degenerate?" he spat.
"Why do you care?" Hiccup asked, exasperated.
"I've invested a lot into Haddock Steel, and I had a lot of plans for you once your father retired from the company. Plans I didn't want to see go to ruin because you'd rather fuck a sodomite from steerage." he levelled the gun at the younger man. "Boys like you... you have no appreciation for hard work. You've had everything handed to you, and you still insist on throwing it all away."
Pitchiner scowled at the younger Haddock. "You could've had it incredibly easy. I was more than happy to step into the role of your advisor once your father handed the reigns over to you, I would've helped you steer Haddock Steel towards greater profits and ventures... But you just had to throw it away for that American." Pitchiner scoffed derisively.
Hiccup remained still, but his face clearly displayed his surprise at the Englishman's admission and the contempt in the man's voice.
"You do realise that with the money you already have... and what you stood to gain once you'd inherited... you could've easily gone into a marriage of convenience with any society girl you happened to meet in New York, and then paid for all the male whores you could've wanted! You would've had more than enough to buy their silence."
"It would've been a lie."
"Being honest is a liability in business." he waved the gun dismissively. "I can see you've made your position in this very clear. Thank you."
"'Thank you'?" the Scotsman echoed.
"For making me a better businessman, and for making this easier. With your... 'friend' in the picture, I never stood a chance to guide you. But if I shoot you-" he returned the gun to Hiccup. "-I can make up whatever story I like."
The Scotsman felt the urge to recoil in horror, but willed himself to stay still. Behind Pitchiner, a further trolley, one laden with silverware silently slid into the water.
"You tragically perish with the ship, and I can assist your grieving father in his period of mourning. If I'm lucky, he or the board might even appoint me as acting head of the company due to all my years of loyal service. None of them need to know that you went to your watery grave with a bullet in your gut, or your head." Pitchiner glanced at the weapon for a moment. "Lovejoy was quite accommodating with lending me his weapon. I'm not very good with it at long distance, but I don't think I'll miss from here."
A blur of motion suddenly launched itself from behind the trolley at the man with the weapon, pushing Pitchiner across the space towards one of the alcove walls. The Englishman's head and upper body slammed through one of glass panels, raining broken shards down with a loud krash! A ninth shot buried itself in the saloon ceiling as Jack pulled Pitchiner away from the wall and onto the top of a small dining table.
A tenth shot fired wildly as the two men rolled over the table, scattering cutlery and plates before they spilled onto the layer of water beneath them.
"Jack!" Hiccup cried as the two men struggled, the gun momentarily discarded. They eventually rose from the water, sodden and with blood streaming down the Englishman's face from a hairline cut. With a quick motion, Pitchiner threw the American back into the water.
"You little shit." he approached, looking down his nose like he was inspecting an inferior creature. The Englishman swung his left fist out to hit Jack, but the artist ducked.
As if perfectly rehearsed, Hiccup's left fist slammed into their adversary's face, stunning him. As the Englishman reeled from the injury, the Scotsman grabbed him and pirouetted Pitchiner, slamming him head first into one of the wooden pillars.
"Aggghhh!" the American took over from his companion, pulling their pursuer away and throwing him against the next pillar along, before slugging him in the gut. Pitchiner doubled over and slumped to the floor, groaning loudly from the pain.
The murderous man left to tend to his wounds, Jack joined Hiccup's side, staring wondrously at his lover for a moment, before he turned his attention to the doors behind them. The American stared them down, and threw his weight at the exit, sending fragments of polished wood flying as they broke open. Their way unrestricted, they ran into the galley, clearing the doorway an instant before another bullet was unleashed, shattering the woodwork of the wall behind them.
Beyond a large, heavy wooden shelving unit filled with crockery were two sets of stairs, one which led upwards and the other leading to the deck below. Jack made a line for the stairs leading to the deck above, but Hiccup tugged on his arm to lead them the other way, ducking down the lower stairwell in the hope of throwing Pitchiner off their trail.
The sound of hurried footsteps approached, and paused, before going up. The American exhaled in relief, only to notice that the Scotsman's attention had been drawn by a completely different sound.
The sound of a child crying.
The wails of anguish led the young men down into a hallway on E-Deck. The passage was a foot deep in water and with more streaming through parts of the ceiling and around the edge of a set of bolted doors. Stood only a few feet from the bulging doors was a young boy, no more than four years old.
"Daddahhhh!" He wailed, tears streaming down his face.
"We can't leave him." Hiccup's resolve was unflinching. Jack trained his eyes back at the stairs to the galley, where a steady torrent was building.
"Okay, come on!" the artist nodded and they ran along the corridor. The American scooped up the child and threw a worried glance at the doors, they groaned and creaked under the weight. The three of them doubled-back, retracing their steps to the Galley stairs, where there was now a storm surge rushing down.
"Go back!" They retreated towards the only exist, an unlocked sliding gate leading into a side passage.
They awkwardly skidded to a stop when a solidly-built man in a cap appeared, rushing toward them and launching into a torrent of angry Russian-sounding words as soon as he saw Jack carrying the boy. The man wrestled the child from the artist's arms and pushed him roughly against the wall, before wading back towards the overburdened doorway.
"It's the wrong way! Come back!" Jack pleaded as they chased after the child and his father.
"No! Not that way!"
Their warnings fell on deaf ears as the angry father reached down to scoop up a floating suitcase. The instant that he stood up, the blockage finally burst, knocking the man and his son to the floor, the tidal wave drowning out their screams.
"Run!" Jack screamed as he pushed Hiccup towards the open gate, running as fast as they could.
Flashes of electricity exploded behind them as the wave broke against the wall of the passage and mixed with the lights. The cascade quickly caught up with them, knocking them off their feet and carrying them at a rapid rate down the passage until they crashed against a locked gate.
They struggled against the surge to free themselves, pushing against the gate, the floor and even using the wall panelling to reach a set of stairs to D-Deck. Beside them, chunks of ripped woodwork floated past as they dragged themselves to safety. Overland was the first to reach the stairwell, and grabbing a handrail, helped pull the Scotsman in after him. The younger of the two men took the lead, charging up the steps to a further gate, only to find to their dismay that it was also locked.
"Oh God!" Hiccup gasped as the American shook it fruitlessly. They whirled back around, the flight of steps was almost completely flooded.
"Help!" Jack shouted, hoping somebody would hear. They both glanced down in panic as the cold liquid enveloped their feet.
"Help!" Hiccup joined in. As if by some divine miracle, a steward appeared from the passage to their left and made a line for another set of steps in front of them. Hearing their voices he stopped, and looked back at their desperate faces.
"Wait Sir! Sir! Open the gate, please! Please!" Jack pleaded.
"Help us please!" Hiccup begged as he stretched a hand through the gate. The steward pulled himself up one step further.
"Bloody hell!" he turned back and dropped down into the rising water, fishing a set of keys from his trouser pocket.
"Come on! Come on!" Jack encouraged, the water was now up to their knees.
"Come on!" Hiccup begged as the crewman continued to try the different keys on the ring.
"Go! Go!"
"Jesus!" the steward mumbled, flicking through the set quickly.
"Hurry!" the water was now up to Hiccup's waist.
"Come on!" Jack shouted.
Sparks suddenly shot through the air from the ceiling as the lights in the passage died. Startled and with his vision impaired, the steward fumbled and the keys slipped from his hand.
"I'm sorry, I dropped the keys!"
"Wait!" they both yelled as the crewman offered an apologetic look before swimming away.
"Don't leave!" Hiccup begged.
With no other choice, Jack took a deep breath and dove beneath the water's surface. The flicking lights and sparks made it difficult to see where the keys had landed, and time was quickly running out. He stretched a hand through the bottom of the gate and began to feel the floor in front of it, desperately hoping to find what he sought.
Something long and metal brushed past his fingers, and he stretched further forward. Finding more metal, his hand closed around the object and he pulled the set of keys through the gate. His adrenaline rushing from the success, he pushed himself back above the liquid.
"I got them!" Jack held his prize aloft. The waves were now up to their chests. "Which one is it, Hiccup?"
"Alright! The sharp one! Try the sharp one!" the Scotsman indicated the specific key on the ring. "Hurry, Jack!"
Jack lunged forward, feeding his arm through the gate to try locate the lock. He soon found it but the key hole was proving more elusive, much to his dismay.
"Go in!" he gritted his teeth as he tried to guide in the key.
"Hurry, Jack." Hiccup urged, the water almost up to their necks.
Finally, the key slotted into the lock, but was reluctant to turn.
"It's stuck!" the American reported despondently. "It's stuck!"
A large bubble broke the surface as it reached the level of their chins, shaking Hiccup's composure as time ran out. "Hurry Jack! Hurry!"
"Go in!" the artist bellowed at the key. As if in answer to their desperation, it finally turned with a metallic clak. "I've got it! I've got it! Go! Go!" he slid the gate open and pushed Hiccup through. The younger man surged ahead, grabbing the pipes to help carry him towards the stairs.
"Jack?!" he called back, the American's sudden absence chilling him to the core. "Jack!"
Waterlogged and resembling a drowned rat, Jack Overland surfaced and perched himself for a moment of rest against the pipes. Hiccup stretched his arm out to his companion in order to pull him the last few feet to freedom. "Come on!"
Jack's hand in his, Hiccup lead the way up the staircase, leaving D-Deck behind them.
The groans of the colossal ship we becoming more pronounced as more of the Titanic slipped into the Atlantic Ocean. The race to the Boat Deck was becoming more difficult as the incline to the decks became progressively steeper. It was with a tremendous sigh of relief when Jack and Hiccup emerged on the Second Class Grand Staircase, near the rear of the ship. Taking the stairway to the top, they raced aft into the First Class Smoking Room, dodging a trolley laden with whisky, cognac and brandy as it sped towards the bow.
They ascended the slope towards the rotating door leading to the Palm Court and Verandah Café, from there they could get out onto the A-Deck Promenade.
A lone figure was stood at the Smoking Room fireplace, staring up at the portrait hung above it. It took only a moment for the Scotsman to recognise Thomas Andrews.
"Wait! Wait!" the auburn-headed lad shouted, pulling Jack to a stop. "Mr. Andrews?"
The shipbuilder turned mechanically, a shadow of his former self. He appeared unsure that what he was seeing was real.
"Oh, Hamish." the words were heavy with disappointment, but Hiccup was uncertain if Andrews was disappointed to see the young man was still on board, or from his own feelings that he'd let them all down.
"Won't you even make a try for it?" the Scotsman pleaded softly.
Andrews' body language seemed to answer the younger man's question. "I'm sorry that I didn't build you a stronger ship, Hamish."
"It's going fast." Jack interjected, grasping Hiccup's right hand. "We have to move."
"Wait." Andrews took a step towards them, handing his life jacket to Hiccup. "Good luck to you both." he offered as warm as mile as he could muster.
"And to you." Hiccup smiled in return, accepting the life jacket. After a moment's hesitation, he then gave the shipbuilder a tight hug, before they both pushed through the revolving door.
Behind them, Thomas Andrews returned to the fireplace and withdrew into his silent reflection.
Terrible cries of panic rose from the forward section of the Boat Deck as Titanic's bridge and Officers' Quarters were submerged, almost drowning out the final piece to be performed by of the ship's orchestra, Nearer My God, to Thee.
The flooding at the bow caused a human tidal wave to surge aft as the stricken passengers ran for higher ground. At the bulwark beside one of the cargo cranes on the starboard side, Jack and Hiccup looked towards what little of the bow remained above water.
"We have to stay on the ship as long as possible! If we jump now they might not come back with the boats before the cold kills us... if the suction doesn't already do that!" Jack explained and Hiccup nodded. They pushed away from the side of the ship and ran to the railing at the aft of A-Deck.
"This way!" the artist led the Scotsman to the spot overlooking one of the cargo hatches. With a vault over the rail, Jack held out his hand to help Hiccup down. "Jump!"
The younger man jumped, landing on the soft surface of the hatch cover. The American followed him down a moment later, and the two of them clambered down onto B-Deck. They sprinted across to the next railing where they used one of the cargo cranes to climb down into the Well Deck.
"I've got you, jump!" with Jack's guidance, Hiccup dropped to the deck, hitting it hard and biting back a yelp from the pain. A helpful hand reached down and pulled the young man up.
"I've got you, lad." a friendly looking man in a baker's overalls helped Hiccup to his feet as Jack jumped down behind them.
"Jack?" the auburn-headed man turned, looking for his companion.
"Come on!" the American urged as he appeared from the crowd, gently pushing Hiccup to the stairs leading up to the Poop Deck.
A chorus of screams nearly deafened the two of them as the deck lights briefly faded, followed by what sounded like a muffled explosion from somewhere below. The crowd regained its momentum once the lights were reignited, and the two young men finally reached the stairs... only to find their progress hampered by a single male passenger.
"'Ye, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death'..." he recited ominously, moving at a snail's pace. "'I will fear no'..."
"You wanna walk a little faster through that valley, there?" Jack hissed into the man's ear, the American's anger overflowing. With a forceful shove he barged the man forward, unblocking the way for Hiccup, himself and the other passengers.
The incline of the ship was becoming hazardous now as they joined the dozens of passengers who were already clustered on the Poop Deck, with hundreds more crowded behind them. Below, the ship's gigantic propellers rose from the water as the Titanic's final fate unfolded.
A nearby priest led a sermon as the young lovers paused by the side of the ship, trying to ascertain how much time they had left whilst more and more passengers threw themselves overboard into the cold darkness below. Time was nearly up.
"This way!" Jack lead them to the furthest point they could reach, the aft rail beside the stern flagpole... the place where they'd first met. "Come on!" the American gently urged as he grasped the rail, Hiccup joining him an instant later.
Glancing over his right shoulder, Hiccup spotted Helga. Her eyes were wet with tears and filled with fear as she held onto the barrier for dear life. At the Docking Bridge, the priest gripped onto one of the large capstans as it became more and more difficult for him to stand. His ad-hock flock struggled to remain calm and listen to the scripture he was quoting. The Scotsman tightened his hold on the American, and in turn Jack pulled the younger man as close as possible, planting a quick kiss on Hiccup's cheek, desperately hoping it would reassure his lover.
The passengers around them were losing their footing left, right and centre as the deck's slope reached critical. The ship's lights had been flickering and fading with an increasing regularity, before returning to full brightness in brief respite.
Titanic, the largest and grandest ship in the world was going through it's death throes, threatening to take all of them with it.
The sound of items falling and breaking throughout the ship dully reverberated from within, ranging from crockery and small furnishings to some of the larger parts of machinery. The weight of raised stern was tearing the liner apart from the inside, and it growled and howled like an injured animal.
With a final flash, the lights of Titanic died.
The night echoed with the cry of stressed metal, drowning out everything else as the ship reached it's fracture point.
Sounds of snapping and cracking began to issue from somewhere between the third and forth funnels, quickly growing in intensity as the railing began to vibrate.
Below decks, something large exploded and crashed towards the bow as Titanic screamed. With a screech of tearing iron and steel, the deck dropped from beneath them. The fall was brief, ending just as quick as the propellers and rudder crashed back into the Atlantic Ocean.
R.M.S. Titanic had broken in half down to her keel.
Their stays snapped and their casings shattered, the ship's third and forth funnels thundered as they slammed against the shattered deck and the water's surface, before dropping into the yawning black beneath.
The greedy water surged into the broken ship, swamping the destroyed interiors of the Engine Room. The swell gobbled at the wreckage, and began to pull the rest of her down.
With the influx, the stern began to rise again, pulled upright once more by the weight of the ship's bow. Jack, Hiccup and anyone who could hold on braced themselves as the stern whined as it swung upwards. The time to act was now.
"We have to move!" the American shouted over the chaos as he clambered over the railing with the help of the flag pole. Safely ensconced on the upward-side, he repositioned himself to face the Scotsman. "Give me your hand I'll pull you over!"
Hiccup hesitantly reached one arm out to Jack, who took it tightly. Unseen by the younger man, the ship's deck housings vanished beneath the froth of the angry sea.
"I've got you!" Jack affirmed as Hiccup pulled himself over the rail. "I won't let go!"
The stern was now almost pointing straight out of the water, the propellers nearly facing the stars.
"Come on, I've got you!"
An unsettling silence descended as the remaining section of the ship settled in its new unnatural position, broken only by the startled cries of the passengers hanging from the various fixtures scattered across the deck. "Hold on!" Jack urged as they waited, unsure of what would follow.
Having realised that Helga's grip was slipping, Hiccup shot out an arm to try grab her... but it was too late. With a panicked cry she slipped from the rail, disappearing amongst the pile of tangled bodies dumped against the forward... now lowest rail of the upended Poop Deck. Horrified, the Scotsman turned away to look to his right, where he spotted the friendly-looking baker. The man looked as scared as he did.
The peace was short lived, with a ominous vibration the stern started to sink into the Atlantic. Below them, explosions of water shattered windows and blasted open doorways as air pockets within the ruined interior escaped, dislodging more passengers as they broke forth. The last of the superstructure was lost beneath the surface as the waves advanced quickly on the remaining survivors.
"This is it!" Jack exclaimed, the urgency in his voice calling Hiccup's attention.
"Oh God!" Hiccup blurted out.
"Hold on!" the American placed a reassuring hand on the Scotsman's lower back as they watched the vortex approach. "The ship is going to suck us down... take a deep breath when I say!"
As the froth reached the Docking Bridge, a violent eruption of air and water burst through the cargo hatches beneath them.
"Kick for the surface and keep kicking! Do not let go of my hand!" Hiccup nodded, his eyes not leaving the vision of hell before him. "We're going to make it, Hiccup... Trust me."
"I trust you!" he shouted back, tightly squeezing his companion's hand.
"Ready?" the artist shouted, the water lapping at the deck inches from them. "Ready! Now!"
They both inhaled deeply as the railing and flagpole were consumed, vanishing forever.
