Honoria Crabb (
pointofhonoria) wrote in
come_sailaway2022-11-03 02:21 am
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Well, the world might cut you down again [OPEN]
Who: Honoria Crabb & you!
What: Crabb comes back from being possessed
When: Second weekish of November on, mostly
Where: Many places on the ship
Warnings: Discussion of possession, death, etc.
Notes: Feel free to flip me to brackets I am comfortable with either style.
1. And your best might not be good enough [closed to Johnny]
You don't realise how much you take the ability to sleep for granted until it's abruptly ripped away from you. Maybe if she could go right from closing her eyes to dreaming, skip over the quiet, the dark, the almost-nothingness of drifting off, Crabb could bring herself to get more than a handful of hours over as many days, but she can't. So, she hasn't.
She's exhausted. She's terrified. She's still not actually left her room since she woke up, equally desperate for human contact and scared to face the aftermath of everything she missed.
All of this finally comes to a head when she almost passes out standing up in the bathroom, while trying to splash herself with water to wake herself up no less. She barely catches herself before she cracks her head off the sink and the sheer panic that hits is enough to simultaneously startle her awake and realise she really needs to sleep.
Sliding down to sit on the floor, back against the shower cubicle, she texts Johnny: Almost killed myself by falling asleep on my feet. Think I need an assist, here.
2. But just know you're not alone [cabins]
Eventually, she knows she has to brave the rest of the ship. Struggling with such a simple thing as stepping outside her door for more than a few minutes at a time is frustrating enough as it is, but the problem with getting more sleep and thus more energy is the stir craziness that follows.
So, eventually, she bites the bullet. Gets dressed in actual clothes again (pants and one of the assortment of flannels she apparently got delivered at some point) and tells herself she's not going back inside for at least an hour. That's doable.
Still, it's... hard. Harder than it should be. (She's getting kinda a brand new perspective on Johnny's issues, let her say that much...) So maybe you catch her before she's actually managed to leave, on any particular day, standing in the doorway of her cabin awkwardly.
3. And if you slip and lose your way again [food places, calgona, library, photos at sea]
One way or another she does, finally, start trying to get back into a routine again. Stopping by Windjammer for most of her meals in the morning, afternoon and evening—though she'll occasionally stop by Sand Dollars for coffee or a snack. During these times she's quiet, but not hostile to company, and honestly would actually welcome it even if you'd struggle to make her say so.
She starts going to the gym again, whaling on a punching bag almost as hard as Daisy did while occupying her body except, unlike Daisy, Crabb has the sense to wear wraps and stop when she feels her hands getting too stiff. You might catch her while she's still punching away, or maybe after she's decided it's time for a break and is sat against the wall with a bottle of water.
Sometimes, she swings by the library to either sit and read in one of the chairs, or check on the Black Binder and other assorted information to see if anything changed on that front in the time she was gone. Catch her staring at the damage report and mumbling, "What in blue blazes did you all get up to in only a month...?" whilst trying to ignore the creepy drawings.
And then, once or twice, you might catch her stood at the edge of Photos At Sea, staring at the displays from a distance, trying very hard to decide if she wants to risk finding what photos were taken of Daisy throughout the month. Usually, the answer to that would be an unshakeable yes, but, well, Crabb is in fact still very shaken.
Through all of this, she still can't bring herself to use the stairs. You know. Considering being thrown down them is how she got possessed in the first place.
4. Well, I'll know that you will be all right [existing CR or people who met Daisy]
Some people, however, are going to actually get a more... direct visit, from the recently returned detective. Those who she knows that Daisy would have had to interact with somewhat to keep up the act of Being Crabb, or who reasonably might have had a conversation with her at some point in the three weeks she wasn't actually around. People she knows and feels that she can go up to and just ask, "So what in God's name did she say to you, then?"
If you don't know Crabb particularly well but had an interaction with not!Crabb... well, you'll have to approach her first, much as she's tempted she can't actually go up to every single person on the ship and ask them without feeling like an idiot.
5. You still gotta try [wildcard]
Find me at
bluecitrine or at artisticblueteam#5757/in the discord.
What: Crabb comes back from being possessed
When: Second weekish of November on, mostly
Where: Many places on the ship
Warnings: Discussion of possession, death, etc.
Notes: Feel free to flip me to brackets I am comfortable with either style.
1. And your best might not be good enough [closed to Johnny]
You don't realise how much you take the ability to sleep for granted until it's abruptly ripped away from you. Maybe if she could go right from closing her eyes to dreaming, skip over the quiet, the dark, the almost-nothingness of drifting off, Crabb could bring herself to get more than a handful of hours over as many days, but she can't. So, she hasn't.
She's exhausted. She's terrified. She's still not actually left her room since she woke up, equally desperate for human contact and scared to face the aftermath of everything she missed.
All of this finally comes to a head when she almost passes out standing up in the bathroom, while trying to splash herself with water to wake herself up no less. She barely catches herself before she cracks her head off the sink and the sheer panic that hits is enough to simultaneously startle her awake and realise she really needs to sleep.
Sliding down to sit on the floor, back against the shower cubicle, she texts Johnny: Almost killed myself by falling asleep on my feet. Think I need an assist, here.
2. But just know you're not alone [cabins]
Eventually, she knows she has to brave the rest of the ship. Struggling with such a simple thing as stepping outside her door for more than a few minutes at a time is frustrating enough as it is, but the problem with getting more sleep and thus more energy is the stir craziness that follows.
So, eventually, she bites the bullet. Gets dressed in actual clothes again (pants and one of the assortment of flannels she apparently got delivered at some point) and tells herself she's not going back inside for at least an hour. That's doable.
Still, it's... hard. Harder than it should be. (She's getting kinda a brand new perspective on Johnny's issues, let her say that much...) So maybe you catch her before she's actually managed to leave, on any particular day, standing in the doorway of her cabin awkwardly.
3. And if you slip and lose your way again [food places, calgona, library, photos at sea]
One way or another she does, finally, start trying to get back into a routine again. Stopping by Windjammer for most of her meals in the morning, afternoon and evening—though she'll occasionally stop by Sand Dollars for coffee or a snack. During these times she's quiet, but not hostile to company, and honestly would actually welcome it even if you'd struggle to make her say so.
She starts going to the gym again, whaling on a punching bag almost as hard as Daisy did while occupying her body except, unlike Daisy, Crabb has the sense to wear wraps and stop when she feels her hands getting too stiff. You might catch her while she's still punching away, or maybe after she's decided it's time for a break and is sat against the wall with a bottle of water.
Sometimes, she swings by the library to either sit and read in one of the chairs, or check on the Black Binder and other assorted information to see if anything changed on that front in the time she was gone. Catch her staring at the damage report and mumbling, "What in blue blazes did you all get up to in only a month...?" whilst trying to ignore the creepy drawings.
And then, once or twice, you might catch her stood at the edge of Photos At Sea, staring at the displays from a distance, trying very hard to decide if she wants to risk finding what photos were taken of Daisy throughout the month. Usually, the answer to that would be an unshakeable yes, but, well, Crabb is in fact still very shaken.
Through all of this, she still can't bring herself to use the stairs. You know. Considering being thrown down them is how she got possessed in the first place.
4. Well, I'll know that you will be all right [existing CR or people who met Daisy]
Some people, however, are going to actually get a more... direct visit, from the recently returned detective. Those who she knows that Daisy would have had to interact with somewhat to keep up the act of Being Crabb, or who reasonably might have had a conversation with her at some point in the three weeks she wasn't actually around. People she knows and feels that she can go up to and just ask, "So what in God's name did she say to you, then?"
If you don't know Crabb particularly well but had an interaction with not!Crabb... well, you'll have to approach her first, much as she's tempted she can't actually go up to every single person on the ship and ask them without feeling like an idiot.
5. You still gotta try [wildcard]
Find me at
no subject
(Not yet.)
- and goes to the whiskey. She pours a generous amount in both glasses, gives Crabb hers first, and then gets her own.
She doesn't take Crabb's hand again, but leaves her own palm-up, between them. Unsure.
"...You got a lot of the context already. I was taken. Abused. Changed. I went home." Her musical voice is all leaden bells, tolling the dead. "...Most free Lost escape their masters. They get out, not free and clear but under their own power. I tried that, once only, and was caught. The Patriarch made me an offer that I accepted. Serve his interests at his whim, and I could return to the lands of reason. It was like someone had shown me a great truth. The god of my horrible little world needed someone to step on people for him; how could I, mere vermin, pretend I was above that?"
Erin swirls her whiskey. She can't bring herself to turn her head towards Crabb.
"...Two years later, when I was seventeen, taken in and nurtured by my fellow victims, given their welcome and their support and their love, he asked me to capture one of them for return to his master. He was my first victim. He wouldn't be my last."
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Crabb watches her with a worried little wrinkle in her brow. The flip in her mood is so drastic she can't be anything but worried as she starts to talk. She takes a sip of her own drink and looks at Erin's hand, listening intently the way she always does when Erin talks to her.
It's only when Erin's finished the first part of the admission that she reaches out and takes her hand, again. It's a deliberate choice. Not starting with the touch already in place, needing effort to be revoked, but instead granting it even after hearing what she's clearly so ashamed of.
She's still not as confident in her reads on people as she'd like to be, sometimes. Johnny's still the one between them that can pick a person apart to their bones if he tries. But she's getting to know Erin and she doesn't think she's that off the mark to think Erin's selling this story in a very... particular way. "...you were a kid who'd been through Hell and was offered an out. What struggling kid is such a paragon of virtue they could turn that down? Can see far enough ahead to realise the extent of the bleedin' consequences? Tell me what you did, Erin, but don't you go tryna sell me an image of you that's even worse than the truth."
She interlocks her fingers with Erin's and squeezes, tight. A part of her is terrified of overstepping in a matter she doesn't fully understand, but the fact remains that Crabb believes in the truth. Erin may have done terrible things but she wants to hear those things as raw as possible, not painted over by self-hatred so thick Crabb can practically taste it.
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"...What I didn't do would be a shorter list," Erin admits, at last. "My people call mercenaries who work for the gods of nightmare 'privateers'. It's a simple enough idea. Prove yourself useful to your former masters and they won't crush you. For awhile I almost delighted in the term. I took the name Liz Malloy, after two legendary Irish pirates, and I joined a noble society of the Lost that worships buy, barter, and trade. Their promise was also simple: everything is for sale. Love and lust, fury, loyalty, skills, sex, drugs, if one of the Satraps wants it they can buy it, and if they own it, they must be willing to name a price at which they will give it. I told myself it didn't matter. Told myself anyone else would do the same to me, because the world is cruel and small and people are cruel and small with it. It didn't take long after the first attack for me to start slaving for profit in addition to when it was demanded. I kidnapped my fellow victims. I attacked innocents completely ignorant of magic. Collected my pay and said: this is the way of it. Even gods have to crush the weak."
Another sip. Erin bows her head and takes a deep breath; a small sob hitches her throat in the middle.
"...They caught me. The Satraps, my oh-so-noble peers. But did they strip me of my exalted title? No, oh no. I'd bought that, no refunds. I'd been a good Satrap. So instead they informed on me to my Freehold, my home. I fled in the night and was exiled in absentia. I started living in the Hedge full-time, away from the mortal world, and gathered a crew of others in my line of work. Razor Anne. Catherine. Little Nattie. Luke Dollops."
"...Near three decades we lived like that. For hire, to all comers. We'd catch escaped slaves. Kidnap new ones. Murder for hire. Every now and again we did a job that was just unambiguously good. Did I mention killing those wizards to you? I don't regret those. They had to fucking go. Our legend just kept growing. The Pirate with the Pearl Eyes, they called me. They said, never answer a call for help in the Hedge; that's Liz Malloy baiting her trap, and if you go to help you'll be taken back to the nightmare lands. It wasn't always me. How could it be? However vast and poisonous we were still just one crew. But my shadow loomed over four continents."
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Two nickels. Crabb can't help but hear the ways Erin mirrors Cragen, if the mirror in question was a distorted funhouse mirror at the very least. People with both nothing and everything to lose, selling out their soul to something that chewed them up and spat them out with teeth marks to show for it. People who turned against those in the same situation, against innocents who just so happened to be between them and some nebulous goal. People with a hurt that runs so bone deep they thought themselves too fundamentally changed to be anything else and whose 'freedom' came at a cost, without ever really being freedom at all.
She didn't even know it was Cragen she was really seeing, and yet here they are. Except Cragen's story, that one she had to put together all on her own. To this day she doesn't know what pieces she might be missing, because he was too damn committed to his grand finale to let whatever he felt for her slow him down.
And here's Erin baring her heart and her sins. Crabb hadn't even really had to ask, in the end. More than just telling her what Erin's done, though, it gives her some of the context she was still missing. About the self-loathing, yes, but also about other things. It's not hard to see the effects that everything being for sale could have on a person in itself.
Her thumb rubs over the back of Erin's hand again and she breathes, taking a hearty swig from her glass.
"I'm listenin'," she squeezes, again. "Go on."
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"...Maybe they thought that themselves."
Erin chugs the rest of the glass, heedless of the burn; she bends forward just enough to set it down on the floor with a little clunk. A strange half-smile plays on her face, bitter and worn.
"We hit a set of lean years. Which is insane, right? We had this pile of gold like a fucking dragon but we couldn't spend any of it because anyone who buys gold would find it suspicious. Our legend had grown so big it was hard to find work as ambush predators any more, and any of the other jobs, well. If you get hurt, there's most of the pay gone, right there. So when some youngblood god, the Lady of the Lake, came to us saying she needed every man named Arthur we could kidnap? We took it. Lit out for New Avalon to help her pull a sword from an engine block. There was a bounty there too, a Lost named Arthur. Two for one, right? Grab him, get paid by the Lady, and then sell him back to his master. Easy."
There's a long pause, and then Erin barks a short laugh and shakes her head. "He beat our asses concave. Found us lurking in his house waiting to get him. Sloppy. Some of my worst work. Knocked out my crew, had me at his mercy knowing that I was the walking nightmare, the great and powerful Liz Malloy. I cut a deal to get away with my life. Scurried into the shadow of the Lady so I could regroup, figure out a way to spring my crew. And who comes down there god-hunting but Arthur and the knights of Summer, ready for justice to be done on the wicked?"
"...Things go sideways there. Another deal cut, mid-fight. I turned on the Lady for my life, for a head start, and we drove her back out of the mortal realms. But when I went to leave, he said...he pleaded, with me. To wait. Asked me what I got out of being Liz fucking Malloy. He said, it can be different. You can stop. He begged me to let him help me like I was worth saving. It was...god. He called me Elizabeth, and it fucking broke me. He became the first person I admitted to being Erin to since I'd gotten back home."
Erin takes in a shaky breath. "I wanted my crew to live it. I really did. The Lost out of New Avalon, they gave them the same offer I'd gotten. They could be loved again, nurtured again, have their hurts healed. They could come back. It could be over. But it turns out if you listen to someone lie to themselves for long enough, you end up believing them. Every. Last. One of them. Chose the axe over the wrath of Liz Malloy."
"...That was about a year and a half before I met you here. That's where Liz Malloy's story ends. She died with her crew, at the New England shore."
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Crabb doesn't finish her drink in one gulp, but it's close. She wipes her mouth with the back of the same hand that holds her glass and drops her head back against the wall behind them as she processes all of that. Her breathing is steady and deep.
She never once loosens her grip on Erin's hand.
"You ain't that person, now. Coulda told you that much myself, I think." Her voice is even and firm. Her thumb keeps stroking. Her fingers squeeze Erin's own. "And then? A year and a half. How'd it go?"
That she even took that chance, no matter what difficulties she assumes are an inevitable consequence of trying to unpack a legacy that's scarred you as heavily as it has your victims, is another one of those things that makes her... different. No matter her reasons, no matter the bumps in the road, no matter her obvious continued struggles, she's in a different place, is a different person. She's Erin. Right here and now she's Erin.
And Cragen was the Black Note to the very end.
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"...The Freehold knew, you gotta understand. That I'd been Liz. Arthur became King of Summer shortly after that and he'd put a lot of stake on that move, when anything he would have done to me could be called justice. Spring backed him up, both barrels, no fucking hesitation. God. When Ramona tried to tell me I didn't have to be worthy to get compassion I hit her right in the fucking face. She said that happens a lot. But they...they followed through, on their end. I was housed, fed, made a part of their Freehold by pact. The monarchs would come to me for advice sometimes so they could give it to people who wouldn't otherwise associate with me. I. Went into treatment, with the Blackbirds, Lost who take up therapy for their own since, y'know, mortals can't understand."
"...Quit the Satraps, eventually. Had to trade my membership for something, you understand? Everything for sale, including my loyalty to them. Fell in love with the lass who helped me do that, when she tore the eyes from my skull. Colors, I mentioned her to you before. The thing I still don't get is...the thing is..."
Erin squeezes Crabb's hand hard. "I had a minder, somewhere between housemate and bodyguard and jailer. Shipmate Sally she was, this shy lass with a hypnotic voice she never used because she couldn't stand to be the center of attention. They put a curse on us, so that if either harmed the other, we ourselves would be harmed. Insurance on both ends. After the curse, Sally was given carte blanche to restrain me by any means she deemed fit. Months I lived with her before...before I learned she was one of mine. Someone I'd snatched from the lands of reason and condemned to a fate as terrible as my own. I woke up every morning not dead and I still don't know why. And now I'm here. With you. So I'll never know, even if I could ever work up the courage to ask her."
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"People ain't rational. If they were, my job wouldn't be half as bleedin' hard as it can be some days. Expect someone to act a certain way and you're gonna be surprised, 'least half the time. That's the thing I don't think folks like Ferrier always get. They think they've got the secrets of the world laid out, but there's always a way people can go sideways on you. Lot of the time, it's for worse. Sometimes, though... sometimes it's things like that."
She shrugs one shoulder, and now she does throw back the last of her drink. She sets it aside carefully and turns enough that she can wrap that other hand around Erin's, too. Holding Erin's one hand in both of hers.
"But if there's one thing I get, it's how much an itch like that can get at you over time. Not knowing. Think that's only human, really. Especially with big things. Things that really get under your skin."
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"Cassandra knows the shape of this story. A few others I won't name for their privacy. You...are probably the last person I'll tell. I think I'm starting to come around to the idea that I don't need to wear a crown of thorns to be honest about who I am. But. You deserved to know."
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"And I'm glad you told me, yeah? Erin. I ain't gonna say I don't care about any of that, or that it don't matter, 'cause it feels... that's the wrong words, y'know. I ain't wanna dismiss it 'cause that's no fairer to you than holding it against you here and now. But what it ain't gonna do is change anything, alright?"
She lifts one hand away only to reach for Erin's face, leaving closing the distance to turn it into touch up to her. This is a Hell of a conversation for her, let Erin draw the boundaries with touch right now.
"It ain't that I don't care what you've done, but I care way more about what you're doing now. You've told me. You ain't leaving me in the dark. You ain't like— like he was. I gave Cragen a chance, right there to his face. I gave him a choice. He could've stopped, he could've explained, I would've listened—and he just planted another seed of confusion in my heart, gave me a damn concussion and nearly killed me in a bloody cave in."
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She can go back to burying Liz in the soil of her garden.
"...I can't speak for Cragen," she admits. "But I know how hard it can be to let go of the mask you make to protect yourself. Even if you had to attach it to your skull with spikes. That's...you'd think the hardest part would be figuring out who I am when I'm just Erin, right? After a lifetime of being someone else. But staring that down's been nothing in comparison to picking through Liz's corpse. Trying to figure out what parts of her were true and beautiful and worth keeping."
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Crabb ever so gently cups her cheek properly, thumb stroking arches over her cheekbone once again. Everything about her body language, her expression, her voice, it's all... deliberately gentle. As vulnerable as she can be in this moment where it's not her baring her soul as she can be.
"Can't even begin to imagine it, but y'know, I seem to surround myself with brilliant people who've put on masks or had them put on for them. Some of 'em know where the line is, some of 'em can't even take 'em off, some of 'em are still figuring out the pieces... and every time what gets me is how unfair it is, that people can go through such Hell that the world stops making sense without that shield. Having to build yourself, your world back up from the ground..."
It isn't that Crabb hasn't had the world ripped from under her feet on more than one occasion, but generally speaking Crabb is actually very sure of who she is, now. Even here. There are things to learn and unpack but at her core she feels solid.
...maybe that's some of why she's surrounded by these kinds of people, in the end.
"You got time to figure it out. And I know now, yeah? So talk to me, if you ever need to."
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(Can we use the word now?)
How in the fuck are you the horny one here?
(Who said anything about that?)
"...So. Where are we sitting, now? On the whole...girlfriend topic where neither of us knows what in every fuck that was or could be we're doing?"
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"Yeah, I know." She breathes out and leans into Erin's presence. The hand still holding one of hers squeezes. "You've done your fair share 'a listening, Erin, I ain't forgotten that."
And she's found it fairly easy to talk to her about that stuff, easier than she does with probably anyone but Johnny who has the added benefit of knowing all the basic context already.
Her hand grips a little tighter as Erin brings out the word girlfriend again, another one of those words she's had to mentally adjust her context for though thankfully not one she's had to learn outright. "...see, at this point, if I were at home, after all the... kissing and stuff, that wouldn't even be a question. But we ain't there and things are different, right, so— look, yeah, I want this to be a thing. Be something."
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(Don't ask if she's sure.)
Closes her mouth immediately. After a moment she nuzzles her head against Crabb's and makes a small, happy sound from low in her throat. It's real. It's really real.
...Well it'll definitely feel more real after she helps Ruby later and confirms to herself that she's not dreaming, but, details.
(God you're bad at accepting love.)
You don't get to say those mean words to me, over-thinking head voice.
"I'm ready to just feel it along, love. Neither of us really did things right according to our homes, yeah? Besides. We're on a cruise. Weird romances are the order of the day."
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Crabb's face splits with a smile as she nuzzles back. "Ain't wrong there. Just keep having to remind myself there ain't any rules here, we're all just... figurin' this out as we go along. Whole different society, yeah? One we're all piecing together bit by bit."
This isn't her original world, it isn't Erin's, it isn't anyone's. It's a collective mishmash of everyone's biases and baggage, but also of all the good things they can bring with them.
Getting to figure this out at their own pace, without the pressure from old expectations, is definitely a plus in her book, no matter how much it leaves her floundering sometimes.
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Erin sighs, wistfully, well aware that she can't stay too much longer, not after hours reading and then all of this. "...God I wanna sleep here tonight but...my evening is spoken for, come bedtime. Standing appointment with one of the youngbloods. But after mid-month when that wraps up...?"
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And there goes Crabb's heart beating a mile a minute again, but she manages to keep her voice steady despite it, despite the familiar note of fluster. "...if I ain't had a new roommate thrown at me by then, yeah. Yeah, think I'd like that. S'easier to sleep with someone around right now, even. I'm doin' alright for now, before you worry too much, but... yeah."
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Fiercely: "But by god I am gonna see it again if you stay interested. Can't be having you arrested for Virginity Crimes."
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One of these days she's going to have a heart attack, she swears to God... she chokes a little on her own embarrassed laughter. "W-Well my interest ain't generally that fleeting so, well. We'll uh. We'll find out. Won't we? Would be pretty embarrassing to add that to my records..."
By God she's trying her best to at least play along with the loving torment she keeps getting.
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"You take a turn, mix it up a bit. Stops me hogging the books too much, too." Since they're technically Johnny's, and all. Not that he minds, she's sure, but still.
...yes, she mostly actually just wants her turn laying in Erin's lap, shut up.
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Crabb shuffles over to sit on the edge of the mattress, looking over and up at her. "Don't mind, nah. I think— think back home I would, I barely mentioned... y'know, to anyone, 'til suddenly it all went wrong. But here, after that... think I'd rather not play the secrets game again."
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