come_sailaway | Well, the world might cut you down again [OPEN]

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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.

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"...Well," Erin admits, at length. "It gets. A bit better here. Not before it gets worse, but it does get a bit better. You have to understand...even then, when I told myself that Erin Peters was dead, that I loved no one and nothing and that made me strong enough to survive...I loved my crew. I would have done anything for them. I even went to bat against the Patriarch and extracted his promise to never harm them, shaking in my fuckin' boots the whole time. I thought they loved me too."

"...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."

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.

That question takes awhile for Erin to answer, but the look on her face goes...introspective. Like the thoughts she has to think are just too big for the hurt to stay there at the surface.

"...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."

"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."

Erin nods mutely. Little crabs, just a few, drift through the smoke.

"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."

"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."

Erin leans in, just a little, touches Crabb's fingertips with her cheek and lets out a sound of pure relief. Some final tension just evaporates from her body, leaving her feeling exhausted but, somehow, cleansed. It's done. It's over.

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."

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."

"You know that goes both ways, right?" The question's quiet, and with it comes Erin leaning into Crabb and resting her head atop the detective's. "I'm not so beat down that I can't be there for you. At the bare minimum if I can't handle something I'll tell you up front instead of trying to feed ya a bullshit 'I'm fine'. So..."

(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?"

"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."

Erin opens her mouth -

(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."

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.

"Yeah. Exactly so. This is our garden, and we tend it together."

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...?"

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."

"If it helps, I do mean sleep and not anything else. I'm still...even this still feels a little like I'm gonna get attacked at any second, but I know that's just." Erin gestures at her own head. "Traitor Brain trying to protect me because that's all it knows how to do. As much as I wish I could muster up whatever weird courage helped me reach out to Colors that shit has clocked out for vacation and I dunno when I'll see it again."

Fiercely: "But by god I am gonna see it again if you stay interested. Can't be having you arrested for Virginity Crimes."

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.

"Glad to hear it," Erin teases back. "So - you reading again next time or do you want to take turns? Mine's a bit of a doorstopper but I've read it enough to find the good cliffhangers."

"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.

Erin kisses Crabb's cheek before standing up with incredible reluctance. She collects the glasses and sets them near the whiskey before turning with a bright smile and a faint redness on her cheeks. "You pick the drinks next time. Now, before I go gossiping in dizzy delight, do you mind if folks know? And before you get on me about that I'm asking because sometimes when things don't work out friends can get weird about it, not because I think you'd be ashamed of me."

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."

"I'm into it," Erin agrees. She crosses the room to brush Crabb's cheek with her fingers. "...And now I really do need to bounce. Can't even squeal properly, people are sleeping...but do try to imagine it. Good night, love."

Crabb's head tilts into her touch and she catches her hand with her own, for a moment, just to hold it there while she presses a kiss against the palm. Even doing that has her heart going a little faster, but... she'll adjust, she's sure. God knows she's got time.

"Night, Erin," she squeezes her hand and lets go. "Hopefully you'll see me out and about proper, before long."

Erin's blush deepens into something hot and fierce, and she ducks her head without thinking about the fact that her hair is tied back. "Here's hoping," she murmurs back.

She presses that palm to her mouth to keep quiet when she leaves. But from the sound of those boots...

She's skipping back to her cabin.

Crabb bites back an amused noise and flops backwards onto the mattress again, throwing her arms over her face. God. How has the last week even been real? Parts of her are still so raw from the... everything of October, but all of this...

It's making it so much more bearable. Coming back from Nothing to more life to live than she even had before.

Silver linings. Bright, bright silver linings.

Edited 2022-11-04 00:03 (UTC)

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Well, the world might cut you down again [OPEN]

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