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

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"I admit I'm not sure when, exactly, it happened for you."

Naming it seems... rude, unpleasant, somehow. Cruel to someone he wants to be on better terms than that. "I suppose that's always part of dying, here, but you've had a particularly hard time of it. I..."

Watson shakes his head. "It was an unpleasant month. I don't think I really grasped how much I took 'normal' for granted here until October."

"Far as I can tell, I stopped being me around about the... ninth, tenth. Someone who I guess weren't any more himself than I was afterwards threw me down the stairwell. One second, I was falling, the next..."

Nothing. Just the Nothing. She wonders if she should add that to the main pool of information, but she's not sure she's in the headspace to decide if that's something everyone needs to know, right now. Not when the idea is for them to try and avoid that fate in the first place. Not like they can do anything about it once it gets them, normally, is there?

"Johnny told me about César and Rich. The... investigation, a little. Unpleasant don't feel like it's a strong enough word for your end of it all, either."

"It's not strong enough, no. Excruciating, perhaps. And I'm not such a fool as to think it won't happen again."

An unpleasant reality of the ship, perhaps, that the people you love can just die, without warning. Well, technically that's true of regular life as well. At least they come back, here. Watson sighs. "Still, she did something to help. Though how much that was her and how much was your memories of how to investigate, well, I cannot say."

"Yeah, I dunno. All I got left of her is some weird texts to other ghosts as herself, few texts to you lot as me, a name, and a few... observations, from Rin and others. Doesn't exactly paint a clear picture. Still, if I had to guess... probably you could get a sense of how to scope out a crime scene from memories alone, but putting it into action... eh. Harder than it looks, y'know?"

It's like theory versus practice. You can read or watch a mystery, follow the clues and logic, and find the right answer, but fiction is neater than reality and even though memories are real, they're still different than doing it yourself.

"How much did you— talk to her? Gotta admit I'm tryna fill in the blanks, where I can. Having almost a whole month lost is... I don't much like it."

Watson is quiet for a moment. The whole thing is sort of embarrassing.

"We had a... conversation. The two of us were watching over César's body. I was upset. Johnny had left us for the moment, and given me a kiss goodbye, and..." He stops, not at all sure how to continue this thought. It seems like inappropriate oversharing, and part of him is keenly aware of how in his previous life there were always certain rules about how to behave around a lady.

Not that Crabb is, in any sense, an example of the always impossible ideal Victorian lady, delicate and sensitive and without a thought for herself, and he doesn't wish that for her in any case.

He can't continue the thought, and shakes his head in vain.

Crabb, not realising at all how close this comes to sounding like Daisy that night, "Hey, you know you don't gotta worry about telling me this stuff, yeah? Ain't a word of it gonna leave my lips around anyone else and I guarantee I've heard worse this last week alone."

She can take... an educated guess, based on what he's just said, but guessing isn't what she prefers to do. She won't push, but it's better to get the truth.

She hesitates a second, rubbing the back of her neck, and then sighs. "Ain't like it one bit that she could use what I know of you lot against you or even just to keep you in the dark. Hits some... hits some bruises, that. And I know I ain't the most social type, but you lot are the closest thing I got to family on this boat and— and I just wanna understand what she used me for, I guess."

"You are family, of a sort. A sister in law, perhaps? I've never had such a thing."

Watson sighs. "It isn't any dark secret, more... shameful, perhaps, and only to me. I reacted... instinctively, to what was a semi-public kiss. This relationship I'm in with Johnny and César would be a criminal matter, where I am from. At the very least, it would be a matter of such scandal that I would no longer be able to live in England. At the worst, imprisonment and hard labour. I am not ashamed of who I am, but these are lessons that one learns, or one suffers for ignorance."

He takes a step away, leaning against a nearby chair, unable to quite meet Crabb's gaze. "At any rate, she offered reassurance, and a kind ear, and listened to me bemoan my inability to not react out of fear when my loved ones, who feel no such fear, express themselves. And it is embarrassing to know that I confessed such a thing to a stranger."

An amused, lopsided sort of smile briefly graces her face at the idea of being a sister-in-law—it's not inaccurate, by any means, but it's something she's never been just as much as it's something Watson's never had.

It doesn't stick around long, though, once Watson starts explaining. She's quiet, listening closely, she's good enough at that, but when he describes how this Daisy woman got that confession out of him using her face...

The binder jumps a solid half-centimetre off the table as she slams her fist down against it.

She braces her hands there, after the initial flood of anger passes, her shoulders pulled into a taut line and shaking just a little. She wouldn't usually be this raw, be this unable to rein in that gut reaction, but after the month she's had there's nothing protecting the bruise that just kicked. There's a lot of things that Crabb hates, but few are so personal as someone using the face of someone else to poke and prod at someone's vulnerable spots just to sell an act.

Only after a moment does she realise how that reaction looks, "—sorry, sorry. That weren't about you or anythin'. Look, I— I get that. Probably even woulda said something like whatever she said, and I'll say my piece for real if you'll let me but I swear. That chick should be glad she ain't got a body of her own no more, 'cause if she did I might just kill her just for that. She didn't have to go rooting around with your personal issues just to be me! Like to think I got a little more tact than doing that over a body, even! Christ!"

Watson tenses for a moment, not exactly a flinch, but an instinctive readying for disaster. He listens, though, his expression growing troubled, and he puts his hand on her arm, reassuring.

"At the time, it was a comfort," he says, his voice low. "You're welcome to tell me all about it, Crabb, if you want. I'll gladly listen."

"Yeah, well, it was a comfort when Cecil bleedin' Cragen wore someone else's face and pretended to look after me as if he weren't the bastard planning to tear Gallery to the ground, but it ain't so nice once you realise it was all an act, is it?"

The tension in her shoulders drops just a little at the reassuring touch. She breathes in slowly through her nose and exhales the same way. Right. Calm the Hell down. Don't dump all that baggage out on the floor just like that.

"...look, point is, she shouldn't'a done that. But I know you got baggage around that kinda stuff, Johnny said once about your world bein' one of those with those daft laws. Can hardly imagine it, myself, every time I hear about 'em it boggles me, but I get it even if I don't get it. Bet she said that. Probably even said I'm no straighter than any of you, which she ain't wrong about. Just never came up, before. Wasn't really looking for a relationship, when I got here."

Now, of course... she almost smiles despite herself, because that's changed quickly. It fades as she sighs again.

"What I bet she didn't say is I ain't much better about public affection than you for my own reasons. Cultural baggage of my own. You ain't gotta worry with me but I sure ain't thinking less of you for the worry, y'know?"

His eyebrows lift at the mention of Cragen. That's definitely closer to what he'd experienced than he'd expected, and he can understand something of her reaction. "That sounds... hideous, Crabb. I'm sorry. That definitely makes for some unexpected parallels."

Watson gives her arm a gentle squeeze and draws back. "Look, I cannot justify my country's laws as anything other than cruel or wrong. They make no more sense to me, and I lived under them. And no, she did not say anything about your own baggage, though she did say you were... similarly inclined. So at least some of your own secrets were kept for you. I imagine that's... very poor comfort."

She takes another deliberately measured breath and turns around so she can lean back against the table, one arm crossed over her chest and the other rubbing at her brow. By the look on her face, it isn't much comfort, no. Not none, it clearly could have been worse, but...

"M'just sorry you ever had to live like that. Got a lot of issues back home, 'course we do, stupid laws and corruption and so on, but can't imagine dealing with that on top of it all. Bad enough all the convoluted social rules around relationships without having to worry about being arrested for looking at the wrong damn gender, too."

She taps her foot. Lowers her hand to cross her arms together, only to immediately raise it to rub at the back of her neck as she goes on.

"But yeah, I'm inclined towards men and women both. Got uh— got something going with Erin—dunno if you've met her yet—now, actually." There's that ghost of a smile back again, because despite all of this, everything with Erin the last few days has been a silver lining. "Just there's all these expectations around relationships and the like, back home. And Cragen— used some of 'em to help get away with what he did, so."

An awkward shrug.

"I have met Erin, once or twice. I quite like her, and may have made a fool of myself flirting casually with her myself." Watson flashes a faint smile. "I've glad you two are figuring it out. I was... concerned, that whatever had happened with your possessor might have ruined it."

He really was. He is a shipper.

"You're welcome to tell me about Cragen if you like. I'm glad to listen."

"All I need now is César making comment and you'll all be showing more interest in my love life than anyone but my parents..." Cough, anyway— she manages a quiet huff of laugher. "Yeah, wrong tree there, doc. She made me feel like a right fool, how I reacted to her flirting at first. But y'know, if anythin' I think it actually sped things along? Coming back after that... made me take a plunge I might not've for a long time, otherwise."

Coming out of three weeks in the Nothing made everything more intense. Any first embrace between them was going to be a lot, but it was amplified tenfold and if Erin hadn't kissed Daisy... the conversation would never have gone there.

She chews her bottom lip for a moment before she sighs and says, "Johnny's gotta have told you about the Black Note by now, I'm guessin'?"

His eyebrow lifts, faintly. "He has, yes."

Apparently this Black Note had done even more damage than he had expected. "Though he did not tell me anything of your part in that business. He left your business yours to tell, I suppose."

Of course Johnny had done that. Of course he had.

"Yeah, he's good like that. Try to do the same, me, when I'm telling it. Erin knows all of my business, see, but didn't tell her about Johnny's side of it all."

That's his story to tell as much as this is hers. The Black Note. Tom Broadfoot. Cecil Cragen. Their shared demon with all his faces.

"Side of the Black Note that Johnny dealt with was just one piece of the whole mess. When he weren't running around in that hood ornament helmet of his, menacing Johnny or killing innocents, he was pretending to be a bloke called Tom Broadfoot. Old friend of Cragen's. Ex-boxer turned headmaster at their old orphanage, all around great guy far as I've gathered. 'Til Cragen killed him to take his place."

She can't seem to keep her arms still. One minute they're folded over her chest, the next her hands are braced against the edge of the table, the next she's fussing with her gloves... so on.

"Me, I met him for the first time while I was investigatin' a lead on their other friend. 'Broadfoot' saved me from a stomping that probably woulda killed me, and grateful as I was something about the whole thing seemed fishy. He was a suspect for a minute there until after tailing him, he..." she sighs, scratches the back of her neck and looks away. "He managed to throw me off his scent. We talked and the story he told, frustrations he described, all out of Broadfoot's mouth... I understood it, see, so I wrote him off. An' that ain't even the worst of it."

He winces in sympathy. The more he hears of Cragen, the less he likes him -- and honestly, his esteem for the man was already very low. "A pretense at heroism," he says. "That's quite the cover. Doesn't excuse anything he did, of course. Not remotely. But go on."

Watson is calm, gently reassuring. Listening.

"One of his big plays was taking down this bridge, Prosperity. Big symbol of the rich and fortunate splashing their money around. We figured it out in time to interrupt him, but not to stop him. I was out there tryna get a bunch of rich kids to evacuate while they all thought I was nuts, so in the end I only got a handful of folks off in my auto and most of the rest..."

She mimes a collapsing motion, vaguely. Into the water with the bridge they went. It still makes her shudder to think about it. So many young swells who didn't know what hit them until it was too late.

"So I was a bit shaken up, sure you can imagine. Whole reason I couldn't bring myself to help you, Johnny and that other fella that night at the diner. Rhymed too much." Something like PTSD, Johnny had said. Like a bruise on the brain. "Anyway. That night, stumbled my way home on foot. Long walk, that. Ended up sat outside his orphanage, shaking as much from the trauma of it all as much as the snow falling and... he came out to me. Gave me his coat. Talked to me like he didn't know what I'd just seen. And I— eugh."

She covers her face with a hand, again. Something about this is still awfully embarrassing to admit. "I tried to kiss him." And, the more troubling part, really, "And if he weren't wearing some creepy facial prosthesis to look like Broadfoot, I reckon he'd have let me. Not much better that he didn't, mind. Let him play up the good guy act, more. Say how he didn't want to take advantage. Didn't stop him taking me inside and taking care of me, playing along as we... did the dance steps you're s'posed to, when you court someone."

Edited (wording was bothering me) 2022-11-06 23:58 (UTC)

"No. No, how could he? That's... unthinkable."

Watson's voice is softly outraged on her behalf. Sure, there's definitely some sense of Victorian chivalry tied up in there, even if he knows perfectly well Crabb doesn't need him to defend her honour and she could almost definitely punch him in the jaw herself, but it's the principle of the thing.

"I knew the man was cruel, and I already owed him a left hook, but he's a cold bastard to do that."

There's still something weirdly validating about other people getting incensed on her behalf. It isn't that she doesn't know in herself that it was cruel and violating for him to play with her emotions the way he did, but a part of her is aware it could've been worse. There was never anything physical to it all. To the modern types the relationship as it was probably barely looks like dating (not that it's stopped anyone from sympathising) which she feels less conscious of, with Watson's frame of reference likely being closer to her own.

"You'd have to get in line for that punch, doc, but damn if it ain't nice to hear someone else say it." She breathes out and nods. "He was a real piece of work, ol' Cragen. Played me for a damn fool for months, with that routine. Kept me off his tail. Felt like such an idiot, when we found him out. Then he had the nerve to— to imply he weren't entirely faking it and eugh. I dunno. He's dead now, anyhow." (Ha. Ha.) "Even if he weren't he could go to Hell, far as I'm concerned. I'm done letting him hang over me like a shadow."

Most of the time.

(Ha. Ha.)

"If he wasn't faking it," he says, "if he really felt something for you, then his deception is all the worse. If he had any true feeling for you and carried on in that way regardless, then he should be all the more ashamed."

Watson is indignantly angry, and then there's definitely no personal grief colouring that thought, no way. He takes a deep breath. "Good riddance to him. But yes, I understand why that would feel... similar to you."

She doesn't totally miss the hint of something more personal to his anger, casting a quiet look his way before she sighs and nods again. "People we care about don't half have the power to rip our hearts out. Risk of being social beings, I guess."

To survive you have to reach out, but by reaching out you might get burned, so on and so forth. Here, at least, she's finally been entertaining reaching out to more people again. People besides just the League.

"Really didn't expect to hear an echo so eerily familiar as that, but I also didn't expect to end up bleedin' possessed, so I guess what do I know."

"What do any of us know?" Watson says. "Look, there are plenty of us here who could be reasonably expected to know about and anticipate possession, but I don't think either of us fall into that category.

"But yes." He sighs, heavily. "Loving someone does mean making yourself vulnerable. And yet I keep doing it, despite the pain."

"How long being stuck on a bleedin' magic boat d'you reckon it takes before we actually start feelin' prepared for all the supernatural nonsense? Not soon enough, by any measure, seems like."

She's been here six months and spare change (granted, with a month now... unaccounted for) and she's still never ready for whatever new pile of supernatural crap happens.

"You've sure done well for yourself here, at least, yeah? Deaths aside, which, ain't that a nutty sentence..." But since they don't stick... it's different. It still hurts but it's different.

"Two deaths is more than some people and less than others," Watson says. "I don't feel like I can complain too much about that, especially considering as lucky as I feel I've been in other areas."

He's quiet for a moment, then shakes his head. "I was... I don't mind telling you, but I was... very much alone, before I came here. I was recently widowed, had lost my closest friend before that. I had a not very exciting but respectable medical practice and I wrote little stories that were getting some attention, but I did not have close friends anymore. As horrible as this place is... sometimes I am a little grateful for it."

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pointofhonoria - 2022-11-13 23:30 (UTC) - Expand

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