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

[pointofhonoria]

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.

Comments

[pointofhonoria]

Erin describes stabbing Daisy (Crabb's own body) in the ribs and if anything Crabb just leans to soothe her more, other hand coming up to the other side of her face. She doesn't care about that. She wasn't in there at the time, she didn't feel it, she doesn't have to live with what Erin had to do the way Erin does.

No, it's around when Erin says 'kiss' that Crabb's muscles lock, for a moment. Her breath catches in her throat.

She was possessing me, for Christ's sake! is one thought that crosses her mind. She played with all of your emotions while using my face! is another. You couldn't tell me this when you told me the rest? is one more.

But trying to speak ends with her tongue tied. Her head drops forward. She needs a minute.

"...God's teeth, Erin. Could've bleedin' warned me. About— about any of that. All I know about the woman is she tried to get you all bloody possessed and dragged vulnerability outta people to keep up the damn act! I-I don't..."

She grits her teeth and tells herself to breathe. Inhale, exhale.

"...did you—?" Did you keep your word. Did you really kiss her. Is she really two-two with the woman that tried to take over her life, when it comes to kissing her own damn girlfriend?

[crushed_pearls]

"I was trying to figure out how to bring it up -" the protest sounds like pleading more than anything. Begging for understanding, for mercy.

Erin hangs her head.

(What did we tell you?)

"This morning I heard this voice. Scared. Angry. Swearing she'd take the ship down and everyone in it. Posted myself outside her door and. There she was. Tiny. Deadly. Starved, somehow."

"...Scared. So scared. The ship made her do the muster again, you would have loved to see that. I. I needed. Resolution? To the argument that ended in violence. To the idea that strength means you love nothing. Got in the elevator with her and told her if she's so above it all, just kill me. Prove her point and I'd never bother her again. Warned Johnny that I might lose the day."

Erin shakes her head. Touches those scarlet notes on her arms. "Daisy almost did, you know? Someone ran her through the wringer before she ever came here. She's only as human as I am. But she didn't. Stopped herself with me bleeding all over the fucking elevator. And...cut up, beat down, feeling more okay being in this, stupid, fucking, elf doll body than I ever have been..."

She can't make herself finish. Her hand goes to reach for Crabb's.

Erin can't finish that either.

[pointofhonoria]

The 'yes' is too loudly implied to ignore and something in Crabb's heart wrenches. Anyone but Daisy and she thinks, she really thinks, it wouldn't hit her the way it does but it is Daisy. Of all people why did it have to be Daisy—

Her hands fall from Erin's face, but, despite that, they grasp for one of Erin's hands in turn. Beneath the hurt in her chest there's a deep pit of concern that Erin's only filled up more, talking about offering her own life up as forfeit to prove a point, talking about being cut up and bleeding and—

(What even does she see in me? Nothing like these other women, am I?)

"...Erin, just say it, please. Give it to me plain, don't make me fill in the blanks, yeah...?"

[crushed_pearls]

"...We fucked, Crabb. Before she made it to the muster. And I've spent the day since trying to figure out why in God's name I did that. Why I can't just let someone love me but someone who wants to hurt me feels safe."

[pointofhonoria]

Crabb falls from her crouch to sit on the floor outright, reclaiming her hands entirely to drag them over her face as she lets that settle in. Three days. Three days since Erin made it clear anything more than kissing wouldn't be on the table for God only knows how long and it's not like Crabb minded that, it's not like Crabb is in a rush to get there. She's almost as scared of taking that plunge as Erin had seemed.

But she didn't expect Erin to get there without her.

"Jesus Christ." Her voice shakes a little and she swallows it down. For a moment it feels like whatever's tethering her to her body is trying it's damnedest to let go. Ten days back in her own skin doesn't feel like enough, right now. "G-Gimme— gimme a minute. Just need to—"

Get herself under control. Push down the insecurities that all claw their ways up to the surface so she can approach this with some amount of reason, not unrestrained emotion.

Eventually, she gets out, "...and have you, even a little?" Figured it out.

[crushed_pearls]

"...I just hurt you and you're still worried about me." Erin's voice is dreamlike. Distant. "Why aren't you...yelling, ordering me to get out, why..."

Erin buries her face in her hands.

"...I do have some idea besides the inherent eroticism of having my wounds literally licked, yes."

But those questions hang in the air where Erin put them.

[pointofhonoria]

Her voice does raise just a little, when she speaks up again. "I-I wanna understand, Erin! I wanna know what the Hell was going through your head that you threw yourself into the arms of a woman that woulda killed you not a month ago! Alright? I wanna understand it. Maybe then part of me'll stop— screaming all the bloody ways I'm—"

She slips into a frustrated noise, not wanting to finish that sentence. Not really wanting to give those thoughts an actual voice, no matter how loud they are right now.

(—no one actually wants you, you can't give her what she needs, you told her you could handle this and now look at you—)

"...I-I just wanna understand."

[crushed_pearls]

Erin's hand comes out and touches, just lightly, on Crabb's knee. Hesitant.

"I know I'm self-centered a lot," Erin says, her voice a bare murmur. And yet, not flinching away from Crabb's anger. "The last time...I held it together for Colors, for awhile. And then later, much, much later, I couldn't hold it any more. Broke down sobbing in the fucking night. Screamed at her to just let me be the doll I was made to be. She didn't. I was so angry at...her, at myself. For not being the princess a knight deserves. For hating the idea of that."

"...You have more in common with Daisy than I think she wants to believe. I don't want to...hurt myself like I do. But when I'm bleeding and burnt and messy it feels like I've finally done something to be me and not a god damn display piece. I know that's not what you want either. But I'm. So scared to not be that filthy, perfect thing."

A shuddering breath in. "...I did want to show her we're not weak. Fuck up that worldview I hate so much. But I also just. Needed to crack the porcelain. Tear away the fancy clothes. Take myself off the shelf in my head. And that's. Insane, right? That's. Fucking crazy."

[pointofhonoria]

She doesn't pull her knee away or slap Erin's hand aside. She also doesn't immediately go to rest her hand on Erin's. She just leans back on the support of one arm, scratching at her neck with the other as she casts her eyes to the floor and tries to wrap her head around the explanation.

"...really dunno how I'm s'posed to take being compared to her, right now, if I'm honest." That's... the simple part, that's the easiest thing to comment on because all she knows about Daisy is violence and lying and things she doesn't want to be compared to raw, like that. "I-I don't... aw, Hell, Erin, I dunno, do I? I dunno what it's like to go through what you did, be shaped how you were, and I ain't gonna hold against you the ways it still hurts you. Just..."

Sometimes, it's easy to cut straight through the bullshit someone's feeling to the core of the issue. Except those times have most often been within a context she understands. In places she's not scared of screwing up irreparably. She told Johnny it's never stopped her before and that's true, and it isn't, but this is... harder to navigate than she's used to.

"No, I don't want you to feel like you gotta hurt yourself. An' I don't want some— display piece. All I want is you, bleedin'— rough edges and all, alright, but that ain't so much the point right now, is it? It ain't that simple and I— I dunno. I dunno. I'm trying."

God, she's trying.

[crushed_pearls]

"...I'm going to ask a question that might help. I know why I get hot with a sword at my throat or claws against my heart. Why do you? Do you want me to hurt you or is it just thrilling that I could?"

(She's still leaving. This is pointless.)

No. Never pointless.

[pointofhonoria]

Even now, in the midst of all this, it's impossible for her to help the way her face flushes at the question. She hasn't spent half as much time interrogating that as maybe she should have, especially after the whole... talk... with Johnny. There's certainly still things she doesn't have the full context for, but...

"Uh. Um. Hell, I dunno, just— thrilling? I guess?" She thinks? God help her the woman still isn't fully equipped to understand the lines in her own desires.

[crushed_pearls]

"I know I don't want to hurt you but I'll admit that the idea of seeing how you hold up at knife point occurs to me a lot." Twice a day. In the shower. "If I knew you were into it straight out I might have already tried it."

Erin flashes a sad smile. "...I want you too. I hate being afraid of that. Hate getting in my own head so deep that I need to bleed to wash it out. But, hell. It took Ylva turning me into a crow for an hour and then this for me to confront that instead of not even questioning it. I keep thinking, if I was the kinda person who could really make you happy I would have to shot my shot in the gym...but that actually is crazy. You're a big girl. Smart. Fierce. So I guess the question I'm dancing around is...are we over?"

That hand on Crabb's knee tightens, so that it won't tremble.

[pointofhonoria]

God help her Erin you can't just say things like that and expect her to be able to focus on the serious business that follows—

She does manage to listen, though, wrangle the part of her running off wildly into paying attention to the important parts. She's quiet for longer than she feels like she should be and yet less time than it feels it is before eventually she draws in a deep breath, then rests her hand atop Erin's as she lets it back out. Several long, possibly agonising moments of her weighing up the dull ache in her chest with the fact Erin still told her, didn't hide, didn't try to make out that it should hurt less than it did. With the fact Erin, genuinely, flaws and all, makes her happy for some reasons she can explain and some she still can't.

She squeezes Erin's hand, tight. "...if I weren't prepared for bumps in the road I wouldn't'a taken the chance on this, Erin. I— I don't wanna be over at the first bleedin' hurdle. I like you too much." Love is still far too terrifying to say... "Just— just can I ask you don't launch yourself back at her, least before we work some 'a this out...?"

[crushed_pearls]

Erin tries to swallow a sob of pure relief and it comes out as a hiccup. She nods, not trusting herself to speak, nods again in case it was somehow too subtle, and -

Leans forward, to fall ever-so-gently into Crabb's lap. The wriggle to be face-up that follows is oddly fluid.

"...Just. Leave her be too. I'm not asking you to like her or forgive her. Just. Give her the chance I got."

"...God Johnny's gonna shoot me and I'm probably gonna let him."

[pointofhonoria]

"Really rather he didn't, honestly, but if you bleedin' told him— s'pose he did warn you."

It's lightly teasing and genuinely concerned at the same time; much as she appreciates his protective streak she'll talk to Johnny if she has to. It hurt, yeah, but Erin's clearly kicking herself enough for the two of them.

Crabb leans down to press a kiss to Erin's forehead ever so gently, fingertips stroking over her cheekbone, her jaw, coming dangerously close to her lips but chickening out. Her other hand brushes at some of that cloudy hair. The weight in her lap helps ground her back in the here and now and Crabb just watches Erin for a long, long moment, before she talks again.

"...arrite, I'll leave her be. But if she don't give me the same courtesy..."

[crushed_pearls]

That kiss. Erin lets out a long and shaky breath, cheeks pale red because the fact of the matter is she only has so much blood right now. Crabb's answer gets a wordless nod while Erin just lets it linger on her skin.

Her voice is small but warm when she finds language again: "Do you want to hear what I told her about you? And what I didn't?"

[pointofhonoria]

Crabb was mere seconds of silence away from asking essentially the very same in reverse, lingering insecurities playing around the edges of what little consideration she's been able to give that conversation between Erin and Daisy back when she wasn't around.

"...yeah. Think I would, actually."

Why does she like her? What makes Erin want Honoria Crabb, despite every part of her that can't help but feel like she's just not that desirable?

[crushed_pearls]

Erin takes a deep breath. A dreamy look crosses her face, and then it stays there as she just basks here, in this moment.

Her gunpowder, held hostage by her terror and self-doubt, begins making up for lost time with its best effort at a crab rave.

"The conversation was never really about you for all that Daisy wanted to pretend it was," Erin repeats. "But I told her anyway; I said, Honoria Crabb has real valor. She's perceptive, and compassionate, and courageous in the face of her limits on this wild-ass hell cruise. That you had the courage to care in a world of horror. That you know the strength of the wolf is not the teeth, but the pack."

Erin's head tilts back, putting her lips closer than her forehead.

"...And I didn't say how I love watching you hit the bag, looking like a feral thing but always in control; never a hit harder than you mean. I didn't say, your sense of humor makes me feel like one of these days I really will graduate beyond gallows humor myself. I didn't tell her the callouses on your knuckles feel like touching a knight's holy sword, every time, or how the way you look at me makes me feel seen beyond this fucking skin that can't be tarnished. I have told someone you're very attractive but that was a different conversation and it remains a wild-ass statement from someone who would turn invisible and make you date me like that if I could do so right now."

"...I didn't say that watching you try helps me stagger out of bed and try too. And maybe I should have, because the world should love those things about you too."

[pointofhonoria]

God it's like having the breath pulled from her lungs with every word. She sits there in a stunned sort of silence as the words flow into the privacy of the cabin air, those shared with Daisy but also those that are just for her, now. That she can tuck away somewhere in her heart or her head and try to remember to draw out when the doubt gnaws at her. It's like bloody poetry to her and there's an audible sense of relief, awe, in the laugh-tinted breath she lets out as Erin finishes.

"Mm, well, I ain't ever gonna complain about you callin' me handsome, so..."

It's light and warm and awed and the fact that she finds that the easy part to comment on, despite the spectre of how little she's ever been called attractive at all before Erin, says something about how much the rest hits her.

Another breath, shakier than the last but thick with relief.

"...God please say I can kiss you, right now."

[crushed_pearls]

"Just make sure to let me breathe love, I lost a lot of blood."

Erin's hands find Crabb's and hold them tight.

[pointofhonoria]

"Hey, I ain't the one who forgot about breathin' last time, am I?"

The angle is new, but she figures it out; she's a little more confident every time, see. Her lips find Erin's and can't seem to help curling into a smile a moment before, and though a part of her is still worried about many things, for now... she relaxes, just sinks into this, into Erin, and clings to the fact Erin so loudly loves (loves, God—) her.

[crushed_pearls]

Erin's still the one to forget breathing this time. Some small part of her is yelling that she didn't even brush her teeth after all that chain smoking at Tauva but the rest is kissing back, languid and unhurried but hungry nonetheless. When her head drops back into Crabb's lap she sucks in air and laughs a mad and delighted laugh.

"One of these days I'm actually gonna die doing that and have to explain it to everyone so they can laugh at me," Erin murmurs. "...Or forget to not bite you, but maybe that one ends better."

[pointofhonoria]

Crabb lets out a breathless laugh, "See, if you die doin' that, I don't stand a chance, but the biting... guess we'll have to see, won't we?"

Her heart is pounding again. There's a certain emotional whiplash to going from the revelations about Daisy to all of this, the sting still lingers somewhere under her skin but the warmth of Erin's words and lips and presence soothes it enough that she can put it aside for now.

"...you make me feel seen too, y'know. Never feel like you're putting something on me that you wanna see, just that you see the me I've been tryna be for years." She presses another kiss to Erin's forehead, lingering for a moment as she collects her thoughts. "And I like seeing you. All of you. Way you're trying so damn hard to be something new, too, no matter what other folks or even yourself have put on you in the past. You talk about this garden to tend and this place feels less..." no, that's not quite right, "feels more like somewhere to belong. Way you get just— silly, sometimes. Giddy, happy... makes me wanna find all the ways I can to pull more of that outta you."

Everything from her enjoyment of the Muppets, to the mere idea to turn tiny for the costume party even if she didn't see it, to the way she squealed and seemed so delighted after the kisses, the decision to date for real.

"Way you've always got your eye on the youngins around here, never know what to do with 'em myself and there's you in all these photos muddling your way through it. You reach out to people. You don't go lettin' people flounder alone, even when you barely know 'em. You barely knew me and neither of us knew how much we could handle but... here we are, yeah? Y'don't go easy on me but y'don't rush me and y'don't look down on what I'm lacking.

"And— and it ain't like I think you're something to bloody fix, but you make me wanna do the best by you I can, 'cause I wanna see what happens as you muddle out how to handle someone loving you more than you think you deserve."

And somehow Crabb herself feels embarrassed for putting that all into the air plain like that, but she's done it now, hasn't she?

[crushed_pearls]

The blood left in Erin's body makes an emergency evacuation to her face. She hadn't been expecting - she didn't even ask, had been happy just with the idea that she was liked by itself - and now Crabb's -

The powerful need not to be looked at while this gobsmacked and cherished makes Erin roll back over, facedown in Crabb's lap, where her girlfriend's legs muffle the squeal that Erin makes.

(That's not - we're just doing things -)

Everyone just does things! Crabb doesn't lie.

...Also...this feels very comfy...

Erin tries to say something that fails to escape the Crabb Legs and turns over on her side so she can talk. She can't stop grinning. "I'm really all that, huh? You really know how to make a girl feel special, love." A happy little sigh. "You'd do great with the youngbloods, honestly. I'm surprised Johnny hasn't tagged you in on Vance, his student, already. Boy could use an example of the difference between bravery and courage."

[pointofhonoria]

Crabb lights up the second the blush shows up, and only gets brighter when Erin has to roll over to muffle her squeal. That makes every ounce of embarrassment about putting that all in words completely worth it, it really does. She brushes at some of Erin's cloud of hair again while she's got her face hidden, then flashes her that smile when she turns part-way over again.

"Don't say things I don't mean, me. You know that." And all of that... it's really why she's willing to keep giving Erin the chance. One screw up doesn't erase everything else she's seen. "You're all that and more, Erin. Can say so as many times as you can take hearing it without actually exploding."

This is... really nice. The turnaround from how tense she was when Erin arrived all anxious looking to the comfort of sitting here like this...

"Never felt like I'm great with kids, to tell the truth. Ain't like I don't like 'em, just don't feel like I've got the right kinda patience? I dunno. S'pose I didn't do terrible when I got roped into something when I was 'round at the orphanage, once or twice..."