pointofhonoria | come sail away inbox

Crabb's going to choose to be reassured that they're both fumbling through this a little rather than overthink any one part of what she said, because if she thinks too hard about what Erin thinks is awkward she might not be able to get through her thing and then they're just in a loop.

Her first. God, this was not the conversation she expected to have right after getting her body back—

"I ain't— I ain't never kissed anyone, before, see. I tried, that one time with Cragen, yeah, but— he didn't let me, on account 'a the disguise and everything. Weren't that touchy with each other at all, actually. Keep thinking I should be glad of that but even thinking that's kinda messed up and—"

Deep breath. Calm down for Christ's sake.

"Point is, Cragen's the only person I ever had that kinda relationship with no matter how much my folks wished otherwise. M'thirty-bleedin'-four and I've never kissed anyone, let alone anythin' else. Hell I'm the only member of the damn League that ain't—" Shut up, you're going on an irrelevant tangent. "—look, it's just a little embarrassing, alright."

"...This is normally when I'd ask if you ever even wanted to but that bit's got a somewhat obvious answer."

Somewhere in Erin's heart is a newborn dream of hurting everyone who ever hurt the kids on this godforsaken ship. Next to it nestles a new one, of going to every bar Honoria Crabb ever drank at and punching men until a survivor explains why Gallery has let this fierce flower wilt in neglect like this. How fucking dare they?

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about." Erin catches herself before she ends that sentence with 'love', Jesus Christ slow your roll a bit, we're emotional but there's still things going on here GOD. "This's admittedly one I don't have a lot of personal experience with. I've been...available...longer than I haven't. But that's kinda the thing, right? You can't make a tree bear fruit before it's ready. Your life's not on a clock. Even if it used to be...what's Gallery gonna do, send the Fuck Police through dimensions to arrest you for virginity crimes?"

(...)

(...Peters. Peters I know I've been doomsaying this entire conversation but are you sure -)

Yep.

(Oh we said that ON PURPOSE?)

She gets fiercer when we fluster her on purpose, Me.

Erin Peters you are going to make her choke on her own spit for lack of having any drink to choke on that was not the response she was expecting and yet here they are, Crabb's face somehow getting even darker as the phrases 'fuck police' and 'virginity crimes' circle her skull.

"—Erin I just came back from the bleedin' dead I do not need a heart attack on top of—" Flustered but almost adorably indignant little huff, "'Course they ain't, even if they bleedin' could that's— look that ain't what I'm worried about here and now, yeah? I don't— care that my parents wish I'd been married at least a half decade ago, or that I'm some— extraneous bleedin' limb off the League's... everything with romance."

Fourth wheel. She's trying to describe being kind of a fourth wheel, through no intentional slight of any of the others.

"More worried about how outta step it puts me here. I dunno how I'd—" She huffs air out her nose and looks aside for a moment. "I dunno how I'd have taken you kissin' me like that if— if I was there."

Even just knowing she missed that feels— complicated in ways she finds hard to describe.

Erin lifts their held hands and squeezes them. A little smile, shy and flickering, plays on her lips, out of time with the crackling feeling that is going further than skin-deep.

"Me either," Erin admits. Around the two of them her gunpowder dances, warming the air to a March afternoon that promises rain. "...I know I can come off as this forthright badass sometimes when I'm - well. When I'm flirting it's this whole thing. I bite off more than I can chew. I know I do. It helps me feel like I'm setting the pace, like I'm in control of something that I want and fear in equal measure. I spent so long as this sharp and deadly thing who didn't have to love anyone, and that sharp thing bought and sold sex and love and told itself that it didn't matter. Now she's in pieces and I'm here trying to figure out which parts are Erin and which parts...which parts just need to go."

Her left hand draws Crabb's right closer. Places it near her own face.

("Pick me up and pet me!")

Lets go, of just that hand, drawing away in a shy gesture.

"Gentleness feels like this, this trap, sometimes. Like I'm being lured in to get eaten up again. But I don't want the things I know I like by being sharp and distant and unloving and unattainable. I...I wanna kiss you when I know, really know, you want to be kissed. And held. And...no, not finishing that sentence, I'm gonna pussy out of that one." Erin's head turns away as she tries to hide behind her cloud of hair, which does not cooperate in this even a little.

"...One thing I'm pretty sure was Erin the whole time is...I suspect I'm. More like Johnny's situation than I am a housewife's or - god, no, housewife's the wrong...I fall in love easy, Crabb. And it never feels, inside, like I love anyone else less just because I did. Am I making sense?"

Please say yes.

Please don't be angry.

...Please say you want to try to kiss me.

(Could we handle that, Peters?)

No. But I'll take destruction on those terms.

So many emotions are swirling around Crabb's chest like a damn twister that only gets more volatile, only gets harder to control, the more Erin does and says. Elation wars with embarrassment. Fear wars with desire. Feeling wanted wars with feeling not enough. Some of these feelings are right and some of them are wrong and some of them are somewhere in-between but one thing they all have in common is how overwhelming they are.

Crabb feels for a moment like she could crumble apart right here and have to pull herself back together again before she can handle any of this, but—

She brushes her fingertips against Erin's cheek, soft and tentative (he never let her touch his face, no one's ever...) and breathes. She can't help but stare at her lips for a long, long moment before Erin turns her head and she manages to break her gaze.

The self-esteem issues she swore to Johnny that she didn't have say you were gone three weeks and she found someone better, of course she did, no one looks at you that way for long, while the logical part of her kicks a hole in the stupid thought with the reminder that Erin is right here, right now, letting her touch her, talking about wanting to kiss her when she wants it.

(God, does she want it? She keeps looking at her lips, of course she wants it, but now? Later? Is she ever going to be able to just ask for that?)

So, so many thoughts. Far too long without saying a word. That's what finally makes her speak up, the sudden realisation of just how long she's left them here in silence. She sputters a, "—gimme a second," as if it hasn't already been much, much more than a second.

She doesn't move an inch. Just grips tight at Erin's hand and traces her cheekbone with her thumb. Breathes and makes herself run over the facts in her head again, like this is some case to crack and not the interpersonal mess that it is. Whatever works, right?

...the comparison to Johnny was a good call, she realises after a moment. Anything else and she's not sure she'd be able to wrangle the instinctual feeling of being... lacking, somehow. But she's seen how much Johnny loves (oh God she's really talking about love) his boys, and she's never once thought that he loved either any less.

Hell. It's not like she's not had... certain feelings going a few directions at once, before. Most of which she's never, will never, can never do anything about, but—

"...you're making sense, yeah. I-I think. I mean— no. No, you are. I hear you. God, Erin, I do, I hear you, I just dunno how to— I dunno how to even admit what I want, here, let alone ask."

That touch. When Crabb's hand touches Erin's cheek she lets out a shaky sound of pure relief. Her chest feels like she finally let out a breath she's been holding since, since -

(Let's be real, Peters. If we were doing better we would have invited her back to our room at the gym.)

- since then, yeah. She nuzzles softly into the touch, tension bleeding out of her. She feels...safe. So safe. Like, but not the same, as she had in Cassandra's hands.

They're different people. It's okay if it feels different too.

"Would it help," Erin murmurs, dreamily, "if I said something crass and overtly sexual again? You rally so fiercely when I do that. I love it."

The laugh that gets out of Crabb is thick with a special kind of relief she's only felt a few times in her life. More than that, there's a sense of quiet awe, almost, as Erin nuzzles into her hand, as it really settles in that this is happening: she's dishing out undeniably romantically charged affection and neither of them are pulling away like having even this much is improper or too fast or... whatever nonsense she's got her head all tangled up in.

"I mean, now you've warned me, might not work so well," she teases. "Can certainly give it a try, though. If you love it so much."

God, her heart is going so damn fast.

"Well then. Why don't you try asking what's on your mind before this cabin starts feeling any more like home?"

Erin's face turns and she kisses Crabb's wrist before she finishes that thought: "Among other things I don't keep the bra on at home."

(...Wow. Alright, see you when you need me.)

Yep. If our heart doesn't explode you'll be back.

The fact that Crabb set that trap to catch her in does not, in fact, stop her from being caught in it because oh look there's the deep goddamn flush in her face again, right on cue. The touch of Erin's lips to her wrist does not at all help with that, unless by help you mean make it infinitely worse, which, if you ~~are Erin~~ enjoy her fluster, probably does count as helping.

God give her fucking strength she's only human, she can't even begin to totally clamp down on where that makes her mind go.

"—Jesus Christ," she sounds a little strangled, but there's a laugh somewhere in there too. She. She sure did challenge her to get her even with warning, didn't she— God, alright, alright. "Think we need to figure out this whole— kissing business before you put thoughts like that in my damn head."

...yeah there it is, alright. Can't unsay it now.

Yep here it is. Erin's pretty sure -

- pretty sure? -

- pretty sure she's picking up the message Crabb is putting out but is she? Should she -

The ratio of hearts-to-crabs in the gunpowder around her tilts hard towards hearts. She goes to lean in, to be closer, and then winces as her cracked ribs inform her that no she fucking will not be doing that. Erin flashes a pained and awkward smile.

Fuck it.

"Well. If you want to try it you're gonna have to come to me, Crabb. I'm a bit busted up to try the gentle version of what you missed on ya."

The reminder that Erin is injured is almost enough for her brain to latch onto as an excuse to chicken out, as the nerves pick up and her heart pounds so fast she could swear it were ready to actually explode. Almost, but no, no, if she backs out now she has no idea when, if, she'll ever get the nerve again.

Right now, it doesn't feel like she can risk wasting that much time. Not when things like being thrown out of your own damn body into pure nothingness can happen. Not when they don't know how long any one passenger will last on board.

She's raw, so emotionally raw, and realising that comes with realising how grateful she is Erin's letting her make a choice, here, but—

God, she's nervous. Trying to kiss Broadfoot had been so spur of the moment, inseparable from the desperation of that night, she hadn't thought ahead as far as what she'd do if he hadn't stopped her. Now, all she seems to be able to think about is that she doesn't know what she's doing—what if she's a bad kisser, what if she messes up somehow, what if what if what if...

Funny how she's the one with all the bottled courage to spare until she's facing down something so much less dire than a fight.

"...al-alright."

Crabb breathes. Keeps her hands exactly where they are, one holding Erin's own while the other cups her cheek tenderly. Leans up to close the distance between them, slow and steady even though she feels like she's shaking, all the while irrationally terrified that Erin will simply jerk away at the last moment because maybe that's just how it goes, for her. She wouldn't be surprised.

Christ. She really doesn't know how to kiss.

But she's only going to be more humiliated if she chickens out now, so— so she doesn't. She won't.

Erin stops breathing as Crabb really, honestly goes for it. She'd been bracing for a shy refusal, already happy to simply not be rejected outright, but this -

Her free hand goes to the back of Crabb's head, just before their lips touch. Gentle, wordless: yes.

Erin's lips taste faintly of strawberries when she kisses back. It's shy, unsure. She takes in a shaky breath and then she's kissing Crabb herself, Erin's nature helping to keep them from knocking their noses together, helping this moment with each other.

When she pulls away it's only by scant inches.

A whisper: "If I could spend all day doing that no one here would see me again."

Despite all initial nerves, despite every fear she'd mess this up somehow, between the hand at the back of her head and the way Erin kisses her... by the time they've parted, the only reason Crabb isn't a puddle on the floor is the limitations of the human form. Her heart is still thrumming, she's still ever so aware of how fragile her existence is, she's still full of questions she knows she'll hate the answers to and yet she's—

She's honest to god relaxed, at least for now.

"Christ, you're gonna bleedin' kill me sayin' things like that." Yet she doesn't sound like she's complaining. No, she sounds far closer to elated. "That was—"

She doesn't have an end to that sentence, just breathless, almost giddy laughter that escapes her instead. Now she really does feel like some silly young girl, all giggly and awestruck by just a kiss, but after everything... maybe she's allowed to be a little silly.

"You wouldn't be the only lass in this room who kinda thinks things that can kill you are very kissable actually," Erin teases. She rests her forehead against Crabb's and lets out a contented sigh.

Her lips are still tingling.

"I'm in no rush, for this. However long you need. Wherever, whenever, you want to stop, say the word and it's done. I could be warm from this moment for the rest of my time here."

"...But." Erin holds up their hands with a wistful smile. "I really can't keep you all day. Even if I wanted to do that to Johnny and your other friends, which...y'know, honestly, tempting, my ribs are trying to secede from the greater nation of my body. I need to go face the music with Tendi and get 'em fixed up before I do something really stupid and end up with one of 'em in my lung. But. Try this again, sometime?"

And there comes the rush of other emotions again, escaping from where they were all tucked away for those few moments of genuine ease. Crabb manages to nod, to answer with a firm, "Definitely. Wanna— wanna figure this out. Might be bit by bit, but I wanna. Just..."

Just bear with me, she thinks, but doesn't bother to say, because Erin's just made it clear she's perfectly willing to do just that. That isn't what she's worried about, now.

What she's worried about is just about everything else she said.

What feels like, but arguably isn't in the circumstances, an intensely selfish part of her wants so desperately to ask her not to leave right now. The idea of being alone again, after being so utterly alone for the last three weeks, is terrifying in a way that makes her throat tighten, but she couldn't ask that of her, and even if she could, Erin is hurt.

"—Erin." It's a little strangled, with how much effort it takes to stop feeling like she's swallowed something heavy. "What happened? An onslaught, you said. Please. What the hell did I miss?"

She's hurt, she shouldn't hold her up, she really shouldn't, but—

Erin deflates, visibly, but her hand squeezes Crabb's and she makes no effort to pull away. She chews her lip, thinking, trying to decide. Doesn't notice when it starts to bleed and run down her chin.

"...A lot," she says at last. "The ghosts, they were so desperate not to go back to Nothing. The woman in your body was so scared, so angry. She claimed not to know how to give up your body but...well, killing that body certainly put you back in it. I'm not sure I have it in me to blame her for not telling us that. Some of them got violent, which is how the passengers in general found out - I'm not telling this in order, I'm -"

"- I wasn't trying to leave because something went wrong, just now. I'm still raw off the fight, off the...everything. I'm not gonna give you the details. They won't be any comfort to you. But when it all went down, when the ghosts attacked trying to get our bodies for the others in the Nothing? Johnny and I were the ones to put Daisy down. The person inside you. She went after Johnny and he had her on the ropes, and I...signed the paperwork. Having you back now, having you here, it's so...so warm. So relieving. But I'm fighting off a breakdown I know is waiting for me, trying to keep moving until I'm too tired to have it. To. To put it off until I can face it on my terms. Telling the whole story, right now, I - I'll crack, and you really will be stuck here all day. Trying to care for me when you're not steady yourself."

"Erin, you're bleeding," almost instinctively she dabs at what's dribbling down her chin with the end of her sleeve. Focuses on that for a moment as she tries to process... all of that.

God. Sometimes she wishes she didn't need to know things so desperately. It never stops her from asking, but it doesn't stop the hard answers from taking her breath away when she gets them.

She knew she must have died. She's been through this song and dance before, waking up all tucked in at six in the morning. It's been months since the Battle Royale but you don't forget that.

If she were thinking straight, she might have been able to put together more of the pieces. But she isn't. She's disoriented and scared and can barely put together her own thoughts, let alone the giant gap in her life here on the boat. 'Put Daisy down' is such a tidy way to admit that they had to kill her, kill someone who was running around wearing her face.

Erin and Johnny had to kill her and face her the next day.

That's one pain this boat has caused so many that Crabb has yet to experience. She's only ever come at it from the other side. The killed, not the killer.

"—caring for you ain't a burden, Erin." She has to say that, she has to say that first before she admits, "B-But I guess I— guess I ain't gonna be much use when I feel like death warmed over."

And that, perhaps, is admitted more for Erin's benefit than her own. Right now, to her, the idea of spending the day focused on Erin isn't a bad one. She wouldn't be alone. She wouldn't have to focus on herself. She wouldn't have to figure out how to brave facing the others when she doesn't know what this Daisy did.

But she's a wreck. She knows she is. She couldn't help Erin right now even if she tried.

So even though her chest feels tight, she just... squeezes Erin's hand tight, and dares to press a quick kiss to her cheek. She likes the way that makes her heart thrum far better than the way the rest of the fear, does.

"Later, then. And I'm sorry. That you had to... I know it ain't my fault, alright, but I'm sorry."

Erin shakes her head faintly. A sad smile comes up on her face and stays there. "Things with my magic shapeshift pretty often, love." The pet name just slips out and she doesn't even notice, just keeps talking. "This isn't my first time killing something wearing a friend's face, but...it only ever gets easier in the moment. You learn to put aside the feelings, to sweep a piece off the board, and then later the hit comes and it crushes you. I. Like the idea of being cared for. I do. I wanna just curl up on your floor and cry like a little bitch and feel you there, not...not hating me for being able to do it. But when someone fakes being the original, the original is usually fine. You...you took the hit too."

Erin stands, slowly. Gently tugs on Crabb's hand to encourage her to stand too. "Get some of the breakfast outside. Maybe text Johnny to see if his family's managed to stop holding him long enough to see you. Time alone with your thoughts will be good but...not immediately. Not now. Don't lock yourself away in here, okay?"

'Love'. It's a damned miracle Crabb even processes a word she said after that, with how quickly the word begins echoing around her skull, bouncing off the sides like mad. The flush is back in her cheeks in an instant.

That's going to keep coming back to her all day. Beyond, probably.

"...some things shouldn't have to get easier. None 'a what we're getting used to here should be becomin' normal, and that ain't any different for crap we've had to get used to at home, yeah?"

But she lets herself be coaxed up to her feet. Her body is her own again, and yet there are moments where she doesn't feel quite settled in her own skin. Now is one of those moments. Everything beyond the hand Erin's holding feels... distant, and— alright. Maybe she's hungry. Thirsty.

Maybe she'll feel a little more alive if she treats herself like she is.

"I'll eat. An' I'll text him. Dunno— dunno if I can face the rest of the world right now, is all."

"I won't ask you to. I'm just...advising. I can't imagine the hit you just took but I know about getting hit."

Alright Erin. Deep breath.

NO WAIT FUCK -

She lets go to clutch her ribs with the pained wince of someone who did not learn the first time. Oh that's bracing. Really shoulda seen the doctor first, huh?

"Okay. I'm. Gonna limp out of here now. Like a cat who just fell off the table. Find me sometime soon, yeah? There's more to tell you when my head's on straighter, but...there's more people to check on too."

Reluctantly, slowly, Erin goes. She pauses to scoop up her armor and outer layers, regrets that immediately too ("Fffffuck me!"), and just about manages to get out the door.

She makes it 0 inches into the hallway before girlish, if pained, squeals of delight float back through the door; they only fade when Erin's too distant for them to make it back.

Crabb drops to sit, and then lay sprawled out on her mattress as the door shuts and instinctually hides her face in her arms as the sounds of Erin's delight float back through and hit her right in the heart like a damn cupid's arrow or some other cheesy metaphor she can't wrap her brain around right now.

That really happened. (Right? Yes, right.) She actually kissed Erin and Erin kissed her and— and apparently they both feel like giddy, delighted youths despite everything else right now because Erin's squealing like one and Crabb can't help how much she's smiling into her arm.

Everything else is still there, of course. She's barely been back in her own skin long enough to process what it meant to be out of it. She feels untethered, as soon as the room is empty. She's terrified of what's to come, of finding out everything she missed, of asking the questions she knows she has to ask. A part of her fears that three weeks out of touch, her body causing who knows what problems as 'Daisy' ran around in it, will only make it all the harder for her to figure out how to fit in here (it's been months, now, she should be settled, she should know her place, she should...).

All of that and countless more questions, concerns, and yet for this one, fleeting moment...

She feels happy.

She really does.

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