It's been a bit of an effort to get herself moving ever since she first woke up, but God if knowing Johnny's outside isn't enough motivation to overpower that. And when she does open the door, she doesn't even look at him long enough to notice the socks, or think about the fact he's probably holding a bottle right now, before she's just—
Dragging him into a hug. She never does this, he knows she never does this, and that alone should say everything about how much this has all messed her up, because the way she clings in that moment is nothing short of desperate.
Somehow, despite... everything, she's made it over twenty-four hours without crying, even thought she might make it through the whole ordeal the same, but something about the way he says her name, something about having I missed you put into words again like that— it gets her anyway. She clings a little tighter as her shoulders start to shake, the first tears she's cried in God only knows how long escaping despite herself.
"God, Johnny. Never thought I'd—" She swallows hard. It doesn't hide the sob half as well as she wishes it did. "—re-really thought I was do-done for, there."
"You s-sure bleedin' did." She tries in vain again to swallow down the crying, but though she fails there's a note of relieved laughter to that. She's back and it is because of them, isn't it? "C-Christ you don't half know how to get to a person. Rip reality asunder... between you and Erin I'm not g-gonna forget you lot actually like me any time soon..."
"Love you, even if I might never have said that aloud before all this." He finally disentangles. "You should get yourself a glass of water before we dive into the rum."
He'd get it himself, but he has socks on his hands. The only reason he's been so confident with the bottle is that it's shaped like a skull (thank you Lucius and Stede), and thus had grippy holes like eye sockets.
Her nose wrinkles a little, because ugh can't they just skip to the rum, but— no, no, he's being sensible, she'll get a glass of water. She mumbles a 'yeah, alright', takes a single step, then pauses and, "...and, well—love you too, Johnny."
And then because she still finds emotional vulnerability a complicated mess of a thing, she dips to fill a glass laying around from the bathroom sink before she can get too squirmy about it.
When she comes back out, she's still not reined the tears in completely, but she is taking a long drink. "...y'gonna need us to get into the rum before I ask what's up with the sock puppet hands?"
"Slightly cursed. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt or anything, but it's not something I'd rather you see right now. If it lingers, I'll need to figure something out, but for now this is fine. Fine enough. You'll have to open the bottle, though."
Look, it is the least concern in the all of everything going on.
Crabb blinks at him for a moment. Has to quickly wipe away a couple more tears that sets loose. "...Johnny you can't say the words slightly cursed and not expect me to ask what the Hell that means; you know that, right? Even if you're not hurt..."
She beckons him over as she sits herself on the edge of the bed. She's still in men's loungewear-used-as-pyjamas, hasn't cared at all to try and get properly dressed when she's going nowhere just yet.
"Even if." He sighs. "You never would have seen them at all, I realize now. The first time I had them with me, it was the first time I met the woman wearing your face. One of those sundries gifts, a pair of scissors that...they want to cut, and I used them to cut when things went south catastrophically. I got blood on my hands, wielding them, and now it won't wash off."
Her eyes flick right to his hands, imagines the red beneath. That's...
"God's teeth, cursed is right. Guess it could be worse than bloody hands but... eugh." And speaking of ugh, she doesn't want to ask, but even though she visibly hesitates before speaking again, she has to: "One of the people you had to use it on was her, wasn't it? Me. Her. I don't... you know what I mean. Erin said she attacked you, yeah?"
"Her, not you. Yes, I had to fight her while she was wearing your face." He shakes his head. "Apparently your memories don't contain anything that made me seem like I might be capable of holding my own against her. I am working very hard not to have any emotions about that fact."
It takes effort to bite back the instinctive apology on her tongue, the 'I'm' even makes it out, because she knows it makes no sense. She knows that wasn't her, that this 'Daisy' that wore her face hurting people wasn't her fault, but it's hard to fully bury the feeling that it somehow is. That she should've stopped this happening, somehow.
"...guess I've never actually seen you fight. Heard a bit, maybe, but..." She scrubs her hand over her face, wiping away some of the wet streaks at the same time. "Ugh. Don't like the thought of her rummaging around my head. And I sure bloody hope you don't think I don't think you can handle yourself well enough when push comes to shove just 'cause she took that reading of what she saw."
He shrugs as if it doesn't matter, as if there isn't a part of him that doesn't still vividly remember the rundown Theresa gave of the League's assets and strengths.
"I learned last night that I am capable of killing."
Which is true, and how fucked up is the world in which that is a form of deflection?
Crabb stares at him for a long five seconds, then sighs as she reaches out to take the rum bottle from him. Drinks time, clearly.
"Johnny. With all love and respect, you ain't the first person on this ship to learn that and you ain't gonna be the last. Is that messed up? 'Course it is. 'Course that's a lot to pick apart. And if you really wanna talk about it, sure, alright, but even I can tell you're throwing that at me 'cause you're dodging something else. C'mon."
There's so much about all of this that's tough, so much that they should talk about, but if he's using that as a deflection...
"Honoria, I'm sorry. I'm sure Ducky would have realized you weren't yourself instantly, the moment she clapped eyes on you. Theresa, too. I didn't. She--Daisy, I guess her name was--and I were investigating the cabin together after Cesar had been killed. And I didn't know you weren't you until afterward. Until Erin pressed me to think of who'd been acting wrong. I should have known sooner. But I'm not as good as the rest of the League."
Crabb freezes part way through pouring, then breathes deeply out of her nose as she finishes that and sets the bottle aside. God for a second it's like hearing something right out of her own brain (if only Ferrier or Ducky had ever seen Broadfoot, if only if only if only—) and it feels so strange hearing that out of Johnny's mouth. They know each other so much better, now; she knows there's more going on under the confident surface, but...
"...well that's the first I'm learning that César died." She takes that one in with a swig of rum and breathes, again. César died. 'Daisy' investigated with them. Johnny didn't catch that she was acting weird. Erin already told her that the woman that took over put on a valiant act, so that comes as little surprise. "Your fiancé was dead, Johnny. I— look, if I could hold that against your bleedin' skills? I shoulda lost any credence I had as a damn detective the minute I let Cragen take me inside his orphanage and sweet talk me into falling in love with him."
Funny how it's easier to say that series of words out loud when she's using it as an affectionate bludgeon to try and talk sense into one of her closest friends.
"Where is this coming from? You're damn good at what you do. You still caught her. I knew, I knew the very damn second Erin said one 'a you figured it out, that it had to be you who did."
"Cesar died. The ghost in Rich's body killed him. One of the cabins exploded with poison gas. Vance held a knife club. The Tommy Bahama became a Halloween store and one of the ghosts inhabiting someone set it on fire a little bit. Someone shot up the Drunken Sailor. That's all things that happened before the Halloween party and that got even worse. It's been a bad month, yes, but that doesn't excuse anything."
"The Hell it doesn't! Even not countin' all the insane crap outside your family, one of you got possessed and killed another, that's more than an excuse not to be on top of your damn game!"
She almost flinches at herself, but she's never been a particularly delicate voice of reason—ask Ducky and Bastrop, she's yelled at them enough times—and right now any attempt to be that she might've made just isn't in reach, she's still too raw.
"She had my memories, yeah? And she was playing along with the investigation. Must've even done a decent job to not catch suspicion off anyone who knows I'm a detective. Erin said her act wasn't even bad. I'm tellin' you, you not noticing in the middle of all that? Ain't mean a damn thing. How bleedin' long have you been thinking this, huh? You reached for Ducky and Ferrier's names too quick to not have made that comparison before."
She's so scrambled right now that it takes her a good thirty seconds to dig for what he's talking about, to think back what is now months to that conversation in the apartment before the investigation into Postscript began in earnest. Even then she almost skims over it, but it's the only moment that makes any amount of sense unless it was something she didn't see.
Reasoning. Doggedness. Heroism. Conspiracy.
Mine's for cutting checks, I suppose.
"...aw, Hell." Yep, she hears it. She slumps, the protective fire in her becoming a simmering heat as she reaches desperately for some amount of tact. She rubs her brow with the back of her thumb, glass in the same hand. "Johnny. Ferrier's— look, I love the woman, but we both know she ain't infallible. She was keeping key information from me because she clearly didn't bleedin' trust me with it, apparently, despite... everything. God, I shoulda bloody said something at the time, but—"
It just didn't register, did it. It didn't but it should have. Hindsight.
"You were just as damn important to the League as any of the rest of us. You saved the manor and all of Bastrop's back-up tools with it. You got us protection from Gall that held two bloody years before we pushed too far. You kept us in the loop with rumblings in high society. No, you ain't Ferrier, you ain't Ducky, but who the Hell says you have to be? What you bring to the table is yours, not theirs! No matter what Ferrier did or didn't say."
"It wasn't important at the time and it's not important now. You just came back from the dead and my hands are soaked in blood and I'm the only member of my family who's managed to not die yet and...it's nothing big. Just one of those back-of-mind thoughts that eats at me when I'm not demonstrably perfect. Everyone has those--I know you do, too."
"Sure I do. Maybe it is. But that sure as hell doesn't mean it's not important, alright? Especially if it's eating at you 'cause you didn't fix one of the supposed more important problems quick enough."
And, alright, yes, the possessions are objectively more a dire situation than some self-doubt, but... look, her point stands, alright? It's important to her, because Johnny is important to her.
"Johnny, I respect you and the stuff you can do so damn much. I'd hope you know that already, but if you don't, well, there. And the more we get to really poke at each other's shells the more I appreciate those things. Ferrier ain't here. Ducky ain't here. You're here. You're here and I ain't ever want to lose you, alright, and—"
Ugh, and there's the pesky other emotions creeping back in at the edges while she tries to finish her point, apparently. She rubs her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Ugh. Why do bodies gotta leak like this, bleedin' undignified..."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 09:24 pm (UTC)It's been a bit of an effort to get herself moving ever since she first woke up, but God if knowing Johnny's outside isn't enough motivation to overpower that. And when she does open the door, she doesn't even look at him long enough to notice the socks, or think about the fact he's probably holding a bottle right now, before she's just—
Dragging him into a hug. She never does this, he knows she never does this, and that alone should say everything about how much this has all messed her up, because the way she clings in that moment is nothing short of desperate.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 09:43 pm (UTC)"Crabb. 'noria. You have no idea how much you were missed."
no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 10:07 pm (UTC)Somehow, despite... everything, she's made it over twenty-four hours without crying, even thought she might make it through the whole ordeal the same, but something about the way he says her name, something about having I missed you put into words again like that— it gets her anyway. She clings a little tighter as her shoulders start to shake, the first tears she's cried in God only knows how long escaping despite herself.
"God, Johnny. Never thought I'd—" She swallows hard. It doesn't hide the sob half as well as she wishes it did. "—re-really thought I was do-done for, there."
no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 10:13 pm (UTC)"We would have found a way to rip reality asunder to get you back. We got you back."
no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 10:28 pm (UTC)"You s-sure bleedin' did." She tries in vain again to swallow down the crying, but though she fails there's a note of relieved laughter to that. She's back and it is because of them, isn't it? "C-Christ you don't half know how to get to a person. Rip reality asunder... between you and Erin I'm not g-gonna forget you lot actually like me any time soon..."
no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 10:38 pm (UTC)He'd get it himself, but he has socks on his hands. The only reason he's been so confident with the bottle is that it's shaped like a skull (thank you Lucius and Stede), and thus had grippy holes like eye sockets.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 11:01 pm (UTC)Her nose wrinkles a little, because ugh can't they just skip to the rum, but— no, no, he's being sensible, she'll get a glass of water. She mumbles a 'yeah, alright', takes a single step, then pauses and, "...and, well—love you too, Johnny."
And then because she still finds emotional vulnerability a complicated mess of a thing, she dips to fill a glass laying around from the bathroom sink before she can get too squirmy about it.
When she comes back out, she's still not reined the tears in completely, but she is taking a long drink. "...y'gonna need us to get into the rum before I ask what's up with the sock puppet hands?"
no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 11:08 pm (UTC)Look, it is the least concern in the all of everything going on.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 11:25 pm (UTC)Crabb blinks at him for a moment. Has to quickly wipe away a couple more tears that sets loose. "...Johnny you can't say the words slightly cursed and not expect me to ask what the Hell that means; you know that, right? Even if you're not hurt..."
She beckons him over as she sits herself on the edge of the bed. She's still in men's loungewear-used-as-pyjamas, hasn't cared at all to try and get properly dressed when she's going nowhere just yet.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 11:42 pm (UTC)Her eyes flick right to his hands, imagines the red beneath. That's...
"God's teeth, cursed is right. Guess it could be worse than bloody hands but... eugh." And speaking of ugh, she doesn't want to ask, but even though she visibly hesitates before speaking again, she has to: "One of the people you had to use it on was her, wasn't it? Me. Her. I don't... you know what I mean. Erin said she attacked you, yeah?"
no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 11:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-29 11:53 pm (UTC)It takes effort to bite back the instinctive apology on her tongue, the 'I'm' even makes it out, because she knows it makes no sense. She knows that wasn't her, that this 'Daisy' that wore her face hurting people wasn't her fault, but it's hard to fully bury the feeling that it somehow is. That she should've stopped this happening, somehow.
"...guess I've never actually seen you fight. Heard a bit, maybe, but..." She scrubs her hand over her face, wiping away some of the wet streaks at the same time. "Ugh. Don't like the thought of her rummaging around my head. And I sure bloody hope you don't think I don't think you can handle yourself well enough when push comes to shove just 'cause she took that reading of what she saw."
no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 12:18 am (UTC)"I learned last night that I am capable of killing."
Which is true, and how fucked up is the world in which that is a form of deflection?
no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 12:30 am (UTC)Crabb stares at him for a long five seconds, then sighs as she reaches out to take the rum bottle from him. Drinks time, clearly.
"Johnny. With all love and respect, you ain't the first person on this ship to learn that and you ain't gonna be the last. Is that messed up? 'Course it is. 'Course that's a lot to pick apart. And if you really wanna talk about it, sure, alright, but even I can tell you're throwing that at me 'cause you're dodging something else. C'mon."
There's so much about all of this that's tough, so much that they should talk about, but if he's using that as a deflection...
no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 12:37 am (UTC)"Honoria, I'm sorry. I'm sure Ducky would have realized you weren't yourself instantly, the moment she clapped eyes on you. Theresa, too. I didn't. She--Daisy, I guess her name was--and I were investigating the cabin together after Cesar had been killed. And I didn't know you weren't you until afterward. Until Erin pressed me to think of who'd been acting wrong. I should have known sooner. But I'm not as good as the rest of the League."
no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 12:54 am (UTC)...Johnny what in God's name—
Crabb freezes part way through pouring, then breathes deeply out of her nose as she finishes that and sets the bottle aside. God for a second it's like hearing something right out of her own brain (if only Ferrier or Ducky had ever seen Broadfoot, if only if only if only—) and it feels so strange hearing that out of Johnny's mouth. They know each other so much better, now; she knows there's more going on under the confident surface, but...
"...well that's the first I'm learning that César died." She takes that one in with a swig of rum and breathes, again. César died. 'Daisy' investigated with them. Johnny didn't catch that she was acting weird. Erin already told her that the woman that took over put on a valiant act, so that comes as little surprise. "Your fiancé was dead, Johnny. I— look, if I could hold that against your bleedin' skills? I shoulda lost any credence I had as a damn detective the minute I let Cragen take me inside his orphanage and sweet talk me into falling in love with him."
Funny how it's easier to say that series of words out loud when she's using it as an affectionate bludgeon to try and talk sense into one of her closest friends.
"Where is this coming from? You're damn good at what you do. You still caught her. I knew, I knew the very damn second Erin said one 'a you figured it out, that it had to be you who did."
no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 01:09 am (UTC)"Cesar died. The ghost in Rich's body killed him. One of the cabins exploded with poison gas. Vance held a knife club. The Tommy Bahama became a Halloween store and one of the ghosts inhabiting someone set it on fire a little bit. Someone shot up the Drunken Sailor. That's all things that happened before the Halloween party and that got even worse. It's been a bad month, yes, but that doesn't excuse anything."
no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 01:19 am (UTC)"The Hell it doesn't! Even not countin' all the insane crap outside your family, one of you got possessed and killed another, that's more than an excuse not to be on top of your damn game!"
She almost flinches at herself, but she's never been a particularly delicate voice of reason—ask Ducky and Bastrop, she's yelled at them enough times—and right now any attempt to be that she might've made just isn't in reach, she's still too raw.
"She had my memories, yeah? And she was playing along with the investigation. Must've even done a decent job to not catch suspicion off anyone who knows I'm a detective. Erin said her act wasn't even bad. I'm tellin' you, you not noticing in the middle of all that? Ain't mean a damn thing. How bleedin' long have you been thinking this, huh? You reached for Ducky and Ferrier's names too quick to not have made that comparison before."
no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 01:25 am (UTC)He catches himself a moment after yelling back at her and looks down, curling in on himself.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 01:42 am (UTC)...wait what?
She's so scrambled right now that it takes her a good thirty seconds to dig for what he's talking about, to think back what is now months to that conversation in the apartment before the investigation into Postscript began in earnest. Even then she almost skims over it, but it's the only moment that makes any amount of sense unless it was something she didn't see.
Reasoning. Doggedness. Heroism. Conspiracy.
Mine's for cutting checks, I suppose.
"...aw, Hell." Yep, she hears it. She slumps, the protective fire in her becoming a simmering heat as she reaches desperately for some amount of tact. She rubs her brow with the back of her thumb, glass in the same hand. "Johnny. Ferrier's— look, I love the woman, but we both know she ain't infallible. She was keeping key information from me because she clearly didn't bleedin' trust me with it, apparently, despite... everything. God, I shoulda bloody said something at the time, but—"
It just didn't register, did it. It didn't but it should have. Hindsight.
"You were just as damn important to the League as any of the rest of us. You saved the manor and all of Bastrop's back-up tools with it. You got us protection from Gall that held two bloody years before we pushed too far. You kept us in the loop with rumblings in high society. No, you ain't Ferrier, you ain't Ducky, but who the Hell says you have to be? What you bring to the table is yours, not theirs! No matter what Ferrier did or didn't say."
no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 02:17 am (UTC)"Sure I do. Maybe it is. But that sure as hell doesn't mean it's not important, alright? Especially if it's eating at you 'cause you didn't fix one of the supposed more important problems quick enough."
And, alright, yes, the possessions are objectively more a dire situation than some self-doubt, but... look, her point stands, alright? It's important to her, because Johnny is important to her.
"Johnny, I respect you and the stuff you can do so damn much. I'd hope you know that already, but if you don't, well, there. And the more we get to really poke at each other's shells the more I appreciate those things. Ferrier ain't here. Ducky ain't here. You're here. You're here and I ain't ever want to lose you, alright, and—"
Ugh, and there's the pesky other emotions creeping back in at the edges while she tries to finish her point, apparently. She rubs her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Ugh. Why do bodies gotta leak like this, bleedin' undignified..."
no subject
Date: 2022-10-30 02:33 am (UTC)"This is why you're the one who gets to walk me down the aisle at the wedding."
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From: