crushed_pearls | Come Sail Away IC Inbox

I can bring both, as well as a new friend who might offer some slight comfort, though I wish I had a kitten as well.

And because she is going to wrangle Erin's location out of her, she's going to be there soon enough. Two mochas - one for each of them - a cinnamon roll which is handed over first, and after Erin takes the roll, a bunny is also placed in her hands.

It's no kitten, but it is soft, so it could help.

"Bunny..." Erin whispers. She'd meant to say 'thank you' and this is what comes out of her mouth instead. She nestles the rabbit in her lap where she's sitting just outside Daisy's door, getting some air but not enough rest. She sounds tired, so very fucking tired. There is sipping of the coffee and then the tiniest nibble of her cinnamon roll.

Let's try that again: "Thank you, Helena. It's been. A lot."

"I don't doubt it. Everyone wrapped up in this...you know them, don't you?"

Sitting down across from her, she sips her own coffee, patting the rabbit on the head. Be gentle, because this friend doesn't have a name yet.

"You've had them all on your mind."

"All but one unlucky bastard, yes. I don't doubt that Daisy was, on some level, trying to return to her lone wolf bullshit. I will drag her ass into the abundant world kicking and fucking screaming." Another little sip, with a sigh of - not relief, exactly, but coffee is very much what she needs right now. "...And you, little bird? I can't imagine this is doing wonders on your ability to feel safe here. You're high on the list of people close to me. Cass was bad enough, the thought of you too..."

"I was fast asleep, in the presence of two people who I know would have done what they could to keep me unharmed. If you really wish to know, I'm more surprised something like this didn't happen sooner."

That keeping a count of the days she's been alive here hasn't stopped, Erin. She still expects to die sooner rather than later, and it's still better than what she left. There's a scant few places she feels safe on this ship, and she doesn't want to jinx them by saying them aloud.

"...You know Daisy well enough to have suspected this was coming?"

Guess who's misinterpreted your statement Helena.

"No, that's not the case. It's more than nearly every day, I accept the possibility that some form of open violence might take place, and that it took fifty three days for that violence to emerge again after Christmas is an impressive length of time, in my accounts."

Yes, she can date it exactly from the trial.

"I wake up every morning and add another day to the number of the ones I haven't died yet, Erin. So far, every day, I have been pleasantly surprised."

One day that record is going to break, and then all her suspicions will be confirmed. If she wakes up after that where she was before - that's a layer too deep, even for her.

"Miss Daisy's loss of control doesn't make me feel less safe. It more confirms a few ideas I had about the safety of this place already. I don't hold it against her."

Very, very softly, Erin takes the bunny and places it in Helena's lap.

Gently, she strokes an ear with her free hand, before raising it so she can kiss its head.

"I'm as safe as I'm ever going to be. I know how to tell people if I'm in trouble, and I know I have those who will look for me in times of crisis. That's sufficient."

Placing it back in her lap, she sips her coffee.

"Please, Erin. Let me worry about how you are. You spend enough time being the big sword lady for everyone else. And until I have proof otherwise, there isn't anyone doing the same for how you're faring in these times."

There is a long silence. For half a moment there isn't even breathing, just the resounding negative space of Erin having been absolutely called out. Then, in the tiniest voice: "This's my fuckup. I told people to give her a chance, I put my neck on the line. I can rest when I've got something actionable to show everyone who trusted me at my word, everyone I fucking. Let down, by not being there."

"Your mistake? Yours?"

The sound that leaves Helena is not disbelief, but a scoff. The exact same type that someone would have upon hearing the exact wrong answer. There's a light sound of her setting her cup down, before she takes a breath.

"You are very close to me, Erin, which is why I cannot stand the idea of you lying to yourself like that. Did you tell her to hunt people down? Did you give her that drive? Did you somehow encourage her to do that? To hunt and to kill?"

Helena raises a hand a little, to indicate these questions are not to be answered aloud.

"No. You tried and are trying to give her friendship, respect, and love. You are trying to give her a community. Something louder and stronger than the thing inside her head. And you'd be the first to speak of peace as a skill, a process, a growing thing. Not something that immediately fixes all ills and wounds. Something you've no doubt mentioned to her in one form or another."

She's blind, but she's far more observant than anyone wants to give her credit for. Even those closest to her.

"What happened is not your responsibility to carry. Why do you insist on trying to carry it anyway? Why do you want to claim it? Do you think that if you do, you can say that the voice in your head is right, that yes, this will be enough for people to finally start hating me like I deserve?"

The only mercy Erin gets here is that Helena can't see the journey of facial expressions Erin goes through, the fish-like opening and closing of her mouth as she goes to argue and then doesn't. There's an upper limit to her own hypocrisy and not taking Helena seriously, not hearing her out, would be far beyond it.

Still, silence reigns for awhile while Erin fights not to cry from the tangled feelings ripping through her.

Fortunately, Helena says nothing else. She's been spending enough time in the company of someone who needs space to process, to consider, to find more words than perhaps it has available - she knows when silence is not just silence. There is only breath, and patience, and time.

She worries she went too far, but it had spilled out, water released from the locks. There's nothing for it but to wait, her hands folded over the bunny and the scent of their coffees in the air, and she pretends she doesn't hear the stuttering in that breath, what it might mean.

"...I used to take no responsibility for anything but the survival of my crew and the consent of my flings. Now I'm trying to own up and I'm taking on too much?" It's not a protest, not as such; the words are an exhausted admission. "... Sometimes I wake up from dreams so real that I don't know I'm dreaming. I think I'm back home and all this was a fantasy where people gave me a real shot. Where they cared."

A slow nod, taking that in. It doesn't matter how much one knew in the waking world, dreams still sunk their teeth in and wove an entirely new reality.

"And when do you know it's a dream?"

What tips her off that it's not what it seems? That she needs to wake up, and come back to those who care?

"...Copout answer but usually only when it's a weak dream. I don't have many of those these days." Erin chews her lip for a moment, realizes what she's doing, goes for the coffee instead. "...Otherwise, the usual clue is that my crew is alive, or a victim comes back to accuse me. And like...it's not that a victim coming back is unrealistic...

"...It's that I can't remember any of their faces."

"If you could recall them clearly, I would be more surprised. And you'd have a lot more voices shouting you down in your head."

She exhales, one hand toying with the bunny's soft ear. "There are parts of my memory that are absent, or smeared together, until I couldn't give you a decent idea of what happened in that stretch of time. And whether that was induced, or something like those book characters who go through grief and forget who they are, I couldn't tell you. I bring it up to tell you that I understand, in a way."

But this conversation isn't about her. It's about Erin, and grief, and that ever moving goal, and the way that things want to bite into your ankles, so many thorns and knives.

"You're so quick to tell other people to not hide if they're not fine. To tell me not to neglect my own needs, to encourage me to express what I think. I think, what about your needs, Erin? And if you say they aren't important I'll....I'll call the ship down on you again and get electrocuted again if I have to."

An empty threat, because she already promised people she wouldn't use the power frivolously.

Erin laughs; she can't help it. It's small and it's short, but it's a genuine laugh for all that. "Little bird, don't go flying into any big zappers over me. I just got an object lesson in self-care. It's not that the spirit is unwilling, but..."

A long sip. The coffee is so very steadying. "...Even if this wasn't a crisis...how am I supposed to take care of my needs when I don't know what they are? Food, drink, that's easy. Rest...less easy. Everything else? I don't even know what I'm missing."

"You live life in a way that is very...I once heard a man talk about another by saying that he tried to drink the whole bucket of water at once. That's you. You can do it, sure, but you're going to ache from it."

And it wasn't going to be sustainable, in the long term. She knows she's speaking from the point of view of someone who not so long ago whispered her own fears on relaxing enough to live a peaceful life, who didn't have a perfect foundation to stand on. But right now, peace and war don't matter. What matters is that Erin gives so much love out to others, and gets it from them, and doesn't know what they perceive.

"What do you need? You might find it in something you want. Try answering that instead."

Sometimes they were one and the same.

"What do you want, Erin?"

"...Short term, a glass of whiskey and a good punch to the jaw. It won't help but you'd be amazed how much clearer you think after a nice clean hit 'cross the mouth." Erin reaches out gently and pets the rabbit. "...I want to feel like part of a community. Wanna adopt a cat maybe. While I'm wishing for shit I can't have I wanna stand out in the rain and maybe hunt a deer and share it. And..."

"...I want the stupid voice in my head to believe it when people say they care about me."

(Wow, Peters. Should I change the oil while I'm under this bus?)

Yeah, get on that. Jackass.

There are a few things in there that sound more like needs rather than wants. And she can't get Erin the whiskey, because she's still underage for it, or punch her in the jaw, because her trying to throw a punch would probably hurt her when it connected and not be strong enough for Erin's wish. But the rest of it....they can work on it. Rain and cats and deer hunts and all.

Now the situation is if Erin will find out her needs on her own time. But that's not something another person can hasten, only encourage like a plant coming to grow.

"Those all sound like a good place to start with. And...the voice in your head might not be impressed, but you're doing a decent job of letting people show you their care so far."

"...You do realize that if I end up having this talk at you in the future the ouroboros of hypocrisy will devour us both, right?"

"Talking about our needs and wants, or the part where I remember the admonishment to not run triage for the world?"

She's been doing a bit better, Erin. Really, she has.

"Triage, little bird. You've got a big heart, but no one's heart is big enough to bear up all alone." Erin sighs, fondly. "...Y'all are so good to me. 's like a dream."

"Not a dream. Reality, and I'll keep reminding you of that if need be."

Some way, somehow. She makes the bunny tap Erin's hand, to punctuate the point.

"And I'm not the only one who would do so."

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