Come Sail Away IC Inbox

[crushed_pearls]

Erin's voice mail message is in a weary voice: "Erin Peters. If you called in the middle of the night and I didn't answer, I'm dying. If I pick up and someone on your end isn't dying, they will be shortly. Text otherwise."

Comments

[decrypter]

"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?"

[crushed_pearls]

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.

[decrypter]

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.

[crushed_pearls]

"...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."

[decrypter]

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?

[crushed_pearls]

"...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."

[decrypter]

"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.

[crushed_pearls]

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."

[decrypter]

"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?"

[crushed_pearls]

"...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.

[decrypter]

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."

[crushed_pearls]

"...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?"

[decrypter]

"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.

[crushed_pearls]

"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."

[decrypter]

"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."

[crushed_pearls]

"...Today in mild crazy moments that are deeply funny, I spent a good four seconds there thinking this is how you were choosing to reveal that the rabbit is a passenger and we've just been passing them around like a toy the whole time."

(...I mean it's not the most unreasonable -)

I knowwwww.

[decrypter]

"If it was a passenger, I would have already let it sip from my drink. This is just a new friend."

A now very treasured friend, for all it is.

"Am I allowed to give you one more piece of advice?"

[crushed_pearls]

"I'm listening, little bird. Be a bit of a dick move to say no now anyway, but..." Sip. Sippity sip. "I didn't get this far without help."

[decrypter]

"When you wake, after the dreams...don't be in a rush to get out of bed. Find things you can say this is here with. For me, it's scents, sounds, little indicators I can have without even moving. That's how I know I'm here and not back there."

Sometimes it's the ever faint hum of the ship's machinery. Sometimes it's the scent of the soap everyone uses to wash their laundry. Sometimes it's how big the bed is, or the absence of the scent of dust that never leaves. Always, the presence in the room of someone else, saying she's not on her own.

[crushed_pearls]

"...I'll keep it in mind," Erin says with a soft fondness. "Now, my turn; you ever ask Ruby about a blade or gadget?"

[decrypter]

"Not yet. I...need to talk to you about something, about that."

It's a little difficult, still, to get this out, but she remembers what Dimitri said about it. A choice. The choice to not want to hurt others.

"...I don't want a weapon, Erin. Either given to me or made for me. I don't want to fight."

[crushed_pearls]

Erin nods, sagely.

Silence.

(Hey Peters, you think you might have missed a detail here?)

FUCK -

"Don't mind me I'm nodding soberly like a jackass. I did mean it when I said she might like to build a gadget or gizmo, though. Not gonna make promises for her, but..."

Erin reaches over and gently takes Helena's hand. "...My people don't dream of safety. Safety is not a realistic expectation for us. We dream of a world where some might be able to lay down their arms. Now...I'm dreaming a bit bigger these days, but you won't hear me say you have to fight. You'll only hear me ask if you understand what that means."

[decrypter]

"Intimately."

Enough people she knows, enough friends, enough loved ones, will never think the world is safe. It goes back to that talk on a peaceful life, that it is a skill, not an instinctive knowledge. Learned, not dreamed of just openly. And peace doesn't always mean you're safe.

"I don't expect the world to lay down arms if ever. I don't expect that I'll never get hurt again. But...I don't wish to add to that violence. All of the people I know who do fight, I admire your bravery and your strength. It's just...not for me."

[crushed_pearls]

"I'm ready to lift my blade so you don't have to, little bird, and more than ready, I'm willing. I'm sorry if I put pressure on you to make another choice."

[decrypter]

"You didn't. This was a choice I had to figure out how to voice on my own. To stop thinking it was irresponsible of me to feel averse to this, like I'm making someone else have to tend to my safety."

The key word there, making. Instead of it being their choice.

"I won't say never, because we don't know what the future has for us. But as much as I have control over, I know what I want to do with it."