The Perk, Monday Morning

[okteiviakom]

Mondays could feel very much like Mondays, sometimes, even for people like Octavia who'd never had much reason to think all days of the week weren't created equal. Maybe it was just because she'd slept like shit last night, tossing and turning and just generally unable to stop her mind from looping in on itself with cyclical thoughts of the ground, of space, of people left behind.

The price for having actually thought about her past a little bit lately was that sometimes she couldn't stop even when she wanted to.

So she'd got up early and gone on her usual patrol of the island. And it had done what it was supposed to, which was to clear her head a little and give her room to breathe. The sun had come up during her trek, but it still wasn't very late in the morning at all by the time she'd circled back to the Perk for a PSL. Usually, she would've gone back to the apartment for coffee, but... She felt like she had to give the claustrophobia of the night a little longer to pass. And so instead, she took a seat by the window.

And then immediately realized she didn't really know how you were really supposed to be in coffee shops, alone. Every other NPC customer seemed to be on their phones, but she hadn't taken Bellamy's with her because -- well, because that just wasn't the kind of thing that really occurred to her. Until just now. So guess she was just going to watch the street while she drank her coffee, maybe in bigger gulps that was really necessary or even smart.

She should've brought a book.

[ooc: Post is open for all your morning coffee/Octavia needs!]

Comments

[thatwaslucky]

Every once in a while Rey would let herself get coffee that she didn't make herself at home, and it tended to be on days when she was kind of wanted to get out for a while. She had training later, she had a project to start on that she needed pieces for, but that was later.

"Morning," Rey greeted her once she'd gotten her order.

[okteiviakom]

"Morning," Octavia replied, even though she felt like her internal clock was already in the afternoon. Thanks, insomnia. She was also kind of glad to see someone she'd at least met before. "How's your day starting out?"

That didn't even sound entirely stilted!

[thatwaslucky]

"Same as always. With more pumpkin spice than usual," Rey said, holding up her cup. "How's yours?"

[okteiviakom]

"The same," Octavia replied, raising her own cup just a little. "I went around the island, then came here. Uneventful, so far."

That would not last.

[thatwaslucky]

"Do you just walk around for fun, or is it some kind of training thing?" Rey wondered, because this was Fandom and it could be either.

[okteiviakom]

"It's like a patrol," Octavia said with a tiny shrug. She considered not elaborating, for a second, but then decided to do it anyway. For whatever reason. "Sometimes I like seeing for myself that everything's more or less the way it's supposed to be."

On a scale of Fandom.

[magnusrushesin]

"Oh my god, Octavia!" Magnus said... rushing on into the coffee shop. "You're Octavia, right? You're not some dude who just looks like Octavia, right? Because that's not cool."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia had to blink several times as she processed that greeting and who was saying it to her.

"Yes," she said, slowly. Then followed that up with an even slower, "... Magnus?"

[magnusrushesin]

Sorry, Octavia. It was his first go at this!

"Okay, is this a Shallow Hal type situation where you see me normal, but I see me as a lady?" he asked.

[okteiviakom]

"If you're asking whether you look like a woman," Octavia told him with a little more of her normal rasp, "the answer's yes."

[magnusrushesin]

"Oh." He sighed, looking down at himself. "Hopefully none of my stats changed."

The real issues here.

[biotic_psychotic]

Jack stopped by the Perk for a black coffee for her and one of Kaidan's traditional crimes against coffee. She made sure there was coffee in this one, several shots of espresso died for that whipped cream thing. "Hey," she greeted, "Head's up, the island is up to its bullshit again. Dudes are waking up with tits today." As you do.

Low key annoyed that she hadn't swapped? Yup.

[okteiviakom]

"I already noticed," Octavia drawled, with a little shrug. "But thanks. Not that it's a thing that really affects me much."

Her social issues were the same, regardless of how people looked.

[biotic_psychotic]

"Yeah, I don't much fuckin' care or even notice which bits someone's got or don't have but I guess it can really matter to some people." She shrugged, "Kaidan's got tits and a migraine so I'm bein' nice and bringing him caffeine for it."

She shot the .. confection.. such a look. "If you can call it that, the way he drinks this shit."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia also gave it a look.

"Is all of that whipped cream?"

[biotic_psychotic]

Jack snorted. "No, I made sure they put a bunch of espresso in it. Half the time I think he orders these fucking things just to piss me off. How do you even drink something that's mostly foam? What's wrong with drinking black coffee the way the plants intended their beans to be drunk?"

[betterthanaplan]

Duke stormed in, looking adorable perturbed, dressed mostly like himself though none of it actually fit him properly.

Which didn't help the "adorable" part at all, no.

"Large coffee," he ordered. "Black. Lots of room for cream." He planned to doctor the damn thing himself. Screw propriety, this morning required whiskey. ". . . Please."

The coffee they handed him looked right, but upon sipping turned out to have no small amount of pumpkin spice in it. Duke topped it off with his flask anyway.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia looked up from her -- okay, it was her second PSL of the morning, don't judge. She had such few guilty pleasures, and this was such an off morning.

And then she squinted at Duke. Magnus's appearance meant that now every female face she didn't recognize could be someone she should've normally recognized.

[betterthanaplan]

"I know," Duke said, sounding resigned. He saluted her tiredly with his pumpkin-spice-irish coffee. "I look incredible." He sighed. "Like a damn model. . . ."

He was so mad that Nathan was right about Dani looking like a femmed up version of him. So mad.

"I'm Duke, by the way," he said belatedly, gesturing vaguely around his face. "In case the lack of mustache threw you."

[okteiviakom]

That only made Octavia look a little further down, at what he was wearing.

"Oh, the clothes should've been the clue," she said before looking back up. "Hi. Island caught you, huh?"

[betterthanaplan]

"While I was sleeping," Duke said. "Like a coward." He was just a little bit grumpy about this, yes. "Apparently only the guys got hit? Doesn't seem fair."

[biotic_psychotic]

Jack blinked when Dani stormed in. "What the hell? The fuck are you still doing here?" she asked - and almost sounded happy about it, for all her words weren't exactly nice. "I thought you got shipped home on Sunday like everyone else."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke shut his eyes and sighed, taking a large sip of his doctored coffee before turning around. He really wished he didn't know where that confusion came from.

"I'm not Sparkle and Hannibal's girlfriend. Pretty sure she is, in fact, back in Mexico."

[biotic_psychotic]

Jack's eyebrows went upward. Yeah, that wasn't a Spanish accent and the cadence of the voice.. "Duke? You turned into Dani?"

She immediately shook her head. "Fuck that. Nevermind. Are you okay in there?" Because yeah, now she was worried. "Do you need anything?"

[betterthanaplan]

Duke gave a slightly pained little laugh. "Oh yeah, no, I'm fine. I look exactly like a woman I met a week ago and my --" He paused and cleared his throat. "-- well, let's just say my balance has gone all to hell."

He didn't know this present body, and it was fucking with him. He prided himself on being connected to and in control of his own damn body.

"But nah. The doc showed up at the boat with, uh, provisions. And I've got plenty of whiskey."