The Docks at Port of Fandom, Thursday Afternoon

[okteiviakom]

Octavia had handwavily abandoned the flower shop at lunchtime. The morning had been enough to show her that this week's quiet extended all the way to her work: the phone stayed silent, and no one came in. None of the existing orders even needed to get done today. All these things meant she didn't feel bad about cutting her day short, especially since she hadn't been feeling like staying cooped up indoors, anyway.

She'd stopped by at the apartment to get some things, then at The Perk for a pumpkin spice latte to go, and then she'd walked all across the island. Through the park to Black Swan Drive, then right on Griffin, then down along Loon Drive until she was at the port. And there she was now, sitting on a dock with her legs hanging over the edge, right where the Cape Rouge usually was. Or at least where it had been for as long as Octavia had known about it, which was maybe too short a time to make 'usually' applicable. Maybe too short a time to justify her even choosing this specific spot for spending her time in - so good thing, then, that she was just here to check up on the docks' porg population. Duke wasn't due back for almost another week, and maybe the birds were getting lonely.

Sure.

She'd brought along the book Liam had given her for her birthday. North American Wildlife, an illustrated guide. She had it open on her lap, and a few of the porgs that had waddled over as soon as she'd shown up were now curiously prodding at the cover. She shooed them gently a little further away when they decided to see whether the pages were edible while she leafed through them.

One particularly brave porg tried clumsily climbing onto her lap, as if it was curious to read, too. Or just thought that was the warmest place to be right now. "I don't think you guys are in this one," Octavia told it with the tiniest huff of an amused sound, as she let it do what it wanted to. "Moba."

She was yet to make it to the part of the book that had puffins in it.

[ooc: Ooopen.]

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[betterthanaplan]

Her timing was perfect. The Cape Rouge came chugging back into port that afternoon, looking none the worse for wear from her time away.

It’d taken forever to scrub the bloodstains out of the deck.

Duke considered pulling into a different slip when he saw Octavia waiting—the last thing he wanted just now was company. That felt pretty, though, passive aggressive and maybe a little cowardly. He was already basically running away from one giant set of problems. He didn’t need to add more.

He nodded to her as he came out to secure the dock lines, but otherwise avoided looking at her. It was an old habit, practically ancient; facial bruises were hard to hide, but if you hung your hair in your face and just didn’t look at people, you could usually avoid having to explain them. . . .

[okteiviakom]

Octavia had been showing the porgs pictures of deer when movement across the water had caught her eye, and she'd looked up to see the Cape Rouge approaching. Her eyebrows had bounced and the expression on her face had lit up, just a little, without her meaning to.

But that didn't last.

"Monin hou," she told him, in reply to his nod, but her expression had already fallen into something of a frown. One of them was usually chattier than this, and it wasn't Octavia. "Thought you weren't coming back 'til next week."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke grabbed the next rope wrong and pulled his hand back with a hiss. There were still a few friction burns on his fingers from hauling Nathan out of the water.

"Yeah, well." He gestured vaguely, a sort of belligerent shrug. "I'm early."

He'd made his delivery in Halifax, but otherwise had headed straight back for the island after leaving Haven. He was actually hoping for some weird transformation, something that would shove him right out of his head and turn the damn troubles into so much background noise.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia had already accused him once of sounding like her, but maybe she should've saved that for this, instead.

He may have been avoiding looking at her, but she was watching him closely. "Something happened." She wasn't a fan of asking questions where everyone involved knew they weren't actually questions.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke looked up at her then with a scowl. His eyes were bloodshot, red and puffy, a fading bruise covering his cheek and jaw.

"No shit."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia didn't mind the scowl, although the rest of his face had a flicker of concern pass over hers.

But force of habit meant her gaze also immediately dropped lower, like she was scanning him for further injuries beyond the face and apparently his hand.

"Fuck whoever it was," she decided, like the great purveyor of comforting words that she was.

[betterthanaplan]

She might notice him moving a bit stiffly, evidence of further bruising to his torso. But the face and hands were the worst of it.

No. What happened to Nathan was the worst of it.

He laughed without humor. "Oh yeah, I definitely did that. Several times. In so many different ways."

[okteiviakom]

There was a question on Octavia's face, but she didn't ask it. The porg on her lap chirped up at her and she looked down, then shifted it gently back onto the dock next to her. And closed the book she was holding.

Then she looked up again. "So what do you need?" she asked, managing blunt and sincere at the same time. It was a gift.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke’s scowl shifted from anger to confusion. “What?”

He couldn’t remember the last time someone had asked him that. At least as more than a perfunctory, “What can I get you?” way, like from a waitress at a restaurant.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia had had to really train herself into remembering to ask 'how can I help you?' when customers called or came by.

This wasn't that, no.

"Bad things have happened," she said, with a slight drawl. "What do you need now?"

She had suggestions, maybe even to her own surprise, but she was holding off on those for a second.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke knew what he should answer (what he thought he was supposed to answer), that he was fine, that he didn't need anything. Not from anyone else. Hadn't this whole trip just proved that? That he couldn't rely on anyone else? (That he could't even rely on himself?) He'd asked Nathan for help and it had blown up in his face, all but literally.

But he wasn't asking Octavia. She was asking him.

All of which led to him just kind of gaping at her for a moment. "I don't know," he said finally. ". . . Booze, probably."

He'd spent most of the last few days at the bottom of a bottle already. Pretty much any time that he wasn't actively driving his boat. Hence the bloodshot eyes.

[okteiviakom]

"That's one," Octavia agreed with a slow nod, voice dropping low and raspy again. "People gave me enough booze for my birthday to make that happen." Well, she'd ended up with two bottles of whiskey and one of sake. That was not nothing. "Sorta feels like you've maybe tried that route already, though."

Not judging, just noting.

[betterthanaplan]

Maybe she wasn't judging, but Duke sure was judging himself! Which usually led to wanting to drink even more.

"Yeah, well. Maybe it's a long route."

[okteiviakom]

"If you want," Octavia replied, perfectly mild. The porg was now trying to nip at her sleeve. She paid it no mind. "I think I have a couple other options, though. If you want to hear them."

And then probably reject them, she thought, but that didn't mean she shouldn't give it a shot anyway.

[betterthanaplan]

"Sure," Duke said, sounding more resigned than curious. "Why the fuck not."

He waved her aboard, nearly tripping over a couple of porgs who'd already managed to hop themselves back aboard. He managed to resist the urge to kick them, but only barely. The three stowaways that had managed to hitch a ride to north all appeared to still be aboard themselves, anyway. The damn things had only managed to fuck Duke over, not the whole northeast seaboard of his home universe.

[okteiviakom]

The porg by Octavia made flustered noises up at her as she moved to get to her feet, and took her apparently delicious sleeve with her. She got her things - sword, bag, book and empty takeaway cup, the last two of which got stuffed into the bag - and followed Duke aboard.

The porg waddled along after her.

"Option one," she drawled, "is that I can drag you to the preserve and give you my sword, and you can hack at a tree until your arms hurt too much." Not that she'd ever done that.

... Also not that something similar had been part of her original plan for today.

"Sometimes being exhausted washes away everything else. For a little while."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke righted a toppled crate, side-eyeing his usual bench. Where Nathan had curled into himself after. . . .

He sat heavily on the crate instead, leaning forward with his hands draped between his knees.

"Sounds like a bum deal for the tree." And like it might set off another round of -- whatever the fuck that had been that made him want to kill people. "There an option two?"

[okteiviakom]

"There's always an option two."

An unfortunate bit of foreshadowing, that statement right there.

"Or more." She shrugged. "So, from the other end of the scale..." The end that came less naturally to her, although that didn't really show in her casual-for-Octavia demeanor. "We can sit and I can pointlessly braid and unbraid your hair --" She remembered the way he'd practically melted into her couch. It wasn't about the braids, not then and not now. "-- and we can talk or not, your choice." A beat. "Booze optional."

Another shrug.

"So's telling me to go to hell and leave you alone."

[betterthanaplan]

"Not going to tell you to go to hell," Duke said softly. She was trying, which was more than -- basically anyone else had ever done. He dredged up a tired little smile for her. "My hair's pretty gross right now, though."

He hadn't done more than rinse it since diving into the ocean after Nathan.

He sighed, looking down at his fingers, the fading red lines across them the width of a thin steel cord. "Maybe we can just -- hang out. You can tell me what I missed around here this week or something."

[okteiviakom]

"That's going to be a short talk," Octavia scoffed, but not without a wryness that made it softer than it would've otherwise been.

And when she spoke again, it was all soft. Or gentle, at the very least. "We can do that," she said, nodding. "Maybe I can even pad it out a little just how uneventful it's been here."

[betterthanaplan]

"What, no random transformations?" Duke asked. "Or did those just follow everyone who decided to leave for the break?"

Like, say, him! A Fandom explanation for whatever that rush he'd felt back in Haven would be amazing. Fandom things didn't tend to last. If it was a trouble, he'd be stuck with it for years.

[okteiviakom]

"No random anything," Octavia replied as she heaved the bag off her shoulder, then the sword in its scabbard off her other one, because if she was going to sit down, neither was going to make that very comfortable.

Of course, she paused sort of halfway through that latter action. "Did something like that happen?"

[betterthanaplan]

"No," Duke said, then followed up immediately with "Maybe. I don't know." He shoved his hand into his hair, wincing a little when the action put pressure on the lump on the back of his head. "I didn't turn into a woman again or anything, but -- things got kinda weird."

[okteiviakom]

"Weird," Octavia repeated, as she plunked her ass down about exactly where she'd been standing. Benches and crates be damned - even if sitting cross-legged like she did was just inviting another porg invasion in her personal space. "Weird like how?"

[betterthanaplan]

Duke got to his feet, pacing across the deck. "Weird like -- throwing the guy who did this," he gestured to the bruising on his face, "clear off the boat." He stopped by the cargo doors at the center of the deck and pointed out past the gunwale, giving her a sense of the distance he was talking about. "One handed."