The Streets of Fandom, Late Sunday Morning

[okteiviakom]

Bellamy had not taken well to Octavia's disappearing act on Friday. There'd been kind of an argument over it, actually, because come ooooooon, Bel, she'd already been here a bunch of times and nothing had happened to her! And she usually never got to go anywhere on her won, because she never got to go anywhere at all! It wasn't fair!

There'd maybe been some tears, actually.

But she'd stuck around him for all of Saturday because she hated making him worry.

... But then Bellamy had slept in on Sunday and experience had taught her it might be the last day, and Friday had been fine and so she'd snuck out again, still wearing a jacket that was too big for her and that had a small stuffed bunny peering out from one of the pockets, though the pockets weren't filled with cookies anymore.

Because there were also a couple of sandwiches in there. Along with all the cookies, because, cookies.

And now she was just roaming the streets around the island with no particular destination in mind. Sometimes, she hid behind corners when she saw strangers coming down the street - because while she thought she was safe, unfamiliar adults still kind of concerned her - but mostly she was just excitedly peering in through shop windows, occasionally ducking with a tiny 'eep!' when she caught someone actually looking back out at her.

[ooc: Open streets, open post!]

Comments

[okteiviakom]

The stuffed bunny was out of Octavia's pocket and being grasped tightly in her hand before she even realized she was doing it.

"If anyone sees me," she mumbled, "bad things will happen to Bel and Mom."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke frowned, then after a moment shifted to walk closer to her, eyes flicking around the street as though expecting someone to start shouting at them at any moment. He didn't really get what she meant at all, but he got what fear looked like, and he wanted to do what he could to make it go away.

She'd given him cookies, after all. She was one of the good guys.

"What kinds of bad things?"

[okteiviakom]

Gripping the bunny with both hands, holding it tight to her chest seemed like a great move, right about now. "They'll put Bellamy in prison." Octavia's voice grew even quieter, mumblier. "A-and they'll float my mom."

That was how they always said it when they told her.

[betterthanaplan]

". . . They'll send her out to sea?"

[okteiviakom]

Octavia shook her head. Her next words were only barely audible.

"They'll kill her."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke shook his head. None of that made any sense. “Why?”

[okteiviakom]

This was really missing some major context without the whole 'space station and population control' aspect, wasn't it? But Octavia wasn't thinking about it like that.

Maybe if she had, she would've realized that if Duke had been a person who could turn her in, all of this would've been equal to her just saying Bellamy was her brother.

"Because of me," she murmured. "She shouldn't have had me."

[betterthanaplan]

"Why not?" Duke asked, sounding faintly disgusted. "What, do you guys have a really awful trouble or something?" He leaned in a little more. "Are you going to start eating people?"

To use a totally random hypothetical that definitely wasn't based on a rant Duke had overheard from his dad before he died or anything.

[okteiviakom]

"No," Octavia replied, horrified. "We haven't done anything bad. I -- it's just --"

Her words were all stuttery and not really going anywhere, and her face was scrunched up into something agitated.

[betterthanaplan]

"What?" Duke asked. "You can tell me. I won't tell anyone else, I swear." He drew an X over his chest and everything!

[okteiviakom]

Octavia stopped walking, and grabbed his arm to get him to stop, too. Then she tugged on it as she leaned up and closer.

Some things could only be spoken about in whispers.

"Bel's my big brother," she told him, her voice soft and quiet and sad by his ear. "No one's supposed to have a second kid."

[betterthanaplan]

Bellamy was her brother?! . . . Yeah, Duke still kind of wanted to punch the guy in the nuts.

As for the other part: "Since when?" he whispered back. "My dad had, like, four."

[okteiviakom]

"Since forever," Octavia said. "Mom says that's how the Ark works."

Sorry about how everything on Fandom sounded like a cult, Duke.

[betterthanaplan]

The worst part was, that was how grownup Duke first reacted to Fandom, too.

". . . The big boat from the Bible?"

[okteiviakom]

"I guess?"

She hadn't been paying much attention to what they'd named the station after.

[betterthanaplan]

"Why does anyone care how they did it on a big imaginary boat?"

[okteiviakom]

At least now Octavia's frown was just confused instead of worried.

"... Where we live isn't imaginary."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke rolled his eyes. "You don't live on Noah's Ark. Even if it was real, it happened, like, a million years ago. It'd be, like, ruins by now."

[okteiviakom]

"But I didn't say I lived on Noah's Ark, I said I live on the Ark," Octavia pointed out. "It's a space station!"

[betterthanaplan]

Duke stopped walking and just gave her a Look at that.

"You're from space."

Sure thing, Octavia. If that was your real name.

[okteiviakom]

"... Yeah?"

She was, it wasn't her fault!

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

[betterthanaplan]

"Because no one lives in space, dummy! Not even the Russians!"

[okteiviakom]

"Don't call me a dummy!" Octavia replied, immediately. Because she was deeply offended by that. "I live in space! Because the ground's no good!"

[betterthanaplan]

Duke looked pointedly at the street, picking up and stomping each foot in turn. "Looks okay to me."

[okteiviakom]

"Yeah, here," Octavia said, looking at him like he was the dummy. "Not where I'm from! Where I'm from, you'd already be dead 'cause that's how bad the ground is."