fandomtownies | The Perk, Sunday Afternoon

There was a school trip this upcoming week, apparently; Pam had only learned of it when she found out Adrian wouldn't be coming in to work next week. She hadn't known just how much of this town was dedicated to that school until now, with the streets suddenly much quieter.

It suited her fine, honestly. She'd spent the past few weeks getting comfortable. A quiet island meant she had time to expand her horizons. Sometime into the afternoon, she walked to the Perk, her senses telling her of tiny things hatching under the stone, the breath of relief of a place that would be partially unburdened by the constant to and fro of human feet.

She sat at a table, her coffee in one hand, a phone in the other, and scrolled. Did you know more than three-quarters of the Chesapeake Bay's tidal waters were contaminated by chemicals to one extent or another? That there were chemical plants and industrial complexes along the Chesapeake Bay that dumped far more waste than they were allowed to? That the water was rife with PFAS and PCBs, and that nitrogen levels hadn't fallen in some time?

She had. But it was nice to get specifics.

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Saturday had been --

Well, Saturday had come and gone, and come Sunday, Octavia just felt... exhausted. And disconnected. And those were just the things she was willing to name.

Among the unnameable was how she felt about being on the boat right now.

But the options on where to go were... Well, here she was again, entering the Perk, making her way straight to the counter. "Hi. One of those peppermint things."

Pam's attention was drawn away from her research by that somewhat-familiar voice. She looked up, and saw that dark-haired woman she remembered from the woods-- Oct... something, hadn't it been?

Except now something felt strange. Like an ambient sense of dread.

She sipped her coffee, trying to place it.

Well. At least it wasn't anywhere near the first time in Octavia's life that the words 'ambient sense of dread' fit to describe something that lingered around her.

She got her coffee, turned around, spotted Pam.

Gave one of her tiny nods.

"Hello," Pam said. Did she want to flinch? She did, she reflected. Interesting.

She pushed her own chair further out in the same easy move with her feet that pushed the chair opposite her back, too. "If you'd like some company."

Octavia didn't know what she wanted.

But she didn't hate the offer, so... She nodded again, and came over to take the empty seat.

"Hi."

Pam nodded back at her.

"Rough week?" she asked, lightly.

"I don't know if I can tell the difference anymore," Octavia rasped. No real qualms with saying that much to a stranger. "But it could've been easier, sure."

She took a sip.

"I've had those weeks," Pam said. She sipped her coffee. "Months. Years."

Octavia made a dry noise in the back of her throat. Acknowledgement, maybe.

She took another sip, and then asked, "What do you do about them?"

Have breakdowns and kill people, mainly. Sometimes not in that order.

"I can't say I have a magical fix-it," Pam said, as she set her coffee down on the table. "Unless it's a practical problem. But it's rarely that simple, and then the chemicals in our bodies can make it an uphill climb."

Relatable.

"Well," Octavia rasped, "that's why we've got antidepressants."

"Not everything can be solved with antidepressants, either," Pam said.

She threw half a glance towards a squirrel in the corner. It skittered away.

In case anyone had been under the impression that Octavia's voice had already been sounding as dry as it could go...

No, it could get even more so.

"I'm aware."

Pam leaned back and studied her. "Something happened to you," she said. "And it's not just a serotonin imbalance. Something with the Green."

"The green," Octavia repeated, flatly, with no rising intonation for a question, yet still sounding like she was expecting an explanation.

Of course, there was also a faintly off note in there, too. Something subtly a little rigid about her shoulders.

"The force that connects all plant life," Pam explained. She wasn't flinching yet. "It doesn't quite respond to me as it used to, but I can still hear it. And whatever connection you have to it, it's unbalanced."

"I don't have a connection," Octavia replied, the expression on her face tightening further.

She glanced over to where she was pretty sure she'd spotted a squirrel moments ago. They were gone now.

Good.

"I have the opposite."

"You had a connection, in as far as normal humans can, the first time I saw you," Pam said. A touch dispassionate? Sure. But also curious. "What happened?"

Octavia leaned back in her chair. It was pretty obvious she made herself do it.

"Got cursed."

That was the short, censored version, of course. Good enough. No need to bring all the Haven and Duke of it all into it.

"Now I can't touch plants with my bare hands without them immediately withering away." Her voice was even, her expression stony. "At least that's what I assume. Haven't tried it again after the first one."

"That's a big assumption to make from just one data point," Pam said, arching her brow. "All plants die eventually. They just become mulch, to feed new plants."

"I don't want to be the reason eventually becomes now," Octavia informed her, flatly.

"Bold of you to assume you have control over that."

"I've controlled it just fine."

At great personal emotional expense, as she did most things.

Pam lifted her coffee.

"Funny," she said.

"Sure," Octavia rasped.

She'd forgotten all about her own coffee.

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The Perk, Sunday Afternoon

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