betterthanaplan | The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, Friday morning

Duke didn’t know it, but all the clothing on the Rouge that wasn’t currently on his body vanished the moment he crossed into Fandom waters.

What he did know was that going from April 2010 to July 2020 was a much more obvious transition than it had been the other way around. It was like sailing into a vat of hot jello. He squinted into the sun, then stripped off his overshirt, letting it fall to the floor of the wheelhouse.

The overshirt vanished, too. That he noticed.

". . . Yeah, I'm definitely back in Fandom."

He sailed into port without managing to lose any more clothes, but the ones he was wearing (an undershirt and a pair of fairly threadbare cotton shorts) were rapidly going damp in the face of the sweltering, cloying air. He was hard-pressed as he dropped anchor and tied the Rouge down at her usual slip not to strip off the rest of his clothes and just dive straight into the water. He sent out a few texts, then flopped onto the deck to splay out like a starfish.

"Swear to god, if this place got invaded by a clothing-eating heat demon while I was away I will turn this boat around and go right back to Maine."

Well, no. He wouldn't. But he'd really want to.

[open! work is going to do its best to break me today, so some SP will be in effect BUT I NEED DISTRACTIONS]

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From:

okteiviakom

"You were not," Octavia replied, immediate and just as hard, almost surprising herself, "born for that."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke's eyes went sharp as a blade.

"Aren't I? You saw it yourself. Tried to use it yourself."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia faltered only for a second.

"That's -- that's a reflection on me, not you," she hissed. Still with that vague awareness that they should have been doing this indoors, and still teetering just barely on the dock rather than on the ship. Almost physically leaning in but refusing to move her feet to actually take a step. "Yes, I tried to use it, but that was me taking away your choice. Because you have a choice."

How many times had she had to spill her blood on him to actually get him to fully react?

(She didn't want to think about it.)

(But now she was thinking about it again.)

"I'm the monster here!"

From:

betterthanaplan

Too many times. She'd had to do it too many times -- but for Duke, that still wasn't enough.

Duke blamed himself for reacting at all.

"I know I'm not a monster," he said, because he couldn't quite bring himself to disagree with her calling herself one. "I'm a weapon."

He closed his eyes, taking a long breath in through his nose.

"Would you please come onto the boat? You look like you're about to fall over."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia didn't even notice him not disagreeing with her. What was the point disagreeing with facts?

She shook her head, again managing to do so when he wasn't looking.

"No."

There was a wall here. An invisible line she didn't seem to be able to force herself to cross over.

From:

betterthanaplan

Of course. Because he was made to kill. And she didn't want to die anymore.

Duke dropped his head and nodded.

"I just -- wish we could go back. We used to be so easy together."

You know, when you ignored the nightmares and the goatmen and the returning mothers and all the other drama that kept intruding on their lives.

From:

okteiviakom

That made Octavia want to cross the threshold. To step up to him and reach up and take his face between her hands.

Except she couldn't.

Because that was what she'd done to him a week ago.

The way her eyes welled up snuck up on her. She refused to raise her hands to wipe at her cheeks, though. Tried to swallow it down while more words gotm lodged in her throat and didn't make it out.

From:

betterthanaplan

And Duke what he always did when he was uncomfortable, when he wasn't sure where he stood with someone.

He talked.

"I know we can't. I know that. You're -- you're not the same person anymore." He laughed at his own inanity. "God, of course you're not, but -- I miss her, Tavi. I miss her so goddamn much and sometimes I think I see glimpses of her but then you just -- you shut the door. You leave me outside. It's driving me nuts because I think --" His voice wobbled, then broke. "I think I'm going to lose you."

That was what he'd wanted to say to her last week. Instead, they'd just -- broken.

"But I already have, haven't I. We can't even be on the same boat anymore."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia's temple throbbed with pain like a warning sign. Her inhale was a gasp, like she was suddenly struggling to breathe.

Maybe it was all those words that kept getting caught in her throat. So here were some: "Because there are things inside of me that are s-- so much worse than you should ever have to see."

He saw glimpses of his Tavi, but had he realized he was seeing glimpses of who she'd become, too? Because Octavia felt she was teetering between those two things, too, unable to fully commit to either.

Neither skin fit her fully anymore.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. "You've told me about killing a man you lived with in a battle for the survival of all humanity. About a war that ended the entire world. How much more could there possibly be?!"

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia spread her hands in a helpless, wordless gesture. What she'd told him about was a fraction of everything that had happened.

Of everything she'd had to do.

From:

betterthanaplan

"Please," Duke said, his voice soft. He crossed the space between them in a few long strides, his hand coming up to hover a few inches from her cheek. "You said you took away my choice. Let me choose this."

From:

okteiviakom

Well, at least Octavia didn't step back when he moved closer. Her head even tilted reflexively towards his hand, although she stopped herself from leaning all the way.

She was a little terrified of touching him.

Her cheeks were wet, and she tried to blink away the blur. "You don't know what you're choosing," she said, insistent, but tight and weak. She breathed in, then added quickly, to stave off an objection she guessed was coming, "And I can't tell you."

Bellamy hadn't understood.

From:

betterthanaplan

Honestly, if she'd come up to him and reached for his face, he definitely would have flinched.

He dropped his hand, then his head, and slowly nodded. "Okay," he said softly. "Okay, you're allowed to have secrets." He looked up at her again. "You're not allowed to let the pain get so bad you want to die again, though. Losing you for a month almost broke me. And -- and more than ever, I'm learning that I have to have my shit together."

From:

okteiviakom

"Not allowed?" Octavia repeated.

And took her turn at one of those vague sob-laugh noises.

From:

betterthanaplan

"Not allowed," Duke confirmed, giving her a tiny smile. "You're also not allowed to die or vanish on me again. So . . . you know, note that down somewhere."

From:

okteiviakom

Goddamn, how much she loved him.

Octavia made another vaguely laugh-like sound, but it was very strangled and very wet, and ended in her letting her head tip forward, hiding her face while she finally brought her hands up to fruitlessly wipe at her cheeks.

Felt like she was crying all the time, these days.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke jerked faintly when she wiped her face. The last time he'd seen her do that, she'd followed it by pressing blood to his cheeks, and even without any telltale red, his body remembered it much too vividly. It was a small enough gesture that she might have missed it, were they any further apart than they were.

He hoped she missed it anyway, even with them so close.

"Let me get you a drink," he said softly. "I haven't managed to do much of anything right for a week, but I think I can manage that much without anything breaking or blowing up."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia didn't miss it.

So that definitely didn't weaken her resolve not to touch him. Because last time she had, she'd hurt him.

She nodded without looking up. Let one hand drop first, then the other. "Okay."

From:

betterthanaplan

He hesitated, then reached for her hand. Because one of them had to be brave at some point. "Come on. It's cooler below decks."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia almost pulled her hand away. Almost. But then she let him take it, and just made sure not to squeeze the way she wanted to.

Just in case he'd change his mind.

From:

betterthanaplan

The smile he gave her when she let him do that was shaky, but more real than any other he'd given anyone in ages. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze and tugged, trying to pull her forward onto the deck.

"Lucifer been behaving himself while I was gone?"

From:

okteiviakom

There was a second's hesitation at the threshold.

And then Octavia let him tug her over it.

"He doesn't know what that means," she said, aiming for a dry jokey tone, not hitting it at all. It just sounded flat.

She was trying.

From:

betterthanaplan

"True," Duke said easily. He was used to her jokes not quite coming out like jokes. "I'm guessing he's not impressed with the island's latest trick, though."

From:

okteiviakom

"His party's tomorrow," Octavia replied mildly. Almost distracted by how much tighter she wanted to be holding his hand. (And how stunned she was to be holding it in the first place. Almost like she was still bracing herself for rejection.) "Been a lot of pacing and yelling at the phone."