betterthanaplan | Haven, Maine, over the weekend

Octavia was taking a moment below-decks after her conversation with Claire, and Duke was giving her plenty of space. He was up on the deck, shuffling a few crates around. He told himself he was trying make the space more inviting, but really he was just giving himself work. It was remarkably warm up here for spring in Maine -- he'd checked not long after they'd arrived, and Haven hadn't done another weird time jump or anything while he'd been gone -- and he stripped down. Letting the sun soak in and unknot his shoulders a little.

If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend he'd really gone back in time. Not just ten years to Haven in 2010, but a year in his own timeline, back to a time before Fandom, when he was still just a two-bit smuggler, moving art and booze and unmarked crates around for cash.

He didn't miss it, not really. The life of a roving vagabond had been good to him, but so had Fandom, all told. He had real friends again, not just people who'd hear him out before they tried to shoot him. He had work that he enjoyed, instead of just something he'd fallen into because being a criminal put fuel in his tanks and food on the table. He had Octavia.

He didn't want to go back. But it was nice to pretend, for just a minute.

Nathan had come right over after leaving Audrey and Ray at the Shiny Scupper. He was pissed, full of adrenaline and jittery rage, and all he could think about was how he couldn't feel it. He couldn't feel a damn thing, hadn't been able to in long enough that he couldn't remember what the world was supposed to feel like.

And it was all Duke's fault.

Everything was Duke's fault. Every terrible thing that had happened in Nathan's life. The last body Nathan had felt against his own had been Duke's and then he'd taken it all away, for some stupid smuggling scheme.

And here Duke was, on his stupid rust-bucket of a boat, flaunting his stupid perfect body and his ability to feel things like he'd never done anything wrong.

Nathan couldn't stand it.

Duke heard him climb aboard and turned with a faint groan. "Look, Nathan --" He stopped with a frown when he saw him. Nathan's eyes were swollen and red, and there was a kind of manic look in them that Duke had never seen before.

Well. Not on Nathan, anyway. It reminded Duke painfully of the look on Octavia's face, just before she plastered her blood all over Duke's cheeks.

". . . You might want to consider switching to decaf, buddy."

"What's it feel like?" Nathan asked, staring intently at Duke. "The sun?"

Duke stayed braced. Nathan didn't look like he was bleeding anywhere, but it wasn't as though Nathan would even know it himself if he was.

That was almost . . . reasonable. Maybe the trouble hunt had gone badly, and Nathan needed a friend?

"Feels good," he said cautiously. He wanted to grab Nathan by the arms and force him to sit. He wanted to fix him, so he stayed rooted where he was. Waiting to see what happened next.

Nathan looked in one of the crates lining the deck, pulling out a plaster statue. It looked heavy, but he could lift it easily.

The statue was a liar. Just like Duke. He hated it, just like Duke.

He smashed it into the deck and listened to it shatter.

Duke hopped back, out of the way of the flying shards. "Hey! What are you doing?!"

"What's it like to feel this?" Nathan asked, and threw a punch, landing it square on Duke's cheekbone. Duke toppled backwards with a grunt, but that wasn't enough. Nathan couldn't feel it.

He picked up the empty crate the statue had been in and threw it at Duke's head.

Duke barely managed to dodge the crate. He felt the splinters slice through his cheek, but couldn't worry about that now. Nathan was still coming at him.

He didn't remind him of Octavia anymore, at least. No, this was pure Nathan. Just . . . turned up to eleven.

"You want to talk about harassment?!" Nathan bellowed. "What about how you harass me? Showing up here, with that psycho on your arm!"

He threw another punch, but this time Duke dodged, and Nathan's fist went through the side of another crate. This was what Duke did: he ruined everything, but he dodged. He ducked and weaved and everything just slid off him. And then he left.

He never had to stay and live with the consequences of what he did.

"Yeah, I don't think you get to call anyone a 'psycho' right now," Duke pointed out, even as he kept backing away. No way had Nathan not managed to cut himself open with that punch. Which meant there was now troubled blood just waiting to meet his skin.

He swallowed down on the urge to tackle Nathan. To grab that hand and soak the blood in and just end all of this, once and for all.

"Why did you leave?!" Nathan demanded. He got a hand on Duke's arm and flung him bodily into the wall. "Why did you come back?!"

Well. How was that for karma?

Whatever had gotten into Nathan, it had given him a hell of a boost in the strength department. Duke hit the wall like he'd been hit by Nathan's truck, his head rebounding against the metal, making him see stars.

By the time his sight cleared again, Nathan's hands were wrapped around his neck.

Apparently Nathan hadn't managed to cut himself after all. If he had, Duke might've stood a chance.

Octavia had been considering sending Lucifer another message when she'd heard a crashing sound coming from above, followed by faint yelling. She'd been on her feet in an instant, and now she came barreling out onto the deck.

She wasn't surprised it was Nathan. Of course it was Nathan, but it didn't really matter because the only thing that did were the hands around Duke's neck.

As she rushed them, she went to grab the nearest convenient object - a board that had come loose from one of the crates - fully intending to whack Nathan in the back of the head with it.

Nathan didn't notice. He was full of crazy rage and trouble-fueled strength, and a board to the head wasn't enough to even wobble him.

Duke's eyes and mouth went wide as he struggled to breathe in Nathan's grip.

There were many, many reasons Octavia had not missed Nathan, and not being able to get through to someone who didn't respond to pain because he didn't feel anything was definitely one of them.

The board fell apart like it was nothing.

But maybe kicking him in the back of the knee while screaming "Get your hands off him!" would do something? Even if that something was only drawing his focus to her instead.

"You," Nathan growled. "Why are you here? Duke finally found someone as useless as he is?!"

Duke swung blindly at that, fingers poised to rake across Nathan's cheeks. Luckily for all of them, before he could accidentally make Nathan bleed, there was the pop of a taser and Nathan jerked stiffly before collapsing into Duke.

Audrey lowered her taser and hurried forward.

"Sorry I had to do that, Nathan. Are you okay?"

Duke dropped Nathan and sagged against the wall. "Yeah, I'm fine." He wasn't, but he wasn't about to tell an FBI agent that his head was spinning and there were spots slowly clearing from his vision.

Yeah, Octavia was definitely looking him over pretty closely, at that. It also kept her from indulging the urge to kick Nathan in the ribs. Which was probably a good thing.

After she'd determined he didn't have any serious visible injuries, at least, she turned towards Audrey and snapped, "What the fuck was that?"

Duke rubbed the back of his head and winced faintly. "That was . . . more than usual," he agreed.

"Nothing," Nathan muttered into the deck where he lay. "Felt nothing."

"I need you two to keep him here," Audrey said.

"Uh, no," Duke said.

"He tried to kill Duke," Octavia agreed in a snarl.

And don't think she didn't notice the lack of an actual answer, either, Audrey!

"It's not his fault." Audrey watched as Nathan passed out on the deck, then stood. "He's sick."

"He's been sick," Duke said. "Right now he's homicidal."

"It's not his fault," Audrey said again. "Something -- something just happened to him."

"Is he contagious?" Duke asked, eyeing Nathan's red and swollen face. Audrey glared at him. "I'm just asking!"

"What happened to him?"

Octavia really missed Wonkru, all of a sudden. At least they'd been obligated to give her straight answers, most of the time.

Yeah, Audrey wasn't at all impressed with Octavia's yelling. She shot Octavia an assessing look, hesitating.

"This is a trouble, isn't it," Duke said. "Whatever was going on at the Freddy got him, too. We can't be crazy right now, Audrey!"

"I don't know if he's contagious," Audrey said with a sigh. "But I do know someone who is. Which is why I have to go find her, which I can't do dragging Nathan around." She looked between the two of them. "Nathan's talked a lot about you two. This is where you both prove him wrong, right?"

Octavia didn't even have anything to say to that.

She was just making an extremely unimpressed face. At least by her own standards.

Yeah, Duke couldn't really argue with that, either. He barely knew Audrey, but Audrey looked like Lucy, and every instinct in him was screaming at him to help her out.

There was just one problem with that.

"This is a bad idea, Audrey," he hissed, voice low.

"Tie him up," Audrey suggested. "He's not going to hurt you again."

"I'm not worried about him hurting me."

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