Haven, Maine, Sunday Fandom time
Oct. 18th, 2020 10:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
betterthanaplanThe Rev's people reacted to his death about as well as Duke had expected them to. And the troubled in town reacted in kind. Audrey's prediction about a war didn't seem too far off. Oh sure, it was Haven, so everyone still acted all polite and normal on the surface, but Duke saw people clustering together and eyeing each other from across the Gull. He heard the accusations that got tossed around when the wrong runners bumped into each other, training for Haven's charity 10K.
Naturally, the weather decided to get involved, too, as the temperatures climbed to something that would be hot even by Maryland standards, much less Maine.
Duke avoided it all, choosing to spend his time at home on his boat, sorting through the things Evi had left there. She'd apparently taken to stashing them all over the place, like if she left enough things lying around, she'd trick him into thinking they were still happily married. He was on the phone as he sorted through a box he'd found stashed in one of his smuggling holes, talking to Evi's mother. Making sure she knew what happened — the official story, anyway. Dwight had apparently decided to 'clean up' the whole shot-by-a-sniper deal. Duke wanted felt someone had to mourn for Evi. Someone who wasn't constantly conflicted and blaming themselves for getting her killed.
"No, Mrs. Ryan," he said. "I get it. Your daughter liked her secrets. It was part of her charm." He set the box down on his table. "Uh huh. Sure. I'll inventory her stuff before I send it."
He hung up and shook his head. "Your grief is touching." No wonder Evi had turned out like she did. He tucked his phone away and started sorting through the box.
And found the little silver one that he and Evi and Octavia had found following the FBI's "treasure map".
"The hell was she doing with this?" He popped it open and found a note in her neat, curly handwriting.
Duke,
In case things go bad, you should have this. I'm sorry.
P.S. - Put it under your iguana tank light.
Love Always, Evi
He tucked the note away and shut the box again, looking over at the little blacklit terrarium that still didn't have an actual living iguana in it, no matter what Trixie had said about how he should get another one. He went over and slowly opened it up, wondering what he might possibly find.
The name "Crocker" lit up bright blue on the otherwise apparently undecorated lid.
"You gotta be kidding me."
If you wanted to know anything about the secrets in Haven, the first people to ask were Vince and Dave Teagues. They'd known where Rassmussen House was. They always seemed to have some kind of half-baked explanation for any given trouble. If anyone was going to know more about the box than Duke had managed to get out of the old Grand Dame of evil vine troubles Mrs. Keegan, it'd be the Teagues.
He spotted them around town, restocking their "dead Rev" edition on their fucking precious little tandem bicycle, and headed over to grill them.
"Teague and Teague Incorporated," he said as he walked up. "I've been looking for you boys."
"Had to help with the deliveries," Dave said.
"The paper's already on its third edition," Vince said. "Everybody wants to read about the Rev."
Yeah. Duke bet they did. "I think I'll wait for the movie." Dave laughed. Duke pulled the box from his bag. "I was hoping I could show you boys something."
Vince and Dave both stared at it, their expressions unreadable.
"What do you think it is?" Duke asked.
"A silver box?" Vince asked, an uncomfortable laugh in his voice.
". . . Yes," Duke said after a moment. Then he pulled out a small UV light and shined it over the lid. The name lit up again.
"Well, look at that!" Dave leaned in with a smile. "Very interesting!"
"It still looks like a silver box to me," Vince said, all muddled senior citizen.
"Can I see that?" Dave asked. Duke handed it over. Dave whistled. "Well. I've seen this design before. It was one of our, uh. Early silversmiths."
"You think you could find out anything more about it?" Duke asked. "What the hell it has to do with the Crockers? If my father ever owned it?"
"I'm sorry, Duke," Vince said. "We're just too busy right now to take on another project."
Dave shot him a look. "I'd be happy to do a little research," he declared. "Shouldn't take long at all."
"Okay." Duke took the box back. Vince lowered his head with a sigh.
"Oh, Vince didn't get a lot of sleep last night," Dave said, waving his hand dismissively. "Shellfish before bed."
"Yeah, I'm. . . . Sorry for my irritability," Vince said, looking faintly ashamed. "Yeah, well, why don't you just leave the box with, uh —"
Duke pulled the box out of reach of Vince's hand. "You know, I — I think the box should stay with me." He didn't buy that shellfish story for a second. Vince was good at playing the daffy old man, but Duke saw the way he'd handled that rifle in the woods. He knew Vince was much more dangerous than he looked.
And he was pretty sure both Teagues knew much more about the troubles than they ever wanted to let on.
Vince ducked his head again with a little nod.
"Dave?" Duke said, still not taking his eyes off the larger Teague. "Let me know if you find anything?"
Dave nodded. "I'd be happy to."
"You have a nice day, gentlemen," Duke said, heading off.
Vince wasn't nearly as quiet as he thought he was as he reached for Dave's arm. "I will stop you."
"It's time this town faced its realities," Dave said. "All of them."
Well. That was nice and foreboding.
Duke made it back to the Rouge again just after dark. Many of the main roads were still closed for the race, and it had taken him ages to navigate around all the old little side roads that seemed to have all shifted slightly from where they'd been when he still lived here full time. He parked right by his slip and hopped out — and froze, when he saw the light of a flashlight beam shining from inside his wheelhouse.
Someone had broken into his boat.
Duke set the take out he'd picked up for dinner on the hood of his rental, and slipped as quietly as he could up to the nearest stashed gun. He ducked through the side door into the staterooms, gun at the ready, only to be immediately grabbed and disarmed by someone about the size of a goddamn bear.
The man threw him into the wall, and when Duke tried to retaliate, grabbed him from behind in — what else — a bear hug. Duke used his legs as leverage to try and smash the man back into the hard metal walls, and just barely managed to slip through his grip, launching a fist at the man's jaw.
The man barely blinked, just hit back, shoving Duke into the wall again. Duke's head rang, the barely healed bump from Nathan's stunt with the radio at the police station rearing its ugly head. He didn't have time to do more than wince, though, as the man kept coming.
He threw another punch, desperate to gain distance. The man blocked it and responded in kind, knocking Duke to the floor this time. Duke grabbed for the nearest thing he could reach, an empty bottle — there were several of those scattered about — and smashed it over the man's head. He bought himself just enough room with that trick to make it across the room to the light switch.
"Sasquatch?!"
Dwight had the grace to look faintly sheepish, but then his eyes landed on what Duke could only assume had been his original target: the silver box, lying on the floor where it had fallen during the fight. They both lunged for it at the same time, Duke managing to grab it just before Dwight, and yank it from his meaty fingers. In the process, something small and shiny came flying out of it and across the room.
A key.
Duke dove for it, dropping the box in the process. Dwight let him have it, scooping the box itself up instead. Duke turned, ready to defend himself all over again, and grabbed a heavy old fishing implement off the wall to use as a weapon.
And Lucifer made fun of his decorating style.
Dwight looked at it, then turned and took the cavalry saber off the transom above the doorway. Duke looked from his makeshift club to Dwight's sword, and let out an uncomfortable laugh.
Lucifer . . . might actually have a point, yeah.
"You know," he said, switching tactics and laying on the obnoxious charm that had bought himself out of any number of scrapes in the past. "We don't talk enough, me and you."
"This doesn't have to get ugly," Dwight said. It warmed Duke's heart to hear that the big man was out of breath. The guy looked like he ate bricks for breakfast. "I walk out of here, it's over."
"Great!" Duke grinned. "If you don't mind, you can just leave the box in the umbrella stand on your way out."
Dwight stared him down. "Gimme the key."
Duke rocked back faintly. "Do I actually have to say 'no' to that? Or can I just assume it was a rhetorical statement?"
Dwight flashed a tiny smirk. "Funny."
"Vince sent you, didn't he," Duke guessed.
"If you say so."
"Dave is helping me. So it begs the question: what's so important about that thing that it's got the two of them turning on each other?"
"I didn't ask."
Duke shook his head, gesturing with his makeshift club. "I think you did. And I think that Vince clammed up on you. Come on." He lowered the club. "Aren't you even a little bit curious?"
Dwight was buying it. Duke could tell. "Alright," the big man said. "So why don't you tell me?"
"I'd love to," Duke said. "But, uh. I don't have a freaking clue." Not without giving out far more information about his own trouble than he wanted getting around.
He walked over to the table, setting his weapon down and leaning over for a moment as he worked on slowing his breath back down. It was a show of trust he just might regret making, but if he had any hope of winning Dwight over, he was going to have to risk it.
And if he wanted any hope of walking out of here without at least another grievous head injury — or another game of demon-telephone with Lucifer and Dwight's dead body — he was going to have to win Dwight over.
"Vince and Dave know what it is." He grabbed a bottle of scotch and a couple glasses. "But they don't want us to know. They're playing us against each other." He poured a finger into each glass. "So. Do we go back to kicking each other's asses? Or do we find out the truth?"
He set one of the glasses down close to Dwight. Dwight gave him a long look in return, then came over to pick it up. He tossed the scotch down in one go, never breaking eye contact with Duke.
"Where do we start?"
Dave came through for Duke the next morning.
"It was, uh, commissioned by a Fitzwilliam Crocker in 1786. He's, uh, one of your distant ancestors."
"Any idea what it was supposed to be used for?" Duke asked. "Snuff? Cuff-links? Colonial condoms?"
"Ah, no record of that, but, uh. It was originally designed as a set. The silver box you have is actually the smaller of the two."
"I'm going to have to look into that," Duke said, already formulating where to start. "Great work, Dave. Thanks."
He hung up.
"Smooth," Dwight said.
"Yeah." Duke nodded. "It's kind of what I do."
"Yeeeeeah." Dwight pursed his lips. "Which makes me wonder if I'm making a mistake working with you."
"You're not."
Dwight nodded. "Besides, if I am? I can always change my mind."
Oh. Goody. "Glad to see we're on the same page," Duke said. "I bet you this key opens this other box Dave was talking about it."
"Your dad never told you about it?"
"No. But our conversations usually were limited to 'Run down to the liquor store and get me some camel nons and a six pack.'" Because that was the sort of errand you wanted to give your eight year old son.
"Sounds a lot like my old man," Dwight said, smirking.
"Great," Duke said, shrugging. "Did you two get along."
"No." Dwight waited a beat, then barrelled on. "So if your dad had the box, where'd he put it?"
"If Simon Crocker was anything, it was careful. If it was valuable, he hid it."
"Any ideas where?"
Duke nodded. "We need to find his old boat."
"I can see why your dad thought this was a good hiding place," Dwight said, peering down through the hatch in the floor of the engine room of an old fishing trawler while Duke dug through the innards of the engine. "Who the hell looks down here unless they have to?"
"Yeah, Pops was a real genius," Duke said. He reached in again, then let out a groan as he once again got nothing but air and built up engine grease. "So why the hell isn't it here?"
"Sure this was his boat?" Dwight asked.
"Yeah. Last of the floating trash heaps he collected over the years. He sold it to Sal before he died."
"If the box was so important," Dwight asked, "how come he never mentioned it to you?"
"You know, I don't think he liked me much," Duke said. "And I'm damn sure he didn't trust me."
"Or maybe he was just bad at telling you things, like, 'Son, you're troubled.'"
"If you don't mind me asking, what exactly is your 'trouble'?" Duke asked.
Dwight sighed. "I'm a bullet magnet. If a gun goes off within a hundred yards, the bullet veers off towards me."
Jesus. The troubles really didn't fuck around, did they? "And, uh. How does one come to find that out?"
"In Afghanistan."
Duke whistled and climbed out of the hole. "Yeah, that's, uh. One hell of a revelation."
He and Dwight worked together to pull the door back down over the hatch. "Yeah," Dwight said. "Screwy thing. My dad knew I was gonna enlist, yet he never said a word. He was willing to let me walk into a battle zone rather than admit what he was. What we were."
Duke let out a soft sigh. "Yeah, I think your dad and my dad would have been bosom buddies."
"What?" Sal crowed from the ladder. "You two lose a bar bet?"
"Okay, slow down, Sal, I'm sorry." Duke put himself between Dwight and the old fisherman. "I was gonna let you know we were here, but we were just down here looking for something that I thought my dad might have left down here."
"On my boat? Duke!"
"Relax. You're gonna blow a gasket." Duke shook his head. "Before this was your boat, this was the last boat my father owned before he —"
"The second last boat that Simon owned."
Duke blinked. "Not . . . according to his papers."
"I don't know about any papers," Sal said. "But it's the reason Simon gave me such a sweet deal on the lady here! He was buying a 120 and the owner wanted cash."
Duke felt suddenly cold, despite the lingering heatwave. "A 120. Are — are you sure?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, Sal. Do you remember the name?"
"Cape something."
Oh god. "Cape." Duke swallowed. "Rouge?"
"Yeah!" Sal nodded. "That's it!"
"No no no no." Duke turned towards Dwight. "That's impossible. I won the Cape Rouge in a poker game on my 21st birthday, okay?"
Dwight understood Duke's reaction. He had that 'father issues suck for everyone' look on his face, like when he was talking about his trouble. "From who?"
"Ray Fiegler, up at Castle Rock."
"Fiegler!" Sal said. "Yup. He's the guy Simon gave her to."
"But — that means. . . ." Duke looked back at Dwight again, hoping against hope that the guy would have some alternate answer. He didn't. "My father gave me my boat."
Duke had no idea what to do with this information. None. The Rouge had always been a symbol of freedom to him. She was what had gotten him out of Haven. She was what had brought him to Fandom, to Octavia and Lucifer and Rey and all the others.
All because of his garbage father, who'd died when Duke was eight.
So he refocused on the task at hand: finding the other silver box. He and Dwight headed back to the Rouge, and Duke started looking in all the holes he hadn't bothered to search before, all the weird spots his father might have stashed something he didn't need to get back in a hurry. This led him deep into the bowels of his boat, through one of the hatches on the deck. Dwight stayed up top to run the winch as Duke wedged his arm through metal grating that hadn't seen more than a basic wipedown in all the years since Duke had won her.
"Gotta be the smartest plan he ever came up with," Duke muttered.
"Maybe he was finally trying to do something nice for you," Dwight suggested.
"No. More likely, there's a catch. A big one." A trouble sized one. His hand closed around the rim of what felt like a barrel. "I've got something."
It took ages to tear off the grating and pull the barrel out. Once they had it up on deck, Dwight hovered over Duke as he pried the lid off and spotted the large silver box inside.
"All this time, the bastard had it stashed right under my nose."
It was about half the size of a standard steamer trunk, with engravings all along the sides that matched the ones on the smaller box. Duke tugged it out of the barrel, straining a little against the weight of it. It felt full. Very full. He had no idea what of. He pulled the key from his pocket and looked up at Dwight again. Dwight grinned as Duke put the key into the lock.
Everyone loved a treasure hunt. Especially when it led to a treasure chest.
Duke unlocked it and lifted the lid.
"What the hell?"
It was a weapons stash. There were throwing stars and old style muskets and jeweled daggers, all piled together on clean, fluffy red velvet. On top of it all sat a leather journal. Duke picked up one of the daggers, sliding it out of its sheath.
He wondered, briefly, if Octavia would have liked something like this. It was probably a bit too ornate for her. Meizen nou ste ething, after all.
"Duke." Audrey swung down onto the deck, a deadly serious look on her face.
"Audrey." Duke looked away from the weapons and frowned at her.
"We need to talk," she said.
Duke shook his head and came over, still not quite capable of dragging his attention away from the pile of murder weapons his serial killer father had left for him on the boat he'd arranged for Duke to have. "You're not going to believe what my father had hidden below decks."
"Your father's exactly why I'm here," Audrey said, her voice shaking faintly. "Lucy Ripley. I found her."
"What?" Duke shook his head again. He wondered if he would always feel a half-step behind everything in his life. "What'd she say?"
"That she knew your father. That he visited her 27 years ago."
"Why? How did he know her?"
"I don't think that he did," Audrey said. "I think — that he was looking for me."
Duke gaped at her, then froze when he heard the latch of the box snap shut behind him. He turned to see Dwight trying to make off with it. "Wow. Buddy. My feelings are actually hurt." He gestured between the two of them with the knife, head too full of revelations to remember why him and Dwight and things that might make Dwight bleed were a bad combination. "Whatever happened to honor amongst thieves?"
"Said I might change my mind," Dwight said.
Duke stopped and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, you did." He glanced back at Audrey. "He did say that." He turned back to Dwight — just in time to catch the full weight of the silver box on the side of his head.
All thought ceased, and instinct kicked in. Duke toppled sideways with a grunt, catching himself on one of the raised hatches. He had the knife in his hand flipped over and in ready position in an instant, and spun on his heel to strike back, grazing across Dwight's bicep.
And realized immediately just how big of a mistake he'd just made.
He locked his jaw down on a groan as his trouble swamped his rattled brain. There were two other people on his boat, but in that moment, he couldn't have told you anything about them other than that they could bleed. He barely managed to force himself to stagger away, falling to his hands and knees while Dwight's blood seeped into his skin. He was only faintly aware of Audrey grabbing his arm, calling his name, asking him what was wrong.
What was wrong? He'd been hit in the head by a 30 pound metal box. After repeated knocks to said head over the last several days. And his fucking euphoric, superpowered, deadly family legacy was ordering him to kill kill kill.
Dwight grabbed a crowbar and swung at him just as Duke's grip on himself slipped. Duke stood and spun, catching the crowbar with one hand and slamming the base of his palm into Dwight's sternum with the other.
Dwight flew. Even further and harder than Nathan had when he'd set off Duke's trouble for the first time last year. He rocketed right off the side of the boat and into the water.
Duke heard Audrey shout and hurry over to the edge of the boat, even as the rush of his trouble faded enough for him to get a proper grip on himself again. He followed her over, staring down into the bubbles and ripples where Dwight had gone under, and tried not to wonder if he'd finally killed his first trouble.
"Don't worry," he decided. "Guy's a freaking Army Ranger. He's fine."
He'd better be fine. Duke would notice somehow if he wasn't, right? His trouble wanted to kill. It would have felt even better than usual, wouldn't it?
He turned to Audrey, who was staring at him with wide, horrified eyes. He swallowed hard.
"So, uh. I guess I have some explaining to do, huh."
"So . . . if troubled blood touches you, you absorb it," Audrey said. She was sitting on Duke's padded bench, the silver box open on the coffee table in front of her. "And it, what, gives you superstrength?"
"That's it in a nutshell." Duke paced on the far side of the coffee table, trying not to look at his father's giant stash of murder weapons. "Oh, and it makes me kinda high and gives me the urge to kill people."
"And — if you did kill people. . . ."
"Their trouble would die with them. No one else would get it, ever again."
"Why didn't you tell me?!"
Duke grimaced. "I've wanted to. I was going to, back in the woods, but —"
"But what? Oh my god, Duke, if one of those girls had bled on you. . . !"
"I know!" Duke stopped pacing, his hands clenched. "Believe me, I know. That's why I turned you down at first, when you asked me to come help."
"But then you came out there anyway?!"
"To keep the Rev from hurting you!" Duke wanted to grab her and shake her. "Audrey, I've already lost two people I've loved in the last, like, week! If something happened to you or Nathan. . . ."
Audrey blinked, looking somehow even more surprised. Duke ran back over what he'd said and winced.
"You — you love me?"
"I — as a friend." Duke dropped his head. "Don't get me wrong, you're an incredibly beautiful woman. But I'm still in love with Octavia —"
"Is that why she left you?" Audrey asked. "Wait, hang on. You and Nathan?"
"Really?" Duke gave her a sharp look. "You're really having trouble wrapping your head around that part?"
Audrey had the grace to look sheepish. "I'm not surprised you're — you know —"
"Bisexual. You can say it."
"But Nathan?"
Duke grinned the grin of a tired, frustrated, freaked out queer. "He's a very tender lover."
"He hates you."
"And I hated Evi. You think that kind of animosity comes without sleeping together?"
Audrey grimaced and shook her head. "We're getting off topic. Your father was trying to hunt me — Lucy-me — down. Why?"
Duke shook his head. "No idea. But . . . I'm pretty sure he killed a lot of people before he did, so, uh. I'm guessing it wasn't good."
Audrey leaned forward, pulling out the leather journal. "Maybe this ledger can tell us something." She flipped it open. "It's all names, dates, hundreds of years old. . . . Maybe it's a Crocker family history."
Duke grabbed it from her and flipped through it, trying not to think too hard about what all those names and dates might mean. He stopped suddenly as he got towards the end.
"Did you find something?"
"Just these last few pages," he said, tipping it down towards her. "I feel like I recognize the writing. Maybe because it's almost as bad as mine." He flipped the page, then slowly sat down next to her on the bench. "My father wrote this."
Audrey leaned over his shoulder, staring at the piece of paper clipped into the journal. "'Duke,'" she read. "'If you're reading this, then I haven't survived.' Wait, I thought — I thought that your dad died in an accident."
"Yeah, I'm thinking maybe not."
"'You are my son. You are my heir. It's up to you to finish my work. You must. . . .'" She trailed off, taking a deep breath. "'. . . Kill her.'"
Duke turned the page. And found a photo of a young man, sitting next to a woman who looked just like Audrey, if Audrey were really into retro fashion. Clipped across from it was a photo of Lucy, the woman who'd helped Duke after his father had died. The woman who was now, apparently, Audrey Parker.
"This must be why your father was looking for Lucy Ripley. He was trying to find me."
"To kill you," Duke said. "Why?"
"You . . . your family," Audrey said slowly. "You kill troubles. And I'm immune to them. I — show up, or whatever, when the troubles are active. Maybe he thought . . . killing me could end them all?"
Duke snapped the journal shut and tossed it into the box. Then he crammed all his father's weapons that Audrey had pulled out back in on top of it and jammed the lid shut. "No," he said. "That is never going to happen."
"But Duke. What if —"
"Never!"
Audrey swallowed and nodded. "Okay." Duke hung his head, feeling bad for snapping. This was as bizarre for her as it was for him. She'd met the real Lucy Ripley today. Her identity, her whole world, it'd turned itself over on her at least four times as often as Duke's had. They were, somehow, two sides of this same troubled coin.
Two secret weapons, on opposite sides of the same troubled war.
And somehow, they just might end up being used to annihilate each other.
Duke sank down onto the floor, his back to the bulkhead, and rested his aching head gingerly against it. He was way too concussed — and way too sober — to deal with any of this.
[NFB, NFI, OOC welcome. Adapted from ep 2x11, "Business As Usual". WE'RE GETTING INTO THE FINAL STRETCH OF SEASON TWO!]
Naturally, the weather decided to get involved, too, as the temperatures climbed to something that would be hot even by Maryland standards, much less Maine.
Duke avoided it all, choosing to spend his time at home on his boat, sorting through the things Evi had left there. She'd apparently taken to stashing them all over the place, like if she left enough things lying around, she'd trick him into thinking they were still happily married. He was on the phone as he sorted through a box he'd found stashed in one of his smuggling holes, talking to Evi's mother. Making sure she knew what happened — the official story, anyway. Dwight had apparently decided to 'clean up' the whole shot-by-a-sniper deal. Duke wanted felt someone had to mourn for Evi. Someone who wasn't constantly conflicted and blaming themselves for getting her killed.
"No, Mrs. Ryan," he said. "I get it. Your daughter liked her secrets. It was part of her charm." He set the box down on his table. "Uh huh. Sure. I'll inventory her stuff before I send it."
He hung up and shook his head. "Your grief is touching." No wonder Evi had turned out like she did. He tucked his phone away and started sorting through the box.
And found the little silver one that he and Evi and Octavia had found following the FBI's "treasure map".
"The hell was she doing with this?" He popped it open and found a note in her neat, curly handwriting.
Duke,
In case things go bad, you should have this. I'm sorry.
P.S. - Put it under your iguana tank light.
Love Always, Evi
He tucked the note away and shut the box again, looking over at the little blacklit terrarium that still didn't have an actual living iguana in it, no matter what Trixie had said about how he should get another one. He went over and slowly opened it up, wondering what he might possibly find.
The name "Crocker" lit up bright blue on the otherwise apparently undecorated lid.
"You gotta be kidding me."
If you wanted to know anything about the secrets in Haven, the first people to ask were Vince and Dave Teagues. They'd known where Rassmussen House was. They always seemed to have some kind of half-baked explanation for any given trouble. If anyone was going to know more about the box than Duke had managed to get out of the old Grand Dame of evil vine troubles Mrs. Keegan, it'd be the Teagues.
He spotted them around town, restocking their "dead Rev" edition on their fucking precious little tandem bicycle, and headed over to grill them.
"Teague and Teague Incorporated," he said as he walked up. "I've been looking for you boys."
"Had to help with the deliveries," Dave said.
"The paper's already on its third edition," Vince said. "Everybody wants to read about the Rev."
Yeah. Duke bet they did. "I think I'll wait for the movie." Dave laughed. Duke pulled the box from his bag. "I was hoping I could show you boys something."
Vince and Dave both stared at it, their expressions unreadable.
"What do you think it is?" Duke asked.
"A silver box?" Vince asked, an uncomfortable laugh in his voice.
". . . Yes," Duke said after a moment. Then he pulled out a small UV light and shined it over the lid. The name lit up again.
"Well, look at that!" Dave leaned in with a smile. "Very interesting!"
"It still looks like a silver box to me," Vince said, all muddled senior citizen.
"Can I see that?" Dave asked. Duke handed it over. Dave whistled. "Well. I've seen this design before. It was one of our, uh. Early silversmiths."
"You think you could find out anything more about it?" Duke asked. "What the hell it has to do with the Crockers? If my father ever owned it?"
"I'm sorry, Duke," Vince said. "We're just too busy right now to take on another project."
Dave shot him a look. "I'd be happy to do a little research," he declared. "Shouldn't take long at all."
"Okay." Duke took the box back. Vince lowered his head with a sigh.
"Oh, Vince didn't get a lot of sleep last night," Dave said, waving his hand dismissively. "Shellfish before bed."
"Yeah, I'm. . . . Sorry for my irritability," Vince said, looking faintly ashamed. "Yeah, well, why don't you just leave the box with, uh —"
Duke pulled the box out of reach of Vince's hand. "You know, I — I think the box should stay with me." He didn't buy that shellfish story for a second. Vince was good at playing the daffy old man, but Duke saw the way he'd handled that rifle in the woods. He knew Vince was much more dangerous than he looked.
And he was pretty sure both Teagues knew much more about the troubles than they ever wanted to let on.
Vince ducked his head again with a little nod.
"Dave?" Duke said, still not taking his eyes off the larger Teague. "Let me know if you find anything?"
Dave nodded. "I'd be happy to."
"You have a nice day, gentlemen," Duke said, heading off.
Vince wasn't nearly as quiet as he thought he was as he reached for Dave's arm. "I will stop you."
"It's time this town faced its realities," Dave said. "All of them."
Well. That was nice and foreboding.
Duke made it back to the Rouge again just after dark. Many of the main roads were still closed for the race, and it had taken him ages to navigate around all the old little side roads that seemed to have all shifted slightly from where they'd been when he still lived here full time. He parked right by his slip and hopped out — and froze, when he saw the light of a flashlight beam shining from inside his wheelhouse.
Someone had broken into his boat.
Duke set the take out he'd picked up for dinner on the hood of his rental, and slipped as quietly as he could up to the nearest stashed gun. He ducked through the side door into the staterooms, gun at the ready, only to be immediately grabbed and disarmed by someone about the size of a goddamn bear.
The man threw him into the wall, and when Duke tried to retaliate, grabbed him from behind in — what else — a bear hug. Duke used his legs as leverage to try and smash the man back into the hard metal walls, and just barely managed to slip through his grip, launching a fist at the man's jaw.
The man barely blinked, just hit back, shoving Duke into the wall again. Duke's head rang, the barely healed bump from Nathan's stunt with the radio at the police station rearing its ugly head. He didn't have time to do more than wince, though, as the man kept coming.
He threw another punch, desperate to gain distance. The man blocked it and responded in kind, knocking Duke to the floor this time. Duke grabbed for the nearest thing he could reach, an empty bottle — there were several of those scattered about — and smashed it over the man's head. He bought himself just enough room with that trick to make it across the room to the light switch.
"Sasquatch?!"
Dwight had the grace to look faintly sheepish, but then his eyes landed on what Duke could only assume had been his original target: the silver box, lying on the floor where it had fallen during the fight. They both lunged for it at the same time, Duke managing to grab it just before Dwight, and yank it from his meaty fingers. In the process, something small and shiny came flying out of it and across the room.
A key.
Duke dove for it, dropping the box in the process. Dwight let him have it, scooping the box itself up instead. Duke turned, ready to defend himself all over again, and grabbed a heavy old fishing implement off the wall to use as a weapon.
And Lucifer made fun of his decorating style.
Dwight looked at it, then turned and took the cavalry saber off the transom above the doorway. Duke looked from his makeshift club to Dwight's sword, and let out an uncomfortable laugh.
Lucifer . . . might actually have a point, yeah.
"You know," he said, switching tactics and laying on the obnoxious charm that had bought himself out of any number of scrapes in the past. "We don't talk enough, me and you."
"This doesn't have to get ugly," Dwight said. It warmed Duke's heart to hear that the big man was out of breath. The guy looked like he ate bricks for breakfast. "I walk out of here, it's over."
"Great!" Duke grinned. "If you don't mind, you can just leave the box in the umbrella stand on your way out."
Dwight stared him down. "Gimme the key."
Duke rocked back faintly. "Do I actually have to say 'no' to that? Or can I just assume it was a rhetorical statement?"
Dwight flashed a tiny smirk. "Funny."
"Vince sent you, didn't he," Duke guessed.
"If you say so."
"Dave is helping me. So it begs the question: what's so important about that thing that it's got the two of them turning on each other?"
"I didn't ask."
Duke shook his head, gesturing with his makeshift club. "I think you did. And I think that Vince clammed up on you. Come on." He lowered the club. "Aren't you even a little bit curious?"
Dwight was buying it. Duke could tell. "Alright," the big man said. "So why don't you tell me?"
"I'd love to," Duke said. "But, uh. I don't have a freaking clue." Not without giving out far more information about his own trouble than he wanted getting around.
He walked over to the table, setting his weapon down and leaning over for a moment as he worked on slowing his breath back down. It was a show of trust he just might regret making, but if he had any hope of winning Dwight over, he was going to have to risk it.
And if he wanted any hope of walking out of here without at least another grievous head injury — or another game of demon-telephone with Lucifer and Dwight's dead body — he was going to have to win Dwight over.
"Vince and Dave know what it is." He grabbed a bottle of scotch and a couple glasses. "But they don't want us to know. They're playing us against each other." He poured a finger into each glass. "So. Do we go back to kicking each other's asses? Or do we find out the truth?"
He set one of the glasses down close to Dwight. Dwight gave him a long look in return, then came over to pick it up. He tossed the scotch down in one go, never breaking eye contact with Duke.
"Where do we start?"
Dave came through for Duke the next morning.
"It was, uh, commissioned by a Fitzwilliam Crocker in 1786. He's, uh, one of your distant ancestors."
"Any idea what it was supposed to be used for?" Duke asked. "Snuff? Cuff-links? Colonial condoms?"
"Ah, no record of that, but, uh. It was originally designed as a set. The silver box you have is actually the smaller of the two."
"I'm going to have to look into that," Duke said, already formulating where to start. "Great work, Dave. Thanks."
He hung up.
"Smooth," Dwight said.
"Yeah." Duke nodded. "It's kind of what I do."
"Yeeeeeah." Dwight pursed his lips. "Which makes me wonder if I'm making a mistake working with you."
"You're not."
Dwight nodded. "Besides, if I am? I can always change my mind."
Oh. Goody. "Glad to see we're on the same page," Duke said. "I bet you this key opens this other box Dave was talking about it."
"Your dad never told you about it?"
"No. But our conversations usually were limited to 'Run down to the liquor store and get me some camel nons and a six pack.'" Because that was the sort of errand you wanted to give your eight year old son.
"Sounds a lot like my old man," Dwight said, smirking.
"Great," Duke said, shrugging. "Did you two get along."
"No." Dwight waited a beat, then barrelled on. "So if your dad had the box, where'd he put it?"
"If Simon Crocker was anything, it was careful. If it was valuable, he hid it."
"Any ideas where?"
Duke nodded. "We need to find his old boat."
"I can see why your dad thought this was a good hiding place," Dwight said, peering down through the hatch in the floor of the engine room of an old fishing trawler while Duke dug through the innards of the engine. "Who the hell looks down here unless they have to?"
"Yeah, Pops was a real genius," Duke said. He reached in again, then let out a groan as he once again got nothing but air and built up engine grease. "So why the hell isn't it here?"
"Sure this was his boat?" Dwight asked.
"Yeah. Last of the floating trash heaps he collected over the years. He sold it to Sal before he died."
"If the box was so important," Dwight asked, "how come he never mentioned it to you?"
"You know, I don't think he liked me much," Duke said. "And I'm damn sure he didn't trust me."
"Or maybe he was just bad at telling you things, like, 'Son, you're troubled.'"
"If you don't mind me asking, what exactly is your 'trouble'?" Duke asked.
Dwight sighed. "I'm a bullet magnet. If a gun goes off within a hundred yards, the bullet veers off towards me."
Jesus. The troubles really didn't fuck around, did they? "And, uh. How does one come to find that out?"
"In Afghanistan."
Duke whistled and climbed out of the hole. "Yeah, that's, uh. One hell of a revelation."
He and Dwight worked together to pull the door back down over the hatch. "Yeah," Dwight said. "Screwy thing. My dad knew I was gonna enlist, yet he never said a word. He was willing to let me walk into a battle zone rather than admit what he was. What we were."
Duke let out a soft sigh. "Yeah, I think your dad and my dad would have been bosom buddies."
"What?" Sal crowed from the ladder. "You two lose a bar bet?"
"Okay, slow down, Sal, I'm sorry." Duke put himself between Dwight and the old fisherman. "I was gonna let you know we were here, but we were just down here looking for something that I thought my dad might have left down here."
"On my boat? Duke!"
"Relax. You're gonna blow a gasket." Duke shook his head. "Before this was your boat, this was the last boat my father owned before he —"
"The second last boat that Simon owned."
Duke blinked. "Not . . . according to his papers."
"I don't know about any papers," Sal said. "But it's the reason Simon gave me such a sweet deal on the lady here! He was buying a 120 and the owner wanted cash."
Duke felt suddenly cold, despite the lingering heatwave. "A 120. Are — are you sure?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, Sal. Do you remember the name?"
"Cape something."
Oh god. "Cape." Duke swallowed. "Rouge?"
"Yeah!" Sal nodded. "That's it!"
"No no no no." Duke turned towards Dwight. "That's impossible. I won the Cape Rouge in a poker game on my 21st birthday, okay?"
Dwight understood Duke's reaction. He had that 'father issues suck for everyone' look on his face, like when he was talking about his trouble. "From who?"
"Ray Fiegler, up at Castle Rock."
"Fiegler!" Sal said. "Yup. He's the guy Simon gave her to."
"But — that means. . . ." Duke looked back at Dwight again, hoping against hope that the guy would have some alternate answer. He didn't. "My father gave me my boat."
Duke had no idea what to do with this information. None. The Rouge had always been a symbol of freedom to him. She was what had gotten him out of Haven. She was what had brought him to Fandom, to Octavia and Lucifer and Rey and all the others.
All because of his garbage father, who'd died when Duke was eight.
So he refocused on the task at hand: finding the other silver box. He and Dwight headed back to the Rouge, and Duke started looking in all the holes he hadn't bothered to search before, all the weird spots his father might have stashed something he didn't need to get back in a hurry. This led him deep into the bowels of his boat, through one of the hatches on the deck. Dwight stayed up top to run the winch as Duke wedged his arm through metal grating that hadn't seen more than a basic wipedown in all the years since Duke had won her.
"Gotta be the smartest plan he ever came up with," Duke muttered.
"Maybe he was finally trying to do something nice for you," Dwight suggested.
"No. More likely, there's a catch. A big one." A trouble sized one. His hand closed around the rim of what felt like a barrel. "I've got something."
It took ages to tear off the grating and pull the barrel out. Once they had it up on deck, Dwight hovered over Duke as he pried the lid off and spotted the large silver box inside.
"All this time, the bastard had it stashed right under my nose."
It was about half the size of a standard steamer trunk, with engravings all along the sides that matched the ones on the smaller box. Duke tugged it out of the barrel, straining a little against the weight of it. It felt full. Very full. He had no idea what of. He pulled the key from his pocket and looked up at Dwight again. Dwight grinned as Duke put the key into the lock.
Everyone loved a treasure hunt. Especially when it led to a treasure chest.
Duke unlocked it and lifted the lid.
"What the hell?"
It was a weapons stash. There were throwing stars and old style muskets and jeweled daggers, all piled together on clean, fluffy red velvet. On top of it all sat a leather journal. Duke picked up one of the daggers, sliding it out of its sheath.
He wondered, briefly, if Octavia would have liked something like this. It was probably a bit too ornate for her. Meizen nou ste ething, after all.
"Duke." Audrey swung down onto the deck, a deadly serious look on her face.
"Audrey." Duke looked away from the weapons and frowned at her.
"We need to talk," she said.
Duke shook his head and came over, still not quite capable of dragging his attention away from the pile of murder weapons his serial killer father had left for him on the boat he'd arranged for Duke to have. "You're not going to believe what my father had hidden below decks."
"Your father's exactly why I'm here," Audrey said, her voice shaking faintly. "Lucy Ripley. I found her."
"What?" Duke shook his head again. He wondered if he would always feel a half-step behind everything in his life. "What'd she say?"
"That she knew your father. That he visited her 27 years ago."
"Why? How did he know her?"
"I don't think that he did," Audrey said. "I think — that he was looking for me."
Duke gaped at her, then froze when he heard the latch of the box snap shut behind him. He turned to see Dwight trying to make off with it. "Wow. Buddy. My feelings are actually hurt." He gestured between the two of them with the knife, head too full of revelations to remember why him and Dwight and things that might make Dwight bleed were a bad combination. "Whatever happened to honor amongst thieves?"
"Said I might change my mind," Dwight said.
Duke stopped and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, you did." He glanced back at Audrey. "He did say that." He turned back to Dwight — just in time to catch the full weight of the silver box on the side of his head.
All thought ceased, and instinct kicked in. Duke toppled sideways with a grunt, catching himself on one of the raised hatches. He had the knife in his hand flipped over and in ready position in an instant, and spun on his heel to strike back, grazing across Dwight's bicep.
And realized immediately just how big of a mistake he'd just made.
He locked his jaw down on a groan as his trouble swamped his rattled brain. There were two other people on his boat, but in that moment, he couldn't have told you anything about them other than that they could bleed. He barely managed to force himself to stagger away, falling to his hands and knees while Dwight's blood seeped into his skin. He was only faintly aware of Audrey grabbing his arm, calling his name, asking him what was wrong.
What was wrong? He'd been hit in the head by a 30 pound metal box. After repeated knocks to said head over the last several days. And his fucking euphoric, superpowered, deadly family legacy was ordering him to kill kill kill.
Dwight grabbed a crowbar and swung at him just as Duke's grip on himself slipped. Duke stood and spun, catching the crowbar with one hand and slamming the base of his palm into Dwight's sternum with the other.
Dwight flew. Even further and harder than Nathan had when he'd set off Duke's trouble for the first time last year. He rocketed right off the side of the boat and into the water.
Duke heard Audrey shout and hurry over to the edge of the boat, even as the rush of his trouble faded enough for him to get a proper grip on himself again. He followed her over, staring down into the bubbles and ripples where Dwight had gone under, and tried not to wonder if he'd finally killed his first trouble.
"Don't worry," he decided. "Guy's a freaking Army Ranger. He's fine."
He'd better be fine. Duke would notice somehow if he wasn't, right? His trouble wanted to kill. It would have felt even better than usual, wouldn't it?
He turned to Audrey, who was staring at him with wide, horrified eyes. He swallowed hard.
"So, uh. I guess I have some explaining to do, huh."
"So . . . if troubled blood touches you, you absorb it," Audrey said. She was sitting on Duke's padded bench, the silver box open on the coffee table in front of her. "And it, what, gives you superstrength?"
"That's it in a nutshell." Duke paced on the far side of the coffee table, trying not to look at his father's giant stash of murder weapons. "Oh, and it makes me kinda high and gives me the urge to kill people."
"And — if you did kill people. . . ."
"Their trouble would die with them. No one else would get it, ever again."
"Why didn't you tell me?!"
Duke grimaced. "I've wanted to. I was going to, back in the woods, but —"
"But what? Oh my god, Duke, if one of those girls had bled on you. . . !"
"I know!" Duke stopped pacing, his hands clenched. "Believe me, I know. That's why I turned you down at first, when you asked me to come help."
"But then you came out there anyway?!"
"To keep the Rev from hurting you!" Duke wanted to grab her and shake her. "Audrey, I've already lost two people I've loved in the last, like, week! If something happened to you or Nathan. . . ."
Audrey blinked, looking somehow even more surprised. Duke ran back over what he'd said and winced.
"You — you love me?"
"I — as a friend." Duke dropped his head. "Don't get me wrong, you're an incredibly beautiful woman. But I'm still in love with Octavia —"
"Is that why she left you?" Audrey asked. "Wait, hang on. You and Nathan?"
"Really?" Duke gave her a sharp look. "You're really having trouble wrapping your head around that part?"
Audrey had the grace to look sheepish. "I'm not surprised you're — you know —"
"Bisexual. You can say it."
"But Nathan?"
Duke grinned the grin of a tired, frustrated, freaked out queer. "He's a very tender lover."
"He hates you."
"And I hated Evi. You think that kind of animosity comes without sleeping together?"
Audrey grimaced and shook her head. "We're getting off topic. Your father was trying to hunt me — Lucy-me — down. Why?"
Duke shook his head. "No idea. But . . . I'm pretty sure he killed a lot of people before he did, so, uh. I'm guessing it wasn't good."
Audrey leaned forward, pulling out the leather journal. "Maybe this ledger can tell us something." She flipped it open. "It's all names, dates, hundreds of years old. . . . Maybe it's a Crocker family history."
Duke grabbed it from her and flipped through it, trying not to think too hard about what all those names and dates might mean. He stopped suddenly as he got towards the end.
"Did you find something?"
"Just these last few pages," he said, tipping it down towards her. "I feel like I recognize the writing. Maybe because it's almost as bad as mine." He flipped the page, then slowly sat down next to her on the bench. "My father wrote this."
Audrey leaned over his shoulder, staring at the piece of paper clipped into the journal. "'Duke,'" she read. "'If you're reading this, then I haven't survived.' Wait, I thought — I thought that your dad died in an accident."
"Yeah, I'm thinking maybe not."
"'You are my son. You are my heir. It's up to you to finish my work. You must. . . .'" She trailed off, taking a deep breath. "'. . . Kill her.'"
Duke turned the page. And found a photo of a young man, sitting next to a woman who looked just like Audrey, if Audrey were really into retro fashion. Clipped across from it was a photo of Lucy, the woman who'd helped Duke after his father had died. The woman who was now, apparently, Audrey Parker.
"This must be why your father was looking for Lucy Ripley. He was trying to find me."
"To kill you," Duke said. "Why?"
"You . . . your family," Audrey said slowly. "You kill troubles. And I'm immune to them. I — show up, or whatever, when the troubles are active. Maybe he thought . . . killing me could end them all?"
Duke snapped the journal shut and tossed it into the box. Then he crammed all his father's weapons that Audrey had pulled out back in on top of it and jammed the lid shut. "No," he said. "That is never going to happen."
"But Duke. What if —"
"Never!"
Audrey swallowed and nodded. "Okay." Duke hung his head, feeling bad for snapping. This was as bizarre for her as it was for him. She'd met the real Lucy Ripley today. Her identity, her whole world, it'd turned itself over on her at least four times as often as Duke's had. They were, somehow, two sides of this same troubled coin.
Two secret weapons, on opposite sides of the same troubled war.
And somehow, they just might end up being used to annihilate each other.
Duke sank down onto the floor, his back to the bulkhead, and rested his aching head gingerly against it. He was way too concussed — and way too sober — to deal with any of this.
[NFB, NFI, OOC welcome. Adapted from ep 2x11, "Business As Usual". WE'RE GETTING INTO THE FINAL STRETCH OF SEASON TWO!]
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Date: 2020-10-18 03:05 pm (UTC):D :D :D ]