betterthanaplan | The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, Monday

"Sure," Octavia said, because she couldn't help herself.

The ill-fitting clothes were finally starting to bother her. Her fingers were curling into the end of the too-long sleeve. The 17-year-old version of herself from this weekend would have loved it.

That made it worse.

Duke set about bustling around his kitchen, pouring all his nervous energy into fixing up breakfast and putting together a plate of fruit and cheese for her to nibble on.

And trying to figure out what he was going to say when they finally started talking.

(He really should have planned that part ahead of time, yeah.)

Octavia watched him for a moment. Trying to take some pleasure out of seeing him doing something so mundane, something she'd watched him do many, many, many times before.

Failing, because dread was already settling in the pit of her stomach.

Then she slipped quietly away, to find her own clothes to wear. Something even moderately comfortable.

Duke paused once she was out of sight, to just lean against the cabinet and breathe for a second.

She wasn't leaving-leaving. She was just . . . getting something. Changing, maybe. She wasn't leaving.

He three long, measured breaths, counting them out in his head, then started setting the table. Coffee cups, plates, food on trays. The french press.

He avoided reaching for a bottle of bourbon. He needed to be sober to make sure he didn't say anything too stupid.

She wasn't leaving.

It took a while, but eventually Octavia came back, now clad in some basic black leggings and a hoodie. She'd been drawn to her leathers, something more like armor, but... She'd deliberately gone against that urge. It wouldn't help.

Her footsteps were exactly as quiet returning as they had been leaving.

Duke was On the Alert, so he glanced up when she came in, anyway. "Coffee's about ready," he said. He tossed a couple napkins onto the table and slid into a seat.

". . . So."

Octavia forced a little eyebrow raise. "Way to make a girl feel like sitting down," she drawled, without any heat.

While she took a seat, yeah.

Duke winced, and busied himself pouring the coffee.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I shouldn't have kicked you out. I didn't mean to, I just -- wasn't thinking."

"You were upset," Octavia muttered, looking down at the table. "I know."

Didn't mean it hadn't hurt. For days. And then again once she'd woken up next to him the previous time.

"I was." He still was, but in a quieter, more reasonable way. "That's not an excuse. I know what that feels like. Getting kicked out. I never wanted to do that to you."

Octavia's gaze flicked up to his face. "But you did," she said, mildly. "And then I flipped out and left you. Think that makes us even on that front."

"Oh good," Duke said, more flippantly than he intended to. "At least we're even."

He scowled at himself and rubbed both hands down his face. "I still don't really know how to deal with . . . all that. From the bunker. I wish I did. I just -- I still love you. And I miss you like crazy. And I want us to be okay."

"I want that too," Octavia replied, watching him, her own face mild, impassive. The last bit of armor she couldn't quite help pulling on.

He still loved her.

He still missed her.

"And I don't know what to do about it."

"I wish you had told me," Duke said softly. "I know why you didn't. I get it, I really do, and god knows I probably reacted exactly how you were afraid I was going to. But -- I wish you could have trusted me enough to tell me yourself."

Octavia's eyebrows twitched up. Just a fraction.

"You think trust has anything to do with it?"

"Yeah," Duke said, giving her a little nod and shrug. "I mean. You were right not to, I guess, considering how I reacted."

"It's not that I didn't trust you," Octavia said. "I didn't want to tell you. How do you tell someone that?"

When that someone wasn't already used to facing all of humanity's sins.

"I don't know," Duke admitted. "And maybe it would have been just as bad. I don't know anything, Tavi. I've been trying to wrap my head around it for months."

"And I've been trying for years," Octavia said, finally letting her gaze drop to the table to between them.

Maybe she needed to regroup for a second.

Duke nodded, buying himself a few moments by sipping his coffee. It was a little too hot, and he couldn't really taste it, but at least it kept his mouth busy so he didn't say something stupid.

He took a breath.

"I didn't want to listen to you, before," he said. "I was freaked out, and hurt, so I hurt you. Now, I've -- I've heard about it from that man in your -- and from Lucifer, but." He swallowed. "Can you tell me now? I promise I'll listen. Just listen. Not attack."

Slowly, Octavia looked up. With her eyes, not with her head.

"Where do I start?" she asked. It sounded a little helpless, but still like a genuine question. How far back did he want to go?

That was a good question. Duke felt he had a decent grasp on how she ended up in charge, so. . . .

“Luce said you all were going to run out of protein?”

Octavia wasn't even remotely surprised he went for that.

She swallowed, and chewed on the inside of her bottom lip for a second before she spoke. And when she did, her voice was carefully flat, all rasp.

"We had a hydro farm," she said. "It was supposed to keep us going for five years. But two years in, it started to fail. Soy bean crop got infected."

In all the years since the dark one, she hadn't talked about this to anyone but Lucifer.

"We could save it, with seeds from the healthy plants. But only if we eradicated the rest. Which was going to leave us without protein for an entire year."

"So . . . you had to find another source." Duke nodded. "I understand that." He flicked her a tiny smile. "Remind me to tell you about the Benton sisters later."

Octavia wanted to ask whether they'd been farmers.

But she knew better than that.

And lighter questions wouldn't make this any easier. "We already had the fighting pits."

"How did those get started?"

Something in Octavia's tone softened. Probably didn't make sense from the outside. "Death had to be the enemy," she said. "Bunker was overcrowded from the start. There had to be... consequences. For going against the common good."

She chewed on her lip again.

"But I didn't want us to be exactly like the Ark. People had to have a -- a chance."

Duke didn't know if that was any better than what the Ark did. But he also had no idea how he could have done any different.

He didn't say any of that. He'd promised to listen, and that was what he was determined to do.

"What, uh. What did you do to the losers? Before the soybeans failed?"

"Honored them with whatever burial rites we could."

The bunker hadn't been very good for most things people had been accustomed to from before.

Duke nodded again. "And, uh. Then you honored them . . . differently."

Octavia's gaze was briefly a little more sharp.

"They died so we could live," she said. "Omon gon oson."

Duke swallowed and set his coffee aside.

He had not put that together yet.

"Right," he said. He wasn't judging. He was just listening. "And that -- not, uh. Honoring them. That became a crime for the pits?"

"Yes."

Octavia hadn't touched anything at all on the table. Now it seemed unlikely that she would.

Flatly, she added, "It wasn't my first choice."

"Tell me, then," Duke said. "Tell me why."

"Same thing happened on the Ark," Octavia said. "The people that went through it, they had a choice. And with their choice came guilt that the entire generation never recovered from."

She shook her head.

"I didn't want that for my people. I couldn't let them go through that."

And here. This was the sticking point for Duke. Because while he understood what she was saying intellectually, his gut still rebelled at the idea of taking away people's choices. He bit his lip hard and forced himself not to look away. Not to bristle. He took another long, measured breath.

"Did it work?"

"You weren't there," Octavia said mildly, off that look. Even with how he tried to hold his reaction back, it didn't take a genius to figure out this was one, if not even the thing he had trouble understanding.

And how would he?

As for his actual question...

"They don't blame themselves," she continued. "They blame me." Even the people who'd pushed her into it in the first place. "They can rest easier because they have someone they can point to that forced their hand. So, yes."

Edited 2020-11-24 20:55 (UTC)

And people said Duke had a martyr complex.

Another measured breath.

"I wasn't there," he agreed. "I can't -- I have no idea how I would have reacted if I was. I do know I'm sorry you had to take all that on, though."

"That was my choice."

Mostly.

Eventually.

It didn't sound to Duke like anyone made any real choices in all this.

But he was listening. Not judging.

"It explains a lot," he said instead. "Kind of -- everything. Since you've been back."

"Does it?"

Octavia had a lot of trouble seeing herself from the outside. Always had.

Duke nodded. "Especially the . . . the nightmare stuff. You didn't want me to see any of that, right?"

"Of course not," Octavia said, shakinh her head just a little, then looking off past his shoulder. "Still wish you didn't know, if I'm honest."

Even though she knew it was better that he did.

At least now he could make his own mind up about her, and she could stop feeling like she was lying to him just by being around him at all.

"I get that," Duke said. He reached for her hand. "But I'm glad I know now. I think -- maybe knowing you were keeping this secret, and knowing that you weren't keeping it from Lucifer -- it felt like you were leaving me behind. And I couldn't do anything about it."

Octavia let him take her hand, though hers stayed still.

Let him come to her, so to speak.

"And I was just trying to keep you close," she said, quieter now.

Duke let out a faint rueful laugh. “I’d say that wasn’t the way to do it, but — well, it’s not like I really proved you wrong, is it.”

"Yeah," Octavia muttered. On both points, probably.

But she was thinking about Lucifer again, as she let her gaze drop to their joined hands.

"I'm sorry," Duke said again, misinterpreting that gaze drop. "I really am. I should have -- have at least tried to call you, after I calmed down."

Things had gotten busy for him pretty quickly, but that wasn't much of an excuse.

Octavia's fingers twitched against his hand. Then she went for a squeeze. Right now, every little touch felt bigger than they were.

"I should have, too."

Duke shook his head. "You thought I kicked you out. I wouldn't have tried to call back after that."

Octavia hummed vaguely, because she couldn't really argue with that. She hadn't wanted to call him, not after that.

"You saw the worst of what I think about myself," she muttered.

That she'd shoved it all onto an imagined version of Pike didn't mean it wasn't all really straight from her.

Duke studied her for a long moment.

"I also saw you stand up and fight back."

You know, when he wasn't busy hiding his head and trying not to throw up.

Octavia's voice didn't get any clearer. Nor did she look up.

"Didn't think you saw that part."

His reaction certainly hadn't given that away.

"I was kind of trying not to by that point," Duke confessed. "And I didn't really realize what it was until . . . kind of just now."

Octavia kept looking at their hands. "I can't actually separate me from her," she said, flat again. She'd thought a lot about that whole hallucination, about what it said. What it meant. "There was never a her."

“No,” Duke agreed. “But you’re not the same you you were when you were her, are you?”

"How could I be?"

The question was mild and rhetorical. She had people here, in the way she hadn't for years before her return.

"People want something different from me here."

"What do you want from you?"

Finally, Octavia looked up at him again. Her eyes looked tired, and a little helpless.

"I don't know," she admitted. Chewed on her lip again. "I'm not... anything, right now."

Duke held her gaze and nodded once, giving her a tiny smile.

"Okay."

Octavia didn't look away this time.

"No clan," she said. It sounded like a resigned afterthought. A hurt she was too tired to feel.

"Nope," Duke agreed. "Doesn't mean you're alone, though."

"No," Octavia agreed. There was a hand around hers that said so. (A tattoo around her leg that whispered the same.) "But there's no Fandomkru, Duke."

Or if there was, she wasn't in it. Not really.

Edited 2020-11-26 16:58 (UTC)

Duke swallowed and nodded. "Okay. You know I made that up for you, right? If you don't need it that's fine."

He was a little disappointed, but this wasn't about him.

Octavia bristled a little. Said nothing - of course - but her fingers tensed in his grasp.

Same with the set of her jaw.

Shit. Was he supposed to have insisted?

"Tavi. Hey. Talk to me, please."

Octavia took a slow, deliberate breath through her nose. On the exhale, she forced her fingers to relax.

Then her jaw, too.

"'You know I made that up for you'," she said. "I'm not a kid, Duke."

“I know you’re not,” Duke said. “I just meant — we don’t need Fandomkru to be a team. A family.”

"Then you should have said that," Octavia replied.

But, her voice was a lot softer now.

Duke dragged his free hand down his face. “Yeah. Sorry.”

"Being in a kru means something to me." It meant everything to her. Or at least it had in the past. "I don't want one that feels fake."

When they'd been Floukru, that had always felt real.

(Until she'd ruined it.)

"Yeah, I know that," Duke said, unable to keep a bite out of his tone. He was frustrated, and annoyed at himself for being frustrated when he knew he was the bad guy here.

He was always the bad guy.

This whole morning was just a series of wrong moves one after another, wasn't it? Octavia pulled her hand back, and straightened up from her slight lean towards him. And then got up altogether.

She hadn't touched anything in front of her.

"I'm gonna go take a shower."

Duke pressed both his hands to his face this time.

"Yeah, alright. Good plan."

Then he jerked up and reached for her arm, because even if she wasn't leaving, she was walking away and that did something terrible in his chest.

"No. Hang on. I don't want to do this anymore. We need to hash this out."

Octavia let him grab her arm, and looked up at him, but she didn't entirely look like she was just going to bend to what he wanted.

"Then you better come with me," she said, and even though she sounded exactly like her 29-year-old self always did, there was something of the past weekend in the pointed way she raised her eyebrows, like a challenge, "because I'm taking a shower."

Duke blinked, then gave her a slow, surprised grin. "Yeah? Really?" He headed after her. "Yeah, that's a good plan!"

Octavia remembered that grin from the weekend, too.

"Don't get your hopes up," she drawled as she led him towards the bathroom, already peeling the hoodie off as she went. "We're still hashing this out."

Duke nodded. "Sha, gona. Still . . . more than I expected."

He kind of expected to get blown off on the whole 'hash things out' thing completely.

"I'm tired of fighting, too," Octavia pointed out, a little more quietly. She was tired of walking away from him.

She paused at the door to take off the leggings as well. The tattoo was getting into the peeling stage, so they hadn't been the best choice in the first place.

Duke pulled off the shirt he'd grabbed at Lucifer's. "Yeah? 'Cause . . . it kind of felt like you were trying to pick one a minute ago. I know what I said was dumb, but you knew what I meant, right? The kru is only important to me because it's important to you."

"And you know how you say things matters to me."

Bye, underwear. And the sports top she'd had on under the hoodie.

"Yeah, and when I fuck up, you know I'm not doing it to be mean." Duke had his hand on his fly, but paused before he pulled his pants off. "This is a weird way to have this argument."

"Yeah, well." Octavia tossed him a quick glance over her bare shoulder. "We were never normal, were we?"

And with that, she actually stepped into the bathroom, heading for the shower.

Duke let out a sigh and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling for a moment, while she couldn't see.

Then he slipped out of his pants and followed.

"I'm tried of trying to be perfect for you."

"You've done an awful job with it lately anyway," Octavia rasped, because she could be unhelpfully prickly sometimes too. Couldn't help that dig, even though she regretted practically the second it was out of her mouth.

She shook her head. "I don't want perfect." Hadn't stopped her from acting like she did, though, had it? She reached out, turned on the water.

"Yeah, that's kind of hard to tell when any time I mess up even a little you shut down," Duke said. "I know I fucked up, Tavi. I've admitted it multiple times. But it'd be nice to get a little credit for when I do get it right."

"The credit is that I came back."

Well...

"Or that I was coming back, when the island decided to do it for me. As usual."

"Oh great. So I'm supposed to just know that, when the last time I saw you in person, at the right age, and the right species, you were running like hell."

Octavia's hand clenched into a fist.

She stepped under the spray.

"Think you'll find the last time you saw me like that I was tending bar, and you thought I didn't see you."

"You saw that." Duke sighed. "I've had enough fights and meltdowns in public on this island. Wasn't looking to do it again."

"Solid choice," Octavia rasped, subdued. She closed her eyes, took a moment to let the water wet her hair, plastering it to her skin so that the black strands criss-crossed over the black lines on her shoulders.

"Didn't warn you I'd be there, anyway."

"You didn't," Duke said. He stood outside the shower, leaning against the wall and watching her shadow through the curtain. He'd join her in a bit. When he felt more . . . settled. "And, uh. It's no excuse, but -- I've kind of had to deal with a lot lately. Haven didn't exactly let up after you left."

"Mm."

There was not enough water to soothe her right now, and yet she was trying.

"I heard about Evi."

Duke let out a soft laugh. "Yeah, Luce got to meet her in Hell. Sent a demon up to sit on me until the guys who killed her were taken down. Nathan had already knocked me out and thrown me in a cell, and that was --" Another laugh, this one a bit more pained. "That was still just the beginning of it all."

"I'm sorry."

Not about Evi, about the rest. But she didn't specify.

"He got the tattoo," Duke said softly. "Nathan did. Said if I was supposed to die at the hands of someone with a Guard tattoo, he 'had to be on the approved list'."

He sucked in a breath and pushed away from a wall. "Not that that's an excuse. I just -- I need somewhere I don't have to be perfect."

"I'm gonna kill that guy," Octavia muttered, mostly to herself, but she couldn't help it.

She was just... so tired of Haven. Didn't seem fair to him that somehow she wasn't the only needlessly destructive and twisted up thing in his life.

Duke's whole life was needlessly destructive and twisted up, let's be real.

"Don't," he said softly. "I already lost one shitty ex. The fact that she was terrible didn't make it hurt less."

"If he makes a move against you..."

Well. She couldn't make any promises.

"He won't," Duke said, shaking his head and leaning against the wall again. "He's way too law-abiding for that. This was just -- psychological warfare. He wanted to freak me out. Fuck me up. And, uh. It worked."

"That's the only part I can respect," Octavia rasped. Purely from a strategic standpoint, of course, which explained her dry tone.

She shook her head, and reached for the shampoo. (Okay, the 3-in-1 because she was a brute.) "I'm sorry," she said again. "You're carrying too much, and I'm... Just adding to it."

"I get it. I know why you're . . . I just wish everything wasn't so all-or-nothing."

He wished that for himself, too. There was comfort in the shades of grey.

"Yeah."

This was a bad time for their therapist to be MIA.

It really was.

Duke finally moved to join her in the shower, stepping in and offering her his hand.

“I like the new ink,” he said. “You get that in Baltimore?”

Was he looking to hold her hand? Because he was getting handed the 3-in-1, now.

"Yeah," Octavia said, with a slow look down at the leg in question. "Four days after -- everything." A short pause, at the end of which she failed to keep herself from adding, "Three days after my birthday."

And Duke was just going to facepalm with that 3-in-1. “Aw fuck.”

"Doesn't really matter," Octavia said, mildly. "Last one I paid any real attention to was the last one here."

No celebrations in the bunker.

Duke shook his head. “Still. I’m sorry I missed it. That I made it so much worse than it should have been.”

He was never going to run out of things to apologize for, was he.

"You can wash my hair now and rub coconut oil on my leg later, and we'll call it even," Octavia told him, soft and quiet and exhausted. Unwilling to beat him up about it any further. "I wasn't here for your last birthday, either."

"Birthdays have been kind of a wash this year," Duke murmured, squeezing 3-in-1 into his hand. He reached out to start massaging it into her scalp. "Was Lucifer around for it, at least?"

Octavia shook her head, but only barely. She wanted his fingers in her hair.

"He was still in Hell," she said, quietly.

She'd get it, probably for far longer than was strictly necessary for washing purposes. (He might pull out his fancy conditioner, too, because come on. 3-in-1, Tavi? You wounded him!) "But you found him later. After her got back."

"Maze invited me out to Los Angeles," Octavia muttered. "We ran into Michael. And then Lucifer showed up."

She paused. Sighed.

"Michael's a fucking dick."

"So I've heard," Duke said. "I guess he really threw Luce for a loop."

Octavia was quiet for a moment. Just remembering Los Angeles.

And then the last couple of days.

Then, she murmured, "I think it may have made this weekend worse for him."

Duke paused, his fingers still in her hair.

"You think you know why he freaked out?"

Octavia didn't know. But she had... a feeling. "Michael was trying to get under his skin about having been Samael."

The inside of her bottom lip ended up between her teeth again.

"About being Samael."

"I liked Samael," Duke said. "Sure, he was kind of snobby, but so is Luce."

Octavia's voice went quieter still.

"I liked him too."

"You know, he was a big help while you were a raccoon, too."

Octavia looked up at him.

"Lucifer?"

Duke nodded. "This weekend was not the first time I ended up crashing at his place."

Octavia gave that a quiet "oh".

She didn't really know what to do with the knowledge. It was... good? Also somehow not all that surprising.

Duke gave her a small, sheepish smile as he worked the 3-in-1 into the ends of her hair. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say we were dating. Very chastely.”

Okay, now Octavia's eyebrows went way up. Maybe it was a surprise when he put it like that.

But she seemed baffled, more than anything.

"What?"

Duke shrugged. “We’re two very flirty people. I’m not saying we were going to do anything. Just — maybe that contributed a little. To this morning.”

Samael had gotten them both free and clear. But when they were all their grownup, present day selves, it all got so much more complicated.

Octavia blinked a couple times.

Then she shook her head. A little. "I... don't think that's it."

"Really? 'Cause that's kinda . . . all I got."

He was a little worried Lucifer would never come back.

Octavia drew in a deep breath, closing her eyes. As if either of those things could make any of this easier, or less complex.

"Did he tell you I can hurt him?" she asked. "I mean, I can make him bleed. I shouldn't be able to, but I am."

"What?!"

Wow. That was loud. Also clearly a "no, he didn't tell me that."

"Since when?!"

It was loud enough to startle Octavia, no less. Her eyes were open again.

"Apparently I scratched him when I was a raccoon," she said. "And we -- tested it, with a knife. When I was in Baltimore."

"That's --" Duke let go of her hair to run both hands through his own. (Guess he was using that 3-in-1 on his own hair today.) "Holy shit. I thought only Chloe could do that."

"And it's not even the same as it is with her," Octavia said with a little shake of her head. "When it's Chloe, anyone can hurt him. When it's me, as far as we can tell..."

Because they'd been so scientific with testing it.

"It's just me."

“Holy shit,” Duke said again. “That’s — that’s still kinda huge, isn’t it?”

Octavia's nod was slow.

"Yeah."

It made it very specific to her.

"And . . . that's why you think he ran?"

"I don't know why he ran," Octavia said, sighing. "I'm just... telling you."

She leaned her shoulder against the wall, and ran her hand down her face in an unconscious imitation of him. "I don't know, Duke."

Duke sighed, wincing a little when soap dripped into his eye.

"I know. I just -- he'll come back, right?"

"He'll come back," Octavia promised, quiet but somehow a little more steady. At least, while she said that. "Might pretend nothing happened when he does. But he'll come back."

"Yeah," Duke said with a soft laugh. "Yeah, that sounds like Luce."

They'd have to talk more later about Lucifer and how he might or might not fit into . . . wherever the two of them ended up in their own relationship. But right now. . . .

"Don't suppose I could ask you to return the hair favor?"

He at the very least needed to load up on conditioner here, after getting the 3-in-1 in his hair.

They'd have to wait and see what kind of Lucifer they were getting back in the first place, anyway.

"Sure," Octavia said, soft and quiet again.

But if he wanted conditioner, he was going to have to ask for it, because one of the three was conditioner, come on now.

That was a lie made up by the soap company.

Duke reached for the conditioner bottle and held it out to her. "Do you think we'll be okay?"

"I think," Octavia said, as she took the bottle, and her fingers bumped against his, "it's going to take time."

Because they were a trainwreck, right now. In so many ways.

"But I do." She had to believe it, because otherwise she wasn't sure what she'd do. She bit on her lip for a second, studying the bottle but not really seeing it. Then she looked up again. "Do you?"

"I want to," Duke said. "I really do. But yeah. We definitely need time."

Octavia looked down at her hands. Squeezing conditioner out of the bottle made for a convenient excuse.

Her voice was softer once more, when she spoke again. She was hesitant to say this, worried about how he'd take it. "I think I'm gonna stay on my own boat for a while."

As an actual choice, this time, instead of the direct result of another fight.

Edited 2020-11-28 23:08 (UTC)

Duke sucked a small breath in through his teeth and nodded. "I understand."

"Do you?" Octavia asked softly, as she looked up. "I'm not leaving."

It felt like something that should be said out loud.

"It's fine," Duke said quickly, not really grasping what she just said. "I'm fine, you just do what you gotta do."

He was pretty mortified by how he'd reacted this morning, and doing his best to cover for it now.

"Hey," Octavia said, as she finally reached up for his hair. "Jaka. I'll just be on the next boat over."

She wasn't buying his 'fine'. She never did.

Duke leaned into her touch. "I know."

On a boat that could just float away any time she wanted it to.

"Do you?" Octavia asked again, quieter this time. Her hands stilled in his hair, just letting him feel them for a moment. "I'm just... trying to get us a little space to breathe."

Because if she was honest, the quiet days in Baltimore had probably been good for her.

"Yeah," Duke said. "You need -- a break."

You know, like people said when they wanted to break up but didn't want to say 'break up'.

"That's not what I said."

Not that she could really blame him for hearing it that way.

"It's fine," Duke insisted. "I get it. I fucked up. I wouldn't want to stay here if I were you either."

Octavia's hands fell from his hair - only to land on his shoulders.

"I want to stay," she said firmly, shaking her head a little. "I just don't know if it's the best thing for us right now."

Duke finally made eye contact again. "I'm being an idiot again, aren't I."

Octavia tried for a ghost of a smile. It was lopsided and a little wobbly.

"Maybe a little."

"I don't know why I do that."

It was painfully obvious to a lot of people why he did that.

"You're really not leaving?"

Octavia gave up on her efforts to get back to working on his hair, and slid her arms around him so she could press closer to him, instead.

"I'm really not leaving," she promised, her face tilted up towards him. "You can find me whenever you want. Ai swega klin, jaka.."

They'd get back to his hair in a minute. Right now, he was just going to kind of bury himself against her.

"I don't want to make you stay," he said, voice tight. "But I don't know what I'd do if you did leave."

"Then don't make me," Octavia told him. Like she was actually asking him to. "Because last time... It was hard enough."

"Last time. . . ." Duke let out a soft, faintly bitter laugh. "Last time I should have done what you're doing. Made sure you knew I just needed a minute. Not forever."

"Now I know," Octavia said, squeezing him a little tighter to herself. "That matters."

"Do you forgive me?"

Duke's voice was as wet as they shower was.

That may have influenced how fierce Octavia's answering nod was.

"Ai wigod yu op, snogon."

Duke's laugh was an echo of the one from Lucifer's. "When you -- you ran like that. After you were a raccoon. I really thought that was it. I'd finally fucked up all the way."

Octavia had done okay keeping everything together until now. But that laugh set her eyes stinging, suddenly.

"I just needed more time," she said, her own voice a little tight, now. "It was too soon. Too sudden."

"I know," Duke said. And this time he really meant it. "That's just how I felt, after the trouble. Like if I didn't get room right then I was going to explode. . . . I think that's when I really got it. How bad I'd fucked things up in Haven."

Both of Octavia's hands found their way to the back of his neck.

"But we've both come back."

"And -- you're really not leaving," Duke said, just managing to make it less of a question. "We're gonna put ourselves back together and . . . see where we are? I guess?"

"Yeah," Octavia replied, not much louder than a sigh. She nodded, though, another fierce one. Determined. "It's just going to be like... Something a little more like it was before. When we weren't living together."

"Okay. Yeah. We can . . . figure each other out again. Like we should have when you first got back."

This sigh managed to be a much quieter one still.

"Yeah," Octavia said, finally letting her head hang forward.

Yeah, that was exactly what they should have done. But she'd been so desperate to cling to him after seven years that there'd been no room for it.

And he’d been so determined to be everything she needed that he hadn’t stopped to think that maybe they both needed something different.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. This . . . this is good. It’s going to be good..”

Octavia nodded again.

Then urged him to rest his head against hers.

"I love you," she murmured. "So much. Hod yu in krei bitam. And I want to keep doing that."

“I love you too,” Duke said, closing his eyes and leaning against her. “More than I even knew I could.”

Octavia shuddered a little, like it was the only way she knew how to relax into the embrace.

Or maybe it was something giving out at the thought that he still loved her.

He always had. Even when he was shocked or appalled by what she’d done.

He hadn’t lied. That feeling, that core of love, hadn’t changed.

“Let’s rinse off,” he said softly. “And take care of that leg. We don’t want your tattoo to stay wet for too long.”

Octavia had had being mindful of the tattoo in the thoughts when she'd gotten in here. Not so much now.

She gave a tiny nod.

"Okay."

But first, she was going to kiss him. Just to steal that moment before they got back to other things. Or before she lost the nerve to.

Duke leaned into that kiss, almost hungrily.

He’d missed this so much.

Even with the weekend they'd just had?

Yeah, Octavia could relate. So much so that she found herself pushing him against the wall because hunger invited hunger, and she had missed him.

Yes. Because doing this as an adult who loved her was a much different—much better—experience than doing it as a teen who thought she was hot.

Shower make-outs might not be entirely in the spirit of the breathing room they’d both agreed they needed, but Duke wasn’t about to point that out. He was going to stay here in this moment as long as he could.

Octavia thought it was kind of a given that the breathing room thing wouldn't kick in until later, anyway. And despite what his brain tried to tell him, she hadn't asked for a break.

And right now, her foolish brain was of the mind that shower makeouts might even help.

But after a moment... okay, several, she pulled back to catch her breath. "Okay," she sighed. "Rinsing off, then leg, then... We see what happens."

She was going to make him put his hands on her leg. She already knew what would happen.

The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, Monday

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