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

Had there been extra bags on the Samsara? Octavia wouldn't have been able to say. She'd stumbled a little on something on her way off the boat, but she'd been a little... on autopilot for most of this morning so far.

She'd seemed a little tired over both the breakfasts this week so far. Today wasn't going to be different.

But she turned up. "Ha yun, jaka."

Duke looked up with a bright, slightly desperate grin. "Ha yun! Uh, watch your step."

The satchel labeled Eternal fuckup was small, but very densely packed. And right in the middle of the floor in front of the doorway.

Octavia looked down at it like she couldn't entirely comprehend what she was seeing. Because, she couldn't. This wasn't exactly a weirdness that had ever struck before during her time on the island.

She looked up again.

"What are you doing?"

Duke held up the mixing bowl he'd just pulled out of the cabinet (setting aside a purse with dead wife in Hell written on it as he did so). "Prepping for breakfast."

"With the bags," Octavia said.

She didn't realize she left behind a trail of a six-piece set of bags in a nice deep crimson as she moved past the satchel, further into the galley.

"Ah." Duke nodded. "Nothing. Fandom's doing a thing."

Look, if anyone already knew about all these issues, it was Octavia, okay? His blase attitude right now had nothing to do with the resigned to being fucked over bag on the table.

"Right."

The bags behind her said things like murderer and destroyer and worthless.

Duke just kind of silently took note of those. And reached for the Bailey's.

"Coffee?"

Octavia still hadn't even noticed them.

So she just shrugged a little, eyeing the bags in front of her. All his, not that she'd really gotten that far in deciphering this whole thing. (Nothing was attacking, so did it even matter?) "Sure."

Well, they were kind of a tripping hazard.

Duke poured a the coffee, topping both off with a shot or two of Irish cream. And nearly ended up brained by the tool bags and boxes appearing in midair, labeled things like parentification and weaponification.

"Jesus," he hissed, hopping back, then glared up at the ceiling. "Seriously?!"

... Well, scratch that about nothing attacking. It was enough to startle Octavia, to put a little tension in her demeanor as she looked up at the ceiling, then back at him.

"You okay?"

Duke nudged one of the bags with his foot. "If these things are what I think they are, then -- no. I am pretty demonstrably not okay." He flicked her a rueful smile. "But I'm not injured."

"'S what I was asking," Octavia said, with a little nod of confirmation, though only after her eyes had flicked towards the top of his head a second time. Look, she was maybe having a little trouble... connecting with any of this, but worrying about him getting hurt broke through most things.

She looked towards his feet. "What do you think they are? Look like just... bags with random words on them."

That little thump of a sound that followed was a duffel bag - red, obviously - embroidered with never going to be right in the head again (maybe never was) hitting the floor behind her.

Duke glanced over at it and winced. Then pointed at a few of the other bags. Such as unworthy of love. Or the one with the tattoo. Or blood-driven heritable serial killer curse.

"They're, uh. Me." He shrugged. "All the bad shit in my brain."

He hadn't entirely realized that the red bags she was trailing behind her weren't meant for him, too.

Octavia looked behind herself at the new arrival.

"... Why are they bags?"

She'd heard of 'emotional baggage', but apparently not enough times to readily make the connection.

"Because Fandom thinks its funny."

Universe's favorite punching bag was a low blow, Fandom.

"How is it supposed to be funny?"

The little coin purse type thing at her feet with the words perennial outsider was a nice touch.

"It's a pun," Duke said. "Emotional baggage." He shook his head. "Low hanging fruit, if you ask me."

"Right," Octavia said.

Then she reached out with one hand.

"Coffee?"

"Coffee, right." Duke handed her one mug and took a big sip of his own. Ignoring the family history of addiction bag that appeared on the liquor cabinet.

Octavia took a sip of her own. Looked around at the bags, a little absently.

It was still quite a few bags.

It was a lot of bags. Not even including the ones she'd brought with her. Which he still hadn't realized weren't more of his own.

"Think I might spend the day in town. Or maybe in the woods." He gestured around. "Somewhere that all of this isn't."

That perennial flight risk bag was just unnecessary, Fandom.

"Sounds like a decent idea," Octavia replied, mildly.

Fandom didn't actually tend to like letting people off that easy.

"Should, uh. We try moving breakfast to the Samsara instead?" Duke asked. There was a little denial change purse on the counter by the coffee pot now.

Tiny shrug.

"If you think that'll help."

"You okay?" Duke asked. He'd asked her some version of that every morning this week, and wasn't really expecting much of an answer, no. But he'd more than earned that only value in service to others steamer trunk in the corner.

Octavia took a sip before looking up at him again. Her lips twisted faintly into something that was supposed to look reassuring.

"Just tired."

It was very similar to what he'd gotten the other times he'd asked, yes.

"C'mere," Duke said, holding out his hand for her. They sometimes did better at these sorts of conversations when they were holding each other.

Octavia took his hand. Let him draw her closer.

Starved for intimacy, read an overnight bag on the floor a little to the left of her.

Duke settled his arms around her waist. Then noticed another intimacy related bag on the other side of the room. He looked at the one by her feet again, then at her.

". . . I think some of these might be yours."

Octavia pressed her face against his chest.

"Oh."

She didn't sound surprised. She didn't sound particularly anything.

Duke stroked her hair and tried not to look at all the bags around them both. Tried not to guess which ones belonged to whom.

They were pretty fucked up, weren't they.

All of Octavia's were red. Some lighter, some darker, some leaning a little more towards brown, like dried blood. But all of them red.

And the big trunks hadn't even shown up yet. The permanently broken clutch was downright elegant compared to what could still be in store.

Octavia sighed against his chest.

". . . Wanna just go back to bed for awhile?" Duke suggested.

Octavia's nod didn't require her to look up either. "Sure."

Because surely no baggage could lurk there.

Of course not!

Duke tugged her in that direction, moving slowly so she didn't have to pull away if she didn't want to. And to make sure neither of them got tripped up by more bags.

Octavia did actually look where she was going, after about the first half a step or so, not wanting to have to rely entirely on him.

A bag declaring refuses to ask for help nearly got underfoot almost immediately.

Duke spotted it. And with a rueful snort, he shifted his grip on her so he could scoop her up into the air.

She didn't have to ask for help if he just gave it to her, right?

It probably didn't work like that.

But Octavia allowed herself to be picked up. What would have been the point in fighting it?

Duke could navigate a bit faster now, and made it to the bedroom without incident.

And hissed out a soft curse at the getting used for sex bag sitting smack in the middle of the bed.

Octavia took one look at it and just sighed.

And then moved to try and get him to set her down.

He did. And rubbed the back of his neck. "I'll just . . . set that aside."

Octavia's mild tone was a little lower and raspier again, as she looked down towards the floor, half expecting to find more bags.

Half surprised when she didn't.

(As much as she felt anything at all.)

"You know I wasn't trying to do that, right?"

"What?" Duke glanced up at her as he dragged the bag off the bed. "Yeah, no, of course."

Well. He knew she hadn't been trying to do it on purpose, anyway.

Octavia lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug for reasons that weren't very clear even for her.

"Just checking."

"Anyway. That's why I checked in," Duke said. "To make sure we both knew what you really needed right then."

Octavia nodded faintly. Like an 'I got that'.

There was another bag on the bed. Red.

Said everything you touch turns to ash.

. . . Yeah, that definitely wasn't one of his.

Duke cleared it off without comment, and then climbed in, as though putting himself there would keep any other bags from appearing. "C'mon, gona. Let's lie down."

Octavia didn't think this was going to help any.

But she climbed in to stretch out beside him anyway.

Yes, well. If she couldn't suggest anything, then he was going to just keep trying whatever he thought of. Which at the moment was lying in bed and gently stroking his hand down her side.

Octavia's hand was fiddling with his shirt, at his chest. Her eyes were watching that, not looking up at his face.

Bags were popping into existence in the space behind her on the bed. Some of them were fairly simple, easy to decipher - the ones like girl under the floor and Ilian and always crying.

Some were a little more obscure, like the satchel marked with a part of me wishes a part of you was.

One of them just had a number that was in the eight hundreds.

Duke didn’t want to look at them. Couldn’t help but look at them.

Wished a part of him was what?

“Just breathe,” he said softly. “That’s all you have to do right now. Breathe.”

And hopefully not notice that too broken to fix you bag that popped up behind him.

That bag had nothing at all to do with him, but Fandom had not seen fit to provide the quotation marks to signal that. Sorry about the unnecessary stress, jaka.

"I'm breathing just fine," Octavia muttered, mildly.

She wasn't really looking past him. It was definitely for the best. (Still, a suspiciously matchy red bag with too broken to be fixed showed up.)

Edited 2021-02-11 15:53 (UTC)

“Right,” Duke agreed, trying on a small smile. “And you don’t have to do anything else.”

Octavia didn't say anything. Definitely wasn't smiling.

She scooted closer, though. Like there was more comfort to be found there.

Duke reached for her, tugging her into his chest. If they closed their eyes and just lay here for awhile, they didn't have to think about all those bags. Right?

At least this felt like something, the sensation of his arms wrapping around her going faintly past just the physical. She let one hand curl around a fistful of his shirt, and slid her other arm around him in turn.

But bags kept piling up in the space behind her back.

Yeah, well. They'd pretty firmly established that hugs didn't make your issues go away.

They just hopefully made the issues a little easier to deal with.

"What about breakfast?" Octavia asked, after a long moment. Her voice quiet, and a little rough.

“It can wait,” Duke said. “This feels more important right now.”

That was a nice thought.

But something heavy thumped onto the bed on top of all the other bags, bumping Octavia's shoulder as it did. She didn't want to turn and see what it was, but she'd already gone very tense. There was just something about the weight of the thing, the way the mattress had dipped underneath it.

It was another red bag, bigger than the rest. And packed to maximum capacity, by the bulging look of it.

Spray-painted across the side were the words EAT OR DIE.

Duke saw it. Couldn't help the instinct to open his eyes when the bed shifted, and though he snapped them closed again immediately, the words seemed burned into the backs of his eyelids. He hissed through his teeth and hung onto her tighter, like they just needed to hunker down and it would all go away.

"What is it?" Octavia rasped, against all her better judgment.

Between the weight, the hiss, and the way he was holding her like he was afraid she was about to get ripped away from him...

It was bad.

"It's, um." He couldn't bring himself to say the words on the bag out loud. "Pretty sure it's. Bunker related."

"Figures," Octavia muttered. She wasn't going to push him into saying anything more specific when she didn't even want to turn and look for herself.

Even if her eyes were open now, her field of vision filled with nothing but his chest.

There was a bag there, nestled in amongst his other necklaces, but it was one he had most of the time. The little pouch he'd made for the sacrificial figure Nina had given him.

Thankfully, it hadn't sprouted any extra text-based decoration today.

"You want me to try to get rid of it?"

"I don't want you to touch it."

... That came out quick.

“Okay,” Duke said, just as fast and a bit relieved. Which only made him feel guilty, which resulted in a few more bags to crash down on his side of the bed.

More than anything else, anything to do with the bunker felt like -- like it would stain his hands, too, if he touched the bags. And Octavia couldn't let that happen.

She was starting to reach a state of couldn't with other parts of this too, though.

The tension in her body wasn't letting up.

Yeah, Duke was noticing that.

“What do you need?”

Sure, start with the easy questions.

"I don't know."

At least he was trying asking at all.

"Has anything worked so far?"

Octavia didn't have an answer to that. barely even understood the question.

Far too much of her attention was now going towards feeling the subtle shifts in the mattress whenever a new bag showed up.

“Octavia.” Duke stroked his hand down the back of her head. “They’re just bags. Not — not an attack. Or a judgement.”

"I know that," Octavia said, even and mild. And slow.

That didn't mean she enjoyed him seeing anything about the bunker. She couldn't even bring herself to care much about them on her own account, but that, that felt like something.

“Then talk to me, please. Help me figure out how to help you.”

Octavia's voice stayed mild. "I don't know how."

She pressed her forehead against the top of his chest. She should find more to say, something like --

"Moba."

Duke sighed through his nose, pressing his face into her hair.

“What are you thinking?” he tried.

Octavia was quiet for a long moment. Thing was, she kind of felt like she wasn't thinking anything. Took a moment to find something she could actually verbalize, even if came out quiet and mild and kind of toneless.

"That I don't care about the bags," she said, "as long as you don't touch the... bunker ones."

Not that any of this was really about the bunker to begin with.

(Beyond how much everything was always about the bunker, in certain ways.)

“Then I won’t touch them,” Duke promised.

He was pretty sure she really did care about those bags, though.

But she didn't, not anywhere at the level she was pretty sure she should have.

That was the problem.

"Mochof," Octavia muttered.

"De nada," Duke murmured. And did the only thing he knew how to do.

He just kept holding on.

The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, Wednesday morning

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