The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, Wednesday morning

[betterthanaplan]

There were bags all over the Rouge. Duke was doing his best to ignore them. He had a standing appointment with Octavia for breakfast, so he was just going to focus on getting ready for that, and not the very large suitcase with a particular tattoo embroidered onto the front of it. Or any of the myriad other bags and crates and trunks and cases taking up most of the counter and floor space of his galley.

Really. He had an entire hold for these sorts of things. The island dumping them in his living space was just rude.

[for one!]

Comments

[okteiviakom]

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.

[betterthanaplan]

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.

[okteiviakom]

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.)

[betterthanaplan]

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

[okteiviakom]

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

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

[betterthanaplan]

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?

[okteiviakom]

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.

[betterthanaplan]

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.

[okteiviakom]

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

[betterthanaplan]

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

[okteiviakom]

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.

[betterthanaplan]

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.

[okteiviakom]

"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.

[betterthanaplan]

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

[okteiviakom]

"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.

[betterthanaplan]

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?"

[okteiviakom]

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

... That came out quick.

[betterthanaplan]

“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.

[okteiviakom]

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.

[betterthanaplan]

Yeah, Duke was noticing that.

“What do you need?”

[okteiviakom]

Sure, start with the easy questions.

"I don't know."

[betterthanaplan]

At least he was trying asking at all.

"Has anything worked so far?"

[okteiviakom]

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.

[betterthanaplan]

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

[okteiviakom]

"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.