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]

"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.

[betterthanaplan]

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

[okteiviakom]

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."

[betterthanaplan]

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

“What are you thinking?” he tried.

[okteiviakom]

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.)

[betterthanaplan]

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

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

[okteiviakom]

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

That was the problem.

"Mochof," Octavia muttered.

[betterthanaplan]

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

He just kept holding on.