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

[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.

[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.