Haven, Maine, Sunday Fandom time
Feb. 21st, 2021 11:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
betterthanaplanDuke woke to the ringing of a phone. He'd gone to sleep snuggled up all cozy between his two favorite people, and he was reluctant to wake, but it was loud and very insistent. So he grabbed for it without opening his eyes, and after a fair amount of fumbling, managed to answer it and bring it to his ear.
"Yeah?"
"Duke, hey. Did I wake you?"
"Nah," Duke answered automatically. The voice was familiar, but it took his sleep muddled bran a bit to recognize it. ". . . Audrey?"
"Yeah. Sorry to do this, I know you probably had a late night, but um. I was hoping you could come change my locks?"
Duke wasn't really listening. He was sitting up sharply in bed. His much smaller than normal bed, in his much smaller than normal cabin. On a much smaller than normal ship because this was not the Cape Rouge, where he'd fallen asleep, but the Sanguine Moon, which should have been docked in Haven.
And he was alone.
"No," he breathed. He scrambled out of bed to peer through the porthole. At the familiar shape of Haven's docks. The phone in his hand wasn't the fancy smartphone he used most often back in Fandom, but one of the cheap little flip phones he kept strewn around for emergencies. His other phone, like his clothes, his partners, his boat — were all back in 2021, without him.
He felt like he might throw up.
"No?!" Audrey was saying. "Okay, um, I didn't want to have to pull this card, but you're technically my landlord, and there are laws about providing safe —"
"What?" Duke interrupted. "Wait, Audrey, how did you know I was here?"
". . . What do you mean?"
"Here. In Haven. I'm not supposed to be here."
"Duke, I just saw you the other night."
Duke shoved his hand through his hair, actually yanking on it. Octavia would stop him from doing that, but Octavia wasn't here —
She and Lucifer were back on the Rouge. At sea. Neither of them knew how to sail her.
He sank to the floor, not noticing for several moments as Audrey called his name through the phone, her tone becoming more and more worried. Finally, he brought it to his ear again.
"What, uh. What was I doing?" he asked. "The other night?"
"You came to rescue me," Audrey said. "You and Nathan. You don't remember?"
Right. She'd been kidnapped. Danny had been here, and Nathan got the tattoo that was meant to kill him — He reached up, looking for the sacrificial totem that Nina had given him. He'd taken it off to go to sleep, feeling safe and secure at home. It was back on the Rouge, too.
"Duke? Are you okay?"
"Right," he said, not bothering to try to answer her question. "You were abducted. You need new locks. I'll, uh. I'll be right over."
"Great. I have some things to tell you. And it kind of sounds like you have something to tell me."
"I do. Just . . . not sure where to start." He tugged on his hair again, then forced his hand into his lap. He was not about to end up back in Fandom bald. "I need to swing by the hardware store."
"That's fine. I'll put some coffee on, okay?"
Duke smiled. Forced himself to sound a bit more normal. "Sounds great. I'll see you soon."
He hung up before she could finish saying goodbye, and tried Octavia's number. Then Lucifer's. Then every other Fandom-related number he had in this phone, which wasn't many.
Then Claire's.
"Duke? Is everything okay?"
"You were time-locked," Duke said.
". . . Okay."
He asked her what day it was, and she told him. Near as he could tell, "the other night" was the day before yesterday, here. Not almost four months ago.
"You were time-locked," he said again. "That's why you weren't answering. You weren't dead or avoiding us, you couldn't help Octavia because for you it's only been a day."
"Are you both okay, Duke?"
"No." Duke smiled again, rubbing his forehead. "Not even a little. I'll, uh. Tell you about it later. I need to go change Audrey's locks."
"That's funny, I'm actually talking to Audrey too, today. I'll make some time for you later though, alright?"
"Yeah. Thanks, Claire."
"I'll call Octavia, too. Tell her what's happened."
"Won't work," Duk said, and winced at the dark, empty tone of his own voice. "I already tried. She's not answering. No one in Fandom is."
"Are they, um. Time-locked now, too?"
"I don't know." Duke looked down at his lap. "I hope so."
"Go help Audrey," Claire said. "We'll talk later. Tonight. In the meantime, try not to worry, okay?" Duke laughed and heard her smile. "Hey, I said 'try'."
"Yeah," Duke agreed. "Alright. Thanks, Claire."
He hung up. Felt the weight of the phone in his hand for a long moment. Then dragged himself slowly to his feet.
Time worked differently between dimensions, but not in a consistent way. Fandm might be time-locked now, while he was here. Or maybe they'd already gone through another four months while he was gone. Maybe Lucifer and Octavia had been lost at sea, or sailed his boat into a reef, or —
"Nope. Trying not to worry." He tucked his phone away with a sigh, and went to go see what clothes he had stashed on this boat. "Okay, Haven. Let's see how you're going to fuck me over this time."
Audrey did indeed have things to tell him. Complete with photos. Apparently, her abductor's interrogation about the Colorado Kid had led to her, Nathan, and Vince and Dave Teagues going to exhume the man's body — only to find an empty grave with a cryptic message scrawled in it in Audrey's own handwriting. Or Lucy's, anyway. It was not, in fact, a lot to go on, and Duke's own urge to flee Haven as quickly as possible was turning into an urge to drag Audrey along with him when he went.
"Let me tell you something," he said. "If I was going to have to live multiple lives, I'd pick somewhere more exotic. Warmer climate, you know? Bali, Costa Rica, Hong Kong. . . ."
"Maryland?" Audrey asked with a small smirk. Duke shrugged.
"It's not a perfect plan." He watched Audrey pick at the bandage on her hand and gave her a sympathetic look. "How's that thing healing?"
"It's fine," Audrey said dismissively. Duke was tempted to grab her arm and make her show it to him, but she'd already had it rough enough recently as it was. "I keep thinking about the man who abducted me," she continued. "He said I loved the Colorado Kid."
Duke shifted to sit in the chair across from her, cradling his coffee in his hands. "Who was supposedly buried 27 years ago, but now his grave is empty."
"I think he's alive." Audrey looked over at him. "And I think he's on the run."
Duke nodded. He opened his mouth, about to suggest that going on the run might not be a bad plan, somewhere her abductor couldn't find her, and the tattooed man who was going to kill him couldn't find Duke (and both of them could find Octavia and Lucifer and then all four of them could find some nice island somewhere and nothing terrible would have to happen to any of them ever again) — when he heard someone coming up the stairs. Audrey tensed immediately, and Duke's protective instincts roared to life. Or, you know, got even louder.
"You expecting somebody?"
She shook her head. Duke picked up his screwdriver and slowly stood, holding it like a knife as he walked towards the end of the deck that led to the stairs. He held it low and ready as the footsteps got closer, lifted it — and Nathan turned the corner. Duke dropped it back to his side with a sigh.
"What are you doing here?" Nathan asked with a glare.
Duke flashed him a broad, sharp grin. "In case you forgot, Audrey got abducted. So I'm changing the locks."
Nathan scoffed. "You're changing the locks."
"Yeah, I'm changing the locks." Duke went back to the table to set the screwdriver down again, and picked up his coffee. "But, you know, we got to chatting. Favorite coffees, scented candles. . . . Girl talk. Was just about to catch her up on things with me when you showed up."
"Things with you," Nathan said. "From the last . . thirty-two hours."
He didn't have to rub the time difference in. Not that Nathan knew about the time difference. Not that Duke had any intention at all of filling him in on the whole "oh yeah, I'm meant to be back down south having a happy throuple spring break trip right now" thing at all. "Mmmm."
"You told him everything?" Nathan asked, looking at Audrey now. "About the Hunter?"
Audrey nodded silently. Duke felt himself prickle defensively again. "Yeah, we're friends. Is that a problem?"
"Come on." Nathan shook his head. "Your dad? You ever think maybe you're the Hunter, Duke?"
Duke's smile dropped away. "No. Never."
"Well, I guess we won't know until you kill somebody."
Duke looked away sharply, that old carpet bag that represented his trouble sharp in his mind's eye. That was all Nathan was ever going to see in him anymore, wasn't it. His trouble.
"We got a 10-11 call," Nathan said, back to talking to Audrey, though he was still staring daggers at Duke. "We gotta go."
"Lock the doors when you're done? Please, Duke?" Audrey asked. "We can talk more later." Duke gave her a nod and what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Audrey gave him a small one in return and headed off. Nathan watched her go, then turned on Duke.
"Stay away from her."
Duke snorted. "No. But I'll tell you what I will do, Nate." He flashed him another of his sharp — shark — grins. "I'm going to find out who this Hunter really is. I'm going to actually do something to help Audrey."
Nathan scowled and left. Duke let his smile drop away again, looking over the mess of Audrey's door and deck.
He would help Audrey. And then he would sail, or drive, or freaking fly down to Baltimore and break his way back into Fandom by force if he had to.
Duke kept trying Octavia and Lucifer as he followed the town gossip to the scene of some weird, likely trouble-related crime, then again after attempting to get some intel from Dwight and fielding some not-really-veiled-at-all threats from the guy. Which unfortunately was starting to drain his cell battery like crazy. He headed back to the docks to recharge it — only to get a little sidetracked by the other guy hanging out there. He used the last of his precious battery to call Audrey.
"Pretty busy right now, Duke!" she said.
Right. He should have known better than to bother her while she was at her precious job. "Just thought you might like to know that there is a very large naked man eating raw fish by the south docks. He kind of looks like he should be in a bowflex commercial. By that I mean he's like, jacked, juiced . . . and now he's staring at me."
"So much for containment," Audrey murmured.
So that was foreboding. "I don't speak cop so . . . what are you talking about?"
"We're dealing with a bunch of those guys here. We think that they're troubled. They're definitely dangerous. Listen, can you restrain him?"
Restrain the giant, feral-looking, very likely troubled naked man tearing through raw fish? What did Audrey think he was, a pro-wrestler?
He heard a truck driving up, and glanced over, then grinned when he saw who it was."Sure," he told her and trotted over. "Hey Dwight! I, uh, got Audrey on the phone? She uh. She wants you to restrain that guy." He pointed.
Dwight stared. Duke bit back a smug grin and nodded.
It was a sad, petty sort of revenge, but he'd take it.
Audrey arrived not long later, with Nathan and Claire in tow. Duke hung back while they examined the now-restrained naked fish-eating guy.
Nathan sighed. "How'd he end up in your truck?"
"I was trying to load him into the bed but he broke free." Dwight shot Duke a dark look. "If I'd, uh. Had a little help?"
Duke smirked at him. "Picking up your sarcasm."
Dwight scowled and looked back at the man in his truck. "Only thing I could do was trap him in the cab. Wicked strong."
"He can't get out?" Audrey asked.
Dwight clicked his remote key, making the truck chirp. "Doors are locked. No buttons inside. I don't know if he knows how to get out."
Audrey crept forward, and though Naked Guy looked mostly chill right now, just sitting and staring blankly out the windshield, Duke braced himself. It was a good thing he did, too, as she seemed to cross some invisible barrier that made the guy go from zero to attack! in no time flat. He shattered the passenger side window and grabbed for her. Duke and Nathan both leaped in, Nathan pulling Audrey away while Duke did his best to hold the guy back. Dwight stepped in a moment later, punching the man unconscious. Duke turned, intending to make sure Audrey was alright, and caught sight of a splotch of red on his hand.
Blood.
Not his own, his hand wasn't cut.
Fuck.
Dwight must have seen it too. He backed up sharply, his eyes wide. "Uh, guys?!"
Nathan reached for his gun as Duke cursed. "This is why I didn't want to get anywhere near the guy!" he told them, then swallowed and shut his eyes, hands coming up as he braced for the wave of murderous power. He just hoped he'd have enough control this time to keep from hurting anyone. With both Nathan and Dwight here to act as juicy, beefy troubled blood fountains, this could go very wrong, very fast. . . .
Several seconds passed. The wave never came.
Duke cracked open one eye. The blood still sat on his hand, slowly drying on his skin.
"Nothing happened," he said, staring wide-eyed at the group. Nathan hadn't let go of his gun yet, but Duke didn't care. He spun, pumping his fists into the air. "Yes! Thank you!" He spread his arms and grinned at Audrey. "See? You can beat the troubles!"
Nathan slowly let go of his gun. "Maybe he's not troubled."
"May — what?" Duke stared at him. The man had been nakedly tearing apart raw fish. In the middle of the day!
"He might not be," Claire said, looking at her phone.
"No," Duke started. "Wha? He's — What are you even doing here?"
Claire didn't even look at him, too focussed on the problem at hand. Or . . . maybe pretending she didn't know him? It was hard to tell. "I'm shadowing Audrey today," she said. "And this guy might just be drugged out of his mind."
She started to explain the hospital's findings on one of the other strange, naked men to Audrey and Nathan, and Duke tuned them out. He wasn't here to handle this trouble. He was here for one thing only: figuring out the Hunter. And then figuring out how to get home.
Okay, two things.
He noticed Dwight giving him a studying look, and blinked innocently back at him. Dwight reached out and tugged on his sleeve.
"C'mon," he said. "I've got an idea about your Hunter problem."
"Okay," Duke said, as they walked up the Herald offices. "I don't want to ruin this nice little moment that's happening between us, but . . . why are you helping me now?"
Dwight shrugged. He was a lot less intimidating when he wasn't glaring at you, Duke noticed. "I saw the way you reacted when that blood got on you. You hate your . . . problem."
Duke snorted. "It's not my problem." Dwight was already pushing the doors to the office open, though, so he didn't bother pursuing the question any further. He nodded to Vince and Dave where they sat. "Bartles. Jaymes."
"Duke's looking for info on the Hunter," Dwight said.
Dave shook his head, looking shocked. "We told Audrey we can't help!"
Yeah. Sure. Because Vince and Dave never hid information for their own purposes. Duke folded his arms over his chest. "How about you just let us look at some old Haven Heralds from around the time of the Colorado Kid murder? 'Cause otherwise, we might start thinking that you're actually trying to keep something secret."
Dwight matched his pose. "Makes sense to me."
Vince slowly got to his feet, leaning hard into his bumbling old man persona. "I'll-I'll look in the backroom for some old copies, but I doubt there's any there."
Dave tugged on his sleeve, muttering something too soft for Duke to hear. Vince muttered back. Duke wondered if Dwight had as much pull as he thought he did, around here.
As the four of them spent hours flipping through old newspapers, Duke's confidence at finding anything in them sank lower and lower. He stopped even looking further than the front pages, just lifting the sheet, checking the top headlines, and then tossing it aside.
And then a familiar face stopped him. One he'd just seen down at the docks — but also hadn't seen in nearly three decades. "Take a look at this," he said, holding the paper up. "'Local Woman Vanishes'. It's Audrey."
"That's Lucy," Vince corrected. "That's who she was back then."
Duke was about to clarify that he knew that already, but Dave was staring past him, out the window. Duke twisted to look.
A man went running by, like he was out for an afternoon's exercise. Naked, save for the plastic collar and cone around his head.
"Looks like we have our lead story for tomorrow," Dave said, hopping up. "Perhaps you gentlemen would care to join me?" When none of them moved, he scowled. "Help?"
Vince and Dwight got up, and the three of them started hustling out of the office. Duke lifted his hand to say something, but they were already gone. "Yeah, you guys got this." He looked back down at the paper, flipping it open, then stopped and stared when he came across a little special interest piece with a familiar star cluster illustrated to go along with it. About a meteor storm that had rained down the night before. A meteor storm called. . . .
"The Hunter," Duke whispered. And started reading.
It took some more hunting, both in the Herald offices and back on his little houseboat after he hunted down a laptop, but eventually, Duke had the whole story put together. Or as much of it as he was going to get right now. He headed for the Gull again first thing in the morning, and sat down on the steps up to Audrey's apartment to wait for her.
Maybe after this, he'd be able to talk her into coming with him.
Audrey came down slowly, a black and white dog in a red bandana trotting happily along beside her. Duke stood and looked up at her. "Hey."
"Hey!" she said, smiling back. He hadn't seen her that happy since her birthday party. Before that 'chameleon' thing had taken her shape and tried to replace her.
What even were their lives?
The dog panted up at him, and Duke raised an eyebrow. "A dog."
"Yeah," Audrey said, smile not going anywhere. "My dog. Cookie. Think I'm gonna keep him." She must have seen something on his face, because she hurried on. "It's not against the lease, is it? 'Cause I don't think technically that we have a lease —"
Duke held up a hand to stop her. "Audrey, it's not the lease. I need to talk to you."
The smile was well and truly fading now. "Sure."
Duke hesitated. No matter what she decided to do with it, this information was going to hurt her. It occurred to him to wonder if maybe that was part of why Vince and Dave were so tight lipped about everything. To keep from hurting her with the truth.
That was bullshit, though. Everyone deserved the truth about their own lives. Even if it hurt.
"If it were me," he said slowly. "I'd want to know."
"What?"
"The Hunter." Duke swallowed, tugging on the sleeves of his soft, slouchy sweater. "It's not a person. It's . . . a meteor storm."
Audrey frowned. Duke barrelled on.
"It comes out of the Orion constellation. It hits every 27 years. When you were Lucy, and before that, when you were Sarah. . . . The night of the Hunter meteor storm is the night you disappeared. Both times."
Audrey's expression drained of color. "Where did I go?"
Duke shook his head. "You just . . . vanished."
Audrey stared at him, then looked out over the water. Duke shoved his hands in his pockets, wishing he knew how to help make this easier for her.
Wishing he knew how he kept losing his heart to people who had such enormous baggage, and how he always took it on himself to try to help them carry it.
"When's the next one?" she asked finally.
"Two months," Duke said softly.
"Two months?!"
"49 days."
Audrey shook her head faintly, looking down at Cookie. Duke opened his mouth to offer to take her away, to bring her to Fandom with him where it wasn't 2010, two months out from a meteor storm that would take her away, but 2021. She could live there, safe and sound, and not worry about troubles. Work with Liam and Danny at the station, maybe, solving the island's weird sense of humor instead of murderous, generational curses.
But then Nathan pulled up in his truck, and Audrey's eyes went soft and sad, and Duke knew she'd never run away with him. Not without Nathan. And Nathan had already turned Duke down more than once.
He backed off slowly, leaving the two of them to it, and pulled out his phone. He pulled up Lucifer's number and stared at it. Then scrolled through to Octavia's. Stared at that one.
He couldn't do this. He couldn't live half here, and half in his hopes of finding Fandom again. He had to commit to something, and stop staring at numbers on his phone that wouldn't go through until the multiverse decided to let them again.
He sent both Lucifer and Octavia a single text: in Haven. Let me know when you get this and watched as the phone sent the messages into the ether. Then he locked it and slid it back into his pocket again.
He'd change his mind again soon, he was sure. He knew a guy who knew a guy who had a seaplane. He could make it down to Baltimore in a few hours, circle around until he found the causeway. Or, more likely, didn't find it, and gave up and flew back. The multiverse wouldn't be rushed. It picked and chose its moments, flinging people back and forth through time and space by some distant, inhuman logic. It did it to Octavia. It did it to Danny.
He was just going to have to hold on for the ride. And hope he survived long enough to make it back again.
[NFB, NFI, OOC fine, etc. TIME FOR MORE CANON. Post adapted from Haven episode 3x02, "Stay"]
"Yeah?"
"Duke, hey. Did I wake you?"
"Nah," Duke answered automatically. The voice was familiar, but it took his sleep muddled bran a bit to recognize it. ". . . Audrey?"
"Yeah. Sorry to do this, I know you probably had a late night, but um. I was hoping you could come change my locks?"
Duke wasn't really listening. He was sitting up sharply in bed. His much smaller than normal bed, in his much smaller than normal cabin. On a much smaller than normal ship because this was not the Cape Rouge, where he'd fallen asleep, but the Sanguine Moon, which should have been docked in Haven.
And he was alone.
"No," he breathed. He scrambled out of bed to peer through the porthole. At the familiar shape of Haven's docks. The phone in his hand wasn't the fancy smartphone he used most often back in Fandom, but one of the cheap little flip phones he kept strewn around for emergencies. His other phone, like his clothes, his partners, his boat — were all back in 2021, without him.
He felt like he might throw up.
"No?!" Audrey was saying. "Okay, um, I didn't want to have to pull this card, but you're technically my landlord, and there are laws about providing safe —"
"What?" Duke interrupted. "Wait, Audrey, how did you know I was here?"
". . . What do you mean?"
"Here. In Haven. I'm not supposed to be here."
"Duke, I just saw you the other night."
Duke shoved his hand through his hair, actually yanking on it. Octavia would stop him from doing that, but Octavia wasn't here —
She and Lucifer were back on the Rouge. At sea. Neither of them knew how to sail her.
He sank to the floor, not noticing for several moments as Audrey called his name through the phone, her tone becoming more and more worried. Finally, he brought it to his ear again.
"What, uh. What was I doing?" he asked. "The other night?"
"You came to rescue me," Audrey said. "You and Nathan. You don't remember?"
Right. She'd been kidnapped. Danny had been here, and Nathan got the tattoo that was meant to kill him — He reached up, looking for the sacrificial totem that Nina had given him. He'd taken it off to go to sleep, feeling safe and secure at home. It was back on the Rouge, too.
"Duke? Are you okay?"
"Right," he said, not bothering to try to answer her question. "You were abducted. You need new locks. I'll, uh. I'll be right over."
"Great. I have some things to tell you. And it kind of sounds like you have something to tell me."
"I do. Just . . . not sure where to start." He tugged on his hair again, then forced his hand into his lap. He was not about to end up back in Fandom bald. "I need to swing by the hardware store."
"That's fine. I'll put some coffee on, okay?"
Duke smiled. Forced himself to sound a bit more normal. "Sounds great. I'll see you soon."
He hung up before she could finish saying goodbye, and tried Octavia's number. Then Lucifer's. Then every other Fandom-related number he had in this phone, which wasn't many.
Then Claire's.
"Duke? Is everything okay?"
"You were time-locked," Duke said.
". . . Okay."
He asked her what day it was, and she told him. Near as he could tell, "the other night" was the day before yesterday, here. Not almost four months ago.
"You were time-locked," he said again. "That's why you weren't answering. You weren't dead or avoiding us, you couldn't help Octavia because for you it's only been a day."
"Are you both okay, Duke?"
"No." Duke smiled again, rubbing his forehead. "Not even a little. I'll, uh. Tell you about it later. I need to go change Audrey's locks."
"That's funny, I'm actually talking to Audrey too, today. I'll make some time for you later though, alright?"
"Yeah. Thanks, Claire."
"I'll call Octavia, too. Tell her what's happened."
"Won't work," Duk said, and winced at the dark, empty tone of his own voice. "I already tried. She's not answering. No one in Fandom is."
"Are they, um. Time-locked now, too?"
"I don't know." Duke looked down at his lap. "I hope so."
"Go help Audrey," Claire said. "We'll talk later. Tonight. In the meantime, try not to worry, okay?" Duke laughed and heard her smile. "Hey, I said 'try'."
"Yeah," Duke agreed. "Alright. Thanks, Claire."
He hung up. Felt the weight of the phone in his hand for a long moment. Then dragged himself slowly to his feet.
Time worked differently between dimensions, but not in a consistent way. Fandm might be time-locked now, while he was here. Or maybe they'd already gone through another four months while he was gone. Maybe Lucifer and Octavia had been lost at sea, or sailed his boat into a reef, or —
"Nope. Trying not to worry." He tucked his phone away with a sigh, and went to go see what clothes he had stashed on this boat. "Okay, Haven. Let's see how you're going to fuck me over this time."
Audrey did indeed have things to tell him. Complete with photos. Apparently, her abductor's interrogation about the Colorado Kid had led to her, Nathan, and Vince and Dave Teagues going to exhume the man's body — only to find an empty grave with a cryptic message scrawled in it in Audrey's own handwriting. Or Lucy's, anyway. It was not, in fact, a lot to go on, and Duke's own urge to flee Haven as quickly as possible was turning into an urge to drag Audrey along with him when he went.
"Let me tell you something," he said. "If I was going to have to live multiple lives, I'd pick somewhere more exotic. Warmer climate, you know? Bali, Costa Rica, Hong Kong. . . ."
"Maryland?" Audrey asked with a small smirk. Duke shrugged.
"It's not a perfect plan." He watched Audrey pick at the bandage on her hand and gave her a sympathetic look. "How's that thing healing?"
"It's fine," Audrey said dismissively. Duke was tempted to grab her arm and make her show it to him, but she'd already had it rough enough recently as it was. "I keep thinking about the man who abducted me," she continued. "He said I loved the Colorado Kid."
Duke shifted to sit in the chair across from her, cradling his coffee in his hands. "Who was supposedly buried 27 years ago, but now his grave is empty."
"I think he's alive." Audrey looked over at him. "And I think he's on the run."
Duke nodded. He opened his mouth, about to suggest that going on the run might not be a bad plan, somewhere her abductor couldn't find her, and the tattooed man who was going to kill him couldn't find Duke (and both of them could find Octavia and Lucifer and then all four of them could find some nice island somewhere and nothing terrible would have to happen to any of them ever again) — when he heard someone coming up the stairs. Audrey tensed immediately, and Duke's protective instincts roared to life. Or, you know, got even louder.
"You expecting somebody?"
She shook her head. Duke picked up his screwdriver and slowly stood, holding it like a knife as he walked towards the end of the deck that led to the stairs. He held it low and ready as the footsteps got closer, lifted it — and Nathan turned the corner. Duke dropped it back to his side with a sigh.
"What are you doing here?" Nathan asked with a glare.
Duke flashed him a broad, sharp grin. "In case you forgot, Audrey got abducted. So I'm changing the locks."
Nathan scoffed. "You're changing the locks."
"Yeah, I'm changing the locks." Duke went back to the table to set the screwdriver down again, and picked up his coffee. "But, you know, we got to chatting. Favorite coffees, scented candles. . . . Girl talk. Was just about to catch her up on things with me when you showed up."
"Things with you," Nathan said. "From the last . . thirty-two hours."
He didn't have to rub the time difference in. Not that Nathan knew about the time difference. Not that Duke had any intention at all of filling him in on the whole "oh yeah, I'm meant to be back down south having a happy throuple spring break trip right now" thing at all. "Mmmm."
"You told him everything?" Nathan asked, looking at Audrey now. "About the Hunter?"
Audrey nodded silently. Duke felt himself prickle defensively again. "Yeah, we're friends. Is that a problem?"
"Come on." Nathan shook his head. "Your dad? You ever think maybe you're the Hunter, Duke?"
Duke's smile dropped away. "No. Never."
"Well, I guess we won't know until you kill somebody."
Duke looked away sharply, that old carpet bag that represented his trouble sharp in his mind's eye. That was all Nathan was ever going to see in him anymore, wasn't it. His trouble.
"We got a 10-11 call," Nathan said, back to talking to Audrey, though he was still staring daggers at Duke. "We gotta go."
"Lock the doors when you're done? Please, Duke?" Audrey asked. "We can talk more later." Duke gave her a nod and what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Audrey gave him a small one in return and headed off. Nathan watched her go, then turned on Duke.
"Stay away from her."
Duke snorted. "No. But I'll tell you what I will do, Nate." He flashed him another of his sharp — shark — grins. "I'm going to find out who this Hunter really is. I'm going to actually do something to help Audrey."
Nathan scowled and left. Duke let his smile drop away again, looking over the mess of Audrey's door and deck.
He would help Audrey. And then he would sail, or drive, or freaking fly down to Baltimore and break his way back into Fandom by force if he had to.
Duke kept trying Octavia and Lucifer as he followed the town gossip to the scene of some weird, likely trouble-related crime, then again after attempting to get some intel from Dwight and fielding some not-really-veiled-at-all threats from the guy. Which unfortunately was starting to drain his cell battery like crazy. He headed back to the docks to recharge it — only to get a little sidetracked by the other guy hanging out there. He used the last of his precious battery to call Audrey.
"Pretty busy right now, Duke!" she said.
Right. He should have known better than to bother her while she was at her precious job. "Just thought you might like to know that there is a very large naked man eating raw fish by the south docks. He kind of looks like he should be in a bowflex commercial. By that I mean he's like, jacked, juiced . . . and now he's staring at me."
"So much for containment," Audrey murmured.
So that was foreboding. "I don't speak cop so . . . what are you talking about?"
"We're dealing with a bunch of those guys here. We think that they're troubled. They're definitely dangerous. Listen, can you restrain him?"
Restrain the giant, feral-looking, very likely troubled naked man tearing through raw fish? What did Audrey think he was, a pro-wrestler?
He heard a truck driving up, and glanced over, then grinned when he saw who it was."Sure," he told her and trotted over. "Hey Dwight! I, uh, got Audrey on the phone? She uh. She wants you to restrain that guy." He pointed.
Dwight stared. Duke bit back a smug grin and nodded.
It was a sad, petty sort of revenge, but he'd take it.
Audrey arrived not long later, with Nathan and Claire in tow. Duke hung back while they examined the now-restrained naked fish-eating guy.
Nathan sighed. "How'd he end up in your truck?"
"I was trying to load him into the bed but he broke free." Dwight shot Duke a dark look. "If I'd, uh. Had a little help?"
Duke smirked at him. "Picking up your sarcasm."
Dwight scowled and looked back at the man in his truck. "Only thing I could do was trap him in the cab. Wicked strong."
"He can't get out?" Audrey asked.
Dwight clicked his remote key, making the truck chirp. "Doors are locked. No buttons inside. I don't know if he knows how to get out."
Audrey crept forward, and though Naked Guy looked mostly chill right now, just sitting and staring blankly out the windshield, Duke braced himself. It was a good thing he did, too, as she seemed to cross some invisible barrier that made the guy go from zero to attack! in no time flat. He shattered the passenger side window and grabbed for her. Duke and Nathan both leaped in, Nathan pulling Audrey away while Duke did his best to hold the guy back. Dwight stepped in a moment later, punching the man unconscious. Duke turned, intending to make sure Audrey was alright, and caught sight of a splotch of red on his hand.
Blood.
Not his own, his hand wasn't cut.
Fuck.
Dwight must have seen it too. He backed up sharply, his eyes wide. "Uh, guys?!"
Nathan reached for his gun as Duke cursed. "This is why I didn't want to get anywhere near the guy!" he told them, then swallowed and shut his eyes, hands coming up as he braced for the wave of murderous power. He just hoped he'd have enough control this time to keep from hurting anyone. With both Nathan and Dwight here to act as juicy, beefy troubled blood fountains, this could go very wrong, very fast. . . .
Several seconds passed. The wave never came.
Duke cracked open one eye. The blood still sat on his hand, slowly drying on his skin.
"Nothing happened," he said, staring wide-eyed at the group. Nathan hadn't let go of his gun yet, but Duke didn't care. He spun, pumping his fists into the air. "Yes! Thank you!" He spread his arms and grinned at Audrey. "See? You can beat the troubles!"
Nathan slowly let go of his gun. "Maybe he's not troubled."
"May — what?" Duke stared at him. The man had been nakedly tearing apart raw fish. In the middle of the day!
"He might not be," Claire said, looking at her phone.
"No," Duke started. "Wha? He's — What are you even doing here?"
Claire didn't even look at him, too focussed on the problem at hand. Or . . . maybe pretending she didn't know him? It was hard to tell. "I'm shadowing Audrey today," she said. "And this guy might just be drugged out of his mind."
She started to explain the hospital's findings on one of the other strange, naked men to Audrey and Nathan, and Duke tuned them out. He wasn't here to handle this trouble. He was here for one thing only: figuring out the Hunter. And then figuring out how to get home.
Okay, two things.
He noticed Dwight giving him a studying look, and blinked innocently back at him. Dwight reached out and tugged on his sleeve.
"C'mon," he said. "I've got an idea about your Hunter problem."
"Okay," Duke said, as they walked up the Herald offices. "I don't want to ruin this nice little moment that's happening between us, but . . . why are you helping me now?"
Dwight shrugged. He was a lot less intimidating when he wasn't glaring at you, Duke noticed. "I saw the way you reacted when that blood got on you. You hate your . . . problem."
Duke snorted. "It's not my problem." Dwight was already pushing the doors to the office open, though, so he didn't bother pursuing the question any further. He nodded to Vince and Dave where they sat. "Bartles. Jaymes."
"Duke's looking for info on the Hunter," Dwight said.
Dave shook his head, looking shocked. "We told Audrey we can't help!"
Yeah. Sure. Because Vince and Dave never hid information for their own purposes. Duke folded his arms over his chest. "How about you just let us look at some old Haven Heralds from around the time of the Colorado Kid murder? 'Cause otherwise, we might start thinking that you're actually trying to keep something secret."
Dwight matched his pose. "Makes sense to me."
Vince slowly got to his feet, leaning hard into his bumbling old man persona. "I'll-I'll look in the backroom for some old copies, but I doubt there's any there."
Dave tugged on his sleeve, muttering something too soft for Duke to hear. Vince muttered back. Duke wondered if Dwight had as much pull as he thought he did, around here.
As the four of them spent hours flipping through old newspapers, Duke's confidence at finding anything in them sank lower and lower. He stopped even looking further than the front pages, just lifting the sheet, checking the top headlines, and then tossing it aside.
And then a familiar face stopped him. One he'd just seen down at the docks — but also hadn't seen in nearly three decades. "Take a look at this," he said, holding the paper up. "'Local Woman Vanishes'. It's Audrey."
"That's Lucy," Vince corrected. "That's who she was back then."
Duke was about to clarify that he knew that already, but Dave was staring past him, out the window. Duke twisted to look.
A man went running by, like he was out for an afternoon's exercise. Naked, save for the plastic collar and cone around his head.
"Looks like we have our lead story for tomorrow," Dave said, hopping up. "Perhaps you gentlemen would care to join me?" When none of them moved, he scowled. "Help?"
Vince and Dwight got up, and the three of them started hustling out of the office. Duke lifted his hand to say something, but they were already gone. "Yeah, you guys got this." He looked back down at the paper, flipping it open, then stopped and stared when he came across a little special interest piece with a familiar star cluster illustrated to go along with it. About a meteor storm that had rained down the night before. A meteor storm called. . . .
"The Hunter," Duke whispered. And started reading.
It took some more hunting, both in the Herald offices and back on his little houseboat after he hunted down a laptop, but eventually, Duke had the whole story put together. Or as much of it as he was going to get right now. He headed for the Gull again first thing in the morning, and sat down on the steps up to Audrey's apartment to wait for her.
Maybe after this, he'd be able to talk her into coming with him.
Audrey came down slowly, a black and white dog in a red bandana trotting happily along beside her. Duke stood and looked up at her. "Hey."
"Hey!" she said, smiling back. He hadn't seen her that happy since her birthday party. Before that 'chameleon' thing had taken her shape and tried to replace her.
What even were their lives?
The dog panted up at him, and Duke raised an eyebrow. "A dog."
"Yeah," Audrey said, smile not going anywhere. "My dog. Cookie. Think I'm gonna keep him." She must have seen something on his face, because she hurried on. "It's not against the lease, is it? 'Cause I don't think technically that we have a lease —"
Duke held up a hand to stop her. "Audrey, it's not the lease. I need to talk to you."
The smile was well and truly fading now. "Sure."
Duke hesitated. No matter what she decided to do with it, this information was going to hurt her. It occurred to him to wonder if maybe that was part of why Vince and Dave were so tight lipped about everything. To keep from hurting her with the truth.
That was bullshit, though. Everyone deserved the truth about their own lives. Even if it hurt.
"If it were me," he said slowly. "I'd want to know."
"What?"
"The Hunter." Duke swallowed, tugging on the sleeves of his soft, slouchy sweater. "It's not a person. It's . . . a meteor storm."
Audrey frowned. Duke barrelled on.
"It comes out of the Orion constellation. It hits every 27 years. When you were Lucy, and before that, when you were Sarah. . . . The night of the Hunter meteor storm is the night you disappeared. Both times."
Audrey's expression drained of color. "Where did I go?"
Duke shook his head. "You just . . . vanished."
Audrey stared at him, then looked out over the water. Duke shoved his hands in his pockets, wishing he knew how to help make this easier for her.
Wishing he knew how he kept losing his heart to people who had such enormous baggage, and how he always took it on himself to try to help them carry it.
"When's the next one?" she asked finally.
"Two months," Duke said softly.
"Two months?!"
"49 days."
Audrey shook her head faintly, looking down at Cookie. Duke opened his mouth to offer to take her away, to bring her to Fandom with him where it wasn't 2010, two months out from a meteor storm that would take her away, but 2021. She could live there, safe and sound, and not worry about troubles. Work with Liam and Danny at the station, maybe, solving the island's weird sense of humor instead of murderous, generational curses.
But then Nathan pulled up in his truck, and Audrey's eyes went soft and sad, and Duke knew she'd never run away with him. Not without Nathan. And Nathan had already turned Duke down more than once.
He backed off slowly, leaving the two of them to it, and pulled out his phone. He pulled up Lucifer's number and stared at it. Then scrolled through to Octavia's. Stared at that one.
He couldn't do this. He couldn't live half here, and half in his hopes of finding Fandom again. He had to commit to something, and stop staring at numbers on his phone that wouldn't go through until the multiverse decided to let them again.
He sent both Lucifer and Octavia a single text: in Haven. Let me know when you get this and watched as the phone sent the messages into the ether. Then he locked it and slid it back into his pocket again.
He'd change his mind again soon, he was sure. He knew a guy who knew a guy who had a seaplane. He could make it down to Baltimore in a few hours, circle around until he found the causeway. Or, more likely, didn't find it, and gave up and flew back. The multiverse wouldn't be rushed. It picked and chose its moments, flinging people back and forth through time and space by some distant, inhuman logic. It did it to Octavia. It did it to Danny.
He was just going to have to hold on for the ride. And hope he survived long enough to make it back again.
[NFB, NFI, OOC fine, etc. TIME FOR MORE CANON. Post adapted from Haven episode 3x02, "Stay"]