betterthanaplan | The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom (and Beyond!), Wednesday afternoon

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The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom (and Beyond!), Wednesday afternoon

Duke had plans with Octavia today to show her the ocean -- or the parts of it that could be easily reached from Fandom in an afternoon, anyway. So while he waited for her to arrive, he puttered around his boat, checking over the engine and bilge pump, plotting a couple possible routes on his charts, and checking the weather reports and tides for anything that might give them trouble.

Everything looked good for a lovely day at sea. He put together some beer and snacks, and sat back on his favorite bench with his ukelele while he waited.

A pair of porgs hopped up on the crate by his feet. He did his best to ignore them.

[for one!]

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That tended to happen when siblings came along, yes.

"You're not wrong. I don't think I would have done too well with anyone trying to be protective of me, though."

His parents hadn't ever really bothered. And when Nathan tried, all Duke could see was a rejection of everything he'd had learned to be in order to survive.

To be fair, becoming a cop was a terrible way to try to protect a criminal.

"Why's that?"

She did actually glance over to ask, but just about only for the second it took to ask that.

It was a fifty-fifty split between not wanting to miss how the island looked from out here, and just finding it easier to talk about these things while looking away.

There were definitely topics in this world that required a complete lack of eye contact.

Duke shrugged, keeping his own eyes on the water. (He was trying to steer! He had an excuse.) "Let's just say I've never done well with authority."

Octavia huffed out some vaguely, wryly amused noise.

"Me neither," she said. "Authority took a while to fully understand that, though."

“They always seem to think they can fix you by throwing more authority at you, don’t they.”

"And all it ever does is make you want to tell them to go screw themselves even louder," Octavia agreed.

She closed her eyes. The rocking of the boat was an unfamiliar feeling, far more pronounced than the subtle way the Ark had always felt like it was breathing under her feet.

She was taking a second just to feel it.

Duke glanced over and frowned. "You feeling okay? Some folks get seasick."

Octavia shook her head, then opened her eyes, glancing back at him.

"Just homesick, I guess." Kind of, anyway. "It's stupid and it'll pass."

She was also grateful not to be seasick.

Duke tilted his head. "What's 'home' like for you? We talking post-apocalypse or space station?"

There was probably some symbolic value to her looking out towards the island at that question, even though that wasn't why she didn't.

"I don't really use that word much, actually," she said after a pause. "But I only ever had one place I called that, and that was on the Ark." Wait, he probably didn't know that name yet. It was easy to guess, but: "That's what the station was called. We had this little cramped one-room place for me and Bellamy and Mom, and that was home."

She shrugged. "This reminds me of that, I guess."

Duke decided not to take 'cramped' as an insult. "Lot of bobbing over swells in space, huh?"

That wasn't the part she was reminded of, anyway.

"Not exactly," Octavia drawled. "But it still feels a little like the station's alive under your feet."

Duke nodded. "Ground's too still," he observed. "That's part of why I still sleep on the boat even when I'm at port."

Also because, like, his bed was there. And if he had to pay for a boat slip anyway, why bother shelling out more for a hotel room?

"It's home for you," Octavia said. "Right?"

"Best one I've ever had," Duke agreed. ". . . Admittedly that's not a very high bar."

"The quarters I just called my home was my prison before I was in prison," Octavia noted with a rather dark sort of muted humor to her tone. She shook her head. "Your low bar is safe with me."

Duke rolled his eyes. "Do not get me started on prisons. I've been in several."

Both literal and metaphorical!

"What'd they put you in for?"

"Having been born."

She said much too easily, considering how he was only the second Fandomite to ever be told that.

There was a slight, sarcastically perky-by-Octavia affectation to the head tilt that followed. Sort of downplaying the whole thing. "You?"

Duke quirked an eyebrow at that, but didn't press.

"Theft, mostly. Some fraud. Been accused of murder once or twice, but they never managed to make that stick. First time was for trespassing. Joke was on them though, since the only reason I broke into that place was to find somewhere warm to sleep. At least the jail was heated."

Not that he ever got much sleep when he was in a cage.

Probably said some things about Octavia that she could hear 'murder' and not bat an eye at it. Didn't even have to do with whether it was baseless or not.

"I couldn't sleep for the first week after they locked me up," she rasped, watching him. "Rations were better than what I was used to, though."

"All they ever gave you at the Haven jail was slim jims," Duke said. "I got my revenge though. Fucked with their vending machine. No Baby Ruths for them."

"That's not a loss." Magnus kept shoving snacks and candy at her. She'd former Opinions. "But, no peanut butter cups either?"

"They didn't have any to begin with. Haven PD has terrible taste."

Octavia snorted. "Good riddance, then." You know, as if she hadn't been vehemently against them already. "Peanut butter cups are the best."

She was quiet for a second again, watching the water.

And shrugged. "I guess they had to feed us on the Ark. I bet starving us would not have let them feel as good about the mercy they were showing us by not just imediately floating us, the way they did every criminal over eighteen."

". . . Floating. Like -- launching you into space?" Duke looked suitably appalled. "Jesus."

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