betterthanaplan | The Maryland Zoo, Druid Hill Park, Baltimore, Tuesday evening

It'd been a nice day in Baltimore, sunny and cool without quite being cold, so there were a few more people still wandering around the park and the zoo than Duke had anticipated when they got there. Still, while there were some people, it still wasn't a lot of people. Slightly more than Fandom numbers, much less than usual downtown Baltimore numbers.

"So, what should we check out first?" Duke asked. "Polar bears? Alligators? Oh hey, porcupines!"

[it's Tuesday where

okteiviakom is, and I'm impatient. For the one expected, and probably some slowplay!]

[Somewhat belated content note: the Park thread gets pretty dark, and involves references to: alcohol and drug abuse, prostitution, child endangerment, and domestic violence.]

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From:

okteiviakom

Octavia gave him a silent look that seemed like it wanted to ask 'really?' but had already settled on 'of course', instead.

She finally knocked back her own bourbon, though.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke looked away with a short, humorless laugh. "Wouldn't have thought you'd need alcohol to throw a punch."

From:

okteiviakom

"If I was going to punch you," Octavia snapped, "I would've done it already."

She wiped the back of her hand across her lips as she put the glass down.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke tilted his head, ignoring the slight wobble that brought to his balance. "You're not gonna punch me. You're not gonna ditch me. I don't know what we're even doing here."

From:

okteiviakom

"Me neither, because you won't just talk to me."

That came out a fair bit exasperated.

From:

betterthanaplan

"Sure. Yeah." Duke rolled his eyes, which just brought on another wobble. He leaned against the gunwale to steady himself and tried to decide if another glass of bourbon was a good idea. "Because talking about it would fix everything, right?"

From:

okteiviakom

"No," Octavia replied, coming pretty close to a snap again. "But -- at least I would know what's wrong. Because I don't, I don't understand, all I know is that you're hurting and I can't try to do anything about it because I don't understand what happened!"

... And all of that came out in kind of a rush.

From:

betterthanaplan

"What happened?" Duke repeated. He straightened from his slouch, unconsciously looming over Octavia. "My goddamn mother just offered to have sex with me for drugs," he hissed. "That's what fucking happened."

Oh hey. He was drunk enough to actually talk about his mother. He should have been more careful.

From:

okteiviakom

The looming was fine. Octavia had had men bigger (or at least wider) than him do the same thing, and all it did was make her stand a little straighter.

But what came out of his mouth was not fine.

Not by a long shot.

Octavia gasped like she'd been hit. "What?"

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke sagged, his anger deflating a little in the wake of his outburst.

"She didn't even fucking recognize me." He shook his head, rubbing his face. He shouldn't have drunk so much so fast. "I can't decide if that makes it better or worse."

From:

okteiviakom

"Everything about this makes it terrible," Octavia replied weakly, still adding it all up in her head. (God, she'd known, in the back of her mind, right? With the eyes.) The anger had gotten knocked out of her, and now her chest felt empty. "She should recognize her own son."

And then not proposition him, obviously.

From:

betterthanaplan

“Yeah, well. She was never exactly what you’d call maternal.”

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia remembered asking about his mother before, months ago. Remembered his reply, too which had both made her wonder, as well as decide not to ask again.

She got it now.

"Fuck," she muttered under her breath, for want of anything better to say.

From:

betterthanaplan

She's opened the flood gates now, though. Duke hadn't even said this much about his mother in . . . possibly ever. He'd certainly never told Evi. She'd never even bothered to ask.

"I don't know why I'm surprised," he muttered. "Except -- I don't know. Maybe I'd hoped she was dead."

He hadn't. He hadn't hoped anything, except to never have to think about her again.

From:

okteiviakom

"So you didn't know she was around here?" Octavia asked, her voice quiet, her tone careful.

Though maybe that latter was just because the way she reached out slowly to put her hand on his arm was about equally careful. Ready to pull it back if it turned out he didn't want it.

From:

betterthanaplan

He didn't pull away, or do anything more than glance down at it before his eyes went back to the water. Though he appreciated it, he was still too keyed up to get much out of the gesture.

"No. I haven't seen her since. . . ." He smiled bitterly. "Three days before my 18th birthday. When she picked up the last damn child support check. You know, I wouldn't have said she even knew when my birthday was. But she knew enough not to bother to come back after that."

From:

okteiviakom

Maybe the contact was more for Octavia's own benefit, anyway. She didn't mind if it was, at least.

She swore in Trig under her breath. "You deserved better." She always thought he deserved better.

From:

betterthanaplan

"I did," Duke agreed. "Anyone would." He reached for the bottle again. "I can't believe she was just -- there. I wonder how often that line works."

He wondered if she'd manage to get high tonight. If she'd find a corner to crawl into, shoot up, and think of the punk kid she ditched back in Maine, leaving him to the goddamn wolves.

Edited Date: 2020-01-29 04:26 am (UTC)

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia didn't have as active an imagination about it. But she was thinking about the kid Duke had been that one weekend, and how a few things seemed to make a little more sense, now.

She kind of wished they hadn't, though. Anger was starting to fill up the dull void in her chest again, but this time it had a definite target - which made it useless.

She didn't stop him reaching for the bottle, though she thought she should have.

She also didn't say anything.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke, meanwhile, was proud of himself for not just drinking straight from that bottle. Or would be, when he bothered thinking about that sort of thing again.

“She’s in fucking Baltimore,” he said, almost too soft to hear. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?”

From:

okteiviakom

"Nothing that you don't want to," Octavia replied, not as soft but almost as quiet.

She was going to end up with such a complex about going over to the mainland if she wasn't careful.

From:

betterthanaplan

Hell, so was he at this rate.

He poured out another couple fingers and offered her the bottle. Possibly as much to get it slightly further out of reach as to see if she wanted any more of it.

"Part of me wants to go find her," he admitted. "Give her some money. Find her a fucking rehab or something. . . . How fucked up is that?"

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia took the bottle, although for the moment, she just held it by her hip.

"It's not," she said, her tone somehow darker than it should have been. "Foolish, maybe, but not fucked up."

She wasn't going to tell him what a big part of her wanted to do to his mother.

From:

betterthanaplan

"She never gave me anything. Not a goddamn thing."

Except trust issues and a vulnerability to powerful women.

From:

okteiviakom

Even Octavia had to assume the way her chest had felt constricted tonight was very much related to the last time it had happened.

"She's family." In the most basic, textbook meaning of the word. "Don't think anyone can ever fully escape from that."