betterthanaplan | The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, Sunday evening

The joys of sailing in from 2008, Duke was not dealing with a giant winter storm as he made his way down the coast from Maine. The weather had in fact been perfectly fine until he crossed into Fandom waters and the first of the white flakes hit the boat. He'd had some warning about this, sort of, thanks to Octavia's voicemail, but it still took him a couple minutes to work out that it really was powdered sugar falling from the sky instead of snow.

He managed to get his boat docked without getting too much of a contact sugar high, and paused on the deck for a few moments to just watch it drift in the glow of his string lights. It didn't sparkle quite the same way a good snowfall would, but it was pretty enough in its own way, and with the hood of his slicker pulled to protect his hair, he could let himself relax for a minute and just enjoy it.

A porg landed on the deck, liberally dusted and practically buzzing like a hummingbird as it rolled around in a small sugar drift. He was going to be cleaning up tiny sugar porg prints for days. Duke watched it for a moment, then turned his face back up towards the sky, tasting sugar on his lips.

"Home sweet Fandom."

This couldn't possibly be good for the fish.

[can be open, sure!]

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From:

okteiviakom

Octavia had missed out on her usual morning patrol of the island for... obvious reasons. By the evening, though, she'd started feeling less like she craved the sweet embrace of death and more like she needed a breath of fresh air, even if it came with a side of getting liberally coated in powdered sugar.

Anyway, it was more of a walk than a patrol. Hands in her pockets and her hood pulled up, looking less like a warrior and more just a person taking a breather. She caught sight of the Rouge from far away, far enough that the option of just turning away and disappearing back where she'd come from was a fully viable one.

Just wasn't the one she chose. Her footsteps along the dock were quiet, cushioned by all the sugar that had had all day to accumulate in places.

"Monin hou."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke looked over and waved. "Ha yun, Tavi," he greeted, borrowing a phrase from her voicemail. He hopped over the gunwale to the deck, then coughed as his landing raised quite the cloud of sugar. Well, at least it'd mask the faint bruising leftover from his face meeting the bar Friday night. "So. Any of that mean 'hello'? Or were you calling me something mean on my voicemail last night?"

From:

okteiviakom

If he'd been anyone else, Octavia would probably have given serious consideration to immediately retreating at the topic of the voicemail making an appearance this quickly. But if he'd been anyone else, she probably wouldn't have left that stupid voicemail in the first place.

Win some, lose some.

The expression on her face was still best descibed as long-suffering. Though that might've been the remnants of the hangover, too. "Ha yun is 'hello'," she rasped. "Or 'how are you?' And monin hou means 'welcome back'."

Tiny shrug.

"Or 'welcome home'."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke’s chin dipped a little at the word “home”. The word hadn’t applied to anywhere but the Rouge in a long time. He wasn’t sure how he felt about both of them applying it to Fandom for him, tonight.

“Multi-purpose phrases. Those are the best sorts to know.”

From:

okteiviakom

For her part, Octavia hadn't called any physical place 'home' for herself in a long time. But that was what the phrase meant, regardless.

She shrugged a little, again. It did nothing to all the sugar on her shoulders or atop her hood, slowly turning her whole look into something slightly less dark. "You could also say heya for 'hi'," she added.

From:

betterthanaplan

"Keeping it classic." Duke nodded. "So how'd that pecan pie come out?"

From:

okteiviakom

"Edible." She cracked about half a faint smile. "Not as good as the one at the fall festival, but... I wasn't expecting that, anyway. Never baked a thing in my life, before."

From:

betterthanaplan

"And you did it well enough you could eat it," Duke said. "That's one up on my first baking attempt."

His first baking attempt had been unsupervised at age seven and nearly burned down his dad's house.

From:

okteiviakom

"I don't think you waited over twenty years to do it."

The joy of being a late starter was that she could at least read instructions pretty well.

From:

betterthanaplan

"That's true. I'm not sure I waited more than 20 years to do much of anything." He looked up at the sky. "Except maybe get snowed on by powdered sugar. Though that's less of a decision than just a . . . weird experience that's kind of forced on us."

From:

okteiviakom

"Mm," Octavia agreed faintly, and fell silent.

While he was looking at the sky, she just found herself watching him. And maybe she thought that the shadows cast by the hoodie would hide her face if he happened to look back at her, or maybe it was just that she was tired and worn down from the excesses of last night, and it left her with less energy to keep guarded. Or both.

But under the few lights here, her expression was soft to a degree she usually tried not to show, the fondness in the faint curve of her lips more pronounced than she usually allowed.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke managed to catch a glimpse, looking down at her through the corner of his eye. After the last couple days, it was nice to see someone who was actually glad to see him. And not in a weird, creepy kind of way, like the Rev.

He reached out to brush some of the sugar off her hoodie, then attempted to shake it off his hand. And failed.

"At least it's prettier than the jello was."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia was glad to see him, there was no doubt about that. Her smile lost some of its faintness at the casual touch, too. Guess she really wasn't trying hard with the stoicism, tonight.

"True," she said, with only a very quiet snort at his struggle. "Even I can give it credit for that."

Right now, anyway. Context was everything.

From:

betterthanaplan

"Maybe we'll get a real snowfall soon. I bet the preserve looks gorgeous in the snow."

From:

okteiviakom

"It does." Well, she would know. "It's like it's glowing."

Snow was still a pretty exciting to her, with all of two winters behind her.

From:

betterthanaplan

"I look forward to seeing it, then." Duke's smile went teasing. "So tell me more about this holiday punch you had last night."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia was practically already rolling her eyes as soon as she caught his smile start to shift. (What? She paid close attention to his face.)

"It was very red," she drawled. For a second, it seemed like she was intending to leave it at that but then, after a sigh, and less dryly, she added, "There was a party at the Devil's Nest."

From:

betterthanaplan

"And you went to it," Duke said, sounding faintly proud. "Even though there were no jello shots. Did you have fun?"

From:

okteiviakom

"I got drunk?" Octavia offered, as if that was an actual answer. "Eric tried to get me to wear a holiday sweater."

Please note she'd ended up drunk enough to leave voicemails while catching powdered sugar on her tongue, yet still not actually drunk enough to wear one of those monstrosities.

From:

betterthanaplan

“And you told him where to go shove said sweater,” Duke guessed. “A gona does not wear festive sweaters, after all.”

Or color, really.

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia's thoughtful pause was brought on by a sudden attempt to picture Indra in something like that.

The somewhat befuddled way her face scrunched up slightly right after suggested it hadn't gone well.

"Yeah, definitely not." A beat. "I saw one that was black, at least, but. Nou, chof."

From:

betterthanaplan

That was fair. Duke was having trouble picturing Octavia in a holiday sweater, too.

Well, maybe the black one.

"A goth holiday sweater, huh? Somehow I can't even be surprised. Especially at a holiday party hosted by a vampire."

From:

okteiviakom

"And the guy wearing it claimed to be the actual Devil." Which she'd kind of had to Google to put into the proper context. Still, she shrugged. "So, you know, it was a Fandom party."

From:

betterthanaplan

"In any other place I've been, I'd roll my eyes at that and assume the guy was crazy. Around here . . . it could go either way. Seems sort of fitting, the Devil's Nest having an actual devil around."