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:

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."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia blinked. "... I didn't even make that connection."

Look, there had been punch, okay.

From:

betterthanaplan

"Really? I assumed it was why he called himself 'the Devil' in the first place, instead of going with Satan or the Adversary or something." Duke shook his head, looking amused. "I'm actually kind of hoping he really is the Devil. The Rev back home would throw an absolute fit."

And after the weekend Duke had had, he was all for pissing Revered Driscoll off as hard as possible. Even if only in his head.

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia shrugged. This time, it caused the tiniest puff of powdered sugar on one side. "Religion's not really my strong suit. He seemed kind of smug to me, if that makes a difference?"

From:

betterthanaplan

"Pride is one of the deadly sins," Duke said, shrugging back (and releasing his own puffs of sugar). "And smugness seems to go hand in hand with a lot of religious types anyway. At least the Christian ones."

His opinion on the subject was somewhat biased, having grown up under the shadow of a man who wanted him to become what amounted to a holy warrior.

Not that the Rev had told him all that, just yet. He had to earn it first.

Edited Date: 2019-12-02 05:54 pm (UTC)

From:

okteiviakom

Well, it simply wouldn't do to unleash all the creepiness all at once.

"Think that's another thing that didn't really survive the apocalypse," Octavia replied in a drawl, as she reached out - and up - to flick at some of the sugar that remained behind on his shoulder. "You know, despite 'the Ark'."

Or, more probably, she just hadn't been exposed to much of it since her own family hadn't exactly been religious.

From:

betterthanaplan

"Christianity, maybe," Duke said, leaning down a little to give her better access to that shoulder. "But I'm going to guess at the very least the krus have their own sorts of religions. Humans are really good at giving special meaning to -- basically anything, really, when you get right down to it." He looked back up at the sky. "Should we go inside, maybe? I can feel my blood sugar spike just standing here."

From:

okteiviakom

"The ground was the religion of the Ark," Octavia noted, giving the sugar a few more idle flicks before pulling her hand back.

... Well, it went part of the way down his arm, first. But anyway. She glanced up towards the sky, too. "Probably not a bad idea."

From:

betterthanaplan

". . . Makes sense." Duke angled his head towards the gangplank and led the way over, tromping through the powdered drifts. "This is so weird. It looks like snow, but it makes the wrong noise and it's nowhere near cold enough. . . ."

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