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

Duke sighed. "God, I hope not. I don't actually like getting into fights."

He was a jaka not a gona, after all.

From:

okteiviakom

That was a part of the reason for Octavia's genuine concern. Somewhere under the layer of unimpressed.

She crossed her arms, and nodded at him. "Where else?"

That question might've needed a little more elaboration. Or maybe it didn't?

From:

betterthanaplan

Oh, Duke knew exactly what she meant. That didn't mean he had to let her know that, though.

"Just the one in the bar. I promise I didn't pick any fights in jail afterwards."

From:

okteiviakom

And he was getting an eyeroll for that. Which wasn't a cover for anything - before he got to the jail part, anyway.

"Where else are you bruised?"

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke sighed. "I'm fine, Tavi." Which still wasn't actually an answer to her question. "I took a shot to the ribs and one to the back of the neck, that's all."

Well, a chair to the back of the neck. One which had taken him out for long enough to get arrested. Still, he was standing there talking, so he was clearly fine.

From:

okteiviakom

"Yeah, because we always accept 'fine' for an answer, Duke," Octavia drawled. They clearly had these 'I'm fine' conversations too often. "I'm just asking because I don't want to hurt you because I didn't know about something."

Also because she had a need to mentally catalog the injuries of people she cared about. But, that too.

From:

betterthanaplan

And yet, Duke would continue to insist he was fine. At best, he'd say it as a reflex before mentioning the actual, not-fine symptoms.

"I promise to tell you if something hurts," Duke said, softening just a little. "Right now, an aspirin's handling the headache perfectly well."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia didn't soften any. "So if I hug you, are you going to wince?"

... Okay, so something softened. It just wasn't her tone. Out of necessity.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke blinked.

". . . You're going to hug me?"

They'd made it to casual touches and brushing sugar off each other, but Octavia really didn't seem the hugging type.

From:

okteiviakom

Oh, but she was. In specific circumstances.

It was also a very fragile thing.

Octavia rolled her eyes, almost defensively. "Never mind."

From:

betterthanaplan

"I'm not objecting," Duke said quickly. "My ribs aren't even really sore anymore." His head had taken worse. "I'm just surprised. I don't really get a lot of hugs."

From:

okteiviakom

"Not surprising with that reaction," Octavia replied, half-mumbling the words in an effort to fumble for something that sounded softer, to balance out the way her posture had stiffened up some.

From:

betterthanaplan

If it wasn't a random hot chick trying to get in his pants or, like, Bill, it usually took Duke several seconds to even realize a hug was happening. He really didn't get a lot of non-sexual physical affection, okay?

This was getting uncomfortable. And that wasn't allowed. Time to turn it into a joke! Duke gave her his broad, lazy smile and opened his arms. "C'mon, then. Show me how a gona hugs."

He figured it was about a fifty-fifty shot that he might be about to get stabbed.

From:

okteiviakom

He didn't. So, that was a definite plus!

Octavia stared at his smile for a moment that was long enough to make it clear only one of them had coping strategies that dealt with trying to make uncomfortable situations less so.

And then she said,"No." Probably not much of a surprise, at that point. No matter how much she actually wanted something else. She shook that off with a shake of her head, looking away. "Let's just eat."

They usually did better with food, right?

From:

betterthanaplan

It wasn't a surprise, no. It did hurt though, just a little.

Not that he'd let on. "Food it is. That's a more useful way of showing affection anyway." He said it like a joke, but feeding people was actually a big part of his love language.

He led the way into the galley and started pulling dishes out of his fridge. "I've got turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce. . . . All the classics."

From:

okteiviakom

"What are you worried about happening? When you touch people?" "Rejection."

The irony, right?

He wasn't showing anything, but it still felt like the wrong thing as soon as she'd done it. (Funny, considering she hadn't wanted to say it in the first place, right?) And so there was a thrumming in Octavia's veins, telling her to run as soon as his back was turned. But she just followed him instead, her crossed arms shifting until it looked more like she was holding herself.

"So mostly foreign to me," she said mildly as she watched him, resting her hip against a convenient surface.

From:

betterthanaplan

Being social was so complicated, wasn't it.

"That just makes it more of a treat," Duke decided. He straightened up from the fridge and caught sight of that self-hug, and paused.

Shit. He'd screwed up.

He set the last dish on the counter and reached over to pull her in. "C'mere." It was a little awkward -- he really didn't get hugged very often -- but hopefully she could tell it was genuine. "You shouldn't take me so seriously. There's a reason the Trig word for 'thief' kind of sounds like 'jackass'."

From:

okteiviakom

Being social was so complicated that this wasn't even the first time this week that Octavia had screwed it up this badly.

And it wasn't only a little awkward on his side, either. Most of Octavia's post-childhood hugs had been doled out after (and sometimes during) life-threatening situations, with adrenaline running high. And this wasn't that.

Though something of the clinginess in the way she embraced him back - once she'd got her wits together enough to do that - was a little reminiscent of it, though. "Not just that," she mumbled, after a breath. "Sounds like joka, too."

It did not mean 'joker', no matter how much it sounded like it.

Edited Date: 2019-12-03 04:52 pm (UTC)

From:

betterthanaplan

Well, Duke was just going to hold on right back as long as she was clinging.

"Is that better or worse than being called a 'flapkrasha'?"

What? It totally sounded like an insult to him.

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia gave that a quiet huff, despite herself. She kind of wished her drunk self hadn't let that one slip. No matter how she'd been thinking of that word for him for... a while.

"Much worse," she murmured. "Flapkrasha isn't bad."

From:

betterthanaplan

It just meant he might float away, apparently.

"Glad to hear it," Duke said. "You know you're going to have to tell me what it means now, right?"

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia didn't let him go, but she did pull back just enough that she could peer up at him.

"Joka?" she asked, a little too tired in her delivery to fully hit a mock-innocent tone. "Means 'fucker'."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke laughed. "Fair. And flapkrasha?"

From:

okteiviakom

His laugh had rapidly become one of Octavia's favorite things to hear. From this close a distance, it very nearly pulled a smile from her. There was definitely a slight twitch.

Yet, still:

"I don't know if I should tell you."

From:

betterthanaplan

"I mean, I guess you don't have to," Duke mused, resting his comfortably against her waist. "But if you don't, I'll just have to make it up." He looked up, assuming a thoughtful expression. "Let's see, it's definitely a noun. I'm thinking . . . circus monkey."