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!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

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."

From:

okteiviakom

Even as Octavia snorted, the beginnings of a smile got a little more pronounced. "Circuses didn't survive the apocalypse," she rasped. "En yu nou bilaik flinga."

From:

betterthanaplan

"That's probably for the best. That'd be the deadliest goddamn circus ever." Duke gave her an extra little squeeze, even as he continued to look thoughtfully past her. "Alright, not a monkey. Something that flaps and crashes. A really clumsy bird?"

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia let another quiet but amused sound escape.

"Ai fig raun daun bilaik porg."

A few of her fingertips rubbed idly against his back. Just a little, just lightly.

From:

betterthanaplan

"Well sure. If anything earns the name 'flap-crasher', it's a porg."

As though summoned, one of the Cape Rouge's feral porgs hopped up onto the counter and made interested noises at the leftover mashed potatoes.

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia glanced over at it with a little sigh, already reluctantly pulling away a little, to reach out to shoo the bird with one hand.

(Why it was her natural instinct to designate herself a porg-minder, she really didn't know.)

"Strikon, nou ste gon yu."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke wasn't complaining. They listened to her better than they did to him.

"We should maybe eat this stuff before they do," Duke noted.

He was not letting go of that hug until she did, though.

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia dropped her head against his shoulder for just a second, and gave him a squeeze with the arm that wasn't already reaching for the porg.

Then she pulled away. Needed both of her hands for scooping up the bird before it actually made good on its curiosity.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke rested his head against hers until she pulled away, then immediately scooped up the potato dish to move it out of porg range before grabbing some plates.

"Sandwich sound good?" he asked. "It's a pretty standard way to eat Thanksgiving leftovers."

From:

okteiviakom

For awkward huggers, they'd done okay, right?

Octavia hushed the porg as it made disgruntled noises at the robbery of the potatoes. She was going to set it down in... a second.

"Sandwich is fine. You're the expert."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke didn't even wince! See, he told her he was fine.

"Comparatively," he agreed. He pulled out some bread, and after a moment grabbed a frying pan as well, because nothing beat a hot sandwich on a -- well, moderately cool, not-actually-snowy day. It was the principle of the thing. "You and Bellamy end up doing anything other than pecan pie for the day? I mean, I know it's not your holiday or anything, but still. . . ."