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

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. . . ."

From:

okteiviakom

"It's really not our holiday," Octavia replied as she set the porg down on the floor and gave it a nudge to go elsewhere. (It... probably wouldn't.) After she straightened up again, she settled into a lean against the counter, to watch him do his thing. "So the pie was just about it. We're not really holiday people."

From:

betterthanaplan

"No holidays on the ground?" Duke asked. He knew about the Ark holiday, and was absolutely not going to bring it up. He buttered the bread slices, heat up the frying pan, and started putting the first sandwich together.

From:

okteiviakom

They'd tried to have that one on the ground, too, and Octavia wasn't going to be bringing that up, either.

She just shrugged. "Probably, but nothing I ever really got to be a part of."

From:

betterthanaplan

Nothing could ever go right in her world, could it.

"Okay, how about . . . personal holidays? I think I remember you saying you didn't do much for your birthday before this year, but are there any, like, anniversaries or anything you like to honor?"

From:

okteiviakom

"No." She shook her head, but there was something shruggy about it too. "What's the point?"

Someone had been in survival mode for a long time.

From:

betterthanaplan

"You. . . ." Duke frowned. He'd never actually thought about this before. "You look back on your life so far. See how far you've come."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia raised her eyebrows and gave him a wry look.

"That doesn't sound like something I would want to do."

From:

betterthanaplan

"What, you don't think you've come a long way from the girl under the floor? I'm sure you've got at least some milestones you wouldn't mind remembering."

From:

okteiviakom

The porg was still bumbling around their feet, craning upward, feeling the call of warm bread and butter on a pan.

Octavia glanced down, and used one of her feet to gently nudge it further away, fully aware that it was going to be back in a moment.

"I don't like looking back."

From:

betterthanaplan

"Alright. Anniversaries are out," Duke said. He flipped the sandwich in the pan, somehow miraculously managing to do so without the whole thing falling apart. Sorry, porg, no scraps for you yet. "What makes you happy, then? You can pick a day and celebrate that."