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

"Well, I'm post-apocalypse, so..."

Shrug.

Followed by stretching her foot out again to corral the porg.

From:

betterthanaplan

"Well sure. But when in Rome. . . ." Duke finished the sandwiches, plated them, and held one out for her. "Eat delicious leftovers sandwiches. And -- find at least some reason to celebrate every now and then."

From:

okteiviakom

"I do," Octavia replied, as she took the plate. Didn't shrug this time, but she made sure her tone was light when she added, "You came back, didn't you?"

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke dipped his head and cleared his throat. Light tone or not, that one hit home enough to make him blush faintly.

"I did. Though if I'm all you're celebrating. . . . That's a lot to put on a guy."

From:

okteiviakom

And don't think Octavia didn't notice. "I said they were small things." The things that made her happy. So maybe it wasn't a lot?

But maybe it was.

And since they were already down this road... Octavia nodded down at the porg. "Em nou laik flapkrasha." Holding the plate in one hand, she tapped two fingers against his shoulder with her other one. A specific shoulder. A specific placement of her hand on said shoulder, too.

Over the skull, and the butterflies.

"Dison... laik flapkrasha."

From:

betterthanaplan

The trouble was, she was also basically just tapping him. It took Duke a few moments to work out what she actually meant.

"Butterflies," he said finally. "You called me a butterfly."

There were so many potential meanings to that. The one he'd talked about when she first really looked at his tattoo, that they were pretty but fed on the dead; the one that came from knowing about their life cycle, how they went through such a profound metamorphosis when they came into adulthood -- and then only lived a comparatively short time.

Most importantly, the one that came from how she'd followed calling him that with "don't float away".

". . . Wait, do butterflies where you're from crash into things?"

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia knew her gesture was a vague one, but he was a briyon jaka and she'd put her faith in him getting it.

(And, anyway. He was the butterfly. So that worked, too.)

He was also perhaps putting too much stock into drunken Octavia's coherence: the floating away was actually part of a different animal analogy. Though, considering the things she'd said before about the whole 'stuck' business...

Anyway. "No." Well, the blue ones she'd seen hadn't, anyway. "By itself, krasha means a wave. So maybe it's like a wave in the ar."

From:

betterthanaplan

"Huh. Poetic."

A flying wave. He could get behind that.

"I bet there's a national butterfly day. We could make that your holiday."

He could finally figure out a butterfly house that would let them have a private tour, maybe.

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia's expression turned soft and wry at the same time. "I don't need a holiday, Duke."

She would, however, not say no to seeing butterflies again.

From:

betterthanaplan

"Everyone should have a holiday," Duke said. "There's a reason we invented them in the first place."

From:

okteiviakom

"I'm not everyone," Octavia retorted, "I'm just me."

Quietly quippy though that may have been, she had considered herself separate from 'everyone' pretty much her entire life.

From:

betterthanaplan

Yeah, Duke was giving her a knowing look for that one.

"I don't know. Maybe you not being 'everyone' means you should get two. Not zero."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia's nose wrinkled. Just a little. "Telling you what you wanted to know was supposed to distract you from the holiday thing, not make it worse."

It was not a very serious complaint. (You could tell by the nose.)

From:

betterthanaplan

"It did distract me," Duke said, entirely unrepentant. He grabbed his plate and headed for the table, the porg hopping excitedly along behind. (Just wait until it figured out the powder still clinging to Duke's pants was edible. . . .) "Just, you know, not for very long."

From:

okteiviakom

"Well, usually I skip distractions," Octavia drawled as she followed him (and, technically, also the porg), "and just go straight for knocking people out."

She was good at that. He'd seen proof, now!

From:

betterthanaplan

He had! And even if he hadn't, he'd still believe her.

"Ah, but if you'd knocked me out, you wouldn't get you sandwich."

Also, he already had a head injury here, he'd really appreciate not being knocked out right now.

From:

okteiviakom

"I was already holding it by the time you needed distracting," Octavia retorted, as she took a seat. "But you're too tall for headbutting, anyway."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke tilted his head and shrugged, conceding that point.

"Not without a fair amount of extra effort, anyway." He poked at her leg with his foot. "Eat your sandwich. Tell me what you think."

From:

okteiviakom

"Don't tell me what to do," Octavia replied without missing a beat. While picking up her sandwich because being contrary came naturally to her.

And also, she was hungry. With how rotten she'd felt for half the day, eating had kind of not been as much of a thing as it would have been on a regular day.

From:

betterthanaplan

That was the trouble with hangovers -- the things that were most likely to make them better, like eating filling food and drinking water -- were some of the last things you felt like doing.

"Not telling," Duke said, picking up his own for a large bite. "Warning." He tilted his head. Another porg hopped up onto the back of the bench, and was making wide, puppy eyes at the food.

From:

okteiviakom

"Warning?"

That came out only a little bit sandwich-y. Her table manners still weren't the best, though.

"What, eat it before the porgs do?"

From:

betterthanaplan

"Exactly," Duke said. "One of them stole my pizza the other day."

It'd been his own fault for feeding them pizza. In his defense, he'd had so much of it left after wee!tiny weekend.