My unicorn got run over by a tractor

Duke was looking much healthier walking back to the boat than he'd been heading into work, today. He was also looking way more frustrated.

"Arthropods!" he called as he slouched up the gangplank. "Humidifier! Guys from Rome!"

Someone had had to release a trouble at the diner today. The good news? He'd managed to control what came out. The bad news?

He had absolutely no idea how to make it stop.

[For the partners and SO MUCH SLOWPLAY please!]

Octavia had come home from the club last night reporting on Tiny's weirdly animate toothpick village. That, plus the radio reports, had been more than enough to convince everyone that it was time to nope out of town for a bit.

Mindful of the difficulties that portals had posed recently and Octavia's admission that their vacation spots had felt like Fandom replacements, it was decided that this particular noping out would happen aboard Duke's lovingly restored mid-century Dutch sail boat.

Something had unknotted in Duke when they hit the open ocean. He was still pale and sounding like he'd been swallowing sand, and his body felt like one big cramp. But at least now, the potential casualties of the troubles bouncing around inside him were nice and limited. And, well. . . .

Of all the really terrible things that had happened to him in his life, very few had happened at sea.

He was up with the dawn that morning, checking the rigging and manning the rudder and just generally enjoying for once knowing just what needed doing and how to do it.

It felt good. And it had been ages since anything had felt that way.

[for the partners! NFB due to distance.]

Duke woke up . . . feeling perfectly fine, actually. Or as perfectly fine as he ever did. Perhaps his body had built up an immunity to the pollen after all these years. Perhaps he'd eaten some particularly quirky yogurt as a depression snack the day before. Perhaps -- and this was the unlikeliest of all if you asked him -- whatever was in charge of the island's whims and quirks was just giving him a damned break this time.

Whatever it was, he was not feeling any extra-strong urges today. He was, however, bemusedly watching a pair of porgs chase each other around the deck while he drank his first coffee of the day, and wondering if it was a sign that spring had finally sprung.

". . . Aww, c'mon, guys," he said, as one porg finally caught the other. "Get a room. I know you have access to several belowdecks."

He didn't even have a salad for them to be in front of! Come on, now.

[open! I'm trying a whole "30 minutes working, 5 minutes walking" thing after listening to NPR yesterday and it's maybe actually doing a good thing for my brain!]

Duke had made it out to the diner this week, and then had been . . . let's call it "thoroughly exhausted" by Lucifer after. So he'd spent a couple days recovering, alternating between napping and puttering around his boat.

So he hadn't seen a certain piece of news until this morning.

There weren't many celebrity deaths that he felt much more than just sort of a vague sadness about, but this one hit a little close to home. So he was out on the deck this morning with a bottle of rum and his guitar, idly strumming along to a song on his phone.

[open for slow play. It may be tacky but bah. No small amount of my personal playlist for Duke is Buffett, m'kay?]

The portal let off at the end of the docks. Duke walked through, his head down, shoulders hunched, looking like a man under attack.

He wasn't anymore, at least not from the outside.

He paused just long enough to get his bearings, then started down the docks, not waiting for his partners to follow through the portal. He wanted to -- something. He didn't know what. Yell or hit something or dive into the ocean or maybe get on the OceaNyx and sail off over the horizon and just. Disappear.

He was pretty sure no one was going to let him do that last one, though.

[for said partners, please! And the return and general mood is fine for broadcast, but maybe not the precise details of conversations]

"Double red-eyes . . . Straight, no chasers," Duke announced, holding up the coffees he'd picked up for Audrey and Nathan when he and his partners had hit up the shop on their way over. "And we wrote down everything we did yesterday, like you asked."

Audrey accepted the coffee Duke offered her, and the piece of notebook paper along with it. "Thank you." She gave him a smile that went wan when she looked at Octavia and Lucifer. "All of you."

( And so begins what will hopefully the worst Sunday of Duke's entire life. And not just the worst Sunday of his life SO FAR. )

[Following this. Adapted from episode 4x07, "Lay Me Down", with the fantastic my_own_advocate and okteiviakom. Warning for NPC character death. NFB, NFI, OOC welcome]

( Duke Crocker lay on the bed of the Cape Rouge, bandaged and bruised. )

Duke jerked awake with a choked gasp, fighting to sit up against the weight of his partners' entangled limbs, dream-Octavia's words still echoing in his ears.

Who knew the word 'girlfriend' could be so terrifying?

[Len asked an AI to write a h/c fic of our OT3 and naturally I needed to turn the result into a nightmare for my boy. Thanks Bing! For the partners please, :D]

Duke took a deep breath as he stepped through the portal onto the remote campground they'd booked for Octavia's birthday. "Ahhh," he said. "Smell that pine-y, sea air. Feels good!"

If, you know, a little cold. Since this was Maine in October.

"What do you think, Natshana? Does this place look good?"

[for the partners!]

Duke had wandered into town for a bit that afternoon, and returned with some take out (conch salad and guava duff), plenty of fruit . . . and a guitar.

The Fin & Tonic was well stocked, but it had a bit of a dearth of musical instruments, in Duke's opinion.

He set the food up on a blanket on the deck, looking out at the water, along with some cans of goombay punch, then leaned back and started tuning up the guitar. After a bit of noodling about to warm up, he eventually settled into something that seemed at least a little appropriate for the setting, if maybe a touch appropriative.

"Won't you help to sing,
These songs of freedom.
'Cause all I ever have,
Redemption song.
Redemption song."

Islandy and moody, and maybe a bit hopeful. Fit this enforced vacation like a T, if you asked Duke.

[expecting one!]