My unicorn got run over by a tractor

They were in the middle of a session, one in which Duke was just rambling on about whatever the hell he happened to think about to avoid talking about anything of any importance (which Claire occasionally let him get away with just, she insisted, because sometimes he was entertaining), when Claire spotted it. Duke couldn't say for certain whether it had actually just appeared on the shelf while she was sitting there, or if he had actually put it there sometime the last time he was in town. He couldn't say for certain where he would have left it, just that he knew he'd left it out of the silver chest of weapons when he'd buried it in his father's grave.

The Crocker family journal.

She'd picked it up, idly turning it over in her hands, and Duke cut off mid-ramble. "Put that down."

Claire looked up, one immaculate eyebrow raised curiously, but she obeyed. "What is it?"

( Nothing good )

[NFB, NFI, OOC welcome. Adapted from Haven 3x09, "Sarah". CW for an existential crisis, and thoughts of self-harm in the last scene. And time travel mayhem and the usual death and misery through the rest]

After months of trying to get her on the phone, it was a little weird to be dodging Claire's calls. Duke couldn't explain it even to himself, but in the few days he'd been back, he'd gotten into the habit of sending her to voicemail, where she left him increasingly annoyed messages about looking after his mental health — or at least explaining what this 'time-locked' business was.

Every time his phone rang, his heart jumped hoping it was Octavia or Lucifer. Not that either of them tended to call rather than text first, but still. Maybe that was it. Maybe he was mad at Claire for not being them. Mad at her for being time-locked and then for not being the people he really wanted to talk to. Sure, that sounded totally rational and healthy. Definitely not a sign that she was right, and he needed therapy to keep from going completely downhill into outright craziness. . . .

Instead of calling her back, he flew to Baltimore.

As he'd expected when he made the decision the morning he told Audrey about the Hunter, he'd swung wildly back and forth between determination to grit his teeth and stick it out in Haven until Fandom let him back in, and a need to fling himself bodily against the barriers of the multiverse and demand to get back. His attempts to find the causeway to the island had all been unsuccessful, as had trying to reach Portalocity and request transport. The Portalocity app wouldn't even load on his phone anymore.

He wasn't getting back to Fandom until the multiverse was good and ready to let him.

( Things just got worse from there )

[NFB, NFI, OOC welcome. Adapted from Haven episode 3x03, "The Farmer". Warning: The trouble du jour is deeply fucked up. There's body horror, organ theft, manipulation, murder. . . .]

Jonas fucking Lester had stolen one of Duke's guns. One of his legally registered guns, all because Duke had refused to ferry an escaped felon to Canada. And then the dick had had the gall to die mysteriously, probably with Duke's damn gun on him, which meant that Duke was stuck in town until he was sure no one had used his goddamn gun to murder the fucker.

He called the theft into HPD first thing, managing to luck out and get an officer who miraculously didn't hate him while he was at it. That meant a nice little paper trail of deniability once the cops who did hate him figured out the gun Lester had was registered to Duke. Then he set out into town, figuring he might as well use the extra time to look more into his trouble, and what his dad had or hadn't done with it before he died.

( Oddly enough, no one really wanted to talk to Duke about whether or not his dad was a trouble vigilante. )

[NFB, NFI, OOC is welcome! open to one, OOC is still welcome! Events based on Haven ep 1x01. ENTER AUDREY!]

Duke was on his deck, doing some final preparations for taking the Rouge up the coast. He'd left a message for Rey, but otherwise was deliberately not thinking about the various responsibilities he was leaving behind by heading to Haven right now.

He wasn't running. He wasn't. He was going to Haven to find out about his trouble. About how to control it so he didn't hurt anyone again. So he didn't hurt Octavia again.

That wasn't running, that was being responsible.

The fact that he'd been spending the last several days trying not to run had nothing to do with this decision. Right?

[open! Duke is heading off for a canon run until like Friday. His class will be covered, I promise!]

Growing up in Haven — at least the way Duke had grown up in Haven — meant never noticing how pretty the town was. As Duke sailed into the harbor for the first time in more than a decade, it didn't feel like coming home. It felt like sailing into a postcard. Even the warehouses and fishing boats lining the marina looked picturesque. Fandom was gorgeous, all old-world brick and dramatic slopes; Haven was quaint, full of little brightly painted houses and lined with greenery and bluffs.

The Cape Rouge would stick out like a sore thumb. Good thing Duke had never gone for subtle.

( Home sweet ironically named home )

[canon set-up to be played with the delightful havens_finest_ass, at whatever speed it ends up happening. NFB due to distance, natch]

[Content note: lack of communication leads to punching herein. Also, I have been enabled; WE'RE BREAKING CANON, WOO]