okteiviakom | The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, Sunday Evening

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The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, Sunday Evening

Octavia was still planning to try sailing to Haven. She was just doing it concurrently with trying to figure out how all the places she'd been on the Ground fit on what the east coast looked in this time. The table she was sitting at in the galley was a mess of charts and notes, and in the middle of it all, there was a hand-drawn map. Octavia had sketched out the coastline, and had spent most of the day marking down both the present-day names she could find on her map app as well as the approximate locations of places from the Ground.

It was getting late, but she was still working on it. Right now, she was hard at work trying to figure out whether it could really be as simple as this time's Annapolis turning into Polis by her time.

... Okay, right now, she was kind of slumped over the table, her head cushioned on one arm.

Just resting her eyes, just for a little bit.

[ooc: For that guy that's returning. The tall one.]

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And sober Octavia was more aware of that than drunk Octavia was.

She gave his hand a squeeze, then glanced down at his food carton. "Are you done?"

"Yeah." Duke slid the carton aside. "Let's go to bed, huh?"

Octavia slid hers aside too, and got up. Already tugging him to his feet, but gently.

That was about to be a theme.

"Let's go to bed, snogon."

He could use some gentleness in his life.

He wasn't nearly as graceful getting to his feet as he usually would be, and he swallowed a groan on the way, then paused to arch his back a little with a wince.

"I'm going to be one giant knot tomorrow."

Octavia let him stretch before she'd start tugging him towards the bedroom.

"I don't reallh know much of anything about massages," she noted, watching him. "But maybe you can tell me what to do?"

"Massage might just hurt right now," Duke admitted. "I have some tiger balm somewhere, though. Maybe just rub that in on my back?"

And get a good look at the bands of bruising from the steps.

"I didn't mean right now, anyway," Octavia replied mildly. In part to combat the immediate, useless worry that came with the words 'might just hurt'. "Whatever you need."

"Should be in the bedside cabinet," Duke said. He sat slowly on the edge of the bed, started to lean towards the cabinet, then stopped with a wince. "Little octagonal tub. Smells minty."

He was moving like an old man.

Octavia couldn't help the urge to press a quick kiss to his hair before she went to dig through the cabinet.

Didn't take very long. She held the little tub up. "This it?"

He was way too aware of that himself, yeah. Though compared to how he'd been moving earlier in the day, he was downright spry.

"That's the stuff." He started carefully pulling off his shirt. There was a little bruising on the center of his chest, where Nathan had pressed against his sternum, but it had nothing on the bruises along his back. "If you could rub some of that into the skin along my spine, that'd be great. Not too much, though, a little goes a long way."

Octavia nodded, her gaze flicking down to the bruise on his chest. She tried not to show much of a reaction, and was mostly successful.

Not so much when she crawled onto the bed behind him, and saw his back. Couldn't stop the instinctive hiss.

(There it was again, the guilt that wanted to convince her she could have stopped this if she'd just gone with him.)

"You sure you want me to touch this?"

"It'll be worse later if you don't," Duke said softly. "Just . . . a light touch."

He'd probably skip the nightmares tonight just by virtue of the fact that it'd be next to impossible to get comfortable.

"Okay."

At least it was something she could do. Octavia got a little bit of the balm onto her fingertips, and tried to just focus on what she was doing, not letting her eyes stray to the rest of the bruises as she worked the balm into his skin, down along his spine.

She kept her touch very, very light.

Duke smiled. “You can go a little harder than that. I’ll tell you if it’s too much.”

"Yu swega klin?" Octavia asked quietly.

She was already doing it, though, getting that little bit more assured with her touch.

"Sha." Duke hummed softly and leaned a little into her touch. It ached when she hit one of the bruises, but her hands felt so good otherwise. The last person to touch him there, other than the doctors and nurses and paramedics, had been Helena. "I missed you. So much."

"Ai don mema yu we, seintaim."

Understatement. Octavia considered sharing some of the things she'd been doing while he'd been gone, but decided he really didn't need to hear about those tonight.

Her fingers worked slowly, thoroughly, but she was already halfway down his back.

"People kept telling me you'd be back, but..."

"It's hard not to think the worst," Duke said, closing his eyes. "I remember."

"People also kept telling me I came back," Octavia added, with a very faintly wry tone.

They both knew that wasn't exactly the straight-forward comfort others might have thought it was.

Duke reached his hand back, looking for hers. "I'm glad it didn't take me years."

Even if he did come back a little bit broken.

Octavia took his hand. Only needed one to handle the last few inches at the small of his back.

"I would've welcomed you even if it took you decades," she murmured. "But I'm glad it didn't."

"You sure about that?" Duke asked, his teasing tone not quite fully covering for the insecurity underlining the question. "You didn't see what a wreck I'll be when I get old."

Octavia leaned forward, and pressed a soft, careful kiss to the back of his shoulder.

And then stayed there, as she said, "I know you."

"I don't know if I can do it again," Duke said softly. "Even if it is . . . slow. Natural."

Octavia sounded like she didn't want to ask.

"What?"

She did it anyway.

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