okteiviakom | A Secluded Stretch of Beach, San Diego, Wednesday Evening

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A Secluded Stretch of Beach, San Diego, Wednesday Evening

Octavia and Duke's zoo trip had been nice. And now they were hoping the dinner that was about to cap their devilless outing would be good, too.

As with all the previous dinners on this vacation, they'd skipped dining at the actual restaurant, but they'd been by one to pick up a whole bunch of things in picnic-sized portions to try from their menu. Now, all of their various containers were spread across a blanket on the beach, just waiting to be tasted.

And, at the far end of the spread, there was a sloth plush. Because there just was. Sometimes these things just happened.

"I've already forgotten what half these things are," Octavia admitted as she settled down onto the blanket, and reached for one of the containers near her.

[ooc: NFB, for the guy.]

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"You'd know," Octavia murmured.

And soothed that particular oh-so-rude remark by leaning up for a quick kiss.

And got a very amused kiss as a result.

"That was good. I walked right into it."

"I may have spent too much time with Lucifer, lately."

Sure, blame the partner who wasn't there.

"I think he'd say there's no such thing," Duke said. "Don't worry. I like when you get just a little bit mean."

Octavia snorted softly, and tried to tuck the errant strand of hair hanging in his face back behind his ear. "But only just a little bit."

"Right," Duke agreed. "Well. To me, anyway."

"Does that mean I can be meaner to other people?"

"Hmm." Duke made a dramatic show of thinking about that. "Are they people I like?"

Whereas Octavia chose not to miss a beat.

"Probably not."

(Seriously speaking, she would absolutely be mean to one or two people he liked. But this wasn't serious, so...)

"Well then, you should feel free to be as mean as you want to, then."

He wasn't thinking of those people at all, saying this. (Part of him had come to the conclusion that they were probably dead. And so he tried not to think about them too often at all. You know, as mentally healthy folk do.)

"Good choice," Octavia said, and kissed him again. Nothing too lingering, but very sweet all the same.

"But I'm saving the little bit mean for you," she added. "And mostly I'm just trying not to be mean at all."

"I know," Duke assured her. "And mostly you're succeeding admirably."

"I'm just trying, in general," Octavia murmured. A little more quiet. "To be better."

To get better.

"I know," Duke said. He gave her a little squeeze and rubbed her arm. "I know you're trying all the time. Even if sometimes I get dumb and stop seeing it."

Octavia watched him for a short moment, her teeth worrying the inside of her bottom lip until she spoke again.

"When Hope was on Fandom," she murmured, "I saw a future without you. Either of you." She shook her head. "I don't want that for myself."

"A future back on the Ground," Duke said. "Or -- in your old universe, anyway." Since the Ground was apparently dead.

"On Skyring."

That sounded smaller.

"Which is... a planet I know nothing about."

"Is it bad that I'm hoping you never find out more about it?"

"I just said it's a not a future I want," Octavia pointed out, with a tiny little tilt of her lips that did not even try to reach her eyes. "So... No."

"You said not having us with you was what you didn't want," Duke pointed out in return. "But I'm glad. That you don't want to go back."

Octavia's previous experience had not exactly left her with the ability to believe a future back in her universe could ever be a future with them in it.

"I don't," she said. "There's nothing there for me."

Except a terrorist and her daughter, apparently.

"Some other you managed to find something, though," Duke said. "Maybe that's . . . hopeful. Even back in all that nastiness and shit, without access to therapy or anything, some version of you still found something of a family."

"I guess," Octavia muttered, leaning in a little to drop her head against his shoulder. "I liked Hope."

There was a weird sliver of guilt mixed in that.

“She seemed like a good kid,” Duke said. “What little I saw of her.”

He’d been a bit distracted by the mind-controlling kid of his own, that weekend.

And Octavia had still been full-tilt in isolation mode.

"She was," she said. "And deserved a bigger life than she was getting."

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