The Deck of the Cape Rouge, Wednesday Afternoon

[okteiviakom]

Octavia was starting to feel like she was on a slightly more even keel, post-Haven. Things with Duke were still... maybe a little off, but, they were working on that, bit by bit. And while she hadn't really managed to unpack everything with her therapist yet, she'd at least opened up about some of it.

Things were moving forward.

And this afternoon, Octavia herself was moving. Specifically, on her yoga mat rolled out on the deck of the Rouge. It wasn't super warm out, but that was fine.

It felt like she could breathe.

[ooc: Open! ETA: NFB on all the sex talk, pls and thank you!]

Comments

[betterthanaplan]

"Now there's a plan," Duke said, after watching her move for a few moments. "Mind if I join you?"

He hadn't done his yoga in ages. It'd be great to get back into it.

[my_own_advocate]

"I'll watch," Lucifer called from the door, and took a sip from his flask.

[okteiviakom]

"Of course you will," Octavia drawled back to him. Then she looked up at Duke. "I don't mind," she said, softer, because she really didn't. "Please do."

She couldn't remember the last time she'd even seen him on a mat.

[betterthanaplan]

Definitely since before they went to Fandom. Long before then.

"I'll grab my mat," he said, and ducked back below decks to do just that.

If he waited, he might lose his nerve.

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer chuckled, stepping away from the door just in time to let Duke through. He waited until Duke was out of earshot-- "That's promising."

[okteiviakom]

"That he wants to?" Octavia asked, looking back towards the door before going back to moving to her next pose. "Yeah."

[my_own_advocate]

"Yes," Lucifer said, smiling a little. "Date night went reasonably well, too."

[okteiviakom]

"Saturday?" Good."

Octavia didn't tend to ask. Like date nights had that little haze of privacy around them when it was just two of the three.

But that didn't mean she didn't like hearing it.

"I guess we'll build normal out of all this yet."

[my_own_advocate]

"It might take some time," Lucifer said, "But we'll get somewhere."

He found a spot to sit, not far from her mat, and smiled.

"Seems like we're quite capable of bouncing back, so to speak."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia gave a hum, a soft little agreement, while she stretched.

"Looks that way, doesn't it?"

[my_own_advocate]

"If we get enough breaks," Lucifer said.

And watched her stretch.

[okteiviakom]

It was a very nice stretch. Thorough, and felt good.

She focused more on that, for a moment.

[bangwithawhimper]

Ginny had a handful of must see locations, like 'Dite's and Caritas, and of course, the docks.

Or, as she liked to call it, the Bay of Whump Potential.

She barely contained a delighted squeal when she saw two-thirds of her favorite OT3 out on the deck of the rusty freighter.

"Yes!" she cheered. "Oh, stretch, Tavi!"

Pet names were totally for general usage, right?

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer blinked. He looked up from Octavia towards the dock. "Were you expecting anyone...?"

[okteiviakom]

"No," Octavia said, frowning towards the dock. "Even if I was, they wouldn't call me that."

Which was why she was now straightening up from her stretch for a better look towards the new person, looking wary.

[bangwithawhimper]

"Yeah, hi, I won the contest," Ginny said, as though that should explain everything. "And you two are just." She bit her lip and rolled her eyes happily. "The hottest."

[my_own_advocate]

"I know," Lucifer said quizzically. To which one? To both? Either way, he was rising to his feet. "What contest?"

Why was Duke taking so long with that damned mat?

[okteiviakom]

Octavia stayed silent, because Lucifer had just asked a potentially good question.

But that wary look and the frown above it were not going anywhere.

[betterthanaplan]

"You would not believe what the porgs did to my damned --" Duke stopped in the door to the galley and stared at the strange woman on the docks. ". . . Hello."

[bangwithawhimper]

"Dukey!" Ginny cooed. "When are you going to get in on the action with your partners already? Everyone knows you're the subbiest sub."

[my_own_advocate]

"Oh my," Lucifer said, eyes widening.

Just.

What?

Omg.

[okteiviakom]

... And now Octavia's frown was just confused. Because she was not up on the terminology enough to get what was actually being said, here.

Also maybe a little bit because no one called Duke Dukey.

"What the hell is going on?"

[betterthanaplan]

"What they said," Duke said, pointing to his partners. "Do I . . . know you?"

If she was from Haven somehow, he was throwing himself into the sea.

[bangwithawhimper]

"God, no," Ginny said, then smirked at Lucifer. "No pun intended . . . this time." She clapped her hands together and bounced on her toes. "I'm just so thrilled to finally get to meet the only characters on this show brave enough to go there with their sexy times. Fandom has become so vanilla!"

She'd only been watching for, like, two years. But she'd heard stories, and that made her an expert.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia was down in the hold.

Had been, for a while.

She'd run out of space to run away in, and this was the last dead end. Just... this, with so much storage, things broken and cleaned up and fixed and put away again, and the punching bag hanging from the ceiling in the middle of everything like an accusation.

(Are you planning to go hit anything?

Wasn't that what she did?)

Octavia had ignored it. Had paced, had -- pulled out some of the boxes that Magnus had packed all the things from the old apartment into, had opened them, had started... doing what? Sorting them, like she was in any state to know what she would want to keep, like the urge wasn't there to dump them all into the ocean and herself right along after them. It was desperation for a distraction, something to do that could somehow take away the feeling like someone had unceremoniously torn off the top layer of her skin.

She'd only stopped when her gasps for breath actually turned into hyperventilating.

She'd been sitting on the cold floor, since then, still clutching one of the books from the boxes. Feeling safer than she had up in the galley with the others, maybe, but not better. The price of safety was high when it was built on avoiding being vulnerable by separating yourself from the ones that made you that way.

(But they'd let her go, too.

And she kept thinking about the hug she hadn't dared to interrupt by calling out. And she felt resentment, then hated herself for it within the same breath.)

Octavia had been down in the hold for a while.

And would be for a long time still.