The Cape Rouge, Late Friday Morning

[okteiviakom]

So Octavia couldn't touch living plants without sapping all life out of them. So she couldn't go out into the preserve for fear of some young branch grazing her cheek and killing the entire tree. So Octavia was troubled, poisoned by Haven.

Big deal.

Duke was breathing easier than he had for months. Octavia wasn't sure she trusted it, that she could expect it to last, but the difference was too obvious to ignore. And that? That felt more valuable than whatever quiet suffering she was going through. No good ever seemed to come without a sacrifice, anyway. And, well, Blodreina was used to sacrifice.

Especially when it was her.

So she gardened with thick gloves on, and she didn't go to the preserve, and she ignored how it felt like the first several weeks (months) down in the bunker, when all, absolutely everything she'd wanted had been to go out and breathe and feel a breeze on her face, or the warmth of the sun, or something that couldn't be confined in a concrete structure underground.

She'd learned to contain that feeling then. She'd learn to contain it again.

So Octavia and her thick gloves carefully and clumsily harvested some peppers from the little garden on the deck, and brought them inside into the galley for one of the guys to use in their cooking later. She took no chances: she only took the gloves off once the peppers were safely on the counter.

She checked her phone for the time, and caught the date instead. It was October 11th.

She was 33.

Another year gone.

[ooc: Oooopen, of course.]

Comments

[my_own_advocate]

"This seems like a trick question," Lucifer said.

[okteiviakom]

"I promise you it's not."

[my_own_advocate]

"I don't know the difference," Lucifer said slowly.

[okteiviakom]

"A little like what Linda probably said," Octavia replied, patiently. "You have to actually think about it. What your interpretation is, and if it's coming from... I don't know, maybe from a hurt that you're already feeling."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer considered her. "Like what?"

Actually asking.

[okteiviakom]

And yet, Octavia still checked, "Do you need me to come up with examples?"

[my_own_advocate]

"That would be helpful," Lucifer agreed.

He was taking this seriously. He just... needed... small words. Sometimes.

Actually, should he write this down? He glanced aside for a notepad.

[okteiviakom]

"Okay," Octavia murmured.

Of course, now she was faced with the unenviable task of trying to come up with an example that might help, without being an actual thing they'd dealt with recently.

Using those did not feel like it would go well.

"Let me think for a sec."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer nodded. That gave him time, too.

Admittedly, the notepad and pen were probably more explicable than the reading glasses, but he found all three and parked himself against the counter.

[okteiviakom]

The glasses weren't the part that was turning this situation vaguely intimidating.

"I don't think I'm going to be saying anything worth all that," Octavia hazarded.

[my_own_advocate]

"Ah," Lucifer said. He took off the glasses. "Better?"

[okteiviakom]

"You can keep the glasses," Octavia replied, in... something of a deadpan.

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer made a gesture with the notepad towards the counter and raised his eyebrows.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia gave a tiny nod.

"How about you pick it back up if there turns out to be something worth writing down?"

[my_own_advocate]

"As you wish," Lucifer said, tossing the notepad aside.

Leaving him with just a pen, which he was now fidgeting with.

[okteiviakom]

"Okay," Octavia sighed. She... hadn't actually come up with anything good, in part because she'd been too busy watching whatever Lucifer had been doing. "So, this is a bad one, but... If, just now, when you suggested tacos? If I'd said I don't really feel like tacos, and you felt like what I was saying was that I don't want tacos ever, and then you got upset with me for it, and came at me from that angle?"

Look, she'd said it wasn't a great example. She felt fumbly.

"That might be a moment where it would help to breathe and think about what I actually said. And whether there was maybe... something else, maybe making you feel rejected."

[my_own_advocate]

"Hm," said Lucifer, earnestly fighting the urge to take that example literally. "Interesting."

[okteiviakom]

"Interesting like how?" Octavia prompted. Because... Lucifer. "What are you thinking about it?"

[my_own_advocate]

"I'm trying to think about what you're actually saying," Lucifer said, "Rather than pontificating on why I might assume you don't like tacos at all?"

Trying! Trying. His best.

[okteiviakom]

Yeah. That was sort of exactly why Octavia had asked.

"Well, I guess that's a start," she rasped. "Because I don't know if I can come up with examples you won't feel like getting stuck on."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer sighed. "You mean that... I shouldn't jump to conclusions?" he guessed.

Talk about a difficult exercise...

[okteiviakom]

"Pretty much," Octavia sighed. "That would help."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer frowned.

"Well, that doesn't help me too much," he said.

[okteiviakom]

"Not if you can't imagine your first impression being incorrect," Octavia agreed.

Sort of.

[my_own_advocate]

"Well, in the case of tacos, that would be ridiculous," Lucifer pointed out. "In the case of my current issues with Duke, less so."