okteiviakom: ([neg] hopeless)
Octavia Blake ([personal profile] okteiviakom) wrote2020-01-31 10:39 pm

The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, Waaaaay Early Friday Morning

The bob and sway of the Cape Rouge was not the same as the engine thrum of the Ark. But it was similar enough that sometimes there could be something almost soothing about it to a space station baby, like Octavia.

But not tonight.

She feels the vibrations of the Ark through the walls around her. Up in the room, they're much less pronounced, they're just something under your feet, a casual sensation you can feel and dismiss at the same time. But she's not up in the room.

She's down in the hole.

She's under the floor.

She's in a box, and the room above her is nothing but footsteps and muffled voices. Everything else is darkness. She's in a box she can't see, under a room she can only hear, and so all she can do is listen. She can't hear Bellamy up there, but she can hear her mother, the sound of needles and the fabric of strangers' clothes -- but then, the thumping of boots, and it's an inspection, it's always an inspection, a man's voice barking about everything the inspectors always bark about until her mother soothes it over, hushed, quick, she sounds like she's smiling --

I don't have any money.

Her voice is like velvet and burrows into Octavia's ears.

But I can pay you another way.

It's a promise shaped like a body and it feels like sirens and Octavia screams but she can still hear them like they're speaking into her head, like they're in her head, like they're in the box with her.

What about the girl?

Her, too.

And Octavia screams again and kicks her foot out because she has to get away, now now now -- but instead of breaking, the walls of the box around her start sliding closer, the hole around her starts getting smaller, and it feels like she's sinking, right into the ground or space or whatever is underneath a hole underneath a room, and it doesn't matter where she's sinking to because she won't even make it there, because the walls are closing in on her, she's in the hole and the hole is going to crush her.

The hole is going to crush her, and she can't breathe.

She can't breathe.

SHE CAN'T BREATHE.


That was what Octavia woke up to, in the middle of the night, just -- gasping for breath, immediately scrambling up to sitting, trying to desperately force air into her lungs. Her wide eyes stared wildly into the darkness of the room, not really seeing it. Still half dreaming.

Still half back on the Ark.

... Sorry, Duke.

[ooc: For the jaka who has to deal with this mess now. Content warning for (nightmare) allusions to prostitution and child abuse, with general dark backstory stuff to likely follow in the comments.]
betterthanaplan: (aw come on)

[personal profile] betterthanaplan 2020-01-31 08:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Duke jerked awake himself at the movement, from a rare, dreamless sleep that left him groggy and disoriented even as he reached for her shoulder.

"Tavi?" he muttered. "What is it? You hear something?"

Was Fandom attacking them? Could Fandom attack his boat?!
betterthanaplan: (shiny hair and concern)

[personal profile] betterthanaplan 2020-01-31 09:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Duke woke up fast at that. The flailing, sure, but the wet gasp?

He tried again with the shoulder touch, braced this time to dodge the flailing, going for gentle but insistent. "Hey, hey, Tavi. You're okay. It's okay, it was just a dream. Yu ste ogud, gona."
betterthanaplan: (unarmed)

[personal profile] betterthanaplan 2020-01-31 10:08 pm (UTC)(link)
"Woah. Okay." Duke hurried out of bed himself (and was really glad he'd gotten into the habit of wearing at least shorts to sleep in, these days). He kept his hands out, ready to catch her if she fell again, wishing he could just pull her into a hug. He was interpreting that "I can't" as "no touching", though, and kept his distance. "It's going to be alright. What do you need?"
betterthanaplan: (I think it means "not her")

[personal profile] betterthanaplan 2020-01-31 10:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Duke had no idea what to do. He'd never actually had to talk down anyone else from a nightmare. Evi had had maybe one while they were together, and had just gone to hide in the bathroom afterwards while Duke gave her space.

He didn't think that was what Octavia needed here, though. Or -- maybe it was exactly what she needed. Just a different kind.

"Here," he said. "Hey, come on." He stepped into the hall and waved her towards the exterior door. "Let's go on deck. Get some air."

Get the open sky above her. Instead of a ceiling that served as another room's floor.
betterthanaplan: (why yes I have done some modeling)

[personal profile] betterthanaplan 2020-01-31 10:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Duke paused to grab the blanket off the bed, because while it wasn't Maine-cold out, it wasn't exactly warm, either. He ushered her carefully out to the open deck, shooing porgs aside with his foot to help keep her from tripping.

He wanted nothing more than to wrap her up tight in that blanket and hang on until she stopped shaking, but he didn't want to spook her more. He wasn't really sure she'd get his meaning if he just offered it to her, not in the state she was in, so he moved as slowly and gently as possible to drape it over her shoulders.

The whole time, he kept up a litany of simple, soothing words, in English, Trig, and even some random French and Russian when they were what popped into his head. He wasn't so much worried about the meaning as just letting her hear his voice, low and slow and easy.
betterthanaplan: (thoughtful)

[personal profile] betterthanaplan 2020-01-31 11:22 pm (UTC)(link)
That was concerning, but not terribly surprising. Duke hung onto the blanket for her, using it to tug her gently towards his favorite bench. If he got her to sit, he'd crouch down in front of her, making sure the blanket stayed on and that he stayed in her sight line and maybe, if she seemed to be waking up more, resting his hand lightly on her knee.

He'd noticed that touches usually seemed to soothe her. Of course, she was also usually holding herself in instead of shaking herself apart.

He didn't tell her not to cry. And he didn't tell her to "let it out". Instead, he started softly to sing:

Ia ora te natura
E mea arofa teie ao nei,
Ia ora te natura
E mea arofa teie ao nei.
betterthanaplan: (shiny hair and concern)

[personal profile] betterthanaplan 2020-01-31 11:45 pm (UTC)(link)
"Hey," he said, giving her a little smile. "You back with me?"

He was perfectly happy to keep singing if not.
betterthanaplan: (shiny hair and concern)

[personal profile] betterthanaplan 2020-02-01 12:14 am (UTC)(link)
Duke stayed where he was, right in front of her, keeping that blanket in place. "Good," he said. "You want to tell me about it? Or I can keep singing for awhile. I don't mind."
betterthanaplan: (thoughtful)

[personal profile] betterthanaplan 2020-02-01 12:28 am (UTC)(link)
Duke decided she meant she didn't want to talk yet. He moved to sit next to her on the bench, figuring the shaking was part reaction, part adrenaline, and part cold, all of which could probably benefit from some external body heat, though he still didn't pull her into his arms the way he wanted to yet.

"There's this one particular harbour," he sang, soft enough to be a lullaby.
"Sheltered from the wind
Where the children play on the shore each day
And all are safe within.


Ia Ora Te Natura
E Mea Arofa Teie Ao Nei
Ia Ora Te Natura
E Mea Arofa Teie Ao Nei
"

He wasn't singing the song in any sort of order -- he hadn't listened to it in long enough to remember just what the order was -- but it wasn't like she would likely notice, or mind. And anyway, he figured he was hitting the important bits.
Edited 2020-02-01 00:29 (UTC)
betterthanaplan: (thoughtfully amused)

[personal profile] betterthanaplan 2020-02-01 12:42 am (UTC)(link)
It was enough to at least get him to put his arm on the back of the bench, though, giving her some light contact through the shoulders and more room to lean.

"But now I think about the good times
Down in the Caribbean sunshine
In my younger days I was so bad
Laughin' about all the fun we had

I've seen enough to feel the world spin
Mixin' different oceans meetin' cousins
Listen to the drummers and the night sounds
Listen to the singers make the world go 'round!
"

He nudged her a little as he picked up the Tahitian chorus again, just to see if she wanted to sing -- or hum maybe -- along.

"Ia Ora Te Natura
E Mea Arofa Teie Ao Nei
Ia Ora Te Natura
E Mea Arofa Teie Ao Nei
."
betterthanaplan: (taking this seriously)

[personal profile] betterthanaplan 2020-02-01 12:58 am (UTC)(link)
Duke had run out of verses that he could think of -- at least ones that didn't vaguely reference death, anyway -- so he stuck to that chorus a few more times, then threw out the last bit of Tahitian from the end:

"Ua Pau Te Maitai No Te Fenua
Re Zai Noa Ra Te Ora O Te Mitie
."

He tilted his own head back. There were less stars here than many of the places he'd been, with Baltimore so close, but if it soothed her anyway, he wasn't going to complain.

"It means 'Nature lives, life to nature, have pity for the Earth, love the Earth.' Then, 'Bounty of the land is exhausted, but there's still abundance on the sea.'"
betterthanaplan: (inuendo?)

[personal profile] betterthanaplan 2020-02-01 01:07 am (UTC)(link)
"Sounds better in Tahitian, huh?" Duke said, lifting the hand along the bench to rub her shoulder.
betterthanaplan: (taking this seriously)

[personal profile] betterthanaplan 2020-02-01 01:33 am (UTC)(link)
Duke tried very hard to be comfortable with the silence. And when that didn't work, he tried to just let himself be uncomfortable, for her sake.

That worked a little better, but it still wasn't sustainable. He really hoped he relearned how not to be a babbling idiot sometime soon.

"I'm going to get you a brandy," he said. "And then I'm going to talk. Or maybe sing some more. And when you're ready, you can tell me what you dreamed about, or we can go back to bed and pretend it didn't happen, or do anything else you need. Alright?"

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