okteiviakom | The Preserve, Friday Morning

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The Preserve, Friday Morning

The original plan had been for Octavia and Duke to head back out to civilization after one night camped out in the preserve, but that... obviously had not happened. Duke had set Larceny up comfortably back on his boat before they'd left, anyway, and Octavia had texted Bellamy to let him know she'd be gone longer than she'd originally said, and so there'd been nothing forcing them back into town before they felt like it.

And everything keeping them right where they were. In their own private corner of the universe, on the island but still somehow far away from it. It was everything Octavia loved about the preserve to begin with, but amplified, because Duke was there with her, and for once the island's weirdness was working in her favor by forcing her to focus on things that felt good rather than anything else. It was almost like being allowed to let go of all the tensions - both physical and emotional - that she usually carried with her all the time.

She kept coming back to the same thought over and over: I could get used to this.

And despite an honestly outrageous amount of pollen-related activities (deeply satisfying though those were), they'd still managed to get other things done, as well! In fact, just this morning, they'd already been out fishing. And now they were back at their cozy little camp, with the makings of a breakfast, and Octavia was working at getting the fire pit going again so they could cook what they'd caught.

[ooc: For the snogon. Nothing good lasts forever, dun dun duuun. ETA: content warning for... allusions to supernatural violence, I guess?]

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"You know," Duke said, trying not to get too distracted watching her work while he prepped the fish for cooking. (There had already been several distractions this morning; it was minor miracle they'd caught anything at all.) "I'm beginning to get the appeal of camping. Out here, far from civilization, no responsibilities but the bare basics. . . . It's like sailing, but with trees."

Octavia glanced over at him. Or, tried to: she hadn't actually managed too many glances that didn't turn into extensive looks over the past couple of days.

"Now you know why I liked it so much when you took me out on the water that one time."

"Like camping but with water," Duke said, nodding, then tossed off a little shrug. "And an engine. We should go out again sometime. Do a real trip. I know some deserted islands that we could go explore. . . ."

"You already know I'd really like that." And not just because a deserted island had less of a chance of going the way their mainland trips had gone. Though 'deserted' seemed to imply a very slim chance of strange women, either to rescue or be traumatized by.

Octavia glanced down at what she was doing. It was much easier to just throw a quick glance down at some thin dead branches she was snapping for easier use than it was to just glance at him. "But I'm gonna tell you anyway, so: that sounds amazing."

"I definitely don't mind hearing it," Duke said, refocusing on his own task again. Those fish weren't going to gut themselves.

Or if they were, Duke didn't want to know about it.

"Maybe we can put your scheme to lure Lucy off the boat into play at the same time."

"We should," Octavia agreed. She kept watching him, and spared an idle thought to how there being fish guts involved should have lessened how attractive he was. But, no.

Suddenly, something sharp on one of the branches caught the side of one of her fingers. She gave a quick hiss, looking down, but didn't really inspect the finger for damage, too used to frequent scrapes to really think twice about it. She just shook the hand once, then went right back to what she'd been doing.

"I'm still hoping to come up with something that's not just 'hotel room and food deliveries'."

Duke frowned a little at that hiss, but she didn't seem too concerned by it, so he decided not to be either.

"Well . . . she's really into soap operas?" he offered. "She calls the characters her friends. Don't know if that'll help."

He finished cleaning and gutting the first fish and rinsed it off. "Any of your sticks look like they could make good skewers? I've got some foil left, but it might be fun to roast these the old fashioned way."

Octavia hummed thoughtfully at that little tidbit about Larceny, but abandoned thinking about it for now at his question. She looked over her materials, sifting through some of them, then rose from her crouch holding a few.

"These ones might do?"

"They look good, yeah." He reached over to take them from her, then frowned. "You're bleeding."

It was all instinct, reaching over to take her hand and check her wound. Not thinking about his trouble, which hadn't been triggered in months. Not thinking of anything but helping out someone he cared about.

There was a tiny bit of something in the back of Octavia's mind, something calling for caution. A faint flash of an instinct.

But it was fully drowned out by a pollen-addled thought about how touching Duke's hands was always a welcome thing.

So she just said "Oh, right, it's nothing," as she let him take hers.

"Just a little cut," Duke confirmed. "Barely needs a band aid."

He only got a little bit on his own hands. Barely a drop. But that was all it took.

He dropped her hand with a hiss when he saw the blood vanish against his skin, closing his eyes and backing up so sharply he knocked over the bucket of fish guts. He let out a strangled moan as the rush hit him, a twisted version of the happy noises he'd been making over the last few days.

There was a knife on the ground by his feet, another in his pocket. Her sword, which was never far away. He wouldn't need any of them, she was such a tiny thing, he could just snap her like a twig --

Octavia didn't see the blood disappear, which made the way he dropped her hand extra abrupt - and that was even before he jerked away fully. Before that noise.

She looked plenty alarmed, though.

"Duke?"

Duke snapped his hand up, thanking every deity he could think of that he'd already backed off, so all he was doing was warding her off instead of throwing her. He panted through his teeth as he tried to hold back the urge to grab her, the same urge he'd been happily indulging all week, but with a dark, horrifying new purpose.

He looked up at her, eyes wild -- and bright silver.

"Stay -- back." He dropped to his knees, one hand fisting in the ground cover, the other, still raised towards her, shaking visibly. "Just -- stay there."

It'd go away in a minute. It always went away before.

... Oh no.

It had been months, but as soon as Octavia saw his eyes, she knew what this was. Her mouth fell open, as if for objections - about not staying back, or how her blood was not supposed to do this, or about something else, fuck if she knew because not a sound came out.

But she didn't rush him. She stayed back. Staring, horrified, and her hand - without her telling it to - hovering over where one of her ever-present knives was tucked into her pants.

Guilt already wrapping itself around her insides.

Duke stared back at her, trying to hang onto all the good memories of the last couple of days. Trying to block out all the horrifying urges that bubbled up when you combined sex pollen with a murderous blood trouble.

The rush usually came on like a wave, large and overwhelming, crashing over him but pulling back almost as quickly as it arrived. This time it seemed to linger, growing more insistent second by second, until he couldn't hold it back anymore.

He twisted in place, slamming his fist into the rock he'd been using as a stool while cleaning the fish. The rock cracked and broke like it'd been hit with a jackhammer, sending shards flying.

To say Octavia was startled by that would have been a big understatement. She flinched, hands flying up to shield her eyes from the shards. (One was holding the knife, now.) But she didn't make a sound as she did, falling back on instincts from a long, long time ago.

No matter how scared you get, you have to stay quiet, Octavia.

She dropped her hands again and gasped in a breath. Shouldn't this have passed quicker? She didn't know. She didn't know what to do, either.

What had he done when it had been her freaking out?

This wasn't that, but. She didn't know what else to do but to try and... ground him, somehow. "Hey," she tried, forcing her voice into softness. "Hey, flapkrasha. You -- Yu na ste ogud."

Duke stayed where he was, curled sideways on his knees by the broken rock. Using the energy had helped, redirecting all that wild, exhilarated anger towards something he couldn't actually hurt. . . .

And then she spoke. And his trouble -- quieter now but still too loud -- remembered there was a human target, just waiting to be taken out.

He hit the rock again, took a breath, and struck a third time, a fourth, a fifth. On the sixth the rush finally faded, and it was only the fact that he'd already pulverized the rock into so much gravel that saved him from breaking his hand.

He dropped his arms to the ground and stayed there, panting and shaking in what anywhere else he'd call child's pose, his face pressed into the dirt.

Okay, great. Octavia's sole idea did not look like it had done anything good. And so she watched helplessly as he beat the rock into smithereens, flinching with every strike.

And then watched him down on the ground. Too worried to even speak again until she was sure it'd be okay.

Even though she had a sinking feeling nothing was about to be okay whether she spoke or not.

Duke's breath slowly evened out, and though he still felt shaky, he forced himself to sit up. To glance over and see if he'd managed to scare her off.

She hadn't left, but all it took was that glance to let him know he'd definitely scared her.

"Sorry," he croaked, eyes on the ground now, but still turned enough in her direction for her to see the were brown again. "I. . . ." He let out a faint, horrified laugh. "I actually forgot."

"Did my blood do that to you?"

Fuck, no, she hadn't meant to ask that. And definitely not sounding so -- small.

And young.

She tried to shake it off, along with the jittery feeling of adrenaline still in her veins. It didn't work very well, but she had to try again anyway.

"Are you okay?"

... That wasn't much better, was it?

"Hand hurts," Duke mumbled. He might not have broken it, but punching gravel wasn't really much better than punching solid rock. He let out another laugh, softer this time. More broken. "Guess I can't really do first aid anymore."

He didn't know yet that only certain people's blood would trigger it. Though finding out would only leave him with more questions, rather than less.

Octavia remembered the closest they'd been to a working theory was 'non-clowns', though between Nathan being Troubled and the girl from the sex shop being bouncy, Octavia had kind of figured she might be okay.

Guess not.

She finally broke out of standing still like a statue, and moved closer. But slowly. With her offending hand carefully behind her back.

"You might need the clinic."

No clown blood, and no fish blood. That was quite a list he was building.

He shuddered faintly and shook his head. Growing up in the US without health insurance had made him . . . hesitant to go see any doctors. "Ice pack should do it. Only hurt it on the last one."

Meanwhile, Octavia hated infirmaries, so that said something about her level of concern.

She knelt down in front of him. "Just takes one blow to fracture something."

Duke swallowed, managing with some effort not to shrink back from her.

Well. At least setting his trouble off had all but taken care of the whole pollen problem.

He flexed and wiggled his fingers, letting out a slow hiss. "Maybe," he admitted. "Still better than what I wanted to do."

Octavia had half expected him to flinch away. She also had no intention of trying to touch him. Not even with the hand that she knew was perfectly safe.

Guilt had settled into the pit of stomach like a weight.

"But you didn't."

"No," Duke said darkly. "Not this time."

He'd been unprepared. Relaxed. Let it sneak up on him.

He wasn't making that mistake again.

Octavia didn't know what to say to that.

(Maybe weight was the wrong word. Maybe a snake? Or something else twisty, with teeth, gnawing on her insides.)

She got back up on her feet with a near-silent sigh, and said, "I'll pack the tent." Her tone was mild, bordering on flat.

Duke nodded, waiting until she'd moved away before slowly getting up.

Then he just stood there for a long moment, staring at the busted up rock. Trying not to think of what might have happened if he'd aimed his blows somewhere else.

Octavia looked back at him for a few seconds after he'd gotten up.

Then she went to do exactly what she'd said. Got their packs and stuff out of the tent and started taking it down, feeling stilted and suddenly exhausted.

And tense, again.

Duke knew he should help. That she shouldn't have to clean everything up on her own. He shook himself, and with an act of sheer will tore his gaze away from the remains of the rock --

And saw the remains of the fish instead. Of their sex-and-camping bubble. Of Natshana en Deimeika, happy couple.

The loss hit him like a dull blade forced through his ribs. It was a familiar pain, and he clung to it, cradled and nursed it. That was how these things worked, after all. He let himself be happy, and something came along to fuck it right back up.

"Should we leave the fish?"

Octavia had a similar feeling as she dug out the stakes and yanked the poles out of the fabric.

Life was thoroughly unfair. She of all people should know that by now.

Her voice sounded dull. "I don't know, Duke."

Duke hovered for a moment, indecisive, then years of food insecurity won out, and he bent to pick up the bucket. He could dump out the remaining fish guts, rinse it out, and carry the fish back to town in that.

Lucy'd enjoy them, if nothing else.

It was an awkward process, with the knuckles on his dominant hand starting to swell, but it gave him something to do. Something to think about that wasn't what if.

Octavia didn't look over to see what he decided.

She thought she should've been doing something to help him. Maybe try the soothing talk again, try and draw him out of his head a little. But the drop from their happy bubble to this had been too harsh. Left her paralyzed. And anyway, she was a bit busy berating herself for not being more careful, for getting cut in the first place, for not remembering.

Got the tent down efficiently enough, though. And then all packed neatly away.

Funny, those were some of the same things Duke was beating himself up for.

His father had been a belligerent asshole. His mother a useless junkie. He'd promised himself from a young age that he wouldn't be either -- and yet, that was just what his trouble was going to turn him into. A belligerent, junkie asshole.

No.

He kicked at their fire pit, scattering the sticks and kindling Octavia had been setting up and knocking the small stones circling it aside one by one. "How do you say it in Trig?" he asked. "That you won't do anything you don't want to?"

Octavia straightened up from packing away the last of the tent parts in his pack, and looked over.

"Ai nou na dula enti op," she said, slow and serious, "ai nou gaf."

Duke nodded back. "Ai nou na dula enti op ai nou gaf."

He'd never be able to stick to it. He was much too easy to talk or manipulate into things he didn't want to do, and he knew it. But right now he meant it with every fiber of his being.

The stony expression on Octavia's face opened up a little, softening.

She nodded. "Good."

Then she bent down to pick up her backpack, doing her level best not to let her reluctance show.

Duke set the fish bucket down and went over to her, stopping just outside arm's length, just in case. The cut had been small. It was probably done bleeding by now.

Neither of them would deal at all well with it happening again.

"Tavi," he said softly. "How do you say 'I want to kiss you'?"

The cut had stopped bleeding, and Octavia had even tried to clean up the dried blood in the middle of doing everything else.

She still slid the hand into her pocket as she straightened up again, leaving the bag be for now.

And she inhaled a little unsteadily at the sound of him saying her nickname. The price for letting softness show was that things tried to spill out. She blinked quickly a few times, just in case, before actually looking up at Duke.

"Ai gaf smuch yu op."

Duke nodded again, slipping his hand into his pocket, too, before taking a small step forward. Mirroring her and hiding the swelling and just generally trying to relocate some of the magic of the last couple of days.

"Ai gaf smuch yu op, snogon." He gave her a small, shaky smile. "Still."

Octavia sighed.

And then reached up with her free hand, her safe hand, shifting closer to him as her fingers curled around his lapel.

"Come here."

His smile didn't get any larger, but it was far stronger. "Sha, gona."

He lifted his free hand, his good hand, to her hair and bent down to make good on his word.

As soon as his lips met hers, Octavia knew this was one of those moments that she'd needed without realizing it, and she was grateful he'd asked for it because she wouldn't have.

And, something surged in her, sure, but it was faint and vague and nothing like the fervor of the past couple of days. It was more of a gentle 'hey, we're still here' kind of a kiss.

Which was exactly what Octavia's battered state of mind craved.

It was a cool down after the manic passion of the last several days. Bridging the gap back to normal.

Duke pulled back after a few moments, resting his forehead against hers.

“Mochof.”

For what, he wasn’t even sure. For letting him kiss her, even after he’d scared her. For not running away. For just — being Tavi.

Running away was just not in Octavia's nature. Running away from him even less so.

"De nada," she whispered, not really managing the faint smile that she felt should've gone with that.

But it was good enough.

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The Preserve, Friday Morning

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