seaoftroubles | Season one catchup preplay

There'll be more detail in the OCD, but the basic shape is this:

As You Were: Duke and Octavia head back to Haven for Audrey's surprise birthday party (braced for troubles). They head out to a remote island off the coast where everyone's gathered at an old, closed down hotel. The proprietor turns out to be a shapeshifter that kills the people it turns into. Everyone wonders who the baddie really is. The ME dies, Lucifer sends up a demon to possess her body and yell at Duke for dragging Octavia back into his world's bullshit. Audrey is revealed to be the shapeshifter, but didn't die because She's Different. They all go back to the mainland, where Duke reveals that he's the kid in the Colorado Kid murder picture, and Audrey emotionally blackmails him into sticking around longer to answer some questions.

The Hand You're Dealt: Duke and Audrey hunt down and question a couple of the other people in the Colorado Kid photo. Meanwhile, Nathan and Audrey try to track down someone with a fire trouble. Duke's old babysitter turns out to have death visions when she touches people, and after getting blown up by the fire trouble, tells Duke how he's going to die right before she dies herself.

The Trial of Audrey Parker: ~~Audrey talks Duke into hosting a poker game before leaving. Two of the other guests hijack the boat to try and get something Duke's smuggling for a client.~~ Honestly there are a lot of holes in this thanks to the way things are shaping up with Fandom in the mix. Why would Octavia let Duke stick around when now they KNOW someone in Haven is going to kill him? Octavia isn't a good replacement for Julia, Julia's a ninny. Octavia would just beat the shit out of the baddies for being mean to Duke. And getting the boat cracked delays them too much in going back to Fandom. Maybe we should skip this one. It doesn't really add much to Duke's character development that hasn't kinda been covered by Fandom anyway.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

betterthanaplan

"If I didn't know better," Duke muttered. "I'd wonder if my trouble was actually really shitty luck."

"Where the hell d'you two think you're going?" the Chief demanded.

"Somewhere someone isn't going to try to kill me?" Duke shot back.

"Uh uh." The Chief looked over his shoulder. "Nathan?"

Nathan looked deeply pissed under his trademark stony facade, though it was hard to tell if he was madder at Duke or the Chief. "Should all sit down," he grumbled, as he moved to herd Duke and Octavia back into the party room. "Talk this through."

"'Sright," the Chief said, glaring at everyone. "Nobody's goin' anywhere until we track this monster down."

From:

okteiviakom

"Anyone tries to pin this one on Duke, they're going to regret it," Octavia informed no one in particular in a low rasp.

She didn't like getting herded, or anything else about this situation, and that had to be let out in some way.

From:

betterthanaplan

Julia gave her a long, suspicious look. "Really. You think you know him so well, huh?"

"Can it, Carr," Duke growled.

"Alright, alright, everybody sit down so I can explain," the Chief ordered, and then proceeded to start his speech without actually waiting for them to sit. "I was a rookie. The one time I saw one of these chameleon things. Just back from 'Nam, where I guess I thought I'd pretty much seen and done everything. Until I was forced to shoot my own partner, right in the head, to stop him from killing me."

"You shot your partner?" Audrey asked. Nathan, hovering just over her shoulder, gave his father a narrow-eyed look.

"Chameleon killed my partner," the Chief said. "He'd taken his shape, taken his personality, taken everything. I killed the chameleon. But not before it had copied and killed six people. Now, 27 years on the job, and the only thing I've ever hoped for was that I'd never have to see one of them again."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia met Julia's look with a steady one of her own, before all their focus shifted to the Chief.

Her expression was hardening again. "And you're sure this is that, again?" she asked.

From:

betterthanaplan

The Chief scoffed. "Sure I'm sure, peanut. You all saw its shed skin. That's how it changes."

"Her name's Octavia," Duke said through his teeth. The Chief opened his mouth to snark back, but Nathan spoke first.

"How do we stop it from . . . taking someone else?"

"Everyone just has to stay within earshot of everyone else," the Chief said firmly. "'Cause this chameleon thing, it seems to need time with its victim in order to mimic its soul. Get jumped, you just scream as loud as you can."

"What does it want?" Audrey asked.

"It wants to kill, basically. It wants to change, it wants to renew itself. I think everyone in this room is pretty much well aware that the troubles are now back." He looked up at Octavia. "Except maybe our tourist here."

"The 'tourist' could take you apart," Duke said. "Without breaking a sweat."

"You wanna go now, yoga mat? I've coughed up tougher than you!"

From:

okteiviakom

"The tourist knows about the troubles," Octavia cut in, speaking over the Chief, her voice firm and just a little bit icy. ('Peanut', really?) "Keep your focus where it's supposed to be."

Edited Date: 2020-09-15 08:25 am (UTC)

From:

betterthanaplan

"You told her?!" Vince asked, looking scandalized.

"Yes," Duke said, glaring back. "I did!"

"Look!" the Chief said, loudly cutting them off. "This thing's killed one of us already. And I guarantee it's not going to stop at one!"

Thunder rumbled as the assembled guests all side-eyed each other.

"Hang on a second," Duke said, shaking his head and trying to push off the growing panic that this time Haven might actually succeed at killing him. "I'm trying to be zen about all this." Nathan snorted. Duke flicked him off without looking at him. "Just so I'm clear: you're saying you haven't seen one of these chameleon deals since the Reagan Administration. And now, of all the times. And all the places. We just happen to get stuck inside a storm inside its damn lair?!"

He was very much failing at being zen about all this.

"I'm just curious about how that happens."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia was never going to understand the collective psyche of Haven when it came to trying to keep the weird a secret. Or thinking that it even could be.

But, anyway.

"That does seem like a convenient coincidence," she agreed in a drawl. Duke was all hands; Octavia was very, very still. "Did we get brought here to be preyed on?"

From:

betterthanaplan

There was another pause, another series of side-eyes going around the room as everyone tried to work out who the chameleon might be.

"We didn't just happen to get stuck," Vince said slowly. "We were invited."

All the side-eyes turned to Dave.

"He -- he called me!" Dave said. "Vaughn! Said it had been too long, said he'd heard about all the troubles in town, the new FBI agent, and he -- he wondered if we'd like to come over for a visit! And then Eleanor called --" Eleanor bristled, and Dave barreled on. "-- You did! You said you were looking for a place to throw Audrey a party! I just thought it was fate!"

"Oh good, fate," Duke muttered.

"You're trying to blame me?" Eleanor protested. And then everyone was talking at once, offering excuses and denials and accusations.

"I am so sorry," Duke said softly to Octavia. "I think I owe you like, six now."

From:

okteiviakom

"Bilaik sen," Octavia muttered back to him, not that she could recall ever teaching him numbers. She looked warily around the room. "But we'll worry about that once we got off this rock."

Usually, she loved islands. But not this one.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke was able to guess from context that sen probably meant ten. "Sen, then."

"Alright, everybody, quiet!" Audrey ordered, and the room quieted down. "Please, can we use our inside voices?"

The Chief huffed a laugh.

"We should probably call the mainland," Nathan suggested, pulling out his phone. "Let them know what's happening."

"Yeah, good luck with that," Duke said. "We haven't gotten a signal since we landed on this rock."

"Landline's down too," the Chief said. "I checked. Probably the storm knocked it out."

"Or the chameleon thing," Julia pointed out. She seemed to be even more antsy than the rest of the group. Probably because she'd only just gotten back to Haven. The troubles were still new to her.

"Vaughn was going to call a boat for us," Eleanor said. "When we were -- well, no, I guess that isn't going to happen."

"There's a boathouse down by the water," Duke pointed out. "Maybe there's a dinghy we can take back to the mainland."

"No no no no no no," the Chief started, before Duke had even finished. "No one's taking any boat back to any mainland, not until we're absolutely sure this chameleon thing is dead."

From:

okteiviakom

"Because we can't risk it getting loose in town."

Octavia did not necessarily feel obligated to care whether it did or didn't. But she could follow the logic - and could guess how well trying to go against it would go with the gathered group.

From:

betterthanaplan

"Yes, thank you." The Chief nodded to her, then shot a look at Nathan. "Y'see, she gets it!"

The 'so why can't you?' was unsaid but clear nonetheless.

"Yeah," Duke said. "Or maybe you're just hiding behind that logic so you can kill us and wear our bodies around like suits."

"Any time you want to throw down here, buddy boy, you just say the word. Been looking for an excuse to knock some sense into you for thirty years."

"Hey!" Audrey stepped in between them. "If I could just interrupt this Chuck Norris revival here for a minute? Why don't we just go down to the boathouse and see if anything's there, and then decide what to do? Nathan?" Nathan nodded. "Chief?"

The Chief glowered, but nodded slowly too.

From:

okteiviakom

Come on, Chief, you gained one point with Octavia, only to immediately go back into the negatives. Octavia's immediate sharp look at the posturing said as much.

Audrey's suggestion was solid, though. Octavia had nothing to add to it.

From:

betterthanaplan

Julia did, though.

"Are you armed?" she asked. Everyone turned to stare at her. The Chief pressed his hand to his chest, asking if she meant him, then shook his head. "'Cause she is," Julia continued. "I mean, she's all 'be cool' and whatnot. She's got a gun. How do we know she's not the thingamabob?"

"I am not the thingamabob!" Audrey protested. "Ask me anything, alright? What . . . the first boy I kissed, was when I was 18. Alright? My favorite singer is Ray Charles. . . ."

"Ray Charles," the Chief said skeptically.

"Okay, I liked. It's Justin Timberlake." Audrey waved her hand and shrugged. "And my middle name is Prudence. Self-inflicted on my confirmation. So we good now?"

"Well, that may all be true," Nathan said slowly. "But we don't know you well enough to know."

Duke shifted to stand slightly in front of Octavia. No one here knew her at all, except him.

From:

okteiviakom

As long as he couldn't suddenly will her into invisibility, that wasn't going to work for very long.

But Octavia kept her mouth shut for now. They didn't know her, sure, but she didn't know them, either. And she was flicking her eyes from one person to the next, trying to work out the probabilities of which of them - if any - might have been the chameleon.

From:

betterthanaplan

Audrey, on the other hand, was unzipping her clutch. She pulled out her police issue pistol, took the clip out, and set it on the table. "One."

She leaned down, hiking up the hem of her dress, and revealed a smaller pistol strapped to the inside of her thigh. "Two." She popped the clip out of that one and set it on the table as well. Duke would be turned on if he weren't also terrified for his life.

(. . . Yeah, Duke was definitely turned on anyway.)

"There," Audrey said, looking around. "That's one more than you knew that I had. And one I could have kept if I was a bad guy."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia's appreciation of a good spot to hide weapons in a dress like that was a little less sexual, and a lot more muted.

She stepped out from behind Duke's shoulder.

And bent down to pull a knife out of the side of her boot.

From:

betterthanaplan

This caused a bit of a stir, even as Julia looked from the knife up to Octavia and gave her a little -- and extremely cautious -- nod of approval.

Nathan snorted, and let out a muttered "Figures."

"Well now, how about. . . ." Eleanor picked up the weapon bits one at a time. "Little gun for you," she handed it to Vince. "Little gun clip for you," to Julia. "Big ol' gun for you," Dave. "Big clip for. . . ." She looked around, then tucked it into her shirt with a laugh. "Not really enough to go around, is there?"

"And the knife?" Nathan asked.

"We can't exactly split the knife up and share it, can we, Nathan?" Duke shot back. "We'll just have to . . . leave it there."

Audrey gave him a pointed look.

"What?" Duke asked.

The pointed look became even more pointed. Duke sighed and made a show of rolling his eyes, then pulled out his pocket knife and set it down next to Octavia's. "Fine." He lifted his hands. "Happy?"

"You want us to believe that's the only one you've got?" Vince asked, giving Duke a searching look that didn't suit his usual baffled-old-man demeanor.

"Yes," Duke told him. "You are."

From:

okteiviakom

"It was supposed to be a birthday party," Octavia pointed out, not rolling her eyes but sounding like maybe she ought to have been. "Why would he have more than one knife?"

Well, since they all seemed content to think she didn't have another knife tucked in its sheath under her belt...

From:

betterthanaplan

"Anybody else?" Audrey asked.

"Well, I'd certainly feel better if the other two badges weren't packing" Duke said, giving both Nathan and the Chief the hairy eyeball.

Nathan opened his overshirt and turned, revealing a close fitting tshirt and no suspicious bulges. "I got nothin'. Service weapon is up in my bag. Feel free to take it."

"What about you, Chief?" Julia asked.

"Like the girl said, I was coming to a birthday party!" The Chief threw his arms up in the air, then lifted his pants to show his ankles. "Look, there's nothing."

"Alright." Audrey nodded. "Anyone else? Going once? Going twice? Okay." She pointed to Nathan. "Boathouse. ASAP."

"Right," Duke said. "The rest of us will just. Stay here. And hope neither of you decides to kill the other." He dropped his head and let them walk past, and tried -- once again -- not to freak out too hard.

There were too many people in here he could no longer trust.

"Tavi, you wanna come look for a radio or something with me?"

From:

okteiviakom

Maybe this was easier for Octavia: she hadn't really trusted anyone here in the first place.

But that didn't make this a pleasant experience in the slightest. "Yeah," she said with a small nod. "Let's go."