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

She wasn't the only one. Everyone was gathering again, watching the two of them face off.

Duke propped his axe on his shoulder, not taking his eyes off Nathan.

"I went down to the boathouse," he said, practically hissing. "And guess what I found. A boat. A perfectly good boat, until you shot it."

"I didn't shoot the boat," Nathan said.

"Where's your gun, Nathan? Because I looked in your duffel bag. It's not there."

"Put the axe down."

"You're the chameleon!"

From:

okteiviakom

Well. This seemed like it had been inevitable, didn't it? Certainly felt that way to Octavia.

"Chil au, jaka." She was eyeing Nathan warily, yes, but they couldn't let things get out of hand right now. "Everyone needs to calm down."

From:

betterthanaplan

That was good advice. No one was listening to her.

"Where's your gun, Nathan?" Julia asked, starting a tidal wave of accusations and questions, until Audrey shouted to be heard over them all.

"Inside voices, please!"

"Alright, listen!" she said. "We need to figure out who the chameleon is --"

"No," Duke started, hefting the axe. "Listen, I just --"

"-- WHO THE CHAMELEON IS," Audrey said again, glaring him down. "And what we're going to do with him. Or . . . her. Alright?"

From:

okteiviakom

"And how do you propose we do that?"

That sound sarcastic because her tone was so dry, but... Honestly, Audrey, she was all ears.

From:

betterthanaplan

Audrey sighed. "I don't --" Then her eyes hit the presents and lit up. "I have an idea." She headed over to the pile, setting her purse aside. "We can't really know what the chameleon knew about the person that it took. But we have to start somewhere. So each of you brought a present to the Knot. And I'm assuming you didn't take the time to tell Mr. Carpenter what that was. So if you can say what's in your box, then we'll chalk one in your favor. And if not . . . we have a problem."

From:

okteiviakom

"Worth a shot," Octavia rasped, with a brief glance towards the presents.

There wasn't one from her on there, but they'd get to that when they got to that.

(She'd brought one, but it was still in her bag up in the room, because -- Didn't matter.)

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke flicked a glance over at her, but mostly kept his eyes glued on Nathan. "I'm going last."

Nathan scowled. "Why does he get to go last?"

"Because he has the axe."

From:

okteiviakom

"Can you two keep it together for two seconds?" Octavia drawled. It sounded a little more tense than usual.

She nodded at Audrey. "Get started before everyone starts shouting again."

From:

betterthanaplan

"Hang on," the Chief said, cutting Audrey off as she reached for the first present. "What about cueball over here?"

Dave sputtered. "I got her the dress!"

"And the killer shoes," Julia noted.

"And-and the purse!"

"Well, exactly," the Chief began. This time Audrey cut him off.

"We're going to start with. . . ." She read the tag on the box in her hand. "Dr. Carr."

"Earrings," Eleanor said confidently. "Emporer penguins!"

Audrey opened the box and pulled out an enormous, tacky penguin earing. "Alright! Those are beautiful. Thank you."

Eleanor beamed.

She moved on to Vince's present, next, ("'Misery Unchained,' first edition. Sighed by the author, just before that lady chopped off his foot"), then picked up Nathan's.

"It's a sweater," Nathan said quietly. "Blue. Cashmere."

Audrey opened the box and stared down at it. Her expression said everything as she looked back up at Nathan, lifting the blue fabric from the box. "It's a scarf."

Everyone began talking at once, backing away from Nathan, who after a single aborted attempt, didn't even try to explain himself. He went for Duke first, who was once more brandishing the axe.

Duke didn't attack immediately, just danced around Nathan as he grabbed for him. Chameleon or no, Nathan was troubled, and Duke was way too riled up to maintain control right now if he got any blood on him. . . .

Edited Date: 2020-09-17 09:16 pm (UTC)

From:

okteiviakom

All of which Octavia knew. That made the decision easy, especially since neither of them were paying her much attention right now. There was a flash of metal right before she struck Nathan in the back of the head with the butt of her remaining knife.

Yes, she was both ruthless and still armed. That should not be coming as a surprise to anyone who'd actually paid attention to her so far.

From:

betterthanaplan

The Chief had a gun out to do much the same thing, but Octavia had gotten there, first. He tried to tuck it away before anyone noticed, and might have managed it with everyone staring and yelling at Octavia for being armed -- but Duke wasn't surprised by her.

He wasn't really surprised by the Chief, either. But he was keeping a very close eye on him.

"Tie him up," the Chief ordered the room in general. Vince and Dave immediately moved to do so.

Duke moved to the opposite end of the room and grabbed a bottle that looked alcoholic, taking a big swig without ever taking his eyes off the cop with the gun.

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia had not noticed the gun, but - ignoring everyone else's looks and yelling - she did notice where Duke's attention was.

Which meant her own eyes were drawn to the Chief, too.

"Chit's gon daun, jaka?"

From:

betterthanaplan

"He has a gun," Duke said, gesturing towards the Chief -- with his booze rather than his axe, which . . . maybe was progress?

"Yep," the Chief said on a sigh, holding the weapon up.

"You lied," Duke said.

"So maybe I did."

"Chief, Octavia." Audrey looked between the two of them. "Hand 'em over. We all play by the same rules."

"Says who?" the Chief asked.

"Says the whole room that's about to go Lord of the Flies on your asses."

From:

okteiviakom

"Means nothing to me," Octavia noted, unimpressed. "But I wasn't about to argue in the first place."

She was, however, going to stab the knife deep into the wood of the nearest available tabletop. (Wasn't like it mattered when the owner of this place had turned up the way he'd turned up.) "Suggest you don't either, Chief," she added, as she straightened up.

From:

betterthanaplan

The Chief glared at both women, then nodded and handed over the gun. Audrey turned to Duke.

"Duke?"

Bless his soul, Duke actually took a moment to play dumb. "Hm?"

"Even the playing field."

He looked down at the axe in his hand. And looked away. He really didn't want to give up that axe. ~~It was his emotional support axe!~~ But everyone was staring at him, and yeah . . . Lord of the Flies was a reasonable possibility. So he set the head of the axe on the floor, put his foot on it, and yanked, pulling the handle right off.

"Happy?" he asked, as he tossed the handle aside.

From:

okteiviakom

"Chof," said Octavia, who had her reasons to know he really hadn't wanted to do that.

And then her voice lost all its fleeting softness again as she looked at everyone else, ending up looking at Nathan's tied-up form. "So now what?"

From:

betterthanaplan

That was a good spot for her to be looking, as "now what" turned out to be Nathan, now conscious again and looking resigned.

"That was manly," he grumbled.

"What are we going to do with him?" Eleanor asked.

Nathan shut his eyes with a sigh. "I am not the damn chameleon."

From:

okteiviakom

"And your proof is...?" Octavia prompted, much more mildly than some people in this room might have. Maybe a little rich, considering she was the one who'd knocked him out, but, oh well.

(But, also, look. She didn't want Nathan to be the chameleon, because that would mean the real Nathan was dead, and that... She didn't want that for Duke.)

"You did get the gift wrong, Nathan."

From:

betterthanaplan

"I told Jess to pick up the sweater we saw in McGuinness's last week," Nathan said, a sense of loss clear in his voice when he mentioned Jess's name. "She must've seen the scarf and changed her mind. She didn't tell me. Before she left."

"What about the boat?" Duke asked. "And the gun?"

"I'm not armed. Can search me."

"The Chief is the one who shot the boat!" Dave realized, aiming an accusing finger.

Cue more accusations and bickering.

From:

okteiviakom

This would have been easier if everyone here hadn't insisted on being so shady.

Octavia suppressed a sigh and let her gaze flick from person to person. If Nathan was telling the truth, they were back to square one.

From:

betterthanaplan

This was Haven. "Shady" was their primary resource.

"That proves I'm not the chameleon!" the Chief said, shouting everyone down. "The chameleon would want to go to the mainland!"

"Any chance I could get untied before everyone goes crazy again?" Nathan asked.

"How do we know you're not the chameleon?" Julia demanded.

"And how do we know that you're not?" Audrey asked, as she untied Nathan's hands. "If we start turning on each other now, we're just as likely to kill an innocent person as we are a chameleon. Now, I don't know any of you very well, but I would like to. And I would like to think that we're better than that."

Nathan's arms fell to his sides once they were free, and he slowly stood.

"We, uh. Maybe shoulda given you a chance to say something," the Chief said, almost apologetically. "Before we, you know, took you out." He looked Nathan over with a practiced gaze. It wasn't as though Nathan could tell for himself how badly he might be injured.

From:

okteiviakom

"No," Octavia drawled, "I say anyone who tries to jump anyone else is getting knocked out."

From:

betterthanaplan

"He had an axe," Nathan said.

"Yeah. I like being armed," Duke said, spreading his arms and taking a swig from his bottle. "I'm real funny like that when there's someone around who wants to kill me."

They glared at each other from across the room, until Vince hesitantly broke the uneasy silence.

"What now?" he asked. "Do we just --"

Thunder cracked and the power gave out completely, plunging the whole room into darkness.

From:

okteiviakom

Well that was a recipe for chaos.

Octavia immediately, instinctively moved towards where she knew Duke was.

From:

betterthanaplan

And Duke moved to join her, even as his eyes tried to search the darkness for where the Chief had left the gun.

Most everyone else screamed and split, scattering throughout the hotel in a panic. All but Audrey, who was still trying to regain control of the situation, and Nathan, who despite not feeling pain, was still not entirely up to running basically anywhere.

Audrey found the lantern the Chief had brought back from the boathouse and switched it on. Duke cursed.

"The gun's gone."