Cappie was still in bed. He didn’t want to get up, possibly ever again. His head hurt and his stomach was acting like it wanted to reside on the outside of his body. He’d dragged himself out into the communal area of his apartment earlier that morning, wrapped in his duvet and searching for grease and coffee, only to find that some greedy asshole (Roccorey Feldman) had eaten all the bacon and left barely enough coffee in the pot for half a mug, and it was the scummy bit.
Giving up on the idea of hangover home-remedy, he’d shuffled his way back to bed, collapsed heavily and pulled out his device, looking for sympathy and possibly someone who wasn’t opposed to stopping by Coffee Me Better to pick him up something hot, tasty and caffeinated.
Luckily, Octavia seemed to be feeling sympathetic that day. She was on her way over at that moment: Cappie had let her know that the apartment door was unlocked so she could get in with the coffees when she arrived. She was picking him up one of Coffee Me’s special hangover buster coffees, with about two dozen espresso shots and enough sugar to comatose a small child. Because friends looked after friends like that, apparently. And they were such good friends. Because they were so friendly.
Cappie groaned and buried his head under his pillow.
Already on her way to the base when her device buzzed with Cappie's text, Octavia let out a short laugh and rolled her eyes with a shake of her head. She'd known he'd been going hard the night before during his birthday celebrations, but he must have continued well into the night after she'd left. She responded back saying that she would stop by, so she doubled back a couple blocks to stop by Coffee Me Better to pick up some coffee - very, very strong coffee - and a handful of muffins and scones that they had available. If he wanted something else, he'd have to call in the take out order himself. She also ordered her own coffee for good measure and headed back to the towers.
Since he'd left the door unlocked, she didn't bother knocking and let herself inside the apartment. Stopping in the kitchen, Octavia grabbed a beer bottle from the fridge just in case he wanted to go hair of the dog route instead. With the hangover remedy supplies in hand, she started towards his bedroom door, not knocking here either since he'd likely want to toss the muffins back at her if she dared make any loud noises or sudden movements.
“Oh my god, really?” she said at the pitiful sight of him face down on the bed. Octavia sat everything minus her own coffee on the nightstand next to him and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“So, how much of last night do you even remember?”
Cappie must have dozed while he was waiting for her to arrive as he awoke to the feel of the bed beside him dipping under someone else’s weight. Reluctantly, he pulled his head out from under the pillow and peered up to see Octavia looking down at him.
“I don’t know,” he replied huskily, through the dry mouth, blinking blearily to try to sharpen up his vision. “I don’t remember.”
With an almighty effort, he rolled himself over and pulled himself up in the bed to sit with his back against the pillows, the duvet draped across his lap, leaving his chest bare. His nightstand was covered with the things O had brought with her and, while he appreciated her effort, the sight of the food and especially the beer made his stomach lurch dangerously. He averted his gaze, focusing on Octavia instead. She looked good today - much fresher than he did, he was sure - and he found his gaze lingering on her lips. He cleared his throat and looked back down at the nightstand which was, apparently, the safer of the two options. In amongst the muffins and scones, there was a tall coffee cup, steaming invitingly from the little hole in the plastic lid.
“Oh, thank you,” he said gladly, reaching out to pick it up. He cupped it between his hands and brought it to his lips, blowing a little through the hole before risking taking a sip. It had obviously cooled down just the right amount during her walk over because it was just drinkable. He took a big mouthful and forced himself to swallow it down, ignoring the protestations of his fragile stomach.
“It all got a bit hazy for me after the vodka gummy worms,” he explained, risking looking back up at her again. “I don’t think you’d left by that point.”
He remembered O leaving. He remembered wishing she’d stay and he remembered redoubling his efforts on the drink after she was gone.
Once again, his gaze flickered to her lips. It was like they were drawing his attention. He forced himself to look away, down at the cup in his hands. He needed to get himself together!
One of man’s greatest creations - coffee. They hadn’t had the stuff on the ground, so Octavia had never tasted a proper cup until coming to Atlantis. There were a lot of things she hadn't tasted before Atlantis, but coffee had become a near-daily staple once she'd been brave enough to try it. She'd tasted some god awful excuse for coffee that Bellamy had once smuggled back to their room on the Ark for her to try, but had nearly spit the stuff out it was so terrible. She'd also been thirteen or fourteen at the time, and her tastes had changed a lot since then too.
“You hadn't gotten to the point of a black out before I left, so you must have seriously amped it up after that,” she said to him. She'd always known Cappie liked his drinks and his parties - hell, their friendship began when he'd offered to buy her drinks when she was still underage - but she thought that even he was going for a new record these days. She was the last person to lecture anyone on healthy habits, but hers didn't result in morning after hangovers. Usually.
“I hope you don't have to be anywhere today or at least not until later.” She didn't bother hiding a smirk. He looked like shit, but she figured he felt worse so she kept that to herself. It was implied, anyway.
Octavia took a long sip of her coffee and shrugged. “Do you need anything else?” She didn't have to be at the base immediately, but she'd thought about getting a workout in before her meeting in a couple hours.
“I booked the day off in advance,” he said after swallowing down another remedial mouthful of coffee. He had foreseen that he wouldn’t be up to much today and he didn’t want to go and piss Abe off by crying off sick, especially not after the Boss man had actually been sympathetic the day after the Solstice party.
Cappie looked up sharply when O asked if he needed anything else, his stomach lurching for an entirely different reason to before. Was she leaving? He didn’t want her to leave.
His gaze snagged on her mouth again. Her lips were flushed from the heat of the coffee she’d been drinking and Cappie felt mesmerised by the sight of them. He wetted his own lips and gulped hard, trying to focus on something, anything, but O’s mouth but it was impossible. He remembered all too well what it felt like to kiss those lips. He remembered how soft and hot they had felt against his skin. He could feel his heart rate rising, the adrenaline beginning to pump, as the images raced through his brain. His eyes flickered up to hers, a strange, almost pained look coming over his face. He felt as though he was losing control, as though he was about to do something stupid: stupid but completely unavoidable.
Sitting up in the bed, Cappie lifted a hand from his coffee cup to Octavia’s cheek. Part of him was screaming that this was a terrible, terrible idea, but there was something far stronger driving him as he closed the gap between them and pressed his lips to hers in a long, deep kiss.
A shiver ran through him, of… what? Relief? Fulfilled anticipation? Magic? Whatever it was, as it passed, he relaxed slightly, his mouth becoming softer against hers, less ardent, more obliging. At the same moment, the realisation of what he’d done washed over him. It was as if a pit had opened up in his stomach. What the hell had happened to keeping his feelings to himself, moving on and letting her be happy with Becker?
He broke away from her and pulled back, his eyes wide and wary. The hand, that had slipped into her hair just moments before, hovered awkwardly in the thick silence between them. The whole thing could only have lasted a few seconds but Cappie felt as though time had slowed right down to make those seconds feel like hours.
“I guess I needed that,” he said shakily. He was well aware of how ridiculous he sounded and inwardly he groaned.
“Smart call,” she said about taking the day off in advance. At least he had the mind to prepare for being completely trashed and useless for most of the next day. She wondered briefly if she’d be able to get away with that. Probably not. Though… maybe more so now than a couple weeks ago depending on how she played that card. It was a very delicate card.
Seconds went on, and Octavia noticed when Cappie got this weird look on his face and started staring at her. She nearly waved her hand in front of his face to see if he’d zoned out or had managed to fall asleep with his eyes open, but before she could, he sat up and closed the distance between them. Before she could say anything or ask what the hell he was doing, Cappie was kissing her. Like, full on kissing her that she was pretty sure went a lot further than a ‘thank you for the coffee’ kind of kiss. She sat there still, eyes wide and stunned, until he sat back and stated that he needed that. That.
Thankfully, her coffee was already steadied by the cup halfway resting on the bed, otherwise she likely would have dropped it. Octavia lifted her free hand and pushed him back with her hand on his chest. She still wore a look of surprise on her face.
“Cappie,” she started slowly. “What,” She stood up. “Was that.” Octavia held out one of her arms and stared at him. “A simple ‘thank you for the coffee’ would have been fine, you know.”
The hand on his chest, pushing him away, seared white hot with rejection. Looking crestfallen, he slumped back against the pillows, his coffee listing slightly where it rested in his lap. This. This was exactly why he hadn’t said anything about his crush on Octavia before. They were friends and he absolutely hadn’t wanted to make things weird between them. The Lady and the Tramp thing had been trying but they’d both been able to say they’d been affected by magic and that shared experience had brought them closer. But this was real life, real feelings and there would be real consequences. He just didn’t know why on earth he’d done it… He must still be drunk.
“That was….” He sighed. “Misjudged and very badly timed.”
Octavia’s expression grew from one of surprise to one of confusion. She didn't know exactly what to say or how to react because this felt so out of the blue. If it had been a couple of weeks ago it might not have seemed as surprising….
Shit. No wonder Becker had been speechless when she'd done the same thing to him, although, hers had probably been even more abrupt considering she'd turned around to walk out the door right after. “What do you mean badly timed?” she asked after finally finding her words again.
Octavia didn't want to be angry with him, but she also had no idea what to do in that moment. Was this some Atlantis thing again? He wasn't calling her Pigeon, so Lady and the Tramp were still long gone but something felt… off.
“Where did that come from?”
What did she mean, what did he mean badly timed? This was obviously the worst timing ever. It had been, what, two weeks since she’d announced to him that she was seeing someone else. They’d both been here for over a year, they’d both been single since February, and he’d chosen now as the time to kiss her.
“Well, I’m pretty sure I have a horrendous case of morning breath,” he said dryly, extending his stay of execution for a few moments with humor.
“Honestly, I have no idea,” he winced in reply to her second question. “I know you’re seeing Becker and I… I guess I must still be drunk or something.” He shook his head. It could be Atlantis magic, he supposed, but then again this wasn’t the first time over the last few months that he’d found himself wanting to kiss Octavia. The difference was that he’d been able to resist before.
Octavia mostly ignored his joke. She was still stuck on the who, what, and why of the whole ordeal and trying to figure out what to do that didn't involve smacking him on the back of the head. Her first instinct was to walk out the door, but this was Cappie. If she did that then they'd probably awkwardly avoid each other for a while before having another awkward conversation. There was a good chance that might happen anyway.
Hadn't she been thinking the other day how much she missed the simplicity of the ground? Yeah, so this was still the ‘ground,’ but her version of the ground and Atlantis ground were vastly different.
“Do you have feelings for me?” She asked, deciding to go for the direct approach rather than bounce around it like she felt they had after the Sleeping Beauty incident. She'd asked him in a roundabout way then, but he'd said no. He'd practically encouraged her to talk to Becker about what happened.
Cappie felt his heart stop at her question. There were moments in life that were like crossroads, with paths heading off in different directions. You couldn’t necessarily see where each road would lead, but you could tell that they would take you on very different journeys. Cappie could sense that this was one of those moments.
The way he saw it, he had three options. He could lie and tell her, ‘No’, blame the kiss on Atlantis, carry on as though this had never happened, stick to the original plan to get the hell over her and move on without damaging their friendship.
Option two: he could avoid the question, make a joke, make it clear that the discussion was over, thank her for the coffee and bury his head back beneath his pillows, figuratively and literally. There would be awkwardness. He’d probably avoid her for a while until he’d come up with a plan for how to deal with things. In the meantime, though, he’d miss her, just like he had done when he’d been avoiding her before, and he knew that would just make him more likely to fuck up when they next spoke to each other.
The third option was the most terrifying, by far. He could tell the truth. He could admit to her that, yes, he had feelings for her and that he didn’t completely understand them himself but that he thought about her, a lot, and he hated the thought of her being with Becker. He could tell her that he’d been so angry when she’d got hurt by Lincoln leaving in March and even angrier at himself for not being there for her when she’d needed him. He could tell her that he loved the way she challenged him, how she didn’t put up with any of his crap, how she saw through his bravado and his jokes and how she valued his intelligence and insight. He could tell her that he was in awe of how she was one of the toughest, most badass people he’d ever known but, even after all the crap she’d been through, somehow she still managed to have this amazing, kind, compassionate heart.
Dammit, he wished he had a map to tell him which road to take. Even then, though, he couldn’t be sure that they didn’t all lead to a dead end.
“Does it make a difference?” he asked, looking doubtful.
Octavia wasn't sure how many seconds passed before he spoke again, but it probably felt like a lot longer than it was in reality. No matter what answer he gave, she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. If he said no, would she still wonder if he was telling her the truth? If he said yes, what the hell was she supposed to say to him that wouldn't change their friendship?
When he did speak, it wasn't a yes or no answer, but the fact that he didn't outright say no told her all she needed to know. Her mind started spinning with all sorts of ways to answer the question he asked in return. She cared about Cappie. A lot. She liked him probably better than 99% of the people in Atlantis, and they'd definitely gotten closer ever since the Disney episode, but she thought that's all it had been. Maybe it was at the time especially considering his own personal circumstances then, but what had changed between then and now? For her part, she had changed dramatically between her memories and Lincoln showing up. Only she hadn't changed in the way that it sees Cappie had.
Her silence probably told him what he needed to know just as his dodging of the question told her. Eventually, she slowly shook her head. “No.” She hesitated another moment. “I care about you a lot, Cap, but… no. I’m sorry.” He was practically her best friend in Atlantis, but, for her, that's where it stopped.
Cappie knew what Octavia was going to say before she said it. He could read it on her face and in the long, long pause before she spoke. He thought he’d probably known it before then anyway. In a way, it was a relief to hear her say it out loud. He felt like a weight had lifted.
He took a deep breath before sighing it out, a resigned smile spreading across his lips.
“Ouch,” he commented lightly, licking his lips and raising his eyebrows as he looked up at her. “Kick a man while he’s down, why don’t you?” he teased, or half teased.
After a moment, he shrugged and said, “Don’t be sorry. It is what it is. You’re my best friend here and I’m not going to lose you over this, so it’s done now, we can move on.”
“Besides,” he added, slumping down further in the bed and pulling his coffee cup up to rest on his chest. “I’m all over the place right now. I don’t know what the hell’s going on with me and I’m not sober often enough to work it out.” He sighed and took a long, loud sip of his coffee.
Having never let anyone down gently or non-gently before, Octavia could officially say that it sucked, especially when it was someone she already cared about and felt close to. He was one of a small handful of people she would kill for - literally - and she didn't want things to be weird between them.
Training to be a warrior or becoming the freaking queen of the last remaining people on earth didn't help her in this at all. If anything, it made her thoughts even more confusing since in her new memories she was so much more cold and detached and her biggest objective was to keep control and to make sure her people survived. That version of Octavia, Blodreina, thought attachments and love were a weakness.
She knew he was trying to play off some of his true feelings of disappointment and probably more, and she wasn't going to pressure him otherwise. She might have still been his best friend, but right now she was also the girl who had just told him that she didn't feel anything for him other than friendship and had rejected any possible future advances from him. She gave him a half smile, trying to play into the casual tone he was trying to set. “Well, I hope not,” she said about losing her. “Because I'd just annoy you until you relented anyway.”
Feeling like he probably didn't want her to stick around too much longer, she shrugged. “I should probably…” She pointed over her shoulder towards the door with her thumb and took a step back.
“And for whatever it's worth… not sober you is plenty of fun, but I like sober you. That guy's a hell of a lot of fun to be around too. He might be able to figure it out.”
Cappie smiled again, more genuinely, when she said she’d annoy him until he relented. He got the impression she was trying to keep things light hearted in an attempt not to upset him, and he appreciated the concern. What he’d said had been true: he was not going to lose her over this. He couldn’t. At the end of the day, she might have rejected his advances, but she wasn’t rejecting him as a person, and that meant something to him.
Cappie opened his mouth when she mentioned leaving but shut it again, deciding that he didn’t want to ask her to stick around. He needed to finish his coffee, eat something, maybe throw up a few times and sleep the rest of this hangover off. So, instead, he nodded in unspoken agreement.
Her next statement caught him off guard, however, and a little crease formed above his brow as he listened. She was right. He needed to dry out and take some time to really think about things. He was living in a haze and he was suffering because of it. The booze, the girls, it was all fine but it was a sticking plaster and, eventually, he needed to deal with the actual wound.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Even though he hadn’t said anything, Octavia took it as a good sign that he didn’t seem to object to what she’d said to him. She knew that he’d always have that party, let loose side to him, and that was all fine and good, but at some point he would have to deal with what he was actively avoiding. And, yes, she knew she was preaching to the choir here. It was why she’d been spending so much time working out on her own.
Standing in the doorway, Octavia looked back at him and nodded with a small smile. “Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow.” It might be awkward for a little while before they got back into their normal rhythm, but eventually she thought they could get there.
She lingered for just a second before giving him one last look and passed through, closing the door behind her. Thankfully, she still didn’t see any of his roommates around, so she made a quick exit of the apartment. Instead of continuing on to the base, Octavia planned to go for a run. A really long run.