Work Text:
Octavio wouldn’t say he likes Four. Because he doesn’t. That slimy little twerp kept stopping every attempt he made at escape! He’s still stuck here, because of her. Still, he’s…interested, in whatever she’s doing.
Four touches the wall of the empty Cuttlefish Cabin like it holds some long forgotten secrets. Her bag hangs limply off her shoulder. She’s entirely unprepared for the pouring rain in Tentakeel Outpost; dressed in nothing but a thin t-shirt, shorts and slippers. Octavio curls a tentacle and presses it between his eyes. She looks like she just tumbled out of bed—maybe she did, actually.
She flops down in Callie’s old spot and stares at.. nothing in particular. None of this makes any sense. Why did she come out here? Why now? She’s been gone for weeks at this point; long enough that the Squid Sisters stopped showing up.
She looks so small. Folded in on herself, desperately wiping the tears from her eyes like a small child. He’s not falling for i—
She drops her arms to her lap. They’re covered in ragged cuts, some scarred and some still bleeding. She bows her head and laces her fingers together.
Her tentacles have grown out far enough that he can’t see her eyes. She grips her hands tight enough that they tremble with the effort.
“Octavio?” Her voice is hoarse and wavering. “I.. don’t know if you’re awake. Or if you even, y’know. Care.”
Her head is still down. She looks like she’s praying.
“I came to let you out. I—” she coughs pitifully. “I feel…really bad. For everything.”
He is, in fact, falling for it.
“That doesn’t explain why you came out here dressed like this.” Four glances up.
“Hm? Ah. Yeah.” She twists her finger in the hem of her shirt. He gestures for her to continue.
Four gets up and crosses the distance between them.
“Don’t think about it too hard.” She’s clearly trying to keep her tone light—it comes out strained instead.
“You look like you just woke up.”
“I did!” She smiles sadly and rears her arm back. “This.. isn’t gonna hurt you, right?”
“I’ve done this literally hundreds of times.” Callie’s fixation on the Hypno Shades will never make sense to him. At least she was a good sport helping him break out.
“Sweet.” She elbows the globe once, hard. It breaks easily along old fractures. Four reaches out and then freezes.
“I already saw them,” he starts, with the calm patience of somebody who’s had this conversation before. “no point hiding it. What did you do?”
“Dammit.” she breathes. “I didn’t think you’d care.” Four reaches out her arm and pulls him out of the globe.
She leans backward against the broken snow globe, arms held close to her chest.
“It’s a long story. I don’t wanna get into it.”
“Four.”
“What? You don’t have to keep pretending you care.” Her tentacles are turning translucent in the rain.
“Do you expect me not to care about this? You come out here, entirely unprepared. You don’t even have your agent gear with you—”
“I do. I just didn’t have time to get it on before I left.”
“Sure. You—why did you leave, actually?”
Four sighs. “Got in a fight with my mom. She kicked me out.”
“..is it raining in Inkopolis too?”
“Yep! I didn’t think it was pouring here too, but.” She waves her hands around.
He growls. “What was your plan, then? Just stay here overnight?”
“Clear some kettles. After that…I don’t really know. She does this pretty often. It’s fine.”
Fine, she says. Getting kicked out of her house is just fine. Fuck.
“Okay. Get in the cabin.”
He really doesn’t want to switch forms right now—or ever. He’s injured enough to cause him constant pain in his octoling form, but not enough to completely bar it. Four doesn’t look like she has enough medical knowledge to patch herself up, so it’s up to him; he’d rather do first aid with actual hands.
“Yea—huh? That thing opens?!”
He’s going to scream.
“Yes?”
“Huh. Marie never mentioned that.”
Of course she didn’t, he thinks. She doesn’t actually care about you, does she? You’re just a means to an end.
Four shivers again. He’s being a hypocrite, isn’t he? What makes her different to any of his soldiers? He’s getting off track.
His boots thunk wetly against the ground. She looks back at him.
“Holy sh—um. Holy mackerel. I didn’t know you could do that!”
Octavio flexes his hand weakly—it’s not so painful that he can’t help her, but it’s not going to be easy—and tilts his head up.
“Fuck. Yeah. There’s a reason I don’t.” He leans back on his heel, trying to get some sensation into his limbs.
“Oh.”
He shoos her toward the cabin. Four drops her slippers as she heads inside, dropping her bag down to her elbow and rifling through.
“I know this is bad manners,” she murmurs. His foot has enough sensation for him to walk over but his balance is screwed. He really needs to switch over more. Four brandishes her snow boots. “but I am not walking in here barefoot. I think that’s worse.”
“I don’t think anyone cares.” He kneels down and tugs at his laces.
She hums thoughtfully. Octavio grabs her slippers from outside, chucks them at the kitchenette, and closes the sliding door. Four bursts out laughing.
“That works too, I guess.”
She reaches out a hand. He feels a little bad leaning on a teenager for support, but there’s not much else he can do.
“Thank you.” They do have a first-aid kit. Craig’s granddaughters are smarter than he is, then.
He pulls out two chairs and starts rifling through the kit.
“Uh. Don’t look.” There’s a soft thud, evidently as she sits down.
At least she’s getting out of her wet clothes. Those couldn’t have been doing her any good.
Octavio takes the opportunity to wash his hands and lay out a few bandages. He keeps getting himself in situations like these, somehow. Maybe he cares too much. He can’t force himself to look away from things like this.
“Okay. Thank you.”
“You dressed?”
“Yeah. Sorry.” He looks over his shoulder—her ears are flushed bright red. Her hoodie hangs off one arm. “Didn’t wanna freeze.”
“It’s fine. I’m just glad you’re not soaking wet anymore. Here,” he pats the chair next to him and sits down. “Give me your arm.”
Four makes a choked little noise—this kid keeps fighting him, she’s part of the New Squidbeak Splatoon, he’s not supposed to care—and sits down. She ties back her tentacles and exposes her wrist.
Octavio pulls her arm closer and rips open a pack of alcohol wipes with his teeth.
“Do they not have scissors?” Four sounds slightly happier now.
“I can’t be bothered to look. Hold still.”
She squeaks when the wipe makes contact. He has to give her credit where it’s due: she doesn’t squirm, even when he bandages her arm.
“There’s one,” he takes her other hand. “This one’ll be worse.”
“Wow. Really?” Four deadpans.
She winces immediately when he gets to work on this one, and it’s not hard to see why—the cuts and scars stretch from the base of her palm up to her elbow. There’s thin white lines over her shoulder, too. The cuts are worse near the centre of her arm; wide and blue.
Four leans her head back and screws her eyes shut.
Octavio feels guilty, somehow. Like there was anything he could have done to stop it getting to this point. There was, almost definitely. He should have just checked in on her.
“…are you going to be okay?”
“Huh?” Her ear flicks when she answers.
“You said your mom kicked you out. Do you think she’ll do it again?”
Four groans. “No idea. I gotta call around.” He pauses. She cracks an eye open. “What?”
“What do you mean—”
“She’s not letting me back in. I’m,” she throws up air quotes with her free hand. “‘too old’ to be living with her.”
“How old are you?”
She throws her arm over her eyes. “Eighteen. In a week.”
Octavio spits a string of curses.
“What did any of that mean?”
“You’re seventeen?”
“Yeah—” He drops her hand.
“Four. Look at me.” She won’t meet his eyes. “You are seventeen years old—”
“And?”
“And your mother just kicked you out of her house. You said she does this often?”
“Yeah. It—it’s fine! I’ll figure it out.”
“Four. I’m not leaving you to be homeless while you wait for her to get her shit together.” He sighs and takes her hand again. “Especially not this injured.”
“What’s your plan, then?”
“I don’t have one—”
“I knew it—”
“—but I can’t leave you to just ‘figure it out’ on your own.”
Four breathes in hard—she looks like she’s going to start sobbing. He feels awful.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She whispers softly: “I thought you wouldn’t care.”
Octavio silently reaches out an arm. She pulls her chair closer and hugs him.
“I do now.”
He sees himself in her. A scared kid, surrounded by people who only want to use her in one way or another. If he’d had somebody, back then, would things have been different? Is that the only reason he cares? Just looking for a do-over, somebody to make him feel better about the direction his life’s gone? Somebody to live vicariously through, like his father did to him—
“Thank you.” Four mumbles into his shoulder.
Everything clicks into place in his mind.
She needs somebody to look out for her. He’s the worst person for the job—he can barely keep his army afloat, he’s done horrible things just to try and fix his mistakes—but he understands.
“I’m so sorry, Four.” Octavio swallows hard and tries to ignore the tears in his eyes. “You didn’t deserve this, yo—”
He cuts himself off before he starts crying. Four squeezes his shoulder tight and pulls back to look at him.
“It’s okay.” She’s smiling.
“Dammit.” He hisses.
“I wish I had something to say, y’know?” she continues. “You’re being so nice to me and I...I can’t say anything. I can’t think what to say.”
Octavio buries his face in his hands; she deserves a decent explanation, even if he chokes up telling it.
“Fuck. I shouldn’t be worrying you with all of this. I get it. I used to be exactly the same as you. It—it wasn’t my mom. She was great. But,” he loops a tentacle around his wrist and pulls tight. “I understand. I swear.”
He looks up at her. Four nods sadly.
“That’s why you were so worried.”
Octavio wipes his eyes and nods.
“Yeah. Shit, I was your age too. You didn’t deserve any of this.” He breathes in and reaches for her wrist again. “Can’t change the past, right?”
“Only the future.” She smiles again, brightly, despite the tears in her eyes.
When her arm is fully bandaged—two of the cuts needed butterfly bandages to close—she holds it up to the light.
“Thanks, Tav. Can I call you that?”
“No.” He rests his elbows on the back of the chair
“Yes? Okay then. Sweet!” She sticks her tongue out. He can’t even be mad at her.
He sighs. “You’re infuriating.”
“I aim to be!” She chirps.
There’s a peaceful silence between them, for a second. Four unties her tentacles and shakes her head. “Bleh.”
Octavio gets up, a little unsteadily. “Hold on.”
“What?”
“I’ll cut them for you,” he says, rifling through the drawers of the kitchenette. “if you want.”
“You know what you’re doing?” The whole cabin feels lighter now. She hops up and leans on the counter beside him. Octavio holds up a pair of scissors—bright pink and glittery. There’s nautilus stickers on the handle.
“Think they’re Marie’s?” He jokes.
“Totally.” She bounds back over to her seat, tugging her hoodie over her newly bandaged arm.
“Hold still,” he warns, pointing the scissors at her face. “I don’t wanna poke your eyes out.”
Four pulls her legs onto the seat and leans her face forward. Octavio holds her bangs between his fingers and lines up the scissors.
“How short do you want this?”
“Bald.”
“Not happening.” He replies.
“Do I look like a real boy, Papa?” She croons.
“Never say that again.” He holds her side bangs up to her chin.
“Can you cut them a little short? Gives ‘em room to grow back.”
“Sure.”
It’s hard to line up the other side of her face, but he manages fine. She twirls around in her seat for him to cut the back.
“Can you please calm down?” She’s practically buzzing with excitement.
“I’ve never seen the sunrise from Tentakeel before!”
He sighs fondly. At least she’s in a good mood.
“Let me finish this and you can go do…whatever it is you do out here.”
She runs her hands over the back of her head. “Thank you.”
“Hey. Why do I get the feeling that isn’t about the haircut?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Come look at the sunrise!” She rushes over to the door and very nearly falls over strapping on her snow boots.
He wouldn’t say he likes Four. At least, not before today.
“Taaaav!” She pokes her head around the door. “Octavio!”
“You act like a toddler. I’m coming.”
He never expected to be heading back to his army with an inkling in tow. He knows, though, that nobody else will step up.
Four breathes out into the chilly morning air.
“You think it’ll snow soon?”
“It’s Octo Canyon. We’re lucky if we get two weeks without snow.” Octavio smiles, despite himself. He’s not used to feeling this light.
She's rubbing off on him already.