Season one catchup preplay

[seaoftroubles]

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.

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Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[seaoftroubles]

Audrey, Nathan, Duke, and Octavia(?) go to the basement to try to fix the power. Flipping the breakers doesn't work, so they go looking for a generator. Meanwhile, upstairs, Eleanor gets pushed down the stairs. Her scream brings everyone running to see what happened. They find her dead with a broken neck. Vince finds a mysterious crack in the wall of the hallway behind the stairs. While everyone goes to see what's up, Lucifer's demon pops up in Eleanor to yell at Duke.

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[betterthanaplan]

Duke was officially freaking the fuck out.

There was a part of him that had always trended towards paranoia. A part he generally kept buried under layer upon layer of humor and bravado and liquor. But though he'd kept the bottle he'd grabbed from the party room, the sense that at any moment he could be attacked from any direction was making him twitchy and angry.

He trailed behind Audrey and Nathan as they headed into the basement to trip the breakers, and really wished he still had his axe.

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[okteiviakom]

Not any direction. Octavia was a step or two behind him, trying to get all her own negative feelings under control.

The darkness here was not her friend, in ways she had not had to face in a while.

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[betterthanaplan]

Sorry, Octavia, Duke's paranoia was getting pretty insistent that it was any direction. No matter how much he tried to remind it that she'd always have his back.

Audrey looked around, then picked a direction, managing to lead them right to the fuse box. Duke watched Nathan flip the switches to no avail, and took an angry pull on his bottle.

"Not the breakers," Nathan noted.

"Right, well." Audrey frowned. "There's gotta be a back-up generator around here somewhere, right?"

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[okteiviakom]

"Well, whoever knows where they keep those in normal houses," Octavia rasped, keeping watch the way she had while they'd fiddled with the fuse box, "feel free to lead the way."

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[betterthanaplan]

"We should split up," Audrey said. "Find it faster."

"Hang on, you just said we needed to stick together," Duke pointed out.

"There are four people who are sitting ducks in the dark," Nathan said. It wasn't a large hallway, but he was still standing incredibly close to Duke. "We need to get to them before the chameleon does, and that will be a lot easier with the lights on."

"Man up," Audrey said, before turning to head down the hall.

Duke sighed heavily through his nose. "That would be a lot easier if I still had my AXE!"

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[okteiviakom]

"I'm this close to just walking out of this house," Octavia said, to no one in particular, before turning her gaze on Nathan. "You're going with her, right?"

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[betterthanaplan]

Nathan gave her a long, inscrutable look.

"No," he said. "That wouldn't be splitting up."

And he headed off in a different direction.

Duke took a big swig from his bottle. "This is why you don't throw people birthday parties."

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[okteiviakom]

"You should hold on to that thought next month," Octavia drawled, eyeing him and the bottle. "Which way, jaka?"

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[betterthanaplan]

"I know boats," Duke pointed out. "Not houses." He gestured down a hall with his bottle, away from where Audrey and Nathan had both gone. "This way?"

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[okteiviakom]

Octavia barely knew even boats, so at least he had one up on her there. She nodded, turning the indicated way.

Reached for his bottle even as she already took the first step. "Sure."

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[betterthanaplan]

Duke almost didn't let her take it. It was a security blanket and a potential weapon and he really, really didn't want to let it go.

But he did anyway, and followed after her.

He was just about to try to break the tension, make some crack about creepy hotels and storms and probably horror movies, when a scream echoed from upstairs.

"Shit."

He bolted back towards the stairs.

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[okteiviakom]

Octavia had been meaning to -- well, she'd at least considered giving the bottle back after a swig of her own. But, then the scream happened.

And now they were running.

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[betterthanaplan]

The Chief was the first on the scene, followed by Julia. By the time Duke and Octavia made it back upstairs to the main foyer, Audrey and Nathan were there, too, all four of them crouched over Eleanor.

Over Eleanor's body.

"Looks like a broken neck," Audrey said.

"I thought you said the chameleon killed by taking over its victims," Nathan said to the Chief.

"Maybe it didn't have time?" the Chief said, shaking his head.

The lights came back on, just as Julia stood to turn away -- right into Duke's chest.

He put his arm around her instinctively, even as he looked down at the body with a soft "oh no."

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[okteiviakom]

Octavia's face was impassive. They'd known there was a killer on the loose, so she'd already braced herself for seeing a body.

Again.

She looked up the stairs. "Who else was upstairs?"

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[betterthanaplan]

Julia pulled back from Duke and raised her hand just a little. "I was hiding under a bed," she admitted.

"Was looking for the body," the Chief said. "Spoke to her just maybe five minutes ago."

Vince and Dave came rushing down the hall. "We found another generator!" Vince said. "What's -- oh. Oh my." He pressed his hand to his chest.

Dave looked around. "M-maybe she just fell?"

Duke shot him a dark look. "Yeah. Because that's how our luck is working, today."

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[okteiviakom]

Okay, eyeing everyone gathered here, Octavia was finally starting to feel more of that paranoia seeping in. How were they supposed to figure this out when one of them was definitely lying?

There were a lot of things the last six years had prepared her for, but this wasn't one of them.

"Yeah, and maybe someone's going to just accidentally get shot, next."

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[betterthanaplan]

Nathan was also looking the group over, when his eyes happened to catch something in the next room, where the party was meant to be held. He drifted away from the group, looking up at it.

"That's . . . a big crack."

Most everyone followed after him, coming up with all sorts of reasons and excuses for such a large crack to have appeared in the wall, just in the last half an hour or so. Duke stayed where he was, staring down at the body.

Eleanor had not been a good mother, and she knew it. She could see it in Julia's face. when she dropped Julia on her head at six months old (twice). When she made Julia storm off as a teenager, shouting that she wished she'd never been born. When she couldn't remember just where Julia had been travelling, with what organization. When she stared at Julia, suddenly not sure if she was even her daughter at all, and not some murderous, troubled creature.

She saw it in Julia's face, every time she looked at her, over and over and over again. In Hell.

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[my_own_advocate]

Sometime, somewhere, in the midst of that repeating cycle, a man cleared his throat.

He was hard to miss, sitting as he was in an armchair with a martini in hand, his black-and-white suit impeccable and clean.

"I somehow expected we'd get people from Haven down here more often than we do," he said. "Of course, I've only actually been paying attention for a few years."

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[seaoftroubles]

"Is this a trouble?" Eleanor asked, only just tearing herself away from her daughter's suspicious face. "Is it your trouble?"

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[my_own_advocate]

"It's Hell, darling," Lucifer said. He took a sip from that glass; it didn't taste nearly as good as they made it on Earth. "You died, and now you're torturing yourself. Normally I'd just let you get on with it, but..."

He waved an arm.

"I try to say hi when the Havenites show up. I know someone from there, I want to keep up with the gossip."

He set his glass down. "You wouldn't happen to know a slovenly pirate named Duke Crocker, would you?"

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[seaoftroubles]

"I -- I died?" It was probably hard to catch up on gossip when the people he was asking were permanently several steps behind. "But the party -- Audrey -- Julia --"

She pressed her hand to her mouth, then to her chest. Then, because she was a Havenite, through and through, and thus heard inexplicable, impossible news on a regular basis, managed to refocus on his actual question.

"Duke was . . . there, yes. He brought his girlfriend. Angry young thing. I thought it was nice, that he'd settled down a little. Especially since it wasn't with my daughter."

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[my_own_advocate]

Something in Lucifer's expression grew sharper.

"Was he, now?" he said. "Please, do tell me more. I think I can rustle up some cookies in here."

He could, actually, just with a wave of his hand. And then he listened, for a good while, that sharpness solidifying into... something.

And then he turned to the six-month-old child and said, "Ted? I'll give you the day off if you can do me a solid and hop her body for a bit. It's not like she'll be needing it."

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[betterthanaplan]

Eleanor frowned. Permanently several steps behind. "Wait, what?!"

Back in Haven, Duke was still looking down at her body, and most of the party was still arguing over the crack in the other room.

He glanced back, reaching out a hand for Octavia. Or possibly the bottle in her hand.

He still really wanted a weapon.

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

[my_own_advocate]

He probably hadn't expected the body to abruptly sit up, had he?

"Oh wow," Ted the demon said, blinking rapidly.

It had been a very long time since he'd felt, you know. Human flesh and bones!