seaoftroubles | Season one catchup preplay

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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.

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"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?"

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."

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.

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.

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."

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?"

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."

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."

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.

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."

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

"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?"

Edited 2020-09-19 18:03 (UTC)

"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."

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."

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.

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!

Distracted, her attention trained on the chatter in the other room, Octavia was about to hand Duke the bottle.

Instead, she only narrowly kept herself from dropping it on the floor when that happened.

"... Eleanor?"

'Eleanor' reached back and touched her neck gingerly. "Oh, that's nasty," he muttered.

Then he looked at Octavia. "Oh, no, sorry! Hi, I'm Ted! The boss sent me to yell at you." He laughed nervously. "Please don't club the messenger?"

Duke probably would be clubbing the messenger, if he were currently holding anything that would function as a club.

"Who the fuck is your boss?!"

Was this some new side of the chameleon? Part of the transformation process??

Octavia was quicker to move on from the idea that this was trouble-related. Or, at the very least she had a theory.

Her voice went considerably more hushed.

"I thought possession wasn't allowed anymore."

"Yes, well, when Lord Morningstar tells you to do something, you don't say no just because he said something else another time, right?"

Ted shrugged helplessly. Mind you, the broken neck did make it a bit awkward and... floppy, but he was trying.

"Besides, I get the day off after this."

... Don't get distracted, Ted.

Octavia couldn't help the little upward curving of her lips. Even if it only lasted for a second.

Because: "Wait, why are you supposed to yell at us?"

Not that it wasn't perfectly Lucifer to just pop up at the most inconvenient moment possible to draw attention to himself.

Duke got past his gaping long enough to facepalm.

"Because we're in Haven," he said. "He's here to yell at me."

"Yeah, basically," Ted said apologetically. He fixed Eleanor's eyes on Duke. "The boss said to tell you you're an idiot," he said, "And she shouldn't be here, and neither should you, and if he sees you wandering through the gates anytime in the next few decades because you were an idiot who 'can't leave well enough alone, the bloody masochist', he is personally going to show up to make your Hell like, ten times worse."

"Well," Octavia murmured, "sounds like Lucifer."

Season one catchup preplay

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH

Re: As You Were - MOAR DEATH