seaoftroubles | Season four preplay: Lay Me Down

Season four preplay: Lay Me Down

1. Duke gets a call from Nathan to say "Duke get your ass back here Wade's activated." -- Also feat. Lucifer and Octavia

2. Duke, Octavia, and Lucifer arrive in Haven, find out only [wild handwaving because Haven is terrible at timelines] number of days has passed even though it's been months for them. Jennifer says she's settling in okay on the Sanguine Moon and is applying for a job at the Haven Herald. Duke is all "uhhhhh. . . . 'kay, that's a choice that I support I guess". Jennifer is adorkably awkward about being nervous for the interview. Wade arrives at the Gull to grab cleaning products and is cagey about the reasons. "Soda spilled in my car." He claims that he understand the trouble is terrible and isn't going to let it take over. Duke tries to talk him through it, but Wade just shoves him off and promises to head out of town. Duke tries to pretend he believes that this trip might be an easy one. Also there is a day-time drunk sleeping on the bench outside the Gull. FOR PLOT REASONS.

3. Later that day, Dwight comes by the marina to tell Duke that the drunk died mysteriously at the police station. Duke remembers Freddie, the drunk, was into watching bear documentaries at the Gull. Dwight asks about Jordan, wonders aloud if Wade's involved. Duke says no way. -- Lucifer and Octavia are welcome to join in or not

4. Duke dreams about trying to talk to Wade about their trouble and getting attacked when he gets a papercut. Wakes up when dream!Wade slashes him with a knife to discover GIANT KNIFE WOUND ON HIS ARM! Octavia has her own injurious dream. Lucifer freaks out/fusses over them.

5. Lucifer tries to insure Duke and Octavia stay awake. Audrey decides to compare Nathan and Duke's activities the day before since they both got hit by the trouble and survived. They make the connection to the Herald and call Dwight -- too late, he gets shot in a dream. We can also have Nathan fill the OT3 in on the non-dream murders at the same time.

6. Duke takes advantage of Dwight being sedated in the hospital to check what he's looking into, finds info on the murder with the broken knife. Puts two and two together and figures out it's Wade. This can happen off screen. He and Lucifer (and maybe Octavia?) head to the local boat rental he knows Wade used and gets access to the boat he used. He follows the GPS along the coast and finds Wade's dumping grounds, including Jordan's remains.

7. While Audrey and Nathan defuse the trouble, Duke, Lucifer, and Octavia go after Wade, stop him from offing a guy at a local bar. Wade goes all high and mighty, Duke yells at him. Wade tries to pull the "brothers" card to keep from being turned in. "You killed all those people, Wade. That's on me now, too." Wade threatens to expose Lexie's secret so the Guard tries to make Audrey kill Nathan. Lucifer knocks Wade out so they can lock him up on the Sanguine Moon.

8. Octavia guards Wade on the Moon while Lucifer and Duke try to figure out where to stick him and arrange their travel back to Fandom. Wade escapes and he and Octavia fight. Octavia is winning until Wade manages to draw blood and gets the upper hand. Enter Duke and Lucifer. Lucifer goes to Octavia to try to staunch her bleeding while Duke takes on Wade? (Since Duke can't interact with Octavia's blood and all. Maybe Wade managed to open her dream wound and it's worse than just a little cut.) Wade throws himself on Duke's knife and dies. The Crocker trouble dies too.

9. Duke wraps Wade's body in a tarp. When Duke reaches for Octavia's wound, she flinches back. Duke internalizes the SHIT out of that even though it's a natural move if they've been used to trying to keep their blood off him. Lucifer suggests they clear out, Duke agrees, so long as he can bury Wade first. He asks them not to tell anyone about the murder. Luce and Tavi are probably like "whatever, we don't want to talk to any of these people anyway."

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When he woke, Duke would wonder at the fact that the dream took place on the Rouge, a place Wade had never been and, if Duke had his way, would never be. His boat had become his refuge, a place Haven could no longer touch. A place for him and Octavia and Lucifer where they could get away from what their various worlds always tried to do to them.

In his dream, though, Wade stood at the Rouge's sink like he belonged there, washing blood and fish scales from a long knife.

"Look at you," Wade said with a friendly smile. "You got a date tonight?"

Duke flicked him a small smile. "You and me." He gestured to the carefully set table beside him. "Last supper."

"Sorry," Wade looked down at the knife in his hands. "I, uh, got plans."

"Come on," Duke wheedled. "You're leaving soon. Look, I want . . ." he looked at the table setting. What he'd originally thought was a carefully folded napkin turned out to be his father's journal. Their father's journal. "I want to show you something." He flipped through it quickly, looking for the right page. "It's Dad's journal. I should've shown you earlier, but . . ."

But he'd thought he needed to keep it to himself.

"Look. He talks about the rush that troubled blood gave him." He knew the entry was in here somewhere. He flipped faster and sliced his thumb open on the edge of a page. "Ow!"

He jammed his thumb in his mouth and glanced up at Wade.

Wade stared at him. Licked his lips.

"Wade?" Duke asked.

Wade lunged. Duke threw his arms up to block, but Wade's eyes were somehow already silver, his attack somehow already insanely powerful. And he had that knife.

"No. Wade, man, stop!"

The knife bit into his arm, deep, slashing down across the meat of his forearm. The pain was shocking, bright and angry and he shot awake with a shout.

"Wade!"

Edited 2022-10-03 20:04 (UTC)

The desert was vast and empty, but Octavia thought she could feel something moving under the sand. Slithering, biding its time. One more reason they couldn't stop, one more reason Octavia was ushering Jennifer along, as if the horizon would eventually come closer if they just.... kept... going.

But it never did.

And the sandstorm rose in two blinks of an eye, all around them.

And when Octavia grabbed Jennifer, desperate to shield her, no no no take me instead, you can't have her, the crystallized shards of the storm tore through her cape and slashed razor-sharp at her back, at her arms.

And then someone was shouting. Jennifer? Her? No, someone else, someone --

She startled awake, alert and wide-eyed. "Duke?" (Her back and her arms stung. She did not really notice, no.)

Edited 2022-10-04 19:16 (UTC)

Was there a sound? Some sort of prompt? Oh-- of course.

"--mggh, pass the suntan lotion, Duke, Octavia's getting impatient--" Lucifer mumbled into his pillow as something yanked him towards waking.

Duke pushed himself upright between them and hissed with his arm yelled at him. When he lifted it up, the slash Wade had given him in his dream was bright and gaping, just starting to bleed.

"Shit!"

Octavia stared at his arm. The light was dim in the room, but... That was definitely an injury.

"Is that -- what?"

She reached out for his arm. The sting of the cuts along the outside of hers continued to fail to register.

"Buh?"

Wait. They were not on the beach, and Octavia wasn't being charmingly impatient, that was--

Lucifer veered up abruptly. "Octavia, no!"

It was dark. They were all groggy. Duke was already in pain.

He didn't notice the blood on her arm until a bit of it smeared onto his.

His instinctive hiss of pain turned into a choked whine as the rush of his trouble hit. The slashes on her weren't deep, but they were right there and there were so many of them!

He slammed his eyes shut moments after they went silver, and shoved himself down into the mattress, mindless of his own arm. Resisting the urge to snarl and tackle her off the bed to get more at that blood.

Lucifer's voice had startled Octavia, just not quite in time. The side of her wrist touched Duke's skin, and then -- well, that. Octavia scrambled backwards at the first flash of silver, her own eyes wide. Her arms and her back screamed at her, now, but she couldn't look at them when her gaze was nailed to Duke.

The sheets were stained where she'd been laying just a second ago.

"Oh, for the love of all that is-- bloody Haven," Lucifer snarled, shoving himself across the mattress. Sort of-- launching himself between the two of them. It was an awkward move, but it was the best he had.

Duke managed to collect himself enough to roll in the opposite direction, though not very far yet. He wasn't actively absorbing the blood out of the bedding now, at least.

He curled around his injured arm and breathed through his clenched teeth. And maybe regretted always sleeping naked. Just a little bit.

Octavia scooted all the way to the edge of the bed. "I'm sorry," she breathed. "I'm so sorry."

What for?

She finally looked down at her arms. Had to... turn them to even see what was happening.

"Oh."

"I am already thoroughly done with this trouble," Lucifer growled. He moved to form a more solid barrier between Octavia and Duke, his eyes full of agitated concern as he watched Duke.

Duke focussed on breathing, forcing down the manic, euphoric rage.

"I'm okay," he said, forgetting his arm for the moment. "Is she -- Tavi? You alright?"

The correct answer was probably 'yeah', wasn't it?

It wasn't quite what Octavia said after swallowing, though. "It's -- there are a lot." Of cuts. But he already knew that. "But they're shallow."

Lucifer glanced over his shoulder. "Are there bandages in the nightstand?" he asked.

"I'll check." Duke pushed himself up off the other side of the bed, hissing through another wince as the cut on his arm protested. (It was bleeding . . . kind of a lot. He was still more concerned with Octavia, though.) "Probably won't be enough for all that, though. Maybe the bathroom?"

Edited 2022-10-06 19:18 (UTC)

"It's not that bad," Octavia tried, her eyes following Duke - but his arm, in particular. "Duke, you need to wrap something around that."

"You both need to wrap up," Lucifer sighed. Now that the danger seemed to have gone, he slid off the bed. "I'll try the bathroom. Duke, get a t-shirt on that wound or something."

Duke finally took a look at his arm, keeping well back from Octavia (though all he wanted to do was rush over and help her). "Fuck," he muttered. "Damn trouble is making dreams come true in the worst way possible."

Oh, Octavia was staying sort of huddled up on her side of the bed, trying to make herself small just out of caution.

(She also wanted few things more than to be helping Duke.)

"Well," she said, sounding like her throat was dry all of a sudden. "Least no one's dead?"

Don't mind her, she'd just realized how much more the sandstorm in her dream could have done. (The members of Wonkru dead from protecting her with their own bodies --)

"Yeah," Duke said, a bit absently. (Wade's eyes going silver, Wade lunging for him, knife raised. . . .) He found a t-shirt and started wrapping it around his arm as best he could.

At least it was his right arm that got cut.

He nodded to her with his chin. "Dreamed about the Ground?"

It was the first thing that actually made Octavia's gaze fall away from him, and down to her arms. Which she was now holding kind of awkwardly against her knees, sitting cross-legged, trying not to --

Well, bleed all over everything.

"Yeah," she said. "I did."

Duke swallowed the urge to ask if she wanted to talk about it.

"Right," he said instead. "So . . . no more sleeping for a bit."

How could she have explained all the bodies, anyway?

(Somehow that was all Octavia could think about when she thought about trying to say anything about it, and it hadn't even been in the dream.)

"Looks like," she said weakly. "Are you okay?"

Duke wiggled the fingers on his cut arm a little. “Nothing some bactine and a bandage won’t fix. Is it sad I’m not even surprised?”

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