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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"Let's try caffeine first," Duke suggested. He aimed his chin at Octavia. "Finish her up? I'll call Audrey to let her know what's up. Maybe she'll track whoever this is down and fix it quick."

Lucifer sighed. "Just no sleeping," he said, "I don't want either of you mauled by rainbow-colored monsters from after the apocalypse, thank you."

He was already moving on to her back.

Now, Octavia's gaze had finally fallen towards the floor again.

Audrey.

She thought she felt a faint ache in her knuckles. And her voice was mild. "Are we supposed to keep pretending she's not herself?"

"That . . . is a good question," Duke said on a sigh. "I'll ask."

He tucked his injured arm against his chest to keep pressure on the wound, and went to go dig through his discarded pants for his phone with the other.

The stickier bandages went on the wounds along her shoulders and back, and... finally that work was done. "You," Lucifer called to Duke. "Stand over here while you phone and don't use that bloody arm."

"Make sure your hands are clean before you touch him," Octavia muttered, as she ducked away to dig for a clean shirt from her bag.

"I'm not using my arm," Duke assured him, pulling his phone out and having to kind of . . . fling the pants around to do so one-handed. "I promise."

He was going to wait for Lucifer to wash his hands before holding his arm out, though.

Edited 2022-10-13 21:22 (UTC)

Lucifer sighed. "I'll be a moment," he said, and vanished into the bathroom.

Soon, the water was audibly running.

Octavia waited until she heard the water before continuing to carefully pull the shirt on.

She wouldn't have been able to explain why. It wasn't as if she thought Lucifer wouldn't actually wash his hands.

They were all having a very weird night.

"Audrey," Duke said when she picked up. "We know what the trouble is. Dreams. Octavia and I both got hit. . . . And yes, survived. How many --" Duke cut off with a wince. "Jesus. Okay, yeah, we can do that. See you in the morning."

He laughed.

"Yeah, we're definitely not going to be doing that again any time soon. Bye."

Lucifer stepped back out of the bathroom with clean hands and a disinfectant wipe in hand.

He made a beeline for Duke.

Duke held his arm out without protest. The bleeding had mostly stopped, though it promised to start up again sluggishly when the shirt was pulled away.

“Apparently we’re the only survivors of this thing so far. She’s going to check on Nathan.”

"I'll be buying energy drinks in bulk, then," Lucifer muttered, taking Duke's arm with one hand.

With the other, he swept the wipe across the wound.

"You didn't ask about the pretending," Octavia murmured, seemingly more to herself than anyone else, as she began to pull the bloodied sheets off the bed.

It was just as well: it wasn't like Octavia had any plans to actually talk to or about Audrey, anyway.

Duke hissed a soft wince, as much at his error as at the burn of disinfectant. “Crap. Sorry. We’re, uh. Gonna meet them in the morning. See if we can figure out the trigger. I’ll ask then.”

Lucifer would really rather they just got out of here, but he wasn't stupid enough to say so. Rather, he got out the bandages and began to swaddle Duke's wound carefully. "No rush," he said.

Octavia said nothing.

She bundled up the sheets instead, with the stained part carefully in the middle.

Duke sat carefully on the edge of the newly bared mattress, watching Lucifer wrap his arm.

He wanted to apologize for dragging them into this, but the words got caught in his throat. It wasn't as though any of them had had any illusions about how a "quick trip" to Haven was ever going to go, after all.

They didn't.

And so as soon as Lucifer had tied up the bandage and tucked the knot in neatly, he leaned in to press a gentle kiss to Duke's mouth.

While Octavia, with her back turned, slipped out of the room to take the sheets for a soak in cold water.

It wasn't like she could have participated in the kissing, anyway.

Which meant she missed Duke’s attempt to reach back for her. Instead he found himself reaching for empty air.

His return kiss went a little extra melancholy as a result.

"She's just taking care of things for you, darling," Lucifer said softly, and pressed his forehead against Duke's.

“This going to go to her head,” Duke said back. “That we — can’t even touch or something.”

"Do you mean her head, or yours?" Lucifer challenged him quietly.

Duke clenched his hand against the mattress.

“Either way.”

Both ways, in fact.

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