seaoftroubles | Haven end run preplay part one! PARENTS WEEKEND

seaoftroubles

Ugh, when is PW this year, anyway? Any hope we actually manage this by then?

THE PLAN:

Mara poses as Audrey for PW. Finds Duke at the welcome picnic? Immediately flirts/constantly touches him (secretly filling him with aether)
Duke warns Lucifer and Octavia via text. They all meet together (at the boat? in the park?) to tell her to fuck off
Audrey breaks through Mara's hold for a hot minute. Duke re-manifests Jordan's trouble out of defensiveness and they learn that his troubles can affect her
Mara gives up the pretense and admits she's primed Duke to explode if Octavia doesn't open a portal to her home world right the fuck now. Lucifer(?) sets up a Portalocity portal to trick her into instead.
Mara goes through the portal into whatever random not-her-home-world-or-Haven dimension it opened to. Portal shuts. OT3 has a quiet moment of "fuck yeah, that's over" (with Duke trying not to ruin it with his "okay, but also Audrey" angst)
Duke FUCKING EXPLODES. Lucifer flings himself (and his beautiful wings) on him like he's a grenade and absorbs most of the troubles. One or two maybe escape and Octavia pounces on them, troubling herself(?).
Duke passes out, they take him home, we have some angsty h/c times before moving on to PART TWO -- later, when we get this sucker going pretty well first

With OCD incoming!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

seaoftroubles

Duke tries to be social and gets fucked. Not in the fun way.

(I'll pre-write/play this by myself with Audrey/Mara)

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke had managed to let out a reasonably non-killer trouble the night before (sorry, small population of crab off the preserve, your loss was the lesser of evils), and was feeling very nearly perky today. It was only on his wander through town that he realized that it was Parents Weekend.

He wandered into the picnic, thinking he might pick up some pie to bring home to his partners. It'd been a few years since his last unexpected guest, so he could maybe be forgiven for, you know, not expecting a guest. . . .

From:

seaoftroubles

"Oh thank fuck," Mara muttered when she spotted him. She was already sick of pretending not to hate these . . . creatures running around. The faster she could get back out of here and headed home, the better.

She plastered her best simpering look of relief and concern onto her face and headed for him.

"Duke! Duke. You're okay. I've been so worried!"

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke looked up with a frown and dropped his plate as he instinctively backed away. (Well, at least there wasn't any pie on it yet.) He flicked a quick glance around the picnic, then grabbed for her arm to usher her away from any unsuspecting students or their parents.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he hissed.

From:

seaoftroubles

Mara made a show of swallowing and shook her head. "It's me, Duke." She held up her hands to show that she wasn't holding anything -- then palmed some aether from her sleeve when she dropped them again. "That other woman -- she was awful. But I'm me again, I swear."

From:

betterthanaplan

"Uh huh," Duke said, pulling her further towards the empty side of the park. "I repeat: what the fuck are you doing here?"

From:

seaoftroubles

Mara closed her eyes, letting her expression fall. "I deserve that," she said softly. "I should have listened to you. I should have listened to Dave. We never should have gone into that lighthouse." She surreptitiously crushed the aether ball between her hands. "I remember all of it, everything she did. Are Jennifer and Octavia okay?

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke made a non-committal noise. He wanted so badly to believe her -- but when had his life been that easy?

"How'd you do it? How'd you get rid of her?"

From:

seaoftroubles

"Nathan," Mara gave him a small smile. "It, uh. Was rough going for a bit. The Guard really wanted me dead." She shook her head ruefully. "But Nathan never stopped trying."

Giving that the right tone of exasperated fondness was so hard. Nathan never ever stopped being a pain in Mara's ass.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke's chest ached furiously. He pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes, watching her face closely as she spoke.

"No," he said after a moment, guard starting to droop. "No, he wouldn't, would he."

From:

seaoftroubles

Duke texts Octavia and Luce, they all gather to united-front at "Audrey".

Real Audrey breaks through Mara for a hot second and Duke re-manifests Jordan's trouble -- and can hurt Mara with it!

Mara drops her pretenses and says "portal me to my home or Duke explodes".

DUN DUN DUNNNNN

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke's text to Lucifer and Octavia was brief, but hopefully conveyed enough of his nervousness to bring them running.

Audrey is here. Something's wrong. Meet us at Selkie Peak

That was far enough into the rocky bits that they weren't likely to run into anyone else. Duke didn't much feel like inviting Audrey -- and thus Haven -- back to the boat. Not until he knew for sure the troubles were all done with.

Actually, considering how his partners were likely to react to her presence, probably not even then.

From:

okteiviakom

Yeah, weird that he thought there was something other than 'Audrey is here' to bring Octavia running, at least. But having a location to run towards was appreciated.

She'd paused to grab knives, not for much else.

From:

my_own_advocate

Lucifer didn't even bother grabbing anything. He was moving as soon as Octavia was, hurrying towards Selkie Peak--

"I don't like this," he hissed to Octavia.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke was pacing by the edge of the lake, Mara perched on a rock nearby.

"I'm just saying," she said, "it's a little funny that you need a chaperone."

"Yeah, well. Think of it as me avoiding getting yelled at when I get home if I didn't insist on waiting for them."

"Never thought I'd see the day Duke Crocker was whipped."

". . . No comment."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia gave Lucifer a look that suggested 'yeah no shit' almost better than the actual words would have.

And then, soon enough, they were close enough to see Duke and -- whoever the fuck that really was, with him.

"Duke!"

The tense bark that that was betrayed everything about how Octavia felt about things.

From:

my_own_advocate

"What on earth is she doing here?" Lucifer asked, trailing not far behind.

From:

betterthanaplan

“Charming,” Mara said.

“Don’t.” Duke stopped pacing. “I didn’t invite her. She just showed up.”

“I wanted to check on him,” Mara said dryly. “Is that allowed?”

From:

okteiviakom

"Not when it's you."

Sorry, was she supposed to be buying this was Audrey?

(It might not have mattered either way.)

From:

my_own_advocate

"Considering it's massively out of character and every time we see you something terrible happens to him," Lucifer said, "Yes."

Why were they even talking? He had half a mind to grab her and just fling her into the ocean.

Haven end run preplay part one! PARENTS WEEKEND

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