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:

betterthanaplan

“Oooo, aren’t you a sharp one. I can see why Duke likes you.” Mara moved to elbow Duke, and he full-body flinched away. “But no. I’m the mastermind. I don’t need a trigge.”

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia had a lot to say about people who referred to themselves as masterminds.

She said nothing.

In fact, she only even inhaled again once the portal sprang into existence near them. Her eyes opened too wide, when they did.

"There's your thinny."

From:

betterthanaplan

“Finally!” Mara clapped her hands. “I’d say it’s been fun, but you’re not worth the effort to lie. Ta-ta!”

She started for the portal. Duke grabbed her arm as she passed, making her shout.

“Hey! What about fixing me?!”

“Ugh. So needy.” Mara pursed her lips and flicked him in the forehead. His eyes cleared. “There. Bye now!”

Duke let out a breath and watched her hop through the portal and vanish.

“So . . . where the fuck did we just send her?”

Edited Date: 2024-09-08 12:58 am (UTC)

From:

my_own_advocate

"Please tell me that was a one-way portal?" Lucifer added, looking towards Octavia.

If his tone was still tinged with something... off, it's because he wasn't inclined to believe this was the end of it.

From:

okteiviakom

The portal winked out of existence soon after Mara had gone through it, and yet in Octavia's opinion that was not soon enough.

Not that any of the tension went out of her body even after the portal - and Mara, with it - was gone. "I didn't book her a return," she said, eyes darting from Lucifer to Duke. (His eyes weren't black anymore. That was good. It was, right?) "I don't know where exactly. I'll -- have to look it up."

From:

betterthanaplan

“Well. Uh. She’s gone.” Duke ran his hand through his hair. “That’s the important but, right? She showed up and was really creepy and then she went away and we’re fine now.”

He rubbed his eyes. He was feeling weird again. (Had that really been Audrey again for a second? Where was she now? This was all his fault and the nonsense trouble was going to come back along with Jordan’s trouble and she’d shown up in Fandom, Fandom was supposed to be safe and — and —)

“Um.” He wiggled his fingers as he pulled his hand away from his face. “Something’s, uh, wrong.” He looked up — lifted his face anyway — his breath tight again. “I, uh. I can’t see.”

His eyes had gone black again.

From:

my_own_advocate

The red burned away from Lucifer's own eyes the moment he finished speaking. His gaze snapped to Duke. "Duke," he said, alarmed, "Duke, your eyes--"

His feet took two steps towards Duke, entirely of their own volition.

No. (Of course.) No, Duke had to be fine.

Edited Date: 2024-09-08 05:33 pm (UTC)

From:

okteiviakom

Duke was obviously not fine and see, this was exactly why all that tension had stayed in Octavia's posture. There was never any time or reason to relax, only cold, harsh dread all down her spine.

"They're black again." All the tone had fallen out of her voice. (Duke didn't know. It felt like it did something to tell him. What that something was supposed to be, she didn't know.) "Do we need her back?"

Had she made a mistake, sending Mara away?

From:

betterthanaplan

“I.” Duke swallowed. He was shaking. He stretched his arm out, still trying to see anything but black, and wobbled as his body tried to compensate. “I don’t think she fixed me.”

A faint, insectoid buzz started as Duke’s wobble turned into a twitch. Then a jerk. He let out a muffled grunt, his jaw clenched too tight for speech. The troubles inside him were swarming, making his muscles spasm.

From:

my_own_advocate

And then--

Lucifer was moving. More than a few steps, reaching for him, blind instinct sending him hurtling towards-- "Duke!"

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke’s head went back, his back arching like he was going to go into bridge pose. But there was nothing controlled or intentional about this movement.

He’d lost consciousness shortly after he started spasming. His body was moving of his own accord, nerves set off into a seizure by the mass of troubles inside him.

The mass of troubles that started to pour from his eyes, like little sentient ink spots. Or black holes in the fabric of reality.

From:

okteiviakom

... Octavia had made a mistake, sending Mara away. Octavia had made a mistake, and now there were -- was that a mass of troubles pouring out of Duke's eyes like blood from an artery? Had to be.

And was that her voice, screaming Lucifer's name?

Had to be.

She rushed forward (her body rushed forward) but Lucifer was already there.

From:

my_own_advocate

That dark mass flowed from Duke's eyes and set something in Lucifer's stomach turning-- the wrongness of it, an affront to a natural order even he himself would have claimed he did not care for. And yet, some instinct-- or was it affection? Worry? A desire to protect Duke?-- propelled him forward.

Faster. Faster.

Mara was a blight. He would not allow her machinations to cause any further damage.

His wings came to him without a thought, spreading wide from his back, white and massive and blocking out the rays the sun struggled to deliver to Octavia through the air. They cast a large shadow across the lawn, and then--

Lucifer reached him. He wrapped those massive wings around Duke like a coccoon as his arms closed around the man. (Felt an instant of perceived pain, like bullets burying themselves into sensitive tissue, thought about a limp body in his arms--)

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke shook in Lucifer's grip with the force of the troubles that continued to pour out of his eyes -- and right into Lucifer's wings, where they disappeared. The little blobs were chaos and entropy made solid, and were no match for the celestial order represented by those glorious, gleaming feathers.

There were a hell of a lot of them, though. Enough to have troubled every resident of the little island multiple times over. And the stream from Duke showed no signs of slacking.

From:

okteiviakom

But Lucifer's wings were catching them. All of them.

Right?

Except right as Octavia made it to them, right as Lucifer's wings closed all around Duke, a single blob just barely flitted past the feathers without touching them. Free, dangerous.

Octavia didn't think. She darted her hand out, caught it. Saw it absorb into her palm. And didn't think about it then, either, too caught up in making sure it was the only one.

From:

my_own_advocate

Lucifer didn't see. If he had, perhaps he would have moved.

Perhaps. Then again, perhaps that would have been worse. It didn't matter, though. He merely remained. He held on. Felt the whole rotten bloody mess melt away and thought, with grim satisfaction, good.

(And with something much more fragile: at last I'm useful for something)

Edited Date: 2024-09-23 07:34 pm (UTC)

From:

betterthanaplan

If Duke ever found out Lucifer was thinking that way, he'd happily compile a list of things he was "good for".

Duke wouldn't be finding out about anything for a little while though. The stream of troubles abruptly ran dry, and he collapsed bonelessly in Lucifer's grip, out cold.

But breathing, slow and steady. So . . . at least there was that.

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia couldn't tell what was happening, couldn't see past Lucifer's wings. Couldn't really hear, either, though maybe that was from the sound of blood rushing in her ears.

"Lucifer?" she tried. And then, much more hesitant, "Duke?"

From:

my_own_advocate

Lucifer's feathers... folded back into him, as he shifted Duke in his grasp. "Duke?" he said, a little frantic. "Duke, are you-- you're breathing--"

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia all but collapsed closer to them. "He's breathing? He's breathing."

Unconscious but alive. She could deal with that. Barely, but she could.

"Is that -- were those all of the troubles in him?"

From:

my_own_advocate

"I believe so," Lucifer said, sounding bewildered, a touch lost, in the grip of fading terror. "I-- do you think. Is it over? He's breathing."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia wished the terror she was feeling had actually been fading. She was searching Duke's face for something, then looked at Lucifer again.

"Is this what she wanted?"

Just another question neither of them had an answer for.

From:

my_own_advocate

"For him to explode?" Lucifer inquired. "I imagine so."

He felt a hopeless anger.

"I hope she wound up in a world full of nothing but porcupines."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia had more questions, but it felt fruitless to ask them. She hesitated for a second, then reached out to touch her hand to Duke's cheek.

Resisting the urge to check for a pulse that she knew was there because she could see him breathing.