seaoftroubles | Sins of the Fathers preplay

Danny arrives, maybe just in time for Audrey to realize that Duke is gone. She fills him in on the strange marks, the probable missing persons, and the ghost trouble. Nathan arrives to give them a ride to the gravedigger's house to interrogate him, perhaps Danny notices the paint on the gravedigger's wife's hand instead of Audrey, and he and Audrey play confused tourists together while Nathan waits in the car? They tail her into the woods, where the Rev's people have gathered with the kidnapped troubled people.

The Rev's people are heavily armed, with rifles and pistols. A group of people make molotov cocktails by a collection of gas cans. Two men with rifles guard the doors to a shed, while another set pull an unconscious young man out of the back of a van, keeping him quiet with chloroform. They put him into the shed with several other bound, unconscious people. They're troubled. The Xs marked the homes of the kidnapping victims. They're clearly planning to burn the shed down.

Before the cops can decide to take action, the Rev walks out of the woods, with Duke on his tail. Audrey can't see the Rev, but Danny and Nathan can. All Audrey sees is Duke arguing with empty air.

The Rev's men manage to get the drop on the cops, disarming them, and forcing them into the open.

Duke sees the troubled people in the shed and accuses the Rev of being insane, declares that he's going to stop them. The Rev says that he's here to "save" them. One of his men forces a knife into Duke's hands, which he brandishes at anyone who comes near him, including Audrey when she's led right up behind him. Audrey's shocked. Nathan accuses him of working with the Rev. Duke denies it and drops the knife.

The troubled gravedigger is the one holding the gun to Audrey. Nathan tries to tell him not to listen to the Rev, and Audrey tells him that he's troubled. Kyle tries to deny it, and Duke's dad appears, telling Duke that this is the way it always goes when people realize they're cursed. The gravedigger's pregnant wife is clearly horrified. The Rev points to Duke as the person who can save the gravedigger and his family.

Duke tries to refuse. Someone shoves a knife into his hands again. Duke clearly struggles with the decision as both the Rev and his father urge him to use his trouble to "save" the gravedigger's unborn child, and the gravedigger begs him to help. Audrey tells him not to do it, and the Rev calls her a liar.

That's the last straw. Duke shakes his head. She's his friend!

Duke's father tells him that Audrey's previous incarnations killed his grandfather, killed him. That Audrey will kill Duke. Duke turns away, still in denial, and the gravedigger takes the chance to run up and grab Duke's hand, forcing him to stab him in the stomach.

Duke can't do anything but stare as the gravedigger collapses to the ground. And THANKS HIM.

With the kill complete, the Crocker trouble doesn't come with the same side-effects. His eyes go silver, but he doesn't need super strength. There's not adrenaline rush or high. He's just shocked. He meets Nathan's eyes as Nathan stares back at him, clearly distrustful.

The ghosts get in some last enigmatic lines as they fade out with the dying gravedigger's trouble. Lots of comments about how Nathan and Duke are on opposite sides and will have to kill each other, all while Nathan and Duke stare at each other trying not to have feelings. It's super deep, yo. And extremely weird.

The gravedigger dies. The ghosts vanish. Audrey grabs her gun and shouts that EVERYONE THERE IS UNDER ARREST DAMMIT!

Nathan and Audrey have a bunch of paperwork to process, but also a date to prepare for! Yay! Duke goes back to his boat, Danny following along yelling, probably, and gets out a big ass bottle of booze to try and drink his feelings. He and Danny maybe have a heart to heart about killing in the line of duty? The ways it fucks with your head. How to avoid it as best as possible. Duke starts to calm down, says that he just wants to get back to Fandom, but Haven behind him again. Danny gets up to use the bathroom? I feel like he should be out of the way a little when Nathan barges in. Nathan barges in, demanding to know what Duke's done with Audrey. Duke's all "WTF WHAT DO YOU MEAN AUDREY'S GONE??" and they fight. Danny hears the ruckus, comes rushing back out to find Duke prone on the floor with Nathan standing above him, pointing his gun in Duke's face. Duke's reaching for the gun he keeps taped under the galley table, but is too busy staring at the fresh new tattoo on the inside of Nathan's arm to actually grab it.

And the season ends with an exterior shot of the boat along with a gun shot, because this show is the woooooooorst!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

hatesparadise

"Gee, thanks for leaving me at the station," Danny called out once he got aboard the boat. Because at least he knew where to find Duke.

He honestly wasn't surprised or that upset about it.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke got up to swing the door open for him, then went back to his ~~brooding~~ spot at the galley's bar without saying a word.

What the hell was there to say, really? He'd just killed a man. After being blackmailed and harassed by a couple of ghosts. And learning his boat was actually a gift from his dead, serial killer father, his girlfriend was a cannibal despot, and one of his best friends had been in Hell for 2,000 years. . . .

He was going to need more booze.

From:

hatesparadise

Danny followed him inside, silently watching him for a moment longer before sighing and going around to look for food to shove at Duke that would probably be ignored, but he had his ways of expressing his caring.

"Tell me you've got something other than booze here."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke shrugged. Danny would find the kitchen reasonably well stocked, though. Mostly of leftovers he'd brought back from the Gull in the last few days.

So, rather a lot of taco fixings.

He sat back down and refilled his glass, his free hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this . . . done.

From:

hatesparadise

Well, he was getting tacos then. Danny could be perfectly patient in this regard, having more than enough practice with Steve these days. At least Duke wasn't prone to going to an active warzone or anything.

So, once that was done, he put a plate down in front of Duke. "Eat. You'll hurt my feelings if you don't."

From:

betterthanaplan

Oh just wait. Haven would get to "active warzone" status eventually.

Duke blinked at the plate like he didn't entirely know what it was for. Then mechanically picked up a taco and took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed.

Washed it down with his liquor.

"When'd you get here?"

Oh hey! At least he was speaking again.

From:

hatesparadise

Hey, words were progress!

"Earlier today. Ran into Audrey right as they must've snagged you," he said, taking a seat across from Duke to give him intense once over to catalog his mental state from a clinical stand point for a moment.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke set down the taco and the glass and stared at them for a long moment, too preoccupied to notice that stare.

"Didn't 'snag' me," he said. "I went off with the Rev on purpose."

Because he'd threatened Audrey to make him do it.

From:

hatesparadise

"And that purpose was to stop him, correct?"

From:

betterthanaplan

"Yeah," Duke said. Then "I don't know." Then "Yeah" again.

From:

hatesparadise

"Alright," Danny replied with easy acceptance. "So, that was your dad?"

From:

betterthanaplan

"You mean the fucker monologuing as that kid decided his life was over?" Duke asked. "Yeah. That was Dad."

From:

hatesparadise

"Yeah," Danny said quietly, looking down at his hands on the table. "You okay?"

Dumb question, he knew.

From:

betterthanaplan

Yeah, Danny was getting a major Look for that one.

“My dead father, who was apparently killed by one of my best friends’ previous lives, just tried to manipulate me into killing a guy. Who then committed suicide by literally running into my knife.” He took a long sip of his drink, still giving Danny that look. “Oh yeah, I’m great.”

...Fuck. That meant Lucy had been nice to him all those years ago because she felt bad for killing his dad. She’d been basically the only adult who’d paid attention to him, and it was because of that.

He didn’t have enough booze for this. The amount of booze he needed for this had not been made in all of humanity’s history of booze making.

He tossed back the rest of his drink, then leaned forward to rest his head on the table.

From:

hatesparadise

"Bad," Danny said, not unkindly. "We'll go with bad. But that's kinda important for you to actually say out loud."

Because no to repression here.

From:

betterthanaplan

"Fine," Duke said into the table. "I am doing very badly." He picked up his head just enough to rest his chin on his arms. "Is saying that supposed to make me feel better?"

From:

hatesparadise

"Oh yeah, that's just how it works," Danny replied, getting up to go around so he could hug him for that. "No, you putz. It's a long, shitty road."

From:

betterthanaplan

"Oh my god, get off me," Duke said, even as he leaned into that hug. "Shouldn't you be arresting me for something?"

From:

hatesparadise

"Oh, now you want me to arrest you? Talk about mixed signals," he teased gently.

It wasn't a Magnus hug, but it was still a pretty good one.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke huffed softly and leaned his head against Danny’s shoulder. He’d had a headache for days now, and right now he wanted nothing more than to fall asleep curled up against someone.

But Danny wasn’t Octavia (or Lucifer or Audrey or even Rey). That wasn’t how their friendship worked. So after a moment, Duke sat up again and pulled away. He reached for the tacos again, figuring that was a way to signal that he was okay.

He wasn’t, but trying to hide that fact was so ingrained into him it was almost instinctual.

“You, uh. Ever kill anyone?”

From:

hatesparadise

Yeah, good try at pretending at least.

He took a breath before settling back where he's been sitting before. "Yes."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke nodded. “You’re a cop. Of course you have.”

From:

hatesparadise

"Doesn't make it easier, honestly," Danny admitted with another heavy sigh. "Because I think that's what you actually want to know."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke put the taco back down without actually taking a bite. “How do you deal with it?”

From:

hatesparadise

"The first time? Not well," he replied, glancing away. "One of the worst days of my life. But counselling was mandatory and then... then I had a baby to focus on."