Haven end run preplay part 2: the bloodening

[seaoftroubles]

• Duke gets his trouble triggered by Octavia in a kitchen accident and our crew discover that post-trouble bomb, it is EVEN MORE DIRE as he goes black-eyed and can't stop himself from trying to stalk whoever set him off
• Lucifer and Octavia stop Duke from doing anything bad (has Octavia make him bleed maybe so he can use his massive power supply to knock Duke tf out?). Duke recovers and says "fuck this, we need to end it" and suggests they go back to Haven one final time to figure out how to end the troubles forever.
• They arrive in Haven and Duke IMMEDIATELY goes into convulsions and vanishes in a burst of green smoke. OOPS.
• Lucifer and Octavia find Gloria (and Dwight maybe? And/or Nathan?), find out about the "no marks killer" who has been going around killing troubled folks -- and all the troubles that are going off like crazy without Audrey around to talk them down. I imagine there's some "okay, that sucks but WHERE THE FUCK IS OUR BOYFRIEND????"
• Duke is spotted around town murking folks, but they can't quite catch him
  I may or may not write a scene of Duke and Croatoan while Duke is under his control
• Trap set for Duke? Not at the police station. Gloria's house or the hospital/morgue, maybe, since she's coronering. Duke takes the bait, Lucifer pounces again to keep him from, getting away. After a false start or two during which Croat!Duke is DEEPLY UPSETTINGLY CREEPY AT THEM, Lucifer and Octavia manage to talk him around. (Possibly using Duke's new joy at being the subbiest sub who ever subbed!)
• Duke starts leaking troubles when Croatoan realizes he's broken his hold. He panics, and Octavia or Lucifer cover his eyes to keep the troubles in. Gloria goes "I'll get some drugs!" and scoots to find something to drug Duke with if need be (and gets out of harms way ;D). Duke takes over the eye-covering -- and goes into muscle contractions as Croat tries pull aether out by another route. This doesn't last long before Croatoan APPEARS DRAMATICALLY IN THE DOOR looking like a gremlin cosplaying as a noir detective. Duke can't even see him -- he's covering his eyes -- but goes "FUCK THIS SHIT" and starts launching the troubles he still has control over at the guy. I really like the idea that at least one of them is radioactive. Maybe Croat!Duke killed the lady from the nonsense trouble episode and got her "shooting microwaves" power. Lucifer and Octavia also fight. Eventually Croat EXPLODES (or . . . dissolves . . . or otherwise dies grotesquely) and our three spend a moment just panting for breath and looking at each other, all "omg, is that it? did we win?"
• Duke collapses dead. Weeping and gnashing of teeth. Lucifer gods the fuck out, wiping out the troubles in a giant aether-nado, and resurrects Duke, who's spent maybe 30 seconds dead -- but that's [mumble mumble] amount of time in Hell so he's still a littttttle bit fucked.
• They go home and have more angsty h/c times yay!
• (Also probably Octavia checks on Gloria first and maybe convinces her to retire to Baltimore XP)

Comments

The bloodening and the decision

[seaoftroubles]

Aka: the on-island stuff. Octavia sets off Duke's trouble, he goes full creepy horror movie villain, she and Lucifer knock him out or lock him up, he comes to/the trouble fades out and they go "fuck this shit, let's end it"

Re: The bloodening and the decision

[okteiviakom]

Octavia's efforts at learning how to cook more things had been sort of... repeatedly starting and stopping, over the past couple of years. But now, with twice the date nights in some of her weeks, some of the motivation had been seeping back in. So, she'd asked Duke to teach her a dish. To cook it with her, in the mansion's kitchen.

And they were well on their way in doing just that.

"And now I just cut these?" she asked, with a gesture towards the small array of vegetables she'd just rinsed. "Slice and dice?"

Seemed simple enough. She was great with knives.

Re: The bloodening and the decision

[betterthanaplan]

"That's right," Duke confirmed. "You want them to be about bite-size. Small enough to cook quick but big enough to still feel a little substantial."

Re: The bloodening and the decision

[okteiviakom]

"Bite-size?" Octavia repeated with a wryly amused look over at him. "Doesn't that depend on the mouth taking the bites?"

Next Morning

[okteiviakom]

It was morning.

Once all of the adrenaline had faded, Octavia had slept like a rock - for some hours, anyway. It was still early when she found herself standing on the balcony, her hands against the top of the railing, looking out over the town.

Cursing Haven in her mind.

Cursing what she pretty much already knew she was going to do, too.

Re: Next Morning

[my_own_advocate]

There had been no rude awakenings, at least. So why did Lucifer still feel tired, waking up as he did? He wasn't sure.

But he saw Octavia on the balcony, and pushed himself out of bed. Took a moment, just to get into his bathrobe, because it was cold and he wasn't a fool.

"I'd offer a penny for your thoughts," Lucifer said, as he finally made it onto the balcony, "But I suspect I can guess."

Duke goes foomp and a visit from the exposition fairy

[seaoftroubles]

Aka: the arrival stuff. They show up in Haven, Duke vanishes as Croatoan grabs him immediately, Luce and Tavi panic and run into someone (I vote Gloria) who tells them what's up in town.

Re: Duke goes foomp and a visit from the exposition fairy

[betterthanaplan]

Duke took a deep breath as the portal opened. There'd been a lot of discussion about how to get to Haven, even after all the discussion about whether or not to actually go. Balancing speed and reliability had been a big one. Driving up in Lucifer's convertible? They could hop back in and get out whenever they needed to -- but it was a long drive, on which too many things could go wrong.

In the end, after a lot of communication with Portalocity about expected outages and the unpredictability of the multidimensional continuum -- the second part of which mostly made Duke wish he was high so he could understand it better -- they'd scheduled multiple portals, opening at regular intervals, so they would be better able to ditch out quickly if things went pear-shaped.

You know. Theoretically.

It was, as Duke liked to say, the very best bad idea they'd had.

"Well. Here goes . . . everything."

Re: Duke goes foomp and a visit from the exposition fairy

[my_own_advocate]

"Can I just say I have a bad feeling about this?"

Lucifer hadn't been confident about this decision to begin with, but as he stared at the portal, all of his doubts came rushing back in. "Perhaps we can sleep on it an extra night?"

Honey.

Duke and the Croat

[seaoftroubles]

For me to pre-write/pre-play Duke going a murking and Croatoan going a gloating

Re: Duke and the Croat

[betterthanaplan]

Duke reformed — coalesced? precipitated — inside a dry, brittle sort of room, an old fashioned room of whitewashed walls and hardwood everything. He stood in the center, shoulders still rounded, head still bent. An alien force still buzzing behind his eyes.

“So.” A gremlin of an old man, dressed like a noir detective, stood in front of him. He had a round face that could have been jolly, if it’s expression weren’t so eerily sharp and empty. “You’re the last Crocker. I must say, I expected better.”

Duke didn’t say anything. He turned his head just enough to keep the man in his eye line a moment longer as he circled him.

“Still, I can see the potential there. Mara had her way with you, didn’t she. She’s a genius, you know, though I can’t speak for her tastes. Where is she, by the way?”

It was a direct question. Duke tilted his head. Searched his memory. Saw himself and a blonde — Mara — on the rocky shore of a lake.

“Gone,” he said. And even in one syllable, his voice came out . . . out of tune. Too high, too dry. Too casual.

The gremlin man huffed, affronted. By the answer though, not the voice. “Careless. We’ll need to fix that of course. You’ll go hunting tonight.”

“Hunting?” Duke asked. The idea changed the intensity of the buzz.

“For troubles of course. Dear boy, you’re practically empty!”

“Oh.” Duke saw himself, bent almost to a right angle, wrapped in glistening white wings while black ichor poured from his eyes.

“Is that a problem?” the gremlin man asked, voice a razor point. The buzzing responded to that, too.

“No,” he said. “I’ve done it before.”

Had he? He saw himself with a knife. Dead men on the ground. A woman running while he stalked after her.

Something moved in his chest. The buzz pitched up into a roar and drowned it out.

The gremlin man stared at him, his fingers pinched together. Duke found a smile. Thought of sharks.

“Where do I start?”

Re: Duke and the Croat

[betterthanaplan]

Hailie Colton recognized Duke. She gave him a wry smile, which didn't fade to confusion and fear until after his knife touched her throat. She didn't have time to use her phasing trouble before he sliced her open.

Duke had known her since she was a kid. He'd worked with her parents when he was practically still a kid, before her mother had gotten stuck in a bank wall and died in agony.

Some part of him recognized that at least she wasn't dying the same way. Most of him was just pleased -- elated -- to take her trouble. He brought the knife to his own hand before her blood finished pooling on the floor, slicing into his palm and letting his own blood drip and vanish against the floorboards.

Her trouble, the ability to pass through solid matter as though it weren't there, was now his. He walked out through the wall and went to go find his next victim.

He'd known Jody a lot longer than he had Hailie. Had worked with her and her husband more recently, hooking them up with his finance guy, helping them screen potential partners even after he'd manged to default into living a life that was mostly "legit".

He took her trouble -- the ability to fire intense, focused beams of electromagnetic radiation from her body -- as easily and as coldly as he had Hailie's.

Hers had been altered, he realized, flexing his cut hand and watching the blood drip. It wasn't visible light anymore. He fired one at a squirrel, cooking it from the inside out.

Microwaves. Interesting.

He felt the gremlin man smile, but didn't smile himself. Pleasure was pushed down as deep as pain, save for the pleasure of the kill. The gremlin man kept him as intensely focused as those beams.

If he got upset every time he had to murder someone he knew, after all, they'd never get anywhere.

He turned his head into the wan, gray light of the Haven winter afternoon. He didn't feel the cold either. Or the pain from his hand. He flexed his fingers idly, curiously. He hadn't taken Nathan's trouble, had he? No. That one wouldn't be much use, and the gremlin man liked to watch him squirm. Something about "defiling" the gremlin man's daughter. This was the man's doing; his physical sensations were as suppressed as his emotions were.

Time to come in, the gremlin man whispered. While I decide where to send you next.

Duke turned and headed for the farm house on the coast the gremlin man had taken as a base. They had a great deal more work to do.

Trap! Confrontation! Battle! Deeeeath!

[seaoftroubles]

Lucifer and Octavia trap Duke and talk him around. He starts leaking troubles and freaks out. Croatoan shows up and Duke starts firing his troubles at him because fuck that guy. Croat dies, there's a moment of relief, and then DUKE GOES DOWN.

Re: Trap! Confrontation! Battle! Deeeeath!

[seaoftroubles]

While Lucifer had gotten the location of the Teagues' vault from Jennifer, Gloria had done her best to finish filling Octavia in on what had been happening in town. She covered a few of the troubles that had come and gone -- the body-swapping one got a quick mention without the fact that she had been in Dwight's body for a lot of that -- and how they were struggling to bring them under control without Audrey or Nathan and their experience with it.

Then Dwight had gotten a call -- people were being killed all over town. People with known troubles. By knife, not mystery.

And someone swore they'd seen Duke leaving the scene.

They needed that list. To know who to protect as well as figure out who might be responsible for Duke going AWOL and possibly fully off his nut.

The "vault" was actually an old fish warehouse on the industrial side of the harbor, full of enough miscellaneous 'weird' to stock a museum. Finding the list would likely be much easier said than done.

Re: Trap! Confrontation! Battle! Deeeeath!

[okteiviakom]

This really was just some prime Haven bullshit, wasn't it? They'd been in town for about five seconds and already Octavia wanted to burn the whole place to the ground. Including the Teagues' vault. Especially now that they'd gotten to it.

Hearing it was a warehouse had not instilled much confidence in her.

And now that she was getting the first look in through the entrance? She had even less. She swore in Trig under her breath, then asked, "How do we go about this?"

There was so much stuff.

Hell

[seaoftroubles]

For Lucifer fining Duke in Hell

Re: Hell

[betterthanaplan]

Duke was in love with the Devil. He knew how Hell worked, that it was a place where humans tortured themselves as much as they were tortured by demons. He knew that he could walk out, refuse the torture, at any time. And besides that, he'd just saved his world from the Troubles. Likely at least one other world, besides.

How was he still here, in his own private corner of Hell, undergoing endless torture?

"Fresh nachos!" he said. "Piping hot. And a mudslide to go with it."

He was human. And he'd been torturing himself with this memory for years, even on Earth. That was how.

The demons playing Octavia and Evi, the teenager, Pike, all played their parts to perfection. And Duke cycled through it all, the fear, the pain, the fresh realization of just what Octavia had had to do, had had to become, over and over again.

And every time, he made the same ultimate choice.

"I thought I said 'leave'."

and

"You're Wonkru or you're the enemy of Wonkru, right? I'm never going to be Wonkru."

and worst of all

"Just go, Octavia. I can't -- just go."

Demons had nothing on how much humans could hurt themselves.

Re: Hell

[my_own_advocate]

Wild panic and ice still fought for control over Lucifer's celestial blood by the time he touched down in Hell's endless corridors, the ash wafting down from the dark sky to settle on the shoulders of his already-ruffled suit. A demon came careening towards him, her eyes lit up with joy, but he brushed past her and her effusive welcome-backs.

Duke.

He knew where Duke's door was.

He rushed between dark pillars. Past a hundred doors. Past Daniel's door.

And then there it was: unassuming, rickety, free of chains. He reached for the handle blindly.

Resurrection, untroubling, and catharsis

[seaoftroubles]

Lucifer goes full God-Mode. There are probably hugs. And team OT3 decide What Happens Next, leaning into Len's season six stuff!

Re: Resurrection, untroubling, and catharsis

[okteiviakom]

Stay here, Lucifer had said, just now. But there wasn't even anywhere for Octavia to go.

(Except a field right outside Arkadia. And a nook in the streets of Polis.)

Her hands were still pressed against Duke's chest, but they were shaking in earnest now. Doing nothing to help, because there was nothing. The Duke under he hands, on the floor, was nothing but a shell.

(Yu gonplei ste o--)

Her hands yanked themselves back, like an involuntary convulsion, and then pressed tight over her mouth.

Re: Resurrection, untroubling, and catharsis

[my_own_advocate]

There was the sound of wings. And then, hands, grasping her arm. Pushing her aside.

Lucifer sank to his knees and let go almost as soon as he'd touched her, pressing his hands against Duke's body. His forehead. His chest.

"Come on, come on," he snarled. "I'm God, me dammit, Duke--"

OOC

[seaoftroubles]

I condensed the ever living hell out of my threads, trying to have them be more scene/timeline dependent than beat dependent, since if it's all in one scene we seem to just keep going in one thread. Let me know if you'd prefer more info/separation!

Re: OOC

[betterthanaplan]

(Also, I figure some of the catharsis/finishing Haven threads, like Octavia and Gloria, maybe can be live played! I still like the idea of her ending up retiring to Baltimore with baby Aaron. MOAR LOCAL NPCS YAY)

Re: OOC

[okteiviakom]

Octavia would be over the moon about having her mom her grandma Gloria living close by, lbr.

Re: OOC

[betterthanaplan]

Note to self when putting things together: edit the reference to Octavia hiding her trouble in the first thread!