seaoftroubles | Haven end run preplay part 2: the bloodening

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)

"Right," Lucifer said, shooting Duke a somewhat-frazzled look. "So where to now?"

Octavia's gaze darted around, taking stock of everything around them. Just to make sure they hadn't walked right into an active shitshow.

And then her eyes returned to Duke, and something seemed...

Wrong.

"Duke?"

"Well, at least she can't make anything worse, anymore," Octavia replied, heavy on the rasp, but quiet. "But if she put all of this in him..."

"I don't think she's the type of person you can trust to take it back out of him," Lucifer said. A little flat, though it wasn't really focused on her.

Duke's body started to move.

Not Duke. Just his body.

The finger twitches turned into full arm twitches turned into full body spasms, as strange and uncontrolled as when he'd "exploded" back in Fandom, only faster now, more . . . urgent.

Duke himself -- well. His thoughts had been drowned out by the buzzing aether. He was being called, and parts of him, old and new, ached to answer. . . .

Octavia wasn't going to waste her breath pointing out Mara pretending to fix Duke had been the last thing they'd ever seen her do, so he might as well have saved his, too.

"Worried we're thinking about subjecting ourselves to Haven for nothing," she said, instead.

"Yes."

The word was a sigh. Lucifer stared out at Selkie Peak.

"But I don't think we'll be able to convince him that we can manage his trouble here, either."

Lucifer's eyes went wide.

Without another thought, he reached, claming his hand down on Duke's arm. "Duke," he said sharply.

"What's happening?"

The words came out a bark, a demand, but there was dread all through it.

(The wrong choice. Again. She knew it already, she'd chosen wrong again --)

Octavia let her head fall forward a little, squeezing her eyes shut. Frustration all over her expression and her posture.

"If I could've just not cut my hand..."

It didn't seem fair, how little had happened to set all this off.

"Then it may have been something or someone else," Lucifer said. He looked at her, properly, or as much as he could. "This is not your fault."

"I know," Octavia muttered, "but we could've had more time."

She wasn't sure what they would've done with it, but...

They could've had it.

"It was an accident," Lucifer said softly. "We're walking into something potentially terrible, darling. Be easy on yourself."

"I wanted more time."

Didn't really matter whose the blame was.

"But we don't have it, do we?" she added. "Like you said. We can't convince him otherwise."

Lucifer let out a breath. "No," he said. "It was so nice to have him back, but I suppose this is as much time as we get before... whatever the next shitshow is."

"So we go back in," Octavia drawled, opening her eyes but looking over the view again, "and risk losing him entirely."

"Or get him back for good," Lucifer said quietly. "Whole, and happy."

He shook his head. "Do you even remember how long it's been?"

"No," Octavia replied, simply.

"And yet, there was a time when we were... relatively unburdened," Lucifer said. "When he was unburdened."

Lucifer would have just long enough to notice that Duke was vibrating at some nigh-atomic level before —

It wasn’t an explosion so much as an implosion. Where Duke had stood suddenly there was nothing but a cloud of greenish gas, dissipating quickly into the cold Haven air.

Octavia wondered just how relative that 'relatively' was. Then she finally straightened up from her lean, almost like a decision had been made.

With the quietest little sigh.

"It would be nice," Lucifer said, wistful. His hand still hovering over her back. "To see him unburdened again."

"Lots of things would be nice," Octavia rasped in reply, turning towards him, finally.

"But we'll take whatever we get."

Lucifer looked at her. He sighed.

"Yes."

And hopefully she would take the hug he was leaning into, as well.

Octavia did.

It came off tired, but the way her arms slid around him was firm.

(She wouldn't allow for it to be outright clingy. The time for that would be much, much later.)

Page 7 of 16

Haven end run preplay part 2: the bloodening

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

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

Re: Next Morning

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

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

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