seaoftroubles | Haven end run preplay part 2: the bloodening

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)

Duke wrapped his fingers in Lucifer's shirt and sobbed. Openly, brokenly, in a way he hadn't done since well before his earliest memories. He cried to mourn his life, mostly disappointing and entirely too short, and his death, which he could only remember in snatches. He cried for the boy he'd been and the man that boy should have become if his lineage hadn't been poisoned so long ago.

And, underneath it all, he cried for Lucifer and Octavia. For one being here, holding him through all this, and the other being so far away, so utterly unreachable.

And Lucifer-- Lucifer was still in shock. It thawed only slowly, as he held on to Duke, unsure of what else to do with himself but that. But it thawed, coming loose in small chunks.

The first feeling to escape was anger. He felt it burn in his heart, slip into his skin, overtake him.

He held on. It was all he knew how to do.

It felt, in the moment, like the tears weren't going to stop. That this would somehow become his new Hell loop, sitting here and sobbing into his boyfriend's shirt for everything he'd lost.

Slowly but surely though, the tears slowed. Leaving Duke feeling sore and hollowed out. He breathed softly for a few moments -- out of habit, he'd have to assume -- and tried to recenter himself.

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that the first thing he said when he had his voice back under his control was "Tavi?"

Was she alive? Alone somewhere? He couldn't stand the thought.

The anger was boiling. The question broke through, but only to a point. Lucifer blinked.

"She's not here," he said.

Yeah. Duke had noticed that. (He really hoped Lucifer meant she was not in Hell.)

"Is she alone?"

"Yes, but not for long," Lucifer said. He eyed Duke. "Time works differently down here, remember? I could be with you for two months and it would barely be a minute up there."

"She shouldn't be alone."

Duke had a lot more trouble wrapping his head around that than he did his own death.

"How long has it been? Since I . . . I died?"

His voice cracked faintly on the word. How could it not?

"A minute. Less."

Do something, Octavia had said.

He should do something.

Duke was out of tears. So the sound he made had to be a laugh. He pressed his face into Lucifer's shoulder again, muffling it. His body wouldn't even be cold yet.

"So this is it. This is my . . . forever." That word still terrified him. "You'll go there for minutes. And I'll be here for months."

Until Octavia died. Or Lucifer got tired of splitting his time, maybe.

"You should just go. I can't --" His breath came faster again, panic and grief washing over him in another wave. "I can't --"

"I won't."

Ah, there was the anger. Lucifer was trying to keep the rigidity out of his spine while he held Duke, but he just... he was so angry.

How dare Haven. How dare that little snivelling bastard. And Duke, sacrificing himself again. It felt like a sick game, the kind Father had always loved to play.

Anger. Oh yes. Anger was a much better emotion than the mass of pain Duke was feeling right now. It was so much simpler. Duke latched onto it hard.

“I’m not even supposed to be here! I’m supposed to be starting over as a seagull or a fish! And you think I want to stay here with you for months at a time if it means she’s alone for even a minute?”

He tried to shake Lucifer, though he didn’t have the leverage, the way he was still gripping Lucifer’s shirt.

“This is your stupid afterlife, Lucifer, fucking fix it!”

Do something. Fix it. Do something. Fix it.

"I always told you the bloody seagull thing wasn't going to happen, didn't I?" Lucifer snapped, veering up off of the sofa.

Not away from Duke, mind. He hauled the man right to his feet. "I told you you'd wind up here, and if you think I'm going to abandon you, you're absolutely out of your nautical mind!"

Yes. Lucifer had always said that. And Duke had never wanted it, so he’d refused to believe it.

“So what are you going to do then?” he demanded. Still hanging onto Lucifer’s shirt even as he was hauled to his feet. “Because we are not doing this forever!”

It was funny, how much time Lucifer had spent convincing him-- both of them-- to let him do something. To let him fix things when they broke. And yet now, when it was most important, he didn't have a bloody answer.

"I don't know," he said, through gritted teeth. "But we are leaving this room. I need to go somewhere I can think."

He dragged Duke towards the door. When he pushed it open, there was-- dark walls, rising high up towards the sky. Ashes, drifting down. The real infrastructure of Hell.

Do something do something do something do something. Something roiled in his stomach. The world swam.

Duke couldn’t help him. Because he’d just been dragged from — okay, not actually Lucifer’s living room, but basically Lucifer’s living room into — into something that actually looked like Hell.

He stared. Head whipping around and craning up as he tried to take it all in at once (but had never been meant to take it in at all).

It was like the Anti-Barn. All darkness where the Barn had been blinding white, though both seemed to extend forever (oh how he hated that word).

He spotted a giant, towering seat rising above it all in the distance and swallowed.

No wonder Lucifer liked to surround himself in luxury, if he’d been forced to live here for millennia.

"I've left Daniel sitting in his own paused Hell-loop," Lucifer was saying, caught up deep in his own thoughts. "But you don't want that. And Octavia--"

He paused in the hallway, and stared at the demon - dressed in a nurse's outfit, holding a bloody blade, whose eyes lit up as she saw him - and let out a groan.

"Octavia wants me to do something," he said, whipping around to look at Duke before the demon could come to him.

“Daniel,” Duke echoed faintly, still staring, then “oh fuck —“ when he saw the demon.

He wasn’t afraid of medical professionals, but damn, now he might be.

“Yes, do something. That’s — yes please.”

. . . Wait, was Dan still down here?!

Yes. Yes, he was.

"Perhaps Dan, even with his regrettable intellectual capabilities, might be able to help inspire us," Lucifer said. He gripped Duke by the wrist and yanked him past the demon. "Yes, yes, of course you're happy to see me," he pushed out between his teeth. "No time."

The anger was fading. Despair was straight ahead. He couldn't let himself give in to it.

Duke hardly needed to be yanked. He was only just managing not to cower behind Lucifer.

“We’re going to see Dan,” he said, feeling foolish. His anger had faded too, but the other side of it for him right now was more terror. Especially if demons kept walking by. “Goody?”

"Lord Morningstar!" the demon cried.

Lucifer rolled his eyes. "It's so hard to get good help that understands instruction," he muttered, stopping before a tall black door.

He yanked it open, and revealed...

... a familiar LA precinct police station. A large ping-pong table sat at the bottom of the stairs. Dan and another police officer were trading volleys back and forth.

"Daniel!"

Edited 2025-03-11 12:39 (UTC)

Dan was stuck in a police station playing ping-pong. Duke shuddered faintly. This place was so much creepier than the fiery caverns Dante had described.

“Hi,” he said, giving a little finger wiggle with his free hand. “How’s it, uh. Going?”

The ping-pong ball hopped over to the other side and fell right off the table on the police officer's end. Dan spun around, his face lighting up. "Lucifer!" he said. "You're back! What's the plan? How are we going to do..."

He spotted Duke, then, and faltered, frowning. "...this."

Lucifer let out a frustrated noise, yanking Duke inside with him. "I don't have one," he said. "Duke here just died and I'm completely lost. I was hoping you could inspire me."

Dan blinked slowly. "Inspire you with what?" he said. "Everything's been the same for the last thousand years. Hell still sucks." He waved his ping-pong bat at the police officer. "Belios here still sucks. Ping-pong is not his game."

“Thousand —“ Duke went faintly green. “In a police station??”

He was going to have so many nightmares about this. You know, assuming he ever slept again.

Edited 2025-03-11 12:52 (UTC)

"I had to pause his Hell loop and he's comfortable here," Lucifer sighed. He looked at Dan. "Daniel, I have commanded the demons to not torture you. You are the first soul ever in this 'purgatory.'" He gestured irritably. "I've invented an entirely new afterlife for you, so I apologize if Belios' serve isn't up to snuff."

"It's more my backhand that's weak," Belios said. Weakly, waving his bat around.

Lucifer reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Look, I'm sorry. I know you're the one stuck here. But I'm trying to find solutions to extremely difficult metaphysical problems, all right? And now Duke's dead!"

Dan stared at him. "Don't look at me," he said. "I've already tried every door in this place. I even tried the one that guy Lee walked through."

"Well, Lee's door was a metaphor for his own guilt," Lucifer pointed out.

The groan he got was certainly-- something. "I know it was a metaphor, Lucifer!"

Duke didn't know who Lee was or why his door was a big deal, so he stuck to what he did know.

"So you could just, like. Not be in a police station."

Duke, some of your best friends were cops. Calm down.

Haven end run preplay part 2: the bloodening

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