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)

The door fell shut behind him. Lucifer's eyes were drawn to the demon - wearing Octavia's skin poorly.

And then, there, to Duke.

He exhaled.

(Do something!)

"There was no other option," the demon playing Octavia said.

Duke scowled, his stomach rolling. He wanted to throw up, but there was nothing inside him but the ouzo.

"Pretty sure you could have let people choose for themselves if they wanted to become cannibals."

So this was Duke's Hell loop. Lucifer swallowed. He took another moment to steel himself.

And then he waved his hand, halting the demon, the world around them, everything. Creating a moment of perfect stillness.

It took Duke a moment, so locked as he was in the repetition of this scene. A part of him thought Octavia was going still, the way she did at times. Shutting down.

“You knew it was wrong!” he said, breaking his own script. “That’s why you wouldn’t tell me! You knew. . . .” He trailed off, hands fisting in his hair. “You — I knew —“

He swayed, mind reeling, and saw Lucifer.

“I knew,” he said, small and fragile. “I knew this would break us. But I couldn’t — I can’t —“

"You were in shock, obviously," Lucifer said.

He sounded almost absent, but his eyes were alert, drinking in Duke's face like a starving man.

Duke shuddered, his whole body wavering.

“Shock,” he echoed, then shook his head. “I hurt her. On purpose. Just because I was angry and scared.” He looked at Octavia (she was still Octavia to him; he hadn’t really grasped yet what was happening). “I’m so sorry, gona. I broke us.”

"We're not broken, love," Lucifer said. Whatever spell had grasped his limbs peeled away, and he stepped forward. "You came back. We all came back from this."

Duke looked back at him, frowning. "Did we?" he asked, genuinely confused. Part of him was still stuck in the rut of this moment, in torturing himself with it. And the part that wasn't -- also wasn't sure. He couldn't remember how, exactly, he and Octavia had come back together.

He just knew Octavia had told him at some point that they were broken. And that this was when he thought that had happened.

Lucifer-- didn't know what to do. Do something.

"Let's go somewhere better to talk, shall we?" he said. He waved a hand. He searched blindly. Somewhere better. Somewhere safer.

The world shifted, startling Duke. Suddenly they were in Lucifer's mansion, the smell of spices still in the air from the fresh samosas Duke had made that night.

The night Duke had asked Octavia not to call him "Deimeka" anymore.

"I think there's something broken between us," the demon playing Octavia said, going with the flow.

Duke closed his eyes and sucked in a wet breath. Bracing instinctively to face the consequences of his long-ago actions.

There was nothing else, though. Hell still responded easily to Lucifer's command, and the demon vanished in an instant.

"Duke," he said, and finally crossed the space between them. "Duke, you have to snap out of it, all right?"

Do something.

Duke shook his head, confused. He opened his eyes and stared at the space the demon had been. (Where had Octavia gone? Nothing was making any sense!)

"I don't understand."

A few more steps, and there Lucifer was. Bracing his hands on the sofa, on either side of Duke.

"Darling," he said quietly, "You're dead."

Duke’s mouth worked soundlessly for a few moments. He wanted to cry. Or shout. Or laugh. It was patently absurd. He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead. He was — he was — He looked around, trying to find — something. Proof that Lucifer was wrong. That he was lying.

(Lucifer never lied.)

They’d been at the Gull. But they were at the mansion. Octavia was here, but now she wasn’t, and —

And he couldn’t breathe.

(Dead men don’t breathe.)

“No,” he said, voice unfathomably small. “That’s. No.”

Lucifer could not stop himself from sliding onto the sofa if he'd tried. (He had no desire to try.) As soon as he was seated, he reached for Duke, tugging him wordlessly into himself.

This was Duke. Duke, no longer in his body, but still here.

Duke let himself be pulled, still trying to wrap his mind around what Lucifer had said.

Dead. He was dead. He was dead and had been reliving regrets and --

"This is Hell."

It wasn't a question, but it had no strength behind it.

He was dead. And in Hell.

And he had no idea what to do next.

"Yes," Lucifer said. He swallowed. His mouth felt dry regardless. Do something. "I paused your Hell loop."

Paused.

Would it start again?

Duke couldn't be sure what the ball squeezing itself up his throat would come out his mouth as, whether a laugh, a cry, or even throwing up. He just knew he couldn't keep it down. He curled in on himself, balling up in Lucifer's grip, and let it out.

It wasn't a laugh or a sob, but something in between. And once it started, it didn't stop.

And anyway, Duke realized, who cared if it did or not? He was dead. And in Hell. There was no one left to impress or protect. Just him and Lucifer and the demons.

Forever.

Edited 2025-03-06 21:40 (UTC)

"Darling," Lucifer whispered, anew, brushing his hand over Duke's hair. Kissing the top of his head, wrapping his arms tighter.

Something in his chest squeezed painfully. It refused to let go. "I love you," he whispered. "I love you."

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."

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