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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)
Re: Duke and the Croat
Date: 2024-11-27 04:53 pm (UTC)“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
Date: 2024-12-02 03:57 pm (UTC)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.
Re: Duke and the Croat
Date: 2024-12-31 07:14 pm (UTC)Duke sat on an antique settee, listening to the buzzing in his head. (His heart. His soul. . . .) The gremlin man snapped his fingers and Duke idly looked at him.
"Hmmph." The gremlin man peered into his face. "I sank you too deep." He pinched his fingers together and the buzz receded a little. "Now. Idiot. Who has a list of all the troubles?"
"The Teagues," Duke said. Still off-key. Sparse as the branches of a tree in winter. "Vince and Dave."
"The mewling half-breed and his oaf of a 'brother'?" the gremlin man scoffed. "I should have noticed. I already dispatched of them."
Duke let himself drift into the buzz again, admiring his fingers as he set them on fire. That'd been a good trouble to pull. He hadn't known the man well, and the flames were pretty.
The gremlin man snapped his fingers again. Duke let the flames go out and looked at him.
"Focus, please," the gremlin man said. "I've given you just what you always wanted, Duke. A little gratitude wouldn't hurt you."
Duke tilted his head, curious. "What I've always wanted."
"Purpose," the gremlin man said. "Submission. The pure, perfect freedom of surrender to the Void." He pressed his fingers into the soft space under Duke's jaw, pressing his face upwards. "You belong to me, Duke Crocker. I've brought you home."
Warmth and pressure and soft words. Water and wind in dark hair. Lucifer's laugh. Octavia's tiny smiles. The smell of Thai food and ripe fruit freshly opened.
Duke twitched. The gremlin man tightened his hand. The buzz roared.
Cold. Absence. The bright zing of pain in an otherwise empty space. Hunger.
"Home," Duke said.
The gremlin man let him go with an angry huff. "Go get the list, boy. Before I have to put you down."
Duke slipped away between one blink and the next. Following his master's will.