seaoftroubles | 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)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke’s whole face had locked down, as the buzz of aether battled with his rising consciousness and need to help his partners. To give them what they needed from him.

“There it is,” he hissed, in that broken, inhuman tone. Biting off the end of each word like they were curses. “Now we get to the pleading.”

From:

my_own_advocate

And so Lucifer's hand closed around his arm. "Remember why we came here, darling," he said. "We need you to be whole."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia wanted so badly to touch Duke, too, but she'd seen the acid touch in action, and forced herself to stay behind Lucifer.

(It was agony.)

"And we didn't come here to lose you."

From:

betterthanaplan

“But you have,” Duke hissed. (He wasn’t pulling away though. He had so many troubles now, it’d be so easy to get away, but he didn’t . . . want to.)

(He wanted to stay.)

His voice went high into a taunting sing-song again. “Careless!”

From:

my_own_advocate

"No, we haven't," Lucifer said, his grip tightening. His shoulders squared. "I refuse to, Duke."

From:

okteiviakom

"For as long as we're here with you, we haven't lost a damn thing," Octavia added. Did she believe it? She had to. "Yu laik osir hodon."

(The Trig flowed so freely from her now, the way it hadn't. For a while.)

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke sneered at her, teeth bared and clenched. “You disgust me. You always have. I stayed with you out of pity!”

No. No, no, no, what was he doing? Why was he saying this?

From:

my_own_advocate

"Liar," Lucifer snapped. "And an inartful one at that. You must be desperate. You must know we know he's better than that."

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia was shaking her head, in a sort of a... backwards sign of agreement with Lucifer.

"Much better," she said, voice strained, not just with desperation now but something else, too. "Duke, you could have walked away. You kicked me out, and you didn't have to take me back, but you did, and that was not pity, it was a choice! It was love."

From:

betterthanaplan

“What do you know of love?” Duke hissed. His cold tone broke as a battle waged inside him. “The girl under the floor who had to demand loyalty at sword point. And you!” He turned on Lucifer. “All you do is consume. You’re not the Devil, you’re gluttony personified.”

Even as he spoke, though, his hand fisted in Lucifer’s jacket, hanging onto the rich cloth like it was afraid Lucifer might let go. His other hand jerked faintly, fluttering in Octavia’s direction, an injured butterfly looking for refuge.

From:

my_own_advocate

"You don't think that," Lucifer said, with the same-- strain as Octavia's. "I told you I was unable to love. You told me I was wrong. You refused to leave."

His hand slid up, off Duke's arm, along his cheek, into--

--he pulled loose Duke's hair tie. "Come on, love."

From:

okteiviakom

Despite her earlier instincts, Octavia followed Lucifer's lead: she grabbed Duke's twitching hand with both of hers.

(If he burned her, he burned her; what did it matter, against the chance to try and get her fingers in between the cracks of whatever this was, over him?)

"I never had to demand anything from you," she said, still shaking her head. "And you put us together."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke’s mouth opened, once again forming a little “o”. The black drained from his eyes.

“That was the best idea I ever had,” he croaked.

From:

my_own_advocate

"Duke!"

Without thinking, Lucifer's arm closed around Duke's shoulders. Hugging him close, as if to keep Duke-- this Duke-- here with him.

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia's eyes were wide, and she was gripping Duke's hand like her life depended on it. Maybe even all of their lives.

"You have to stay."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke was making a mess of Lucifer's sleeve with one hand, and trying his best to squeeze Octavia's back with the other.

"It's me," he said. "It's me. I'm trying."

To stay. To not drown in the buzz of troubles again.

"There's a man," he said quickly, in case he didn't have long. "Total creep, he's -- he's in charge of the troubles. He's making me collect them, but I don't -- I want to stay."

From:

my_own_advocate

There's a man. He's making me.

"... Well, let's go find him and rough him up," Lucifer snapped, though he didn't stop hanging on to Duke even remotely. "Cut his balls off and bury him in the ocean."

Something shifted in his tone, again. Something inhuman.

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia didn't disagree with the sentiment (or the weird feeling in her spine when she heard the tone), but like Duke, she was concerned they wouldn't have long to talk.

"Do we know where?"

Not 'do you'. They were an item, a unit, one thing.

Edited Date: 2025-01-24 10:39 pm (UTC)

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke nodded quickly, still hanging onto them both like lifelines. (They were, they were, they'd brought him back to himself, he'd never be able to thank them enough.)

"A farm house, by the sea. He possessed Dave in the lighthouse, he used him to get troubles but they're better through me, whatever Mara did made them better." He was babbling. He could feel the troubles bubbling under his skin, the pressure of what felt like a marble trying to force its way out his tear ducts, and terror welled at what that might mean --

A blob of black, like living ink, slipped from his eyelid and darted away through the air.

"No!"

From:

my_own_advocate

Lucifer's hand shot up immediately. Reflex? Muscle memory, from that time Duke had exploded?

Whatever it was, he was reaching for that blob without a thought.

From:

okteiviakom

The way Octavia's hand moved, reaching up, was pure reflex.

The way she yanked her hand back before it got too far? Maybe that was self-preservation.

Or faith in Lucifer.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke could barely breathe. That was a trouble. He could feel the gremlin man tugging on the others, trying to pull them free too.

It was never going to end. This was going to go on forever. The gremlin man would drain him dry and torture Haven with more troubles and send Duke after them again and again and again. Until Duke was as dead as the rest of the Crockers.

For a moment, just a moment, Duke knew that was the answer. When Crocker’s died their troubles went too. The gremlin man couldn’t pull them from a corpse. All Duke had to do was die. As bloodlessly as possible.

No.

He let go of Lucifer and Octavia to clamp his hands over his eyes. As the next trouble slipped out, he felt it slip right back in, absorbed through his skin. The gremlin man pulled harder, the troubles trying to squirm free around Duke’s fingers, and he pressed his hands harder against his face, curling in against Lucifer and hissing through his teeth as he held himself together, troubles and all.

Edited Date: 2025-01-27 06:19 pm (UTC)

From:

my_own_advocate

"Duke," Lucifer managed, strained, desperation in his voice. As they had once before, his wings unfurled almost by instinct, attempting somehow to encase not just them but also Octavia.

Why couldn't he protect them from all of this? Why did he always feel so bloody useless?

From:

okteiviakom

At least he had something. Octavia had felt more capable facing angels, or raising her voice at God, than she did right here. The best she could do was hastily duck inside the circle of Lucifer's wings.

Best she could do was grab onto Duke, and cling to him, as if her presence would help.

"Jaka, you're stronger than it." A whisper, and just as desperate. "Ai swega klin."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke nodded, though his whole body was shaking as he fought to keep his fingers locked together over his eyes. The troubles would find any possible crack to slip through.

“He can’t have them. He can’t.”

“Well!” A new voice said, booming cheerfully through the warehouse. “That’s disappointing.”

The gremlin man stood in the doorway, shaking his head. His fingertips glimmered as he rubbed them together, pulling at the aether in Duke.

“Though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Everything about this Crocker is a disappointment.”