first one who touches the ground loses

Octavia wasn't great at sleeping in. Just in general, unless she was exhausted. Something about all those years on the Ark, and down on the ground, and down in the bunker - the much stricter schedule of living in a close-knit community (or on the unseen edges of it) stuck to her, persistently, despite the years of sharing a boat with just two other people that had passed since any of that.

But it wasn't just the usual, this week.

Guess there was something about your kid's surly doppelgänger showing up at your work again that could make your brain a noisier place than usual. And that didn't make for great sleep.

But Sunday morning she'd tried, valiantly, to stay in bed. And it had worked for a little bit. But the thoughts just kept whirring around in a loop, and eventually she'd had to give in and get up. Heading outside after, onto the deck, was supposed to serve two purposes: not disturbing anyone still asleep on the Rouge, and hopefully letting the cool air soothe a little bit of her... whatever it was. Melancholy, maybe.

She also had a mug of hot chocolate, and was wrapped up in one of Duke's shapeless cardigans, far too big and thus actually perfect on her. Those were supposed to help, too, as she stood there facing away from the island, looking over the open water.

Thinking thoughts of family.

[ooc: Open, ofc, although likely a little slow.]

Lucifer had been back for a little over a week. And a lot, or even most of that time had gone towards Octavia and Duke making sure he dealt with his exhaustion, and rested enough. Typically with his partners at his side - or piling on top of him.

Tonight, however, was a little break from that norm. Because Octavia and Duke had also not spent much real time together by themselves since Lucifer's return, and considering how some of it had gone in the last stretch of the time he'd been away...

Maybe they needed some time like that.

Like a date night.

Like this night, at the house. Octavia had ordered dinner in, but had then also insisted on attempting to make it prettier for serving, like a very lowkey special occasion. Which meant that she was now bringing a big fancy platter out of the kitchen into the living room, with a whole bunch of nachos and various salsas and other toppings on it.

"Well, it looks nicer than it did in the delivery containers."

She guessed. She was not the leading expert on aesthetics in the family, but she'd tried, at least.

[ooc: For the guy, and lots and lots of SP!]

The portals back to Fandom seemed to be operational again. Octavia had half expected for it to have been just a blip when the first notificatins had abruptly hit Lucifer's phone, but no. Seemed like they were actually staying available, now.

Octavia was yet to take one. In part because maybe she'd been bracing for... something, after Rory had shown up. A swift change, maybe, but none had come. They remained at the same standstill they'd been all summer in LA so far, now just with the added complication of a daughter who'd been theirs but now wasn't.

And Octavia was stuck in the same pattern of trying to find something, anything, to hold on to.

Sunday was another one of those days. She traveled from Lux to the Rouge, first, and then with all of her little garden taken care of she just... picked a direction and took whatever means of transport there was to travel that way, to see where she would land, what she would see.

This time, she found a crowd. Not an unusual sight in LA, in itself, everywhere so busy with people, but this was different. More concentrated, standing outside a big building that couldn't have been chosen by accident, holding signs, chanting. That last part made the hairs on the back of Octavia's neck stand up, but she pushed forward anyway, curious. First to see the signs more up close, then to ask someone about them.

The people were making demands of the city. They wanted every new plan for housing to also come with plans for parks, they wanted the construction of houses itself to be greener, they wanted more of the city to be unpaved.

They planned for the demonstration to be ongoing throughout the following week.

And something in Octavia sang, maybe. Maybe this was what she'd been looking for. After all, she fit right in. Aligned with the goals, immediately learned some of the chants, struck up conversations with people who all told her of different grassroots efforts to make the city better for every living thing in it. She learned to scan QR codes and diligently bookmarked everything in her phone.

Later, as she was taking the elevator up to Lucifer's penthouse, her mind felt busy and her body was restless.

[ooc: NFB due to distance, but open.]

"I don't think I've got this."

It had been a while since the last Sunday night date night.

It felt like it had been forever. And Octavia's memories of the last date night of any day of the week at the house weren't great.

None of that was what was getting to her right this second.

"It's just not doing what I want, Lucifer."

She was trying to pipe some sort of ganache onto a thing of dessert in a dainty little bowl, and no, it was not going smoothly at all. As far as issues went, it would have been almost blissfully mundane, had it not also been so very frustrating.

[ooc: For that guy and massive SP.]

Octavia hadn't been sleeping well. Night after night, she kept waking up every hour and a half or so, just to make sure she could still hear two other people breathing in bed with her. If they were quiet, she would hold her own breath until she was sure she could hear them, or she felt them move, or something.

It wasn't making for very restful nights, but she'd survive. She always did.

Granted, on Friday morning, that survival involved giving up on trying to stay asleep, slipping quietly out of bed and making her way into the galley. She got the coffee going, because she might as well. If actual rest wasn't going to give her energy, then maybe caffeine would at least keep her going.

She'd also made sure to leave the bedroom door open more than enough that if anyone else was awake, or woke up, they would either be able to hear her puttering away, or at the very least be able to smell the coffee sooner rather than later.

She hadn't vanished. She wasn't going to let anyone think she had, either.

(It felt like the least she could do.)

[ooc: For the two.]

At first, the feeling was pleasant. A sort of a... sense of being alive? Sneaking its way into Octavia's body and into her subconscious as she slept, like sweet and warm and enticing.

But then, of course, she woke up. And it didn't take her long at all for her to realize it wasn't a feeling she tended to wake up with. And while it wasn't really yet springtime on Fandom, the flora on the island did whatever it wanted, sometimes, and it was definitely a time of year that sometimes brought really specific sensations and urges with it, so...

Octavia was pretty sure she knew what was going on.

Which meant that she was pretty sure one of the other in the bed was going to be more or less immune, yet again (since Lucifer was both a celestial and, honestly, didn't need any help from the pollen in the first place), but the other one... Remained to be seen. Duke hadn't felt it, the previous year, but the one before that, he'd had to leave the island for the week. So who even knew how this one would turn out.

Octavia slid quietly off the bed, to her feet. Grabbed something to wrap herself up in - Duke's discarded cardigan, maybe not the best choice for containing her current state - and padded out, into the galley. Like maybe some water and... distance would help her clear her mind a little bit.

(Unlikely, but a girl could try.)

[ooc: For those two, if they so wish.]

As most days this week (and the one before that, and the one before that...) Octavia had spent most of the early parts of her day working around the marina. There was always maintenance work to be done, things to fix, areas to tidy. She knew how to do most of the usual things by now, too, and had less of a need for the local workers to show her the ropes, whether literal or figurative. She could just be helpful. Just that, and not a burden or a hindrance.

It settled something in her. At least a little.

But by now, her tasks for the day were done. She'd cleaned all of the maintenance grime off of herself, and was now sitting near where the Fin & Tonic was docked. Watching the water, listening to whatever noise was coming from elsewhere in the marina.

Thinking about home.

[ooc: NFB, open for all the usual with likely SP.]

A lot could happen in a week. Like Octavia doing a 180 on what she considered an appropriate venue for her and Duke's inaugural date night. Not that they hadn't had date nights before (although ones Octavia had probably refused to call that, with her own internal rules about language), but there were date nights, and there were date nights.

There were random events, and there were the beginnings of traditions.

(Hopeful ones, anyway.)

So there Octavia was, already at the house. She'd thought about cooking something herself, maybe paella like Lucifer had taught her to make once, but had ultimately decided against it. This all felt new enough as it was, without adding the unknown factor of her cooking into it.

The trusty Thai she'd ordered had arrived a moment or two ago, and was now sitting on the coffee table in the living room.

Now all she needed was her date.

[ooc: For that guy. No, not that one, the other one.]

Thursday night was still on-going had been something else. Stupid, probably, but it had made Octavia feel alive in a way that had been in short supply in the past few weeks. And she'd come back, late at night but with no major injuries, taken a shower, crawled into bed. Played it all off like a long walk. A breather. Nothing too different from all the other walks she'd been taking.

Even just this morning, a full day later, she'd already taken one. Just around the island, nowhere near the preserve, or the woods, not even in the park. Streets and stairs and beach, confined. Thinking, whether she wanted to or not, about the dreams she'd been having the past two nights. Walking into the preserve and letting the undergrowth bury her. Her mother had been there, too, bathed in a golden light from somewhere beyond the treetops.

It all seemed a little heavy-handed, if you asked Octavia.

Anyway, the walk was over. She was yet to go back inside, although she felt like she'd probably need a shower soon. For now, she was sitting on the deck, right by her little garden. Like it was enough just to be near it.

Because it had to be.

She had to be fine. She was losing entire days to pretending to be, acting her usual self for Duke and Lucifer's benefit, doing the usual things, with her quiet snark, holding hands, playing her part while they fixed the shit between themselves. (Ignoring the ache that came with them doing it someplace she'd spent years developing a big stake in. Ignoring that she'd almost dropped by the house for a bath just this morning, only to find herself unable to actually go in.) Sometimes she pretended so convincingly she even fell for it herself.

And wasn't that the goal, really?

She had her phone out. Checking out the news for anything new on the chemical plant. That was where it had started, anyway: now she was just scrolling through whatever else happened to be there. Maybe she was stalling? Didn't really matter. Something caught her eye either way, in her recommendations. A fresh discovery in Pompeii.

She tapped it open. Read, scrolled.

Came to a stop when she came up on the photo of the altar. Two snakes, surrounded by greenery, painted two thousand years ago, but their color still retained, unearthed from the ash.

Something in her chest clenched.

(It all seemed a little heavy-handed, if you asked --)

[ooc: Expecting one, open.]

So Octavia couldn't touch living plants without sapping all life out of them. So she couldn't go out into the preserve for fear of some young branch grazing her cheek and killing the entire tree. So Octavia was troubled, poisoned by Haven.

Big deal.

Duke was breathing easier than he had for months. Octavia wasn't sure she trusted it, that she could expect it to last, but the difference was too obvious to ignore. And that? That felt more valuable than whatever quiet suffering she was going through. No good ever seemed to come without a sacrifice, anyway. And, well, Blodreina was used to sacrifice.

Especially when it was her.

So she gardened with thick gloves on, and she didn't go to the preserve, and she ignored how it felt like the first several weeks (months) down in the bunker, when all, absolutely everything she'd wanted had been to go out and breathe and feel a breeze on her face, or the warmth of the sun, or something that couldn't be confined in a concrete structure underground.

She'd learned to contain that feeling then. She'd learn to contain it again.

So Octavia and her thick gloves carefully and clumsily harvested some peppers from the little garden on the deck, and brought them inside into the galley for one of the guys to use in their cooking later. She took no chances: she only took the gloves off once the peppers were safely on the counter.

She checked her phone for the time, and caught the date instead. It was October 11th.

She was 33.

Another year gone.

[ooc: Oooopen, of course.]