okteiviakom | Lux, Los Angeles, Friday Morning

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Lux, Los Angeles, Friday Morning

Tonight, Lux was going to be packed and loud again, but this early on a Friday morning, the club wasn't only quiet but deserted. Which made it the perfect place for Octavia to sneak down to for her therapy. In previous weeks, she'd usually just gone out on Lucifer's balcony and kept her voice down for these Friday sessions that happened before neither Duke nor Lucifer tended to even be up yet, but this week...

This had seemed more right. Taking over the empty club, sitting at the grand piano with her phone.

Not that that had made her feel like she could be much more open with her therapist than she had in the last couple of weeks. Until this trip, she hadn't felt much reason to censor what she told Dr. Baker, but there was something about having to talk about God messing up your relationship that she didn't entirely want to get into. Not quite at that level, anyway.

In the end, in this particular session, she largely just ended up venting about love (sometimes it just feels like putting a name on things just makes it more complicated) and rejection (I swear he asked me that ten years ago, and now I'm right back here again) and loss (just feels like something's ending, and I should be able to stop it, but he just keeps looking at me like--).

And once her hour was up, she... stayed where she was. Closed the video chat app, opened a browser.

Looked up Portalocity.

Looked at portals to Fandom.

And wished for a vacation.

[ooc: Open for texts, calls, and those that are here if they so wish.]

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Duke bit back the urge to ask if she'd tried. That was old, well-tread ground that he didn't want to head down again.

"Do you remember what I told you, this winter?" he asked instead. "After the whole sex pollen thing?"

Octavia's head finally tilted against his. "You said a lot of things," she muttered, "so you're gonna have to be a little more specific than that."

She also had soem pretty severe gaps in her memory around that time.

"You don't have to hold me -- or him -- up," Duke said. "Or together, or whatever you're thinking. Sometimes, all we need is for you to just hold us."

Octavia exhaled a noise that wasn't a laugh, because there was nothing amused about it.

"That's the problem."

Trying to hold him at all.

"Then we'll start there," Duke said. He resettled his arms around her, as though he could show her by example how this worked. "What's making it hard?"

Long, helpless sigh.

"Duke, I already did therapy today."

It wasn't the most forceful objection she'd ever given, though.

Duke sat up, lifting his head off hers, but didn't let go of her waist. "Okay, fine," he said, teasing. "I won't try to help then."

Octavia immediately missed the weight of his head, so maybe that hadn't been his best move. Or the teasing itself, either.

A 'please, don't' was right at the tip of her tongue, but somehow she managed to swallow it down.

"Remember how I used to be the one who got Lucifer?"

"I do," Duke said. He remembered all too well the feeling of being the odd one out.

"And how you wanted in on that?" Octavia added, looking away again, towards the bar. "Well, congratulations, you've made it."

And surpassed her, it seemed.

"Or maybe there's more than one part of Lucifer to 'get'," Duke said. "And we each found different pieces."

"Well, I feel like I've lost most of mine," Octavia said with a tiny huff that held no joy. "Or like -- maybe Lucifer's dad put them all in a box somewhere."

"Hm. Maybe," Duke said. "Luce's dad definitely sucks enough to do something like that."

Octavia shrugged, like it was all that she could think of to even do.

"I just --"

She hesitated. Then deflated, her shoulders rolling forward.

"Want my Lucifer back."

"That . . . maybe you shouldn't tell him," Duke mused. It seemed like the sort of thing that would feed into his whole 'I was not built to love' nonsense.

He hung onto her silently for a little while, resting his head on hers again.

"You know, where he's at now, it's not that different from where I was. When you first told me you loved me. That's why I get him."

Octavia had recognized that much.

However:

"Yeah, but you didn't try to tell me you were incapable.

"Not of loving, maybe," Duke said. "But I did think I was incapable of being loved."

"Yeah," Octavia allowed. (Almost ten years on, and that repeated, broken Why? still rang in her ears.) "But that was easier to disprove."

"Maybe from the outside," Duke said. "It took kind of a long time. And mostly I figured it was because you were nuts. But I was stubborn, and maybe a little desperate, so I didn't try to push you away. Lucifer is stubborn, and more than a little terrified, so he's reacting a bit different. But it's the same basic problem."

He kissed the top of her head.

"You say love is something you show, right? Luce doesn't know what it looks like yet, not really. So . . . show him."

"I thought I was," Octavia muttered, leaning into him a little more. Finally. "I thought I had been."

Ever since he'd come back from Hell.

"Let me guess, you got a 'but it's different for me'?" Duke asked, equal parts amusement and frustration. (At him, not her.) "'Blah, blah, angel, blah. . . .'"

Octavia shook her head. Faintly.

"Mostly just a lot of 'sorry'."

“Ah. Yeah, I got some of that, too.” Duke sighed, settling against her. “I think we can get through this, though. If we’re patient. And persistent.”

There was more comfort in all the places where his body pressed against Octavia's that she wouldn't even have been able to put it into words.

Which was perhaps a lesson she needed to re-learn.

"I just..." She trailed off, sighing. "It just hurts, Duke."

“I know.” Duke gave her a little squeeze. “But sometimes the pain is worth it.”

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