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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"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.”

Octavia tried to cover his arms around her waist with own.

What it really amounted to was hugging herself.

"Even what he's feeling?"

“If he comes out the other side realizing he loves us?”

Duke would happily help her hug herself.

Octavia's voice got quieter.

"What if he doesn't?"

Maybe she just needed to vent some of the doom circling around in her system. The things she couldn't say with Lucifer present.

“Then. . . . At least we’ll still have each other.”

The ‘that would suck’ was unspoken, but clear in his tone.

Crystal.

Octavia's eyes were closing again, the brows above them dipping down more with a kind of sadness than anything else.

"Do you think... he'd actually leave us over this?"

“He hasn’t yet. Just — made a half-assed effort to make us leave him instead.”

With her eyes still closed, Octavia turned her face a little more towards him. "If I went to Fandom for a few days, would that count as leaving?"

She was asking a lot of questions, right now. She barely noticed.

“I don’t know.” Duke sighed. “It might.”

"I don't think I'd like it if you did it," Octavia admitted quietly.

She wished that had been enough for a part of her to stop wanting to.

“Yeah, I know.” Duke kissed her temple. “I’m kinda hoping he doesn’t notice that the boat’s an escape hatch.”

Octavia exhaled a quiet sigh.

"Do that again?" she requested softly. Meaning the little kiss at her temple.

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