The Cape Rouge, Monday... Noon? Ish?

[okteiviakom]

"I think my spring is coming, Octavia. And I can't wait to see what it's like."

There had been no surprise in how hard it had been to say goodbye. Ilian had been impossibly calm and steady, and Octavia had just done her best to keep it together. Be brave, like he'd wanted her to be. Nou fir wamplei in, em bilaik stoda kom nes soujon noumou. Easy for him to say when he'd already done it, when she was the one left to mourn him all over again.

(That last glimmer of someone seeing something human in her before the bunker, The Dark Year, the valley. The last time in six years before the multiverse saw fit to yank whatever had been left of her back to Fandom, to put herself back together again.)

"If you want to honor me, maybe you should plant something. Grow something."

How was she supposed to do that, Ilian?

Everything hurt again.

And Octavia was finding it very hard to even get out of bed. In fact, she hadn't, yet. Just kept laying there, either staring at the ceiling or the line of already slightly smudged dots along the inside of her forearm. Ilian had drawn them with a marker, explaining to her about the tattoos of his clan. Just another thing she'd never had time to learn before.

She knew this had all been a gift.

But right now it was a little hard to ignore how much it also felt like having been stabbed in the gut again.

[ooc: Open for thems that live here, should they so wish.]

Comments

[my_own_advocate]

Usually Octavia would be the first one up. Now, Lucifer could understand her not... being thusly inclined this time.

But until noon?

He knocked gently on the bedroom door.

"Octavia?"

[okteiviakom]

Oh, here came the inevitable.

Octavia closed her eyes, rubbed a hand over them. Called (flatly), "Yeah."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer sighed. "Are you all right in there?"

[okteiviakom]

...

You know what, Octavia was just going to make a vague noise in response to that. Did he hear it? Not her problem.

She rolled onto her side and curled up a little more.

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer sighed.

True to the mindset he'd fallen into in Haven, he added, "Can I get you anything? Drinks? Food?"

[okteiviakom]

He could get off her back and check on Duke? Leave her to her misery.

But, well. There was one other thing. "Water."

[my_own_advocate]

"All right," Lucifer said lightly, "As you wish."

He vanished into the galley, and returned a few moments later with a glass of water. "I'm going to open the door now," he announced.

[okteiviakom]

"Barely closed anyway."

It was more closed than she would usually have had it.

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer stepped inside, and quickly made it over to the nightstand on her end of the bed. He set the water down. "There you are."

[okteiviakom]

"Mm-hm."

Yes, indeed, here she was, curled up into a ball and looking wrung out and exhausted and a little... empty.

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer sighed. He took a step closer, and tried to reach out to at least... touch her hair. Do something that felt like giving even a drop of comfort.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia let him.

Even if she also closed her eyes.

[my_own_advocate]

"I'm not going to make you get up," Lucifer murmured.

Ran his fingers through her hair, careful and gentle.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke had gotten up fairly early again, and as much as he'd wanted to cling to her, he was still feeling . . . something about the whole Ilian thing. (How she hadn't come to bed Saturday night, how just seeing him was enough to rip her apart, how unstable he still felt around here, since the flinch. . . .) So he'd given her a kiss on the cheek and left her to it.

He was in the hold instead, beating up on the heavy bag that had been languishing down there since -- another time he didn't want to think too much about. Not picturing Ilian. Not picturing Wade. Concentrating on seeing only the bag itself as he worked on exhausting himself into a state of not thinking.

[my_own_advocate]

Octavia had locked herself in the bedroom for some time. Duke had also disappeared for some time.

And so, at whatever time winds up making sense for us timeline wise as we go on he found himself at the entrance to the hold once the worry set in. "Duke?"

[betterthanaplan]

Duke didn't hear him, focused to hard on throwing all of his energy into the punching back.

Right. Left. Right, right, left. Knee. He was sweating, his hair in his eyes, but he kept going.

[my_own_advocate]

Pretty, but also not helping his concern one bit.

Lucifer raised his voice. "How long have you been at it?"

[betterthanaplan]

Duke startled, then caught the bag with both hands. (They'd be swollen in a bit, but his knuckles were intact; he knew how to beat on a bag without making himself bleed.) He shook the hair off his face as best he could.

"What?" he frowned, taking a moment to catch his breath -- and catch up to what Lucifer had asked. ". . . No idea."

[my_own_advocate]

Well, at least that saved Duke from finding out what it felt like to punch a bag held in place by a supernaturally strong celestial being, because Lucifer had been close to grabbing it.

"Then it may be time to stop," he advised.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke opened his mouth to object, but didn't have a good reason to do so that didn't make him sound crazy. So he nodded instead, letting the bag go and pacing away as he tried to pull his hair back into a semblance of a reasonable ponytail.

[my_own_advocate]

"Probably best if you just leave that down," Lucifer said. "You're definitely going to need a shower in a bit."

There was concern writ large across his features.

[betterthanaplan]

"Playing nursemaid?" Duke asked, a little sharper than he'd intended. "Might just go for a swim instead."

It was the obvious next step in his bid to turn his brain off.

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer blew out a breath through his nose. "Yes, I realize we had a weekend on top of a Weekend," he said, "And so asking you 'what's going on with you' might, on its face, sound extremely stupid, but what's going on with you?"

[betterthanaplan]

"Nothing." Sure, Duke, that'll work. "I'm keeping out of Octavia's way."

[my_own_advocate]

"Ah, yes, that's why you're sexily beating up on a bag like it kicked your porg and set fire to your galley," Lucifer said.