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

"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.]

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"You asked," Lucifer pointed out.

But he did fall silent.

"You sighed," Duke replied. He slowly sat up. "I probably do need a shower."

"Certainly after what we just did," Lucifer agreed.

"It was very dirty," Duke noted. He kissed Lucifer's cheek. "In the best way."

Lucifer's mouth quirked. "Always fun when you really get into the spirit of it."

"You know me," Duke said. "I'm almost always up for a bit of fun."

Lucifer reached out to run his fingers through Duke's hair. "Mhm," he said.

Somewhat more worrying when it felt like Duke was escaping something through that fun.

Well. Duke as a bit of an escapist. There was a reason he chose to live somewhere he could bring with him.

Duke let out a soft sigh. "You're going to be weird until we talk, aren't you."

"I'm worried about you," Lucifer agreed softly.

"Because I killed Wade."

He said it plainly, his tone dull. Careful not to touch the actual memory and the feelings that came with it.

"Because of how you've been avoiding dealing with killing Wade," Lucifer corrected. "Avoided talking to us. To me."

Duke pulled away a little further, bending his knees and resting his elbows on them.

"Why does me dealing have to include talking about it?"

"Because not talking about it isn't dealing, it's repression," Lucifer said, "And repression leads to pulling incredibly dumb stunts and/or distancing yourself from everyone who cares about you."

"Pretty sure there's, like, degrees between 'repression' and 'just not talking about it'," Duke argued. "It's not like I'm not thinking about it."

Constantly. That was part of why he'd wanted what they'd just done so much. So he could get a break from thinking.

"Yes, that would be the problem," Lucifer said, helpfully. "You thinking about it over and over without letting any of it out, until you jump in front of a madman with a gun or something."

"What? Where's a madman with a gun coming in?"

"That was my thing," Lucifer said. Still helpful!

Duke nodded.

"Okay. But just because that's what you did doesn't mean I'm necessarily going to do exactly the same thing."

"No, but you'll do something else that's stupid, because you're avoiding what you actually need."

"Which is talking to you," Duke said skeptically. "You remember I have a therapist now, right?"

. . . He should probably call her. He'd skipped their last session.

"Which is processing and perhaps realizing you're not in this on your own," Lucifer said, with the faintest hint of irritation. "I'll happily have sex with you any time of day, darling, but not if you're going to prance about acting as if that's all I should contribute to this relationship."

"I'm not --" Duke sighed, rubbing his forehead. "That's not what I meant. I just."

How the hell did he phrase this without further pissing off or alienating the partner who was still talking to him?

"You do so much to take care of us already. You don't have to -- take this on too, you know?"

The look Lucifer gave him was... Complicated. Somewhere between light anger, disappointment, sadness-- and just not bloody getting it.

"I murdered my own brother in defense of women I loved," he said. "This is already 'on' me. The only question is whether you will let me be there for you or force me to suffer through watching you go through it alone."

“Exactly!” Duke burst out. He curled in on himself a bit, hands in his hair now. “You shouldn’t have to deal with it again. And — I don’t know, maybe I’m not ready for what happened to my family be about what happened to our families.”

It felt so personal. Having to share it was too much.

"Duke."

Helplessly, Lucifer reached out for his knee.

"I am already dealing with it," he said. It felt... odd, to be on this side of this equation. "That isn't something you can control."

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