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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"Is that what Linda says?"

Hey.

"I thought the metaphor was apt."

"Mh."

It probably was, but Octavia was too in it to really see that. Too busy being a sad and tired lump.

"So you're just clearing it out," Lucifer repeated, "You'll be okay once you're done shoveling."

Octavia just curled into him more.

"Have I ever been okay?" she muttered.

"Yes," Lucifer said.

He kissed her hair.

"I don't believe you."

This depressed thing was now what passed for banter.

"Darling, if there's anything I've learned, it's that 'being okay' doesn't mean having no trouble at all," Lucifer murmured. "It means being able to get up in the morning, and finding ways to be happy. And you have been happy here. I've seen it."

A new round of stinging in her eyes.

Yu gada os sonraun in, hir, Okteivia.

"Yeah," she murmured, quieter, "he said that too."

Lucifer's mouth quirked in a wry little smile. "He may have had a point about more than just the quality of my coffee."

"He really did like your coffee," Octavia murmured, noticeably more quietly.

"One mark in his favor," Lucifer allowed.

"Are there ones against?"

"He did abscond with you for an entire night," Lucifer noted. "Something I'd be rather more jealously upset about if I didn't know you as well as I did."

Edited 2023-07-13 10:31 (UTC)

"He didn't abscond." As far as she knew what the word even meant. "We fell asleep."

"So you're telling me he slept with my niron."

Lucifer's tone was slightly teasing, because he really wasn't upset.

"Good reason to put a few strikes in someone's file, frankly."

"I'm telling you I felt safe enough next to him to fall asleep."

So, so quiet.

Lucifer sighed, the tease falling away. "I know, love."

He kissed-- whatever part of her was nearest, really.

Octavia was just not up to teasing about any of this yet. The wound was too fresh.

(It would take her days to figure out why Duke was being the way he was.)

She shuddered a little, with her exhale.

"And you miss him," Lucifer added softly.

"Again," Octavia said, barely louder than a breath.

But that wasn't really true, was it?

This was the first time she'd actually had room to miss him and to mourn him.

"Again," Lucifer allowed.

It sounded more wrong when he said it, but Octavia had no real way of articulating that.

So she just... breathed. It was the barest bare minimum she could do.

"Like I said," Lucifer murmured, guessing at what was going on with her. "You're allowed to."

But she didn't want to.

Mostly she didn't even want to be in her own presence right now.

She didn't say anything because there was nothing to say.

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