To the Cape Rouge, Sunday

[okteiviakom]

Jennifer had taken off for Baltimore. If anyone had asked Octavia about the why and how, maybe even the when of it, she wouldn't have been able to say. Something in her had shut down at the sight of the island, the knowledge that they were no longer in Haven, and she only had one single shred of focus left, and one single goal to go with it:

Just herding Duke across the island, to the port, to the Rouge, to deliver him to Lucifer.

She hadn't said a word the entire way over.

But when they finally stepped onto the dock, with the ship just up ahead, she was almost running.

[ooc: For the two! Follows this.]

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[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer sighed. A silence of his own, albeit shorter, on his end. He had no intention of leaving, after all.

"Well, what's done is done, I suppose," he said (the problem, then, would be what Duke would do in the future, if he kept thinking this way, if he just kept--).

[betterthanaplan]

At least he wouldn’t already be dead, then.

And when you were alive, there was always hope for change.

Duke nodded and sighed. And remembered: “I was going to eat a banana.”

Where’d he put it?

[my_own_advocate]

"It's on the counter," Lucifer said. He glanced towards the bedroom.

"We should go to check on Octavia," he said.

[betterthanaplan]

"Yeah." Duke picked up his banana and found Octavia's as well. "This . . . might've been even harder on her than it was on me."

He'd at least been an active participant. He'd had choices.

[my_own_advocate]

"We'll see, I suppose," Lucifer said.

He was already heading down the hall, to go find her.

[okteiviakom]

All of the clothes Octavia had been wearing were strewn on the floor between the door and the bed. Octavia herself was in bed on her side, wrapped up in blankets, one ear smushed in a pillow and trying to keep the other one covered with her arm. Facing away from the door, of course.

This was what happened when you couldn't decide whether you wanted to scream or cry or throw up.

And you did know you wanted everyone to just shut up.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke set her banana down on the nightstand nearest to her and sat heavily on the edge of the bed. He reached out to rest a hand on her hip.

“It’s okay. He’s done yelling at me now.”

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer sighed, worried, and sank to his knees before her. "Niron?"

[okteiviakom]

Octavia had heard them coming, and had felt the bed dip, and was still faintly startled by the touch.

Not that any of what they did did much. She just curled up even further into a ball, her eyes shut tight.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke swallowed and closed his eyes. He rubbed a small circle on her hip. He had no idea what else to do.

[my_own_advocate]

"Octavia," Lucifer tried, reaching up to touch her face. "Darling, please."

[okteiviakom]

Well, since Octavia couldn't see it coming, she was really startled this time, flinching backwards, eyes flying open.

"Don't," out of her mouth.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke let out a soft hiss, his hand stilling on her hip, and shot Lucifer a worried look.

[my_own_advocate]

And Lucifer-- retreated with hands held up and eyes wide. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry."

[okteiviakom]

That made Octavia feel infinitely worse.

But she was just so exhausted. How was she supposed to communicate... anything at all?

"It has been," she said, slowly, her voice hoarse, "a long day."

[betterthanaplan]

"Yeah." Duke sighed, patting her hip. "It really has."

He set his own banana down next to hers and shifted, moving to spoon her from behind.

[my_own_advocate]

"Let's just sleep, then," Lucifer said, though his expression was still wary. "If you'll have me."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia hoped they'd already forgotten that she'd wanted to go to her own boat. And yet she also wished they'd remembered so that maybe they'd acted accordingly. Because she wasn't going to push Duke away, no matter how hard it seemed to be for her to have anyone touching her that much right now.

(It was doubly horrible because usually it was the only thing that reliably worked.)

And she wasn't going to let Lucifer keep looking like that.

(Still not looking in his eyes.)

"It's fine."

They would never know how much it had taken for her to manage to say that.

[betterthanaplan]

If asked, Duke would admit to being a little selfish right now. (Since he didn’t want to bring the stitching back and all.) She might not want him so close, but he needed it. And she wasn’t saying “no.”

He closed his eyes and focused on breathing.

(Tried to measure the growing weight in his chest. How long it would be before it started to hurt.)

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer considered them both for a moment.

When he finally rose, he... walked around the bed. Slid in under the sheets beside Duke.

Something about that instinctive reaction of hers had rattled him.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia felt guilty about it.

But this whole thing was already rooted in her guilt to begin with, a giant ugly thing eating her up, so... What was one more little cut to go along with that?

She shut her eyes again, already knowing she'd sleep at most ten, twenty minutes here and there.