The Cape Rouge, Late Friday Morning

[okteiviakom]

So Octavia couldn't touch living plants without sapping all life out of them. So she couldn't go out into the preserve for fear of some young branch grazing her cheek and killing the entire tree. So Octavia was troubled, poisoned by Haven.

Big deal.

Duke was breathing easier than he had for months. Octavia wasn't sure she trusted it, that she could expect it to last, but the difference was too obvious to ignore. And that? That felt more valuable than whatever quiet suffering she was going through. No good ever seemed to come without a sacrifice, anyway. And, well, Blodreina was used to sacrifice.

Especially when it was her.

So she gardened with thick gloves on, and she didn't go to the preserve, and she ignored how it felt like the first several weeks (months) down in the bunker, when all, absolutely everything she'd wanted had been to go out and breathe and feel a breeze on her face, or the warmth of the sun, or something that couldn't be confined in a concrete structure underground.

She'd learned to contain that feeling then. She'd learn to contain it again.

So Octavia and her thick gloves carefully and clumsily harvested some peppers from the little garden on the deck, and brought them inside into the galley for one of the guys to use in their cooking later. She took no chances: she only took the gloves off once the peppers were safely on the counter.

She checked her phone for the time, and caught the date instead. It was October 11th.

She was 33.

Another year gone.

[ooc: Oooopen, of course.]

Comments

[okteiviakom]

"I noticed," Octavia said, quietly. Had been saying, for the past moment. "You guys haven't actually worked through much yet, have you?"

[my_own_advocate]

"Well, I said we should probably find a time to talk the other day," Lucifer said, "And then he made a joke about scheduling, and I said right, we can go to the pillow room, at least. So we went to the pillow room and we got stoned..."

[okteiviakom]

"Helpful," Octavia noted, maybe a little dry but not unkind.

Sometimes that was just her voice.

[my_own_advocate]

"I did mean to talk about it," Lucifer said, leaning back a touch. "I really did."

It was just easier to get stoned.

[okteiviakom]

"The weed was never going to be the best path to that."

As much as Octavia understood the urge.

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer sighed. "Wasn't part of the original plan," he said, looking down at the peppers. "Linda feels Duke and I both have to practice 'active listening', whatever that is."

[okteiviakom]

"I assume she'll explain if you ask," Octavia replied, quietly. Watching him. "Unless she already did and you weren't listening."

[my_own_advocate]

"Something about actually listening and thinking about what you hear before you say anything?" Lucifer offered, after a moment. "Unsure how that's different from what I already do."

Luce. Honey.

[okteiviakom]

Yeeeeah.

Octavia was just going to give him a look for that one.

[my_own_advocate]

"What?" Lucifer said, helplessly confused.

[okteiviakom]

"I don't think that's what any of us usually do."

Did that clarify something a little?

[my_own_advocate]

"I... think after I hear things..."

[okteiviakom]

"Do you?" Octavia asked. "Or do you just think about what you think you heard, and react to that?"

[my_own_advocate]

"This seems like a trick question," Lucifer said.

[okteiviakom]

"I promise you it's not."

[my_own_advocate]

"I don't know the difference," Lucifer said slowly.

[okteiviakom]

"A little like what Linda probably said," Octavia replied, patiently. "You have to actually think about it. What your interpretation is, and if it's coming from... I don't know, maybe from a hurt that you're already feeling."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer considered her. "Like what?"

Actually asking.

[okteiviakom]

And yet, Octavia still checked, "Do you need me to come up with examples?"

[my_own_advocate]

"That would be helpful," Lucifer agreed.

He was taking this seriously. He just... needed... small words. Sometimes.

Actually, should he write this down? He glanced aside for a notepad.

[okteiviakom]

"Okay," Octavia murmured.

Of course, now she was faced with the unenviable task of trying to come up with an example that might help, without being an actual thing they'd dealt with recently.

Using those did not feel like it would go well.

"Let me think for a sec."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer nodded. That gave him time, too.

Admittedly, the notepad and pen were probably more explicable than the reading glasses, but he found all three and parked himself against the counter.

[okteiviakom]

The glasses weren't the part that was turning this situation vaguely intimidating.

"I don't think I'm going to be saying anything worth all that," Octavia hazarded.

[my_own_advocate]

"Ah," Lucifer said. He took off the glasses. "Better?"

[okteiviakom]

"You can keep the glasses," Octavia replied, in... something of a deadpan.