okteiviakom | The Cape Rouge, Late Friday Morning

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.]

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Octavia gave a tiny nod.

"How about you pick it back up if there turns out to be something worth writing down?"

"As you wish," Lucifer said, tossing the notepad aside.

Leaving him with just a pen, which he was now fidgeting with.

"Okay," Octavia sighed. She... hadn't actually come up with anything good, in part because she'd been too busy watching whatever Lucifer had been doing. "So, this is a bad one, but... If, just now, when you suggested tacos? If I'd said I don't really feel like tacos, and you felt like what I was saying was that I don't want tacos ever, and then you got upset with me for it, and came at me from that angle?"

Look, she'd said it wasn't a great example. She felt fumbly.

"That might be a moment where it would help to breathe and think about what I actually said. And whether there was maybe... something else, maybe making you feel rejected."

"Hm," said Lucifer, earnestly fighting the urge to take that example literally. "Interesting."

"Interesting like how?" Octavia prompted. Because... Lucifer. "What are you thinking about it?"

"I'm trying to think about what you're actually saying," Lucifer said, "Rather than pontificating on why I might assume you don't like tacos at all?"

Trying! Trying. His best.

Yeah. That was sort of exactly why Octavia had asked.

"Well, I guess that's a start," she rasped. "Because I don't know if I can come up with examples you won't feel like getting stuck on."

Lucifer sighed. "You mean that... I shouldn't jump to conclusions?" he guessed.

Talk about a difficult exercise...

"Pretty much," Octavia sighed. "That would help."

Lucifer frowned.

"Well, that doesn't help me too much," he said.

"Not if you can't imagine your first impression being incorrect," Octavia agreed.

Sort of.

"Well, in the case of tacos, that would be ridiculous," Lucifer pointed out. "In the case of my current issues with Duke, less so."

Octavia wasn't going to touch the taco thing again.

"And why is that?"

Lucifer looked at her. Thought about that.

And then started rooting around for a bottle of something.

Octavia wondered, quietly, whether she should've just let him do some extravagant birthday thing after all.

She said nothing, just watched.

Lucifer found some scotch and poured himself a glass.

"Duke has been quite clear about his priorities," he settled on.

Octavia felt like hugging herself, suddenly.

She didn't. Her arms hung loose at her sides.

"And what makes you feel like that?"

Lucifer sipped from his glass. "He keeps making choices that put the both of us in danger, emotional or otherwise," he said. "I can't even say I want to burn Haven to the ground without getting lecture about how he just cares and he has no intention of stopping. Cares about who, exactly?"

"Everything," Octavia replied, only half out loud.

She was also aware that wasn't a who.

"You can't care about everything," Lucifer retorted. "You always have to pick something."

Another sip.

"And now he's just running about acting like everything's fine now. As long as we don't make too much of a nuisance of ourselves, I imagine."

"So he got high in the pillow room on his own, then?"

So, so mild.

"I wanted to set a time where we could talk and he was insistent we didn't need one, we should just have the talk, so I suggested the pillow room," Lucifer retorted, "And then no talking was done. Except about dinner."

"Mmh," Octavia hummed.

She glanced away. Maybe there was something for her to drink...

(There was actually nothing she wanted.)

"I suppose I should be used to 'no talking' with Duke," Lucifer muttered grimly.

He sat down in a booth.

Octavia watched him do that, and got herself some water. Mostly just to keep her hands occupied.

She wanted to have something to say. Play mediator, maybe. Play her part.

Nothing came.

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my_own_advocate - 2024-10-13 18:45 (UTC) - Expand

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