Lucifer's Mansion, Friday Evening

[okteiviakom]

A lot could happen in a week. Like Octavia doing a 180 on what she considered an appropriate venue for her and Duke's inaugural date night. Not that they hadn't had date nights before (although ones Octavia had probably refused to call that, with her own internal rules about language), but there were date nights, and there were date nights.

There were random events, and there were the beginnings of traditions.

(Hopeful ones, anyway.)

So there Octavia was, already at the house. She'd thought about cooking something herself, maybe paella like Lucifer had taught her to make once, but had ultimately decided against it. This all felt new enough as it was, without adding the unknown factor of her cooking into it.

The trusty Thai she'd ordered had arrived a moment or two ago, and was now sitting on the coffee table in the living room.

Now all she needed was her date.

[ooc: For that guy. No, not that one, the other one.]

Comments

[okteiviakom]

Octavia shifted a little. Not quite using his shoulder to hide from him, but some of the vibe was there. "Not that it's any of my business," she said. "But your... date nights, with Lucifer? They've been good?"

Now that the whole topic no longer made her feel weird and evasive, she was apparently back to craving reassurance.

(And was maybe curious, too. Now that there was room for that.)

[betterthanaplan]

"They've been good," Duke said. "We've actually, uh. Been having some fun with ropes."

He couldn't quite see her full expression with how she was sitting, but he kept an eye on it as best he could anyway. Wondering where this question was going.

[okteiviakom]

The question was the question. It wasn't really going anywhere.

Although that didn't mean there wasn't going to be further prompting:

"Ropes?"

She looked... curious, but a little cautious about it.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke looked around, then pointed to the book Lucifer had shown him. It was too far away to grab without getting up, and he didn't really want to pull away from her right now. But it made a good prop.

"You familiar with shibari?"

[okteiviakom]

Octavia leaned past his shoulder a little, peering towards the book.

"The... fancy ropes?" she asked. That was about where her knowledge ended. "I've heard about it?"

No points for guessing who from.

[betterthanaplan]

"The fanciest ropes," Duke agreed. "Lucifer is pretty much an expert. And I am enjoying letting him show off on me."

[okteiviakom]

"Lucifer's pretty much an expert on all of these things," Octavia murmured, retreating back to where the lower half of her face was obscured.

She also pressed a kiss against his shoulder.

And gave a thoughtful little hum.

[betterthanaplan]

"True," Duke said. He smiled at her. "I hear you still manage to surprise him, though."

[okteiviakom]

"I don't have very many... preconceived notions, I guess?" Octavia hazarded, because of course she was thinking about it seriously. (Maybe it weirdly helped her stay a little detached from the thing she was... very hesitant to touch, too.) "That probably helps. Not as likely to do expected things if you don't even know what's expected."

Or didn't care.

[betterthanaplan]

"And you don't really care about 'expected' either," Duke pointed out. He pressed an awkward kiss to her forehead. "Whatcha thinking about?"

[okteiviakom]

"About how glad I am," Octavia replied, after only a little bit of thoughtful hesitation. "That you guys have found each other like that."

[betterthanaplan]

“It’s good,” Duke agreed. “I’m, um. Hoping maybe you and me can find something too.”

[okteiviakom]

"Well, we're here," Octavia replied, managing something faintly wry. "That has to count for something, right?"

Not that she thought they'd been as lost as he and Lucifer had been.

[betterthanaplan]

Not as. But not not lost.

(Duke was still worried about her and that rogue trouble.)

“I’d say it counts for a lot.” He gave her a soft smile. “And, you know, maybe we can try playing with ropes sometime, too.”

[okteiviakom]

His shoulder was coming in handy again. Some of the... something cautious was back on the visible parts of Octavia's face, if not as pronounced.

"You think so?"

Sure, the three of them had done some light stuff with scarves over the years, but things beyond that...

[betterthanaplan]

"I think we won't know for sure if we don't try," Duke said. "But -- yeah. Yeah, I think so. It feels so good to hand myself over to Luce. I want to feel that good with you, too."

[okteiviakom]

"I..." Octavia said, eyebrows pulling into more of a frown, cautious turning more concern. "I don't know about that."

There was so much she'd kept far, far away from him for auch a long time.

[betterthanaplan]

"Oh." Duke felt a little silly being surprised. He swallowed it back. "Well, I don't want to do anything you're not comfortable with."

[okteiviakom]

"You weren't comfortable with it," Octavia murmured, helplessly.

Okay, so that hadn't been this. Excuse her cautiously kneejerking anyway.

[betterthanaplan]

"That was a long time ago," Duke said gently. "I'm -- I've processed a lot of stuff." He wished she were doing a little less hiding, but they could work on that. "And that was about orders, not so much about rope."

Lucifer did a fair amount of ordering, too. But what really went right to the sweet spot in Duke's brain was being helpless -- but also safe.

That was what he was hoping to find with her.

[okteiviakom]

"I know a lot more about orders than I do about rope," Octavia replied, quietly. But she hadn't pulled away, even with all her half-hiding. That was something. "That's... more Lucifer's thing."

Well. In that way where Lucifer's thing was whatever got his partners going, anyway.

[betterthanaplan]

"Lucifer likes giving us whatever we need," Duke said. "You and me . . . we gotta figure things out a bit differently." He tilted his head at her. "It doesn't have to be ropes. I think I mentioned once that maybe we could, like, play out a struggle for it? With scarves or straps, or even you just. Holding me down. And we'd use safe words, make sure neither of us ended up doing something we don't like."

[okteiviakom]

He had mentioned something like that before, hadn't he?

It felt like it had been a thousand years ago.

"Obviously safe words," Octavia muttered. Not really touching the rest right off the bat because she didn't immediately have the words.

[betterthanaplan]

"Obviously," Duke agreed. "We could do the stoplight system. Luce mentioned you guys have used that."

[okteiviakom]

That part was at least a little easier to talk about. Octavia latched onto it.

"Yeah," she murmured. "There's a safeword too, but the colors seem... Like less of a full stop, if we don't need a full stop. And 'green'..."

She chewed on her lip a little, thinking about it.

"Sometimes it works like a shorthand. Like we can skip a conversation we would otherwise have to have."