okteiviakom | Lucifer's Condo, LA, Wednesday

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Lucifer's Condo, LA, Wednesday

For all that Octavia, Duke and Lucifer were in Los Angeles under a looming sense of foreboding like time was about to run out, there also seemed to be nothing but time. Octavia was doing her best to adjust, to build new routines away from the island. Going back to the ship to take care of her plants, finding hiking trails she liked (whenever the weather didn't feel like it was out to kill her), trying to -- just trying to stay busy. Keep active.

But some days the body felt like it needed to rest. And sometimes Octavia even gave into that instead of pushing forward. Today was one of those, so she was reading a book in Lucifer's living room, her back against the floor and her feet up on the couch.

Well, she was pretending to read, anyway.

See, there were downsides to letting herself be still - like how much louder it made all kinds of thoughts she'd been ignoring and repressing and holding back. Thoughts about things like Heaven, and Hell, and how it was July 2nd again and she didn't even know if Bellamy was alive like her or dead like their mother.

(Where was their mother?)

There was a certain kind of loneliness that didn't touch her often, but when it did, it hurt.

But at least she was holding her book the correct way up?

[ooc: NFB for distance, but open for all the usual.]

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Octavia wasn't alone in trying to find ways to spend her time. Duke had been going out most days to do just that, wandering to different parts of the city and just. Seeing what he could see.

Back in Hell, when they were waiting for Lucifer to do whatever he had run off to do (resurrect Duke, as it turned out), Duke and Dan had talked a bit about how Dan had learned to process everything he'd been through, from dealing with his forays into corruption to dealing with divorcing Chloe. He'd made some really interesting points.

Duke was not going to do improv, though.

Instead . . . well. He had a bag in hand with the word "Blick" pasted across it, which he set down on the end of the couch before noticing Octavia on the floor. It was quite full, and clacked faintly as the items in it settled.

"Good book?"

Octavia heard him come in. It drew her back into the moment - a moment where she realized how close to tears she'd gotten. She tried swallowing it down, blinking it away, before he got close to the couch. She was mostly successful, but there was... collateral damage, of a sort.

"Hmh?" she hummed, looking towards him.

She had no idea what he'd just asked.

Which was, in its way, an answer by itself.

(Maybe he'd try to draw her later. Sprawled out like that with her book. It'd make a beautiful picture.)

Duke came over to sit crosslegged on the floor by her head.

"Whatcha up to?" he asked this time.

"Reading," Octavia replied, this time, but it came out subdued. She rested the book against her chest - a battered copy of Frankenstein, from a used book store somewhere in the city. She looked to be maybe a third of the way into it.

She sighed, then admitted, "Tried to, anyway."

Something about the way he'd sat down with her, maybe, making her feel like she should try a little honesty, against her kneejerk instincts.

Duke nodded a little. "You seemed a bit distracted," he observed.

He thought maybe she was a little sad, too, but she didn't like when he told her how she was. So he was going to stick with "seemed" and "distracted" for now.

"Yeah," Octavia replied, with another sigh.

She left the book resting on her chest. Reached, slowly, for his hand.

"It's... my brother's birthday. I guess."

"Ah." Duke thought for a moment, looking at the empty space by her shoulder, then shifted to lie down next to her, on his back, matching her pose with his feet on the couch. Close enough to press his arm against hers. He reached for her hand. "Yeah, that'll do it."

Octavia watched him move. Something ached in her chest.

"That'll do it," she agreed, in a quiet echo. Her fingers pushed in between his. Gave his a grateful little squeeze.

“You want to talk about it?” Duke offered, squeezing her hand back. “I can also offer distraction or time alone.”

Staying quiet, Octavia pulled his hand over until she could try and rest both their hands against the book on her chest.

"I miss him," she muttered. "I don't really know if I should."

Miss him, she meant.

Duke let her move his hand, tilting his head on his neck to rest it closer to her. "I don't know that 'should' really enters into it. Missing people."

"I know."

Something in her tone sounded like a sigh, even when there wasn't one. That was just the mood.

"Kind of sounds like I think there's any chance of a choice, doesn't it?"

"A bit," Duke said. "Would you choose not to, if you could?"

"I don't know," Octavia replied.

And then, more quietly: "Probably not. Feels too much like... not remembering him at all."

Her voice caught a little, there, despite her best efforts.

"He was a big part of your life," Duke observed. "For a really long time."

He thought of Nathan. Then pushed the thought aside. This was Octavia's moment.

"He was everything to me," Octavia said, without really even exaggerating. Things got a little skewed when you only ever saw two other people. "For sixteen years."

Duke nodded, letting that hang in the air for a moment as he squeezed her hand again.

Then: "I think . . . it'd be a little weird if you didn't miss him."

"I know," Octavia muttered again. Just in agreement, her thumb brushing back and forth against his hand. A slow, grounding movement. "I just..."

She trailed off, closing her eyes. Really squeezing them closed for a second.

"I wish he could see me now. The way that I am now."

Not what had been his last impressions of her.

"I wish he could, too."

Duke hadn't known Bellamy. He thought he probably met the man once or twice, but all his memories of him were filtered through Octavia. The big brother, the protector. The judge.

He lifted his head to kiss her shoulder.

"The way you are now is pretty incredible."

"One of the last things he ever said to me was that a part of him wished a part of me was dead."

It was seared into her memory. The pain of it had turned less sharp over the years, but it was still there.

"And I couldn't blame him then. I can blame him even less now. But that means, I think, that... There's always going to be something in me that feels unfinished. You know what I mean? Because that's where it ended, and now I won't ever see him again, and he won't ever know how much I've put into being better."

Duke shifted carefully onto his side so he could put his other hand on top of hers, on top of her book.

"Yeah."

Octavia's eyes were still closed, but she tilted her face a little more in his direction.

"I know life doesn't work out so neatly," she muttered. "But I wish it did."

"Me too," Duke said, kissing her shoulder again. "For all of us. But especially you."

She'd pulled herself up from so deep. He wanted her to get to show it off to everyone she'd known as Blodreina.

Right now, Octavia just wanted her brother to love her again.

Her eyes finally opened again. And there was no amount of blinking that could make them not look wet.

Or sad.

Duke didn't need to see them to know that.

He rubbed his thumb against her hands and pressed his lips against her shoulder. A modified version of holding her, with them both on the floor.

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