Dr. Linda Martin's House, Thursday Morning

[my_own_advocate]

Was Dr. Linda's floor really where Lucifer wanted to wake up this morning? Absolutely not.

But Duke had been in no state to go to the penthouse last night, and Octavia had been in some kind of shock, and it had just seemed easier to stay here. Linda only had one couch, and that seemed better-suited for the drunk, so Lucifer had found himself on a mattress on the floor for the first time in... quite some time.

It was not ideal.

Which was likely why he woke up as early as he did, the floor poking against his shoulder as the air mattress had apparently sprung a leak during the night.

"Ugggh."

[[ for octavia and duke ]]

Comments

[okteiviakom]

Octavia had barely slept at all. Hadn't really felt like an option: not like something her body would allow her to do, nor like something she should even be doing. So she'd pretended to try for a while, and had then got up and taken a seat on an arm chair, watching over them.

She was still there now.

Yes, this meant she'd been impassively watching the mattress deflating under Lucifer for quite some time.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke was aggressively hungover for the second time in a week. It wasn’t quite as bad as it had been this weekend—he hadn’t blacked out for one—but he was still very unhappy.

He groaned right back at Lucifer.

[my_own_advocate]

"D'n complain," Lucifer mumbled. "You got the couch."

Was someone staring at him?

[okteiviakom]

Watching, not staring.

But yes.

And Octavia wasn't saying anything, either.

[betterthanaplan]

“Says the guy who’s never been hungover,” Duke grumbled. He rolled over noisily and squinted at Octavia. “Morning, gona.”

[my_own_advocate]

"That's hardly my fault," Lucifer muttered, sitting up gingerly - mostly because it was more comfortable than laying down.

[okteiviakom]

"Morning," Octavia said.

It sounded very mild. A little raspy. Was anyone surprised?

[betterthanaplan]

Duke was still squinting at her, a mix of confusion and concern. (He hadn't entirely gotten around to remembering exactly what had happened last night, yet.)

"You okay?"

[my_own_advocate]

"Did you even get any sleep?" Lucifer asked.

Not so much squinting as frowning.

[okteiviakom]

"Not really," Octavia said. She meant it as an answer to Lucifer, but really, it went for both.

There was something exhausted around her eyes, in the middle of the stony everything else.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke scrubbed both hands over his face and scowled as he tried to rewet his mouth -- and then froze when the events of the night finally registered properly.

He lowered his hands to stare wide-eyed at Lucifer.

"Dude. You got shot!"

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer turned his head and squinted at him. "Yes, but it didn't do anything. I am, apparently, entirely invulnerable around the Detective again."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia got up from her chair. The movement was slow, yet managed to seem a little abrupt anyway.

"I'll go get you some water," she muttered.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke flicked his eyes over to watch her go, then returned to staring at Lucifer.

Did Luce grasp what that likely meant? Because Duke sure did.

[my_own_advocate]

Luce had not really thought beyond the immediate joy of being invulnerable again after years of doing his level best to pretend it didn't freak him out on some level.

"What?" he said, blinking. "...Right, we should talk to Octavia."

[betterthanaplan]

"You think?" Duke said, brows pulling down as his startled confusion started to tilt into anger. "I thought you were dead."

[my_own_advocate]

"Well, I wasn't, so problem solved," Lucifer said, rising up off the mattress. Stretching.

[betterthanaplan]

"That's not how this works!"

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer paused. He said nothing, but shot Duke a deeply confused look.

[okteiviakom]

What a moment to come back to.

But there Octavia was, bringing over a glass of water, then holding it ot for Duke.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke took it and drank a good half of it in a single go, his free hand pressed to his forehead as he tried to keep his brain from exploding before he got through Lucifer's head that they weren't okay with him getting shot.

"We had to watch you get shot," he said. "You -- you went down, and we thought -- and then you shot yourself again --"

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer wasn't exactly thrilled about being shot either, but, well. He was fine. So he'd shuffled that bit to the back of his mind.

He was rather insulted Daniel had shot him, however.

"I had to make sure I was genuinely invulnerable," he pointed out. "And I was fine."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia, who had been hearing echoes of gunshots in her ears all through the night, said nothing.

She sat back down in the arm chair again.

[betterthanaplan]

"Well I'm not!" Duke said, then winced at his own volume. He swung his legs around so he was sitting up properly on the couch, and set the water glass down so he could cradle his head in both his hands. "Nathan died, okay? When I was ho -- in Haven last time. He was shot -- twice -- and we had to deal with his body while we tracked down a goddamn resurrection trouble to bring him back. And yeah, he's fine now, but that doesn't mean his death didn't hurt. Just because you're okay doesn't mean we weren't scared."

[my_own_advocate]

Over the years Lucifer had been on Earth, he'd picked up no small number of human traits, or at least managed to pass as human more and more often.

This was definitely not one of those traits.

Staying silent and trying to process that instead of telling Duke he was being ridiculous, on the other hand, probably was.