my_own_advocate | Under A Stack of Blankets, A Castle on the Coast of Norway, Tuesday Evening

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Under A Stack of Blankets, A Castle on the Coast of Norway, Tuesday Evening

It wouldn't technically be their anniversary for a few more days - or had already been weeks and/or days ago depending on whether you counted Duke's nearly-bungled proposition and which stage of it - but Fandom had Fandomed, so why wait? Lucifer had bustled everyone into the portal in the morning, and they'd driven up to his castle (which, at least, he'd gotten cleaned prior to the whole repeating Friday debacle), ooh'ed and aah'd at it for about five minutes, and then rushed indoors to get warm.

The old-fashioned way.

... both in terms of nudity and in terms of blankets.

And that was where they remained, under several layers of warm blankets in a room that exuded both modern luxury and medieval castle in equal measure. Lucifer hadn't been here in decades, but he'd made damned sure the place had been ready for their arrival well in advance. The wardrobe was old but cleaned and refurbished, as was the bed, there were mood candles aplenty, a full wine cellar, and... loads of other things he couldn't think about right now, actually.

"I'm never leaving this bed again," he informed Duke's shoulder. "Ever."

[[ for those who are there, and la la, I don't know what you're talking about, I didn't just linkdrop all that so I don't have to keep searching for those threads. ]]

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"'My lady's hair is nothing like the sun. . . .'" Duke recited, still stroking her hair even as he turned his head a little into Lucifer's nuzzling.

Lucifer chuckled softly. "...Coral is far more red than her lips' red..."

"I'm not sure I like where this is going," Octavia rasped.

Like a heathen.

Duke laughed. "It's Shakespeare, gona. Ancient romance." He skipped most of the rest of the sonnet, jumping right to: "'I grant I never saw a goddess go;' My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.'"

He thought she might like that bit, somehow.

Lucifer pressed a kiss behind Duke's ear. "'And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare. As any she belied with false compare.' It's a poem made for your contrarian yet lovely behind, darling."

"Sounds old," Octavia murmured, trying for a quip but landing somewhere much more soft again.

She pressed another kiss against Duke's chest.

"Sounds nice," she added. "You know. As much as I understood it, anyway."

"Shakespeare is pretty inscrutable," Duke agreed, dropping a kiss to her hair in return. "But I like him anyway. He's equal parts romance and dick jokes."

"Rather Duke in a nutshell," Lucifer teased. "Mm, I believe the idea of that poem is that one's love does not compare to all of the world's legendary beauties, because she's special, and thus better."

"Oh," Octavia murmured. Her fingertips were drawing random shapes against Lucifer's arm.

She nuzzled Duke's chest a little more. Feeling a little... small, again. But in that weird, good, safe kind of way.

"Right to the heart as always, Luce," Duke said. "Mochof."

Lucifer's lips quirked. "I should know, I've slept with a few beautiful humans in my day," he said. "A lot of them, actually."

He ran his fingers along Octavia's hip. "And now I get to keep the best ones."

Which was, frankly, insane.

And it wasn't the keeping them that was the insane part, from the other side.

"How can we be the best ones?"

Duke would agree with her, except that he thought she really was the best. He turned his head a little, still hanging onto Octavia, clearly waiting for the answer.

Lucifer really should have seen that question coming, shouldn't he?

"How can you not?" he asked, after a moment's pause. "I've never met anyone like either of you in all my life."

He shifted, cushioning his head on his free hand.

Much like everyone should have seen it coming that Octavia and Duke both thought the other one clearly was the best.

"But that's not very hard, is it?" Octavia murmured against Duke's skin. "He's a pirate from a cursed town. And my world's ended, only in this time, that hasn't even happened yet. The odds of you meeting people like us before aren't great."

"That's not what he means, Tavi," Duke said fondly, combing his fingers through her hair. "And you know it." He flicked Lucifer a raised eyebrow. "Not that I'm objecting if you want to go into more detail."

"I believe if I told you you only find Duke extraordinary because he happens to be a pirate with a curse on him, you'd stare at me like I was an idiot, and rightly so," Lucifer told Octavia, a faint smile on his lips.

He dropped back onto the mattress. "You know, it's almost the two-year - Fandom time, because all of our timelines are ridiculous - anniversary of the two of you dancing in my club together for the first time."

Octavia wasn't even going to try figuring out how many years it had been for her.

She remembered. That was the point.

"New Year's," she murmured, softer again.

"You looked gorgeous," Duke agreed. He remembered really well, for all he'd been on at least a few different recreational pharmaceuticals at the time. "Light, and wild, and absolutely free."

He hadn't realized it then of course, but that might have been when he really fell in love with her.

"You both did," Lucifer said.

He pressed a kiss against the back of Duke's neck.

"I'll never forget."

He'd told Octavia this, once. He didn't remember if he'd ever told Duke.

Octavia remembered that, too. It still amazed her that he'd even paid attention.

"And we had no reason to think you even saw us."

“You were watching,” Duke said softly. If he had been told, he hadn’t remembered. “We made an impression even then, huh?”

"Well, I was a bit sad and heartbroken as it was," Lucifer said, his thumb sliding idly up and down Octavia's hip. "And then there the two of you were, looking like some better deity than my Father made you to shine light on the universe itself together."

"We were just dancing," Octavia murmured. She sounded a little far away, because she was thinking back on it. Her memories were fragmented, more like flashes than the entire thing, and still strong. "Drunk, and high."

She paused. Her voice got quieter.

"But we were happy."

“You. . . .” Duke said. “You were more than happy. You were carefree. I was in awe.”

The next morning she had been anything but.

But she’d also used the L word the first time.

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