my_own_advocate | 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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"You were my snogon," Octavia said, almost like a helpless sigh. "You are my snogon. And I -- I was willing to let you trade me in for Lucifer."

Oh, yeah, that worry about not being enough had morphed into something else before it had finally faded.

"Because he was the better thing I thought you deserved."

Duke let out a little helpless laugh.

"So basically . . . we're all really lucky that 'three way' was a legitimate option, so we didn't have to 'Gift of the Magi' each other."

Lucifer let out a hopeless chuckle of his own against Duke's back. "All of us thinking we'd be rightfully left behind by something all three of us wanted," he said. "So much time wasted."

He leaned up, stretching across Duke to press a kiss to Octavia's mouth.

Octavia used the kiss for quieting down her need to wonder out loud how much of that was down to the way they'd stumbled into this in the first place. Didn't really matter that much now, did it?

Her hand strayed briefly into Lucifer's hair.

Duke kept still between them, more than content to watch. To feel both of them press against him as they kissed each other.

Yeah, they were damned lucky this had been an option. He couldn't imagine it any other way, now.

It felt safe, didn't it? And right. And Lucifer had no interest in relitigating Duke's initial strategies here when, at the end of the day, Duke had gotten them here.

He let out a soft sigh, lingering.

"I'll save the actual speeches for the actual anniversary," he said. "But I feel incredibly lucky to be here. With both of you."

"We have an actual anniversary?" Octavia asked, but distracted, her head already turning.

Because she needed to duck down and kiss Duke, too.

"Several, I'm guessing," Duke said -- and then was kissing back. When they were done he looked at Lucifer. "Which thing are we actually counting from?"

"We should probably decide," Lucifer said, having leaned back to watch both of them in turn. "The fifteenth was when I kissed Octavia, but we've since passed that."

He patted Duke's arm. "I kissed you four days later," he said. "We got on the Rouge together on the 24th, and had sex for the first time - in this configuration, at least - on the 27th, so... pick a date."

Shut up. He hadn't memorized all that. Shut up.

Sorry, Octavia's face said plenty. Though mostly it was an elated sort of surprised.

"You... remember all of that?"

With dates?

“Told you,” Duke said. “He’s magic.”

"I'm not magic, I'm just celestial," Lucifer sighed. He looked up at Octavia. "And... those days mattered to me. Especially considering what came just before."

Octavia reached up again, to brush her fingertips against Lucifer's cheek.

"I knew they mattered," she said. "Just hadn't realized it was that much." That he could list them, name them, a year later.

"Not sure why you can't be both," Duke said idly. "After everything that happened this year. . . ."

He honestly couldn't have said what time of year they'd all gotten together.

"Anyway. I vote for that first boat date. The 24th."

Lucifer leaned ever-so-subtly into her touch. "Agreed?" he asked Octavia, softly.

The brushing became more of a solid touch, cupping his cheek.

Octavia nodded. "Sha."

Duke pressed a kiss to Lucifer's forehead -- or maybe his cheekbone. Whatever bit he could reach without moving and maybe disturbing them.

"What should we do until then?"

"Eat, drink, screw, let Octavia pull us into the woods, indulge you in some ice fishing or hanging about the water," Lucifer said, mouth curving. "Anything we want."

He slid just a little further up against Duke, into Octavia's hand.

"Accept that we all want to be here," he said, quieter. "And deserve to be."

Octavia had been doing so well without her expression going all wobbly, but there it was, rushing in with how tight her chest felt all of a sudden.

Her inhale was a little on the shuddery side.

(It was an old wound, not fitting in. It still mattered now when it was soothed.)

Edited 2021-12-22 22:46 (UTC)

"No matter how hard it is, sometimes," Duke agreed, clinging to both of them as best he could.

"The two of you saved me," Lucifer said softly. He was sprawled so far across Duke by now he was a bit worried he might be too heavy. "From being alone and lost and chasing a carrot that--"

He cut himself off.

"I want this to be a trip we can remind ourselves of when things are hard," he said, "And it seems easier to wallow in our own misery than to look to one another."

Octavia thought she should say something, here. Voice her agreement, tell them how much this all meant to her after the year they'd had, how she'd gone in the ice on the Eligius expecting to never feel like a part of a family again --

But sometimes the good could feel a little overwhelming. And render her speechless.

So all she could do was drop her head against Duke's shoulder, crowding him from her side the way Lucifer was doing on the other.

Duke felt the weight of both of them pressing in on him. It could have been overwhelming, weighing him down, but instead it felt . . . settling.

Like an anchor.

He owed Linda an apology. Especially as he imagined having this to hold onto, when Haven eventually dragged him back.

Lucifer let out a soft breath. He stretched his arm out until it wrapped around them both.

He dropped his head down to the pillow - he did realize that two heads on his shoulders might be a bit much, for Duke. He fell quiet, his fingers running gently up and down Octavia's arm.

Octavia gathered herself for a moment or two. It probably wasn't surprising which language she went for when she finally spoke again.

"Yo bilaik ai tombom." She swallowed. "Yo laik ai hou."

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

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