my_own_advocate | The Cape Rouge, Saturday Evening

Octavia had come to her senses on the other side of town. She had also found herself without her phone, which explained why she'd half-ran the entire way back to port. As her feet (in sneakers that did not feel familiar) hit the docks, she showed no real sign of slowing down.

God, she hoped Lucifer was on the boat and not at the mansion.

Duke hadn’t even looked for his phone. He’d paused just long enough to be briefly sick (oh god, he’d been so proud of the Crocker trouble), then bolted for the docks himself, arriving just in time to see Octavia headed for the Rouge.

“Tavi? Please tell me that’s the right version of you.”

... The wrong version of him hadn't known to call her that.

So Octavia stopped in her tracks and beelined to him. Hopefully that was an answer enough, but if it wasn't -- well, he was getting an armful of snogon, right now.

He was taking that — and the silence inn general — as a yes.

“Thank fuck,” he murmured into her hair. “Octavia Kane was weird.”

"I know," Octavia muttered, clinging fiercely to him. "I know."

It would be a fun time trying to process any of that, later.

So much later.

Right now was for hanging on like one or both of them might disappear again at a moment’s notice.

Octavia was holding on so tight she worried it might almost hurt.

At least for a moment. "Ai hod yu in, snogon," she whispered. "We gotta go find Lucifer."

Who they'd abandoned for days.

“Oh god,” Duke muttered. He pulled away towards the boat — tugging her along with. “He’s gonna be a wreck.”

"Yeah, I don't like that we left him alone," Octavia replied, shaking her head a little.

Definitely not fighting the tugging. She kind of needed all the reassuring contact she could possibly get, right now.

Duke wanted to be hanging onto both of them ASAP. He’d settle for hanging onto her for now.

He had them up onto the deck and down into the galley (what kind of fool had he been, not knowing what a galley was??) in record time. “Luce? Hey! You here, hon?”

"We're back," Octavia called, too. "For real, this time."

The bedroom... was a bit of a mess, what with the empty bottles. Still, Lucifer veered up, grabbing the remote to switch off the television instantly.

"Duke?" he yelled. "Octavia? I'm in the bedroom!"

Edited 2022-12-18 08:21 (UTC)

Duke ignored the mess for now, pulling Octavia along with him as he beelined for Lucifer.

“Luce.”

You were absolutely getting glomped, Luce.

Yeah, and make that a double, because Octavia would have joined in even if Duke hadn't basically dragged her into it.

It was just a whole lot of clinging.

Oh," Lucifer said weakly, "It is you."

And both of his arms came up to wrap around them, pulling them in tight.

“I’m so sorry,” Duke said into Lucifer’s shoulder. “That other me was an asshole.”

Octavia had nothing to say to that. Mostly because she found herself really busy trying to burrow against both of their chests, her hand grasping at whatever they could.

Trying to soothe some... collective sense of loneliness, perhaps.

"It's all right." Lucifer would thank them both for not pointing out the wet strain in his voice. He turned his head and pressed a fierce kiss against Duke's cheek. "You came back."

Octavia heard the wet strain and no, she was not going to point it out.

She was, however, going to try and cling even more, as the sound squeezed uncomfortably at her chest.

"And we came back as soon as we could," she promised.

"Seriously," Duke said. "I barely stopped to be sick." Which was why he wasn't kissing either of them yet. "Fucker was raised by the Rev."

"No wonder he was so repressed," Lucifer managed, turning his head to bury his face in Octavia's hair. "I hate-- I hate this. Every bloody time."

The universe, taking his people from him but keeping their bodies walking around. Bloody nightmare.

"It's unfair," Octavia muttered.

Unfair to whom? Everyone.

"I hate that we did that to you," Duke said. "I hate that the island or whatever made us do it. I'm so sorry, babe."

Lucifer let out a soft sigh. "Can we just take off for the holidays?" he murmured. "Do another anniversary trip of sorts?"

Octavia nodded, mostly against Duke's chest.

"Maybe we should."

She was more than a little willing to go with whatever Lucifer wanted, right now. It wasn't her fault she'd been gone, but the guilt was there. (Maybe it was easier to grasp than anything else she could have been feeling. About Octavia Kane.)

"I'm in," Duke agreed. "Where do you want to go?"

He was also absolutely willing to go wherever Lucifer wanted right now. Especially if it helped him not think too hard about Duke 'I felt my feelings about killing people then got over it and now I'm fine' Crocker.

"I don't know," Lucifer managed, with a soft, snottery laugh. "Somewhere out on a nice boat on the coast of some island... perhaps with a forest..."

His helpless hand had reached up to undo Duke's ponytail. "Because frankly, my hair's still raised from hearing you talk about the ocean like that, for a start. And Octavia without her leathers."

"It was... really weird," Octavia agreed, quietly. "About the ocean."

And here she was, without her leathers still. In her deep purple sweater.

"Oh god, I said I was seasick, didn't I," Duke said. He'd forgotten about that. Or blocked it out, maybe. He buried himself harder against Lucifer's shoulder. "What the fuck was wrong with that guy."

"He wasn't you," Lucifer said.

It was that simple.

"Get under the covers, please."

"He wasn't you," Octavia echoed with quiet but vehement agreement. She remembered that conversation at the Perk, and...

That wasn't him.

She gave Duke a soft nudge, to comply with Lucifer's urging.

"I should probably brush my teeth first. Wasn't kidding about being sick."

He also wasn't letting go of either of them yet.

Lucifer rolled his eyes tiredly. "There's whiskey and possibly some mixers," he said, "You can rinse with that."

He looked at Octavia. "And get out of that bloody sweater, niron."

Octavia looked down at the sweater in question. "En's komfi," she murmured, faintly. This was not an objection to his idea. More just a redeeming quality, or something.

... Even if she, too, seemed a little slow to actually pull away.

"En's meizen," Duke said, picking his head up enough to look at her. "But it's not really you. Which makes it a little trippy, right now."

"Frankly the best thing we can all do is get naked," Lucifer told them. He looked at Duke. "I'll even get up and get you a bottle of water if you promise to strip and get under the covers, love."

"I can make sure he does."

Of course you could, Tavi.

Duke chuckled. "And I'll return the favor."

They would both need to let go of Lucifer first.

"Can I move?" Lucifer asked, a little more gentle and a lot less amused than he might have been otherwise. "I promise, I'll only be a minute."

He couldn't stand to be away for much longer, either.

Octavia finally made the effort to at least loosen her hold on him.

"Okay," she murmured, "but we're coming to get you if it takes longer."

She was only -- not at all joking, actually.

"Naked if we have to." Duke succeeded a little more at a joking tone, but -- yeah, not joking.

He very reluctantly let Lucifer go, refocusing instead on sliding his hands under Octavia's sweater.

Lucifer slid out from between them. "Promise," he said, entirely earnest, and rushed out the door, into the galley.

"Skaifaya don swega klin," Octavia murmured to Duke, as there was any reassurance needed.

(Maybe the reassurance was the Trig. And maybe it was more directed at herself than anything else.)

His hands felt nice and right on her skin. She lifted her arms a little, to help.

Duke ran his hands obligingly up along her torso, savoring the feel of her skin.

"I missed you," he said. "Both of you."

"I missed you, too," Octavia murmured. "Weirldy kind of -- kind of even when I wasn't supposed to."

Duke tugged the sweater over her head, and dipped his to press his face into the revealed space where her shoulder met her neck.

"Oh?"

Lucifer returned to the bedroom with a glass of water in one hand, a toothbrush in the other, and a tube of toothpaste sticking out of his robe.

He set the water down on the nightstand without a word.

Octavia nuzzled at Duke's shoulder. "I --" No. "She, she didn't know you two like I do, but... I think, after the glimpse into all three of us together, she was... curious. For the possibility."

At least until the conversation where she'd ended up calling that Duke a sociopath.

"Like there was something she was missing."

"Something we -- they -- were both missing," Duke agreed. "Luce was right. That guy was very repressed."

He'd wanted to keep himself pure. Duke was avoiding thinking too hard how and for what.

"It's always sad when they're in the self-hating queer phase," Lucifer sighed. He put the toothpaste and the toothbrush down on the nightstand, too.

And then crawled onto the bed.

"Yeah," Octavia murmured.

Her hands found their way under Duke's shirt.

"He probably wasn't self-aware enough to be self-hating."

It was hard to feel sexy while trash talking his alternate self. Duke stretched up to give Octavia room to work, and reached for the water.

Lucifer snorted. "That kind of repression is essentially the same thing," he said. "Don't think I didn't see him looking at me."

He slung an arm around Octavia's waist, and let his hand settle on Duke's hip.

Octavia peeled the shirt off Duke to the best of her ability - or at least as far as it would go with the whole water glass business also happening.

Duke took a sip of the water and tugged it off the rest of the way, tossing it aside. Then pressed his forehead into the side of Lucifer's head again.

"He was happy to look," he said. "He knew you were gorgeous. Knew both of you were. He just. Thought he had some kind of . . . higher purpose."

Calling the other Duke 'he' was helping. Pushing the guy aside.

"He was a fool, then," Lucifer said, pulling up the covers a bit, settling into the helpless pile of people they were swiftly becoming. "No one loves a zealot."

"I called him a sociopath." That should've been a 'her', but Octavia wasn't going to call attention to it by correcting herself again. "To his face."

She pulled away, only just enough to try and wiggle her way out of her pants.

“You hurt him with that,” Duke noted. “Because t he’d already drunk too much ch of the Rev’s kook-aid to think about why.”

"Good," Lucifer muttered. "Perhaps that'll give him something to think about."

"She was just trying to make him see," Octavia murmured, as she moved to settle back down, under the covers.

It wouldn’t. That Duke denied himself booze and swimming and sex. The high of his trouble was the only release he had left.

He’d never let it go.

Duke wasn’t going to tell them that. He shucked off his pants and slid beneath the covers instead.

“Just shows how lucky I am I found you guys,” he murmured.

Lucifer snuggled closer, and slid one hand into Duke's hair. Thought of a conversation with Octavia, not too long ago. "We're all lucky," he said softly.

"I think, without each other," Octavia murmured, watching them, "we don't work."

Or at least it was even harder.

“Briyon gona,” Duke said. He turned his head to kiss Lucifer’s hand.

Lucifer let out a soft sigh at the touch. "I'm rather glad I was spared the Lucifer-of-another-universe, personally."

Octavia settled down on the other side of Duke. An argument could have been made for giving Lucifer the middle spot, this time, but she'd sort of just... ended up here.

Maybe it was the deep familiarity of it.

She curled against Duke, either way. "Maybe for the best," she agreed.

"I'm not sure there's a better or worse here," Duke said, relaxing under the familiar, comforting weight of his partners. "Let's just be glad we're all actually here and us again, okay?"

"Agreed," Lucifer said, and let his hand slide along Duke's shoulder, under the covers, where he wrapped a firm arm around Duke's waist. "I suggest falling asleep watching something terrible, and then waking up to a spirited bout of we're-all-back sex."

Octavia slid her own arm around Duke, and if it ended up on Lucifer's, well, that was exactly what she wanted.

"Sounds like a plan," she murmured.

"I still haven't brushed my teeth," Duke muttered.

But made no effort to do so. It would mean pulling away from them, after all, and that just wasn't worth it.

"You can brush them later," Lucifer told him. "I think Octavia and I can handle the risk of your trauma-breath."

"Yeah," Octavia agreed. "It can wait."

They weren't letting him go, now.

"Okay," Duke agreed. He wasn't hard to convince, as evidenced by the slow, sleepy tone to his voice. "Hopefully the island won't throw anything else at us for a good coupla months now."

"Let's hope," Lucifer agreed. He settled, his body releasing a tension he hadn't even realized had been in it, and pressed his face into Duke's hair.

"I love you so much," he added, softer and more strained.

Octavia's fingers curled along Lucifer's arm over Duke's waist. Her thumb brushed against his skin, back and forth, the smallest soothing gesture.

She pressed a kiss against Duke's shoulder.

"Ai hod yo in."

"Ai seintaim," Duke said. "Both of you. So much."

Lucifer let out a sigh. It was a little ragged, again.

He kissed the top of Duke's head. "And this is where we belong."

"You two are my family," Octavia whispered, as she nodded against Duke's shoulder.

"We're each other's family," Duke agreed. "The best and most reliable we've ever had."

"Certainly the least abusive," Lucifer said wrily, because he couldn't not.

"Way to ruin the moment, Lucifer," Octavia rasped.

Perhaps also a little bit wry, yes.

“That’s a really low bar,” Duke agreed, too tired to do more than gently tease.

"What?" Lucifer said, smile softening. "It deserves mentioning, considering." He pressed the backs of his fingers against Octavia's arm. "We all have been through terrible things, and yet we came out on the other end like-- this."

"I'd rather think about this than the terrible things, right now," Octavia rasped. "I know, I'm weird like that."

“Tripi snogon,” Duke agreed, turning his head to kiss her hair.

Lucifer sighed. "All right, all right," he said. "I much prefer the present, as well."

Octavia rubbed his arm gently, as she snuggled closer to Duke (as if such a thing was still possible) at the hair-kissing.

"I know, niron."

Lucifer tugged the covers up the last of the way, until all he could see was Duke and Octavia's faces, and felt their limbs tangling underneath the blankets.

Something in him calmed, at last. He closed his eyes and tucked in close.

Talking was overrated, anyway.

That was about when some errant thought of Octavia's reminded her that she was still wearing make-up. But, to hell with doing anything about that now. It could wait as long as Duke brushing his teeth.

It could wait as long as it needed to.

This, the closeness, their presence... this was all way too important, and Octavia wasn't going to move a single inch from where she was plastered against Duke.

Duke turned his face a little, so he could see Lucifer's again. He brought one hand up to brush the backs of his fingers along Lucifer's jaw.

He could see some of the tension had finally gone out of his face. Good. He hated being responsible for putting it there. Whether it was deliberate or not.

"Sweet dreams, babe," he said softly. He found Octavia's hip with his other hand. "Both of you."

The Cape Rouge, Saturday Evening

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