Voicemail

[betterthanaplan]

"Buddha says 'All good things come to those who wait.' With that in mind, leave me a message."

*beep*

Comments

[okteiviakom]

Octavia was still getting used to emojis again, but at least that one was easy to decipher.

Yeah, he came by. I heard about the reindeer, you okay?

[betterthanaplan]

got to help blow up a bear later. I'm good

He was maybe banned from Taste of Thai, but he'd deal with that in time.

[okteiviakom]

As long as they still let Octavia order in, they were going to be okay.

Okay, good

Didn't actually mean she didn't have a misplaced sense of guilt about not having stayed on top of him - not dirty - while the island kept being crazy, but anyway.

Sorry i wasnt there

[betterthanaplan]

might have saved Lucifer's suit if you were, Duke answered. or you might've gotten brain-napped too

[okteiviakom]

Think i care more about you than lucifers suit

Or about getting brain-napped herself, but she felt that should have gone without saying.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke’s reply took awhile in coming.

I stabbed him

Had he told her that part?

[okteiviakom]

He had not.

And this was an incoming call, not a text.

[betterthanaplan]

Yeah, Duke probably should have expected that.

“He bled, Tavi.”

[okteiviakom]

"What?"

Maybe she shouldn't have been as surprised as she was.

[betterthanaplan]

“It was like getting hit by a tsunami.”

But hey, at least he didn’t have to worry about his trouble trying to kill Lucifer?

[okteiviakom]

That was... a lot to unpack. The other end of the line was quiet for a long moment.

And once she spoke, she sounded hesitant about it. "In a good or a bad way?"

[betterthanaplan]

“Apparently I passed out?” Duke said. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad either. “He had to carry me home.”

[okteiviakom]

"Of course he did," Octavia sighed, and now she was really feeling guilty about not having been there. (Whether it made sense to or not.) "Well, that's... Something, I guess."

[betterthanaplan]

"I guess? Gave us a chance to talk, anyway."

He wasn't entirely aware of just how bludgeony Lucifer had found their conversation. Since, you know, no one had told him.

[okteiviakom]

"I meant the --"

The passing out from Lucifer's blood, but now that she began clarifying that, calling that 'something' like it was a good thing didn't seem like such a great idea.

So she trailed off.

"Anyway. Yeah, I heard."

[betterthanaplan]

"While you two were discussing semantics?" Duke guessed, faintly amused.

[okteiviakom]

"We didn't discuss them that much," Octavia replied, faintly... something or other. "Just enough."

[betterthanaplan]

"Enough to decide we're against the term 'dating'," Duke agreed. "Which does admittedly make it sound like we're bored suburban house- . . . people."

[okteiviakom]

"I've always been against it, for what it's worth."

Complete with those fights years ago with Lucifer about him daring to use it about her and Duke, no less.

[betterthanaplan]

"You are both very preoccupied with words, and I should have remembered that," Duke said. "I apologize."

[okteiviakom]

"You don't need to."

Octavia had her own sore spots about how this had gone, but that wasn't really one of them.

She tried for a wry tone. "On the plus side, Lucifer finally gets what I meant about not wanting to use that word. Only took him two thousand years."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke had mentioned once that he was used to partners who didn't want to use "official" words to describe their relationship. He wasn't letting himself think about how in the past, that was usually because they were ashamed of dating him.

(He was pretty sure Lucifer was at least a little ashamed of what Duke was proposing here, yeah.)

"Well, you know, he's used to much longer time spans than us mere mortals. It takes him awhile to adjust."

[okteiviakom]

"I think he's just never had to actually think about it before," Octavia said, a little milder. "Not like this."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke was starting to develop a pavlovian response to her tone going mild.

"I didn't mean it in a bad way."

[okteiviakom]

"I didn't mean it like that, either."

Maybe they shouldn't have been having this conversation over the phone, but here they were.

"Do you get why we're so... weird about it?"