The new office of Dr. Linda Martin, Baltimore, MD, Sunday

[betterthanaplan]

Duke was finally doing it. He'd made an appointment and everything, and dragged himself to the mainland to keep it instead of calling out at the last minute or just. Not going. (Lucifer would pout if he hurt his favorite therapist by being a no-show. And . . . and Octavia was proud of him for trying to do therapy again at all. He was, to use a very old fashioned term, so whipped by his partners.)

But he had some very lovely photos texted to him to lift his mood a bit as he made his way downtown, at least. So there was that. . . .

[NFB due to distance. For the lovingly NPC'd therapist!]

Comments

[exasperangel]

"Right," Linda said.

Her eyes flicked around a little as she processed... that.

[betterthanaplan]

“Take your time,” Duke said with a small wry smile. “Let me know when you’re ready for more.”

[exasperangel]

"I guess... I'd like to know how this ties into Haven being destroyed, and you... blaming yourself for it?" Linda tried, finally.

[betterthanaplan]

"Well, like I said, me and Audrey are opposites. She can calm troubles, and with the barn make them go away for 27 years. My family . . . we end troubles. Forever."

A beat.

"By murdering people."

[exasperangel]

"Lucifer's mentioned," Linda said.

It shouldn't be news to Duke that his boyfriend was bad with other people's personal information, right?

[betterthanaplan]

Duke nodded, unsurprised. "And he's probably also told you that Audrey was an integral part of the first time I used that skill on purpose." He sighed. "The first time I used it at all, she was there, too. And so was the ghost of my dad. Trying to get me to end Audrey."

[exasperangel]

"There's... a lot to unpack there," Linda said slowly, "But we can do that some other time. Right now I want to know about the... you said meteors?"

[betterthanaplan]

"I did say meteors," Duke confirmed. "So, uh. The barn. That Audrey disappears into. It shows up during a 27 year meteor storm called 'the Hunter'. And apparently if Audrey decides she'd rather not disappear and get rewritten by another stolen personality. . . . The meteors in that storm don't just pass by the Earth. They crash down. On Haven."

[exasperangel]

"That," Linda said slowly, "Sounds like a problem."

[betterthanaplan]

"An excellent observation, Doctor. We came to the same conclusion. Well, Audrey and I did. Nathan was prepared to let the whole town get crushed so he didn't have to lose his One True Love."

Duke. You were here in part because you wanted to be able to communicate properly to your loves. Don't mock Nathan's admittedly deeply terrible decision making process right now.

[exasperangel]

"Unlike you," Linda said lightly. "The rational one."

[betterthanaplan]

“It was Audrey’s choice,” Duke said softly. “Whether we liked it or not.”

[exasperangel]

"So you backed her up," Linda said. "But I take it it didn't go right."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke heaved a sigh. “We didn’t know about the meteors right away. We were trying to, I don’t know, negotiate for her release. And then they smashed through the lighthouse and Howard said they wouldn’t stop until she left.”

[exasperangel]

"So she tried to leave."

[betterthanaplan]

"And Nathan tried to stop her. He shot Howard, which somehow . . . broke the barn, and then he got shot by Jordan and I shot her and then the barn was collapsing in on itself -- like . . . crumpling into a hole in space kind of collapsing, and Nathan told me to go try to get her out --"

He closed his eyes, taking another deep breath. Careful. Meditative. Recentering himself.

"Last I saw of Nathan, he was bleeding out on top of a hillside. I jumped into the collapse, landed in some kind of weird, white . . . in-between space, which was falling apart all around me. I tried looking for Audrey, saw these . . . projections of her, like an old film strip of her most recent memories, and then the floor dropped out and I was -- back in Fandom. Landed in a pond. Lucifer had to drag me out of it."

Another breath.

"I was screaming for Audrey the whole time he did."

Which was why he couldn't tell Octavia and Lucifer about his worries. Because that would require explaining how much he was still attached to Audrey and Nathan. And their love for him already felt so fragile.

[exasperangel]

Linda's pen scribbled over the paper as he talked. Taking notes. This felt like one to remember.

"Because you love her, and you might have lost her," she said. Mostly as if she wanted confirmation.

[betterthanaplan]

“Yes,” Duke said. “To quote someone I really hope was actually a therapist and not a serial killer, I fall in love with, like, half the people I meet.”

[exasperangel]

"That sounds like something we should talk about," Linda said, "But... not right this minute."

They had gotten to this memory for a reason.

"How long ago was this?" she asked. "And what do you think you could have done differently?"

[betterthanaplan]

“It was . . . when we went to sea during the school’s break? So . . . late February I think, here. November back in Haven.” Duke shook his head. “I was gone for a week but was in Haven for months. Makes it a little hard to keep track of. As for what I could have done?” He shrugged. “Buy into Dad’s theory. Take Audrey out. See if that — broke the cycle. But like I said: I wouldn’t do that.”

[exasperangel]

"And you helped Audrey try to stop the meteors," Linda noted. "So why do you feel like it's your fault?"

[betterthanaplan]

“I don’t,” Duke said. “I —“ He closed his eyes, frustrated and pissed at himself. “I don’t know, okay? Except — the hell was even the point of me being there if I couldn’t fix anything? Was it just another stupid time loop?”

[exasperangel]

"You know in real life there isn't always a reason," Linda said, watching the emotions on his face. "It sounds like you were there because you thought you needed to be. And then everyone else made all the choices."

[betterthanaplan]

“Yeah, real life doesn’t usually kidnap you off a ship at sea to make sure you’re around for shit, either,” Duke said. “Something literally forced me to be there. And then — I did the best I could with a shit hand. As usual.”

[exasperangel]

"And why do you assume that 'something'... has to have anything to do with changing what happened on that last day?" Linda asked. "Maybe it was something else you did on the way there. Maybe it wanted you to bear witness. Or maybe this kidnapping was-- completely random." Beat. "Or maybe some extremely powerful celestial being had a panic attack and needed a blankie."

... Sorry, Duke.