The Cape Rouge, very early Wednesday morning

[betterthanaplan]

Duke Crocker lay on the bed of the Cape Rouge, bandaged and bruised. He had just returned from a trip to Haven, where he had gone to help Audrey and Nathan with a new trouble. He had been attacked by a man who could control electricity, and had barely escaped with his life.

He felt a hand on his forehead and opened his eyes. He saw Octavia Blake sitting next to him, looking worried.

“Hey,” he said weakly. “How long have I been out?”

Octavia smiled and stroked his hair. “Not too long. Just a few hours. How do you feel?”

Duke groaned and tried to sit up. He felt a sharp pain in his chest and winced.

“Like I’ve been electrocuted,” he said.

Octavia gently pushed him back down. “Don’t move. You need to rest. You lost a lot of blood.”

Duke sighed and closed his eyes. He felt guilty and ashamed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I put you through this. I’m sorry I went to Haven without telling you.”

Octavia shook her head and kissed his cheek. “Don’t be sorry. I understand why you did it. You wanted to help your friends. You wanted to do the right thing.”

She paused and looked at him seriously.

“But you have to understand something too, Duke. You’re not alone anymore. You have us. Me and Lucifer. We’re your family now. And we care about you more than anything.”

She took his hand and squeezed it.

“We don’t want to lose you, Duke. We don’t want you to risk your life for troubles that are not yours to deal with.”

She leaned down and whispered in his ear.

“We love you, Duke. And we need you.”

Duke felt tears in his eyes and hugged her tightly.

“I love you too, Octavia,” he said softly. “I love you too.”

They heard the door open and looked up to see Lucifer standing there. He was holding a tray with soup and bread.

“Hello, my darlings,” he said cheerfully. “I brought you some food. How are we feeling?”

He walked over to the bed and set the tray on the nightstand. He looked at Duke with concern and compassion.

“You look terrible, Duke,” he said bluntly. “But I’m glad you’re alive.”

He kissed Duke on the forehead, then Octavia on the lips.

He sat on the other side of the bed and took Duke’s other hand.

“I agree with everything Octavia said,” he said earnestly. “You’re very brave and noble, Duke, but also very foolish and reckless.”

He smiled slightly and added.

“And that’s part of why we love you.”

He looked at Duke sincerely and said.

“But you have to promise us something, Duke. Promise us that you won’t go back to Haven without us. Promise us that you won’t put yourself in danger without our consent.”

He paused and said softly.

“Promise us that you’ll stay with us.”

Duke looked at Lucifer and Octavia, who were both staring at him with love and hope in their eyes.

He felt a surge of emotion in his heart and nodded.

“I promise,” he said hoarsely.

He pulled them both closer to him and kissed them one by one.

“I promise,” he repeated.

They hugged him back and cuddled with him on the bed.

They felt relieved and happy, knowing that they had each other’s support and trust. They had each other, and that was all that mattered.

Something . . . juddered. Shifted. Duke blinked.

"Why aren't you mad?" he asked.

Lucifer and Octavia looked at him. "We love you," they said simultaneously.

Duke shook his head and tried to push himself upright. Lucifer held him down idly with one hand. "No. No, this isn't -- who are you?"

Octavia tilted her head curiously. "It's me, Duke," she said. "Octavia Blake." She smiled. "Your girlfriend."

Duke jerked awake with a choked gasp, fighting to sit up against the weight of his partners' entangled limbs, dream-Octavia's words still echoing in his ears.

Who knew the word 'girlfriend' could be so terrifying?

[Len asked an AI to write a h/c fic of our OT3 and naturally I needed to turn the result into a nightmare for my boy. Thanks Bing! For the partners please, :D]

Comments

[betterthanaplan]

Which only made Duke shit down more. He knew he shouldn’t, that Lucifer had a point, but the wall felt like the battlements of a fortress, suddenly, and he was barricaded inside.

(Though, hey. At least they weren’t being too nice?)

“It’s been a while,” he said honestly. “But, you know, it’s also been a hot minute since a teenager wore me around like a cheap suit, so.”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and started walking again, planning to brush past Lucifer if he had to.

[okteiviakom]

"It's been three years since everything that happened to me," Octavia said, rooted in place, that deep worry just gnawing harder on her insides now, "and I still go."

Every week, like clockwork, even if they'd finally managed to drop it down to just the one session per week.

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer thought about stopping him.

"And mine was so long ago, it's frankly ludicrous to put a number to it," he said. Didn't grab Duke. Not yet, at least.

[betterthanaplan]

“Good for you two.”

Duke kept walking. He didn’t know how to tell them about the wall, or about how hard it made it to reach out even to Linda. (Even when he knew they were right. And he knew he should be as scared as they were.)

The nightmare felt more like a distant memory now at least. Buried under everything this conversation was turning up.

[okteiviakom]

"Hey!"

That came out sharper, louder, more of a wail than intended or wanted. Octavia was moving before she even fully realized she was, though, rushing forward a little, intent on trying to grab for Duke's arm if Lucifer didn't do it first.

"Please -- please don't do this."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer wished he had grabbed Duke's arm a moment ago. Perhaps then he wouldn't have felt quite so much like slugging the man. Both for dismissing them, and for making Octavia sound like that.

He let her grab Duke. He was a bit terrified he'd give in to the impulse, otherwise.

"Oh, what a staggering show of emotional maturity," he snapped, sauntering after them. "Or did you want us to coddle you after all?"

[betterthanaplan]

Duke flinched — just the faintest twitch of his mouth before he had himself under control again, but it was still a flinch — when Octavia grabbed him.

He did stop though. He wasn’t crazy enough to totally burn this relationship — the best thing he’d ever found in his life — to the ground. Not yet at least.

“I’m tired,” he said, low and soft. “All the time. Too tired for yoga or the diner or for Linda. Is that what you want to hear?”

[okteiviakom]

"Yes, because it's the truth," Octavia said, still faintly pained between the flinch and the thing that she didn't really want to hear because it hurt. "We can work with the truth."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer caught up with them with his big strides. His feelings were not quite as complicated, quick as his body had been to serve him up with a primal one. That anger still sat in his bones, shielding him from worse emotion, as he spoke. "Well, work is perhaps an odd term, since we can hardly snap our fingers and fix that," he said, "But honesty is certainly preferable to just stewing in the knowledge something's wrong and you won't even let us know about it."

[betterthanaplan]

“And what can you possibly do, huh?” Duke asked, bluntly helpless now. “‘Cause honestly? I’m tempted to run to Haven. At least there I feel something. Terrified, pissed off, and hurt, yeah, but something. Around here it’s like the seasonal disasters are the only times I even really wake up anymore.”

[okteiviakom]

"Do you remember who else couldn't feel anything?" Octavia asked, just as helpless, it seemed. (I'm tempted to run to Haven felt like a knife. She was trying to ignore the pain of it in her gut. Just because she thought she -- recognized this.) "I didn't make it through that on my own."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer had wanted to make rather the same point. But it was better, he realised in the nick of time, coming from someone who didn't feel angry.

He placed his hand on her lower back instead. Support.

[betterthanaplan]

It was actually extremely hard for Duke to remember that right now. He looked away.

“What do you want me to say here?”

He just wanted to be done with this conversation.

[okteiviakom]

It took everything Octavia had not to try and dart where she could force him to look at her.

There was a desperate edge to her voice, though. "I want you to let us help you get help."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer blew out a breath.

"You likely need medication," he said. Which was about as delicate as he was able to get. "And you'll want to be quite careful about your upcoming kneejerk response, considering Octavia's right here."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke would have to thank Lucifer later for saying that last bit, because he had to physically swallow down on that knee jerk reaction, yeah.

How the hell was it possible to feel like he was locked up behind a giant wall and still feel so exposed?

He closed his eyes tight against the urge to just. Jump into the water right then and there. (How nice would it be, though, to hang, neutrally buoyant under the water, silent and still, and rest. . . .)

When he spoke again, it was likely barely loud enough for either of them to hear.

"I don't know how."

[okteiviakom]

It was quiet, but they were listening. And Octavia's eyes were burning. She tried to to blink it away.

"You don't have to know anything." She shook her head. "I didn't."

[my_own_advocate]

At least some of that remaining anger gave way. Lucifer sighed, tried to speak, and then clearly caught himself before he did.

He took a step to the side, hand now on Octavia's shoulder, and looked at Duke properly. "The only thing you have to do is to admit you need help," he said. "We can't do that bit for you, but we can help you handle everything else."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke didn't know why he had to say it when they both so clearly already knew it. (He didn't know why he couldn't seem to say it out loud.)

(That was a lie. He absolutely knew why, he just couldn't seem to say that part, either.)

"What if it's too late? What if I'm too screwed up?"

(What if they realized he wasn't worth it and left, like everyone else always did?)

[okteiviakom]

Octavia had no idea about how tightly she was squeezing Duke's shirt against her chest right now.

"If it wasn't too late for me --" Skairipa, Blodreina, and whoever that had been that had triggered his trouble on purpose, the worst of them all. "-- then it can't be too late for you."

[my_own_advocate]

"I remember telling you the same about myself, more or less," Lucifer added. "I also remember you telling me I was wrong, over and over, and refusing to go along with it for even a second. And I very vividly remember you being right."

[betterthanaplan]

"People don't -- usually stick around for this," Duke admitted. "I don't usually stick around for this. I go to sea until I feel balanced again. Alone. But it doesn't -- didn't -- get this bad. Go this long." He opened his eyes again finally, looked between them both. "I don't want you two to have to fix me. I never wanted that."

[okteiviakom]

"We can't, anyway," Octavia replied, suddenly a little hoarse. Tight. "We can just help. And support you."

Carve space for him to work on this.

"The way you two have done for me."

[my_own_advocate]

"We can refuse to leave and sleep on the sofa while you work on yourself, so to speak," Lucifer said, with an idle shrug. "That's been rather the unspoken deal between us from the start, hasn't it? We can't fix each other, but we can pick each other up from the floor and hold each other up until we're ready to get on with the fixing ourselves."

A beat.

"Frankly, it seems fairly shitty to let you do it for us and then leave you in a pile of sad--" he waved at Duke, "--plaid and denim and netting on the side of the road when it's you."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke shook his head. "But that's -- isn't that what we've been doing? You're both here, and I'm -- I'm dealing."