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

[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."

[okteiviakom]

"When you look like you're half a second away from deciding you wanna bolt after all?"

There was a sadness to Octavia's little shake of her head.

"No, snogon."

[my_own_advocate]

"I believe you're actually doing what Linda calls 'masking'," Lucifer said, making the airquotes with his fingers because-- well, he couldn't help himself. "You know, lying with your face and everything. But--" He held up a hand before he clarified, "Not intentionally, mainly. But the sort of thing I'm terrible at, also per Linda."

He was more of a 'careening off the rails into a fit of utter and inscrutable mania' sort of man.

[betterthanaplan]

"Then what am I supposed to be doing?" Duke asked. "I'm trying, Luce! I'm -- I planned that spa day, that was good, right? We all enjoyed that, that wasn't a lie. I promise that wasn't a lie."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia stepped closer. Dared to, finally, even if that didn't uite extend to touching him again, yet.

"Agree to talk to Linda?" she tried, imploringly. "Soon. Yes, the spa day was good, but the way you've been since we got off the boat... You've been carrying something inside you for who knows how long."

[my_own_advocate]

"I didn't think it was a lie, darling," Lucifer said.

He did reach out for Duke. At least his shoulder. "I know you love me." Terrifying as that still felt to say, after all this time. "But you can't keep making us the only people that matter in this relationship."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke frowned, shaking his head a little. "I don't -- I'm not, uh. Doing that on purpose."

[okteiviakom]

"But you were also just now saying you didn't want us to 'have to fix you'."

[my_own_advocate]

"And you are doing it," Lucifer added. "And in the process, making us do something we don't want to 'have to'. Which is ignore your needs."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke shook his head harder, his eyes welling, his throat closing.

They’d leave him. He knew it, down deeper than he knew how to reach. If he got too difficult to handle, they’d leave.

[okteiviakom]

He was already fighting them, and yet they were here.

In fact, Octavia was reaching for his arm again. Trying to tug him in, this time. "Beja, jaka."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer knew that look. After many years, he even had some idea of how to interpret it. "You do know you're not some ruin that managed to put up a convincing facade and if you can't stop us from rummaging around in the wrong room the whole thing's going to surprise us when it comes down on us, right?" he said. "Because I love you, darling, but frankly I don't have enough fingers on my hands to count the amount of breakdowns I've seen you have before we even got together."

He held up his hands. "Considering your fashion sense and your bizarre interest in Jimmy Buffett, the general under-construction-vibe might actually be the most relatable thing about you."

Great pep talk, Luce.

[betterthanaplan]

“What do you even like about me?” Duke burst out. (He knew the answer usually, but right now, under that pile of Lucifer-isms, it was hard to remember.)

[okteiviakom]

Not Lucifer's best work, perhaps.

Octavia turned to look up at him. She shouldn't intervene on that point.

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer blinked. All right, perhaps he'd gotten a bit into his own stream of consciousness there, but he hadn't expected that question.

"... You're stubborn, contradictory, brave, charming, creative, kind, inventive, graceful, capable, an endlessly fascinating and humbling muddle of deep emotion, and a do-gooder with a big heart who pretends not to be," he said; the surprise had made it all come out in a bit of a messy rush, "I thoroughly enjoy your bizarre opinions and style for reasons I cannot define, there are few things that bring me greater joy than getting you to give in and enjoy yourself, and I have never felt safer or more at home with anyone else."

[betterthanaplan]

. . . Oh.

Duke swallowed again, tears leaking from his eyes that he didn’t bother trying to control.

“All — all that, huh?”

[okteiviakom]

It was jostling an old memory in Octavia's head. All these years and the repeated why? refused to fully fade away. Her chest ached.

Fuck it, she was just going to slowly press herself against his side, as if he might completely fail to notice her doing it.

"All of that and more," she said, quietly.

[my_own_advocate]

"Yes," Lucifer said. He took a step closer. Reached for Duke's hand again. "And the only time I've ever regretted being with you, was when I had convinced myself I was forcing you to settle for less love than you deserved."