betterthanaplan | The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, early Monday morning

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The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, early Monday morning

Most days, Duke was fine. Better than fine, even; he'd been essentially rebooted, after all. Turned off and back on again and all his caches had cleared and -- yeah, he honestly didn't know anywhere near enough about computers to make this metaphor work. He'd been in a dry dock of sorts. All patched up and back in shipshape.

Most days.

He couldn't remember most of the dream when he woke, his heart triphammering in his chest. Just the sense of utter helplessness that had accompanied it, and the sense that the gremlin man -- Croatoan -- was lurking at the edges, smirking in delight. He sat up in bed, trying to force his breathing back under control, and hoped he hadn't woken Lucifer or Octavia.

He really liked being fine. He wanted that feeling back, dammit.

HE slid out of bed, trying not to disturb anyone, and went to go hunt down a coffee.

[for the partners]

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Lucifer did not quite have the experience with sleeplessness his partners did. And so when he woke - again - in the middle of the night, he desperately did not want to actually be awake.

No, not even when Duke moved. He squeezed his eyes shut.

Come on, sleep. Give him blessed ignorance.

Octavia barely slept lately as it was, so... Suppose there was a small blessing in how she had been asleep right before Duke had woken up.

Not a second after, though.

She let Duke move, let him leave, not wanting to try and crowd him if he was intent on not staying in bed. But as soon as he'd gone, she sat up too, rubbing her hands down her face.

He'd done his best, Luce. He knew how much you liked to sleep.

He set his coffee up to brew and leaned into the sink, splashing water on his face. Trying to clear the sense of dread from his mind.

It was over. All of it. Troubles and everything. Croatoan was dead, Duke had seen to that himself. He was safe, dammit.

His hands were shaking.

Lucifer let out a loud sigh.

And, immediately, seized up a touch. Hopefully Octavia would just take that as some kind of... sleeping noise? Yes. Sleep.

Octavia wasn't buying it.

But all she did was pat his arm gently, absently, as she slid off the bed and onto her feet.

Duke heard her move and picked his head up, looking over toward her.

So much for not waking them. Though part of him knew that Octavia, at least, wouldn't be able to sleep through him getting up.

He got a couple of mugs out of the cupboard. Then a third, and a bottle of scotch, just in case Lucifer wandered off too.

Octavia padded her way out of the bedroom and over to him. And, if he let her, went straight to lean against his back, looping her arms loosely around his waist.

Words could wait for another moment. She was tired.

Duke lowered one hand to rest over one of hers, leaning back into her.

He wasn't really looking to say much of anything right now, either. Not even an apology for waking her.

He hadn't done it on purpose, anyway. There was nothing to apologize for.

Octavia pressed a kiss against the middle of his back, not much more than a light brush of her lips. Then she rested the side of her head against the same spot, with a quiet little sigh.

It still felt like something to apologize for. But Duke was learning that sometimes those feelings weren't the whole truth.

He gave her hand a squeeze, listening to the burble of the coffee brewing. Reminding himself that he was here. This was real.

They were alive. Right now, they were all alive.

They were alive and they were here and that was all Octavia could ask for.

She hummed something largely tuneless under her breath, and rubbed a circle into his skin with her thumb. Breathing him in, the way she liked to.

Especially right now.

The coffee finished brewing, and Duke pulled away from her only enough to reach for the pot and start pouring.

He offered the first cup to her.

One of Octavia's hands lingered on his hip even after he'd moved, even as he was offering her the cup - the right one, the injured one. Slowly getting better, but not quite there yet when it came to preferring it to pick things up with again.

She took the cup with her left, with a grateful little nod, followed by a hoarse little, "Chof."

Duke gave her a tiny, wry smile. "De nada."

He filled his own mug and let out a soft sigh. The silence was broken, and the old sense to try and fill it with noise was coming back.

"At least Lucifer gets enough sleep."

"Yeah," Octavia sighed, leaning a little more against the back of his shoulder now rather than his back. But still leaning. Still keeping close.

And no, it wasn't like she was going to rat Lucifer out. Especially on a hunch alone.

She took a careful sip.

Back in the bedroom, said Devil turned over in the bed, finally, his head feeling all-- unpleasantly raw with buzzing thoughts.

He sighed and stared up at the ceiling.

"Oh, bugger."

Duke made a face that was half-grimace, half-smirk. "Speak of the Devil," he mused, then raised his voice. "We have coffee. And scotch."

Octavia had nothing to add to that, because, well. It was accurate.

So she took another sip instead.

"I'll take the scotch," Lucifer called, sitting up on the bed. "I refuse to speak to the coffee."

Duke huffed softly. "Coffee and scotch in bed?" he suggested to Octavia.

Just leading the way risked losing her heat for a moment too long, in his opinion. Better to negotiate first so they could stay connected as long as possible.

Octavia gave one of her tiny shrugs. "Sure," she said. Her hand brushed one last abstract pattern against his side (for now), and then she pulled back to give him room to move.

She didn't want to get coffee spilled on her, and she wanted to be the reason she got coffee spilled on her even less.

Lucifer rubbed at his forehead. On the one hand, excellent thinking, scotch in bed would absolutely take his mind off of things.

On the other, they were bringing it to him, which left him with some unoccupied thinking time. "I can also come up there, if you'd prefer?"

There. Even the conversation would spend some of his time.

Lucifer was offering to get out of bed? Duke gave Octavia a curious eyebrow.

Was he okay?

"I'm good either way, babe," he called back.

Octavia just looked tired, in return.

"It's literally less than a minute's worth of movement either way, why are we even talking about this?"

In fact, she was now heading for the bedroom, herself.

"Just trying to figure out the ideal approach, darling," Lucifer said, watching her march in nonplussed.

Duke grabbed the bottle and his mug (he was losing the contact! Just what he hadn't wanted!) and hurried after her.

"There's an ideal approach?"

"To coffee and booze?" Octavia added, mildly incredulous, very tired.

Sliding right back onto her typical side of the bed.

"Absolutely," Lucifer said, and reached for her almost immediately.

“I bow to your superior expertise,” Duke said, offering him the bottle and an empty mug.

This was pleasantly normal. He could pretend he hadn’t just woken them all up with a nightmare.

There was a very brief moment of hesitation in response to Lucifer's reaching, because Octavia's assumption was they'd want to leave Duke his usual space in the middle.

But she also didn't want to draw unnecessary attention to... anything, really, so she gave in and scooted close enough to Lucifer that he could freely do whatever touching he felt like.

Also, she drawled, "I don't."

"I believe you don't even know how to bow," Lucifer said, but he was swiftly pouring a measure of whiskey - in as much as he could without removing his arm from where it now rested around her, more or less.

Duke felt a moment of . . . something, watching Lucifer pull Octavia into his usual spot. He squashed it as best he could and sat on the edge of the bed facing them instead, legs folded under him, coffee cradled in his hands.

“She knows how,” he said. “She just chooses not to.”

But Octavia was reaching for him, now. When there was no longer any confusing the gesture for her somehow trying to reach for the scotch.

It was just the one hand (thanks to the coffee), and casual-looking (by design) but it was there.

"I know how to kneel sometimes," she rasped, with a glance to Lucifer, "if that counts?"

"Oh, yes," Lucifer said, grabbing onto the topic change with both hands. "Very prettily, if I remember correctly."

Duke extended his foot towards Octavia, but didn’t shift from his spot at the end of the bed.

“Not surprised. She does most things prettily.”

It felt weird.

But Octavia was going to just rest her hand on his ankle, now. (Firm. It was weirdly firm, her touch, like she was holding on.) "Even that? I don't know."

"Trust me, darling, there are parts of my anatomy who have very strong feelings on this matter," Lucifer said.

He sipped his whiskey. He considered the logistics of getting them both to pile up on him.

“Sometimes it’s fun to be a pretty little thing,” Duke mused. He wiggled his toes at Octavia and sipped his coffee.

Octavia gave a soft snort. "I think that's your thing, jaka."

"I do believe Octavia's is about something else," Lucifer agreed. He smirked. "Not that I don't enjoy you being a pretty little thing."

“Yeah.” Duke offered them both a tired smile. “I was just kinda thinking out loud.”

Octavia rubbed his ankle. Or, well, her thumb did, anyway.

"I don't think anyone was saying anything except that you're the prettiest pretty thing."

"I was merely appreciating the smorgasbod of sexy mental images," Lucifer agreed.

“We are all very good at those,” Duke agreed.

He was doing his best to shake his weird mood, but it was slow going.

Octavia gave him a lopsided and took a sip, still rubbing his ankle. A slow and steady kind of touch.

(She was still wondering whether she should reach for him again.

Or ask.)

"Why are we bringing sexy imagery into the conversation and then immediately dropping it again?" Lucifer asked, his shoulders dropping. "Pick a lane, I beg you."

“It’s a little early,” Duke said. He was looking at Octavia’s hand on his foot. “Sorry about that.”

Octavia darted a little glance at Lucifer.

Mouthed, "Sorry," like she felt responsible for something.

"Why are we all awake?" asked Lucifer.

Who was trying very hard not to think about why he was awake in particular.

Duke raised his hand with a wince.

“Nightmare.”

It felt so deeply silly to say it out loud.

But it really wasn't.

Octavia ran the backs of her fingers over the bridge of his foot, and shrugged. "I don't sleep much."

Lately.

"What was the nightmare?" Lucifer inquired.

Duke sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Don’t remember. Just . . . woke up wrecked.”

"Maybe that's a blessing," Octavia murmured, soft and quiet.

"Can't be that much of a blessing if you still can't sleep," Lucifer muttered.

“I needed a minute,” Duke snapped. “Sue me.”

Ah, still raw, yes.

He set his coffee aside, barely drunk, and shoved a hand through his hair with a muttered “sorry”.

Octavia's hand finally stilled at the snap.

"All I meant was," she said, still quiet but much milder now, "that I know not remembering doesn't mean it doesn't still fuck you up to wake up from it or that the feeling isn't still there, but at least whatever horrible stuff you dreamed isn't looping around in your head."

Lucifer took a deep breath, and did the only sane thing he could think of - exhale again, then sip his whiskey.

Duke offered them both a thin smile.

"Yeah," he said. "I know. Just . . . still on edge, I guess."

"It's okay," Octavia muttered, halfways into her coffee cup.

"You had been overly cheerful lately," Lucifer said. "It was inevitable."

Duke snorted. "Post-resurrection crash syndrome?" he guessed.

Octavia sipped her coffee some more.

And resumed rubbing Duke's ankle, although the the touch was a little more faint now.

"Possibly?" Lucifer offered, frowning like that was a serious question. "I wouldn't know. I've never resurrected anyone before."

Duke wiggled his toes at Octavia again. She hadn’t even been the one he’d snapped at.

“Fair enough.” He let out a long sigh. “Sorry I woke you two up.”

Octavia lifted ome shoulder, vaguely.

"You didn't do it on purpose."

"And you brought me booze after," Lucifer said, lifting his glass. "All is forgiven."

“I’d say you were a cheap date if anything about your tastes were cheap,” Duke teased. Trying to lighten the mood back up.

Octavia knew what he was doing, and knew she should try and... help that along? Offer something of her own?

But they all knew she was generally the slowest to shift course like that. It would take a while. In the meantime, she was finishing her coffee. And trying to will some energy back into her body.

Lucifer chuckled. "For you, I'm a cheap date," he said. "Anyone outside of this room would have to work considerably harder, I promise you."

Duke smiled. "Oh? Have you been dating around on us?"

"I think we're plenty," Octavia said.

Not upbeat the way she would have liked, but hey. It was words, and words were progress.

Lucifer managed something of a chuckle. "Mm, the bar for people outside of this room is very high," he said. "No one's reached it yet."

"Darn tootin'," Duke said. "We've basically hit the ceiling on sexiness."

Octavia made a strangled noise at 'darn tootin'' that was probably an unexpected snort.

She finally finished her coffee, and reached out to set the cup aside.

"Freeing up a touch of space under that ceiling with the 'darn tootin', darling," Lucifer said gravely.

"What?" Duke grinned. "It goes with all my plaid."

"I've never heard it before," Octavia put in.

Whether that was in support or against...

"I try very hard most days not to think about your plaid," Lucifer sighed, and downed the rest of his whiskey, because one kind of had to.

Hackneyed exclamations hadn’t survived the apocalypse. Duke was a little sad about that.

“You know, it’s the flaws that really make perfection work. Like Cindy Crawford’s mole.”

Which definitely was a reference that hadn’t survived the apocalypse. Or the turn of the century.

Yeah, no, Octavia didn't know who that was or what that meant. She considered the merits of saying so, then just... didn't.

She settled her newly freed hand onto Duke's foot.

"I don't think Cindy Crawford's perfectly aesthetically placed mole is really on the same level as your terrible, terrible taste in clothing," Lucifer sighed. "... Date night underwear notwithstanding."

“Admittedly, I had help on the underwear choices.” Duke offered Octavia a smile and another toe wiggle. “But thank you.”

Octavia glanced up through her lashes, aiming for wry. Hitting it halfway okay. Tiny, tired upward quirk of the corners of her mouth and everything.

"I didn't help that much."

"Oh, I doubt that," Lucifer said, smiling at her. "You do have excellent taste, niron."

“You really do,” Duke said. “And having you along helped . . . set the mood.”

"I just did what you did when it was me," Octavia told Lucifer, the wry tilt of her smile growing a little more obvious - and a lot more natural. "I was there, and I was encouraging."

(And yes, she knew from first-hand experience that that mattered.)

"Which is the best way to approach sex," Lucifer agreed, and he leaned in to kiss the corner of that smile. "And I am very proud of both of you."

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The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, early Monday morning

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