The Cape Rouge, Port of Fandom, early Monday morning

[betterthanaplan]

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]

Comments

[my_own_advocate]

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.