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The Devil's Nest, Tuesday Night

It was Tuesday, and the Devil was done sleeping off the weekend. It had been an inspiring one, especially near the end, as one could tell by the music flowing from his piano right now.

Well, maybe it had been that, and 'googling how to make anaemic pop palatable'.

Either way, you could kind of tell what he was playing if you squinted.

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That's why we're all here, isn't it?

What had happened with Octavia since the return from Haven yesterday was best described as a crash. Should've expected it, probably: between meeting Claire and solving a trouble and just being in Haven, it'd been a high-stress weekend. Once she had the space to relax, a total shutdown of everything wasn't much of a surprise.

Except that Octavia had had so little time in which to de-stress over the past several years that she was unused to the process. The exhaustion annoyed her, and felt like a failure. Her body didn't care, though. She'd spent most of the beginning of the week asleep, or close to it.

This was the first time she'd made it off the boat. She needed to check in on Lucifer and his odd phone behavior, but first? She got herself a drink.

This brandy felt earned.

Edited 2020-07-28 19:16 (UTC)

"She lives," Duke teased, coming up to gently bump her with his shoulder. "Sleep well?"

They hadn't while they were in Haven. For a number of reasons.

Haven was terrible for sleep, this was true. Octavia made a non-committal little noise. Kind of a huff. "Enough to make it here, anyway."

She'd been sleeping for the most of two days, she hadn't even taken as much time to rest even when she'd been poisoned.

"We had a rough weekend," Duke said. "You needed time to recover. It's no big deal."

Octavia's repeated little huff said she didn't agree. But instead of saying so, she took a sip from her glass.

And glanced towards the piano.

Her voice was mild. "Have you talked to Lucifer?"

"Yeah, he's got a pretty big bug up his ass right now." Duke shook his head. "For an immortal, divine being, he can be pretty touchy."

Octavia's gaze returned to him.

"I tried to call him a couple times over the weekend," she said, her drawl a particularly slow one. And eyeing him like she was wondering about something, now. "First time, he just hung up without answering. Second time, he told me that..." What was it he'd said? "That you wouldn't have to 'worry about beach days' anymore."

"Seriously?!" Duke closed his eyes and shook his head. "Goddammit. I made some joke about him enabling me, and apparently he decided that meant I thought he was a monster."

Suddenly, Octavia felt like she somehow still hadn't slept enough for this.

"Enabling you?" she repeated, a touch of wariness creeping into her tone.

"You know, my whole having to please or entertain or fix everybody thing. He came to ogle me while I did yoga, and I told him that attitude wasn't helping my whole . . . deal." Duke took a long sip. "It was a joke."

Truth be told, Octavia couldn't quite parse that explanation out into something that should hurt Lucifer, but...

"Clearly he didn't think so."

"Yeah," Duke said, sounding juuuust a little bitter. "I worked that part out. He couldn't have just said he was pissed at me?"

"Because he wasn't pissed," Octavia replied, just a little too quickly, "he was hurt."

Not that she knew anything about something like that.

"And he couldn't tell me that? I can't . . . read people's minds!"

Apparently the opposite of Duke trying to fix things was him getting mad that they were broken in the first place.

Octavia raised her eyebrows at him.

"Do you tell people if they make jokes that hurt you?"

"I make sure they know," Duke said. "Sooner than after a week."

Octavia made a little scoffing noise, then shook her head.

"I still don't get exactly what you said, but if he thought it meant you think he's a m-- that you think he's that bad..."

Yeah, that one word kind of caught in her throat.

"We were just having a conversation. He -- I don't know, got a little vague at the tend, but -- I was trying not to do the thing I do." Duke groaned. "It was just a conversation, Tavi, we tease each other all the time."

Octavia's poor drink was just getting completely ignored, now. She was staring up at him.

"What were you trying not to do?"

"You know . . . fix things!"

Sorry your snogon was kind of an idiot sometimes, Octavia.

Yeah, Octavia was kind of figuring that out right now.

It did not help the staring any. Though now, that was a side effect of her putting a few things together. Something just slightly off she hadn't really been able to put her finger on, before.

But, now: "Is that what you were doing to me at the diner last week, too?"

"Doing to you?" Duke was really very confused now. "You got mad at me for trying to fix you, Tavi, so yeah, I was trying not to do that!"

"There's a difference between trying to fix someone and just -- helping them," Octavia pointed out. "You were holding back, I could tell."

Not in the moment, too wrapped up in feelings of failure about the session with Claire. But later, once she'd been able to process things outside her again.

"It was weird."

"Yeah, well, as we've learned, I'm apparently incapable at having relationships that I don't destroy, so." Apparently Lucifer's prickliness was catching. "You used to tell me when I was being weird."

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