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Luke's, Thursday

After ~~multiple threads that needed to play out~~ an already tumultuous morning, Duke was in no mood to deal with the antsiness of his kitchen staff.

"What?" Duke asked, when Greg, Ali, and Mickey all flinched in unison again. "Did someone wander into a shadow again? For fucksake, guys. Get your shit together, please."

It was touching, really, how tight his staff's bond was. Or it would be, if Duke had had any idea yet that that was what made them all so twitchy, today.

Today's specials
Lobster mac and cheese

Luke's was open. If a bit on edge.

[no OCD!]

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Well, this week was just a pile of terrible all around. And seriously all Danny wanted right now was some comfort food that he himself did not need to make.

"You look about as good as I feel," he informed Duke.

"The island is doing a thing," Duke grumbled. "Let me guess: you've been having the worst goddamn dreams."

"Yeah," Danny admitted, shifting a little uncomfortably. "The hell is this place doing now?"

"I don't know, but apparently no one's getting a good night's sleep." A cloud covered the sun again for a moment and Duke flinched instinctively, though he didn't get a blast of bad memories again yet. "Or having much fun while we're awake, either."

Danny looked from him to the window and then back again. "The heck was that about?"

Look, negative intrusive thoughts straight up weren't new here.

"The sun," Duke said. "It -- helps, somehow." He'd figured out that much in the park with Lucifer. "At the very least, it keeps out the fucking psychic bleed."

And Danny had seen enough of Duke's trauma already in real life, thanks. Like him aging and nearly dying. How much fun had that been, feeling his heart stop working properly, his body start to shut down. . . .

Duke pressed his hand over his mouth, trying and failing to shake that memory off.

Well, it was strong enough to make Danny suck in a gasp through clenched teeth. And pull up an answering panic as that breath seemed to do nothing in Danny's lungs in the roughest flashback to his brush with Sarin that he'd had in years.

"Holy shit," Duke breathed. Actually breathed, thank you. "Dude, what is it with you people and getting poisoned?!"

Lucifer had given him a brainful of Detective Decker's poison adventure, too.

"That was--" Danny began, not taking deep hyperventilating breaths because he worked on this damn thing already. But it was pretty close. "--not my fault."

"Right, yeah, because I definitely thought you got yourself poisoned on purpose." Duke rolled his eyes as the sun came back out, and the aggressively intrusive memories faded again. "You're weird, dude, but you're not an idiot."

Danny rubbed his eyes in frustration. "Sarin. Sorry to--" He waved between the two of them. "Share, I guess."

"Like I said," Duke said, shrugging. "Island's doing a thing."

And it was so much easier for Duke to focus on other people's memories bleeding into his brain than the other way around.

"You wan a beer? I could use a beer."

"Please."

Duke did not flee into the back to get the beers. He didn't know what you were talking about.

He came back out pretty fast too, at least, figuring Danny could definitely use the alcohol. He brought along a plate of fries as well, and ordered the staff to get their acts together and make some malasadas, dammit.

Danny was not actually the only mother hen in this relationship. Duke was just way quieter about it.

But it did bring a half smile to Danny to get the classic form of mother-henning via food. "So, sunshine?"

He could detective his way through this, damn it.

Food was Duke's primary love language. Even if he did speak fluent bickering when needed.

"Sunshine. Near as I can tell. Memories seemed to flood in more when I was under water, or when the clouds rolled in in the park." He smiled ruefully and sipped his beer. "We're all going to be wilting houseplants leaning towards the light by the end of this."

Danny sighed, taking his beer with one hand and rubbing his eyes again with the other. "What the hell are we gonna do at night then?"

". . . Fancy UV lamps?" Duke tried.

The sun was fading behind another cloud.

"Goddammit." Duke closed his eyes and tensed, trying to clear his head. Because, you know, that would definitely work.

"Promise me, boy," Simon Crocker said, shaking his young son by the shoulders. "Promise me you'll come back!"

"Nope!" Duke shook his head sharply. "So tell me about your family, Danny!"

Your happy, adorable, not-at-all-traumatic family!

Danny inhaled sharply, mouth drawn down into a tight frown because he had some Feelings About That. You know, as a parent and someone who didn't approve of basically all of Duke's family just from the vague things he knew about it.

"I don't know if that's gonna help--" Danny began, wincing as a memory hit.

Matt turned around to face him reluctantly, not stepping away from the stairs up onto the waiting private plane.

"You gonna to shoot me, Danny?"

"I should shoot you, you stupid son of a bitch," Danny said, wavering now that he could see his brother's face. "Huh? Laundering money for drug dealers? What the hell's the matter with you?"

It probably wouldn't help to learn that that had been literally seconds before Duke's dad had died in front of him, would it.

"Who's that?" Duke asked. It wasn't like Matt and Danny looked at all alike, after all.

"My brother," Danny said, swallowing convulsively before covering it with a long swig of beer. "My idiot brother."

"Ah. Yeah, I've got one or two of those myself."

Shit. What if one of his brothers ended up with the Crocker trouble too? Duke's eyes went wide as he pictured a whole gaggle of silver-eyed lunatics running around trying to murder people.

Which led to the memory of Duke, his eyes lighting up as his trouble hit him for the first time, and he launched a bloody Nathan a good thirty feet through the air off the side of his own boat.

"Jesus, is that how it looks?" Danny asked.

"That's what they tell me." He hadn't actually seen his eyes himself. He wouldn't get a glimpse of how freaky they were until he got sent back in time to meet his dead granddad. "That was the, uh. First time it happened."

And, oh hey, here came a galloping review of all the other times. Including flinging a young woman across this very diner, and Octavia grabbing Duke's face in a crazed fit of self-destruction.

The clouds could clear up any moment now and Duke would be very happy.

"Hey, c'mon," Danny said, blinking his way through that as someone who had seen Some Shit in his time as a cop. "Crocker, c'mon. Come back."

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