The park, Monday afternoon

[betterthanaplan]

Ginger was tired of the Rouge. Apparently, back in her world, they spent almost all their time there, just the two of them, avoiding people both to keep Ginger from mind-controlling anyone and to keep people from finding out about her mind control and trying to use it.

It sounded exhausting. Duke did not envy Ginger's actual father, back in his world.

Speaking of exhausting:

"Push me higher, Daddy!"

Duke pushed much harder the next time she swung back on the swing, even as he threaded steel through his tone. "Ginger Danvers-Crocker."

Ginger had the grace to look chagrined. "Sorry. Would you please push me higher?"

Duke sighed. And kept pushing.

[open, should anyone want to spend time with the mind-controlling nine year old!]

Comments

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer was not going to get in the middle of this horrific parenting ritual, thank you.

He was also not hovering. He was just spending this quality father-daughter time on a bench facing the playground and sipping his third spiked chocolate shake of the day through a straw.

(It was utterly dignified. The drink even matched his brown suit.)

[betterthanaplan]

Duke watched him out of the corner of his eye.

“You get enough of that to share?”

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer held up his drink and squinted at it. "There's some left," he said. "Do you need me to spike it more for you?"

[betterthanaplan]

“What does ‘spiking’ mean?” Ginger asked.

“He added an extra ingredient,” Duke said.

“Oh.” Ginger nodded sagely. “Booze.”

“Yyyyep,” Duke said. “And uh, I may take him up on that later.

[my_own_advocate]

"Come back in about twelve years and I'll show you all the best beverage-booze combinations," Lucifer told the child.

('Come back when you're 21' was his go-to a lot this weekend, go figure.)

"I was going to pick up another one on the way, if you'd rather put it off."

[betterthanaplan]

“You probably shouldn’t drink so much,” Ginger said. Duke grimaced. She was right, he was relying on booze too often —

“Ginger.”

“What? I said probably!”

[my_own_advocate]

"I'm not sure it's even legal for you to discuss alcohol," Lucifer informed Ginger. "And cut it out or you're going back to the Rouge."

[betterthanaplan]

“It’s not on purpose,” Ginger grumbled.

“I know,” Duke said. “It’s still not cool though.”

[my_own_advocate]

"Duke has gotten his mind scrambled quite often enough by people trying to mess with him on purpose," Lucifer said, and sipped on his straw.

[betterthanaplan]

“That sounds very irresponsible of you,” Ginger said.

“Yeah,” Duke said dryly. “Thanks.”

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer shot her an annoyed look. "It's hardly his fault, is it?"

[betterthanaplan]

“I know,” Ginger said, echoing Duke’s earlier statement perfectly. “It’s still not cool, though.”

Duke stopped pushing her swing to run the bridge of his nose.

“Remind me to never do this for real,” he grumbled.

[my_own_advocate]

"Obviously it's not cool, that's why we'd like you to stop doing it accidentally," Lucifer said, took another loud sip, and added, "But yes, no children here, please."

Like he wouldn't grudgingly come to terms with it if Duke and Octavia did have an accident.

[betterthanaplan]

Ginger stuck her tongue out at Lucifer. Duke could feel the maturity level in this park dropping rapidly.

[my_own_advocate]

Honestly, half the reason Lucifer couldn't stand children was that he couldn't abide by other people soaking up the attention and the food he was used to getting.

"Oh, whatever," he declared, sitting back more.

[nextoftheirkind]

Was that the sound of rustling leaves, up in the trees?

Surely, it was just the breeze and nothing more.

[littlemisspirate]

Ginger looked up at the leaves at the top of the swing arc.

"Hey! Who's up there?"

[nextoftheirkind]

More rustling, but no answer.

You don't just give up your position the first time you think you've been spotted, after all. What if whoever was looking for you was just bluffing?

... Not that there was anyone up in the trees. Nope.

[littlemisspirate]

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Ginger sang.

"Ginger," Duke warned.

"I'm just playing, Dad!"

[nextoftheirkind]

And to just about anyone else, that might have been more than just a challenge but rather an irresistible compulsion to show themselves.

Not so to someone who had the blood of Kairos.

Er...

Not that there was anyone up in the trees at all. Certainly not someone who let out a muffled giggle just now.

[littlemisspirate]

Ginger's eyes went wide. She jumped off the swing, ignoring Duke's protests. "Oh my gosh, I can't control you!"

She sounded delighted.

[nextoftheirkind]

Having grown up around several cuckoos (including one who wasn't family but did sort of grudgingly exist in the Price's orbit), Tyrus was in fact well-acquainted with the idea of telepathy.

And now that she mentioned it, actually, there was that weird buzzy-tickly feeling in the back of his head that he generally associated with telepathy.

"Uuuuugh," he groaned in defeat, because if she was a telepath then there wasn't any point in hiding anymore now was there. "Were you tryin' to?" he asked, blond head poking out from the tree.

[littlemisspirate]

"I don't have to try," Ginger said. "I'm troubled."

[nextoftheirkind]

"What's 'troubled'?" Tyrus asked. At first he thought she meant she was in trouble, but that didn't make sense, 'cause cuckoos were real good at making sure they never got in trouble.

But she also didn't look at all like a cuckoo. Weird.

[littlemisspirate]

"It's like being a superhero," Ginger said. "Only terrible."

[nextoftheirkind]

That sounded an awful lot like being a cryptid to Tyrus, honestly.

"'Cause if the wrong people found out it'd be real, real bad," he said, nodding in understanding.

[littlemisspirate]

"Yup!" Ginger glanced back at Duke. ". . . Also if I'm not careful I can hurt people."

[nextoftheirkind]

Tyrus nodded.

"Yeah," he acknowledged, because there wasn't any point in sugar coating it. "That's a real poss'bility."

[littlemisspirate]

"How come you're immune? Usually only Detective Parker is."

[nextoftheirkind]

A pinch of the blood of Kairos and a hint of alien DNA...

"I've known people with powers like yours my whole life," Tyrus explained with a shrug. Which was also true!

[littlemisspirate]

"My dad knows about my trouble too, and that doesn't help him."

If she sounded a little bitter about that, well. How many times had she gotten yelled at this weekend for accidentally making him do something?

[nextoftheirkind]

"I'm sorry," Tyrus said. "That sucks. But maybe- maybe he could still learn how to push you out of his brain? Or," he frowned, considering. "Does magic work on your world?"

[littlemisspirate]

Ginger tilted her head. "I don't know. Lots of people don't believe in it, but they don't believe in mind control either, so. . . ."

[nextoftheirkind]

"Yeah, lots of people don't believe in magic where I'm from either," Tyrus scoffed. "But it's really real." The myriad of scorch marks around the Price family estate as his aunt and then, later, his sister, came in to their powers as fire-attuned sorcerers was testament to that.

"And if you know who to ask, you can get an anti-telepathy charm for your Dad to wear," he told her. "The good ones aren't cheap, but they work."

[littlemisspirate]

“How do we find out who to ask?”

[nextoftheirkind]

"You wanna find a routewitch," Tyrus advised. "They make the best ones. If there's a really good flea market or swap meet around, I bet there's a routewitch there," he said knowingly.

[littlemisspirate]

Ginger thought about that for a long time.

“My dad’s a pirate,” she said. “I bet he could find one.”

[nextoftheirkind]

"Yeah, prob'ly," Tyrus agreed. "If your dad's been lots of places that's even better."

He thought, anyway. Even if pirates were on boats and not the roads. But currents were kind of like roads, right?

[littlemisspirate]

“He’s been everywhere,” Ginger said. “And he’s gonna take me everywhere too once the troubles are over.”

[nextoftheirkind]

"... Over?" Tyrus echoed. "They can be over?"

[littlemisspirate]

“Uh huh. And then Haven is a Haven again, and no one has to worry about accidentally hurting anyone with their trouble.”

[nextoftheirkind]

"Huh," Tyrus said thoughtfully. "Where I'm from, if you've got powers you always got powers. No 'over'."

[littlemisspirate]

“Do your powers hurt people even when you don’t want them to?”

[nextoftheirkind]

"Sometimes, yeah," Tyrus nodded seriously.

[littlemisspirate]

“Troubles do it more than ‘sometimes’. They’re like . . . curses. I don’t always want people to do what I say, but they always gotta anyway.”

[nextoftheirkind]

Tyrus nodded. "That's like most of the people I know with powers like yours back home," he shared. "My family- they used to think all people like that were just born bad. But we know better now. So we're tryna help 'em learn how to not push people with their brains."

[littlemisspirate]

“By telling them about amulets and trout witches?”

[nextoftheirkind]

“Route witches,” Tyrus corrected, biting back a giggle. “Though I bet if anyone was gonna find a trout witch it’d be a pirate.”