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The Devil's Nest, Monday evening

Tiny, Eric was learning tonight, had gone to the kite festival on the National Mall Saturday and had seen all the cherry blossoms.

And had taken approximately a hundred billion pictures of all of it. If no one interrupted, Eric was in for a very long evening of Tiny explaining every. single. one of them.

Please interrupt. There was a cherry-themed cocktail in it for you.

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Well, Octavia showed up looking like she hadn't slept for a couple of days, and with her right hand all bandaged up - so how was that for an interruption?

Especially one that even Tiny was likely to cede the floor to.

Edited 2025-03-31 19:27 (UTC)

"What the fuck happened to you?" Eric asked.

"Haven," Octavia rasped, because sometimes there was a straightforward answer. (Sort of.) Even if odds were Eric had no idea what she was talking about. "You'll probably wanna set out some rum for the squirrels. And -- well, I don't know what I can have that won't fuck with the pain meds."

Edited 2025-03-31 21:12 (UTC)

Eric pulled out a bottle of much-too-nice-for-squirrels normally rum and handed it to Tiny. "Bribe 'em," he said, then turned back to Octavia. "As for you, we have a lot of sodas. Pick one and we'll deal with alcohol the next time."

Edited 2025-03-31 21:14 (UTC)

Octavia gave a little sigh, but said, "Green apple soda is fine."

Figured that the first time in a good while she would really have been in the mood to do some serious drinking, she also had particularly pressing reasons not to.

(That hand really was bandaged pretty thoroughly.)

"I'll get it," Eric, who served drinks to no one, offered.

Octavia wasn't going to mention it if he didn't.

She gave him a tired nod, leaning against the bar some, then looked to see whether Tiny had got the rum all set up. And he had, so...

"We went to Haven again," she said. "It's where Duke is from. And for as long as I've known him, it's been finding new ways to hurt him and fuck him over. Every time he goes back."

Eric glanced at her hand. "I'm guessing it followed that same pattern again this time."

"This time it finally killed him," Octavia said. Low and raspy and flat. And then, because she should clarify why she wasn't curled up sobbing in fetal position somewhere, "He didn't stay dead."

That didn't mean it hadn't been traumatic for all involved.

'Didn't stay dead' wasn't entirely uncommon a process for Eric, but he was going to assume Duke wasn't a vampire just yet.

"It doesn't make the death less traumatic even if it didn't stick," Eric said.

"No," Octavia agreed.

And lower, quieter:

"There was nothing I could do."

"Death comes like that sometimes," Eric said. "What happened?"

"The usual."

Octavia was just really going to focus most of her attention on the soda in her hands, right now. Easier that way.

"Supernatural bullshit. Took him over but he fought it. Won." She was being vague because it wasn't entirely her story to tell, but also because... Well, there was a safe distance involved, in being vague. "But it was like it took too much out of him. Like he put everything in it, and then there was just --" Despite all the mildness, her voice caught just a little bit, right there. "Nothing left to hold him together."

Eric nodded, looking sympathetic. "Like a mystical cancer."

"Something like that," Octavia muttered.

Prodded at the soda.

"So he died." Just saying it out loud kept making something twist in her gut. "And nothing I did helped."

"I'm very sorry," Eric said, momentarily sincere.

Octavia wasn't going to call him out on it. She shrugged one shoulder. "I don't know why I keep getting so hung up on that," she admitted. "I'm human. What was there supposed to be for me to do?"

At some point, she was hopefully going to find out the CPR she'd performed had actually maybe been a contributing factor. But she hadn't, yet.

"I can't cheat death. Never could."

"Most people can't," Eric said. "It's the defining characteristic of humanity--the finite nature of it."

Octavia looked up at him. Barely.

"That starts feeling less obvious," she rasped, "when you're the only normal human around."

"Ah," Eric said with a sympathetic look. "Did Lucifer make the death only temporary?"

"Yeah."

And just like that, Octavia's voice sounded softer and smaller again.

"I don't know what he did." And wasn't going to mention the God of it all. "But he brought him back."

Eric nodded. "Where's your head, then?" he asked. "What part of this entire mess is the first thing that's bothering you?"

Octavia gave him a dry look, but it lacked any of the usual withering bite.

"You know, I'm not planning to go see my shrink tomorrow," she rasped anyway, but that was more of the same. Wasn't like she wasn't going to answer.

After a sigh, looking off towards the rum set-up.

"I'm powerless," she said, steady and even again. "I'm weak. I've always tried not to be."

"You're not Lucifer," Eric said. "That doesn't mean you're weak. Your skills just don't extend to reviving the dead. Most don't."

"All the actually useful skills I've ever had," Octavia retorted, "have been about keeping people alive."

Which was not the same thong, and she knew that, and yet.

"Whatever it took. Whatever the cost."

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