betterthanaplan | Port of Fandom, Sunday evening

The portal let off at the end of the docks. Duke walked through, his head down, shoulders hunched, looking like a man under attack.

He wasn't anymore, at least not from the outside.

He paused just long enough to get his bearings, then started down the docks, not waiting for his partners to follow through the portal. He wanted to -- something. He didn't know what. Yell or hit something or dive into the ocean or maybe get on the OceaNyx and sail off over the horizon and just. Disappear.

He was pretty sure no one was going to let him do that last one, though.

[for said partners, please! And the return and general mood is fine for broadcast, but maybe not the precise details of conversations]

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From:

okteiviakom

Octavia felt wrung out. A little on the empty side. Desperate for rest, but in a numb kind of way.

Her gaze was trained on Duke the second she was through the portal, though. She watched, she followed.

From:

my_own_advocate

Well, this was going to be at least another month holed up in some kind of nesting-trauma-processing-situation, wasn't it?

Lucifer wanted to go back. He wanted to go back and throw more people at Audrey Parker. He also wanted to go inside and lock all of them into the Rouge for the next week until they all recovered their ability to speak.

He took off after Duke immediately, brushing his hand against Duke's lower back. Not to linger, but to remind him they were there.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke was all too aware they were there. That they'd been there the whole time, had seen everything that had happened. Everything Haven did.

That Octavia, at least, had had it all done to here.

"We shouldn't have gone."

From:

okteiviakom

It hd just been more of the same, hadn't it? What Haven always did.

Especially to him.

Octavia hung back, several steps behind them.

From:

my_own_advocate

"You had to go," Lucifer said simply. "Everything else seems rather pointless by-gones at this point."

From:

betterthanaplan

"Did I?" Duke asked, spinning to face him. "It's not like I did any good! If I hadn't gone, what would have happened? Wade wouldn't be dead. Octavia wouldn't have gone crazy. You wouldn't have -- have ruined your jacket, or whatever."

From:

okteiviakom

... Right, of course they wouldn't be able to keep it together until they got on the ship.

Octavia came to a stop. Considered the merits of pointing out either that other people would likely be dead, instead, or that she was already crazy to begin with. Neither thing seemed particularly useful, however.

From:

my_own_advocate

"Wade would have continued on a murder spree that could just as well have ended with his death," Lucifer said, eyeing him. He sounded calm, comparatively. "Frankly, if we hadn't gone, you wouldn't have had a bloody idea either way, you would've just slowly eaten yourself alive about it."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke let out a choked laugh.

"Right. 'Cause I'm not going to do that now."

He turned around again, shoving his hands into his pockets. Getting on the OceaNyx and sailing away was sounding better and better.

From:

okteiviakom

As if he wouldn't then eat himself alive about both what had happened in Haven and abandoning his partners.

Octavia moved again, to follow. (Not entirely unlike a ghost. That was how she felt right now.)

From:

my_own_advocate

Oh, for-- Lucifer paced after him. "Duke," he said sharply. "You did the best that you could."

That probably should've sounded more consoling.

From:

betterthanaplan

"Fat lot of good that did anyone," Duke said darkly. He reached the gangplank for the Rouge and no matter how tempting it was to just keep going -- started up it.

The OceaNyx wasn't stocked for a long trip. And he didn't sail unprepared.

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia was just glad they seemed to be actually getting home. Maybe she could faceplant into bed and just... not be awake or around for a while.

So she kept following them.

From:

my_own_advocate

Lucifer was contemplating the pros and cons of surreptitiously unfastening all the cables keeping the Rouge tied to the island and just letting them all drift off to sea.

"Duke," he said again, and reached to grab Duke's arm as soon as they were aboard.

From:

betterthanaplan

"What?!" Duke spun again, jerking to pull his arm from Lucifer's grip. His adrenaline was starting to fade, and he clung to his anger, trying to keep the sore muscles and aching heart he knew were coming at bay. "What are you going to say that'll make this better, huh, Luce? What could you possibly say?"

From:

okteiviakom

Octavia stopped again, sort of... teetering right on the edge of the gangplank.

Something in her tried to tell her to say something, again.

From:

my_own_advocate

"I understand," Lucifer said, and didn't let go, and kept his eyes on Duke's. "It is not your fault."

From:

betterthanaplan

Pulling against Lucifer when he didn't want to let go was useless, but Duke did it anyway. Even as his muscles yelled at him (there wasn't a single part of him that didn't hurt, not after getting tased), even as his energy ran out faster (he'd barely slept last night, none of them had, they were all running on less than fumes).

"That makes it worse!"

From:

okteiviakom

"Can you two just get inside?"

Not the profound thing that something in her had been trying to get her to say, probably. It was flat and tired, to boot.

But in spirit, she was still sitting on the police station floor, trying not to hurl her guts onto it, so this was the best that she could do.

From:

my_own_advocate

"I just--"

Lucifer made a strangled noise.

"You two go on ahead," he ground out. "I'm going to pull up the gangplank or whatever the bloody thing is called."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke darted for the hatch that led below decks the moment Lucifer let him go.

Not that he made it much further than the galley. He found himself a large, unopened bottle of bourbon and wondered how hard it would be to convince Lucifer to just leave him alone to wallow his way to the bottom of it.

Octavia, he suspected, wouldn't be a hard sell. She was doing her closed off thing, and was probably looking for her own alone time by now.