my_own_advocate | The Cape Rouge, Monday Evening

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The Cape Rouge, Monday Evening

Sunday had been Date Night for Lucifer and Octavia, as always. On Monday, Lucifer had gotten it into his head he wanted to do something for Duke. 'Something' had turned out to be a nice home-cooked meal and some time out on the water.

And while Lucifer had contemplated taking the show to his house, as he did with Octavia-- something within him had craved... well, this.

The gentle sway of the water beneath the boat - permanent background radiation now of his life - lulling him into an easy calm as he flopped over onto his back on the bed, still catching his breath. "I can't believe how much I like this bed," he mumbled, inanely.

He'd make sense of it in a moment.

[[ for him ]]

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"It's you, darling," Lucifer sighed. "I think the last five minutes demonstrate that there's very little chance of you not having multiple--" meltdowns, "--moments about this before we ever got that far."

He had a point there.

"I don't like the idea of you guys giving up on things for me," he muttered. "I know what that feels like. You deserve better."

Lucifer rolled his eyes. "Yes, I deserve so much better than to live in an island paradise with my ridiculously happy boyfriend and our partner," he drawled. "Not every compromise is about sacrificing some piece of your soul to keep someone, Crocker."

Duke didn’t have an answer for that.

In Haven, that was exactly what — basically everything meant. At least for a Crocker.

"Sometimes it's about deciding you care less about something than you do about the other person," Lucifer said, quieter. "Sometimes it's about-- Octavia and I marvelling how happy you were that weekend. About how incredibly satisfying it was to see that."

A pause. "Mind you, all of this is quite new to me," he said. "Bizarre, really."

Edited 2022-08-17 06:02 (UTC)

“Hey, I’m a happy guy!”

He was a guy who had learned to use performative happiness as armor. As a weapon.

“I think it’s sweet. You’re . . . breaking away from who your family thought you would be.”

"You're a guy who smiles and jokes all the bloody time," Lucifer said, patting him gently. "If that and 'happy' were the same thing, there'd be far less movie star overdoses in the world."

He'd get to the rest in a moment.

"Yeah, okay, I'll cop to that," Duke said. There wasn't much point in arguing with what was blatantly the truth.

"Either way," Lucifer said, feeling tense muscles in his back finally unclench, "It's not about giving things up for you. I gave up easy midnight hot tub soaks when I moved in here. And a big-screen telly. And multiple walk-in closets. And top quality leather furniture. And... well. It didn't matter. It wasn't about those things. It's about building something new around the people I want to keep."

"And . . . you don't regret it?"

"Obviously not," Lucifer said. "My gains far outweigh anything I 'gave up'."

"Gains like . . . me?" Duke tried to make it a statement and missed. "And Octavia."

"Yes," Lucifer said. He dropped another kiss into Duke's hair. "Gains like waking up to you being a beautiful snuggly lump every morning. Gains like watching you eat my food for dinner in the evenings. Gains like spending afternoons in bed fighting about which reality TV channel you and I are going to watch. Like seeing that thing you do with your face whenever you think you've come up with something spectacularly clever, or arguing with you about your bloody plaid in the morning..."

"We could be doing all of that at your house," Duke pointed out. Because he couldn't quite let go of his fear just yet.

"And you'd be miserable," Lucifer pointed out, "And then you'd feel guilty about being miserable, and then six months later we'd all find out about it and we'd also be miserable. No, it's much easier to reupholster the couches in your galley than it is to put an entire ocean underneath my mansion, Crocker."

"I wouldn't lie about it." (He'd lie to them both and himself, let's be real.) "You talk like I break if you look at me funny."

He wouldn't . . . not break if Lucifer looked at him funny.

"I talk like you're someone with a great deal of feelings who is used to swallowing all of them for people he cares about until he chokes to death," Lucifer said, tilting his head. (He was looking at Duke a little funny. But not that kind of funny.) "And like I don't want to be the kind of person who callously makes you do so. I spent quite a bit of my life not quite caring who I hurt, gorging myself on whatever pleasures I could get. I'm not particularly eager to return to it."

Duke gave up on arguing, and settled into Lucifer’s side again.

“I don’t know what I did to deserve you. But I’m glad you think I do.”

"Oh, in many ways, this is entirely selfish," Lucifer told him, his fingers running idly along Duke's arm. "See, I actually like who I am with you. The person that says all these things, who moves onto a bloody pirate ship without much complaint because someone else needs him."

“You saying I make you selfless?”

"If you mean you make me want to think of someone other than myself, then yes," Lucifer said, drawing a little circle by memory around one of Duke's tattoos. "I like taking care of you."

Duke closed his eyes, tired as his body started to calm back down.

“It’s weird. Trying to let people take care of me.”

"Yes, you're terrible at it until the world makes you," Lucifer teased softly.

Just... drawing circles now.

“Suppose I gotta balance out all the things I’m really good at,” Duke joked softly.

Lucifer chuckled. "A few you demonstrated but twenty minutes ago," he said.

His fingers strayed onto Duke's back.

	
		OSZAR »

The Cape Rouge, Monday Evening

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