my_own_advocate | A Nice Lunch Place in Baltimore, Monday, Lunchtime

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A Nice Lunch Place in Baltimore, Monday, Lunchtime

Linda and Amenadiel were stopping by to 'check' on Lucifer. If Lucifer knew the good doctor - and thought of the screaming little parasite she now had at home - he could only imagine she was using it as an excuse to get away from nursing a mewling infant or something.

Well, she probably also wanted to see him. He was her most interesting patient, after all.

He wasn't necessarily looking forward to seeing his sainted older brother this time, however. And so it seemed logical to segue from the lunch into something more fun, like... taking money from strangers in gambling dens or or something, so it made perfect sense to drag ~~a security blanket~~ Duke with him while he was going. It was just efficient. (He was also wearing the camel suit with the blue shirt because classic was not boring, Duke.)

"There they are," he said, walking towards a table at the back. "Dr. Linda! Radiant as always!"

[[ I'm awake anyway, might as well put this up. for one and some ocd ]]

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"I don't know about meltdown, but he's definitely something." Duke shook his head. "I mean, I'm not the best at reading him any damned day of the week." That was an understatement. "But I'd swear he's . . . hovering."

"Ah," Linda said.

... and snickered.

Look, she was definitely moving past tipsy right now.

Snickered all the way into her mimosa, in fact.

Duke watched her with a faint, slightly confused smile. "Yeah, he'd probably object strenuously to me saying so."

"I'm very proud of him," Linda said tactfully, after she'd swallowed back a whole mouthful of orange juice and champagne, "for doing the mature thing and not staying in LA and hovering over Chloe until she speeds up her processing because he happens to feel lonely and sad."

She lifted her drink in a little salute. "But he came here for a reason, and you and your girlfriend are it. And she's a raccoon now."

Duke snorted. "Octavia, sure. I'm pretty sure I just come along with the Octavia package."

He could be kind of dense sometimes. In his defense, Lucifer was also very repressed.

"He brought you in to meet his therapist and his brother and called you a 'good cook' without a backhanded insult," said Linda, who knew Lucifer's repression extremely well, yes. "He brought you up in therapy multiple times. And now he's hovering."

She sipped her drink. "He really likes you. I think he just finds your girlfriend less scary because she's less verbal."

"You might be the only person who's ever called Octavia the less frightening one," Duke said. "He really talks about me in therapy?"

"Less frightening to him," Linda clarified. "And yeah. He had this whole freak-out about how you and Octavia didn't freak out about him being the Devil and--"

She waved her glass. "...That's probably confidential stuff." She snorted, took a sip, and eyed him. "Look," she said, "that man is perpetually terrified of bonding with other people and he will literally go to the ends of the Earth just to avoid admitting to it when it happens. Right now he's reaching out to you because he's had a horrible time, and he's freaking out about it. You just--"

Another wave.

"Either let that one run its course, or tell him to leave you alone."

Okay, but that was still Duke and Octavia. Which didn't count.

Right?

"Nah, I don't mind it. I like hanging out with him. His family life is even more fucked up than mine is, and he's had a really rough time of it the last. . . ." He trailed off with a wince. "Two millenia. I still can't quite wrap my head around that bit."

"And apparently he spent most of it demon-stalking you," Linda said, nodding along.

"Well . . . a lot of people in Haven die. And end up in Hell."

Also hard to get his head around.

"Yes, the disaster part you mentioned," Linda said. She stirred her drink. "Do you go to therapy?"

She was starting to get the suspicion he could use therapy.

"I do," Duke said. "I frustrate Dr. Callahan on a regular basis. Though . . . I haven't been able to get ahold of her since I got back to Fandom. I don't know, maybe she's taking a break."

"Well, if you speak to her again," Linda said lightly, "You might want to discuss why you're so desperate to disbelieve that your friend cares about you."

"I'm not desperate!" Duke said. A little desperately. "I'm just -- not getting my hopes up. I've been burned before."

To say the least.

"So has he," Linda said matter-of-factly. "That's why he's being so weird about you."

"Well, he hasn't gotten a tattoo specifically to make sure he fits the profile of the man prophesied to kill me, so Lucifer's actually being less weird than some, lately."

"... Okay, I'm starting to see what you mean by 'burned'," Linda said slowly. "Why did someone do that?"

"Because my ex has no chill," Duke said. ". . . And also the ghost of my father did kind of try to talk me into killing his partner right before she was kidnapped. Haven's kind of -- special."

"I bore an angel baby," Linda pointed out. "I want white wine. Do you want white wine?"

"I am definitely not going to say no to some white wine," Duke said, looking around for a waiter. "Then maybe you can tell me how you and Amenadiel got together. I mean, I'm assuming it's not just because he's a fine piece of ass."

A smiley-faced waiter walked up to them. Before she could ask anything, Linda said, "Please get us wine, now. White," and waved her off.

She looked back at Duke. "Does deflection always work for you?"

"Not always," Duke said. "But a lot. I'm also very accomplished with weaponized obnoxiousness."

"Well, I'm not telling you about Amenadiel and myself, that's personal," Linda said, "...though great asses do run in that family."

Definitely the champagne talking.

"At least for those two, yeah," Duke agreed. "This is going to be either a really short or a really one-sided conversation if you don't tell me anything personal, you know."

They weren't actually in a therapy session, right?

A Nice Lunch Place in Baltimore, Monday, Lunchtime

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