The Cape Rouge, Outside the Preserve, Saturday Morning

[my_own_advocate]

There were three notable differences between this time and the last time Lucifer woke up in one bed with Duke, the first and foremost being that Octavia wasn't there. The second was that his traumatic-in-retrospect childhood memories were firmly repressed in the past, where they belonged.

The third was that he was actually wearing underwear.

None of these things were particularly on his mind as he woke up groggily, but they were a rather important factor in the fourth and previously unmentioned difference, being that he felt no particular need to inform Duke to leave the room, and in fact mostly just shifted a bit and yanked the blankets up another half-an-inch just to improve on his cocoon.

Which needed improvement. His half-awake mind missed his expensive sheets.

[[ for that dude. ]]

Comments

[betterthanaplan]

Hey now, Duke's sheets were perfectly respectable! They weren't even plaid! (They were white and navy blue, like a proper sailor's.)

Duke himself was not even a little bit awake yet, sprawled out on his side of the bed with his arm over his eyes. When the covers shifted, he gave a little snort, then rolled over and flung his arm over the nice warm body sharing his bed with him.

Really, that was so much better than sleeping alone.

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer would've shot him an amused look if he'd been more awake than he was. He was hardly unaccustomed to people trying to get cuddly in bed; Seivarden had been obsessed with it.

As it stood, that just meant he made a faint noise of acknowledgement, squinting his eyes further shut to block out any evidence that the sun might be up.

Unfortunately, that knowledge was beginning to vaguely permeate his mind.

[betterthanaplan]

The skylight likely wasn't helping with that awareness.

Duke snuggled a little further into the blankets with a sleepy mumble.

[my_own_advocate]

It was in fact the skylight that did him in, in the end. Unable to fight off consciousness any longer, Lucifer pushed down the sheets a bit and stared blearily upwards.

Well, at least it was warm here. He patted Duke's arm absently.

[betterthanaplan]

. . . Huh. Arm pats. Duke was slowly starting to wake up now himself.

And remember that he didn't typically have a nice warm man-shaped person in his bed these days.

"Luce?" he mumbled.

[my_own_advocate]

"That skylight of yours is a menace," Lucifer muttered, ceasing his squint at the damned thing to look at Duke.

[betterthanaplan]

"'Zit bein' too loud?"

Yeah, he was, like, barely in the vicinity of awake, here.

[my_own_advocate]

"Too much light and no curtains," Lucifer said, and groped around towards the far, non-Duke end of the bar in hopes he'd left a bottle of something there.

[betterthanaplan]

"Rude," Duke said. "I'll have a talk with it later."

He was not going to remember this conversation in a minute.

[my_own_advocate]

There was no alcohol in the vicinity.

Lucifer sighed and dropped his hand back onto the sheets, shifting a little until Duke came back into view.

He patted Duke on the arm again. It felt like the right response.

[betterthanaplan]

It also helped him start to properly wake up.

He cracked one eye open and licked his lips.

"Oh hey." A slow grin. "No one's yelling at me this time."

[my_own_advocate]

"Not unless the next few words out of your mouth are 'let's get up'," Lucifer told him, mouth quirking a bit underneath his now-messy hair.

(Shut up, that slow grin wasn't endearing at all.)

[betterthanaplan]

"Nahhhh," Duke said. "I think we're good right here for awhile."

[my_own_advocate]

"Should've brought the whiskey, or what's left of it," Lucifer said. "That's my one regret."

He stretched a bit.

[betterthanaplan]

“Might be a flask in here. Can you reach my pants?”

[my_own_advocate]

"Now, that's just highly inappropriate," Lucifer told him, mirth in his voice.

Sadly, Duke's pants were entirely too far away from his end of the bed.

[betterthanaplan]

“You need to get into my pants to get booze,” Duke said with a laugh. “Nice bit of a reversal there.”

[my_own_advocate]

"It's the fine old art of turning a farce into a tragedy," Lucifer said. "Or vice versa. I don't know. I'm not awake enough yet."

[betterthanaplan]

“Awake is overrated,” Duke mused, stretching contentedly. The only thing that would make this better was if Octavia were there, too.

“. . . Shit. I meant to text Octavia and let her know we took the boat around the island.”

So she didn’t just wake up and see it not be there.

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer let out a little sigh. "Bugger," he said succinctly. "Suppose you should take this rust bucket back 'round soon."

[betterthanaplan]

“Yeah,” Duke said with a sigh. “Or maybe we can text her and she can bring the Samsara around?”

[my_own_advocate]

"It's not really a time to wake anyone up, is it?"

He had no idea what the time was, beyond 'too early to leave the bed'.

[betterthanaplan]

“It’s Octavia. She might be up anyway.”

[my_own_advocate]

"You just don't want to get up yet," Lucifer said dryly. "...or you want to mother hen everyone breakfast again."

[betterthanaplan]

“Breakfast would involve getting up. But I do like making it.”

Feeding people was one of his love languages.

[my_own_advocate]

"Miracle it took this long for you to wind up running a restaurant," Lucifer said, grinning at him.

[betterthanaplan]

“And they both basically had to be handed to me before I started running them.”

[my_own_advocate]

"You could have always sold them," Lucifer noted.

[betterthanaplan]

“The Gull, never. It was my friend Bill’s place. He sold it to me on the cheap after his folks and his brother died. Said it was as close as he could get to keeping it in the family. Luke’s.... I gather it’s traditional to madly hand it to someone else as you dash out of town.”

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer made an amused noise. "Suppose it's a good thing you didn't immediately follow suit with Luke's."

[betterthanaplan]

“You kidding? Most of my world doesn’t even know this place exists. It’s the perfect place to hide out.”

[my_own_advocate]

"Something you repeatedly ruined by going back regardless," Lucifer said, though he didn't sound like he was arguing, exactly.

[betterthanaplan]

“To be fair, the people in Haven aren’t the sort to try to track me down.” Which did not at all mean he had to go find them, no.

[my_own_advocate]

"Mm. Does that mean we have other people to worry about?"

[betterthanaplan]

“Probably not by now. Especially if I stay out of Rio.”

[my_own_advocate]

"And Rio has a reasonably short memory," Lucifer said, amused.

[betterthanaplan]

"True!" Duke gave him a sideways smile. "Anyway, there's more to recommend it here than there was when they handed Luke's off to me."

[my_own_advocate]

"I suppose you have gotten a bit noticably attached to the place."

[betterthanaplan]

“Yeah.” Duke snorted. “It’s definitely Fandom I’m attached to.”

[my_own_advocate]

"Have you ever thought about taking Octavia somewhere else?" Lucifer asked, looking at him.

[betterthanaplan]

“Occasionally. Before she left I knew she wouldn’t leave her brother. After . . . shit just got complicated.”

[my_own_advocate]

"Suppose that has been going on for quite some time now," Lucifer allowed. "The complicated part."