If I may play the me's advocate for a moment...

Well, it had been a long enough week, but it was finally time for Lucifer's therapy appointment. He opened up the laptop computer he'd purchased for these things about two thousand years ago and settled on the sofa, waiting for Dr. Linda to turn up in the video chat... thing.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Finally, he picked up the phone and called her.

"Lucifer? Is something wrong?"

"You're late for our appointment."

"... Our appointment is on Friday, isn't it?"

He waved a hand. "Yes, Friday, as in today."

"Lucifer, it's Sunday."

He squinted. "No, it isn't," he said. "It's Friday, January 8th. Have you been drinking, Doctor? I know the stresses of parenthood are large and horrific, but pull yourself together, please."

"It's Sunday, November 8th."

A long pause. "...Well, congratulations on surviving election week, I suppose."

Linda let out a loud sigh on the other end. "This is one of those weird island things you keep telling me about, isn't it?" she said. "Right. I have fifteen minutes now, if you'd like to talk."

It had been a while since he'd had a session. And he could... use some right now. "That would be lovely," he said.

"How are you doing? Yesterday you mentioned something about a boat trip?"

"Yes," he said. "So Duke asked Octavia if she wanted to consider both of them 'dating' me, which she rightly agreed was a terrible word to use under the circumstances. Octavia came to me, we talked about it, I kissed her--"

"You kissed Octavia--"

"Let me finish the story, please," he said. "Then I went to Duke, I kissed him, and proposed we go away for the holiday weekend on his boat."

"You wanted to go on a holiday weekend right off th--"

"Please, Doctor," he sighed. "So we did. And it was nearly an absolute disaster, because Octavia was tense, and Duke was running around acting like it was a honeymoon or something. But we sat him down and sorted him out and three days later, we started having frankly fantastic sex--"

"Please don't tell me the details."

"So it all sorted itself out in the end."

"This was before or after you called me?"

"Before."

Linda fell silent for a moment. "And yet," she ventured, "You decided to call me in a panic yesterday."

"I wasn't panicking," Lucifer stressed quickly. "Just... a bit in need of... therapeutic insight."

"Right." She was doing that thing again where she sat forward and frowned at him, wasn't she? He missed the video chat. "And what was it about the trip that made you want that therapeutic insight?"

"Well, you always have such clear ideas about these matters, Doctor," he said. "I... I do very much care for these people, but..."

"You're wondering what it means for you and Chloe."

That wasn't all of it, but... "Yes."

"Have you talked to her lately?"

"She won't answer my phone calls." A pause. "But I'm sure she will eventually. You know. Perhaps when January comes around on your end." Maybe he should go back home to ensure time ran normally. The slow would explain why she hadn't come 'round yet, right?

Linda sighed. "Well, this time difference won't help," she said.

"But it's better than me coming home. She did say she needed space."

"You could just come back and choose not to see her," Linda pointed out. "Or... move to San Diego, or... anywhere else in Southern California."

"I could," Lucifer said. Then, slowly: "But I don't... want to."

"Why not?"

Another pause. "Because I don't have anything there," he said. "Well, you and my brother and Miss Lopez, I suppose. But that's different."

"Different how?"

"It just is." He reached over, picking up a decanter of whiskey. He poured some into his glass. "Miss Octavia and Duke are important to me."

"Relationship important."

"No, not relationship," he said sharply, "More like ... arrangement?"

"That sounds like a cop out."

"It isn't," he argued. "We have just... chosen to spend time together more frequently. Time that is sometimes spent being very naked."

A soft sigh. "Lucifer, this is big," she said. "You mentioned you haven't been indulging in casual sex. Now you're choosing to be intimate with only two specific people. You can't just... deny the significance of that out of existence. We both know where that leads, with you."

"I'm just spending more time with them while I wait for the Detective to make her peace with the current situation," he repeated mulishly.

On the other end of the line, Linda rubbed her forehead. Not that he could tell. "Okay, so how do you feel about them?"

"I adore Octavia," he said, "Our relationship had gotten a bit... unbalanced and distant after my return, but the current arrangement appears to have salvaged that brilliantly."

"And how did that happen?"

"Well, we're actually talking," he said, "And she's always better at that when we're touching, so now that we're touching much more frequently, the whole... talking thing also seems to roll vastly more freely. It's been..." He searched for a word, and finally settled on, "...Comfortable."

Remarkably natural, for all their moments of weirdness.

"And Duke?"

"He was there for me when I first came back," Lucifer said, sobering a little. "We started spending rather a lot of time together, and I'm very glad we can continue to do so."

"And?"

"And what?"

"And how do you feel about him."

"He's a delightful person," Lucifer said. Then added, slowly, "...Though I feel like his enthusiasm for the theory of this arrangement may have... gotten in the way of the practicalities for a while."

"A-ha, so... what practicalities?"

A short pause. "He would tell me that this arrangement was important to him," he said slowly, "and then he'd stand four feet away from me while I told him I was very fond of him, and he'd laugh and say he likes spending time with me, too. But we talked about this, it's settled, it's fine now."

"You mean he was telling you, rather than showing."

"I mean that we had established a rapport prior to this," Lucifer said slowly, "That may have involved... conversations, and moments, and a sense of-- comradery. And then as soon as this idea came up, suddenly he was acting like we were fantasy football buddies, and... I strangely find that I miss the former." Beat. "Missed."

Linda made a humming noise in the back of her throat. "Do you think that he may be worried about being vulnerable?" she said. "Proposing bringing someone else into your relationship is a big step to take. Maybe he needed to compensate that by retracting some vulnerability in another way."

She was doing that thing where she spoke very deliberately. He imagined she'd be looking at him pointedly in real life, as if there was some hidden lesson in there he was supposed to take from that wasn't exactly what she was saying.

It was exactly as mystifying on the phone as it was in real life.

"Right," he said. "So what do you propose I do about it? I mean, it is largely fixed." Mostly fixed.

"You could try doing some of the things the two of you were doing when you had your rapport," she said. "The things that made... him... feel comfortable with you."

(He missed the weird pause on 'him'.)

"Hm," Lucifer said slowly. "Perhaps."


Once she hung up, he poured himself another glass and settled back in front of the television. Some show about people falling off of things into cake? He had no idea.

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