my_own_advocate | Lucifer's Penthouse, Thursday

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Lucifer's Penthouse, Thursday

It had been days since Dad had announced His retirement and left. Lucifer supposed he should feel relieved by now, or elated. Dad was... vacating their lives for good. And there was no doubt who His successor would be: Amenadiel, who had trained for this for his entire long celestial life.

He could admit in the privacy of his own head that Amenadiel would make a far better God than their Father had ever been.

Not for the first time in the past... month? Had it been a month? Lucifer thought about how they should be headed home. To the Rouge, and its nostalgic sailor aesthetic that, again in the privacy of his own thoughts, Lucifer could admit he sort of missed.

Perhaps it was the matter of Daniel and his well-deserved revenge that kept his thoughts so messy and his feet firmly placed within the boundaries of Los Angeles county. That had to be it. No?

Lucifer poured himself another glass of scotch and leaned against the bar, contemplating the bottles. He did still like this apartment, he mused, so there was that.

[[ expecting one, but open for phone calls ]]

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"She's the Angel of Death, but don't let that fool you. None of us got to choose which parts Dad wanted us to play in Creation at the start," Lucifer said, looking up at the ceiling. "She was... probably my best friend when we were young. We used to," he laughed softly, "we used to play the best pranks on Amenadiel. Run circles around him."

"The Devil and the Angel of Death," Duke said, smiling. "That sounds kind of adorable."

Once you knew the Devil for awhile, it was easy to decide the Angel of Death could be cute, too.

"I called her Rae-Rae," Lucifer admitted. "And she... She was the first person who called me by the name I actually chose, and not the one Dad had decided for me."

"Everyone should have someone like that," Duke said. He wondered briefly why he hadn't met this person before, but -- if she was the Angel of Death, she had to be pretty busy, right?

Lucifer mouth curved. Briefly.

"She remained neutral during my rebellion," he said, his voice quieting. "And then... the next time I saw her was... weeks before I came here for the first time. She'd been busy, she said. For thousands upon thousands of years."

Duke sucked in a wincing breath through his teeth.

"I'm sorry."

"It was like that with all of them," Lucifer said quietly. "Even the ones who helped me during the rebellion, they pulled their hands away. Kept their head down."

"Your whole community," Duke said, soft and low. "Well. No wonder you're fucked up."

"For years I convinced myself I thought it was everyone else's fault, but... well."

Duke had been there to see him when he'd realized otherwise.

"I mean. I'm happy to blame your dad for that one," Duke said. "I mean, he is the great orchestrater of celestial drama, right?"

Lucifer snorted softly. "I suppose so," he said. "If He'd just talked to us on occasion, we wouldn't all be milling around in the dark, trying to do whatever we felt He did - or didn't - want us to do. But that's not what I was getting at, I just..."

He swallowed.

"I just want to stop hurting you," he said, "To not... make another colossal mistake one way or another."

"Is that what you think happened back then?" Duke asked. "You made a mistake and Azrael and the others stopped talking to you?"

"Yes?" Lucifer said, his eyes flicking back to Duke's. A little helpless. "No? Maybe."

"Dude." Duke shook his head fondly. "You are so fucked in the head."

He pressed a kiss to Lucifer's shoulder.

"I don't really know enough angels to say if that's true or not. And I'm not dumb enough to promise I won't be dumb enough to try to leave sometime in the future, though I'm going to go ahead and guess that'll be because I mess up, not you. But -- man. You gotta let go. You were the celestial equivalent of an idiot teenager back then." Which he knew, because he'd met said idiot teenager when he'd been an idiot teenager. "You've grown."

Lucifer huffed softly. He looked at Duke. "Second chances, hm?"

"And third, and fourth. . . ." Duke trailed off meaningfully. "How many have you given me, now? I messed up just asking you out."

Lucifer snorted. "You are a bit of an idiot," he agreed.

But that brief hint of snarky mockery faded quickly. He reached up, cupped Duke's cheek.

"Look, I have-- no idea if I will ever feel..." He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath. "...But you are one of the best things that has ever happened to me."

When Duke had fallen in love with Nathan, he'd conspired to stick tacks in his back. His total shit show of suggesting their current arrangement had been progress. With Octavia, she'd just kind of decided they were a thing and he agreed, after all. Come to think of it, that was how they'd both ended up moving onto his boat, too. . . .

"I feel the same way," Duke said. "Whether you end up feeling. . . ." He did a small approximation of Lucifer's sucked in breath. ". . . Or not."

Lucifer sighed, eyes closed. "This is such a bloody mess," he muttered.

He kissed Duke.

With warmth, as the man would say, not heat.

Well. That saved Duke from having to sigh at Lucifer's assessment.

Yes, the stuff with God? Giant "bloody mess". The thing with Lucifer trying and failing to pull away from them?

Duke thought that was really pretty simple, actually.

It would have helped if Duke had put in some kind of effort to let him pull away, all right?

As opposed to whatever he'd been doing that led to this-- situation with Duke sprawled half on top of him and his arms around the idiot.

Lucifer looked fairly lost as he pulled away just a fraction. "You-- hm."

It was called "being there". At least in Duke's opinion. It was the same instinct that had him showing up at a crime scene mere days after being manipulated into position to murder someone for the first time.

Once Duke decided you were one of his people, it could be very hard to get him to let go.

"Hm?"

"..."

Lucifer looked up at him.

"...Whoever designed your eyes was an evil genius." Beat. "I mean, the current ones."

“You and your ‘intelligent design’. What makes you think my eyes aren’t a happy accident?”

"Because they're entirely too pretty," Lucifer informed him. Which was clearly unfair!

... and a good way to try and hoist himself from that spluttering moment of vulnerability just now before he said something genuinely stupid.

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