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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Nah. Not these eyes. The silver ones, sure. But not these.

"You don't have to believe me yet," Duke said. "Octavia gave me that room, so I'm going to give it to you. But you -- we -- are loveable and loving. No matter who our parents are. Or what they did to us." He offered Lucifer a small smile. "And frankly, you trying to say otherwise is starting to piss me off."

Well past starting. But he was trying to be gentle here.

Lucifer snorted softly. He closed his eyes - the only defense he had here. That, and the question he'd asked Octavia, the one without an answer.

"Then why do I keep feeling this way?" Unworthy. Incapable.

"Because your parents fucked up," Duke said simply. He tipped his head up to kiss Lucifer again, softly on the forehead. Like a benediction. "They never showed you what love is, so you don't know how to recognize it. All you've got is movies and TV and they're liars." He rested his forehead on Lucifer's, watching him from up close. "Trust me, Luce. I'm still learning, but I've been where you are right now. It's terrifying. But I think, maybe . . . that's what makes it better, in the end."

He should have something to say to that, shouldn't he? Something more profound than the kneejerk 'no, you're wrong' that wanted to come out. The one he'd been swallowing over and over again, with Duke, with Octavia, with Linda, with Chloe.

But Lucifer had nothing. Nothing besides a gut full of squirming, incoherent, self-defeating emotion.

They were all useless. Likely to blow something up. To make Duke stalk off the way Octavia had. Bar maybe one, that fluttered up like a butterfly in some poor doomed woman's box.

He tilted his head just so and caught Duke's lips with his own.

Duke hadn't known what to expect, jumping into all that. But it wasn't this.

(He hadn't dared to expect this. Or even hope for it.)

There was maybe a moment's pause, of just receiving, before he dove into kissing Lucifer back. Putting everything he still didn't know how to say into gripping Lucifer's hips, into gently sucking on Lucifer's lower lip.

Lucifer could love, Duke was certain of that. And Lucifer was loved, quite thoroughly, in return.

Lucifer didn't know what else to do. Octavia walking out on him had hurt, as much as it had felt deserved. He didn't want it to happen again, not now. That was unfair, too, because Duke was expressing all this faith in him he still (knew) wasn't sure he deserved.

It had just been such a long month and he was tired.

His fingers wound into Duke's hair, pulling the man closer into him.

And Duke, hopeless romantic that he was deep down inside, felt like this was a victory. Even if he knew that Lucifer wasn't totally convinced just yet.

So he let out a soft moan as Lucifer's fingers brushed his scalp, encouraging him -- then pulling back. Just a little. Just enough to get a breath and tease: "Your dad's for sure not about to just show up again, right?"

Lucifer snorted softly. (He'd missed Duke.) "He's absolutely for certain back upstairs for now, yes."

"Good," Duke said. And dove back in to show Lucifer just how much he'd missed him back.

Lucifer wasn't entirely sure when he'd wound up with his back pressed against the bar counter and his fingers tight in Duke's hair and shirt, but he wasn't surprised by it. He and Octavia had always been slow and deliberate.

With Duke, on the other hand...

Well, it took this brief moment of surprise at the feel of the counter digging into his back to remember that he should probably stop the hand in Duke's shirt before it made it all the way to the button of Duke's trousers.

This time he was the one who pulled back a fraction of an inch, panting, dazed.

Duke blinked. Why had Lucifer stopped?

"You okay?" he asked.

There had been a lot of kissing, which would be Lucifer's only explanation for what he said next, which was, "Just need a moment to keep from bending you over the bar."

Stupid sexy Duke.

Duke smirked. "You know I don't mind being bent over."

"Ngh, I mean, yes," Lucifer said (why was it suddenly so hard to remember why this was a really bad idea?). "But, uh."

Duke smirked harder at that grunt -- but then it faded at the further hesitation. Duke pulled back. Not all the way away, but back, so that he was loosely holding Lucifer's waist instead of holding himself against him.

"Ah." He nodded. "Okay. We don't have to -- we can take it slow."

Lucifer stared at him helplessly.

It had been a month of abstinence and strain and tension and he had no bloody clue where he and Octavia stood at the moment. He still didn't feel any more worthy, or any less guilty. But Duke had wedged the tiniest crack in his chest open, and apparently that had been enough for this small, temporary thing.

This small, temporary, yet utterly complete short in an otherwise persistently loud part of his mind.

He scooped Duke off his feet.

Duke let out a startled, delighted laugh. There were not many people in this world who could just scoop him up like that. He lifted his legs to replace his arms around Lucifer's waist, and instead wrapped them around his neck.

And leaned in for more of those kisses.

This time, Lucifer let him have as many kisses as he wanted. They helped stretch out that pleasant silence in his mind, kept the overthinking from rushing right back in to fill the void.

Besides, it had been a while since he'd gotten to show off how much experience he had in carrying someone to his bedroom while kissing them. Even the stairs barely gave him any pause.

He didn't stop until he could actually physically drop Duke onto the bed.

Duke laughed again as he bounced onto the mattress, then reached for Lucifer.

Octavia said that love was in action, not in words. And Duke would happily show Lucifer -- and let him show him -- just how much love there was in this loft, this morning.

It was a little bit quick. Maybe more than a little bit urgent. While Duke and Octavia had found the time to enjoy each other earlier in the week, he and Lucifer hadn't touched each other this way in far, far too long. Afterwards, when they were both sprawled on the mattress, Duke let himself continue to touch, drawing lazy patterns on Lucifer's arm with his finger.

(He still hadn't figured out his Lucifer tattoo, yet. He didn't have quite the same set of easy nicknames to choose from as Octavia had, after all.)

Lucifer stared up at the ceiling, listening to his own breathing as it slowed back down. Trying to stave off the return of intrusive thoughts and the instincts he knew-- hurt Octavia before. It didn't quite work.

And so the feeling of Duke's fingers on him went from unequivocally good to-- he wasn't sure.

He shifted. A little. Dragged his gaze away from the ceiling, down to Duke's face.

"Well," he said.

Duke felt the shift, though he couldn't have consciously said when it happened or how. (He was pretty sure he knew why, though.)

"Is this the part where we're supposed to clutch the sheet to our chest and stare at the ceiling like we're in a sitcom?" he teased, trying to find that easy place again.

At least that earned a huff that sounded like a laugh.

"I believe we'd both have to be vastly deeper in the closet for that to land."

"Have you ever been even a little bit in the closet?" Duke asked, propping his head up on his hand so he could look at Lucifer properly.

(He was such a beautiful man. If Duke had to give God credit for anything, it was how exquisitely he'd crafted his angels.)

(Or maybe that was their self-actualizing. Maybe Duke didn't have to give God any credit for that, either.)

See, now they were just... Bantering. That wasn't so terrifying. (And there was no reason to examine the warmth he felt at Duke's gaze too closely.)

"Well, the first person I slept with was Eve," Lucifer said thoughtfully. "The second was Adam, so... A few hours to a day on a technicality?"

“Nope,” Duke decided. “Doesn’t count. Being closeted involves actually hiding things.”

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