my_own_advocate | The Deck of the Cape Rouge, Sunday Noon-ish

If there was such a thing as 'critical limit of things to process', Lucifer had hit it sometime yesterday. He had a child, apparently, and his partners doing their best to accomodate her while struggling not to fall apart, and he was still trying to figure out how on Earth it could even happen to him.

So he'd decided to do better today. To try and entertain her, and make sure she knew he wasn't-- that he wouldn't just drop her on someone else and ignore her.

"How about we play some music?" he'd asked. And Aurora had gotten a look on her face.

They'd wound up on the deck, him with a guitar, her with Duke's ukelele that she had insisted on getting and he couldn't stop her from getting because she knew exactly where it was.

It had been nice. Oddly enough.

But now he had retreated to the back portion of the deck with his coffee. Rory was perched on the railing of the ship, looking out over the coast of Fandom, and... still playing that damned ukulele.

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Rory was just getting an early start to acclimating him to it, or something. Three out of four people in this family liked the sound, and he would just have to deal.

Besides, being out here with him, playing this thing, even as he just watched...

Look, some parts of this weekend weren't easy. And this was. That was why she was lingering with it, just a little while longer.

"That one was much better than Wonderwall!" Lucifer called, as she finished another song.

(Yes, he knew exactly why she'd played Wonderwall: Duke's terrible bloody influence.)

It wasn't his boyfriend's or his daughter's fault that he was so easily provoked with Oasis.

"What's that, dad?" Rory called back. "You wanna hear Wonderwall again?"

It wasn't like his boyfriend disagreed with him about the quality of Wonderwall, and he suspected his-- daughter didn't, either.

But they were trolls.

"Don't you dare!"

Rory snorted, but rested the ukulele against her leg, and lifted her strumming hand up to show that she wasn't about to play it.

"Fine, fine," she said. "Maybe later."

"Thank you," Lucifer huffed. Performatively, more than anything. "Your level of talent deserves better."

"You keep saying that."

Wasn't much of a spoiler, that one, was it?

Lucifer sighed loudly.

He got up out of his seat, though, and walked over to join her again. "Well, it's true."

Duke had made an effort all day yesterday, right through last night. Tried to stay with his people, even though doing that made him even more intent to swallow everything down and be as normal as possible. (His issues weren't Rory's fault. She deserved a good, together family. Every kid deserved one of those.)

But after another night of uneasy dreams -- and another morning of sleep paralysis, feeling trapped in his own body while an unknown figure loomed over him, intent to do . . . things to him and his partners -- he was just. Done. He got up, stumbled into a pair of pants, and threw himself into the pillow room, locking the door behind him. And proceeded to throw things, secure in the knowledge that nothing in here was going to break while he did. And the cushioning would even muffle his screams.

And everyone let him, for a while. It wasn't like Octavia and Lucifer didn't understand, though Lucifer, at least, would worry privately about what was going through Duke's head all through the day.

As for Rory, she distracted herself with her other parents, and the curiosity of the old town around her. She had grown up with three more or less stable parents, who made no secret of the fact that they loved her. She was old enough that that had taken root; taking Duke's absence personally was very far from her mind.

But by the time they'd crossed so far into the afternoon the sun was starting to descend noticably towards the horizon, she did start to worry. And... that's how she wound up outside of the pillow room, the ukulele under her arm, a bottle of iced tea in her hand as a peace offering.

She knocked.

"Dad?"

When Duke had finally physically exhausted himself, he'd ended up half-sprawled, half-curled against the wall. Right by the door, where he heard her loud and clear.

Fuck.

"Yeah," he said, hoarse from screaming. "What's up, kid?"

"You want something to drink?" Rory sounded tentative. "I made some iced tea."

"You keep saying that, too," Rory quipped, because she could, while she set the ukulele aside and scooted a little bit to the side to make room for him. "Mom's sick of hearing about it."

He didn't really want to talk to her. But she was his kid, apparently, so he couldn't not.

(His upbringing hadn't really come with any healthy examples of having boundaries with your own family, no.)

And, well. He was kind of dehydrated after a day of screaming and throwing things.

So he reached up silently and flicked the lock on the door, then cracked it open.

"Hi," Rory said quietly. "I'm just... going to crack this open a little more and put this on the floor, okay?"

A moment later, she tried to do just that, pushing forward slightly so she'd have more room.

Duke let her, though there was some resistance from the pillows themselves.

"Thanks." He let her set it down, then picked it up. Not really feeling up to touching anyone at the moment. (Not really feeling like he deserved physical touch at the moment.) "Sorry I'm not . . . more of a dad, right now."

Rory flashed him the smallest smile. "I've got two really great, kinda dumb dads at home," she said. "I can handle one young-ass version of one of them checking out for a day. I promise."

"Yeah, well." Duke sighed, leaning his head back against the wall. "Maybe I'm not."

"Maybe you're not what?"

"Okay with it."

"Jesus, dad," Rory said, shaking her head. "It's not like you have anything to prove or something."

Duke's laugh was wet and a little bit helpless.

"Don't I?"

Lucifer had meant it to be reassuring, but Duke had taken his "you've done all you can" as a slight on his usefulness, and he wasn't handling it well.

Lucifer would have... a lot to say about that, if Duke told him.

But Rory had no idea about that backstory. She sighed, and bit down on her bottom lip, and tried to think about how much she could even say.

"No," she said. "Look, if this is about being a dad, then-- fuck, you're my dad because dad, and mom, and you all fought really hard to make sure you could be. You being my dad is kind of like, a constant annoying reminder that my parents really love me and each other. So, no, you don't have to prove anything. You're already proof. Just like. Being someone I know."

Oh good. He was a struggle to be around. That was what that meant, right? She was Octavia and Lucifer's daughter, though, so trying to argue wouldn't do him any good.

"It's not about you," he said softly. "You just . . . showed up at a bad time."

"I know," Rory said, matter-of-factly. "Seriously. The only person beating you up about this is you."

She dropped to a squat, so she was at least speaking to him face-to-face. "I told you, I have three parents I know love me a ton," she said. "Didn't you hear me just now? You and dad like, pulled some crazy dimensional space-time shit to be there for me when I was a baby, come on. You don't do that if you're not krei about being a parent. So even if you weren't right now, I know you're gonna be."

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The Deck of the Cape Rouge, Sunday Noon-ish

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