The Cape Rouge, Later Friday Afternoon

[okteiviakom]

Octavia had urged Lucifer to fly Duke back to the boat. Something about safety, and security, and a defendable spot that was closed off and sort of separate from the rest of the island --

So in one word: control. Which Octavia was grasping for, had been grasping for from just about the second she'd laid eyes on Mara at Selkie Peak. Something she'd thought she'd had, with the portal idea, only to immediately find out how wrong she'd been.

Making Lucifer get Duke home as soon as possible had been another flaily attempt at it.

Of course, as Octavia had come to realize very soon after, it meant she'd had to let both of them out of her sight. She didn't know if Duke had come to yet. Didn't know anything, except that this was the fastest she'd ever crossed the island, trying to race an angel back to port.

Her heart was thumping like thunder in her ears and her lungs ached when she burst onto, then into the Cape Rouge.

And yet: "Lucifer! Is he still out?"

[ooc: For the two modded with permission! Follows this. Note to squirrels: That Octavia and Lucifer got Duke back to the boat is fine for broadcast, everything else NFB pls and thank you!]

Comments

[my_own_advocate]

"I don't care."

Octavia had been the only bloody thing Haven hadn't touched. And now...

[betterthanaplan]

“Well I do!” Duke said, not realizing he was going to shout until he was doing it. “Gloria has never been anything but good to either of us. Even after I killed her son.”

[my_own_advocate]

Funny. Lucifer thought the shouting would hit him worse than it did.

"Yes, there's always something else, isn't there?" he said.

[betterthanaplan]

“Yeah, Luce, there is. I care about people, okay? And I’m tired of feeling like I have to apologize for that!”

[my_own_advocate]

"You care about Haven," Lucifer said flatly. He desperately tried to summon his anger, but hit a resigned, fatalistic exhaustion instead. "You care about eating Haven's bloody sins. You cared your way into a trap that nearly blew up all over Fandom and may now ruin Octavia's life. But that doesn't matter, does it? Because at least you cared."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke’s eyes burned and for a moment he wondered what color they were. If his tears would be black and float through the air; little slicks of oily pollution.

He destroyed everything he touched.

“Fuck you, Lucifer.”

[my_own_advocate]

"This is why I don't tell you what I need," Lucifer said. Tired. Ignoring that 'fuck you'. "I can do that and lose you, or I can keep my mouth shut and hope there'll still be something of you left tomorrow, or next week, or next month."

[betterthanaplan]

“Then why are you still here?” Duke demanded, his voice choked. “If all I do is fuck up with my messy caring? I ruined Octavia’s life, right? After daring to hope I hadn’t lost one of my best friends to that fucking psycho.” He was crying in earnest now, almost hoping his eyes were black. That maybe he could purge the awful feeling in his chest; could see the poison that infected him come pouring out.

He missed the numb fugue of the last several months.

“But I lost her anyway. And I still care. So if that’s a problem for you then fucking leave.”

[my_own_advocate]

Something squeezed in Lucifer's throat. The wild urge to do just that, get up and walk out and never come back, twisted up within it.

"I'm still here because I keep hoping if I hold on long enough, one day this will be over," he said. "That this isn't a desperate race to the bottom. Because I love you and I do not want you to be alone."

But it had been years of this, and every day eroded something inside of him.

[betterthanaplan]

And so Lucifer got the same question Octavia had, years ago after the volcano. Though this time, voiced on a sob, it came out more desperate than lost.

"Why?"

Why did they love him, of all people? Him, who came from a bloodline that had been toxic for generations. Who'd been damned by the narrative the moment his old babysitter had told him about his death.

And if they did, why didn't the people who'd been meant to love him, the first 35 years of his life?

[my_own_advocate]

It wasn't the first time Duke had asked him something like it. Every time, Lucifer had produced-- lists and lists and lists of reasons.

"I just do," he said. "And I can't just-- switch it off."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke swiped his hand over his eyes, smearing tears into his cheeks.

“Then why do you think I can?”

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer swallowed.

"I just want you to be safe," he said. "To stop taking responsibility for those who won't take responsibility for themselves. To-- to value your life as much as we do."

[betterthanaplan]

“I value my life, Luce. I just also want to help when I know I can.” He took a shaky breath. “That’s how I value it. I wish you could accept that.”

[my_own_advocate]

"Valuing your life as something you can sacrifice on the altar of people who won't return the favor is not what I meant, Duke," Lucifer said.

He got up off the sofa, finally. To go find himself a bottle of something.

[betterthanaplan]

“Yeah. You’ve made that abundantly clear, Luce. I know you don’t get it. But I wish you would accept it.”

[my_own_advocate]

"Accept it?" Lucifer pulled a bottle of scotch from the cabinet blindly. Popped off the top, and took a swig. "Have I not been here every day since you came back from Haven, making sure you were all right, that you were comfortable, that you found a way to alleviate the troubles knocking around your head?" he asked, turning back to Duke in an almost-violent swinging motion. "Or the depression before that? Did I not obediently shut up about your brother when you demanded it? Have I not kindly demurred every time you've asked me what I needed recently?"

He gestured at Duke with the bottle. "You don't want acceptance, you want me to agree with your self-destructive behavior. You want me to pat your head and sigh and say yes, it's awful, but you're being such a good one about it."

[betterthanaplan]

“Kindly demurred.” Duke echoed. “Yeah, nah, nothing says love like kindly demurring when I try to care for you for once. You want me to change, Luce, and that’s not going to happen. I care about people. And I won’t apologize for that!”

[my_own_advocate]

"Yes, thank you," Lucifer said, and barely controlled the urge to fling the bottle at the wall. "It is abundantly clear you don't think of me as people."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke’s head jerked back like he’d been slapped.

“. . . What?”

[my_own_advocate]

"What?" Lucifer retorted. "Am I wrong?"

[betterthanaplan]

“Yes!” Duke yelled. “Fuck, Lucifer, what the hell?!”

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer took another violent swig of the drink and seriously considered dramatically storming off - though whether towards the deck or towards the bedroom, he had no idea. That confusion kept him locked in place, at least for another moment.

"You wanted to know what I need, well, I spent most of date night begging Octavia for it," he said. Another swig. "For a promise I have some kind of future with at least one of you. But I can't ask that of you, because you've been quite clear that all those other people come first."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “What?” he said again, then held up his hand to forestall an answer. “That’s not — the problem isn’t that they matter more. The problem is you don’t seem to think they matter at all.”

[my_own_advocate]

"The problem is there is no difference between the two when your answer is always to break yourself to pieces for them," Lucifer-- snapped? Said? Something with both desperation and anger in it. "But they don't have to handle the clean-up, do they? They don't have to watch you stumble about for months, trying to be fine, failing to be fine. They don't have to feed you when you're struggling to find your appetite, they don't have to calm you and wipe your bloody brow when you're mired in nightmares, they don't have to wake up every morning wondering if this is a day you'll actually get off the ship or it's going to be a day when you can't get out of bed."

He took a sip. Lowered the bottle. Looked Duke in the eye. "They can just make their demands, get their pound of flesh, and trust that you'll wander back in, ready to give more, the next time they need you. Meanwhile I can't even bloody say I want to burn that place to the ground without you jumping down my throat for wanting to change you. Or implying I want to murder a woman who, may I remind you, has had every chance to leave the town that has done nothing but kill her friends and family for the past few years."