PARTY!, The Beach, Saturday Night

[my_own_advocate]

The beach looked like someone had thrown an entire Pinterest board at it.

Strings of lights were strung between elegant poles, lighting up a fair portion of the beach (with the help of a few carefully-disguised generators, mind you). Large, stylized pots contained such multitudes of jasmine and lavender that at first glance they appeared to be bushes, instead - Seivarden's one contribution to the party.

Delicate paper screens carved the beach up into zones. Beach-classy lounge furniture sat on the sand, from chairs to sofas to even a bed or two. One corner held a stack of sheets, for anyone who didn't think bathing suits were appropriate eveningwear ('Togas encouraged!', the final Instagram post had said). Lucifer had supplied a ridiculous cooking setup for Duke in one corner, and a large bar ('open bar!' said the sign by it) stocked with almost every kind of alcohol known to man sat on the opposite side.

Even the water seemed to roll in like it figured it was part of an Instagram music video of some kind.

Seivarden had demanded a good party. And Lucifer had standards.

That it was extremely hot, that everyone had lost most of their wardrobe? That wasn't going to stand in the way of a bloody good party. There were ice cubes! Lucifer had brought a special freezer for extra ice cubes!

... and since it was Lucifer, no, he hadn't noticed the Truth Day thing yet.

[[ party! ]]

Comments

Re: Eat!

[betterthanaplan]

"Uh huh. And . . . what do you think a portal is, exactly?"

Re: Eat!

[my_own_advocate]

"A thing you order via a bloody app that gets you somewhere else," Lucifer said. "That's no more a dad-proof mode of transportation than a bloody moped."

Re: Eat!

[betterthanaplan]

"It's a hole between realities." Duke shook his head. "You think you're special, but you're no more immune to 'not every universe works like my universe' than the rest of us. I bet there's a billion devils running around from different universes, all with their own dads and daddy issues."

Re: Eat!

[my_own_advocate]

"You are so human," Lucifer said, "It's adorable."

Re: Eat!

[betterthanaplan]

"And you're way more human than you think you are," Duke said. "Which shouldn't be adorable, but kind of is."

Re: Eat!

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer rolled his eyes. He wasn't going to keep arguing about this. How the bloody Hell did you communicate that dad was dad to a lapsing Buddhist who smelled like fish right now?

"If you start saying anything that sounds like a puppy-eyed crush like half the people at this party tonight," he said, "I will throw you bodily at the thousand-year-old murderous Viking vampire who won't stop making googly eyes at me."

Re: Eat!

[betterthanaplan]

"Wow, I really wish the 'murderous' part of that description made the rest sound less attractive." Duke shook his head. "I don't have a crush on you, Lucifer. You're way too infuriating for that. Which is impressive, since 'infuriating' is my type."

Re: Eat!

[my_own_advocate]

"Good, because it's beginning to give me a complex on what is still supposed to be my vacation," Lucifer sighed.

Re: Eat!

[betterthanaplan]

"You know you own property here, right?" Duke asked. "And go to work regularly. I wouldn't call this so much a vacation as a lifestyle change. Even if it does end up being temporary."

Re: Eat!

[my_own_advocate]

"Please, by that reasoning I'd be a citizen of the Cayman Islands twenty times over," Lucifer said. "I'm just... taking an extended break in one location and trying to avoid boredom."

Re: Eat!

[betterthanaplan]

"You do know there's a step in between 'vacation' and 'declaring citizenship', right? Sometimes you can just . . . live somewhere."

Re: Eat!

[my_own_advocate]

"I don't want this to feel permanent in any way," Lucifer said.

Maybe snapped. A little.

Re: Eat!

[betterthanaplan]

". . . Do you want anything to feel permanent?"

Re: Eat!

[my_own_advocate]

"That hardly matters now, does it?"

And from snappish to snide.

Re: Eat!

[betterthanaplan]

"Alright, I spilled my shit here, Luce. What bothers you so much about the idea of just being here? Is it just being lovesick over your detective, or is there something else there, too?"

Re: Eat!

[my_own_advocate]

"You have no place making half-sneery comments about lovesickness in anyone," Lucifer said, eyes narrowing briefly in a twitch.

Re: Eat!

[betterthanaplan]

"And you are reading sneering into friendly concern to try to dodge the question," Duke said. "I may need therapy, but even I can tell that."

Re: Eat!

[my_own_advocate]

"I didn't come here to grow roots, Duke," Lucifer snapped. "Whatever you think you know about me is entirely who I've chosen to be here. Los Angeles is my home, and I've given it up in the bloody divorce."

That was only it in a superficial sense, but he was an onion that way.

Re: Eat!

[betterthanaplan]

"I live on a boat, Luce. I've been in Fandom longer now than I've been anywhere since I was 21. I'm telling you you can have multiple homes. Calling being here something other than a vacation isn't betraying what you had with Chloe, it's just -- life."

Re: Eat!

[my_own_advocate]

"It's your life," Lucifer said, pointed. "Your truth is not mine."

Never had he felt such sympathy for Octavia in some of their earliest arguments as he did now.

Re: Eat!

[betterthanaplan]

Well, Lucifer had always been exceptionally bad at empathizing with anything that wasn't exactly like his own experience.

"I'm not looking for an argument here, man. You've been really helpful to me, and I value our friendship, so I'm just trying to balance out the karma a little. You might be happier if you learned how to just -- be where you are. And yes, I'm aware there's a certain amount of irony in me trying to tell you that after the last few months."

Re: Eat!

[my_own_advocate]

"This place is a cesspool of whimsy, swamp, and a particular kind of interpersonal torture both fascinating and intensely terrible," Lucifer said. The... irritation hadn't left him, despite Duke's slight shift in tone. "The only things that redeem it are a few decent people worth knowing and the knowledge I don't have to worry about walking into the wrong bar and seeing her bloody face."

He sagged back into his seat.

"Even if I was in the market for a second home, this would hardly be my first choice. Or my fiftieth."

Re: Eat!

[betterthanaplan]

"Then why are you still here?" Duke asked, no accusing or teasing, just soft and curious. "You could be anywhere. How likely is Chloe to show up in a random bar in Ibiza?"

Re: Eat!

[my_own_advocate]

"Because I think we've more than proven I'm as perfectly capable of being miserable on Ibiza as I am here," Lucifer said. Sounding impatient, though with what, even he wasn't sure. "Or anywhere else."

Re: Eat!

[betterthanaplan]

"So . . . here's just where you happened to land?" Duke asked. "Because there's got to be other than just 'no Chloe' that keeps you putting up with the weather and the weird."