fandomtownies | The Devil's Nest, Tuesday Night

"Yeah," Duke said dryly. "I can tell. Look, man, my ex tried to kill me this weekend, so I'm not really in the mood to make another enemy here. I'm sorry my joke didn't land. Can we be cool?"

Lucifer poured himself another measure of whiskey before he answered that.

"Fine," he said, sounding a bit like a grumpy child.

"Good," Duke said, nodding. "Thank you." Tiny set his bourbon down in front of him and he nodded his thanks then took a big swig of his own. "So. Sorority girls. Sounds like a story to me."

Honestly, the gangsters before them was probably a better one, but Lucifer didn't exactly want to give Duke fodder to start digging about his quote-unquote deeper issues again, so he left that.

"It's not that complicated," he said. "There's this college bar for senior not far from campus. I may have accidentally misplaced myself there."

Another sip from his glass.

Then he finally turned back around, features smoothed over. "In a way I'm lucky they found me," he joked.

And since Duke had apparently managed to insult Lucifer while even joking about any issues the guy might have, he was extra not looking to try to dig into anything right now.

Really, between Duke overcompensating for his whole "compulsive fixer" thing and Lucifer overreacting to any perceived slight of his character, it would be a minor miracle if either of them managed to say anything of any importance to each other for the next six months.

"You might have had to go find some other group to party with," he said, lifting his glass in a little acknowledging toast before taking another (smaller) sip. "Man, I do miss my sorority girl days."

In Lucifer's defense, it was less 'overreacting to a slight of his character' and more 'irrationally jumping at the first sign two people he cared about were about to ditch him because he was secretly a terrible person'.

Chloe 'You're not the Devil to me' Decker had got him good.

"Been a while since I woke up in a dorm room," he mused. "And then they ganged up on me to make me play guitar."

“Yeah? You do Wonderwall for them?” Duke asked.

That song was about as old as Baby One More Time was.

Lucifer rolled his eyes. "That Britney Spears cover is from a YouTube channel that does vintage covers," he said, "They were quite charmed by it, actually."

"I don't doubt it in the least. I'm pretty sure you could make anything charming."

"I was actually referring to the YouTube channel," Lucifer said, with a little wave of his drink. "But I was, yes. They were rather enthusiastic, before and after." Beat. "Even if one of them did make me play Taylor Swift."

"That better or worse than being made to play Counting Crows?"

"Well, she actually had sex with me afterwards," Lucifer said. "Weighs things a bit in her favor."

“. . . Yeah, I can see that.” Duke finished his bourbon. “I really don’t think you’re a monster. You know that, right?”

Lucifer set his glass down, and produced the opened bourbon bottle from the bar. "Yes, well, people aren't always as honest with me about something like that as they claim to be," he said. He held up the bottle, eyebrows up in a question.

Duke held out his glass with a little nod. "Humans can kind of suck that way, yeah. I try not to."

"But on that note," Lucifer said, tipping the bottle over Duke's glass, and congratulations, Duke, you were one of a few people who'd actually gotten Lucifer to pour them a drink in this club, gold star. "Let's consider this mess forgotten, shall we?"

Toss that brainweasel in with the others and put the lock back on that increasingly-difficult-to-secure vault, finally.

"Happy to," Duke said with a nod. "Just . . . maybe don't wait a week to tell me I'm being an idiot, next time, yeah?"

"Next time I ask you questions about something you said, maybe don't segue onto yoga," Lucifer countered, though it was with a decidedly less prickly, almost amused tone, this time.

"Note taken." Duke nodded and sipped his drink. "So. Apparently there's a man in my hometown who drives people violently insane whenever he plays music. Or -- there was, he's currently at sea with three escaped patients from a mental institution."

"This sounds like the plot of a horror movie," Lucifer editorialized.

Duke huffed a laugh. "My entire life sounds like a horror movie."

"No, I believe you've got a sizable chunk of pirate film in there somewhere," Lucifer pointed out. "What the bloody hell - if you'll pardon me - happened?"

"Horror movie about pirates?" Duke suggested. "Don't know the beginning of the story, but Tavi and I were hanging out on the boat when Nathan showed up and tried to kill me. Turns out, he'd been trying to track this guy down and got a brainful of crazy-making piano. I helped his new partner track the guy down to his family boat. Apparently, his wife had brain damage from a car accident, and he was using his music to, like . . . transfer her damage to other people so she'd be okay."

"Well, that's an oddly specific and horrifying way of saying I love you to someone," Lucifer said, though he did not sound particularly horrified, exactly.

Blame being the Devil and all.

"Backfired on him, anyway. The doc who runs the mental hospital got a brainful and kidnapped the guy so he could dissect him and learn his secrets."

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