Luke's, Thursday

[betterthanaplan]

Duke wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to the diner today, for all that he was technically here. Ever since this morning his phone had been blowing up with weird messages, which clearly all needed to be responded to properly. Like the weird sales message about birds. Or the chick who wanted to offer him therapy. The makeover one seemed pretty spammy, but what the hell, he was willing to play when they got creative like that. And the rich genius kid was just annoying.

Lucifer's message, of course, he absolutely had to reply to, with four rapid-fire texts. And then wait with a sinking feeling of dread for a reply.

His staff, who had all been in Fandom much longer than he had, watched all this with knowing looks, and continued doing their job as normal.

Today's specials
^[rehydrated] Catch of the day!
Lutefisk with mushy peas

Duke really should have been paying more attention to his staff today.

Luke's was open and OCD free.

Comments

[my_own_advocate]

It was quite a while into the afternoon by the time Lucifer stomped into the diner, looking deeply irritated.

"I'm changing my number," he called, "And have drowned my damned phone like it deserved."

[betterthanaplan]

"What, did you get hacked or something?" Duke asked. "Is that why you sent me that weird text about not being allowed to have sex anymore?"

[my_own_advocate]

"Although perhaps I should have picked an execution method that was a bit more Biblical, to make an example for th--"

It took a moment for Duke's words to penetrate Lucifer's rant. He blinked.

"Why on Earth would I text you about not having sex?"

Give him a second.

[betterthanaplan]

"That's what I wanted to know!" Duke held his phone up, waggling it. "Did you let Seivarden get into your head again?"

[my_own_advocate]

"What?" Lucifer said again. "I mean, she did leave me a bizarre message telling me to 'fuck off', and I got a message from her ex going on about not... having... to have sex..."

He trailed off.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke laughed. "Which you tried to answer and accidentally sent to me instead?" he guessed. "Little bit Freudian there, huh?"

[my_own_advocate]

"I repeat," Lucifer said, looking at him with an expression that could be best defined as 'unimpressed', "Why on Earth would I text you about not having sex?"

[betterthanaplan]

"Look, it's not like I wasn't very surprised to get it," Duke said. "As, you know, you should be able to tell from the response I sent you."

[my_own_advocate]

And now Lucifer's expression went confused. "What response?"

[betterthanaplan]

Duke opened his message app and pulled up Lucifer's text and his responses.

His responses . . . were not there.

"Um."

[my_own_advocate]

"What um?"

[betterthanaplan]

"I know I sent them," Duke said. (He was starting to worry he'd only imagined sending them. Was it possible he was actually losing his mind?

Why would the first symptom be hallucinating text messages?)

He opened his list of messages, looking through them. "There! See? 'No one says we can't have sex.' I sent -- why did that go to Danny?!"

. . . He was definitely losing his mind.

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer blinked a few times, then reached into his inner pocket for his flask. "Well," he said, "That will be... awkward."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke kept scrolling. "Danny . . . Beau . . . Rosa. . . . Every one of these went to someone else."

He stopped scrolling and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Including Octavia. Fuck."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer paused. Just... paused.

Finally, he said, "Well, I can come with you to explain the absolute insanity to her and thus hopefully avoid some kind of bizarre phone message backlash? What did you send her?"

Because he was moderately worried about how that conversation was going to go otherwise, with both of them in their current frames of mind.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke read out the text in question, his voice the sort of blank that usually only Octavia managed.

"'This isn't a delayed response to Tuesday, is it'"

He was an idiot.

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer let out a sigh and rolled his eyes. "It could be worse," he said.

[betterthanaplan]

"How'd this even happen?" Duke asked, still poking at his phone. "I didn't just randomly open up a bunch of messages when I sent those."

[my_own_advocate]

"Well," Lucifer said slowly, "Before I annihilated my phone, I was getting a lot of weird messages from all sorts of people..."

[betterthanaplan]

"Yeah? Did you get the spam about drunk makeovers, too?"

[my_own_advocate]

"No, I got people bellowing at me about incest and being too loud last night," Lucifer said. "I may have... bellowed back."

He may be a bit of a powder keg of temper at the moment.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke stopped scrolling through his phone and looked up. "Incest?"

[my_own_advocate]

"Something about liking my siblings and it being illegal," Lucifer said, frowning. "Which frankly is disgusting and terrible on so many, many awful levels."

[betterthanaplan]

". . . Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and guess that that one was a wrong number, too," Duke said. "What the hell? Is Fandom fucking with us, or is it actually broken?"

[my_own_advocate]

"What seems more likely to you?" Lucifer said dryly. "Either way, it's bloody annoying."

[betterthanaplan]

"If it's fucking with us, it'll go away on its own," Duke said. "If it's broken, we'll need to fix it." He sighed, and finally put his phone away.

"Right. Other than the phones going all batshit, how's your day been?"

[my_own_advocate]

"Extraordinarily boring," Lucifer said, finally picking a seat for himself. "Did you know Caritas is getting flooded with spring breakers this year?"

[betterthanaplan]

"I did not. Sounds either like a good time, or maybe an infestation."

[my_own_advocate]

"There was a jello wrestling group in the lounge," Lucifer said, grinning. "Apparently miss Smith got kicked out of it after getting in the middle of a complicated love dodecahedron involving this woman named Donna, a man called Riley, and all of their friends."

... Summer's tales had been a welcome distraction from everything else yesterday.

[betterthanaplan]

"Damn." Duke nodded, impressed. "Summer's living her best life."

[my_own_advocate]

"She did have to communicate by whiteboard on account of losing her voice," Lucifer said, sipping from his flask. "But all in all, not a terrible use of a night. It just makes the ensuing day look a bit boring in comparison."

Especially with Octavia brooding wherever and Duke at the diner.

[betterthanaplan]

"Give or take a handful of misplaced texts," Duke said. "Well, grab a seat. I'll grab you some --" He looked at the specials board. "Who the fuck decided to serve lutefisk?!"

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer squinted. "Aren't you the one who decides what's on the menu?"

[betterthanaplan]

"About as much as you're the one who chooses the music at Devil's Nest when you're there."

[my_own_advocate]

"You realize that guitar player was a one-time invader, right," Lucifer said, stuffing his flask back into his inner pocket. "How did you not notice your own menu?"

[betterthanaplan]

"I was dealing with my phone. It's not like they're usually just waiting to serve lutefisk."

[my_own_advocate]

"Were you really that worried about a few text messages?" Lucifer, who had yelled at several random people over the phone today, asked. "Just for the record, I would never attempt to sex-break-up with you over text. That's just tacky."

[betterthanaplan]

"Didn't think you would. Sounded more like you wanted to tell someone off, so I was, you know, agreeing with you."

[my_own_advocate]

"All right, good," Lucifer said (look Duke's insecurities were all over the place lately). "So... do you have anything that isn't lutefisk?"

[betterthanaplan]

“We’d better. Freezer’s basically a portal to another dimension. Anything you’re craving in particular?”

[my_own_advocate]

"Well, I can't request anything less than seafood in here," Lucifer teased. "What's the best shrimp dish in your arsenal?"