fandomtownies | The beach out by the lighthouse, Monday morning

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The beach out by the lighthouse, Monday morning

Duke clued into what was going on this morning pretty quickly. The dream he woke up to, about his, uh, "encounter" with a siren-esque trouble last summer, was a pretty big clue.

He was not into it. And if last time was any indication, it'd just get worse as the week wore on.

So he'd left the Rouge fairly early that morning, without stopping for breakfast or on-deck yoga or even any coffee. He barely took the time to put on some clothes and grab his phone before heading out to wander down the coastline.

He'd remember soon to text Octavia and let her know he'd miss their regular breakfast date. He couldn't even work out precisely why he was feeling so -- moody about this. It was just a little heightened libido. He had not one but two extremely hot partners right now. How was this a problem?

Staring at the water might not be the best way to come up with an answer to that, but he was damn well willing to give it a try.

[open, should anyone want to hang with Moody McMoodison here!
content warning: some flashbacky text in comments, referring to past coercive sexual encounters]

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please tell me you're still on the island and haven't magically vanished off to Maine again

Lucifer had smelled the pollen yesterday. Frankly, bar a moment of 'hey, free drugs!' and the calculation that it'd be a few days before he actually felt any of it, he hadn't thought much of it at all - and made little connection between Duke's vanishing act and the pollen.

still on the island Duke sent back.

And then stared at the empty message space for a long time, trying to decide what, if anything else, to say.

Well, that calmed down the immediate ~~terror~~ surprise. Lucifer eyed his phone a while longer, wondering if anything else was incoming.

Right, silence. Duke was probably busy with something.

All right

He was just... going to get up and get coffee going, then. Duke would be back soon enough, no reason to check his phone.

Overmuch.

Duke sighed, frustrated with himself (in too many ways), and looked back up at the water for awhile, his phone held in both his hands in his lap. He tried to time his breathing with the gentle washing in and out of the waves, and not think about his breath catching as his lungs aged too quickly in his chest. Tugging prematurely grey hair out in chunks.

Helena taking his hand and leading him away, clouding his mind so that even knowing he shouldn't, his mind and body didn't say no. . . .

Right, so. Meditation was not going to work right now. Duke growled softly and looked back at his phone.

fandom is having one of its 'special times', he sent. Then included a handful of eggplant and peach emojis for good measure.

Lucifer blinked as his phone made noise again. He glanced down at the screen.

I know, I smelled it yesterday, sex drugs all around, we've been through this one before

He frowned at his screen. Felt a bit wrong leaving it like that, somehow. But what to say?

He tacked on a,

Is it messing with you?

Duke grit his teeth, unreasonably (as far as he could tell) annoyed by that 'we've been through this one before' comment.

It'd happened before, so he should be fine with it, right?

don't like the island messing with my body, he replied. Eventually. It took him awhile to filter past all the snide or accusatory responses that had come to mind first, none of which Lucifer actually deserved right now.

Lucifer frowned at his phone, and started typing out a breezy comment about how it was just sex hormones, it wasn't--

... and then stopped.

The words As long as you're having fun, right? spooked through his head, unbidden (You have no right to yell at me. I'm just a person, Lucifer followed in its wake). He stared down at his phone for a while longer.

Didn't matter much that he thought it just seemed like fun free drugs, did it?

He slowly deleted each character of his reply. Then typed a new one.

We don't have to be on the island this week

Duke watched the little dots indicating the other person was typing and tried not anticipate -- well, anything, really. He had no idea how Lucifer would respond to this.

He never could have guessed that answer, though. Apparently when you expressed yourself to people who actually cared about you, they made room for your needs. They made room for your needs. Who knew? Not Duke.

. . . Oh. Here came some guilt.

don't you have to work?

You could thank five years of Lucifer banging his Lucifer-ness about a much more emotionally stable human for this one, Duke, because he wouldn't have been nearly as accommodating even a year ago.

I can skip or portal in. Doesn't seem to be much of a point to making you miserable by staying here when I can easily play piano and drink elsewhere.

Duke swallowed hard against the waging guilt and relief and -- somehow -- increased horniness that the offer brought up in him.

think Tavi will be up for some time in Baltimore?

knowing her she's about as fond of this as you are, Lucifer texted. we could even take both boats

Duke hadn't been thinking boats. He was maybe a little worried that if they took the Rouge anywhere right now, he'd vanish again, getting sucked back to the ruin of Haven.

Maybe more than a little, honestly.

or just get a couple hotel rooms?

Lucifer reached for the coffee pot and poured himself a cup.

I can find us somewhere nice. Near the water, he texted back.

Duke nodded, not even caring that Lucifer couldn't see him. He tried to think of a way of saying "thank you" that would encompass how relieved (and embarrassed, and still definitely guilty) the offer made him feel.

I am going to do such amazing things to you when I'm sure it's my own idea to do it and not the island's

. . . Eh, good enough.

Let's save the promises for when you're back in your own frame of mind, shall we?

Something like relief settled in Lucifer's shoulders. He had somehow managed not to screw this one up.

I'll text Octavia

Edited 2021-04-05 18:09 (UTC)

That was exactly how Duke felt every time he had a decent conversation with Octavia, these days.

He nodded again, ducking his head with a sigh.

thnx. let me know what she says

And then he went back to staring at the water. And hoping this damn sex pollen crap couldn't follow them to the mainland.

It would take about fifteen minutes, give or take, of conversation elsewhere before Lucifer replied again.

She's still deciding if she wants to come, he texted, But thinks it's a good idea for us to go.

She was still deciding.

She might not go with them.

Duke was not kind of panicking over that idea. If she needed to stick around for some reason that was fine, she had to deal with her shit her way and didn't need him here to help her with it. She'd made that much perfectly obvious over the last week, after all.

maybe we should stick around, then?

Look, feeling guilty over putting your own needs first was hard to shake even when you knew it was utterly ridiculous, okay?

Oh, for the love of all that was--

Lucifer stared at that text.

Then at the one of Octavia opting out of breakfast.

Right, as far as he saw it, there were three options: they all stayed and Octavia would be slightly weird and Duke would be miserable and he'd have terrible blue balls for the whole thing, or he somehow convinced Octavia to come along after all and she'd be slightly weird and potentially weirder in Baltimore but Duke would be all right and he might not wind up frustrated, or he took Duke to Baltimore and Duke would be less miserable but fret the whole time and Octavia would-- something?

He groaned and rubbed his face. "Why can't any of this be simple?" he muttered. And then, since no one was there to hear him anyway, "How on Earth did they do this by themselves before I came around?"

He sucked in a deep breath.

Right. What would he do if he were in Duke's shoes but had his own, clearly superior, sense of looking after himself?

You got up at Father knows when this morning to go brood Father knows wherever because you're miserable about the bloody sex pollen, he texted, we are NOT staying on this bloody island just because you're afraid you'll inconvenience Octavia otherwise.

Edited 2021-04-05 18:48 (UTC)

thats not what I Duke started, then deleted it.

nono I know, I'm not

Delete

what if she needs

Delete

Then he stared at his screen again for awhile longer. Pondering throwing his phone into the water like he had last summer when Octavia was missing.

I'm on the beach. Your dad has nothing to do with it

Well. At least that one was honest and not too pathetic?

Send.

Well, Octavia wasn't going to be there for breakfast.

And both of them were being ridiculous.

So hopefully Duke wasn't terribly surprised when a Devil in a tan-and-blue suit came strolling up the beach some fifteen minutes later. "Morning," he called.

Duke snorted faintly and tucked his phone in his pocket.

"You here to drag me off to a hotel like you're a caveman?"

Lucifer rolled his eyes. "Please," he said. "I plan to walk you to my car in a few hours when we're finished packing."

"So, uh." Duke twisted at his own fingers in his lap. "Octavia made up her mind, huh?"

She wasn't coming. Of course she wasn't. And that was fine, because she had her own life to live and her own shit to take care of and Duke could focus on his.

It was all just fine.

"She's not coming right this minute," Lucifer agreed, watching him be all weird and Duke about it. "Stop it."

"I can't," Duke snapped. Really, like he would be obsessing over this if it didn't feel like he had to?

Lucifer's eyes rolled skywards for a moment as he thought of the text he had just sent Octavia.

"You have a choice here," he said. "You can stay here and feel like hell, but save yourself from the guilt of not doing whatever it is Octavia wants to do, or we can go somewhere that isn't trying to force you into feeling one way or another against your will. What's it going to be, Duke?"

(His powers were about desire, but he wasn't an angel of desire. He was--

Well, that didn't matter at this point in his life, did it.)

Duke scowled, mostly at himself. "I won't be anymore fun in Baltimore," he said.

Lucifer probably already knew that.

He shoved his hands into his hair, feeling the way it pulled against his scalp. (He'd told Octavia to pull his hair once, when they were fooling around in the woods. Helena hadn't pulled on his hair, hadn't done much of anything other than ride him hard and put him away wet --)

"But at least maybe there my brain will be my own."

As long as you're having fun, right?

"Then we're going to Baltimore," Lucifer said, like that was that.

"Yeah," Duke said, on a long sigh. "Just . . . be ready to have to yell at me at least a couple more times." He looked up with a wan smile. "Sorry about not leaving a note or something this morning."

"You can apologize to me by not using the word 'sorry' again today," Lucifer sighed, and walked up to him, holding out a hand. "Come on then, you ridiculous pirate."

"I would not hold your breath for that," Duke snarked. Then, hesitating for just a moment while he steeled himself (he was reasonably sure he wouldn't just try to suck face the moment they touched, but, well. Sex pollen), he reached up and took Lucifer's hand.

Lucifer tugged him onto his feet.

No, seriously, he hadn't had nearly enough sex pollen for it to do anything for him yet. "Promise to spray you with a spray bottle if you get rowdy," he said.

Meanwhile, Duke was all too human and feeling the pollen quite thoroughly. And thus answered. "Hot," and clearly had to stop himself from just diving right in for Lucifer's lips.

Lucifer snorted. "How about you walk ahead of me," he said, nudging Duke, "And you hold that thought until we're in Baltimore."

Duke bit down on a whine, then tried to cover by clearing his throat.

This was why he'd run away this morning, Luce.

"Yeah," he said quick and heavy as he spun on his heel to start back for the Rouge. "Yep, sounds like a plan. Mmhm."

Lucifer made an amused noise.

"If it helps," he added merrily, slipping his hands into his pockets, "It takes at least a day or three for the pollen to actually get to me."

"Oh good, so now you're just going to watch me go nuts until this shit clears my system."

"On the bright side, you're not very likely to slip and accidentally have sex this way," Lucifer pointed out.

"Oh my -- your dad -- how is this my life?"

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The beach out by the lighthouse, Monday morning

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