Lucifer's Mansion, late Wednesday night

[betterthanaplan]

It took Duke awhile to get really properly trashed -- another sign that maybe he needed to pull back on the casual drinking -- but once he was properly wobbly, he decided to lean into the impulse he'd had at the Devil's Nest tonight and show up drunk on Lucifer's doorstep.

He had a large glass of rum with him in one hand and a bottle of brandy tucked under the other arm. He set the rum down with great drunken ceremony and dignity at the end of Lucifer's front walk for the squirrels -- he really didn't need to be having anymore public meltdowns over this, thanks -- and then sprawled himself down onto Lucifer's front stoop.

And, because he was in fact a drunken sailor and it seemed thematic, he started to sing.

"Eliiiiiiise believe I never wanted this
I thought this time I'd keep all of my promises!"

He maybe should have put out more rum.

[For the one who lives here, and NFB please!]

Comments

[betterthanaplan]

"Right," Duke said, tripping over the doorjam. "Heard about that." He looked at his brandy bottle. "Not doin' that part. This is expensive brandy."

[my_own_advocate]

"Yes, and I would also appreciate it, because it's a pain to clean up," Lucifer said, stopping halfway down the hall to turn around and make sure Duke wasn't hurting himself. "And why exactly did you decide to follow in her almost-exact footsteps?"

[betterthanaplan]

Duke leaned against the wall while he thought about that. It took a little while.

". . . Symbolism?"

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer moved past him to close the door. "And did you come up with that before or after you got horrifically plastered?" he asked.

[betterthanaplan]

"Um," Duke said. "Before. . . . But it might have been a joke until after."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer let out a deep sigh. "Of course," he said. "Am I going to have to carry you upstairs as well, or are you able to summon some level of coordination in that already-gangly, flaily body of yours?"

He had his doubts.

[betterthanaplan]

"I'm not flaily," Duke grumbled. "I did all the stairs coming over here."

Slowly. With a lot of pauses. Occasionally draping himself across handrails.

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer turned to face him, and a little amusement snuck back into his voice. "Really? Can you stand up straight without leaning on anything?"

[betterthanaplan]

"I don't do anything straight," Duke said proudly. He smirked at his own joke and pushed off the wall to stand upright.

And landed against the opposite wall.

[my_own_advocate]

"As I'm very intimately aware, darling, but no points for convincing me you are anything besides utterly uselessly hammered," Lucifer said.

And reached out to just... peel Duke off the wall. He clearly needed support.

[betterthanaplan]

"I may have had too much brandy," Duke mumbled, letting Lucifer peel and steer him. "Am I doing this right? I don't actually know how this 'show up drunk at Lucifer's' thing is s'posed to work."

[my_own_advocate]

"Well, so far, you are definitely following Octavia's playbook," Lucifer sighed, guiding him towards the stairs. "Which is a weird thing to do, just to be utterly clear here."

Okay. Trying one step up the stairs with old boozy here...

[betterthanaplan]

"I get drunk at home all the time," Duke said. "I'm tryin' something different."

And Lucifer came over all the time, and Duke didn't want him to feel like he was the only one putting any effort into this -- friendship. He knew what that felt like and it sucked.

Admittedly, in retrospect making Lucifer clean up his messy drunk self was maybe not the best way to balance those scales.

"Am I being terrible?" he asked. He started leaning back towards the door. "I c'n go. 'Snot a problem."

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer sighed, pulling him back in.

"I am fairly sure you'll break your neck if I let you go back out there," he said, "and I don't remember telling you to leave."

[betterthanaplan]

"You said it was weird," Duke said, as though that meant the same thing. "I'm getting my weird all over you."

[my_own_advocate]

"You are," Lucifer agreed.

Arguing with Duke seemed pointless. Scooping him off his feet was, per the Octavia playbook, more effective, and so he proceeded accordingly.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke let out a startled squawk at the sudden change, swallowing down nausea. "Hhhholy shit."

He hadn't been carried anywhere in -- he wanted to think 'ever', but then a memory came rushing back, the paramedics scooping him off the steps outside Beattie's lighthouse. He flinched away from it and tried to just hang onto Lucifer instead.

"You're really strong."

[my_own_advocate]

"I am an angel," Lucifer reminded him. "I should take you to the guest room to sleep this off."

Though that felt slightly less natural with Duke than it had with Octavia back then, for whatever reason.

Either way, he was heading up the stairs, and he could always take another flight if he changed his mind.

[betterthanaplan]

"Don't wanna sleep," Duke said, though there wasn't much energy in it. He knew he didn't get to ask anything more from Lucifer than what he was already getting.

"Shoulda stuck around. Seen if she wanted to talk." He sighed. "Was too scared, though."

[my_own_advocate]

Right. The couch in the master bedroom it was, then. Lucifer got to the top of the stairs and moved onto the next flight.

(Not that he needed much convincing.)

"She did turn up to the bar, and not to your boat," he said, "Much as it would have been nice for you two to get around to working this bloody nonsense out already."

[betterthanaplan]

"Wish she'd warned me," Duke muttered. "Guess that woulda meant talking too, though."

He was starting to feel like an idiot, though he was pretty sure if he tried to drink any more brandy right now, his stomach would rebel.

[my_own_advocate]

"It's Octavia," Lucifer said. "We're all just permanently playing catch-up to whatever pops up in her head at any given moment."

Just a few more steps to the landing.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke picked his head up to blink blearily at Lucifer.

"You do that too?"

[my_own_advocate]

"Of course I do, I'm not a mind reader, I just stop talking whenever she pulls back and wait for her to say something else," Lucifer said.

And onto the landing it was.

[betterthanaplan]

"It's a long wait," Duke said. "She's not very communicative."

Well, that was the word he was trying to say, anyway. What came out was a bit more drunkenly muddled, but he felt he got his point across anyway.