betterthanaplan | The Cape Rouge, Monday afternoon

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The Cape Rouge, Monday afternoon

So after a brief attempt to outrun his baggage resulted in running into Dwight in the park and then feeling guilty for abandoning Lucifer (he hadn't noticed the "compulsive need to take care of others" fanny pack that had strapped itself around his waist, too distracted by that ever-present weight of the silver "killer destiny (literally)" chest), Duke was back at his boat, doing his best not to fall down the stairs to the deck under all that weight.

"Luce?" he called. "Uh, honey, I'm home?"

[for the boyfriend!]

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Lucifer shook his head. "Do you need me to remove that, at least?" he said, pointing at the massive thing.

"You are absolutely welcome to try," Duke said, sounding resigned.

And suddenly found himself holding a little clutch purse reading "resigned to his fate", which he immediately flung away with a squawk. It hit the bulkhead and vanished.

Well. At least some of his baggage was temporary?

Lucifer made a frustrated noise and barged over towards Duke, immediately beginning the process of pulling and dragging on the damned luggage.

And ended up dragging Duke right along with it.

"Told you," he said with a sigh. "Haven doesn't like to let go."

"I will not let this thing beat me," Lucifer growled. "How is it even attached?"

With thick stitches of blood-red leather, naturally.

"I have no idea. It had straps at first, but when I shrugged those off it just . . . stayed."

Inability to let things go rolled past in the background.

Lucifer attempted to lift the bag just enough to peek between it and Duke's skin. "Come on..."

"Ow," Duke said casually. Then scowled at the "tries to hide pain" bag. "Hey! I said 'ow' didn't I?!"

"Ow how?" Lucifer demanded.

"I don't know, it's pulling at something!"

The "anger defense mechanism" matched his "sarcastic defense mechanism" perfectly.

"... It's not genuinely attached to your back, is it?"

God, said a very large trunk, succinctly.

"Um," Duke said. ". . . Maybe?"

"Might be more trouble than he's worth" said the bag that popped up next to that trunk.

" ...Perhaps we should get some scissors."

No, seriously, physically cannot leave well alone, said the sizable companion to the bag and trunk.

"Or just . . . ignore it?" Duke suggested. "It's not like you can cut out my actual trouble, so it'll just come back until this whole thing is over, right?"

The little "unqualified voice of reason" pouch was too small to even read properly, but damned if it didn't pop up anyway.

would love to torch partner's hometown to the ground was a lot easier to read. Whoops.

"How can you ignore it?" Lucifer asked. "It is physically welded to your back."

“I don’t know, but we can try!”

You didn’t want Duke running away, so “pretend it’s not there” was his only strategy left!

"I'm getting the scissors," Lucifer informed him, letting go of Duke abruptly to go march into the kitchen.

Hyperfocus = coping mechanism, said the handbag. Yeah, no shit.

Duke wobbled and staggered into a chair.

Sure. This might as well happen.

"Ha-ha!" Lucifer produced a pair of large scissors from the kitchen. "Here we go. That should do it."

And marched back to Duke.

Duke just braced himself, his head in his hands.

So he didn’t have to look at any of the bags taunting him for always letting Lucifer talk him into things.

And there were Lucifer's hands on his back again, attempting to separate Duke and chest just far enough to get a look at what bound them.

Duke grunted softly as the action pulled at his skin.

The stitches were loose enough to be nice and dramatically visible when Lucifer did that. Honestly, the physics of them didn't add up at all, but . . . neither did the physics of randomly appearing luggage, so.

"Right. Well. Here we go."

Lucifer opened up the scissors and set them against one of the straps. With his power, he should be able to cut this leather, no?

He cut.

Duke hissed, bracing himself for pain --

The stitch cut, then vanished, and all he felt was a little tug and release.

"Huh. That might actually work."

"There we go, that's the spirit," Lucifer said, beaming.

He cut the next strap, and then the next one after that.

As the box pulled free, Duke slowly, carefully, flexed his shoulder blades, then rolled his shoulders with a soft groan as he reveled in his new freedom.

There was a metaphor here about letting other people help you with the weight of your baggage, but he was just. Not going to look that closely at it.

"See," Lucifer said, casting the stupid thing to the ground. "Now we can properly mope around in bed for the rest of the day."

Duke arched his back and stretched his arms over his head and let out a much louder, more decadent groan as his back cracked.

"Oh my god that feels so good," he muttered, eyes shut as he twisted one way, then the other, rolling his shoulders in alternate directions to try to loosen every muscle along his spine. "When did I get so creaky?"

Which would be when a beat up old satchel labeled "absolute terror of getting old" landed in his lap.

This fucking day.

"I mean, you have been talking about getting back on the yoga," Lucifer offered. Of course, he'd gotten vastly distracted by Duke's whole arching and stretching routine. "Not that I'd... call you... creaky..."

"Stiff, then," Duke muttered, shoving the bag off his lap and slowly getting to his feet. (Listening to more crackles and pops along his spine and wondering if the box was going to suddenly snap back into place.) "Tight. And not in the good ways."

"Would you like a massage?" Lucifer said, without thinking about it.

Largely libido driven was definitely one of those 'duh' ones.

Oh yeah. Duke was completely unsurprised by that one.

"I would love a massage."

Hello "just likes to be touched" bag. Were you really necessary?

"Then let's get out of this luggage-strewn mess and into the pillow room," Lucifer suggested.

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The Cape Rouge, Monday afternoon

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