betterthanaplan | The deck of the Fin and Tonic, Tuesday afternoon

Duke had gone into town this morning, and come back with an acoustic guitar. It'd been ages since he'd last played, so he set about turning and warming up with unusual focus before eventually starting to play something relatively simple.

"Sorry
Is all that you can't say
Years gone by and still
Words don't come easily
Like sorry, like sorry. . . ."

Should the narrative pretend that his song choice was random? Obviously it was not. It had been running through his head for days.

[for those on the island, and likely slow play!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

From:

betterthanaplan

"She's been there a lot longer than I have."

That wasn't exactly true. And it definitely wasn't the important part of that realization.

From:

my_own_advocate

Right, that stopped making sense. "Been where?"

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke looked up at Lucifer, surprised.

". . . In crisis. I think she's been living there for years."

From:

my_own_advocate

"I don't think she was in crisis for a while," Lucifer said slowly. "But she used to be."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke bobbled his head in half nod, half shrug. “Okay. But she’s been in a place where she can’t . . . ask me for what she needs. And sort of. Got used to how we managed that, when I wasn’t — when I was less willing to try asking for things.”

He looked down at his guitar.

“She took care of herself and I took care of myself. And now . . . I’m not just asking her things for me, but trying to get her to ask for things for her, too.”

From:

my_own_advocate

"Well, at the moment, she most seems to need an... Understanding," Lucifer said.

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke shot Lucifer a sidelong look. He wondered if this was something she had actually said to Lucifer or it was something Lucifer had worked out himself.

“Okay?”

From:

my_own_advocate

Lucifer blinked at him. "What?" he said. "She told us on New Year's Eve."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke nodded slowly. “She needs to feel heard. But I can only do that if she actually says things.”

From:

my_own_advocate

"Well, my old advice on that stands," Lucifer said. "Take her somewhere comfortable at a time you feel you can keep your own needs out of it for a little bit, and let her talk."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke nodded. “Yeah . . . we’ll see how that goes.”

Part of him couldn’t help but think the real solution was just to. Not ask her for anything. But that would probably always be his instinctive reaction.

From:

my_own_advocate

Lucifer smiled, a touch wry. "How are you feeling about it?"

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke sighed. “Like what I really need to do is give up and never ask her for anything again.”

From:

my_own_advocate

Lucifer let out a soft huff. "That seems unwise."

From:

betterthanaplan

“Yeah. It’s not the most rational.”

From:

my_own_advocate

Lucifer patted his knee and gave it a squeeze. "It is okay for you to ask things of people," he said. "Including her. You're just... still learning how to do it."

From:

betterthanaplan

“You realize that your advice is kind of to not ask her for things, right?” Duke asked. “It really seems like what she needs from me is to not need things from her.”

From:

my_own_advocate

"My advice is to pick the proper time and place to ask her for things," Lucifer said, raising his eyebrows. "Which would not be 'at a time when you want her to tell you about things she needs.' Not every conversation needs to be about everybody. You make time for her one night, she makes time for you the next."

Edited Date: 2025-01-08 07:45 pm (UTC)

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke looked down at the guitar. He wasn’t proud of what he was going to say.

“Does she, though?”

From:

my_own_advocate

"Darling, you can just ask her to," Lucifer said, looking over at him. "If New Years' Eve is anything to go by, part of the problem is that you keep trying to have both the you and the her conversation at the same time, and it doesn't work."

From:

betterthanaplan

“Why not?” Duke asked, faintly desperate. “Why doesn’t have to be all her or all me? Why does it have to feel like I’m defusing a bomb just trying to talk to her?”

From:

my_own_advocate

"Because that's how people work, Duke," Lucifer said, raising his eyebrows a few notches higher. "Imagine what would've happened if you'd interrupted my 'I can't love anyone' doom spiral by turning to the topic of what you needed for you right then."

He shifted a little in his seat. "In fact, think about how poorly it went when you were mourning your brother and I tried to get mine all up in the conversation because that's what I needed. How we couldn't sort that out until you'd had the chance to get what you needed, and then I had gotten the conversation I needed some time after."

He shook his head. "There's no one-size-fits-all solution to these things, all we can do is try to listen to what the people we care about say they need. And right now Octavia is saying that she needs to have a conversation with you in which she feels understood, and you are saying you need to have a conversation in which you can communicate your own needs, and it's very clear that when you try to have both of these conversations at once, you just wind up debating about form instead of what either of you need."

Edited Date: 2025-01-08 08:39 pm (UTC)

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke felt like screaming. “That’s exactly what I was asking her for when this started.”

From:

my_own_advocate

"Yes, you keep asking," Lucifer agreed. "Have you considered moving on from asking to the actual listening bit?"

From:

betterthanaplan

Okay, this time Duke really did scream. A brief, frustrated roar echoed by the guitar when his fingers tightened on the strings.

“I was asking her to give me my turn,” he hissed, setting the guitar aside with too much force and pushing to his feet. “Have you even been listening?!”