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!]

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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?!”

From:

my_own_advocate

"Yes," Lucifer said, watching him jump up with raised eyebrows. "I have."

There was entirely too much frustrated screaming in this throuple right now.

"And it sounds like a portion of 'your turn' involves you needing her to tell you things."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke pressed both his hands to his face. “You just gave me a fucking speech about putting my needs aside for someone else as though that’s not something I have literally been doing my whole life. I set myself aside or I go it alone, those are my two modes. I’m not the one who needs that speech.”

From:

my_own_advocate

"If that's what you think my speech was about," Lucifer said, eyeing him, "Then you weren't really listening."

From:

betterthanaplan

“I am — really sick of hearing that.” Duke lowered his hands to glower at him. “Maybe you need to find a new way to say it, if I keep ‘not listening’.”

From:

my_own_advocate

"I thought I was," Lucifer said, raising an eyebrow. "I just hadn't anticipated just how much you are driving yourself mad in there over this."

From:

betterthanaplan

“I’m driving myself mad.” Duke nodded. “Sure.”

He fisted his hands in his hair. Took a long breath.

“I am trying to tell you that your advice to me is offering her the same courtesy I have been trying to ask of her. Which is extremely frustrating. I feel like I have been offering it to her forever and not getting it back and you keep saying ‘well you have to just do it.’ So yes. I am driving myself fucking mad about it.”

From:

my_own_advocate

Lucifer took a long breath of his own.

"Darling," he said, "I get the impression that you want to ask two things of Octavia. One, that she give you your turn - space for you to share your feelings without hers interrupting you. Two, that she shares more of her own feelings with you. Is that impression wrong?"

From:

betterthanaplan

“Yes,” Duke said. “That’s what I want.” His eyes skittered to the next to the pier. “It’d be nice not to feel like shit for wanting it, too.”

From:

my_own_advocate

"And what I was trying to tell you," Lucifer said slowly, watching him, not the pier, "is that you can't have both of those things at the same time in the same conversation."

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke stared at him.

“I don’t think I’ve been trying to do that.” He shook his head. “I‘ve tried to be pretty specific when I want ‘my turn’.”

From:

my_own_advocate

"Really? Because on New Years' Eve, it felt like you were getting a lot of you all over her feelings while you were trying to give her her space," Lucifer said. He held up a hand. "And before you start, yes, I am in fact having these same sorts of conversations with her, you are not the designated fuck up."

Edited Date: 2025-01-09 03:32 am (UTC)

From:

betterthanaplan

Duke thought back, speaking slowly.

“On New Year’s Eve, she asked me for boundaries. So I offered her some. And adjusted when she didn’t think they sounded right. And then she yelled at me.”

From:

my_own_advocate

"On New Year's Eve, she asked to be heard," Lucifer said, just as careful. "And you proposed actionable items while reasserting your desire to have 'your turn'."

Edited Date: 2025-01-09 03:38 am (UTC)