Thinking a LOT about Lucifer in the latest Hazbin episode. Idk what I was expecting but not this??
As I was watching my immediate thought was just "huh... Lucifer is kinda of weird..." but as the episode went on I realized the issue
the dude is off the chain depressed, like he says it as a joke but holy cow it is SO BAD
He's manically just creating rubber ducks cuz his daughter really like it that one time but it's empty, it's never good enough but he keeps doing it, maybe cuz he doesn't know how to pass the time otherwise.
like I get the feeling he HAS better things he SHOULD be doing than making rubber duck after rubber duck. At first I was like, "Bruh why isn't the king of hell doing anything?" aaaaand then it became clear...
The dude is disassociating so bad he can barely hold a conversation let alone remember information. He clearly WANTS to, he wants to be involved with his daughter so bad, he wants to care about the things she's doing so bad, but his depression keeps interfering. It's like he can only hear every other word and he grasps onto the ones he does hear semi-out of context. Like you can see every time he catches something that he hadn't before and he just "well shit I didn't catch that part"
and that's why he reacts so weird when people talk to him. He is struggling so bad to engage with the conversation he's only getting 50% of it
does that look like the face of a man who knows what the hell the conversation is even about??? he is STRUGGLING
like Charlie spent so long telling him about the hotel, and he STILL didn't understand what she wanted. Yeah it comes off as ditzy but literally I've been in that position where your brain just "nope, not doing this right now" and nerfs your conversation comprehension. So as someone who's BEEN in that position, to me it feels exactly like what he's dealing with. He's sorta engaged with the conversation, but only as much as his brain will allow
For example, when I'm dealing with this, this is what someone talking to me feels like this where the crossed out parts are what I missed and bold is what I catch, "Hey! You know I was thinking for dinner we could either make some chicken with rice? But if you don't feel like cooking, pasta is super easy and you love that right? What do you want to do?" you can kinda get that someone is trying to talk to you about dinner, and towards the end you get the impression that they asked something that needs your input so you can decently put 2 and 2 together and try and pass off, but crucial bits were left out, I would have no idea that either chicken or pasta is in the conversation only having heard "rice". When someone is just talking at me, I can decently pass off as being engaged but the second I'm required to participate in the conversation I'm screwed. Seem familiar? At which point I have 2 options, try to give a bullshit answer, or admit that I missed what they were saying and ask them to repeat
Lucifer, unfortunately, is trying so damn hard to hide that he's dealing with like 24/7 dissociation, so he can't admit that he's missing entire chunks of the conversation, hence his really weird replies. He does eventually get the full picture and then he and Charlie start having the real conversation
Also, the Alastor/Lucifer rivalry was hilarious but also really indicative of more of what Lucifer is dealing with
Alastor is, unfortunately, really good at picking up people's insecurities, and thanks to Charlie's description earlier and watching Lucifer clearly trying to overcompensate, he immediately picks up on the fact that Lucifer KNOWS he struggles to be a good dad (we know cuz it's cuz of the depression, hard to be engaged when your brain keeps turning off) and decides to rub salt in the wound by pretending he's been acting as a surrogate father to Charlie. Now why Alastor decided to pick a fight with the king of hell is beyond me, I do not understand Alastor (and I LIKE IT) (maybe it's cuz Alastor thinks he's hot shit and was expecting Lucifer to at least have heard of him but Lucifer just treats him like a nobody? who knows)(why would Lucifer listen to radio anyways when he can't even pay attention to a conversation it'd just be white noise)
But yeah I just was expecting someone who oozed either charisma or presence and instead I got a depressed dad who's dissociating so bad he can barely function and be present in his life. The only thing it seems he CAN do is make rubber ducks cuz his daughter really liked it that one time
Idk Lucifer is tragic to me. Whatever the full details of what heavan did to him absolutely broke him and he can't deal with it. He's aware of it, and he doesn't know how to fix it, so he tries to over compensate and sorta makes an ass out of himself but no one says or does anything cuz this guy is supposed to be THE king of hell
Suddenly it's making a lot more sense why he just rolls over and lets heaven do what it wants and even told Charlie to go in his place the start of the show. He's not in any headspace to hold a basic conversation let alone negotiate! He didn't even know who Alastor was, he's been so out of touch
idk I like him, he seems sweet, I hope Charlie brings some light back into his life. He really needs to get out of that rubber duck room
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@steddie-week
part 1 (bc this is one big 7 part story)
day 02: bittersweet & angst
1 new message
eddie The Problem munson: engagement party on saturday babyyyy 🥳🥸🕺
Steve’s been staring at the message for two days now. It's sitting in his notifications, staring at him like a painful reminder of what happened exactly seven days ago. A week. It's only been a week, and Steve somehow it feels like it was both only one day or seven months ago.
It's an almost liminal experience, walking through life without texting Eddie every second of the day – because texting him would mean opening his message. It would make this real.
And that's the last thing Steve wants.
"I'm not going," Robin declares as they're cuddling on the couch, wallowing in their misery as Mayday Parade's Oh Well, Oh Well is playing for the eighth time on repeat. "Tell me you're not going, Stevie."
"Robbie," he sighs, squeezing her tighter as she tries to wriggle out of his arms to glare at him.
"Steve."
"I can't not go."
"Yes you can." She pokes him in the ribs, but he doesn't budge. She pokes him again. "Not going to things is literally the easiest thing in the world. It's a hundred times easier than going to things. You should try it sometime, trust me. You go to too many things, and–"
"Bee," he hums to get her out of the rambling spiral before she can get lost in it.
"What I'm saying," he interrupts herself dramatically, "is that you can't do this to yourself. They're engaged. They're getting married. We're going to keep our distance until our brains and hearts and the traitorous little chemicals in our bodies catch up to reality, and then we get over them, and then we can go back and see them ever again. That's the logical thing to do, Steve. But you can't... You can't just go and get your heart broken and talk yourself into thinking it's the right thing to do. It's not."
Steve sighs into her hair and buries his face in her neck. He knows that. Technically, logically, he does.
But not going feels wrong. Wronger than anything else that's been hollowing out his chest and leaving nothing but emptiness and the ghosts of every smile, every touch, every baby, love, sweetheart, sunshine. Every imaginary future, every scenario where Eddie meant it. Meant those words, meant those smiles, meant it when he took Steve's hand to hold it.
But Eddie did mean it. Every time, he meant it; because he calls Argyle and Jeff and Gareth baby and sunshine and sweetheart, too. He takes their hands, too, leans in to kiss their cheeks and just holds them when he needs to. That's just the kind of person Eddie is. Always has been.
To go and assume he never meant it would be unfair.
To go and hope it could ever mean more when Chrissy has always been right there would just be stupid.
Well, good thing Steve has that kind of reputation with a few people anyway, so it's not even a statistical outlier, that one. It's not even worth a side note.
"I know," he rasps, his eyes beginning to sting as the next lyrics are carved into the empty space of where his heart used to be.
Oh well, oh well
I can't live with myself
As I'm climbing in your window to get to your bed.
And I'll be what you need,
You can call me anything.
Just as long as we're still friends.
Tears prickle in his eyes and he doesn't bother to hold them back. Not now, not with Robin. They've both been crying on and off all week, even though Robin took it better than him.
"I know," he sobs, wrapping his arms around her even tighter as she lets herself be held because she knows that's what he needs. "I know, I know, I know. But I have to. I can't just... I can't just stop, Bee."
"I know," she sighs, climbing out of his hold eventually to wrap her arms around him in return as he cries into her shoulder.
The world (read: his Spotify playlist) makes it worse by playing Sum 41's With Me next, ripping out even the newly carved words.
Robin holds him for the rest of the night, even as he finally opens Eddie's message and types out a reply.
—I'll come!
And especially when there's a new message immediately.
—hot 🥵❤️
He leaves Eddie on read after that.
~*~
Saturday rolls around in a haze, and suddenly Steve finds himself looking at the front door of the little house Chrissy inherited after her mother passed a few years ago. It's a nice little house. Quaint. Perfect. Everything Steve could ever dream of, actually. And she deserves it. All of this and more.
There's noise coming from the garden, where people are laughing and having a great time. A happy time, celebrating their friends and all the good things in life that come with a love well placed.
God, what is he doing here? He can't do this. There is no way.
He's just about to pull out his phone and call Robin, tell her he's coming home, or ask her to tell him everything's gonna be alright, when–
"Steve!" Chrissy hurries towards him, throwing her arms around him in a tight, warm, perfect hug. God, he loves her so much. He melts right into the embrace, wrapping his arms around her middle to spin her around with a grin.
She giggles in delight and tells him to let her down again, which only makes him spin for another round, his grin turning into a genuine laugh.
"No, I hate you!" she laughs, but still doesn't step away from him when he puts her down again. Instead, she leans up and brushes a kiss to his cheek. "Hi, asshole."
"Hi."
He grins and takes her hands in his, just smiling at her for another moment before his eyes trail down to a ring he's never seen her wear before. Ah. Right.
"Oh shit! That it?"
"That's it," Chrissy says, looking down at her hand to look at the ring with a fond, happy little smile, her cheeks flushing red. It breaks Steve a little, but it also fixes something inside him to see her so truly, genuinely happy. "Pretty huh?"
"Very," Steve breathes, hiding the lump in his throat with a sound of awe.
Chrissy hugs him again for good measure and then takes his hand to drag him into the backyard the same way she just came out front, through a little gate off to the side instead of through the house.
Steve loves their backyard because it's always covered in sheerly endless colourful strings of light that are wrapped around decorative arches or poles, framing the back doors and the canopy swing set on the lawn, and just give it the most homey and comfortable atmosphere.
"Stevie!" Eddie exclaims immediately and jumps off from his chair, interrupting a conversation he's apparently been having with Argyle and Nancy to run up to him with such a giddy expression that Steve wants to cry. His heart leaps in his chest, coming back to life and saying one last goodbye at the same time.
"Hi," he says, hugging Eddie close before he can so much as think about what he's doing. But no matter how hurt he is, there will never be a world in which he won't want to hug Eddie Munson. "Sorry I'm late."
"No sorries, it's fine," Eddie murmurs into his neck, staying in the embrace endlessly, and Steve takes the chance to breathe him in. He smells so good. So, so good. It clogs his lungs and renders him unable to speak.
But who needs to speak when they have Eddie in their arms? Who needs to speak when all they have to do is never let go?
Eddie squeezes him a little tighter, and Steve wants to cry. He slowly, gently pushes away from the hug and turns towards the other guests, greeting them with a grin, a hug, or a handshake if they're not familiar.
When he gets to Wayne, the man eyes him with a look that Steve doesn't want to read too much, and his embrace is just a little longer, just a little stronger than usual.
“You look tired, son,” he says by way of greeting, and Steve can’t help but snort and shake his head a little.
“Good to see you again, too, old man.”
Wayne eyes him for one moment longer, then breaks into a small smile and pats Steve’s shoulder before stepping around him to go grab another drink.
After that, the night passes in a blur of talking to his friends, trying to understand what the hell it is that has Nancy and Argyle arguing so profusely, but with smiles on their faces. He fails. But it’s good to see them again, so he just basks in it for a while.
Or, he tries, because every second that he’s not talking or listening to someone, his eyes flick back to Eddie. Eddie, who’s lifting Chrissy from behind and smacking a loud, wet kiss to her neck, her jaw and her cheek, accompanied by her delighted squeals and laughter.
Eddie, who’s looking larger than life, a happy grin permanently plastered on his face as he reminds their guests that Chrissy was his bisexual awakening.
“I swear, she just swept me off my feet after years of thinking I was only into dudes. Knew I had to marry her, but man, I don’t know why she said yes.”
“I’m settling, honey,” Chrissy calls from the other end of the table they’re sitting around. “Only in it for that rockstar money and all.”
The whole table laughs at that.
“Hear, hear,” Eddie snorts, lifting his glass in a toast. Steve and the others lift theirs, too, even though Steve’s hand and arm and whole body feels numb and he’s not entirely sure he’s breathing.
A while later, he grabs a drink and retreats to the canopy swing, illuminated in the soft pink flow of the fairy lights wrapped around it. Eddie’s eyes land on him for a second and Steve thinks that he’ll come over and join him — but then one of Chrissy’s friends says something that distracts him and seemingly makes him fall into a monologue of sorts.
Steve watches, feeling only loss and longing as he does. Eddie is a force of nature. A spectacle. Something beautiful, something powerful, something secret that only a select few get to witness. To know. To appreciate.
Staring as he is, blind to the rest of the world, he startles a little when the swing jostles with another weight settling on it. He didn’t see Wayne coming to join him, and he’s not quite sure whether he should be grateful for the company or apprehensive of what the man who’s like a father to him might have to say.
“How are you doing, son?”
He frowns. “I’m alright.”
Wayne only hums, and Steve’s frown deepens. There’s a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that tells him Wayne knows something. That he knows.
“Y’know,” he continues after a while, not looking at Steve but rather at his nephew and his fiancée. “I always figured it would be you.”
Steve crumbles. Yeah, me too, he wants to say, but that would be a lie. Watching the way Chrissy sits on Eddie’s lap with his arms around her, his chin on her shoulder as he tells her something that makes her laugh that cute, pretty, adorable laugh that Eddie then can’t help but join — that’s just something Steve would never compare to. Nothing he’d ever want to come in between.
Eddie and Chrissy are perfect. They’re happy. They fit, they match, they work. They worked so hard and treat each other so right.
They look giddy and serene at the same time, and it makes Steve’s eyes sting. Because he can never make Eddie look like that. He can never make Eddie look at him like that.
I always figured it would be you.
But he couldn’t. That bubbly kind of love, the sunshine kind of love. He knows that’s not for him. Steve’s too much for that. He would never be enough for Eddie — even if without Eddie, there’s nothing left of him.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Wayne continues, unaware of Steve’s thought spiral. “I love that girl, I do. Always will. I think she’s too good for Eddie. Don’t tell him I said that,” he adds hastily, and Steve smiles through the tears that threaten to fall again.
“They’re perfect,” he rasps, laughing wetly as Chrissy starts chasing Eddie, who’s hiding behind a very distressed Argyle, who just wants his brochachos to chill!
Maybe it’s a laugh, maybe it’s a sob. He doesn’t have it in him to find out or care.
“They are. Doesn’t mean they’re right, son.”
Steve sighs and tears his eyes away from Eddie. “Wayne.”
“I know, I know.” He lifts his hands in defence. “Shutting up.” After a long pause of holding Steve’s eyes, he asks, “Will you be okay?”
No, he thinks immediately, the lump in his throat too big to say anything. So he just shrugs and swallows. “Sure.”
Maybe. Hardly. Probably not. Definitely not.
"No matter what happens, you'll always be a son to me. You’ll always have a home with an open door with me, you hear me?"
"I’m not going anywhere, wayne," Steve says, though for the first time ever he doesn't really believe that. Maybe he needs to leave. To leave Eddie behind. Get over him. Cut out his heart and leave it here, run away to heal somewhere else, come back as a new person, or just stay away forever.
The thought makes a tear spill as an empty kind of desperation spreads it’s ugly wings inside his chest, and he's too frozen to wipe it away.
"You hear me?" Wayne repeats, gentler this time, but no less urgent for it.
"Yeah," steve rasps. "Thanks."
Another tear falls as Eddie gently pulls Chrissy closer to him and kisses her in the soft glow of the fairy lights above and around them. Their friends cheer. Steve wants to cry his heart out again.
“I—“ he swallows, wiping at his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. I can’t do this, he wants to say. For the first time, that’s what he wants to say. “I think I’m gonna head home soon.”
“You bring your car?”
He shakes his head, feeling foggy and dazed and empty and endlessly, endlessly sad. “Was gonna, uh—“
“Let me drive you.” There’s no room for debate or argument there, and Steve wants to crumble again, but still he shakes his head.
“Wayne, no—“
“I’m taking you, son. Make sure you get home safe, or I won’t be able to sleep tonight. Don’t wanna keep your old man up all night, do ya?”
Steve concedes with a fond eye roll and a grateful smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“That’s what I thought.”
They sit like that for another ten minutes — and if Steve leans into Wayne’s side a little, then that’s nobody’s business but theirs.
The car ride is quiet, but it feels weighted even as Wayne pretends not to see the way Steve keeps wiping at his cheeks as the silent tears keep falling, leaving him powerless to stop them.
I can’t do this, he keeps thinking over and over again.
“Just a little warning,” Wayne speaks up again as he pulls up to Steve’s building. “I think he’s going to ask you to be his best man, Stevie. Don’t do anything you’re not ready for, okay?”
I can’t do this.
He nods, numb again.
“I’ll do anything for him,” he breathes.
“That’s what I’m afraid of, yeah.”
He gets out of the car before he can find out what exactly Wayne means by that. The car stays where it is until the front door closes behind him, until he’s up in his bedroom and finds Robin already asleep.
Ten minutes later, he cuddles close to her and tries hard not to cry, but tonight’s memories have burned themselves into his mind. And he shouldn’t have gone. He knows. He knows.
I’ll do anything. I can’t do this. I’ll do anything. I can’t do this.
He can’t breathe, and Robin holds him through it, whispering sleepily to him as he cries himself to sleep, wishing for a world where he’s not absolutely and utterly in love with Eddie Munson, but failing to imagine one.
I’ll do anything. Anything but this.
tagging: @sexymothmanincarnate @mcneen
come back tomorrow for idk which prompt | read part 3 here
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