F I C : redream .

On the night after his debut at Lux, he dreams the dream for the first time. It plays out among the trees in his parents' old orchard, Elio picking down a couple of apricots and passing one to Lucifer to eat, like their roles are reversed there for a moment. "Here," he says and their fingers brush as Lucifer takes it from him, "enjoy."

They eat in a semi-companionable silence, Elio licking his fingers and sucking the kernel dry before tossing it among the trees that have grown from similar antics throughout generations. People who've eaten the fruit and left the remnants to sprout from the earth. It's why the lines in here aren't straight and neatly distanced, it's why it looks more like a forest and less like a garden. Heaven, Oliver had called it, not Eden.

Following the backyard down the slope towards the water, they climb the protective fences like schoolboys and how Lucifer manages that without tearing his fancy suit, Elio doesn't know, it's a dream, it doesn't have to make sense. How the other man even fits into the wild, untamed nature of the Italian countryside, he can't say either, but he does. He fits perfectly. Like he was made for an environment like this one, too.

When you think about it, though, there was a world before nightclubs and Armani and fast cars. A world that might have looked a bit closer to Elio's parents' summer house Heaven, right? Just because Lucifer's estranged from it, doesn't mean it isn't familiar to him, Elio supposes.

By the water, they find the old bench that Anchise put up as one of his first projects after joining the household. It's weathered from the constant splash of waves, it's that close to the shore, and polished by the wind, but sturdy and there's room enough for two. Room enough for two grown men as well. They sit there a while, saying nothing, the same way they picked apricots and the same way they wandered the landscape, quietly, shoulders rubbing against each other and Elio watches Lucifer out the corner of his eye.

There's a contentment to it. A satisfaction unlike anything he's experienced before. He thinks, he'd be happy just like this, if this was his reality forever. They wouldn't have to do anything else, but pick apricots and wander the hillsides and berms, sit here together. Elio doesn't believe he's ever felt this fulfilled by any other person's presence before, like they take up the empty space Oliver left and then more. Like they fill him out until all voids are naught, in a profound way, non-sexually.

Non-sexually, but still full of desire.

"Please don't go," he tells Lucifer in his dream, seconds before leaning on him, his side pressing against Lucifer's as his head slowly comes to a rest on the other man's shoulder, finding it at a perfect height. He has the broadest shoulders Elio has ever seen, they're artwork, really, but mostly because they fit the rest. His broad features, his broad smiles, his broad acts of humaneness that you wouldn't expect of the Devil, maybe, if you didn't realize that the Devil was always just humanity in a divine disguise. Elio knows. He's a professor's son. A liberal Jew. He understands.

As they sit there, on Anchise's bench with a view of the rock that was Oliver's, Lucifer doesn't make any promises, because the Devil doesn't lie and what could he say that wouldn't border on one, if he told him, I won't. Loss is inevitable. If nothing else, Lucifer is forever and Elio is not.

And Elio loves him for it, all of it.

The first time he wakes up from that dream, the night after he had his debut at Lux, he wakes up crying, tears tracking down his cheeks and soundless sobs getting caught in his throat. Rolling onto his side, he dries his face with the ball of his hand, wiping at his nose with the back of the other, trying to catch his breath, it's an overwhelming feeling of relief in his chest. So, Elio sinks into it. Embraces it.

This feeling of a tiny little piece of him clicking back into place, before he goes back to sleep and sleeps soundlessly for the rest of the night.