F I C : untitled .

On the second day, Mafalda brings them fish soup. It's a beautiful orangey red color that clashes with the white of their porcelain bowls and Elio realizes you can't actually get authentic Italian food in the US, because you'll never be eating it like this, the sun setting over the terrace, cicadas buzzing loudly and the water of the pool trickling in that particular way it has. Heaven, Oliver called it and for the first time in a long time, Elio's inclined to agree with him.

*

He soon starts ending the day at the piano. Since he hasn't brought any of his sheet music, he's stuck with his old transcriptions and collections from way back when and there's something curious about looking at his own work, fifteen years old at the least, and recognizing his handwriting, but the music's awful and childish and he's not seventeen anymore. He's returned a grown person, not a different one.

His father's piano, though, still sounds like a dream. Idly, he wonders when his mother last had it tuned.

*

They sleep in his parents' old bedroom. It should probably squick him a little bit, but his parents aren't even an item anymore, they've both moved on with other people, so why shouldn't Elio? The bed is big, old, wooden frame that creaks when they fuck, but there's something really charming about it, about hearing themselves in their surroundings. Elio likes it. Afterwards, he lies awake for a long time, not because his body isn't completely spent, relaxed, but because he's so happy. He can't sleep for it. All that happiness.

*

Lucifer takes to the pool. The original stone basin with the old-fashioned pumping systems and Elio likes to sit in the garden, half-reclining on one of the lounging chairs with a book and watch him whenever he turns a page. He swims in the nude, because why not? They're here alone, they don't have to keep up any semblance of propriety. Not that Lucifer necessarily had any semblance of that to begin with, but as it is, Elio just enjoys the show.

Usually, after a few pages, he gives up reading, drops his clothes and joins.

*

The fourth day, Mafalda brings them tortelli di zucca, the pasta homemade and the pumpkin filling sweet, smooth. While they eat, inside that night, because it's been raining all day, Elio tells Lucifer about his father's early piano training with him. His mother's singing lessons. How he's been brought up in total freedom and sometimes, freedom does come at a cost. You fall. You brace for impact. You get back up or you don't.

You move on or you don't. They discuss the concept a bit, drinking a local red out of vintage wine glasses with the same golden edging that they had when he grew up. Nothing around here changes, he thinks, except everything's different now.

*

The living room's huge, good acoustics, and when Elio plays, Bach that night, it echoes beautifully between the walls. Lucifer's watching him from one of the sofas, drink in hand, his father's best whisky, though Elio gets the feeling he isn't actually listening to the music much. Philistine. He smiles, half-tug at the corner of his mouth. Lucifer gets up.

They fuck on the piano, proving Lucifer right that it's indeed a very sturdy instrument. It can take a lot.

*

In the morning, the sunlight creeps over the bedroom floor. They sleep in, don't get up for anything and Elio wakes when the ray hits his face, muttering a curse in Italian before turning onto his side, nuzzling up against Lucifer's back. In a moment, he'll get up. He'll go make breakfast, eggs and bacon, American-style. That's the one thing Mafalda allows them to cook on their own, two unmarried men, you'll die of starvation, she'd said recently.

They're still here, though. They're still here.

*

And they also fuck in the pool. Thank the Heavens for those pumping systems.

*

The ninth day, Mafalda brings them roasted chicken on the bone.