[ It's getting late and he's on the bed on top of the covers, legs stretched out in front of him. He checks his phone because he can't be bothered to check his watch (Rolex, but not the one he forgot back in Elio's apartment in France all those months ago) - the display reads 21:19. He's texted both Lucretia and Marcel tonight, as well as answered a handful of e-mails, nothing overly critical. He's not being productive - he's simply passing time because there's nothing else to do right now. His burst knuckles smart a little every time he moves his fingers in a particular way.
By the desk, Elio's seated with his back to him, earplugs in, his hand moving erratically across the paper. Transcribing, presumably, though Jean Louis wouldn't have a clue as to the nature of that. To his eyes, it might as well be doodling. He can hear the music, though, faintly. Whenever Elio moves, the lines in his shoulders shift and change, his curls bobbing a little.
There's a numbness to his mood that he can't quite place. It feels achingly familiar, so much so that he knows enough to dislike it, vehemently. It's not the feeling itself, probably, but what tends to come after. It's very typical for him, of course, to be destructive - beating up Oliver was fair, as far as he can see, but it was also mindless and chaotic and honestly, quite humiliating for Elio who had to simply stand there and watch it happen. They've eaten next to nothing, in total, and they've spoken even less since they came to the room. He doesn't know what that means.
His body, at least, doesn't hurt anymore. Nothing really does.
He watches Elio's turned back through the shadows, his own gaze blank, without emotion. ]
[ He told Oliver there’s ice in the kitchen, and presumably there was, because when he came down to grab dinner for Jean Louis and him an hour later, the other man looked somewhat cooler, eye black, sure, but not too swollen anymore, nose in its natural non-bleeding state. There had been an awkward silence as Elio picked out a few pieces of roasted chicken for them, two plates, one in each hand, and when he had been about to leave, Mafalda had bursted in from the kitchen with a bowl of lemon sorbet, for the Minister, she’d said and it sounded completely different from how Oliver had pronounced Jean Louis’ title. Elio had accepted it, balancing it on his lower arm like a waiter.
They haven’t eaten much of anything, either of them. Jean Louis hasn’t as much as touched the sorbet which is melting into liquid sun in its bowl, shiny bright in the relative darkness of the room. Elio has been transcribing the adagio from Beethoven’s fifth piano concerto, though what he’s actually managed to do about those violins isn’t impressive. Mostly he listens to Lisiecki’s rendition over and over, feeling the music pull at something inside him. He doesn’t know what. Just something. It’s almost half past nine now, the Menorah has been lit hours ago, the sixth light tonight, and he wasn’t there to do it. Idly he wonders if his parents missed him, they always have this house full. After almost fifteen years, they have Oliver back, too.
The thought makes something in his back tense the wrong way and he winces, straightening up in his seat and stretching to try and get the tension out, but no use. The other side, still nothing, but his earphone falls out and suddenly the room isn’t small and circular and limited to his immediate private sphere. He can hear Jean Louis’ breathing. He can feel his eyes on him. Without turning around, he runs his right hand down his neck, trying to rub out the pain between his shoulder blades, but he can’t reach.
Oliver rubbed his shoulders. Possibly the wrong way.
Tiredly, he says, voice neutral and careful, not even the swear getting any real stress: ]
Are you working? I’m not working. I can’t work, the violins are so fucking stubborn.
[ He sees the change in Elio's focus - from the paper with his notes and away - seconds before it actually manifests itself in physical form. It's something to do with the way he breathes, with the way the atmosphere in the room subtly shifts along the axis from passive to active. Then, Elio stretches, looking pained by something in his back, shoulders, neck, who knows, and then his earphone falls out and the wall between them breaks, properly. Jean Louis watches his long, elegant fingers as he tries to get to something between his shoulder blades - not possible at any angle, unfortunately, that particular spot.
Theoretically, he could help him with that.
He sounds exhausted, too. Colourless. ]
I've finished.
[ In a way, at least, he has in that he can't be bothered to deal with what's left. He sits up a little, eyes narrowing. ]
You look rather stiff.
[ He didn't look harmed or hurt when they'd left Oliver behind downstairs so presumably, this isn't a physical problem. It could as well be the kind of tension that you get from straining your mind and your thoughts - not unlike the pain he's been having since he boarded the plane from Rome to Nice. Naturally, when you aren't hurt, the pain is different. For instance, it comes and goes according to no obvious, logical rules - a punch to the face, you feel. You feel it and then, at some point, it fades away and in general, doesn't return.
This is different.
Doesn't mean it can't hurt.
He picks at his bad little finger absent-mindedly, scraping over the skin there, the place where the nail failed to grow out. Right now, it feels like nothing much. ]
[ They’ve been captured within each their bubble, he thinks, imagining them encapsulated in glass, snow globes with little white pieces falling from the transparent sky, weighing them down until someone once more shakes the globe, rewind, rewind, rewind. It’s December, they might actually expect snow later in the week, they predicted on the news. Northern Italy can get just as cold as the rest of the world, is the conclusion. Elio still doesn’t move to look at Jean Louis when he speaks, when he says he finished working a long time ago which Elio would no doubt have noticed, had he not been so absorbed in his own thoughts. Usually he’s perceptive, he’s attentive, too, but right now he doesn’t want to see anything but his own ugly sheet music and Lisiecki’s curls that remind him of his own as the other pianist is trying to sink into his instrument, like you would a lover. He can’t melt into him - it - though, because he - it - is made of wood, that’s just the way of the world. That’s just how the story goes.
Elio angrily tears the other earphone out of his ear, drops the set on the table and buries his face in his crossed arms on top of all of it, Beethoven’s fifth piano concerto, pencil, paper, earphones plugged into his phone. He’s breathing erratically, back heaving, up, down, up, remembering Oliver who asked him what he was doing, reading my music.
No, you’re not.
Jean Louis thinks he looks stiff. You can’t deny what’s true, except what’s even true anymore. Will this be true in fifteen years from now or just another assault on all his senses? Suddenly he stops breathing altogether, holding his breath fir five long seconds until he whispers, hoarsely, childishly and he hates himself for it. He hates himself for giving Jean Louis this. ]
I’m hurting.
[ All he wants is for Jean Louis to understand what that means. That it means, everything inside me is grieving. That it means, don’t be another loss. ]
[ Out comes the other earphone and Elio's moving angrily which is new, new and unsettling. Jean Louis follows his movements, the heaving of his chest as he breathes too fast, the way he's curled in over himself and a part of him thinks, absurdly, that he ought to have a small shell to go with that body posture. Like a shrimp, maybe. Head tilted slightly sideways, he shifts in place, then moves sideways, enough to make space on the other side of the bed. The sound of Elio's earphones hitting the table still echoes somewhere in the very back of his mind. ]
You could...
[ Pause. Stop. He thinks about Oliver, standing so close to Elio by the piano bench, holding into his arm, gripping it. He knows relations like that. How force becomes just another way to speak, another language, one he never deploys in his own relationships because he dislikes it. He knows it, though, intimately. He knows what it leaves behind in you, traces not unlike his scars, patches of you that feel permanently altered from the rest.
So he re-phrases. Carefully and slowly, like he's really having to think about it. ]
[ If you want, Jean Louis replies, perhaps I can help, like an offer that Elio doesn’t know how to take him up on. He doesn’t accept things easily, gifts or gestures or compliments, he’s almost worse at those things than at taking brute force, cocks up his ass, Oliver’s hand gripping him by the upper arm while he ate Elio’s cum-filled peach, you’re hurting me! Why does he accept that more easily than Jean Louis’ show of understanding. Care. Why?
He laughs, mirthlessly, into the crook of his arm, then slowly sits up again, turning in his chair and seeing how the other man has made room for him there, on the bed, it’s not his throne anymore, it’s their hideout. He isn’t even surprised when tears well up in his eyes and he does nothing to stop them from rolling down his cheeks, doesn’t wipe at his face or even blink that much. They’re just there. He’s just there.
Sniffling, he stands up, movements stiff and inelegant. He gestures with one hand, slim fingers, thin wrist, but powerful. He can do great things with these hands. Just not right now. ]
I’m desperate for you to touch me, but I can’t stand the thought of being touched. [ A small pause. He remembers Jean Louis’, keep doing it. Breathing out slowly, Elio walks over to the bed, his old one, where Oliver took him for the first time. Even more slowly, he sits down on the edge of it with his back to the other man. Only now he reaches up to wipe at his face. Cheeks. Lips. Nose. ] It doesn’t mean I don’t want you to, it just means... it just means...
[ Elio's laugh sounds ugly and wrong, like it's being forced from his throat and when he sits up and turns in his chair, Jean Louis watches his face carefully. He's never been awfully receptive to other people's emotions - they feel like too much, generally, like he's drowning in them. This time, however, Elio's the one who's drowning. Tears sliding down his cheeks, he sniffles and gets to his feet and then, for a moment, he just stands there, wet and wrong and beyond himself.
I can't stand the thought of being touched, says Elio and gesticulates uselessly, sweet Elio who shouldn't have to feel that ambiguity at all. It supposed to be reserved for other people, for those who've taught themselves how to stand it better, how to push through it until they realise that it doesn't matter.
He's well aware.
He watches the curve of Elio's back as he seats himself on the bed, his voice rough and thin. It just means... he says and trails off because - what? That's the truth, isn't it. It doesn't mean anything. ]
If it doesn't feel like you - [ He gestures with one hand, doing a sweeping motion towards Elio's body in an attempt to support his own, clumsy wording. It's so difficult to talk about these things. To put words to them. ] - your body. If it doesn't feel right, you have to...
[ He pauses. Thinks. His next words are almost dangerously even: ]
You have to take it back.
[ He pads the empty space between him on the bed. Let me help you do that it means but it also means come and move yourself. These things - these situations - they form the essence of personal choice and if you aren't doing it yourself, you aren't doing it at all. That's just how it goes. ]
[ Jean Louis puts it into words, about as elegantly as Elio moved before, stiff and in little jerks, but he voices it. He says, if your body doesn’t feel like yours, take it back. What does that mean? Take it back. Elio twists at the waist and looks back at the other man, how he pads the mattress, not in order, but in invitation. Elio reaches up with both arms and cradles himself for a while, just sitting there and holding himself by the elbows, head bowed somewhat, enough to restrict his vision to jeans-clad thighs and knees and hands protruding out of sweater sleeves. Then, he feels for it, himself. How he’s aching for Jean Louis with his whole body, toes to scalp. And the parts that are hurting the most are also aching the most. Maybe the two things go together.
Maybe...
Hesitantly, he releases his hold on himself and crawls onto the bed fully, knees and palms and sinking into the mattress by an inch where he touches it. He lies down on his side for a moment, back still turned to Jean Louis, then he inhales sharply and rolls onto his stomach, baring himself, once more giving everything.
Giving, in order to take back.
Resting his cheek on his folded arms, he finally turns his tear-streaked face towards the other man. Looks at him. His serenity. His strength. Other things he might not understand, but senses and Elio thinks, he can trust his senses on this one. This time. Fifteen years later. ]
[ His words hang between them unanswered for a while as Elio looks back at him, then away, cradling himself and becoming even smaller, like he's too cold for his own skin and though he can't remember curling in on himself like that, he must have, surely, ages and ages back, when he'd thought he was meant to get warm. Eyes hard, still devoid of mostly everything, he looks away from Elio and out of the window. It's pitch-black outside, the silhouettes of trees swaying a little amongst the shadows, like fingers, moving in the dark.
Elio's clothes rustle along with the sheets as he shifts and lies down next to him, first on his side, then on his stomach. His breathing still sounds too shallow and rough and when Jean Louis looks down at him, his face is tear-streaked, the wetness gleaming on his pale skin. He's beautiful, even like this. Most people just look splotchy and awful.
Maybe they just look awful to him.
He nods, then shifts. If there's any stiffness left in his body, he can't feel it anymore - then again, that's what pain is like, isn't it. Selective, untrustworthy. And his mind, well, it compartmentalizes. Efficiently. Right now, he's got more important things to care about. ]
Relax, then.
[ He seats himself on his knees next to Elio and puts both hands on his shoulders. He's got relatively big hands, Jean Louis, and relatively long fingers. He keeps his touch light as he runs both palms down his shoulder blades, pausing between them and pressing both thumbs against that point he couldn't reach before, the point that can drive anyone crazy trying to reach it without a scratcher.
He rubs it, slowly, feeling the tension beneath the skin clearly through his shirt. Then, after a couple of seconds, he runs both hands upwards, fingers spread out over Elio's ribs to either side, all the way up over his shoulder blades. ]
[ Easier said than done, Elio wants to tell Jean Louis when he says, relax then, once more without the air of ordering him, but instead advising him. Because he knows.
Elio’s shoulders slump, also as he feels the other man sitting down on his knees next to him, leaning in and kneading the exact spot Elio couldn’t reach earlier, moments ago, moments that feel like forever. Like there’s a wall between then and now. Maybe there is, maybe they will never go back to that. He has big hands, Jean Louis, if he hadn’t been completely tone deaf, he might have made a decent pianist. Or violinist, though Elio doesn’t think the other man would see the appeal of the shriller instrument. The way his features sometimes tighten when listening to Elio play the Steinway in his apartment is bad enough. A violin would drive him insane. His hands are beautiful things, though, even the pinky without its nail and sporadic cramps to remind them both of what he’s been through. For a moment, Elio just lies there, feeling the way he touches him, with so much intent, but not on his behalf, Elio is still in control, wondering what part of him will remind Jean Louis of Elio’s past, going forward. Will he look at his - Elio doesn’t know, there’s no part Oliver hasn’t touched. His everything isn’t an answer.
He tenses as the other man runs his palms up over his shoulder blades, via his ribs, feeling little and bony and fragile beneath his touch. Like he could break, not even Elio the Tree, but Elio the Twig. Elio. Elio. Elio. He stares into the wall, across an expanse of duvet and sheet. ]
Do you still think I can stand it?
[ He doesn’t know if Jean Louis even still remembers. That time in the car, but Elio does. ]
[ He works slowly, feeling out Elio's shape as he goes, sensing that the tension seems to stem from the shoulders and neck, in particular, and wondering if he's currently retracing the other man's dirty fingerprints. If so, he'd better be careful about it. There's nothing worse than people stomping all over shit that's still on the mend. Eyes narrowing in anger - oh, and it's still there, is it, the anger, right beneath the layer of nothing that's currently making him forget himself - he takes care not to tighten his grip, running his hands up over Elio's shoulder blades and sliding them outwards, towards his upperarms. He folds his hands over them and massages them, being gentle about it because Elio feels so small in his grip still. ]
Of course I do.
[ He remembers. He remembers Elio whimpering against him in the back of his Audi, the other man's cock hard and aching in his grip. Just the other day, they went to the beach in the freezing cold and Elio went to his knees in the sand all the same and sucked him off, took him all the way down his throat and swallowed him up. How could he think any differently? It's not even a matter of subjective opinion, it's a fucking fact.
That he's strong, Elio, even when he's at his weakest. ]
It's not something that changes.
[ Slowly, carefully, he runs his hands inwards, following the slope of Elio's shoulders on either side up to the nape of his neck. There, he pauses. Breathes in, exhales. Then, he presses down, kneading the muscle there, feeling the knots of tension and thinking, it's been there for years because he knows, obviously, he knows how that goes, too. It's never just one, single night.
[ Even as Jean Louis tells him, it's not something that changes, implying thereby that Elio is no less strong now than he was, thrusting into the other man's grip in his car and he was whimpering then as he feels like crying out now, maybe just uglier, all Elio can think is that everything changes and if his world can't stay the same, how is he supposed to? But Jean Louis massages his upper arms gently, showing him that he will hold him so he doesn't break in the process, even now, and Elio feels a little bit of himself relaxing into it, his shoulders coming down as the other man's hands run up the sides of his neck, like Jean Louis can take up all space inside of him, yet not force anything. Is that something you learn as a politician? Or is it his own personal gift?
Is it pretend?
The nape of his neck feels burning hot where Jean Louis is kneading it. He sighs and turns his head to the other side, looking at another wall, the door, his bookshelf full of old books that were never needed in either Rome or Paris. Things belonging to this place particularly, like summer romances and fresh apricot juice. Heraclitus. Oliver. When they leave the summer house behind, they'll leave all that behind, too.
Where to go from there?
He hopes it's a place Jean Louis will be. ]
Then, don't stop.
[ He says it softly, voice still a little bit thick. He means the massage, of course, it's nice. It's nice being touched by those big, otherwise very matter of fact hands. Are they matter of fact now? Is Elio the matter or the fact?
Slowly, slowly, slowly his neck muscles go soft beneath the other man's fingertips, but it's a lengthy process and Elio fears they'll be here for a long time yet. He'd understand if Jean Louis ran out of patience, fucks to give. It's not that he wants to go home, mind, he doesn't know what home is from here either, Paris is another life dictated by Oliver, Oliver, Oliver, by Elio waiting and hoping and dreaming to be found, but this place hasn't been home since he was seventeen, has it? What lies beyond? Beyond being found, because you were abandoned first.
Elio doesn't know. But he wants Jean Louis to be there, he wants that to be another thing which doesn't change. ]
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solosection) wrote2021-12-31 09:25 am
no subject
By the desk, Elio's seated with his back to him, earplugs in, his hand moving erratically across the paper. Transcribing, presumably, though Jean Louis wouldn't have a clue as to the nature of that. To his eyes, it might as well be doodling. He can hear the music, though, faintly. Whenever Elio moves, the lines in his shoulders shift and change, his curls bobbing a little.
There's a numbness to his mood that he can't quite place. It feels achingly familiar, so much so that he knows enough to dislike it, vehemently. It's not the feeling itself, probably, but what tends to come after. It's very typical for him, of course, to be destructive - beating up Oliver was fair, as far as he can see, but it was also mindless and chaotic and honestly, quite humiliating for Elio who had to simply stand there and watch it happen. They've eaten next to nothing, in total, and they've spoken even less since they came to the room. He doesn't know what that means.
His body, at least, doesn't hurt anymore. Nothing really does.
He watches Elio's turned back through the shadows, his own gaze blank, without emotion. ]
no subject
They haven’t eaten much of anything, either of them. Jean Louis hasn’t as much as touched the sorbet which is melting into liquid sun in its bowl, shiny bright in the relative darkness of the room. Elio has been transcribing the adagio from Beethoven’s fifth piano concerto, though what he’s actually managed to do about those violins isn’t impressive. Mostly he listens to Lisiecki’s rendition over and over, feeling the music pull at something inside him. He doesn’t know what. Just something. It’s almost half past nine now, the Menorah has been lit hours ago, the sixth light tonight, and he wasn’t there to do it. Idly he wonders if his parents missed him, they always have this house full. After almost fifteen years, they have Oliver back, too.
The thought makes something in his back tense the wrong way and he winces, straightening up in his seat and stretching to try and get the tension out, but no use. The other side, still nothing, but his earphone falls out and suddenly the room isn’t small and circular and limited to his immediate private sphere. He can hear Jean Louis’ breathing. He can feel his eyes on him. Without turning around, he runs his right hand down his neck, trying to rub out the pain between his shoulder blades, but he can’t reach.
Oliver rubbed his shoulders. Possibly the wrong way.
Tiredly, he says, voice neutral and careful, not even the swear getting any real stress: ]
Are you working? I’m not working. I can’t work, the violins are so fucking stubborn.
no subject
Theoretically, he could help him with that.
He sounds exhausted, too. Colourless. ]
I've finished.
[ In a way, at least, he has in that he can't be bothered to deal with what's left. He sits up a little, eyes narrowing. ]
You look rather stiff.
[ He didn't look harmed or hurt when they'd left Oliver behind downstairs so presumably, this isn't a physical problem. It could as well be the kind of tension that you get from straining your mind and your thoughts - not unlike the pain he's been having since he boarded the plane from Rome to Nice. Naturally, when you aren't hurt, the pain is different. For instance, it comes and goes according to no obvious, logical rules - a punch to the face, you feel. You feel it and then, at some point, it fades away and in general, doesn't return.
This is different.
Doesn't mean it can't hurt.
He picks at his bad little finger absent-mindedly, scraping over the skin there, the place where the nail failed to grow out. Right now, it feels like nothing much. ]
no subject
Elio angrily tears the other earphone out of his ear, drops the set on the table and buries his face in his crossed arms on top of all of it, Beethoven’s fifth piano concerto, pencil, paper, earphones plugged into his phone. He’s breathing erratically, back heaving, up, down, up, remembering Oliver who asked him what he was doing, reading my music.
No, you’re not.
Jean Louis thinks he looks stiff. You can’t deny what’s true, except what’s even true anymore. Will this be true in fifteen years from now or just another assault on all his senses? Suddenly he stops breathing altogether, holding his breath fir five long seconds until he whispers, hoarsely, childishly and he hates himself for it. He hates himself for giving Jean Louis this. ]
I’m hurting.
[ All he wants is for Jean Louis to understand what that means. That it means, everything inside me is grieving. That it means, don’t be another loss. ]
no subject
You could...
[ Pause. Stop. He thinks about Oliver, standing so close to Elio by the piano bench, holding into his arm, gripping it. He knows relations like that. How force becomes just another way to speak, another language, one he never deploys in his own relationships because he dislikes it. He knows it, though, intimately. He knows what it leaves behind in you, traces not unlike his scars, patches of you that feel permanently altered from the rest.
So he re-phrases. Carefully and slowly, like he's really having to think about it. ]
If you want, perhaps I can help.
no subject
He laughs, mirthlessly, into the crook of his arm, then slowly sits up again, turning in his chair and seeing how the other man has made room for him there, on the bed, it’s not his throne anymore, it’s their hideout. He isn’t even surprised when tears well up in his eyes and he does nothing to stop them from rolling down his cheeks, doesn’t wipe at his face or even blink that much. They’re just there. He’s just there.
Sniffling, he stands up, movements stiff and inelegant. He gestures with one hand, slim fingers, thin wrist, but powerful. He can do great things with these hands. Just not right now. ]
I’m desperate for you to touch me, but I can’t stand the thought of being touched. [ A small pause. He remembers Jean Louis’, keep doing it. Breathing out slowly, Elio walks over to the bed, his old one, where Oliver took him for the first time. Even more slowly, he sits down on the edge of it with his back to the other man. Only now he reaches up to wipe at his face. Cheeks. Lips. Nose. ] It doesn’t mean I don’t want you to, it just means... it just means...
[ Elio doesn’t know what it means. ]
no subject
I can't stand the thought of being touched, says Elio and gesticulates uselessly, sweet Elio who shouldn't have to feel that ambiguity at all. It supposed to be reserved for other people, for those who've taught themselves how to stand it better, how to push through it until they realise that it doesn't matter.
He's well aware.
He watches the curve of Elio's back as he seats himself on the bed, his voice rough and thin. It just means... he says and trails off because - what? That's the truth, isn't it. It doesn't mean anything. ]
If it doesn't feel like you - [ He gestures with one hand, doing a sweeping motion towards Elio's body in an attempt to support his own, clumsy wording. It's so difficult to talk about these things. To put words to them. ] - your body. If it doesn't feel right, you have to...
[ He pauses. Thinks. His next words are almost dangerously even: ]
You have to take it back.
[ He pads the empty space between him on the bed. Let me help you do that it means but it also means come and move yourself. These things - these situations - they form the essence of personal choice and if you aren't doing it yourself, you aren't doing it at all. That's just how it goes. ]
no subject
Maybe...
Hesitantly, he releases his hold on himself and crawls onto the bed fully, knees and palms and sinking into the mattress by an inch where he touches it. He lies down on his side for a moment, back still turned to Jean Louis, then he inhales sharply and rolls onto his stomach, baring himself, once more giving everything.
Giving, in order to take back.
Resting his cheek on his folded arms, he finally turns his tear-streaked face towards the other man. Looks at him. His serenity. His strength. Other things he might not understand, but senses and Elio thinks, he can trust his senses on this one. This time. Fifteen years later. ]
My body wants you to touch it, Jean Louis.
no subject
Elio's clothes rustle along with the sheets as he shifts and lies down next to him, first on his side, then on his stomach. His breathing still sounds too shallow and rough and when Jean Louis looks down at him, his face is tear-streaked, the wetness gleaming on his pale skin. He's beautiful, even like this. Most people just look splotchy and awful.
Maybe they just look awful to him.
He nods, then shifts. If there's any stiffness left in his body, he can't feel it anymore - then again, that's what pain is like, isn't it. Selective, untrustworthy. And his mind, well, it compartmentalizes. Efficiently. Right now, he's got more important things to care about. ]
Relax, then.
[ He seats himself on his knees next to Elio and puts both hands on his shoulders. He's got relatively big hands, Jean Louis, and relatively long fingers. He keeps his touch light as he runs both palms down his shoulder blades, pausing between them and pressing both thumbs against that point he couldn't reach before, the point that can drive anyone crazy trying to reach it without a scratcher.
He rubs it, slowly, feeling the tension beneath the skin clearly through his shirt. Then, after a couple of seconds, he runs both hands upwards, fingers spread out over Elio's ribs to either side, all the way up over his shoulder blades. ]
no subject
Elio’s shoulders slump, also as he feels the other man sitting down on his knees next to him, leaning in and kneading the exact spot Elio couldn’t reach earlier, moments ago, moments that feel like forever. Like there’s a wall between then and now. Maybe there is, maybe they will never go back to that. He has big hands, Jean Louis, if he hadn’t been completely tone deaf, he might have made a decent pianist. Or violinist, though Elio doesn’t think the other man would see the appeal of the shriller instrument. The way his features sometimes tighten when listening to Elio play the Steinway in his apartment is bad enough. A violin would drive him insane. His hands are beautiful things, though, even the pinky without its nail and sporadic cramps to remind them both of what he’s been through. For a moment, Elio just lies there, feeling the way he touches him, with so much intent, but not on his behalf, Elio is still in control, wondering what part of him will remind Jean Louis of Elio’s past, going forward. Will he look at his - Elio doesn’t know, there’s no part Oliver hasn’t touched. His everything isn’t an answer.
He tenses as the other man runs his palms up over his shoulder blades, via his ribs, feeling little and bony and fragile beneath his touch. Like he could break, not even Elio the Tree, but Elio the Twig. Elio. Elio. Elio. He stares into the wall, across an expanse of duvet and sheet. ]
Do you still think I can stand it?
[ He doesn’t know if Jean Louis even still remembers. That time in the car, but Elio does. ]
no subject
Of course I do.
[ He remembers. He remembers Elio whimpering against him in the back of his Audi, the other man's cock hard and aching in his grip. Just the other day, they went to the beach in the freezing cold and Elio went to his knees in the sand all the same and sucked him off, took him all the way down his throat and swallowed him up. How could he think any differently? It's not even a matter of subjective opinion, it's a fucking fact.
That he's strong, Elio, even when he's at his weakest. ]
It's not something that changes.
[ Slowly, carefully, he runs his hands inwards, following the slope of Elio's shoulders on either side up to the nape of his neck. There, he pauses. Breathes in, exhales. Then, he presses down, kneading the muscle there, feeling the knots of tension and thinking, it's been there for years because he knows, obviously, he knows how that goes, too. It's never just one, single night.
Single nights, after all, end. ]
no subject
Is it pretend?
The nape of his neck feels burning hot where Jean Louis is kneading it. He sighs and turns his head to the other side, looking at another wall, the door, his bookshelf full of old books that were never needed in either Rome or Paris. Things belonging to this place particularly, like summer romances and fresh apricot juice. Heraclitus. Oliver. When they leave the summer house behind, they'll leave all that behind, too.
Where to go from there?
He hopes it's a place Jean Louis will be. ]
Then, don't stop.
[ He says it softly, voice still a little bit thick. He means the massage, of course, it's nice. It's nice being touched by those big, otherwise very matter of fact hands. Are they matter of fact now? Is Elio the matter or the fact?
Slowly, slowly, slowly his neck muscles go soft beneath the other man's fingertips, but it's a lengthy process and Elio fears they'll be here for a long time yet. He'd understand if Jean Louis ran out of patience, fucks to give. It's not that he wants to go home, mind, he doesn't know what home is from here either, Paris is another life dictated by Oliver, Oliver, Oliver, by Elio waiting and hoping and dreaming to be found, but this place hasn't been home since he was seventeen, has it? What lies beyond? Beyond being found, because you were abandoned first.
Elio doesn't know. But he wants Jean Louis to be there, he wants that to be another thing which doesn't change. ]