E X T R A : one more for the road.

[solosection]

[ It's not routine as such, routine would mean he did it consistently, and as with everything else about Elio, even now, hundreds of years later, his ways are a bit more chaotic than that. The only thing he does consistently is music.

Music and Lucifer, relatively, at least. It's been a summer now. Thousands of years in Hell.

This fall, though, like the fall three falls over, he's decided to go the extra mile. Before he left Hell, in one of Lucifer's and his quiet moments, it might have been post-orgasmic, too, he can't exactly recall any longer, seeing as he was on the verge of sleep either way and they do have a lot of sex, Lucifer had manifested one of those places to him from his past, things he missed about Earth, now that he never goes up any longer, except to bring Elio down. Elio doesn't think the Devil does these manifestations very consciously, it would be pretty unlike him, after all, but he pays attention even so, he'd remembered the structures, the desert, the hot gusts of wind like echoes against his skin.

Then, once on Earth, back in the world that is and isn't his, he'd looked the name up on the Web. Pasargadae. His father mentioned it sometimes in his moments of lecturing. Iran. Shiraz. Muslim territory, that would once have been more difficult for him to enter, but the world has changed and Islam has changed, too. So has Jewish beliefs. Interrelational affairs between the two. Jerusalem has become a beacon of co-existence. The wars in the area are long since over. What the Achaemenid Empire once was to the world, New Jerusalem is now.

Iran has opened up to the world, too. Elio found that he was a plane ticket away from Shiraz, a shorter ride by bus from the still active archaelogical site.

So, when everything that leads below had started singing to him, he'd made his preparations. One-way ticket to Iran. A hotel room in Shiraz for as long as he needed. He always travels light anyway.

The hotel he has picked has a piano in the lounge that he's been allowed to use at his own discretion, that's all Elio ever really asks.

It's his fourth day here. Every morning, he commutes to the site and goes for a long walk, it has expanded in the time that has passed, it's six times the size it was when Elio's father was alive to talk about it. Cyrus' tomb is still at its heart, the tomb once believed to belong to Salomon's mother. Things change. Things are always changing. Everything except Elio. Still early 30's, still wearing Lucifer's bracelet. Still longing to go home, half the time.

He stops in front of a row of huge columns that are reminiscent of the Greek style, except not completely. If he was his father or if he had been Oliver, he could probably tell the difference, but he is neither and all he can really gather from looking up and up and up, blinking against the sunlight, is that Earth hasn't changed much in thousands of years, except in the detail and who gets to live long enough to look that closely.

Except Lucifer. And him. ]

Comments

[factuallysatan]

[ He knows it's time when Hell prepares to blossom.

It's been many, many years - centuries - but Lucifer's chest still lightens every time it happens. As he walks down one of the narrow hallways, past rooms that have long been abandoned, the feathered spines along his back begin to tingle. He stops. Looks around, one hairless eyebrow quirking. He doesn't strictly have to see the proof of change each and every time it occurs, true. His reaction is habitual, as some things still are, even thousands of years down the road. Where are you, he thinks, looking up and down and around, the Lord of Hell twisting on his own axis, suddenly a little too gangly. Where - ah! There.

Along one of the shriveled doorways, a small vine is slowly but surely crawling its way up, specks of ash sticking to its stem. It's as grey and dark as the rest of the place, still shrouded in winter - but it's there. It'll be ready when the Queen returns.

Eyes softening, Lucifer looks up, past cliffs and rooftops and volcanic stalagmites. The barrier calls to him, louder and louder, and his heart sings with it. Spreading his wings, he takes off, going faster and faster, ash sticking to him as he bursts through the Earth and onto land in a fiery diorama of the very bowels of Hell itself. The diorama-part is pretty literal, sadly - it's just him, wearing next to nothing and a scorched circle limited to a small circular area of a few square meters.

He stands straight and shakes off what ash he can before he looks around, folding his wings away.

As soon as he sees Elio there, small in comparison to the massive gate behind him - oh, is this the Pasargadae? Oh, how marvelous! - Lucifer feels his Devil-form melt away, leaving him standing in the sunlight wearing nothing at all. Elio looks exactly like himself, like he's done in Lucifer's imagination every day for the past thousand years and for a moment, he can't do anything but open his arms wide, trying to keep his bottom lip from trembling.

Elio.

What a sight for sore eyes. ]

[solosection]

[ Of course Lucifer doesn't descend from above like this, he's looking the completely wrong direction, but he feels the pull and he hears the singing and he knows the precise moment when to turn around, finding the King of Hell rising through the crust of the Earth in a very controlled fiery circle, his Devil form as familiar as any of the rest. They've done this so many times, it doesn't get old, but it doesn't precisely get new again either. It just is. It's part of being home, too. He feels his lips broaden in a smile, his breath hard through his teeth when Lucifer melts back into his human form, utterly and gloriously naked, holding out his arms to him. Come, it means, I've missed you. And Elio thinks, me too, me too, me too while breaking into a sprint, hitting the other man head first, chest first, keeping his legs and knees from making contact with anything too currently vulnerable.

After all, the rest of Lucifer will be fine. They'll be fine now.

Elio locks his arms around Lucifer's neck, more of less rising up on his toes to reach, pressing his face in against the front of the Devil's naked shoulder, smelling him, skin kissed by sun here, old heat, fire, ash and brimstone. Home. They'll go in a bit, but first he'll show Lucifer around, he'll show him everything he's missed, everything that'll take him back and forward and time's not really a constraint to angels, is it? It's just the rest of them, those who have been human, those who are human still. It's one of those things, like God, like Fate - too, too deep for the human understanding.

But Lucifer isn't human and Elio is barely that, anymore.

He doesn't think it's really time that's changed him, though. He knows it isn't. It's him. He tightens his grip around Lucifer's shoulders, chest heaving against his chest. In sync. ]

The drains have been singing for days now.

[ I've been waiting, it means, without any real accusations to it, what were you waiting for. Except, they both know what, it's all on its own clock, the only clock that even they answer to. Elio draws back, lifting his eyes to Lucifer's face, the intensity of his gaze. On their left, a small tourist group is wandering past them, seeing nothing, because they don't want to be seen. ]

I'm glad you hurried.

[factuallysatan]

[ Though much too dressed for anyone's tastes, Elio feels like sunshine - warm, soft, a comfortable and unshakable reality against his front. Lucifer picks him up, folding one hand beneath his buttocks to support him. The other, he curves against the back of his neck, feeling the familiar shape of his face where it presses in against his shoulder. Oh. Oh. Before, back in the ancient past, he'd visited Earth primarily for the chance to escape and to feed his own senses on something that didn't taste like ash. This, on the other hand, goes to the very core of him. It feels like going from black-and-white back to a full, vibrant colour scheme.

Lucifer ducks his head and draws a deep breath. Familiar, his heart says. Welcome back. He meets Elio's eyes and smiles. ]

So am I.

[ Giving the other man's butt a squeeze for good measure - hello to you too, most favoured arse - he sets him down and steps back. One might say that they ought to make a habit of Elio packing him a set of clothes for these transitions. One might also say that there's a perfectly good reason - or two, really, fair's fair - why they haven't. He straightens, puts his hands on his hips and looks around, his smile widening. ]

What a magnificent choice of location, darling. I remember having a drink with Cyrus the Great right over there - [ He points south. ] - on his terrasse. He would have been quite surprised to see his kingdom in ruins, but satisfied, I'd say, to know that people are all the same flocking to experience what's left of it.

[ He looks around hungrily, conscious all the while of Elio being right besides him, of the call from underground, soft but undeniable. In a bit, he thinks, waving a mental hand at it, at the work that awaits them. Not like the party's going to start without them anyway. ]

[solosection]

[ Lucifer lifts him up, the way that Elio still weighs nothing to him, but evidently doesn't feel like nothing making all his insides squirm a little in the same undiluted joy it always has, always does. That Lucifer chooses that moment to squeeze his buttcheek as he eases him down on flat feet again only adds to the squirm, the clench, the heat between them. Lucifer like, he thinks, Lucifer appreciate. Elio laughs then, turning to follow the direction in which the Devil is pointing, narrowing his eyes slightly to make out the spot. He's walked past there a few times, but not stopped, not investigated. He has been waiting for Lucifer to come, to do it with him. Some things they just do better together, right?

Letting Lucifer take his time, looking around, Elio - however - has already decided, maybe he decided weeks ago when buying the ticket, that today they're not going straight down. They're going around and then, they're taking their time, because Hell will stand and fall with Lucifer, nothing will happen in his absence that they don't have a couple of thousand years to fix it in afterwards.

And besides, Elio wants to give Lucifer this. He wants him to have it. He wants him to share, too. ]

Show me.

[ Reaching out and grasping Lucifer's hand, he tugs him along playfully, backing up the nearest little sand-covered path towards the corner the Devil was pointing out to him and pulling the other man along. He's smiling with his eyes mainly, glancing over his shoulder once or twice to make sure he isn't reversing into anyone. At the moment, he doesn't want them to be discovered. He wants Lucifer all to himself. ]

One more day of summer, Lucifer, before we go back. Tell me about it.

[factuallysatan]

[ Show me says Elio, taking his hand and urging him along. For just a second, Lucifer can't help but notice how small the other man is - without the bracelet, he'd be smaller yet, just a tiny human with a tiny human lifespan, an existence that measures to the universe like a drop of water in the ocean. But in this case, it's all deception, isn't it? Elio has lived for thousands and thousands of years and he'll continue to live, yes. Into eternity. Such a small body for such big, all-encompassing concepts. His gaze softens as he follows, the ruins around them opening up.

Lucifer hasn't been around these parts since before the kingdom fell. Honestly, though he's visited Earth many times throughout his existence, he's never been particularly anxious to wander around amidst piles of rock and dust. He gets enough at that at work, thank you. Consequently, Cyrus' accomplishments (then later, Alexander's and then, onwards, onwards) feel faraway to him. He gathers, however, that humanity's been quite busy indeed digging them all out of the ground. It's... certainly something. ]

When I last saw him, the good Cyrus had only recently taken Sippar. In the aftermath, he'd declared himself king of pretty much everything - imagine the kind of balls that would take, knowing what inevitably follows.

[ The higher you fly, the longer the fall. Even back then, it had been an old story.

They walk past a group of tourists - Westerners, by the looks of them - and there's quite a bit of gawking happening for a moment, even with the two of them aiming to cause as little stir as possible. Well. Elio is obviously very handsome and Lucifer is butt-naked. It's no surprise that such a strain would prove too much for even the strongest, celestial mojo. A blonde woman with big blue eyes and a sundress that hugs her body like cling wrap winks at him and tosses her shawl towards him - it's flimsy and flowery and altogether adorable. He wraps it around his hips and gives her a smile and a wink in return while her husband or whatever (? handbag? pet dog?) glares after them. ]

Anyway, he was obsessed with PR, that one. And frighteningly good at it. Believers - [ He shudders slightly. ] - often are.

[solosection]

[ Once Lucifer decides to follow, it's not a matter of Elio leading anymore. Their relationship isn't like that, not because Lucifer is something more and Elio is something less, but because Elio always respected the Devil's agency, the way Lucifer needs it to be respected, fully acknowledged and more importantly, understood. Having God for a father as completely literally as the angels do probably does that to a person. Humans have always been a couple of steps farther removed, haven't they - and better at self-deception, as Lucifer is implying now. Elio guesses, unless you're good a fooling yourself, no one else is gonna follow along.

So, he turns on his heel and falls into step next to Lucifer, halting only a second to let him catch the shawl that a very beautiful woman is tossing at him, wrapping it around himself like a modern interpretation of an Adam's costume, though don't call it that to the Devil in question, of course, you'd be in for a lecture on Adam first. Even so, the fabric looks like very colorful fig leaves - or whatever trees they were, scholars have more than one idea, probably all ideas that Lucifer could just as quickly gut.

Lived experience trumps dusty books. Go live your life, Elio's father, now ascended, meaning that life's something else to him altogether, always said, and the rest will come.

Don't worry, Elio's living. He's been living for longer than he'd ever imagined he would, once. Not that he minds, the upsides far exceed the downsides at this point, if not in numbers then in impact.

Passing by rows of reconstructed buildings, various stages of complete, Elio follows the columns with his gaze, slowing down enough to admire structural details that several people he knew could've identified for him, if he'd asked. He wouldn't have, though. If the past isn't in the past, then reality, at least, is what it is. Why slap labels on everything? Whatever you wanna call it, it still stands. It stood when Lucifer was here and it stands here still now. Moving away from the other man a moment, Elio walks up to the nearest column and presses his flat hand against the marble, feeling the heat of the sun sitting within it. It's like a connect. Lucifer past, he thinks, Lucifer present. ]

Must've been. [ He turns around slowly, looking Lucifer up and down. ] Maybe that was where the balls came from. He knew he'd live forever, in a sense.

[ A small tug at the corner of his mouth. It's the smile he usually adopts when talking about Lucifer. Lucifer has his completely own brand of smile, after all. He's got a series. All his. ]

Tends to add volume to balls.