[ The sky above LA is reasonably clear tonight. Lucifer knows, of course, that there are countless upon countless of stars, hiding between the visible ones, the city too luminous in itself to allow the light through. He's got one hand on the railing, another on his cigarette, smoke trailing upwards in lazy swirls. Elio's inside, still, amongst the expensive furnishings and the glass walls. Probably, he'll be joining him soon enough, the other man's very good at following, waiting for his cues. A few feet away the apricot tree's blooming in the dark, quietly pretty, the sort of thing you'd always notice in passing.
He died today, went to Hell, came back. The Detective's alright, of course, because no way is he letting a pitiful maniac kill her off just like that, no way is he losing the closest friend he's ever had, one of the very few beings in existence that he... Well. There's simply no way.
It took him a couple of drinks back at home to push the sound of Uriel's stomach bursting open (again and again and again) to the back of his mind. Lips thinning, he inhales another mouthful of smoke. Thinks about Elio, then. About Hell. It's too easy, getting caught up in your own guilt - it's too tempting, like a wound you're leaving to fester just for a chance to poke at it, to watch it seep and feel it burn. He should've known he'd get locked up down there. He's the King of Hell, for crying out loud, if anyone should understand... ]
[ When Lucifer showed up unannounced, he had just let him in without question, because he looked like he'd just awoken from the dead, pretty much. Not for the first time, Elio had then wondered what kind of family he comes from, where you're forced to kill your one brother, the other isn't performing at his best and your mother has to be shipped to another dimension, as far as dysfunctional family units goes, that's still extreme. Cosmic, Elio had thought and watched him as he, wordlessly, had sauntered out onto the balcony where he's standing now, one hand on the railing, fingers of the other balancing his cigarette. He's watching the stars, the few percentages of the night sky you can actually glimpse over LA, even from a vantage point like this. As close as you get without flying.
Elio picks up the two tumblers of Scotch, the expensive Macallan that Michel had brought for him as a housewarming gift, and joins Lucifer on the balcony, crossing the distance between here and there on bare feet. The tiles are still warm from soaking up a whole day's sunlight. ]
Here. [ Holding out one tumbler for the other man, he waits for him to take it before placing himself up against the railing, front against the cityscape, shoulder against Lucifer's. They're touching like that, a soft brush of fabric and skin underneath. Firm muscles, hard bone. They're all of that. The parts that can't easily be broken and the parts that can. ] You look like you might need it.
[ So you're welcome either to drink or to talk to me, it means, Elio pursing his lips as he watches the city lights. Anything goes tonight. ]
[ As predicted, Elio joins him after another short moment, two tumblers of Scotch between his hands. He drops the cigarette over the railing, still lit, the embers shooting through the darkness like something else, falling from the sky. All the metaphors are on point these days, aren't they. He sighs. Takes the glass and sips it, feeling the other man's shoulder against his own. He presses back, lightly. The thing with Elio is, he never oversteps his boundaries - Lucifer's not particularly affectionate, particularly not in the physical sense, and whilst he's fairly certain Elio is, it never really seems to matter between them. Elio takes what he's offered.
Something about that thought makes him frown. He glances sideways at the other man, gaze gliding over his sharp cheekbones, his elegant chin. Big eyes. He'd compared one of the strippers to a Greek Adonis but he certainly has some very classically pretty features, himself. Just more to the feminine side, really. That's never been his type with regards to men.
It looks very beautiful on Elio, though. ]
I do, don't I. [ He smiles very slightly. ] And you, my dear? What do you need?
[ A smile, small, amused. Elio cocks his head to one side a bit and follows the arc of Lucifer's still-lit cigarette as it tumbles down the stories of the tall building they're currently on top of. He didn't ask, what do you want, this time. He asked him what he needed.
They're progressing from all that, aren't they? His mojo and his powers. Getting closer to the person behind the Devil. ]
I need you to kiss me - [ Looking back at Lucifer, catching his eyes, the way he's mapping out his features, Elio raises an eyebrow, it isn't a question, but rather a wordless commentary. Thank you for seeing me. A slow, languid shrug and he takes a sip of his Scotch, before his hands return to dangling from the railing, his tumbler, too. It's a dangerous, potential fall. He remembers them, on Lucifer's balcony, just as high up, on the first day. His precinct bag of borrowed clothes taking the nosedive over the edge, in Lucifer's telltale showstopper style. ] - and then, I need you to tell me one thing that happened to you today, I don't care which. Anything.
[ Anything you think I should know, it means, I just want to be close to you. Normally, he doesn't ask, that's true, he lets Lucifer tell him in his own time, but Michel and the new apartment - as well as his even newer therapist have all made him question his personal concept of expectation, whether it isn't slightly screwed. ]
[ He raises his eyebrow at Elio's initial comment - not a hardship at all, is it - turning slightly to face him. He's actually a split-second away from puckering his lips and getting to it when Elio follows up with tell me one thing that happened. Pause. He looks at the other man for moment, his brow furrowing slightly. Their relationship - whatever it is, friendship, not-quite-lovers - is gradually becoming an interesting existential experience in the art of being lost and found. Continuously. He doesn't know how to feel about that, honestly, but then, he did just go to Hell and back and good thing the professor actually kept the antidote formula in his head - imagine if that had been a turn of phrase. He sighs. It hadn't even occurred to him, that it might go badly. That something might've been missed during the planning stage, such as it was.
Anything, says Elio and Lucifer leans in to kiss him, folding one hand against his jaw to tip him upwards a little, the lights from the balcony dancing across his face. It's a slow kiss, gentle and unhurried, a little tongue just to keep things interesting - but mostly, it's... just a kiss. Simple. Undeterred. He tastes Scotch on his tongue, on Elio's too, and beneath that, the warm and by now intimate familiarity of him.
He's seen Lucifer, after all, for what he is.
It's irreplaceable.
When he pulls back after a moment, he says, voice quiet: ]
I died. [ A half-smile. ] Briefly. Had to run a small errand in Hell.
[ There's something incredibly odd and marvelous about saying these things out loud with the expectation of being believed. ]
[ Lucifer turns towards him and is obviously not finding the first part of his request a difficult need to sate, but the second part still makes him pause, frown and Elio turns towards him as well, looks at him for a long moment, feeling a slight sense of dread in the pit of his stomach, a completely senseless fear that he's pushed it too far, demanded too much, hoped, hoped, hoped in vain. Then, oh, then he's being kissed and it's slow and warm and comes with no presumptions, just a little tongue that he meets with his own, taking in the taste of Scotch first and foremost, seems to be a given with Lucifer, at this point with Elio as well and underneath it, something darker, gradually familiar. What's left when you strip him of alcohol and attitude. Lucifer's hand against his jaw is good. Careful. Asking him to meet him halfway there. Elio loses his breath a little, has to catch it once they both draw back.
His lips are tingling and he licks them without really thinking about it.
I died, says the other man in response to his second request and more than the kiss, more than the taste of him and the feel of him and the nearness of him, it's the intimacy in those words that makes Elio feel an incredible fondness for him. He's sharing with him, again. He's offering. Slowly, Elio smiles, a half-smile to match Lucifer's, and cocks his head, sloshing the Scotch around his tumbler with his right hand without glancing down. Full attention on the other man. Had to run a small errand in Hell. ]
I didn't know you could die. [ It seems to be the same song as always, things Elio didn't know about him. ] It must have been very important, if it was worth going to Hell for.
[ They're close like this, their faces mere inches apart. Elio's lips are shining and Lucifer wants to lick them again, just to feel the softness of them. Instead, his expression grows a bit sombre at Elio's comment, his gaze slipping sideways. He curls one arm around the other man's narrow waist and pulls him in a little, just for emphasis. ]
It was for a friend.
[ Elio feels equal parts hard and soft against him, warm despite the chill of the evening clinging to his outerwear. Chloe had looked so small in that hospital bed, surrounded by tubes and beeping machines. He'd been so very close to losing her, to losing the dearest friend he's ever had. No way in Hell was he letting that happen, not to her, not to her child (and not to himself, either, because he's nothing if not inherently selfish). All the same, he can never actually tell her what he did the way he's just done, now, with Elio. She'll have to simply close her eyes some more to the truth; that she can't explain away the inexplicable, that there must be a story there that she simply can't bear.
He leaves it like that. One day, perhaps, she'll make a different choice.
It doesn't matter as much as it did. Before.
He glances back at Elio with unconcealed warmth in his eyes. You're my friend too, it says, and beneath that, probably less evident - I'd do it for you as well. ]
[ When he says it, he looks away, does Lucifer. It was for a friend. Elio doesn't feel jealous at his words, although judging from their relationship, his own and Lucifer's, friendship's many things when it comes to the Devil and maybe, in another reality, another place on Earth (with another person), he would have been. Jealous. As it is, he's just happy - happy that Lucifer has someone worth returning to Hell for and happy that whatever happened to them, it has been resolved enough that he can be here now, with him, telling him about it and looking at him with his dark, deep eyes that say, you're a friend, too. Maybe that's the real reason he isn't feeling much jealousy at all, really. Because Lucifer is curling his arm around his waist and holding him close in every sense of the phrase. Physically and emotionally.
Elio steps closer, his tumbler of whiskey dangling dangerously between the fingers of his right hand, somewhere near the middle of his thigh, before he pushes up on the balls of his feet, almost on his toes, but not quite, leaning in and resting his chin on Lucifer's shoulder, the LA cityscape a kaleidoscope of lights behind him. Blinking against the dusk, against the colors and the shapes, going slightly blurry when he focuses on them for too long, he just stands there and inhales the nearness of the other man. The firmness of his body, the softness.
Things that don't exclude one another.
He smiles, a genuine sense of relief to it, for Lucifer's sake and for his own. ]
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He died today, went to Hell, came back. The Detective's alright, of course, because no way is he letting a pitiful maniac kill her off just like that, no way is he losing the closest friend he's ever had, one of the very few beings in existence that he... Well. There's simply no way.
It took him a couple of drinks back at home to push the sound of Uriel's stomach bursting open (again and again and again) to the back of his mind. Lips thinning, he inhales another mouthful of smoke. Thinks about Elio, then. About Hell. It's too easy, getting caught up in your own guilt - it's too tempting, like a wound you're leaving to fester just for a chance to poke at it, to watch it seep and feel it burn. He should've known he'd get locked up down there. He's the King of Hell, for crying out loud, if anyone should understand... ]
no subject
Elio picks up the two tumblers of Scotch, the expensive Macallan that Michel had brought for him as a housewarming gift, and joins Lucifer on the balcony, crossing the distance between here and there on bare feet. The tiles are still warm from soaking up a whole day's sunlight. ]
Here. [ Holding out one tumbler for the other man, he waits for him to take it before placing himself up against the railing, front against the cityscape, shoulder against Lucifer's. They're touching like that, a soft brush of fabric and skin underneath. Firm muscles, hard bone. They're all of that. The parts that can't easily be broken and the parts that can. ] You look like you might need it.
[ So you're welcome either to drink or to talk to me, it means, Elio pursing his lips as he watches the city lights. Anything goes tonight. ]
no subject
Something about that thought makes him frown. He glances sideways at the other man, gaze gliding over his sharp cheekbones, his elegant chin. Big eyes. He'd compared one of the strippers to a Greek Adonis but he certainly has some very classically pretty features, himself. Just more to the feminine side, really. That's never been his type with regards to men.
It looks very beautiful on Elio, though. ]
I do, don't I. [ He smiles very slightly. ] And you, my dear? What do you need?
no subject
They're progressing from all that, aren't they? His mojo and his powers. Getting closer to the person behind the Devil. ]
I need you to kiss me - [ Looking back at Lucifer, catching his eyes, the way he's mapping out his features, Elio raises an eyebrow, it isn't a question, but rather a wordless commentary. Thank you for seeing me. A slow, languid shrug and he takes a sip of his Scotch, before his hands return to dangling from the railing, his tumbler, too. It's a dangerous, potential fall. He remembers them, on Lucifer's balcony, just as high up, on the first day. His precinct bag of borrowed clothes taking the nosedive over the edge, in Lucifer's telltale showstopper style. ] - and then, I need you to tell me one thing that happened to you today, I don't care which. Anything.
[ Anything you think I should know, it means, I just want to be close to you. Normally, he doesn't ask, that's true, he lets Lucifer tell him in his own time, but Michel and the new apartment - as well as his even newer therapist have all made him question his personal concept of expectation, whether it isn't slightly screwed. ]
no subject
Anything, says Elio and Lucifer leans in to kiss him, folding one hand against his jaw to tip him upwards a little, the lights from the balcony dancing across his face. It's a slow kiss, gentle and unhurried, a little tongue just to keep things interesting - but mostly, it's... just a kiss. Simple. Undeterred. He tastes Scotch on his tongue, on Elio's too, and beneath that, the warm and by now intimate familiarity of him.
He's seen Lucifer, after all, for what he is.
It's irreplaceable.
When he pulls back after a moment, he says, voice quiet: ]
I died. [ A half-smile. ] Briefly. Had to run a small errand in Hell.
[ There's something incredibly odd and marvelous about saying these things out loud with the expectation of being believed. ]
no subject
His lips are tingling and he licks them without really thinking about it.
I died, says the other man in response to his second request and more than the kiss, more than the taste of him and the feel of him and the nearness of him, it's the intimacy in those words that makes Elio feel an incredible fondness for him. He's sharing with him, again. He's offering. Slowly, Elio smiles, a half-smile to match Lucifer's, and cocks his head, sloshing the Scotch around his tumbler with his right hand without glancing down. Full attention on the other man. Had to run a small errand in Hell. ]
I didn't know you could die. [ It seems to be the same song as always, things Elio didn't know about him. ] It must have been very important, if it was worth going to Hell for.
no subject
It was for a friend.
[ Elio feels equal parts hard and soft against him, warm despite the chill of the evening clinging to his outerwear. Chloe had looked so small in that hospital bed, surrounded by tubes and beeping machines. He'd been so very close to losing her, to losing the dearest friend he's ever had. No way in Hell was he letting that happen, not to her, not to her child (and not to himself, either, because he's nothing if not inherently selfish). All the same, he can never actually tell her what he did the way he's just done, now, with Elio. She'll have to simply close her eyes some more to the truth; that she can't explain away the inexplicable, that there must be a story there that she simply can't bear.
He leaves it like that. One day, perhaps, she'll make a different choice.
It doesn't matter as much as it did. Before.
He glances back at Elio with unconcealed warmth in his eyes. You're my friend too, it says, and beneath that, probably less evident - I'd do it for you as well. ]
no subject
Elio steps closer, his tumbler of whiskey dangling dangerously between the fingers of his right hand, somewhere near the middle of his thigh, before he pushes up on the balls of his feet, almost on his toes, but not quite, leaning in and resting his chin on Lucifer's shoulder, the LA cityscape a kaleidoscope of lights behind him. Blinking against the dusk, against the colors and the shapes, going slightly blurry when he focuses on them for too long, he just stands there and inhales the nearness of the other man. The firmness of his body, the softness.
Things that don't exclude one another.
He smiles, a genuine sense of relief to it, for Lucifer's sake and for his own. ]
You have very lucky friends, Lucifer.