[ A slight smile at Elio's comments, particularly the latter - after all, Lucifer's not exactly renowned for leaving things in their original state, unchanged or... undamaged. Sometimes, the two are pretty much indistinguishable. He moves through the allegro at a medium pace because rushing it simply isn't the kind of mood he's in. He's decided not to continue with the adagio-movement once he's through this one - because he's not in the mood for that, either. There's a restlessness spreading in his system and he wonders again whether Chloe's got need of him but she isn't calling or texting and no doubt, she's expecting him to be in the middle of... something else.
He sighs.
Elio's stepped closer yet, fingers brushing the lid of the piano. Slender fingers, elegant - perfect, he's sure, for this kind of music. The adagio part would probably sound exquisite beneath his hands. It has a tender, slightly melancholic mood to it. Elio's followed him the past hours, accepting, believing (resigned, perhaps, to the idea of inevitability?) and taking everything in stride but whether or not any of it actually resonates? Frowning, he comes to an abrupt realisation and looks up at him, speaking without pausing in his play: ]
You've closed yourself off somehow. [ He grins, nodding to himself. ] Don't know why, don't know how - but you have, haven't you? All of this - [ He waves a hand at their surroundings, at nothing in particular and everything all at once. The music. The murder. The weather. ] - it's just happening, with or without your active participation. Grey areas and nothing besides.
[ He strikes the last few passages quickly. Then, he comes to a halt. Frowns again, gaze slipping sideways. ]
Though, it hardly explains how you're dodging my mojo. People do that, after all. I've seen it a million times.
[ The other man ends it with the allegro at a medium pace, no adagio. Instead, he abruptly shifts the focus from himself (Elio's comment hanging unanswered in the air between them) to Elio himself who just looks at him for a long moment, fingers still trailing the lid, though only for a few seconds longer, then he withdraws his hand, lets it fall to his side, like a symbolic gesture. I won't probe any further, it means, you don't like it, obviously, I don't want to make you uncomfortable. He remembers Lucifer apologizing earlier and feels like he should do the same now, but ends up simply accepting the man's change of topic, accepting the ball, so to speak. The music ceases, final bars of the allegro resonating in the living room briefly before fading from existence. Elio straightens up, looks the other man up and down slowly, thinking his conclusion over.
You've closed yourself off somehow.
Very few people look through him so quickly or so blatantly. Few people care. He doesn't know whether it's Lucifer's manner or the implicit investment that gets to him, but something does. He steps up to the piano bench and waits to be allowed to sit, to have their shoulders brushing, to feel their sides pressing together, because two grown men is a lot to ask of even the broadest piano bench, really. He doesn't outrightly ask, but he waits, patiently. His waiting is his request. ]
Someone told me once to feel the pain, it's better than withdrawal. [ Looking away slowly from Lucifer, his statuesque features that would make even Elio's father happy, he licks his lips. He doesn't know why he's saying these things, perhaps it's got to do with Lucifer's "mojo" after all. Perhaps it's got to do with Lucifer, period. Outside the afternoon sun's bright and hot. It plays in the whiskey tumblers left out there, the crystal catching the light.
Elio doesn't return his attention to him, doesn't look him in the face, but remains very honest, very - open. Gaze just slightly off to the side, eyes fixed on the sky outside. ] I think we're a million people waiting for them to be proven right. How long do you think we'll have to wait?
[ Elio drifts closer until he's standing right by the bench, though he doesn't sit down, simply hovers, clearly waiting for explicit permission. Speaks in his favour, doesn't it. Lucifer really dislikes bossy men, he's just about had enough of them throughout his existence by far, thanks Dad. He looks up at Elio, expression neutral now, the initial satisfaction at having possibly figured him out a little giving way to thoughtfulness at his elaboration. Pain. Better than withdrawal. Yes, that sounds like absolute gibberish if you actually know what true pain is - he's fairly certain that everyone who's been there would prefer numbness, to drift away, to know nothing whilst they're going through it.
So, Elio's doing what everybody with half a brain would do in the face of... hurt, isn't it? Pain. Another similar word, except it goes further by definition. Hard not to wonder as to what sort of hurt we're talking about. Caused by people? By love, loss, heartbreak? How long do you think we'll have to wait he asks and Lucifer shifts sideways, nodding at him to take a seat next to him on the bench, thinking that he wouldn't mind having him a bit closer. He exudes honesty, this man. It's like he doesn't know any other way to be and Lucifer hasn't met anyone like him before, not ever.
Biting his lower lip, he looks away, one hand still fingering the keys on the upper register of the keyboard. He presses them randomly. ]
For a lie to be proven true?
[ His voice gains a harsher edge as he grabs his glass and empties it once more. Holds it between his fingers, gaze growing distant. He doesn't give the answer because it'll be obvious to the both of them, as it were even as Elio posed the question and allowed it to settle between them. Forever he thinks, feeling hollow all of a sudden, hollow and restless and exhausted. We'll be waiting forever.
[ For a lie to be proven true, says Lucifer, inching aside to leave him room on the bench and Elio seats himself carefully, not wanting to elbow anyone anywhere in the process, especially not as Lucifer reaches for his glass and empties it. Does angel metabolism work differently, can you not drink yourself into a stupor, won't you get to stumble pissed through Rome at dawn, singing Neapolitan drinking songs?
What the man's actually saying without saying it explicitly is, forever, you'll be waiting forever. Or is it we in this case? Doesn't the Devil know lies better than most, you'd think? Not as the subject, he did say he never lied, but as the object, are they actually talking one sufferer to the other? Elio glances sideways up at him, the way he's holding his tumbler between his fingers and looking at it, gaze seeing things far away. Things that aren't in this room and unrelated to Elio at all. He'll have more memories than him to dig through, too, he's existed since the dawn of time. And even so, they're sitting side by side now, so close he can feel the heat exuding from the other man's body, can feel the hardness of him, muscles and flesh and other things that harden you. Lies. The kind you live.
Keeping his elbows as close to his body as possible, he slowly reaches up and runs his fingers lightly over the keys of Lucifer's baby grand, without pressing any of them. It's an exquisite, expensive instrument and he handles it carefully, with quite a lot of admiration, just feeling the smoothness of the keys beneath his fingertips first. There's nothing to say in response to Lucifer's rhetorical question, is there? More lies, maybe, but aren't they both tired of that? Elio is, anyway. Lucifer looks tired, too, and it isn't even three in the afternoon yet.
Still, the sun has passed its zenith. Outside. ]
Is it my turn? [ Elio shakes himself out of it forcibly, it's a well-rehearsed exercise at this point, going to work, playing the piano, sleeping with people. Life! The rest dormant underneath the surface. Still, he waits for Lucifer's permission in this, too, hands coming to a rest in his lap until he has it. His contemplative expression has given way to a small smile again and he raises an eyebrow slightly up at Lucifer. ] To play?
[ His eyes follow the bridge of Lucifer's nose to his lips, linger there, wait. He wonders what he's going to taste like. Besides Scotch. ]
[ The silence between them stretches on for a while as Elio sits down next to him, their shoulders and arms brushing. They've hit a point of zero contention, it seems, the other man accepting his non-question for what it is. It's an acknowledgment, mostly. They both know what it feels like, he thinks, the disappointment of being oh-so-kindly advised on how to perceive the world and your own emotional response to it. If it hurts, at least you're feeling something. Such an easy fix, to keep people compliant, to keep them locked in loops that lead to nothing, nowhere.
Lucifer knows about those as well, doesn't he.
Is it my turn asks Elio carefully, touching the keys the same way he was touching Lucifer before, carefully, without truly asking for anything. If you want to give it, it means, I'd like to have it and it feels lovely, in a way, to be given that choice, even by a human who could never force anything from him. Perhaps except...
He frowns.
Glances sideways at Elio, then nods. ]
Be my guest.
[ Said with an upwards-twist of his lips as he leans back a little, stretching out his legs before getting to his feet and leaving Elio with enough room to move, to span whatever length he'd like of the keyboard. Standing by the piano, sipping his Scotch and watching the other man quietly, he wonders again as to why he's unaffected by his mojo - why is he here, in his penthouse, his desires still a complete mystery to him and his gentle attitude leaving him with no further clues? Humans, typically, aren't that complicated. Not the ones he meets, anyhow.
But maybe, he thinks, that has to do with his choices, too, and where they take him. To whom.
Ugh, this is seriously messing with his head, isn't it. Good thing he's got a therapy session booked for tomorrow. ]
[ Be my guest he's told and true, Elio is his guest, for too many different reasons, most of them unknown, he thinks as Lucifer first stretches out his tall-man legs, then gets off the bench to leave him room to span the keyboard as he wishes. Why do you think I brought you along, the man had half-jokingly wanted to know earlier and Elio can't help him with that, he's afraid, he doesn't know why his powers don't work on him, why he won't tell him his desires. Because part of him does, to be honest, he simply isn't - can't - they aren't there yet. Elio places his hands on the keys again and goes through his catalogue, classical pieces, jazz standards, he could play a ragtime interpretation of Mozart, but he still won't tell the Devil what he most wants in the world, like one is more sacrilegious than the other. Staying close to the piano, Lucifer watches him while drinking his Scotch, like that's a river that will never run dry in this house. Elio remembers being drunk and in love, he remembers being in Rome, long ago. He can't quite match Lucifer's implied forever yet, but fifteen years feels like a lifetime and is, if nothing else, half one such. For him. He's only 33.
That should bring him hope, shouldn't it?
Taking a deep breath, he begins playing the first few chords of the Moonlight Sonata, because it's meditative and Elio thinks best to music that fits his mindset, but a minute in, he makes a jarring mistake that makes the line of his lips tighten, then ten seconds later, he makes another. He stops again, abruptly. Lets his hands sink to his lap, frowning slightly, then gets to his feet and moves around the instrument, stopping next to Lucifer and his drink, in the middle of his living room full of lights. They aren't quite touching. They aren't quite there yet. ]
Please ask me again later. [ The music, he means, ask me to play again, I can do better, later. But he also means his desires. Maybe all they need is more time, to wait. ] Few people have ever cared about what I wanted before.
[ Elio turns his head slowly, looking up at the other man, towering over him, broad and dark and beautiful. Wanting to touch him again, Elio instead flexes his fingers by his sides and breathes deeply through his nose, looking around the room. Only the Devil could live here, really. It couldn't be anyone else.
[ The Moonlight Sonata starts out beautifully until the other man's fingers seem to slip, first once, then twice. Lucifer raises an eyebrow at him - hoping his concerts go better than this, oh dear - when Elio gets off the bench again, looking ever so slightly frustrated as he pauses next to him. Supposedly, sometimes your heart and mind just aren't perfectly aligned for this sort of thing and at those times, this particular piece of music goes nowhere.
Few people have ever cared Elio tells him and Lucifer looks at him for a long moment, very much aware of his proximity. The tingling in his chest is back and sure, it has to do with his desires. Elio's pleasing to the eye. He's sweet, easy to tolerate. But aside from that, he's carrying something within himself, something unusually opaque and it speaks to Lucifer, like there's something in him that can't help but respond in kind.
That's new.
His mind flashes back to someone else, once upon a time, thousands of years ago. Sweet Eve, made to be whatever her partner wanted her to be, to mold herself according to their desires. He'd told her to be free, to choose for herself and naturally, she had. Whether or not it made her truly free, he can't say - she's in Heaven now, stuck with her spouse, within the confines of divine eternity. But Elio is here. He's not asking to be what Lucifer wants, either, or waiting for him to say so.
He's waiting to be told what he wants for himself.
Reaching out because he can't not, Lucifer runs his hand up Elio's upper arm, just a light brush of his fingertips over the soft fabric of his borrowed shirt. With a slight smile, he sits back down by the piano and gives him the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, picking it up for him, letting him think of the gesture what he wishes. ]
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no subject
He sighs.
Elio's stepped closer yet, fingers brushing the lid of the piano. Slender fingers, elegant - perfect, he's sure, for this kind of music. The adagio part would probably sound exquisite beneath his hands. It has a tender, slightly melancholic mood to it. Elio's followed him the past hours, accepting, believing (resigned, perhaps, to the idea of inevitability?) and taking everything in stride but whether or not any of it actually resonates? Frowning, he comes to an abrupt realisation and looks up at him, speaking without pausing in his play: ]
You've closed yourself off somehow. [ He grins, nodding to himself. ] Don't know why, don't know how - but you have, haven't you? All of this - [ He waves a hand at their surroundings, at nothing in particular and everything all at once. The music. The murder. The weather. ] - it's just happening, with or without your active participation. Grey areas and nothing besides.
[ He strikes the last few passages quickly. Then, he comes to a halt. Frowns again, gaze slipping sideways. ]
Though, it hardly explains how you're dodging my mojo. People do that, after all. I've seen it a million times.
no subject
You've closed yourself off somehow.
Very few people look through him so quickly or so blatantly. Few people care. He doesn't know whether it's Lucifer's manner or the implicit investment that gets to him, but something does. He steps up to the piano bench and waits to be allowed to sit, to have their shoulders brushing, to feel their sides pressing together, because two grown men is a lot to ask of even the broadest piano bench, really. He doesn't outrightly ask, but he waits, patiently. His waiting is his request. ]
Someone told me once to feel the pain, it's better than withdrawal. [ Looking away slowly from Lucifer, his statuesque features that would make even Elio's father happy, he licks his lips. He doesn't know why he's saying these things, perhaps it's got to do with Lucifer's "mojo" after all. Perhaps it's got to do with Lucifer, period. Outside the afternoon sun's bright and hot. It plays in the whiskey tumblers left out there, the crystal catching the light.
Elio doesn't return his attention to him, doesn't look him in the face, but remains very honest, very - open. Gaze just slightly off to the side, eyes fixed on the sky outside. ] I think we're a million people waiting for them to be proven right. How long do you think we'll have to wait?
no subject
So, Elio's doing what everybody with half a brain would do in the face of... hurt, isn't it? Pain. Another similar word, except it goes further by definition. Hard not to wonder as to what sort of hurt we're talking about. Caused by people? By love, loss, heartbreak? How long do you think we'll have to wait he asks and Lucifer shifts sideways, nodding at him to take a seat next to him on the bench, thinking that he wouldn't mind having him a bit closer. He exudes honesty, this man. It's like he doesn't know any other way to be and Lucifer hasn't met anyone like him before, not ever.
Biting his lower lip, he looks away, one hand still fingering the keys on the upper register of the keyboard. He presses them randomly. ]
For a lie to be proven true?
[ His voice gains a harsher edge as he grabs his glass and empties it once more. Holds it between his fingers, gaze growing distant. He doesn't give the answer because it'll be obvious to the both of them, as it were even as Elio posed the question and allowed it to settle between them. Forever he thinks, feeling hollow all of a sudden, hollow and restless and exhausted. We'll be waiting forever.
That's a bloody long time, to be sure. ]
no subject
What the man's actually saying without saying it explicitly is, forever, you'll be waiting forever. Or is it we in this case? Doesn't the Devil know lies better than most, you'd think? Not as the subject, he did say he never lied, but as the object, are they actually talking one sufferer to the other? Elio glances sideways up at him, the way he's holding his tumbler between his fingers and looking at it, gaze seeing things far away. Things that aren't in this room and unrelated to Elio at all. He'll have more memories than him to dig through, too, he's existed since the dawn of time. And even so, they're sitting side by side now, so close he can feel the heat exuding from the other man's body, can feel the hardness of him, muscles and flesh and other things that harden you. Lies. The kind you live.
Keeping his elbows as close to his body as possible, he slowly reaches up and runs his fingers lightly over the keys of Lucifer's baby grand, without pressing any of them. It's an exquisite, expensive instrument and he handles it carefully, with quite a lot of admiration, just feeling the smoothness of the keys beneath his fingertips first. There's nothing to say in response to Lucifer's rhetorical question, is there? More lies, maybe, but aren't they both tired of that? Elio is, anyway. Lucifer looks tired, too, and it isn't even three in the afternoon yet.
Still, the sun has passed its zenith. Outside. ]
Is it my turn? [ Elio shakes himself out of it forcibly, it's a well-rehearsed exercise at this point, going to work, playing the piano, sleeping with people. Life! The rest dormant underneath the surface. Still, he waits for Lucifer's permission in this, too, hands coming to a rest in his lap until he has it. His contemplative expression has given way to a small smile again and he raises an eyebrow slightly up at Lucifer. ] To play?
[ His eyes follow the bridge of Lucifer's nose to his lips, linger there, wait. He wonders what he's going to taste like. Besides Scotch. ]
no subject
Lucifer knows about those as well, doesn't he.
Is it my turn asks Elio carefully, touching the keys the same way he was touching Lucifer before, carefully, without truly asking for anything. If you want to give it, it means, I'd like to have it and it feels lovely, in a way, to be given that choice, even by a human who could never force anything from him. Perhaps except...
He frowns.
Glances sideways at Elio, then nods. ]
Be my guest.
[ Said with an upwards-twist of his lips as he leans back a little, stretching out his legs before getting to his feet and leaving Elio with enough room to move, to span whatever length he'd like of the keyboard. Standing by the piano, sipping his Scotch and watching the other man quietly, he wonders again as to why he's unaffected by his mojo - why is he here, in his penthouse, his desires still a complete mystery to him and his gentle attitude leaving him with no further clues? Humans, typically, aren't that complicated. Not the ones he meets, anyhow.
But maybe, he thinks, that has to do with his choices, too, and where they take him. To whom.
Ugh, this is seriously messing with his head, isn't it. Good thing he's got a therapy session booked for tomorrow. ]
no subject
That should bring him hope, shouldn't it?
Taking a deep breath, he begins playing the first few chords of the Moonlight Sonata, because it's meditative and Elio thinks best to music that fits his mindset, but a minute in, he makes a jarring mistake that makes the line of his lips tighten, then ten seconds later, he makes another. He stops again, abruptly. Lets his hands sink to his lap, frowning slightly, then gets to his feet and moves around the instrument, stopping next to Lucifer and his drink, in the middle of his living room full of lights. They aren't quite touching. They aren't quite there yet. ]
Please ask me again later. [ The music, he means, ask me to play again, I can do better, later. But he also means his desires. Maybe all they need is more time, to wait. ] Few people have ever cared about what I wanted before.
[ Elio turns his head slowly, looking up at the other man, towering over him, broad and dark and beautiful. Wanting to touch him again, Elio instead flexes his fingers by his sides and breathes deeply through his nose, looking around the room. Only the Devil could live here, really. It couldn't be anyone else.
It's not theory, it's truth. ]
no subject
Few people have ever cared Elio tells him and Lucifer looks at him for a long moment, very much aware of his proximity. The tingling in his chest is back and sure, it has to do with his desires. Elio's pleasing to the eye. He's sweet, easy to tolerate. But aside from that, he's carrying something within himself, something unusually opaque and it speaks to Lucifer, like there's something in him that can't help but respond in kind.
That's new.
His mind flashes back to someone else, once upon a time, thousands of years ago. Sweet Eve, made to be whatever her partner wanted her to be, to mold herself according to their desires. He'd told her to be free, to choose for herself and naturally, she had. Whether or not it made her truly free, he can't say - she's in Heaven now, stuck with her spouse, within the confines of divine eternity. But Elio is here. He's not asking to be what Lucifer wants, either, or waiting for him to say so.
He's waiting to be told what he wants for himself.
Reaching out because he can't not, Lucifer runs his hand up Elio's upper arm, just a light brush of his fingertips over the soft fabric of his borrowed shirt. With a slight smile, he sits back down by the piano and gives him the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, picking it up for him, letting him think of the gesture what he wishes. ]