Chapter Text
"My God, you’re good at that."
Elio smiles and wipes the trail of cum and spit from his chin with the back of his hand. "It’s not natural for you to prefer my company to that chick."
"Shut up." Oliver cleans his hand on a rag he'd set aside for the purpose.
"You know you’re talking to yourself."
"Like I said, shut up."
Oliver crosses his ankles on the coffee table and uses the remote to confirm that there's nothing worth watching. Sitting next to Elio in the dark, by the flickering light of the television, he rereads Olivia's letter.
"You're going to wear out that piece of paper," Elio says curls an arm around Oliver's, folding his feet up on the sofa. It's cozy. Why ever leave?
Dear Daddy,
When you woke up screaming for your friend, I have to admit that I was jealous that anyone ever had that much of your attention and affection.
But the more you've explain, I think I understand how hard it must have been to lose someone you cared that much about. It's helped me to understand you and how hard it's been to trust the world. How hard to care about someone again.
So, Ash and I decided to find Elio Perlman’s gravestone. We hope this brings you more peace than pain.
Love,
Liv
300 S High St
Baltimore, MD 21202
“She means well,” Elio says, softly.
He sounds sleepy, but Oliver is bright awake.
He puts down the paper and stares at the TV, seeing nothing but moving shadows and shapes.
In a fitful decision, Oliver showers, shaves, and dresses in black jeans and a black t-shirt under a sleek black blazer. Black Chucks, in Elio's honor. Before he leaves his apartment, he selects a single flower from the vase on his kitchen table. Marit, the housekeeper, insists on refreshing them every week. She says everyone ought to have some living in their home. Since Oliver is certain he’d just kill plants, Marit always brings him a bouquet.
He would have taken all the flowers but Elio wouldn’t want that.
Due to his history of seizures, Oliver will never drive again. Hiring an Uber frees him to watch the suburban lights fade into brakelights under the shadows of trees on the highway. Soon, Baltimore's nighttime cityscape comes into view. Seedy and seated by its harbor, the town welcomes all who aren't afraid of dirty.
Oliver thanks his driver and clacks along on three legs with Elio at his side: perpetually young, indescribably beautifully, and uncharacteristically silent.
The place is packed but Oliver agrees to wait for a booth. Once seated, he orders a Studer Swiss.
He can’t see the stage. In a way, that makes the music better. A jazz trio. Not that Oliver knows the first thing about jazz or music at all, but it's lively and smart. Sophisticated. Once he gives up trying to understand, admiration settles in.
Twenty minutes after he arrives, the musicians take a break.
Oliver's glass is empty. It's kismet: the right time to leave.
He came. He saw. He knows. And it is more peace than pain. It's bewilderment, but Olivia did good.
Oliver stands, supports himself with both hands on his cane and breathes in this shift in reality.
Elio Perlman, alive and in his ever-pale flesh, is sitting side-saddle on the piano bench, doing something on his cellphone. Texting someone? Popping bubbles?
Crossing the room to say hello feels almost insurmountable - like crossing the river Styx into the land of the dead.
Before Olivia's research revealed this place, Elio was dead. For twenty-nine years, Elio has rested tumultuously in the deep recess of Oliver’s memory. As Dr. Carver would put it, this moment is scrambling Oliver’s eggs.
Yet, walking away would be unbearable in a different way. What's the worst that could happen? Elio doesn’t recognize him. Or hates him. Both are likely.
If Oliver had known. Or if he’d had the strength and courage to bring Gideon to justice… how would his entire life have been different? It’s a lot to process.
“So, what are you going to do?” Elio asks.
Young Elio. The apparition. The figment of Oliver’s wild and wistful imagination. The boy who died, but lives.
Oliver regards the path to the door. Easier to run.
He leaves his flower on the table and slowly makes his way through the crowded space. The place bustles and buzzes. Warm with the scent of alcohol and sweat. Glasses clank. Elegant women leaning on men’s arms, whispering secrets and lies.
Other than the men on stage, Oliver is one of the oldest in the place. The only one with a cane. He clutches the amber-inlaid handle and continues the long march to the piano.
His voice would be useless. Rather than try to speak, he places a crisp hundred-dollar bill into the oversized martini glass on the piano. Is Elio playing for tips? Can he survive on this gig alone?
“Thanks, man. I appreciate it,” the pianoman says without looking up from his phone.
Oliver breathes in the sound of his voice, familiar, but changed. Lower, with more gravel.
“You got a request or something?”
Slowly, Elio’s eyes travel up, widening as they reach Oliver's view. "Well, Hell." The skin around them crinkles when he smiles. "Hey, handsome.”
Oliver lowers his warming face. His legs are sturdy and still they might give way when Elio stands and hugs him. Holds him long and close. Solid. Real. Alive.
When the embrace is over, young Elio stands beside himself and grins. “Dude, I’m still hot.”
Oliver nods in agreement.
“You know what’s crazy,” Elio, the elder, says smiling. “I’ve been dreaming about you nonstop for the last year.”
***
"You know what, it’s loud as hell in here. Let’s go out on the terrace."
Oliver follows, still searching for his voice, grasping for a single adequate word. What do you say when a man you thought dead for thirty years has been playing piano in a jazz cantina 38 miles from your house? The fresh, cool air is good. Perhaps some oxygen will knock his brain into gear.
Elio points at the cane. "So, what happened there?"
Oliver shakes his head as if a 7-year sleep and another year of intense physical rehabilitation are no big deal. Oliver is still in PT twice a week with aspirations of losing the damn cane. Compared to Elio’s New Testament feat, Oliver’s ordeal pales.
He manages, “How?"
"What do you mean?"
"The last time I saw you--"
"Right. That… That asshole Gideon. Got me here…" Elio points to a space between his shoulder and his heart. "Can't hold a guitar for shit. Joint's all busted. But that was a long time ago. I don’t even think about it anymore."
If only Oliver could say the same.
"Probably the best damn thing ever happened to me," Elio adds. "Woke up in the hospital. Met this nurse… fucking gorgeous.”
Three decades ago, Elio had used those exact words to describe Oliver. It's misplaced jealousy. Oliver swallows the sting and listens.
“You know anything about EST? She harped on me for about ten years before I went and checked it out.”
Oliver silently wraps his thoughts around the years Elio spent with that nurse. Did they overlap the years he spent with Anne? Were they wasted years? Lost, squandered, irretrievable years?
“Wild shit," Elio continues. "Totally flipped my script. I stopped blaming my mother for my choices. Realized I wanted to die. I was waiting for someone to kill me because I was too chickenshit to do it myself. Anyway…Like I said, long time ago. What about you? You get that degree? You got family? Kids?”
“One. A daughter. She’s great, no thanks to me.”
“You’re lucky. I got four fucking sons, man. Each one a bigger knucklehead than the last.”
“So, you’re married.” The words stab Oliver's throat.
The longing makes no sense. There are three decades of change between them. Oliver is pining over a past that never happened.
“No way, man," Elio laughs at the idea of himself married. "She tried. They all did. Four kids, three mothers. Marriage is not my schtick."
Oliver nods unable to categorize his emotion at that revelation.
"Did find my mother, though. She’s still using. Nothing I can do about that.” Elio shrugs and takes a drag from his smoke.
Silence in the cold is three times as loud. They stand puffing out smoke and steam, filling up the moment with thoughtful nodding.
"You know, you couldn’t have saved me," Elio says. "Not in the mindset I was in back then. I would have just been an anchor around your neck."
That had been clear then. Oliver had prepared himself to sink.
"And when we were little kids... That wasn’t your battle. You know?"
Young Elio chimes in, "I could have told you that."
Older Elio searches the open air. “What do you keep looking at, Oliver? Is something up with your eyes?”
"Do you want to tell him you're crazy, or should I?"
"No. I... You haven’t changed much,” Oliver answers. "I mean, you have and you haven’t."
"Yeah, it is crazy seeing you, too.” Elio glances at his watch. “Time to get back to the office. Stick around, if you can.”
Oliver nearly lets him walk away and then calls out.
Elio turns and Oliver tries to downplay his limp as he splits the space between them. He spits out the words before they become glued to the back of his tongue. “I… would you like to go for dinner sometime?”
Elio lets loose a sly smile. “After all this time, are you asking me out?”
“No, I… I don’t know.”
“Ask me out, Oliver.”
Oliver lowers his eyes, allowing amusement and shock and nameless, ageless emotions to kick up a hot brew in his chest. “Elio, would you —?”
“Yeah. Of course, man. Thai tomorrow. On me.” Elio raises a finger. “One condition.”
It requires restraint not to say, ‘anything.’
But he would - what wouldn't Oliver do for a night of this inexplicable magnetism - the urge to be closer, to know his thoughts, to fall asleep inside of him? Watches Elio fingers as he types his phone number into the contacts on Oliver's phone. Then, he lays down his law.out his condition:
“We never met. Our history and all that bullshit, it's done,” Elio says. “We’re just a couple of guys seeing if there’s anything good between us.”
“Deal.”
It's a hasty concession. Who knows whether Oliver can live up to it? Goodness knows he's lugged that baggage around long enough to let it go.
The younger Elio claps him on the shoulder as the older, the real, living, smoking, mercilessly smirking man walks backward into the club.
From the terrace, the first piano notes are distant, but clear. The melody trickles down the keys and blends with the bass in the middle. It's a familiar tune. One Elio pulled from thin air when they were children. He'd called it Oliver's Song.
This would be a good time to leave. It would look cool and composed to disappear. Stay mysterious. Oliver could call tomorrow or wait a couple of days. Send a text. Not look to eager.
Or he could choose a better seat - one where he can see the stage - and have another drink. He could relax and revel in the music, in the view, and his prospects. Thai food sounds pretty damn good.