starfishstar

TIME IS THE ENEMY, TIME IS THE GUIDE

Fandom: Call Me By Your Name

Summary:

“Imagine,” Elio says. “In twenty years, do you think we’d still be here?”

Or: late at night on the bench in the garden with Elio, Oliver thinks about time.

Characters: Oliver/Elio

Words: ca. 1,000

Notes:

Written as a Yuletide treat for Macdragon /

katemacetak. (I really don’t know if this is at all what you were looking for, because my mind got captivated by the “time” part of the quote you cited and stayed stuck on that… But in any case, here’s a little expansion of a canon scene, attempting to reach toward the lovely way your prompts talked about the film, and especially about the role of setting.) Thank you to xslytherclawx for betareading!

“The only antagonist in this film is time.” –Armie Hammer

Read this fic on AO3, or here below:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“God, we wasted so many days.”

Night is all around them. The rustling leaves of the garden are lush and deep and nearly blue under the moonlight that spills down over everything. The air is cool, a gentle breath that brushes past where they sit together on the old stone bench at the back of the garden. More than four weeks are gone, less than two weeks remain. Six weeks is so little in which to live a lifetime.

Elio’s hand is warm, sliding up under Oliver’s shirt, a surreptitious ambassador of passion. For all these weeks, this little corner of the nighttime garden has been Oliver’s private spot, his beautiful, lonesome place to be alone with his own tumbled thoughts. How strange it is that now Elio is here with him.

How strange. How perfect.

“I didn’t know that,” Elio says, when Oliver finally admits how much time he’s spent on this stone bench at night, tucked away amidst the foliage. “That’s funny. I thought that –”

“Yeah, I know what you thought!”

They tussle and laugh, Elio’s lips warm against Oliver’s throat, his long limbs eager. Helplessly enthralled, Oliver pulls Elio in and kisses him, and again, and again. Draws Elio against his chest and feels the heat of his mouth. Makes every kiss last, because how many more will they have?

Night insects chirp and call all around them, and for a moment Oliver can’t help but think: surely it’s impossible that this could end. That this summer could ever end. Wasn’t the world made just like this, perfectly formed exactly as it is tonight, with cicadas crying out their longing through the darkness?

And perhaps the world will go on like this too, even after Oliver has long since departed to New York, back to where he belongs, to autumn skies and sidewalks bright with fallen leaves. Even then, perhaps somewhere there will still be a summer night in Italy, and within that night will be Elio exactly as he is tonight, with his dark curls and his fervent eyes and his body yearning against Oliver’s.

Elio kisses intently, pressing the weight of his whole body into Oliver’s chest. He touches giddily, like he’s only just learned that this is a thing he can do, and now he can’t get enough. Every press of his lips against Oliver’s throat, every caress of his hands down Oliver’s thighs, each is filled with wonder.

Oliver reaches up and cards his fingers through Elio’s hair, tracing the shape of his head, finding the hard nubs of bone at the base of his skull. Elio sighs against Oliver’s mouth, a perfect sound of contentment and desire.

“It is time,” Elio whispers, breathy and warm against Oliver’s ear, and those three words speak a universe: this is the poetry they’ve quoted back and forth to each other all summer, in laughter by the sun-drenched pool and in whispers on the balcony at night, the urgent words of Paul Celan. Always and never.

The night breeze slips in and lifts Elio’s curls, brushing strands of his hair against Oliver’s cheek. Oliver swipes out his tongue to catch one in his mouth, and Elio laughs and ducks away.

The trees around them rustle in the wind. Somewhere in their heights, a lone bird sings, a solitary creature misplaced from the daylight, its native habitat. This heavenly moonlight, Oliver could die of it.

“Imagine,” Elio says, his hands running up and down Oliver’s sides, his curious fingers exploring the ridge of each rib. “In twenty years, do you think we’d still be here?”

Oliver deflects, buying time. “What, right here? Exactly in this spot on this very bench? How likely is that?”

But Elio, ever truthful, insists, “No, here. Together.”

Oliver’s mind strives into the future, trying to imagine it. Him and Elio, twenty years older, yet somehow still wrapped in each other’s embrace. Is there a world in which that’s possible? Time stretches out ahead of him, a long but obscure path. He can’t see where it runs.

“I hope so,” he murmurs into Elio’s hair. Now, today, it feels impossible. But maybe time will guide them there. “I’d like to think so.”

But Elio has turned buoyant again, pressing his palm to Oliver’s chest. “Twenty years from now! You’ll be so old!”

“Excuse you, forty-four is not old.”

“Don’t kid yourself, old man. Forty-four is ancient.”

“You impossible whippersnapper.” He reaches out to tickle Elio, catching him at the small of his back, where he’s most sensitive.

Elio’s laugh is fast and unselfconscious, always ready to burst out at the slightest cause. He clearly loves it when Oliver makes him laugh. And Oliver loves making him laugh even more. Elio fights off Oliver’s advances, wriggling from his hold, arching his back and squirming away from his tickling fingers. But the moment he’s free, he darts in again to press a kiss to the underside of Oliver’s jaw, in the place that makes his pulse race. They know each other’s bodies like their own.

Has Oliver ever felt so known?

This impossible being, this Elio, who’s ducked in under every one of Oliver’s defenses and found the truest parts of him. He’s right: they wasted so many days. In the beginning, Oliver fought this. And he was right to fight it. But he was right, too, to give in.

Six weeks. A lifetime.

They were given so little, but they’ve made the most of this sliver of time. Spent it together in the many places they’ve made into their own: the pool, the breakfast table. Blankets spread out on the lawn under the fruit trees. Roads endlessly unspooling as they wheel their way between green fields. Monet’s berm. Elio’s bed.

But in twenty years, in fifty years, Oliver thinks this is the place he may remember most of all: this bower of nighttime green at the far corner of the garden, this spot he occupied alone with his thoughts each night. And then, no longer alone, but with Elio. A shift more profound than the breaking of night into day.

Elio’s hand finds the nape of Oliver’s neck and pulls him close. “Stop thinking,” he says. “Stop thinking, let’s go to bed.”

And they do.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

End notes: The title is from “Christmastime in the Mountains” by Palace Songs (a.k.a. Will Oldham a.k.a. Bonnie “Prince” Billy). I’ve been listening to this song for years, and I STILL CAN’T TELL if the lyric is “time is the guise,” “time is the guide,” or just “time is the guy” (what?). But I had to pick one, so I went with the one that worked for me. :-)

Time is the enemy
Time is the guide
Enemy behind enemy lines

And the poem referred to is “Corona” by Paul Celan.