Chapter Text
It's 4:21pm and they're still in bed. Matteo is sprawled on his back with David's chin propped against his chest. There's an empty pizza box on the floor and a laptop with the credits for Into The Spiderverse beside them. With a little more shuffling, it's likely to slide right off the mattress, but that's a problem for future Matteo.
Sometimes, this is cause for concern - when Matteo stays in bed all day and the maximum amount of walking he accomplishes is to and from the front door. Today isn't. Today is quiet and peaceful. It's him and it's David and it's beautiful and perfect and easy.
He's been rambling about the animation style and soundtrack of the movie for a good 10 minutes now, and Matteo should be used to this by now, but with the way David's eyes light up, with the way he smiles so big you can hear it seep into his voice, with the way he starts to talk with his hands when he really gets into it, god. It never gets old and each time it feels like a gift to witness. And even if Matteo doesn't get it, he keeps listening, because he wants to get it. Every time for as long as the universe lets him.
David's chin digs into Matteo's ribs and it doesn't matter.
"And y'know how Marvel used to use that opening credits sequence with the quick flipping of coming book pages?" David continues, "The fact that they scrapped that for all those movie scenes is bullshit, by the way, but that's a rant for a different day. So! By lowering the frame rate, you get a really similar effect of like, someone making a little stop-motion out of drawings on a stack of sticky notes or something."
"Like the cheese toast one you made last week?" Matteo asks.
David beams. "Yeah, like that." He drops his gaze, cheeks going ruddy - or more so than they usually are. "It actually embraces the fact that it's based off of a comic book, right? Pays homage to the source material in both really obvious and really subtle ways. It's smart. The whole thing is really very carefully done."
Matteo keeps staring, whereas David zones out a little, his eyes drifting to the wall. He's still talking, and then he starts fiddling with his nose ring, flicking it back and forth.
"Did it hurt?" Matteo interrupts.
"Huh?"
"The piercing... Did it hurt?"
David gives him a blank stare. "No, love. It felt like getting kissed by angels in my nostril."
"Oh fuck off!" Matteo picks up a pillow and slams it over the top of David's head, effectively trapping him against Matteo's chest. They wrestle, until David decides he'll play dirty and goes straight for Matteo's ribs. There's a high pitched squeal, followed by laughter, followed by the thud of a laptop hitting the floor. They both freeze.
"It'll be fine, right?" Matteo tries, tilting his chin up for a kiss.
David leans in, cradling Matteo's jaw in both hands, and Matteo feels like he's something important. He feels a tiny prick of cold metal against his cheek, and is reminded of his mission.
"I mean it though," he says, pulling away, "Tell me about it." He flicks his nose against David's. "How long ago did you get it done? What made you want it?"
"I was like, sixteen? I think?" David starts. "I got it cause I thought they were cool. Made me look kinda badass, y'know? Get a load of that guy - he pays people to stab him."
Matteo snorts.
"Shut up! You don't have anything pierced, right?" David tilts Matteo's head to get a better look at his ears - boring, empty, entirely uninjured. Matteo confirms with a hum.
"Ok, so for the septum," he continues, fiddling with his nose ring again. "They like, clamp the flesh down, which feels like a really hard pinch. and then you just kinda sit there for a moment with these metal tong-scissor things hanging from your nose while the piercer pulls out a needle and shows you the needle to make sure it's new, as if you give a shit at that point-"
Matteo huffs out a laugh and David smiles at him again.
"and the thing about piercing needles is that they're hollow, so it's less like getting stabbed and more like getting hole-punched."
Matteo's eyes go wide.
"Yeah. That's what I thought. It's not fun but also not the worst. I knew this guy that got his conch pierced - that's here," David says, hooking a finger into the hollow of Matteo's ear, "and that part of your ear is all cartilage and gets very little blood flow so it heals really slowly and hurts for a long time. He didn't sleep the night he got it. And then for some reason got like, 12 more piercings after that one."
"Woah," Matteo breathed. His boyfriend is so smart. "I guess you really are a badass who paid someone to stab him," he says with a peck on the cheek. "Because obviously, stabbing yourself once a week wasn't enough." He pecks the other. Symmetry is important.
"Fuck yeah," David says, "my plan worked."
Matteo pulls him in for another kiss.