Work Text:
i.
Everything Matteo knows about sex he learned in this bed. A pocket-sized encyclopaedia of trust pieced slowly together with shy smiles, clumsy hands and him.
The afternoon sun spills honey over David’s bare skin where he’s sprawled out on the mattress beside him; cheeks flushed rosy, blossoming marks scattered over his collar bones. Marks Matteo made. He feels hot at the sight of them.
He has to resist the urge to nudge him awake, or the more pressing need to kiss him. To press his lips lightly to the shadows under David’s jaw that the sun isn’t lucky enough to kiss but Matteo can. He’s beautiful, but there’s nothing so breathtaking as David when he’s awake, when his eyes land on Matteo and he finds himself swallowed by their warmth, devoured whole by one look.
Maybe it’s for the best; sometimes Matteo needs a few seconds to breathe.
ii.
The sudden drumming of rain pulls Matteo into consciousness. Awareness spreading through his body from his cold toes to the ache in his neck. Through heavy, half-lidded eyes he squints vaguely in the direction of the window. Dark clouds weaken the daylight that filters through the gap in his curtains to cast a waning, grey light over the room.
His thoughts come in slowly, still clinging hopefully to sleep as the rain evens out into a hushed white noise at the back of his mind.
He ignores the sudden vibration from somewhere deep within the sheets, turning his face into the mattress and exhaling heavily. He feels more tired than when he collapsed in this heap hours ago – fresh out of therapy, on edge and exposed.
When his phone vibrates again minutes later he gives in, reaching lazily about with one arm. Feeling his way across the bed for it, pushing aside the body pillow that’s occupies one side of the bed, fingers grasping around odd bits and ends that have accumulated in the spaces between, until he finds it.
He ignores the most recent message from Jonas, immediately zeroing in on a notification from hours earlier. Sitting up, he makes some small effort making himself comfortable before swiping open on the video message from David.
David’s voice is already thick with sleep when he hums a quiet M’tteo. He looks to be in bed as well, lying on his side with a crisp white duvet pulled up around his shoulders as he looks down the camera at Matteo. Something in his chest settles at the sight.
Two more sleeps and then eternity, he says with the softest smile, blinking slowly. The video only lasts a few more seconds, just David smiling quietly into the camera before the screen goes black.
Even across time zones, his presence is a balm. Two more sleeps… that’s manageable. Matteo rolls onto his side, pulling the bed covers up over his body and settling in with the phone screen propped against the body pillow beside him. He hits replay.
iii.
For once, when Matteo blinks his way blearily into the waking world, David is still there beside him. Sleep seems to come easier these days but he still usually rises with the sun, feet hitting the pavement at a run before Matteo’s hand can fully grasp around the emptiness left behind.
This morning, however, warmth radiates from the body still wrapped firmly around the curve of his own.
He seeks out David’s hand where his fingers curl over the divot of Matteo’s hip and thumbs lightly over his knuckles before pulling David’s hand to his chest.
David once joked that Matteo only uses him as a human blanket, to be pushed and pulled as he wishes. Maybe that’s right, and maybe what Matteo wishes is to be closer still, to see out the winter burrowed safely in the space between David’s ribs.
He’s teetering dangerously close to poetry when the weight shifts on the pillow behind him and David noses into his neck.
“Buongiorno,” David whispers, his breath stickyhot on Matteo’s skin. His hand slides down Matteo’s chest until it reaches the hem of his shirt. When it slips under and David’s fingers sweep across bare skin it takes Matteo so long to remember to exhale that it comes rattling, hard and heavy, out of his chest.
“Buongiorno,” he mumbles, tinged with embarrassment and rough with sleep.
He can feel David’s eye lashes brushing against the sensitive skin beneath his ears, his lips light against Matteo’s throat and every inch of his body is buzzing to life.
“You’re never allowed to run again,” he says as he rolls over and is immediately drawn into a kiss.
iv.
It’s too hot, the air dry and stagnant. They let open the windows to encourage a breeze through the apartment but not even the wind wants to cooperate in the oppressive heat, and Matteo can’t sleep with the street lights throwing colour around their room.
David’s not even trying. He’s propped up against the wall, patiently carding his fingers through Matteo’s hair where his head rests on David’s thigh, separating the sweat-damp strands.
He feels itchy all over with the heat, with the way David is looking at him, making use of this time to study every inch of Matteo’s naked body. Each lingering look slides over him like the slow crawl of sweat across skin.
Matteo turns his head so he’s facing into David’s body. Not really wanting him to stop, but needing to hide.
He reaches out to trace a circle around David’s belly button, flicking his gaze up but David’s eyes are still intent on him. Encouraged, he draws a line from his belly button up the centre of his chest, letting his finger linger in the dip of David’s throat before following the line of his collarbone.
David swallows hard, his eyes drifting closed as Matteo’s finger forges a path down, circling his nipple before he tracks each of the lines scored into David’s chest with a feather light touch. He nearly misses the small contented sound that escapes David’s mouth.
He knows David likes it when he touches his top surgery scars. He’d been nervous to at first, finding it hard to reconcile these things that looked like wounds with the palpable relief he read on David’s face.
Eventually he remembered a time when he was very little and his mum would stroke her thumb over the patch of pigmented skin on the back of his foot, nestled behind his ankle. She told him that birthmarks are actually scars from a past life, of the way you died or the battles you fought. He’d felt silly when he told David the story, but David had only looked at him in that way that he does, like he was listening and not just hearing.
“I had a dream once,” he starts slowly now, each word sticking to his tongue. His eyes dart up to make sure David’s listening. “I opened you here, like a zip just,” he follows the scar with his forefinger, his touch a little firmer this time. “I unzipped your chest, peeled apart the skin and crawled inside.”
His words suddenly feel all wrong and out of order in the space between them. He wants to take them back, open his mouth and swallow them down. He doesn’t wait for David to say anything before shrugging, “stupid, I guess.”
David covers Matteo’s hand with his own, halting his path across David’s skin. His eyes are still closed, lips upturned at the corners. David slides their hands together over his chest, stopping when Matteo can feel the throb of his heart beat beneath his palm.
His eyes open. “You already are.”