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1.
The first time it happens David doesn’t mean to say it.
He’s just gotten to Matteo’s apartment after spending a day out catching up with Leonie to find his boyfriend curled up in his bed staring intently at his computer. Matteo keeps clicking at his keyboard, brow furrowed.
“Hey,” David greets him, peeking around to see the brightly-colored, pixelated computer game Matteo is playing.
Matteo looks up and smiles softly at him. He tilts his chin up, waiting for a kiss. David gives him one. “Hey,” Matteo replies, then looks back at his computer and curses quietly. His player seems to have lost his last life. Matteo rolls his eyes and shuts his laptop, moving it to the side of his bed.
“How was Leonie?” he asks David.
“She was good,” David says, “She still hasn’t told Sara yet, though,”
Matteo hums his acknowledgement, lips pursed. Leonie had come out as gay to David awhile ago, back before Matteo and David had first started dating. Soon after they’d gotten together, though, she’d had lunch with the two of them at David’s flat and had told them both, very stiltedly, every so often awkwardly glancing at Matteo, about her feelings for Sara. Since then she had been talking to David about confessing her feelings to Sara, but she was always saying how afraid she was that Sara might turn her down or, even worse, end their friendship.
“I don’t know, I don’t want to push her. But I know what it’s like, you know?” David explains.
“Yeah, it’s good. Talking about things,” Matteo says, scrunches his nose. “I mean look how it turned out for you. Now you have this incredible boyfriend,”
“Oh I do, do I?”
“Mm, yeah,” Matteo nods, considering. “He’s pretty perfect,”
David laughs, rolling his eyes, and lies down on the bed. He opens his arms for Matteo to cuddle into him and Matteo rests his head on David’s chest, arms wrapping around his waist. He drags his blanket up over the both of them. David always feels so warm with Matteo, so comforted and soft. Even when they’re being silly, Matteo always seems to know how to take care of him.
David tilts his head down and kisses Matteo’s head as his boyfriend nuzzles further into him. He hears Matteo say something into his chest.
“What was that?”
Matteo kisses his chest, turns his head so his face isn’t hiding in David’s shirt anymore. “I said I love you,”
David’s heart skips in his chest. Even though it’s been a while since they said it for the first time, he still can’t believe it. Being with Matteo feels like everything he’s ever wanted, and knowing that Matteo feels exactly the same way, that he’s had as big an impact on Matteo as Matteo’s had on him, still feels insane and so special. It’s something that David treasures.
He’s so caught up in how lucky he feels, how happy, and so he’s not really thinking when he says it. “Love you too, baby,” David replies, closing his eyes and getting comfortable, thinking about falling asleep. But he feels Matteo’s body almost jolt and registers his boyfriend’s face turn back up towards his own.
“What?” Matteo asks.
“Hmm?” He can feel Matteo staring, and looks down at him.
“What you said,”
“What did I say?” David asks, confused.
“Just now,”
“Love you?”
“No you said--” and Matteo breaks off, huffs. “You called me--”
“Oh,” David realizes, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to--”
“No,” Matteo says.
“No?”
“I um,” Matteo pauses, blushing. David waits for him. “I liked it,” He says softly.
“Oh,” David says. Matteo liked it. “Okay,” he says, “Noted,”
2.
The thing is, even though they had been getting more and more comfortable in their relationship, David had still felt a little bit shy about some things with Matteo. Pet names had been one of those things. He wasn’t sure if Matteo would like being called silly names -- baby, sweetheart, darling -- even if deep down David really wanted to call him things like that. David knew it’d probably be okay, but he still wasn’t totally convinced the past couple of weeks with Matteo hadn’t been a deliriously happy fever dream and he still felt scared he would mess up somehow.
But now he has Matteo’s confirmation that it’s okay to want those kinds of things with him, and that Matteo even wants them, too. And dammit if David isn’t going to take full advantage of this new way to show affection for his boyfriend.
A couple of days after the initial incident, David is back at the flatshare, sitting at the kitchen table. He watches Matteo at the stove as he stirs the spaghetti he has boiling, swaying his hips back and forth and whistling to the song he has playing from his phone on the counter. David smiles. It’s good to see Matteo like this -- so happy and clearly at home.
“I’m trying something new with the sauce tonight, so don’t freak out,” Matteo says, turning toward David at the kitchen table.
“Hm?” David prompts him.
“Well, I thought I wanted to try and do Alfredo but I changed my mind last minute. So I’m just going to do like a cream tomato sauce, I think,” Matteo says.
“Oh, very nice,” David says, standing up and wrapping his arms around Matteo from behind, resting his face against his boyfriend’s back, “Sounds amazing, sweetheart,” David says. He waits.
He feels Matteo’s little intake of breath as he turns his head to try to look at David with a stern expression on his face. “You can’t keep saying stuff like that out of nowhere,” he reprimands, “It makes me feel all gooey,”
“Gooey, huh?” David angles a smirk up at Matteo.
“Yeah, gooey,” Matteo responds, turning around fully to face David. His resolve breaks and he starts to laugh.
David laughs with him, “Well we can’t have that,” and leans in.
They only break apart when they hear a cough from across the room. Hans stands in the doorway, smirking. “Hallo, boys,” He greets, walking to the fridge and opening it to retrieve a tupperware container full of soup and put it in the microwave. “How’s your evening going?”
“Matteo’s making me pasta with tomato cream sauce,” David says proudly, smiling at Hans.
“Is he? And why doesn’t my little butterfly ever make me pasta with special tomato cream sauce? All I get is pasta a la Luigi,” Hans points at Matteo accusingly, “You’ve been holding out on me all this time!”
Matteo scoffs as his mouth falls open in mock-offense. “And what’s so wrong with pasta a la Luigi, I’d like to know? I have it on good authority that it’s the best pasta one can find in Berlin,”
“Hmm, who told you that one?” Hans says, pulling his soup from the microwave and grabbing a spoon.
“Tua mamma!” Matteo replies and sticks out his hand to flip off Hans, who laughs as he goes back to his room.
Matteo shakes his head fondly and strains the pasta, mixing it in with the sauce. He dishes out two plates and grabs them forks and napkins, serving David his meal with a flourish and a silly bow. David smiles, “Grazie,” he says in his worst Italian accent and Matteo instantly pulls a face.
“That was horrible,” Matteo stresses, sitting down and picking up his utensils.
David laughs and takes a bite of the pasta. He looks up at his boyfriend, who is staring expectantly at him, waiting for his reaction.
“Wow,” he says, “This is so good,”
Matteo smiles and blushes lightly, clearly pleased, and digs into his meal.
David eats a few more bites. Thinks. He breaks the silence with a: “You should save the recipe for this one, honey,”
Matteo promptly chokes on his forkful of pasta, grabs frantically for a discarded water bottle on the table and takes several gulps from it.
“David!” He yells when he finishes, cheeks bright red. “I could have died,”
“You’re going to have to get used to it, darling,” David replies, and feels extremely smug at Matteo’s resulting splutter.
3.
The next time David thinks to use his newfound knowledge of Matteo’s apparent love of pet names, he’s splayed out on his bed in his formalwear, watching Matteo rummage through his clothes. Laura is out for the day, and David had invited Matteo over so they could look for clothes for the Abiball as well as start packing for the road trip that they had planned for right after. David had found something for the Abiball pretty quickly, opting for a checkered blue suit that he liked to wear with the big brown belt Laura had given to him for his 18th birthday. Once he’d found his outfit for Friday night he had collapsed on his bed, exhausted and bored.
Matteo stands in front of him, modeling one of David’s button-downs with his own suspenders thrown over top. He tugs at one of the suspender straps self-consciously, looking down at himself. “What do you think?”
David looks him up and down. “You look hot, babe,”
Matteo huffs a shy breath, his face immediately going a dark red. He looks up at David from under his eyelashes. David wants to kiss him.
“You think so?”
“Matteo, you literally always look hot. As if you don’t know I think that,” David says, rolling his eyes and getting up to wrap his arms around Matteo’s waist. “You’re the prettiest boy I know,” he whispers, leaning their foreheads together. Matteo’s eyes are soft on his, and David can feel the heat of Matteo’s blush when he kisses him.
He pulls back and lets Matteo’s head nuzzle into his shoulder. Feels his heart do a little flip. “Hi, baby,” he murmurs, and then hears Matteo grumble a drawn out “Stoooop,”
At David’s confused hum, he pulls back so they’re face-to-face. “You’re wooing the hell out of me,” he says seriously, sternly. Looks almost angry about it. David laughs. “You are!” He insists, grumbling something that sounds like “I’m fucking swooning,” as he melts back into David’s hug.
When David finally pulls away he gives Matteo another once-over and drags him to the bathroom so they can look into the mirror together.
“Oh, we look so good,” Matteo says upon seeing their reflections. His face seems to have brightened and his shoulders are less droopy; he’s feeling more confident than before. He grabs something out of his pocket and unfolds it and the next thing David knows Matteo is wearing his newsboy cap.
“Oh my god,” David says, “It still disturbs me how I think that looks good on you,”
“Listen, I’m a classy guy,” Matteo says, rolling his eyes at David’s scoff. “And this hat is amazing” He insists, indignant.
“Hmm, maybe,” David allows him, pulling him in for another kiss.
+1.
So Abiball was a lot of fun. Maybe a little bit too much fun, if David’s liver has anything to say about it. After he and Matteo had won Abiball couple he kind of lost track of how much he was drinking, and after a certain point things just get blurry. He can remember dancing with Leonie, then with Matteo, and then everything gets a little bit hazy. He thinks he might have seen Sara dragging Leonie outside at one point, a very determined look on her face. He remembers thinking to himself that he needed to text Leonie about it tomorrow.
But now. Now he is soft and warm and in a bed and he’s with his boyfriend and he literally cannot comprehend how happy he feels. He can see Matteo stumbling around his bedroom, throwing off his hat, unbuckling his suspenders, changing into his pajamas. Matteo leaves the room for a minute to brush his teeth and David feels silly because he starts to miss him in the two minutes that he’s gone.
Finally Matteo comes back to the bedroom and throws himself down in bed next to David, facing up at the ceiling, a soft smile on his face. He’d been drinking, too (though not as much as David), and he seemed a little bit looser and lighter. David turns himself on his side to look at Matteo and stares at him, feeling more than a bit moony-eyed. Matteo is so beautiful. It seems surreal that they were at Abiball together tonight, that they got to be open and happy and themselves in front of so many other people. David’s still getting used to having things like that, not only for him and Matteo, but for himself, too. He feels like he should be allowed to revel in it.
“So,” David begins, “How does it feel to be one half of the greatest Abiball couple to ever exist?” he asks, giggling.
Matteo snorts, turns to look at David. “You asshole,” he says, “I can’t believe that actually happened,”
“I know,” David says, “I can’t believe you didn’t even try on the tiara,”
“I couldn’t bring myself to,” Matteo says, “It would’ve been too powerful,”
David laughs in response and Matteo turns so he’s lying on his side, too. They’re there on Matteo’s bed, looking into each other’s eyes, and Matteo’s hand comes up to rest on David’s cheek, strokes down to David’s jawline. He caresses David’s jaw over and over, sleepily kisses his chin. David’s head is still spinning from the alcohol and he can feel himself getting lost in the tenderness of the moment, starting to feel an intense, drowsy warmth pool in his chest. Right as his eyelids start to droop, he hears Matteo whisper, “Goodnight, my love,”
David smiles softly. He reaches for his boyfriend, curling up against his chest, and drifts off to sleep feeling so, so loved.