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"Did you even see Endgame?" Matteo asks him, as they’re leaving the theatre. They've just seen the new Spiderman film. David spent a lot of time thinking about how close Matteo was sitting, and less actually watching the film. It's been like that a lot lately.
"Not really."
"Not really?"
Matteo has a smug look on his face which delights David because Matteo hasn't looked so much like himself since the bad breakup a few months ago. David had been delighted by that too, because Otto had been very handsome but never very nice to Matteo and he had hated seeing him in a situation like that.
"I saw it with Abdi and Jonas," David says.
Matteo raises an eyebrow. "And?"
"And?"
"But you didn't really watch the film?"
"I was preoccupied," he says.
"Did you fall asleep?"
He huffs.
"You totally fell asleep!"
"Eh,” he says, shrugging. “It was really, really long, okay?”
Matteo laughs at him.
The bus ride is the same as always, one earbud each and taking turns choosing songs. He’s been in a kind of electronic phase for a while now, and Matteo has been listening to a lot of Bon Iver. David had been the one to introduce him to Bon Iver. That’s ages ago, now. Matteo gets off two stops before him. They haven’t been drinking tonight which means that Matteo won’t kiss him on the lips. He leans in. Matteo smells like popcorn and cigarettes. They kiss each other once on either cheek. And despite the thousand kisses like that before, David’s heart picks up speed.
“Jonas’ show tomorrow?” Matteo asks, right as he’s getting off the bus.
He nods. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
“Nice.” Matteo salutes him, and walks off into the night.
Despite how hard he tries, David can't remember when he and Matteo started kissing each other. It’s just something they do. In the beginning it hadn't been and then, from one day to the next, it just was. They had probably been drunk when it started. That was how most things happened with Matteo anyway. They had been drunk when Matteo had told David about his mom, drunk the evening Matteo had come out to him, and drunk the time Matteo had confessed to smoking weed every morning and finally asked David for help.
The girls were always kissing each other on the cheek, and David thinks that Matteo probably picked it up from one of them. Hanna, most likely. And then kissing on the cheek was just something they did, whenever they said hi or goodbye. Matteo never did that with Abdi or Carlos. Not even Jonas. Definitely not Jonas. David knows Matteo, knows that he had been much too in love with Jonas at sixteen to ever get that close to him. With David however, the story was different. They had never been like that with each other. They had been friends, was the thing, forever. At least it felt like forever. David can't really remember a past without Matteo. That's a stupid thing in itself because they hadn't met until David had switched schools at sixteen when things had started getting rough at his previous school. It's been six years since then. Six years and probably a thousand kisses.
Amira had made him start thinking about it. That was a month ago, now.
“You and Matteo kiss a lot.”
She’d said it like it was nothing. And it had been, it really had. Up until that moment. Amira and him had been walking to the bus stop. It had been late, and he’d been drunk, and Matteo had been drunk too, when they had said goodbye at the bar. Matteo had shared an intricate handshake with Amira, after they’d announced that they would be going home, and kissed David. Kind of on his cheek, kind of on his lips. That was usually what happened, when they’d both been drinking.
“No we don’t?” he’d said.
“You kind of do,” she’d said.
She had been right.
David hadn’t really thought of his and Matteo’s shared kisses as actual kisses before. They had been pecks. Nothing more. He’d never felt Matteo’s tongue against his. That felt important, somehow.
“Hanna kissed you on the cheek!” he’d said, nearly stumbling over a pebble on the pavement. “Right before we left, I mean. And you always do that, with all the girls.”
“Yeah?” Amira had said. “She didn’t kiss me on the lips, David.”
He’d thought back to the kiss. Matteo had been the one to initiate it, the one to lean in first. Maybe David had moved a bit, right before Matteo’s lips were supposed to touch his cheek. Maybe that had been the reason for the kiss ending up more on his lips? He had been standing very still, though. And it had happened before. A lot of times actually, when he’d really started thinking about it. At least in the past six months. He’d tried pinpointing the first time it had happened, but he hadn’t been able to.
He'd remembered an evening at Hanna and Jonas's place when Matteo had left early because he had to get up for work in the morning. They'd kissed goodbye that time, too. A quick peck in the hallway before Matteo left. There was also the time when he had stayed late at Matteo's after a party. Matteo had been cleaning up in the kitchen, and David had had a really good night, and he had thanked Matteo for the party with a kiss on the lips. Quick enough that Matteo had barely kissed back. And then there had been that one time when David had been leaving a club with a girl he'd just met, and Matteo had cornered him on the pavement and hugged him for a really long time before kissing him. First on his collarbone, which had been a bit weird. Then on the lips, one two three little pecks, when the girl had been busy calling for a taxi.
The thing was, that David didn’t mind. Matteo’s lips were a little chapped sometimes, but it was always nice. Kissing him felt good. It always felt light, and easy, and always made his day a bit better even if the day had already been a good one to start with.
He'd stopped on the pavement, reached out and grabbed Amira's arm. "We do kiss a lot. Don't we?"
"Took you long enough."
Two days after Spiderman, David wakes up on Matteo's bed next to a sleeping Matteo. Jonas's show had turned into a night out at a club, and dancing, and Döner at five AM. His mouth feels like a desert and his head is pounding. Matteo is breathing heavily next to him. When David checks his phone it's only nine AM. He gets up, slowly as to not disturb his head too much. He's relieved to find that he'd kept his clothes on. He’s still in his t-shirt and boxers. He has slept next to Matteo too many times to count by now, but he’s always kept his clothes on. He isn’t sure why that feels important. David walks to the kitchen, drinks water until his mouth feels normal again. Fills an empty 1,5 liter coke bottle with water before taking a detour to the bathroom. He really needs to take a piss, and also needs to raid the medicine cabinet for something against his headache. He's thankful that the room isn't spinning. It does that sometimes, when he’s hungover. When they were seventeen hangovers hadn’t really been a thing, yet, and he misses that. Back in the bedroom, he pulls the curtains so that the sun won't blind them in two hours. He places the bottle on the table by Matteo's side of the bed, and two paracetamols next to it, in case Matteo wakes up with a headache too.
He goes back to bed.
Amira had been the first to befriend him, when he'd been the new kid in school, sixteen and awkward. All the others had followed after that, like some sort of package deal. Matteo had been in his Spanish class. David had thought him to be a bit of a ridiculous stereotype, with the long bangs and the baggy jeans. He'd been sceptical when Amira had introduced them. Matteo had proved him wrong. Sure, he'd been a dick to David. Had called him emo for having a septum piercing and said that his drawings were pretentious. He'd never really been mean, though, was the thing. David had teased him right back, and it almost seemed like Matteo enjoyed that even more. As if David telling him to buy a belt was the funniest thing in the world to him. They'd quickly become friends. Nearly a year into the friendship he'd finally told Matteo he was trans, told him why he had transferred. He’d been so terrified. Matteo had looked like he wanted to beat someone up.
"That's stupid," he had said.
"What?" David had said.
Matteo had shrugged and looked pained, as if there was something inside of him that was close to escaping. "Unfair, I mean. That you have to feel like shit because the universe fucked up."
Two weeks later, after six beers and two generous swigs from a vodka bottle, Matteo had pulled David aside at a party and told him he was gay. They'd been something like best friends ever since. He never wanted to ruin that.
The second time he wakes up, Matteo is watching him. He's got his duvet pulled up high, and his hair in his eyes.
"Hey," he says.
"Hi," David croaks. His throat is a desert again. Matteo hands him the water bottle without him even asking.
"Thanks."
He drinks and drinks and drinks. Matteo is yawning and rubbing his eyes and the duvet falls down a bit, exposing his bare chest. Matteo always runs warm.
"Thank you for the water and the painkillers," Matteo says.
David nods and hums, puts the bottle down on the floor next to him. Matteo is very close.
"Have fun last night?" he asks, to distract himself.
Matteo looks to the ceiling, as if the answer is going to magically appear there, somehow. "I think so? Did we have Döner? Something smells like garlic."
He nods. "Yeah, from that place next to the club. The overpriced one."
"Shit." Matteo puts a hand over his eyes. "Did you pay for mine?"
"Don't worry about it."
Matteo worries about money a lot, and has done ever since they were young. David can't even begin to imagine what moving out from his mom's place at seventeen had been like for him.
"Thanks," Matteo mumbles. "I'll pay you back when I can."
"Sure," he says, because Matteo gets annoyed if he says anything different. He always pays back.
"Why'd you sleep here?" Matteo asks.
He's not sure how to tell him that drunk Matteo had begged him to.
"Too far home."
Matteo snickers. That might have been true a year ago, when their places were too far apart, when a lot of parties had ended with David passed out in Matteo’s bed. David lives much closer, now.
Matteo puts his head down on his shoulder. His hand reaches out instinctively, starts stroking Matteo's hair. They've done this before but now it feels like playing with fire. His breath is probably awful, and Matteo is close enough to know that. He's embarrassed. He usually never is. Never around Matteo.
A second later, there are lips against his jawbone. Feather light, barely there. He lies very still. Matteo kisses his jaw. Then his cheek. This isn't supposed to happen. It’s the unspoken rule. Never anywhere other than the cheek when sober. Never in someone's bed. He tilts his head towards Matteo, and they're too close now, too close for David to make out the expression on his face.
"Are you still drunk?" David asks.
"No."
"Okay."
He can feel Matteo's eyelashes fluttering against his cheek and Matteo's hand, that has nestled its way over his waist, stroking his back over his t-shirt.
"Is that bad?" Matteo asks.
He doesn't know the answer to that question. Because Matteo is Matteo, and they've been friends forever, and David relies on Matteo and sometimes Matteo relies on him too, and they can't ruin that, they just can't.
"I don't know."
Matteo kisses him. On the lips. It's feather light, like always, and David feels happy happy happy, like always.
"That drives me crazy," Matteo says, almost against his lips.
"What?"
"That every time I kiss you, you smile."
He lets the words sink in, lets them float around his brain. He hadn’t been aware of doing that, isn't sure what to do with the information. He doesn’t want to stop. He kisses Matteo again, lets his lips linger against Matteo’s until one kiss turns into two, and three, and soon enough into too many to count. Before he knows it, there's a second tongue in his mouth, sliding against his. They’ve really done it now. His body feels charged with something, something terrifying and wonderful and completely new.
"Fuck," Matteo breathes between kisses, and his hands are beneath David’s t-shirt. “Fuck.”
He breaks them apart, because he isn’t ready for whatever is happening. Matteo’s breathing is heavy, sort of like when he was sleeping yet completely different.
The first time he’d seen him, Matteo had been walking into Spanish class, late and with a hand-rolled cigarette behind his ear. He’d looked like a bully, like someone David should’ve been afraid of. Too cool, too handsome, too intimidating. Most of that hadn’t been real. The real Matteo is next to him now, nose against his cheek and fingers splayed over the scars on his chest. He’s the softest boy David has ever known.
“Sorry,” Matteo says.
David thinks he has nothing to be sorry for.
“Don’t be.”
Matteo makes a sound like David is wrong.
“I should have stopped,” he says, mumbled against David’s shoulder. “I should have stopped months ago but you kept smiling.”
He isn’t sure what Matteo is saying. Had he not wanted this?
“I didn’t want you to stop,” he says, because that’s the honest truth.
Matteo is warm against him. When David looks down at him, he’s still too handsome. That part had always been real.
“Did you want to stop?” David asks him.
Matteo’s not looking at him. He’s looking at the windows, looking at that gap between the curtains where a stream of August sun is shining in.
“No,” Matteo says. The word seems surreal, somehow. “But you started it.”
That makes no sense to him. “No way,” he says. “You started it.”
He isn’t sure when they started kissing each other, but he is certain he couldn’t have been the one to initiate it.
“Yes way,” Matteo says. “When we were seventeen.”
“What?”
“When I came out to you, and you cried because you were happy for me,” Matteo says it like it’s something funny and maybe something unreal. “Before you went home that night, you kissed me on the cheeks,” he says.
He remembers that. Remembers how proud he had been of Matteo, and how weird and nice and cool it had been to share that secret with someone.
“Was that really the first time?” he asks, because he doesn’t remember that part of the story.
Matteo smiles against his shoulder. “Yeah.”
“Huh.”
“And then there was April,” he says.
“April?”
“Remember when I had broken up with Otto and you and Jonas took me out?”
David does remember. He’d been overjoyed at the news. That should have been a clue, really, but he’d been pretty clueless back then. He nods.
“We got drunk as fuck, right,” Matteo says and laughs a little.
“And played football with some random tourists in the park?”
“Yeah, exactly. And then we had McDonald’s and you paid for mine because you always do.”
David blushes.
“And then Jonas took his bus home but you walked me here, and dropped me off…” Matteo speaks a bit lower all of a sudden, as if he’s telling some great secret. “You put your hands on my cheeks and looked me in the eyes. And you said that Otto had been a terrible person all along. And that the pain I was feeling would go away. Right?”
“Mhm.”
Matteo clears his throat. “Then you kissed me. Right on the lips," he says, drawing patterns with his fingers over David's chest, down his ribs. His touch is sending little sparks of warmth right into David's heart. "And you'd been right about the pain thing, by the way. It had gone away."
He’s pretty sure that Matteo is remembering the story wrong.
“No, you kissed me,” he says.
“No!”
“Yes you did!”
“You totally kissed first,” Matteo says.
“I’m pretty sure that you did,” he says.
He’s holding Matteo closer now, and Matteo is smiling against his lips, and before he knows it they are kissing again. Less hurried now, more languid and light. It’s really hard to stop, now that they have started.
“And then there was the girl,” Matteo says, his tone a little different. “I asked you to stay, but you left with her and I was so… so fucking jealous I didn’t know what to do.”
David isn’t sure what he’s talking about. And, still. The idea of Matteo jealous, jealous over him, makes his heart beat even faster than it already is. “What?”
“In June, I think. That girl you hooked up with.”
There’s only been one girl, lately. The night when Matteo had kissed him not once, not twice, but three times. And then once on the collarbone. The girl had been really nice. The hooking up part a lot less nice. That had mostly been his fault. His mind had been somewhere else. He can kind of see why, now.
“When you kissed me on the collarbone?” he asks.
Matteo huffs. “What? No. I hugged you. And then I asked you to stay.”
“Did you say it to my collarbone?”
Matteo frowns.
“I thought you kissed my collarbone.” David can’t help laughing a little. “I didn’t hear you say anything.”
Matteo smiles at him but shakes his head. He has never seen such a fond look in his eyes before. That terrifies him, but it also makes him feel right. Like this might be were he belongs.
“I wanted you to keep going,” Matteo says. “That night in April.”
They’re really in it now, David thinks. They’ve jumped off the cliff. He isn’t sure how long the cliff has been there, hadn’t even really been aware of the cliff existing before this morning in Matteo's bed.
“I never wanted you to stop,” Matteo says.
It’s seems so silly, in hindsight, that he hadn’t known. Maybe they had always been meant to end up like this? In each others arms, lips pressed against each others. He doesn’t believe in God, doesn’t even really believe in fate. And the universe has fucked a lot of things up for both of them in the past, but he feels like maybe the universe had planned this for them all along.
“Maybe we don’t ever have to stop?” David asks.
Matteo scrunches up his nose, smiles, and kisses him again.