Archive of Our Own

There are days in which Matteo’s to do list has no tasks except to cook something to eat, eat it, and to clean up afterwards. Days in which he doesn’t have any lessons at uni and no assignments that he needs to work on. Days in which he doesn’t have to work any hours at the shitty pizzeria in the parallel road. Days in which he doesn’t have any appointments with his psychiatrist.

Days in which the WG is empty, because every single one of his housemates has a life of their own.

There are days, sometimes, in which Matteo has nothing else to do but sit in the little kitchen and scroll through his phone, hoping that one of his friends asks him to do something with them.

Today is one of those days.

He sits with his chin leaned on his hand, looking at pictures on instagram and feeling a little like he’s wasting his young years. Or whatever.

Outside the rain is pouring (and really why is everyone busy with weather like this? Is he the only one who just wants to stay in his warm, dry house when it’s the end of the world outside?) and it drums on the windows, making the world outside look like a memory of the real one.

He sighs as he scrolls down from a picture of Jonas and Hanna at the cinema. They are imitating the pose of the couple on the movie poster, only that Jonas has taken the busty woman’s role, swooning into Hanna’s arms, who winks at the camera like a red haired James Bond.

Matteo leaves a like and writes, ur missing the sexy costume bro, underneath it.

He feels a little lonely.

He shakes his head, shuts off his phone and shoves it on the table and away from himself. He sighs again and puts his head in both of his hands, pressing his eyes closed.

There’s a feeling of emptiness expanding in his chest. Something hungry and familiar eating away at his soul. He feels extremely tired.

He looks outside the window and has to blink. There’s someone outside, without an umbrella, and they’re moving.

No, they’re... dancing.

In the pouring rain.

He throws himself to the window and cleans the glass.

The person outside, a guy, it seems, has a wide smile on his face and his arms outstretched. He twirls and jumps and steps around, his limbs moving like water, his dark hair plastered on his forehead.

Matteo has a moment in which he thinks that his psychiatrist might have prescribed him the wrong pills.

A moment in which the guy outside seems to be just a figment of his imagination. A strangely beautiful image that has danced out and away from his dull and broken mind.

He presses the palms of his hands into his eyes and blinks again.

The guy looks like he’s part of the apocalypse that’s coming down outside, his body fluid, his face almost ecstatic. His movements follow the rhythm of the tempest. It’s loud and repetitive song.

Matteo shakes his head, incredulous. Is the guy outside nuts?

Or, maybe, more probably as it’s not the first time it’s happened, is it his own mind that’s playing tricks on him again?

The guy outside seems to laugh out loud, the sound of it disappearing into the storm.

*

It must be said.

The only reason Matteo has a to do list is because his psychiatrist suggested it to him, to keep track of the hours in a day.

To have a little clearer mind.

Some days, it works.

Matteo sees the tasks before him and time feels manageable. He goes through them, one after the other, and at the end of the day he feels like a normal, functioning human being who can actually live his own life.

Other days, he tears the list into a hundred little pieces and lets it fall to the floor.

He goes to bed and closes his eyes.

Time doesn’t exist when the sun rises one second and disappears the next.

*

He manages to slide into the metro exactly three seconds before the train starts.

He rubs his hands together, trying to get some warmth into them. It’s December, the air outside is cold and cutting, and yet, he keeps forgetting his gloves.

He finds an empty seat and lets himself fall into it, rubbing a hand over his face and closing his eyes, feeling exhausted.

After a few stops, he suddenly hears someone humming a song near him. He opens his eyes again and has to blink.

Exactly in the seat before him, the same guy is sitting that was dancing in the rain a month ago. And, wow, up close his face is beautiful.

He has his eyes closed and a small smile on his lips, he’s moving his head a little with the music and his fingers are drumming the rhythm on his knees. His skin is olive dark, his dark hair, this time dry, is partly covered by a blue beanie. In his nose flashes a septum piercing.

Matteo shakes his head, not quite believing in fate but being a little creeped out by it, nonetheless.

The guy must feel Matteo’s eyes on him, because he suddenly opens his and stops humming. For a moment they look at each other. The guy’s eyes are big and dark, he looks like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t have done, even if its Matteo who was staring.

A red blush starts spreading over his cheeks, then he gives a little, embarassed smile, and looks somewhere else.

Matteo has to shake his head and look down.

For a moment, he swears, it felt like a magical spell was holding their gazes together. As if the rest of the train disappeared and only two strangers were left in it, taking a secret look at the other’s world.

His strange mind is probably reading too much into it, but it felt like, for a short moment, he was known.

It makes him feel raw. And alive.

He dares looking up again and catches the guy already looking at him. Matteo has to smile a little, the stranger, what a miracle, smiles back.

“Do you like Hozier?” The guy asks, pointing towards his earphones, and his voice is smooth and lovely and Matteo’s already in too deep. It’s ridiculous.

Matteo shakes his head, “I don’t know who that is.”

The guy’s eyes widen, “You don’t know who- okay you’re missing out big time, dude.”

He takes out one of his earphones and gives it to Matteo. The train isn’t very full, so the aisle between them is empty. Matteo leans forwards and puts the earphone in.

A guitar solo starts over the ruttling of the train following a slow rhythm, a slightly melancholic, deep voice starts singing.

I couldn't utter my love when it counted, but I'm singing like a bird about it now.

The guy looks at him and Matteo looks back.

He’s pretty sure he’s missed his stop by now, but he finds he really doesn’t care.

“What do you think?” The guy mouths at him. Matteo nods a little, “It’s good.” He mouths back.

Music is filling his ears when the guy grins, a blinding smile, gummy and happy and honest. And Matteo feels something in his chest just stop.

The moment is broken and Matteo catches his breath again when the guy looks at the digital table with the announced stops and his grin falls.

The train stops and the guy scrambles up to get his phone in his pocket, Matteo gives him back the earphone, “Sorry,” he says, “I really need to go.”

Matteo nods, “Sure.”

The guy runs to the exit and already has one foot outside when he turns his face back to him and shouts, “I’m David!”

Matteo raises his hand and manages to shout back, “Matteo!”

David smiles again and steps off the train. The doors close shut and the train starts again. On the platform, Matteo sees David stand still, looking at the train go.

Matteo is left alone in an almost empty carriage, thinking about a name and a body moving in the rain. Thinking about a smile that manages to stop time.

*

He’s walking back home from shopping for Christmas presents with Jonas, still tipsy from the beers they drank at Jonas’ place afterwards, when he sees someone painting a graffiti on the badly lit wall of a park.

The painting seems to be the male, female and genderqueer symbols combined in one, and around it, three black birds are flying in a circle.

No, not black, the figure painting the birds gives them silver and gold and blue reflections, so that their wings almost look like they’re truly moving, flying in the air.

And the person painting it, they’re wearing a black hoodie that covers their face, but they’re moving in such a natural way, quickly raising their arm, shaking the spray can, stepping left to add a bit of colour there and then right again, they...well, it almost looks like they’re dancing.

Matteo is so taken by watching them paint, that he trips over the sidewalk and crashes down, his bags with the presents in them crashing down with him.

He makes so much noise that the figure jumps, throws their spray cans in their sports bag and starts running away. They throw one look at him, though, probably to make sure he didn’t die, and then they stop.

Matteo is still sitting on the sidewalk, looking at his scraped up knees and wondering if he even owns one pair of jeans that doesn’t have holes in them at this point, when the figure starts walking towards him.

Matteo looks up to them, not knowing if he should try to scramble up and make a run for it (which is already difficult without bloody knees), or if their intentions are actually good and they just want to help.

He ends up staring at them like an idiot. That third beer must have finally incapacitated his brain completely.

“Matteo?” The person asks, their voice muffled by the scarf over the lower part of their face, and now Matteo can just open his mouth and close it again like a fish, completely baffled.

The person takes off their scarf and now that they’re stepping back into the streetlight, Matteo recognises him.

“Are you all right?”

It’s David. Of course it’s him, of course.

He gets on his knees next to him and reaches out towards his bloody knees, “Uhh”, Matteo says, eloquently, “I’m fine, really, it’s nothing.”

David has a worried crease in his forehead and it looks unreasonably cute. He takes a paper towel from his pocket and looks at Matteo, questioning. Matteo shrugs. David starts cleaning Matteo’s knees, carefully, so not to touch the wounds themselves.

“Well, I was wondering if I would ever meet you again.” he says, still dappling with the towel. “Didn’t think you’d actually come falling at my feet.” He says and grins up to him.

And god, the grin is just the same as the last time, and how is Matteo supposed to process that together with the flirty tone he just used?

He ends up awkwardly smiling back and shrugging again, “Yeah, that’s me. The man of the grand gestures.”

David laughs and finishes cleaning Matteo’s knees, then he packs the towel away. He gets up, picks up Matteo’s bags and gives him a hand, “Can you stand?”

He helps him up and Matteo almost sinks down again, but David catches him, putting an arm around his waist. “All right, “ he says, “I think you fell down pretty hard. I know you don’t know me, but I think it would be better for you if I helped you home. All right?”

Matteo has seen this guy twice before, one time dancing in the rain, the other singing in the metro but, somehow, he trusts him. So he agrees.

David is holding both Matteos bags and his own sports bag over his shoulder, and has the other arm still steadying Matteo. Matteo tries to take something from him, but David keeps saying it’s nothing. And he actually seems to carry it all effortlessly. All this perfectness is really starting to bother Matteo.

“So,” Matteo starts, “You paint graffiti?”

David looks at the street ahead, “Sometimes. I think it’s a form of art that everybody can see and recognise, if done well, you know? It’s street art, so everybody will see it, if they want to or not, so it’s a good way to bring important messages across. And I think there’s many important messages that need to be shouted to the people, today. If it’s done well, if the art is good, they might actually stop and look at it. Who knows, they might even actually listen.”

“Wow,” Matteo says, and chuckles, “Okay. So are you like...a social justice warrior or..?”

David laughs, “Yeah, yeah, maybe something like that. I’m definitely a feminist.” He shrugs a little and Matteo feels his warm body against his, “I’m also just an art and film student.”

Matteo nods, “Now that explains it.”

David grins at him, “Hey, what’s with that tone, huh?”

Matteo grins back, “Oh, nothing. And that symbol you just painted....is that an important message, too?”

David looks back at the street, suddenly looking a bit serious, “It’s the transgender symbol. Society usually forgets about us, so I thought I should make them remember.” He passes his tongue over his bottom lip, and Matteo can’t look anywhere else, “It’s also a critique to traditional gender roles in general and the thought that there’s only two genders. And well, you know, the patriarchy and all that shit.”

Matteo looks at him, the lights of a passing car light up his eyes, dark and a little angry, the straight line of his mouth.

“Right,” Matteo says, softly, “Us?”

“Yeah,” David says, his voice strong, “I’m a trans man.”

Matteo draws all his (partly alcohol induced) courage together and tries leaning his head a little on David’s shoulder, “Okay.” He says.

“And you?” David asks, “What do you do?”

His voice is almost next to Matteo’s ear. Matteo laughs, “Nothing much.”

David squeezes his waist a little, “Come on.”

Matteo raises his head again, “I study computer sciences and I work at a pizzeria. Nothing much.” He blinks towards the sky, “Definitely not getting important messages across.”

“That’s not nothing, though. Also, I was wondering....Matteo, working at a pizzeria....are you italian or did you just feel like indulging the stereotype with a name like that?”

Matteo huffs, “I’m half Italian. And I love pizza, so. Might as well be surrounded by what I love if I have to work.”

“True,” David says, “I deliver food on my bike, actually, because I wanted to do a job where I could keep fit, too.”

Matteo groans, “Incredible. You’re an artist and you like sport? What the fuck, man. Calm down.”

David laughs out loud, “I like dancing too.”

I know, Matteo thinks.

They keep talking and soon they’ve reached Matteo’s building. “Here?” David asks, “Huh, I actually live in that building over there.” He says, pointing at the building in front of which Matteo had seen him for the first time.

“Strange.” Matteo mumbles and, because he feels daring, “Maybe someone is trying to tell us something.”

David tilts his head and smiles. He lets go of Matteo’s waist and Matteo already feels cold at the loss.

“Maybe, indeed.” David says, holding eye contact, and gives him back his bags.

They look at each other for a moment and Matteo doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so he starts looking for his keys, but David seems to take it as a sign because he nods, smiles again and says, “Well, then. Buonanotte, Matteo.”

And turns away.

“Buonanotte, David.” Matteo says.

But his voice is almost a whisper and he doesn’t know if David heard him say it back.

*

Sometimes talking takes up too much, way too much effort for Matteo.

Words become heavy things that get stuck in his throat and speaking feels more like choking up.

So he ends up mumbling or he ends up shrugging or he ends up not saying anything at all and tiredly watching life happen before him, without him.

Maybe this life just isn’t made for someone who, on some days, can barely whisper.

Maybe it’s only made for people who shout through paintings. People who have important things to say. People who make art that comes alive.

*

Matteo is walking home from uni and breathing down on his hands, trying to warm them up because he forgot his gloves, yet again, when someone pushes a video camera in his face.

“Dude,” Matteo says, his nose almost rubbing against the lens. “The fuck?”

David’s face emerges on the camera’s right side, “Why, Matteo. Hello there.” He cackles and takes a step back, giving Matteo his breathing space back. Matteo grins and gives him the middle finger.

“I’m making a new film for uni. About dreams.” David has disappeared behind the camera again, so Matteo can only hear his voice and see his dark, long fingers around the camera, the rest of his hands covered by dark fingerless gloves.

“I’m interviewing random people on the street, but.” He leans sideways again and Matteo sees him press his lips together, “I guess someone just wants us to meet again.”

Matteo smiles, “And again.”

David grins, “And again.”

His eyes are as dark and beautiful as last time. “So,” he drums his fingers against the camera’s side, then hides behind it again. His voice is soft, “What’s your dream, Matteo?”

Matteo thinks. And blinks. And thinks some more. He looks at the pale sky above them. He looks at his feet.

He puts all of himself into taking the heavy words into his hands and pushing them up, up and up.

He sighs.

“I used to dream about running away. Somewhere nobody would know my name and I could be somebody else. Somebody I might actually come to like. Somebody I wasn’t. Putting on a different mask, changing my name, leaving everything, getting into a car and going anywhere that wasn’t here, that’s what I dreamt about.”

Matteo closes his eyes.

“But I always woke up as myself. “ He passes a hand through his hair, “And I suppose I am still here. I don’t know if it’s because I have accepted myself or because I am just too tired to do anything else.”

Matteo opens his eyes again and sees David’s fingers tighten against the camera.

He looks directly into the lens, “Now....I don’t dream much, anymore.”

David’s voice is quiet, “You don’t wish for anything, anymore?”

Matteo so wishes he could see his face. “Maybe,” he only manages to whisper, “Maybe just one thing.”

David shuts the camera off and looks at him. His cheeks are a bit red. It could be the cold, Matteo thinks.

“Want to take a walk?” David asks.

*

“I felt exactly the same way,” David says.

They’re sitting on the side of a canal, around them there are bottles left from other people’s parties. Matteo tears out a bit of grass.

David looks at the water, “I ran away from home when I was fifteen, actually. And I managed to make a new life for myself, one where I am who I truly am.”

Matteo rolls the grass between his fingers.

David rubs one hand against his cheekbone. “Now I am working on my dream of being a filmmaker. And I have a place to live and friends and...I feel more real than ever before. But sometimes I wonder if this is all there is.”

Matteo looks up. David’s eyes are a bit sad as he watches the rippling of the water surface.

“What do you mean?” Matteo asks.

David turns to him, “Don’t you know it, too?”

They look at each other, time slows down.

Matteo nods.

David looks down again, smiling very slightly, maybe a little bitterly, “Your tiredness...I feel the opposite. I feel so restless sometimes, as if, no matter what I do, I am wasting time. And I feel so lonely, because no matter what I do, it’s never good enough, and until I am good enough I will never...I will never find someone who understands me, completely.”

Matteo swallows.

David taps his fingers against his knee. “And I’ll just always be a bit alone.”

Matteo thinks about staying home alone, feeling like he bothers his friends if he asks them to hang out with him. He thinks about laying in bed and looking at the wall, feeling like he might just disappear if he stays another hour like that. Wishing for it to happen.

He thinks about sitting at the kitchen table in an empty WG, scrolling through his phone and feeling loneliness slowly eating him up from inside.

Words are heavy, heavy things.

Still.

Matteo leans closer to David, so that he catches his eyes and he can almost feel his warm breath on his face.

“You’re good enough.” He whispers.

David looks at him, his cheeks are rosy, his eyes half closed by his eyelids.

Matteo leans in a bit more, and David puts a gloved hand up to his cheek, the fingertips soft against his cheekbone. “You are, too.” He whispers.

Matteo closes his eyes and kisses him.

*

They end up at David’s place and Matteo barely looks at it, at the drawings hanging on the wall or the many books laying around, too concentrated on kissing David’s lips, his face, his neck.

He almost trips over one pile of books though, and David catches him, laughing out loud and putting his arms around him.

They undress each other slowly, with warm and careful hands. David kisses his shoulder and his chest and his waist. Matteo gently passes his fingers over dark skin, kisses every part of it he can reach, and feels a little like something wondrous is happening.

Afterwards, Matteo has his head on David’s chest. David’s fingers trace figures on Matteo’s shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Matteo asks, rubbing his nose against David’s throat.

David smiles, “I’m drawing.”

Matteo pokes his nose closer to David’s jaw, until David laughs and leans away, “And what?”

David leans in again, “Birds, stars, rivers. Your lips, your eyes.” He raises his eyebrows, “And other things, for example your...” Matteo smacks him in the face and David grins. Then he presses a kiss to Matteo’s forehead.

Matteo snuggles even closer and passes his thumb, carefully, over the scars on David’s chest. “Do you mind having them?” He mumbles.

He feels David breath, the air on his cheek warm, his chest raising and falling under Matteo’s fingers. “No,” David says. “Of course I wanted a chest like yours, but I couldn’t have it. The scars show that I still fought for it. And that I made it. I just...had to try a little harder.”

Matteo leans down and kisses them, taking his time. Then, he takes David’s face in his hands and presses a slow kiss to his lips.

“I saw you,” Matteo mumbles, “Before you saw me.”

“Huh? Before the metro, you mean?”

“Yes. You were dancing. Why were you outside and dancing in the pouring rain, you crazy man?”

David laughs, the sound just like the first time Matteo heard it, only that this time the rain doesn’t eat it up and Matteo can have it all to himself.

“It was the night before my top surgery.” David says. “I was scared, so much. But I was also extremely happy. I saw the rain outside and I felt like that might have been the last chance I had to feel it on my skin before the surgery. So I went outside and, well.”

“You’re such a cliché.” Matteo says.

David starts pushing him away from his shoulder.

Matteo laughs and holds tight to David’s arm, “But I like you this way.”

David stops pushing him out of the bed and tilts his head, “Oh, you do?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Good, because I do, too.”

“Well, that’s good because me still being in your bed would have been quite awkward otherwise.”

David almost shoves him out of it again.

“Wait!” Matteo grins, “Wait.” He leans in closer again, David raises his eyebrows. “I couldn’t look away. When you danced. You were beautiful and I couldn’t look away.”

David blinks, slowly, and smiles.

Matteo takes the moment to shove him off the bed.

“You asshole!”

*

They eat breakfast together. They exchange numbers. They wave at each other through their windows.

They see each other again, and again, and again.

*

Matteo is just getting home from a late shift at the pizzeria, hating people, and specifically customers, a bit more than usual, when he sees that there’s someone sitting in his doorway.

He pokes his leg with his sneaker. “Why is there a stranger blocking my way into my apartment?”

David grins up to him.

He puts his earphones down and Matteo steals the sketchbook he was balancing on his legs.

The drawing shows a boy with stars and rivers and birds on his back, stretching his arms out to the sky, to the rain falling down from it.

Matteo feels his chest fill with warmth and something that might even be love.

“Cheesy.” Matteo says and gives David his sketchbook back.

David was holding a little package towards him, but now he takes his arm back, “Cheesy? Oh, well, then I’ll just take the present I wanted to give you back to my own cheesy apartment.”

“Noooo,” Matteo whines. He pouts and David grins at him, holding the present away from him and giving him the middle finger instead.

Matteo sighs and steps closer to him, David playfully steps back. Matteo tries grabbing the present and David just holds it higher, then Matteo tries jumping, but David just throws it into his other hand. It becomes almost a dance, Matteo tries stepping forwards, David just steps around him.

Finally, Matteo makes such a quick and stupid movement that he ends up falling down.

David manages to catch him just before he crashes down, though, and he dips him as if they just finished dancing a fucking tango.

David grins down on him, one hand on his back, the other still holding the present high. “Something to say, Mr. Florenzi?”

Matteo rolls his eyes, “All right. It’s not cheesy.” He blinks up, and smiles, “I actually like it. Quite a lot.”

“Very well.” David dips him forward, so that Matteo stands on his own feet again, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He gives him the present.

Matteo blows him a rasberry and starts opening it. It’s a pair of rainbow coloured gloves.

David takes them from him and puts them on Matteo’s hands, “I noticed you always seem to forget them.” He kisses Matteo’s gloved hands. “You’ll probably forget these as well, but maybe it’s less likely if you have two pairs at home. Also,” he grins, “The colour choice should make it quite difficult to not notice them laying around.”

Matteo feels his cheeks grow warm. “Gay.” He says. He puts his arms around David’s neck and kisses him. “Thank you.” He mumbles into his lips.

They manage to get inside and close the door behind them.

Outside, it starts raining.