Chapter Text
“What pizza do you like? No, wait don’t answer that. Let me guess, pineapple on pizza?”
Lovro’s face scrunched up, eyes moving to meet Ivan’s for just a brief second, conveying his disgust through squinted eyes before returning back to the nail he was busy hammering into place. “Ugh, Ivan. Ne. Do you hate me? Seriously. I’m going to break up with you.”
Ivan’s jaw gaped in mock disbelief, sauntering over to wrap his arms around Lovro’s waist, pressing sweet kisses to his neck. “I’m joking, ljubavi.” He mumbled into his neck, the hammering coming to a stall as the smaller man turned to face him.
“I don’t joke about pizza.” Lovro stated, holding the hammer up as a mockery of a weapon, vaguely facing it in Ivan’s direction — which wasn’t very far from him, to be honest. They were nearly nose to nose, and Lovro wanted nothing more but to lean forwards, kiss Ivan’s smile off his lips.
“Oh. You’re going to kill me.”
“Yes.”
“With these jelly arms?” Ivan laughed — Lovro wanted to bottle up the sound — and grabbed at the arms in question, shaking them gently before leaning back and in a significantly louder voice yelling out, “Someone help — there’s been a murder!”
Lovro flushed. “Maybe Brad Pitt will come save you.”
They had slowly been getting back to their regular rhythm, as of late. More nights where Ivan didn’t sleep the day away, more days where they both hung out and enjoyed time with their friends — thankfully Jakov and Mario loved Ivan, he helped to fill the Filip shaped hole in their group — but spent the nights talking, sharing, listening. He got to see Ivan sleeping for once, got to witness him as he woke up all soft and relaxed, got to witness him doing chores that he never thought anyone else could make hot. Apparently Ivan folding clothes was enough to send his stomach tumbling and cheeks flushing.
Lovro wouldn’t deny it, he was falling in love with Ivan.
“Brad Pitt doesn’t have this blush, though. But I’d probably like his pizza order more than yours.”
Or not.
“Ugh. Go away. I’m trying to do your wall right now.” The words were spoken with nothing but fondness, smile beginning to hurt his cheeks.
“Do me instead,” Ivan kissed his cheek chastely one more time before backing off, returning to his job of throwing out the bin bags piled up from the dinner they had made previously that night.
Lovro grinned at the sight, enjoying the view of his boyfriend’s rolled up sleeves showing off his biceps before turning back to his job of nailing posters up.
They were redecorating Ivan’s place, surely but slowly. Ivan had said he didn’t like the reminder of his episode, the artwork scattered around the walls and other surfaces becoming more and more disentangled from reality.
Lovro suggested that they redecorated, rearranged. A change of scenery would do good, he reasoned with absolutely no hidden agenda.
“You just want an excuse to move in, Lovro.”
Of course, Ivan knew immediately.
“Would you complain if I did?”
“Ne. You’re much easier to cuddle with than a pillow.”
“We could do more than cuddle.”
Crunch.
Lovro froze. No fucking way.
His eyes instantly flew to the bare patch of wall above his hand, choosing to fixate on the chipped paint and sucked in a deep inhale.
“Ivan?” He called out tentatively, voice surprisingly if not just a little shaken.
“Yes?”
Lovro couldn’t feel his hand. Maybe if he just didn’t look at it, the pain wouldn’t rush in— No, that only works if he didn’t know what had happened. He definitely knew what had happened.
There was a nail in his hand.
Maybe he should pull it out? In the 10 or so seconds that had passed since the crunch, Lovro hadn’t moved an inch. He felt a bit faint, to be honest. That probably wasn’t good. It hadn’t begun to hurt yet, but he also hadn’t risked looking. His hand was beginning to feel slick with moisture.
What the fuck.
Ivan popped his head around the corner once again, met with his boyfriend’s stiff figure leaning against the wall. “Did you call?”
“Are you… Are you bad with blood? Like, will you pass out?”
“What the fuck? Why? No, not really. Did you get a paper-cut?” He prodded, taking a couple hesitant steps further.
Lovro adjusted, his non-impaled hand coming to cover his other shaking one. “I need you to tell me whether this is hospital worthy or not.”
Without waiting for a response, he jerked his hand away from the position it was stuck in, turning to meet Ivan’s worried expression. Ivan rushed to hold his hand ever so gently, ignoring the blood dripping onto his floor.
A sudden flood of pain flew through his body as he doubled over, finally making eye contact with his stinging palm.
A nail. Smack dab in the middle of his palm. Lovro sucked in his lip, teething digging in as some sort of redirection of the pain.
Ivan flipped his hand over in his gentle grasp, assessing the wound before stepping back, reaching for one of the clean clothes they’d left lying around and wrapping it delicately around his hand. “How’d you do that, sweetheart? Yeah, let’s go to the hospital. Do you think you can hold onto me good enough on the Tomos?”
“I don’t think so. It hurts like a bitch, should I take it out? I don’t want the drama of an ambulance.”
“So chill,” Ivan teased, leaning in to give him a peck on the forehead, “No. Don’t take it out, we’ll just drive really slow.”
A knock at the door disrupted the moment, Ivan releasing Lovro’s hand with an affectionate pat. “Pizza. I’ll go put it in the fridge for when we get back and you’re high as a kite.”
An idea struck Lovro.
He grinned. Ivan’s eyebrow raised bemusedly.
——
Two pizzas and a joint exchanged later, Lovro and Ivan sat comfortably in the back seat of an unfortunate delivery driver’s SUV. It smelt of mint and overpowering cologne.
He didn’t seem too displeased about the whole ordeal, if the joint he was currently nursing in his mouth had anything to say about it.
“We’re about 5 minutes from the hospital, I’ll drop you both off. Thanks for the pizza… and other things.”
“You have the joint in your mouth,” Ivan pointed out, genuinely confused.
Lovro rolled his eyes at his boyfriend, nodding at the driver. “Thanks, bro. Appreciate it.”
“How’d this even happen?”
“Long story.”