Archive of Our Own ^beta

There were a group of people surrounding David. This wasn’t unusual. People flocked to David like moths to a flame, and Matteo couldn’t blame that at all. He knew that David shined brighter than the sun on his good days, and his radiance was hard to look at too long for Matteo. He always ended up having to look away just to catch his breath, give his eyes a rest from staring at something so beautiful that really the universe should have realized there was a fallen star walking among them at this point. Even on David’s bad days, he was able to light up a room like a single ray making it through all the storm clouds.

No, Matteo didn’t care that there was a group of people around David. Matteo didn’t even really care that they all were hanging off of his every word, soaking in the attention like they were all crops in a draught and David was the rain. Like he said, Matteo gets it, okay? Really. No, what he did care about was that there was a tall, blonde guy that was leaning against the wall to David’s right, and he hadn’t been able to keep his hands to himself for the last five minutes. And it was grating on Matteo’s nerves.

He chugged half of his beer. “You good, man?” Jonas asked from where he was sitting next to him on the couch.

“Yeah,” Matteo lied and shook his head. He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to get the image of David laughing at that guy’s joke out of his head.

He looked back up, and the image hadn’t gone away. The guy was facing David, giving him all of his attention, and David was leaning up against the wall, barely looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Matteo watched as the guy reached out and touched David’s shoulder to grab his attention away from someone else in the group, and Matteo gripped the neck of his beer tighter.

He wished he wasn’t like this. He wished the image in front of him didn’t make something sour creep down his spine and settle in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to make a scene, throw a fit, go over there and show everyone in David’s little posse that they didn’t stand a fucking chance, kiss David in front of this entire party, just do anything. But he didn’t. He didn’t because he couldn’t. Because making a scene was never really his style, and even thinking about it, made his palms start to sweat and the back of his neck itch. It was an odd feeling being stuck in between the need to do something and the need to stay still. Most days he didn’t know which one was going to win out.

In the end, Matteo didn’t do anything. He just watched as the guy leaned closer and closer into David’s side, and Matteo went a little bit cross eyed thinking about how they looked good together. They looked like they could be a cute couple that went out to run together in the mornings and texted during each other’s lunch breaks, because they would both have very stable 9-to-5s, and they would have a weekly date night where they saw the latest films and talked about what they liked about them over ice cream afterwards. Maybe this guy actually knew what things like symbolism and lighting and transition shots actually meant, and he didn’t have to fake it every time David brought it up like Matteo did, who still thought that Fast and Furious was a perfectly fine movie even though David had explained to him plenty of times it really wasn’t. Maybe this guy could get out of bed every morning without thinking about how getting his head off his pillow was the hardest feat he ever faced and if his stood up, he just might die.

David looked over at him then, and for the brief second where they made eye contact between everyone milling about, Matteo thought that he could feel his heart stop. David tilted his head, and Matteo suddenly remembered that David always made Matteo feel completely inside out. Matteo was about to smile and wave to tell him there was nothing to worry about, that he was breathing just fine over here, but then the guy got David’s attention. And Matteo’s heart really did stop then.

The room started to fade out, and Matteo could see a spotlight on everywhere this guy touched. The music dulled around him, and Matteo felt the bass heavy in his chest even though he couldn’t really understand the garbled words being sung around him. If he didn’t get out of there right now, he was worried he really was going to make a scene, and not the type he wanted but the one where he went up to David and screamed that he wasn’t good enough for him, that he would never be good enough for him, and how could David stand being around someone as boring and quiet as Matteo when there are people falling all over him all the time because David is the closest thing to perfect-

“I’m going for a smoke,” Matteo mumbled and pushed his way out the room. He vaguely remembers seeing a balcony at one point and threw himself out the window to get to it.

He didn’t have a joint with him tonight, but he ached for one somewhere in his knuckles. Just to take the edge off, he told himself. He did have some cigarettes though and lit one up without a second thought.

He didn’t know how long he had been out there, but he had already gone through half a pack, telling himself it would be the last one at each one. He was looking at a picture of David and him on his phone. It was from some random day last summer that Matteo doesn’t really remember. They were at the park, and they were completely wrapped around each other, smiling widely in the summer. Jonas had took it and sent to him with a stupid caption about them being an old married couple. They looked happy. They were happy. Are happy, Matteo had to remind himself. Because David wasn’t going to leave him for some guy that he had just met.

“What are you doing out here?”

Matteo looked up and saw David crawling in the window. He shrugged in response and took another drag.

“Let me rephrase,” David took the cigarette in between his fingers and then stumped in out on the railing. “Why have you been smoking for the last fifteen minutes?”

Matteo shrugged again and pocked his phone, resisting the urge to be an asshole and just pull the pack out. “Why’re you out here?”

“Because you’re out here.”

“So?” Matteo scoffed. “You seemed to have plenty of attention in there.” Maybe he was going to be an asshole tonight after all.

David pursed his lips and crowded Matteo into the railing, bracketing him in with a hand by each hip. “So,” he started, talking low with a smirk and upturned eyebrow, and that voice always made Matteo’s toes curl in his socks. Matteo grabbed at one of his wrists. “This shitty pop song you like came on, and I said I wanted to dance. Luke said that he would dance with me if I wanted.” Matteo let go of his wrist and went to turn away, only for David to push him back and click his tongue. “I’m not done. He said he would dance with me, and then I told him no and that I was going to try and get my gorgeous boyfriend with two left feet to grind with me a little bit because I kind of want to make out and then convince him to go home with me.”

Matteo stared at him for a moment. David swayed closer with his shit eating grin breaking through Matteo’s cold and prickly mood. “You didn’t say that,” he said.

“Didn’t I?” David slid his fingers under Matteo’s shirt and pressed them together all the way to their toes. “Should’ve seen his face,” he muttered somewhere deep in his chest. “It was priceless. So whatdda say, babe? Gonna dance with me?”

Matteo gripped at the hair at the nape of his neck. “Thought you said you wanted to grind,” he said as loud as he dared, not wanting to pop this bubble that they had made for themselves.

“I mean, if you insist,” David said with a grin. He pushed away from Matteo but then tugged at his hand to follow him back inside.

The guy’s face really was priceless.