The next day couldn't go fast enough for Antonio, but then, he found he was now craving Lovino's company more than anything, to the point that he'd be counting down hours until it. True to his word, Antonio hadn't called Lovino before noon, although that had mainly been because he had been asleep. He'd drunk perhaps a little too much the previous night, and had woken up at quarter to one in the afternoon with a splitting headache. Two paracetemol had quickly solved that problem though, and he'd phoned Lovino some time later as he'd promised.
Lovino had seemed to be in a better mood when he called than he had been fourteen hours ago, and Antonio was glad he wasn't holding a grudge from the previous night. He'd taken quite a lot of shit from Gilbert, and Antonio had been slightly worried that Lovino wouldn't want to meet up anymore, but that wasn't the case, thankfully. Everything seemed to have ended well, despite getting off on a bad foot. He'd have to sort that out later, once he'd proven to his friends that Lovino wasn't really a bad guy.
Their brief phone conversation – well, it hadn't exactly been brief, but Antonio had wanted it to have gone on for longer than it did, so he considered it to be brief – had ended up with Lovino agreeing to come over for dinner at Antonio's that evening, with an estimated time of arrival of seven pm. Naturally, this had caused quite a frenzy for Antonio. First, there was the obvious question; what should he cook? Something Italian would probably be good, but he didn't want Lovino to think he had no imagination. After extensive debate with himself through the afternoon, he'd decided just to go with his time-tested favourite of paella. He reckoned Lovino would like it, and he wanted to involve his boyfriend in more of his own life anyway, and his favourite dish seemed like a nice way to start. Even if he probably was just over-thinking everything.
Then he spent an hour and a half cleaning up the flat, which had been quite hard, as, even though it had been three weeks, everything was still chaos from when he moved in. He'd been far too lazy to clean up most things before, and this was the first time he'd had an excuse that meant he couldn't procrastinate. On the bright side, though, he'd found a box full of bits of stuff that he'd been looking for for weeks, including three forks, a holepunch and his computer mouse. Why they were in the same box he'd never know. But eventually, he got the place clean enough to not make Antonio embarrassed to have Lovino there.
By this point, it was about half past five, which meant that Antonio had just enough time to decide what he wanted to wear before he needed to make a start on preparing food. He was rather glad he'd picked something he was good at making – it meant that he both didn't have to worry about how it ended up – much – and could make it very easily. It was rather reassuring.
Antonio very much enjoyed cooking, so it was easy for him to lose himself in what he was doing once he got started, and the sound of the doorbell just over an hour and a half later almost made him knock over the pan he was attending to. Once he'd got over the almost-heart-attack he'd just experienced, he eagerly ran to the door and flung it open. His heart soared at the stunning sight he was presented with. It was, of course, Lovino. He was wearing a white shirt with an open dark blue waistcoat, and a green neckscarf that went beautifully with his eyes was tied around his neck. The aforementioned eyes were closer to being green today, but they couldn't be called green in themselves as there was too much gold flecked in them still. They were a beautiful enigma, much like Lovino himself.
"Lovi!" Antonio cried in delight, flinging both arms around Lovino's neck and pulling him into a tight hug.
Lovino's voice came from somewhere within the vicinity of his shirt collar. "Goddamnit, bastard, when will you learn no freaking hugs?" The motion of his mouth against Antonio's collarbone felt rather strange, although not unpleasant.
Antonio just hugged him tighter. "Aw, Lovi, you know you love it really," he cooed softly into Lovino's ear, kissing him softly on the cheek.
"Shut the fuck up," Lovino retorted, finally getting Antonio to let him go. Although, to Antonio's delight, the Italian's cheeks were dusted red, indicating that Antonio was right.
"So cute," Antonio murmured, unable to stop himself from smiling. He took Lovino's hand and gently led him inside. "Come on in. Dinner should be ready soon – oh! I forgot to turn off the cooker! Oh no!" He let go of Lovino's hand and sprinted back inside to check on his cooking.
XxxxX
Dinner was a fairly quiet affair, on Lovino's part at least. Antonio had been talking the hind legs off a donkey throughout the whole thing, and the front legs too, and most of the head. Lovino had contented himself just to listen unless he was asked a direct question or had a point he wanted to make. Antonio was a much better conversation artist anyhow, even if Lovino thought he'd never shut up. Still, it was better than awkward silence, and Lovino had sat through his fair share of those, even if he did know how to dissipate them.
He'd been a bit sceptic of the situation when Antonio had announce that dinner was some Spanish dish that he'd never heard of before, but he'd ended up being pleasantly surprised. Not that he'd ever go so far as to admit that the Spaniard was a good cook, but the paella, as it had been called, had been delicious. The little mishap at the door hadn't damaged the food in the slightest either. When he'd told Antonio that it 'wasn't awful', it looked like he'd just given the older man the moon. Either Antonio had been really nervous about it being bad, or he was somehow able to see through Lovino's not-compliments. Lovino was rather concerned that it was probably the latter.
Antonio returned to the room, having just taken the plates back to put into the kitchen, and settled back at the table, pulling his chair closer to Lovino's than was generally accepted by social convention, or by Lovino's personal-space preferences. He didn't hesitate to put his hands on Lovino's, either, and stared happily into his eyes. "So, mi Lovinito, what d'you want to do now? It's still pretty early – you want to watch a movie or something?"
Lovino bit back the sarcastic response about not belonging to Antonio – it wouldn't help his cause – and replied, "Fine, whatever. As long as you've got something good."
"Should do, depends what movies you like." Antonio stood up and pulled Lovino to his feet after him. Lovino only narrowly avoided his face crashing into Antonio's chest. "C'mon, I'll show you what I have." He'd barely finished this sentence before he started dragging Lovino off into the living room to look at movies, the Italian rolling his eyes as he did so.
Antonio had a fairly nice flat, as places went. It couldn't exactly be called stylish, but it had a certain homey quality to it that made it nice to be in. The living room was comfortable enough, with giant plushy sofas and a widescreen TV. A large section of one of the walls was covered in photos of Antonio with people who Lovino presumed were friends and relatives. Gilbert's red-eyed face appeared in quite a large number of them, along with a young man who looked a lot like Antonio, only with brown eyes and ponytailed curly dark hair. Lovino suspected a relative of some kind, but he couldn't be certain unless he asked, and he couldn't be bothered with that.
A hand on his back suddenly made him jump, but it was only Antonio once again failing to understand the concept of personal space. Although it wasn't as bad this time; the hand wandering up and down his back was almost like a massage. Lovino had to resist the urge to lean into and get the motion to continue as his eyelids fluttered shut. DVDs, you're looking for DVDs. Don't encourage the bastard.
With reluctance, Lovino turned ninety degrees and began flicking through Antonio's DVD shelf, trying to find something that looked fairly decent. It was romcoms, dramas and cartoons, for the most part, which didn't really interest Lovino, who considered them boring, melodramatic and childish respectfully. But he had to find something, otherwise he'd be stuck watching something awful, or they'd have to find something else to do and it would be awkward. Then, he got to the end of the shelf. "Whoa, you've got Dark Times? That movie's awesome."
Antonio smiled. "Gilbert's always trying to persuade me to get more action movies. He got me that one for my birthday last year – he said it was pretty good. I haven't seen it in ages, actually. You want to watch that one?"
"I guess," Lovino shrugged. He was quite surprised Antonio owned a movie like this – it was mostly a shoot-'em-up film with a fair bit of blood and violence, and it really didn't fit with Antonio's kind and easygoing personality. But he wasn't going to appreciate the film so far as to thank Gilbert for it; he was content with just watching.
"Yay~," Antonio chirped, pulling the DVD off the shelf and spinning around to the direction of the player. Did nothing get this guy down? "Do you want popcorn or something before I put it on?"
"Nah, it's fine. I don't like the stuff anyway." Lovino dropped down onto Antonio's sofa, deliberately picking the best spot, with the best view of the TV.
"Ok," Antonio replied happily, placing the DVD in the slot and clicking the remote to the external channel. He quickly slid the room's lights down to minimum before taking the seat next to Lovino. The younger man was just starting to be relieved that Antonio was keeping to his own personal space for once when Antonio slid up the sofa and wrapped his arm around Lovino's shoulders, snuggling up close. He nuzzled Lovino's neck slightly. "Hola, mi querido," he murmured.
"Shut up and watch the movie," Lovino muttered, but he didn't push Antonio away. The opening titles lit up the screen and cast an eerie blue light across the room.
The movie lasted about two hours, during which Antonio had managed to loop his arm around Lovino's back, eliminate all but a micrometre of space between them, and entangle their legs together on top of the sofa's extendable footrest. He also had an annoying habit of burying his face in Lovino's neck during what he called 'the scary bits', which could be anything from from a tension-mounted car chase to someone harmlessly pulling a gun out of their jacket. Lovino wasn't quite sure if the Spaniard was genuinely frightened, or if this was just a ploy to get more attention from Lovino. Although, he strongly suspected the latter, and wasn't going to pander to Antonio's every whim even if it wasn't, so he just rolled his eyes and didn't do anything.
Antonio clicked off the DVD player as the credits started to roll up the screen and the room was plunged into semi-darkness. "Hehe~. That was a pretty good movie, wasn't it, Lovi? Although it kept getting scary a lot."
"You're just a pussy," Lovino retorted. "Turn the lights back on, damn it."
A soft pair of lips briefly contacted with his cheek. "Ok, corazon." Antonio got up, immediately causing the parts of Lovino's body that he'd been touching to cringe at the onslaught of cold air. Lovino had to force himself not to shiver as he adjusted to the cold.
Then the lights came back on and Lovino screwed his eyes shut as his retinas were overloaded. "Damn it, couldn't you have done that a bit slower? You killed my eyes!"
There was the sound of footsteps, then the lips brushed his cheek again. "Sorry, Lovi. I forgot it would be really bright."
"You forgot turning on the lights would be bright," Lovino muttered sarcastically. Sometimes the level of Antonio's brainpower amazed him. But he found if he opened his eyes little by little, the light levels were slowly becoming bearable, apart from the white lightbulb-shaped blotch at the centre of his field of vision.
"Mmhmm," Antonio replied, snuggling close again. "So, Lovi, what're we going to do now?" His voice was lower this time, almost purring gently into Lovino's ear. He was almost definitely up to something.
Lovino was about to reply with something that would have allowed him to go home, but the words died in his throat as Antonio began kissing his neck and talented hands began wandering again. Sparks of electricity ran up Lovino's spine and he bit back a moan as he inevitably let himself succumb to the pleasure. Antonio's lips collided with his again. Obviously this meant that the question was rhetorical and Antonio had a very good idea of what they should do about now. It looked like the night wasn't over just yet.
XxxxX
Some time later, both were curled up together in Antonio's bed, slightly flushed and panting, with a sheet tangled around their legs. Clothes were strewn haphazardly from the door, leading up to the bed, and Lovino was rather glad he hadn't chosen to wear an expensive shirt that evening. The room was dark save for the light that the streetlamps from outside were letting in, but it was about enough to see by, albeit with long shadows.
Lovino settled back against the pillows and breathed out deeply. It was warm and comfortable here, and he didn't have any desire to move at all. Antonio wrapped his arms around him and pulled him flush against himself again, but this time the movement was much more of a hug, being more gentle and loving than passionate. He buried his nose in Lovino's neck, nuzzling for a brief moment, before lifting his head back up and staring lovingly into Lovino's eyes.
"Mmm," Antonio smiled, gently kissing Lovino's cheek. "Wow. You really are amazing, Lovi." His voice was quiet, completely content.
Lovino, unusually, was feeling equally at ease. "I know," he smirked, mostly joking. "I was there."
Antonio giggled. "Oh Lovi. You're such a tease. It's so cute."
"I'm not cute, you bastard," Lovino growled at him. "Get that in your head already."
Antonio yawned slightly and nestled his head against Lovino's neck. "Aww. Adorable. I could stay here like this forever."
Lovino chuckled quietly, more of an answer to Antonio's words than an expression of amusement, and an involuntary smile crept onto his face without him noticing. It was quite intoxicating, being comfortable and warm and satisfied like this. Lovino couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this relaxed. He hadn't intended spending the night at Antonio's but as the Spaniard looked like he'd already fallen asleep, he didn't really have much of a choice. He couldn't go home now and leave Antonio to wake up by himself. Getting up to have a shower or get breakfast was fine if you really wanted, but leaving completely while your partner was still asleep was a no-no for a stable relationship. It tended to either lead to accidental break-up, or your partner developing rising insecurities about the relationship being purely sexual, and Lovino, being as he was, saw this as an easily avoidable waste of time.
So he just pulled the sheet up and settled down among the pillows, careful not to accidentally disturb Antonio, and closed his eyes. It was getting to be fairly late now, and post-afterglow he was feeling reasonably tired, so he suspected that sleep wouldn't come hard. It was just a matter of zoning out into thought and letting himself drift off.
Hmm. This is nice.
Lovino was woken up as if he'd been hit with a bucket of ice water and his eyes shot open. He hadn't meant to think that at all. It was a completely involuntary admission of comfort and happiness. And that was worrying. Seriously worrying.
For that matter, what had he even meant by it? 'This is nice.' Did it mean that he liked where he was? Unlikely, but possible. Usually he didn't like people in his personal space when it wasn't necessary, but there was something about cuddling with Antonio that actually seemed 'nice'. Then was this relationship actually working? Lovino didn't want that. He was happy with things the way they were, just skipping about between people and doing his own thing. He didn't want the risk and commitment involved in an actual relationship. It meant dependency on the other, work to keep it going, and, as Lovino knew all too well, heartbreak as it inevitably ended. Although he'd never been on the receiving end himself, he knew that it was devastating. He didn't want to go through that.
He glanced at Antonio, sleeping peacefully next to him. His soft curls glimmered in the moonlight, his warm breath brushing across Lovino's body and causing the Spaniard's toned chest to steadily rise and fall. Even in his sleep, there was a small smile playing about his lips and a sense of alluring untroubledness across his face. Did Lovino not want to lose this? Was it just a sense of general physical attraction? Or was he just guilty that his future actions would wipe that smile away? Lovino didn't know, but the sensation wasn't good, and he was worried about it.
It was with these uneasy thoughts floating around his head that Lovino finally fell asleep quite some time later.
What is this? An update within two weeks? *le shock* Probably 'cos I'm the antisocial type of student who prefers spending nights writing and on skype instead of spending all the money I don't have on getting drunk. But anyways…
Aww, poor confused little Lovi :3
Thanks to all my reviewers/favs/follows :) Tis awesome to hear what you think ('specially as shit goes down in the next chapter, which is mostly written so should be up soon!)
