Archive of Our Own ^beta

28th february, 2022

martina
02:10 am | i can’t sleep

damiano
i can’t sleep | 02:10 am

The singer laughs. 

He wasn’t expecting Martina to text him this late in the night, but now he’s glad she did. Especially if it’s with this kind of connection they always share. Talking to her is so easy that he could spend hours glued to his iPhone and never get tired of it. There’s always a new topic, a new conversation, refreshing laughs and cute selfies that he adores. 

martina
02:11 am | why are you always reading my mind?
02:11 am | i don’t know if i want you know everything i think about

damiano
i’m used to people thinking about me all day, don’t worry | 02:12 am
Is there something wrong? you usually sleep well… | 02:13 am

martina
02:14 am | i guess i just miss having someone next to me
02:14 am | idk, it’s like my brain won’t shut up

damiano
you just have to ask, babe | 02:15 am

martina
02:17 am | Do you want to come home?

Damiano smiles but doesn’t answer her last text. It’s not the first time that their night conversations end up like this, with one of them sleeping at the other’s house (bed). He gets up from his mattress and rushes to the dress room to change into street clothes. Before deciding what to wear, he checks the weather on his iPhone and sighs. He’s definitely not a summer person, but he isn’t a winter person either. It’s only five degrees outside so it’s cold as fuck . He puts on some black trousers, a white t-shirt with long sleeves and his favorite red sweater, the one that, he knows, won’t get back home anytime soon. Martina has a tendency to keep his clothes and he… he just doesn’t care because she looks amazing in them. 

When he’s finished dressing and has taken his backpack with all the essentials he’ll need there (a toothbrush, condoms, his phone, his charger, his wallet, some underwear) and his guitar, the one he doesn’t play as much as he’d like to, he sends her a video in which he’s sending her a kiss while he’s getting out of his house, after making sure the cats have enough food and water for the night and the next morning.

damiano
video | 02:30 am
wait for me, babe | 02:30 am

martina
02:32 am | lego is so cute
02:32 am | i’ll be waiting at the door  🫀

Damiano arrives at Martina’s just half an hour later. Thankfully, the traffic in Rome is quite good at this time of the night and he’s been able to reach her home even before he expected. The model lives in the suburbs of the city, in a two floor house with a big garden. The house is his parents’ but they’re spending some time in Tuscany, so she’s alone there.

Damiano parks his Smart just in front of the door where she’s waiting for him, covered with the last hoodie he left there (a Måneskin one) and a bright smile on her face.

The most beautiful smile Damiano has ever seen.

When he gets out of the car and gets his backpack and guitar, she runs to him and hugs his body tightly. He gladly responds to her actions, lifting her up from the floor and turning around for some seconds while listening to her giggles, a sound Damiano will always cherish. 

“Hello, beautiful” he says, leaving a quick peck on her forehead. 

“Let’s go inside, shall we? It’s cold here” she says, now taking his hand on hers and dragging him to the main entrance of her house. 

He follows her without complaining and with a bright smile on his face, the second one he’s able to show today. It’s been a rough day and being with Martina just makes it much better. 

Since he woke up to refill the water font of the cats first thing in the morning, Giorgia has been incredibly insistent on how bad he is as a boyfriend. She kept repeating that he could have gone with her to Milan, that he could talk to her more… and he just couldn’t take it anymore. His following steps on the day have been a joint, a glass of wine for dinner, a phone call with Martina (she hates phone calls, as far as he knows, but she’s always there if he needs it) and something that started looking like a sleepless night that turned into a good plan.

“It smells good, Marti” he says when they get to the living room, and she doesn’t need to answer his question: the burning fireplace lighting all the room does it for her. “I love fireplaces.”

“Me too” she sits on the carpet that is between the couch and said fireplace, and hits a spot near her for him to join. “Come here, it’s nice.”

He obeys, because when she looks at him with those bright, green eyes he can’t say no. They do things to him whenever he fixes his gaze on them, especially when she’s smiling how he likes it the most: her eyes get smaller and her lips full almost her whole face, moving to the right that mole on her cheek that he’s poked more than once.

“How has your day been?” he asks once he’s seated next to her, reaching for her hand to play with it. 

When he’s anxious or he needs to be doing something to distract his mind from intrusive thoughts, he touches things. A cigarette, his notebook of lyrics, his phone. Now, he’s able to play with Martina’s fingers and, if he’s completely honest with himself, it feels way better than tobacco. Her skin is soft and he can play with her rings, moving them up and down, spinning them…

“It’s been great. I had a photoshoot with Vogue and then I had lunch with Vic. She asked me to tell her if you were doing fine and I answered yes. Hope I’m not mistaken” she wonders, resting her head on Damiano’s shoulder. The man just sighs and shrugs. “You know you can talk to me or to her whenever you need it, right? She’s still your friend.”

“I know. Vic and I… It’s complicated. But thanks, Martina” the model just turns her face to kiss him on his shoulder and he caresses her back through her long blonde locks, taking a little bit more than needed to taste, just for a few more seconds, their softness. 

“Take your time. Do you want something to drink? Your beloved chamomile tea?”

“Please” he smiles at her when she gets up and starts walking to the island of the kitchen. 

Her living room has an american appearance: the ground floor of the house is an open space and there are no doors and no walls. He can see what she’s doing from his seat on the couch and it’s comforting. Spending time with Martina is comforting and has the power to erase the sadness that’s eating him alive these days. 

He’s glad he can say that he’s not depressed, as his therapist said yesterday, but he’s not on his best days either. But he just can’t do anything to solve it. He can’t leave his actual relationship, he can’t ask for a hiatus on music, he can’t talk to Vic because she’s still mad at him… His mind is fucked up and his new lyrics are the very best representation of it.

He wrote them today. When Giorgia hung up on his call at eleven in the morning after calling him “a literal kid who knows nothing about life that wants to play the rockstar and doesn’t give a fuck about his sick girlfriend”, he ran to get his notebook and his favourite pen. And, as easily as it seemed for her to insult him like that, the words came out of his mind and were put on paper. 

“The touch of an angel, the taste of a drug…” he starts giving them some music and he’s doing it out loud without even realizing it.

“A new song?” Martina asks when she sits next to him again.

She has two hot mugs on her hands: there’s a tiny thread with a tag hanging from one of them and smoke in the other one. When he raises her gaze to thank her for the chamomile, he smells the hot chocolate and smiles.

“Never thought you’d like hot chocolate” he clearly jokes. He still remembers the last time they were together at Vic’s house, having a sleepover in which the three of them and Janis had hot chocolate and “churros” for dinner (yes, “churros”, they tried to cook a recipe found on Youtube but it turns out that you might need some Spanish gen to cook them and make them tasty enough). “Thanks, babe.”

“You didn’t answer my question” she says, half joking and half serious. “It sounded good.”

Damiano blushes and looks down at his feet. “Yeah… I got inspiration today. But it’s not finished and I don’t think it will be finished anytime, actually. It’s just… I needed to say something and that’s the only way I could do it.”

“You can sing it to me if you want.”

“You’re going to be disappointed, just saying” he takes a sip of his chamomile (which is the best one he’s ever tried, with the perfect point of sweetness) and stands up to get his guitar and his notebook, which is kind of messy and the first page he opens is wrinkled, result of the dry tears he poured on it. He can only picture the song with the sound of an acoustic one.

“I’m ready” he hears Martina say, and he smiles.

He takes a seat on the couch now and puts the guitar on his lap, holding it the right way. He’s spent months without taking it out of its case so, before making the first sound, he makes sure all the chords are in the right place and correctly in tune. He also places the notebook in a place he can perfectly see and puts his fingers on the right places to start the song.

“It has no rhyme, I’m improvising here” he adverts her, and she nods while she moves and seats, now crossing her legs, in front of him.

The touch of an angel
The taste of a drug
The look of a stranger who has seen too much
Nothing comes for free but you can play with your heart
If you got one, baby
Tell me all your questions
So you got to ask
She’s licking her fingers and shuffling her cards
I’ll give you the talent, you can give me your life
If you got one, baby
And I swear to God that from tomorrow there will be no more pain
I will cancel your names from each one of my songs
Now I have to go down to my knees but to be honest all this time
I truly didn’t give a shit when you didn’t come along
So leave me alone
Open up my chest, take everything…

Damiano is able to open his eyes after a few seconds since he finished the song pass, and the look of Martina does something to his heart. She’s looking at him with tears in her eyes, a small drop of moisture running down her face and a concerned expression. He’s left the guitar aside and she has wasted no time to go next to him and hug his body, tighter than ever.

“I know it’s shit and as I said it’s not finished but…”

“It’s beautiful” she cuts his words and presses her lips to his forehead, still embracing him. “I loved it, Damiano. But it’s also painful.”

“I know.”

Martina doesn’t say anything else, and he’s thankful for that. The silence fills the room and he feels comfortable, for the first time in weeks, he feels as if someone is really taking care of him. He leans on the model, surrendering to her embrace, and she starts caressing his brown curls, twirling them between his fingers. 

Damiano closes his eyes and looks for the free hand of the girl, the one that’s resting on his hips. She gladly helps and gives it to him. The boy, clearly relaxed, takes it and places it onto his chest, just where his heart is racing fast and strong, almost making it look like it’s going to get out of his body. 

And, well, he may have done it. He placed his heart in the hands of a blonde girl who’s always ready to take care of him.

“Thanks.”

“You’ll be fine, Damiano. And I’ll be there to see you smile as brightly as you used to.”

A year after, he’ll be composing again. But the lyrics will sound completely different.

Before I found this place I was feeling so blue
But then I turned me out, let it do it to you
It’s not a one night stand if it turns into two
We’ll like it
It’s 5 am, we feel so good it’s almost frightening
Let’s try again, I don’t deserve you, you’re a diamond