Work Text:
There was a brief time (less than a year, which is nothing) that Yusuf and Nicolò shared no language but love. Nicky misses it. There is nothing in the world he would trade for Joe’s poetry but there was a time when they had little but touch to express the depth of what overcame them. That fervency was unparalleled. Now they touch as one might run their fingers up a familiar banister; reassuring, steadying, optional. Once they touched the way Nicolò held the hilt of his sword and prayed to his makeshift cross, clinging to his personal facsimile of God.