Work Text:
The candlelight flickers against the frescoed walls of Tommaso’s studio, casting elongated shadows that twist like the unresolved thoughts in Michelangelo’s mind. He’s hunched over a half-finished sketch—not of saints or angels, but of Tommaso’s hands, the lines tentative, as if he fears the paper might judge him.
"I feel like I can be myself around you," Michelangelo murmurs, his voice rough from hours of silence. The words hang between them, weighted like wet clay.
Tommaso glances up from his own work—a delicate study of Orion’s Belt, the stars inked in silverpoint. He quirks an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth lifting. "You’re weird and quiet around me."
Michelangelo exhales through his nose, a sound halfway between a laugh and surrender. His fingers smudge the charcoal, blurring the knuckles he’s drawn too sharply. "Yes."
Tommaso reaches across the table, brushing a fleck of pigment from Michelangelo’s wrist. "Good," he says, simple as a heartbeat.
Outside, Rome hums with midnight murmurs, but here, in this stolen pocket of time, the only constellation that matters is the one they’re tracing between each other’s ribs.