Written for the [date] challenge as posted at the furorscribendi community, this isn't archived there. Why?!? Quite simply, because I am a tool and forgot that the deadline was yesterday [man, I swear Leap Years screw my internal calendar up...], and because... well... no, actually, just because.

So... yes.

Follows ["Retrospection"], which followed ["Mistake"]...

For Shazling, just because she gets this arc.




Orlando’s drunk.

Sala can see clearly, despite the shadows cast by the dull light of the porch bulb; can recognise the glazed sheen to Orlando’s eyes, the rakish quiver to his hands, the leer that masquerades as a smirk, and he feels his heart sink. Realises that Orlando has cocooned himself in the protective bubble of cheap alcohol because of the arrangements made for their date; that he probably doesn’t want to be standing on Sala’s doorstep, to face up to the plans that he, himself, insisted upon in his desire to make Craig jealous… Stifling a sigh, Sala frowns, automatic concern for the state that Orlando seems to be in, at war with the remnants of his self-esteem whilst he shifts his grip upon the front door.

‘Please tell me,’ he says softly, ‘that you didn’t drive over here ‘lando.’

Orlando’s leering smirk becomes a beatific smile, and Sala’s heart shivers beneath its weight as he watches the slow movement of a mouth that he’s spent several nights dreaming of against his own. He aches with the humiliation of knowing that Orlando has had to drink himself into inebriation in order to simply turn up on his doorstep, yet feels it level out onto a plateau where he knows that he’ll take whatever he can get.

‘Didn’t drive over here.’ Orlando tells him, lilting his voice into a parody of vague obedience. He grins, cants himself sideways until Sala is left staring at his profile, sweeps an arm out to gesture at the night-lit road in front of the house. ‘Viggo did!’

‘Viggo?’ Cautiously, Sala leans forwards to both steady Orlando’s swaying form a little, and to peer at the vehicles that silently line the road. It takes a moment before he sees the near-familiar shape of Viggo’s rental car, and a second for the flushed heat of Orlando’s elbow against his palm to penetrate his skin. Flustered at the spiralling sensation of confusion that ripples through him – wasn’t this supposed to be, didn’t Orlando want it to be a date? - Sala returns his gaze to Orlando’s smile. ‘Viggo?’

‘No!’ The drawl is patient, spoilt by the helpless giggle as Orlando’s voice lurches higher up its natural scale. ‘Not Viggo. I am…’ The giggles become a snort of laughter, hastily smothered beneath the curve of one hand, the muscles of the arm that Sala continues to hold shifting smoothly beneath the warm skin. ‘I am,’ Orlando splutters through barely split fingers, ‘the anti-Viggo!’

Sala sighs, thinks that he ought to say “goodbye” to Orlando, send him back to Viggo, close the front door and attempt to salvage what remains of his pride. He thinks that the evening’s still young enough to do precisely that – he can order pizza, get drunk, find a film to letch at… He can remind himself pointedly why it’s never a good idea to lust after the people out of his league. That all it ever does is lead to pain, and heart-aching confusion.

Always his.

‘You’re fuckin’ drunk, mate.’ He tells the still giggling man on his doorstep, lifts his hand away from the doorframe to rake it through the short lengths of his hair, before he twists and pads reluctantly into the depths of the hallway. ‘Need to get a jacket -,’ he calls back over his shoulder, listens to the clomping sounds of Orlando’s booted footsteps trailing in his wake. ‘Then we can go. Viggo’s driving us, then?’

‘Mm…?’

Sala starts to turn at the distance that he can hear in Orlando’s voice, freezes at the distinctive noise of something ceramic being smashed upon the floor. He squeezes his eyes shut for a heartbeat, cringes away from the sound, from the implication of what nostalgic treasure Orlando’s bumped into, picked up and fumbled into oblivion, then completes the motion of his head. ‘Christ…’

‘Accident!’ Orlando’s eyes are wide, startled by the shattered pieces of an ornament that Sala’s sister bought him years before, some commemoration of a familial event that lie before his feet.

‘Okay -,’ Sala remembers the ornament – garish and trite – and has to physically fight the relieved smile that twitches at the corners of his mouth. He’s glad that it’s broken, has spent years trying to find some way of getting rid of it that won’t leave him riddled with guilt, is obtusely grateful to Orlando for inadvertently finding that path for him. Biting down on his lip, he turns towards the kitchen. ‘I’ll get something to wrap that in…’

‘It was an accident!’ Orlando calls after him, a pleading tone colouring his voice as he does so. There is a moment’s pause, the clinking sound of the broken ceramic pieces being gathered, then footsteps hurry after Sala along the hall, little squeaks of rubber against floorboards interspersing the noises. ‘Honestly – I didn’t mean to drop it!’

‘It’s okay!’

‘It just sort of…’

Orlando pauses as Sala drops to his knees in order to search through kitchen cupboards for the stack of paper towels he keeps for emergencies such as this, and there is confusion in the sound of silence that follows his words. Sala patiently moves boxes of bleach and soap flakes around beneath the sink, stares diligently into the gloom of the cupboard, fights against the urge to twist his head and meet Orlando’s eyes once more.

‘You’re mad.’ Orlando tells him after a moment, his voice decisive if a little slurred. ‘You’re pissed off at me because I broke your favourite fuckin’ ornament. Right?’

‘I’m not mad.’ Sala promises, his fingers curling about the package of paper towels and his body starting to withdraw from the cupboard, hand triumphantly clutching his prize. Rolling his shoulders into a slight shrug, he shifts his weight, pushes up to his feet again, and turns to look at Orlando…

Standing in the doorway, safely propped against the doorjamb, Orlando stares at him mournfully, the remains of the ornament that he dropped carefully held in upturned palms. ‘It was an accident -,’ Orlando’s voice is quiet, penitent, as though he truly believes that Sala hates him for having smashed the ornament. ‘I just picked it up, an’ I think it slipped, ‘cause -,’

‘Orlando – it’s okay.’ Sala smiles, tightly, wonders at the taut feel of Orlando’s name against his mouth. Usually he softens the word, doesn’t like the hard sound of the vowel against the atmosphere, the roof of his mouth, the tip of his tongue when he speaks it, nor battering against his ears whenever he hears others speak it.

It seems to startle Orlando a little, too, for he blinks languorously, a small frown of contemplation flickering across his face before it settles against his mouth. ‘It is?’

‘Yeah – never liked it anyway.’ Sala’s smile becomes an honest grin as he carefully reaches to take the ceramic shards away from Orlando’s care. ‘You saved me years of trauma, mate, by breaking it.’

‘Oh.’ The word is quietly offered, hints at disbelief but a willingness to believe, and Orlando’s frown becomes a hesitant smile. ‘Then why’re you all… bleurghy?’

Quirking an eyebrow, Sala lifts his gaze from the wrapping of the broken ornament, meets Orlando’s curious eyes and chuckles. ‘Bleurghy?’ he repeats, incredulously, decides that – whilst not exactly his first choice for the evening – Orlando drunk is infinitesimally more amusing than usual. ‘What are you? A teenage girl, or somethin’?’

‘Ha!’ Orlando flaps a hand dismissively through the air, scowls a little, before his face settles once more into an earnest look of curiosity. ‘You’re… all… y’know… mad at me!’

‘I’m not mad at you,’ Sala repeats for what feels like the thousandth time, mentally revises his opinion of a drunken Orlando being entertaining. He sighs, twitches one shoulder into a vague shrug, and concentrates his attention upon wrapping the ceramic shards. ‘I just thought we had a… this was supposed to be a date, ‘lando.’ Feeling the heat of embarrassment crawl through his cheeks, Sala debates the merits of turning tail and running. Whilst he’s nigh-on certain that Orlando won’t actually remember the conversation the next day – he can’t be positive that remnants of it won’t colour his memories, assert themselves at inopportune moments that will lead to awkwardness, and tension, and… He frowns, risks a glance up towards eyes that stare widely at him. ‘Was I wrong, mate?’

‘Nah.’

Confusion spirals through Sala at the indolent sound of Orlando’s voice. ‘Then -?’

‘Still a date, mate!’ Orlando singsongs in an affected accent, before he starts to giggle at himself, the noise soft and oddly grating. ‘Date, mate!’

Sala grinds his teeth. ‘Then why is Viggo here?’

‘Can’t have a date without a mole!’

Biting down on the tip of his tongue, Sala forces himself to breathe deeply until he’s finished placing the wrapped pieces of sharp ceramic into the depths of the kitchen bin, and can focus his attention squarely, resolutely upon the joyously giggling man in the doorway. ‘A mole?’ he repeats, instinctively, defensively crossing his arms in front of his chest and tilting his head to glower confusedly at Orlando. ‘You brought a mole along tonight, too?’

‘Why’d I wanna do that?’ Orlando asks, stares incredulously at him. ‘Uproot a cute lil’ fuzzy animal from its home, and drag it along to be poked and shouted at…’

Frowning, Sala can’t help but wonder if Orlando’s obtusely implying that he’s being shouted at. He thinks that it might even be a fair assumption, despite the fact that he hasn’t once raised his voice. It’s simply a matter of not being able to follow, or even to comprehend, Orlando’s drunken sense of logic. Wearily, he lifts a hand to his face and rubs at the bridge of his nose whilst he tries to decipher. ‘So… Viggo’s the mole, then?’

‘No!’

The faint look of outrage upon Orlando’s face does little to appease Sala’s mounting sense of dread, and he takes a step backwards, places himself out of harms way should arms start to windmill in an effort to explain using hand gestures.

‘Vig’s a man! All man! Manly man! Pretty man!’

‘Uh…’ Sala blinks, rubs at the bridge of his nose once more, wonders if he can just slope off to bed and trust that Orlando will eventually find his own way out. ‘Right. Okay, then.’

‘Man!’ The mutter is petulant, broken only by Orlando’s mouth shaping into a sunny smile as he gazes happily past Sala’s left shoulder. ‘Viggo!’

‘Yeah, you said -,’

‘Hey…’

Startled by the soft-spoken, amused drawl of Viggo’s voice behind him, Sala spins on the balls of his feet, rocks a little unsteadily, is caught at the elbow by the interloper’s hand against his skin, and they stare at one another for a moment, whilst Orlando quietly snorts in laughter.

‘Door was open,’ Viggo says into the silence, letting go of Sala’s elbow and lifting his hand to drag it through his unkempt hair. ‘Thought I’d come see if you guys were ready to go.’

Sala’s heart feels as though a lead-weight has been attached to it, and he cannot help but throw a bewildered glance back at the smirking Orlando. He’d been so certain that this was going to work in his favour when Orlando had first mooted the idea of dating to make Craig jealous – had been sure that as soon as he could convince Orlando to forget about trying to convince Craig that Karl is wrong for him, they could relax, have fun, talk enough to locate things in common that don’t revolve around Viggo… but he realises now, that isn’t going to happen.

He stifles a sigh, returns his gaze to Viggo’s and recognises faint traces of sympathetic understanding in his eyes. ‘You’re going, too.’

‘Yeah, uh, Orlando wants me to report back to Craig about…’ Viggo’s voice falters and he shifts awkwardly beneath Sala’s defeated eyes. ‘… how well you get on together. I guess.’

‘’S’right, Viggo!’ Orlando chimes in, his voice buoyant with defiant determination. ‘Have t’make Craig see what he’s missin’!’

‘Other than a drunk Elf, you mean?’ Viggo rolls his eyes, brings a small smile to flicker at the corners of Sala’s mouth. ‘He started drinking before I picked him up.’ He explains. ‘Otherwise I’d be delivering him here stone-cold-sober, I swear.’

There is a part of Sala that wants to shrug his shoulders; proclaim that it doesn’t matter, that this date isn’t important to him – is everything that Orlando seems hell-bent on insisting that it is. That it’s merely something to try to annoy Craig’s sensibilities with. And yet… there is another part that wants to rail at the injustice of Orlando not realising what this means… could mean to them both, if only he’d take a step backwards, away from something that Sala suspects is bordering upon obsession with a man who has already made his choice. He hesitates, blinks, frowns as he wonders if he’s mentally describing Orlando’s feelings for Craig…

Or his own.

‘Oh, Christ -,’

The sound of Viggo’s voice, raised a little in exasperation, cuts into Sala’s ponderings and he blinks free of them, shakes his head slowly from side to side. ‘What?’

‘Orlando.’ Viggo sighs, flaps a hand in the direction of the doorway and causing Sala to turn his gaze in its wake.

He expects to see Orlando indolently lurking in the open frame, smirking lazily at them beneath eyes glazed with whatever liquor he’s seemingly decided he likes enough to get wasted on this week. He expects to see Orlando watching them both, perhaps even managing to follow the thread of their stilted conversation and deriving amusement from it. What he doesn’t expect is to find the doorway empty, Orlando seemingly sloped off back towards the rest of the house, the open door, and…

‘Your car!’

Viggo blinks at him in what seems like confusion for a moment, whilst Sala’s body tingles with the panic that rolls through him at the thought of a drunken Orlando attempting to drive Viggo’s car back home. He stares at Viggo even as he clamps his teeth anxiously down against his lip, fights against the nausea inducing images of Orlando in a car-wreck, bloodied and… shaking his head firmly, Sala decides that unless he wants to collapse in a heap of terror, it’s probably a good idea to still his runaway imagination and focus upon Viggo instead.

Viggo, he thinks, is usually calm enough to deal with most Orlando induced crises.

‘It’s parked out front.’ Viggo tells him, still watching him as though Sala’s suddenly started spouting Maori instead of the language that they have in common. ‘What about it?’

‘Orlando -,’

There’s a flicker of movement across Viggo’s brow that captures Sala’s attention for a moment, allows his racing heartbeat to catch and then restart, a little calmer this time, before the smile creases along his jaw and lightens his eyes. ‘It’s locked,’ he tells him, holds up the set of keys so that Sala can see them. ‘He can’t get into it. Besides -,’ he gives a wry chuckle that further adds to Sala’s growing sense of serenity. ‘I doubt it very much if Orlando even has the coordination skills right now to get down the front steps of your house!’

‘Yeah?’

Viggo nods his head decisively. ‘Yeah. Poor kid’s pretty smashed…’

‘Great.’ Sala mutters, the sound of his voice dark against the warmth of Viggo’s smile. He closes his eyes and forces himself to breathe deeply against the solid lump of his pride that’s lodged at the back of his throat. ‘It comes to something when my date for the evening has to get loaded before we even leave the house!’

‘This meant a lot to you, didn’t it?’ Viggo asks, the sound of his voice curious and yet not laden with the mockery that Sala has been half-expecting.

He cracks open his eyes and peers, blearily, warily across the short distance that separates them, wonders at the patience that he can see in the other’s eyes even as he heaves his shoulders towards his ears and twists his mouth into something that he senses will translate as a petulant frown.

‘Orlando’s…’ Viggo hesitates, then smiles sadly. ‘He’s got a lot going on in his head at the moment, Sala. I’m pretty sure he’d be devastated if he realised how much he’s obviously hurting you right now.’

‘Yeah.’

‘He’s pissed at Craig, and he wants to hurt him – but I doubt very much if he wants to hurt anyone else in the process.’

Sala frowns deeply. ‘Except for Karl.’ He points out. ‘I’d say that Karl’s pretty high on Orlando’s hate list right now.’

‘He doesn’t have one.’ Viggo says, smiles vaguely. ‘Orlando isn’t someone who has the propensity to dwell on things for long enough to develop negative emotions towards them, Sala. He knows, deep down, past all that adolescent ego bull that he’s been throwing at me for the last few days, that Craig’s decision ultimately had very little to do with Karl, and a lot to do with his own attitude. Orlando’s, I mean.’

‘He told you what’s been going on?’

‘We had a few hours to while away after make-up were done with us the other day, yeah.’

Curiosity niggles at the edges of Sala’s mind, and he tilts his head a little to one side, regards Viggo from weighted eyes. ‘Think he’ll get what he wants?’

‘I think Orlando’s under the impression that he’ll get his own way, yes.’ Viggo’s voice is neutral; careful, and Sala can’t help but wonder at it. ‘As to whether or not I think that it’ll actually work out like that… who knows? Stranger things have happened.’

There is a long moment of silence between them whilst Sala digests Viggo’s words, tries to comprehend what they mean. He is unable to get past the notion that Orlando always gets his own way, ends up with what… who… he wants, and he feels a frisson of nervousness as to whether, one day, maybe that thing, that person might be him.

‘Look -,’ Viggo says after a while, smiles tentatively at him across the kitchen tiles. ‘I know you had all these plans for tonight, but Orlando being smashed has pretty much put paid to them, right?’

Sala thinks of the club that he’d planned on showing off to Orlando, the flashing lights and the gaudy colours, the drinks with ludicrously unpronounceable names and prices fit to break the bank. He thinks of the kisses that he’s imagined, in darkened corners, with roving hands, and heated skin, and he shivers, sighs miserably as he understands that his plans have been dashed.

‘Right.’

‘But I was thinking -,’

Viggo’s eyes are focused intently upon his,, whilst his face has gone still as he speaks, and Sala thinks that if he didn’t know any better, he’d swear that the other man is nervous about voicing the thoughts that reside inside his brain.

‘- if I round Orlando up, we could maybe drop him off back at his place and then, I don’t know… go out for coffee, or something? Talk.’

‘About ‘lando?’ Sala asks, frowning at the dimming light that he can see in Viggo’s eyes.

‘Yeah. Sure.’ Viggo sighs heavily, but smiles nonetheless. ‘If you want. Hey – maybe we can hatch a plan of our own to make him jealous! See how he likes that!’

‘Give him a taste of his own medicine?’ Sala suggests, can feel the grin creeping across his face even as he does so.

Viggo laughs, and the sound is soothing to his sense of heightened anxiety. ‘Yeah.’ He says. ‘Why the hell not…’ He hesitates again, ducks his head and shoots Sala a curious glance. ‘So… is it a date, then?’

It isn’t the way that Sala envisaged his evening turning out, but he can’t help but feel a sense of elation that the night won’t be entirely wasted. He allows his grin to flow freely across his mouth, claps a friendly hand down against Viggo’s shoulder and nods his head.

‘Yeah.’ He says, feels the weight of his self-esteem lighten a little even as he turns towards the doorway, intending to rout Orlando out from wherever he’s drunkenly decided to wander, find his jacket, go with Viggo. ‘It’s a date…’

He will, he decides, take whatever he can get.