Four rings. Then the familiar click as the answering machine spurs into action, Viggo's voice surrounding him, reaching across the distance to curl around his throat and make his chest tighten just a fraction. When Orlando reaches for it with the vague need to touch, it flees his hands, evasive and gray as smoke.

He always calls thinking that it will help, that maybe this time Viggo will be there, but it never does and Viggo never is.

It used to be easy. On the one hand, there was physical attraction, and on the other, there was a close friendship, or at least something very much like it. Orlando saw no reason for the two to clash; he'd done it before and would be surprised if Viggo hadn't.

So they fucked, and Orlando still told Viggo about kissing Dom (because every member of the cast had kissed Dom at least once) and flirting with Ian, and Viggo still told him about Henry growing up and described vague ideas of colors and shapes shifting to complete each other.

Orlando thinks that maybe he was happy.

Thirteen days. Thirteen days of nothing, and Orlando uses a rare break in his schedule and flies in to see Viggo. He tries calling before his plane takes off, but it's only the answering machine again, so he hangs up without leaving a message and boards the plane, backpack slung over one shoulder. The lights of the city beneath him shrink, then disappear to make room for the endless darkness of the ocean.

Viggo isn't at the airport when Orlando arrives, and of course he isn't because Viggo doesn't even know Orlando's coming, but... It doesn't matter, does it?

Orlando wishes it didn't.

He finds a cab, hands Viggo's address to a driver who carries an unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth and doesn't recognize Orlando. The engine purrs and Orlando thinks he should be tired, but he isn't. His stomach jumps and turns with every corner the driver takes, much too fast. Orlando wants to tell him to go slower, wants to tell him to go faster, wants to tell him to stop. Instead, he remains silent and stares out of the window.

The lights in Viggo's house are out, the windows facing the street reduced to bottomless eyes that watch Orlando as he gets out of the cab. The car pulls away and leaves him shivering. It's less cold in Italy, and he wonders if he made a mistake.

The night doesn't provide him with an answer. Somewhere down the road, a dog barks as if sensing an intruder.

Although Viggo gave Orlando a key, almost a year ago when Viggo still picked up his phone when it was Orlando's caller id appearing on the display, Orlando doesn't dare use it. It's almost one in the morning and the wrong time for unannounced visits. He rings the bell anyway, mainly because he doesn't know how not to.

The sound echoes somewhere in his chest, hollow and tinny, and Orlando waits.

He doesn't hear footsteps, so when the door opens, he's not ready. He doesn't know what to say, just squints into the sudden brightness of the hallway light as Viggo's features emerge from his silhouette only reluctantly.

Orlando adjusts his backpack, shifting his weight, words stuck somewhere in the back of his throat. Viggo --

-- smiled, smiled and drew orlando up onto his own step, turned him against the doorpost, and even though the hard wood was digging into his back and everyone who happened to pass by would see them, the spotlight above the doorstep illuminating them like a piece of art, orlando didn't care because this was new zealand and he was kissing viggo, and everything was the way it should be.

-- looks at him, just looks. There are shadows beneath his eyes, shadows also in his eyes, and Orlando's words still tighten his throat and refuse to move. Strands of Viggo's hair are coated in paint, green and red that hasn't dried yet. His shirt is torn. Orlando misses the faint wrinkles in the corners of Viggo's eyes that he sometimes traced while Viggo slept.

"You look like shit," Orlando says, unfreezing time. The sentence isn't part of the other words.

"Yes," Viggo says, voice flat and expressionless, and then, "Come on in."

Of course Orlando has been to Viggo's house before, but as he trails Viggo into the studio, it seems... different. The house wasn't this cold last time. Maybe, Orlando thinks, maybe it's because he's not used to feeling as if he doesn't belong.

The answering machine is set on a small table near the door to the living room. Red digits show the number nine; Orlando wonders who the other six messages are from because he gave up after the third. A spark of something quivers in his stomach, and it could be anger, only that there's far too much sadness.

He still wants to touch.

The potpourri of smells that marks Viggo's studio surrounds him like a comforting blanket. In a silent challenge to everything that isn't the way it should be, Orlando crosses the room and hops up onto the windowsill, a painfully familiar place where he spent hours alternating between watching Viggo and reading through scripts his agents sent him. When he runs a finger over the cool metal, dust collects on the tip.

"I tried to call before the plane took off," Orlando tells Viggo, tells the back that is turned on him. He's not sure if the main emotion his tone conveys is worry, and not desperation. The window is cold against his side, the blackness of night turning it into a mirror that darkens every reflection. "You weren't there, though."

"I know." The gentle, even light that floats the studio distorts Viggo's shadow, smudges it around the edges. "I disconnected the phone."

"Why?" Orlando draws his knees up to his chest and watches the movements of Viggo's hands. He thinks they may be shaking, but he's probably wrong.

Viggo has never been this elusive. Not while Orlando still could reach for him.

There's a long, nearly endless moment of silence. Viggo's clothes rustle as he moves, and quiet breaths are enhanced by the absence of other sounds. The night wraps around them, and Orlando doesn't know how to escape.

He feels like screaming.

"I don't," Viggo says, and while his hands still move, they don't touch the canvas anymore, want to trap you. "You're young. It wouldn't be fair."

"Bullshit!" It's just a word, but it's violent and shatters the last traces of silence. "Bullshit," Orlando repeats, quieter now. "You're not that selfless, Viggo. You're..." And then he stumbles, flails and doesn't know how to go on.

Viggo turns slowly, and Orlando doesn't look away.

"How many people did you sleep with since New Zealand, Orlando? "Viggo's tone cuts through the shards of the last traces of silence. How much more can they destroy?

"It's none of your fucking business," Orlando says, and it's a statement that hurts in its bleakness. "Didn't you just, you know, tell me how you don't want anything to do with me anymore? Didn't you?" He jumps off the windowsill, but it's too late; the familiarity is poisoned already.

"Orlando..." No words follow, and Orlando looks at Viggo and tries to understand.

The shadows swirling through Viggo's eyes, the tenseness of his shoulders. Light twines with Viggo's hair, but there's still an odd sense of detachment to Viggo, something unusual and distant. Viggo is never distant. He watches, but Orlando has always felt Viggo's presence as a constant spark of energy that he could touch with the tips of his fingers if only he concentrated.

"You're afraid." It's the first thing Orlando can think of, and the accusation will maybe be enough to destroy Viggo's detachment. They're good at destroying things, tonight.

"Dependence has never been a good choice in my life." The answer is swift, and Viggo moves, even if it's only to set his pencil down. "Not if it's one-sided."

"You're afraid," Orlando repeats, less a question and more an incredulous statement now. When Viggo refuses to look at him, he takes a step forward, closer. "Why?" he asks, softly. "I mean. Why?"

"Why?" Orlando shifted up onto his elbows, looking down at Viggo and gasping around the red jolt of something racing up his spine. Viggo kissed his thigh, then licked delicate circles, just tiny flickers of tongue and sometimes teeth that drew closer and closer to Orlando's erection.

Viggo glanced up briefly, bright lashes slightly out of focus. His voice was rough and low, his laugh husky. "Does it matter?"

"No," Orlando said, then added "yes!" at the first touch of Viggo's tongue. His legs tangled in the sheets as he tried not to arch his back and push up.

Prolonged seconds as the earlier silence is restored, all damage undone. Maybe it isn't quite as oppressive as before. Then Viggo smiles, just a little. It doesn't reach his eyes, though.

"Why wouldn't I be, Orlando?"

A failed marriage, Orlando's brain supplies. He carefully chooses his words. "Right. But... would it be so bad? To put a name to," this, this whatever, "our relationship?"

Viggo is watching him, the weight of his gaze a gentle reassurance.

"It's just," unlike Viggo's, Orlando lets his smile go wide and reach his eyes, and he feels his desperation subside, "I don't usually call casual fuck buddies, like, every second day or so."

"You don't?" Viggo asks, and there's just a hint of teasing now.

Orlando takes another step, and he sees that the shadows are almost gone. Maybe they're not just good at destroying, he thinks, but he doesn't say it aloud. "No," he says instead, and reaches for Viggo because he hopes that his permission is back.

Viggo's hands find him first, settling and splaying on his waist as if they belong, as if they never left.

Orlando tilts his head slightly to the side as their lips touch. Tiny scratches of stubble on Viggo's chin contrast with the slow burn of Viggo's kiss, warmth running down Orlando's throat and glowing in his stomach. His back comes up against the windowsill and he opens his eyes without remembering when he closed them. Tangles one hand in Viggo's hair, shifting his hips and opening his legs when Viggo slips a thigh between them.

This is what Orlando came here for. Everything about this, every minor detail, every kiss and touch and sigh and look and unspoken word.

"Two," Orlando whispers, then exhales and shudders because Viggo is kissing his neck, teeth a startling contrast to the soft trail his tongue leaves.

Viggo's mouth lifts just long enough to formulate a question. "Two what?"

Orlando's fingers fist Viggo's shirt, and somewhere in the back of his mind, there's the vague notion of tearing the cloth. He can feel the outline of Viggo's left nipple. It hardens when he rolls it between thumb and forefinger, responding to Orlando's touch. Orlando pushes Viggo back a step, then leans forward and licks at the cotton. It tastes of fuzz, but smells of Viggo.

Orlando drops to his knees and feels Viggo's grip on his waist shift to his shoulder. "There were two since New Zealand," he says against Viggo's stomach. The zipper of Viggo's jeans slides down smoothly, and Orlando reaches through the gap into Viggo's boxers, glancing up. "I felt like shit afterwards, both times."

"Good." Viggo's voice is rougher now, not expressionless at all. His eyes are bright and just a little unfocused. "Don't do it again."

Orlando doesn't say anything, but he shakes his head and knows Viggo can tell by the brush of hair over his thighs, can feel it under his fingertips. When Orlando presses his nose against Viggo's boxers, he hears a shaky sigh above him. It floods him with a warmth that has nothing to do with the temperature of the room.

The wooden floor always leaves faint bruises on Orlando's knees, but he knows that the outcome surpasses the pain.

Slashababy 2004 Stories