There are things in life you cannot have, no matter how much you want or need them. Certain people’s love most of all. Orlando acknowledges this realization, which has probably always dwelt within him, with a lowering of his head. Supposedly due to the intensity of the orgasm which ripped through his body and tore a screamed name out of his mouth.

And as he pants, his body succumbing to the fatigue of quiet desperation, and drops heavily on the bed, he can’t focus any one thought long enough to consider what to make of this. He wants to say something, but he’s still panting. He wants to cry, but his eyes are too dry and the first tears burn them. He blinks the salty essence away. He wants to wallow in an emptiness of deed and consciousness, as empty as his fate turned out to be.

But he already guesses tomorrow morning’s triumphant return of sense, which would remind him that love is a luxury. And luxuries he could always do without. Was better off without, even. He knew how to appease himself with small tokens of affection most of the time. He learned his one line, that he was lucky. Luckier than most people are or could wish to be. He was the perfect performer in his one-man show.

Because he’s done his very best and it was still not good enough to earn him more than fond sex with Viggo. And that, with Viggo, was not even close to what he longed for. The hopelessness of changing the way things were between them weighed on him. Watching Viggo closely when they were together, whether alone or in company, seeing one small piece of evidence after another gathered against him in minor incidents of everyday life convinced him he stood no chance. Made it harder to breathe. No, that pleasant fondness was actually worse than nothing at all. He couldn’t have said exactly why it was so at the time. He could now. He didn’t dare to. The unformed words of thought seemed somehow selfish in the powerful and cruel light of reason.

And that one might love too much is yet another realization he does not want to have. He knows the morning will bring only one truth. That all he should long for now is a complete conviction in his own facade, one which would blissfully lead him to ignorance of what his heart believed might have been.