Who: Orin and Preston What: Drinks and revelations Where: Orpheum, Aubade When: Say tonightish Warnings: Some adult topics and language
It wasn’t the kind of place to wear black and white, but in the days that this face came from, the movies didn’t come in color--not the good ones, anyway. Preston didn’t really care what Arrow thought of the too-earnest, slightly horsey features. All he cared about was that they weren’t his own, and he could protect Anton with it even if the idiot man would probably come out of any scandal unscathed--but Preston didn’t like the idea of leaving Sparke Industries. It was like leaving a burning candle unattended; without tending it would run down, burn itself to nothing. Shiloh had talked about taking a vacation, but beyond a couple days, maybe even a week, it just couldn’t happen.
Preston came on time, though he would have liked to have been there hours early, and he reflected that was what came of trying to lead a double life. The white shirt and the black tie looked strange because the material seemed as if it was all rough black thread on shredding black plaid, and the shifting lighting on the projection made Biff’s face gray and his slicked hair antique. He sat down at the bar, suit and all, not caring that he didn’t blend in and not caring what anybody thought of his request for a soda.
Orin had gotten there in advance - well in advance. He was sitting at the far end of the bar, a burlesque dancer in his lap and his hand on a tumbler of scotch, and he knew as soon as he sat down that it was Rescue in all those nonsensical grays and old fashioned clothes. He didn’t understand the other man’s ability, but he figured that’s what this was - an ability. And he was insulted, too, that the other man had felt the need to keep hiding, when he was being as open as a man could be. He lifted the drink to his lips, and he took a sip before calling down the bar. “No one trusts a man with a face like that, Jeeves,” he said, the disappoint audible in his voice at the lack of equal footing, yet again.
Preston looked sharply over, staring down the bar at Orin Monarch sitting there with a woman who made it an occupation to spill all over rich men. It didn’t seem possible, but the troubled face darkened a little more. It was good that he had taken measures. This man could skip him and go straight to Anton just out of sheer curiosity. “Everyone knows your face, too,” he said, his tone matching the one he had used on the phone call, the one that said he smoked and hadn’t gotten enough sleep lately, and the one that sometimes turned a signpost toward Boston as if it was a new country. “And nobody trusts it, either.” Preston looked down at the soda and then told the bartender to bring him a shot of whiskey to put into it.
“Well then, no point in continuing this, is there?” Orin asked. He wasn’t a man that chased things, and calling Rescue to make amends was a stretch, one made out of respect for a man he’d wronged. But he wasn’t the sort to go on groveling once he’d made his apologies, and he just stood and tapped the dancer on the ass (she was a pretty thing - black hair and no machination, as far from Valerie as he could find in the place). Once the girl had slipped away, he crossed over to the other man, the one who hadn’t worn his own face, and he tossed enough money to cover the drink and tip onto the bar beside him. “There comes a point, Jeeves, when you got to trust your gut,” he said candidly, “and when you got to quit being hurt by folks just trying to be as careful as you’re being right now.”
They were temporarily alone, the bartender gone to get the shot, the dancer gone backstage, and the rest of the bar loud and lost in the modern bacchanalia around them. Preston turned in his chair. For convenience’s sake, Biff was the same height as Preston and about as broad. He had none of Newman’s sensitivity, but far more raw hurt in the back of his eyes, and Preston had no trouble hold the image clear in his mind to put between him and everyone else. “My gut has been telling me to move to Alaska for the last few days. You made the front page with your last stunt. Trying to throw people off the scent?”
“Oracle was in the maze,” Orin replied, easy as that. “The Bat getting caught or outed wasn’t an option,” he added. “And that’s a mighty pretty face you got there, but I’d rather talk to the man, seeing as you can walk out of here and splatter my face on the front page of that tabloid that passes for a newspaper.” He was standing, and he hadn’t pulled out a bench to sit. “As for moving to Alaska, you would have done that by now if you were going to. You’re either in this rodeo or you aren’t, Jeeves. There’s no half-in and half-out. That’s why no one trusts you, because you aren’t committed.” Like now, his expression said.
Biff’s dark eyes shadowed. “No, I guess I’m not committed. Not to the right people--things.” It was a quick correction. He hesitated, reluctant, and then turned again to look at Orin. “I wouldn’t put you on any newspaper.” He had the gall to sound hurt. “I didn’t push for anything that anyone didn’t want to give, and with Oracle’s comms it would be very easy to string you all up, like the gallows they used to have in old westerns.” He took a drink, making a face. Cheap whiskey and cold coke wasn’t on his usual menu. “Of course I guess you could string me up too.” He was really babbling now. “Was Oracle okay?” By that time his voice was low, and he sounded younger.
“No, not really,” Orin said, responding to the question about Oracle. “Jeeves, you realize we had a traitor on our comms, right? Some paranoia was to be expected, especially with you being new. And we didn’t GPS you, which I could have, and we didn’t film you, which I could have. I didn’t even follow you. And I still have no idea who you are, because the person assigned to watch your keystrokes was supposed to keep their mouth shut about it - I required that to even get involved in this damn mess,” he explained, voice going up slightly as he went on.
“‘Some paranoia’ isn’t really an excuse,” Preston said, sounding about as fucking miserable as he felt. “There are all these things you didn’t do, but really, it all comes down to that you just didn’t trust me, so you were willing to risk it.” He was making this personal, it was clear. Biff’s black, accusing eyes met Orin’s. He didn’t buy that playboy shit, not anymore. He hadn’t even bought it then, come to think of it. “Did you find your traitor?”
Orin didn’t bother answering that. “Do you trust me? Because where I’m standing, you don’t. You took precautions because you didn’t trust me. We took precautions because we didn’t trust you. Now, far as I can tell, I’m not taking a damn precaution right now, but you are.” He spread his arms wide. “So should I be offended?”
Biff looked troubled. He fiddled with his drink with stubby gray fingers, not at all like Preston’s own. “If it was just me, it wouldn’t matter,” he said, finally. “But it’s not. The precautions are for other people.”
“Why the hell do you think the Masks wear damn masks, son?” Orin asked. “It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with us. If we gave a shit about ourselves, we wouldn’t do what we do.”
Preston didn’t like that answer. It fit too well. He pushed at his glass, and finished it. Two days ago he swore he wasn’t ever going to drink again. Finally, he looked up. “You’re right,” he said, low. “It’s just you. I just don’t trust you. I did... but now I don’t. But I’d like to.”
“Being here is all I got to give as far as trust goes, Jeeves,” Orin said. “And the fact that none of us know who the hell you are, even after everything.” It was, honestly, all he had to give. His identity, any Mask’s identity, was the thing they valued most. If that couldn’t buy him the other man’s trust then nothing could, and Orin knew better than to beg or fight the tide. It was what it was, and Rescue could take it or leave it. “And you never trusted me, or you would have shown up to our last meeting with your own face and your own voice, and we wouldn’t be having this problem, because I wouldn’t have felt the need to monitor you.”
“Maybe,” Preston conceded. It was an ugly agreement. He didn’t like giving it, but it was true. Maybe he just didn’t trust anyone, not all the way, not ever. Only two people knew about Preston’s ability. Only two--three, now, after this nightmare with experiences swapping--knew he was Rescue. Only Shiloh knew about what happened at home. Only Eli knew about what happened at school. Nobody knew everything. He looked up at Orin under his brows, heavy. “If you want help, I will give it to you where I can’t, but I can’t trust you. I can’t help it.” He lifted big shoulders under the ratty black projection of cloth, and then dropped them again. “I’m sorry.” He was doing a lot of apologizing these days.
“I wasn’t asking you for any help, remember?” Orin said, winking at the bartender when she came to pick up the money, and waiting for her to clear out before continuing. “Got to trust people some time, Jeeves, or you’re going to end up a lonely bastard.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Preston said, almost fondly, turning to tip his head slightly with a new, faint smile. The man was arrogant. “I’m already there, or I wouldn’t be sitting here waiting to get dragged off to God knows where for God knows what.”
“Not everyone intends on screwing you over in this world, son. You’re sitting there, safe as you were before I came along. And if anyone knows who you are, I’m damn sure it had to do with those memories and not with me,” Orin insisted. “What are you so damn afraid of?”
Preston glanced over his shoulder, and then behind Orrie. He looked up and around for video cameras, and then he made sure the mirror behind the bar didn’t reveal him to the crowd. Then he tipped his head up and looked Orin in the eye. The eye shimmered, like oil in water, and then it became lighter, greener, and Biff’s complexion changed. It was only the features, and so close it looked so much like a strange bobble-head on a face that didn’t match, but Orin looked at Orin, and Preston made a point. Then he shimmered again, and Biff arched his eyebrows (he wasn’t very good at it). “So?”
Orin was impressed, but not overly so. “That don’t make you any more vulnerable than us. And we either trust each other, or we don’t. I don’t give a damn about your ability. I give a damn about what you stand for, and whether or not you’d have my back if it came down to it - because I know I’d have yours.” That was what it came down to for Orin, whether a person was trustworthy, because in this line of work, there really wasn’t anything else - not anything that mattered.
“More valuable, not vulnerable.” Preston shook his head. “Vulnerable too. What do I know about shooting arrows or kicking people in the face? I’m usually the one that’s getting kicked.” It wasn’t a pity-fest, it was fact. “I stand for the people I care about. Ideals don’t mean much to me. People do.”
“Could teach you how to fight,” Orin suggested, because what he heard in all that talk was that Preston was scared. In his opinion, scared men were generally men that hadn’t managed to get a punch in while they were in the school yard. “And people matter to anyone with ideals. If they don’t, then they’re lying about their ideals. Or they got the wrong idea of what an ideal is.”
Preston (Biff) smiled. It was an extraordinarily young and uncertain smile. That’s why he’d chosen McCarthy, after all. He wasn’t in the right place for Newman. “I was never much good at fighting. But I appreciate it Arr--rie.” He glanced over his shoulder but the bartender wasn’t within hearing distance. “I mean it about ideals. Ideals are more than people.”
“Not for people with real ideals, son,” Orin clarified. “You can call me Orrie. My friends do,” he offered, an honest look on his face. “And my sparring, it isn’t that great, but I promise it’s better than yours,” he said, with the confidence of a man who didn’t fear a whole lot of anything.
“You’re just looking for an excuse to beat me up,” he said, but the smile had a little strength now. Preston turned to face Orrie entirely, knees down and heel caught on the cross bars of the stool. The bartender brought him another drink unbidden, and unbidden he started drinking it. “What are your ideals, then, Orrie?” he asked, curiously.
“Why do I do what I do, you mean?” Orin smiled indulgently. “Ask me that with your real face, and we can talk.”
“Have to stick to this one for the moment,” Preston said, shaking his head.
“How about a hot redhead?” Orin asked, leaning his elbows on the bar for the first time since he’d stood. Body not poised to leave just yet.
Preston grinned a grin that he never would have grinned if he’d been sober with his own face on. “If that’s the way you like it.” He gave a little laugh in the back of his throat and put an elbow on the bar to lift his drink.
“Well?” Orin said, pulling a stool back out and giving Preston a challenging grin. “You can always go back and change.” He waved the bartender back, winked at the woman again, and asked for two new drinks after complimenting her cleavage.
“I don’t trust you, remember? As soon as you realize she’s all a figment of your--my--imagination, you’ll leave me in the dust, I’ve no doubt.” Preston poked a finger in the air at Orin. “I’ve read about you.”
Orin chuckled, reaching for the drink before the bartender put it down, and sliding it over to Preston, before taking his own. “Reading isn’t the same as experiencing, son,” Orin said, all cocky male bragging about his prowess with one of the guys. “You ever use that trick to get in bed?”
He blinked and looked over. Biff’s long, honest face contorted. “No!” It was disgust. “I wouldn’t do that. I don’t go around pretending to be other people.” He blinked again, but this time with guilt. “Not for my benefit.”
Orin laughed. “Calm the hell down, Jeeves,” he said, tipping back his drink slowly and with no rush. “I would have used that ability to get laid left and right when I was a teenager,” he said. “And I had no trouble getting laid.” He laughed again, thinking about the prospect, and then he looked over at Preston. “So who the hell you scared of?”
Oh, no, Preston didn’t imagine that Orrie had any trouble getting laid, not a bit of it. They probably flocked to him the wait gnats flocked to flame. He had that kind of draw. A lot like Anton’s, really. “Nobody in particular.” This was truth, actual enough. He tipped his head at Orin, curious, made confident by alcohol and his projection. “Were you serious about the just looking like a red-head thing?”
“I’d rather see your own pretty mug, son,” Orin said easily, holding the sweating glass between his fingers as casually as if he trusted the man beside him with his life. Which, in a way, was precisely what he was doing.
When he said it like that, it sounded trusting and affectionate, and Preston didn’t for a second think he was being manipulated. He would have, if only for his own sake, but then he remembered Anton. “How do I know you wouldn’t use it against me?”
Orin just chuckled, and he reached for a napkin. “Give me a pen, Jeeves.”
Blinking, deer in headlights like, Preston produced a silver ballpoint pen that only a man that sat at a desk would keep. Fortunately it was not engraved, though if it had been, he might not have noticed.
Orin took the pen from Preston’s fingers, and he scribbled on the napkin and handed it back. In messy, unconcerned script he’d written: Orin Monarch is Arrow. He signed it, added the date, and handed the paper. “How do I know you aren’t going to use that against me?” he asked, holding the pen back out to Preston.
Preston took his pen back, and he peered down at the paper. Biff’s droopy eyes widened. “Are you mad?” He pulled out a smoker’s silver Zippo and snapped it a couple times before lighting the paper and, for lack of anything else to do, dropped it on the floor and put his foot down on the ashes. “You’re trying to get caught?” he asked, dead serious. “You’re coming out?”
“No, Jeeves. I was just proving a point. I wouldn’t give you that paper if I didn’t trust you, and a man doesn’t betray someone he trusts with something like that thing you just burned.” He took a sip of his drink, unconcerned. “So drop the damn black-and-white already.” A grin. “Unless you want to give me that redhead with double Ds.”
Preston returned the pen to his coat pocket, the real one that might have the same weight as Biff’s but certainly not the appearance. It was a practiced gesture. “I would, if I thought I’d get anything out of it.” He picked up his drink again (which number was it?). He sniffed. “And he’s not black and white. I added color.” To the skin, mostly.
Orin glanced at the drink. “There a certain reason you’re drinking yourself into a stupor?” he asked.
Preston stopped with the drink halfway put his mouth and quickly put it down again. “I’m not.” He stared at it as if it had snuck up on him.
“You got to quit denying stuff when it’s plain as the nose on grey man’s face,” Orin said, the jab intentional this time, since it had bothered previously. He sighed, and he put the drink on the counter heavily. “Son, either you cut the shit and start being honest with me, or I’m walking my ass out of here. You’re a grown man, and you’re acting more skittish than a damn virgin about everything.”
That did it. It wasn’t much, but it did it. Preston’s mouth came open a little bit (Biff’s was a little slacker and stupider, it came with the front teeth that didn’t quite fit unless he was smiling). He took another heavy slurp of his drink, and then he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a card. It was his business card. The one with his name on it and the Sparke Industries logo on it. It felt like betrayal. He coughed on the next drink he took.
Orin took the card and looked at it. He hadn’t been in town long, but he knew everyone important in Sparke’s employ - even the little secretary that had caused a war that he was still waging with every damn contract he won from the man (who didn’t seem to be paying a whole lot of attention to the war, admittedly.) “That explains where you get your tech,” he said, handing the card back between two fingers. “You have anything to do with the shit that secretary gave me?” he asked, curiously and no ire in it.
Preston coughed again against the burn, but he brought his head up with a smooth smile that was not at all Biff’s. “I have to do with everything that happens at that office, Mr. Monarch.”
“That woman has a chip on her shoulder,” Orin said, finishing off his drink and setting it down. “And don’t even try to tell me she doesn’t. “ He grinned. “Gave me good motivation, so I’m not complaining much.”
Preston shrugged, the smooth smile turning into an amused smirk. “You were an ass. Reina doesn’t put up with that. You should see what she did to the tax team.” He was getting to drunk now. The cheap stuff was stronger than he thought it would be.
“No, I wasn’t an ass. I can be an ass, son. I’m proud of the times I’m an ass. I work real damn hard at it. That woman was impossible from the time I walked in the door, without me even looking at her damned tits,” Orin said, and that was obviously a sore subject. “Sparke treating me like I was ten after was just as damn bad. I went there to offer to work with the man, and all I got was crap from him and her,” he said, venting his spleen and slapping money on the counter. “Might want to ask a man if he was an ass next time.”
Preston chuckled. He chuckled into his glass and the dark liquid rippled under his breath. “You’re used to getting what you want, I notice.” He didn’t think that either Anton or Reina needed a reason to dislike Orin Monarch. He thought it amusing that Orrie expected the world to be fair. “Some people are just prejudiced, I’m sure.”
“Men respect men in business. I wouldn’t walk into Anton’s house and cause trouble, just like I wouldn’t walk into Brandon’s house and cause trouble. A man expects some respect in return,” Orin said, very old South in that moment. “And I am damn well used to getting what I want. But I wasn’t walking in there for me. I was walking in there because it was the right thing to do.” He smacked a hand on the counter, and he pushed back the stool. “Quit drinking, and next time I see you, I want it to be you. You hear me?”
Neither Anton nor Reina were men of business. Especially not Anton. “Why would I want to do that?” Preston asked, not even close to kidding. He shifted his elbows back onto the bar, immediately resigned to Orrie’s departure as soon as he made one move away.
The question surprised Orin. “Which one?” he asked, stopping his departure.
Preston did a double-take. He was still there? “What?” he said, blankly.
“You asked why you’d want to do that - did you mean why should you quit drinking? Or why should you be yourself the next time I saw you?” Orin clarified, taking Preston’s drink from him and emptying it in the bar sink with a wink at the bartender, who reciprocated by handing him her number on a napkin.
He didn’t really hear the question. Preston looked distressed as he took the drink away. Biff really did have the expressions he would have if he was indeed Preston. “That was hypocritical, considering,” he said, nearly standing so he could see what became of his drink. Carefully, he caught his weight on the counter and then sat down again... slowly.
“Call the man a cab,” Orin told the bartender, and he hauled Preston off the stool with the ease of someone who spent a whole lot of time pulling himself up the side of buildings. He pocketed the bartender’s number, and he looked over at Preston. “If I’m holding onto someone who might vomit on my shoes, I feel I got a right to know why,” he said casually, no push in it like there was in the demand to see Preston’s face.
For someone who was over six feet, Preston didn’t have much weight to him. Bones, mostly. Up and dragged, he protested faintly, rather incoherent. He’d been drunker, though, he was sure. “I’m not that much of a lightweight,” he protested, hanging from the grip without a struggle. Preston watched the number vanish away. “You really need that?” he asked, curiously.
“Course I do,” Orin said. “Orin Monarch wouldn’t turn down a woman’s number,” he said, the third person real intentional just then. The walk to the cab walk slow going, since folks had to make room, but by the time they got outside, Orin had started to wonder what the hell was going on to make someone as dependable as he’d heard Anton Sparke’s assistant was get drunk without compulsion. “Is it a woman?” he asked, because the man looked like he might be a romantic, what with the fake faces he kept choosing.
“Is what a woman?” Women were so far from Preston’s mind right then. Orin pegged it right with the romantic bit, because you didn’t like old film unless you liked things a little bit overboard. Or maybe just liked the men. It took a fair bit of concentration on someone to come up with a proper projection, after all. Preston had Orrie’s eyes down pretty well. “I can walk,” he suggested, informatively, proving it with only a slight stagger. He looked around interestedly, looking for the car and totally ignoring the crowd’s reaction to Orrie, which he got all the time with Anton.
“The reason you’re drinking yourself to oblivion,” Orin said, catching the wandering gaze. “She’s calling a cab,” he reminded Preston, letting him walk off, but watching him like one watched a toddler that was likely to fall on its bottom at any minute. There were a few cameras flashing, but nothing out of the ordinary, and Orin was too accustomed to it to worry about someone recognizing the face Preston wore.
Preston didn’t worry. This man was young fifty years ago, and dead now. No one would recognize him, and he wasn’t troubled by photography. He wasn’t troubled by much of anything, matter of fact. It wasn’t like him, but it was true enough. He didn’t go far before looking back and pausing. “I wasn’t drinking into oblivion. I was having a drink. I hadn’t planned on it, but I did anyway. This is generally when I start making mistakes.” He smiled at Orrie.
“Mistakes?” Orin asked. He didn’t add anything to it, knowing it was easier to get someone talking with fewer words.
“Uhm... yes. You know. Mistakes.” Preston stopped at the edge of the curb, patiently waiting, swaying only slightly from side to side as they waited.
“What kind of mistakes?” Orin asked, moving forward to catch him if he fell over, but not getting close enough to draw any more attention than he already had.
“The kind that get me into bed with the wrong people,” Preston said, not thinking. He put his hands in his pockets and Biff’s button-up color worked over his throat as he swallowed a lump down.
“You’re a grown man, Jeeves. You can get into bed with whoever you want,” Orin said, the concept of a male being taken advantage of or being vulnerable in a relationship completely foreign to him.
Preston recognized that attitude, almost instinctively. It was Anton’s attitude. Just do what you like, of course. “Oh really? Like you, for example?” It was a flickering grin, a flame in a strong breeze.
Orin glanced over, and he chuckled. “Son, if you want something, you try to take it. If you’re confident, you got a good chance of getting it. And you’ll only get me if you put on some red hair and tits,” he added, good natured and not at all offended by the comment, which he didn’t think was serious.
Preston turned (too far at first, but readjusting) and came back closer to Orin, stopping just short of touching him. They were nearly of height. “It’s just a projection,” he said. “Not tangible. But if you want.” He shrugged a little, shaking his head. “I never told anyone, so it’s never come up before.”
The man was serious. Orin put his hands on Preston’s shoulders, and he turned him around and pushed him toward the cab without any real force. “Son, get in that damn cab. We’ll talk about your self-esteem issues once you slept that shit off.” He paused, sounding concerned and ignoring the cab driver’s impatient honking. “You got someone to go home to?” he asked, because he always assumed the Preston Rawlings of the world had wives and a few kids and maybe a dog.
The fabric under Orrie’s fingers was considerably more expensive than what poor Biff was wearing, the shoulders straighter and the seams custom. None of the black plaid thread was there under touch despite how clearly it was visible to the eye. Preston looked back over his shoulder. Biff’s dark eyes were clear. Clear and blue. “No. Are you offering?” It was blatantly hopeful, the question.
Orin sighed, and he opened the cab door, nudging Preston in. “You can crash at my place,” he said, worried that Preston would wander around looking for someone else to sleep with if he left him to his own devices. It felt unhealthy, whatever was going on, and that was saying something coming from him. “But you got to take that damn face off once we get there.”
Preston smiled. He perceived the answer to his question that he wanted. “Then you just have to show me who you want to see.” And with that, he settled down into the back of the cab, brushing off his sleeves.
The smile made Orin consider clarifying, but he didn’t. He climbed in the cab, and he gave the driver instructions to go to Aubade, and he didn’t make conversation on the way. Preston was drunk enough that he didn’t trust what the man would say, and while he didn’t much give a damn if the driver went running to the press with stories about him, something told him Preston (even in that ridiculous face) wouldn’t care much for it.
Preston didn’t touch him in the cab. He didn’t say anything either; in fact, he kept greater distance than he had all night. He watched things move outside the window and thought of the things Preston thought he did in cabs, and how it was ironic that he wasn’t doing them. The light rippled over Biff’s face, and the projection was extraordinarily lifelike. He wasn’t surprised when they arrived at Aubade, but he was stepping out before the driver made it to a full stop. He didn’t look like anyone, and it didn’t matter if anyone saw him. He was walking straight again, at least. He was drunk, but he wasn’t anywhere near as drunk as he’d been with Blake, and he reassured himself that he was making his own decisions.
Orin paid the driver, and managed to catch up with Preston before the man fell over. The walking straight didn’t much impress him, because Orin didn’t think the man was sober at all. After all, no one offered themselves up on a plate like that without being drunk off their ass, at least not in such a detached, sacrificial way. He nodded at the doorman, and he pushed the elevator button and nudged Preston in with a hand between his shoulder blades. “You want to talk about this?” he asked, once the doors closed, and then he motioned to Preston’s face. “Fix that.”
Preston looked at the doorman when Orin did, mildly curious, meeting the man’s eyes and then dismissing them again. Preston glanced around. The Aubade elevators were nicer than the Bathos one, entirely mirrored, brass railings. He met Biff’s eyes in the reflection; he was a handsome young man. The reflection shimmered, and Preston’s beaky nose and pleasantly clear blue eyes appeared. He was just as haggard as poor old Biff had been, but far better dressed. The brown suit was fawn-colored, the tie blue, the shirt linen. It was wrinkled and his chin was rough. He looked as solid as Biff had. He reached out and touched Orin’s stomach, three fingertips and an almost-nothing contact, interested. “Better, or worse?” he asked, mildly, looking up again.
“Real thing’s always better,” Orin said, and he closed his hand around Preston’s wrist and tugged it away. “And I’m real honored, but the only place you’re going is to sleep,” he told him. He’d had a lot of discourse with this man, but he’d never sensed this sort of- he didn’t even have a word for it, it was so foreign to him- in him before. The elevator chimed, and Orin used that grip on Preston’s wrist to pull him out into the hall.
Preston initially tried to pull back, confused, wondering whether or not this was rejection. It couldn’t have been entirely, however, because there was still contact, so he went along into the hall. The ‘real thing’ sounded good, however. The ‘real honored’ didn’t, but the southern drawl distracted him. It was definitely sexy, that. He wondered that he hadn’t noticed it before. All the windows in the broad living room surprised him, and he stopped to stare. Construction was taking place, erecting Valerie’s windowed walls, but it was still quite a spread. “I like the windows,” he said, after some thought.
Orin closed the door behind himself, and he put a finger to his mouth, indicating silence and nodding toward the couch, where Willow’s blonde hair was just visible under her blanket. He motioned to the stairs, to the upstairs, which was still open and not a construction zone yet, and then he led the way there. He turned on a light, and he shrugged off his coat jacket effortlessly. “It’s too late for patrolling tonight,” he said, sounding guilty about that, and then nodding to the bed. “You can have that. I’ll make do with a couch.” There were couches up on the upper level, just like there were on the lower level of the apartment, and he motioned to one.
Preston fell silent when he saw the sleeping blonde, and he just didn’t think to interpret it. He followed the tabloids, of course. He perceived everything in them as false, even a construction, almost as soon as he understood who Arrow was. The man was too smart to fall into anything on accident, which meant his relationships were as much a construction as this house. Preston looked back at the couch, and then looked at Orin again. He closed the distance, deliberate but not quick. “You don’t have to.” He brushed his elbow with the same delicate three fingers.
Orin watched the fingers on his elbow, and he wondered that he hadn’t ever noticed how delicate the man’s hands and movements were in video and press photos. “Preston,” he said, intentionally using his name. “I don’t know why you got drunk, and I don’t know why you’re offering this when you know right well I’m a bastard and a half when it comes to sex. I also like tits, and you’re drunk off your ass, and sucking me off is not going to make you feel any better about whatever has you fucked up come morning. Get some sleep. We’ll talk once you wake up and the coffee’s brewing.”
Preston pulled his hand back, as if it might break if he moved too quickly. He met Orin’s gaze, his own clear enough even in the deep hollows beneath it. His voice was rough, but he didn’t make it high nor did he change his appearance, not yet. “You’d like it,” he said. Preston took a step forward, close enough that he could smell the dancer’s perfume on the other man’s shirt.
“No,” Orin said. He didn’t move away, not wanting to give the impression that he was bothered, but his tone was firm. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t take the blow job, either. He was confident enough in his own damn masculinity not to care, even if it would only be a blow job and nothing more than that. But he respected this idiotic bastard across from him, and he wouldn’t cross that line.
Preston’s mouth compressed. He pushed his teeth down to hide his expression, but it didn’t work. The step back was calculated, sharper than the step forward, and an oil-water ripple obscured the thin features. Biff reappeared. Preston didn’t try to say anything else. He just turned away and went back out the door, toward the stairs.
Orin grabbed his arm. “Don’t be an idiot. You’re staying,” he insisted.
Preston whirled around and yanked at his arm, shoving Orin’s chest simultaneously to dislodge his grip.
Orin wasn’t easy to dislodge, and he just kept his grip strong and firm. “You done now?” he asked, unimpressed.
His voice didn’t work like it should, and he had to try twice. “What are you going to do, Arrow? Lock me up here?” He pulled at his arm again, angrily.
“You’re bordering on self-damaging, Preston. You’re going to bed, you damn fool, and you’re going to get some sleep. You can storm the hell out of here come morning. For now, lower your voice so we don’t wake the girl,” he added, thinking that might work on someone like Preston.
Preston didn’t want to hurt the girl. He thought his presence alone might do that. He stopped struggling, breathing hard against the gray of Biff’s shirt. “I’ll get a cab. Regardless of what you might think, just because I can’t drive doesn’t mean I’m too drunk to think.” The rejection didn’t hurt as much as it could have. Maybe there was only so much hurt he could feel at once. Yes. That made sense. Bitter and vinegar: “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”
“Fool man. You don’t need to offer yourself up on some damn silver platter to be worth worrying over. You’re drunk, you’re upset, and you’re not thinking straight. Your ass is going to sleep, and that’s final, because I respect you too damn much to spend the rest of the night worrying about who the hell else you’re offering yourself to on some damn silver platter,” Orin said, voice still calm, despite everything he was saying. He kicked off his shoes, and he turned off the lights without warning, stretching out on the couch. “And so help me God, if you walk your ass out that door, Preston, we’re going to have problems.”
In the dark, Preston said, “It’s sex. I’m not slitting my throat for you.” The threat didn’t really touch him. What could Orin do to him? Nothing that would hurt, after all. He went for the door. Straight. It was just the buzz left, the warm, humming buzz in his ears.
“And if I took you up on it, I’d be a bastard,” Orin said quietly, more honesty and personal morals in that statement than he ever shared with anyone. He didn’t make any move to follow, no move to chase. He wasn’t going to strap the man down or beat him unconscious, so there wasn’t much point.
“You wouldn’t have hurt me.” In the dark, Preston didn’t change, always himself. “At least there’s that.” The door squeaked and Preston was down the stairs, hand on the wall to keep his balance, teeth ground tightly together.