Dom had spent his first month knowing him wondering if maybe Orlando was suffering from some kind of attention deficit disorder, because he would twitch constantly and babble at length, and then abruptly still and shut up, and sometimes even excuse himself, as if he'd just remembered he was supposed to be somewhere else.
It had taken that entire first month to realise that this was in fact not the case. Because Orlando wasn't awkward at everything-- he turned out not to be half so bad a beginning archer as he might have been, and he could walk a straight line even when pissed out of his skull, and he even managed not to kill himself when he went bungee jumping.
(Not that Dom was supposed to know about that, but these things had a way of getting out.)
The other thing Orlando wasn't half bad at, it turned out, was kissing. Not that that had come up in a terribly graceful manner, but if Orlando was gifted with anything, it was dumb luck and a complete inability to sit still.
The first time had been in the pub, at the booth. Dom had no idea if Orlando was drunk, because it was impossible to tell, but Dom had leaned over and said, "You didn't do a very good job on your ears," and Orlando had turned his head too quickly.
His nose had bumped against Dom's, and he spent all of two seconds looking surprised before he said, very clearly, "I am awfully sorry."
Eloquence had always been a good indicator of Orlando's intoxication level; they were directly proportional. Dom felt unbalanced just thinking about it.
"'S okay," he said, but he hadn't moved away. He could feel Orlando's breath on his lips, and then Orlando's fingers against the shell of his ear. He turned his head a little, because that was just-- odd.
"You didn't do a very good job of yours, either," Orlando murmured.
"'S okay," Dom repeated. "I'll get it out in the morning." And before he could even start to smile, Orlando had closed the space between their mouths and kissed him. And the surprise hadn't been in the kiss itself, but in the fact that Orlando had avoided hitting his nose, and that their teeth didn't jar together, and that Orlando actually seemed to know what he was doing.
Not that Dom had thought Orlando wouldn't know how to kiss, but he didn't think Orlando would know how to kiss. It just didn't seem right. Though, he could honestly say he'd never really thought about it.
Well, mostly honestly.
Only sometimes.
The other surprise was that Orlando didn't seem to have any qualms about where to put his hands, or where to put his tongue. And Dom thought, maybe there was something to be said about the awkward phase after all, if it made allowances for things like this.