So, the way that these things go often finds me singing in my pillow.
And the way that these things are often finds me crying in the car.

He stumbles up the stairs, groping for the rail in the dark. No lamp is lit at this ungodly hour of the morning and for a moment Laurie stops to feel around his neck for his tie. It's gone and he shrugs. Ties come and go, he considers, climbing the last of the impossible stairs and he squints into the dark for the brass numbers of his room.

302. He just makes it out in the unlit corridor and he plunges a hand in his pocket for the key before remembering he keeps it in the seamed pocket inside his waistcoat. He feels a little like laughing at himself and so he does. No one is there to hear him in the hallway.

The lock clicks and he pushes the door open, half-falling into the room. It's a little more visible with the light coming in from the city-lit fog outside through the windows. He doesn't bother with curtains.

Laurie drops the key on his table and trudges further into the room for the water closet. He pulls the pathetic door open and opens one eye to look for the pot. Better to aim now than add further regret to the morning's tab, he thinks, pulling his trousers down.

He thinks of Fred Vaughn's hands and his curious tongue. He chuckles, just once to himself as relief washes through him and the sound of his bladder fills the cramped space.

So much for a dignified time in London.

When he finishes he pulls up his drawers but kicks his trousers off, towards the table, shutting the closet door behind him. They get stuck around his ankles, his shoes doing their best to hinder his efforts. It's harder than he anticipated so he bends over and with one hand undoes the neatly tied laces of the smart black shoes he'd bought in New York once.

Soon enough everything starts to come undone and Laurie leaves his clothes in the middle of the room, barely in a pile as he makes his way to bed.

He can't wait to fall onto it, feel the coolness of his sheets against his spinning head and dream a dreamless end to this night. It's why he drinks. The bed is in front of him now and he peels his shirt off, the last of the articles to touch the ground before he is horizontal and wishing he could remain on his stomach.

Laurie turns slowly, ever mindful that he could be sick at any moment. Finally on his back with one sheet thrown ridiculously over him he takes a moment to think of Fred again.

That stupid sweater-vest, he thinks and closes his eyes.

He sat with Beth's letter in his hands. It was about her and it wasn't well-written but it was filled with secret hopes and mutual understanding and just the right tone of desperation that it spoke volumes to him. Desperation was the only language he spoke these days.

Fred sat opposite him, a posy of flowers on the sideboard behind him. He'd bought them for Amy but they lay forgotten.

Sometimes, Laurie couldn't believe his luck. Running into Fred Vaughn outside the post had been sheer providence. He'd never needed a friend like he had just then and Fred had taken him without a word to his place.

"I just don't understand how come she doesn't just write?"

"It's something that the sister does though, isn't it?"

Laurie didn't answer him, just thumbed the paper between his hands. He knew Beth's words were nothing in a world where she wouldn't even write a single word to him. She! A writer!

"Do you want to get a drink?" Laurie asked Fred, looking up into the man's familiar eyes. Fred hadn't failed at pulling through for him yet. He also knew he wouldn't think he meant just one.

"Sure."

He watched as Fred got up and went about dressing himself for public. His sweater-vests were still as ugly as ever and Laurie smirked. He started to feel a little better about it all. He folded the letter without looking at it again, keeping his eyes on his shorter friend who shared a shy sort of smile as he retied his knot and tucked it under the woollen sweater.

"Let's get out of here then." Laurie dropped the letter and didn't think twice.

He wakes up to an eyeball of bright light that he dimly recognises is the sun. Laurie groans and rolls over to his side, throwing his sheet over his head as though that will solve the problem.

He's freezing.

"Such an idiot," he mumbles to himself and pulls back the sheet to fall out of bed. The water closet seems almost too far in his state but he makes it, only tripping on his trousers and jacket coat en route.

He braces himself on the door frame and thinks of her. If she'd come with him so much would be different. It's a useless, tragic fantasy and he only allows it in bursts on mornings such as these. It's the strangest thing though; he can't remember what shape her hands are, or the exact right colour of her hair and eyes.

Finished, he pulls his drawers back around his hips, shuts the door again and finds the sink in the corner. It's like ice on his already frozen hands but it shocks him into a horrid reality that he really never should have left. He cups some water and throws it into his face, scrubbing hard at his cheeks and eyes, at his neck as memories flood his thoughts.

"Oh, God." He swears and for once is glad she isn't there to hear it.

Fred's mouth and a similar exclamation spring to mind and he shuts his eyes to blot it all out.

"What a mistake." It's The Mistake of his life. His hands are shaking more than slightly now as he crosses the room and considers if he should find some clothes and run down to catch a cab to Fred's side of London.

That's what it will be now, he knows. After this it will be his side, and Fred's side and he won't even be thrown in chance's way to meet his old friend. Friend – was that even right to call him now?

Laurie ran his hands over his face again and sat in the single chair by his table.

He knows Fred. The man won't ever want to see him again. He's going to marry Amy and that will be that. This Mistake won't ever be mentioned again.

What in heaven's name possessed them both last night?

The feeling swells over him, just for a second and it feels like he's back there, with warm wide hands on his body and a burning mouth. It devours him. Everything he feels just then belongs to Fred again and there is something so frighteningly freeing about that. It scares him how light and sick he can feel at once.

Then he realises why he did it all. That letter, thinking of her with every single breath. He'd been swallowed up by her through a piece of paper and there was an escape. Fred had given him the most bashful smiles as they'd left that pub. His sweater-vests were so stupid. His little bottle of wine on the cobblestones.

There are reasons and answers all wrapped up in this enormous Mistake.

Laurie moves his arms to rest against the table and he stares hard at the door. He can't see Fred, but the panic has passed. He hasn't been able to seriously recall her in twelve hours and though he knows she is entirely to blame for his part, he feels like there is something he has for himself now. A piece of escape.

Lips tight and powerful. A throat. The universe squeezed into a point, one second in time where he can't feel anything but pure bliss. He is released from his prison of self-torture and pity and is burying himself in Fred. He is gone but he loves her.

His teeth are grinding together as the base of his skull smacks against the brick. "Jo!"

He called her name. Laurie's head sinks into his hands and he feels like this headache hasn't even begun. So in his escape she is still there, like the backdrop to a play.

But it's still something, he tells himself, trying to find any reason to last night. Laurie thinks of Amy and how she will lie on her wedding night, dreaming of fat little rich babies and how the edge of Fred's eyes will wrinkle, if he manages to come at all.

Laurie pulls himself back in his chair, one hand rapping some unknown rhythm against the wooden tabletop as he returns to staring at the door. It's so easy to think of Fred now that he hasn't even tried to replace her in his mind.

This could work, he thinks, concentrating on the memory of Fred's short, dirty fingernails, the scar from their first game of football on his left ear.

It's not a cure, but it's treating the symptoms.