orangetoughguy | phone post

[What's up, Raymond Leon? There's a motorcycle pulling out from around a corner. He expected the guy to be punctual but not this punctual. Orange is on time, right on the dot. He slows the bike down to a steady walk next to him. His helmet visor flips up.]

Waiting long?

[It's not a crowded area but people loitering on the streets, smoking, drinking, doing whatever, is par for the course. A meeting like this won't raise any eyebrows.]

[There he is. Raymond glances at him before giving the motorcycle a longer once-over.]

Not too long. [He looks back up to Orange.] Nice ride.

I salvaged the little beast myself.

[There's a line of spots up ahead where he'll pull in to park the glossy girl. She's the only girl he ever rides. The first thing Orange does after removing his helmet is light up a cigarette.]

[He actually looks somewhat impressed by that. When the cigarette comes out, though, his gaze flickers away and he pats himself down for his pack of gum.]

Doesn't sound like that could have been easy.

It was a pain in the ass but it was worth it.

[Puff puff. Wait Raymond what are you reaching for. Seriously? Orange kind of quirks a brow but says nothing of it. Smooooooke.]

Still in department limbo?

[Hey, he has to relieve his oral fixation somehow. He pops the gum in his mouth before sticking it back in his pocket, then looks over the motorcycle again.]

I've got a job now, if that's what you mean.

[Yeah it is what he means but look at the expression Orange gives anyway, brow quirked like he's actually surprised.]

Doing what?

Bodyguard. [At one point he might have said the word with distaste, but by now he's nearly gotten used to it.] For this girl who calls herself the Archive. Some kind of magic business, you know.

Don't sweat it you're not the first brass who's had to moonlight in security.

[Distaste or no distaste, Freddy sympathizes. In his eyes, a job in security is an act of desperation when you can't support yourself or your family on the department paycheck. It's a step down for a police officer, a step he never wants to make. Except he works as a mechanic now so he's not one to talk, even when his boss is Tony Stark.]

Didn't know you've got magic skills.

[Really, one could make the argument that the bodyguards have got the better end of the deal where Raymond's from. It's much rarer that they encounter actual danger on the job, anyway.]

I'm not. She does.

[But he didn't miss that first part.] You know that from experience?

[Say it aloud so Orange here can out himself with the admission if less danger is a qualification for 'better' then someone ought to turn in his badge right now.]

Clients can be a killer. [That's a joke more than anything, considering turnover rate and the risk of a high profile celebrity throwing a bodyguard under the bus.] Naw, I never worked security.

[His non-smoking hand reaches out to press against Raymond's back, urging the guy to move farther away from other people milling.]

[Raymond goes where he's directed, though not without a glance spared for the others around them.]

It's a heavy industry where I'm from... The rich won't go anywhere, do anything without a shadow two steps behind them to make sure no one tries to cut their time short. But it's not an easy industry to get into.

[This corner will suffice. They're still within public sight, within witness range if something should happen, but nothing's going to happen. Right? Raymond's dangerous but not a danger to him, so Freddy likes to believe. They're out of earshot from other people, that's the important part.]

Is that why you're stuck in law enforcement?

[He doesn't think that's the answer, not for a guy who's supposedly spent, what, seventy years as an officer? Raymond doesn't fit the profile.]

[That gets a grim smile out of him.]

I find it easier to live knowing that what you're doing benefits the whole of society, not just the upper crust.

A true blue brotherhood.

[He says with what could almost pass as sarcasm but that bitterness is more for people who don't get it.] The most thankless job on the whole fuckin' planet. Guys go into it wanting to save the world, it takes less than month to learn half the world doesn't want saving. Least of all from a guy like you. Huh?

[Raymond thinks on that for a moment, then snorts. Truer words and all that...]

Except most guys where I'm from don't go into it wanting to save the world. They're just looking for a way out. [Like him.]

Well I feel sorry for your world.

[Sort of. Kind of. No actually Freddy can't imagine living in a place and time where the latter is the ultimate commodity. It already kind of is where he's from but at least no one as fallible as a human being can control it.]

I guess we're not that alike.

[Their worlds or as men, but he doesn't specify.]

Seems like everyone here does.

[He could laugh about that, but he won't. Most of the time he's never completely sure whether they really mean to say that they feel sorry for him, and that's something he'd rather not find out.]

Anyway... Fifty years on the beat can give anyone a little perspective on things.

Long time. That makes you one of the Old Guys, when they start telling stories about you to make boots shit their pants.

[Cop talk. It's obvious he's a cop. Does Orange even have to come out and say it? Damn he hasn't even negotiated some sort of trade off with Raymond either. It's too easy to fall into a rapport like he's a guy from another agency but in the end you're all still a bunch of fucking pigs to the rest of the world. As long as he's not federal though, Orange draws the line at feds, like that Olivia chick.]

[He'd already been coming to that conclusion himself; this just confirms it. Raymond nods, as if confirming it to himself.]

Not that it means much to the people at the top... Not in these times, anyway. No one respects experience like they used to.

Cops ain't immune. [He shrugs and takes the last pull of his cigarette.]

I don't have fifty years on me period, old man. [Weird to say it but he's able to divorce conversing with Raymond from conversing with Mr. White. It holds a different meaning with the latter.] But I got experience. Maybe nobody respects it, what matters is how I use it.

[He snorts again, shaking his head.]

Fifty years is a long time to spend being pushed around, and maybe you'll get to find that out for yourself...

But just try to imagine it with no end in sight, except for one that gets you killed. That's what it's like on the beat back home.

Damn.

[Making it to fifty as a cop, working his way up to Detective III or maybe even Metro, that's a dream come true. But even wide-eyed Freddy knows the possibility is a longshot. There are boots who get killed less than a year out of academy, like Marvin fucking Nash. He shakes off a shudder.]

You got a lady back home?

[He thinks he knows the answer to this one but it's always appropriate to be sure.]

[Now there's a question he wasn't expecting.]

No. There's not enough time to keep up anything serious. [A beat.] In either sense of the word.

[Then he looks back at Orange. He could ask him why, but he has a feeling he already knows.]

[Haha, he said time, but Freddy's not laughing over it or anything. To him it's just conversation. Maybe if he were from Raymond's world he'd see more irony.]

I gotcha.

[Not enough time, not enough patience, and too many issues to maintain what he thought was a serious relationship. Maybe it was too serious. Freddy doesn't have to tell Raymond the failure rate for relationships with LEO types is pretty damn high in his world. Hell, he doesn't really take Raymond for the emotionally attached type anyway. That's exactly what Freddy thinks he needs right now.]

I can take you back unless you're just up the street or something. [Is his ulterior motive coming through? It's hard enough being an undercover cop, being a gay one is like asking for career suicide. But this isn't their world and that's why it shouldn't matter. Right?]

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