Oh man, this is fantastic. Great take on the prompt, great characterization and atmosphere, great dialogue. I can't wait until Larry meets a certain pup.

Larry knew it was a bad idea even before the chemical tang of cocaine bloomed from Orange's mouth to his, bitter and distinct. He startled from the kiss, the light from the hallway closed out as his back hit the door. Too drunk. Too stupid. Too damn dark in there.

"Hey," Orange soothed, the heavy fold of a leather jacket hitting the floor. "Relax man, I'm not gonna jump you." White got a little warning this time, Orange's bony hands searching out his shoulders, the jumping pulse in his neck, then combing through his hair. Another one of those absurd contrasts; for a guy who made a career out of taking what he wanted from others, Orange was remarkably giving. He kissed like they had just got back from Prom, like White's mouth was the most fascinating thing in the known world.

White had anchored his grip at Orange's sides, cementing the image of slow dancing in a highschool gym. Taffeta on the basketball hoops and barbiturates in the punch.

Orange slid and arm around White's neck to pull himself closer, shoulders to knees keeping out the dark chill settled raw on damp skin. "What," he complained when White braced their bodies apart. "What, what," he mouthed against White's ear like he knew it would drive him crazy, as sure as if he'd read it on a file. "I'm clean, you asshole -- certificate of health in my wallet. Right next to the condoms."

"Good to know," White hadn't trusted his voice to work, especially at the next reluctant admission, "So you're clean, but you're also fucked up."

"Jury's out on that." Orange mused, though he had given White some space. Hotel curtains were a heavy barricade against outside light and noise, and either Orange didn't want to risk a lamp or simply didn't have the patience to go hunting for one. Maybe it was dark for a good reason.

Maybe Larry didn't want to go hunting out a lamp either. "I mean you're high. You didn't even ask me if I was clean."

Orange's hands do noise to the door on both sides of White's head, slapping the wood before pushing himself away. "So tell me you're clean, then."

Larry can think a little clearer without the smell of sweat and leather crawling down his throat. "You're married."

Orange scoffs. "I'm not asking you to wear my class ring, Suzie Q, I just wanna suck your cock."

White is surprised that they'd been thinking along the same lines. hat this encounter was a little too... something. Too new. Too intimate. The kind of rendezvous teenagers would have, because they knew it wouldn't last past the summer but they were drunk and self-centered and delusional on hormones. "I'm flattered."

"Yeah. You're somethin'."

"I'm also shitfaced. Nothin' doin', friend, sorry."

"You're sober enough."

White has crossed his arms, leaned his head against the door. Kept trying to swallow back the aftertaste of the crack rock Orange had probably been dissolving under his lip all night, wondering if it was enough to show up on a blood test. Wondering if it was enough to get him addicted. "Maybe. But you're still married."

"For the tax returns."

"I got a code. I got standards."

"'Course you do." Orange sounds less manic, at least, but the defeat echoes between them. The repeated spark of a butane lighter, a small weak pocket of light where Orange wears his hair ruffled and boyish, disappearing as the cigarette is breathed to life. Footfall in the dark, the healthy noiselessness of a new mattress giving way under a body.

White steps forward because he can't just leave it god damn well enough alone. He's unsurprised when he feels the tug of his beltloop, knees hitting the edge of the bed.

"You nightblind?"

White means to laugh, he just doesn't get around to it. "No, but your pupils are probably blown so wide I bet it's given you super vision."

"Faster than a speeding bullet..." Orange mumbles, manages to coax White to take a sit. His voice lowers dramatically. "Able to leap to erroneous conclusions in a single bound."

"Listen to the Harvard grad over here. Erroneous."

"I got that word from Ghostbusters."

White's eyes are glued to the burning cherry of Orange's cigarette. "Dan Aykroyd is a trip."

Orange makes an agreement in the back of his throat. "And Billy-what's-his'face."

"Crystal? He ain't in that film."

"Sure he is, he plays Peter."

Heat had a strange effect on a city.

The difference between New York and Los Angeles was that New York's crime was cold, calculated, meditated. You got the occasional drunk incident, sure, but usually, usually the violence was a byproduct of something else. Some deal, some plot, a theft or a desperate addiction.

Los Angeles heat was bad for the temper, made the blood boil. Tricky for a guy who wasn't used to it. Dangerous, even. Larry had swung that pipe like a batter at field, and the homerun had splattered all over Mr. Brown's Walten Penn loafers. The violence in L.A. was intemperate, as scattered as rain from the sky -- whereas the violence in New York was a garden hose gone wild on the front lawn, no less unexpected but at least you could hunt it down to its source.

And if it wasn't violence brought to the forefront of a man's mind, then sex was the bell quick to clamor after. The heat whittled the mind down to its bare operations; it was like being slightly drunk all the time, blood thick and ears red. L.A. was the day to New York's night, and the sun was blinding.

Mr. White had rung Nice Guy Eddie to warn he'd be out of town for a while, which plied a bit of information loose at long last: a schedule. The diamonds were going to be shipped in soon, less than a month. By the time Larry got back into town on the head-doctor's green light, the group was buckling down.

Picking out a rendezvous. Studying street maps and the store blueprints, watching every single employee's comings and goings. One would think there would be less time for bullshit, but the frequency of their working afternoons only doubled the number of their celebratory nights. It was as much hard work just surviving the hangover as it was staking out the job on Karina's Jewelry and Gifts, blood thick and lungs hungry for a cigarette while L.A. carried on relentlessly sunny.

White wasn't asked on any more jobs (Papa Joe felt a debt was owed after that mess with the streeter), but he did become the salesman for the highest quality ganja the LAPD confiscation room could provide. Longbeach managed to push a few other things into the suitcase, courtesy precaution. Nothing too hard, nothing that would pull up a nasty dependence or attract the wrath of whoever held the market on that side of the city.

Bullshit college stuff, mushrooms and ecstasy and a foil sheet of speed tablets. It all went into the floor vault next to the garbage bag that held his badge and official effects. Perhaps not to be touched until the end of the case, unless Longbeach does something stupid and runs his mouth off to Nice-Guy about the product one Mr. White Russian just got ahold of and wasn't this saturday going to be shit for weather, so how about being stuck inside during a tropical storm and not tripping balls, that didn't sound like much fun did it...

Holdaway was right, Longbeach was kind of a piece of shit.