SCENE: CABOT FAMILY PROPERTY, VENTURA BEACH

Orange had been prepared for all the bullshit legwork he'd be doing to get the deeper 'in' he was aiming for; petty crimes and a lot of blowing smoke up influential skirts. So far it had been a cakewalk, compared to what he'd had to do during the great Diamond Fiasco. What he hadn't been prepared for, however, was when that work dried up. When the Cabot family had to start keeping their heads ducked. It was during these high and dry days that he found himself socializing a hell of a lot more than he would have normally allowed for Orange. Making those drug connections to solidify his background, hanging out where he was invited, when he was invited, because even though Freddy Newandyke had a watch team breathing down his neck every spare second didn't mean Frederick Glasgow was terribly busy.

The trip to the Ventura beach property was the product of one such invite, by Eddie Cabot himself (under house arrest and looking a little on the thin side from all the stress and boy was he glad to be rid of all that crap for a while, just to kick back and relax and let the pigs run themselves stupid). Orange was in the kitchen, fixing a sandwich while the old Mexican maid danced and giggled with one of White's little nephews. The radio had long stopped playing music, Orange dialing the volume up as reports of weather-related deaths and damages escalated.

Snow in L.A. was rare, but not unheard of; wonky ocean temperatures and humidities could do all sorts of magic on the winter forecast. It was rare if it actually stuck, sure, and next to impossible if it ever got over two inches – or lasted more than two days.

Blonde's voice slides between the words of the radio announcement like a knife gone home between somebody's ribs. "I guess the hippies were right. Global warming has fucked everything up."

"Or it's a sign of the end-times." Orange silently congratulates himself for not skipping a beat; sometime in the last spare moment, Eugena and Caspar had vacated the kitchen and Blonde had taken up a silent perch at the bar. "Ready for that clock on the gob I owe ya?" Orange keeps his attention squared down at his task, organizing the salami sandwich on the plate before him as if it were an artform. It was the stoner's appreciation for sandwich-building that showed through every loving spread of the mustard knife and every careful settle of the meat layers.

Blonde chuckles dry and low, sliding from the bar to circle to the fridge as if it were live prey. There is the compunct blast of cool air and the rattle and clink of a fresh brew gained victoriously, and Blonde has settled against the counter in a lounge that Orange is seventy percent positive is supposed to be intimidating, and thirty percent suspicious it was only intimidating because Blonde was the one doing it. "Don't you ever switch off, Susie Q? Why you gotta be such a smart-ass all the time?"

Orange tilts his head back and forth in a nervous mock. "Would you rather I were a dumb-ass? 'Cos I dunno about you, Blondie, but I don't wanna work with no dumb-asses." A sniff, a hitch of the shoulders, the slap of lettuce and tomato wedges from their tray. "Just me, though." Orange turns into the advance, mustard knife left pointedly behind.

Blonde had moved quick the way he liked to, but stopped short of actually delivering the strike, clenching and unclenching his fist beside Orange's face, biting his lips around a smile to illustrate that he really wanted to go through with it, but was going to abstain on account of his generous nature. The fist turns into a pointing finger. "No fucking sass, for a goddamn single afternoon. 'S all I ask."

Orange manages to pull up concern from the depths of his irritation. It'd be best if he could avoid conflict, maybe especially with Blonde. "Jesus, Vega, I didn't mean no disrespect." He turns back to the plate if only to put a little space between them again. "That's just how I joke, y'know?" Sucks a bit of mustard from the corner of his thumb, resumes assembling White's sandwich. By the time he's left to deliver the masterpiece (hey thanks, Freddy, you're a saint) and returned to make a plate of his own, Blonde is back to his lounge against the counter, contemplative over the lip of his beer.

It doesn't bother Orange at first, the silent menace in that bright, clean open space. But then again, there are a lot of knives around and even a stove and oh christ has a Vega brother ever killed anybody with a fridge, and was that same idea what had Blonde so deep in thought?

"So... Freddy? That short for Manfred?"

Orange isn't startled. Freddy Newandyke, Detective Manfred Newandyke, he's just burst an aneurism in panic. "The fuck you get a name like that from? The Bible?" Before he's accused of smarting off again, "It's short for Frederick. Frederick Glasgow."

Blonde chuckles. "I know." He steps forward and offers a hand, but Orange is busy with his lunch and doesn't trust Vega as far as he can throw him. "Nice to meet ya, Freddy. It's Vic, short for Victor. Vega."

Orange sighs through his nose, unsurprised he'd been researched. "I know."

"I guess you got that knowledge from hearin' Eddie holler it around all the time."

Orange nods and waits for Blonde's hand to drop, and when it drops, he waits for Vega to leave. When Vega doesn't leave, when he just stands there and stares with a beer held to the counter like it's going to run away, Orange glances over his shoulder with an affronted "What?"

"Whaddya mean, 'what'?"

Orange looks to the left, to the right, tilting his chin until his neck cracks as if to shake Vega's attention. "Whaddya starin' at?"

A chuckle, that almost-pity smirk Vega likes to give to Eddie sometimes. "Nothin'." A shrug, eyes piecing up Orange's frame toe to head. "A whole lotta nothin'."

"Fine." Quietly, amicably, Orange is playing Blonde's game. "Fuck you too, then."

A protest rises in the back of Blonde's throat, like he's just stepped in roadkill and ruined a good pair of boots. "Fuck yourself, I was being nice just now."

"Not gonna shake hands when I'm eating, Vega. Ain't sanitary."

Vegar wraps himself in, hands on elbows, tilting away from Orange to regard him at a distance, grin smug. "Ey, you fuckin' germaphobe, says who?"

"Says my job at the Deli in '86."

Victor sucks a front tooth, nodding to himself. He very deliberately sets down his beer, walks to the large stainless double sink, makes a show of getting the temperature just right, the right amount of soap, the proper scrubbing technique, and washes his hands. Like maybe he used to work at a restaurant too, shaking and rubbing his hands dry instead of using a towel. Orange is paying attention to all this because Orange doesn't rightly know if this is going to be the last sandwich he eats that doesn't come out of a straw.

Instead of offering another handshake, though, Victor stands close. Closer than he usually does just to prove he can invade your space, and that's pretty damn close already. Vega reaches past Freddy's hip and takes his now-completed sandwich. It is a competition with the forecast for who can be cooler; Orange pretending that it don't bother him, what's happening. Or Vega, who is doing it in the first place, taking a large bracing bite of another man's sandwich just because they both knew he could.

Orange takes a deep breath. Steps aside to put a plate's distance between he and Vic, and fills that space with a plate, which Vic takes with a nod of gratitude.

Vega remains in place, and after he swallows the first bite with an obnoxious smack of enjoyment, tosses sandwich and plate part and parcel to the counter like it was yesterday's newspaper.

Orange is very still, studying the beer Vega had left near the sink.

Vega's got the heel of one hand propped against the edge of the nice granite countertop, his other fist curled in the space his hip-holster would be if they had been allowed in the house armed. Vega's elbow is thrown back and his neck is craned forward like something out of a bad wild west film. Watching Orange. Way too close. Aftershave and salami spice.

Orange gives his protest up halfway, rolling his eyes with a scoff. If Vega was going to do the intimidation thing all day, then Orange could just be elsewhere - preferably with White, who was hilariously PG around his sister's kids. An inspiration strikes last minute (Improv, see) and as he leaves the kitchen, Freddy snakes a hand out to take Blonde's beer with him.

/ / /

I know thee for a man of many thoughts,
And deeds of good and ill, extreme in both,
Fatal and fated in thy sufferings.

"Manfred", Lord Byron