Work Text:
Freddy didn't deserve Larry. That's what he thought when it all started, repeated it like a mantra as he was lying to Larry's face day after day, stomach knotted with guilt but at the same time unable to bring himself to put a stop to things. He'd felt attraction to the older man hit him like a bullet from moment one, and had even justified their first night together as satisfying whatever weird daddy issues that were obviously going on with him, but he didn't expect a sleazy criminal like Larry to match his affection so genuinely or passionately. Larry tailed him like a big, gentlemanly baby duck and the sweetness of it all made Freddy's heart ache. Freddy felt his logic slipping away when it came to Larry-- he came into this job knowing that Mr. White, along with everyone involved with the heist, had to be a thief at best, or a true-blue killer at worst, a suspicion that Freddy willed himself to ignore even when it was confirmed to him over and over.
As the heist drew near, and Freddy found himself sharing Larry's hotel room bed every night-- sometimes without even the pretense of sex, like they were already an old married couple, like it was the most natural thing in the world to want to sleep against Larry's broad, inviting chest-- Freddy even found himself raking his brain for wild ideas, for ways that he could make this situation somehow not end badly. There were the almost-logical technical solutions: He could use his position to vouch for Larry somehow, try to finagle some sort of plea deal if Larry wouldn't let his pride get to him, testify (or rather, lie in court) that Larry hadn't actually been as involved in the heist as he could have been. Holdaway would be disgusted with him, he'd probably lose his job, but maybe it would still work. There was a chance.
What was scarier, though, were the illogical solutions that Freddy found himself spending far more time on-- he could shake Larry awake right now, get the older man, bleary and still half-drunk, in his car and tell him to drive, drive, drive, far far away, until there were no buildings or cars or people or police, and when he'd made Larry promise to hear him out entirely before reacting, he'd tell him everything. Abso-fucking-lutely everything. And Larry would make the decision then to either kill him or believe him, but preferably he'd choose the latter, and they'd conspire about their life and what they were going to do together. Maybe they would drive off right then without looking back. Or maybe they'd still go through with the heist, but Freddy would know exactly where the police's routes were so he and Larry could evade them easily and run off together with several million dollars' worth of ice to start their new life on, leaving Joe Cabot and his merry band of assholes to rot in jail for all either of them cared.
But Freddy was too cowardly to act on any of the solutions he'd thought up in troubled dreams, and so he just let the days pass by him as the heist grew closer and closer. He felt like he was trying to outrun a train but refused to get off the tracks.
And now, at the culmination of several weeks' worth of increasingly awful decisions, if there was one thing that Freddy could say about bleeding out from a gunshot wound, it's that you really barely feel it when the second shot hits you. In fact, what was really bothering him more now were his ears-- when he'd gotten shot the first time, he'd been out in the open at least, but the cacophony of bullets echoing around the cavernous warehouse from the shoot-out had rendered everything an annoying high-pitched whirr in his head. He felt the words forming in his chest, but couldn't hear them when they came out. He wondered for a moment if he said them at all, or if his oxygen-deprived brain had simply spilled out a jumble of meaningless syllables, because Larry's hand was still stroking his face reverently, the drying blood unpleasantly tacky between them, like their skin was starting to melt into one another. Freddy felt a drop of wetness hit his face from above, tasted salt, forced himself to look straight up at Larry and repeated himself, apologizing and apologizing and apologizing, the pain within those warm brown eyes cutting him deeper than any bullet ever could.
Freddy had often wondered if when you were shot in the head at close range like this, if you heard the bang or were you already dead by the time it registered, and the irrational thought swimming around his fevered brain as he felt the cold metal of the gun against his chin was a wildly disappointed Well I won't know either fucking way if I can't hear shit, will I? He felt the gun falter against his cheek, felt Larry pitch forward, shaking with sobs, as if losing his nerve, or maybe succumbing to his injuries. Freddy's hands, which feel a million trillion miles away, search until they make contact with Larry's arms-- Larry's arms, Larry's body, so broad and strong and solid and warm, and Freddy barely felt present in his own body except he was trying to pour whatever strength he had left into Larry, into the last task either of them were going to do together. I'm a fucking cop, the selfish thought rang desperately in his head, hurry up and blow my fucking head off now you stupid motherfucker before they get a chance to arrest you. I'm scared and I'm stupid and I don't want to be alone.
No, here at the end of it all, Freddy realized that the cold reality of it was that Larry was exactly what he deserved.
---
Larry had done terrible things in his life. Not lying to himself, he'd done some of them gladly, without remorse. There were days when he was younger where he felt in avid competition with himself to see just how many of the ten commandments he could blast through in a day. He'd hurt people, taken everything they'd owned, cleaned out bank accounts that weren't his. He'd killed people and then killed their families for good measure, like that idiot cop who thought he'd duped him, Larry had given himself in to the rage seeping through his skin and prided himself in his brutality afterward over a drink with the boys. Memories rattled around in his brain of previous jobs as he drifted to sleep some nights, like a man traumatized by war, only rather than haunting him, the sound of gunshots were in a way a private lullaby of his accomplishments. He justified everything as necessary, as just getting along, but it didn't change the fact that he was sort of a fucking monster.
And then three weeks ago, Joe Cabot sat a boy across from him and told him that this was Mr. Orange, and the boy had met his eyes and that was it, wasn't it? He could almost feel the planet grinding to a halt under him. Something universally huge falling into place with a simple click like a magazine loading into a gun.
And Orange had felt it too, hadn't he? Oh yes he had, at the bar Larry took satisfaction in feeling the kid's eyes burning into him every time he thought Larry wasn't looking. Larry's suspicions were confirmed by their second meeting when he casually threw a line at Orange-- a real cheesy one at that-- and Orange's face went so hot and red that Larry thought he might faint, those big eyes fluttering shut for a moment as he tried to compose himself, lips pressing together in a tight, flustered smile. There was no denying it after that; the kid matched him, need for need as he did hesitation for hesitation. They'd argued in a lackluster way about professionalism at first, but the argument really seemed jointly geared towards justifying what they both wanted to do, until by the end of it they'd worked themselves into a place where it seemed more illogical not to give in to it. Before the evening was through, Larry had whispered his own name out loud like the signature on a contract and made Orange-- whose look of dumb shock alone was worth the unauthorized disclosure-- promise to return the favor after the job was over with.
Sometimes fear crept into his mind, his peaceful revisiting of previous jobs couldn't soothe him to sleep any more because he kept seeing Orange in the line of fire, outside the jewelry store, some fat pig unceremoniously putting a bullet through his head or-- maybe worse-- arresting him and taking him away forever. Sometimes it was doubt that kept him awake, remembering a moment during the day where Freddy's gaze seemed guarded and distant, and Larry wondered if maybe he could be imagining that his own fanatic devotion was as mutual as he'd believed it to be from the start. But the doubt only made him stubborn, made him cling to Orange fiercer, until it curdled into desperation and the only way he could sleep was to hold that face in his hands and stare into those eyes until he could be sure there were no secrets to be unraveled within them. They were meant to be together. Something floating around on high, like God or fate or something, was giving Larry a second chance, and Larry couldn't imagine what he'd done to warrant such grace, but at the same time he didn't want to question the newfound joy-- exhilarating, intoxicating, dangerous joy-- in his heart too closely. He would carry out the next job and then give it all up, go legit, he and Orange with their cuts combined would make a good life together, doing whatever Orange wanted to do.
He didn't realize until too late-- until about thirty seconds ago-- that people like him didn't get redeemed; that God didn't give two fucks nowadays if old fucking monsters like Larry got second chances they didn't deserve. How painfully naive he was to imagine otherwise, even for a moment.
Larry had always kept his emotions close to the surface, had always maybe felt more openly than a man should, but he hadn't let himself cry like this since he was a kid. His torso throbbed with a distant ache that barely registered next to the white-hot agony ripping through his heart. Blood soaked through the elbows of his sleeves where Orange's hands were clutching at them. The last of his strength was now devoted to pressing the muzzle of the gun against the boy's beautiful face, trying to prepare himself for the finality of destroying it, even with the knowledge that he'd be following close behind.
Of course Orange wasn't bringing his redemption. Orange was his punishment.