[b]York:[/b]

No, really, he flips the table. He takes one side of it, and lifts, and topples it sideways into the walkway of the cafe. There’s a shattered saucer and some scattered condiments and a napkin dispenser goes over on its side, and everyone in the cafe is staring at someone who until a few seconds ago was desperately doing opsec. Then he glares at you, and he leaves.

Only for a second. Then he runs, [i]sprints[/i] back again and stands on the table he’s flipped to get into Orange’s face. 

“You’re a fucking liar.” He says. “And I’d respect it if you were lying to me because then I could fucking fight you. But you’re lying to yourselves so I can’t do shit, can I? Can I?” He kicks the stand on the upside down table so hard the plastic joinery breaks. “Shit hits the fan and we’re going to be down eight or nine of my fucking best because you’re codependant. And what?” 

He pulls out a vape, turns his head slightly to see a no smoking sign and bends the metal over his knee, putting it back at a twisted angle. He exhales a candy-coffee cloud. “You know we’d help, that’s what pisses me off the most. Because if we help, then being family isn’t special anymore, and that fucking kills you worse than dying would, right? Fuck off.”

And then he storms out for real, battery still dead in his phone, logged off from socials. 

Most of this isn’t Orange, really. It’s the accumulated emotions of having a variant of this conversation way, way, way too many times, building with each failed attempt at it.

A hispanic man in a sweater vest and distressed jeans rushes to Orange’s side while his boyfriend, a larger and round man with a chest-length scraggly beard, tries to help pick up all the scattered items from the flipped table. “Hey,” the first man says, “Do you need anything? Is there anyone we can call for you? I’m so sorry that just happened.” 


[b]Dudekov:[/b]

Dudekov begins typing a number into this phone. His side of the conversation goes: “Yes, it’s me. Yes. No, I haven’t seen the news, I was too busy being on the wrong side of it. I’m considering myself burned, what should my next course of action be? Yes, I expect that I am about to die and there is nothing I can do, and I have made peace with that. I just plan on making it as much of a pain in the ass as possible.”

At what point does November realize that he is faking his conversation into the dialed number 1800-Go-Fuck-Yourself?