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It’s a quiet night now that the dust has settled and the howling sirens in Los Santos are far behind them. The only sounds Geoff can hear are the humming of the tires on the asphalt, the soft sounds of Gavin’s snoring. He stares out the window at the world passing by, trees and dirt and houses lit up bright under the dark sky. Normal people living normal lives. He wonders then how he got here, slumped in the passenger seat of a stolen car with five other career criminals.
For what it’s worth, the kids don’t look the part tonight. They’re bloody and subdued, drained of all of their energy and their good humor. Gavin is wrapped around Michael like a kudzu vine, asleep against his chest, and Ray is staring into space, looking like he’s seen a ghost. It was a rough night with too many close calls.
Beside him, taking up far too much room with his broad shoulders, sits Ryan who always looks the part. His mask is pushed up on top of his head, matting down his sweaty blonde hair, and his eyes are tired. The dark face paint around them has bled gruesomely down his face, now coated in a fine white dust from all of the explosions.
And behind the wheel sits Jack who has never looked the part at all. Over the years, Geoff has watched him rob banks at gunpoint and shoot police choppers out of the sky. He’s seen him put his gun to a man’s forehead and pull the trigger without flinching. But when the job is over, Jack is all warmth and comfort, like coming home. And when Jack smiles, the sun shines behind his eyes.
Geoff wonders how he must look right now. He’s the bloodiest of them all with his shoulder bandaged up tightly and his limp arm cradled at his side. Sleep is creeping in on him, rushed a little by the blood loss, but he fights against the heavy blanket of darkness as it tries to settle over him. There’s too much to think about, too much to consider.
Because tonight is the kind of night he should spend reevaluating his life and making plans for the future. After all, he’s almost 40; he can’t do this forever. Hell, he took a bullet less than two hours ago. It’s not his first, not even his first this year, and it certainly won’t be his last. What’s the life expectancy for someone in his position?
For a while now, there’s been a nagging twinge at the back of his neck telling him to cut his losses and get the fuck out while he still can. When he was young and stupid, he could afford to be reckless. But with every passing year, it’s getting harder and harder to look Death in the eye without flinching.
But fuck it, he finally decides. Because as he looks around at his boys, his family, his crew, he knows he isn’t going anywhere. He isn’t going to leave them behind just so he can die an old man in his bed. What would be the fun in that? Might as well die as he lived. Go out with a bang.
As his eyes finally close, he’s smiling.
Jack’s eyes are tired. He’s been driving for too long but everyone else is either asleep or too zoned out to take the wheel. It’s okay, he tells himself. He can handle it. He always does. It’s a good time to think anyway. He knows that’s what they’re all doing right now. Dreaming or thinking. It’s always quiet like this after a heist, especially one that went wrong.
He spares a look at Geoff, at the bandage he’s already bleeding through. He’ll need to fix that as soon as they get stopped. In the quiet darkness, his eyes trace over Geoff’s face. He’s slumped over against the window, smiling a little in his sleep. And even though the man is a heavily tattooed crime boss in his late thirties, it’s somehow adorable. Jack’s fingers itch to reach over and grab Geoff’s, to hold his hand and squeeze it, to reassure himself that he’s warm and breathing and alive.
It’s always scary when one of them gets hurt during a heist but it’s especially hard for Jack when it’s Geoff who ends up bleeding. Sometimes he thinks maybe they’re all too close; it’s not natural for a crew to be as bonded as they are. It would kill him if he lost Ray or Gavin or Michael or Ryan. But Geoff? With Geoff it’s something else altogether.
Jack’s not sure how long he’s been in love with him. Maybe since the day he met him all those years ago. Maybe it happened gradually. It doesn’t really matter. It’s just a thing that happened and he’d never act on it anyway. He’d never ruin what he and Geoff have.
Because he knows Geoff better than Geoff knows himself. Geoff loves him just like he loves all of the crew. He’d never want to hurt Jack and would probably go along with it, at least for a little while, just to spare Jack’s feelings. And Jack couldn’t bear that. Just the thought of it makes him so sick to his stomach that he nearly has to pull off to the side of the road.
It’s probably time to pull off anyway. It’s getting late; they need to get a room for the night and get off the road. Jack already knows how it’ll play out because it’s the same every time. They’ll rent three rooms, two with one queen-size bed a piece and the third with two double beds. He and Geoff will, of course, take the third one. Geoff will turn the television up too loud, get disgustingly drunk, and then pass out while Jack pretends to sleep just a few feet away.
Come morning, Jack will have a couple of aspirin and a glass of water waiting when he wakes Geoff up. Geoff will be irritable and hungover but Jack will march him to the shower and then make sure he gets some food in his stomach before they hit the road again. Later, Geoff will tell him, as he always does, that he has the patience of a saint and Jack will wonder to himself how Geoff has never noticed that Jack’s only that way with him.
It’s late. Or maybe it’s early. Either way, it’s well after midnight when Jack steers them into the parking lot of a shitty roadside motel about six hours outside of Los Santos.
Ryan struggles a little with the lock on the door, exhaustion turning his hands awkward and clumsy. He’s ready to get inside, wipe this shit off his face, and fall into bed. His head is pounding and he feels like he could sleep for days. Not that he’ll ever have that luxury.
Ray hangs back in the shadows, as he always does, waiting to be asked. Waiting to be invited like they don’t share a room every fucking time they stop at a hotel. Ryan sighs, weary way down deep in his bones, and motions for Ray to follow him in. He’s too tired to say a word.
Once they’re inside, Ryan washes his face clean and lights a cigarette while Ray takes a shower. It’s a small room; the smoke and steam meet in the air and fade away together. He knows Ray is in there, standing under water so hot it hurts and watching blood wash down the drain.
He hears the shower shut off while he’s unbuttoning his shirt. He’s toeing off his boots when Ray comes to him, skin red and scrubbed raw, with that needy look in his eyes. And fuck, all Ryan wants to do is finish this cigarette and go to sleep. But he lets Ray kiss him, lets him straddle his hips and settle on his lap as the cigarette burns low between his fingers. Holding Ray against his chest so tight it’s hard to breathe, he finally gives in and leans over to put it out.
Ray moves to drop to his knees but Ryan tugs him back up, rolls over on top of him, and pins him to the mattress. Things move as quickly as they always do between them. One minute he’s kissing Ray’s neck, sucking a dark bruise into the delicate skin over his pulse, and the next, Ray’s got his hand down Ryan’s pants.
Please, he says. Please, Ryan.
Those are the only words they exchange. Ryan doesn’t make him beg for it. He gives him what he needs, just like he always does. It’s quick and rough and after, Ray sleeps.
But Ryan lies awake for a long time. And as he lies there, staring up at the stained ceiling and smoking another cigarette, he worries. He worries because this kid was never part of the plan. None of them were. He never intended to get so attached. It was easier when all of the people in his life were expendable.
And goddammit, he realizes there in the darkness, he’s already in too deep.
Another night, another town, another cheap motel.
Michael is stretched out across the bed when Gavin pounces on him, still naked and wet from the shower. They grapple, rolling around and making out like a couple of stupid teenagers until they’re both out of breath. But Michael’s tired tonight and things sort of fizzle out before it goes any farther.
Gavin doesn’t seem to mind terribly. He curls up next to Michael and starts talking his usual nonsense, arms so tight around Michael that he can hardly breathe. But he doesn’t push him away, doesn’t tell him to fuck off like he would anyone else. Even when Gavin starts tracing patterns on Michael’s bare chest, nuzzling against his neck as he asks those goddamn stupid fucking “would you rather questions”, Michael can’t bring himself to disentangle himself from his gangly, awkward embrace. But even so, there’s only so much a man can take and, resigned, he finally rolls on top of Gavin and kisses him hard just to shut him up.
He’s not sure why he lets the idiot get away with so much. Because logically he knows that Gavin is as much of a criminal as he is. He’s seen him kill, knows he’s capable of terrible things. But he feels so goddamn fragile under Michael’s hands, so breakable, that Michael can’t shake that stupid fucking protective instinct. And he doesn’t like it.
Because the thing is…he’s not gay. It never bothered him to joke about it with his friends, with the crew, because fuck, it’s not like there’s anything wrong with being gay. Love who you love and all that. But Michael just…isn’t. At least he doesn’t think he is. Because he loves women. He loves the way they walk, the way they smell, the way they sound. He loves the feeling of sinking into soft curves.
But Gavin. Gavin is all sharp angles and straight, bony hips and Michael has never been so fucking confused in his life. He doesn’t even know how they ended up in bed together to begin with. He thinks maybe there’s something about the isolation of this lifestyle, this strange bubble they’re in that separates them from the normal suckers who work 9-to-5’s every day, that makes boundaries disappear. They were both drunk the first time, he remembers that much. Gavin’s hair was so soft, his skin so smooth and his mouth so hot that Michael could close his eyes and pretend he was something he wasn’t.
But when Gavin moans his name, there’s no pretending. No ignoring the man beneath him and the way he looks up at Michael like he hung the goddamn moon.
It’s early morning and Ray’s already up, standing at the window and watching the sun rise over the strange red dirt hills. He’s still drowsy, easily hypnotized by the way the light spreads out and touches everything in sight, by the way it chases away last night’s lingering shadows. He slept hard for a few hours but woke with the sun feeling strung out and numb.
Behind him, Ryan stirs and tells him, in a hoarse voice, to come back to bed. Ray moves slowly, his muscles stiff and sore. But the bed is still warm and so is Ryan, who pulls him close. He smells like cigarette smoke and gunpowder but it’s a welcome, familiar smell and Ray buries his face in Ryan’s neck to breathe it in deeply.
Big, warm hands rub up and down his bare back, slow and steady. Soothing. He likes how Ryan is in the morning when he’s still half-asleep, all soft edges and warm lips. Ryan will never ask if he’s okay, will never ask him to talk about his feelings (which Ray is grateful for). But he reaches out in his own way and gives him this. And mostly it’s enough because it’s a heady thing, knowing he’s the only person allowed behind the walls Ryan Haywood has built around himself.
But sometimes Ray is scared that he might…love Ryan? It’s a thought he always pushes aside as quickly as it comes, afraid to even think the word, because that’s not what this is about. It’s not what they’re about. There’s no time for love between people like them. Not the kind of love Ray thinks about anyway. No, there’s only time for desperate fucking, for clinging to each other and chasing that rush, that brief escape from the reality that they could all die tomorrow.
Ray tries to tell himself that’s enough.
They’re on the road again by noon but Gavin doesn’t even know where they’re supposed to be going. All he knows is that they’re heading north, maybe to a safe house. No one ever tells him anything. He wonders how long the trip will be but doesn’t want to ask. Again.
It sucks because Gavin really, truly hates car rides. It seems like such a waste of time to be sat in a hunk of metal, puttering uselessly along a highway. It seems like transportation should be more efficient by now, like a person should be able to press a button and be zapped to wherever they need to be. Or something.
Anyway, he hates how he has to sit still for hours, how everyone snaps at him to be quiet when he tries to distract himself from the crushing monotony. It makes him feel like a kid again, stuck in the backseat on trips up to Yorkshire with his parents. They never wanted him to talk either. Never wanted to answer his questions or hear his jokes or listen to him playing his “noisy” games.
Even Michael, his lovely Michael, gets annoyed when he talks too much. He gets annoyed when Gavin tries to be quiet and instead play connect-the-dots with lovely Michael’s lovely freckles. He gets annoyed when Gavin touches his hair or gets fingerprints on his glasses or bounces around in his lap.
But unlike the rest of them, Michael never really means it. Whenever he snaps at Gavin, he always pulls him close a few minutes later and lets Gavin rest his head on his shoulder, lets him nuzzle his nose into the crook of his neck to inhale the familiar, soapy smell of his skin, the clean scent of laundry detergent on his clothes.
And whenever that happens, Gavin finds he doesn’t mind car rides nearly so much.