Work Text:
The heist was going, to put it politely, absolutely fucking terribly. Some asshole had set off the alarm too early--and, despite how often Alfredo used the term asshole affectionately, this was not one of those times. His bets were on Rimmy, because it’d been Gavin the last couple of heists, and Jeremy had some incessant need to rival him.
Alfredo usually enjoyed the chaos. Usually.
He was trapped in an office on the top floor, and to make matters even more fun, he’d lost his comm link with the rest of them. The last thing he’d heard was Gavin’s cut-off scream as all the doors had force-locked with Alfredo and a guard scowling at each other. His weapon--the trusty, well-loved semi--was scattered across the floor somewhere outside. His mask was out there, too.
These were all things Alfredo thought were just fitting to have happened, because this was supposed to be an easy job. After all, why wouldn’t it be? How could the Fakes ever screw up? It was impossible. Everything always went to plan.
Maybe he should just retire already.
He wouldn’t, because despite his crew’s inability to do anything effectively, he loved them, and he loved this feeling; everything had gone to shit, all was lost, and yet the adrenaline was surging through his veins like it had a purpose, his heartbeat was reverberating loud and rhythmic in his ears, he had the ghost of a smile on his face from the fight and--
Well, fuck, there was one thing he didn’t love. He didn’t love the pain, crackling and burning as it courses through him from the goddamn hole in his side. For a moment, he could forget that, staggering back from the windows after contemplating escaping by smashing one and throwing himself out. A six story drop to the street. Which may have been more enjoyable than pacing around waiting for, either: someone to remember he was trapped up here, or for the police to arrive and snipe him through a window.
Evaluating the situation fairly--he definitely couldn’t forget the hole in his side. The guard who’d shot him was unconscious behind the desk, his own handcuffs locking him to the radiator pipe. Nasty cut across his temple where Alfredo had slammed it into the edge of the desk. After the beating Alfredo had gotten (the guard took him by surprise, alright, Jeremy? He can still kick Rimmy’s ass, and he will, if he ever gets out of this goddamn office), he was just happy to have knocked the guy out. Looking back though, not his best moment.
The one positive of the situation is that Alfredo now had a new weapon. It had only two bullets left in it after the guard had sprayed both the wall and Alfredo in a panic a couple minutes earlier, but it was still a weapon. He was trying to look on the bright side.
At least there was a safe he was spending his time trying to crack. Something to do.
Spinning the dial with one finger, letting it land on a random number, he had to fight against the hazy fogginess creeping into his thoughts. Shouts and a couple of hysterical screams from the floors below him broke through the air, and he strained to listen, but the hits he’d taken to the head just before the guard had shot him were making the world all a little distorted and murky, so he couldn’t place the voices as any he recognised.
He definitely could place the sirens from the street below. They pierced through every barricade between him and the outside, searing into his steadily-growing headache like they were trying to burn his brain from the inside out.
God, whenever he found out who raised the alarm, stranded him up here, he was going to--
He would--
He might--
Well, he wasn’t sure what he’d do. Probably nothing.
Though, if anyone else had the audacity to die during this shit show, he’d kill them. He knew that much. No one is allowed to die on his watch.
And if Alfredo bled out up here, all alone, he would be pissed. He’d haunt those fuckers for the rest of their lives.
The hand he cupped to his side was immediately soaked in blood, and Alfredo felt sick trying to stay upright. He spun the safe dial again. Pulling the pistol from the back of his waistband with his other hand, he slowly stretched his legs out in front of him with it cradled in his lap--if he was going to die, then he’d take as many cops as he could with him. (That’s only if they made it up here before he kicked the bucket, his brain kindly supplied.) The sirens bounced around the room, making him dizzy, and he closed his eyes in an attempt to buffer the world from disorienting him anymore.
All his energy--all that adrenaline, all that spite, all that anger--it slowly dropped out of him like water leaking from a pierced pipe, leaving him feeling limp and boneless. The carpet grew wet beneath him, and he sucked in a deep breath. Silently, he made some kind of prayer that they find him quickly.
An uncertain amount of time later, he shifted against the wall, groaning loudly as sharp pain split him in two. Somewhere, an insistent thump-thump-thump made its way to his ears, registering later than they happened. He half-wondered if that was his heartbeat again, but--
“Fredo?” called a voice from outside, somewhere close, but further than he’d like, followed by another couple of desperate smacks on the door. “Fredo!”
The heist had definitely gone wrong if they were shouting his real name.
“In here,” he tried to shout back, but the words came out as a croak even he couldn’t hear. He coughed a few times, trying to clear his throat from the thick lump blocking it, and called again, “In here!”
“Gonna get you out,” the voice that sounded suspiciously like Jeremy’s replied, muffled through the door, “Just gotta--”
And the window shattered beside him. Whatever Jeremy was going to say was cut off by the shower of glass shards that reached him even on the opposite side of the room, and the arm he brought up to shield his face from them came up five seconds late. He blearily glanced over to the sound--his vision was too blurry to make out who, but a figure picked themselves up off the floor and brushed off the layer of broken glass across their clothes.
“Jesus,” they said, a lilted start over towards Alfredo, but stopped themselves one step in. Alfredo might have whined, because even if this was a cop, he’d hoped they would just shoot him and make it quick. And if it was help, what the hell were they going to do all the way over there?
He made a noise from the back of his throat, bubbled out with a groan of pain, all mushed together in a fuzzy approximation of words. As he did, a second figure fell through the gap in the windows, landing on their hands and knees.
“Oh, fuck, Fredo,” the second person breathed, and Alfredo felt every muscle in his body relax as they stumbled over themselves to get to him. “Hey, hey, hey.”
Alfredo would know that voice anywhere.
“I got you,” Trevor assured him, “We got you.”
Hands on his shoulders, patting down his torso, cold gloved fingers tilting his chin upwards. His head was so heavy, and he could barely keep his eyes open, so he just let Trevor move it for him. Part of him wondered if he was dead, and if this was an angel. He certainly looked like one. Trevor pressed his fingers into Alfredo’s cheek, cupping his face with a force that Alfredo supposed was meant to try and keep him awake, but trying to focus was taking so much out of him he thought he’d pass out right there and then.
Trevor’s face, blurry and foggy as it was, had settled the tremors in Alfredo’s stomach more than he’d ever admit. Trevor was here--he was safety, and solace, and warmth all in one person. Which meant, by proxy, that they’d finally come, they’d found him, Trevor was here and he was going to be okay.
“Mogar,” Trevor said, his face turned away, biting the word out like it had to be dragged out through his teeth, “Gonna need a hand. He’s barely conscious.”
“Yeah,” Michael replied, so far away, followed by a dull thud and an insult hopefully spat to someone other than Alfredo, “Bastard.”
Trevor gently extricated the gun from Alfredo’s clammy, white-knuckled grasp, and set it aside before he moved closer, pulling Alfredo’s arm over his own shoulders and crouching on one knee. The arm under his shoulders gripped him strongly, and then Trevor lifted--
White-hot, blinding pain. Dizzyingly sharp, stomach-wrenching pain. Fuck.
If he was any more conscious, he might have been embarrassed of the pained wail that escaped him--Trevor froze, in an awkward half-up, half-down position, saying something that reached Alfredo’s ears in a jumble of sounds that didn’t make sense together. The hand holding Alfredo’s wrist over his shoulder tensed, fingers squeezing his hand in some kind of comfort.
Then, a second pair of hands around him; one tentatively across his stomach, the other snaking under his shoulders alongside Trevor’s, and they held him up with a much smoother ease. Alfredo managed to swallow the scream into a less humiliating low groan.
“Alright, big guy,” Michael said, and even despite all the deep swamp water his brain was wading through, Alfredo could hear the smile, “Come on.”
As they shuffled across the room, sounds from the street below finally flooded his senses--shouting, gunshots, engines, helicopter blades---and he wanted to cringe away from it all. This wasn’t safe, he needed his gun back, he needed to make sure Trevor didn’t--
“Fuck!” cried Michael, and then he was gone from Alfredo’s side.
Trevor threw them both to the side, trying to maneuver them both behind the solid wall on their right, away from the bullets raining in through the open windows. Another window shattered behind them, showering Alfredo in its shards, and they crunched beneath his feet when he stumbled. Grunting beside him, Trevor pushed him back against the wall and leant against him, his body shielding Alfredo from Michael blindly shooting back.
Michael shouted in frustration, and Trevor’s head snapped back to him as Michael grunted, “Where the fuck is the evac?”
Alfredo should have been given an award for staying upright as his legs shook and the room spun around him--if he was honest, the only thing keeping him up was Trevor’s firm grip on his bicep. Breathing heavily beside him, his chest heaving, Trevor was fuzzy but still wonderful. (Alfredo didn’t need sight to know that.)
As the pain blossomed into something overwhelming, Alfredo supposed this wouldn’t be so bad, his last sight the person he loved so much.
And if he never got to tell him--well, maybe that would be best.
“Hurry the fuck up,” Michael muttered into his comm, then shared a look with Trevor.
Alfredo caught the concerned glances directed to himself too late to say anything about them, because by the time he’d caught on, Michael had turned away again and was sending another few shots into the outside air.
It all got a bit blurry from then--Michael had disappeared into the sea of bullets, and then Trevor was trying to pull him somewhere but his body was too heavy, too clumsy. He was trying his best to help, but one leg just wasn’t working, and the other wasn’t strong enough to support his own weight on its own.
Even as his vision whited-out, and the world around him all mixed into one disjointed track, he could never mistake the deafening whirring of Jack’s helicopter blades.
They tried to pull him out again, but Alfredo’s leg had buckled beneath him, and they’d stumbled to the ground just barely avoiding a bullet to the neck. Safety was so close.
“Just go,” he’d rasped out, “Don’t die ‘cause of me.”
Trevor had stopped dead in his tracks. “I’m not leaving you behind,” he said, incredulous, “You idiot.”
And he’d dragged Alfredo out with a sudden strength, and they’d made it into Jack’s helicopter, Michael still shooting into the fray and shouting at Jack to leave. Trevor had wrapped an arm around him, one hand rubbing gentle circles into his shoulder--but then an unbelievably painful pressure on his side made the world go bright white again, and his stomach flipped like it was an acrobat, and Alfredo kind of forgot where he was.
He’d screamed through gritted teeth, but Trevor had only said, “Sorry--I’m so sorry, Fredo.”
&&
He came to, voices drifting through across the room, on something much more comfortable than he remembered falling asleep on and with a weird cottony-thick feeling in all of his body. It took a long second for the rest of his senses to return, for a while stranded in unfeeling darkness only comforted by the familiar conversation he could hear in the room over. Groaning, he shifted his arm, trying to prop himself up on it and make sure Trevor is--
“Woah,” someone else said abruptly, a hand pressing firmly but not harshly against his shoulder, stopping him from moving any more, “Relax, Fredo, you’re safe.”
He blinked his eyes open to Michael’s face in front of his, eyebrows knitted together in the middle. He had to forcibly convince his suddenly-panicked heart and brain that Michael was safe, and he was safe, and he had no need to be in fight-or-flight. The thud-thud, thud-thud of his heartbeat quickened, but Michael’s expression was firm as he held Alfredo’s shoulder, and Alfredo eventually won the battle with his own instincts.
He relaxed back against whatever soft surface he was lying on--probably a bed, come on, brain--and inhaled deeply. The room smelled of sterile bandages, but a faint hint of something remarkably like Lindsay’s cooking must have been drifting in from the kitchen, because his stomach rumbled.
Michael hesitated for a second, then pulled his hand back, and called, “Trevor!”
A few seconds later, once Michael had stepped back and disappeared from Alfredo’s view, the door burst open. Trevor’s hand curled around the handle before the door could slam into the wall, and as soon as Alfredo recognised him, nothing else mattered.
Trevor looked distraught--eyes wide, dishevelled hair, red cheeks--and a deep frown etched into the lines of his face, one that softened almost immediately as he tumbled over his own feet to sit at Alfredo’s side.
“You’re awake,” he breathed. “Hi!”
Alfredo gave him his best shining smile--one that may have fallen short because he could hardly feel his own face--and croaked, “Hi.”
The door to the bedroom clicked shut again, and Trevor stared at Alfredo for a long second, holding eye contact. Alfredo blinked slowly a few times, and Trevor’s eyes flitted about his face, and his body. Then, he poked a finger into Alfredo’s chest, his own puffed up. “Don’t ever do that again,” he said, “You dick.”
Hard-won speech, Alfredo managed, “I’ll try my best.”
Trevor considered him for a second longer before letting out a long sigh; with it came all of the tension in his shoulders, and he slumped in the chair beside the bed.
“I don’t know why I even bother planning heists anymore,” he huffed, “Nobody ever sticks to the damn plan.”
Slowly, Alfredo’s own body and the apartment around him were coming into clearer focus. Trevor still looked exhausted, but with his new found focus Alfredo could see the relief and concern plastered across his features like they’d been there since he was born. Alfredo wasn’t sure how long he’d been passed out, but if Trevor’s this affected--it must have been pretty bad. He can usually handle injuries just fine. His stomach twisted thinking about it, so he tried to shove this most recent near death experience to the back of his mind, where the uncomfortable memories went to die.
“I stick to your plan,” Alfredo eventually replied, smiling as brightly as he could muster. He always stuck to the plan! Because Trevor made it, and Trevor was much smarter than him. Except when the plan was stupid. Or when he didn’t want to.
Trevor rubbed a hand across his forehead, and laughed, “You derailed the entire heist by leaving the bottom floor. You’re the worst.”
“In my defence,” Alfredo said, “The plan was flawed.”
Trevor levelled a playful glare at him; Alfredo kept up the award-winning smile until he broke and eventually tiredly smiled back. He then gave Alfredo an odd look--one that Alfredo would call fond if it wasn’t Trevor looking at him. Trevor. His boss. Best friend.
This thing wasn’t new, and Alfredo had come to peace with the fact that Trevor would never see him the same way. He was over it. It didn’t hurt. Even when he’d assumed Trevor was an angel coming to rescue him in that shitty office. It didn’t hurt at all.
Even when Trevor looked at him like that, all soft and warm and genuine, the kind of expression that made Alfredo feel like the word home had a meaning and it was Trevor. Even when the first thought he’d had when he woke up a few minutes ago was of him, even when sometimes he just looked at Trevor and his heart clenched so strongly it made him think that feeling was everything life was supposed to be.
It didn’t hurt. At all.
Trevor was still looking at him intently but the smile was slowly falling off his face slowly. After a second, he’d sighed and let his eyes flicker across Alfredo’s body again. As he did so, Alfredo tried to make a mental note of what hurt (it was a logical idea, it definitely was not a distraction) and looked back at the ceiling. He remembered getting shot--he cringed as the burning sensation flared up while he did--but his face felt tight and painful too, and there was a dull throbbing pain in his leg, centered around his knee. He propped himself up on his arms, wincing slightly as his stomach moved, and when he tried to shift his legs there was a definite lump of firm bandage around his knee. Or maybe it was swollen. Weird. He didn’t remember that happening.
As he’d moved, Trevor put his hands up to try and stop him--Alfredo waved him off. He’d been awake for a while now, and he only felt a little bit like the world was spinning or like he was imminently going to pass out, so it was probably fine.
There was another look from Trevor that he couldn’t decipher; he’d never been the best at reading people, but he liked to think he knew Trevor well enough. He tried to give a reassuring smile--he could only kinda not feel his leg, and the wounds in his side only stung, like, a lot.
“Fredo,” Trevor said then, his name coming out vaguely strangled, and Trevor had to swallow thickly before continuing, “Never, ever do that again.”
“It was that bad?” Alfredo pushed himself up, using shaky arms to sit and face Trevor properly.
A shaky breath in, and Trevor looked everywhere except Alfredo’s face. “You nearly--we nearly lost you.”
“But you didn’t.”
Trevor frowned, glanced up to Alfredo’s swollen face, and finally met his gaze. Those damn eyes--whatever teasing joke he was about to say died in his throat. He’d never seen this expression on Trevor’s face before, never seen him so vulnerable.
“You--Fredo, you lost so much blood, and your leg… you weren’t--”
“Hey,” Alfredo murmured, forcing himself to lean forward, putting a hand on Trevor’s knee, hoping the action would calm both Trevor and his own racing heart, “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
Trevor looked up at him through his eyelashes, swallowing down a panicked breath, his eyebrows dipped low on his face. “You--”
“Look at me, I’m fine. I’m okay.” Alfredo grabbed Trevor’s hand, pulled it up to his chest. Pressed it against his heart, hoping Trevor can feel it. His hand was cold against Alfredo’s chest, but he swallowed another breath, and took the next one slower.
“I can’t lose you.”
Alfredo’s traitorous heart skipped a beat, and that wouldn’t have been a problem if Trevor wasn’t still pressing his hand against it. His heart skipped another beat, and Alfredo silently willed it to quiet down, because now wasn’t the time. He could overthink that statement later, and he could feel all the emotions it brought up some other time, when Trevor wasn’t sitting in front of him, gripping his shirt like Alfredo would disappear if he let go.
His throat was suddenly dry, and all the words he thought to say didn’t feel right, didn’t feel like enough. “You didn’t,” he settled on eventually, “You won’t.”
“I can’t.” Trevor replied, insistently looking at him, then carefully brought his other hand up to touch his face. Alfredo stared right back, making another silent prayer for him to not notice how Alfredo keened into his touch, how he fluttered his eyes shut when Trevor’s fingers tenderly stroked down his cheek. “Fredo--”
All Alfredo could do was nod, trying to swallow the lump in his throat--this didn’t feel fair. Not when this was all Alfredo had wanted for so long, when he knew Trevor didn’t feel the same. He opened his eyes again, and Trevor was staring back, constant and genuine and open, and all Alfredo wanted was to lean forward and--
Trevor did it before he could; pushed himself forward and kissed Alfredo, hand cupping his cheek, insistent and desperate and frantic.
He pulled back a second later, looked down to their feet, his hand still on Alfredo’s chest, his leg bouncing up and down. “I don’t--I can’t lose you.”
“You won’t,” Alfredo breathed, his heartbeat so loud he could hear it thumping a mile a minute in his ears, his brain grinding to a halt. This was all so much to process in such a short time, and his thoughts leapt from one train to another, only for Trevor to derail them all by kissing him again.
He was ready this time, and kissed back with all the energy he had; only to hiss as pain bloomed across his side. Trevor pulled back, moving his hands to hold Alfredo’s arms away, glancing back at him with horror.
“Sorry,” he murmured, “Sorry, I didn’t mean--”
“It’s okay,” Alfredo shrugged, unsuccessfully fighting the smile breaking out onto his face. “I’m a big boy. Doesn’t even hurt.”
Said between gritted teeth, one hand clutched at the bandages swathed over his torso--it wasn’t surprising Trevor didn’t believe him. He narrowed his eyes at Alfredo, but there was still a small, fond smile playing at his lips, “You’re an idiot.”
“It’s kind of my thing.”
“Oh, shut up.”
&&
The light was on in the heist room when Alfredo finally made it back to the penthouse. Soft yellow light streaming out through the gap in the door, just slightly ajar, illuminating the entire place in the darkness of the late night. Otherwise, the penthouse was still. Matt and the lads were downstairs in Michael’s apartment, Jack had taken Fiona and Ky to a job in Las Venturas, and Geoff was still away--it was a remarkably quiet night.
So, why Trevor was still awake and working, Alfredo would never understand. He toed his shoes off, leaving them by the door, and padded across the main room.
He cracked open the door and peeked his head around without saying anything. Trevor, as he’d expected, was sitting at the table in the middle surrounded by countless sheets of blueprints, computer logs, drone pictures and other things Alfredo, for his own sanity, didn’t know what they were. He didn’t look up as Alfredo entered, tapping the side of a pen on his cheek, staring intently at something on the table. On the heist board behind him, various pegs and sticky notes were stuck up all over it--it’d changed a little since Alfredo had last checked this morning, but not enough to warrant Trevor’s relentless time sink all day.
“Hey,” Alfredo said, as quiet as he could to avoid startling Trevor, “How long have you been working?”
Trevor looked up in surprise, expression softening as soon as he recognised Alfredo. He gave Alfredo a distracted smile, then looked back down to the table and waved a dismissive hand. “I won’t be long, I’m just double-checking.”
He might be Alfredo’s boss, but he’s also Alfredo’s partner, so sometimes Alfredo is allowed to argue orders. Especially ones that are trying to make Alfredo ignore the fact he’s overworking himself.
“Come on,” he pushed kindly, “Come at it with fresh eyes tomorrow.”
Trevor paused, then looked up at him, fingers twirling the pen stalled in mid air and tried again, this time his voice less firm, “I’m nearly done.”
“That’s what you said last time, and you didn’t come to bed the entire night.”
Trevor sighed, and Alfredo knew he was getting through. Alfredo’s nothing if he’s not persuasive when he wants to be, so he put an over exaggerated pout on his face, and continued-- “I missed you. I can’t believe you let me sleep all alone.”
“You’re an adult, you know,” Trevor said, but the smile on his face betrayed his words, “A fully-grown adult and everything.”
“Trey,” Alfredo sighed, slipping into the room and leaning on the table beside Trevor, making sure his voice was as firm as he dared, “If you don’t come to bed, I’m gonna pick you up and drag you there.”
Trevor laughed under his breath, glancing up at Alfredo fondly unconvinced, and as he put his pen down Alfredo felt like he’d just won a siege game. “Really?”
“Yes,” Alfredo grinned, extending a hand for Trevor to take, “And if you make me rip my stitches doing it, Jack won’t be happy.”
“Okay, fine, just let me--”
“Nope. That’s it.”
Alfredo leaned forward, slotted his head into Trevor’s neck and wormed his arms under Trevor’s shoulders, making a valiant effort to lift him right out of the chair--
“Okay, alright!” Trevor laughed brightly, pushing his arms away, “I’m getting up, I’m getting up.”
He stood, dropped the pen on the table and started to neaten the papers scattered about, before realising that was a lost cause. He squeezed Alfredo’s bicep, letting Alfredo grab his hand and tug him back out into the corridor.
“You know,” Alfredo stated, “If you don’t start taking care of yourself, you’re gonna keel over and die. And I don’t wanna deal with a dead body.”
Trevor snorted, but let Alfredo push him backwards and gently guide him to one of the spare bedrooms on the hallway. Alfredo was always right, even when he wasn’t, and Trevor knew this.
“If I sleep for a week,” Trevor muttered once they reached the doorway, “I’m putting you in charge.”
“Got it. I’ll fix absolutely nothing and lose us as much money as possible. You can count on me.”
Trevor gave him a disparaging, half-hearted glare as he tugged off his shirt. Alfredo would be lying if he said he wasn’t staring--it’d been a busy few weeks, and he was still kind of getting used to being able to call Trevor his, being able to shamelessly stare at his boyfriend shirtless. It was nice.
“Now sleep,” Alfredo said, picking Trevor’s clothes off the end of the bedframe and draping them over a chair, “Or I’ll sit on you until you do.”
Trevor laughed again, light and exhausted, but as Alfredo moved over to give him a gentle kiss on the forehead and leave, Trevor grabbed his wrists. He looked up at Alfredo with lidded eyes, his face wrinkled with exhaustion, and before he even asked anything Alfredo had already mentally agreed.
“Stay?”
Alfredo tried to make sure he hesitated, just for a split-second, because even if everyone knew he was as whipped as a race horse, he could at least try and maintain some dignity. Ah, who was he kidding? He’d do anything for Trevor. So, he grinned at him before gently pulling his wrists out of Trevor’s grip and tugging off his own jacket and shirt. Trevor smiled right back, radiantly, and from the way his eyes blinked languidly and he laid back into the pillows like he was melting, Alfredo knew he’d be asleep in seconds.
Climbing into the bed beside Trevor, he opened his arms. Trevor settled himself on Alfredo’s chest, sighing heavily as his arms circled around Trevor’s back and held him there. Alfredo pressed a kiss into Trevor’s hair, shifting slightly to settle them both comfortably in the bed.
“Thanks for staying,” Trevor said softly, tracing circles on Alfredo’s chest with his finger. “You didn’t have to.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Alfredo murmured into his hair, then rubbed a gentle hand down his back. “Now get some damn sleep.”
Trevor huffed, glancing up at Alfredo and giving him the softest, most tender smile Alfredo’s ever seen. Then, he settled his head back down, and mumbled, “Love you,” into Alfredo’s chest.
“Love you too, Trey.”