Chapter Text
Part Two
They haven’t seen Geoff in what feels like an age. They’ve really been spending the last few weeks between their bed and their kitchen, rolling around between the sheets and making snacks, with little break for anything else other than a quick round of Halo, before they're back in the cycle.
Geoff takes them out to a little bar in a corner of Los Santos. It isn’t overly busy, and is easy for them to get a small booth in the corner, and a round consisting of one whisky and two cans of Dr Pepper.
After an hour or so of small talk and joking around, Ryan asks, “Ray, can you give me and Geoff a minute?”
Ray shrugs, and Ryan kisses him on the side of the face, almost as if to say it’s okay, it’s nothing to worry about as Ray slips out of the booth, heading over to the bar.
“So,” Ryan says, as he and Geoff watch Ray walk away and sit up at the bar.
"So what?” Geoff asks, downing the rest of his whisky.
“So what d’ya think of him?”
Geoff smirks. “He’s a good kid… much too good for you.”
Ryan frowns. “What the fuck's that supposed to mean?”
“Whoa, don’t get so defensive,” Geoff laughs. “Fun fact about you, Ryan… you fuck up everything you touch. And sooner or later, you’ll fuck him up just the same.”
Ryan clenches his fist at the table. “Nah,” he shakes his head. “I won't fuck up this time. I’m keeping this one, he’s mine.”
Geoff laughs again. “You really think that?” he asks.
“Absolutely,” Ryan says. “No asshole’s ever going to take him away from me.”
Geoff’s eyes skim over to the bar, where Ray sits. A man stands beside him, with a cheap suit and a cheaper smile, handing Ray a glass. His eyes drink Ray in, and Geoff can’t blame the man. Ray’s pretty, that’s for sure. The perfect boy for a one-night-stand behind your wife’s back.
“Looks like some asshole already is.” He smirks. Ryan’s eyes flit over to the bar, and immediately, he frowns. Geoff looks over at him, concerned when he sees the familiar thunderous look in Ryan’s eye. He’s about to say something, before it’s too late, but Ryan is already up, storming over to the bar.
He doesn’t even speak, before decking the guy right in his greasy, corporate face.
Needless to say, they’re kicked out of that bar pretty quickly. Ryan’s got blood on his knuckles and the guy got one good hit under his eye, which Ray has to clean for him.
You shouldn’t have done that, Ray says. It wasn’t necessary. You could’ve really hurt that guy.
Ryan smirks. Yes, he says. Yes it was.
Ray is nineteen years old when the idea of the Fake AH Crew forms.
It’s a Thursday night, and for the first time in a while everyone is there, drinking and smoking and playing video games. The five of them, (Geoff, Michael, Gavin, Ray and Ryan) get on like a house on fire, and the conversation flows almost as easy as the beer does down the first three’s throats. Ray sips his malta and Ryan makes his way through an obscene amount of Diet Coke, and soon Geoff can barely slur the words, “We should start a crew.”
Yeah Geoff, we should start a crew. Sure buddy. Why not pal. Rob banks? Yeah Geoff, we could do that, easily. Of course we should, great idea.
But then it’s a month later and Geoff’s already got the tattoo on the top half of his sleeve cementing the crew name and they’re introduced to Jack Pattilo, who owns a ranch house and doesn’t ask questions and is suspiciously lacking a pick-up truck.
“Sorry about that.” It's the first time Ray's seen Ryan swallow his pride.
“It’s fine. I would’ve done the same.”
All that Ray can think is that he and Ryan are ridiculously lucky that Jack is a forgiving person. They're also lucky that Jack knows everything about everyone in the city, and lets them know that the businessman they’ve borrowed their home from is planning a trip back with his second mistress in the next few weeks.
It doesn’t take them long to pack their stuff, no matter how lived in the apartment is because Ryan has always taught Ray to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. The last thing they need is an angry corporate jack-ass with a team of clever lawyers.
Apart from that, Ray and Ryan don’t fear any authority. The police are nothing but easy to skit around, considering they’ve been living on the boundaries of the law for so long, that acting legally feels odd.
The LSPD are maybe the easiest police force to avoid even considering how crime-heavy the city is. There is always someone else more important that the two of them, always another person to chase after. Even with the idea of the crew, Ray isn’t afraid- because it’s not like they're going to become national news, right?
Ray is nineteen years, six months and two days old when he has his closest call with the cops to date.
The jewellery snatch with he and Michael was a bad idea from the start. The small heists they'd pulled off before this one had all had the same structure, of Ryan, Ray and Michael creating cover, Geoff and Gavin doing the legwork and Jack driving the getaway vehicle. It had worked, enough, each time.
This time, Geoff wanted things to be a little different.
When it came to actually committing crime, sure, he and Michael along with Ryan were probably the most competent of the group. If anything, the robbery should’ve gone smoothly, with a hefty cut into Ryan and Ray’s shared pot for all their hard work.
But then, things rarely went as planned for the Fake AH Crew.
Ray manages to run, but has to watch from an alleyway as Michael is cuffed and punched and shoved into a police car, kicking and screaming with blood dripping from his nose in the only way Michael can to bide them time. As the doors are slammed shut, Ray thinks he can make out Michael’s thunderous expression through the tinted windows.
Back at Michael’s apartment, Gavin cries all night, face buried into Geoff’s shoulder as Jack paces the room, making calls and trying to smooth over legal details. Ray watches from the hallway, unable to face any of them.
He is even frosty to Ryan, who keeps insisting that it isn’t his fault. It is an odd feeling, because Ryan has never lied to him before.
Geoff is the man with the money who funds their ill-planned schemes, and four favours, three removed witnesses and fifty thousand dollars later Michael is released, with a split lip and a black eye and a wild smile lighting up his bright eyes.
He doesn’t even have to say a word for Ray to know that he is forgiven.
To cheer him up, Ryan takes Ray out to the pier. It’s supposed to be a nice walk, a trip to the carnival and some tooth rotting candyfloss, but they know their reputation, and soon enough a cars blown up and Ray’s running with a hamburger shaped umbrella, shielding himself from the sparks and rubble raining down from the sky. Ryan just laughs, before slipping his skull mask on over his face and sprinting down the pier. Ray isn’t as fast, but Ryan waits for him. In the blink of an eye, the two are gone, nothing left but the tyre tracks on the floor and the charred remains of the hamburger umbrella.
Ryan rips off his mask so the wind can blow through his hair, and Ray clutches his arms tightly around his waist, laughing loudly the entire time.
Ray is twenty years old when the first full-blown, planned for months with maps and sharpies and lines of string heist occurs. Geoff leads them, of course, with a black bow tie tightly around his neck, and only the spider webs of tattoos across his hands peeking out under his suit jacket.
All in all, it doesn’t go exactly well, but nobody dies. They lose half the money at the bottom of the ocean during the escape and Michael shoots Jack in the shoulder within the first five minutes. Gavin gets grazed by a bullet across his thigh, but the worse injury is the gash up his arm, from tripping over a fence.
Ray and Geoff and Ryan are the only ones who appear to be fine, but once they get back inside their hotel room, it’s clear to Ray that Ryan isn’t as okay as he had initially made himself out to be. He sits Ryan down on the bed and slips off his jacket gently.
There’s a lot more blood than Ray expects, and the scent hits his nostrils immediately, making him shield his face briefly with his arm. However, he grits his teeth and bares it, pulling out a first aid kit and doing his best to patch Ryan up. Thankfully, the bullet has gone straight through, so a lot of alcohol and a few stiches later, Ryan is okay. Ray rolls him a joint to help with the pain, and Ryan laughs.
“Seriously though, don’t hide this shit from me Ry,” Ray says. “Never again.”
Ryan can see the seriousness in Ray’s eyes as much as he can feel it in his voice. He takes Ray by the wrist and pulls him down, so he sits straddling Ryan’s lap.
I won't. I'll never hide anything from you again. I love you. You are my everything.
Three heists later and they're more than experienced. Michael still makes snap decisions and Gavin's still trips over himself. Geoff drinks too much and Jack’s a stickler for detail, but all in all the heists go well and Ray and Ryan quickly find themselves swimming in more money than they know what to do with. Ryan promises him they’ll buy an apartment and stop flitting from hotel rooms and crashing in Geoff’s new giant home, but Ray can't lie and say he doesn’t enjoy it.
"We don’t need a home." Ray says. "Home is with you."
“Do you ever… miss how things were before?” Ryan asks. “When it was just the two of us, out on the road in a shitty Chevrolet?”
Ray shrugs. “Sometimes.” He admits, glancing through their open bedroom door, down the corridor to where he can hear the rest of the crew laughing and talking. Griffon had made them all fancy drinks with slices of fruit and mint and a lot of alcohol, and it’s clear to see they're all drunk.
Ryan catches Ray’s gaze, following it out to the corridor.
“We could leave.” He says.
Ray looks across the room, to a framed photo that hangs on the wall. The six of them, standing in Geoff’s living room, before a heist. Gavin in his idiotic six thousand dollar sunglasses and Michael in his beaten up brown leather jacket. Geoff wearing a tux and Jack in not the most awful Hawaiian shirt he owns. And then Ryan and Ray, not on the end awkwardly, but in the middle, Gavin’s face pressed next to Ray’s and Geoff’s hand on Ryan’s shoulder. It's clear as day, and undeniable fact that they fit in.
They belong.
“Nah,” Ray decides, shaking his head. “We really couldn’t.”
Ray is twenty one years and four months old when he is shot for the first time, straight through the arm. The blood is everywhere, all over his favourite hoodie, as well as staining the white bed sheets. He’s never seen so much in one place before, this is different than Ryan’s injuries. This is worse.
He can feel himself panicking as his breaths grow shallow but he can also hear Ryan’s voice, anxiously soothing him as Jack hovers in front of him, the rest of the crew around him. He cries like a bitch, because he isn’t really sure what else to do.
Am I okay? Am I gonna be okay? Oh shit, I’m not gonna die, am I Jack? God, please Jack, I don’t want to die. Jack? It hurts, Jack, oh God Jack please just make it fucking stop-
Unsurprisingly he doesn’t die. Ray learns that alcohol can be good for something, because although it still stings a little, Ray is thankful in the following hours that his arm won't turn septic. Ryan lays with him, holding him tightly round the middle all through the night.
Ryan says, “You scared me, baby. You wouldn’t stop crying and you were bleeding everywhere. Please don’t ever get seriously hurt. I don’t know if I could go on without you.”
Ryan’s words usually make the hurt go away, but this time, Ray just feels his heart clench. He can't lie there, in the dark and the silence and pretend his relationship with Ryan is anywhere near normal, and he can't pretend that Ryan doesn’t scare the shit out of him at times.
Ryan Haywood, the anti-establishment nineteen year old with the red Chevrolet and the beautiful hair that took him in, taught him to drive and taught him to smoke. Gave him his first kiss and took his virginity. Gave him a penthouse suite and a thousand Xbox games. Gave him everything he could, and never asked for anything in return.
Ryan was one of the good guys, in Ray’s life, that was for sure- but that didn't mean that outside of that, he wasn’t one of the bad guys.
It’s barely two months later when Ryan pushes it too far.
They’re in a shitty bar and it’s Gavin's idea (it’s always Gavin’s idea) to get drunk and play stupid games. Gavin dares him to get the number of the guy in the suit at the bar. Ray doesn’t want to play but Gavin is drunk and insatiable, so Ray sighs, and moves over to the bar, sitting next to the guy.
For a second, he thinks of the times he would spend in bars, letting burly men pet him for free drinks and pickpocketing opportunities whilst Ryan would stand by the wall and simmer in his own rage.
He glances in Ryan’s direction, and thankfully, he’s distracted by Geoff, moving his hands and clutching his glass like he’s explaining something, and Ray smiles, watching him. then he sees Gavin and Michael grinning dumbly at him and drunkenly giggling as the guy in the standard suit with the standard hair-cut holding the standard glass of scotch watches him, drinking him in and smirking. Ray rolls his eyes.
“Alright then, you gonna buy me a drink or what?”
Ray suffers through a light beer and listens to the suit talk about himself, bragging about his high paid job and his high cost apartment. Ray feigns interest, nodding when he should, batting his eyelashes and laughing in all the right places, because that’s how he’s always done it. It’s barely been six or seven minutes of small talks and lingering glances when there’s a fist in the guy’s face and blood on Ryan’s knuckles, splattering on the bar floor.
Ryan is seething, panting with blood dripping from his hands, as the guy cowers on the floor. Ray grabs at his arm, tries to calm him, but Ryan pulls away, glaring down at the man. Geoff runs over and escorts them quickly out of the bar, not keen to make a scene.
“I swear to God Ryan, I don’t want to see you until you can to start acting sane again.” Is Geoff’s warning, before he grabs a stumbling Gavin by the ear, Jack and Michael lagging behind him, walking off into the night.
Ryan barely glances at Ray as the suit stumbles out of the bar, briefcase in hand.
It all happens too fast, and Ray can't do anything, standing frozen to the spot as Ryan goes in for round two, dragging the guy out to the alley down the side of the bar wailing into his face until it is an unrecognizable mess of blood and pulp and tears and spit. Blood splatters across Ryan’s face as he gives the final blow, and the man slinks to the ground.
“Ryan. Stop!”
But it’s too late. Ray doesn’t have to take a second look to know the guy is more than dead, and gags, leaning against the wall for support as he doubles over, vomiting back up the single half beer onto a cardboard box.
“I… Ray, I- I didn't mean to-” Ray straightens, fixing his glasses and looking to Ryan, who stands over the corpse with blood on his hands and face, eyes widr with horror as he looks down at the beaten, broken body of a man whose name he didn't even know. “-I didn't know I was going to… I didn't think I was-” he stops again, and looks up, locking eyes with Ray, whose expression is nothing short of pure terror and distrust. “I… oh God, Ray- can… can you forgive me?”
Ray makes his decision as he turns and runs, just as it starts to rain, sprinting away from Ryan and all the way back to Michael’s apartment.
Ryan isn’t seen for six months after that.
The world continues to spin, apparently, even if you’ve had your other half ripped out of your side. Apparently, he doesn’t need to Ryan to survive, but that doesn’t change how much it fucking hurts. For the first few weeks he doesn’t move from Michael’s bed, sometimes sharing with Michael and sometimes with Gavin. Some nights, when he’s been crying for so long that he can't push liquid tears out, they’ll both lie with him, one on either side, gently cuddling him and stroking his face and whispering that it’s okay, Ryan will come back.
(You’ll see Ray, he’s throwing a tantrum. He’ll be back, and think of how silly you’ll feel.)
But Ryan doesn’t come back like Michael and Gavin say he will. It isn’t like the last time Ryan left, he doesn’t just return a few days later with a few presents and warm, all-encompassing arms for cuddles and happy sex.
After a while, when Ray forgets how to even feel sad, he moves out of Michael and Gavin’s place. He shows up for the occasional heist, but stays quiet and avoids the crew for most of the time. That doesn’t stop Gavin showing up at his new apartment often enough for games and coke and it sure doesn't stop Michael from coming over for fights, both virtual and real.
He goes out to troll bars and fucks strangers just to feel something, to get those shitty college experiences of waking up in beds he doesn’t recognise that he was so beautifully robbed of, travelling with Ryan from the tender age of fifteen. Their seventh anniversary of the day they met passes, and Ray spends the day locked away in a cell after getting into a fight with a shop keeper, threatening him with a knife when he caught Ray trying to shoplift a candy-bar.
Geoff bails him out with a sad smile and dark bags under his bright eyes, ruffling his hair and handing him his purple hoodie. "You’re coming home with me," he says. At Ray's look of protest, he adds, "No arguments, I think I need to keep an eye on you for a while."
Griffon looks after him well enough, but every time he looks at her, all he can think of is the times they had spent together, playing Xbox whilst they waited for Ryan and Geoff to return home from whatever shady deal they were working that night.
So, after a few weeks at Geoff’s he can't sit still in the memories anymore, and clears off briefly back Michael and Gavin’s place. After an ill-thought out hook up with Gavin and then Michael and then both of them, at once, Ray moves into his own place. He takes double the amount of strangers home, purely because he can. And maybe they can't give him the level of satisfaction that Ryan can. And maybe he’s okay with that.
Barely a few weeks after Ray’s twenty second birthday, Ryan returns to him.
He’s cut his hair again, and Ray doesn’t like how short it looks. His beard has grown out too, which is nice and looks soft to the touch, not that Ray allows himself to go that far. He stands, feeling shocked but looking bored as Ryan walks through his front door with his hands awkwardly in his pockets, and his eyes looking everywhere but Ray’s own.
He eventually speaks.
“So, I suppose you want to know why I left?”
"No, Ryan. I've done my time sitting around and feeling fucking sorry for myself, wondering why you fucking left. I don’t want to know why you left, not anymore. I just want to know why the fuck you bothered coming back." he almost says. Something stops him however, and instead, he says nothing.
Ryan says that he loves him, like it’s the most simple, easy explanation in the world. He loves Ray, he’s always loved Ray and he didn't want to hurt him. Ray is safer without him but Ryan is safer with him and blah blah fucking blah.
“Nah,” Ray replies, bitterly. "You don’t deserve the luxury of loving me anymore.”
Re-joining the crew goes surprisingly well, for Ryan. There’s the initial level of distrust and uncertainty that is expected, but the group gel back together quickly, and soon, it’s like Ryan never left. Only Ray acts differently towards him, avoiding all forms of contact, from teaming up with Ryan for a job to simple requests of do you want a coffee? And Have you played the new COD yet?
Ray doesn’t really trust Ryan again until there's rope around his wrists and he’s hanging from the ceiling with a busted nose and a split lip, eyes barely able to open due to his borderline unconsciousness. He isn’t sure if he’s been hanging there for a few hours or a few days, and honestly, he doesn’t care. He’s done for, and he’d be happy to die right there.
He doesn’t have any information on a ‘RT Crew’, he doesn’t even know what that is, but he’ll pretend like he does if that means the guy keeping him will finally put his money where his mouth is and hurt Ray like he wants to be hurt, not with a punch but with a stab or a cut or a slash, anywhere, he’ll beg for it.
But then, Ryan enters like some kind of hero from a shitty romance novel. Ray hangs from the ceiling and watches with a squinted gaze as Ryan takes out the guys in the room with ease and effortlessness with heat and blind fury in his eyes, before walking over to Ray and untying him.
Fuck, Ray wants to hate him for ending the pain, but Ryan cleans his wounds so tenderly until the bathwater is red with blood and brown with dirt, and the tiles of the wall are suddenly way too bright, and he just wants to cry because he’s honestly never felt this low in his entire life.
So he does. Ryan washes his hair silently as he sits in the bathtub with his knees to his chest, sobbing unabashedly. His face is still sore and it hurts as he presses his face to his legs, so he has to lean back and look at them. When did he get so skinny? He’d always been small, but had he always been able to see his hipbones like this? When was the last time he ate a full meal?
Ryan walks around the bath after rinsing Ray’s hair, and sits on the other side so he can face Ray. Gently, almost hesitantly, he reaches out and places his hand at the side of Ray’s face. Immediately, Ray leans into his touch, sighing through his sobs because fuck it just feel so right, Ryan is home to him, and nothing is ever going to change that.
"You are loved, Ray" Ryan reminds him, standing in the doorway after laying Ray into bed "By all of us. The whole crew and plenty others"
"And," he adds, as an afterthought . "By nobody more than me."
And Ray is so fucking tired of sleeping alone. Gavin is a notorious fidget and Michael stretches across most of the bed, and every other partner who’s skimmed his room haven’t stayed for very long. He’s tired of sleeping without any comfort beside him for the past nine months. And those nine months have felt more like nine years and he can’t face the thought of lying in his bed alone for another single night.
"Please. Lay with me?" he asks. Ryan looks hesitant but Ray doesn't want to spend another single second without Ryan by his side. "I missed you so fucking much and... would you just pleasr come in here and fucking lay down with me?"
The world still doesn’t stop spinning. The government doesn’t fall and the wars don’t stop. People still fight over the oil and the water and the last seat on the bus. Ryan’s dad still wants him to go to college and Ray’s dad still drinks himself to sleep. Gavin curls up in bed next to Michael even though he has his own room, and the only thing Geoff is addicted more to than alcohol and tattoos is the feeling of his wife in his arms. Jack doesn’t ask questions because he never has done, and he still isn’t even bitter of the fact that he will never get his pickup truck back.
But none of that matters, because Ryan is back by his side with their fingers linked and his lips at the back of Ray’s neck and then in his ear, whispering to him over and over that he is loved, and finally, Ray feels complete.