Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s the sixth time Ray’s seen Ryan in the club this month.

The guy’s quiet, polite enough, but it took a few sales just to wheedle a name out of him. He’s a little out of place, if Ray’s honest—he doesn’t look much like a junkie, for one, and he’s older than the vast majority of people there, and he never dances. He’s bought a drink maybe twice in all the times Ray’s seen him.

And, okay, that’s not overly weird. Plenty of people come to the club just to buy. Ryan’s not, like, an ambassador from Bizarro World or anything, Ray’s just one of those people whose brain inexplicably decides to focus on random shit, like floor patterns on a subway car, or the stray cat with one eye that hangs around the motel he’s staying at, or the attractive guy who’s walking up to him in the club for the sixth time this month.

He’s got a hand in his pocket, drawing out cash—he pays in crisp twenties, always, and it’s a welcome change from the crumpled ones and fives held in hot fists Ray gets half the time from other buyers.

As Ryan approaches, Ray pushes away from the wall he’s leaned up against, ready to play the small talk game with Ryan, who’s not much of a talker but doesn’t seem to mind Ray babbling stupidly about the weather or the shitty music in the club.

And so, a list of things Ray could say that would be acceptable, if somewhat awkward:

-It’s freezing outside tonight
-Nice shirt
-Nice face
-Here’s your coke, because this is a business transaction and small talk probably isn’t really necessary, is it

What Ray actually says, with the confidence of someone who’s not like 5’9 on a good day and has far more faith in the sense of humor of their customers:

“So, you buy a lot of coke for someone who’s definitely not a crackhead. What’s up with that?”

He’s expecting a shrug, maybe a joke if he’s lucky, but Ryan’s expression closes off almost imperceptibly. His fingers shut over the bundle of cash and slip back into his pocket, and Ray’s mind switches gears to make the sale in a fraction of a second.

“Hey,” he says, moving in, unassuming smile plastered on his face. Placating (hey, just your friendly neighborhood coke dealer). Flirting, maybe, just a little (sue him). “Not judging. That’s just me trying to make small talk. I’m, uh, not a social butterfly. My bad.” He grins, carefully sheepish. “C’mon, you wanna dance? Loosen up?”

He does this at least once a night. Clubs are easy for sales. Ray can pull a guy onto the dance floor and walk away a gram lighter, a hundred bucks richer. Less frequently, he can bump a line with a girl in a dark corner and send her off with an eightball, money stuffed into the pocket of his jeans. Quick, easy money, little drops in the metaphorical bucket that add up fast.

And, okay, it’s like ninety percent about making the sale, but real talk, it’s also at least ten percent because, hey, the guy’s attractive, Ray’s shallow, 2+2=put your dick in me. He doesn’t usually do the ‘screw your customers’ thing (because half of them are crackheads and the other half would probably start thinking a quick fuck should get them a discount), but he’s getting ready to close up for the night anyway, Ryan’s in the realm of his type (that sounds bad: “what’s my type? oh, you know, significantly older than me and into hard drugs”), and it’s been a while since he’s gotten laid.

For a few seconds, Ryan just looks at him, and then the stoic expression softens with a laugh. “Yeah,” he says, shrugging, like to hell with it. “Sure.”

The club plays typical house music, the wow-I-can-actually-feel-the-bassline-in-my-dick music, where one song blends seamlessly into the next. Ray’s about as into dancing as he is crowds, but he maneuvers his way onto the dance floor easily enough, Ryan’s body a warm, nearly-touching presence at his back. He turns when he manages to secure a place for them on the floor, sees Ryan’s face lit strangely and constantly changing from the lights, and he’s expecting Ryan to be hesitant, even shy—because Ray’s never seen him dance before, because he’s the guy in his thirties surrounded by people in their twenties, because he looks the type to be all left feet and no eye contact—

But Ryan tugs Ray close by the belt loops and moves; Ray’s the one left feeling a second behind, thrown off for the few seconds it takes to find the beat and match it, match Ryan’s push-pull rhythm.

Ryan’s hands are all over, roaming, shameless, and Ray starts thinking real hard about whether or not it’s possible to work in “wanna come back to my motel room” in a way that’s both casual and sexy (probably not. “my motel room” is maybe a few points higher than “my mom’s basement” on the scale of “phrases that get you hot”).

After a few minutes, Ray jumps a little, rhythm stuttering, when he feels Ryan’s fingers dipping past the waistband of his jeans, his boxers. He gets a quick thrum of energy, electric and hot, and presses closer—and they’re practically a few degrees west of vertical sex at this point, bodies flush together—and then he notices the rough scratch of money against his skin.

Ryan grins, hands disappearing, the bills now pinned between his skin and his waistband, and Ray thinks, I want to wreck him.

Quick fingers, again, in and out of Ray’s jacket in two seconds, a bag of coke caught between his middle and index finger and then tucked away. “Thanks.”

Ray cracks a grin, shaking his head. “C’mon. You don’t even do drugs, do you.”

Ryan starts to laugh (breath hot over Ray’s face, too sweet like grenadine and Ray wants, and wants, and wants). He doesn’t answer, just grabs at him again with big, sure hands, looks at Ray like he’s going to kiss him, and—

Pulls away slow, gives Ray an eyebrow raise, a smile like he’s in on some joke Ray doesn’t know the punch line to, and melts into the crowd with a fuckton more grace than he’s shown the past ten times he’s been in the club.

Ray stares at the empty space left on the dance floor and pulls a bunch of twenties out of his pants.

So much for getting laid.

——

He wraps up not long after that, ready to head back to the motel and jerk off in the shower (that’s a sad sentence. that is possibly the most pathetic mental image Ray can come up with that doesn’t involve jacking off with his own tears. jesus). Cash from the night is pushed deep into the inner pocket of his jacket, crumpled, unorganized bills, Ryan’s twenties buried in there somewhere.

He leaves out the back like usual, the night air hitting his face, and he stuffs his hands into his pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold.

It happens too fast: a shout, rough hands, thrown against the dirty brick wall of the club before his eyes can even adjust to the yellow light of the streetlamps in the alley.

He thinks, I’m getting mugged, and then his eyes adjust and he wishes it were just that.

Information comes in harried, stuttering: Four guys, not greedy nobodies, people he recognizes, which means he’s in trouble, he messed up—obviously. Stupid. Let himself get too careless.

Ray’s hands go for his gun, immediate, instinctive, and it’s not there. It’s not there. He flashes back to the dance floor, furious with himself—Ryan’s hands everywhere, quick fingers, body too close, grinning like—

Stupid. Stupid.

“Asshole,” Ray mutters, calmer than he feels.

Hands on him again; Ray throws out an elbow, then goes down hard when someone punches him in the stomach.

He’s kneeling on the ground, gasping, when there’s a shout and a gunshot from the end of the alley. He turns toward the sound automatically, hands twitching uselessly for his gun again, and something heavy connects with the back of his head.

Stars explode behind his eyes. He blacks out for a second, fades back in to his head swimming, throbbing, ears ringing, face down on the concrete.

Groaning, he rolls over, spots in his vision. Shouts again, gunshots, scattering footsteps and Ray can’t see. He struggles to his feet, hands reaching back blindly to support himself against the wall. He barely manages to straighten up before the worst rush of vertigo ever hits him like a truck, knocks him back on his ass.

Black out, fade in: hands, rough movements, jerking him upright. Dizzy. Ray shuts his eyes and tries to remember which direction is up and keep it that way.

Black out, fade in: a car door slamming, leather seats, bile rising in his throat, footsteps crunching on gravel outside the car. Panicked, dazed, he flounders, barely holding onto consciousness and trying to get a sense of where he is—back seat, half upright, windows tinted, clouded with the cold. He’s struggling to unlock the door and get it open (what the fuck, child safety locks, what the fuck) when the driver’s side door opens and a voice snaps, “Stop.”

It reaches Ray’s ears tinny and far away and distorted. He tries to remember how to make his mouth fucking work (come on, Narvaez, words, sounds, something vaguely in the realm of human communication). Vertigo hits him again. “What—”

Keys rattling. An engine starting. “Try to stay conscious.”

“Fuck you,” Ray grates out, and passes out again.

——

It takes a minute to realize he’s not in his motel room.

The bed’s not nearly uncomfortable enough, first of all. And it’s too quiet. Ray’s eyes snap open and he has to shut them again immediately before he throws up. Okay. Save the seeing thing for later, then. What’s happening?

He shifts. All his clothes are on, even his shoes. That’s probably a point in the “good” column. And, not dead—another point.

Head’s throbbing like a motherfucker. Not good. Feels a little like someone threw him off a building. Also not good. No glasses on.

He reaches out and runs a hand across the bed. Alone, on top of the sheets. Good. Probably. Also, nice sheets. Shit’s probably, like, Egyptian cotton. Fancy comforter. What the hell, he’ll count it as a good point. He could use more of those.

So, all in all, could be worse.

Taking in a slow breath, Ray opens his eyes cautiously. It’s mostly dark in the room, curtains covering the window. He sits up. Groans, wincing. His eyes land on the bedside table and he blinks once, twice, again.

His wallet’s there, and his phone, and the coke he didn’t sell, and his gun. His glasses, too, folded up neatly. He puts them on, squinting a little.

The room’s furnished but sparsely decorated, like maybe he’s in the guest room of somebody’s house. He swings his legs off the bed and stands, sticks the landing like a fucking olympic gymnast, and takes a series of wobbly steps to the window. Parts the curtain.

The sun isn’t even peeking above the horizon yet. He looks out at the city—still in Los Santos (plus one point in the good column), on maybe the seventh or eighth floor of an apartment complex?

There’s a rattling, clanging sound from somewhere in the apartment, like someone’s fucking around with pots and pans. Ray moves back to the bedside table, pockets his wallet after rifling through it—everything’s still in there—and the coke and his phone, then picks up the gun. Still loaded, which is somehow both reassuring and unsettling.

He’s not entirely convinced he hasn’t entered the fucking Twilight Zone or something.

Gun in his hand, safety off, he pushes the door open. It swings forward silently into a hallway and the clanging noises get a little louder. No real plan in mind (he needs to work on that, the plan thing; “winging it” has proven to be even less successful than you’d think), he starts moving down the hall, shoes leaving prints in the carpet. He pauses at the end of the hall where it opens out into a living room—like the guest room (what he assumes is a guest room), it’s furnished but virtually undecorated. Lived-in, but just barely. Light is coming in from the kitchen and throwing shadows over everything.

Ray takes in a breath, brings his gun up, and moves into the kitchen.

He stares. “What the fuck.”

Ryan turns around, one hand on a waffle iron, the other holding a big, green mixing bowl. He barely gives the gun a cursory glance. “Morning.”

“What the fuck.”

“You’re probably still concussed. And you might want to ice your head.”

“You stole my gun—”

“I gave it back,” Ryan points out.

“—and threw me to the fucking wolves—”

“That’s an exaggeration.”

Ray moves further into the kitchen and points the gun directly at Ryan’s chest. “Who are you? Not a crackhead. Not some guy looking to get his rocks off at a club. You took my gun, let me walk off like Prince Happy Unaware to get the shit beat out of me, and now you’re making, what, chocolate chip waffles, are you serious—who the fuck does that?”

Ryan sets the bowl down and lifts his hands, palms up, still not looking particularly concerned. “I got hired to find some stupid kid who stole nearly fifty thousand dollars’ worth of coke off a kingpin,” he says, offhand, and Ray’s stomach flips.

“They would’ve killed me,” he says, to Ryan and to himself, as it hits him for the first time how close he came to losing everything. “Or, fuck, worse.”

“But they didn’t.”

“Because you, what, had a change of heart?” Ray demands, gun waving in a vague gesture, uncomprehending.

Ryan raises an eyebrow. “No.”

“You wanna stop being cryptic any time soon, man?”

“Saw you in the alley on my way out. I’d already gotten paid. Figured there wasn’t any reason why you had to die, as long as I had my money.” Ryan turns back to the waffle iron and lifts the top, shrugging. “You’ve got a lot of potential. And it didn’t take much to scatter them.”

“Well, I mean, business first, right?” Ray deadpans.

“That’s right.” There’s no hint of sarcasm in Ryan’s voice.

Ray runs a hand down his face and aims the gun at Ryan’s back. “Okay. Okay. Cool. You wanna give me a reason I shouldn’t kill you right now? Because, I dunno, maybe it’s the concussion, but I’m having trouble coming up with one myself.”

Ryan doesn’t turn around. “Because you don’t want to.”

“Now that’s some bullshit.”

“If you wanted to kill me, kid, you’d have done it already.” He transfers the waffle from the iron to the plate, turns, ignores the gun entirely, and sets the plate down on the set table. “So put that shit away, get some food in you, and tell me about this stolen coke.”

Ray’s eyes flick from Ryan’s face, expectant and calm, to the table, and his grip on the gun falters. He tucks it away, frowning, and pulls up a chair.

——

It’s not a complicated story.

Ray grew up pretty solidly middle class until the economy went to shit and half the neighborhood lost their jobs at the same time. Crime went up. The drug business went way up.

There were only so many months Ray could watch his mom try to stretch pocket change into a week’s worth of groceries. The crew he got involved with was big on recruiting young, so it didn’t take much to get taken in. He worked his way up from what was virtually running errands to selling coke. After a while of working his ass off, real money started coming his way. Nothing to get his family rich, but enough to get them above the danger line. Food on the table. Bills paid. A good pair of shoes for his dad.

“It went to shit, predictably,” Ray continues, grabbing for the syrup again. He gets a little bit of vindictive pleasure in Ryan’s disgusted expression when Ray all but drowns his waffle in the stuff. “The details are boring. Decided pretty quickly I needed to get the fuck out of dodge before things got worse. Skipped town, got my hands on a couple bricks of coke on my way out so I’d have a way to make fast cash.”

“You make it sound like it was easy,” says Ryan, who apparently doesn’t use syrup at all, what a fucking weirdo.

Ray shrugs, cuts off a section of the waffle, and stuffs it in his mouth. “It was,” he says, mouth full. “People don’t... People look at me, you know, and they see a skinny kid who probably doesn’t know how to throw a punch. Bunch of coke goes missing, nobody thinks to look for the kid.”

“They do eventually.”

Ray swallows, grins. “Thought I had enough time to make myself disappear by then. I mean, Los Santos, right? You can’t throw a rock without hitting a criminal in this city. Figured I could keep a low profile, wait things out until they didn’t give enough of a shit to waste money or manpower trying to find me.” He points his fork at Ryan. “And then you happened. I’m a fucking idiot. ‘Oh, hey, he’s dancing with me because he wants to have sex with me, lucky me, I have the actual attention span of a horny sixteen year old.’ “

“Sorry,” Ryan says, looking way too amused to be sorry at all.

“Took my gun and left me defenseless with four hulking ex-high school jocks from the crew who wanted to rip off my arms and beat me to death with them. You sure know how to kill a boner, dude.”

“Nothing personal,” Ryan offers, and that’s fair.

“Why’d you bring me here?” Ray asks, because he’s been sitting on the question for a while now. “Why not just dump me back at the motel?”

Ryan has the decency to look apologetic this time. “Part of the deal was that I tell them where you were staying. Didn’t want to go through the trouble of saving you if you’d just get stabbed in the middle of the night.”

“Fuck,” Ray groans, pushing his plate away and pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Half my shit’s still in that room.” Unless it’d already been ransacked, which, yeah. Probably. Some of his stuff was back at the club in his car (he’ll be lucky if it hasn’t been towed yet), but everything else? Clothes, laptop, other guns, a pretty significant amount of money, and— The coke. Fuck. All the rest of the coke he hasn’t sold yet. Great. So he needs to deal with this ‘my old crew wants me dead’ thing and chances are he’s going to have next to nothing to work with. “Man, I hope they paid you a fuckton to sell me out. I better have been expensive or I’m gonna get seriously offended.”

“You were expensive,” Ryan assures him. “Wouldn’t have taken the job if the money wasn’t good.” He gestures to Ray’s plate, standing, picking up his own. “Are you finished?”

“My life is fucked. I can’t think about eating right now.” Ryan goes to pick up the plate. “No, stop, I lied. It’s an orgasmic waffle, I’m finishing it. Just give me a second.”

So Ray ends up sitting in Ryan’s kitchen, alternately sulking and polishing off the waffle (“Are you licking syrup off that plate,” Ryan says, horrified, “why would you do that, why did I let you into my apartment”) while holding an ice pack to the back of his head (“unless you want a baseball-sized knot,” Ryan says, “it’ll look like a grotesque, deformed second head, just keep it on ice for a while”), and then Ray bails the hell out of there while Ryan’s distracted with dishes, because he’s had enough weirdness in the past six hours or so to last him the rest of his life and he needs to go try to save his car from being towed.

And that should be the end of it. There’s no reason for either of them to return to the club—Ryan because his job is done, Ray because he’s out of coke to sell and hadn’t gotten set up with a supplier yet. Ryan will probably go back to whatever the fuck he does for a living, and Ray’s going to work on, you know, not dying, and everything’s going to go back to some semblance of normalcy. That’s the plan.

But Ray’s never been very good with plans.

Chapter Text

Ray gives his remaining coke to a customer in exchange for information on his old crew; she’s gonna go in recon-mission-style during the week and find out who’s running things now, where weak spots in the operation are, what they’re saying about him.

And, sure, he could just pack up what little remains of his belongings and head up coast to a new city, start again, hope he’s not found this time. But he likes Los Santos, for all its faults, and he wants to stay if he can swing it.

While he waits for information, he heads to Ammu-Nation and throws the vast majority of the rest of his money into ammo and a couple of cheap guns—because he’d been down to one pistol and a few magazines worth of bullets, and that scares him—and then to the gun range after to put in some practice.

What he likes about the gun range is the variety of people. There are regulars, of course, like at the club, but there’s a rotation of people that allows him the convenience of going unnoticed if he wants to roll that way.

And if he doesn’t want to go unnoticed, the regulars are pretty cool, and the owner of the place is awesome.

Ray met Kendall the first time he came to the range. Kendall’s nearly seven feet tall; he’s got dreads halfway down his back, he’s covered in tattoos, and he looks like he could snap Ray in half with his thumb and forefinger.

The first interaction Ray had with Kendall was being knocked flat on his ass by him.

The second interaction was being immediately helped up, a surprisingly gentle grip on his wrist used to haul him to his feet with an apologetic, “Hey, sorry, man. Didn’t see you,” followed by a grin and a, “Damn, kid, you’re tiny.”

The fifth interaction was being cornered and shown pictures of Kendall’s three daughters—Ray finds out pretty quickly that he gushes about them to literally anybody who will sit still long enough to listen. Ray’s not really a kid person, but even he has to admit they’re cute.

It was Kendall who’d watched Ray shoot the first time he came to the range, who put a sniper rifle in his hands, who mentioned offhand that good snipers make serious bank in Los Santos.

Kendall’s the one Ray goes to today after shooting for a while, because he’s broke and desperate and Kendall’s good for getting stuff cheap.

Here’s the thing: you can trade money or drugs for almost anything in Los Santos, but Ray’s out of cash and out of blow.

So, a list of his options, realistically:

-Become a call boy (No)
-Get a job in retail (Double no)
-Use the few connections he has to utilize a new skill set (Ding ding ding)

“I need a sniper rifle,” is what Ray says when Kendall finishes helping a guy get set up with targets.

Kendall’s voice is a deep, deep baritone that practically shakes Ray by proxy. “I haven’t seen you around here in weeks,” he says, grinning, “and that’s how you greet me?”

“I am humbled to be in your presence,” Ray says. “My heart is a sucking black hole of despair whenever I can’t be near you.”

“That’s better.”

“I need a sniper rifle.”

“Whitney lost her first tooth last night.”

“Hey, that’s great. So—”

“My wife and I couldn’t agree on how much money to give for it, to do the whole tooth fairy thing. We ended up going with ten bucks since it’s her first, but now I’m worried that’s too much, you know? It’s a nice tooth, though. A canine. Want to see it?”

“Um,” Ray says, horrified.

Kendall bursts into laughter. “I’m just messing with you, kid. What kind of sniper rifle are you looking to get?”

“Probably the shittiest one you have that still functions. I’m flat broke, man.”

“Heard you had a run-in with your old crew,” Kendall says sympathetically. Ray stares. “Word gets out quick.”

“Clearly,” Ray mutters.

“If you’re looking to start sniping for money, you’re gonna need a decent gun.” Kendall beckons with a lift of his chin and heads for the other end of the range where they sell guns and ammo. “Now, I can offer you a deal, let you walk out of here with a rifle and you can give me the cash for it as soon as you have it, because I know you know better than to forget about paying me.”

“I do enjoy having all my limbs unbroken and attached to my body.”

“But I’ve also got a rifle in here that I haven’t been able to sell, and I’ll give it to you for whatever expendable cash you’ve got left,” Kendall says, walking behind the counter and going into the back room.

Ray leans against the counter. “Why haven’t you been able to sell it?”

“Because the only people who’ve come around to buy a sniper rifle are too insecure in their masculinity to take it.” Ray’s confused until Kendall emerges from the back with the gun in his hands. “It’s pink,” Kendall says, unnecessarily, and yes, it is.

Ray grins. “It’s perfect.”

——

It’s not until he finally gets the information he’s been waiting for that he goes back to Ryan’s place.

It’s exactly how he remembers, even with the concussion he’d had—sparsely decorated, neat, expensive. He gets a chance to see the living room this time, which is how he ends up sitting on Ryan’s couch in front of the television, an Xbox controller in his hands, console on and running Halo 3.

He’s pretty absorbed in the game when Ryan comes through the front door, a duffel bag in one hand, the other twitching for what Ray assumes is a gun as soon as he steps past the threshold.

There’s a few moments of silence, and then Ryan shuts the door, sets the bag down, and (to his credit very calmly) asks, “What are you doing in my apartment?”

Ray looks down at the controller in his hands, up to the television, and then back over at Ryan. “Is this a trick question, or...?”

“Ray.”

“Because, I mean, Halo, dude. Obviously.”

“Ray.”

“You didn’t tell me you were into gaming. Your coolness factor just went up like twenty percent—or down twenty percent, I guess, depending on who you’re talking to. Up for me. I say this because I know my approval is important to you.”

“Why are you here.”

“So, crazy thing happened,” Ray says brightly, tossing the controller aside. “I tried getting info on my old crew this week. Turns out, pretty much everybody in charge is dead. The whole drug operation’s scrambling to get shit back in order, so nobody’s bothering to look for me anymore.”

Ryan frowns. “Oh?”

“Yeah. Did some asking around, found out a guy in a skull mask crashed a warehouse and shot up the place. The Mad King. Holy shit, right? I mean, lucky for me, super convenient that this infamous criminal would just so happen to have some vendetta against the people I needed out of the picture.”

“Convenient,” Ryan echoes, looking both uncomfortable and resigned.

“And I was like, ‘hey, I should totally go tell my good friend Ryan about this development.’ So I broke into your apartment and went through your shit, because as you know, I am a young delinquent, and I found the weirdest thing.”

“Did you, now.”

Ray snags the skull mask from where he’d stuffed it between the couch cushions and tosses it at Ryan, who catches it with a sigh. “So, I guess what I’m getting at here is, what the fuck.”

Ryan turns the mask over in his hands and shrugs, somehow managing to look sheepish. “I thought I’d lend a hand?”

“You killed six people.”

“Seven, actually.”

Ray stares.

“I was helping.”

 “You didn’t think to mention you’re the fucking Mad King when I was eating chocolate chip waffles in your kitchen?”

“I didn’t think it was relevant.”

“Okay, protip: that shit? Always relevant. If you have any more Earth-shattering confessions, you can feel free to toss them out there at any time.” Ray gets to his feet. “Also. Also. I’m both confused and annoyed that you even got involved.”

“Not getting a ‘thank you,’ then, I take it.”

“I was already trying to decide if I owed you one for saving my ass in that alley, but I figured it was basically your fault that my ass needed saving in the first place, so, hey, I’ll let that one slide. But now?”

Ryan looks a little horrified. “What? No. You don’t owe me anything.”

“So I’m thinking,” Ray continues blithely, “I’ll tag along on a few of your jobs and give you a hand, even things out, we part ways as unlikely friends—”

“No.”

“—I can get some gun practice—”

“No.”

“—because the drug business is a bust for me until I can rack up some cash and land a supplier—”

“I don’t want to be involved in this.”

“—and I hear there’s good money in freelancing sniping skills if you’re decent and word gets out, you feel me?”

“No,” Ryan says. He sits down heavily in one of the chairs in the living room, one hand still holding the skull mask, the other pinching the bridge of his nose. “No, I do not. Not only do I not feel you, I’m also deeply, deeply regretting getting in the middle of your problems in the first place. Leave.”

“Oh, c’mon, it’ll be great. It’ll be like a buddy cop movie.” Ray pauses. “Or, actually, like the opposite of a buddy cop movie. A buddy criminal movie? Do those exist?”

“There aren’t enough words in the English language to express how much I want you to get out of my apartment right now.”

“I’m thinking, like, Hot Fuzz except we’re more competent. And not cops. And less British.”

“No.”

“Yeah, you’re right, you can probably pull off a British accent.”

“I’m—” Ryan cuts himself off, rubbing his eyes. “Okay. Alright.” He stands up and starts walking across the room. “I appreciate the offer—”

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t. And you’re leaving. Now.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re scary, you’re intimidating, you— Holy fuck, okay, okay, let go, I have legs, I can walk myself out—”

“Nice visiting with you,” Ryan says cheerfully, and literally throws Ray out the door, slamming it behind him.

Ray stands, brushing himself off. “Yeah, that’s real mature,” he shouts. “I was gonna give you back the cash I stole from your bedroom, but now you don’t deserve it.” He gets about halfway to the stairs of the apartment building before he hears the door crash open, and then he bolts.

Ryan’ll come around. Probably.

——

People with a good sense of self-preservation don’t go out much at night in Los Santos, but Ray likes the streets after dark well enough. He’s out at night a lot, getting a feel for the layout of the city until he knows it like the back of his hand, until he can map escape routes from any street without thinking, back roads and alleyways and abandoned buildings.

He’s smart enough to know it’s stupid for someone like him to be out in the heart of Los Santos too long after the sun’s down; the streets turn into the goddamn African savannah, self-proclaimed apex predators high on bloodlust out searching for prey.

Ray looks like prey.

Getting your name out to junkies and partiers when you’ve got good-quality coke, that’s easy. Getting your name out to the kind of people who hire snipers? That’s harder.

But not impossible.

Ray looks like prey and he uses that, because it’s use it or be eaten alive, because “the kid with the hot pink rifle” gets more attention than “just another sniper in Los Santos,” because the apex predators are easy to lure, and in close combat Ray’s half hopeless but with some distance he does just fine.

Ray looks like prey and he’s counting on that, because that’s the only way he’s going to get big in this city before the crime bosses know what the fuck hit them.

——

He gives it just long enough for Ryan to start believing Ray’s left him alone.

(Ray should leave him alone, he knows that, but he’s not going to, and that’s half good tactical reasoning and half something else, something like curiosity and stubbornness and a complete disregard for making good decisions where it matters most, so fuck it, so there, so he’s doing this.)

It’s quiet in the car, faint sounds of the general nightly bustle of the streets floating in from far off, muted by the heavy cement walls of the parking garage. Ray’s got the seat slid back, feet up on the dash, the hood of his jacket pulled down over his eyes.

The door swings open.

There’s a gun in his face. A pause, a heartbeat of silence. “Get the fuck out of my car, Ray.”

Ray sits up and shakes the hood off his head. “I just wanted to say I forgive you for your behavior last month,” he says earnestly. “We all say things we don’t mean in the heat of the moment.”

Ryan tucks the gun away. “I’m trying to decide what I did in a past life to deserve this.”

“The murder in this life doesn’t cut it?”

“No. No, it doesn’t.”

“Words can hurt, you know.”

“Get out of my car.”

“Or what? You won’t kill me. You think I have potential.”

“I think you have a death wish.”

Ray grins, leans back in his seat. “In this city? Same thing.”

Ryan looks exhausted—or maybe he’s just exasperated. He’s got a heavy-looking duffle bag in one hand, the skull mask in the other, and the yellow lights of the garage throw strange shadows over his face, already striped with paint. “I have an appointment to get to. C’mon. Out.” His voice is reedy, a new, subtle southern lilt to his tone. Ray catches it and stows it away to consider later.

“I know you do. I’m coming to help.”

“It’s a single-person job.”

“Doesn’t have to be.”

“You’re not tagging along. This isn’t fucking bring your kid to work day.”

“Ouch. How old do you think I am, exactly?”

There’s the barest ghost of a smile. Ryan shakes his head. “I don’t have the luxury of making sure you don’t get shot on this one. Go home before you get hurt.”

“I don’t need you watching my back. I need you to drive the car.” Ray glances up, eyebrows raised. “Unless you want to be late for your appointment.”

Ryan looks at him for a long moment. “This’ll get it out of your system, right? I bring you along, you quit showing up?”

“Absolutely,” Ray lies, and Ryan knows, he knows, of course he does.

But Ryan tugs his mask on one-handed and walks around to the driver’s side, climbs into the car. “Buckle up for safety,” he murmurs, and starts the car.

——

At least forty percent of being a criminal in Los Santos is about waiting.

Ray’s pretty good at that, all things considered. During the past several weeks, he’s perfected the art of shutting up and staying put, on rooftops and in alleyways, one gun or another in his hands. He knows how to be patient.

But it’s harder, somehow, to be patient when he’s with someone else.

Ryan is not exactly chatty. Ryan is, in fact, the complete opposite of chatty, in that he says absolutely nothing during the drive across town, and continues to say nothing when he’s parked the car in a nondescript lot, a block or so off from a group of warehouses.

It’s so quiet Ray’s pretty sure he can hear his blood circulating through his body.

He has no idea what Ryan’s waiting for and doesn’t bother asking, because he knows Ryan well enough by now to guess that if he asks, he won’t get a helpful response (and that’s weird, knowing the Mad King well enough to be able to guess at anything). He tips his head back and to the side against the head rest to watch Ryan, who’s not doing much besides glancing at the clock on the dash every once in a while.

Ray wonders if now would be a bad time to offer road head—because even with everything that’s happened, he’s still shallow, Ryan’s still attractive, it’s still been too long since Ray’s gotten laid, you get the picture. But even if Ryan was into the idea, there probably isn’t a great way to bring it up right now (hey, baby, creepy skull masks really do it for me). Is it even qualified as road head if the car isn’t in motion? If nobody’s actually driving, is it just a blow job in a car? He needs to get some opinions on this.

Ryan’s looking at him. “What are you thinking about?”

Don’t say road head semantics. Don’t say road head semantics. “Not sucking dick, that’s for sure.” Nailed it.

Ryan stares.

Okay, abort, abort, change of subject, let’s go. “Not that this isn’t thrilling,” Ray says, pulling out his phone, “but can I, like, play some music or something so we’re not sitting in creepy silence?” Ryan makes a disparaging noise. “Face it, man, we’re sitting in the dark and you’re wearing a skull mask. It’s creepy. I’ve got good music on my phone.”

“Such as?”

“I dunno, normal stuff? Rock. Pop. Forty-five different covers of Lou Bega’s Mambo No. 5.”

“Give me that.”

They’re dangerously on the cusp of a scuffle for Ray’s phone when Ryan glances at the clock again and pauses, then pushes his door open. “Let’s go,” he says, opening the back to grab his duffle bag. “Leave it,” he adds, when Ray goes to snag his sniper rifle from where he’d stashed it on the floor of the back seat.

“Are you kidding?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?”

“You look like you’ve never joked about anything in your life.”

Ryan slams the doors shut and locks the car, tucking his keys away and heading down the street. Ray debates getting his rifle anyway, because he doesn’t know what Ryan’s here to do, and going into it willingly unarmed would be possibly the stupidest thing he’s ever done (in a very, very long list of stupid things).

He leaves the gun and follows.

There are two men standing on front of the door of the warehouse Ryan approaches. They’re both taller and bigger than Ryan, have their arms crossed over their chests, and are wearing identical stoic expressions that say ‘I don’t give a fuck, but if I decided to give a fuck I could snap your twig neck in half with my pinkie finger.’

One of them nods at Ryan as they approach and goes to open the door for him.

Ryan turns just before he walks inside and puts a hand in the center of Ray’s chest, pushes him back gently. “You stay out here. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

“You’re leaving me with the murder twins? Seriously?”

“Ten minutes,” Ryan promises, and disappears into the building.

Ray turns back to the murder twins—and, okay, probably should not have referred to them out loud as the murder twins, not his best choice to date—who are looking at him with decidedly unimpressed expressions.

He gives them his most winning smile. “So, guys,” he says cheerfully, “I have an important question about road head.”

——

When Ryan returns—in ten minutes, exactly—the murder twins are in a heated debate about blow jobs. Ryan pauses, staring, for a few moments, then turns an accusatory look on Ray.

Ray puts up his hands. “Look, you left me out here, you didn’t give me an objective, I entertained myself.”

Ryan just snags Ray by his jacket as he walks past and tugs him along. “We need to go,” he says, and Ray notices they’re walking considerably faster than they had been on the way over.

He waits until they’re out of earshot before asking, “So, what were you doing in there?”

“Killing people.” Ryan seems pretty calm about it.

Ray probably shouldn’t be surprised. “And you made me stay outside so I wouldn’t, what, get in your way?”

“No.”

“No?”

“You did exactly what I needed you to do,” Ryan says, and jerks a thumb back towards the warehouse. “You kept them distracted.”

“Them?” Ray echoes. “You mean the murder twins?”

“I mean the murder twins,” Ryan agrees, smiling.

“So your plan from the beginning was to leave me outside so I could act like an idiot in front of the guards,” Ray says, “so that they wouldn’t be paying attention to the sound of you murdering people in the warehouse.”

“Essentially.”

“And you figured you didn’t need to clue me in on the plan.”

“You did just fine.” Ryan sounds pleased—with himself, with Ray?

“Dude, we need to work on your communication skills,” Ray says, climbing into the car when they reach it. Ryan gets behind the wheel and pulls out of the lot slowly. They start taking turns they hadn’t taken on the way in, more than makes sense, like Ryan’s trying to shake a tail they don’t have yet. Ray’s trying to resist the urge to look out the back window.

After a while, Ryan glances up at the rearview mirror. “Oh, this is bad,” he says mildly.

Ray barely has the chance to turn around his seat and open his mouth to ask ‘what’ before the gunfire starts.

“Get down,” Ryan says, and the car lurches forward, tires screaming.

“Holy shit.” There are a few cars behind them, men shooting out the windows, bullets glancing off street lamps, hitting the tarmac, dangerously close.

“Ray, get down,” Ryan snaps, and Ray does, turning back around in his seat and ducking behind the dashboard. Ryan’s taking turns that throw Ray against the door. Something clatters in the back seat.

“Shit, hey, open the sun roof,” Ray shouts, twisting around again and stretching into the back, grabbing around blindly until his fingers connect with his rifle.

“Are you suicidal?”

“Could you trust my abilities for like five minutes? Throw me a fucking bone, man.”

There’s a long pause, and then Ryan reaches up and hits a button. The sun roof slides open. “Don’t die.”

“Great tip. I’ll write that one down in my Los Santos survival guide: ‘Want to survive? Just don’t fucking die.’“ Ray lifts his head above the sun roof just enough to see out of it, lifting the barrel of his rifle to rest on the roof of the car. He realizes that shooting while in motion is going to be a lot harder than shooting from a stable rooftop. “Okay, try not to drive like a maniac.”

Ryan starts swerving.

“Cool. You’re an asshole.” They’re on a long stretch of road, mostly empty; if Ray’s going to do anything halfway helpful, now’s the best time. He braces himself against the seat, keeps the rifle as steady as he can, and starts shooting.

He misses the first few times, doesn’t even manage to hit any of the cars, then gets the feeling of it and goes at it again, each shot getting progressively more precise. He lets out an exhilarated shout when he hits one of the men shooting; the guy’s gun falls in a spray of blood and goes skittering down the street. “Did you see that?” he demands.

“Wasn’t watching.”

“Are you serious.”

“Do you want me to take my eyes off the road so I can watch you play Duck Hunt?”

“Look, I’m just saying, I’m being a total badass right now and you’re missing it.” Ray manages to take out a few more guys—they’re down to two cars following them, but their windows must be bulletproof, because he’s barely managing to put a few cracks in the glass. “You got anything more powerful than bullets on you?” he calls down into the car.

“You any good with grenades?”

Ray has never thrown a grenade in his life. “Uh. We’re gonna find out together.”

He hears Ryan snort, and then there’s a grenade in his hand, small and heavy. How hard could it possibly be? He understands the mechanics of it, anyway, and that’s enough. Probably. Almost definitely. He pulls the pin.

Throws it.

It’s Ryan who shouts this time, thrilled, as the whole fucking street explodes in light and debris and hot air.

Ray could get used to grenades.

They end up in the parking lot of an abandoned strip mall. Ray’s so wound up his skin’s buzzing with it; he climbs out of the car through the sunroof the second Ryan hits the brakes, lands on the old, cracked asphalt and throws his fists in the air. “We fucking kicked ass! Did you see that shit?”

He’s expecting some dickish comment or another, but Ryan gets out of the car, pulls his mask off and tosses it onto the roof, and he’s laughing. His hair’s mussed, his face paint’s smeared, and he’s laughing.

It’s like a switch has been thrown, like adrenaline rushes do to Ryan what winning the lottery does to normal people.

Ryan’s grinning at Ray like he hung the fucking moon, face flushed and eyes bright and deadly, deadly, deadly. “That was amazing. You were amazing,” he says, and, oh.

Ray’s brain sticks around long enough to supply him with the following thoughts:

-I want to kiss him
-I want to steal seventeen cars with him
-I want to see him smile like that all the time
-What the fuck, let’s revisit that last one, what is this Disney bullshit

And then it goes out to lunch, like Good luck figuring out this one on your own, asshole, and Ray is totally, totally fucked.

Chapter Text

They have a system.

Which, okay, that’s a generous term for it. For the most part, Ryan runs his jobs alone and Ray keeps trying to land his own solo work. It gets easier, marginally, when rumors start going around about him working with the Mad King occasionally. But Ray doesn’t have the notoriety Ryan has yet, which makes sense, because you can’t get big in Los Santos in less than a year no matter how good you are.

But it’s like getting your first job after college: can’t get a job without experience, can’t get experience without a job.

He gets experience with Ryan.

And so the system is Ray shows up at Ryan’s place sometimes, or Ryan calls him and tells him to meet him in a club, an alley, an empty parking lot, and they run a job, and they run from gang members or the police, and Ryan goes home, and Ray goes back to the motel.

It’s quiet, mostly.

Which is nice. Ryan hates small talk and Ray hates pretending, and so sometimes they sit in Ryan’s car for an hour without saying a word, or they’ll run a job with a three-sentence conversation here or there.

Other times, when they’re wound up on anticipation or adrenaline or not enough sleep, they talk. Argue. Debate. Ray gets to know Ryan better, which is weird and great and confusing. He learns things.

(Such as: Ryan doesn’t have a sweet tooth, but he’ll eat the green apple Skittles from Ray’s bag without complaining.

Such as: Ryan doesn’t talk about his family, but he’s from the South, and he gets a wistful expression on his face whenever Ray talks about his mom.

Such as: Ray calls them the “R ‘n’ R Connection” once, but Ryan only rolls his eyes about it when Ray suggests they get matching t-shirts.

Such as: Ryan constantly does things that are terrifying without realizing that they are terrifying, like staring for long periods of time, or holding kitchen implements in a ‘I will gut you like a fish with this spatula, don’t test me, don’t question it, I can make it happen’ way, or humming things while he murders people—cheerful things, usually, which doesn’t make it better; one time Ray recognizes ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’ and has to leave, just leaves, right in the middle of the gun fight.

Such as: They can’t be like Hot Fuzz, Ray finds out, because one night Ryan actually humors him and does the worst British accent ever and Ray nearly chokes on his tongue.)

And Ray finds out some things about himself, like he’s good at driving a motorcycle but prefers to ride on back, and he’s better at intimidating people than he thought he was, and he’s a total goddamn sucker for Ryan fucking Haywood.

It’s a problem.

And, okay, look, it’s not like Ray hasn’t tried to do anything about it. He flirts aggressively, and sometimes he thinks Ryan even flirts with him back, like Ryan gets halfway there and stops himself. One time, after they’ve barely gotten away with their lives, catching their breaths in an empty lot, car riddled with bullet holes, Ray says, “I’ve never been so turned on my life; I will blow you right now if you get over here” as straightforward and sarcasm-less as he can.

There’s a long, long pause, but then Ryan laughs, a little hollow, and so Ray laughs too, but a bitter laugh, like hahaha I’m being serious you asshole what is it going to take for me to get your pants around your ankles.

So maybe Ryan’s not into him like that (to be fair, it hadn’t been Ray’s best timing; he’d been bleeding from three places and Ryan was nursing a possible cracked rib, but hey), or maybe he has some weird issue with mixing business and pleasure, but Ray’s getting all the right signals only to have the rug pulled out from underneath him every time.

——

He tries to put it out of his mind. He really does. When it’s nearly midnight on a Tuesday and he can’t focus on Resident Evil long enough to get to the next cut scene without dying violently, he goes to the club.

It’s weird, not being there to sell. People approach him and he has to turn them away.

He goes home with a guy—he tells Ray his name, probably, but Ray either doesn’t pay attention or it doesn’t stick—who’s tall and sandy-haired and has a light, close-cut beard and blue eyes, and he’s significantly older, and Ray is a fucking walking cliché, he knows, he knows, he’s embarrassed about it but that doesn’t stop him from going home with the guy.

And to his credit, he doesn’t do the clichéd ‘our clothes are off but I can’t get into it because I can’t stop thinking about somebody else and blah blah blah I’m a fucking Nicholas Sparks character, please kill me’ thing.

They screw, and it’s good, and Ray’s into it. The guy’s sweet, honestly, and experienced, and fucks maybe just slightly on the wrong side of too gentle but works two orgasms out of Ray, who hasn’t gotten laid in months, and it’s pretty great. Solid eight out of ten experience.

He stretches out in the middle of the guy’s huge bed while he’s in the bathroom, takes a few moments to savor it, and then gets up and starts pulling his clothes back on.

The guy offers to let him stay the night, which Ray declines, and then offers his phone number, which Ray accepts.

And Ray takes three steps out of the guy’s apartment, feeling pretty satisfied, and then he’s thinking about Ryan again. His brain is an asshole. Nice try, fucker.

There’s a couple of missed calls from Ryan on his phone when he checks it, but it’s probably for a job, and to be honest Ray’s not feeling it tonight, not now. He could go rob a convenience store or something petty by himself to try to take it off his mind, but he’s frustrated and tired and his motel room’s like a three-minute drive from the guy’s apartment, so he just heads back there.

He fumbles with the key when he gets there, the lock lit poorly by the neon sign out front, and finally pushes the door open.

His pistol is out and lifted before his mind even makes the connection that someone’s in the room.

“Hey.”

“Why.” Ray lets the door swing shut behind him and clutches at his chest a little. “What the fuck, man, I am a delicate fucking flower, you could have given me a heart attack.”

“Yeah, it sucks when somebody shows up in your personal space unannounced,” Ryan says pointedly. He hasn’t looked at Ray yet, gaze fixed on the television screen; he’s sitting on the bed, playing Resident Evil—on Ray’s save slot, it looks like, what a dick.

“And here I thought we had a system. You’re the quiet, creepy one, I’m the lovable, nosy one who doesn’t have a good concept of privacy.”

“I’ve got something for you.”

“Not up for a job tonight, dude, sorry,” Ray says, setting his gun down on the table and shrugging out of his jacket.

“Since when are you not up for a job?” Ryan pauses the game and glances over. After a beat, something in his expression changes. “Eventful night?”

Ray feels his face flush. “Sort of,” he mutters, and he was having sex literally fifteen minutes ago, barely cleaned himself up, probably looks half a wreck, fuck.

Ryan’s frowning. “Who?”

Ray bristles automatically. “Does it matter?” he demands, and Ryan blinks. Seems to shake himself off.

“Nah,” he says, too careful, too easily, and Ray wants to break something.

He settles for kicking off his shoes so forcefully they crash into the opposite wall. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna be that fucking guy who only gets interested when there’s a reason to get jealous. And I thought I was a walking cliché.”

“You’re assuming things.”

Ray knows what it looks like when Ryan closes off, down to the smallest microexpressions. He knows Ryan’s doing it now, end of discussion, we’re done, I’m leaving. And Ray doesn’t want closed-off Ryan right now. He wants reaction. He wants something. “No, I’m not.”

He gets the slightest flash of annoyance for that and counts it as a win.

Ryan stands up and tosses the controller aside. “I don’t care who you fuck,” he says slowly. “Have an orgy. Have ten.”

“You’re a liar.”

Another flash—of anger, this time. Good. “You’re a kid who’s jumping to conclusions because you’ve got a little unreciprocated crush,” Ryan says calmly, patronizing, because he knows how to dig at Ray in the worst way, and it works.

It works, and it hurts.

And then it pisses him off. “Yeah?” Ray says, quiet and furious, and he’s in Ryan’s face now, across the room before either of them seem to realize it. There’s anger, foreign, burning deep in his chest, and he’s angry so rarely that it’s as if a year’s worth has waited until now to show itself, and he has to struggle to keep a lid on it. “That’s what it is? A little unreciprocated crush?” Ray shoves him, hard. “So you won’t give a shit if I tell you how I went to the club and found a guy who looks exactly like you, and I went back to his fancy, expensive apartment and I let him fuck me? You don’t give a shit about that, Ryan?”

There’s a peculiar expression on Ryan’s face. “Ray—”

“I let him put his hands all over me so I could stop thinking about you for one fucking hour, and it was so good. Took care of me so great I’m gonna let him do it again, and again, and again.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets, fingers searching, and throws the phone number he’d gotten in Ryan’s face. “And I’m gonna fucking jack off to thoughts of his dick every night I’m not in his bed sucking him off because I want to, and I’m gonna let him fuck me all the time because you’re not gonna fucking do it, because you’re a coward and I hope you choke on a goddamn—”

And Ray has to stop, because he’s realized what Ryan’s expression is.

The anger is still there, but muted, overwhelmed by incredulity. “Are you turned on right now?”

Ryan’s face goes bright red. “Is there a right way to answer that question?”

“Okay— I’m still pissed off at you, seriously, you haven’t gotten out of that, you’re a piece of shit, but let’s put that on the back burner for a second while I ask you if you’re turned on right now because of what I was saying or because I got angry.”

“There’s no right way to answer that question, either.” Ryan looks severely uncomfortable, but he’s also still looking at Ray like he wants to tear his clothes off.

“Holy shit.”

“Can we not do this, this is not a thing I want to be doing right now—”

“You’re turned on by anger.”

Ryan throws up his hands. “I’m not turned on by anger.” Ray raises an eyebrow at him. He pauses. Fidgets. Swallows. “I mean, there may be an argument for your anger, specifically—”

“Oh my god.”

“Oh, c’mon—”

“You are so weird.”

“Alright, hey, we don’t need to get into bullying—”

“How is that even a thing? Like, I’m sexy, I’m totally aware of that. But what really does it for you—”

“Ray—”

“I’m really curious, now, should I just start growling at you, or— Fuck.” Ryan grabs at him, rough, scowling, and shoves him up against the wall.

“Shut up.”

And Ryan’s breathing hard, leaning over him, hands digging into him, eyes filled with fire and face still a little pink with embarrassment but no less ticked off for it, and, well. Okay. “You know what,” Ray says, and it comes out a little strangled, “I think I get it now.”

There’s a few moments of silence, save Ryan’s breaths and Ray’s heart crashing around in his chest, blood rushing in his ears, and he’s pretty sure he’s going to have bruises where Ryan’s hands are and he’s glad. The anger gradually fades from Ryan’s expression, yields to something bordering on familiar, something Ray’s seen before. His grip loosens, just a little.

“This’ll get it out of your system, right?” Ryan says finally. Same expression, same tone; Ray flashes back to the parking garage, to sitting in Ryan’s passenger seat pleading to tag along, to before everything, when he’d been stumbling blind, leaping headlong with no helmet into whatever he and Ryan would become, business or otherwise. This’ll get it out of your system, right?

“Absolutely,” Ray breathes, Ray lies, again.

And Ryan has the exact same knowing look on his face as before when he works a hand into the front of Ray’s jeans. Buckle up for safety.

——

“I’ve got something for you.”

Ray doesn’t reply immediately. He’s stretched out on his stomach on the bed, feet at the headboard, controller in his hands. The sound’s off on the television, so there’s just the faint clacking of buttons as he lazily guides Sheva through a building, taking damage, not caring much. When he’d rented the motel room, he’d gone with a king-sized bed, because he’s a little bit of a hedonist about some things and he likes having space to stretch out.

There’s less space, now, with Ryan beside him, leaned up against the headboard with his legs stretched out, his right knee touching Ray’s side. They’re both only half dressed, and there’s a thin stream of smoke curling up from the remains of a cigarette Ryan halfway snubbed out onto a stack of cash on the nightstand.

Ray dies on-screen. “How are you even up for a job right now? Can I bathe in the afterglow or whatever for like ten minutes before you decide it’s time for murder?”

Ryan nudges him a little with his knee. “It’s not like that.”

Ray hears him shift, and a slip of paper lands next to his hands. He glances away from the screen just long enough to look at it and then pauses the game. It’s a list of phone numbers coupled with names; he recognizes a few of them, vaguely. He rolls over onto his back, setting the controller aside, and props himself up on his elbows, narrowing his eyes. “Are you pimping me out?”

Ryan laughs. “Sort of.”

“I feel like I should get at least a few more lays out of you before we reach that point.”

“They’re people I’ve done jobs for. Reliable. Pay well.”

“I won’t suck dick for anybody over sixty-five.”

“They’re all looking to hire a sniper,” Ryan says, exasperated. “They’re looking for you.”

That makes him pause.

Ryan shrugs. “I put in a good word for you. You deserve to have your name out there. Get in contact with these people, more jobs’ll start coming in. You need more practice with solo work, anyway. God knows I could use a few jobs where you’re not getting in my way.” He grins a little, teasing, and it’s nice. Ray likes Ryan in the heat of a gunfight, behind the wheel of a speeding car, straddling a motorcycle, wielding a knife. But he likes Ryan like this, too. He wants to see more of it.

He doesn’t say thank you, because he doesn’t have to. Instead, he sits up, stretches, moves until he’s half in Ryan’s lap, faces close enough that they’re not quite kissing. Ryan’s got his hair tied back, remnants of face paint around his eyes, little bruises on his neck. “I hope you don’t think this means I won’t still be breaking into your apartment in the middle of the night.”

Ryan’s smiling. “I like to keep my expectations realistic.”

“Might be showing up for different reasons, now, though. Occasionally. You know.”

“Oh, I’m counting on it.”

——

Ray doesn’t go to the gun range much now—he doesn’t need the practice, not anymore—but Kendall’s one third proprietor, one third criminal, and one third mother hen, so he shows up every once in a while to prove he’s not dead.

He’s getting set up at one of the stalls, ear protection hanging around his neck, when Kendall heads over.

“Started to think you got too good for this place.”

“I am too good for this place,” Ray says, and laughs when Kendall claps a big hand on his shoulder and shakes him a bit.

“People are talking about you. Getting kinda infamous, huh?” Kendall looks a little proud, and maybe he’s got reason to be. Ray went from selling stolen coke in a dirty club to taking sniping jobs from some of Los Santos’s biggest crime bosses, and maybe Ray’s half humming a little, started from the bottom now we’re here. “You’re all over the city,” says Kendall.

“I get around.”

“Still working with Haywood?”

Ray shrugs. “You know,” he says, prevaricating.

Kendall raises an eyebrow at him. “Got something on your face,” he deadpans, gesturing at his own cheek.

Ray wipes at his face, frowning, and then looks at his hand. There’s a smudge of red on his palm, dark, dry flecks shaking loose when he rubs at it. It’s not blood.

It’s face paint.

He tries not to flush, but if Kendall’s expression is anything to go by, he didn’t manage it. Kendall folds his arms over his chest, a slow grin tugging at his mouth. “So—”

“You know what, let’s not talk about it.”

Kendall shakes his head. “Kid, you’ve got a death wish.”

Ray laughs. “Nah,” he says, loading his gun. “I’ve got potential.”

——

They have a system.

It’s different from how it used to be, but that’s still a generous term for it. Now, Ray takes solo jobs and runs them with more and more confidence every time. He still bounces around different motels in the city—nicer ones than he used to—because it’s safer to keep moving, and he makes a private game of seeing how long it takes for Ryan to figure out where he’s staying that month.

Sometimes he and Ryan cross paths, working separately on connected operations. Other times, they collaborate, spur-of-the-moment things Ray lives for. Time passes, Ray pays no attention—a week in Los Santos passes like a millennium, like a fraction of a second; Ray counts time in bullets and money and sex—word spreads, crime bosses fight amongst themselves to get them hired. The city is terrified of them.

And so it goes like this:

Ray hears police sirens, far off, a couple minutes before there’s a knock at his door. When he opens it, the smell of smoke hits him, acrid, gasoline and burning tires and blood in the air.

Ryan’s got a few holes singed into his clothing, and it’s hard to tell with the mask on, but Ray’s pretty sure he’s grinning. “Can Ray come out and play?”

Ray starts to laugh. “Ten seconds,” he says, and darts back inside. Shrugs on his jacket, grabs his gun (he’s made enough money a hundred times over to get a new sniper rifle, any one he wants, but can’t quite force himself to give it up), and slips his shoes on (“I’ve never seen you wear anything but those goddamn checkerboard vans,” Ryan’d said a few weeks ago, and Ray doesn’t have the heart to tell him that this is because Ray doesn’t actually own any other pairs of shoes, because Ryan would sigh so loudly his lungs would probably collapse).

“You blow up a gas station or something?” he asks, stepping outside again and pulling the door closed behind him.

“Or something.”

“You’re in trouble,” Ray singsongs.

“We’re in trouble.” There’s a laugh in Ryan’s voice, and it’s fonder than either of them will ever acknowledge.

“Good point.”

“Got a problem with it?”

“Hell, no. R ‘n’ R Connection, baby,” Ray says, grinning, “till death do us fucking part,” and then they're running.