Chapter Text
Ray didn’t make it more than two steps through the door of the apartment before he was accosted by Michael and Gavin, the former punching him in the arm and yelling while the latter hugged him and squealed something unintelligible. Looking past them, Ray could see Geoff laughing at the lads, while Jack shook her head in tired amusement. He eventually dislodged the lads, making his way to the living room proper to receive Jack’s much calmer congratulations and Geoff’s thinly veiled innuendo (though Ray supposed that if the word “dick” was used multiple times in one sentence, the innuendo wasn’t that subtle).
He couldn’t help smiling as he watched Gavin and Michael follow him into the room, the two of them fighting over a seat on the couch as they kept talking about how long it would take for Ray to bang Ryan. His crew was fucking insane, but they all cared for each other, or they wouldn’t be this invested in his love life.
When Ray heard someone direct a question at him, he snapped out of his thoughts to look at the speaker, apparently Geoff. His look of confusion must have been apparent, as Geoff rolled his eyes and repeated his question.
“I said, in honor of you finally finding someone who’ll let you put your dick in them, how would you like to plan the next heist?” Geoff asked, ignoring the beginnings of Ray’s protest that really, they weren’t sleeping together.
Yet, his brain unhelpfully supplied, which very nearly made him get lost in his own thoughts again, this time for a much different and more salacious reason. He managed to keep himself from thinking too hard about what Ryan would look like out of his uniform long enough to answer Geoff.
“Hell yeah,” he said, his grin almost literally knocked off his face when Michael clapped him on the back in congratulations. “What are we talking, another quickie or something more long-term?”
“Long-term,” Geoff said, getting up and heading to the minibar to pour himself a finger of whiskey. “Since the last run-and-gun didn’t go so well,” and Ray was forcibly reminded of blood in a back alley, warm skin under torn leather and a weird, heavy feeling in his gut, “I figure it’s time for a bit of a switch-up. None of our shit goes to plan, like ever, but maybe if we plan more then we’ll be able to stick to more in the end. Worth a shot, anyway.”
Ray nodded, already beginning to get ideas. It had been a while since they’d tried anything with an armored truck, and while the last time had nearly ended in death for Jack and Michael as they got caught on the highway when the truck flipped and crashed traffic blocked their escape, maybe if they could airlift it….
They could start that week, learning armored truck routes and where the best place to steal a cargobob would be, maybe even consider using the train if Ray really wanted to get crazy with it. The only problem was, all that surveillance would be not only time-consuming, but risky. They would need to work in teams of at least two for safety, which meant in a crew of five that-
“Oh, and Ray?” Geoff interrupted Ray’s thought process, having returned to the living room with the entire bottle of whiskey and a glass that was more than half full, “One stipulation. The Vagabond has to be a part of the heist.”
Ray groaned, even though his own plan would’ve called for an extra member anyway. He couldn’t even complain, since it was actually pretty generous of Geoff to give full control of a heist to him, and it was really a small price to pay for getting that opportunity.
But, come on. He would rather hire some rando off the street to do the job with them than have to put up with the creepy presence of the Vagabond for one second. Hell, he’d rather drag Ryan into this heist than deal with the Vagabond.
Actually, scratch that last thought. Ryan was a civilian, and a very kind, attractive one at that. He was way too valuable to risk being shot or stabbed or otherwise injured on the stupid stunts the crew called heists.
The Vagabond it was, then.
That didn’t mean Ray had to like it.
Their first official heist meeting was that Wednesday. Surprisingly, the Vagabond showed up on time, Geoff having called him once Ray figured out the general details of the heist. The crew, with the addition of their resident killer-for-hire, took their places at the table, while Ray stood in front of the map of Los Santos, notes in one hand and marker in the other. He waited for Michael and Gavin to stop kicking each other under the table, then began, uncapping the marker and drawing along with his explanation.
“Alright, here’s how this is gonna work. We’re gonna take an armored truck-” here he saw Jack wince, as her injuries had been the worst from their last truck attempt, but he kept going- “but this time, we’re gonna take it straight up.”
That got everyone’s attention. Jack looked much happier at the prospect of flying, and Ray could practically feel Gavin’s eyes on him as he tried to convince Ray to let him fly instead of, y’know, someone who was actually a pilot. He ignored him and moved on, circling a spot on the map.
“There’s a car that leaves from this bank every Monday, sometimes more than once in the week. Geoff and Gavin, you two will be following its route and scoping out the bank, just in case there’s another day it tends to show up. Jack, you’ll be flying-” again, Ray ignored Gavin’s small whine of disappointment- “which means you’ll be staking out airfields. Find out which ones have cargobobs, when they’re there, and how tight security is.”
He paused before continuing, wondering if maybe he should change this part of the plan, since his crew was fond of screwing him over. Maybe he’d get lucky, though, and if not, he could always switch things around later. “You can pick who goes with you, Jack, and they’ll probably be the one gunning for you during the actual heist.”
“I’ll be looking at train schedules- oh shit, almost forgot, we’re gonna load the truck on a train, those fuckers don’t stop for anything and the cops can’t drive the tracks, so we need to make sure there’s going to be a train with a flat space or an open bucket to stick the truck in,” Ray finished, tapping the train station with his marker and drawing a line up the tracks. “After that, we let the train take us to the airfield, then split up there and head home.”
Ray looked around for questions, only to find everyone nodding and looking thoughtful. Of course, the plan would evolve as they went, probably get more complicated and ridiculous. It would have to if they wanted it to be worthy of a Fake AH Crew heist; Ray was already considering adding in a limo at some point, but for now it was enough to go off of.
“Unless anyone has any questions for Ray,” Geoff spoke up, starting to stand, “I think Gavin and I have a bank to watch.”
He gave Ray a thumbs up, clearly having thought he did a good job on the briefing, despite his boring job and idiot partner he’d been stuck with, and headed out, Gavin following behind him.
“Michael, you and me,” Jack said, closing her notebook and throwing a half-apologetic glance Ray’s direction. He wasn’t too offended- it made sense for her to pick a crewmember she knew to watch her back, rather than the guy they sometimes pay to kill people who aren’t them, but it still hurt a little watching his actual friends leave him alone with the fucking Vagabond.
And old skullhead himself just sat there, looking entirely unaffected by the decision. He was a creepy fuck even in meetings, Ray decided, not bothering to take notes like Jack or fuck around on his phone like Michael or even have the decency to daydream or fidget like Geoff and Gavin. The entire time, he had just sat there, looking directly at Ray and (he swore) not blinking. Just staring, maybe listening if he could even hear past the stupid latex mask. It was unnerving, and Ray hated it, but he was stuck with the fucker.
At least, until he could make up some reason why he and Jack had to switch partners.
He sighed heavily, grabbing his hoodie from the table and not making eye contact with the Vagabond.
“Come on. Looks like we’re going to the train station.”
The Vagabond dipped his chin in a sort of nod, standing silently and trailing just behind Ray as they headed down to the garage, which wasn’t terrifying at all when Ray could see him lurking out of the corner of his eye the whole way there. Ray gave a little wave to Michael as he and Jack pulled out, silently mourning the loss of his day as any chance he had to work with Michael instead of the Vagabond slowly drove to the end of the road and turned, blinker on. Jack was an absolute beast when she flew, and the most careful soccer mom on the road when she drove.
When he turned around, the Vagabond had already walked over to his bike, which prompted Ray to yell across the garage as he walked over to his own car.
“Oh, no. You’re not getting me on your fucking bike again. You can take it if you want, I don’t care, but I’m driving my car, end of discussion.”
Ray was a little surprised when the Vagabond left his bike without a word of protest, sitting on the passenger side and saying nothing as Ray started the brown Adder and sped off. So far, so…. well, not good, but not entirely awful either. Maybe, if Ray was lucky, the Vagabond would just stay quiet and Ray could ignore him all day in favor of counting trains which…. wasn’t much better, come to think of it, but at least he wouldn’t have to actually deal with the Vagabond while doing it.
Of course, Ray’s luck wasn’t that good. It figured, since he must’ve used any luck he had to score a date with Ryan. Anything else that happened had to be bad to balance that fucking miracle out.
As they pulled into a lot across from the train station, where they could watch without being seen (because God forbid the Vagabond go anywhere looking like a normal person, the skull mask enough to tip even the most unobservant person off to criminal activity), the Vagabond looked over at Ray, staring until he looked back uncomfortably.
“You’re a strong leader. I can see why you were chosen to plan this heist.”
With that, the Vagabond let himself out of the car, leaving Ray to sit there in stunned silence. What the fuck was with this guy and saying things to completely throw Ray off guard? First he asked about his weekend plans, and now he’d moved on to straight-up compliments?
Two options. Either Ray was losing his mind and hallucinated every word the Vagabond had ever said to him, or this was part of some plot to drive Ray crazy so the Vagabond could murder him without Ray suspecting it.
If it was the latter, Ray hoped the fucker would wait until after his date with Ryan. He deserved to at least make out with the guy before his criminal lifestyle took him out in the weirdest way possible.
Ray shook his head and joined the Vagabond at the vantage point he’d chosen, wondering if he should bring up how fucking weird that whole exchange was. He wanted answers, but then again, bringing it up would mean having to actually talk to the Vagabond more, and that would just make his day worse.
So they sat in near-silence, Ray watching the trains through his scope and relaying the information on car number, type, and position, as well as when the trains arrived and left. The Vagabond took down the information in a messy, almost unreadable hand, saying nothing in return and never looking up from the notebook he wrote in.
It was the longest fucking day of Ray’s life.
He could almost feel himself start to breathe easier when they finally headed back to the apartment, the Vagabond remaining silent and only interacting with Ray by handing him the notes before taking his bike and leaving, not even bothering to come back up to the penthouse.
That was fine by Ray. Once his mind was off the job, all he was able to think about was why the hell the Vagabond had said anything to him in the first place, let alone complimented him before sitting in silence for a solid six hours. It was bizarre, and unexpected, and almost nice.
Ray couldn’t deny he’d felt a rush of pride when the Vagabond complimented him, it being nice to know that even the stone cold statue of the group thought he was doing alright at his job. Of course, that made him angry at the thought that he needed validation from that fuck in the first place, which brought him back to confusion over the Vagabond’s motive.
Was he being serious? Did he actually mean it sarcastically, thinking that Ray would somehow pick up on the falseness in his flat tone? Was he actually trying to drive Ray crazy, because it was fucking working if he was.
Ray tried to ignore his thoughts as he joined the rest of the crew, who were playing video games in the living room. It was nothing, a weird exchange that happened and was now over and therefore not something to worry about. As long as it never happened again, Ray figured he’d be fine.