Work Text:
There are a lot of things he’s learned not to question over the years.
Ray figured out a long time ago that Los Santos was a cesspool of the worst kinds of criminals. Not that New York had been much different, but here the law doesn’t rule; the gangs do. The crews that run block after block, constantly competing for territory and trying to out-do each other in elaborate heists. He’s never seen the appeal, personally. He’s quick, good at keeping to the shadows. He picks pockets and deals drugs and somehow manages to stay out of the spotlight, so he can never understand the people who make a show of the whole affair.
So he doesn’t question why the police don’t patrol everywhere as often as they should or why they gloss over small-time thieves like him; there are always bigger, badder, more dangerous priorities.
It’s a small job, brought by one of his newer customers, but the pay is good enough that he’ll be set for rent and food for another three months. Spending money is another thing entirely, but he figures he can scrape together enough for Prototype 2 somehow.
The job is as follows: break into the two-story ranch house on the outskirts of town, find the computer, and make out with either just the files or the whole machine (“Whatever works”, his guy had said breezily). And if the house turned out to be empty, well, Ray wasn’t told he couldn’t try and find some cash or shit to sell.
He pulls out of the underground parking cursing his shitty Toyota for stalling repeatedly and dreading having to pay for repairs. Tonight’s mark is already loaded into his phone’s GPS, so he follows the automated instructions and cruises down the highway. When he’s almost at his destination, he pulls over not far from the house and shuts off his phone, tossing it in the glove compartment with everything he didn’t manage to sell today. The whole car smells like chemicals, but he’s used to it.
Working fast, he pops open the trunk and arms himself; a knife slides easily into his boot, his lock picks are carefully stored in the front pocket of his hoodie, and he hesitates before picking up a loaded pistol. Making sure the safety is on, he tucks it into the back of his belt. He’s sure he won’t need it, but the solid weight of a loaded .22 is comforting all the same. He closes the trunk and locks the car before pulling up his hood and sprinting across the road, up the small grassy hill, and over a low wooden fence.
The house is a squat wooden building dwarfed by the property it’s built on. It’s been kept in decent shape, with the trim painted dark green and the wrap-around porch swept clean and furnished. A cooler sits beside a small table with five chairs around it, and there are a few bottles still on the table and railing. Ray mutters a curse. There were people here earlier; there’s no telling if someone’s still hanging around. Still, he has a job to do, and he needs the money. Deciding to put his faith in his mad skills, he kneels by the door and unrolls his lock picks. They’re definitely the nicest things he owns, second only to his consoles. The lock is more complicated than he expects, but still only takes him about a minute. Before he knows it he’s stepping carefully into the house.
If the outside was nicer than expected, the inside is downright mind-blowing. There’s artwork on the walls and a flat screen sits in front of a long leather couch. The floor is covered by what looks like the softest carpets he’s ever seen in his life and holy fuck, that’s a goddamn double-doored fridge in the kitchen.
But now’s not the time for gawking at everything like an idiot. A quick scan of the main room and kitchen shows no sign of any computers, so his options are upstairs or through the door behind the living room. It’s two am, he reasons. If anyone’s here, they’ll be upstairs in a bedroom. Better play it safe and finish sweeping down here first. The door is once again locked, but it’s much simpler than the front door and he opens it in seconds. He’s found his target, but it throws a huge wrench in his plans. Where he’s been expecting (hoping for) a laptop, there’s two large monitors and a hulking external hard drive. Whoever owns this place really didn’t want anyone making off with this thing, which begs the question; who exactly is he dealing with? And what has he gotten himself into?
He hears the click of a cocked gun behind him.
Oh, fuck.
The guy with the gun to his head is broad-shouldered and intimidating enough without the black skull mask. Ray finds himself frozen, staring down the barrel of a gun. When he tries to look at their face, all he sees are cold, icy-blue eyes.
“Uhh… Pizza delivery?” He immediately regrets his decision. The gun goes down, thankfully, but Skull Mask quickly follows by literally lifting him by his hood, choking and half-dragging him back out into the main room. “Ow, ow, ow, ow, Jesus Christ dude can you not - ?!”
He’s tossed into a hard wooden chair, which knocks the breath out of him. He debates reaching for his knife or his gun, but his opportunity is gone as soon as it appears. It’s not just him and Skull Mask anymore. He feels himself pale.
Geoff Ramsey is infamous, not just in Los Santos but everywhere. It kind of comes with the territory when you run the strongest crew on the West Coast. If he wanted to, Ramsey could own the entire county at least. Instead, he’s chosen to make himself the scourge of the city, blowing up buildings and robbing banks and basically just flipping off the entire police department. His territory is practically everything.
What the stories never included was that his laugh is the most ridiculous sound to ever grace this earth.
“Wait,” he says, cackling. “This is the one trying to take our shit? This kid got past you?” He’d take offense to that if he wasn’t literally about to shit his pants.
“Not for long,” grumbles a deep voice from under the mask. Now that he’s seen Ramsey, he knows this isn’t some wannabe copycat; this is the actual Vagabond, the Mad King himself.
You don’t survive long in the underground of this city without knowing about the Fake AH Crew. So he knows the chances surviving this are dwindling by the minute. This whole robbery was a bust from the beginning; his client must have known what he was sending him in to, and he sent him anyway. Of course he wanted those files. Information on the Crew sells like nothing else.
Ramsey has a gun held easily at his side, but to Ray’s surprise he pulls out another chair and sits across from him.
“So,” he says, perfectly relaxed. When his gaze hardens the transition is instant. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Ray has two options here; tell the truth and hopes they go easy on him, or try to lie his way out of this mess. He’s always had a silver tongue, but he doubts being caught in a lie will endear him to two of the most dangerous men in the state.
“I was hired to steal your shit,” he says bluntly. “I can give you the name of the guy who hired me. He’s an asshole. Didn’t tell me what I was getting into.” What can he say, he’s a vengeful guy.
Ramsey seems to consider this for a moment, tilting his head and pursing his lips. It only serves to draw attention to his impressive, albeit ridiculous, handlebar mustache.
“How old are you?” the question is abrupt and unexpected, Ramsey’s eyes glinting unexpectedly blue, cool and calculating.
“…23,” Ray says, justifying the lie by telling himself his birthday’s in a couple months anyway, no big deal. Ramsey sits back and crosses his arms, nodding silently. He turns to look up at the Vagabond, who’s been standing still and silent behind his shoulder the whole time.
“What do you think?”
“Are you seriously considering –“
“We need a sixth, and you have to admit he’s good for a kid.”
“…A trial run first. Like last time.” Ramsey nods and turns back to Ray, who’s confused but thinks he’s probably going to live? Most people who try and fuck with the Fakes don’t have that.
“So your client’s an asshole,” Ramsey starts, and Ray nods because he gets the feeling that it’s expected of him. “And you’re a rookie kid with no crew and decent skills.”
“I can hold my own.” Ray says defensively. Ramsey claps and grins, delighted.
“That’s what I hoped you’d say.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees and hands clasped loosely in front of him. “What do you say to a… job interview?”
Ray is stunned. This crew is notorious for being the most elite in the business, with ties to fucking RoosterTeeth and the best of the best in terms of members. He’s a small-time dealer from Brooklyn, nothing special, nothing notable.
“Um.”
Ramsey looks at him expectantly. Ray feels himself start to crack under the pressure of his gaze.
“Look man, I don’t know shit about running with a crew. I fly solo. I’m a free spirit. Gotta follow my own path, make my own destiny – “
“And how much is that making you a week?” The question stumps him. Ramsey sees his expression and grins like he knows he’s won. “My crew gets everything. Money, babes, cars, everything. So again; do you want in?”
Ray thinks back to his shitty Toyota and his shittier apartment, the pistol in the back of his jeans with his last set of ammo and all the shit in his car that he’ll never be able to sell for enough to keep buying stock. He thinks about watching gang wars from rooftops and paling as he had to walk through the blood and rubble. He thinks about his mother saying “stay away from gangs, chico, be my brilliant college boy”. He thinks about all the opportunities he’s never had.
“… I’m in.”
Ramsey grins, wide and manic.
“Perfect.”
As the two men hustle him out the door, he mentions his car parked just down the street.
“Got any ID in there?” Vagabond asks curtly.
“I’m not an idiot,” Ray says. “All that shit’s at my apartment.”
Vagabond nods and keeps walking.
Ramsey slings an arm over his shoulders. “Don’t sweat it, kid. I’ll have someone to get rid of it and you can have any car you like after your first job.” The thought is comforting.
He’s piled in to a shiny red Hummer with no plates, Ramsey at the wheel and Vagabond in the passenger seat. Ray sits awkwardly in the back, tugging at the sleeves of his worn grey hoodie and looking out the tinted window as they enter the city once more. While the outskirts are lit only by streetlamps, the city itself is almost blinding. The casinos glow gold and the red light district is all neon and covered in a haze of smoke. Apartment buildings climb high, with wide balconies and whole walls of glass. Sirens wail in the distance and the bars they pass have the doors propped open to combat the late summer heatwave, letting raucous drunken laughter drift out into the streets.
Ramsey and Vagabond take him to the heart of downtown, a place Ray’s only been a few times on some higher-paid jobs. He prefers small, smoky rooms and dark alleys for dealing and the tourist-trap of a pier for petty theft. He tries not to stare at everything they pass, but everything screams ‘money’ and he’s always really, really liked money.
They pull into a large, white-walled garage. It’s filled with all sorts of vehicles, from bikes to convertibles to the crew’s iconic Roosevelt, the logo airbrushed on the hood. There are helmets along one wall and weapons on a rack by the elevator doors. Ramsey slots a keycard into the call button and the green light above the door flashes on. The doors slide open and the ride up is silent. Ray watches as the floor count gets higher and higher. They get off at the fortieth floor and enter the first door on the right.
The penthouse is probably about as big as his high school, with at least two stories. A flight of stairs is tucked in a far corner, and across from that is a glass wall that looks out across the whole city. There’s a giant flat screen on the wall with a bunch of consoles attached, what looks like a fully-stocked kitchen, and a hallway lined with doors that Ray assumes lead to offices and bedrooms. On one of the grey sectionals sits a ginger woman in what is possibly the gaudiest shirt he’s ever seen. She doesn’t look up as the trio enters.
“You’re home early,” she says, her voice deeper than most but not unpleasant.
“Brought home a stray,” Ramsey replies easily, and that’s when she looks away from her computer. Her gaze zeroes in on Ray immediately, somehow even more scrutinizing than her boss’s.
She sighs, “Again?” And Ramsey just grins.
“I tried to stop him,” Vagabond offers.
“I know you did,” she says, as if this is a common occurrence. “Fine, Geoff, what’s his name?”
“This,” he starts grandly, “is…”
“…You didn’t ask his name.”
“Fuck.”
Just then, a demented-sounding bird squawks and one of the closed doors flings open. A tool in dumb mirrored shades bolts straight for Ramsey – Geoff – and uses him as a human shield. Enraged yelling follows him from the evacuated room, and there’s the sound of crashing and stomping footsteps.
“C’mere you fuck!”
“Michael no - !” Another guy, with disheveled curls poking out from under a black beanie, pulls the Brit out by the arm and tackles him. Shades screeches and swings wildly at his attacker’s face, his fist easily avoided. Ginger looks calmly back at Geoff.
“They were gaming again,” she says in explanation. Geoff groans and rubs at the bridge of his nose. The two are still wrestling on the floor, apparently oblivious to everything going on around them. That is, until Vagabond steps in and hoists them up by the backs of their shirts. Good, it’s not just an enemy thing.
“Oi, watch it!”
“What the hell – oh, hey Geoff.”
And now this officially becomes the weirdest day in Ray’s life, because he knows this asshole.
“Michael?” His old gaming buddy looks at him oddly for a moment before a disbelieving grin crosses his face and he wriggles out of Vagabond’s grip.
“Ray! What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Happy birthday, asshole.” He deadpans, and Michael cackles.
“You’re off by a month, but nice try.”
“Wait a second,” Geoff interrupts. “You know each other?”
“Hell yeah we do,” Michael says happily. “East Coast, represent.” They ceremoniously fist bump. “Back when I was in Jersey I was his only contact with other people.”
“Liar,” Ray says, grinning. “It’s more like I was the only one who could put up with your constant screaming.”
“Well it’s nice to know he’s always been like that,” Geoff muses before getting back to business. “Alright, listen up assholes, this is Ray.” (as if he hadn’t just learned his name a minute ago) “He’s a sneaky little bitch, which is what we need for tomorrow’s job, so we’re calling it a job interview.”
“Sup.”
“Ray, this is my crew.” Geoff says it proudly, a smug grin firmly planted on his face. “Apparently none of them know how to sleep like normal people, but that makes introductions easier. We’ve got my right-hand lady, Jack.” The ginger nods, and Ray doesn’t really know how to respond to the silent greeting so he nods back. “You’ve met Ryan, his specialty is being a creepy motherfucker, and apparently you know Michael already so everyone better get ready for whatever messes these two make.”
There’s a moment of silence, then someone clears their throat. Geoff acts surprised.
“Oh, right. Gavin ‘The Mistake’ Free, our token foreigner.”
“Well that’s just rude, innit?” Gavin says indignantly. Apparently Michael is reminded of the Brit’s existence, and he immediately starts yelling again. Even after a few years, Ray can tune it out pretty well, and apparently the others can too.
“So what’s happening tomorrow?” He asks.
“The Vagos are sponsoring a shop in our territory,” says Jack. “So we’re gonna rob them and torch the place.”
He’d say that seems a bit harsh, but he figures he’ll have to get used to it. It’s not like he’s never killed before; he just doesn’t particularly enjoy it. Besides, he’s run into the Vagos before, and they’re not exactly good people. They crashed the party he was dealing at, the assholes. He was just about to get paid and laid.
“And you need me because…?”
“We need someone to disable the alarms,” she replies. “We tried to get it done remotely but it would have taken too long. We need to hit them before they really get established.”
Ray considers this. “So I find the control panel, cut the power, and we grab the goods?”
“Basically, but according to our intel the panel’s inside the main office. You’ll need to get in there before it opens, disable it, and then hide out. We’ll be there about an hour after opening.” Jack seems to have the whole plan laid out, and he trusts himself to get in and out and find a perch nearby to wait. He agrees to the job, not that he has much of a choice now that he’s in their penthouse hideout.
Everything settles quickly enough, Gavin and Michael heading back to finish their game session and Jack claiming she needs at least a few hours of sleep before tomorrow. Geoff points out the bathroom and an empty bedroom before pouring himself a drink and holing himself up somewhere. Vagabond – who he can’t bring himself to call Ryan as long as he keeps wearing that fucking mask – stops him before he can open his door, placing a large, heavy hand on his shoulder.
“What you did to your client today,” he says quietly, voice icy cold. “Ratting him out. You don’t do that here.”
“I know,” Ray says. “I won’t”
“If you do…” The threat is left silent and hanging, and Ray can think of a hundred awful things Vagabond could do to him just off the top of his head.
“I got it,” he says, a bit more forcefully this time.
He shrugs Vagabond’s hand off his shoulder (though he suspects the man let him, that he could have kept his grip and squeezed hard enough to -) and shuts the door in his stupid masked face. He won’t sleep well tonight, but he’ll at least doze enough to be alert the next morning.
The job is going smoothly enough. It’s not his first time working in a group, but it’s his first time with a crew. He’s surprised by how synchronized they are, even though the scene is complete chaos. They move like they know what gaps to fill, and Ray’s left to load everything – cash, cheques, manila folders stuffed with papers and photos – into a backpack.
Then the Vagos show up and everything goes to shit.
He hears the screech of tires from the back alley and the main road, and the others hear it too judging by the frantic yelling and cursing as everyone reloads. Ray sprints out into the main floor of the shop and, spotting his chance, takes a spot by the door, gun at the ready. It’s a higher caliber than any he’s used before but feels good in his hand, solid and reliable as he takes shot after shot. He likes to think he’s a good shot, having learned to stop feeling and only think for as long as it takes to get the job done. When he calls that he’s out of ammo, pissed that he didn’t think to pack more, Gavin tosses him a smaller pistol and Ray shrugs before getting back to work, firing from a terrible vantage point but still managing to take out one after another.
It all comes to a head when Vagabond lets loose a berserker battle cry and pulls out the rocket launcher he’s had strapped to his back (“Just in case,” he’d said when questioned). He leaves craters in the pavement and huge dents in what’s left of the Vagos’ force. They’re the Crew’s biggest rival, matching brains with manpower, their numbers always changing and always high, but all things considered the Fakes are doing pretty well.
“I don’t get why we couldn’t just blow the place sky-high,” Michael complains as Geoff comes back from mowing the rest down with his machine gun. Ray’s learned over the course of about a day with a comm crackling in his ear that Michael’s the explosion guy.
“Cause I wanted their shit,” Geoff replies easily, handing a full canister of gasoline to Ray with instructions to douse the place. “And we have shops on this block too. I’d rather not bomb my own investments.” He shoots a sour look towards Vagabond, but the masked man either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.
Michael grumbles and complains, but still lights an entire matchbox on fire and tosses it into the store, grinning as fire roars to life and eagerly begins consuming the building. He stands for a minute just watching the flames, the firelight painting him red and gold. Ray finds it hard to look away.
They pile into the Roosevelt, Michael and Gavin hanging off the sides and cheering loudly. Geoff laughs along with them, and even Jack joins in and honks the ridiculous novelty horn. Vagabond moves to remove his mask, his whole demeanor shifting into one far more at ease, before catching himself and leaving it in place. Ray notices but doesn’t comment.
“So,” Geoff asks when they’re back in the apartment. He’s in a tacky ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron with a spatula in one hand. “What do you think?”
Ray looks around the room. Gavin is leaning against Michael’s back and loudly retelling the entire gunfight from his point of view, as Michael shakes his head and laughs, elbowing him in the side and demanding some “goddamn personal space, boi!” Vagabond looks more at ease than yesterday, but still keeps the mask on even while uncovering his mouth to sip his Diet Coke. Jack sits on the arm of his seat bandaging up a gash on his forearm and poking him in the side until he looks up and actually smiles at her. Geoff’s making some needlessly complicated dish that smells amazing and Michael promised cannoli tomorrow if someone goes for groceries with him.
He grins at Geoff and shrugs, a lopsided grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Eh, I think I’ll stick around. Just for the hell of it”