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Few people understood the true power of Gavin Free, criminal madman extraordinaire. Michael Jones, criminal slightly-less-madman extraordinaire, was one of those who did.
The Fakes’ Golden Boy had a reputation for something beyond recklessness, for absurd confidence, for such a devil-may-care attitude that no one would dare refuse him anything. If anyone did, then there was a great chance that he’d take them down in an explosive kamikaze stunt out of nowhere . Immediately. While gasping in laughter like an out-of-breath hyena.
That unchecked, lethal flamboyance was why the Golden Boy had the rest of the Fakes (and thus the rest of Los Santos) wrapped around his little finger. Or, so thought the ignorant majority of Los Santos’ criminal underground.
Michael had learned better very quickly. While it was true that Gavin was as likely to run someone over with his Aston Martin du jour as he was to flirt with them, it wasn’t really the threat of death that gave Gavin his power. Turns out, actually, that it was the opposite. Michael would eat a grenade before admitting it, but it was the promise of living -- the appeal of really, truly feeling alive, that won Gavin his power over others-- Michael Jones included.
If it were possible to successfully interrogate Michael Jones (and it probably wasn’t), Michael might’ve admitted that he got his first taste of Gavin’s pull almost immediately after the guy joined the Fakes. Actually, from an objective point of view, Michael hadn’t been pulled into Gavin’s scheme that first time so much as he had been asked, casually, to join. But it had felt like a compulsion nonetheless. One afternoon at Geoff’s, Gavin had cocked his head with a tiny little smile and a go on, then , in Michael’s direction. It hadn’t even occurred to Michael to refuse; the shrug had left his shoulders and the “sure, yeah” was out of his mouth before he had even fully registered that he was answering. That should have tipped him off, really. Him, Mogar, the nationally-renown explosives genius, type-A control freak, just casually agreeing to tag along with a lunatic douchebag newbie in gold Wayfarers on an unexplained “cheeky adventure” through town, as though he did such a thing every night. It wasn’t normal , if there was such a thing as “normal” in Michael’s life.
Then, as he heard himself agreeing to Gavin’s plan, he saw Gavin’s tiny smile transform into a slow, wide grin, those laughing eyes coming alight with anticipation, before they spun away as Gavin went to get his camera. Suddenly, Michael felt like he had just gifted-- or maybe been gifted-- a kingdom’s worth of riches. That should have been another clue.
Later, as Michael vaulted his motorcycle off of the boardwalk dock at something near a hundred miles an hour, arcing high over the beach while the boardwalk’s ferris wheel exploded in a fiery blaze of C-4 behind him, he whooped in absolute, unconstrained glee. For a split second, he caught sight of Gavin on the beach, tracking him with the camera, before he and his bike sailed into the water with a massive splash.
When Michael trudged back onto land, sopping wet, caked in sand and salt, and minus one very nice, very drowned motorbike, Gavin was sprinting towards him yelling Michael, Michael, that was phenomenal, Michael , with undiluted joy on his face. Michael grinned, and then began laughing, heart hammering with adrenaline and something else, and he let Gavin Free, near-stranger, thrill junkie, professional grand larcenist and murderer, hug him. Never before had he felt as alive as he did at that very moment.
If Michael had bothered to think about it, he’d probably have concluded that this was why he, at least, began following Gavin Free. There was something about Gavin, something about how he spoke, what he did, how he led, and how people followed, that said, I know how to live, and I can show you, too.