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The first time Michael and Gavin were paired on a negotiation, Gavin told Michael he wouldn’t need anything more than a handgun. Michael, still only about two weeks familiar with the phenomenon that was Gavin Free, just glanced at him with a furrowed brow before complying, though he felt oddly light with only his pistol in an armpit holster. For good measure, he strapped a bandolier of flashbangs across his chest before shrugging his jacket onto his shoulders.
He drove himself and Gavin to the warehouse at the foot of Mount Chilead in an old stolen Buccaneer that evening. By the time they parked before the warehouse door, the red-gold Los Santos sunset had long faded away into darkness. Gavin, either not noticing or not caring, slipped a pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses over his eyes. “Don’t pull your gun unless it all really goes to shit,” he said, and slid out of the car.
Michael raised his eyebrows blankly, and after a moment followed suit, shutting his door and double-checking his holster. What did “really going to shit” mean to someone like Gavin? He glanced over the car at the man in question, who was fiddling with an absurdly gold pistol that matched the absurdly gold glasses. Jesus. What was with the douchey gold schtick, anyway?
“What’s with the douchey gold schtick, anyway?” he demanded.
Gavin flashed his teeth at Michael. “Optics,” he replied sunnily, and turned to lope towards the warehouse doors. Michael stared after his retreating back, then followed with a huff.
Blindly following Gavin Free was not a healthy professional habit, he told himself sternly as they entered the big, barnlike building. He made a mental note to at least ask more questions before agreeing to this half-baked bullshit next time.
Five people waited at the other end of the cavernous, dim, mostly empty warehouse. Michael shoved his rankled thoughts aside to survey them, as he and Gavin crossed the space. Four burly men in tactical gear stood armed with TMPs in their hands and rifles strapped across their backs. Mercenaries, Michael concluded, and not great ones, judging by their stances. Still, there were four of them. They surrounded a fifth guy--a short, sallow, wide man with black, slicked-back hair capping a pinched face, and wearing a baggy pinstripe suit. A walking stereotype of a wannabe mob boss.
Next to him, Gavin giggled.
Michael glanced at him, scowling. “What?” he whispered.
Gavin grinned. “Optics,” he repeated, jerking his head towards Wannabe Al Capone and company.
Michael stared. Then he chuckled. “Yeah, I’ll give it to ya, Goldy Boy,” he replied in a murmur. “You look like an asshole, but you look like a better asshole than that.”
They stopped a few yards away from the other men. Michael belatedly tamped down his smile. Wannabe Al Capone was scowling. Had he overheard them? Not that Michael cared. This guy was ridiculous.
Gavin, meanwhile, was looking around benignly. “All right?” he inquired, blandly.
Mister Wannabe-Capone stared for a moment, and then scoffed. “What the fuck, you punk-ass bitch? Did you just ask if I’m ‘all right?’” His voice was nasal, whiny, and hilariously high, with a decidedly thick, decidedly fake Jersey accent.
Michael blinked. Gavin did a poor job of stifling another giggle. Michael gave him a sidelong warning look, but his own lips were twitching involuntarily.
Wannabe’s face pinched into even more of a frown. Gavin composed himself and raised his empty hands placatingly, face in a wide and somewhat idiotic smile. “Sorry, sorry, just a, er, British thing, you know. Means hello.”
“You gotta be kiddin’ me. This is what the great fucking Geoff Ramsey sends me when he wants to take over my arms shipments?” Wannabe glared at them as he spoke, his voice already cracking. When both Gavin and Michael looked at him blankly, he continued, opening his arms in expansive, dramatic derision. “Some douchey twink who, what, wears sunglasses at night? And his little bitch boyfriend? No,” Wannabe began pacing, like he was on stage or something. “I am not fucking all right. Tell Ramsey that he sure as hell isn’t getting my shipments for anything less than two million.”
“Two million?!” Gavin echoed in a dumbfounded voice. “You’re mental! He en’t ever gonna pay you two million!”
Wannabe laughed, loudly and theatrically. “Well then, he ain’t ever gonna get my guns. You got that, you stupid little shit?” He crossed his arms, looking pleased with himself.
“Jeeesus Chriiist,” Michael muttered in disbelief.
“What was that, little bitch boy?” demanded Wannabe, his face turning tomato red as he turned on Michael.
“I said, Jesus Christ,” Michael repeated loudly.
“Michael—“ Gavin started.
Michael stepped forward, ignoring Gavin and glowering at the pasty, sweaty excuse for a man before them. “What the fuck little gangster storybook did you read before showing up here? I didn’t realize Party City sold Al Capone costumes year-round.”
Wannabe gaped.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Michael drawled. “Look, Mister… what’s your name, again? Whatever.” He gestured expansively around them. “We’re here to get some shit done, not to play out your little Godfather fantasies. So how about you just negotiate like an actual goddamn human, and we can come to an agreement, and then you can go home and play Cops and Robbers with your little buddies for as long as you want?”
“Michael,” Gavin whispered, sounding shocked. Michael glanced at him. Gavin was staring back at Michael in amazed delight, as though Michael had just invented Christmas.
“What?” Michael shrugged, feeling a little self-conscious. “He was being a dick.”
Gavin laughed delightedly. “Aw, Michael! He was, wasn’t he? What a right meanie.”
Michael felt himself smiling. “He sure is, Gav.”
Wannabe was sputtering. “I should have you fuckin’ little bitches killed,” he snarled, like an angry, massive chipmunk.
Michael stopped himself from laughing outright, but it was a near thing. He crossed his arms and slipped his hands into his jacket, putting his right hand conveniently near his holster, and his left hand over a flashbang in his bandolier. “I don’t think Ramsey would like that much, do you, Gav?” he said, conversationally.
“Probably not,” Gavin replied, shrugging. Wannabe looked on the verge of dropping another threat, but before he could, Gavin continued. “What if we just killed him, though?”
Wannabe looked flabbergasted.
“Gavin,” Michael sighed in exasperation. “That’s not the plan. He isn’t technically our enemy.”
“He’s wasting our time, though,” Gavin said, a plaintive tone creeping into his voice. “We could just take his stupid shipments.”
“Jack won’t like the cleanup,” Michael warned.
“Jack likes us, though,” Gavin grinned at him. Michael rolled his eyes. “What about you lot?” Gavin asked then, turning and flapping his hands at Wannabe’s four cronies. “Shall we just kill your boss?”
The cronies in question were looking at one another with confused frowns. One of them scratched his nose with the butt of his gun. Definitely stupid, Michael thought. Lucky for us.
“Look, look,” Wannabe interjected then. The belligerence in his voice had been replaced with some nervousness. Now his hands were up in a placating gesture. “No one needs to be killed, here. I, uh… look, I need to make a profit, so I need to sell for at least one point five.”
“Aw, come on,” replied Gavin with an exaggerated eyeroll. The shipments weren’t worth more than a million. “That’s not a profit, that’s highway robbery. Seven hundred grand.”
“One point two,” Wannabe shot back after a moment.
“Eight hundred fifty. Final offer, mate,” Gavin’s voice was still light and friendly, his lips still stretched in a smile, but Michael saw his fingers twitch. Michael slowly grasped his pistol, loosening it from its holster.
Wannabe was silent for several long moments.
“What’s it going to be?” Gavin asked again, impatiently.
Still, Wannabe said nothing, but he was starting to look belligerent again. He crossed his arms and frowned darkly, opening his mouth--
Bang. Suddenly, there was a bullet hole between his eyes. Reflex had Michael’s gun out in under a second, but before he could aim, there was another Bang and one of the four cronies dropped. Michael took quick aim and fired two shots. Two more cronies dropped. The fourth crony crouched down, and Michael realized he was holding a radio.
“Code red!” screamed the crony into the radio.
“God dammit,” Michael bit out.
“Sorry Michael!” Gavin said cheerfully, twirling his handgun and not sounding at all sorry. “Got bored.” He punctuated this with three more crappy shots at the last crony. All of them missed.
“You piece of shit,” Michael said flatly, firing as well, but by now the last crony was rolling along the floor, and ducked behind a metal crate. Michael pulled out a flashbang, bit out the pin and lobbed it after the guy. In almost the same motion, he grabbed Gavin and hauled him backwards, landing them both on the concrete floor some yards away. He rolled over Gavin and covered Gavin’s ears.
There was a loud boom, and the room flared white. Moments later, Michael’s vision cleared, his ears ringing with familiar aural overload.
Gavin was squinting up at him from the floor with a shocked smile on his face. His lips moved, forming words, but Michael couldn’t hear him yet. Michael shook his head hard, like a dog shaking off water, and got to his feet, grabbing Gavin’s arms and pulling him up as well. Gavin was still talking-- clearly, his ears, unlike Michael’s, were all right, thanks to Michael’s hands.
“Can’t hear you dickhead, let’s get out of here,” shouted Michael over whatever Gavin was saying, and then clamped his hand around Gavin’s wrist and sprinted for the warehouse door.
By the time they got to the car, Michael’s hearing was slowly returning, and he registered that Gavin was actually laughing as they stumbled along together. Michael was overwhelmed by incredulity, followed quickly by a boiling ire. “You fucking, complete and utter idiot!” he shouted, shoving Gavin at the passenger door and jogging around to the driver’s side. He yanked the door open, got in, and started the car. Gavin tumbled in next to him, still gasping with laughter. “You utter piece of shit,” Michael bellowed again, turning the key and slamming on the gas. The engine roared to life and the car fairly leapt away from the warehouse. “I almost fucking went deaf, you idiot! What the everloving shit was that piss-poor excuse for a negotiation?”
“Sorry,” Gavin finally managed through his snickers, sounding not sorry at all. “He was complete bollocks though, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah, damn straight, Gavin! All the more reason for me not to lose my hearing on the fucking guy," Michael retorted. “He would have fucking agreed to under a million, too, which is what Geoff wanted. You piece of shit,” he repeated, again. “Now we have a fucking half-dead mercenary crew out for our blood, and no weapons to show for it. Geoff’s going to fucking kill you. Scratch that,” he slammed them hard around a turn, “I’m going to fucking kill you. I’m going to fucking drive us back to Geoff’s, take you upstairs and shoot your stupid self in the head right in front of Geoff Ramsey. God, that was the stupidest shit I’ve ever seen.”
For some reason, Gavin seemed to be laughing harder than ever. “Michael, no, Michael,” he protested weakly through his laughs. “Don’t do that, Michael. It was so fun. You heard him, I’m your boy--”
“I swear to god, if you say you’re my boyfriend I’m going to crash your fucking stupid nose into a tree right now, Gavin,” Michael interrupted loudly, swerving the car rapidly back and forth for emphasis. His lips were twitching, though.
“Just your boy, then. With an i, Michael, so it’s special. Don’t kill me, Michael, I’m your boi,” Gavin pleaded absurdly, in between his giggles.
Michael finally started laughing too. “You’re a piece of shit, is what you are. You fucking ass. Why the fuck did Geoff ever hire you?”
“I’m lovely, Michael,” Gavin protested. “Like you. Lovely Michael. Don’t kill me.”
Michael felt something like amusement, or happiness, or that something else again, collide with what remained of his ire. He let out an exaggerated sigh. “I’m nothing like you, you dick. But, y’know, fine. I guess you’re still the new guy around here. I’ll let Geoff pass judgment on your frankly impressive bullshit decision making skills.”
“You loved it.”
When they finally got back to Geoff’s, Geoff rolled his eyes and called them idiots. Jack tutted at them both, and then set about planning a scheme to dismantle the rest of the mercenary crew whom they had decimated. Ryan grumbled something about missing all the fun, and Ray blandly commented that it sounded like Gavin knew how to show a guy a good time.
Later at night, in the silence and darkness of his own room, Michael would maybe admit that he didn’t entirely disagree with Ray’s assessment.