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It’s been a brutal day. Michael wanders the dim shores of Los Santos aimlessly, trying to wind down, trying to tire himself out. It’ll take weeks to shake this off, he thinks, kicking at the sand of maybe the sixth beach he’s crossed tonight. Maybe months. Right now, even going home seems unmanageable. So he walks. And walks, and walks.
Sometime well into his third hour of meandering along sandy cliffs and empty beaches, and somewhere well outside the city, he runs into Gavin. Or rather, he sees Gavin’s silhouette, perched out on a high, abandoned fishing pier overlooking the ocean. Here, north of Los Santos, the city’s light pollution is drowned out by the black expanses of sky and ocean, and the long shadows of the cliffs. It’s dark enough that Michael can barely make out Gavin’s skinny frame in the moonlight, folded up on the far end of the pier, his back to the shore. But Michael does recognize him, even from the back and in the dark and from a distance-- something about the hunched curve of his spine, maybe, or the shape of his hair. Or just the general, unsurprised notion that Gavin would be out here alone like this, on a night like this, after a day like this.
Michael hesitates. Part of him isn’t sure if Gavin wants his company. A larger part of him, though, doesn’t give a shit, so he makes his way towards the dike supporting the pier, scrambling up its side and and clambering onto the nearest end of the walkway. He pauses at the top to catch his breath. Up here, the damp, dark wood of the pier seems to absorb any light, stretching out like a black bridge to where Gavin sits on the far end, a small, slouched gray shadow suspended above the waves.
Michael makes his way along the pier, the rickety, rotting planks creaking under his feet. Ahead, Gavin straightens at the noise, twists around so that he is squinting at Michael, watching him approach with one hand on his gun, until Michael is close enough that he relaxes in recognition. By the time Michael is next to him, he’s staring out to sea again, pensive.
A few seconds pass. "You look like a scene from a shitty movie," Michael remarks, eventually.
Gavin glances up, brow furrowed. His eyes are a glassy gray in the dim light.
“What? You do,” Michael insists, gesturing around them. “You're sitting by the ocean in the middle of the night. You look like a kicked puppy. You just need, like, a love interest and some repressed feelings, and you could be starring in Love Actually.”
There’s a long pause. “Love... Actually?” Gavin repeats, slowly. His voice is hoarse and gravelly, barely audible over the waves. Like he hasn't talked in awhile. He clears his throat.
Michael sits down with a graceless thump. He’s not sure where the thought came from either, but he’ll go with it, just to fill his brain with words. "Yeah. Last sappy movie I saw. Like, a decade ago. But you know, that movie’s timeless. Singular, timeless crap. You’d fit right in.” He unbuckles his shoulder holster and dumps it to the side, gun and all.
Gavin looks back out to sea, nonplussed. “So... you’re telling me I’m… crap,” he says in a halting monotone, clearly trying to puzzle out this surprise game of what-the-hell-is-Michael-on-about.
Michael shrugs. “Yeah.” He knows he’s just being shitty, as usual, but he’s determined to brazen it out now. It's comfortable ground, familiar. “I don’t know if I’ve told you enough times before, but you’re very good at being crap. Maybe the best person at being crap, that I know.” And yep, there it is-- Gavin’s lips are twitching in a tiny, bemused smile. Always good at rolling with Michael’s bullshit, Gavin is. “You're also pretty unique, so there’s that, too,” Michael adds, figuring he shouldn’t get too abrasive today. “Singular, crappy, British… who knew that Gavin Free and Love Actually had so much in common?”
Gavin’s chuckling softly, now. Michael grins out to sea, feeling something in his chest lighten. Score one point for Michael’s stupid insults.
“So if I’m the shitty lead in the movie, what are you?” Gavin asks, smiling.
“Me?” Michael considers, surveying the dark ocean. “I’m your straight-talkin’ American friend, trying to pull your head out of your ass.”
"Ah,” Gavin says. “You’ve got confidence in your un-crap-ness, then.”
“Naaaah. I’m crap too. It’s all crap.” Michael waves his hand expansively. “You're crap, I’m crap. We’re crap together. It’ll be Crap Actually, the long-awaited Love Actually sequel, starring Gavin Free and Michael Jones.”
Gavin giggles, nodding. “Sounds top.” They’re both companionably quiet for a moment. Then, Gavin tilts his head to one side. “So, Michael boi.”
“Yeah.”
“Where in the script do you confess your secret crappy love for me?”
Michael freezes. He glances quickly at Gavin, but Gavin’s just looking back with an innocent, shit-eating little grin on his face.
Son of a bitch, Michael vaguely thinks. Thank god his own fight-or-flight instinct tends squarely towards “fight,” because before his small seizure becomes too apparent, he manages a smirk. "Oh, you know," he hears himself saying. "It might take me a while to work up the courage. But I’ll get there.”
Maybe it’s a bit of a strong response--Michael's certainly cringeing internally--but it’s worth it for the way the grin on Gavin’s face slips into stunned surprised. Michael laughs, burying his jackhammering pulse under a smug smile. “Gotta be careful what you wish for, boi. You just might get it.”
Gavin stares out at the sea again, still looking a bit dumbfounded. He mumbles something in reply, but it’s lost in the soft rushing of the tide.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Gavin says, louder. Is Michael imagining the flush on his cheeks? Probably.
They sit in silence for a few minutes, watching the moon hover above the horizon like a little space-boat. Michael’s composure returns, since Gavin (thankfully) isn’t pushing the topic. But without that to distract him, Michael feels his forced levity vanishing, the past two days once again rearing their heads in his mind’s eye. He looks over at Gavin, who’s slouching again, scrubbing his face with his hands tiredly. Michael sighs. He supposes they can’t avoid it.
"So, why're you out here?" he tries.
Gavin doesn't reply.
“Still thinking about the school?" Michael asks more softly, after a moment.
Gavin pauses, then nods, eyes shut, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. Michael knows that’s why Gavin’s out here, of course. It’s why Michael has been wandering beaches all night too, unable to sleep. The past few minutes with Gavin were the closest he’s gotten to a respite.
Yesterday, he and Gavin had found the school on the way home from a negotiation. It had been bad. Worse than bad. The explosion had happened just before Michael and Gavin got there; adults and children alike were running around wildly, screaming in terror. The cops hadn’t yet arrived. And in the middle of the chaos, a pristine Fake AH flag stood planted. The Fakes never left flags or other calling cards at the scenes of their crimes, of course; clearly, someone was trying to frame them. But as Gavin and Michael picked their way towards the flag, they couldn’t help but see the charred bodies, some of them far too young.
Michael screws his eyes shut. The images remain, though, seared into his eyelids. "They're never going to do that shit again," he says, through gritted teeth. “We made sure of it.” His words are barely louder than the waves, and he doesn’t sound convinced, but it’s true. Yesterday, as Michael took down “their” flag from the ruins, Gavin retched for a while in the car. They went to Michael’s, where Gavin began methodically, feverishly hunting down the pathetic, vile humans who had done it. Michael called the rest of the crew over, and tonelessly described what they had seen. He couldn’t recall the last time he had seen Geoff or Ryan look more grim. When Gavin emerged with the intel on the culprits, they all clinically, efficiently divided up the targets, and split up to hunt them down. By the early hours of the next morning, they had caught every single one and had brought them to a warehouse by the rail yard. Ryan and Jack procured a confession out of each of them in turn, savagely torturing when necessary, no amusement in their eyes. Everyone else watched the confessions in cold silence-- even Gavin, his eyes narrowed, jaw tight. Lindsay recorded each one on video, looking as severe as Justice incarnate, and forwarded them to law enforcement with a few swift swipes of her fingers on her phone. After that, at a brief nod from her, they shot each of the soulless child-murdering sons of bitches between the eyes.
That had been this afternoon.
Gavin is silent next to Michael, lost in thought. Michael, equally silent, tries to pull his mind’s eye away from images of the school for maybe the thousandth time. And yet, is it really the simple carnage bothering him--them--so much?
"Are we any better than them?" Gavin finally asks, softly.
That’s the million-dollar question, Michael thinks. They all deal with chaos and bloodshed-- they’re agents of it; they're thieving, joyriding, destructive assholes-- so it’s an all-too-reasonable question. A terrifyingly logical question.
And yet, Michael feels like he saw a line yesterday, one that he hasn’t crossed. Surely, he has not. Would not. That egotistical destruction of pure, innocent life for nothing more than posturing between gangs , it grips Michael, sobers him as he sits here, suspended in a dim limbo. He knows Gavin feels it too; he can see it in Gavin’s uncharacteristically hollow stare, the haunting images stabbing at them in a vicious reminder of how close to pure evil they live. That emptiness, that worthlessness-- that could so easily be them.
Maybe the fact that they can still feel this deep, gnawing turmoil counts for something in their favor, Michael thinks dryly.
But he can’t answer Gavin’s question. It would be an empty answer anyway, a hollow self-judgment. So he just shrugs slowly, giving Gavin a sidelong glance. “I don’t know,” he says, hating how his voice wavers a little.
Gavin’s moonlit-gray eyes refocus on him then, regarding him with unusual gravity. “Probably the best answer you could give, right there,” he says.
They both go back to staring into the murky waves. The wind picks up, tossing the water into louder, rushing turmoil for a few moments, before dying down again.
Ever so slowly, Gavin leans sideways, and rests his head on Michael's shoulder.
Michael stiffens. Just like that, his heart is back to racing. Gently, he tilts his head to try and catch Gavin’s expression, but Gavin's face is hidden by his shock of hair and the dimness of night. Michael inhales slowly. Exhales. Now is not the time to be a goddamn teenager, he thinks. The feathery tips of Gavin's hair tickle his neck.
They stay like that for a minute, Michael staring out into the moonlit sea and Gavin leaning against him, before Michael lifts his arm and drapes it around Gavin's shoulders. Lightly at first, and then he lets the weight settle, pulling Gavin ever so slightly closer.
Gavin shifts minutely, relaxing. "Thought you might shove me off into the water," he murmurs. There's a smile in his voice again.
"I haven't ruled it out," Michael lies quietly, with just a shadow of his usual acidity. Gavin’s warmth at his side is more comforting than he’ll say.
Gavin chuckles. "Fair."
“I’ll save it for the sequel to our crappy movie.”
Gavin nods, his hair brushing lightly against Michael's jaw. "Wait till the others show up before you do it. ‘S good comedy."
"It might be a while before they find us, though," Michael says, leaning his head against Gavin’s.
"I’m all right with that," Gavin replies. His arm snakes around Michael's waist.
They sit there silently. The moon quietly sinks into the sea.