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1.
Heist days were always Michael’s favorite; they started with Jack’s amazing cooking, allowed him to let off some steam (blowing shit up has that affect), and the thrill of the chase mixed with counting out their score never failed to put him in a good mood. It had always been that way, since he joined the Fakes and experienced it all first hand. Causing chaos with his friends, raking in huge loads of money – it was a joy ride, to say the least.
This time was no different, Michael following Gavin into the planning room for one last meeting, laughing and joking like they usually did. Except when they entered the room, Michael stopped in his tracks, mouth slightly hanging open.
Ryan was wearing glasses?
Since when did the gent wear glasses? Michael swore he’d never seen him with them on before. He’d seen Geoff wear them from time to time when his eyes got tired from staring at his computer for too long during heist planning, and Jack had a pare of reading glasses she wore sometimes, but not once had he ever witnessed Ryan wear anything on his face but face paint, his mask, and the occasional pair of sunglasses when they were out on the yacht.
And boy, was it a good look on him – Michael could barely concentrate on what Gavin was saying to him, too distracted by the cute way Ryan’s brow wrinkled as he read over some documents, glasses hanging a little low on his noes. Something about that combined with the messy half-bun he wore his hair in really did it for Michael, which he’d never really considered as an option. He’d never really considered Ryan an option, actually. He was learning all sorts of things about himself this morning.
“Oi, Michael,” Gavin’s voice finally registered, along with a sharp elbow to his ribs. “Quit ogling Ryan and get in the room.”
Michael felt himself flush. “I’m not – I didn’t-” He scowled at his best friend. “Shut up.”
Gavin just laughed as he sauntered to his usual seat next to Jeremy, leaving Michael to pull himself together and follow. When he glanced up at Ryan again, the older man was eyeing him with a confused look on his face.
“Didn’t know you wore glasses,” Michael blurted out, a bit more forceful than he’d meant to.
With a shrug, Ryan pushed the offending eye-wear up his nose a little. “Didn’t have time to put in my contacts.”
He left it at that and Michael was left feeling all sorts of weird emotions as he watched Ryan continue reading. Throughout the meeting, he kept sneaking quick looks at the older man, totally baffled as to why such a simple thing had him so rattled. It’s nothing, he told himself, you’re just not used to it. It was difficult but Michael managed to concentrate enough on what Geoff and Jack were saying to be prepared for the heist. And at the end of the meeting, Ryan left the room and everything went back to normal.
Well, mostly; Michael still felt a little inkling in the pit of his stomach that just wouldn’t go away.
2.
If there was one thing good about mornings, Michael would say it was the smell of coffee brewing and the sight of a golden sunrise breaking over the ocean. Call him a romantic but he liked to get up early just to experience it, alone and wrapped in a warm blanket; it always brought him a sense of calm that he couldn’t find elsewhere in his crazy life.
What he never expected though were other people to be awake at the same time; the rest of the crew tended to stay in bed till well after sunrise, excepting maybe Trevor, who liked to run on cool summer mornings but lived a floor below. So it came as a surprise to see a sleepy-looking Ryan shuffling into the kitchen one morning, eyes half open and hair all sorts of messy. The sight tied Michael’s stomach into little knots.
“What’re you doing up so early,” he inquired softly, hand resting on the handle of a full coffee pot.
Ryan looked just as surprised to see him when he looked up at Michael. “What?”
“Why are you up?” He asked again.
“Oh, uh, woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.”
Michael knew that Ryan had frequent nightmares – hell, he did too – so he understood the feeling. Without prompting, he grabbed down another mug and filled it with coffee along with his own. He handed it to the older man on his way out to the living room. With near-silent steps, Ryan followed. Michael curled up on the couch that faced the big window overlooking the city, his feet tucked up under him and blanket pulled tight around his body, while the other man stood off to the side a little closer to the glass.
Upon closer inspection, Michael began to notice things about Ryan that he hadn’t before, little things that were clearly only visible during the early morning hours when he wasn’t fully awake and put together yet. Like the softness in his face making him look younger than his true age, or the rumpled appearance of his long hair, or even the evidence of his inner nerd in the form of a well-worn university engineering club t-shirt from his college days. It wasn’t something that Michael was used to seeing.
But everything else about the morning felt normal, like nothing had changed from his usual routine. Neither of them said a thing as they watched the sun slowly rise and spread its warmth across Los Santos. Michael could feel a similar warmth deep in his chest.
It was nice, sharing this with Ryan. Maybe they’d get to do it again.
3.
“Michael, get down!”
Without a hint of hesitation, Michael hit the floor, ducking behind a desk as bullets embedded themselves into the wall he was just standing in front of. He took a couple huge gulps of air and tried to calm himself down, his heart beating rapidly after just running up several flights of stairs, Ryan right behind him.
“Thanks, Rye,” he shouted over the gunfire.
The gent’s voice reached him from behind another nearby desk. “Anytime.”
This was supposed to be an easy mission, a simple get in, get out kind of thing that they did all the time. But apparently luck wasn’t on their side and they had been chased up floor after floor of office building by NOOSE agents. Fucking NOOSE agents. Obviously somebody had been tipped off; Gavin was going to have a hay-day tracking down the mole and making their life a living hell.
“I’m gonna clear some space, distract them a bit,” Ryan declared, low enough that their combatants hopefully couldn't hear. “Call Jack and tell her to meet us on the roof. And as soon as you can, run to the stairwell on the other side of the room.”
The floor they were currently on was a huge, open-plan office space with tons of short cubicles and desks, an elevator and set of stairs on either side.
“And how are you getting out?” Michael demanded, crouching in preparation of following Ryan’s plan despite the bundle of nerves sparking in his belly.
There was the sound of Ryan changing clips. “I’ll be right behind you. When you get to the stairs, you can provide me some cover fire.”
It was a maneuver the crew had pulled a couple times before, one that always ended up with one of them with a bullet lodged in a limb somewhere. “I hate this plan.”
“I know,” Ryan laughed. “But we don’t really have many options.” He cocked his gun. “On my mark.”
Michael took a deep breath and readied himself. As soon as he heard Ryan shout go , he shot out from behind the desk and ran as fast as he could towards the other side of the office. He crouched behind cubicle walls and more desks, quickly making progress, the sounds of combat from behind him spurring him on. The second he reached the stairwell door, he wrenched it open, stood slightly inside it, and began firing his own weapon in the direction of the NOOSE agents. He spotted Ryan leaping from cover to cover as he too made his way to their escape route.
“Come in, Jack,” the lad called into his comm.
A tinny voice responded within seconds, the faint sound of chopper blades thumping in the background. “We’re just under two minutes out, where are you guys?”
“About six floors from the top,” Michael responded. “Can you pick us up on the roof?”
“We’ll be there.”
Ryan arrived right after Jack finished speaking. Michael tugged him roughly inside and slammed the door shut, shoving the panting man up the stairs.
“Jack’s on her way,” Michael explained as he followed his teammate. “How many of them are left?”
Ryan took the stairs two at a time, his long legs pushed him faster and faster. “About two dozen? They’re not far behind me.”
At this point the two of them had reached the next floor and as if on cue, the door below them opened with a loud crash and bullets began flying up the stairwell.
“Shit,” Michael swore as one of them ripped clean through his left calf and he stumbled hard onto the next landing. “Fuck!”
Ryan whipped around, eyes frantic. Barely a second passed before he was bending down in front of Michael.
“Get on!” He hissed.
“You can’t carry me up these stairs!” Michael choked out as he struggled to stand up on his own.”
There was a growl to Ryan’s voice as he jerked his thumb towards his back. “Get the fuck on, Michael, so help me god!”
Another bullet pinged off the wall next to Michael’s head and he made the split second decision to just do what Ryan said; he grabbed onto the gent’s shoulders and hoisted himself up. Ryan grunted as he stood but somehow managed to begin running up the stairs again, taking them one at a time.
A strange heat boiled in Michael’s gut instead of nerves this time; the feeling of Ryan’s strong muscles straining underneath his hands, the way his body moved like a predatory beast – it was all too much. Michael’s head was starting to spin too. It’s the blood loss, he reasoned. The blood loss and the adrenaline.
Somehow, with a monumental display of strength, Ryan reached the top of the stairs. He kicked open the door and ran out into the night. An alarm blared, red lights flashing, illuminating the black stealth chopper waiting for them about fifty feet away. Michael felt the thump-thump-thump of its spinning blades in his chest. Or maybe that was his heart?
And then Geoff was opening the helicopter’s sliding door and waving them in, Ryan still running full-tilt.
“They’re right behind us!” He yelled at the other gent.
Geoff pulled a large assault rifle out from behind him and trained it on the access door. When he began firing, Michael turned his head to see armor-clad NOOSE agents spilling onto the roof, several of them falling to Geoff’s bullets. He suddenly felt a heavy thunk on his back and it erupted in pain so severe he thought he might black out. Instead, he cried out loudly and his arms loosened from around Ryan’s shoulder’s, body slipping.
“Shit, Michael-” Before he could finish, Ryan threw himself bodily into the chopper, twisting to land sideways, Michael landing heavily behind him. “Go, Jack, go go go!”
The sound of metal hitting metal rang out as Geoff shut the door and Jack forced the helicopter to quickly take off, the whole vehicle tipping dangerously to the side. Ryan immediately turned around and gathered Michael into his arms, face panicked.
“Michael, can you hear me?”
The lad groaned, his eyes coming in and out of focus. “Ouch.”
“Holy shit, what the fuck happened?” Geoff shouted.
“Ambush,” a badly out of breath Ryan explained. “They were expecting us. Soon as we got to the server room, they ran in. Michael’s leg took a bullet on the stairs, and I think he took one in the back just now too.”
Michael shifted so he could bury his face into Ryan’s chest. “Good thing we always wear vests, huh?”
He felt rather than heard the older man’s nervous laugh, arms tightening around him. “Never been happier about it than right now.”
Now that put a pleasant sort of feeling in Michael’s gut, starkly contrasted by the ache in his back and screaming pain in his leg. He vaguely registered Jack calling the all-clear over the comms, his mind drifting off. It was probably just him going into shock, really, but Michael hadn’t felt this safe in a while, wrapped up in Ryan’s arms and tucked into his chest; the rough feeling of the gent’s own body armor felt almost soft against his face and the constant feeling of the other man breathing was deeply soothing. It wasn’t long before he really did pass out.
He dreamed of broad shoulders and running.
4.
That’s it, he though, Gavin is so dead.
It was a Saturday night, deep into winter and cold as hell out, and Michael was stranded in the middle of the Grand Senora Desert without so much as a jacket. He and Gavin had been playing a little game of hide and seek, like they often did when bored and without anything else to do, and the little British prick had managed to steal his Adder and drive off. It had been a while since Michael had lost one of their games and it was really pissing him off.
The worst part was definitely his ego taking a hit but the next worst thing was how fucking cold he was; he was absolutely not cut out for low temperatures, that’s for sure, and now Michael had been out in it for almost an hour and a half, stomping through the dry brush land in the vague direction of Sandy Shores. His phone had no signal this far out into nowhere so he was forced walk till it did and he could call someone to pick him up. He’d deal with his ‘best friend’ when he got home.
After another ten minutes, he checked his phone and finally saw one little bar. He opened up his speed dial list and randomly tapped the screen without checking to see who he’d called, fingers numb. The phone rang once. Twice. Three times. Michael was about to hang up and try someone else when the line picked up and a scratchy voice answered.
“Michael?” Oh, so he’d called Ryan. “Is something wrong?”
Of course the gent would assume that something was wrong; Michael didn’t really call him that often, did he? “Uh, no, I’m fine, sorry if I woke you up.”
“’s all good,” Ryan replied, his voice gravely with sleep. “What do you need?”
Suddenly Michael felt incredibly guilty. “Shit, I know I s-sound like a total dick b-but I’m kinda stranded out in the desert?”
Great, now he was shivering so bad that he was stuttering.
There was the sound of rustling on the other side of the call. “Jesus, Michael, it’s gotta be like 35 degrees out there!”
“Y-yeah, I kn-know! Not like I-I meant to be st-stuck!”
“Where exactly are you?” Ryan demanded, sounding fully awake now. “I’m coming to get you.”
Ok, so maybe Michael hadn’t been expecting the older man to be so ready to come to his rescue. Maybe it caused his stomach to fill with butterflies at the thought of such eagerness. So what? It’s what friends were for, right? He was just happy to be rescued, that was it.
“Somewhere ea-east of S-sandy Shores,” he answered. “I c-can k-kinda see the l-lights.”
He heard a car door shut and an engine start. “I’m on my way. Should take me about thirty minutes, twenty if I push it.”
“O-ok.”
Michael could barely feel his arms or legs at this point.
“Right, I’m pushing it then,” Ryan amended, worry lacing his voice. “Stay on the line, ok Michael? I want you to keep talking to me.”
“What, w-worried I m-might p-pass out?”
A huff. “Yes, actually, I am.”
Oh.
“I-I promise n-not to.”
So that’s how Michael found himself talking aimlessly at Ryan while he continued to make his way towards town, randomly switching topics and just rambling. The gent didn’t say much, just kept prompting him to continue. The shaking in Michael’s limbs had stopped and he knew that was bad. He kept this little tidbit of information from Ryan, though he could tell that the other man knew something was up by the change in his tone when he did speak. Perhaps it was because Michael had stopped stuttering.
Twenty two minutes on the dot, Michael saw two points of bright light approaching from the distance.
“Hey, I think I see you,” he informed Ryan. “Flash your lights twice.”
Blink-blink.
“See me?”
Michael finally allowed himself to smile. “Yeah. Keep heading the same direction.”
“Alright. Keep talking.”
But Michael was really fucking tired. Ryan knew where he was, it was probably alright if he sat down now. Just for a bit at least. Couldn’t hurt.
Except when he tried to carefully lower himself to the ground, Michael’s legs instead gave out and he fell. Hard. He barely felt the rough ground, his skin was so numb and his limbs were too heavy to move so he just lay there, crumbled in the dust and dry grass. His phone clattered away from him a few feet. At least the sky was clear, all the stars he couldn’t see in the city shining brightly above him.
“Michael, are you with me?” Ryan was still trying to talk to him, his tiny voice barely reaching the lad from where his phone lay. “Michael??”
It sure was getting hard to think. Michael knew he ought to be moving, trying to keep his body temp up, but now that he was on the ground he just didn’t have it in him to get back up again. The only source of warmth was the worried sound of Ryan calling his name. He didn’t like that he was causing the gent stress but it felt good to know that the other man cared. Really good, actually. Or maybe that was just the hypothermia talking.
It took another five minutes for Ryan to pull up in his Zentorno; he flung it into park and leapt out, engine still running. Michael could hear him saying his name over and over, the feeling of his warm hands holding his face practically scalding him. And then he was being picked up and deposited into the back seat of the car. The heat was blasting and it made Michael’s arms burn. He felt a body move in beside him.
Oh, oh, that was Ryan, wasn’t it, holding him again? He was taking of his coat, then his shirt, then Michael’s shirt. He was pressing them together, skin to skin. Michael’s mind went back to high school science, something about sharing body heat flitting through his memory. Ryan was trying to raise his internal temperature gradually and safely. This was the smart thing to do. Yeah, smart, like Ryan.
They stayed like that for fifteen long minutes. Or maybe they were too short? Michael wasn’t sure he really knew. But eventually Ryan had to extract himself in order to put their clothes back on and get back in the driver’s seat. He left his coat though, so the lad put it on over his shirt before crawling up into the passenger side. Ryan left the heater on full blast as he drove back to Los Santos and Michael huddled in the over-sized jacket, air vents directed right onto his face. They didn’t speak the whole trip but it didn’t feel wrong, just comfortable.
When they finally got back to the penthouse and they were standing in the hallway in front of their respective bedroom doors, Michael realized that he still wore the other’s jacket. But when he tried to shrug it off and return it, Ryan held up a hand.
“Keep it for now,” he whispered. “I can still see you shivering.”
Warmth once again bloomed in Michael’s chest; it was becoming commonplace when the gent was around. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I don’t need it anyway.” Ryan gave him a small, sincere smile. “Goodnight, Michael.”
“Night.”
If Michael stood in the hallway long after Ryan shut his own door, holding the collar of the coat to his nose, who was to know.
5.
It was unfair, really, how pretty Ryan managed to look while working out.
Even covered in sweat and red in the face, the gent looked like some sort of Greek god, all chiseled muscles and refined features. Even his stupid hair looked good all tied up in a top-knot, little pieces falling out and framing his stupidly perfect face. To say Michael was jealous would be an understatement.
For years now, Michael had been watching Ryan train, seen how he honed his body like the deadly weapon that it was. No one rivaled the Vagabond in pure intimidating stature, not even Jeremy with his well-formed bulk. Ryan had once admitted that he never used to work out and that he would rely solely on his abilities with weapons to work jobs. Now, however, he was essentially the whole package, the real McCoy, everything Michael wanted to be. Or have. Whatever.
Sometimes Ryan would catch him staring and Michael would have to make up excuses as to why; he was critiquing his form, checking for correct safety, anything to get the heat off his back. It used to be the truth, really, but now it was happening more and more. It wasn’t like Michael didn’t train himself – he was in the gym more than Ryan, in fact. It was just that the older man was too perfect and Michael needed to find a flaw. There had to be something wrong with the man.
“You gonna just stare or are you gonna finally confess?”
Michael glowered over to where Gavin was taking his cool-down walk on the treadmill. “I ain’t got nothing to confess, dickhead.”
“Riiiight,” the other lad drawled. “Of course not. I forgot you’re an absolute idiot.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
There was a glint in Gavin’s eyes when he smirked back. “I will if you at least talk to him.”
“Why the hell would I do that? We’re both busy.”
“I dunno, see if he’ll spot you for a bit.”
Michael frowned. “But you already said you’d spot me.”
“Oh, did I?” Gavin’s grin grew. “I’ve suddenly remembered that I can’t, actually. What a shame.”
“You fucking suck.”
With a final cocky salute, Gavin turned off the treadmill and started walking towards the elevator back to the penthouse. “Good thing there’s another able body here to help out!”
In the corner, Ryan looked up from the resistance training machine he was working at, curiosity plain on his face. When he glanced over at Michael, the lad grimaced and put down his bar bells. He wiped down the bench he’d been using and made his way over to the gent. Upon seeing him approach, Ryan finished his set and stood up. He was cleaning the machine up when Michael reached him.
There was a whole mini speech planned in his head where he would somehow simultaneously complain about Gavin and ask Ryan to spot him but then Michael was within two feet of him – and his dumb handsome face – and when he opened his mouth what came out was:
“Fight me.”
Which, ok. Big whoops.
Except maybe not? Because then Ryan was laughing that big laugh he only used when he was very happy and Michael’s stomach was doing that swooping thing it had started doing when the gent smiled and they were moving towards the training mats and wow, ok, so we’re actually wrestling? And Michael was suddenly and inexplicably very, very happy.
+1
There wasn’t much else in the world that Michael loved more than driving a fast car down an open highway; it filled him with confidence, with power, with an exhilaration he couldn’t get anywhere else. He loved causing trouble with Gavin, he loved blowing random shit up with powerful explosives, he loved having deep conversations over beers with Jack on the penthouse roof, but nothing compared to the rush he got from maxing out his vehicle’s speedometer and drifting around tight corners. He felt free.
Racing, then, made a perfect fit into his list of favorite thing. If none of the crew wanted to race, he’d go out and find a street race and join in. He almost always won those; it was in his blood and he was good at it, his teenage years built on impromptu races and working in car shops. The whole of Los Santos knew who he was, knew who sat behind the tinted window of his chrome Adder, and they respected him for it. Mogar, the Wolf of Los Santos, a living legend. It felt good to be king.
Which was why he now found himself revving his engine at a stoplight, a jet black super car he’d never seen before next to him doing the same, preparing to race them to the observatory. This was the usual deal – he’d show up to a known starting line location, someone would tell him the destination, and then a challenger would join him. It was a simple set up and it served him well, especially on nights like this when he was extra restless and needed to do something, anything to take the edge off. And this new guy looked like he might actually be a challenge, if his vehicle was anything to go by. Michael was actually excited by the prospect.
The light turned green and they were off, cutting in and out of traffic as they drove dangerously fast through the city. Like he had suspected, the other guy was good – really good, in fact; he kept pace with Michael the whole way, trading places with him over and over. Not once had Michael ever felt this amazing about a race he might actually lose.
And lose he did. By just a second but still, a loss all the same. He still jumped out of his car with a loud whoop, a huge grin plastered on his face, ready to meet the person who so closely matched his skill. It had been the best race he’d had in, well, ever; he wanted to shake the hand of this mysterious driver. It was dark, the only light coming from the full moon, so at first all Michael could see was the silhouette of a tall figure. But then their face came into view and –
“Ryan??”
The man in question put a hand behind his neck and smiled crookedly. “Hey.”
“What the-” Michael looked back and forth between the car and Ryan. “When did you get that thing?”
“Oh, uh, a couple days ago?”
“A couple – what?? And you just decided to keep it secret so you could, could, what? Race strangers? That’s my thing!” Michael could hear his voice getting higher pitched as he slightly panicked at the weird squirming in his gut.
Ryan kept walking closer, a small amount of guilt coloring his features. “No, I wanted to race you, actually.”
“Me??” Michael actually squeaked. He squeaked.
“Yes, you,” the gent chuckled. “I’d have asked you first but, uh, I get nervous around you?”
That made Michael’s face flush; he made Ryan nervous? “You do?”
“Yeah. And I thought it’d be kind of fun to keep it secret since, you know, we race all the time with the others, but I wanted to know what it was like to see you like the rest of the city does.”
“Y-yeah? And do you – did you like what you saw?” Heat flared in Michael’s face.
By this point, Ryan was close enough to reach out tentatively and brush an unruly lock of Michael’s hair behind his ear, a small hopeful smile gracing his features. The younger man’s breath hitched, eyes never wavering from the other man’s face.
“Very much.”
There was a weird clenching in Michael’s chest that he was all to familiar with; he felt it any time Ryan accidentally brushed against him or came close enough for him to feel the other’s body heat. He felt it whenever the gent laughed, when he smiled so much his eyes crinkled, when he so much as looked in the lad’s direction. He had been feeling it more and more as time went on but Michael couldn’t figure out what it all meant. Because the only explanation was that he was in love and he wasn’t – he couldn’t be –
“Holy shit.”
Ryan gave him a questioning look, hand now back at his side.
“Ryan, holy shit-” Michael was struggling with his words as the realization struck him. “Ryan, I think – I think I love you.”
Shock flared on the gent’s face. “Wha-”
“I think I’m in love with you.”
Ryan didn’t move, didn’t react, and all sorts of horrible things like shame and doubt and regret started flooding through Michael, the reality of what he’d just admitted hitting him hard. He stumbled backward a step.
“Oh god, Ryan, I’m so sorry, I can’t believe I just-”
“Shut up.”
Michael choked on his words. “Excuse me?”
The gent closed the space between them once again and cupped Michael’s face in both of his hands, his face inches away. “I said shut up.”
If you asked Michael what it was like to kiss Ryan Haywood, he would find it hard to provide the right words. Because kissing Ryan was unlike anything else in the world – it was fire and sparks, passion and hunger, power and comfort. It was a hot cup of coffee and a shared sunset, strong arms holding you together, a loaned jacket that smelled like honey and gunpowder. Kissing him was like winning a hard-fought race.
Michael didn’t think he’d ever get tired of it.
“You look so beautiful in the moonlight,” Ryan whispered against his lips when they came up for air.
“Yeah?”
A light kiss to the tip of his nose. “Yeah.” Another to the apple of his cheek. “You’re perfect.” One more to his forehead.
The knots in Michael’s stomach were gone, replaced by a feeling of contentment so strong he thought he might explode from it. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Neither can I,” Ryan smiled against his lips before kissing him gently. “And yet here we are.”
“Here we are.”
Ok, so maybe there was one thing he loved more than the freedom of driving a fast car.