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Ryan enjoys the silence.
It’s been one year, six months, and seventeen days since the limit was enacted. One hundred and sixty-seven words per person, per day, and once you hit that—you’re done. The one hundred and sixty-eighth word is yanked from your lips and replaced with an unbreakable silence that will last until the next day.
He’s adjusted well; he’s never exactly been the most talkative guy, and now that everyone else is limited in their speech, he finds it easier to get things done. Maybe not easier, per se, but more peaceful. So, he doesn’t mind. Small talk has been relegated to silent gestures, nods, hand movements, handwritten notes. Sign language is at an all time high. And all that? It’s okay with him.
But not everyone’s adjusted as well as he has.
———
Ryan meets up with the others one morning, the hazy Los Santos dawn giving way to a blisteringly hot midday. They’re on the sparsely populated edge of town, in one of their many safe houses, and Ryan pulls up on his motorcycle to find Geoff glaring down at Gavin, who’s pouting on the front steps. Geoff either finishes the day with most of his words or none of his words left, no in between; he tends to get caught in the moment, and his eyes just don’t light up the same way when he explains a plan nonverbally. Ryan inclines his head, What happened? even though he already knows the answer.
Sure enough, Geoff draws a finger over his throat. Gavin’s out of words. Again. The kid looks so fucking bummed out that Ryan can’t help but pat his shoulder sympathetically as he passes him to step into the house. Of course, once he shuts the door, he has to fight back a laugh, but it still stands.
Michael is standing just inside, grinning with self-satisfaction. Ryan raises his eyebrows—again?—and Michael nods proudly. Michael either uses up all of his words on expletives when things go wrong, or trying to get Gavin to use up all of his, and Ryan doesn't think he's ever finished a day without hitting the limit. He shakes his head at Michael, trying to put a stern, admonishing face on. Stop torturing Gavin.
It’s less effective because he’s still smiling himself. Michael just shrugs.
“Worth it,” he says out loud, still grinning.
“Ray?” Ryan asks, using up his first word of the day. Michael jerks his head towards the back of the house and Ryan nods in thanks.
Ray usually uses up all of his words. On what, everybody else always wonders, but Ryan knows--he uses them on Ryan, and for him. Today, he's sprawled across a couch, 3DS in hand, and his eyes flick to Ryan as he enters, and he smiles. He sits up, making room.
You ready to gooooooooo, every bit of his body language is saying, and Ryan can practically hear him. Then he can literally hear him, because he's leaning towards Ryan and putting a hand on his shoulder and saying, "You ready to gooooooooo?!"
And Ryan just laughs and claps Ray's hand, revelling in the warm smile he gets back, because when you’re limited in what you can say, you have to start relying on more tactile methods of communication. Especially when what you would like to say would take more days’ worth of words than either of you probably have left.
———
(So maybe Ryan touches Ray more than is strictly necessary for a couple of friends. So what? Ray doesn’t complain, either out loud or otherwise, just moves into his touch and tries to hide a slight smile on his lips. And Ryan doesn’t ask about it when Ray knocks gently on his door in the middle of the night, just lets Ray curl up in bed beside him and talks to him, saying nothing of any importance, until his words run out, and when they do, he just lays there silently, idly tracing shapes on Ray’s thin back until he feels him fall asleep. And Ray pulls Ryan’s head against his shoulder sometimes, early in the morning when the others have gone to bed and it’s just the two of them on the couch watching a crappy movie or playing a game with the sound turned off, and Ryan shuts his eyes and listens to the soft, steady sound of Ray’s voice.
And, inevitably, he wakes up from a few hours’ fitful sleep and thinks about how far gone he is, how bad he has it for this scrawny kid.
But they’re still just friends.
Right?)
———
But it’s the night of the heist, no time for such thoughts; things go wrong, and Ryan wastes fifty-seven words trying to corral Gavin to safety through his earpiece, and another four swearing under his breath. He and Ray are holed up in an alley off a side street, waiting for the first wave of cops to pass before they make their escape. Jack and Geoff have the money, ostensibly, and Gavin and Michael have gotten themselves cornered on the wrong side of town, and everyone's headsets are on the fritz. It's pretty fucked, and not in the fun way.
"Fuck this, " he says to Ray. Ray nods, focused on un-jamming his gun. It had misfired earlier, nearly getting him killed until Ryan had taken out the cop bearing down on him. He had thanked him with a gentle hand on Ryan's upper arm, a thin stressed smile.
“--Ryan!” Geoff’s voice fizzes and cracks in his earpiece. “Get Michael and Gavin. We can’t--” His voice cuts out, and Ryan can hear, distantly through the white noise, the sound of his fist hitting the dashboard of a car. Geoff’s out of words.
“We’re just about fucked, too,” Jack speaks up. He’s calmer than Geoff, but Ryan can sense the stress in his voice. “Heading out of the city. You guys get them. We’ll help as much as we can.”
“Got it,” Ryan says. He nods to Ray, who’s already broken the window of a nearby car and tossed his bag inside, looking over at Ryan with a tired grin.
“Let’s do something reckless.”
———
When they finally track down Michael and Gavin (helped along by the trail of destruction they leave wherever they go), they’re holed up in an abandoned warehouse, and Michael is screaming at Gavin for something while pressing a balled up jacket to a gash on Gavin’s neck. His voice drops out in the middle of a sentence and he mimes violently at Gavin for a few seconds before giving up.
Ray starts fiddling in his bag as Ryan nods towards the wound on Gavin’s neck. Michael shrugs, gestures with his fingers in the shape of a gun. Gavin raises his finger and thumb in an ‘okay’ gesture. He’s pale, but alive. Ray tosses them a gauze roll and some tape, takes off his sniper rifle from where it’s slung over his shoulder, and heads to the window. He waves Ryan over as Michael silently argues with Gavin to bandage his neck.
Ryan raises his eyebrows as he leans down to Ray’s level. He tries not to think about how he can see the stray eyelash clinging to Ray’s cheek, or the scratches on the right lens of his glasses. He inclines his head slightly. What’s up?
“We’re pretty surrounded.”
Ryan frowns. “What should we do?”
Ray thinks for a second. He glances over at Michael and Gavin. “Get Gav out. I’ll stay here, see if I can’t give you some cover fire.”
Ryan shakes his head. Not leaving you here.
“Ryan--” Ray stops, sighs. He shakes his head, brow furrowed. We don’t have time for this.
“I’ll get Gavin out, then come back for you.”
Ray bristles slightly. “I can take care of--”
Ray. Ryan puts his hand on Ray’s shoulder, cutting his sentence short. “I know you can. So can Gavin. We’re outnumbered. Not leaving you here.” And with that, he walks away, leaving Ray by the window with an unreadable expression on his face.
———
“Ray? I’m coming back for--” Ryan’s voice drops, words yanked away from his throat, and he swears so loudly in his mind he’s surprised it’s not actually audible. Gavin is slumped in the front seat of the car Michael is driving, and Ryan waves them off--I’ll be fine just go--the tires squealing as they pull away from the curb, and Ray has been silent over Ryan’s earpiece for far too damn long. He makes his way silently back into the building, up the aging stairs, finds Ray trapped in the corner by two cops, and he’s trying desperately to unjam his gun.
“Hands up,” one of them says, and Ryan shoots him in the back of the head. The other one moves too quickly for Ryan to react, slams the butt of his gun into Ray’s skull with a sickening thud before Ryan can empty his clip into the man’s chest. His hands are shaking and his adrenaline pounding and he know he’s overreacting but he reloads his gun and shoots the man again.
Ray is crumpled on the floor, fingers curled loosely around his gun. Ryan tries to swear, to scream at him to get up, for god’s sake, wake up, but his words are stuck firmly in his throat. He wipes some of the blood from Ray’s face and, after a moment’s hesitation, throws him over his shoulder. He doesn’t want to exacerbate any injuries he might have, but--he can’t just leave Ray here.
Told you I was coming back for you, asshole.
Ray’s not heavy, but carrying him is unwieldy. Ryan makes it back down the stairs, one hand holding Ray tightly, the other on his pistol. He has to make it--fuck, he has to make it halfway across the city without getting shot or arrested. He can do it. He can do it. He’s got Ray to look out for and he can do it.
(He doesn’t know if the others would trust his skills nearly as much if they knew how he worried. ‘Mad King’, his ass. He just wants to take care of his friends.)
Ryan makes it to the street, tosses his gun and mask into a storm drain, and heads towards the main road. His earpiece is more or less useless, with himself and Michael and Gavin and Geoff mute, and Ray down for the count, and so he turns it off, slips it into his pocket. He raises a hand towards a taxi racing by. When it pulls up beside him, he adopts a panicked expression, puts a hand over his own mouth, gestures towards Ray, signs ‘hospital’, and the taxi driver nods. In the backseat, Ryan arranges Ray so he’s leaning against his shoulder and wipes some blood from his temple and cheek, wincing at the bruise that’s already formed on his dark skin.
When the taxi pulls up in front of the emergency room, Ryan throws money at the driver and pulls Ray back into his arms, ducking behind a pillar until the taxi drives off. He heads back down to the road, casting glances around him. Nobody’s around, but it’s dark and cold and the LSPD are on high alert, and Ray still has yet to wake up, and they’re in a part of town frequented by a rival gang, without any means of serious protection; he could steal a car, but that could attract even more attention. Ryan sighs, stops at a nearby bus stop and, feeling like an idiot, shifts Ray so he’s carrying him piggy-back.
Which turns out to be a good thing. A cop pulls up beside him as he’s shuffling down the street, rolls down his window, and makes an okay? sign. Ryan feels himself tense up, almost reaches for the gun that isn’t there anymore. He nods instead, mouth going somewhat dry, Ray’s shallow breaths hot against the back of his neck. He puts a hand over his lips, and mimes drunk at the cop, hoping against hope that the bruised side of Ray’s face is hidden from view. The cop smiles and nods. “Need a ride?”
Ryan shakes his head, points to a random nearby apartment building. Not that far. The cop nods, wishes him a good night, and drives away. Ryan feels a weird surge of adrenaline as he watches the fading taillights, and makes a mental note to try less destructive methods of evading the cops more often.
“Ryan?” Ray breathes into his ear. His fingers search for purchase on the front of Ryan’s jacket, and Ryan sets him down, eases him onto a bench. He clings to Ryan’s chest, blinking hard. “What happened? Jesus fuck, my head.” His voice is unsteady and slurred.
Ryan gestures towards his own head violently. You hit your head.
Ray just blinks at him. “What? Why aren’t you--Ry, why aren’t you talking. Talk to me. Wanna hear your voice.”
Ryan frowns. He covers his mouth with his hand, presses a finger to his lips.
“Ryan?”
Draws a finger over his throat.
“Talk to me.” Ray’s voice has taken on a hint of unfocused pleading, and his eyes are hazy and dim, and he frowns up at Ryan even as Ryan wipes a crust of dried blood from his cheek. “Ry.” He leans against Ryan’s hand, shuts his eyes. Lets out a slow breath. “Don’t feel good.”
Don’t look good, Ryan thinks, and he tugs on Ray’s arm to get him to stand. Ray resists at first, but lets Ryan pulls his arm over his shoulders and get him walking. Tonight is an uphill fucking battle.
———
Ray throws up three times on the way back, his hands and knees scraped on gritty, crumbling sidewalks, and Ryan just sighs and cards his fingers through Ray’s hair, and steadies him when he shakes.
———
Eventually, his feet drag so much that Ryan stops and pulls Ray onto his back again. Ray grins slackly against the back of Ryan’s neck and his breath sends a shiver down Ryan’s spine and a heat through his chest.
He’s so fucked.
———
They finally make it back, and Jack forces a few aspirin into Ray and puts him in a guest room on the ground floor. Ryan’s watch ticks midnight, and he slips into Ray’s room and sits on the bed next to him. The streetlight filters in golden-orange through the venetian blinds.
“You scare the hell out of me,” he says quietly, and he doesn’t know if Ray’s awake or not--hopes he isn’t--but he keeps talking anyway. “One of these days you’re gonna tell me to leave you behind and you won’t be there when I come back for you. One of these days all this stupid shit we do will catch up to us, and I just hope to god it gets to me before it gets to you. I hope it never gets to you. I hope you stay invincible and reckless and stupid forever. For me.”
He stands up to leave, suddenly incredibly self-conscious and thankful that Ray isn’t awake to hear him spill his fucking guts. But--he glances back as he’s shutting the door, and sees Ray looking up at him, eyes wide and glinting in the darkness.
“Fuck,” he says quietly after the door clicks shut.
———
He yells at Gavin over nothing briefly, swears at Michael for a while. Wanders around the house with his heart beating solidly in his throat and almost punches holes in a few walls. Geoff gives him a stern look that plainly says “I don’t know what you did but I don’t care stop being a jackass and fix it”, and Ryan sighs.
———
He is down to eleven words, and he feels like shit. He wants to talk to Ray, but wants to talk to him right, doesn’t want the limitation of words. So he curls up in a bedroom, frantically writing and re-writing a script full of confessions in an old notebook he found at the bottom of his bag. He feels ridiculous, like a teenage girl with a diary, and he doesn’t know what to say, not really, so he waits to see if Ray will show up on his own, and in the meantime tears out and crumples up four pages of wasted words.
There’s a knock at the door. Ryan’s blood freezes in his veins before he’s able to pick himself up and open the door. He waves Ray in with a hesitant nod of his head.
Ray seems awkward, out of place in his room, standing there all baggy shorts and disheveled hair and dark circles under his eyes. The bruise on his temple has already turned a kaleidoscope of nasty-looking purples and blacks and greens. He gesticulates with his hands once, twice, mouthing words that he doesn’t seem to want to let go of. His eyes are still somewhat glassy, but they’re brighter, clearer. He lets out a deep breath.
“Ray--”
Ray just holds up a hand and shakes his head, cutting Ryan off. “Lemme just say this. Lemme--I like you. A lot. You make me feel weird and invincible and I’m awful at this ‘feelings’ shit but I just needed to tell you that--tell you that I like that you laugh at my stupid jokes and you’ve always got my back and you talk to me no matter how few words you have left and you carried me halfway across Los Santos tonight without missing a beat, and that made me realize that I’d kill for you, I’d blow up the whole goddamn world to keep you safe, because you’re you and you make me feel like me, and that’s just about the lamest, sappiest thing I’ve ever said, and maybe that means I kind of love you in the worst way, but I really don’t care, I’d do anything for you, just as long as you’d keep smiling at me and--I’m sick of pretending that I don’t care about you because you’re just about the best--”
So one hundred and sixty-seven words later, Ray is still standing there, out of breath, eyes fixed resolutely to the floor. He looks like he’s about to cry. Ryan stands up, puts his hands on Ray’s shoulders. His mind reels, spins, searching for the right thing to say.
Then he just sighs. “Fuck it.”
When he kisses Ray, Ray melts against his frame immediately, arms wrapped around Ryan’s neck and hips pressing against his. Ryan pulls him closer, letting him lead the kiss, smiling when Ray stands on his tiptoes and threads his fingers through Ryan’s hair. He breaks away with a quiet noise in the back of his throat, burying his face against Ryan’s neck and leaning most of his weight against him. Ryan wraps his arms more securely around Ray, pressing kisses to the crown of his head and rubbing small circles into his back and not even trying to hide his own giddy smile. Ray is warm and small and fits against his body perfectly, and he makes soft, breathy noises when Ryan guides him toward the bed, and slips instantly back into his place against Ryan’s larger frame. “Stay here?” Ryan asks, and Ray nods eagerly into his chest, fingers clasping the thin material of Ryan’s shirt.
So Ryan uses what’s left of his words on Ray, and he uses them quietly so that they're only for him, and when they run out they spell out words with lips and fingertips and soft touches, and count down until the clock turns midnight once more.
And Ryan is happy.