Chapter Text
It was a Sunday morning, bright and early, like any normal Sunday morning, really.
The morning dew reflected the sunlight and the silence of a peaceful daybreak were interrupted by a sudden screech of tires and the scent of burnt rubber. No one took mind of the disturbance, as the only witnesses were the perpetrators, the only inhabitants of the long abandoned neighborhood.
A black Pegassi Infernus with orange lines raced down torn asphalt and three voices could barely be heard over the roar of the wheels and the rush of adrenaline roaring in the men’s ears.
Screams of pure car fueled ecstasy still filled the air even after the men slid into a parked position next to a curb and the spray of loose gravel hit the concrete sidewalk around two other men. Neither men even blinked as the gravel scattered around them, one even rolled his eyes and scratched his beard as he watched those occupying the Pegassi practically jump out.
“Hey, has Kovic called yet? He should be done with that deal.” A man with thick glasses hopped up onto the curb, resting his arm on the chain link fence that bordered an overgrown lawn and run down shack. He fussed with his hair, dark and styled to resemble something you could compare to Clark Kent, and raised an eyebrow in question towards the other men as they dusted themselves off.
Another man, shorter and noticed easily by his red hat shook his head as he checked his phone, “Nah, Adam said the deal might take another hour or so, since Ramsey is playing chicken with Burnie.”
“Well, since when has Adam been one to pass up an opportunity to drive free cars? I’m betting fifty that he’s just sucking up to the Fake AH Crew for leverage or something.” A well-built man grinned, his blue eyes shining with leftover excitement and adrenaline as he practically swaggered to where the two others were standing,
“Fifty-hundred?” Bruce challenged with a simple raise of an eyebrow.
“Thousand.”
“Please, Adam wouldn’t put himself that low.”
“Fifty-five then.”
“James, please, make it sixty and I’m in.”
“Fifty-seven, them’s the breaks, Bruce.”
“Fine, Willems, fifty-seven thousand that Adam isn’t kissing ass for a few guns.”
“You got yourself a deal, Greene.”
“If you two are done flirting,” A scruffy, shorter man walked up to the group and smirked at Bruce and James, “we do have to get back to the apartment to take in inventory while Adam’s gone, since we were technically supposed to finish it three hours ago.”
“Psh, the guns’ll be there when we get there, same with all of the tech we got in the last shipment, Matt.” James dismissed the thought of leaving the neighborhood in favor of chores and turned to the others, “Hey, Spoole, what happened last time we forgot to do weekly inventory?”
“Nothing!” Sean replied with a crooked grin and adjusted his hat to block the sunlight from his gaze.
“Exactly! Joel, tell him!” James threw his arms up in exasperation as he continued to ignore the glare from a certain Matt Peake.
“Actually, we should probably get back soon—“ Joel started, but was suddenly interrupted by a groan from James, to which he simply rolled his eyes and continued, “And finish that game of Peggle that Geoff lent us. We could finish inventory in the meantime. I'm sure that Lawrence doesn't mind going back to check on his beloved anime dolls." Lawrence made a noise of protest, more because of the fact that they were figurines, Joel, get it right.
James immediately perked up at the idea of shirking “chores” in favor of video games and immediately jumped onto Joel,
“Much better!” James grinned as he felt Joel struggle under his weight, and let himself fall so he could stand on his own. Matt looked on unimpressed as he crossed his arms and tapped his foot expectantly against the concrete.
“Race you!” Lawrence immediately called out as soon as an unsaid consensus was reached, sprinting towards a hot pink Pegassi Infernus that was parked in the street. Amidst cries of ‘shotgun!’ and footsteps, Lawrence smirked as somehow Matt and Spoole collided with each other in front of the passenger door.
Soon enough all six of the men had piled into the cars that had been parked haphazardly in the abandoned streets and had started their short drive to their apartment and base of operations.
The six men arrived at the apartment and were standing at the doors outside of Lawrence’s loft in a matter of minutes.
"Who bets we could hundred percent peggle 2 faster than Geoff did?" James offered as Lawrence fumbled with his keys to his place. Three of the guys just smirked at the challenge, knowing full well of the gang boss's celebration for him hundred percenting the infamous game.
People were hungover for days.
Finally, Lawrence pulled up the right key and just as he turned the door knob, Spoole and Joel pushed past him and were followed by the others to fall into a pile at the door frame.
"Hey, uh, guys?" Lawrence stood dumbfounded at the sight he beheld, "I don't remember ever leaving the living room in this condition."
The room in question was simply put: trashed.
The flat-screen that Joel had stolen for Lawrence the first week they had met was smashed in, blu-rays and CDs were smashed and strewn across the room, the glass coffee table was destroyed, with pieces of wood everywhere, and most importantly of all, Lawrence's collection of possible figurines had been abused and some had burn marks.
This was something Funhaus could not exactly be responsible for, especially since Lawrence had always been kind enough to let the group use his high-ceiling loft as their base and storage.
That left only the one option and easy answer to consider:
"Lawrence! You were robbed!" James sputtered at the sight as the rest of Funhaus slowly got up and took in the chaos, their mouths agape and the brows furrowed.
"Thanks Captain Obvious, I didn't notice." Lawrence stepped over the other man's legs and surveyed the room, his mood souring with every piece of furniture he saw that had been overturned. “We can’t exactly go to the cops for this, can we?”
“Well, not really, seeing as we’re a gang that’s affiliated with the Fake AH Crew.” Matt muttered as he nudged the dirt of a potted plant away from him. Bruce made a noise of agreement as he looked around the room,
“Maybe we should check your other rooms, namely the back rooms.” The others agreed, only to hear footsteps behind them as their de facto leader had arrived.
“Hey guys? I sealed the deal with Burns and Ramsey, we’re getting the RPGs we were promised a month ago…” Adam trailed off as he looked up from a small piece of paper that Burnie had ripped and tossed to Adam with the simple explanation of it being his receipt. “What happened?”
It took a whole minute for Adam to take in the chaos that the others had just moment before, and even after that, he still had this confused look on his face, before his brows furrowed and his mouth tightened in anger, “What the fuck happened? I thought you said your place was safe, Lawrence.”
“Hey, don’t blame me! And in case you didn’t notice, my place is trashed! A personal space that I live in!” Lawrence balled up his fists and he could feel himself tense up, ignoring the looks from the others as angry tears threatened to fall down his cheeks. Adam only sighed in response before shoving his way past the other six men and walked straight for the back room. Matt attempted to stop him, but was in turn stopped by Bruce as he shook his head, silently telling him and the others to leave him be. Matt frowned, but let his hands fall to his sides.
Lawrence ran a hand through his hair and wiped his eyes as he prepared himself for whatever would present itself in the rest of his rooms. He began to regret the decision to let the others use his loft as a base of operations, despite the ease of access it provided to everyone and the fact that Lawrence could easily transition from business to a casual environment without having the guys offer him questioning looks.
It was only their third week as an official gang, or at least however professional a gang could be. The sun was setting and Lawrence, Adam, and Bruce stood at an old computer that was perilously perched atop a stack of wooden boxes. Adam sat on top of another box, tapping away at the keyboard and watching as numbers appeared on the screen and bank accounts were listed under the fake names that funhaus used.
“You know, this would be a lot easier if we didn’t have to move this piece of junk around and if we could just use someone’s actual computer.” Bruce muttered as he watched Adam stab at the space bar, “I mean, sure, it’d also be faster if we had Joel or Spoole here but-”
“Everyone but us three have been spec’d by the local police, and the Fake AH Crew know where the others live too, and I’m not willing to put my place under suspicion.” Adam frowned as he watched the numbers stream down and ignored the small noise of annoyance from Bruce. Lawrence hummed and mulled over what Adam had said as the two bickered about both the fact that ‘no, Bruce, even if we did use a faster car we couldn’t break any more laws than we do daily’ and the fact that ‘yes, Bruce, we are going to be sticking to these abandoned warehouses until we get chased out, damnit, stop bugging me about it’.
“You know…” Lawrence started talking before he could fully think over what he began saying, both Adam and Bruce turned to him and looked at him expectantly as he continued, “We could always use my place. I just moved in from my old apartment and I’m fairly sure it’s safe.” Lawrence started rushing and he would think back to this moment and how his mind was practically blank, as he was just spewing words and he couldn’t exactly stop, but neither Bruce nor Adam were exactly stopping him, in fact, they started smiling with some sort of odd hope and excitement, their facial expressions escalating as Lawrence continued,
“I paid in all cash, and I have this weird room that just super long and empty, so why not use it for our base? I could put some shelves and computers in there too. Just a thought, you don’t have to--”
“It sounds perfect, thanks, Lawrence.”
“FUCK!” the others heard from down the hall as Adam’s voice was accompanied by a crash and more expletives. Lawrence was the first to reach the room that Adam had been in, and he could only let out an exhausted groan as he took in the room for a moment, but turned away quickly.
Lawrence watched the others for their reactions as they took in the fact that all of their weapons were either destroyed or gone, and the maps of El Logro, Terrace Park, with the surrounding suburbs were torn, the paper remnants decorated with crudely drawn dicks. The months spent preparing for heists and just collecting the best weapons they could had been rendered useless in just a few hours, and none of the men that looked upon the wreckage was really ready to take in the fact that their hard work had been ruined.
Matt stepped towards the corner that housed Joel and Spoole’s set-ups for cameras and the police radio, and moved the mouse experimentally. The screen didn’t respond, and nothing happened when Spoole rushed over and inspected the hard drive that was sitting precariously on the edge of the desk,
“Oh no…” Spoole sniffled as he noted the smashed parts and the pieces were dangerously close to falling off. Joel followed him in his attempt to recover any of the encrypted information that they both had slaved over in case of any break-in.
“Everything’s been wiped. This would have taken an experienced hacker, someone that would know their way around our encryptions.” Joel turned to the others, his mind racing through names and titles that communities he had met online housed, but he shook his head after a few moments after Spoole frowned at him, his mind coming up blank as well.
Adam leaned onto the metal table that was in the center of the room. A large canvas map of Los Santos and of El Logro side by side was ripped, tearing the two cities apart, his breath was heavy with anger and his usual stoic calm was crumbling with every minute spent in their meeting room.
Adam’s palms were splayed on the cool metal as he breathed slowly, collecting his thoughts and fighting to relax and calm himself down. He had to lead this gang, even if they needed to take a breather, his instincts called for a retaliation, but who would do something like this? Against a crew that was in cahoots with the Fake AH Crew?
Adam would get his answer soon enough.
“Well, might as well check the other rooms.” James said as he held up an intact cd, one of the demo disks that Bruce had dug up from his college days. Matt nodded and Lawrence frowned but followed as the two started to leave the room.
Adam listlessly followed the others, leaving Joel, Spoole, and James to attempt their recovery of any sort of data. The first rooms they checked was Lawrence’s room and the guest rooms across the hall, and both were relatively untouched save for Lawrence’s dresser emptied and its contents strewn across his bed. Lawrence took it in stride, seeing as most of his personal affects were basically untouched and fairly safe.
The next stop for the boys was to the kitchen. Unsurprisingly, the kitchen was fairly safe, save for a cupboard that was left ajar. Lawrence also noted that his alcohol had been severely depleted.
After Bruce, Matt, Lawrence, and Adam had checked what they needed to replace in the kitchen (a loaf of whole-wheat bread, butter, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!, beer, orange juice, and some Chinese takeout), they made their slow journey to the room they dreaded to check, the Game Room.
“Holy shit.” Lawrence breathed out as he took in the sight of the room.
“At least we know who did it.” Adam gritted his teeth as the other three simply stared at the black and green emblem that was spray-painted on top of the flat screen, consoles, and game displays.
Lawrence sat down on the leather couch and cradled his head in his hands, and both Matt and Bruce joined him on either side, dumbstruck at the implications that the vandalism brought.
It was a simple emblem, a black solid circle with four curve lines forming an almost circle around a green rubber duck.
It was the emblem of the Fake AH Crew.