Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The number one rule of the Fake AH Crew was the easiest to follow but also the easiest to break.

“You're not immortal, I don't want to hear you say otherwise. We don't know what we are, we don't know how long we'll be like this. It could be forever, it could be five minutes from now, you don't know and neither do I. That's why we don't use the I word. If you can't handle that, you can't handle being part of this crew.” Geoff gave the same speech to everyone who had joined the crew.

All of them had the good sense to understand what he was trying to tell them. It wasn't just him being superstitious, it was also him warning them that there could very well be a mortality rate if they took this job, they could possibly one day run out of second chances and they would face there final end. Or, they could face the final end of one of the people they were bound to grow attached to.

Geoff just hoped he'd never have to find out just how many lives he got to have. Yes, he had been counting and didn't think he'd ever stop until he couldn't count any longer. He also hoped he never had to see the end of his boys.

In exchange for putting up with his superstitious ass, however, he offered his crew the city; because there was no one in it who could compete with them, no one who would. Even Kerry, who's only job was to gather information, or Jeremy and Matt, who were the newest members of the crew, were forces to be reckoned with. Only the ignorant or the foolish pick fights with the Fake AH Crew.

That being said, apparently someone was not only foolish but also had a death wish.

The group had been driving back to their apartment complex, all planning a night of video games, beer, and simply hanging out. They were about two blocks away when they finally noticed the fire and they all raced to see their apartment complex burning, fire truck all around it and trying put out the flames. They were furious and horrified and might have thought that it was an accident until Geoff saw something in the street. A car that didn't belong to any of the crew sat in the street, on the hood someone had done a poor job spray painting a bright green star and over the star someone had spray painted an X through it.

To say they were pissed would have been an understatement. No one in all the time that they had lived in Los Santos had ever dared to challenge them but now someone might as well have started an all out war. Someone was going to die or wish they were dead.

“Kerry,” Geoff spoke in a voice that was surprisingly calm, “search every building in the surrounding area and find out if they have cameras pointed at the street.”

Kerry nodded, already taking out a notebook and writing down everything Geoff was saying.

“Ryan, once Kerry finds out who did this, we're gonna need to talk to them, find us a place to do that. Get some tools together while you're at it.”

Ryan stayed quiet for a moment, just staring at the burning building.

Geoff sighed, Ryan was part of their weird ass family but he was easily the weirdest of them all. “I'm pretty sure it takes a fire hotter than normal to burn bones. Edgar should be fine and if he's not, I'll let you decide what we do with the fuckers who started the fire.”

The wild look in Ryan's eyes told Geoff all he needed to know. “On it boss.”

“Lindsay, go to the station and use that authority we hired you for, see if there's any info going around about what happened here. I'm betting you living here will give the LSPD reason to pay extra close attention to this case. Keep your phone on in case we find anything out.”

She pecked Michael on the cheek and hopped into her car within seconds of the order.

“Gavin, once things die down, use that dumb accent of yours and see if you can get some of the people round here to tell you what happened or at least what they know.”

Gavin gave a disapproving sound at being called dumb but didn't argue. Even he could tell this wasn't the time, a rare moment indeed.

“Ray, get us some weapons together. I want to give a new definition to the word overkill.”

“Way ahead of ya.” The younger man answered as he busily typed in his phone. “Rocket launcher, air strikes, machine gun... what'd ya think of chainsaws?”

“Whatever you like. We're all pitching in on this.” He turned his gaze. “Michael-”

“Explosives?” The redhead asked and Geoff couldn't help but smile. This was why he loved his boys.

“You know me too well. Get 'em, a lot of 'em”

“I'll set us up a place for the night.” Jack offered. “I'll text everyone once I've got it”

“Way to be the team mom.” Gavin teased and the group managed a small laugh but it died far faster than it normally would have.

Geoff only nodded and then looked over at the newest members of the crew. “Jeremy and Matt, I know it's grunt work but we're all tired and hungry, I want you to get together some food and booze and take it to whatever location Jack texts you.”

He looked at his team, minus Lindsay who had dutifully wandered off already. He did not bring these men together to be humiliated like this. Whoever did this was gonna pay, hard. “We need to be at the top of our game tonight and for the next few nights. That's means no fighting, no random killing, no crazy shit. I want who ever did this to think we're hiding and afraid, it'll make it all the more satisfying when we find then and string them up somewhere.

“I'll be getting some vehicles together. I want group texts to and from everyone, every hour. No one is allowed to fall off the map tonight. If anyone fails to texted me, I will assume something had happened to you. Michael, text Lindsay and tell her.”

Everyone nodded and scattered, leaving Geoff standing there, silently fuming. He was going to kill whoever did this. He didn't know who they were or how they did this but they would die for it.

~BREAK~

“What do you mean, there was nothing in my apartment?” Geoff was livid.

It had been a long time since he had been in a police station and even though he knew no one there but Lindsay knew what he did for a living, he was still on edge. Worst than that though, he had been called in to the building, given the officers' condolences and then informed the the fire may have been a cover up for the robbery of his and several other apartments. Nine different apartments had been cleared out during the day while they were all gone. It might have been suspicious, a fact that the officer didn't bother to mention to Geoff or any of the other people that would be called in, but one of those apartments belonged to a member of the force and her husband. If there was one thing that rang true it was that the LSPD looked out for it's own.

“We're working to find who's responsible.” The officer had told him. “We aren't sure if these robberies were random or not but contact the station if you hear or see anything strange.”

Under normal circumstances, Geoff would have left the office in a hail of gunfire but not that day. Maybe not even that week. He didn't even have a gun on him, he was saving every bullet for the fuckers who destroyed his home and insulted his crew. So instead, he drove to his temporary home.

It wasn't so bad as far as safe-houses go but it also wasn't their apartments. They never thought they would ever have to use the building, considering the fact that most people forgot them the moment they died, so the building was poorly furnished and it hadn't had any food in it when they first arrived. It had been an old building that had been just about perfect when there was only five of them, they had thought it was too big back then and Jack had even suggested getting a smaller place because what was the likelihood they would find more people like them anytime soon? Geoff had decided it would do just fine for the time but they had gained five more bodies since then and that left the building feeling cramped.

It was almost embarrassing when they began to bicker about the fact that some of them would have to share rooms. Geoff was a fucking mob boss and his men were coming to him complaining about the building being short two rooms. It didn't take long to establish a few things, the first – no one wanted to bunk with Ryan, though he insisted he didn't mind sharing a room. Lindsay and Michael had thankfully already put everything they had into the same room, though Gavin had been making a weird joke about bunking with the two of them and the couple had joked that they didn't mind. The three had been told to shut the fuck up and be serious or they'd shove them all together out of spite. Matt and Jeremy were annoyed with the suggestion that they should be lumped together, even if the two had showed up at the same time. Kerry apparently didn't mind sharing and Ray volunteered his room to the boy. Jack had actually offered to sleep on the couch but Geoff wouldn't stand for it. No one, however, suggested Geoff share his room, so he made the decision for them.

“Kerry and Ray can stick together. Jack, you're with me.” He ordered the group. “Now I don't want to hear anymore bitching about the living arrangement unless someone is damaging something or drawing attention to us. We are a fucking crew of highly trained killers, act like it!”

Everyone had agreed to this and wandered away, back to work trying to find the people who made them live like this. All but Jack.

“You okay?” The heavier man asked. “I know this isn't the best situation but we were living way worse than this when we were younger.”

“This is not about living arrangements.” Geoff huffed and looked away from his friends. “It's about them.”

“We'll find whoe-”

“No, our crew, our men who were promised better than this.” Jack couldn't remember the last time Geoff's tone had been so defeated. “I didn't think this could ever happen. We've never been careful because we've never needed to be but now we're sitting here like a bunch of assholes, being played for fools by whoever it is that's targeting us!”

Geoff turned his gaze back to Jack, only to see him walking away. If he didn't know Jack better, he'd have thought the other man had ignored everything he had just said and simply wandered off but the two of them had been together for many years now. Jack came back quickly, a cooler full of beers in hand and sat it down in front of him. The two sat and drank and didn't say anything for a while.

“So,” Jack started, somehow managing to speak only when the time was right, “what do we do now?”

Geoff stared at the half drank bottle in his hand and thought about his answer. “We wait for Kerry to find something. Then we send whoever did this to us back to their family, in pieces.”

Jack nodded. “I can live with that plan.”

Chapter Text

The door slammed and there was the sound of someone running. Geoff half thought that one of them had finally snapped and a fight had broken out. Money was on Gavin doing something stupid, though he didn't hear the Brit's squawking, so perhaps it was Ryan making good on killing Kerry. Regardless, Geoff was up and out of the war room, ready to yell at them to knock it the fuck off.

To his surprise, it was Kerry and Ryan but they weren't trying to murder each other, they were smiling wide. In Kerry's hands he held a notebook, a folder, and a load of papers that looked to be trying to escape him in spite of the fact that he was hugging them close to his chest. Ryan, behind him, held a cardboard box, looking at it curiously. Kerry rushed passed his boss and dropped everything he had on the war room table.

“We got something!” He cried and began to dig through the mess he had made, pulling out papers and slapping them down face up. “The videos you asked for were useless. Whoever did this must have known we would try to use them because all of the cameras were damaged or turned off. And all the people who saw our stuff being moved thought they were professionals moving everything, so no one bothered to get a good look at them.”

Geoff frowned at them both. “So why are you both smiling? It doesn't sound like you've got anything.”

“But we did.” Ryan insisted.

Kerry nodded. “We were so focused on the videos that we almost forgot the most obvious bit – the car!”

“The car?”

“Yeah, the car with our symbol on it! No one we asked mentioned seeing anyone spray painting a car, which means it wasn't in impromptu act, they set it up before hand.” It was weird how excited the younger man was getting.

“So what did you find in the car?” Geoff glanced over a the box in Ryan's arms. “Or do I want to know?”

“We don't know yet.” Kerry admitted.

“It's really light, whatever it is.” Ryan added.

“We plan to open it on top of Chiliad, just in case it's a bomb of some kind but we wanted to tell you what we've found first.” He started moving papers around and pointed at one.

It was a picture of a license plate, the letters on it spelled out WE SEE YOU. The image left a scowl on Geoff's face. This was no coincidence, they had set this up to send a message. Geoff couldn't wait to find the master mind behind it so that they could have a nice long talk about it.

“ID this plate.” Geoff ordered immediately.

“Already done,” Kerry said, looking rather proud. “No one owns it and no one ever has. The character number on the plates isn't even legal in this state.”

Geoff felt dumb for giving the command then. “So it's fake?” Why did Kerry not just say this while showing the picture? For that matter, what relevance did the plates even have then?

“Exactly!” He sound thrilled and it only managed to get even more on Geoff's nerves.

“That means we still have nothing!” He shouted, throwing his hands up.

“But we do.” Ryan insisted again.

“Then. Get. To. It.” Geoff hissed through clenched teeth.

“Uh, right,” Kerry began to dig through more papers, “we didn't find the plate's owner but we did manage to track the car's owner.”

“So where are they?” Geoff asked, hoping it wouldn't lead to more bad new. He wasn't surprised when he was disappointed.

“They're dead.” Ryan admitted, skipping over the drawn out explanation Kerry was sure to give. “And they have been for a while now.”

“But,” Kerry added before Geoff could get upset again, “not before they filed a police report for a stolen vehicle. In fact, the report was exactly one day before the person was killed.”

Geoff groaned. “There had better be more to this or else we're still fucking lost.”

Kerry pulled out a pile of papers and sat them down. “The owner of the car was killed in a very specific way. They were decapitated, their body were hung from the ceiling in their home, and their head had all of it's teeth removed before it was left under the body. The teeth never found. Coroner's report says the teeth were removed after decapitation.”

The older man glanced over at Ryan. “... You're work?”

“Nope. I'd have removed them while they were alive.” Geoff cringed when he was told this. Ryan was a creepy mother fucker.

“Then what's important about it?”

Kerry patted the papers then. “This is a stack of unsolved homicides. All of them are practically identical, right down to the person being murdered the very next day after reporting a car stolen.”

Geoff then looked between the two. “So that means...”

“I wasn't sure at first,” Kerry told him honestly, “But then I looked over the names of the people who were killed.”

He shoved a piece of paper in Geoff's hands and he read it over.

Genie Rodgers
Jordan Pines
Gideon Ford
Margot Johnson
Rita Newman
Janella Hunting
Ludwig Torder
Kimberly Saints
Jamal Dell
Madeline Burning

Geoff frowned at the list. Was this suppose to mean something to him? He was almost certain the names weren't familiar to him. Hopefully they weren't distant relatives to any of the crew or contacts he had forgotten about. He looked between his friends and wondered what the fuck this meant. Their looks, however, didn't manage to lose the whimsy they were apparently feeling.

“...I get that you two are having fun playing the Hardy Boys but if you two don't stop smiling like that, I'm gonna shoot you myself.” Geoff huffed before giving the paper back.

Kerry grabbed another paper and tried to hand it over but it was shiftly snatched and crumpled into a ball. “It's your job to play detective, not mine! Just tell me what the fuck it means, already!”

Both the men managed to look equally embarrassed under their boss' glare.

“S-sorry.” Kerry managed. “The initials, they all share the initials of members of the crew.”

“And they were all killed in the order we joined the crew.” Ryan added.

Geoff gawked down at the page.

“The killing started shortly after Lindsay and Michael get married. Meaning they must have known Michael was part of the crew but may have missed Lindsay because she had to stay under the radar to avoid LSPD's notice.” Kerry made yet another connection. “I think whoever is doing this thought she might recognize the pattern and bring it to us.”

“Someone's been trying to get our attention for a while, then.” Geoff concluded, not needing it explained. “The question it, why?”

Ryan gave the box he was holding a small shake. “Hopefully this had a few answers.”

The older man nodded. “Go open it somewhere safe. Call me when you find something. Anything.”

The two left dutifully, leaving the pile of papers behind.

Geoff was exhausted. He hadn't gotten a good night's sleep since this all had started. He didn't know why but this all felt wrong. He felt almost like he knew exactly who he was fighting but he also had no clue at all what was happening. He should have given his tired mind a rest, just as Jack had ordered him to, several times now, but he was just too high strung, too focused on all of this.

He wasn't gonna get a good sleep until he found these troublemakers, so why bother trying? He opted instead to get as drunk as possible until he finally passed out.

~BREAK~

Gathering and cleaned the crew's weapons seemed to be the only thing Ray could bring himself to do lately. Everyone else had one distraction or another to occupy their time – Jack was doing a break down of all of the people in Los Santos that the crew might have made enemies with, not something he'd likely be very good at helping him with, Kerry and Ryan were playing detective and, by the sound of the conversation he had heard coming from the war room, they were having a blast doing it, but that didn't sound like something that could keep his interest. Jeremy and Matt were busy with target practice so they'd be more use to them in the fight that was sure to be coming very soon, but Ray hardly needed practice, what with him being the crew's dead shot. Lindsay had been even more busy with her cover as a police officer than normal, so the crew barely saw her, meanwhile Gavin and Michael were busily coming in and out of the safe-house with different types of bombs, coming in each evening with a slightly bigger explosive that would make an even bigger explosion than the one from the night before. When the three weren't working, however, the three slipped off to do God knows what, always returning just before it was lights out for all of them and the safe-house doors were locked up for the night. Ray wanted to know what they were up to and even felt a bit left out that the other Lads were running off with Lindsay and leaving him all by himself but he didn't want to pry into their business and didn't want to look as desperate for companionship as he truly was. Finally, there was Geoff, their fearless leader, who had become so quietly obsessed with who had burnt down their home that he had barely left the war room in the week this had all begun. His hobbies had become a mix of drinking so much that he falls unconscious and obsessing over every detail of everything the crew brought back to him, whether it be the explosives that simply weren't big enough to be to his liking, to the list of names Jack would bring him, covered in the names of people Geoff either didn't recall or thought were too insignificant to be a threat. Ray was pretty sure he didn't want to be around the older man when he finally snapped.

So he had been alone most days.

For a while he was working with ammunition, working on flares that would burn hotter and longer first, because the crew had grown to like their flare guns lately, and then he had worked on armor piercing rounds, because it was just reasonable to make sure their bullets were effective when they finally went into battle, then he started working on their clip size, making sure each clip was likely to last a few seconds longer than an average gun of each model. By the time the week had ended he had become so bored that he had begun experimenting with more flashy ammo, because he knew his boys and if it was flashy and funny to them they would use it in a heart beat and would probably appreciate Ray's work far more if he gave them all something that exploded the moment it impacted their target's body.

It was this boredom that finally got him to break the barrier that seemed to form between the crew over night and retch out to one of his friends. Even then, it was really more to do with the convenience of Jack walking into the armory at just the right time. He looked exhausted and maybe just as bored as Ray was as he walked in looking over a few papers in his hands, but beggars can't be choosers and without really thinking about it, Ray jumped.

“Want to help me with this?” Ray had asked almost out of the blue and Jack looked surprised by the question. Had he not even noticed Ray was there? Or maybe it had been so long since the two had talked that Jack had though his younger teammate was ignoring him? Ray hoped he didn't think he was mad at him, he didn't think he could handle fighting at that moment. “I've... uh, I've been working with the ammo, I though maybe you'd like to help me test it?”

Jack looked like he had to fight the urge to literally throw the papers he was holding everywhere. Instead, he sat the papers down and spoke in a tired, ragged voice. “Anything, so long as I don't have to stare at another damn list for a little while.”

Ray was almost giddy to have company.

They were out the door and were in the sticks in very little time at all, busily shooting old abandoned cars and coyotes from a water tower, mostly because they had been ordered not to kill any people while they were looking for the people that had targeted them. Jack gave a hearty laugh as he watched on of the explosive rounds tear through a car and leave it a burning wreck and Ray laughed with him. It was good to hear his friend at least a little happy again.

“God damn, Ray!” Jack beamed at him. “We need to make this a regular part of our arsenal!”

“They're not easy or cheap to make.” He admitted. “We'd probably have to pull some Breaking Bad shit and steal a fuck load of chemicals to make it cost efficient.”

Jack almost cackled at this. “Are kidding man, is that all? Sounds like our next heist!”

Ray didn't mind the sound of that, in fact, it would probably be fun as hell as soon as things got back to normal. He gave a sigh and looked over their mostly desert surroundings. It was weird how being out there in the middle nowhere, just getting away from the armory, could be so much fun.

They stood in silence, just taking in the fresh air and enjoying standing next to each other until the younger of the two begrudgingly looked at his watch. “We're gonna need to head back soon.”

“I know.” Jack admitted, though didn't move. “I have so many more names to go over, it's driving me crazy.”

Ray thought about and internally decided to say 'fuck it' because Jack had kept him company, the least he could do is offer to do the same. “Want some help looking through them?”

“Dear God, yes!” The heavier man admitted.

The two drove back to the safe house and they entered war room. Papers covered in names were all over the walls, almost every name on the papers were either crossed out or were underline in one color or another (all the colors meant something different though Ray had no clue what those meanings were yet) or the name had a question mark beside them. In the center of the room, a bottle of liquor nearby, Geoff was passed out and sleeping on the table, not likely to get up anytime soon.

Ray looked to Jack who only shook his head, clearly not caring for the way their boss was handling all of this.

“So,” Ray started quietly, “I'll take that stack of papers and you'll take that stack and we'll meet in the middle?”

He smiled in a somewhat pleased way. “Sure.”

The two got to work and Ray felt like he was lost in the sea of names almost immediately. This was going to be a long night.

~BREAK~

Matt and Jeremy weren't actually too bad at shooting. The pair could actually do a fair bit more damage than most of the of members of the crew, neither could compete with Ray but no one really could, and they probably didn't need target practice but they went out and did it anyway because at the very least it got them away from the rest of the crew's moping. That and they could invite a few of their friends to join them.

“No!” The lanky and possibly drunk sounding man huffed. “Adam's cheating!”

“God dammit Joel, it's not cheat, it's aiming!” The second man huffed back. He was heavy and had a thick beard and reminded both Jeremy and Matt of Jack in this regard, though Jack was older and far more laid back than their rather frantic and almost aggressive friend.

“It' totally cheating!” Joel insisted. “We're suppose to be having fun, how can you be having fun if you're actually concentrating on what you're shooting at?”

“Some of us care about our score at the end!”

“God, you two are the biggest children.” Matt spoke in a dull tone, hitting his paper target around were it's throat should be. “It's not a competition, there isn't score and there isn't cheating.”

“Ah, let 'em fight.” Jeremy insisted. “It's more fun to listen to than listening to the guys bitching and moaning about where we're staying.” The shorter man managed to hit his target just a bit above the heart.

“I still can't believe your guys' place burnt down.” Adam said for what must have been the eight time that week. The two were starting to think they'd have to kill him to get him to shut up about it.

“I still can't believe you guys are living in a massive gay commune and won't tell us where it is.” Joel added, also for about the eight time that week.

“Hey, we've got a chick!” Matt insisted.

“You could have a dozen chicks, it doesn't mean any of you are getting laid.” Adam mocked.

“We came over you're guys' places all the time before, what the difference now?” Joel continued to whine.

Jeremy groaned and got a head shoot, not even able to be happy about it due to the nagging starting up again. “There are eight other people living there, none of which know you. Stop being an asshole about it. We can still hang out at your places or go out to do stuff.”

“I asked you to come over yesterday.” Joel pointed out.

“I was busy and I said I was sorry.” Jeremy reminded him.

“Yeah, because you're too busy being with your big gay commune to hang out with your friends now!” Joel practically shout.

“I'm busy because my house burnt down and the police called me into the station to tell me I was also robbed!” The smaller man shouted right back.

“I think we all need to calm down and think some happy thought.” Matt interrupted them, speaking in a low, calm voice. “Maybe we can go out and get something to eat or see a movie or-”

The sound of two phones beeping cut him off and both Matt and Jeremy were pulling out their cell phones and returning the mass texts they had just received. Had it really already been an hour?

“Who's that?” Joel asked, trying to peak over one of their shoulders' to get a look at the text only for the man to move farther away. “Is it the big gay commune? Are you being called away for a big g-”

“Joel, shut the fuck up.” Matt managed to laugh as he finished sending his text and picked his gun back up. “They're our friends and they just want to be sure we don't end up in a bad situation.”

“Someone did burn down our apartments.” Jeremy reminded him.

“And forced you to live in a big gay commune until it's all fixed.” Adam took a jab at them then.

The men rolled their eyes. “Yeah, sure.” Jeremy said, trying to hide the smile forcing it's way onto his face. “Now are we gonna shoot some shit or do you want to keep calling us gay?”

“I can do both.” Adam admitted as he turned and took aim. “Watch,” he fired and muttered, “you're gay! Not that there's anything wrong with that.”

“Same.” Joel agreed and fired at his target without thought. “So do you guys have massive orgies or do you go off in pairs?”

“... God damn you guys.” Matt managed in an exasperated tone. “Why are we friends again?”

“No idea.” All three of the other men admitted and then laughed.

Right, that's why.

The two members of the Fake AH Crew smiled at each other and went back to their targets. Might as well have fun while they can before they're forced to go back to the safe-house. At least they were in good company for the time being.

~BREAK~

Renting the motel room felt almost embarrassing. Sure, the three had done their work for the day and had all been ordered to go out and do whatever the fuck they felt like (so long as they checked back in on the hour) but it was still degrading that they had to hide their sex lives. Not that they hadn't been doing that already but at least they had gotten to hide it in their own homes before! But they tried to make it work, because they loved each other and needed to have their private time together.

The room itself was terrible. They bed in room was lumpy and just barely big enough for all three of them and simply wasn't nice as their own beds, the room was small and it felt awkward standing in it with more than two people, and the bedroom was disgusting and none of them wanted to go into it. They made a mental note to not only never come back to this motel again but also to kill the owner once their troubles were over so that no one would have to endure this place ever again.

The horrid location aside, Gavin still barely got through the door before Michael was seizing him and grabbing everywhere he could. God, they had missed touching each other so fucking much! If it weren't for Lindsay being there, the two might have started fucking with the door wide open. She managed to get the door closed only seconds before her boys were grabbing her and pulling her to bed just as passionately as they were for each other.

They had almost let themselves forget to check back in but, true to form, Lindsay managed to remember twice over when the other two hadn't. By the time they were pleased with their date night they were exhausted and content to just lay there for the rest of the night, only to remember that they had to be back to the safe house or they would assume something bad had happened. Fuck!

They just wanted to fall asleep together but they didn't want to be caught like this in front of the crew. No yet anyway. They would pull the big reveal another time, when things were less stressful and potentially dangerous.

It was almost a chore to get dressed without grabbing at one of their lovers or without being grabbed. Gavin was the biggest troublemaker of the night, wanting so badly to sleep in the same bed as his boyfriend and girlfriend was making him more frisky than usual. In spite of the three slapping at each other every time one grabbed at another, they still were desperately kissing one another as they fought with themselves to get out the door and get home.

Somehow they finally managed to make it to the car with Gavin in the front, driving, while Michael and Lindsay were making-out in the back. The Brit watched from his rear-view mirror as he drove and admired the scene quietly. Voyeurism had never been his thing but there was something about watching his lovers that was just so satisfying.

The Brit was so distracted he had managed to miss the car screaming towards him at an insane speed. The car hit the driver's side and Gavin died almost instantly, Lindsay and Michael lived but weren't in great condition. Michael almost screamed at Gavin about what a fucking idiot he was but didn't get the chance. The door on their car was forced open and both of them were pulled out and away from the now burning car.

“Are you okay?” One of the two men pulling them away asked.

“I-I think we'll live.” Lindsay admitted, sounding shaken as she stared at the burning car, Gavin's body thankfully nowhere in site.

“Thank Christ.” The man said.

“Why?” The other almost laughed. “We only need one.”

Lindsay was confused for a second before she heard a gun shot and looked to her husband, a bullet hole in the back of his head and laying dead in the street. She almost screamed but was quickly bound and gagged and pull into the back of a van that took off the moment the men had pulled her in. She tried to struggle and kick at them but to no success.

A blond woman was in the back of the van and made quick work of shooing the men away from the redhead. She began to treat her wounds and Lindsay glared at her as she did. “I know you must hate me and I also know you don't know me, but we know your boss and we need to speak to him. Don't worry though, we're not going to hurt you, you're just the bait.”

Gavin jogged back to their car, unknowingly seeing and passing the black van that held one of his lovers and gawked at the scene. The two car that had collided were currently on fire but a third, more distant car, sat safely away and bore the familiar symbol of the Fake AH Crew on it's hood, an X crossed through it just like on the last car. He was not cautious or careful as he approached. Through the window he could see a package in the passenger's seat and he opened the door and pulled it out without much thought put into it. It was light and made a few soft rattling sounds when he shook it.

He probably should have waited until he had brought it back to the safe house but he didn't see his lovers anywhere in sight and they hadn't called him yet to either ask if he was okay or to yell at him for killing them all. This left him worried and he found his hands working without him wanting it to. He pulled out a knife and cut the package open. He looked inside and was beyond confused.

Feathers?

The box was filled with golden brown feathers, with an occasional long green feather mixed in. But why would they leave something like this for them to find? Gavin let his hand sink into the mess inside the box dug around, looking for something that might have been concealed inside. Near the bottom he found something, they were small and hard and some were jagged. He pulled them out and nearly threw the contents when he saw what he was holding.

Teeth! The box was filled with feathers and teeth! Why the fuck would they ever do that?!

“Gavin!” He heard and turned to see Michael, looking truly terrified for the first time the Brit have ever seen. “Where's Lindsay?” The redhead almost begged the question and Gavin's heart almost stopped.

He looked back down at the box in his hands and he felt himself begin to shake. “I-they- oh God, Lindsay.” His voice was barely a whisper and both men broke down there and could do nothing but hold each other for a short while before the heard sirens crying out and forced themselves to get up.

“We need to get home.” Michael decided, his tone broken and miserable.

Gavin said nothing but held on to the package left in the car for dear life. They were going to get to the bottom of this and then Gavin was going to make them pay.

Chapter Text

It was night and the safe house was quiet by the time Geoff finally woke from his alcohol induced sleep. Groggily he got up and left the war room where he had passed out, a hand gun lazily resting in his palm and his phone in his other hand. His phone was filled with the group texts that he had demanded be sent out every hour on the hour just at the start of the week along with several messages informing the crew that their leader had passed out on the war room, just as he had for the last few days. He might have seen these texts and might have seen the other distressed texts that had been sent out demanding the crew come home ASAP, no argument being accepted, but the man hadn't even thought to look at his phone before he walked to kitchen to make himself something to eat and then go to bed for the night.

He stopped in surprise when he saw most of his crew sitting in the living room, not one of them saying anything, all of them wearing somber looks, more so than the sad looks they had worn when they saw their homes burn. Cautiously, Geoff stepped into the room to get a better look at what was happening. The men of the group were all present, only Lindsay being absent. Michael looked the biggest mess of the whole group, clinging to Gavin and slightly trembling with every breath he took. The Brit rocked him slightly as he held him in a protective hug, one hand stroking his back and the other buried in his hair, his face against the top of the redhead's head. He didn't look in much better shape than Michael and it almost looked like the slightest breeze might break them apart.

Looking to the other men, he could see their broken expressions, none as bad as the two holding each other but there was sadness and almost defeat in their gaze as they all watched the two barely hold themselves together. In the strangest way, Ryan looked like he was the saddest for the two men, the hurt look he wore was maybe even more worrying than the sight of the Lads falling apart. He didn't know what had caused this but it wasn't good.

“What... what happened?” Was the only thing he could bring himself to ask after standing there for what felt like hours.

All but Michael and Gavin turned their eyes to him. They all looked tired and horrified in a way. None looked brave enough to tell him exactly what was wrong or why his British idiot and Jersey devil were anything but their usually bubbly and slightly angry selves.

“S-she's gone.” It was Michael that managed to whimper the words out though Gavin quickly hushed the other man and squeezed him a little harder as he did.

It was at that moment that Geoff became far more aware of Lindsay's absents. Shit! Had it finally happened? Had they finally ran out of do-overs or had they simply found a way at last that they couldn't come back from? And why did it have to be now, to Lindsay no less?!

“They just... they just took her.” Michael spoke again, ignoring Gavin as he tried to convince him he didn't need to speak. “They set a fucking trap for us and then they took her.”

The redhead didn't look at Geoff and didn't pull away from Gavin, nor did Gavin try to push him away. They two looked like that wouldn't be separating any time soon and Geoff decided he wouldn't hold that against them the moment he understood what was happening.

Lindsay had been kidnapped. This he now understood. He also understood that this was not good for them.

Their leader looked at them all. For the first time since he had met them, they all looked truly timid. This was not the gang of murderous, homicidal, sociopaths he had began collecting all those years ago. These men looked more like children, afraid of the monsters they couldn't see yet were sure were lurking in the darkness, just outside their line of sight. But Geoff hadn't believed in monsters since the day he first died and he sure as fuck wasn't afraid of them.

“What the fuck happened?!” He all but demanded and everyone recoiled. “How do you lose a person?!”

“They set a trap.” Jack answered for the two men, knowing they would need the help a great deal. “It wasn't their fault, yelling will only make this worse.”

“Then someone sure as fuck better tell me they found something after this happened!” He boomed, clearly in no mood for the soft voice Jack was trying to use to ease the situation.

“W-well...” Kerry's voice spoke, though it was small and clearly not sure if he should speak yet, “they found another car and package but... they don't have any real clues in them. Nothing other than another fake license plate really stands out about the car.”

Geoff had a curious look. “Another fake plate?”

“'WE KNOW YOU' on the latest.” The smaller man explained.

Ryan nodded with him. “Other than that, all we know is that Lindsay was definitely the person they aimed to capture.”

“How, exactly, do we know this?” Geoff demanded.

“The car belonged to Ludwig Torder,” Ryan answered quickly, “He shares Lindsay's initials and according to Michael, the men who took her said they only need one of them before they killing him. It seems like they're playing with us at this point.”

“Fuck!” Their leader hissed to himself. “What about that packages, what's in them?”

The whole room was silent. The men all exchanged unsure looks. It almost looked like they wanted to tell Geoff this bit even less than they wanted to explain the first part. Slowly, Kerry gave a slight, uneasy nod to the boxes Geoff hadn't realized were sitting on the coffee table in front of them all.

He picked up one of the boxes and looked inside. Feathers? Why feathers? Was this their idea of a joke? Where they just taunting them? He dug his hand in, assuming there was something more and, sure enough, his finger tips met with something small but solid. He polled it out, a tooth, they left them a box with fucking teeth and feathers. He stared at it for just a few seconds before he dropped the box all together, allowing feathers and teeth to make a mess of the floor and coffee table.

“S-sorry,” Kerry spoke in a small voice, “I should have warned you.”

Geoff stared at the mess in disgust. These fuckers really were mocking them! They thought they were playing a fucking game and that the Fake AH Crew was just going to play along! He was going to wreck whoever came up with this twisted game of theirs.

After a long paused he finally spoke again. “Whose teeth are these?”

“We think the first package will be Genie Rodgers' since we found it in her car and the second package will be Ludwig Torder's but we plan to get them tested in the morning.” Ryan spoke up again, sounding far more confident than Kerry would have. The chubbier man was very thankful for him taking their boss's gaze off of him.

“Why the fuck are you not doing it now?” Geoff demanded.

The team exchanged looks again. “Because we don't have a forensics lab in the safe house and you gave us a curfew.” Ray reminded him, though he wasn't sure how the man could forget either of these facts.

“I don't give a shit about the curfew!” He bellowed at the younger man. “This is more important then the damn curfew!”

“Alright,” Jack spoke up, sounding more than a little bitter, “then how about the fact that it's dark outside and we're all tired and there are people out in the city, right now, just waiting for us to slip up again so they can take another of us? Or how about they fact that just a few hours ago, we found out that one of our friends was abducted and we have very little idea by who?”

Geoff was taken aback by Jack's response. His second in command didn't argue with him often but when he did, he was almost always right about whatever it was they were talking about.

“I know you're worried about her,” Jeremy said then, “we all are and we all want her back with us, safe and sound, but we barely kept it together long enough to do the investigation we've already done.”

“Not to mention the police showing up at our door and giving Michael the bad news.” Gavin added miserably. “He had just managed to explain everything when they showed up and made him break down all over again.”

“All least it doesn't look like they'd even sort of suspect him of foul-play.” Matt suggested. “Which might have come up at some point.”

With an aggravated sound Geoff buried his face in his hands. “Don't we have anything, anything that could be a lead? You didn't see their faces? You didn't get any hair? Any finger prints? Give me something here people.”

Kerry's face then went from timid to thoughtful to absolutely delighted.

“Finger prints!” He almost shouted gleefully and jumped up. “We haven't dusted for finger prints!”

Ryan looked unsure about this. “It don't seem like they'd be dumb enough to leave something as damning as that behind.”

“We don't know until we look.” Kerry insisted. “There's no such thing as the perfect crime. Human error comes into play eventually. We have both of the cars in the garage, we can dust them for prints and look for something small we might have missed.”

Geoff looked pleased with the suggestion.

“Alright, we can get the stuff to do it in the morning.” Ryan agreed. He ignored the looked their boss gave him. “I'm sorry, do you have a spare kit for dusting for finger prints laying around? No? Then we're gonna need to buy one in the morning.”

Geoff continued to wear a soar look but grumble, “Fine, in the morning,” before drifting away from from his crew mate.

Seeing an opportunity to hopefully raise sprites, Jack quickly jumped to the occasion. “I've got an idea.” He informed the room. “We've had a long day and we've been so busy with the investigation that no one made dinner. So let's make something and just have a quiet meal before we all go to bed?”

No one protested, all of them knowing perfectly well that he was trying to ease everyone's nerves, but they all also knew that none of them would get a good night's sleep that night. Still, in spite of the uneasy feelings, Geoff nodded first.

“I pulled out chicken this morning to thaw. Unless one of you assholes did something to it, it should be ready to cook.” He offered. Everyone nodded and words of thanks were said. “Good, then you bitches get so set the table while I work.”

He walked away and Jack was quick on his heels, offering to help cook as they walked. People moved throughout the safe house and plates and cups and silverware were moved in stacks and hand-fulls as they were told to do. The only people who didn't help were Michael and Gavin, who were still holding each other stone silent on the couch. No one asked them to help.

“Geoff,” Jack spoke very softly when no one else was in the kitchen, “I have something I need to tell you. You're probably not gonna like it.”

“A swear to God, Jack, if you're pregnant then Los Santos is officially too fucking weird for me and I'm moving.” The older man joked and even got a chuckle from the other.

“Be serious,” Jack insisted, “Geoff, you need to know that I did this for your own good.”

The men were suddenly giving each other uneasy looks. “What the fuck did you do exactly?”

“We no longer have any liquor or alcohol of any kind in the safe house.” He admitted all at once. Saying it quickly, hoping it would work like a band-aid being torn off. Quick and relatively painless.

“What?!” Geoff demanded, clearly not please. “Why the fuck not? Where did all of our liquor go?”

“You can have it back when this is over.” The heavier man promised, though Geoff didn't look pleased by the answer. “Geoff, you were out for over four hours . We needed you when this shit with Lindsay went down and we couldn't get your ass up. I'm sorry but until this stuff is over, or at least until we can get Lindsay back, you're cut off.”

If this was almost anyone else in the entire world, Geoff would have likely punched him. And he would have likely kept punching him until their jaw was shattered into several pieces. But this wasn't anyone else, this was Jack – one of his best friends, his second in command, the one all the other members of the crew deemed the team mom. If one thing in all of Los Santos was true, it was that he trusted Jack and he trusted Jack's opinions more than most other people. So he didn't punch him, he just gave an unhappy sound.

“You're a fucking asshole, you know that?” Geoff accused but his tone was soft and Jack knew the words were said with kindness.

“Look who's talking.” They shared a laugh but got back to work.

They had to keep it together. If they didn't, they'd never get Lindsay back and that simply was not an option.

~BREAK~

The whole team was nearly split down the middle for several days in a row, with four different people going out for a supply run in the middle of the day while the remaining five stayed at the safe house. The supply runners took the crew's most heavily armored car and piece by piece brought back everything they crew would need to make their own forensics lab in the safe house. They couldn't risk one or just a few of them being jumped at a location far away from the rest of the crew because they were distracted by the teeth they had found. A request for poisons and drugs was made by Geoff and, seeming as Jeremy had claimed once that he knew a thing or two about making narcotics, it was time he made good on this claim. As such, the shorter man join the supply runs once or twice.

Jack always came along as the driver – having a steady hands and a quick wit when it came to driving – and Ryan had come along each day as the added muscle – seemingly become more than a little protective of his crew mates since he had lost his pet cow skull just a short while ago. Anyone else that tagged along was looking to get a hold of something important, like Jeremy gathering supplies to make drugs and poisons or Kerry pointing out the various things they'd need for their home lab or even just one of them with a shopping list for restocking the fridge every few days. No one was allowed out on their own anymore.

The only people who hadn't left the house over the week was Michael, Gavin, and Geoff. Geoff hadn't left because they all suspected that their unknown enemy would likely jump at the chance of cutting off the head of their crew. Michael hadn't left because he simply could barely bring himself to leave his room over the course of the week. Finally was Gavin, who absolutely refused to leave the redhead's side. The Brit had taken it upon himself to look after and take care of almost every need the other had – bringing him food and water, walking him all over the safe house should the crew be called together, sleeping beside him at night so he wouldn't feel alone, the man went so far as to take the responsibility of forcing the other into the shower every morning.

The whole crew gave unspoken praise to the blond. None of them thought they would ever have the patience to care for anyone as much as he had cared for Michael. Even Ryan, who knew more about the two's relationship than the rest of them, had to be impressed with the level of devotion the normally hyperactive man was willing to put into keeping his lover from falling apart.

More than two weeks after Lindsay had been taken, it was still hard to get Michael out of his bedroom, even just to sit on the couch in the living room but Gavin made a point to force his boyfriend out where everyone could see him at least once a day. In a little while, he was sure that Michael would likely get pissed off by his prodding and would hit him hard enough to knock him out. This of course wouldn't be pleasant but he knew it would get his boy's fire burning again and he'd be ready to fight an army to get back the woman they both loved.

Currently, the safe house was packed, the whole crew was in and everyone was doing there own thing all over the place. Right in the middle of it all was the Lads, sitting in the living room. Gavin had dragged Michael from the bedroom they now shared and had forced him to sit with him as he did everyday. Today, however, Ray was there was well. If either of them noticed this fact, neither were showing it.

Ray was sitting across from them, taking apart and putting back together a number of guns. Truth be told, he probably should have been doing this in the armory where the lighting was better and the table was bigger, but Ray had missed his boys and had missed feeling like a Lad. He just wanted to feel like they were still his friends but that was getting harder and harder the more the two locked themselves away in their room. That was why he had brought two dozen guns out of the armory and began to disassemble and clean and reassemble them all even though the place he was doing it was less then ideal.

He had made a lame excuse about wanting to watch TV while he did a boring job but the TV was just background noise at this point for all three of them. He wished he could think of something to say to the men but didn't know what exactly he could say that wouldn't leave him feeling stupid or as desperate for companionship as he had become. Why did he have to let himself grow attached to these bastards? He knew it would only cause him problems in the end!

He was almost surprised when Gavin spoke but also filled him with hope that the Lads weren't quite dead yet. “Is that my handgun?”

Ray looked down at the gold painted handgun he had just finished putting back together. Undoubtedly Gavin's, the Brit had painted all of his firearms gold, much like Ray had painted all of his pink. Why? Why the fuck not? If you're going to be a murderous psychopath, why not have fun with it?

“It is!” Gavin almost beamed. “I've been looking everywhere for it! Wandered off days ago.”

Ray rolled his eye but someone beat him to the mocking replay he had planned to say.

“Guns don't wander off, idiot.” Michael informed him. His tone was annoyed but he looked like he was fighting with himself not to smile. “You probably left it in the couch cushions again and someone put it in the armory where it belonged.”

“Fucking got 'em!” Ray cheered and quietly prayed that it was an appropriate time to do so. The full smile on the redhead's face and the laugh that forced it's way out felt thrilling and filled Ray with a little bit of pride. Even Gavin hadn't gotten Michael to laugh over the last few days.

The three men exchanged smiles and in a brief instant things felt better.

Michael sighed. “I can always count on you two assholes to cheer me up.”

“Oh, my little Mikey~” Gavin cooed in a babyish voice, the same way he might right before he would kiss him when the two were alone or with Lindsay only, though he also liked to tease his boyfriend with that voice when they were around other people, because it left Michael wondering if the Brit would finally say 'fuck it' and simply let the crew know about them via a fierce make-out session in front of them all.

Ray didn't know any of this but he had an arsenal of jokes up his sleeve for when the two got like this. “Ah, I love you guys. Ya know, in the least gay way one man can love another man.”

“'Least gay'?” Gavin asked as though he doubted him entirely. “You mean you don't want to join the Lad pile?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Michael stopped the Brit immediately. “We talked about this – we can't form the Lad pile without Lindsay's permission first.”

It was meant as a joke and they all did get a small chuckle out of it but it was short lived and the three quickly remembered why the laughing had felt so good, because until that point they had all felt like they might never laugh again. Now, remembering Lindsay's absence, the feeling was back. Michael found himself hugging close to Gavin all over again.

They were all silent for a few seconds before Ray put down the gold gun he was still holding and moved from the seat he had been sitting in. The other two Lads thought he might be getting up and going back to the armory but were surprised when he sat in the open seat next to Michael. He didn't know if what he was about to do was appropriate or not but he did it anyway. He joined in their hug and hoped he wouldn't be pushed away. He almost thought that Michael was pushing him away as his arm began to move and Ray nearly kicked himself right in front of them for being so dumb as to take liberties that weren't offered to them. He was left surprised when Michael brought his arm over his shoulder and pulled him in closer and then Gavin joined and completed the circle, making a ring of Lads on the couch.

~BREAK~

“Maybe Joel was right about this being a big gay commune.” Jeremy muttered as he and Matt walked away from the living room where a small group of the men they worked with were sharing a group hug. Not the weirdest thing they'd seen the three do or even the most romantic act they'd seen them do but it still managed to feel like the most personal thing they'd managed to walk in on yet. With all the awkward things they had walked in on, Jeremy got the feeling it would only be a matter of time before he actually walked in on the three blowing each other.

“Dude, do not mention Joel to me right now, or Adam for that matter.” Matt demanded. “Those fuckers won't stop calling and texting me! They just keep complaining about how I can't come hang out with them right now. How am I suppose to explain to them that my friend's been kidnapped without them asking a bunch of questions I can't explain?”

The smaller man frowned at him before pulling out his own phone and looking it over. No new massages. Two weeks ago he had told his friends, the people who didn't know anything about the crew, that some serious shit had happened just a little bit after the fire and that he and a number of other people effected by the fire were being put into a pseudo-witness protection program for their own safety. After his parents, Joel and Adam had been the first two people he had called. They had been worried of course and demanded to know what happened but he had promised to talk to them again once everything was over and they had politely agreed not call or text him to avoid tying up his phone line. Jeremy knew for a fact that Matt had told the both of them the exact same thing because they had told them together in a large group chat before they cut contact with them. Neither had called Jeremy in over two weeks now and it had honestly felt a bit lonely. But they were texting Matt? And often enough, for that matter, that he didn't even want to hear their names? He couldn't lie, at least to himself, he was a little bitter that they hadn't called to bother him also.

He tried not to let it show that it bothered him however. He knew it would somehow get back to his friends and Joel and Adam would be calling him a bitch for a good few months after this was all over and done with. That was the last thing he needed.

“It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so tempting to actually go hang out with them.” Matt admitted. “Seriously, this is so fucking boring, I have nothing to do!”

Jeremy shrugged. “Yeah, I know, but you could help me with the drugs and shit Geoff told me to get together.”

“You keep that bullshit away from me!” Matt ordered him and backed away from him for emphasis. “Last time I 'helped' you with that your operation, I somehow ended up high as fuck, thinking I was invisible and that I could fly!”

Jeremy gave a sheepish look in return. “I stopped you from jumping off the building.”

“That does not make me feel better.”

The shorter man sighed. He couldn't blame him for being reluctant to help him but mixing chemicals quickly turned into a very boring, very lonely job when he was forced to do it alone. And unfortunately, at the moment there was little else to do in the safe house other than their jobs.

Matt was a gunman and a tech specialist, he could reprogram just about anything from a VCR clock to a military grad security system – useful things in their own right but the crew didn't know what kind of tech their enemy had at this point so he had no way of knowing what he should be preparing for at this point. In short, Matt had the least to do out of every one in the building. At least Ray had his guns and Kerry and Ryan had their chemistry set in the basement. Even Gavin and Michael had occupied themselves with all of their moping.

“Alright...” Jeremy started, though trailed off a bit, “wanna watch TV or something?”

Matt gave a look like he had tasted something bitter – his friend had seen the expression many times before. “And sit across from the 'Lad pile'? Hell no! If I wanted to do something that awkward I would have just told Joel and Adam the truth!”

Jeremy sighed one last time. “Alright, I guess I'll go back to my lab then, see you at dinner.”

The two parted ways, Matt going to room out of sheer boredom and Jeremy heading down to the basement were his chemicals were set up, right across from the small forensic lab the crew had set up down there, mostly because there was nowhere else with enough room to put both of them. He gave a slight greeting to Kerry and Ryan who were on either side of the room, though neither paid him much mind. Ryan examining teeth along with old DNA they had somehow gotten a hold of. With luck, the DNA would match the teeth and they would know which of the teeth belong to which of the victims, if either of them. On the other side of the room, Kerry was busy trying to match the finger prints found in the cars with the prints of a national data base. He had already ruled out the prints of the crew but had managed to find many prints in both cars that seemed to be identical. To say this excited him would have been an understatement.

Jeremy ignored the both of them as they did him. He mixed a variety of chemicals for over an hour, making several tranquilizers that would be strong enough to knock out a horse in under half a minute, along with a few hallucinogens that would leave their enemies disoriented and hopefully afraid, finally he mixed some poisons that should cause imminence pain to whoever it effects. But none of the concoctions were meant to kill, Geoff had been very clear about this. He wanted these fuckers alive, which meant he had to find ways to knock their enemies out without a killing blow.

An excited squeak came from the other side of the room eventually. Jeremy assumed he had spotted one of the crew in the data base yet again but was proven wrong quickly as the man gave a victorious shout and hugged the nearest person to him. Jeremy barely had time to put down the glass jars he had been holding before the blond's arms wrapped around him in excitement.

“What the hell man?” Jeremy demanded. He pushed the blond and struggled out of his grip.

“We've got a match!” Kerry beamed.

Suddenly Ryan was a lot least interest in the teeth they were testing and was immediately over his shoulder as Kerry began to look up just about everything he could about their match. Apparently whoever he was, he had a Twitter and Facebook account and a lot of pictures of Los Santos, which was good news for them. Knowing about his personal life would be a good start.

Jeremy had tried to ignore them and focus on his work until the men decided they had enough info to start hunting this man down but, damn, it was so fucking weird seeing Ryan without his face paint on that it was hard to focus. Every time the man was in his peripheral he almost dropped the bottle or jar he was holding. Why couldn't he just go back to being a creepy motherfucker like he normally was instead of wearing the normal clothes and not bothering with his face paint? Sure, the boss had told them to keep a low key but Ryan had continued to wear the face paint right up until they had all been grounded after Lindsay was taken. Now the man seemed to have deflated. He was less like himself than ever, simply taking orders and quietly drifting from the safe house to the car to where ever else he might be needed. Him being so normal was just plain weird!

And Ryan wasn't the only one. The whole crew was acting weird and it was driving Jeremy up the walls! Geoff was groggy all the time and suffering from withdraws. Gavin had became overly responsible, taking care of his boy like he was the other man's father. Michael was a God damn basket case since Lindsay had been stolen away. Ray had become far too quiet and stared at the other Lads enviously. Jack was high-strung, struggling more than anyone else to try to keep them all together and happy with little success. And of course Kerry had become so aggravatingly chipper while he was playing detective that even Jeremy had threatened him with bodily harm.

He couldn't function properly when his weird ass family was losing it's weird!

Ryan made a face as he stared at Kerry's screen, one that was just a bit like the old Ryan. “What the fuck is with all the vests?” He mocked whoever it was he was looking at on the screen.

Kerry just shrugged.

“Once we get all the information out of him that we need, remind me to raid his closet and set him on fire in a pile of his awful wardrobe.” Ryan insisted.

It was weird how him saying this made Jeremy feel better, like his teammate was coming back to him at last. And wasn't it just the most fucked up thing ever that someone threatening to set someone else on fire was normal? God, Jeremy had only been part of the Fake AH Crew for a few months now but he already felt like he was losing his mind. But at least he had a few good friends with him while he slowly drifted into insanity.

Chapter Text

Not having his face paint let Ryan feeling almost naked. He normally bought several jars of black, white, and red paint, along with a crap load of sealant to keep the paint from flaking off, once every few months. Before the fire he had more than enough to last him the rest of the summer but after that he had been left with only the few spare jars he kept in his car, just in case his paint needed some touching up after a long day of work or simply rubbed off on the inside of his mask.

He was almost completely out only a few days after Lindsay's disappearance and by then it was decided that no one should go out alone anymore, meaning he would need an escort to go out to buy his cosmetic supplies. He didn't know why but it just felt like that was a waste of everyone's time and the crew's resources, especially in the wake of one of their friends being kidnapped. Even on the crew's grocery runs he couldn't bring himself to buy a substitute brand – he had tried many different types of paint before he found a brand he had liked, one that wasn't uncomfortable and wouldn't leave him with some sort of rash. He did not need that on top of everything else that was fucking up in his life.

It might not have really been so bad, it certainly made his morning routine go by much faster and he didn't need to shave his facial hair just to put his paint on, the trouble was the other members of the crew. Every time they saw him they stared at him, as though his bare face was a sight to behold. Their gazes made him feel as though he truly was naked. Was his genuine face really that much more terrifying then the face he painted on each morning? If so, why had he wasting his time with the paint to begin with?

He wished he still had his skull mask but, of course, the one day he left it at home was the day that someone had broken into his house and stole or burnt just about everything that gave him even a little bit of comfort. The worst was losing Edgar, everyone in the crew could see this, but he had also lost his masks and a collection of body parts (which he enjoyed occasionally leaving throughout the city for the police to find) but the thing he had lost that was perhaps the most frightening to him was a box of old photos and letters from when he was younger, pictures of family members and old friends who didn't know about his life now and letters from his parents and friends (all of which had their return address on them) telling him how much everyone back home missed him, more than a few of them inviting him back for the holidays and asking if he had met anyone special after moving to the big city.

Of all the things in his life, keeping contact with those people had made him the most worried and yet made him the happiest he could be, because it was like there was a part of him that was still sane and there were people out there that didn't think he was creepy as fuck. To them, he was just their son or brother or the theater nerd they all loved and missed. But now they were in danger because of him and he couldn't tell them why, only that they needed to get out of their homes and get as far away from anywhere familiar to them as possible, most importantly, they could not come to Los Santos. Their lives depended on them listening to him and obeying him when he insisted this. He truly hoped they had but for their own safety he couldn't call them back to make sure.

Ryan knew that he had lost a few quarks somewhere along the way. He had become more robotic in a way, doing everything he was told, dressing in more boring clothes, not saying much, and hovering maybe just a bit too close to Kerry at all times, like he was the smaller man's personal bodyguard. It was weird and he knew it and so did everyone else. The only bright side was that he wasn't the only one present that was falling apart so no one was calling him out on just how weird he was being. Not yet anyway.

He silently wondered if his team was only weirded out by his odd behavior or if they felt the same feeling of worry for him that he had begun to feel for all of their well being. To be honest, he wasn't sure who he thought was in the worst shape out of them all. Sure, Gavin and Michael had lost a lover but at the very least they still had each other to take comfort in. Ryan imagined they weren't bottling up and hiding all of the negative things they were feeling from each other, or at least he hoped this was the case. But as he watched the other members of their crew, he felt as though the rest of them weren't holding together nearly as well as either of the Lads were.

First there was Ray who always seemed to be trying to stick close to the other two Lads though he hadn't interacted with them much that Ryan had seen. He didn't know what to make of the team's youngest. He stared at the other two almost longingly and fidgeted around them while they held each other on the couch, as though he wished that he were part of those hugs. Did he have romantic feelings for one or both of the men? He might have thought such a thing weird but the other two were already in a polygamous relationship. It begged a few questions that Ryan wasn't sure he wanted the answers to, though they all boiled down to him hoping no one got hurt and that none of the crew was lost due to those feelings.

Then there was their leader. Over the last few weeks Geoff had been barely functional, going through detox while also trying to run the crew was taking his toll on the man, after all, the man hadn't gone without at least one drink a day since he was a teenager. Hell, if Jack hadn't taken it upon himself to force Geoff to eat and drink water regularly throughout the day, the man might have died in the first few days. Even if staying dead was difficult for him, it still wouldn't have been pleasant. It left Ryan wondering if Geoff going cold-turkey was a good idea. Only time would tell for that.

Kerry was also beginning to worry him the longer this all went on. It seemed the worse everything got, the more the young man smiled. It made no sense to Ryan because the younger man was actually one of the more outwardly sane of the group, so it begged the question of whether his friend had finally snapped or if he had something to hide. Ryan wasn't really sure which of the two he found preferable.

Jack seemed to be the most worn out out of all of them. He was fighting to be strong for all of their sakes, if not his own, but the more the man tried to keep things together, the less he seemed to keep himself together. Ryan knew what he needed – chaos, even just a little. On one of the many outings done in the last few weeks a car had almost hit their own and for just the briefest of seconds Jack eyes were just as they used to be, perhaps hoping it was their enemies making a move and that they might finally get a chance to have a fire fight again. But the look of disappointment when the car drove off told Ryan everything he needed to know about Jack's mood and to be honestest, Ryan was just as disappointed as Jack had been.

Finally there was Matt and Jeremy. The trouble was that Ryan really didn't know the two all that well – Geoff have been the one to recruit them, saying they had done good work in another city and had earned their place with them. Ryan didn't know anything about that but what he did know was that the two hadn't been with them long before everything went to hell. He also noticed that, while Jeremy was at his lab everyday brewing one thing or another and had tried on more than a few occasions to make small talk with Kerry and Ryan while they were also in the basement, Matt was all too often nowhere to be seen. Matt always seemed to be held up in his room, the one he had been very insistent about not sharing when the room arrangement had first been brought up, in fact, Matt had been the one the most against sharing his room with anyone, even Jeremy who he had worked with more than anyone else. And then there was the fact that he seemed to always been on his phone, texting and sometimes talking to people, even though they have been ordered to fall into silence with everyone on the outside until things were straightened out. Needless to say, this left Matt looking more than a little suspicious.

Ryan hadn't said anything against Matt just yet but he'd be lying if he tried to claim that he hadn't been waiting to see Matt's finger prints match up with the prints they had found in the cars.

For now all he could do was watch as Kerry pulled together every bit of information he could about the man connected to the finger prints they had found. Whoever the hell he was, he had almost every social media account known to man and appeared to update all of them at least once every few days (even MySpace, seriously, who the hell still uses MySpace?) All of the accounts had the same shit on them, with hundreds of pictures of himself but no one else was ever in any of them. Though he was friends with plenty of people on the sites but none of them appeared to be family of any kind and he would sometimes talk about going out with friends but would never said their names when he wrote about them. Most importantly though, a few weeks ago he had made a seeming harmless post on each of his accounts, mentioning that he had picked up a pretty red haired woman and made special care to say that he thought it was a pity when he found out she was spoken for. This more than anything made Ryan's blood boil and had wiped away the smile that Ryan had mistakenly assumed was permanently plastered onto Kerry's face. They made a silent agreement not to speak of the post just yet, at least not unto they had the man's address and any information that could help them to catch the man.

Until they had that, Ryan would just have to settle for picturing all the awful things he would do to the man in his head for now but he more than planned to take this bastard down a notch once they finally did meet.

“Jon Risinger,” he muttered to himself, glaring at yet another image of the man smiling as though he were just the most chipper man alive, “you better hope Lindsay tells me to kill you when we finally get her back, because you don't want me to decide what happens to you.”

He had big plans for this man. Very big plans.

~BREAK~

Kerry didn't know it was really possible but his face actually hurt from forcing himself to smile so much. No one ever mentioned that trying to be a beacon of hope for your loved ones was so fucking painful! He had just thought that his enthusiasm for the whole mess would rub off on a few of them or at the very least he could be their common enemy, to take their minds off the real enemy for a little while but it wasn't working. Sure, it annoyed people a little but they all very quickly got over the act and now he couldn't find it in him to stop. The truth was that he was sure that the moment he let himself drop the act and actually showed how terrified of all of this that he was he'd never get his composure back and then he'd be of no use to the team at all.

So he wore his annoyingly brave face at every turn, smiling and giddy when people looked his way but shaken and also fuming on the inside. This man, this Jon Risinger that he had been tracking, he was without question who they were looking for. He bragged about the ways he was fucking with the crew. Frequently at that. He Tweeted about Lindsay far more often than he had even let Ryan see. Risinger mentioned having long conversations with her, noting that she was a bit aggressive but clearly had a lot of faith in her husband and, as Risinger had put him, “some British man-child that's apparently her husbands boyfriend.” The Tweets might have been funny, if not for the awful fact that he was holding Lindsay captive and probably paraphrasing her threatening his life and telling him all the things her husband and friends would do to him once they found him. And to be honest, Kerry hoped he would be there when they made good on any of those promises she had made.

Currently Kerry's only trouble was finding where the man was hiding. It was the one bit of information that he somehow couldn't find and it was driving him crazy! He was suppose to be good at this but a man who was blatantly bragging online about the crime he had committed was getting the better of him. He supposed he was lucky he had been forcing himself to keep it together or he might have already fallen apart with how worried he really was.

In a way, he was pleased to hear that a grocery run was needed. Not because he was going with them – definitely not – but rather because he'd have about an hour to himself without Ryan over his shoulder as though the man was worried he'd be kidnapped in their own home if he was left alone for too long. He watched as Jack, Ryan, Ray, and Matt (who was very insistent that he be allowed to come with them as well) all left. The moment they were gone Kerry slipped away into the room he and Ray shared and opened his laptop, sending a message to the only person he could talk to any of this about.

Yes, he knew he shouldn't be doing this, especially since Geoff had ordered them to cut contact with everyone on the outside, but Kerry needed to talk to someone about something other than how they planned to mutilate the people that had wronged them.

“Miles, you able to chat?” He sent the message out and hoped the answer would be yes.

“You know I always have time for you Dragon Face!” The message came back and Kerry smiled at the nickname, though also quietly hoped none of the crew ever heard it or he'd never live down their taunting. “So, how's life as a secret agent going for ya?”

Kerry rolled his eyes at the question. For some reason, Miles always thought him being a secret agent made more sense than the actual truth. “For the eight-millionth time – I'm not a secret agent, I gather intelligence for a group of people with questionable backgrounds and who are possibly all insane.”

For the longest time Kerry had wondered what the crew might do to him if he shared any of their secrets, as consequence he had lied to and hidden from his friends and family at every turn for months after joining the crew but out of all of his friends, there had been only one who didn't call him absolutely crazy when he mentioned the things he had seen the crew do before he had become one of them, that friend had been Miles. One day Miles had showed up at his new apartment, how he had found him he didn't really know, sat down on his new couch, not even batting an eye at all the nice things in the apartment that Kerry had never been able to afford before joining the crew, and refused to leave until he got a straight answer about why his friends had changed so drasticly. At first Kerry had tried to lie and dodge the question but he broke down quickly and poured out his whole story to the other man and to his surprise it had left Miles with the idea that he was actually a secret agent rather than a member of a gang. Kerry was never truly sure why he felt the need to correct him.

Ever since this day Kerry had confided everything that went on in the crew to Miles, because sometimes it was the only thing that made him feel sane. Miles listened and sometimes laughed but he never judged. At this point he was likely the only reason Kerry was still smiling and hadn't fallen apart after losing Lindsay, which he could never thank Miles for enough.

“Same difference!” Was the reply he got though Kerry was sure the other man was likely teasing him.

“Things are really stressed out here.” He admitted. “Lindsay is still missing and Michael and Gavin don't seem to be getting any better. I don't know how I'm gonna tell them about the stuff I found on this Risinger guy. Worse, I can't even find where he lives!”

Telling Miles about all of this stuff was dumb, he would admit this, but maybe the man could give him some thoughts on where to look – something he hadn't thought of maybe. Miles could be a pretty imaginative guy when left to his own device, it actually left Kerry wondering sometimes if he could be useful as a member of the crew but he didn't want to risk his friends life on something like that.

“Have you tried a phone book?” Kerry was immediately disappointed and almost shut his laptop right then.

“Could you be serious?!”

“I am!” The man insisted. “You can find addresses in phone books sometimes. How do you know if the dude isn't listed until you look?”

“I'm not checking the yellow pages to find a kidnapper!” He was frustrated but he probably should have thought before he sent this reply. He was sure Miles was just trying to help.

“Fine, see if I help you again Dragon Face.” And he could almost hear the other man's pout as he read this text. Before he could even give another reply his friends signed off the messenger and left Kerry with his thoughts.

Did they even have a phone book in the safe house? He went looking for one and sure enough he found one gathering dust beneath a coffee table. He didn't have much faith that he'd find the name Risinger anywhere in the book but fuck it! He didn't have any better ideas at that point and at least he could gloat to Miles about how wrong he was when everything was said and done.

He started to flip through the pages halfheartedly, not convinced he'd find anything, but also quietly hoped that maybe, just maybe, he had enough dumb luck that he might find what he was looking for.

~BREAK~

The four of them were supposed to be focusing. They were there to get everything on the list (and likely a few things not on the list but they knew each other well enough to know that the four wouldn't be coming home without at least a little bit of junk food along with the necessities so it was fine) and then go right back to the safe house. So, naturally, Ray climbed into their shopping cart the moment Jack began to push it and somehow Ryan ended up in a second cart with Matt pushing him.

“Onward my lanky steed.” Ryan demanded, making his voice comically deep. “We must make haste!”

Matt might have been annoyed under normal circumstances but he had been bored out of his mind for weeks because he wasn't allowed to leave the safe house alone, so he was more than happy to do some dumb shit in public. Not only that but Ryan had been giving him the evil eye every time he saw Matt with his phone, apparently taking the new rule Geoff put into place way more seriously than Matt expected he would, so it would be nice to have fun with him and be on his good side for a little while.

“Aw, dude, shopping cart jousting.” Ray suggested. Matt and Ryan looked pleased with the idea.

“No,” Jack groaned, “as fun as I'm sure that would be, no. We can't afford to be kicked out of this damn store because you three want to be assholes.”

The other three looked disappointed but still insisted they were gonna wreck this store once their lives were back to normal.

The three men were still having a blast in spite of Jack ordering them to behave. Matt pushed his cart just a little too fast and Ryan threw his hands up like an enthusiastic child. In Jack's cart, Ray lazily allowed himself to be covered in groceries and gave a fist bump to ever child they say who was also in a cart and anyone who looked amused by him being in the cart.

While the rest of them seemed to be having fun, Jack kept a somewhat harder face as they rolled through the aisles. He could see parents and employees who looked more than a little unhappy about what the men around him were doing. The moment they looked up, perhaps planning to give him a dirty look as well, they quickly saw his defeated look and understood that he had no control of the obnoxious men and that he was just as annoyed as they were.

Their antics weren't truly bothering Jack but he couldn't help but feel a bit annoyed at how immature they were being at this point. Any of the people in the store could be their enemy and they wouldn't know it and they were playing as though they were children! How were these the same people he regularly killed people with?

At some point the four divided into two groups – Ryan and Matt getting canned and boxed food while Ray and Jack got anything they would need to refrigerate. Though he knew they should be safe in such a crowded place, Jack was still cautious. For all his caution, however, he was still thrown off by the man whose cart he collided with.

“Shit, sorry.” The man apologized immediately. Jack might have just waved the other man off and kept moving but then he bothered to look at his face and and then at the cart where he saw a woman doing just as Ray was, sitting the cart with the others' groceries.

The man was on the heavier side, with dark curly hair and glasses while the woman had long, straight blond hair and even after so much time had passed, Jack still knew them the moment he saw them.

“Burnie? Barbara?” Jack asked almost in awe. “Holy shit, it's actually you!”

The two looked surprised and then pleased. The blond woman actually got up and out the cart, tripping in the process and almost landing on her face, sending their groceries all over the place. Neither seemed to care about the lost and damaged food, instead Barbara quickly brought Jack into a hug followed by Burnie who did the same.

“Oh my god,” Jack beamed at the two of them, “I didn't know any of you were even still in the city! How have we not run into each other?”

The blond smiled. “To be honest, we haven't been in the city very long.” She admitted. “Most of us actually went down to Austin, Texas after... well, you know.”

“I don't.” A voice insisted and all eyes were on Ray, who looked very unhappy about the fact that his cart was no longer moving. “Who are these guys?”

“I could ask the same question for you.” Replied the heavy man that was with the woman.

Jack only laughed a little at this. The two of them almost sounded like they were jealous of each other! “These are Burnie and Barbara, they're old friends of mine and Geoff's. And this is Ray, also our friends, though a lot newer than you two.”

“Geoff.” Burnie repeat the name, as though it were a harsh memory. “God, it's been so long and I've wanted to say so much to him since then, I was just never sure how to do it. So he's... in the store somewhere?”

“Nah,” Ray answered before Jack could, though his tone sounded more sarcastic with each word. “It's not safe for him to be out. People are kidnapping his crew.”

Jack glared his way immediately. “Ray!” He hissed quietly.

“Still doing that shit, huh?” Burnie asked, though didn't sound surprised or angry as he asked the question. “And I'm guessing he's got a lot more members of this gang now.”

Ray looked almost shocked. Clearly he wasn't expecting this man to actually know anything about the Fake AH Crew.

“Not exactly,” Jack admitted, doing his best to ignore the look Ray was shooting him, “I guess you guys took most of the crazy with you when you left for Austin.”

Burnie looked like he was thinking of something to say but Barbara spoke up quickly, looking excited by the idea she had just come up with. “We should all get together sometime.” She insisted. “It'll be like old times and you boys can finally bury this old grudge of yours.”

Jack almost laughed at the suggestion. “What, you want a reunion? After how Burnie and Geoff parted ways?”

“Maybe that's not such a terrible idea.” Burnie said and Jack looked surprised at him. “Look, I know it seems weird but I remember all the things you two were saying right before we all left and, the thing is, the longer I thought about it the more the crazy shit you guys said made sense to me. Ya know.”

Jack honestly didn't know what to think. Was Burnie suggesting that he, and maybe even a few other people they used to know, wanted to be part of the crew? As crazy as it sounded, that could be a good thing. Whoever it was that was fucking with them would have to deal with an even larger group of people then. More body that couldn't die, more people with guns. With the number of people that used to hang out with, they'd be damn near unstoppable!

“Things are kind of rough right now.” Ray was the one who said this. He carefully stood and climbed out of the cart he had been sitting in. “The boss might be willing to talk with you about this at some point, if he thinks you could be a good addition to the crew, but right now we need to find our boys and get back home. We shouldn't have been split up for this long anyways.”

Burnie looked amused by his seriousness. “Dude, relax, will ya? You're acting like someone's gonna-”

Almost as if on cue a number of sounds started to happen like a domino effect making all four of them jump slightly. The sound of a shrill woman's voice could be heard, apparently complaining about the rudeness of one of the clerks at the costumer service counter, her voice carrying much too far and people did their best to ignore her with little luck – if she notice what an ass she was making of herself she clearly didn't care. A familiar sound that the members of the Fake AH Crew knew all too well followed – a fist fight could be heard coming from just a few aisles away from them, though they couldn't see who was doing the fighting they could see people quickly fleeing the aisle for their own safety. From where they were standing they could see the top of a high stacked display of soda cans in the middle of the store topple over, followed by panicked screams and several people calling for help. An alarm came just seconds after that and Jack swore he heard a nearby employee say something about a fire before she rushed off to see the cause of the alarm. Finally, as though it were the cherry onto of the worst sundae of their lives, gunshots rang out and if people were panicked before then they had become hysterical at this sound, all of them abandoning their carts and running out of the store.

Jack and Ray didn't know what the hell was going on but they were almost sure it had something to do with their teammates.

“Shit!” Ryan's voice came through their earpieces, he sounded panicked and pissed. “Someone fucking shot me! Where are you?”

“Wait, what?” Ray demanded. “Who?”

“Fuck if I know!” He snarled back. “But whoever they were, they knew Matt and Matt knew them! Son of a bitch, I knew there was something up with him wanting to come with us so badly!”

“Shit!” Jack curse. “Matt, can you hear us? Talk to us if you can.”

There was silence over their earpieces, at least for a few seconds before Ryan began to cursing into his mic about how they shouldn't have trust him. Jack and Ray had no clue what he was talking about.

“We need to get out of here.” Burnie insisted.

Barbara nodded in agreement. “I smell smoke.” She added.

Ray cursed and looked at the food they'd gathered. They needed to bring food home or they'd all have nothing to eat tonight. “I think it's time for some quick looting, don't you?” He looked to Jack who nodded back.

“Ryan, keep trying to get in touch with Matt.” Jack ordered over his earpiece. “We'll try to get as much food as possible.”

The two raced off and piled everything they could in their carts. Along the way they saw spilled cans, a few dead bodies and even the fire mentioned before. Eventually they raced out an emergency exit and rushed the food several blocks away before trying to contact Ryan again.

“Rye, you find Matt?” Ray asked.

“If I had found that asshole I would have told you.” Came the angry reply through the earpiece. “He left with the fuckers that shot me, I'm sure of it.”

With them? Surely Ryan wasn't implying he had left willingly, right? Ray and Jack were doubtful of such a thing, they might not have known Matt so well yet but he was still their friends and fellow member of their crew, he wouldn't betray them. At the same time, however, they also knew Ryan pretty well and it wasn't like him to be paranoid, not like this anyway. They would have to pick this conversation up later, when they were all in the safe house and could tell the others. Either Ryan was right and Matt apparently betrayed them or another member of their crew had been kidnapped.

“We'll talk about this later,” Jack told them both, “first thing's first, Ryan, we need you to bring the car to us so we can get this all home.”

Ryan grumbled something that couldn't be heard but promised he was on his way.

Ray and Jack stood there for only a few minutes before their phones beeped, informing them that they had a message. They took out their phones and gawked. Neither were sure if this was the best or the worst timing but regardless the text was from Kerry.

I FOUND RISINGER!!!!

The both of them could almost see the proud grin that must have been on the smaller man's face which made it all the more terrible that they were about to come home with bad news.

Chapter Text

It was the sound of a woman screaming and a door shutting that woke Matt. The room he was in was dimly lit and the walls were dull gray with no windows in sight. If the goal was to make him feel isolated it might have worked, if not for the woman a few feet away from him shouting about how she planned to kill... someone.

“I gonna fucking sodomize you with my shot gun!” She shouted in an almost shrill tone. “And then my boys are are gonna light your asses on fire! You're gonna be begging for death, you sons of bitches!”

It only took a few seconds for Matt's eyes to adjust but once they had he could see very clearly who was in front of him.

“Lindsay!” He cheered. He tried to move. To run and hug and tell her how glad he was to see her alive and well, but he found that he couldn't move. His arms and legs were bound to a dark blue chair. “... aw, shit.”

His attention had went back to Lindsay and it was then that he realized that she was also bound to a pink chair. She was a mess. In the same clothes she'd been in the day she was taken, weeks ago, her hair and body obviously not washed since then. Stitches ran up one of her arms and it was likely that the wound would leave an ugly scar once it was completely healed. For once he actually looked better than her, which might have been funny under different circumstances.

Briefly he wondered how she ate or went to the bathroom, or how he would do either of those things while he was held captive here, but quickly forced the question out of his mind. Some things were better left a mystery, at least for a little while.

The woman looked like she wanted to hug him as well but at the same time her eyes were tired. If the other members of the crew had been exhausted then he didn't know what to call what Lindsay looked like. She was a captive, away from her home, her husband, and she had been for such a long time now. Matt hadn't thought about it until now but it made perfect sense that she would be exhausted at this point.

“We're gonna get out of here.” He spoke quietly but with certainty. “If I have to chew through my own arm to bleed to death, I'm gonna find a way out.”

The redhead gave the faintest of a smile before she leaned back in her chair.

“Thank you.” She said softly. “I... just... tell me, was Michael and Gavin okay the last time you saw them?”

Matt chewed his lip for a few second, trying to find the right way to answer the question. He ended up sighing and giving her a sorry look. “Michael's a mess.” He admitted. “If Gavin wasn't with him, hovering around him 24/7, he wouldn't have left his room at all.”

Lindsay, to his surprise, began to tear up but still managed to keep a smile. “Gav's taking care of him. I knew he would.” She hiccuped as she spoke but still managed to sound so proud of the man for looking after her husband. “I knew there was a reason we chose him.”

The last part was soft, something that could have been missed if Matt's full attention wasn't on her. Under normal circumstances, he might have pried, asked what the hell she was talking about but he didn't have it in him to distract her from whatever it was that was currently on her mind that was making her make such a happy face.

Instead he allowed the two of them to sit in silence, lost to their thoughts. Matt wondered if his companions had made it out okay, if they were looking for him, if Ryan would be able to describe the assholes that abducted him. Lindsay's mind, on the other hand, was focused on a memory. A soft kiss, a warm touch; wanting to hold another person so badly that she could barely put her clothes on without grabbing at one of her lovers or vice versa.

They would get through this. She would kiss her boys again. They were too strong for these fuckers to break them.

~BREAK~

Everyone in the safe house was excited by the time the rest of the crew arrived. They had found him, holy shit, this was great news! They were gonna get Lindsay back! Hell, even Michael looked strong when he heard this. He hadn't even leaned on Gavin since Kerry had bolted out of his room with a phone book in hand and announced the good news to everyone in the house. Instead the two were holding hands and exchanging gleeful looks.

When the rest of the crew walked in they expected cheering and arms full of food, instead the were met with slamming and stomping and an angry looking Ryan storming into the building. Of course, Kerry assumed that anger was for Risinger, so when he moved forward he was stunned that Ryan passed right by him and moved to Jeremy instead.

Jeremy had never been more frightened of Ryan than when he swung at him and took him to the ground just like that. The room was blurry and there was a ringing in his ears as he collided with the floor. What the hell had he done to piss him off? He held his face for only a few seconds before Ryan was grabbing him by the collar and shaking him. He barely registered that words were being said to him until they were said a third time.

“Who. The fuck. Is Adam!” He gave him a violent shake with each word and each shake was getting more violent with every second that passed.

“Ryan, holy shit, stop!” Jeremy could vaguely here a voice that sounded like it belonged to Jack's calling out. “He didn't do anything and you know it!”

“Matt is a god damn traitor and I'm willing to bet that this fucker is too!” Ryan shouted back at the other man, still not letting go of Jeremy. “Now you better tell me who the fuck Adam is before I amputate your god damn legs!”

Matt, a traitor? How could Ryan ever think that? And why the hell did it matter who Adam was? … And where was Matt?

“Enough!” Geoff demanded. “Ryan, let him go. Now.”

Ryan didn't look pleased with the command but he did as he was told, though he slammed Jeremy against the floor one final time before he moved back. Gavin and Michael were on either side of the smaller Lad in only a few seconds, one helping him to the couch and the other looking at the back of his head to be sure he was unharmed.

“Have you lost your bloody mind, Ryan? You crazy bastard!” Gavin fumed at him as he stood between the two men defensively.

“And what the hell do you mean, Matt's a traitor?” Michael added. It was almost shocking to Jeremy that he defended him. The redhead had barely spoken a word in the last few days but here he was standing beside him, maybe even ready to fight for him. “If Geoff recruited him then we can trust him.”

“... Where is Matt?” Jeremy finally managed to speak. “What... what happened?”

“I'll fucking tell you what happened,” Ryan snarled at him, “someone approached me and Matt at the store, a man Matt called Adam, and the he told Matt 'the boss wants to see you' before pulling out a god damn gun and shooting me in the fucking head! So, do you or do you not know who the hell Adam is?”

The room was stunned but Geoff managed to speak. “Are telling me that Matt was taken too?”

“No, I'm telling you he left with him.”

“Adam...” Jeremy repeated the name. That couldn't be. Adam was their friends, he would never do something like this. He and Joel had always... been there right when they needed them to be. They had been the first real friends they had made in Los Santos. Even when the crew was still distant, they had been great to them. It had almost been too perfect how well the four of them got along...

Those sons of bitches!

Jeremy stood up. His fists were clenched and his face was hardened and he shook with anger. All eyes were on him now, none of them sure what was about to happen. “You're sure – that he said Adam, I mean?”

Ryan glared but nodded at him.

“Then... yeah, I know an Adam.”

“What!” Most of the room cried is shock.

The shock was followed by the clicking of guns. Ryan and Ray both had pulled out hand guns and were aiming them at him. It might have been funny under normal circumstances but Jeremy couldn't find any humor in the situation. He couldn't blame them for how quickly the guns had been brought out either.

“Explain.” Ray said simply. There was no room to argue.

“Matt and I met him in the first month we starting working with you guys.” He admitted, trying to force the anger out of his voice. “Adam and Joel, they seemed normal and cool and they liked a lot of the shit we did. I... never thought about how weird it was that a couple of guys that meshed so well with us just so happened to show up at the shooting range one day. But it makes sense now. They'd been trying to get Matt to hang out for weeks now and it's no wonder why, now that this has happened.”

The members of the crew traded looks. They were unsure of what to think, he knew that. Ryan probably thought he was lying, who knows what the others thought. In a way it didn't really matter, he got the feeling he wouldn't be welcome in the crew much longer. He eyed them all, waiting for one of them to make a move; to decide what they did with him after this point.

Geoff was the first to break the silence. He screamed furiously and kicked a nearby coffee table, snapping off one of it's legs and causing everything on the table tumble onto the floor. For a brief moment everyone was wondering the same thing, why they had left the boxed of feathers and teeth just sitting there in the middle of the room on that table. He screamed a second time as he saw the mess he had made.

“Fucking god dammit! How is this happening right now?” He demanded. “Somebody fucking clean this up! And you,” he pointed to Jeremy, “you're coming with me to the war room. We need to fucking talk!”

The shorter man felt even smaller than he normally did as he moved to follow the man who might not be his boss much longer. He was half afraid that he was about to be tortured for information that he didn't even have. Lucky for him, they didn't get very far.

“This is, like, the third time we've had to clean up cock feathers.” Gavin complained. “Why do we even still need these feathers? They're probably just in here to confuse us anyway.”

Geoff stopped moving when he heard him say this and looked like he had just made the revelation of a life time. He quickly turned and looked at the Brit who was picking up large handfuls of feathers and dropping them back into the boxes.

“What did you just say?” He asked, sounding stunned.

Gavin looked confused by the question. “The feathers, we should just toss 'em and be done with it.”

“No, you called them cock feathers.”

Ryan looked annoyed at how side tracked they had managed to get. “Shouldn't we be focused on things other than Gavin's lack of understanding of the English language? You know, more important things, like Jeremy?”

“This is fucking important!” Geoff barked and the whole room recoiled at his harsh tone.

He turned his attention to the feathers on the ground and retched down, pulling out a long green feather that was among the other feathers. He had thought they were just basic chicken feather and hadn't given much thought to them beyond that but now that he was really looking at them, the gears in his mind were turning. Rooster feathers and teeth, someone had made the choice to put these items together as clues.

It reminded him of something familiar. Could it have been a coincidence? No, not likely.

“The Cock Bites.” He spoke the words softly as he looked the feather over. Most of the room was unsure what to think of the statement but Jack's mouth fell open, as though he were shocked.

“Those sons-a-bitches!” Jack suddenly startled the whole room. “That's why they were fucking there! They were distracting us!”

Geoff looked confused. “The fuck are you talking about?”

“I saw Burnie and Barbara at the store, right before things starting going to shit and Ryan got shot.” Jack announced. The words meant nothing to most of the room but Geoff wore a look of shock and worry. “They suggested that we should try working together at some point, try to bury the hatchet. But it's pretty clear that they've been planning this for a while now.”

He ran his finger over the green feather and gave it a sad look. How long had it been since the last time he had seen one of them? Since he had fought with Burnie and chased them all out of his apartment all those year ago? He wasn't sure, he had lost track of the time at this point.

But if he was right and they really were the ones that had started all of this, then what the hell had happened? What had changed with them that they had went from cutting ties with them to being kidnappers? Hell, not even just kidnappers! They were thieves and murderers too now, weren't they?

Geoff stared at the feather mournfully. He wasn't entirely sure what he was going to do next but he knew this insult couldn't be allowed to stand, especially when they had taken members of their family.

“I... I can't believe they're back.” He admitted sadly before letting out a heavy sigh. He moved then and looked around at his men, they were all looking to him expectantly and he knew he had to make a decision. “Gavin – finish cleaning this all up. Ray – get me a trash can or a bucket, a metal one. Ryan – something flammable but not explosive. Jack – make a list of everyone one of those fuckers you can remember. Jeremy – you're not off the hook for this shit but don't count yourself as out of the crew just yet.”

People gladly divided. It felt good, almost right, to hear Geoff sounding commanding again and he felt better doing it. It had been too long since he had actually felt like a leader.

Michael stood and looked at his boss expectantly. “What the fuck do I do?” He demanded.

“I'm here too.” Kerry reminded them.

“Nobody gives a fuck about you, Kerry!” Michael boomed but also smiled a bit.

Their boss only laughed and shook his head. “You got a lighter on you?” Geoff answered after a few seconds of thought. Michael always had something to start a fire.

The redhead dug into his pockets and pulled out an old book of matched from some shitty motel on the other side of town. “All I got but they'll still work.”

“Good.” Geoff looked to Kerry. “Get a notebook and help keep track of the names Jack takes down.”

Ryan came back with gasoline and Ray brought a small metal trash can out of the war room. Once the feathers were all cleaned up Geoff dumped all but a single green feather into the can and ordered all of them to follow him out to roof.

“Gavin, phone out, record this.” He ordered as he started pouring gas onto the feathers.

Gavin moved around and got as many angles as he could. He recorded them all, their somber looks and their curiosity about what exactly was happening. Once the feathers were properly dosed he struck a match and lit the whole match book up before looking into camera.

“Alright Cock Bites,” he address the camera, “you want a war? You fucking got one.”

He dropped the matchbook into the can and they all delighted in watching it catch fire. Gavin continued to move around, trying to catch every angle like a pro might. Finally Geoff gave the long green feather in his hand one final look before dropping it into the fire as well.

“We're coming for you.” He warned them. “We're coming for our friends, for our family. And you're gonna fucking regret coming after us and you're gonna regret thinking you can fuck us over and that there wouldn't be consequences.”

They stood there and watched the flames dance until they died down and they were in the dark. Gavin finally stopped recording and looked to Geoff, as though he expected some other instruction now. The older man said nothing for a while, instead simply watched the burnt remains and looked to be deep in thought. Jack didn't look to be fairing any better.

At last someone dared to interrupt the silence that had fallen over them. “Look, I know I'm in trouble right now,” Jeremy spoke, sounding timid but curious, “but could someone please explain what the hell is going on?”

“I'd like to know too.” Michael agreed. He looked to Gavin, as though he might know something.

“What you bloody looking at me for?” Gavin demanded. “I 've no clue what these two are on about!”

Geoff gave a heavy sigh. He didn't know exactly how to explain this to them but they needed to understand what all was going on, which meant going into some old, painful memories. “I want that video sent to Risinger immediately. I then want everyone in the war room. We need to talk about something.”

~BREAK~

The video had just finished being sent on every social media account Risinger had set up and they were now waiting for a reply or any sign that he had seen this video.

There leader was still quiet as they all sat around the large table of the war room. They all looked to Geoff, waiting for him to speak. It wasn't until Jack cleared his throat and gave him a nudge that he realized that he hadn't said anything yet.

“A long time ago, Jack and I were part of a different gang... sorta.” He finally admitted. “With people we didn't actually leave on the best of terms with.”

Their men exchanged looks. Even with Gavin, who had been with the two the longest, had never been shared the information of how their gang had gotten started, besides telling he that it was just Geoff and Jack boosting cars at first. But they had never mentioned anything about a former gang before now or that they had burned any bridges before the Fake AH Crew had been born.

“So, you think your old gang is back for you?” Jeremy dared to ask.

“See, that the thing,” Jack cut in, “that's really not like the people we used to know. This old gang of ours, it wasn't really a gang at all. We had just been a bunch kids back then.”

“A bunch of kids with superpowers.” Geoff corrected.

“Superpowers?” Ray demanded.

Jack nodded. “As in, hard to kill.”

“More people like us, no fucking wonder they know who we are.” Michael muttered grimly.

“So, what, you weren't a gang but somehow were – you two broke off from this 'not a gang', were probably assholes about it, and now, even though it don't seem like their MO, their back to find you out of spite?” Ryan asked, still holding a gun in his hand and glaring at Jeremy every so often.

“The Cock Bites weren't a gang, we just sort of called ourselves that.” Geoff tried to explain further. “We were all just a bunch of people who couldn't die, who got together in a group and tested to see what we could survive. And I guess sometimes we were a support group to each other.”

“Cock Bites?” Gavin laughed. “Who the hell names themselves Cock Bites?”

Their boss nodded to this. “It was funny at the time but, yeah, it is pretty stupid.”

“So about Burnie and Barbara.” Ray piped up. “They were part of this group?”

Geoff sighed. “They were. Burnie and I used to be best friends and then they found out we were breaking the law and we got into a fight. I tried to convince them that we could be a real gang if we used our powers properly but we just ended up in a fist fight. So in the end, I told them to get out of my apartment and never come back. I haven't seen any of them since.”

Michael gave him a worried look. “How many people were in the Cock Bites, exactly?”

“Dozens.”

“And we have a weird habit of attracting more of our own kind.” Jack added.

“So we don't even know how many people we're up against!” Michael demanded. He looked ready to flip the table he was so pissed off.

“Wait, then what about Adam and Joel?” Jeremy question. “Did you know them too?”

“I knew a Joel.” Geoff nodded. “He was a good friend once. I'm not sure if it's the same guy, though.”

“Could you describe them?” Gavin suggest as he quietly tried to easy Michael back into his seat.

Jeremy thought about it for a second. “Adam's a bigger guy, full beard, brown hair, wears a nose ring.” Geoff shook his head, clearly that didn't mean much to him. “Joel's got darker hair, kind of gangly... uh, pale... he's kind of hard to describe, I guess.”

“What's Joel like?” Jack asked instead. “His personality, I mean.”

“He...” Jeremy almost cringed thinking about Joel's personality, “aggravating most of time, always seems to be drunk, doesn't know how to shut up, says some fucking stupid stuff that could rival Gavin, uh-”

“Oi!” The Brit have a disapproving sound and the room filled with snickers.

Jeremy tried to go on but didn't get the chance to.

“That's him.” Geoff cut him off. “That's the Joel I grew up with.”

“So we have a few leads then.” Jack said. “We were tracking this Risinger guy, Barbara and Burnie claim that they want to meet us, and we know that Joel has been trying to get to us through Matt and Jeremy. The question is, which do we try to hit first.”

“Well, I did find where Risinger lives so we could go after him.” Kerry suggested. “Then again, we did warn him that we were coming for him so they're probably gearing up for a fight as we speak... why did we warn them again?”

Geoff looked unsure for a second before throwing his hands up in the air. “I don't fucking know, I was emotional!”

“Well now we won't have a chance of luring them in and attacking them head on will probably get more of us captured and even an attempt at stealth isn't likely to work.” Kerry huffed at his bosses stupidity. His cheerful mask was falling apart due to all the new and unexpected information they were giving him.

The room fell to awkward silence as everyone tried to think of what they could do. The crew was mostly about big, flashy destruction and general madness, how were they supposed to beat so many people at once when tactics like that weren't going to work.

Jeremy fidgeted. He had a thought, one that might actually work, but he didn't know if his suggestion would be welcomed or even heard from the room at this point. Ryan was still glaring at him every time their eye met and the rest of the room looked like they weren't sure what to do with him. He didn't know if they'd even trust anything he said but he feared not speaking as well.

After several minutes of silence he built the nerve to speak. “I could make us cyanide pills.”

Everyone in the stopped and looked at him like he was crazy and suddenly he was less sure about the idea.

“I mean... yeah, never mind.” He insisted sheepishly. “That's a stupid idea.”

“No, no, no,” Ryan stopped him, “cyanide pills, what good would that do?”

The curious look the blond wore was something the crew had never seen before. He normally hide under his mask and face paint, not having those things on made him like a different person and his ever expression was somehow new to them all every time he made them.

Oddly, the expression made Jeremy feel a bit more bold. “Well, you know the spy thing where you removed one of your teeth and replace it with a fake tooth that has cyanide inside of it? We could all get one of those put in and if we end up in a bad situation, we could bite and we'd be a mile away by the time we came back.”

“So they couldn't capture us.” Ryan realized. He looked impressed by the idea.

“Cyanide wouldn't take too long to make. I have the materials, all I need is my lab for a while. The only real problem is that we'd need a doctor to put in the teeth.”

“Well that's fucking great.” Michael groaned. “It's a good plan but we currently don't have a doctor. So anyone else has got anything.”

Geoff said nothing for a long few seconds but his face told them all that the gears in his head were turning. Finally he looked to Jake. “You said you ran into Burnie. You think he's still in touch with Kara?”

“I could try to get a hold of him or Barbara online.” He offered. “That might be risky though.”

“We don't have a hell of a lot to loose at this point.” Geoff admitted. “Get a hold of them. Let's have this meeting they apparently want.

“But we can't tell them where we are,” Ray reminded him, “they could swarm the place and we can't pick them up. They'll just do what they did to get Lindsay. Anyway we look at it, were fucked if we try to meet up with them.

Their leader thought for a few seconds before nodding. “Jack, make a few calls and get us a helicopter.”

Jack looked annoyed by this suggestion. “What exactly am I going to tell Burnie and Barbara, that I'll landing in their driveway in a helicopter?”

“No, you're going to tell them that you're gonna be picking them up in style.” He told him, as though it were obvious.

He then looked to the rest of the crew. “Kerry, take the list that Jack gave you and figure out what all these guys have been up too, we don't need and surprises. Jeremy, I want that cyanide before tomorrow night. Ryan, you'll be watching Lil' J, nothing personal but we can't afford to make slip ups right now.”

Jeremy nodded. “I don't blame you for worrying.”

He went on. “Ray, get the guns together, we want to give our old friends a proper greeting when they get here. Michael and Gavin... are you two ready for this?”

“Just gimme a job to do, Geoff.” The redhead demanded. “I want my wife back.”

“I bloody well do too!” Gavin agreed.

“Good, you're gonna being picking them up with Jack. We're gonna need some muscle, a place to put them, and supplies for when they get there. Get us some tools and rope.”

“You thinking Chiliad?” Michael asked.

“There's a lot of places to hide in the mountain.” He reminded him. “Even if they do follow us, they'll be out in the elements just as much as we will be.”

The two nodded. That made sense.

They all rose and split apart again. For the second time that night, Geoff felt powerful again. Now if he could just get some vodka, everything would be right with the world.

~BREAK~

When the woman with blond hair entered the room with Joel and Adam in toe, Matt didn't know what to think. He glared at Adam and hoped he got close enough that he could spit on the son of a bitch for kidnapping him. Likewise, he glared at Joel who was surely also responsible for all of this, somehow. The woman, however, he didn't know her or what she was doing.

“I hope we don't have to fight this time.” The blond said coolly as she set down a frist aid kit. “I don't want you to get an infection.”

And yet the redhead struggled anyway and started to scream wordlessly at the other woman as she got close. The men moved to either side of her and held her steady the woman worked on cleaning the stitches in her arm. It was unnerving to watch and Matt quickly grew angry watching them touch her.

“You take your fucking hands off of her, you pieces of shit!” He exploded at the three of them. “When I get out of this chair, the three of you are fucking dead!”

Both of the men looked almost sad to hear him threaten them but Joel let go of Lindsay and stepped forward with his hands up, like he was asking him to calm down. “We can explain everything, if you just let us.” He insisted.

“You have my friend tied to a fucking chair and my other friend is have an emotional melt down because you kidnapped his wife, what the fuck makes you think for even a second I want your fucking explanation?” Matt began to struggle along with Lindsay the more angry he became.

Joel sighed and looked to Adam. “Dude, come on, help me out here.”

“Fuck you!” The larger man huffed back. “You've been with this group longer than I have, you should be an expert at this point.”

He scoffed at the very suggestion. “I'm a small time actor, Adam, you really think I know anything about this gang stuff?”

“And I edited videos for a living. You're the one who dragged me into this, not the other way around.”

“Only because Matt made me!”

Matt looked at the two in pure confusion. “Man, I didn't do shit!”

“What? No, I'm not talking about you.” Joel insisted immediately and turned his attention back to Adam. “You know I don't want to do this but it's not like we have a choice anymore.”

Adam, however, didn't look moved by what Joel told him.

“You know these assholes?” Lindsay asked, looking at them with suspicion.

“Unfortunately,” he admitted. “I thought they were my friends but it's become pretty clear that that's not true at all.”

The redhead watched as the two bickered back and forth like children, not even bothering to struggle anymore as her arm was cleaned. “Are you sure they're not?” She whispered.

He looked to them again and suddenly wasn't so sure.

“Enough,” the woman now finished with Lindsay's arm ordered, “it doesn't matter how you feel about this now. We've burned our bridges and we can never undo that but if we're lucky we can build some new ones. Or, if not, then we can at the very least make it clear that we're part of the Los Santos scene from now on and won't tolerate being fucked with.”

Adam and Joel went stiff at her tone and Lindsay and Matt took special note of how reluctant they seemed. They didn't like any of this, that was clear but what wasn't clear was why exactly they were willing to stay. Someone names Matt was all they were sure of for now. But still, it could be of use to the two of them.

If Matt could only convince them that they were still friends. Except it couldn't be done when the blond was around, this they were sure.

“One of you need to message Jon.” She instructed. “He needs to be in the house and waiting for them. Maybe if we're lucky they'll rush in blindly instead of doing surveillance for a few days. They never had been very patient.”

“Tell that smart ass that Lindsay said her boys are gonna gouge his fucking eyes out!” The redhead shouted at the two of them. “And he better hope that Ryan doesn't catch him handling his pet!”

No one looked impressed or even surprised when Lindsay started screaming again, making it more than clear that her outbursts were the norm by now.

“Also, I need one of you to give the update on our guests to the boss.” The blond woman ordered.

The men exchanged unsure looks.

“One of us for that?” Joel complained. “I don't- Kara, I think maybe-”

“Matt would probably be in a better mood seeing you, than seeing one of us.” Adam offered. “I mean after what Joel said about leaving, he's been a little-”

“You two are the biggest pussies I've ever met.” Kara accused the two. “Fine, you can't face the boss then you get to feed the prisoners and take them to bathroom. Better watch out though, Mrs. Jones here is a biter.”

They paled as she walked out of the room and only took a fresh breathe once she was gone. They then looked to Matt and Lindsay.

God, did they even not want to be the one in charge of these two.

Chapter Text

Who even calls people anymore? Why couldn't they just text like a normal damn person?

Honestly, if not for the fact that Barbara's number was what showed up in the caller ID, Burnie wouldn't have even answered it. Even then, he only answered because she preferred to text also, so it must have been serious if she was actually calling him. So even though it was late at night and he really should have been going to bed, he answered her.

“You will never guess who I just got an email from!” Barbara started, sounding giddy by whatever news she had.

He only sighed. It was too late at night to be playing guessing games. “Barb, just tell me what's going on if something's up.”

“Jack messaged me.” She got to the point. This got Burnie's attention quickly. “They need help with something, like what they said in the store. I guess whoever's fucking with them, their desperate and Geoff gave the green light to contact us. He sent you a message too but I knew you wouldn't be on your computer this late so I had to call you. He said he needs to know if we're in by tomorrow morning.”

Burnie immediately groaned. He had work in the morning“That early? Why?”

“I don't know,” she admitted, “he seems to think someone is watching them, so if they're going to make a move, they have to act fast before they can counter that move.”

He didn't like the sound of that for some reason. “So, what, we're just moves in all of this?”

“Burnie, you know that's not what he meant.” He could almost hear her rolling her eyes. “I think they're worried about being compromised and stuff. Or maybe worried that whoever is after them will come after us if they wait too long to get us.”

“I guess that makes sense... what did you tell them? About helping them, I mean.”

“Uh, I said yes, duh.”

That was what he had been worried about. She jumped to agree to this without any true thought. With that knowledge in mind, he couldn't very well sit this out when Barbara might well be walking into a dangerous gang war that apparently already had casualties. Enough so that Geoff was willing to extent an olive branch to Burnie of all people.

He gave another sigh. “Alright, where are we going then and when for that matter?”

“Dunno,” even she sounded embarrassed to admit this, “he said that he would pick me up. I guess he can't afford to say where their new safe house is going to be switched to over the phone. But he did say he'll be picking me us 'in style.'”

“What, like a limo?”

“Hope so, just so it'll confuse the fuck out of my neighbors.” She laughed a bit at the thought.

“Alright, I guess I check my email and tell him I'm in.”

And he did just that. The message was short and sweet –

If your offer still stands, we could really us your help with something. Message me back if you're interested.

– Jack P.

Well that was more formal than Jack or Geoff had any right to be. Not like Burnie could really complain or blame them though.

Barbara gave me the details. If she's in then I have no choice but to be in also. Just tell me if there's anything else I need to do.

– M . Burns

Burnie didn't know why he bothered to sign it at the end, maybe he was too caught up in the formal nature of the email but he felt off once it was sent. He waited for only a minute before a reply came back. He had hoped there would be more to it than what Barbara told him but he wasn't given very much with the reply.

Don't tell anyone about this meeting and exchange as few messages about it as possible.

Be at Barbara's by 8AM.

Don't be drunk when we show up.

No weapons, I'll have friends in case of an attack and they're wary right now.

You'll be searched before you get in the vehicle.

Do us all a favor an don't mention the I word.

Delete these messages once you're finished reading this.

– Jack P.

A simple enough list but why did it have to be so early? He immediately set an alarm and then deleted the message as instructed before going to bed.

He didn't have a good feeling about this but he hoped that was just butterflied from worrying about his reunion with his old friends. He had nothing to worry about. Once this was over, he'd have his old friends back and maybe even a few new ones.

Now if he just kept telling himself this, maybe he'd believe it.

~BREAK~

“What do you mean they haven't stopped by yet?” Matt demanded. Everyone recoiled. “Not even to scope out the place?”

A new day, a new problem. Problems seemed to be all the Cock Bites had half the time. The night before it was Adam getting two of his fingers bitten off and today it was the Fake AH Crew not taking their carefully planned bait. And it could only end bad for all of them.

“What do we have to do, take all but Geoff to get him to where we want him to go? Do we have to construct a fucking neon sign?” The blond was furious and pacing as everyone in the room was dodging his every movement.

“I mean, if you really think about it, a sign probably would have been received better than kidnapping their friends.” A Latino man, one of the only people in the room not scrambling to hide from his boss' wrath, reminded him. “But you just had to prove you could play with the big boys, so now we're probably never going to talk to them on good terms.”

“Shut the fuck up, Gus!” He barked. “I know what I'm doing!”

“Then why hasn't Risinger been taken yet?” It was Kara that piped up this time. “I'm starting to think we bet on the wrong horse.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Joel demanded from the corner he was hiding in, right next to Adam as he always seemed to be. “I've been wishing I never bet at all! I was building a resume when you fuckers pulled me back into this shit because I thought you saying 'making it big' meant I wouldn't be worrying about my next paycheck, not that we would be chasing after a gang like they're an old crush we can't get over!”

“You keep your mouth shut!” Matt ordered and the other man withdrew instantly. “We are doing fine. They're dragging their feet because they think they can outsmart us. They think we're going to be the ones to get restless.”

A smaller brunette man looked around the room before shrugging. “Well, aren't we? I mean, we weren't even planning on taking a second member of the crew at the start but you said they weren't getting the message. Plus we got the video, so we know that they know who we are now. Which also means they know there's probably a lot of us. If they're smart then they'll come up with a plan of attack before rushing in. So we really are the ones just waiting with nothing to do.”

“No one asked you Chris!” Matt snapped at him next.

“Alright, that's enough.” Kara insisted. “As the first people to actually come back to the Cock Bites, Matt, I need you to listen to me. We won't get anywhere by going after each other. You need to calm down before they show up or you'll forget why you wanted to bring us all together again to begin with.”

Their leader didn't looked pleased by the suggestion. He gave an aggravated sound before storming out of the room, with Kara fast on his heels, because it had to be somebody's job to calm him down. Everyone else dispersed with varying levels of enthusiasm. Though one thing was certain, no one was truly sure if any of this was worth it anymore.

Joel wandered and Adam followed. That was often the dynamic. Joel had brought him in because he though it would be like old times but it wasn't and now everyone viewed the few newcomers like outsiders half the time and expected them to stay strapped to the side of whoever was foolish enough to involve friends in this mess.

Every so often Adam looked to the first and second finger on his right hand, the ones the redhead has taken off the night before. He needed only to die for them to come back but the memory was still fresh and he swore that the pain was still there. It was just a trick of the mind, they all had it at the start. He'd get used to dying and coming back. Eventually.

They weren't supposed to go into the room they ended up in. The prisoners were supposed to be isolated, because Matt apparently thought that would help them somehow. Regardless, after being yelled at Joel wasn't feeling particularly like he should bother with following the rules and Adam didn't seem to have any complaints about following him in.

After the bite they had turned the lights out completely, meaning to make them feeling even more alone they supposed, but the room was dark as hell and Joel almost tripped just walking through the door. He immediately flipped the switches and turned on all the lights because, frankly, he wasn't in the mood for this shit. He and Adam sat against a walk on the far side of the room and just enjoy the quiet, knowing it wouldn't last very long.

At least when she yelled at them, it was reasonable. They were the assholes that kidnapped her, after all. They were the bad guys in this situation and that was somehow incredible to think about.

After a long few minutes of silence, a question was finally asked.

“What the fuck is up with you two?” Matt asked with genuine curiosity.

“... have you ever made a business decision and then regret it immediately?” Joel asked with a sigh.

Matt snorted at the question. “Dude, I hacked people and sold malicious viruses and helping make drugs for a little while, all before I was even part of a gang. And then I actually joined a gang! My career choices leave something to be desired.”

“And I'm a cop who's married to a gangster and who is also, in fact, a gangster.” Lindsay also reminded them.

Both the men sighed.

“Our lives are fucked.” Adam mumbled. “There's no way out of this, we can't fucking leave. If we try we'll end up in one of those fucking chairs just like them, except there won't be anyone aiming to save us.”

“They wouldn't let Matt strap us in one of those chairs.” Joel reasoned.

“Maybe not you but they sure don't seem to like me.”

“Then why the fuck are you working for them?” Lindsay demanded. The men looked surprised by the question. “Our crew actually likes each other. We're a fucking family, we support each other. Fuck, Geoff even let Matt and Jeremy's asses stay in his apartment until we could get them apartments of their own. He did that for all of us, because he thinks we deserve nothing but the best.”

“Yeah, well Matt was my friend before he got all crazy about this shit!” Joel snapped back at her. “He thinks that if he can prove to Geoff that he can be just as ruthless as your crew is, that the Cock Bites can work with you, then it can be like old times but he's just making things worse every time he picks a fight with you fuckers.”

“Old times?” Lindsay pried. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Joel stared at her for a few seconds. “You... you don't know about the Cock Bites?”

“One of the fucks that restrained me mentioned it. I'm guessing that's your guys' name?”

“Well, yeah, but it's also how we know Geoff and Jack. It's the whole reason we targeted you all. He... seriously never brought us up? His old gang. The people he learned about his immortality with? The people who used to be his best fucking friends?” Joel looked almost devastated by the realization that he wasn't even a memory to them anymore.

“Hey, I'm still new.” Matt offered the kindest he could.

“Geoff never talks about his past.” Lindsay admitted a bit sadly. “None of us do. I don't think I know how any of the guys learn about their... abilities. Michael is the only one who's every told me about his past and I know I never shared how I found out about it, even with him. And we definitely don't share stuff about our families or old friends, our parents don't even know we got married. That shit's all too dangerous. Really, not sharing those things is the nicest thing he could do for you, it means he doesn't want you to get hurt.”

The room was silent again. Everyone was thinking on this until Joel finally gave an exhausted groan.

“This is such bullshit!” He shouted. “I'm fucking done, with all of this. Fuck, I'm not even telling them, I'm just leaving!”

“Finally!” Adam almost cheer. “The only think keeping me from running was that you were still part of this shit.”

They stood and paused before looking to Lindsay and Matt.

“There's no way we could get them out of here.” Adam reasoned out load.

“And? It's not like we have to.” Joel noted.

He lowered his voice before continuing. “You're not suggesting we leave them.”

“Of course fucking not! Unlike the Cock Bites, these guys have resources to hunt us down when this is all over with and they get out of here. And let's face, they are going to get out of here eventually.” He reminded him. “We just don't need to get them out of here. We just need a weapon.”

“Holy fuck, yes!” Lindsay sounded like she was in ecstasy from the mere suggestion. “I need to die again! Do it, do it right now!”

“You got a weapon on you?” Adam asked.

“Uh, no, not really.” Joel admitted. “You?”

Adam dug into his pockets. “Um, all I've got is a pen.”

“It'll work!” The redhead insisted. “Fuck, dude, untie me now, I'll do it myself, come on!”

Before either could move the door opened and everyone went quiet, trying to act as though they weren't talking about escaping. Adam almost stabbed himself in the leg trying to shove the pen back in his pocket, somehow missing entirely and felling as though was caught red handed when the door opened completely.

“What are you two doing in here?” Everyone was surprised to see that it was Chris coming in.

Adam looked nervously at the pen in his hand. “Uh, I just thought I should have a talk with the... cunt that bit me.”

God, why did he use that word? Fuck, he was so bad at lying!

“The fuck did you just call me?” Lindsay demanded. “You know fucking what? I take back what I said before, Ryan's not gonna fucking get you, my husband is and he's gonna string your ass up!”

That seemed to distract Chris from Adam's bad lie.

“Uh, well, I was told that I have to be the one to feed them today,” he looked at his hands nervously, “so you should probably go. You aren't supposed to be in here anymore anyways.”

“We could do it for you.” Joel offered.

“Nah, I'd... I just really don't want to upset Matt anymore today.” Chris admitted timidly. “Thanks for the offer though.”

The gave apologetic looks before exiting.

“Watch out for her teeth.” Joel suggested before he kept going.

“What the fuck do we do now?” Adam demanded as they kept walking.

“We get a couple knives and wait for a good moment.” Joel decided quickly.

“To do what?”

“To kill them and then ourselves.”

“... why ourselves?”

“Because I get the feeling we won't be leaving here through the front door.”

~BREAK~

When Burnie woke up for the second time that day, it was arguable worse than the first. Partly because he was tied to a chair but for the most part it was because he was feeling more than a little betrayed by everything that had just happened. Or he thought it just happened. Really he didn't know when it happened, a person's perception of time tends to be fogged when they're drugged with chloroform.

Burnie hadn't thought much of the skinny men that had searched them before they were shoved into a damn helicopter that landed in the Barbara's driveway but they were much stronger than they seemed to be when they forced rags over Burnie and Barbara's mouths and noses until they passed out. Now that all of this occurred, he was fairly sure he didn't like these men.

Once he was awake he looked at his surroundings. Barbara had already woken up and was also tied to a chair. Across from them both was a stranger. A man with dark blond hair sat in front of them, humming a tune that might have been Old McDonald softly to himself. A table separated the two from the man, though what was on it was... confusing. A large pumpkin sat on the far end of it, with a what he guessed was a barn carved into it, along with this was several large bags of onions. The man was using a carving knife on one of the onions and seemed to be shaping something out of it. On the table, around the barn-pumpkin were a few things already sculpted. Burnie could vaguely make out a pig, and what might have been a goat, though they didn't appear to be about to stand on their own so the man had given them thumbtacks for feet.

The three sat in silence and didn't speak for what felt like a long time. The man didn't look up from his sculpting, even once he finished what looked like a dog. He ended up giving it feet and moving on to another onion without even paying them any mind.

At last Burnie got sick of trying to be quiet about struggling and decided to be loud. “Are you actually going to do something or are you just gonna sit there?”

He did reply.

“Where is Jack?”

Nothing.

“Where are the assholes that drugged us?”

Silence.

“Where the fuck is Geoff?”

Not even a flinch.

Burnie might have started screaming bloody murder if not for Barbara speaking up then. “Look, if this is your gangs ways of initiating the new guys, we get it. You're big and tough and we don't plan on crossing any of you. Now how about you untie us and let us talk to Geoff?”

Still the man did speak a word. He finished what looked like a horse and gave it it's legs before grabbing another onion and just looking at it for a bit. He looked almost lost, like he didn't know where he was meant to go from there. At last he spoke.

“What's missing?” He asked and held the onion like he was waiting for it to answer.

“Your boss, asshole, that's what's missing!” Burnie shouted at him. “I want to see Geoff!”

Barbara on the other hand looked at the animals thoughtfully. “You don't have a cat yet.” She offered helpfully.

And with that he went back to carving and didn't answer a single question asked, too busy humming his cheery tune. It felt like ages before the cat was done but eventually he finished and gave it legs as well. Once again he held up an onion and looked baffled. Again Barbara kept her cool head and suggested a sheep this time. They sat in the quiet again for another few minutes as the sheet was carved. By the time the sheep was done, two had been away for at least forty minutes and even Barbara's patience had begun to grow thin.

“What's missing?” The man asked without any real emotion in the question.

“You're fucking sanity, that's what!” Burnie snapped at him.

“Is your goal to bore us to death or something?” Barbara added, not sounding interested in playing along any longer. “Tell Geoff that we get it already so we can deal with the actual problem you guys have.”

“What's missing?” The question was repeated,sounding unhappy to not get a new answer.

“We're not playing this damn game anymore.” She insisted. “Either get Geoff or let us go.”

He glared now. “What's missing?” It was a demand now.

“Fuck you!” Burnie shouted back at him.

The man smacked the onion against the table and stood, leaving it the vegetable before moving behind them both. Shit, they hadn't thought something was behind them. There was a sound of things being picked up and moved, metal clanging together and scrapping before at last they heard footsteps coming back to them.

“What's missing?” Was asked once more somewhere behind them, sounding almost amused this time.

“You're out of your fucking mind.” Barbara was the one to say this before getting an unexpected smack.

A large red wrench, the kind you only saw in movies or the hands of city workers, was slammed into her lower right leg. She let out a howl of agony, the bone was surely shattered but somehow the leg of the chair she was in was unharmed. This had been the plan all along, boring them was simply to get their guard down, now came the real torture.

“What's missing?” Another chance to play along.

“Fuck you!” She screamed through her tears.

He brought down the wrench again, this time on her upper leg and adding even more force. She writhed and screamed even louder. They had died so many times before and still quite often but this was something else entirely. Over the last few years they had been jumping from one identity to another, trying to live as normal of lives as they could and had publicly killed each other just to be forgotten quite often but they were always quick about killing each other, they never wanted to draw out each other's pain. Burnie couldn't even bare watch he was too horrified.

“What's missing?” It was a demand again.

“Fuck!” Burnie almost sobbed. “I-I don't- a-a cow, you don't have a cow! Just stop, please!”

The look on the man's face only became more angry. He raised the wrench up and brought it down on her arm this time, gaining another desperate shriek of pain.

“No!” He bellowed. “The cow is gone! Stolen! Taken away by thieves in the night! What is missing!?”

Burnie recoiled. He didn't have words. What could he possibly say in return to that? This man really was out of his fucking mind!

The lack of reply drew his fury yet again and he took the wrench to her other leg. She begged desperately for him to stop, with both of them in tears at this point. Barbara was the only friend Burnie really had left, the only one who could even remember him if something were to go wrong and now, no matter how he struggled, he couldn't help her. How long would this go on.

He looked up and staring at the onion animals. He had liked it better when Farm Asshole was just sitting there whistling to himself.

“What's missing?” Was asked again, this time he looked straight at Burnie, maybe waiting for him to say something wrong.

He whimpered a little and looked at the farm closely, he could only think of one thing at that point. “A... a farmer?”

The man lowered the wrench and looked at the farm. Yes, he seemed to realize that was right and moved and the clanging sound of the wrench being dropped almost put them at ease. That is until he came back to Barbara's side with a large pair of shears and took the thumb off her still good arm.

“God dammit, stop!” Burnie ordered as Barbara sobbed again.

The thumb was brought back around to the farm and tacks were put into it as well. He stood, looking over the farm, almost looking proud for a second before frowning again. How could he still not be pleased with his monstrous farm?

“Something's still missing.” He moved again, going behind them, grabbing another big metal tool.

He didn't even need to come around before Barbara was wailing again. She scanned the farm, desperately looking for something that normally belonged on a farm that wasn't there. “Chickens! You don't have fucking chickens!” The sound of the metal dropping filled her with relief and left her feeling like a fucking genius.

There was more sounds of shuffling metal and they prayed that it was just him getting his carving knife. That wasn't to be when he walked up behind Burnie. Barbara screamed for him to stop as he forced his mouth open and shoved a pair of pliers inside. Struggling didn't seem to do any good and eventually, after several minutes of pulling, one of his back molars had been pulled out and was placed on the table.

At last he looked pleased with his farm. He began to assemble them animals as his captives shook in their chairs. He only looked up once everything was in front of the pumpkin and was exactly in the position he wanted them in. When he finally did look up, he looked almost like he had forgotten they had been there.

Still, he grew an unnerving smile and approached the door just behind him. He gave two hard knocks and at long last there were more people coming in the room. Two younger men walked in, one was the redhead from the helicopter and the other was a shorter man wearing a cowboy hate. They lifted the table in front of them and moved it to the side, vegetables and all, as though they would need more room.

The lunatic knocked on the door again once the table was moved and Burnie and Barbara learned quickly why they had need room. Slowly, five other people made their way into the room, the first being the blond from the helicopter, who took a position next to the redhead and man in the cowboy hat. A blond man and a Latino man came in after, taking positions on the other side of the room, them blond man who had started this all followed them and stood between them. Jack stepped through the door way then and finally Geoff followed after, looking at their captives with contempt.

“I trust we don't need to leave you alone with Ryan again.” Geoff spoke calmly and clearly, looking more professional than Burnie could ever recall seeing him. “Now, you're gonna tell us what we want to know or Ryan here is gonna get to know the two of you a whole lot better.”

The both of them looked horrified by the suggestion that their time with this man could somehow be worse than it already was.

“What do you want?” Barbara asked in a broken voice.

Geoff looked pleased with how easier she answered him. “First things first, I want to know everything about the Cock Bites.”

He felt proud for quarter of a second at how they shook under his stare but that lasted only long enough for Burnie to look at him in pure confusion. “I-we haven't seen any of them in years.” His face was too genuine, his eyes too afraid. Geoff was prepared to pinpoint his every lie, they had grown up together after all, he knew what all of his poker faces looked like but this face wasn't one that was trying to hide something, this was the honest truth.

Geoff's expression dropped in horror. “... Shit.”

Chapter Text

Author's note: For reasons that I suspect are pretty obvious, I will likely not be working on the story or any of my other RT/AH stories in the future. Truth be told, I may be done with the company and the community as a whole for a while.

I do apologize but today I learned some genuinely terrible things about a man I idolized. 

Be good to each other and have a good night - CR