Things you said while I cried in your arms, Steven/Cib? (You don't have to if you don't want to! Love your writing!)
Hey, this is a LOT longer than I intended it to be, but I hope the 2,350-ish word build up for a 22 word sentence works for you. Also hope you’re ok with GTA au, cause that’s what you’re getting! My first time writing it, so hope there isn’t anything too awful. I feel kinda bad cause everyone else doing this is popping out 2-3 paragraphs worth for each prompt, but apparently I can’t do things in moderation/without some sort of context, but I should know that already because of who I am as a person. Anyways, thank you so much for the prompt!
Warning for blood and language I guess.
On Ao3
~~~
Steven had already had a horrible feeling about this recon mission before James and Cib had even headed out and now an hour after they should’ve been back he felt like he was on the verge of an anxiety attack, waiting for any word. He paced back and forth behind Autumn as she flipped through the different traffic cams she had access to. Unfortunately there were some dead spots in the map of the city that they hadn’t yet been able to hack into and they had lost Cib’s car somewhere in there. Their setup was new and Autumn claimed she couldn’t get into everything all at the same time or she would be easier to detect, and so they’d sent Cib and James to check out a couple of the so called ‘dead zones’, two of which they were currently uncertain of which gang was in control of. He had already put Jeremy and Parker on high alert when the guys were twenty minutes late getting back.
Stevens shoes squeaked on the linoleum floor as he spun on his heel and took three large steps across the room and repeated. Autumn glanced up at him in annoyance and put her half off headphones back into their proper position.
He checked his phone for the millionth time, waiting for any sort of notification. He hadn’t set it down in over an hour, the case well and truly warmed by his hand at that point. Same as before, nothing.
Autumn huffed as his shoes squeaked again. “Will you stop-”
Stevens text notification went off and both of them jumped at the sound. Autumn pulled off her headphones and craned her neck to see the phone as Steven unlocked it. It was a single word text message from James with his GPS marker attached.
Help.
~~~~~
Ten minutes later Steven was racing through the streets heading for the outskirts of the city, a pile of weapons on the back seat next to Jeremy and Parker navigating from the passenger seat. The GPS marker was out in the mountains, along the road running through Raton Canyon. How they had wound up that far out of town Steven had no idea. The atmosphere in the truck was tense, everyone silent asides from Parker directing him when to turn.
He’d tried calling James several times, but it rang through to the answering machine every time. Cib’s phone didn’t even ring, going straight to his voice recording.
“Slow down, it says he’s just around the corner.” Parker said.
Steven did as he was told and eased the truck around the corner, coming to a stop when Cib’s destroyed car came into view. It lay on its roof in the middle of the narrow road, it’s nose pointed uphill and the drivers side door hanging open towards them.
Steven and Parker both swore under their breath, all three men vacating the truck with their guns drawn. Steven went straight for the open car door as Parker and Jeremy fanned out, Jeremy going to the edge of the road where it dropped away into a steep slope towards the river and Parker going around the front of the car to the other side.
Stevens could feel his heart pounding as he scrambled into the car, broken glass pricking at his fingers. It was empty, no bodies, which could’ve been a relief asides from the fact he still had no clue where they were. There was blood though, and not just a little. The passenger seat was stained with it and the steering wheel smeared red. Just as he was about to crawl backwards out of the car he spotted Cib’s phone in the pile of blood splattered glass, the screen smashed to bits. Well that explains the lack of ringing.
Parker joined him by the door as he stood up. “Have you tried James phone again?”
“No, but the GPS says he’s right here,” he pointed to where Jeremy stood on the edge of the road, looking down at the few trees between them and the river. His stomach twisted as the thought of either of them winding up in the river crossed his mind. He fought the thought back and hit redial, listening for the first couple rings.
“I hear something!” Jeremy hollered at them, starting to slide down the hill, catching himself on one of the sparse pine trees ten feet below them. The next one over had branches low to the ground, completely hiding anything within four feet of its base, which Jeremy was now peering at.
“He’s here!” Jeremy called out, disappearing under the branches. Steven didn’t even hesitate, tucking his gun into his waistband and skidding down the slope on his heels before catching himself on the trunk and pushing the branches out of the way from where he saw Jeremy disappear. His heart stopped as he found Jeremy crouched over an unconscious James, already trying to apply pressure to his bleeding shoulder. Jeremy turned to Steven. “We need to get him out of here. Help me get him on my shoulder.”
Working together they managed to fight through the tree and get James onto Jeremy’s shoulder and Jeremy started climbing the hill again, Parker ready to grab onto him when he got into range and Steven supporting him from behind. Halfway up James came back to consciousness and immediately started fighting.
“Put me down, you fucker!” He yelled, reaching up with one arm to wrap his hand around Jeremy’s face and pummeling his lower back with the other. Jeremy grunted, nearly slipping but stubbornly keeping an iron grip on James’ flailing legs.
“James! James, stop!” Steven grabbed for his arms, but Jeremy slipped, sending them both toppling forward. James landed hard on his back, the impact and Jeremy’s shoulder landing on his torso knocking the breath out of him. Parker managed to grab him under his arms and drag him the rest of the way up and onto the road.
James finally drew in a breath and immediately started coughing, his face screwed up in pain. Steven clambered up the last bit of the hill and to James’ side, taking the rag Jeremy handed to him and pressed it into the apparent bullet wound through his shoulder. The pain was enough to make James take another hacking breath and his eyes flew open. “Steven!”
“Yeah, James, it’s me, you’re ok, we’re going to get you out of here.” James lifted his head and saw Parker helping Jeremy back to his feet and kept searching around the area.
He looked back at Steven and asked, “Where’s Cib? Is he ok?”
Steven’s heart sank. If James didn’t know where Cib was, they were screwed. “We haven’t found him yet, what the hell happened?”
James clenched his eyes shut and groaned. “It was the Fakes, man, we were in the FAHC’s area and they saw us. One of them got a hit on me before Cib could get us out of there and the Vagabond chased us all the way out here. We almost lost him, but one of their helicopters caught up. We flipped and I think Cib hit his head and wouldn’t wake up, but I could hear the helicopter coming back and the Vagabond was coming, so I crawled down the hill. They mustn’t have seen me move.”
“Shit.” Steven looked up at Jeremy, who already had his phone out, his thumbs flying across the keyboard as he alerted his network of contacts to keep their eyes open for any of the Fakes with a hostage. “We need to get out of here, get back to the Office.”
Parker nodded enthusiastically as he moved to help him lift James to his feet. James groaned and leaned heavily on Parker, putting his hand up to hold the rag on the wound himself as they walked past the destroyed car to Steven’s truck.
The drive back was just as quiet and tense as the trip out, except for Jeremy’s nearly continuous conversations on the phone. Steven kept looking in his rear view mirror, checking on James. He had passed out leaning against Parker’s chest, who had taken over applying pressure and had found a wad of gauze to hold to the wound on the back of James’ shoulder.
An hour later James was sleeping on the couch against the window with Mimi tending to his wounds while Steven returned to his pacing behind Autumn’s chair, much to her annoyance, and occasionally going to the back room to check in with Parker and Jeremy, who was equally annoyed by his hovering. Parker was more understanding and tried to at least be gentle while informing him they had nothing for him yet.
It continued like that for the next few hours, until James awoke late in the evening and finally managed to get Steven to stop moving for a moment and sit down on the couch. He somehow managed to keep him there long enough for Steven to fall into a fitful sleep, leaving the rest of the office to do their jobs without a living, breathing ball of anxiety sitting on their shoulders.
Autumn stretched in her seat, yawning loudly, as she looked over her shoulder at James, Steven asleep with his head on James’ lap. The shoulder of his t-shirt had been cut open and he looked exhausted, but he still broke out into a smile when he saw her looking at him.
“You look like shit, bro.”
“Thanks!”
She smiled at the goofy grin he was giving her. “I’m glad you’re okay.”“Me too.” His face turned serious as he looked down at Steven. “But I don’t think any of us are going to be okay if we don’t find Cib.”
~~~~~
It was nearly twenty four hours after they’d retrieved James that Parker and Jeremy were able to charge into the main office and present the group with some good news.
“We got him, one of our contacts just spotted a Fake Crew vehicle leaving the docks. Apparently they left a note with our name on it on a sea can.” Parker looked like he was nearly vibrating with excitement, grinning from ear to ear.
“And what’s the likelihood that’s a trap?” James asked the room in general.
“Definitely.” Steven muttered, rubbing his hands across his knees. He was shaking so bad, finally getting a lead was such a relief, but god, they couldn’t just walk down there and open the container up. What if it was booby trapped, set to blow when they opened the door? “You happen to have a bomb team in that network of contacts?”
“Sorta. He can meet us there though.” Jeremy said.
“He? Singular?”
“He’s good enough he doesn’t need a team.”
~~~~~
And so Steven, Parker, Jeremy, and James, despite Mimi’s protests about his arm, arrived at the docks, almost immediately finding the sea can meant for them thanks to the comically large green and black gift wrapping bow slapped on the front of it. A guy Steven and James didn’t recognize was slowly circling it, waving a small box in his hand along every seam he could find.
“Andrew! What’s the word, buddy?” Parker called as they all exited the truck.
The guy, Andrew, turned to them, squinting in the sunlight despite the ball cap turned backwards on his head. The brim is literally designed to protect your eyes, who the hell thinks they look so cool with their hat backwards that they squint at the sun, Steven thought to himself, his tiredness and missing his friend turning to irritation. He kept his mouth shut though, they needed this guy.
“I can’t find anything, seems to be clean. Pulled this off for you though,” he held out a folded piece of paper with a strip of tape on it out and Steven immediately snatched it out of his hand. His hands shook as he opened it.
We know you’ve been looking for him, and he’s useless to us, so you can have him back. Of course we didn’t kill him, we’re not barbarians. Who are we, Fake Chop?
<3 FAHC
“Can you open it?” Steve hated the way his voice broke over those four words.
“Yeah, of course.” Andrew pulled off the huge bow and unlatched the two handles on the first door, not noticing as the other four men took three steps back before he pulled it open. They all breathed a sigh of relief when nothing happened and then Steven was running for the door.
The afternoon sun lit the interior, one beam in particular highlighting the tall skinny form of Cib slumped on his side against the wall, hands bound by rope in front of him. Any risk of further trip wires and traps were immediately forgotten by Steven and he skidded to his knees next to Cib. He had blood dried to the side of his head, the dark circles around his eyes were even darker than usual and the exposed parts of his arms were mottled with bruises. And that was only what Steven could see, who knew how bad he was under his clothes? Steven felt sick just thinking about it.
He desperately clutched at Cib, pulling him partially upright and hugging him to his chest. The movement startled Cib awake, his eyes going wide and body tensing, bring his bound hands up near his bruised throat as though he were protecting himself.
“Hey hey hey, it’s me, it’s Steven, I got you.”
Relief blossomed across Cibs face and tears immediately flowed as he pressed his face into Stevens shirt. “I didn’t think you were coming for me.”
“What- why wouldn’t I?” Steven was baffled. They’d never really officially defined their relationship before and he did love the dumb bugger, but Cib was always so affectionate to him he had assumed it was a mutual attraction. Obviously now Steven remembered he had the emotional capacity of a teaspoon and was even worse at showing it, mentally kicking himself for not having said anything before.
He put his hand under Cibs chin and angled his head up so he could look into Cibs tear filled eyes. “Of course I’d come for you, Cib. As long as I have life in my body, I will always come for you.”
