Author: lunarhelion.tumblr.com
Recipient: moosepantsonfire.tumblr.com
Summary: “In retrospect, Ray thought as he hit the deck, he should have seen this coming. The assassin – Ryan – may have been amiable, even friendly, whenever he appears but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s got a job to do”.
In which Ray’s a private detective making a living in sleazy Los Santos and Ryan is the mercenary he keeps running into.
Warnings: Violence
Word Count: 2891
The paint is still drying, the lettering bold and blocky and stark against the frosted glass.
"Ray Narvaez Jr.
Private Detective"
It's a good day, for Ray. The office smelt vaguely of mould and had one window (grimy) facing towards the street and one window (cracked) facing the alleyway between this block and the next. The dumpster for the building never gets emptied, even though he’s called the city municipality multiple times, and the area is sordid enough that nobody bats an eyelash at the dumpster being out front instead of in the alleyway. But his name is on the door after six months of tacking paper cut-outs to the frame, and that means his business isn't failing as bad as his friends thought. That would show them.
It's not easy to make a living as a private detective in a city this grimy, Ray will admit, but the money comes easy enough. He’s not great at this job (some particularly angry clients would use the word “terrible”, but that was just unfair in his opinion). The business never works perfectly but he's usually willing to take the cash and pretend it does, at least until the cops come for whoever is Ray's client.
Or the mob. Ray's easy.
The thing is, nobody wants to be associated with a private detective but nobody really wants to mess with them at the same time.
Even knowing this, when a man wearing a skull mask shoulders through his doorway one rainy summer's morning, Ray really considers bailing out and starting a new life down south. He hears Austin's great this time of year.
***
“Can I help you?”
“I’ve got a problem,” the visitor says, reaching under his leather jacket and resting a heavy gun onto the desk. The business end is not pointed towards Ray, but the message is clear. Ray eyes it uncertainly. He’s not certain he’s disliked by anyone enough for them to try to assassinate him, but he’s been wrong before.
He decides to play along, for now; “What’s your problem?”
“I’m experiencing a bit of a change in my line of work,” the man says with an almost upbeat tone. “Apparently assassins are so common in this city I’ve been delegated as a messenger for now.”
“Have you tried changing your employer? Job satisfaction is a must,” Ray is shaking as he makes the joke, just a little. This doesn’t seem to be going down the not-getting-shot road, especially since the guy still has his hand on his gun. He was reasonably sure that wasn’t where he wanted this to end. If you moved past the occasional target on his back, and then accepted the city's piss-poor weather and pissier, poorer attitude to life, Ray felt he had a good thing going here.
The man lets out a quiet chuckle behind the mask.
“Do you find humour gets you out of trouble, or just into more of it?” He questions easily, before reaching into his pocket and throwing an enveloped letter onto the table. “Somebody wants you dead, and I’ve been put in charge of handling that issue.”
Ray is definitely sure this is the end for him. He’s surprised when, in the middle of him sneakily edging his hand toward his hidden gun, the masked man reaches up and pulls his mask off. The face behind it is handsome, with light blue eyes and some blond scruff on his jaw.
“That letter is a statement of intent. Luckily for you it seems like you’re not first on the hit list.”
He stands and starts for the door and Ray is blindsided suddenly by not being shot.
“I’m just here to deliver the message.”
The door closes behind him and the shadow he casts on the window moves off out of Ray’s view. He takes a shuddering breath.
Then he goes to find Geoff.
***
Ray wasn’t always a private investigator, of course. In fact, he’d never held any high regard for law enforcement. He ran with Geoff’s crew for two years, heisting across almost all of the 50 contiguous states.
Ray may not be working with Geoff any more, but he knew that Geoff’s tight hug and his murmured “if you’re in trouble, I’ll help” when he said goodbye for the last time was more than just a meaningless gesture. Geoff was fiercely protective of whoever he thought of as “his boys”. Even Jack, who was much more capable in a fight than Geoff, had to deal with his coddling occasionally. Ray’s banking on Geoff being both open to helping him and able to scare off his masked assassin.
The club is as busy as ever, the cheap drink and easy atmosphere bringing in people from all over the city. Some people recognise him, giving him dirty looks; his job is not popular here. Lounging in the centre of the joint, as always, is Geoff. He’s surveying his domain, keeping an eye on the patrons, as Ray enters the door, sleepy eyed but still sharply aware of his surroundings. When he spots Ray he perks up, raising his drink with an inviting tip of his head.
“Come for your old job back?”
“You wish, old man,” Ray jokes. “Actually I’m here on business.”
Geoff, to his credit, doesn’t freak out immediately. He does lose his smile a little, posture a bit stiffer. “Ray, I respect your new… Profession,” He starts delicately. “But if you’re asking me to work with you I-“
“Someone’s put a hit out on me,” Ray interrupts, not waiting for the lecture he’s heard many times. “I need you to find out who.”
Geoff blinks. “Is that it?”
“I think my life hanging in the balance is worth a bit more than that.”
“Sure,” Geoff waves his hand as if calling someone over. “I’ll put the new guy on it. Have you met him? Creepy dude, but good at his job.”
Ray is conscious of the other patrons’ eyes on him growing more aggressive with every passing minute, and stands instead. He’s close to overstaying his welcome, and he’s not certain he wants to meet the guy who replaced him. “I’ve got to go, Geoff. Chasing or running from an assassin is not a sit-down job.”
His old boss looks disappointed, and admittedly Ray feels like he’s not spent enough time here, but wishes him luck. Ray’s barely halfway to the door when he sees him again. The masked man is stood in a corner, casting a watchful eye over the crowd as if looking for someone. Looking for Ray.
Ray freezes, just for a moment, before instinct kicks in and he’s off through the crowd towards the door. He ducks and weaves, banking on his smaller frame to hide him among the bulkier dancers.
There’s a commotion around him as a man holding a knife steps in front of him, eyes on Ray and mouth open as if to speak before he looks past him and his eyes widen. He risks a glance behind and flinches when he finds that mask guy has almost caught up, the crowd parting much easier than they had for Ray. Somebody that Ray knocks into shoves him sideways and he’s disoriented for a moment. Before he can panic he stumbles out into the clear area close to the wall and finally, finally, he spots the door.
Looking behind, he can see that the assassin is exchanging blows with the man who had been in Ray’s way. The crowd is drawing closer like grimy vultures, ready to finish off whichever fell first, and Ray takes the distraction and leaves.
***
After that, he seems to see the assassin everywhere. No matter how much he reassures himself that it’s paranoia, that Geoff would have caught him in the club or that the mysterious new hire would take him down, the skull mask keeps reappearing in the corner of his vision. Two days after meeting Geoff, he runs into his assassin again. It somehow doesn’t feel dramatic enough, especially since it’s at his local grocery store.
He’s maskless, this time, wearing a leather jacket and carrying a tin of dog food. When he spots Ray his eyes widen in surprise and he wanders over. Ray does his best to not react, but it’s jarring to see a guy that was very close to cornering him in a bar and offing him in such a calm setting.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” the man starts, and Ray knows that he was indeed spotted at the club.
He hopes the guy won’t try anything here (there’s a security guard at the end of the aisle, and cameras everywhere). He might as well make the guy uncomfortable with a bit of detective questioning. “I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Ryan,” he answers easily. “I’m sorry, I thought I introduced myself when I first met you.”
“You didn’t.” Ray answers shortly, taken-aback by the quick response.
“Strange. Maybe I was starstruck by such a handsome detective.” Ryan’s expression is playful, and his words are teasing, but Ray still flushes. It’s not every day a good looking hitman flirts with him, and he’s really not sure if he’s more scared or intrigued at this point.
He gestures at the tin, trying to deflect. “You have a dog?”
“Sure do. Would you like to meet him?” Ryan offers to Ray’s surprise. “You could come back to mine. I’ve been wanting to know you better since I was put in charge of your… situation.”
“Only if you promise not to murder me,” Ray counters, and is surprised when Ryan laughs amiably.
“I make no promises I can’t keep.”
Ray’s mind stutters to a stop as he’s abruptly reminded of Ryan’s job. He steps back nervously, and Ryan’s face changes as he realizes what he’s said. That’s when he blurts out an excuse about being needed somewhere and evacuates himself from the situation before any more can be said, before Ryan can remember he’s not meant to be friends with Ray.
***
He spends a few days sleeping little, wishing he had a vice like drinking to calm his nerves. He has a gun within reach at all times, getting more and more nervous as the days go by. He knew it was only a matter of time until the masked man came back to finish the job for real. Late at night, he was still sitting at his desk in the office when he heard a car pull up outside.
A car's lights flashed through the blinds for a moment as it turned, and then the bullets started to hit the wall. They smashed the window, and then his door (freshly painted, the bastards), and then the impacts began to trace a jagged line towards his desk in the corner of the room as if scrawled by a toddler's hand.
In retrospect, Ray thought as he hit the deck, he should have seen this coming.
The assassin – Ryan – may have been amiable, even friendly, whenever he appears but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s got a job to do. He hopefully didn't expect Ray to be armed, though.
He rolled forward and grabbed for the gun on his desk (stupid, stupid of him to put it down), trying to keep below the window line. The bullets were coming through some of the wall, it wasn’t that thick, but so far nothing was hitting too close to him.
After what seems like an age, but is probably only a few seconds, the assassin runs out of bullets and a screech of tyres follows. Ray takes only a moment to launch himself at the window to see his assailant. He catches sight of a black squared car, very old fashioned, with a green star emblazoned on the hood. A second car with the same symbol is disappearing around the corner.
"Geoff", Ray thinks. "That bastard sold me out".
A man with a gun is still by the car, facing down the street and desperately trying to reload. Bringing his gun to bear, Ray lines up and pops a few shots off at the guy. He may be Geoff's friend, and this assassin may be Geoff's guy, but anyone that tried to kill Ray was not on his Christmas card list any more. He misses terribly; the wind is picking up, he’s out of practice, and he's shaking from adrenaline and cold. It's not his finest hour.
He gets close enough that the man rockets back from his hiding spot in alarm, clearly trying to avoid any shrapnel. His hat falls off and Ray has time to memorise his features – curly hair, dark but impossible to tell the true colour in the gloom, with a mouth turned down in irritation – and realise that this wasn't a stranger from Geoff's crew. This was Michael.
Michael and him were friends, Ray had thought. They went to bars together, they got lunch together every now and then, and once (before Ray had finished with that career) they had worked together. No two were more feared in their business at the height of their partnered career.
Michael screams out an expletive that Ray can hear from his window before he obviously decides that it's not worth his time and he jumps to get back in his car.
The tyres squeal in protest as he accelerates hard, head down to minimise the target. The car lurches forward, skids, and then picks up traction on the wet road and disappears off around the corner.
Ray’s gun clicks empty.
He takes a moment for himself, trying to catch his breath and adjust to the sudden increase in his likelihood of dying of fear. Geoff may have put a hit out on him, but it was unlikely. They were... Well, Ray would consider them friends.
As he’s trying to figure out how he managed to piss off his old employer enough for this kind of retribution, there’s a sound from the doorway. He turns and freezes at the sight of the masked man, gun in hand, pushing the door open and stepping in over the glass shards.
It’s stupid, Ray knows it’s stupid, but he doesn’t have any more bullets and he’s pretty certain his opponent wouldn’t be so considerate. He throws his empty gun at the door, knocks a glass shard loose from the ruined window frame, and jumps out.
He lands in the dumpster that is there, still unemptied as it had stood for weeks. He blacks out momentarily as he hits the back of his head on
When he comes to, he takes a second to assess the situation and his shitty (or great, depending on the perspective) luck before rolling over the garbage bags to the edge of the metal box. He’s disoriented and slow and dizzy, his ears ringing, so when his arm is grabbed and he’s hauled over the side he barely reacts.
When the skull mask swims into view, he closes his eyes and waits for the end.
***
When a minute passes and he’s not dead, he opens one eye. The assassin is stood with his back to Ray, waving down Michael who was driving back down the street towards them.
“I’m not dead,” he wonders out loud.
“Well, you did give it your best shot. Jumping out the window was not a great idea,” Ryan glances back over his shoulder at Ray, mask reflecting light dully in the street lamp’s glow and eyes glinting in the sockets of the mask. “It’s a good thing we got here in time to chase the guy off.”
Ray begins to feel like he’s missing something. “Chase who?”
“The guy? The assassin? I told you they were coming after you!” Ryan sounds exasperated more than angry, turning to face Ray with arms waving.
Ray clicks, finally. “I thought that was you, I thought you were threatening me.”
Ryan stops mid rant, staring at Ray for a moment before closing his eyes in despair. He holds his hands out toward Ray expectantly and Ray steps forward into their reach, more trusting now he figures Ryan wasn’t here to kill him. Ryan closes his hands over the top of his shoulders and shakes him once, twice, while gently repeating, "Idiot. Why?"
Ray is about to complain about the chiding (how was he meant to know, really), when Ryan stops shaking him and instead uses his grip to pull Ray forward, just enough to wrap him in his arms briefly before releasing him. “Maybe I should have been clearer.”
“You think?” Ray splutters indignantly. “All this time I’ve been conflicted over you being both hot and out to kill me, and now I find you’ve been trying to save me this whole time?”
Ryan blinks at him, pulling his mask off. “You think I’m hot? I thought you weren’t interested.”
He covers his face in embarrassment. “You came to me saying someone wanted me dead and you’d been put in charge of it. What was I meant to think?”
They stare at each other for a moment, both with red rising in their cheeks, before they both laugh helplessly.
“Can we start over?” Ryan offers with a grin, and Ray feels warm all over despite the cool night air.