#acwrites

Now this might not mean much if you think after Clover betrayed Hoxton, Hoxton immediately jumped into the payday gang thus making Clover around 24. 

But I like to think that Hoxton was betrayed by Clover 4 years before Hoxton joined the og Payday Gang(ages 26 and 20) and that Hoxton was teaching Clover for like four years before this. 

I like to think this because the idea of Hoxton bumbling around like a first time older brother to this feral yet obviously criminally talented teenager is hilarious. 

Hoxton’s only frame of reference is his two brothers. As shown by the way he interacts with Bonnie, Hoxton clearly believes in not being a dick to women just because he can like he does with guys...Well most of the time >;)

So I imagine he was very awkward and trying his best while Clover could give less of shit and just wants to learn crime.

Houston seems like the guy who hoards tickets.

Bonnie can and will play every game that’s borderline gambling.

Bodhi and Wolf are the guys that play stuff like DDR and attract a small crowd from sheer speed alone. But this was expected. What was not was Jiro showing up to challenge the winner with his own skills.

Sokol might be the best at hokey but Chains proved himself as an air hockey god. Apparently him and Dallas would play every now and then but when they where younger where wayyyy more competitive about anything and everything.

Jacket and Joy are suspiciously good at block stackers.

Sydney and Wick end up playing against each other in shooter games.

Clover and Hoxton always manages to get the biggest and most expensive prizes by the end of the day but everyone questions how legal their wins are.

Speaking of Hoxton, he and Wolf knows all the tricks to the machines so they’re able to tell what’s rigged and what are all the tricks and patterns. 

‘His minds too active’ he’d say.

So Dallas came up with a solution. To give him something to focus on. 

A story. 

It became nightly routine for a good while. Sometimes it would be old books but sometimes they did not have any around and the elder brother did his best with making things up on the spot. He wasn’t the best at first. But over time his skill increased.

This skill would help him later down the line.

It’s was harder for the debt collectors to track him if they couldn’t follow the hotel bill trail of their borrowed money. Or at least that was his logic. 

If the Ghost was to be honest, looking back while he did have a great time he’d never do it again. Then again he doesn't think he’d ever actively take on as many loans as he did to modify his car. 

What really went through his mind at the time, was something he has since forgotten. Only left with the memories of what he did. The stories and opinions of the roads and places he traveled. It ended up being a topic he found himself discussing with Rust. Figurers the tool thief would rack up some interesting stories and opinions through years of travel. Plus all those photo’s he taken seem to attract the attention from the more artistic ones of the group as well

His ability to jump from the nosiest in the room to the quietest was always something that unnerved people. ‘Inconsistent and creepy.’ He was once told by a particularly rude person. A leftover quirk from his childhood, that didn’t mean anything... 

Until he got into crime.

Being able to snap from having all eyes to no eyes on you is a very good skill if you’re tying not to get caught.

When he first met his new coworkers they seem to take it in stride.

It did not take long for him to realize they had similar abilities, albeit retextured, to fit their personalities.

A commonality that no one brought up.

It was the first sign that after a period of everything going wrong that maybe, just maybe, the world wasn’t a shithole trying to fuck him over at every chance. He never could anticipated what he’d gain with them over the years... 

So imagine a young Chains going through the fresh hell (that you end up developing Stockholm syndrome for) that is boot camp and while in the city meeting a twenty something year old Dallas. 

A young Nathan Steele doing his best to take care of his even younger brother finds himself befriend the new sailor Nicolas. 

Was it a bond from a mutual love of firearms? Or maybe it was the fact that none of the expected anything from either of them. Just two guys wanting some companionship. Rough backgrounds that somehow didn’t make them entirely unapproachable. 

Comradery built in an unlikely time.

Unbeknown to either of them that it was the beginning of a friendship that would last a life time through bullets and blood.

Accidental but useful, just like Chain’s dabble in four man mercenary squads.

Seems like that was how a lot of their lives went, didn’t it?

Bain knew how to pick em good, 

Or really the time in between the final heist and the off shore ending. 

About the way Dallas must’ve took one final tour through the safehouse before closing it’s doors forever. A slow stroll thinking and reminiscing. About the final good byes the gang gave each other before the split up. From heartfelt to denial to everything in-between

The journey to an off shore beach, was it loud or quite? 

The way they talk to each other is if they’re catching each other up. Did they all take their own transportation? Leaving each other alone, to prosses or to drown in emotion? Did the physical labor of the final heist left them aching or did they bounce back in everything but spirit? 

The bittersweet sensation because of the separation from the people they’ve worked with, some for up to 6 or 8 years? Perhaps that’s why Wolf ended up staying on Dallas’s boat for so long. Loosing a second family must’ve hit him and Jiro uniquely hard.