#fenf

But if he was gonna end up helping out when things went awry, how was he going to go about communicating with them? How would he get his hands on a radio?

So he has 3 choices: take the headset from Gavin, take Ray's, or already have had one by sneaking it on to the chopper

And the reason I went with Ray's was just. Comedy value. Because Ray always says he will do anything for money in videos. Plus I mean what would they they do if they frisked Ryan and just found money on him like. Ohshit, gonna give them papercuts, gotta take that away sorry pal. And they probably trust Ray enough to not betray them for fifty bucks (but Ryan knows better) (and I have a reason for Ray being greedy about money but unless someone asks I probably won't get into it until i write fic about it)

What was important to me while writing was trying to keep a realistic balance between 'hey, this is a life or death situation probably' and 'dont forget this is the AH crew they're never 100% serious'

So that was my reasoning for it. Just. Ray being Ray--and Ryan knowing about his money weakness because yknow, analyzing the Crew and all that.

I also deliberately wrote it in such a way that it's like, oh, all of a sudden Ryan has the radio. I wanted it to seem like there was no hesitation from Ray when Ryan pulled out a fifty dollar bill just. Okay yup, here you go, my bosses are in trouble but whatever I'm fifty bucks richer.

The part at the beginning with Ryan just staring a Ray to get his message across is purely just me trying to make him seem intimidating; doesn't say more than he needs to, lets his eyes inform you of his intentions, etcetc. Because he wears a skull mask all the time, a lot of his communication is through his eyes, since that's the only part of his face you can see.

The last three lines there, starting with Gavin chiming in, was added after I finished the fic. I kept looking at that part like 'i feel like i left that hanging,,,', and I felt as though I didn't have Gavin saying enough. so I just kind of. Slapped it in. Thinking 'uuuh i hope that flows well......'

I had trouble with Geoff's speech there because I'm not sure if anyone noticed but, no one ever refers to Ryan by name, or any nickname. That was deliberate. At this point in the verse, none of them know his name, and  I mentioned in a headcanon post a while back that he's known as 'Skull', but in my mind the Crew doesn't like calling him that like. No, we all go by names here, we're not acknowledging your weird reputation, give us a name. So that's why Geoff says 'the new recruit' so ambiguously.

The action bit with Geoff is just filler--reminding the reader that shit's still happening while they're talking over the radio