#itcibibmoh

it’s just. no matter how many times he’s kidnapped and tortured, it doesn’t get any easier to be away from his crew. he prides himself on his mental fortitude but this time it was... it got to him. the cold, the loneliness, the lack of rest. it got to him, is all.

the crew notices he’s not sleeping well but they give him time to heal, provide him with anything he needs. 

and what he needs, he says, is, “you. i just want to be with all of you.”

they give him what he needs. they stay in bed as long as he needs, they bring him food, they incorporate him back into his life slowly. one day, a movie, the other lifting weights, the other robbing a convenience store, the other pulling all their beds together in the middle of the warehaus and sleeping there, a mass of bodies coiled together while the river breeze floats through the open warehaus doors. 

they find they need a fourth, need more muscle for this shit, so they pick up james off los santos craigslist. His listing reads “Big buff jock loves violence, will be your bodyguard or your murderer, pick one or both.” and he lists his conditions as house, food, money, if you punch him in the face avoid the nose and go for the mouth. he lists his specialty as drunk bjs and they pretend to forget that bit

When james joins in, somehow their whirlwind gets worse. james proceeds to blow them all in a bar bathroom, one by one, each one on a different day but all backed into the same corner of the grimy bathroom. It becomes a ritual, almost. james is good at drunk bjs. he moves into adam and bruce’s apartment (matt has his own place he disappears to sometimes) and james technically is supposed to sleep on the couch, but adam and bruce keep waking up in the mornings to james curled around their bodies. It just Happens.

for one of the biggest jobs they’re going to do, not a hit but a heist, they need an explosives guy. james swears he knows a guy but matt isn’t completely sure that he isn’t talking about himself and matt trusts james with explosives about as much as he trusts an open flame with a tank of gas. so he goes on the deep web and put on a listing on dark craigslist. (bruce complains “we got james off craigslist and you disapproved for three months?” matt says, “dark craigslist is different.”)

the guy who ends up answering the listing goes by sthgon. matt proceeds to freak the fuck out.

bruce, james and adam have to spend the next week leading up to the meeting hearing all about how this guy, sthgon, is a sort of legend in the underground scene. story goes he started making bombs at 14 and ended up getting arrested at 16. According to legend, sthgon ended up making a bomb out of the lint in his pocket and he broke his way out of jail that way. James rolls his eye multiple times, says “my guy’s probably done that too”

When they meet up with the guy, under cover of night, he looks like a lost kid with a beard. His smile is incredibly genuine and he’s wearing a hat. matt gets an instacrush on him, obviously, and he ends up spending long bouts of time with the budding crew in their too-small cheap-as-balls apartment. He ends up, after the heist, giving them his name. Sean. spoole, if you know him well. “And do we?” adam asks. “Yes. call me spoole.” (matt is lowkey Dying.) and then bruce offers him the job and he stays.

Since their crew is growing, they decide to get a bigger place that’s more central in the city because they need it if they’re to make a name for themselves. When they move into the two bedroom, one and a half bath, bruce beams. Says, “we’re moving up in the world!”

A month later, after they’ve spent most of their rent money on candy (spoole), alcohol (james, mostly for exploding things), and video games (admittedly, all of them), they’re forced to move into a warehouse by the river where the rent is dirt cheap but the doors almost always stick, it smells overwhelmingly like contaminated river water, and it’s always cold at night. exasperated, bruce asks, “where did we go wrong”

the first month in what they now call the Warehaus, is spent trying to make it liveable. bruce hangs wires from wall to wall and they drape dollar-store curtains and sheets from them in order to make separate rooms. their kitchen is a camp stove on a countertop they found at the junkyard. the bathroom is technically a port a potty.

then joel shows up one day. joel is the slipperiest fuck in los santos and it seems like hes either pissed off or had an affair with every big name in the underground. sometimes both. actually, mostly both. he used to be in the drug business, then got into murder for hire, then into hacking (very briefly), then into drugs again, then high-stakes robbery, back into hits and he gets out of that and is sort of lost for a while. he knows james and matt from past jobs and bruce from flirting every morning in the coffee shop they both go to and when he figures out theyre all connected hes determined to get In On This and he does. picks their lock at 8am and sits down in their makeshift kitchen. hes trying so hard to be cool when adam comes out in a tshirt he swears to god he saw james wearing last week and briefs and squints at joel with a passion

He looks like a shining jewel in the middle of the dingy warehaus. He’s on his phone, tapping around on the screen while adam just utters, "uh" and joel smiles, looks up and asks "whats for breakfast?"

adam is at a loss. says, "... i was gonna... make eggs"

joel wrinkles his nose

"pancakes?"

joel nods and then proceeds not to move as he watches adam make the pancakes. adam is extremely flustered. james comes out of his ‘room’ and crows "joel!" and fistbumps him in greeting then aggressively makes out with him in greeting, and adam makes a disgusted face and has to push them apart so he can reach the plates for the pancakes

"get a room" adam says

"oh i get a place?" joel beams.

adam cant decide whether he loves this or hates it. he has words with james later. james insists he has nothing to do with this. bruce just laughs when adam asks him

adam gives him a ‘room’ (a division of the warehaus they were using for storage) yet joel seems to sleep in every bed but his own, even after he brings a canopied, queen bed into the space. adam lies awake at night with james, bruce and joel all crammed into his bed, a king mattress on the floor, having come in at varying times, and wonders why his life is like this and if its karma.

adam hands joel a plateful of pancakes the first morning and joel takes one bite, moans pornographically around it, then hops down from the counter and mashes his face against adams with fervor, still chewing. adam is appalled, yet charmed

and then the second time they kiss its still sloppy theyve had a few drinks and nothing more comes of it because then james pulls joel into his lap and then they start making out

joel is just. a kisser. he kisses everyone all the time

spoole gets him water? kiss

bruce folds his pants? kiss

james lets him drive? kiss

okay but the THIRD TIME adam and joel have been tiptoeing around each other for a while and the third time they kiss is unofficially the fifth time theyve kissed (b/c joel is a kisser) but this time its different joel looks predatory and adam feels cornered the warehaus is dark and joel rounds in on adam and brackets him against a wall and the kiss is not what adam was expecting its the most teasing and deep burn adam's ever felt

like hes used to it? sort of? the kissing? bc joel will just stick his tongue down somebodys throat at the drop of a hat but apparently theres a difference between "hey thanks" kisses and "im gonna suck your dick so hard buddy" kisses. TURNS OUT both make him weak at the knees. and joel was sort of expecting adam to get aggressive when he got him hot enough but the shaking and slow slide down the wall and hands gentle on his thighs and wide eyes. uh. work too he guesses

This, of course, gives way to the gay. like, at some point in between all the kisses joel gives, the air in the warehaus gets gayer. yes it was possible for it to get gayer.

everyone’s sitting in the space designated as the living room, the space by the kitchen, all tense and uncomfortable, and james walks in and throws his hands up and yells at the ceiling BE MY FUCKING BOYFRIENDS OH MY GOD. only joel says, FINALLY, bruce exhales out of relief and spooles squeaks. matt snorts quietly at spooles squeak. adam slithers off the couch onto the floor. then they hug like the big gays they are and decide to get bigger beds in each room.

its around this time that joel divulges that during his many and varied career paths, he has accumulated a lump sum of cash that he would like to use to make their living conditions more tolerable. And adam accepts if only because he’s sick of the way joel wrinkles his nose up every time he has to shower with a bucket in the corner of the warehaus. joel builds them a proper kitchen, a bathroom with actual walls (just one, actually) and he gives money to buy up some gym equipment they fit into the space adjoining their rooms. Additionally, with joels money, they buy bookcases from goodwill and the salvation army and adam sighs out with relief bc his books are no longer on the floor. They use the bookshelfs as room dividers as well as closets. The place becomes a little more homey, after that.

lawrence joins the crew a little differently. someone actually hires him to murder adam but he follows him around the entire day and sees him like. give a kitten food and kiss three of his lovers and he's just like "No."

he bumps into spoole in a coffee shop he and adam are at and spooles like "sorry!" and skitters off to adam and kisses him so fucking gently and lawrences heart melts a lil. he ditches the job and enthusiastically applies to fakehaus by following them on heists and providing surprise backup fire.

his anime mask is seen from a distance. he gives them a thumbs up. bruce asks "what the hell?"

james says "i love them?"

lawrence continues to court fakehaus by sending them pizza. when they sit down to eat, matt says "i think he ordered it for us" joel is like "wait who?"

matt points out the open warehouse door to across the river where the anime mask stands with binoculars. he gives a thumbs up again and this time matt reciprocates. matt knows who it is bc theres only one motherfucker in this city who wears an anime mask while killing people in cold blood. also only one person who would slip a resume under their door and sign it "senpai".

the resume is listed as such: people i've killed: Name, Age, Manner of Death. classified as murder: yes/no

- senpai in glitter gel pen

its several pages long. the glitter pen is bright pink. theres another page that says "be my waifu? yes/yes!!!!/super yes!!!!!!!!" in the same pen in cursive

when lawrence actually talks to them for the first time matt pulls larr aside after and says "you were the guy hired for the hit on adam" and lawrence is like UH,, I. NO and matts like lmao aight u good. lawrence spends an entire week being afraid of matt tbh. week highkey afraid life lowkey afraid.

they pick elyse off the street where she ran away from her crew bc they had plans to murder her. It wasnt a good crew but it paid her bills. when fakehaus picks her up, she's pretty much rabid for the first few days.

it was james who recognized her, matted hair and all. He told bruce to pull over and he led her into bruce’s car and he held her down while she tried to punch bruce and he cooed at how cute she looked.

elyse barely speaks when she gets to the warehaus and actually tries to bite joel when he goes to brush hair out of her face. on the third day, she comes out of her room, still dirty but fresh faced. Adam warily gives her food. She says, "hey sorry i tried to maul you guys i was in a really bad place"

adam asks, "maul us?"

"yeah i thought about it a lot. like blood and guts and dismemberment. did i not?"

"not really."

"oh. never mind!"

when james opens up about it, it’s because lawrence asks. In the living room, james tells the story about how he and elyse met like years before they joined the crew but then they became estranged bc it happens sometimes. then james mentions that they’ve been married for years and literally everyone is like ???????????? but, we're together???? (joel voice “you’ve touched my dick, james”) and james is like "eh, we got married at like 18 in vegas and were too lazy to get it annulled. im glad she's doing good. is she in the crew now, sweet shes so cool."

meanwhile elyse growls at bruce who tries to bring her food. james goes "aw cute"

(joel voice "are you going to reconnect with your estranged rabid wife?"

james voice "um???? who wouldnt??????? please joel im not an asshole")

elyse when she's back on semi-okay mental ground tells james she still goes by willems. and james is like AW THATS SO CUTE and elyse hides her smile and replies coolly "i liked the name.” then they make out (talk about reconnecting). she ends up being fantastic with knives and torture. Her and lawrence bond over that.

somewhere along the way after that, james and elyse become known as the bulldogs of fakehaus. it's the simplest way to describe their job. adam says kill and they scramble for their bats, wear no helmets as they ride to the kill zone. adam says heel and they stop, eyes glinting with the bloodlust but obedient to the end. adam goes, they follow. they are the hammers, adam is the hand that swings them. they kill for him and would die for him. they trip over each other just to hear adam say that they did a good job. they melt at those words. and in bed it is... it is soft dom adam with two pliant subs who hunger for blood and violence and whose skin only stops crawling when they're swinging a bat, firing a gun, crashing a car, or feeling adam's hand on the backs of their necks.