Work Text:
Ronan wakes up at half past ten to two messages. The one on the burner phone says, ‘Usual place, 10am, dress inconspicuous.’ The one on his usual phone says, ‘I don't know what you did to this goddamned car but it is going to be expensive.’ Adam doesn't usually swear; Ronan smirks with a spark of undeserved pride.
‘fix her up real pretty for me,’ he tells Adam, knowing he’s going to get irritated silence in response.
He’s still lying there when another message comes in on the burner, from the same unknown contact as the first. It says, 'Really?'
'calm your tits, I'm on my way,' Ronan replies, and stays in bed another ten minutes.
The apartment’s main room is where Gansey studies, so it stinks of mint tea and academic desperation. Gansey himself is slumped over his desk and snoring, surrounded by illegible handwritten notes, semi-reputable cryptology textbooks and, inexplicably, DVD cases for Celebrity Ghost Stories.
Ronan kicks him gently awake, and watches Gansey scramble back into reality. “Morning, loser,” Ronan says, feeling chipper. “Some of your notes have rubbed off onto your face – does that say ‘haunted Chevy’? No, higher up. Under your eye.”
“I didn’t hear you come in last night,” Gansey says, scrubbing at the ink on his cheek. “Were you working?”
“Just racing,” Ronan replies. “Cocked up the Beemer’s engine though, so I left it for Parrish.”
“I’m sure he’s delighted.”
“Oh, he likes a challenge.” Ronan goes to the kitchen to forage for something that doesn’t need more preparation than being shucked from a wrapper. Gansey is a distracted cook at best, and shares his taste for instant foods, and the cupboards are a mess of empty boxes that one of them should probably get rid of.
“You should have a real breakfast,” Gansey tells him. “We could go out.”
Gansey is not good at hiding when he’s concerned about Ronan, which is virtually all times, but Ronan has gotten good at living with the guilt. “I’m just on my way out,” he says, despite the fact that he’s still leaning in the kitchen without a shirt or jacket on, microwaving an old hot pocket. He’s not about to start rushing now. “Work.”
Gansey makes a face that summarizes what he thinks of Ronan’s work, and everyone he works with, and probably also the wider societal context that allows jobs like that to exist. It is quite the disparaging face.
“I know, man,” Ronan tells him. “Still though; pays the fucking bills.”
Perpetual student Gansey is on shaky ground when he tries to argue that one, though he often does. He retreats temporarily to reconsider his strategy. Ronan glances out the window to regard the empty space where his BMW should be; beside it is Gansey’s baby, the alarmingly orange Camaro that has a lot to do with why they are friends.
Gansey watches with barely-dampened disapproval as Ronan stomps around grabbing his boots, his sunglasses, his most ostentatious leather jacket, before finally calling out, “How are you getting to work?”
Ronan pauses, suddenly aware of how far it’s going to be on foot. “Can I borrow your car?”
“Christ, no.”
Ronan is well over an hour late to the meeting. It’s always bothered him, how much the criminal underworld still insists on punctuality. Maybe it’s just the guy he works for, but it feels too much like school, and makes Ronan want to rebel for no good reason at all.
The ‘usual place’ is an abandoned warehouse, because where else would it be, and there is an irritated gang of crooks already waiting for him. “Hey, asshole,” one of them calls out when they spot him. “Done blowing your boyfriend? Ready to get your fucking ass in gear?”
“So fucking sorry,” Ronan replies, “Didn’t know I was holding up your date.”
The guy with the shades sneers, but tugs his boy tighter up against him; at the front of the room, the boss waits impatiently for everyone to shut up. He goes by Sir, and it took Ronan two weeks to start saying it without overt sarcasm. He’s officious, clearly in love with the sound of his own voice, sure to never get his hands dirty and, unfortunately, excellent at corralling crooks. Rumor is his wife is better, but no one dares invoke her in his presence.
Ronan's worked with everyone in this crew at some point before, which means they already don’t like him, but also that they’ve done this at least once without dying. Sitting apart from the others is a mean looking fucker with tattoos jostling for space over his skin who goes by Swan. Shades’ boy is an awkward, crooked creature with wary eyes; Sir’s called him Prefab, which is too high-concept to really catch on. Shades calls him Baby Boy. Ronan has never had a need to talk to him directly. The guy with the shades insists on going by Thief, so Ronan has taken to calling him anything but Thief, because 'We're all fucking thieves, how stupid can you get?'
Ronan's nickname is Asshole.
“If you boys would get off each other’s dicks for a moment?” Sir asks, nicely. His teeth look expensive. “I’m assuming you all like money, and are here because you’d like to make more.”
He doesn’t look at Ronan while he says that, which gives Ronan an appreciated opportunity to roll his eyes; everyone is well aware that he’s not in it for the money. He stays quiet for the plan though, mulling over routes and cars and where the cops are likely to pop up. For some five-minute intervals, he can be a goddamned professional. He tunes out the parts about who’s going to get hurt, and Sir certainly notices his inattention, but doesn’t call him out on it.
“Does that sound good to everyone?” Sir asks when he’s finished. “It certainly should, the plan is impeccable. I should be asking if you all understood it.”
“We fucking got it, boss,” Shades replies. Ronan suspects he’s not capable of saying ‘Sir’ with a straight face either. “Sounds like a good time.”
“Then I’ll see you all this evening, filthy lucre in hand.” Sir sounds pleased, but probably with himself. “Off you go, rest up, polish your guns or whatever else it is you model citizens get up to.”
“You better be on time tonight, Asshole,” Shades tells him, pointing at him in a way that feels more synonymous with a real gun than most people could have managed.
Ronan puts both hands up, total innocence, and resists the urge to show up two hours late out of spite.
‘Are you coming over later?’ Adam asks, in the weird limbo hours before Ronan goes to work.
Ronan says ‘Probably.’
‘I meant to see me,’ Adam replies. ‘Not because you’ve ruined another car.’
Ronan says ;) and spends the rest of the day marinating in Adam’s indignant silence.
Two texts before the job starts, both on his usual phone. Gansey says, ‘Be careful.’ Adam says, ‘Good luck.’
Probably, Ronan thinks, someone should have a talk to Adam about ethics, though he will always be pleased with Adam’s slow transition to his ride-or-die. He probably has a bag packed for Ronan on the off-chance that he ever needs to get out of town in a hurry. He’d never leave his shop, but he’d send Ronan off with a full tank of gas and never breathe a word.
Ronan likes that in a man.
“Are you texting?” Shades asks him. “Jesus fucking Christ, Asshole, where is your head at?”
“Right here,” Ronan snaps back, jamming his phone back into his pocket before someone tries to snatch it. “Waiting on you fuckers to go get the cash.”
Shades sneers. In the back, his boy has his shoulders hunched, tense, not the least bit docile. Swan seems bored. They’re itching to move, no nerves, no fear, and the moment right before they go always gives Ronan a weird chill in his gut. He could have a gun, if he wanted, if he thought it would help, but he’s never taken one. Maybe it’s half a concession to Adam and Gansey, some plausible deniability, if the worst he ever does is drive. Rear-ending a few cop cars isn’t too bad big-picture. He’s sure any judge would agree.
“Let’s fucking do this,” Shades says, and they’re out. Ronan doesn’t watch them go, and he doesn’t watch through the building’s windows, and he doesn’t look back at his phone. The part he likes is almost here.
Gunshots from the building, and he turns the key in the ignition. There’s about to be an alarm, and sirens, and a coordinated police response, and he can feel the grin starting in his jawbone, irresistible.
He hears the crew running back over the shriek of the alarm, revs as they throw themselves inside, has the car moving before the doors are even closed. The car’s a good one, quick and responsive, easy under his hands as he tears away from the bank.
This is the part he likes: the part where he sees where he wants to be, like the other side of the median, and he gets there in a second, joyously ignoring every law that usually holds him down. The part where he works the pedal and the wheels and the engine roars to obey, where everything is synchronized and simple, a fun game of physics he always wins. The part where the crew can’t fucking believe what they’re getting away with, where his heart is pounding hard enough to crack a rib, where this is all for real, death or glory, and he gets glory every time.
With full apology to Gansey, this is the only time he feels alive. He can’t give it up.
Ronan receives a new burner phone, a fat stack of cash, and a severe look from Sir.
“You know you're lucky I keep working with you, despite your terrible attitude,” Sir tells him. “If your father and I hadn’t been such good friends, I might have started looking for a driver who could show up on time and pay attention.”
“How come the others got their cut without a lecture?” Ronan asks. He doesn't recall his father ever mentioning a slick bastard with a Machiavellian boner, but it's not impossible. They'd had career criminals over for dinner a few times, and Declan had always pitched a fit. Ronan doesn't know where his brothers are now, but he likes to think that's best for all of them. It still beats actually talking to Declan.
Sir makes a very long suffering expression, which Ronan suspects he enjoys making. He is uncomfortably reminiscent of a teacher. “Were you listening?”
“You’re not going to get another driver like me,” Ronan replies, which is true, and the only reason he can get away with acting like himself. He might have a better personality if he had any competition, but instead he has chosen to embrace being an Asshole.
Sir sighs, theatrically, which Ronan takes as an affirmation. “I’ll see you again,” he tells him. “So try to be on time. And get rid of the fucking car.”
“Yes, Sir,” Ronan says. His face is scrutinized briefly for sarcasm, but it’s a pointless exercise; Ronan is totally incapable of uttering that sentence sincerely.
He goes to get rid of the fucking car.
The rule is that if Adam’s awake, then Adam is probably working, so Ronan doesn’t bother calling ahead. The shop is on the edge of town, still small, but with a growing reputation that Adam is rightfully proud of. Ronan’s proud of him too.
His BMW is sitting out front, looking fantastically un-fucked once again, and Ronan parks the latest liability up beside it. Cars are about as disposable as his phones are, which would only make him sad if they were better cars.
Adam comes out before his headlights are off, clearly trying to look unimpressed. Ronan thinks he can hear the news playing in the shop behind him, and what a complicated emotion that triggers. At least his driving was, to quote Shades, ‘some next level GTA shit’. He wonders if Adam thinks it’s hot at all. His face says ‘no’, but his continued association with Ronan says ‘maybe, but don’t push it’.
“Glad to see you made it back,” Adam says. “You know Gansey’s been texting me all evening?”
“That’s on him, not me,” Ronan replies. Gansey was the one who introduced them when Ronan needed a mechanic, and has regretted it ever since. “BMW’s looking good.”
Adam shrugs with one shoulder, like he isn’t a magical engine-whisperer, and eyes up the one Ronan drove up in. “I hope you bring some of these to other shops.”
“Some,” Ronan hedges, clearly meaning not enough. Adam has to hear it, but doesn’t look as worried as a reasonable person would; Ronan is pleased for both of them.
Adam circles around the car, sizing it up to see if there’s anything worth salvaging before he puts it in line to get crushed. He taps the edge of a bullet hole, punched deep into the chassis, and looks at Ronan with something like benign curiosity; Ronan doesn’t fully remember getting shot at.
“Should have put a sticker over that,” Ronan says belatedly. He loves nothing more than adding fake bullet hole stickers to help disguise the real ones.
“Too late now,” Adam replies. “I’ll sort it out for you.”
“Let me get us straight, then,” Ronan says, offering Adam a sheaf of his ill-gotten gains. Adam’s fee is based on a very complicated algorithm, which has something to do with the actual work he does, however much hush money he wants, and the knowledge that Ronan doesn’t need the money for anything. Adam counts out his mystery number and hands the rest back to Ronan, and it feels like good business. Adam looks pleased as he pockets the money, and Ronan feels a pulse of that dumb and irresistible love that every driver feels for their one-and-only crooked mechanic.
Ronan says, “I think I left some beer here last time,” because he has been trained out of explicitly inviting himself places and no further.
“Come on, then,” Adam tells him, heading back into the shop. “I’m sure you want to watch your highlights reel.”
He absolutely does. No one died today, he’s halfway to a friction burn from his steering wheel, and his favorite mechanic has a very pretty smile. Ronan is a creature of simple pleasures, and he is content.