AH collections

the sugar baby escapades (15)

OT6
Word count: 17704
Chapters: 18

The thing with the Fakes is ...

The things with the Fakes is they all have each other's backs.

It's an interesting dynamic they've got going between as a group, as pairs, as individuals. Jeremy has never felt so accepted or so in tune with a group of people in his entirely life. For some reason, they saw potential in him. They found him on the street, causing chaos for other crew on commission, decided he had enough Jack-of-all-trade skills to fill in a position that had just opened up in the crew. His drive for perfection helped them pull off successful heists, and soon he found himself growing closer and closer to each of them.

They love each other, and they love him. And however you wish to define that love, you can't. It's indescribable, it's all encompassing, it's everything he ever could've dreamed of and more. Slowly and surely, it overwrites parts of his past, covers up the parts he doesn't want to admit because they have enough to worry about. They don't need to know about all of him. Just the censored versions.

That is until his past starts spilling into his present.

It starts with the texts—it's always the texts. How he gets Jeremy's number is beyond him, but it starts with the texts. Threatening, disturbing, vulgar about him and his partners. He ignores them because he knows he can't hurt him. He knows he can't reach him here. He has the crew at his back, so he ignores them, brushes them off because they don't really mean anything, do they?

The three of them—Ryan, Gavin, and Jeremy—are crashed in one of the spare bedrooms of the apartment. They're in a pre-heist funk, all too wound up for tomorrow's festivities in how many convenient stores they can hit in one night. The three of them have started up a tradition where they all just chill out in the same bedroom. Maybe they'll smoke a little something, drink a little something—always in moderation because they don't want to be too out of it for the heist. Just enough to calm the nerves. Ryan always sticks to his Diet Cokes.

Jeremy's in a half doze, listening to the voices from Ryan's laptop, playing a rerun of Friends. He hears a phone buzz. It could be his, could be anyone's.

"Um, Jeremy," Gavin asks. "What is this?"

He's tired and relaxed, not picking up on Gavin's concern.

"Let me see?" Ryan says.

There's a rustle and a sudden intake of breath. Then a gentle hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. "Jeremy, what is this?"

He finally opens his eyes. Ryan hands him the phone, and he sees it. Another text.

They're going to chew you up spit you out
who are you kidding

Jeremy locks his phone. "What about it?" he asks and stretches out on the bed.

"Is someone threatening you over text?" Gavin asks. He's concerned.

Jeremy shrugs. "It's nothing."

"It's not nothing," Ryan says, and now there's the edge to his tone as he shifts on the bed. "If someone's harassing you, you need to tell us. It's not like we'll be mad at you. We just want to take care of you."

"It's ..." Jeremy struggles to get the words together. He flips his phone in his hands, not looking at either of them. "It's ... hard isn't it? To admit that maybe you liked someone a lot and they turned out to be an asshole. And you didn't see the signs and you didn't go for help because who likes asking for help right? It's supposed to private. And you, like, try to deal with it on your own, think you were part of the problem. And eventually you get out. But it never stops. Not really, but you keep going because what else are you supposed to do?" He shrugs again and lets his phone drop to the bedspread. "It's fine now, though. I've got you guys."

He closes his eyes because, fuck, he's tired and warm.

"When you're ready," Ryan murmurs. "We're here for you."

It doesn't take him long to fall asleep.

"You sure this is the place?"

"Yeah. Traced the number here. Bandana's a bit much, don't you think?"

"Says the guy who's wearing the gold rimmed aviators."

Gavin shakes his head fondly as Ryan, with his face half covered in a skull patterned bandana, knocks on the apartment door.

When the door opens, Gavin grins brightly. "You must be Oscar," he says. His grin is as a sharp as one of the knives strapped to Ryan's thigh. "We've got a bone to pick with you."

Before the man can move, Ryan rushes him and pins him up against the wall. Gavin steps in neatly and takes out the man's phone.

"So we've heard that you've been sending some not nice texts to a friend of ours." He gets to the contact list and finds Jeremy's number. "That's not very nice."

The man cries out when Ryan hits him solidly in the stomach and hurls him onto the ground.

"See, we don't like people like you. People who don't take 'no' for an answer. People who don't respect boundaries."

Ryan stalks across the floor and lines his foot up for a hard kick.

"So you're going to fuck off. Or we'll be back with more of us. We're keeping it quiet this time because our boy is a little shy at the moment. Oi. Got it?"

The man nods and flinches when Ryan fakes a move towards him.

They leave the apartment and head for Ryan's civilian car outside. Ryan pulls off the bandana and turns the key in the ignition.

"I'm surprised you didn't go hog wild on him," Gavin says.

"What can I say? I think Jeremy's made me go a bit soft."

And that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.