danielthemangruchy

[danielthemangruchy]

run, boy, run this world is not made for you run, boy, run they're trying to catch you

[danielthemangruchy]

airbag deploying in slow mo [x]

[danielthemangruchy]

It seemed to Dan that it was time to go. Michael'd gone off to start the car, Jack was in the other room, his papers were sorted and in Geoff's possession, and Barbara and Gavin were standing awkwardly with nothing to do. 

He stood up, sock-footed on the warehouse floor. "Reckon it's time to say goodbye, then," he announced to no one in particular. He glanced over at Gavin, looking him in the eyes. He wanted to judge just how miffed Gavin was at him before speaking. He took a couple of steps towards him.

Looking into Gavin's eyes, he suddenly had nothing to say. Too much had happened between them, and though there were so many things to talk about, Dan couldn't seem to manage it. Instead, he just said, "See you around, B," though they both knew they'd never see each other again. He made a move to clap Gavin on the shoulder but aborted it partway through, sticking his hand in his pocket. 

He turned to Barabra, then, and again, he wasn't sure what to say. They didn't know each other that well, it was true, and she'd lied to him from the very beginning. But still, she'd defended him to Michael and never been anything but nice to him. "Sorry about all of this," he said, smiling weakly. "You know, if all of this madness never existed, I recon we'd've been good mates." Then he leaned forward and hugged her, loosely, and a bit awkwardly, the way you might hug a distant relative at a family gathering. The real reason he did so, however, was to whisper quietly enough that only she heard, "You're too good for this kind of life, Babs. You're above it." He pulled back, smiling again. "Farewell, lovely Barbara." He winked at her, and then turned away.

Dan faced the door, ready to start his new life. This was it, he supposed. The beginning of the end. And the beginning of the beginning, once again.

Fate's Tied Hands

--

The biggest issue in her mind suddenly became getting home. Michael probably wanted to hit her with his car, so he probably wouldn’t be driving her back. She decided she’d text Linds after this. Maybe she’d feel better after a sleepover with her.

[danielthemangruchy]

Dan let Jack take what the boss told him to, until he tried to take his shoes. “Oi!” He protested, yanking his feet out of the way. “I’ll give you my hair and prints and my firstborn son, right, but I draw the damn line at my trainers.” He gave this bloke, Jack, a level look so that the other man knew he was serious about what he said next. “If I was going to run, I’d be able to run, shoes or not. I’d like to have these when I start my new life, yeah?”

He rolled his eyes a bit when Jack went to comfort Barbara, though he himself felt like doing so. Something about the big ginger bloke just annoyed him.

"Barbara," he called after her, "give me a cool name, yeah? I’ve been Dan all my life, it’d be cool to be a bit more exotic." He was making light of the situation, trying to make it seem as though his existence was wiped so regularly that he was used to it by now, but privately, he felt a bit sick. Starting over in Los Santos had been hard, and he’d still been him. This was going to be unimaginable.

And speaking of starting over…”Oi Bossman,” he inquired, “how’m I getting funding for this fantastic new life? We gonna drain my bank account? Or is it all up to you lovely blokes?"

Fate's Tied Hands

--

Pushing back from her desk, she moved to rejoin the group. As she walked by Michael and Gavin, she paused.

"Sorry, Michael," she said quietly, continuing out of the office.

[danielthemangruchy]

The bosses weren't what he'd expected. Dan had a very fantastical image of crime bosses: pinstripes, fedoras, tommy guns. Old-timey gangsters, like in the movies. These two weren't that. One guy, the head guy, looked like he was trying too hard to be tough. He had a veritable sleeve of tattoos and a wicked mustache, but he wasn't intimidating. Maybe when he was younger he had been, but now, with a bit of a paunch and the lines on his forehead, he just looked haggard. He looked tired of the people around him and tired of the life he led. He was probably, Dan thought, much younger than he looked. 

This is what Dan was thinking as he listened to the bloke talk. It irked him that he was so matter-of-fact about Dan's death, but he understood it. That was just this life. He wondered about Barbara, how she'd gotten caught up in all of this. How the hell did she handle it? Certainly not well, her outburst earlier had shown that.

His ears perked up a bit when Geoff mentioned the military. He made sure not to let on that he retained a bit of hope for getting out of this alive, though. He didn't want to seem cocky. He didn't want to seem anything.

Keeping his features a mask of submission and resignation, Dan turned his eyes to the ginger bloke who was speaking, the other boss. He looked even less intimidating than the first. He was more than paunchy--he was fat. He was tubby and round-faced and bearded. He had smile lines. He looked...huggable.

Christ, Dan thought. These people were so normal, it was easy to forget what they did, who they were. He wondered if they forgot it themselves.

The second bloke got down on his level then, forcing Dan to meet his eyes. When he wiggled his fingers, Dan blinked. Two options: you don't exist, or you really don't exist.

He looked around the room; Gavin stood by Michael, looking just as tired as Geoff, drawn, and maybe--was he imagining it?--a little scared; Michael was furious, but he hid it well; the head bloke was watching Dan expectantly; the ginger, of course, was right in front of Dan's face. Dan turned a little bit so he could see Barbara, and he met her gaze. She didn't fit into this picture, just like she didn't fit into this world. She was too good for it. Dan had no doubt that every single person in this room was able and willing to kill except for her. Barbara was in way over her head, but he didn't think she knew it.

He turned back to face the ginger. "Respectfully," he started, "I'm not some idealistic hero. I don't care what you do to make your money." He turned his eyes to the tattooed bloke, then, addressing the head honcho directly. "If it's all the same to you, I'll go with the first option. I started over here. Why not start over there?"

Fate's Tied Hands

--

She realized, as the new guy explained, that they were giving Dan an option that didn’t involve dying. Her curiosity made her watch everyone a little more closely, but she could only clearly see Dan. Of course she wanted Dan to choose option one; they weren’t close, sure, but it could be a stranger on the street and she’d want to prevent a death. Once again, she wondered how she’d put herself in this mess.

[danielthemangruchy]

OOC

i just felt the need to leave this here

[danielthemangruchy]

make me choose

anonymous: gavin or dan

↳ ❝ Drunk. But i have chicken nuggets. #Win #GoMe ❞

[danielthemangruchy]

ooc

*chills until dan's fate comes to pass*

[danielthemangruchy]

snow

[danielthemangruchy]

Dan was looking between Barbara and Michael so fast he felt like he was watching a damn tennis match. But there was no love here. Barbara was yelling and Michael was fuming and it was the middle of the night and everyone was at the end of their rope.

And then Michael was yelling, and it was like watching a tsunami. It looks like a little wave a first, and before you know it it's hitting you in the fucking face. Before he knew it, Dan was shoved at Barbara, jerked back and forth by the cuffs, and Michael had whipped a gun out  and was pointing it at him. 

You never got used to it, really. He'd had a gun pointed at him before, but it had always been in a different sort of setting. It had never been in an American street, cuffed, standing between a friend and someone he knew hated his guts. But the feeling was still the same. The flood of adrenaline, the spike of his heart rate, the sound of his heart beating in his ears. 

He calmly stepped to the side, minding that he didn't seem as though he was trying to pull away from Michael, so that he stood directly between Barbara and Michael. He didn't know Michael well enough to know what he was and wasn't capable of, and he didn't want anyone else's life to be in mortal danger. 

"Michael, I don't think even you know what I know. Please, calm down. Put the gun away. You don't want to attract any attention right near your damn warehouse. That'd blow your cover just like me tattling would, okay? The all night dry cleaning place is still open and I will scream like a bitch, I swear to God. Please just put the gun away."

Not waiting for Michael to respond, he continued in the same calm, measured voice, "Barbara, I know that you work for this crime family or crew or whatever you might call it. You do something with computers. Gavin is a conman of sorts, I think, and Michael is the muscle, for lack of a better word. Ray is also involved, and Lindsay, though I don't know much about them. The base of operations is here, at this warehouse. And Gavin's new family runs the whole thing, I believe. But that's just guesswork, mostly."

He paused for a second, steadying his breathing again before continuing. "You want to know what else I know? I know that I care about you, and I care about Gavin, and I have no reason to blow your covers and get you thrown in prison or worse. That's what I know. That's all I know."

He said this entire speech with his back towards Barbara, facing Michael, ignoring the gun and looking him in the eyes. He wasn't scared of the gun. Not anymore. He'd said his piece. It was up to Michael now. 

Lies, All Lies

--

"Why are we here, Dan? Who did you talk to? How many of us do you know?" Michael breathed evenly, a collected machine of destruction. "Tell your buddy Barbara how many names you know? And I assume, since we brought you here, you know about this fuckin’ place too. So.. Tell Barbara. Educate her on how much you know, so she knows the truth, cause I didn’t fuckin’ do this."

[danielthemangruchy]

Dan had no idea what to do. Barbara's sudden outburst had warmed his heart. She was, by his count, the only person who wasn't resigned to him being killed. Maybe she really was his only friend in Los Santos. As Michael tugged him along, he shot a look back to Barbara, mouthing, "Thank you." He tried to put into the look everything he could: how grateful he was for her defense, even though he'd dragged her into this mess; how much he'd enjoyed spending time with her when he'd thought that neither of them were involved in this mess; and especially, how much it meant to him that she'd decided to befriend a plastered Britsh chap down on his luck and lonely in the very first place.

"Michael," he said, evenly, "I could have sold you or Gavin out ages ago. Why do it now? Besides, what would I gain? There's no damn point to it. Think about it, really. I've no reason to do it."

Lies, All Lies

--

"Remember when Gavin and I went to clean up those fucking people who were after you? What if we just fucking let that be? What if we fucking just fuckin’ allowed that? I didn’t have to fucking do that for you, did I Barbara?" Michael glared.

"Learn your fucking place. You don’t know what they’re fucking going to do. I don’t know what they were fuckin’ going to do."

[danielthemangruchy]

Dan made his way awkwardly out of the car, getting the handcuffs caught on a lever on the back of the driver's seat. "Yeah, no need to be dramatic, Barbara," Dan said, sarcasm clear in his voice. "Just my life on the line, no biggie."

He scoffed, tugging on the cuffs. They were really on there. "Michael, I know you don't give a shit about me, but you could at least pretend to care about Barbara." He managed, at last, to extract himself from the car.

Lies, All Lies

--

Michael pushed himself away and got out of the car, pushing his seat up so Dan could get out as well. 

"But stop being fuckin’ dramatic. If anything happens, then Dan had been warned and acted on his own accord anyway." Michael shrugged, at this point, the Wild Card was at the end of his caring.

[danielthemangruchy]

It’s too big! You should rip it in the shot. (x)

[danielthemangruchy]

Dan was quiet as they drove to the warehouse. It was funny--this part of Los Santos was so familiar to him. There was the newspaper stand he passed on his way to work. There was the dry cleaning place on the corner, the one with the intense-looking Russian guy who was always reading romance novels. There was the coffee shop. That damn coffee shop. For a moment, Dan wished he hadn't taken Barbara up on her offer for that job. Maybe then it would have been harder to put it all together. 

But no. He was always going to figure it out.

He let his eyes drift over this familiar little corner of the world, fully aware that he might be seeing it for the last time. As they pulled up to the warehouse, he leaned forward again to Barbara, resting his head on her shoulder for just a second. "When they kill me, Babs," he said quietly, "you get all of my scarves. Thanks for being a mate."

Lies, All Lies

--

Michael frowned at no one and continued driving. At least his car was fast. At least they’d be there soon and then Geoff could decide if he stayed or went. He didn’t really feel like hearing from Gavin why Dan was in this place in the first place. Michael probably shouldn’t have met up with him at all. It just made Dan a larger liability. Could have just explained he had a boyfriend and that was all there was to it.

But now it was just.. 

"Yeah, I had dinner cooking." Michael said quietly. Thoughts elsewhere, but focused on the road all the same.

[danielthemangruchy]

masks-makethe-madman replied to your post:masks-makethe-madman replied to your post:OOC...

Me? Never.

[danielthemangruchy]

misterramsey replied to your post:OOC @geoff

shhhh it’ll all be fine

[danielthemangruchy]

lossantosblonde replied to your post:OOC @geoff

dead dan walking

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