#i still have the crimmis lights too its just been busy

[pulluppuddles]

i need a new pfp with my blue hair before it fades 3:

[peantutbutter]

validated parking (fahc/criminal masterminds fic)

summary: You're a Los Santos woman just doing your best to get by.Your day takes a turn for the bizarre when your car gets rear ended by the Vagabond in the county coroner's office parking lot.

word count: 1.5k

notes: 2nd person pov. set during one of the failed attempts during the doomsday heist crimmies part trash.

[ao3 link]

Los Santos is a bitch of a city. It’s crowded, it’s dirty, it’s violent. It’s home. And for all the crime and misery lingering like a storm cloud over the lives of everyone who wasn’t rich or famous, there’s nowhere else you’d rather live. For better or worse, this is your town, and no one can tell you otherwise. That’s the Los Santos way.

You took every opportunity you could while doing your best to avoid the city’s seedy underbelly. It wasn’t that you morally opposed to petty crime — anyone who had anything worth stealing almost certainly fucked someone else over in order to get it — but rather, you just didn’t want to run the risk of getting caught. Nothing destroyed a resume, or college application like being arrested. Or killed. So, you put your nose to the grindstone until it bled and then you kept grinding through the shitty inner city public school system until you were one of the lucky ones who graduated.

You went to college (Go USALS!), graduated with crippling debt and a medical degree, and managed to snag a job working for the Los Santos county coroner’s office. Life still sucks, but you have a job, stable income, an apartment you share with your significant other, and most importantly, your own car.

It’s a shitty little thing. You got the ten-year-old model for cheap, and it came with 150,000 miles on it, but despite the dings in the side and scuffed paint, it’s yours, and yours alone. You affectionately name it Greg and take care of him to the best of your ability. Aside some issues with the coolant, he’s served you well. You love that car more than you can say, and you joke that if anyone stole it, that would be the thing to push you over the edge. Good thing Greg is so dumpy looking, no one would want to steal him.

It’s a typical Monday. You wake up at 7:30, eat breakfast, brush your teeth, take a quick shower before hopping in your car and heading to work. The drive itself is slow and grueling. Accidents on the freeway cause backups, and you sip your coffee as you wait. Traffic inches along at a snail's pace, but by the time the morning radio newscast is finished, you’re back to driving without interruption.

You manage to make it just in time, pulling into your usual space, the middle spot on the front left side of the building. You’ve barely climbed out and locked it when an ambulance screeches into the parking lot. It turns sharply, coming so close you stumble back in shock. You watch in wide-mouthed horror as it rear ends Greg so hard the windows shatter.

The part of your brain that reacts to things like a normal person fights with the part of your brain that was born and raised in Los Santos. Do you run away and get help, or do you run towards the driver and give them a piece of your fucking mind? The Los Santos in you almost wins, but when you look up, lips curled in a snarl to start tearing into the driver, you have a very fast change of heart.

You don’t know what he thinks he’s doing, but the paramedic uniform isn’t fooling anyone. Not when the face paint was still on. For some goddamned reason, the Vagabond, of Fake AH Crew infamy, is sitting behind the wheel of the ambulance looking just as startled as you. You both stare at each other with wide eyes, blinking dumbly in shock. Fuck, if the Vagabond is here, then you need to be literally anywhere else.

You turn on your heel and run, body working on its own accord. The scream you unleash isn’t something you’re proud of, but you just looked the Vagabond square in the eye. He’s killed people for less. If you make it through this, then you’re gonna have a hell of a story.

Heart racing, you duck and hide behind a tree near the building, hoping he’s too busy trying to adjust his parking to pay attention to where you went. Your stomach knots horribly, aching painfully with just coffee to fill it. With trembling hands, you pull out your phone. Not to call the police, but rather to record the whole thing. No one is going to believe you without proof, and you don’t trust the LSPD to find their own asses. The Fakes have killed and evaded the cops for as long as you remember.

You shift behind the trunk, trying to get a decent shot at the parking lot without being seen.

What happens next is entirely baffling.

A purple and orange car pulls into the entrance, and Rimmy Tim (also in paramedic uniform) runs out and joins the Vagabond in the ambulance. He’s in there for only a brief second before both of them emerge. They start racing towards the entrance to the coroner’s office and you have to clap your free hand over your mouth to stifle a gasp. What the hell do they want in there?

But before they reach the doors, they both double back towards the ambulance. You assume they’d forgotten something (guns or knives or some other weapons, probably), and were returning to get them, but Rimmy Tim climbs back in the passenger side. Maybe they’ve been compromised? Maybe they got a sudden call from the Kingpin? You have no fucking clue.

You’re expecting the Vagabond to enter the cab of the ambulance, but instead he wrenches open the passenger door of your car. You have no idea how he managed to rip through the lock like nothing, but he slides in and you almost drop your phone. The Los Santos in you almost wins again at that. Were you not so stupefied by the transpiring events, you very well might have said “fuck it” to your survival instincts in favor of trying to beat the shit out of the Vagabond for stealing your car.

You hear the distinct whooping of sirens approaching. Someone must have called the cops. The suspicious behavior, the face paint, one of the many cars owned by Rimmy Tim at the scene, it doesn’t take a genius to deduce something criminal is afoot.

The Vagabond slides over and exits through the other side of your car and you have no fucking idea why he did that. He dashes around the front of your car and pulls a goddamn gun out of nowhere. The handful of people still in the parking lot let out terrified shrieks at the sight, and you’re equally frightened that he’s going to shoot up your car.

Mercifully, he doesn’t. He runs back to the ambulance and disappears into the cab. It begins to reverse out of the parking spot, and it pulls out of the parking lot, flipping on the sirens just in time to speed away from the arriving cops. You carefully emerge from behind the tree, watching the flashing lights disappear down the road. Someone at the entrance runs up to one of the squad cars and points down the way they went. You make out the faint crackling of a radio, and the squad cars at the tail end of the procession peel off in pursuit.

You begrudgingly give your statement, more concerned about dealing with the damages done to your car. That’s really an expense you don’t need right now. You talk to the tow truckers who come to take away Rimmy Tim’s car to see if they can take your car into a mechanic as well.

By the time you finish talking with the police you’re over an hour late and desperately need a beer, or a cigarette, or something to calm down. You go through the motions of your job for the rest of the morning, vacant look in your eye as you keep replaying the events over and over.

You call your partner just before lunch and by God they’re the light of your life. They take their lunch hour to drive over and eat with you.

The two of you are sitting on the steps of the building with your lunches in your laps. You stare blankly at the empty spaces where your car and the Vagabond’s stolen ambulance had been just a few hours earlier as you stab absently at your salad. “So,” your partner says after a few minutes of chewing in silence. “What the hell happened, exactly?”

Their voice brings you back to the present, and it takes you a moment to process the question. You lick your lips, trying to figure out the best way to explain what happened. “So you know the Vagabond?”

Their eyes go wide and they lean forward. “Yeah,” they say carefully, not entirely sure where this is going.

You actually have to bite back a laugh as you realize just how ridiculous the words coming out of your mouth really are. “I think he almost accidentally stole my car?”