Happy GTA V Remastered release day! Here's the final chapter of this little piece- I hope it proves enjoyable. :)

Three

Trevor's boots hit the ground with a satisfying thunk, and he leisurely straightened up from his landing crouch, extending his arms wide and stretching his shoulders and back. "Ahhh," he said contentedly, then turned to look at Evelyn. She was standing with her hands on her hips, watching him, and on cue, she said, "Well, that was interesting."

"That was Michael. You like him?"

She thought about it for a second, then admitted, "Not really."

Trevor barked out a laugh and started uphill, heading back towards the alley where he'd left his truck. "Then you got good instincts, kid. Come on, let's go."

He led the way, and it wasn't long before he realized Evelyn was flagging. He turned around, irritation spiking. "Come on, Evy, pick up the pace. I wanna get out of this shithole ASAP."

Obediently, she hurried up till she was one pace behind him, and she stuck to him from that point. That gave him pause, and after a few moments of striding along in silence, he realized that it was because obedience wasn't really Evelyn's style. Sarcastic quips leading to logical arguments leading to tremendously illogical outbursts was generally how she did things. Surely she had something to say, some quibble to make about what had just gone down. At the very least, he expected to get chewed out for making her break into Mikey's place (he couldn't resist; call it an initiation of sorts).

Maybe she was just simmering, working up a real rant. He gave it some time, continuing along silently, allowing her a chance to get really worked up.

When they reached the alley where he'd left the truck, he got them clear of the street view, then turned expectantly to her. She looked back up at him, and, clearly seeing in his expression that he was expecting something from her, she widened her eyes innocently and asked, "What?"

He scowled. "What do you mean, what? Usually I can't shut you up and suddenly, what, not a goddamned peep? What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing," she exclaimed immediately.

"I don't believe you. Don't fuckin' clam up on me all of a sudden."

"I didn't mean to, I swear," she insisted. "I was just thinking."

He blinked. "Oh. Okay, then." He took a step closer, she took a step back against the alley wall. Intentionally looming over her, unblinking, he said, "Why don't you enlighten me? What were you thinking?"

Rather than flinching away, she did what Evelyn usually did and faced him—she rose to the challenge, although not before visibly calming herself, relaxing her shoulders, and pressing the palms of her hands flat against the brick behind her. Then, she tilted her head back, angling it so that she could look directly at him, and after taking a breath, she said, "Just… I've been thinking about you and, I guess like… your relationships with people. Or—how you relate to them."

He stared at her, feeling a spark of anger in his chest. He didn't exactly follow her, but instinctively, he did not like the idea of people poking and prodding around in his personal affairs. Shouldn't have introduced her to Michael, then, muttered a smart-assed little voice in his head, which he ignored. "What the fuck does that mean?"

She didn't respond to the challenge in his tone with some kind of smarmy quip like she normally would, which was a little worrisome and admittedly only fueled the sense of irritation he felt. Instead, she stared at him, lids half-lowered like she was suddenly very tired, and she said, "Please don't get mad. I don't want to upset you. I just meant that… meeting Michael, talking to him a bit, hearing the way he talks about you…"

Her eyes had slipped away from him in thought as she spoke, but then she paused, brought her gaze back up to meet his, and asked him, "When you described yourself as some kind of universal dealer earlier, you meant it, didn't you?"

He was mystified, which only served to anger him further. Drawing a breath, he spoke in low, measured tones, the voice he only used when he knew he was about to start yelling any second. "Evelyn. I'm starting to lose my patience."

"Because that's what you do, right?" she continued, ignoring the warning in his tone and continuing to look him directly in the eye. "You're in the business of getting people what they want. Sometimes that means drugs, sometimes that means… any amount of other things."

Trevor's scowl had deepened. Abruptly, he leaned back, dropping his hands from the wall where they'd been hemming Evelyn in. Angling his chin up, glaring down at her, he said, "Why do I bother tryin' to get any sense out of you anymore, huh?"

She'd obviously warmed to the topic, though, gotten more comfortable with it, and she actually took a step forward, closing the new space between them. Intently, she said, "The way you phrased it to me earlier was an eye opener, obviously. Then I met Michael—and it was just so clear, even after spending just five minutes with the guy, that he sees you as… I don't know, some useful thing. Useful but unpleasant. And he acts like you drive him crazy, but because you fulfill some need he has, he, I don't know, tolerates you."

And for once, Trevor didn't quite know what to say.

He was still angry, sure. Angrier, if he was being honest—he didn't know where she got off, talking about Michael like that—but it was a muted, disgruntled kind of anger, practically foreign to him, possibly fueled by the grudging but persistent feeling that she had a point. Before he could decide how to handle the latest turn in the discussion, she was pushing on, still with that earnest expression on her face that kind of infuriated him and kind of made him want to kiss her.

"The point I'm making—"

"God, finally."

Her courage failed her again and she frowned, dropped her gaze again, fixing it on her hands, which she was actually wringing. Clearly it was taking a lot for her to work up the nerve to just spit it out, but his impatient prompting seemed to only be setting her back, so although it irked him, he managed to hold his tongue and wait.

It paid off. She dropped her hands suddenly, looked up resolutely at him, and said, "The point is that I don't want to be that way. With you."

The anger flickered, giving way to a sudden flash of fear. God, is this it already? He'd thought, given the circumstances of their last meeting, that this, today, had been the right thing to do. He hadn't exactly sat around and planned it out, but some instinct told him that yeah, spending time with Evelyn in circumstances that weren't strictly centered on her being afraid of him would maybe allow her to relax, come to some conclusion about him that wasn't completely informed by her survival instinct.

And hey, maybe he'd been right—maybe she had come to a conclusion about him. Only it had happened faster than he'd anticipated, and judging by her tone and how hard it was for her to spit it out, it wasn't one he was going to like. Shit. Shit. Trevor, you've stepped right in it, you fucking moron. Trying to keep his voice level, hearing the strain in it nonetheless, he asked, "What are you saying, Evelyn, huh? Which way is that way?"

She must have picked up on that faint tone of dread, too, because she immediately reached out, taking hold of his hands where they hung idly at his waist, and he twisted them around and closed his fingers around hers right away, not quite letting himself get his hopes up but definitely absorbing the contact while he still could.

His grip might have even been just a bit too tight, but she didn't flinch, maintaining steady eye contact as she told him, "Acting like the only thing I find valuable about you is—in your words—the fix you can provide me with. Acting like I don't even like you. Look, I know I haven't given you anything concrete, and, you know, as far as committing to anything goes, anything at all, really, I can't do that, either. But I do want you to know… and please, please don't make me regret saying this, Trevor, but I want you to know that I really do like you. And I like being around you, and despite the fact that it was fucking rude, I'm glad you came and got me today."

Trevor stared at her for a minute, wondering if he was hearing things (not like it would be the first time). Watching her mouth to make sure it was moving in accordance with the words he was hearing, he double-checked, repeating, "You like me."

"Yes," she said, sounding and looking just as resolute as she had the first time she'd said it.

And, despite the fact that he'd been trying to convince her of that fact the majority of the time they'd spent together, now that she was saying it out loud, he found himself unable to quite believe it. He imposed himself on people, they tolerated him because they got money and jobs and drugs out of him, but they didn't like him, especially if they weren't in the game and therefore didn't recognize his inherent value as a player. Evelyn had no use for him as a resource, she didn't seem to need money, and though he stood by what he said about her being a closeted adrenaline junkie, appreciating the craziness he could bring into her life did not equate liking him.

So he doubted her, and because Trevor was a masochist, he made it clear to them both when he asked, "Why?"

She seemed to think it was just a joke, because she laughed. When Trevor just continued to frown, though, the smile slowly disappeared from her face, replaced by bemusement, flavored with concern. "You're serious? …ahh, wow, okay. I hadn't really thought it through."

"Yeah, you, not overthinking everything, that's funny," Trevor sniped, that sudden hated sense of vulnerability making him hostile, but Evelyn ignored the jab as if she hadn't even heard it.

She studied him for the longest few seconds of his life, then abruptly, she said, "I like that you're interesting, I've told you that before. In a weird, twisted way, I think you're one of the smartest people I've ever met, and I like that. There's… there's almost this bacchanalian demi-godliness to you, Trevor, this sense that you're pure energy, untouchable, and I really like that. Most of all, though, despite certain elements of you that throw me off guard more than not… I don't know, I see hints of a very real sweetness in you. Like getting me a dog because my home security is shit. Driving two hours out of your way to come see me. The way you said goodbye to me last time we parted ways. I like that. And, you know, that all kinds of adds up to me liking you as a whole."

Trevor stared at her, trying to process what he'd just heard, which was kind of difficult, because his mind was buzzing at a hundred miles an hour. There was a small part of him just roaring with savage triumph, because he knew it, he'd won, but it was drowned out by a much bigger part of him that realized she couldn't mean that. It wasn't that he doubted her sincerity—Evelyn had already shown a tendency to be honest with him, at least, if not herself—but she simply didn't have the information she needed to really say that.

His last dose had worn off sometime in the last hour, which might explain why he suddenly felt so fucking tired. He released something between an exhale and a growl and leaned slightly forward, resting his forehead on her shoulder. Finding it easier to say when he didn't have to see her staring directly at him, he mumbled, "Ahh… thanks. But no. You really don't."

Instead of pushing him away, asking him what the fuck he was talking about like he halfway expected her to, she slipped an arm around his back and held him to her for a second, which somehow made it worse. With her other hand, she reached up and ran her fingers lightly through his sparse hair before trailing it down to the back of his neck and squeezing, prompting him to raise his head and pull back a little to look at her. Still holding onto him, she met his eyes and said, "Yeah. Most people have a long list of reasons to hate themselves. Maybe your list is more valid than others', I don't know, and look, if you really want to go into detail about that list, give me the information you think I should have to make a more informed decision, then I'm open to it. But most people kind of slowly find out the horrible things about each other side by side with the good things, you know? Gives the relationship a chance to grow, cause I don't know if you've noticed, but oversharing when you barely know each other has a tendency to shoot it dead right at the start."

He eyed her for a second before saying, "Relationship?"

She snorted and ignored the question, instead saying, "Look, if it makes you feel better, I'll amend it to saying I like what I've seen of you, okay? If that works for you, we'll take it from there."

In a rare moment of clarity and foresight, Trevor realized that this was a turning point. He could take her at her word; they could press on into a frankly ill-advised liaison that would likely end up ruining lives—definitely hers, probably his, and any number of other people's to boot. He could also pull back, repeat what he knew to be the truth—that she couldn't like him, that they shouldn't even begin knowing that it was doomed to fail.

He knew that if only to save himself further trouble, he should choose the latter option—after all, it wasn't as if Evy had ever made things easy on him, and things only looked to get more difficult as she got to know him better. He should stop this right now just to save him the future rage and fucking pain, but her hand was warm on his neck, and she was so gorgeous to him now as always, staring at him with eyes more brown than green at the moment, searching for an answer to that unspoken question, and Trevor had always been bad at denying himself anything he wanted, especially if what he wanted was right there within reach.

So Trevor did what Trevor always did when something was offered up to him in innocence: he took it. He reached up with both hands, pushing that long dark hair back over her shoulders, then he grasped her face and brought it hard to his.

She responded right away, as he knew she would, her little tongue slipping into his mouth and making him grow hard instantly. He growled into her, pushing her back into the alley wall, and at the impact she loosed a throaty chuckle, which didn't exactly deter him. He ground into her leg, pressing bruisingly into her mouth, and he fully expected her to suddenly realize her mistake, to throw him off her, but she gave as good as she got, sinking her teeth into his lower lip hard enough to draw blood, and he loosed a pleased groan into her.

He let go of her face with one hand, dragging it down across her breast and torso and noting the soft moan she gave in response before he landed on the waistband of her jeans. With a quick, aggressive flick, he unbuttoned them, then dragged the zipper down, and she didn't move to stop him, simply pulling his face closer and kissed him harder.

Even as hard as he was, some animal instinct told him that if he just tried to fuck her in this fairly public alleyway, she would stop him, and at any rate, probably due to what she'd just said to him, he was feeling fairly altruistic, for him. He slipped his hand down past the band of her underwear, tentatively feeling the already-damp curls there. He broke away from her mouth, moving down to her throat, and when she neither said anything aside from a soft moan nor made any move to knock him away from her, he pushed his middle and index fingers into that welcoming wetness, rubbing at her simultaneously with his thumb.

She bit his shoulder so hard he felt the bruising pressure of it even through the jacket he wore. He made a hoarse sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan, reaching up to grasp the back of her head with his free hand and pulling her back so he could get to her mouth again. At some point, she'd started stroking him through his jeans, and though it wasn't strictly his preference, the friction was getting the job done, helped along by the feel of her and those fucking soft little sounds she kept making.

She must have wanted this more than he realized, because it was over fast—she broke suddenly away from the kiss, burying her head into his shoulder with a whine as she tightened around him, which in turn was enough to push him over the edge. He rested his face in the juncture where her throat and shoulder met, groaning as he came, and then for a moment they stayed like that, breathing hard and leaning into each other. Then she sighed, a contented sound, he thought, and he pulled away from her, glancing down the alleyway to make sure they hadn't been observed (not that he cared, but he thought she might, and besides, he needed to know if they were gonna end this night running from the cops) and she adjusted her clothes.

Having ascertained that their brief tryst had gone unnoticed, he glanced back at her. She cleared her throat and appeared to be trying to avoid looking at him, studying her feet instead, but he watched her relentlessly until, clearly sensing his insistence, she met his eyes pointedly and defiantly, just like Evelyn. He couldn't help but crack a cocky smile at her even as he jerked his head towards the truck. "C'mon. Let's go."

Evy, it turned out, was a cuddler.

She'd started out in the passenger seat of the truck, yet somehow forty-five minutes into the drive, just outside the city, he found her tucked under his arm and leaning into his side like she belonged there. What's more, he was pretty sure she was asleep. And here Trevor thought it was the guy who was supposed to get off and promptly pass out. Why'd he bother to bring her for company if she was just gonna fall asleep on him, quite literally, huh?

Okay, so he wasn't actually mad about it. Not even annoyed, really. After all, if he really wanted to, he could tap the brakes, send her careening into the dashboard for quite the rude awakening, but maybe it was the orgasm, or maybe it was that Trevor tended towards more physical expressions of affection himself. Whatever it was, he found he was okay with it.

Really, if anything, he was surprised. He always got the distinct impression that she wanted to keep her guard way up around him, which was annoying, but (although he'd never say it to her because he didn't want to encourage it) somewhat understandable, given the circumstances. Now, here she was, distinctly and wholly vulnerable to anything he might or might not decide to do, and apparently totally fine with the idea. More, even—given the lack of secure restraints in the truck, she was effectively trusting him to keep his arm around her, keep her from falling away or off with the twists and turns and stops.

It baffled him. He tried, but he couldn't quite call to mind the last time someone had willingly fallen asleep so close to him, let alone Evelyn, who before now seemed to regard it as her personal mission to keep him at arm's length, literally. Trevor spent a fair amount of time paying for and persuading and tricking people into physical contact—to have it volunteered like this out of nowhere kind of threw him.

In a good way, though, he thought. It was novelty enough that he didn't give in to the temptation to remove his arm and let her just roll off the seat at the next red light (even though it would be really fucking funny if he did). He was content instead with just keeping his arm around her, chin resting on her head as he drove, appreciating the feel of her so close. It was sappy shit, but hey, it kept him from thinking about what might happen next. He was somewhat aggressively not-thinking about it, actually, especially in light of what Evelyn said earlier—I can't commit to anything at all.

He wasn't thinking about it because thinking about it would make him angry. Hell, after all, it wasn't like he was demanding marriage from her. Still, it would have been nice of her to give him some real indication of where he stood, some idea of whether she'd come around on her own or whether he was going to just have to keep abducting her out of the blue until she did. There wasn't anything he could do about it, though, and as always, feeling helpless pissed him off, so he ignored it and chose to take her falling asleep on him as a positive sign. Think positive, that was Trevor.

Somehow, despite the lack of conversation, the ride back to North Chumash went just as fast as the ride down. Still, Trevor would definitely be lying if he said he wasn't tempted to skip it entirely, just take her straight back to Sandy Shores with him and keep her there, but that was a little on the extreme side, even for him. She'd responded well to small steps thus far; he intended to keep making them as long as he could (which possibly wouldn't be for very long, his patience never lasted, more reason to take it slow now while he still felt capable).

He parked outside of the café where he'd first picked Evelyn up and set about the task of waking her up. Which proved more difficult than anticipated: "I knew you were a heavy sleeper, but Christ, Evy, what is this, a coma? Wake the fuck up!"

He was about to resort to slapping her when she finally roused herself, dragging herself away from his side and leaving a chill in her wake, which Trevor thought was kind of not fuckin' cool. She looked around blearily, clearly trying to get her bearings, and Trevor said, "Wow, you really slept, huh? Didn't even wake up when I ran down that Puerto Rican couple."

Half-asleep or not, she could still shoot him one killer glare. "You did not."

"…not tonight, I didn't," he yielded.

She shook her head before she was overtaken by a yawn, and she stretched her arms out and up indulgently as she woke up properly. Trevor stared, inexplicably pleased that her hair was a fucking mess (he may have had something to do with that; he was touching it a lot on the drive up). She rubbed the remaining sleep out of her eyes, then looked at him and said, "Sorry."

"Yeah," he said, watching her, "you should be. Leaving me all by myself like that. I hope you plan to make up for it."

She snorted. "Please. You were hardly alone; I just wasn't talking."

"Yeah, and using me as a pillow. You know, Evy, I'm more than just a hunk of meat."

"Oh, my God, shut up," she said, not quite turning away in time to hide the grin creeping over her face from him.

Since she was obviously totally (and rightfully) endeared by him, he pushed his luck. "Sooooo," he began with studied casualness.

"Oh, God, what?"

"Since you just put in a two-hour nap and couldn't possibly still be tired, maybe I should, you know, follow you home. We can start Act Two, what do you say?"

"Trevor," she said in disbelief, "do you ever sleep?"

"Not when there's more important shit to do."

She chuckled at that, but he could already see the doubt brewing, knew her answer before she said it. "Still not quite there yet, I'm afraid. I've got some reconciliations to make, some serious brainwork to do."

Despite the rejection, that phrasing got a laugh out of him. "Brainwork. Jesus."

"Hey, c'mon. I like to think; you know this. You're gonna have to figure out a way to accept that if we're going to go on seeing each other."

The absurd fucking flare of hope that sprung into his chest at those words almost pissed him off. He was Trevor fucking Philips, international drug and arms dealer, possibly the most feared man in the state—he wasn't supposed to feel like a schoolgirl with a crush, so his voice might have been a little on the irate side as he repeated, "Seeing each other?"

To her credit, she didn't back down, though she definitely faltered a little at his tone. "Yeah. I mean, you're kind of the boss, as always, so it's your call, but… tonight threw a couple things into sharp relief for me, things I wasn't quite able to access last time around."

"Things," he repeated, staring hard at her. "What, things like what?"

"Anyone ever tell you you're kind of permanently stuck on eleven when the situation calls for like, a five, max?"

To say that it irked him that she wasn't taking something like this seriously was a massive understatement. "Evelyn, I'm not fucking around!" he snapped.

"And you're kind of proving my point. Anyway," she continued before he could start yelling properly, "Tonight just made it obvious that I actually like being around you and that that's not just the result of, y'know, terror for my life. Which, again—brainwork, because I need to figure out what that says about me. But because I apparently like you, yeah, I want to see you again if you want to see me again."

"Evelyn," Trevor said, moderately sedate again now that she'd quit jerking him around, "I doubt you could stop me if you tried."

She stared at him for a second and then shook her head. "Yeah, there's no possible way that sentence can come across as not creepy, no matter how you look at it, but I appreciate the sentiment. Give me your phone."

"Why?" he asked even as he dug in his pocket for it.

She stared unblinkingly at him, holding out her hand. "I'm gonna smash it."

"Oh, good," he said, handing it over. "Make my life easier."

She snorted, firing up the screen and keying something in. "Next time you want to drop in on me while I'm, I don't know, grocery shopping, at work, on a fucking date…" She finished up and handed his phone back to him—"Call ahead and give me some warning, okay?"

And there was her name right in his contacts list. Of course, he was perfectly capable of digging up her contact info on his own, he'd done it before, but it was a gesture, and he appreciated it. He didn't think she needed to know just how much he appreciated it, though, so he just said as he tucked the phone away in his pocket again, "Can't promise anything."

"Of course not," she sighed, turning and reaching for the door. "Good night."

Trevor immediately grabbed her arm, halting her. "Whoa, whoa, wait—that's it?"

No one played innocent like Evelyn played innocent—she stared at him with those big ol' eyes and asked, "What?"

"Fuck you, 'what.' You can do better than that."

He saw the glitter of mischief that came into her eyes at that, and Trevor didn't really do misgivings, but he got the sudden idea that he might have made a technical error along the lines of not being careful what he wished for. That mischief faded out fast, though, replaced by something softer, and he loosened his grip on her as she came back across the seat to him, taking his face in her hands, and pressed her mouth to his.

And honestly, the kiss kind of stunned him. He usually went in for hot and heavy and messy, tongues and hands and sex. He thrived there; he liked that. This kiss had none of that, which was probably why it caught him off guard—just soft lips and gentle hands cradling his face. He couldn't remember the last time someone had kissed him like that. He found himself flashing back to what she'd said earlier, I like you, and suddenly believing each word. She kissed him like she truly fucking cared, and he instantly knew that somewhere down the line, this girl was going to fuck him up. And he was going to let it happen.

He was so caught up that, completely unlike him, he missed the opportunity to try to push it into steamier territory before she broke away. Still holding onto him, she just looked at him for a minute, eyes heavy-lidded and borderline blissful, and he felt almost a jolt as he realized he'd been much more on point with that analogy of him being her fix than he'd quite realized. The realization turned him way on, and he reached for her, little steps can get fucked, but unfortunately he'd waited a second too long—she snapped out of it, moving with almost supernatural speed out of his reach and out of his truck.

"God fucking damn it!" he swore, punching the dashboard hard enough to make his whole hand ache, and Evelyn choked out a laugh, peering at him from the other side of the door, that nearly-drugged look gone from her face and replaced by the mischief instead.

"I told you. We're not there," she informed him.

"Fuck you," he said, scowling and rubbing his fingertips across his knuckles, "I'm there."

"Then do me a favor and wait for me."

He glanced up, still scowling, but the frown faded some when he saw her face and how fucking anxious she looked, like he was just gonna throw it all back in her face, tell her that wasn't good enough, she wasn't good enough, check out right then. On a crueler day, he might have—but not today. Today, Trevor was kind. So he just ground out, "Don't take too long."

He'd meant for it to be an order; it came out sounding much more like a request—something that was happening more and more around her and had the potential to be dangerous. Still, it was out there, he couldn't backtrack now.

Evelyn stared at him for a couple more seconds, then nodded. "Good night, Trevor," she said, tapping the side of the truck in farewell and turning away.

He grunted. He felt that he should be a little more peeved at being denied again, but really, altogether—the day had been good. Altogether, he was, if not happy, then at least content. He followed her with his eyes until she disappeared around the edge of the building he was parked behind.

Then he straightened up, shook her off of him, and turned the key in the ignition. Time to get back to work.

End.

A/N - Nothin says romance quite like getting to third base with a meth dealer in a semi-public back alley, am I right, guys?

Aaaand that's the end of this installation of the series! It was really just an excuse to hang out with Michael and have Trevor and Evelyn get at least halfway to some kind of understanding, but I had fun- did you?

The next part of the series will definitely be longer than this, maybe longer than the first story. It's plotted but I have to organize and write it, so it might be a little while before it shows up, but it will show up- just keep a casual eye on this space. In the meantime, thank you all so much for the feedback and encouragement! You guys rock. See you next time!