notes: thank you guys so, so much for your completely awesome response to the first chapter, which was actually more of a prologue, but. whatever. you guys rock. i'm like 99% sure this is already bordering on an m rating but i cbf to change it lmao.

warnings: drug usage + distribution, some language, vague or not so vague sexual situations, blah blah blah


you snort it like a champ/ like the winter we're not in/ come on down to florida/ i've got something for you — florida kilos, lana del rey


part two: yayo


Austin wakes up in a daze with a sleeping girl on his lap, his throat feeling particularly dry and he arm numb from leaning on it for god knows how long. She's curled up, with her face pressed against his neck, and her tiny little breaths are tickling him. They're still in the car, except now the sun is rising over the horizon — or is it setting? He's terribly disoriented; for a few horrifying seconds, he wonders if he's been drugged. A quick check at the clock, however - 6:53 am - confirms that it is, indeed, morning and all is right with the world. Or at least as right as it can be in a situation such as this one. He shifts in the carseat, careful not to jostle Ally in case she's not a morning person, because, well, she is the one with the gun. Out the tinted window, the sky is a mess of cotton candy pink and purple and tangerine. It's beautiful, and something Austin isn't used to seeing considering the last time he got up before 7 am was...he doesn't remember, actually. It was a long time ago, though.

"Have we been driving all night?" he asks, voice coming out hoarse and generally sounding very much unlike him.

Trish nods, not even bothering to look at him as she gestures to the multiple empty cans of Full Throttle littering the floor by her feet. The air is no longer humming with the musical stylings of Sinatra; Trish must've changed the music while they were asleep. It isn't loud, but the beat is familiar.

"Biggie?" he asks knowingly, smiling over at the girl called Trish.

Trish raises her eyebrows. "The white boy knows Biggie. I'm impressed."

"I'm not that white," he pouts.

"Whitest I've ever seen."

Austin furrows his brow — he has questions, is the thing. A lot of questions. He just isn't exactly sure how to approach the matter of why the hell am I here and what is going on and where are we going. Before he can open his mouth to awkwardly engage Trish in more conversation, she continues.

"Ally hates this stuff; she never lets me listen to my music, so I only get to listen to the classics when she's asleep. Which is almost never." Trish makes the 'cuckoo' signal and rolls her eyes. "Her sleeping for more than, like, three hours is a miracle. Your lap must be pretty comfortable."

It is just then that Ally stirs in his lap. She blinks groggily, yawning and stretching out like she's forgotten Austin is there.

"Oh!" She squeaks, startled when her hand comes in contact with Austin's face, dangerously close to poking his eyeball out. "So you weren't just a dream." She smiles dreamily at him, winking and wow, now is definitely not the time to get a boner. Thankfully, she slides off his lap and back onto the center console, much to Trish's dismay.

"Move," Ally tells him, voice friendly but demanding as she gestures for him to move to the back again.

He groans. "Are you gonna put the board back up?"

"Of course not." Her voice is positively saccharine, and frankly, Austin isn't sure whether to be turned on or disturbed. He's a little bit of both; physically the former, mentally the latter. So Austin obeys, crawling into the back and landing onto the plastic floor of the van with a pained oof.

"Thank you, dear." Ally thanks him with a smile as she slides back into the passenger seat, reclining it slightly and kicking her feet up onto the dashboard. Turning to Trish, she asks, "So have you and Austin gotten acquainted?" Austin frowns; that's a really inappropriate question to be asking considering that Ally had said approximately ten words to him before falling asleep in his lap. He wouldn't exactly call that acquainted.

"I guess so. Like I said, girl, you could've picked someone...I dunno, more my type this time, but whatever. Clearly you know what you want. And the boy knows Biggie, so he's not all bad."

Ally's lips curve downward, clearly unamused. "Speaking of Biggie, turn this off." Before Trish can retaliate, Ally pops the CD out of its slot and retrieves her Sinatra CD from the dashboard, blowing on it and cleaning it with the hem of her shirt before popping it back in. She smiles, content, as the resounding sound of saxophones fills the small space. "Much better."

Trish merely glares at her, setting her jaw in frustration as she presses down on the gas.

Out of nowhere, Ally throws her head back and moans obnoxiously. "Trish, how much longer?"

Trish sighs, like an exhausted mother trying to keep a whining toddler content. "We're in Bartow, or we were twenty minutes ago. We should be in Tampa within a half hour."

Ally groans, clearly not satisfied with this response. It's quiet then, and Austin thinks this would probably be a good time to speak up.

"You're Ally Dawson." It's the only thing he can think of at that moment, and he curses himself for being so stupid. Idiot. Of course she is.

"Oh my gosh, and the beautiful Trish de la Rosa," he hears Trish grumble under her breath.

"Well, actually," Ally says, fishing around in her pocket for something and pulling out a card with a flourish. She hands it so him, grinning coyly. "I'm Alabama Ware."

Austin blinks, peering at the card. The photo is undeniably Ally, but the name reads very clearly Ware, Alabama A. "Fake ID?"

"I know a guy," Ally says with a smirk as she takes the card back and repockets it.

"Wow, excuse me?" Trish pipes up, turning fully to look at Ally which is really incredibly dangerous, but neither girl seems to mind. Then she turns all the way around to look at Austin, rolling her eyes. "She means I know a guy. God, Ally. Don't take all the credit."

Ally holds up her hands apologetically. "Sorry. We know a guy." Trish glares at her but turns back to the road, much to Austin's relief. He stops holding his breath.

"Alabama, though?" He asks incredulously, on the verge of laughing. "Out of all the fake names you could've chosen for yourself...Alabama? Really?"

"It's from an old movie. You wouldn't understand." Ally waves her hand dismissedly.

They coast along in silence for a little while until Austin realizes he has more questions.

"Why are we going to Tampa?"

Ally snorts. "Things." The way she says it makes his blood run cold. No, no, no. Riding in the car and talking with Ally Dawson and holding her in his lap is one thing. Accompanying her in a heist is a completely different thing, something he really doesn't want to do.

Before he can protest and/or tuck and roll out of the car, Ally pipes up, voice cheery. "Ooh, Trish, there's a mini-mart up ahead! Pull over so we can get food!"

Ally is out of the car before Trish even parks, hopping around and stretching. In light, she's nowhere near as frightening as she was last night — just a normal girl with alabaster skin, dark hair and dark eyes clad in black ankle boots, tight black pants and a black leather jacket. She's really quite pretty — Dez always assumed she probably looked nothing like her pictures in the news because of all the hard drugs she did, but. Alas, she looks nearly identical, except her hair is longer and there are purplish blue half-moons under her eyes.

Just a normal girl who happens to have a gun hidden under her coat.


"I want baby carrots. They better sell baby carrots here."

The small, rundown mini-mart is empty save for the lone, withered man who stands at the counter looking like he's been standing in that same spot all night. Ally is chipper, skipping ahead of Austin and Trish through the doors.

"It's like trying to manage an overexcited toddler," Trish hisses to him, but when she looks at Ally her eyes are fond. Austin just laughs, surprised.

He wonders if he should sneak out and find a pay phone to call the police. Or he can ask the old man at the counter for help. But Trish, sensing his unease, stays close to him. She doesn't say anything but Austin knows she's keeping him from taking off.

Fifteen minutes later they've got a shopping basket piled high with baby carrots, energy drinks, granola bars, a cheap lavender scented candle that Ally insisted on and a box of Froot Loops, per Austin's request. He may or may not have seen Ally sneak a bottle of Absolut into Trish's purse.

The man at the counter keeps his eyes trained on Ally's face as he scans the items. She keeps an easy, even smile on her face

"You know, you look a lot like that Dawson girl from the news," he tells her finally, narrowing his eyes in uncertainty.

Ally bats her eyelashes at him, smile sickeningly sweet. "I'm afraid you must have me confused with somebody else; I have no idea what on earth you're talking about. Now, if you could just finish ringing my friends and I up," she says, voice cloying but firm as she fishes out her fake ID from her cross-body purse and hands it to him along with a credit card, "as we've really got to get going, thank you."

The man widens his eyes at he looks from the card to her and back to the card, and for a minute Austin is sure he's going to pull up a photo of Ally from the newspaper, but he doesn't. He just harrumphs, grumbling something like these damn kids nowadays all look the same.


Trish retires to the back of the van to rest as soon as they return to the car, leaving Austin to sit up front with Ally at the wheel.

Ally withdraws a carton of Camel Menthols from her bag, tapping the edge of the pack so one comes sliding out. She holds out the pack to Austin, grudgingly offering him one, and he quietly declines. They're on the road again as soon as she lights up, cracking the window a tiny bit to discard her ashes.

"I wanna drive," Austin pouts, crossing his arms over his chest and sinking low in the seat.

"One day you will," Ally assures him. "You understand why we can't let you drive right now, though, right?"

One day. The words echo in his mind, heart pounding. Since when were his hands so clammy? One day. She's going to keep him. Why, because I'll turn us right around and drive us straight to the police instead? Austin almost says but doesn't. Yeah, he understands. So he simply nods once, feeling something akin to fear squeezing his heart as he is once again reminded that he is being kidnapped, the reality that it is by Ally fucking Dawson notwithstanding. He has to take a few deep breaths, fidgeting uncomfortably. His mother has probably sent out ten search parties to find him by now and contacted every police station in the state.

"What're you thinking about?" Ally asks, noticing his discomfort.

"Nothing."

"You're a terrible liar," she laughs but doesn't press the issue further. Austin prides himself on his incredibly tough, manly demeanor and physique but right now he kind of just wants to cry. Instead, he rests his head on the window, closing his eyes. Deep, even breaths, Austin. You can do this, everything is going to be fine.

"How do you know Trish?" He asks, suddenly curious; he thinks he can hear Trish mutter something from the back.

"She's kind of like my sister, unofficially. I mean, like. She's Elliott's cousin's friend's sister, I think." Ally says this as she pops Blue Hawaii into the CD slot. She is clearly a girl of many tastes.

"How long have you guys known each other?"

Ally smiles a little. "Every getaway car needs a getaway driver. Trish had heard about our first stint in Moore Haven, and she was interested in joining us. She's been with us ever since."

"So you did have an accomplice," Austin says, stunned.

"Huh?"

"It's just, the news. They always said they didn't know if you had any accomplices or not."

Ally rolls her eyes. "Idiots."

"So why did you guys come back to Miami? Last I heard you were in North Port. What brought you all the way back?"

Ally answers automatically, tugging at the collar of her jacket. "This."

"The jacket?" Austin muses, brow wrinkling in confusion.

"It was Elliott's," Ally expains, her eyes flashing with something unrecognizable and, oh, wow, it's awesome knowing that the girl who slept on his lap was wearing her deceased boyfriend's jacket. "I wanted something of his; we had to destroy everything when we abandoned the car after he was killed." She sighs longingly.

"I'm really sorry," Austin says quietly. Much to his surprise, Ally just rolls her eyes at him.

"It's whatever. He was kind of a dick, anyway."

Austin's jaw drops and his flounders around in his mind, trying desperately to remember how to close it. "But he was your boyfrie-"

"Didn't feel like it. By that point we were just accomplices, partners, whatever."

"Then why did you want his jacket...?" Austin's mind is spinning. This is too much information for him to process at once.

"He was good to me, though," Ally replies, smiling gently. "We pulled off six and a half jobs together. Elliott was still special. He was like my best friend." There is a sadness in her eyes.

"I thought you said he was a dick."

"He was."

Austin gives up on trying to understand this girl's logic. "So do you regret running away with him?"

Ally is quiet a moment, pursing her lips, before she responds. "No."

A beat of silence, then — "So why did you choose me?"

She smiles at him then. "Because I think you're special, too."

Austin can only blink at her, stunned, feeling warm all over and then he's leaning back in the worn leather seat and listening to Elvis Presley sing, "Wise men say only fools rush in, but I can't help falling in love with you," and he wonders what this means, symbolically.


"We're in Tampa, wake up!"

Ally's voice is shrill and Trish and Austin simultaneously jump, startled, from their resting places — Austin from his place against the window, half-empty box of Froot Loops in his lap (shut up, he gets hungry when he's panicking) and Trish, snoring atop a cluster of pillows in the back.

Austin panicks. "Idon'twannarobanyone!" he blurts, unable to contain his dismay. He expects Ally to either a) push him out of this moving car or b) shoot him in the face. What he doesn't expect for her to do is c) laugh. She shakes her head at him.

"It's your lucky day, then," she says. "We're going to go pick up."

"God, I hope you're talking about groceries," Austin says pleadingly, even though he knows very well what she's talking about.

Ally just laughs again, harder this time, and his heart sinks all the way to his stomach.


Not ten minutes later they're parked in front of a tan, villa style home. Ally whips out her phone and makes a call. "Yeah, we're here. Okay. Alright, cool. See you in a sec." Turning to face Trish, barely able to contain her grin, she says, "He's gonna bring the car around the back. Get whatever shit of yours you need for tonight, both of you, and let's go."

Trish rolls her eyes and leans in close to mutter to Austin. "If you thought she was crazy before, just wait." They both watch as Ally throws herself out of the car and runs to meet a dark-haired boy coming down the stone walkway in front of the house. She reaches up to hug him, and he embraces her, hands wrapping around her waist and squeezing her in a way that is definitely more than just friendly. Austin's jaw definitely does not set and he totally doesn't grit his teeth, because he's definitely not jealous.

Austin scrunches his nose in confusion. "We're spending the night here? Who is he, anyway?"

"The dealer? That's Dallas, this guy who my brother knows through a friend's older brother. I guess Ally's finally decided he's attractive enough to want to stay the night." If Austin wasn't gritting his teeth before, he totally is now. Isn't. He isn't. Because he's not jealous. Grabbing her bag from under the passenger seat, she sighs, as if she's mentally preparing herself for the night ahead. "Let's get this over with."

She steps out of the car lightly, greeting the dark-haired boy called Dallas with what is, put bluntly, the phoniest, most over-the-top greeting Austin has ever seen. Austin stays in the car, suddenly all too conscious of what he's getting himself into, the reality of it all reverberating in his head over and over.

The sliding door to the back opens again and Ally hops in, face flushed and easy grin on her face. "Hey!" she says when she sees him, frozen in place in the corner. "Come on, we're gonna head inside so Dallas can move the car around to the back garage. It's a lot safer that way." She explains all this whilst grabbing one of the pillows from the mound of them on the floor and promptly ripping it open easily, and wow those are barely stitched together and — oh, okay, the pillows are full of dollar bills. Awesome. Cool. As if the whole armed robbery and drugs thing wasn't enough in theory. Frankly, Austin is surprised he didn't see that one coming.

Ally snatches up a handful of the fallen bills and shoves them into her bag before sweeping the rest back into the pillowcase and folding it over. Austin takes a breath as a wave of nausea rolls over him, and he is really and truly contemplating running to the phone once he's inside the house and calling the cops for something like the tenth time today. But right now, all he can do is follow Ally up the path like a little lost puppy, except he has to run back to the car because he forgot his Froot Loops, and, okay. Now he's good. He's just going to go inside and sit and maybe watch some television and eat the rest of his cereal while everyone else does hard drugs in another room.

Unfortunately for Austin, things never really work out the way he'd like them to. After Dallas has pulled the car around to the back and everyone is settled in the living room, Ally pulls her fucking pillow money out of her purse and counts it out, handing it over to the dark-haired, stupidly tan boy with the most seductive look Austin has ever seen. She looks all too ecstatic when he hands over the tightly-wrapped white mound, and Austin thinks he's going to faint. He focuses on untying and retying his shoelaces into perfect knots as Ally gets busy chopping it up into fine, white powder. It's kind of pretty, Austin thinks, like snow. Except that it's cocaine.

"Austin," she says, startling him thoroughly, gesturing to one of the perfect little white lines she's created on the surface of the glass table. "First line is free."

Austin shakes his head automatically, tries to play it cool. "No, thanks." He expects Ally to laugh or tease him but she just shrugs and mutters, "More for me, then." And, wow. He's sitting in a drug dealer's living room while said drug dealer and Ally Dawson do lines of coke off his goddamned coffee table. He kind of wants to shake Ally and ask her what the hell, why, why do you do these things, you're smarter than this —

— and then it dawns on him, the horrible realization that maybe she isn't. That maybe she doesn't know any better. Until now he has seen her as a leader; crazy, maybe, but clever and cunning and unparalleled, always smiling and full of witty remarks to ease his suspicions.

Normal, happy girls don't run away from home.

Austin recalls a statistic he wishes he didn't know: 43% of runaway females show symptoms of PTSD.

"I'm going to shower," Ally says, suddenly and loudly, standing up abruptly, leaving a single line left on the table like she's expecting Austin to snuff it while she's gone. She may or may not have brushed her hand across Dallas' crotch. Austin is just going to pretend it was an accident. She is high, after all.

Dallas promptly follows her down the hall, and, wow. This is just awesome. Austin groans and collapses back on the cushions.

Trish is sitting at the edge of the couch with a brown bottle in her hand, looking plenty exasperated. Hoping to find some kind of comfort in the brash Latina girl, Austin scoots over to her, trying and failing to be subtle about his discomfort with the entire situation.

"You don't do coke?" Yes, Austin. Excellent way to initiation any conversation. Austin Monica Moon, everybody: King of Communication.

Trish gapes at him, looking fairly offended. "Of course not! Are you crazy? The getaway driver cannot afford to get hooked on hard drugs. I usually just pound Jack Daniels in the corner until these two fucktards are done being...fucktards."

Austin can't help but grin. Trish is definitely growing on him.

"Ah, yes, because the getaway car driver can't afford to be hooked on coke, but she definitely can afford to get drunk off her ass and risk crashing said getaway car," he jokes, laughing nervously when Trish gives him a death stare.

"Shut up. I've got a high tolerance rate. I don't get drunk, I just have fun."

Austin is going to say something totally hilarious in response to Trish's little quip when an intensely loud moan comes from somewhere down the hall, over the sound of running water. The tips of Austin's ears get intensely red and he feels his face getting warm.

Trish's eyes widen and she shrieks. "Oh, my god. They're idiots, I swear. Cover your ears or something. I'll be right back." She stalks off down the hall, bottle in hand. Austin claps a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing when he hears her screech, "Yo! Keep it down in there or I'm coming in there myself and chopping someone's balls off, you hear me?"

A few moments later Trish returns, rolling her eyes and grumbling, "Fucking idiots."

There's another moan, much softer this time but very much there, and Austin reaches out for the bottle in Trish's hand. She gladly hands it over and he takes a comically large gulp, ignoring the awful taste in his mouth.

Austin isn't jealous. It doesn't matter that Ally slept on his lap and called him cute and picked him over everyone else because she thinks he's special, even if it was to help her pull off highly illegal things. She probably does that with everyone. He isn't jealous.

He is snapped out of his reverie when Trish claps him on the back, her face sympathetic. "I feel your pain, kiddo."


end part two


lmao sorry i am 10000% here for trish/austin friendship. mostly i'm just here for trish. one of these days i will write a 50-chapter epic starring the life and times of trish de la rosa.

please tell me what you think, especially if you favorite/alert — your guys' feedback means the world to me. x

*(yayo is cocaine, in case anyone was confused with the chapter title.)