The Hustler 2/4 Brian/Dom
Title: The Hustler 2/4
Author: blackberry belle
Rating: PG
Pairing: Brian/Dom
Warnings: Pre-Movie, AU, language
Feedback: Always greatly appreciated
Disclaimer: Clearly these characters are not mine.
Summary: Brian rides along.
Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who left feedback for the first part. I wanted to finish the second part & post before reading comments, but I will read and respond. I'm hoping to wrap this up in four parts or less. Off to finish part 3. Previous part here Part 1
The Hustler
Dom's eyes flicked briefly to his passenger, still in a loose limbed sprawl beside him. His eyes closed. Resisting the temptation of the curiousity that would have had him linger, Dom turned his attention back to the road in front of him. They were parked just off PCH at the bottom of someone's steeply inclined driveway. They were just low enough on the dirt drive to be blocked from the house's sightlines, just high enough off PCH to be obscured from passing traffic.
The night's bright full moon provided the only illumination. The whore, although Dom had real difficulty thinking of him that way now, was the perfect shotgun.
He'd asked questions about the car with what seemed a genuine enthusiasm and knowledge that indicated he knew his way around an engine. Questions, that Dom answered, questions that relaxed him. And allowed him to keep from curling his hand into a fist.
And when the car talk petered out, the whor - , his passenger had remained still. He didn't fidget or drum his fingers on the open window sill. Didn't try to mess with the radio. There was one thing though...
"You wearing a wire?"
Dom watched with some amazement as his passenger's legs opened a little wider. The smile spread slowly across the man's face and instead of the openess of the sidewalk smile, the whore's smile, this one was predatory. Then he opened his eyes.
"I was wearing a wire. You got a cigarette?" The passenger peered closely at Dom in the moonlit darkness. Dom shook his head slightly.
“How long you been out?"
"What makes you think -"
"You're not the only one with instincts. I figured you for either a cop on the dl or an ex-con. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. Ex-con is more interesting."
"You figured I was an ex-con and you got in the car. And you're like this, in my car. You're a crazy motherfucker."
"What did I have to worry about? I knew you weren't going to do anything to make me make you crash this sweet ride. And I'm seriously strapped." He shrugged as if it all should have been obvious. Dom laughed. From his toes.
As his laughter subsided, he stuck his head out of the window and looked at the black sky. "There isn't going to be some kind of APB out on your ass is there?"
"Now who's the crazy motherfucker. You should have thought of that before you ordered a cop into your car. Relax, it's your lucky night. I told those assholes that I was gonna get in the next car that cruised me and not come back."
"I thought cops were all up each others asses and shit," Dom smirked.
His passenger just raised his eyebrows and stared. Waited. Dom felt the heat of rare embarrassment flush his cheeks.
"You know what I mean. Watch each other's backs."
"My shift was over about twenty minutes, before you showed up. It's the end of the month. They're tryin' to stack the numbers. I think a couple of 'em really enjoy watching me peddle my ass. Backup to the alley was slower than it should have been tonight. I got tired of guys palming my crotch."
His legs spread a little more as if illustrating to Dom exactly where his crotch was.
Dom kept his eyes on the passenger's face.
"Isn't that like some kind of harassment?"
"Or something. It ain't no thing. I just hang in for six more months."
“What's in six months?"
"I put in enough time so I don't look like a pussy when I transfer. So, you out cruising? You swing that way?"
"Do you?"
"I'm not the one who's done time."
"I'm not the one whose ass is getting pimped out."
And still the grin. "In the line of duty. That's an important distinction. What's your excuse?"
Dom averted his eyes to the patch of ocean visible through the front windshield. How to explain being drawn down that street, prompted to pull over just by the way the other man leaned against the wall. Just by the attitude on display. How to explain the not quite fleeting desire to pay for the right to smash the too pretty smile in until, until.
“Usually, I can drive the long stretch and everything just...fades, but I think maybe," Dom gripped the steering wheel hard as the truth that he'd been trying to put behind him tonight, engulfed him.
"I might be running out of road." He shuddered violently.
A strong hand squeezed his shoulder, slid down his back in what was either simple comfort or a caress. He laughed low and tight as the hand withdrew.
“You coming on to me?”
“Sometimes it takes me a couple of hours to shake it off. Normally, I'd be writing my report right now. You're making it kind of hard for me to come down.”
“It's my fault?”
“It's the adrenaline. It's just a thing that happens when I work.”
“Adrenaline, helluva high, helluva thing to kick."
"Yeah."
"You hungry?”
“God, yeah, I could definitely eat.”
“I know a place.” Dom turned the key and fired up the ignition.
“What's your name anyway?”
Dom watched the other man pull his knees together, straighten out of his sprawl and shake off a little of the street corner persona to become different. But the toothpaste smile remained.
“O'Conner,” he said Brian O'Conner.”
End Part 2