TFATF Fic - Contact 4b/4b v.2
A/N: This version is fairly identical to the first until the last half or so. If you’ve read the other version and want to skip to the difference scroll down to where it says variation starts
Contact
Brian thought it might be German that he heard as he approached the living room, but he couldn’t be sure. Standing on the threshold of the room that was colorfully, yet tastefully appointed in muted melon, pea green and royal blue, he watched as Dom, sprawled in an overstuffed armchair, flicked through channels on the flat screen television. His finger barely stopped long enough for any of the programming to truly register. Spanish language variety shows, old American tv shows, and again something that sounded like German and looked like a game show.
Dom tossed the remote on the table and picked up his beer. That action drew Brian’s eyes to the glass coffee table where sweat from two six packs worth of Corona dotted the surface.
Taking hesitant steps into the living room, he expected, with each of those steps, for Dom to turn to him, to turn on him. Still, Brian could not help but move toward the unoccupied couch adjacent to the armchair.
When there was still no acknowledgment from the big man, Brian lowered himself onto the end of the couch the farthest from Dom and reached for a beer. He was halfway through his second beer, on the road to figuring out the possibly German inanity on the tv, when Dom took a long pull from his beer, then spoke.
"When Mia hit puberty, Vince was all she could see. I mean all." Dom’s attention didn’t waver from the television.
The bottle nearly to Brian’s mouth stopped midway. And he waited.
"You walked into something that wasn’t about you." Dom opened another beer.
"Vince wasn’t gonna do anything. She was way too young. He didn’t want me to kill him, but damn she was relentless. Eventually, she sort of got the hint that a full frontal assault wasn’t gonna work. For awhile it seemed like she’d let it go. And then you know, she got older, got legal and I see Vince looking and trying not to. And I’m not the only one that notices. Mia sees and she puts him through hell. And that’s their thing. Cha Cha Cha. It hurt Vince. No one else gets to do that. And there is no forgiveness. Blood barely covers it."
The cop downed the rest of the beer and reached for his third. Betraying Dom had cut him deep, but using Mia, a civilian, to cement his cover haunted him. After his release from the hospital, the Detective had tried to make himself available to her. To in some way narrow the void created by her brother’s absence. White hot fury met his every attempt. It eased him a little that she’d been running her own game. They were equal players of a sort. Though it was a little twisted, it comforted him that were it not for the sibling tie, Dom would also be on the same lifetime shit list.
Dom had given him something of value and he wanted to do the same in return.
"I’m a cop."
"Yeah, a bad one," Dom snorted, still fully focused on his tv.
Stung, the Detective’s beer bottle hit the coffee table with an angry thud.
"Don’t."
Dom continued to watch the flickering images, but Brian could see the smirk just as clearly as if Dom was looking him in the eye.
You smack down a bad guy. You seriously lose your shit over some dude and his old lady’s bad marriage -" Brian inhaled sharply, but Dom just kept talking.
And that’s like an every day occurrence in your business, right? And... you aided and abetted - ."
"You were a mistake."
"I beg your pardon." Dom’s head finally swivelled to look at Brian, but O’Conner’s eyes were trained on the label he was slowly flaking off onto the table.
"A fluke. That dealer...and his associates, people like them, they prey on weakness, on people in pain. They don’t need to be on the streets. I can stop assholes like that. And I’m good. I can absolutely do the job. You don’t count."
"Somehow, I don’t think the Feds share that vision." An angry shrug of the shoulders was O’Conner’s only answer. Dom turned his attention back to the German game show that seemed to have morphed into a French talk show.
**************************
Dom stared hard at the snoring blond on his couch. Brian O’Conner in his damn living room, again. And at his mercy. It was beyond ridiculous that he was there while the others were in the wind. It didn’t make any sense.
The irritated racer hip checked the couch, hard. The sleeping man didn’t stir. Dom bumped the couch again and raised his voice to just below a shout, "O’CONNER GET UP."
Brian jerked, his eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. "O’CONNER."
"Yeah, yeah. I’m up. I’m up." Brian answered hoarsely as he flung himself into an upright position. "I’m up." Bleary, sleepy blues turned to look at Dom.
"Your bag is upstairs, in the bedroom at the far end of the hall." Dom waited for the slow nod of acknowledgment before walking away.
**************************
An hour later, still slightly shower damp, Brian appeared barefoot on the kitchen threshold in hip riding jeans and a t-shirt. Perched on a stool at the breakfast island, Dom’s eyes flicked up from the piece of paper he’d just scratched something down on. Unless you intend to stay drunk we gotta go pick up some food."
"I’m not hungover. I ...I just haven’t gotten a lot of sleep lately."
"Uh huh."
"Are Letty and Leon back..um with the car?" Dom’s eyes dropped back to the piece of paper. "There isn’t any car. Low profile you know. And he started writing again. Brian waited for a twenty on Letty and Leon, but Dom just kept writing.
"Okaay." Brian muttered under his breath as he combed his fingers absently through his curling hair. Dom scratched something else down then got up and went to one of the drawers. Reaching in, he pulled out a couple of items and foisted them on Brian. "Unless you want to walk through town barefoot, and I
don’t advise it, put on your shoes and let’s go. The day’s not getting any younger."
Flicking his eyes to the clock just above the fridge, Brian was startled to see that it was three o’clock. He’d slept almost an entire day. On Dom’s couch. In peace. Peacefully. Huh, he thought as he glanced down at the baseball cap and sunglasses Dom had shoved into his hands.
And he couldn’t help but grin, "Geez, all I need now is the fake nose."
"O’CONNER, LET’S GO."
************************
They looked like a couple of dorks. Tourist dorks. And that was the point the detective thought wryly. The horror of his wraparound sunglasses with pastel ear pieces and mirrored lenses was only seconded by the Skoal Bandit baseball cap as snug on his head as his bandage would allow. It had taken quite a bit of self control for him, not to bust out laughing when he first saw Dom’s disguise. The best Brian could say about it was that he looked like a reject from the French Foreign Legion. The cap riding low on Dom’s head came complete with flaps. Brian hated Dom’s headgear, but it concealed his distinctive baldness and pulled the eyes away from his face. All anyone would most likely take away from an encounter with Dom was the hideousness of the hat, the so retro mirrored sunglasses and the blindingly tropical shirt over his wife beater.
As he watched the other tourists teeming up and down the Paseo, Brian had to admit that Dom knew exactly what he was doing. He was well hidden in plain sight.
On the walk into town and subsequent shopping there had been virtually no conversation. There had been more than a few conversation starters on Brian’s tongue from the moment they left the house, but he was uncertain of Dom’s mood. The tacit invitation to stay suggested that the two men had reached some sort of truce, but the continued absence of Letty and Leon and Dom’s reticence about their whereabouts had thrown Brian off. So he’d allowed the silence to play.
Watching Dom move around the market checking his list, it was obvious that he’d done it before. Brian wondered if the other times he’d been alone. The thought that Dom had been alone these last months caused a little bit of a tremor to run through Brian. In his vision of the great escape, it had always included the remaining three members of the team. Together. He watched quietly as Dom began bartering, in Spanish, with the fishmonger.
The night Dom hung up on him, after programming his land line to forward to his cell, he’d drunk two beers in quick succession hoping to dull the welling pain that he didn’t fully understand. The sleep he’d fallen into afterwards had been less than restful and there had been a nightmare. It hadn’t been anything so obvious as a bloody child asking him why, but there had been blood. A lot of blood. The dream had been forgotten until he saw Dom talking to the fishmonger. Remnants of it flashed and instead of its non-specific bloody horror, there was Dom with his hands covered in blood and guts. Fish blood and guts were nothing compared to a child’s head no longer whole, tiny body blanketed in blood, but the cop didn’t think he could see that in the real. He also didn’t think that he could explain it to Dom who seemed to think it was all in a days work for him. So he didn’t try.
Reaching into his pocket, Brian retrieved a hand full of bills and shoved them at Dom.
"Please, just get it already cleaned, cut up whatever, okay." And then he’d walked away toward a souvenir stand.
"You ready to go." Dom’s voice was deep and gruff at his shoulder about ten minutes later.
"Yeah," Brian answered.
"Here, carry this." Dom thrust a white wrapped package into his hands, turned and walked away. Brian was gratified not to find, as his fingers traced package, the outline of either a fish head or tail. A smile of relief creased his face as he turned to follow Dom back to the house.
*********************
In the time between selection for the undercover assignment and his first day at Mia’s lunch counter, Brian O’Conner experienced insomnia inducing anxiety. The small hours before deployment found him driving the deserted streets of the city, concentrating as hard as he could on the sound of his engine, the white dashes of the road, concentrating on anything other than the fear that he might blow his assignment. Once under, fear of failure, had been replaced by fear of discovery. That fear, fueled by Vince’s unremitting scrutiny, clung to him like a low grade fever.
As Tran was led away, there had been near orgasmic relief. He’d survived his first undercover and fully expected that he could retain his friendship with Dom. He’d figured there would be some initial anger over his duplicity, but in the end it would be golden. When Tran came up clean on the highjackings, there had been anger, depression.
As Brian chopped celery for the salad and kept an eye on the bread warming in the oven, he tried to pin down where he was on the emotional map. He felt...He couldn’t characterize it as good. exactly, not with Letty and Leon apparently missing. But he did feel... okay. Even. Everything was on the table.
Dom, please talk to me.
With his own plea echoing in his head, he allowed himself to think about what he might have said if Dom hadn’t hung up on him. He thought about what the exact color and texture of his need had been in that moment. Absently, he swept the celery into a bowl as he wondered if what he needed was different now that Dom was just a few feet away.
Probably not more than thirty words had passed between the two men since Dom woke him. They’d returned from the Paseo much the same way they had gone, in virtual silence. Back at the house they’d gotten down to the serious business of getting chow on the table. Brian had handed the fish off to Dom who took it back with a slight nod and set about making a marinade. Brian put away everything else as easily if it were his own kitchen.
********************
"Man that was good. I mean really good." Brian grinned at Dom as he lifted his bottle of water and took a long pull.
"Well it’s not exactly tuna without the crust." Dom dead panned.
"No, that it’s not but still -."
The dining, like the shopping and the dinner preparation had transpired mostly in silence. But Dom had made a joke of sorts and Brian decided he might not get another opening.
"Dom, where’s Leon?"
"Met a girl, he’s getting to know her better."
"And Letty?"
The other man stared hard at his dinner companion. Brian’s grip tightened a little on his water bottle, but he held Dom’s eyes.
"Gone."
"That a mutual decision?"
"It’s the right thing."
"How long?"
"A few days."
Brian accepted the proximity of Letty’s departure to his arrival somberly, surprised again the he wasn’t currently on the receiving end of another ass kicking.
Since they were doing the hard questions, Brian pressed on.
"That day, that last day, did you want to kill me? Did you want me dead?"
Dom’s gaze did not waver from the eyes on him. "Brian Spilner no, Brian O’Conner yeah."
"Brian Spilner didn’t save Vince’s ass. Brian Spilner didn’t give you his keys," the other man shot back softly. Toretto’s eyes widened for a moment at the echo of the words that had whispered through his mind that day.
Unreadable brown eyes dropped away from Brian’s. He was willing to let the silence play. Brian broke it.
"That what you still want?"
Dom shrugged and stared at the water in the pool. "Well, I haven’t taken my shots. I didn’t make a move. So..."
"What shots?"
"On the beach. When my sister found your ass passed out and bleeding. That would have been the time to make a move. Drunk, fuck up cop dies in an accident."
Shooting hand twitching, Brian shoved himself out of his chair, The vulnerability of his situation slamming home again. Maybe it was better if Dom didn’t talk to him.
"Is a fuck up cop gonna have a drowning accident?"
Dom’s gaze slid from the pool to the other man. " Siddown blondie."
"Go to hell."
Dom’s arms swept in front of him in a gesture that said already there. Despair flickered briefly in his eyes and was gone. It threw Brian off balance. He took a step back literally, figuratively. For a few minutes he simply stared at Dom who looked back with the twist of a bitter smirk on his lips. His eyes now opaque.
Brian let his own eyes close briefly. He made a concerted effort to locate the cool Dom seemed to think he had. He concentrated on thinking through this moment, the anger, the fear, the hurt. The investigator he was tried to put pieces together.
He was in Costa Rica because Dom had summoned him. There was no other way to put it. And he had come without thought, without prejudice, as fast as he could. And the calls, had never been the set-up Brian always thought they might have been in those moments right after each one ended. He hadn’t arrived to find that Dom and the rest of the team had been laughing at him.
Dom had had chances to hurt him, to take revenge but he’d let them go. Instead he’d let Brian sleep uninterrupted on his couch, brought in the bag he’d left in the yard, and deferred to his fish suggestion. Had in effect made dinner for him.
Dom and Brian Spilner had been friends. It couldn’t be that much of a leap for Brian O’Conner and Dom to be that at least.. Hadn’t they already started.
Newly calmed, the cop turned his back to Dom and moved toward a side table near the grill, picked up the satellite sound system remote. Behind him, Dom watched impassively.
Switching the system on, Brian scrolled through the selections until he found the music he wanted. Easy listening with style filled the patio. Turning to face the other man, he held his hand up and beckoned.
Dom snorted, but stood up and moved around the table. He stopped a couple of feet away from the blond.
"What? This your move O’Conner? You wanna dance with me?"
"Well the tango was traditionally danced by men, but I don’t think this is the right music."
"Okay." Dom folded his arms across his chest and waited. Brian dropped his own and let the music take him for a few minutes. Let it further cement his calm.
" I wonder..." He flashed clear and guiless eyes on Dom, "if you can touch me without wanting to hurt me?"
This was the need spoken out loud, distilled. Brian didn’t back away from it. He’d envied the easy affection between Dom and the other guys on the team. He missed it. He wanted it back.
Smirk still firmly in place, Dom stepped closer.
"You want to do a little sparring? See if I can pull my punches?"
Dom threw a few shadow uppercuts then flashed a predatory grin. Shrugging his shoulders, Brian just smiled and let his arms dangle at his sides. And Toretto’s dulled anger suddenly sharpened. He took a step back then stopped himself. Brian had thrown down a gauntlet and he wasn’t about to back away. His fists clenched and unclenched.
The anger was almost right there again. Dom realized it might be too risky to spar, that he actually might not be able to pull his punches. But he wouldn’t concede this round to Brian. Taking two long strides, Dom was suddenly toe to toe with the other man. There was all kinds of sparring and Dom could do it with the best of them.
The initial press of his lips to Brian’s, in full expectation of a retreat from the other man, was tentative. He was met with the hesitant resistance of surprise, not retreat. And then the slightly chapped lips underneath Dom’s parted just enough. From habit his tongue swept over the bottom lip under his mouth, tasting, possessing before slipping inside the wet heat. There was a slight familiarity in the taste of the kiss. He’d tasted the same slight lemon tang, a remnant of the marinade on Letty. Letty loved it when he kissed her, loved how he kissed her. The thread of his thought lost for a moment as the kiss inexplicably deepened. It’s not Letty. It was time to stop. He’d obviously won the round.
The increasingly active, aggressive tangle of Brian’s tongue with his put a momentary stop to coherent thought. They were touching nowhere else but tongues and mouths. Suddenly, there was firm pressure on Dom’s chest. Firm enough to shove him backwards.
Startled, he stumbled a few feet before steadying himself.
"Brian -"
O’Conner held his hand up and gave a quick tight shake of his head to cut Toretto off. Turning abruptly, he reeled away into the night.
Tongue still tingling, Dom watched as Brian’s back disappeared into the blue blackness.
"Yeah, O’Conner," he said to the resultant emptiness, Apparently, I can touch you without hurting you." He stared in the direction of Brian’s retreat for a few minutes before heading into the night in the opposite direction..
********************
In the morning, he found O’Conner sitting in the kitchen nursing a barely touched Corona. His eyes flicked over the other man. He was wearing the same clothes from the night before, but his hair was wet and curling at his neck, barefoot. Dom hadn’t heard Brian come in, but he’d also been in his bedroom drinking.
Brian didn’t acknowledge Dom. His eyes remained focused on his bottle of beer.
"Making A Move 101, kid. Don’t make a move unless you have something to back it up with." Brian lasered on the deep brown eyes mocking him. His eyes drifted to the mouth that had so completely taken his. Then back to those eyes. He didn’t say anything immediately, letting it register with Dom that the silence was weighted. Deliberate.
Dom folded his arms and waited. Brian spoke softly.
"I’m in love with you."
Dominic Toretto’s harsh, rasping laugh filled the kitchen.
"Dude, don’t tell me that you’re that guy? You that vanilla? You flunk Puberty 101 too? You got a little tuned up when I kissed you. You think it’s love ? The wind blows, a guy gets hard. It’s no thing."
"Vanilla? Is that what you tasted when your tongue was down my throat?"
The voice remained as quiet as it had when he made the admission of his feelings. And there was no challenge there.
Anger flash fired through Dom like it had the first time he ruined his life, like it had just before attempted murder of a law enforcement officer joined the list of his charges. Hands curled into tight fists, he took just the tiniest step toward Brian with intent. And then just as quickly, in the same mocking tone he’d used on the other man seconds before, Dom’s own voice echoed in his head. So you’re that guy. The guy that beats on people who love him."
********************
Although born and raised in Southern California, Dom wasn’t much for the beach. The beach interrupted a perfectly great drive along the winding curves of Sunset boulevard. Standing with still balled fists still shoved into his pockets and the grit of sand beneath his bare feet, the fallen racer hadn’t felt the absence of his ride more acutely than he did now. He didn’t want to be standing at the edge of the shore watching the tide roll in and out. An open road. He needed the whiplash of Sunset boulevard, to the straight burn up PCH to clear his head. Dom squeezed his eyes shut as he imagined himself on the road, in the car of his choice. But even there, his imagining was colored by the blond he’d left barefoot in his kitchen. Brian was now a part of the memory. The last time he did PCH, he was shotgun in the Supra. Shotgun, while Brian in all his cool took on the asshole Ferrari dude. Brian.
Dom opened his eyes. Imagining that he was tearing up the coast cocooned in the safety of a Toretto garage special wouldn’t help him now. Toretto wished it were something as simple as heterosexual panic or phobic rage that made him beat out of the house for the beach, but it wasn’t.
Lompoc hadn’t turned him funny, but it had given him an understanding about rules and when they worked, when they didn’t. Survivors made adjustments, adapted. Sex was only one of the ways.
Knowing that in the abstract had paled next to seeing it in practice. In prison, men brutalized, comforted and bonded with sex. He’d seen relationships of every kind. Relationships he’d bet serious money very few of them had ever considered on the outside. His first year, size and well placed displays of attitude managed to keep him out of the brutalized category. But in the last year of his sentence, he’d dipped his toe in the comfort pool.
The first year of lock-up had gone down better than expected. Probably because he’d expected the absolute worst. When he got through the first day and night without getting shanked, Dom figured he might make it. Reality caught up to him in his last year. With six months left on his sentence, Dom found himself fighting anxiety attacks and near overwhelming loneliness. The fear that he would get shanked or murdered, that something would happen to keep him from making his release date became ever present. During the day, among the other inmates, he was able to put on the show. But at night, the fear and loneliness were harder to contain.
Two consecutive nights, after lights out, he’d shimmied his boxers down with the hopes of relief followed by a quick drop into sleep. Both nights his penis remained flaccid in his hand. On the third night, he was unable to contain an agonized growl of frustration as again he remained unresponsive to his own hand. And he watched in a kind of a daze as his cell mate, serving time for several B and Es dropped from the top bunk to his knees beside Dom’s bed.
Dom’s protests hadn’t been particularly forceful or even vocal. He’d watched impassively as the man swallowed him. And maybe it was true what they said about familiarity and contempt, because the new hot, moist unfamiliarity coaxed a response Dom had been unable to achieve in the previous two nights. He got his relief and slept. That arrangement got Dom through the last six months of his sentence. It wasn’t the sex, there had only been a handful of blowjobs, but he had honored the prison tit for tat. Having another back to actively watch distracted him from his own hell. "I’m in love with you."
The exiled man had a keen understanding that when you were taken from your world, you had to adapt or die. He was in exile. And in this world, the fierce dark eyed girl who loved him had apparently, with his permission and cooperation been replaced with a cool blue eyed boy who loved him.
Dom considered he’d picked a bad time to give up the self-con. After calling, Brian without getting any answer he’d called his sister. He didn’t want to categorize it as panic, but standing at the ocean’s edge listening to the rush of the waves, he couldn’t deny that he’d been worried. She’d asked him if he was calling about Letty and he realized that he should have been. Letty would have wanted to touch base with someone, with family. Mia was the obvious choice. He’d brushed off news of Letty and gone straight to the heart of what he needed.
" I want you to go to the Cop’s house."
"What the hell for? That son of a bitch finally stopped coming around here."
"Go to his house, take Sari. She’s almost done with her EMT training right?"
"Dom, I don’t understand. Did you have someone do something? You want us to make sure it got done right? Make sure they didn’t go too far?"
Dom white-knuckled the receiver.
"The only one who’s gonna fuck him up is me," he’d grumbled into the phone.
********************
Though he’d straightened some things out in his head it didn’t necessarily mean that Dom was ready to share. Stepping back into the kitchen, he was a little relieved to find Brian at the sink with his back to him. It looked like Brian was washing the dinner dishes. I’ll just clean the grill," he said as he made a move to the patio doors. "Dom, please talk to me."
The familiar words fanned two opposing instincts in Toretto. The first was to keep moving. He could hear what had scared him in that last phone call. Brian was losing it and if Dom just kept walking. .. But the other instinct, the one he’d prevent himself from acting on last time, the instinct to offer comfort wouldn’t let his feet move. All that pain and uncertainty settled on Dom’s shoulders like an invisible weight. This time there were no miles to separate them. He might not be ready to say some things out loud, but there was no more pretending that he didn’t know just how invested the other man was.
Dom turned to Brian to find the other man looking at him. The phone had offered protection from seeing what someone who sounded like Brian would look like. The last two days of verbal sparring had somehow prevented Dom from really looking at him or perhaps more accurately, Dom had simply managed not to see.
This man who came to him was a chameleon. He knew how to hide himself and now he was simply unwilling or unable. Dom guessed the latter was true. Brian had said it himself on that first afternoon. He’d lost his cool.
Dom had no choice but to really see Brian O’Conner, see the fading smudges under his eyes underscoring months worth of the fatigue he’d heard on the phone; the slightly unfocused eyes unable to hide either the fear of the moment or the deep truth of his earlier admission. Brian O’Conner was nearly completely undone before him.
Moving closer, Dom took the liberty that Brian’s prior confession had given him. Reaching out, he ghosted a finger over the small bandage at his temple.
"You change this today?"
"Yeah, while you were on the beach."
Dom stroked the tips of his fingers over the plains of Brian’s left cheek. Blue eyes fluttered closed as the attached body shivered. Dom wondered if from now on he would always measure time in terms of before what Brian confessed to him one night in Costa Rica and after.
His fingers lingered for just a moment more on Brian’s cheek before stepping away.
"I’m a felon."
Laughter momentarily crowded out the bad things shadowing the blue eyes locked on him.
"Not a very good one. You repeatedly call the guy that was supposed to arrest you. You keep him from maybe bleeding out in his living room. And you give him a map to your >secret’ hideout."
"So maybe neither one of us is very good at our most recent professions. But, I’m still a felon."
"I don’t want to talk about that."
"You’re the only one that gets to tell the truth?"
Brian held his hands up in mock surrender.
"I’m not living by the quarter mile anymore. At least I’m trying not to. People got hurt. Brian, people got dead and so I can’t do it. I can’t be that man. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t hear what you said. That I don’t get it."
" I’m not asking you for anything."
"Yeah, you are blondie. I think you probably have been since I met you."
Blue eyes twinkled at him. "I can think of one thing I’d like from you."
*************************
Like a deja vu, Dom watched as Brian picked up the remote and turned on the satellite radio again. Something soft, easy floated into the air. Suddenly a little apprehensive, Dom couldn’t take his eyes off Brian as the man’s eyes fluttered closed and his hips moved sensuously to the music.
"Dance with me."
"This doesn’t sound like the Tango to me," Dom intoned solemnly.
"No, not the tango.."
"Brian..."
Brian ignored the warning growl. A mischievous smile touched his lips.
Dom took his time covering the short distance to his dance partner. He stopped just before they were toe to toe again.
What little distance he left between them, Brian obliterated as he stepped into Dom. He slipped one arm around Dom’s neck and his other around the hesitant man’s waist. Splaying his fingers across the back of Dom’s neck, Brian pressed their foreheads together.
"No pressure," Brian murmured softly. I just want to be close to you. I didn’t know the distance, god Dom the distance -"
Dom didn’t say anything. He simply anchored his hands on slim hips and closed his eyes. As they moved, Brian pressed himself into Dom’s body. He shifted his hips slightly. The evidence of mutual arousal was unmistakable.
"I don’t think that’s because the wind is blowing." Brian husked out.
Big shoulders tensed against him and then -
"No."
Dom untangled himself from the embrace.
"No?" Confusion colored Brian’s features as Dom put more than an arm’s length between them.
"I -" and the hint of despair that had flickered earlier in brown eyes, now registered in his voice. Panic bolted through the Brian.
His arms tingled violently with the need to wrap around Dom again, instead he kept still and waited.
"The others...Letty, Leon they wanted to bail on the last job. Said it didn’t feel right without Jesse. Vince is the perfect wingman so he was in, but the others. I destroyed their lives. I left my sister alone." He put more distance between them.
"I, I don’t want this to come back on you. You’re ambitious. And somewhere down the line, someone’s gonna ask you again about what happened on your highjacking case. You gonna be able to hide that you got down with a felon, that you let a felon fuck you? You’ll wish that you had been stronger, you’ll wish that I hadn’t taken advantage. I don’t want you to regret me."
There was so much in those words that Brian didn’t know where to begin.
"You think you’re gonna be on top?"
Dom couldn’t help but laugh and there might’ve been the slightest of affirmative nods.
"Look Toretto, I’m here because I want to be here. No one’s taking advantage of anyone."
"You’re here because your wheels are coming off. Does anyone know where you are? Did you tell anyone where you were going? You had no idea what you were walking into down here. You even bring your gun?
"I wanted to get into the country, Dom. You know low profile and all."
"Yeah well, a cop on his game would have figured a way around that angle. I fucked it up with Jesse. I wasn’t paying attention then. I am now."
variation starts variationstarts variation starts variation starts
Brian opened his mouth to challenge Dom. Jesse. He wasn’t anything like Jesse. But before the objection could fully form, the panic reared it’s considerable head.
The panic of watching something else slip out of his reach to spiral downward. And there was nothing that he could say. Dom had lost everything. Brian hadn’t known Jesse or the rest of the team very long but he felt the loss, the tragedy of Jesse. And for Dom it had been years of surrogate fatherhood and friendship.
Brian had decided who he was going to be at an early age. The car and the cop thing came almost hand in hand. Enchantment with movie car chases sparked his initial interest in cars. And it was the cops, not the wheelmen that did it for him. Even when as a pre-teen, he realized that high speed chases were more likely to be tediously slow, rarely marked with any spectacular spins or jumps or crashes. And that had just made the other thing a non-issue. In school he was teased about not having a girl, but it was always good natured. Everyone knew he was always broke, because he spent all his money on his wreck of a car. And always broke for the sake of his car meant no money to spend on girls. Back then he could get his flirt on with the best of them, but could always smile and shrug his way out of closing the deal. He had to go to the salvage yard to pull parts, he had to fix his transmission, he had to buy a new muffler, he had to.... There were girls that he talked points, timing, paint jobs and 360s with, but they also understood it was all about the car. Some of them had brothers, but Brian never allowed those thoughts to take root. He wanted to be a kick ass driver and he wanted to be a cop.
He knew going in that he could be an out officer, but he’d also heard that those cops got stuck in vice and sex crimes. He didn’t want to do either. He hadn’t lied on his background investigation form but he also hadn’t gone out of his way to volunteer information. The P.D. invited him to their Academy. His reputation as a skilled driver and car guy followed him out of the Academy and into the department where it counted. That reputation got him where he wanted to be, where he was now.
After Dom kissed him, touched without hurting, Brian couldn’t think of anything but getting away. Sitting on the Costa Rican beach stunned, he’d tried and failed to resist running his fingers over his still tingling lips. Full realization dawned that while Brian O’Connor had been working an investigation, Brian Spilner had been following a separate agenda. The agenda of old, chat up the girl while looking over her shoulder at the boy. New guilt washed over him and the old guilt deepened. He too had ruined lives by not paying attention.
*************************
His fingers clenched in his hair to keep from making a move that he couldn’t back up, from making a move that he couldn’t survive. If he reached for Dom and the other man kept retreating...
Brian dropped his hands met Dom’s haunted eyes.
"So what," he summoned all the skill he possessed to get a grin on his face and levity in his voice, "you saying that you’re test driving the overhauled Dominic Toretto on me?"
"Yeah, maybe something like that."
And Brian paid attention in a way he hadn’t while undercover.
"Walk with me on the beach."
Startled, Dom stared at Brian, waiting for the rest, waiting for the challenge. Brian simply stared back until Dom shrugged.
"Yeah, sure okay."
*************************
Except for the occasional brushing together of their shoulders, the two men barely touched as they moved silently down the beach. About ten minutes into the walk, Brian lowered himself to the sand. Dom hesitated then followed him down. They sat close enough to touch, all either of them would have had to do was lean a little, but neither did. They simply sat in each others quiet company watching the ebb and flow of the tide until sunset.
The silence followed them from the sand back to the house. For dinner, Brian made a salad that they ate in silence while watching rugby. Later the cop found himself waking up on the couch, again. The light in the living room was low, the television off. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the lower light. Directing his gaze toward the armchair where Dom had been sitting, he found the big man watching him intently.
"Hey, sorry." Brian croaked out as he righted himself. "I just -
Dom cut him off, "Yeah, I know you just haven’t gotten a lot of sleep lately."
"Yeah. Yeah. ‘Cept that doesn’t seem to be a problem here. What about you?"
"What?"
"You sleepin’?"
Dom opened his mouth to lie, but they were past that now. He shifted in his seat.
"Not really, maybe a couple hours a night." And that had been usually only after he and Letty made love. In the nights she’d been gone even those couple hours of sleep were elusive.
Brian nodded with understanding. "Maybe -," his voice, tinged with uncertainty, trailed off.
"What?"
"Um, well maybe. You, there’s, okay. Okay, you and Letty, you’re use to sharing a bed, used to someone being beside you, sometimes after you’ve been with someone for a while it’s hard to sleep alone."
"Is that right Dr. O’Conner?"
"I -, I if you want I could lie down with you.."
"I already told you -"
"No, yeah no I know. I just -. If there was someone lying beside you, it might be, if the bed seemed less -"
"Stop, I get it," Dom growled.
With only the sounds of their breathing in the room, they sat for several more minutes without making eye contact, then Dom stood.
"Get the light on the way up, O’Conner, " he muttered gruffly as he stalked past the couch.
*************************
By the time Brian got to his bedroom, Dom had already stripped down to his boxer briefs. He lay in a semi-sprawl on top of the comforter, with one arm cocked behind his head. His other hand rested just at the waistband of his underwear and his knee was slightly cocked, eyes closed. Though Brian knew from prior experience the pose didn’t mean Dom was asleep, he still took care to be quiet.
In retrospect it made perfect sense that Dom would not want to sleep in the same bed he’d shared with his girlfriend. After turning off the lights and checking the alarm, Brian had knocked softly on the master bedroom door and when he got no answer he’d pushed the door open to find a darkened empty room.
And for a moment as he stood staring at the empty bed, his mind had gone beyond blank. Beyond the panic. Almost numb. And then his sense had returned.
Standing in the doorway of the bedroom designated as his, he took the liberty Dom’s choice gave him to simply stare, to appreciate the reality of Dom in bed waiting for him. To appreciate the beauty of the sculpted body in repose, illuminated in the soft light of the night stand lamp. And though it was only to sleep, Brian felt as though he’d been given a precious gift. Moving quietly, he stepped into the room and stripped down to his t-shirt and boxer briefs. He slid into bed beside Dom. And as he had only a couple days before, he reached out to let his fingers ghost over Dom’s heart. They hovered and then touched the warm skin very lightly. Beneath the soft touch, the other man’s heartbeat accelerated.
"It’s okay Dominic. It’s okay to sleep," he assured quietly, firmly.
**************************
The extreme warmth of the sun streaming into the bedroom prodded Brian out of a sound sleep. He woke to find his hand still covering Dom’s heart. In the course of the night, Dom’s hand had moved up from his waistband to just below Brian’s hand. Only a hairs breadth separated them. Peering at the sleep slackened face next to him, Brian couldn’t help but smile as he watched a thin line of spittle trail from Dom’s mouth to the pillow. It must be love he thought, because all he wanted to do in that moment was kiss his bed partner. Taking care not to jostle the other man, Brian slipped out of the bed and left the room.
*********************
"What the hell are you doing?" Brian looked up from the sizzling skillet to find Dom scowling at him."
"What does it look like I’m doing?"
"It smells like you’re burning pancakes." That sleep roughened voice fluttered Brian’s stomach. He tightened his grip on the spatula to keep from climbing Dom like a tree.
"Um, okay maybe the first couple, but it’s all coming back to me."
"Why are you making pancakes?"
"It’s time for breakfast."
"It’s five o’clock."
"Yeah, but you just got up right? And the fish, it was great but it was a long time ago." The rumpled racer ran his hand over his face and across his scalp.
"Yeah. Thanks man."
"Yeah."
"Can I do something?"
"Plates and forks?" Dom moved to get them.
"How long you been up?"
Brian answered without turning away from the crackling grease. "Maybe half and hour or so. Not long."
With his back turned, he missed the flicker of resignation on Dom’s face.
*********************
Like the revelatory meal before, breakfast passed in virtual silence. Brian watched Dom closely as he shoveled food into his mouth. The silence was nice. Nice that they could still be comfortable enough for this the morning after. He couldn’t help the smile that flickered across his face just as Dom looked up at him.
"What? It’s good." The big man said sheepishly. "You can cook O’Conner."
"But can I ‘cue?"
"Well, since I’m never letting you touch the grill, we will never know." the other man grinned around a glass of milk.
A few more minutes skittered by with only the sounds of the satisfied eating filling the room. And then Brian cleared his throat.
"Today is the fifth day of my suspension."
Dom took his time chewing his mouthful. Took the time it afforded him to wait for his stomach to unclench.
"When are you leaving?"
"I have a ticket for tomorrow afternoon. I have to report the day after to see whether or not I’ll be reinstated."
"Will you be?"
"I don’t know. They wanted me to spend some time with a shrink. I said no."
"You alright?"
"Yeah, better than alright maybe."
There was nothing Dom could do to quell the sudden blush that warmed his cheeks. He started eating again.
"Your car’s in a garage in Silverlake."
A broad, pleased grin met that admission. "Thanks man."
After all the food was gone, they talked the way they had in the preceding phone calls. At least Brian did and instead of the familiar dead air from the other side of the conversation, there were the deep rich tones of Dom’s replies .
They talked modifications to the Supra. Dom was surprised that it didn’t hurt as much as he thought it would to talk cars. At least not with Brian. It hadn’t hurt to hear Brian talk about cars in the calls he’d made to him. He supposed it made some kind of sense that it wasn’t hard to hold up his part of the conversation on that subject in person. He hadn’t been able to with Letty or Leon. Hadn’t wanted to.
They talked favorite breakfast foods, they talked television. "What the hell was that?" Brian asked about the German possibly French game show. Dom simply laughed as he cleared their dishes and said he thought that it was some kind of reality show. Their conversation took them through the cleaning of the breakfast
mess to a full tour of the house, to the cleaning of the pool. During the house tour, with only the slightest preceding hesitation Dom launched into a thoroughly detailed explanation of the security system. And Brian accepted this intimacy. He assessed as a cop, then made suggestions for improvement as a man who needed to keep what was important to him secure.
Their chatter carried them through laundry as Dom watched Brian dump what little he had all together in the machine. Just as Brian lifted the cup to pour in detergent, Dom reached inside the machine and took everything out.
"I can do my own laundry Toretto."
Dom just cocked an eyebrow as he separated the dark jeans from the lighter boxer briefs.
"I barely even have enough for a load."
Without a word, Dom left the room and came back with an armful of his own clothes which he joined with Brian’s.
"Okay, you win laundry guru." Brian stepped back to let Dom reload the machine.
While the laundry laundered, Brian helped Dom clean the pool. As they debated the merits of ocean versus pool swimming, Dom tried not to stare openly, appreciatively at the golden flex and ripple of Brian as he worked. He tried to ignore the loop in his head which spooled that what he saw was his for the taking.
They drifted into a late dinner of quiet conversation next to the newly clean pool. Brian talked about the Academy and his dinner companion asked interested questions and listened to the answers without condemnation or anger.
After dinner, they again found themselves on the beach. Brian smiled mischievously at Dom then turned and began to strip down.
Dom averted his eyes. "What the hell are you doing?"
"What’s it look like I’m doing," the blond tossed over his shoulder.
"Losing your mind."
"You should come in."
"Uh huh," Dom said as he flicked his eyes briefly over Brian who was in nothing but his navy blue boxer briefs.
"We had this talk already. I don’t swim where something might eat me."
Brian stared at the water, hesitated for the briefest of instances then picked up his jeans.
His shimmy back into them caught Dom’s eye. He’d meant to avert his eyes the way he had while they were cleaning the pool, the way he had when Brian first started undressing, but this time he didn’t. Couldn’t.
Brian glanced up from zipping his jeans and caught the other man staring. His shy, pleased smile disappeared as the shirt slipped over his head. And his eyes met Dom’s again once his head cleared the neckline.
Sable eyes still stared, the appreciation not quite completely concealed.
"I can swim in the ocean any time."
"Okay."
They sat on the sand listening to the water lap the shore. Watching the flickering lights of a cruise ship in the distance, Dom thought about Leon, hoped that he and his girl were getting along. Hoped that Leon’s time with his girl was as easy as the day he’d spent with Brian. A tiny smile touched his lips at that thought. The late day behind him had been like one long date. A good date, weirdly domestic, but still a date.
Dom acknowledged to himself that he didn’t have much to compare it with. He hadn’t actually been on that many date dates. The panties always seemed to drop without much effort on his part. Even Letty, despite her attitude, had been easy for him. He was her weakness and -.
His mind tried to crawl away from the rest of that thought, but the reality of the blond beside him wouldn’t let him. That wasn’t the man he was now. He had been Letty’s weakness and he had exploited it, exploited her. All of them. He shuddered involuntarily.
"You okay?" A fleeting touch on his arm. This time the weakness was mutual.
"Yeah, I’m okay."
"Maybe we should go in."
*********************
"I’m just gonna grab a quick shower. I’ve got sand where sand shouldn’t be," Dom tossed over his shoulder, before he quickly disappearedn the direction of a first floor bathroom.
Bracing his hands against the sides of his bathroom’s shower, Brian bowed his head as water, that was more cold than hot, sluiced down his back. He’d wavered at the bottom of the stairs for a few minutes hoping Dom would change his mind and come upstairs. Not that it would have made any difference, Brian realized before giving up and trudging up the stairs to his own bathroom. It wasn’t like they would have showered together. That rest of that thought was cut off at the knees before the arousal he’d fought against for most of the day blossomed into technicolor pictures in his head. Pictures that would overwhelm his resolve. He had failed so spectacularly at setting any of his own boundaries. He needed to make sure he didn’t overstep Dom’s. That was clear to him, but it was also their last night together for a while. He didn’t want it to end with them on separate floors of the house. The tension he felt spring up between them before Dom wandered off gave him every reason to believe that he wouldn’t see Dom until morning.
*********************
"Shit."
"Sorry."
"It’s okay. I, um." Brian tightened his grip on the knot he’d tied loosely into the towel around his waist. Suddenly he was fourteen again, trapped in the boys’ locker room with no safe place to look.
Bare chested, Dom sat at the foot of Brian’s bed. The Detective couldn’t keep his eyes from lingering on all of the dusky skin in front of him.
For most of the day behind them, Dom had been in a less than form fitting t-shirt and baggy board shorts. Since he’d spent the day trying to respect the other man’s boundaries, Brian hadn’t allowed himself to dwell on what he wasn’t allowed to touch.
"Today was a good day." The comment drew Brian’s eyes up to look Dom in the eye. His skin flushed under the other man’s intense regard.
"Yeah, yeah it was." His grip tightened just a bit more.
"Thank you," Dom said softly.
"No, problem man."
"Can I uh, crash in here tonight?"
"Yeah sure, I’ll just uh, lemme."
Snagging a pair of his own underwear out of the duffle, Brian disappeared into the bathroom. Back pressed against the locked door, he tried to calm his trip-hammering heart and burgeoning re- arousal by flashing on some of the more gruesome crime scene pictures he’d seen in his career. When he re-emerged, Brian was almost overwhelmed with the deja vu. The big man was sprawled on his bed the same way he’d been the previous night.
There was a slight variation. Brian swallowed hard at the difference. This time, dark eyes tracked him as he walked toward the bed, watched intently as he slid onto the comforter.
"Hey."
Brian smiled shyly as he lay down beside Dom, mimicking his position.
"I might have missed it last night. Does this deal come with a bedtime story?"
"Uh, maybe." Brian couldn’t keep the grin out of his voice. "Once upon a time there was a bald guy who drove fast and uh -"
"Something tells me you suck at this."
"Yeah, but I uh -. Okay, yeah."
"Tell me," Dom hesitated. "Tell me anything."
"Okay."
And they talked about things they would have come to eventually if they had been men with more time.
*********************
Dom’s eyes darted past Brian for the third time. The cop’s stomach sank.