Fast and the Furious fic: Soaked in Gasoline (Gisele/Han)
This was the first story I started for Yuletide 2015, and pretty much the last thing I completed. I knew I wanted to write a sequel to From Just One Spark for quettaser, whose prompts last year and this year were incredibly inspiring, it just took me awhile to get there. Last year, I wrote how Gisele managed to survive. This year, I wrote about her learning to live again, and saving the people she loves.
Title: Soaked in Gasoline
Author: escritoireazul
Characters/Pairings: Gisele Harabo/Han Lue, Brian O'Conner/Mia Toretto, Sean Boswell/Neela
Author's Note: This is a transformative work of fiction set after Fast & Furious 6 and during Tokyo Drift. Sequel to From Just One Spark. Otherwise, this can be read as a story where Gisele fell from that plane but, in the manner of many Fast and the Furious characters, managed to survive certain death. This is what comes after.
Written for: quettaser as a Yuletide 2015 treat
Word count: 1,800
Rating: 13+
Read at AO3
Summary: Gisele and Han make a life in Tokyo, but no matter how many people they collect, it is not the same as family and home.
1.
Tokyo rises above them like a terrible monster of screaming metal and light, and Gisele loves it. Bright and noisy and crowded, it is every adventure she has ever dreamed of, all wrapped up in a place to, at least temporarily, call home.
They step careful, at first. There are gangs here they don’t know, a whole world of complicated relationships. They are new, they are strangers, Gisele is gaijin, and Han so perfectly, fully, American. For a long time - maybe too long - they have been too comfortable, their reputations too strong. But this is not the Western world. No one knows their names. No one knows Dominic Toretto, the strength of Toretto drivers, or the weight of the Toretto family.
It is wonderful and terrifying at the same time.
2.
Gisele loves the racing in Tokyo. It’s so tight, so precise, every moment breathtaking. She’s always been a good racer, but she loves racing in the parking structures, skimming just past the walls as she drifts, curving down the mountain at high speed.
Han sits in the passenger seat most days, eating some crunchy treat - his favorite thing about Tokyo is the variety of snacks available, he teases, but she thinks it’s probably true - and watching her smile, teeth bared, breath caught in her throat.
She understands, for possibly the first time, why Dom always talks about being free.
3.
Because Gisele is just that good, Takashi pays attention. The first time she beats him, a strange silence falls over the crowd on the roof of the garage. She tightens her fingers around the steering wheel, leather pressed against her palms, and forces herself to take a slow, deep breath.
After London, Gisele has felt hunted, sometimes trapped, until she came to Tokyo and found her freedom, her space. The hell she’s going to let some punk racer take that away.
Han breaks from the crowd, where he’s standing just a little bit apart from everyone else, a bubble of personal space that shouldn’t seem as dangerous as it feels, and leans, all casual, against the hood. He’s eating kaki no tane, because he likes the bit of spice the chili powder adds. She’ll lick it from his lips later, a surprising little sting.
Takashi approaches, and Gisele slides out of the car, stands next to Han. Not too near. She needs room to reach her guns.
For a long time, Takasha simple looks at them. Han is unperturbed, keeps eating. Gisele puts one hand on her hip, waits, eyebrows arched.
Finally, he says, his voice so low she bets the crowd can’t hear him, “My uncle may have a use for you.”
Her first response is I don’t care, but this isn’t home, and she can wait him out.
*
They go to bed near dawn, curled together in a small bed that cradles them close, their bodies pressed skin to skin. He rests his chin on her shoulder, loops his arm across her waist. She strokes his hair, twisting it just a little around her fingers so, every so often, she can give it a sharp tug.
“His uncle is Yakuza,” Han says, and her blood ices when he continues, “could be fun.”
“No.” The risk is too much, and she’s tired. She dreams, sometimes, of that long fall and the unending pain at the end. It had chased her into the darkness, into what the doctors called a coma, into the long, black emptiness where all she knew was terror and pain.
Han shrugs, kisses her bare skin. His hand spreads wide across her stomach, then slides lower. “Whatever you want.”
4.
They keep racing, though. No one is going to take that away.
5.
Sean Boswell is a punk ass white kid with a terrible accent who thinks he knows everything in the world. Gisele takes one look at him, at the way he drives, and starts laughing. His cheeks go red, and he scowls, but that just makes him look even younger and cuter.
“Oh god, Han, you brought home a puppy.”
He kisses her, tasting of horseradish from cheap wasabi peas, and wraps his arm around her waist. “Sean can’t drift,” he says. “He needs to learn.”
“Do I look like a schoolteacher?” she asks, and Han laughs, but she’s already seen how he drives, and she can’t help but evaluate what he needs to change. “You suck,” she tells Han, when she realizes what she's doing, and that just makes him laugh harder.
6.
Sean fails, and fails, and fails, and Gisele throws up her hands, frustration like fury, twisting her up.
Han puts his hands on her shoulders, fingers pressing in hard, thumbs working a knot. She breathes in deep - catches the hint of soy sauce and peas, guesses he’s been eating arare - and lets the tension roll out of her.
“Drifting started on the mountain,” he says, and his words are as much for Sean as for her.
She turns, looks at it. She’s seen it in the dark, all the racers spiraling up it, lights like falling stars as they drift, and her next breath comes easy and soft.
*
Sean learns slow still, but eventually, the mountain brings even him peace.
7.
He beats Takeshi’s boys, he starts screwing around with Takeshi’s girlfriend, and Gisele explodes on him one night in the garage.
“You know who he is!” she shouts. Everyone else, all the girls, all the boys, all these people Han has collected like he’s Dominic fucking Toretto, center of the world, fall back, staring. They’ve never seen her raise her voice before. “You know what he’ll do!”
“Neela deserves better than some gang banger!” Sean yells too.
Her hand flexes, but she holds herself back. She has not so lost her Mossad training that she will hit someone unintentionally, but a part of her wants to pound in his face.
“He’s more than that and you know it. Do you think this will end with a few punches, maybe him beating you up? He can destroy you if he wants, and you’ll drag all of us down with you.”
She storms to her car, needing the mountain, fresh air, speed - to be free.
“What’d you expect?” Han tells the kid as he follows her. “You didn’t just play with fire, you soaked the matches in gasoline.”
*
Neela turns up, face bruised, and Gisele presses her mouth into a tight line.
She’s welcome here, of course. Always. They circle Han, these kids, drawn by his patience and his quick smiles, his easy laughter, orbit him like planets.
Han touches her, fingers to her wrist, and she smiles, just for him.
8.
Gisele calls Mia from the top of the mountain, to vent, to brag. It’s equal parts pleasure and frustration, but it’s easier, hearing the warm voices of home. Mia tells her stories about Jack, about Dom and Letty, about the ridiculous things Brian’s getting himself into.
She looks out over the bright lights, all the people hidden at this distance, and realizes, with a sharp pang, that as much as she loves Tokyo, the peace she’s found here, it still doesn’t feel like home.
9.
Takashi comes for them at the garage, comes for Neela, but he has no support from his uncle, only his own boys. They are young, too, and though they are the scourge of Tokyo, Gisele has seen so much worse, so much more.
The moment Takashi pulls a gun on Neela and Sean, her vision goes white hot with rage, and she’s done with his bullshit. Absolutely done.
She fires once, at his feet, to get his attention, and the bullet ricochets, sharp, into the car Han’s been rebuilding. By the time he looks up, she’s settled into her stance, and her gun is pointed at his face.
“No one shoots at me,” he says, voice hot with anger. “No one.” He doesn’t have to mention his uncle for her to understand the threat; she doesn’t stop the slow grin that is a baring of her teeth.
10.
It isn’t the Yakuza that gets them. It’s just an accident, or at least that's what it seems at first, a car, out of nowhere, that t-bones Han while they're out playing, racing around the city, Sean showing off a little for Neela. For a second, there’s smoke, fire, and all Gisele can do is stare. Then, through the flames, she thinks she sees a man, the hint of a gun, maybe, and she bolts.
Her gun is out and she’s firing before she even gives it a thought, through the smoke, the fire. Her bullets hit, but the man doesn’t fall. He stands a moment, stares at her, something silver glinting where it dangles from his fingertips. She skids to a stop, so close the smoke fills her lungs, makes her eyes burn, and aims, sighting at his head.
He’s gone in an instant, fading into the background, into the gathering crowd.
Sean comes running, Neela at his side, and she’s jerked away from whoever it was. Han’s not making any sound inside the car. The heat is terrible as she lunges down, with Sean, with Neela, as they drag him out of the car. His skin splits, blood everywhere. His eyes are closed, and she can’t tell if he’s breathing.
They’re still too close to the car when it blows. Fire and heat wash over her, stealing everything from her, breath and thought, and all she has is Han, her body curled over him.
*
The doctors and nurses try to fuss over her, but she points them at Han. Borrows a cell phone, calls home. No answer at the house. Mia’s cell is out of service. She starts to panic before she gets Dom. His voice is rougher than normal, and she can hear the sounds of a hospital in the background. Heart in her throat, breath ragged, she listens as he tells her what happened.
Then she has to talk. She’s sitting next to Han’s bed, exhausted, clothes still covered in soot, patches burnt. She smells like smoke and gasoline. Han’s body is surrounded by machines, and that is how he lives. Each beat of his heart, each breath.
A headache blooms.
“Stay with him. Stay armed.” She tightens her fingers around the phone as she listens to him. “I’ll be in Tokyo tomorrow. We’re bringing Han home.”
*
Mia and Jack are safe in the Dominican Republic. Dom takes Han there, too. There’s a private doctor, a suite set up like a hospital room.
“You can stay here,” Dom tells her. “We understand.”
Mia shakes her head as she comes up to Gisele, wraps her in a tight hug. She knows Gisele better than that. Gisele's wearing clean clothes, she’s scrubbed her hair and body, but still, she thinks she can smell smoke, fire, gasoline burning, and flesh and blood.
“Bring Dom and Brian home safe,” Mia whispers into her ear. “I’ll keep watch on Han.” Gisele kisses her cheek, a promise.
*
They’re to leave the next morning. That night, while Gisele naps, leaning against Han’s bed, her head propped on one hand. Han opens his eyes.
This entry was original posted at http://escritoireazul.dreamwidth.org/427477.html with
comments. Reply here or there.
Title: Soaked in Gasoline
Author: escritoireazul
Characters/Pairings: Gisele Harabo/Han Lue, Brian O'Conner/Mia Toretto, Sean Boswell/Neela
Author's Note: This is a transformative work of fiction set after Fast & Furious 6 and during Tokyo Drift. Sequel to From Just One Spark. Otherwise, this can be read as a story where Gisele fell from that plane but, in the manner of many Fast and the Furious characters, managed to survive certain death. This is what comes after.
Written for: quettaser as a Yuletide 2015 treat
Word count: 1,800
Rating: 13+
Read at AO3
Summary: Gisele and Han make a life in Tokyo, but no matter how many people they collect, it is not the same as family and home.
1.
Tokyo rises above them like a terrible monster of screaming metal and light, and Gisele loves it. Bright and noisy and crowded, it is every adventure she has ever dreamed of, all wrapped up in a place to, at least temporarily, call home.
They step careful, at first. There are gangs here they don’t know, a whole world of complicated relationships. They are new, they are strangers, Gisele is gaijin, and Han so perfectly, fully, American. For a long time - maybe too long - they have been too comfortable, their reputations too strong. But this is not the Western world. No one knows their names. No one knows Dominic Toretto, the strength of Toretto drivers, or the weight of the Toretto family.
It is wonderful and terrifying at the same time.
2.
Gisele loves the racing in Tokyo. It’s so tight, so precise, every moment breathtaking. She’s always been a good racer, but she loves racing in the parking structures, skimming just past the walls as she drifts, curving down the mountain at high speed.
Han sits in the passenger seat most days, eating some crunchy treat - his favorite thing about Tokyo is the variety of snacks available, he teases, but she thinks it’s probably true - and watching her smile, teeth bared, breath caught in her throat.
She understands, for possibly the first time, why Dom always talks about being free.
3.
Because Gisele is just that good, Takashi pays attention. The first time she beats him, a strange silence falls over the crowd on the roof of the garage. She tightens her fingers around the steering wheel, leather pressed against her palms, and forces herself to take a slow, deep breath.
After London, Gisele has felt hunted, sometimes trapped, until she came to Tokyo and found her freedom, her space. The hell she’s going to let some punk racer take that away.
Han breaks from the crowd, where he’s standing just a little bit apart from everyone else, a bubble of personal space that shouldn’t seem as dangerous as it feels, and leans, all casual, against the hood. He’s eating kaki no tane, because he likes the bit of spice the chili powder adds. She’ll lick it from his lips later, a surprising little sting.
Takashi approaches, and Gisele slides out of the car, stands next to Han. Not too near. She needs room to reach her guns.
For a long time, Takasha simple looks at them. Han is unperturbed, keeps eating. Gisele puts one hand on her hip, waits, eyebrows arched.
Finally, he says, his voice so low she bets the crowd can’t hear him, “My uncle may have a use for you.”
Her first response is I don’t care, but this isn’t home, and she can wait him out.
*
They go to bed near dawn, curled together in a small bed that cradles them close, their bodies pressed skin to skin. He rests his chin on her shoulder, loops his arm across her waist. She strokes his hair, twisting it just a little around her fingers so, every so often, she can give it a sharp tug.
“His uncle is Yakuza,” Han says, and her blood ices when he continues, “could be fun.”
“No.” The risk is too much, and she’s tired. She dreams, sometimes, of that long fall and the unending pain at the end. It had chased her into the darkness, into what the doctors called a coma, into the long, black emptiness where all she knew was terror and pain.
Han shrugs, kisses her bare skin. His hand spreads wide across her stomach, then slides lower. “Whatever you want.”
4.
They keep racing, though. No one is going to take that away.
5.
Sean Boswell is a punk ass white kid with a terrible accent who thinks he knows everything in the world. Gisele takes one look at him, at the way he drives, and starts laughing. His cheeks go red, and he scowls, but that just makes him look even younger and cuter.
“Oh god, Han, you brought home a puppy.”
He kisses her, tasting of horseradish from cheap wasabi peas, and wraps his arm around her waist. “Sean can’t drift,” he says. “He needs to learn.”
“Do I look like a schoolteacher?” she asks, and Han laughs, but she’s already seen how he drives, and she can’t help but evaluate what he needs to change. “You suck,” she tells Han, when she realizes what she's doing, and that just makes him laugh harder.
6.
Sean fails, and fails, and fails, and Gisele throws up her hands, frustration like fury, twisting her up.
Han puts his hands on her shoulders, fingers pressing in hard, thumbs working a knot. She breathes in deep - catches the hint of soy sauce and peas, guesses he’s been eating arare - and lets the tension roll out of her.
“Drifting started on the mountain,” he says, and his words are as much for Sean as for her.
She turns, looks at it. She’s seen it in the dark, all the racers spiraling up it, lights like falling stars as they drift, and her next breath comes easy and soft.
*
Sean learns slow still, but eventually, the mountain brings even him peace.
7.
He beats Takeshi’s boys, he starts screwing around with Takeshi’s girlfriend, and Gisele explodes on him one night in the garage.
“You know who he is!” she shouts. Everyone else, all the girls, all the boys, all these people Han has collected like he’s Dominic fucking Toretto, center of the world, fall back, staring. They’ve never seen her raise her voice before. “You know what he’ll do!”
“Neela deserves better than some gang banger!” Sean yells too.
Her hand flexes, but she holds herself back. She has not so lost her Mossad training that she will hit someone unintentionally, but a part of her wants to pound in his face.
“He’s more than that and you know it. Do you think this will end with a few punches, maybe him beating you up? He can destroy you if he wants, and you’ll drag all of us down with you.”
She storms to her car, needing the mountain, fresh air, speed - to be free.
“What’d you expect?” Han tells the kid as he follows her. “You didn’t just play with fire, you soaked the matches in gasoline.”
*
Neela turns up, face bruised, and Gisele presses her mouth into a tight line.
She’s welcome here, of course. Always. They circle Han, these kids, drawn by his patience and his quick smiles, his easy laughter, orbit him like planets.
Han touches her, fingers to her wrist, and she smiles, just for him.
8.
Gisele calls Mia from the top of the mountain, to vent, to brag. It’s equal parts pleasure and frustration, but it’s easier, hearing the warm voices of home. Mia tells her stories about Jack, about Dom and Letty, about the ridiculous things Brian’s getting himself into.
She looks out over the bright lights, all the people hidden at this distance, and realizes, with a sharp pang, that as much as she loves Tokyo, the peace she’s found here, it still doesn’t feel like home.
9.
Takashi comes for them at the garage, comes for Neela, but he has no support from his uncle, only his own boys. They are young, too, and though they are the scourge of Tokyo, Gisele has seen so much worse, so much more.
The moment Takashi pulls a gun on Neela and Sean, her vision goes white hot with rage, and she’s done with his bullshit. Absolutely done.
She fires once, at his feet, to get his attention, and the bullet ricochets, sharp, into the car Han’s been rebuilding. By the time he looks up, she’s settled into her stance, and her gun is pointed at his face.
“No one shoots at me,” he says, voice hot with anger. “No one.” He doesn’t have to mention his uncle for her to understand the threat; she doesn’t stop the slow grin that is a baring of her teeth.
10.
It isn’t the Yakuza that gets them. It’s just an accident, or at least that's what it seems at first, a car, out of nowhere, that t-bones Han while they're out playing, racing around the city, Sean showing off a little for Neela. For a second, there’s smoke, fire, and all Gisele can do is stare. Then, through the flames, she thinks she sees a man, the hint of a gun, maybe, and she bolts.
Her gun is out and she’s firing before she even gives it a thought, through the smoke, the fire. Her bullets hit, but the man doesn’t fall. He stands a moment, stares at her, something silver glinting where it dangles from his fingertips. She skids to a stop, so close the smoke fills her lungs, makes her eyes burn, and aims, sighting at his head.
He’s gone in an instant, fading into the background, into the gathering crowd.
Sean comes running, Neela at his side, and she’s jerked away from whoever it was. Han’s not making any sound inside the car. The heat is terrible as she lunges down, with Sean, with Neela, as they drag him out of the car. His skin splits, blood everywhere. His eyes are closed, and she can’t tell if he’s breathing.
They’re still too close to the car when it blows. Fire and heat wash over her, stealing everything from her, breath and thought, and all she has is Han, her body curled over him.
*
The doctors and nurses try to fuss over her, but she points them at Han. Borrows a cell phone, calls home. No answer at the house. Mia’s cell is out of service. She starts to panic before she gets Dom. His voice is rougher than normal, and she can hear the sounds of a hospital in the background. Heart in her throat, breath ragged, she listens as he tells her what happened.
Then she has to talk. She’s sitting next to Han’s bed, exhausted, clothes still covered in soot, patches burnt. She smells like smoke and gasoline. Han’s body is surrounded by machines, and that is how he lives. Each beat of his heart, each breath.
A headache blooms.
“Stay with him. Stay armed.” She tightens her fingers around the phone as she listens to him. “I’ll be in Tokyo tomorrow. We’re bringing Han home.”
*
Mia and Jack are safe in the Dominican Republic. Dom takes Han there, too. There’s a private doctor, a suite set up like a hospital room.
“You can stay here,” Dom tells her. “We understand.”
Mia shakes her head as she comes up to Gisele, wraps her in a tight hug. She knows Gisele better than that. Gisele's wearing clean clothes, she’s scrubbed her hair and body, but still, she thinks she can smell smoke, fire, gasoline burning, and flesh and blood.
“Bring Dom and Brian home safe,” Mia whispers into her ear. “I’ll keep watch on Han.” Gisele kisses her cheek, a promise.
*
They’re to leave the next morning. That night, while Gisele naps, leaning against Han’s bed, her head propped on one hand. Han opens his eyes.
This entry was original posted at http://escritoireazul.dreamwidth.org/427477.html with
comments. Reply here or there.