'After', The Fast and the Furious, Letty/Mia, PG13, Part 1 of 1
Title: After
Author: nikitangel
Fandom: The Fast and the Furious
Rating: PG13
Pairing: Letty/Mia
Timeline: After the first movie
Wordcount: 810
Summary: Eventually, it’s just Letty and Mia.
Written for the anniversary of the birth of the amazing seeksadventure.
Eventually, it’s just Letty and Mia.
Brian sticks around for a month or two, unable to abandon a woman in need. Mia looks at him so pathetically that Letty can’t bring herself to kick him out; instead, she just waits. She tells stories of growing up together and being a family and being a part of each other. She tells them and watches his eyes close and his mouth tighten and she ignores the way her chest burns and those two ribs ache. Some days she doesn’t know who she’s punishing.
Mia never talks about Dom. She just looks away when Letty taunts Brian, and starts clearing the dishes. She never uses Dom’s glass when she sets the table. Letty looks in the cupboard once, but it isn’t there either.
Letty drinks straight from the bottle, and she drinks a lot. She drinks until one night she wakes up on the bathroom floor and sees her mother in the mirror. She throws up until there is nothing left, then goes down to the kitchen to dump everything else down the drain. There is nothing left.
She keeps the garage going, taking on a few cars at a time. She refuses to see that Toretto’s sign taken down, and that’s what will happen if she’s not careful. Mia keeps up the counter when she’s not at class. She does go to class - Letty is damned if she’ll let the girl throw it away now. Dom would kill her, and she needs to take care of things until he comes back. She dug the textbooks out of the trash herself that first night and said anything she could think of until Mia gave in and started crying. They clung to each other on the floor and Mia cried for both of them. Brian never even woke up. Mia doesn’t really touch Letty much after that.
She can see how empty Mia is with him. She doesn’t understand. Some nights she lies alone in Dom’s bed and the rage is so big it doesn’t seem to fit in her body. She thinks she must wake the entire neighborhood with everything she doesn’t say, and still he sits there at the breakfast table in the morning.
Until one morning he doesn’t. Mia’s eyes are red, but Letty has seen them redder. Letty makes bacon and even eggs that morning. Letty hates eggs, but Mia doesn’t. Letty hates Brian too, and she thinks maybe now so will Mia.
When Mia calls to tell her about acing the midterm, Letty hears the smile in her voice for the first time in months. She closes the garage early and stops on the way home to buy one of those rolls of cookie dough. Mia’s car isn’t there when she pulls into the driveway, which makes things easier. She opens every door in the kitchen until she finds a pan. She smushes all the circles together to make one giant messy circle and shoves the pan into the oven, spinning the dial about halfway. When it looks brown enough, she yanks it back out and pokes gingerly at its middle. Mia made her a nicer one for her birthday last year. A real cake, with ingredients, and icing, and her name across the top. She had everyone’s attention, all day. Letty looks at the uneven cookie surface and frowns.
She unearths the half-can of frosting she remembers being in the fridge, but then she is stuck. Finally, she just washes her hands really good and sticks a finger straight into the frosting. It takes forever, but she manages to finger-paint a wobbly “Mia” onto the middle of the cake. She decides that the “Congratulations” is implied and licks her fingers clean.
It is then that Mia walks through the back door and dumps her bag onto the table. She notices the mess first and sighs. Letty can hear the lecture before it starts, so she quickly lifts up the pan to show it off.
Mia stares at the cake without moving. Finally, Letty gets uncomfortable and sets it back down on the table. She wipes her hands on her pants and stands up, ready to promise to clean the kitchen for the next week or month or whatever it takes to hear that smile.
Mia doesn’t take her eyes off the cake, even as Letty moves closer, which is why Letty is so startled to suddenly find arms around her in a fierce hug. They hold on tight, and she can feel the dampness on her shirt where Mia’s eyes are. She wishes she’d changed into nicer clothes when she got home.
Mia is crying again, but she’s smiling too, and anything is worth that. Letty squeezes and is squeezed back and her ribs don’t hurt. It’s still just Letty and Mia, but they’re not alone anymore.