Fearless on My Breath . Part I/III . 2 Fast 2 Furious .
Title: Fearless on my Breath Part I/III
Author: pprfaith
Summary: Sequel to The Art of Running. Brian’s never scared and Dom sometimes feels like he’s forgotten how to be anything else. Or: Fear and Loathing in Miami.
Rating: Crunchy, hard R for sex, violence and my potty mouth, which tends to bleed over into the characters.
Pairing: Dom/Brian, (Verone/Fuentes).
Warnings: Sex, violence, mentions of child abuse, swearing, slight angsting and genderswap. Also, this won’t make a lick of sense without having read the other story first.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything at all, except some aspects of girl!Brian and this computer. Even the title is stolen from Massive Attack’s Teardrop.
A/N: Okay, who to thank. First of all, everyone who cheered me on with The Art of Running and motivated me to write a sequel. Secondly, jedibuttercup for being the most, pardon my French, fuckawesome cheerleader there is. She’s got talking me down down to an art form. Thank you so much. Also thanks to everyone on my flist for listening to me whine constantly. That said, comments make me muchly happy. Enjoy!
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Fearless on My Breath
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It’s been a year and Dom still isn’t used to waking alone most mornings.
Used to be, Letty was right there with him, plastered up against his side, running as hot as he does. The two of them used to feed off each other’s heat until something caught fire.
Fighting, fucking, screaming.
With Letty it was all the same, all passion, all fire that needed to go somewhere. And then the fire went out and what was left was a girl ten years younger than him, looking at him with worn, scared eyes, blood smeared on her face. He’d known it was over then, by the side of the road, known it had been over for a long time. They’d been running on fumes for an age.
Brian’s different and it starts with her sleeping patterns. She’s up late and rises early, too much energy to contain for long. But her energy isn’t fire and she doesn’t spark off Dom like Letty always did. She’s cool, collected. Smooth like water, like ice.
When Brian wants Dom’s attention she tells him so to his face. She doesn’t need to make him angry, or horny, or play games. She just gets right up in his space, runs a hand over his shaved head, smiles and says, “Hey, there.”
She calms him down.
And she always flees the bed before he’s even close to being awake, leaving him alone with the cooling sheets. Goddamn!
He grunts as he rolls to his feet, snatches up his discarded jeans before trooping into the bathroom. He brushes his teeth, runs wet hands over his head, decides that shaving can wait and goes in search of his deserter.
He makes a pit stop by the front door, looking at the board he put up there years ago, a simple, deep blue with half a dozen nails driven into it. House Rules: You come home, you leave your keys on the board. It’s the only way to keep track of this many people. Three sets of car keys hang there now, his, Brian’s, those for the Charger.
They’re alone in the house. It’s a rare treat, and it explains why he found most of Brian’s clothes still scattered across their room.
He meanders into the kitchen and finds her hypnotized by the coffee maker, wearing - yep - only panties and his wife beater. For someone who tends to hide in oversized men’s clothes, she’s surprisingly unafraid of showing off the goods when she wants to.
His shirt is way too big on her, knotted above her navel and he can see, even from a bad angle, the fading, rounded pink of the scar in her abdomen. She doesn’t seem to notice it most of the time, but he tends to get transfixed by it. Utterly.
So close. She came so close.
+
The first thing Dominic Toretto learns about Brian O’Connor - Spilner then, but that doesn’t matter - is that she’s fearless. Well, that and the fact that she has a weird kink for crappy tuna.
He doesn’t really pay attention to her when she comes in to have lunch. Nothing more than nice ass, small tits, gorgeous eyes, would take a ride on that.
The race is the first time he actually notices her and she gets right in his face after she loses, grins at him all teeth, and says, “Dude, I almost had you!”
Unafraid. Unabashed. Uncowed. She stands there and back-talks to him even though he could break her in two with one hand. Even though everyone else, including his own crew, keep their distance. You don’t mouth off to Dom. Not ever.
Apparently, Whitebread didn’t get the memo.
He laughs at her sheer balls and doesn’t realize he’s flirting with her until Letty is there, running interference. She snarls and spits at the blonde, the kind of rage that sends grown men scrambling, and Brian just keeps grinning.
Fearless, crazy, white bitch.
+
Brian turns to look at him over her shoulder. Her hair’s a mess, bobbing around her chin in impossible curls, all golden and bright. Angelic, almost, except Dom knows better than to believe the package. It’s not the blonde hair and lithe build, it’s the eyes. They give her away. No angel at all.
She yawns and tucks a strand of that hair behind her ear only for it to spring back immediately. She glares at it, almost going cross-eyed with the effort, and it’s so cute he almost feels sick. Pass the insulin.
But it doesn’t bother him. That’s how far gone he is on that woman, damn her.
She gives up on her hair and the coffee and walks over to him, coming to a halt way too close, one hand on his chest. “So,” she says conversationally, in lieu of a ‘good morning’. She’s way too awake. “We’re alone.”
“I noticed,” he rumbles, fighting the smirk that’s already threatening to take over because he knows that faux-casual tone. He may wake alone, but he rarely stays that way for long. “What’cha gonna do about it?”
She shrugs, grins right back at him, like sunshine, and hooks two fingers into his waistband, drawing him backwards until her hip hits the counter. “I was thinking kitchen sex.”
The way his dick reacts to Brian saying ‘sex’ is almost Pavlovian but, hey, it works just fine for him. Let her lead him around by his dick. At least it’s a happy dick. He palms her hipbones, shifts his hands, lifts her up onto the counter. It’s not actually necessary since she’s kind of tall, but he likes his access and he likes her wrapped around him.
She obliges, pulling him into the V of her legs, kissing him good morning, finally. She’s smiling into it, easy and sloppy, and he grips her tighter, pulls her toward the edge of the counter.
Manhandling her.
At this point, Letty would have tried to wrest control back from him, to gain the upper hand. But Brian, Brian is content to let herself be directed like a doll, let herself be lifted and moved and shifted. Letty was intimidated by his strength. Brian doesn’t even seem to notice it.
Utterly fearless.
They keep it clean for a good while, just kissing, just touching. Lazy Sunday morning in the kitchen. They’re in no hurry. That’s probably a good thing, because when Roman comes stomping in the front door and finds them making out, they’re still mostly covered and not actually having sex. Yet.
“Shit, man,” the younger man howls, slapping a hand over his eyes. “I do not need to see my girl’s tits this early in the morning, cuz!”
Brian, laughing, grabs an apple from the fruit bowl sitting next to her and throws it, asking candidly, “You’d rather see Dom’s dick?”
Dom looks over his shoulder just in time to see the apple smack a seemingly paralyzed Roman directly in the chest. It bounces and drops, rolling to a halt in the middle of the floor. Somewhere behind him, in the living room, Vince roars with laughter. He knows better than to enter any room unannounced.
Roman starts spluttering and pointing and fumbling and finally settles for, “You watch that mouth, girl! That’s…. you don’t go round sayin’ filth like that!”
He sends her an indignant glare and then turns tail and flees the room, yelling at them to disinfect the fucking counter, rude people! Vince sounds like he’s going into fits, laughing so hard he can’t breathe.
Brian presses her forehead to Dom’s shoulder and dissolves into giggles.
+
At first, Dom has no idea what to make of Roman. Or even why he agreed to put the man up. Oh, no, wait. That has something to do with Brian flashing those damn baby-blues of hers at him and saying ‘pretty please’.
The first week, he ignores the other ex-con. A man fresh out of jail is an animal with his instincts all fucked. The natural fight or flight is all turned around, twisted up like a pretzel because in jail, there ain’t no running. All that’s left is fight.
Dom remembers where the kid is, remembers entering rooms ready to fight, taking every comment as a challenge, feeling trapped by all kinds of walls.
Brian has no idea how to deal with a newly minted ex-con, but she knows Roman better than he knows himself. They have most of their meals outside, in the yard, and it helps. She sits on him a lot and that helps, too, because for some reason he doesn’t register her as a threat even when she’s holding him down.
Dom grinds his teeth about that one for a while, but he gets over it when he realizes it’s automatic behavior. Brian sits on ‘her boy’ all the time, like he’s just a very squishy kind of chair. Mia says Brian says they’ve been doing it since primary and it’s always ‘her boy’ and ‘his girl’.
Whatever.
Eventually Roman calms down enough for Dom to get an actual read on him. He’s cocky. He’s mouthy. He’s loyal to the point of being stupid, but only to Brian. He pushes people like he breathes, constantly testing limits, and he takes a beating with a grin and a devil-may-care attitude. It scares Dom a bit, thinking of what he and Brian must have gotten up to as kids, two fearless idiots together with no supervision.
He’s also smart and, when he wants to, he’s kind. And he’s a damn good mechanic and a decent driver. Probably a good racer, when they get that anklet off him.
He treats Brian like she’s gold and cars like they’re Brian and Dom figures a man with priorities like that can’t be all bad.
+
Races are… interesting, since Brian healed up enough to get back on the streets. It’s a rare thing for anyone to challenge Dom these days since he just doesn’t lose, but Brian’s a whole ‘nother story.
She doesn’t lose either, not to anyone but Dom, but she’s a girl and she’s so easy going and smooth that most people don’t seem to realize they just lost. She accepts their cash, usually makes a show of giving a couple hundred of it right back, says it’s an investment for future wins. They laugh and take their own money back like it’s a great gift and the next time, they’ll be right back at the starting line, waiting to have that cute blonde rip them off again.
Watching it is like watching Discovery Channel, Dom finds. Hector and his own crew are the only ones who seem to have caught on to the magnetic pull of Brian O’Connor and how it’s going to make her rich, and they often stand on the sidelines, getting their kicks off watching her work the crowd.
Today, she’s won two races and Dom counted six large going into her pocket, eight hundred of which she ‘invested’ again immediately. Hector’s lounging next to him against the hood of his car, smirking. “Your little girl’s a shark, Dom,” he says and then makes a hissing sound. “Ice.”
Brian hears him over a lull in the general din and comes ambling over, fanning herself with a couple of greens, grinning like the cat that got the extended canary family and the cream.
She’s wearing tight jeans and a tank tonight, and Dom knows he’s not the only one appreciating the way her hips sway as she comes closer. She stops in front of Hector, tongue in one cheek and asks, “You scared, big boy?”
“Freezing,” he shoots back easily, not rising to the challenge. She dips into a mock-bow and spins to face Dom.
“You scared, too?”
He reels her in by her belt loops, pulls her onto the proof of how he’s feeling about the show she’s putting on and whispers, “Scared ain’t the word I’d use.”
She hums and shoves a bit closer still, going for his neck, when suddenly silence falls. He taps her side to draw her attention and then looks over her shoulder at what’s got the crowd so quiet all of a sudden. Brian tenses in his arms, ready for action, but playing oblivious. Her hand is inside his jacket, on his gun, waiting.
Vince and Jesse are there suddenly, on either side of him.
In the middle of a hole in the crowd, Tran Sr. stands with an expression of cool distaste on his face. “Good evening, Mr. Toretto.”
+
Johnny Tran is dead. Shiv’ed in prison, bled out in the showers. Dom can’t say he’s feeling sorry, especially since his, Mia’s and Jesse’s testimony is what put the fucker in there in the first place.
But daddy Tran doesn’t seem to share his opinion. He seemed to not give a shit while Junior was still alive, but now that he’s dead the old goat has the balls the demand compensation.
If Dom hadn’t known the man was a shark before, the way he wants money to make up for his son’s death would have probably tipped him off. According to his screwed up logic, Dom and his ‘clan’ are to blame for Johnny’s death and they’ll either pay the ‘compensation’ or daddy will take it out of them, old testament.
Dom wants to bash the fucker’s face in when he threatens them so casually, introducing Mia to the conversation, mentioning how pretty Brian is, really. The threat comes through loud and clear and Dom sees red.
Brian’s still standing with her back to the crowd, curled up in Dom and she shoves her hands under his shirt, presses them into his skin, anchors him. He sucks the cool right out of her, borrowing it, stealing it, and she lets him. He agrees to Senior’s terms - not like there’s an alternative - and makes like he’s more interested in getting back to fucking his woman standing up than talking to daddy Tran. It works. Ice against ice. The old guy pulls away, his goons in tow. Dom stays standing there, letting Bri work on him, until the crowd picks up again and no-one pays attention to them anymore, except maybe Hector.
He nods to the guy, out of respect. Hector stuck close when the old man showed up and that takes balls and loyalty. Hector nods back and Dom flicks his gaze at Vince and Jesse, both of whom get the hint. They get in their cars and pull out. Brian and Dom are right behind them.
They drive caravan to the house, troop inside and lock the door behind them. Mia and Roman are sitting in the living room and they look confused when everyone stays silent. Right up until Dom picks up an empty mug from one of the end tables and throws it at the nearest wall with a roar of rage. It splinters into a thousand shards and he can feel himself shaking, quivering like a race horse with the need to hurt someone.
Mia screams, Roman curses and Vince laughs like a hyena. “Shit, man,” he says, watching Dom heave like an angry bull, “I’ve been waiting for that to happen. How the hell did you not break that old fucker’s neck?”
The answer comes in the form of Brian, who tugs him to one of the chairs and plants herself right on top of him. Calming him down instantly. Fire and water.
Fearless.
How the fuck can she be calm like this? How can she not want to commit murder?
Jesse’s been explaining what just happened to the others and they’re both off, cursing like sailors, looking worried and angry. Dom feels his own rage rising again. But Brian simply shakes her head and says, “I got this.”
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The surveillance starts up almost as soon as the ambulance takes off, Brian loaded into the back. Dom is still sitting on the sidewalk, Vince’s and Brian’s blood mingling on his shirt, his hands. Mia tried to drag him inside, to get him to wash off, but she eventually left him, taking care of Jesse instead. The cops… he has no idea why there aren’t any cops yet.
Leaving him out here, to stare at nothing and see everything that’s lost. Letty is gone. He doesn’t need to hear her say it to know it’s over. It’s always been want between them, rather than love, and after today, she can’t want him anymore. Not ever again. Leon went with her. Might be back, might not.
Vince is in the hospital and now so is Brian. Who’s a traitor. Who’s a cop. Who took a bullet for Jesse and jumped a truck for Vince, who fucked with evidence for them all. It was those words that pulled Dom out of his rage. Her standing there, yelling about how she’s just fucked herself out of a life. For him. For this family.
And then, bang bang, she was lying on the ground, bleeding. Bleeding and worrying about him landing in jail, of all things.
So he sits there, blood stained, and digests all that, tries to make sense of a life that went belly-up in less than six hours. He’s so distracted that he doesn’t notice the plain blue sedan at first. But it rolls to a stop across the street and stays there, no-one getting in, no-one getting out. Two guys sitting inside, cop written all over them. Funny, how Brian never even pinged his radar.
They stay there. Long after he’s showered, long after he gets back from the hospital. They’re still there when Vince gets out, when Brian gets out. It seems like they’ll never leave, some days.
Brian shrugs it off, says it means they’re desperate because they have nothing on him. Thanks to her. Thanks to her and two Hondas that mysteriously blew up out by the highway.
One day Brian fixes two mugs of coffee, large and sweet. “It’s cop coffee,” she says with a wink. Then she carries the mugs across the street and knocks on the window, passing them inside. It’s a quiet morning and Dom can hear her all the way up on the front porch. They tell her they can’t accept the coffee and she tells them she knows how boring stake outs can be, and her and Dom can’t be very entertaining.
One of the pigs shoots dirty, says he doesn’t accept anything from a dirty cop and Brian fires right back, says she isn’t likely to poison the coffee, so shut up and drink. By noon, the two mugs stand empty on the porch steps and the surveillance is pulled. Apparently someone finally figured out that Dom isn’t going to do anything stupid when he knows they’re there.
They stay gone for almost a year until, one morning, he goes outside to fetch the newspaper and there’s another car with two guys inside parked across the street. “We got cops,” he tells the others over breakfast.
Brian looks outside, shakes her head. “Feds, not cops.”
She fixes two mugs of coffee and goes outside. The others watch from behind the curtains, see her gesture wildly, see her fight with one of the feds, a big, black guy. In the end, she screams, “NO!” in his face and stalks back inside. Mia takes one look at Dom and wisely herds everyone out of the room, ignoring Jesse’s protest that he’s not finished yet. Vince just grabs another pancake to munch on the way to work.
“What did they want?” Dom asks Brian.
“For me to work for them again.”
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“I got this,” she says, like a major crime lord didn’t just threaten their entire family with a fate worse than death if they fail to pay his dead son’s weight in dollar bills.
Everyone’s talking, over and under and above each other, until Roman, who still knows Brian best, cuts in by asking simply, “How?”
And Brian says, “I’ll work for Bilkins.”
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Her plan is insane. Bilkins, the black fed, who just so happens to be the guy that was after Dom like a pitbull, wants Brian to drive for him in Miami. They’ve been trying to bring down a drug lord but the guy’s slippery as hell. Can’t tie the money to him.
They want to get Brian in as a driver, because she’s the only one they know who has the skill to pull it off and the balls to go undercover in the racing scene. She’s done it before, after all. They want her to drive for the guy, tie him all up with his dirty money, hand him over to the feds. She said no when all they had to offer her was her job back.
Now that everyone’s ass is on the line, she wants to accept the deal. Her driving for the feds helping them out with Tran. Letting them have enough of the drug lord’s money to pay off the crime lord. Huh. Put that way, it sounds almost logical. Until you get back to the part where Brian, female, sexy, scrappy but not bulletproof, fearless, cocky, arrogant Brian, wants to infiltrate a drug lord’s organization.
They fight about it. For hours. Roman is in because he’ll go with Brian, back her up, get rid of his tracker that way. Jesse has no opinion and Mia knows better than to get between them by taking anyone’s side. Vince shrugs and walks away, knowing he’s not going to tip the scales. That leaves Dom, who’s angry and scared and frustrated because he knows that Brian’s plan is the best - the only plan - they have.
But everything in him, every single fiber of his being, is against the idea of letting one of his, his woman, his lover, his, take such a risk. He’s the leader of this family. He’s the one who makes things right.
He complains sometimes, that everyone wants something from him, but in truth he wouldn’t know how to be - who to be - if he didn’t have his family to define him. Dom protects what’s his and Brian…
Brian just won’t fucking let him.
“I’m not one of your people,” she says in the end, calm and collected still in the face of his raving and ranting.
She’s not one of his people. He stops, stares. She hasn’t said that in a long time, content to let him steer.
She’s not one of his people. She’s his equal. His partner. And she makes her own choices. If he tries to stop her, he’ll lose her. He knows that, but it’s hard to accept that he, Dominic Toretto, the man that always gets his way, has finally found a wall he can’t bulldoze his way through.
Brian’s stronger than him because she has faith. All Dom has is fear.
He palms her head, clenching fingers in her hair, golden blonde and bright, and pulls her close, holds her tight enough to hurt as he bites and licks into her mouth. He kisses her because it’s better than chaining her up and locking her away.
She has to know that he’s punishing her for being so stubborn, for not listening, but she meets him right in the middle, her arms around his neck, her legs so tight around his middle he thinks he can’t breathe.
Maybe, if he’s lucky, she’ll fuck the fear right out of him.
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They meet with Bilkins in an empty office building, Brian, Roman and Dom, who refused to be left behind. Bilkins has two suits with him, both of whom glare at Dom like they’re getting paid for it.
Oh, wait, they are.
Bilkins has the contracts drawn up ready and while Bri studies them, Dom leans against the wall by the door, staring down the man. He’s big and he must have been fit once, but age has taken its toll. He’s wearing dress pants and a shirt, no tie. Relaxed. Aging. On top.
He gives Roman a cursory glare for fidgeting, then looks Dom up and down and back, not dismissive, but like he thinks he knows everything there is to know. Suits Dom just fine.
What doesn’t suit him it the way the man’s gaze lands on Brian, studying her like she’s a bug under a microscope. She’s slouched in her seat, legs spread too wide for a woman, bouncing one of her feet as she reads. She’s wearing jeans with a grease stain along the left thigh and a t-shirt with a picture of a vintage Camaro on the front. She’s got a handful of those shirts, all with different cars. She and Mia brought them home one day from a girl’s day out, doing whatever, and Brian loves them. Loves them so much that they’re the only shirts she doesn’t actually wear in the garage, so they won’t stain.
Bilkins, who doesn’t know that, only sees a slouched, disrespectful woman, too lazy to even change out of her work clothes before meeting with one of her former bosses. Which is probably exactly what Brian intended when she pulled on the ratty jeans and too big shirt.
“Brian,” Roman eventually whines from where he’s been prowling by the floor length windows, glaring at the LEOs in turns. “What’s taking so long?”
He still doesn’t do well in cages.
Brian doesn’t even look up. “I’m making sure our asses don’t get arrested the moment this is done, Rome, so shut up.”
Roman huffs, but like a good little lapdog, heels. Dom would be amused, if he weren’t sure that he’s much the same. At least he’s got the excuse of being led around by his dick. What’s Roman’s?
“What happened to you, O’Connor?” Bilkins suddenly asks. He sounds honestly curious, which is why Dom doesn’t stalk over there and punch his lights out.
Brian’s eyes flicker up to him for a moment before she goes back to reading, casually turning a page. “Could ask you the same thing, Bilkins. Last year, you would have been doing bad things to your blood pressure by now. And yet here you are, calm as can be. Your priorities have changed. Want to tell me why?”
The fed obviously recognizes the challenge. Show me yours, I’ll show you mine. Surprisingly, he accepts Brian’s taunt with a simple nod, lets things rest. “You could have been great,” he says instead, like a disappointed parent and shit, that’s not going to go down well with Brian.
But all she does is smirk. “I am great.”
Then she slaps the contracts on the table, calls Rome over and gets him to sign.
+
Mia and Jesse show up at the hospital around dinnertime. Dom, who has been swinging between Vince’s room and Brian’s room like a pendulum of guilt and worry for hours, appreciates the break.
Jesse, calm and quiet and strangely collected, tells him, “I’m seeing Brian,” and slinks off. Mia grabs her brother’s hand, pulls him into one of the hard plastic seats in the waiting room by Vince’s station. They wheeled him out of ICU half an hour ago. Brian is still in there, tubes and wires and too pale skin.
“Sit,” Mia commands and he does, trying not to feel relieved that someone else is taking control. The cops have finally been through him twice, leaving him feeling raw every time, and Brian and Vince and god, just… fuck.
He closes his eyes and waits for his little sister to tell him it’ll be okay. That they’ll get through it, as a family. The way they always have. But what Mia says is, “This is your fault.”
He jerks, head shooting up, eyes opening, to find her gaze, calm and red-rimmed. Cried out. “This is your fault,” she repeats, like a prayer, like a fact.
He knows that. Has known it since he spent an hour sitting on the bloody sidewalk, trying to figure out where everything went wrong. The answer: When Dominic Toretto decided he could outrun life. Every thrill, every heist, he was half hoping to end in a pillar of flame and adrenaline, crashed against some wall.
A blaze of glory. An ending.
Some days he feels like he never left Lompoc, not really. He’s still running against walls at every turn and he gets so tired.
He knows it’s his fault. Knows his hunger, his desperation, his greed for speed, caused this.
He didn’t expect Mia, gentle, caring Mia, to throw it in his face. Letty and Leon are gone, Vince and Brian almost dead, Jesse and Mia scared so badly. It’s a wakeup call, his sister’s truth in his face.
He deserves much worse.
“I know,” he says, remembers saying the same two words to Brian only a few days ago, by the beach. Maybe this was a long time coming. Crash and burn, but he doesn’t get a blaze of glory. Doesn’t deserve one. “Help me fix it,” he begs.
Mia smiles and she’s crying again, gentle, sobless tears. “Of course,” she says.
This time, he’ll make it right.
+
Mia’s waiting for him when he gets home alone. Brian and Roman are flying out right now with Bilkins. Beyond a two minute goodbye at the airport, Dom got nothing. They signed and suddenly it was all movement, all hurry.
There wasn’t even time to go over the plan again.
He closes the door behind him, hugs Mia hello, kisses her forehead. It’s one of those things he does more often now. Show her that he loves her. Appreciates her. He listens to her and he doesn’t try to run her life. Sometimes it takes an elbow in the gut for him to remember that, but he’s getting there. He’s letting his little sister be her own person and instead of leaving them further apart, it’s made them closer.
Some things you love you need to let go, his father once said. If it loves you back, it’ll come home.
“I called Leon,” she says as they pull apart. “He’ll help Vince and Jesse at the garage while you’re gone. He doesn’t know, but he thinks Letty will come, too. I packed your bag and the Supra is ready to go.”
She smiles her Mona Lisa smile at him and Dom feels nothing but gratitude. “They’re okay with coming down?”
They both have work up in Washington, somewhere. A small town, where Leon has family. It suits them both, even if Letty complains about the constant rain. They come down sometimes, on the weekends, for barbeques and sunshine. The hurt is fading and the rifts are healing.
“Family,” is all the answer Mia gives.
+
Dom rolls into Miami just as the sun sets, after a grueling week of doing nothing but drive, eat, sleep and repeat. Because he’s not going to let his woman face down a drug lord on her own and she needs her car anyway. He’d take any bet that the government sponsored vehicles they gave Brian and Roman are bugged six ways from Saturday and that just won’t do.
This whole thing is a slippery slope and one misstep will end with them all dead. They need to play dirty to win. That’s why Dom’s here. That’s why he just drove the Supra across the continent. That’s why he rolls directly into what’s shaping up to be Miami’s version of a race night, complete with half-dressed groupies and posturing kids.
He climbs out of the Supra under appreciative noises and stares, both of which he ignores. He’s not here to pose. He’s here for his woman and finding her isn’t actually that hard. He could just follow the trail of disgruntled people until he finds Roman, but the easiest way to find Brian before a race is to find the starting line.
She doesn’t care about the see-and-be-seen portion of a race night, only about the speed. She’ll be up front, somewhere.
He locks the car, slips the key into his pocket and sets out. It takes him all of five minutes to find her, exactly where he thought she’d be. She’s wearing cut-off jeans that barely cover her ass, miles and miles of tanned legs on display, and a tanktop along with her trademark Chucks. She says she’s tall enough for a woman without wearing heels, but he suspects she just can’t walk in anything but flats.
She’s got her hands hooked into her pockets, shoulders hunched, all cool, all Brian. There are two guys standing across from her, Latinos both, and both with big mouths.
One of them gets halfway in her face, says loudly, “You know what I think, chica?”
Dom doesn’t need to see Brian’s skeptic eyebrow to know it’s there. “What?” she asks, all sugar and spice.
“I think you’re bullshitting, chica. You say you got a man, but I don’t see none. You say you’re a racer, but I don’t see you racin’.”
“Man,” Brian says with a shrug, ignoring the fact that the guy is close enough to kiss. Dom’s fists itch. “I told you, Julius. I only race with one car.”
The asshole laughs, raises one arm, giving his buddy the cue to laugh, too. Dom takes a few steps closer as the asshole closes in even more. He’s trying to crowd her. It won’t work, but he doesn’t know that. Still. The little shit needs his ass kicked.
“Yeah? What car’s that? Your dream car? To go with your dream man? How about you let a real man take you for a ride, chica?”
He grabs his dick, swivels his hips at her and laughs loudly. His minion joins in, as do a few people around them. Dom can hear the smile in Brian’s voice as she bounces a bit on her toes and drawls, “Let me know when you see one, pendejo.”
There’s a moment of stunned silence while the asshole works out the insult and then, just as he’s about to blow up in Brian’s face - stupid, reckless, fearless bitch - Dom decides it’s time to make himself known.
He closes the gap between himself and his girl, slings and arm around her shoulders and pulls her back against his chest. She stiffens for half a second until she recognizes him and then goes pliant, grin splitting her face. He rumbles lowly, “Someone asked for a real man?”
The ass barks a laugh, “Careful, man, puta’s toxic. Comprende?”
Dom looks down at Brian. “You toxic, babe?”
She shrugs and he turns her around, hooks the fingers of one hand into her waistband and pulls until she’s plastered to his chest. Then he bends down the few inches that separate them and kisses her until her toes curl. When he pulls back, the crowd is hooting and hollering around them. Dom looks over Brian’s shoulder at this Julius guy. He looks gob-smacked by the fact that Brian didn’t knee Dom in the balls like she probably threatened to do him. Dom smirks. “This is how you treat a woman,” he says. “You racin’ tonight?”
The guy nods.
Dom pulls out the Supra’s keys, throws them to Brian and orders, “Smoke him.”
She throws her head back and laughs. He gets a full ten for Best Entrance.
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Part II
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Author: pprfaith
Summary: Sequel to The Art of Running. Brian’s never scared and Dom sometimes feels like he’s forgotten how to be anything else. Or: Fear and Loathing in Miami.
Rating: Crunchy, hard R for sex, violence and my potty mouth, which tends to bleed over into the characters.
Pairing: Dom/Brian, (Verone/Fuentes).
Warnings: Sex, violence, mentions of child abuse, swearing, slight angsting and genderswap. Also, this won’t make a lick of sense without having read the other story first.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything at all, except some aspects of girl!Brian and this computer. Even the title is stolen from Massive Attack’s Teardrop.
A/N: Okay, who to thank. First of all, everyone who cheered me on with The Art of Running and motivated me to write a sequel. Secondly, jedibuttercup for being the most, pardon my French, fuckawesome cheerleader there is. She’s got talking me down down to an art form. Thank you so much. Also thanks to everyone on my flist for listening to me whine constantly. That said, comments make me muchly happy. Enjoy!
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Fearless on My Breath
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It’s been a year and Dom still isn’t used to waking alone most mornings.
Used to be, Letty was right there with him, plastered up against his side, running as hot as he does. The two of them used to feed off each other’s heat until something caught fire.
Fighting, fucking, screaming.
With Letty it was all the same, all passion, all fire that needed to go somewhere. And then the fire went out and what was left was a girl ten years younger than him, looking at him with worn, scared eyes, blood smeared on her face. He’d known it was over then, by the side of the road, known it had been over for a long time. They’d been running on fumes for an age.
Brian’s different and it starts with her sleeping patterns. She’s up late and rises early, too much energy to contain for long. But her energy isn’t fire and she doesn’t spark off Dom like Letty always did. She’s cool, collected. Smooth like water, like ice.
When Brian wants Dom’s attention she tells him so to his face. She doesn’t need to make him angry, or horny, or play games. She just gets right up in his space, runs a hand over his shaved head, smiles and says, “Hey, there.”
She calms him down.
And she always flees the bed before he’s even close to being awake, leaving him alone with the cooling sheets. Goddamn!
He grunts as he rolls to his feet, snatches up his discarded jeans before trooping into the bathroom. He brushes his teeth, runs wet hands over his head, decides that shaving can wait and goes in search of his deserter.
He makes a pit stop by the front door, looking at the board he put up there years ago, a simple, deep blue with half a dozen nails driven into it. House Rules: You come home, you leave your keys on the board. It’s the only way to keep track of this many people. Three sets of car keys hang there now, his, Brian’s, those for the Charger.
They’re alone in the house. It’s a rare treat, and it explains why he found most of Brian’s clothes still scattered across their room.
He meanders into the kitchen and finds her hypnotized by the coffee maker, wearing - yep - only panties and his wife beater. For someone who tends to hide in oversized men’s clothes, she’s surprisingly unafraid of showing off the goods when she wants to.
His shirt is way too big on her, knotted above her navel and he can see, even from a bad angle, the fading, rounded pink of the scar in her abdomen. She doesn’t seem to notice it most of the time, but he tends to get transfixed by it. Utterly.
So close. She came so close.
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The first thing Dominic Toretto learns about Brian O’Connor - Spilner then, but that doesn’t matter - is that she’s fearless. Well, that and the fact that she has a weird kink for crappy tuna.
He doesn’t really pay attention to her when she comes in to have lunch. Nothing more than nice ass, small tits, gorgeous eyes, would take a ride on that.
The race is the first time he actually notices her and she gets right in his face after she loses, grins at him all teeth, and says, “Dude, I almost had you!”
Unafraid. Unabashed. Uncowed. She stands there and back-talks to him even though he could break her in two with one hand. Even though everyone else, including his own crew, keep their distance. You don’t mouth off to Dom. Not ever.
Apparently, Whitebread didn’t get the memo.
He laughs at her sheer balls and doesn’t realize he’s flirting with her until Letty is there, running interference. She snarls and spits at the blonde, the kind of rage that sends grown men scrambling, and Brian just keeps grinning.
Fearless, crazy, white bitch.
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Brian turns to look at him over her shoulder. Her hair’s a mess, bobbing around her chin in impossible curls, all golden and bright. Angelic, almost, except Dom knows better than to believe the package. It’s not the blonde hair and lithe build, it’s the eyes. They give her away. No angel at all.
She yawns and tucks a strand of that hair behind her ear only for it to spring back immediately. She glares at it, almost going cross-eyed with the effort, and it’s so cute he almost feels sick. Pass the insulin.
But it doesn’t bother him. That’s how far gone he is on that woman, damn her.
She gives up on her hair and the coffee and walks over to him, coming to a halt way too close, one hand on his chest. “So,” she says conversationally, in lieu of a ‘good morning’. She’s way too awake. “We’re alone.”
“I noticed,” he rumbles, fighting the smirk that’s already threatening to take over because he knows that faux-casual tone. He may wake alone, but he rarely stays that way for long. “What’cha gonna do about it?”
She shrugs, grins right back at him, like sunshine, and hooks two fingers into his waistband, drawing him backwards until her hip hits the counter. “I was thinking kitchen sex.”
The way his dick reacts to Brian saying ‘sex’ is almost Pavlovian but, hey, it works just fine for him. Let her lead him around by his dick. At least it’s a happy dick. He palms her hipbones, shifts his hands, lifts her up onto the counter. It’s not actually necessary since she’s kind of tall, but he likes his access and he likes her wrapped around him.
She obliges, pulling him into the V of her legs, kissing him good morning, finally. She’s smiling into it, easy and sloppy, and he grips her tighter, pulls her toward the edge of the counter.
Manhandling her.
At this point, Letty would have tried to wrest control back from him, to gain the upper hand. But Brian, Brian is content to let herself be directed like a doll, let herself be lifted and moved and shifted. Letty was intimidated by his strength. Brian doesn’t even seem to notice it.
Utterly fearless.
They keep it clean for a good while, just kissing, just touching. Lazy Sunday morning in the kitchen. They’re in no hurry. That’s probably a good thing, because when Roman comes stomping in the front door and finds them making out, they’re still mostly covered and not actually having sex. Yet.
“Shit, man,” the younger man howls, slapping a hand over his eyes. “I do not need to see my girl’s tits this early in the morning, cuz!”
Brian, laughing, grabs an apple from the fruit bowl sitting next to her and throws it, asking candidly, “You’d rather see Dom’s dick?”
Dom looks over his shoulder just in time to see the apple smack a seemingly paralyzed Roman directly in the chest. It bounces and drops, rolling to a halt in the middle of the floor. Somewhere behind him, in the living room, Vince roars with laughter. He knows better than to enter any room unannounced.
Roman starts spluttering and pointing and fumbling and finally settles for, “You watch that mouth, girl! That’s…. you don’t go round sayin’ filth like that!”
He sends her an indignant glare and then turns tail and flees the room, yelling at them to disinfect the fucking counter, rude people! Vince sounds like he’s going into fits, laughing so hard he can’t breathe.
Brian presses her forehead to Dom’s shoulder and dissolves into giggles.
+
At first, Dom has no idea what to make of Roman. Or even why he agreed to put the man up. Oh, no, wait. That has something to do with Brian flashing those damn baby-blues of hers at him and saying ‘pretty please’.
The first week, he ignores the other ex-con. A man fresh out of jail is an animal with his instincts all fucked. The natural fight or flight is all turned around, twisted up like a pretzel because in jail, there ain’t no running. All that’s left is fight.
Dom remembers where the kid is, remembers entering rooms ready to fight, taking every comment as a challenge, feeling trapped by all kinds of walls.
Brian has no idea how to deal with a newly minted ex-con, but she knows Roman better than he knows himself. They have most of their meals outside, in the yard, and it helps. She sits on him a lot and that helps, too, because for some reason he doesn’t register her as a threat even when she’s holding him down.
Dom grinds his teeth about that one for a while, but he gets over it when he realizes it’s automatic behavior. Brian sits on ‘her boy’ all the time, like he’s just a very squishy kind of chair. Mia says Brian says they’ve been doing it since primary and it’s always ‘her boy’ and ‘his girl’.
Whatever.
Eventually Roman calms down enough for Dom to get an actual read on him. He’s cocky. He’s mouthy. He’s loyal to the point of being stupid, but only to Brian. He pushes people like he breathes, constantly testing limits, and he takes a beating with a grin and a devil-may-care attitude. It scares Dom a bit, thinking of what he and Brian must have gotten up to as kids, two fearless idiots together with no supervision.
He’s also smart and, when he wants to, he’s kind. And he’s a damn good mechanic and a decent driver. Probably a good racer, when they get that anklet off him.
He treats Brian like she’s gold and cars like they’re Brian and Dom figures a man with priorities like that can’t be all bad.
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Races are… interesting, since Brian healed up enough to get back on the streets. It’s a rare thing for anyone to challenge Dom these days since he just doesn’t lose, but Brian’s a whole ‘nother story.
She doesn’t lose either, not to anyone but Dom, but she’s a girl and she’s so easy going and smooth that most people don’t seem to realize they just lost. She accepts their cash, usually makes a show of giving a couple hundred of it right back, says it’s an investment for future wins. They laugh and take their own money back like it’s a great gift and the next time, they’ll be right back at the starting line, waiting to have that cute blonde rip them off again.
Watching it is like watching Discovery Channel, Dom finds. Hector and his own crew are the only ones who seem to have caught on to the magnetic pull of Brian O’Connor and how it’s going to make her rich, and they often stand on the sidelines, getting their kicks off watching her work the crowd.
Today, she’s won two races and Dom counted six large going into her pocket, eight hundred of which she ‘invested’ again immediately. Hector’s lounging next to him against the hood of his car, smirking. “Your little girl’s a shark, Dom,” he says and then makes a hissing sound. “Ice.”
Brian hears him over a lull in the general din and comes ambling over, fanning herself with a couple of greens, grinning like the cat that got the extended canary family and the cream.
She’s wearing tight jeans and a tank tonight, and Dom knows he’s not the only one appreciating the way her hips sway as she comes closer. She stops in front of Hector, tongue in one cheek and asks, “You scared, big boy?”
“Freezing,” he shoots back easily, not rising to the challenge. She dips into a mock-bow and spins to face Dom.
“You scared, too?”
He reels her in by her belt loops, pulls her onto the proof of how he’s feeling about the show she’s putting on and whispers, “Scared ain’t the word I’d use.”
She hums and shoves a bit closer still, going for his neck, when suddenly silence falls. He taps her side to draw her attention and then looks over her shoulder at what’s got the crowd so quiet all of a sudden. Brian tenses in his arms, ready for action, but playing oblivious. Her hand is inside his jacket, on his gun, waiting.
Vince and Jesse are there suddenly, on either side of him.
In the middle of a hole in the crowd, Tran Sr. stands with an expression of cool distaste on his face. “Good evening, Mr. Toretto.”
+
Johnny Tran is dead. Shiv’ed in prison, bled out in the showers. Dom can’t say he’s feeling sorry, especially since his, Mia’s and Jesse’s testimony is what put the fucker in there in the first place.
But daddy Tran doesn’t seem to share his opinion. He seemed to not give a shit while Junior was still alive, but now that he’s dead the old goat has the balls the demand compensation.
If Dom hadn’t known the man was a shark before, the way he wants money to make up for his son’s death would have probably tipped him off. According to his screwed up logic, Dom and his ‘clan’ are to blame for Johnny’s death and they’ll either pay the ‘compensation’ or daddy will take it out of them, old testament.
Dom wants to bash the fucker’s face in when he threatens them so casually, introducing Mia to the conversation, mentioning how pretty Brian is, really. The threat comes through loud and clear and Dom sees red.
Brian’s still standing with her back to the crowd, curled up in Dom and she shoves her hands under his shirt, presses them into his skin, anchors him. He sucks the cool right out of her, borrowing it, stealing it, and she lets him. He agrees to Senior’s terms - not like there’s an alternative - and makes like he’s more interested in getting back to fucking his woman standing up than talking to daddy Tran. It works. Ice against ice. The old guy pulls away, his goons in tow. Dom stays standing there, letting Bri work on him, until the crowd picks up again and no-one pays attention to them anymore, except maybe Hector.
He nods to the guy, out of respect. Hector stuck close when the old man showed up and that takes balls and loyalty. Hector nods back and Dom flicks his gaze at Vince and Jesse, both of whom get the hint. They get in their cars and pull out. Brian and Dom are right behind them.
They drive caravan to the house, troop inside and lock the door behind them. Mia and Roman are sitting in the living room and they look confused when everyone stays silent. Right up until Dom picks up an empty mug from one of the end tables and throws it at the nearest wall with a roar of rage. It splinters into a thousand shards and he can feel himself shaking, quivering like a race horse with the need to hurt someone.
Mia screams, Roman curses and Vince laughs like a hyena. “Shit, man,” he says, watching Dom heave like an angry bull, “I’ve been waiting for that to happen. How the hell did you not break that old fucker’s neck?”
The answer comes in the form of Brian, who tugs him to one of the chairs and plants herself right on top of him. Calming him down instantly. Fire and water.
Fearless.
How the fuck can she be calm like this? How can she not want to commit murder?
Jesse’s been explaining what just happened to the others and they’re both off, cursing like sailors, looking worried and angry. Dom feels his own rage rising again. But Brian simply shakes her head and says, “I got this.”
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The surveillance starts up almost as soon as the ambulance takes off, Brian loaded into the back. Dom is still sitting on the sidewalk, Vince’s and Brian’s blood mingling on his shirt, his hands. Mia tried to drag him inside, to get him to wash off, but she eventually left him, taking care of Jesse instead. The cops… he has no idea why there aren’t any cops yet.
Leaving him out here, to stare at nothing and see everything that’s lost. Letty is gone. He doesn’t need to hear her say it to know it’s over. It’s always been want between them, rather than love, and after today, she can’t want him anymore. Not ever again. Leon went with her. Might be back, might not.
Vince is in the hospital and now so is Brian. Who’s a traitor. Who’s a cop. Who took a bullet for Jesse and jumped a truck for Vince, who fucked with evidence for them all. It was those words that pulled Dom out of his rage. Her standing there, yelling about how she’s just fucked herself out of a life. For him. For this family.
And then, bang bang, she was lying on the ground, bleeding. Bleeding and worrying about him landing in jail, of all things.
So he sits there, blood stained, and digests all that, tries to make sense of a life that went belly-up in less than six hours. He’s so distracted that he doesn’t notice the plain blue sedan at first. But it rolls to a stop across the street and stays there, no-one getting in, no-one getting out. Two guys sitting inside, cop written all over them. Funny, how Brian never even pinged his radar.
They stay there. Long after he’s showered, long after he gets back from the hospital. They’re still there when Vince gets out, when Brian gets out. It seems like they’ll never leave, some days.
Brian shrugs it off, says it means they’re desperate because they have nothing on him. Thanks to her. Thanks to her and two Hondas that mysteriously blew up out by the highway.
One day Brian fixes two mugs of coffee, large and sweet. “It’s cop coffee,” she says with a wink. Then she carries the mugs across the street and knocks on the window, passing them inside. It’s a quiet morning and Dom can hear her all the way up on the front porch. They tell her they can’t accept the coffee and she tells them she knows how boring stake outs can be, and her and Dom can’t be very entertaining.
One of the pigs shoots dirty, says he doesn’t accept anything from a dirty cop and Brian fires right back, says she isn’t likely to poison the coffee, so shut up and drink. By noon, the two mugs stand empty on the porch steps and the surveillance is pulled. Apparently someone finally figured out that Dom isn’t going to do anything stupid when he knows they’re there.
They stay gone for almost a year until, one morning, he goes outside to fetch the newspaper and there’s another car with two guys inside parked across the street. “We got cops,” he tells the others over breakfast.
Brian looks outside, shakes her head. “Feds, not cops.”
She fixes two mugs of coffee and goes outside. The others watch from behind the curtains, see her gesture wildly, see her fight with one of the feds, a big, black guy. In the end, she screams, “NO!” in his face and stalks back inside. Mia takes one look at Dom and wisely herds everyone out of the room, ignoring Jesse’s protest that he’s not finished yet. Vince just grabs another pancake to munch on the way to work.
“What did they want?” Dom asks Brian.
“For me to work for them again.”
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“I got this,” she says, like a major crime lord didn’t just threaten their entire family with a fate worse than death if they fail to pay his dead son’s weight in dollar bills.
Everyone’s talking, over and under and above each other, until Roman, who still knows Brian best, cuts in by asking simply, “How?”
And Brian says, “I’ll work for Bilkins.”
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Her plan is insane. Bilkins, the black fed, who just so happens to be the guy that was after Dom like a pitbull, wants Brian to drive for him in Miami. They’ve been trying to bring down a drug lord but the guy’s slippery as hell. Can’t tie the money to him.
They want to get Brian in as a driver, because she’s the only one they know who has the skill to pull it off and the balls to go undercover in the racing scene. She’s done it before, after all. They want her to drive for the guy, tie him all up with his dirty money, hand him over to the feds. She said no when all they had to offer her was her job back.
Now that everyone’s ass is on the line, she wants to accept the deal. Her driving for the feds helping them out with Tran. Letting them have enough of the drug lord’s money to pay off the crime lord. Huh. Put that way, it sounds almost logical. Until you get back to the part where Brian, female, sexy, scrappy but not bulletproof, fearless, cocky, arrogant Brian, wants to infiltrate a drug lord’s organization.
They fight about it. For hours. Roman is in because he’ll go with Brian, back her up, get rid of his tracker that way. Jesse has no opinion and Mia knows better than to get between them by taking anyone’s side. Vince shrugs and walks away, knowing he’s not going to tip the scales. That leaves Dom, who’s angry and scared and frustrated because he knows that Brian’s plan is the best - the only plan - they have.
But everything in him, every single fiber of his being, is against the idea of letting one of his, his woman, his lover, his, take such a risk. He’s the leader of this family. He’s the one who makes things right.
He complains sometimes, that everyone wants something from him, but in truth he wouldn’t know how to be - who to be - if he didn’t have his family to define him. Dom protects what’s his and Brian…
Brian just won’t fucking let him.
“I’m not one of your people,” she says in the end, calm and collected still in the face of his raving and ranting.
She’s not one of his people. He stops, stares. She hasn’t said that in a long time, content to let him steer.
She’s not one of his people. She’s his equal. His partner. And she makes her own choices. If he tries to stop her, he’ll lose her. He knows that, but it’s hard to accept that he, Dominic Toretto, the man that always gets his way, has finally found a wall he can’t bulldoze his way through.
Brian’s stronger than him because she has faith. All Dom has is fear.
He palms her head, clenching fingers in her hair, golden blonde and bright, and pulls her close, holds her tight enough to hurt as he bites and licks into her mouth. He kisses her because it’s better than chaining her up and locking her away.
She has to know that he’s punishing her for being so stubborn, for not listening, but she meets him right in the middle, her arms around his neck, her legs so tight around his middle he thinks he can’t breathe.
Maybe, if he’s lucky, she’ll fuck the fear right out of him.
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They meet with Bilkins in an empty office building, Brian, Roman and Dom, who refused to be left behind. Bilkins has two suits with him, both of whom glare at Dom like they’re getting paid for it.
Oh, wait, they are.
Bilkins has the contracts drawn up ready and while Bri studies them, Dom leans against the wall by the door, staring down the man. He’s big and he must have been fit once, but age has taken its toll. He’s wearing dress pants and a shirt, no tie. Relaxed. Aging. On top.
He gives Roman a cursory glare for fidgeting, then looks Dom up and down and back, not dismissive, but like he thinks he knows everything there is to know. Suits Dom just fine.
What doesn’t suit him it the way the man’s gaze lands on Brian, studying her like she’s a bug under a microscope. She’s slouched in her seat, legs spread too wide for a woman, bouncing one of her feet as she reads. She’s wearing jeans with a grease stain along the left thigh and a t-shirt with a picture of a vintage Camaro on the front. She’s got a handful of those shirts, all with different cars. She and Mia brought them home one day from a girl’s day out, doing whatever, and Brian loves them. Loves them so much that they’re the only shirts she doesn’t actually wear in the garage, so they won’t stain.
Bilkins, who doesn’t know that, only sees a slouched, disrespectful woman, too lazy to even change out of her work clothes before meeting with one of her former bosses. Which is probably exactly what Brian intended when she pulled on the ratty jeans and too big shirt.
“Brian,” Roman eventually whines from where he’s been prowling by the floor length windows, glaring at the LEOs in turns. “What’s taking so long?”
He still doesn’t do well in cages.
Brian doesn’t even look up. “I’m making sure our asses don’t get arrested the moment this is done, Rome, so shut up.”
Roman huffs, but like a good little lapdog, heels. Dom would be amused, if he weren’t sure that he’s much the same. At least he’s got the excuse of being led around by his dick. What’s Roman’s?
“What happened to you, O’Connor?” Bilkins suddenly asks. He sounds honestly curious, which is why Dom doesn’t stalk over there and punch his lights out.
Brian’s eyes flicker up to him for a moment before she goes back to reading, casually turning a page. “Could ask you the same thing, Bilkins. Last year, you would have been doing bad things to your blood pressure by now. And yet here you are, calm as can be. Your priorities have changed. Want to tell me why?”
The fed obviously recognizes the challenge. Show me yours, I’ll show you mine. Surprisingly, he accepts Brian’s taunt with a simple nod, lets things rest. “You could have been great,” he says instead, like a disappointed parent and shit, that’s not going to go down well with Brian.
But all she does is smirk. “I am great.”
Then she slaps the contracts on the table, calls Rome over and gets him to sign.
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Mia and Jesse show up at the hospital around dinnertime. Dom, who has been swinging between Vince’s room and Brian’s room like a pendulum of guilt and worry for hours, appreciates the break.
Jesse, calm and quiet and strangely collected, tells him, “I’m seeing Brian,” and slinks off. Mia grabs her brother’s hand, pulls him into one of the hard plastic seats in the waiting room by Vince’s station. They wheeled him out of ICU half an hour ago. Brian is still in there, tubes and wires and too pale skin.
“Sit,” Mia commands and he does, trying not to feel relieved that someone else is taking control. The cops have finally been through him twice, leaving him feeling raw every time, and Brian and Vince and god, just… fuck.
He closes his eyes and waits for his little sister to tell him it’ll be okay. That they’ll get through it, as a family. The way they always have. But what Mia says is, “This is your fault.”
He jerks, head shooting up, eyes opening, to find her gaze, calm and red-rimmed. Cried out. “This is your fault,” she repeats, like a prayer, like a fact.
He knows that. Has known it since he spent an hour sitting on the bloody sidewalk, trying to figure out where everything went wrong. The answer: When Dominic Toretto decided he could outrun life. Every thrill, every heist, he was half hoping to end in a pillar of flame and adrenaline, crashed against some wall.
A blaze of glory. An ending.
Some days he feels like he never left Lompoc, not really. He’s still running against walls at every turn and he gets so tired.
He knows it’s his fault. Knows his hunger, his desperation, his greed for speed, caused this.
He didn’t expect Mia, gentle, caring Mia, to throw it in his face. Letty and Leon are gone, Vince and Brian almost dead, Jesse and Mia scared so badly. It’s a wakeup call, his sister’s truth in his face.
He deserves much worse.
“I know,” he says, remembers saying the same two words to Brian only a few days ago, by the beach. Maybe this was a long time coming. Crash and burn, but he doesn’t get a blaze of glory. Doesn’t deserve one. “Help me fix it,” he begs.
Mia smiles and she’s crying again, gentle, sobless tears. “Of course,” she says.
This time, he’ll make it right.
+
Mia’s waiting for him when he gets home alone. Brian and Roman are flying out right now with Bilkins. Beyond a two minute goodbye at the airport, Dom got nothing. They signed and suddenly it was all movement, all hurry.
There wasn’t even time to go over the plan again.
He closes the door behind him, hugs Mia hello, kisses her forehead. It’s one of those things he does more often now. Show her that he loves her. Appreciates her. He listens to her and he doesn’t try to run her life. Sometimes it takes an elbow in the gut for him to remember that, but he’s getting there. He’s letting his little sister be her own person and instead of leaving them further apart, it’s made them closer.
Some things you love you need to let go, his father once said. If it loves you back, it’ll come home.
“I called Leon,” she says as they pull apart. “He’ll help Vince and Jesse at the garage while you’re gone. He doesn’t know, but he thinks Letty will come, too. I packed your bag and the Supra is ready to go.”
She smiles her Mona Lisa smile at him and Dom feels nothing but gratitude. “They’re okay with coming down?”
They both have work up in Washington, somewhere. A small town, where Leon has family. It suits them both, even if Letty complains about the constant rain. They come down sometimes, on the weekends, for barbeques and sunshine. The hurt is fading and the rifts are healing.
“Family,” is all the answer Mia gives.
+
Dom rolls into Miami just as the sun sets, after a grueling week of doing nothing but drive, eat, sleep and repeat. Because he’s not going to let his woman face down a drug lord on her own and she needs her car anyway. He’d take any bet that the government sponsored vehicles they gave Brian and Roman are bugged six ways from Saturday and that just won’t do.
This whole thing is a slippery slope and one misstep will end with them all dead. They need to play dirty to win. That’s why Dom’s here. That’s why he just drove the Supra across the continent. That’s why he rolls directly into what’s shaping up to be Miami’s version of a race night, complete with half-dressed groupies and posturing kids.
He climbs out of the Supra under appreciative noises and stares, both of which he ignores. He’s not here to pose. He’s here for his woman and finding her isn’t actually that hard. He could just follow the trail of disgruntled people until he finds Roman, but the easiest way to find Brian before a race is to find the starting line.
She doesn’t care about the see-and-be-seen portion of a race night, only about the speed. She’ll be up front, somewhere.
He locks the car, slips the key into his pocket and sets out. It takes him all of five minutes to find her, exactly where he thought she’d be. She’s wearing cut-off jeans that barely cover her ass, miles and miles of tanned legs on display, and a tanktop along with her trademark Chucks. She says she’s tall enough for a woman without wearing heels, but he suspects she just can’t walk in anything but flats.
She’s got her hands hooked into her pockets, shoulders hunched, all cool, all Brian. There are two guys standing across from her, Latinos both, and both with big mouths.
One of them gets halfway in her face, says loudly, “You know what I think, chica?”
Dom doesn’t need to see Brian’s skeptic eyebrow to know it’s there. “What?” she asks, all sugar and spice.
“I think you’re bullshitting, chica. You say you got a man, but I don’t see none. You say you’re a racer, but I don’t see you racin’.”
“Man,” Brian says with a shrug, ignoring the fact that the guy is close enough to kiss. Dom’s fists itch. “I told you, Julius. I only race with one car.”
The asshole laughs, raises one arm, giving his buddy the cue to laugh, too. Dom takes a few steps closer as the asshole closes in even more. He’s trying to crowd her. It won’t work, but he doesn’t know that. Still. The little shit needs his ass kicked.
“Yeah? What car’s that? Your dream car? To go with your dream man? How about you let a real man take you for a ride, chica?”
He grabs his dick, swivels his hips at her and laughs loudly. His minion joins in, as do a few people around them. Dom can hear the smile in Brian’s voice as she bounces a bit on her toes and drawls, “Let me know when you see one, pendejo.”
There’s a moment of stunned silence while the asshole works out the insult and then, just as he’s about to blow up in Brian’s face - stupid, reckless, fearless bitch - Dom decides it’s time to make himself known.
He closes the gap between himself and his girl, slings and arm around her shoulders and pulls her back against his chest. She stiffens for half a second until she recognizes him and then goes pliant, grin splitting her face. He rumbles lowly, “Someone asked for a real man?”
The ass barks a laugh, “Careful, man, puta’s toxic. Comprende?”
Dom looks down at Brian. “You toxic, babe?”
She shrugs and he turns her around, hooks the fingers of one hand into her waistband and pulls until she’s plastered to his chest. Then he bends down the few inches that separate them and kisses her until her toes curl. When he pulls back, the crowd is hooting and hollering around them. Dom looks over Brian’s shoulder at this Julius guy. He looks gob-smacked by the fact that Brian didn’t knee Dom in the balls like she probably threatened to do him. Dom smirks. “This is how you treat a woman,” he says. “You racin’ tonight?”
The guy nods.
Dom pulls out the Supra’s keys, throws them to Brian and orders, “Smoke him.”
She throws her head back and laughs. He gets a full ten for Best Entrance.
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Part II
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