Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dom comes by every couple of weeks, stays for a few days. When the sun is up, he badgers Mia about how well she's eating, how much she's sleeping, then cooks sprawling meals and soothes the baby to sleep when he finds her answers inevitably lacking. When the sun goes down, he drinks all of Brian's beer and watches the house and the beach for hours, disbelieving the fact of their safety.

Brian doesn't join him often; It's difficult between them, has been for a while, and the reasons aren't worth the risk of acknowledgment. There's little to talk about now, without a race or a job or Mia to fill the silences, and feeling alone in Dom's company isn't something Brian ever expected.

Mia notices the distance and tries in her own quiet way to help, but Brian doesn't know how to let her. He needs this, needs the opportunity to prove he can be a good father, that his legacy is more than just socket wrenches and engine grease. Mia and the baby give him what he needs, but it's Dom who's always given him what he wants.

Theirs is a story of seduction, from the first siren call of a junkyard Supra to the way Brian gave himself up so easily with a toss of his keys. It's been masked by the roar of V-8s and turbochargers, but it's seduction all the same.

The irony is that for all the time they've spent chasing speed, they moved too slowly about the one thing that really mattered.

Mia and Brian are washing dishes at the sink, bottles and tiny bowls and spoons, the arcana of a life Brian never expected to have. It's still a joy, still terrifying, still something he doesn't think he'll ever fully understand.

Mia rinses the last of the bottles, dries her hands, and leans against the counter with her arms crossed. "He loves you, you know," she says, off-handedly.

Brian knows she's talking about Dom. Anything she says about Dom -- or him and Dom; lately it's been the same thing -- is said in that same slightly distant tone. "He's family," Brian says, because it's the simplest answer he can give.

"He's coming in this weekend."

"Yeah?"

She nods, but doesn't meet his eyes. "Elena's gone. You should take him out, buy him a beer."

"I don't know if I can afford it," he says, and her laugh is sudden and bright but not familiar enough when he picks her up and swings her around for a kiss.

Mia's said Dom can make any place feel like home. He's still larger than life -- always has been and probably always will be, Brian thinks -- and he fills the spaces they didn't even know were empty. They feel more like a family when he's there, as though his gruff kind of caring gives them the legitimacy that makes them more than just fugitives on the run.

Even with the tension between them, that feeling of family hasn't changed. So when Dom goes three days without saying anything about Elena, as though there's nothing unusual about there being only one person where two used to be, Brian puts everything else aside and grabs Dom's keys. "Come on," he says. "I owe you a beer."

Dom looks like he's going to say no, then eyes the keys in Brian's hand. "You ain't driving my car."

"I am if you don't hurry up."

The bar is thirty kilometers up the road and into town, an easy drive that follows the curve of the beach. It's quiet and slow on a weeknight, with nothing more interesting going on than a lazy game of pool in the back corner. Dom knocks back a couple of Coronas while they talk about things that are safe: Nico's upcoming birthday, Tej's garage, Han's tour of both Gisele and western Europe.

"You think they'll ever make it to Tokyo?" Brian asks.

"Eventually," Dom says. "They'll take their time."

"I would too, if I were him."

Dom just shrugs. It's an easy opening, plenty of room for Brian to ask about Elena, but he lets it slip by.

They don't talk much after that.

The drive home is silent, but there's a ghost of the old familiarity around the edges. It shouldn't be there, not after all the years of bad calls and complications, but it's the one constant between them. They've always been able to pull each other in, a slow but inevitable drift, and Brian wonders if that might be why Dom never stays very long.

When Mia told him to take Dom out, it wasn't permission she was giving him -- not permission, exactly, but something like it. The promise of forgiveness, maybe. It's not something he should ever take advantage of and he hates that he wants to, but Mia's always known him better than he thinks she does.

They make it halfway home before Brian motions to a turnout and says, "Pull over up here."

"Why?"

"I like this stretch of beach."

"Bullshit," Dom says, but he slows and pulls over anyway. With the engine off, the sound of the waves washing up on shore flows like white noise through the open windows.

Brian doesn't know where to start, but he knows where this was always going to end. "What happened to Elena, Dom?" he asks.

Dom's hesitation means he's choosing between a lie and the truth, and Brian waits him out. Finally he says, "She was a cop," like there's nothing more to it.

Brian's laugh is quiet and sharp. "I guess it's easier for some of us to give it up than others."

"People do what they gotta do."

"Yeah," Brian says, and the waves drift in again over the silence that settles around them. He always thought this would be easy, the two of them and all the things they haven't said and haven't done, but he doesn't know how to get from here to there. He shouldn't be surprised; it's not like he doesn't have a history of being wrong about Dom.

It takes Dom reaching for the ignition to propel him into action. "Mia and me--" he tries, then stops. He won't put her in the middle, not like this.

"You're good, right?"

"Yeah," Brian says, wondering how true that really is, "but this isn't about her." He and Dom have never been much good at talking, have always been better at action and instinct. So Brian reaches out for him, slowly but with unmistakable intent. Dom stills but doesn't retreat, and Brian's hand slips down Dom's chest to get the barest brush of skin over his hip before Dom clamps down on his wrist.

"No."

For a moment Brian's too stunned to react, Dom's skin still sun-warm and right under his palm. "No," he says flatly, and it takes him a moment to recognize the disappointment and embarrassment are like the truck jackings all over again.

Dom's expression is carefully neutral and he gives nothing away when he says, "Your boy's my nephew, Brian."

He's right, and Brian knows it, but he can hardly hear the reason in it with Dom's refusal echoing so loudly in his head. Brian was certain he knew how this would end, that this was one finish line they had no choice but to cross together. He never thought this was a race Dom would throw.

"Let's get you home to Mia," Dom says, and the engine turns over like a traitor.

Mia's rocking the baby on the porch, quietly singing a lullaby she learned from Rosa. She's surprised to see them home so early and it digs at Brian, but not as sharply as it should.

"Here," Dom says, taking the baby from her. "I've got him. You two call it an early night."

Brian sidesteps the questions in Mia's eyes as they retreat to the bedroom. She doesn't ask and he doesn't answer, and they move awkwardly around in each other in a way they haven't since they first went out on their own.

They don't talk about Dom often, and Brian knows the reason for it now, but he feels like he owes her something. "Elena couldn't live like this, not after being a cop," he says. "That's why she left."

"She knew what she was getting into."

"Yeah, but what you think it's going to be and what it is aren't always the same thing."

Her legs are long and tan against the crisp white sheets as she reaches over to turn off the light. "You ever think about it?" she asks, after a long moment. "What your life would be like if you'd walked away?"

"I know what it would've been like," he says, sliding in next to her. "Not good. I was a shitty cop, Mia."

"I don't think that's true," she says. "I think some things were just more important."

"Yeah," he says, leaning over in the dark and kissing her forehead. "You."

It's a lie, but it's one she's kind enough to let him get away with.

She slips into sleep before he does, the exhaustion of motherhood taking its toll, while Brian lies awake and listens again to the white noise of the waves. He hadn't noticed before, but the ocean air is unbearably bitter.