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They run out of beer at ten past midnight.
Their excitement about the upcoming heist keeps the alcohol from going to their heads and slowing them down. They're too keyed up to even begin thinking about sleep and there's still plenty of food left from the barbecue, but they're out of beer even though Mia isn't drinking any. The reason Mia can't drink is just cause for more celebration requiring more beer. Tego and Rico go into their Chuckle Brothers routine, arguing about whose fault it is that there isn't enough drink to last the night, who's a cheapskate and who can't count, whose mother went down on whom in tenth grade. Dom lets them go on until his face hurts from laughing, and then he volunteers to go source more booze.
Vince makes like he's getting up to go with Dom, but before anyone can say anything Brian calls out, "Hey Rome, you should go too."
"Man, I just got real comfy here," Rome grumbles.
Vince looks at Dom. Everyone looks at Dom, because Dom's the one who calls the shots but it's like Brian and Rome never got the memo because Rome's putting his plate down on the floor and pushing himself up from his seat, complaining the whole damn time but not saying no.
Brian motions at Vince to sit down. "Rome's got this," he says.
Vince is looking at Dom like he's gotta be fucking kidding right now.
Brian's a motherfucking disaster for Dom's alpha male cred, but he's always kind of been a motherfucking disaster for Dom's life in general, and over the years Dom has come to accept that as something he can't change. He shrugs, avoids Vince's eyes as he says to Rome, "Alright, let's go hunt down some cervejas."
Rome bounds out of the warehouse, perfectly unaware of the fact that Vince is shaking his head in disgust. Dom follows him, pretending to be unaware. Brian stays behind, arm slung low around Mia's hips and smirking as they leave.
The heat doesn't go down with the sun in Rio. Locals hang around holding rifles in loose hands, smoking cigarettes right down to the filter and turning impassive eyes onto Rome and Dom as they pass. They walk aimlessly for a while, past closed shops and empty market stalls, Dom's shirt sticking to his skin with sweat, and it becomes apparent that finding beer isn't that easy of a task when you have no idea where to go. It also becomes apparent that Brian stuck Rome with Dom for a reason, the reason being Brian's the kind of selfish asshole that won't let them hate each other in peace.
It doesn't take long for Rome to catch onto the plan as well. "Dammit, this is just like the time he made friends with Jeremiah Horowitz in middle school and forced me to hang out with him every day after school for like a month, even though me and Jeremiah wanted to stab each other." Rome pauses to unbutton his shirt, not the top few buttons but all the way. "I don't need to be friends with all his friends, you know? It ain't some kind of beauty pageant; there ain't no prize for being congenial."
Dom's completely agreeing with him up until this point, but then he has to keep talking.
"It wouldn't be much of a competition anyway. I'll always know him first and best. Everyone else is just a distraction."
"Hold up, you calling me a 'distraction'?"
Rome gives him the side eye. "Yeah, a pretty big one. Distracted him from his life as an upright citizen and all."
"Better get used to me hanging around being distracting, then. Brian's my niece or nephew's father, so we're practically blood relatives now."
"Yeah? Well, my sister was Brian's first kiss."
"Did you miss the part where my sister is the mother of his child?" In a corner hidden far in the back of Dom's mind, he knows this contest is more than a little childish. It's a corner he's gotten used to ignoring.
"I was Brian's first dude kiss, so let's see you top that," Rome says.
Dom lapses into an awkward silence. "I don't…kiss dudes…so…"
"What, you and Bri never?"
"…No."
"You serious?"
"I don't know why you're the one looking at me like that, when I should be the one freaking out that you and Brian apparently hooked up."
"I'm just sayin', there's a whole lot of sexual tension getting misread, if you and Brian never did anything."
"Well, we didn't, and we aren't, so I guess you're misreading."
"I guess we're all misreading," Rome says.
Dom is too disturbed by what Rome might mean by 'we all' to not change the subject. Luckily, there's the issue of where to find beer, which is conveniently what they should've been talking about before they went horribly off topic. "This is gonna take all night, if we just walk around hoping we find a store," he says. "We gotta be more strategic."
Rome doesn't seem to care one way or another that Dom's changing the topic. He just says "Yeah, let's ask someone," and walks toward a group of teenagers loitering in an alley.
Dom hangs back, keeping his eye out for any loose pipes or bricks he can grab up and swing in case those kids turn out to be trouble. Which is why it takes him a while to notice that Rome is talking in the broken Spanish he managed to pick up while he was shacked up in Miami with Brian. The kids are looking at him with blank faces, uncomprehending, and Dom pulls Rome away when he starts getting mad at them.
"Listen, Spanish isn't Portuguese, okay? You're getting nowhere with these people."
Dom's getting nowhere with Rome, either. Rome shakes him off and goes up to yet another Portuguese-speaking Brazilian and starts chatting away en really bad español.
"Las cervezas. Tu sabes donde?"
Irritation. That's what Dom feels. Not the general kind of irritation that he gathers everyone feels around Roman Pearce. Brian has told him endless stories of him and Rome growing up back in the day, of Rome getting the shit kicked out of him because no one can stand that smart-ass grin he pastes on his face at all the wrong times, until he grew too damn big for anyone to put in a headlock and people started having to grit their teeth and walk away instead of punching him in the throat to shut him up. It's a deeper irritation that Dom felt long before he ever met Rome, annoyed that Brian would go on and on about this Roman guy with a faraway light in his eyes. He's irritated that Brian loved this idiot once, and maybe always will.
He lets Rome go until he runs out of steam this time, finally satisfying his own stubborn self that screaming at people in neither Spanish nor English in a Portuguese accent was going to work.
Dom says "told you so" when he comes back, and Rome flips him off. They continue meandering down the streets in a silence that Dom is pretty happy with, actually, but it's Rome and he can't stop talking like sharks can't stop swimming.
"The thing about me and Brian is, we go way back."
"I know," Dom says, gritting his teeth.
"I taught him how to drive."
"Explains why he drives like shit, then."
Rome laughs, and Dom laughs too. It's funnier because they both know it's not true, although they'd never admit it to Brian. Not that they'd need to—white boy's got enough ego all on his own.
"No, but I mean I taught him how to drive," Rome continues. "Like, literally. We learned how to use a fucking gas pedal together. We used to boost my old man's car and take it out to do laps in an empty parking lot when he was too passed out drunk to notice the car was gone. I taught him how a fuckin' steering wheel worked."
Dom looks at Rome. "No shit?"
Driving is such a fundamental part of who Brian is, in Dom's eyes if not in the essence of his being. And Rome—Rome's a fundamental part of who Brian is too. Even if Dom never saw him again or never knew about him in the first place, Rome would still be ingrained in Brian, like it or not.
"Man, where the hell are all the liquor stores?" Rome demands, snapping Dom out of it. "It's like the prohibition up in here. You got everyone in this favela smoking and dealing crack, and you're tryin' to tell me they're all teetotallers when it comes to alcohol?"
"Wait, hang on," Dom says, looking around. "I think I remember this part of town. There's an old guy somewhere nearby who's got a convenience store with a cooler in the back, sells Brahmas out of it behind the milk and Gatorade."
Rome doesn't look like he believes him, but he follows him gamely and they eventually find the store. They load up with enough cans that the old man feels obliged to give them a cardboard box to hold them all. Condensation beads on the aluminium as soon as they hit the hot night air outside. They're probably going to be lukewarm and disgusting by the time they make it back to the warehouse, but anyone who gets to drink beer without having to spend all that time alone with Rome doesn't get to complain.
"I don't have a friggin' clue where we are," Rome confesses as they start heading back.
"I never have trouble finding my way back."
"Brian's usually the one who comes and finds me."
Like most of the shit he says, Rome doesn't mean anything by it. It comes out unthinkingly, without a whole lot of subtle intent. But it reminds Dom of the difference between them. Dom is the one Brian risked everything to let go; Rome is the one Brian risked everything to bring back.
They get back to the warehouse without getting lost, just like Dom promised they would. It's so late that the dark streets are deserted now, not even a stray dog hanging around. The sounds of their crew's merrymaking drift soft and almost unrecognisable through the closed door. Dom reaches out to slide it open, but Rome grabs him by the shoulder and spins him around before he can. One of them, either Rome or Dom, says a soft "wait," but Dom's not sure which one. Dom's hands are full with their big box of beer; the corners of the cardboard dig into his abs when Rome presses in close and lands his lips onto his.
Roman's lips are surprisingly soft—softer than Dom would expect from a guy who no doubt gets punched in the mouth a lot. Rome slips him some tongue, because he's the kind of person who doesn't do crazy by half measures. He's Brian's kind of person.
It isn't unpleasant, but it isn't expected, either, and Dom doesn't bring himself to react until Rome is already pulling away. He ends up licking his own lips instead of Rome's.
"What the hell was that for?" he asks, instead of breaking Rome's nose.
Rome grins back at him, all shit-eating grin and big, soft mouth that probably deserves a punch right now. "Brian's family," he explains. "If you're his family now, that makes you my family too."
"So, what, you're into incest?"
"Wrong fetish, cuz," Rome says, infuriating grin not letting up. "I liked the thought of being your first guy."
Box of beer notwithstanding, Dom tries to smack him anyway. Rome darts into the warehouse, whooping and hollering with Dom on his tail.
Rome runs into an unsuspecting Brian, dodges behind his back and uses him as a human shield against Dom. Brian has no idea what's going on, but there's a smile beginning on his face when he greets Dom's return with an up-nod.