Victory Lane

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/4471913.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category: M/M
Fandom: Fast and the Furious Series
Relationship: Brian O'Conner/Dominic Toretto
Characters: Dominic Toretto, Brian O'Conner, Mia Toretto, Vince (Fast and the
Furious)
Additional Tags: Bonding, Alternate Universe, Racing, soulbonding, Trope Bingo Round
5
Language: English
Series: Part 8 of Fast & Furious works
Collections: Trope Bingo: Round Five, Stories I Loved
Stats: Published: 2015-08-01 Words: 12,992 Chapters: 1/1
 Victory Lane
by astolat

Summary

“Hey,” Dom said, coming back out into the pit. “Leon, look here, will you? I can’t see, what
the hell is it?”

Leon came over and said, “Holy shit, Dom, it’s a name,” and the crew all turned around from
the car.

Notes

With heaps of thanks to Mollyamory and Cesperanza for beta! <3

See the end of the work for more notes

The name showed up the same time as the first shipment. At first Dom thought he’d just
gotten a scrape: when his alarm went off in the morning, it was an itchy patch across the back
of his left hip, starting to welt up, and he slapped some Neosporin on it and forgot about it. It
was mostly dark outside anyway: they still had to load up the car, and it was six hours to the
Blind Canyon Speedway.

By the time they got to the track, it was itching like hell, driving him nuts, and when he went
to the bathroom to try putting some more ointment on it, he felt raised edges under his
fingers. “Hey,” he said, coming back out into the pit. “Leon, look here, will you? I can’t see,
what the hell is it?”

Leon came over and said, “Holy shit, Dom, it’s a name,” and the crew all turned around from
the car. Everyone crowded in to look while Dom nearly sprained his neck trying to twist
around enough to see it. Dom didn’t know anybody who had a name. One guy from their
high school, five years ahead of him, had gotten a name in college. He still had it, far as Dom
knew, but he hadn’t ever found the girl, or else they would’ve all heard about that, too.

“So what is it?” Dom demanded, giving up on seeing for himself.

“Can’t really tell,” Leon said, after a moment.

“Looks like it starts with a B,” Letty said. She stalked away to the workbench and started
banging tools around, irritated. Dom rolled his eyes. Jesus, like it was his fault or something.

“Okay, enough staring at my ass,” he said, pulling his waistband back up. “We’ve got another
two hundred miles to go, and it doesn’t mean anything, anyway. Lot of people walking
around with a name.”

He couldn’t help thinking it had to be a good sign, though: a sign he’d finally gotten on the
right path. Six months on the circuit, losing every goddamn race they put the car in—and it
wasn’t Vince’s fault or Letty’s fault; they were doing their best and more. It was Dom’s fault,
because he was the one who’d beaten Linder’s face in with his fists and gotten himself
banned from driving, so even though they still had a car, they didn’t have a driver anymore.

The last of the sponsors had pulled out two weeks ago, with one last paycheck like a fucking
apology: sorry your dad got smeared over the side of the track, sorry you can’t win anything
anymore, sorry and see you around. Dom hadn’t said thanks. He’d deposited the check,
because he didn’t have enough money to pay the team’s bills for another month without it,
but it had felt like taking a payoff anyway. So why not take the real payoff?

He’d met Johnny Tran a few times street racing, the only chance he had to drive anymore.
Johnny was a dick, but he wasn’t an idiot, and around the fourth or fifth time he’d said, “I
guess you move around a lot, on the circuit. Go to a lot of places. Meet a lot of new people.”

“Yeah,” was all Dom had said, letting him take it where he wanted to go.
Johnny nodded. “Might be some opportunities for someone like that, if he had some extra
cargo room.”

He didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t need to. It was pretty obvious: Dom had an ironclad
reason for driving five hundred miles in a different direction every weekend, a bunch of
sponsor names sitting on his car to make it look like he had money coming in from
somewhere, and an enclosed car trailer big enough for two cars instead of just the one he had
left to put inside it.

But Dom knew damn well that if he got nailed moving stolen goods across state lines, he was
going to Lompoc, and six months in county had been more than enough for him.

So he didn’t say anything to Johnny. He put the last paycheck in the bank and watched the
money slowly run out. Two weeks, two more races where they didn’t even make the top ten,
and in the second one Letty got bumped bad by an asshole trying to get through a hole that
wasn’t there. The rear axle got bent out of alignment: there went a thousand dollars down the
drain before the insurance kicked in, not to mention the new heights their premiums would
reach. Everyone was quiet in the trailer all the way back home to L.A.; they didn’t know all
the sponsors had checked out, but they knew money was tight. More to the point, they knew
they were losing.

Their silence weighed on Dom’s shoulders like a sack full of stone. There was nothing left he
could do that he hadn’t done. He could come up with track strategy, he could talk them
through the whole race on the earpiece, he could make the car fucking fly, but he couldn’t
win from the sidelines.

He thought about it some more, feeling the shadow of Lompoc lying over him, until he got so
fucking pissed at himself for being scared that he decided he was going to do it, fuck
everything: he was going to do it, and he wasn’t going to get caught. He’d called Johnny five
minutes after he walked in the door, and they’d taken the first shipment just this weekend.
Thirty boxes full of iphones in the back of the trailer underneath all their other shit, spare
tires and the heavy shit, sledges and big parts, and the car at the front with its shiny new rear
axle.

They’d still lost the race, but after it got dark and the crowds disappeared off to the tailgating
and the parties, three guys drove up with a pickup and took the boxes and handed him Tran’s
money with a slice off the top for him. And yeah, it hadn’t felt anywhere near as good as
blowing across the finish line at two hundred miles per hour, but he still got to walk into the
bar where his team was waiting for him, all of them quiet and grim, drinking water and
sharing a couple of baskets of fries, and he was able to hand them each a week of back pay
and get them all drunk to celebrate.

And now maybe he was even going to get a soulbond out of it, or at least as much of a chance
at one as anybody ever got: he’d won the first lottery, anyway. It had to be a sign, and when
he called Johnny that night after dinner to set up the next shipment, and Mia started in on him
as soon as he hung up, he told her about the name like a challenge.

“What?” she said, staring at him.

“Yeah, he’s really got it, we all saw,” Jesse said, practically bouncing on the arm of the couch
where he was perched. “Hey, Dom, let’s take a look, maybe it’s gotten clearer.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dom said, because privately he really wanted to know, and he pushed his pants
down over the still-itching spot. The total silence behind him made him alarmed: he put his
hand on it to make sure it was still there, and yeah, the edges were even feeling more clear;
he couldn’t quite spell it out with his fingers, but it was close. “What is it?” he demanded.
“What’s wrong?”

Mia said, her voice a little choked with laughter, “It says Brian.”

“The fuck it does,” Dom said, but nobody said she was joking. He ran up to the bedroom and
grabbed the shaving mirror out of the shower and got it angled right, and shit it did say Brian,
the letters clear in pink new skin. He pulled his pants up and went downstairs and glared at
everybody, daring them to say a word.

Nobody did; he put the TV on and nobody said anything at all for twenty minutes, and then
suddenly Jesse sat up and said, “Hey, maybe there’s a girl named Brian!” like he’d just had a
fucking revelation, and Vince made a thick snorting sound like he’d just sneezed and choked
at the same time, and then they were all gone laughing.

Dom swatted Jesse up the back of the head and glared at the rest of them again, but it wasn’t
taking this time: they were all practically rolling around on the floor howling. “But Dom,”
Jesse said, rubbing his head.

“How many fucking women you know named Brian?” Dom said. “Yeah, all right, all you
clowns shut up already. Not like I’m ever going to meet the guy anyway.”

The race car was seriously beautiful: low to the ground and lean and vicious looking, even
without the teeth painted along the bottom edge of her front bumper almost out of sight.
Brian had gotten to drive a stock race car once, for about five minutes on a drag strip: he
could still remember feeling the acceleration in his cheekbones. It would be a fucking shame
if she ended up in an impound lot. Unfortunately, her chances weren’t looking good, because
that was twenty thousand dollars in brand-new auto parts stacked up against the wall of his
garage, and Toretto’s team sure hadn’t won any races lately to pay for them.

“Earl Spilner, huh?” Toretto said, looking at his license. “So what do you want, Earl?”

“I want to break in,” Brian said. “My boss Harry down at the auto shop said you lost some
people off your pit crew lately, I thought maybe you could use a pair of extra hands.”

Toretto tossed his wallet back. “You thought wrong,” he said, which was bullshit, because
half Toretto’s crew had disappeared in the last six months, including all the real pros. The
ones that were left were his buddies, and all of them had been getting jobs on the side—until
about four weeks ago. “This is a racing team, I don’t do fucking internships.”
“Hey, man, I can pull my weight,” Brian said, and then Toretto’s driver Vince grabbed him by
the shoulder and pulled him around.

“You hear him say no?” Vince said, and gave him a hard shove in the chest with both hands,
towards the open door. “Get out of here. We don’t need wannabes.”

“Fuck you,” Brian said, knocking his hands off. “I hear you can’t win a fucking race, so what
does that make you?”

So Vince jumped him, but they didn’t trade more than a couple of punches before Dom was
grabbing Brian by the back of his neck and his belt, hauling him off. To be fair, though, Dom
got his own shoulder in the way when Vince tried to punch him again while Dom was
holding him. “Quit that!” Dom said, stiff-arming Vince away. “And as for you, Spilner, after I
talk to Harry, you’re going to be too busy looking for a new job to hang around the track
anyway. Get lost.”

“O’Conner, is that blood on your shirt?” Penning said, when Brian walked back into the
office that afternoon.

Brian looked down: yeah, he’d gotten Vince a little too good with that one punch to the
mouth. “Not mine?” he offered. Toretto had gotten him a little, though, on the back of his
neck where he’d grabbed him. Brian rubbed the spot a little; it was raw and itching under the
hair he’d been growing out.

“Wonderful. So, if the DA will even be willing to look at this case anymore after you load it
up with entrapment and police harassment charges, did you get anywhere?”

“They’ve got a lot of expensive auto parts lying around,” Brian said.

“That’s something,” Penning said.

“And I’m going to need to get in the other way,” Brian said.

Penning sighed deeply. “I still fail to see how getting in an illegal street race with Toretto is
going to get you on his pit crew if he’s already said no.”

“He needs hands,” Brian said. “He needs them a lot. He’s got parts stacked up to the ceiling
he hasn’t even unboxed yet. Yeah, he sent me away, but that’s because he thinks I’m useless.
I take him on the street—or even just give him a real run for it, whichever—once he sees I’ve
got a serious car and I know what I’m doing, I’m going to be a lot harder to resist.”

“It’s not remotely clear to me that you do know what you’re doing,” Penning said, but he was
just grousing, and it worked out just like Brian had planned. Toretto beat him—not by a lot—
and Brian could tell he liked what was under the hood of Earl Spilner’s shiny green Eclipse.
Then the LAPD arrived right on schedule to break up the racing meet, just as Toretto was
about to demand the keys, and Brian managed to pick him up off the street and dodge them,
which had to be a solid way to get into a criminal’s heart.
Not that Dom got all that demonstrative. “You can deliver the car and me at the same time,”
was all he said, and gave Brian his address: it was an hour’s drive, though, which was worth
something.

“So tell me something, why aren’t you driving your team’s car?” Brian said, to break the ice.
“No way is that guy Vince a better driver than you.”

“How do you know?” Dom said.

“Because if he was better than you, he’d be winning races,” Brian said.

Dom snorted, looking out his window. After a moment he said, “My dad got bumped by
another driver. Sent him into the wall at a hundred twenty. I ran into the guy at the track a
couple weeks later, nearly strangled him before they pulled me off. I got charged with assault
and they banned me from driving. Almost threw me off the track completely.”

“Shit, man,” Brian said, and meant the sympathy: it had to be driving him nuts, watching his
team lose races he could’ve won.

Dom just shrugged a little. “So where did you learn to be a getaway driver?”

“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,” Brian said.

“Uh huh,” Dom said. “Sure you don’t, Spilner. That little stunt in Miami?”

“Shit,” Brian muttered, the way Earl Spilner would’ve done if someone had dug up his juvie
record. “What the fuck, why do you care about my misspent youth?”

Dom snorted. “I don’t like strangers poking around my business. I figured I’d check you out
a little.”

Brian shrugged with one shoulder. “Yeah, well. I was always crazy about cars, I wanted the
money to buy something I could race, I thought that was a way to get it. Pretty dumb, huh?”

“So where’d you get the money for this car?” Dom said, no kidding he wanted to know: the
Bureau had stuffed about eighty grand worth of stuff under the hood, ripped out of cars in the
impound lot.

“Life insurance,” Brian said. “My dad died last year.”

They’d known Toretto would ask that question, and that was the answer the Bureau had come
up with, but what nobody had fucking expected was that Toretto was going to turn to stare at
him and say, “And you put up a pink slip?” like he’d just watched Brian stab somebody in the
back.

The edge of disgust in his voice pissed Brian right off; he shot Toretto a glare. “Yeah, that’s
right. My dad walked out on me and my mom when I was three. He never sent a fucking
birthday card or called on Christmas, and the insurance payout came on time, but the child
support never did. So yeah, I pink slipped it.” He faced forward again. “Why the fuck not,”
he added through his teeth.
Toretto went quiet for the rest of the drive. Brian didn’t say anything either. The insurance
story was the Bureau, but the rest of it was all him, and Brian had no fucking idea why he’d
given Toretto one word of it. He pulled up in front of the house and got out the same time
Dom did. There was a party going on inside, sounded like: people laughing and lights on,
someone noodling on a guitar. Dom came around to the curb and Brian handed him the keys
to the Eclipse. “See you around,” Brian said flatly; he was still simmering underneath,
adrenaline and anger mixed up.

He turned his back and walked away, but he didn’t get more than a few steps. “Spilner,”
Dom called after him, and Brian paused and looked around. Dom jerked his head sideways at
the Eclipse. “You put more money than sense into that thing. Come by the garage tomorrow,
we’ll see if you can be taught.”

“Yeah, okay,” Brian said, and somehow he wasn’t pissed off anymore at all. Dom had let him
in, and satisfaction carried him all the way back to his cot at Harry’s. He dropped backwards
into his pillow with a deep sigh, and winced right up again, grabbing the back of his neck:
that scrape had just come down on the hard lump of his work cellphone, tucked under the
pillow. Right. Because he was an FBI agent, and he was going to put Dom in jail.

He took it out and called Penning’s voicemail. “I’m in,” he said, shortly. “I start at the garage
tomorrow. Minimizing contact from here on.” He hung up, pissed off again, for no reason
that made any kind of sense or that he could name. And his neck was still hurting.

The next day he worked the half-day at Harry’s and headed to the garage after. The team
were all in there, standing over a turbocharger and sketching out designs. When Brian came
into the bay door, Vince saw him first and straightened up scowling. “What the fuck are you
doing back here?”

“He’s here because I told him to be here,” Dom said, and it was funny to see everyone
double-take over at him. “Get over here, Spilner, maybe you’ll see why you should’ve
matched up that T4 with an intercooler if you wanted to actually get somewhere.”

Dom wasn’t gentle about it, but Brian learned more from him in four hours than he had on his
own in the last four years. It was a hell of a lot of fun. He’d mostly had to give up hot rodding
once he’d started at the Bureau, anyway: he didn’t have a lot of spare time between the
deskwork that ate up nine days out of ten, and having to go for an hour run in the morning
and hit the gym for a couple hours at the end of the day to work off the energy he built up
doing the deskwork.

Everyone else spent the afternoon eyeing Dom sideways or looking annoyed, because
nothing was really getting done. At first, Brian wasn’t above smirking at Vince when Dom
paused to walk him through another piece of tech, but after a couple hours like that, Brian
started wondering himself why Dom was giving him a personal lecture series. Finally he said,
“Come on, man, what’s with the lack of faith? Are you seriously worried I’m going to break
something if you hand me a wrench and point me at a bolt?”

Dom snorted, straightening up from the engine. “You’ve got a way to go before you can do
some real work around here, Spilner, but if you want to get started, you can. No wrench,
though.” He pointed Brian at the big bucket of rags in the corner. “We’re going to deep-clean
every last part under the hood of this car, all of it. And if there’s one you can’t name blindfold
when I put it in your hands after, you haven’t done a good enough job.”

“What?” Letty said, incredulous. “You want to disassemble the whole fucking engine? Dom,
we got a race in three days!”

“Guess we’d better get started now,” Dom said, without batting an eye.

So everyone was pissed off at Brian after that, like it was his fault Dom had gone on a
personal campaign to have every piston in his car spotless. It took most of the afternoon to
get all the parts laid out on sheets and tarps all over the floor, before they could even really
get to work on the cleaning. Dom kept them at it until past 7, when the team all started to
rebel, and then he finally said, “All right, all right, let’s go get something to eat. Dinner’s on
me,” and they picked up takeout and took it back to the house together.

Dom didn’t let him eat in peace, though: he hauled Brian out to the driveway where the
Eclipse was sitting, turned the porch light onto it, and spent another hour giving him more
shit about the stuff under the hood, telling him why half the choices were fucking stupid, and
how he’d been asking to blow his piston rings. Everyone else camped out on the back porch
steps with their paper plates snickering, and Vince in particular was definitely enjoying
himself, grinning hard. Brian would’ve gotten pissed off, except the worst part was Dom was
clearly right about all of it, except the EFI.

“No way, man, hang on, that’s where I get off,” Brian said. “Are you stuck in medieval times
or something? The EFI on this thing is fucking amazing: I got an extra ten miles per with that
thing,” and after he turned on the whole system and dragged Dom through it, he got Dom to
say grudgingly, “Yeah, okay, maybe,” and Brian hadn’t felt a high like that since—actually,
he didn’t remember a high like that.

The back door opened. “Dom? Why are you all sitting in the dark?” a girl said, putting her
head out, dark silhouette against the light inside.

“Hey, Mia,” Vince said, sitting up like a dog getting a sniff of a bone.

“Mia, come on out here,” Dom said, beckoning. “This is Earl Spilner, he’s going to be
helping out at the garage. My sister, Mia,” and wow, Toretto’s sister was a knockout.

“Hey, nice to meet you,” Brian said, and made sure to grin at her, because girls liked it when
he smiled, and then she smiled back, and hey, he liked it when she smiled, and just as an extra
bonus, Vince scowled like an angry bear, which was almost as satisfying. But only almost,
because wow, except then Brian remembered his chances for a date were probably going to
go in the toilet after he arrested her brother.

Assuming he ever got enough evidence to do that, which was going to be hard, since the only
thing Dom was letting him see was the inside of a stock car engine. To be fair, that was really
fucking cool, but not admissible evidence for receiving stolen goods. Dom also kept Brian
working like a dog every minute he wasn’t actually on shift at Harry’s, so there wasn’t even a
chance to snoop around and try to figure out his source.
They just barely got the car back together in one piece by Friday night, and it took working
until twenty minutes to midnight. “Good work, everybody,” Dom said, yawning and
stretching, while everyone glared at Brian some more. “Go get some sleep. Spilner, be here at
six tomorrow.”

“What, six in the morning?” Brian said, incredulous. “Are you fucking kidding me, man? I’m
going to sleep until noon.”

“No, you’re not,” Dom said. “Because we leave for the track at six. All right, all of you get
out of here,” he added.

Brian pretty much bounced all the way to his truck: maybe now the hazing ritual from hell
was over and also holy shit, he was going to be in a real pit crew at a real fucking racetrack.
Then he got into the truck and looked back at the garage, and he saw that Dom hadn’t left. He
was leaning against the work bench, arms folded, yawning again but looking like he wasn’t
going anywhere; like he was waiting for someone, and the big trailer for the car was standing
open and empty in the driveway next to him.

Brian jumped as a fist came down on the hood of his truck: Vince was scowling at him
through the windshield. “What the fuck are you looking at, Earl? You’ve got an early
morning, get going.” There was no chance to stay: Vince didn’t go to his own car until Brian
drove away and turned the corner.

“If he gets loaded up and we pull him over on the way to the track, we’ve got him, anyway,”
Penning said thoughtfully, and Brian swallowed hard.

“I didn’t actually see the delivery get made,” he said. “For all I know, he was waiting for a
shipment of legit parts.”

“At midnight on Friday?” Penning said, and shit.

“Okay, then for all I know, he didn’t actually get a shipment, he might just have been
waiting,” Brian said. “And he’s not going to roll over on his supplier, either.”

“When he’s facing ten to twenty in a federal prison, he might change his mind,” Penning said
dryly, except Dom wouldn’t; Brian knew Dom wouldn’t. Maybe one of the others knew and
would talk, but not Dom.

“I don’t think it’s a good move,” he said, “Anything doesn’t work out, at that point we’re
screwed. Vince is already suspicious about me, and even if Dom—” likes me, he wanted to
say, “—isn’t, he’s going to get suspicious if he gets pulled over and searched the first trip
after I showed up. Give me another few weeks, and maybe I can work out a way to hang out
and see him take the delivery, get hard evidence of his supplier. If we already know who it is,
maybe he’ll be more willing to corroborate than to give us the name.”

“If we know who it is, we won’t need him to corroborate,” Penning said. “Brian, are you
doing okay?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Brian said.

“You’ve been in deep cover for three days,” Penning said. “Hanging out with this guy and his
crew, getting to know them. It’s easy to get conflicted in undercover work.”

“After three days, seriously?” Brian said. “Anyway, you wouldn’t say that if you saw the shit
work he’s had me do,” and that got Penning off his back and off the phone, but fuck. He
scrubbed his hands wildly back and forth through his hair. It was getting really long: he’d
sold it to Penning as a way to make him look younger, look less like a cop. Mostly he’d
wanted an excuse not to go to the fucking barber every three weeks for a while. Now it felt
like he was turning into a different person. And it was still making his neck itch, too.

The trailer was already loaded by the time he got there the next morning, even the car tucked
inside. Everyone was grouchy and tired, quiet while they got out on the road, and they got
more grouchy because Dom didn’t want to stop anywhere for more than five minutes.
“We’ve got plenty of time!” Letty finally yelled at him, when he complained about her taking
too long in the rest stop bathroom. “What’s the fucking rush?”

“I want a good spot,” Dom said, and Brian wondered if maybe Dom had to get a specific
location to do the drop, or something like that, but as far as he could tell, they just got sent to
a random spot by the guys directing parking traffic at the track. It was close to the front,
because practically nobody was here yet, but Dom looked satisfied and said, “Let’s get her
unloaded anyway, we can run her around a few times.”

“And blow a hundred bucks of gas for no good reason,” Letty muttered, but they got the car
unloaded, and then Vince said, “So what, you want me to take her around?” and Dom said,
“Nah. Spilner, take her out,” and Brian automatically caught the keys as Dom tossed them
over without warning.

Brian stared at him. Dom just jerked his head towards the car, impatient, go ahead, and holy
shit, Brian would clean the whole car top to bottom with a fucking toothbrush, was Dom
kidding, and he made a flat-out sprint for the car and dived inside. The funny thing was, as
soon as he’d gotten behind the wheel, half the things Dom had been feeding him the last three
days all fell into place, like Brian could practically feel the individual parts through the car,
all working together. He took the car cautiously onto the track, drove her around cautiously,
for about a quarter of the way, and then he figured fuck, Dom hadn’t given him the keys to
creep around like a snail, so he opened up little by little and started picking up speed. A few
other cars were coming onto the track now, it wasn’t just him anymore, but Brian eeled past
them and kept going. He could see Dom and the crew watching him: Dom had his arms
folded across the chest, but he wasn’t doing anything like beckoning Brian in, so Brian
decided to go for another few laps: he wanted to feel her at her full speed, and there were still
barely any other cars on yet.

He accelerated, the speedometer reaching for two hundred miles per hour and the seat
cushions deforming around his body, g-force feeling like the car was trying to shove right
through him. The world was turning into a blur, other cars blink-fast rough shapes moving
past. He always had a good sense of the road; it was harder at this speed, but he kept his eyes
moving, tracking the other cars: that one with the blue-green streak along the side, the yellow
one, the one with the the red lettering, where they all were on the track, and then suddenly a
black and orange car was merging onto the track, too slow, the yellow car sliding over to
make room, right into his path, the red car was behind him and too close for him to brake.

He slammed on the gas instead, aimed for the hole the yellow car was leaving for the new
car, dived through it just past the yellow car’s bumper and just ahead of the black car’s nose
and was through.

“Jesus, are you nuts!” Vince was yelling when Brian pulled up and climbed out of the car.
“You’ve never been on a track before and you think you can blow around it at two hundred?
You nearly pasted the car across the wall—”

“I was fine,” Brian said, still grinning, helplessly; Vince wasn’t going to bring him down
right now if he dropped an anvil on him. “That was amazing.”

Dom was grinning back at him like he got it, exactly what Brian was feeling, and seeing it let
him feel it too. “Don’t get cocky or anything, Spilner,” was all he said. “Don’t think I didn’t
see you miss that double-clutch on the far turn,” but that was okay, Brian had missed that
one, and anyway he could tell Dom didn’t really have any problems with how he’d handled
the car. “All right, everybody,” Dom added, turning around. “We’ve got a race today, let’s get
her ready.”

The pit was hot, stinking, a little scary as the cars pulled in and out. It was fantastic: almost as
good as driving, except Vince was losing. He was a good driver, but he was missing some
kind of killer instinct; Brian followed him around the track with a pair of binoculars, leaning
forward instinctively every time like he could shove Vince forward into the holes—for fuck’s
sake, one was about to open up right there, just go for it—shit. He dropped the binoculars and
turned around, irritated, and saw Dom watching him: he wasn’t watching the race, he was
reading through a couple of gear catalogues. “What?” Brian said warily. He hadn’t said
anything out loud, had he?

“Here, you’re the EFI geek around here,” Dom said. “Come take a look at these,” and they
spent the rest of the race discussing different systems when they weren’t working on the car,
which helped distract Brian from the pitiful show out there on the track, and he was pretty
sure Dom was glad for the distraction, too.

Vince got out at the end of the race angry and sullen: he’d come in fourteen out of twenty. He
shoved his helmet roughly into Brian’s arms. “Here, wannabe. New guy cleans up.”

Brian was about to drop the helmet and tell Vince where he could shove it, but Dom said,
“Sounds about right.” Brian glared at him. Dom ignored it. “Letty, here,” he said, and handed
her a wad of twenties. “Head down to the club, get some beers and order some food. We’ll be
there soon.”

“I’m not cleaning up after Vince,” Brian threw at Dom, after everyone else left: the track was
quiet and deserted now, the stands all emptying out.

“If you want to be on this team, you do what I say,” Dom said. “That goes for Vince, and that
goes for you. Put on the helmet, I’m going to talk you around the track a few times. We’ve
got two gallons left in the tank, let’s see if you can make fifteen laps and put her back in the
pit without stalling. You’re not going to make it if you can’t double-clutch in time, I can tell
you that,” and Brian wanted to glare at Dom, but he couldn’t; he was already jamming on the
helmet and going for the car.

Dom gave him orders every step of the way this time: go up to 180, drop to 135 at the next
marker, move to the inside lane, swing into the middle. Maybe that should’ve been annoying,
but it felt like a challenge instead, a dare, show me what you can do, and Brian loved the
challenge; he wanted to show Dom what he could do. The road and the laps blurred together,
that deep voice rumbling in his ear and the sun dazzle reflecting off the empty stands. The
speed stopped feeling strange. Dom’s commands slid right through him and Brian just did it,
no thought required, like he was part of the car, his heart the engine and the wheels his wings,
flying.

“This is fucking incredible!” he yelled suddenly, and Dom laughed with him.

He didn’t quite make it back to the pit: he was about ten yards short when the gas ran out and
she just stalled on him, but that was okay, because Dom said ruefully, “Yeah, shouldn’t have
told you to take her up to two-ten that last stretch,” as they were pushing her the rest of the
way.

“All right, go on, go join the crew,” Dom said, after they got her back up to the trailer: he was
looking at his watch. “Get a beer. I’ll meet you.”

“What, you’re going to load her by yourself?” Brian said. “I’ll help, man.”

“Nah, I’m going to take care of a few things first,” Dom said with finality—and shit, what he
meant was, he was about to offload his stolen goods. “Go ahead.”

“Right,” Brian said, and shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away towards the noisy
gathering of food trucks and picnic tables over by the parking lot. He stopped when he got
past the first parked cars and ducked down between them and peered out: Dom was waiting
by the trailer.

Brian slipped through the parked cars and got around behind the trailer before he crept any
closer. A couple of cars were coming towards the trailer, big black SUVs with smoked
windows, and they pulled up rear-first to the trailer. Two guys got out.

Dom helped them carry a set of boxes out of the trailer. They loaded them into the back of the
SUVs, packing them top to bottom; the back seats were folded down flat. It didn’t take long:
smaller boxes, just right for the high-value electronics they’d been seeing come onto the
market all over the country, in line with the sudden burst of electronics store thefts in L.A.

Dom didn’t exchange a single word with the guys. They spoke to each other a few times: not
Chinese or Korean, Vietnamese maybe? Brian hadn’t heard it in a while. They finished
loading, counted the boxes one last time, then gave Dom a thick envelope; he opened it,
riffled through the cash inside, put it away. They all nodded at each other and the guys drove
off. Brian scrambled back out of the cars and ran to the tailgate area, then got himself a beer
from one of the side trucks and skirted the crowd all the way around to the far end, perched
on a bumper and sat staring out into the desert, like he’d been there for a while just keeping
to himself. The sun was getting lower behind him, and there wasn’t any shade: he felt it
pounding the back of his head, sweat running down his neck and into his shirt. At least the
itch had finally gone away, after a couple days fighting the urge to scratch.

He didn’t pick up his phone and call it in. No point. Those guys were low-value targets:
probably illegal immigrants picking up a little gang work on the side, didn’t even know who
they were working for. They might not even speak English. No point in picking them up just
to deport them, exchange them for another pair of guys. The only person they could point a
finger at was Dom. That was a dead end. He needed the supplier.

“Hey,” Mia said, and Brian jerked and looked up at her. “What are you doing hiding off over
here?”

“I just—didn’t want to talk,” Brian said. “To the gang,” he added, because he didn’t want Mia
getting the idea that meant her. He scooted along the bumper. “Pull up a chair.”

She laughed and sat down next to him. “So I guess you like the car okay,” she said, smiling
down at her own bottle.

“It’s amazing,” Brian said. “Do you ever drive it?”

“Not since my dad died,” Mia said. She picked at the label a little. “Dom blamed the other
driver, but I couldn’t,” she said finally. “I can’t blame anyone, so I blame the car. It’s not even
the same car. But I just—I get mad, when I get behind the wheel.”

Brian nodded a little, his stomach tight in a knot. He looked away. He was going to rip the
bottom of her life out from under her all over again, and it didn’t really help to remind
himself that it was Dom doing that, Dom making choices. He was making choices too.

“So are you thinking about it?” Mia said, and Brian jumped and said, “What?”

“Driving,” Mia said, eyeing him like he was an idiot. “You said you wanted to break in: is
that what you want to do? Or mechanic?”

Earl Spilner wanted to be a mechanic. He’d taken welding classes and a fabrication course,
he was working in an auto body shop, he’d built himself a hot rod to show it all off. “Driving
would be amazing,” Brian said, feeling the wheel of the car under his hands and the track
moving under him.

Mia nodded and then sighed a little.

“What?” Brian said.

“I don’t date drivers,” she said, but the corners of her mouth were twitching up.

“Well, I’m not a driver,” Brian said quick. “I’m just a lowly grease monkey. Hell, I’m not
even getting paid.”

Mia laughed. “I guess you can’t afford to take anyone out, then.”
“Hey, I could swing a picnic at the beach,” Brian said. “Like—tomorrow, maybe?”

Mia bit her lip and didn’t answer right away, hesitating like she was thinking it over, but
Vince had pushed out of the crowd: he came around in front of them. “Mia, what are you
doing out here?” he demanded. He acted like Brian wasn’t even there. “Come on, we’re
getting something to eat.”

“I’m fine,” Mia said, coolly. “Go ahead without me.”

Vince finally looked over at Brian, a glare. “You’re just gonna sit out here with the
wannabe?” he said, throwing it at his face.

Brian would’ve loved to pick it up, but he knew better, like Vince should’ve; he could tell
Mia wasn’t into the cockfight bullshit at all. So he didn’t say anything, let her handle it, and
she said, “Yeah, that is what I’m going to do.” She turned to Brian then, her shoulder shutting
Vince out. “Tomorrow’s Sunday,” she said firmly. “We always have a barbecue at the house.
Why don’t you come over?”

“Sounds great,” Brian said, smiling at her, and okay, inside he was flipping Vince the how do
you like them apples bird, but he wasn’t going to do it on the outside. He didn’t need to,
anyway; Vince’s face tightened up hard and he stalked away, pissed off, and Brian had about
thirty seconds to bask in the victory before he realized he’d just asked Mia out on a date right
after watching Dom hand off stolen goods, and what the fuck was he even doing.

He looked away from her, trying not to let his whole body tighten up. “Don’t let Vince get to
you,” Mia said tentatively.

“No,” Brian said. He rubbed his arm across his forehead, wiping away sweat. “No, I’m just
hot, I’ve been sitting out too long.”

“You’re getting a little red in back,” she said.

“Yeah, I forgot to put on sunscreen.”

“I’ve got some in my bag,” she said, digging it out, and he couldn’t help thinking she’d
probably put it on for him if he played his cards right, so he ducked his head and lifted his
hair up.

“Thanks,” he said, hopefully.

Mia didn’t say anything for a moment, and then she said slowly, “No problem,” and after a
moment her hand smoothed the sunscreen over his neck, a slow glide that ran down his spine
and straight to his dick, the best kind of tease.

After she put the stuff away, though, she went quiet and a little frowning. She didn’t really
want to talk anymore, and Brian wondered if maybe he’d gone too fast, or if she was worried
about Vince after all, or maybe about Dom getting mad about it. He wanted that to be the last
of her worries: he wanted Dom to be on board. Right up until he went to jail, anyway. Shit.
He didn’t push: he kept his hands to himself, talked a little bit more to fill in her silence, a
few stories from high school, nothing that would break his cover. “I guess we’ll get going
soon,” he said, as the crowd thinned out. “I’m going to hit the restrooms before we leave.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll see you back at the trailer, Earl,” and maybe it was his imagination,
but there was something a little funny about the way she said it.

There was something weird going on with Mia the whole next day, and by lunchtime Dom
had pretty much had it. She got even weirder after Earl came by for the barbecue, so it had to
have something to do with the guy, but what, she couldn’t make up her mind? First she’d
invited him, now she didn’t want him around? Except when Dom cornered her and demanded
to know if the guy was bothering her, she said no.

“All right, whatever,” Dom said, rolling his eyes. “He’s gonna be around a while, you can
figure out for yourself if you want him or not.”

“Dom,” Mia said.

“What?” Dom said.

“Nothing,” she said, Jesus, for the fifth time that day.

Far as Dom was concerned, Spilner could go on hanging around. Dom knew a lot of good
drivers; better drivers, even. Spilner hadn’t been anything special on the drag strip, just
another heavy-foot who threw too much expensive gear at the road. But Dom had never seen
anybody keep their cool like him: seven cop cars squealing right up to their bumpers, all over
the road, and Spilner hadn’t even blinked once; he’d just gone for it, made every move he
needed to make, right when he needed to. And he’d done the same thing yesterday at the
track: he’d practically made himself a hole to get out of that jam, and he’d come out grinning.

Yeah, he had a way to go, but when he got there he was going to be fucking unbeatable, and
Dom planned to be along for the ride. He hadn’t told anybody yet, but he’d just registered the
car for the Vegas Invitational: two weeks from now. The new mods would be ready, and Dom
was pretty sure Spilner would be too. Less than a week in a real garage, and he’d already
picked up more about engines than some guys who’d worked on them for years; hell of a
quick study.

Meanwhile, the name had quit itching, and Dom didn’t have to see it, which he figured was
just as well. He wasn’t going to go running around trying to find some random asshole, not
when he had something real coming together right here in front of him. And so did Mia, if
she’d just go ahead and take it, not that Dom really cared if she dated Spilner or not.

Spilner was getting ready to go home for the night, and Dom went outside to walk him out to
Harry’s truck. “This thing’s a fucking embarrassment,” Dom said.

“Hey, man, if you had a spare car for me to drive instead or anything,” Spilner said, and then
he blinked as Dom held him out the keys to the Eclipse.
“I’m keeping the title,” Dom said, “but you can borrow it. You’ll need a way to get around
after you give Harry notice.”

“When am I giving Harry notice?” Spilner said. He wasn’t a slouch about taking the keys.

“Tomorrow,” Dom said. “And by notice, I mean tell him you’re working for me full-time
now. We’ve got some heavy-duty work to do on the car this week: I want you here first thing
tomorrow.”

Dom ran him pretty ragged that week: made him test-drive the car after every little tweak,
made sure he felt the difference each time, made him do it again if he wasn’t sure. Spilner
didn’t complain, even if the rest of Dom’s goddamn crew did, acting like a big bunch of
babies because they didn’t understand what Dom was doing, until they got to the track the
next Saturday and Dom said, “All right, Spilner, what about it, you ready to drive?” and they
all stared at him like he was crazy.

Spilner stared too, but that was just because he didn’t get at first that Dom meant it. Soon as
he did, he broke out into a wide, dazzled grin, not a second of hesitation, “Oh, hell yes,” he
said, and he was in the car before the rest of the crew even got to the yelling. Dom ignored all
of them: it was a two-bit race, just a warmup; there wasn’t a driver here that Dom couldn’t
have smoked with his eyes shut on a bad day. “It’s race time,” he said, and put on the headset.
“Get to positions and save the talking for after. Spilner, audio check, one two,” and Spilner’s
voice came through steady and sure, “That’s a check, audio’s up.”

Fifteen laps into the race, the crew shut up and stopped complaining, because the car was two
off the leader, and it was only that far back because that was where Dom wanted it to be.
Thirty laps in, Dom had Spilner make his move, and Christ, it was the next best thing to
driving or maybe even better, because Dom could see the whole track, watch all the monitors,
and come up with a better game plan than he ever could have from inside the car. There
wasn’t a moment of frustration: felt like Spilner started moving almost before Dom told him
to, and when the split-second holes opened, he didn’t need Dom to tell him to go for it.

They took the lead and didn’t let it go the rest of the race: a couple of cars tried to challenge
from behind, but they didn’t have a chance. Dom told Spilner when someone was coming,
Spilner moved the car across the track to fend it off, and they held off the attempts at passing.
People were shouting and screaming in the stands by the end, cheering wildly; in the pit
nobody was saying a word except Dom, talking into the headset, but they were all tense,
watching, until Spilner made it to the white flag and it hit them that they’d taken it, they’d
won, and they were all yelling and whooping. When Spilner came out of the car, pulling off
his helmet and grinning like a lunatic, Vince grabbed him up in a bear hug that lifted his feet
clear off the ground, and they all pretty much passed him around.

“Yeah, not too bad,” was all Dom let himself say when Spilner finally staggered loose over to
him, but he couldn’t quit grinning: he could’ve grabbed Spilner’s face and kissed him on the
mouth. He hauled Spilner in and slung an arm around his neck while the track staff brought
over the trophy: it wasn’t all that big, but it was real silver, and someone gave them a bottle
of champagne to drink out of it.
“Dom,” Vince said to him low, a few hours later, while they were all sitting around still
basking in it, “what about the other thing,” jerking his head towards the trailer, and Dom
realized shit, he hadn’t set up a delivery this week. They’d gotten about eighty grand for the
win, which would keep the lights on and maybe get them to Vegas, if he cut a few corners
and stretched one credit card a little further. But it was going to be tight, and if they didn’t
win in Vegas—they would be dead in the water; he wouldn’t have enough money for gas or
tires, much less to pay anybody.

“Not this week,” was all he told Vince. He left the party going and stepped out around the
other side of the trailer and called Johnny.

“You left me hanging, Toretto,” Johnny said. “The cops have been sniffing around my
warehouse, too. What the fuck’s going on?”

“I got busy,” Dom said. “I’m going to Vegas next week. You want me to take it there, I can
do that. Then I’m out for good.”

Johnny was silent a moment. “Fine,” he said. “But you’re taking the shipment now. I don’t
want the shit sitting here another week.”

“Yeah, all right,” Dom said. “I’ll be back in L.A. around midnight. Bring it then, we’ll get the
trailer loaded.”

He hung up. The cushion from the shipment would get them the rest of the way. Spilner
would do fine at Vegas; even if he didn’t pull off the long-shot win, he’d do well enough to
make them contenders again. The press was going to love the story and him, too: those blue
eyes and that megawatt smile, a rookie coming out of nowhere, and with a few more races
under his belt the sponsors would all come back and then some.

“He’s gonna make a hell of a driver,” he couldn’t help telling Mia the next night, after the
barbecue, both of them in the kitchen looking out into the yard while Mia worked on the
dishes: Spilner was helping clean up the empties and the trash.

Dom even liked the guy, too. Yeah, Spilner had a top layer of bullshit going on sometimes—
like he was holding back once in a while, looking at you from a distance. It was like bad
icing on a good cake; Dom didn’t really know why it was there, maybe because Spilner was
too good-looking. Probably a lot of people had fallen over themselves trying to be his pal.
But Dom wasn’t putting up with that shit, and once you got it scraped off, there was nothing
but real fire all the way down. And Dom wasn’t going to let Spilner get away with giving
Mia any bullshit either, even if he wanted to, which she had to know, so what was she waiting
for, anyway.

But Mia didn’t say anything, or even look up from the dishes. “Don’t string him along if
you’re not interested,” Dom added, by which he meant, go out with him already, and Mia
abruptly shut off the water and straightened up and said, “His name’s not Earl.”

“What?” Dom said, confused.

“His name’s not Earl!” Mia said.

“It’s on his license,” Dom said.

“Well, it’s not his name,” Mia said, and Dom took her by the arm, gripped hard. “He told you
something?” he said sharply, wondering what was going on, but Mia shook her head. “So
what the hell? What makes you think he’s lying about his name?”

Mia blew out a breath and said, “Because he’s got the name Dominic across the back of his
neck.”

The last of the trash was bagged up, and Brian took it to the curb and then sat down on the
steps in front of the house and watched the traffic go by, trying as hard as he could not to feel
like complete shit and failing. He’d never sat down at a table like that before: hell, he’d
thought that kind of table only happened on TV, the special Thanksgiving episode or
whatever. Everyone laughing, saying grace like they really meant it; or even while they were
talking trash at each other, because there was nothing but love behind every word, and they’d
opened it up to take him in.

And yeah, okay, so the family that stayed together also apparently moved stolen electronics
together, but Brian couldn’t make himself give a shit about that right now, not next to the
people around that table. Not next to Dom, grinning at him over the barbecue platter or
slinging that warm heavy arm around his neck in the pit yesterday, glad to have him around—
glad, Jesus. Brian put his hands into his hair and scrubbed them back and forth.

He jerked up as Dom sat down on the step next to him. There was something wrong: Dom
had clenched his hands around each other, and his jaw was tight. “What’s going on?” Brian
said warily.

“You tell me,” Dom said. “Brian.”

Oh, shit. Brian immediately ran through the shotgun and the handgun he knew were inside
the house right now, and his own service handgun tucked into the glove compartment in his
own truck, roughly equal distances away. Everyone else was out back or inside the house: if
he broke for the truck right now, he could outrun Dom and drive away, which was the right
move to make right now, the move everyone in the entire operation would be yelling at him
to make, if he’d had them along in an earpiece.

Except if he did that, he had to do it: he had to drive away, forever and for good, so he didn’t;
he just opened his mouth and said, “What?” because he wasn’t giving up, he wasn’t giving
anything up, he was going to make Dom work for it—

“Don’t even fucking—” Dom’s voice rose, furious, and then cut off; he looked away for a
moment, breathing hard, and then he turned back so fast Brian wasn’t expecting it and
grabbed him. Brian was about to block the hit, except no hit came: Dom was grabbing him by
the shoulder and the back of the head, bending his head forward, baring the back of his neck.

And then he stopped, just held Brian there a moment, and then he let go just as fast as he’d
grabbed on in the first place. “Fuck!” he yelled, looking away.
“What the hell!” Brian said, grabbing at the back of his neck—he’d kept from scratching and
the itch had gone away after a couple of days, and anyway what—then his fingers came on
the letters, raised and small and smooth, and holy shit. He put his other hand up, feeling over
them, but he already had a really fucking bad feeling about it even before his fingertips made
out the D at the beginning, even before Dom shoved his jeans a few inches down over the
curve of his hip, and he saw his own name printed on Dom’s skin.

“Oh, shit,” Brian said, staring at it.

“Yeah,” Dom said. “So, Brian, what else haven’t you been fucking telling me?”

Brian stared at his name some more, and then he said, “I’m an FBI agent.”

Dom didn’t say anything for a moment, and then he said blankly, “Huh,” like he hadn’t
expected Brian to actually tell him, and now he didn’t know what to do about it, which at
least made two of them.

They just sat there on the stoop for a while together watching cars go by. “What evidence
have you got?” Dom said finally.

Brian rolled his eyes. “Besides seeing you both receive and sell stolen goods and transport
them across state lines?” and then he said, “Wait. Wait. We’re soulbonded, they can’t make
me testify.” Relief rolled through him like a wave. “Without that, everything I’ve reported is
just hearsay, I haven’t even gotten in my official reports yet,” and he’d never been this glad to
have procrastinated in his life. “I looked for a delivery this week, but you didn’t make one,
did you?”

“No,” Dom said. Then he said, “But I’ve got another in the trailer now.”

“Shit! Can you return it?”

“No, I can’t return it!” Dom said. “You think this is fucking Macy’s or something? Anyway,
we need the goddamn money, we’re running on fumes.”

“Are you kidding me?” Brian said. “They catch you with the goods, you’re done. Ten years
solid, unless you give up your source,” and he wanted to be sick just saying the words out
loud, having to think about it, Dom just—gone, ripped away from him and shoved behind
bars.

“Calm down already,” Dom said. “Look, this is it, this is the last job. You just keep them off
my back one more weekend, and we’re out.”

“Oh yeah?” Brian said. “And where’s the money going to come from after that?”

Dom reached into his back pocket and pulled out a flyer. Brian took it, smoothed out the
creases with his hands: Vegas Invitational, next weekend, $1,000,000 in big glitzy letters
across the top. He stared down at it.

“We pull off a decent finish, we do a little press, the sponsors will get back on board,” Dom
said. “We can make it from there.” He snorted. “You’re going to have to quit your day job,
though.”

Brian huffed a laugh, folding it up again and handed it back to him. “Yeah? I don’t know,
man, how’s the pension and the benefits for a racecar driver?”

“Well, turns out there might be a soulbond in it for you,” Dom said dryly, shoving the flyer
back in his pocket, and then they were just sitting there staring at each other.

“Uh,” Brian said. “So.”

Dom ran a hand uneasily over his head. “I thought you had it for Mia,” he said.

“So did I,” Brian said. He looked at Dom and tried to imagine kissing him. He could kind of
get there, but Jesus it was going to be weird, and what kind of fucking soulbond was this
anyway, wasn’t it all supposed to just happen once you found the—the person? “I guess we
don’t have to,” he offered.

“Are you kidding me?” Dom said. “What, you want to spit in God’s face? Of course we’ve
got to.”

“Okay,” Brian said; he was just as happy to have the call made, and he guessed that was as
good a reason as any. “So—”

Dom sighed. “You have someplace? I’m not doing this with a fucking audience outside the
door.”

“I’m pretty sure Penning’s going to haul us both in if the surveillance team catches me taking
you to my apartment,” Brian said. “The garage?”

“Where the fuck are we going to do it in the garage?” Dom said.

“I don’t know, a back seat or something,” Brian said, except, right, none of the cars had a
back seat.

Dom was quiet a moment, and then he muttered, “Fuck, I guess—” and then he jerked his
head and Brian got up and followed him around to the backyard. Everyone else had gone
inside: he could faintly hear the TV going through an open window. Dom took him to the
closed-up garage at the end of the driveway, slid the door open, and there was a classic
Dodge Charger sitting inside, huge blower poking through the hood, a gorgeous beast of a
car, and it had a long wide front seat.

Dom stared at it and swallowed visibly, and then he opened the front door and took off his
shirt. Brian took his off, and then he figured there was no point delaying so he took his jeans
off, too, and Dom glanced over at him and then he blew out a breath and put his head down
and took off his briefs, and Brian took his off, and then they were naked and they hadn’t
thought it through enough because now there was no way to climb into the car together
without rubbing up against each other. They both stared at the seat and looked at each other,
and suddenly it got funny, and Brian said, “Jesus, this is awkward,” laughing, and Dom
laughed too and said, “Okay, Spilner—”
Brian started laughing harder, choked out, “It’s O’Conner!” Fuck, Dom didn’t even know his
name, and Dom was cracking up too, because it was so fucking ridiculous.

“Okay, O’Conner,” he said, “get in the damn car, let’s get laid already,” and they both
climbed in and then Dom tried to kiss him the same time Brian tried to go for it, and they
cracked their heads together, and they both laughed so fucking hard they were crying,
collapsed on each other, gasping for breath, like being drunk only better.

Dom said, “Good thing we’ve got the rest of our lives to figure this shit out,” and Brian
managed to kiss him after that, still laughing, and they felt each other up and humped
together, and it started to be something like a good time, and then Dom pushed up on a hand
and knees and grabbed Brian’s dick and started jerking him.

“Oh, hey,” Brian gasped out, and suddenly there was a jolt right at the back of his neck, like
someone had driven a spike right through it, except in a good way, in a really fucking good
way, and then it started getting even better and even better than that and Brian wasn’t sure
whether it was happening in his dick or in his brain but it was happening, holy fucking Jesus,
he couldn’t move, he couldn’t even speak, he couldn’t think, oh, oh. He grabbed blindly for
Dom—he couldn’t move his hands, but he grabbed Dom somehow anyway, and distantly he
heard Dom yelp, “Holy shit.” Brian reeled him in somehow, and then Dom was in it with
him; they were together and they were flying, they were racing, except this wasn’t a race
either one of them could win or lose, they were going across the finish line together, fuck, and
Brian wasn’t even sure if he came or not, but it didn’t really matter, because the whole
fucking earth moved.

His eyes cleared after a while, and then he started feeling like maybe he’d be able to move
again someday in the not too distant future, and then he noticed that yeah, he’d come all
right, or Dom had, or probably both of them, and wow, what a mess. Also, Dom was
sprawled mostly on top of him and Dom was a pretty fucking big guy. “Off,” Brian groaned,
trying to shove him up. “Dom, come on.”

Dom just muttered groggily, “Forget it,” and didn’t move, son of a bitch. Finally Brian gave
up and just took Dom’s weight and let his hands wander over Dom’s back and the smooth
curve of his head, slick with sweat. Actually, he didn’t really mind not breathing all that
much now that he thought about it.

He was halfway to falling asleep when his cellphone buzzed out of somewhere in the heap of
clothes on the floor of the garage. Brian ignored it, but it stopped buzzing after five rings,
stayed quiet for a while, then started going again, which meant—

“Shit,” he said, shoving hard now. Dom sat up off him, and Brian pulled himself out of the
car just far enough to fish it out. Yeah, it was Penning’s number. “Shit,” Brian said, and then
he took a fast deep breath, made himself put the suit back on in his head, answered the call.
“Hey there,” he said, the phrase that meant he couldn’t talk freely, suspects listening, which
was even true, but it didn’t matter, because what Penning said was, “We’re done. We just got
the truck and the driver that dropped off Toretto’s latest shipment, and the surveillance unit
has photos of the boxes going off the truck and into his trailer. We’re going in: soon as we’ve
got stolen goods in those boxes, they’re both in it for ten years. If he won’t give up the
supplier at that point, the driver will. Get out now.”
“I can’t,” Brian said, heart pounding. “I can’t get out.” He swallowed hard. “I need an hour,”
he said, desperately.

“Shit,” Penning muttered. “All right. One hour,” and Brian shut his fist around the phone
tight. He looked up at Dom.

“They’re coming,” Dom said, not a question.

“Dom,” Brian said, and he fucking had to try slamming his head into the brick wall, he
couldn’t help himself. “Look, just—just give me the fucking name—”

“Come on, now,” Dom said, and Brian turned away, jaw clenched, his chest squeezing tight,
Jesus, they were going to take Dom away from him, they were going to—

“Ten years!” he said. “Goddammit, Dom, they’ll fucking put you away for ten—” and Dom
grabbed him by the shoulders and jerked him in and kissed him hard to shut him up.

“I can’t,” he said, his head against Brian’s. “You know I can’t. Don’t ask me to be that guy,”
and god fucking dammit, even if Brian had known it already. He shut his eyes.

“We’ve got to ditch the goods,” he said. “We’ve got to get rid of all of them, now, and if they
catch us moving them—”

“Shit,” Dom muttered, and then he said, “Come on.”

“Shut the hell up!” Dom bellowed over everyone’s voices. “We don’t have fucking time for
this, you can all work your shit out with Brian after. Get your street cars, get down to the
garage: I want you all to start dragging up and down the block, burnouts, donuts, all that shit
like you’re just messing around, and you make it all as loud as you possibly can. Not you,” he
added to Mia.

“Go to hell, Dom,” she said, and grabbed her keys and went outside anyway.

“Shit,” Dom muttered.

He and Brian hitched the little U-Haul trailer up to the Charger. The car hadn’t been seen
outside the garage since Dom and his dad had towed it from Arizona, and it still had the old
plates on it from the guy who’d sold it to them. Nothing to tie it to him, as long as he didn’t
get caught with it. But inside, it was still stinking of sweat and sex, and Christ, the second
Dom got in behind the wheel, he just wanted to shove Brian flat down on the seat again,
wanted the taste of him all over again, that feeling of fire running up and down his spine. He
shot a glare over at Brian as he started up the car and hit the road, the trailer bouncing empty
behind them. Yeah, he’d been on the right track, sure: that goddamn name had been like a
police siren coming up on his tail.

Except he couldn’t even make himself be pissed off inside his own head, not when Brian
turned and looked back at him, jaw tight and worried. Dom’s stomach just got a little melty
inside and he had to jerk his eyes away before he crashed into a parked car or something
fucking embarrassing.

Dom could hear the drag-racing going from eight blocks away, loud enough to cover any
noise they made and hopefully keep the cops from paying any attention to what anyone else
in the neighborhood was doing. He turned onto the street next to his own and pulled up in
front of Hector’s garage. Brian jumped out and popped the front bay door with a crowbar.

Hector’s garage and Dom’s both had bays that opened onto the back, facing each other across
a bare concrete yard. Brian got both of them open, too, and aimed the U-haul backwards into
the driveway. Dom backed the Charger all the way up until the U-haul was practically inside
his own place, and half an hour later, they’d hauled three thousand iphones out of the back of
the big trailer and were shoveling them all into the U-Haul by the armful: at least the
goddamn things were small.

The sirens went off just before they were done, and Dom heard the voices over the squad car
loudspeakers ordering Mia and the rest of the crew to pull over. “Go!” Brian said, throwing
the rest of the phones into the trailer and slamming down the lid. Dom ran for the driver’s
seat and pulled the Charger out into the street.

Brian slammed down the bay doors again just in time: Dom saw a thin slice of daylight
appearing on the other side of the garage right as it came down, the squad busting open the
front door. “They had better not fuck up my car,” Dom muttered as Brian dived into the
passenger seat.

He tried to roll out quietly, as quiet as the Charger’s engine would go, but there were cops all
over the mouth of his block, and one of the black-and-whites spotted him. Dom made a fast
turn away and started driving, but the cop peeled off and came after them, shit. It gave them a
bleep of sirens, and then a pissed-off “Pull over right now!” out of the speakers. Dom traded
a grim look with Brian: nothing for it. Dom gunned the engine, the motor roaring like ten
thousand lions, and peeled out.

It was late and the streets were mostly deserted, enough room to maneuver and put on some
speed, but there were four squad cars on his tail by the time he hit the Angeles Crest. The U-
haul was sliding all over the road behind him every time he made a turn, pulling his rear
around, nearly making his tires lose traction. He plowed on up into the mountains, pulling
away from the cops, getting a minute here and there with all of them out of sight.

It wasn’t good enough. “We need more time!” Brian yelled, looking out the rear window.
“They’re still on us.”

“Fuck!” Dom snarled: they’d just taken a curve around another mountain, and there were
flashing lights on a parallel road: two more cop cars coming to meet them. “Hang on!” He
fired up the nitrous and took the car up to a hundred and forty, clinging hard as he could to
the inside curve of the road and not letting himself look over to the cliff that fell away to the
other side. The U-haul skidded a few times, trying to drag them loose.

But the cops were still going to beat them to the junction, shit. “There!” Brian shouted,
pointing: a blocked turnoff, ROAD CLOSED across an orange-and-white sawhorse on a ramp
leading to who knew where. Fuck it: they had nowhere else to go. The Charger smashed
through the sawhorse, chunks of wood flying, and kept on going.

The road was pitted and ragged under the wheels, but it ran further up the side of the
mountain and over the junction: Dom glanced down the slope and saw the two cop cars
pulling up below him: they’d made it past them.

“Oh, shit,” Brian said.

Dom looked up again. The road was out up ahead, a giant half-moon bite taken out of the
pavement. No time to slow down and they couldn’t back up anyway: he had to turn down
onto the ragged slope and just hope they made it in one piece, dust boiling up around them in
thick clouds and the U-haul bouncing wildly up and down, lifting the rear wheels off the
ground.

The highway was coming fast to meet them. Dom twisted the wheel over, got the car moving
sideways a little as it slid down off the slope onto the pavement, and he managed to get the
tires back on the road, but shit, the U-haul was just going. He saw it happen in the rear-view
mirror, almost in slow-motion: flying off the slope in a smooth graceful arc, gliding sideways
across the road like it was on ice skates. It smashed through the guardrail and kept on going,
airborne, and then it started dragging the rear of the car right along with it. Dom hit the gas,
but the wheels were sliding wild over the road and he couldn’t get a goddamn hold on the
pavement.

Brian threw himself into the back seat, literally tumbled into it, and kicked out the back
window with both feet. “What the fuck are you doing!” Dom yelled, but Brian was already
sliding out of the car on his stomach—they were tipping backwards, the front wheels coming
off the ground, and Dom could fucking see the sheer cliff dropping away underneath him, the
U-haul dangling out into open space.

Brian leaned all the way over to the hitch and yanked the pin, and the U-haul fell away. The
Charger exploded forward as the weight vanished, almost crow-hopping back onto the
highway on its back wheels. Dom yanked the emergency brake and slammed the front end
down, and Brian slid forward across the trunk and got dumped right into the back seat.

“Ow,” Brian wheezed out, but Dom was already hitting the gas again. The sirens were still
going in the distance, on the other side of the dust clouds, but they faded fast as Dom blew
through the gears up to a hundred and forty.

Brian climbed back into the front seat. He grinned at Dom and got out his cellphone. “Hey,
it’s O’Conner,” he said after a moment. “I’ve only got a minute to talk. I still haven’t been
able to get away. Toretto took me out in the Eclipse, he wanted to test the new intercooler.
He’s in a rest stop right now. Did you get the evidence? You want me to bring him in or
what?”

Dom couldn’t make words out of the loud pissed-off noises that came out of the phone, but it
didn’t sound anything like yeah, go ahead and bring him in, we got everything we need.
“Huh, really?” Brian said, his grin getting wider. “Yeah. Yeah, he’s with me. He’s been with
me the whole day. I don’t know, sir, are you sure the delivery went to Toretto’s garage?”
After he hung up, Dom pointed a finger at him. “You are never allowed to lie to me again,
O’Conner, you got that? You’re fucking dangerous.”

“Oh, I’m dangerous,” Brian said, and Dom hauled him in and kissed him, sweet and hot and
fucking perfect, and shit, that was the fucking guardrail!

Dom swerved back onto the road hard and pushed Brian back into his seat. “You, stay there,
before I crash us off this mountain,” he ordered.

Brian sprawled back in his seat, not looking sorry at all, panting. His eyes were fucking
beautiful when they were all lit up like that. “Then get us somewhere we can stop,” he said,
and Christ, Dom really needed to bang him at least another three times today.

“We’re going straight to Vegas,” he said firmly, because he wasn’t going to start losing
control like this. “The team will bring the car, meet us at the track there. We’re gonna have
some serious work to do to win this weekend.”

“What happened to make a decent showing?” Brian said.

“That was before we dumped four hundred grand of Johnny Tran’s smartphones off the side
of a cliff,” Dom said. “Don’t worry about it, O’Conner. I’ll get you to the winner’s circle.”

“Who’s worrying?” Brian said.

A sign flashed by: Scenic Overlook — 2 miles.

# End
End Notes

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