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Once they busted him out, Dom figured the crew would haul ass for the border, but they took the scenic route down the coast before rolling to a stop at a Motel 6 in San Pedro. Tego and Rico already had a room stocked with Corona and Cuervo. They drank to freedom, to four wheels, and to crew, and even Tego and Rico's sound pressure level couldn't drown out the quiet spaces where missing crew should be.
Tego and Rico were still adrenalin pumped and laughing when they roared out of the motel parking lot sometime after 3 a.m. Dom watched them go from the second story walkway, breathing in ocean air and highway fumes as a free man for the first time in months.
He idly massaged his wrists, sore where the manacles had cut into his skin. He'd left those manacles by the side of the 101, the prison jumpsuit with them.
"Dom," Brian said from the doorway behind him. Dom wondered how long he'd been standing there. "You hungry?"
Dom turned his head, the sight of Brian's too-handsome face and long body the same gut punch it had been back at Park's apartment. "I could eat."
Mia cut her pancakes into neat wedges like she had since she was just a kid. Brian wore a baseball cap pulled low and kept his head down. He'd set his phone next to his plate and kept an eye on the screen; he could be playing a game on that thing. The bored waitress refilled Dom's coffee with serious intent and Dom was considering taking her into the back and fucking her stupid when Mia carefully set down her fork and announced she had to head out if she was going to make it to work on time.
Dom nodded slowly, turning this over in his mind. The bust-out had been close to textbook; Rico pulling the window out while Tego drove, Mia slowing the bus and distracting the driver, and Brian pulling close for Dom to make the jump on his roof. It had been over in fifty seconds, tops, and the guards had barely had time to draw their guns, much less make out any of the driver's faces. The cars would have started out untraceable and would be sporting fresh trim and paint by noon. If anybody's face was seen, it wouldn't have been Mia's. Somebody had planned it very well.
Still, it would be a story, would be all over the news this morning. The cops would be out for blood. And his sister, respected professional with a clean criminal record that she was, would absolutely be picked up for questioning.
"You sure?" he asked, as if he could offer her an alternative.
Mia was. Her lips twitched up in a grin, sharp and way too dangerous for his little sister. "And when they ask, I spent the night with a friend."
"A friend." Dom flicked a look at Brian, but he didn't look up from his phone.
"A good friend," Mia said, and Dom realized what had been different all night, maybe before that, in the courtroom -- she hadn't been sneaking looks at Brian, and Brian hadn't been dancing around her. They'd worked well together, tight and professional, but nothing about Brian ever made Mia this certain; no way was he the good friend.
"He better be," Dom warned. "If this guy's not good to you, Mia..."
Her smile lost its steel. "I know, I know, you'll come back and rip his arms off."
"And beat him to death with them," he agreed, reaching out to cup the back of her head in his palm.
She moved with the touch to lean against Dom's side. He put his arm around her shoulder and buried his nose in her silky, sweet-smelling hair. She felt as small and strong and slender as she always had, and because he couldn't not say it out loud, he told her that he'd be there for her anytime she needed him, anything she needed. She nodded and said, "I know" and "Stay out of trouble" and didn't say goodbye.
She was blinking back tears when she pulled away and stood up, but her voice was steady when she said, "See you, Brian," and just touched his arm before walking away from the table.
"Take care of yourself," Brian called, and then she pushed open the diner door and went out without looking back.
The waitress refilled their coffees, lingering over Dom's mug. Dom didn't take her into the back or over to the motel. Brian ate a piece of bacon and sucked grease off his fingertips.
"You know about her friend?" Brian asked abruptly, his eyes meeting Dom's.
"No. Educate me."
"He's a cop." Brian's grin was rueful but bright. "Makes for a good alibi."
"No shit." His sister had a type.
"Good guy, though. And he's --" Brian paused, looking for the words "--into her. Really into her."
Dom grunted, not wanting to touch that.
Brian went back to eating his bacon and tapping at his phone. Dom watched the grey light outside just beginning to pick out the white stripes of seagull shit, making it glow against the grey concrete. Dom had now been on the run for thirteen hours, before that in custody for almost three months. Right about now he'd have been waking up to his first full day back in Lompoc. Instead, he was a free man. Free to go anywhere that wasn't home or his girl's grave, do anything that wasn't running the family business, see anyone who wasn't his sister or friend.
He leaned back in his seat, extending his arms along the back of the booth, working some tension out of his shoulders. He needed to get moving, to get clear of California at least. He watched Brian commune with his phone. If they'd planned the escape that smoothly, if Mia couldn't be connected to it, then Brian was in the clear too. As soon as Dom was gone he'd be back in his suit on the right side of the law.
Something flashed on the tiny screen and Brian's posture changed, tensed. "We're on," he breathed, leaning back to fish some bills out of his pocket. "Time to go for a ride."
They left the car at the motel and went on by foot, Brian slinging a duffle bag over his shoulder. They followed the sidewalk to an alley, then the alley to a railroad track. They scaled a couple of chain-link fences and then stood in the shadow of a warehouse, catching their breath and listening for signs of alarm. After a few minutes Brian unzipped the duffel and pulled out a couple of orange vests and matching hard hats, handing Dom one of each.
"You're not serious," Dom said, turning the hard hat over in his hand.
Brian shrugged into his own vest, going undercover again. "Not your color?"
Inmate orange? Not his favorite, no.
In the vests and hard hats, they walked half a mile along docks busy with men working and driving forklifts and nobody looked at them twice. Dom watched as an enormous crane moved a shipping container through the air far over their heads and then gently set it down on a semi truck bed. He and Brian were surrounded by thousands of containers filled with any and every kind of imported good. Some would be filled with high-end electronics, for example. Very nice. Dom's fingers itched.
He was brought back to himself when Brian took a hard left onto a metal walkway and up the incline towards an enormous dark green freighter.
So this was Brian's big plan. Not a bad one, considering, but seriously lacking in style. Halfway up, Dom said under his breath, "Not my usual kind of ride."
"I like diesel," Brian drawled.
As they stepped onto the deck a short, round-faced man Brian greeted as "Anton" nodded at them and led them toward the end of the ship, passing yet more shipping containers as they went. "Come on, hurry up," Anton said in a strong Eastern European accent as they made their way toward the metal structure near the end of the ship. "We're very busy. Valencia is an old ship, no mod cons. No pool, no sauna. No passengers, just you."
A heavily muscled guy coming along their way way tried to stare down first Dom then Brian. Dom watched him, amused, until they passed each other and Dom tuned back in to Anton's half-assed tour. The metal structure was several stories high, but they stayed on deck level. Down the interior corridor and around the first bend they came to a door Anton pushed open, concluding his speech with, "We ship out today, but you must stay in cabin. If nobody sees you, everything is okay."
The cabin they entered was so small that Dom could stand in the middle and brace his hands on either wall. On one side were bunk beds, on the other a narrow dresser, and between them a window. A door next to the dresser probably led to a bathroom.
There would have been more space in Lompoc. "Do I get let out for exercise?" he asked.
Anton's squinted at him, his eyes nearly disappearing under thick, grey eyebrows. "Next stop is Oakland. You want the crew talking about you while still in the U.S.? Maybe on their mobile phones?"
"No worries, man," Brian said, stepping forward and drawing Anton's attention. "He's cool."
Dom narrowed his eyes at Brian. "Can we have a minute, please," he said flatly, and waited until Anton was gone. He leaned against the bedframe and crossed his arms over his chest. "Okay, Brian. Lay it out for me."
Brian hitched his ass up on the dresser, trying for relaxed and failing. "Mia and me, we figured that you don't have a plan. Not after..." the pause said Letty "...everything that happened. So we made one. I know this guy... This is a pretty safe way out of the country. It'll take a couple of weeks to get to Japan. From there you can stay on board or get off, go anywhere you want to go, free and clear."
Dom had figured as much. He'd never much liked boats, but this could work. And once he was clear of Mia and Brian, they'd be safe. Safer.
He reached out to clasp Brian's hand, then dragged him close for a hug. "Not bad, O'Conner," he said, fingers tightening against Brian's warm neck.
"Yeah." Brian cleared his throat as he stepped back. "I've got to check with Anton about something. You're good here?"
"I'm good."
The door shut behind him and Dom was left really alone for the first time in months. He tossed the hard hat and vest into the corner and stretched himself out on the lower bunk, and forced his body to relax.
His stomach was weighed down by a bad feeling, the kind that told him he'd made a bad mistake, he just couldn't see it yet. He closed his eyes and went over every step of the last days and the days to come, trying to figure out what he'd missed. Before he figured it out, the stress and exhaustion he'd been living with since god knows when -- the call about Letty? Deciding to trust the Feds and try for a clean record back in the states? -- took him down, and he was out.
For one gut-sick minute when he woke up, Dom thought he was back inside. The narrow bunk, the small room, the stale air were all too familiar. Then he felt the rumble of the ship's engines and figured out where he was. He got to his feet, stretching his back with a series of small cracks, and went to look out the small window. Outside were towering stacks of shipping containers, more than had been there when he'd arrived, and beyond that, pale clouds in a dark sky, the moon over glittering water.
Then he turned away from the window and everything ground to a stop. Brian was sleeping on the top bunk.
Brian was still in his jeans and sweatshirt, sprawled on his stomach on top of the thin blanket. That wasn't right; he was supposed to be back in L.A., smirking at the other feds, laughing when they couldn't prove shit, just like Mia. If Brian was here, then Brian was on the run. If Brian was here, Brian was fucked. Now if somebody on the ship made the wrong call, they were both heading to Lompoc, not just Dom.
Dom stood, fists clenched at his sides, and watched Brian sleep. In this light, Brian's handsome face looked tense and grey, miles from the golden kid he'd been five years ago.
Working on a hunch, Dom went to check the duffel on top of the dresser. Inside were a couple of changes of clothes and stacks of bills from several countries, fake IDs with both his and Brian's pictures. All right, so Brian had planned for this. Dom was still going to change the plan.
He was too irritated to deal with Brian, but he could use some hot water.
The bathroom was small with exposed pipe running along the wall, but there was a toilet, a shower, a sink and a mirror, so it'd do. Dom braced a hand on the wall over the toilet and unzipped, sighing in relief. As he pissed he reached over and tried the mirror. It swung open, revealing a shelf with new toothbrushes and toothpaste, two shaving kits. Fucking Brian.
The water pressure was for shit, but the shower helped ease some of the sore out of Dom's muscles, though he discovered more damage from climbing through the hole in the side of the bus and throwing himself onto Brian's Trans Am. His palms prickled with small cuts and his wrists and ankles were ringed with purple and black bruises.
When he came out of the bathroom, freshly shaved skin still beaded with moisture, wearing a small white towel wrapped around his waist, Brian was leaning up on an elbow. "Hey," he said groggily. "How's the shower?"
"Let's revisit that plan," Dom told him, each word falling hard from his mouth. He found black jeans and a black t-shirt in the bag, stepped into the jeans and let the towel fall.
Brian was was watching him intently. "I told you the plan," he said, jaw sticking out like some cartoon boxer. "Ship, Japan, freedom."
"And you along for the ride."
Brian shrugged. "It was time for a change."
Dom moved to brace his arms against the upper bedframe, showing his muscles and boxing Brian in, taking advantage of his size and his muscle to make his point. "You are getting off this ship," he growled, making every word count.
"It's too late!" Brian yelped, hands up and fingers spread wide. "It's too late, Dom. I'm gone, I've already been gone too long; there's probably already an APB out on me. I can't talk myself out of this one."
"It's not too late," Dom told him. "You can still get your life back."
Brian pushed himself up and swung his legs over the side of the bunk, and suddenly Dom was standing too close. "It's not going to happen, Dom. That's not my life anymore."
Dom shook his head and watched Brian disappear into the bathroom. Brian hadn't run with him last time, and it was the right call. No way was he running with Dom this time. He began to calculate the time to Oakland and what bullshit story Brian could sell to the feds.
Dom watched Brian all that day. He didn't say much, just examined the man. He was definitely different -- older, more deliberate, cagier -- but he still had everything that made him stick out in the first place, made Dom take note and take him under his wing and want to take him apart to see what made him work.
Brian tolerated the scrutiny. Brian was probably used to people watching him, and Dom could only just see the edges of Brian's nerves as he made one-sided conversation, watched out the window, did pull-ups in the bathroom doorway.
When Anton came by with some food, Brian got him to come back with a bottle of Cuervo, too, and they passed it back and forth as night set in.
Dom watched Brian's throat work, watched Brian cough and wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. "So, you're a renegade now?" he asked, dragging the words out. "An outlaw. After everything you've been through, after making it to the feds, you're on my side of the law?"
Brian dangled the bottle between his knees. "I'm not sure I believe in sides anymore."
Dom snorted and punched the pillow up behind his head. Letty had believed in sides. She'd believed there was Dom's side and everyone else's, and it had gotten her killed. He got to telling Brian about how Letty had faced down a lady gang boss in Uruguay, this fucking four-foot-eleven nothing of cold steel bitch and heavy artillery and his Letty just put her down. And then he was talking about Letty's hair, how it curled on her neck and how he was always going to be with her, no matter what, so it didn't matter what else there could be. And she was his right hand and half his heart for so long, and sometimes a whole hour would go by and he wouldn't think of her and she deserved more than a bullet to the face, always deserved more than what she got.
Brian on the floor, his back against the dresser, and he said, "I know you loved her," all serious, like he really thought that was all Dom had been trying to tell him.
Dom sighed and set the bottle down on the floor, then unfolded his hand towards Brian. "You, come here."
Brian shifted to his knees and forward, slow enough he could be waiting for Dom to change his mind, then he set a hand on Dom's chest. Dom propped himself up on his elbows and said, "Closer," and Brian eased into the bunk next to him, one leg overlapping Dom's. Dom gripped Brian's knee and pulled, yanking Brian over him, and then he gripped Brian's ass with both hands and ground up.
"Yeah," he rumbled. "Just like that." And he bit Brian's jaw and fucked into Brian's mouth with his tongue, and Brian said, "Oh shit," and took everything Dom had to give and took it grinning.
The trip to Oakland took four days, and Dom made the most of it. He had Brian under him, over him, licking his balls and crying his name. He bent Brian over the dresser and rode him down to the floor. He licked Brian's flat nipples and fingered him with all four fingers and half his hand, feeding on the hot flush of Brian's skin and the desperate hoarseness of his voice.
Brian was everything Dom had ever imagined, and he attacked fucking with the same guts and reckless passion he brought to everything else he did, and he touched Dom with the certainty and devotion he showed his cars, pushing him just as far.
As the Valencia entered San Francisco Bay, the sounds of the ship changed. Dom coaxed Brian into the shower simply by getting in himself, then slid soapy hands along his body and did him slow and steady against the shower wall, making it last, savoring every gasp and every demand. When they finished, he dried off, shaved, and dressed for the first time in days.
Brian was watching him from the doorway. He'd pulled his jeans on and they rode low on his narrow hips. Brian's stomach was lean and well-muscled and there was the faint smear of a bruise across his hip. There was something turning over behind his eyes, some deep level O'Conner thinking going on.
"All right," Dom said. "It's time for you to get off the boat."
Brian was already shaking his head, like he'd seen this coming a mile off. "Not happening."
"We don't have time to argue this, Brian. If you have to bring me back in handcuffs to do it, you're going back."
Brian's mouth tilted down and he jammed his hands in his pockets. "Fuck, Dom," he said tightly. "Don't make me do this."
"I can bust out again, but you're not going down for my ass."
Brian stepped into Dom's space, touching his fingers to Dom's arm. "I thought you might say something like that," he said, and then there was a snick Dom knew too well.
He roared, pulling against the cuff securing his wrist to one of the exposed bathroom pipes. Before he could catch him Brian eeled out of reach, landing on his ass in the middle of the cabin.
Dom lunged for him again, but the pipe held and he couldn't quite reach without breaking his wrist. "You do not want to do this," he warned.
Brian grinned, reckless and flushed. "Really, I kind of always have. Man, look at you." His eyes danced over Dom's heaving chest, his cuffed wrist.
"This is not the way to get on my good side." Dom narrowed his eyes, promising pain and suffering.
"Oh, I think I'm there," Brian said, scooting back to rest against the bottom bunk. "So here's the plan, to recap for the slow students in the class. You're going on this boat trip and I'm going with you. If you still want to split up when we get where we're going, we can discuss that then, but for now we're a team and team sticks together."
Time passed slowly when you were an escaped felon handcuffed to a ship in a busy U.S. port. Dom sat on the floor with his eyes closed, staying still and breathing slowly.
"I could use a piss," Brian said said from the doorway.
"You come near me and I'll rip you to fucking pieces."
There was a pause. "Maybe I'll just hold it."
"You would not do well inside, O'Conner," Dom pointed out.
"I don't really want to find out, Toretto."
"You're too pretty, you're a cop and a fed, you're too cocky. There is not one person at Lompoc, guard or inmate, who wouldn't want to take you apart for one reason or another."
"So I won't get caught."
"Then get off the ship. I'm always going to be a magnet for trouble. You don't want to be around me."
"I've got the same problem, but I'm still going to keep you around."
When the engines finally started up again and the ship eased away from the dock, Brian went to stand at the window and watch the city lights slide by. Dom watched both the window and Brian's shoulders from the bathroom doorway. As they passed under the Golden Gate they ran straight into a fog bank, and then it was like California wasn't there at all.
Brian pulled a key from his pocket and warily tossed it over. Dom unlocked the cuff and massaged his wrist, rolled his shoulders, fixed Brian with his hardest, flattest stare.
"That wasn't your decision to make, O'Conner."
Fuck U.S. waters, fuck cell phones, fuck Anton, and fuck Brian O'Conner, it was time to get out of this cabin. It smelled, and he needed a whole hell of a lot more space to put between them.
The ship was rusty and slick with salt spray, piled high with shipping containers leaving only the walkway around the edge of the deck. The crew was mostly Filipino, and they all ate together, and everybody liked to talk cars even if they knew shit about them. Dom made his way to the engine rooms by instinct, and just standing next to the two enormous diesel engines was some sort of deep down soul of the earth experience.
Dom keep his distance from Brian, though he couldn't help noticing that the heavily-muscled crewman from the first day clearly hated his guts. Dom was always impressed by Brian's ability to make people want to pound his face in.
One day, Dom found Brian leaning way over the edge of the ship, watching something in the water. When Dom stepped up next to him he saw half a dozen dolphins jumping right along the boat.
"Nice design," Brian said with admiration. "Aerodynamic, plenty of power. Wonder if they race."
Dom cracked a smile. "We need to get you off this ship, O'Conner. It's affecting your brain."
Brian grinned back. The sky was bright blue and sunny, and the spray coming off the water was cool, and Dom thought about sliding his hands under Brian's sweatshirt to feel his warm, smooth skin.
"So, are we good?" Brian asked.
Dom shook his head and propped his elbows on the railing. "You piss me off, O'Conner. What else is new."
It didn't take long for Brian to get into trouble. "What's his problem?" Dom asked Anton, who was still coolly playing poker in the corner of the rec room, ignoring Brian and the muscle-bound crewman trying to take each other apart ten feet away.
"Ah, Garcia. His problem is, he is a dickhead."
Dom stared until Anton expanded his explanation.
"It is his cabin, you see, usually, and he was not happy to lose it to our unexpected guests. No matter how generous their fare."
Territory. Dom got that. Still. "That cabin's a shithole."
"With a private bath. Never underestimate the value of a private bath," Anton said, slapping a card down on the table moments before Brian was thrown across it.
"Seriously poor impulse control, Brian," Dom told him as he shoved him into the cabin.
"Yeah, but it felt seriously good," Brian grinned, his mouth slick with blood. He stepped way into Dom's personal space until Dom could feel his body heat, smell his sweat, feel his restless excitement, then he licked a hot stripe up Dom's neck, onto his shaved head.
"Seriously poor impulse control," Dom repeated, and shoved him onto the bunk.
Brian landed with his legs splayed apart, already working on his button and zipper. "You're one to talk."
"You have a point," Dom agreed, and proved it.
Brian ended up pulling the mattress off the top bunk and putting it on the floor between bunk and dresser, giving them a little more room to work with. In the middle of the night, Dom lay on his back beside Brian, listening to him breathe. Dom had one arm bent behind his head and the other resting on Brian's thigh, his fingers tracing small circles there.
"Why'd you do it?" he asked the dark room.
Brian was silent for a long time before he rolled closer and said, "I think my code might be: Only I get to fuck with Dom Toretto," and he was smiling when he found Dom's mouth in the dark.
When Dom woke up next he was alone in the room. It was still dark out, but Brian couldn't be trusted not to break Garcia's nose if they stumbled across each other, so he went looking and found Brian on deck, watching the water again. Dom came up behind him and touched his shoulders, the draw of Brian's heat and skin strong in the big dark night with the industrial noises and lights around them.
"It's not like I know why, Dom," Brian said. "It just is."
Dom rubbed Brian's shoulders until the knots of tension eased, and then he pressed close, slipping his cool hands under Brian's shirt. He might never be comfortable with the choices Brian made, or the way Dom was both weakened and strengthened by him, but he would always be all right with Brian's skin under his mouth, and the way he heated them both up in the cool, damp night.
They waited until the Valencia had been at dock for over five hours before they left the ship. The night was rainy and humid and warm, and they dodged a security guard as they made their way down the maze-like alleys between rusting cargo containers.
There was a chain-link fence to be climbed here like there'd been back in L.A., and on the other side they dropped to a busy sidewalk. Pedestrians slowed to give them second looks, but Dom was checking out the street, narrow with low power lines above, crowded with traffic. Even that putt-putt grey sedan was a thing of beauty to his hungry eyes.
As they took in the scene, a burnt orange RX-7 screeched to a stop at the curb and a beautiful girl climbed out, giving them a slow once-over from behind mirrored sunglasses.
"Hey, thanks," Brian called, lifting his hand, and she tossed the keys over. Brian politely offered her a ride, but she was already throwing a long leg over the back of a scooter and pressing herself close to the driver's back as they sped away.
"The ship, the car," Dom observed. "You had a pretty good exit strategy."
"Yeah well, one of us had to," Brian said, damn near bursting with self-satisfaction.
Dom nodded, adjusting the duffel bag on his shoulder. "Just one problem, though."
"What's that?" Brian asked.
He plucked the keys out of Brian's hand, hungry for the next quarter mile. "I drive."