Disclaimer: I don't own The Fast and the Furious, Fast & Furious, or any of its characters, merchandise, TV/film rites, ect… (I think you get the point.)

Summery

ONE SHOT – You can tell so much about a person from the small things, how they dress, how they sleep even by what toppings they put on their pizza.

"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished and persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot." - Mark Twain.

Lamb: As always sorry for any bad spelling and if you feel the need to throw things at me please wait until I've hidden behind the sofa kay!?

Dedi: This fic is dedicated to Zadine

Muse: On with the fic!

Maybe she knows she drives me crazy,
Just bats her eyes like she's my baby,
Maybe she's quick to let her tongue fly at me,
She's not the most proper lady,
She's almost perfect,
She is so close to being everything,

Topping Things Off

The movie was frankly dull. Letty rolled her eyes at the screen, a sneer twisting her mouth. This really was her idea of hell. It wasn't even one of the films where the stunts were so bad that she, Dom and Vince could have fun ripping them to shreds.

It was only 08:30 so she didn't really want to have to go home and since it was a Friday it wasn't as if her parents would be expecting her to return from the Toretto house before 11:00. Even that time wasn't set in stone, especially if they all got caught up in the latest upgrades Antonio 'Toni' Toretto was doing on the 1970 Dodge Charger, which happened most of the time. But now he was waiting on parts so the car was locked in the garage and they were all lounging across the living room floor.

Dying of boredom. Well at least she was, everyone else seemed to be blissfully unaffected.

Vince and Dom didn't seem to care how crap the movie was as long as the female lead, some bottle blonde with Barbie doll vital stats, kept bemoaning her fate while prancing around wearing the smallest hot pants Letty had ever seen. Boys, she thought with mild disgust, no matter how old they got, in this case nineteen, they never grew up. Mia, who was as disinterested in the film as she was, was never the less busily occupied. The girl had taken over most of the sofa and was buried in a pile of textbooks.

Letty shuddered. In truth, she should probably be thinking about homework too, but it was a worse form of torture for her than the sexiest remarks coming from the two idiots she was sharing the floor with. She could always justify it to herself that she was sixteen and therefore almost at the end of her high school career. She wasn't planing to stick around for longer than she could help; she'd promised to gut it out till the end of tenth grade but after that she was done. So when you looked at it like that, what was the point if stressing about homework?

Irritably shoving a few unruly strands of ebony hair out of her face, she peered past Vince to see if there was anything left in either of the two pizza boxes that was worthy of her attention. To her great disgust, the three remaining slices were all Dom's and were all therefore covered in anchovies. Yuck! The very idea of the small, salty and slimy bits of fish coming anywhere near her mouth made her stomach roll and just went to show that at times she really couldn't understand one Dominic Toretto.

Scrambling inelegantly, not that she cared, up from her position sprawled on the floor Letty took the few steps necessary before she flopped down onto the sofa next to Mia. Neither of the guys spared her so much as a glance as she moved and the youngest Toretto just looked at her owlishly over the top of her textbook for a moment before returning to her work.

So much for conversation, the Latina thought with a mental sigh. Sure, she was proud of how amazingly smart Mia was; indeed she would kick to the curb anyone who said a bad word about the slightly built Italian. As her best friend Letty considered herself to be the only one allowed to grouse about the girl's resemblance to a bookworm. To her way of thinking not even Dom and Vince had the right to criticise the amount of time Mia spent on studying and Vince had given up making jokes about geeks and nerds after Letty gave him a black eye.

But all that aside it would be nice if sometimes Mia would toss aside the books and just chill with her the way they always used to. But exams were coming up and she couldn't blame her friend for wanting to do well. After all not everyone could get by with just a bucketful of attitude, a sharp tongue and temper that could rival that of a pissed off rattlesnake the way she could. Plus if all else failed, she always had a great left cross combo and a literally stunning right hook as back up, something Mia sure as hell didn't.

With that thought in mind and little else in the way of entertainment available to her, Letty adjusted her jeans and tank top, both of which were permanently stained with oil and engine grease, and settled down to watch the guys watch the movie. It wasn't as interesting as chatting with her girl would have been but it was better than watching the load of crap displayed across the screen.

Her eyes settled first on Vince who, to her way of thinking, still looked like a human version of a grisly bear. Wild dark hair and eyes, a muscle mass more commonly associated with a heavy weight boxer than a mechanic and a voice that was pretty much all growl. In short he looked like the last person on earth that you would want to meet late at night in a deserted alley. The fact that Mia referred to him as just a big teddy bear wouldn't even have made him seem any the less intimidating to people who didn't know him.

Jerks at school who refused to take no for an answer from the little Italian girl tended to take one look at Vince stalking across the car park towards them and run for the hills. He used to do the same for her too but it was not something she'd had a problem with since she'd dealt with the last guy who'd dared to pinch her ass. She'd decked him in front of half the school. It had had the desired effect. Annoyingly, she'd almost got expelled for fighting, although she thought it had all been far too one-sided to call a fight. Dom had bawled her out for that.

Ah yes, Dominic Toretto. Letty felt her lips twitch even as she tried to suppress her smile as her eyes drifted over him. Contrary to popular belief she didn't actually have a crush on him, of that she was sure. After harbouring feelings towards the same guy for well over six years you couldn't really call it a crush and still look at yourself in the mirror. Plus, she had seen the way the girls who did 'crush' on Dom acted, they would blush and giggle and make comments of the 'he's so hot' variety.

While she would be the first to admit that he was hot, it sure as hell wasn't the most important thing about him. Admittedly neither was the fact that although against Toni's direct instructions (he'd intended to do it himself) Dom had started to teach her how to drive just after she turned sixteen. To her way of thinking it was rather more significant than the fact he had a body she would love to get her hands on.

Though, she had to admit, she wasn't sure which one of them had jumped the most when the week before she'd somehow managed to grab his leg instead of the gearshift. Unsurprisingly the car had stalled and for a moment they both just sat there staring straight ahead. It wasn't until Dom had pointedly cleared his throat that she realised she still had her hand on his damn leg.

Letty sighed and shifted slightly to find a more comfortable position. If, unlikely though it was, Dom hadn't known how she felt before, that little episode in the car park had made it very clear. The truth was she had never bothered to hide the way she felt about him, which in spite of the way he could make her heart race, was like slapping him around the head most of the time. But she had never, and probably would never, act on what she felt. Though if the chance to slug him one ever presented itself she'd sure as hell take it.

Hell, she couldn't even put her finger on what it was about Dom that made him so goddamn attractive to her. Had always made him attractive. If anything after knowing him for so long she should have liked him less not more, because she'd seen first hand just how much of a shit he could be. Admittedly not that she was much better at times, but still it made no sense. People treated him like he was a cut above the rest and in response he acted as if he was, Letty knew that Dom never meant to hurt anyone but he walked over people without realising. Especially the girls that flocked around him.

Ahh yes, the girls. A muscle jumped in her jaw at the unsavoury direction her thoughts were taking. A pack of blood sucking leeches the lot of them, swarming all over him as if they owned him until all Letty wanted to do was take her fists to the lot of them and yell at them to back off. She wouldn't have minded (or at least that was what she told herself) if they had really cared about Dom, but they didn't. They didn't even know the first thing about him, all that mattered to them was that he was Dominic Toretto and it made Letty sick.

She knew it was stupid and quite probably harmful as well to get so possessive about a guy who wasn't even hers, but at times she just wanted to knock some sense into him. It was a double edged sword, if that was the right way to describe it, which Letty doubted. On the one hand she didn't like the way Dom treated the girls he dated, just tossing them aside when he was bored with them. But on the other hand, considering what the majority of the girls in question were like, she couldn't really blame Dom for doing, as it were, the hit and run act.

It was infuriating, he really needed to treat them better, but they also needed to be worthy of better treatment. Letty shifted on the sofa again, her foul mood-induced fidgeting earning a scowl of reproach from Mia. Dom deserved to be with someone who liked him for who he was and not just because he was Dominic Toretto. But also someone who would slap him around the head and tell him when he was being a prick, not just follow him around like a shadow. Most of all, Letty needed to stop thinking about it before she could no longer refrain from yelling out that she thought he was stupid for the way he was living his life.

More to give her something to do with hands, which she had unconsciously been clenching and unclenching, than out of any real interest she picked up one of Mia's discarded books and began idly flicking through it. The words were a blur as they flashed in front of her disinterested eyes, here and there interspersed with a grainy photograph of some historical figure. Periodically she glanced up to the T.V. screen and then to the two teens still lounging on the floor before returning to the book.

Then out of the dull text one word jumped out and grabbed her attention. Dark chocolate eyes found the start of the line and quickly scanned the words. Letty's brow furrowed for a moment before, her bad mood evaporating like mist, she gave a derisive snort of laughter. Three heads jerked up and around and three sets of curious eyes fixed on her. She waved the boys off, signalling with her hand that it had been nothing and their attention quickly returned to the movie. Half naked blondes having that effect on them

She leaned closer to Mia and, the textbook open in her hand, indicated the relevant paragraph.

-------

Dominic Toretto frowned, picked up another slice of pizza and tried to tune out the sound of hushed voices and muffled laughter coming from the sofa behind him. Mia's was a soft feminine giggle, a sound he very much liked hearing while Letty's was a deep throaty chuckle that was getting more on his nerves the more he heard it. He bit savagely into the almost cold slice and tried to focus on the T.V. screen.

Damned irritating Leticia Ortiz, always finding new and inventive ways to drive him crazy. He'd been able to deal with the ten-year-old string bean that had been forever hanging around in their garage watching his dad work. For the most part she'd kept her mouth shut and her eyes open and even if Toni had had a soft spot for the brat, he and Vince had been able to put up with her. Even the gangling klutz she'd grown into had been bearable even if she did look as if she had been made out of nothing but leftover knees and elbows.

But now…

He took another vicious bit of his pizza, the salty anchovies making his mouth water. Now, seemingly almost overnight Letty had had the nerve to turn into a girl, and it was something he was most definitely not happy about. True, he'd always know that while the Latina was one of the guys she wasn't strictly one of the guys, but now it was a hell of a lot more … obvious.

The jeans that used to hang loosely around her non-existent hips now hugged her ass snugly and the tank tops she perpetually wore clung tightly to a chest she seemed to have developed overnight. He couldn't help it, and the lord knew just how hard Dom had tried not to notice the changes that were taking place but at the end of the day he was a guy and he was hotwired to react in a certain way. The hot headed Latina had always known just what buttons of his she could use to make him react, but now she was winding him up without having a clue she was even doing so.

The sight of Letty with tousled hair, sweat slicked skin and cocky smirk, casually handling a wrench as she bent over be shown something under the hood of the Changer was one that seemed designed to make his hormones sit up and beg. Something they were doing with frightening regularity, considering the girl in question was just pesky little Leticia who had been a pain in his ass from the get go. No doubt she was still a pain, but now his whole body was responding to her.

But one of the worst thing was he was not the only one to have spotted all the changes in little Letty Ortiz. He'd be waiting for her and Mia to get out from school and he'd see the way that eyes followed the pair of them. Those were the times when he had to fight the urge to rip those eyes right out of the heads of the guys who dared to leer at his little sister and his….

That was the point when his thoughts always became confused, or rather even more confused, because Letty wasn't his anything, just his friend. He'd tell himself that she was just like a little sister so it was only right that he would feel the need to beat to a bloody pulp any boy that so much as looked at her. No one was allowed to look at her, to touch her. And that went for him too because it was safer that way. If he put up the mental stop signs, the ones that said absolutely no one was allowed near her. If he put Letty in the same little box that he kept Mia in then everything would be all right.

And it was all right, right up to the point when it wasn't. Which was normally around the time she came stalking through his dreams and dream Letty was almost as hard to reason with as the real thing. She always had to get her own, which meant in his fantasies he got to have his way. All of which added up to flesh and blood Letty practising amateur surgery on him with the nearest available sharp edged weapon if she ever found out what was going on inside of his head. Because even though he knew that she liked him, he also knew that the last thing Letty wanted was to become just another notch on his bedpost even if the mental picture of her anywhere near is bed had his imagination running on overdrive.

All that in itself was bad enough, but the real problem stemmed from the fact that the girl was his friend, the only female friend he had not counting his sister. Letty knew how to talk to him, could read his moods and knew when he was in need of a kick up the ass or just to be left alone. For the first time in his life he had to deal with being attracted to a girl in more than just a physical way and that the girl in question was Letty only served to confuse matters more. She no longer trailed after him like some lost puppy now she acted like she was his equal, which was what she was, and he could not help but wonder, if their relationship progressed, if she would continue to do so. Dom knew that part of him was hoping like hell that she would.

The sound of laughter suddenly grew louder before the sound was quickly muffled, but it had thankfully broken his train of thought. He turned his head in order to roll his eyes in 'what can ya do' gesture at Vince only to see his best friend climbing to his feet and walking over to the sofa. As he watched the dark haired male squeezed his way between the girls, twisting and turning until they shuffled up enough to accommodate his balk.

Traitor, Dom thought darkly as he watched he best friend put an arm around the shoulders of each girl and pulled them closer to him until their head almost bumped together. Resisting the urge to snarl, or at least roll his eyes, he turned his attention back to the film. Or at least he tried to. It had been hard enough to block out the conversation between Mia and Letty but now, with Vince joining in, it was almost impossible.

"I don't get it." Vince's tone was edged with confusion.

"Well you know how he is." Mia's voice sounding as if she were trying to hold back laughter.

"So which one d'you think our Dominic is?" The blatant sarcasm of Letty's tone lending her voice a cutting edge.

"Oh man." The understanding in Vince's voice was clear even as the words were half lost as amusement set in.

Laughter broke out once more, only now his best friend's deep base rumble was added into the mix. Dom's face contorted into a scowl as he reached out for another slice of pizza. Just what the hell did the trio find so goddamn amusing?

-------

"Well?" Dom snapped, his voice cutting through the warm night air and startling Letty so much that she almost tripped over the last step and face planted on the front lawn.

It was some two hours later and the sixteen-year-old was finally giving in and heading home. Mia had abandoned them all as soon as she could, heading up to study in the privacy of her room, while Letty had stuck it out through another shockingly bad film but enough was enough. She'd left both Vince and Dom sprawled over the couch, not even getting so much as a grunt of farewell, and therefore almost jumped out of her skin at the sound of Dom's voice.

"Well, what?" She questioned, arching one dark brow as she turned to face him. She was at the bottom of the steps and Dom was still standing back lit in the doorway so she was forced to tilt her head and shield her eyes to see him clearly.

"What was so funny," Dom elaborated his question as he walked down the short flight of steps, his gaze never once dropping from the girl. "Earlier on when you were all laughing your asses off?"

"You flunked history." Letty said, giving him an airy shrug as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"You gettin' to the point any time soon?" He stopped just short of the bottom step; enjoying the added height advantage he had over her, and crossed his arms over his chest while fixing her with a hard stare. Of course to Letty, who knew him as well as anyone could be said to, it wasn't as an intimidating stance as he would have liked.

"Just something in one of Mia's books, is all. Something some guy said about anchovies." Dom's look told her that as answers went he was expecting something more and wouldn't let her go until he got it. "He said they were a delicacy favoured by English lords and… Italian whores."

Her voice took an upswing for the last two words as she started sniggering and her laughter only increased when she caught sight of the look on his face. Dom closed the distance between them and then just stood watching her as she stood doubled over in the middle if the front yard, hugging herself tightly and laughing so much she was almost in tears. When at last Letty regained enough self-control to stand up straight she saw that Dom was still just standing there, dark unreadable eyes fixed on her.

"Did you just call me a whore?" The frostiness of his tone combined with the self-restraint he was using, which was evident in the muscle jumping in his neck, was too much for Letty who promptly dissolved back into hysterical laughter.

"Well… if… if the description fits," she somehow managed to splutter out through her merriment.

"Thanks a lot, Lett." Dom couldn't keep all the bitterness out of his tone even though he tried and he knew that, even if only for a moment, the hurt had show on his face. "Really, thanks." He turned to walk back up the steps.

"Oh, Dom," Letty half sighed half groaned, her amusement dying as she lunged after him. "Come on man, it was just a joke." She caught hold of one of his arms just before he made it to the steps

"Yeah, real funny." Dom said as he turned back to her and suddenly he was way to close, invading her personal space until Letty had to jump on the instinct to take step backwards.

"Yeah well, it kinda was," the dark haired teen snapped as her defence mechanism kicked in, her hands settled on her hips and her tone became even more irritated. "And kinda fitting since you do go after just about everything female as long as it has a pulse."

"Everything?" He stretched the word out and saw Letty tense immediately. Her head came up, her chin forward and her eyes widened, it was all Dom could do to keep from smirking in her face. God it was petty, he knew that, but what she had said had hurt him far more than it should have and if he could mess with her a little then he was going to.

Don't you fucking dare, Letty mentally screamed at herself as she felt the heat start to rise in her face. She wasn't going to let herself blush, she couldn't, and it would be beyond humiliating if she did. The ebony haired teen again fought the urge to back up; it would mean that she was nervous and that Dom affected her. She was and he did, but she would be damned to hell and back before she'd let him see it.

But they were so close that he was like a solid wall in front of her, an obstruction that she couldn't get past or even see around. And his breath was soft heat against her face and she wanted to know what those long, clever fingers could do and feel those callused palms on her. Letty cursed herself, her crush and her damn hormones because she all she could think about was how much she wanted to find out if the tanned skin on his throat tasted as good as it looked.

"Did you really mean that, Lett? 'Bout me chasing everything?" Dom watched as her eyes darted everywhere, looking at anything, everything, apart from his face. "Cus, thing is, I don't recall me ever chasing you. D'you?"

"No." The single word reply was so soft that, close as they were, Dom barely caught it but he heard the defiance in her tone and then at last her eyes did find his.

The inky orbs were narrowed and suddenly Letty wished that she had just let Dom walk away, bad mood, hurt feelings and all, because she really didn't like where their conversation was headed. No, he had never shown any interest in her beyond the same show of brotherly affection he showed Mia and she had been fine with that.

The thing was as long as she had her daydreams to comfort herself with Letty could deal. As long as she could believe that there was a chance, no matter how slim, then she was fine. But from the way he was talking, the way he was acting, she could tell that Dom was about ready to smash her little fantasy world to bits and he probably didn't even know what he was doing.

"But I guess that's cus ya not really a girl, are you, Letty?" Dom knew he was pushing her, knew it was only a matter of time before she snapped but he just didn't care anymore. He wanted her to flip, because at least then it would mean that he got to her too. "I mean you'll always just be one of the guys, right?"

Letty drew in her breath with a sharp hiss; her nostrils flaring slightly and she drew back her arm and slapped her hand across his face with all her strength. The force threw Dom's head back as his cheek burned and his ear began to buzz. He shook his head in surprise, he'd always thought Letty would go for a right hook. Bitch slapping just wasn't her. Dom blinked, noticed she had drawn her arm back to hit him again and just managed to catch her hand as it swung towards him a second time. Balling her other hand into a fist, Letty lashed out at him, but he ducked, tightening his grip on her imprisoned hand and trusting it from him in an effort to keep out of her range.

But the move pushed the Latina off balance and for a split second, she reeled backwards, Dom's grip on her hand the only thing keeping her from falling before he jerked her forwards back onto solid ground and straight into his arms.

"Let go! Let go right now!" Letty howled and immediately started to try and pull away from him, a course of action that automatically had Dom holding her tighter. "Dominic! Get off of me!"

"Not gonna happen," he growled, deliberately tightening his grip as his temper began to get out of control.

He knew that it was never that hard to get him pissed off and Letty had always been able to make him lose it completely even without really trying. But now, with her shrieking like a wild thing and thrashing furiously, he didn't have a hope in hell of remaining calm. The friction between their bodies that her frantic movements caused sent his senses reeling and her loud string of profanities had arousal and fury fighting for control inside his skull.

The scene that followed was not pretty because, for all that she was small, Letty was a mean fighter and on top of that she wasn't above fighting dirty when the situation called for it. Dom had a vice like hold on her arms, so she was unable to hit him as she longed to, but she managed to catch him with a harsh kick on the shin at least once. But they were so close together that it was near enough impossible to do any real damage and even if she had managed it they both would probably have ended up on the ground.

"Calm down!" Dom bellowed as he struggled to keep hold of her and, by the miracle of God somehow managed to avoid the knee she aimed at his groin. "Fucking bitch!"

"Not yours, I'm not!" Letty howled in fury and would have smashed her forehead into his face, and therefore hopefully broke his noes, if he hadn't jerked his head back at the last second.

"You sure 'bout that?" Later, looking back, he would never be able to work out what prompted him to say it or what made him react in such a way. All he would ever recall was the pure unadulterated furry in Letty's dark eyes as she opened her mouth to scream at him.

"Get your fucking hands off of –" Her demand was cut off when Dom ducked his head forward and crushed his mouth to hers.

Taking advantage of Letty's momentary state of confusion to thrust his tongue into her mouth and began to explore the small cavern. In the back of his head some small sane part of him registered her body tense against his. That probably meant he was going to get the shit beaten out of him later, but for the moment he was too busy devouring her mouth to care. Her body fit perfectly against his, Dom thought dazedly through the haze of lust and anger that was clouding his mind.

It wasn't until he realised that, not only was she no longer struggling to push him off, but that she was kissing him back with as much fervour as he was using with her that he loosened his hold on her. His grip at her wrists relaxed completely, allowing her to embrace him and caress the hard muscles of his back. Letty's hands moved of their own their own accord, one going to his shoulder and the other to the back of his head as she pulled him to her.

It was a dream, a fantasy kissing her, but not the romantic mushy kind that filled a person's head with thoughts of love and devotion. The moment was hard and primal and the only coherent thought running through Dom's head was more. He couldn't get enough of her, the taste and feel that was uniquely that of Letty and the soft gasp she made as he pressed his body flush to hers sent a thrill surging through him. But even then something told him to make the most of it, that the need to breathe would break them apart and then reality would come rushing back. Which it did all too soon.

"Fuck." The word came out as a breathless exclamation as his eyes met with those of the girl he had known since she had been just a pesky child. "I didn't –"

"If you apologise…" Letty broke in breathlessly and then simply trailed off, seemingly unable to find the words to express what she was feeling. Her eyes were hazy, but her expression was dangerously close to one of fury as one hand, which was clenched into a fist, banged repeatedly against her thigh.

"Lett…" Dom started but stopped when she backed up a step, pulling out of his arms, instinctively he hated the fact that there was even the smallest amount of space between them. He couldn't tell if she moved because she wanted to get away from him or simply so that she had more chance of getting an accurate hit on him.

"Tell me that was a mistake and I swear…" His eyes were drawn to the rippling movement of her throat as she gulped air. "I swear I'll never forgive you."

Dom could see it in the line of her face that she meant every word of it. She'd let him walk away if that was what he wanted to do, act as if it had just been a spur of the moment impulse and Letty would deal with it. It was clearly not what she wanted, her fever bright eyes and the rapid rise and fall of her chest told their own story. The way her tongue repeatedly licked over her bruised lower lip said how much she wanted him. And still he knew that if he wanted to she would let him walk away, but if he said that kissing her had been a mistake then she would be the one to walk away, and would in fact walk right out of his life.

But even as he thought about Dom realised that he didn't want to walk away. Not from Letty, from what he'd done or what they could be. She knew him better than probably any other person on the planet, with her he could laugh and talk and just be himself. And that was it, in that moment he understood what it was about Letty that had always been so damn attractive, it was that she wanted him just the way he was, flaws and all. He was a stubborn, bull-headed bustard and yet, for some inexplicable reason, she still wanted him.

"Mistake?" he grunted, momentarily looking as if what she had said confused him, before grabbing her and pulling her back to him. "Wasn't gonna."

Letty just had time to arch one dark brow at him sceptically before his fevered lips were once again crushed against hers.

(A/N) It was Winston Churchill who said 'Anchovies: A delicacy favoured by English lords and Italian whores.'

Please R and R I'd love to know what you thought.

Big love and inspiration

Lamanth