"I don't like you," was the first thing Hobbs said to Brian after he'd been cuffed and shoved into the corner of the warehouse. Dom was kneeling next to him, still panting from Hulking out on Hobbs.
Brian had needed to lock his knees to keep from collapsing with relief when Dom didn't put a wrench through Hobbs' thick skull. It was one thing to be charged with killing federal agents, and it was a whole other thing to actually be guilty of it. That was a line Brian had always told himself he wouldn't cross, not even for Mia. Not even for Dom.
"Yeah, I caught on to that," Brian said, looking up at Hobbs. They'd been forced to kneel, their hands cuffed in front of them while Hobbs' team called in the plane that would carry them back to the States. From this angle, Hobbs looked less like a human being and more like some kind of giant, angry god. But Brian had never been afraid of the wrath of God, any god, so he just raised an eyebrow at the man and drawled, "At first I figured you were just being coy. Then you crashed through our wall and smashed all our shit."
Hobbs snorted. Seeing a picture of the dude was nothing like being face to face with him. Brian had never imagined he'd come across someone who was just bigger than Dom, but here was Hobbs, with biceps the size of Brian's head and a sneer that could melt rock.
"No, smartass, I don't like you in particular," Hobbs said, glaring down at Brian.
Brian could feel Dom tensing up next to him, could see the way Vince and Mia were watching carefully from their own spot across the warehouse. Rolling over and showing his belly, metaphorically speaking, would probably be the best thing to do considering that he was handcuffed and Hobbs was glaring down at him like Brian had personally run over his puppy or something.
But the path of least resistance wasn't really how Brian rolled. So he just smiled up at Hobbs, batted his eyelashes and said, "That's a shame, big guy. You wanna hug it out?"
The wind was violently knocked out of him as Hobbs planted his boot in the middle of Brian's chest and shoved backwards, pinning Brian to the wall with a thump that rattled through his whole body. Hobbs flexed his leg and Brian felt his sternum creak under the pressure. He hissed at Hobbs through gritted teeth, his cuffed hands wrapped around the other man's ankle to try and relieve some of the pressure.
Dom started staggering to his feet, swearing and furious, but the gun barrel pressed to the side of his head froze him in place.
"Settle down, Toretto," one of Hobbs' men ordered. "He ain't going to kill him." The man looked at Hobbs and sounded less sure than Brian would have liked as he asked, "Are you, boss?"
"I'm actually thinking that crushing him this way might be fun," Hobbs said, putting a little more pressure on Brian's chest.
Dom growled, but Brian looked over at him and shook his head. Talking was hard with what felt like a half-ton of pressure on his chest, but he managed to get out, "It's okay, man. It's okay." He stared back up at Hobbs, sneered at him, and gritted out, "So what's your problem, big guy?"
Hobbs just increased the pressure, until Brian was sure something in his chest was going to pop. Brian squirmed, head instinctively going back as he tried to suck in air past the weight on his chest.
That seemed to be what Hobbs was waiting for. His hand shot out and grabbed Brian by the throat. He took his boot off Brian's chest, only to pull him upwards until his feet were dangling off the ground, Converse sneakers futilely kicking air. Brian wrapped his cuffed hands around Hobbs' tree trunk of an arm, trying to take some of the pressure off his throat. At least Hobbs wasn't going to break his ribs, but Brian still couldn't breathe.
He was starting to think Hobbs was kind of a total prick.
"Son of a bitch!" Dom got to his feet, guns pointing at him be damned, and Brian could hear Mia saying something angrily to the men guarding her. Brian was focused on Hobbs, though, glaring back at the man with as much venom as he could muster while being strangled.
"How many chances did they give you?" Hobbs asked. He would have sounded almost contemplative were it not for the sneer on his face. "How many times did they let you come back, and you just spat in their faces over and over again?"
Oh, so that was what this was about. Brian growled out, "Wouldn't have took you for the kind of guy to get pissed about breaking the sanctity of the badge."
"I just don't like traitors," Hobbs said, still holding Brian in some kind of Darth Vader chokehold, "and you're nothing but a traitor. Even to him." Hobbs jerked his head towards Dom. "I've got no idea why Toretto trusted you again, not that I really care."
That stung more than Hobbs probably intended it to. (Or maybe not, Brian didn't know the man well enough to know if he was just a hard-ass or if he had a sadistic streak to go with it.) Brian kicked out at Hobbs, furious, blinking back the surge of emotion that his words had brought with him.
"Fuck you." It came from Dom, and Brian turned his head to look at the other man in surprise.
"Brian's the most loyal person I've met," Dom said, baring his teeth at Hobbs. "You don't understand what the fuck you're talking about."
Brian felt something tighten in his chest, something that had nothing to do with Hobbs slowly strangling him.
Hobbs snorted. "Coming from a thug like you, that doesn't mean too much."
"The things I did, I did for them. For my family," Brian said. And it was a cheap shot, a low blow, but he'd read Hobbs' file and he was pissed off, so he added, "Something you wouldn't really understand."
Hobbs' eyes narrowed and his hand tightened. The look in his eyes was something vicious and hurt, and Brian was expecting a bullet to the face. Rome had always told him his mouth was going to get him killed one day, and apparently today was that day.
The guy guarding Dom apparently thought so too, because he said, "Luke!" sharply, like he was trying to snap Hobbs out of a trance. Hobbs glanced at the man for a long moment, then threw Brian to the ground with a look of disgust.
He walked away without a word, and Brian was left panting on the ground, not feeling particularly victorious.
Two hours later, they were back at the warehouse, bloodied and beaten with Vince dead on the table and Hobbs' men dead in the streets. There was a haunted, furious look in Hobbs' eyes, like someone had ripped him in two and torn out all his guts before stitching him up again. It was the look of someone who had lost something. So when Hobbs had vowed to ride with them, to take revenge on Reyes, Brian hadn't asked why.
He knew why.