A/N: Don't know where this came from. But I do know how much I love the dynamic between Dom and Letty and how ready I am for F6 to come out. So. Kinda inspired by "8 Ways To Say I Love You" by R. McKinley. And "8 ways" probably means "8 parts" unless this is as disjointed as it should for being written at 2am while listening to Fugitive Songs. Mostly "Annie's Party" Also, yeah, I have a problem with parenthesis.
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For the first time in what must be ages, Letty doesn't show up to a party at the Toretto house. Mia shrugs him off when he demands to know where she is, but that's definitely a rather heated glare she shoots him as she heads into the kitchen for a drink.
Oh yeah, he's in deep shit. (Dom never quite understood Mia and Letty's relationship, he'd never seen two people more polar opposites of each other and yet they could spend hours holed up in Mia's bedroom just talking. He knew Letty's patience for girly shit was thin and Mia's tolerance for shop talk only lasted so long, and he's not arrogant enough to assume their only common ground is having the misfortune of loving him, but he always wished he could eavesdrop on them. Mia had a knack for knowing exactly when he was creeping outside her door, though, and either turned up that classical shit she knew gave him a headache or sent Letty out to threaten him)
In hindsight, he knew the blonde (she'd probably appeared somewhere between Letty scoring $4,000 and Vince rounding the corner of the trailer as Dom tried to get Letty off against it, because he can't be sure) was probably going to try something, if the way she eyed him like a porkchop was any indication. Knew that last drink was a bad idea and that he should've gone straight after Letty as soon as she had stormed away into the night. That guy probably was just asking which car she drove, but God, she made him so stupid sometimes and he knew she could probably do better than an idiot like him, and it just made him crazy to see any clean-cut chump near her (even though he also knew he should know better. She's just as messy and broken as he is and would chew up a guy like that for breakfast and she's only had eyes for him for how long? But it still doesn't make him feel any better to see them talking so close) So yeah, he'd pissed her off and she'd disappeared into the crowds but Mia hadn't been too far behind, probably eager for an excuse to get away from Vince and whatshername's make out session right next to her as much as she was (probably unnecessarily) concerned about a pissed-off Letty going it alone.
But the alcohol mixed with the desert air had made him sluggish and he couldn't bring himself to move, and before he knew it, blondie's hand was at his waistband and he didn't (couldn't) do much to stop her besides shift away with a frown. And of fucking course Mia and Letty had to come back at that exact moment, and it was all his sister and a surprisingly alert Vince could do to manhandle his spitfire girlfriend into the trailer before she unleashed some of that Dominican fury she kept bottled up, but the woman in question had already been (quite literally) dumped to the dirt. She'd shacked up with Mia that night, squished between the youngest Toretto and the cold metal side of the camper, ridden back with Vince who he knew had driven her crazy with the totalitarian control he enforces over the radio, and she had probably gone straight to her place to crash when they'd made it back into civilization. Vince had chewed him out (He found Vince and Letty's sibling-like relationship rather comforting, knowing that someone else would always have her back and not stare at her backside, except when Vince took the big brother thing quite literally and made it very clear that he'd do his best to beat Dom's ass if he fucked things up with her for a dime a dozen racer chaser)
As was tradition, they announced their return from a successful trip to Race Wars with a crowd and music and alcohol, but Dominic Toretto didn't feel like celebrating. So, he starts on the whiskey instead. Mia perches next to him with a beer (he can't find the energy to scold her still-underage ass but makes a note to lecture her later when he's sober) and her hawk eyes keeps every other woman at bay. For such a little Suzy Homemaker, she sure can instill fear in the hearts of skanks, a trait he's not so sure is a product of being a Toretto or being friends with Letty for so long.
Letty.
And now he misses her, the way she presses into his side when she plays video games and insists on a kiss every time she beats someone's ass. She's scary good at them, and while Dom held reign over the streets outside, Letty definitely controlled the streets on the TV screen (he'd once practiced for weeks, only to have her wipe the floor with him yet again, and after that he'd decided his pride needed no more beating in that particular arena. Vince had torn the hell out of him for weeks, still did sometimes, but he'd fared no better against Letty than he did so he had no room to gloat)
He stumbles to his feet, and Mia eyes him critically. He rolls his eyes at her, tells her he's just going to bed and to make sure everyone is gone before the sun comes up. Vince is too caught up in his newest fling, a Russian import named Katya to be bothered with, so he just knocks him on the head on his way by (he wasn't at all concerned as to where a grown-ass woman who has proved herself more than capable of handling herself, time and time again of course, was spending her Monday night and, as always, was less than helpful when he'd spoken to him earlier. Dom had snatched his beer and stalked over to the couch, ignoring the string of curses Vince let out and took a long gulp of cold Corona)
His feet drag up the stairs and he swipes the phone from the table, dragging it into his room and sinking against the door. He dials her number, hoping she's awake and will actually answer.
She doesn't.
The whiskey seems to catch up to him just as the beep sounds, and the words just start coming.
"Fuck, Let...I'm sittin' here like a punk...you're probably asleep or just ignorin' me and I'm drunk as fuck and I just, I love you. Okay?"
He wakes up in the morning with the phone still in his hand, his back aching and a jackhammer drilling into his skull in tune with the dial tone.
He doesn't even bother to change (he'll just get sweaty under the jumpsuit anyways, he figures), just focuses on making it to the garage without hurling. She's already there, halfway under a car and already streaked with grease. He waits for her to mention the message, to acknowledge the fact that he'd professed his love for only the third time on her goddamn answering machine, but she doesn't. He doesn't even see her face until an hour later, when he's feeling less green (and more awake now that Mia had brought a medicine bottle, water, and another glare) She's sweaty and looks exhausted and he just wants to pull her into his arms, but she won't even meet his eyes as she takes a long drag from her half-empty bottle. A bit of water drips down her chin and she swipes at it absently, and he's not sure if she's just that skilled at freezing him out or if she's just in her own little world for the time being.
The silence all day absolutely kills him though, having her so close yet so far away, and his hangover on top of it all makes him a grouchy mess. He'd just gone off on the new kid they'd hired when her hands grab either side of his jumpsuit, pushing him up against the car as the kid makes himself scarce. Even if he'd only worked there a few weeks, he knew what came next.
She kisses him hard, biting into his bottom lip and pinning his much larger frame with her hips. He knows better than to touch her when she's like this, but his hands twitch with the desire to feel. She smells like sweat and grease and something uniquely her underneath it all, something that reminded him of their childhoods and the garden her mother had once attempted to grow (between vodka binges) in front of their house down the street. Her hands softly move from his chest up to his shoulders, slowly pulling the gray suit down with her fingers. He tilts his head, swiping his tongue at her upper lip and her hands stop at just above his forearms, her fingers gently curling around his elbows and he can't stop himself. One hand cups her jaw, curls around the back of her head, the other sinks down to rest on the patch of skin revealed at her hip and gently smooths along the bone. His grouchiness dissipates somewhere along the line, as her tongue flicks against his teeth and her lips almost smile against him as he groans into her mouth.
It ends as quickly as it started though, the sound of gravel crunches outside as a car drives by and he growls at the loss of contact. She gives him a look, tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear and before she can react, his hand closes around her wrist and yanks her back to him, brings her into a slow kiss that probably would've curled her toes if she wasn't wearing those combat boots she has such an affinity for. She licks her lips as she pulls away, a habit he doesn't even think she's aware of, and pops a stick of gum into her mouth as she walks away. Leans over the hood of car she's working on and blows a bubble, cursing in Spanish as it pops loudly, unhappy at whatever she sees there (he picks out pendejo easily, but the rest is lost between angry pops and the scuffling of her feet as she moves to take another swig of water. Oh, and there was chela, spat out with a frown along with some other intelligible words at the lukewarm liquid) Wipes her hand on her pants, cocks her hip to one side sniffs distastefully. It was some rich boy's car, one who liked to think he knew shit about making it faster and had a very specific list of very shitty parts he wanted (Letty had a bit more integrity than him and it always annoyed her when she had to ruin a car with such potential with junk she wouldn't even put near her Nissan, no matter how good the money was)
Fuck, he loves her. Even when she's pissed as hell at him, she has to know. He's never gotten so bent out of shape, drunk off his ass over anyone else but her. Never had a jealous fit over anyone but her. Never been so crazy, so stupidly in love that she could ask him to wear a dress and take Samba lessons with her and he'd probably eventually give in. He'd pretend to hate it, but if it made her happy, brought out that genuine, heartbreakingly gorgeous smile of hers, he'd do just about anything that she goddamn wanted. And it's not that it wasn't mutual, because it was. Without a doubt. He knew that he drove Letty just as crazy, if not more so. But she was good with words, knew how to diffuse his temper or rile him up with just a few syllables. Could reassure him with just a sentence, turn what she was feeling into actual words that didn't make her sound like a complete dumbass.
(Little known fact about Leticia Ortiz: she was incredibly intelligent, despite most of her free time being spent underneath a car instead of at a table doing homework like Mia had. If he'd thought she wouldn't have tried to run him over right after her graduation, Dom would've attempted bullying her into higher education. He sees her with Mia sometimes, though, flipping through the college books with something akin to curiosity and he wonders if, in some alternate universe, her mother would've elected to stay in Texas after leaving the Dominican Republic. Maybe Letty would've gone off to college on some fancy scholarship and become a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher or a housewife. The image of Letty driving a minivan with a bunch of kids in back never failed to make him laugh every once in a while. Right before that little pang of want set in and he pushed those thoughts away for more currently attainable ones)
On the other hand, his words just rushed out. Slurred declarations of love to an answering machine. Grunts into her ear as he moved heavily on top of her. Words that came up in the middle of fights that left her staring at him in complete and utter shock (Yeah, he had to work on tact, that was for sure. Shouting "Because I fucking love you" isn't exactly the most romantic way to let a girl know she's your everything) and his heart pounding in his chest, reminding him of why everything with her was so different (Not that he had any experience in the actual relationship department, discounting the random hookups and that huge fucking mistake with that punkass Tran's sister. Which, in hindsight, was really only to piss Johnny Tran off and it worked like a charm, so it was sort of a success)
She still doesn't talk to him for the rest of the day, besides to ask for the wrench he'd been using, and she hardly looks up to take it from him. Worries her lip between her teeth before she heads off to The Racer's Edge for who knows what, makes a stop at Toretto's to see Mia and doesn't return for almost two hours. But she comes home with him (And no matter how much she protests, it is her home. He doubts she even has edible food at her house anymore. He'd have to talk to her eventually about it, about making it all official and whatnot but that also required words and he definitely needs time to think of a better way to ask than "Just fucking move in and sell that dump already, we could use the money")
She showers with him, he shampoos the grease out and conditions the tangles from her hair and she shaves the stubble off his head afterwards, and they lay down together in their room. Fingers entwined and content in the dark.
"I do, you know." He mumbles, and he knows her so well he can hear her grin and the accompanying eyeroll as she throws her warm leg over his, presses her lips to his jaw.
"Yeah, I know."
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