A clouded mind and strangled emotion never have been the best of partners, never are. It's not like he wasn't aware of any of that. He's gone through hell and back, not once but every now and then. Ain't nobody telling him to calm down when he isn't or to get over shit when he can't. He knew that much was certain. What he didn't, was if the emotional turmoil building up was in his head or his heart. An unusual grimace had crept it's way to his face and anyone who eyed him could straightaway tell he had so much going on inside of him. Especially the reason he didn't want Mia invading his lil' soliude of an existence. She'd this natural ability to read him in an instant. He listened to his own pace of breathing, eyes wandering about the nothingness in the ray of lime light from the streets that peered in, reflecting patterns inside the otherwise dark room he chose to be wrapped in, elbows resting on both his knees as his fingers clasped one another restlessly.
Part of him boiled in rage. Part of him was convinced it was disappointment painted red. No matter what it was, it wasn't helping. Five years... Five years had gone by and now all this has to start over again? Dom wasn't a man of more words. Deep down he knew it made him quite weak at times when he'd wish people could translate his silence, that he'd be understood right away without having to actually voice his feelings...more like...--Brian did. The tug of realisation tore at him. Dom exhaled through his mouth, trying to turn the shudder into anger. He was shaking, his jaws tightened and so did the muscles all over his body. NO. No, this can't be true! He was seething. The silence of the room had been a bad choice. It only made the voices inside his head rumble a lot louder than he could resist. Groaning he ran his hands over his head and face, tryna block the clock that was ticking towards his emotional explosion.
Vince's POV:
"...If you ask me, I say we shift the cargo outta the garage as soon as time permits. Tego called up this morning. Seems there was a raid at our garage in Texas. We don't wanna get stuck between having to ditch those law suits and driving the freight to a safer zone, you get me?", I threw a quick glance at the man beside me, before taking a swig of my beer, relaxing into the dullness of the night. It had been a helluva day for all of us. We had managed to take down a freight that was to be transported across the border to some illegal trader in Mexico. This time tho, there was no hint of guilt, since the man at the receiving end of the blow is far from the innocent charts, at least that's what the sources told. In our world, there was no law, all that mattered was some decent money.
Three swigs of beer had gone down my throat and I wondered what held the other man on mute this long.
"Dominic, you listening to me or what?", I uttered in an attempt to get the guy's attention. Everyone knew Dom hated being called by his entire name and no one went down without facing a warning.
"Yeah." he responded vaguely to my surprise, draining me of my patience. I shifted my gaze to the right and saw that the older man had his eyes glued to something at a distance, as he stood leaning against his car, strangling the neck of the bottle in hand after each sip. Whatever it was, must have gotten him a lot intrigued 'cause from the looks of it, his eyelids barely battered, even when he gulped down huge swigs of Corona into his system eagerly.
"Now stop giving me that look, V!", the usual monotonous Dom was back in that tone, making me snort at the comment. It struck me how he made it sound like I was a matter of annoyance at this point of time, though am sure he wouldn't have meant to. Possibly, it could be my over reactive senses that are pretty active, especially when it comes to him.
"What's so good out there that's got you all hooked up tho'?", I finally had to come up straight, making sure to sound casual and not actually let him see that it was bothering me to the very edge. Ugh. I grunted inwardly as my eyes trailed along the direction his gaze was directed to-- Tej's garage. The lights in the garage area were on. I didn't detect any sort of movement inside tho. My eyes recognized the freight we had seized stand in a corner among the half-done cars and tools that laid strewed around the space. And suddenly none of it mattered at all. Instead a deep scowl crept under my features watching Brian appear from behind a truck with fittings in hand, at which I had to roll my eyes. What a life!
Dom's senses did shudder at the out-of-nowhere question but he managed to recover sooner than myself. Hell there isn't gonna be a crawl out from the pit for me obviously, right? Duh-
"Why? Does it bother you so much?"
I almost choked on my beer realising what he'd just said. YES DOM! FREAKIN' YES! Now shut up! I false-glared him and found that he was already giving me an eyebrow-raised look, with a bit of a grin following it.
"No! C'mon..why would it bother me, genius! Am just asking, alright?", I shrugged. I wanna kill this guy.
"You know, I could use a bit of a help to kill this boring lone-wolf victory celebration we're having over drained corona!", I stated as a matter of fact. Trust me! If you keep giving me that scrutinizing glare, I'm gonna be in desperate need of words to go on.
His eyes kinda narrowed with a warning but then eased back up as he placed the beer on top of the hood and turned to me with a sly smirk painted on his face, hands stuffed into his pockets.
"You see...V, not everything belongs to everybody. And when you feel that something belongs to you, I mean... only you, you don't do this thing called 'share' " my insides turned at each word spoken "...'cause you wouldn't want another to look at it the same way you do". Those final words felt like a truck of bricks dropped down on my gut 'cause it sunk real deep. I knew what he meant. And I also knew who. Just scared to admit that reality is a bitch.
We stood staring blankly at each other but that brief moment seemed like eternity. Finally I was able to break the calm as he shifted briefly to grab his empty bottle and put it in the nearby cardboard box.
"I clearly have no idea what you just said man but I do know this... Imma go get some sleep. Good luck with poetry tho!", I patted him on the shoulder returning the smile he flashed first and walking down towards the house. The smile quickly was replaced by snarling anger and serious frustration the minute I was all by myself and out of the pretending session.
Dom's POV:
Even from the distance, the vibe was strong... strong enough to knock the wind outta my lungs. There's this familiar yet strange aura that's radiating off him, I couldn't quite shield myself against. I feel like some object in blank space tryna resist the pull of gravity. Impossible, yea? Yeah that's my condition now. I could catch Vince throw a couple of weird glances at me earlier but truth be said, I could care less. The guy had even called me by my full name and what did I do? Duh- I let him go which is definitely so unlikely of me. No wonder if he'd noticed it. And since when did Dominic Toretto recite poetry? Wait. That wasn't even poetry tho. Vince is whacked, I convinced myself. What's even happening to me? I shook my head for real hoping it could help.
But then suddenly, a sly smirk crept across my lips when the possibility of taking the time to study him a lil' deeper from afar, clicked in. Honestly speaking, I felt more like a school boy who'd just eyed his crush walking in. I silently chuckled rubbing my bald head at the comparison. What am I even doing? Or maybe that shouldn't be how the question goes. Maybe it should be like, what is this guy doing to me?
You know, emotional battles are the worst. You never know which of your intuitions are being honest with you and which ones occur to be the deceivers. It's always a dilemma. But none of that matters the moment my eyes land on him. The way those blue orbs lit up time after time made my heart lunge forward. Right when I think I could cope up, there's that smile, one that can light up a whole town I swear. My gaze began growing dull as if am being pulled into a trance, I ceased to fight against. For once in my entire life after my father passed away, I found myself letting my strings, my life's notes, to be controlled by another. It fascinated me. Even the chillness of the night went about unnoticed as my glimpses and glances gave way to an intense gaze that could possibly not be torn any time soon.
There was something compelling about him, apart from the way he looked. Grease covered his blue, rather baggy shirt, in all possible places. There was another thing that caught my attention that night- he looked twice as more handsome, twice as more beautiful when he was too involved into his work at hand. I couldn't help but follow every single one of his moves- every furrow of his brow, every twitch of his face, every parting of his lips. He had crawled under my skin to the extent that I couldn't go a minute without making sure he's within the reach of my eyes. I watched him move about with such ease,that I mentally tripped a few times. I wondered how long he had been in the garage ever since we returned with the cargo, 'cause amidst everything intriguing enough that caught my eyes, also was the sore aftermath of the hectic day that reflected in his now dull, otherwise lit eyes.
At that, something tugged on the inside. His sullen eyes constantly disturbed me to the point where ignoring wasn't even a mere option. Long before I could make up my mind as to what I was gonna do, I was already half way down the distance halting slowly as I inched closer to the parted garage door. When a rough ten footsteps lay spacing us, I stopped, the left side of his frame facing me as he dug into the engine of his car that got quite beat up from all the commotion that it's been through for the day.