Leon woke up and wasn't sure where he was for a moment. Then the sounds of snoring and people breathing hit his ears and he relaxed. The basement. That's right. They were all camping out in the basement, because there was no way Jesse would actually sleep if he was alone in his room after today.
And none of them were letting him out of their sight for a while.
Pushing himself up out of his nest of blankets, Leon's eyes went first to Jesse, who'd migrated from where he'd been stretched out next to him to a tangle of limbs down by his feet, then to the rest of the room. Vince must have gotten up and gone to his bedroom at some point, because Leon couldn't see him and the door was open, showing the magazine covers he'd plastered to the inside of it. Dom and Letty were on the couch, Letty draped over him like a blanket. One of them was snoring, Leon couldn't tell who. That left two. Where were Mia and Brian? They'd been on the other side of Jesse, before.
Leon tugged on his ear and yawned as he twisted around to see if they were behind him somewhere. Nope.
Any other time, he'd figure whatever they were doing was none of his business and go back to sleep. But with Brian hurt and the day they'd all had…Leon shoved his covers the rest of the way off and clambered to his feet. Jesse stirred and he leaned down, sighing as he tugged the blanket that had wound up mostly around his hips up and down so it covered him, then smoothed a hand over his forehead.
Today…Leon didn't even know what to think about today. He hadn't ever been even half as scared before, except maybe when his dad had wrecked his bike. Only, it half felt like a dream too. Unreal.
It took him a minute to get moving again. It was hard walking away from Jesse.
There was a little bit of light shining from Vince's room and, as Leon got closer, voices. Even knowing he was going to see it, it was still a surprise to find Brian and Mia in there.
That Brian and Vince were giving each other the stink eye? That wasn't surprising at all. It was getting kind of old, really.
"You guys having a party in here?" Leaning his shoulder up against the door jamb, Leon smirked when he got two jumps-Brian and Mia-and one middle finger-Vince-in response to his question.
"Couldn't sleep." Brian swallowed a yawn right after he said it, but Leon knew that sleepy didn't always translate to actual sleep. Mia was behind him on the ratty futon Vince used as a couch, playing with his hair where he'd propped his head on the cushion.
"So me and Mia are trying to talk the Buster into actually calling his Auntie." Vince chucked a cheeto at Brian at the end of his sentence and pegged him right on the nose. Brian flipped him off, no real fight behind it.
Snorting, Leon walked the rest of the way into the room and plopped himself next to Vince on the end of his bed. There was a scattering of already thrown cheetos around Brian's legs and he knocked his shoulder into Vince's. "Wasting good food."
Vince thrust the bag of cheetos at him, but otherwise stayed focused on Brian. "See, what you do is, you take your phone, you open it, you dial the number and then you just hold the phone to your ear until someone answers. Easy. Even for you."
"I hate your face." Brian said it so blandly, clearly exhausted, that it made it at least ten times funnier, Leon and Mia looking at each other as they burst out laughing.
"Back at you. Call her."
"Just because Vince is obnoxious doesn't mean he's wrong." Mia was still snickering a little and Vince pouted at her. "She's got to be so worried about you, thinking you were coming home and then instead you're just gone." Brian whined, a straight up, 'are you eighteen or eight?' whine, at that, dropping his head forward. Mia stretched her arm out to keep her hand in his hair, making a sympathetic noise back.
"She's gonna be mad."
"No shit, kid. You disappeared for three months." Leon shoved his shoulder into Vince's, hard this time, because true or not, that wasn't helpful.
"You want him to call her or not?"
Vince shoved back into him, then shrugged. "Not like she won't be even more happy than she is mad, Buster. Real happy, and real relieved." And shit, for Vince that comment was downright thoughtful and measured.
Brian's hand inched towards his pocket, but then he shook his head. "It's the middle of the night, I don't want to wake her up."
Vince groaned and slumped over backwards on the bed. "Why are you so dumb? Is it the concussion? Or were you always a moron?" Brian scooped a cheeto off his lap and flung it at Vince. And missed by a mile.
That, Leon thought, might be from the concussion.
"I ran away once," he said quietly, "when I was about Jesse's age." Brian turned his head to look at Leon. Curious, but not entirely sure why Leon was telling him.
"I remember that. Your dad and Mama made posters and we put them up everywhere. Papa and him would leave on the weekends, drive around looking for you." Mia had just been a little kid then, 9 or 10. Leon had had some idea that if he found his mom, if he could get her to tell him why she left, understand it…but that wasn't the point.
"I was gone for nearly two months. Showed back up on our porch at two in the morning. Stinking like ass from mostly washing up in gas station bathrooms. Stoned as shit, 'cause I'd been nervous and thought it would help."
"What'd he do?" Brian's voice was quiet, looking to the side as he asked.
"Hugged me. Hugged me a lot. Cried. Asked what he'd done to make me leave." That had been hard to hear. He'd been as narrow sighted and selfish as any hurting child, and while Leon had known his dad would be worried, he hadn't expected him to blame himself. "Yelled some. But mostly hugged me. Kept me close for a long while after that, if I wasn't with him or with Uncle Garret I was at school, here, or at the garage."
Snorting, Vince filled in, "Yeah, the prodigal son was grounded for forever."
"Nobody was angry with Leon, really. Just worried he'd take off again." Leon didn't know that Mia was right about that. It was more like the anger just wasn't that important, in the end. Not compared with making sure he wanted to stay. That he knew where his home was. "...we felt more like a family after that. All of us together, I mean."
That was true too. Sure, he'd been hanging around with Vince and Dom for a long while then, bringing Jesse to the garage most weekends. Mia and Letty had always been around too, either best friends or best enemies depending on the day and how hard it was for Mia to drag Letty away from the nearest engine. Jakob…it was still hard to think about Jakob, about the not knowing, but he'd been there, quiet half the time and being a shit the rest-unless someone outside their group was fucking with them or the girls and then he was instantly on their side, ripping into enemies with a tongue that could be just as vicious as Dom's fists ever were.
But it'd been a separate thing from his family; Dad, Jesse, and Uncle Garret.
After that…they'd been one. Loud, messy, always together, taking up three tables at restaurants.
Until Mama Toretto got sick. And everything had changed again.
"...You guys really think I should call her right now?"
"Yes. Mia, are you sure you shouldn't be checking the Buster's head again? We keep having the same conversation."
"Leon?" Mia asked and he obligingly leaned back to grab one of Vince's pillows and smack him in the face with it. "Thank you."
"Not cool!"
"No, hilarious," Leon told him, chuckling as Vince batted it off his face. Vince pointed two fingers at his eyes, then turned his hand around and pointed them at Leon.
"When you ain't expecting it…" He let his threat trail off, then shoved the pillow under his head. So really, Leon had done him a favor, getting him something to lay on.
"And, yes, Bri, we all think you should call your auntie. We aren't going to make you, though." Brian shifted, leaning a little away from Mia's hand. He finally pulled his phone out of his pocket and held it unopened.
"Uh, is Jesse still sleeping okay?" A change of subject, but with the way Brian had stayed glued to Jesse's side most of the night, something he badly wanted to know.
"I wouldn't be in here if he wasn't."
Brian nodded, turning his phone over in his hand. He was getting close to calling, Leon was sure. "I can tell her Rome is probably coming home. Auntie Nelle will want to know that." None of them said anything, not wanting to stop Brian psyching himself up.
He opened the phone. Dialed a number. And put it to his ear.
About damn time.
It rang, loud enough they could hear it on this end. Three times and no answer, before the answering machine clicked on. "Hey, Auntie. It's Brian-" Brian stopped, and then he was nodding his head, saying, "Yeah, yeah, it's me. I'm okay. I am, I promise. I promise." He hesitated for a second, looking around the room, "Uh, I'm in LA."