Dom's standing just inside the doorway, leaning back against the wall and watching as Brian pads on into the cabin ahead of him.
"Just, you know, make yourself comfortable," Brian says a little awkwardly, glancing back at him as he fishes a handful of clothes out of a big trunk under the window. "There's beer in the mini-fridge, or whatever." He straightens up, and Dom can't help noticing it doesn't have that usual ease about it that it usually does. Brian's usually so fluid, so smooth, but right now, he's acting like he's damn near arthritic.
That doesn't sit well with Dom. He's hoping the shower will help, but if not, he's thinking they might have to postpone their chat until after he's worked out some of that tension for him. Maybe even until he's gotten some sleep, because Dom doesn't think he's ever seen him looking so worn out.
And on that note, "Try not to fall asleep in there," he calls after him. Brian's just disappeared into a door off to the left in the back, and he's assuming it's the bathroom, because a few seconds later, the water cuts on.
Dom's thinking that means he has time to kill. Not that the Buster takes marathon showers or anything. At least, he didn't the times he crashed at the house. But at the pace he's moving, Brian's not gonna be breaking any speed records, and Dom would bet good money it's gonna take longer than his usual five minutes before he's coming out of that bathroom.
He doesn't mind. He knows damn well how good a hot shower can feel on sore muscles – it's mostly why he suggested it in the first place, because he knows, just from looking at him, at the way he's moving around, that Brian's sore as shit – and as far as he's concerned, if it helps, then he can take as long as he needs.
Besides, he's kind of curious about where Brian's been living while he's been here in Miami, and this gives him time to scope out the digs. First glance hasn't really been all that impressive, and as Dom pushes off the wall and walks farther into the houseboat, he's finding that the rest of the glances aren't all that much better.
To be fair, it's not a dump. He just thinks that Brian could do better, preferably to the tune of a two-story in Los Angeles with a garage and a master bedroom that's big enough for two. But that's a conversation for another time.
He knows it's not gonna be easy, getting Brian to just pack up and come back with him. The guy's too hardheaded, too independent. He's not gonna do what he doesn't want to do just because Dom's asking, and this isn't the kind of thing where Dom can make him. Dom needs him to want to come back. He needs him to want to come home.
They're headed in the right direction, though. Brian might be a little freaked out, but it's hard to tell how much of that is him, and how much of it is leftover nerves from that shit he was pulling with that psycho Verone. And Dom's gonna have to get the details on that, because the not-knowing's killing him. Wondering what kind of trouble Brian got himself into, wondering just what they made him do to stay out of handcuffs.
But he kissed him, and Brian kissed back, and that's a step in the right direction. Not that he was so much worried about that. Not really. Not after what Mia told him.
If anyone can bring him back, Dom, it's you, she said to him back in LA, just before he drove off from the race. It was always you.
The brother in him feels guilty for that, feels like he stole something from her, and that's never what he wanted to do. He wanted her to be happy. He wanted it so bad, he'd tried to ignore everything.
He'd lost that race before he'd even started his engine.
See, now, he knows better, and fuck, he must've been blind, because it took Mia telling him to figure it out. I was convenient for him, Dom, she told him one night, and that made his blood boil when she said it, but then she followed it up with, and he was convenient for me. And that changed things a little. I was his way in, and he was my way out. I thought I'd found someone outside your orbit, Dom. But it turns out, he was in closer than anyone.
And now he can see them. All the glances, all the smiles, all the touches that lingered just a little too long. He's never seen anyone burn as bright as Brian, and he got to thinking that some of that burning…it might've been for him.
That kiss on the dock settled it. Yeah, Brian's hardheaded as they come, and no, it's not gonna be easy to bring him back. It's gonna take some work.
Luckily, Dom's never minded getting his hands dirty.
Of course, that won't matter if Brian never gets out of the shower. It's been fifteen minutes already, and it's still going, which he guesses isn't all that impressive next to Mia's thirty-minute marathons, but he's kind of getting impatient.
He figures he'll give Brian another ten – make that five – minutes before he checks on him, and decides to keep himself busy looking around the place. It definitely isn't good enough for him, but then, he has to admit it kind of suits him. It's about fifty-percent thrifts store, fifty-percent auto shop, furniture included. There's car seats against the wall by the bed, and the steel tool box at the foot of his bed would look more at home in the bed of a truck. There's car parts scattered around the place, from filters and oil on the counter by his food to the supercharger sitting on a phonebook on the table, and Jesus, Dom thinks. Talk about taking your work home with you.
Not that he's surprised. He remembers a few times having to kick Brian out of the garage when they were working on the Supra, because the guy was so dead set on finishing something he forgot the time. He remembers catching him trying to smuggle out an alternator because he was this close to getting the rotor assembly right.
In hindsight, it's really kind of amazing he didn't realize how bad he had it for the buster sooner.
The surfboards are new, though, he thinks. Brian's got two of them leaning against the walls of the cabin, and it looks like they both have some wear in them. Looks like they got a lot of love, too; there's board wax and car wax sitting together on the table with a rag, a messed up credit card, and some packages of fiberglass cloth. It's clear he cares a lot about those boards, and Dom knows Brian takes care of what he loves. He respects that. He respects it a lot.
He's kind of curious, now. If Brian surfs like he drives, that same wild excitement, Dom can only imagine it's something to see. And it's not really his thing, but he happens to know there are some damn fine surf beaches in Los Angeles.
That'll have to wait, though. Brian's been in the shower for twenty minutes, now, and his time's up.
"Yo, Buster!" he calls as he makes his way to the back where the bathroom is. "You almost done in there?" There's no response, though, and he notices as he gets closer that there's no steam coming out through the door slats.
He has a thought.
"You've got to be shitting me." Without bothering with a warning, he pushes the door open. The lights on, the water's running, but it becomes pretty damn clear there's nobody home. It isn't until after he shuts the water off that he hears creaking from up above, and he looks up and sees the skylight open. "Damnit, Brian." He's always thought Brian acts a little like a monkey sometimes: the way he fights, with those long legs always hanging on; that time in Tran's garage, too, the way he'd dropped down from that beam like he was born to be ten feet up in the air. Part monkey, part golden retriever, all pain in the ass.
Dom, on the other hand, is more comfortable on the ground. And besides that, there's no way in hell he's going through that sky light. Brian's a wiry little bastard, so it's one thing for him to do it, but Dom's not even gonna try it. Especially not since there's stairs up to the roof of the boat just beside the bathroom wall.
The night air is surprisingly cool when Dom walks out onto the top of the boat. There's wind blowing in from the water, whipping that hammock around like a jump rope. He's got his jacket on, so he doesn't feel it, but he sees Brian, sitting over there on the far corner of the boat behind the table and chairs with his legs hanging over the edge, and he'd bet money that short sleeve button up isn't doing nearly as much to keep the wind out.
"How long you been up here?"
Brian doesn't jump at the sound of his voice, doesn't even turn around, but he does tense. He's worn the hell out, but damned if the buster's not wound up tighter than a thirteen-hour clock. Whatever mess he just finished with before Dom showed up, it's got him shaken. His whole posture practically screams 'proceed with caution.'
"Few minutes," Brian says, giving a one-sided shrug. His voice is even rougher than before, and Dom gets a feeling it's only going to get worse. Poor kid just can't catch a break. "I was comin' back in."
Dom nods, even though Brian's still got his back to him, and grabs one of the chairs at the table, swinging it around and straddling it. He's closer to Brian's level, now. Closer to Brian, period, and he knows that it's all about gradual. One step at a time. Slow and steady, and even though that's not Dom's usual philosophy, he thinks he can bend a little for Brian's sake.
"So, what's wrong, Brian?" Because even if he's taking this steady, he's doing it direct; pussyfooting around wouldn't do anything but piss Brian off.
Brian chuckles – it might actually be a cough; Dom can't tell – and shakes his head a little. "Nothing's wrong, man. Everything's copacetic."
"That's why you climbed out your skylight? Because everything's copacetic?" It's not actually a question, just his way of calling Brian on his bullshit. "Try again, Buster."
"What do you want me to say, Dom?" Brian says, and it sounds like it wants to be irritated, but it can't manage more than a tired sigh. Jesus, Christ, they really did put him through the ringer. "You want me to say I'm hiding from you? 'Cause I'm not. I don't hide from things, Dom. I face them head-on."
"Then why don't you face me?"
Brian's deflates a little at that. His head dips forward to rest against the rail, and a sigh too deep and weary for someone as young as Brian hits Dom's ears. "I just…needed to get my head on straight."
"Yeah?" Dom says. "And how's that working for you?"
Another chuckle. "Not so great," Brian admits wryly.
Dom figured as much. He knows it's a lot to spring on someone, and he knows his timing's for shit, but this…this has to happen, not just because Dom wants Brian close, but because he wants him safe. Happy. Home.
For now, though, he'll start with the first one. Pushing up out of the chair, he walks slowly, deliberately to the side of the boat where Brian's sitting, and he sits down next to him, folding his arms across the bar.
"There anything I can do to help?" he asks.
Brian glances over at him, and shit, Dom feels like someone's punched him in the gut. The look on Brian's face…his normal golden tan's gone pale, and his bright blue eyes are even brighter against the almost bruise-dark shadows around them. He just looks so tired, so torn, so miserable that it takes every ounce of self control Dom has not to wrap his arms around him right then and there.
But he doesn't. Later, he decides; there'll be time for it later. But right now, Brian's got some shit he needs to sort through, and Dom's thinking he wants space to do it.
For a long while, it's silent between them. Nothing but the sounds of the waves lapping against the sides of the boat, nothing but the cars humming on the streets.
But then, "You should hate me," Brian says finally. His voice is dead even, almost casual, and vaguely, Dom wonders if that should worry him. That's not it, though. It's not hollow, just matter-of-fact. No bullshit.
Dom respects him enough to return the favor. "A year and a half ago," he says, "I did." And he means that. Back when he was in Mexico on the run, it didn't matter that Brian had just let him go. He was just so angry.
He realizes now that, fueling the anger, was an awful lot of hurt.
"You lied to me, Brian. Lied to all of us, and you nearly tore my family apart." And Dom watches as Brian's throat bobs visibly, watches as he scrubs his hands roughly over his face.
"So, what changed, Dom?"
Dom shrugs. "A year and a half's a long time to think, Bri."
The nickname, he thinks, is what gets Brian's attention more than anything. He doesn't really care what it was, though; he's just glad when Brian finally turns and looks at him again, even if it is with confusion written all across his too-pale face.
He figures his smile's probably not helping the buster out a whole hell of a lot, but he's trying to make a point. This is a good conversation. He ain't about to grab him and throw him overboard. "And what I thought about," he continues, hoping to ease a little of that deer-in-headlights look Brian's got going on, "is that, in the end, you did right by all of us. You saved Vince and Jesse's lives, you had the balls to tell my sister the truth and set the record straight, and you kept my ass out of handcuffs again." The fact that he screwed his own life to hell to do it goes without saying, so Dom doesn't say it.
Anyway, he's not sure Brian needs any more to process. Jesus, he's actually starting to wonder if Brian's got a concussion or something, because he's sure as hell not firing on all eight cylinders. He still looks confused and…and kind of sad.
"I don't get it, Dom," he says. "Why are you here? Really?"
Dom's always tried to be a patient man, but if this was anyone but Brian, he would probably be losing it right about now. "I already told you why I'm here. I'm bringing you home."
"Yeah, but why?" Brian presses, and his eyes have finally got a little focus back in them. They're intense again – definitely not as much as they usually are, but this is a lot closer than that dazed look a few minutes ago. "Why do you care so much? Why did you drive all the way across the fucking country just to bring me back to LA?" He's not done; Dom can tell, but it looks like he's run out of fuel. He lets out this deep, bone-crushing sigh, and Dom doesn't think he's ever seen so much conflict in a single face before. "Why did you kiss me?"
And there it is. That's the question Dom's been waiting for.
"Why do you think?"
He's not trying to give Brian a hard time by asking; he's not trying to dodge the question. It's just…he knows damn well why he drove 3,000 miles to get here. It's the same reason his stomach felt like lead when he heard about Brian getting in with that bastard Verone; it's the same reason his lungs remembered how to work when he saw that golden hair and those bright baby blues.
It's the same reason his heart feels like it's finally beating right again, for the first time in a year and a half.
And he thinks that, whether or not he realizes it, whether or not he'll admit it to himself, Brian knows it too.
It takes a while. Seconds tick by like minutes, but for this, Dom will wait all night if he has to. Because Brian needs to understand this.
Mercifully, it doesn't come to that, and slowly, Dom can see it dawn on him. He can see those crazy blue eyes – and yeah, he's definitely got a thing with those eyes, but he's seen two oceans, now, and they don't even come close – start to light up again, timid at first, like he's not quite sure he believes what's in his head, but then faster, until they're practically shining.
Dom's smile widens. "Look at that. The Buster's catching u—"
Before he can finish getting the gibe out, there's a pair of lips on his, and he really, really doesn't mind the interruption. He just grins broader into the kiss and wraps his arms around Brian, pulling him closer until there's no more space between them.
It's gonna take some work, alright. But this – holding Brian in his arms, where he's always, always belonged – this is definitely worth it.