Work Text:
Brian and Dom were on the same bench by the taco truck - the same one they’d been sitting on for the last few weeks.
"You should come on Sunday."
Dom’s voice was deliberately neutral, like he was trying not to make it into a bigger thing than it was.
Brian froze, food halfway to his mouth.
His brain felt numb. Can’t was his first thought. Maybe came right after - quickly overridden by self‑preservation.
"I don’t think that’s a good idea," he said finally.
"Why not?" Dom asked, as if it weren’t obvious.
Brian could think of a hundred reasons. A thousand. Because Vince probably still hated him. Because Mia would be polite but distant. Because Letty would look at him like she could see straight through his skull to all the damage underneath.
Because Jesse was dead.
Because Dom had told him Leon left.
Because he didn’t belong there.
"Busy," Brian said, closing his eyes, grimacing at how stupid it sounded.
"Busy. And what’s the real reason?" Dom’s voice was low, patient. Like he had all day to wait for an answer.
"I told you-"
"No, you gave me bullshit. Try again."
Brian set his food down on his knees harder than necessary. "They don’t want me there, Dom."
"I want you there."
"That’s not-" Brian stopped, ran his free hand through his hair. Shit. Dom was doing that again - making Brian believe in things he shouldn’t let himself believe in. "It’s not the same thing."
"Why not?"
"Because it’s your family. Not mine. I don't belong there."
Dom was quiet for a moment. "Six o'clock. You know where the house is." He stood, tossing the empty plastic bag into the trash before Brian could argue.
Brian stayed on the bench with the rest of his food in his hands, not hungry anymore.
He should come up with an excuse - work on a Sunday, or being sick - anything that would get him out of this.
Instead, he watched a leaf tumble along the sidewalk in front of him, carried by the wind far from its tree, drifting farther and farther, until it landed in a pile of other dead leaves on the ground.
Not alone anymore.
:::
Brian sat in his car outside the Toretto house for fifteen minutes, engine off, hands gripping the steering wheel.
Through the fence, he could see people moving around - Letty carrying a cooler, Vince working the grill.
He could still leave. Start the engine, pull away, send Dom an apology text later.
Then the front door opened and Dom stepped onto the porch, and their eyes met through the windshield. Dom didn’t wave, didn’t smile. He just stood there, arms crossed, waiting.
Shit, too late. Brian turned the key and killed the engine, then climbed out.
"Thought maybe you’d changed your mind," Dom said as Brian came up the walk.
"Still might." Brian shoved his hands into his pockets, shoulders hunched like he was bracing for impact.
Dom’s mouth twitched - not quite a smile, but close. "Come on."
The backyard was bigger than Brian remembered - but not big enough for his nerves to settle. String lights hung between the house and the garage, not lit yet but ready for when the sun went down. A long table was set.
Vince was at the grill, flipping burgers. He looked up when Brian and Dom came through the gate, his expression neutral.
"Vince," Dom said, "you remember Brian."
"Yeah." Vince’s tone gave nothing away. "I remember."
Brian nodded once, not trusting himself to speak. The last time he’d seen Vince, the guy had been bleeding out and hating his guts.
"Beer’s in the cooler," Vince said finally, turning back to the grill.
It wasn’t welcome, but it wasn’t hostility either. Brian would take it.
Letty came out from inside carrying a bowl of potato salad. When she saw Brian, she stopped short. Her eyes flicked to Dom, then back to Brian, something unreadable passing over her face.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey."
She set the bowl on the table, wiping her hands on her jeans. "Didn’t think you’d actually show."
"Me neither." Brian shrugged. "Dom’s persuasive."
Or Brian was weak. Or both.
"That’s one word for it." There was almost warmth in her voice, buried under layers of caution. She grabbed two beers from the cooler and handed one to Brian. "Here. You look like you need it."
Brian took it, the bottle cold and slick with condensation. "Thanks."
Mia came out of the house next, carrying a tray of corn on the cob. She saw Brian and her steps faltered - just for a second. Then she smiled, small and uncertain, but real.
"Brian. It’s good to see you."
Out of everyone, Mia’s kindness hurt the most. Because it was genuine. Because she’d always been the one who saw the good in people, even when they didn’t deserve it. She’d always put her family’s safety ahead of her grudges, willing to forgive lies and omissions if she understood why they’d been made.
"You too," Brian managed.
The evening settled into an awkward rhythm. Brian stayed on the edges, nursing his beer and watching. Dom was laughing at something Mia said, checking on Vince’s progress at the grill. But every few minutes, his gaze drifted back to Brian, like he was making sure he hadn’t bolted.
"You’re making him nervous," Letty said, appearing at Brian’s elbow.
Brian glanced at her. "What?"
"Dom. You’re standing over here like you’re about to run, and it’s making him twitchy." She took a swig of her beer. "Sit down. Eat something. Stop acting like you’re at a funeral."
"Feels a little like a funeral."
His own funeral, maybe - if one of them ever decided to act on what they probably might be thinking. Bury him alive. They were just too polite to do it in front of Dom.
"Yeah, well, to the guy brooding off to the side, everything looks like a funeral." Her tone was almost teasing. Almost friendly. "For what it’s worth, he talks about you. A lot."
Brian’s throat tightened. "He shouldn’t."
"Probably not. But he does anyway." Letty studied him for a moment, her dark eyes sharp. "You gonna keep punishing yourself forever, or you gonna actually try?"
Before Brian could answer, Dom called everyone to the table.
:::
Dinner was… not terrible.
Brian ended up between Dom and Mia, which felt like deliberate placement. Mia was easy to talk to - genuinely curious, genuinely worried - and she asked questions about the shooting range. Across the table, Vince was quieter than usual, but he passed Brian the potato salad without being asked. Big gesture, by Vince's standards.
Letty filled the gaps with sarcastic commentary that had Dom rolling his eyes even as he grinned.
It felt surreal - sitting here with these people, eating their food, like the last three years hadn’t happened. Like Brian being undercover hadn't happened.
But it had happened. And everyone at the table knew it.
The empty chairs were proof of that, and Brian felt like a lousy thief.
"Still only eating tuna sandwiches?" Mia asked, and the conversation drifted dangerously close to nostalgia Brian would rather avoid. "Are crusts still your enemy?"
"I - yeah, tuna's still my favorite," Brian said, feeling sheepish. Tuna. No crusts. "And I don’t cut them off anymore."
That was half a lie. He bought bread without crusts. But when there were crusts, he ate them.
Usually. Unless he had a knife and was making the sandwich himself - which was most of the time.
Letty snorted. "Time’s passed. Hair’s short now. Remember when he was all sun‑kissed skin and pretty‑boy hair? Looked like he spent more time at the beach than in a car. We thought Dom had lost his mind," she went on, grinning now. "This surfer kid rolling up, talking about racing."
The look on her face suggested the memory wasn’t entirely painful, despite everything painful attached to it.
"I mean, I probably did spend more time on a board than racing a car," Brian said, then winced internally. Like he should’ve kept his mouth shut, like he’d forgotten for a second that he didn’t have the right to sound comfortable here. "But I wasn’t an amateur."
It was the longest thing he’d said all night.
"You were an amateur," Mia said, smiling. "But you learned fast."
The conversation shifted after that, drifting into other stories, and Brian felt something loosen in his chest. He kept waiting for things to go wrong, for the moment to crack - but it didn’t come.
He felt almost… accepted. Like they could look at him and see more than just the guy who’d betrayed them.
After dinner, Letty and Mia started clearing dishes, waving off Brian’s offer to help.
Too bad. Clearing plates and washing up meant staying busy. Busy meant focus, and focus meant his anxiety would ease, at least a little.
Vince caught Brian’s arm as he leaned back. "Hey."
Brian’s body stiffened.
"You saved my life," Vince said quietly. He hesitated, jaw working like the words didn’t come easily, his expression serious. "I was pretty fucked up at you for a while. For the lying. For people ignoring me when I was damn right. But…" Vince’s grip tightened briefly, then loosened. "We’re good. Okay? We’re good."
Brian nodded, not trusting his voice.
The last time he’d seen Vince, the guy had been bleeding out and hating his guts. But maybe, from Vince’s side of things, the last time he’d seen Brian was when Brian had saved his life.
Vince clapped him once on the shoulder and headed inside with the empty bottles.
Eventually, it was just Brian and Dom in the backyard.
Dom was cleaning the grill, scraping carbon from the grates.
"You didn’t have to invite me," Brian said finally. "And… they didn’t have to be nice."
"They weren’t being nice. They were being honest." Dom set the grill brush aside and turned to face him. "You think this was charity? Pity?"
"Wasn’t it?"
"No." Dom crossed the space and sat beside him. He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice had softened. "You think you don’t belong here. But that’s not your call to make."
"Dom-"
"Let me finish." Dom turned slightly toward him. "Three years ago, you walked into my life and flipped everything upside down. It hurt. But that was the bad part. The good part?" He exhaled slowly. "It felt like finding the other half of something I didn’t know was missing. It felt easy. It wasn’t just you doing a job - it was you." He stopped, something raw flickering across his face. "I drove away angry, and grateful, and too stupid to understand what it all meant. And then I spent three years wondering if I’d ever see you again."
Brian’s eyes burned. He blinked hard, fixing his gaze on anything but Dom.
"And then I saw you in that 7‑Eleven," Dom went on. "You looked like you hadn’t slept in days. Like you’d been beating yourself up for years. And I knew. I knew you’d been carrying all of it alone." His hand found Brian’s. "So no. This isn’t charity. This isn’t pity. This is me telling you that you matter. You might only see the wrong things you did, but I see the good ones. And you’re-" He paused, voice rough when he continued. "You’re family. If you want to be."
Brian couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. He felt the burn in the hollow space behind his ribs, the place where he’d convinced himself nothing good could ever take root.
"I don’t know how to do this," Brian said, turning toward him, his voice breaking on the last word.
"Neither do I." Dom’s hand slid to the back of Brian’s neck. "But I won’t give up."
Dom looked terrifyingly sincere - like he meant every word, like Brian being here mattered just as much as he said it did.
"I’m gonna fuck this up," Brian warned.
"Maybe."
"I’m gonna say the wrong thing. Do the wrong thing. Piss someone off."
"Definitely." Dom’s mouth quirked. "But you’ll show up. That’s what matters. We’ll handle the rest. You’re not alone anymore, Brian."
Brian wanted to argue. Wanted to list every reason this was a bad idea, why Dom should protect his family from the damage Brian would inevitably bring.
But sitting there, with Dom’s hand warm at the back of his neck and the lingering weight of a dinner where people had actually talked to him, Brian felt something shift.
A way toward redemption and forgiveness. Maybe.
His throat was too tight to speak. Instead, he nodded once - sharp, decisive.
Dom’s grip tightened briefly. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." Brian swallowed hard. "I’ll… I’ll try."
"That’s all I’m asking."
They sat in silence after that. From inside the house came the muted sounds of Mia and Letty laughing about something, dishes clattering, life carrying on in all its messy, complicated way.
"Come inside," Dom said, standing. "Grab a beer."
Brian nodded, and they went in together. He followed Dom through the door, into the warmth and the noise and the terrifying, beautiful possibility of belonging. His chest still felt tight. His hands still trembled. He still didn’t know if he deserved any of this.
But Dom had said family.
Dom caught his eye across the kitchen and smiled - not his usual smirk or knowing half‑grin, but something open and real, meant only for Brian.
And Brian - despite the weight in his chest, the fear still clawing at his throat, the part of him that still wanted to run - smiled back.
:::
When he closed his eyes that night, alone in his shitty apartment, he didn’t reach for something that wasn’t there.
He reached for something - and it reached back.
:::
END