Work Text
Dragon tattoos are outlawed so, of course, almost everyone has one. They are the only way to tell if someone has a bonded drake. The dragon chooses its own appearance on the skin of its bonded. It may look tribal, smoke-like, realistic or like an impressionist rendition. There are as many options as there are drakes and bondeds.It’s considered taboo to ask anyone about the origins of their tattoo, whether bonded or ornamental in nature. It’s too personal. The only ones on any government reports are those who are bonded and are sent to prison or join the military. A dragon needs to stay healthy and has requirements, just as its bonded does.There aren’t as many drakes as there are humans, but nobody knows precisely how many humans are bonded to drakes. These are not the mythical dragons of faerie tales that are huge, cumbersome beasts. Most are small, birdsized. That size can vary from hummingbird to ostrich, though most are blue jay or parrot size.It is common knowledge that bonding with a drake gives you better health, though not an extended lifespan. They rely on their humans for better provisions and stronger, larger defenses. It’s rumored some humans have had other benefits, such as improved eyesight or hearing or increased reflexes. No one knows if those are true or just a rumor. All anyone knows for sure is that drakes choose their bondeds. It happens often enough for there to be laws about bonded pairs, but not so often seeing a drake with its bonded has lost its novelty.“Tuna on white, no crusts, right?” Mia asks as she straightens up from writing in her notebooks.“I don’t know, how is it?” Brian responds.“The last three weeks you’ve been coming in here asking how the tuna is. Now it was crappy yesterday, it was crappy the day before and guess what? It hasn’t changed.” Mia shakes her head. Brian smiles.“I’ll have the tuna.”“No crust?”“No crust.”
Dom gets up to get a drink, Brian’s eyes travel over him. They stare at each other for a brief moment until Dom turns away to sit back down at his desk.Mia turns Brian’s magazine around to see what he’s looking at, sees it’s a car magazine. They hear high-performance car engines coming their way and turn their heads toward the familiar sound.Letty, Leon, Vince, and Jesse all arrive and park in front of the market. They discuss Vince’s car for a few moments before Vince notices Brian’s work truck parked across the street. Leon begins talking shit while Letty tries calming things down. When the group enters the building, Mia is back to her studying and looks up, smiling for the group.Letty goes to the back to ask Dom if he wants something to drink. He merely holds his can up and she takes it as the dismissal it clearly is.Vince is staring at Brian and Mia is calling Vince’s name to get his attention.“What?”“Can I get you anything?”“You look good.”“Well, thanks a lot, Mia. See you tomorrow.”“Sure.”“Tomorrow?” Vince quietly questions.“I love this part.” Leon says.“Yo!” Vince gets up, goes after Brian. “Try Fatburger from now on. You can get yourself a double cheese with fries for 2.95, faggot.”“I like the tuna here.”“Bullshit, asshole. No one likes the tuna here.”“Yeah, well, I do.”Vince shoves Brian into his work truck. Brian instantly turns around and punches Vince and the fight is on.Mia sees the fight and turns to Dom, furious.“Jesus Christ, Dom! Would you get out there, please? I’m sick of this shit! I’m not kidding, Dom! Get out there!”Dom turns to see Brian punching Vince a couple times.“What’d you put in that sandwich?”“That’s really funny.”“Dom.” Letty is indignant he’d let one of their own wait for interference this long, Jesse is worried and Leon is chill as always.“All right.” Damn, he hates always having to be their own personal guard dog, set on people whenever they wanted and restrained or collared the rest of the time. He’d much rather be peaceful and chill like Leon pretended to be when he wasn’t starting shit.He strode through the store purposefully and plucked Brian up from on top of Vince where he was beating his face in and threw him on top of a car. Brian put his hands up to show he was done.“Hey man, he was in my face.”“I’m in your face.”Vince tries to attack again, through Dom. Dom shoves him off.“Relax! Don’t push it! You embarrass me!” Leon pulls Vince back.Dom asks Jesse for the wallet in an almost gentle tone.“‘Brian Earl Spilner’. Sounds like a serial killer name. Is that what you are?”“No, man.”“Don’t come around here again.”“Hey, man, you know this is bullshit.”“You work for Harry, right?”“Yeah, I just started.”“You were just fired.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Hey, Dominic, I appreciate what you did in a big way. Dominic, I owe you.” Harry gets off the phone.“What did Dominic say?” Brian asks as he washes his face.“You don’t wanna know.”“What did Dominic say?”“He wants you out of here.”“He wants me out of here?”“Yes!”“And what did you say to Dom?” as Brian changes his shirt.“What do you think I said? I told him good help is hard to find.”Later that night, at the abandoned warehouses, gathered all the brightly colored cars ready for show and some for racing. Brian drove his in and parked it, getting out and standing awkwardly by it. A bald, mustached Hispanic man introduced himself as Hector I-can’t-pronounce-my-last-name. He called Brian a snowman and made a joke about him having a typical white boy name, but it was all in good fun.There was a shorter black dude that came up and asked about Brian’s car and gave a speech in reaction to Brian’s sarcasm until Dom and his team showed up. Then it was time for the real show to begin.Dom dictated the rules of the night.“One race. 2G buy-in. Winner takes all. Hector, you’re gonna hold the cash.”“Hey, wait, hold up. I don’t have any cash, but I do have the pink slip to my car.”“Hey you can’t just climb in the ring with Ali ‘cause you think you box,” Jesse objects.Brian points to Vince.“He knows I can box. So check it out, it’s like this. I lose, the winner takes my car, clean and clear. But if I win, I take the cash, and I take the respect.”“Respect,” Dom scoffs.“To some people, that’s more important.”“That your car?” They inspect it.“So what do you say? Am I worthy?”“We don’t know yet. But you’re in. Let’s go.”Once they get clearance to begin the race, Toretto takes off first from the line, his response time is amazing. Brian is last and kinda shaky. Brian presses his first NOS to get ahead of Edwin and the other guy and presses the second NOS to pass Dom. Dom presses his own NOS and wins the race. Brian makes a shaky stop, turned around, panting and addicted for life.Brian drives up to Dom and gets out, baring his broadest smile.“What are you smiling about?”“Dude, I almost had you.”“You almost had me? You never had me. You never had your car. Ask any racer, any real racer. It doesn’t matter if you win by an inch or a mile. Winning’s winning.”“Oh, shit! We got cop, cops, cops, cops! Go!” Leon alerts the crowd, which immediately disperses like cockroaches under a light.Vince rushes off with Mia.“Dom, get in the car! Go!” Jesse insists.Brian settles his eyes on Dom and follows him.Dom pulls his car into a parking garage and walks along the sidewalk, putting his jackets on. He just happened to be recognized by a cop and instinctively ran away across the street and down the alley where Brian’s lime green Eclipse came running full tilt beside him and paused.“Get in!”“You are the last person in the world I expected to show up. You drive like you’ve done this before. What are you, a wheelman?”“No.”“You boost cars?’A brief pause.“No, never.”“Ever done time?”“A couple of overnighters, no big deal.”“What about the two years in juvie for boosting cars? Yeah, I had Jesse run a profile on you Brian Earl Spilner. So why bullshit?”“So what about you?”“Two years in Lompoc. Valor and me’ll die before we go back.”“I wasn’t bonded in juvie,” Brian says quietly.The buzz of crotch rockets can be heard outside the car as they surround the vehicle and a gun taps on Brian’s door.“Follow me,” he’s told.“Oh, great,” Dom groans out.“What?” Brian questions as he follows the motorcycles to an abandoned parking lot.“It’s going to be a long-ass night, that’s what.”When they park and step out, Brian’s space is invaded by a little ugly staring Asian dude with an automatic weapon and snakeskin pants he later finds is named Lance. This monstrosity is cousin to the tall, somewhat cruelly handsome Asian dude that has been yammering on about the ownership of the Eclipse and the work that’s been put into it. He’s obviously used to his every word being hung on, but is probably just a run of the mill bully with daddy issues.By the time he’s finished running off at the mouth and ridden off, Brian feels his skin is crawling from Lance’s perusal.Then Lance and Johnny come back and shoot up the car, making it explode with blue flames from the NOS tanks within.“So what the hell was that all about?”“It’s a long story.”“Well, we got a 20-mile hike. Humor me.”“A business deal that went sour. Plus, I made the mistake of sleeping with his sister.”Once they arrived at Dom’s house via taxi, Brian began walking off.“Yo, Spilner. You want a beer?”“Yeah, sure.”When they entered, Dom was understandably not a happy camper. Vince was playing guitar to a blonde chick. Letty was sprawled on the floor playing a video game. And Leon was sitting with another blonde chick in his lap.“Yo, Dom. Hey, man. We was just about to go looking for you, brother,” Leon quickly states with a scared look on his face. Dom slaps the beer bottle out of his hand.Dom steps over to Vince.“Where were you?”“There were mass cops there. They came in from every direction. That shit was orchestrated.”“You all right?” Letty asks.“Am I all right?” Dom repeats.“It’s just a question.”“Yo, Dom! Why’d you bring the buster here?” Vince hollers.“‘Cause the buster kept me out of handcuffs! He didn’t just run back to the fort! The buster brought me back.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“All right, what the hell is this? What do you got there?”“This is your car.”“My car? I said you owe me a 10-second car, not a 10-minute car.”“No faith. Pop the hood.”“2JZ engine.” Jesse is delighted.“We’ll put the parts on my tab at Harry’s. I gotta get you racing again so I can make some money off your ass. There’s a showdown in the desert called Race Wars and that’s where you’ll do it. When you’re not working at Harry’s, you’re working here. If you can’t find the right tool in this garage, Mr. Arizona, you don’t belong near a car.”“He owns you now,” Mia informs Brian as she passes by him.Grill’s going and the Toretto team cars come barrelling up the driveway. Dom and Brian come out to see who’s arrived.“I’m outta here,” Vince indicates once he spies Brian.“At least leave Daytona for Abbi,” Letty insists, to no avail.Brian asks Dom who Daytona and Abbi are. Dom answers by taking off his shirt and nudging his tattoo until Valor blinks and peels off, becoming a full size dragon, perched on Dom’s shoulder.“This is Valor.”“I love his eyes. Do you mind if I…?” Brian gestures to his own shirt.“That’s what Sundays are all about. Family.”“Well, mine’s a bit...unusual.” Brian takes off his shirt and whistles a certain tone and calls out his drake’s name. And then...two different drakes appear.“How do you have two?”“They came that way. They’re mated. This is Treble and this Bedlam. Treb and Beddy for short.”“Daytona is Vince’s drake and Abbi is Abigail, Mia’s drake. They had hatchlings together last spring. I think that’s one of the reasons Vince is so gone on Mia. He wants them to match up like their drakes did.”Valor, Treble, and Bedlam all begin to circle each other and take each other’s scent in. Everyone just let them do whatever they’re going to do.“Hey, Dom, do you mind leaving a piece or two of meat unsauced for Treb to give to Beddy? She doesn’t eat raw anymore. She’s given that up and he’s only giving her what he knows she’ll eat.”“As any good provider will do. Of course. No problem.”Everyone watched as Valor picked up the best of the fruit and the best of the salad and offered it to Beddy and Treble both. They inspected it, looked at each other and fed the food to each other, then offered bites to Valor. He looked ready to pass out from joy, his wings were practically buzzing from giddiness.“Oh, wow. I think he wants to be part of their mating. I didn’t know they mated in trios,” Brian breathed out quietly.“I don’t think they do, typically. I think this is pretty rare. I’ve never heard of it happening before,” Dom answered just as quietly, from right beside him, almost in his ear.“So are Abbi and Daytona just nested or mated?”“What do you mean ‘just nested’?”“Well, if they had hatchlings but aren’t mated, they won’t get together again. It was just for procreation. If they mated, they’ll have mating marks, like these guys have.”“Oh, well I guess they just nested, then. Man, Vince is not going to be happy to hear that.”They set the drakes all up on one table with their own food and called Mia out to bring Abbi to join the others. Then the humans all sat down to their own meal. Jesse was the first one to reach in to grab anything, so was forced to say grace for the table. He prayed to the car gods. It was beautiful.It was about this time that Vince showed back up in the backyard, shuffling his weight from side to side. He seemed nervous and unsure about his welcome, as he should be considering the tantrum he threw when he left.“I thought you wasn’t hungry, pumpkin,” Leon poked.“Oh, well, you know, I gotta eat. And Daytona wanted to see Abbi.”“He’s always hungry,” Letty joined in.“All right, come on. Get Daytona settled and get some grub,” Dom ordered. Vince rubbed his shoulders and kissed the back of his head as he passed by, in a seeming apology, though he glanced up at Brian while he did so.“Hey, there’s an extra drake! Somebody get bonded while I was gone?” Vince asked excitedly.“Nope. Treble and Bedlam are Brian’s. They’re mated,” Dom informed him.“Like Abbi and Daytona? Hey pass that chicken, would you?”“Turns out Abbi and Day just nested, they didn’t mate. They won’t have any more hatchlings together, according to Brian.”“And how does he even know?”“You heard him say I have a mated pair. But what about the fact that Abbi won’t give Day the time of day anymore, besides for playtime? She doesn’t share food with him anymore, does she? Or fall asleep with or near him? In other words, he got friend-zoned. And he’ll never get out of it.”“On a lighter note, it seems like Valor may be trying to horn in on Treble and Bedlam’s mating,” Dom reported.“What, so he’s causing trouble, trying to break it up? I don’t hear any fighting.”“No, he’s trying to get with both of them. He wants to join them. I think he’s smitten.”“I don’t know which one of us was more gobsmacked by it at first, honestly. Me, watching my two innocent drakes get visually molested or Dom, watching his strong dragon go all googly-eyed for a girl and a boy drake.”“Hey, it don’t matter the make, I can appreciate a fine body, too.” A round of laughter lights up the whole table, except Vince, who just shakes his head.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It was only years later, once Dom and Brian had finally gotten together in an intimate way that they were each given the mating bite by the three mated drakes they were bonded to. This allowed them to be connected in an especially deep way that nobody else knew about, not even their closest allies. They could read each other's minds through the magic of the dragons' bond. It took a bond of three to be powerful enough and the ones they were bonded to to be mated and compatible enough and open enough for it to work.That's the only way they could have pulled off pulling that vault behind them in tandem in Rio. That's why Brian was willingly in a car with no brakes flying between skyscrapers with Dom. They lived or died together.