by
DevilChild
Fandom: The Fast and The Furious
Rating: For Mature Readers
Pairing: Dom/Bri; Bri/Mia
Author's Note: A TF&TF High School AU inspired by an onlist challange. Thanks to Dawn and Bone for the beta. Thanks to Khal for additional helpful commentary.
Copyright and Disclaimer: The Fast and The Furious and the characters from it are creations of Gary Scott Thompson, Eric Bergquist, and David Ayer. I make no claims their ownership or creation. This bit of not for profit modern folklore (thank you Prof. Jenkins) is mine.
By the time Thursday rolled around, Brian had actually noticed a teensy bit of improvement in his leg. He still needed both boot and crutches, but he figured he might actually start getting a bit of use out of it come the weekend, and maybe in a week or so, he could go without crutches all together.
Jesse squirmed and jittered next to him on the stands. Mia couldn't make it -- she had a group project for her World History class -- and Nick had to mind the store. Vince had been called in to work, plenty pissed about it, too. After seeing the disappointment and resignation on Vince's face as he huffed out of the gym, Brian vowed he would never take an on-call job.
Vince had been half-babysitting Jesse, and now that job fell to Brian. On the other side of the gym, Brian spotted Johnny Tran sitting next to an older guy Brian assumed must be his father. He saw the moment that Johnny's venom filled eyes spotted Jesse, and felt his rage begin to build. Brian glanced down at the RHS team, and saw that Leon and Dom had looks of their own for Johnny. Both also had a glare for a wrestler on the opposing team that could only be Lance Ngyuen.
Brian studied Lance. Shorter than Leon, but stockier. He looked nothing like his cousin.
The whistle blew, and the first wrestlers, the 98 pounders, walked on to the mat. It would be at least another hour until Leon and Dom went.
As the boys on the mat began their flips and tumbles, Jesse began telling Brian all the moves the two made, as well as pointing out what they would most likely do next, or the mistakes they made. The two guys moved so fast that Jesse could barely finish one thought before it was time to switch to the next. Brian chuckled a bit at this. At last, something that moved too fast for Jesse's mouth to keep up. Despite his scatterbrained nature, Dom and Leon had taught him well. Jesse didn't have to think about what he wanted to say -- just knew it.
"You dying to be the next 98 pound weakling?" Brian teased.
"They're not weak," Jesse interjected hotly, "just little, and they move a lot faster than the big guys, too. And I'm not going in at 98. I'll lift lots of weights over the summer and then I'll start at 105."
Brian smiled and gave Jesse a noogie. "And what if I show you how cool soccer is and all the chops I have with a ball?"
"Nah. Wrestling's cooler -- see, he's going to cradle him!"
Neither team had a weight forfeit. Some of the matches went quickly -- one wrestler using his superior skill (and sometimes dumb luck) to quickly dispatch an opponent. But funner still were the more evenly matched competitors, the matches that took all 3 rounds before somebody could claim victory. Endurance came into play on these, as well as skill and strength.
Despite what he had seen Dom and Leon doing, Brian cringed at some of the holds, falls, and flexes he saw. He wondered how Dom and Leon went to practice three times a week and didn't emerge as cripples. And then there were all the nosebleeds. One guy from RHS actually had to forfeit his match because they couldn't get his nose to stop bleeding in the time allowed. The more Brian saw, and the more Jesse told him, the more Brian began to understand how dangerous wrestling really was, and how, despite all of its rules and regulations, it really wasn't that far removed from a martial art. Some of those takedowns could really be used to hurt a person if done on pavement, especially if the person didn't know how to land right. And yes, given the right timing and leverage, even little Jesse could get Johnny Tran on the ground, or, at least wriggle away from somebody who had tackled him.
Finally, to several loud shouts of "Go, Soap!" Leon strode on to the mat. His singlet showed his bull dog physique to perfection. Brian hoped he wasn't staring too openly, but, damn, Leon was ripped and looked amazing. Brian turned his camera on and snapped a few stills. He had a 512 mb flash card, so he would have plenty of room left over to get a little video.
Brian observed that despite the fact that they both weighed 180, because he was shorter, Lance was more muscular than Leon and if he made 180 it was by the skin of his teeth.
Jesse replied, "Yeah, Leon's wrestled Lance lots of times, and he always beats him, but if Lance made weight the right way, it's not going to be easy. If he just squeaked in today, then he'll be too wrung out to wrestle well. Dom says that Coach Frame is a good coach because he never assigns a weight. Some coaches do."
Brian looked at Jesse.
Jesse explained, "Some coaches will tell you what weight they want you to wrestle at and will only let you go if you make their weight. They won't even let you wrestle off at a higher weight. It's the weight they want you to be or nothing at all." His voice lowered to a whisper, "Some guys have died trying to force themselves to make weight. Dehydrated. And if they do squeak into making a weight, they're too thirsty and hungry and tired to do well on the mat."
It became clear that Lance had made his 180 the right way, but it also took Brian all of 30 seconds to be reminded of what Leon had that Lance did not. Despite his size, Leon had the flexibility and speed of the flyweight wrestlers. Lance had skill, and even scored a couple of falls against Leon, but he could never get Leon for a pin; Leon always escaped or reversed. And, although Lance managed two escapes, he never put a reversal on Leon. With five seconds to go in the second round, Leon cross-faced and pinned him. Brian got it on camera.
"Way to go, Soap!" Jesse yelled along with half the stands and several of the RHS wrestlers. Dom high-fived Leon, who took the victory in his typical low key manner.
Two more weight classes stood between Leon and Dom. Brian found himself wringing his hands and wriggling in his seat almost as much as Jesse from anticipation.
The first wrestler swiftly won his match. The second won after a long struggle, the pin coming only after his tired and trembling muscles could no longer hold off his opponent's leverage and body weight. Which meant both teams were tied as Dom took the mat.
Brian put his camera to his face and studied Dom's sleek, panther-like body through the viewfinder. According to Jesse, on a lot of teams, the heavyweight wrestler was simply the fattest kid who showed up and survived training. Not so with Dom. Not in the least.
"Get 'em, Dominator!" several people near Brian yelled.
"He hates that nickname," Jesse whispered.
"Oh yeah? I'll have to remember to tell him it could be worse."
"Really?! How?"
Brian smirked, "They could be calling him Dominatrix."
Jesse looked up at him. "What's a dominatrix?"
Oh hell.
"Uh ..." Brian's mind scrambled feverishly to think of something to say as Dom and Eddie Carver took the mat and shook hands. "If you have to ask, you'll never know," he deadpanned.
"But if I don't ask, how else will I find things out?" Jesse pouted.
Groan.
"Look, I'll tell you later." Brian said, hoping that Jesse would forget.
Dom and Carver went into their crouches, waiting for the referee's whistle.
The way that Dom had talked about this match, Brian expected to see him explode at the whistle and slam Carver to the mat. Wam, bam, thank you ma'am. Instead, the two wrestlers circled each other, feinting, making hand-blocks, neither wanting to make a serious commitment.
Leaning over to Jesse, Brian asked, "How good is this guy?"
Jesse shrugged. "Don't know. He's a sophomore. This is his first time varsity. Dom might have seen him in some JV stuff, but ...."
The ref blew his whistle and cautioned both wrestlers for stalling. Again they squared off, eyes locked on each other, circling, everything else in the gym zoned out, and, just as the ref had grasped his whistle yet again, whip fast, Carver stuck. Snatching Dom's hands, he pivoted on his hip, slamming Dom to the mat. The entire gym, it seemed, winced in sympathy at the impact.
"Okay, he's good," Jesse said in a small voice.
And, as the two of them grappled on the mat, as Brian held his camera up and took a few shots, why did he feel that Dom was somehow going through the motions? That this was a --
Brian didn't get a chance to complete the thought. Lighting fast, Dom pulled a reverse and controlled the match from then on out. When Carver finally clawed his way to an escape, Dom swiftly snatched his legs out from under him.
The whistle blew, signaling the end of the period.
"Saved by the bell," Jesse said.
To Brian's surprise, when the match resumed, Dom took the down position.
"It's to do with points," Jesse explained. "Dom thinks he can get a reverse or an escape in before Carver scores a takedown."
"I'd still go with being on top."
"Yeah, but you don't know shit about wrestling or psyching-out a guy."
Sure enough, Dom rolled out of his opponent's attempt at a takedown and scored the reverse, but couldn't quite manage a takedown of his own. Eddie Carver had sheer tenacity and a certain raw skill that prevented Dom from getting an easy pin. Even Brian had to admire the way that Carver rolled out of Dom's attempt to get him with a Half-Nelson and scored an escape.
As the two once again circled each other to the cheers of the crowd, Brian's zoom showed a grim half-smile on Dom's face. Carver was no easy meat, but Dom's expression suggested that he had something up his sleeve while Carver simply looked frustrated and wary.
Brushing aside an attempt to shoot for his legs, Dom shot in himself and within seconds, scored the takedown. A few moves after that, Dom had both of his arms locked through Carver's. Brian found himself on his feet, screaming, because if Eddie had the speed and flexibility to spin out of this, well, call him Houdini.
Nope.
Dom walked around, completing the Double Arm Bar.
The ref thumped the mat.
It was over, Dom and RHS had won!
The ref had barely finished raising Dom's hand when people began pouring out of the stands on to the floor to congratulate the RHS players.
Brian let the people thunder by before hopping his way down the stairs. A part of him longed to go and join the crowd of well wishers whooping it up with the team, but he also didn't like the idea of forcing his way through the press of people. Besides, Dom was his ride home, so he was going to get time with the man of the hour no matter what.
Man of the hour. No, not really, Brian thought as he crutched his way out of the gym, Jesse at his side. Brian had taken a look at his journal the other night. A lot about Dom. A lot. More about Dom and the things they did together than stuff about Mia.
Brian liked writing down stuff in his journal. It always listened. It was a way to let off steam, to sit down and work things through. But always nagging at the back of Brian's brain was the fear of working things a little too through, he might come to a conclusion he didn't want.
(Like that he could fall in love with Dominic Toretto.)
Mia was still the coolest girlfriend ever, but Brian knew he didn't love her, and wondered if he ever would. For starters, beyond schoolwork, Dom, or whatever things they planned to do with the rest of the team, they had almost nothing to talk about. Brian admitted to himself that the reason he had not yet bought a ticket to the winter formal lay in the fact that the idea of spending an evening alone with Mia scared him shitless. What would they say? What would they do? When he thought about it, Brian realized that he had spent very little time alone with Mia.
Nor did he particularly want to.
The thought stopped him in mid swing.
Mia had many wonderful things about her, but being alone with her ... it just wasn't as natural, as easy, as right as spending time with Dom.
To top everything off, he'd caught himself thinking about Dom that way. A few nights ago, Brian had dreamed about Dom's hands, the way they felt, about returning the favor.
A yelp interrupted Jesse's motormouth stream of chatter, jolting Brian out of his introspective funk.
"You always play watchdog to Junior?" Johnny Tran stepped forward.
Planting himself firmly, Brian asked, "What do you want?"
Johnny looked at Jesse and said, "I want my motherfucking money."
"Yeah?" Brian snapped, "What do you want Jesse to do? Hand over his lawn mowing money?"
"Keep out of this, Blondie."
"As soon as you stop hassling a kid who's not even old enough to drive." Brian raised his voice, causing a few of the bystanders to glance their way.
"His father ripped me off! Made me and my family lose face!" Tran screamed.
"No, dude, you and yours lost money and that sucks, but if Jesse's father ripped you off, well, the problem's between you and him and he's the asshole. But if you keep laying into a fourteen year old kid over this, you're a fucking asshole, too."
Tran ignored him and hissed at Jesse, "Tell your dad that I want my money, or I'm going to get really pissed."
"He doesn't have it!" Jesse shrieked in a burst of tears. "He put it in his fucking arm, okay?!"
"Fifteen thousand in his arm? That's a lot of dope."
"What the fuck do you think he was busted for? He put it in his arm, and some on the horses or the tables, and god knows how much he gave to whatever skank he was banging that week. Whatever he had left was evidence against him at the trial!" Jesse's shout bordered on hysteria. "There's nothing left to give you!"
A few people paused to see what all the shouting was about. "Nothing to see here, move on," one of Tran's hangers on said.
Most kept walking, but several people hung around as tense seconds ticked by.
"Fine." Tran bit the word off. "Too bad you can't choose your parents, isn't it?" He spun on his heel and left.
Brian pulled Jesse aside, over to the gym wall, saying nothing as Jesse furiously wiped his eyes and nose on the sleeve on his sweatshirt.
A mass of damp cold air had rolled into the LA basin, and Brian did nothing, said nothing for several moments, just watched their combined breaths make frosty plumes in the air. What could he say? "Gee, Jesse, I'm sorry." As if that would help. "Look, everything will be okay." Yeah, right. What a load of horseshit.
"Have you and Nick gone to the police?" The words spilled out of Brian's mouth before he could stop them.
Jesse looked back at him, his tear wet eyes seemed huge and vulnerable in the lights. "What?"
"Like file a report or something?"
"How the hell will that help? Cops never solve problems. They only come when it's too late."
Brian blinked, taken aback by the bitterness in Jesse's tone and the harsh reality of the words. "Um, just pretend I didn't say anything," he said, as much to himself as to Jesse.
Jesse didn't reply.
Shifting from side to side on his crutches, Brian watched the people exiting the gym. They came in drips and dribbles now. He counted them, looked to see who had interesting faces, who was wearing white shoes. Anything to keep from thinking about what had just happened.
(Anything to keep his thoughts from returning to Dom, or his feelings, or how much those feelings frightened him.
Last Updated: 5/14/09