Still the Same -- Driver X FEM!Reader
Ryan Gosling Masterlist
Pairing: Driver X Fem Reader
Words: 4682
Summary: When Driver ends up at a small town diner after escaping LA, he doesn't expect to meet you, the very woman who wants to leave more than anyone. When you offer him help after he refuses a doctor, you see beneath a man on the run as he tries to convince you leaving isn't that scary and maybe...all you need is a small push and a man with blue eyes and a sad little face.
Warnings: Mentions of blood and a pretty bad injury on Driver but most of this is all fluff.
Tags: Drive 2011, The Driver, fluff, he speaks more in this, smalltown diners, smalltown aesthetic, being stuck and being helped, he's a softie, we just gonna pretend this man survived okay. He lived in my heart.
NOTES: Set after the events of Drive(2011), as if Driver survived and just kept going.
AN: Hello!! Got inspired by Drive which is amazing btw, and decided to write something short and sweet for one of my fav of the Ryan's. I love Driver, he's adorable, bestest boy and deserves an AU where he's happy. Dividers by @strangergraphics
Still the Same
“There's something inside you, It's hard to explain, They're talking about you, boy. But you're still the same.”
Middle of Nowhere
For years you had wanted an escape, a grand exit like someone was holding the string that tied you to your hometown and had finally cut it. But for the moment, it was pulled tight, locked around your wrist like a cuff and things had never been anything but the same. The place was small, a blink while on Main Street and you’ll end up on the outside of town type of place with people who knew all and wouldn’t keep their mouth shut about what it is they knew. They infected social lives with town gossip of who dated who, who married that year and what crazy person left to go and find something not contained within three streets and a handful of streetlights.
You weren’t that brave and were scared that since your ID said you were born there, one day it would also say you died there. Obituary ending up in a small town paper with the ending line, “she was loved by all who knew her, the population of a town situated between Nowhere and Nothing.” Maybe one day you’d end up there because you got married to some farmer with a good collection of land and a house with a porch built for two rocking chairs and nothing more, simplistic and easy, the exact life you were destined for. Your mom appeared years back, gas tank empty and didn’t leave when it was full because a man told her she looked pretty in the checkout line of the singular grocery store. She dressed in lace and baby blues, attended church and baked cookies for Sunday brunches and never did the one thing you wanted to do…leave.
Exodus was nothing but a chapter in a bible you no longer fully believed in, not a truth, not a thing you could do, nothing but a dream. A dream that made you restless, hands twitching as you poured coffee for a trucker who stopped in the small diner you worked in. A neon sign out front declared it was open and named after some pun involving waffles that everyone liked to comment on. You dubbed it jail, the trap you built for yourself and gave him a warm smile, heart of ice heavy in your chest as he called you a sweetheart and went back to his midnight cup of coffee. And you meandered back to Janet, a woman who also never left and leaned against the counter, brushing a hand along the lace trim of your apron, tied in a bow around the waist of a baby blue dress.
“Slow night,” Janet muttered since her sentences never got bigger than three words, spoken with a clipped tone like she hated talking.
“Quite,” you said and she frowned.
“Sal has extra food.”
“From dinner.”
“From lunch, a sandwich.”
“I’ll eat it on break,” you muttered and glanced at the clock, shift only half over and let out a sigh, grabbing a freshly made pot of coffee and doing a round.
The diner was open all day and all night, the one spot in the whole of your nowhere town where you could grab something to eat after 8pm on a Wednesday and was a haven for truck drivers. Most of the time, they were the only people you served and had been debating on asking for a ride for years but didn’t, chose to still stay, make some money while doing online schooling a couple days a week and it was finally done. You graduated with a degree that was impressive enough to do something else and had a letter sitting on your kitchen table, the whole of your future printed on A24 paper with a stamp in the corner.
“I finished my degree,” you said and Janet nodded. “I could leave. I applied for a teaching school but it’s in Raleigh.”
“That’s far.”
“A whole new town,” you agreed and sighed, watching as the door opened and a man walked in, keeping his head down as he sank into the booth in the far corner.
“I wonder what his problem is.”
“Long night,” you guessed and grabbed a mug of coffee before walking over. “Coffee?”
He looked up, eyes bloodshot and nodded, resting a hand on the tabletop as your eyes narrowed at the redness on the leather of his fingerless gloves. It was the kind of red that was concerning, that bloomed from places it shouldn’t and you half debated calling someone to help when he grabbed your hand. It wasn’t rough, it was gentle, the most gentle grab you had ever felt, as if he was scared of holding on too tight and making you leave.
“Uh…”
“Coffee is enough,” he muttered and you nodded, giving over the mug and also grabbing a collection of napkins, ignoring the red on his white jacket.
“Can you give me a half hour?” you asked and he looked at you like you’d hit him. “I need to tell her I’m leaving, you need help.”
“No.”
“Not a doctor. I can help, I live across the street in the apartment above the hardware store and have a pretty good first aid kit, a gift from my dad.”
“Okay,” he said and sat back, sighing and drinking half his cup of black coffee as you smiled and wandered back to Janet, pulling off your apron.
“I’m leaving early.”
“Why?”
“I know him, an old family friend and he needs my help.”
“What’s his name?”
“Uh…Mike…It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”
“Be…”
“I got it, I’ll be careful. But don’t worry, I know he’s fine,” you said and didn’t believe it for a second as you punched out, grabbing a couple sandwiches and a key lime pie that had been made three days back before pulling on your coat.
He was still sitting there, mug empty and staring at the tabletop as he breathed heavily, red stained white coat heaving and you swallowed hard, taking a seat across from him. He didn’t look up, eyes still locked on nothing but you reached out, gentle as can be and placed a hand on his, fingers brushing against the burgundy leather of the gloves.
“Can I trust you?”
“No.”
“Why are you here?”
“I drove.”
“From?”
“LA.”
“That’s hours from here.”
“I know.”
“If I take you to my apartment you’re not gonna kill me right?”
“Nope,” he assured and there was more trust in that one syllable than anything else he’d said yet.
“Good,” you said and he stood, stumbling a bit but keeping himself upright and trailing after you as you tried to ignore the look that Janet gave you, eyes narrowed like always. “We don’t get a lot of strangers like you. Mostly truck drivers. Why drive here?”
“Not here…just…away,” he assured and you helped him up the narrow outdoor steps to the balcony on the second floor that led to your apartment and dug a key into the lock.
“Well this is a hell of a place to land. We have nothing.”
“I like nothing.”
“You’ll get tired of it,” you said and he chuckled, dryly and struggling but the noise was a welcome change. “Come in. I’ll grab a blanket, take that jacket and shirt off.”
“Are you sure?”
“You wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” you shot back and he nodded, doing as you said, pulling off the white coat with a gold scorpion embroidered on the back, white shirt following as your eyes widened.
Despite the very obvious bullet wound, his back was a myriad of scars from years of abuse and you wanted to reach out and trace them, ask about every dip. His skin told so many stories, ones you wanted to beg to hear, to have him whisper in the dark of your apartment or on nights when the nowhere town ran out of power because of a storm a county over. But there were more pressing matters like the splotch of blood on his lower stomach, the source revealing itself as a bullet wound that had an exit on his lower back much to your relief. Sure it likely hurt like hell, even worse from driving for so many hours but if he was still moving around, it meant it didn’t hit anything important and your new houseguest wasn’t about to drop dead.
“Well…it exited,” you deadpanned after he had taken a seat on your blanket draped couch. “So that’s good and it means you won’t die because I’m not a surgeon. I have some gauze and padding so you won’t bleed out either but there is a story to be told.”
“About the wound?” he guessed and you chuckled.
“Yes, about the wound,” you assured and reached forward, gently wrapping the gauze around his midsection until it was tight as he stayed tense, barely breathing until your hands left his skin. “Grammy Merna would tell me all about the perils of California but she left out the guns. Was she wrong or is this a special case?”
“Got wrapped up in bad men, took care of it.”
“Clearly,” you muttered and stood as he moved back, leaning against the back of the couch with a sigh, finally looking a small bit relaxed. “You never said your name.”
“People at home called me the Driver.”
“Do you drive?”
“I drive,” he agreed and you chuckled. “What is your actual name?”
“That was always the ironic part…my real name is Driver.”
“Driver is one hell of a name.”
“Ended up doing what I was named for,” he shot back and you nodded before telling him yours.
“I was not named waitress so I’m not following fate.”
“Should be named saviour,” he shot back and you chuckled, moving to your small kitchen and grabbing him a glass of water.
“Just ended up in the right place.”
“Fate sounds better,” he said and leaned back, drinking back half the water as you smiled. “Without you I would’ve kept going.”
“Any stopping point?”
“When I couldn’t drive anymore,” he shot back and you frowned.
“Good thing you stopped before that.”
“Needed coffee, first place open for miles,” he said and stood, cringing but continuing and looking out the window, face framed by the neon greens and blues of the diners sign.
When you got the apartment the glare of that sign pissed you off, always there in the background like a reminder that the place was as far as you could get, living across the street from work. But now…as it made the blue of his eyes pop and the dips and divots of the scars on his shoulders stand out like they were made with the utmost care you loved it. Maybe all the window needed despite a good clean was a fresh face to look out of it, someone who could still appreciate neon signs and 24/7 waffle themed diners on small country roads that cut through a nowhere town like a river.
“Butter Me Up?” he asked with a laugh and you groaned.
“Waffle pun. It sells.”
“To who?”
“Truck drivers with no sense of humour,” you admitted and yawned. “I’m beat. Take the couch, I brought out some blankets and some clothes from my dad in a bag on the chair. There’s a bathroom by the front door, fully stocked and even some plastic wrap so that the bandage can stay dry.”
“You trust me not to rob you and run?” Driver asked and turned, hands crossed across his chest, still coated in the blood stained leather gloves.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“You don’t look like the robbing type.”
“What do I look like?”
“Someone who stopped less for a coffee and more because he had to.”
“To die?”
“To hope someone like me would offer some help,” you shot back and he looked away, gaze not meeting yours and you knew you had figured him out. “Sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Wait…”
“Yes?”
“Thank you,” Driver said and you knew he meant it.
“Of course,” you said and moved into your bedroom, changing into a pair of sweats and an old t-shirt before getting into bed, listening to the road outside your bedroom window as people drove through your town.
You were glad that he chose to stop, to grab that coffee and accept your help and hoped that he’d be there when the morning light made the place look less lonely.
Driver stayed.
He slept on the couch like you told him to and woke up to the smell of bacon cooking, finding him slumped over the stove in your small kitchen, eyes narrowed as he made sure the breakfast was perfect. You raised a brow, leaning on the doorframe in a robe as he cracked an egg into another pan and let out a curse when a piece of shell got in, scrambling to fix it as you chuckled and he looked up, eyes widening.
“Sorry.”
“Why?”
“I used your kitchen.”
“I barely use it, it deserves it,” you said and nodded out the window at the diner. “I normally eat there.”
“Do you work a lot?”
“Most nights,” you admitted and took a seat at the breakfast nook, wishing it wasn’t full of papers. “I split my time between there and online school.”
“For?”
“Education,” you admitted and he made sure the eggs wouldn’t burn before turning and moving to lean against a counter, giving you his full attention. “I want to be a teacher.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“The schooling I need is out of state, in North Carolina and sure I have enough money but it’s far…out there and I’m not…I’m here.”
“But you could be out there.”
“I could,” you said and sighed. “My dad died six months ago, he left me all his money and told me to leave, to get out of this place and see the world but I didn’t…I stayed.”
“Why?”
“Too scared,” you admitted and he scoffed. “Here is small but familiar. I know every face and when John at the grocery store gets the good apples in. I wouldn’t know any of that in a big city, wouldn’t even know myself.”
“Did you get in?” he asked and turned back around, plating the eggs and adding some toast and bacon before walking it over to the table. “To the school in Raleigh?”
“No…Or…I don’t know.”
“You don’t?”
“This is my ticket,” you said and grabbed a letter from North Carolina State University. “It arrived two days ago.”
“And?”
“It has stayed like this for two days.”
“Not going to open it?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re scared,” he accused and you nearly dropped your fork at that very bold accusation. “That letter is your excuse. Never look at it, never get an excuse.”
“Never look at it, never be disappointed,” you shot back and he rolled his eyes. “I’m not like you, I don’t pack it all up and drive with a bullet wound in my stomach, hoping to crash land in some town.”
“You may not have the bullet hole but you do have the pain,” he pointed out and you never would’ve invited someone so philosophical into your house.
“Still keeping it sealed.”
“Maybe by the time I leave.”
“Are you?”
“Maybe. I need to keep going, find myself somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“Don’t know,” he admitted and sipped his coffee. “That gunshot was done by a man who wants me dead…he’s dead too but he had friends, angry ones. I left LA to get away from that and I don’t think I’m far enough away yet.”
“This town is pretty empty, you’d fall off the radar.”
“Maybe…but I can’t take that risk.”
“At least stay long enough to relax,” you suggested and glanced out the window at the sun shining. “It’s sunny today and there’s a lake not far from here, could be a nice change.”
“The bandage?”
“Don’t swim,” you shot back and he rolled his eyes. “Come on…I grabbed some sandwiches and a pie from work, it’ll be fun.”
“What kind of pie?”
“Key lime.”
“Nah…I’m more of a lemon meringue guy.”
“Driver…”
“What?”
“Come on.”
“I can enjoy limes,” he muttered and you rolled your eyes, finishing off your breakfast, changing and grabbing a few items as he stood by the front door, eyeing the blood stains on his white coat.
“Here,” you said and handed over a black jacket that was Yankees themed and hoped that he was secretly a fan.
“Not a baseball fan.”
“It was my dads.”
“Why?”
“He can’t wear it,” you said and Driver nodded, grabbing it and pulling it on, smiling at the fit and shoving his hands in the pocket. “Perfect.”
“Maybe I’ll end up in New York and wear it to a game,” he muttered and you nodded in agreement, grabbing your bag and following him out to his car, a smile on your face.
The car he drove was nice by the standards of someone who didn’t know cars and was black and sleek looking, an older model with nice but worn tires since he drove it to the brink for hours on end. He admitted he didn’t get all the way from LA to your small little town in one night, it took three days and he slept in the back seat on the side of the highway and in truck stops, avoiding people until he met you, the first person who begged to offer some semblance of help. He took it because you looked as desperate to give it as he was to receive it and liked the tenderness in your voice, even though all you did was offer him some coffee.
“Been here your whole life?”
“Forced to,” you admitted and he raised a brow.
“Mom lived here, had me and died here. It felt like it was in my blood.”
“Blood is made to be shed.”
“I don’t think that sounds like you want it to.”
“I drive…I rarely speak,” he shot back and followed your lead when you told him to turn, pulling onto a dirt road that led to a lake you loved, the one good thing in your town.
“You’re talking with me?”
“I have exceptions,” he shot back and parked the car in the lot, slipping out and grabbing your bag out of the back and handing it over. “This was worth it.”
“Wasn’t it?” you said and smiled, making your way down to the shore of the lake and spreading out a picnic blanket that had seen better days. “This place was like an escape from the rest of the town, a small piece of something new.”
“You could leave.”
“Driver…”
“I know.”
“I can’t,” you muttered and grabbed a wrapped sandwich from the bag, handing him one and he nodded in thanks. “It’s a big world out there…full of people and I’m just me…sitting here and staring at a lake I’ve stared at a hundred times before and will continue to stare at until I die. Like my mother and father.”
“Or you could open that letter.”
“What if it says I made it?”
“Leave,” he suggested and you rolled your eyes. “Back in LA, I got all mixed up in that stuff because of a woman named Irene and her young son, my neighbours and she had a husband in jail and he got out and went right back to it. My favorite day with them was at a place like this, a piece of paradise in a city of nothing.”
“You were in LA,” you said and he shrugged.
“Even big places can be full of nothing. I lived there, worked there, almost died there. LA felt as lonely as a place like this with one road and very few stoplights.”
“See that's why I'm worried about leaving, at least I know people here, I have the diner and my coworker Janet. Maybe one day I'll also have a nice guy with a piece of land and a smile.”
“Sounds like a boring life.”
“At least I’m not driving forever,” you shot back and shoved the plastic wrap in the bag before heading towards the water, pulling off your shirt and shorts and stepping slowly into it, feeling the coolness start around your ankles.
You went further out, feeling it run up your legs and onto your chest before sinking deep into the cold water and embracing the bit of shock that always came with dipping into a cold lake in early spring. It brought you back to your dad and his love of the place, the way he called it magic and would spend his time in the middle, catching fish to roast on a fire as you swam like there was no tomorrow. Today there was a tomorrow and you looked back at the shore to find Driver was missing, a pile of clothes in his wake and in seconds the man popped up out of the water, blonde hair slicked back and a smile on his face.
“What about the bandage?”
“Excuse to get close,” he shot back and swam closer, able to touch thanks to his height as you clung to his chest, laughing and shaking droplets off the top of your head. “You should open the letter.”
“Driver…”
“I brought it,” he said and your eyes narrowed.
“You stole my mail?”
“Sorry.”
“Why?”
“Because you deserve more than this town. It deserves you, you make it better but you need to leave it and find yourself in a new place with new people.”
“Come with me.”
“I can’t,” he said and you frowned. “The people after Irene won’t stop, they know I lived.”
“Change your name,” you said and got even closer, clinging to him.
“Driver fits too well,” he shot back and you chuckled, dipping your head down as he reached up, kissing your forehead. “Thank you.”
“For?”
“For a coffee,” he said and you looked at him closer, hands pressed to his cheeks as you ran a thumb under his eyes. “And the help.”
“I wasn’t about to let you bleed to death.”
“No…but you could have,” he muttered and you rolled your eyes, wrapping him in a hug, shivering despite yourself since the lake was cold, not warmed yet by the summer sun. “You could have moved on, treated me like another customer.”
“Maybe I was looking for an escape from that shift as much as you were looking for help.”
“So…not at all?”
“No,” you said and he laughed, blue eyes brighter than last night, catching the reflection of the few beams of sunlight getting through the clouds. “When are you leaving?”
“Soon.”
“Stay,” you said again and he shook his head. “If you won’t stay…kiss me.”
“I…”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fair.”
“No…but I want it,” you said and it felt rash, like a bad choice but Driver complied, dipping his head down and capturing your lips in a kiss that was barely there.
You grabbed the back of his neck with both hands to deepen it and he complied, kissing you harder as you hooked your legs around his midsection and pulled him closer, swaying in the cool water of that lake. You had a sneaking suspicion you were never going to see him again, that he was going to drive out of that town like he was destined to and leave you to wonder what could have been. But you had that moment, that small piece of something more and rested your head on his chest after he pulled back, staying in that water until his legs began to shake, they were so cold. You moved back to the blanket and Driver pulled the letter out of the pocket of the Yankees jacket you gave him, draping the fabric across your shoulders and nodding for you to break the seal and see what your fate was.
“Are you sure?”
“Come on, drive off.”
“Very funny,” you muttered and he smiled, wrapping an arm around your shoulder and leaning back as you followed, practically laying on his chest as you pulled open the letter. “Alrighty…God…”
“Would you like me?”
“A stranger I just met…sure.”
“Here we go,” he said and grabbed the letter, skimming it with the world's greatest poker face as you bit your lip. “Alright…”
“And…”
“Well…” he began and read out your full name, a smile on his face. “We here at North Carolina State University would like to congratulate you on acceptance into the professional development program for teachers this coming fall semester. Please register for classes no later than August and we’ll be happy to see you in September.”
“Well then.”
“I guess you’ll have to move to North Carolina,” he said and you nodded.
“I guess I will.”
“Maybe I’ll go to Raleigh one day.”
“Maybe I’ll go to New York,” you said and he chuckled, remembering the suggestion. “We’ll run into each other and before you even speak, I’ll remember your name.”
“Maybe,” he agreed and you closed your eyes, drifting off to the sound of his heartbeat and wishing the day wouldn’t end.
New York, Somewhere
Driver left.
During the night he got up and left, getting in his car and never looking back and you woke up to an empty apartment like he was never even there, only a blood stained jacket in his wake. He also left a note of encouragement to go and see your dreams come true and you took it to heart, selling the apartment, telling Janet to screw off and getting in your car and never looking back, making sure to wash that jacket before you left. It became a staple piece of your wardrobe all through the two years of school, a reminder of someone you helped when he finally decided to stop and hoped that he’d found somewhere safe. You had no way of contacting him, he didn’t leave a number on that note and you assumed a guy like him didn’t carry a phone. He was an enigma that you had spent the last 4 years looking over your shoulder for when you spent less than 14 hours together.
But it felt like more and you sighed, paying for the coffee you bought and heading out into the city since you were even crazy enough to move to New York, getting a job at a private high school and a small apartment with no neon lights shining through the windows. You even still wore his coat, bundled in the one thing besides encouragement that he left behind and sipped the latte in hand, holding the cup for warmth since that April was chilly.
“Did you drop this?”
“Probably not,” you said and turned, not interested in whatever the guy was pulling when your eyes widened and you spotted him standing there, dressed in that black Yankees jacket like nothing had changed. “Driver.”
“You remembered.”
“I said I would,” you told him and placed the coffee on the edge of a trash bin before wrapping him in a tight hug as the guy picked you up. “You made it.”
“I’ve been here a few years.”
“Still driving?”
“Always,” he assured and you chuckled. “But for better people. A good company and I got this tiny place with a view of some trees. Spend most of my time at a garage, fixing up cars, was always what I enjoyed.”
“Those men never came looking?”
“They gave up. Maybe I could have stayed.”
“I couldn’t,” you admitted and he nodded, grinning. “I also stole your coat.”
“It looks better on you.”
“I think so too,” you shot back and he chuckled. “We should catch up, it’s been a while, I have a lot to say, a lot to discuss and…”
“We should,” he agreed and placed a hand on your shoulder. “Are you free now?”
“Why?” you asked and he smiled before digging into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulling out a set of keys.
“Care for a drive?”
The ending is a bit ambiguous haha but I like to think it worked out, maybe even one day he went back and told Irene he lived. But for now...picture you and him, driving into the sunset. Also expect more for Ryan and his cast of characters who I adore....a massive Holland March fic is next!!