Disclaimer: Own nothing to do with Ocean's 11.
Disclaimer 2: InSilva inspired this one. Nothing to do with me.
A/N: This is set in the middle of 'Spirit and Dust' (the one where Rusty is tied up in a dusty room in Cuba for four days and Danny only just manages to find him in time, to go all 'Friends' about it for a moment.) Juan Tatis is the man who actually told Danny the name of the mark and that Rusty was in Havana, not Miami.
A/N2: Eventually, hopefully, I'll get bored of doing these self indulgent, self referential, well-things-could-be-worse AUs. Hopefully.
A/N3: For InSilva. For many, many reasons. She puts up with a lot.
It was six hours before he managed to get hold of someone who told him definitively that Juan Tatis was out of town. It was almost another eight of phone calls and meetings and walking into places he wasn't wanted, of pleading and begging, threatening and demanding, even telling the truth, before he accepted that no one knew where Juan was. Juan couldn't be reached and no one knew when he'd be back.
Dead end.
He hadn't given up, of course. He'd gone back to Tony Carr and learned nothing new, but after a day's digging, he'd got a list of names, people who'd potentially been affected by the fake bank robbery. There must have been a reason. There must have been a plan, a mark, and he went over them, one by one, trying to find out what Rusty had been doing.
Three days. His head ached. His eyes were burning. More false trails. More dead ends. He had nothing.
"You look like hell, you know," Rusty commented from behind him.
He blinked, almost too tired to react. He was facing the door. No one had come in. It wasn't possible.
"You should sleep," Rusty added helpfully. "They say it's good for you."
"I need to find you," he said and he turned round and felt like screaming. Rusty was sitting on the chair by the window, and even lit by nothing more than moonlight, he looked...he looked... Face too pale and too grey. Skin stretched and illfitting. Forehead and cheek smeared with blood and dirt. Fingers torn, wrists livid with ropemarks. Lips cracked and dry and bloodied. Danny closed his eyes for a moment. "I need to find you."
Rusty sounded sad. "I'm sorry, Danny. I'm so sorry."
When he opened his eyes again, Rusty was gone. But there was a fine layer of dust on the chair.
The second night, he spoke first. Wasn't like he didn't notice Rusty was there. Wasn't like that ever happened.
"I know you're not real," he said calmly.
Rusty grinned and the effect was frightening. Tearing, bloodless flesh. "You think I'm Fred?"
"Stress induced hallucination," Danny shrugged. "Worry, lack of sleep – you're getting the blame. When I find you."
The grin vanished. Rusty looked serious. (Dead serious.) "Danny - "
" - I will find you - " he promised intently.
" - I know you will," Rusty agreed, "Danny - "
" - you just need to wait," he pleaded. "Just wait for me."
"It's too late, Danny," Rusty said softly. "I'm sorry. It's too late. It doesn't matter anymore."
The punch was wild and sudden and Rusty stumbled backwards his hand at his mouth.
"Don't ever say that!" Danny screamed in the sudden silence. "Don't you dare."
Rusty's eyes were full of understanding and sympathy and Danny was so lonely when he was gone.
He was back later that night with a new bruise at his mouth. It looked...wrong, somehow.
Danny stared. "You're not dead!" he said triumphantly. "See? You can't be dead if you're bruising."
Rusty shrugged awkwardly. "Actually, bruises can continue to form a short while after death. Though they're not bruises exactly. Blood pools. Brought to the surface. It's why Sherlock Holmes was beating a dead pig."
"At least that's what he told Watson," Danny said immediately.
Rusty laughed. "It didn't hurt," he told Danny seriously, his hand touching the bruise gently. "Nothing hurts anymore."
"I'm still sorry," Danny said after a moment.
Rusty shot him a look. "Thought I wasn't real?" he asked lightly.
"Doesn't matter." Hitting imaginary Rusty was almost as wrong as...not that he ever had. Or would.
"You didn't know that people can bruise after they're dead," Rusty pointed out. "If you made me up, how come I know that?"
Danny shrugged. "How do you know that?"
"Reader's Digest," Rusty answered promptly and Danny laughed.
"Not going to let you read that again," he murmured. "When I find you."
"Yeah," Rusty said quietly. He sighed. "Roberto Manoso."
"What?" Danny looked up sharply. "What happened to your cheek?" he demanded suddenly. It looked...worse than it had. More blood, somehow. Gouged flesh. Open.
"Pay attention," Rusty scolded. "I'm doing the Laura Palmer bit. My mark. Roberto Manoso. The con was in Havana."
Danny was still staring. "Your face...Rus'..."
Rusty smiled and turned his head away. "You don't want to know. Besides. I told you. It doesn't hurt now."
"Rusty," he said desperately, and when he blinked it was like jolting awake and Rusty was gone.
The third night he hung up the phone and turned round to see Rusty standing in the shadows his arms wrapped tight around himself, his face turned away.
Danny ignored him and started getting ready as quickly as he could.
"You really should get some sleep," Rusty commented after a moment. His voice was cracking.
Danny concentrated on pulling his shoes on. Concentrated on not crying.
"Let me guess," Rusty laughed, and the sound was pain. "You'll sleep when you're dead,"
"That's not fucking funny," he whispered and the words echoed around the hotel room.
"I'm sorry," Rusty said eventually.
"That was John on the phone. I...I couldn't have known you were in Havana." There was no way. No way that was possible.
"No," Rusty agreed quietly.
"But you are," Danny said heavily. "And that means...that means..." That means...
"I'm sorry, Danny. I'm so, so sorry."
"You don't even believe in the fucking afterlife," Danny pointed out wildly.
Rusty shrugged. "Turns out you were right. What, you want me to admit that I'm dead and wrong?"
"What are you doing here?" he whispered.
"I wanted...I wanted to see you," Rusty said. "On the phone, before they got me...Danny, I never meant those things. I never meant them. I - "
" - I know, Rus'," he cut in. "You think I don't? I never meant them either."
"Good," Rusty said, sagging backwards against the wall, and for a moment his arm was in the light, and Danny could see where his shirt had been torn, and he could see the discoloured arm underneath, could see where flesh had been torn into, could see bone.
He screamed and there was nothing more that night.
He'd found the hotel Rusty had been staying at. Found witnesses and leads, and he was running through Havana searching, and it was going to be dawn soon, and he hadn't seen Rusty, and he wondered if the apology was all that Rusty had needed to give...
"Unfinished business?" Rusty said brightly behind him. "You're gonna need to call Dan Ackroyd."
Danny nodded and relief and horror and hopelessness shone through. "Right. Cos a car chase is really what we need right now."
"It's dark and you're wearing sunglasses," Rusty murmured.
Danny laughed and looked round the street quickly, in case anyone had heard, in case anyone could see...it was deserted. "Can anyone else see you?" he wondered.
Rusty made a noise of disinterest.
"Maybe you should try it," Danny suggested. "If they could. Other people...Saul would..." (Sooner or later he'd have to tell Saul. Sooner or later he'd have to tell Tess.)
"You think so?" Rusty demanded and he stepped in front of Danny for the first time, and Danny looked at the mess that had been Rusty's face, looked at where Rusty's arms were holding his body together, looked at rotting and destroyed and dead and he fell to his knees in the street. "Fuck," Rusty said, anguish in his voice. "I'm sorry, Danny. I'm sorry." He was talking in Danny's ear. There was no breath.
"'S'okay," Danny managed at last. "It's..." He'd rather know than not. "You said...you said it didn't hurt?"
"Like falling asleep," Rusty nodded. He considered for a moment. "Or possibly that was falling asleep, and I died after it. At any rate, I didn't know anything about it until afterwards."
"And before?" Danny made himself ask. "It hurt before."
There was a long silence. Rusty nodded. "It hurt before," he whispered.
There was maybe an hour or so of daylight left when he reached the old Santos estate. And, by the time he'd finished checking the house and stood outside the metal shed it was getting dark.
In the distance he could hear Rusty calling his name. Urgency. Desperation. But he had to know. He opened the door and the heat and the smell nearly made him gag. But he stepped inside, and he squinted into the dark, and he could see the figure huddled on the floor, and there was movement, and for a moment he rejoiced, and then angry squeaking, scrabbling feet, and the rats fled and he was staring at...he was staring at...
Screaming.
He was asleep or awake and he heard a noise from the corner of the room. "Rusty?" he said, and his voice was thick with hope and dread.
A pause and then Tess said his name, and he could hear the tears.
He turned away from her.
"Selfish bastard."
Danny didn't turn at the sound of Rusty's voice, quiet and still echoing through the hush of night.
"Thought you weren't coming back," he said vaguely. It had been a long time. He thought. A very long time.
"You haven't exactly been alone," Rusty said after a moment, and in a moment he was standing next to Danny and still Danny wouldn't look round.
"It matters?" he wondered and he took another gulp of whiskey. He didn't even feel the burn anymore. He didn't feel anything.
"Guess so," Rusty said and Danny caught the shrug out of the corner of his eye. "Don't even know if anyone else could see me if I tried."
He nodded. "The funeral's tomorrow," he told Rusty. "I'm not sure I'm going."
"I can see that," Rusty agreed dryly.
Danny ignored him. "Bobby and Reuben organised it."
"Yeah." Rusty didn't sound surprised.
"Apparently I called them from Havana?" It was almost a question. There was almost curiosity. Almost.
Rusty sighed. "I talked you through it. Everything you'd want to do. You were pretty far gone. Bobby and Reuben made sure you and...made sure both of us got home."
Danny nodded. "Guess that's why they look at me like I'm crazy."
"One of the reasons, maybe."
"You think there are others?" he demanded.
Rusty didn't say anything.
"Right. Because we're burying you tomorrow...we're putting you in the ground and you're here and I'm talking to you and drinking whisky like it's any other day. Because I won't talk to them. Because you told me you were sorry. Because I'm standing on a ledge on the nineteenth floor and I don't care. I don't...I don't." He turned round wildly and caught a glimpse of dead and ravaged flesh, and a corpse cleaned up was still a corpse, and in his mind Rusty still shone brighter than anything he'd ever known. Danny closed his eyes for a moment, bathed in soullight.
"You want to step back inside?" Rusty asked gently.
He let himself follow Rusty. It had always been so much easier. Even when he wouldn't look.
"I wasn't really going to do it," he said softly.
"I know," Rusty whispered and Danny knew he knew why.
"I don't think I'm going to the funeral tomorrow," he said apologetically.
"I know," Rusty said again.
He closed his eyes and explained. "Manoso and his people...they're holed up in Santa Monica. I know where. They won't be expecting me. They don't know who I am."
"You walk in there, you going to walk out again?" Rusty asked and Danny didn't want to tell him what he already knew.
"I got some stuff..." he went on instead. "Not from Basher. Not from Phil. But it should work. I know what to do."
"You going to walk out again?" Rusty asked again.
"No," he admitted.
"Tess - " Rusty began.
" - Tess," Danny cut in, with a shrug. She wouldn't understand. And she wouldn't get over it. And there was nothing he could do about that. "I had to tell her everything, you know." He laughed shortly. "Funny thing. Guess I found the perfect way to tell her. She finds out I've been lying to her since I met her, and if she calls me on it, she's the bad guy."
"So, what, you've already hurt her so it's all right to hurt her even more?" Rusty demanded.
Danny looked at him and it hurt so much. "Your eyes weren't bright like that when I found you," he commented and a memory of cloudedscratcheddulleddead screamed through their mind.
"Selfish bastard," Rusty said again and the anger was weary. Defeated.
"You're talking like I have choices," Danny told him and he smiled a little. "You think I could do anything else?"
"You could live," Rusty said quietly.
"All those things I never say?" Danny began after a moment. "I mean them."
He listened to Rusty cry for a while.
"If I stay, will I see you again?" he asked after a while.
Rusty shook his head. "Not in this world. Danny - "
" - and if I go to Santa Monica," he interrupted. "Afterwards. Will I see you?"
"You're the one who believes in all this stuff," Rusty said quietly.
He laughed. "Little late to be a sceptic."
"I'll find you," Rusty promised. "Whatever happens, I'll wait for you and I'll find you."
Danny nodded. "I'll be looking. I'll never stop looking. No matter what."
Rusty's hand was cold on his. They stood together and waited for the sunrise.
Thanks for reading.