Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with Ocean's 11
A/N: 'Falling like dominoes' story set during the last parts of the prologue.
A/N2: For InSilva. As always.
He watched the clock tick over to midnight. Another day over. That made three hundred and sixty four.
He lay awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking of nothing. Tess was asleep beside him. She'd fallen asleep hours ago. He wished he could. Funny, he didn't think he'd ever had trouble sleeping before. When he thought back....not that he ever did think back, not that there was anything to remember....but he'd never been the one left awake.
(He remembered exasperation, frustration, concern. Remembered dragging Rusty to bed, cut-off plans and sleepy protests. That was a long time ago though. He didn't need to be worried anymore.)
Two in the morning and he was awake and it was nobody's fault. There was no earthly reason for it.
He should be happy. Lying in bed next to his beautiful wife. He had a good job, a comfortable house...really, his life was everything men were supposed to dream of. But he didn't dream anymore.
He might have imagined the soft noise of pain and distress.
Tess sighed and rolled over, looking at him, blinking sleepily. "Are you alright?"
"Everything's fine," he told her tonelessly, as he had so many times before. "Go back to sleep."
She didn't. Of course. She moved closer to him instead, put her hand on his chest. "Danny, please. If you'd just talk to me - "
" - I don't need to talk," he said softly. "There's nothing to talk about." He reached out and pulled her closer, wrapped his arms around her. Hugged her tight and pretended that it helped. Pretended that there was something to help.
There was silence and he stroked her hair until she fell asleep.
Not the first time.
After a while, he got up and padded through to the living room. A glass of wine would help him relax. Help him sleep.
(He poured two glasses and stared at the darkened TV like it was going to tell him exactly where he went wrong.)
There was an emptiness around him now. There was always an emptiness around him now. Pain, loss and betrayal were just as dead as the good times. He had no past.
"You selfish bastard," he whispered to the emptiness and there was no one there to answer.
Morning, and he got up stiffly from the sofa, and he didn't know how the last few hours had passed. Didn't seem like he'd had a single thought in that time. There was a time when that would have been impossible. Unthinkable. Not it just made him tired. Things changed.
He cleared up the wine and the glasses long before Tess would get a chance to see. He didn't want to worry her. Then he had a quick shower and dressed and by the time Tess got up he was busy in the kitchen, making breakfast.
"Morning," he said with practiced cheerfulness, passing her a mug of coffee.
"Morning," she said absently. "Thank you. You're up early."
He shrugged and concentrated on cooking. "I wanted to get to work early. I've got two reports due by twelve." He slid a plate of pancakes in front of her. "Here you are."
"Apple pancakes," she said, delighted. "Thank you."
His smile was frozen. "Just the regular kind, I'm afraid."
(It was his fifth date with Tess. The first time they'd spent the night together. The first time he'd woken up with her in his arms and he'd been so happy.
And in the morning she'd been sitting at the dining table, wearing his shirt and a sleepy smile, and he'd watched her laughing as Rusty explained the exact secrets of apple pancakes through a story involving a farmer, a bottle of champagne, a Cadillac Eldorado and a kite that Danny knew wasn't nearly as much of an exaggeration as Tess thought it was.
She closed her eyes at the first bite of pancake, making soft noises of appreciation and Danny had grinned. "Oh, great. Now I have two of you."
He had the two of them and he'd felt so happy.
Should've known it would never last.)
Tess' smile wavered. "Danny, I...." She sighed. "Maybe you shouldn't go to work today."
"Why?" he asked practically.
Tess sighed, and Danny did his best to convince himself that he was imagining the pity in her eyes. "It's been a year, Danny," she said gently. "I know you're hurting – "
" – I'm not," he interrupted determinedly. He wasn't. Not at all.
She paused. "Things haven't been the same since..." She delicately avoided the name. "I don't know, maybe you need time, but you need to admit that there's a problem."
"There is no problem," he told her levelly. "Like you said, it's been a year. Nothing bothers me anymore."
She sighed again. "I'll take today off too," she offered. "We'll go away somewhere. Get your mind off things."
He looked at her. "There is nothing special about today," he said quietly. He glanced at his watch. "Oh. Gotta go. I'll see you tonight, okay?" He kissed her perfunctorily on the lips. "Have a good day."
He was almost out the door when she said "Maybe you could go visit this weekend."
He pretended he hadn't heard.
Work was the same as it always was. He sat in his cubicle, kept his head down and got on with it.
For the most part, silence ruled. That was the way the company liked it. That was the way Danny liked it.
Two reports due by twelve and he quietly laid them on call-me-Tony's desk at 11:30.
"Thanks, Daniel," Tony said with a careless smile, and Danny wondered for the three hundred and twenty-ninth time just how it was that a man came to have a piece of toast stuck between his teeth every morning. The thought went unshared. Just like it always did. "You're doing a great job, you know that? Very focused. I like that. The company likes that."
Danny stood stiffly in front of the desk and thought of nothing. "Thank you," he said robotically, and his eyes were fixed on the poster behind Tony's head. The struggling kitten on the washing line. Some days, Danny thought the kitten looked like it was trying to hang itself.
"You know, that's what I like about you, Daniel," Tony went on. "It's all about insurance with you. You're never go off on wild tangents. Nothing hare-brained. You're reliable. Steady. Everything by-the-book. It's a good attitude in an employee. Stick with us, and in ten years time who knows where you'll be? You won't recognise yourself."
No. Somedays he already didn't. "Thank you, Tony," he said again softly and he went back to his work.
Ten years here. This was the path chosen for him. There was no escape. No way out.
Lunchtime and he sat in the canteen, picking at a ham salad sandwich and staring blankly at the paper, pretending to read the business section, while at the next table the guys from marketing described last night's episode of Oz in vivid detail.
He kept his eyes fixed on the paper.
"It's just an excuse to show graphic violence on TV," Joan said disapprovingly.
"Yeah, but the point is, you know they're all criminals so it's okay," Stephen argued persuasively. "Hey, Daniel, what do you think?"
It took him a moment to respond. "It's just a TV show," he said at last, smiling brightly. "I don't think prison's anywhere near as bad as that in real life." Not that he'd ever watched the show. Not that he ever would. (The nightmares he never had were already bad enough.)
They lost interest in him again and he stared down at the paper again and he let the time tick away.
Danny knew guys who had been to prison. Frank for one. Phil, Joseph...Probably others. A few people. And it wasn't like any of them had liked it, wasn't like any of them had been falling over themselves to talk about it, reminisce or whatever. But they'd all come out of it okay. Nothing to suggest that it was anything like the hellish nightmare world that...
Too many people had too much imagination. That was all.
Besides, he reminded himself firmly. Wasn't like anyone he cared about was in prison right now.
"Hey, Daniel," Paul said hopefully, just as he was standing up. "Poker night my place on Friday. You sure I can't tempt you?"
"I don't play," he answered absently.
A long boring afternoon meeting with Elliott Roth who had no idea that Danny despised him.
Elliott Roth was snobbish and obnoxious, casually misogynistic to the point where, once upon a time, in another life, Danny thought that maybe he'd have been having ideas about him. Probably right about the time when Elliott snapped his fingers and asked Samantha from the legal department to bring him a coffee, the old Danny would have been seeing karmic opportunity and just deserts.
But he didn't think that way anymore. That wasn't his life anymore. And instead he smiled and made small talk and laughed more-than-politely at the joke about the hooker who could own Vegas.
Anything to get a sale, call-me-Tony said. It doesn't matter what you think of them, the client is always your best friend.
(Danny didn't believe in best friends. Best friends weren't to be trusted. Best friends let you down.)
Two endless hours later and Danny had just about wrapped everything up. He'd made a small fortune for the company and he only felt like he'd lost a very little more of his soul.
They knew who he was here. He wasn't playing a part. He was being himself. And this was all there was of himself.
"Well, that's about everything," Elliott said eventually, standing up and shaking Danny's hand heartily. "Thanks a lot, Dan. You've been great. Say, you ever get down to the Pink Pussy Palace on Thirty-Ninth Street?"
"No, can't say that I do," Danny said, and his smile was plastic and empty.
"Really? Pity. I've got a platinum membership there," Elliott told him. "Maybe I should give you a call some time, take you out, show you what you're missing. There's a whole world out there, you know."
Yes. He'd heard. "I'm married," he said with wooden apology.
Elliott shrugged. "So am I. Does it really matter?"
"No, I don't suppose it does," he said quietly. It still mattered to him. But he wasn't going to disagree.
"Show me a woman who actually understands a man," Elliott said, shaking his head slowly. "Oh, there was something else, actually, Dan. I've been thinking of upping my personal home insurance? I was wondering if you could help me with that."
"That's not really my department," Danny said apathetically. "I could give you the name of a guy on the third floor." He just wanted out of here. He just wanted to go home.
Elliott ignored him and started pulling papers out of his briefcase. "See, I just bought a couple of new pieces. Pop art, you know. Apparently the appreciation is quite something. I paid over fifty grand for my collection, and in five years time, I should be able to sell it for three times that."
"Right," Danny nodded. "Let me give you Jason's number, he'll be able to sort you out with - "
" - I've got the plans here," Elliott went on. "I'm thinking I might need to get some extra security in order to protect my assets properly. What do you think?"
Danny barely glanced at the plans. "Really not my department," he said apologetically. "Jason Mearns is the man you want. He's good."
He passed over a business card and this time Elliott took it. "Oh, well. Thank you. Great doing business with you, Dan. And I'll give you a call about the Pink Pussy Palace, at some point."
"Sure thing," Danny answered and he watched Elliott leave and wondered what it meant when temptation wasn't tempting anymore.
The house was cold and dark, lonely and unwelcoming when he got in. He didn't mind.
There was a message on the answering machine. Tess, apologetic and regretful and worried, saying she had to work late. He wondered if she was lying. There was a part of him that wouldn't blame her; he wasn't very good company anymore. Briefly he considered just heading to bed and sleep and not having to face another second of today.
(All that would do would be to make tomorrow come faster.)
Tess would worry. If she came in and found him in bed at this time, Tess would worry. And he didn't want her to worry. He wanted her to know that everything was fine.
Instead he slumped down on the sofa, turned on the TV and stared vacantly as an angry man explained how to make the perfect soufflé.
It had been a year. Tess hadn't needed to remind him, he knew. A year ago he'd woken up and he'd still been shaken up by the narrow escape the previous night, and he'd spent the morning promising himself that he wasn't going to be so stupid again and he'd been looking forwards to seeing Rusty, needing to see Rusty, wanting to promise that he was going to turn this thing around.
The phone call had been unexpected. The phone call had been absolutely out of nowhere. It had been Nikki who had called him. An old cop girl-friend of Rusty's from way back. And she'd phoned him and Danny had been amazed that she still knew his number, and then she'd told him, and Danny hadn't been able to think of anything else.
At first he'd actually assumed it was a mistake. He thought that maybe he'd been seen and somehow they'd been confused and Rusty had been arrested in his place. And all he could think of was Rusty being locked up. Rusty, who could barely stand to stay in the same country for more than a month at a time, locked up in a small prison cell. The thought had been enough to make Danny feel sick.
He'd been going to confess. Going to swear blind, by everything he cared about, that he was the one they were looking for. And then the men that Rusty had hired had kidnapped him. (Rusty had hired men to kidnap him. And a year on, the memory was still a source of slow-burning fury.) They'd told him that it was all Rusty's plan, and he'd imagined Rusty sneaking around his back, all that calm focus and meticulous attention-to-detail working against him, against them.
It was unforgiveable.
And maybe there'd been a while there when he'd had to convince himself that if Rusty called saying he'd been wrong, if Rusty called looking for help, there'd been a while when he'd had to tell himself every day that he'd hang up. He'd been afraid that he'd fall back into old habits, forget that Rusty had gone looking for this, that Rusty had asked for this. He'd been afraid he wouldn't be strong enough. But now, it was a year later, and things were as good as they could be.
(Rusty had never called him.)
Things were as good as they could be. He'd moved on. He'd got used to the whisper of loneliness and the bite of betrayal. Got used to being alone in his head, to not having a thousand thoughts a day that needed to be shared right there and then, to not having anyone who knew him better than he knew himself. He'd got used to being a single soul.
Sometimes – just sometimes, just more and more, just oftentimes - sometimes he wondered if he'd ever truly known Rusty the way he thought he had. Because surely, surely, if they'd really been everything he'd once imagined, if they'd really been special and bright and extraordinary, this would have been an impossible way for things to end.
The phone rang suddenly, and Danny turned quickly, ignoring the soft stab of hope as he lifted the receiver. "Hello," he said quietly.
"Danny." Saul's voice was hoarse and unsteady.
He was afraid. He didn't know quite what he was afraid of, but he was afraid. No one called him anymore. He'd made his choices. Made it clear that he was out of the game, that he'd given it all up for isolation and obscurity. And, after a few months, Saul and Reuben and Frank and everyone had seemed to accept that. "Saul. Is everything alright?"
"I've not seen you for a long time," Saul said, and he was speaking carefully, every word over-enunciated. "It's been a long time."
He blinked, incredulously. There was something in Saul's voice. "Saul, are you...have you been drinking?" He almost didn't believe it. Because in all the time he'd (they'd) known Saul, he'd never seen Saul drunk. Never even imagined it.
"Yes," Saul agreed with an air of misplaced pride and wisdom. "I have been drinking. I am drunk. It's been a long time, Danny. It's been a year."
"Yeah," he said quietly, and why did people seem to think there was any chance of him forgetting that? "Saul, maybe you should go and lie down, huh? Sleep it off?"
"Why did you argue with Rusty?" Saul asked abruptly.
It wasn't the first time Saul had asked. It wasn't even the hundredth time Saul had asked. And Danny was never, never going to answer. "Forget it."
"He's alone," Saul said, like he hadn't heard, like he didn't remember asking the question. "Locked up and trapped and alone. You ever think of that?"
"No," he told Saul firmly.
Saul's voice was soft and wistful. "You used to care."
"Used to. Don't anymore," he said, and it was too fast and too bitter, and he was glad that he didn't think that Saul would be remembering this in the morning, because Saul still cared about Rusty. Saul missed Rusty. "It's over, Saul. Has been a long time now. I don't ever want to see him again."
"I want to see him," Saul said quietly. "He won't see me. He won't talk to me. And he's alone."
"He can look after himself," Danny said dismissively. "I'm sure he's fine."
"He called me, you know. A year ago. Before he got arrested. There was something wrong. He knew something. He wouldn't tell me. I should've done something. I should've said something." The guilt and selfblame and longing in Saul's voice were all too clear.
"This was not your fault!" he said sharply. It wasn't. This was all Rusty's fault. All Rusty's choice. That pain in Saul's voice? That aching, lonely misery? Rusty had done that. Danny just hoped he was proud of himself. "Go and lie down, Saul. Get some rest. Things will look better in the morning." He had no idea why he'd said that. They never did for him.
"I miss both of you," Saul said, sounding old and sounding vulnerable.
He missed Saul. He really did. And that was why he didn't want to talk to Saul anymore. "I quit," Danny said helplessly. "I'm sorry." He quit and Rusty was in prison, and he didn't like to think that was hurting anyone else. "Goodnight, Saul."
"Goodnight," Saul parroted, and Danny was pretty sure that he was going off to drink some more.
He hung up the phone. Drained his glass. Poured himself another.
Four glasses later and he thought maybe he was drunk. The world was spinning and he couldn't feel anything anymore.
He never wanted to see Rusty again. And he'd learnt to cope with that, just about.
He was never going to see Rusty again. That was the part he still had trouble with. That was the part that was too enormous to confront sober. All that time, all the things they'd done together, and it had ended in that little concrete room with Rusty smiling at him like he just didn't care what happened next.
He was never going to see Rusty again....
And you know what? That was just fine. Why the fuck should he care? He'd lived the first two decades of his life without Rusty just fine. Not like he should have any problems surviving the next forty years on his own.
He didn't need Rusty. He did not need Rusty. He'd never needed Rusty.
Somehow, he found himself on his feet, searching frantically through the house, the bottle clasped loosely in his hand all the time, and by the time it was half-empty, he was pretty sure he'd found every photograph he'd ever had of Rusty.
The pictures were spread out over the living room floor. He stared down at them and drank deeply.
Rusty smiled up at him from a dozen photos. Different ages, different occasions. That pub in London where they'd started drinking in the afternoon and had wound up appropriating a pool table from a rival bar. There'd been a ridiculous, extravagant celebration and the bartender had a Polaroid camera and in the picture Danny's arm was thrown over Rusty's shoulders and they were laughing and they couldn't possibly look happier.
He picked up the picture.
"Selfish bastard," he told Rusty quietly. "You selfish, fucking bastard." He took a deep breath. "You couldn't have talked to me? You couldn't have warned me? You just wanted to play the fucking hero, didn't you? Just wanted to be a martyr. You know what? Fuck you."
A sudden moment of fury and he tore the photograph up into a thousand tiny pieces.
"Fuck you!" he shouted into the empty house and he grabbed the next photo and screamed at the frozen Rustymoment in it, screamed at the lei, and the loincloth and the laughter. "I don't need you! I don't want you! You know what? I'm glad you're gone. Far as I'm concerned, you might as well be dead."
He tore that photo up too and grabbed for the next one. His wedding. Tuxedos and flowers and Rusty was so happy for him. "I'm glad you're gone," he whispered, as the photo crumpled in his hand. "I hope you're happy."
Photo after photo after photo and the room was filled with little pieces of shredded paper.
Danny sat in the midst of destruction, breathing heavily. So many photographs. All gone now. Rusty was all gone now.
Danny was never going to see Rusty again.
He looked at the torn pieces of photograph. Maybe they could be put back together.
He needed to get some matches.
It was raining. He was getting wet. He didn't care. All he'd wanted was a walk. Some fresh air. Get away from the smell of smoke and loss.
He'd been walking for a long time now. A few hours, he thought. Chances were Tess was home by now. Chances were Tess was worried by now. And here he was, walking who knew where, soaked to the skin and shivering. Huh. Maybe he'd wind up dying of hypothermia. Wouldn't that be ironic?
(Rusty's eyes were unfocused and his lips were pale and he was shaking, violently, uncontrollably, and Danny didn't think he'd ever felt terror like this before, and it didn't even make sense, nothing made sense, all he knew was that it wasn't going to end, not like this, and he held Rusty tight and close and waited and hoped and wished and prayed.)
He shook his head, doing his best to dislodge the memory of fear and concern. Not his responsibility. Rusty was the one who'd looked away. Rusty was the one who'd broken faith. He didn't have to care anymore.
He found himself standing on a bridge, leaning on the railing and looking down at the water far below.
He didn't care anymore. He didn't. The thought had him laughing again, and the water on his face was nothing more than rain.
He didn't care anymore. And that was supposed to be freedom. What did it matter that he was stuck in a job that was slow soul-suffocation, what did it matter that Tess was growing more and more distant, what did it matter that every day, when he looked in the mirror, he saw less of himself looking back? He didn't care.
This was the kind of freedom that felt like being in....
He looked over the edge. Such a long way down. Such a very long way down.
It had been a year. He looked at his watch. Right now, a year ago, he was getting ready to rob the gallery. (Right now, a year ago, if he'd just picked up the phone, maybe things could've been different.)
His watch. Fuck. He found himself staring at it. It was nothing, really. A cheap watch he'd worn every day for fifteen years.
(It had been a year since they'd met. A year since glorious chance and joyous exultation and heart-stopping terror. Exactly a year, and there was a small part of Danny's mind that had been completely aware of that for some weeks previously, and the internal debate had raged. Should he say something? Should he do something? He knew it wasn't normal, but there was nothing about them that was normal and he wanted to do something anyway.
He'd been decided. More or less. But then had come Leonard Cooper and the long string of disasters and defeats that had left them homeless and penniless and running.
All thoughts of celebration had been abandoned, and for the first time in a long, long while, life was all about where the next meal was coming from.
They'd spent the day apart. He'd been checking whether Leonard Cooper really had given up looking. Rusty had gone to rustle up some money, get them some food and a place to stay.
He'd come back with the watch.
Danny had stared at it for a long time. It was nothing special. Except it was everything special.
Rusty shifted uneasily. "I know it's not...I mean, I wanted to do more, but with the way things are..."
"You spent all our food money on me?" Danny had asked at last, and he hardly recognised his own voice.
"Yeah," Rusty admitted quietly, and he sounded small and he sounded guilty. "Oh, Danny, I'm – "
Danny wasn't going to let him apologise. Not ever. He threw his arms around Rusty without even thinking, the hug entirely unexpected, the watch cradled gently in Danny's hand between them, like it was the most precious thing Danny had ever owned. (It was the most precious thing Danny had ever owned.)
"You are utterly ridiculous," he told Rusty fiercely and fondly. (Lovingly.) "Thank you. Idiot."
It was possible his voice was a little muffled. It was possible that the sentimental was overpowering, just the knowledge that Rusty put him first, cared about him that much, loved him that much....it was overwhelming. Sun-bright love, and even though it was the dead of winter, Danny couldn't imagine being cold.)
He was so cold now.
The watch was in his hands now. Everything he had and everything he'd lost. He drew his hand back and threw it and watched as it fell. All the way down. He didn't even hear the splash.
And that was it gone.
Out of his life forever.
He got back home eventually and Tess was waiting for him anxiously, and her arms were around him instantly. "Danny, thank god. I've been so worried. I tried calling you but your phone...."
He glanced through to the living room and his phone was sitting on the coffee table next to a pile of ashes. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I just went for a walk."
"Are you sure you're alright?" she asked him gently.
"Of course," he said, and he did his best to make his voice sound alive. "I had a lot of thinking to do, that's all."
"About Rusty," she said softly, clasping his hand.
"No," he said after a moment. "No, I don't think about Rusty anymore."
Every day, in every way, that was closer and closer to truth.
He let Tess lead him to bed.
He watched the clock tick over to midnight. Another day over. That made three hundred and sixty five. Three hundred and sixty five days since he'd lost Rusty forever.
But then, who was counting?