Justice by InSilva

Summary: Set post-O11 and pre-O12, Rusty finds himself on the right side of the law for a change. Not that this means either he or Danny is safe. Warnings abound. Rated for violence and profanity.

Disclaimer: just paddling in that there Ocean. I own no part of it.

A/N: probably as dark an opening as I've written. Sorry.

Prologue


The downside to dying, apart from the obvious, Danny reflected, was that you could never be sure that you'd told those people that mattered to you most all the things you'd left unsaid; that they knew everything you'd ever wanted to tell them; that they knew you completely.

Right now, he couldn't remember if he'd ever told Tess that he loved her best first thing in the morning; no makeup, her hair wild, her eyes sleepy and vulnerable.

He would have liked to tell Saul explicitly how much he felt he owed him, how much he loved him; for support, for what he'd learnt, for introductions…

And he definitely would have liked to make sure that Rusty knew he'd swiped the last packet of Oreos. Rusty without access to cookies was not a pretty sight.

He guessed he himself was somewhat less than pretty at the moment. What concerned him most was that he couldn't feel his feet. With an effort, he moved his head and looked up through the eye he could open. Nope, they were still there. He flipped back again and let out a little yelp as his ribs crunched. Surely the pain should be less raw by now. He supposed he should be grateful that he had at least stopped spitting blood. The blood hadn't come running down his face and through his hair for a while either but he couldn't work out whether that was a good thing or not.

Lethargy washed over him. It was a funny limbo-state: nerve-shredding anguish or the dull ache of couldn't-care-less tiredness. He had been fighting the lassitude because staying awake seemed important but he wasn't sure any longer exactly why.

Somewhere, far away, he thought he heard a noise. It seemed unlikely they were coming back to hurt him again…God, he hoped not. Tears started and he knew the logical and emotional parts of his brain were cross-wiring.

Before he slipped in to final unconsciousness, before his heart actually stopped, before he took his last breath, Danny worried about who would find him. He hoped, none too optimistically, it would be someone who didn't know him at all. He found himself hoping as well that Tess would forgive Rusty. And above all, that Rusty would forgive himself.

And then, the darkness came.


A/N: yes, you read rightly and sorry. That was one of the warnings.