Alternative title 'Why Danny never had a bachelor party the second time'
So, here is my latest effort. Hope you enjoy it. In case you haven't guessed, I don't own anything you recognise.
Danny woke up with a start and immediately regretted it. Oh god, his head. This just wasn't natural. Clearly he'd been drinking paint-stripper or something.
After a couple of moments in which he experimented with whether or not breathing would kill him, he cautiously opened his eyes. There was a bare foot in front of his face. OK. For one thing that was moderately disgusting and for another he should probably be a little worried that he immediately knew exactly whose foot it was. Cautiously he moved his head a little, to discover that while Rusty's feet and legs were on what he thought was probably a hotel room bed, the rest of him was hanging over the edge. That was going to hurt when he woke up.
He closed his eyes again. Clearly it had been some bachelor party.
His eyes flew open. Bachelor party. Wedding. Tess.
Urgently he reached out and shook the foot. "Wake up." he croaked.
With a yelp Rusty fell off the bed.
Danny shuffled over to the edge in time to see Rusty roll over on to his back and put his arm over his eyes. "Wha' sa'?" he asked, which Danny thought was a reasonable level of articulation in the circumstances.
"I'm getting married." Danny whispered, in deference to both their headaches.
Rusty nodded, then paused in a way that suggested it had been a mistake. "To Tess." he said, sounding maybe seventy percent certain.
"Uh huh." To his own ears Danny sounded ninety percent certain.
Apparently satisfied that they'd got the thing sorted, Rusty turned his head slightly, obviously making preparations to go to sleep on the floor.
"Stay awake!" Danny hissed insistently. "What time is it? What day is it?"
"D'nno." Rusty muttered. "Watch."
That made sense. He glanced at his wrist. "I'm not wearing a watch." he pointed out.
"Then look f'r it. Or a clock." Rusty mumbled, snappishly.
"Rusty." His tone conveyed the wake-up-and-help-me-deal-with-my-life message perfectly. He was quite impressed with himself, especially at this time in the morning. If it was morning.
Rusty scrambled to his feet with rather more speed than sense and stood there swaying. Oddly he seemed to be wearing worn jeans, an orange turtle-neck, no socks and only one shoe. Danny would bet - with his own money - that none of those clothes actually belonged to Rusty. As he gingerly stood up himself he risked a quick glance to see what he was wearing. Dinner jacket, with matching pants and an untied bowtie slung casually around his neck. No shirt though. He was certain that he'd had a shirt at some point. He was equally certain that these clothes weren't the ones he'd originally left the house in – however long ago that had been.
"Watch." Rusty said, looking round vaguely. Danny joined him. OK. Clearly they were in a hotel room. Didn't look at all familiar. Did look very cluttered. There was stuff piled everywhere and none of it looked like luggage in any conventional sense. He picked up a couple of things randomly. No watch.
"Huh." Rusty said thoughtfully, staring down at the nightstand between the beds. Danny wandered over. There was an alarm clock there that had apparently been methodically dismantled. The parts were arranged in order of size.
They stood staring at it for a long moment. Danny could honestly think of no even half-way rational explanation.
"No clock." he said eventually.
"No." Rusty agreed.
"No watches either."
"No." Rusty said again, nodding wisely.
Danny sighed. "Phone the reception desk and find out when it is." he instructed. "I'll make us some coffee."
It took him a little longer to find the switch on the kettle than it should have. That was okay though. By the sound of things it took Rusty a lot longer to figure out how to work the phone.
He was staring blankly at one of the little pots of milk when he heard Rusty talking to – presumably – the concierge. That got his attention soon enough. With an effort, he remained silent until Rusty hung up.
"OK." Rusty began, "It's two p.m. and it's Thursday. Which, since you're not getting married till Saturday means – "
" – Rusty." Danny interrupted. There was a far more pressing matter concerning him right now. "Why were you talking to the concierge in Chinese?"
Rusty blinked. "Because she answered in Chinese." he said matter of factly. Then his eyes widened. "Oh. Oh. Oh, that could be a problem."
Danny nodded calmly. "Where the fuck are we, Rusty?" he all but yelled.
Already shuffling through the information booklets stacked on the nightstand, Rusty shrugged helplessly. Danny glared before he crossed to the window, and, reasoning that it was probably like taking a bandaid off, flung open the curtains. From the sharp intake of breath behind him, Rusty had probably found the light as painful as he had.
Blinking and shading his eyes, he peered out at a city that clearly wasn't anywhere in America.
"Hong Kong." Rusty announced. "The Conrad International."
Danny sat down on the edge of the bed heavily. "Why – "
" – I have no idea." Rusty let the brochure slip out of his fingers and they both winced at the thud as it hit the floor.
After a pause Rusty asked "What's the last thing you remember?"
That was tricky. Loud music. Loud voices. Smoke. And a lot of drinks. "The party ending." he said finally. "We were all coming out of . . ." A bar somewhere. "And there were taxis."
Rusty nodded. "That was Sunday night. Or early Monday to be exact."
Danny blinked. "The party was on Friday. "
"It went on for a while." Rusty explained. "And I think we decided to go out for one last quiet drink afterwards."
They looked round the hotel room in silence.
"That could have been a mistake." Rusty admitted.
"You think?" Danny sighed. "We need to – "
" – yeah." Rusty nodded "And then – "
" - Okay." At least they had a plan now. With any luck they should be on a plane within the next few hours and Tess would never know anything. Wait a minute . . . "How long will it take to fly home?"
Rusty frowned in concentration. "About fifteen hours." Danny did some quick mental arithmetic. They should still be okay. "But remember there's a twelve hour time difference." Rusty added.
Oh, God. "Ahead or behind."
Rusty paused for a long moment, rubbing at the corner of his mouth. "Behind." he said finally, not quite as confidently as Danny would have liked.
"So if it's two p.m. here – "
" - it's two a.m. back there – "
" – and still Thursday."
Rusty nodded. "And if I'm wrong, you're screwed."
Right. "If you're wrong I'm telling Tess exactly whose fault this is."
Rusty glared at him half-heartedly staggered to his feet and began to investigate the nearest heap of stuff. After a moment Danny joined him. They needed to get their stuff together and get out of here. Time to search for the essentials.
Unfortunately most of the contents of the hotel room proved to be not only inexplicable but also somewhat useless. After twenty minutes of semi-frantic searching, he slumped back on to the bed. Rusty had given up a couple of minutes before.
"Find any money?" Danny asked eventually.
Rusty shook his head. "Not really. Five Australian Dollars under the pillow. You?"
"Cut up Norwegian credit card in the name of Lars Andersen. Three thousand Lira in loose change. And a plastic washer."
"Ah." There was a brief silence. "ID?"
"Nothing." There were no passports anywhere in the room. Which gave him serious pause for thought. How the hell had they got here?
"I found a Canadian driver's license. Name on it is Paul Radcliffe."
Danny sat up straighter; that could actually help a little. "Yours or mine."
Rusty paused in a way that Danny just hated. "Saul's, actually."
OK. That was . . . "Was Saul actually at the party?" He hadn't thought so.
"No." Rusty shook his head slightly. "Said it wasn't his style."
Oh, fuck. "So, at some point in the last few days, we tracked him down and stole his driver's license." He was hoping that saying it out loud would let him – or Rusty – think of a more palatable explanation.
"Uh huh." Damn. Seemed there wasn't one.
He groaned, and burrowed deeper into the duvet. Maybe they could just give up now, change their names, and spend the rest of their lives in this hotel room.
"So what did you find?" Rusty asked.
He closed his eyes. "Three bags of cotton candy, a camera with three rolls of film, a half-eaten tootsie roll – which is disgusting by the way – a five point plan to rob Fort Knox – which appears to rely on Canada invading the US – and a plastic tiara. How 'bout you?"
"A collection of balloons advertising MacDonalds, what appears to be a Superman cloak with chocolate stains, a signed, First Edition copy of The Hobbit that I'm pretty sure is genuine, and an oil sketch signed Caravaggio, that for the sake of my own sanity I'm assuming isn't. Oh, and four boxes of those pretzels that you get on airplanes."
There was a significant pause. Danny was struck by a sudden memory; they'd been outside a bar somewhere, sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, drinking bottled beer and Rusty had been talking about his craving for those little pretzels.
He turned his head. Rusty wasn't looking at him. Apparently he'd had the same memory.
"You wanted pretzels." he said, heavily.
"Danny, I –"
He didn't listen. "You wanted pretzels so now we're in Hong Kong."
"Danny – "
Still not going to listen. "Fix this." he said firmly. "I'm going for a shower."
There was a four-foot tall plushy gorilla in the shower. It was wearing his wrist-watch.
When he finally emerged, feeling calmer and a lot more human, he was mildly astonished to see Rusty apparently attacking his own wrist with a pair of nail scissors. "Things aren't that bad, surely?" he asked dryly.
Rusty blinked at him and held his arm up. There was a luggage label and half a mile of sticky tape wrapped around his forearm. "I can't get it off." he said, helplessly.
Danny smirked and held out his hand for the nail scissors. After a brief hesitation (and honestly, he'd never been that angry) Rusty handed them over, and Danny set to work trying to free his partner.
Something caught his attention; there was something written on the luggage label. In his writing.
'If lost please return to Danny Ocean'
He couldn't even imagine what state of mind he'd have to have been in to feel a need to label Rusty as his property. Completely unable to resist, he looked up to see Rusty's face. Not a bad expression of wounded dignity, but his lips were twitching, and when Danny started laughing, he joined in.
"Got hold of Ryuichi." Rusty said, when they'd finally calmed down. "Once he finished giggling he agreed to help us."
Danny frowned. "He operates out of Tokyo, doesn't he?"
"Uh huh, but he does a lot of business in Britain too – "
He nodded. " – which makes Hong Kong – "
" – exactly."
Danny relaxed slightly. "So, what's going to happen?"
"Two hours, his guy'll bring fresh clothes, money and papers that'll stand up to a reasonable amount of scrutiny. Then we get on Ryuichi's private plane, and . . . " he shrugged. "We're home free and you get married."
Sounded good. And all they had to do was wait. "He taking this as repayment for the thing with the diamonds?"
Rusty shook his head. "We owe him two million. I told him he could pay us back by never discussing this with anyone."
Good. That seemed to be everything settled. "Just so we're clear – " he began.
"Tess'll never find out." Rusty assured him.
Uh uh. He wanted more than that. "No-one hears about this. Ever."
Rusty grinned. "What happens wherever, stays wherever." he promised.
"I knew there was a reason I made you my best man."
Just a bit of silliness that I've been writing on and off for ages now. Hope you liked.