A/N: Further thanks to InSilva. Mostly cos I can't say it often enough.
A/N2: J Milton Hayes wrote 'The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God'. I, therefore, did not.
A/N3: Warnings for...strangeness. No, really, I mean it.
The doctors had insisted on keeping Tess in hospital overnight for observation, and Danny had been happy to go along with that. He'd rather they were too careful, after all, particularly since he'd seen what was left of the car after the accident. A twisted hunk of concertinaed metal. The fact that Tess had come out of it with nothing more than scrapes and bruises was a miracle of luck.
Unsurprisingly he'd passed an uneasy night in the hospital. Nothing worse than being left alone, waiting for news, nothing to do but sit tight and hope. Enough to make him wish that there was someone he could call.
Wasn't just that though. There'd been dreams. Dreams he didn't remember now, but he'd woken with a start of loss and panic and he'd held Tess tightly, fighting to convince himself that she was alive and well.
She was. And now she was eying the wheelchair the nurse had brought with an air of deep dissatisfaction.
"I don't see why I can't just walk," she complained.
"If you prefer, I can carry you?" Danny suggested mildly and inside he frowned. He'd made that offer – threat? – before, he knew he had. Only he couldn't figure out when and to who. Not to Tess, surely, she'd never been hurt and in hospital, not for as long as he'd known her. For a second he wondered about girlfriends he'd had before Tess, but he couldn't think of any specific times, and it didn't feel right. Huh. Must just be the déjà vu thing.
Tess sighed. "I suppose I'll take the wheelchair," she agreed, with somewhat ill grace, and Danny couldn't say why he was surprised that she'd given in so easily.
He smiled and kissed her before helping her into the chair and getting her settled. His fear of losing her was more than enough to account for any nagging feelings of wrongness. He had every intention of spoiling Tess rotten over the next few weeks, and he was certain everything would be back to normal soon.
There was something missing from Danny's life and it was driving him out of his mind.
He didn't know what it was. Just a feeling that had crept up on him over the past six months. Like he'd forgotten something. Something huge and important.
And that was crazy. Nothing had changed in that time. Life went on, just the same as always. He lived in comfortable semi-retirement with Tess, meeting up with his friends just often enough. Reuben, Saul, Frank and Linus, most often. All of them at the end of a phonecall and life was good.
Everything was just as it should be and everything was terribly wrong.
It was little things that were bothering him.
Little thoughts that went unfinished.
Questions that didn't have an answer.
(Why was there always Hersheys chocolate in the cupboard, when neither he nor Tess liked it?)
Stories that didn't quite go the way they were supposed to.
(He remembered the Symington job and he remembered the fire and the door that wouldn't open and he didn't know why he was alive.)
Memories that maybe didn't add up.
(He'd met Saul a very long time ago. He just didn't remember how.)
Most of all it was the feeling he got every time he was on his own, the feeling he got when he met his eyes in the mirror, the feeling that woke him up in a cold sweat at three o'clock in the morning. The feeling that a piece of him was missing, the feeling that he was alone.
(I always thought we'd have more time, you and me. Deep down I always thought we'd have forever.)
Little things though. Jokes that Tess didn't get. References that passed over her head. And all the many, wonderful moments they shared daily didn't seem like quite enough when it felt like there'd once been even more.
Impossible that Tess wouldn't notice. Impossible that she wouldn't feel hurt, betrayed even. The thought that she wasn't enough for him...of course it was going to be painful. And she didn't understand and he couldn't explained.
It started out with the little things. He was frustrated with every thought shared that didn't quite hit the mark. She was upset every time he looked at her and she could see the disappointment in his eyes.
Frustration and disappointment, hurt and upset. Angry arguments and painful, awkward silences, and in the end Danny was the one who suggested the separation, but he was hoping, praying to any luck him might have, that she'd say no.
She didn't.
It sometimes bothered Danny how much he hated working alone. After all, he'd worked alone for most of his life. He should be used to it. And still it never felt quite natural. Felt like he was working blind, like he was always waiting for another voice to cut into his thoughts, always waiting for the other side of the conversation.
If he tried to think about it logically he guessed that maybe it was just that the last few years, ever since the Benedict job, he'd mostly been working as part of a team. He'd got used to having good people beside him, that was all. People he could trust just as easy as breathing. People who lived in the same world as him.
"And that makes ten. Ten ought to do it, don't you think?"
He shook his head, trying to clear it.
He remembered saying the words. And ten had done it. Ten had done it perfectly, just like he'd said.
Only thing was, he didn't know who he'd said it to.
These days it just felt like nothing in his life quite made sense.
He'd lost Tess.
(He'd lost...)
There were holes in his mind that he couldn't think about and couldn't leave alone.
His life was falling apart and the only thing to do was to try and bury himself in work.
That was where Sebastian Charleston came in.
Sebastian Charleston was the perfect mark in many respects – obnoxious capricious and exceptionally wealthy. He lived in a citadel of money and everyone else was beneath him and he wasn't afraid to let them know it. And while he wasn't violent himself, it was only because he had people to do it for him.
Vince Glen, Sebastian's paid shadow, who had once broken a beggar's knees with a nightstick because he'd spat on Sebastian's shoes. Vince Glen who had publicly declared that no one could steal from his employer.
Danny had to figure it would be fun to prove him wrong.
He had a target in mind. A little gold statue with emerald eyes, proudly looted at the height of British colonialism. Sebastian kept it at his country retreat, safely under lock and key, and Danny wanted it.
("There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu," a voice in his head murmured disapprovingly and Danny struggled to shrug it away.)
Couple of days of prep time and he felt ready to go.
The first stage of the play was easy enough. He needed to get an invite back to Sebastian's place. After that it was just a case of lifting the notebook containing the safe code from Vince Glen and absconding with the idol in the middle of the night. Couldn't be simpler.
And to get the invite, well. Third Tuesday of every month, Sebastian played poker in the private bar of the Meridian Grande. And the day Danny couldn't talk his way into an invite would be the day that he retired all over again.
First half hour or so he mostly contented himself with listening. Sebastian liked people who thought for themselves but didn't disagree with him. Tough order, but with a little effort he managed to strike the right balance between independence and deference. Enough that Sebastian smiled at him and called him a bloody good sport, for a Yank, and relaxed enough to tell him a couple of off-colour jokes and share what he thought was a wry smile at the outbreak of sycophantic laughter from the other players.
Of course, Vince Glen was sitting against the back wall, never cracking a smile. But Danny tried not to let that put him off.
No, on the whole, he figured things couldn't be going better.
That was until he came back from the bar after a break to see her sitting in his seat, smiling softly as Sebastian talked.
Danny stopped short, staring at her for what felt like forever, and her eyes were fixed on Sebastian but somehow Danny felt like all her attention was on him. And when she looked up, when she met his eyes, it was almost unwilling, almost like she'd somehow not been able to avoid looking at him for one second longer.
But Danny forgot all that in an instant.
Eyes locked across a crowded room. Like nothing he had ever felt before. He felt like he could read everything in her gaze, all the magic and wonder and wit and intelligence. Everything that spoke of life and fire and brilliance and passion and...and pain?
He started to frown and her expression closed off. She shook her head dismissively, like Danny was beneath notice, and turned back to Sebastian, hanging on his every word.
Danny had no right to feel hurt. No right at all. He didn't even know her.
"Jason!" One of the other players, Bower, had somehow walker up behind him without him even noticing. "See you've noticed our new player. Tasty, isn't she?"
"Who is she?" Danny asked, trying to sound casual.
"I think she said her name was Loretta," Bower said with a shrug. "She just wandered up and asked if she could sit in." He snorted. "Like any man is going to say no to that."
She was astonishingly beautiful, even allowing for the fact that she appeared to be wearing a truly startlingly blue snake-skin dress. But her looks weren't what Danny was looking at. Like admiring the shiny box that the diamond was kept in.
And all that, focused on Sebastian Charleston. Somehow Danny felt betrayed.
"We ready to play or what?" he asked abruptly.
She grinned over at him unaffectedly. "You got someplace better to be?"
"You don't?" he shot back automatically, and somethought was hovering, just out of his reach.
Still grinning, she reached for the deck as the others took their seats.
The cards danced through her fingers. Danny forgot how to breathe. He'd never seen anyone deal like that before.
(It was all for him.)
The game went easy enough. Not like he was trying to win. Was all about the conversation. All about getting Sebastian to notice him.
Of course, that was a little difficult when all Sebastian's attention was on the blonde sitting on his left hand side.
"Well, they say looks aren't everything, but you can't wank over a personality, am I right sweetheart?" he leered at her.
She giggled appreciatively. "Right," she nodded. "Else Jane Goodall would be a lot more popular than she is."
Danny blinked and somehow he couldn't help but feel that somewhere in her mind, she was comparing Sebastian to a chimp. Whether she was or not, it flew right over Sebastian's head.
"Oh, yes," he drawled. "Give me a good pair of tits any day."
Gritting his teeth, Danny tried to turn the conversation as far away as he could. "So, Sebastian, you were saying something about your revenge on Shore?" he asked politely.
"What?" Sebastian blinked. "Oh, yes, I remember." He smiled at her. "You'll like this, sweetheart."
It was difficult when all Sebastian's attention was on her. It was even more difficult when a good portion of Danny's attention was in the same place. Not that she looked at him. Not even for a second.
He was being ridiculously arrogant here. Vain, even. Foolish to assume that she was feeling the same draw he was. Fuck, he was in danger of turning into one of those guys who thought he was irresistible.
All the same...
It was almost like she was trying to keep him away from Sebastian. For every crude joke he chortled at, for every anecdote he told that had Sebastian smiling appreciatively, she would lean forwards with some intensely distracting comment of funny and flirt.
Again, it hurt, and he didn't know why.
But somehow it was a competition now. And not a friendly one either. He was as charismatic as he knew how to be. Personable and fascinating, charming and deferential, and Sebastian was looking at him warmly and nothing she said distracted him for a second.
After Sebastian invited him to the country house for the weekend, he couldn't help but let the smugness show in his eyes.
The look of sheer fury that came his way was enough to wipe the smile from his face.
It was all going wrong.
A/N: Would be very interested if you could take the time to let me know what you think. Thanks. :)
