A/N: Set shortly after Ocean's 13
Danny was beginning to give serious consideration to the idea that maybe, just maybe, Rusty had died and neither of them had noticed. By his watch it had been about two hours since Rusty had moved a muscle, and that had only been to stretch his foot slightly. Since then, nothing. Nada. Danny didn't think he'd seen Rusty stay this still since...well, ever.
In a surprising turn of events, Tess and Isabel were both away on business – Tess in Rome and Isabel in Washington - so Danny had figured it was a perfect time for him to visit Rusty. Of course, he'd reckoned without Rusty having finished up a heist at the Deutsch Bank which had apparently involved not sleeping for three days. He glanced over at Rusty critically. Four days. So while Rusty had been pleased to see him, he'd suggested they just stay around the house today. Which had meant Rusty curling up naked on a recliner by the pool, like an evenly-tanned cat.
Not that Danny would ever mind. But he was thinking of poking Rusty with a stick when lunchtime came around. In the meantime, he was amusing himself by responding to all the competitions and quizzes in Cosmo with Linus' details. He'd send them in the next chance he got.
Rusty's phone rang suddenly and Danny watched amused as Rusty grabbed it from the table and answered it without raising his head or even opening his eyes. "Yeah...Dominic? Is Reuben okay?" Danny's amusement faded in an instant and he leaned closer. He'd talked to Reuben just last week and Reuben had promised he was doing fine and doing everything the doctors told him to...but things could change quickly. "Really? Okay we'll be there in...right. We'll meet you there." He hung up the phone and sat up slowly. "Reuben's fine," he said before Danny had even managed to formulate the look that asked the question. "Dominic's in trouble."
Danny blinked. "Dominic doesn't get in trouble," he pointed out.
Rusty shrugged. "Apparently he's found some and he needs our help." He looked around vaguely. "I should probably find some clothes before we head to the airport, right?"
"Right," Danny agreed fervently.
Apparently Dominic hadn't wanted to meet them anywhere near Reuben's place. Instead he was waiting for them in an upmarket coffee shop on the way from the airport. Wearing a trenchcoat, a fedora and a false beard and moustache.
Danny stopped dead, trying not to stare.
"Don't get any ideas," Rusty said in a low voice.
Ideas? He shot Rusty a look of hurt. Whenever he tried to sneak a false moustache past Rusty's watchful gaze, it at least matched his hair colour.
Dominic caught sight of them and beamed with relief. "Mr Danny. Mr Rusty. Thank you for coming."
"Of course," Danny said, sitting down. "So what's the problem?"
The problem, surprisingly, was a girl. "Susan," Dominic lamented. "She's beautiful and twenty years younger than me. I should have known better. I'm an old fool."
They listened sympathetically as the tale unfolded. A couple of dates, a lot of ego boosting, and Susan had taken Dominic to this fantastic new club she'd discovered called Sensations.
"It was not a place that I liked the look of," Dominic said delicately. "But I did not want Sue to think I was an old stick in the mud, so I didn't say anything. And inside..." He visibly shuddered and was obviously unwilling to continue.
That bad, huh?" Rusty asked.
That bad. Bad enough, in fact, that Susan had introduced Dominic to the owner, Martin Rice, and Dominic discovered that while they'd been walking around the club, Martin had taken a number of pictures on his camera phone. Pictures that Dominic desperately wanted to make sure no one ever saw.
"I am not doing anything in the pictures," he assured them for the fifth time, despite the fact that they had expressed absolutely no doubt on the matter. "But the other people in the pictures are..."
" - not so innocent," Danny suggested.
Dominic nodded fractionally and Danny seriously doubted he was going to say any more. "I don't want anyone to see them," he said quietly. "I would be disgraced. And I really don't want Mr Reuben to know."
Danny opened his mouth to point out that Reuben would never doubt Dominic's innocence when Dominic finished. "He has been through enough this year."
That was difficult to argue with. Reuben might not be shocked or judgemental, but the fact that Dominic was being hurt would hurt him.
"Reuben never has to know," Rusty nodded. "So. What are they after? Money?"
Dominic looked even more distressed. "They want information on Mr Reuben's business dealings. If it was just money I would try and pay them, but this? I would - "
" - you would never," Rusty cut in reassuringly.
"We know that," Danny agreed with a flash of a smile. "Alright. We'll take care of this, Dominic. Don't worry."
Immediately Dominic looked relieved.
"We'll let you know what's happened tonight," Rusty added. "We'll stop by Reuben's."
"You will see Mr Reuben?" Dominic said apprehensively. "I don't want - "
" if he finds out we've been in town and haven't stopped by..." Danny pointed out with a shrug. Reuben would be hurt. They all knew that.
Dominic nodded. "As long as he doesn't suspect you're up to anything," he said firmly.
Rusty grinned. "You don't think he'd be more suspicious if we weren't up to something?"
Dominic slipped away, wanting to get back before Reuben noticed anything and Danny drank an espresso, sat back and watched Rusty play with his phone.
"Can you get the Starship Enterprise on that thing?" he asked with interest.
"You want Kirk or Picard?" Rusty answered without looking up.
He smiled. "All I'm saying is that mine just calls people."
Rusty glanced at him briefly. "Yours does a lot more than call people. You just don't know how to use it properly."
"I'd be doing better if Livingston hadn't stolen the manual," he said sulkily. Apparently the manual had been wrong. Which he might not have minded if he'd understood a word of the lesson Livingston had offered in return.
"There," Rusty said triumphantly. "I've got the Sensations club website private gallery." He looked closer at the screen and pursed his lips. "Huh."
Danny had a look. Huh indeed. He didn't think he'd seen that much leather and latex in one place in his life.
"Thing is," Danny commented, as they leaned against the wall and ate their burgers, watching the world go by. "If someone's trying to sell Reuben's business dealings, then someone has a buyer."
"Someone who doesn't like Reuben very much," Rusty agreed, licking ketchup enthusiastically off the back of his hand.
"Bank?" Danny suggested. Hadn't been that long since opening night, and maybe his little chat with Bank hadn't been enough.
Rusty screwed his face up. "Bank wanted to be this sort of stupid, he'd probably have put Dominic in hospital."
Danny nodded. Yeah. That was his take. They were looking for someone -
" - small," Rusty nodded. "And petty."
They looked at each other. "Terry Benedict," they said in unison.
And that meant that people would be looking for them. They'd have to move fast before Terry even knew they were in town. Above all they'd have to be certain they couldn't be recognised.
Danny looked at Rusty. Rusty looked at Danny. "Guess - "
" - we're going leather shopping."
"Is it too late to tell you I have an allergy to latex?" Danny asked in an unhappy voice, surrounded by shelves and hangers of...stuff.
"Feeling a little happily married?" Rusty murmured, looking over from his perusal of a costume Danny didn't even understand.
"Are those arm holes or leg holes," he asked curiously.
Rusty put the costume down with a grimace. "Neither."
"Huh," Danny said. "But there's two of...oh! Got it."
"Enough to want to wear it?" Rusty asked with a grin. "Should disguise...most of you."
"Uh huh," Danny scowled. "Are you telling me that Isabel would be happy to know you were in a place like this? Because unless your sex life - "
" - okay, okay," Rusty said hastily. "Fine. No discussing - "
" - not here, if you don't mind," Danny nodded. He sighed and moved onto the next shelf. "You know, I can think of a few occasions I would have been happy to have you on a leash."
"This should hide your face," Rusty retorted, throwing something over to him.
He caught it automatically, looked down and grimaced. "Let's try and stay away from anything Pulp Fiction related, huh? We want to fit in the Goldilocks way."
"Nothing too hard, nothing too soft," Rusty nodded. "Gotcha."
Sometimes Danny had to wonder about him.
In the end, Danny went for a mask that was slightly more Zorro than gimp, only with rather more studs than Don Diego de la Vega had probably seen in his life. Added to that he had a black PVC shirt with too many buckles, and a pair of leather pants that had him worried about chafing. And a shiny bald wig. On the whole, he was confident he looked nothing like himself. He'd say his best friend wouldn't recognise him, but that was just never gonna happen. Not least because his best friend was standing next to him, dressed in something black and shimmery, wearing too much eyeliner, a long platinum blond wig, and enough body glitter that he sparkled even in low light.
Danny glanced sideways at him. "You look like one of the vampires from Twilight."
Rusty grinned. "You watch Twilight?"
"Shut up," Danny suggested mildly.
"What's that?" Rusty asked sharply as Danny absently shoved the red handkerchief deeper into his back pocket.
"Huh?" He shrugged. "Noticed that a lot of the guys in the photographs had these. Thought it was some sort of style statement. Figure it would help us fit in."
"Uh huh." Rusty shook his head and pulled the handkerchief out of Danny's pocket, balling it up and throwing it into the garbage. "You just hit the wrong end of the Goldilocks spectrum."
Danny blinked. "What?"
"'s not so much a style statement as a style request," Rusty told him, shaking his head again. "Honestly, you say I don't notice the signals."
Huh. Danny considered asking, but then decided that he probably didn't want to know.
They walked into the club and the guy on the door didn't give them a second glance, just took their money and waved them through. Once inside it took all the self control Danny had built up over a lifetime to keep from reacting. The club was heaving, occasionally literally, split off into little groups and tableaus of depravity. Far as Danny could see no one was actually having sex, but there was a feeling of anticipation, a smell in the air that suggested it was only a matter of time.
He looked at Rusty quickly, ready to warn or beg him to stick close, and he laughed to see the exact same thought on Rusty's lips. Yeah. Protectiveness was out in full force. From both directions.
"This place - " he commented.
" - exactly," Rusty agreed. "Can't help thinking - "
" - Dominic," he nodded. "He must have - "
" - oh, he must have," Rusty finished with a grimace. There was no wonder that Dominic wouldn't want any evidence he'd even set foot in this place.
They walked further into the club, trying not to stand in anything that...just trying not to stand in anything. Automatically they headed to the bar and ordered some drinks. Danny tried not to stare at the clean cut young man on his hands and knees beside them, drinking happily out of a dog bowl while a spiky woman held his leash.
"You know - " Rusty said slowly.
" - yeah," Danny agreed. Their plan had been to create enough of a fuss that the manager would be called. But somehow he didn't think that complaining about the cover charge was gonna cut it here. "We need something - "
" - bigger," Rusty agreed, already scanning the room. "Alright. I got it covered. Manager's office - "
" - up those stairs," Danny nodded. "I saw."
"Don't get in any trouble," Rusty instructed.
"Likewise," he said dryly, draining his glass quickly. Ugh. If it was anymore watered down it might have been healthy.
He set off towards the office, carefully sidestepping the wild-eyed man brandishing a truncheon, the tattooed guy lying back in the sling, and the large woman who was pissing on...okay, ew. The stairs were at the back, next to a small alcove where a man was tied to a wall while another man whipped him frantically. By the looks of things, they were both enjoying it immensely.
Danny had always considered himself a fairly open minded guy, but he had to admit, he couldn't understand how anyone could find pain sexy. He'd been on the receiving end too often, and getting off had been the last thing on his mind.
He walked up the stairs a little and looked over the club as if he was just enjoying the view. Really, he was listening to the office behind him. The door was ajar and he could hear someone moving around in there. Had to be Martin Rice. He hoped.
He looked down and caught Rusty's eye and nodded fractionally, and even at this distance he could picture the blinding smile that Rusty shot him in return. Fascinated, he watched as Rusty weaved his way through the crowd, stopping to whisper to a couple of people here, smile at someone there, spill a drink, trip someone, and in his wake fights broke out, spilling into each other until the whole club was involved. Bottles were thrown. Chairs and...assorted accessories...were swung. And Rusty was calmly strolling through it all unscathed, ducking the occasional punch.
Danny smiled to watch it. Magic in action.
Just as he'd expect, the door behind him burst open at the sound of the fight, and Martin Rice burst out, looking wildly around at the scene of anarchy where he was expecting a scene of debauchery. Danny took advantage of the moment of shock and confusion to slip past behind him, easily lifting the phone out of his pocket.
Mission accomplished. Now to get out of here before anyone realised that Rusty was about as innocent as snow that had been driving for a bank job. And before these pants rode up any higher.
One quick change of clothing and a slightly longer trip to the nearest Genuis Bar later, and they were standing on Reuben's doorstep.
Danny had felt slightly left out as Rusty had connected Rice's phone to an unattended computer and emailed Roman to have him send some sort of virus that not only ripped all the pictures out the phone, but also followed them anywhere they'd been uploaded to and destroyed that too. At least that was Danny's understanding. He also got the impression that they wanted to be elsewhere when the Apple Geniuses figured out exactly what had been downloaded onto their computer.
Dominic opened the door and looked over his shoulder quickly. Evidently Reuben was nowhere in earshot. "Did you - "
" - it's done, Dominic," Danny assured him. "No more photos."
"Good," Dominic said with a sigh.
"What's good?" Reuben asked curiously, coming down the stairs. His face lit up when he saw them. "Guys!" Danny eyed him quickly and certainly Reuben looked better than he had been even two months ago. And that was good because really, Danny wasn't anywhere near ready to accept the idea that Reuben might be mortal yet.
"Hi Reuben," he smiled.
"Hey, Reuben," Rusty said at the same moment.
"Come in, have a drink," Reuben invited. "Tell me what you're doing here."
"Just passing through town," Danny said easily as they followed Reuben inside, and he'd swear he actually held Dominic give a sigh of relief. He prepared for a night of little white lies.
"Thought you wouldn't mind us dropping in," Rusty contributed.
Reuben snorted. "Like I ever mind - " he stopped short, staring hard at Rusty's face. "Is that glitter on your cheek?"
Alright. Maybe a night of inexplicable little white lies.
"Danny wanted me to dress up as Edward Cullen," Rusty explained calmly, futilely trying to rub the glitter away.
….that might be a lie too far. On the other hand..."Ha!" he said triumphantly. "You've seen it too."
Reuben and Dominic exchanged knowing glances and sat back, ready to be entertained.
