So, this is part 3 of my young Danny and Rusty story and I still don't own anything connected with Ocean's 11.
For those who might be interested, the chronology goes something like this –
Chapter 2 Walk before you can crawl – Danny is fifteen, Rusty is twelve
Chapter 1 The more things change – set set nine months later
Chapter 3 The lies we live – set approximately a year after the more things change.
He wasn't worried – not yet anyway. A little concerned, perhaps, but definitely not worried. After all, they hadn't made any definite plans – except that they almost always met here at recess. Casually he scanned the crowds of students. Rusty still wasn't there. Silently drumming his fingers against the wall beside him, he considered his options. In all probability Rusty would turn up in a few minutes. He'd probably been kept late after class, or got a line on some business for them or something. That's what he'd assume normally. Except the way their life had been going for the past six weeks, any change to their unofficial routine was unlikely to be anything so straightforward.
"He was escorted to the nurse's office before first period." said a voice behind him. Danny turned round to see Mike from the year above standing there. He didn't bother asking how he'd known who Danny was looking for. As much as he hated the idea of being predictable, some things really couldn't be helped.
Besides, there were far more important concerns right now. "How'd he look?" He managed to keep his voice neutral. He was getting really good at that.
"Like he got hit by a truck. But then, when doesn't he these days?"
Mike was looking at him, and Danny had no idea what he was expecting. He was right though. God, what a mess.
He nodded jerkily. "Thanks."
As he walked off, Mike called after him. "Danny!"
He half-turned back. "What?"
But Mike just shook his head. "Nothing. Never mind."
Sneaking into the nurse's office was child's play, though admittedly he waited until after the next class had gone in, providing enough noise to cover him. The nurse was almost certainly next door, in the main admin office, drinking coffee and gossiping with the secretaries. That was how she spent most of her time, whether she had a patient or not. Still, he was cautious opening the door, just in case, but there was only one person in the room.
Rusty was lying on the bed furthest from the door, knees drawn up to his chest, icepack clamped to the side of his face. He turned his head when Danny came in, and smiled broadly. With the amount of dark purple bruises Danny could see covering his face, he had trouble believing that even that didn't hurt.
As he crossed the room, Rusty sat up and swung his legs off the bed, making room for Danny to kneel on the bed beside him and take the icepack out of his unresisting fingers. It had melted quite a bit. As usual, Rusty tilted his head back, letting him see the worst of the damage. It was a little stupid maybe, but he was oddly grateful for that. It helped to think that he could do something.
There were bruises all the way down the side of Rusty's face. Looked like they continued under his sweater too. On the plus side, the way he'd bounced up, suggested there wasn't anything too serious. But he was wearing long sleeves, which in this weather probably meant . . . he used his free hand to pull up Rusty's shirt sleeve. Rusty rolled his eyes but said nothing. There was a dark, hand-print shaped bruise on Rusty's forearm. Like he'd been grabbed roughly to stop him from getting away. He tried to keep his expression neutral, but judging by the reassuring smile that came his way he'd been something less than successful. Still. Anyone else would probably have thought he didn't care in the slightest. Wasn't in the least bit consumed by an all-encompassing rage. Fooling Rusty was always going to be just a little bit impossible. And he honestly wouldn't have it any other way.
Placing the melting icepack firmly on Rusty's arm for the younger boy to hold in place, he headed to the small freezer in the corner of the room to get another for his face.
There was only left. Damn. Danny couldn't help but wonder at exactly what point a school nurse became negligent. Still, he retrieved it and sat back beside Rusty, leaning in close and pressing the ice to his cheek.
"That's cold." Rusty complained immediately.
"It's supposed to be." Danny told him, matter-of-factly.
"Just because you got top marks in that first aid class." Rusty grumbled.
Danny didn't bother answering. They both knew exactly why he'd studied so hard for that, and it wasn't in order to practice the kiss of life with Ami Sato, fun as that had been.
"So what's the story today?" he asked instead.
Rusty shrugged, his shoulders brushing against Danny's. "I told them I'd fallen off my skateboard. Dropped enough hints to let them think I'd really been in a fight outside of school."
"Didn't you use that one last month?" he asked, frowning.
"They know I live in a rough neighbourhood." Rusty didn't sound concerned, so Danny assumed that the teachers had eaten the story up with their usual, tutting disapproval.
"You could always tell the truth." he suggested, keeping his voice light.
"I made my decision." Rusty sounded tired, and he knew he shouldn't push it. But it had been a long time since he last asked.
"You could change your mind."
"But I haven't." And Rusty's tone was final and Danny knew the topic was closed.
"Concussion?" he asked instead.
Rusty shook his head slightly, dislodging Danny's hand and the icepack momentarily. "Nah. Little bit dizzy when I stand up, but that's it."
That was hardly surprising. "They give you anything?"
Another head shake.
"You told them that it didn't hurt that bad." he concluded, rolling his eyes.
"How do you know I was lying?" Rusty smirked slightly.
Danny just looked at him.
"Joking." Rusty muttered. "There's some painkillers in my bag. I took a couple before I got on the bus."
Danny looked at his watch. "You probably shouldn't take any more just yet."
"Uh huh." OK. So he'd already figured that.
There was a pause. "Danny?" Rusty began finally, staring at the floor in front of him.
"Yeah?" he asked cautiously.
"You really think they'd believe me?"
He closed his eyes, and thought about last time, and about six weeks ago. He almost wished he could lie. "No. I don't."
They fell silent. He casually leaned his arm on Rusty's shoulder, as if he was just trying to hold the ice pack in a better position. Equally casually Rusty turned and leaned back into him, as if he was too tired to sit up straight. At least they had their stories worked out if anyone asked. But for the moment, it was comfortable.
The instant they heard footsteps outside the door, they both sat up straight and exchanged a long look. No point in Danny trying to sneak out now. They'd need to bluff their way through it.
The nurse stepped into the room and stopped dead the moment she saw him. She was probably a little surprised. "Good morning, Mrs. Rosenthal." he said, smoothly.
He had to hand it to her, she recovered pretty well. "Mr. Ocean. I should have known.
Yeah. To be perfectly honest, she probably should have. He smiled sweetly at her. "I just had to check if my friend was all right."
She looked from him to Rusty and back again. "Yes, well. He's fine." He worked hard to keep his face expressionless, wondering exactly what definition of 'fine' they were working with here. "And you should be in class."
"Oh, I have a free period right now." he lied effortlessly. "And when I got here and realised you'd slipped out for a moment I knew that I should stay with Rusty. Because he shouldn't be left alone when he has a head injury, right?" He blinked innocently at her.
She glared at him, uncertainly. "I see. Well, I suppose there's no harm done. And I am very busy . . . I'll write you a pass for your next class."
"Thank you, ma'am." he said, his voice low and sincere.
Her cheeks were tinged with pink as she turned to face Rusty. "Now, how are you young man?"
"I'm fine." Rusty answered. Danny rolled his eyes behind her back.
"Well, perhaps your friend will convince you to avoid any more 'skateboard accidents'" Her tone was archly knowing, and it took a great deal of effort for Danny not to start yelling. She didn't know. She didn't know. And morons were to be taken advantage of, not blamed.
"I'm working on avoiding them." Rusty promised, and Danny would be the only one to hear the irony in his voice.
"I'm afraid we haven't been able to reach your father yet." she continued, "and you'll need to stay here until we do."
Danny nearly laughed out loud. The idea of Rusty being sent home with his dad was . . . something less than acceptable. In fact it was completely and utterly fucking insane and he wasn't about to let it happen.
He aimed a puzzled frown at Rusty. "But your dad's out of town. You were going to stay at mine, remember?" He let his expression shift to one of anxiety – not that hard a reach in the circumstances. "Did you maybe hit your head harder than you thought?"
Rusty blinked at him, and for a second Danny was worried that maybe he really was hurt worse than they'd thought if he wasn't picking up on the story. But then Rusty blinked again. "I forgot." he said voice muzzy, turning to the nurse. "That's okay, isn't it?"
"Well," she hesitated, "I'd need to talk to both your parents, make sure that's all right with them."
"Not a problem." Danny said briskly. "If you haven't managed to get hold of them by the end of the day I'll get my mom to call you."
She nodded, apparently satisfied with the plan. That was good, because Danny was fresh out of ideas. "I'll keep trying your dad's work, Robert. See if I can find a contact number. Keep that icepack on your head. And make sure you go to your next class, Daniel."
"I will." he lied, as she left the room. "Huh."
Rusty frowned at him. "If she calls your mom - "
Danny shook his head. "She's out of the country for a couple of weeks. I was going to ask if you wanted to stay at mine anyway."
There was a pause. "For two weeks?" Rusty asked finally.
"Uh huh." Danny smiled. "Just us."
Rusty lay back on the bed. "Sounds nice."
It did. Two weeks where they could rest, lick their wounds and make plans without fear of parental reprisal. It sounded too good to believe, and Danny resolutely ignored the nagging thought that something was wrong with the whole picture.
"Still," Rusty went on. "She said she needs to talk to – "
"I'll take care of it." Danny cut in.
Rusty chewed his lip. "Are you sure – " He sounded exhausted and Danny just didn't want him to worry anymore.
"Rus'." That got his attention. "I promise." Just this once, he asked silently, let me take care of it – of you - on my own.
There was a barely perceptible pause. "OK." He yawned and added sleepily "Mike's got art right now."
Well, at least they were both thinking along the same lines. That was always reassuring. And he was glad he wasn't going to have to try too hard to track Mike down, though he did wonder whether Rusty had everyone's timetable memorised or just the ones that he thought they might need.
He glanced at his watch; if he hurried he'd be outside the classroom before the bell rang. "You just rest, okay? I'll be back later." He grabbed the icepack from where it had been abandoned at the side of the bed. "And keep that on your face."
Replacing the icepack, Rusty rolled his eyes good-naturedly.
Danny paused in the doorway, feeling a strange reluctance to leave. "I'll be back later." he repeated.
Rusty looked at him seriously. "I know."
He got to the art department just in time to see class get out. Great. With a sigh he waited beside the door. Naturally Mike and his friends were the last ones out of the room.
He cleared his throat and they turned to look at him. "Mike? We need a favour."
One of the boys with him – a new kid, Danny thought, or at least not anyone he recognised – sneered. "We? Kid, I only see one of you."
David elbowed the new boy in the ribs. "Shut up, that's Danny Ocean." he muttered quietly
The boy frowned. "So?"
"So that means 'we' is him and Rusty Ryan, and trust me. School's a lot easier if those guys like you." David was still talking softly, and Danny had to wonder if he thought he couldn't hear him.
Their reputation never ceased to amuse Danny. He couldn't even remember doing anything in particular for David – he wasn't one of the guys who'd signed up to their test paper service. They'd never even busted him out of detention.
Seemed that the new boy had heard some stories though, because he shut up pretty quickly. Huh. He should really keep an ear to the ground and check out what the current batch of rumours actually were. Just in case there was anything particularly libellous, or more importantly, anything particularly funny.
He kept his eyes fixed on Mike. "We need a favour." he repeated. "Please."
Mike looked slightly uncomfortable. "I have drama next." he said apologetically.
Danny nodded, thoughtfully. That did make things a little more complicated. Mike would always happily cut any other class, but he needed drama. He wanted to be an actor, and from where Danny was sitting he had a good chance of making it. The guy had talents. And that was why they needed him.
"Do this and we're even." he said, and then considered. "Do this and we'll owe you." Now that wasn't something he'd had to say often.
Mike frowned suddenly, and with a quick glance at his friends, took a step closer to Danny. "Is this to do with what we were talking about this morning?" he asked quietly.
Danny nodded.
"Then I'll do it anyway, Danny. You know that."
He smiled, relieved. "I'll get you a pass for drama." he promised.
As they walked away he heard the new kid ask "He can do that?"
"Dude." David replied. "They can do anything."
Yeah. He really, really needed to check what stories were being told. He had a nasty suspicion that Rusty had been adding to them again.
Fortunately Mike had a car, so they were able to get to Danny's house in no time at all.
"Are you sure your mom won't come in?" Mike asked, looking round the living room nervously.
"Positive." Danny replied, following the cord to find the phone, his mind already on exactly how they were going to do this. "I overheard her on the phone last night. She's gone to the Seychelles with some guy named Harry."
There was silence. Danny looked up, phone in hand, to find Mike staring at him with an odd expression. Oh. Right. He should have said that his mom had told him she was going away. After six weeks he was a little too used to the silent treatment.
"Danny – " Mike began, frowning.
"Don't." he interrupted, and forced a smile. "Let's just do this, okay?"
Mike nodded slowly and Danny handed him the phone. "How exactly does he sound?" Mike asked.
"Sort of like Rusty, except older obviously, and his voice is deeper and sort of . . . coarser." And he normally sounded a hell of a lot drunker, but that didn't seem like it would be helpful right now.
"Like this?" Mike tried, sounding completely unlike himself.
Danny considered. "Make it a little more throaty." he advised.
Mike nodded. "How about now?"
"Too much." he said quickly.
"So, more like this maybe?"
Okay. That was seriously weird. "Perfect." he grinned.
Mike nodded again and licked his lips nervously. "You got the number?"
Danny handed it over and watched him dial. "Don't use big words."
The school apparently answered fairly quickly. "Oh, hello." Mike said in Rusty's dad's voice. "This is Robert Ryan. I was told you've been trying to call me?"
There was a pause.
"I see . . . is he all right?" Danny frowned; there was far too much concern in Mike's voice to sound remotely believable to him. But then, he supposed that if the school knew how little Robert Ryan Senior cared about his son they might be inclined to do something. Or, more likely, they wouldn't. At any rate it probably wouldn't sound suspicious to them the way it did to him.
"I see." Mike repeated. "Well, I'm out of town right now. He was supposed to be staying with his friend Danny . . . Daniel Ocean? Yeah." Another pause. "Nah, it's all fixed up with his mother."
There was a longer pause, and Danny wished that he could hear the other side of the conversation.
"Yeah, okay, got that. Yeah . . . yes, I'll let you know next time." Thank you. Bye."
Mike hung up and turned to Danny. "They'd like it if Mr. Ryan told them the next time Rusty's supposed to be staying with you. Apparently it's important that they know what you're doing at all times."
Danny grinned. "I don't think that they could handle that information, do you?"
The phone rang. Danny raised his eyebrows. "My turn." He picked it up. "Hello, Thomas Ocean speaking." he said, pitching his voice lower than normal.
"Good day, could I speak to Mrs. Barbara Ocean please?" He recognised the nurse's voice.
"I'm afraid my aunt's not here right now, could I possibly help?" he said, smoothly.
"Well, this is Anne Rosenthal calling from Douglas Grey High School – "
"Danny's school?" he interrupted, putting a note of concern in his voice. "Has something happened? Is he all right?"
She paused. "I really need to speak to Mrs. Ocean."
Danny rolled his eyes; honestly, if he really was a concerned relative he'd be going frantic right now. "Check your file." he instructed. "I'm down as an alternate contact."
"Just a moment." He heard paper rustling. "Oh, great. That's fine Mr. Ocean. Please don't worry, there's no problem with Danny. I was just phoning to confirm that Danny's friend, Robert Ryan, was going to be staying with him?"
"Rusty? Yeah, he's staying at my aunt's while his dad's working out of town." He paused for a fraction of a second "Why?"
"Well, unfortunately, Robert came to school with some injuries – "
"Is it bad?" he asked immediately. "What happened?"
"He's fairly badly bruised. A skateboard accident, apparently." He decided, as Thomas, to ignore the scepticism in her voice. Mostly because he was pretty certain that he'd end up screaming at her. "At any rate we don't feel comfortable with him staying at school for the rest of the day, so we'd be grateful if someone could come and pick him up?"
"I'll be there as soon as possible." he promised. "Thanks for letting me know. Goodbye."
He hung up as she said "Goodbye."
"So what now?" Mike asked archly. "Do I put on a wig and pretend to be Thomas?"
Not a completely ridiculous idea; they might keep it for another occasion. "No, we go back to school, I get your pass out my locker, you go back to class, me and Rusty sneak out and then we get a phonecall and Thomas apologises for not knowing the proper procedures and taking a kid out of school without alerting the office."
"The real Thomas?" Mike asked uncertainly.
Danny blinked. "There is no real Thomas. We made him up."
"Right." Mike still looked confused. Oh well.
After Danny's dad had died he'd been asked to update his emergency contacts sheet – which he'd done by adding a fake cousin, thinking he would come in handy. And he had. They kept meaning to do the same to Rusty's file, but they just hadn't got around to it. The next time they were in the office, he promised himself. It would have made this whole deal much easier if they hadn't had to get Mike involved.
Mike was looking at him strangely again. "Danny. Can I ask you something?" he said, hesitantly.
Figuring that Mike had thought of a way to take advantage of the whole 'we owe you' deal, Danny shrugged. "Sure."
"And you won't laugh, or anything?" Mike persisted.
Danny raised an eyebrow, wondering just what sort of favour Mike was after. "Of course not."
"It's just . . . " Mike spread his arms helplessly. "I'm worried about you." he blurted out. "Both of you."
Well, that was unexpected. "Yeah." he answered flippantly. "Join the club. That brings it up to a grand total of three of us."
Mike pretty much ignored him. "Things have been getting worse, right? I mean the last month or so, Rusty's always beat up, you're both always exhausted and you're charging for things you normally do for free. Tommy Owen said you charged him thirty dollars to get him out of those detentions."
Danny frowned. "Too steep do you think?" he asked, seriously. "He paid it."
Mike shrugged. "Hey, if he wanted his Saturdays free he shouldn't have superglued the staff restrooms. That's not the point." He paused.
"So . . . ?" Danny prompted.
Mike squared his shoulders. "You've got a plan, right?" Danny had never heard him sound so serious. "You're going to fix this."
He hesitated, unsure of what to say. Mike was a friend, one of the good guys – trustable – but . . .
"I don't need to know the details." Mike said, seemingly responding to his uncertainty. "Just tell me that you know what you're doing. And promise me you'll ask if you need my help."
"We asked you today." he pointed out, trying to buy some time to deal with this.
"Danny." Obviously it wasn't going to be successful.
"Yeah." he said, not looking at Mike. "We've got a plan. Kind of a long-term deal. But everything's going to get better." It was. No matter what they had to do to make it happen.
Mike looked immensely relieved, and Danny wondered how it was that people were that worried about them. "Good. It's just . . . I've known you for a long time."
"Yeah." That was true. He could remember playing over at Mike's house when he was in second grade.
"And Rusty's always – "
"Yeah." he repeated, unwilling to face the end of that sentence. Rusty always looked like he'd lost a fight with a man twenty-five years older and a hundred pounds heavier.
There was an awkward silence.
"I went to Mr. Attwood a couple of years back you know." Mike said conversationally. "About Rusty."
"What did that stupid bastard say?" Danny asked with genuine curiosity.
Mike looked slightly startled at the description. Still, it was accurate. "Uh, he offered me a lollipop and told me that we could never understand another person's situation, that all families are different and we shouldn't be judgemental and that some kids are so desperate for attention that they make stuff up."
Yeah. Definitely a stupid bastard. He shrugged. "Rusty does make stuff up." he offered.
"The pair of you are complete liars." Mike agreed cheerfully. "But Rusty's really good at avoiding attention."
Danny smiled slightly but said nothing.
Mike took a deep breath, obviously having worked his way round to what he'd really wanted to say. "Seriously – why hasn't Rusty ever said anything? Why haven't you?"
Danny closed his eyes for a long moment and tried hard not to laugh. Or cry. "What in the world makes you think we haven't?" he asked at last.
Later, surrounded by pizza boxes and watching the late-night Creature Feature with Rusty, Danny thought about what Mike had said.
"Mike's worried about us." he began, finally.
"We should do something nice for him." Rusty said, not taking his eyes from the screen where a dozen incredibly fake-looking tentacles were pulling a scantily clad swimmer to certain doom.
"Yeah." Danny agreed. "But the thing is, he's got a point."
"We already knew that." Rusty said calmly.
"Your face though . . . " The swelling had gone down a lot, but Rusty still looked like one of the victims in one of those anti-drink driving ads. "And it was the same last week. And the week before. Wait . . . " Danny was suddenly distracted by the sight of a woman in a lab coat running through the woods. "Who's that?"
"The beautiful female scientist." Rusty answered immediately.
"Oh." Danny considered for a moment. "I thought she died."
"That's what you were supposed to think." Rusty explained, without looking round. "Turns out it was her identical twin sister."
"Oh." Danny said again.
They watched the movie.
"It's just like when my mom left." Rusty said, after a few minutes had gone by. "It'll get better in a couple of weeks, once he moves past the blaming me stage."
"You mean he'll go back to only hitting you if he notices you." Danny said, keeping his voice as neutral as possible.
Rusty paused. "Are you going to eat that last piece of pizza?"
"Go ahead." Danny nudged the box closer with his foot.
"You know how good I've got at not being noticed." Rusty leaned forwards and grabbed the piece of pizza and Danny caught another glimpse of the fading bootprint on his side. That had been from last week.
They sat in silence as Rusty finished the pizza and the thing with the tentacles ravaged Miami Beach.
"Anyway," Rusty said, licking the last of the crumbs from his fingers. "It's only for another year."
Danny leaned back and said nothing, wondering how well he could cope with another year of coming to school every day hoping that his best friend had survived the night in one piece. If Rusty was wrong – if things didn't go back to his fucked-up definition of normal – well. They would have to change the plan.
"Danny. It is only for another year. Right?" There was just the hint of a panicked edge to Rusty's voice and Danny turned round sharply. They looked at each other in silence for a beat and Rusty seemed to relax. "I thought you might have changed your mind." he explained, almost apologetically.
Danny shook his head, honestly puzzled. That was just never going to happen. It wasn't just about - they were going to save both of them. "Rus' – "
" - I know." He smiled and then winced and touched his lip. "Ow."
Danny sighed. "Just try and remember. Okay?" He reached round the side of the sofa and passed Rusty the painkillers and a fresh bottle of coke.
Rusty didn't say anything; just took the pills and turned back to the movie. Danny watched him for a couple of seconds.
"We're not just going to survive," he promised silently. "We're going to live
He turned back to the TV just in time to see the monster devour its latest victim. He blinked. "Did she just roll into that thing's mouth?"
"Uh huh." Rusty agreed, seemingly transfixed. "Hell of a way to commit suicide."
Danny shook his head. "We have got to start watching movies with an actual budget."
Everything was going to be fine.
He would make sure of it.
So, what did you think? Once again, ffnet is messing with my formatting. Stupid ffnet.