Disclaimer: Don't own, just playing
He finally gave up and made the call at three o'clock in the morning, from the type of dingy bar that never closed, just locked the doors and paid off any cops that happened by. There was already a collection of empty glasses in front of him, his elbow was in a patch of something sticky, he'd given the bartender his watch in return for not being thrown out, and he'd held, out almost alone, for nearly six hours. It was time.
The phone was picked up after four rings; he must have been busy, or asleep. "Yeah?" Familiar. Warm. And very far away.
"It's me." he said, unnecessarily.
"What's up?" He could hear a woman's voice in the background. Not Isobel, of course, or even Debbie who had briefly come after, before all that ambition – in a good way – led her to seek what she thought were brighter lights. (Of course, he could have told her that there was nothing brighter but she wouldn't have understood.) Still, 'busy' had it, and briefly – ever so briefly - he thought of apologising.
"Come get me." he said instead, and hung up.
He put the phone back in his pocket, took another harsh swallow of cheap whisky and stared at the ring on his finger.
Because there were other ways of self-destructing beyond sloppy planning and Incan matrimonial head masks but they all started with not making a phone call. And this time could be different.
The last time there had been yelling and broken plates and he hadn't really felt different, even when she told him he was nothing but a thief and a liar (and he knew he was something more) he hadn't seen the changes. It hadn't been until he was handcuffed in the back of a police car that he'd known that he'd lost something. The fact that he didn't get it back until the next time he was being arrested wasn't lost on him.
This time there had been cold indifference and long, awkward silences. Somehow he didn't think that any amount of time spent inside could make amends. Besides he honestly hadn't done anything that he needed to apologise for, except assume that he was the only one in the relationship who could possibly be hiding things. Six months in Vegas and she'd been the first one to look away. The first one to change. This time there'd been someone else, and that was new.
The drunk at the bar was looking hopefully at him again - he'd bought the guy a drink when he'd first arrived and now apparently he wanted another. Well, tough. If he was getting anyone drunk tonight, it was going to be himself. He signalled the bartender.
The next time he looked at the clock behind the bar almost two hours had gone by. And about a quarter of a bottle. He frowned; he couldn't quite remember how long it would take to get here from California. Maybe he should have said exactly where 'here' was. Nah, if he couldn't find out . . . well, he could. He always could. That was the point.
Most people, he had to admit, would probably have called a friend in the same town, or at the very least on the same side of the country. He only ever had one phone call.
No matter where he was, in all his life there was only one person he could always phone up and say 'take me home' and not have to think any more about it.
He spun his wedding ring round on the table and sighed. Damn, he was getting maudlin.
The thing that no-one ever understood – because he would never, ever let anyone know – was that he hadn't felt alone since he was a child. Not in any way that mattered. It wasn't like he thought that either of them was unbeatable. He just knew that both of them together were.
The first thing that Saul had ever tried to teach them had been the only thing that didn't take. Because they were never going to learn how to function separately, no matter how long they spent apart. And even when he had them on opposite sides of the country, working with different people, learning different things; one phone call – two minutes of saying nothing – and everything was as it always had been.
In the end they'd turned it into a game. Look at me and see what hand I dealt him. Finish my sentences and it's all a joke on them. Walk in step and laugh and we don't know anyone else exists. Play it like it's all an act, because you can hide the truth in mirrors if you really try.
And the only time it had all gone wrong had been when he started his first serious relationship and even their act had been a bit too much for her. Cora had said that she didn't want to feel jealous of his best friend, and he'd been young and in love and had looked to change the wrong thing. A late night, a couple too many bourbons, and he'd wished aloud, and Rusty had smiled and the next day a stranger had been walking in his best friend's skin.
No-one else had noticed; the stranger did a great impersonation. The only missing piece had been the indefinable part that made him Danny's. It had been three days before he had fully realised that this was never what he had wanted, and two more before Rusty fully came back to him. Neither of them ever said they were sorry, and Cora got left by the wayside. Rusty hadn't been trying to teach him a lesson, but Danny had learnt it anyway.
According to the clock another ninety minutes of his life had passed away unmarked. Hopefully Rusty would get here soon, because he just didn't know what happened next. He thought, for a while, about late night phone calls and never saying sorry because need was a two way street and some things you always took for granted.
On his first second anniversary he'd left his wife in an expensive restaurant with nothing more than a quick apology and a diamond necklace with stones stolen from two continents, to drive eight hours to a rundown motel twenty miles out of Detroit. She'd never understood, and maybe she'd never forgiven him, but that was all right. Because Tess had been angry, but Rusty had been bleeding.
(There could have been a lesson for him there but he'd had other things on his mind.)
When he'd gone to prison he'd had a security that no-one else had. He'd known that as ever, all he had to do was make one phone call and within a month he'd be on the outside, with a new identity and someone to spend the rest of his life on the run with. And yes, all that would really mean was that he'd fucked two lives up (one life in two parts) forever and always. And yes, Saul would have eventually tracked them down and made their lives hell for screwing up that badly. But still, on the first night, when the lights went out and he was alone, it took so much to remind himself that it wasn't worth it.
In those first weeks, when he hadn't known who to watch out for, which rules to follow, who to be in order to survive he'd thought about calling every day. Even after he found a place he could live with, there were times – when he was introduced to his new cellmate, a tattooed mountain named Bruiser, when he saw Mac Polanski stab Toby G over an argument about floor polish, when he stupidly won thirty cigarettes off Mr. Santino in a crooked poker game and the rumours said that Big Ed thought he had a pretty mouth – when all he wanted to do was phone Rusty and beg him to take him home.
And he hadn't dared to call at all, or even write, because he'd know that he was afraid, even though no-one else would ever dream it, and he might just make the decision of his own accord, so for four years he stayed incommunicado and ate the cookies that arrived promptly every month with exotic postmarks that he knew didn't bear any resemblance to where he actually was.
The month, two years and three weeks into his sentence when the cookies didn't come, was the longest he'd ever spent. He spent two sleepless nights wondering if he'd been forgotten, before he realised that that was impossible – which made it worse - and so he spent the next two weeks worrying, pacing around his cell and the exercise yard, thinking thoughts of Steve McQueen and snapping at anyone who even spoke to him, until finally Bruiser dragged him along to the Chaplain's meditation class. It hadn't helped, but it had reminded him that he needed to play the game.
Two years, one month and five days into his sentence he got his first phone call. From Frank. Telling him not to worry but, and he was able to breathe again.
Sixteen days later he got a giant cookie with a dirty limerick written on it in icing in the post, and several strange looks from the guards. He didn't mind in the slightest.
At some point over the last couple of hours he'd slumped forwards, and now the side of his face was in the sticky patch, his eyes were closed, and his empty glass was clutched tightly in his hand. It wasn't one of his more suave moments, he had to admit. A shadow fell across him, and he didn't need to look to see who it was.
"Apparently it's not me, it's her." he mumbled.
He felt Rusty take the glass out of his unresisting fingers. "You dragged me out of bed at three o'clock in the morning to tell me that Tess doesn't have any original lines?"
He laughed a little in spite of himself and lurched almost to his feet. Rusty caught him before he fell.
When the world stopped spinning he opened his eyes and looked at the man holding him up. "You got your hair cut again."
"Yeah."
He stopped to consider for a moment. "I hate it."
"If I let go right now – "
" - I'd probably throw up on your shoes." he admitted.
"Ah."
He closed his eyes again, and Rusty shifted slightly until they were side by side, Rusty supporting most of his weight. "Think you can walk out to the car?"
"If I say no, will you drive it in here?" he asked, and he could hear the exhaustion in his own voice. There was a thoughtful pause, and when he opened his eyes in alarm, Rusty was grinning. "I can walk." he said quickly.
With Rusty's help he staggered outside and blinked in the mid-morning sun. The only car on the deserted street was a cherry-red Mustang. Definitely not a hire car.
"Got it out of the airport long-term parking." Rusty said, in answer to the question he hadn't quite managed to formulate in his brain.
"Are you going to put it back?" he managed.
Rusty shrugged. "Haven't decided. I'm not sure if the colour is quite me."
"You're more of an autumn." he agreed, as Rusty helped him into the passenger seat.
He meant to ask where they were going, but the seat was comfortable and he leaned back and closed his eyes as he heard the driver's door shut and Rusty settle into the seat next to him.
He opened them again as he felt cool fingers fix his watch back on his wrist. The watch that he'd left with the barman. And suddenly, as Rusty's hand rested on his for a fraction of a second longer than it had to, it didn't matter where they were going. Because he was home.
Author's note: I was in two minds over whether to post this. It's a little more messed up than the stuff I usually write. Bearing that in mind, I'd really like to hear what you honestly think about it.