Current thinking is leaning towards four chapters, total in this. Current thinking may be wrong. Who can say?
Oh, and there is a character in this who is influenced by one of my older obsessions. Namely M*A*S*H. It wasn't deliberate, but it is there. Not so visible in this chapter, perhaps, but there. This is just me acknowledging the influence.
He parked the car directly outside their apartment building. The stolen car. Not something he'd even consider doing, normally, but when he weighed that against making Danny travel any further than he had to, well, there was just no question. Besides, if he was right, no-one would notice this car had gone for a while. And no-one had seen them, not the car, not their faces. They should be okay. And he would get rid of the car, the security uniforms, the IDs – everything incriminating. Just as soon as he felt comfortable leaving Danny alone. He grinned; that would probably be some time next century.
"Something funny?" Danny gasped, as they staggered up the stairs. Danny's arm was over his shoulders. Rusty was supporting most of Danny's weight, and still Danny was struggling not to cry out with every step. They should have moved into somewhere with an elevator. He should have seen that this might be an issue, and they should have moved into somewhere with an elevator, so he wouldn't be forcing Danny to go through this.
"Thinking about that time your dad took us fishing," he answered promptly. "You whine more when you get wet than when you get shot, you know that?"
"Liar," Danny said immediately.
Rusty pretended to misunderstand. "You do!"
Danny said nothing. But he pressed his head against Rusty's chest, and just because Danny wasn't complaining didn't mean that Rusty didn't know how much it hurt. He wondered if Danny could feel how fast his heart was beating.
It was a relief to get inside, and more, far more, to get Danny lying down on his bed. Even if Danny buried his face into the pillow and tried to hide his eyes and his pain. That hurt a little, but Rusty busied himself making a pile from cushions and towels and anything that didn't move away fast enough, and making sure Danny's leg was elevated and supported.
"Feel like a flamingo," Danny mumbled.
"Colour wouldn't suit you," Rusty replied. He headed through to the kitchen and grabbed painkillers, the first aid kit and a glass of water and was back in Danny's room practically before he left. His hands were shaking, he noticed, as he put the glass down on the nightstand. He had to get that under control fast.
Danny twisted his head round to look at him. "You're talking to me about colours?" He was pale, but he looked amused. In control. That was good.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Rusty demanded, holding out three pills and offering the water.
Danny took them with a grimace. "Did you see what you were wearing for your date on Friday? Or do you not actually look in the mirror?"
"It's in," Rusty said firmly, staring down at the back of Danny's pants leg. At the hole. At the dark stain.
"You don't care what's in," Danny argued.
And that was true. "I looked good. Chrissie said I looked good."
Danny rolled his eyes. "Chrissie thinks you'd look good naked."
Oh, he walked right into that one, bullet or no bullet. Rusty grinned. "She does. She did. I do." He paused, and he crouched down in front of Danny and let the apology show. "I need to – "
Danny nodded. " – he's not going to be happy."
"Yeah." Not happy in the slightest, Rusty would think.
"Rus'." Danny licked his lips. "Rus'."
And he understood that fear perfectly well. "I won't be long," he promised. He didn't bother pointing out he'd just be in the other room. Ten feet could still be too far apart.
"Go," Danny said hoarsely and he ran for the living room and the phone.
He dialled the number that Saul had given him two weeks ago, for the hotel he and Bobby would be staying in. Just for emergencies, he'd said, just in case, and they'd been quietly amused, and there had been mockery, because what could happen? They weren't children; Saul taught them, they didn't expect him to look after them. They took care of each other, and that was all they needed, and if they'd – he'd – thought to make sure they knew how to find a discreet doctor, there wouldn't be any problems.
The concierge answered and he asked to be put through to Mr Pendersmith's room. He waited for a long few seconds, wondering what he'd do if Saul was out.
"Yes? What?" Saul sounded . . . well. Saul sounded like he'd just been woken up in the middle of the night.
"It's Rusty," he said at once. "We need the number of a doctor in our area."
He heard the sharp inhalation. Heard the split second hesitation. Heard Saul get on top of it all and focus on the practical. "What's happened?"
"Danny got shot in the leg. I got the bleeding stopped, for now, but the bullet's still in there." There. If he said it matter-of-factly, like that, he could get through. Just about.
"How is he?" Saul asked anxiously, and Rusty did his best not to think.
"He's fine." His voice was neutral. Steady. Calm and reassuring. He wondered if Saul was fooled, even for a second.
There was the tiniest pause. "How are you?"
"I wasn't the one who got shot," he pointed out, almost evenly. Because Danny had stood in front of the bullet.
"Robert." Saul's voice was quiet and stern.
"I'm doing okay, Saul," he said, after a second. "We're fine, I promise. We just need that doctor as soon as possible."
"I know a few guys in the city. Walt's probably closest. You at your place?" Saul spoke briskly.
Rusty closed his eyes, overwhelmed with relief. "Yeah."
"I'll make a call. He'll be with you soon as possible. Keep calm."
"I'm always calm," he pointed out.
"Yeah." Saul was quiet. Rusty hung up and went back through to Danny.
Danny was exactly where he'd left him, unsurprisingly. And as soon as Rusty entered the room, some of the tension, some of the pain, seemed to flow away. Rusty stood for a long moment, looking down at Danny's leg and biting his lip. "Danny . . . "
"You want to take a look." Danny sounded calm. Which was impressive, really, because he wasn't.
"Need to see," Rusty apologised.
There was a pause. "We can't just ignore it?" Danny asked hopefully.
Rusty laughed shortly. "Hope it goes away on its own?" Not exactly their normal style.
"No," Danny agreed, and Rusty heard the unspoken admission. He was scared too. Scared of what he might see, scared of how bad this could be, scared that Danny could . . .
"It's going to hurt, however I do it," he said quietly.
Danny looked up at him, eyes serious. "Then stop hesitating."
He nodded and pulled the scissors out of the kit and, as gently as he could, he started to cut the material away. And he did his best to be careful, did his best to keep the cloth away from Danny's leg, and still there were the gasps, and still there were the moans.
His hands weren't shaking now. And there were no tears.
Finally he was done, and he got a look at the wound.
"What . . . what's it . . . ?" Danny managed to scrape out, between clenched teeth. Rusty winced, because the painkillers should have started working by now, and it suddenly occurred to him that maybe they were. Maybe this was it with the edge off.
"It's nothing," he lied. "Looks like a paper cut. You sure you got shot?"
It looked the size of the Grand Canyon. The edges were black and the blood was everywhere. It had slowed to a trickle though. Tourniquet was doing something. He'd done something right tonight.
Danny reached out a hand blindly, and Rusty caught if firmly and squeezed it tight and brought it to his lips. After a second, Danny spoke. "You think . . . . you think I'm going to . . ."
Lose the leg? Walk again? Die? Rusty had no idea. They'd never had to deal with anything like this before. He wished he knew, and he wished he could lie to Danny, spin the reassuring story, promise everything was going to be okay, laugh and say it was only (only!) a bullet in his leg, not the end of the world. He knelt down in front of Danny, still clutching his hand and they looked at each other for a long, long time and the only thing that passed between them was everything. He kissed Danny on the cheek, and then he stood up and reached for the antiseptic. "Clint Eastwood never dies," he said, finally.
"He did in 'The Beguiled," Danny answered immediately, and they both winced. Because first? First he lost the leg.
"Well, you're safe from everything except school girls with mushrooms then," Rusty said firmly. "Ready?"
"No!" Danny said immediately, and he screwed his eyes shut in readiness. "Okay," he said, after a long moment.
Rusty hesitated. But it was true, so he had to say it. He knew, he had experience, and they were the same, after all. "It'll be easier if you look at me. It hurts less."
Danny opened his eyes. And he kept them fixed on Rusty through the pain, even when he obviously wanted to scream, and Rusty didn't look away, he kept his gaze steady, and he promised it would be over soon.
"There," Rusty said finally, and he folded some gauze over Danny's leg. He could only hope it'd been in time to prevent infection.
Danny closed his eyes and swallowed hard. "I'm more like Bogart anyway. Bogart doesn't get shot."
"Angels with Dirty Faces." Rusty pointed out immediately
"Doesn't count if it's Cagney." Danny said definitely.
"Yeah," Rusty said quietly, and perched on the other side of the bed gingerly. After a moment he realised that he was absently rubbing the blood off his hands. Danny was smiling. Just a little "What?"
"'S my blood," Danny explained. "It's never been my blood before."
Rusty swallowed. "It was your blood in Vegas," he argued.
"Both of us," Danny corrected.
And Rusty wanted to ask, was desperate to ask, but the loud rapping at the door made them both jump.
"Doctor?" Rusty suggested hopefully. Little quicker than he'd been expecting, but he could hope.
"Police?" Danny countered and Rusty wasn't so sure he was as bothered as he should be. Either way, Danny would be getting medical attention.
"One way to find out," he said lightly, and headed to answer the door.
A glance through the peephole convinced him that it wasn't the police; the man standing outside had to be well into his sixties. He opened the door a fraction. "Yes?"
The man looked startled. "Sorry kid, I think I have the wrong address."
Rusty's eyes fell on the medical bag in the man's hands. "Saul send you?"
If anything, that made the man look more surprised. "Yeah. I'm Walt Bowman. Dr Bowman."
Thank god. He opened the door wide. "I'm Rusty Ryan. Come in, Dr Bowman."
"Walt. Please." He walked in, still looking curiously at Rusty. "Saul said someone's been shot?"
"Yeah," Rusty said quietly. "It's his leg."
"Your father?" Walt guessed.
Rusty tensed. Noticeably. And he knew it was noticeable because of the way Walt frowned at him. "No," he said, a little too quickly. "My . . . " He hesitated. "Danny. Danny's been shot. Through here." He walked towards the bedroom, trusting that Walt would follow, trusting that he'd help them. Trusting Saul.
If Walt had looked unhappy at seeing Rusty, it was a thousand times worse when he saw Danny. Rusty got the distinct impression that somehow the very sight made him miserable. And then it all faded away, and he walked up to the head of the bed, and smiled down at Danny as though neither of them could possibly have a care in the world. "Hi there, kid. I'm Walt. I'm a friend of Saul's, here to help you."
Danny grinned a little. "Nice to meet you. I'd get up but – "
" – but as your doctor I'm ordering you to lay off the politeness for a bit," Walt interrupted. "Now listen, Danny. I'm going to take a look at your leg. See what we've got. Then I'll decide whether we're getting you to a hospital or whether I can do something for you here. How does that sound?"
It sounded good to Rusty. Danny's eyes slid past Walt and fixed on him, and they were in complete agreement. "Sounds good," Danny agreed, a second after Walt had followed his gaze and taken to frowning at Rusty again.
"Okay. Then I'll give you something for the pain first," Walt said, looking through his bag.
Danny hesitated. Rusty could see it, and he could understand why, because there was someone they didn't know in their home, and Danny didn't want to be anymore helpless than he already was, and he didn't want to leave Rusty alone in any way. But just because he understood didn't make it any less stupid. "Saul knows him," he reminded Danny quietly and he held Danny's stare until Danny nodded slowly.
Walt was still frowning. "Everything okay?"
"Fine," they said in unison, then Rusty blinked. "Oh, I gave him a couple of painkillers." Last thing he wanted was something that might interfere with whatever Walt was doing.
"Show me the packet," Walt requested and Rusty picked it up off the chair he'd dropped it on. Walt stared at it for a few seconds. "No problem," he said finally and produced a needle. "This won't hurt a bit."
Danny smiled at Rusty. "You ever notice that doctors lie more than we do?" Then he winced, as the needle jabbed his arm.
The examination took ten minutes or so. And if Rusty had been in the habit of biting his fingernails, he probably would have gnawed through to the bone. As it was, he stood, holding Danny's hand loosely, offering silent comfort and reassurance, and anything else Danny wanted, and concentrating on not being in the way.
Finally Walt stood back, pulled off his gloves and sighed. "Okay, then. We're doing this here."
"How bad is it?" Danny asked quietly, a second before Rusty managed to come up with some other way of phrasing the question.
Walt smiled reassuringly. "You know, it's not that bad. In my day, with an injury like this, they'd expect you to turn out for morning callisthenics the next day. I'd say that there's nothing that should stop you making a full recovery."
Rusty could see the relief spread through Danny and he squeezed Danny's hand tightly. At that moment, they could conquer the world. If they wanted to.
"Thanks, Walt," Danny smiled.
"Thank you," Rusty whispered.
"Yeah, well," Walt nodded awkwardly. "I need a place to scrub up. And I'm going to need an assistant." He narrowed his eyes at Rusty. "You up to it kid?"
Helping the man who was helping Danny? If he wasn't up to it, he'd rather lie down and die now. He nodded quickly. "Of course," he said confidently.
Walt hesitated. "Look. Is there someone you should be calling right now?" He looked from one to the other. "Family?"
Danny shook his head. "It's just us," he said, and then when Walt still looked a little uncomfortable he smiled, a little dopily. "I got Rusty. I don't need anyone else."
Despite everything, Rusty could feel himself grinning.