Another story building to a conclusion. Soon I will have nothing else to write. Well. I would, if I didn't keep starting new things. Sorry about that.
Oh, and once again I'd like to thank InSilva for being wonderful and supportive and reassuring. Because she is.
*
If he'd thought about it anytime over the last few days, he'd probably have had a very definite mental picture of a bank robbery. It probably would have involved guns. People screaming. Burly, angry men with stockings over their faces ordering frightened cashiers to bundle up the money. Sirens. Going down in a hail of bullets. That sort of thing.
It almost certainly wouldn't have involved giggling with Rusty at the mirrors on every single ceiling in the empty apartment they'd broken into.
"Why the kitchen?" he wondered and Rusty smiled.
"You're so conventional,," he murmured.
It probably wouldn't have involved him gripping Rusty's gloved hands tightly, being lowered out of the bedroom window onto the roof of the bank below. Wouldn't have involved spinning round to catch Rusty. Certainly wouldn't have involved him holding onto Rusty a few seconds longer than he strictly had to.
"You okay?" he asked.
"I'm fantastic," Rusty grinned.
He wasn't deterred. "How's the side?"
"How's the chest?" Rusty answered back immediately. "How's the head?"
He sighed and let go. "When we're done here you should give Stan a call," he suggested hopefully.
"When we're done here we should go for ice cream," Rusty corrected with a broad smile.
It probably wouldn't have involved the metal box that, to his amnesiac mind, looked exactly like a metal box. Probably wouldn't have involved Rusty opening the box with practised ease, selecting two wires from the muddle and neatly cutting them.
"Alarms and ...cameras," Rusty said happily.
He stared. "That's it?" he asked incredulously.
"Uh huh." Rusty turned his head and grinned back at him. "Livingston wouldn't stop laughing when I described the set-up to him last night. Well. Once he'd got through explaining that normal people don't regard three o'clock in the morning as a sensible time for a chat."
He smiled and considered the gulf between Rusty and normality. "Another friend?" he asked.
"Yeah," Rusty agreed, crossing over to the skylight and easing it open. "Good one."
"How many friends do we have?" he wondered. There seemed to be an inexhaustible flow of names.
Rusty looked up at him. "We're people people," he explained, fixing the rope to the edge of the skylight.
It almost certainly wouldn't have involved lowering himself down into an office, narrowly avoiding knocking over a menacing rubber plant and following Rusty down three flights of narrow stairs to the ground floor. He looked round. Yup. Counters. Reinforced main entrance over there. Large door leading to more stairs and, presumably, eventually, the vault. Finally everything that would have been in his mental picture. Except the guns. Except the frightened people. Except everything.
If he'd thought about it at any time, he probably wouldn't have imagined that robbing a bank was fun. Of course, technically, they weren't actually robbing the place. He glanced over at Rusty, crouched in front of the door. Somehow, he doubted that was the reason why.
"What?" Rusty asked, without looking round.
"We're robbing a bank," he explained. "Thought there'd be more stockings."
He could sense the grin, somehow. "Didn't go with my shoes," Rusty told him and the door swung open and they sauntered downstairs.
Okay. There was a desk in front of a bunch of filing cabinets, a room full of safety deposit boxes behind an iron cage and a large vault door. Looking exactly like vaults did in every movie he couldn't actually remember seeing. He grinned, a little disbelievingly.
"Well, get to it," Rusty told him, opening the door to the safety deposit boxes open. "We need an empty box."
A minute or so later and he found one. "Box 505," he called, and he turned round to see Rusty leaning against the wall, rubbing at his side.
He glared and Rusty looked up guiltily. "Sorry," he muttered and he stepped over and started filing papers in the box. Copies of the plans and maps they'd used to break into Mackenzie's office. Documents linking Donavan to Morgan, all carefully forged that evening. The list itself, which Rusty carefully laid on top along with a little velvet pouch.
"What's that?" he asked curiously.
"Diamonds," Rusty explained simply.
He stared. "Diamonds?"
"Three," Rusty nodded. "Not expensive but not nothing either. Got them from Eleanor."
He stared some more.
"We paid for them," Rusty added defensively.
"Diamonds," he repeated disbelievingly.
Rusty sighed. "Adds authenticity," he explained. "Makes the story that bit more believable. Nobody - "
" - nobody throws diamonds away." He got it suddenly and smiled approvingly. And a treasure map was always going to be more believable when there was treasure.
"Exactly." Rusty smiled at him briefly. "You wanna - "
" - uh huh," he agreed, and he carefully started opening safety deposit boxes and spreading their contents out. Set dressing. A frantic search interrupted. After half an hour, he looked at his work and figured it was good. "We done?" he asked, looking over and seeing Rusty filing a bunch of papers away.
"Yep," Rusty agreed. "Box 505 is now owned by Donavan." He glanced into the safety deposit room. "Nice to see you haven't lost your talent for making a mess."
He blinked. "Should I be taking that as a compliment?" he asked suspiciously.
"Only if you want to," Rusty answered innocently.
He shook his head. "Vault?" he suggested.
"Vault," Rusty nodded.
They wandered over.
"That is a very big door," he said decidedly.
Rusty nodded and set to work applying explosives to the very big door.
He watched with interest and didn't even think about moving further away.
"You sure it's not going to open it?" he asked curiously.
"Phil says no," Rusty told him absently, adding fuses. "Doesn't really matter if it does, as long as it sets the alarm off."
"You sure it'll set the alarm off?" he checked, and at this stage it was entirely possible that he was just being annoying.
Rusty certainly looked like he thought so. "Told you. It's on a separate circuit." He set the fuse. "Twenty minutes. Shall we?"
He glanced round. "Think we're done here."
They headed back the way they came at a rapid amble, leaving the apartment with about ten minutes to spare and heading for the payphone four blocks over.
He stood and listened to Rusty's side of the phone call. "Am I speaking to Lieutenant Wright? Good. Good evening, Lieutenant. I understand that you're taking an interest in Patrick Morgan's successors. I wonder if you'd be interested in knowing that Donavan is planning on sweeping the pot tonight." There was a pause and Rusty smiled. "Oh, rumours of his death are somewhat exaggerated. In fact at this very moment he's taking part in a bank robbery on Ninth Street. Get there quickly and you should be in time before he makes off with the bank's money and a list of Morgan's property that Dawson and Mackenzie have been looking for rather violently." Rusty frowned suddenly and glanced over at Danny, his eyes troubled. "Oh, I'm just trying to help our boys in blue. Think of me as a good Samaritan. Good night, Lieutenant Wright."
He hung up the phone and glanced over at Danny, still frowning slightly. "That was weird," he said slowly, starting to walk along the street.
"What?" he checked, following quickly.
"Just at the end there, there was a kind of clicking on the line. Like the call was being recorded. Traced, maybe."
Huh. That would be surprising. And not part of the plan. "You sure?"
"Honestly? No." Rusty sighed and rubbed at his mouth. "Don't think it's a problem."
"Right," he agreed. Probably it wasn't. They were supposed to be well away from the whole thing now. The cops would find the list, they'd find evidence tying Donavan to the robbery at Mackenzie's place and by the time Dawson and Mackenzie were arrested the stories, rumours and conspiracies would be everywhere. The world could play motive roulette and he and Rusty wouldn't be mentioned.
"Exactly," Rusty agreed, and there was still just a hint of unhappiness.
He grinned; Rusty never liked loose ends of any kind.
Rusty never...?
An avalanche of memories swept over him.
It was midnight and he was running along the street and he could hear footsteps pounding behind him and he was exuberant and terrified and the sidewalk was crowded with faceless people and his pursuer was getting impossibly closer, and he was preparing himself for the pain. Then, out of nowhere, he was looking straight at a pair of vivid blue eyes and he found himself smiling helplessly in the face of beauty that shone like nothing he'd ever known, and then the thug was sprawled in a heap of limbs and gravel, and he was looking at Rusty, laughing with Rusty for the very first time, and the air was alive with sunshine and spark and immediate, unstoppable, uninhibited and undeniable love.
Far away, he'd dropped to his knees in the street and Rusty was calling his name, shocked and anxious. "Danny!"
A house that they were supposed to be robbing, but Rusty had fallen in love. In the garage. And Rusty had stared longingly at the Mustang and Danny had sighed and smiled and laughed a little, and three weeks of plans had gone up in smoke, and when Rusty ran a hand over his new car and looked up at Danny, delight and disbelief and deep, unfathomable wonder shining through his soul, Danny knew that it was absolutely, unquestionably worth it.
"What's wrong?" Rusty demanded in the future, his hand pressed to Danny's face. "Danny, tell me. What's going on? Is it your head? Talk to me. Please."
A roof garden and they were lying beneath invisible stars and he watched with unmasked wonder as the paper snowflakes danced in the warm breeze, and he looked over at Rusty and he'd understood so much, and Rusty's eyes were tender and his smile was perfect, and how could Danny ever want anything more?
"Come on, Danny," Rusty was urging him somewhere, and there was an arm wrapped around his shoulders, another round his chest, dragging him upwards, pulling him down the street. "It's okay. You're okay. It's okay."
They were running down an escalator the wrong way together, smiling, laughing, and people were scattering in front of them and somewhere behind them there was yelling and somewhere waiting ahead of them there was danger, and here and now there was Rusty.
A door opened and Rusty hauled him inside and there were voices babbling and he was sitting on a bar stool.
He was lying in an uncomfortable bed, surrounded by tissues and medicines and abandoned cartons of juice, and his head hurt and breathing hurt and everything hurt and Rusty perched on the edge of the bed and smiled down at him. "Chicken soup!" he announced proudly, waving a bowl. "Made from chickens!" Danny managed one spoonful before his stomach rebelled and Rusty got him into a nice warm bath and got him into clean clothes and fresh sheets, and he lay still and miserable, clinging to Rusty and trusting him to make everything better, and he never even once thought of having to say thank you.
"Brandy, quickly," Rusty demanded. "My friend's sick."
"Yeah, right," the barman scoffed and Rusty flung a handful of notes across the bar.
"Now!" he snapped.
The storm was overhead, the rain was pouring down and every step was heavy and every step was painful. He did his best to support Rusty's weight and keep the pressure on the worst of the knife wounds and they stumbled on, and he cursed Lanzecki's name. After a time he realised that Rusty was saying something and, still frightened, he leaned in closer. Rusty smiled dizzily up at him and carried on singing tunelessly. "Laughing at clouds, so dark up above...."
Danny grinned. "We are not even trying the dance," he told Rusty firmly.
A glass was at his lips and he gulped at it quickly and the brandy burned his throat.
He stared up at Rusty. His Rusty. His best friend, his partner, his brother. The other half of his soul. His everything.
Rusty was staring back, his eyes wide and fearful. "I'm going to call - "
" - don't leave," Danny interrupted, grabbing his hand firmly. Don't ever leave.
Still frightened, still anxious, Rusty nodded. "Okay."
"I remember you," he blurted out.
Rusty blinked. "Danny, I swear to god, if the next words out your mouth are 'You're the one who made my dreams come true'...."
He was.
"I remember you," Danny said again, and there were tears in his eyes and he was on his feet, his arms wrapped round Rusty, holding him tight and holding him close, as if he wanted to make up for every last second that had passed without love, without trust, without knowledge and connection. "I remember you," he whispered insistently
Rusty hugged him back and it was just as thankful, just as relieved, just as intent on being everything they should be. "Danny," he murmured happily and then. "You remember everything?"
He took a step back, still holding onto Rusty's arms but letting Rusty see his face. "Nah," he admitted. "You're all I've got." His smile was contented and his eyes were shining. "I'm strangely okay with that."
The sight of Rusty smiling at him like that sparked so many old new memories, and the joy of being alive burned bright between them.
"Well, well, well." Steven sneered from the doorway and Willy, Bill and Harry were spread out around him, their guns aimed straight at Danny's chest. "We've found you at last. Mr Mackenzie will be pleased."
Cliffhanger. Yeah. Oh well.
