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Rusty smiled. Danny was standing beside him again. They had another job, the weather was warm and Danny was standing beside him again after four years; it had been a pretty good night. Especially for one that had started off with him wishing that the ground would swallow him up whole.
Four years. A lot had happened in that time. Many people would have said in the same circumstances that it had seemed like only yesterday that Danny had been arrested, but it hadn't. It had felt like four years. One thousand four hundred and sixty one days; thirty five thousand and sixty four hours and fuck knows how many minutes. The absence of a knowing smile, a wink, a hand, a tongue; Rusty had felt that. He could still feel it.
Danny was drumming the rolled up plans of the casinos against the side of his right leg. His face was a little more worn but he mostly looked like he had when he'd been sentenced, his body showing few signs of the time that had passed. Rusty quietly wondered how that was possible but then Danny had always been a source of quiet wonder for him; like wondering how the hell he had managed to land himself in jail in the first place, because he thought (or maybe had just hoped) that Danny was smarter than that.
He watched as Danny ran a hand through his hair.
--
Rusty remembered the last time
Danny had just cut his hair and he couldn't stop running his hand through it after he answered the door
It had been rushed; just before things with Tess had fallen apart and Rusty had told Danny that he wouldn't help him with the headmasks; and it had been fevered. Danny had been inside him in record time and Rusty had been glad the walls were thick
Afterwards they had lain close together, not really touching but close enough that Rusty had felt the heat radiating from Danny's body beside him.
Danny had reached for his hand and held it; `You know...' he'd begun.
They never really had talked about what they had; it just was what it was. They both had liked it like that but Rusty knew what Danny was trying to say.
`Yeah, I know.'
He'd squeezed Danny's hand and pulled himself up.
--
Rusty squeezed his hand into a fist reflexively.
After that things had fallen apart and there had been no more time for conversations with words unsaid. Things had just gotten more tense and more out of control. Danny's self destructive pattern had of course affected more than just himself because Danny had always had an effect on people be it good or bad. Sometimes - and in the case of Rusty - it was both.
There had been some tension across the poker table earlier that night, Rusty didn't deny it. They hadn't parted on the best of terms - Rusty hadn't handled the details of Danny's last idea - but as they had started to play across the table, Rusty remembered how easy it was to fall back into the rhythm of working with him again; the shared glances, the telltale smirks, the looks that promised a lot and once everyone else had gone, offered even more. Just the feel of him beside him had made Rusty realise how much he'd missed him. Perhaps even how much he needed him.
He watched as Danny absently scratched his neck.
--
Rusty remembered the first time as well.
They'd been drunk; well, he had been anyway, to this day he had his doubts as to whether Danny was really as drunk as he claimed to be. It was just after they'd pulled off to their first big heist; not their first job together but their first really important one. They'd found a place out of the way and drunk till the next morning. Danny had suggested they find a place to sleep it off.
It was a shitty motel. This was before they'd had the chance to develop a little more style but this one had done its job, Rusty reflected. They'd both staggered into the room and fallen onto the bed beside each other. The room had definitely been spinning a little and it didn't get any better when Rusty closed his eyes. It just felt like he was in a dark whirlpool making his way slowly down and never quite reaching the bottom. He had opened them again.
Danny had propped himself up on one elbow. He'd shirked off his jacket and the first few buttons of his white shirt were already undone revealing his tanned chest and a few tufts of his chest hair. Danny was looking over at him. They'd known each other a long time but Rusty hadn't seen this look before; or rather never been a recipient of it; he was pretty sure he knew what it meant.
`So, tonight went well.' Danny's voice had been husky and little too clear for someone who had drunk that much whiskey.
`Quite.' It wasn't only Danny's voice that had sounded husky.
He had been oddly mesmerised by the way Danny's other hand had lain on the bed cover between them, close but not uncomfortably so. Rusty thought that he could have handled it if Danny was even a little closer: Perhaps even a lot closer.
It hadn't just been Danny who had closed the gap. Rusty had known he was drunk but that hadn't stopped certain thoughts making their way through. Thoughts about how it felt to be with him. Not that he was in love with him or anything, just that it felt good to walk beside him and spend time with someone that understood him. How well they worked together. How well they might fit together. Danny may have been the leader, but Rusty wasn't just a follower.
Their lips had met passionately, almost harshly, but they'd slowed down as they'd moved closer together. Danny had started to move on top of him and his hand had moved to the fly of Rusty's pants. Rusty had been glad of the relief once Danny had pulled the zip down and even gladder for the hand that had reached inside his boxers to close around him.
Danny had beeen wearing a fake beard for the job and so had kept absently scratching his neck all night.
They hadn't bothered to close the blinds on the window that looked out into the parking lot; in retrospect Rusty thought they probably should have but then, it was 4am on a Thursday and they were young.
--
Rusty looked down at his hands and across at Danny's. He could still see them lying on the dirt coloured bed cover.
He had long accepted the fact that his younger self had been wrong, because he had been in love with Danny, although he'd never said it out loud. It was just another one of the assumed words that passed between them; the things unsaid in the silences and pauses of their shared conversations.
He shook himself out of his reminiscences to find Danny looking over at him. He wondered if they we remembering the same night but Rusty doubted it. He had asked for a reason to do this job before but Danny's reason was always going to be good enough, because it was Danny who was giving it.
`Where are you staying?' Rusty decided to ask the pertinent question. It was late, nearly 4am, and they were still standing on the street.
Danny looked over at him. `Nowhere, at the moment. There was someone I had to see first.' Danny said it with a small smile, looking straight back into Rusty's eyes. `Anywhere you'd recommend?'
Rusty took a breath; the street lamps were almost too bright here and he felt his heart's tempo pick up a few beats. `There are a couple of nice places around, most sorely lacking in the mini-bar department, but nice all the same.'
Danny grinned. `You still have the thing about the mini-bars?' He didn't really sound all that surprised.
`Yeah.' Rusty paused and took another breath, this one a little deeper. His nervousness infuriated him. `Do you still have the thing...?'
`Yeah,' Danny interjected.
The things unsaid.
`Then I know just the place.' Rusty said the words purposefully, trying to make the words sound playful but not knowing how well he'd succeeded. His place wasn't too far.
`Where I can sleep?' Danny asked, obviously amused.
`Yeah,' Rusty replied with a straight face.
It was a warm night with a small breeze that wound its way around them; stirring, shifting, shuffling, like a man finding his way home.