b u f f a l o . g i r l . w o n ' t . y o u . c o m e . o u t . t o n i g h t

Buffalo Girl, Won't You Come Out Tonight
[by victoria p.]

Rating: PG

Summary: Rusty always wondered. Danny never did.

Notes: Written for Destina as a very belated birthday gift. Happy belated birthday, m'dear. You rock like a rocking thing, and make fandom a better place. Thanks to Luzdeestrellas for the speedy beta, and to Nichole for listening to me wibble on AIM.

Word count: 1,406

Date: July 31, 2005

Rusty is packing his overnight bag and eating the occasional corn chip when Isabel comes out of the bathroom. She's wearing a bright red robe and a rueful smile, and he wonders for a moment if he's done something wrong. With Isabel, he's never quite sure.

"My father warned me about you," she says, leaning against the doorjamb and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Thieves and con men?" he asks, smiling. "I thought that was your mother."

"Not thieves in general. You. And Danny."

That gives him pause. LeMarc has been nothing but good to them, and they have never done him dirty, so he's not quite sure-- "Oh, is this some kind of, 'he's not good enough for my daughter,' thing? Because we did have that conversation once or twice." LeMarc had asked him if his intentions were honorable, as if Rusty's ever had an honorable intention in his life, but of course he'd said yes then, and he says it again now, leaning close to give her a kiss.

"And now you're off with Danny."

He barely refrains from saying, "Duh," but he's pretty sure she can see it on his face. He tries not to be on all the time around her, though sometimes it's hard to remember he's not running a con anymore.

He pulls away and shrugs. "It's what we do."

"So I've been told." Her voice is so dry it makes Vegas look like Seattle.

"What--"

"You and Danny," she says again, pushing off from the wall to pace the room.

"You said that part already. I'm gonna need a little more information."

"Doing whatever it is you two do."

He grabs her hand; her pacing is making him a little dizzy. "Isabel, honey, we steal things. I know you don't approve, necessarily, but we're very good at it, and we hardly ever get caught."

"That's not what I mean and you know it." The look she gives him could peel the paint off the walls. A cold shiver runs down his spine, the same one that tells him when to bail on a job that's going wrong, and in that moment he realizes what she's talking about, the one thing he and Danny never, ever discuss.

"I don't. Seriously." The lie rolls off his tongue perfectly, his face a mask of confusion.

She holds his gaze, her eyes searching, but he's confident he's giving nothing away. There is nothing to give away, he tells himself. Nothing at all.

Danny looks tense when they meet in the hotel bar. He had looked tense during the Night Fox business as well, Rusty recalls, though that had more to do with the death threats than anything. The tension falls from him as they talk, and Danny sheds the mask of retired suburban husband, becomes himself again.

Two drinks in, eating handfuls of salty-stale hotel bar pretzels and the scotch burning a medicinal path down his throat, through his chest (sometimes Rusty wishes for something fruity and fun, just so it doesn't hurt going down), he can't stop staring at Danny's mouth, and Danny can't stop talking. Danny talks and people listen -- Rusty listens, because Danny Ocean could sell ice to Eskimos (there's challenge in it, but no profit, and Rusty hates the cold), and Rusty is not immune. Rusty has never been immune, though he often pretends to be. He knows that Danny says the most important things in the spaces between the words, with the shift of his eyes and the cant of his lips, which Rusty finds mesmerizing at the moment.

Danny comes to an abrupt halt -- he can always tell when Rusty's not listening, and he hates it when Rusty doesn't -- and Rusty says, before he can stop himself, "Did you ever wonder--" and cuts off before he finishes, because there is no good way to end that sentence in this context. Because he knows Danny knows exactly what he means.

Danny's brow furrows and clears, and Rusty holds his breath, waiting to see if Danny will surprise him for the first time in years.

"No," Danny says, and Rusty nods.

"Me neither," he lies, finishing his drink and standing. "We've got an early morning, so I'm gonna--"

"Yeah," Danny says, and the subject is closed.

Danny calls the waitress over for a refill, and Rusty heads up to his hotel room, alone.

The job is easy; they could have pulled it in their sleep. It's the kind of work that's beneath them now, but Rusty likes to keep his hand in and Danny likes people to owe him favors, and the thrill never gets old, excitement shivering down his spine and pooling low in his belly, the hair on his arms standing up as if a thunderstorm's approaching. He feels alive when he's working, heart pumping, blood running, high on adrenaline. When he and Danny are together, it's electric, as good as, if not better than, the best sex he's ever had.

He croons to the safe as he cracks it, stroking the metal like a lover -- the tools extensions of his agile fingers. He can feel the weight of Danny's stare on his back, but he doesn't let it break his concentration. It hums beneath his skin, and he knows this is why they never did the other thing, why Danny said no last night. Because if it didn't work, they might have to give this up as well, and that is unthinkable.

When Danny was in jail, Rusty felt like he'd lost a limb. He'd gotten used to it after a while, but he never wants to have to do that again. He prefers things as they are -- he knows he owns parts of Danny that Tess will never see, and there are parts of him he can never give to Isabel, because they have always belonged to Danny.

The door to the safe swings open and the jewels are exactly where Saul said they'd be. Rusty slips them into his pocket and replaces them with a set of high quality fakes. He and Danny share a grin and ghost out of the house the way they ghosted in; it will probably be years before the mark discovers the diamonds have been taken.

It's not far to the hotel, and Rusty wants to make the post-job euphoria -- jangling through his blood like caffeine and nicotine -- last, wants to walk slow against the tide of pedestrian traffic in the morning rush. He doesn't want this to end, doesn't want to go back to Isabel, to life after the chase is over, to learning to live with the catch. But Danny moves quickly, cutting through the crowd like a bullet, people easing out of his way naturally, without even knowing why they do. It's the confidence, the authority in his walk, the loose easy swing of shoulders and hips, and the sharp cut of his gray silk suit.

Rusty turns heads in the crowd -- he always has -- but his eyes are always on Danny, and Danny's are focused on the horizon.

The ride in the elevator is silent, and when Rusty moves to get off at his floor, Danny just shakes his head. Two floors up, he follows Danny down the hall. He's still wondering at this change in post-job procedure as Danny lets them into his room, and when the door swings shut behind him, Danny's shoving him against it, hands tight on his shoulders, mouth hot and hard over his.

After the first moment of shock, Rusty responds, adrenaline surging at the touch of Danny's tongue against his, his hands coming up to cup Danny's face.

He's tried not to imagine this moment, because he was never sure it would happen, and now that it is, it's beyond imagining. Mind-blowing, even. Danny's tongue is slick-rough in his mouth, kissing as skillfully, as dangerously, as he talks, all languid intensity and dirty hot promises of more. Rusty is grateful for the door, because his knees are definitely going weak. It's not awkward -- he and Danny have been together too long not to know exactly how the other moves. It's like working the perfect job -- smooth, easy, everything falling into place -- except better, because it's not a job, it's them.

"I never wondered," Danny says, when he breaks the kiss, the slide of his lips against Rusty's jaw sending a shiver through both of them. "I always knew."

end

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A/N: In her top five Danny/Rusty scenarios, Destina mentioned this: First-time stories where they *haven't* actually been sleeping together all these years, and only just figured it out. And I thought, hey, I can do that, especially since the story I originally began as a birthday present is still stalled.

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Disclaimer: All Ocean's 11/12 characters belong to Soderbergh and Warner Bros., etc. This piece of fan-written fiction intends no infringement on any copyrights.