Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Danny is stone. He is ice.

It’s safer, he learns early, then being a person.

His parents drill restraint and composure in his mind until it becomes second nature. They teach him to warp control into instinct before it becomes important enough to save his life. It will one day, they tell him. He has to be ready for it when it comes.

It’s Christmas Eve 1969, a fire burns away in the hearth, Elvis is singing deep and sad on the turntable, it hasn’t snowed all winter, and the gusts of wind feel all the sharper for it. Danny’s mother makes rounds passing out eggnog and hot chocolate on a little reflective platter, as Danny plays chess with his grandfather. This is, his parents decide, the perfect time to give Debbie ‘the talk.’

For the Oceans ‘the talk’ is not about mommy’s and daddy’s loving each other very much. ‘The talk’ is usually their first introduction to the ‘Cold Hard Uncomfortable Reality of the World We Inhabit’ as his dad says.

The Cold Hard Uncomfortable Reality, or CHUR, as Danny refers to it, abides by three general rules, in which all else falls under.

1.  Everyone is stealing all the time.
2. The law only protects the people who invented it (and no that does not include you)
3. So when you steal, you have to be better at it then everyone else

Danny had this talk when he was younger, around Debbie’s age if he had to guess, and he took it about as well as she did. Stern face nodding slowly, it’s a rite of passage really. The realization that the Ocean name means something, the acceptance that it’s your job to uphold it.

It comes with a weight, stifling at first before settling into a comfortable pressure, an armor of sorts, made of stone, maybe ice.

Control is at the root of all things in CHUR, and it’s something the Oceans excel at.

“Most criminals end up in the can because they run their mouths” His father says to Debbie, who is ignoring her apple cider in favor of absorbing the wisdom he imparts.

“But we can control what we say. We can control how we react when the police question us, we can control our lies, our facial expressions, sometimes even the circumstances in which we’re brought in.”

“But why would we get brought in, in the first place Dad? If we can control it?” Danny asks, because he knows Debbie wants to.

The song reaches the point where the vinyl is warped. Before it has the opportunity to skip and replay the chorus, Danny’s grandfather thumps it with the flat of his hand. The needle skips and jumps to the end of the song.

‘In the Ghetto’ replaces it, which is one of Danny’s least favorite songs. It’s far too sad, especially for the occasion.

“That's a very good question Daniel” he mother says and sits on the arm of their chaise. “Sometimes willingly talking with the police helps establish character, it makes you appear cooperative, compliant like a good law abiding citizen. Or if that doesn’t work, you could find some dirt on them, and use it for blackmail.”

“What if the cop isn’t dirty?” asks Debbie and bites at the end of her fingers.

“Every cop is dirty” Danny says and glows warm and amber inside when the rest of the room laughs.

They finish the talk and their drinks and by the time the Elvis vinyl comes to a soft slow end, everyone is tired and content and full. He loses his game of chess but he tells himself it’s alright, he’s still young and has a way to go because he can really think three moves ahead.

They set out a plate of decorated cookies for Santa, and a carrot for Rudolph.

Their parents put Debbie’s hand in Danny’s and tell him to get her ready for bed while they ‘clean up’ down here. They wink at Danny, because he’s old enough to know what they mean.

He keeps a hold of Debbie’s hand the whole way up the stairs, even though it’s sticky and warm. Because they trust him, and he calls it an exercise in control.

He makes Debbie brush her teeth and her hair and wash her face. He tucks her in bed with a stuffed rabbit.

Before Danny can pull her door shut Debbie pipes up “Danny…” It’s her quiet voice, the one she uses when she’s about to say something that might get her in trouble.

He turns to her “Is it hard? To be an Ocean?”

Danny thinks about it, his eyebrows drawn. He feels so much older than eight, and he knows part of it is because of CHUR, because of the family name, because children are the exact antonym of control, and where innocence and criminality meet, there is a simmering black hole that Debbie is only just now taking note of.

He nods. “It’s not that bad Debbie” he says, because really it could be worse “We’re better off if you think about it. Because we learned about this stuff early.”

“So we can steal better than them?” Debbie asks, she’s sitting up now, clutching the bunny to her chest.

“Yeah. So we can make a name for ourselves.”

“Danny… can we make a name for ourselves… together?”

Danny nods “Of course Debs. Together”

She holds out a pinkie and Danny sighs, but wanders across the room to link pinkies with her.

Then, because he can technically refrain but he doesn’t necessarily want to, he says “Go to bed. If you leave your room during the night Santa will mistake you for a cookie and eat you whole”

“I hope Rudolph poops in your bed” she says back and sticks her tongue out at him.

He closes the door to her room, and goes downstairs to help his parents hang stockings and arrange presents.

He hums Suspicious Minds as he works, he watches clouds gather outside the window, and wonders if, like Mr. Presley said earlier that night, they really will have a white Christmas.

He helps his parents take big recognizable bites out of the cookies they leave out for Santa.

He feels old and hardened and mature by the time he goes to sleep.

That morning, they’ll wake, and pass out presents and go about their usual festivities. It’s the last Christmas they spend together, all Danny can really remember from it is staring up at the gray clouds hanging overhead and wondering why it won’t snow.

~*~*~

When Danny answers the door in 1979, his first thought is ‘I didn’t think the Village People traveled this far North’ His next thought, upon seeing Debbie hovering just slightly behind the man in a gaudy yellow shirt, is ‘oh you clever fox.’

“Hi” he says and flashes the two of them a bright smile. He offers the unidentified twink his hand “I’m Danny”

Aforementioned twink takes it in his, he has a strong grasp and smiles back slightly breathless. “Rusty, Debbie’s boyfriend”

“I’ve heard a lot about you” that's not exactly true, Debbie doesn’t tell them anything, but Rusty doesn’t need to know that “It’s nice to finally have a face to put to all the stories”

Debbie looks at him with such utter revulsion he can almost feel its weight before he sees it.

“Believe me, I feel the exact same way about you” Rusty says.

Danny is certain that’s a lie, but he doesn’t comment on it. Instead he steps aside, and lets the two of them into the landing.

“Come on up, Rusty I hope you’re hungry, our aunt has dinner on” Then- because he doesn’t want their first interaction to be entirely composed of lies and half-truths “Though her casserole leaves much to be desired, so don’t feel like you need to finish it”

Rusty chuckles good naturedly “believe me I’ll eat anything warm and home cooked”

When they make it to his aunt and uncle's door, Danny watches as Debbie and Rusty join hands. It’s conspicuous, shameless, entirely performative.

Danny’s eyes straggle on their interlaced fingers. When he finally looks up he notices Rusty is watching him with those careful, clear blue eyes.

They notice more than they let on

~*~*~

Rusty finishes his helping of casserole. Then he finishes two more plates.

Danny watches him the entire time, transfixed at how easily his aunts' charred turkey and macaroni salad disappear.

(Danny once made the mistake of asking what spices she was putting in the dish.

“Ranch and salt” she said and smiled in that saccharine way of hers)

No one eats his aunt's food that quickly, at least no one actually enjoys it. Either Rusty is truly dedicated to this con, or he’s starving. Either way, Danny is impressed, and a tad concerned.

He’s beautiful too. Stunning in that effortless model kind of way. His hair is tussled, it looks self-cut, and his clothes are on the right side of i-just-pulled-these-on rumpled. His dark roots give him away. He’s a bottle blonde then, even though the color looks natural on him.

Rusty is in the middle of telling an amusing anecdote from school, which Danny is 90% sure is made up. He doesn’t let on, laughs at the correct time, nods along in agreement when Rusty makes what could be passed off as a bold societal statement, but is in reality a bland neutral colored comment on their world.

“How old are you again?” His Aunt Ida interrupts, leaning forward with her fingers entwined on her lap.

Ida is in her mid-sixties. Her skin is thin and papery, stretched tightly on protruding bones. Her lipstick; a gaudy smear of red on non-existent lips. She is severe and angular, and seems to think her inability to have children is a punishment hand delivered from God, one she thinks everyone should suffer for. Generally she gives off the aura of a mummy who hasn’t yet figured out she’s dead.

Danny has never seen her so happy.

Rusty wipes his mouth with a linen, before placing it on his lap, like any proper gentleman. “Seventeen ma’am”

“No” Uncle James buts in “No way”

Rusty laughs a little “Yes sir”

“We wouldn’t be mad if you’re actually nineteen or twenty, Debbie’s old enough now”

Danny bites his lip.

Rusty shifts to pull his wallet out.

For a moment Danny wonders if he’s about to pay them for their food, or maybe pay Debbie the money she must’ve spent hiring him, giving up the ghost maybe. Instead he goes for his ID.

“You don’t have to-” Danny starts

His uncle snatches it, and holds it up to his nose “Well I’ll be damned”

“I never would’ve guessed.” Aunt Ida fans herself “You’re very mature for your age”

His uncle squints at the offending slab of plastic “Robert?”

“Rusty’s an old nickname from a friend,” he says “I think it suits me better, don’t you?”

Uncle James offers the ID back to him with a chuckle “certainly son”

Rusty slots it back in his wallet and places the wallet in the back of his jeans.

“You certainly look like a Rusty” their aunt is saying “with all that tan skin and blonde hair”

Danny, partly because he caught a glimpse of the ID and he’s curious, and partly because he wants to rescue Rusty from whatever bizarre form of pseudo-flirting his aunt is laying on him, asks “Are you from Nevada?”

Rusty nods “the outskirts of Vegas”

Danny’s heart pounds.

“What brings you out East?” Aunt Ida asks, adjusting her thick wired glasses.

Rusty sobers, his eyebrows drawn, his eyes hooded, his gaze turned slightly down. It gives off the air of an uncomfortable topic of conversation, one he’s bravely powering through. “My parents passed ma’am. I had family out here, a cousin who offered to help”

Danny has to give him credit, Rusty is an amazing actor.

“Oh you poor thing” Aunt Ida coos, holding her hands to her chest.

Uncle James tuts, raises his beer to Rusty in a mock salute “Tough hand you’ve been dealt there son”

“Of course, we understand what that's like” and extends a long pity filled glance to Debbie and Danny.

Danny’s hand tightens imperceptibly on his fork but, because he is in control here, he smiles at his aunt when her eyes land on him. Like he’s grateful, and he is, he supposes, in a roundabout way.

Debbie is sitting with her jaw set in a hard line. Her fingers clasped in her lap.

Rusty looks from Debbie to Danny.

The minute Aunt Ida’s eyes slide off Rusty, his expression goes slack. ‘I’m guessing that’s bullshit’ he all but says.

Danny chokes on his water as he tries to withhold a laugh.

He looks at Rusty. ‘Sorry’ he tries to convey with his eyes

Rusty shrugs, shakes his head. ‘Don’t worry about it’

The words are shockingly clear in Danny’s mind. Rusty is a pro at nonverbal conversation, something bright burns in his chest at the thought. Hot and delighted. Danny keeps an eye on him for the rest of the awkward stifling dinner.

~*~*~

Danny is nine and there is someone in his apartment.

Christmas passes, and then New Years passes too. He wakes up on January 6th and goes about the basic human notions of preparing for the day. He dresses and brushes his teeth and combs his hair. Then he wanders out into the second floor hallway and freezes.

Debbie, still in her pajamas, is sitting at the top of the staircase, holding onto the railing. Her pudgy face is pressed to the balusters, and her hair is tangled, sticking up at the back of her head. The view to the kitchen and the living room is obscured by the angle of the ceiling, but it’s the best place in the house for eavesdropping.

Hanging above the doorway is a semicircle window, trim in green stained glass. Outside, Danny notes, it’s begun to snow. A soft trickle of snowflakes that float more than fall.

He comes up behind Debbie, places a hand on her back and presses his finger to his lips when she turns around in panic.

He settles next to her, and strains his ears.

There is his mothers voice, pleasant and treacle. His fathers, charming and commanding. There is a third voice too, something thin, sharpened with an English lilt.

He’s never heard that voice before. Never even heard a British accent outside of television.

The conversation as far as Danny can make out is pleasant, his mother is offering pastries and his father is making coffee, and the man is steadfastly deflecting any and all attempts at hospitality.

“so what you’re telling me, and correct me if I’m wrong,” the british stranger is saying “is that it’s not you on that security camera”

“Well technology is a marvel” his father says, there’s a tightness to his joviality that puts Danny’s hackles up. “Sure we’ve come a long way since polaroid's but I’m sorry Mr. Frazer those stills are incredibly blurry. I hardly see the resemblance to my wife and I”

The man- Mr. Frazer apparently- sighs. “And of course there’s your alibi”

“Yes, have you talked to Freddy yet?” Danny’s mother says, and then there’s a soft static exhale of the album player turning on, a second later Elvis’s voice rings out. Probably an attempt to block Danny and Debbie from listening in.

He does have to tense, and move onto the first step to hear the next words.

“Well, we had one conversation over the phone. He confirmed that you were with him the entire week of November the 3rd to the evening of the 10th, helping him move across the state”

“There you go” His father says, and there’s the creak of the lazy boy leaning back.

“Yet when I came to his place in person, he wasn't there.”

There is a heavy silence. His fathers clears his throat “sorry, what?”

Outside the snow falls harder.

“Fled town it looks like. The entire apartment’s been gutted, looks like he’s not planning to come back. A shame too, after all that hard work moving him there”

Danny tenses, which makes Debbie tense too.

“I’m sure there’s some kind of misunderstanding. I know his mother is poorly, and sometimes he has to leave town suddenly to take care of her.”

“Ah yes” there’s rifling through paper “a miss Paulina Fisher? She passed, god bless her soul, two months ago.”

There’s a pause. The Elvis record hits a scratch in the vinyl and pops back, the chorus of Suspicious Minds caught in a loop.

“We can’t go on together

With suspicious minds”

It repeats. Again, again, again. A prophetic execution

“So let me get this straight” his father says “All you have is a confirmation of our alibi from a witness who has since disappeared. And a blurry picture from a video camera of two people who kind of look like us?”

Someone hits the record player and the vinyl starts to play again.

“Do you really think that will hold up in court?” his father asks

“Well, from what Detective Copland told me this morning, a judge just signed a permit to search your house so police will be here in a few minutes. I’m sure whatever we find will hold up in court quite nicely”

Danny turns from the stairs, scooping Debbie in his arms. He doesn’t bother shushing her when she cries in protest, just drags her to the bathroom.

Before he leaves the last thing he heard from the first floor is Elvis’s voice. Sultry and lamenting and mocking.

‘We’re caught in a trap, I can’t walk out’

It sounds like he’s singing directly to Danny.

~*~*~

“Rusty, are you planning on staying the night?” Aunt Ida asks, as dinner draws to a close.

“Oh I wouldn’t want to impose ma’am” he says, folding his napkin over his empty plate.

“Nonsense” she grabs Rusty’s plate from his hands and adds it to a pile. “I insist, it’s getting cold out there, and I won’t let you walk home alone. If you need to call your foster parents to let them know where you are, the phone is in the living room.”

Rusty inclines his head, but doesn’t move to make a call.

She taps Debbie’s shoulder. Her chin resting in her open hand, elbow jabbing into the oak coffee table.

“Yes Debbie I would love your help with the dishes” Aunt Ida says, pointed. She sighs exasperated.

Debbie grumbles, but stands up and scoops dirty dishes in her hands. She gives Rusty and Danny a conspiratorial glance.

Oh, she doesn’t trust the two of them alone together. Interesting.

“Oh and Rusty, I won’t have any funny business under my roof” His aunt calls from the kitchen, “You’re bunking with Danny"

Debbie drops a glass.

~*~*~

Danny brushes a five year old Debbie’s hair, as the wind outside howls. She squirms in his grasp, but he is unrelenting.

He makes her brush her teeth, wash her face, and helps her change into stockings and a dark blue frilly dress.

It’s a principle of CHUR. The importance of looking presentable, especially when faced with an enemy.

The British man downstairs wasn't speaking like a cop, but he is definitely on their side.

If the police really will be here soon, Danny is going to put on a united front with his parents.

He holds Debbie’s hand in his, a crushing grip, as they exit the bathroom and make their way downstairs.

Elvis is still playing on the record player, though it’s been turned down until it’s hardly a drone of white noise.

His parents are sitting on the couch. He’s never seen them so gutted, eyes glazed over, staring out at nothing. They’re holding hands, a loose knot on the couch between them.

There’s a man, younger than Danny expected from his voice, early twenties maybe. He’s slightly pudgy with neatly combed light brown hair and light eyes. He’s wearing a three piece suit, his woolen overcoat slung over his arm. A briefcase, likely full of incriminating documents, rests at his feet.

He actually gapes when he sees Danny and Debbie. It takes a few seconds for the man to compose himself before squatting down until he’s at Debbie's eye level.

“Well hello there” he says in that posh British accent.

Danny pulls Debbie behind him. His eyes harden, and his mouth forms a solid line.

His mother’s eyes meet his, there’s a warning there, and it takes Danny a second to decode it.

It’s the same glare she gives him when his grandma visits and insists on kissing him on the lips even though she tastes like vaseline and denture cream. Be polite, she’s telling him.

Still his muscles don’t obey. Threatened by the presence of this strange man.

I’m in control here. Danny tells his body, then forces himself to relax into stone and ice. He pulls Debbie next to him, until they’re in a line.

He smiles. “Hello” he says “I’m Daniel Ocean. This is my sister Deborah.” He offers the man a hand.

The man’s eyebrows jump. “It’s nice to meet you Dan.” He says and takes Danny’s hand in his, reclining his head at Debbie “Deb.”

The man smiles, and Danny has to admit he has a warm face, oddly welcoming, strangely comforting. “My name is John Frazier” he says and pulls away from Danny.

“Are you a detective Mr. Frazier?” Danny asks, taking Debbie along with him to the coffee table where a pitcher of orange juice and water sit. He pours a glass of water for himself and juice for Debbie, sitting her down on the couch next to their father.

The snow is coming down in droves now, thick fat snowflakes that fly past the window, sticking to blades of grass and naked tree limbs.

“In a way. I’m an insurance investigator, so I don’t work for the police.”

“But you called the police on us?”

“Daniel!” His father admonishes, though it’s lacking its usual bite.

John smiles “So that was you at the top of the stairs”

Danny shrugs, sips at his glass delicately “Sound travels in this apartment. We were worried when we heard a strange voice.” The lie comes easily to him, lies always have.

“The police are coming to check your home. If they find nothing illegal, they’ll leave. Simple as that. You and your parents, and your sister,” he throws in as an afterthought “you have nothing to fear if you’ve done nothing wrong”

“Thats enough” his mother says and reaches for him “come here, Danny”

Danny goes, sitting on the couch next to his mom. He sits there, her hand a vice tight grip on his upper shoulder. They wait there until the police arrive.

~*~*~

The second the door closes behind Rusty, Danny turns on him.

They’re in Danny’s room, it’s white and impersonal, devoid of the knick knacks that clutter Debbie’s room. There’s a full sized bed in the middle, a dresser to the right, a lamp, and a stack of books on the bedside table. The only incriminating object in the room is a little leatherbound journal filled with ideas of heists Danny, so far, only dreams of pulling off. But it's hidden, almost perfectly in plain sight, sandwiched between ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Great Gatsby’, their leather covers matching the journal’s spine. Easy to write it off as just another classic.

“Who are you actually?” Danny asks, his tone is cool and measured but he injects just enough of vitriol in his voice to make Rusty actually stagger back.

“What?”

Danny doesn’t repeat himself. ‘Don't let yourself be tricked into repeating a question. They’re just trying to buy more time’ Another lesson of CHUR.

“I’m Debbie's boyfriend,” Rusty says slowly, like he’s confused, his blue eyes on him.

God he’s a good liar. If Danny hadn’t grown up with Debbie, he’d almost believe Rusty.

“No,” Danny says “she has a poster of Eartha Kitt in a leather one piece hanging on her walls, and it’s not because Catwoman is an inspiration to young women across the country. So…” Danny moves in closer to Rusty “who are you?”

Rusty doesn’t speak, so Danny continues, realizing belatedly that he’s just been baited into giving Rusty more time to figure out his response.

“I don’t know if you’re just a friend who's covering for Debbie, or if she asked for you to try and…” Danny grasps for the words, can’t tamp down on the disgust and anger that creeps over his face when he finds them “...help her change. I don’t know. But I know you’re not who you say you are.”

Rusty’s eyes haven’t left his. They have a covert weight to them, that only reveals itself when it’s too late, and they have you pinned.

They have Danny pinned right now. It’s a wondrous feeling, flightlessness.

“The first one.” Rusty says.

The light bulb crackles, and it sends shadows cascading down Rusty’s face.

“And you don’t know your sister very well if you think she’d ever try and change, much less ask help from a man to do it”

Danny relaxes, and watches as Rusty does too, a small half smile playing out on his lips.

Danny returns it, and yes, this feels much more natural.

“So are you…” Danny starts and then isn’t fully sure how to finish the question.

“A friend of Dorothy’s?” Rusty finishes for him and nods. “Yeah, it’s how Debbie and I met”

“In Oz?”

Rusty laughs and sits on the edge of Danny’s bed, cracking his neck and pulling off his shoes. “Close. Ramrod”

“Isn’t that-”

“The bar in Greenwich yeah”

Danny doesn’t know exactly why it comes as a surprise. He knows Debbie has been sneaking out at night, but he didn’t know she was sneaking into bars. He should’ve guessed really. It sparks a new concern for him. The worry must be evident on his face, because Rusty speaks up.

“Don’t worry about Debbie being safe. You should be worrying for the safety of the people Debbie meets.”

Danny smiles at Rusty and for the time that evening it feels genuine.

~*~*~

The police find a piece of paper.

It’s sitting atop a kitchen counter in plain sight. It has the details of an offshore bank account in Switzerland.

Danny’s father usually puts it in the kitchen drawer, under the fake bottom.

Danny watches through the snowstorm as his parents are cuffed and placed in the back of a police car. He watches the red and blue disappear in a cacophony of white and wonders what his fathers plan is. He must’ve wanted the police to find that paper, it’s why he cleverly placed it above the electricity bill and a letter from his sister.

The record draws to an end and without Elvis’s voice the room feels larger, colder, emptier.

It takes Danny years to accept that getting arrested wasn’t a part of the plan. That his parents just got too comfortable here. It’s another lesson of CHUR, as painful and unsatisfying as all the others; ease, relaxation, and complacency, it always leads to downfall.

~*~*~

They change in separate corners of the room.

Danny knows Debbie is a queer. He’s known since she was a kid and sat in front of the tv, rewinding the VCR for James Bond’s Dr. No, just to watch all the scenes with Ursula Andress over and over again.

He doesn’t care that Rusty is one too. Or, he shouldn’t. Yet as they turn to face the opposite direction, Danny’s skin crawls as he pulls off his shirt and unbuckles his pants.

He pulls on a pair of pajama pants in record time and when he turns around Rusty is already in Danny’s borrowed shirt and a pair of his boxers. He’s still facing the wall, waiting it seems.

Danny clears his throat “I’m done”

Rusty turns, and places his clothes in a heap on the dresser.

Danny settles on the bed, tucked under the covers. The bed jostles slightly as Rusty sits down next to him.

The air is stagnant. Danny’s neck cracks. Rusty shifts.

“Are you okay with this?” Rusty asks

He doesn’t specify what ‘this’ is. He knows as well as Danny.

Danny clears his throat. “Of course.” then, trying for levity “It’s like my aunt says no funny business”

Rusty doesn’t laugh, just settles over the covers. “Yeah, don’t worry about that.”

Danny’s never been good at falling asleep around people, especially strangers. He closes his eyes and expects to spend the whole night like that, feigning sleep, mind spiraling with thoughts of who this man is, who he really is.

But when Danny opens his eyes again, light is flooding the room.

There is a warm weight on his upper arm, pressing to his hip. It takes a few seconds to recognize the weight as Debbie’s new beard, and then a few more seconds to realize that Rusty hasn’t moved during the entire night, it was Danny who threw off the covers and invaded his space.

It’s almost embarrassing how quickly he fell asleep. Danny for a moment, contemplates if he was drugged the night before, but he’s clear headed, alert and sober.

The truth hits Danny like a train, like a snowstorm. There’s something about Rusty’s presence that relaxes him. He hasn’t felt a realization this satisfyingly heavy since CHUR, and there’s something in that comfortable familiarity that feels like a warning.

He gets up, changes, and leaves the room before Rusty can wake up.

~*~*~

Their father is sentenced to two years and eight months in a federal penitentiary, the same one Danny will one day attend, though he doesn’t know that yet.

Their mother is sentenced to one year and eleven months in a federal penitentiary, the same one Debbie will one day attend, though she doesn’t know that yet either.

It’s funny, Danny will later think when the bars clink shut behind him, how close to our parent’s footsteps we follow. Even if the snow has long since covered their tracks, and you think for one blind foolish moment, that you are paving your own path.

~*~*~

They move in with their grandfather.

The one who plays chess with Danny, the one who beats Danny every time, on his mothers side. His dad’s family is down in Florida, except for an estranged aunt who lives in New York. None of them made the trip up when Danny or Debbie was born, and they’re unlikely to make it now that they need help.

His grandpa owns a townhouse on the outskirts of Jersey, and has plenty of space for Danny and Debbie to wander.

He has a yard, and a tree that belongs to him. Danny and Debbie take turns trying to climb higher than the other. (Danny loses and spends the next hour pouting) He has a dog named Cornelius who they walk around the neighborhood. People smile and wave at them, and kids stop to pet him.

The food is bland, and the company even more so.

They have to change schools, which Debbie takes to with ease. Danny spends half an hour putting her hair up in pigtails, because their grandpa is arthritic, and Debbie begs him to anyway. That day she comes back from school with her hair in braids, and when Danny asks what happened, she explains her new best friend did it for her during recess, and that she ‘likes it better this way’

Danny isn’t angry about it, but he doesn’t talk to her for the rest of the day.

~*~*~

Danny makes a friend named Mort, who is tall with a square jaw and a gap between his front teeth. Mort passes Danny sarcastic notes during biology class, making fun of their teacher's halitosis.

One day, during gym he pulls Danny aside “Are you related to those thieves who got busted trying to rob a museum in Germany?”

He pulls out a newspaper clipping from his gym shorts. On it is a picture of his mom, being guided, handcuffed, from the courtroom after her hearing.

Danny’s blood goes cold. He feels clammy, though it may just be from the mile he just finished running.

“They didn’t try to rob a museum, they succeeded”

This conversation was premeditated, Danny realizes, his stomach churns as he goes from clammy and cold to blisteringly hot. Mort took the time and effort to cut out the article, fold it in his shorts, and plan for a time to talk to him about this.

Danny grinds his teeth, thinks about CHUR, thinks about control.

“Well they’re rotting in jail right now, I don’t know if I’d call that a success”

Danny punches him in his stupid gap toothed smile.

He gets a week suspension.

He spends most of it inside his room listening through his door to his grandpa’s game shows.

Danny spends days like that, head pressed to the door as he listens to suburban families win cars and money and stand mixers. By day three, his grandpa stops asking why he attacked Mort, and the school administrators never bothered to question it in the first place. Danny burns red with embarrassment when he thinks about it, like a match held to paper. The fire never lasts long, it dies down quickly, and leaves a large empty hole where there once was something, where there once was flame.

On the fifth afternoon of his temporary leave, he sneaks into his grandfather’s study.

His grandpa used to be a lawyer. Though the kind that never saw the inside of a courtroom, except for when he was called in for jury duty.

His grandpa retired four years ago and now uses the study to hold stationery and old bills and junk mail. There are stacks of paper that sit a foot high on every available surface, caked in a fine layer of dust. To Danny, it looks more like ash.

He pokes around, finds old letters, and recipes, and markers that haven’t been used since Kennedy was still alive.

Somewhere in the mess, Danny finds a leather bound journal. On the first page his grandpa’s name is sprawled out in cursive under the ‘Belong’s To’ line. It promises a reward of fifty dollars, if found.

He pulls it from under a stack of case documents, and flips through it. On the first page there is only one sentence. His grandpa has written, as a header, in that barely legible slanted script of his, ‘A List of Grand Idea’s.’

Every page after that is blank.

Danny entertains the idea of stealing it, slipping it under his shirt and walking back to his room. The thought leaves him with a bitter taste in his mouth though, so instead he holds it in his hands in plain sight, and walks out to the living room.

His grandfather is sitting on his armchair, reading a book as ‘The Dating Game’ blares on the television.

Debbie is playing with dolls, making a barbie repeatedly ninja kick a G.I. Joe.

“Grandpa” Danny says, and waits for his grandfather’s eyes to make the slow arc towards him.

“Yes Danny? Oh what do you have there?”

Danny offers the journal to him. “I found it in your study”

His grandpa pulls the journal from Danny’s hands. He flips through it, taking in the empty pages.

“I was wondering, if I could use it?”

His grandpa looks up at him. His eyes set wide in surprise, tentative enthusiasm. “Absolutely, it’s all yours” he hands it back to Danny with zeal.

“Thank you” Danny says, and then- “What were you going to fill it with? The ‘Great Ideas’ I mean”

His grandpa rocks in the chair, his eyes go fuzzy and slightly unfocused. “You know” he says “I can’t remember.”

~*~*~

“Is Rusty still sleeping, Daniel?” Aunt Ida asks him as she places a fresh pot of coffee on the table.

Danny nods “Last time I checked”

It has been an hour since he left Rusty in his bed, but the kid looked exhausted. A kind of exhausted that's hardwired in, that a single night of good sleep won’t fix.

“Go wake him up, I don’t want him to miss breakfast”

Debbie makes a sour face “You’ve never woke us up for breakfast before” which gets her clapped on the ear.

“Hey!” She shouts, holding the side of her head.

“Debbie” Danny hisses. An admonition, a warning.

Her eyes are dull when they find his, and they flicker away before they can reveal the emotion in them.

Danny leaves before the situation can escalate. It’s not Debbie's fault for not learning to hold her tongue, control is a lesson best taught through experience and Debbie never had the chance to practice, not like Danny did.

Danny opens his bedroom door without knocking. Which is, he finds out a second later, a mistake.

“Rusty- Oh”

Rusty is awake. He’s standing in front of Danny’s bed, and he must’ve been in the middle of changing clothes because he’s not wearing a shirt. He’s standing naked to his waist, faced away from Danny, the light from Danny’s window paints him in dramatic tenebrism.

Even from here, Danny can tell he’s toned, all wiry muscles and, when he turns, defined abs. Only, they’re not the result of a rigorous exercise regime. More likely, based on the knots of his spinal column and the visible protruding ribs, the result of exposed muscle when there's not a layer of fat to hide behind. Rusty is skinny, painfully so.

It makes Danny’s mouth go dry.

The second thing Danny notices is that Rusty has Danny’s journal in his hands, and he’s rifling through the pages.

It makes Danny’s mouth stop working.

The floor feels like it’s falling out from under him. For a moment, Danny is sure he can see snowflakes whipping past the window outside, before he blinks and remembers it’s September. The white is from Danny’s curtains, that’s all.

Danny steps forward, that familiar rage simmering just below the surface.

Before he can snatch the journal from Rusty’s hands, or start yelling, Rusty smiles. It’s slow and self-assured, and screams of hidden danger. Like the bright colors on a poisonous tree frog. It’s a warning, anything that happens is now on Danny.

“Good morning” Rusty says, his gaze still on the book.

Danny swallows “What are you doing with that?”

Rusty glances up at him, briefly, over the edge of the book.

There it is again, those painfully obvious words that Rusty doesn’t need to say.

‘Reading’

“That’s my journal, I’d appreciate if you didn’t go through my things”

“I’m sure you would,” Rusty says and turns the page.

That's it. Danny steps forward, and Rusty steps back in tandem, just out of reach. Like choreography, like a dance.

Heat bursts to his chest. He tamps down on the urge to yell, to pin Rusty to the wall and pry the notebook from his fingers. Control.

“Did you come up with these yourself?” Rusty asks, the barest smattering of a smile on his face.

He’s enjoying this.

“What do you think? I’d like it back now”

“These are impressive. Especially the Auntie Roo” he closes the journal and offers it to Danny.

Danny pulls it from his hands.

Rusty keeps talking, reciting from memory “Obviously smuggling art through the service dumbwaiters will work, but it’s easy to track. The handy man disguise is a little juvenile but it does ensure easy access into the house. How do you know they won’t blame the help?”

Danny pulls the journal close to his chest. He thinks about denying it at first, feigning ignorance. Rusty is watching him with those eyes though. Probing and relentless and- the gig is up. It’s no use. “I don’t. We need a scapegoat”

Rusty pulls a shirt on and, ah- yes that’s much better Danny can think more clearly now.

“And you want the scapegoat to be a maid?” Rusty asks.

“I’d prefer no one goes down for the robbery, but yes. It’s a solid plan B”

“If you work out the details you don’t need a plan B”

“I don’t need a plan B anyway because it’s just an idea. It’s not going anywhere, I'm not doing anything with it. Breakfast is ready”

“Rockefeller”

Danny stops, thinks, ‘What?’

“Rockefeller” Rusty repeats “I had a fling with the son of John Rockefeller Prentice once. He snuck me back into his family mansion and I got a lay of the land. They have two service dumbwaiters, one for food and one for laundry. They have about ten to twenty staff members at any given time, and aren’t close with any of them, save for the nanny. They’re in the middle of construction on the east wing of the estate, where the plumbing is so it would be incredibly simple to fake a sewage malfunction, if you’re still sure you want to pull a Plumber's Troy Horse.”

“A sewage leak is a great way to evacuate the staff-” Danny says

“Clear them of all suspicion”

Danny smiles but it falls away quickly. “We still need blackmail”

“I already gave you that,” Rusty says, his eyes on Danny.

Danny watches him. Plays his words over in his head. Oh. He had a fling with John Rockefeller's son.

Rusty shrugs “I’m sure he’d hate for that to get out”

“Are you-” ‘comfortable doing that?’

Rusty shrugs “Sure, why not?” he says and fiddles with that gaudy silver ring.

Danny’s mind starts to spin.

~*~*~

To a nine- now eleven- year old Danny, one year and eleven months go by slowly. He goes back to school, makes a new friend, (Mort doesn’t talk to him anymore which he’s alright with) he wins a chess game against his grandpa, learns how to make spaghetti bolognese, and scribbles away in his new journal; fantastical ideas that he and his parents can pull off as soon as they’re released.

Then, one day in December, Danny and Debbie’s mom gets out of jail.

She moves into Danny's old room, and Debbie moves in with Danny, and their father is still in jail, and their mother is acting strange.

She drinks a lot, and her eyes are fogged over more often than they’re not. She jumps when one of them speaks too loud, and spends an entire afternoon in her room after Debbie breaks a glass on the kitchen floor.

Their grandfather sits on the coffee table a foot away but doesn’t even lift his head from the book he’s reading.

Debbie tries to pick up the glass herself and cuts her palm. Even as she cries out in pain, their grandpa doesn’t move.

Danny rushes forward, rinses the blood from her hands, and wraps them in bandaids. He sweeps up the glass himself and disposes of it in the garbage, before scrubbing the sticky red droplets of Debbie’s blood from the kitchen floor.

When Danny is finished he goes to confront his grandpa. He says something cruel and accusatory, because control be damned, but his grandfather doesn’t even lift his head.

The book he’s reading is upside down. His grandpa hasn’t turned a page in an hour.

~*~*~

Danny and Rusty spend ten minutes hammering out the details of the Rockefeller mansion.

Rusty scribbles descriptions in the leather journal. Chicken scratch letters under Danny’s neat cursive scrawl. One of only three people who’ve ever written on its pages. That feels important somehow.

Danny and Rusty bounce ideas off each other and take turns building them up or shooting them down.

It lasts until Danny’s aunt knocks on the door.

Danny swipes the journal from Rusty’s hands, and replaces it with a yearbook. Rusty understands (because of course he does. Danny is starting to wonder if he’ll ever misinterpret what Danny wants) and starts flipping through the pages briskly, methodically looking for the O names.

It takes less then a second, for Danny to chuck the journal under his bed and call out, calmly.

“Come in Ida”

The door opens, and Ida pokes her red rimmed glasses over the door.

“What are you boys getting up to in here? Breakfast is getting cold.”

Rusty smiles, and it’s overpowering in its suavity. “Ma’am I’m so sorry Danny and I must’ve lost track of time.”

Ida comes in fully now, hovers over the pair of them resting on the bed. She’s wearing an apron now, with pale blue birds embroidered over the pockets.

“Wasn’t she darling?”

Debbie, on the page, is wearing a paisley green button up and rocking a truly impressive pimple. She’s twelve in the photo, and cringing up at the camera in what can hardly pass as a smile.

“She is” Rusty grins, and it almost convinces Danny that he’s a lovesick teenager.

Aunt Ida coos and claps her hand over her chest.

“You two are adorable. Now come on, enough nostalgia. I made eggs and toast” She turns and leaves the two of them on the bed, the door still ajar.

Danny stands to follow, and when he turns back Rusty has flipped to Danny’s grade, and is staring down at a sixteen year old Danny, complete with a bowl cut and a batman t-shirt.

Rusty bites his lip, and looks up at Danny. The air of innocence so manufactured it makes Danny balk.

“Cute” he says, and then snaps the yearbook shut, throwing it on his bed, and wandering past Danny with a smirk.

~*~*~

Debbie kicks Danny under the table.

Danny, through sheer exertion of self-control, and finely tuned CHUR-related patience, keeps quiet, waits for his aunt to leave the room, and then yanks on Debbie’s bob, pulling her whole head down until a lock falls in her cereal.

“Ew! I haven’t washed my hair yet asshole” Debbie hisses at him

“Maybe that’s a lesson on personal hygiene, Downer.” he says and sips his coffee.

“Danny!” Debbie’s face goes red, at the childhood nickname.

She glances at Rusty who is paying more attention to his second plate of flavorless eggs than their bickering.

Danny leaves ten minutes later, and Rusty follows, macking Debbie on the cheek for the sake of their lingering aunt.

The second the door shuts behind him, Rusty shivers in the cool fall air, and Danny, belatedly realizes he doesn’t have a jacket.

“Where are you going?” Rusty asks.

“Intro to criminology”

“I thought you didn’t go to college” Rusty falls into step behind Danny, they had a brief discussion about Danny’s education over the dinner table last night.

“I’m not enrolled in college” Danny corrects and shoves his hands in his pockets. “All the benefits of a higher education, none of the hassle of final exams and semesterly tuition payments”

They are silent as they walk, multicolored leaves crunching underfoot.

Rusty is thinking something, and he’s thinking something loudly. But for the first time since meeting him, Danny has no idea what it is.

“I can’t do it” Rusty says, he’s extraordinarily quiet, soft spoken in a way that speaks of danger, a poised snake ready to strike. “The Auntie Roo,” he explains.

Danny lurches to a halt “but-”

Rusty shrugs “I know. You can if you want, you can use all the information I gave you about the Rockefellers. I just-”

“Rus” Danny says and turns to face him “It’s a two person operation, I can’t do it without you”

“Then ask Debbie”

Danny’s world goes a startling snow ashen blank. The warm red and orange of the leaves beneath his feet fade away in a blur of white, flashes of red and blue visible on the periphery. He can’t picture it, can’t imagine it. He can't. He can’t. He-

“She’s too young,” he says. He forces his feet to keep moving and the winter chill dissipates, replaced by a steady breezy fall.

Rusty doesn’t push, though by now he must know she’s capable of plenty despite her age.

“I’m sorry.” Rusty says “I just… I’m one strike away from juvie”

Rusty is pale in the morning air. His cheeks gaunt and sunken, bags around his eyes dark and profound. For the first time since Danny met him, Rusty actually looks his age. Just a kid.

Danny sighs “It’s alright. I understand”

Rusty looks at him, blue eyes almost translucent. ‘Thank you’

They walk in silence only interrupted by an occasional fast walking pedestrian or errant falling leaf.

“Where are you headed?” Danny asks

Rusty shrugs. “No where I guess”

Danny nods. Shrugs and tilts his head. “You want to learn about the criminal justice system? There’s always a few open desks in the back of the class”

Rusty smiles.

~*~*~

A week later before a sociology class, Rusty tells Danny about how he and Debbie pick bars clean.

Danny nods, impressed “Wait is that how Debbie afforded tickets to the Partridge Family Band concert?”

Rusty’s eyes almost jump out of his head. He chokes on the soda he was sipping at. “The Partridge Family Band?” He asks in disbelief.

Danny hides a laugh behind his hand “She tries to act so edgy but she’s such a prep at heart”

Rusty falls back in his chair “She really is. Oh my god. One time someone requested ‘I Think I Love You’ at the Julius…” He stares at Danny.

‘Do you think it was her?’ his gaze says

“Oh absolutely” Danny sits next to him, and their thighs brush under the table. “Did you know she has the Beach Boys on vinyl?”

Rusty beams.

~*~*~

Their father gets out nine months after their mom.

From the looks of him, he handled prison better than her.

His skin is still too pale, and his eyebags still too pronounced. His stubble has sprouted into the beginnings of a beard, and his hands are sometimes too rough when they close around Danny’s shoulders and Debbie’s back. But he’s here, and he’s okay, and according to CHUR, shit happens. You deal with it and move on. They’re Oceans, they can handle it.

They stay at their grandpa’s house, just until they can ‘get back on their feet.’

Their grandfather is losing weight. He drifts off during chess games, and leaves the door unlocked despite the warnings on NBC about rising crime rates. Once he forgot about a pot of milk he was boiling, and Danny still has angry red burns on his forearms from when he fished it off the stove top, unprepared for its weight.

Danny waits for his parents to say something about it, but they’re busy.

They pull each other aside in the kitchen and whisper furiously, they scribble away in notebooks, make long painfully polite phone calls. It’s so similar to when they’re planning a job, only there's something else striking a hot undercurrent. Their mother looks at Debbie with such sorrow when she thinks they aren’t looking.

Danny is always looking.

Danny comes down the stairs one day to find Debbie sitting, already dressed on the couch. There is a packed suitcase in front of her. Their mother sits beside her, holding her hand in a crushing grip, and their father stands beside them.

“What's going on?” Danny asks, suddenly shaky and sweaty and cold at the same time.

“Daniel” his father says, a full name is never a good sign.

“What is it?”

“Sweetheart. I’m sure you’ve noticed that your grandfather isn’t well”

His grandpa is sitting at a dining table a room over. Staring expressionless at a bowl of cereal.

“It’s not a good place for children to grow up.”

“So we’re moving again?” Danny asks, he’s fine with this, he expected it, why are they acting like it’s such a big deal. He shrugs “Okay I’ll go pack”

His mother and father glance at each other.

Debbie rocks herself slowly on the couch, she’s uncomfortable. She’s wearing that pink skirt that she hates, and her hair is pinned back instead of braided like she usually wears it these days.

“The things is, honey, that-”

His father cuts his mother off “you’re not going Daniel. You’re a man now and we need you on the job. Debbie is still young, and my sister agreed to take her in.”

Danny is a rock. He’s a stone. He’s in control of himself and his reactions. He’s practiced long and hard to keep his emotions to himself, in tight regulation. Debbie is crying now, and her tears are a hammer, a chisel. It cracks something inside him and his hands have formed fists that shake, violently and uncontrollably by his side.

“No” he says “You can’t”

“Daniel” his father stands, hovering over Danny.

Danny approaches. Arches his back and stares straight up at his father. Their chests bump, and the rage simmers inside him. The crack deepens. “You can’t take her”

“We can and we will. You are too young to understand this, but it's for the best”

“I’m too young to understand, but I’m old enough to be your fucking accomplice?” He jabs a finger in his fathers chest, daring, wishing he’ll fight back.

“Daniel!” His mother admonishes, wrapping her arms around Debbie as if she’s trying to shield her from Danny’s language. As if that’s what she needs protection from.

~*~*~

They are bigger than Danny, and older than Danny.

He watches as Debbie is loaded in a car (crying and hitting the entire way) her suitcase goes in the trunk, his parents in the front seat. Her nose pressed to the window. They take a corner and disappear and Danny cries until he can’t see anything any more, until the window and the house and the floor mix together and then fall away in a blurry smear.

He can’t do anything to stop it.

When you are young and when you are small that’s all that matters. It's all anyone will notice when they see you, something to manipulate, something to control.

In the twenty minutes between waking and losing his sister, Danny learns that there is a fourth principle to CHUR, that his family was either too stupid to notice or far too clever to reveal.

4.There will always be someone older and bigger and stronger than you.

So, Danny thinks as he cries alone in a big house, he must be more clever than all of them.

~*~*~

Danny knows Rusty spends his nights with Debbie, dancing and drinking and robbing in queer bars.

But he spends his days with Danny.

They attend lectures, pass notes during class, they finish their homework but never turn it in, they skip exams, and participate in class discussions. It gets colder as the months pass, and Danny takes to giving things to Rusty. He lies about it, pretends he forgot he had a spare jacket in his messenger bag, he must’ve accidentally grabbed an extra scarf, he’s not hungry if Rusty wants to finish his sandwich.

Rusty never believes him, that much is clear, but he accepts them every time with grace. Thanking Danny with his eyes.

Danny is two years older than Rusty, old enough to actually attend college, but Rusty actually looks the part.

Danny realizes too late that by inviting Rusty to sneak into lectures with him, he’s incidentally widened Rusty’s dating pool.

Rusty flirts with people on campus, and it makes Danny uncomfortable in a way he can’t place.

It’s probably just seeing a man flirt with another man. It’s new, unusual, it strikes Danny as odd is all. He just has to get used to it.

But then- when Rusty leans against a locker and runs a hand down a girl’s arm the feeling is still there.

Danny tries not to think about it too hard. He tries not to notice when Rusty disappears into a supply closet with a classmate's hand in his, tries not to dwell on the bruises on his neck, and his red kiss bitten lips.

But observation is in his nature, hardwired in his very existence. All he can do is stop himself from staring, and tell himself he doesn’t care.

It tastes like a lie.

~*~*~

“Here's the classes I’m taking next semester” Rusty passes him his schedule.

“Mandarin? Why?”

Rusty shrugs “sounds fun, and the teacher is crazy hot”

~*~*~

Danny is small. Small enough to fit into vents and hide in closets.

He steals bank vault blueprints, and building layouts, and adulterous letters to blackmail cops. He doesn’t do anything but sneaking and hiding and snatching and running. His parent’s take care of the rest.

He steals whatever they tell him to steal, gives it to his parent’s, and then locks himself in his room.

Once a week, every Saturday at 7 PM, Debbie calls Danny. She tells him about New York, and the apartment she’s in. She tells him about riding the subway, and how terrible their Aunt Ida’s cooking is. She tells him that Ida hung a cross over Debbie’s bed, and sent her to sleep for three days without dinner when Debbie flipped it upside down to mess with her. Debbie tells Danny about a girl at her school named Cassidy, who has such pretty red hair. Danny’s heart sinks in painful recognition when Debbie tells him that she thinks something is wrong with her, because her stomach feels funny everytime Cassidy is near.

The discomfort Danny realizes later that night while laying sleepless in bed, stems not from Debbie liking girls, but the realization that life is going to be so much harder for her because of it.

Danny lies to Debbie in return.

He tells her their grandpa is doing well (he found him wandering outside without his shoes last night), and that everythings going alright in school (their parents pull him out of class more and more often these days), and that he hates the jobs their parents are making him pull. (his heart races during every moment, and when he’s done it leaves him empty and hollow and yearning for more.)

But then it reaches 7:45 and their Aunt Ida tells Debbie it’s time to hang up, and they say their goodbyes and promise to call next week.

He finds out that the bank his parents rob is the same place his Uncle James is working at. They received most of their intel through him, though he never finds out if his uncle is aware of it.

He hates his parents, he decides. He hates them, and he wants them to know it.

One day he wakes up to that British-not-really-a-detective politely sipping on coffee in his grandfather's living room.

When his parent’s get dragged off to jail again, not long after, Danny smiles at Mr. Frazier from across the living room, but this time, it isn’t an act.

~*~*~

“Daniel, can you get that!”

The phone is ringing and Danny is washing dishes.

Aunt Ida took Debbie grocery shopping and Uncle James is sitting reclined, entranced by something on the tv.

Danny sighs, but dries his hands, wandering over to the landline.

He picks it up “Hello?”

There is ragged breathing on the other line.

“Hello, is anyone there?” Danny is about to hang up, and dismiss it as a prank call when a voice speaks up.

“Danny?” The voice is quiet, almost too quiet to fully make out.

“Yes” he says, and then, because he knows whose calling but he wants to wrong “Who is this?”

“Is Debbie there?”

It’s Rusty, obviously. But something isn’t right, his voice is strained, scratchy. In the silence between words he wheezes, like his lungs aren’t working properly.

“No Debbie’s out right now. What’s going on, are you alright?”

More silence. Danny thinks he can hear Rusty crying.

“Sorry she gave me this number for emergencies and-” Rusty stops, there’s a shuddering breath “I need help. Can you…” Rusty trails off

In the silence, Danny can almost hear Rusty’s thoughts. ‘Can you come get me?’

“Yeah, I’m on my way. Where are you?”

~*~*~

Their grandfather dies.

It doesn’t hurt Danny as much as it probably should, but it feels as if he’s died a long time ago. He’s had plenty of time to grieve his mind, before his body followed suite.

Danny sits in an office with a nice lady who has dark skin and a halo of curly hair. She smells like lavender and gives him a sour candy while she makes phone calls.

She tells Danny they’re looking for a home for him.

Danny replies politely that he’s going to move in with his Aunt Ida and Uncle James, that they’re already taking care of his sister.

She smiles thin and uncomfortable and tells him they’ve already contacted them and that they don’t have room for him and his sister.

Danny smiles back and tells her they’ll find room.

An hour later she informs him that they found a foster home in Philadelphia for him, with ‘lots of other kids his age.’

Danny asks if he can call his sister privately, which the nice lady agrees to, handing him her office phone and stepping outside to grab a coke. He spends ten minutes on the phone with his Uncle James. During which he informs him, in painstaking detail, how his loose lips led to the robbery of his workplace. The bank lost ninety million dollars, and sunk even more on improving their security after the theft. Danny explains that he’s in a social workers office right now and is entertaining the idea of spilling the beans unless, of course, Uncle James and Aunt Ida reconsider their previous declaration.

Then, when the nice lady pops her head back in the room and hands a soda to Danny, even though he said he wasn’t thirsty, Danny in turn, hands the phone to her. Says sweetly that his Uncle wants to talk to her.

They find room for Danny.

~*~*~

Danny finds Rusty at a phone booth. He’s sitting on the bench, despite the fact it’s New York, and he’s in Hell’s Kitchen, and that bench has probably seen worse things than both Danny and Rusty combined.

Rusty’s legs are drawn up to his chest and his arms are wrapped around his knees.

As Danny walks, the sky darkens and when he exhales it comes out in dragon breaths, little clouds that swirl up around him and dissipate into the air. The forecast calls for snow tonight, and Danny pulls his jacket closer to his body.

Rusty is wearing hardly anything.

Full length jeans, at least, but his shirt, if he can even call it that, doesn’t even touch his navel, his arms are entirely exposed and- as Danny approaches his shoes are gone too. Bare feet tucked up under himself as he rocks on the bench, self-soothing.

“Rusty!” Danny runs to him, he opens the phone booth door and tucks himself into it. It’s warmer inside, only marginally so.

Rusty finally takes note of Danny and looks up, he smiles wide and dopey. His pupils are blown, obviously high off some party drug or other. Half of Rusty’s supermodel face is blue, ringed with older yellowing bruises. The other is filled with scratches and cuts, a thin stripe of ruddy colored dried blood runs vertically from Rusty’s hairline to his chin.

Danny squats down until he’s at eye level with Rusty.

“Jesus what the hell happened” Danny asks, and takes Rusty’s chin in his hand, turning it side to side to check for more injuries.

“I turned eighteen” Rusty says, voice hoarse from disuse, “Yay me!”

Danny shakes his head “I don’t understand”

“I shoulda just let Officer Mullins drag me to juvie, at least it’s warm there. Too late! I’m an adult now!”

It clicks. He’s aged out of the foster system, thrown quite literally to the streets. Which, from the looks of it, haven’t been kind to him.

Rusty shivers, and Danny shivers with him. Out of sympathy maybe, or because it’s almost December and even Danny’s wool jacket and scarf aren’t enough to keep the chill out, and Rusty’s fucking barefoot.

Rusty cradles something in his hand, with such utter fondness, Danny half-expects to see an injured bird cupped in his palms.

“It’s not like I was spending much time there anyway” Rusty says, half to himself. He’s still high, and, from the smell of him, a little tipsy. “He took all my money…”

“Who?” Danny asks

Rusty doesn’t answer, keeps his steady pace rocking back and forth. He opens his palms and Danny spots the chunky silver ring Rusty is always wearing. He holds it like it’s made of gold, like it’s alive.

With shaking fingers Rusty slips it on his pointer.

“Come on” Danny says, and pulls him up “Let's go back to my place”

Rusty shakes his head but goes with him willingly “I can’t not like this” he gestures at his shirt, a peace sign over tie dye. Blue makeup dusted on his eyelids, they match the color of his eyes and his bruise.

“Debbie needs this”

Danny stops short because he’s right. Rusty has always had a tendency for flamboyance, it can be easily written off as one of his many eccentricities when his arm is slung across Debbie’s shoulder, and he’s making eyes at her across the table. But now, wearing what Danny is pretty sure are women's jeans, and a hippie crop, shoeless and beat up and smudged in make up-

“We’ll get a hotel somewhere then”

Rusty shakes his head, his stomach growls and it almost echoes in the alley. “Too expensive”

Danny wraps an arm around Rusty to keep him upright “I never said I was going to pay for it”

The sky opens up above them and, finally, it begins to snow.

~*~*~

The two years they spent apart have changed Debbie.

She’s colder now, angrier.

She always has been, but before it lurked under the surface. Covered by a veneer of innocence and vivid intelligence. Now it’s on full display, she doesn’t talk to Danny any more, she doesn’t want to play games, or go on walks.

Danny knows he’s changed too, over the years. He’s angrier too. Sharper at the edges, but he’s spent more time with their parent’s than Debbie. He knows how to channel it properly, sure that if he didn’t, the ice in his chest would grow until it consumed him entirely.

Snowstorm’s and Elvis and all.

Danny walks by Debbie's room a week into living with Aunt Ida and Uncle James and hears her sobbing. It’s breathless and frantic and heart wrenching.

Once, Danny would’ve opened her door whether she wanted him to or not, pulled her into a hug and held her. He would’ve told her that whatever it is, it’ll be alright. They’ll get through it, he’d say, together. Make a name for themselves… together.

But times have changed, because it’s what time does.

So Danny walks past the door, and leaves her be.

He falls asleep, and no matter how many blanket he piles on top of himself, he can’t get warm.

~*~*~

Rusty falls asleep wearing clothes Danny stole, in a hotel room that Danny cheated their way into, stomach full of food Danny bought on a pickpocketed credit card.

Danny stays up the entire night. He pretends not to hear Rusty hurling his guts out through the thin bathroom walls.

Rusty talks in his sleep, turning over in his twin bed and muttering about aviators and poker chips.

When the sun dawns, the hotel room becomes more real. Garish maroon overtones and fake wood, suspicious stains on the curtains and the shag carpet and the pillows.

Danny gets coffee and donuts, and when he returns Rusty is up. He’s watching batman reruns, eyes hazy though this time it's from exhaustion and not cocaine.

“Good morning sunshine” Danny says and throws him the bag of donuts, which Rusty catches.

“Morning “ Rusty says, and then shoves the first maple bar in his mouth with a moan.

Danny settles on his own twin bed and thinks about asking him something stupid like if he’s alright.

Rusty laughs and Danny wonders if he thought that a little too loudly.

“Thank you” Rusty says “for helping me”

“Do you know what you’re going to do?”

Rusty shrugs and downs his black coffee. “Yeah” he says “The Auntie Roo.”

Danny’s heart skips a beat. That familiar itch building in his chest.

“I’m in” Rusty says, and grins through the bruising, and the sweat, and the make up.

Danny tries not to (he really really does) but no matter how hard he strains against it, he can’t help but smile back at him.

~*~*~

Looking back, that should have been the first warning.