Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with Ocean's 11

Okay. So this is another multichapter story. But it shouldn't be more than two chapters. It was meant to be a oneshot and it got carried away.

As I said, this is a sequel/continuation to 'More things change'. It's set about, oh, seventeen months after the boys leave home and move to New York. For those interested in such things, Rusty's sixteen and Danny's nineteen. Just.

More to the point this - this - is what peer pressure and mockery bring us to. Of course, I could do worse. Want to try for worse?

Maybe they'd been careless, maybe they'd simply been unlucky. Hell, maybe they'd been complacent – it was the third time they'd pulled this trick in two months, and of course they were getting bored of it. But there were bills to pay and rent to earn, and after last month, when they'd been unavoidably detained in Trenton for more than just the long weekend they'd planned for, well, there'd been a certain need to lie low. And Trenton had been completely reasonable, and they'd have done the same thing all over again if they had to, because if something was worth doing it was worth doing phenomenally; and Rusty had only missed a couple of days of school anyway, so he couldn't help but think that the guidance councillor had completely over reacted. But Danny had hung up the phone and he'd had that tight look of fear and when he'd hesitantly suggested that they clip their own wings for a couple of months, just till they knew that no-one was watching, Rusty hadn't been able to refuse him.

It didn't have to always be exciting. Because they were together and life was better than it ever had been before, and besides, it always, always was anyway. Even when they were pulling ridiculous little cons for pocket change.

He followed Danny up to the door of the bar and resisted the urge to try and pull the itchy wool sweater away from his throat. How real security guards wore these all day he'd never know, and he could only be glad – again – that he'd never find himself trying to earn an honest living. He mentally shook himself. Focus – end of shift, boredom, everything's routine.

He was slouching against the wall when the owner opened it a crack and Danny waved the ID at him. "Mr Mackenzie?"

"That's right." Mackenzie looked at the paper for a long second and then squinted at the pair of them. "You're early. And you're not the regular guys." But he opened the door anyway and they traipsed inside like they belonged.

The bar was grubby. It was long past closing time, of course, but Rusty couldn't see much sign that any attempt had been made to actually clean up the place. The TV was blaring out the highlights from the game. He glanced up at it and sighed. "Why do I keep putting money on those bums?"

Mackenzie laughed. "You bet on the Mets?"

"Hey, they have to win sometime," Rusty defended, and with every word, Mackenzie relaxed a little more.

"So where are Lou and Gary?" Mackenzie asked.

About fifteen minutes behind them. Danny sighed. "Whole company is down with flu. I got dragged in here on my night off, can you believe it? What am I going to tell my girl?"

"Hey, it's extra money. Buy her something nice," Rusty advised.

"Lousy management," Danny muttered, and Mackenzie looked sympathetic.

"See, that's why I work for myself. No-one tells me what to do. Someone pushes me, I push back."

Rusty nodded and laughed, aware of Danny doing the same. Actually, according to Mackenzie's employees, he tended to push whether someone was pushing him or not. Which was what made him fair game. That, of course, and the fact that he had money and they didn't.

"You all ready?" Danny asked. "We got a couple more places to go."

Mackenzie nodded and stepped behind the bar. "Sure thing. Want a drink while you're waiting?"

He didn't need to be able to see Danny's face to imagine the flicker of consternation that no-one else would ever see at this unprecedented offer. Drinks would logically mean removing their helmets. And that was so far down the list of good ideas it was unreal.

"Nah, boss has been cracking down on drinking at work," Danny explained, with a snarl.

Rusty nodded and let his voice fade into a nauseating whine. "They were actually talking about breathalyser tests. Can you believe that shit?"

"Fucking un-American," Mackenzie agreed, and came out from behind the bar with the cash bags.

Perfect. Rusty produced the clipboard. "Sign, please."

He waited until Mackenzie had scrawled his name across three different sheets, and then he brought two fingers up to his helmet, nodded to Danny and they headed towards the door.

The moment they got it open they saw the other security van, and the two men in uniforms identical to their own, just starting to cross the street.

Behind them, Mackenzie seemed to catch on to the situation quickly, judging by the loud oath and the subsequent scream of "Help! Robbery!"

The two guards immediately started running towards them and the guards were between them and the escape van, and Rusty spared less than a second of a glance to Danny at his left to confirm that the immediate plan involved running. Fast.

They ran, and no-one was immediately behind them, which was strange, because even though the guards had been further away, it shouldn't have taken much for Mackenzie to catch up with them. Unless he was doing something else instead. And then he heard the gunshot. And then he heard Danny cry out. And then he understood and both sounds echoed through his mind like the fall of the world, like the end of reality, like the death of everything he knew.

He spun round immediately of course, quicker than he knew he could. Even though he was more frightened of what he might see than he ever had been in his life.

Danny was on the ground directly behind him, clutching at his blood-soaked right thigh. Directly behind him. When Rusty knew perfectly well that seconds, moments, millennia before, Danny had been running beside him, and barely a step behind. And he couldn't think about that too hard, because there was anger and rage and inevitable resignation, and above all, there wasn't time.

He dropped forwards and pulled Danny up, ignoring the stifled gasp. They had to keep going.

"You have to keep going," Danny corrected.

"Can't hear you," Rusty told him and he draped Danny over himself like they were running in a three legged race or something. "Keep the pressure on."

He'd glanced backwards while he was hauling Danny to his feet and one of the security guys had skidded to a halt beside Mackenzie, and thankfully seemed to be persuading the guy to put his gun down. But the other one was still following, and by the sounds of it, gaining.

They were going to be caught. They were going to be arrested. Danny would be going to prison. He'd be going to Juvie.

Time to think of something. Something beside Danny's dead weight on his shoulders, and the sound of rapid, ragged breathing in his ears.

Okay. He glanced sideways. The street was nearly deserted, but not quite. There were some night people around; no-one who wanted to get involved. He could change that.

He took a firm hold of the cash bags and threw them backwards as hard as possible and they spilled all over the road. "Free money!" he yelled as loud as possible and people spilt into the street, and the guard came to an abrupt halt and Rusty crossed his fingers that 'recover the money' was the company's main motivation.

Not that they were going to wait around to find out. Resolutely ignoring the startled, if frighteningly weak, protests, he quickly pulled Danny up and onto his shoulder in a fireman's lift and ran – staggered – as fast as he could towards the nearest alley. He couldn't do this for long. Danny was still taller. Still heavier. But he could do it for long enough; if nothing had changed from this afternoon.

It hadn't. The car was still there. Dirty and nondescript and looking like it hadn't been touched in weeks. He could only hope that it still worked.

He fell against the door, and lowered Danny to the ground, pulling the ridiculous helmets off with a snarl of frustration, and he tried not to see how pale Danny was, tried not to see the sweat, the pain-dulled eyes, the fear, and above all, he tried not to see the blood.

"Sorry," he whispered, as he searched through his pockets frantically. He could hear the shouting from the street coming closer. "Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry."

A hand reached up and settled on his wrist briefly. "Don't be sorry," Danny said and when Rusty looked down he was actually smiling. "'S okay, Rus'."

It wasn't. There was nothing okay here. Finally he found what he was looking for, and with a disproportionately overwhelming feeling of relief, he jimmied the lock and got the door open.

"Guard just ran past," Danny said suddenly.

"What?" Rusty looked round startled.

Danny took a deep breath. "Top of the alley. Guess he – "

" – didn't see us?" Rusty asked incredulously.

There was a pain filled laugh. "We had to get lucky sometime."

"Some of us get lucky frequently," Rusty pointed out, as he leaned further into the car, checking the petrol gauge – not much, but enough, probably, maybe, reaching down under the dashboard, because there was no point in getting Danny in and settled and then finding out the thing didn't run.

The engine coughed a couple of times and then started purring pleasantly, and Rusty turned round and grinned at Danny happily, but Danny's eyes were closed, and he was slumped over, his hands wrapped tightly around the back of his thigh.

Heart in his mouth, Rusty knelt down beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Danny?"

No answer.

"Danny?" he begged, a little louder and this time Danny's eyes flickered open.

"Rus'?" He sounded uncertain, and he was shaking. Shock, Rusty realised vaguely, and his mind flashed instantaneously to times when Danny had stayed with him, arms round him, holding him, talking to him till he stopped shaking.

"I'm here," Rusty promised. "I'm here." It was as close to 'Everything's going to be all right' as either of them ever got, and he leaned in and brushed his lips briefly against Danny's cheek.

He stood up and without taking his hand off Danny's shoulder, opened the rear door. This was going to be difficult.

"Danny? You think you can give me a hand here?"

"Sure," Danny agreed immediately and Rusty knew that was nothing more than instinct.

He crouched down in front of Danny and wrapped his arms round his chest. "Okay I need you to lean on me . . . that's good." With a lot of effort, a lot of moaning, and a lot of pain that broke Rusty's heart, he managed to get Danny lying down across the backseat. And that meant it was time.

He looked down at Danny's thigh. Saw the hole in the back of his pants leg. Saw the blood – far, far too much blood. And there was only one hole and he'd been hoping so much for two. Hoping that there wasn't a bullet inside Danny. (A bullet inside Danny that should have hit him.) He bit down on his lip hard and wriggled out of his jacket, the itchy jumper and finally his belt.

"What're you doing?" Danny mumbled distantly.

Rusty ignored him for a moment and laid the belt gently around the top of Danny's leg. Just above the injury. He took a deep breath. "We have to get the bleeding stopped. It's going to hurt."

Danny looked at him, uncomprehendingly.

"Trust me," Rusty said tightly

Danny smiled. "Always," he said, indistinct, pained, contented.

Rusty closed his eyes and bit his lip as hard as he could and pulled the belt tight.

Danny's scream carried on in his mind for a very, very long time.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, when Danny finally managed to focus on him again, and at least there was clarity in the look now, but Rusty could feel the tears trailing down his face.

There was a frown and realisation and forgiveness and a dismissive headshake. "Someone will have heard. We need to get out of here."

"Right." He bundled the jacket under Danny's head as a make-shift pillow, and he gently laid the jumper on top of Danny's leg and pressed Danny's hands onto it. "Keep the pressure on."

He kept his hands on Danny's a fraction longer than he had to, and he felt the answering squeeze. "Get going."

With a nod, he closed the door and ran back to the driver's seat.

He had to get them to safety.

It hadn't been a conscious choice. To be honest, there probably wasn't even a choice there. He'd looked back over his shoulder and he'd seen Mackenzie raising the gun, and if he or Rusty had to be shot, well, there was no way that it was going to be Rusty. Not while he could help it. Not while he could do something.

And it hadn't hurt the way he'd expected. Not at first. Like someone had kicked him in the back of the leg, and then the leg had vanished from under him as though it had never existed. The pain had come later. When Rusty had picked him up. Come back for him. (Of course he'd argued. But if Danny couldn't let Rusty be shot, Rusty couldn't leave Danny behind.) Then, then it had started to feel like his leg was on fire. Like he was being stabbed with a thousand, tiny, angry needles. And even that hadn't hurt like it had when Rusty had pulled the tourniquet tight.

Rusty. He glanced up again and caught Rusty's eyes in the rear view mirror and tried to offer a reassuring smile. It was less than successful, given the way Rusty's jaw tightened. "I'm all right," he promised.

"You're not," Rusty told him, and he couldn't exactly argue, because even if the pain had died down a little, it was still there, still throbbing relentlessly.

"I'll be all right," he offered instead and Rusty nodded like there couldn't be any other alternative.

"You will be."

Maybe it was just him, but the streets were going by alarmingly fast. "We being followed?"

"No." Rusty shook his head definitively, and Danny relaxed a little. They might just get away without any more catastrophes tonight.

"Then slow down," he suggested lightly. The last thing that they needed right now was to be pulled over.

Rusty didn't answer, but he put his foot down a little harder.

"Who taught you to drive?" Danny demanded.

"You did," Rusty answered shortly.

"Still amazed that they gave you your license," he muttered and then he paused and thought. Because Rusty had about five driver's licenses. But now that Danny thought about it, they'd never actually got him a real one. "We should do something about that."

Rusty shot him an exasperated look.

"Seriously, slow down," Danny said through clenched teeth.

"We need to get to the hospital, Danny."

Danny blinked. Oh, that was a bad idea. "We're not going to the hospital."

Rusty took a sharp breath. "You've been – "

" – which is why we're not going anywhere near the hospital," Danny said firmly. "They report gunshot wounds. It's the law."

"We can't deal with this on our own." Rusty sounded frustrated.

Danny nodded and tried to ignore the latest, rising wave of pain. "Take us home. We'll think of something."

Rusty stopped the car, and twisted round. "You need a doctor."

"Then we get a doctor," Danny said patiently.

"You know any – "

" – no, but we know – "

" – people who might," Rusty finished, and there was a certain amount of guilt in his voice, but at least now he was thinking rather than simply reacting.

"It's okay, Rus'."

Rusty's eyes were thoughtful. "Saul was going to get us a doctor in Vegas. If he knew one there, he might know one here."

"But Saul's in Vegas," Danny pointed out with a frown.

"Staying at the Xanadu. Under the name of Silas Pendersmith." He paused and Danny knew he was looking blank. Rusty smiled back at him. "There are such things as phones you know, Danny?"

Danny tried out an experimental pout. "I've been shot. Don't mock me."

Rusty turned the engine back on. "You're going to be milking this one for a while, aren't you?"

And Rusty sounded like Rusty again, and that meant that Danny could lean back and relax and focus on blocking out the pain.

Not that that was possible.

It hurt.

There we go, I shot Danny. Happy now, mate?