Scarcely Created Grass by InSilva

Disclaimer: own nothing of an Ocean's Eleven nature. Just borrowing.

Summary: Minus one hotel, Reuben finds life in Vegas unfamiliar. A conversation with a stranger shows him that he's not the only one coming to terms with changes. This is set a short while before Ocean's Eleven.

A/N: title is Great Gatsby-inspired:

"He must have felt that he had lost the old warm world... He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass."

F. Scott Fitzgerald

A/N 2: in case anyone is wondering, I am writing all the other fic. Just not finishing all the other fic. :) Other fic will be forthcoming. In the meantime, there's this. Hope you like.

Reuben couldn't work out exactly when Vegas had left him behind. One moment, he'd been in his prime, welcoming Frank to his hotel, sipping Martinis with Deano, listening to Sammy sing, being in with the in crowd. Before he knew it, he was being overtaken by Yuppies and shoulder-pads and people who said one thing and meant another about stuff that mattered. By the time the Nineties had arrived, most of the old boys he knew - casino-owners and gamblers alike - had died or retired to the East Coast.

Reuben could never imagine leaving Vegas behind. The place was in his blood. The lights and the noise and the brash and the cash. This was the most exciting city on Earth. Where dreams were won or lost on the turn of a card, the roll of a die, the spin of a wheel. This was like nowhere else in the world and the world knew it. The world came to Vegas and worshipped at the glitzy altars of luck and chance. And this was his home.

The landscape had changed. Reuben would drive down the Strip and see the ghosts of hotels and casinos that hadn't survived. The Dunes...The Sands... He'd stood and watched and mourned as these buildings were demolished and new mega-resorts were built in their place. Strangers that he didn't know and never would, not in the way he'd known the old Strip.

Nowadays, Reuben found himself pretty much sidelined. Younger men, hungrier men, intent on making their mark and not caring how they did it. Terry Benedict, for one. Coming up from nowhere and taking charge of the Bellagio, the Mirage and the MGM Grand. Sliding into control and power with an ease that bewildered and frightened Reuben. This wasn't the way things worked.

Reuben had kept his cool. He hadn't panicked. And he'd tried so hard to avoid Terry Benedict's offers to help when the Xanadu was suddenly the least fashionable casino to be seen at. In the old days, borrowing from another casino owner happened now and then because you were all in it together. There was a code. But that wasn't what Terry Benedict was about.

In the end, he'd thought about the staff and their livelihoods and about the few faithful old-timers who came back year on year to try their luck in his beloved hotel. Reuben owed it to all of them to keep the Xanadu afloat if he could.

He couldn't. Reuben remembered the feeling of nausea when he'd sat by the pool and opened the letter from the bank. How had things come to this? He'd looked up at Dominic and Dominic had almost broken into a trot in his rush to fetch the brandy.

He'd had to sell the Xanadu to Terry Benedict and he'd had to sell it at a price that hurt his soul. The Xanadu was worth ten times, fifty times, a hundred times what Terry offered. The Xanadu was beyond price. Regardless, Reuben had watched himself sign away over thirty years of wonder.

"You're doing the right thing, Reuben," Benedict assured him, lifting the paper off the desk. "We're in the twenty-first century now. There isn't room for nostalgia."

There wasn't room for him. That was what Benedict was telling him. Like an old animal forced to the edge of the pack so it can be picked off by hunters. And the awful thing was, Reuben couldn't see a way to stop it. He'd stood behind Benedict at that damn press conference and hadn't said a word and the papers described him as "the former owner" and really they meant "the forgettable guy". It was going to take a large chunk of the impossible to shake up the odds and make him a player again.

Which meant that when the invitation to the party at Treasure Island had arrived, he hadn't cared that the party was in two days' time and he was an afterthought. He was determined to enjoy himself. Wouldn't be like the parties in the old days, of course. What days of crazy living they were. Reuben smiled at the memory of Albert Franklin's sportscar miraculously transported up to his suite. He and Portis Adams had paid four mechanics a fortune to do that and it had been worth every dime. No, it wouldn't be like that but Reuben hoped it would at least be fun.

Not his definition of fun. Some young gun took one look at his clothes and insisted on calling him "Daddy-O". He'd held the door open politely for two young girls and they'd sniggered their way through it. The music was loud and unintelligible and there was no one else present who looked anywhere close to his age. Reuben had dug out a cigar only for a waiter to inform him politely that the party was zero tolerance no smoking.

"Schmuck," he muttered and it was partly at the waiter and mostly at himself for daring to think this evening was a viable option.

He spotted Terry Benedict on the far side of the room, surrounded by men and women who looked like they were hanging on his every word. Benedict tipped his glass in Reuben's direction and said something which made his audience burst into laughter. Reuben gritted his teeth and was halfway to lighting the cigar again when the waiter reappeared.

"Alright, alright," Reuben said crossly. "Show me where I can smoke."

The balcony overlooked the Strip. Noise from the party behind him filtered out through the doors as Reuben leaned up against the railings and took in the view. The view helped calm him down. Vegas in all her evening glory. He drew on his cigar and sent smoke rings into the night sky, thinking as he did so that that was soon going to be a lost skill.

Cigar finished, he was on the verge of returning home - he wasn't going to hang around to be the butt of any more of Benedict's jokes even if the alternative was a night in with cable TV and hot cocoa - when he realised he wasn't alone. Sitting in a shadowy corner was a figure leaning back against the wall, legs crossed. Reuben peered. He couldn't see much of the face but judging by the legs, this was a girl.

"You OK?" Reuben ventured.

The girl let out a shaky sigh. "'M fine. 'M top of the world."

Girl sounded like a liar. Girl also sounded drunk. Reuben peered further and made out the half-drunk bottle of Jack Daniels on the table beside her.

"You having a party by yourself?" he asked and he was doing his best not to think of Suzy Fielding who'd taken a swandive back in '70. He'd left early that night and maybe, maybe if he'd stayed…

"Was trying to," the girl said with a hint of sulkiness. "Then you showed up."

She didn't argue though when Reuben moved closer and leaned up against the railings again.

"You want to talk about it?"

There was an almost silent sob and he fished out a clean handkerchief and proffered it.

"Thanks."

She sat forward to take it and Reuben caught a glimpse of a full lips and dark eyes: beauty in distress.

"He's not worth it," Reuben said amiably. There had to be a he.

"Oh, he really isn't!" Vehement. She laughed. "World's full of women who think they can change the man they love, right? Just add me to that list."

"Love's a powerful thing," Reuben agreed. Also, many-splendoured. And that was the trouble: it could make or break you.

"Love…" She gave a soft hiccough. "You know the stupid thing? I knew what he was like right at the start. I told him and he said he could...he said he would... I should have known he couldn't keep his word."

There was anger in there. At the mysterious him for promising and at herself for believing.

"He said he loved me," she said wistfully. "And he does. Did. Does." She waved a hand distractedly and Reuben almost didn't catch the last three words. "Just not enough."

"Someone else?" he asked gently.

"Someone he used to work with." Her tone grew angrier. "Someone with fair hair and blue eyes just waiting to seduce him-" She broke off with another soft hiccough. "Not that… Not that."

A blonde. At some point, there might be some research into the hair colour of home-breakers.

"Maybe you need some time and distance," Reuben suggested.

"Oh, don't worry. I've got plenty of both of those. I'm a survivor. I've moved on and I've found someone else. A man who knows what he's doing. Someone who does love me enough. Someone who's never going to be tempted to give me up."

"Good for you," Reuben approved.

"It's over," she added firmly.

Right. So over that she was sat out here on her own, drinking and crying.

"Look. Let me see you home safely. I don't want to leave you like this."

She seemed to look at Reuben for the first time.

"My uncle has a shirt like that," she said à propos of nothing.

"That's me," Reuben nodded. "Everyone's favourite uncle."

She laughed. "Can you juggle? My uncle can juggle."

Reuben shrugged. "I can throw…never been that good at the catching part."

More soft laughter.

"Thank you. Didn't think it would help to talk but it has." She pushed the bottle of Jack Daniels towards Reuben. "I need a bit of time on my own but I don't need any more of this." Decisive.

His cue to leave. He picked up the bottle.

"You sure you're gonna be OK?"

"'M sure. I've got some paperwork to do."

As he stepped back into the party, he glanced back at her. Her head was bent over papers and she was signing something. He hoped to God it wasn't a suicide note. She'd said it was over. What if she meant-

She looked up suddenly and waved at him and he thought he caught a smile.

"Divorce papers!" she shouted and Reuben relaxed.

That kind of over. And whoever the he was, he was obviously an idiot. He hoped her new man worked out for her because she seemed a nice girl. Besides. She'd liked his shirt.

Dominic was up when he got back.

"Did you have a good evening, sir?"

Reuben handed him the bottle of Jack Daniels and sighed.

"Age is a terrible thing, Dominic. Don't let anyone tell you different."

"Indeed, Mr Tishkoff."

"You ever gonna call me Reuben?"

"It seems unlikely at this late stage in our relationship, sir."

"Whatever. I'll be out by the pool."

Sipping cocoa, Reuben looked up at the night sky. The stars were probably out but it was impossible to tell. Just like it was impossible to tell what the future held. One thing he'd learned over the years was that your luck could change just like that in this town.

"I'm a survivor."

The girl's words. Reuben's fingers tightened on the mug he was holding.

"Fuck Terry Benedict," he said loudly.

So was he.