#rusocean

Rusty wasn't going to sleep. It was a fate he had resigned himself to the moment Danny showed up at his door, dressed in a suit, wired and ready to go just shy of midnight. As far as Rusty was concerned, Toulour was the biggest asshole he'd ever met this side of the Atlantic, and that was saying a lot; Rusty had met a lot of assholes in his line of work.

When he'd first invited Danny in, he thought he'd have an easier time pumping him with a few more espressos and letting him watch reality TV all night. Sleep seemed like the last thing on Danny's mind.

So it was a pleasant surprise when, over an hour ago, now, Rusty had commented on some TV advertisement or another—he honestly couldn't remember at this point what it had been—and gotten no reply. It had taken him a minute to notice, the wine not exactly helping his observational skills, and when he did, he called out Danny's name. There had been no response to that, either.

Next to him, Danny was fast asleep, curled into the thick hotel couch cushions, wine glass still resting in his hand. He looked comfortable.

Thank God it hadn't taken much to knock him out. But that left Rusty with his own sleep problem; it seemed like he would be the one watching TV until the sun rose.

Since then, Rusty had sat in the dark alone, drinking water—he had no idea when either of these things had happened, the lights turning off or the bottle of sure-to-be-expensive hotel water appearing in his hand—and he was starting to feel marginally better, which also meant more awake.

He was dreading the night to come. Sure, he'd never been much of a sleeper, but pulling off one of their most difficult lifts on no sleep at all? That was something Rusty wasn't looking forward to. He didn't even have the luxury of Danny's espressos.

At some point, it occurred to him that maybe trying to fall asleep on the couch wasn't helping his cause. Even if Danny had managed to get cozy, sitting straight up with the light of the TV in his face wasn't exactly Rusty's idea of a comfortable evening.

He started to sit up, flicking off the TV and plunging the room into blackness. A quick glance to his left told him he hadn't woken Danny up. In fact, Danny hadn't so much as moved a muscle—his wine glass still sat in his hand, tucked against his chest.

Leaving Danny with a glass overnight might not have been the smartest idea; drunk or not, Rusty could decide that much. They wouldn't want to spill it on the carpet or anything. God only knew how much the damage fees for red wine would be.

Rusty leaned over, pressing in close to Danny and lifting the glass from his hand. He set it down on the coffee table as gently as he could, a valiant effort if not an entirely successful one, and settled back on the couch to get his bearings.

Maybe it was the sound of the glass being set down, or maybe just how much he was moving, but something he did, he did wrong; there was a soft hum from next to him as Danny sat up a bit.

"Hey," Danny called softly, voice rough with sleep and wine. "What are you still doing up?"

Great question. Rusty didn't really know. "Sitting here."

Danny hummed in an unquestioning acknowledgement and sighed. Before Rusty could even think of getting up, an arm wrapped around his shoulders. Danny dragged him down as he readjusted, settling to lie across the couch, pulling Rusty against his chest in place of the now abandoned wine glass.

"Go to sleep," Danny urged, swinging his legs up onto the couch clumsily. He encouraged Rusty to do the same with a tap of his hand.

For a few seconds, Rusty just blinked into the darkness, bent over awkwardly so that his top half was lying on Danny, while his legs dangled uselessly off the couch. It was uncomfortable, but he couldn't bring himself to move. Pressed into the fluffy fabric of Danny's robe, he became aware of just how warm his face was and how hard his heart was beating in his chest.

It was the wine, he told himself. Just the wine, and nothing else. For now, he could almost believe it.

"'S okay," Danny encouraged when Rusty didn't move, running his fingers over Rusty's short hair. "I've got you."

Through the haze over his brain, and the darkness, and the lingering sparks of adrenaline, it felt like time had stopped. He wanted to say something, anything. But what would he say? Speechlessness wasn't a thing Rusty knew, and yet.

He wanted to say Danny had finally done it, he was about to cross a line, had already crossed a line, had gotten Rusty's hopes up that he might keep crossing that line. But Danny's breath was slowing again, and there was nothing Rusty could say. That was for the best, he decided. He never had to say much around Danny anyway.