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immolate_the_silenceTitle: Central Heating (AO3)
Fandom: Ocean's Eleven (trilogy)
Pairing: Linus/Rusty
Genres: Friendship/Romance
Rating: Teen
Summary: “I can’t date you and worry about you at the same time.”
A/N: I will finally make sure I stick to just a drabble and not let it spiral out of control so help me god… Also, I don’t know anything about apartment living or ways to heat apartments, so forgive any glaring inaccuracies. I set off to write a drabble and here it is.
…
Linus is busy unpacking his lone paper bag of groceries when his apartment’s other frequent occupant joins him, rustling around for, probably, the last beer in his mostly empty fridge.
“Linus?” He turns, catches Rusty worrying his bottom lip while twisting off the bottle cap. “You doing okay on cash?”
“Yeah… yes,” Linus supplies automatically. He should have ended it there and not gotten defensive, but oh well. “Why?”
“Because I’m freezing my ass off in this very small apartment.”
Linus stalks to the thermostat without thinking about it, without thinking too hard about the meager dollar signs dropping away like flies, and turns the heat up three notches. Not that it’ll end the conversation, he can’t be that lucky, just that it’ll maybe keep Rusty off his back a little.
If only. Rusty leans against the counter top, blocking his access to the cabinets and forcing him to stop unpacking. “Why don’t you come crash with me?” He asks nonchalantly though he is anything but unconcerned either way. He’s asked… what, eight times now? “Invitation’s been open for a month now.” And it’s not like eight times in a month is a lot but for Rusty it definitely seems a little obsessive.
Crashing probably isn’t the best term either, given a distance of roughly eighteen hundred miles doesn’t exactly entail an occasional, strictly temporary hangout.
“Because I like Chicago?” Linus stubbornly supplies.
“Fine.” Rusty huffs, but seems to drop the topic as he leaves him be and sprawls out along Linus’ couch. More like Rusty’s couch since it’s his preferred spot and he tries his best to claim every inch of it.
Linus follows after a spell, carving out a small space dangerously close to Rusty’s hip. “I’m not going to freeze or starve to death, Rusty. I’m just a little…,” he cringes as he really thinks about his predicament. “Strapped for cash right now. But I’ll catch up, I always do. Jobs have been pretty scarce lately, so I’ve been stuck taking what I can get.”
Something about that makes Rusty bristle and Linus scoot away.
“I just…,” Rusty huffs again, small and largely contained as if he’s actually frustrated with himself. “I just wish you would let me help, more than changing a light bulb or taking out the trash.”
Linus would smile since Rusty hasn’t done either one of those things, but instead his heart shudders within the tight confines of his chest. Rusty seems a little too concerned for it to be natural. “Danny talked to you, didn’t he?” Because Danny tends to drop in too, although he tends to call beforehand to give Linus the decency of fair warning.
“It’s not like I haven’t been worried,” his sometime boyfriend explains, sounding the most flustered Linus has ever heard him. “It just wasn’t really at the forefront of my mind before but now, hell, it’s all I’m thinking about. I can’t date you and worry about you at the same time.”
Funny, but Linus figured that was what dating was all about. That was how you knew you cared enough about a person: taking their life into your own and obsessing over nearly every aspect of it.
“Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“Okay… I’m sorry. I’m tired because I’m working two shitty jobs that barely cover rent and food. I’m cold all the time and my socks have holes in them and it feels like every time I wash my sweaters they shed a layer in warmth. But when you’re here, I don’t want to talk about those things. I don’t want to think about how miserable and lonely I am until you decide to drop by. I don’t want to think about how this city is slowly burying me underneath a mountain of concrete and bullshit and snow. I just want to think about you, not my stupid little life.”
It’s bitter and frigid with barely contained emotion, raw and sad and pathetic.
Rusty doesn’t retreat. He envelopes him in the crook of an arm, his other hand cupping Linus’ cheek, still licked with frostbite. “Feel better?”
“Not really.”
Of course, Rusty won’t address properly any of what he’s just said. He won’t apologize for leaving Linus hanging more often than not, a long-distance relationship only on his terms, and he won’t remind Linus that his life isn’t stupid. No, Rusty isn’t about promises or reassurances or words, but his shoulder is comfy and the side he burrows against is plenty warm and Rusty’s always been more of a cuddler than he lets on.
“I’m paying your heating for the rest of this month, Linus. For the first and last time, then you’re moving in with me. I’ll only take no as an answer if you’re not interested in us anymore.”
Leave Linus with no way out, of course. He shudders, knows that moving in with Rusty will be the beginning of the end. Rusty will think he takes up too much space, tells him he nags too much, finalize their relationship with: it’s not working out, can’t imagine how it could’ve in the first place. They only just started this and in the blink of an eye it will end. Linus won’t place bets against himself, he’s not that self-deprecating, but he’ll give it a month, maybe not even that long.
“It’ll work, kid,” Rusty soothes, hand running up and down his arm making his skin prickle with gooseflesh. “If we take it slow and easy and have patience, we shouldn’t get on each other’s nerves too much.”
Sometimes, he forgets how wise Rusty is.
FIN
