Meant to Be - Ocean's 11 Trilogy (Linus/Rusty)

[immolate_the_silence]

Title: Meant to Be (AO3)

Fandom: Ocean's 11 (trilogy)

Pairing & Characters: Linus/Rusty, Danny

Genres: Angst/Romance

Rating: Teen

Summary: Linus’ heart was beating five times too fast, palms sweating as he hesitantly shut the door, every instinct telling him that being this close to Rusty was a very bad idea.

A/N: Just a little something I wrote for Trope Bingo Round 14’s prompt Sleeping Arrangements. Also a fill on my h/c_bingo Round 11 card for Atonement.

…

Linus clutched the pillow tightly to his chest to prevent the change of clothes Danny had given him from falling. First door on the right, he had been instructed, though he barely turned the handle before the door opened abruptly enough that he nearly fell into the room. Rusty was blocking the entrance, arms crossed, surveying Linus in a way that annoyed him because it made him feel uncomfortable.

"I think I have the wrong room.”

"No, this is your room.”

Well… he didn’t know what he was supposed to do with that information, though he was fully prepared to sleep out in the hallway if Rusty wanted his room; it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Rusty, however, beckoned him inside casually, which put Linus ill-at-ease. “Come on, there’s plenty of space.”

He would have asked if Danny had more than one guest room - there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Rusty had slept over before, even though he acted as if he were familiar with and comfortable anywhere - but the last thing he needed was to seem foolish right now. If Rusty didn’t think their sharing a room was a problem then neither should he.

So why was Linus’ heart beating five times too fast, palms sweating as he hesitantly shut the door, every instinct telling him that being this close to Rusty was a very bad idea?

Rusty, meanwhile, had sprawled himself out on the guest room’s lone bed, watching TV and paying him no mind. Relieved there was a bathroom where he could change, Linus shut and locked the door behind him. The shower was more than tantalizing at the prospect of its relaxing him, even more so for the length of time he wouldn’t have to agonize over conversation with the man in the other room.

Though mostly, it would be a way for him to cool his anger and frustration. Before the call from Danny about his intent to get the three of them together to discuss a job, he hadn’t seen or heard from Rusty in a little over six months. It was both frightening and fortunate how fast that time had passed and yet Linus could almost feel every one of those days, most keeping himself busy, more than enough stretching out into an eternity of minutes as he wondered what Rusty was doing and reminded himself constantly that it was none of his business.

Eventually, once he realized he could no longer hear the drone of the TV beyond the door, he took a quick two-minute shower. When he returned, Rusty was turned away but he had left the lamp on the bedside table on for him to see by. Linus turned it off and slipped carefully under the sheets, remaining on his back in an effort to keep himself awake. He kept as still as possible, half-expecting the suggestion to be made for him to sleep on the floor but Rusty was a perfect gentleman, giving Linus more than his fair share of the bed and blankets though he wouldn’t have minded otherwise.

“Loosen up, Linus. There’s no need to be so tense.”

Says you. Once he realized his hands were clenched around the sheets, however, he loosened them, palms spreading out along the soft material betraying some obscenely high thread count. He worked on taking a deep inhale and then a slow exhale, though he still felt nearly as stiff as a board and regretted not having taken a longer, much hotter shower. Anyway, it didn’t much matter when he knew he wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, though he supposed it was better than laying out on the carpet in the hallway outside.

He’d shared a room with Rusty more than once but never a bed, and he was fairly sure it was part of some trick he and Danny were playing on him. Or maybe this was the actual trick, knowing how much sharing the same small, cramped space would ruffle Linus’ supposedly sensitive feathers.

Linus liked to think he had grown up in these six months though. He no longer looked to Rusty for a kind word or encouraging smile, no longer asked for advice or for a chance to do something that was considered out of his depth. He only looked upon Rusty with friendly admiration and maybe half-remembered infatuation. It wasn’t that he had stopped loving him, that wasn’t possible, just that his heart had sloughed off most of the pain and replaced it with indifference, intent on keeping him alive.

With Rusty so close now, in physical and emotional proximity, that indifference melted away.

He was about to sit up when Rusty rolled over towards him, not touching but the heat and closeness of him nearly unbearable. Linus froze, frantically searching for him in the darkness, afraid to turn on a light and yet feeling at a serious disadvantage. He relished the warmth and comfort of Rusty’s hand when it cupped his shoulder much more than he should.

It had been a long time since he’d been touched by Rusty: a half-hug, a hand patting his arm, fingers riffling through his hair absentmindedly and yet with intent as he had tried to make Linus into someone else. They were brief, sacred moments Linus had clung to in the lonely, exhausted spaces his head would crawl into, moments a rain of tears couldn’t wash away or that a hardened heart couldn’t crack.

He had to pretend they were better than the real thing because he’d never have the real thing.

Linus finally found the outline of him, the curve of his cheek, the angle of his nose, maybe even the flicker of his eyelashes and it was all he could do not to grasp for and take what he had never dared reach for before.

Rusty’s voice startled him. “I’m used to sleeping alone and that’s fine, but this I’m not used to.”

Used to sleeping alone? Rusty hadn’t mentioned Isabel but then again, the guy was a closed book to anyone but Danny and Linus had learned not to ask about virtually anything in his life. So he hadn’t. Besides, it was nice of Rusty not to mention his girlfriend, not to rub it in Linus’ face which wouldn’t even be a fair accusation, since Rusty had absolutely no idea just how thoroughly he had mutilated Linus’ heart.

Or… had he realized it?

“What... what do you mean?” If this was some joke... but Rusty wouldn’t blow something like this so blatantly out of proportion, would he? How far would he take Linus’ infatuation, how much could he twist it until it spluttered out in an embarrassing streak of tears and wounded pride?

“I mean that if someone’s in my bed, we’re usually not so touch averse.”

Rusty rolled again until he was on top of him, shower-warmth clinging to Linus in all the right places, a look of relieved contentment revealed only by a perfectly placed stripe of moonlight and only for a brief moment until Rusty ducked, a damp head of overgrown hair caressing his stomach.

Linus’ hands were flat on either side of Rusty’s collarbone, preventing him from moving any closer or pulling away, Linus didn’t know which. It was absurd though because he couldn’t get any closer, breathing into Linus’ - Danny’s - nightshirt, every bit of him seeping into his skin. Those hands were curling and loosening and trembling in anxiety because he should be pushing Rusty away, Linus needing so much more than he had any right to demand from him, but there wasn’t strength enough in him to self-sabotage, no matter how much not doing so might hurt him again in the end.

Rusty’s head shifted until his chin was propped lightly over Linus’ bellybutton, hands splayed on the bed on either side of him yet not cupping those sensitive planes of skin like Linus knew he wanted to. There was no explanation as to how he knew other than that he felt it, a hunger rippling in Rusty’s blood calling out to him, a hum underneath Rusty’s skin raging for human contact, warm-blooded and willing.

Linus wouldn’t be so willing if it inevitably led to a cold bed and an indecent lack of any note the following morning, if it resulted in a slew of embarrassing voice mails on a phone that was never answered, if it meant not knowing whether Rusty was dead or alive, happy or nearly as lonely as Linus, whether Rusty ever even listened to his voice mails at all or just the ones that weren’t from Linus, just the ones that were important…

But right now, Rusty wasn’t thousands of miles away. He had wanted Linus on this job, in this room, laying with him in this bed and despite all Linus’ convictions, it wasn’t so easy to say no to the desire in those eyes.

Even when Linus knew that desire shouldn’t belong to him.

He’d already long accepted the things about Rusty he would never understand.

“I asked Danny about you tonight,” the man who was practically clinging to him murmured, warm breath coasting across Linus’ clothed stomach, the thin layer not enough to keep him from shivering.

“Yeah?” Linus murmured back, his voice cracking on that one, simple word. He was surprised Rusty wasn’t pulling back; he had to know Linus was three words away from being broken down into unusable, worthless pieces.

“He warned me not to come on too strong and a warning from Danny’s like.…” Linus nodded, breath catching in his throat. Somehow, in the small expanse of time between taking his half of the bed and the dream he was stuck in now, he’d succumbed to sleep. Rusty had never moved closer, was just asleep, the bed they were sharing a mistake and nothing more. “A thinly veiled threat,” Rusty finished. "But I told him I had to snatch you up before anyone else did and he got it.”

Linus could tell Rusty wasn’t done but he didn’t care, he’d had enough of the teasing. His hands moved of their own accord and shoved Rusty back, carefully though because he didn’t want to knock either one of them out of bed. He quickly pushed himself out from under the sheets before he could be pinned down for real this time, switching on the lamp until Rusty’s shock was a living, blindingly bright thing, crawling over Linus’ skin just like the slight amusement in his eyes that was never difficult to find.

He probably thought Linus was playing hard to get and maybe he was in a way, but not in the way Rusty thought he was.

“I came on too strong, didn't I?”

There were a dozen things Linus could say but every single one of them would get him into trouble, so he didn’t rise to the bait. He made for the door, having barely reached it before Rusty’s hand was splayed on the wood above his head, forbidding him from running. “Let me finish,” he pleaded, and Linus cursed him for making it so easy and so hard at the same time, for giving him too many reasons to want to stay and too many reasons for why he had to leave. “Hurting you is the last thing I want to do.” I bet you’ve said that to all your prior girlfriends, and I’d bet big. “I wouldn’t be saying these things if I wasn’t serious... about us.”

Linus wanted to ask him what his intentions were, but that would put him dangerously close to a period-romance novel: what are your intentions for me? none other than to woo you. He knew perfectly well they weren’t living in a novel.

Though at that exact moment, he knew he wasn’t really dreaming either.

“I’m sorry for how long it took me, really, I am.”

“How long?” Linus wanted clarified. He was still facing the door, though it wasn’t because Rusty’s hand was no longer there and he knew he could leave; leaving wasn’t really an option anymore.

“Since before Isabel and I started getting really involved again. But you were finally starting to get jobs and I didn’t want to ruin that for you.”

Linus turned on him then, an explosion of anger and self-pity and betrayal he had every right to feel. “That is the absolute worst excuse I’ve heard and you know it. Don’t put that on me!”

Rusty swiped a hand through his hair, glancing away. “I know. I didn’t say I was proud of it. I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying you're sorry!” Linus was practically screaming now. He cringed inwardly at the very real possibility that if Danny hadn’t been awake, he certainly was now, and because of that he really didn’t want to continue this conversation here but this was the shitty hand he had been dealt. The shitty hand that Rusty had dealt him. It was pure selfishness, Rusty needing Danny here as backup, Rusty afraid Linus would bolt. But no, he wouldn’t; if Rusty was forcing him into this then he was playing. This was his one chance to say his piece, to force even a fraction of his pain onto Rusty. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted this, Rusty? Wanted you? A relationship with you?”

Rusty wasn’t backing away like he would in Linus’ dreams, ignoring the truth, taking the whole situation and locking it up in a closet far far away from him and throwing away the key so carelessly. Instead there was shame, so much of it leaking out of every sad glance and stilted movement and in the slump of his perfect shoulders and in the stress lines around his eyes and Linus could almost cower back because my god, he was actually serious about this, about Linus actually being in his life and not just a phone call away.

“And when you were with Isabel...,” it hurt so much, every breath I took, trying to get out of bed, thinking about how happy you were with her..., the words were leaving him now, his strength evaporating, his rage at the way in which he'd been slighted and finally abandoned ebbing away. Rusty’s charm was detrimental to everyone around him, but this wasn’t just charm, it was sincerity. Rusty actually looked sorry, there was genuine pain in his eyes and like the desire, that was all for Linus too. “What happened?”

Rusty took him in once more, courage rapidly replacing shame, a longing in his eyes so blatant it was a knife in Linus’ chest, tip reaching just past his ribcage. “She wasn’t you. It took me too damn long to come to terms with that because I already knew it, I knew it long before she said she wanted me in her life again.”

Linus shook his head as if that alone could stop Rusty from moving closer. “You hurt me, Rusty.”

“I know.”

“You practically threw me away. I mean… I didn’t even know.” Maybe it would have hurt less if he had at least known Rusty cared about him; then again, maybe it would have been the last straw, the final weight on his heart to completely crush him, knowing Isabel had been compared to him, knowing he had been found lacking.

“I’m sor...”

“I told you not to say that,” but he wasn’t shouting anymore. He was tired, tired and so so sad, he was too upset and drained to properly take in what Rusty was saying, the confession he was making, the promises Linus didn’t know whether he dared believe tomorrow morning when he would have to face them.

Rusty kissed him, a soft press of lips to the corner of his mouth. “I’ll make it up to you.”

Linus vaguely thought about how long that would take, about how much effort Rusty would have to put into it, but the more he was kissed: his forehead and his cheek and then flat on his mouth, hesitantly, sweetly, apologetically, Linus knew Rusty had won because he was already forgiven.

Rusty knew it too, his hand light around Linus’ wrist as he led him back toward the bed, his eyes closing as Rusty captured his mouth in a kiss that electrified his broken heart, deft hands stitching him back together. When he was pulled close, that was when Linus realized how much he was loved and how Rusty could never intentionally break his heart again.

As sappy and foolish as that sounded, it rang true the next morning when Danny handed him a plate of eggs and, with a wink, asked him how he had slept, Rusty’s arm wrapping around him and pressing a kiss into his hair the very second he started to doubt.

Some things, he decided then and there, were just meant to be.

FIN