Wants and Needs

I do not own anything related to the Oceans movies.

When Rusty was five, he wanted a bicycle. A red bicycle with two wheels and flames painted on the back so it would move faster. He drew a picture of the exact bike he wanted in school one day, a week before Christmas vacation, and showed it to his mother. She sat him down and explained sadly, with remorse shining in her blue eyes, that they couldn't afford it, because her jobs didn't pay enough to cover the bills, food, and a bicycle.

He wasn't upset by it however, as he told Danny a few days later, when they were munching on "borrowed" animal crackers and juice boxes. Christmas was coming soon, and Santa would bring him the one present he wanted most, his teacher had told him so. Danny had nodded solemnly, but he never finished his snack, and the small, wooden tree house Danny's father had built before he'd left forever was unusually silent.

Christmas morning came quickly, and though their tree was small and most of the needles had gone brown (because his mom had bought it at the discount lot), the main room to their apartment had never looked as beautiful in his eyes. His mother had woken him up early, so early it was dark and even his five year old excitement hadn't been enough to get him out of bed at that hour. She had to be at work by seven, and he liked the way she smiled as he tore the shiny paper from his two presents, so he figured being tired was a small price to pay. She'd knit him a scarf, it was bright red and had "Robert" embroidered on the end in white letters. Santa had brought him a Superman action figure, it was then that he realized Santa wasn't real, because he liked Batman better, and even then, it wasn't what he wanted.

He and Danny met up in Danny's tree house later that day, after he'd snuck away from the babysitter he hated and Danny had faked a cold to get out of visiting his grandmother for the week. The scarf his mother had made him was a bit itchy, and it was too big, he had to wrap it around his neck three times to keep the ends from dragging on the floor. The snow outside was white and wet and cold, Danny had huddled close to him after he climbed the ladder to the tree house, a box of chocolates from his stocking tucked under his right arm, a stack of new comic books under the other.

"I got three new Superman and a Spiderman and two Batmans." Danny announced and slid the box of candy across the floor to him, he opened it and began to eat the chocolate gratefully, it melted sticky on his fingers.

"I gotted a Superman action figure and this scarf." He could barely understand himself around the candy in his mouth.

"Want me to read you Batman?" Danny opened the comic book in his lap, tilted the pages so Rusty could see them.

"Yeah." He could read some of the words, but Danny did the character's voices for him, even the girls.

"It was a stormy night in Gotham City and…." He sat back and listened to Danny read, Danny had some trouble with the big words but he was nine and could sound most of them out, and when he couldn't, he made them up, it made the story more interesting. He finished his chocolate too soon, the box suddenly too empty, but he found that a note had been lying beneath the candy.

Look outside.

The words were written in red crayon, and it took him a few moments to sound out the last word in his head. He snuck a hesitant glance up at Danny, clutched the piece of paper tighter in his small hands as he peeked out the window of the tree house, to find a bicycle perched on the snow in Danny's backyard. He made an excited, unbelieving noise in the back of his throat, his mouth falling open and his eyes going wide, unable to voice the delight coursing through his veins like the sugar from his treats.

"You….gotted…."

"Merry Christmas Rusty."

He rushed outside and into the snow, tumbled once and fell on his face, getting ice up his nose and in his hair. The bike had holes in the ends of the handle bars from where tassels had been pulled out, marks on the front from where a basket had been kicked free, and the red paint was splotchy and thin, with pink shining underneath the crimson. Someone(Danny) had gone over the original paint job with red watercolors and magic markers.

"Thank you Danny!" In his gratitude he threw his arms around his friend, stood on tiptoes to plant a sloppy kiss on Danny's cheek, his mouth leaving a smear of chocolate on Danny's skin.

"Come on; let's go see if Batman beats the Joker." Danny said after a minute of silence, rubbing the chocolate off his skin with the palm of his hand.

He never asked where Danny had gotten him his Christmas present, even when Lisa Cerra's bike was reported missing and she'd cried the entire day during finger painting.

At fifteen, Rusty wanted to give his mother a diamond necklace for her birthday. His mom worked hard for him, to feed him and clothe him, to buy him M&M's and Twinkies to put in his lunch when they both knew she should save the extra five dollars a week to pay for something they might truly need. He watched her leave for the diner at seven in the morning, he watched her come home at three long enough to make him something to eat later for dinner, then leave for the supermarket at five. He would hear her come home at one in the morning, and he would pretend to sleep when she opened the door to his bedroom and stare at him for a long time before going to bed herself, whisper one last "I love you" before the door was completely shut.

"I want to get my mom something nice for her birthday." He told Danny one afternoon when he watched Danny skim through a biology textbook that they both knew he wasn't going to read. College was to please his mother, and to fill the time between their "outings".

"How nice?" Danny looked up, intrigued, a plan forming in his skull, possibilities sparkling in his brown eyes.

"Nicer then anything I'm ever going to be able to afford."

"We could…"

"No, I want to get her this." He showed Danny the picture from the catalogue he'd stolen out of the neighbor's mail box.

"So you want to get the money to buy it for her?" Danny was already thinking of somewhere where money was easy to find and easier to take.

"No." He wanted to do the jewelry thing right.

"Ah." Danny's smile was bright; he couldn't help but think his friend's teeth looked like pearls. "Alexia has access to cubic zirconium."

"I'm dating her sisters." He offered with a smile of his own.

"Your mom's going to have the best birthday present ever." Danny grabbed a pen and began to write, scribbled on the back of Rusty's Algebra II homework, and Rusty redid the assignment while Danny worked out the idea on paper before Rusty worked out the details in his head.

Three days and six hours later, he was holding a three carat diamond necklace between his fingers, the platinum sparkling, catching and reflecting light like the moon, twinkling like a star. Danny helped him clean the apartment after his mother left for her second job and then Danny left him with a smile, a smile of success and elation for Rusty, because while stealing the jewelry had gone perfectly, it was Rusty's happiness that mattered to him.

He waited for his mom to come home for hours, sprawled out on the old sofa, her present neatly wrapped in his left hand. He fell asleep ten minutes after one, when he woke the next morning the gift was still in his hand, the apartment empty, and his mother always made him breakfast before she went to work, something hadn't been right.

The police found his mom's body three blocks from the apartment, her purse gone and her head bashed in. He flushed the necklace down the toilet, watched the diamonds swirl around the bowl before they disappeared; gone from his life just like his mother, the only family he had in the world. Danny never asked when he found him sobbing in the bathroom, curled against the cold tile, the scarf his mother hand knitted for him years ago clutched to his chest. Danny knew, Danny always knew, and it made his life just a bit easier, made the world hurt just a bit less.

He moved in with Danny the next day, and Danny hadn't said a word when he'd crawled into bed with him that night and clung to him, because words only made things harder.

When Rusty was twenty-three, he wanted someone to love him. He'd dated girls, he'd even dated a few guys, and each relationship had ended soon after it began. Ended because messed up, or because he was expected to mess up but didn't, and sometimes because when the sex wore thin, all that was left were words and conversations and questions. And he tried to avoid all three when dealing with those who didn't share his and Danny's profession. He never gave up, went from girl to girl to girl to guy to girl, laughs and skin and kisses, hot touches and morning after's that were only occasionally awkward, moments of silence and the hurried throwing on of clothes.

"I want someone to love me Danny." He said one morning when they were going over blue prints in their apartment, coffee steaming in cups on the table and chocolate melting in his hands. "I need a girl, someone like that Annie chick you've been dating for the last few months." He'd seen the way she looked at Danny, could almost hear the flutter of her heart every time she and Danny touched. He wanted someone to love him like that.

"I can't steal you a girl Rus. That's called kidnapping." Danny laughed quietly, his laugh softer and more melancholy sounding then usual, Rusty could sense there was something lurking behind the noise.

"Maybe Annie has…."

"I'll ask." Danny clapped him on the shoulder, his grip warm and lingering on Rusty's body for a bit longer then normal.

They all went out two nights later, Danny and Annie, him and some girl with bleached blonde hair and pretty green eyes that almost reminded him of money. Her name was Elizabeth, she asked him to call her Melanie.

He dated Melanie for five months when suddenly, it was over, without reason or the return of any of his phone calls. He tried everything he could think of to win her back, sent her flowers, wrote her a love letter(Danny had helped with most of it), and even thought about stealing her a necklace, just for a second, but that idea was crushed quickly, he didn't want the past to repeat itself. Finally, he went to her apartment, because it felt like his only chance to get someone to love him, and he couldn't risk losing it. A man opened the door when the doorbell rang, a towel around his waist, and Rusty left without a word, tossed the roses he'd picked himself in a garbage can, ignored the scratches on his fingers from the thorns.

"Some guy was in her apartment." He announced to Danny later that night, over ice cream, chocolate ice cream with chocolate syrup and pieces of Twix crumbled in.

"Sorry." He knew Danny meant it, because he knew that Danny knew that he'd wanted someone to care about him the way someone cared for Danny.

"I just wanted what you have, wanted to know what if felt like." He sighed, licking all remaining chocolate off his spoon when the ice cream was gone and his stomach still as empty as his heart felt. "I…" He stopped talking when Danny leaned forward, smoothly across the table and kissed him, his mouth hot and soft and tasting just like he'd always imagined it would(he'd imagined often, nights when sleep wouldn't come and he begged for it because his dreams always seemed to be filled with Danny).

"You never needed to want someone to love you Rus." Danny murmured against his lips, one warm hand curling around the back of his neck, the other tugging him up and towards the bedroom. "You don't need to want what you already have." Danny pushed him back against the mattress, smiling at him again, like he'd smiled so many times, only now it seemed brighter.

"I can be a selfish bastard Danny." He teased, gripped the front of Danny's shirt and pulled him down, crushing their mouths together again, their combined want growing until clothing couldn't be removed fast enough, contentment and pleasure taking want's place.

Rusty Ryan had wanted many things, but as it turned out, all he needed was Danny Ocean.