Ocean’s 11, Beat City

Title: Beat City [Danny/Rusty]
Rating/Warnings: PG for anything Rusty does with his mouth and a stick.
AN: Written for 2005 Sekrit Projekt, Track 10. Why didn’t I make this track 11? I fail.
Summary:

Track 10: Beat City

Minnesota isn’t treating Daniel Ocean very well.

The spacious skies are making him agoraphobic, the waving grain is making him queasy, the carnies are filling him with a sense of ‘there but for the grace of Saul,’ and Rusty is eating a corn dog slower than any man should do anything that involves a little pointy stick.

“What did Saul say?” he asks, crossing his arms so that they hide the T-shirt that Rusty had won for him at the dart throw after a kid threw up on him on the Tilt-A-Whirl. The shirt reads “Come fall in love with a loon.” Danny may never eat cotton candy again.

“Said the guy’s here somewhere.” Rusty shrugs and bites another piece of corndog off. He points the little stick at the shirt. “That’s the state slogan, you know. They had a contest.”

“Here somewhere?” Danny looks around at the roughly five thousand people enjoying the great American pastime of eating things on sticks.

“He said we should try the kebob stand,” Rusty comments, finally, finally finishing the corndog. He flips the stick into a nearby trash can. “You know, I could kind of go for a kebob.”

Two kebobs later, they have still not found the guy, Danny has been forced to ride the Ferris Wheel, and Rusty has moved onto the spaghetti on a stick.

“This is ridiculous,” Danny says. “We’re never going to find this guy. Are you sure Saul didn’t say anything else?”

“You know, you’d think that when you bit it, it would fall apart.” Rusty examines the spaghetti minutely, and Danny fights down the urge to snatch it out of his hands and stick it in his ear. “They must coat it in something, do you think? It’s like a mystery of nature.”

“Robert, focus.” Danny puts his hands on Rusty’s shoulder. Rusty takes another bite and regards him thoughtfully as he chews. “If we don’t show up in Phoenix with two-point-eight million dollars in diamonds by 9:15 AM tomorrow, we’re going to get mailed back to Jersey in eight-by-eleven mailers!”

“Bubblewrap mailers?” Rusty asks, then wards Danny off with the spaghetti-stick when he bares his teeth. “Relax, Daniel. Everything’s cool. Look, let’s split up, okay? We’ll cover more ground that way.”

Danny spends the next forty-five minutes looking at a lot of flannel and polyester, but no blood diamond contact, and his spirits are ebbing dangerously low when he finds Rusty again.

“Danny!” Rusty waves him over and points at the suspicious-looking man in fatigues who is loitering against the counter of the ‘Guess the Pig’s Weight’ stand. “Look who I found!”

The man has at least five gold teeth, and Rusty has yet another stick-food that Danny has absolutely no desire to contemplate the origins of.

With the diamonds actually in his pocket as they saunter away, Danny feels much more relaxed, and even dares to ask what the hell Rusty is eating.

“Snickers bar.” Rusty pulls the rest of the thing off the stick with his teeth and twirls the stick in between his fingers. “I think it was deep-fried. Hey look, there’s snocones over there. Man, if you could get those on a stick here, you could make…ah, never mind.”

“We’re getting out of this state right now,” Danny orders.

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