Chapter Text
DANSE
Sanctuary Hills, MA
August 15th, 2288
Danse awoke to the sound of Deacon shouting outside his window. “Hail, good sirs! What can I do you for?”
He blinked sleep from his eyes. His body felt heavy – one of the aftereffects of waking up too soon with Calmex still in his system. Pale streaks of daylight punctured the rips in the old-world American flag draped across his window. Some time had passed since he tore his Brotherhood banner down and replaced it with a more neutral symbol.
John grumbled under his breath and snaked out of Danse’s arms. Danse tracked him with a languid gaze as the naked ghoul lifted a corner of the flag to peer out the window. The blue of Danse’s old holotags seemed to glow against the tan, puckered flesh of his chest. John dropped the flag and quickly snapped to one side of the windowframe, pressing against the wall. His gold eyes were bright, alert, and very awake. “Shit. Tin patrol.”
Danse jarred into full wakefulness. A Brotherhood patrol was outside of his front door. He rolled out from under the sheets and hit the floor, pulling his laser rifle out from under the bed. As he charged it, John raced to the other side of the room, scrambling over the bed. He pulled on his pants, neglecting to do up the clasp. “Stay here,” he commanded with a determined, ugly look on his face. He pulled Danse’s holotags off and rushed from the room.
Danse, in just his underwear, scooted across the floor until his back touched the wall separating their room from the street. A slight breeze passed though the blown-out window, rippling the flag. Danse’s heart pounded sickeningly and he stilled his breathing to listen.
“We’re looking for the General,” a solider spoke. “Saw the flag in the window and took that as a sign we were close.”
A bead of cold sweat trickled down Danse’s neck, pooling in the hollow of his throat. He flushed as Deacon spouted, “Well, you found me. Forgot the trademark hat but, yeah, that’s my flag. Reminders of better days and cleaner streets. Look, it’s early,” Deacon griped, close enough to be standing on Danse’s front porch. “You go and wake half the neighborhood and people are gonna be in a bad mood all day, picking fights, nothing gets done, crops wasted, kids are in tears, and that’s just no good.”
“Hey, hey,” came John’s drawling voice. “What the fuck do we have here?”
There was a moment of silence. Danse remembered that John was mostly undressed, surely an unwelcome sight for a cadre of Brotherhood soldiers. Danse wondered who they were, if they had once served under him.
“Oh, hi, honey,” Deacon greeted, cheerful and loud. “Sorry about this. These guys just wanted to have a chat with your beloved General. That okay with you?”
“Get offa my lawn,” John grumbled, his tone dark. Any interaction with – or mention of – the Brotherhood pushed all of John’s buttons.
“Sorry about that,” Deacon addressed the patrol. “My ghoul lover gets ornery when he misses out on his beauty sleep. We were up late last night. You know how it goes – a little Buffout and you’re good to go for hours.”
Boots shuffled and armor clinked, proof of the soldiers’ unease. “We’ll come back another time,” one of them said, voice distorted beneath a helmet. “And expect a full requisition of supplies.”
“See you around, then,” Deacon said. “Have fun storming the Commonwealth!”
As the patrol clanked down the street, Danse slipped from the room and down the hall, crouching, pressing against walls. He leaned into the main living area and saw the two men on his threshold. Deacon ran his hand over John’s bald head, one arm looped around the ghoul’s bare midsection, looking very much like lovers. Emotion overruled logic, and Danse’s sudden, surprising jealousy tasted rancid. “They’re still watching. Wave,” Deacon instructed in a chipper tone. “And smile.”
John complied, though his body was stiff. “You’re gonna get a grenade in the pants when you least expect it,” he promised.
“Ohhh. Dirty.”
The patrol must have disappeared around the bend at this point, because Deacon slugged John hard in the shoulder. John reeled back. “You owe me. And you’re welcome,” said Deacon.
Deacon must have been spending the night next door at Curie’s – as was common nowadays – to have intercepted a patrol on their way to speak with the General of the Minutemen. Danse had been lucky thusfar, as few knew the title was his. A handful of trusted settlement leaders knew him, but the rest of the Minutemen still believed their administration hadn’t changed. A grizzled woman named Ronnie Shaw was relaying his orders, keeping him largely anonymous while allowing for him to control the militia’s movements from within the safety of Minuteman-controlled settlements. The Brotherhood had never been subtle – their ‘birds and heavily-armored soldiers gave them away far in advance, letting Danse disappear into the wind long before discovery, just another Wasteland traveler walking the trade-routes.
Danse stood, revealing himself. A shift in the air, his scent, the sound of his breathing – something tipped John off and he turned, spotting him. “You good?” John asked, regarding Danse with a worried expression.
“That was too close,” Danse said, switching his rifle off. “Resources must be thin for an acquisition team to venture this far west.” This wasn’t the first settlement that a patrol had been sent to. Radio Freedom informed him of plenty of occurrences. Feeding all the troops stationed in Commonwealth was a lofty undertaking, and the Brotherhood’s sense of entitlement led to demands, which led to violence, which led to either annihilation or starvation. It felt as though the world was off-kilter, seeing his old faction as the enemy.
Deacon coughed. “Speaking of thin – nice undies, General.”
Danse blanched and spun, stalking back towards the bedroom as Deacon chuckled at his back. John appeared a few seconds later and joined him in getting dressed. Basic leathers for John, everyday jeans and flannel for Danse. John produced a tiny blue vial – one of Curie’s preemptive shots – and injected it without fanfare.
Watching him, Danse felt a surge of intense affection, mingled with sympathy and sorrow. Lately, John’s memory had been spotty, losing a word here, a date there. John still had brief feral-slips, usually during some increased emotional state, or after a fight when adrenaline still sang in his veins. If Danse was present, he’d pull John out of public and hold him to his chest, arms wrapped tight, restraining John until he was himself again. The presence of handcuffs in their bedroom was for a less kinky reason then John would have preferred, reserved instead for when John was alone and felt himself start to slide.
Despite the ever-present reminder of John’s decline, they had arrived at an emotional apex, even surpassing the memory of what they’d had before. The previous summer had been gloriously spent, and their relationship couldn’t have been better. Danse loved the predictability of his life with John, the comfort of it, the familiarity. They didn’t kiss in front of people – that still felt vulgar – but they had friends now, people that knew about them and still cared for them both. John would talk, tell stories, joke and banter and Danse could just listen and be with him, letting his partner be the extrovert. Danse’s slow pace seemed to work just fine against John’s speed, offering a balance.
John’s chembreaks had become infrequent. Public knowledge of his attempted sobriety kept excess containers out of his hands. He was sharp and wholly present, and that change made Danse swell with pride and respect. As for Danse, he remained very responsible with Calmex, never abusing it, using only scant doses and only on the rarest of occasions, when exhaustion gave way to irritation and madness. After the standard communal breakfast, he stopped by Curie’s clinic stand for a refill.
“Hello, monsieur,” she greeted with a cheerful smile, elbows on the counter, hands folded. “How are you today?” Her humble wooden stall was unassuming, lined up with the other open-air shops in the makeshift marketplace. Marcy Long ran a produce counter, Sturges a junk shop, and Mama Murphy a bar, sitting in an armchair behind the counter, a sign that read ‘pour it yourself’ pasted beside a line of bottles. A caravan tent stood off to one side, currently vacant.
“Fine, um, thank you.” He cleared his throat. One day, small talk would come easy. One day. “I’d, uh… I’d like for you to thank Deacon for his… assistance this morning. He did John and I quite the favor.”
“Did he?” Her eyes shined with approval. “How marvelously chivalrous!”
That wasn’t a word he would normally associate the spy with.
“Any negative developments with your paramour?” she queried. “Fevers? Infection?”
Para-? Oh. John. “No. No, he’s quite healthy. Still taking the injections.” As he understood, ghouls had a higher body temperature than normal humans, and a simple infection or sickness resulting in a fever could quite literally cook their brains and push them into a feral state, prior degradation or not. He was exceptionally happy that John had ceased using casual hypodermics. “I’d like to purchase a bundle of Calmex.” She only granted him five doses at a time, which he found reasonable.
“But of course.” She disappeared, her small form dropping down to rifle through a low shelf.
“I’d, um…” He coughed again. “I’d also appreciate an increased ration of rad meds.”
“Are you planning a trip to the Sea?” she asked from under the counter.
“No, it’s… John and I, we… exchange fluids.” He felt his face burn.
Curie straightened, knocking her head against the counter’s lip. “Oh. Yes. Of course. Pardon.”
He stroked his stubble, willing humiliation away as she rose, rubbing the top of her head and wincing. She set a roll of pre-filled Calmex syringes onto the counter and plucked a few packages of Rad-X and Rad-Away from a shelf. “This is, let us say, one hundred-seventy caps?”
“Of course,” he said, counting out caps.
It felt odd to pay for supplies that were technically his from the Minuteman caravans – he’d never paid for a single item while with the Brotherhood – but he understood, partially due to John’s lectures, that it was for a greater purpose. The funding of a Commonwealth bank, predictably located in Goodneighbor which technically sat in the Financial District, would be a boon to developing an economic infrastructure. Can’t ask people to pay in bullets and favors forever, John liked to say. We got the roads, we got the manpower, time to get off our asses and take back the city. All of it. A lofty endeavor, one backed by the newly appointed Mayor MacCready, the Overseers of both Vaults 81 and 88, Roxanne Kessler from Bunker Hill and, oddly enough, Mother Isolde from the Glowing Sea. Danse suspected that John had performed some miracle for the Children, riding rumors that floated down from Far Harbor. John had been quite busy stoking the feeble beginnings of a new Commonwealth Provisional Government to life. Good God, what a time to live in, with hope so close and the Institute looming so large.
Danse missed the cruel efficiency of the Brotherhood, to take the fight to the front lines rather than wait for the first shots to be fired. The Minutemen, for all their growth, were still children with paper hats and cardboard swords, playing war. He handled settlement defenses as best he could against the enemies of the Wastes – beasts, mutants, Gunners, raiders and early synths. He didn’t always lead the charge, fearing discovery by wandering Brotherhood patrols. His paladin armor was Sterling’s again, and his salvaged combat armor was laughable in comparison. Still, it was a great honor to serve as General. He had an insatiable need to hold a rank and title, probably a default setting in his Institute programming. It was hard not to feel unworthy of such an opportunity, given that he was both a fugitive and a robot.
Both John and Deacon would kick him for thinking things like that. Since the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the thinning of Sanctuary’s population, the three of them had become close. Danse would drill Deacon for information, learning about synths, no longer content to grasp blindly, imagining answers. Deacon parted with what knowledge he had which, truthfully, hadn’t been much. Railroad agents moved assets, didn’t study them, and certainly weren’t scientists. Enormous gaps still stood in Danse’s history – his construction, his purpose, his connection with Cutler – all secrets the Institute held with no way to access them.
A ruckus swelled down the road at the mouth of Sanctuary Hills – loud, cheery voices, and the excited baying of a dog. Curie and Danse looked at each other before turning towards it. Jun Long poked his head out of the cornfield, swiveling in that direction. From his junk shop, Sturges squinted down the road and gave a whistle. “Whoo-ee! Will ya look at that?” he drawled in appreciation.
John walked proudly up the street, beaming, someone in an enormous set of power armor at his side while Dogmeat scampered in circles around them. Sunlight gleamed off the armor’s plating and its seemingly deformed helmet. It took Danse all of two seconds to place that he was looking at X-01 armor, and that the surface of it was unmarred, glowing almost silver in the light. It was Enclave-style – bulky, and with that hideous, insectoid helmet, but the body of it… the body was magnificent.
Danse strode down to meet them and the person in armor stopped before him. “I found something for you.” The voice belonged to Sterling. “You want it?” The man stamped in a circle, showing the armor off.
“It’s pristine!” Danse gasped. He reached out a reverent hand to stroke the metal forearms. “Where on Earth did you find it?”
“On some random rooftop. Weirdest thing.”
“I mighta tipped him off,” John said, rubbing knuckles against his chest, failing to look humble.
The back of the armor cracked open, and Sterling spilled out dressed in his vault suit. Good. Danse liked it less and less seeing him in Brotherhood orange. Sterling looked at Danse expectantly and patted the suit’s shoulder. Danse stepped closer, running feather-light fingertips over the glossy plating. He peeked inside. The internal padding seemed thicker than a T-60’s and very inviting. He took a breath and hopped into it, closing his eyes. The suit closed around him, cradling him in a firm yet comfortable grip. The inside smelled like the Prydwen had when it had first been launched, that new vehicle scent – oiled leather and fresh welding. He reached up to twist the helmet off before opening his eyes.
“There a problem?” Sterling asked, one brow raised.
“I can’t wear the helmet. I won’t.” With its slanted eyes and sharp features, the helmet was atrocious. He’d look like an Enclave foot soldier with it attached. Nausea-inducing memories of the battle at Adam’s Air Force Base would never die. He tossed the helmet to Sturges, who had strolled over to gawk. “Here, do what you want with it. Sterling, thank you. I’m not sure how to repay you. It’s glorious.”
Sterling’s mouth quirked, and he and John exchanged a glance. “Well, without the helmet,” said Sterling, “it’s not like you can walk the Wastes as freely as we’d like, but… you’re welcome. No repayment required.”
Sturges hurried to his workshop, staring down at the helmet with wide eyes. The Longs shrugged and went back to working. “Curie,” Sterling hailed, nodding at her. “Do you have a sec? Stingwing took a poke at me outside Taffington. Could you have a look?”
“Certainement,” she said, gesturing that he follow her back to her home-based clinic. Dogmeat went with them, nosing the ground and snorting in delight to be back.
For the moment, Danse and John were alone. “You’re so huge.” John grinned up at him, rolling a suggestive shoulder, blinking coquettishly.
“I do believe you enjoy that,” said Danse, his own smile spreading, pleased to match John’s playfulness.
“Oh, I do. I sure do.”
John stepped onto the enormous feet of X-01’s legs and gripped the scoop of the torso at the collar, hoisting himself up to reach Danse. His worn lips were warm and wet. Danse moved his heavy arms clumsily, fearful of crushing the slim ghoul. John noticed his handicap and launched into kissing his face, his forehead, under his jaw, everywhere he could, until Danse was breathless with laughter and ducking away.
It was a good day to be alive in Sanctuary.