androidvictoriam | Open Post / Overflow

It's the most perfectly Deacon thing to say, and with Danse's guard at an all-time low, it gets the laugh he'd held himself back from earlier, breathless and joyous and affectionate. The hands caressing his face make him thrill, even if it isn't the first time he's felt tenderness like that from Deacon and let himself believe it meant something. It hits different now.

"I can handle them," he agrees, dropping a few quick, hurried, needy kisses along the inside of Deacon's bare thigh as he makes his way back up, and licking a stripe up the underside of his cock with the rough flat of his tongue solely because he can. "I can handle anything, if it's you."

Reaching for the lube again, he adds another generous slick to his own cock before curving his hands around Deacon's thighs, guiding them over his shoulders this time as he pushes back inside, steady but slow. He knows Deacon can take a rougher pace, trusts him to have been honest about his limits and what he wants, but he'll let himself build up to it again after that pause. It gives him the space to look down into Deacon's eyes again, still absolutely captivated in a way that's written all over his open book of a face.

He'll notate that laugh in his records later, another big win for Deacon in the little game they play. The one that no one's bothered to name or explain the rules to. He also laughs back, easy and soft, moving in sync with Danse as if he knows each step; spreading his thighs wider for that attention the first of them. Danse's tongue makes him gasp and groan, but its his words that really steal his breath away once again. It doesn't feel like a game anymore, or at least not the one they were playing just moments ago involving a pesky neighbor. It feels like a promise, in a way, and one he'd never expected to make with a man who once looked at him with scorn.

"Prove it to me," he replies quietly, testing the limits here, "I can handle it, too."

He watches Danse ravenously as he slicks himself up, lifting his knees before Danse even has the proper grip on him to help him, and he doesn't look away as Danse pushes inside again, even as his eyelashes flutter from the pleasure of being filled again.

Danse has proven himself better at the game than he ever thought he could be, certainly better than anyone else who knows him would ever have expected him to be where acting and roleplay are concerned--but he always does forget himself at the height of passion. There always does come a point where he defaults back to truth and sincerity, and right now, more than ever, he can't remember anymore who he's supposed to be other than himself or what they were pretending their relationship was.

He'll prove anything Deacon asks him to, if it means making someone so famously skeptical believe this is real. He sinks all the way back into Deacon with a bone-deep shudder, feeling absolutely weak at the sight of his eyelids trembling with the pleasure on his face, the kind of sight Danse has never been privy to before now (and he knows with a wolfishly possessive thrill that nobody else is going to be.)

Fingers gripping Deacon's thighs with bruising force again, he lets himself gather more and more speed with every deep thrust, the heat of it building up inside him all the more quickly and fiercely for that pause and making him shake again with the intensity of it. He's not entirely sure how much longer he'll be able to hold out now. And yet still, for all that, he only lets his eyes drift shut for a moment before he fixes them on Deacon's again, keeping that promise.

There is a part of Deacon that wants to tear his eyes away and hide his face, but it's at war with the part of him that simply can't look away, entranced by those big brown eyes and that affectionate stare, the way Danse looks at him like he's something treasured. He hasn't been seen this way in decades, hasn't felt worthy of it, still doesn't.

"Fuck, Danse--" he gasps as he shudders against him, passing that wave off to Deacon who echoes it with a shudder of his own. Danse feels even deeper like this, and he can't even finish his thought once those fingers grip down and Danse's hips start pumping into him with building force that causes Deacon to sob beneath him and his cock to leak over his taught stomach.

Never before has Danse had anyone to look at like this, anyone who would have wanted or allowed it, but even in his blissful ignorance of Deacon's reasons for believing himself unworthy, he can't think of anyone else he would rather admire than the man who's been so open and poetic in his praise as to make Danse feel like he deserves to take real pride in his Institute-manufactured body. How could Deacon not deserve the same?

It isn't merely about the physical. Deacon is all the more ruggedly handsome without the glasses, his eyes rare and striking and his features surgically symmetrical, but seeing him with his walls crumbling makes Danse want with fierce determination to make Deacon understand how good surrender feels--to make him feel as safe and desired as he'd made Danse feel even when they had no reason to trust each other but mutual drug-induced need. Deacon's never made Danse feel anything but safe and wanted in this bedroom, and he'll be damned if he fails to show Deacon how mutual it truly is.

"Good," he whispers, heart squeezing like a fist at those undone noises from Deacon's lips. "Perfect. Let it out for me and don't hold back. Don't even think. You know I've got you."

It's not like Deacon to need permission for anything, yet for some reason receiving it has a powerful effect on him. His hands clutch at Danse, grasping him wherever he can reach, his knuckles white from the force of his grip. Don't even think. How can he when his whole body feels tight, like the tension could just snap and any moment.

He whimpers Danse's name again, eyes fighting to stay focused, but he's drifting. He does know Danse has him. The most honest man in the settlement has kept quiet about each trist for Deacon's benefit and reciprocated every strange thing Deacon's thrown his way.

Another wail and with a sharp arch of his spine, Deacon's eyes finally roll back, toes curling behind Danse's shoulders as that coiled tension within him snaps and sends him spiraling into an orgasm that has him clenching hard around Danse's cock while his own spills between them.

Danse will never know how he manages to hold it together long enough to watch Deacon fall apart like this. It's sheer force of will, knowing that this will be seared into his memory for as long as he lives if he can keep his eyes open to drink it in, and he files away every last minute little detail to keep and take out and re-analyze and cherish when he's alone. The way Deacon's jaw goes slack, the way his entire body responds to Danse's command as readily and as thoroughly as Danse's had given in to him that first time, the way his spend streaks hot against Danse's skin.

He hangs on nearly until the end, but not quite; their climaxes overlap as Deacon's body tightens around him as if milking his own release from him, drawing it out in long pulses deep inside him as Danse lowers his head and cries out between gritted teeth. He's almost dizzy with the force of it, vision blurred for a moment as he trembles through it, and even as he lets go of Deacon's thighs so that he can relax the position of his legs, Danse doesn't pull out of him yet. He can't bring himself to move.

The intensity of what they've just done is beginning to sink in, but that feels like all the more reason to let it linger, slowly, for as long as he can stay inside. His forehead rests exhaustedly against Deacon's shoulder as he catches a droplet of sweat on the tip of his tongue.

"Thank you," he murmurs, after a silent moment.

Deacon clings to Danse as he feels him come deep inside of him, trembling with panting breath. As Danse loosens his grip, Deacon goes nearly limp beneath him, limbs all flopping down to the mattress as he catches his breath. He'd be dizzy too, were he not laying down, but he's too thoughtless still from that overwhelming pleasure to do anything but lay there, anyway.

Danse's thank you brings some life back to him, his arms, as noodle-like as they currently feel, coiling back around him to clutch him close. Fingers feed into his hairline and scratch lazily at his scalp, but Deacon doesn't speak just yet, his brain still foggy, the reasoning for Danse's gratefulness not completely apparent.

His head rolls to the side, straining slightly to fetch a kiss from the man that just fucked him thoughtless, but Deacon laughs softly against him as he regains some clarity. "Really? You did all the work."

"You did plenty." Danse is resisting the urge to collapse as well, making himself support his weight on his elbows even when the rest of him feels worn out to the core, because smothering Deacon under 215 pounds of synth would be a deeply unsexy and unromantic end to this otherwise incredible affair (though perhaps a fitting enough end to an illustrious Railroad career.) The scalp massage only relaxes him further, to the point of feeling absolutely gelatinous.

He can't immediately tell if Deacon is entirely joking--if he understands the reason for the thanks and is simply deflecting, or if it really is lost on him. He meets that kiss gladly, soft and sweet in his indulgence of it, sorting through his thoughts and letting himself focus in the meantime on the rare and pleasurable feeling of Deacon's come binding them together and still warm between their stomachs.

"I mean for...for letting me see you like this. I wanted to ask, but I never had the nerve."

Deacon would encourage the weight in a heartbeat. If he dies, he dies. It would be worth it. He tugs slightly at Danse's shoulders while they kiss, enough to perhaps coax him into relaxing a little more, given they're still connected in more than one spot.

A pleased, dreamy sort of sound buzzes between their lips just before Danse pulls back enough to clarify, and Deacon sighs, smirking as his fingers scratch against Danse's scalp again.

"Look, I had a hunch you'd be into the panties," he teases, but he's starting to realize that they aren't what Danse means, either. The ole brain's still rebooting, and Deacon gives Danse another little peck on the lips before pulling back to look at him again, eyes much more heavy-lidded in his spent state than before.

"...I didn't uh, plan it this way, you know," he continues softer than before, now on the same page. He'd never planned any of it, when it came to Danse. The start of it all was pure coincidence, and it's spiraled so quickly into whatever it is now that Deacon often feels like he's playing catch up with himself nightly over it. Even so, one thing he's certain of. "I don't regret any of it."

Slowly, gradually, at that encouragement, Danse lets himself settle a little more of his weight onto Deacon, exhaling further tension from his body in a soft, warm sigh against Deacon's neck. His eyes are just as drowsy now, an affectionate gaze awash in post-coital endorphins, and he blinks with pleased feline slowness at that little peck--but he's listening, still.

He knows the loss of the glasses hadn't been deliberate, the way he's sometimes hoped it would be when it happened, but that promise from Deacon is the reassurance he needs. It's easy for Danse to believe him now, with things like this. He wants to believe. There seems to be a distinction, he's realizing, between the things Deacon tends to lie about and the things that he demonstrates to be truth.

Before all of this happened between them, Danse wouldn't have believed anything out of Deacon's mouth, up to and including 'the sky is blue.' And he still holds some skepticism for tales about Deacon's past, things that sound crazy-but-theoretically-possible, things that technically constitute Railroad intel and would have been too sensitive to discuss before the Institute fell. But when Deacon talks about how this insane little affair between them makes him feel, Danse takes it at face value. Danse is no great reader of people, or doesn't think of himself as one, but the emotion he's heard in Deacon's voice before feels too real to be another pointless lie, even before Danse could see the look in his eyes to back it up.

"I don't regret it, either," he murmurs. "This is the happiest I've been since I joined the Brotherhood, you know." Happier than he ever was in it, even if joining up itself had been a moment full of hope and promise. This is the sort of thing it had made him believe he could never have, that he'd already opted out of with no chance of taking it back.

"...Not that you were wrong about your hunch. Even if I wasn't talking about that."

Just as seeing him this way seems to please Danse, Deacon finds a great deal of pleasure in seeing Danse's body lose it's tense rigidity and relax against him. He looks happy; something Deacon notices before Danse even confirms it.

Deacon barks a quiet laugh at the Brotherhood comparison, but it makes sense that it would have been a big day for any soldier, gaining a sense of belonging and community. He can say the same for the Railroad, anyway.

"I'm happy too..." he murmurs thoughtfully, "It's nice to have something to look forward to. Someone to look forward to." He sighs, his fingers scratching at Danse's scalp. Deacon stretches his neck out and presses a kiss to his forehead, humming against him. "...and I'm glad you're happy. You deserve to be."

Quiet though he is, Danse is fairly glowing right now at the thought of being someone to look forward to. If anyone but Cutler has ever thought such a thing about him, he isn't aware of it, and he imagines Deacon is the only other person who's ever felt that way. His other lovers, few and far between as they've been, might have looked forward to the sex, and that's theoretically all this is as well, but...if that's what Deacon had meant, he would have said so. He isn't making it sound like that's all he's talking about.

There's a different, deeper kind of satisfaction to the knowledge that he makes Deacon happy. Danse has still only scratched the surface yet of awareness that Deacon's upbeat jester persona is not what it seems, but even he knows that a clown mask doesn't imply genuine happiness on the part of the one making people laugh, even when it isn't also a front for dark and dangerous espionage. But this, too, he believes when Deacon says it, and takes pride and pleasure in it.

"I think we both do."

They don't need to have a debate or a discussion about what either of them deserves--even if it's a meaningful thing now to hear that he deserves happiness, when Danse has been doubting it lately in light of the knowledge that he's a synth, and when others might dispute it after his long affiliation with the Brotherhood. Deacon is uniquely qualified to address both. Danse believes him less qualified to judge his own worthiness. On a different night, as they've done before, he would curl up and rest his head on Deacon's chest, or let himself be spooned, but this has been an evening for reversals. Deacon deserves to let himself be taken care of a little, too.

He hates to have to withdraw, but he does, finally, and stretches out alongside Deacon now. There's a washrag and a canteen of water by the mattress, and he reaches out to wipe Deacon's stomach clean with gentle affection before he cleans off his own, and beckons him closer after rolling onto his back. "Come here," he says softly. He can be the pillow for tonight.

Whether or not Deacon believes it himself, he needs to hear it sometimes. Danse telling him that he deserves to be happy is meaningful, because there was a time when the man looked scornfully at him and would have called him dangerous. Deacon is dangerous when he needs to be, but that's not really what he wants to be known for.

Deacon doesn't argue or protest, merely making a soft, displeased grunt as Danse pulls away. He watches him reach for the canteen and thinks nothing of it, and then is surprised to be cared for and cleaned up like he is, swallowing back a little chuckle. He sits up for a moment, tossing off the lingering bra to whatever black hole the panties were tossed into, then crawls over to where Danse beckons him and curls up at his side.

"You spending the night?" he asks quietly, his fingers brushing over Danse's hairy chest, humor creeping into his voice again as he nuzzles into it. "Can't wait to see Francis' face when he runs into you while grabbing the paper."

As quickly, unexpectedly and thoroughly as he's come to love tucking himself in against Deacon's side to sleep in this little oasis of a room--and as much comfort as he'd derived from it on that cold night in the safehouse he doesn't remember--there's something that feels equally, deliciously comforting and right about being able to cradle Deacon against him and stroke his fingers softly over the barely-there stubble on Deacon's scalp, slowly and soothingly massaging.

He sighs with contentment as Deacon's face nestles into his chest, but it trails quickly into a snort at the reminder of the roleplay that he's very nearly forgotten. But he's no longer too distracted to play along again, sleepy though he might be, and there's a tinge of mischief to his voice in reply.

"Of course I'm spending the night," he murmurs. "I'm back for good, remember? I live here. Francis is just going to have to get over himself and accept his defeat with dignity."

It's been a very long time since someone's touched Deacon this way, and he's savoring it, burying his face in soft fur and nuzzling beneath the fingers petting his scalp. He's sleepy too, but not so out of it that he doesn't catch that mischief in Danse's voice, something that feels both like it doesn't belong there and like perhaps the sexiest thing he's ever heard. He'll never stop considering the other man's playfulness a personal achievement.

"Mmmhm, live here," he echoes tiredly, a sort of dreamy quality to it. His arm curls itself over Danse's center and squeezes himself close, like it's afraid he'll escape. "Til then," he yawns tiredly, "I'm gonna count the sheep jumping over our white picket fence..."

It is a personal achievement, because it might still be faint and relatively rare, but he doesn't let anyone but Deacon bring it out in him.

'Live here' is more literal than Danse realizes or means it to be, the way they've both been incrementally but steadily renovating the house to make it more and more comfortable and functional. It has a bathroom now, with ancient-but-working fixtures, and a medicine cabinet where their toothbrushes and razors have just sort of...found their way there on a more permanent basis, for convenience. The rotten and now heinously stained couch has been replaced with a cleaner one that Danse at least has tried to be more conscientious about not getting fluids on. The kitchen doesn't have a working fridge, but it does have a hot plate, a coffee pot, two chipped mugs and a radio to listen to while cooking and eating.

And the blanket covering the mattress, which Danse tucks gently around them both now, is bigger and softer now and sports fewer holes. He'd planned to take the original one back to the bunker, because it was only meant to serve here as a temporary measure until he found a better one for this room anyway, but...he hasn't been back to the bunker. After a taste of what it feels like to have company, both out in Sanctuary's streets and here in this house, the crumbling old listening post had felt so much bleaker in comparison that Danse couldn't bear to set foot in it again.

This house doesn't light up when he's alone, when he crashes here instead of sleeping in the Castle barracks or at some other settlement he's guarding, the way it does when Deacon's here. But it feels like a hopeful place regardless, and that's enough. Not bad for a place they're still both thinking of as a secret hookup spot, when they let themselves think about what they're doing with it at all.

"Do that," he says, with a smile in his voice and a soft lingering kiss to the top of Deacon's head. The notion that he could escape--that he could possibly want to leave this bed right now even if raiders were attacking right outside their door--is so impossible to him that it doesn't cross his mind. He squeezes Deacon a little tighter anyway, and lets himself drift off to sleep.

They can tell themselves it's a matter of convenience, but even as Deacon pries himself from Danse's chest at first light and waddles his way to the coffee pot, there is extreme comfort in starting his day in this house. After he puts the coffee on, he can be found leaning against the counter, looking over the open floorplan and idly day dreaming over what he'll fix up next.

Deacon has spent most of his nights on the road for the past several decades, crashing in houses just like he'd found this one when outside of Railroad HQ or the approved safehouse. If he sleeps at all. It's the closest thing to a home he's had since his farm, and with plenty of land surrounding the suburban home, he could easily maintain one here.

If Danse doesn't join him in the kitchen before the coffee is ready, he'll pour them each a mug, carrying them back to the mattress where he'd left him. Either way, Danse is greeted with a smile that reaches Deacon's still-bare eyes and a slightly hoarse "Morning, beautiful."

It's a reasonable expectation that Danse might join him in the kitchen, because he often does, but this morning, for some reason, he stays out like a light as Deacon slips away. He's ordinarily an early riser--when he sleeps at all, because he's much like Deacon in that regard, and it's never a given that he'll be able to--but between the physical exertion and the emotional intensity of last night, his usual easily-woken vigilance isn't a match for Deacon's stealth, and it's only when Deacon brings him that mug of coffee that he blinks awake.

So unusually soundly has he slept that he looks a little startled, almost disoriented, partly by the brighter-than-usual morning light filtering through the window paper, but mostly by the beauty of the eyes he's looking into, needing a moment to remember how that came to be. It's only a second or two before wide-eyed confusion gives way to an unfiltered smile of his own, though, and a faint blush at the endearment as well.

"You're one to talk," he says, "with those eyes." He takes the mug to warm his hands around and scoots over to give Deacon room to sit beside him and drink his too, with a 'good morning' and 'thanks for the coffee' kiss pressed to the corner of his mouth. The fact that Deacon's still left the glasses off is a marvel to Danse, and he would wonder if it's because Deacon can't find them, but this train of thought is cut off before it gets anywhere by the fact that he can see them on the floor where they'd fallen last night, undamaged and perfectly within reach.

"They need me at the Castle tonight, so I have one hell of a hike ahead of me, but I don't have to get started just yet. I can probably stick around another hour or so unless you need to get moving."

Deacon huffs out a quiet laugh as he hands over the mug and settles beside him, nose scrunching at that little kiss. He can't help but smile, and it occurs to him belatedly that he could get very used to this casual sort of affection, let alone the discussion of daily plans that may or may not involve one another. Danse says he can stick around, and Deacon's first thought isn't to run off, but that he hopes he does stick around as long as he can.

"I was just going to play farmer for a bit. See if the tatos have grown in yet," he replies between sips of coffee. "It sounds counter-productive but... I'm thinking about testing out the shower here, first. You can join me, if you'd like."

"Nice." Danse hadn't been sure at first where the healthy and well-tended tato plants around the back of the house came from, and he'd initially been concerned by them, hoping it didn't indicate that the house was being claimed by someone else--but there's something both surprising and endearing about knowing Deacon put them there. He likes the thought of Deacon getting to relax and peacefully tend a vegetable garden.

It's another of those things Danse has come to think he deserves, after everything the Institute has put them both through--and he isn't sure exactly when he came to think of things in those terms, as opposed to thinking of the Railroad as equally threatening in their own right despite their common enemy, and responsible for bringing their own Institute-backed suffering upon themselves when nobody asked them to. Slowly, the mindset of the Brotherhood is losing its grip on him, and he's coming to understand more of why Deacon did the work that he did. It helps, of course, to know that he himself directly benefited from it, even if his feelings on that are still deeply complicated, and even if he doesn't know just how directly.

The offer to share the shower catches him slightly off-guard, making him look up from his half-finished coffee. Naturally, it's not as if he's never showered in someone else's company before--he's used to having a whole barracks' worth of company, in point of fact--but that's a very different sort of thing from the intimacy of sharing a space this small and a private daily ritual with a lover. They've always just used the bathroom separately as necessary when leaving in the morning after one of these rendezvous before. The idea of scrubbing each other down in the shower warms him to the point of a pleased little flush, and not only because he's still warm and ready and a little hard from waking up.

"I'd love to," he says, with another private smile. "I think we can indulge. Even if we will both immediately be getting ourselves sweaty again."

Deacon drinks his coffee, eyes glancing aside to Danse between sips, admiring everything that the light from the windows highlights on his body. He's still bewildered by this affair, still somewhat in disbelief that they've ended up tangled together in this way and happy, and maybe quietly trying not to get his hopes up too much about some sort of happy ending for them both.

"Mmmhm, indulge me, Baby Brahmin," he teases, setting his mug aside, "I bet I can have you sweating again before we're even finished in the shower."

The prospect of this, and all the different ways Deacon could go about it, has Danse's skin prickling with delicious goosebumps in the cool morning air, and his cock twitching under the corner of blanket draped haphazardly across his lap.

"Well, that just sounds like a challenge," he says solemnly, perfectly monotone and straight-faced but for the glint in his eye. "I would be remiss not to invite you to try." And when he's being exhorted to indulge Deacon the way he's already been thinking Deacon ought to be indulged more often, how could he possibly say no?

He drains the rest of his coffee in a few slow deliberate gulps, throat working as he tilts his head back, and stretches deeply and luxuriously (and maybe a little bit purposefully show-offily) after setting his own mug on the floor beside the mattress. When he gets up off it, he extends a hand to Deacon to help him up too. "Come on. I think I've gone long enough without getting my hands on you."

'Long enough' apparently being maybe eight hours, tops.

Monotone as it is, Deacon recognizes it for what it is, not bothering to mask the smirk on his lips. It's worth noting that without his glasses, Deacon doesn't have half the poker face that he does with them, and the way his pupils expand with desire as Danse stretches out before him is clue enough.

He's practically purring as Danse helps him up from the mattress, and once on his feet, his hand pushes past Danse's palm to skirt up his forearm, Deacon following it around Danse's back and circling him like a shark. "You'll be gone all evening," he murmurs, "You'd better get your fill of me while you can."

He smacks playfully at Danse's rear, nudging him along to the shower and keeping close behind him the entire way.

The smack to his bare ass resounds in the empty room, and prompts a truly embarrassing startled little yelp even when he ought to have expected it. It's been well over a decade since anyone but Deacon would have dared to do that, but nonetheless, it could have been anticipated. Danse sure as hell isn't complaining, though, once the sheepishness from that reaction wears off.

It doesn't take long. It's difficult to dwell on that, after all, amidst the novelty and delight of being able to really see for the first time the way he can make Deacon's eyes light up with lust. Nothing else feels important next to that.

"I intend to," he growls, leading the way to the tiny bathroom with its little stained ceramic shower stall, and wasting no further time in pushing Deacon back against the tiles to cage him in. "I need something better to think about than another round of weapon drills with the recruits. Give me something to remember when I'm sleeping in that cold bunk wishing I was back here with you."

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