androidvictoriam | for taediosum

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[ Disgusting, he'd called those patches of temporary scales growing through the injuries on his own face and arms, that first day here. It had been the very first experience he'd had with any kind of transformation, back when his arms still had a relatively ordinary amount of hair on them, and his face hadn't needed to be shaved twice a day to keep his beard in check, to say nothing of the ears and the tail and the fangs and the way everything has an impossibly vivid scent now and all the rest of it besides. Maybe it was just the unexpectedness of the scales. Maybe it was the bright copperhead color, seeming garish to him even when he wasn't objecting to it on his truck or his uniform.

He doesn't know. He can't logically account for why he'd thought those ones were ugly, whereas the ones on Arcade now are...elegant, is the word that periodically comes to mind. Like marble, he's caught himself thinking; like the kind of ancient statue that seems of a piece with the Latin he quotes. But Danse tries not to think much about any of that. What good does it do him?

There's a grace to both the scales and the extra arms they cover, and those are another thing he has to deliberately stop himself from thinking about sometimes, or watching as they move, mesmerizing in the way they maneuver together. He tells himself he's just impressed by the efficiency of having twice as many arms for necessary tasks. He doesn't even believe himself. But it doesn't matter. Things are still so newly and tentatively civil between them these days, and it would be downright irresponsible to let something as frivolous as this make it weird again. If there's one thing Danse knows how to do when he tries, it's force any and all physical desire down into a lead-lined little box and keep things professional.

There's plenty to keep him occupied anyway, as they move north into ever-colder territory. Even were he not sporting an amount of insulating fur now that feels just barely within the realm of still human (or human-adjacent), this is just the kind of autumnal cold it gets in the Commonwealth. A Commonwealth fall might as well be a Capital winter, but he's roughed it outdoors through both of those for deep recon ops and come out the other side only mildly frostbitten for the wear, and he can chop wood and forage food and build campfires with the best of them. He's perfectly in his element. He'd still been cheerfully sleeping out in his truck bed until a few days ago, stealing an extra blanket from the sleeping car and carrying on as usual. He knows not everyone's built for cold weather; he's heard complaints already, but it hasn't yet occurred to him how literally true that might be.

Still, it seems like a good idea to go chop some extra firewood just in case, to have around the camp. The woods here are absolutely brimming with mushrooms and berries and edible roots and things that would be a luxury to find un-mutated and minimally-irradiated back home, and he considers trying to gather some of those too as long as he's out, but he decides it'll depend on whether the frost he can smell in the air turns into snow. ]

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[ It's unfortunate that Danse is only more charming the more flustered he grows. That helpless noise, in particular, is wildly intriguing in a way Arcade has to put real effort into ignoring - though that doesn't change the pleasant warmth that it sparks, anyway.

Actual warmth, at that. He's almost starting to feel a little more human, the longer they're pressed together like this. Even Danse's hands rubbing at his back are beginning to feel a little more there, gentle friction building up a gentle heat in his freezing skin. It's just also unfortunate that it isn't making him want to try his luck at standing up any time soon. He'd much rather stay curled up here and pressed to as much of that bare skin as he can reach—

Also not a thought he is entertaining, as he awkwardly clears his throat. ]

I don't. I mean - it's not like I am thinking of you... like that. It was more a statement of objective fact, if anything.

[ One he's sure he's pointed out, before, if off-handedly and with some noted sarcasm. But when a man confesses that he was built in a lab, of course it's the natural next assumption that he was also made to be upsettingly gorgeous on purpose. ]

The same way that you, uh, enjoying this is purely a function of biology, and not a commentary on my personal - anything. That is, I won't take it personally, anyway.

[ It might have registered before, when Arcade pointed it out, had Danse been less deliberately resistant at the time to a good-faith interpretation of anything he had to say. Danse doesn't remember the particulars now, hadn't gone over them after the fact with a fine-tooth comb the way he does with most things, only because he'd been sick enough for a lot of that conversation to feel a little blurry in his memory anyway.

He hasn't yet resumed the careful friction, but he's occupied with pulling his arms from the sleeves of his own jacket, forced to remove them temporarily from around Arcade in order to do so, but perhaps worth it for the added effectiveness of draping a coat warmed with his own body heat around Arcade's back before slipping arms around him again underneath it. It won't work indefinitely, because he can't stay warm without it forever, but it's better insulation for now.

He doesn't know why it hadn't occurred to him earlier, chivalrous stereotype that it is. If the movement of doing it conceals the very slight slump of his shoulders at that immediate "I don't," that's only a bonus. He ought to say something, and maybe that something should be an apology for the bounds he thinks he's probably already overstepped, but if Arcade is going to talk about objective fact, then Danse should address the misconception he's cultivated about this being just a matter of touch-starved overstimulation. ]

Look, I don't want to cross a line, but if I'm being honest, this would be a hell of a lot easier with anyone but you. You can take it impersonally, but you have to know you're every bit as attractive.

[ Though there are other reasons it would have been easier with anyone else, chief among them that with anyone who wasn't taller than he is and possessed of an intimidatingly sharp tongue, Danse would have had no reservations about just scooping them up and carrying them. That's been less of a first-resort option here. ]

Certainly more so than anyone else in this camp. There's no comparison.

[ Arcade sighs as the coat drapes around him, its borrowed heat like a furnace briefly turned on at his back. That awkward stiffness and the fatigue fogging his mind have all but dissipated, now - at least where it counts - and the chilled numbness is fading faster with every little concession to get closer.

Which only makes the turn their conversation is taking that much more of a minefield to navigate. Though maybe that's being a tad hyperbolic. He doesn't find Danse the least bit repellent, and Danse apparently has some far more in-depth thoughts on the matter, in his regard. This should be a good thing, probably. But Arcade has gone too long without having to navigate the complicated waters of someone earnestly being attracted to him (as opposed to meaningless, insincere flirting). He doesn't think brushing this all off with some mildly sarcastic humor is the right move, here, even if it is his knee-jerk reflex. ]

Well, no pressure or anything, right?

[ He regrets the poor phrasing as soon as he's said it, wincing tangibly against Danse's shoulder. ]

Not... like that. I mean, uh, I'm flattered. Maybe under different circumstances, this would be a mutually enjoyable experience. But I already feel like I'm taking advantage of your - hospitality.

[ And maybe whatever attraction is there, too even if only unintentionally. (Then again, maybe Danse really just is that broadly altruistic, under the right circumstances.) ]

[ He tenses momentarily at the phrasing, opening his mouth to protest, but realizes just as quickly with that wince that it wasn't meant that way and cuts himself off too. Well. One always can rely on Danse to take an uncomfortable situation and make it worse, but he regroups as best he can, wanting to smooth things over. ]

I don't understand why you think you're taking advantage of anything. If I'm not, you certainly aren't. I know you don't have some ulterior motive. It's basic survival training; we both know it.

[ A stark departure from those weeks when he'd been convinced that everything Arcade did must have had an ulterior motive, but only because it had been impossible to reconcile his decency and selflessness in providing medical care with the idea of someone secretly plotting against them all in the name of genetic purity, and not even life in the Brotherhood had really trained Danse for that level of cognitive dissonance.

It's the kind of altruism (even if it does come clad in short-temperedness and the occasional outburst of yelling) that wasn't found nearly as often in the Brotherhood as Danse wanted to believe, the kind of thing he can't help but like and admire in the rare people he does find it in. And something he does understand for himself, because he would be doing this for anyone else in the convoy had he found them here and been equally unable to move them right away. Just as Arcade had been willing to help without condition when Danse had come to him for medicine, even when Danse had made it clear then that the truce was temporary and Arcade wasn't yet exonerated from suspicion.

(Though he had been, really, after that. Danse's wary surveillance from then on had been forced, intermittent, halfhearted, that strange shared dream only the nail in the coffin for what he already knew deep down to be useless.) ]

You've been looking after the rest of us for months without demanding anything in return. Someone should reciprocate when you need it. And regardless of what I said, I'm not doing it because of your good looks.

[ His tone is more wry about that, gently so, than indignant or defensive. ]

I'm pretty sure basic survival training doesn't include anything about continuously hitting on the person you're trying to help survive.

[ His tone is more than simply wry, though there's a lightness to it that still belies the obvious good humor beneath. He may be able to readily and easily brush past any claims of altruism on his part, but the seemingly constant reaffirmation of his apparent attractiveness are harder to ignore.

It's not that Arcade lacks in self-esteem. He might be assertively self-effacing, most of the time, but that doesn't mean he thinks himself somehow unworthy or unlikable (or, yes, particularly unattractive, either). He's also not unused to being flattered or hit with the frequent, flagrantly casual come-on. But praise from someone who actually, honestly means it always does hit differently.

And it softens the edges of the walls he puts up, whether he wants it to or not.

His fingertips tap idly against Danse's bare chest, the scaled set dragging lightly over warm skin. His face actually does feel a touch hotter, now, but without being able to see himself blush, he can't be sure it isn't purely psychosomatic. ]

By all means, though.

[ It doesn't usually take as much emotional expression as this to have Danse downright groveling with apology for overstepping boundaries, and this response, taken on its face, would ordinarily have him trying to self-immolate through sheer force of will (in the unlikely event that he'd pushed himself to say anything that would even prompt it.)

But he isn't taking it literally this time. He's focused now on picking up those nuances of tone, and this sounds...almost teasing, not chastising. Even, or perhaps especially, in light of that blush. Danse doesn't feel quite as mortified now by the faint goosebumps that arise under those gently-moving scaled fingertips, his skin eager to respond to the touch when all of his faculties are diverted toward controlling any more dramatic physical reactions. ]

Then maybe we can resume this once you're a less captive audience.

[ One of the reactions not currently being controlled is the huskiness in his voice, though he clears his throat in a futile effort anyway. It does double duty as he immediately backtracks on his phrasing. ]

--The conversation, that is.

[ That's already a forward enough proposal. ]

And in the meantime, just...let me know once you feel like you can stand, and I'll help.

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