There was never a chance that Danse wouldn't blame this all on the Institute. It all adds up: the teleportation, the strange green lights, the roaring mutant monstrosities surrounding him, and the way they've singled him out for abduction--only him, only M7-97 from their list of fugitives, only the one who's spent his entire tour in the Commonwealth trying to wipe them out--and left his companions behind.
Yes, he knows what confirmation bias is. No, he doesn't care. This is the work of the Institute, goddamn it.
And now he has to mop up these...whatever they are. Deathclaws, but skinnier? Laser-enhanced mirelurks? They're loud and ugly and clearly capable of killing him if he puts a foot wrong, but in his experience, what isn't? His power armor seems to have survived the trip through the rift only slightly the worse for the wear, and his laser rifle is charged, and he's more than happy to unload it into the demons that home in on him from the luminescent rip in the sky.
Not that he wouldn't welcome help, of course, but he seems pretty well content to do it himself, if the bellowed "I'LL SEND YOU BACK TO HELL!" is any indication.
Myr was not anyone's idea of a first choice for Rifter retrieval. At least, not for the sharp end of the spear--he was fine enough support staff, handy with an explanation and completely sympathetic to any poor bewildered soul suddenly dropped arse-over-teakettle into Thedas. But most Inquisition commanders wouldn't have fielded him in a combat role--whatever his preferences, even if he also knew better--except in the direst emergencies.
The rift opening square over the arriving Inquisition expedition, disgorging demons directly onto their supply train, surely counted as one of those. A knight-enchanter, whether he'd sat his vigil or not, couldn't let himself be meekly shuffled away with the non-combatants in that situation; instead, he'd taken up staff and blade, slapped marker glyphs onto everyone near him, and set to the grim work of death alongside his fellows.
Or, really, the grim work of dispensing barriers and keeping the healers topped off with spellbloom-- Though he'd gotten a fine riposte off against a rage demon who'd gotten too close that left the thing in two pieces. Mostly, his support's been for the Inquisition forces--they're who he can hear to track and target even through the din of battle--but when a new voice sets up shouting near his position he doesn't hesitate to wrap its Rifter owner in a protective fold of the Fade.
The problem with Myr's (perfectly competent, possibly lifesaving) assistance is twofold, for Danse.
Firstly, the unfamiliarity of the bizarre energy field he finds himself enveloped in sets him immediately on his guard, as any self-respecting soldier of the Brotherhood would be when faced with when appears to be powerful foreign technology. How is this barrier being projected, and what is it made of? Some kind of modulating field like a Stealth Boy? And if so, is he the one being exposed to the psyche-altering side effects of the technology, or is the one using it on him taking on the risks?
And secondly, speaking of taking on risks, Danse nearly has a heart attack when he realizes that the man flinging himself into the thick of battle with this sketchy shielding device is blind. There's no technology that can possibly mitigate that enough to make it safe. What in the good goddamn is this man thinking?
"Check your fire!" he barks at the nearest sighted person in range, lest this crazy blindfolded sonofabitch wind up as collateral damage. Though that does seem a bit less likely, once it registers that most of his comrades-in-arms here are using...swords? Quarterstaves? Crudely-made daggers? Danse is hardly one to judge people for medieval-styled larping when he'd held the title of 'Paladin' until three weeks ago, but honestly.
The screeching rift-monsters have thinned considerably in number by now, but they don't seem to understand the concept of retreat, and one of the snake-headed green ones is barreling directly toward the blind man.
"Move, civilian!" One can only hope Myr realizes this is directed at him, because Danse can't move quite fast enough in his power armor to put himself between demon and elf, try as he valiantly might.
[When Len says he's looking forward to seeing Danse in action, Danse assumes he won't have to wait very long. It's a pretty damn safe assumption to make no matter where in the wasteland one is. There's never that much distance between you and something that wants you dead.
But the promise of a companion to watch his back is both a relief and an excitement. A few days after that accord, he finds himself in the Diamond City marketplace again, pondering a job flyer with an assignment to go clear the ferals out of the Mass Pike Tunnel. It seems the sort of thing that might be worth asking Darin if he wants to come along for, if only for the pleasure of having someone to chat and banter with between skirmishes, and Danse is all set to track him down--but then he takes a look at the promised payment, realizes it'll barely cover replacements for the toiletries and armor polish he had to leave behind on the Prydwen, and tells himself there's no need to go bothering a new acquaintance so soon.
Still, that errand and a couple others leave him well enough set to leave the Commonwealth at any time. When they do, it's as clean a break as he can make it. He leaves a goodbye note behind for Haylen in the bunker, but whether she finds it or not, he'll never know. And he lets himself look over his shoulder only once while the Prydwen is still in view, still hovering over the airport like the grim and tenuously-welcome guardian angel it is. The next time he glances backward, it's too far away to be seen. And thus ends his fifteen-year tenure with the East Coast Brotherhood of Steel.
He's pensive during that first day or so as they head southward, or as pensive as he can afford to be while remaining vigilant for danger, but there's no sense in brooding over things now, and even his heavily-armored steps begin to feel lighter after a while when he lets himself think about the exploration in store. He always has wanted to travel--just never had reason to think he'd ever have the freedom to do it.]
I don't know how much time you spent in Rivet City on your way up here--
[This as they begin to make camp, Danse taking on the well-practiced job of securing the perimeter and setting out what he's got in the way of small wards and traps.]
--but if you didn't stop by the Muddy Rudder, we should go. That was always my favorite haunt when I was--
["Growing up there," he's accustomed to saying, even if the phrase doesn't actually apply to a grown-looking android programmed with sparing information about the place and then dumped unceremoniously into its scrap heap. But his memories of the bar are real, at least.]
--living there. [Good enough.] It's got the most edible grilled iguana you're going to find on this side of the country. And something tells me you're probably good enough at pool to need a challenge.
[ Len packs light, as always. Accustomed to scrounging for material in a much harsher environment, Boston feels as though it's bursting at the seams with caps and equipment, scavenged goods and discarded weapons, little private stashes of money that he tucks away with the rest of his things. Some preserved goods from Diamond City, some eccentric ammunition from Goodneighbor and a charming evening spent in the company of their local lounge singer, and he meets up with the former-Paladin Danse outside of downtown, trusting that he's capable of handling himself in the various pockets of mutant territory. Given that he looks no worse for wear when they regroup Len is at least pleased that the Brotherhood's reputation for building balls-to-the-wall combat ready soldiers is a truly accurate one.
He catches the way Danse looks back that last time, before the edge of a hill covers the last of those old skyscrapers and the silhouette of the Prydwen over the Boston Airport. It's a hard thing, leaving a whole world behind. He learned as much as a young boy, and these things don't get any easier. Scar tissue always numbs the space where something used to be.
They end up settling down for the night in a clearing deep inside the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, a landscape that appears largely untouched and decidedly unoccupied by raiders. It's rare to find bits and pieces of the natural world like this, unspoiled and with scant radioactivity. Len might even hazard that the stars are especially clear out here, the way they are in Zion, or Escalante. ]
Somebody tell you I hustle pool, or somethin'?
[ Len grins over his shoulder from where he's posted up to make a fire, dumping an armful of dry brush next to a small pit he dug out with a nearby busted shovel. It's an accurate estimation but that doesn't mean he won't give Danse a little shit for it. ]
[ It hasn't yet ceased to surprise Danse how populated the wasteland really is outside of the Capitol and the Commonwealth, where some unconscious part of him has always assumed the majority of surviving history, culture and population to be. (Even after the end of the world, even when created in an underground lab and programmed with false memories, a born New Englander is still a New Englander. Maybe it's in the DNA.)
But as they wind their way further south and west, there always are little inns and motels and farmsteads with spare beds to break up the monotony of camping out, not as few or far between as Danse imagined they'd be. It makes perfect sense, when he actually leaves--for the first time in his entire life, remembered or not--the regions where most of the bombs actually fell. He's just never thought it through like this before. Len would know, of course, having been this way before, and it's not like he hasn't given Danse an idea of what to expect, but some things one still just needs to see.
Tonight is going to be a rainy one. This would ordinarily mean that Len would be in for a tedious evening of Danse complaining about rust spots on his armor, but as luck would have it for both of them, signs along the road indicate an inn not too far out of their way. Between the easy-to-come-by odd jobs, the bandits who mistakenly think they might be easy targets, and the usual discount Len's charm wins them, they're in a comfortable spot for caps--flush enough to afford a nice room for the night and a couple bottles of liquor besides. Danse contentedly pours the first round for both of them. ]
I thought our proprietor was about ready to throw in the second bottle on the house. She might have insisted on joining us, though.
[ It's humid this far south of the Commonwealth, the Capital Wasteland, no dry air even in the winter and - in Len's opinion - still objectionable compared to the arid climates in which he thrives. Heat never bothers him much, though the light tackiness in the air makes his skin feel slightly too dewy. When the collar of his shirt starts to stick to his neck without a hard run's worth of perspiration, it's too fucking wet. The rain doesn't help either, sleeting down in pattering sheets across the metal roof. Len unfastens another button down his already-never-fully-buttoned front, waving a hand to move some of the air around them as the breath of a breeze cuts through a draft from one of the old glass windows.
Good thing she decided caps are a more solid investment.
[ Cash is king, after all.
The room is small but decent, with a pair of twin beds, a table, a couple chairs, and a bathroom. Nothing to write home about but also not the worst dumpster they've hunkered down in for the night. Faded paintings from artists who probably died over two-hundred years ago hang from the plaster walls and Len takes the glass Danse offers to him without thinking about it, keen to soften his own edges for a night. Ain't often they have the security of a hospitable community with doors they can lock behind them. Lifting his drink in an abbreviated toasting gesture, Len downs the entire thing.
With the air of a man who has every intention of indulging he rests the glass on the table with a dull clack, nudging it back across chipped Formica with a fingertip on the rim. ]
[ The satisfied little snort of not-quite-laughter at Len's assessment of the innkeep situation has only to do with the turn of phrase, Danse tells himself, and nothing whatsoever to do with not caring for the way she'd looked at Len (or he at her,) or the less-than-enjoyable prospect of having to spend time with anyone else rather than being able to carry on a private conversation.
(As if private conversation isn't the norm for them on the road, most of the time. It's just that if he lets himself think the phrase "undivided attention" instead, when considering what he wants, he'll have to acknowledge other feelings he'd really rather not.)
He's half as quick with his own drink as Len is with his, just raising it to his lips again when Len slides his glass back across the table for more. Danse's eyebrow arches, but if anything, it makes him homesick for the Prydwen. ]
Impressive.
[ He drains the rest of his own glass, then, so they're even, and pours two more, eyes catching on the deeper opening than usual in Len's shirt as he slides the drink back over. He hadn't noticed the unbuttoning, busy as he'd been parking his armor in the corner, but he notices now, when it's a tantalizing little glimpse he hasn't seen before, and when he can see a curious little flash of unfamiliar scar into the bargain. ]
A little warm in here for you? I thought you came from the desert.
[ Len makes himself comfortable on one of the old aluminum chairs, craning forward across the table to retrieve his glass. The compliment makes his mouth twitch in a wry smile - suppose it's only right that a man who spent time around functioning addicts might admire someone's ability to swill firewater with the best of them. Len's never met a member of the Brotherhood who was well-adjusted, and every NCR trooper on leave availed him or herself of their fair share of the Strip's debauchery. ]
C'mon now, you spent time in the Capital, it's a swamp. Dry heat's different.
[ A dry heat means he doesn't feel like he's constantly sucking down water while walking around, drowning under the weight of the air alone. Eastern atmosphere feels a Hell of a lot heavier, in his humble opinion, and not just because the sweat can't even evaporate. No wonder temperaments move slower out here. For the most part, anyway.
Danse's flight suit is regulation "tight," still, all zipped up and secure. They must either design those things with adaptability to environment in mind or their soldiers are trained to ignore any iota of discomfort. He thinks it might be some combination thereof. ]
Besides, you're the one who wears the walking tank all day. They forget to give you sweat glands when they designed you or do you just like it moist?
[ It's true that Len would have to be a lot closer to on-the-floor drunk before Danse would consider him to have overdone it with the booze, and even if he were, well, that's forgivable when they're off-duty for the night.
Not that either of them is actually on-duty these days, in the sense of having any kind of specific orders or mission briefing. Danse will probably never be used to that for as long as he lives. The point is that there are acceptable times for getting hammered, and this is one of them.
He knows there's a difference between scorching desert sun and soupy humidity, even if it suits him to pretend otherwise to bust a friend's balls, so this just gets a faux-skeptical hmm as he takes another swig. But Len, of course, can bust balls with the best of them, so Danse's comparative lack of practice with it is rarely going to come out on top. He tries. ]
Cute.
[ Danse is at a solid halfway point now in his acceptance of "so they made you in a lab" jokes--not quite able to let them go without comment, but comfortable enough now that they don't actually bother him. It helps when he's the one making them, as he sometimes is these days, but he wouldn't have gotten to that point without Len breaking the ice first. And anyway, it's an eminently fair question right now. His hair is about twice its normal volume in this weather, but the rest of him looks relatively unaffected. ]
The suit has cooling fans, so if anything, I'd be more comfortable if I got back into it. Or you can try it, if you want.
[ He means this, even if he's almost certain Len will never take him up on it even out of curiosity. The curiosity is more on Danse's end, just to see how he really would look in it. ]
[ Cute indeed, and Len flashes a smile to no one in particular about it. Danse is no longer sputtering or looking awkward and forlorn about that particular kind of ribbing commentary, for which Len is grateful. Early on he was concerned that Danse might be sour grapes about the whole thing for the foreseeable future, but the rare occasions in which he indulged his sense of humor have since increased exponentially. Now, the joke is often at his own expense from the jump. More often than not, he beats Len to it. ]
I'm not that desperate to look like a human can of Cram.
[ -comes the dry response over the lip of his glass, with no small amount of distaste at the prospect. There's something overtly claustrophobic about strapping into one of those things, surrounded by the smell of worn leather, cold steel, old sweat and machinery oil. It might be nice to be able to punch through a wall, but the drawbacks are too numerous when it comes to personal comfort. He's a creature of quiet approach and patient waiting, neither of which can be accomplished in something that weighs half a ton and leaves the ground shaking with every footstep.
It suits Danse's up-close-and-personal approach, certainly. Hand to hand combat is a bitch with somebody who can break your ribs with an errant turn or flick of the wrist. Which is why Len would rather leave the power armor to those more suited, like the scribes, anxious doctors, and ex-Brotherhood synths in his life. ]
...I'll live, I'll just complain a little.
[ Len unfastens another button on his shirt, this time more as a statement of how sticky he feels rather than a deliberate move. The whisper of air coming in from outside isn't enough, but it's something, and out of subdued petulance for the circumstances he roughly musses a hand through his hair. ]
Besides, you don't wanna see me in one of those. You ever watched a newborn brahmin calf learnin' to walk? It's worse. I'm worse.
[ Now that is the kind of ribbing Danse has heard enough of over the past fifteen years to answer it with just a smirk into his glass. He remembers the list tacked up in the knights' barracks in the Citadel of all the derogatory can-based nicknames they heard from the wastelanders, though he'd always suspected that the knights came up with some themselves for comic effect.
Danse hasn't yet been out west to where Len thinks tempers run quicker and hotter, has no basis for comparison or reason to think of his fellow Easterners as any steadier or calmer, but there's something fascinating about seeing Len so unusually unsettled now, fidgety and almost fretful as if the air itself might as well be a suit of power armor locking in around him. It's not what Danse expects of him. He's used to Len being the unflappable, steadying presence when there needs to be one, which there doesn't always, but the nice thing about a constant is that it is constant for those unexpected eventualities.
All of it is subtle, only a little off-kilter, nothing so obvious as to merit real comment, but the little details of body language add up. Len seems discomfited enough that Danse mentally puts what might otherwise have been some prurient interest in his state of undress on the back burner. Interest in the scar remains another matter. (Mostly.) ]
I've never had a reason to spend that much time around livestock, but I have trained plenty of initiates who fell on their faces or their asses or both as soon as they stepped into the suit, so the metaphor isn't necessary.
[ Couldn't be him, Len. Getting into that borrowed suit of T-60 as a recruit had been the first time in his entire memory--real or implanted--that he'd ever actually felt home. He'd been a natural with it in a way he still lets himself take pride in, because it's one thing he doubts the Institute would have known how to program into him. Precious few of his other talents feel real, but that one does. But he gets it, still, because he's a brahmin in a china shop with or without the armor, and he could never begin to aspire to the easy, pleasing grace that seems to come second-nature to Len. If he could, he wouldn't want to strap on anything that would impair it either.
He reaches to refill Len's glass again, keeping the liquor flowing for both of them in equal measure, because he figures that whatever continued jitteriness the heat might be causing will be easier to forget after a couple more rounds. Or easier to distract from, because one more swallow for him is enough to shake loose the decorum he's been keeping in place about questions. ]
So how'd you get that one?
[ He gestures with a finger of the hand still holding his glass to the glimpse of scar down the middle of Len's chest. He doesn't elaborate further on what he means; he asks about the stories behind scars often enough that this is just a continuation of an ongoing conversation. ]
[ Maybe it's because Len is excessively anti-authoritarian by nature, maybe it's because all of his past experiences with diehard members of the Brotherhood have ended with him confident in his choices to never join any military organizations, but the thought of a bunch of cocky and/or nervous privates trying to maneuver in what is essentially a giant robot is extremely funny to him. A little taste of Schadenfreude, given the self-righteousness with which most members are endowed. It's not entirely their fault, either - quasi-religious entities have a way of indoctrinating their people; it's what makes them so dangerous if they happen to have less than altruistic motivations.
He doesn't bother hiding that mild satisfaction, either. Danse knows he has friends in the Brotherhood, which is probably a not insignificant reason as to why he's decided to hang around, but Len isn't sure his "dismantle this establishment board by board" attitude is one with which a former Paladin would willingly relate.
The pads of his fingers skim around the lip of his glass after Danse refills it, something in Len's chest relaxing with the rapport up until he asks a follow-up question. Glancing down is a bit obvious but he does it anyway, chin tipping to catch the open v of his shirt, the well-healed Y-incision that carves a pale line down his front before disappearing beneath worn cotton. He sucks a breath in between his teeth.
Two months, or thereabouts. Time ceased to matter when one barely had the processing power to recognize the difference between day and night, dawn and dusk. It didn't register much beyond the influence it shifted to routines and sub-routines of robotic radscorpions, cybernetically-enhanced dogs, and the faceless lobotomites that wandered the facility and its immediate surrounds. After a certain point Len only kept track of where and when he was by the scheduled injections of the stealth suit when he could keep track at all, that slightly wry tone informing him of encroaching danger from behind, crisp declarations of time to numb the pain that he only acknowledged behind the prime drive to survive.
It's funny thinking about it now. Well over a year ago and not that many people ask, because not that many people see him without his shirt off, and when they do they're usually preoccupied otherwise. He tongues the inside of his cheek and knows that the distinct pause in congenial call-and-response between them is making it even more awkward. ]
...you ever heard of a piece of rare tech called an Auto-Doc?
[ Danse is not a great reader of other people, not by Brotherhood standards or normal-human-being standards or even really by synthetic-human-being standards. Certainly not the way Len is, which is why the job of doing so always falls to Len while Danse picks up the slack elsewhere. But even he can tell there's a difference between the smooth and casual flair with which Len has told him other stories before, and the way he so visibly has to steel himself for this one. Not even the tale of being shot in the head and left for dead and everything that had followed from it had elicited a response like that. Len had volunteered that one, not sat and stared into his drink with a noise as if watching someone else get stabbed.
He's almost about to take the question back, to try and change the subject, possibly even apologize for asking it at all, when the answer comes, ominous in its simplicity. And in the name of the tech in question, nothing the Brotherhood's ever documented. ]
No, I haven't. Our medic back at the Citadel was a repurposed Mr. Gutsy for a while, but I don't think that's the kind of thing you're talking about.
[ From anyone else, this might be a joke to try and lighten the mood. Even from Danse, under slightly different circumstances, it would probably be a joke. It's not, and doesn't have the cadence of one. It's just his usual habit of lapsing back into literal-minded seriousness whenever he's distracted or concerned about something. ]
Pre-war specialized bullshit. Can do just about any surgery, organ transplants, amputation. It's like a Mr. Gutsy, if a Mr. Gutsy could think for itself.
[ He'd gotten the impression, then, that most Auto-Docs didn't have a personality module, so he'd just gotten lucky. Though it's difficult to consider himself as such when the preponderance of compliments came after a battery of experimental surgeries and were along the lines of You are, without a doubt, the healthiest son of a bitch I've ever seen wandering the Big MT! Len takes another healthy swig of his drink, spinning the glass idly, slowly, on the table. ]
There was a place back home called The Big Empty. Or people thought it was, on account of nobody ever finding it. Or if they did, they never came back. 'Cept it wasn't actually empty, it was a pre-war research and development facility.
I was followin' the source of an old satellite signal at a drive-in theatre. Got too close. Everything got all fuzzy and blue, and I woke up on an operating table.
[ Twice. The first time he gained consciousness halfway through the procedure, dragging awake at the sensation of something hot and wet pouring down his sides as he lay prone. His fingers crept up to feel the open edges of him, the inside of him, and he started with a jerk. The light was blinding and the steady beeping in the background - some pinging on a machine - increased rapidly and erratically as he shifted, panicked, tried to move before the Auto-Doc tutted and upped the anesthesia. The second time included a formal greeting. Less blood. No beeping. Something about having a truly revolutionary cerebellum due to some sort of trauma.
Of anyone else out here he knows, he knows that Danse is familiar with the sensation of waking up and not recognizing himself. ]
Place was crawling with all these creatures, these people that the Auto-Doc was supposed to lobotomize. They didn't have brains anymore, they got some kinda mechanical system it installed to keep them patrolling the place. Protecting it. S'why nobody ever came back from there.
I think it was supposed to do the same thing to me, but it said my brain was different. Probably thanks to this shit. [ With his other hand he gestures at the scar left behind on his temple. ] Didn't stop it replacing my heart and my spine, though. It's what it did to the lobotomites, made them stronger.
[ Danse usually makes a good audience for stories, particularly Len's stories, because he listens with rapt attention and keeps quiet at the good parts and reacts candidly as and when appropriate. It's a give-and-take even when his role involves keeping his mouth shut, because there's more to it than that, and he understands that. Even the more somber story about how Len got his gunshot scar had been told in that manner, the kind of thing meant to be shared over moonshine as much for entertainment as for information.
This is different, no matter how Len is trying to downplay it. Danse isn't attuned to the degree to which he's doing so, but even the bare, factual details are sickening enough on their own merits to loose a quiet, unformed little sound of horror from his throat at a moment where he'd otherwise have been silent. He might have framed it weeks ago in terms of Brotherhood philosophy, the ne plus ultra of proof that technology run amok is the greatest threat to humankind, but it isn't about that right now. It's about the fact that he's picturing his friend being vivisected by robots, seeing the blood and viscera in his mind's eye--and realizing, yes, with that icy gut-punch, that Len also knows what it is to feel like your body is no longer yours but a foreign thing crafted by enemies on an assembly line, whether it still functions as it should or not.
There's something that feels deeply but indescribably worse about the thought of Len as one of those lobotomites, too, than about simply imagining what would have happened had the deathclaw been able to reach him through that gap, or had the bullet found its mark after all. Maybe it's because it's the same thing that'll happen to Danse if they ever meet someone who knows his recall code, but he doesn't think that's really the reason he wants to frantically shut his mind against the image of Len wandering an eternal mindless security patrol around that mountain.
(He knows what it feels like to look into a friend's eyes and realize that nothing of him is left to save. He doesn't want to take that association any further.)
He realizes he's been silent too long, another departure from the usual call-and-response of the storytelling. He doesn't know what to say, and even when he usually solves that problem by simply admitting that he doesn't know what to say, it's not what comes out of his mouth of its own accord now. ]
[ Danse doesn't have an incredible poker face, and he's far more empathetic than Len thinks the Brotherhood probably gave him credit for. To some extent he feels a little bad, watching those expressions reflected back at him. Concern and horror, likely envisioning the scene in great detail. Nothing will ever be as crisp and terrifying as experiencing it firsthand, but neither does he assume Danse is making any more of an association than that of a man who has learned he isn't actually human.
He felt similarly, after waking up for the first time and being told what they'd done and why. ]
It's-
[ Len waves a hand. Not dismissive, exactly, but not equating their circumstances either. It isn't fine, and saying so would be a gross exaggeration of where he is with it. Having made his peace and taken the steps he needed to to distance himself from Big MT, acceptance is the next best thing. ]
...It is what it is.
[ Danse's candor does have an unfortunate way of disarming him when it comes to conversations like this, and the subject is made easier knowing that neither of them would ever be in a position to disclose the other's synthetic or cybernetic traits. Len begins unfastening the remaining buttons on his shirt, shrugging the thing off and onto the back of his chair. The less advanced synths have seams running the lengths of their joints, different plates covering different areas of their build. His scars don't appear all that dissimilar: a clear, well-healed Y-incision carves beneath his collarbone and down his chest, another straight line down the stretch of his spine. He's aware it gives the impression of a walking corpse. ]
Think they incinerated the originals after they replaced 'em. Scientists there were pre-war too, little...floating brains in jars they called "think tanks." Once they got to my head, they, uh- [ Len feels over his hair, lifting some of the curls to show Danse another thin line of scar tissue that wraps around most of his head. ] They took it. I was still connected to my brain 'cause of something they put up here, but one of the doctors basically held it hostage. Most of the time I spent there was just trying to get the damn thing back.
[ He's seen enough corpses after Cade's autopsied them--barely-familiar new recruits sometimes, other times comrades he'd known well. One gets used to it in all but exceptional kick-to-the-gut circumstances. Seeing those scars down Len's chest and back and envisioning him cold and gray in the Citadel morgue, Danse knows that would be one of those exceptions.
But it's easier to remind himself that it's a hypothetical, when the scars are healed over in ways he's never seen an ugly Y-incision get the chance to heal, and when Len still has nearly all of his usual warmth and life about him even if the subject has him a bit subdued. Absorbed as Danse is in the continuation of the awful story, his hand raises unthinkingly as if to reach out and touch the scar once fully bared--but he remembers himself quickly and wonders what the hell had even gotten into him just then. The impulse, maybe, had been to feel that odd contrast of autopsy scar and blood-warmed skin, but it would have been a startling lack of self-discipline no matter how badly he usually finds himself wanting to touch Len for less innocent reasons.
This would be self-evidently Not The Time for that train of thought regardless, but it flies out the window completely once Len demonstrates the other scar around his head. And maybe Danse should be more open to accepting this part of the story, considering that he's processing all of this with a brain that's at least twenty percent silicon by volume and designed to interface with about eight different kinds of machinery himself, but it still prompts an immediate that can't possibly be true that he'd even say out loud if Len had been any less serious about the rest of this so far.
Of course it can be true. The one constant Danse has ever found in the wasteland is that technology is always more fucked-up and dangerous than you think it is. ]
At this point, I think we just need to admit that science was a goddamned mistake.
[ This is...surprisingly facetious for him, under the circumstances, because he's really trying, but the effort melts away within a few seconds and gives way to seething genuine outrage. ]
How fucking dare they?
[ Len has succeeded, over the course of their travels, in loosening some of the bolts of Danse's usual reserve about profanity beyond "hell" and "damn," but this is the first time he's ever been spurred to go that far. ]
[ Science was a goddamned mistake sparks an unsuspecting chuckle from Len, both because he knows it's not an accurate statement that either of them believe, and because Danse himself is the product of scientific endeavor - whatever the motivation. Len is even prepared for the conversation to be left with that sentiment, opening his mouth to agree with no small amount of humor when Danse quickly follows up with a vehement addendum.
It swiftly sucks the laugh out of his lungs. Passionate and angry - righteously angry - on his behalf, and Len doesn't maintain much of an effective poker face himself as he stares at Danse with a confusion he normally reserves for the village idiots that sometimes cross their path out in the wastes.
What does he say to that? There's a level of acceptance he's come to rest on, albeit uncomfortably, about the whole thing because he hasn't really had the choice to do otherwise. Arcade ran a battery of tests on him for weeks and the only conclusion they came to was that he seemed healthier than ever, but with no replacement parts available, if something went wrong he would most certainly die. The new norm was just...what it was. ]
They ain't gonna do it to anyone else, if it makes you feel better. Made sure of that.
[ In fairness, the fact that Danse is the result of science does not remotely preclude him from thinking it's a bad idea to leave scientists to their own devices, like, ever. If anything, he thinks his existence only proves that all the more conclusively. But Len has broken him of the impulse to say things that self-loathing out loud anymore, and in a mind-over-matter kind of way, not saying it takes the edge off of feeling it, too.
He finds himself flushing slightly under that baffled gaze, eyes shifting aside and down. ]
Good. I wouldn't have expected otherwise, knowing you, but...good.
[ It's almost an absent expression of satisfaction, as if his mind is elsewhere, when that should be his chief concern. Hearing that should be the end of it, the entire point of his upset about it. He doesn't know why it isn't.
There's some frustrated protective impulse, a half-formed if we'd known each other then or if I'd been there to help, the kind of useless what-if that he doesn't ordinarily let himself indulge in. It's stupid, and it is indulgent. It's all ridiculous. Danse wants to lean across the table and kiss him. ]
...I think I should slow down on the tequila.
[ A non-sequitur, maybe, but he can at least let it explain the vehemence. He rubs his eyes and gets up from the chair, not unsteady on his feet but still careful. ]
I'm gonna go see if the plumbing works or if we need to break into the water rations.
[ Danse wrestles with something Len can't outright identify, flashes of familiarity crossing his face even if the fuller picture isn't clear. Angry, and sad. Powerless to solve a situation that's already happened and personally invested in a way that Len isn't accustomed to. They've come to find each other's company as a constant, to watch each other's backs with ease. It's instinctual now. Normal.
Less normal is Len's obvious flirtation but neither has Danse outright dissuaded him from it, and so it goes. The fervor in his eyes, the tension in his broad shoulders is foreign to Len. They're not lovers, but sometimes he wonders whether that wouldn't be easier when there are blurred lines in interactions like this one. ]
...Sure. Yeah.
[ He leans back in his chair again, watching Danse for a moment before emptying his own glass and reaching for his discarded shirt. The room is still warm, muggy, but he pulls it back on regardless. The physical exposure he can handle, but the emotional disquiet sets him on edge again. ]
Danse? [ Len calls after the retreating figure, buttoning up the front of his placket. ] I appreciate your candor.
[ It's exactly as obvious to Danse when Len flirts with him as it is when Len flirts with everyone else, and Danse does not flatter himself enough to think it means anything more or different when it's him. There's no reason to dissuade it when it's just a quirk of Len's personality, as much as Danse's propensity toward bluntness.
It's the worst possible moment to realize that his desire for it to mean more is playing into his distress at the tale. There shouldn't be any blurring of lines right now, of all times, because what kind of a person hears a story like that from a friend and tries to spin it into something romantic? His feelings may be smacking him across the face with ill-timed understanding of their nature, but he doesn't have to say anything about them.
It lends some irony to that call, though, which makes Danse pause with only a nod before continuing into the bathroom with his own empty glass. It feels rude, in the way he would ordinarily scold someone else for, to let it go without immediate acknowledgment, but he doesn't know exactly what to say to it, and he doesn't trust himself to say much of anything at the moment without some water to temper the booze. Fortunately, the facilities are maintained well enough for the taps to spit out something vaguely drinkable. He splashes it on his face, refills his cup a few times, stands there rubbing his eyes for a long moment. ]
You didn't have to tell me that story, you know.
[ This as he leans on the bathroom doorjamb, voice quiet, still looser-limbed than usual but clearer-headed than he was a few minutes ago. ]
You'd have been well within your rights to ask me to leave it alone, and you know I would have. But you trusted me with it anyway. I appreciate that, too.
[ More than he wants to say, and so he leaves it, for once, at that. He comes back into the room and offers the water-filled glass if Len wants some. ]
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Yes, he knows what confirmation bias is. No, he doesn't care. This is the work of the Institute, goddamn it.
And now he has to mop up these...whatever they are. Deathclaws, but skinnier? Laser-enhanced mirelurks? They're loud and ugly and clearly capable of killing him if he puts a foot wrong, but in his experience, what isn't? His power armor seems to have survived the trip through the rift only slightly the worse for the wear, and his laser rifle is charged, and he's more than happy to unload it into the demons that home in on him from the luminescent rip in the sky.
Not that he wouldn't welcome help, of course, but he seems pretty well content to do it himself, if the bellowed "I'LL SEND YOU BACK TO HELL!" is any indication.
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The rift opening square over the arriving Inquisition expedition, disgorging demons directly onto their supply train, surely counted as one of those. A knight-enchanter, whether he'd sat his vigil or not, couldn't let himself be meekly shuffled away with the non-combatants in that situation; instead, he'd taken up staff and blade, slapped marker glyphs onto everyone near him, and set to the grim work of death alongside his fellows.
Or, really, the grim work of dispensing barriers and keeping the healers topped off with spellbloom-- Though he'd gotten a fine riposte off against a rage demon who'd gotten too close that left the thing in two pieces. Mostly, his support's been for the Inquisition forces--they're who he can hear to track and target even through the din of battle--but when a new voice sets up shouting near his position he doesn't hesitate to wrap its Rifter owner in a protective fold of the Fade.
"Barrier up! Give them the Void, soldier!"
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Firstly, the unfamiliarity of the bizarre energy field he finds himself enveloped in sets him immediately on his guard, as any self-respecting soldier of the Brotherhood would be when faced with when appears to be powerful foreign technology. How is this barrier being projected, and what is it made of? Some kind of modulating field like a Stealth Boy? And if so, is he the one being exposed to the psyche-altering side effects of the technology, or is the one using it on him taking on the risks?
And secondly, speaking of taking on risks, Danse nearly has a heart attack when he realizes that the man flinging himself into the thick of battle with this sketchy shielding device is blind. There's no technology that can possibly mitigate that enough to make it safe. What in the good goddamn is this man thinking?
"Check your fire!" he barks at the nearest sighted person in range, lest this crazy blindfolded sonofabitch wind up as collateral damage. Though that does seem a bit less likely, once it registers that most of his comrades-in-arms here are using...swords? Quarterstaves? Crudely-made daggers? Danse is hardly one to judge people for medieval-styled larping when he'd held the title of 'Paladin' until three weeks ago, but honestly.
The screeching rift-monsters have thinned considerably in number by now, but they don't seem to understand the concept of retreat, and one of the snake-headed green ones is barreling directly toward the blind man.
"Move, civilian!" One can only hope Myr realizes this is directed at him, because Danse can't move quite fast enough in his power armor to put himself between demon and elf, try as he valiantly might.
lonedanger
But the promise of a companion to watch his back is both a relief and an excitement. A few days after that accord, he finds himself in the Diamond City marketplace again, pondering a job flyer with an assignment to go clear the ferals out of the Mass Pike Tunnel. It seems the sort of thing that might be worth asking Darin if he wants to come along for, if only for the pleasure of having someone to chat and banter with between skirmishes, and Danse is all set to track him down--but then he takes a look at the promised payment, realizes it'll barely cover replacements for the toiletries and armor polish he had to leave behind on the Prydwen, and tells himself there's no need to go bothering a new acquaintance so soon.
Still, that errand and a couple others leave him well enough set to leave the Commonwealth at any time. When they do, it's as clean a break as he can make it. He leaves a goodbye note behind for Haylen in the bunker, but whether she finds it or not, he'll never know. And he lets himself look over his shoulder only once while the Prydwen is still in view, still hovering over the airport like the grim and tenuously-welcome guardian angel it is. The next time he glances backward, it's too far away to be seen. And thus ends his fifteen-year tenure with the East Coast Brotherhood of Steel.
He's pensive during that first day or so as they head southward, or as pensive as he can afford to be while remaining vigilant for danger, but there's no sense in brooding over things now, and even his heavily-armored steps begin to feel lighter after a while when he lets himself think about the exploration in store. He always has wanted to travel--just never had reason to think he'd ever have the freedom to do it.]
I don't know how much time you spent in Rivet City on your way up here--
[This as they begin to make camp, Danse taking on the well-practiced job of securing the perimeter and setting out what he's got in the way of small wards and traps.]
--but if you didn't stop by the Muddy Rudder, we should go. That was always my favorite haunt when I was--
["Growing up there," he's accustomed to saying, even if the phrase doesn't actually apply to a grown-looking android programmed with sparing information about the place and then dumped unceremoniously into its scrap heap. But his memories of the bar are real, at least.]
--living there. [Good enough.] It's got the most edible grilled iguana you're going to find on this side of the country. And something tells me you're probably good enough at pool to need a challenge.
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He catches the way Danse looks back that last time, before the edge of a hill covers the last of those old skyscrapers and the silhouette of the Prydwen over the Boston Airport. It's a hard thing, leaving a whole world behind. He learned as much as a young boy, and these things don't get any easier. Scar tissue always numbs the space where something used to be.
They end up settling down for the night in a clearing deep inside the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, a landscape that appears largely untouched and decidedly unoccupied by raiders. It's rare to find bits and pieces of the natural world like this, unspoiled and with scant radioactivity. Len might even hazard that the stars are especially clear out here, the way they are in Zion, or Escalante. ]
Somebody tell you I hustle pool, or somethin'?
[ Len grins over his shoulder from where he's posted up to make a fire, dumping an armful of dry brush next to a small pit he dug out with a nearby busted shovel. It's an accurate estimation but that doesn't mean he won't give Danse a little shit for it. ]
How long were you in Rivet City?
lonedanger 2
But as they wind their way further south and west, there always are little inns and motels and farmsteads with spare beds to break up the monotony of camping out, not as few or far between as Danse imagined they'd be. It makes perfect sense, when he actually leaves--for the first time in his entire life, remembered or not--the regions where most of the bombs actually fell. He's just never thought it through like this before. Len would know, of course, having been this way before, and it's not like he hasn't given Danse an idea of what to expect, but some things one still just needs to see.
Tonight is going to be a rainy one. This would ordinarily mean that Len would be in for a tedious evening of Danse complaining about rust spots on his armor, but as luck would have it for both of them, signs along the road indicate an inn not too far out of their way. Between the easy-to-come-by odd jobs, the bandits who mistakenly think they might be easy targets, and the usual discount Len's charm wins them, they're in a comfortable spot for caps--flush enough to afford a nice room for the night and a couple bottles of liquor besides. Danse contentedly pours the first round for both of them. ]
I thought our proprietor was about ready to throw in the second bottle on the house. She might have insisted on joining us, though.
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Good thing she decided caps are a more solid investment.
[ Cash is king, after all.
The room is small but decent, with a pair of twin beds, a table, a couple chairs, and a bathroom. Nothing to write home about but also not the worst dumpster they've hunkered down in for the night. Faded paintings from artists who probably died over two-hundred years ago hang from the plaster walls and Len takes the glass Danse offers to him without thinking about it, keen to soften his own edges for a night. Ain't often they have the security of a hospitable community with doors they can lock behind them. Lifting his drink in an abbreviated toasting gesture, Len downs the entire thing.
With the air of a man who has every intention of indulging he rests the glass on the table with a dull clack, nudging it back across chipped Formica with a fingertip on the rim. ]
Fill 'er up.
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(As if private conversation isn't the norm for them on the road, most of the time. It's just that if he lets himself think the phrase "undivided attention" instead, when considering what he wants, he'll have to acknowledge other feelings he'd really rather not.)
He's half as quick with his own drink as Len is with his, just raising it to his lips again when Len slides his glass back across the table for more. Danse's eyebrow arches, but if anything, it makes him homesick for the Prydwen. ]
Impressive.
[ He drains the rest of his own glass, then, so they're even, and pours two more, eyes catching on the deeper opening than usual in Len's shirt as he slides the drink back over. He hadn't noticed the unbuttoning, busy as he'd been parking his armor in the corner, but he notices now, when it's a tantalizing little glimpse he hasn't seen before, and when he can see a curious little flash of unfamiliar scar into the bargain. ]
A little warm in here for you? I thought you came from the desert.
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C'mon now, you spent time in the Capital, it's a swamp. Dry heat's different.
[ A dry heat means he doesn't feel like he's constantly sucking down water while walking around, drowning under the weight of the air alone. Eastern atmosphere feels a Hell of a lot heavier, in his humble opinion, and not just because the sweat can't even evaporate. No wonder temperaments move slower out here. For the most part, anyway.
Danse's flight suit is regulation "tight," still, all zipped up and secure. They must either design those things with adaptability to environment in mind or their soldiers are trained to ignore any iota of discomfort. He thinks it might be some combination thereof. ]
Besides, you're the one who wears the walking tank all day. They forget to give you sweat glands when they designed you or do you just like it moist?
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Not that either of them is actually on-duty these days, in the sense of having any kind of specific orders or mission briefing. Danse will probably never be used to that for as long as he lives. The point is that there are acceptable times for getting hammered, and this is one of them.
He knows there's a difference between scorching desert sun and soupy humidity, even if it suits him to pretend otherwise to bust a friend's balls, so this just gets a faux-skeptical hmm as he takes another swig. But Len, of course, can bust balls with the best of them, so Danse's comparative lack of practice with it is rarely going to come out on top. He tries. ]
Cute.
[ Danse is at a solid halfway point now in his acceptance of "so they made you in a lab" jokes--not quite able to let them go without comment, but comfortable enough now that they don't actually bother him. It helps when he's the one making them, as he sometimes is these days, but he wouldn't have gotten to that point without Len breaking the ice first. And anyway, it's an eminently fair question right now. His hair is about twice its normal volume in this weather, but the rest of him looks relatively unaffected. ]
The suit has cooling fans, so if anything, I'd be more comfortable if I got back into it. Or you can try it, if you want.
[ He means this, even if he's almost certain Len will never take him up on it even out of curiosity. The curiosity is more on Danse's end, just to see how he really would look in it. ]
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I'm not that desperate to look like a human can of Cram.
[ -comes the dry response over the lip of his glass, with no small amount of distaste at the prospect. There's something overtly claustrophobic about strapping into one of those things, surrounded by the smell of worn leather, cold steel, old sweat and machinery oil. It might be nice to be able to punch through a wall, but the drawbacks are too numerous when it comes to personal comfort. He's a creature of quiet approach and patient waiting, neither of which can be accomplished in something that weighs half a ton and leaves the ground shaking with every footstep.
It suits Danse's up-close-and-personal approach, certainly. Hand to hand combat is a bitch with somebody who can break your ribs with an errant turn or flick of the wrist. Which is why Len would rather leave the power armor to those more suited, like the scribes, anxious doctors, and ex-Brotherhood synths in his life. ]
...I'll live, I'll just complain a little.
[ Len unfastens another button on his shirt, this time more as a statement of how sticky he feels rather than a deliberate move. The whisper of air coming in from outside isn't enough, but it's something, and out of subdued petulance for the circumstances he roughly musses a hand through his hair. ]
Besides, you don't wanna see me in one of those. You ever watched a newborn brahmin calf learnin' to walk? It's worse. I'm worse.
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Danse hasn't yet been out west to where Len thinks tempers run quicker and hotter, has no basis for comparison or reason to think of his fellow Easterners as any steadier or calmer, but there's something fascinating about seeing Len so unusually unsettled now, fidgety and almost fretful as if the air itself might as well be a suit of power armor locking in around him. It's not what Danse expects of him. He's used to Len being the unflappable, steadying presence when there needs to be one, which there doesn't always, but the nice thing about a constant is that it is constant for those unexpected eventualities.
All of it is subtle, only a little off-kilter, nothing so obvious as to merit real comment, but the little details of body language add up. Len seems discomfited enough that Danse mentally puts what might otherwise have been some prurient interest in his state of undress on the back burner. Interest in the scar remains another matter. (Mostly.) ]
I've never had a reason to spend that much time around livestock, but I have trained plenty of initiates who fell on their faces or their asses or both as soon as they stepped into the suit, so the metaphor isn't necessary.
[ Couldn't be him, Len. Getting into that borrowed suit of T-60 as a recruit had been the first time in his entire memory--real or implanted--that he'd ever actually felt home. He'd been a natural with it in a way he still lets himself take pride in, because it's one thing he doubts the Institute would have known how to program into him. Precious few of his other talents feel real, but that one does. But he gets it, still, because he's a brahmin in a china shop with or without the armor, and he could never begin to aspire to the easy, pleasing grace that seems to come second-nature to Len. If he could, he wouldn't want to strap on anything that would impair it either.
He reaches to refill Len's glass again, keeping the liquor flowing for both of them in equal measure, because he figures that whatever continued jitteriness the heat might be causing will be easier to forget after a couple more rounds. Or easier to distract from, because one more swallow for him is enough to shake loose the decorum he's been keeping in place about questions. ]
So how'd you get that one?
[ He gestures with a finger of the hand still holding his glass to the glimpse of scar down the middle of Len's chest. He doesn't elaborate further on what he means; he asks about the stories behind scars often enough that this is just a continuation of an ongoing conversation. ]
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He doesn't bother hiding that mild satisfaction, either. Danse knows he has friends in the Brotherhood, which is probably a not insignificant reason as to why he's decided to hang around, but Len isn't sure his "dismantle this establishment board by board" attitude is one with which a former Paladin would willingly relate.
The pads of his fingers skim around the lip of his glass after Danse refills it, something in Len's chest relaxing with the rapport up until he asks a follow-up question. Glancing down is a bit obvious but he does it anyway, chin tipping to catch the open v of his shirt, the well-healed Y-incision that carves a pale line down his front before disappearing beneath worn cotton. He sucks a breath in between his teeth.
Two months, or thereabouts. Time ceased to matter when one barely had the processing power to recognize the difference between day and night, dawn and dusk. It didn't register much beyond the influence it shifted to routines and sub-routines of robotic radscorpions, cybernetically-enhanced dogs, and the faceless lobotomites that wandered the facility and its immediate surrounds. After a certain point Len only kept track of where and when he was by the scheduled injections of the stealth suit when he could keep track at all, that slightly wry tone informing him of encroaching danger from behind, crisp declarations of time to numb the pain that he only acknowledged behind the prime drive to survive.
It's funny thinking about it now. Well over a year ago and not that many people ask, because not that many people see him without his shirt off, and when they do they're usually preoccupied otherwise. He tongues the inside of his cheek and knows that the distinct pause in congenial call-and-response between them is making it even more awkward. ]
...you ever heard of a piece of rare tech called an Auto-Doc?
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He's almost about to take the question back, to try and change the subject, possibly even apologize for asking it at all, when the answer comes, ominous in its simplicity. And in the name of the tech in question, nothing the Brotherhood's ever documented. ]
No, I haven't. Our medic back at the Citadel was a repurposed Mr. Gutsy for a while, but I don't think that's the kind of thing you're talking about.
[ From anyone else, this might be a joke to try and lighten the mood. Even from Danse, under slightly different circumstances, it would probably be a joke. It's not, and doesn't have the cadence of one. It's just his usual habit of lapsing back into literal-minded seriousness whenever he's distracted or concerned about something. ]
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[ He'd gotten the impression, then, that most Auto-Docs didn't have a personality module, so he'd just gotten lucky. Though it's difficult to consider himself as such when the preponderance of compliments came after a battery of experimental surgeries and were along the lines of You are, without a doubt, the healthiest son of a bitch I've ever seen wandering the Big MT! Len takes another healthy swig of his drink, spinning the glass idly, slowly, on the table. ]
There was a place back home called The Big Empty. Or people thought it was, on account of nobody ever finding it. Or if they did, they never came back. 'Cept it wasn't actually empty, it was a pre-war research and development facility.
I was followin' the source of an old satellite signal at a drive-in theatre. Got too close. Everything got all fuzzy and blue, and I woke up on an operating table.
[ Twice. The first time he gained consciousness halfway through the procedure, dragging awake at the sensation of something hot and wet pouring down his sides as he lay prone. His fingers crept up to feel the open edges of him, the inside of him, and he started with a jerk. The light was blinding and the steady beeping in the background - some pinging on a machine - increased rapidly and erratically as he shifted, panicked, tried to move before the Auto-Doc tutted and upped the anesthesia. The second time included a formal greeting. Less blood. No beeping. Something about having a truly revolutionary cerebellum due to some sort of trauma.
Of anyone else out here he knows, he knows that Danse is familiar with the sensation of waking up and not recognizing himself. ]
Place was crawling with all these creatures, these people that the Auto-Doc was supposed to lobotomize. They didn't have brains anymore, they got some kinda mechanical system it installed to keep them patrolling the place. Protecting it. S'why nobody ever came back from there.
I think it was supposed to do the same thing to me, but it said my brain was different. Probably thanks to this shit. [ With his other hand he gestures at the scar left behind on his temple. ] Didn't stop it replacing my heart and my spine, though. It's what it did to the lobotomites, made them stronger.
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This is different, no matter how Len is trying to downplay it. Danse isn't attuned to the degree to which he's doing so, but even the bare, factual details are sickening enough on their own merits to loose a quiet, unformed little sound of horror from his throat at a moment where he'd otherwise have been silent. He might have framed it weeks ago in terms of Brotherhood philosophy, the ne plus ultra of proof that technology run amok is the greatest threat to humankind, but it isn't about that right now. It's about the fact that he's picturing his friend being vivisected by robots, seeing the blood and viscera in his mind's eye--and realizing, yes, with that icy gut-punch, that Len also knows what it is to feel like your body is no longer yours but a foreign thing crafted by enemies on an assembly line, whether it still functions as it should or not.
There's something that feels deeply but indescribably worse about the thought of Len as one of those lobotomites, too, than about simply imagining what would have happened had the deathclaw been able to reach him through that gap, or had the bullet found its mark after all. Maybe it's because it's the same thing that'll happen to Danse if they ever meet someone who knows his recall code, but he doesn't think that's really the reason he wants to frantically shut his mind against the image of Len wandering an eternal mindless security patrol around that mountain.
(He knows what it feels like to look into a friend's eyes and realize that nothing of him is left to save. He doesn't want to take that association any further.)
He realizes he's been silent too long, another departure from the usual call-and-response of the storytelling. He doesn't know what to say, and even when he usually solves that problem by simply admitting that he doesn't know what to say, it's not what comes out of his mouth of its own accord now. ]
God. I'm so sorry.
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He felt similarly, after waking up for the first time and being told what they'd done and why. ]
It's-
[ Len waves a hand. Not dismissive, exactly, but not equating their circumstances either. It isn't fine, and saying so would be a gross exaggeration of where he is with it. Having made his peace and taken the steps he needed to to distance himself from Big MT, acceptance is the next best thing. ]
...It is what it is.
[ Danse's candor does have an unfortunate way of disarming him when it comes to conversations like this, and the subject is made easier knowing that neither of them would ever be in a position to disclose the other's synthetic or cybernetic traits. Len begins unfastening the remaining buttons on his shirt, shrugging the thing off and onto the back of his chair. The less advanced synths have seams running the lengths of their joints, different plates covering different areas of their build. His scars don't appear all that dissimilar: a clear, well-healed Y-incision carves beneath his collarbone and down his chest, another straight line down the stretch of his spine. He's aware it gives the impression of a walking corpse. ]
Think they incinerated the originals after they replaced 'em. Scientists there were pre-war too, little...floating brains in jars they called "think tanks." Once they got to my head, they, uh- [ Len feels over his hair, lifting some of the curls to show Danse another thin line of scar tissue that wraps around most of his head. ] They took it. I was still connected to my brain 'cause of something they put up here, but one of the doctors basically held it hostage. Most of the time I spent there was just trying to get the damn thing back.
no subject
But it's easier to remind himself that it's a hypothetical, when the scars are healed over in ways he's never seen an ugly Y-incision get the chance to heal, and when Len still has nearly all of his usual warmth and life about him even if the subject has him a bit subdued. Absorbed as Danse is in the continuation of the awful story, his hand raises unthinkingly as if to reach out and touch the scar once fully bared--but he remembers himself quickly and wonders what the hell had even gotten into him just then. The impulse, maybe, had been to feel that odd contrast of autopsy scar and blood-warmed skin, but it would have been a startling lack of self-discipline no matter how badly he usually finds himself wanting to touch Len for less innocent reasons.
This would be self-evidently Not The Time for that train of thought regardless, but it flies out the window completely once Len demonstrates the other scar around his head. And maybe Danse should be more open to accepting this part of the story, considering that he's processing all of this with a brain that's at least twenty percent silicon by volume and designed to interface with about eight different kinds of machinery himself, but it still prompts an immediate that can't possibly be true that he'd even say out loud if Len had been any less serious about the rest of this so far.
Of course it can be true. The one constant Danse has ever found in the wasteland is that technology is always more fucked-up and dangerous than you think it is. ]
At this point, I think we just need to admit that science was a goddamned mistake.
[ This is...surprisingly facetious for him, under the circumstances, because he's really trying, but the effort melts away within a few seconds and gives way to seething genuine outrage. ]
How fucking dare they?
[ Len has succeeded, over the course of their travels, in loosening some of the bolts of Danse's usual reserve about profanity beyond "hell" and "damn," but this is the first time he's ever been spurred to go that far. ]
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It swiftly sucks the laugh out of his lungs. Passionate and angry - righteously angry - on his behalf, and Len doesn't maintain much of an effective poker face himself as he stares at Danse with a confusion he normally reserves for the village idiots that sometimes cross their path out in the wastes.
What does he say to that? There's a level of acceptance he's come to rest on, albeit uncomfortably, about the whole thing because he hasn't really had the choice to do otherwise. Arcade ran a battery of tests on him for weeks and the only conclusion they came to was that he seemed healthier than ever, but with no replacement parts available, if something went wrong he would most certainly die. The new norm was just...what it was. ]
They ain't gonna do it to anyone else, if it makes you feel better. Made sure of that.
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He finds himself flushing slightly under that baffled gaze, eyes shifting aside and down. ]
Good. I wouldn't have expected otherwise, knowing you, but...good.
[ It's almost an absent expression of satisfaction, as if his mind is elsewhere, when that should be his chief concern. Hearing that should be the end of it, the entire point of his upset about it. He doesn't know why it isn't.
There's some frustrated protective impulse, a half-formed if we'd known each other then or if I'd been there to help, the kind of useless what-if that he doesn't ordinarily let himself indulge in. It's stupid, and it is indulgent. It's all ridiculous. Danse wants to lean across the table and kiss him. ]
...I think I should slow down on the tequila.
[ A non-sequitur, maybe, but he can at least let it explain the vehemence. He rubs his eyes and gets up from the chair, not unsteady on his feet but still careful. ]
I'm gonna go see if the plumbing works or if we need to break into the water rations.
no subject
Less normal is Len's obvious flirtation but neither has Danse outright dissuaded him from it, and so it goes. The fervor in his eyes, the tension in his broad shoulders is foreign to Len. They're not lovers, but sometimes he wonders whether that wouldn't be easier when there are blurred lines in interactions like this one. ]
...Sure. Yeah.
[ He leans back in his chair again, watching Danse for a moment before emptying his own glass and reaching for his discarded shirt. The room is still warm, muggy, but he pulls it back on regardless. The physical exposure he can handle, but the emotional disquiet sets him on edge again. ]
Danse? [ Len calls after the retreating figure, buttoning up the front of his placket. ] I appreciate your candor.
no subject
It's the worst possible moment to realize that his desire for it to mean more is playing into his distress at the tale. There shouldn't be any blurring of lines right now, of all times, because what kind of a person hears a story like that from a friend and tries to spin it into something romantic? His feelings may be smacking him across the face with ill-timed understanding of their nature, but he doesn't have to say anything about them.
It lends some irony to that call, though, which makes Danse pause with only a nod before continuing into the bathroom with his own empty glass. It feels rude, in the way he would ordinarily scold someone else for, to let it go without immediate acknowledgment, but he doesn't know exactly what to say to it, and he doesn't trust himself to say much of anything at the moment without some water to temper the booze. Fortunately, the facilities are maintained well enough for the taps to spit out something vaguely drinkable. He splashes it on his face, refills his cup a few times, stands there rubbing his eyes for a long moment. ]
You didn't have to tell me that story, you know.
[ This as he leans on the bathroom doorjamb, voice quiet, still looser-limbed than usual but clearer-headed than he was a few minutes ago. ]
You'd have been well within your rights to ask me to leave it alone, and you know I would have. But you trusted me with it anyway. I appreciate that, too.
[ More than he wants to say, and so he leaves it, for once, at that. He comes back into the room and offers the water-filled glass if Len wants some. ]