Work Text:
Fire. Fire. Reload.
A supermutant suicider is barrelling toward you. Its detonator activates. You’re dead. Nora’s dead. Not fast enough.
Sweat pours in rivers from Danse’s forehead, cascades down his temples, and stings his eyes. He narrows his eyes to pinpoints as he stares down the row of targets, daring them to move as the fusion cartridge snaps into the capacitor.
Aim—
The radscorpion that emerged from nowhere has plunged its stinger into the hair-thin gaps between the plates of Nora’s armor, flooding her system with radioactive venom. She starts to lose consciousness. Not fast enough.
Danse aims and fires at the targets again and again and again. The prickle of ozone singes his nose and chokes his lungs. The flash of his laser rifle illuminates the waning daylight, painting electric crimson streaks across a watercolor canvas of soft pink and orange.
He misses a target. He grits his teeth. His knuckles blanch as they support the barrel of his chosen weapon. White-hot fire erupts in his chest. He squeezes the trigger like he’s squeezing the life out of an enemy. Too hard. He misses again.
Aim and fire again. Danse spends fusion cells like they’re fistfuls of caps at the bar in Sanctuary Hills at the end of a rough day. It’s late November and his white tank top is plastered to his skin, his bare shoulders slick with sweat.
An audible growl forces its way from between pressed-together lips. He aims again. He won’t miss again. He won’t miss again—
“I think, at this point, those evil barrels have learned their lesson three times over, Paladin,” a familiar voice greets, words punctuated by a warm chuckle. “They won’t be bothering us anymore.”
Danse’s eyes snap up. His index finger, still resting on the trigger, squeezes down automatically.
The beam glances off the rim of the barrel. Danse scowls as he whirls around.
“Damn it, Arthur!” he snarls. “I had that one! And you have to show up now, of all times, and ruin everything!”
Arthur’s gaze darts away. He shoves his hands into his pockets and scuffs the toe of his boot against the ground, watching the small puffs of dirt curl into the air. “Hello to you too,” he mumbles.
Danse refocuses on the targets before him, aims, and…
…listens to the taunting click of an empty capacitor.
The words explode thoughtlessly out of him: “Hell! Now I’m out of cells! You made me waste my last one!”
“Maybe it’s a good thing you’ve run out,” Arthur answers, bitter coldness in his voice. “If you’ve gotten so heated that you’d talk to your Elder—and your friend—that way, maybe it’s time you take a breather.”
The barrel of the laser rifle slips from Danse’s grip, its stock dangling uselessly from one hand. At last, he dares to look long and hard at his Elder.
Arthur’s arctic eyes are neither melting-hot with anger nor frozen over with indifference. Instead, they cloud over with hurt, gray and heavy as the sky as it waits for rain.
Danse sets his laser rifle carefully in the grass and shuffles closer to the younger man, setting his fingertips gingerly against Arthur’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Arthur,” he pleads softly. Arthur doesn’t meet his gaze, but doesn’t flinch away from his touch either, so he flattens his palm, clutching gently at his Elder’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I should never have snapped like that. Not at my Elder, and certainly not at my best friend. My frustration had nothing to do with you, so it was wrong of me to direct it toward you.”
At last, their eyes meet. The rain clouds in Arthur’s vision lift, and his striking blue eyes sparkle again. The softest smile curves Danse’s lips. He catches himself thinking that nothing in the world ought to dim their brilliance, that not a single wisp deserves to drift across the endless sky contained within them.
“Things happen,” Arthur says simply. “If losing our tempers is enough to condemn us, I’m going to hell and back six times.” He breathes a brief, wry chuckle.
“With the rank-and-file, yes, but you don’t lose your temper with me. It’s different.” Danse’s voice drops to a near-whisper. He doesn’t deserve Arthur’s deference, his leniency, his effortless dismissal of all that misplaced anger. “I mean, we’ve argued in the past, but you’ve never torn into me for—for no reason.”
“Still…” Arthur starts to say, then trails off.
Pleasant warmth crawls into Danse’s frozen fingers. He glances down. Arthur’s hand covers his own, callused fingers curled around his palm. Arthur doesn’t acknowledge the gentle union of skin with skin, so Danse doesn’t, either. But he doesn’t dare move a single inch, lest the Elder come to his senses and pull his hand away. Autumn wind prickles the back of Danse’s sweat-drenched neck. He shivers and craves more warmth. More of Arthur’s warmth.
He scolds himself swiftly for the thought.
Then, abruptly, he stops shivering.
Arthur’s prized leather coat, the one he all but refuses to take off, now drapes from Danse’s shoulders.
Warmth climbs through Danse’s body and settles heavily in his cheeks. He draws the coat more closely around himself and buries his face into the pillowy sherpa collar to hide the sheepish smile that surfaces to his lips. No one else beside Arthur—and now Danse—has ever worn this coat. Arthur’s warmth is embedded into every fold. The scent of tobacco and soap clings to the collar. Its soft lining wraps him in a gentle embrace.
“I know how easily you get cold, Paladin,” Arthur murmurs. “We’d better get you inside now before you get yourself sick again…Oh!” The Elder’s voice brightens as the faintest smirk plays on his lips. “Do you know what would warm you right up?”
Danse raises one eyebrow curiously. “What?”
“A glass of whiskey, or three. I have this bottle I’ll never finish on my own. It’s good quality, though, and it deserves to be enjoyed. You should help me out with it. What do you say?”
“Drink? With you, Elder?” Danse grins and nudges Arthur’s shoulder. “Have you ever known me to turn down such an offer?”
Arthur’s smile broadens. “Never! Least of all when your drink of choice is involved.” Without warning, he starts toward the helipad, where a vertibird is waiting to take them back up to the Prydwen. Then, he halts in his tracks and throws a taunting glance over his shoulder. “Now are you coming, or what? Your cheeks and nose are turning pink.”
The tip of Danse’s nose is like ice. But his cheeks burn, molten lava under his skin. “Coming!” he shouts after Arthur as he hurries to catch up.
Moments later, they’re in Arthur’s quarters, a not-uncommon location for late-night drinks and conversations that wander until the small hours of the morning, when they’ll retreat to their own beds only when the words between them slow to a sleepy, nonsensical mess of half-sentences. Arthur presses something into Danse’s hand. Danse glares down accusingly at the carton he’s now clutching, as though it’s to blame for containing only water.
“This isn’t whiskey,” he observes flatly.
Arthur shoves Danse’s side, tips his head back, and laughs, a sweet symphony to the paladin’s ears. “I’m helping Cade test our soldiers for vision loss. Congratulations, Danse, you’re still not blind.”
Danse shoves back, pulling an overdramatically serious face to force back the laugh that wants to escape. “I was promised whiskey, you ass.”
“I’m trying to make sure you rehydrate properly after how hard you were working, and I’m the ass?” He taps the top of the carton. “Drink your water, Danse. Pour you a glass once you’ve finished.” When Danse doesn’t immediately lift the carton to his lips, Arthur settles easily into his Elder Voice: “That’s an order, soldier.”
So that’s how it is, is it, Danse wants to tease.
His lips form the shape of “yes, Elder” instead. Then, obediently, he gulps the water down, tilts his head back and shakes the last drops onto his tongue, then crushes the carton under his boot.
Arthur gives Danse’s shoulder an approving pat. The motion is softened by the leather of the Elder’s coat. It’s then that Danse realizes he’s never taken it off. Heat leaps into his cheeks all over again.
“What brought you down to the airport at sunset, Arthur?” he blurts.
“What was frustrating you so much that you had to go and massacre all our barrels?” Arthur asks without missing a beat as he pours whiskey into a pair of rocks glasses and passes one to Danse.
Danse pouts. “No fair. I asked first.” Then, he takes a long sip, savoring the burn of liquid warmth down his throat.
Arthur shakes his head knowingly and sips from his own glass. “You’re lucky I like you so much. With anyone else, I’d demand they answer their Elder first.”
I like you so much.
The words dance through the paladin’s head in a graceful waltz. Danse dreams of joining his hand with Arthur’s, interlacing their fingers, and gazing deep into those sparkling arctic eyes as they sway together, caring for nothing else in the world outside of each other—
“I was out for a smoke break,” Arthur admits with a wry smirk. “I ran out. Went to get a new pack from the cigarette machine down at the airport. That’s when I saw you laying into those barrels like they were raiders in power armor.”
“Thought you were quitting,” Danse teases lightly between sips. “Thought the bronchitis scared you into it.”
Arthur scoffs audibly. “Brochiolitis,” he corrects, “and there were all kinds of respiratory infections going around the Prydwen at the time, so it wasn’t because I smoke. You picked the best possible time to go gallivanting around the Commonwealth playing savior with Nora and her Minutemen for a week, or else you would’ve caught it too, you chilly thing, you. Now, are you going to answer your Elder’s question?”
“Fine,” Danse grumbles, but relents nevertheless. “I…” He breathes a long exhale as he swirls his glass and stares into the golden ripples that rise to the surface of his whiskey. It’s hard, at first, to breathe life to the words on his tongue when every last experience has taught him to bury those feelings deep like toxic waste and hope they don’t seep to the surface—every last one, except for Arthur. Arthur has taught him that there’s one safe place where he can always speak his mind. Arthur has taught him that there’s one person he can trust to cradle his most tender emotions in open palms, one person who won’t crush them in tightly coiled fists.
“I’ve sort of had a bad day,” he admits at last. “A supermutant suicider came rushing toward me and Nora at the satellite array when we were searching for Squad Artemis. I tried to take it down, but I must not have been quick enough, or perhaps I aimed improperly and activated the detonator myself or—I don’t know. All I know is that the bomb detonated, blew the leg plates right off her power armor frame, and burned her thigh. I kept going over it again and again in my head, wondering how I could have missed, wondering what I could have done differently, and…well, I needed to make sure it never, ever happens again.”
Arthur smiles over at him, soft, sympathetic, sweet, even. “That’s why you were working yourself to death at the firing range.”
“I’m still alive,” Danse answers with a scowl he can’t hold. He falls into the gravitational pull of Arthur’s smile, and his own lips curve gently upward.
“It’s a good thing you are. I’d really hate to lose you, Danse.” Arthur’s hand drapes across Danse’s lower thigh. The paladin’s flush stretches all the way to his ears. The Elder notices and jerks his hand away like he’s touched a hot plate. “Are—are you and Nora alright, then?” he asks hurriedly.
Danse flattens his palms in the air and shifts them up and down like the arms of a scale. “I caught the edge of the blast. I have only a few scrapes and bruises. A typical day for me, you know? Nora, though…she’s on bedrest tomorrow and off duty for a week. If luck hadn’t been on our side, she could have died. I could have died. I should be better than that. I need to be better than that. I am better than that. I never miss, Arthur! I had to fix it. So I went down to the firing range to make sure I do better, and then I kept missing, and missing, and missing, and—and—what the hell is wrong with me, Arthur?”
He’s shouting again, his voice wavering, his head empty of thoughts, filled only with feeling, with boiling anger at himself and at his inability to safeguard those under his command from the frightening reality of a wasteland world that seeks to hurt them.
Seeing Arthur’s face, unmoving and patient as he lets him get all his frustration out, Danse comes back to himself and drops his head into his hands.
“Nothing’s wrong with you, Danse,” Arthur says quietly. His hand is on Danse’s thigh again, and this time, he doesn’t pull away so quickly. Instead, he massages comforting little circles into the tense muscles beneath the paladin’s orange jumpsuit. Danse can’t help breathing a soft, contented sigh. “It’s possible the detonator was going to go off anyway. It’s possible your rifle malfunctioned. It’s possible no one, not even the Brotherhood’s most accomplished rifleman, could have reacted quickly enough under the circumstances. Or if it was human error, that doesn’t mean you’ve made backward progress. It just happens to everyone sometimes. No one was seriously injured anyway. And when you got to the firing range, you kept missing because the sun was setting, there was sweat in your eyes, and you were exhausted and frustrated and pushing yourself way too hard. You weren’t yourself. None of it was your fault.”
Danse’s only answer is to whimper into his palms.
“Look here, Danse,” Arthur coaxes.
Danse shakes his head and keeps his hands in place. He’s needlessly yelled at Arthur, again, and his Elder has responded with kindness and concern, again. He can’t bear to meet the younger man’s gaze.
“Do as your Elder says and look at me,” Arthur instructs, insistent now but still gentle.
Reluctantly, Danse lowers his hands, his breathing hard and unsteady as he looks into those striking blue eyes.
“You’ve dedicated every bit of yourself to the Brotherhood, Danse,” Arthur begins, palm smoothing over the paladin’s knee now. It’s enough to keep Danse’s pulse from rising, his teeth from gritting, and his jaw from clenching. “I can see it in the way you speak, the way you act, even in the look in your eyes. You love it with everything in you, don’t you?”
Danse nods stiffly. “So do you, Arthur.”
“That’s why I’d like to think I understand. I think you worry so much about not doing enough for the Brotherhood, about not being enough for the Brotherhood, that it eats at you sometimes. It eats at me the same way. So I’m probably the worst person in the world to try and advise you to not be so hard on yourself and to take breaks when you can feel yourself slipping.”
Danse snorts in bitter amusement and rolls his eyes. “You are the worst person in the world for that, Arthur. When was the last time you’ve taken a break?”
“Just last week, I spent an hour working on—”
“That included the word ‘working.’” The paladin shakes his head scoldingly at his Elder, for no other reason than to see how much Arthur will let him get away with at the end of a rough day, to test how soft Arthur can be for him. “What do you usually do when you find yourself slipping?”
“I usually don’t have time to stop and gather myself, so I just keep pushing through until—” Arthur stops mid-sentence, clamps his jaw shut, and glares over at the paladin with exaggerated indignation.
Danse grins victoriously. Arthur’s soft for him, after all. “See? I knew it!”
“Danse!” Arthur demands with only the slightest edge to his voice, his cheeks tinted a barely-there pink. The corner of his mouth twitches like he’s trying to fight down a smile. “Now you’re really pushing me. Here I am, trying to help you, and you’re pushing me. I know I’m a poor example, so that’s why I’m asking you to do as I say, not as I do!”
They laugh together, and for a brief, sweet moment, all Danse’s worries wash away. Arthur tends to do that to him. It’s effortless, the way his Elder’s laugh falls on him like rainwater to cleanse away the choking filth of even his darkest days.
Then, Arthur draws Danse’s attention with a gentle squeeze to his thigh. He meets the paladin’s gaze with all the raw vulnerability he hides from everyone else aboard the Prydwen like he’s hidden it from everyone who walked the halls of the Citadel. Year after year after year, he’s reserved that look—sharp but soft, serious but yielding, and above all else honest and open—for Danse and Danse alone. And the paladin can never look away. It makes his insides ache, that look. It makes him want to be everything for Arthur. It makes him want to be everything to Arthur.
“I mean it though, Danse,” the Elder says softly. “You really need to make time to rest and unwind, or else you’ll run yourself ragged. If you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for the Brotherhood. I know it means so much to you, but if you just keep pushing until you’re sick, then you won’t have the strength to go out on missions and train subordinates and do all that you want to do . And if you won’t do it for the Brotherhood, then…do it for me, Danse. I couldn’t stand to have you burnt out and suffering. I…” He lowers his voice even further until it’s barely audible, brows knitted together to etch delicate lines and creases onto his forehead. “I care for you far too much to see that happen…”
Arthur’s grip on Danse’s thigh tightens even as he looks away, blue eyes disappearing from the paladin’s vision. This time, it’s Danse’s turn to cover the younger man’s hand with his own. His touch is light and hesitant at first, as though Arthur’s hand is made of glass and his of steel, as though the slightest brush of skin against skin will shatter him.
But then, Arthur turns his hand over so that their palms meet, and he slots his fingers into the spaces between Danse’s.
The paladin’s breath catches in his throat. He draws his tongue slowly across his lips and chances a glance out of the corner of his eye at his Elder, who still hasn’t acknowledged the hand in his or even glanced back. Danse traces his thumb tenderly along Arthur’s knuckles, then gives his hand a firm, comforting squeeze.
“I’ll try, Arthur,” he answers quietly. “I will. Okay?”
At last, Arthur looks at him and nods, attempting a faint smile.
“It’s just…hard. I’m used to being in constant motion. Every moment I spend sitting, resting, relaxing…it’s a moment I could spend doing something useful. For the Brotherhood. For you. It feels wrong, taking time for just myself, when there are so many others who could benefit from that time. And besides, I’d rather be out there in the field than alone in my quarters with my thoughts, you know?”
“Oh, I know.” Arthur squeezes back, thumb toying idly with Danse’s as they talk. The feeling brings a careful smile to the paladin’s lips and gentle warmth to his cheeks. “I know exactly how you feel. I’m literally always needed, even when I’m not in a meeting or being pulled aside to answer a question or putting out some fire. When I do find a moment alone, all I want to do is pour every last drop of energy I have into making sure everyone under my command is as safe, healthy, and happy as they can be in the Wasteland, because that’s my responsibility, and because they deserve it. But I know in the back of my head I need to figure out how to switch off sometimes, or else I can’t be that for them. It’s hard not to stress about the things we love. Hard not to hold on too tight. Hard not to feel like we’ll lose what we love if we loosen the pressure. But we have to try. I’m terrified every time you go out into the field, Danse. Terrified there’ll come a day when you’ll go out there, and you won’t come back. It makes me want to tell someone else to go in your place, to keep you here by my side so I know you’ll be safe. But I have to tell myself to let you, because I know you’re more than capable. So I think—”
“Arthur.”
Danse’s face is burning all the way to the tips of his ears. His heart leaps in his chest. For a moment, he doubts his own senses, afraid they’ve preyed upon all his love and devotion for the man before him and cheated his ears, only to double the ache of longing that has taken up residence in his heart.
No. It’s real. It has to be. Arthur acknowledged the crushing fear of losing what one loves and then spoke Danse’s name in the same breath. Danse has spent the better part of two years picking apart their every interaction for some confirmation that Arthur feels the same way. Every time, he’s dismissed it all as nothing more than friendly. But this time, he knows there’s something more there. It lives in Arthur’s words, gentle, pleading, wanting. It lives in those sincere blue eyes, wide with fear but soft with affection.
Danse’s heart is about to burst out of his chest and soar away.
“Are—are you saying that…that you—that you’re—”
Arthur silences him with a tender kiss to his lips.
It’s real. It’s real. It’s real. Arthur’s kissing him, and his lips are warm and firm and welcoming, and Danse sighs into them and kisses back. Their eyes fall shut as their lips interlock. Arthur slides an arm around his waist and pulls him in closer. Danse answers by looping his arms around the Elder’s neck, fingers gathering fistfuls of his black jumpsuit between them, the tightness of his grasp whispering a silent I need you.
Arthur’s mouth is taut against his now, and he kisses back harder. Then, the Elder’s fingers comb through his hair, and he breathes a formless sound of longing and pleasure into the other man’s lips. The thrill of newness mingles with the familiar comfort of Arthur’s steady presence. It feels at once like the first time and like they’ve done this a hundred, a thousand times before.
When they break the kiss, Arthur’s face lights up redder than the beam of Danse’s laser rifle. He turns his head away, resting his cheek in his hand to hide the fetching color that blooms there. “Danse, I—I don’t know where that came from, and I—”
Gently, Danse turns Arthur’s face toward him and rests their foreheads together. “I love you too, Arthur,” he whispers into the scant space between them.
The young Elder lifts his eyes hesitantly to meet Danse’s gaze. “But Danse, I didn’t say—I didn’t know how to tell you—”
“Shh, Arthur. You did.” Danse presses a feather-light kiss to the younger man’s lips.
Arthur’s like this. Danse knows. When he stands at the head of the command deck, chin tilted confidently up, arms linked behind his back, his subordinates forming a tight semicircle around him, he knows exactly what to say. But sometimes, when he leaves that room, words fail him. And when that happens, he touches: a tight hug, a hand on the paladin’s shoulder, sometimes even a head in his lap when it’s two in the morning and Arthur’s drifting in and out and can’t find the words to ask Danse to stay. But tonight, it’s the connection of Arthur’s lips to his.
Danse understood the words behind that kiss as clearly as if Arthur had spoken them aloud.
“You did, and I love you too,” Danse whispers.
“I do,” Arthur whispers back. “I love you.”
Then, he smooths a thumb along Danse’s cheekbone and kisses him again.
“Only problem is,” Arthur murmurs against Danse’s lips, “it’s going to scare me even more now, sending you out into the field…now that I know…now that I have your love…I can’t lose you, Danse.”
Danse nuzzles his nose against Arthur’s. A soft smile spreads out across the Elder’s face. “You’ve had it, Arthur. You’ve had it for…a while now. I was just afraid to tell you. Afraid you wouldn’t feel the same way. And I’m afraid to lose you, too. But we have to stress less about the things we love. You said it yourself. I’ll try if you’ll try with me.”
Arthur nods just slightly, the subtle motion palpable against Danse’s forehead. “I’ll try with you.”
There, in Arthur’s quarters, they share another glass of whiskey or two and laugh together and talk late into the night, and there are moments when it feels as though nothing at all has changed between them. But every so often, one leans in to press a kiss to the other’s lips, silencing them mid-sentence. They cup each other’s faces and kiss and kiss and kiss until there’s no breath left in their lungs, and then they slip easily back into conversation, picking up right where they left off.
They don’t even notice the hours that pass by until Danse’s eyelids are heavy and drooping and his words are running together like he’s drunk, even though the alcohol barely affected him. Danse’s head finds Arthur’s shoulder. Still, he tries to keep talking, burying sleepy words into the crook of the Elder’s neck.
“I think it’s time to get you to bed,” Arthur murmurs with a soft chuckle as he nudges Danse’s side, weariness seeping into his voice all the same.
“Cold in my room,” Danse mumbles in protest, clinging to Arthur’s waist. “‘m always cold already…could get sick…you don’t want that, do you? You’re so warm…wanna sleep in your bed, with you…stay warm…can I, Arthur? Stay with you?”
“You’re so cute, Danse,” Arthur coos as he presses slow, sweet kisses all over the paladin’s face. “No, I don’t want you to get sick. Yes, you can stay. Come on, sleepy thing. I’ll keep you warm all night long.”
They curl up in bed together, Danse’s head on Arthur’s chest, his warmth better than the blanket that drapes over them. Danse shuts his eyes, Arthur strokes his hair, and the stress of the day is gone, nothing more than a faint imprint on his mind like a bad dream from three nights ago.
“Love you,” he mumbles, teetering on the edge of sleep.
“Love you too,” Arthur whispers back.
Danse drifts in and out of sleep knowing tomorrow will bring a new set of worries, promising himself that when they do, he’ll try to stress less about the things he loves. He promised Arthur, after all.
He snuggles deeper into Arthur’s arms knowing the thing he loves most is right here with him all night long.