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At nights, Danse didn’t always sleep, it was hard for him most of the time, but he always tried his best. Deacon at least understood the struggle he had with quieting his mind. Or trying to combat whatever thoughts he had about how he shouldn't be laying in that bed, but rather a shallow grave somewhere. It was a struggle he understood more than he let on to. He had the courtesy however, to at least just lay there through the night and provide comfort where he could. A lot of times though, when he did get to sleep, he’d be woken up by nightmares. That also tended to be typical, the agent couldn't imagine the former Paladin would be free of any horrific memories from his time with the Brotherhood. Being accompanied by constant violence tended to do that to a man, and Danse was no exception, despite how much he wanted to believe that being a synth would change that about him.
It was strange, sharing a bed with someone, or at least someone that wasn't anything more than a Railroad colleague. He'd slept next to Glory, or Tom, even Carrington on the unfortunate occasion, due to the limited number of mattresses they had down in HQ, but Danse, well, that was different. He wasn't some random work colleague, for one.
From behind, Danse's arms tightened, snapping the agent out of his thoughts. He read people for a living, it was his job to know people, to know who they were and to familiarize himself with their mannerisms. Danse was no exception, and he knew what that meant, when he held him closer like that.
It only ever meant one thing: a nightmare.
Deacon could only imagine the things that plagued Danse's mind when he slept. The horrors he'd been through in the Brotherhood of Steel he had to re-live, he knew some of them, but he couldn't even fathom what else there was, the awful memories and hypotheticals that haunted the man. The grip was starting to grow uncomfortable, a harsh, persistent squeeze around his ribs, close to constricting, the synth soldier holding on to him as though he was his only lifeline.
In some part of his brain, deep down, it made him feel special. To know someone felt like they needed him, it was selfish, and it was a dangerous, dependent form of trust. Another branch of thought from that was the urge he had, one he'd come to find he could never shake; the instinct he had telling him he should be alone, that he didn't deserve somebody, especially not like Danse. That he should just grab a stealth boy - it wasn't like he didn't have any nearby - and disappear, it was the thing he did best. The truth of it though, was though neither of them felt like they deserved to have the other, they needed each other, psychoanalyzation was part of Deacon's job too, and sometimes he had to do it to himself.
He would stay, even if it was a mistake.
Danse was muscular. Anyone with eyes could see that, so it really shouldn't have come as a surprise that it hurt when he tightened his arms further still. It wasn't like this was rare for him to do, in the midst of his nightmares, but he would usually let up after so long, not periodically hold firmer. Whatever it was that he was dreaming of must have been worse than usual.
Deacon blew a light sigh out his nostrils and turned over, something that was hard with the beefy brotherhood boy's arms clamped around him in a vice, but he managed. Feelings weren't really a strong suit for him, usually they were something that the agent pushed away, but for Danse, he'd at least try. This was a chance for him, it wasn't rare he got those, he'd already lost so much. Fucked up so much in his life and lost those things because of a mistake that he made, so he'd try to hold on to this for as long as he could.
Facing the man now, he could see the downward pull of Danse's dark eyebrows, the frown that tugged at the corner of his lips. His face told of a mess of emotion. It was hard to isolate just one, but it didn't take a master in reading people to tell that none of them were very pleasant. Tentatively, Deacon had extended his own arms, wrapping them around his partner's broad frame, and took him into an awkward hug, resting his chin on his shoulder. It felt more as though he was giving Danse something to hold on to, rather than holding the man himself, but either way, he hoped it made him feel more secure. Hoped it helped.
Not long after, Danse jolted awake, he had barely moved, jumping as though something had startled him mildly. Thankfully he seemed to realize where he was fairly quick, and stilled for a moment. His arms loosened around the railroad agent's much smaller frame, but he didn't let go.
He never did.
Deacon felt when his sobs came more clearly than when he'd heard them. Felt the way the wide chest against his shook and sputtered. The way Danse's arms quivered and his hands trembled. It didn't take long for him to bury his face into Deacon's shoulder, one of his hands raking through the ginger fuzz that had grown out over his head - he made a mental note that he needed to shave again. Danse always asked him not to, but he'd grown used to having it short.
His voice was quiet, an unexpected reprise from the silence, hoarse and low from sleep, and now the barrage of tears that has followed so shortly after. “You… you won’t leave me, right?” he’d asked, his words barely more than a mumble, “I don’t- I can’t lose anyone else. You won’t, just, promise me you’ll stay.”
Whatever he’d been dreaming of, or whatever painful memory his mind was forcing Danse back into, it must have been bad, because when Deacon pulled back to look him in the eyes, dark, warm and brown. As inviting as ever, even when they shimmered with his freshly shed tears - all he saw in them was fear. Fear and the tiniest sliver of hope. He was looking for that sense of security now, the one the two of them had only come to find in each other. He was hesitant, just slightly, when he took Danse's hand in his own and leaned in, pressing their foreheads together. It had been so long since he'd done this… cared about somebody this way. He was so scared of it happening again, so hard for him to let himself care. To love.
It was hard for him to push away the thoughts that leaving would fix everything. That if he just snuck out one night, he wouldn't have to face that pain ever again, the potential for loss. He knew that it would hurt, and this time he knew it would be worse, because he would have been stupid enough to let it happen again.
That was what he did, he ran. He hid. He pretended to be anyone but himself, just to escape that possibility. He didn't have anything to lose then.
He was running from the possibility that he would have something to lose. But now… now he had something that he could lose. And he was the only thing that Danse had. The man had nothing, no friends, no family, he didn't even know which memories were his own and which were fabricated, the only place he'd found somewhere to belong found out what he really was and then they threw him out on his ass, tried to kill him, then when they spared him, told him to never come back. He'd had everything he'd known ripped away from him, and now Deacon was all he had. He was asking to not have all he knew ripped from him again. It was the least the agent could do to promise him he wouldn't go, right? Danse deserved that much. He deserved someone better. Somebody so much better than he was, he was a liar and a coward who did nothing but run from himself. It would be the least he could do to promise him, to give Danse that assurance.
It scared him, the thought of loving someone, but he had to try again.
He let out a breath, one he'd only then realized he'd been holding and he squeezed Danse's hand in his own. The tension in the ex-paladin's shoulders eased a little, and seeing it helped Deacon to relax a bit, too.
Danse's breath wasn't all that pleasant, it typically wasn't when the man first woke up, but that - their mingling breath, it was enough to reassure him. The small things about being close with someone like this. Danse needed him, and he needed Danse.
"Yeah," he said quietly, his voice hoarse from disuse. "I promise, Danse. I won't leave you, I won't run from this," to a part of his brain, it felt wrong promising that, for allowing himself to trust and doing it so willingly, but another part clung on to his words. It wasn't like he hadn't been trying to let Danse in, to accept that he wanted to, they had been together for a few months now, but that night was the first time he'd asked for confirmation that Deacon wouldn't leave.
An airy chuckle escaped him like a gasp, one of Danse's arms squeezing tight around him again, this time in an awkward, incredibly lopsided hug.
"You made a mistake letting me in, Dansey. No, you're stuck with me now. I'm like a radioactive tumor."
Danse pulled back a bit, his eyebrows screwed up again, but this time with confusion, "A tumor is an inconvenience. You may be annoying at times, but you could never inconvenience me, Deacon."
It was uncomfortable to be under that intense brown stare, but Deacon couldn't help but laugh. He trailed his free hand through the dark, slightly curled hair along the expanse of Danse's chest. "Joking, big guy. That was a joke," he snorted, giving a theatrical roll of his eyes, even if it was almost too dark to even see it, "you'd really think being stuck with me as long as you have already, you'd have gotten used to it."
Telling lies was his specialty, it had become his job, this time he'd lie to himself, though. Everything was going to be okay – or as okay as things could be out in a place as unforgiving as the wasteland. They'd lie low when they needed to, and when trouble came knocking… well, Deacon was an agent who specialized in manipulation and subterfuge, lying came almost as easy as breathing, and Danse was a trained soldier and former Paladin of the Brotherhood of Steel, they'd be able to figure things out.
It would all work out. He was sure of it.