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Her first thought is that it’s rare. The building Danse chooses to set up in for the night has an in-tact ceiling that doesn’t sink to brush the top of her head or have gaping holes that leak and leave them susceptible to ambush. It’s small and cramped but the integrity of the structure is solid. She can’t say the same for most of the city.
Her second thought is about how warm it is. She didn’t realize her flighsuit, drenched in rain, was making her shiver until the walls of the room cut between her and the wind and her muscles stop twitching. There’s even a fireplace. Assuming it isn’t blocked by debris, they can light a fire with some old furniture and Nate’s lighter, tucked away in a pocket of her bag.
It won’t feel quite like it used to but there’s an inexplicable comfort in the controlled burn of a fire that makes her smile.
And then she realizes that in the security of such a building, they’ll both be able to get some sound sleep. No watch shifts. No midnight feral attacks.
She thinks all of these things in the span of time it takes Danse to walk through the dim room and ensure they’re alone.
“All clear,” he says confidently when he’s satisfied.
She nods and steps fully into the room. Sliding her bag from her back, it hits the ground with a thud. There’s just enough moonlight through the clouds for her to see the meager stack of logs near the mantle. She grabs one and runs her fingers over the bark, making sure it’s dry, and then positions it in the hearth.
Behind her, there’s a hiss as Danse steps out of his power armor. In a conditioned response, her heart rate picks up.
It’s not how he looks without the suit; like he’s more real outside of the metal, when she remembers he’s as human as she is. It isn’t even the way he stretches after or the way his fingers comb through his hair after it’s been matted down to his skull all day. Every one of those things is so endearing that she doesn’t let herself watch them at all. But what makes her nervous–or perhaps it’s excitement she feels–is the possibility that he’ll touch her and when there’s nothing between them but ballistic weave, it’s always so very different.
Suddenly, she’s warm without the fire and she thinks maybe she won’t light it after all. But it’s still their only substantial source of light. She clears her throat quietly and pulls Nate’s lighter from the pocket where she keeps it hidden away, safe from this world which has taken everything else.
No one knows it’s there, or that it exists at all. No one but Danse, anyway, and he doesn’t know why it’s so important. Her thumb subconsciously runs over the faded etching that she knows says Anchorage without even needing to look. A shitty souvenir that she never cared for until it represented something–someone–more. The last remnant that she clings to because wedding rings are too painful and remind her of the throbbing nothing beneath her sternum.
She lays some twigs that have blown into the corners of the fireplace strategically around the log as incidental kindling and flicks the lighter open. The flame stutters, so temperamental, but she lights the sticks after a few tries and uses the old, tarnished poker leaning against the brick to prod until it all erupts into a brilliant blaze.
Her palms brush against her thighs to wipe away the wood chippings and sap. Danse is done with his stretches by the time the lighter is returned to its pocket, she notices gratefully. He’s even taken the liberty of pulling out rations for them both and setting the rickety table in the corner like some postapocalyptic family dinner.
“Are you hungry?”
She flops down into the chair opposite him, still hesitant to look up. “Thank you,” she mutters.
He nods. “I appreciate the fire.”
They eat slowly, in silence. It’s usually comfortable with Danse but now, if they so much as make eye contact, it feels loaded. Meaningful. There’s something suffocating in the air and she’s still so damn warm. She pulls her gloves off and presses the back of her fingers to her cheek to check for a fever.
She just can’t tell, but given that Danse is also uncharacteristically fidgety in his seat, illness starts to seem like the less likely culprit. She looks down, away, anywhere but at him.
Her eyes land on a radio on the floor, fallen to its side. “Oh,” she mumbles, rising to examine it. “Hey. I wonder if it works.”
Even if it doesn’t, it’s a good distraction.
She flips a switch near the speaker and it sputters to life. It’s crackly and muted like it’s been waterlogged but it still picks up Diamond City radio when she turns the dial. Any noise, she figures, is better than nothing when she feels so off with her paladin.
She positions it between them. The music sets the both of them a little more at ease. Danse starts to look less like a mannequin, less stiff and more pliable. She feels herself hunch a little in her chair. She even smiles when The Ink Spots come on because she recalls Nate and his terrible two left feet.
Maybe Shaun has them. Maybe she’s the only one of them with any rhythm. She doesn’t know.
Her smile melts, the corners of her mouth slipping down. She holds her lips in a straight line to keep from an especially embarrassing display of emotion. It isn’t like Danse hasn’t seen it before but he must be so tired of all the baggage she carries. There’s so much of it. It buries her sometimes, pressing down on her chest until she can’t even breathe right and if she dwells on it, she can’t be sure it won’t crush her completely. But dwelling is all she has now. It feels like a responsibility, even, to remember Nate and Shaun because they’re gone. Gone, and if she doesn’t–
“Knight,” he says, coaxing her from her musings. She doesn’t particularly want to meet his eyes but it’s magnetic and unavoidable. “Are… is everything alright?”
She raises one brow and sighs from the depths of her lungs. The lie takes effort. “Mhmmm.”
Danse isn’t stupid. He’s a little too observant for his own good. “What are you thinking about?”
Why does he have to look at her that way when he asks? Like he would drop anything and everything if she needed him to. It’s tempting, his unspoken offer. Just tell me what you need, and God, does she want to but she isn’t even sure what that is.
“I don’t know,” she says, and it feels more honest. “Or… I mean… a lot, I just don’t know how to…”
He leans more heavily onto the table, or maybe it’s towards her. She doesn’t know what he’s looking for as his eyes flit between hers but she hopes he finds it.
She drops her chin into her palm and stares into the fire, or near it. It’s a little too bright to look at directly but it’s still easier than looking at Danse when he wants words from her that she isn’t sure she’s capable of forming. But it’s Danse. He’s only ever wanted her best and he has saved her life more than once. Daily, if she’s honest. He’s the first to sacrifice of himself for anyone so if what he wants now is something from her, then she at least owes him to try.
The words come easier when she’s not facing him. “I wonder, sometimes, what Shaun is like. Now. If he’s… assuming he isn’t…”
Her throat constricts so tightly that she closes her eyes for a moment. It’s an unbearable thought. Unendurable.
“We’ll find him,” he says simply. So incredibly convincing. She wants that kind of faith. It’s part of what attracts her to him. He’s sure of things that she’s scared to hope for. Even if she’s heard him say it a thousand times, he seems to know when she needs to hear it again.
If not for Danse, she would’ve given up long ago.
The song blends seamlessly into Billie Holiday. A slow melody that tugs at more memories and all the ones that should be there but aren’t. The wasteland had two hundred goddamn years to create new music and it chose not to just to pick her apart, note by note.
She frowns and stands, shuddering. Her suit is drying but her hair is still sopping wet. She’s losing her patience when she reaches up to rip the hairtie from her head. Soaked strands fall around her face and shoulders. She frowns and crosses her arms because now she’s colder. The moisture is seeping from her hair back into her clothes and skin.
She digs her nails into her upper arms and she’s so focused on the sensation of the sharp edges blunted by stubborn fabric that she jumps when something brushes her shoulder.
“Oh,” she blushes because, of course, it’s just him. Just Danse. Only ever Danse, come to her aid. “I… Danse, I’m okay.”
“I don’t believe you.” He shuts her up just like that and slowly, enough that she can object if she wants, he reaches for her.
She presses her cheek into his chest, deflating with a sigh.
His thumb rubs back and forth between her shoulder blades, soothing her. They stay that way until she’s drained of most of her frustration and then she huffs the last of it away.
She can feel his chin moving against her head as he says, “You need to take care of yourself.”
“I do,” she argues, unfolding her hands to rest them against his sides.
His grip tightens around her to keep her close but she doesn’t need much persuasion. He’s the most physical contact she’s had since… well, 2077. Somehow, he seems to have had even less. It isn’t like they do this often but he can tell when she needs to feel close to someone even when she can’t and each time, he seems more comfortable with it.
This time, though–she’s scared to look up. The fever is back and he has to feel it come over him, too. Everywhere they’re touching sizzles and she hears her own pulse like there’s a Doppler on her chest, amplifying it. Or it might be his. His heart is pounding quickly under her cheek.
Instead of turning her face up, she delays the moment. The only thing she can think to ask is, “how’s your power armor?”
His breath brushes her forehead as he speaks and it sends ripples through the nerves in her skin. “It’ll be alright.”
“Not rusted?”
“No.”
Her breathing is more shallow, slightly labored. Her only solace is that she isn’t the only one. She isn’t really embarrassing herself if he’s just as expectant, and all signs suggest that he is.
She looks down at her hands on his chest and watches the way they follow the swell of his rib cage. Closer to her on the inhale and farther away on the exhale. It’s entrancing but she doesn’t forget what will happen when she moves her head.
In a surge of bravery, she lifts her chin just as he tilts his head down. The timing brings them so much closer than she’d expected to be, swallowing down each other’s breath to the point of intoxication. She wills him lower, wants so badly to press their lips together, but she’s scared to push him and ruin everything.
He does lean down. Takes his time, centimeter by centimeter, like he’s just as scared. Consumed as he is by her proximity, he doesn’t lose the fragile way he handles her. Even his lips are gentle on hers until she presses up onto her toes and they firm up.
It doesn’t last but a couple of seconds and then he straightens and she falls back onto her heels to watch his reaction.
He’s bright red. If she has a fever, he’s downright sunburnt. She’s never seen someone blush so hard but he never looks away, despite his apparent uncertainty.
He brings a hand up and his fingers scratch at his stubble in what she thinks is a nervous tic until his thumb brushes lightly over his own lips. “That was… I’m… sorry, Knight.”
“You are?”
He doesn’t know the right answer. Just keeps rubbing at his jaw like he needs the reminder that he had, in fact, kissed her.
“I…” He looks down to big eyes, curious and patient. He doesn’t speak for minutes. Maybe hours. It all starts to feel so long and she can’t tell until finally, all he says is, “Goodnight, Nora.”
He steps around her to his bedroll against the wall and the fabric rustles as he sets it up. She doesn’t look behind her so he can’t see her face fall.
She can wait for him to sort it out. She owes him that much. But it does hurt, his rejection, more than he knows. He’s seen so much of her and if he doesn’t want it, then she fears she’s damned. Destined for incredible loneliness.
She swipes at the tears that fall and composes herself. She can wait. Will wait.
Eventually, she does want an answer.