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In the Brotherhood, alcohol was severely discouraged. It dulled the mind and it addled the will. Of course, there were some recruits who still indulged themselves. Young Scribes and Knights who snuck bottles of vodka and whiskey recovered from the ruins of the Old World into their bases or onto their airships.
Danse had never partaken, not even when he was a wet-behind-the-ears recruit. Like most Wasteland kids he’d had his first taste of alcohol when he was very young, just nine years old in fact – except of course he hadn’t at all, because everything Danse remembered about his childhood was a lie.
In the false memory, he’d hated the taste. Spat it right back out again. That lie had been enough to put him off as an adult.
Besides, even apart from the taste, he’d been unable to fathom the attraction of deliberately incapacitating yourself. Why would anyone in their right minds choose to make themselves weaker? He’d left his peers to their secretive drinking, feeling nothing but scorn for their foolishness.
How things changed.
Now Danse’s head buzzed with the aftereffects of Bobrov’s Moonshine as he trudged heavily through the late night streets of Diamond City. He wondered sometimes how it was even possible for him to get drunk – being what he was, surely alcohol shouldn’t have had any effect on him? But then that strange creature Valentine chain-smoked a pack of cigarettes a day, and he was even less human than Danse was.
Nate was just as drunk, trailing along a step or two behind. He’d had a lot more to drink than Danse, putting away four bottles of Bobrov’s filthy rotgut, before knocking back four whiskey shots that the grinning barkeep had pushed insistently towards him. Danse’s tolerance for alcohol had improved considerably over time, but he still couldn’t match Nate drink for drink. Not without ending up on the floor.
He still thought it was a weakness. On the rare mornings when he overdid himself and woke up with a pounding headache, he cursed himself angrily for his lack of self-control and his falling standards. But generally, these days, it was a weakness he could understand the appeal of. It made his darker thoughts less black.
The market was quiet. A few late-night stragglers were propping up the Noodle Bar, and the irritatingly loud Diamond City Surplus robot was blaring its usual spiel to anybody who cared to listen.
Like alcohol, sex was something that plenty of young, inexperienced recruits got up to when they thought their senior officers weren’t paying attention. Danse, in his early years in the Brotherhood, had overheard more than his fair share of awkward fumblings in shared barracks. He’d felt nothing but vaguely tolerant disdain. All he had was devoted to the Brotherhood. Sex was an unnecessary distraction.
Perhaps, looking back, the reason he’d denied himself for so long was because, on some subconscious level, he’d understood the truth. That once he’d allowed himself the indulgence, he’d constantly be craving more.
Some time later Nate moaned, deep and unutterably filthy, as Danse rocked further into him. They were on the bed in the Home Plate, Nate sprawled out on his hands and knees, Danse tucked in right behind him. One of his hands fell onto Nate’s sweat slicked back, gliding up the smooth, unmarked skin until it fell between his shoulder blades. He bore down gently, pushing Nate even further into the mattress as Danse continued to thrust in and out of him.
It was intoxicating, and it certainly had intoxicated Danse. As though Nate was a drug every bit as insidiously addictive as the alcohol – a hundred times more so even. All those years of rigorous, self-imposed abstinence had been washed away until they counted for nothing. He wanted Nate. The physical attraction constantly simmered away quietly in the background, overlooked and unnoticed, until suddenly it would force its way front and center. And then Danse would want Nate with a persistent, powerful ache that seized hold of every part of him. Would want to be in him, over him, completely wrapped up in him.
He wondered if this was how everyone experienced sexual desire, or if he was some kind of deviant.
‘Jesus, fuck,’ Nate cursed vehemently, body shuddering in appreciation as Danse adjusted the angle to hit just the right spot. Danse was good at this now – practice had yielded results, just like it had in combat training, in field repairs, advanced recon…
None of those lessons had been as electrifyingly pleasurable as this. If they had been, Danse would have mastered advanced hand-to-hand within the week.
‘Watch your language, soldier,’ Danse chided him, bending low enough to mutter the words directly into Nate’s ear. He meant it as a joke, and sure enough Nate huffed a slightly strained laugh into the mattress. After all, it could only be a joke now. Danse no longer held a command, was no longer Nate’s direct superior. The Brotherhood had washed its hands of him a long time ago.
…
The truth was, Danse had never had sex with anyone before he’d met Nate. Oh, he was aware enough to notice when other people had been attracted to him. Hopelessly naïve recruits mostly, half hero worship as much as anything else. But sometimes older soldiers too, other Knights and Paladins. And perhaps sometimes he’d allowed himself to daydream a little about what it might be like, but that was all.
After his banishment, Danse had followed Nate round the Commonwealth like a lost dog. All his life he’d known where he was supposed to be, and what he was supposed to be doing. That rigid order hadn’t felt at all restrictive – in fact, it had been quite the opposite. It was liberating to experience no self-doubt, no uncertainty. To have the reassurance that you were a vital part of a larger, greater whole.
Now Danse had nothing but self-doubt and uncertainty. He practically wallowed in them.
Nate’s rag-tag coalition of settlements helped a little to fill the void. There was always something that needed doing. Shelters that needed constructing, repairs that needed doing, defenses that needed shoring up.
The Starlight Drive-In was one of the largest, and one of the busiest. The farming was sparse, and most of the food came in on pack Brahmin from places like the Sunshine Co-op or Greygarden. But there was a large supply of purified water, and excellent trading connections. Caravans from Bunker Hill took shelter each night behind the Drive-In’s walls and turrets, and a constant flow of caps back and forth kept the place thriving.
‘Pass me that screwdriver, would you?’ Nate said, gesturing to the tool lying on the roof, next to Danse’s knee.
There were repairing a broken laser turret. It had caught a stray bullet during a thwarted raider arrack a few days ago. Danse, like all members of the Brotherhood, knew his way around technology. He’d carefully realigned the turret’s optics and reset its targeting scanner.
The turret was positioned up on the roof of the decrepit little diner that now served as the Drive-In’s gatehouse. It was a hot day, and the sun beat down on them mercilessly as they worked. Nate had rolled his sleeves up past his elbows, and managed to get motor oil all over his forearms as he’d greased the turret’s moving parts and hammered out the dents in its casing. At some point he’d touched his neck as well, because there was a little smear of oil there, right above his clavicle. Danse couldn’t stop looking at it.
They both screwed the last bolts back into place, and the turret jerked suddenly back into life. Nate grinned as a job well done, and scrambled up onto his feet. He held out his hand to help haul Danse up as well. Danse hesitated for only a moment, and then put his hand in Nate’s, allowing himself to be pulled upright.
They wound up stood very close together, just a handful of inches separating them. Danse was acutely aware of Nate’s hand in his own. It was callused – one there from holding a pistol, another from a rifle. The knuckles were split as well, from where Nate had punched a raider in the face three days ago, after his 10mm had unexpectedly run out of ammo.
They stayed like that for just a little longer than was normal, until Danse suddenly dropped Nate’s hand and jerked awkwardly backwards.
‘Right, uh,’ said Nate, mercifully not commenting. ‘We should get off the roof.’
This awkwardness had been building for a couple of weeks now. There was a tension between them that hadn’t been there before. It was making Danse nervous. It didn’t help that he knew exactly what the cause of it was.
He’d known it would only be a matter of time before the subject of sex came up. It wasn’t that Danse objected to the idea on principle. After all, he loved Nate – was in love with him. But dealing with that was hard enough, without the physical consummation of that feeling being thrown into the mix.
Danse had devoted everything to the Brotherhood, at the expense of all else. Now, rejected by everything he’d once held sacred, he felt the gaps in his knowledge keenly.
A storm rolled in that night, raging its way across the Commonwealth. Nate and Danse took shelter in a cramped bedroom near to the settlement’s outer walls. The nearby guttural juddering of a power generator blended in seamlessly with the noisy patter of the rain and the occasional rumble of thunder.
There was only one bed.
It wouldn’t have been the first time they’d shared a tight sleeping space. Nights in the Commonwealth could get very cold, and only an idiot refused to share body heat. Danse had slept pressed right up against Nate before, close enough to feel him breathing. The idea of sharing a damned bed should not have brought him out in a nervous sweat.
He’d shifted uncomfortably on the spot, hesitant to climb onto the mattress. And then, before he could say or do something spectacularly stupid, Nate had kissed him.
It started out like their other, fleeting kisses had. A soft brush of Nate’s mouth over his. But then Nate had pressed closer, his mouth opening up under Danse’s, and it had all turned much more intense.
‘If you don’t want to…’ Nate said softly, pulling away just a centimeter or two. Close enough that Danse could feel their lips brushing as he spoke. ‘… we don’t have to. I won’t be upset, I promise.’
‘No… I…’ Danse was horrified to hear his voice threaten to crack. He was a soldier. His nerve would not fail him now. ‘I want to. I just…’ he shook his head, annoyed with himself. ‘… I never have…’
Nate kissed him again. Now he really did press their bodies close together, wrapping his arms around Danse’s waist and placing his palms flat in the small of Danse’s back. As the kiss grew ever fiercer he pressed their hips tight together. The friction made Danse groan, and a sudden intense wave of unexpected hunger coursed through him.
‘You’ve done this before?’ he muttered quietly. ‘With other men?’
‘A few,’ said Nate. ‘I always did like girls just as much, and then there was my wife and she was… but yeah, a few. A long time ago. But I know what I’m doing. I promise Danse, all you have to do is lie there. I’ll do all the work.’
And Nate had known what he was doing. Slowly, reluctant to pull too far apart, they’d stripped out of their clothes and fallen onto the bed.
Danse had tried to sit up, but Nate had gently, but firmly, pushed him down onto his back. He’d bent and kissed the underside of Danse’s jaw, the length of his neck, the curve of his collarbone. Slowly he’d worked his way down Danse’s body. Danse had struggled not to feel ashamed. He felt exposed, completely bare and vulnerable. His intense arousal visible and undeniable. He felt weak.
Then Nate had finally lowered his head and taken Danse’s cock into his mouth.
There was an old saying – ‘and the world moved’. It was stupid and melodramatic, and in that one particular moment, absolutely accurate.
Danse’s gasped and forced himself not to jerk his hips forward. He felt as though he should feel guilty. The Brotherhood would have thought what they were doing an abomination. A creature like Danse – a synth of all things, defiling a human like Nate. And not just any human, a pure specimen, genetically uncorrupted by the ravages of the post-apocalyptic Wastes.
Although right then, watching him enthusiastically going down on Danse, it was quite hard to picture the words ‘pure’ and ‘Nate’ anywhere in the general vicinity of each other.
Just as Danse was about to come, Nate lifted off and sprawled back on top of him. He was smiling, and despite himself Danse couldn’t help awkwardly smiling back. Feeling brave, he slipped a hand down between them and wrapped it around Nate’s own cock, making the other man choke out a groan and lower his head to rest it on Danse’s shoulder.
Danse was surprised to discover that giving pleasure could be nearly as gratifying as receiving it. He mentally catalogued each of the little noises Nate made, the way his muscles moved under his skin as he shifted around. He tightened his grip a little, and heard Nate sigh contentedly against his shoulder.
‘Stop, stop…’ Nate muttered after a while, shifting off and pushing Danse’s hand away. Danse froze, wondering if perhaps he’d done something wrong. Nate noticed the sudden tension, and leant down to kiss him, running both hands soothingly through Danse’s hair.
‘That was great,’ he reassured him. ‘It’s just… I’ve got plans, okay? Trust me.’
Danse did trust him, and in the end had not been disappointed. He’d watched enthralled as Nate had carefully slid his own fingers into himself, long back arching as some mysterious, unknown pleasure had coursed through him. The sight had lit fires in Danse that he’d worked all his life to keep extinguished. All thoughts of what the Brotherhood would think of this vanished completely from his mind. Indeed, all thoughts of anything that weren’t to do with Nate were stamped out.
Nate had kept him flat on his back, helpless to do anything except watch and run his restless hands up and down Nate’s thighs. The wind had howled and lightning forked across the sky when Nate finally slid down onto him, legs spread obscenely wide across Danse’s torso.
Minutes had seemed to drag by like hours. Nate had promised Danse that all he’d have to do was lie there and let Nate do the work, but he found himself more and more frustrated, unable to do little more than thrust up shallowly as Nate rode him. Still, Nate wouldn’t let him up, firmly pushing Danse back onto the bed each time he tried to move.
When Danse finally came his whole body arched up, and his hands, which had been gripping Nate’s hips as hard as he dared, pulled them as tightly together as possible.
He was vaguely aware of Nate smiling down at him, and a callused palm brushing against his cheek.
…
‘It’s watching us.’
Danse furrowed his brow, momentarily confused about what Nate was talking about. They were in Sanctuary, in bed, and half out of their clothes. Nate had managed to strip Danse down to the waist, and Danse was working on doing the same to him when Nate had suddenly pulled away.
Danse followed his gaze to the suit of power armor that sat quietly in the corner of the room. It was facing towards them, the glassy, unoccupied eyes of the helmet trained, entirely by accident, on the bed.
When he was out on the open plains of the Commonwealth, Danse was never out of his power armor. It was his shield between himself and the rest of the world, a barrier of hydraulics and steel that made a loud statement to any strangers. I am dangerous, it said. I am a Paladin of the Brotherhood of Steel.
Obviously it didn’t say that last one anymore, but it still served to keep the world at bay. He was dimly aware that they were burning bit by bit through Nate’s surprisingly large stash of fusion cores, but Danse knew where to search for more.
Besides, old habits were hard to break. You maintained your power armor in top condition, you wore it with pride, and you kept it nearby at all times.
‘It’s not watching us,’ said Danse firmly. ‘It’s empty.’
‘Well, it looks like it’s watching us,’ said Nate, still staring suspiciously at it.
Danse sighed and pulled Nate back down into a kiss, hoping to make him forget about the damned power armor. But now he couldn’t forget about it. He arched his body up into Nate’s, reveling in the glorious friction between them, trying to put the image of those cold, empty eyes that were gazing down on them out of his mind.
He grunted in irritation as he pushed Nate off.
‘See?’ said Nate. ‘It’s watching us. It’s creepy, Danse.’
‘Perhaps I could throw a blanket over it?’ Danse suggested.
‘I’d still know it was there. You’d still know it was there.’
‘What if I turned it to face the wall?’
‘Christ, you know what, that would be even weirder. There’s a power armor rig just across the way. Put it in there.’
Danse sighed. Apparently there was absolutely no way Nate was going to have sex with him so long as the power armor remained in the room, and that was that. He got up out of the bed, pulling his flight suit back up over his shoulders.
When he got back from installing the armor in the rig, Nate had already taken all his clothes off.
The next morning Danse rose early. They were heading out to the Red Rocket Truck Stop that morning, to pick up a shipment of copper wiring that a caravan trader had left there. He meant to go and do a quick jog around the settlement boundary, before getting back into his power armor in preparation for the journey. But then Nate had hauled him back into the bed, and proceeded to bestow a very messy, very drawn out blowjob on him.
Afterwards Nate had been in a hurry to get going, and somehow, head still swimming in a sea of endorphins, Danse had found himself being hurried out of the safe confines of Sanctuary without his power armor. It was strange and unnerving, being out in the wastes with nothing but the clothes on his back, the boots on his feet, and an admittedly very large gun. The walk to the Red Rocket was mercifully short, but Danse couldn’t help feeling on edge the entire way.
The journey passed without incident, and in the end the entire day went by, and Danse left his power armor alone in the rig. Nate was particularly energetic in bed that night, and Danse got the disconcerting and mildly alarming feeling that he was being rewarded for something.
Slowly, he began to wear his armor less and less. It was still an important tool – but over time that became all it was. A tool, a weapon. Nothing else.
…
Goodneighbor made Danse’s skin crawl. It stood for everything he’d ever been taught to despise. It teemed with degenerates, with chem addicts, ghouls, and criminals.
Hancock personified all those things and worse besides. Danse disliked the man intensely, which made the fact that Nate seemed to like him so much all the more aggravating. For his part Hancock was well aware of Danse’s hostility, and took great delight in provoking him at every opportunity.
‘So tell me Danse,’ said Hancock loudly. The three of them, Danse, Hancock and Nate were propping up the bar in the Third Rail. It was late evening, and the place was packed with the financially affluent but morally bankrupt of Goodneighbor. ‘How’s the Commonwealth treating ya these days? From one inhuman bastard to another?’
Danse gritted his teeth and ignored him, drinking his beer instead. Hancock only laughed, taking in inhaler of jet out of his coat pocket, and huffing deeply on the chem. Sitting between them, Nate seemed entirely unbothered by this.
Danse looked away. He’d felt uncomfortable since they got here, and now a simmering mixture of anger and disgust was beginning to fester away inside him. They’d only arrived that morning, and already he wanted to get away from these people, away from their profligacy and their wretchedness. In particular, he wanted to get away from Hancock. The man was proud of what he was, proud of this den of iniquity he owned, proud to rule a haven for the scum of the wastes. It turned Danse’s stomach.
Nate’s ambivalence to the filth of Goodneighbor only made Danse angrier. Why had this man joined the Brotherhood of Steel? Anyone who truly adhered to the guiding principles and tenants of the Brotherhood could not fail to be repulsed by this place, and yet Nate seemed perfectly comfortable here.
But then, Nate always had shown questionable judgement about such things. He was friends with Hancock, after all. Friends with Nick Valentine. He even allowed that walking monstrosity of a Super Mutant to live amongst the Commonwealth’s settlers.
So why exactly had he accepted Danse’s offer to join the Brotherhood? Had it all been a ploy? Nothing more than a way to access the Brotherhood’s extensive resources? And now Danse – loyal, fiercely devoted Danse – was banished because of what he was, while Nate – damned, human Nate – chose to lower himself to the likes of John Hancock.
The anger continued to boil away in Danse as he sat silently, watching Nate and Hancock as they laughed and drank together. His own beer seemed to have gone stale in his mouth, and he left it on the bar, one hand wrapped around the neck of the bottle. He noticed detachedly that he was gripping it so hard that his knuckles had gone white.
Finally, something tipped him over the edge. He wasn’t sure what. Perhaps it was the cackling of the ghoul at the table behind them, the stink in the air from all the jet, or the group of Gunners hollering loud obscenities as they left the bar. Either way Danse suddenly lost his temper, rising abruptly from his seat and punching his fist down onto the bar top.
The sting in his knuckles did a very little to take the edge of his fury. He was dimly aware that both Nate and Hancock had stopped talking and were staring at him. He ignored them, turning his back and striding away up and out of the Third Rail.
The drunken gang of Gunners had congregated in the street outside, where one of their number was being nosily sick. Something of Danse’s foul mood must have shown on his face, because they parted wordlessly to let him through. It was chilly out, and Danse pulled his coat more tightly around himself. He had a .44 tucked into the inside pocket, within easy reaching distance. In Goodneighbor, especially at night, he might well need it.
‘Danse!’ he heard Nate calling his name. Ignoring him, Danse kept on trudging forward in the direction of the Rexford.
‘Danse,’ said Nate again, catching up with him. ‘Hey, what the hell was that all about?’
He reached out and put a hand on Danse’s arm, trying to get him to stop. Danse shook him off angrily. ‘Don’t touch me,’ he snapped.
‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ demanded Nate, keeping up easily with Danse’s long stride.
Danse refused to answer. He half hoped Nate would just leave him alone and go back to the Third Rail, and half feared the exact same thing. As it was, Nate stuck with him. They walked together in tense, angry silence back to their room at the Rexford.
They moment they were through the door, Danse rounded on Nate. He’d intended to demand answers from him. Why had he joined the Brotherhood? Why did he continue to associate with the likes of Hancock? Why did he persist in bringing Danse to Goodneighbor even when he knew Danse hated it?
Instead what he did was push Nate forcibly up against the hotel room door, and kissed him with a kind of strange, hungry fury.
For a moment Nate went as still as a statue, but then he surged up against Danse, kissing him back every bit as furiously. These were not the sweet, loving kisses Danse was used to. They were almost vicious in fact, much too rough and full of teeth. Nate bit down sharply on Danse’s lower lip, almost hard enough to draw blood.
Danse felt the righteous anger swell up in him again. He grabbed Nate bodily round the waist, turning him round and manhandling him towards the bed. He shoved him unceremoniously down onto the mattress, where Nate stayed sprawled, glaring up at him.
If he’d wanted to, he could have gotten up. Could have shouted and yelled, could have stormed out of the room altogether. But instead he stayed there, making no move at all until Danse’s hands were back on him. The moment Danse touched him he rose up, trying to take control, trying to flip Danse over so that it was him, not Nate, lying flat out on his back.
He nearly managed it. But Danse bore his entire weight down, and while Nate was certainly no delicate pushover, he wasn’t strong enough to wrestle Danse off.
They kissed again, just as ferociously as before. They were both hard, their bodies pressed tightly together where Danse was pinning Nate down onto the bed. It was a spacious affair, old and tired but practically damned luxurious compared to what the rest of the Commonwealth had to offer. Certainly it had more than enough room for two grown men to struggle and tussle together.
Danse yanked Nate’s shirt off over his head, tossing it away carelessly. He bent to press bruising kisses to his throat, even as Nate’s own quick, clever hands were pulling Danse’s coat down over his shoulders. They separated just long enough for Danse to shrug it off completely.
Nate pressed insistently up against him, legs slipping apart to allow them to grind together more easily. Danse wanted him badly. Wanted in him. But he was too impatient for that now, and besides, Nate seemed unlikely to submit to the necessary ministrations. Danse settled instead for working a hand down between their bodies to rub against Nate’s straining erection.
Nate bit back harshly on some kind of an appreciative noise, which only made Danse work harder to drag a moan out of him. By this point, he’d had a lot of sex with Nate. He knew the man’s body nearly as well as his own. Knew exactly which buttons to press. Now he took advantage of that mercilessly.
Nate retaliated, sliding his own hand down past Danse’s waistband and wrapping it around his cock. They kissed messily, silently gasping into each other’s mouths, the ancient pre-war springs of the bed groaning beneath them.
Nate came first. He surged up to kiss Danse as he did, and suddenly it was sweet now. Danse’s anger evaporated in one swift instant, and he felt an abrupt, strange punch of emotion. His throat tightened up, making him feel almost like he wanted to cry.
He didn’t, just choked out a low moan as he came as well.
They lay together, Danse still slumped on top of Nate, both of them getting their breath back. After a few moments Nate began softly running the tips of his fingers up and down the length of Danse’s spine.
‘You gonna tell me what that was all about or what?’ he said at last.
There was a long, loaded pause. ‘What do you see in the place?’ Danse asked eventually. ‘What do you see in these people?
‘What do I see in Hancock you mean,’ Nate said wearily.
‘No,’ said Danse. ‘Not just him. All of them. They’re not… they’re not even…’
‘Human?’ said Nate. He pressed a soft kiss to Danse’s temple. ‘Neither are you.’
Something in Danse’s gut twisted painfully. There it was, the unvarnished truth. He was no better than the very people he despised. In fact, he was worse, because at least they were under no illusions about what they were.
Nate pushed gently at Danse until he rose up a little, enough so that they could look each other straight in the eyes. Nate’s mouth was red and swollen, and there were angry marks all down his neck where Danse had let his teeth scrape a little too much.
‘What exactly is so great about being human?’ Nate said firmly. ‘I’m serious, Danse. What exactly is so damn great about humans? Look at the fucking state of the world. You know who did that? Fucking humanity. We dropped the bombs, we screwed the world. And it wasn’t people like the raiders who did it, or the chem heads, or anyone else the Brotherhood hates. It was powerful bastards sitting on top of a whole heap of technology that they couldn’t be fucking trusted with. Humans? Fuck humans.’
It was abundantly clear that Nate meant every word of it. He stared almost defiantly up at Danse, as if daring him to contradict any of it. Danse, for his part, was speechless. He’d never expected to hear such a bitter tirade come out of Nate’s mouth.
He forgot, sometimes, that it wasn’t just him who’d had his whole life snatched away without warning, or without any chance of ever getting it back.
Nate kissed him lightly, nothing more than a quick brush of his mouth of Danse’s. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘And I don’t give a shit whether you’re human or not.’
Danse found himself choking back on the raw emotion. Again, he was left speechless. As if reading his mind, the black bitterness left Nate’s face, and instead he pressed the curve of his cheek into the crook of Danse's neck.
‘I still don’t like Hancock’, said Danse a few minutes later. They’d moved to lie more comfortably on the bed, and Nate was beginning to fidget around. He was probably starting to feel unpleasantly sticky, just like Danse was.
Nate rolled his eyes. ‘Well, I wasn’t expecting a damned miracle,’ he said.
…
Danse wondered sometimes, just how exactly Nate had managed to keep so many plates up in the air for so long. The effort must have been superhuman.
For example, apparently at the same time as he’d been inducted into the ranks of the Brotherhood he’d also been running a full time quasi military organization that guarded the settlements of the Commonwealth. How he’d managed to successfully pull it off was a mystery. How he’d managed to pull it off without either group finding out about the other was an even bigger one.
It was strange for Danse, being at the Castle. On the one hand, there was something reassuringly familiar about the martial nature of the Minutemen. The fortress walls bristled with artillery, patrol rotations came and went, and soldiers moved with purpose about their duties. Above their heads, invisible to them all, the Radio Freedom transmission flew through the air, bringing with it order to the chaos.
On the other hand, the way the Minutemen behaved around Nate was discomfiting.
For most of his life Danse had been surrounded by authority figures. He’d never once questioned their orders, never once doubted in their seniority. Superior officers were to be respected, to be shown due deference, to be obeyed at all times. Even amongst the natural camaraderie of a squad, the distinctions of rank had to be preserved.
Danse had never thought of Nate as an authority figure. Certainly Danse followed Nate about all over the Commonwealth, sometimes on the flimsiest of excuses, but that was because he loved him, not because he felt compelled to obey him.
The Minutemen however, they certainly did think of Nate as an authority figure.
‘General’ they called him. Even Preston Garvey referred to him by the title. Men and women snapped to attention as Nate passed them by. People came to him looking for orders, asking him to read reports, to assign resources. He had a damned office. There was even, apparently, a uniform - although Danse had never seen Nate wearing it.
As a result, from the moment Nate arrived at the Castle, to the moment he left, the man never had a single second to himself. While the Minutemen appeared to tick over perfectly well in their General’s absence, when he was about there seemed to be no end of matters that required his immediate attention.
They’d been at the Castle a week, most of which Danse had spent avoiding Nate. They slept in the same bed at night, but that was about it. The Brotherhood had taught him all about the pressures of command, that a good leader needed no distractions, and that they needed to maintain a certain remoteness from their men. Garvey certainly knew all about Nate’s relationship with Danse, but it would do Nate no favors to have his private life made public to the rest of the Minutemen.
It was getting late. Danse was lurking about on the fortresses battlements, looking out over the dark landscape of the ruined city. Behind him the rhythmic ebb and flow of the tide made for a soothing backdrop. Every now and then out in the distance he would hear a gunshot and a scream. Just after midnight there was a minor explosion somewhere near the Four Leaf Fishpacking Plant.
Danse shook his head. Once he’d believed the might of the Brotherhood of Steel was the only way to bring order to the post-apocalyptic wastes. Now he doubted anything short of a miracle would put an end to the chaos of the Commonwealth.
He stretched out his arms, and headed down to go to bed. The Castle was peaceful. Someone was still manning the radio, and a few guards stood solemnly at their watch, but other than that it was a quiet night.
He was surprised to find Nate still working. He was hunched over his desk in the General’s private office - stroke personal quarters - reading reports off a terminal. An open bottle of Scotch sat enticingly at his elbow. Danse snagged it, enjoying the burn as he threw back a quick mouthful. Hard to believe that, less than a year ago, he’d abhorred alcohol of any kind.
‘You’re still alive then?’ said Nate tetchily, looking up at him over the top of the terminal. He looked tired, the wan green light of the terminal washing his face out.
Danse paused. ‘What?’ he said.
‘You’re still alive,’ Nate repeated. ‘Only I was starting to wonder.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Danse demanded.
‘Well, it’s not like I’ve seen much of you,’ Nate said, and he definitely sounded more than a bit tetchy now. ‘You disappear all damn day. For all I know you got eaten by a mirelurk.’
Danse stared down at him in disbelief. It wasn’t like they hadn’t been apart plenty of times. Nate was forever going off on foolish and incredibly dangerous expeditions across the Commonwealth. Sometimes the only back-up he bothered to take was his damned dog. The hypocrisy was truly staggering.
‘I was trying to stay out of your way,’ Danse said. ‘You’re their General. You need to set a good example to them.’
‘A good example?’ Nate repeated, leaning back in his chair and raising an inquisitive eyebrow.
‘Yes,’ said Danse firmly. ‘Of discipline, hard work, focus. They have to respect you, respect your position.’
‘And why exactly does any of that involve you disappearing off at the crack of dawn?’
‘Our involvement is a distraction,’ Danse stated plainly. ‘You are in a position of authority over these people. You have to remain…’
He was cut off mid-sentence when Nate suddenly grabbed him roughly by the collar and kissed him. It wasn’t particularly elegant, more an awkward bumping together of mouths. Nate tasted like the whiskey he’d been drinking.
‘This isn’t the Brotherhood,’ Nate said when he pulled away. ‘I don’t need people to think I’m some kind of untouchable asshole who wants to be kowtowed to all the damn time. You think I wanna be like Maxson? I don’t.’
‘Elder Maxson was a decisive commander who led…’
‘He was a prick,’ said Nate, and then kissed Danse again. Their bodies pressed close together, and Nate’s arms wrapped themselves around Danse’s waist, one hand dropping down to grab proprietorially at his ass. A purposeful heat built quickly between them, their kiss quickly becoming downright dirty as Nate somehow managed to squirm closer still.
They broke apart, separating only by a couple of inches. Nate grinned indecently, eyes glittering with some unknown devilry. ‘Hey,’ he said, voice low and a little rough. ‘Wanna do me over my desk?’
The very audacity of the suggestion stunned Danse. ‘There’s a bed right there,’ he insisted. And there was, literally half a dozen paces away.
‘We’ve done it in a bed,’ said Nate. He brushed his mouth over the curve of Danse’s jaw. ‘We’ve done it in a lot of beds.’ His hands drifted to Danse’s belt buckle, which he began to undo.
Danse couldn’t quite articulate what it was about the idea that he couldn’t get to grips with. He was vaguely aware that he was gaping like a fish, while in contrast Nate had managed to start undoing buttons already.
‘You don’t want to?’ Nate breathed into his ear. ‘You don’t want to put me over this desk? Right here, where they all line up in the morning to get their orders?’
‘It’s not…’ Danse managed weakly. He was almost painfully hard all of a sudden. It was ridiculous – what was so dissolute about having sex on the desk anyway? It wasn’t as though the bed wasn’t in the same room. Why did it seem so different? So much dirtier?
‘They’d have no idea, but I’d know,’ Nate continued shamelessly, grinding their hips together. ‘And you’d know. Every time I sat…’
Whatever he’d been going to say broke off into laughter as Danse stooped to grab him around the back of his thighs, lifting him up and dumping him unceremoniously on the damned desk that he was suddenly so fixated on. Nate didn't hesitate before grabbing Danse by the fabric of his shirt and pulling him in to stand between Nate’s thighs, his spare hand pulling Danse’s head forward so that he could kiss him again.
It was awkward. Nate wasted no time in pushing everything else onto the floor, but the bulky terminal was too heavy and too valuable to just shove off. The edges of the desk were sharp enough to hurt if you jostled up against one too heavily, and there just really wasn’t enough damned space.
In the end, it didn’t seem to matter.
A year ago Danse had abhorred alcohol – now he drank whiskey. A year ago his sexual experience had been limited to a few ill-advised fumblings. Now here he was, bending a General over his desk and fucking into him like he couldn’t possibly take him hard enough but was damned determined to try. Nate’s back arched up to meet him, each muscle pulled taut. He alternated between broken, gasping moans, and shaky but vehement orders for Danse to keep going right there, there, there…
Someone was going to hear them. Nate was not being quiet, and frankly Danse was struggling to keep his own voice muffled. He kept on biting down sharply on his lip to keep himself from being noisy, a technique Nate could stand to learn from. He wasn’t even making an effort.
‘Jesus fucking Christ, Danse…’ Nate hissed, head dipped low, brow pressed against his own forearm. His spare hand was grasping the edge of the desk with a white knuckle grip, keeping him anchored in place against Danse’s relentless pace. It could not possibly have been comfortable for him, but the constant stream of obscene encouragement coming out of Nate’s mouth suggested that he either didn’t mind or hadn’t noticed.
‘Quiet, quiet…’ Danse ground out, trying to get Nate to just bring it down a few decibels before some hapless recruit came running in only to find their beloved General getting fucked over his own desk. And just the thought of that did things to Danse, made his blood run even hotter, which was crazy because the truth was that if anyone did realize what was going on in here then nobody would be more mortified than Danse himself.
Nate came first, having enough presence of mind to muffle his voice by biting his own hand. He slumped down further onto the desk, holding on helplessly until Danse followed him over the edge.
‘Ow,’ said Nate a few moments later, still short of breath. ‘This is not comfortable.’
They separated, and Nate gingerly hauled himself up off the desk. There were red blotches on his hips where they’d been repeatedly rammed into the unyielding surface of the desk. By morning, they’d have faded into dark bruises.
‘Goddamnit’ Nate cursed, rolling his shoulders out. ‘My back is killing me.’
Danse pulled him close and pressed a quick kiss to his forehead. ‘I remind you that this was your idea,’ he said.
Nate rolled his eyes and tucked his chin over Danse’s shoulder. ‘It was worth it,’ he muttered. ‘You can’t tell me that wasn’t worth it.’
It had been the single most improper thing Danse had ever done in his life. Already, skin still gleaming with sweat from the event itself, he found himself going red at the thought of it. Tomorrow morning Nate would meet with his subordinates in this very room, as buttoned up and respectable as he ever managed to be, and sit at the very desk that Danse had just had him over.
It was an affront to everything Danse had been taught about the sanctity of military discipline. It was also an image that made his breath go short and his heartbeat race.
‘I concede,’ Danse said a little roughly. ‘The idea had some merit.’
…
Because they’d both been drunk, they’d fallen straight asleep after finally rolling off one another the night before. Danse woke with a small but insistent ache throbbing away behind his eyes. He groped blindly for the bottle of purified water he knew to be on the nightstand, cracking it open and downing two-thirds in one go.
Nate was still fast asleep, head resting on Danse’s shoulder. The movement of the bed as Danse shifted round jostled him a little, and with a heartfelt groan he started to wake up. Wordlessly Danse handed him the remaining water.
‘My head hurts,’ complained Nate, once he’d finishing drinking. He looked worse off than Danse – but then he’d had a lot more to drink. He sank back down heavily onto the bed, curling up against Danse’s side.
‘A headache is a common aftereffect of imbibing too much alcohol,’ said Danse, intoning the exact words he’d once heard from a Brotherhood instructor in a class on the perils of self-indulgence. There had been a lot of other subjects covered, including chems, vanity, and the many pitfalls of sexual misadventure.
Nate cracked one eye and fixed Danse with a sour look. ‘I seem to recall you imbibing right alongside me,’ he said.
‘Like I said,’ Danse told him, wincing a little and rubbing his spare hand, the one Nate wasn’t lying on, across his forehead. ‘A headache is a common aftereffect of imbibing too much alcohol.’
‘Oh,’ said Nate, looking more sympathetic. He turned his head and pressed a quick kiss to Danse’s shoulder. ‘I’ve got some Med-X if you want it,’ he offered.
‘No,’ said Danse flatly. The day he willingly addled himself with filthy chemicals, even one as relatively benign as Med-X, was the day he accepted that he truly was as profane a being as Maxson had believed. The alcohol was one thing, chems were quite another.
‘Urgh,’ said Nate with feeling, shifting uncomfortably around in the close confines of the bed. ‘I’m pretty sure I’ve got dried jizz all down my legs by the way.’
Danse rolled his eyes at the crudity. Had Nate always been this bluntly explicit? Danse recalled a relatively discreet, straightforward soldier prone to occasional bouts of touchy sarcasm. It was only slowly, as they’d gotten to know each other better, that he’d changed around Danse. Bad language had crept in, not to mention a certain degree of insubordination – mostly in the form of dangerous questioning of the Brotherhood’s philosophy. And yet Danse had indulged him, had let Nate get away with things he would never have permitted in any other recruit.
Perhaps it was because, despite his flaws, Nate had an extraordinary knack for doing the impossible. Or perhaps it had been because, even back then when he struggled to see anything past the next mission, Danse had been drawn to him. Had perhaps already harbored feelings for him.
The minutes dragged by, and Danse began to think that he ought to get up. His headache was slowly beginning to fade. Dimly, through the corrugated iron and concrete walls, he could hear the Diamond City market starting to come to life. But he felt disinclined to move.
The old him would have turned away in disgust. Lounging around in bed long past dawn, nursing a mild hangover – signs of a weak, dissolute spirit. The presence of Nate, curled up next to him, the affectionate way they held one another – another weakness. Without question, Danse was compromised through and through.
He’d learned a lot of lessons since his exile from the Brotherhood. Lessons he would once have thought worthless, but now understood the true value of. Perhaps the most important, and the hardest, had been to begin to accept his own nature. But almost as important, and almost as hard to learn, had been that some weaknesses were worth it. Some weaknesses made life worth the living.
Nate squirmed closer, climbing on top of Danse. His eyes looked a little bloodshot, but apart from that he was already looking less rough around the edges. He kissed Danse, and unbelievably his mouth still tasted of Bobrov’s Moonshine. Danse kissed him back, savoring the soft, unhurried nature of it all.