[ There's something oddly heartbreaking about that practical and trusting little gesture, something that makes Danse feel all the more protective. The understanding that this is a dream is still there, ever-present, in the background of his thoughts, but it feels almost like a neutral and meaningless bit of trivia now, something incapable of affecting the world they're both currently inhabiting. Even if he's still never unaware that the child holding onto his armor for help is in actuality a 35-year-old man who despises him, he knows this in the same way he knows that Washington was the first president of the former United States. Important in other contexts, entirely irrelevant at this moment in time.
It has to be something about the way the walls seem to be closing in, the way everything is louder and brighter and closer with every passing minute, more real and more immediate than anything in the waking world. He turns sharply at that gunfire, his own gun at the ready, starting half a step toward it--but nothing more comes of it, not yet. He looks back and realizes with sickening uncertainty that he doesn't know which way to go. He understands on some deep-down level that this is the point. There is nowhere to run.
He's never fought the NCR, or encountered any of its representatives in the flesh before, but even on the opposite end of the country, it has a reputation for overreach and overkill. Or perhaps that reputation exists only in Brotherhood propaganda, because its real crime, as far as anyone Danse listens to is concerned, is that it poses a threat to the authority the Brotherhood wants to claim for its own. In some ways, this is the true nature of the Brotherhood's objection to the Enclave too, and the Institute.
Maybe there's something about being inside Arcade's head that forces this understanding closer to the surface of Danse's mind than he ever lets it get. Maybe he's just a little more primed to realize it on his own, when he finds himself abruptly forced onto the opposite side of a conflict and realizes how little difference it actually makes. Were there children at Adams? Did the Brotherhood care? Would his brothers and sisters have been any more cautious with their fire if they'd known there was a terrified little boy roaming the halls in search of his mother?
He knows the answer. Given the choice between the fire out on the tarmac or the prospect of being trapped in close quarters with those soldiers who might as well be wearing the Brotherhood's crest, he thinks the former option is still the safer. He kicks the doors open and checks to be sure the immediate area outside of them is clear of fire before ushering Arcade through them and taking position in front of him again. ]
Good. You're doing remarkably. Keep it up.
[ It's something to say. He means it, but it probably wouldn't be reassuring even if his voice weren't tense and distracted as he scans for new threats. ]
no subject
It has to be something about the way the walls seem to be closing in, the way everything is louder and brighter and closer with every passing minute, more real and more immediate than anything in the waking world. He turns sharply at that gunfire, his own gun at the ready, starting half a step toward it--but nothing more comes of it, not yet. He looks back and realizes with sickening uncertainty that he doesn't know which way to go. He understands on some deep-down level that this is the point. There is nowhere to run.
He's never fought the NCR, or encountered any of its representatives in the flesh before, but even on the opposite end of the country, it has a reputation for overreach and overkill. Or perhaps that reputation exists only in Brotherhood propaganda, because its real crime, as far as anyone Danse listens to is concerned, is that it poses a threat to the authority the Brotherhood wants to claim for its own. In some ways, this is the true nature of the Brotherhood's objection to the Enclave too, and the Institute.
Maybe there's something about being inside Arcade's head that forces this understanding closer to the surface of Danse's mind than he ever lets it get. Maybe he's just a little more primed to realize it on his own, when he finds himself abruptly forced onto the opposite side of a conflict and realizes how little difference it actually makes. Were there children at Adams? Did the Brotherhood care? Would his brothers and sisters have been any more cautious with their fire if they'd known there was a terrified little boy roaming the halls in search of his mother?
He knows the answer. Given the choice between the fire out on the tarmac or the prospect of being trapped in close quarters with those soldiers who might as well be wearing the Brotherhood's crest, he thinks the former option is still the safer. He kicks the doors open and checks to be sure the immediate area outside of them is clear of fire before ushering Arcade through them and taking position in front of him again. ]
Good. You're doing remarkably. Keep it up.
[ It's something to say. He means it, but it probably wouldn't be reassuring even if his voice weren't tense and distracted as he scans for new threats. ]