Deacon gives Danse the space to climb up the ladder-- lots of space. Slippery hands on metal and a lack of feet make Deacon imagine Danse falling and knocking Deacon out on his way down, so he stays behind, waiting until Danse has cleared the top to even attempt the climb himself.

The water around him as he treads it reflects uncanny images, blurry at first with the ripple of Deacon's treading, but growing so clear that they look like projections, and Deacon questions if he's seeing things and going absolutely insane, or it this is visable to anyone looking on- notably Danse.

There's one problem with this: Those projections are of his past. Specifically, the parts of his past he'd very much like no one alive to know about. It makes him sick to see; a gang of men tormenting others, each act more violent than the last. He knows what's coming, what it all culminates to, and he bristles, ignoring it as he grabs the rungs of the ladder and climbs, refusing to look behind him where visions of a man laying prone ripple and fade, his eyes open and stuck in an expression of fear, with no life left behind them.

"If I can control it," he grunts, heaving himself up and hoping-- praying Danse couldn't see it or wasn't paying attention. He feels sick, and as if on cue his own appearance seems to flicker in and out, blurry and inconsistent.