androidvictoriam: (wary and shadowed)
(Paladin) Danse ([personal profile] androidvictoriam) wrote in [community profile] route666rp 2025-06-24 10:19 pm (UTC)

The confidence does throw him--for a moment. Danse wonders if maybe the scene really had been about him, some failure of his own to vet an initiate properly, something he might have caused through some ripple effect in the course of his career, something he could have prevented if he'd been more convincing as a recruiter--truly, he has no idea. He doesn't think he's ever seen any of those people in his life.

And Deacon's clear disinclination to keep up the facade of cheer has so many potential other explanations at this point that Danse isn't surprised at all when he breezes off down the hallway without a look back, leaving his still-waterbound companion sitting uselessly in a puddle. Danse doesn't even blame him for it. It may be for the best, he thinks. But the images linger in the nearest puddle even as Deacon trails off into the distance, making it clear who the common denominator is, and now comprehension begins to dawn--partly just because the ginger man keeps reoccurring, partly because some of his mannerisms are beginning to look familiar.

Even the woman almost rings a bell, if only in the way she faintly echoes Danse's own reflection in her coloration and the shape of her eyes. He doesn't have time to dwell on that, and he wouldn't let himself anyway. He's able to regain his footing now, and he stands up, noting with great relief that there is a just-about-wearable boiler suit hanging on the wall now that they must be nearing the actual boiler room. He won't want to keep the nasty thing, but it'll do for now.

The pictures continue to play out as he puts it on, no matter how far Deacon has receded down the corridor now. The farm is the kind of quiet idyll Danse wouldn't have expected a man with so many wild stories to want any part of. The injuries might seem incongruous with the rest of the tender scene if he hadn't just watched this same man inflict ones like them on others. It's not so hard to put the pieces together into a fuller mental picture now, nor does it take Danse long to catch up with Deacon once he's dressed again.

He just doesn't actually know what to say. For all his newfound unease, he doesn't know if anything needs to be said. He can't forget what he's seen, but...what right does he really have to demand answers?

"Just respect my intelligence enough to stop saying that isn't you," he lands on, finally.

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