The thought, though audible, is walled-off enough for Danse not to understand all the reasons why Deacon's thinking it. But he bristles nonetheless at the pity he reads into it. He's not always one to get angry about being pitied, even when it's humiliating, but if there's anyone he won't take it from, it's an agent of the Railroad. His own seething thoughts run in parallel to Deacon's, more accurate than he has any way of possibly knowing.
From the moment I was taken in by the Brotherhood-- he can hear himself imploring Maxson, outside the listening post with Nora standing in front of him and Deacon lurking behind. Taken in, like a stray animal, like any other one of those single-named wastelanders who make up the East Coast Brotherhood's most fanatically loyal bread and butter, whatever rank and title they earn filling that empty starving void where a family name ought to be. Danse was one of dozens of those. Taken in by the Brotherhood, like he remembers being allowed to spend the occasional winter night sleeping on the floor inside a stranger's doorway, in the homeless orphaned trash-picking childhood that never fucking happened.
He'd blamed the Institute for that before he knew better, because in those first chaotic days before he'd thought anything out, it made enough sense to simply blame all of his misfortunes on them like the entire rest of the Commonwealth does. Everything wrong in his life could be attributed to pointless Institute cruelty, whether it made logical sense or not. He'd asked Nora why they couldn't have given him memories of parents, siblings, someone who loved him--why they had to make it all so gnawingly painful and lonely, if it was all made up anyway? He doesn't have any more of an answer to that now that he knows there's someone different to blame.
But he will blame the Railroad for it. And he'll be damned if he lets any one of them, Deacon included, judge him for finding brothers and sisters and elders where they refused to give him even the semblance of those. His thoughts might as well be a fire alarm for how audible they all are, and the way he rubs his temples to try and calm them doesn't actually help.
"You'll be fine, I'm sure. Though you won't have any alternatives to this group if you're not." He gets up, sensing that he's probably just about overstayed his welcome in the would-be safehouse--though if telepathy weren't involved, things might have sailed smoothly a bit longer.
no subject
From the moment I was taken in by the Brotherhood-- he can hear himself imploring Maxson, outside the listening post with Nora standing in front of him and Deacon lurking behind. Taken in, like a stray animal, like any other one of those single-named wastelanders who make up the East Coast Brotherhood's most fanatically loyal bread and butter, whatever rank and title they earn filling that empty starving void where a family name ought to be. Danse was one of dozens of those. Taken in by the Brotherhood, like he remembers being allowed to spend the occasional winter night sleeping on the floor inside a stranger's doorway, in the homeless orphaned trash-picking childhood that never fucking happened.
He'd blamed the Institute for that before he knew better, because in those first chaotic days before he'd thought anything out, it made enough sense to simply blame all of his misfortunes on them like the entire rest of the Commonwealth does. Everything wrong in his life could be attributed to pointless Institute cruelty, whether it made logical sense or not. He'd asked Nora why they couldn't have given him memories of parents, siblings, someone who loved him--why they had to make it all so gnawingly painful and lonely, if it was all made up anyway? He doesn't have any more of an answer to that now that he knows there's someone different to blame.
But he will blame the Railroad for it. And he'll be damned if he lets any one of them, Deacon included, judge him for finding brothers and sisters and elders where they refused to give him even the semblance of those. His thoughts might as well be a fire alarm for how audible they all are, and the way he rubs his temples to try and calm them doesn't actually help.
"You'll be fine, I'm sure. Though you won't have any alternatives to this group if you're not." He gets up, sensing that he's probably just about overstayed his welcome in the would-be safehouse--though if telepathy weren't involved, things might have sailed smoothly a bit longer.