oo what abt deacon and male!sole angst?? like one of them gets badly hurt or smth? tbh anything with deacon/m!sole and i would cry bc ur writing is a++
(tried my best here but i don’t think it went too well) (not 2 gd with m!ss as i’ve only played with f!ss thus far) (also i wasn’t sure if u wanted a romantic thing or a platonic thing) (sorry if it was the latter) (it means a lot that u like my writing tho btw x u cute x lets get married x)
Deacon is the king of pep talks. He’s everywhere, tending to every potential worry with his charismatic words. He even takes up the stereotypical position behind Sole and massages his shoulders as if he’s about to go twelve rounds with a supermutant.
“You’ve got this. Odds are all yours. Knock ‘em dead. Maybe not literally though, can’t imagine that going down too well,” he tells Sole as he works out a knot between their shoulder blades. His demeanour is light, as if the gravity of the situation doesn’t affect him, and to be honest it lends Sole a sort of buoyancy as well.
Even as Desdemona approaches the pair, expression gaunt and shadowed by an equally harrowed Tom, Deacon continues his motivational theatrics, “Your back feels pretty good by the way. You been working out tiger? Might have to share your workout plan with me sometime, I’m sure I can keep up.”
Sole indulges in a gravelly chuckle, gaze dipping down to the floor for the briefest of seconds as if bashful, before asserting himself correctly in front of Desdemona. She’s smoking a cigarette so ferociously he feels a jovial atmosphere will quickly be stubbed out if he tries to maintain one. As far as she’s concerned this is no laughing matter.
“The Molecular Relay is ready. Tom says you just need to stand on the stabilised reflector platform and he’ll handle the rest.”
Sole notices the gazes of all at Mercer Safehouse for the first time since Deacon swanned over to him. Wrapped up in sunglasses and wry smiles its easy to forget you’re not the only person in the world. They all stare apprehensively, especially the Caretaker, who barely manages to gesture in an attempt at encouragement. The anxiety, a parasitic, breathable dust, almost settles on Sole’s shoulders. He clenches his jaw, runs a hand over it, thinks (of all things) that he probably needs to shave, and then Deacon’s fist collides with his upper arm, dispelling any looming disquiet.
“That’s what guys do right? Encouraging sports guys?” Sole can’t see, but behind Deacon’s shades and athletic facade, a careful attention to the clenching and unclenching of Sole’s jaw is happening. Deacon feels bad spoiling himself with such aesthetic pleasures at such a critical moment but he can’t help it, he’s only human. He hopes Sole doesn’t shave too closely when that next occurs.
Sole lets out that tantalising chuckle again, shaking is head as if in disbelief that Deacon really can uphold this impelling humour in spite of the gaunt surroundings. Of course he can though. Putting on acts is what Deacon does. To a certain degree, realising this puts Sole out a bit. For a moment he shares Desdemona’s tension. He wants Deacon to level with him, or at least to be able to level with Deacon, if only for a second, just before he leaves.
“Don’t miss me too much,” comes Sole’s forcibly languid reply. He says it as a joke, but the growing sense of dread in his abdomen laces the statement with truth. Or is it truth? Conflict flares up in Sole’s mind as if he really needed it to right now. Deacon has indirectly done it again. Pervaded the instant, when Sole’s thoughts really should be on other things. This rights him to a certain degree. His sudden focus is tangible, focus on The Institute and his son. No time for distractions anymore, regardless of how enticing they can be sometimes.
Sole steps onto the platform. Minus Deacon’s motivational charade the doubts are eating him alive. He’s worried about his son. He’s worried he’s too late. He’s worried this wont work. He’s worried he hasn’t been centred enough on the task at hand. What if he’s let Shaun down? Nora would be so disappointed. With this final musing Sole can’t help but pick Deacon out from the gathered crowd of spectators; conscience has taken this opportunity to strike Sole at his most vulnerable. God. His poor wife. God. Deacon looks good in a white t-shirt.
Amidst the mental fog, Tom had started the machine up, Sole hadn’t even noticed. He starts unraveling, at least thats what it feels like, turning loose and seasick. Deacon is the last thing he hears, aptly enough.
“You better come back in one piece.”
Things like this, Deacon finds, are always anticlimactic. The machine starts up, whirrs and cackles at his concern, and then there is blue, and then Sole is gone, simple as that. It’s the absence that strikes him, strikes everyone at Mercer Safehouse. The lack of noise. The Molecular Relay seems more like it has removed a presence from the fabric of the universe, as opposed to just relocating it. Then it sinks it that it might not even have worked. Sole might just be scattered particles right now, at one with the radioactive haze.
And, in the face of morality, all Deacon can think about is the cling of the vault suit to Sole’s body. The definition it lent to his biceps. That damn jaw.
If he betrays himself however, Deacon knows it’s not just this. Let the lies go, the showboating go, and Deacon knows he’s missing all of the stuff beneath Sole’s surface as well. The determination, the tenacious attitude that led to the Molecular Relay’s creation in the first place, the refusal to give up on someone he loved, even when it wasn’t a certainty. Hell, even his sense of humour. The truth is always overwhelmingly powerful, Deacon finds, so he puts those thoughts to be almost as soon as they arise, because with them comes the painful niggle of guilt. Not only is he betraying all his efforts to maintain the nothingness requisite of espionage, he’s also betraying his memories of, and promises to, Barbara.
P.A.M couldn’t account for the outlier of Vault 111, and apparently he can’t either. It makes Deacon feel uneasy, but in a good way and a bad way all at once.
He lets himself slump onto one of the tatty Mercer Safehouse sofas, sunglasses permitting no reads from any of the other nervous gatherers. The only person who catches onto his heavy exhale above the chattering of everyone else is Desdemona, who sends an inquisitive look his way.
“One way ticket huh? Pretty bum deal. No wonder the Railroad doesn’t branch into actual tourism,” Deacon fires back an evasive pun, reclining as he does so such that now his arms are behind his head. Oozing confidence but masking nerves.
Deacon stays at Mercer Safehouse from that point. The rest of The Railroad agents dissipate back to their usual locations, and Deacon still works, but he sleeps here, the Molecular Relay never far out of his sights. If Sole does materialise again, none of them know if it will even be back here, Deacon simply figures its his best bet.
He thinks a lot. He thinks about The Institute, and whether or not Sole found his son. Perhaps he’s been taken hostage. He thinks about Sole straying from the freedom trail and siding with the shadowy organisation and that being the reason for him not returning, something that makes his stomach wrench. And then the wrench usually turns into a yearn. A yearn that trails between his hips. Quickly dispatched by the thought that they really did die.
The lumps in Deacon’s mattress accumulate as everything he never got to say to Sole slowly mounts up as the days go by. Nightly, a new one is added. Deacon frets restlessly that he has forgotten what they sound like. In his dreams Barbara gets further away. He always wakes up exhausted, the divergence tearing him apart from the inside. It was alright when Sole was still here, he could steal glances, hear replies, Deacon could get by on those rations, lie to himself that the thing between them wasn’t really a thing. To a certain extent it wasn’t, they both had their right hands shackled by grief, but things that were there become so much more obvious when they get removed.Deacon honestly, genuinely, spends his days hoping that Sole is okay. He doesn’t want his left hand to be shackled by that familiarly morose jailor as well.
Sometimes he gets drunk. He splits a bottle of whiskey with The Caretaker at Mercer, shouts at the Molecular Relay, tells the guy how much he misses his wife, speaks about getting a new face; it never amounts to anything. Slowly, Deacon becomes more and more hollow. His jokes transparent, his disguises terrifyingly convincing. To The Railroad, Deacon appears to be losing his actual among a self-inflicted cocoon of lying.
He doesn’t even know how many weeks have gone by or what day it is when he gets a message from Desdemona. It only has three words on it.
Deacon remembers what day it is. It is Wednesday. Sole is back aren’t they? Surely? What else could be this important?
As he sets off from Mercer Safehouse without so much as a second though, Deacon pleads with logic that this isn’t another lie he’s telling himself, that this time his hopes aren’t unfounded, that karma has finally been paid its dues and will stop taking from him.
Karma doesn’t quite work like that though does it?
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