This is old, and but I still really love it for some reason. Back when I was still trying to nail down Kat’s personality and relationships. I ended up not using Deacon at all in the final product, but he was actually in the running for a while there. I just ended up having to leave him on the cutting room floor.
I’ll admit, I did not like Deacon at first. I have no proclivity towards liars, in fact that’s one of the number one ways to piss me off is to lie to or try to swindle me. But, while writing this, it just kinda flowed out of me and I’ll admit, I came around on Deacon a little bit. At least enough to where, like Kat, I feel like I could give him another chance.
*
The Tangled Web We Weave
(Deacon x Kat)
(A short FO4 Vignette.)
*
*
It was unclear who had actually put Deacon in charge of sick duty.
Probably no one—which was precisely the issue.
Kat had been running a low-grade fever for two days, holed up in a dusty corner room at Railroad HQ, draped in a too-thin blanket and stubbornly muttering that she didn’t need help. So naturally, he had stepped in. Heroically. Unexpectedly. Unsolicited.
He sat backwards in a wooden chair next to her cot, arms crossed over the backrest, wearing his mirrored sunglasses indoors as always. A can labeled “Maybe Stew” steamed precariously on a cracked plate beside him. The smell could generously be described as ambiguous.
Deacon flipped open a worn paperback novel and cleared his throat with exaggerated ceremony. “Chapter twelve. ‘His glistening chest heaved in the moonlight as he—’”
“Deacon,” Kat groaned, voice hoarse, one arm flopping over her eyes. “What the hell…”
“Shh, no talking,” he chided gently. “You’re in a fragile state, Nurse Witherspoon. You need rest, fluids, and the dulcet tones of terrible literature. It’s medically sound. I read a pamphlet.”
“You made that pamphlet,” she rasped.
He flipped a page with flair. “And I stand by every word.”
Kat exhaled, but it came out more like a wheeze. Her skin looked clammy, her breathing shallow, and despite the banter, Deacon’s smile faded just a little.
“You know,” he said, tone light but steady, “jokes aside—you ever stop being tough for five seconds and tell someone when you’re not okay? Or is this your signature move?”
Kat grunted but didn’t reply.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no comment,’” he said, reaching over to gently press the back of his hand to her forehead. “Yup. Still radiating like a malfunctioning Mr. Handy. Stay put. I’ll go find something less suspicious than Maybe Stew.”
He stood with a rustle of his coat, tossing the paperback on her chest. “Bookmark’s on the good part. Try not to swoon too hard while I’m gone.”
Kat grimaced and flicked the book off her chest, brushing the imagined filth off her fingers. She wanted to go home—back to Diamond City. She wanted her bed. She wanted Dogmeat. She wanted Nick or Piper…someone warm whom she trusted. But ever since she got back from the escort mission at Bunker Hill, she’d been running a fever—nothing major, only about 101, but enough to make her miserable, and enough that Doc Carrington and Desdemona both had forbade her from leaving until she had recovered. “For the sake of the mission,” they’d claimed.
Ridiculous.
Deacon returned a few minutes later with something vaguely resembling tea—though, judging by the color, it might’ve also been mop water.
“Good news,” he said, crouching beside the cot with a stage-whisper. “I found a mug that only smells mildly like radroach jerky. That’s a win down here.”
Kat eyed the cup with suspicion.
“Before you ask,” he added, “no, I didn’t make this. Glory did. Which means it probably won’t kill you. Only maim you a little. You trust Glory, right?”
Kat didn’t answer. Just took the mug and sniffed it cautiously. Chamomile. Mint. A hint of something floral. Okay, maybe not mop water.
“You’re lucky, you know,” Deacon added, sitting down again, this time on the floor, back against the cot. “Most people don’t get bedrest and tea. They get a concoction of chems and some old bandages. This? This is the Railroad’s five-star spa package.”
Kat sipped quietly. Her hands still trembled a little. The heat of the tea helped though. Slowly. Marginally.
“You don’t talk much when you’re sick,” Deacon mused aloud, not quite teasing anymore. “It’s weird. Kinda eerie.”
Kat snorted softly. “And you never shut up. It balances.”
He grinned. “Touché.”
There was a pause—comfortable, almost—and then Deacon leaned his head back against the cot frame. His voice dropped, just a fraction. “You know, if you wanted out… no one would blame you. Not after all you’ve already done.”
Kat was silent for a long moment. Then, quiet as a whisper, “I don’t want out. I just… I want to go home.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I get that.”
And for once, Deacon didn’t joke. Didn’t dodge. Just stayed there on the floor beside her, still as the air, until the sound of her breathing softened back into sleep.
Once he was sure she was out, Deacon pulled off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes tiredly with the opposite hand. He liked Kat—he did. There was a sort of magnetic genuineness about her. But every time he tried to get close, bridge that gap of friendship, she would slam shut. It was his fault. He knew that. She wasn’t like this with anyone else. He’d watched her from the shadows long enough by now to know that for sure. If only he could just stop lying.
He stared at her sleeping form for a long time, the shadows of the catwalks above striping across her face in the low flicker of bunker light. Her breath hitched once in her sleep—a tiny, shivering noise—and he felt something twist in his chest.
Goddammit, he thought. Why do you have to make this so hard?
He wished he could tell her the truth—any truth. That he’d been watching her even before she joined up. That he’d been impressed. That he’d admired her—still did. That the lies had nothing to do with her, they were just… part of him. The scaffolding that kept the whole thing standing.
But that scaffolding had cracks now.
Every time she let her guard down—even just an inch like this—it felt like a sin not to meet her there. But the only thing he knew how to do was duck and cover, play the part, spin a new tale when the old one got too close.
He leaned forward, carefully tugging the blanket back up over her shoulder, tucking it gently beneath her chin.
“…Sorry,” he whispered, though she couldn’t hear him. “I really am.”
Then he stood up, slid his sunglasses back on like armor, and turned to go.
The quiet scraped at his nerves on the way out. Too honest. Too still.
And for a long moment, he hated himself more than usual.
Some time later, Kat stirred. The chill of the old catacombs under the church seeping into her bones in a way that the thread-bare blanket couldn’t block out. The vague scent of over-applied cologne still hovered in the air near the edge of the bed. Deacon.
Her eyes shifted down to the book that still lay strewn onto the floor, well worn, spine cracked and faded, pages dog-eared and yellowed. Deacon had been here, but he hadn’t taken it back. He always carried a book or two around with him—she’d overheard Desdemona complain about it, claim that they were a distraction and that he wasn’t paying enough attention on his recon missions. “Trust me, Des,” he’d replied, “Me reading these crappy romance novels is the least of your problems out there.”
Kat pushed herself off the bed, still a bit lightheaded and groggy, but picked up the discarded book from the floor. Then she headed out to find Deacon.
She found him near the top of the church, seated on a broken section of pew that faced the window slats. The morning light spilled in through the cracks, brushing gold across the lines of his jacket. He hadn’t heard her approach—or if he had, he didn’t show it. His sunglasses were back on, one arm resting lazily across his knee, the other draped along the backrest like he belonged there.
Kat held out the book, spine-up, one dog-eared page marked with a strip of cloth.
“You forgot this,” she said, voice still hoarse.
Deacon turned toward her, slow and careful, like he wasn’t sure if she was real. His eyes flicked down to the book and then back up to her face. He didn’t take it right away.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” he said, his voice quieter than usual.
“I’ll live,” she replied.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he muttered.
Kat furrowed her brow, but didn’t press. She waited.
Deacon finally took the book from her fingers, but instead of tucking it away, he turned it over in his hands. “Y’know,” he said, “it’s funny. In this one, the guy spends half the story pushing the girl away to ‘protect her.’ Says he’s not good for her. Too much of a risk. Too many secrets.”
He looked back up at her. “She forgives him anyway. Because she already knew.”
The pause that followed hung heavy with words that neither of them said.
“Yeah,” Kat finally replied, sitting down stiffly next to him on the pew and crossing her arms tightly over her midsection, partly from the chill, partly because she didn’t know what else to do with them. “Doesn’t mean he should keep lying to her, though. How’s she supposed to know if he actually cares if he can’t even tell her one basic truth?”
Deacon didn’t speak at first, just tapped the spine of the book thoughtfully against his palm. “Yeah…” he finally sighed. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”
They both sat silent for another beat. “You ever tell yourself a lie so many times…you start forgetting what’s real?”
Kat’s brow furrowed. Her jaw tightened, hearing Nate’s voice on that holotape again in her head. “No,” she finally mumbled quietly. “But I once knew someone that did.”
Deacon nodded once, quiet, the movement more tired than solemn. He didn’t respond right away. Instead, he flipped the book open to a random page, stared at it without reading. The paper fluttered slightly in the breeze whispering through the broken windows.
He looked over at her—not the casual side-glance of a man hiding something, but the full weight of him, sunglasses and all, turned her way.
“That’s how it started,” he admitted. “Just survival. Change the face, change the name, spin a new line, don’t let anyone close. But then… I meet you. And you don’t have to lie. You get people to trust you and they just spill their guts.” He went still, staring off into the ruined sanctuary at nothing. “I don’t know how to do that.”
Kat pursed her lips as she thought about how to reply. She was quiet for a long time. “Lies are a slippery slope,” she finally said. “You tell yourself ‘just this once,’ or ‘it’s for the greater good.’ But then one becomes two, then two becomes four, then the next thing you know you’re so tied up in all of it you don’t even know where it all started.” She went silent again, fighting against a small chill.
Deacon didn’t interrupt her. He just sat there, letting her words settle like dust in the fractured silence between them. After a while, he nodded again. “Yeah,” he said, soft. “That’s exactly it. You don’t even notice the ground’s gone until you’re already halfway down the cliff.”
He shifted slightly, just enough to peel off his coat. Wordlessly, he draped it over Kat’s shoulders—not too forceful, not too tender, just a casual, practiced motion. It still held a trace of his cheap cologne and faint dust from the road, but it was warm. Heavy in a comforting sort of way.
“I’m not trying to weasel out of anything. Not this time,” he added, voice low. “I just… don’t know how to start climbing back up.”
Then, after a pause, he gave her a wry smile. “Figure maybe this time I could stop talking long enough to listen. You think you could tell me where to put the first foothold?”
Kat pulled the coat closer, for once not outright rejecting Deacon’s offer. “Well, I guess you could start with something small. Something insignificant. Like your favorite color.”
Deacon huffed a surprised little laugh through his nose, the kind that sounded almost too genuine for him. “Favorite color, huh? That’s your idea of a first foothold?”
Kat didn’t answer. She just looked at him, quiet, intense, waiting.
He stared down at the book in his hands again, thumb running idly along the cracked spine. Then, without any drama, he said, “Green.”
Kat blinked. “Green?”
Deacon shrugged. “Not, like, neon-green. I mean that deep green you only ever see in pre-war photos. Forest green, maybe. Used to be this ratty old jacket outside Fallon’s Basement in Diamond City—faded to hell, but every time I passed it, I stopped. Stared like a sucker. Don’t even know why.” He chuckled. “Maybe because it reminded me of something I forgot.”
Kat smiled faintly. “That wasn’t so hard.”
“Don’t let it go to your head, Nurse Witherspoon.” He leaned back against the pew, arms crossing lazily behind his head. “Next thing you know, you’ll be asking for my real name.”
Kat shrugged limply. “Wasn’t planning on it.”
That caught him off guard.
She looked back out over the dark corridor leading back into the catacombs. “But maybe one day I’ll ask for your second-favorite color.”
Deacon scoffed a small laugh. “Woah, now you’re just going too fast, at least buy me dinner first.” Despite the joke his face seemed to harden. “In all seriousness though, you should probably go back downstairs; you’re going pale—still seem a bit feverish.”
Kat gave him a sidelong look, part suspicious, part amused. “You calling me pale, or just trying to change the subject?”
Deacon raised both hands in mock innocence. “Hey, not trying to weasel out of anything. Just trying to keep you from keeling over again.”
She groaned faintly and rubbed at her temples. “Yeah, yeah… maybe I am a little dizzy.”
“A little dizzy?” Deacon stood, setting the book gently on the bench and holding a hand out to her. “You look like you’d pass out just from trying to stand up too fast. Come on, back to the cot. I promise not to steal your boots while you’re unconscious.”
Kat smirked weakly but took his hand. “How very noble of you.”
“Honor among thieves, right?” he said, helping her up carefully. As she leaned into him, still a little shaky, he muttered under his breath, “Can’t lose you now, Witherspoon. We’d all be screwed.”
She didn’t say anything, but her grip tightened slightly on his arm. Just for a moment.
