Work Text:
Cece styles himself in inconvenient ways that get in the way of his work. Instead of something more fitting, like a mechanic’s jumpsuit or even just a pair of jeans and a shirt, Cece works in skirts and dresses, cardigans and vests, blouses and scarves. His clothes are set with buttons and slits so that he can easily pin loose parts. He wears pants and undershirts beneath his clothes to keep himself decent when he inevitably needs to hike up a skirt or shrug off long sleeves. Danse knows that Celeste dressed in loose feminine styles before the War, and it was only out of practicality for combat that he stopped. With Celeste’s pre-War memories so fresh in his head, Cece is clearly dressing the way Celeste wants to. The problem is that Cece never properly outfits himself for the myriad of intensive labor he performs around the Castle.
It drives Danse mildly insane. He just can’t understand why Cece goes so far to do it.
“Ow,” Cece says, accidentally pricking himself with the safety pin he was using to keep a towel attached to his skirt. He makes an annoyed noise in his throat, and sucks on the pad of his thumb to staunch the bleeding.
“Why do you do that?” Danse asks, finally unable to stop himself. Cece’s head snaps up.
“Hm?”
“Your clothes. You wear such... impractical clothing for your work. You go out of your way to do it too, so that you can still work in such clothing. Why?”
“I like wearing it. If you’re worried that I’m ruining good clothes, these aren’t made from delicate fabric.”
“That was not my concern. You are hampering your own range of motion and creating inconveniences for yourself. That can be unsafe.”
“I know better than to wear long sleeves when working with machinery,” Cece counters, annoyance slowly gracing his brow. “Why are you so bothered by it?”
“Your safety—”
“Danse. I appreciate that you’re looking out for me, but I know what I’m doing, ok? I don’t wear anything dangerous for the work I’m doing. It’s not the end of the world if I have to tie my skirt around my waist to check the fish traps.”
“But you don’t need to do that. You can wear something more comfortable.”
The irritation shifts quickly into a scowl.
“I am wearing something more comfortable.”
Cece stalks off with his skirt fluttering against his calves, work boots stomping on the floor.
Celeste walks around in a loose skirt and soft cotton blouse on days when there’s not much work to be done. He looks much happier this way; maybe it’s because he’s relaxing, or maybe he feels better wearing what he wants to. Personally, Danse doesn’t understand the appeal of appearing so feminine as a man, but that falls squarely into the realms of “not his business” and “not his concern.” It doesn’t matter how Celeste dresses, not when he can bark military commands or put a knife between a raider’s ribs all the same. When Danse approaches Celeste today, he’s wearing the same skirt Cece was wearing when Danse asked about impractical clothing. What a weird coincidence.
Celeste smiles in that worn-down, withdrawn way that he does to all of his friends. He’s still learning how to actually open up to people, but at least he doesn’t mask his sadness when it comes. Danse still isn’t sure how to talk to Celeste, despite the time they’ve known each other. He’s sympathetic to Celeste in that regard; being unable to truly trust anyone had left him alone, and being alone meant there was nobody to dissuade him from his own self-assured ideas. That aside, though, Danse has an important question.
“Can I ask a somewhat personal question? It’s... to understand Cece better.”
“Sure. What happened?”
Of course Celeste knows that something happened. Then again, most questions he fields about Cece are probably the result of something happening.
“I was concerned about his choice of clothing. He’s reluctant to wear anything more suitable for his work, even if it inconveniences him.” Danse pauses as Celeste watches him in confusion, but Celeste motions for him to continue. “I upset him yesterday when I asked him why he didn’t wear something more comfortable.”
“This is more comfortable,” Celeste replies, predictably.
“Yes, he said that yesterday. I suppose what I’m trying to understand is why he is so resistant to other clothing. You’ve changed your appearance as needed, but Cece seems hostile to the idea.”
Celeste sits up, swinging his legs off of the wooden pool lounger that he had dragged into the Castle’s courtyard a little while ago. Danse senses a long explanation coming, and sits down on an adjacent lounger to listen.
“I think he associates dressing ‘practically’ for the wasteland with being like me,” Celeste says, leaning forward with his forearms on his knees. “He doesn’t want to be me. He wants to be like the Celeste before the bombs, who knew his own shortcomings much better and was trying to do something to fix them. He sees me wearing road leathers and combat armor, and it just reminds him of why I ended up like this.”
“That isn’t a fair assessment to make.”
“Maybe not. But I changed to fit the wasteland, from the way I dress to the way I talk to the way I think. And if it changed me, it can change him too,” Celeste continues. “Think about it. Everything he hates about me is a result of the bombs, the vault, Kellogg, the Institute, the wasteland. The way I look is just a visual representation of all of that to him. He doesn’t want to be like me now. He wants to be who I was before, and I don’t blame him for being afraid.”
“Does clothing truly affect one’s thoughts so strongly?” Danse asks, and Celeste actually lets out a short laugh.
“Danse. I hate wearing just pants. I know it doesn’t seem like I care, but I honestly don’t like it. Have you ever noticed how I wrap clothes around my waist a lot when I’m in jeans?”
“I have, but I assumed you preferred to have a jacket on hand.”
“That too, but it’s also because I want something loose around me. I just feel better with it that way. Don’t ask me why, because I couldn’t explain it if my life depended on it.”
“I can’t say that this makes much sense to me,” Danse replies, trying to wrap his head around the explanation.
“How he feels about himself is probably much more important to him than any amount of inconvenience he has to deal with. I used to put up with blisters, sock glue, and sore feet just so I could get the look I wanted for my shoes. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter how annoyed I was about it because I got to look the way I wanted to. His priorities for what makes him comfortable just happen to be different from yours.”
“Regardless, this seems to be a source of frequent inconvenience for Cece. I imagine nothing will change his mind, but I’d like to help him.”
“Yeah, me too. I don’t think he’ll accept any help from me, though,” Celeste sighs, stretching his arms and back briefly by reaching for his toes.
Danse thinks. He’s certainly not going to change Cece’s mind, so that option is out. He could offer to swap jobs with Cece, but most of Danse’s work consists of guard duty and mechanical fixes. Letting Cece go without any work would probably drive the synth up the wall and he would end up demanding a job again.
“I think you should just leave him be, Danse. He’s not going to change his mind.” Celeste smiles. “I would know. I still can’t believe Maxson called me out on being inflexible, though. There’s someone who really has no right to get into that with me...”
Celeste continues rambling about the incident where he and Maxson argued about the other being too stubborn, but Danse isn’t fully listening anymore. The word inflexible sticks to a part of his brain, and he lets his thinking grow around it.
“Hey, Cece! You got a present!”
Cece turns away from his chemistry workset at the sound of Deacon’s voice coming from outside, deeply confused. Nobody would send him presents other than one specific person, and Cece refuses to accept anything from said person.
“Celeste knows better than to give me anything,” he calls back, wiping his hands on his apron as Deacon barrels through the open front door of Cece’s tiny apartment in the middle of the Castle. “Slow down, for god’s sake. You’ll roll your ankle doing that.”
“Come on, is that any way to treat your favorite Railroad agent?”
“My favorite Railroad agent is Tinker Tom.”
“Oh, ouch.” Deacon mimes stabbing a knife into his heart as Cece smiles at him sarcastically, clutching his chest as he falls to his knees dramatically. Whatever the present is, it’s still under Deacon’s arm.
“Come on, quit fooling around on the floor. I’m covering a guard shift tonight, and I want to finish making stimpaks before that.”
“They got you on guard duty?” Deacon finally stops pretending to die on the floor, fixing his sunglasses.
“Danse went with a caravan headed to Diamond City. He asked me if I could cover his shift, and I said yes.”
“I wonder if that has anything to do with him asking me to get this to you as fast as humanly possible, then,” Deacon replies, and holds out a package wrapped in newspaper and tied closed with twine. Cece takes it suspiciously. “Maybe he got you a new gun?”
“I doubt it. He just modded a laser rifle for me. More importantly, why did Danse ask you to deliver something when I saw him quite literally two days ago before he left?”
“Oh, this is Tom’s handiwork. I have no idea what it is, and Tom said that if I peeked he would know. So, uh, y’know. I’m pretty sure he’s put a camera in here or something.”
“Or he just tied it in a complicated way to make it obvious if you peeked.”
Cece divests the package of its wrapping, and finds a box with the Fallon’s Department Store logo printed on the lid in faded ink. Deacon looks at him, and he looks at Deacon. Deacon makes a motion for him to go on. The repurposed lid comes off, revealing a piece of paper on top of what looks to be folded clothing. The note reads:
Cece,
I know that I cannot change how you feel, but I also cannot change how I worry. I hope that this gift is an acceptable expression of my care for your well-being.
— Danse
“Yeah, Danse wrote that alright,” Deacon says, reading the note over Cece’s shoulder. Cece glances at him with an annoyed look. “But what’s the actual gift?”
The clothing comes out of the box, and they discover that it’s a three-piece outfit. There’s a white long-sleeve blouse with flowers stitched along the front buttons, accompanied by a purple knee-length skirt and a black beret decorated with a purple bow. Something about the cloth feels weightier, and Cece flips the skirt’s waist to find an inner lining sewn into the cloth. The blouse and beret are the same.
“Ballistic weave,” Cece realizes out loud. Deacon whistles.
“A full outfit, too! Is he trying to impress you or something?”
Cece doesn’t answer. He thinks of how he can go without heavy thigh and chest armor now, and how much easier it’ll be to move around. He thinks of how his black combat boots will match the beret. He thinks of how he’ll be able to stand at the entrance of the Castle, visible to everyone who passes through, and look exactly the way he wants to.
“More comfortable, huh,” he says. “Deacon, turn around. I’m putting this on.”
“Hey, what happened to the stimpaks?” asks Deacon, who does as he’s told. Cece sets the box on his bedside dresser.
“I lied. I just wanted to get you off of my floor.”
“Damn. And I believed you, too.”
Laser muskets don’t make for very good stealth weapons. Lasers are already very conspicuous (visible for miles around, given the right conditions), and the transparent barrel means that they give off a low glow giving away its user’s position easily. Thankfully, Minutemen don’t usually find themselves setting up ambushes or sneaking up on enemies, and the distinctive weapons make them easy to identify as allies. The sight of them is comforting as Danse approaches the Castle, walking next to a caravan brahmin with his rifle held low. If he squints, he can see who is assigned to the front guard.
Actually, he doesn’t need to squint. There aren’t many who wear berets at the Castle, and Danse can easily tell that Ronnie isn’t at the gates.
“Hi. Did you have any trouble out there?” Cece casually asks Danse once within speaking distance, despite looking as though he might vibrate out of his skin in excitement. He fidgets with a light scarf wrapped around his neck.
“Nothing of concern, other than the usual gunfire between raiders and Diamond City security.” Danse does a once-over from head to toe of Cece’s outfit, and reminds himself to thank Tinker Tom again. “I hope my package made it to you in time.”
“Yup, Deacon ran it to me. Literally, he ran through my front door with it then pretended to die on the floor when I said he wasn’t my favorite Railroad agent.”
“That sounds in-character for him.”
“Of course. He’s never known how to do anything normally in his whole life,” Cece declares confidently. He has only known Deacon for a few months. “But, yes, it made it to me just in time for me to take over your guard shifts.”
Cece’s hand leaves the scarf and he grasps the edge of his skirt, fluttering it back and forth.
“I like it. Thanks for looking out for me.”
“You’re very welcome,” Danse chuckles. “I hope that it serves you well.”
“It already has.”
Cece unbuttons the cuff of his blouse and rolls his sleeve up, showing off a yellowed, healing bruise on his left forearm. That wasn’t there when Danse left the Castle.
“A raider charged me with a knife, and I blocked with my arm out of instinct. You should have seen the look on his face when it bounced right off.”
Danse has mixed feelings, seeing the injury. He isn’t too keen on seeing the proof of the danger Cece was in, but he feels satisfied that the ballistic weave did its job well enough as to only leave a bruise. Cece covers the injury back up, seemingly sensing Danse’s thoughts.
“Hey, Danse? I know neither of us are... happy with how life has happened for us,” Cece says, greatly understating how either of them feel about their situations. Danse still doesn’t feel as though he has a grasp on how to continue living without the Brotherhood. Cece exists in Celeste’s shadow as a copy of the original, always linked to someone he can hardly stand to be around sometimes. “But things like this make it a little easier. It helps me think that I might be happy with my life, eventually. If there’s ever anything I can do for you, please tell me. Don’t be like Celeste and do things on your own.”
Of course Cece manages to sneak in another jab. That doesn’t make the advice any less genuine or accurate, and Danse can’t help but smile.
“Quit flirtin’ and get to unloadin’!” an irritated voice rings out. Danse can feel his face go red immediately, but Cece spins around in indignation.
“Jealousy is a bad look, asshole!” he shouts back toward the courtyard, eliciting laughter from the other Minutemen posted at the entrance.
“I— I’m not trying to— I didn’t mean to—” Danse splutters when Cece looks at him again. Cece just sighs.
“Yeah, I know. You should probably get inside before someone starts a stupid rumor.”
Danse does as he’s advised, but he sneaks one last glance over his shoulder before the doors close. One of the guards leans in to say something to Cece, who adjusts his beret before very loudly asking the Minuteman if they know what happens to people who poke bears.