So I didn't want to ship it. Usually this sort of a situation squicks me out. It's still pretty squicky. I realize what a dysfunctional and unhealthy dynamic (I don't even really want to call it a relationship) it is. But this got in my head and it wouldn't go away. So here it is, you win, my flag of defeat; my first Deville fic.
So this came from the thought, as I watching the most recent episode, "What if Neville thought Danny's smile right there was for him?" He clearly sees it, but also doesn't respond the way that he would if he had realized that Danny was smiling about something/someone outside the train. What else is there to smile about on the train? Nothing, just him.
So I'm not very good at this dynamic yet...but something tells me I'll be getting a bit more practice. This also kinda...exploded...a lot. I'd apologize, but I'm not sorry.
Neville remembered trains. They had never been his favorite method of transportation, but he remembered them. The gentle sway-side to side-as the pistons moved was nothing to someone who had spent his college years riding the subway. Danny though...Danny didn't.
Danny was so young before the black out that he might as well not have existed at all. He had no memories of trains or subways, planes or buses. It was a marvel to Neville that he was taking things as calmly as he was; though, he supposed, his Father had probably told him about the world Before. Just because he'd never experienced it didn't mean he hadn't been aware that it had once existed, and might exist again. Even so, Neville suspected that a Danny who had no idea such a thing had ever existed would take the train ride with cool ease. It was how Danny had taken everything Neville had thrown at him since the beginning, and Neville had thrown such a very heavy load.
At least, that's how Danny had taken everything up until yesterday.
"Just shut up."
The Captain's eyes went frosty just from the remembrance. If hitting Danny wouldn't have been an admission of weakness, a response to his taunt, he'd have hit him again right then and there. Popped him right in the jaw.
And that was the problem, wasn't it? That was the problem.
He liked the boy rather too much; he liked hitting the boy rather too much; he should be just a prisoner. An important prisoner, one he had to bring back alive after the fiasco with the good doctor, but just a prisoner nonetheless. And Neville found himself caring about this prisoner a little too much. He got a little too much satisfaction from attempting to break him, a little too much pleasure from telling the boy twisted truths designed to drive despair into his soul. At first, he thought it was just because he was sick of hearing the boy's lip; he was angry at the loss of the lives of his men; and breaking him, momentarily or permanently, would provide the double benefit of getting him to shut up and prevent him from trying to escape. Again.
But the boy didn't break. Not even a little. And so it became a game: how much could he push before things came to a head? And Neville could so push. But Danny just kept on taking it, he just kept on giving back just as good as he got. This eighteen year old kid, holding his own. So naive, so much to learn, but in so many ways Tom's equal. He began to admire the spirit that allowed Danny to hold up against his force.
He should have realized it was a problem the night he was gone. He left instructions that the boy was not to be disturbed, but when he came back he found that someone had taken a step into their little game; cut into their dance; played with pieces that weren't his. Neville could have spat nails when he found out before riding back to camp that morning. This was his game. His and Danny's. No one else had a place in it. Except Monroe, Tom reminded himself. Monroe had to have a place in it; that was not his call to make.
He should have said something when Danny took the matter into his own hands-it wouldn't do for the boy to get the idea that he could threaten militia men without consequence. He knew he should speak. He knew. But watching Danny there, chains wrapped around the neck of the man who had hurt him, glaring defiantly into his eyes, daring him to say he was wrong. Well, he couldn't. In that moment the boy had power, and power was something Neville had come to respect and understand in a post black out world.
That's the moment, he thinks, the moment when he placed his game with the boy above the good of his company, that's the moment he should have known there was a problem. He should have distanced himself right then and there. Placed someone else in charge of the boy. But he didn't.
So Danny and Neville continued their game, and Neville left his men to suffer a twister while he took refuge with the boy, all the while telling himself it was only because the boy was the objective. Only because of orders.
So Danny and Neville continued their game and Neville brought the boy's naïveté to the fore to save his own hide. That was the afternoon that changed everything. Tom, drunk, knowing that his men were dead upstairs. Knowing that he had chosen to save the boy instead. Orders are orders, but this boy, he meant more. He had to mean more.
Danny choosing to save him. Convinced via the stupidest argument, an argument Tom would have tried had the situation not been so desperate. He remembers the betrayal in Danny's eyes when Tom shoved him against that wall. He was almost sorry for that, he didn't make a habit of being rude to people who saved his life, it discouraged them from doing so again, but Danny meant more than that. Neville had already screwed the pooch with the boy's father and now many of his men were dead. "You're more important than you know." It was the only answer he had to give, both to himself and to the boy.
And now Danny looks at him like he's a monster. Danny's own virtue, the virtue that had fallen under the accusation of his Father's blood, had been vindicated in his saving of Tom. Tom's had been proven lacking in his keeping of the boy. How naive Danny is. He doesn't understand that you can be wrong with power, but you can't be right without it.
He feels a vague sense of guilt for convincing the boy to save him against his own best interests. Instincts like that won't serve him well in the future. This time, the instinct had saved Tom's life, but Danny would be better served if he was more like Tom. And so as the boy glared poignant accusatory darts at the back of Tom's head, smirking when Tom indicated he noticed the glaring, Tom plotted. I'm better than you the glares said, more virtuous; a better man. It was this look that grew the anger in Neville's heart. How dare he? How dare the boy assume he was better than Tom when Tom was the one who had caught him? The one who held him in chains? The one who tried to help him become the sort of man he needed to be to survive in this world? The sort of man who understood power, its responsibility and its price? There was no shame in becoming a violent man in today's world. Being a violent man was the only way to survive and Danny would die in Monroe's clutches if he didn't realize that.
Of course, this backslide was Tom's fault. The fault of Tom's twisty untrue words about the boy's Father in the storm cellar. Tom made a point to fix his mistakes. And to pay his debts.
So Danny and Tom danced again, a different dance this time. One of blood and pain. And Tom? He may have enjoyed himself a little too much, but it was for Danny's own good after all. Hadn't everything he'd done been for the betterment and strengthening of the Monroe republic? And didn't Danny-didn't Jason, didn't everyone-deserve to live in a place where neighbor didn't have to kill neighbor? Or rather, where someone else, someone stronger would kill that neighbor for you? And if Tom made Danny stronger while making the Republic stronger? Well, a republic was only as strong as its people. And Tom owed Danny, after all.
So Danny and Tom would play their game, and Danny would grow stronger for it. And one day, Danny would know who to thank for that strength.
Danny had never been on a train. He hadn't seen power like this before save in distant memories, half made of dream. Power like this could keep the people of the republic safe. Tom watched Danny's hidden fascination with the machine and his awe as he realized how fast he was going. This was the growing power of the republic. Maybe Danny would understand now. And out of the corner of his eye Neville saw Danny grinning his direction. And oh, what a smile. That smile, right there, that was why Tom fought. To see that smile on the face of his son, his wife. Tom fought so that others could smile like that. Just seeing it eased a burden Tom had carried for so long he had forgotten it weighed him down.
The grin disappeared, furtive, secret, the moment Neville turned towards him. But that was okay. If Danny could find joy in the sort of power the republic had, the sort of power Neville had, then he was one step closer to understanding how to survive. Learning how to survive, learning the necessity of power, will kill that smile in the end. But this, this is a good first step. And Tom can enjoy the smile while it lasts. Because while he loves to see that smile, you can't smile like that and have the power to prevent someone from knocking it right off your face.
He steps forward, ready to do just that; ready to deliver a taunt about the power of the republic, ready to place another barb under the boy's defenses; ready to strike another blow that will lead to the boy's eventual understanding, when Miles's pet girl child crashes through the door.
Understanding comes, quicker than a snake bite. That smile hadn't been for him, or his philosophy, or Danny's understanding. It had been for this weak useless chit who couldn't follow anyone worth a damn, couldn't lie to save her life, who actually seemed to posses no skills. Who was obviously a better victim for Monroe. People would go to lengths to protect a daughter they wouldn't go to to protect a son. Monroe was getting desperate. He was ready to play hard ball. He would start by killing one. Threats to the other would be too bitter a pill for Rachel to swallow after that. And if he would kill one...it would be Danny. This chit had to die. She had to die for stealing the smile that was rightfully his, she had to die because she was annoying as fuck, she had to die because it would upset Miles, and Lord did he have a bone to pick with that man, but mostly, she had to die so that Danny would live.
Ah, his son. His son understood the price. His son understood wanting to protect precious things. Hadn't he taught his son everything he knew? Game over, girl child.
"I'll kill that bitch."
His thoughts turn melancholy as he watches the girl tumble off the side of the train. Why won't they learn? Why won't either of them accept the price of power? Don't they see it's for their own good? Powerless men don't last long. Not anymore.