"only this colder air between us," dollhouse, topher/adelle, r [for help_haiti]
Title: only this colder air between us
Author: allthingsholy
Rating: R
Notes: Written for help_haiti's fandom auction for juniperlane. Epitaph One compliant, with spoilers through all Dollhouse eps but the series finale. Thanks to fujiidom and dashakay for the betas. Title from "I Don't Fear Death" by Sandra Beasley.
[Interruption to say: If you feel like helping the world and donating to Haiti, I am still accepting lightening round prompts here. $1/100 words. Many fandoms.]
----
It takes very little time to destroy the world, she finds. Just as spring slides into summer, the world explodes around them, and by fall the fight is almost waning. It's no use trying to stop it, so she doesn't even try. She has never much been one for lost and sentimental causes, and her powers of self-preservation are well-honed.
She takes to the Dollhouse because it's where it all began, and she knows how to rule these walls and hallways. She finds the necessary amenities already stocked and waiting: food, medicine, weapons. It was built to be a hidden fortress, and she's relying on it now to prove more useful than it once was. She can protect herself here. She can protect all of them here, she thinks, but even as the words form in her mind, she knows she's wrong.
--
The tech spreads like a wildfire. They keep a radio going just long enough to realize it's not safe, but by then the world's all static anyway.
When Asia goes, Topher locks himself in the bathroom for hours. She sits in a chair beside the door and flips through Dickens and waits. Then South America is an abyss, Europe a war zone. L.A. is a nightmare. Topher remains locked inside for days, no food, no company, no solace. There is nothing but silence, and grief, and regret. There are riots around the world, and the people are all programmed, and she flips through the classics, and she waits.
--
Topher does not get better with time. The Dollhouse is small when it is your whole world, and Adelle does not take to it with ease. Topher is worse, frantic and caged. He has his good days and his bad days, and on the worst of them she thinks him almost a child. Then he looks at her with eyes that are weary, and worn, and old, and she remembers. He is not a child, he is just broken.
The Dollhouse always has an air of waiting, of restlessness, and she will not stand for this slow, creeping death. She is one to charge bravely forward, into the onslaught and the oncoming storm, to fortify her lines and rush forth-but.
Topher spends most of his time in his pod, his books and toys and thoughts wrapped tightly around him. He keeps his mind entirely within the walls of his room. He has not forgotten how much damage he can do.
So she stays. Let the others have their circles and prayers and dull, idle hope. She still longs for the fight, yearns to overcome the struggle, but she will not leave.
Topher's hands are bigger than hers, but when he presses them to her back and she tightens her arms around him, he feels so small.
--
They've been here for three years. There is no news of a brighter world above them, and Adelle is not so foolhardy as to hope it's all been fixed. Topher calls her name from over her shoulder, and his voice is more coherent than it's been in a long, long time.
He sits in his pod, elbows braced on his knees, head in his hands, and she lowers herself beside him.
"What would you have done first," he asks, "if you knew you'd be down here forever?"
She furrows her brow, puzzled, and he continues, "I never used to go to the beach. We live in California, and I spent all my time inside. I could've developed a healthy glow."
She sighs with relief. One of his good days, then. As if any day down here can be called that. "Well," she starts, turning to sit beside him, "I never went to Disneyland." He bites back a rough laugh, and then his face twists, pained.
"I could've been a good man," he says, "with a wife and kids and a dog." He turns his face away, but she knows he's crying, and she remembers Ms. Lonelyhearts and Victor, Topher turning Sierra into a playmate. They've both always needed the contact, the connection, but have never been able to find one they didn't make for themselves.
She reaches out to run her fingers along his cheek, a comfort, but he catches her wrist in his hand and gives her a harsh, terrible look. "Adelle, what did we do?" She tightens her jaw then opens her mouth to answer, but he leans forward and cuts her off, his mouth hard and rough against hers.
They are a frenzied mass of skin and bones, and her lips are dry as they press against Topher's shoulder. She hears him gasp once, twice in her ear as her hand slides along his hip, and then he is pulling her toward him, laying kisses along her forehead and threading his fingers through her hair. It is not tender. It is desperate and selfish and sad.
He spreads his hand against her ribs, his fingers fitted into the grooves, against her bones, and then he is laying her back and working himself against her. She arches up into him, demanding and needy, and his palms are rough as they slide against her abdomen and down, lower, pressing against her with warm, wanting hands.
It happens too quickly. They are a flurry of fingers and clothing, their eyes closed and their mouths shut tight, and then he pushes into her with a jerky, fumbling thrust. She is barely wet enough and she hisses against his neck, and it hurts, all over, for a thousand different reasons.
It's a heavy weight to bear, knowing they're the two people who ended the world, and the load gets no lighter when they share it. After, when her orgasm has worked shakily through her, trembling in her belly, her fists, she holds Topher, pressing a kiss to his temple. It is not tender. It does not happen again.
--
Adelle has nightmares. In most of them, she's a doll, wandering around the house with dull, vacant eyes, a pleasant smile on her face. She dreams this almost nightly. It gets less horrible every time.
--
Five years in and very little has changed. They are still waiting for a relief that will not come. Adelle has softened at the edges, but only in the quietest moments, only for the most trusted, needing eyes.
She cares for Topher with the gentleness of a lover, the patience of a mother, the ferocity of a comrade. She never thought it would end this way, that he would be the one beside her when the world fell apart.
In her darkest hours, she finds it amusing just how much they didn't know.
--
She follows Saunders to Topher's office. It is dusty from disuse-they do not come here often. Caroline is downstairs herding everyone to the exits. She says they're heading for salvation but Adelle has never wanted more than to keep on breathing, to keep those around her alive. She doesn't need to save the world.
She does need to get out of the Dollhouse. She knows with certainty that Topher will never get better here, that he will never piece himself back together while he walks these hallways and paces these rooms. It is why she agreed to leave in the first place. It will not be easy, this journey, but she is ready. She has been ready.
Claire pauses just beside the chair, turned away, her back a straight, tense line. "Are you sure?" Adelle asks. It's a formality, this hesitation. They both know how this must end.
Claire's shoulders sag for just a moment, but then she reaches forward for the wedge and slides it into the chair with a firm hand. Her eyes are clear when she turns, taking her seat one last time, and her voice is calm when she says, "Do it."
They made this world, all of them together. She and Topher might shoulder the brunt of the responsibility, but no one here is blameless. No one here is innocent. There is a waiting world above, and she will fight her way through until it kills her. She will keep Topher beside her if she has to drag him bodily through the streets, and she will not let go until they have found their peace, be it safe haven or a gentler version of this hell.
She lays a quick hand on Claire's shoulder as she passes to the computer, and with a few keystrokes, the other woman thrashes and wails. She finally settles and looks up, and asks, "Did I fall asleep?"
Adelle swallows hard and fists her hands beside her. "For a little while."
"Shall I go?"
Adelle turns to leave without replying, and is almost out the door when Whiskey says, "I try to be my best."
Adelle pauses, lowering her eyes. There is a yo-yo on Topher's desk, the head of a plastic figurine sticking out of a half-opened drawer. She knows if she looked, she'd find Bennett's blood still spattered on the wall there, so she turns and walks away.
She does not answer.
She does not look back.
Author: allthingsholy
Rating: R
Notes: Written for help_haiti's fandom auction for juniperlane. Epitaph One compliant, with spoilers through all Dollhouse eps but the series finale. Thanks to fujiidom and dashakay for the betas. Title from "I Don't Fear Death" by Sandra Beasley.
[Interruption to say: If you feel like helping the world and donating to Haiti, I am still accepting lightening round prompts here. $1/100 words. Many fandoms.]
----
It takes very little time to destroy the world, she finds. Just as spring slides into summer, the world explodes around them, and by fall the fight is almost waning. It's no use trying to stop it, so she doesn't even try. She has never much been one for lost and sentimental causes, and her powers of self-preservation are well-honed.
She takes to the Dollhouse because it's where it all began, and she knows how to rule these walls and hallways. She finds the necessary amenities already stocked and waiting: food, medicine, weapons. It was built to be a hidden fortress, and she's relying on it now to prove more useful than it once was. She can protect herself here. She can protect all of them here, she thinks, but even as the words form in her mind, she knows she's wrong.
--
The tech spreads like a wildfire. They keep a radio going just long enough to realize it's not safe, but by then the world's all static anyway.
When Asia goes, Topher locks himself in the bathroom for hours. She sits in a chair beside the door and flips through Dickens and waits. Then South America is an abyss, Europe a war zone. L.A. is a nightmare. Topher remains locked inside for days, no food, no company, no solace. There is nothing but silence, and grief, and regret. There are riots around the world, and the people are all programmed, and she flips through the classics, and she waits.
--
Topher does not get better with time. The Dollhouse is small when it is your whole world, and Adelle does not take to it with ease. Topher is worse, frantic and caged. He has his good days and his bad days, and on the worst of them she thinks him almost a child. Then he looks at her with eyes that are weary, and worn, and old, and she remembers. He is not a child, he is just broken.
The Dollhouse always has an air of waiting, of restlessness, and she will not stand for this slow, creeping death. She is one to charge bravely forward, into the onslaught and the oncoming storm, to fortify her lines and rush forth-but.
Topher spends most of his time in his pod, his books and toys and thoughts wrapped tightly around him. He keeps his mind entirely within the walls of his room. He has not forgotten how much damage he can do.
So she stays. Let the others have their circles and prayers and dull, idle hope. She still longs for the fight, yearns to overcome the struggle, but she will not leave.
Topher's hands are bigger than hers, but when he presses them to her back and she tightens her arms around him, he feels so small.
--
They've been here for three years. There is no news of a brighter world above them, and Adelle is not so foolhardy as to hope it's all been fixed. Topher calls her name from over her shoulder, and his voice is more coherent than it's been in a long, long time.
He sits in his pod, elbows braced on his knees, head in his hands, and she lowers herself beside him.
"What would you have done first," he asks, "if you knew you'd be down here forever?"
She furrows her brow, puzzled, and he continues, "I never used to go to the beach. We live in California, and I spent all my time inside. I could've developed a healthy glow."
She sighs with relief. One of his good days, then. As if any day down here can be called that. "Well," she starts, turning to sit beside him, "I never went to Disneyland." He bites back a rough laugh, and then his face twists, pained.
"I could've been a good man," he says, "with a wife and kids and a dog." He turns his face away, but she knows he's crying, and she remembers Ms. Lonelyhearts and Victor, Topher turning Sierra into a playmate. They've both always needed the contact, the connection, but have never been able to find one they didn't make for themselves.
She reaches out to run her fingers along his cheek, a comfort, but he catches her wrist in his hand and gives her a harsh, terrible look. "Adelle, what did we do?" She tightens her jaw then opens her mouth to answer, but he leans forward and cuts her off, his mouth hard and rough against hers.
They are a frenzied mass of skin and bones, and her lips are dry as they press against Topher's shoulder. She hears him gasp once, twice in her ear as her hand slides along his hip, and then he is pulling her toward him, laying kisses along her forehead and threading his fingers through her hair. It is not tender. It is desperate and selfish and sad.
He spreads his hand against her ribs, his fingers fitted into the grooves, against her bones, and then he is laying her back and working himself against her. She arches up into him, demanding and needy, and his palms are rough as they slide against her abdomen and down, lower, pressing against her with warm, wanting hands.
It happens too quickly. They are a flurry of fingers and clothing, their eyes closed and their mouths shut tight, and then he pushes into her with a jerky, fumbling thrust. She is barely wet enough and she hisses against his neck, and it hurts, all over, for a thousand different reasons.
It's a heavy weight to bear, knowing they're the two people who ended the world, and the load gets no lighter when they share it. After, when her orgasm has worked shakily through her, trembling in her belly, her fists, she holds Topher, pressing a kiss to his temple. It is not tender. It does not happen again.
--
Adelle has nightmares. In most of them, she's a doll, wandering around the house with dull, vacant eyes, a pleasant smile on her face. She dreams this almost nightly. It gets less horrible every time.
--
Five years in and very little has changed. They are still waiting for a relief that will not come. Adelle has softened at the edges, but only in the quietest moments, only for the most trusted, needing eyes.
She cares for Topher with the gentleness of a lover, the patience of a mother, the ferocity of a comrade. She never thought it would end this way, that he would be the one beside her when the world fell apart.
In her darkest hours, she finds it amusing just how much they didn't know.
--
She follows Saunders to Topher's office. It is dusty from disuse-they do not come here often. Caroline is downstairs herding everyone to the exits. She says they're heading for salvation but Adelle has never wanted more than to keep on breathing, to keep those around her alive. She doesn't need to save the world.
She does need to get out of the Dollhouse. She knows with certainty that Topher will never get better here, that he will never piece himself back together while he walks these hallways and paces these rooms. It is why she agreed to leave in the first place. It will not be easy, this journey, but she is ready. She has been ready.
Claire pauses just beside the chair, turned away, her back a straight, tense line. "Are you sure?" Adelle asks. It's a formality, this hesitation. They both know how this must end.
Claire's shoulders sag for just a moment, but then she reaches forward for the wedge and slides it into the chair with a firm hand. Her eyes are clear when she turns, taking her seat one last time, and her voice is calm when she says, "Do it."
They made this world, all of them together. She and Topher might shoulder the brunt of the responsibility, but no one here is blameless. No one here is innocent. There is a waiting world above, and she will fight her way through until it kills her. She will keep Topher beside her if she has to drag him bodily through the streets, and she will not let go until they have found their peace, be it safe haven or a gentler version of this hell.
She lays a quick hand on Claire's shoulder as she passes to the computer, and with a few keystrokes, the other woman thrashes and wails. She finally settles and looks up, and asks, "Did I fall asleep?"
Adelle swallows hard and fists her hands beside her. "For a little while."
"Shall I go?"
Adelle turns to leave without replying, and is almost out the door when Whiskey says, "I try to be my best."
Adelle pauses, lowering her eyes. There is a yo-yo on Topher's desk, the head of a plastic figurine sticking out of a half-opened drawer. She knows if she looked, she'd find Bennett's blood still spattered on the wall there, so she turns and walks away.
She does not answer.
She does not look back.