Dollhouse Fic: "Fives Times He Realized" (Dominic, R)
Title: Five Times He Realized
Characters/Pairings: Dominic, Topher, Claire, Madeline, Echo, DeWitt, Victor, Sierra, mention of Ballard; Dominic/DeWitt, Victor/Sierra and mention of Madeline/Ballard
Rating: R for sex, language, various innuendos
Length: 3,130 words
Spoilers: first season
Notes: part of Waking 'verse
Summary: Five times Laurence Dominic realized he just might be in over his head.
It seems the more time he spends around people with money (not just “with money”, but with money - emphasis being key) the more obvious it becomes that they live by completely different rules.
Case in point: the young blonde trophy wife currently meandering about the upper walkway. She’s wearing a sky-blue dress and enough diamonds to finance his car.
Meanwhile, upstairs, her husband is arranging for someone to keep him “company” on a cruise he’ll be taking out on his personal yacht.
Blatant, permissible adultery. It’s not that he considers himself so conservative as to be inherently against “open relationships”. It’s just that he doesn’t see the point. If you can’t handle monogamy, how is it even a relationship?
He’d be far more inclined to feel sorry for the young woman, if not for how she’s currently eyeing him up.
She catches him noticing her, and comes over with a wide, shark-like grin.
“Lovely day, isn’t it?” she coos.
He keeps his tone stern, formal. Subtly unwelcoming. “I suppose so, ma’am.”
“Oh, please! Call me Kimberly. Everyone does.”
“I make it a point not to get too personal with the clients - or their spouses.” He adds just enough emphasis to the last two words that she’ll hopefully get the hint.
But she only smiles. “He’ll be gone for a whole week,” she says conversationally, tipping her head upward to indicate her husband. “Out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing but water. Deep-sea fishing.” She rolls her eyes, giving a bubbly laugh.
“Personally, I prefer to spend my free time shopping up a storm on the Sunset Strip!”
“You don’t say,” he remarks coolly.
Her smile turns more meaningful as she flutters her eyelashes.
“So, what about you, then?” she asks, hinting. “You ever get away from this place enough to have some…free time?”
He has no patience for this; he flat-out scowls at her.
“I’m already seeing someone,” he tells her shortly. “And even if I wasn’t, believe me, you’re not my type.”
Her made-up face works itself into a frown.
“Excuse me?”
Just then, Topher appears, fluttering out of his office. “Oh, Dom, there you are!”
He walks over and rests a familiar hand on Dominic’s upper arm. “Just wanted to let you know, I took care of ordering the tickets for our next movie night.” Topher chortles. “Also, I think I worked out a better place to hide the Sour Patches so you don’t end up accidentally groping me.”
“Oh.” Dominic turns his head at the woman’s voice, having momentarily forgotten she was still here. There’s an oddly blank look on her face. “I see.”
Then she smiles again, raising one hand in an airy wave.
“Well, I wish you two all the best, then. Though honestly, I think you could do a lot better.” She turns and walks away. “Ciao, darling!”
It’s all he can do to blink after her as she leaves, baffled and completely at a loss.
“Wait, what?” With a distracted frown, he glances back in Topher’s direction. “What is she talking abo-”
At which point, it clicks.
“No!” He whips his head around to call after the woman in protest, utterly horrified. “No, wait! We’re not-”
But she’s already gone, having retreated out of earshot.
Meaning he’s simply left there, hanging; contemplating the fact that something about his interactions with Topher caused a wealthy socialite to assume after fifteen seconds that they were in a gay relationship.
“Hey, uh, Dom-cakes?” Topher pokes him impatiently in the shoulder. “What was that all about?”
He closes his eyes and gives a dejected groan.
_____
“I think you’ll find everything you need in order, Mr. Dominic.”
“Thank you, Dr. Saunders,” he returns politely. He takes the stack of reports in neatly-arranged folders, tucking it under his arm. “When it comes to your work, I find that I usually do.”
She gives the barest hint of a smile at the subtle, but earnestly meant, compliment.
“Thank you,” she murmurs. She ducks her head slightly.
“Oh, no trouble.” Offhandedly, he goes, “I only wish sometimes that half the other employees showed the same focus and attention to detail as you. It certainly makes my job a hell of a lot easier.”
Dr. Saunders turns, heading back towards her desk and further in to the interior of her office.
“Well,” she says, almost dryly, “after all, it is what I was made for.” She gives a cordial smile, straightening a pile of papers. “Good day, Mr. Dominic.”
He nods, and turns on his heel to exit.
Back out on the floor, he travels along at an easy pace, heading toward the stairs that’ll take him back up to Adelle’s office.
He’s in no hurry. Normally, he’d allow at least an hour to go over this many reports, but his experience with Saunders has him allotting a much shorter time. He has every expectation he’ll be able to review them in even a matter of minutes.
He pauses, letting a handler escorting their Active pass him by.
He meant what he said to the good doctor - he really does wish more of the staff could be like her. Because there’s doing a job well for a paycheck, and then there’s doing it with a sense of real dedication. Claire Saunders definitely belongs to the camp of the second, and that’s something he can appreciate and admire.
Maybe she cares about her job just a little too much, showing more concern (and guilt) for her patients than could really be considered healthy. It’s caused him to have his doubts about her in the past.
Still, for the most part, he has no complaint with her. Probably couldn’t even find one if he wanted to.
As he crosses the atrium, he finds himself musing, trying to remember if his first impressions of her were always in such high regard. Did he know she’d turn out this well from the get-go, or did he have more initial reservations?
He thinks back, trying to recall: he must’ve performed an interview at some point in her introductory process, or at least gone over a tape or transcript of her one with Adelle-
He grinds to a halt, coming perilously close to colliding head-on with the first of two caretakers, each leading an Active in the direction of the art class.
The caretaker and her companion both walk around him, giving him something of a dirty look, while the Actives just gaze at him in passive confusion. He doesn’t notice any of them, though. He’s too busy being stunned at his own thoughts.
He forgot. For just one moment there, he’d been so caught up in his appreciative analysis of Dr. Saunders that he’d completely, utterly forgot.
It was only in the act of trying to think back to when he first met her that the truth had hit him in the face, and he’d remembered - Alpha, the incident, Whiskey.
Only now he’s been left with the disturbing realization that it’d all been able to slip his mind in the first place.
He had forgotten that Claire Saunders wasn’t real. He’d forgotten that she was an Active at all.
_____
“You sure you don’t want to take the rest home with you?”
Madeline holds out the glass pan, still halfway full of homemade manicotti. He groans.
“Madeline, thanks to Topher’s contagious snacking I’m shoveling down enough extra calories per day,” he complains. “I get you coming after me too, and I’ll have to double-up on my workout.”
“Yeah right.” Madeline makes a point of eyeing him head to toe with a dubious look. “It’d take a lot more than my cooking and some extra gumdrops to turn that six-pack into a keg.”
But she relents anyway, setting the pan down on the counter.
“I guess I can hang onto it,” she says, faux serious. “I suppose it’s only fair Paul gets a chance at the leftovers, considering he’s the one I cooked it for the first place.”
He laughs. “Yeah, maybe.”
She gives him a grateful smile. “Thanks again for coming over on such short notice.” With a little sigh, she glances over at their plates and empty glasses of red wine.
“Paul didn’t say he was leaving until too late, and I hate to waste a perfectly good dinner for two.”
“Hey, it’s no problem.” He knows Madeline was excitedly planning this evening all week. It’s not her fault (or Ballard’s, he supposes) that at the last second they got a clue to Alpha’s whereabouts, and a change of plans had her boyfriend rushing off on a jet. “Consider us even for all those times I bothered you when Adelle was in business meetings and I had nothing to do over the weekend.”
Madeline laughs, nose crinkling. “It’s not like I was doing you a favor!” she says merrily. She reaches out a hand and he turns, knowing she wants the foil wrap that’s kept in the cupboard behind his head. He hands it to her. “You’re my friend - I like spending time with you.”
“Oh, and it was a great sacrifice on my part,” he returns mockingly; “Coming over here for free alcohol and a home-cooked meal with a pretty girl.”
Madeline giggles. She brushes hair behind her ear and turns her back to him as she starts sealing up the pasta. He moves over to the table and begins stacking dishes.
“I’m not that pretty,” Madeline remarks, indifferent as she goes about her task. “I mean, I don’t have low self-esteem or anything, but I don’t know how you could even talk about me when you have Ms. DeWitt. She’s gorgeous.”
“Unreal, at times,” he agrees. He’s lost for a moment in fond thoughts, and then he shakes his head. “But still, I wouldn’t sell yourself so short. I think plenty of guys would call you their ideal.”
“I guess I should have proof enough of that,” Madeline says. “Since, after all, the Dollhouse was willing to take me as an Active.”
“Well…yeah. But that’s not really what I meant.” He frowns, trying to think how better to explain.
Madeline’s down to earth, a homemaker. Maybe not exactly glamorous, but he knows there are men for whom she’d be exactly their type. His own father, for example.
He never really knew his mother, but he’s seen pictures. She had an easy smile, a softness about her. Half the photographs have her wearing an apron over pastel dresses.
His stepmother Beth was exactly the same way: the stereotypical perfect June Cleaver. She was even an Avon lady, for chrissakes.
He smiles a little as he remembers his stepmother. He was practically a teenager when she came into his life, but he never once resented her. She was a good mother to him as if he was her own son, going to all his sports matches and congratulating him on his grades. She smelled like brownie mix, laundry detergent and faint floral perfume; thinking about her gives him a warm, comforting feeling, like being wrapped in a quilt.
It’s funny, actually. In that way where he never thought about it, he supposes he always figured he’d end up with a woman just like her, just like his mother, just like…
He freezes in the act of carrying the wine bottle from the table. Very slowly, he turns around.
Madeline stands on her toes, reaching for something. Her feet are bare, the short pleated skirt she’s wearing giving an ample view of her legs. Her brown wavy locks ripple across her shoulders.
He’s staring, he knows, and his breathing has suddenly grown softer.
There’s a butterflies-in-his-stomach feeling that he doesn’t think he can blame on the wine. It’s strange, because he thinks about Adelle, and he doesn’t feel any less attracted to her than he ever has.
It’s just that he’s never realized exactly how beautiful Madeline is before.
“I can put this in the fridge,” Madeline is saying to him, oblivious, “and if Paul doesn’t want it for dinner, then I can pack it up and he can take it into work for lunch.”
She turns over her shoulder and smiles at him with that warm welcoming expression that’s all her own, her bright eyes shining.
“It’s always good to have a plan B, just in case,” she comments, easy, “isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he says weakly. Madeline turns around again; unaware that he continues to look at her, the wine forgotten in his hand. “Plan B. Good idea.”
_____
“Hello.”
“Hello.”
“Hello Victor, Sierra.” He pauses as the two Actives stop in front of him, smiling in that usual way of theirs.
“We were just doing yoga,” Victor says.
“Exercise is good for us,” adds Sierra. “It helps us to be our best.”
“Now we’re going to go sit for awhile, and relax.”
“It feels good to relax, after you’ve been exercising.” Sierra glances up at Victor and he nods back at her, beaming, as if what she said was particularly introspective or clever.
Briefly, he entertains the thought of telling them that water is wet, just to see if he gets a similar reaction.
Instead he only says, “Sounds like a plan.”
“Yes,” Sierra responds, brightly. “It is a plan. It’s good to have plans. They provide structure.”
“It’s nice to always know what you’re doing next,” Victor agrees with her. “Otherwise, you can get confused.”
That almost sounds, dangerously, like a watered-down version of something that could be considered wise.
He shakes that thought off. Clearly, he’s been spending a little too much time around the Actives.
“You go on, then,” he dismisses them and they move away, still smiling their happy Doll smiles.
They’re almost completely out of his line of vision when he catches a glance of Victor and Sierra reaching for each other, entwining their hands.
He turns his back and keeps walking in the opposite direction.
Echo appears, then, coming around the corner. She spots him, expression lighting dimly with automatic response. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” he returns, gruff.
“Have you seen the others? I was looking for them, but I don’t know where they are.”
He sighs, rolling his eyes slightly upward.
“That way.” He points. “Your friends are over there.”
Echo is already starting to go where he indicated, but she pauses. She frowns. Her expression turns thoughtful.
“Friends,” she repeats. She considers it. “Yes, they are my friends,” she decides.
She looks back at him, all placid and vaguely hopeful curiosity.
“Are you my friend?” Echo asks.
His kneejerk response to that is something like, Hell no.
Except he actually stops to think about it…and realizes that would sort of be a lie.
He swallows, feeling overwhelmed in a way where he’s almost frightened. He was the one that always berated the other employees, instructed them on keeping their distance. What’s happened to him?
Echo is still gazing at him patiently, waiting for a response. And before he realizes what he’s doing his mouth is open.
“Yeah,” he tells her. His voice is strained. “Sure I am.”
Echo’s face splits in a wide brilliant grin, her eyes sparkling.
“I’m glad. It’s nice to have friends,” she says pleasantly.
“It is,” he repeats after her, feeling as numb and dumb as if he were an Active himself.
Echo gives him something that looks suspiciously like a nod of approval before she leaves in search of the others.
“You’re a good friend.”
_____
“Laurence…”
She moans; her voice a soft and breathy thing from deep within her, so full with rawness and emotion it’s practically alive.
“Adelle…Adelle…oh god…”
He lays flat on his back, and it’s all he can do to stare up at her.
At the fullness of her naked breasts, at the hollow of her throat, the thickness of her eyelashes, the curve of her nose and arch of her cheekbones and the soft cushion of her lips as they slowly part.
Her dark hair cascades across her bare shoulders. She tilts her head back, eyes closed as she makes this noise he couldn’t even begin to describe.
Her hands are on his chest, bracing firmly, and her upper body sways. He feels the rhythm of her hips, every swirl of her pelvis and dip of her spine, and he knows as sure as he knows anything, he may be the one inside her but she’s definitely the one fucking him, and he doesn’t ever want her to stop.
He just manages to reach up, putting his hands on the soft skin around her waist; he can’t move right now, can’t speak. All he can do is gaze at her, this unfathomable goddess that’s sitting on top of him, and make wordless sounds.
He tries to think, to be able to describe it, even if it’s just to himself, what exactly it is that he’d do for her.
He would kill for her, but that doesn’t mean a thing. He’s a man for whom murder on someone else’s orders became a part of life ages ago. He could say he’d die for her, but even that doesn’t seem like enough. In a way he already has died for her, broken down into nothing and brought back again, his life cradled in her hands.
He’s done so much for her already, he realizes, because everything he’s ever done for the Dollhouse, every order he’s ever followed, was really all for her. Even when he still thought one day he would betray her, he was doing it all for her.
Everything was for Adelle.
He’d do anything for her, he thinks, feverish and gone in the heat of her skin in his hands, the blinding perfection of her body and the feel of her moving above him. Anything, anything at all. Anything she could ever ask of him, anything he could ever think, as long as she keeps doing what she’s doing now and as long as she keeps letting him touch her and as long as she keeps saying his name…just…like…that.
“Laurence.”
Yes. He’ll do anything for her.
After, when she’s sated and he’s spent, she lies down across his chest and presses her cheek to him, closes her eyes again and wraps her arms around him and goes to sleep.
He drapes an arm over her and pulls her close, tucking her in tight. If they were any closer there’d be nothing between them, no skin, and their souls would flow together, merging into one. Sometimes, when it’s like this and he listens to her breathing, he imagines they already have.
His eyes close and he smiles to himself, as he contemplates just how truly lost he is.
(“Welcome to the Dollhouse, Mr. Dominic. I look forward to working with you.”
“The feeling is mutual, ma’am.”)
Characters/Pairings: Dominic, Topher, Claire, Madeline, Echo, DeWitt, Victor, Sierra, mention of Ballard; Dominic/DeWitt, Victor/Sierra and mention of Madeline/Ballard
Rating: R for sex, language, various innuendos
Length: 3,130 words
Spoilers: first season
Notes: part of Waking 'verse
Summary: Five times Laurence Dominic realized he just might be in over his head.
It seems the more time he spends around people with money (not just “with money”, but with money - emphasis being key) the more obvious it becomes that they live by completely different rules.
Case in point: the young blonde trophy wife currently meandering about the upper walkway. She’s wearing a sky-blue dress and enough diamonds to finance his car.
Meanwhile, upstairs, her husband is arranging for someone to keep him “company” on a cruise he’ll be taking out on his personal yacht.
Blatant, permissible adultery. It’s not that he considers himself so conservative as to be inherently against “open relationships”. It’s just that he doesn’t see the point. If you can’t handle monogamy, how is it even a relationship?
He’d be far more inclined to feel sorry for the young woman, if not for how she’s currently eyeing him up.
She catches him noticing her, and comes over with a wide, shark-like grin.
“Lovely day, isn’t it?” she coos.
He keeps his tone stern, formal. Subtly unwelcoming. “I suppose so, ma’am.”
“Oh, please! Call me Kimberly. Everyone does.”
“I make it a point not to get too personal with the clients - or their spouses.” He adds just enough emphasis to the last two words that she’ll hopefully get the hint.
But she only smiles. “He’ll be gone for a whole week,” she says conversationally, tipping her head upward to indicate her husband. “Out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing but water. Deep-sea fishing.” She rolls her eyes, giving a bubbly laugh.
“Personally, I prefer to spend my free time shopping up a storm on the Sunset Strip!”
“You don’t say,” he remarks coolly.
Her smile turns more meaningful as she flutters her eyelashes.
“So, what about you, then?” she asks, hinting. “You ever get away from this place enough to have some…free time?”
He has no patience for this; he flat-out scowls at her.
“I’m already seeing someone,” he tells her shortly. “And even if I wasn’t, believe me, you’re not my type.”
Her made-up face works itself into a frown.
“Excuse me?”
Just then, Topher appears, fluttering out of his office. “Oh, Dom, there you are!”
He walks over and rests a familiar hand on Dominic’s upper arm. “Just wanted to let you know, I took care of ordering the tickets for our next movie night.” Topher chortles. “Also, I think I worked out a better place to hide the Sour Patches so you don’t end up accidentally groping me.”
“Oh.” Dominic turns his head at the woman’s voice, having momentarily forgotten she was still here. There’s an oddly blank look on her face. “I see.”
Then she smiles again, raising one hand in an airy wave.
“Well, I wish you two all the best, then. Though honestly, I think you could do a lot better.” She turns and walks away. “Ciao, darling!”
It’s all he can do to blink after her as she leaves, baffled and completely at a loss.
“Wait, what?” With a distracted frown, he glances back in Topher’s direction. “What is she talking abo-”
At which point, it clicks.
“No!” He whips his head around to call after the woman in protest, utterly horrified. “No, wait! We’re not-”
But she’s already gone, having retreated out of earshot.
Meaning he’s simply left there, hanging; contemplating the fact that something about his interactions with Topher caused a wealthy socialite to assume after fifteen seconds that they were in a gay relationship.
“Hey, uh, Dom-cakes?” Topher pokes him impatiently in the shoulder. “What was that all about?”
He closes his eyes and gives a dejected groan.
_____
“I think you’ll find everything you need in order, Mr. Dominic.”
“Thank you, Dr. Saunders,” he returns politely. He takes the stack of reports in neatly-arranged folders, tucking it under his arm. “When it comes to your work, I find that I usually do.”
She gives the barest hint of a smile at the subtle, but earnestly meant, compliment.
“Thank you,” she murmurs. She ducks her head slightly.
“Oh, no trouble.” Offhandedly, he goes, “I only wish sometimes that half the other employees showed the same focus and attention to detail as you. It certainly makes my job a hell of a lot easier.”
Dr. Saunders turns, heading back towards her desk and further in to the interior of her office.
“Well,” she says, almost dryly, “after all, it is what I was made for.” She gives a cordial smile, straightening a pile of papers. “Good day, Mr. Dominic.”
He nods, and turns on his heel to exit.
Back out on the floor, he travels along at an easy pace, heading toward the stairs that’ll take him back up to Adelle’s office.
He’s in no hurry. Normally, he’d allow at least an hour to go over this many reports, but his experience with Saunders has him allotting a much shorter time. He has every expectation he’ll be able to review them in even a matter of minutes.
He pauses, letting a handler escorting their Active pass him by.
He meant what he said to the good doctor - he really does wish more of the staff could be like her. Because there’s doing a job well for a paycheck, and then there’s doing it with a sense of real dedication. Claire Saunders definitely belongs to the camp of the second, and that’s something he can appreciate and admire.
Maybe she cares about her job just a little too much, showing more concern (and guilt) for her patients than could really be considered healthy. It’s caused him to have his doubts about her in the past.
Still, for the most part, he has no complaint with her. Probably couldn’t even find one if he wanted to.
As he crosses the atrium, he finds himself musing, trying to remember if his first impressions of her were always in such high regard. Did he know she’d turn out this well from the get-go, or did he have more initial reservations?
He thinks back, trying to recall: he must’ve performed an interview at some point in her introductory process, or at least gone over a tape or transcript of her one with Adelle-
He grinds to a halt, coming perilously close to colliding head-on with the first of two caretakers, each leading an Active in the direction of the art class.
The caretaker and her companion both walk around him, giving him something of a dirty look, while the Actives just gaze at him in passive confusion. He doesn’t notice any of them, though. He’s too busy being stunned at his own thoughts.
He forgot. For just one moment there, he’d been so caught up in his appreciative analysis of Dr. Saunders that he’d completely, utterly forgot.
It was only in the act of trying to think back to when he first met her that the truth had hit him in the face, and he’d remembered - Alpha, the incident, Whiskey.
Only now he’s been left with the disturbing realization that it’d all been able to slip his mind in the first place.
He had forgotten that Claire Saunders wasn’t real. He’d forgotten that she was an Active at all.
_____
“You sure you don’t want to take the rest home with you?”
Madeline holds out the glass pan, still halfway full of homemade manicotti. He groans.
“Madeline, thanks to Topher’s contagious snacking I’m shoveling down enough extra calories per day,” he complains. “I get you coming after me too, and I’ll have to double-up on my workout.”
“Yeah right.” Madeline makes a point of eyeing him head to toe with a dubious look. “It’d take a lot more than my cooking and some extra gumdrops to turn that six-pack into a keg.”
But she relents anyway, setting the pan down on the counter.
“I guess I can hang onto it,” she says, faux serious. “I suppose it’s only fair Paul gets a chance at the leftovers, considering he’s the one I cooked it for the first place.”
He laughs. “Yeah, maybe.”
She gives him a grateful smile. “Thanks again for coming over on such short notice.” With a little sigh, she glances over at their plates and empty glasses of red wine.
“Paul didn’t say he was leaving until too late, and I hate to waste a perfectly good dinner for two.”
“Hey, it’s no problem.” He knows Madeline was excitedly planning this evening all week. It’s not her fault (or Ballard’s, he supposes) that at the last second they got a clue to Alpha’s whereabouts, and a change of plans had her boyfriend rushing off on a jet. “Consider us even for all those times I bothered you when Adelle was in business meetings and I had nothing to do over the weekend.”
Madeline laughs, nose crinkling. “It’s not like I was doing you a favor!” she says merrily. She reaches out a hand and he turns, knowing she wants the foil wrap that’s kept in the cupboard behind his head. He hands it to her. “You’re my friend - I like spending time with you.”
“Oh, and it was a great sacrifice on my part,” he returns mockingly; “Coming over here for free alcohol and a home-cooked meal with a pretty girl.”
Madeline giggles. She brushes hair behind her ear and turns her back to him as she starts sealing up the pasta. He moves over to the table and begins stacking dishes.
“I’m not that pretty,” Madeline remarks, indifferent as she goes about her task. “I mean, I don’t have low self-esteem or anything, but I don’t know how you could even talk about me when you have Ms. DeWitt. She’s gorgeous.”
“Unreal, at times,” he agrees. He’s lost for a moment in fond thoughts, and then he shakes his head. “But still, I wouldn’t sell yourself so short. I think plenty of guys would call you their ideal.”
“I guess I should have proof enough of that,” Madeline says. “Since, after all, the Dollhouse was willing to take me as an Active.”
“Well…yeah. But that’s not really what I meant.” He frowns, trying to think how better to explain.
Madeline’s down to earth, a homemaker. Maybe not exactly glamorous, but he knows there are men for whom she’d be exactly their type. His own father, for example.
He never really knew his mother, but he’s seen pictures. She had an easy smile, a softness about her. Half the photographs have her wearing an apron over pastel dresses.
His stepmother Beth was exactly the same way: the stereotypical perfect June Cleaver. She was even an Avon lady, for chrissakes.
He smiles a little as he remembers his stepmother. He was practically a teenager when she came into his life, but he never once resented her. She was a good mother to him as if he was her own son, going to all his sports matches and congratulating him on his grades. She smelled like brownie mix, laundry detergent and faint floral perfume; thinking about her gives him a warm, comforting feeling, like being wrapped in a quilt.
It’s funny, actually. In that way where he never thought about it, he supposes he always figured he’d end up with a woman just like her, just like his mother, just like…
He freezes in the act of carrying the wine bottle from the table. Very slowly, he turns around.
Madeline stands on her toes, reaching for something. Her feet are bare, the short pleated skirt she’s wearing giving an ample view of her legs. Her brown wavy locks ripple across her shoulders.
He’s staring, he knows, and his breathing has suddenly grown softer.
There’s a butterflies-in-his-stomach feeling that he doesn’t think he can blame on the wine. It’s strange, because he thinks about Adelle, and he doesn’t feel any less attracted to her than he ever has.
It’s just that he’s never realized exactly how beautiful Madeline is before.
“I can put this in the fridge,” Madeline is saying to him, oblivious, “and if Paul doesn’t want it for dinner, then I can pack it up and he can take it into work for lunch.”
She turns over her shoulder and smiles at him with that warm welcoming expression that’s all her own, her bright eyes shining.
“It’s always good to have a plan B, just in case,” she comments, easy, “isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he says weakly. Madeline turns around again; unaware that he continues to look at her, the wine forgotten in his hand. “Plan B. Good idea.”
_____
“Hello.”
“Hello.”
“Hello Victor, Sierra.” He pauses as the two Actives stop in front of him, smiling in that usual way of theirs.
“We were just doing yoga,” Victor says.
“Exercise is good for us,” adds Sierra. “It helps us to be our best.”
“Now we’re going to go sit for awhile, and relax.”
“It feels good to relax, after you’ve been exercising.” Sierra glances up at Victor and he nods back at her, beaming, as if what she said was particularly introspective or clever.
Briefly, he entertains the thought of telling them that water is wet, just to see if he gets a similar reaction.
Instead he only says, “Sounds like a plan.”
“Yes,” Sierra responds, brightly. “It is a plan. It’s good to have plans. They provide structure.”
“It’s nice to always know what you’re doing next,” Victor agrees with her. “Otherwise, you can get confused.”
That almost sounds, dangerously, like a watered-down version of something that could be considered wise.
He shakes that thought off. Clearly, he’s been spending a little too much time around the Actives.
“You go on, then,” he dismisses them and they move away, still smiling their happy Doll smiles.
They’re almost completely out of his line of vision when he catches a glance of Victor and Sierra reaching for each other, entwining their hands.
He turns his back and keeps walking in the opposite direction.
Echo appears, then, coming around the corner. She spots him, expression lighting dimly with automatic response. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” he returns, gruff.
“Have you seen the others? I was looking for them, but I don’t know where they are.”
He sighs, rolling his eyes slightly upward.
“That way.” He points. “Your friends are over there.”
Echo is already starting to go where he indicated, but she pauses. She frowns. Her expression turns thoughtful.
“Friends,” she repeats. She considers it. “Yes, they are my friends,” she decides.
She looks back at him, all placid and vaguely hopeful curiosity.
“Are you my friend?” Echo asks.
His kneejerk response to that is something like, Hell no.
Except he actually stops to think about it…and realizes that would sort of be a lie.
He swallows, feeling overwhelmed in a way where he’s almost frightened. He was the one that always berated the other employees, instructed them on keeping their distance. What’s happened to him?
Echo is still gazing at him patiently, waiting for a response. And before he realizes what he’s doing his mouth is open.
“Yeah,” he tells her. His voice is strained. “Sure I am.”
Echo’s face splits in a wide brilliant grin, her eyes sparkling.
“I’m glad. It’s nice to have friends,” she says pleasantly.
“It is,” he repeats after her, feeling as numb and dumb as if he were an Active himself.
Echo gives him something that looks suspiciously like a nod of approval before she leaves in search of the others.
“You’re a good friend.”
_____
“Laurence…”
She moans; her voice a soft and breathy thing from deep within her, so full with rawness and emotion it’s practically alive.
“Adelle…Adelle…oh god…”
He lays flat on his back, and it’s all he can do to stare up at her.
At the fullness of her naked breasts, at the hollow of her throat, the thickness of her eyelashes, the curve of her nose and arch of her cheekbones and the soft cushion of her lips as they slowly part.
Her dark hair cascades across her bare shoulders. She tilts her head back, eyes closed as she makes this noise he couldn’t even begin to describe.
Her hands are on his chest, bracing firmly, and her upper body sways. He feels the rhythm of her hips, every swirl of her pelvis and dip of her spine, and he knows as sure as he knows anything, he may be the one inside her but she’s definitely the one fucking him, and he doesn’t ever want her to stop.
He just manages to reach up, putting his hands on the soft skin around her waist; he can’t move right now, can’t speak. All he can do is gaze at her, this unfathomable goddess that’s sitting on top of him, and make wordless sounds.
He tries to think, to be able to describe it, even if it’s just to himself, what exactly it is that he’d do for her.
He would kill for her, but that doesn’t mean a thing. He’s a man for whom murder on someone else’s orders became a part of life ages ago. He could say he’d die for her, but even that doesn’t seem like enough. In a way he already has died for her, broken down into nothing and brought back again, his life cradled in her hands.
He’s done so much for her already, he realizes, because everything he’s ever done for the Dollhouse, every order he’s ever followed, was really all for her. Even when he still thought one day he would betray her, he was doing it all for her.
Everything was for Adelle.
He’d do anything for her, he thinks, feverish and gone in the heat of her skin in his hands, the blinding perfection of her body and the feel of her moving above him. Anything, anything at all. Anything she could ever ask of him, anything he could ever think, as long as she keeps doing what she’s doing now and as long as she keeps letting him touch her and as long as she keeps saying his name…just…like…that.
“Laurence.”
Yes. He’ll do anything for her.
After, when she’s sated and he’s spent, she lies down across his chest and presses her cheek to him, closes her eyes again and wraps her arms around him and goes to sleep.
He drapes an arm over her and pulls her close, tucking her in tight. If they were any closer there’d be nothing between them, no skin, and their souls would flow together, merging into one. Sometimes, when it’s like this and he listens to her breathing, he imagines they already have.
His eyes close and he smiles to himself, as he contemplates just how truly lost he is.
(“Welcome to the Dollhouse, Mr. Dominic. I look forward to working with you.”
“The feeling is mutual, ma’am.”)