Dollhouse fic - We Came by Night to the Fortunate Isles And Lay Like Fish; PG-13
Title: We Came by Night to the Fortunate Isles And Lay Like Fish
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Laurence Dominic, Adelle DeWitt, Echo, Clyde Randolph
Pairing: DeWitt/Dominic. If you squint.
Disclaimer: Nope, don't own them. Never will.
Words: 6,267
Spoilers: Up to 2x10; with a scene from the episode
Summary: "Reality is a hallucination brought on by lack of alcohol." - unknown
Notes: A post 2x10 fic. I noticed that there aren't any fics out there about Laurence Dominic and his time in the Attic and since I love Laurence Dominic, I was inspired to write one. And then my writing muse abandoned me during the holidays and only went back a few days ago.
All mistakes are mine. I apologize in advance. I also hope you enjoy.
Blood.
Her blood is everywhere.
He rushes to her side. She got hit somewhere around the stomach and now her white, crisp blouse is soaked with bright crimson.
“Civilian down! We need help here!” he shouts and kneels beside her. Sheer terror pumps in his veins as he tries to stop the bleeding. She’s blinking furiously, trying to figure out what just happened, “Adelle.” He says her name urgently and her eyes focus on him.
“Mr. Dom-”
“Shut up.” he takes her hand and squeezes it reassuringly. She’s losing too much blood too fast, “You’re going to be okay. The bullet probably missed vital organs. You’re going to be okay” He says, over and over, seemingly more like he’s saying it for himself and not for her.
His heart is beating so fast he feels like he’s going to throw up any minute.
“You’re going to be okay.” He repeats, with panic in his tone, and looks around, “Where the hell are the paramedics?!”
She begins to take shallow breaths through her mouth. Her cheeks start to lose color and her lips are slowly turning purple. Her eyelids start to flutter.
“Adelle, don’t sleep.” He calls out again and touches her cheek gently, “Don’t, please. Stay. Stay with me. Please.” He checks her pulse and finds it weakening rapidly.
He knows he’s gripping her hand too tightly but his head is spinning from the adrenaline and he doesn’t know what he should do. Help isn’t arriving.
He shouldn’t have done this. He shouldn’t have allowed them to take her from the Dollhouse. He should have let her escape. And he shouldn’t have left her with them, here.
The minutes seem to stretch and he feels like he’s aware of what’s happening to her. He can hear her breathe, feel the little trembles of her body, sense the rate she’s losing blood. Everything is so slow.
But then time speeds up. And then, she ends.
His mind goes blank and he stares at her, now reduced to a lifeless body. Her body gave up. She stopped breathing. Her heart stopped beating. Just like that. She’s gone.
His brows furrow. He can’t… what will he… why…
“Hey, Dominic!”
He looks up and sees Assistant Director Ted Palmer, a rotund man with a long sideburns and a balding top, standing a few feet away from him. He tosses something to him, but he’s not able to catch it. It lands on the pool of her blood and he, automatically, reaches out to take it.
It seems to be a wallet, made of leather. He flips it open and sees an NSA badge.
He stares at it. He doesn’t know what it means. He just knows that her blood is staining the gold-plated emblem of the National Security Agency. He looks up to Palmer and shakes his head in confusion, “What do you want me to do with this?” he asks.
“Your boss is dead, we got the tech.” Palmer says in a matter-of-fact and annoyingly arrogant manner, “Welcome back to the NSA. Want a promotion?”
And then it ends.
And starts again.
~*~*~
He chases the shadow everywhere.
Reality changes - he’s been to a world made of clay with cracked heads and brains spilling on the floor, a tropical forest where killer mosquitoes the size of tennis balls roam, and a cemetery-slash-carnival with terrifying, seemingly murderous, Russian clowns - but the monster stays the same.
With every reality, it kills. And he tries to stop it.
He realized early on that he’s in the Attic. And this is his punishment- he will never be able to rest and reality will keep on changing until he completely stops the monster from killing. He will be stuck in this loop forever unless he finds a way to kill it. Or it kills him first.
Or he goes insane.
Whichever of the three comes first.
~*~*~
He ushers her across the halls of the NSA, a place he once considered hallowed grounds. He chose not to put her in handcuffs but the Agency had deemed her dangerous enough that they’re being escorted by four men-two in the front and two in the back.
“You’re taking a large gamble here, Mr. Dominic, taking me to custody.” She says, the first words she has uttered ever since they took her from her office.
He takes a sideways glance at her, “It’s not my call to make, Ma’am.”
The corner of her mouth twitches, “I see you’re still following orders.” He looks away from her and focuses on where they’re going. He wanted to let her escape, but the strong urge to stick to the rules prevented him to let her go.
“You've always been too good with following orders.” She murmurs, intending that only he will be able to hear her.
Assistant Director Palmer meets them when they reach the end of the hallway.
“We’ll take it from here, Agent Dominic.” He gruffly says, his eyes glued to DeWitt.
“Sir, if I may, I like to-”
“-go grab coffee in the break room or something.” The man interrupts and gives him a condescending smile, “I’m sure Ms. DeWitt will be fine in the interrogation room.”
Palmer’s attitude is rubbing him the wrong way. And the way he’s looking at her makes him want to punch the man. Instead, he gives a stilted nod and uses all his willpower to walk away and not to let his fist connect with the man’s chin.
Times like these, he feels like his reluctance to break order will be the death of him.
He’s on his way to the break room when he hears several shots being fired. It takes him a second or two to recognize what he had heard, but when he realizes what it was and what it meant, he sprints back to the interrogation room like a madman.
He stops a few feet away from the end of the hall. His skin prickles and bile rises up his throat when he sees her lying on the floor.
And blood.
Her blood is everywhere.
~*~*~
He’s losing his mind.
The same song has been stuck in his head for the past ten realities. As he trudges the empty (and slightly dirty) street of Times Square, he contemplates on whether that fact alone would qualify as “slowly losing his marbles”. After all, he’s chasing a shadow that calls itself Arcane through different worlds; if he says that outside the Attic, he’d be deemed crazy. Perspective on insanity differs in the world he’s in right now.
He looks around in annoyance. There’s no one in here. The lights of the billboards and the advertisements seem to be dancing in front of his eyes and are so damn bright. He can’t sense Arcane and he’s alone.
And that blasted song just keeps on going over and over in his head.
“Goddamn it!” he shouts and furiously kicks an empty can of soda. “Goddamnedshitloadoffuckedupshit!” he shouts and starts kicking all the things that he can kick. He angrily spews out a series of curses, one after the other. He shouts at the top of his lungs until his throat is hoarse.
After a while, he sits down on the pavement. He draws his legs towards him and he leans forward to rest his head on his knees. He lets out a long, despondent sigh. He’s exhausted. What he’s doing is so fucking exhausting.
“Did the shouting rid you of that silly song too?”
Hearing a familiar voice makes his head jerk up and puts his body on full alert. Bemusement and suspicion fills him as he stares at the figure standing a foot away from him.
She’s wearing a dark red dress that hugs her body in the right places and her hair is down, its ends, perfectly curled and not a strand is out of place. He remembers her wearing that dress before. He just can’t remember when she wore it. It seems so long ago.
He closes his eyes. Yeah. This is it. The insanity is creeping in.
“Great.” He mutters, rubbing his face with his palm, “Just great.”
“Feeling like you’re losing grip on your sanity, Mr. Dominic?”
He looks at her and sees her walking towards him. She crouches in front of him and touches his hand. A jolt goes through him when her skin touches his.
Shock registers on his face. She’s real?
“You’re real.” He says, slowly. “And you’re in the Attic.”
She shakes his head and watches him. The lights of Times Square make the color of her eyes darker. She then rests her hand on top of his knee. It’s disconcerting to see her in front of him with the knowledge that the dried blood, which stains his pants, his shirt and his suit, belongs to her.
“You’re not in the Attic?”
“No.”
“Then how are you here? How did you get here?”
“You don’t remember?” she asks softly, “When you were in the NSA. I was shot. You…you asked me to stay.”
“Don’t, please. Stay. Stay with me. Please.”
He grits his teeth when he feels a slight stab of anger going through him. He pulls away and stands up. So, she’s just in his mind? He’s making her up? Is he that lonely that his subconscious conjured a random person to keep him company? And of all people, why her? He hasn’t thought of her at all.
How can he make her go away?
He clenches his fist, “I hate you.” She doesn’t say anything. He looks at her and finds a somewhat wounded expression on her face, “What, did I hurt your feelings?” he asks snidely, “You sent me to the Attic and I’m going through all this crap and you think I wouldn’t hate you for it? Christ, you really are a piece of work.”
“Please do have the decorum to tell me to leave you alone when you’re done with the verbal abuse.” She says not making any move to go away.
“Why? Because you won’t be able to leave if I don’t tell you to go?”
Amusement flits across her face (she’s always been like that, he thinks, seeing something funny in very serious moments).
“I don’t know, Mr. Dominic. It’s your head, your brain, your mind. Not mine.”
~*~*~
His mind goes blank and he stares at her, now reduced to a lifeless body. Her body gave up. She stopped breathing. Her heart stopped beating. Just like that. She’s gone.
His brows furrow. He can’t… what will he… why…
“Hey, Dominic!”
He looks up and sees Assistant Director Ted Palmer, a rotund man with a long sideburns and a balding top, standing a few feet away from him. He tosses something to him, but he’s not able to catch it. It lands on the pool of her blood and he, automatically, reaches out to take it.
Then he realizes what he’s doing and he pulls back his hand. He frowns as he stares at the black, square thing sitting on DeWitt’s blood.
“Aren’t you going to pick it up?” Palmer asks.
It’s his NSA badge, he thinks. His mission had ended. They murdered DeWitt to end it, officially.
He looks at her body. He reaches to her and gently touches her face.
“I’m sorry.” He murmurs before standing up and looking at Palmer, “I quit.”
Palmer frowns, “What? You can’t just quit.”
He shakes his head, “I just did, Palmer.” He says, and then turns around to walk away.
~*~*~
Arcane’s here.
He avoids stepping on the thin, white curtain and the black wooden boxes that are scattered on the floor. He’s now knows how to track Arcane down. It wasn’t an easy task, but he’s getting better. And sometimes, he stops him from killing. Sometimes, he doesn’t.
He looks around. He has to find the person Arcane wants to kill. It’s normally just one person in every reality.
He reaches the end of the floor and opens the curtain. Bright, yellow lights flood him and he suddenly becomes aware of the sounds of violins and the people’s buzzing chatter. He then realizes that he’s behind the backdrop of the stage.
He makes his way to the left wing and finds only ropes, more lights and an empty chair. A part of him is slightly relieved that he doesn’t have to look far to find the person he’s looking for. He’s probably at the other wing (unless of course, he/she’s grand entrance is from above. A problem, since he doesn’t know how to get up there…).
He crosses the stage. Hiding in the right wing is a short, skinny man with black hair and wearing eyeglasses. He raises a brow when he sees the man’s attire (or lack of it) - a pair of black shoes, brown socks and orange briefs.
The man sees him. Panic colors his face, “You're the lighting man, r-r-right? P-p-please tell me you're the lighting m-m-man.” He says frantically stuttering, tripping over his words.
He shrugs, “Sure.” He says, “I’m the lighting man.”
“Okay.” He starts to wave around the piece of paper, “Okay. Um, uh, c-c-can you point all the lights towards me when I go onstage? A-a-all lights? And with all lights, I m-m-mean, all l-l-lights. Can y-y-you do that?”
He makes a face, “Okay.” He peeks at the audience and looks back at the almost naked guy, “And what are you going to do, exactly? A Chippendales’ act?” He looks at the man with disbelief. He’s excessively hairy and his orange underwear just seems to glow around him.
“I, uh…” the man’s eyes dart to his side and they hear the crowd and the orchestra going silent. The man starts to tremble, “Ah, I-I-I think, I need t-t-to go.” He says and begins to take of the orange briefs.
The move completely surprises him “Hey-” but the man scampers off to the stage.
The silence lasts for two seconds before the audience erupts in laughter. He can only stare as the man stands in the middle of the stage, naked and trembling.
“A lot of people have nightmares about this. I believe it has some sort of psychological meaning.” He doesn’t need to look to his left to know that Adelle’s beside him. But he looks to his side, anyway, because he wants to see her.
“Yeah, well, if we don’t find Arcane, that poor sap will have the humiliation of dying naked.” He searches for a looming black figure in the audience and up in the lights and the sandbags.
“T-t-tonight I Can Write the S-s-saddest Lines. Pa-a-ablo Neruda.” The man squeaks out amidst the rumble of laughter. He looks at his piece of paper, “T-t-tonight I can write the s-s-saddest lines. Write f-f-for example…” he trails off, looking as if might be reduced to a sobbing mess, “‘The n-n-night is shat-t-t-tered and the b-b-blue stars sh-sh-shiver in t-t-the distance’. The n-n-night w-w-wind revolves in the sk-k-ky and s-s-sings.”
“This is a sad poem.” Adelle comments.
He rolls his eyes and continues looking. Sometimes she’s helpful; sometimes she isn’t. This is probably one of the times when she won’t be any help.
Arcane’s still here. He can sense him. But where the hell is he hiding?
“S-s-she loved m-m-me, sometimes I l-l-loved her t-t-too. How c-c-could one n-n-not have loved her g-g-great s-s-still e-e-eyes.”
“If only this man will stop stuttering, every-Mr. Dominic!”
The alarm in Adelle’s voice makes him look at the stage. Arcane has appeared out of nowhere and has lunged towards the hapless naked man.
He runs towards Arcane. The shadow has already pinned the man beneath him and he tries to pull him off. An elbow to his gut, however, sends him flying back to where he was standing a few seconds ago.
He grunts in pain, but quickly scrambles to his feet. He runs back and successfully pulls him off the man, but he’s too late. Arcane has stabbed him with a pencil in the neck.
Blood begins to spread around the man’s head. Barely alive, the naked man looks at him, “To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.”
He looks around.
Arcane’s gone.
“Mr. Dominic.” He hears Adelle say. For the first time, he hears fear tinge her tone. “Take off your clothes.”
He looks at her, “What?” The lights begin to flicker and then start to give out. He looks at the audience and finds them still in their seats, laughing. He looks back at her, “Why do you want me to take off my clothes?” he asks, slightly shocked with the command.
She rushes towards him and begins tugging off his coat, “That man’s brain is shutting down.”
“What do you mean? We just have to find a door-”
“-he’s dying!” she exclaims, “There are no more doors. The reality’s disappearing and you’re trapped.”
“So I have to take off my clothes to untrap myself?” he replies sarcastically. It doesn’t make sense. But then, he stopped thinking about his sanity a long time ago.
“Can you take off your clothes, please?” she snaps irritably as she discards his coat smattered with dried blood, “If this man’s world disappears with you in it, you’ll die.”
He unhooks his pants as she unbuttons his shirt, “And I have to get naked?” he asks again.
“Not just naked. You have to do what he fears the most. You need to finish saying the poem in front of these people.”
In a matter of seconds, he’s rid of his clothes except for his shoes and his boxers. The air is a bit chilly, but the lights are warm on his skin. His cheeks are burning with embarrassment, as if the man’s humiliation has been transferred to him.
“Take off all your clothes.” Adelle says again and goes towards the other naked man on the stage to get the copy of the poem.
He takes off his underwear, “You do realize that when we get out of this reality, I’ll still be naked?”
“One problem at a time, Mr. Dominic.” She replies. He sees her stop and stare at him for a beat before handing him a piece of paper, half of it covered in blood, “And besides, you need to be rid of those blood-encrusted shirt and trousers.” She says.
“You’re blushing.” He points out.
“Eight line, finish it quick.” She ignores his comment and hurries off the stage.
He then faces the laughing audience. Half of the lights in the auditorium are now off. He takes a look at the paper and takes a deep breath. He hopes to God the next reality he goes into will be a zombie apocalypse scenario in a mall.
“And the verse falls to the soul like dew to a pasture. What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is shattered and she is not with me.” He looks to the audience and finds Adelle sitting in the front row. Amusement suddenly washes over him.
He breezes through the poem as the lights flicker off, one by one.
“My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer…” He glances up to the crowd. No one’s laughing. Five lights remain but the audience is still intact.
“…and these the last verses that I write for her.” He says, finishing the poem.
He takes a bow.
The auditorium suddenly fills up with thunderous applause.
There’s a flash of bright white light.
~*~*~
He angrily pounds his fists at the door. He can’t get out of the building-all the doors are locked, the windows seem to be glued shut to the ledge and the elevator and stairs go nowhere.
He kicks the door in frustration before taking several deep breaths to calm himself down.
Trapped in the NSA. It’s not the most horrible thing in the world, except that he’s not comfortable being here. Everything seems wrong and out of place. There’s a tiny, niggling voice in his head that’s telling him that he should be remembering something important but he can’t figure out what it is, so he pushes the thought away.
He loosens his tie and makes his way out of the hallway and back into the room.
He takes a seat behind one of the desks and slumps forward on top of the table.
“If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you’re passed out drunk.”
A chill goes through his spine. He hasn’t heard that raspy, garbled voice for the last thirty years, but it still manages to bring the fear of god in him.
Slowly he straightens up. And comes face-to-face with Gideon Dominic, who’s holding a bottle of whiskey.
“But no. You’re too straight-laced-when it comes to vices.” The older man chuckles as drags a chair and sits in front of his desk. The pungent smell of whiskey wafts in his nose and he flinches, “You’d have no problems killing people or beating up people if you think they deserve ‘em, but the thought of smoking and drinkin’ too much repulses you.”
He stares at the man in front of him, who stares back at him with the same pale, blue eyes he sees everyday in the mirror. Thick, blond hair covers his eyes and he looks like he hasn’t shaved in months.
“What, no smartass answers, boy?” Gideon takes a drink from his bottle, “Afraid you’d get smacked around by your old man?”
He can take him. He’s older now and stronger. He won’t allow himself to be knocked around by him-especially him.
“I’m not afraid of you.” He says, finally.
A twisted smile appears in his father’s face, “You say that.” He says, and points a finger at him, “But you're afraid of me. Afraid you’ll be like me.” Gideon takes another drink from the bottle and continues, “A man your age would have a wife and a litter of kids by now. Yet, you don’t. You're afraid of that cycle of violence turning out to be true, and guess what? It is.”
He finds himself fixated with the scars on his father’s knuckles. He remembers how those knuckles would rain on his face and his body when his father comes home too drunk. It started when he was six, he thinks, and only ended when he was ten, when his mother left his father and took him and his brother with her.
“My daddy used to beat me and my ma when I was little. I told myself that I’ll never be like him, I’ll never pick up a bottle, that I’ll never lay a hand on my wife or kids. But I still did.” He takes a swig from the bottle.
Rage quickly fills him and he tightly grips on the arms of his chair to control himself. So he’s supposed to feel sorry for him, because his father beat him up too?
“It always boils down to your choice.” He grits his teeth, “It was your choice to be a drunken, no-good, abuser. It was your choice.”
Gideon hoots in amusement and puts down the bottle of whiskey on top of his desk. “You’ll never break the cycle, you hear me, boy? You’ll beat up your family the same way I beat up mine.”
~*~*~
He’s sitting on the beach, watching the sunset as the waves crash against the shore and the seagulls screech above. He extends his leg a bit and lets his toes touch the water. He then takes in a lungful of salty air before letting it out.
He saved someone today. After thirteen realities (almost getting trapped in four), he managed to overpower Arcane for a second or two and stopped him from killing someone.
And that someone is several yards away, rolling in the sand, being crawled over by hundreds of crabs.
“I find that sight terribly strange.” Adelle says, popping up unannounced as usual.
He glances at her. She’s seated beside him, her back turned away from the sunset. Her hair is tied up in a bun and she’s wearing a pink dress, “All these realities we're jumping in and out of are strange.”
They look back to the woman rolling on the sand, screaming, “I eat crabs. Crabs do not eat me!”
A chuckle escapes him and he scratches his chin to cover his smile. He shouldn’t be finding this amusing, but this is just plain weird.
He hasn’t shaved since god-knows-when (judging from how he looks right now, the facial scruff he’s sporting seems to be a week-old… he thinks), but he’s getting comfortable with it. It still feels odd, though.
She leans slightly against him, “You look like an action hero with your whiskers.” She remarks, angling her head as she looks at him.
“My what?” he raises a brow, “Whiskers?”
She smiles at him and reaches out to touch his face, “This.” she caresses his cheek, “This little beard you’re growing, Mr. Dominic. It suits you.”
He turns to her slightly, “I just noticed something.” He says, “You always call me Mr. Dominic.”
A soft breeze blows a few strands of hair on her face and she pulls her hand away from him to tuck her hair behind her ear, “I’ve never been quite sure if Laurence Dominic is your real name.” she answers, “I don’t know. Maybe I like calling you Mr. Dominic.”
He flashes her a look of disbelief, “Really?”
She smiles wider this time, “Well, what do you want me to call you?”
He starts to stand and pulls her up with him, “You can call me Laurence. Or Mr. Dominic. Or Dominic. Whichever you prefer.” He says and starts to put on his shoes.
She’s not with him every time he pops in and out of realities, but she appears to him often enough that whenever she doesn’t, he actually misses her.
This just seems so fucked-up considering that she was the one who put him in here.
They start to walk together, away from the crabs and the woman. Off to chase Arcane once again.
“Laurence?” He turns his head to look at her, but she shakes her head, “Nothing. Merely testing out your name, to see if you’ll respond.”
~*~*~
The bottle of whiskey is sitting in the middle of his desk and he stares at it, desperately trying to make it disappear from his sight.
“Take a drink, boy. It wouldn’t matter. You’ll hurt the people you care about like the way I hurt you. Drink. It’ll make the pain go away.”
He knows that he’ll never hurt anyone he cares about. Not consciously, he thinks. And besides, his mother is dead and he and his brother are estranged (to the point that he has no idea if his brother is alive or not); there isn’t anyone to hurt.
Except for one.
Something flashes in his mind. The weight of the gun... squeezing the trigger…the pain in her eyes… a burst of blue light.
And then he remembers.
“You’re signing my death warrant like it’s a business transaction?”
He feels like someone slammed a door on his face. He’s in the Attic. These… all of these… are all in his mind and he’s stuck in it. Because of her.
He clenches his jaw and swallows the emotions rising up his throat. She sent him to the Attic and she’s managed to worm her way into all of these… scenarios. Dying in front of him, over and over again. What kind of sick twisted joke is his mind playing on him?
But then, a flicker of movement at the corner of his eye catches his attention. He moves just in time to evade a kick in the head.
He pushes his chair away and a black figure pounces towards him, tackling him off his chair and onto the floor. He fights back, punching the figure in the throat and rolling away from the figure to get to his feet.
They trade punches, but he’s at a disadvantage, as his opponent is stronger than him because one kick sends him hurling to the wall. He quickly stands up and attacks his attacker, kicking him in the shin and kneeing him in groin.
Then the figure in black starts to run. And without hesitation, he chases after him.
~*~*~
Great. Just great. Just loads of greatness. He loves how his brain likes to taunts him, acting as if it’s not part of his entire body.
He takes in a ragged breath, “Of course, you’d be in my nightmare. You’re Rossum’s rising star.” He looks up to the ledges, trying to see if Arcane’s still around.
“No, I was a defect and I’m pretty sure you’re in my defective head-”
“-no, I’m in the Attic, trapped inside my own mind.”
“No, this is my mind.”
“Are we really arguing about this?”
He glances around, noticing the snow and the large tree in the middle of the Dollhouse facility. Adelle is nowhere in sight, and he doesn’t know whether to feel relieved or not, because he doesn’t like dealing with this woman. Of all people to randomly appear, why did it have to be Echo?
“I’ve accepted it. I chase Arcane and try to stop him from killing. The reality changes but the enemy stays the same.” He mutters. This is what happens when Adelle isn’t around. Sometimes, he recites monologues. Other times, he hums the stupid song that’s been stuck in his head for ages. “I’ll never rest and I’ll never catch him.”
“That’s pretty cool and all, and I don’t want to ruin your whole Highlander vibe but,” Echo puts her hands on her waist, “I’m pretty positive that this is my mind.” She takes a few deep breaths, “I think you just saved my life. For real.”
He gapes at her, “What do you mean?”
Echo proceeds to explain the significance of the tree and shows him memories of her relatives and a man that seems to be holding a rabbit (or maybe its cheese carved into a rabbit, he doesn’t really know). Come to think of it, he’s never noticed strange or seemingly random things before; he was only focused on Arcane and the person he’s targeting.
“I think you are real.” Echo takes a step towards him, looking at him curiously, “I can feel it; I’m not making you up, or remembering you. All of the minds in the Attic must be connected somehow.”
He stares at her. Wait a minute-
“-Adelle finally put you in the Attic?” Her name slips out of his lips so naturally it takes him a few seconds to realize that he probably shouldn’t have said Adelle.
“I could feel it with that monster too.”
“Arcane.” Echo gives him a funny look. He shrugs, “That’s what he calls himself.”
He flashes back to his first reality, the one in the NSA with Adelle dying, and him not being able to leave, “I was... trapped inside the NSA.” He turns away from Echo and starts to walk around, “It felt like years. He came to murder me, I fought back and I chased him out.” He looks at Echo, “And I’ve been chasing him ever since.”
Everything makes sense now. The clowns, the human-eating crabs, the naked man. They weren’t imagined worlds. They’re real and they’re people’s worst nightmares.
“So you travel from mind to mind?” she asks and approaches him.
He waits for a beat, “I guess so, yeah.”
“I need to know how. I need to find my friends.” There’s urgency in her tone.
“Well, he’ll probably go after them.” He thinks of the minds of the people he visited when he was chasing Arcane. He can only remember one or two instances wherein he passes through them again, “He targets newcomers. He might even lead us right into their heads.”
“How do you track him? How does he get in and out?”
“He can sense fear.” He remembers the blood, remembers how he hurt her, remembers that it was she put him here, “He finds something you’re deeply afraid of.”
There’s always a door going in and out. At first, he thought it will be the elevator leading to Adelle’s office, but it isn’t. There’s a soft glow of light in Topher’s lab so they walked towards it.
He doesn’t ask her about Adelle DeWitt, the real one. Echo must have done something to piss her off so badly. And she doesn’t offer any more information, just that Victor and Sierra are with her here.
A seemingly lobotomized Topher stalks around the imprinting room, mumbling to himself. He glances around, finding the images on the TV just a tad too science-fiction for him.
“My worst nightmare.” She states. He’s looking at Topher; she’s looking at something else.
“That would be the point.” He replies, sarcastically.
Echo sits on the chair and he warns her to slow down. He’s jumped into a lot of minds; not all of them are pretty and not all of them have Arcane in them.
He turns his back on her for just a quick second and suddenly, she’s gone.
~*~~
They managed to help around six people so far (three Americans, one Brit and one Russian-how they managed to communicate with the Russian baffles him because the woman barely spoke English). And, after explaining to them what’s going on and what they need to do (and basically training them to jump from one mind to another) those six people paired up to help others.
Now he and Clyde’s holding camp; a rendezvous point where the six can bring the ‘freed’. They’re currently waiting in the empty streets of Time Square, from the mind of their new Russian friend.
“Hypothetically, is it possible for someone in the Attic to see another person who isn’t in it?” he asks as they sit on the pavement.
Adelle still appears, once in a while, but the intervals between her visits are getting longer. And only when he’s alone.
He misses her presence.
Clyde gives him a curious glance, “What do you mean?” he inquires.
“Uh,” He doesn’t know how to explain it. There are times when he has difficulty understanding what Clyde’s saying. He’s like Topher when he begins to spout incoherent technological babble, except that he has a British accent.
“Is it like a hallucination?”
“No.” he replies, linking his fingers together. “More lucid than a hallucination. It’s as if she’s here, real.”
“Well…” Clyde trails off and scratches one of his big ears. A contemplative expression passes his face before lighting up, “Of course!” he exclaims, “This is the brain we’re talking about, a very beautiful and powerful thing.”
He makes a slight face, “Okay.”
His companion starts to wave his hands around, “The things we suspect the brain can do - telekinesis, telepathy, pyrokinesis, clairvoyance - the things we know to be fantastical in the real world is, theoretically, possible in here. Because we’re stuck inside our minds.” He then deflates a bit, realizing how depressing his last sentence sounded.
They sit in silence for a few seconds. He then thinks that if Adelle was merely a product of his mind, why doesn’t she appear when he tries to make her appear?
“I mean if you think about it,” Clyde starts after a few minutes, “here, we can hurl people to the walls without exerting any effort. We could probably lift the pyramids using our mind if we practice.”
~*~*~
They’re in the clay world (or Gumby’s world according to one of the people they’ve freed), from a former Active’s mind in the Manhattan Attic. They change rendezvous points several times to avoid unnecessary spikes in Rossum’s mainframe. This will serve as their rendezvous point for the other Attic dwellers for the time-being.
Adelle hasn’t appeared for a long time. Clyde’s not bad company, but he still prefers her over him.
“He’s not one of ours, is he?” Clyde suddenly asks pointing him to a figure walking towards them. He’s in black, not unlike Clyde’s former persona, but smaller and seems to be wearing a mask.
They both stand up, alert for anything.
“Mr. Dominic?” The figure says, stopping just a few feet away from them. His voice is indistinct and he’s unable to determine whether the figure is a man or a woman.
“Who wants to know?” he asks.
“I have a message for you, from the LA Dollhouse.”
Clyde slightly drops his guard. He doesn’t. “And that message is?” he asks. Is it time to destroy the mainframe? Has Echo found a way to cripple Rossum outside?
“It’s not time yet.”
“Then why are you here?” Clyde asks, befuddled.
The figure on black doesn’t answer. Instead, he turns towards him and shoots, emptying the bullets of his gun on Laurence Dominic’s chest.
~*~*~
He wakes up and desperately gasps for air as he sits up. A chill envelopes his entire body. There’s unbearable pain on his chest and the frantic sounds of machines around him.
He madly looks around. He sees an outline of a man hidden in the shadows.
“Mr. Dominic.”
His brain scrambles to sort out all the information that’s been exploding in his head and he struggles to put a face with the voice and a name with the face. The man steps out of the dark just in time for him to remember.
Boyd Langton.
“Welcome back.”
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Laurence Dominic, Adelle DeWitt, Echo, Clyde Randolph
Pairing: DeWitt/Dominic. If you squint.
Disclaimer: Nope, don't own them. Never will.
Words: 6,267
Spoilers: Up to 2x10; with a scene from the episode
Summary: "Reality is a hallucination brought on by lack of alcohol." - unknown
Notes: A post 2x10 fic. I noticed that there aren't any fics out there about Laurence Dominic and his time in the Attic and since I love Laurence Dominic, I was inspired to write one. And then my writing muse abandoned me during the holidays and only went back a few days ago.
All mistakes are mine. I apologize in advance. I also hope you enjoy.
Blood.
Her blood is everywhere.
He rushes to her side. She got hit somewhere around the stomach and now her white, crisp blouse is soaked with bright crimson.
“Civilian down! We need help here!” he shouts and kneels beside her. Sheer terror pumps in his veins as he tries to stop the bleeding. She’s blinking furiously, trying to figure out what just happened, “Adelle.” He says her name urgently and her eyes focus on him.
“Mr. Dom-”
“Shut up.” he takes her hand and squeezes it reassuringly. She’s losing too much blood too fast, “You’re going to be okay. The bullet probably missed vital organs. You’re going to be okay” He says, over and over, seemingly more like he’s saying it for himself and not for her.
His heart is beating so fast he feels like he’s going to throw up any minute.
“You’re going to be okay.” He repeats, with panic in his tone, and looks around, “Where the hell are the paramedics?!”
She begins to take shallow breaths through her mouth. Her cheeks start to lose color and her lips are slowly turning purple. Her eyelids start to flutter.
“Adelle, don’t sleep.” He calls out again and touches her cheek gently, “Don’t, please. Stay. Stay with me. Please.” He checks her pulse and finds it weakening rapidly.
He knows he’s gripping her hand too tightly but his head is spinning from the adrenaline and he doesn’t know what he should do. Help isn’t arriving.
He shouldn’t have done this. He shouldn’t have allowed them to take her from the Dollhouse. He should have let her escape. And he shouldn’t have left her with them, here.
The minutes seem to stretch and he feels like he’s aware of what’s happening to her. He can hear her breathe, feel the little trembles of her body, sense the rate she’s losing blood. Everything is so slow.
But then time speeds up. And then, she ends.
His mind goes blank and he stares at her, now reduced to a lifeless body. Her body gave up. She stopped breathing. Her heart stopped beating. Just like that. She’s gone.
His brows furrow. He can’t… what will he… why…
“Hey, Dominic!”
He looks up and sees Assistant Director Ted Palmer, a rotund man with a long sideburns and a balding top, standing a few feet away from him. He tosses something to him, but he’s not able to catch it. It lands on the pool of her blood and he, automatically, reaches out to take it.
It seems to be a wallet, made of leather. He flips it open and sees an NSA badge.
He stares at it. He doesn’t know what it means. He just knows that her blood is staining the gold-plated emblem of the National Security Agency. He looks up to Palmer and shakes his head in confusion, “What do you want me to do with this?” he asks.
“Your boss is dead, we got the tech.” Palmer says in a matter-of-fact and annoyingly arrogant manner, “Welcome back to the NSA. Want a promotion?”
And then it ends.
And starts again.
~*~*~
He chases the shadow everywhere.
Reality changes - he’s been to a world made of clay with cracked heads and brains spilling on the floor, a tropical forest where killer mosquitoes the size of tennis balls roam, and a cemetery-slash-carnival with terrifying, seemingly murderous, Russian clowns - but the monster stays the same.
With every reality, it kills. And he tries to stop it.
He realized early on that he’s in the Attic. And this is his punishment- he will never be able to rest and reality will keep on changing until he completely stops the monster from killing. He will be stuck in this loop forever unless he finds a way to kill it. Or it kills him first.
Or he goes insane.
Whichever of the three comes first.
~*~*~
He ushers her across the halls of the NSA, a place he once considered hallowed grounds. He chose not to put her in handcuffs but the Agency had deemed her dangerous enough that they’re being escorted by four men-two in the front and two in the back.
“You’re taking a large gamble here, Mr. Dominic, taking me to custody.” She says, the first words she has uttered ever since they took her from her office.
He takes a sideways glance at her, “It’s not my call to make, Ma’am.”
The corner of her mouth twitches, “I see you’re still following orders.” He looks away from her and focuses on where they’re going. He wanted to let her escape, but the strong urge to stick to the rules prevented him to let her go.
“You've always been too good with following orders.” She murmurs, intending that only he will be able to hear her.
Assistant Director Palmer meets them when they reach the end of the hallway.
“We’ll take it from here, Agent Dominic.” He gruffly says, his eyes glued to DeWitt.
“Sir, if I may, I like to-”
“-go grab coffee in the break room or something.” The man interrupts and gives him a condescending smile, “I’m sure Ms. DeWitt will be fine in the interrogation room.”
Palmer’s attitude is rubbing him the wrong way. And the way he’s looking at her makes him want to punch the man. Instead, he gives a stilted nod and uses all his willpower to walk away and not to let his fist connect with the man’s chin.
Times like these, he feels like his reluctance to break order will be the death of him.
He’s on his way to the break room when he hears several shots being fired. It takes him a second or two to recognize what he had heard, but when he realizes what it was and what it meant, he sprints back to the interrogation room like a madman.
He stops a few feet away from the end of the hall. His skin prickles and bile rises up his throat when he sees her lying on the floor.
And blood.
Her blood is everywhere.
~*~*~
He’s losing his mind.
The same song has been stuck in his head for the past ten realities. As he trudges the empty (and slightly dirty) street of Times Square, he contemplates on whether that fact alone would qualify as “slowly losing his marbles”. After all, he’s chasing a shadow that calls itself Arcane through different worlds; if he says that outside the Attic, he’d be deemed crazy. Perspective on insanity differs in the world he’s in right now.
He looks around in annoyance. There’s no one in here. The lights of the billboards and the advertisements seem to be dancing in front of his eyes and are so damn bright. He can’t sense Arcane and he’s alone.
And that blasted song just keeps on going over and over in his head.
“Goddamn it!” he shouts and furiously kicks an empty can of soda. “Goddamnedshitloadoffuckedupshit!” he shouts and starts kicking all the things that he can kick. He angrily spews out a series of curses, one after the other. He shouts at the top of his lungs until his throat is hoarse.
After a while, he sits down on the pavement. He draws his legs towards him and he leans forward to rest his head on his knees. He lets out a long, despondent sigh. He’s exhausted. What he’s doing is so fucking exhausting.
“Did the shouting rid you of that silly song too?”
Hearing a familiar voice makes his head jerk up and puts his body on full alert. Bemusement and suspicion fills him as he stares at the figure standing a foot away from him.
She’s wearing a dark red dress that hugs her body in the right places and her hair is down, its ends, perfectly curled and not a strand is out of place. He remembers her wearing that dress before. He just can’t remember when she wore it. It seems so long ago.
He closes his eyes. Yeah. This is it. The insanity is creeping in.
“Great.” He mutters, rubbing his face with his palm, “Just great.”
“Feeling like you’re losing grip on your sanity, Mr. Dominic?”
He looks at her and sees her walking towards him. She crouches in front of him and touches his hand. A jolt goes through him when her skin touches his.
Shock registers on his face. She’s real?
“You’re real.” He says, slowly. “And you’re in the Attic.”
She shakes his head and watches him. The lights of Times Square make the color of her eyes darker. She then rests her hand on top of his knee. It’s disconcerting to see her in front of him with the knowledge that the dried blood, which stains his pants, his shirt and his suit, belongs to her.
“You’re not in the Attic?”
“No.”
“Then how are you here? How did you get here?”
“You don’t remember?” she asks softly, “When you were in the NSA. I was shot. You…you asked me to stay.”
“Don’t, please. Stay. Stay with me. Please.”
He grits his teeth when he feels a slight stab of anger going through him. He pulls away and stands up. So, she’s just in his mind? He’s making her up? Is he that lonely that his subconscious conjured a random person to keep him company? And of all people, why her? He hasn’t thought of her at all.
How can he make her go away?
He clenches his fist, “I hate you.” She doesn’t say anything. He looks at her and finds a somewhat wounded expression on her face, “What, did I hurt your feelings?” he asks snidely, “You sent me to the Attic and I’m going through all this crap and you think I wouldn’t hate you for it? Christ, you really are a piece of work.”
“Please do have the decorum to tell me to leave you alone when you’re done with the verbal abuse.” She says not making any move to go away.
“Why? Because you won’t be able to leave if I don’t tell you to go?”
Amusement flits across her face (she’s always been like that, he thinks, seeing something funny in very serious moments).
“I don’t know, Mr. Dominic. It’s your head, your brain, your mind. Not mine.”
~*~*~
His mind goes blank and he stares at her, now reduced to a lifeless body. Her body gave up. She stopped breathing. Her heart stopped beating. Just like that. She’s gone.
His brows furrow. He can’t… what will he… why…
“Hey, Dominic!”
He looks up and sees Assistant Director Ted Palmer, a rotund man with a long sideburns and a balding top, standing a few feet away from him. He tosses something to him, but he’s not able to catch it. It lands on the pool of her blood and he, automatically, reaches out to take it.
Then he realizes what he’s doing and he pulls back his hand. He frowns as he stares at the black, square thing sitting on DeWitt’s blood.
“Aren’t you going to pick it up?” Palmer asks.
It’s his NSA badge, he thinks. His mission had ended. They murdered DeWitt to end it, officially.
He looks at her body. He reaches to her and gently touches her face.
“I’m sorry.” He murmurs before standing up and looking at Palmer, “I quit.”
Palmer frowns, “What? You can’t just quit.”
He shakes his head, “I just did, Palmer.” He says, and then turns around to walk away.
~*~*~
Arcane’s here.
He avoids stepping on the thin, white curtain and the black wooden boxes that are scattered on the floor. He’s now knows how to track Arcane down. It wasn’t an easy task, but he’s getting better. And sometimes, he stops him from killing. Sometimes, he doesn’t.
He looks around. He has to find the person Arcane wants to kill. It’s normally just one person in every reality.
He reaches the end of the floor and opens the curtain. Bright, yellow lights flood him and he suddenly becomes aware of the sounds of violins and the people’s buzzing chatter. He then realizes that he’s behind the backdrop of the stage.
He makes his way to the left wing and finds only ropes, more lights and an empty chair. A part of him is slightly relieved that he doesn’t have to look far to find the person he’s looking for. He’s probably at the other wing (unless of course, he/she’s grand entrance is from above. A problem, since he doesn’t know how to get up there…).
He crosses the stage. Hiding in the right wing is a short, skinny man with black hair and wearing eyeglasses. He raises a brow when he sees the man’s attire (or lack of it) - a pair of black shoes, brown socks and orange briefs.
The man sees him. Panic colors his face, “You're the lighting man, r-r-right? P-p-please tell me you're the lighting m-m-man.” He says frantically stuttering, tripping over his words.
He shrugs, “Sure.” He says, “I’m the lighting man.”
“Okay.” He starts to wave around the piece of paper, “Okay. Um, uh, c-c-can you point all the lights towards me when I go onstage? A-a-all lights? And with all lights, I m-m-mean, all l-l-lights. Can y-y-you do that?”
He makes a face, “Okay.” He peeks at the audience and looks back at the almost naked guy, “And what are you going to do, exactly? A Chippendales’ act?” He looks at the man with disbelief. He’s excessively hairy and his orange underwear just seems to glow around him.
“I, uh…” the man’s eyes dart to his side and they hear the crowd and the orchestra going silent. The man starts to tremble, “Ah, I-I-I think, I need t-t-to go.” He says and begins to take of the orange briefs.
The move completely surprises him “Hey-” but the man scampers off to the stage.
The silence lasts for two seconds before the audience erupts in laughter. He can only stare as the man stands in the middle of the stage, naked and trembling.
“A lot of people have nightmares about this. I believe it has some sort of psychological meaning.” He doesn’t need to look to his left to know that Adelle’s beside him. But he looks to his side, anyway, because he wants to see her.
“Yeah, well, if we don’t find Arcane, that poor sap will have the humiliation of dying naked.” He searches for a looming black figure in the audience and up in the lights and the sandbags.
“T-t-tonight I Can Write the S-s-saddest Lines. Pa-a-ablo Neruda.” The man squeaks out amidst the rumble of laughter. He looks at his piece of paper, “T-t-tonight I can write the s-s-saddest lines. Write f-f-for example…” he trails off, looking as if might be reduced to a sobbing mess, “‘The n-n-night is shat-t-t-tered and the b-b-blue stars sh-sh-shiver in t-t-the distance’. The n-n-night w-w-wind revolves in the sk-k-ky and s-s-sings.”
“This is a sad poem.” Adelle comments.
He rolls his eyes and continues looking. Sometimes she’s helpful; sometimes she isn’t. This is probably one of the times when she won’t be any help.
Arcane’s still here. He can sense him. But where the hell is he hiding?
“S-s-she loved m-m-me, sometimes I l-l-loved her t-t-too. How c-c-could one n-n-not have loved her g-g-great s-s-still e-e-eyes.”
“If only this man will stop stuttering, every-Mr. Dominic!”
The alarm in Adelle’s voice makes him look at the stage. Arcane has appeared out of nowhere and has lunged towards the hapless naked man.
He runs towards Arcane. The shadow has already pinned the man beneath him and he tries to pull him off. An elbow to his gut, however, sends him flying back to where he was standing a few seconds ago.
He grunts in pain, but quickly scrambles to his feet. He runs back and successfully pulls him off the man, but he’s too late. Arcane has stabbed him with a pencil in the neck.
Blood begins to spread around the man’s head. Barely alive, the naked man looks at him, “To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.”
He looks around.
Arcane’s gone.
“Mr. Dominic.” He hears Adelle say. For the first time, he hears fear tinge her tone. “Take off your clothes.”
He looks at her, “What?” The lights begin to flicker and then start to give out. He looks at the audience and finds them still in their seats, laughing. He looks back at her, “Why do you want me to take off my clothes?” he asks, slightly shocked with the command.
She rushes towards him and begins tugging off his coat, “That man’s brain is shutting down.”
“What do you mean? We just have to find a door-”
“-he’s dying!” she exclaims, “There are no more doors. The reality’s disappearing and you’re trapped.”
“So I have to take off my clothes to untrap myself?” he replies sarcastically. It doesn’t make sense. But then, he stopped thinking about his sanity a long time ago.
“Can you take off your clothes, please?” she snaps irritably as she discards his coat smattered with dried blood, “If this man’s world disappears with you in it, you’ll die.”
He unhooks his pants as she unbuttons his shirt, “And I have to get naked?” he asks again.
“Not just naked. You have to do what he fears the most. You need to finish saying the poem in front of these people.”
In a matter of seconds, he’s rid of his clothes except for his shoes and his boxers. The air is a bit chilly, but the lights are warm on his skin. His cheeks are burning with embarrassment, as if the man’s humiliation has been transferred to him.
“Take off all your clothes.” Adelle says again and goes towards the other naked man on the stage to get the copy of the poem.
He takes off his underwear, “You do realize that when we get out of this reality, I’ll still be naked?”
“One problem at a time, Mr. Dominic.” She replies. He sees her stop and stare at him for a beat before handing him a piece of paper, half of it covered in blood, “And besides, you need to be rid of those blood-encrusted shirt and trousers.” She says.
“You’re blushing.” He points out.
“Eight line, finish it quick.” She ignores his comment and hurries off the stage.
He then faces the laughing audience. Half of the lights in the auditorium are now off. He takes a look at the paper and takes a deep breath. He hopes to God the next reality he goes into will be a zombie apocalypse scenario in a mall.
“And the verse falls to the soul like dew to a pasture. What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is shattered and she is not with me.” He looks to the audience and finds Adelle sitting in the front row. Amusement suddenly washes over him.
He breezes through the poem as the lights flicker off, one by one.
“My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer…” He glances up to the crowd. No one’s laughing. Five lights remain but the audience is still intact.
“…and these the last verses that I write for her.” He says, finishing the poem.
He takes a bow.
The auditorium suddenly fills up with thunderous applause.
There’s a flash of bright white light.
~*~*~
He angrily pounds his fists at the door. He can’t get out of the building-all the doors are locked, the windows seem to be glued shut to the ledge and the elevator and stairs go nowhere.
He kicks the door in frustration before taking several deep breaths to calm himself down.
Trapped in the NSA. It’s not the most horrible thing in the world, except that he’s not comfortable being here. Everything seems wrong and out of place. There’s a tiny, niggling voice in his head that’s telling him that he should be remembering something important but he can’t figure out what it is, so he pushes the thought away.
He loosens his tie and makes his way out of the hallway and back into the room.
He takes a seat behind one of the desks and slumps forward on top of the table.
“If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you’re passed out drunk.”
A chill goes through his spine. He hasn’t heard that raspy, garbled voice for the last thirty years, but it still manages to bring the fear of god in him.
Slowly he straightens up. And comes face-to-face with Gideon Dominic, who’s holding a bottle of whiskey.
“But no. You’re too straight-laced-when it comes to vices.” The older man chuckles as drags a chair and sits in front of his desk. The pungent smell of whiskey wafts in his nose and he flinches, “You’d have no problems killing people or beating up people if you think they deserve ‘em, but the thought of smoking and drinkin’ too much repulses you.”
He stares at the man in front of him, who stares back at him with the same pale, blue eyes he sees everyday in the mirror. Thick, blond hair covers his eyes and he looks like he hasn’t shaved in months.
“What, no smartass answers, boy?” Gideon takes a drink from his bottle, “Afraid you’d get smacked around by your old man?”
He can take him. He’s older now and stronger. He won’t allow himself to be knocked around by him-especially him.
“I’m not afraid of you.” He says, finally.
A twisted smile appears in his father’s face, “You say that.” He says, and points a finger at him, “But you're afraid of me. Afraid you’ll be like me.” Gideon takes another drink from the bottle and continues, “A man your age would have a wife and a litter of kids by now. Yet, you don’t. You're afraid of that cycle of violence turning out to be true, and guess what? It is.”
He finds himself fixated with the scars on his father’s knuckles. He remembers how those knuckles would rain on his face and his body when his father comes home too drunk. It started when he was six, he thinks, and only ended when he was ten, when his mother left his father and took him and his brother with her.
“My daddy used to beat me and my ma when I was little. I told myself that I’ll never be like him, I’ll never pick up a bottle, that I’ll never lay a hand on my wife or kids. But I still did.” He takes a swig from the bottle.
Rage quickly fills him and he tightly grips on the arms of his chair to control himself. So he’s supposed to feel sorry for him, because his father beat him up too?
“It always boils down to your choice.” He grits his teeth, “It was your choice to be a drunken, no-good, abuser. It was your choice.”
Gideon hoots in amusement and puts down the bottle of whiskey on top of his desk. “You’ll never break the cycle, you hear me, boy? You’ll beat up your family the same way I beat up mine.”
~*~*~
He’s sitting on the beach, watching the sunset as the waves crash against the shore and the seagulls screech above. He extends his leg a bit and lets his toes touch the water. He then takes in a lungful of salty air before letting it out.
He saved someone today. After thirteen realities (almost getting trapped in four), he managed to overpower Arcane for a second or two and stopped him from killing someone.
And that someone is several yards away, rolling in the sand, being crawled over by hundreds of crabs.
“I find that sight terribly strange.” Adelle says, popping up unannounced as usual.
He glances at her. She’s seated beside him, her back turned away from the sunset. Her hair is tied up in a bun and she’s wearing a pink dress, “All these realities we're jumping in and out of are strange.”
They look back to the woman rolling on the sand, screaming, “I eat crabs. Crabs do not eat me!”
A chuckle escapes him and he scratches his chin to cover his smile. He shouldn’t be finding this amusing, but this is just plain weird.
He hasn’t shaved since god-knows-when (judging from how he looks right now, the facial scruff he’s sporting seems to be a week-old… he thinks), but he’s getting comfortable with it. It still feels odd, though.
She leans slightly against him, “You look like an action hero with your whiskers.” She remarks, angling her head as she looks at him.
“My what?” he raises a brow, “Whiskers?”
She smiles at him and reaches out to touch his face, “This.” she caresses his cheek, “This little beard you’re growing, Mr. Dominic. It suits you.”
He turns to her slightly, “I just noticed something.” He says, “You always call me Mr. Dominic.”
A soft breeze blows a few strands of hair on her face and she pulls her hand away from him to tuck her hair behind her ear, “I’ve never been quite sure if Laurence Dominic is your real name.” she answers, “I don’t know. Maybe I like calling you Mr. Dominic.”
He flashes her a look of disbelief, “Really?”
She smiles wider this time, “Well, what do you want me to call you?”
He starts to stand and pulls her up with him, “You can call me Laurence. Or Mr. Dominic. Or Dominic. Whichever you prefer.” He says and starts to put on his shoes.
She’s not with him every time he pops in and out of realities, but she appears to him often enough that whenever she doesn’t, he actually misses her.
This just seems so fucked-up considering that she was the one who put him in here.
They start to walk together, away from the crabs and the woman. Off to chase Arcane once again.
“Laurence?” He turns his head to look at her, but she shakes her head, “Nothing. Merely testing out your name, to see if you’ll respond.”
~*~*~
The bottle of whiskey is sitting in the middle of his desk and he stares at it, desperately trying to make it disappear from his sight.
“Take a drink, boy. It wouldn’t matter. You’ll hurt the people you care about like the way I hurt you. Drink. It’ll make the pain go away.”
He knows that he’ll never hurt anyone he cares about. Not consciously, he thinks. And besides, his mother is dead and he and his brother are estranged (to the point that he has no idea if his brother is alive or not); there isn’t anyone to hurt.
Except for one.
Something flashes in his mind. The weight of the gun... squeezing the trigger…the pain in her eyes… a burst of blue light.
And then he remembers.
“You’re signing my death warrant like it’s a business transaction?”
He feels like someone slammed a door on his face. He’s in the Attic. These… all of these… are all in his mind and he’s stuck in it. Because of her.
He clenches his jaw and swallows the emotions rising up his throat. She sent him to the Attic and she’s managed to worm her way into all of these… scenarios. Dying in front of him, over and over again. What kind of sick twisted joke is his mind playing on him?
But then, a flicker of movement at the corner of his eye catches his attention. He moves just in time to evade a kick in the head.
He pushes his chair away and a black figure pounces towards him, tackling him off his chair and onto the floor. He fights back, punching the figure in the throat and rolling away from the figure to get to his feet.
They trade punches, but he’s at a disadvantage, as his opponent is stronger than him because one kick sends him hurling to the wall. He quickly stands up and attacks his attacker, kicking him in the shin and kneeing him in groin.
Then the figure in black starts to run. And without hesitation, he chases after him.
~*~*~
Great. Just great. Just loads of greatness. He loves how his brain likes to taunts him, acting as if it’s not part of his entire body.
He takes in a ragged breath, “Of course, you’d be in my nightmare. You’re Rossum’s rising star.” He looks up to the ledges, trying to see if Arcane’s still around.
“No, I was a defect and I’m pretty sure you’re in my defective head-”
“-no, I’m in the Attic, trapped inside my own mind.”
“No, this is my mind.”
“Are we really arguing about this?”
He glances around, noticing the snow and the large tree in the middle of the Dollhouse facility. Adelle is nowhere in sight, and he doesn’t know whether to feel relieved or not, because he doesn’t like dealing with this woman. Of all people to randomly appear, why did it have to be Echo?
“I’ve accepted it. I chase Arcane and try to stop him from killing. The reality changes but the enemy stays the same.” He mutters. This is what happens when Adelle isn’t around. Sometimes, he recites monologues. Other times, he hums the stupid song that’s been stuck in his head for ages. “I’ll never rest and I’ll never catch him.”
“That’s pretty cool and all, and I don’t want to ruin your whole Highlander vibe but,” Echo puts her hands on her waist, “I’m pretty positive that this is my mind.” She takes a few deep breaths, “I think you just saved my life. For real.”
He gapes at her, “What do you mean?”
Echo proceeds to explain the significance of the tree and shows him memories of her relatives and a man that seems to be holding a rabbit (or maybe its cheese carved into a rabbit, he doesn’t really know). Come to think of it, he’s never noticed strange or seemingly random things before; he was only focused on Arcane and the person he’s targeting.
“I think you are real.” Echo takes a step towards him, looking at him curiously, “I can feel it; I’m not making you up, or remembering you. All of the minds in the Attic must be connected somehow.”
He stares at her. Wait a minute-
“-Adelle finally put you in the Attic?” Her name slips out of his lips so naturally it takes him a few seconds to realize that he probably shouldn’t have said Adelle.
“I could feel it with that monster too.”
“Arcane.” Echo gives him a funny look. He shrugs, “That’s what he calls himself.”
He flashes back to his first reality, the one in the NSA with Adelle dying, and him not being able to leave, “I was... trapped inside the NSA.” He turns away from Echo and starts to walk around, “It felt like years. He came to murder me, I fought back and I chased him out.” He looks at Echo, “And I’ve been chasing him ever since.”
Everything makes sense now. The clowns, the human-eating crabs, the naked man. They weren’t imagined worlds. They’re real and they’re people’s worst nightmares.
“So you travel from mind to mind?” she asks and approaches him.
He waits for a beat, “I guess so, yeah.”
“I need to know how. I need to find my friends.” There’s urgency in her tone.
“Well, he’ll probably go after them.” He thinks of the minds of the people he visited when he was chasing Arcane. He can only remember one or two instances wherein he passes through them again, “He targets newcomers. He might even lead us right into their heads.”
“How do you track him? How does he get in and out?”
“He can sense fear.” He remembers the blood, remembers how he hurt her, remembers that it was she put him here, “He finds something you’re deeply afraid of.”
There’s always a door going in and out. At first, he thought it will be the elevator leading to Adelle’s office, but it isn’t. There’s a soft glow of light in Topher’s lab so they walked towards it.
He doesn’t ask her about Adelle DeWitt, the real one. Echo must have done something to piss her off so badly. And she doesn’t offer any more information, just that Victor and Sierra are with her here.
A seemingly lobotomized Topher stalks around the imprinting room, mumbling to himself. He glances around, finding the images on the TV just a tad too science-fiction for him.
“My worst nightmare.” She states. He’s looking at Topher; she’s looking at something else.
“That would be the point.” He replies, sarcastically.
Echo sits on the chair and he warns her to slow down. He’s jumped into a lot of minds; not all of them are pretty and not all of them have Arcane in them.
He turns his back on her for just a quick second and suddenly, she’s gone.
~*~~
They managed to help around six people so far (three Americans, one Brit and one Russian-how they managed to communicate with the Russian baffles him because the woman barely spoke English). And, after explaining to them what’s going on and what they need to do (and basically training them to jump from one mind to another) those six people paired up to help others.
Now he and Clyde’s holding camp; a rendezvous point where the six can bring the ‘freed’. They’re currently waiting in the empty streets of Time Square, from the mind of their new Russian friend.
“Hypothetically, is it possible for someone in the Attic to see another person who isn’t in it?” he asks as they sit on the pavement.
Adelle still appears, once in a while, but the intervals between her visits are getting longer. And only when he’s alone.
He misses her presence.
Clyde gives him a curious glance, “What do you mean?” he inquires.
“Uh,” He doesn’t know how to explain it. There are times when he has difficulty understanding what Clyde’s saying. He’s like Topher when he begins to spout incoherent technological babble, except that he has a British accent.
“Is it like a hallucination?”
“No.” he replies, linking his fingers together. “More lucid than a hallucination. It’s as if she’s here, real.”
“Well…” Clyde trails off and scratches one of his big ears. A contemplative expression passes his face before lighting up, “Of course!” he exclaims, “This is the brain we’re talking about, a very beautiful and powerful thing.”
He makes a slight face, “Okay.”
His companion starts to wave his hands around, “The things we suspect the brain can do - telekinesis, telepathy, pyrokinesis, clairvoyance - the things we know to be fantastical in the real world is, theoretically, possible in here. Because we’re stuck inside our minds.” He then deflates a bit, realizing how depressing his last sentence sounded.
They sit in silence for a few seconds. He then thinks that if Adelle was merely a product of his mind, why doesn’t she appear when he tries to make her appear?
“I mean if you think about it,” Clyde starts after a few minutes, “here, we can hurl people to the walls without exerting any effort. We could probably lift the pyramids using our mind if we practice.”
~*~*~
They’re in the clay world (or Gumby’s world according to one of the people they’ve freed), from a former Active’s mind in the Manhattan Attic. They change rendezvous points several times to avoid unnecessary spikes in Rossum’s mainframe. This will serve as their rendezvous point for the other Attic dwellers for the time-being.
Adelle hasn’t appeared for a long time. Clyde’s not bad company, but he still prefers her over him.
“He’s not one of ours, is he?” Clyde suddenly asks pointing him to a figure walking towards them. He’s in black, not unlike Clyde’s former persona, but smaller and seems to be wearing a mask.
They both stand up, alert for anything.
“Mr. Dominic?” The figure says, stopping just a few feet away from them. His voice is indistinct and he’s unable to determine whether the figure is a man or a woman.
“Who wants to know?” he asks.
“I have a message for you, from the LA Dollhouse.”
Clyde slightly drops his guard. He doesn’t. “And that message is?” he asks. Is it time to destroy the mainframe? Has Echo found a way to cripple Rossum outside?
“It’s not time yet.”
“Then why are you here?” Clyde asks, befuddled.
The figure on black doesn’t answer. Instead, he turns towards him and shoots, emptying the bullets of his gun on Laurence Dominic’s chest.
~*~*~
He wakes up and desperately gasps for air as he sits up. A chill envelopes his entire body. There’s unbearable pain on his chest and the frantic sounds of machines around him.
He madly looks around. He sees an outline of a man hidden in the shadows.
“Mr. Dominic.”
His brain scrambles to sort out all the information that’s been exploding in his head and he struggles to put a face with the voice and a name with the face. The man steps out of the dark just in time for him to remember.
Boyd Langton.
“Welcome back.”