[dollhouse] so far away yet so close
Title: So Far Away Yet So Close
Author: aaronlisa
Fandom: Dollhouse
Pairing/Characters: Tony/Pryia (Victor/Sierra), mentions of other Dolhouse characters
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: Dollhouse belongs to Joss Whedon and company.
Prompts: Victor and Seirra (or Anthony and Pyria trying to come to terms with themselves and their doll identities) trying to survive in the apocalypse, bonus for camping shenanigans and trouble with bears. (I wasn’t able to include the camping or bears.)
Notes: Written for lunarwolfik for the apocalyptothon. Set after the events in Season Two and incorporates elements from “Epitaph One” and “Epitaph Two.”
Summary: They’re a million miles away from one another.
Word Count: 1854
They should have known that the apocalypse would still find them, that by the time they had risen against Rossum it was far too late to stop the juggernaut, and that much like Clyde’s repeating worse case scenario in the Attic that the world was doomed to burn. Yet they had all naively returned to Los Angeles from Tucson full of hope for the future, a future that they had each envisioned as being vastly different. Twenty-four hours later in the vacuum created by the deaths of Clyde 2.0 and Boyd, a rogue terrorist cell had taken control of a Dollhouse and used the technology to trigger the apocalypse. No one had been prepared for it, not even their small ragged group when three of them had seen what the future held.
* * *
Dawn is approaching and Sierra finds herself waiting in Adelle’s office, standing by one of the windows as she watches the Los Angeles skyline. At one time, it would have been illuminated by the harsh electric glow of a thousand twinkling lights that blotted out the stars. Now as the dawn starts to paint the once familiar skyline in shades of gold, red, pink and orange, she can see the destruction of the apocalypse. The buildings that surround the one she is in are silent and broken monoliths with dark and menacing holes. She sighs and is thankfully once again that Rossum had spared no expense in ensuring that the building she has called home for so long can survive almost any type of disaster.
The soft click of the door alerts that she is no longer alone, yet Sierra doesn’t turn around. They’re all safe in the ivory tower that is their luxurious prison. When his arms slip around her waist, she leans back with a contented sigh. The world outside might be slowly burning but at least she has him.
“Echo thought I might find you here,” Victor replies.
“Do you remember what it was like before?”
“Not really.”
“I remember what it was like and I used to think that it was so exciting, so full of life, so full of everything. And now it’s nothing more than a burnt out husk.”
Sierra shivers in the warm circle of Victor’s arms. She finally turns away from the window and presses her face into his chest. There are no tears for they have already been spent months ago. Yet she is still filled with sadness. He doesn’t whisper any soothing words to her; those have also been spent months ago. Instead Victor simply holds her in his arms and allows her to grieve for what once was. He stares out at the burnt husk that Los Angeles has become and worries about what is out there just waiting for them to escape the Dollhouse.
* * *
They could have stayed in the Dollhouse forever; it had enough fortifications, food, medicines and weapons to keep them safe until they all died. Life in the Dollhouse has become somber and grey as they have each accepted the fact that they were an army without a war to fight. And then Alpha arrives in a burst of insanity and colour, waking them all up once again, shocking them into action until he and Echo had led them out of the Dollhouse to the promise land.
* * *
She still thinks of herself as Sierra yet he insists that they go by their real names and she doesn’t have the heart to tell him that Pyria isn’t her real name. It’s not the name that she has come to think of herself of as. The girl that she once was, the girl that was Pyria who had come to Los Angeles so full of dreams, was nothing more than a victim. In Tony’s eyes, Sierra is nothing more than the manifestation of her victimization.
When Paul tells them of the birthmarks that he and Echo had seen survivors with, she decides to get one. To placate Tony, even though they have drifted so far apart, she tells Paul the name to put on her back, the name that she hates, the name that she’ll endure if it means that Tony will accept her once again. She is desperate to prove to him that she doesn’t identify herself as a doll but as a person. In a painful moment, Sierra becomes Pyria forever and when she goes to him to show him the reddened and tender skin with its brand new birthmark, she wonders if anyone will ever mourn for Sierra like she does. Or if she will forever be alone in her grief.
* * *
He longs to take her into his arms, to hold her and to comfort her, but she’s right when she tells him that it’s not something that they don’t do anymore. He wants to gather her in his arms and tell her that the defect isn’t something that she bears but something that he does. He’s pushed her so far away and allowed her to believe that it’s because of their identity as dolls. They’re a million miles away from one another because every night he still has nightmares of the Attic, of taking his knife and of easily gutting her like a fish. It doesn’t matter that it was an act of survival for both of them or that it was a means of escape from their death sentence, not when the phantom feel of her blood is still on his hands.
Like a coward, he allows her to believe that this distance between them has everything to do with her attachment to a stupid name. Neither of them are truly Tony or Pyria. In his mind, Tony and Pyria have been dead for years and no matter how hard they try, they’ll never be who they were before the whole nightmare of the Dollhouse began.
* * *
The journey to Safe Haven is a long one. They’re broken up into little groups in trucks that form a motorcade that snake from in a long line as they travel from Los Angeles to Alpha’s sanctuary. Pyria’s not sure if it was Echo’s idea or Adelle’s to put them in a truck together, all she knows is that she feels helpless. The distance between them is now an icy chasm that neither of them can bridge. In her hands are a sketch book that Echo had given her before they had left the Dollhouse; in the months since the world has fallen down, Echo has gently pressured her to pick up her art again. Pyria’s not sure if she ever can draw or paint again. The memory of Nolan’s corpse is still too fresh and it’s just another thing that separates her from Tony.
“If you don’t want to draw, why don’t you just tell Echo that?” Tony asks.
“She means well.”
“Maybe too well,” Tony states.
“Meaning what?” Pyria asks, her voice sharp.
“Nothing,” Tony flatly replies.
“What is your problem with Echo?”
“Nothing is my problem with Echo.”
They fall silent for the next fifty miles until Tony speaks again.
“Maybe I just think that Echo should be more of a realist. She can’t save everyone and she can’t save everything. She looks at us and expects us to have some fairy tale happy ending, which is never going to happen.”
Pyria looks at him, unable to hide her sadness and pain, and a part of her wants to ask him why they can’t have that. But she keeps silent and turns to stare out the window and instead gazes at the empty fields that pass them by. She’s pregnant and she’s afraid of what will happen when she tells him.
* * *
“It’s for the best, for you and for the kid,” Tony states.
“What that you embrace the very technology that drove us apart?”
“It was never that.”
“Then what was it Tony?” Pyria asks, her voice sharp and sad at the same time.
“It doesn’t matter,” Tony replies.
Pyria turns from him and starts pacing the worn linoleum floor of the kitchen. Back and forth as she tries to find the words that’ll convince him to come back to her. She knows that he’ll evade her questions but she can’t stop herself from trying over and over again.
“I’m a soldier Pyria, I can’t escape who I am. Please don’t ask me to choose between you or the war. Echo needs me to fight.”
“I need you. T needs you.”
“You do okay on your own with the kid and Echo’ll be here.”
“He needs his father!”
“I am not staying, I am going to do this.”
Tony’s words are resolute and they still her. She wants to throw herself at him and cling to him but the time for that has long past if it was ever there.
“Why?”
Tony hangs his head and they both know what she’s asking yet even now he can’t tell her the guilt that he still feels over what he had to do to free her from the Attic. He’ll never tell her his shame and guilt. It was easy to murder her in the construct of the Attic and he fears that if he ever had to, it’ll be easy to murder her outside of it. Instead of answering, he picks up the duffle bag by the door and leaves her without a word. He knows that she’ll survive. She always has. And anyhow he truly believes that she’ll be better off without him.
* * *
When Victor’s crew returns to Safe Haven, Pyria makes herself scarce. She can’t stand the moments when Victor is her sweet Victor from the Dollhouse. She can’t face him and pretend that she is still Sierra. Or even worse is when he’s Tony and she has to pretend that she doesn’t love him anymore. The war wages on and he’s gone more often than he is around.
* * *
Pyria raises her hand and touches the metal on his face. This is what he used to imprint himself with the many things that he needed to know in order to survive. Tony tenses as her hand gently moves, as she inspects Topher’s work. She wants to ask if they hurt him but she can’t find the words, instead she moves her hands down the length of his jaw. She had never dreamed that the Dollhouse could bring them back together. The Dollhouse has healed them and made them whole so that there’s no more division between Victor and Sierra or Tony and Pyria. Instead they are each one whole entity, no longer fractured.
His hand is gentle when he puts it on top of her hand and she smiles up at him. Echo is watching T as they share these few stolen moments. Neither of them worries about what will happen when they are free from the Dollhouse or about the world that they will find. Instead they just live in this one moment where none of that really matters.
((END))
Author: aaronlisa
Fandom: Dollhouse
Pairing/Characters: Tony/Pryia (Victor/Sierra), mentions of other Dolhouse characters
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: Dollhouse belongs to Joss Whedon and company.
Prompts: Victor and Seirra (or Anthony and Pyria trying to come to terms with themselves and their doll identities) trying to survive in the apocalypse, bonus for camping shenanigans and trouble with bears. (I wasn’t able to include the camping or bears.)
Notes: Written for lunarwolfik for the apocalyptothon. Set after the events in Season Two and incorporates elements from “Epitaph One” and “Epitaph Two.”
Summary: They’re a million miles away from one another.
Word Count: 1854
They should have known that the apocalypse would still find them, that by the time they had risen against Rossum it was far too late to stop the juggernaut, and that much like Clyde’s repeating worse case scenario in the Attic that the world was doomed to burn. Yet they had all naively returned to Los Angeles from Tucson full of hope for the future, a future that they had each envisioned as being vastly different. Twenty-four hours later in the vacuum created by the deaths of Clyde 2.0 and Boyd, a rogue terrorist cell had taken control of a Dollhouse and used the technology to trigger the apocalypse. No one had been prepared for it, not even their small ragged group when three of them had seen what the future held.
* * *
Dawn is approaching and Sierra finds herself waiting in Adelle’s office, standing by one of the windows as she watches the Los Angeles skyline. At one time, it would have been illuminated by the harsh electric glow of a thousand twinkling lights that blotted out the stars. Now as the dawn starts to paint the once familiar skyline in shades of gold, red, pink and orange, she can see the destruction of the apocalypse. The buildings that surround the one she is in are silent and broken monoliths with dark and menacing holes. She sighs and is thankfully once again that Rossum had spared no expense in ensuring that the building she has called home for so long can survive almost any type of disaster.
The soft click of the door alerts that she is no longer alone, yet Sierra doesn’t turn around. They’re all safe in the ivory tower that is their luxurious prison. When his arms slip around her waist, she leans back with a contented sigh. The world outside might be slowly burning but at least she has him.
“Echo thought I might find you here,” Victor replies.
“Do you remember what it was like before?”
“Not really.”
“I remember what it was like and I used to think that it was so exciting, so full of life, so full of everything. And now it’s nothing more than a burnt out husk.”
Sierra shivers in the warm circle of Victor’s arms. She finally turns away from the window and presses her face into his chest. There are no tears for they have already been spent months ago. Yet she is still filled with sadness. He doesn’t whisper any soothing words to her; those have also been spent months ago. Instead Victor simply holds her in his arms and allows her to grieve for what once was. He stares out at the burnt husk that Los Angeles has become and worries about what is out there just waiting for them to escape the Dollhouse.
* * *
They could have stayed in the Dollhouse forever; it had enough fortifications, food, medicines and weapons to keep them safe until they all died. Life in the Dollhouse has become somber and grey as they have each accepted the fact that they were an army without a war to fight. And then Alpha arrives in a burst of insanity and colour, waking them all up once again, shocking them into action until he and Echo had led them out of the Dollhouse to the promise land.
* * *
She still thinks of herself as Sierra yet he insists that they go by their real names and she doesn’t have the heart to tell him that Pyria isn’t her real name. It’s not the name that she has come to think of herself of as. The girl that she once was, the girl that was Pyria who had come to Los Angeles so full of dreams, was nothing more than a victim. In Tony’s eyes, Sierra is nothing more than the manifestation of her victimization.
When Paul tells them of the birthmarks that he and Echo had seen survivors with, she decides to get one. To placate Tony, even though they have drifted so far apart, she tells Paul the name to put on her back, the name that she hates, the name that she’ll endure if it means that Tony will accept her once again. She is desperate to prove to him that she doesn’t identify herself as a doll but as a person. In a painful moment, Sierra becomes Pyria forever and when she goes to him to show him the reddened and tender skin with its brand new birthmark, she wonders if anyone will ever mourn for Sierra like she does. Or if she will forever be alone in her grief.
* * *
He longs to take her into his arms, to hold her and to comfort her, but she’s right when she tells him that it’s not something that they don’t do anymore. He wants to gather her in his arms and tell her that the defect isn’t something that she bears but something that he does. He’s pushed her so far away and allowed her to believe that it’s because of their identity as dolls. They’re a million miles away from one another because every night he still has nightmares of the Attic, of taking his knife and of easily gutting her like a fish. It doesn’t matter that it was an act of survival for both of them or that it was a means of escape from their death sentence, not when the phantom feel of her blood is still on his hands.
Like a coward, he allows her to believe that this distance between them has everything to do with her attachment to a stupid name. Neither of them are truly Tony or Pyria. In his mind, Tony and Pyria have been dead for years and no matter how hard they try, they’ll never be who they were before the whole nightmare of the Dollhouse began.
* * *
The journey to Safe Haven is a long one. They’re broken up into little groups in trucks that form a motorcade that snake from in a long line as they travel from Los Angeles to Alpha’s sanctuary. Pyria’s not sure if it was Echo’s idea or Adelle’s to put them in a truck together, all she knows is that she feels helpless. The distance between them is now an icy chasm that neither of them can bridge. In her hands are a sketch book that Echo had given her before they had left the Dollhouse; in the months since the world has fallen down, Echo has gently pressured her to pick up her art again. Pyria’s not sure if she ever can draw or paint again. The memory of Nolan’s corpse is still too fresh and it’s just another thing that separates her from Tony.
“If you don’t want to draw, why don’t you just tell Echo that?” Tony asks.
“She means well.”
“Maybe too well,” Tony states.
“Meaning what?” Pyria asks, her voice sharp.
“Nothing,” Tony flatly replies.
“What is your problem with Echo?”
“Nothing is my problem with Echo.”
They fall silent for the next fifty miles until Tony speaks again.
“Maybe I just think that Echo should be more of a realist. She can’t save everyone and she can’t save everything. She looks at us and expects us to have some fairy tale happy ending, which is never going to happen.”
Pyria looks at him, unable to hide her sadness and pain, and a part of her wants to ask him why they can’t have that. But she keeps silent and turns to stare out the window and instead gazes at the empty fields that pass them by. She’s pregnant and she’s afraid of what will happen when she tells him.
* * *
“It’s for the best, for you and for the kid,” Tony states.
“What that you embrace the very technology that drove us apart?”
“It was never that.”
“Then what was it Tony?” Pyria asks, her voice sharp and sad at the same time.
“It doesn’t matter,” Tony replies.
Pyria turns from him and starts pacing the worn linoleum floor of the kitchen. Back and forth as she tries to find the words that’ll convince him to come back to her. She knows that he’ll evade her questions but she can’t stop herself from trying over and over again.
“I’m a soldier Pyria, I can’t escape who I am. Please don’t ask me to choose between you or the war. Echo needs me to fight.”
“I need you. T needs you.”
“You do okay on your own with the kid and Echo’ll be here.”
“He needs his father!”
“I am not staying, I am going to do this.”
Tony’s words are resolute and they still her. She wants to throw herself at him and cling to him but the time for that has long past if it was ever there.
“Why?”
Tony hangs his head and they both know what she’s asking yet even now he can’t tell her the guilt that he still feels over what he had to do to free her from the Attic. He’ll never tell her his shame and guilt. It was easy to murder her in the construct of the Attic and he fears that if he ever had to, it’ll be easy to murder her outside of it. Instead of answering, he picks up the duffle bag by the door and leaves her without a word. He knows that she’ll survive. She always has. And anyhow he truly believes that she’ll be better off without him.
* * *
When Victor’s crew returns to Safe Haven, Pyria makes herself scarce. She can’t stand the moments when Victor is her sweet Victor from the Dollhouse. She can’t face him and pretend that she is still Sierra. Or even worse is when he’s Tony and she has to pretend that she doesn’t love him anymore. The war wages on and he’s gone more often than he is around.
* * *
Pyria raises her hand and touches the metal on his face. This is what he used to imprint himself with the many things that he needed to know in order to survive. Tony tenses as her hand gently moves, as she inspects Topher’s work. She wants to ask if they hurt him but she can’t find the words, instead she moves her hands down the length of his jaw. She had never dreamed that the Dollhouse could bring them back together. The Dollhouse has healed them and made them whole so that there’s no more division between Victor and Sierra or Tony and Pyria. Instead they are each one whole entity, no longer fractured.
His hand is gentle when he puts it on top of her hand and she smiles up at him. Echo is watching T as they share these few stolen moments. Neither of them worries about what will happen when they are free from the Dollhouse or about the world that they will find. Instead they just live in this one moment where none of that really matters.
((END))