{dollhouse} descend into madness
Title: Descend into Madness
Author: aaronlisa
Fandom: Dollhouse
Pairing/Characters: Alpha/Echo, implied Echo/Paul Ballard
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: Dollhouse belongs to Joss Whedon and company.
Prompts: Written for Fest 8 at smallfandomfest for the prompt of running away with the pairing of Alpha/Echo.
Notes: Set shortly after the apocalypse occurs.
Summary: Alpha starts to fragment when the apocalypse occurs.
Word Count: 1639
The radio is blaring some annoying pop song that days before had been on its way up the charts. And for a brief moment everything seems completely normal until the radio is silenced forever in the bright flash of light and the large bang of Paul’s gun.
“Number one with a bullet, indeed,” Alpha thinks.
Alpha keeps forgetting that the world has changed in a matter of days and now technology is the root of all the evil in the world. He ha s a vague memory of being a child sitting in a cramped and hot church as the preacher drones on and on about the ills of modern society. He’s not even sure whom that particular memory belongs to: Karl or someone else. Everything that has occurred in the last five days has him on edge, right now just about anything could set him off and he’ll tumble off that edge straight into madness.
Despite the fact that he enjoys creating chaos, this chaotic world that he finds himself submersed into is far too much. Everything is raw and he feels far too paranoid to be of any real use to either Echo or Paul. The only thing that is keeping him sane is the ever-calm Paul Ballard, both the man beside him and the facsimile in his head.
For the first time, Alpha thinks that perhaps Paul Ballard is the better man for his Echo. Despite being robbed of his feelings for her once through Alpha’s actions, Paul has found those feelings again. In the last two days, Alpha has seen first hand just how much Paul cares for Echo. And he knows that he can never ever care for Echo in the same way. It’s Paul that has kept her whole while Alpha has fractured and splintered in his obsessions.
The idea to run away before he becomes a danger to Echo and by default the others comes to him two hours after the incident with the radio. They’ve split up into small groups as they navigate the ghostly hallways of Rossum’s new headquarters. Echo had paired Alpha and Paul together; something that Alpha is grateful for while Paul can barely tolerate the situation. For a second, Alpha wishes that things were different and that he could talk to Paul, the actual man, like he can talk to the Paul in his head.
“She needs you,” Paul flatly states.
For a brief moment, Alpha’s not sure which Paul spoke to him. The one in his head (the one that came too late to save him) or the real one (who came in time to save Echo.) It’s not until Paul speaks again that Alpha realizes that it’s the real Paul, the one who hates him for what he did to Echo (and to Caroline who Paul had once wanted to save.)
“Why she does, I don’t know but nonetheless she needs you.”
Alpha dons his best smirk, even though it feels as if his lips are stretched too taught and that anyone with eyes can see just how phony it is.
“Well Paul she’ll always need me,” Alpha replies, “I’m the only one who truly understands her.”
Paul quietly laughs. The sound is hollow and bitter and it hurts Alpha’s ears. It’s been easy to pretend that he’s always self-assured but he really hasn’t been since his creation rejected him from the start. The smirk fades away and he thinks about killing Paul for once and for all.
“She doesn’t need you because you understand her,” Paul says. “At the end of the day, you don’t understand her at all.”
The words aren’t cruelly delivered instead they’re delivered in Paul’s matter of fact tone of voice that Alpha is used to hearing in his head. Normally Alpha would argue regardless of where they are but with the horror show that the world has become he finds himself unable to continue the argument. There’s no point, Echo may think she needs him but she has others who could just as easily fill the void left behind if he were to leave.
“She’d be better off without me.”
”Perhaps but she does need you.”
“Is the great Paul Ballard telling me to stay?”
“Yes, she needs you right now and everyone else needs her.”
In the end, Alpha stays and ignores the desperate need to run away.
* * *
The days bleed into one another and Alpha’s not sure of how long they’ve been gone from the relative safety of the dollhouse. He finds it ironic that for so long he had enjoyed his freedom from the softly lit prison and now he wants nothing more than to enter it’s comforting embrace once again.
This time it’s just Echo and him. Paul’s off doing whatever it is that honourable people like him do. No doubt saving the day and rescuing kittens while he and Echo (and the cast of hundred in their heads) are making their way into Las Vegas. There’s a key in the dollhouse there that they need to find.
“Ten guesses what the engagements were all about in Sin City,” Alpha thinks and the Paul in his head laughs.
He’s been wanting to run away, to abandon Echo and the others to whatever fate this horrible future that is now the present holds for them all, for a very long time. Yet Alpha stays because Echo needs him, the others can go hang themselves for all that he cares. Well except for Paul because someone will have to be there for Echo when Alpha fucks up. Alpha realizes that it’s only a matter of time before that happens.
The only thing that’s keeping him lucid enough to be of any help to Echo is a vial of pills given to him by Whiskey in Los Angeles. Alpha knows that she’s no longer Whiskey but he can’t think call her Dr. Saunders anymore. It seems wrong for him to do so. When he thinks too long on Whiskey, Alpha wonders just how much help he can provide to Echo and what type it’ll be. Alpha’s more into destruction and Whiskey is proof of that.
As he and Echo continue, the buzzing in his head gets too loud that it completely drowns out the Paul in his head. They all know that Alpha is fragmenting, that the chaos in his head is expanding and since Topher’s break down has shut down the only way for him to control the chaos, he’s far beyond stable.
“Why me?” Alpha finally asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Why not take Victor or Sierra or Paul on this mission, why me?”
(He calls them all by their doll names even now, they’ll never be who they once were and he doesn’t feel like pretending otherwise.)
Echo shrugs in response, her face tightly closed to him, when once he could easily read. He’s afraid of what it means, of what dark skills of his that she requires on their mission in Las Vegas, but he doesn’t push the issue any further since Paul’s reassuring voice is back in his head.
* * *
The fact that she has made him whole, treating him with the technology wasn’t enough to keep him by her side. He wants all of her when he’s whole and complete; he’s not content to live on the scraps that fall from the table that she shares with Paul. (It’s always about Paul even in his own head.)
As a parting gift, Alpha creates her cure, or more accurately Boyd’s cure from the samples in Las Vegas. And then he runs he lets her believe that he’s dead. He can’t stay sane and fight her war. It doesn’t matter that he created her with Boyd’s help or maybe it does, because Alpha runs away from her to save her from his madness.
* * *
The final time that he runs away, Alpha thinks that it will be forever. He’s holed up in some hotel with a faded sign and with weird sigils on the lobby floor. Alpha finds a room downstairs with a cage and doesn’t even think to question the strangeness of the place. Instead he’s ready to kill himself if he becomes that monster again when the world changes forever more because of an arrogant genius named Topher Brink. Karl is still in there inside of his head, a distant voice and Alpha regrets that he had given Echo all of Paul.
He patiently waits. He looks at the expensive wristwatch that he’d picked up somewhere along the way that had appealed to someone in his head. The second hand slowly moves around the watch and nothing happens. He looks at the carefully constructed noose and back down at his watch. He doesn’t feel any different and he waits another five minutes. Maybe something distracted Topher, delayed him from doing what he was supposed to do.
When the energy comes, Alpha can feel it and he waits for the change but nothing happens. He’s still Alpha and Karl is nothing more than a distant voice in his head. He thinks about what he should do. His death is an easy out, his death would end it all, yet he no longer fears whom he is and there’s no one to keep Echo away from him. (Except for Echo herself but he knows that there’s a spark between them.)
Still he leaves the musty hotel and it’s strangeness and goes off to find Adelle. And with her, he’ll find his flock of lost lambs. They won’t be as lamblike if Topher managed to fix them all but still they’ll need him. And a year might be a long time but he’s waited longer for Echo. This time, Alpha decides he’ll stay and he won’t run away.
((END))
Author: aaronlisa
Fandom: Dollhouse
Pairing/Characters: Alpha/Echo, implied Echo/Paul Ballard
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: Dollhouse belongs to Joss Whedon and company.
Prompts: Written for Fest 8 at smallfandomfest for the prompt of running away with the pairing of Alpha/Echo.
Notes: Set shortly after the apocalypse occurs.
Summary: Alpha starts to fragment when the apocalypse occurs.
Word Count: 1639
The radio is blaring some annoying pop song that days before had been on its way up the charts. And for a brief moment everything seems completely normal until the radio is silenced forever in the bright flash of light and the large bang of Paul’s gun.
“Number one with a bullet, indeed,” Alpha thinks.
Alpha keeps forgetting that the world has changed in a matter of days and now technology is the root of all the evil in the world. He ha s a vague memory of being a child sitting in a cramped and hot church as the preacher drones on and on about the ills of modern society. He’s not even sure whom that particular memory belongs to: Karl or someone else. Everything that has occurred in the last five days has him on edge, right now just about anything could set him off and he’ll tumble off that edge straight into madness.
Despite the fact that he enjoys creating chaos, this chaotic world that he finds himself submersed into is far too much. Everything is raw and he feels far too paranoid to be of any real use to either Echo or Paul. The only thing that is keeping him sane is the ever-calm Paul Ballard, both the man beside him and the facsimile in his head.
For the first time, Alpha thinks that perhaps Paul Ballard is the better man for his Echo. Despite being robbed of his feelings for her once through Alpha’s actions, Paul has found those feelings again. In the last two days, Alpha has seen first hand just how much Paul cares for Echo. And he knows that he can never ever care for Echo in the same way. It’s Paul that has kept her whole while Alpha has fractured and splintered in his obsessions.
The idea to run away before he becomes a danger to Echo and by default the others comes to him two hours after the incident with the radio. They’ve split up into small groups as they navigate the ghostly hallways of Rossum’s new headquarters. Echo had paired Alpha and Paul together; something that Alpha is grateful for while Paul can barely tolerate the situation. For a second, Alpha wishes that things were different and that he could talk to Paul, the actual man, like he can talk to the Paul in his head.
“She needs you,” Paul flatly states.
For a brief moment, Alpha’s not sure which Paul spoke to him. The one in his head (the one that came too late to save him) or the real one (who came in time to save Echo.) It’s not until Paul speaks again that Alpha realizes that it’s the real Paul, the one who hates him for what he did to Echo (and to Caroline who Paul had once wanted to save.)
“Why she does, I don’t know but nonetheless she needs you.”
Alpha dons his best smirk, even though it feels as if his lips are stretched too taught and that anyone with eyes can see just how phony it is.
“Well Paul she’ll always need me,” Alpha replies, “I’m the only one who truly understands her.”
Paul quietly laughs. The sound is hollow and bitter and it hurts Alpha’s ears. It’s been easy to pretend that he’s always self-assured but he really hasn’t been since his creation rejected him from the start. The smirk fades away and he thinks about killing Paul for once and for all.
“She doesn’t need you because you understand her,” Paul says. “At the end of the day, you don’t understand her at all.”
The words aren’t cruelly delivered instead they’re delivered in Paul’s matter of fact tone of voice that Alpha is used to hearing in his head. Normally Alpha would argue regardless of where they are but with the horror show that the world has become he finds himself unable to continue the argument. There’s no point, Echo may think she needs him but she has others who could just as easily fill the void left behind if he were to leave.
“She’d be better off without me.”
”Perhaps but she does need you.”
“Is the great Paul Ballard telling me to stay?”
“Yes, she needs you right now and everyone else needs her.”
In the end, Alpha stays and ignores the desperate need to run away.
* * *
The days bleed into one another and Alpha’s not sure of how long they’ve been gone from the relative safety of the dollhouse. He finds it ironic that for so long he had enjoyed his freedom from the softly lit prison and now he wants nothing more than to enter it’s comforting embrace once again.
This time it’s just Echo and him. Paul’s off doing whatever it is that honourable people like him do. No doubt saving the day and rescuing kittens while he and Echo (and the cast of hundred in their heads) are making their way into Las Vegas. There’s a key in the dollhouse there that they need to find.
“Ten guesses what the engagements were all about in Sin City,” Alpha thinks and the Paul in his head laughs.
He’s been wanting to run away, to abandon Echo and the others to whatever fate this horrible future that is now the present holds for them all, for a very long time. Yet Alpha stays because Echo needs him, the others can go hang themselves for all that he cares. Well except for Paul because someone will have to be there for Echo when Alpha fucks up. Alpha realizes that it’s only a matter of time before that happens.
The only thing that’s keeping him lucid enough to be of any help to Echo is a vial of pills given to him by Whiskey in Los Angeles. Alpha knows that she’s no longer Whiskey but he can’t think call her Dr. Saunders anymore. It seems wrong for him to do so. When he thinks too long on Whiskey, Alpha wonders just how much help he can provide to Echo and what type it’ll be. Alpha’s more into destruction and Whiskey is proof of that.
As he and Echo continue, the buzzing in his head gets too loud that it completely drowns out the Paul in his head. They all know that Alpha is fragmenting, that the chaos in his head is expanding and since Topher’s break down has shut down the only way for him to control the chaos, he’s far beyond stable.
“Why me?” Alpha finally asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Why not take Victor or Sierra or Paul on this mission, why me?”
(He calls them all by their doll names even now, they’ll never be who they once were and he doesn’t feel like pretending otherwise.)
Echo shrugs in response, her face tightly closed to him, when once he could easily read. He’s afraid of what it means, of what dark skills of his that she requires on their mission in Las Vegas, but he doesn’t push the issue any further since Paul’s reassuring voice is back in his head.
* * *
The fact that she has made him whole, treating him with the technology wasn’t enough to keep him by her side. He wants all of her when he’s whole and complete; he’s not content to live on the scraps that fall from the table that she shares with Paul. (It’s always about Paul even in his own head.)
As a parting gift, Alpha creates her cure, or more accurately Boyd’s cure from the samples in Las Vegas. And then he runs he lets her believe that he’s dead. He can’t stay sane and fight her war. It doesn’t matter that he created her with Boyd’s help or maybe it does, because Alpha runs away from her to save her from his madness.
* * *
The final time that he runs away, Alpha thinks that it will be forever. He’s holed up in some hotel with a faded sign and with weird sigils on the lobby floor. Alpha finds a room downstairs with a cage and doesn’t even think to question the strangeness of the place. Instead he’s ready to kill himself if he becomes that monster again when the world changes forever more because of an arrogant genius named Topher Brink. Karl is still in there inside of his head, a distant voice and Alpha regrets that he had given Echo all of Paul.
He patiently waits. He looks at the expensive wristwatch that he’d picked up somewhere along the way that had appealed to someone in his head. The second hand slowly moves around the watch and nothing happens. He looks at the carefully constructed noose and back down at his watch. He doesn’t feel any different and he waits another five minutes. Maybe something distracted Topher, delayed him from doing what he was supposed to do.
When the energy comes, Alpha can feel it and he waits for the change but nothing happens. He’s still Alpha and Karl is nothing more than a distant voice in his head. He thinks about what he should do. His death is an easy out, his death would end it all, yet he no longer fears whom he is and there’s no one to keep Echo away from him. (Except for Echo herself but he knows that there’s a spark between them.)
Still he leaves the musty hotel and it’s strangeness and goes off to find Adelle. And with her, he’ll find his flock of lost lambs. They won’t be as lamblike if Topher managed to fix them all but still they’ll need him. And a year might be a long time but he’s waited longer for Echo. This time, Alpha decides he’ll stay and he won’t run away.
((END))