Dollhouse Fic: "Waking Up One Moment at a Time" (Dominic, PG-13)
Just a weird little idea I had based on the themes of the most recent episode.
Title: Waking Up One Moment at a Time
Characters: Dominic, Topher, Langton, DeWitt, mention of Sierra, Victor, November, Echo; some Dominic/DeWitt maybe, if you squint and already see it in the canon
Rating: PG-13 for language, adult themes, dark
Spoilers: 1x09, "Spy in the House of Love"
Length: 3,385 words
Summary: Maybe the Attic isn't quite the worst thing that the Dollhouse has in store...
Current: it’s electric current, in every bone and nerve of his body. White-hot and blinding, getting bigger by the instant.
The only thing stronger than spark is the sound, the white noise humming that builds up slow at first and then more strongly, until there’s nothing else. Until it drowns.
_____
He blinks; the hum of the chair is dying down. The gag is gone from his mouth and the lights are back on.
He’s blinking again, more slowly, looking around as the chair slides into the upward position. The room is emptier now, only Topher and Langton present.
“What happened?” He looks between them.
Topher is hanging back, an uneasy look on his face that he’s trying with usual lack of success to conceal. Langton’s expression is perfectly blank, hands clasped behind his back.
“Don’t tell me DeWitt changed her mind,” he continues - trace of bitter sarcasm invoked at the very thought. A joke that’s only funny to him.
Topher flinches, cringing; Langton’s gaze flicks in his direction momentarily before returning his attentions straight in front of him.
“Not exactly,” he says in a cool, even tone.
But at that point, he already realizes something is wrong. The sound of his voice when he spoke, the feel of his skin pressing against the chair…
“This isn’t my body.” He jerks instinctively at the plastic restraints keeping his wrists bound to the armrests, staring at hands too slender and small. “Who…?”
“Sierra,” Langton tells him, at the same moment he looks down.
“Oh,” his teeth are grit, his eyes narrowing in anger and disgust as he jerks his head back up with a glare, “Topher, you sick little weasel. I always knew you had a twisted sense of humor, but-”
“Hey, don’t blame me.” The tech gives a nervous chuckle, hands waving purposelessly in the air. “It wasn’t my call.”
He wrenches hard at the restraints again, more out of a sense of frustration than any real attempt to escape; Topher flits back as if afraid he’ll spring free and leap across the room to snap his neck.
With a disgruntled sound he flops back on the chair. “I thought the whole point of the Attic was to…keep me around. In case I was needed.”
He tries not to picture his body lying somewhere in cold storage, vacantly staring; he swallows down the dryness in his throat. “What’s with the Freaky Friday routine?”
“Did you just make a semi-relevant pop culture reference?” Topher asks, incredulous.
“There’s no need to bring all of you back out for just a simple test,” Langton states.
The only reaction he gives is the curling of one fist. “What kind of test?”
Topher opens his mouth, hesitates, and looks over at Langton questioningly. Langton’s eyes narrow.
He puts two and two together, and grins humorlessly.
“So, you’re in charge now,” he realizes. “Figures: a promotion to reward the pet handler for DeWitt’s pet Active.”
“Nothing Ms. DeWitt does is ever that simple; you of all people should know that,” Langton coldly retorts.
He squares his shoulders, glowering at the other man, sourness in his mouth. He slumps forward and a strand of hair too long to be his and the wrong color hangs in front of his eyes.
“Just do whatever you brought me back to do, and get on with it,” he darkly states.
“Gladly.” Langton turns to Topher. “Do you need to test the imprint any more, or is that enough?”
“That should about do it.” Topher is careful not to make eye contact with anyone but the floor as he scurries past, back to his work station.
“What?” He follows Topher and then snaps back around to Langton. “That’s it?”
“We had to make sure the imprint was recorded successfully,” Langton explains. There is complete indifference in his every word and movement, no trace of malice or even satisfaction. “For future reference.”
The sound of the chair kicking on causes him to jump. He tries to pull away even knowing it’s futile as he starts sliding backward again.
“What ‘future reference’? What are you going to do with me?” he demands, voice increasingly frantic. Langton is already turning to go.
“Don’t you walk away from me, Langton! Langton!”
“Goodbye, Mr. Dominic,” is the last thing he hears, and then he’s swallowed up by the flash of white.
_____
Little flashes of light in the darkness. The feel of eyes he can’t see on him, like being on the wrong end of a microscope.
He thinks he struggles partially because it’s expected of him. He knows that he’s not going to win this. He knows that there’s no escape.
_____
The hum of the chair doesn’t seem as loud when next he opens his eyes. Topher and Langton are in the same positions he last saw them, but the former is wearing a different sweater vest and the latter a different suit.
“How long have I been gone?” he inquires, bland.
“Why does it matter?” Langton responds. Ironically, he asks, “Do you have somewhere to be?”
He smirks, shoulders rising slightly in acknowledgement. “Touché.”
Absently, he flexes his hands, moving as best as he can within the confines of the restraints. He can already tell he’s not in his own body, but he’s not in Sierra’s either. At least the anatomy’s more familiar this time.
“Who’d you put me in? No, wait…” He closes his eyes, slightly rolling his head as he listens carefully: “One…two…three…four…five...”
He opens his eyes again. “Victor,” he identifies with confidence.
“Hey, that’s pretty good.” Topher is grinning slightly, surprised and impressed. “I didn’t know you paid that much attention to the different Actives.”
“My line of work calls for a strict attention to detail.”
“Do you mean as head of security,” Langton asks, darkly, “or as an NSA spy?”
He makes an indifferent sound.
“I always knew Ramirez was a hack - there’s a crick in Victor’s neck the size of my fist,” he observes. He prods gums with his tongue. “And there’s a piece of…strawberry…stuck in his teeth.”
“I’ll be sure to discipline his handler for not making sure he flosses properly,” Langton responds, dry.
He smiles calmly. “So, gentlemen, what’s it to be this time?” His tone increases in sharpness as he says pointedly, “Or did you just pull me back out to jerk me around some more?”
“Oh no,” Langton reassures him in a way that’s patently designed to not be very reassuring, “this time there’s a purpose.”
“Well, that’s good to hear,” he says flippantly.
Topher has a knuckle pressed over his lips. “You know, you don’t really need me here for this,” he points out to Langton: hopefully, it sounds like.
“Frankly, I’m surprised DeWitt’s not here to watch me squirm,” he speaks up, drawing both their attentions back. “Or, in the end, does she not even have the level of personal concern for that?”
“She’s a busy lady,” Langton says without humor.
Topher shrugs, quipping with overstressed irony: “Too busy to attend just another routine interrogation.”
“Interrogation?” He looks at Langton, confused. “But you already got everything you needed out of me with Echo before you put me on ice.”
Langton’s face doesn’t change. “Did we?” he asks.
He tries not to react, but he can feel a telltale sign in how his mouth twitches.
“Oh!” Topher claps his hands, beaming in Langton’s direction. “I love that whole trick you cops can do: you know, getting the suspect to incriminate themselves by saying nothing at all.”
“Are you done?” he asks, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Or did you want to let Topher fanboy over you some more?”
“We just had to be sure.” Langton nods to the tech. “Go on.”
“Whatever.” He closes his eyes as the chair reclines, giving a disgruntled sigh. “Next time, don’t bring me back for nothing.” He has to yell to be heard over the hum: “And I wouldn’t say ‘no’ to a cold beer, either.”
His feigned bravado does a poor job of distracting him from the cold sweat building up along his spine.
_____
It starts to hurt, eventually. The buzzing sensation going from tingling to vibrating, racing through every cell and making them dance. Like the sound of nails on a chalkboard. Like being worked at with a dentist’s drill. Steady and unending.
He braces himself: it’s only just starting to get worse.
_____
The ringing is barely gone from his ears the next time before Topher’s pushing an offering in front of his face: a styrofoam cup with a straw.
“Can’t exactly let the Actives crack open a couple of cold ones; Saunders would flip.” He laughs at his own joke, nervous and distracted. “Smoothie? It’s triple-berry, with extra protein!”
He watches him through half-lidded eyes. “No thank you,” he replies, flat.
Topher shrugs. “Well, suit yourself.” He turns back to his keyboard, quickly tapping.
He mentally does a quick anatomy check. “If you dislike me enough to mess with me, you could just say something, instead of being positively juvenile about it,” he remarks tiredly, rolling his eyes: “Unless I’m supposed to interpret it as pure coincidence that I’ve ended up in a female Active two out of three times.”
“It’s more a matter of whoever we’ve got lying around to pop you into,” Topher tells him, not looking away from his screen. “Even if there’s a choice going on, it’s got nothing to do with me.”
“If you say so.” He looks around. “No Langton this time,” he observes.
“Yeah, he’s busy. There’s sort of a…minor crisis.” Topher glances up from his work station, peeking hesitantly over his shoulder. “Nothing you need concern yourself with, of course.”
“Of course.” He runs tongue against teeth; his mouth is dryer than he’d noticed at first.
“Hey,” he starts - Topher flinches slightly: “I changed my mind about the smoothie.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure.” He scampers over, holds the cup at an angle so he can reach the straw without having to lean forward too far.
“Mmmph.” He pulls back after a moment, swallowing. He realizes it feels like ages since he’s tasted anything but his own bile and ash, and he tries to let that thought sit without really touching it. “Thanks.”
“No problem, buddy,” Topher says, with obviously forced brightness.
He ignores him, straightening his arms as best as he can, looking down at the body he’s in. Out of the corner of one eye he can see brown wavy hair…and, not to put too fine a point on it, he recognizes the breasts.
“You’re not using November to keep an eye on Ballard anymore?”
“We pulled her into the shop for a few days for a quick tune-up,” Topher quips.
“And you decided to take advantage of her downtime to use her for this little game?” He frowns. “That doesn’t make much sense.”
“Oh Dom, it never stops with you, does it?” Topher says with strained lightness, returning to his station so as to have an excuse to turn his back. “Even knowing there’s nothing you can do about it, you’re still trying to figure it all out.”
“What’s the plan this time, anyway?” he presses, ignoring Topher’s prattle. “Not more questioning: they wouldn’t trust that to you. More tests?”
“Uh, something like that.” Topher fiddles distractedly with something at his desk.
The tech doesn’t say anything else, but it doesn’t really matter. He’s having a hard enough time getting his bearings as it is.
There’s no way of knowing how long it’s been, but to him it seems like it’s only been hours: getting wiped, jumping from one body to another.
But, it also feels like it’s been ages. His sense of time is all out of joint.
It’s too disorienting. He’s having an easier time than a layman probably would - at least he’s familiar enough with the Dollhouse to not have been too surprised when he woke up as somebody else - but he’s not sure how much more of it he can take. Not having a body of his own; knowing they can shut him down any time, his every moment at the beck and call of someone else…
“That’s the whole point, isn’t it?” he says slowly, realization beginning to dawn. “This is exactly what you’re trying to do!”
Topher stares at him. “Huh?” he offers, bemused.
“This is my punishment. You’re not…testing me, or trying to interrogate me: you’re shuffling me from one body to the next, like a shell game, until I finally snap.”
He stares at Topher evenly, fists clenching. “You’re doing this to torture me. Admit it.”
“Whoa.” Topher holds out his hands, eyes wide. “Rewind it just a minute here. Nobody ever said anything about-”
“You sick bastards.” He jerks at the restraints and Topher quickly shies back. “I could understand putting me on ice, leaving me a blank to reuse when the moment was right; at least that’s being practical.”
Emotion is rising, and he’s not sure which is stronger: fury or panic. He’s having trouble breathing, heart beating faster and faster in his chest.
“But this? Did I really piss DeWitt off enough to deserve this hell?”
“Okay, just calm down. I never said you were being tortured.” Topher looks upward, making pointless gestures as he searches for words. “No, ah, it’s more a matter of-”
“Kill me.”
Topher stops, freezing mid hand-flutter. “What?”
“Please. If this is all I’ve got to look forward to, then just do it. Erase me for real” His eyes are as wide as they’ll go, head shaking slowly from side to side. “This isn’t fair.”
“Ah…” Topher looks like he’s been slapped. His mouth hangs slack like a fish.
“What, are you still mad because I said I’d kill you and Ivy? That was just collateral!” He pulls against the restraints again; so hard that November’s skin starts to tear.
“All you need is a record of my personality to tweak, for the next time you need someone to lie to the NSA for you! All you need is my body! You don’t need me!”
Topher yells for help and the next thing he knows there are three pairs of hands on him, wrestling him back, forcing him into the chair. The light is flashing and the mechanical hum rises again, and it’s all too familiar as he struggles, screaming, with every last moment he has.
“Don’t bring me back again!” The noise starts to drown him out, the white blinding him. “Don’t you dare bring me back!”
_____
He’s forgetting. His thoughts…he can’t remember the word for…he reaches and it isn’t there. Empty air between his fingertips.
Then the panic really starts. He thought he’d try to take this but he can’t. He reaches for a gun, because if he’s going to be staring at nothingness, he’d rather be facing black abyss than that numbing, godless, empty white.
_____
When the noise fades away again and he opens his eyes once more, his first urge is to scream; a wordless howl wrenched deep from the back of his throat. His every muscle is tense, stretched taut like a coil of metal wire.
But then instead, he lets his breath out in a deep and beaten sigh. He falls back, slumping, goes limp. He closes his eyes.
“No more,” he pleads, mumbling. “No more.”
“How are you feeling, Dominic?” It’s Langton who asks this, back again this time.
“Tired,” he says, drained. “So, so tired.” He shakes his head slowly, eyelids still lowered, speaking with no real interest. “How long has this been going on? Hours? Years?”
But the sound of the voice speaking his words catches his attention, something to focus on through the weary haze. His eyes snap open and he looks down with rising horror at the body he’s holding current residence in: the slender pale arms and subtle muscle, the wide eyes and long dark hair he knows about even without being able to see.
“Why?” he hears Echo’s voice demand for him, her arms shaking against the plastic cuffs. “You sick, sick sons of bitches, why?”
“Whoa. You, uh, wanna dial a little bit back on the language there, Dom?” Topher asks, tilting his head with that weird squinty-eyed smirk. “I know you’re upset, but-”
“Shut up,” he snaps, cutting him off. “Why are you doing this?” He ignores Topher completely, meeting Langton straight in the eye.
“This isn’t what was supposed to happen. You’re supposed to wipe me, stick my body in the Attic, leave me staring at walls and drooling for all of eternity. You keep a backup of me in case you need it, in case anyone comes sniffing around. No one said anything about this…this freak-show.”
He leans as far forward as he can, staring at Langton demandingly. “Being popped in and out of Active bodies, remembering everything, with no rest: no one said ever anything about that.”
“Plans change,” Langton states.
“What plan? What is this, other than some twisted game you came up with to make me suffer?”
He grips the edges of the chair with Echo’s hands, shaking her head slowly back and forth. Some of her hair falls in his eyes and he can’t move to brush it away.
“Well, I’m through playing,” he says, voice thick. “I won’t do this anymore. I can’t.”
He drops his head, stares down at the floor. He listens to the sound as he breathes in and out, air rushing heavily past somebody else’s lips.
“Enough of the torture,” he whispers hoarsely. “Just let me be.”
Topher mumbles something, but he doesn’t quite catch it. For a moment there’s silence, so he looks up.
He’s just in time to see Langton draw a knife. Topher steps backward, sliding out of the way, and Langton comes towards him.
He doesn’t blink, gaze on the blade as it moves ever-closer, pulse throbbing in his throat.
And then Langton reaches down, slipping the edge of the knife underneath the restraints, slicing them loose.
“Ms. DeWitt will see you now.”
He holds one newly-freed hand in the other, looking slowly between them and Langton. “I don’t understand.”
Langton doesn’t say anything, meeting his gaze coolly, his face blank. Topher shifts from one foot to the other behind him, anxious.
“You weren’t trying to torture me,” he realizes, comprehending at last. “You were trying to break me down.”
Langton’s empty expression is no answer, but the way Topher can’t seem to look at anything for more than five seconds certainly is.
Somehow, he feels even more tired now than he did before. “What does she even want me for?”
“You’ll have to ask her,” Langton replies evenly. “But, if I were to guess: something about how every once in awhile, you can use an outside security consultant. Assuming they can be trusted, of course.”
Langton stands to one side, arm held out in a pointed gesture towards the door.
He swallows, nodding. No point in resisting the inevitable.
No matter how much you might want to, sometimes.
Still absently holding a wrist in his other hand, he pads slowly across the landing from the lab towards DeWitt’s office.
The carpet feels soft against the skin of Echo’s bare feet. He tries not thinking about how long it’s likely been since he last felt anything at all.
When he reaches the office the door is already propped open. DeWitt’s back is to him, bent forward slightly as she focuses on the table in front of her.
She’s trying to look as if she’s busy, as if she hasn’t been waiting for him. He’s seen her do it enough times from at her side.
Echo’s knees are trembling, shaky. The corners of Echo’s eyes are stinging, and her voice quivers when he speaks. “Hello, Adelle.”
“Hello, Laurence.” Her voice is short, forcibly devoid of all emotion. Anyone who didn’t know her would think she was a thousand miles away. Someone who knew her well would know she sounds this way because it’s all too close.
“We have much to discuss, I believe.” Her hand is out in front of her, fingertips lightly tracing the edge of a thick porcelain teacup. “Come in. And close the door behind you.”
He nods, stiffly. He reaches with Echo’s hand for the doorframe, pulling it tightly shut.
Title: Waking Up One Moment at a Time
Characters: Dominic, Topher, Langton, DeWitt, mention of Sierra, Victor, November, Echo; some Dominic/DeWitt maybe, if you squint and already see it in the canon
Rating: PG-13 for language, adult themes, dark
Spoilers: 1x09, "Spy in the House of Love"
Length: 3,385 words
Summary: Maybe the Attic isn't quite the worst thing that the Dollhouse has in store...
Current: it’s electric current, in every bone and nerve of his body. White-hot and blinding, getting bigger by the instant.
The only thing stronger than spark is the sound, the white noise humming that builds up slow at first and then more strongly, until there’s nothing else. Until it drowns.
_____
He blinks; the hum of the chair is dying down. The gag is gone from his mouth and the lights are back on.
He’s blinking again, more slowly, looking around as the chair slides into the upward position. The room is emptier now, only Topher and Langton present.
“What happened?” He looks between them.
Topher is hanging back, an uneasy look on his face that he’s trying with usual lack of success to conceal. Langton’s expression is perfectly blank, hands clasped behind his back.
“Don’t tell me DeWitt changed her mind,” he continues - trace of bitter sarcasm invoked at the very thought. A joke that’s only funny to him.
Topher flinches, cringing; Langton’s gaze flicks in his direction momentarily before returning his attentions straight in front of him.
“Not exactly,” he says in a cool, even tone.
But at that point, he already realizes something is wrong. The sound of his voice when he spoke, the feel of his skin pressing against the chair…
“This isn’t my body.” He jerks instinctively at the plastic restraints keeping his wrists bound to the armrests, staring at hands too slender and small. “Who…?”
“Sierra,” Langton tells him, at the same moment he looks down.
“Oh,” his teeth are grit, his eyes narrowing in anger and disgust as he jerks his head back up with a glare, “Topher, you sick little weasel. I always knew you had a twisted sense of humor, but-”
“Hey, don’t blame me.” The tech gives a nervous chuckle, hands waving purposelessly in the air. “It wasn’t my call.”
He wrenches hard at the restraints again, more out of a sense of frustration than any real attempt to escape; Topher flits back as if afraid he’ll spring free and leap across the room to snap his neck.
With a disgruntled sound he flops back on the chair. “I thought the whole point of the Attic was to…keep me around. In case I was needed.”
He tries not to picture his body lying somewhere in cold storage, vacantly staring; he swallows down the dryness in his throat. “What’s with the Freaky Friday routine?”
“Did you just make a semi-relevant pop culture reference?” Topher asks, incredulous.
“There’s no need to bring all of you back out for just a simple test,” Langton states.
The only reaction he gives is the curling of one fist. “What kind of test?”
Topher opens his mouth, hesitates, and looks over at Langton questioningly. Langton’s eyes narrow.
He puts two and two together, and grins humorlessly.
“So, you’re in charge now,” he realizes. “Figures: a promotion to reward the pet handler for DeWitt’s pet Active.”
“Nothing Ms. DeWitt does is ever that simple; you of all people should know that,” Langton coldly retorts.
He squares his shoulders, glowering at the other man, sourness in his mouth. He slumps forward and a strand of hair too long to be his and the wrong color hangs in front of his eyes.
“Just do whatever you brought me back to do, and get on with it,” he darkly states.
“Gladly.” Langton turns to Topher. “Do you need to test the imprint any more, or is that enough?”
“That should about do it.” Topher is careful not to make eye contact with anyone but the floor as he scurries past, back to his work station.
“What?” He follows Topher and then snaps back around to Langton. “That’s it?”
“We had to make sure the imprint was recorded successfully,” Langton explains. There is complete indifference in his every word and movement, no trace of malice or even satisfaction. “For future reference.”
The sound of the chair kicking on causes him to jump. He tries to pull away even knowing it’s futile as he starts sliding backward again.
“What ‘future reference’? What are you going to do with me?” he demands, voice increasingly frantic. Langton is already turning to go.
“Don’t you walk away from me, Langton! Langton!”
“Goodbye, Mr. Dominic,” is the last thing he hears, and then he’s swallowed up by the flash of white.
_____
Little flashes of light in the darkness. The feel of eyes he can’t see on him, like being on the wrong end of a microscope.
He thinks he struggles partially because it’s expected of him. He knows that he’s not going to win this. He knows that there’s no escape.
_____
The hum of the chair doesn’t seem as loud when next he opens his eyes. Topher and Langton are in the same positions he last saw them, but the former is wearing a different sweater vest and the latter a different suit.
“How long have I been gone?” he inquires, bland.
“Why does it matter?” Langton responds. Ironically, he asks, “Do you have somewhere to be?”
He smirks, shoulders rising slightly in acknowledgement. “Touché.”
Absently, he flexes his hands, moving as best as he can within the confines of the restraints. He can already tell he’s not in his own body, but he’s not in Sierra’s either. At least the anatomy’s more familiar this time.
“Who’d you put me in? No, wait…” He closes his eyes, slightly rolling his head as he listens carefully: “One…two…three…four…five...”
He opens his eyes again. “Victor,” he identifies with confidence.
“Hey, that’s pretty good.” Topher is grinning slightly, surprised and impressed. “I didn’t know you paid that much attention to the different Actives.”
“My line of work calls for a strict attention to detail.”
“Do you mean as head of security,” Langton asks, darkly, “or as an NSA spy?”
He makes an indifferent sound.
“I always knew Ramirez was a hack - there’s a crick in Victor’s neck the size of my fist,” he observes. He prods gums with his tongue. “And there’s a piece of…strawberry…stuck in his teeth.”
“I’ll be sure to discipline his handler for not making sure he flosses properly,” Langton responds, dry.
He smiles calmly. “So, gentlemen, what’s it to be this time?” His tone increases in sharpness as he says pointedly, “Or did you just pull me back out to jerk me around some more?”
“Oh no,” Langton reassures him in a way that’s patently designed to not be very reassuring, “this time there’s a purpose.”
“Well, that’s good to hear,” he says flippantly.
Topher has a knuckle pressed over his lips. “You know, you don’t really need me here for this,” he points out to Langton: hopefully, it sounds like.
“Frankly, I’m surprised DeWitt’s not here to watch me squirm,” he speaks up, drawing both their attentions back. “Or, in the end, does she not even have the level of personal concern for that?”
“She’s a busy lady,” Langton says without humor.
Topher shrugs, quipping with overstressed irony: “Too busy to attend just another routine interrogation.”
“Interrogation?” He looks at Langton, confused. “But you already got everything you needed out of me with Echo before you put me on ice.”
Langton’s face doesn’t change. “Did we?” he asks.
He tries not to react, but he can feel a telltale sign in how his mouth twitches.
“Oh!” Topher claps his hands, beaming in Langton’s direction. “I love that whole trick you cops can do: you know, getting the suspect to incriminate themselves by saying nothing at all.”
“Are you done?” he asks, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Or did you want to let Topher fanboy over you some more?”
“We just had to be sure.” Langton nods to the tech. “Go on.”
“Whatever.” He closes his eyes as the chair reclines, giving a disgruntled sigh. “Next time, don’t bring me back for nothing.” He has to yell to be heard over the hum: “And I wouldn’t say ‘no’ to a cold beer, either.”
His feigned bravado does a poor job of distracting him from the cold sweat building up along his spine.
_____
It starts to hurt, eventually. The buzzing sensation going from tingling to vibrating, racing through every cell and making them dance. Like the sound of nails on a chalkboard. Like being worked at with a dentist’s drill. Steady and unending.
He braces himself: it’s only just starting to get worse.
_____
The ringing is barely gone from his ears the next time before Topher’s pushing an offering in front of his face: a styrofoam cup with a straw.
“Can’t exactly let the Actives crack open a couple of cold ones; Saunders would flip.” He laughs at his own joke, nervous and distracted. “Smoothie? It’s triple-berry, with extra protein!”
He watches him through half-lidded eyes. “No thank you,” he replies, flat.
Topher shrugs. “Well, suit yourself.” He turns back to his keyboard, quickly tapping.
He mentally does a quick anatomy check. “If you dislike me enough to mess with me, you could just say something, instead of being positively juvenile about it,” he remarks tiredly, rolling his eyes: “Unless I’m supposed to interpret it as pure coincidence that I’ve ended up in a female Active two out of three times.”
“It’s more a matter of whoever we’ve got lying around to pop you into,” Topher tells him, not looking away from his screen. “Even if there’s a choice going on, it’s got nothing to do with me.”
“If you say so.” He looks around. “No Langton this time,” he observes.
“Yeah, he’s busy. There’s sort of a…minor crisis.” Topher glances up from his work station, peeking hesitantly over his shoulder. “Nothing you need concern yourself with, of course.”
“Of course.” He runs tongue against teeth; his mouth is dryer than he’d noticed at first.
“Hey,” he starts - Topher flinches slightly: “I changed my mind about the smoothie.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure.” He scampers over, holds the cup at an angle so he can reach the straw without having to lean forward too far.
“Mmmph.” He pulls back after a moment, swallowing. He realizes it feels like ages since he’s tasted anything but his own bile and ash, and he tries to let that thought sit without really touching it. “Thanks.”
“No problem, buddy,” Topher says, with obviously forced brightness.
He ignores him, straightening his arms as best as he can, looking down at the body he’s in. Out of the corner of one eye he can see brown wavy hair…and, not to put too fine a point on it, he recognizes the breasts.
“You’re not using November to keep an eye on Ballard anymore?”
“We pulled her into the shop for a few days for a quick tune-up,” Topher quips.
“And you decided to take advantage of her downtime to use her for this little game?” He frowns. “That doesn’t make much sense.”
“Oh Dom, it never stops with you, does it?” Topher says with strained lightness, returning to his station so as to have an excuse to turn his back. “Even knowing there’s nothing you can do about it, you’re still trying to figure it all out.”
“What’s the plan this time, anyway?” he presses, ignoring Topher’s prattle. “Not more questioning: they wouldn’t trust that to you. More tests?”
“Uh, something like that.” Topher fiddles distractedly with something at his desk.
The tech doesn’t say anything else, but it doesn’t really matter. He’s having a hard enough time getting his bearings as it is.
There’s no way of knowing how long it’s been, but to him it seems like it’s only been hours: getting wiped, jumping from one body to another.
But, it also feels like it’s been ages. His sense of time is all out of joint.
It’s too disorienting. He’s having an easier time than a layman probably would - at least he’s familiar enough with the Dollhouse to not have been too surprised when he woke up as somebody else - but he’s not sure how much more of it he can take. Not having a body of his own; knowing they can shut him down any time, his every moment at the beck and call of someone else…
“That’s the whole point, isn’t it?” he says slowly, realization beginning to dawn. “This is exactly what you’re trying to do!”
Topher stares at him. “Huh?” he offers, bemused.
“This is my punishment. You’re not…testing me, or trying to interrogate me: you’re shuffling me from one body to the next, like a shell game, until I finally snap.”
He stares at Topher evenly, fists clenching. “You’re doing this to torture me. Admit it.”
“Whoa.” Topher holds out his hands, eyes wide. “Rewind it just a minute here. Nobody ever said anything about-”
“You sick bastards.” He jerks at the restraints and Topher quickly shies back. “I could understand putting me on ice, leaving me a blank to reuse when the moment was right; at least that’s being practical.”
Emotion is rising, and he’s not sure which is stronger: fury or panic. He’s having trouble breathing, heart beating faster and faster in his chest.
“But this? Did I really piss DeWitt off enough to deserve this hell?”
“Okay, just calm down. I never said you were being tortured.” Topher looks upward, making pointless gestures as he searches for words. “No, ah, it’s more a matter of-”
“Kill me.”
Topher stops, freezing mid hand-flutter. “What?”
“Please. If this is all I’ve got to look forward to, then just do it. Erase me for real” His eyes are as wide as they’ll go, head shaking slowly from side to side. “This isn’t fair.”
“Ah…” Topher looks like he’s been slapped. His mouth hangs slack like a fish.
“What, are you still mad because I said I’d kill you and Ivy? That was just collateral!” He pulls against the restraints again; so hard that November’s skin starts to tear.
“All you need is a record of my personality to tweak, for the next time you need someone to lie to the NSA for you! All you need is my body! You don’t need me!”
Topher yells for help and the next thing he knows there are three pairs of hands on him, wrestling him back, forcing him into the chair. The light is flashing and the mechanical hum rises again, and it’s all too familiar as he struggles, screaming, with every last moment he has.
“Don’t bring me back again!” The noise starts to drown him out, the white blinding him. “Don’t you dare bring me back!”
_____
He’s forgetting. His thoughts…he can’t remember the word for…he reaches and it isn’t there. Empty air between his fingertips.
Then the panic really starts. He thought he’d try to take this but he can’t. He reaches for a gun, because if he’s going to be staring at nothingness, he’d rather be facing black abyss than that numbing, godless, empty white.
_____
When the noise fades away again and he opens his eyes once more, his first urge is to scream; a wordless howl wrenched deep from the back of his throat. His every muscle is tense, stretched taut like a coil of metal wire.
But then instead, he lets his breath out in a deep and beaten sigh. He falls back, slumping, goes limp. He closes his eyes.
“No more,” he pleads, mumbling. “No more.”
“How are you feeling, Dominic?” It’s Langton who asks this, back again this time.
“Tired,” he says, drained. “So, so tired.” He shakes his head slowly, eyelids still lowered, speaking with no real interest. “How long has this been going on? Hours? Years?”
But the sound of the voice speaking his words catches his attention, something to focus on through the weary haze. His eyes snap open and he looks down with rising horror at the body he’s holding current residence in: the slender pale arms and subtle muscle, the wide eyes and long dark hair he knows about even without being able to see.
“Why?” he hears Echo’s voice demand for him, her arms shaking against the plastic cuffs. “You sick, sick sons of bitches, why?”
“Whoa. You, uh, wanna dial a little bit back on the language there, Dom?” Topher asks, tilting his head with that weird squinty-eyed smirk. “I know you’re upset, but-”
“Shut up,” he snaps, cutting him off. “Why are you doing this?” He ignores Topher completely, meeting Langton straight in the eye.
“This isn’t what was supposed to happen. You’re supposed to wipe me, stick my body in the Attic, leave me staring at walls and drooling for all of eternity. You keep a backup of me in case you need it, in case anyone comes sniffing around. No one said anything about this…this freak-show.”
He leans as far forward as he can, staring at Langton demandingly. “Being popped in and out of Active bodies, remembering everything, with no rest: no one said ever anything about that.”
“Plans change,” Langton states.
“What plan? What is this, other than some twisted game you came up with to make me suffer?”
He grips the edges of the chair with Echo’s hands, shaking her head slowly back and forth. Some of her hair falls in his eyes and he can’t move to brush it away.
“Well, I’m through playing,” he says, voice thick. “I won’t do this anymore. I can’t.”
He drops his head, stares down at the floor. He listens to the sound as he breathes in and out, air rushing heavily past somebody else’s lips.
“Enough of the torture,” he whispers hoarsely. “Just let me be.”
Topher mumbles something, but he doesn’t quite catch it. For a moment there’s silence, so he looks up.
He’s just in time to see Langton draw a knife. Topher steps backward, sliding out of the way, and Langton comes towards him.
He doesn’t blink, gaze on the blade as it moves ever-closer, pulse throbbing in his throat.
And then Langton reaches down, slipping the edge of the knife underneath the restraints, slicing them loose.
“Ms. DeWitt will see you now.”
He holds one newly-freed hand in the other, looking slowly between them and Langton. “I don’t understand.”
Langton doesn’t say anything, meeting his gaze coolly, his face blank. Topher shifts from one foot to the other behind him, anxious.
“You weren’t trying to torture me,” he realizes, comprehending at last. “You were trying to break me down.”
Langton’s empty expression is no answer, but the way Topher can’t seem to look at anything for more than five seconds certainly is.
Somehow, he feels even more tired now than he did before. “What does she even want me for?”
“You’ll have to ask her,” Langton replies evenly. “But, if I were to guess: something about how every once in awhile, you can use an outside security consultant. Assuming they can be trusted, of course.”
Langton stands to one side, arm held out in a pointed gesture towards the door.
He swallows, nodding. No point in resisting the inevitable.
No matter how much you might want to, sometimes.
Still absently holding a wrist in his other hand, he pads slowly across the landing from the lab towards DeWitt’s office.
The carpet feels soft against the skin of Echo’s bare feet. He tries not thinking about how long it’s likely been since he last felt anything at all.
When he reaches the office the door is already propped open. DeWitt’s back is to him, bent forward slightly as she focuses on the table in front of her.
She’s trying to look as if she’s busy, as if she hasn’t been waiting for him. He’s seen her do it enough times from at her side.
Echo’s knees are trembling, shaky. The corners of Echo’s eyes are stinging, and her voice quivers when he speaks. “Hello, Adelle.”
“Hello, Laurence.” Her voice is short, forcibly devoid of all emotion. Anyone who didn’t know her would think she was a thousand miles away. Someone who knew her well would know she sounds this way because it’s all too close.
“We have much to discuss, I believe.” Her hand is out in front of her, fingertips lightly tracing the edge of a thick porcelain teacup. “Come in. And close the door behind you.”
He nods, stiffly. He reaches with Echo’s hand for the doorframe, pulling it tightly shut.