01:29 pm: "Pretend We're Married", a Dollhouse fanfiction
Title: Pretend We're Married
Fandom: Dollhouse
Author: Mighty Fast Pig
Rating: R for language and sexual content
Word Count: 5874
Spoilers: Up to 1.09 "Needs"
Author’s Note: The main story takes place before 1.06 "Man on the Street"
Disclaimer: Dollhouse Etc. owned by Joss Whedon and FOX. "Hotel California" lyrics written by Don Felder, Glenn Frey, Don Henley
Characters/Pairings: Victor/Sierra, Topher/Ivy
Summary: “If people really gave a damn about each other, do you think this place would exist?”
Wolf One and Wolf Two sat in the back of the black helicopter as it flew over the forest, listening to their final briefing over the headphones.
Mr. Dominic ordered, “On our signal, Wolf One will enter the house and ensure the recovery of the Cristevo girl and Ms. Penn. You will respond to any hostile action with equal force.”
“Yes, sir!” they shouted.
“Wolf Two will deploy behind the house and secure any escape routes. You will respond to any hostile action with equal force.”
“Yes, sir!”
“You’re in position now. Deploy!”
The helicopter slowed and then hovered over a clearing. In perfect unison, Wolf One and Wolf Two clipped their harnesses to the helicopter and rappelled down nylon lines to the ground fifty meters below. They landed in silence and unclipped from their lines. They were already running when the helicopter flew away.
Two lithe figures in black kevlar, bristling with weapons, moved through the forest as swift and silent as their namesake predators. Two hundred meters from the house, they split up.
Wolf Two assessed the situation as he approached the house. There were two prime spots for him to hunker down. One provided a total view of the back of the house, while the other had a small blind spot, but would let him observe Wolf One’s approach to the front of the house.
After a second’s hesitation, Wolf Two silently crept over to the second position, dropped to the ground, unslung his sniper rifle and set up. He had absolute faith in Wolf One’s abilities to execute the mission, but he would provide fire support to her approach and withdrawal, if it was necessary. That’s what soldiers did.
***
The two Actives sat side by side, looking at the book of paintings. They saw, but did not understand, the rows of little black pointy things on the pages, just as they saw, but did not mind, the black rectangles mixed in with the pictures of landscapes and animals and buildings. As far as they knew, all books were like that.
“What’s that one?” Victor asked, pointing at the picture of an animal.
“Dr. Claire says that’s a bear.” Sierra smiled. “I like bears.”
“And that one?”
“That’s a polar bear.”
“Could we play a game?”
“What game?”
He swallowed. “We could pretend we’re married.” Mr. Bicks looked after Victor when Ms. Ramirez was away, and he had told him about being married. Victor didn’t trust Mr. Bicks the way he trusted Ms. Ramirez, but sometimes he wished Ms. Ramirez would talk to him the way Mr. Bicks did.
“What do we do?” She looked a little curious.
“Married people sit next to each other.”
“We sit next to each other when it isn’t a game.”
“Married people also hold hands when they do things.”
“Like how?”
He put his right hand in her left, feeling her soft skin. “Like this?” It wasn’t like when he saw her in the showers, which made him confused and scared. He was supposed to be his best, and when he was with Sierra, he felt like he was his best.
Sierra looked at their hands, waiting for something to happen. “And then what do you do?”
Mr. Bicks had looked unhappy when Victor asked him that same question. “You just do things together. It’s better than doing them alone.”
“Oh,” she said, then turned the page with her free hand. “That’s an elephant.”
On the ceiling, a security camera turned to watch them.
“Oh, they’re so cute! I just wanna squish ‘em together,” Ivy said, her chin in her hand as she raptly watched the two Actives on the surveillance monitor.
“How can you watch that?” Topher asked Ivy, looking over her shoulder. “It isn’t even G-rated.”
“That is as good as it gets,” she said. “It could never be that pure for real people. Once they get their memories back, it’ll be all uncomfortable silences, evasions, accusations. ‘Why didn’t you take out the trash?’ ‘Why didn’t you be nice to my mom?’ Who needs all that?”
“How’d you get so bitter?”
Ivy turned her chair around to face him. “Topher, the engagement schedule looks pretty heavy the next couple of weeks. How about I handle some of the templating?” she asked.
“Ah, Grasshopper, you have yet to take the pebble from your master’s hand,” he said, holding his palms together and bowing.
Ivy just frowned at him, eyes steely over a mouth compressed into a thin, straight line.
“Okay, that was too much,” he admitted.
“I’m trying to be of help,” she explained.
Over the past few months, De Witt had sent several bright young things to be his assistant, and his extravagant demands had driven each of them back to her office, pleading to be transferred. (They didn’t threaten to quit. Nobody quit the Dollhouse.) Topher did not want an assistant in any way. First, he had carefully customized the editing and imprinting system to his own specifications, until the Los Angeles Dollhouse put all the others to shame. He didn’t want anybody else thinking they could alter it.
Second, and more important: If working at the Dollhouse had taught Topher anything, it was that he couldn’t afford to make himself replaceable.
And yet, here was Ivy Leung, his latest would-be assistant. She had good taste in Linux distros. She trekked out to Latino bodegas and Chinatown convenience stores to find the obscure flavours of imported juiceboxes and snacks he insisted on. She understood just how magnificent the Dollhouse’s work was, how this would revolutionize everything more profoundly than the invention of writing. She absorbed anything he did tell her almost as fast as an Active being imprinted. And she just wouldn’t go away, no matter how much scut work he made her do.
And so, on a particularly busy day, he grudgingly let her take care of some secondary imprint editing. A few hours later, there the file was, just the way he liked it, but with better documentation. He had planned on finding some fault with her work, but there just wasn’t any. Plus he liked having her around. Even her penchant for putting bear stickers on everything didn’t annoy him as much as he thought it would. Sometimes she even styled her thick black hair until it looked like she had teddy bear ears. He made a mental note to add that character trait to some future imprint.
“You can help me by getting this,” he said, and handed her a shopping list.
Ivy sighed, and took the list. “Lemon, lime and orange mineral water,” she said, getting up. “Would you like it chilled to any particular temperature?”
“Just put it in my fridge.” After a moment, he added, “You can have lunch on the company tab, if you want.”
“Gosh, thanks,” she answered, stuffing the list into the pocket of her lab coat.
Topher watched her leave the office, and heard the elevator ding. “That could have gone better,” he commented.
He looked at the surveillance monitor again. Sierra was still holding Victor’s hand while they looked at the picture book.
“Guy’s got the mind of a five-year-old,” Topher muttered to himself. “And he’s doing better than me.” He’d programmed Victor to be everything: Miss Lonelyheart’s suave-yet-passionate Englishman, tough-yet-tender stud, shy boy-next-door, androgynous twink. People paid millions of dollars for a night with the men he created, mixing this much Tom Cruise intensity with that much Clive Owen brooding and that much Hugh Grant vulnerability.
And yet Topher had never been able to leverage that talent into his own romantic success. It made sense, really; he could create a brilliant lawyer, but he didn’t know anything about the law. But still, it bothered him.
On the floor below, one of the caretakers came up and said, “Sierra, Victor, it’s time for your treatments.”
Sierra put the book to one side and got up, her hand sliding out of Victor’s.
“Sierra, we haven’t finished the game,” he said, holding out his hand to her.
“We’re not married,” she said and followed the caretaker. Victor had no response for that.
***
Lily’s wrists and ankles were tied to the bedframe with crimson silk scarves, contrasting with the charcoal high-thread-count sheets. Darren hated them. Silk might look nice, but it was too likely to slip and come loose, or worse, constrict and pinch a nerve or blood vessel. He made the point of checking her hands more often than usual, confirming that they were still warm and that the blood flowed. The client wanted silk scarves, the client got silk scarves. But Darren didn’t have to like it.
Now that Lily was blindfolded and tied face down and spread eagled on the bed, the client selected one of the floggers, the rubber one with the beads at the end of the strands. Apparently he had never heard of warm up.
Darren positioned one of the bed’s pillows next to Lily’s ass, then stepped back.
“What’s that for?” the client asked.
“That will keep the flogger from wrapping around her and hitting the front of her hip, where the bone is close to her skin. Sir.” If the client put any effort into learning to flog properly, Darren wouldn’t have to take such precautions.
“What difference does that make?” The client swished the flogger through the air.
“It’s the difference between hurting and harming, sir,” he explained, just as the client started flogging Lily.
Lily was a heavy bottom, the heaviest he had ever seen, so much so that he worried about her ability to safeword if she got in too deep. The client was bent on pushing her to the limit of both pain and humiliation, beating her ineptly with a beaded flogger, and making her beg for more in broken English right out of
Full Metal Jacket. Darren’s presence at this session was a compromise between the client and the agency. He would show the client how to dominate Lily without any permanent injury, and the client could continue to see Lily.
The last flogger swing came down directly on Lily’s tail bone, eliciting a choked yelp of bad pain from Lily that made Darren intervene. He introduced the client to paddles and canes, rigid toys that were easier to aim. The other man used those for a while, pausing occasionally to pinch the welts they left on Lily’s body.
Apparently satisfied with the results of his work on Lily’s ass, the client dropped the paddle and ambled off, saying, “I need a drink.”
When the client left the room, Darren knelt on the bed next to the bound woman. “Lily,” he said softly, “I’m going to take the blindfold off, okay?”
“Okay,” she breathed. At least when she talked with him, she didn’t use the Bangkok hooker accent.
He pulled the velvet band from over her eyes. She blinked in the light.
“You need some water?” he whispered. After she nodded, he grabbed one of the water bottles on the bedside. He gently lifted her head with one hand and tipped the water bottle with the other, just enough to let a little into her mouth. She swallowed and gave him a tiny smile.
“Promise me that if you get to your limits, you’ll safeword. Please?” He brushed a gold-coloured lock of hair off her sweaty face.
“I don’t have limits,” she said.
“Everybody has limits, Lily. You gotta look after yourself.”
The client came back, ice clinking in the glass of expensive scotch he held, and looked at them, Darren kneeling on the bed with Lily. “You interested in her, Darren?”
Darren looked down. “I’m making sure she can continue to perform for you, sir.”
The client put his drink on the bedside and climbed onto the bed, on the other side of Lily. He grabbed her head in head in both hands and pushed her towards Darren’s crotch. “Show him what I taught you last time, Lily.”
“Me sucky you rong time. Me so ho-nee,” she said, leaving her mouth open wide.
Darren had never felt so un-aroused in his entire life. “No thank you, sir.” He slid off the bed and stood, hands clasped behind his back to keep from doing something he’d regret.
The client laughed harshly. “What do they do, castrate you guys?”
“Sir?”
“Never mind,” he said, letting go of Lily’s head. “Well, I’m finished. Untie her.”
Darren did so, making sure that her wrists and ankles were all right. Naked, her back and buttocks sprinkled with bruises and blood spots, she got off the bed and knelt before the client, resting her head on his feet. “Me so solly to reave you, Mastah.”
Darren winced. It wasn’t Lily’s words that bothered him so much as the client’s reaction. Darren had seen men and women take far harsher treatment, and five minutes later be smiling and cuddling with their tops and dominants. This guy wouldn’t give her any kind of aftercare. He didn’t have any kind of respect for her at all.
“You’ll see me again soon, you little chink. Endless nights of pleasure, worth every penny.” The client bent down and ruffled her hair like he was patting a dog. “Darren, take her back and put her in her box until next time.”
“Yes, sir.”
The client just sauntered out the door, leaving the two of them alone in the house’s guest bedroom.
Darren gathered up the implements while Lily slipped back into her red cheongsam mini-dress and stiletto heels. He pulled a bottle of disinfectant out of his bag. “Maybe this would help.”
“Let’s just go,” she said softly.
His toybag over his shoulder, he followed her out of the house, through the service entrance and to the waiting black van. On the way, she wobbled on her high heels, probably still worn out from the session. He let her hold herself steady on his shoulder while she stepped out of the shoes. She walked the rest of the way barefoot.
The van’s door slid open, and Mr. Hearn and Ms. Ramirez stepped out.
“Lily, it’s time for your treatment.”
“Darren, are you ready for your treatment?”
“Right away, sir.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Darren helped Lily into the van before Mr. Hearn could do it.
“Sonofabitch,” Darren muttered, as the black van sped through the night. He fumed as he meticulously cleaned the contents of his toybag, then glanced at Lily and Mr. Hearn. They sat in the back of the van, not speaking. Lily sat in an awkward position to keep the pressure off her buttocks, and kept tugging down the hem of her dress, while Mr. Hearn was texting somebody on his phone.
Darren leaned close to Ms. Ramirez and whispered, “I know Lily can take it that heavy, but that client’s an accident waiting to happen. I want to talk to somebody at the agency about this, okay?”
“Sure,” said Ms. Ramirez, barely looking up from her romance paperback. “Right after your treatment.”
“Okay, but right after.” He put his rubber paddle away.
***
“I’m sorry I called you a retard, man,” the guy from Rossum security said. “That wasn’t fair.”
“It’s all right,” Homeland Security Agent Tom Voros said, trying each of the doors in the lab building’s corridors, looking for Dr. Gawas. The doctor had wandered off shortly after Tom realized they were all affected by the drug. Even he had had flashes of being a soldier in the desert somewhere, a house, a woman screaming at him, explosions....
The Rossum guy trailed after him, babbling. “No, really. Ms. DeWitt says Echo’s the best, but you’re our number one guy, never give anybody any problems. Except, you know, for the erections.”
“The what?” he said, then automatic fire tore through the corridor. Tom instinctively dropped and rolled, seeking cover, trying to figure out the angle. Where was his sergeant? The civilians were right in the line of--
His suit drenched in cold sweat, Tom realized he was lying face down on the linoleum floor. Instead of gunfire, there was just the hum of air conditioning and the Rossum guy blathering as he stood over him. “Wow, look at that ass! You have no idea what a moneymaker your ass is.”
Still shaking, Tom dragged himself to his feet and pressed on. What happened to him felt like a PTSD flashback, yet he had never been in a desert in his life, never worn BDUs. What was making him traumatically remember things that never happened?
He rounded a corner and found a bank of vending machines.
“...isn’t a fun game, this isn’t a fun game...” Dr. Gawas had wedged herself into the narrow space between a vending machine and the wall. She was curled into a foetal ball and rocking.
“Stupid dollar bills,” the Rossum guy said, trying to work the vending machine. “Got any quarters? I’m starving.”
Tom got down on his knees. “Dr. Gawas, you’ve got to help me figure out what happened to us.”
“This isn’t a fun game, this isn’t a fun game...”
“Doctor, please, listen to me. Somebody hurt you in the past, but you’re here, now, with me. I need your help. You help me, and then I can help you, okay?” Tom said.
“Friends help each other out,” she said softly, looking directly at him for the first time. Her face was pale with fear, but some instinct to help had been roused in her.
“Yes, I’m your friend,” he said to the woman he’d known for less than two hours. To his surprise, he meant it.
She timidly put out her hand. He took it. Both of them were cold and clammy with fear, but he felt better when he touched her.
***
“One more, Sierra,” Victor told her, holding down her legs as she struggled to do another sit-up.
“Oh, I can’t,” she said, her back dropping onto the exercise matt.
“If you do one more rep, I’ll give you something.”
“Okay,” she gasped and managed to haul herself up until her elbows touched her knees. She dropped onto her back and panted.
“Good for you!” He let go of her legs and she rolled over onto her side. “Sierra,” he said, holding the little piece of paper tight in his hand.
“Yes?” she said, dabbing her sweaty skin with a towel. He wanted to do that for her.
“This is for you,” he said, holding out the sticker in his palm for her, making sure none of the trainers could see them. “It’s called a koala bear.”
“Ohhhh--” said Sierra, hand over her open mouth.
“The back is sticky, so you can peel it off and put it on things.” This was him at his best, doing something for her nobody else had done.
Sierra took the sticker from his hand, grinning at it. “Thank you!” She squeezed his elbow. “I want to show Echo!” She ran off before Victor could say anything.
***
The courthouse café was packed, and Richard found himself sharing counter space with Grace, the other junior partner from his firm on this case.
“You handled yourself very well with the judge today,” he said,putting artificial sweetener into his Jamaican blend. “That liability clause slipped right by me.”
“Thank you.” Grace sipped her vanilla latte. She wore her blond hair in a neat French braid, and her dark eyes were striking through her frameless spectacles. “Just doing my job.”
Richard straightened his tie, as he steeled his courage. “Ah, after session, and our treatments, of course, would you like to go for dinner? I know this little--”
“Sorry, but I want to be ready for tomorrow. Thanks, though.”
“Sure,” he said, a little more tightly than he intended.
***
Victor picked up his tray-- bran muffin, yogurt, orange juice and fruit cup-- and carried it over to the tables.
Sierra and Echo were already at one table, eating and talking. He looked at the two empty seats, then turned and walked over to another table.
Mike and Tango looked up from their plates, a faint flicker of surprise crossing each of their faces. Victor just said, “Good morning,” as he sat down, and all three ate peacefully.
“I think I can climb the rock wall in under three minutes today,” said Mike.
“It’s important to be your best,” Tango agreed.
Victor didn’t want to be his best today.
Over at the other table, Sierra was still eating, while Echo looked back at him. She tilted her head slightly towards the blond Active.
Victor looked down and concentrated on his breakfast.
***
“Ms Leung,” Dominic said, “would you come with me please? Ms. De Witt wants to see you.”
Topher turned around in his chair quickly. That phrase seldom meant anything good. He saw of Dominic leading Ivy away from her desk. He ran after them and caught up on balcony before the elevator. “Wait up, I want to come.”
As the three of them boarded the elevator, Dominic just looked annoyed at him, but Topher was used to that. He also noticed that Ivy’s jaw was clenched tight, and she kept her hands stuffed into her lab coat’s pockets. He was far from relaxed himself.
Up in the corner office, De Witt didn’t look angry, but that didn’t mean anything. “Thank you, Mr. Dominic.”
The head of security bowed his head and left.
She turned to face Topher. “And why are you here?”
Ordinarily, Topher would have cracked a joke about existentialism, but instead answered, “Ms Leung is in my department. If there’s a problem, I should know about it.”
“Very well.” De Witt held out what was left of a koala bear sticker, sealed into a ziploc bag like it was evidence, which Topher supposed it was. “The cleaning staff found this inside Sierra’s pod.”
Topher noticed that Ivy was holding her lab coat closed, trying to conceal the other koala bear sticker on her security badge holder.
“Do you know how it got there, Ms Leung?”
After a moment, Ivy spoke up. “It was just a little something. I didn’t think it would cause a problem.”
De Witt said, “Our policy on staff giving gifts, food or anything else to our Actives is quite clear. Any change in their environment can upset and confuse them.”
“Ah, Ms De Witt,” Topher said, his mouth dry. “I... didn’t brief Miss Leung on the policy about Actives when she started here. I didn’t spot it when she gave Sierra the sticker.”
“So this is your responsibility?” She seemed more curious than angry.
“Yes. Sorry.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets to keep himself from fidgeting.
“All right. Ms Leung, though you should have exercised better judgement, you’re new here. I’ll let this go with a warning.”
“It won’t happen again, ma’am.”
“Good. Mr. Brink, see to it that it doesn’t.” She handed the sticker to him.
He took it and put it in his shirt pocket. “Yes, ma’am.”
“One more thing. Mr. Johnson from Chicago is in town this weekend, and he wants his usual.”
“I’ll get started on that.”
“That will be all for today, Mr. Brink, Ms Leung.”
Once they were in the elevator, they both slumped against the walls with relief.
“Whew, that was close,” Ivy fanned herself.
Now that it was over, Topher thought he had handled himself well. “Pretty cool, huh? I mean, she’s a little scary, but she knows I’m the talent around here, Ivy.”
Ivy looked at him in disbelief. “Look, I’m glad I don’t have to deal with Adelle The Witch, but if you think I’m going to get all gooey-eyed over you now, oh, no no no.”
The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open onto the mezzanine level. Ivy got out and Topher followed, stammering. “I just, I--”
“And what was that about making her think I gave it to Sierra instead of Victor? Some kind of ‘bros before hos’ crap?”
“I didn’t want to get him in trouble too.”
She laughed harshly. “Oh, like you give a damn about him.”
“I said all that because, because I, I give a damn about you.” He stopped, surprised he had said it.
Ivy looked around her, then down at the Actives exercising and playing preschool games, and the handlers in their dark suits watching, always watching. “If people really gave a damn about each other, do you think this place would exist?”
“Uh...,” he said, at a loss for words.
“I’ll be at my desk,” she said as she stalked off. “Sourcing your lychee yoghurt Pocky.”
***
“I can do another set,” he said to the trainer who was spotting him on the free weights.
“No, Victor, your schedule says four sets on the incline press. If you pull something, Doctor Saunders won’t like it.”
“Please, I want to be my best,” he pleaded, looking at the trainer’s upside down face. His arms and chest already hurt from the exercise, but if he worked hard, he didn’t think about Sierra.
“Okay, but if it’s too hard, don’t hurt yourself.” The trainer lifted the bar from the rack and moved it into position.
“One... two....” His arms shook as he pushed the barbell up. The metal bar wobbled, then his arms collapsed and the bar crashed into his chest. He cried out.
Somebody lifted the bar off him, and he curled around his chest in pain.
“Oh, shit-- Somebody get Doctor Saunders!”
The other Actives paused for a moment and looked up. “Everybody, please continue your exercises,” one of the trainers ordered. After a moment, they did. Except for the two who got off their machines and tried to get past the trainers.
“Is he all right?” Echo asked.
“He hurts,” Sierra said, clutching Echo’s arm tightly.
He understood. The sticker didn’t matter. Pretending they were married didn’t matter. This mattered. This was how he was his best.
“I’m all right,” he said, looking past the trainers who fussed over him, at Sierra.
***
Aleksandr Vladimirovich Lubov shrugged into his jacket, glad to be finished his treatment. The
nekulturny gomosek who ran the room full of machinery got on his nerves. “Be with you in a minute, Mr. Lubov,” the Latina in the suit told him, then held out a clipboard for the technician to sign.
“
Da,” he said, and strolled out of the treatment room. Outside, he leaned on the balcony railing and looked down at the people doing yoga on the level below him. One of the women caught his eye, a lithe young thing with golden hair and almond-shaped eyes. He had a weird double-vision experience as she flowed into another position. One part of him precisely assessed her face and body, calculating her worth in dollars per hour. Another part could feel her beside him in his bed in the morning, taking her out for dinner, all those things he saw couples doing.
Lubov shook his head. There were working girls and there were girlfriends and there were wives, and confusing one for another was only trouble. What was he supposed to do? Quit the organization, run off with whatever-her-name-was down there and open a fast food franchise or something? He could have stayed in Vladivostok and done that. He’d made his choice, and he’d know what he was getting into, what kind of life he lived, the things he had to do, the things he wished he could forget. The blonde woman down there lived in her world and he lived in his, and better for both of them that those worlds never met.
“Time to go,” said Ms. Ramirez, stepping out of the treatment room.
He blew a kiss to the woman so far away. “Maybe in another life, détka,” he said, and turned away. ***
“Did I fall asleep?” Victor asked.
“For a little while.” In a weird way, Topher liked being around the Actives in their blank state. Kind of like the puppies in the pet shop window he used to pass on his way to work.
“Shall I go now?”
“If you like.”
The young man got up from the imprinting chair and walked towards the door in that smooth, measured pace the Actives shared.
Before he reached the door, Topher said, “Hey, Victor?”
He stopped and turned around. “Yes, Mr. Brink?”
“You like Sierra, right? I mean, more than Echo or any of the others?”
“Yes.” No hesitation, no shyness, a statement of fact.
“What would you do if Sierra... didn’t like you as much as you like her?” Topher watched Victor mull over the question for a long time. Was it too difficult for him? Dolls had a hard time thinking in hypotheticals.
At last, Victor spoke. “I would still like her the same.”
“Thanks, Victor. Why don’t you go have a massage?”
“A massage would be relaxing.”
When the doors clicked shut behind Victor, Topher reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled koala bear sticker. He smoothed it as much as possible, then picked up his smartphone and put the sticker on the inside of the leather cover. Then he turned to his desktop and scheduled Ivy to do the imprinting for the Johnson engagement.
***
He had to stay awake.
The soft and comfortable bed, the blue light in his pod, even the vanilla scent in the air made him feel soft and sleepy. He’d swam thirty laps that day, and he just wanted to fade out, listening to the faint whispers that reminded him how safe he was, how much the caretakers wanted him to be his best.
Why wasn’t she here, where she should be? The disruption in routine was bad enough, but he kept wondering what was happening to her.
He bit the inside of his cheek to stay awake.
Finally, he heard footsteps outside.
If he put his head in just the right spot, he could look through the frosted glass cover and see Sierra enter the room and step into the next pod. When he heard the other cover glass side shut, he relaxed. Sierra was where she was supposed to be. They were both safe, and the caretakers wanted them to be their best.
He fell asleep before she started crying.
***
Victor – was that his real name? Or just something they’d called him back at that place? – wasn’t happy about letting the other woman, “November”, go off on her own, but he could tell he wasn’t going to change her mind.
Then it was just the two of them in the SUV, driving through an LA suburb. He thought about ditching the vehicle to delay pursuit, as it was only a matter of time until they noticed four of their, what?, slaves were missing. They should probably find a police station, and tell somebody what was happening, but Sierra – was that her real name either? He had no other name to call her. – insisted on finding this “Nolan” guy. Considering he had no memories of his own life, beyond baseball statistics and knowing how to do a sleeper hold and drive a car, he let her take the lead.
They’d been driving in silence for about half an hour when he asked her, “Anything ring a bell?”
“Some things seem familiar, but... Sorry.” She rubbed her eyes. “I need to go somewhere, but I don’t know where.”
“It’s okay. Maybe you’re trying too hard. Sometimes you can remember things if you distract yourself.”
“Maybe,” Sierra said. She punched the radio and hit a classic rock station. She looked out the window, softly singing along with the music.
There she stood in the doorway; I heard the mission bell And I was thinking to myself, “
This could be heaven or this could be hell” Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way There were voices down the corridor, I thought I heard them say... Welcome to the Hotel California Such a lovely place From the second he’d woken up in that coffin, he’d been focussed on escaping, then running. He still wasn’t completely certain he could trust the others who woke up in the same room. But Sierra felt like someone he had known for a long time. How long had they been in that place? Had they been friends, or something more? When they hid in the wardrobe room, huddled close together, he’d wanted to put his arms around her, an ache that was almost physically painful.
Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat. Some dance to remember, some dance to forget The words were sad and lost when she sang them, making him choke up a little. God, this was so fucked up, two amnesiac human sex toys running for their lives from a “people warehouse” in a stolen car.
And still those voices are calling from far away, Wake you up in the middle of the night Just to hear them say... Welcome to the Hotel California “I just remembered something,” he said.
“You did? What?” she asked, her fingers just touching his hand on the gear shift.
“I hate the fucking Eagles,” he said, finally laughing at the craziness of it all.
She laughed too, and punched him on the arm playfully.
As they laughed together, the radio continued:
Last thing I remember, I was Running for the door I had to find the passage back To the place I was before “
Relax,” said the night man, “
We are programmed to receive. You can checkout any time you like, But you can never leave.” “Wait, wait,” she said, looking at something outside the window. “I know that street! Turn right!”
He stomped on the brake and turned. Her hand rested on his as he shifted gears. Wherever she went, he’d go with her.
--30--
Afterword: This got a little out of hand in terms of length, but I wanted more Victor/Sierra scenes.
I made up Ivy's last name, Leung.
"Nekulturny gomosek" translates to something like "geeky fag", and "detka" is something like "babe"
Current Mood: 
stressed
Current Music: SDR News podcast
,
fanfiction
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