justprompts: Talk about an important rule you’ve broken.
The possibility always exists for every single person who walks into the Dollhouse. He knows it. He knows what will happen to him if he's found out. It's always in the back of his mind. He's seen the wiping process before, helped drag a hapless victim to the chair, sent them to the Attic. It's one thing to see it, it's another to experience it.
One of the first and most important rules of the Dollhouse deals with trust. Never break it. It started between the Dolls and their handlers, one of the Scripts everyone has to learn.
Do you trust me?
With my life.
Break that trust, and everything begins to deteriorate very rapidly from there, putting lives at risk.
It's a rule that extends into the general population, between staffers and the Dolls, between staffers and other staffers, and all the way to DeWitt and her clients. The entire thing is built on a system of trust. They trust that the clients will pay full price (and any additional fees that might be thrown in) and that they are honest about what they want in an Active and what sorts of situations said Active will be in. Everyone trusts Topher's skills, and they trust that nothing will go wrong with the technology surrounding the chair.
Laurence must trust people on the most basic level in this way. It's like trusting the strangers you walk by on the street won't mug you every time you leave the house. A necessity.
But there are few people he trusts. It's a liability to him.
It doesn't matter now, though. He's been found out, and Adelle's heart is broken. She doesn't show it on her face when Echo-the-spyhunter sits him down in a chair at her home--chateau more like. Nor in her voice. But he knows. You don't work beside someone for three solid years, trusting each other, actual trust, and not be emotional when it appears that they've stabbed you in the back.
He hasn't, which he tries to say, but he also knows it won't work. He's never betrayed any of them outright. Except Echo. She's a different story. She always will be. His primary goal has always been to protect the Dollhouse. He's never tampered with personalities; all of Topher's technobabble goes right over his head, and as far as he knows, nobody else has, either.
(Does she think he's been altering them? The chip was primarily for monitoring, he'd been told, though he supposes the potential to tamper has always been there. Maybe that's why nobody seems to believe a thing he says. But so goes the life of a spy.)
Her trust is gone. He knows it hurts her, and he understands why. The fact that it's lost stings. More than expected. He makes a few painful, barbed quips about her naivete. About her beliefs. About what she trusts in, and how they will come back to bit her on the ass, like her unwavering trust in him. They know each other enough to be able to get under each other's skin. He treats her like a child; she treats him like nothing.
He's known it could happen to him at any time. But he's still not ready for it. Animalistic panic surges through him, the instinct of self-preservation. It hits him as soon as he's hauled out of the van, sardonic smirk replaced with a gag. It takes a number of bodies, security forces he's worked with, men he's trained, who no longer feel sympathy for him because he's broken the golden rule.
He yells, muffled, and struggles as if his life depends on it. It does, in a way. He never wants to become like them, lights on, nobody home, everything that he is replaced with fluffy clouds and the most basic of vocabulary. He might not even get that much.
Everything on the tip of his tongue, forever. While he, the real him, the true Laurence Dominic, is stored away, one of the Chair's possible personalities, bits of him taken apart and stuck with someone else, his NSA training coupled with some woman's crazy sexual desires cobbled together with an annoying allergy to peanuts; god only knows what they'll do with him once he's recorded.
Lights flash arhythmically from the lab and wires dangle down all over like some terrifying science fiction movie before something in the back of his head, some part of him that isn't on full on panic mode, reminds him that everything about what they do is like sci-fi. He doesn't want to go. He doesn't want to get forcibly strapped down into that god damn chair of wonders and horrors like he's someone's experiment. He doesn't want to die. It's going to be like death, in a way, except he won't think that. He won't remember to be angry or scared.
He always imagined he'd die some cliched action hero death, killed in the line of duty during some tense shootout. Too much to ask for, he knew, but it was a nice dream.
Only this is a nightmare. He won't go like that. He refuses, and he uses every last stretch of strength left in him to grab a gun off of one of his former men before they can properly secure him. A bullet to the temple is all he needs. A second, two seconds, just to get a shot off. A better death than this. But hands grab him, and the trigger gets pulled, and in a splatter of blood behind her, it's Adelle that's been hit, and a wave of nausea runs over him. A completion of what he's already started, he supposes. She'll hate him even more, though perhaps she knows it was never intended for her.
He's not allowed to die peacefully. He stares at her. It's the right choice to make, the same kind he would make, and if their positions were reversed, he'd be staring back down at her with the same impassivity she shows. She'll be colder now. A little more broken to match her collection of broken toys.
Imprinting and wiping hurt, but only temporarily, and it's apparently more of a pinch, a sting. That's what Topher always says. Being sent to the Attic isn't like that, though. It's worse. It's far worse.
He tries to think about what he can still remember, somehow try to cling to what little he can. My name is Laurence Dominic; I am 41 years old; I love the Mets and hate the Phillies; my favorite color is silver-- A random assortment, but they're things he remembers, and he recites them on a loop in his head as much as he can.
If it wasn't for the gag, he'd be screaming his guts out. It's beyond anything...everything. He's been shot, stabbed, beaten, and every pain he's ever experienced is cakewalk to this. It's all nothing to this. He doesn't even remember those moments soon enough.
My name is Laurence Dominic; I am 41 years old; I love baseball; my favorite color is... He blanks, tries again.
It takes only seconds; he's seen it done before, knows that in only a few short seconds, a person is reduced to nothing, but it feels like hours. The brain is a remarkable thing like that, extending the pain, and somehow still looping again and again in the back of his mind. The pain in his skull is excruciating. It feels like multiple drills digging into his brain. Like his head will at once explode and implode at the same time. Every nerve ending burns in response to his very essence being sucked out of him.
My name is Laurence Dominic; I am...41? I love...a sport... It's slipping. Everything's slipping from his grasp.
It feels like...he's not sure anymore, how to compare it. It's like...something just out of his reach. It's like something he knows he should know but doesn't. He just knows there's a lot of pain. He's in a lot of pain because...because...he did something awful. And that something's happening to him.
My name is Laurence Dominic. That part stays. It's the only thing. He doesn't even remember why he's thinking it anymore.
My name is Laurence...Dominic.
It's all sucking out of him now. A vacuum left behind.
My name is Laurence.
It doesn't even hurt anymore. It's shutting down. He's shutting down. What's left of him, the very last traces, found, removed.
My name...is...Laurence.
Funny, how his last thoughts would be about himself. They're not even thoughts anymore. It's residual. Echoes. He relaxes, slumps, stares blankly at the ceiling.
My name...
My name...
My...
He doesn't think to ask what his name is anymore. He doesn't think to ask why he's being carried out of a chair. He doesn't think to ask what that dull ache is. He hardly thinks at all.
One of the very most important rules in the Dollhouse is too integral to the continued functioning of the system that it cannot be forgiven if broken.
One of the first and most important rules of the Dollhouse deals with trust. Never break it. It started between the Dolls and their handlers, one of the Scripts everyone has to learn.
Do you trust me?
With my life.
Break that trust, and everything begins to deteriorate very rapidly from there, putting lives at risk.
It's a rule that extends into the general population, between staffers and the Dolls, between staffers and other staffers, and all the way to DeWitt and her clients. The entire thing is built on a system of trust. They trust that the clients will pay full price (and any additional fees that might be thrown in) and that they are honest about what they want in an Active and what sorts of situations said Active will be in. Everyone trusts Topher's skills, and they trust that nothing will go wrong with the technology surrounding the chair.
Laurence must trust people on the most basic level in this way. It's like trusting the strangers you walk by on the street won't mug you every time you leave the house. A necessity.
But there are few people he trusts. It's a liability to him.
It doesn't matter now, though. He's been found out, and Adelle's heart is broken. She doesn't show it on her face when Echo-the-spyhunter sits him down in a chair at her home--chateau more like. Nor in her voice. But he knows. You don't work beside someone for three solid years, trusting each other, actual trust, and not be emotional when it appears that they've stabbed you in the back.
He hasn't, which he tries to say, but he also knows it won't work. He's never betrayed any of them outright. Except Echo. She's a different story. She always will be. His primary goal has always been to protect the Dollhouse. He's never tampered with personalities; all of Topher's technobabble goes right over his head, and as far as he knows, nobody else has, either.
(Does she think he's been altering them? The chip was primarily for monitoring, he'd been told, though he supposes the potential to tamper has always been there. Maybe that's why nobody seems to believe a thing he says. But so goes the life of a spy.)
Her trust is gone. He knows it hurts her, and he understands why. The fact that it's lost stings. More than expected. He makes a few painful, barbed quips about her naivete. About her beliefs. About what she trusts in, and how they will come back to bit her on the ass, like her unwavering trust in him. They know each other enough to be able to get under each other's skin. He treats her like a child; she treats him like nothing.
He's known it could happen to him at any time. But he's still not ready for it. Animalistic panic surges through him, the instinct of self-preservation. It hits him as soon as he's hauled out of the van, sardonic smirk replaced with a gag. It takes a number of bodies, security forces he's worked with, men he's trained, who no longer feel sympathy for him because he's broken the golden rule.
He yells, muffled, and struggles as if his life depends on it. It does, in a way. He never wants to become like them, lights on, nobody home, everything that he is replaced with fluffy clouds and the most basic of vocabulary. He might not even get that much.
Everything on the tip of his tongue, forever. While he, the real him, the true Laurence Dominic, is stored away, one of the Chair's possible personalities, bits of him taken apart and stuck with someone else, his NSA training coupled with some woman's crazy sexual desires cobbled together with an annoying allergy to peanuts; god only knows what they'll do with him once he's recorded.
Lights flash arhythmically from the lab and wires dangle down all over like some terrifying science fiction movie before something in the back of his head, some part of him that isn't on full on panic mode, reminds him that everything about what they do is like sci-fi. He doesn't want to go. He doesn't want to get forcibly strapped down into that god damn chair of wonders and horrors like he's someone's experiment. He doesn't want to die. It's going to be like death, in a way, except he won't think that. He won't remember to be angry or scared.
He always imagined he'd die some cliched action hero death, killed in the line of duty during some tense shootout. Too much to ask for, he knew, but it was a nice dream.
Only this is a nightmare. He won't go like that. He refuses, and he uses every last stretch of strength left in him to grab a gun off of one of his former men before they can properly secure him. A bullet to the temple is all he needs. A second, two seconds, just to get a shot off. A better death than this. But hands grab him, and the trigger gets pulled, and in a splatter of blood behind her, it's Adelle that's been hit, and a wave of nausea runs over him. A completion of what he's already started, he supposes. She'll hate him even more, though perhaps she knows it was never intended for her.
He's not allowed to die peacefully. He stares at her. It's the right choice to make, the same kind he would make, and if their positions were reversed, he'd be staring back down at her with the same impassivity she shows. She'll be colder now. A little more broken to match her collection of broken toys.
Imprinting and wiping hurt, but only temporarily, and it's apparently more of a pinch, a sting. That's what Topher always says. Being sent to the Attic isn't like that, though. It's worse. It's far worse.
He tries to think about what he can still remember, somehow try to cling to what little he can. My name is Laurence Dominic; I am 41 years old; I love the Mets and hate the Phillies; my favorite color is silver-- A random assortment, but they're things he remembers, and he recites them on a loop in his head as much as he can.
If it wasn't for the gag, he'd be screaming his guts out. It's beyond anything...everything. He's been shot, stabbed, beaten, and every pain he's ever experienced is cakewalk to this. It's all nothing to this. He doesn't even remember those moments soon enough.
My name is Laurence Dominic; I am 41 years old; I love baseball; my favorite color is... He blanks, tries again.
It takes only seconds; he's seen it done before, knows that in only a few short seconds, a person is reduced to nothing, but it feels like hours. The brain is a remarkable thing like that, extending the pain, and somehow still looping again and again in the back of his mind. The pain in his skull is excruciating. It feels like multiple drills digging into his brain. Like his head will at once explode and implode at the same time. Every nerve ending burns in response to his very essence being sucked out of him.
My name is Laurence Dominic; I am...41? I love...a sport... It's slipping. Everything's slipping from his grasp.
It feels like...he's not sure anymore, how to compare it. It's like...something just out of his reach. It's like something he knows he should know but doesn't. He just knows there's a lot of pain. He's in a lot of pain because...because...he did something awful. And that something's happening to him.
My name is Laurence Dominic. That part stays. It's the only thing. He doesn't even remember why he's thinking it anymore.
My name is Laurence...Dominic.
It's all sucking out of him now. A vacuum left behind.
My name is Laurence.
It doesn't even hurt anymore. It's shutting down. He's shutting down. What's left of him, the very last traces, found, removed.
My name...is...Laurence.
Funny, how his last thoughts would be about himself. They're not even thoughts anymore. It's residual. Echoes. He relaxes, slumps, stares blankly at the ceiling.
My name...
My name...
My...
He doesn't think to ask what his name is anymore. He doesn't think to ask why he's being carried out of a chair. He doesn't think to ask what that dull ache is. He hardly thinks at all.
One of the very most important rules in the Dollhouse is too integral to the continued functioning of the system that it cannot be forgiven if broken.