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remixredux09Title: Saint-Seducing Gold (The Natural Minor Remix)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
iambickilometer
Summary: There's a new Active in the dollhouse.
Fandom: Dollhouse/Supernatural
Characters: Echo, Adelle DeWitt, unknown.
Rating: PG-13
Original story: Romeo Haunted byemmademarais
Notes: Thank youxturncoatxiii for betaing! I'll probably do a more comprehensive post about the process on my journal, if anyone's interested.
Saint-Seducing Gold (The Natural Minor Remix)
The new friend is tall, but not very tall. Victor passes him by, and stands taller. The new friend is all gold like Sierra's hair and not so stretched out. "Hello, Echo," says the man with the new friend. "This is Romeo."
The new friend has pale green eyes. They are very pretty.
"Hello, Romeo," Echo says.
Romeo looks at her and does not say anything. Echo says, "I'm going to paint now. It helps me be better."
"Being your best is important," says Romeo.
"Come along," the man says to Romeo, and then Romeo and the man walk away. Echo starts walking to the art area. She will paint birds with soft white wings today. Maybe Romeo will like them.
-
"I don't want anyone fucking with my head."
Adelle waited patiently as the scruffy man with the wild eyes and the handsome face got up and paced again. His eyes roved continuously from one corner of the room to another, as if seeking out something that only he could see. Whatever event had driven him here, it had left permanent scars in more areas than he would let on.
But that wasn't Adelle's business. She took a sip of tea and watched him push off from the table, the wall, and back again. Eventually he sat back down again.
"Your memories and sense of self will not be tampered with," Adelle said, once he calmed down enough to listen. "They will be saved until your time is up, and then they will be returned to you. Your criminal record will be erased. No one will know who you are. You will be free to go."
"Go where?" her potential client asked, and then he was up and pacing again. "Home? Don't have one. And there's not an angel in heaven who would take me in now." He paused, and laughed. It sounded forced, or at least extremely bitter. "Okay, maybe one."
--
Romeo sleeps in the place where Victor used to sleep. But he doesn't get up right behind Sierra like Victor used to. Romeo stands up first and looks up at the ceiling. "It's empty up there," he says.
"We're down here," Echo replies.
But Romeo keeps looking up. "The light isn't so bright anymore," he says.
--
"I'll forget everything?"
The potential client was back, wild-eyed as ever, and gritting his teeth when he thought Adelle wasn't watching. Occupational hazard, most likely. Whatever his life was that he spent so much time flirting with oblivion, it didn't just hurt him mentally. But then again, the scars and bruises Adelle glimpsed told that story before.
"Yes," she said, and made certain not to smile or otherwise give away her amusement. "Everything that makes you who you are will be carefully removed and stored away, waiting for you."
"And then I'm free to go."
"Precisely." Adelle did smile, then; a slow satisfied curve of the mouth that made Topher wince whenever she used it on him. The man before her now didn't seem intimidated. He looked ambivalent.
"In five years' time."
"That is the standard agreement, yes."
The man closed his eyes, set his jaw, and shut down. "I can't do that. There's a war coming…" He spoke so softly, Adelle could only barely understand his words. But it took him longer to reach this point than it did last time. Within a few more meetings, the dollhouse would have him. Whatever war was coming, it wasn't one this man was going to win.
--
Vicky wipes her forehead, feeling the beginnings of sweat pricking at her pores. "Look, how much longer do we have to wait here?"
Next to her, leaning against the sun-heated concrete wall, Derek shrugs. "As long as it's gonna take," he says. "She's not supposed to show up for another thirty minutes, anyway." Then he grins that mischievous grin of his, the one that gets most of the girls and some of the guys staring.
Vicky rolls her eyes. "We're not going to make an ice cream run."
Derek sighs over-dramatically and opens his mouth to say something, but then pauses. Or no – he freezes, staring away to their left, where a man with two dogs has rounded the corner. They're big dogs, dark brown and muscular, and one is snarling at another dog, across the street.
"Since when are you afraid of dogs?" Vicky asks, and keeps her tone light and teasing.
For a moment, Derek doesn't say anything, and his hands, once rested against the wall, scrape against the rough concrete as they close into fists. Then he squeezes his eyes shut and slowly relaxes. When he turns back to Vicky, his face is pale and his eyes are wide. "I'm not afraid of dogs," he says.
--
"Why?"
He was back again, sitting down, slumped. Defeated. But Adelle couldn't say for sure who had defeated him. "Why do you want me?"
Adelle didn't answer right away. First, she sipped at the cup of tea before her. Then she placed it back on the table, and rearranged herself, slowly settling her hands, lacing her fingers together. Only then did she look back up at the man on the other side of the table. He wasn't perfect – a few scars, and a traumatic past and present that would doubtless make itself known in his subconscious – but he would do. Let him wonder why he was special – it would do him no good to know that the only special thing about him was that he kept coming back, kept delaying the decision.
"Because you would be an asset," Adelle said instead, and he met her eyes then, head jerking up a bit as she finally spoke. "We need you, and others like you."
"And for five years, I won't remember a thing. The hell I've been through"
Adelle smiled, and played her card. "You won't even remember you had a brother."
--
The poster asks, Have You Seen This Man? The face beneath these letters is pretty, with clear, intense eyes, sculpted nose, full mouth. He looks vaguely familiar, like Anita has seen him crossing a street or on a bus or somewhere else she wouldn't really notice him.
"I'm sorry," she tells the man holding the sign. And then, because she's not quite late to her ride home, she asks, "Who is he?"
"My brother," says the man, and his shaggy head droops just a little bit more. "He just vanished about a month ago."
"Could it be that he's just not staying in touch?"
The sign-holder shakes his head. "No. He'd never do that. After – after Dad died… we're all each other has left. And now he's missing." The sign wavers, as he looks her over, searching for some kind of sign, maybe. Anita wishes she could help. "You haven't seen him anywhere, have you?"
"No dice," says Anita. She's got to run, anyway, or else she really will be late for her treatment. "I'm so sorry. Good luck finding him."
"Thanks anyway," says the man with the sign.
--
Adelle read over the papers her latest soon-to-be-Active had signed, and saw what she expected to. Vague replies, outright lies, huge omissions in his stories. She wouldn't have noticed the lies and omissions, had she not also acquired a copy of his criminal record, to examine before she erased it. Rossum couldn't risk someone in a position of authority recognising one of their Actives.
"You are quite the enigma, Dean Winchester," Adelle said, turning away from the railing. "Welcome to the dollhouse."
Author:
iambickilometerSummary: There's a new Active in the dollhouse.
Fandom: Dollhouse/Supernatural
Characters: Echo, Adelle DeWitt, unknown.
Rating: PG-13
Original story: Romeo Haunted by
emmademaraisNotes: Thank you
xturncoatxiii for betaing! I'll probably do a more comprehensive post about the process on my journal, if anyone's interested.Saint-Seducing Gold (The Natural Minor Remix)
The new friend is tall, but not very tall. Victor passes him by, and stands taller. The new friend is all gold like Sierra's hair and not so stretched out. "Hello, Echo," says the man with the new friend. "This is Romeo."
The new friend has pale green eyes. They are very pretty.
"Hello, Romeo," Echo says.
Romeo looks at her and does not say anything. Echo says, "I'm going to paint now. It helps me be better."
"Being your best is important," says Romeo.
"Come along," the man says to Romeo, and then Romeo and the man walk away. Echo starts walking to the art area. She will paint birds with soft white wings today. Maybe Romeo will like them.
-
"I don't want anyone fucking with my head."
Adelle waited patiently as the scruffy man with the wild eyes and the handsome face got up and paced again. His eyes roved continuously from one corner of the room to another, as if seeking out something that only he could see. Whatever event had driven him here, it had left permanent scars in more areas than he would let on.
But that wasn't Adelle's business. She took a sip of tea and watched him push off from the table, the wall, and back again. Eventually he sat back down again.
"Your memories and sense of self will not be tampered with," Adelle said, once he calmed down enough to listen. "They will be saved until your time is up, and then they will be returned to you. Your criminal record will be erased. No one will know who you are. You will be free to go."
"Go where?" her potential client asked, and then he was up and pacing again. "Home? Don't have one. And there's not an angel in heaven who would take me in now." He paused, and laughed. It sounded forced, or at least extremely bitter. "Okay, maybe one."
--
Romeo sleeps in the place where Victor used to sleep. But he doesn't get up right behind Sierra like Victor used to. Romeo stands up first and looks up at the ceiling. "It's empty up there," he says.
"We're down here," Echo replies.
But Romeo keeps looking up. "The light isn't so bright anymore," he says.
--
"I'll forget everything?"
The potential client was back, wild-eyed as ever, and gritting his teeth when he thought Adelle wasn't watching. Occupational hazard, most likely. Whatever his life was that he spent so much time flirting with oblivion, it didn't just hurt him mentally. But then again, the scars and bruises Adelle glimpsed told that story before.
"Yes," she said, and made certain not to smile or otherwise give away her amusement. "Everything that makes you who you are will be carefully removed and stored away, waiting for you."
"And then I'm free to go."
"Precisely." Adelle did smile, then; a slow satisfied curve of the mouth that made Topher wince whenever she used it on him. The man before her now didn't seem intimidated. He looked ambivalent.
"In five years' time."
"That is the standard agreement, yes."
The man closed his eyes, set his jaw, and shut down. "I can't do that. There's a war coming…" He spoke so softly, Adelle could only barely understand his words. But it took him longer to reach this point than it did last time. Within a few more meetings, the dollhouse would have him. Whatever war was coming, it wasn't one this man was going to win.
--
Vicky wipes her forehead, feeling the beginnings of sweat pricking at her pores. "Look, how much longer do we have to wait here?"
Next to her, leaning against the sun-heated concrete wall, Derek shrugs. "As long as it's gonna take," he says. "She's not supposed to show up for another thirty minutes, anyway." Then he grins that mischievous grin of his, the one that gets most of the girls and some of the guys staring.
Vicky rolls her eyes. "We're not going to make an ice cream run."
Derek sighs over-dramatically and opens his mouth to say something, but then pauses. Or no – he freezes, staring away to their left, where a man with two dogs has rounded the corner. They're big dogs, dark brown and muscular, and one is snarling at another dog, across the street.
"Since when are you afraid of dogs?" Vicky asks, and keeps her tone light and teasing.
For a moment, Derek doesn't say anything, and his hands, once rested against the wall, scrape against the rough concrete as they close into fists. Then he squeezes his eyes shut and slowly relaxes. When he turns back to Vicky, his face is pale and his eyes are wide. "I'm not afraid of dogs," he says.
--
"Why?"
He was back again, sitting down, slumped. Defeated. But Adelle couldn't say for sure who had defeated him. "Why do you want me?"
Adelle didn't answer right away. First, she sipped at the cup of tea before her. Then she placed it back on the table, and rearranged herself, slowly settling her hands, lacing her fingers together. Only then did she look back up at the man on the other side of the table. He wasn't perfect – a few scars, and a traumatic past and present that would doubtless make itself known in his subconscious – but he would do. Let him wonder why he was special – it would do him no good to know that the only special thing about him was that he kept coming back, kept delaying the decision.
"Because you would be an asset," Adelle said instead, and he met her eyes then, head jerking up a bit as she finally spoke. "We need you, and others like you."
"And for five years, I won't remember a thing. The hell I've been through"
Adelle smiled, and played her card. "You won't even remember you had a brother."
--
The poster asks, Have You Seen This Man? The face beneath these letters is pretty, with clear, intense eyes, sculpted nose, full mouth. He looks vaguely familiar, like Anita has seen him crossing a street or on a bus or somewhere else she wouldn't really notice him.
"I'm sorry," she tells the man holding the sign. And then, because she's not quite late to her ride home, she asks, "Who is he?"
"My brother," says the man, and his shaggy head droops just a little bit more. "He just vanished about a month ago."
"Could it be that he's just not staying in touch?"
The sign-holder shakes his head. "No. He'd never do that. After – after Dad died… we're all each other has left. And now he's missing." The sign wavers, as he looks her over, searching for some kind of sign, maybe. Anita wishes she could help. "You haven't seen him anywhere, have you?"
"No dice," says Anita. She's got to run, anyway, or else she really will be late for her treatment. "I'm so sorry. Good luck finding him."
"Thanks anyway," says the man with the sign.
--
Adelle read over the papers her latest soon-to-be-Active had signed, and saw what she expected to. Vague replies, outright lies, huge omissions in his stories. She wouldn't have noticed the lies and omissions, had she not also acquired a copy of his criminal record, to examine before she erased it. Rossum couldn't risk someone in a position of authority recognising one of their Actives.
"You are quite the enigma, Dean Winchester," Adelle said, turning away from the railing. "Welcome to the dollhouse."
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-20 08:55 pm (UTC)I especially like the opening scenes in the Dollhouse. "Being your best is important," says Romeo. ::shudder::
no subject
Date: 2009-07-26 07:15 pm (UTC)And, well, creepy is what the Dollhouse does best. I'm very glad you liked it.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 03:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-26 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-21 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-26 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-27 12:53 am (UTC)/is happy you enjoyed the remix of her fic/
no subject
Date: 2009-07-22 11:11 pm (UTC)Okay, I'm going to have to apologize for it not being here since I definitely read this as soon as the archive opened. /looks again, frowning/
Hmm... Now I have to remember what I first thought when I read it. First, I'm dying for the reveal so I can ask you why you chose this one. This is the second year in a row someone chose one of my rare crossovers and I'm stunned by the decision each time - perhaps because I write so many fandoms yet so few crossovers, you know? Anyway, I liked the expansion of my original drabble. I was only able to hint then reveal then get out, so it's nice to be able to spend more time with the angst of Dean's decision and the aftermath of him leaving Sam. Nice idea to have an Echo imprint run into Sam yet not recognize her fellow Active. Irony, table for two! Hehehe Most telling though was Adelle's thoughts - that Dean wasn't special, this was just another deal for her. She's deliciously ice cold and so manipulative - quite chilling and very in character for her. Quite an interesting device too to insert Romeo imprinted as well - a tip of the hat to past canon that tells us it's him without names. Clever.
You know I got a lot of people asking for more of Dean as Active when I first published this fic. I hope you crosspost it in the SPN fandom so that people can enjoy the more they asked for. Also, I'd love to see it crossposted at my DH comm
Finally, I'm dying to know about the title, but there's a few more days until the reveal so I'll have to wait.
Thanks for this lovely remix!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-27 12:53 am (UTC)Thanks again!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-27 01:16 am (UTC)You're very welcome. Thank you! And here we go, big response:
I chose this fic because I felt like it had a lot of room to expand. As you said, you didn't have much freedom in the structure of the original - and I wanted to see more about why Dean would choose to sign over his body for five years, and how difficult the decision must have been for him. The fact that it was a crossover didn't actually sway me - in fact, it was my biggest dilemma. I don't watch Supernatural, you see. I've seen the first half of the first season, and that's it.
The whole fic was an exercise in how much dramatic irony can I pack into a thousand words or so? I researched (by which I mean I asked my SPN-following friends) the characters, I made allusions, and I brought in Sam in that last bit. And then Adelle's cold truth - that Dean wasn't anything special - was meant to be both Dean's greatest failure and his goal achieved. Because now all he's done has been for naught, but at least he's temporarily escaped it. I place this remix sometime after Sam and Dean have parted ways - either to different sides of the coming war, or during a time where Dean believes Sam to be dead.
(I asked a friend what event in particular might cause Dean some serious PTSD - enough to stick through the mindwipe. He said something about hellhounds. Hence the dogs.)
I'll definitely post it at
The title! I took it from a line from Romeo & Juliet, and I could honestly not tell you who said it or in which act or scene. The "saint" is Dean, and the "gold" is oblivion. "The Natural Minor Remix" is both a play on Supernatural, and a comment on the tone of the fic; it's much more drawn-out and shows the more of Dean's progression to agreement. The natural minor, in music, is also called the minor sixth chord. I dunno if I can explain it to someone who has no musical experience, and I don't know if you're any sort of musician, but basically every major key has a corresponding minor key. Major keys sound "happier"; minor keys sound sad, or ominous.
If you have any more questions, please do ask; I love talking about my writing. Thank you for joining in, so I had the opportunity to write this!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-25 08:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-26 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-27 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-27 12:55 am (UTC)/waves/
I hope at some point you give Dollhouse, at least Season 1, a shot. If you can get past episode 6 (where the network suits got out of the way and let Joss be Joss) it gets really good.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-27 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-27 02:11 am (UTC)FWIW I can explain the consent issues in a sentence or two if you haven't heard why they're there and let you decide. IMHO it's satisfactorily addressed enough for me, but then consent issues aren't a squick of mine.
/butting in
Date: 2009-07-27 02:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-26 09:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-27 01:17 am (UTC)