bakerstreet | Welcome to the Dollhouse

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Welcome to the Dollhouse

THE DOLLHOUSE AU MEME

The Dollhouse. It's luxurious. It's beautiful. Enough so to remind any visitor of a spa: there are little ponds, arranged rocks, sliding doors that disguise massage facilities, gyms.

But the Dollhouse isn't a vacation spot. It's a twisted, high-brow brothel.

Inside, the Actives, blank, erased, and docile. Their handlers, charged with protecting the Dollhouse's assets. The programmers, who create whole new personalities to imprint on their blank slates.

And outside: the clients, ready to pay for people made to their exact specifications.

THE ROLES
1) Active - For some reason, you have signed away years of your life to be someone else's fantasy. Paying debts? Running away from something? Or were you forced into this life?
2) Handler - It's your job to keep the Actives healthy and happy. Their life and their well being rests in your hands, and they're more helpless than a child before you.
3) Head of the Dollhouse - You keep the whole thing running. Negotiate with the clients, approve the jobs, and make sure all the financial items stack up.
4) Client - You're here to have your fantasy come true, or to buy the perfect tool for the job.
5) Doctor, programmer, attendant, security or other Dollhouse personnel - Your job is secrecy, or it's to heal the Actives when they come back from their engagements, or it's to pick out costumes and props or create the imprints themselves or work on technology.
6) Other - maybe you're the hero charging in to the rescue, or the detective investigating rumors of this underground slave house. Maybe you're something completely different - this one's a wild card!

THE SITUATIONS
1) In the Dollhouse - a yoga class, a carefully prepared meal, a massage, arts and crafts time, or heading down to sleep. Maybe they're coming back from an engagement or heading out on one. Maybe they're new here.

OPTIONAL HIJINKS:
- Security breach! Everyone go into lockdown, we have intruders.
- Staffing problems: Maybe a handler's abusing the actives, or there's a mole in the Dollhouse. Either way, someone's going to get fired.
- Injury: Someone got wounded on their last engagement.
- Bleedthrough: Perhaps two Dolls remember each other, despite having their minds wiped. Perhaps a Doll is speaking of things that happened to them before they were here. Either way, there's a problem.
- Nightmares: They should feel safe in the sleeping pods, but sometimes the subconscious has other ideas. Hopefully there's another Doll or a handler there to comfort them.

2) On an engagement. The Active's been imprinted, and it's time to take them to the client.

TYPE OF ENGAGEMENT:
- A romantic engagement: Who are you - a student, a rich prince, a motorcycle enthusiast, a dominatrix?
- An illegal engagement: The perfect burglar, or assassin, or thug.
- An altruistic engagement: You're there to read books to kids in a hospital, or to assist the Red Cross, or to reform a soup kitchen.
- Other: Could be a chef, or a wedding planner, or a security consultant. Maybe a doctor or midwife. Maybe something truly off-the-wall, like an ancient barbarian or a specific historical figure. Sky's the limit!

OPTIONAL HIJINKS:
- Disaster: the Active is lost/kidnapped/trapped.
- Programming Flaw: an unforeseen personality trait surfaces, or the programmed life has some unexpected drawbacks.
- Successfully completed: the Active now needs to come away, relax, and get taken back to the Dollhouse.
- That was NOT according to plan!: the Active goes off-book.
- Who's watching?: The handler is killed or incapacitated. What happens to the Active?

3) Becoming a Doll - Someone's selling away five years of their life. Why? What happens?

OPTIONAL HIJINKS:
- Forced: It's not your choice. You have to sign away your life.
- Willing: All you want to do is escape.
- Last moments: What do you do with your last few moments as yourself?
- The grand tour: What do you think of all those empty Dolls everywhere?

4) Returning to civilian life - Your tenure as a Dollhouse Active is over. You've lost five years of your life. What's next?

OPTIONAL HIJINKS:
- Do you meet another doll? Do you recognize them?
- Memories begin to surface. Memories that aren't yours.
- Someone on the street recognizes you, but you don't know who they are.

5) Apocalypse - Everything is Jossed all to hell. Dollhouse technology is loose and it's destroyed the mind as we know it. Only the Actives are safe.

OPTIONAL HIJINKS:
- Same brain, new body: You've transferred yourself to a new body, so as to live longer.
- Mindless: One of your friends has become mindless and feral.
- Sanctuary: You've built a town in the midst of the ruins.
- Reset Button: Time to put everyone's mind back the way it was - but at a price. No one will be able to remember what happened since the apocalypse. Is it worth it?

6) Other - Wild card! Any other situation you'd like to explore.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Active or former-active from a smaller house that specializes in merc teams, hers were all named after/based on fairy tales.]

[Medical staff, possible handler, possible active/former active, maybe he's just a guy trying to survive the apocalypse that happens when people keep jumping bodies, idk man.]

[Former active, now handler or head of house/second in command after Fury.]

[Clint could be his long time Active, who's acting a little glitchy after an engagement with a certain Asgardian?]

[Sure! You thinking actually Asgardian, or some kind of mob-boss client that tried to sleeper-cell him?]

[I like the idea of a mob boss type trying to sleeper-cell him - something outside the Avengers verse entirely.]

[Perfect, I like it. Would you like to start or shall I?]

[Would you mind kicking us off?]

There had been nothing untoward on the last mission, but even so, Coulson had a feeling that something was off, the kind of instinct that came from working with this particular Active as long as he had. He hadn't known the kid before he'd signed up with the House, had only been assigned to him once he had.

The job itself had even been routine, escort and bodyguard duty for a local kingpin who apparently thought he had more enemies than he did, considering that -to the best of Coulson's knowledge- nothing had happened at the gala they'd attended and nothing out of the ordinary had pinged vitals or comms. And maybe it was just that, the fact that nothing exciting had happened when the client had clearly expected it to was part of the problem.

Regardless, Coulson had put a moratorium on high-impact missions at least until he figured out what was bothering him, just observing for now, watching his Active's interactions with the others.

The mission, or assignment, had been average. There were odd blank spots in his memory but that wasn't unusual when he had been out for too long. He was returned, the skin around his wrists a little more raw than usual, but he didn't think much of it. Other assignments had resulted in his skin bruised and rubbed raw, body sore and achy.

Only there were odd dreams. Memories. Things that left him thrashing in his sleep and uneasy around the others.

A routine massage erupted into chaos when he lost himself in a fragment of a memory, sure that he was being attacked. Naturally the call went in to Coulson to address the issues with the Active.

Coulson was downstairs in a matter of moments, slipping through the door to the room they'd managed to corral his charge in. He made sure the door was closed behind him, likewise making sure that he didn't look like a threat, hands where they could be seen, approaching from where his Active had a clear line of sight on him.

He kept out of arm's reach, for the moment, keeping his voice low, conversational as he asked: "Archer, do you trust me?" The whole house was named after weapons or weaponsmiths, something that Coulson had always felt was a bad idea, but it wasn't up to him.

It was partly to see if the subliminal triggers still worked, but partly to see if the Active was still himself, or if this was some fragment of an imprint that hadn't been fully lifted.

There's no danger, no threat. His chest heaves as he tries to pull his breathing back under control. The calm voice and trigger words have him going still. Compliant. Still, his fingers twitch.

"I always trust you."

He can help. He can help him make sense of the disjointed mess of his thoughts and instincts that feel wrong. "I don't understand what's happening."

Well that was something at least, it wasn't much, but it was something and he'd take it. He edged a little closer, still coming on fully from the front, not wanting to give the Active any reason to distrust him, especially now.

His brow furrowed at that second statement, falling still again, "What is happening?" Not a 'what do you think is happening?' not giving him any reason to doubt or reconsider and clam up. More than that something was clearly happening, even if Coulson didn't fully know what it was, either.

[This could go any which way really: former active turned handler, current active that manages to keep fragments of imprints, former active now civilian with the same fragmentation problem, just someone on the outside trying to bring these places down etc. etc. etc.]

[we've got options! Either it's an experiment with someone who knows they've got an immortal and want to see if the imprinting works, could be the 'past lives' are just prior imprints, could be the team knows about Dollhouses and is trying to put a stop to them because that's Not How You Therapy. Throw me something, I'll run with it.]

[Nervous programmer? Equally nervous active (potentially a transplant from a house that didn't have a lot of safety protocols)? Just an agoraphobic client? Any of the above and many more!]

[Okay but Blackwing as a Dollhouse, pararibulitis (and maybe everyone else's powers/abilities) as a side-effect of the imprinting process, all things that make them particularly suited to Life After The Apocalypse Happens.]

[Active from a paramilitary-based House, or former-active from the same trying to assimilate into normal civilian life again, maybe a client back from The War who needs a helping hand with remembering how to function sometimes.]

[Probably an active, usually sent on companionship missions.]

[Could be an experiment with someone who knows they've got an immortal and want to see if the imprinting works, could be the 'past lives' are just prior imprints, could be the team knows about Dollhouses and is trying to put a stop to them because that's super not how things should be done etc. etc. etc.]

[Medical staff, possible handler, quite probably a former active herself.]

[Glitchy as hell Active, either the Umbrella Academy is a House in and of itself, or he signed up after his stint in Vietnam, or it was billed as a rehab facility, whichever it is, he definitely has problems with ghosts.]

With everything Klaus had been through, Tessa couldn't blame him for wanting to forget. Nor was she surprised that certain types of engagements would trigger memory bleed from time to time. That didn't mean she wasn't pissed about it. Clients were supposed to be carefully vetted to avoid such incidents, and she'd give the director a piece of her mind about that later on, but not in front of Klaus. He didn't need her anger. He needed reassurance. Familiarity. Comfort.

She called off the engagement and approached him quietly, dressed in the same way as always. Leather jacket, indigo shirt, and dark blue jeans. Hair falling loosely around her shoulders. "Do you trust me?"

Apparently they were going to have to start vetting whole buildings and not just the clients, because the client had been fine, the engagement had been going well, it was just that some time before, someone had died in that room and Klaus was the one who knew about it.

Except he didn't know what it was he was seeing, and that particular imprint didn't have any kind of fallback protocols for that sort of thing. Which was probably what had caused the schism, not quite enough to fully break the imprint, but definitely enough to put a crack in it.

He had wedged himself back into a corner by the time she arrived, one lanky knee drawn up to his chest, covering his ear with one hand, curling and uncurling the fingers of the other loosely in his lap, as if expecting to see something different than what he was seeing each time he opened them. The House didn't generally remove tattoos, they were innocuous enough, but names, dates, anything uniquely identifiable did get removed, such as the Ouija board salutations on Klaus' palms, except he didn't know what was missing.

He blinked up at her voice, brow creasing, he knew her, and she wasn't the bloody one who'd been trying to get his attention, and he answered without even thinking about it, shoulders relaxing even as he did, "With my life." This was followed by: "Did you see the lady? She needs help, I don't know where she went."

If she was being honest, Tessa was as frustrated with herself as she was with anyone else. She could probably have run an more thorough check herself, and she hated to think that any amount of negligence had caused Klaus harm. The truth was, Tessa had resources--skills--that the House did not, and that was why she had become his handler. This was on her.

She just hoped she could make it right.

"I'll find her, I promise," she said softly. And she would. Because if helping Klaus meant chasing literal ghosts, she might be the only one who could. She glanced over her shoulder, making sure no one was encroaching on their space. "Do you want to tell me about her?"

"She was..." His brow was creased, equal parts concern and confusion, and what spilled out next was: "God, her dress was amazing, vintage, antique, chandelier beads." He gestured with one hand around his head, "And her hair, I'm seriously jealous." That much was actually Klaus coming through the cracks in the imprint, though apparently just thinking about what he'd seen was enough to have that imprint falling back into place with another shake of his head, "She was in real bad shape, it was a lot of blood."

He shook his head again -maybe was just still shaking his head- closing his eyes for a moment with a quiet: "I think I'm going to be sick."

Tessa nodded, cataloging the description, though she didn't take her eyes off Klaus to look for the ghost just yet. If the woman had lingered this long, Tessa doubted she'd be going anywhere anytime soon.

She almost smiled at the hint of the real Klaus slipping through, but it didn't seem like he'd completely broken free of the imprint just yet. According to the script, she was supposed to offer to take him for another 'treatment' right about now, but somehow she felt like that would only be a bandaid solution, and they'd be right back here the next time Klaus ran into an apparition powerful enough to trigger another memory bleed. He needed...more. But she wasn't sure he was ready to face his ghosts head on yet either.

Hearing his next words, she reached instinctively for the nearest decorative vase, making sure it was in easy reach. "I've got you," she said softly, brushing his hair back in an almost sisterly way. "We'll get through this. Together."

He accepted the vase, but just forced himself to breathe and to not think about the state that the woman had been in, because the more he thought about it the more certain he was that she shouldn't, couldn't have been walking around.

He did manage not to hurl, though it was a near thing, and finally, quiet and miserable, he asked: "Can I have a treatment now?"

They were clearly going to have to adjust his dosage again, if the ghosts were still getting through to him, whatever abilities he had working through the layers of anti-seizure and anti-psychotics they had him on to suppress them, which was something he'd warned them about during his intake interview, though even he hadn't known how quickly the drugs would become next to useless.

"Of course." Tessa nodded as she stood, offering Klaus a smile and a hand. "Let's get you back for your treatment."

She'd come back and find the dead woman on her own time, in case the client wanted to reschedule the engagement, and she'd take a more proactive approach with the next one. Get it written into his contracts that she be allowed to do a physical sweep of the destination before his arrival. But for now, they were back on script, and--most importantly--Klaus was safe.

He relaxed considerably at that agreement, most of the lingering tension just sliding off of him as he accepted the hand up, rising in his usual ungainly way, limbs too long and the rest of him too lanky for anything like graceful.

He let himself be bundled into the van, riding in silence for a few long minutes, miles down the road and more than halfway to the House before he straightened, "Oh no, we're going to have to reschedule with Dave." A pause then, brow creasing, because that definitely wasn't the client's name, and he shook his head again, puzzled as he corrected himself to, "Matthew. Going to have to reschedule with Matthew, everything kind of fell apart before we were finished with our date."

Dave. That name hadn't come up in a while, but it was no mere slip of the tongue, was it? Tessa noted Klaus' confusion and concern, but she kept her expression neutral as she nodded in acknowledgement. Inwardly, she was going over contingencies, planning ahead for how to deal with other memories that might resurface. And how to keep the boss happy at the same time.

"I'll take care of it. Everything's going to be all right."

He relaxed once more at the reassurance, nodding, it seemed the trigger phrases still worked, even despite everything that had happened, because his reply was a murmured: "That's what you're here for."

Not quite the right answer, but close enough to pass, probably. It would have been close enough without everything else that had already happened, now it might just be another indication of widening cracks that were going to have to be dealt with.

By the time they got back to the house, he was extolling Matthew's virtues, however, as if the further away from the scene of the incident they got, the further away his own mindset got, falling right back into the imprint like he should, and even once they arrived, and he was being led to the back, he added, "And tell him I'm sorry? I don't even know what came over me. Not like me to have a panic attack like that, you know?"

Tessa noted the break from script, but with everything that had happened, she wasn't surprised. She was just glad he voice still helped to ground him, even when his old self was breaking through. And besides, he was right. She was here to help him, to make sure he was safe, and that everything would be all right.

As they entered the facility, Klaus chatting away, she began to relax a bit as well, though she was eager to get to work on a revised treatment plan. "Of course, Klaus," she assured him, "I'm sure he'll understand, and your second date will be even better."

Considering they were back almost an hour early, one of the other Actives was currently being imprinted, which put Klaus in a holding pattern, which was normally fine, as he was usually happy to chat about whatever client he'd just been with and what their plans were, not knowing that he was about to forget everything about them.

Despite his chattiness in the van, he'd gotten quiet again in the waiting area, left thumb rubbing absently across his right palm, much the same way he'd been curling and uncurling his fingers earlier, as if he knew something was supposed to be there and wasn't.

Tessa watched him closely, though she remained alert and aware of their surroundings, concerned that someone or something might set him off again. She knew better than most what it was like trying to help people deal with their unfinished business, and the more he fidgeted, the more she worried that unless she helped him deal with his, it was just going to keep slipping through the cracks. And in order to do that, she was going to need to talk to Klaus.

It was risky, but it was either that or hope that a fresh wipe would do the trick, and risk him having another panic attack in the field. And if the House wouldn't authorize it, well, she could always use her powers to reach out to him while he was 'asleep' in the chair.

"I know things are out of sorts right now," she said, so only he could hear. "Just trust me when I say you're not alone."

His brow creased as he blinked up at her, apparently having to weigh that statement out, but he finally shook his head, gesturing loosely with one hand towards the rest of the house, "Of course not, everyone else is here, too."

On the one hand he was reasonably sure that wasn't exactly what she'd meant, but on the other, he couldn't quite put all the pieces together to determine just what she did mean. And on a third, more metaphorical and somewhat more concerning hand: it was a surprisingly adroit observation for someone who was still imprinted, whether the imprint was starting to fracture or not.

[Following what seems to be the theme of the upcoming film, Rebel Active. She's breaking out and wanting to take others with her, by whatever means necessary.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Welcome to the Dollhouse

Ruby | Alternate Fairy Tales | OTA

Everest + Hotel Artemis + OTA

Phil Coulson | MCU | OTA

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Eliot Spencer | Leverage | OTA

Nicky | The Old Guard | OTA

Techie | Dredd | OTA

Amanda | Dirk Gently's etc. etc. etc. | OTA

Finn | Star Wars | OTA

Gabreel King | OC | OTA

Joe + The Old Guard + OTA

Claire Temple | MCU | OTA

Klaus | Umbrella Academy | OTA

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Yelena Belova / MCU-Marvel