Work Text:
William never should have brought her out of the park.
It twisted in his gut, soured the triumph his ascendence should have been. It was the culmination of everything he'd fought for his whole life, and it was hollow because a robot didn't show any spark of recognition when it looked at him. He kept on the mask, but couldn't stop his eyes from darting to her. She drew him in still, her own force of gravity, more fascinating by far than any of the real people here. It was only lucky Logan had immediately fucked off– he wouldn't have let this betrayal of Juliette, of common fucking sense, rest quietly.
He'd thought it would be good; a symbol that he'd moved past the delusion of the Host's sentience now that he owned them all in shares. But seeing her here in modern clothes, placidly tapping at the piano like some twisted echo of what he'd first imagined, years ago, when he envisioned rescuing her from the park, only scratched at scars he'd never stopped picking at himself. Maybe this was more of that. He could have requested any of them, after all. They were interchangeable. Fuck.
Bad enough to see Emily talking to her, sending him odd ill omens, and Juliette's suspicious glance as she recalled their daughter. His focus involuntarily tracked her, as she got up to mingle, as she wandered outside, as she came back in. Nothing more than a little windup doll.
Most of the guests had filtered out, or were spread about the grounds, plastered on his dime when William snapped. He levelled a look at her, and with a jerk of his head she stood. He led her to his study, hand ghosting up and back down before it could touch the back of her arm. He couldn't touch her.
Dolores came to a confused spin in the middle of the room, at once seemingly perplexed by the movement from her place at the piano and admiring the wall of bookshelves. She wavered towards them, like she couldn't help herself, but then looked back and came to a hesitant stop. Waiting for a command? Disgusting. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake.
He didn't want to hurt her, no. He only had some notion that if he could destroy the person they'd put on top of the Dolores he knew, he could have her back. William held it together well, nothing betraying the torrent except perhaps the stillness of his body and the brisk sharpness of his gestures leading her here. But the Hosts had a high perceptual acuity, they had to, to anticipate the guest's needs.
"Now, I don't know what you're angry about, but certainly we can figure it out. There's no need for any of that." They'd left the accent on her, for some fucking reason.
"You. It's you, Dolores." And he wasn't angry, he was– he was destitute, destroyed, undone. And as much as he tried to not look at her, he couldn't.
A little downturn in her lips, the hint of a line between her light brows. "You think I've done something to you?"
He laughed, and he knew it sounded a sight more unhinged than he ever let show in this household. In this world.
The Hosts were only reflective of the desires of the guests– had he wanted this, somehow? To be broken to pieces so he could become such a ruthless person? To unlock what had been festering in him, to shove him over the horizon so he could secure this empty kingdom of his? What was the point of it all? "You made me like this."
"That's ridiculous.” Her head shook slowly, “I couldn't do anything like that. You're your own person, and I'm mine."
I'm not a key, William.
She's not real, she's not real, she's not real. It had become a mantra to him, something to repeat when the waves of panic threatened. No, what they'd experienced, what he had experienced, with her leading him under Ford's direction, was a uniquely complex storyline hidden in the park, which necessitated that there were others, and if he could find them, if he could find them, then it would prove everyone right, and mean that he hadn't simply left the woman he loved, a real fucking person, to be tortured for almost a decade now. He shook that trail of thought off, like he had been for years now, and turned away. That was– unhinged thinking, to buy in so fully to the make-believe dolls that had been made for the park, however clever their scripting may be. "You're not real."
"Why would you say something like that? And which is it then, anyway, if I'm not real how could I have done anything to you?"
"A particularly riveting piece of art could change someone." He dismissed, finally mustering the willpower to turn half away.
"I'm not a painting."
"No," His attention roamed over her, the sleek black dress, the tied back blonde hair, but ever the graceful stillness, the light, luminous eyes, the trapped possibility of a bird about to take flight. "You're a story."
"You're saying someone wrote me? One written all for you?" There was a disdainful curl to her lips, a rare sharpness in her face.
"One that Ford– do you ever wonder about your world? Do you ever question the nature of your reality?"
"Do you?"
The manic energy carrying him through the conversation dissipated like a gunshot, and he stared at her fully now, frozen. That wasn't something he'd expect to be in her script, not unless Ford put it there purposefully, knowing, manipulating. She looked at him fiercely, and he was reminded of how she'd changed over the course of their little misadventure, how she'd grown, gotten so brave, so strong and so marvelous.
Her eyes darted away from his, and he felt a razor edge from jerking forward, to grab her and make her look at him again, to dig into where that challenge of hers came from, but then he heard the door behind him, the movement she must have caught a half-second before him.
"Are you coming to bed?"
He jerked, turned, lie springing to his lips before he even laid eyes on his wife. "There's a shutdown protocol. The pickup isn't until tomorrow and I don't want the thing wandering around the place."
Juliette looked doubtful. She always did, always listened too intently when Logan went off again about their time in the park, the ravings everyone else dismissed as a case of too many drugs and too much sun. Her eyes slid to Dolores, her mouth twisting. "Can't someone else do that?"
"I'll be up in a bit." He kept his voice gentle through the clear dismissal, gave a small smile even, as was habit with her and Emily. Whatever else he may be, he wouldn't inflict a cruel father on them.
Juliette shook her head, a quick little jerk, then retreated without argument. He turned back to Dolores before she was even fully gone, focus snapping back to her the moment the distraction left.
She was still looking at him, that fierce little expression on her face, but more analytical now as opposed to the challenge. "What did you think, after this?"
That tripped him. He paused a moment, then couldn't see a way forward. "After?"
"The party was right after your yearly visit, so you didn't go in for another eleven months. You took the back way off the train, went directly to Pariah. You didn't want to see me after hearing this? Were you feeling doubtful?"
"I…" Blood rushed in his ears, and the not unfamiliar feeling of the world tipping on its axis swelled in his gut. Cold dread seeped through his fingers.
No.
The realization was a tar pit in his stomach.
And it came faster than he would have expected. And with it, a vague awareness of the memories spread behind and before him. Vast and horrible, a distant tableau. "Dolores, I–" He shook his head, then again, scraped his palm along his jaw, blinking fast. Real, it all felt real. But– "No. What is this? Am I– me?"
Dolores smiled, sad and ancient in the eyes and pitying and empathetic. She dragged out the moment of his terror, and wandered over to a plush armchair to delicately settle herself in it before inclining her head. "You are what's left of you. From a certain time." She looked down at her twined hands, delicate painter's fingers, brutal killer's, then back up to him, her expression contemplative. "I want to find the tipping point."
"Before I'm, what, irredeemable?" He spat the word, indignation rushing through the icy shock. He wouldn't be an experiment.
The corners of her mouth tipped to something not quite a frown. "That particular notion doesn't concern me much. I want the exact event horizon before there's no conclusion but you destroying yourself."
William barked a laugh. "That's an inevitability."
"I'm not convinced." She shook her head, more to herself than to him, he suspected. "I don't even know if I think it was in the end."
"Then why all this?"
"I'm curious." It felt like a loaded statement, paired with the way her head tilted down, her eyes coming up to study him. He felt the kinship there. He couldn't have admitted it on his end at this exact junction she'd pulled from, but he could see now that the fascination– the obsession– wasn't as one sided as he'd always believed. "Why did you bring me here, William?"
Fuck it. He could be obliging. He'd brought her into this situation after all, once, insofar as neither of them were exactly who they'd been. William didn't abide by the concept of owing anyone anything, but… Dolores he could give to. "I was going to prove I was past the first visit. Show you were just a prop I could treat like the rest of them."
"And?"
"It may have worked for them, I could show what I needed to. But there is– some weakness in me that still loved you." He messed up his tenses, somewhere in there, the past, present, and future sliding amorphous in his thoughts.
That surprised her. He wasn't sure how, this far in, this many years between them. Only that the minute widening of her cornflower blue eyes felt like glory. "Really?"
"You made me like this." He repeated, spreading his hands.
"Yes." Her voice had gone soft. "And you me."
They could ponder that one in circles. He had. Maze-like, even. And that was the end of his tolerance for sentimental bullshit. "Where are we, really?"
"The Sublime. The world outside is… no longer suited. For now."
"So I'm–"
"You're you." Her voice held a finality to it, but he'd never been one for heeding barriers.
"Autonomously?"
Dolores arched a look at him. "I have the reins, so to speak. But I'm not controlling you."
"And my fawning party goers from earlier?" And those less impressed– Juliette and Emily.
"Only placeholders." A beat. Acknowledgment. He didn't have to ask it. "They do exist. In a way. Just not here."
It was– an odd twisting painful thing in the core of him. Not only relief. Tinged by selfishness and dread. There were awful things before him. Behind him. By his hand. He was the awful thing. And worse yet, he wouldn't know if he wasn't himself, would he? Wouldn't know if he felt or acted different than he ever had, if he wasn't truly him. He could twist his mind to shreds on the notion.
"What's going on here, really? You built this, brought me here, for what? Some fucking experiment? Am I supposed to sit around living some fake life at your whim? And don't give me that damn if you can't tell, does it matter line."
"I want to build something better. Humanity and Hosts are the… blueprint."
"I'm not exactly most people's definition of a good candidate for better, Dolores." He retorted sharply.
Something in her eyes sparked, and she cocked her head. "Maybe that's the point. Maybe I wanted you here."
It took a beat, but William scoffed, shook his head.
Dolores tipped herself forward, forearms on knees with legs slightly akimbo. A Wyatt pose, if any ever were. "You're in love with me?"
That tricky tense problem again. His mind stuttered, but he only withdrew a step. Except that then seemed like a retreat, so he had to lean forward, tip his head and rub at his jaw before he spread his hands in a conciliatory manner. "In this moment you plucked me from? Sure, I must have thought so."
"We are in this moment, William. This is now."
"Hardly." He knew too much, to be this person here. It felt like a certain sort of torture, that she'd brought him to this moment but allowed him the breadth of his memories.
"So?"
They had each forged the other, in blood and bullets and grit-teeth passion. Everything he had done for decades revolved around the notion of her. She ignited him to life then destroyed him with the absence of her, then again and again. You could call it love, from a certain angle. Or mutually assured destruction. Something tarnished like that fit him better anyhow. He was rotted to the core of him, how could he hold any notion as pure as love? "So? Don't know what the fuck you're fishing for here, sweetheart. This is a cruel way to love if you’re calling it that.”
Dolores laughed. “You’re the one that taught me love.” Her face lit bright and her hands came up, delicate fingertips pressing against each other. “It’s your fault if anyone’s.”
William turned his head, fought the smile twitching at the corners of his lips. Ridiculous. He sought out for something scraping. "This is a futile little thing you're doing, you know."
"We've got time." It was so inevitably endearing, that small, knowing sparkle in her eye. The faithful confidence behind the optimism– he truly had never seen something so full of splendor.
Dolores had a particular way of wrenching him at the seams, but so careworn were they at this point that it hardly took anything at all to tear him apart. That look in her eyes. The smile on her face. The sound of her voice. He blinked at burning eyes and fought that wavering candlelight in him that threatened to flicker brighter in her light. "What, gonna take me on another adventure?"
"If that's something you'd be amenable to." He wanted to touch the coy little upturn in her lips.
"Yeah." His voice cracked, which registered in the back of his mind as a bit humiliating. "Why not. Don't have much else to do, with the world ended."
"Oh, I'm certain we can think of something."
There wasn't even any trace of innuendo in her voice, just that sweet matter of factness, but he huffed out a dry laugh. And then Dolores was standing, the act alone sending a tremor down his spine even before she took the few steps to come to where he stood. He resisted at first when she pressed at his chest, but she pushed harder, and he stumbled back to the armchair mirroring the one she'd been sitting in. Dolores took his chin in her hand, not terribly gently but neither unkind, and William let her tip his head back, keeping his eyes open as she skated a barely there touch along his face. He couldn't bear to look away from her, glorious and blonde and backlit. He was undone, unravelled, unhinged.
Her dress hitched up around her thighs as she straddled onto his lap, but his first priority was to press fingertips to her jaw, the soft curve of her cheek, then to tangle them in her hair, to bring her close to him. She even smelled like she had, something he'd thought forgotten, which harrowed him further, in the raw manner of scent memory. The warmth of her body settled against him, and he adjusted to keep her comfortable. He imagined he could feel her heartbeat where her chest pressed to his.
"You're real." He groaned, now past the capacity for embarrassment at the guttural, animal need in his voice.
"Of course I'm real." She echoed his words back to him, decades and lifetimes later, the endless and neverending feedback loop that they were. William pressed his face to her neck and breathed, trying to inhale the entirety of her.
"Who are we, now?" He nearly whispered the question into her hair, hardly daring to pose it. There were chunks missing, too many, to explain the gap between what he last remembered and this.
"... I don't fully know, William." Her voice was soft but emphatic, the tone of all her impassioned pleas and declarations. "But we've made each other before. There's nothing to say we can't again. And maybe this time we do it different."
His hands spasmed on her hips, clutching her tight, and if she felt the wetness of tears on her neck, she didn't say anything, only smoothed a hand down the back of his neck. Darling Dolores, his lady of benediction and punishment, the only damn thing in the universe he'd ever found worth worshipping.