Fic: A Little Bit Bison (Adelle/Claire, Dollhouse)

[fembuck]

Title: A Little Bit Bison
Author: Janine
Fandom: Dollhouse
Pairing: Adelle/Claire
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don’t own them.
Summary: The Actives aren’t the only ones with ingrained behavioral pattern.  

 

---

When Claire walked into her office, she found Adelle Dewitt lounging regally on her couch. There was also a bottle of expensive Merlot, and two wine glasses sitting on her desk that hadn’t been there when she had left her office earlier.

“What’s this?” Claire asked stopping beside her desk, her eyes on the bottle as she spoke.

“Wine,” Adelle replied smoothly, her crisp, velvety accent sending a slight shiver through Claire’s body. “I was hoping that you’d care to join me for a glass.”

“Why?” Claire asked glancing over at her.

This wasn’t the first time she had suddenly found herself alone with Adelle. It was just the first time she had suddenly found herself alone with Adelle in the past three months.

Adelle shrugged, and then gracefully rose to her feet and moved towards Claire.

“I felt,” Adelle said slowly, “rather in need of some company.”

“I’m sure you could find better company than me,” Claire said, a slight edge to her voice though she didn’t voice the words, ‘as you have been for the past three months’ though they were on the tip of her tongue.

“If I wanted other company, I wouldn’t be here,” Adelle replied, extending a pale hand towards Claire until the tips of her fingers gently brushed against the back of the doctor’s hand.

Claire’s hand twitched under the gentle touch, but she remained firm and did not yank her hand away. She wouldn’t give Adelle the satisfaction of seeing how much her touch still affected her.

“What if I feel like being alone?” Claire asked, keeping her head dipped and turned to the side. She was focusing on the label of the wine bottle like it held the secrets to the meaning of life.

“Do you?” Adelle asked, arching a delicate eyebrow as her thumb traced a path over the back of Claire’s hand.

“You must have had a very bad day,” Claire said avoiding Adelle’s question.

“Indeed,” Adelle murmured taking Claire’s hand firmly into her own. “It has been deeply unpleasant, even for a Monday.”

She forced her voice to remain light. She didn’t want to think about her earlier panic, or the way Topher’s fear upon learning that Alpha was still alive had compounded the fear she had been living with for three months.

Claire’s lips curved up a touch at that, but she didn’t allow herself a true smile, or a vocalization of her amusement.

“You’ve been cross with me,” Adelle said a moment later, still holding Claire’s hand. “I think I misunderstood why,” she continued as Claire finally tried to tug her hand free. “I stayed away because I thought you wanted me to. Not because of what he did,” she went on, releasing Claire’s hand so that she could reach up and touch her face.

Claire sighed, and after a moment of thought allowed her head to tip towards Adelle’s hand.

“I can see how you might have gotten that impression,” Claire murmured, shuddering, as Adelle’s thumb ran over the lower of the two scars on her left cheek. It was the first time someone besides herself had touched the raised skin of the slowly healing wounds.

She had been angry after the attack. Coldly, viciously, angry and she had unleashed that anger against Adelle when the older woman had come to see her. Alpha should have been sent to the Attic. They all knew it at the time, but he had been so interesting. They had all sensed the danger, but they had sensed the possibility of greatness too. Something very special was happening before their eyes, and so they had hesitated to act, wanting, maybe needing to see what would come to pass.

It wasn’t Adelle’s fault that Alpha had attacked. Yes, she had agreed to keep him active far longer than she should have, but Claire herself had also played a part in keeping Alpha in the game. There had been a whole team of them who were responsible for creating the monster and then giving him an opportunity to grow.

But with staples holding her face together, Claire hadn’t been particularly worried about the justness of her words, or the fairness of her accusations. She simply wanted to hurt someone as she had been hurt, and so she lashed out with her words at Adelle as viciously as Alpha had lashed out at her with his blade.

“You had a really bad day,” Claire realized suddenly, finally looking up at the woman in front of her. If Adelle had truly put faith in those angry words she had spoken months ago, then she must have been in desperate need of company to seek Claire out.

Claire wasn’t sure how to define what their relationship had been in the past. At first Adelle had simply been her boss, but she had soon come to view Adelle more as a colleague. From that position of respect, they had become acquaintances on the tenuous cusp of friendship, a very short time after that they had become lovers, though a genuine friendship between them had still been uncertain.

Their relationship had been born of need. Like most organizations, the positions of power within the company were occupied by men. For a long time, Adelle had been the only woman in a position of meaning at the Dollhouse, and when Claire had been hired, it had seemed natural for them to band together, and so an embarrassingly small sisterhood had formed.

Adelle had gotten her job because she was good at handling people. She had a way of reassuring people, of lulling them into a sense of security, of making them feel as if they were the most important thing in the world to her. She was good at listening, at seeming riveted by what was being said to her. Her accent and carriage gave her an air trustworthy genteelness. Clients responded well to her, employees too.

At first, Claire had been hesitant to talk to Adelle when the older woman had noticed that she seemed upset. And there were certain things that she had refused to bring up to Adelle knowing that the woman wouldn’t be able to overlook them. But, for the most part, talking to Adelle had been a cathartic experience, and after a few glasses of wine it had become a mutual experience as Adelle shared with her as well.

“We almost lost Echo,” Adelle said, surprising Claire with the candor of her response. “She was wiped remotely in the middle of the engagement.”

Claire’s eyes widened and her hand twitched by her side though she stopped herself from lifting it to her mouth in horror. She had seen the mission parameters, and she knew that the engagement had been high risk. It had irritated her to the point of almost stomping up to Adelle’s office since she had flagged Echo for romantic engagements only. Echo’s levels were not stable, and placing her in dangerous situations only put more stress on her already overstressed systems.

“How?” Claire asked softly.

“We don’t know,” Adelle breathed out, her posture slumping slightly as she directed her gaze past Claire. “Topher’s investigating.”

“I should have been called to look at her after …”

“She’s scheduled to see you first thing in the morning,” Adelle interjected softly, a deep wariness creeping into her tone. “She was tired.”

“So are you,” Claire observed gently, watching the way Adelle seemed to be crumpling in front of her now that she knew Claire wasn’t going to rip her head off for trying to talk to her.

“Yes,” Adelle breathed out. “Very,” she added, her eyes falling on the wine she had brought with her longingly. “I need a drink,” she said decisively a moment later, and with that she picked up the bottle in one hand and the two glasses in the other and moved over to Claire’s couch once again.

“Well,” Claire drawled softly, moving over to the couch as well. “If you’re buying …”

---

“Why don’t you have them removed?” Adelle asked, her fingers just managing to skim Claire’s cheek before Claire pulled back automatically.

Adelle had unclipped her hair and pulled her blouse out of her skirt since they had first sat down, giving her a wonderfully disheveled look. The wine had flushed her cheeks, and her usually impeccable posture was no where to be seen as she leaned heavily against the back of the couch, with her arm thrown over the top of it, so that she could reach out and touch Claire every once in while.

“I can’t,” Claire replied moving back into the position she had been in before. She hadn’t meant to pull away. It was actually nice to be touched. It had just become her instinct to avoid physical contact.

“Your health plan includes …”

”I don’t mean that it’s impossible to have the damage fixed,” Claire said, cutting the older woman off. “It just … I don’t see the point. It won’t really fix the problem.”

Adelle’s head lolled to side, and she stared at Claire thoughtfully.

“What is the problem?”

“Alpha changed the landscape of my face,” Claire replied lifting her hand to trace the new ridges and valleys that had been imprinted into her flesh. “He also changed my interior topography. I’m not who I was before,” she continued lowering her hand to her lap, where she began to stare at it.

Adelle blinked rapidly at that, her heart beat picking up momentarily. Claire had no idea how right she was.

“I’m scared. I’m damaged. I don’t see things the way I saw them before. Things have changed. People understand that when they see my face,” Claire continued looking over at Adelle. “My trauma has been carved into me. If I get rid of it, I’ll look normal, but I won’t feel normal. I don’t have to act, looking like this. I can just be.”

Adelle stared at her for a moment, her eyes losing focus for a second before they snapped to attention on Claire once more.

“I see,” she breathed out, “How wonderful.” Seventy-percent of her job was acting.

“Wonderful?” Claire asked, surprised by Adelle’s reaction. Boyd hadn’t understood her reasoning, and neither had Topher.

“Not that you’ve been hurt,” Adelle said quickly, straightening up as if to give credence to her words. “I meant that it’s wonderful you’ve found some freedom in it,” she continued, gazing at Claire softly. “To allow ourselves to be, as we are, as we feel, is a rare thing.”

“Yes,” Claire said, realizing that it was true. She could be grumpy now without feeling uncouth or ill-bred. When she spoke, people really listened now. They took her seriously. Before she had been a pretty face first and a doctor second. She said what she wanted to now. She didn’t worry what they’d think of her. She knew what they’d think of her. In one way she was more scared than she had ever been in her life since the attack, but she had also been freed from so many of the fears and uncertainties that had resided in her before.

“One day you’ll be able to have them removed,” Adelle said, still gazing over at Claire. “One day, you’ll be able to be free without the scars.”

“Like you?”

Adelle smiled wanly. “Oh, I’m not free,” Adelle said shifting closer to Claire. “I’m Prometheus,” she declared tiredly before leaning forward to retrieve her glass from the small table in front of the couch.

She had been tempted to bring whiskey earlier, but since she would have been the only one in on the joke, she had decided against it. However, bad joke or not, she was beginning to regret the decision, because she desperately wanted something stronger than wine at the moment.

“Only tonight,” Adelle went on, “I shall destroy my own liver.” And with that she lifted the glass to her lips.

Claire watched her, and wondered what else had happened that day that Adelle wasn’t telling her. There was always something that Adelle wasn’t telling her, but usually her secrets didn’t drive her to finished half a bottle of wine in under an hour.

“You compel me,” Adelle murmured.

“To drink?” Claire asked, her lips curving up very minutely in amusement.

“No,” Adelle breathed out, blinking rapidly. “To … I don’t know, feel. Like a human being,” she sighed shakily, gazing at Claire.

“You are a human being,” Claire said gently, shifting closer to Adelle.

“I try not to be. But, it doesn’t serve me well at all, not in my position,” the older woman admitted, smiling ruefully.

“Maybe not,” Claire admitted, “but it benefits the rest of us,” she continued taking Adelle’s hands in her own. “I shudder to think of the horror show this place could be without you,” she went on, her stomach clenching as she imagined what it would be like if Dominic or another cut from his mold were in charge of things. “I don’t always like what you do, but I do believe you try to preserve a certain standard of humanity around here. I’m not sure they’re entirely people to you, but at least they’re on the same level as a beloved pet.”

Adelle sighed, but did not disagree with Claire’s assessment of her. The actives were not pets to her. Unlike Claire and the rest of the staff, she knew the people they all were before they signed their lives over to her. She knew their histories, and their troubles, and the desperation that made them susceptible to her. They were real to her. They were people to her. She cared about them, but she couldn’t let herself care too much. That way lay madness.

“Why do you stay?” Claire asked curiously, seeing a multitude of warring emotions playing over Adelle’s features. The woman was always so beautifully conflicted.

“Why do you?” Adelle asked warily, arching a questioning eyebrow at Claire before she sighed. “Let’s not do this,” she continued a split second later, having changed her mind.

She knew why Claire couldn’t leave, and she knew why she herself didn’t leave as well. She had a nice buzz going on and talking, discussing work and their feelings further would only depress again and kill the effects the wine was having on her.

“What? Talk?” Claire asked, though her voice wasn’t as demanding as before.

Truthfully, she didn’t want to talk about her reasons for staying. She didn’t want to even think about her reasons for staying. It was a question she had asked herself before, and she’d never come up with a satisfying answer. There was no logic to the way she felt, just the feeling. It was something instinctual. She just knew on a deep, primal level that was needed at the Dollhouse, and that she couldn’t walk away. She wasn’t sure in Adelle would understand however. She barely understood it herself.

“Yes,” Adelle responded softly, “Talk. Let’s not do that.”

“If you don’t want to talk then why are you …” Claire began to say, however before she could finish her question, Adelle’s lips pressed against her own, and all was quiet in the room as Claire leaned into Adelle making it easier for the older woman to kiss her.

“Oh,” Claire breathed out, blinking slowly when she and Adelle finally pulled away from each other.

“Is not talking amenable to you?” Adelle asked, a hopeful smile playing across her lips as she gazed at Claire.

Contact, touching, skin pressed against skin, lips pressed against lips, hands wandering, sweat, thighs tangling, fingers, moans, slick thighs and release. That was what Adelle needed, what they both needed. That was what would renew their spirits enough to face one more day.

“Yes,” Claire responded, a small shiver running through her body as she stared at Adelle.

She could see the hunger in the Brits eyes, the want, the desperation, the need for her, and it made her heart pound in her chest and her thighs shift.

“Very amenable,” she breathed out, licking her lips subconsciously before she leaned forward and pressed her lips to Adelle’s.

Adelle’s eyes closed as Claire’s lips brushed against hers and she reached out of the other woman, holding her close. Claire’s tongue played against her lips and Adelle parted them gratefully, allowing the doctor to deepen the kiss.

Her mind cleared as Claire’s tongue brushed against her own, and her hands clutched at Claire’s white lab coat more desperately.

All that she was aware of at that moment was the rough texture of Claire’s coat and the warm, silken softness of her mouth. There was no fear in her then. No worry, no responsibility, no guilt, or shame, nor doubt.

There was only desire, and warmth and touching.

For the moment she was content.

Claire slipped her hands beneath Adelle’s loose blouse and Adelle shivered at feel of the doctor’s fingers against her naked flesh. She kissed Claire urgently, and released her fingers from the death grip they had on Claire’s lab coat so that she could begin to push the material off of the doctor’s shoulders.

Adelle drew the coat down Claire’s arms, and the doctor gasped into her mouth as the back of Adelle’s hand brushed against the side of her breast. Adelle smiled into their kiss and repeated the motion, making Claire moan and press herself into the gently arousing touch.

For the moment she was happy.

Claire pulled back enough to shuck the coat from her arms, and then her fingers moved to her thighs, and brushed against the expensive material of her skirt. A few moments later, she grasped the material of her skirt and hitched it up enough that she was able to swing her leg over Adelle’s lap to straddle her.

Adelle’s hands moved to Claire’s thighs, slowly pushing her skirt higher as her lips pressed against the doctor’s chest, kissing whatever flesh she could find as Claire’s hands moved to tangle in her hair.

For the moment they both had what they so desperately needed, the nourishing presence of another human form and the knowledge that they were not alone.

The End

Comments

[kgx2001.livejournal.com]

THIS.

I absolutely loved every bit of this story--in fact, it's my new favorite Dollhouse fic; you've written the characters beautifully and realistically. Hope you write more of these two.