Fic: Helpline (PG, Dollhouse)

[st_aurafina]

Title: Helpline
Fandom: Dollhouse
Pairing/characters: Echo/clients
Rating: PG
Prompt: Echo has no memory of ever questioning her sexuality before, so why does it seem strange to be dating a man?
Summary: Same-sex assignments may be common in the Dollhouse, but the dynamic between Echo and her clients is never equal.
Warnings: Dollhouse, by its premise, contains non-consensual sex. Echo's situation means that she can't give consent for the encounters detailed in this fic.
Author's Notes: Written for the 2009 LGBTfest. Thank you to lilacsigil, biichan, and iambickilometer for assistance and beta-reading.



1.56am, Thursday. The girl next door.

"Thank you for calling the Outreach Hotline, this is Kate. What can I call you?"

"Shelley. I, um. I'm sorry, I've never called one of these numbers before." She leaned back out of the phone booth; Kevin was still haggling with the dealer. There was no chance he could hear her over the bass booming from the open window of the car.

"There must be something important you want to talk about, then, Shelley."

Shelley watched Kevin slide a wad of notes into the dealer's hand. She closed her eyes and shivered – the dress Kevin had bought for her had seemed so daring in the warm sunlight. Now, cool air pimpled her skin, and she longed for her boring wool sweater. "I'm not the kind of girl who does these things. Five hours ago I was in the library, studying. Finals start in a week. I keep trying to stop, but every time I look at him, my heart just kind of flips over, you know?"

"You don't sound very happy."

"Oh, no, I am!" Shelley gripped the receiver with both hands emphatically, "I just know that he's the one. He's showing me how to live my life, not just watch it go past. I never knew I was missing out on so much. We sky-dived today. I ate fugu. I danced on the tables at one of those bars, you know the kind I mean? I'm not ashamed, you know. I don't feel dirty – Kevin's right. I need to suck the essence out of life, not read what dead poets wrote about their lives a hundred years ago." She watched through the plastic dome over the phone-booth; the dealer was thumbing through the cash, arguing with Kevin. Men loomed up from the shadows.

"Is there a question in your voice? What's worrying you, Shelley?"

Shelley huddled close to the telephone. "Things are just going so fast, it scares me. When I danced with one of those girls at the bar, she kind of, you know, wrapped her arms around me, and all I wanted to do was curl up with her. I felt so safe. But that's not right. I'm in love with Kevin. We're going to set the world on fire."

The dealer suddenly thrust his hand into his jacket. With a shriek, Shelley dropped the phone and turned to run, but a man gripped her shoulder and held her still. She could hear Kate's voice on the other end of the line, calling out her name, and she wanted nothing more than to pick up the receiver and beg to be allowed to go home.

The man holding her caught her gaze and spoke urgently. "Would you like to have a treatment?"

***
"In the interest of full disclosure -" Boyd hovered in the doorway of Doctor Saunders' office. "There was something odd this time. Nothing off-mission, just odd. She stopped to call a gay helpline."

"That could be an extrapolation of the imprint. It's a common enough request." Claire gently extended Echo's left arm so she could palpate the large tendons of the shoulder. "Does that hurt, Echo?"

"A little." Echo flexed her arm, looking at it in surprise.

Boyd shook his head. "I doubt this client wanted anything so introspective. I think it might be something intrinsic to her." He nodded towards Echo. She smiled back at him, waving the fingertips of her left hand, still obediently extended for examination.

Claire paused. "You think it was some remnant of Caroline's personality? That's not possible. Psychologically, Caroline doesn't exist; only the Active, Echo." She carefully folded Echo's arm downwards, laying the left hand next to the right in Echo's lap."And an Active simply doesn't have the tools to express a sexual preference."

Echo spread her fingers wide like a contented cat. "Hands are tools. I can use them to paint." She looked up at Boyd and Doctor Saunders, suddenly worried. "But only in art class," she reassured them.

"The process wipes her mind, but it doesn't change the colour of her hair, or the shape of her eyes." Boyd crossed his arms."You're the doctor – haven't they done studies to show that you can be born with one preference or another? I've hear people say they just knew, as far back as they could remember."

Claire shook her head. "There's no conclusive evidence for a 'gay gene', and frankly I doubt there ever will be. It's impossible to separate nature from nurture, especially for something our society still treats as taboo." She smoothed Echo's hair. "And whatever Caroline's preferences may have been, Echo feels none of those urges. Her life is simple; she's an innocent. All the Actives are innocents, it would be wrong to ascribe anything sexual to them." Her expression was fierce, and Boyd heeded the warning in her voice.

He nodded blandly. "I just thought it was worth mentioning."

"Echo, why don't you go and have a massage?" Claire took her gloves off and placed them in the trash. "And no more free-fall for a little while."

Echo swivelled on the exam table and rested a hand on Claire's arm. "Don't worry, I'm not afraid of falling." She slid down from the table and walked out of the office, bare feet silent on the thick carpet.

***

2.25pm, Wednesday. His best friend's wife.

"Thank you for calling the Outreach Hotline, this is Toni. What can I call you?"

Leona rested her cheek against the mirror of the hotel bathroom and let the cool glass chill her flushed skin. "Do I have to give you a name?" She spoke softly over the sound of running water.

"Only if you'd like to. We can just talk."

"I've never called one of these hotlines before. I'm probably wasting your time, taking up someone else's call. I don't even think I'm gay."

"If you have a question, you have every right to call. Maybe I can help you find some answers. What's on your mind?"

Leona looked at herself; ridiculous peignoir askew, hair tousled, lipstick smeared. "I don't think I'm a very good person. I'm sleeping with my husband's best friend. Every Wednesday. It's our little escape from our day-to-day lives. But today, maybe, I think things went too far."

"It sounds like you don't feel safe."

"Oh, it's not like that. He'd never hurt me; we're both invested in this thing. We're married to each other's best friend. It's just, we keep upping the ante, you know?" Leona tested the water in the tub, and turned off the faucet, then leaned closer to the wall with the phone cupped against her mouth, speaking in a whisper. "Today, he said he fantasised about me with his wife. And, oh, God. I wanted it so much. I felt like, all along, I've been sleeping with the wrong best friend. And then I felt so guilty."

"You felt guilty about the fantasy?"

Leona gave a quick, sharp bark of laughter. "Stupid, isn't it? I'm cheating on my husband, and I feel even more guilty about a fantasy with another woman."

"Fantasy isn't something shameful. They're a way of exploring needs and desires."

"I've thought about sex with women before, though and I didn't feel dirty, not like this. I think it's because she's my friend. I love her, you know. I mean, not sexually, at least, I didn't think so. You know what I feel the worst about? Even worse than sleeping with her husband?" Leona dipped the corner of one snowy towel in the warm water and wrung it out, then cleaned the smeared make-up from her face.

"You can tell me, if you'd like to."

"I feel really dishonest. Like, people who are gay, they're the honest ones. They fight all that discrimination, just to be with the one they love, to be treated equally. That's taking risks that matter. That's important. And here I am, cheapening their battle, using it as turn-on material. I hate myself right now."

"You know, it's okay to respect their struggle, without beating up on yourself for feeling attracted to your friend. I think what you're really asking me about is self-respect."

"I guess. I don't feel like I have much." She slipped the peignoir off her shoulders and stepped into the tub, letting the slip of lacy fabric pool on the ugly bathroom tiles. "I need to put things right with her. Clean the slate, see what there is to salvage of our friendship. Today."

There was a brief knock, and Ted popped his head around the door. "Hey, babe? I just had the best idea. Cassie goes to the store around three – let's get it on in the parking lot." His eyes focused on the phone. "Who're you talking to?"

Leona clicked the phone off and balanced it on the edge of the tub. "Nobody, it was nothing." She blinked, trying to hold onto her resolute decision, but it slipped away from her like soap. She smiled at Ted and giggled. "Lucky you got those windows tinted!"

***

Echo liked it best of all when there was painting. The colour slid from her brush in long, curvy lines all the way to the bottom of the page, and she smiled at the pleasing contours, then dipped her brush in the glass jar, stirring until the water swirled with blue.

"That's pretty." Sierra smiled from across the art table. "I love blue."

"Here." Echo held the painting out to her. "It's a picture of you."

"Really? Thank you!" Sierra took the paper and looked at the wavy lines. "It makes me think of the pool. I love to swim. I swim thirty laps every day." The watery paint began to gather at the edge of the paper, and an attendant swooped down on the two of them.

"Sierra, why don't you hang your painting up over there to dry? And Echo, Doctor Saunders asked to see you, when you were finished with painting."

"She's so nice." Echo pushed her chair in tidily, and followed the wood-panelled path to the Doctor's room, only to find her in conversation with a man. "Oh. I'm sorry." She waited patiently in the doorway.

"Come in, Echo." Doctor Saunders helped Echo onto the examination table. "Do you remember Topher?" Topher waggled his eyebrows at her, and Echo laughed.

"I remember. You work upstairs with the chair."

"I heard," Topher leaned close to Echo, as though he were going to tell her a secret. She leaned towards him, too. Secrets were private. "I heard you had a special friend."

"Topher," Doctor Saunders sounded cross. "Do you have to make it sound so sleazy?"

"You're the one who was worried about the girl on girl action, Doc. I promise you, there was nothing like that in the last imprint. Anything Sapphic must have come from Echo's very own little brain."

Doctor Saunders shook her head. "Echo, can you tell me something? Do you know the difference between girls and boys?"

"Yes. Girls curve like waves. Boys are straight like arrows."

"Well, the boys here are straight if I say so, and let me just say, based on client requests, the population statistics are way off on that one." Topher muttered to himself, then held his lips closed with his fingers at Doctor Saunders' sharp look.

"Echo," Doctor Saunders was nice, but right now, she looked sad and worried. "Do you like Sierra?"

Echo chewed her lip. "Sierra is my friend. And she's very pretty."

"Yeah, but does she make you feel funny," Topher rubbed his stomach. "You know, butterflies, heart racing fast, a certain moistness in the..."

"Topher!" Doctor Saunders snapped, and Echo shrunk back. She didn't like it when people were angry. There seemed to be a lot of angry voices lately.

"I like Sierra, but I like November and Mike and Victor and Tango. And you, Doctor Saunders." Echo looked at Topher with narrow eyes. She wasn't sure if she liked him much at all. He stuck his tongue out at her, and for just a moment, Echo thought how easy it would be to grab that tongue and snip it off with the pink-handled scissors on Doctor Saunders' desk. She folded her hands in her lap. That wasn't a very nice thought at all.

"Echo," Doctor Saunders took her hands and looked into her face. "The Art teacher told me you painted a picture of Sierra. Why did you do that?"

"Sierra is my friend. Would you like me to paint a picture of you?" Using her thumb like a paint brush, Echo traced the thin red scar that crossed the Doctor's lips. Topher's eyes were wide.

Doctor Saunders caught Echo's hand, and pressed it onto the examination table. "I think you're right, Topher. This has all been an over-reaction."

"Yeah, but the thing, with the thing!" Topher gestured at Echo's hand and Claire's face.

"The Actives are very responsive to shapes and colours. You designed their base profile to be expressive, to be stirred by remarkable imagery. It's natural that they would have an emotional reaction to the visual stimuli by which they are surrounded."

Topher looked dubious. "So, you want me to bring it up with DeWitt?"

"I don't see any urgent need, but I'll mention it to her." Doctor Saunders fixed her gaze on Topher until he shifted uncomfortably. He kicked one sneaker against the examination table, then turned and left.

"Sometimes he isn't very nice." Echo said in the silence that followed.

Doctor Saunders sat down beside her on the examination table. "He makes things sordid so he doesn't have to be afraid of them."

Echo pressed her lips together. "I'm not afraid of anything he's afraid of."

Doctor Saunders raised her eyebrows. "I don't doubt that for a moment."

***

9.45pm, Saturday. The Ingénue.

"Thank you for calling the Outreach Hotline, my name is Angie. What can I call you?"

"Fleur. It's not my real name." The bathrooms at the opera were noisy, but so far, it had been the only place that Violet could think of where she could talk freely. She was carrying Louisa's tiny, expensive handbag, and the phone had been sitting right at the top. Nonetheless, she kept her eye on the door; she didn't want any surprise visits.

"Fleur will do fine. What would you like to talk about?"

Violet elbowed her way into a stall, with an aggression that would have shocked Louisa had she seen it. She leaned against the wall in relief at the sudden privacy. "I don't have long to talk."

"Are you safe, Fleur? Do you need help?"

She checked her watch: ten minutes left of interval. "No, God, no. I'm fine. You should see me, I'm wearing enough diamonds around my neck to reboot the economy. I'm fine, really, when you put it in perspective. I'm out and my family are fine with it. I have a rich, gorgeous girlfriend who makes time in her busy schedule to take me to amazing places. I should be over the moon. "

"You don't sound as happy about the situation as you'd like to be."

Violet gave an exasperated snort. "It's kind of hard to live up to, sometimes. I mean, she awes me. She's done so much with her life, you know? And I know I'm so lucky to have her love me, and I'd do anything for her, but sometimes..." She crooked the phone against her neck, and smoothed the elaborate coils of hair pinned to her head. It was a gesture of habit: one didn't have a hair out of place when one was on Louisa's arm.

"Sometimes?"

"Oh, I feel like such an ungrateful bitch saying this, but sometimes I wish I'd fallen for someone at my own level, you know? Someone who uses the wrong fork, or gets a run in their pantyhose, someone I can have a good laugh with." Someone knocked, and Violet kicked the door with a reverberating thud. "It's occupied, can't you read?"

"Relationships are two-sided. Do you ever talk with Louisa about this? Does she tell you why she loves you?"

Violet worried a tooth between her nail for a moment before she remembered her expensive manicure. "She says I remind her of herself at my age. Should that freak me out? It kind of does. I mean, there's a pretty big age difference between us, but that's never bothered me. I don't see it as a power imbalance." She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. "I think what makes me mad is that I'm not a younger version of her. I'm me, and I want her to love me. And if I were Louisa, I don't think I'd want to date a younger version of myself. If I had that influence and money, I'd be out there meeting all kinds of people. It seems kind of obsessive to want to relive your past glory with someone else's body."

"People get into relationships for different reasons – that's why communication is so important. Sometimes it can be damaging for one person to try and put a relationship in a box."

Violet took a sharp breath in; for a moment it felt like a great pane of glass slid shut above her head and she was trapped inside the cubicle. "I, I have to go." She ended the call and bolted from the bathroom, straight into Louisa's arms.

Louisa pressed her lips against Violet's forehead; her perfectly fixed lipstick left no mark at all. "Darling, you're trembling." She slid her arm around Violet's bare shoulders. "I understand; I used to get so worked up at the opera. Don't be ashamed, it's a sign of your passionate nature."

The bell sounded, and people began filing back into the auditorium. Violet gave a shiver; somehow the lavish padded walls of their box seemed more like a prison cell than she'd ever noticed. Louisa pressed a hand at the small of Violet's back, just above the dip of her elegant dress, and guided her towards the stairs.

***

"I don't think there's any reason for concern." Adelle crossed her arms and watched Echo mingling with the other Actives before the Tai Chi class. "There's a difference between extrapolating an imprint and going off mission. Nothing I've heard so far indicates anything other than Echo taking the imprint a little further than other Actives do."

Doctor Saunders stepped up to the observation window. "Aren't you worried it's an artefact of Caroline's sexuality?"

Adelle watched Echo warming up with the other Actives. "If it is, I don't think it's something to worry about – you've said yourself that their sexuality is no more than that of a child's. Whether that child is straight, gay, or bisexual really doesn't matter, not in this context."

"Then why is she making those calls? Even when she was on a same-sex assignment?"

Adelle raised her eyebrows. "She's looking for something that an Active can't possibly verbalise. She's looking for autonomy."

"That's terrifying." Claire watched the Actives moving through the first forms with grace and power, despite their blank expressions.

"Only for us." Adelle's smile was wry. "And only if we ignore our lessons of the past."