WHO: Brian Royce and Annabel-in-Dahlia's-body WHAT: Yay, more bodyswitching. Poor Annabel wakes up in Dahlia's body and freaks. the fuck. out. Warning: Like apparently fucking everything having to do with Dahlia (or her body), I feel the need to put a warning in here. Mention of personal issues. Don't read this while you're going to the bathroom. I ... don't know why you would, but do me a solid (...hah) and just don't.
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The first hint that something was wrong was that Dahlia screamed. Dahlia didn't scream. She seemed like the kind who wouldn't even scream while she was being tortured, let alone over nothing. There was a crash---a ceramic mug hitting the floor---and the sound of Dahlia tripping and hitting the counter, pulling herself up.
"Oh my God! Oh my God!"
"Dahlia---? Dahlia!" Royce sprung up from the bed, abandoning the half-melted ice and his cup of coffee. It wasn't right. Dahlia didn't scream. Ever. She barely talked. "What is it---?" He had his gun raised and at the ready, pulled from the holster he never took off these days.
He ran into the room with that gun and she shrieked, holding up her hands. Dahlia was panicking, breathing hard, eyes wide and scared, and then----
"Dad?"
Royce froze a moment, squinting. No. No, this wasn't happening. It was Dahlia. But he chanced it: "Bel?"
"Dad! Oh my God." She threw her arms around him. It was awkward; she expected him to be taller than she was. A lot taller.
"Shh-----shhh. Shh. It's okay. Shh." Royce held her in a crushing hug, so tight that when he lifted her up it would give her a little pop in her spine. Just the way he always used to hug. "Come here. Shh." Where the hell was Dahlia? To be honest, and maybe it was sick, but he didn't care. Dahlia would be fine. Annabel's mind still existed.
"What's going on?" Annabel clung, her eyes already burning.
"It's----it's... oh, God, Bel. Okay. Come sit. I want you to come sit with me." Royce guided her to the couch, keeping his hands on her to reassure her. This was Dahlia's body, and Dahlia's voice. He had a very adult relationship with his woman. But it was his daughter's tone of voice, his daughter's mind. It was so fucking sick. And yet, he was able to switch on and off. Dahlia was Annabel now. There was no longing there. Just a father's concern.
Annabel followed, too shell-shocked to do anything else. "I'm tall," she said lamely, looking down at her hands. "...And black."
"This isn't your body," Royce said after a moment. "Your mind is in another woman's body. This sounds insane, I know. Believe me."
"...Wait, what?"
"This place? This is where I work. It's called the, ah." It sounded stupid. "The Dollhouse."
Annabel just kept staring, looking at the backs of her hands, down at her legs. "That's a dumb name," she said bluntly.
"I know. But here, we deal with... programming people's brains. Putting new personalities in, to be hired out." How was he supposed to explain this to a child? Shit.
"So ... I'm a zombie hooker." The horror! Last she remembered, she was getting ready to go to school! What the hell!
"Whoa. Whoa, hey, where did you hear that? No." Royce gave her shoulder a swat. "Watch it. No. Your body is here, too. Only someone else has control of it----don't panic, he's not going to harm it. But your mind... I was scared your mind had been erased and you were as good as dead, but.... you're here." He hugged her fiercely. "We'll fix this."
It took her a moment. Annabel, young, impressionable Annabel, could believe this. She was at that age where she took sci fi too seriously and wasn't quite ready to let go of fairies. Growing up but not enough to give her dad shit for this Dollhouse thing. "So ... what. Did we switch? Is, like, this person in my body or something, and I'm in hers?"
Royce shook his head. "Not quite. A man named Clive Ambrose is in your body. This body belongs to... Dahlia Valentine." His voice changed a little when he said it.
"There's a guy? Ew." Annabel fidgeted in a very un-Dahlia-like way. "...Wait, who?"
"Coworker," Royce grunted.
Annabel paused, idly bringing her hand to her mouth to chew on her thumbnail. "Why was she in your room?"
"We share a room. It's crowded." Royce stood from the couch and went to go get his coffee. Fuck, this was weird.
She made a face. "But..." Oh. Oh, snap. ...Oh, yuck! Yuck! Ew ew ew!
Royce looked back at her. "Hey, watch it. Get your mind outta the gutter." But that was exactly the right place. Damn it.
"That's gross!" Annabel covered her mouth with her hands. "Ew!"
"Annabel----" Royce grimaced. "Yeah, okay. You can be disgusted. This is gross. I admit it." He held up his hands in defeat.
Annabel pulled herself up off the couch, making for the bathroom where there would be a mirror. The body she'd left belonged to a short, skinny blonde white thirteen-year-old, and that was not who looked back at her. Dahlia's body was big and solid, her hair thick and curly. Not two weeks ago (that she remembered), Annabel was asking her mother if she would ever get breasts like her friends. And Dahlia ... wow, okay, Dahlia had full, heavy breasts that actually made things sort of awkward. Somehow Annabel had this feeling this wasn't what her mom had meant about growing breasts overnight.
She groaned unhappily, wiping her face with the back of her hand. Oh, God, what the hell.
Royce followed her, a hand on the door frame. "Bel," he breathed. "I know. I'm so sorry. But I'm going to fix this. I'm going to make this better." Get Dahlia back.
"How?" Annabel wiped her nose. Her sleeve pulled back and the flash of bright pink on her skin made her pause. Pulling her arm away from her face, she frowned, tugging at her sleeve. There were scars trailing up her arm---to the elbow, past where the shirt would roll up, and out of curiosity she pulled up her other sleeve, too. More scars. Tugging at her collar, without any regard to Dahlia's body as anything but a foreign object, she looked down her shirt and gasped.
"It's okay," Royce said abruptly. "Dahlia's been... hurt. She was in the war." It wasn't okay. He'd always thought about how he'd feel if his daughter had gone through this. It wasn't the same thing, but it hit him in a bad way.
Annabel sucked in a breath, dropping the collar and tugging up the bottom of her shirt to get a better look at the pale skin she'd seen. "I..." Oh, God. She could feel her nose clogging up and she sniffed hard and painful. "What if I'm stuck like this forever?" In this ugly, gross body.
"You----no, you won't. I won't let that happen, Bel." Royce seemed positive. He would not let it happen.
"But what if I am?" Annabel let go of the shirt. She couldn't stand to keep looking. "I'll be old and all messed up forever."
"Hey." Royce snapped, a little ruder than he intended. This body belonged to his girlfriend. But it wasn't Annabel's, and that was the point. "Listen. I know you're freaked out. I am, too."
Annabel flinched, coughing. "Need to use the bathroom," she muttered.
"Wh----okay." Royce cleared his throat and stepped away, closing the door.
Annabel locked the door. It was only another moment or two before Royce heard another shriek.
Shit. Royce grimaced, leaning up against the door. "...Bel? Hon?"
"This is so gross!" No tact. No sensitivity. "And it hurts."
Royce rested his forehead against the door. God damn it. "I know, Bel. I'm sorry. Val's body's been hurt. Just... bear with it, all right? Okay?"
There was silence for a while, uncomfortable and stale, before Annabel hesitantly admits, "I can't go."
"You what?"
"I can't..." She was probably motioning with her hands, but the door was closed.
"Maybe you don't have to." Val's never talked to him about this. Of course not.
"No, I have to. Really, really bad." Ugh. Annabel hated talking to her dad about this stuff. She wanted her mom, but her dad was the only one there and this was his girlfriend's body.
Royce fidgeted. "But you can't?" Shit. What the hell was he supposed to do about it? "Listen, uh. I should talk to the doc about this one. Val didn't leave an owner's manual lying around." Of course Val had problems. He should have known.
By then, Annabel was sobbing and barely heard him. This was not what she needed right now.
"Bel----? Annabel, hon. I'm going to talk to the doctor, figure this out. All right?" Royce ran his hands back through his hair.
"I don't want you to tell anyone! I'll figure it out, don't tell anyone!"
"Don't be like that." But Royce understood. He was the same way. Worse. But this was his kid and he didn't want her hurting or uncomfortable. At least, not any more than expected.
"No."
"All right. I'll be out here if you need me."
"Okay."
It ... well, it took a while. Annabel didn't know how the body worked and it was a struggle. When she came back half an hour later, she felt dirty, but at least she wasn't crying anymore. Plopping down onto the couch, she whined, "I want my body back." A few days ago, she'd wanted to grow up so badly. Now all she wanted was to be a child again.
Royce glanced at her. He had passed his coffee and was onto a beer by then. "You're not the only one."
"Why do you even like her?" She wasn't trying to be mean. She really wasn't. Annabel was just ... like her father. No tact at all and had a way of making innocent questions sound really rude.
Royce took a sip. "She's smart. And she doesn't take shit."
"But you don't, like ... do it." At least, Annabel assumed they didn't. How could they?
"None of your business." She was just getting to that age where she understood what sex was and he was not okay with that. He always told himself he'd be okay with that, but he wasn't.
That made her stare with something akin to horror. Annabel knew the very basics of sex. She knew it gave you babies and what a condom was. Obviously, whatever impressions she had of it certainly didn't encompass her father and someone like Dahlia.
"Hey. Mind. Gutter. Knock it off. I said it was none of your business." Royce watched her, frowned. He might have been more okay with the sex talk if Annabel weren't in Val's body about now.
"That's gross, Dad."
Royce sighed. "Listen. As far as you remember. Where are your sisters? And your mom?"
"At home, last I knew. I was getting ready for school, Mom was waking up Emily. And then I was here."
Royce let out a breath. "Okay. All right." Hopefully that was still the case. "And Chlo?"
"Chloe was getting breakfast." Annabel nodded. "They're fine, Dad. I think."
He hesitated. Now was not the time, but: "What does your mom think happened?"
Annabel shrugged and made a face. "Y'know. She says stuff. We're not stupid, we know you didn't leave us."
Royce frowned, set down his beer. "Did she say that? Did she say I left?"
She hesitated, and then nodded.
He fell into a long, stony silence. He stood, lips pressed tight together, like he wanted to call her a bitch and a string of other things, but he wouldn't do it in front of her. "Did she say I just ran off? Didn't want to pay? Is that what she thinks? Doesn't worry?"
"She thinks you ran off to be with some girl." Annabel shrugged. "And now you're ignoring us."
"Are you kidding me?" Royce can't help snapping. Not at her, but at the situation. "God damn it. I'm sure she's getting a nice fat lawsuit ready for me when I get out of here." Not if. "But the girls----they don't believe that crock of..." He censored himself. "They don't, do they?"
Dahlia would have let him rant and rave before telling him what he needed to be told. She wouldn't wince or hesitate, but Annabel flinched, crossing her arms uncomfortably. "You wouldn't leave us," she said. "But Emily's starting to believe it. Emily believes everything."
"Shit. And Chloe?" Censoring? Oops.
Annabel was clearly uncomfortable. "No."
"I----" Royce stopped. "Bel." He moved to her, kneeling down in front of her. "I'm sorry. But you know that I would never leave. You know that. And your mom should know that, too. That----upsets me." Pisses him off, really.
"I don't like it when you yell," Annabel said lamely.
"I'm not yelling. I'm just... I thought that would happen and I wished it wouldn't, and... I'm so sorry I left, all right? I didn't leave. I've been trapped here. We're all trapped here, and we can't get out. I have been trying to get out every day."
Annabel nodded, wiping at her nose. "Just don't be mad at me."
"What? No. No, no, no. I am not mad at you," Royce murmured, touching her face. "You hear me? Look at me. I am not mad at you."
The expression must have been bizarre on Dahlia's face, all red-nosed and trembly. She looked up at him and nodded.
Royce leaned up and kissed her forehead. It was bizarre. Really, really bizarre. "Stay here, all right? Rest. I'll find you something to eat." There wasn't much. He'd give her his portion.
"Okay." Annabel wiped at her eyes, calmer now if only because she was exhausted. "Okay."