Safekeeping
Dollhouse Masterlist
tw doll whump (as in human dolls), sensory deprivation, lady whumpee and lady whumper, restrained, tied together, captivity, talk of implied nsfw and noncon and forced intimacy, emotional whump
Grace hadn’t given up on the idea of making Dusk and Ginger a couple. The whole thing made both of them sick to their stomach, but protesting rarely got them anywhere in the haunted dollhouse. The threats of more amputation and more drugs started rolling in early, and Dusk tried to keep up with Ginger’s insistence at not complying.
It was absolutely terrifying. He had no idea how she managed to keep responding with snark and cynicism in the face of being told, ‘I could saw off both your arms and both your legs, then attach little puppet limbs.’ When the two of them got tied to each other and thrown into the dark room on a ‘blind date’, he decided that was a good time to start pleading with her.
“Listen to me, please– she’s not gonna stop until we do this thing. I don’t even know what she really wants–”
“I’m not even going to hold your fucking hand, Dusk.”
“You want to get out of here, don’t you?” he asked desperately. “You want to get out, and you want to get back to normal life. Think of how much easier an escape would be if you still had your legs. This is suicide.”
“I have values in life!” she screamed, and Dusk could tell that she knew he was right. It wasn’t an easy pill to swallow. Even saying the words himself took tremendous effort; hearing them from someone else would’ve made him flip the same way. All of them had spent so much time trying to deny that Grace had complete control over their life now. They all wanted to pretend that fighting back was an option, and that if they did it consistently, those vivid pictures Grace had painted simply wouldn’t ever become reality.
No one liked to say the quiet part out loud, the one they had all subconsciously internalised already. It was a miserable reality. It was disheartening to know that all their efforts would just hurt them in the end, and to no avail. It was all just delaying the inevitable.
“She won’t stop,” he whispered. “She just won’t. She tied us up with our backs together this time, fully clothed. But you can imagine how it could get much worse than that. She could also just feed us those drugs, the ones that make you… you know.”
“Aphrodisiacs.”
“Those.”
There was a moment of pause between them, with not even Ginger kicking and cussing. “You really think we can get out one day?” she whispered back. They both knew that the whole place was bugged, and speaking quietly probably did nothing to help their case; the microphones were most likely sewn into their custom doll clothes. Still, it made them feel a little safer, and false beliefs of security were the only things they had in this place.
“I… I don’t know. I want to think that we can.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“I know.”
Ginger shifted, and if he didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought he heard her sniffle. “And for that… for– for that– potential, hypothetical escape… we need our limbs,” she choked out.
Dusk’s heart broke for her. This whole situation was so messed up. “Ideally… we’d have them, yes.”
Another pause, longer this time. Ginger wept quietly, and Dusk wished he could’ve said something to make it better. He wished he could’ve done something to fix it, to get them both out, to get them all out, so no one had to suffer any more than they already had. But he couldn’t. The most he could do was pretend he didn’t hear it, so she wouldn’t get embarrassed and angry.
“Maybe she just wants tea parties,” he offered eventually. “Who acts out… stuff like that with dolls? We can survive a kiss, right?”
Ginger hummed in agreement. “We can survive a kiss,” she repeated, her voice dead and hollow. “We can survive one. Or two. We can survive anything, can’t we?”
Dusk swallowed. “I’m sorry, Ginger. Neither– neither of us wants this. Any of this. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Her robotic reassurances did nothing to ease his guilty-conscience, even if it was the most she’d ever given him. He felt like an accomplice, helping Grace make her deranged little fantasies come true by convincing the other dolls to comply. Even if he knew that this was all for survival’s sake, all because he didn’t want to see her body be replaced bit by bit until she had no choice but to go along with any and everything, he felt like he was in the wrong. He felt disgusting.
“I wish I could do something,” he muttered. “Anything.”
“Can you do something for me, then?”
He raised his head, slightly turning to the side, as if he could catch a glimpse of her face in the darkness. “Yeah?”
“Can you remember my name for me?” she asked softly. “I’d rather get rid of it entirely before…” She trailed off, audibly swallowing her tears. “I don’t want to go into this with that in mind. I’d like you to safekeep it for me, until we can get out. I don’t– I don’t want it… tainted and…”
“I get it,” he interrupted gently.
“I want you to give it back when we get out. I want–” Her voice broke, and she had to take a moment to get herself together. “If we get out– when we get out, I want you to give my name back. And tell me I’m really her. I, I want you to grab me by the shoulders, look me in the eye, and tell me it’s over, and that I can be her again.”
Dusk wanted nothing more than to do that. “I will.”
Ginger spent a few minutes working up to it. Dusk waited patiently, staring into the pitch black nothingness in front of him, wondering whether the name was going to come as a surprise, or it’d be something that felt like he’d known it all his life. And when she finally uttered the word, quietly, voice barely above a whisper, he took it and buried it deep enough that Grace would never be able to reach it. One day they were going to dig it up together, with the same shovel they would’ve used to kill Grace beforehand.
“I can just be Ginger now.” Her voice was somehow lighter now. Dusk couldn’t imagine how long she’d held onto this defiant little secret without telling anyone. How many nights she must’ve spent repeating it to herself, trying not to lose her identity in a place that was designed to snatch it away from her. “Stupid, empty-headed Ginger, the doll.”
Dusk tilted his head back, leaning it against hers. There were no words of comfort powerful enough to make it all go away. But sometimes they got a fleeting chance to offer some relief through actions like this, actions that weren’t performed on command. And when she let out a soft sigh, Dusk got the feeling that these gestures were equally cherished by all of them, despite what some tried to make this little world believe.
~
taglist: @whumpsday @lonesome--hunter @reblogging-whump @panic-and-chaos @kim-poce @uwu-scraptrappy @mikaelaix @whumpinggrounds @hidden-dreamland @the-scrapegoat @whumplr-reader @dismemberment-on-a-tuesday-night @whumpinthepot @devourerofcheesecake
43 notes
·
View notes