Chapter Eight: Inside

Dorian: Fuck it and fuck you for having her here and not letting me know. You my friend. Of course you are, right? And weren't you always trying to take her away from me, jealous that I was the one who was chosen, wanted. She needed you more, she always did but in the end she loved me just the same. I bet that loneliness suites you, Archer. I bet it really does. Now you can sit here in your faux doctors coat, making up your technobable. Why we picked you for the doctor, I'll never know. I guess you were just too forceful when you heard that she'd been taken from us. You never let me have the glory. I got the girl but you didn't want me to keep her, so you, you, Archer, were the one would got to come to this gosh forsaken hospital to look for her. You get the main hospital, and I am left roaming the streets because unlike you, I am nothing without her, not more. I was because of her, and now here she is trapped in this hospital, under your watch, which is probably why you don't do anything at all.

Archer: This is my situation, Dorian, mine. And I have it under control. Who do you think you are to come busting in here and telling me what to do. I have it taken care of. I am working on it, and I really can't get anywhere if I am going to have to keep worrying about you every five seconds. How can I deal with Allyson if I have to fend off you first. You'll blow my cover for sure. Probably, that's what you want, you bastard. You never took to my authority well. Never did. Were always jealous that Tyler chose me before leaving for who knows where. I guess we can ask not that he's back from the "something of paramount importance" that he had to do. More important than saving us. Damn Tyler too for letting it all go to hell, for Allyson. I never understood why you wanted to tear my head off instead of his. At least I was here. At least I am here for Allyson now. Get out of my way and let me do my job!

Allyson: Don't you know it, I don't know who to trust anymore. Ha, that's irony. These men all claiming to own a piece of my past, and they want to serve it up to my all dolled-up, a dinner at Versailles. I am turned this way and that. I am mad and unmade and the disaster of some greater tragedy, and here they all are with their hero complexes trying to be the Lancelot of the bunch. I am so numb I do not stir inside. I do not think. I cannot possibly know which man to trust as they bicker here, all too caught up in who gets to do the rescuing to really accomplish anything at all. The omnipresent, immutable Archer. The incandescent, obsequious Dorian, my lover? The mysterious man who comes in and out, who is holding my shoulders, trying to hold the world steady, while he is always moving in and out of reliability. All three create the tableau that is my story. And if I listen, will they tell me enough to make me trust, to make me feel?