open | i'll never die, i am a freak

[brushoff]

Who: Dorian Gray & OPEN
What: settling in
When: all throughout the month of March
Where: Milton, with a focus on the community hall, the church, and the outskirts

Content Warnings: drug use, smut, body horror and gore in the form of Dorian's creepyass portrait, others tba

( catch all post for March! full of open and closed starters, dm me if you have an idea~ )

Comments

Re: for arthur, bodyswap event

[lestercraft]

"He's my partner," he corrects tersely. "And if you've taken any time at all to look at my body properly-" with a flap of one hand at his body's everything "-all of those scars happened with him. He saved my life, time and time again, from beings like the Darkwalker."

Re: for arthur, bodyswap event

[brushoff]

"Of course I've taken time to look at your body," Dorian snaps. "It's disgusting. You're hanging on by a thread. I don't think there's a part of you that hasn't been chewed up, spit out, or dragged through a ditch. Which is why I'm doing my best to follow your 'talk about something important' hypothesis, so I can get out of this ragged thing."

As he talks, Dorian doesn't bother to hide the sense of loathing and disgust he feels about Arthur's body.

Re: for arthur, bodyswap event

[lestercraft]

Despite it all, Arthur doesn't actually have any real opinion of his own body. He hates himself, sure, but in a much more ephemeral way than his physical form.

That doesn't mean he appreciates Dorian giving hum shit about it, and his eyes narrow sourly.

"Actually, fuck you." And he shifts to lie down again. "If I'm stuck with your damn hangover you can be grateful I'm sleeping it off for you."

Re: for arthur, bodyswap event

[brushoff]

Dorian frowns, looking down at Arthur. And then he decides fuck it. No, they're keeping this conversation going, they're not done with this yet. Not until he gets his goddamn body back.

So, in an entirely petty set of circumstances, Dorian walks over to his bed and just yanks away the pillow. We're not sleeping anything off, especially because he's pretty certain John will find a way to kill him if he doesn't get this sorted (because of course Dorian's getting this sorted, that's how it always works.)

"What the hell do you do anyway? You mentioned 'the King in Yellow.' I'm not up to date on my mythos, but I've at least heard the term. Are you some sort of...Lovecraftian Ghostbuster or something?"

Two words that Dorian doesn't know that Arthur doesn't know.

Re: for arthur, bodyswap event

[lestercraft]

What Dorian doesn't know Arthur doesn't know could fill five seasons. But when the pillow is yanked back he just closes his eyes for a moment to roll them, and then flops onto his back to glare blearily at his own fucking face.

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, but- I am actually a private investigator, still. When I met John I was investigating a missing girl whose death ended up being related to the King, and everything went to shit from there."

Re: for arthur, bodyswap event

[brushoff]

There. We've got the start of something going. Hopefully if they just keep talking, they can find at least one fucking point of sympathy.

"How do you get wrapped up in things like that anyway? John isn't the sort of thing you'd meet on the street or at the club. When did he enter the picture?"

Weird creepy eldritch thing, Dorian's dealt with a few of those, that's a much better route to probe than something boring like a missing girl.

Arthur is also absolutely not getting the pillow back. He's treated to seeing his own body clutch the pillow in an act of petty defiance.

Re: for arthur, bodyswap event

[lestercraft]

The clutching of the pillow is so disappointingly childish, looking at his body being so fucking churlish about it, that he snorts and just closes his eyes again.

"He's a god, too. He was trapped in a book and I opened it." He doesn't feel like giving Dorian more ammo than he has to. "He had to live in my body or he'd get sent back to a hell worse than death, so with him acting as my eyes, we worked together to solve the case of who he was and how to find out what happened to the girl."

Re: for arthur, bodyswap event

[brushoff]

A hell worse than death, okay, Dorian can work with that. Except for the big important part where he'd really rather not tell anyone about the fact that he also was trapped in a hell worse than death before. And also, there's the fact that he absolutely refuses to empathize with John, someone who as far as Dorian is concerned, was a right pill about the whole bodyswap thing.

"You obviously can see now. What, did he only have control of your eyes when you were possessed? And how did you get un-possessed to begin with?"

Re: for arthur, bodyswap event

[lestercraft]

A cold look crosses his face.

"I died and came here," he grunts, rolling to face the wall again. "I don't know why he has his own body now, but perhaps the Darkwalker isn't talented enough to put him back in mine."

Re: for arthur, bodyswap event

[brushoff]

Ah. Whoops.

A brief look of concern flits across Dorian's face. Even though Arthur's a prick, Dorian can at least be a little empathetic to the idea of someone dying. After all, he's done it enough that he knows it's never any fun.

"I'm sorry you died." And that at least, for one brief moment, is sincere. That sincerity lasts before Dorian points out, "But you think the Darkwalker brought us here? It hates us! Why would it bring in things it hates?"

Re: for arthur, bodyswap event

[lestercraft]

For a brief, shining moment, it seems like Dorian might actually care.

And then he immediately starts bitching again and Arthur actually growls under his breath.

"'You are the Interloper. You are not part of nature’s design.'" It's a frustrated intonation, as he flips back to glare blearily at Dorian. "D'you seriously think that it brought us here to help, that its fucking cult was trying to do anything besides kill us not two months ago?" Both arms come up in a sharp gesture, flopping heavily back on the bed. "I don't know why it brought us here but it certainly wasn't to save us."

Re: for arthur, bodyswap event

[brushoff]

"Or, and here's a possibility, it's trying to kill us because it didn't bring us here," Dorian points out, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "If you adopt a puppy, you don't go 'terribly sorry, I don't really want this dog' and then bash it's head in with a rock. I think it's far more likely that something else brought us here - the Aurora, that Enola girl, something else entirely, and the Darkwalker wants to kill us because of that. Because we are Interlopers, because we aren't supposed to be here."

He rolls his eyes before pointing out, "I think it's as aggravated by our being here as half of the people here are."